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Exorcism Versus America’s Naïve Movie Industry
By Thor Thader
“Man … can … surmount all his real enemies … but does he not immediately raise up to himself imaginary enemies, the demons of fancy, who haunt him with superstitious terrors and blast every enjoyment of life?” - Philo in David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
Evil is real—irrespective of personal belief about religion. ‘Evil’, a human word to be sure, as all words are, is mundanely defined as that which is harmful. Any creature therefore, man or animal, has a natural vulnerability to various forms of harm—that is subject to evil’s influence. Our perception of evil may be subjective, relative and egocentric—but so is the skin on our hide and so is equally the state of our imagination. We can be physically harmed and we can experience fear and anxiety. Therefore “we” believe in the reality of evil.
The question has never been whether evil existed—rather it has been one of how to explain it in conjunction with an idea of an all-powerful and supposedly beneficent God. So naturally, the concept of a “devil,” as counter point to a belief in a benign God came along, and continues to work for some. And not too surprisingly such a “motivated” spiritual force has been used to explain much over the centuries.
American Manufacturing Slowly Rotting Away: How Industries Die
Ian Fletcher
I wrote in a previous article about why America's manufacturing sector, despite record output, is actually in very deep trouble: record output doesn't prove the sector healthy when we are running a huge trade deficit in manufactured goods, i.e. consuming more goods than we produce and plugging the gap with asset sales and debt.
But this analysis of the problem only touches the quantitative surface of our ongoing industrial decline. Real industries are not abstract aggregates; they are complex ecosystems of suppliers and supply chains, skills and customer relationships, long-term investments and returns. Deindustrialization is thus a more complex process than is usually realized. It is not just layoffs and crumbling buildings; industries sicken and die in complicated ways.
The Obama Administration's Clueless Trade Diplomacy
Ian Fletcher
Obama clearly doesn't get it yet on trade agreements.
Despite the fact that every major American trade agreement since NAFTA has worsened America's trade balance, he actually seems to think he can improve America's export performance by going for more, starting with a free-trade agreement with South Korea.
So it's worth taking a hard look at why America's trade diplomacy is so chronically dysfunctional. I mean, if the trade agreements our government signs are so disadvantageous to the U.S., why does it sign them in the first place?
The obvious answer is, of course, special interest pressures. Realpolitik in the name of the national interest is a joke; what we have is multinational corporations headquartered in the U.S. passing themselves off as American and calling the shots.
Even worse, many of the largest American companies are now so dependent on their overseas operations, and thus so vulnerable to pressures by foreign governments, that they have become outright Trojan horses with respect to American trade policy. As former congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA), for years one of the outstanding critics of trade giveaways in Congress, has put it.
A Global Call for Sharing and Justice
Adam Parsons (STWR)
Protesters in the Arab world have much in common with those reacting to austerity across Europe, as well as the millions who have mobilised in support of ending poverty in the South. What we may be witnessing is an emerging public voice in favour of a fundamental reordering of global priorities, write Adam Parsons and Rajesh Makwana.
In a dramatic series of events since late 2010, a new and intensified phase of public protest has erupted across both wealthy and poor regions of the world. Right across Europe, harsh programs of financial austerity have led to escalating protests and mass public campaigns; in the Middle East and North Africa, a revolutionary wave of civil unrest is gripping the international media; and less reported are countless smaller anti-government demonstrations taking place across diverse continents. As commentators struggle to keep up with the rapid unfolding of these events, it is worthwhile to reflect on the basic connections between these varied struggles, and to pose a simple question: are we witnessing the birth of a truly international public voice calling for wealth redistribution and wholesale political reform?
The Empire Loses a Publicist: The Epitaph of an Ideologue
By James Petras
The recent death of one of the United States’ most prominent sociologists, Harvard Professor Daniel Bell, and the effusive eulogies that have accompanied his obituaries highlight the importance of ideological utility over scientific rigor. Typical of the mass media’s hagiographic write-ups is the obituary in the Financial Times (2/12-13/1, p. 5), which claimed that “Few men are given the gift of seeing into the future, but Daniel Bell … was one of them … with uncanny accuracy”. Further on, the ‘puff’ piece pronounced that, “Few thinkers in the second half of the 20th century managed to catch the social and cultural shifts of the times with such range and in such detail as he did”. No doubt there are some important reasons why Bell warrants such effusive praise, but it certainly is not because of his understanding of the political, economic, ideological developments which transpired in the United States during his intellectual life.
A mass murderer named Muammar al-Qaddafi
By Khalid Amayreh
In Libya , the Qaddafi regime's mercenaries, thugs and henchmen have been massacring peaceful demonstrators protesting political tyranny, economic deprivation and the shocking absence of human rights and civil liberties.
In the capital Tripoli, helicopter gunship and even air force fighters have been machineguning unarmed protesters, killing and maiming hundreds.
The scenes of the disfigured bodies of victims, hit from above, can't be described in words. Mercenaries recruited from some African countries have been firing on every moving thing, even ambulances.
Morgues are filled to capacity with dead protesters, most of who with gunshots on the back sides of their bodies, suggesting that the regime's forces had been ordered to shoot to kill anybody moving, including fleeing demonstrators.
Wisconsin: Ground Zero to Save Public Worker Rights
by Stephen Lendman
Ronald Reagan was right saying:
"Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."
His type governance, that is, and from administrations that followed, Democrats as ruthless as Republicans.
For decades, bipartisan consensus governed lawlessly, waging imperial wars, trashing human rights and civil liberty protections, unabashedly backing monied interests, letting them loot the federal treasury, fleecing working Americans, and targeting organized labor for destruction.
Waging War on Chicago Workers
by Stephen Lendman
In Washington, Obama, Democrats and Republicans are doing it. In Wisconsin and other states, so are Governor Scott Walker, other governors, and mayors across America - planning major social benefits cuts and other ways to address budget shortfalls through layoffs, fewer services, and other draconian measures on the backs of working people, ones least able to afford them.
At the same time, America's aristocracy is thriving, benefitting largely from tax cuts, other benefits, and bipartisan complicity to reward them by exemption from planned austerity when stimulus, job creation, and other populist measures are needed, including for Chicagoans facing hard times. Instead, all major mayoral candidates promise worker sacrifices to benefit business and city elites.
The Money Party on the Road to Ruin
Michael Collins
The Money Party is destroying the United States. For ten years, there have been no new jobs with flat income. Unemployment and poverty are making a big comeback. The party consists of those who own and control concentrations of great wealth and the select few who serve them (their Mandarins). Based on the efficiency of the demolition job, you have to wonder, is this is by design? If greed, ignorance, and paranoia constitute a plan, then they are master planners. (Image)
Look at the glaring problems below. Then ask yourself, has there been one single program implemented to address any of these problems, just one? Our elected representatives enable the relentless process of driving down the United States. They bicker and fume at the edge of issues. However, when it comes to neglecting the real needs of citizens and the country, they are as one. All rewards and resources flow to their patrons and owners, the made men and women of The Money Party. We are nothing to them.
The Security Budget vs. the Necessities of Americans
By Kevin Zeese
President Obama and the Congress have taken 66% of discretionary spending in the federal budget off the table – the Security Budget – while proposing a freeze to the rest of the budget and deep cuts to some programs that provide necessities for the American people. His budget crystalizes a choice that U.S. presidents have been making since President Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex – investment in the military vs. investment in the civilian economy.
The bloated and sacrosanct security budget – the military, domestic security and intelligence budgets –all saw rapid growth under President Bush when the DoD doubled its budget. Under President Obama the trend has continued with record military, intelligence and domestic security budgets.
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