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Get naked, join the Dutch Reformed Church, and read.
2007-05-15 18:10:00
By Mike Palecek5/15/07#21 The American Dream Book Tour & Protest Across the USASHELDON, IOWA--You want to go where everybody knows your name.Well. I was in Boston last week. I made my way through traffic, found a parking spot, found the Lucy Parsons Center, on Columbus Avenue. Then I went out walking around for about seven hours. Part of the time I just sat on a bench at a park, watched the people and the pigeons.And then I walked over to Lucy Parsons, came up to the front desk, tired, sweating, lugging my books and stuff."I'm Mike."Mike ... Palecek."I'm supposed to speak tonight.""Oh, was that tonight?"It's kind of been like that on this book tour.In Brattleboro, Vermont there were naked people outside the bookstore.(to read the complete article at Thomas Paine's Corner's new URL within Cyrano's Journal Online, click HERE)Thomas Paine's Corner is a site dedicated to advancing universal human rights, fostering social and economic justice, and supporting the cause of all o...
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Deconstructing the founding myths of France's greatness (part 1)
2007-05-15 02:24:00
By Rene Naba Translated by Xavier Rabilloud, Proofread by Nancy Almendras This paper is the author?s contribution to the seminar organized on October 6th ? 7th , 2006, by the Festival TransMéditerrannée (fmed@wanadoo.fr) in Septèmes-les-Vallons, the theme of which was « From one shore to the opposite: writing history, decolonizing memories ». The scene took place in June 1998, only eight years ago ? not such a long time - one month before a great motley communion: the first French victory at the Soccer World Cup, won by its multi-ethnic team. At the end of a press conference, the then prospective successor of Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen as head of the National Front [1], Mr Bruno Gollnisch, exhibited his attaché-case and unveiled the secret code that would unlock it, as if it had been a war trophy. By definition, a secret code should remain concealed. One usually treasures it as a sacred relic. Obviously, Mr Gollnisch does not: the secret can be widely disclosed, especially...
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Darfur: The Hourglass of Blood
2007-05-14 22:51:00
By Ramzy Baroud5/14/07The Darfur crisis in Sudan is perhaps the most politically convoluted conflict in the world today. Its underpinnings involve local, regional and international players, all selfishly vying for power and economic interests. Alliances shift like quicksand, reminiscent of Lebanon. Neither the interest of the people of Darfur, nor the sovereignty of Sudan seem to be a major concern to any of those involved: a regime fighting for survival, rebel groups readily playing into the hands of foreign powers, a superpower eager to create distraction from its blunders elsewhere, European players coveting the region?s oil wealth with growing keenness, and so forth. Meanwhile, the refugees continue to perish, dying at so alarming a speed, often in the most inhumane ways imaginable. What is to be done?A crowd of a few thousand gathered at Downing Street for Global Day for Darfur, on April 29. They were largely Sudanese, mostly from Darfur. They gathered in London?s hotspot for p...
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War-Pimping with a Smile: Of American Exceptionalism, Apple Pie, and Moral
2007-05-13 07:49:00
By Jason Miller 5/13/07 Biography of Kathleen Parker excerpted from The Washington Post Writers Group page: Now one of America's most popular opinion columnists, appearing in more than 350 newspapers, Parker is at home both inside and outside the Washington Beltway. But she came to column-writing the old-fashioned way, working her way up journalism?s ladder from smaller papers to larger ones. "I never set out to become a commentator ? and do continue to resist the label 'pundit' ? but I found that keeping my opinion out of my writing was impossible," says Parker. "One can only stand watching from the sidelines for so long without finally having to say, 'Um, excuse me, but you people are nuts.'" Despite myriad signs of the waning power and impending collapse of the abomination known as the American Empire or Pax Americana, there are those among us who insist on perpetuating history?s greatest and deadliest charade. While our nation inflicts tremendous misery and ...
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We might as well call ourselves tree trimmers as Christians
2007-05-11 23:00:00
?This is turning into the I Hate America Tour.?By Mike Palecek5/11/07"I ain't got no home. I'm just a ramblin' round, I go from town to town."---Woody Guthrie#20 The American Dream Book Tour & Protest Across the USANOT IN PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND ?These perfect towns of Connecticut make me want to puke.Yesterday I was heading toward Providence on I-95. I started to shake, sweat, and pulled the Honda off onto the exit for Madison, Conn.After waiting for one hundred traffic lights I saw to my right a big yard, maybe a park. I pulled around, down the lane, hurried out and got on one knee and dry-heaved on the front lawn of the First Congregational Church of Madison.You would think the yard would be filled with folks leaning out their windows, beside their cars, on both knees, hurling ? to see this sight.This humongous white church: six pillars on the front porch that two strong men could not reach around and touch pinky fingers.And behind the pillars, blowing in the breeze. Of cours...
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Rising Above Politics: Can we quit talking and start walking?
2007-05-10 17:14:00
"Here in Virginia there is evidence that a populist can reach them if he can get their attention. Jim Webb did it."By Joe Bageant5/10/07Well, lo and beshit! I never thought I?d ever see the day. But even in my hardcore Republican run hometown, many conservatives are quietly sneaking away from the sing-along around the campfire of George Bush?s war-crazed hootenanny. Most of them are ordinary bona fide conservatives. But others slipping off under cover of darkness are among our richest Republicans who profiteered mightily in the security, construction and service businesses that sprouted like mushrooms from every aspect of the Iraq War. Either they have suddenly developed a streak of conscience, or they simply don?t want to be associated with the trail of crime, blood and feces Bush and his cronies have obviously tracked across the carpet of American history. My bet is on the latter.But even the little fish who voted for Bush are starting to squirm. My neighbor, Big Larry, who is usu...
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What I Learned From the Republican Comedy Hour
2007-05-10 15:43:00
by Steven Jonas5/10/07Originally published at Buzz FlashThe First Republican Come dy Hour (otherwise known as the first Republican presidential debate) was held on May 3. It held some fascinating lessons for me, and I want to share some of them with you. I must tell you that hearing these men talk brought many a chuckle to my throat (and at times something else as well, but we won't go into that, even though I am a doctor).-- All the candidates are in favor of "returning religion to the public square." What, we don't have enough churches, usually two to three, on (or at least near) enough public squares around the country already?-- "People are entitled to their faith," unless, of course, their faith (or lack thereof) tells them that life begins at the time of viability, not conception.-- "People are entitled to their faith," unless, of course, their faith (or lack thereof) tells them that under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, persons are enti...
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The War on Free Expression
2007-05-09 21:45:00
By Stephen Lendman5/9/07In a post-9/11 climate, the right of free expression is under attack and endangered in the age of George Bush when dissent may be called a threat to national security, terrorism, or treason. But losing that most precious of all rights means losing our freedom that 18th century French philosopher Voltaire spoke in defense of saying "I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Using it to express dissent is what noted historian Howard Zinn calls "the highest form of patriotism" exercising our constitutional right to freedom of speech, the press, to assemble, to protest publicly, and associate as we choose for any reason within the law.Even then, there are times more forceful action is needed, and Thomas Jefferson explained under what circumstances in the Declaration of Independence he authored. When bad government destroys our freedoms, we the people have the right and duty to disobey civilly and resist. Henry Da...
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Outing the L-Word, Part II: Nature, Power, and Hierarchy
2007-05-08 18:07:00
?We have long lived with the notion - undertaken and popularized in earnest from the outset of the cold war and peaking during the Reagan era - that the American economic system is the most natural and God-given, and that the more taxes are cut, public utilities privatized, and business de-regulated, the more closely we approach some state of grace and harmony with the natural order of things.?By Andrew S. Taylor5/8/07While there are many strains and sub-categories of Libertarianism, each with their own distinct epistemology and nuances, there is one common argument that is shared by all: that laissez-faire capitalism is the most "natural" of all economic systems and that, by extension, systems of redistribution such as communism and socialism are the most "artificial." This argument is sometimes implicit, and sometimes it is quite overt. The purpose of this essay will be to discuss why it is wrong, and to further explain why the way in which it is wrong can lead us to a better, mor...
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Still the Bumbling Fools
2007-05-08 03:27:00
By Anwaar Hussain 5/7/07 Truth Spring Thanks to the murderous fools in the current US administration, civil life in Iraq, now at the ?point of no return?, is teetering at the edge of total anarchy. As an accompanying fallout, along with an estimated million dead Iraqis, a morally, financially and diplomatically bankrupt America, the inept charlatans have also successfully managed to thoroughly radicalize the whole region. From Sudan to Pakistan and beyond, the ranks of America haters now stand swollen like never before. The recruiters for suicide brigades now drool non-stop with glee at the long cues of raging applicants outside their murky caves. Let us revisit some of the opening acts of the bumbling fools in this morbid theater of the absurd. Whether the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions were on false grounds or for some higher moral compulsions, the blundering fools should have known the character of state identities in these countries. They should have investigated whether s...
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A Revenge Tragedy
2007-05-06 22:24:00
By John Steppling 4/13/07(Editor's Note: This stream of consciousness-style piece is excerpted from an ongoing online dialogue between Steppling and fellow radical, Guy Zimmerman. They are Co-Senior Editors of Arts and Culture at Cyrano's Journal Online. "A Revenge Tragedy " is but a small sampling of the brilliant conclusions drawn during the exchanges between these highly refined thinkers.) Originally published in the Voxpop section of Cyrano?s Journal Online I spent Easter weekend watching all of Adam Curtis? documentaries, but I was especially struck with Century of the Self . And it spawned many observations on Karl Rove. The mechanisms of control are more and more obvious. As for accusing your opponent of your own dark intentions, yes, this is absolutely crucial to remember. First cousin to this can be seen in anti-insurgency thinking. There was, during the Mau Mau resistance in Kenya, a certain colonel ? Kitson, I think (but his name hardly deserves to be r...

The Spirituality of Collapse
2007-05-06 21:26:00
By Carolyn Baker Speaking Truth to Power 5/6/07 The first edition of this article was written in February, 2006, but I have recently revised and updated it. Since the first writing, the theme of collapse seems to have reverberated around the world, now manifesting its symptoms in the scientific community?s latest dramatic reports on global warming, the issue of Peak Oil coming further out of the closet--being discussed openly in mainstream media, and the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble that now finds 1 out of every 264 homes in the nation facing foreclosure as each day the value of the dollar decreases and the value of precious metals soars. As I share my awareness of collapse with others, I meet a variety of responses. Many, especially those folks in academia, and the history profession in particular, view the idea of collapse with bemused scorn, asserting that while civilization might appear to be collapsing, current events are not really new and are merely variations on...
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Of Surges and Purges
2007-05-06 21:15:00
By Rowan Wolf of Uncommon Thought Journal 5/6/07I share with many of you a growing sense of anger and frustration at the constantly worsening situation in Iraq. Now, the "surge" is in place, and "gated communities" are being delineated over the objections of both Shia and Sunni residents. The Democrats have put on a good show of trying to rein in Bush, and have been rejected. However, are they really trying to rein him in, or just playing their part in an intricately choreographed deception? The bill that Bush vetoed contained certain "benchmarks" for the Iraqi government. Among them was the approval of the "PSAs" (Production Sharing Agreements) initiated by the US Coalition Provisional Authority [see Troop Surge s and Bloody Oil]. The oil agreement was moving through the approval process, but has now met opposition by both Kurd and Sunni representatives within the Iraqi parliament. There has been a lot of pressure to get these agreements into law, and they turn over the major...
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GREEN BEACON
2007-05-05 21:24:00
Photo: Harvey Wasserman, senior editor of The Free Press and author of ?Solartopia!? by Robert C. Koehler Tribune Media Services 5/5/07 Harvey Wasserman?s newly published ?Solartopia!? is a breath of fresh air, blowing ? well, whipping, at Great Plains velocity ?across the thinking person?s vision of the future. What a gift this book is: an informed, science-savvy vision of tomorrow that isn?t an eco-nightmare. Rather, it?s an enthusiastically optimistic look at a rational, very green near future. (To order, go to solartopia.org.) The setting is 2030; the premise is a flight in a hydrogen-fueled airship from Hamburg to Honolulu, with Wasserman serving as tour guide and eco-historian as we watch the world unfold beneath us and gradually learn about the death of King CONG, the joyous global proliferation of rooftop gardens and how all those giant wind turbines wound up off the coast of Holland, among much else. King CONG, an acronym of Wasserman?s coinage ? Coal, Oil, Nukes, Gas...
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Let's Help President Bush Support the Troops
2007-05-05 21:18:00
By Steven Jonas Originally published by Buzzflash 5/1/07 The President has asked for the full funding for the U.S. occupation of Iraq with no timeline for withdrawal. This is the only way, he says, it will be known throughout the world, as well as on the frontlines (however one might define them) that we as a nation are united in "supporting our troops." It appears clear to everyone at home and abroad (except, apparently for the Georgites and their Privatized Ministry of Propaganda) that a substantial majority of the American people does not support the war and wants the troops to come home, now. But, he says, a) that he's got to have the money with no timeline, and b) that he wants to meet with the Democratic Congressional leadership to discuss reaching a common ground.In the spirit of compromise, let the Democrats send up a bill with no timeline, just include the following very simple provisions "in support of the troops." In asking for a compromise, this President is obviousl...
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Could this solve the puzzle?
2007-05-05 21:05:00
By Gene DeVaux 5/5/07 What if George W. Bush actually has a plan? Many of us have a very hard time understanding why he stubbornly holds on to his belief that we can win the ?war? in Iraq, especially considering that the so-called war on terrorism has morphed into a civil war between Islamic factions. Many of us do not understand, as we watch the national debt rise to dizzying heights, why he insists on ?staying the course? with his faulty tax cuts that only benefited those with the highest incomes in the United States. Let?s face it, to Americans who are aware of the many problems created by the Bush administration, George W. Bush is an enigma, a puzzle that is hard to solve. Stepping back from his stubborn stance in his so-called war on terror, we have to look at a short history of the United States to get an inkling of what may be going on in the mind of our Commander-in-Thief. Imagine how he must have felt when he saw his father, George H.W. Bush; lose his r...
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BILL O'REILLY: PROPAGANDA PIMP
2007-05-05 14:42:00
Bill O?Reilly is man that cannot say the word ?left? without appending modifiers like ?far,? ?ultra,? ?committed,? or ?looney.? He is a man who is convinced that every critic is a ?smear merchant.? And his opponents are never merely disagreeing with him, they are ?vile.? By News Corpse 5/5/07 In a roomful of egomaniacal bloviating pundits, Bill O'Reilly would stand out as a towering infernal display of delusional demagoguery. His crusading rants are illustrative of a society that is weakened by a disease (a social disease?) whose predominant symptoms are a mash of masochism and narcissism. Almost any random sampling of The O'Reilly Fester will reveal a man obsessed with his own righteousness. He views himself as the singular savior of America's meek, who he refers to simply as the "Folks." The semantic approach to his message is overwhelmed with the imagery of conflict and danger. Take, for instance, the titles of his books: Culture Warrior Who's Looking Out ...
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Fortress America: The Criminalization of Compassion
2007-05-05 02:07:00
By Michael Goodspeed 5/4/07 On Tuesday, May 1st, I publicly posted an essay I've authored entitled, "An Open Letter to the Mayor of Hell." In this editorial, I outlined my plan to live on the streets of Las Vegas for a period of two weeks to gain a better understanding of the city's homelessness crisis. My comments in the essay were acerbic and short of etiquette -- I even my broken my long self-imposed rule of no name-calling when I referred to mayor Oscar B. Goodman as a "sociopath" and a "prick." Since nothing has changed my understanding of Goodman's policies towards the homeless, I can only stand by my impolite characterizations. (Click HERE to read the article). This afternoon, I received a phone call from my father in Beaverton, OR, informing me that the Beaverton police had been contacted by Las Vegas authorities, and had apparently been asked to do some checking in on my intentions and/or background. An officer was in my home, and I spoke with him for a perio...
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"There's going to be two kinds of people ? rich people and poor people."
2007-05-04 21:25:00
THIS JUST IN:Cold Type is a Canadian Magazine.Dude. Check out the front cover.www.coldtype.net"I opened up my eyes, took a look around. I saw it written across the sky.The Revolution Starts Now."--Steve Earle#16 The American Dream Book Tour & Protest Across the USABy Mike Palecek5/4/07SWALESVILLE, PA ? "I don't like today's world.""There 's going to be two kinds of people ? rich people and poor people."I was sitting in the Joseph-Beth bookstore in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, scanning through John Updike's book "The Terrorist," cozied up in a soft chair, kind of listening to these three older people. Older than me? I'd sure like to think so.I then went and put some more quarters into the meter so the Pittsburgh police don't hide my car.Then I walk over and sit next to the fountain out in the little plaza outside The Cheesecake Factory in this square on Cinema Drive. I watch some kids get wet and then walk over to Claddagh Irish pub.It's not like the Irish pub in Kansas City, more li...
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"Worthy and Unworthy Victims"
2007-05-04 21:18:00
??.?worthy? victims are needed to do it. It lets a mass-murderer like George Bush honor the dead for maximum political gain and gives him cover to deflect attention away from his far greater crimes of war and against humanity.?by Stephen Lendman5/4/07Economist and media critic Edward S. Herman and social and political critic Noam Chomsky note two kinds of victims in their classic 1988 book "Manufacturing Consent." So does journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger in his writings. "Unworthy" ones are the many unmentioned tens of thousands killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and all other places by US, Israeli and other rapacious imperial warring and occupying forces. "Wort h y" ones, however, are those prominently mentioned who died or were hurt on September 11, 2001 in the US, on July 7, 2005 in a dubious London "terrorist" bombing, on March 11, 2004 in the Madrid train bombings, and the Israeli corporal practically the whole free world still knows about since he was taken c...
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The Anti-Empire Report: Some things you need to know before the world ends
2007-05-04 16:50:00
By William Blum Originally published at Killing Hope 5/4/07If the United States leaves Iraq things will really get badThis appears to be the last remaining, barely-breathing argument of that vanishing species who still support the god-awful war. The argument implies a deeply-felt concern about the welfare and safety of the Iraqi people. What else could it mean? That the US military can't leave because it's needed to protect the oil bonanza awaiting American oil companies as soon as the Iraqi parliament approves the new written-in-Washington oil law? No, the Bush administration loves the people of Iraq. How much more destruction, killing and torturing do you need to be convinced of that? We can't leave because of the violence. We can't leave until we have assured that peace returns to our dear comrades in Iraq.To better understand this argument, it helps to keep in mind the following about the daily horror that is life in Iraq:It did not exist before the US occupation.The insurge...
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McBush
2007-05-03 20:54:00
By Gary Corseri and William Shakespeare5/3/07Cast of Characters:LADY LIBERTY played by herselfPAX played by himselfJUSTICE played by himselfMcBUSH played by George W. BushLADY CHENEY McBush?s wife; played by Dick Cheney3 WITCHES played by Condoleeze Rice, Hillary Clinton, Ann CoulterFIRE HYDRANT played by Alberto Gonzalez2 ROTTWEILERS played by themselvesATTENDANTS played by Senators, media pundits and various sycophantsACT 1Scene 1: Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches.Condoleeza: When shall we three meet again?Hillary: When the hurlyburly?s done. When the battle?s lost and won.Coulter: Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air.Enter McBush and Pax.McBush: So foul and fair a day I have not seen!Pax: (Noticing the Witches--)What are these, so withered and so wild in their attire,That look not like the inhabitants of the earth?You should be women, and yet your beardsForbid me to interpret that you are.Coulter: All hail McBush, that shalt be Prez herea...

Racing to the Bottom
2007-05-03 19:09:00
By Si Contino5/3/07Because so many notable business pundits appear to be bemused by America?s most recent economic vexation, specifically the collapse of the mortgage markets; I thought I?d take a crack at edifying your readers, to the extent I?m capable, as to its true nature and causes.To begin with one must remember that all the statistics kept on our economy are bogus. They are contrived in such a manner, compiled explicitly for casual regurgitation, so as to never display anything less than full employment, wage growth and a serendipitous lack of inflation.With that as a foundation, what?s actually occurring in this economy is the globalization of assets and wealth. That is to say, because the value of American labor is falling so precipitously, (due to the utilization of cheap foreign labor around the world), the value of the assets held by them is falling in direct correlation with their declining wages. It must.Here?s why:A worker formerly employed in a lost economic sect...
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Reality According to Ninnies
2007-05-03 18:06:00
?I've found an an apartment building in Cincinnati. This is the building, 1732 Vine Street in Cincinnati.It's a task for which I am equal. And, I'd like to spend the next couple of years applying my restoration art skills to it. It's an old bank building circa, 1890, complete with all the potential proud charm that was more commonplace in 1890 than it is in today's appalling McMansion architecture.There are six vacant and dilapidated rental units over what used to be a bank and has since been turned into a small make-shift convenience-like retail store run by a young lady with admirable ambition. Later on you'll see a picture of this young lady. My interest is in helping her achieve her dreams, and restoring the six apartments into comfortable and affordable rental living spaces. Like so many other apartment buildings all across the country, this building will eventually fall victim to condo developers, if someone doesn't save it before then.?By Don Robertson, The American Ph...
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Jahada: To Strive
2007-05-03 16:45:00
5/3/07the tiny fisted buds of cherry blossomsbegin to show their fingershow unviolently spring holds its own,bunched, tight as a knotonly bearing to become itselfthis is nature's jihad?overcoming anachronism,understanding the hallucinatory,finding a way to attain fullnesswithout so much as harminga blade of grass-- Mankh (Walter E. Harris III)He is a poet, essayist, small press publisher and author/editor of seven books including Singing an Epic of Peace, Haiku One Breaths, and Modern Muses.His work is often inspired by nature, current events and world cultures. Mankh's literary website: http://www.allbook-books.com/Thomas Paine's Corner is a site dedicated to advancing universal human rights, fostering social and economic justice, and supporting the cause of all oppressed, exploited, and impoverished human beings on our Earth.

A Whoring She Will Go
2007-05-02 12:54:00
Peggy Noonan (born Margaret Ellen Noonan on September 7, 1950 in Brooklyn, New York) is an author of seven books on politics, religion and culture and a weekly columnist for the Wall Street Journal. She is a graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University in Rutherford, New Jersey, and was a Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan. "So begins the Wiki entry for Noonan in one of the Web's most supposedly impartial information platforms. In fact, who would suspect, from that innocuous sentence, that Noonan is almost exactly the opposite of that description? Because if there is one thing for sure about Noonan it is this: Noonan is not a true populist, nor, for that matter, a friend of the working class. But, then again, populist posturing has been the staple of rightwing and fascistoid sellouts since Mussolini and Hitler opened the franchise in the 1920s." [from the introduction to this piece as it appears on Cyrano's Journal Online (http://www.bestcyrano.org/)]Essay by Jason Miller ...
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Open Letter to the Mayor of Hell
2007-05-01 18:06:00
Photo: Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman with Ryen McPherson, producer of the ?Bumfights? videos By Michael Goodspeed 5/1/07 Dear Mayor Goodman,Or perhaps I should begin this communication with the same discourteous introduction as Hunter S. Thompson in his letter to then President Nixon:"Dear Dickhead..."Of course, you remember Hunter. He both lionized and mortified the city over which you so proudly rule in his brilliant tome, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Perhaps Hunter's continuous inebriation opened his perception to some psychic foresight -- in the 21st century, your city, with all its garishly seductive promises of instant wealth, cheappussy, and satanic escapism, has little left but "fear and loathing" to offer.If these introductory comments seem slightly less than etiquette, Oscar, let me assure you that I am not a hothead, a reactionary, a Christian fundamentalist, an activist of any kind, or even an idealist. I'm actually a quite circumspect and even-...
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We really don't know what George Bush Sr. has done to us during his lifetim
2007-05-01 16:23:00
#14 The American Dream Book Tour & Protest Across the USA by Mike Palecek 5/1/07 CLEVELAND, OHIO ? KGB.It's a novel.Saturday I spoke to a group at The Planet bookstore in Ann Arbor.Glenn came up to me, started touching all my books neatly arranged on the table, and asked me, where's KGB. I said I had written it a long time ago. It was my first book.The letters stand for Killing George Bush .I've got one copy in the car, but that's it.Oh. I thought that was what this was all about, he said.Glenn said that Rush Limbaugh had said there was this guy on a book tour around the country, saying we should kill George Bush ."I thought, this must be the guy!" he said.Oh. Well. In the first place, I kind of doubt that Limbaugh would even know who I am.But, yeah, I guess that could be me.I'm not looking to kill George Bush, but I did write a novel back around the turn of the century that does have that scenario as a premise.KGB is set in the Woodbury County jail in Sioux City I...
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The Death of the Chilean Way to Socialism and the Martyrdom of President Sa
2007-04-30 05:35:00
By William Blum 4/29/07 Originally published on Cyrano?s Journal "A hammer and sickle stamped on your child's forehead" Excerpted from the book Killing Hope by William Blum When Salvador Allende, a committed Marxist, came within three percent of winning the Chilean presidency in 1958, the United States decided that the next election, in 1964, could not be left in the hands of providence, or democracy. Washington took it all very gravely. At the outset of the Kennedy administration in 1961, an electoral committee was established, composed of top-level officials from the State Department, the CIA and the White House. In Santiago, a parallel committee of embassy and CIA people was set up. "U.S. government intervention in Chile in 1964 was blatant and almost obscene," said one intelligence officer strategically placed at the time. "We were shipping people off right and left, mainly State Dept. but also CIA, with all sorts of covers." All in all, as many as 100 American operati...
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Super-Imperialism: The Shameful Legacy of Liberal Democrats
2007-04-29 21:57:00
By Carolyn Baker 4/28/07 Originally published at Speaking Truth to Power It is a war against the globalization of the market, against the destruction of nature and the confiscation of resources, against the termination of indigenous peoples and their lands, against the growing maldistribution of wealth and the consequent decline in standards of living for all but the rich. --Andrew Kopkind Professor Michael Hudson, an independent Wall St. financial economist, has written an extraordinary book entitled Super Imperialism: The Origins and Fundamentals Of U.S. World Dominance. I first heard of Michael Hudson when browsing Bonnie Faulkner?s ?Guns And Butter? website, and as I listened to him, I knew that I needed to read Super Imperialism for many reasons, not the least of which is that I am not an economist and am only beginning to educate myself on how the money works in the domestic and world economies. For this reason, I have been reluctant to write a review of Hudson?s book; I...
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