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Newest Blog Entries:
NYT (4): Foreign Affairs
Egypt's PM defiant re prosecuting Americans; Greek austerity deal reached; Chaos grows in Libya as interim gov't tries to curb militias; Israel's main labor union starts general strike.Posted by Ian Alterman, Thursday, February 9, 2012
NYT (6): National News
Prop 8 is struck down by fed appeals court; Study finds U.S. Muslims no threat re terrorism; PA sets local taxes on fracking; Santorum up, Gingrich down, Romney stable; Manhattan D.A. drops rape charges against Commish Kelly's son; 30-year NYC battle over loitering (homeless) arrests ends.Posted by Ian Alterman, Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Army Officer Turned Whistleblower: How Many More Must Die?
Posted by Michael Butler, Wednesday, February 8, 2012Cost of War to the United States | COSTOFWAR.COM
Posted by Michael Butler, Monday, February 6, 2012US Plans for Perpetual War
Posted by Michael Butler, Monday, February 6, 2012NYT (6): Foreign Affairs
U.S. closes embassy in Syria; Obama/Clinton fail to get Egypt to rescind legal action against Americans; U.S. drones out of control in Pakistan?; European activists fight their own "SOPA"; Failing French economy leads to gains for far right; Wicked cold snap kills hundreds in Europe.Posted by Ian Alterman, Monday, February 6, 2012
Why the “Liberal” Media Leaves Hawkish Foreign Policy Unchallenged
Posted by Michael Butler, Sunday, February 5, 2012Return of Cheney’s One Percent Doctrine | Consortiumnews
Posted by Michael Butler, Sunday, February 5, 2012Bipartisan Strategy Takes Shape to Close Overseas US Bases
Posted by Michael Butler, Sunday, February 5, 2012NYT (3): Foreign Affairs
As post-soccer violence continues into fourth day, Egypt will try 19 Americans, possibly leading to loss of U.S. aid; Russians endure bitter cold to protest Putin.Posted by Ian Alterman, Sunday, February 5, 2012
Phil Rockstroh: A Journey To The End Of Empire, It Is Always Darkest Right Before It Goes Completely Black
Rockstroh ..a poetic view of existence insists that one embrace the sorrow that comes at the end of things. The times have bestowed on us a shuffle to the graveside of our culture, and, we, like members of a New Orleans-style, second line, funeral procession, must allow our hearts to be saturated by sorrowful songs. Yet when the service is complete, the march away from the boneyard should shake the air with the ebullient noise borne of insistent brass .. In this way, we are nourished by the ineffable, whereby unseen components of consciousness provide us the strength to carry the weight of darkness. Therefore, to those who demand this of poets: that all ideas, notions, flights of imagination, revelries, swoons of intuition, Rabelaisian rancor, metaphysical overreach, unnerving apprehensions, and inspired misapprehensions be tamed, rendered practical, and only considered fit to be broached in reputable company when these things bring "concrete" answers to polite dialog--I ask you this, if the defining aspects of our existence were constructed of concrete, would not the world be made of the material of a prison? Moreover, is this not the building material and psychic criteria comprising the neoliberal paradigm? Is it any wonder that the concept of freedom is under siege?a beautiful essay - mab .. read more
Posted by Mike Blaxill, Sunday, February 5, 2012
NYT (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
Crossing the Rubicon: Obama’s Endless Global Warfare
Posted by Michael Butler, Friday, February 3, 2012Truthdig – Focus on Iran and China Could Hasten American Decline
Posted by Michael Butler, Friday, February 3, 2012Pentagon Unable to Account for Missing Iraqi Millions
Posted by Michael Butler, Thursday, February 2, 2012Pakistan’s security state: Reading the Taliban | The Economist
Posted by Michael Butler, Thursday, February 2, 2012NYT (3): Foreign Affairs
Panetta calls for earlier end to U.S. combat presence in Afghanistan; Chinese village that took on gov't gets independent elections; Was Egyptian military complicit in post-soccer game violence that left over 70 people dead?Posted by Ian Alterman, Thursday, February 2, 2012
UN intervention in Syria: What is Russia’s tipping point?
Posted by Harry Sifton, Wednesday, February 1, 2012Why Is Our Nation So Divided? – Bill Moyers
Posted by Michael Butler, Wednesday, February 1, 2012Newt and the Neocons
Posted by Michael Butler, Wednesday, February 1, 2012NYT Op-Eds (3)
"Charles Murray’s 'Coming Apart' describes the most important cultural trends today and offers a better understanding of America’s increasingly two-caste society" (Brooks); "Thanks to a gap between discrimination laws and disability laws, it’s possible for a pregnant woman to be forced from her job" (Guest Op-Ed); "With use of drones, the world could get clear, instant evidence of atrocities in Syria" (Guest Op-Ed)Posted by Ian Alterman, Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Adbusters: Spiritual Insurrection, the Ultimate Culture Jam
We awoke one morning to the dark realization that humanity is being dragged into a black hole of ecological, financial and spiritual catastrophe … that our democracy has been seized by a corporatocracy … that every day two hundred species of plant, insect, bird and mammal become forever extinct … that a deluge of advertising is sleepwalking our civilization to the brink of insanity … and that unless we fight back in the most visceral and creative way possible all will be lost.- Adbusters
And yet, what sets our struggle apart in 2012 is that we are not fighting to save a distant future. We are not trying to prevent some terrible event that is still to come. This is not about our unborn grandchildren. Instead, many of us sense that the threshold has already been crossed; the tipping point has already happened and what we are fighting for is our present. We are living in that tragic moment of eerie stillness where the fatal damage has been done, widening cracks can be seen, yet the edifice still stands and business as usual continues … but for how much longer?
Our days may be shadowed by this dark realization, but there is reason to be deeply optimistic for “where danger is, grows the saving power also.” Never before has the tantalizing possibility of a Global Spring, a worldwide people’s insurgency for democracy, seemed as close. For perhaps the first time in human history, we just might be on the edge of an everywhere-at-once revolution against the financial fraudsters, corporate lackeys and the ideology of consumerism that has brought the Earth to the precipice of collapse.
In this, the era of the total and transcendent indignato swarm, we look to each other, not to the masters above, to find out what it will take to pull off the ultimate culture jam: spiritual insurrection.
for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ
Posted by Mike Blaxill, Tuesday, January 31, 2012
TomDispatch: Tomgram: Engelhardt, Iran Through the Looking Glass
Posted by Michael Butler, Monday, January 30, 2012NYT (3): Foreign Affairs
Why are U.S. surveillance drones still in the skies over Iraq?; Egypt's military may be willing to cede power earlier.Posted by Ian Alterman, Monday, January 30, 2012
Marijuana Again Dominates President Obama’s Online Forum
Jon Walker at Firedoglake ..So far every attempt by Obama to directly reach out to young voters through some form of online question and answer system has resulted in young adults overwhelming voting to confront the President with questions about our government’s marijuana policies. It happened with his transitional website Change.gov, his first Youtube townhall and with the White House’s new “we the people” petition site. Marijuana reform is an issue young voters across the ideological spectrum care deeply about. While marijuana legalization is rarely talked about in our mainstream political discourse, at every opportunity regular Americans use the internet to try to make legalization an issue Obama can’t ignore... read more
Posted by Mike Blaxill, Monday, January 30, 2012
