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How to Defeat American Fascism
By Timothy V. Gatto
Almost every day I think to myself “What the hell has happened to my country”? I still have a hard time coming to terms with the brutality and the crass disregard for human life that has become a cornerstone of American foreign policy. I also have a hard time coming to terms with this new American concept of fighting this so-called “War on Terror” that has led to the dissolution of our fundamental freedoms as expressed in the bill of rights.
This new America is fundamentally a dictatorship of the affluent. I was watching a book review on C-Span yesterday where the book “Was I Born on the Wrong Continent?” was being discussed. The subject of workers’ rights came up and a woman asked the author a question that was preceded with this statement “We all understand that the elephant in the living room that no one wants to talk about is campaign finance reform”. I was a bit taken aback at that statement only because I have been writing about that particular subject for the last six years.
I have to agree with that young woman who made that statement, but I don’t believe for a minute that “We all understand”. In fact, I believe that most of us in this country don’t understand how political campaigns as they are conducted in the United States has, for all intents and purposes, become so expensive that politicians have sold their souls in order to win elections.
Drugging Guantanamo Detainees
by Stephen Lendman
From inception, most Guantanamo detainees were uncharged. On January 5, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) said:
"....the vast majority of the men at Guantanamo should never have been detained in the first place, and that over 550 have been released and are peacefully rebuilding their lives." Most of the 800 captured and brought there were lawlessly "seized in broad sweeps and sold to the US (for) substantial bounties." From the Pentagon's own records, "most (have) no link to terrorism."
For over seven years, CCR "organiz(ed) and coordinat(ed) more than 500 pro bono lawyers across the country" to represent detainees, and helped to resettle about 60 others still at Guantanamo "because they cannot return to their country of origin for fear of persecution and torture."
Abbas is naïve
By Khalid Amayreh
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas is quite optimistic these days. He is even nearly euphoric about the recent recognition by a number of South American states of Palestine. His Fatah organization cites these "diplomatic successes" as a proof for the correctness of Abbas's approach.
However, it is crystal clear that his optimism in this regard is unwarranted and nearly totally unjustified.
It is always good to be optimistic and hopeful, and it is nice to receive diplomatic support or any kind of support from foreign states. In fact, all Palestinians, irrespective of their political orientation, applaud and appreciate the courageous steps taken by major South American states in recognizing Palestine. These steps do represent a direct challenge to American hegemony in the western hemisphere as well as a clear diplomatic failure to the thuggish state, known as Israel , especially its hoodlum foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman.
Death Panels, Palin's Targets, and Political Assassination
Michael Collins
The attempted assassination of Representative Gabrielle Giffords raises the bar for political lies and hate to a new level. Previously, incendiary political lies stopped just short violent imagery. Sarah Palin's Take Back 20 campaign presented a violent threat in the form of rifle site crosshairs placed over the congressional districts of 20 Democratic supporters of health care reform.
Ironically, Giffords sent Palin a clear message to end the violent allusion in the ads. In this brief video, she warns:
"… we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list but the thing is that the way she's had it depicted has the cross hairs of a gun site over our district. When people do that, they've got to realize that there [are] consequences to that action." Rep. Giffords
The Retirement Age Is Too Damn High!
By Dave Johnson
The D.C. elite insist that the retirement age should be raised even more than the current 67. They have jobs where they sit in nice chairs behind nice desks in nice offices in affluent areas. They don't even know anyone who waits tables or cleans or lifts boxes all day. They don't even know anyone without a fat 401K, or who is in their 50s who can't find work. That's not their problem; paying their share of taxes is what they are worried about.
But when you leave the affluent areas it becomes obvious that the retirement age is too high and Social Security pays too little. The Great Recession began with waves of layoffs that seemed to concentrate on people over 50 -- because of health care costs and reasonable pay (and they just smell bad). Two years later these people are having a very hard time finding work -- and don't even mention health insurance. Their savings are gone, their unemployment checks are stopping (the "99ers") and they are heAded for the streets. The DC elite solution is to keep them on the streets even longer.
Gitmo is staying open, no matter what the cost
Mary Shaw
January 11, 2011, marks the ninth anniversary of the arrival of the first prisoners at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. That's the same Guantanamo prison that Barack Obama promised to close in his first year as president. But Gitmo won't be closing any time soon. Congress has seen to that. And so has Obama.
Just before Christmas, Congress passed a defense spending bill that specifically prohibits the use of defense funding to establish an alternative prison in the United States or to transfer Gitmo detainees to the U.S. And, on January 7, President Obama signed it into law.
The Economic Hydra
By Dr. Elias Akleh
Economic crises are lately sweeping the globe like a contagious virus. They started in the US, the strongest economy in the globe, and then crept onto most European countries. They degraded the value of the American Dollar, the European Euro, and all international currency that use them as money reserve. The crises had led to what is referred to as austerity measures; cutting down luxury expenses, but instead the cutting down was on the necessary expenses; budget cuts on major social services including education, health, unemployment benefits, and social security, increase of taxes and educational tuitions, loss of jobs leading to homelessness and poverty, loss of businesses, increase of retirement age, theft of retirement funds and attempts to tab into social security funds, among many other devastating measures.
Shield Act Targets First Amendment Freedoms
by Stephen Lendman
For decades, America's freedoms have eroded, notably post-9/11 with:
-- a president declaring unconstitutional unitary executive powers to rule unilaterally;
-- his successor embracing the doctrine;
-- checks and balances and separation of powers virtually ended;
MAIN STREET MUST REVOLT / REPLACE OBAMA IN 2012
Allen L Roland
The long engagement is over and the marriage has finally been consummated between President Obama and the financial elite ~ with the appointment of William Daly as chief of staff and former Goldman executive Gene Sterling as his economic council chief. The stage is set for economic welfare you can believe in and Main Street be damned ~ unless Obama is replaced in 2012.
No more empty promises to his former Progressive and Independent base are necessary ~ President Obama is in full re-election mode, the Chicago mafia is assembled and his corporate base has been not only been bailed out but are more than willing to continue their corporate welfare dance with the Obama administration.
Meanwhile Obama is still cheer leading a failed top down recovery where the economy added 103,000 jobs (mostly in government subsidized health care and social services, and temporary business services) in December and Unemployment fell to 9.5 percent ~ largely because 260,000 adults dropped out of the labor force and are no longer counted as unemployed by the government.
2011: The year Lebanon Allows Palestinians Some Elementary Civil Rights?
FRANKLIN LAMB
Shatila Camp, Beirut
Maybe it was the really loud celebratory Ak-47 Kalashnikov and small arms gunfire and fireworks in my South Beirut neighborhood that triggered the intense New Years Eve nightmare. Or I guess it could have been the seemingly, just below my bedroom window, launched RPG-7’s which followed minutes past midnight on January 1, 2011.
Anyhow, in my News Years dream, I was back in my childhood home, Milwaukie, Oregon, nearly half a century ago. Our farming and lumber town on the Willamette River had a population of around 2000 in those much simpler and less crowded days. I dreamt it was Saturday afternoon and as we always did during our middle school years, my best friend and Lake Road neighbor, David Inabnit and I went to our town’s decaying WW II era movie theatre called the “Victory”, at exactly 1 p.m.
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