Friday, December 31, 2010

A Zoo of Our Own Making

By Phil Rockstroh
December 31, 2010

In an age, when nature is besieged and the political landscape blighted, and one stands, stoop shouldered and wincing into the howling wasteland of epic-scale idiocy extant in the era, a solitary person can feel lost ... marooned inside an increasingly isolated sense of self.

Read on.

Birth of Pakistan's Islamic Extremism

By Alvaro Vargas Llosa
December 31, 2010

Hardly a day goes by without news about the penetration of the Pakistani state by Islamic fanaticism and the connection between that country’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate and radical groups in Afghanistan, including the Taliban.

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Thursday, December 30, 2010

The Coming War over the Constitution

By Robert Parry
December 30, 2010

Despite a few victories in the lame-duck session of Congress, Democrats and progressives should be under no illusion about the new flood of know-nothingism that is about to inundate the United States in the guise of a return to “first principles” and a deep respect for the U.S. Constitution.

Read on.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The US Media Hit on Helen Thomas

By Danny Schechter
December 29, 2010

In 1960, I co-founded a student magazine at Cornell University called Dialogue. I was a wannabe journalist, fixated on emulating the courageous media personalities of the times from Edward R. Murrow to a distinctive figure I came to admire at Presidential press conferences, a wire service reporter named Helen Thomas.

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Argentina's Dapper State Terrorist

By Marta Gurvich
December 29, 2010 (Originally published August 19, 1998)
Read on.

Hungary's Embrace of Propaganda

By Abby Martin
December 29, 2010

Naomi Wolf's book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, argues that there are ten steps common to every state that has made the transition into fascism.

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Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Obama's Fear of the Reagan Narrative

By Robert Parry
December 28, 2010

At a closed-door White House meeting this month, President Barack Obama justified his repeated concessions to the Right as necessitated by its success over three decades in selling Ronald Reagan’s anti-government message to broad sectors of the American public.

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Trying More Carrots with Iran

By Ivan Eland
December 28, 2010

Although the recently released WikiLeaks secrets document the well-known animosity of Iran’s neighbors to the radical Islamist regime — with their hopes for a U.S. attack on the nation over its nuclear enrichment program — talks to end the Iranian effort will continue.

Read on.

Monday, December 27, 2010

America's Slide toward Totalitarianism

By Abby Martin
December 27, 2010

In George Orwell’s 1984, Britain is depicted as a totalitarian police state that is ruled by the Party, or Big Brother – an enigmatic, ubiquitous elite that controls society through heavy surveillance, nationalist propaganda and historical revisionism.

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America's Dangerous Self-Deceptions

By Lawrence Davidson
December 27, 2010

Benjamin Disraeli once labeled Britain’s government "an organized hypocrisy." That was in circa 1845. Things have not changed much and by now hypocrisy might well be seen as a common sin of democratic government.

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