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When was the last time you heard of a terrorist conspiracy case that did not include a police agent or a paid “confidential informant” (CI), and wasn’t the result of a “sting operation”?
The latest such FBI-police op in the news is that of the so-called Cleveland Six (which also conveniently targets that city’s Occupy movement). No doubt their intent. more…
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My all-too-brief occupation as a working journalist, included covering areas of the Middle East, East Africa, and Central & South America (1969-74).
Christiane Amanpour (54)...
I started in Beirut, Lebanon, easily the most beautiful city in the world, at least that I’ve ever visited. Beirut has well-earned the title of Paris of the Middle East with over 5,000 years of Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Ottoman and French history.
Despite the Lebanese civil war of 1975-90, Syria’s occupation from 1976-2005, and Israel’s occupation from 1978-2000, the city has returned as a cosmopolitan nexus of Arab and Western culture. more…
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Since initial publication, this site has documented the role of the current Republican Party as conscious and enthusiastic quislings of the corporate quest to destroy what remains of the American democratic republic.
Meet the Fockers...
This has been a centuries long goal of corporatists after the rule of the former aristocracies. Since those victories in the 18th century, there’s always been a wing of the corporate elite that has consistently planned to attain complete state power and rule in its own name.
The ideals of democracy and the mass majority working-class, have been the greatest impediments to that ambition. more…
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Being ignored by the corporate media since July 1st are hundreds of prisoners across some 13 prisons in California conducting a hunger strike to the death. Many prisoners are also refusing water and medical care.
Pelican Bay State Prison SHU...
Prisoners are protesting a variety of conditions, including poor medical treatment, indeterminate sentences in the Segregated Housing Units (SHU), collective punishment, and a coercive form of debriefing that relies on snitches to determine one’s criminality and allegation of gang membership. more…
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When I heard about nine children being “mistakenly” killed in Afghanistan, I first thought of a drone or helicopter attack with rockets. 
The article cited a “Pentagon spokesperson” describing an accident by “NATO helicopters.” I knew that was a deflection (NATO? From what country? NATO isn’t an independent force), but didn’t give it much consideration at the time.
How many times over the past 20+ years in prison have I read of an incident that I was witness to where the truth was almost never told? A “prison spokesman” opining a believeable and convenient reason…burying the reality. more…
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My subscribers may wonder at this site’s recent failure to post timely notices, along with a slow-down of articles. For some reason—gremlins in the machine?—the notification plug-in stopped working about January 20th.
Pathetic Propaganda...
That has now been corrected, I hope… Perhaps the gov’t mistook my site for WikiLeaks…whatever. In any event, I’ve taken this opportunity to do some work on two book projects, and have found myself quite absorbed in that.
Meantime, allow me to comment on a few news items that have crossed my desk… more…
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Maybe I have too much time on my hands. My mind tends to wander thru a variety of “What ifs…”.
Some philosophers and scientists conjecture that there may be a number of reality dimensions, or alternate universes. An interesting thought…
Image one where Bush is not an ex-drunken frat-boy who got sober and became president and took his cruel pathologies into mass crimes against humanity. (Yo! Bush-baby! Take another goddamn drink, will ya?) Wouldn’t the world be better off if he had just stayed drunk? more…
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At the risk of becoming a Cassandra, I again address the headlong plunge by America into state corporatism. Sometimes we refuse to listen because of the source.
They already won...
Paul Craig Roberts is a character with such a many-colored coat. He was an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Ronald Reagan, an Associate Editor at the Wall Street Journal, a much-lauded academician and researcher, and he wrote a number of books, including, Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice (2008).
Roberts wrote recently for vdare.com on December 29th, that “Anyone who doesn’t believe that the US is an incipient fascist state needs only to consult the latest assault on civil liberties by Fox News.” (The specific occasion is not important to this article…there are many examples to choose from.) more…
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Since over 95% of us will be returning to our respective communities, we look forward to a future of relative freedom. But the increasing view that we’re getting is that your world is looking a lot more like our world.
Enter the Winter...
Hyperbole? An exaggeration? The freedoms we enjoyed and took for granted barely a generation ago are largely historical fantasy today. Even the simple things.
I agree with Old Ben Franklin. To paraphrase: People willing to trade their freedom for security deserve neither and will lose both.
I recall one time taking a comercial flight to California from Detroit Metro when the police came and were questioning those of us waiting to board. (I never found out what it was about, and since I was on political business, I didn’t ask.) As one of the officers looked at my ticket and then my ID, he asked, “Is this your ticket?” (It was in a different name.)
When I replied, yes, he gave it back to me and moved on to the next person in line. It never occurred back then to either of us what name I might choose to fly under. (Businessmen, in fact, often did so for their own reasons.) Those days are gone. more…
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A person we see dominating the news these days is the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange. Whistle-blowers and patriots, having leaked gov’t and military secrets to the site, are giving the keepers of these essentially political papers fits.
WikiLeaks: Julian Assange
No greater fury hath… There is an axiom in politics: The worse thing you can do is publicly embarrass an institutional bureaucrat.
After an international police (Interpol) manhunt, Assange was arrested and imprisoned in Britain without bail awaiting extradition to Sweden for “sex offenses.” All of this “coincided” with the US attack on WikiLeaks.
As prisoners of the largest gulag in world history—namely, the United States—I believe we have an interest in understanding and following this “criminal” case. We have more than a few of our own irons in that systemic justice fire. more…
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