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A Heap Of Broken Images: Social media and the architecture of anomie
by Phil Rockstroh
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. Whether urban, suburban, or rural dwelling, the sense of alienation, for an individual, is profound ... as discernible to the eye as the constellations of foreclosure signs stippling overgrown front lawns across the land ... as hidden as the abandoned dreams within.
Evil states remain evil, even if they excel in high-tech
by Khalid Amayreh
It seems that the mental depravity of some Zionist Jews has no limits. We observe, for example, that unlike many other peoples, Zionists don't miss an opportunity to brag about "the exceptional power of the Jewish mind," the disproportionately high number of Jewish Nobel laureates, the large number of Jewish inventors, and the Israeli genius of making the desert bloom!
I once asked a Zionist supremacist why, of all peoples, Zionist Jews, constantly brag about their "intelligence" while other peoples who even outmatch Jews, e.g. French, English, Russians, or Germans, don't do that. I also asked him why he thought the "super Jewish intellect" couldn't save European Jewry from Hitler's incinerators.
The Zionist supremacist prevaricated left and right for a few moments before throwing the anti-Semitism charge at me. He said the questions I posed shouldn't be asked in the first place since it reflected deeply-held Judeophobia.
Iran's nuclear standoff: who is the loser?
Kourosh Ziabari
It's more than 8 years that the world's newspapers are filled with miscellaneous news, reports and commentaries concerning Iran's nuclear program. Controversy over Iran's nuclear program has spanned through two administrations in Iran: ex-President Mohammad Khatami's government and the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration. The term "Iran nuclear program" returns more than 6 million results in Google web search. Thousands of scholars, journalists, politicians and political pundits have made their own statement regarding this debatable subject.
Terminologically, Iran's nuclear program calls to mind the words holocaust, Israel, Zionism, Axis of Evil, George W. Bush, stretched hands and uranium enrichment. The world is watching the uninteresting continuation of confrontation over Iran's nuclear program and the opportunist journalists find this tedious charade the best subject to entertain their readers and enrich their portfolio.
Secrecy industry hits home
By Bonnie Bricker and Adil E. Shamoo
Unchecked growth in intelligence agencies raises troubling questions and even affects how we interact with neighbors
Marylanders in Odenton, Annapolis, Frederick and our home town of Columbia had their suspicions answered last week when The Washington Post published a three-part series about our unchecked, out-of-control expansion of the defense and intelligence operations that have grown since 2001. The expansion of this influential sector has been evident to us, as it has to Americans all around the country living near other defense and intelligence contractors and federal intelligence agencies. How has the vast amount of information gathered by intelligence agencies shaped our foreign policy? How does the presence of almost a million individuals with top-secret clearances shape our society? How will our culture be changed when the possibility of government surveillance of citizens seems commonplace?
With Wikileaks, they want to shoot the messenger
Mary Shaw
The now-infamous whistleblower website Wikileaks has finally released the greatly anticipated leaked evidence of how wrong things really are in Afghanistan.
The British newspaper The Guardian summarizes:
A huge cache of secret U.S. military files ... provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.
Growing Health Crisis in the Gulf
by Stephen Lendman
The combination of millions of gallons of oil and dispersants has made large areas of the Gulf toxic and dangerous, marine toxicologist Ricki Ott saying if she lived there with children she'd leave - based on her firsthand experience after the 1989 Prince William Sound, Alaska Exxon Valdez disaster and subsequent research, documented in her books titled, "Sound Truth and Corporate Myth$: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill" and "Not One Drop - Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill."
Ongoing today, the legacy includes criminal negligence, bankruptcies, destroyed lives and livelihoods, domestic violence, severe anxiety, trauma, PTSD, drug and alcohol abuse, serious illnesses, suicides, massive loss of plant and wildlife, and vast ecological destruction from the 30 million or more gallons spilled, the State of Alaska's conservative estimate, not Exxon's 11 million figure, its lowball claim to hide the disaster's
As Futility Reigns in Afghanistan, House Will Vote on More Funding Maybe as Early as Tuesday, Congress Has the Power and Responsibility to End this War
By Kevin Zeese
The House of Representatives will be voting this week, possibly as early as Tuesday, on $33 billion in funding to escalate the war in Afghanistan. The vote comes at a time of embarrassment and evident failure in Afghanistan. Record deaths of troops and Afghan civilian, rapidly rising spending and reports indicating it will just get worse.
The news reports of problems on the ground are bad enough, but the release of 92,000 documents by Wikileaks shows the war is "more grim than the official portrayal," as the New York Times concluded. TIME’s Joe Klein reported said that the documents make clear how futile the situation in Afghanistan is – and how utterly duplicitous our Pakistani "ally" has been.
Summarizing the Wikileaks war documents, the Guardian says:
• How a secret "black" unit of Special Forces hunts down Taliban leaders for "kill or capture" without trial.
• How the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles.
Gazans Denied Medical Care under Siege
by Stephen Lendman
Two recent reports discuss it, a July Physicians for Human Rights - Israel (PHR-IL) one titled, "A Situation Report on Obstacles Facing Gaza Residents in Need of Medical Treatment," and a June one titled, "Who Gets to Go," jointly prepared by PHR-IL, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. All cite Israeli medical ethics and international law violations by discriminating on the basis of need, denying adequate treatment to seriously ill Gazans by:
-- preventing the restoration and development of the Strip's healthcare system; and
-- restricting travel to the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Israel, or neighboring countries for treatment.
Shirley Sherrod was presumed guilty
Mary Shaw
In the United States of America, one is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Nevertheless, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack hastily forced Shirley Sherrod to resign from her position in the Department based on the right-wing exploitation of a video snippet taken out of context.
According to Sherrod, when she tried to explain, no one would listen to her. No hearing, no trial, just immediate execution. Bam! You're fired!
And the NAACP's initial knee-jerk condemnation of Sherrod's speech was perhaps even less forgivable, since the speech was taped at an NAACP event. Surely if the speech were so out of line, the folks in the national headquarters would have heard about it before this. Still, the NAACP rushed to condemn Sherrod in a widely distributed press release, which was later redacted:
"Since our founding in 1909, the NAACP has been a multi-racial, multi-faith organization that -- while generally rooted in African-American communities -- fights to end racial discrimination against all Americans.
"We concur with US Agriculture Secretary Vilsack in accepting the resignation of Shirley Sherrod for her remarks at a local NAACP Freedom Fund banquet.
"Racism is about the abuse of power. Sherrod had it in her position at USDA. According to her remarks, she mistreated a white farmer in need of assistance because of his race.
"We are appalled by her actions, just as we are with abuses of power against farmers of color and female farmers.
"Her actions were shameful. While she went on to explain in the story that she ultimately realized her mistake, as well as the common predicament of working people of all races, she gave no indication she had attempted to right the wrong she had done to this man."
No, folks, Shirley Sherrod's actions were not shameful. Far from it. In her speech, Sherrod relayed a parable for racial unity and redemption. And she explained how she had indeed righted that wrong. What's shameful are the actions of the Obama administration and the NAACP, who fell for the right-wing propaganda and reacted too quickly and very inappropriately.
As Sherrod herself described it, "for some reason, the stuff Fox and the Tea Party does is scaring the administration. I told them to get the whole tape and look at the whole tape and see how I tell people we have to get beyond race and work together."
Still, they reacted first and asked questions later. And then they again had to go into damage control mode, but in the other direction.
So the right-wing propaganda machine scores another point. And the Obama administration and the NAACP look foolish.
It's this sort of weakness that may well lead to Republican victories in 2010 and 2012.
And, sadly, maybe those consequences will be all too well deserved.
Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist. She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International, and her views on politics, human rights, and social justice issues have appeared in numerous online forums and in newspapers and magazines worldwide. Note that the ideas expressed here are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty International or any other organization with which she may be associated. E-mail: mary@maryshawonline.com
Prospects and Consequences of Attacking Iran
by Stephen Lendman
Hopefully its folly will prevent it. Otherwise, expect severe repercussions, including a considerable counterattack and disruption of regional oil supplies, further impacting a troubled global economy. So why consider it, given the December 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) saying:
"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; (perhaps it never had one); we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons..." True or not, dozens of nations may consider one, for defense, not offense in a hostile world, America and Israel the main aggressors, threatening humanity with their weapons of mass destruction.
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