More on this fine man here.
Why Wikileaks and Julian Assange are essential for functioning of real democracy
Patrick Cockburn in the Independent is spot-on with his comments about Wikileaks. Many in the corporate media have degraded themselves with petty criticisms and jealousy: As Julian Assange evades arrest by taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge to escape extradition to Sweden, and possibly the US, British commentators have targeted him with shrill…
The clueless American war in Afghanistan
An extract from a new book by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan, author of the … startling book about the disastrous Iraq invasion, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: When Richard Holbrooke became the Obama administration’s Afghanistan point man in January 2009, Summer Coish was keen to join his civilian…
Preying on Haiti; a study in disaster capitalism
Via Haiti Grassroots Watch: Twenty billion dollars worth of gold, copper and silver hidden in the hills of the hemisphere’s poorest country. Investors in North America so convinced of the buried treasure, they have already spent 30 million dollars collecting samples, digging, building mining roads and doing aerial surveys. The fairy tale is true, but…
2012 proves that dangers for reporters increasing by the day
Columbia Journalism Review has the shocking facts: … With 72 journalists killed so far this year, 2012 is on pace to be the deadliest on record, the International Press Institute (IPI)… announcedhere on Sunday. The media freedom organization’s executive director, Alison Bethel McKenzie, choked up and struggled to speak as she… addressed… the group’s annual conference. “From Somalia to…
Assange interviews Imran Khan, Tariq Ali and Noam Chomsky
The great The World Tomorrow series continues (past episodes here). A few weeks ago it was Pakistani politician Imran Khan and then this week Tariq Ali and Noam Chomsky. Find me another mainstream TV talk show that actually believes in seriously examining ideas, political philosophy and democracy:
#LeftTurn tackled by Socialist Alternative
The following review of #LeftTurn appears in Socialist Alternative by Tom O’Lincoln: Review:… Left Turn: political essays for the new left.Antony Loewenstein and Jeff Sparrow (eds), Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2012 Capitalism is complicated, and so are the challenges to it. So a book like… Left Turn, offering an array of agenda-setting arguments, is bound to be…
Repeat after me; Blackwater never dies
San Diego Reader on a company that has thrived, despite major controversies, since 9/11. Almost the definition of disaster capitalism: … Last week, Gail Collins, an op-ed columnist for the New York Times, wrote a story about privatization. In the… article, Collins describes privatization efforts that haven’t gone so well. Some examples she listed were privatizing prisons,…
Finally some sense on showing Zionist love
Stand back, world, America has spoken: Congress today passed a bipartisan bill requiring Americans to add Israel’s Star of David to the U.S. flag for the week of July 4th. Rep. Hugh Llewellyn III (R-Alabama) and Sen. Dale Wentworth (D-New Jersey) introduced the legislation during a special session. … Citizens who own American flags should…