Thursday, December 24, 2020

PROJECT CENSORED

 
 
"Our Mission: Promoting Critical Media Literacy and Democracy

Project Censored educates students and the public about the importance of a truly free press for democratic self-government. We expose and oppose news censorship and we promote independent investigative journalism, media literacy, and critical thinking. Through our website, weekly radio program, annual book, and other programs, we provide this service to the United States, Canada, UK, and the world.

Censorship undermines democracy. An informed public is crucial to democracy in at least two basic ways.  First, without access to relevant news and opinion, people cannot fully participate in government. Second, without media literacy, people cannot evaluate for themselves the quality or significance of the news they receive. Project Censored’s work highlights the important links among a free press, media literacy, and democratic self-government." 
 
* * * * *
 

 (Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp)
 
"Lee Camp rounds out 2020 with an interview with the director of Project Censored, Mickey Huff. Project Censored is a critical media organization that looks into the most censored stories every year. Camp and Huff discuss some of the stories included in this year's Project Censored report on corporate corruption, the future of journalism, and more."
 

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

IT'S HARD TO KILL A ROCK

 
 When nature is gone only the rocks will remain.
 
The greatest threat to human civilization is human civilization.

It's time we stopped talking about economic growth.
 
(Dr. Albert A. Bartlett on YouTube)
 
 

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

WEAK T

 TYT STINKS

This site used to link to TYT.

(links do not appear on the mobile template)

I removed my link to TYT.

I discovered TYT waaay late, I thought it was another decent alternative media site. After I watched it a few times, I was very disappointed. Cenk turned me off and his staff seemed so naive and stupid I unsubscribed. Ana Kasparian was particularly annoying. She was so uninspiring I could never get through any of her commentary. I thought she was just an idiot, but now I think maybe she's stupid and a shill. 

TYT is a waste of time.

Monday, December 21, 2020

#FORCETHEVOTE

 

Jagoff Comedians unite!

Early on, I was impressed by AOC's passion and eloquence. Now, I'm not impressed by her actions.

AOC has brought up the obstacle of PAYGO as a reason to defer a floor vote on "Medicare for All."

Nancy Pelosi supported PAYGO. How many reasons do you need to stop supporting that old right-wing wind bag? Pelosi has got to go! The amazing thing about Dore's plan, is that it can happen without dumping Pelosi, so it's a win/lose plan, but still great.

M4A saves money. Period. Medical Insurance Companies are just a burdensome paperwork tax. Health insurance executives make millions and millions of dollars serving only as gatekeepers. No health insurance company has ever provided healthcare, they just take some of your money before they let you see a care provider. So called "death panels" occur when money can be made by adding paywalls to medical treatments.

A government bureaucrat processing claims has no incentive to deny legitimate requests for care. A single payer system streamlines the process and removes the profit motives that literally kill people. And M4A is not a "government-run" healthcare system, doctors and hospitals would remain private (if that's what concerns you). It's just an easier and more efficient way to pay the bills. Everyone from your president to your local bagger at the market would share your medical plan. And healthcare plans wouldn't be controlled by your employer, or even be incumbent upon employment at all. Everyone would have coverage. Period.

If PAYGO is invoked, deflect all necessary funds from military spending. In fact, money should stop going to the Military Industrial Complex until they can pass an audit.

AOC Interview Signals She's Unwilling to Fight Pelosi For Medicare 4 All

(The Jimmy Dore Show)

Thursday, December 17, 2020

DUH SIROTA

 
DUH SIROTA

I've spent years not giving a shit about what this asshole thinks.

It's a relief I don't have to start now.

* * * * *

DEBUNKED Distraction Tactics Against Forcing Medicare 4 All Vote!

 (The Jimmy Dore Show)


INSTASCAM'S MINISTRY OF TRUTH


Glenn Greenwald

Instagram is Using False “Fact-Checking” to Protect Joe Biden’s Crime Record From Criticisms

(greenwald.substack.com)

The Facebook-owned platform’s denunciation of a well-established view of Biden shows the dangers of internet censorship and the fraudulent use of “fact-checking.”

"A long-standing and vehement criticism of Joe Biden is that legislation he championed as a Senator in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly his crime bill of 1994, contributed to the mass incarceration of Americans generally and African-Americans specifically.

Among the many on the left and libertarian right who have voiced this criticism (along with President Trump) is then-Senator Kamala Harris, who said during the 2020 Democratic primary race that Biden’s “crime bill -- that 1994 crime bill -- it did contribute to mass incarceration in our country.” When Hillary Clinton was running for President in 2015, Bill Clinton, who as president signed Biden’s bill into law, told the NAACP: “I signed a bill that made the problem worse. And I want to admit it."

...

While that debate over the damage done by Biden’s crime bill has long raged in Democratic Party politics and the criminal justice reform movement, it is now barred from being aired on the Facebook-owned social media giant Instagram, or at least is formally denounced as disinformation. With Joe Biden about to enter the White House — one that will exercise significant influence in determining Silicon Valley’s interests, will be filled with tech executives, and was made possible in large part by Silicon Valley’s largesse poured into the Biden/Harris campaign — Instagram has arrogated unto itself the power to declare these well-established criticisms of Biden and his crime bill to be “False” and having “no basis in fact.”

The Death Cult Abidens


FOREVER WARS

Biden's Scary Foreign Policy Picks: A Blast From War Crimes Past

(The Empire Files - YouTube)

"A breakdown of Biden's new defense cabinet and what it means for war & peace. Who is Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Avril Haines, Lloyd Austin and Linda Thomas-Greenfield?"

* * * * * *

America is addicted to killing people.


Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Force a vote for M4A!


House Progressives Can FORCE a Medicare For All Vote Now -- Here's How!

(The Jimmy Dore Show)

 * * * * * 

We don't vote for representatives to ensure they have a lucrative career. We expect them to represent us. I haven't seen much of that in the last half century.

A profit-driven healthcare system designed to make individuals tremendously wealthy, while bankrupting the general public is, dare I say it, nonsensical. Or evil. Evil is another word that works here.

I know Republicans won't do the right thing.

I don't expect Democrats to do the right thing.

I would be thrilled to be proven wrong.

Sunday, November 15, 2020

SUPREME FARCE


SUPREME FARCE

 There's precious little faith in the courts these days. Fundamentalists are destroying it.

 Alito Attacks Marriage Equality, COVID Orders, and Reproductive Rights in Speech

(Chris Walker, Truthout.org) 

"Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito delivered an impassioned and alarming speech on Thursday evening that touched on a number of hot-button political issues — an unusual move from a Supreme Court justice that provoked sharp rebukes from a number of legal experts.

The justice’s words, delivered virtually as a keynote speech to the right-wing Federalist Society, made suspect warnings over encroachments on individual liberty in the United States. Alito criticized Supreme Court rulings on marriage equality, for example, and discussed his concerns over restrictions being issued by state governments in order to deal with the coronavirus pandemic."

 * * * * * *

The United States of America is a cult. A set of strongly held beliefs based on myths and falsehoods. Its politics is simply a cult of personality. Our soap opera news services provide puerile entertainment, devoid of meaningful content, while moneyed interests pull on the strings of power without scrutiny or accountability. We no longer even expect our politicians to represent their constituents. 

The long anticipated corporate coup is here. If you don't like what your government is doing, blame the corporate donors that control it. And if you're hoping that law and order will save you from the ravages of criminal overreach, well, good luck asking cult members, with lifetime appointments, to curb abuses of power.

 The RNC and DNC are cynical mechanisms oligarchs use to con you into believing you're participating. Kamala Harris will likely, perhaps shortly, be our president. Biden was a prop, and not a convincing one. She dropped out of her primary before the orchestrated mass exodus, because her numbers were abysmal. So, someone who left the primary due to lack of interest in her campaign, will more than likely be our president. That's what happens when corporations are the parties. They do not run party elections like a company, they are companies. They love taking your money, but they only pay attention to the billionaires.

It's time to stop supporting the Duopoly!

Movement for a People's Party

Or there's this to look forward to:


Wednesday, November 11, 2020

EXTINCTION REBELLION

EXTINCTION REBELLION

  Is the human race run?

 * * * * * *

We're looking at Billions of People not being able to Survive'

- Peter Carter, Expert IPCC Reviewer

(Extinction Rebellion interview on YouTube)

"Peter Carter, M.D. and Roger Hallam discuss the science and ethics with regards to climate emergency for all of us struggling to understand what's actually going on, what needs to happen and what we need to do.

Every month now records and disasters are happening and we don't have the time to sit around and pretend it's all going to go away – because it's not and Peter’s mission now is to spread the full terrible truth about the extreme risks and magnitude of the global climate and ocean disruption emergency.

Peter Carter, M.D. is a retired family physician who practised medicine first in England and then on both coasts of Canada (in Newfoundland and British Columbia) for almost 40 years.

When his sons were born, Peter became actively involved in peace, environmental and sustainable development issues, especially as they relate to children's health. (Fatherhood created that urge to leave the world a better place as a legacy for his children.)

As a founding director of CAPE (Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment) and, more recently, as founder of the Climate Emergency Institute, Peter has presented on sustainable development, environmental health policy, biodiversity, and climate change and ocean issues at international science and climate change conferences in Canada, the United States, Europe, Asia and South America.

Peter has been following the global warming and climate change research since 1988. His approach to assessing climate change is based on environmental health and human rights protection. He provides climate science information to several websites and organizations, and synthesizes climate change research for laypeople.

Peter was an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Climate Change Assessment (AR5, 2014) and the IPCC’s 2018 Special Report on 1.5ºC. Also in 2018, Peter published Unprecedented Crime: Climate Science Denial and Game Changers for Survival, which he co-authored with Elizabeth Woodworth."


Friday, October 23, 2020

The Childish Mania of Hope

CHRIS HEDGES: The Childish Mania of Hope

Corporate oligarchies throughout the world are destroying the natural world for profit. That humanity is part of the global ecosystem doesn't seem to have occurred to them.

We don't have to look up the term omnicide in a dictionary, all we have to do is look around us.

______________________

Chris Hedges on 'The Childish Mania of Hope'

(The Katie Halper Show on YouTube)

"Journalist Chris Hedges talks to me, Professor Gerald Horne and Nando Vila about "the childish mania mania of hope which is crippling and disempowering. Part of the problem is we're not adult enough to face what's in front of us and if we can't face what's in front of us then we can't respond in an effective and meaningful way." Hedges then reviews what's in front of us: "we're heading towards the collapse of civilization except for this time, because of the climate,  when go down the whole planet's going with us." On a lighter note, Hedges talk being a war correspondent, Gramsci, Aristotle and what James Baldwin teaches us about hate groups."

* * * * * 

Chris Hedges "The Politics of Cultural Despair"

(Media Sanctuary on YouTube)

"Author, activist and dissident Chris Hedges spoke at The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy NY on October 16, 2020.  In this talk he examines the cultural and social forces that have given rise to extremism in the United States. He explores the myriad of factors that led to the proliferation of neo-fascist militias, extremist organizations, demagogic leaders, vast social divides defined by hate, a hyper nationalism and virulent racism as well as a mass media that has descended into burlesque and fans the flames of social disintegration.  Meghan Marohn moderates a Q&A following the talk."

 

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

MATCH GAME

MATCH GAME

I’m an old human who feels tremendous remorse that we, as a species, possess such a profound and suicidal lust to destroy the planet and ourselves. Comfort may still exist for many millions of the most well-off denizens of planet Earth, but the signs are there that this condition is evaporating.

The following gentlemen, much older than me, express their remorse over what we have wrought with enviable eloquence. Check them out and wonder how so many old farts are blind to, or uncaring of, their contribution to The End Times.

"If We Don't Protect Nature We Can't Protect Ourselves"

 (Harrison Ford | Extinction Rebellion)

“The Last and Most Important Advice I Will Ever Give”

(Dr. Meyer Hillman | Extinction Rebellion UK)

 David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet

(Attenborough Film.com)

"Celebrated British naturalist Sir David Attenborough has a broadcasting career spanning over six decades. He has visited every continent on the globe, exploring the wild places of our planet and bringing the wonders of the living world to audiences worldwide through ground-breaking natural history series. His work includes: Life on Earth, Planet Earth and more recently the Netflix original documentary series Our Planet.

During his lifetime, Sir David Attenborough has seen first-hand the monumental scale of environmental change caused by human actions. Now for the first time, he reflects on the devastating changes he’s witnessed and reveals how together we can address the biggest challenges facing life on our planet.

Produced by Silverback Films and WWF, David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet shares Sir David Attenborough’s greatest story yet – his witness statement for the natural world and vision for the future."


Monday, September 28, 2020

HOME OF THE BRAVE NEW WORLD

 HOME OF THE BRAVE NEW WORLD

 The Rolling Constitutional-Fascist Coup in the World’s Most Dangerous Nation
(Paul Street at Counter Punch.org)

"Let us not pretend that the Constitution is our great people’s trump card in the struggle against Trump’s rolling white-nationalist coup or that Trump is not relying on it to stay in power. Or that Trump and his allies aren’t using the constitutional framework inherited from the profoundly anti-democratic 18th Century U.S. Founders to their authoritarian advantage.

In his haunting 1958 book Brave New World revisited, Aldous Huxley warned of a kind of fascism wherein “the quaint old forms – elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts, and all the rest – will remain” while “the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, and mind manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.” It was a poignant alarm to raise, but we should not underestimate the significant extent to which America’s “quaint old forms” – so quaint as to date from the time of horse-drawn buggies and Black chattel slavery before the cotton gin – are actively enlisted in the authoritarian project today."


* * * * *

Enough with the Holy Founders' Undemocratic Constitution
(Paul Street at Telesur English.net)

"Jefferson, Madison, Adams and other U.S. founders (including even the state-capitalist Alexander Hamilton) would be revolted by the crass commercialism and mass-marketed manipulation that lay at the heart of contemporary major-party U.S. politics.

Still, we should not imagine that the founders were champions of anything remotely like popular self-rule. Democracy was the last thing they intended.  Drawn from the elite propertied segments of late British colonial North America, the delegates to the U.S. Constitutional Convention shared their compatriot John Jay’s view that “the people who own the country ought to govern it."

Wednesday, September 16, 2020

A CONSERVATIVE ICON/MORON

 
William %uckley Jr.
A Conservative Icon/Moron

William Buckley Jr. was arguably the most articulate conservative commentator ever to appear on the boob tube. That he was an insufferable ignoramus makes watching him lose every debate a pleasure akin to watching the witch melt in The Wizard of Oz.

 
 
 
 
BONUS COMEDY VIDEOS!
 
Brilliant SCTV parodies of William F. Buckley, Jr.
 

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

INVERTED TOTALITARIANISM

Sheldon Wolin
 
 
(Semantic Scholar.org)
 
"Democracy is struggling in America--by now this statement is almost cliche. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"? Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level. Democracy Incorporated is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America's political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come. In a new preface, Wolin describes how the Obama administration, despite promises of change, has left the underlying dynamics of managed democracy intact." 
 
A Bill Moyers interview with Sheldon Wolin.
 
(Sheldon Wolin - YouTube short video)
 
* * * * *

(Bill Moyers interviews Sheldon Wolin - YouTube long video) 

__________________________

Paul Krugman unwittingly pulls the mask off modern fascistic imperialism.

Anti-Muslim hate crimes soared after 9/11, and thousands of Muslims in the U.S. were detained—and some tortured—in George W. Bush's futile anti-terror dragnet.
(Brett Wilkins, staff writer, Common Dreams.org)

"New York Times columnist Paul Krugman faced withering criticism Friday after he claimed that there was no "mass outbreak of anti-Muslim sentiment and violence" following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

"Overall, Americans took 9/11 pretty calmly," Krugman tweeted on the 19th anniversary of the attacks that left nearly 3,000 people dead in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, and led to U.S. wars of choice in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in which at least hundreds of thousands—and perhaps as many as 2 million—people have died in predominantly Muslim countries."


* * * * *

David Vine - author
 "The United States of War"
on Democracy Now! 
September 11, 2020
(YouTube)

"American University professor David Vine is the co-author of a new report that found at least 37 million people in eight countries have been forced to flee their homes since the start of the U.S.-led, so-called Global War on Terrorism in 2001. "I think most people in the United States, myself included, have not really reckoned with the total damage that these wars have caused," says Vine. The U.S. currently has 800 military bases around the world, "more bases than any nation in world history," he notes. "These bases have not only enabled war, not only made war possible, but they've actually made war more likely — made war a far too-easy-policy choice."
__________________________

It's a myth that following 9/11 everyone supported a war waged against a vaguely defined noun.

I know I didn't and I remember I wasn't alone.

(hyperleap.com)
 
We shouldn't be fighting people. 
We should be fighting against poverty and pollution.
We should fight to ameliorate the effects of climate change.
 
We should be fighting for a future. 

Thursday, September 10, 2020

THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK IS TICKING


 Time is running out. The human experiment is being driven rapidly off a geopolitical cliff. The worldwide levers of power are consistently manipulated to increase the wealth and influence of a sociopathic ruling class. These systems make all people and living things subordinate to their lusts for luxury and lawless excess.

The only question that should concern us all is whether we’ll destroy ourselves before or after climate catastrophe makes our actions moot. If we ignore our impact on the environment, it won’t matter if we survive World War III. Mother Earth won’t care how we commit suicide.

Our rulers don’t appear to understand the existential threats facing the human race, or perhaps more alarmingly they don’t appear to care. Behind the wheel of the doomsday car is the United States of America, the most rapacious nation in human history, and arguably the most violent.

The USA was founded and made strong by destroying peoples and stealing resources. Its history is one of global military and economic violence, increasingly for the benefit of a tiny minority. The myth that we are the good guys can only be maintained by ignoring our history.

Some history.

 * * * * *

Native American Genocide

 "American Holocaust: D. Stannard (Oxford Press, 1992) – “over 100 million killed” “[Christopher] Columbus personally murdered half a million Natives”

“Hitler’s concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America’s extermination – by starvation and uneven combat – of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity.”

— P. 202, “Adolph Hitler” by John Toland

* * * * *

Slavery, by the Numbers

The Middle Passage

1. In the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade (1525-1866), 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. Of them, 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America. Only about 388,000 were transported directly from Africa to North America, as David Eltis, David Richardson and their colleagues have definitively established in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.

2. Children typically comprised 26 percent or more of a slave ship’s human cargo, David Eltis writes in his “Brief Overview of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.” On average, the voyage took “just over two months,” and because of “filthy conditions,” “a range of epidemic pathogens” and “periodic breakouts of violent resistance,” “between 12 and 13 percent of those embarked did not survive the voyage.”

American-Style Slavery

3. The importation of slaves into the United States was banned by Congress (under Constitutional command) in 1808, yet by 1860, the nation’s black population had jumped from 400,000 to 4.4 million, of which 3.9 million were slaves. The primary reason was natural increase, a distinguishing feature of American-style slavery. Between 1790 and 1860, reports Ronald Bailey, author of “The Other Side of Slavery: Black Labor, Cotton, and Textile Industrialization in Great Britain and the United States,” in the spring 1994 issue of Agricultural History, the U.S. slave population increased between 25 percent and 33 percent per year—an average of 28.7 percent over the period.

4. In the U.S., on average, a slave mother gave birth to between nine and 10 children, “twice as many in the West Indies,” according to the Gilder Institute of American History. Yet, in 1860, “less than 10 percent of the slave population was over 50 and only 3.5 percent was over 60.”

Etc. Etc. Etc.
 

About 120 military conflicts are listed on the horribly-slanted Wikipedia website. This list obviously doesn't include clandestine interventions, coups, and weapons-fueled mayhem that regularly occurs without our consent.

List of wars involving the United States
(
Wikipedia.org)

Here's what you might call a short summary of that list:

War is a Racket
(by Major General Smedley Butler)

Here's some more uncomfortable history.

How the Fascists Won World War II
(H. Bruce Franklin at Counter Punch.org)

"This is a mystery story. It revolves around a building that—as you will all come to agree—should have been bombed.

Before construction of the Pentagon during World War II, the two largest and most famous office buildings on planet Earth were the Empire State Building and the headquarters of German industrial behemoth IG Farben. Building these palaces of capitalism was a frantic race run in 1930-1931, at the opening of the Great Depression. Both edifices were designed to inspire awe, by “skyscraper” height in New York, by overwhelming grandiosity in Frankfurt. Unlike the original World Trade Center, both buildings still stand. There is no mystery about how the rugged steel frame of the Empire State Building survived the 1945 direct crash into its 79th floor by a twin-engine B-25 bomber, lost in fog over the city. How the IG Farben HQ survived World War II, however, is a mystery whose dark depths hold secret links between the past and the present."

Top 10 American Companies that Aided the Nazis

 "War profiteers are such a loathsome notion. The idea that while people are struggling for causes while others use the confused nature of military logistics to make dishonest money is appalling. The thought that these companies supported the most deadly regime in the world and went on to become fixtures in our daily lives is loathsome, even well over half a century later, yet it remains a bitter reality.”

 The secret history of US interventions in Latin America

 “The United States has intervened hundreds of times in the affairs of Latin American countries—from spying and proxy wars to major military invasions. Here are the top 8.”

 ____________________

Vivid accounts of human suffering and the long-term detrimental effects of ongoing ecological tragedies have been recorded by historians, can be found in vast and varied personal records and official documents, and in pictures or on film. But history can show both good and evil. It can be a source of beauty as well as ugliness. In history we can discover viable methods to mitigate outcomes. Individuals and organizations currently exist that are trying to wrest control of the doomsday car from the oligarchs, they are trying to steer us in the right direction, away from the cliff. I've listed a couple below; there are many others. Find out what went on in the past, what's going on right now, and discover ways you can support those fighting for a better future.


Code Pink:

"CODEPINK is a women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism, support peace and human rights initiatives, and redirect our tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs."
Extinction Rebellion

THE D'OH! HEARD 'ROUND THE WORLD (REPOST)

 

THE D'OH! HEARD 'ROUND THE WORLD
(Originally posted November 13, 2016.)

Using manufactured hysteria following 9/11 Congress began an insidious expansion of Executive Branch powers. Add that to the very long list of horribleness resulting from the fanciful Pogrom Against Bad People begun under W.

 Trump now has more power than any one man has ever had or should have.

(The Intercept.com)

There was only one voice of reason among our "representatives" following 9/11. I find it amusing when I hear things like, "well, everyone agreed, was afraid, believed the intelligence, etc." Many on the left, in the streets, and on progressive websites knew the military response to 9/11 was bullshit and only served the Military Industrial Complex, and all those who profit from it. I remember being against a military response even in Afghanistan. Without knowing anything specific I knew 9/11 was a crime not an act of war. And even in 2003 it was obvious Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

'We were ignored': anti-war protesters remember the Iraq war marches
(The Guardian.com)

The voices for reason after 9/11 were not simply marginalized but demonized outright. The sad thing is there are still so many who don't acknowledge, or refuse to see how right the dissenters were then and now.

Hear how right she was.

(Youtube video)

Read this and weep.

(Truthdig.com)

The Collapse of the American Empire?

 The Collapse of the American Empire?
(The Agenda with Steve Paikin)
 
"The Agenda welcomes Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, who over the past decade and a half has made his name as a columnist, activist and author. He's been a vociferous public critic of presidents on both sides of the American political spectrum, and his latest book, 'America, the Farewell Tour,' is nothing short of a full-throated throttling of the political, social, and cultural state of his country."

Recorded a year ago, worth watching today.

* * * * *

 (ScheerPost.com)

"Those, like environmental lawyer Steven Donziger, who fight the corporate control of our society on behalf of the vulnerable find the institutions of power unite to crucify them."
 
"...Donziger, who has been fighting polluting American oil companies for nearly three decades on behalf of indigenous communities and peasant farmers in Ecuador, has been under house arrest in Manhattan for a year. He will go to trial in federal court in New York on September 9 on contempt of court charges, which could see him jailed for six months. Ever since he won a multibillion-dollar judgment in 2011 against the oil giant Chevron, the multinational has come after him personally through litigation that threatens to destroy him economically, professionally and personally...
 
#
 
"...It started when Texaco went into Ecuador in the Amazon in the 1960s and cut a sweetheart deal with the military government then ruling Ecuador,” Donziger told me. “Over the next 25 years, Texaco was the exclusive operator of a very large area of the Amazon that had several oil fields within this area, 1500 square miles. They drilled hundreds of wells. They created thousands of open-air, unlined toxic waste pits where they dumped the heavy metals and toxins that came up from the ground when they drilled. They ran pipes from the pits into rivers and streams that local people relied on for their drinking water, their fishing and their sustenance. They poisoned this pristine ecosystem, in which lived five indigenous peoples, as well as a lot of other nonindigenous rural communities. There was a mass industrial poisoning.”

“By the time I went down there in the early 1990s, many people had died, cancer rates were skyrocketing according to several independent health evaluations, people were really hurting. There was zero regard for the lives of the local people by Texaco. I was a very young lawyer back in 1993 when I first went to Ecuador. It was like looking at an apocalyptic scene. There was oil on the roads. People were living in abject poverty. They had no shoes. They would get oil on their feet when they walked along the roads. The oil pollution had permeated every aspect of daily life. It was in the food supply. It was in the water supply. It was in the air. The average person there would get exposed multiple times a day to very harmful, cancer-causing toxins, with foreseeable results.”

 “I, with other lawyers, filed a lawsuit in New York against Texaco. The reason we filed in New York was because Texaco’s headquarters were in New York in 1993. The decisions to pollute in Ecuador, to play God to the people of Ecuador, were made in New York. We sued in New York. Texaco tried to get the case back to Ecuador where they had never been held accountable, where they knew the indigenous peoples had no money or resources to find lawyers.”

_________________

BONUS VIDEO INTERVIEW

On Contact: Chevron vs. Donziger 

(On Contact with Chris Hedges - includes transcript)

"On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to Steven Donziger about the reach of corporate power. Donziger battled corporate oil giant Chevron over environmental pollution and destruction in Ecuador and won a settlement of $9.5 billion for indigenous communities. Since then, Chevron has waged a campaign against Donziger to try and destroy him economically, professionally and personally. He is on trial in federal court in New York on September 9 for contempt charges, which could send him to jail for six months."



Sunday, September 6, 2020

Monday, August 31, 2020

The Freakin' Post Office!

"In today's episode of Some More News, we try to pack in as much information as possible about the recent attacks on the post office, and the recent damage control about how the attacks on the post office are apparently no big deal."

Monday, August 24, 2020

LEARNING HISTORY IS HARD, SO WE REPEAT IT

 HAM A TON
 
Not all reviews are "in."
___________________________
 
Broadway’s Hamilton and the Willing Suspension of Reality-Based Moral Consciousness
(Elizabeth Keyes at Counter Punch.org)

"...Despite the incredible degree of media hype surrounding the show, even prior to its 2015 Broadway debut, I remembered reading a number of strongly argued and intensely passionate negative reviews of Hamilton for profound historical distortions.  These reviews particularly showed up on one of my favorite political websites, CounterPunch."


Skip “Hamilton” and Read Gore Vidal’s “Burr”
(Andrew Stewart at Counter Punch.org)

"...As an antidote to this propaganda, I highly recommend to readers the excellent 1973 historical fiction novel Burr by Gore Vidal. Kicking off his Narratives of Empire cycle, Vidal traced the history of our American imperial project back to the Founders and delivered a genius diagnosis in the form of a post-modern historical novel with wicked sense of humor. Many would argue that it is perhaps Vidal’s finest work, though I wonder if his book on Lincoln fits that category as well."


Thomas Jefferson: Architect of Indian Removal Policy
(Alysa Landry at Indian Country Today)

"...Jefferson first wrote about Indian removal in 1776, 15 years before he was president. Frustrated by growing conflicts between settlers and the Cherokee, Jefferson, then at work with the Continental Congress, reacted harshly.

“Nothing will reduce those wretches so soon as pushing the war into the heart of their country,” he wrote. “But I would not stop there. I would never cease pursuing them while one of them remained on this side of the Mississippi.”

In 1803, two years into his presidency, Jefferson was more succinct. He outlined his administration’s policy toward Indians with two objectives: “The preservation of peace” and “obtaining lands."


* * * * *

On Contact: Teaching of history as indoctrination
(On Contact with Chris Hedges)

"On the show this week, Chris Hedges discusses the teaching of history as a form of indoctrination with Professor James W. Loewen. Loewen’s book is: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. His new book, a memoir, is: Up a Creek, with a Paddle: Tales of Canoeing and Life"

* * * * *

For an alternate view of American History, read the full text of Howard Zinn's brilliant 

Sunday, August 16, 2020

PEACE IS NOT AN OPTION (REPOST)

 


PEACE IS NOT AN OPTION
BECAUSE...FEAR

BE AFRAID! People don't like us. Could it be because we slaughter them, topple their governments, exploit their resources, and literally sanction them to death? No, must be because we're just too damn good, pissing the bad guys off. They can't hate us for our freedom anymore, because we've been busy giving that away to the surveillance state. We're like a boxer throwing his glove up to protect his face, only we keep punching ourselves. All our opponents are winning because we keep knocking ourselves out. The U.S. is a bully who should start asking himself, "Why do I keep punching myself in the face?"

One solution is to donate trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars to an organization that specializes in crushing killing and destroying. Folks'll thank us for destroying their countries and killing their families, right?

Makes as much sense as this
Crush-Kill-Destroy propaganda piece.

Millions of lives are destroyed and trillions are spent without tangible benefits. What a racket! A counter-productive colossal waste that chews up tax money like a black hole, but gets glowing reviews from the Lame Stream Media. If you don't gain power or profit directly from the Military Industrial Complex, you should be asking for some accountability. What is it good for, indeed. The U.S. now wages war without discussion or analysis. We slaughter people everywhere and it's barely news worthy.

Endless global war has been sold to us as business as usual, because…wait…it's coming to me…oh yea, fear. Endless global war is actually catastrophically bizarre and a crime against humanity. Even worse it is a crime against the planet Earth. One way or another spreading conflict throughout the world will harm everyone, including us.

Consider this:
(YouTube video)

 Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine is worth reading.

Friday, August 14, 2020

PEOPLE'S PARTY CONVENTION 2020

"One week after the Democratic and Republican national conventions, Bernie 2020 National Co-Chair Sen. Nina Turner and Bernie 2020 surrogate Dr. Cornel West will join the Movement for a People’s Party to headline The People’s Convention. Turner will deliver a speech titled: Choice, Challenge and Change: The Necessity of a People’s Movement.

On Sunday, August 30, from 4-6 pm EST, thousands of Americans from all walks of life will gather to discuss the state of the nation at The People’s Convention. At the conclusion, participants will vote on forming a major new political party free of corporate money and influence.

The Convention will be digital and broadcast live on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter pages with millions of followers, including The Jimmy Dore Show which will carry the convention to its nearly 800,000 subscribers on YouTube.

The convention will ask: “What kind of world do we want to build from the devastation of the pandemic and economic depression?”

The People's Party

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

SOCIALISM?

 WHY NOT SOCIALISM

Capitalism v Coronavirus: Dawn Of Justice - SOME MORE NEWS

"Hi. In today's episode of Some More News, we discuss how capitalism, banks, businesses and the government are, you know, not quite up to the task of dealing with the coronavirus."

(Some More News on YouTube)

END OF AN EMPIRE

 CHRIS HEDGES

Chris Hedges & Abby Martin: No Way Out Through Elections

(The Empire Files on YouTube)

"Abby Martin sits down with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Chris Hedges to discuss the ignored reality behind Trump, the bipartisan road from neoliberalism to fascism, how the Democratic elite are an institution of corporate power, and how there's no way out through the 2020 election without destroying the system."

* * * * *

Chris Hedges: America’s Death March

Regardless of the outcome, the election will not stop the rise of hypernationalism, crisis cults and other signs of an empire's terminal decline. 

(Scheerpost.com)
"The terminal decline of the United States will not be solved by elections. The political rot and depravity will continue to eat away at the soul of the nation, spawning what anthropologists call crisis cults — movements led by demagogues that prey on an unbearable psychological and financial distress. These crisis cults, already well established among followers of the Christian Right and Donald Trump, peddle magical thinking and an infantilism that promises — in exchange for all autonomy — prosperity, a return to a mythical past, order and security."

 

Saturday, August 8, 2020

EXCEPTIONALLY EVIL ANNIVERSARY


DROPPING THE BOMB

 
"In the first part of our video series with author and Professor of History at American University Peter Kuznick, we examine one of the biggest myths in American history, which states that the use of atomic bombs in Japan in August of 1945 were necessary to save American and Japanese lives."
 
 
"In the second part part of our video series with author and Professor of History at American University Peter Kuznick, we dive deeper into the topic of why the United States actually used atomic bombs against Japan in World War II. In addition, we discuss why it is important to educate people on this issue and what significance it has on our collective future."


Friday, August 7, 2020

THEORY OF EVERYTHING?

THEORY OF EVERYTHING?

What is a Theory of Everything? 

 (PBS Space Time on YouTube)

 * * * * *

 If everything's getting you down, here's a funny and informative video about everything that should perk you back up. The humor and intelligence on display among this group was refreshing (highly recommended).