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America's "Bases of Empire"
by Stephen Lendman
Besides waging perpetual wars, nothing better reveals America's imperial agenda than its hundreds of global bases - for offense, not defense at a time the US hasn't had an enemy since the Japanese surrendered in August 1945.
So when they don't exist, they're invented as former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Charles W. Freeman, Jr., suggested in a May 24, 2007 speech to the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs:
"When our descendants look back on the end of the 20th century and the beginning of this one, they will be puzzled. The end of the Cold War relieved Americans of almost all international anxieties." As the world's sole remaining superpower, "We did not rise to the occasion."
No Reason to Favor Private Health Insurers
Joel S. Hirschhorn
In the national debate about health care reform absolutely nothing makes less sense than the positive views of much of the public about private health insurers. There is no good reason to have positive views of private health insurers, the companies that have relentlessly increased the costs for very limited health insurance. Copays, deductibles and premiums have raped those lucky enough to have health insurance while also making it very difficult much of the time to get coverage for all kinds of health problems. The US health care system is unbelievably inefficient, providing far less effective health care for what is incredibly high costs, compared to all other industrialized countries. The main reason is the private health insurance industry.
Iraq: the dirty “racket” of petro-politics
Stuart Littlewood
A speech made 75 years ago by a US Marine Corps general, Smedley Butler, helps put today’s belated Iraq war inquiry, promised by the British government, into proper context.
”There are only two things we should fight for,” said Butler. “One is the defence of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket…
“A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.
ODE TO THE DEATH OF NEDA AGHA-SOLTAN
Allen L Roland
Neda Agha-Soltan moments before bleeding to death from a sniper wound
June 20, 2009, as her music teacher and others try to resuscitate her.
The bloody video of Neda's violent
death on Saturday has circulated in Iran and around the world on the World Wide Web. It has made Ms. Neda Agha-Soltan, a 26-year-old musician, who relatives said was not political, an instant symbol of the Iranian anti-government movement.
One short seven line poem circulating on the Internet explicitly linked Neda's death to other symbols of the Iranian protest movement ~ and I've taken the liberty to complete the poem:
The U.S. Federal Budget Pipeline: Where Do The Dollars Drain?
By Emily Spence
In order to raise sales and personal royalty gains, Alan Greenspan, just prior to the release of his book The Age of Turbulence, carried out a public relations blitz dragged out for a whole week in which he made remarks similar to those conveyed in his hardback. These included statements such as “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”
Indeed, many Americans and people from other countries knew that domination of a region rich in fossil fuels represented the primary motive for the Iraq incursion and the only significant reason that Iran is not similarly assaulted is that it has an arsenal, unlike Saddam Hussein, capable of rendering serious damage in retaliation (i.e., aimed at U.S. troops in Iraq). Besides, the U.S. military is stretched too thin as it is with approximately 1,000 bases worldwide, along with operations occurring on every continent, such as the AFRICOM sorties, which are generally tied to oil company interests as the map at the first reference shows. [1]
BRIC & SCO summits: Reinventing the wheel
Eric Walberg
A new world is being born, one without the US dollar greasing the wheels of commerce, notes
Yekaterinburg, famous tragically as the spot Lenin chose to have the Tsar and his family executed in 1918, and ironically as the fiefdom of Boris Yeltsin, who finished off the Russian revolution itself in 1991, witnessed something no less remarkable last week when leaders of the so-called BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) held their first summit, following the yearly meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). The BRIC countries comprise 15 per cent of the world economy, 40 per cent of global currency reserves and half the world’s population. Brazil , India and China have also weathered the financial crisis better than the world as a whole.
THE NINE STAGES OF CIVILIZATIONS / WE'RE IN THE SEVENTH ~ APATHY
Allen L Roland
The United States is just over 230 years old and is now firmly entrenched in the seventh stage of all civilizations ( Apathy ) with only Dependence and eventually Bondage ahead of it:
The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through a nine stage sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacence to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back again into bondage. ( Attributed to Alexander Tytler )
Long on rhetoric, short on memory
Jim Miles
Having watched the situation in Iran now for several years through to the current protests by the dissident citizens of the country unsatisfied with the election results, I remain as perplexed as ever. Not the perplexity of not understanding what is actually going on as there are enough news sources available outside the control of western corporate media, but the perplexity of a world that ignores the larger context and the longer history of the peoples involved.
Iran is about as democratic as most Middle East countries are. While they do have an autocratic Supreme Ruler based on an Islamic model, their elections demonstrate the passions of the people and their beliefs. Iran is not perfect and does sink into the atrocities of arresting and abusing its own citizens. The current election by most accounts was delivered fairly with pre-election polls from accepted international sources indicating that Ahmadinejad would win with an impressive two to one majority. Official government reports indicate this is what happened.
The battle of the sexes is still raging
Roland Michel Tremblay
I don’t think much of women in this world. This is quite a hard statement to make, it is politically incorrect, I certainly will lose my job for stating it so clearly. However you have not heard the end of my argument yet. I don’t think much of men either. You’re all the same, you just alienate each other as you’re simply incompatible. We’re all tired of this life, we’re all tired of each other. If we could only just shut up once in a while, the battle of the sexes could finally be over.
Tired of your woman? You shouldn’t have let her out of the cupboard then. Tired of your man? Find yourself a high paying job, make sure he loses his (it should not be hard these days), install him on the sofa every morning with a baby in each arm and a remote control in the middle. I believe you will not meet much resistance. After all, it is a myth that men cannot change diapers, once they are obliged to do so by their other half.
Bailing the corrupt - BILLIONS STARVING
Re-reporting and commentary by Carolyn Bennett
UN food agency reports a sixth of the world’s people are undernourished ¯1.02 billion people are hungry.
This pandemic does not come from eating pork or traveling cooped up on transcontinental flights. Nor does it come from lack of food.
“Many of the world’s poor and hungry are smallholder farmers in developing countries,” says Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
“[They] have the potential not only to meet their own needs but to boost food security and catalyze broader economic growth. [But] to unleash this potential and reduce the number of hungry people in the world, governments, supported by the international community, need to protect core investments in agriculture so that smallholder farmers have access not only to seeds and fertilizers but to tailored technologies, infrastructure, rural finance, and markets.
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