by cameron | Sep 16, 2009 | geopolitics, US politics
Do you really think America wasn’t involved in torture, secret prisons or wanton death and destruction before 9/11?
The record shows that they existed before. In fact, 9/11 was in many ways a REACTION to those things, not the cause of them. The USA has NEVER lived up to the virtues Temporal Flush mentions here. Read Zinn’s “People’s History”. The myth of America may survive in the minds of many Americans who don’t read the history of their own country, but outside if the US borders, many people know the other side of the story.
All 9/11 provided was justification to be more aggressive with programs that had been running for many decades in one form or another and continue today under the Obama administration.
There are two Americas – the mythical one that most Americans seem to believe is real, the country that are the good guys, the white knight, the protector of democracy and freedom – and then there is the real America, the one run by corporations and the wealthy elite, the one that, for the entire country’s history, has oppressed the poor and the weak in countries around the globe and at home. The one that stole land at the point of a gun, first from the Native Americans, then from the Mexicans, then from the Cubans, then from the Alaskans, then from the Hawaiins. The one that built its power and wealth on the back of the slave and segregation and imported Chinese labour. The one that did and does deal with the most despicable dictators around the globe to protect American corporate interests.
9/11 may have brought some of the other America to your attention, but it’s a mistake to think that it started then. It’s always been there. You just weren’t paying attention.
by cameron | Aug 22, 2009 | US politics
That’s the allegation made by Hal Turner’s lawyer in his defense. If it turns out to be true – and I’m sure the FBI will deny it until the cows come home – it’s just more evidence that Governments like conflict. If they keep us fighting amongst ourselves about Right vs Left, it leaves us less time thinking about how to get on with building a fairer and more just society.
It reminds me that we often need to scratch the surface of news stories – sometimes there is a story behind the headline – people who stand to profit from an event, people who were manipulating an event.
It’s like the current rash of angry, outraged women speaking out at the "town hall" meetings in the United States who get lots of coverage on Fox News. I’ve been wondering whose payroll they are on.
by cameron | Aug 8, 2009 | US politics
August 6 and 9 are the 64th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, perhaps the greatest single acts of terrorism committed in human history.
Here are some links worth reading.
by cameron | Aug 3, 2009 | Cuba, Iran, US politics
Iran? North Korea? Cuba? China?
No – the United States of America.
If President Obama and the Democratic Party aren’t willing to prosecute the people responsible for torturing and imprisoning a 12 year-old child, without a trial, without hope of defense, then what does that say about the current American administration?
by cameron | Jul 30, 2009 | capitalism, US politics
Rolling Stone magazine has a Hunteresque story about Goldman Sachs:
The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who’s Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.
by cameron | Jul 23, 2009 | capitalism, geopolitics, Iraq, israel, US politics
This is what Chrissy and I watched this morning in bed. Not your usual breakfast TV. It’s a terrific talk. (via Beyond The Fringe)
