Pages: << 1 ... 993 994 995 996 997 998 999 1000 1001 1002 1003 ... 1327 >>
by William John Cox
For almost 40 years, the United States has waged a war on its own citizens who have used marijuana as a part of a drug culture originally encouraged by the government. The war was commenced despite the government’s own findings that marijuana posed less of a risk to American society than alcohol, and that the greatest harm that would result from criminalization would be the injury caused to those arrested for possession and use. The harm caused by the war extends beyond its 15 million prisoners; its cost has exceeded a trillion dollars, and it has benefitted only those who profit from the illegal cultivation and sale of marijuana.
by Stuart Littlewood
So criminal within itself, it flinches from upholding the rule of international law. So corrupt, it happily outsources its foreign policy to terrorists in Tel Aviv. The idea that America acts as an honest broker for peace between its fellow cut-throat Israel and their victim, Palestine, on whose neck the Zionist jackboot is firmly planted, is a joke that is only funny in the hysterical sense.
The idea that any country, let alone America, would promote talks where one party is expected to make concessions to another which is bent on land-theft and whose government can only survive if it continues to defy international law, is madness. But Obama is up for it.
Why did Palestinian leaders allow themselves to be sucked into this instead of going over America's head to the UN and campaigning intelligently for implementation of the rulings the world community had already made?
By Dennis Rahkonen
Discovery and "settlement" of America involved horrid genocide against multiple millions of native inhabitants whose desperate, surviving progeny live dirt poor in godforsaken places where substance abuse, crime, and stratospheric joblessness are the cruel, never-remedied norm.
What the European conquerors took, with a hypocrite's Bible in one hand and a dripping sword in the other, their later-generation offspring now rule with a callous disregard for the acute hardship that it's the Indian's "fate" to endure amid the dust and tumbleweeds, or swamps and mosquitoes, where a beaten people were forced to relocate after their slaughter finally stopped.
And let's not forget slavery. No, by all that's holy, let's not do that!
by Stephen Lendman
An earlier article discussed Chicago politics under father and son Daley - Richard J. (mayor from April 20, 1955 - December 20, 1976) and Richard M. (mayor since April 24, 1989), both called "Hizzhonor" or "Hizzhonor Da Mare."
Last winning a sixth term on February 27, 2007 by a 70% majority, most observers expected he'd seek another in 2011, but not so. The Chicago Tribune, on September 7, announced it, headlining, "Daley won't run for re-election: 'I have done my best,' saying:
Jim Prues
Growing up in the fog of the dominant culture has left its mark on us all. Whether this fog really exists and what it consists of are fabulous questions. While it is often argued otherwise, from the World5 perspective, the fog is evident, pervasive and tremendously destructive.
The fog began ages ago when, having learned language, we began talking about the past and future, which eventually imparted them with an illusory sense of reality. So much has this occurred that by the time we reached modern times we tacitly accepted the notion of past, present and future as being a continuum.
A false notion. The past is gone and tomorrow never comes. And yet we feel a sense of continuity in our lives. We see the effects of change moment-by-moment, and yet our awareness remains continuous. It may well be that our awareness connects with something outside of time, oh, say an Eternal Awareness.
The White House snatched back one of the few bones it's thrown to the people outraged at the looting of the United States Treasury by failed financial concerns - the big banks and Wall Street. The promised appointment Elizabeth Warren as head of the new agency to protect consumers from the financial services industry has been seriously downgraded. Instead of running the Consumer Finance Protection Agency, Warren's role has been diminished to that of special assistant to the president and adviser to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.
"President Obama, sidestepping a possibly heated confirmation battle, will appoint Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren as a special advisor to the Treasury Department to launch the government's powerful new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to two Democratic officials familiar with the decision." LA Times, Sept 15
An interim appointment would have given the no-nonsense Warren the full authority to structure consumer bureau in the interests of the people. A special adviser role is defined in a New York Times article as follows:
by Stephen Lendman
Dealing with Washington and Israel is like swimming with sharks. Get out of the water or be eaten. Achieving an equitable Israeli/Palestinian peace settlement is no more likely now than ever. Both sides know it but pretend otherwise, suggesting perhaps a finessed or arranged resolution - a sham one or capitulation if anything is agreed.
On September 15, the latest Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt round ended with no progress, Haaretz saying both "sides seem no closer to a compromise on West Bank settlements."
Al Jazeera headlined "Slow progress in Egypt peace talks," saying "Latest round of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians make little headway....The only agreement the two sides arrived (at) was to meet for the scheduled talks in Jerusalem on" September 15.
by Stephen Lendman
America prides itself on religious freedom, the Constitution's First Amendment stating:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
In fact, those rights are selectively enforced, and consistently denied at the whim of administrations, Congress and courts, including equal respect for all religions - more than ever post-9/11 under Bush and Obama, agents of privilege, not Constitutionally protected freedoms. A sad testimony to a rhetorical, not real democracy, Muslim Americans especially victimized, vilified, and persecuted for their faith, ethnicity, prominence, activism, and charity - innocent men and women bogusly called terrorists, used for political advantage.
More than any other ethnic/religious group, Western discourse especially wrongs and unfairly portrays Muslim/Arabs stereotypically as culturally inferior, dirty, lecherous, untrustworthy, religiously fanatical, and violent.
by Anna Aleksanyan
On the occasion of the 140th anniversary of the establishment of the Turkish Theater
Historic evidence shows the establishment and the first 50 years of the development of the Turkish theater are strongly connected with the activity of Ottoman Armenians. The proof is that Armenians and Greeks were the first to bring any innovations from Europe to the Ottoman Empire. The 1850s are considered for Ottoman Armenians as the period of cultural revival. Armenian schools, publishing and media, sciences and literatures all experienced an awakening following the innovation and modernization in the important centers of the Armenian culture, such as Constantinople and Smyrna.
by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
The American Democratic party, the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, was a force to be reckoned with. Most often allied with labor, Democrats --not Republicans --presided over the hard-won triumph over the Great Depression. It was Democrats, not Republicans, who later presided over a thriving economy, an egalitarian economy in the late 40s and much of the 50s. It was the Democratic regimes of FDR and Harry Truman that were the most egalitarian in U.S. History.
This prosperity continued through the JFK years. Not even Nixon could undo the good that had been done. That job was left to Ronald Reagan whose infamous, inequitable tax cut of 1982 breached the wall. Only the upper quintile benefited from Reaganomics of which the infamous tax cut of 1982 was the centerpiece. Only the upper 1 percent have benefited.
<< 1 ... 993 994 995 996 997 998 999 1000 1001 1002 1003 ... 1327 >>