Thaw in US/Cuban Relations? (tags)
Cuba
Sergey Lavrov: World Class Peace Advocate (tags)
anti-war
US Atrocities in Afghanistan (tags)
Afghanistan
How Edward Snowden and Syria Will Change Obama’s Foreign Policy (tags)
When the National Security Agency (NSA) spying scandal broke, so did the illusion that President Obama was significantly different than his predecessor, Bush Jr. Obama’s meticulously crafted image was specifically created as an alternative to Bush: Obama campaigned as a peace candidate who loved civil liberties and wanted to work with the UN instead of unilaterally launching wars.
Israel
Obama’s Shakedown of Medicare (tags)
In a political era of corporate dominance it was inevitable that doublespeak would become the official language of Washington, DC. Now “cuts” to social programs are referred to as “savings,” while the destruction of these programs is “reform.” This is the essence of President Obama’s doublespeakish “Race to the Top” public education “reform,” as well as his yet-to-be-announced deficit plan based on Medicare “savings.”
Obama v. Netanyahu Round Two (tags)
anti-war
Iran
Chicago Militarized for NATO (tags)
anti-war
Guantanamo Prison's True Secret: Jason Leopold in Conversation With Andy Worthington (tags)
Activist/Journalist Andy Worthington was recently a guest speaker alongside investigative journalist Jason Leopold at the UC Hastings College of Law, in San Francisco, hosted by the college’s chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. The event, entitled “Ten Years of Guantanamo,” was held amidst protests around the world calling for the prison to be immediately shutdown. Worthington, the author of “The Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison,” has been documenting the array of human rights abuses at Guantanamo for over six years now.
Obama's `Free Trade' Follies (tags)
The three pending "free trade" agreements portend more unemployment and corporate enrichment. Countries like Argentina have broken with the Washington Consensus (deregulation, privatization and liberalized markets). Argentina is free from the bondage of structural adjustment.
The Logic of Imperial Insanity and the Road to World War III plus many mirrors (tags)
"Obama wasted no time in rapidly accelerating America’s imperial adventures. While dropping the term “War on Terror” from usage, the Pentagon adopted the term, “overseas contingency operations.”[4] This was to be the typical strategy of the Obama administration: change the appearance, not the substance. The name was changed, but the “War on Terror” remained, and not only that, it was rapidly accelerated to a level that would not have been possible if undertaken by the previous administration."
Interpreting Jon Stewart's Politics (tags)
Any criticism of Jon Stewart must begin with enthusiastic praise: his Daily Show is where millions of people go for important news that is purposely ignored by the mainstream media. Consequently, both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have become icons of the political Left. During the Bush administration, their shows highlighted the lies and hypocrisies used to engage in foreign wars while destroying the civil liberties in the United States; Colbert's speech at the White House Correspondence dinner - with Bush present - will go down in history as a moment of great courage and confrontation between a satiric comedian and a war criminal.
Stop the Fascist Attacks on Immigants (tags)
A written a critical and sweeping analysis of SB 1070 that addresses not only what is at stake for immigrants and anyone who looks like an immigrant, but what’s at stake for society as a whole, and warns that long agreed upon social and legal norms in society are being shredded by this law. It digs deeply into the history of the U.S., whose rosy dawn was based on the genocide of Native Americans and the kidnapping and enslavement of African people. It reveals the larger economic pressures that compelled millions of undocumented immigrants to travel to the U.S. It analyzes the sharp present day polarization between the Republicans and the fascist and, yes, racist tea party followers, on the one hand, and the Democrats, on the other, and the reasons the Democrats are unwilling to call their social base into the streets. Most importantly, it speaks to the crucial need for resistance to SB 1070, why extreme times like these provide openings for advances to be made in preparing for revolution.
Defeat U.S. War on Afghanistan and Iraq! (tags)
On December 1, President Barack Obama officially announced a massive escalation of the U.S. war on Afghanistan, tripling the number of American military personnel there since Obama took office. This move marks a decision by Washington to continue the colonial occupation of Afghanistan indefinitely, and with it the bloody slaughter of the Afghan people. Obama’s claim that he would “begin the transfer” of U.S. forces by mid-2011 was just sucker bait for gullible liberals. “Afghanistan Is Now Obama’s War,” proclaimed the media from New York to London to Mumbai. But Afghanistan has been the Democrats’ war since the moment it was launched, in September 2001, and together with the war on Iraq, it is a bipartisan imperialist war. No one in Washington thinks the Afghan puppet army will be able to handle the Taliban. The actual U.S. strategy is not to defeat the Taliban but to weaken it enough so that elements of the Islamists can be brought into a political deal. It is striking that in the United States, a majority of the population is turning against the war even though there hasn’t been a major national antiwar march in more than two years – ever since the start of the last presidential election campaign. At protests following Obama’s announcement of more troops to Afghanistan, organizers carefully avoided any signs mentioning the president by name. Our Internationalist contingent, in contrast, carried signs including, “Hey Obama, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today? Defeat Imperialist Slaughter in Afghanistan, Iraq.”
Why Obama's Surge in Afghanistan? (tags)
Tuesday’s announcement that President Obama will send an additional 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan — while begging his foreign allies to send an extra 10,000 — will have dramatic effects throughout the American and world society. The hope that Obama’s election would drastically change U.S. foreign policy has been destroyed. The effects of his troop surge will change the minds of millions of Americans, who, until this point, were giving Obama the benefit of the doubt. Such moments in history are capable of instantly removing piles of dust from the collective eyeball — just as the bank bailouts did.
Statement on Obama’s Surge in Afghanistan (tags)
When US imperialism invaded the Philippines in 1898 they said they will end the war in 16 days, The Filipino-American War lasted for 16 years. When Obama and his generals say they will withdraw the troops by 2011 and train the Afghan army in 18 months, they know that this is impossible and they will invent more reasons to cover up their failure. Like Nixon, Obama was elected on his promise to end the war. But again, like Nixon, he did not end the war but escalated it. Nixon has his “Vietnamization” and Obama has his “Afghanization.”
"Not learning lessons from the bank collapse reproduces or strengthens the dominance of the financial sector. The danger of a repetition of the crisis grows..The political right-wing slanders the health reform project as an `attack on freedom.'"
Obama’s DOJ follows lead of Bush regime again: It asks court to cover-up NSA surveillance (tags)
On February 25th, Obama’s Department of Justice (DOJ) again went to bat in court on behalf of the police state begun under the Bush regime by arguing in favor of the legality of the telecom immunity provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) bill passed by Congress last summer. Under the amended FISA law, courts are required to dismiss a wiretapping suit against a telecommunications company if the Attorney General (AG) explains the firm's role in a confidential statement presented to the court. In the statement, the AG would affirm that the firm either had no role in the wiretapping or that it participated based on assurances that the executive branch had approved the eavesdropping to protect the nation from terrorism.
BEWARE "RAHNATAKIAS" – Cure For Obama Fever Is "Indian" History (tags)
Will Obama's nation building run over the human rights of the indigenous people's of the Americas? What did Obama mean by "the lines of the tribes shall soon dissolve", how does this relate to indigenous people who view their tribe as their people and structure of life?
Why We Challenged Barack Obama (tags)
On Friday, August 1st I led a contingent of the Uhuru Movement into Barack Obama’s town hall meeting in St. Petersburg, Florida to raise the question, “what about the black community, Obama?” Without the benefit of a big media budget, our organization attempted to bring the serious issues experienced by African working class people across this country into the national political debate.