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Newest Blog Entries:
Adbusters: Total Incarceration, Compliments of the land of the free
Adbusters quotes Tzvetan Todorov, The Fear of Barbarians ..In American prisons scattered across the various countries of the world, but outside the United States, prisoners are regularly raped, hung from hooks, subjected to waterboarding, burned, attached to electrodes, deprived of food, water or medicine, attacked by dogs, or beaten until their bones are broken. When on American military bases or on American territory, they are subjected to sensory deprivation or other systematic mistreatment of the senses. A hat is put on them to stop them from hearing anything, a hood to stop them seeing anything, surgical masks to prevent them being able to smell, thick gloves to neutralize their sense of touch. Or they have “white noise” inflicted on them, or else violent noise and total silence alternate at irregular intervals. They are prevented from sleeping, either by having a strong electric light kept on day and night, or by subjecting them to interrogation that can last for up to 24 hours at a time, for 48 days in succession. Or they are forced to pass from extreme cold to extreme heat, and vice versa. None of these techniques, it is alleged, cause the “deterioration of bodily functions” that would constitute torture.. read more
Posted by Mike Blaxill, Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Bipartisan Strategy Takes Shape to Close Overseas US Bases
Posted by Michael Butler, Sunday, February 5, 2012NYT (6): Int’l Affairs
Post-soccer violence continues in Egypt for third day; Russia and China veto U.N. bill re Syria, right after attack that kills 200; Hacker group "Anonymous" hacks an FBI-Scotland Yard phone call about... "Anonymous"; E.U. looks to create roadblock re Google's new privacy rule; Putin aide says roots of protests are "foreign"; U.N. says Somali famine is over, though violence continues.Posted by Ian Alterman, Saturday, February 4, 2012
Newt and the Neocons
Posted by Michael Butler, Wednesday, February 1, 2012Public Integrity
Posted by Michael Hamilton, Tuesday, January 24, 2012Ray McGovern: Israel Tamps Down Iran War Threats
McGovern gives a good summary of all the scary shit that Israel/AIPAC is continually trying pull off, giving you the creeping feeling that its just a matter of time ..To disrupt what had appeared to be an unstoppable march toward war with Iran, gaining momentum in December and early January, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta intervened with his own rendition of “Let me be clear.” Appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Jan. 8, and apparently unsure whether host Bob Schieffer would have the courage to ask the $64 question, Panetta decided to ask it himself rhetorically: “Are they [the Iranians] trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No.” Yet, in a highly illustrative example of media hypersensitivity on this issue, PBS was not even willing to let the Defense Secretary’s comment reach the ears of the network’s listeners. Its “NewsHour” program deleted Panetta’s emphatic “no” and played only his subsequent comment: “But we know that they are trying to develop a nuclear capability. And that’s what concerns us. And our red line to Iran is do not develop a nuclear weapon. That’s a red line for us.”.. read more
Posted by Mike Blaxill, Sunday, January 22, 2012
Revealed: The FBI’s Secretive Practice of “Blackballing” Files
Posted by Michael Butler, Wednesday, January 18, 2012Truthdig – Why I’m Suing Barack Obama – Chris Hedges
Good for him. mbPosted by Michael Butler, Tuesday, January 17, 2012
FOCUS | Spain Proceeding With Bush Torture Case
Posted by Michael Butler, Tuesday, January 17, 2012NYT (3): Foreign Affairs
Iran sentences American to death on spy charge; Nigerians protest huge rise in oil prices; Malaysian elections up for grabs as opposition leader is cleared of sodomy charges.Posted by Ian Alterman, Tuesday, January 10, 2012
FOCUS | NDAA: Congress Signed Its Own Arrest Warrants
Posted by Michael Butler, Tuesday, January 3, 2012Iran, Another False Enemy? : Information Clearing House
Posted by Michael Butler, Sunday, January 1, 2012Hugo Chávez hints at US cancer plot
from The Guardian .."Would it be so strange that they've invented the technology to spread cancer and we won't know about it for 50 years?" Chávez pondered, one day after Argentina's president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced she had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and would undergo surgery in January .. Recent years have seen a series of leftwing Latin America leaders diagnosed with cancer including Brazil's current president, Dilma Rousseff, Paraguay's Fernando Lugo, and the former Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva .. [Chavez said] "I repeat: I am not accusing anyone. I am simply taking advantage of my freedom to reflect and air my opinions faced with some very strange and hard to explain goings-on,"funny when i heard about Kirchner the thought entered my mind, and then Chavez weighs in - he'll soon to be called crazy and irrational in the corporate media without context - anyone remember the Bob Marley story told by former black panther and Marley friend Lee Lew-Lee? - a little radiation can do the trick - its tinfoil hat time again - mab .. read more
Posted by Mike Blaxill, Thursday, December 29, 2011
Robert Koehler: The Big Lie Marches On
Koehler ..I fear that the Big Lie is seductive, because there’s so much power attached to it. On the outside looking in, when you’re just a state senator from Illinois, or whatever, the invasion of Iraq may look like a dumb war. But on the inside of the operation, with so much power at stake, the pragmatic necessities of empire, a.k.a., our national interests — control of oil, dominance in the Middle East, the well-being of defense contractors — morph into patriotic values, and seem, all of a sudden, worth the cost in human lives, environmental devastation and even the well-being of future generations. If there’s no such thing as a president who can tell the truth about a fraudulently launched, devastatingly counterproductive military adventure, or speak critically about militarism in general — because the truth would, oh, bring down the economy — we have an inadequate system of government.. read more
Posted by Mike Blaxill, Monday, December 26, 2011
Ellsberg: US Wants Deal for Manning to Implicate Assange
Posted by Michael Butler, Sunday, December 25, 2011FOCUS: Why I Voted Against the Homeland Battlefield Bill
Posted by Michael Butler, Sunday, December 18, 2011NYT Editorial & Op-Eds (3)
"President Obama has caved in to political pressure and will sign a dangerous bill that will make indefinite detention and military trials part of American law" (Editorial); "When it comes to views on economics, Republicans have been consistent, clear and wrong" (Krugman); "High-level stupidity is there for the ages, courtesy of technology" (Egan)Posted by Ian Alterman, Friday, December 16, 2011
NYT (7): Foreign Affairs
As middle class that Putin helped build turns on him, and Russian Orthodox Church adds voice to new elections, Prokhorov (yup, the billionaire owner of the NJ Nets) decides to challenge him for the presidency; Pakistan boots CIA from air base; Clegg "bitterly disappointed" with Cameron over economic decision; Noriega back in Panama - and jail; French company at center of phen-fen scandal in even hotter water.Posted by Ian Alterman, Monday, December 12, 2011
Indefinite Detention of American Citizens: Coming Soon to Battlefield U.S.A. | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone
Posted by Michael Butler, Saturday, December 10, 2011Occupy the Police State
Posted by Michael Butler, Friday, December 9, 2011The US National Security Smokescreen
Posted by Michael Butler, Friday, December 9, 2011NYT (4): Foreign Affairs
Crash of U.S. drone in Iran reveals not-so-secret surveillance program; Egyptian military bridles at handing reins to Islamists; In wake of almost certain fraud, Gorbachev calls for new Russian elections; Once again, it's U.S. vs. China at climate talks.Posted by Ian Alterman, Thursday, December 8, 2011
