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ICONS AND GEO-POLITICS or MUST RUSSIA BAIL OUT UKRAINE? 'A Very European Story'
Gaither Stewart
Symbols and objects held sacred by a whole people form a more powerful protective barrier than the highest of walls. Even the Great Wall of China was more a scarecrow than a real barrier to Mongol invaders. In that figurative sense I have imagined here the Russian icon as a historical defense of Russia against circling invaders, against mercenary armies and menacing space shields.
(Rome) Even though Russian icons have little meaning in the USA, religious icons lie at the roots of pictorial art in Slavic East Europe. For the seven hundred years from the 11th century until the time of Peter the Great, the icon practically was the only indigenous pictorial art of the vast territories of the Eastern Slavs, which later, in fact, coincided with the former USSR. Though a mysterious object, the icon, that is, the sacred image, or the sacred representation that the museum visitor easily passes up for more conventional art, is nonetheless both pure art … and at the same time sacred art.
EVIL are these means and avowed ends
By Carolyn Bennett
In a sense there are only Means and means must be judged against firm and impartial standards of morality and legality. If an End though a means is envisioned as an end, it too must stand and be judged impartially as moral or immoral, just or unjust, legal or illegal, humane or inhumane. Ends contrived by men never justify means. Given this—
The world watches Israel as it enters another corrupt phase in a sixty-year era of corruption—means upon means. Thomas Paine said “A bad cause will ever be supported by bad means and bad men” (and women). In its fraudulent cause Israel has caused deaths and displacements of hundreds of thousands of people who never harmed or threatened Jews.
Ronald Reagan: Betrayer of Main Street America!
William Hughes
“When it came to corporate greed, the Great Communicator [Ronald Reagan] was also the Great Enabler.” - William Kleinknecht
The book is a scathing, and well deserved, indictment of that “empty suit” Ronald Reagan, and his ultra-grasping political creed, “Reaganism,” which directly led to the “Financial Meltdown of 2008.” The disastrous economic legacy of “hyper capitalism,” that this “free market” zealot sold the country, (1981-89), along with his mean-spirited “gutting of the public sector,” is fully documented by the author William Kleinknecht. Reagan is that same pious faker, who believed in “flying saucers” and let an astrologer set “his presidential schedule,” and “repeatedly misrepresented the past as a laissez-faire utopia.” The tome is entitled: “The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America.” It’s appropriate that the author had experience as a “crime reporter.” What he has written about, in a real sense, are enormous wrongs against the people--against the public good--that threaten the very existence of the Republic.
Dispatches from the Front Lines of Economic Crisis
Stephen Lendman
The more they do, the worse it gets, and world headlines confirm it. Recent ones include:
-- The New York Times, February 17: "After Manhattan's Office Boom, a Hard Fall;"
-- Washington Post, February 17: "Obama signs $787 billion stimulus bill; Dow Jones industrial average drops nearly 300 points;"
Dow theorist, Richard Russell, called it "one of the damnedest closes I've ever seen," within one point of the November 20 low, and added: "I thought President Obama outlawed torture in the US. Wall Street is not listening."
The next day both the Dow and Transportation averages hit new bear market lows. For Dow theorists like Russell and others, it's confirmation of lower ones to come.
Obama’s Policy on Civil Liberties: Bush Lite?
Ivan Eland
Barack Obama entered the presidency as one of the most rhetorically pro-civil liberties politicians in recent memory. And shortly after taking office, he drew applause from friends of liberty for promulgating executive orders closing Guantanamo and CIA secret prisons, ending CIA torture, suspending kangaroo proceedings at military tribunals, and pledging more openness than the secretive Bush administration. Unfortunately, instead of prosecuting Bush administration officials, including George W. Bush, for violating criminal statutes against torture, illegal wiretapping of Americans, and other misdeeds—thus avoiding the bad precedent of giving a president a free pass on illegal acts—Obama appears ready to vindicate the prior administration’s anti-terrorism program by adopting Bush Lite.
The Battle for Bil'in
eileen fleming
[Bil'in, Feb. 23, 2009] For four years, the beleaguered agricultural village of Bil'in in the West Bank has resisted the route of Israel's Wall; which in Bil'in is composed of miles of electrified-barbed wire fencing that denies the landowners access to their legally owned land.
The Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that The Fence must be moved and the stolen land restored to the Bil'in villagers; but civil and military authorities have not complied and last week, night time raids by Israel escalated.
Foes of Mountaintop Removal Have no Ally in the White House The Myth of Clean Coal
Joshua Frank
Barack Obama seems to be following a dirty legacy when it comes to his official energy policy, a policy that has left Appalachia with fewer mountaintops every year.
The price of oil per barrel fluctuated dramatically in the past year, and the U.S.'s dependency on foreign crude has become less stable as tensions in the Middle East have escalated. Over his long campaign, Obama laid out his strategy on how to deal with the crisis, which has been exacerbated by the war in Iraq and the potential confrontation with Iran, not to mention the oil speculator's dubious role in the money game. But sadly Obama has been echoing old solutions to our new 21st century environmental troubles. Mainly, where is our energy going to come from if oil supplies dwindle or prices skyrocket again? And how will this all affect the dire reality of climate change?
How to Conduct the Struggle: The Next Steps
Eric Sommer
Social action begins with concerns, which may include anger or outrage at injustice. But effective strategy must also take account of the power, positions, and possibilities of the various social forces and social classes involved. A number of such factors must be considered when mobilizing around the interests of ordinary people during the emerging world ecnomic crisis.
First, we need to note that the share of national profits enjoyed by the financial sector in the U.S. rose from 6 percent in 1980 to 40 percent in 2008. In short, the economic power and weight of this sector has expanded astronomically in the past few decades. Almost half of all profits last year went to those who produced no goods or services useful to human beings, other than the manipulation of money and credit.
War Criminals, Including Their Lawyers, Must Be Prosecuted
Marjorie Cohn
Since he took office, President Obama has instituted many changes that break with the policies of the Bush administration. The new president has ordered that no government agency will be allowed to torture, that the U.S. prison at Guantánamo will be shuttered, and that the CIA's secret black sites will be closed down. But Obama is non-committal when asked whether he will seek investigation and prosecution of Bush officials who broke the law. "My view is also that nobody's above the law and, if there are clear instances of wrongdoing, that people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen," Obama said. "But," he added, "generally speaking, I'm more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards." Obama fears that holding Team Bush to account will risk alienating Republicans whom he still seeks to win over.
A New Afghanistan Nightmare
Ramzy Baroud
When US envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke met with Afghanistan’s ‘democratically’ installed President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on February 14, he may have just learned of the historic significance of the following day. February 15 commemorates the end of the bloody Russian campaign against Afghanistan (August 1978-February 1989).
But it is unlikely that Holbrooke will absorb the magnitude of that historic lesson. Both he and the new US President Barack Obama are convinced that the missing component for winning the war in Afghanistan is a greater commitment, as in doubling the troops, increasing military spending, and, by way of winning hearts and minds, investing more in developing the country. That combination, the US administration believes, will eventually sway Afghans from supporting the Taliban, tribal militias, Pashtun nationalists and other groups. The latter is waging a guerilla struggle in various parts of the country, mostly in the south, to oust Karzai’s government and foreign occupation forces. While Kabul was considered an “oasis of calm” – by Jonathan Steele’s account – during the Soviet rule, it’s nowhere close to that depiction under the rule of the US and its NATO allies, who had plenty of time, eight long years, to assert their control, but failed.
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