Now that the 9-year military occupation of Iraq is presumably coming to an end, it would be appropriate to reflect on the Iraqi people who died as a result of the U.S. invasion and occupation of the country.
How many Iraqis have died in the process? We don’t know. The reason we don’t know is that the U.S. government did not keep count. Unlike U.S. soldiers killed over there, the Iraqi people were not deemed sufficiently important to keep track of how many were dying.... (more)
When the Center for American Progress’ Think Progress blog recently compiled all of the inspiring foreign policy successes of our nation’s strong and resolute Commander-in-Chief, they listed — alongside the assassination of a U.S. citizen without due process and increased deference to Israel — what they hailed as the President’s having “supported democratic t... (more)
Until recently, the only people expected to make that demand of their innocent victims were rapists and police officers. Fortunately, women are no longer expected to submit to sexual assault, but rather to fight back by whatever means are available – unless the assailant is one of the State’s costumed enforcers, in which case resisting sexual assault would be a felony.
When I talk to self-identified "conservatives" today, I am surprised how many of them have finally awakened to the fact that governments all over the Western world are bankrupt. It has taken a long time for them to do the math, but it is finally dawning on them that when a government’s debts and liabilities massively outweigh its current and future assets and "income" (a more accurate word would be "loot"), that country is headed for disaster. While they cannot be praised for thei... (more)
Many of today's conservatives speak of traditional moral values and free-market capitalism, and say they are "against collectivism, socialism and communism." But an examination of the actual policies they support and the way they want to implement their "values" shows that many conservatives are really the collectivist, socialist and communist pots calling the kettle black.
An honest look at actual traditional moral values shows that such values naturally coincide with private pro... (more)
According to the New York Times, “The American Embassy in Baghdad has placed sharp new restrictions on how government workers can travel inside the walled-off International Zone, citing serious threats of kidnapping and terrorist attacks across Iraq and near the embassy’s own doorstep.”
Societies can be sunk by the weight of buried ugliness. ~ Daniel Goleman
The Lincoln (NE) JournalStar newspaper has a lengthy article discussing the problems the State of Nebraska is having administering lethal injections to condemned prisoners. The difficulties are related to the apparent shortages and/or quality of one of the three chemicals used to put a prisoner to death, as well as to legal challenges brought against the pr... (more)
Shills for the War on Terror say al Qaeda is motivated by hatred for “our freedoms.” The good folks in Congress, taking that message to heart, are acting to protect us by ensuring al Qaeda no longer has anything to complain about.
William Sumner argued the Spanish-American War, despite the military victory, was actually a “Conquest of the United States by Spain” because it marked America’s adoption of the authoritarian character of a European em... (more)
Don’t let the media or any brainwashed American tell you that being a service member is difficult. It was one of the easiest jobs in the world. I will concede to the facts that the training at times is physically demanding and risking your life for whatever you are fighting for seems difficult to the average person. However, the day to day life of a military person is mind-numbingly easy. Military members are trained to have a "kill or be killed mentality", so the whole notion that... (more)
Put aside all other issues for a moment, and ignore the trivialities that dominate the airwaves and what passes for national debate in this country. The Senate this week ratified a defense authorization bill containing an amendment cosponsored by Democratic Sen. Carl Levin and Republican Sen. John McCain that would empower the military to detain American citizens captured on U.S. soil indefinitely without civil process, in addition to expanding the post-9/11 Authorization to Use Military Force a... (more)
The U.S. has long had Iran virtually encircled as a result of the American occupation of Afghanistan on Iran’s Eastern border, its invasion of Iraq on its Western border, its NATO ally Turkey hovering on Iran’s Northwestern border, some degree of military relationship with Turkmenistan on Iran’s Northeastern border, and multiple U.S. client states sitting right across the Per... (more)
Permit me to state the obvious: The government shouldn’t be allowed to imprison people indefinitely without charge or trial. It shouldn’t be necessary to say this nearly 800 years after Magna Carta was signed and over 200 years after the Fifth Amendment was ratified.
Yet this uncomplicated principle, which is within the understanding of a child, is apparently lost on a majority in the U.S. Senate. Earlier this week the Senate voted 61-37 in effect to authorize the exec... (more)
The disingenuousness of the U.S. government clearly has no bounds. What better example than its recent, somewhat lackadaisical call on the Egyptian military to relinquish power to the civilian sector?
After all, guess who’s been propping up and supporting Egypt’s military dictatorship for decades. Yes, the democracy-loving U.S. government. Billions and billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money have been sent to Egypt’s military dictators, year after year, deca... (more)
A Washington Post op-ed by Democratic Senator Carl Levin and Republic Senator John McCain shows, once again, that the threat to the freedom and well-being of the American people comes from both liberals and conservatives, especially those within the government.
The op-ed was written in support of the 2012 defense [sic] auth... (more)
American statists just don’t get it. They see what’s happening with Greece, and yet steadfastly continue down the same road here in the United States. With Americans unable to let go of warfare-state programs and welfare-state programs, federal spending and borrowing continue to soar, hurtling the nation toward the same financial bankruptcy that now confronts Greece.
The situation in Greece is not a complicated one. Under its welfare state, the Greek government taxes... (more)
I am a 58-year-old American male and former military officer who has had the opportunity to travel throughout the world. No, I never participated in any war and am happy I haven’t. I was a PAO or Public Affairs Officer, gallantly writing my way through enemy lines. I lived for a while in Panama and Japan, but experienced brief visits to many other countries. Some of these visits were on official business and others were for pleasure. After leaving the military, I began to take long... (more)
Every once in a while, I get tired of arguments around here, trying in some way or other to justify freedom and liberty. One can go overboard with this stuff.
After all, does one need a PhD in Philosophy to understand freedom? Of course not. Everybody already understands it. It’s just doing whatever the Hell you want to do. No justification is needed.
Of course we always seem driven to include the extraneous qualification, “as long as we don’t ha... (more)
It is said that those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. In the case of the copyright industry, they have learned that they can get new monopoly benefits and rent-seeker’s benefits every time there is a new technology, if they just complain loudly enough to the legislators.
The past 100 years have seen a vast array of technical advances in broadcasting, multiplication and transmissions of culture, but equally much misguided legislators who sought to prese... (more)
The day before the Thanksgiving holiday brought three extraordinary news items. One was the report on the Republican presidential campaign debate. One was the Russian President’s statement about his country’s response to Washington’s missile bases surrounding his country. And one was the failure of a German government bond auction.
Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I have been quite vocal in my opposition to most of what is done by the U.S. military in the name of defending our freedoms and other nonsense. Because of this I have been accused over the years of not appreciating and not supporting the troops (I plead guilty) and indifference to and wishing harm to the troops (I plead not guilty).
However, on this latter point it needs to be said that it is only natural to expect that foreigners... (more)
Wow, I don't know how I missed this! Apparently, the Venus Project and the Zeitgeist Movement have imploded due to Jacques Fresco's egomaniacal insanity.
[Video replaced, the original video was taken down.]
This is too rich. Peter makes the guy famous, then, of course, the idiot communist who doesn't believe in private proper... (more)
In October, a video on YouTube received worldwide attention that impressed and inspired its viewers. The video shows United States Marine Corps. Sgt. Shamar Thomas from Roosevelt, NY berating the police for its mistreatment of protestors at Occupy Wall Street in New York City. Mr. Thomas claims to have spent fourteen months in occupied Iraq. Though Mr. Thomas’ analysis and remarks regarding the police’s behavior... (more)
Progressives today say people should come before profits. Now in a privilege-ridden corporate state, that's a worthy goal, though Progressives have no clue how to achieve it. How nice it would be if they were equally committed to putting people before bureaucracy. Here they fall down rather badly because their signature ideas would subordinate regular people to the dictates of the power structure.
Take MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. Maddow is intelligent, serious, and well-meaning -- whic... (more)
For years, the standard drill after a police beating or shooting, when it was a citizen’s word against a cop’s and the cop’s testimony was backed up by his Brothers in Blue, was “administrative leave” with pay for the cop — until a review board found “no evidence of official wrongdoing” and that “all official procedures and policies were followed.” The exceptions — such as the Rodney King beating and the Abner Louima case — ... (more)
How much more ridiculous can the US Postal Service get? This you will not believe. It has embarked on a public relations campaign to get people to stop sending so much email and start licking more stamps. This is how it is dealing with its $10 billion loss last year. Meanwhile, rather than offering better service, it is cutting back ever more, which can only guarantee that the mails will get worse than they already are.
It's true that mail still has a place in the digital world, a... (more)
Quick: what first pops into your mind when someone says, "TSA"?
Sexual assault at airport checkpoints? Irradiation and deformed babies in utero? Theft? Bullies in brown-sorry, blue shirts screaming at the weak and defenseless, stripping diapers from dying grandmothers and teddy bears from toddlers?
Now imagine you’re writing a 24-page report on the TSA, timed to coincide with its tenth anniversary. How far are you into your first ... (more)
