As I said before, no one is safe from the convenient rationale of security agencies to spy indiscriminately on their own citizens - when we allow them to do so, that is. Of course, and as I discussed previously at length in numerous posts here at APOV (such as here , here or here , as a few exanples), a confluence of attitudes is required for a democracy to arrive at a stage whereby pervasive domestic spying comes to be not only instituted, but furthermore ratified as legal after the fact... Read Full Story
This ignoramus represents what the Republican party is now - a devolution we've witnessed all too well (more examples here , here , here , here , here and here ) during the past U.S. Presidency campaign and which is now fully achieved: Joe the Plumber suggests some members of Congress should be shot On Wednesday, Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher said that if he were in Congress, he would “probably be in jail” because he’d be charged with “ slapping some member .” He added, “And that’s not... Read Full Story
... then let's take a long , hard , look at ourselves in a mirror . As if there was not enough evidence already ... US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites by Mark Danner ICRC Report on the Treatment of Fourteen "High Value Detainees" in CIA Custody by the International Committee of the Red Cross We need to get to the bottom of what happened-and why-so we make sure it never happens again. [1] -Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee 1. We think time and elections will... Read Full Story
... of the 4th and 5th Principles being enacted in full throttle: Fleischer Defends Iraq Invasion: After 9/11, ‘How Could We Take A Chance’ That Saddam Might ‘Strike Again’? Yesterday on MSNBC, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was back to defend President Bush’s legacy. One of the flack’s favorite subjects is the Iraq war. Last month, he went on CNN and said that Saddam Hussein — not the Bush administration — was actually “ the big liar .” Yesterday he dragged out a long-recycled... Read Full Story
The human rights and war crimes of the Bush administration remain unanswered. These are not allegations being loosely brandied about, but rather backed by serious incriminating evidence - which include various bona fides public confessions to this effect. In Canada, all of these were quietly condoned by our refusal to arrest and charge former President George W. Bush when he came into our country - most likely out of our collective guilt at knowing that our very own security agencies... Read Full Story
The following news item pretty much exemplifies what has gone wrong with unfettered greed and our current economic woes (emphasis aded): Nortel seeks court approval to pay bonuses to execs Lawyers for Nortel Networks Corp. will be in court Friday, arguing for the right to award bonuses to a group of eight top executives at the telecommunications company. The company, which has filed for bankruptcy protection, says the payouts are necessary to boost flagging morale at the floundering company... Read Full Story
I said it before and I'll say it again: the current state of the traditional media/MSM, its atrocious performance and its dismal job at actually informing us, has much to do with the search for instant gratification , intellectual sloth and incompetence . No wonder, then, that " journalists " are easy pawns in the hands of dishonest and equally incompetent politicians. Which in turn is greatly damaging to any democracy . The following article offers more damning evidence to this effect: The... Read Full Story
Back there , I called incompetence on ( gasp !) President Obama and his administration. As a consequence, I've received a couple of, ah, " aggressive-defensive " e-mails hotly contesting my aforementioned conclusion. (There were even calls for me to "surrender" my progressive credentials and other such nonsense) Now, here's a refresher of the Eight Principles of Incompetence : Zeroth Principle : Incompetence is driven by intellectual sloth . First Principle : Incompetence surrounds itself... Read Full Story
I now yield the floor to Glenn Greenwald: ( disclosure : yours truly has already equated Obama with Bush for the former's rush to embrace the latter's policies, all while giving lip service to the contrary - and therefore acting incompetently in this respect) Obama's "enemy combatant" policy: following a familiar pattern Rich Lowry, National Review , Friday : Barack Obama has perfected a three-step maneuver that could never even be attempted by a politician lacking his rhetorical skill or... Read Full Story
In light of the previous posts here and there , the following (lengthy) article is offered for your consideration: The Imperial Unconscious By Tom Engelhardt Sometimes, it’s the everyday things, the ones that fly below the radar, that matter. Here, according to Bloomberg News, is part of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s recent testimony on the Afghan War before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: U.S. goals in Afghanistan must be 'modest, realistic,' and 'above all, there must be an... Read Full Story
