When America Destroyed Vietnam Veterans, Did It Seal Their Doom?
by Gordon Duff / October 16th, 2010 ()
Vietnam veterans were taught to hate themselves. When most of us came home, we didn’t know we had lost a war, for some the blame came a decade later, kind of like an Easter surprise and Christmas present rolled into one. One of the first things we knew, the game was stacked against us. I will insert some nasty honesty here. The military we entered was inferior. It was a fat and lazy peacetime service. I joined the “Gomer Pyle Marine Corps,” an elite service capable of training janitors, dishwashers and seaborne waiters. …
The State of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State
by Gary Leupp / October 16th, 2010 ()
On October 10, the Israeli cabinet approved a law requiring all non-Jewish immigrants to Israel to swear loyalty to “the laws of the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.” Up until now they’ve merely pledged loyalty to “the state of Israel.” Meanwhile Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demands that the Palestinian Authority headed by President Mahmud Abbas recognize Israel as a “Jewish state” as the precondition for even a six-month suspension of Israeli settlement construction on the West Bank (to say nothing of serious negotiations towards the establishment of a Palestinian state). Up until now the PA has …
by Maidhc Ó Cathail / October 16th, 2010 ()
In an interview on the Fox Business Network, a retired U.S. intelligence officer accused the official in charge of the 9/11 Commission of a cover-up of intelligence failures leading up to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
Appearing on the political talk show Freedom Watch, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer and the author of Operation Dark Heart, a much-hyped new book on the war in Afghanistan, spoke about his mid-October 2003 encounter with Dr. Philip Zelikow, then executive director of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States.
During a fact-finding …
by Ellen Hodgson Brown / October 16th, 2010 ()
Looming losses from the mortgage scandal dubbed “foreclosuregate” may qualify as the sort of systemic risk that, under the new financial reform bill, warrants the breakup of the too-big-to-fail banks. The Kanjorski amendment allows federal regulators to pre-emptively break up large financial institutions that — for any reason — pose a threat to U.S. financial or economic stability.
Although downplayed by most media accounts and popular financial analysts, crippling bank losses from foreclosure flaws appear to be imminent and unavoidable. The defects prompting the “RoboSigning Scandal” are not mere technicalities but are inherent to the securitization process. They cannot be cured. …
by Alan Hart / October 16th, 2010 ()
Better late than never, a very senior Palestinian official in Ramallah, Yasser Abed Rabbo, found the right way to challenge Israel and the U.S. As reported by AFP on 13 October, he said, “We officially demand that the US administration and the Israeli government provide a map of the borders of the state of Israel which they want us to recognise.”
That’s a completely logical and totally reasonable demand.
IF Israel was interested in peace on terms virtually all Palestinians and most other Arabs and Muslims everywhere could accept, the map provided would show Israel with borders as they were on …
by Nozomi Hayase / October 16th, 2010 ()
Enchanting, joyful and magical are the words that describe the film, The Wizard of Oz. After its release in 1939, it became a classic and one of America’s most beloved films. Based on the 1900 novel by Lyman Frank Barns, in some ways it seemed to have shaped the cultural consciousness of America. It is now even more significant, not only for revealing the development of theatrical fantasy within American life, but also for shedding light on a hidden narrative behind major current events around the world.
The story starts with a nostalgic sepia-colored farmland in Kansas. A young girl named …
by Kourosh Ziabari / October 16th, 2010 ()
Philip Giraldi is a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Now he chairs the Council for the National Interest as the Executive Director. CNI is a nonprofit organization that advocates for the transformation of United States’ Middle East policy.
As a CIA officer, Giraldi served in different countries including Turkey, Italy, Germany and Spain. He is now a Francis Walsingham Fellow at The American Conservative Defense Alliance. He has appeared on several radio and TV programs including Good Morning America, MSNBC, NPR, Fox News, BBC, Al-Jazeera and 60 Minutes.
Giraldi works with the American …
by John Pilger / October 15th, 2010 ()
The rescue of 33 miners in Chile is an extraordinary drama filled with pathos and heroism. It is also a media windfall for the Chilean government, whose every beneficence is recorded by a forest of cameras. One cannot fail to be impressed. However, like all great media events, it is a façade.
The accident that trapped the miners is not unusual in Chile and the inevitable consequence of a ruthless economic system that has barely changed since the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. Copper is Chile’s gold, and the frequency of mining disasters keeps pace with prices and profits. There are, …
by Paul Cochrane / October 15th, 2010 ()
I was sitting with some Kashmiri friends in their apartment in the New Delhi area of Lajpat Nagar, just a stone’s throw away from the Nehru Stadium, one of the sports complexes India has shelled out $9 billion to host the Commonwealth Games (CWG). The CWG, which brings together the 71 countries and territories of the former British Empire, was about to launch, and on a national TV channel the slogan was “Go India Go.”
Sprawled out on Kashmiri carpets, we were discussing the grave situation in Kashmir over the past four months. Since June 11, when the Indian army shot …
by Gene DeNardo / October 15th, 2010 ()
Often, questions about things we take for granted, things that are institutionalized, don’t go far enough. We commonly question whether interest rates are too high or too low, but never really get to the heart of the matter: is interest a normal function of a truly free market or a result of outside force in a controlled marketplace?
We need an understanding of what interest actually is to even begin to question its validity. There are many definitions. The most widely accepted probably is the Austrian view that interest is a time preference choice made subjectively. The problem with this …
by Ramzy Baroud / October 15th, 2010 ()
If one tried to fit music compositions into an equivalent literary style, Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble’s latest release would come across as a most engaging political essay: persuasive, argumentative, rational, original, imaginative and always unfailingly accessible.
But unlike the rigid politicking of politicians and increasingly Machiavellian style of today’s political essayists – so brazen they no longer hide behind illusory moral façades – the band’s latest work is also unapologetically humanistic.
Those familiar with the writings of Gilad Atzmon – the famed ex-Israeli musician and brilliant saxophone player, now based in London …
by Rady Ananda / October 15th, 2010 ()
In July of this year, the United Nations declared access to clean water a human right. The United States was among 41 nations that abstained from supporting the resolution. Since October 15th is Blog for Water Day, a close inspection of a common US practice – fluoridating city water supplies – is in order.
The subject of water fluoridation has been controversial for decades, but a new book, The Case Against Fluoride, won the accolades of a Nobel Laureate:
Sweden rejected fluoridation in the 1970s and, in this excellent book, …
by Stephen Lendman / October 15th, 2010 ()
In September 1998, Miami FBI agents arrested Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzales, and Rene Gonzalez on spurious charges, including conspiracy to commit espionage. For days, however, no formal notification was given until a complicit media campaign smeared them falsely and maliciously.
At a June 2, 2010 Washington National Press Club press conference, the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five’s coordinator, Gloria La Riva, announced new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) obtained evidence revealing names of 14 journalists who “were receiving covertly (paid) monies from the US government.”
Included was Pablo …
Why my fingers will be crossed
by Jonathan Cook / October 15th, 2010 ()
In all likelihood, I will be one of the very first non-Jews expected to swear loyalty to Israel as an ideology rather than as a state.
Until now, naturalising residents, like the country’s soldiers, pledged an oath to Israel and its laws. That is the situation in most countries. But soon, if the Israeli parliament passes a bill being advanced by the government, aspiring citizens will instead be required to uphold the Zionist majority’s presumption that Israel is a “Jewish and democratic state”.
My application for citizenship is due to be considered in the next few months, seven years after …
by Robert D. Skeels / October 15th, 2010 ()
Just continue to follow the money. This Race to the Trough will make the Reading First crooks under Bush look like dopey Boy Scouts.
– Jim Horn, PhD (Educator, Writer)
EdWize has a short blurb on the Walton Foundation’s mouthpiece—the vile Davis Guggeheim—called Guggenheim on Unions, Green Dot. It mentions an interview in which the propagandist further vilifies the hard working women and men that teach in our communities.
I had the following response:
That’s nuance? If by “reasonable” Guggenheim means reactionary, then I suppose he’d have a point. Given his specious understanding of pedagogy and public education in general, …
