Thomas Paine's Corner

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

TRUMP PIMPS ?MEMORIAL DAY? MISS UNIVERSE! OPRAH SHILLS ?THE SECRET.? AND
2007-06-01 01:05:00
By Gary Corseri5/31/07So I broke down and I watched the Miss Universe pageant.It just happened to come on while I was finishing my late dinner. I hadn?t planned on it. Suddenly, there are these 77 gorgeous limbs, torsos and faces saying ?Miss Denmark,? ?Miss U.S.A.,? ?Miss Angola,? ?Miss India,? etc.It?s a lot showier than when Bert Parks used to sing:There she goes--Miss America.There she goes--my ideal.It?s also a lot more globalized. Blondes and white skin are quickly sidelined as the contest rolls on. My wife says, ?How can anyone choose who is the most beautiful?? I suggest that each of the 77 gets a medal and that?s that.But we watch anyway. We?re tired from our day of brain-work, and the little I?ve seen this Memorial Day of Brad what?s-his-name emoting about the ultimate sacrifice of our soldiers, or Diane Wiest acting the role of a brave mother sitting..... (Click here for the complete essay)Thomas Paine's Corner is a site dedicated to advancing universal human rights, fos...
More About: Oprah , Miss Universe , The Secret , Secret

Why I am Ashamed to be an American
2007-05-31 23:49:00
By Doug Soderstrom5/31/07Having grown up in a small town in Central Kansas I was taught to believe that my country, the United States of America, was a land committed to justice and peace, a nation that one could count on to do the right thing, a country of civilized folks who had but one thing in mind??.. that of doing the will of God. I also began to realize that there is nothing wrong with feeling ashamed for having done something wrong, that such a response is a rather natural consequence of having violated one?s conscience, a voice from deep within that is no doubt a reliable guide for how a man (or woman) of true integrity ought to live his (or her) life. However, for those who seem to lack the capacity to feel ashamed, one can only wonder what must be wrong with them.As I began to emerge into manhood there was an ever, ongoing flow of hints, subtle suggestions that things were not as I had been told. However, it wasn?t until our country vented its awful wrath upon a post 9-11...
More About: American , Asha , Sham , Shame

Terrorism Defined
2007-05-31 23:10:00
by Stephen Lendman5/31/07Probably no word better defines or underscores the Bush presidency than "terrorism" even though his administration wasn't the first to exploit this highly charged term. We use to explain what "they do to us" to justify what we "do to them," or plan to, always deceitfully couched in terms of humanitarian intervention, promoting democracy, or bringing other people the benefits of western civilization Gandhi thought would be a good idea when asked once what he thought about it.Ronald Reagan exploited it in the 1980s to declare "war on international terrorism" referring to it as the "scourge of terrorism" and "the plague of the modern age." It was clear he had in mind launching his planned Contra proxy war of terrorism against the democratically elected Sandinista government in Nicaragua and FMLN opposition resistance to the US-backed El Salvador fascist regime the same way George Bush did it waging his wars of aggression post-9/11.It's a simple scheme to pull...
More About: Terrorism , Error , Fine , Defined , Define

Like a toddler driving a garbage truck on ice with marble tires toward a cl
2007-05-31 22:11:00
?Part of the reason I did it was to protest the injustice of so much money going to Offutt and letting the poor people in North Omaha, the blacks, wallow in poverty. Nobody seemed to care about that.?"I'm just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh, Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood."---The AnimalsIs This Heaven?by Mike PalecekNo. It's Iowa.God Bless Rosie O'Donnell, huh? Having the guts to question the official government story of 9-11 on national television. What if Matt Lauer had guts or Katie Couric or Jay Leno?It really wouldn't take that much to really, really change this country.You know, there are so many people working hard ? hard ? every day to make something good happen.And then somebody like these pretty boys and girls with so much power, if they would just decide one day to make something of themselves ? they could do in one day, one hour, what a million of us out here will not be able to do in our lifetimes.Hey.How you doing? It's been rainy and cool here ...
More About: Driving , Truck , Garbage , Marble , Ward

What I Admire Most About Cindy Sheehan
2007-05-31 21:35:00
by Carolyn Baker5/31/07Corporate media?and even some alternative websites, are blaring with headlines about Cindy Shee han ?quitting? the anti-war movement. It is true that Sheehan has stepped down as the consummate symbol of the ordinary, salt-of-the-earth American mother crusading against the empire for the end of the war that brought about her son?s meaningless death. But it is not true that Cindy is ?quitting.? After years of sacrifice, incomprehensible losses, and several hundred stages of burnout, she has walked away from a role and the symbolism inherent within it, but even more significantly in my opinion, and reverberating through her article ?Letter To The Democratic Congress,? she has rejected the Democratic Party and its pretense of offering an alternative to the politics of empire.Last night I watched Keith Olbermann begin his ?Countdown? show with the story of Sheehan?s ?quitting? the anti-war movement, even including some quotes from her, but mentioning nothing about h...
More About: Indy , Admire

Shape Up Democrats: Anybody But Bush Will Not Do
2007-05-30 18:57:00
By Paul A. Donovan5/30/07With the 2008 election approaching fast, I find myself with the same unsettled feeling I had in the last presidential race to the bottom. Perhaps it is because I feel that the age-old maxim, ?Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it,? is as true for today as it was in 2004. Fact is, if we do not wake up quick, and start pressing the current Democrat ic Party frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama, to be more leftist, or in other words to be more like Presidential candidate Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), then we can hope for little substantive change in the next administration.Recent polls reflect that President Bush ?s approval ratings have fallen to a staggering low of 28%. As a result, many feel confident that it may very well be an easy stroll into the Oval Office for most Democratic hopefuls, who seem to be operating under the false illusion that Bush himself is running for a third term. If this assumption were false, how do ...
More About: Democrats , Shape , Rats

Need is a Nasty Word
2007-05-30 17:37:00
By Sally Erickson5/30/07Sally Erickson, Producer of the documentary "What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire" writes of the extent to which we need each other in the face of collapse and how our programming for "rugged individualism" is not working and will not sustain us?Carolyn BakerSay hello to the last throes of America?s collective dementia. No amount of medication in the form of alternative therapy, I mean alternative energy, is going to repair the years of abuse to our collective body and spirit by the machinations of Empire. Antidepressants, I mean anti-inflationary economics, are rapidly losing their effectiveness. We?ve reached peak insanity. We?re sunk. Thank the gods. It?s all downhill from here.We need help.I come from a quietly dysfunctional, but highly functioning, middle-class American family. My brother and sister have both had incomes way into six figures for decades. I think. It?s not polite to discuss income so I can only presume.I never had the guts to go th...
More About: Word , Nasty

New Opium Crops - In Iraq
2007-05-30 15:19:00
By Rowan Wolf5/30/07One would have thought this would have been big news, but somehow it has largley escaped the U.S. corporate media. Patrick Cockburn, however, writes Opium: Iraq ?s deadly new export. While apparently in the beginnings of cultivation, the poverty and chaos which has enveloped Iraq is spawning opium fields in southern Iraq. Iraq has historically been one of the opium highways for Afghanistan?s trade.Now Iraq is turning to opium cultivation for the same reason that Afghanistan returned to it - poverty, profit, and chaos:As in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, these conditions of primal anarchy are ideal for criminal gangs and drug smugglers and producers. The difference is that Afghanistan had long been a major producer of opium and possessed numerous laboratories experienced in turning opium into heroin. The Taliban, on the orders of its leader, Mullah Omar, had stopped its cultivation by farmers in the parts of Afghanistan it (The complete article...
More About: Crop , Crops

Human Lives - Collateral Damage to A Political Calculus
2007-05-30 14:58:00
by Rowan Wolf5/30/07The Democrats caved in and supported the supplemental occupation funding demanded by the Bush Cabal. The arguments apparently being that they a) didn?t have the votes to overcome a veto; b) they didn?t want to be blamed for the growing death and chaos; c) the belief this keeps Iraq the Republican?s adventure; d) perhaps - because the PSAs haven?t been signed yet. Regardless, the considerations were political - not moral - not responsive to the mandate that the November elections sent. The arguments now are that they can revisit the funding issue in September - 4 months from now - 122 days from June 1 to September 31. Given a rough average daily death toll of five US troops and 50 Iraqi civilians, that makes a low estimate of 6710 (610 US troops, 6100 Iraqi civilians) deaths for buckling on the funding.Six thousand seven hundred and ten lives for a.... (Click here for the complete article)Thomas Paine's Corner is a site dedicated to advancing universal human righ...
More About: Political , Human , Lives , Uman , Late

Annals of Stupidity: The Demise of Alexander Cockburn
2007-05-29 15:46:00
By Gerald Rellick5/29/07There is no shortage of political pundits now wading into the discussion of global warming, despite the scientific complexity of the field. One of the latest entries is Alexander Cock burn. I have read Cockburn regularly over the years, and while I recognized him as a very talented polemicist whose acerbic screeds I could tolerate when directed to the likes of Henry Kissinger, Robert McNamara and Augusto Pinochet, his latest foray into the field of man-made global warming is scientifically dreadful, and hence irresponsible, and reflects journalism and public service at its worst. Were it not for the importance of global warming, we could easily dismiss his writing. But Cockburn has a sizeable reading audience through ?The Nation? and his own publication, ?Counterpunch.? And since educating the public on this matter is crucial if we are to do something about global warming, Cockburn needs to be taken to task for his dishonesty and slipshod journalism.Cockburn?s...
More About: Stupidity , The D , Demi

Venezuela's RCTV: Sine Die and Good Riddance
2007-05-28 17:04:00
BBC's commentary ended saying "The arguments highlight, once again, how deeply divided Venezuela is." Unmentioned was that division is about 70 - 80% pro-Chavez, around 20% opposed (the more privileged "sifrino" class), and a small percentage pro and con between them. By Stephen Lendman 5/28/07 Venezuelan TV station Radio Caracas Television's (known as RCTV) VHF Channel 2's operating license expired May 27, and it went off the air because the Chavez government, with ample justification, chose not to renew it. RCTV was the nation's oldest private broadcaster, operating since 1953. It's also had a tainted record of airing Venezuela's most hard right yellow journalism, consistently showing a lack of ethics, integrity or professional standards in how it operated as required by the law it arrogantly flaunted. Starting May 28, a new public TV station (TVES) replaces it bringing Venezuelans a diverse range of new programming TV channel Vive president, Blanca Eckho...
More About: Good , Good Riddance , Sine

Is This Heaven? No. It's Iowa.
2007-05-27 04:56:00
?While on the other side of the world the streets are ripped apart, as well as the children and the dogs?.We think those ripped apart children are fine?.We think we have torn the hearts and stomachs from those children for their own good.? by Mike Palecek 5/26/07 Is this heaven? No. It's Iowa .This column is being brought to you today by Left Behind adult diapers.Are you a questionable conservative Christian? Is there a chance the Rapture might not include you after all? Has your hand been where it should not have been? Then maybe you had better get yourself a twenty-four pack of Left Behind, available in red, white and blue, in all sizes.Left Behind ? cuz you're not really sure, are you? Well, you might have heard that my recent American Dream Book Tour Across The USA only made it as far as Boston.Or, more likely, you have no idea who the fuck I am.Well, see, I was on this book tour ... and I wrote a column along the way ... and someone asked if I would con...
More About: Heaven

No Classes in US? The Myth of ?People?s Capitalism?
2007-05-26 21:41:00
By Art Preis May, 1961 TODAY, American employers and trade union leaders alike insist there is no basis in this country for class struggle. They claim, in fact, that ?class distinctions? and even classes themselves have disappeared from our society. The founders of the American Federation of Labor in 1886 did not deny the fact of the class struggle. They said in the Preamble of the AFL Constitution: ?A struggle is going on in all nations of the civilized world between the oppressors and the oppressed of all countries, a struggle between the capitalist and the laborer ...? It is true that Samuel Gompers, the AFL?s founding president, disavowed class struggle methods. He proclaimed in his 1910 Labor Day statement, for instance, that ?Labor Day stands for industrial peace ... Our labor movement has no system to crush ... It has nothing to overturn ...? William Green, Gompers? successor, announced in 1935, on the eve of the stormy rise of the Congress of Industrial Organizations ...
More About: People , Classes , Capitalism , Class , Capital

Women, please be patient - still
2007-05-26 16:49:00
By Rowan Wolf 5/26/07 A couple of week?s ago, a young woman in nothern Iraq (Kurdish region) was stoned to death for wanting to marry outside her sect (Yazidi). Since then, the event has kept returning to me as emblematic of the deteriorated status of women in Iraq that has occurred since the United States took control. The stoning of Doaa Aswad Dekhil of Bashika, aged 17, is tragic in a place that is supposedly becoming ?democratic,? but it is consistent with the ongoing segregation of women?s personhood and so called ?human rights. This deterioration is expanding. A student of mine from Iran has approached me recently to talk about his concern for women in Iran as conditions for women deteriorate their as well. Part of an overall response and retreat to extremeism that is characteristic of the politics of fear. I wrote the piece below in 2003 in response to the ongoing deterioration of the status of women in Afghanistan and Iraq - places where the US boot print is particularl...
More About: Women , Please , Still , Lease , Ease

The Iraq War: Hillary Clinton?s Achilles? Heel?
2007-05-26 02:03:00
By Joshua Frank 5/25/07 Senator Clinton is sure trying hard to court the antiwar vote while still sustaining a muscular U.S. foreign policy agenda as she runs for the presidency. On May 16, Hillary Clinton sided with 28 other senators in support for advancing legislation to cut off funding for the war in Iraq after March of 2008. Despite her modest anti-war gesture, Clinton was still not willing to predict how she would side on similar legislation in the future. ?I'm not going to speculate on what I'm going to be voting on in the future,? Clinton told reporters shortly after the vote. ?I voted in favor of cloture to have a debate.? Hours later Clinton changed her mind, and decided that she wanted to do more than start a debate on the matter. ?I support the underlying bill,? she said. ?That's what this vote on cloture was all about.? Even though the race for the White House is still in its infancy, Hillary Clinton has yet to take a coherent position on the Ira...
More About: Iraq War

?The Bully?s Unctuous Little Sidekick?
2007-05-25 21:09:00
Photo: Stephen Harper and George Bush seal their mutual devotion to the exploitation of the Earth and its sentient inhabitants with a handshakeHolding the Bully ?s Coat ? Canada and the U.S. Empire. Linda McQuaig. Doubleday Canada, Toronto. 2007.By Jim Miles5/25/07This is a wonderfully refreshing examination of Canada?s role, current and historic, as supporter of and participant in the American Empire. Linda McQuaig makes accurate assessments of Canada?s current role in partnership with the United States and the ongoing development of this role historically. Unlike the regular media, she recognizes that Canada is subservient to the Americans in Afghanistan under the guise of a UN approved NATO force occupying that country. Quite clearly in her opening arguments she states that Canada?s current role has brought it ?more into line with the U.S. Empire, even as Washington becomes a belligerent and lawless force in the world.?The first chapter covers a series of mini-themes that exposes ...
More About: Side , Sidekick , Kick , Litt

They have never been the last word in history.
2007-05-25 20:56:00
Book Review of Michael C. McHugh, The Second Gilded Age: The Great Reaction in the United States 1973-2000 by Ed Bloomer5/25/07When I was working on the assembly line at General Electric in 1979, a boss came down one day and gave each worker a share of stock worth $3.00. I tore mine up and threw it in the trash. Even so, the companykept it on record, and from time to time in the 1980s and ?90s contacted me to say that the stock had split and increased in value. To make a long story short, by August 2001, that lonely share of GE stock had multiplied like capitalist loaves and fishes into 90 shares?now worth $4,500. Not being much of a capitalist, I gave away my totally unearned loot to my family or the Catholic Worker community. Even so, when I imagined from this one example just how much the rich, the near-rich and the obscenely rich must have increased their wealth during this time, I understand just what Michael McHugh meant when he called it a Second Gilded Age.Anyone interested ...
More About: History , Word , Never , Hist , The Last Word

Cape of Good Hope: One Apartheid Regime Down; One More to Go
2007-05-25 20:51:00
By Ramzy Baroud5/25/07I stand at the southernmost corner of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope . The grand mountains underneath and behind infuse a moment of spiritual reflection unmatched in its depth and meaning. Before me is an awe-inspiring view: here the Atlantic?s frigid waters gently meet the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. They meet but don?t collide. The harmony is seamless; the greatness of this view is humbling.I was invited to South Africa to deliver a keynote speech at the ?Al-Nakba? conference, held in Cape Town. The journey led me to other cities. Many speeches, presentations, media interviews later, I sat with a borrowed computer and scattered thoughts: how can one reflect without the least sense of certainty, assuredness? I ought to try.?Where are the Black Africans?? was the first question to come to mind as a friend?s car escorted me a distance from the Cape Town International Airport. I saw very few indications affirming that I was indeed in Africa as I gazed at the e...

?THE ALBERTO GONZALES STORY, PART 1?
2007-05-25 20:43:00
by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH5/25/07Almost two years ago, on July 1, 2004, I published a column in this space on Alber to Gonzales . It was entitled ?Counsel to the President.? Well, since that time the young man has risen even higher in the Georgite hierarchy. He is getting lots of publicity these days. The publishing industry?s view of publicity is that there is no such thing as ?bad publicity,? only ?publicity.? If that is true, well this particular good ol? boy (who is one even if his grandparents on one side may have been illegal immigrants, they were assuredly poor) must be reveling in it right now. Since he is just so much in the news, I thought that the Gonzales subject would be one worth revisiting at this time.Please note that this column is being written on May 17, 2007, for scheduled publication on May 23. I am convinced that Gonzales will still be in office on that day and indeed for a considerable time thereafter, a subject that we shall visit in Part 2 of this series, next w...
More About: Story

Forty Years of Occupation
2007-05-24 21:35:00
by Stephen Lendman5/24/07This June will mark an anniversary that will live in infamy for the people affected by the event it commemorates following a far greater one 19 years earlier on May 14, 1948. On June 5, 1967, Israel launched its so-called "Six-Day (preemptive) War" against three of its neighboring Arab states - Egypt, Jordan and Syria - claiming it was in self-defense to avoid annihilation Israeli leaders later admitted was spurious and false cover for a large-scale long-planned, calculated war of aggression it believed it could easily win and did.The New York Times quoted Prime Minister Menachem Begin's (1977 - 83) August, 1982 speech saying: "In June, 1967, we had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that (President Gamal Abdel) Nasser (1956 - 70) was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him."Two time Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (1974 - 77 and 1992 - 95) told French newspaper Le Monde...
More About: Years , Fort , Patio , Year , Ears

New Life - On Its Way Out
2007-05-24 17:14:00
by Rowan Wolf5/24/07It was reported that scientists have found more than 700 new species of sea life in the Antarctic. Hailed as a ?treasure trove,? the species were found by the Andeep (Antarctic benthic deep-sea biodiversity) project in waters thought ?too hostile? to contain life.It always makes me sad when ?new species? are discovered because it generally means that they will be gone soon. It means that technological, consuming and polluting society has crashed its way into an area that had remained remote an unexploited.It seems that it is always because the forest has been destroyed to the ?deep forest,? or a previously inaccessible area has been made accessible. The species - and sometimes people - who have lived quite fine for millennia, are suddenly exposed and then destroyed.With the sea life deep in the Antarctic, multiple threats.... Click here for the article in its entirety...Thomas Paine's Corner is a site dedicated to advancing universal human rights, fostering soci...
More About: Life , New Life

PREFIGUREMENTS OF FRIENDLY FASCISM
2007-05-23 21:39:00
BY PATRICE GREANVILLE (Originally written in 2003)While the object of fascism is always the same, to disarm, intimidate, repress, and roll back the sectors of society pushing for further equality and democratization, its various forms take up the coloring dictated by specific cultures and epochs. That?s why military fascism in Chile is different than Argentina?s, or Spain?s, and why German fascism was far more brutal and systematic than the Italian variety. When and if it comes, American fascism will have its own defining characteristics, most likely a presidential façade.The news about the setting up of a formal, overt, disinformation agency by the Pentagon, is not exactly surprising to many of us, as it wouldn?t be to Chomsky, Parenti, etc. Media watchers have long known about the CIA?s prolific roots and ?assets? throughout the world?s media, including the sponsoring of authors, publishing ventures, and many other tricks, all amounting to immense power to inject distortion on con...
More About: Fascism , Friendly , Figure

Redneck Liberation Theology: Why Are Leftists So Damn Afraid of God?
2007-05-23 21:13:00
By JOE BAGEANT (see caricature above)5/23/07Originally published at Cold Type Six or seven years ago I wrote my first essays about how America's fundamentalist churches had gone batshit crazy, were casting demons out of car engine blocks and making covert plans to exchange the Constitution for the Book of Revelation. Those few readers I had at the time, mostly in urban liberal strongholds, tended to think, "Well, these hayseeds out there in the hinterlands are scary fuckers, but Joe overstates the case a bit. The god whacks can never put together the kind of political power he's describing." The political landscape has changed since then, and there are now more books and documentary films sounding the alarm than you can shake a stick at. Which warms the gin soaked cockles of my heart (whatever the hell heart cockles are.) It even looks as if the mighty Pinhead himself stands a chance of being impeached. Which will make about as much difference as when Clinton was impeached. Zilch....
More About: Theology , Leftists , Damn , Ology , Libera

Rethinking Revolution: Animal Liberation, Human Liberation, and the Future
2007-05-23 20:54:00
by Steven Best?Animal liberation may sound more like a parody of other liberation movements than a serious objective.? ?Peter Singer?Animal liberation is the ultimate freedom movement, the `final frontier.?? ?Robin Webb, British ALF Press OfficerIntroduction: Framing the Unframed IssueIt seems lost on most of the global anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist Left that there is a new liberation movement on the planet ? animal liberation ? that is of immense ethical and political significance. But because animal liberation challenges the anthropocentric, speciesist, and humanist dogmas that are so deeply entrenched in socialist and anarchist thinking and traditions, Leftists are more likely to mock than engage it.For the last three decades, the animal liberation movement (ALM) has been one of the most dynamic and important political forces on the planet. Where ?new social movements? such as Black Liberation, Native American, feminism, chicano/a, and various forms of Green and identity p...
More About: Future , Human , The Future , Revolution

The United States of Infantilization
2007-05-22 15:51:00
By Gary Corseri5/19/05Originally published at Common DreamsThis is how it felt 30 years ago:Saigon had fallen and Nixon was out.We weren?t so much pleased about the ultimate Viet Cong and North Vietnamese triumph over the South (and our troops), as we were glad to be purged of the whole sordid affair.And it did feel like an affair gone horribly wrong: the fatal attraction of Wilsonian messianism trying to make the world ?safe for democracy? one more time. The weapons-of-mass-destruction issue of the day was ?falling dominoes.? If South Vietnam fell, then Burma, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia?the whole panoply of the world, piece by piece, must fall to monolithic Communism.Of course, it didn?t work out that way. To get us into full-scale crusade-mode, Johnson had lied about the Tonkin Gulf Incident, the same way George W. Bush and Tony Blair would lie about Saddam?s ties to Al-Qaeda, 9/11 and imminent threats of nuclear destruction. Nixon kept the lie going and his C.R.E.E.P. (...
More About: United States , United , States , The United States , Anti

ANNALS OF MENDACIOUS PUNDITRY: PIN-STRIPED PERFIDY
2007-05-21 15:25:00
By Jason Miller5/21/07Larry Kudlow is CEO of Kudlow & Co., LLC, an economic and investment research firm. Kudlow is host of CNBC?s ?Kudlow & Company? which airs weeknights at 5 p.m. He is the host of "The Larry Kudlow Show" on WABC Radio on Saturdays 10:00am. Kudlow is a nationally syndicated columnist and also hosts his own blog. He is a contributing editor of National Review magazine, as well as a columnist and economics editor for National Review Online. He is the author of "American Abundance: The New Economic and Moral Prosperity," published by Forbes in January 1998. Kudlow is consistently ranked one of the nation?s premier and most accurate economic forecasters according to The Wall Street Journal?s semiannual forecasting survey.For many years Kudlow served as chief economist for a number of Wall Street firms. Kudlow was a member of the Bush-Cheney Transition Advisory Committee. During President Reagan?s first term, Kudlow was the associate director for economics and plan...
More About: Strip

A SWISS CHEESE ?Reflections on ?ineptitude?
2007-05-19 23:37:00
BY URI AVNERY | 5.19.07 THE WINOGRAD committee of inquiry is not a part of the solution. It is a part of the problem. Now, after the first excitement caused by the publication of the partial report has died down, it is possible to evaluate it. The conclusion is that it has done much more harm than good. The positive side is well known. The committee has accused the three directors of the war - the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense and the Chief-of-Staff - of many faults. The committee?s favorite word is ?failure?. It is worthwhile to ponder this word. What does it say? A person ?fails? when he does not fulfill his task. The nature of the task itself is not considered, but only the fact that it has not been accomplished. The use of the word ?failure? all over the report is by itself a failure of the committee. The new Hebrew word invented by the protest groups - something like ?ineptocrats? - fits all of the five committee members. IN WHAT did the three musketeers of the ...
More About: Reflections , Cheese , Reflection , Swiss

War Without End & Now ? The Permanent Soldier
2007-05-19 23:19:00
The basic activity of this brain region is considered to be orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals. The most typical neurologic term for functions carried out by the pre-frontal cortex area is Executive Function. Executive Function relates to abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social ?control? (the ability to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially unacceptable outcomes). Many authors have indicated an integral link between a person?s personality and the functions of the prefrontal cortex. (Wikipedia) By Rowan Wolf George Bush told us that the ?War on Terrorism? would be a ?generational? war. It seems clear that means ?war without end? which brings to mind George Orwell?s 1984. (Of course, there are a lot of things...
More About: Soldier , Erma , Perm , Sold , Permanent

The ?Mystery? of US Foreign Policy
2007-05-18 21:07:00
A CAPSULE ASSESSMENTBy Patrice Greanville5/18/07There are those who believe (and can?t understand why) American foreign policy has been such a ?resounding failure.? I?m afraid such folks are painfully mistaken. US foreign policy has NOT been a failure from the perspective of its creators and direct beneficiaries. It has been a fantastic success story?at least until September 11?when, for the first time in a long, uninterrupted American imperial history of sordid and criminal interventions in other nations? affairs, we experienced some of the ?blowback? widely anticipated by even many of our own experts.With 9/11 the era of ?total impunity? for our actions may have come to an abrupt end, but now we have entered a more complex period of ?quasi-impunity? which is still a major godsend for the very folks who put us into this quandary. For in this new era of widespread fear and open-ended ?wars on terror? the plutocracies who always benefitted lavishly from our criminal foreign policy ha...
More About: Policy , Foreign Policy , Foreign , Mystery , Poli

The Dangers of Addiction
2007-05-18 19:41:00
by Steven Jonas5/18/07Originally published at Buzz FlashIn the May 6 edition of the Sunday New York Times Book Review, there was a review of Prof. Allen Brandt's new book, The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America. The review was written by Jonathan Miles who is, oddly enough, a persistent cigarette smoker. In contrast with 70% of smokers, he claims that he smokes because he likes it, and implies that that is the reason most smokers smoke. Mr. Miles apparently knows little about the addictive properties of nicotine: approximately 90% of persons who try cigarettes become addicted to them, especially if they begin smoking at a young age, which is when most smokers begin. (It is interesting to note that only about 20% of persons who try cocaine become addicted to it, but that is another story).However, this column is not about the addictive properties of nicotine and how, for example, the nicotine levels in cigarettes have been s...
More About: Addiction , The D , Addict