eileen fleming

Generations of children grew up watching Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite and many dreamed of growing up and being them. My dream was to grow up and be Brenda Starr, the redheaded ace investigative journalist of the Sunday Comics.

Edward R. Murrow turned public opinion against the extremism and fear mongering of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.

Murrow had an even more direct effect when he reported on the case of Milo Radulovich, an Air Force lieutenant who was stripped of his commission after being charged with associating with communists. Murrow’s broadcast resulted in Radulovich’s reinstatement.

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By Kevin Zeese

Bradley Manning

The case of Private Bradley Manning raises legal issues about his pre-trial detention, freedom of speech and the press, as well as proving his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Putting aside Manning’s guilt or innocence, if Bradley Manning saw the Afghan and Iraq war diaries as well as the diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks what should he have done? And, what should be the proper response of government to their publication?

A high point in the application of the rule of law to war came in the Nuremberg trials where leaders in Germany were held accountable for World War II atrocities. Justice Robert Jackson, who served as the chief prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials while on leave from the U.S. Supreme Court, said “If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.”

One of the key outcomes of the Nuremberg trials was that people who commit war crimes or crimes against humanity will be held accountable even if they were following orders. This is known as Nuremberg Principle IV which states: “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.” The Nuremberg principles were enshrined in a series of treaties.

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By Jane Stillwater

Here in America today, Old White Guys tend to be rather angry at the way things are going -- but theirs is not the generation that should be getting truly pissed off. The OWGs are doing fine financially. They have nothing to complain about.

Their walkers and scooters are paid for by MediCare.

Their pensions come regularly in the mail.

Social Security buoys them up, they have lots of savings left over from the good times, they have home equity to fall back on and they don't have to worry about finding a job.

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Greg Bacon

Arizona Shooter Jared Loughner is Jewish

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Allen L Roland

Police Mug shot of Jared Loughner / Pima County Sheriff Department

Gabrielle Gifford’s assassination attempt was an act of domestic terror. Giffords is the first Jewish woman elected to Congress from Arizona which raises the possibility of a hate crime but the increased violence of an ongoing policy of border militarization is the far more likely reason for this domestic terror.

Why isn’t Jared Loughner’s attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords being treated as an act of domestic terror instead of an irrational act of a deranged left or right wing crackpot. There’s more than enough evidence that this act was not only premeditated but encouraged. Loughner’s police mug shot shows the demeanor of someone who is at peace with his horrific actions ~ mission accomplished!

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by Stephen Lendman

William M. Daley

On January 7, New York Time writer Jackie Calmes headlined, "Obama Promises Full Recovery for Employment," saying:

Visiting a window-manufacturing plant "to promote his economic policies and his new team of advisers," he said:

"We will not rest until we have fully recovered from this recession."

Another promise, another to be broken by a scheme to create ruler-serf societies globally, especially in America and the West. Obama's citing a "foundation" for growth is political blather, his specialty like other key team players around him.

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from Gilad Atzmon

Lauren Booth

The previously secretive campaign to halt Press TV Ltd, the British production company, from making programs critical of Western Imperialism, is finally out in the open.Thanks to Wikileaks.

Last month, Julian Assange’s incredible agency, released the news Her Majesty's Government (HMG) is now fully implicated in efforts to shut Press TV Ltd down. Backing, quite clearly, US led efforts, to cripple this tiny, yet heavyweight, British production company.

Let me explain. Ever since it first began making programs some four years ago, Press TV Ltd (the British company, who sells documentaries and series to the Iranian channel of the same name), has been under pressure from what Princess Diana would have known as 'dark Forces.'

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by Stephen Lendman

Western vilification of Islam is longstanding, cruel, and unjustifiable. In his 1978 book "Orientalism," Edward Said explained a pattern of Western misinterpretation of the East, especially the Middle East. In "Culture and Imperialism" (1993), he broadened Orientalism's core argument to show the complex relationships between East and West by referring to colonizers and the colonized, "the familiar (Europe, West, us) and the strange (the Orient, East, them)."

He explained Western high-minded/moral superiority notions compared to culturally inferior Muslims. They're now portrayed as dangerous bomb-throwing terrorists, making them easy prey to wrongfully victimize.

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by Stephen Lendman

Daily accounts can be followed on important sites such as Palestine Chronicle.com, Palestine Telegraph.com, and the Electronic Intifada.net as well as others like Israel's oldest daily newspaper, Haaretz, available online in English.

They and others document harrowing crimes virtually ignored in the West, especially by America's media offering one-sided pro-Israeli reports with imperfect exceptions like Isabel Kershner's January 7 New York Times article headlined, "Israeli Soldiers Kill Palestinian, 65, in His Bedroom," saying:

"Israeli soldiers shot and killed an unarmed 65-year-old Palestinian man....in what appeared to be a case of mistaken identity. The man's wife said he was sleeping and she was praying when soldiers burst into the apartment before dawn, entered the bedroom and immediately opened fire."

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By Timothy V. Gatto

Almost every day I think to myself “What the hell has happened to my country”? I still have a hard time coming to terms with the brutality and the crass disregard for human life that has become a cornerstone of American foreign policy. I also have a hard time coming to terms with this new American concept of fighting this so-called “War on Terror” that has led to the dissolution of our fundamental freedoms as expressed in the bill of rights.

This new America is fundamentally a dictatorship of the affluent. I was watching a book review on C-Span yesterday where the book “Was I Born on the Wrong Continent?” was being discussed. The subject of workers’ rights came up and a woman asked the author a question that was preceded with this statement “We all understand that the elephant in the living room that no one wants to talk about is campaign finance reform”. I was a bit taken aback at that statement only because I have been writing about that particular subject for the last six years.

I have to agree with that young woman who made that statement, but I don’t believe for a minute that “We all understand”. In fact, I believe that most of us in this country don’t understand how political campaigns as they are conducted in the United States has, for all intents and purposes, become so expensive that politicians have sold their souls in order to win elections.

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