. . . and snow!
Nevada Rep opened The Increased Difficulty of Concentration last night. It's a fun play. Of course, Weird Romance last week was fun, and it said something. This one is mostly slapstick, sort of like a vaudeville show with a story wrapped around it. It's worth the trip. It was snowing after the show. Snow at the end of September must be some kind of record. I haven't checked. This summer comes crashing down.
The false outrage of perpetually offended conservatives serves as cover for the true outrages of our era, including truncated civil liberties, rising levels of social and economic inequality and injustice, and foreign wars of aggression waged by an insular and secretive executive branch and fought by a permanent underclass. The outrages keep arriving, because the collective imagination of the citizen/consumers of the US, arbitrated by a careerist media elite, has been, for decades, in the thrall of false narratives that serve the interests of the elite of the corporate/militarist classes.
--Phil Rockstroh
Just as there is continuity in capitalist predation, there is continuity in resistance. Here's where Klein's catastrophism distorts the picture. Her controlling metaphor for the attack on Iraq is the initial "shock and awe" bombardment, designed to numb Saddam's forces and the overall civilian population into instant surrender and long-term submission. But "shock and awe" was a bust. It didn't work. Its value even as a metaphor is useless, except as illustration of what parlor wargamers in Washington DC can hype. Having sensibly decided not to fight or die on an American timetable, many of Iraq's soldiers regrouped to commence an effective resistance. Iraqi civilians struggle along as best they can under awful conditions and, un-numbed, tell pollsters that they wish the Americans would leave at once.
--Alexander Cockburn
Thank God for Spike Lee.
--John Dean Alfone
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
The Power of Nightmares (rediscovered--new link)
In the Orwellian language favored by the right-wing ideologues in the Bush administration, “liberation” is continuously invoked as the description for the war to impose semi-colonial domination by the US over Iraq and its oil wealth. And it is this “mission” undertaken by means of an eruption of American militarism that Bush demands the world body sanction and support.
--Bill Van Auken
We could regard De Paul’s settlement and Finkelstein’s departure as a sad day for academic freedom, and in a sense it is. But the terms of his departure--the private settlement, the non-disclosure agreement--suggest that the institution had to climb down, “pay damages” or the equivalent, and admit that the tenure denial was unjust. I cannot offhand recall another case involving an outspoken critic of Israel and AIPAC at a major academic institution, in which the institution had to suffer the embarrassment of (effectively) bribing the wronged party to leave quietly. It would be far more satisfactory if the upper management of De Paul had stuck to fundamental principles of academic freedom and refrained from interfering with the tenure process; but it is something (and something new, I think) that they experienced bad publicity, embarrassment, and financial loss as a result of their misconduct.
--DeAnander
Constitutionally protected rights of free speech, political action and political expression are under unprecedented attack. The eruption of American militarism abroad is increasingly accompanied by the militarization of public life at home, to the point where criticism of the US military is virtually criminalized.
--Barry Grey
On a personal note, I’ve researched questions of petroleum, since the first oil shocks of the 1970s. I was intrigued in 2003 with something called Peak Oil theory. It seemed to explain the otherwise inexplicable decision by Washington to risk all in a military move on Iraq.
--F. William Engdahl
American oligarchs reluctantly accepted the attack as an indirect means of making the Canadian oil sands economically viable, as part of a long term strategy of increasing American national energy security by sidestepping the unblockable and malign influence of the Zionists.
--Xymphora (sloppily written but Xymphora's thoughts seem to be coming together)
The false outrage of perpetually offended conservatives serves as cover for the true outrages of our era, including truncated civil liberties, rising levels of social and economic inequality and injustice, and foreign wars of aggression waged by an insular and secretive executive branch and fought by a permanent underclass. The outrages keep arriving, because the collective imagination of the citizen/consumers of the US, arbitrated by a careerist media elite, has been, for decades, in the thrall of false narratives that serve the interests of the elite of the corporate/militarist classes.
--Phil Rockstroh
Just as there is continuity in capitalist predation, there is continuity in resistance. Here's where Klein's catastrophism distorts the picture. Her controlling metaphor for the attack on Iraq is the initial "shock and awe" bombardment, designed to numb Saddam's forces and the overall civilian population into instant surrender and long-term submission. But "shock and awe" was a bust. It didn't work. Its value even as a metaphor is useless, except as illustration of what parlor wargamers in Washington DC can hype. Having sensibly decided not to fight or die on an American timetable, many of Iraq's soldiers regrouped to commence an effective resistance. Iraqi civilians struggle along as best they can under awful conditions and, un-numbed, tell pollsters that they wish the Americans would leave at once.
--Alexander Cockburn
Thank God for Spike Lee.
--John Dean Alfone
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
The Power of Nightmares (rediscovered--new link)
In the Orwellian language favored by the right-wing ideologues in the Bush administration, “liberation” is continuously invoked as the description for the war to impose semi-colonial domination by the US over Iraq and its oil wealth. And it is this “mission” undertaken by means of an eruption of American militarism that Bush demands the world body sanction and support.
--Bill Van Auken
We could regard De Paul’s settlement and Finkelstein’s departure as a sad day for academic freedom, and in a sense it is. But the terms of his departure--the private settlement, the non-disclosure agreement--suggest that the institution had to climb down, “pay damages” or the equivalent, and admit that the tenure denial was unjust. I cannot offhand recall another case involving an outspoken critic of Israel and AIPAC at a major academic institution, in which the institution had to suffer the embarrassment of (effectively) bribing the wronged party to leave quietly. It would be far more satisfactory if the upper management of De Paul had stuck to fundamental principles of academic freedom and refrained from interfering with the tenure process; but it is something (and something new, I think) that they experienced bad publicity, embarrassment, and financial loss as a result of their misconduct.
--DeAnander
Constitutionally protected rights of free speech, political action and political expression are under unprecedented attack. The eruption of American militarism abroad is increasingly accompanied by the militarization of public life at home, to the point where criticism of the US military is virtually criminalized.
--Barry Grey
On a personal note, I’ve researched questions of petroleum, since the first oil shocks of the 1970s. I was intrigued in 2003 with something called Peak Oil theory. It seemed to explain the otherwise inexplicable decision by Washington to risk all in a military move on Iraq.
--F. William Engdahl
American oligarchs reluctantly accepted the attack as an indirect means of making the Canadian oil sands economically viable, as part of a long term strategy of increasing American national energy security by sidestepping the unblockable and malign influence of the Zionists.
--Xymphora (sloppily written but Xymphora's thoughts seem to be coming together)