Typically eloquent Noam Chomsky, speaking this weekend at the Geneva Press Club: My own opinion is that Snowden should be honored. He was doing what every citizen ought to do, telling. [Applause] He was telling Americans what the government was doing. That’s what’s supposed to happen. Governments as I mentioned before always plead security no…
Showing all posts tagged United States
When insider media meets war mongers group hugging obligatory
The vast majority of so-called journalists in the mainstream media ain’t interested in reporting fairly about the role of US power; they want to be an extension of it. A fascinating insight by Max Blumenthal in Alternet on a recent love-in: Seated on a stool before an audience packed with spooks, lawmakers, lawyers and mercenaries,…
“The Act of Killing” documentary challenges history, reality, genocide
How we remember history and the violence within it is one of the great challenges of our age. From the Holocaust to Cambodia and Rwanda to Palestine, we are all haunted by holding power to account. Last night I watched one of the most remarkable documentaries I’ve ever seen, Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing:…
Education is key to fighting disaster capitalism
Henry Rollins is a passionate and cluey American who has spent years fighting the corporate take-over of the state. Here’s his 2012 talk on education being the key in tackling disaster capitalism. A great way to introduce my new book, Profits of Doom:
Memo to media damning Latin America over Snowden and Assange
Never let facts get in the way of a good story. Here’s an important corrective, by a range of Latin American scholars, to a gullible and pro-US media that prefers playing the man than the issues: The supposed “irony” of whistle-blower Edward Snowden seeking asylum in countries such as Ecuador and Venezuela has become a…
US surveillance state isn’t new but its scope is
Perhaps the most startling few words about the revelations related to Edward Snowden appeared in the Washington Post this week (via Glenn Greenwald): The Washington Post this morning has… a long profile of Gen. Keith Alexander, director the… NSA, and it highlights the crux – the heart and soul – of the NSA stories, the reason Edward…
US army vet offers war truths on breakfast TV
Now and then, voices appear in the mainstream media that challenge the overly comfortable blabber that passes for news. This morning on Channel 7’s Weekend Sunrise US army veteran Vince Emanuele spoke on Iraq, Afghanistan, drones, the war on terror and Australian gutlessness towards Washington:
Untangling the murky energy war between US and China
Far too often the media covers conflicts in terms of good guys and bad guys, ignoring the never-ending power dynamics over energy and oil. Fascinating piece by Pepe Escobar in Asia Times that describes who really runs the world: Beijing has clearly interpreted the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s “liberation” of Libya – now reverted into…