Rest in peace:
Eugene McCarthy.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid intended to help small downtown businesses that were reeling from the 9/11 attacks often went instead to huge international corporations, companies with little attachment to the stricken area and businesses that were never in jeopardy.
--Daily News
Revelations that the White House in 2001--two years before the invasion of Iraq and months before 9/11--invited oil executives to contribute planning toward the division of Iraq’s oil wealth would take on an explosive character under conditions in which all the official justifications--especially WMD--have been conclusively debunked as crude fabrications, and the war itself spirals uncontrollably toward ever-greater disaster. It would also explain why Cheney and the White House remain so intent on preventing any public accounting of what went on during the energy task force’s meetings, and why the oil executives would attempt to deny their very presence.
--Thomas Eley
The war on terror is the "seminal lie" from which all the administration's criminal excesses are mere tributaries. America's unprovoked aggression in Iraq, as well as the appalling assault on civil liberties, has been carried out in the name of the war on terror. In fact, it has been used to mask everything from police-state legislation at home to massive human rights violations abroad. The war on terror is an all-consuming fraud that poses the greatest threat to personal freedom and global security the world has ever seen. If unchallenged, the dictatorial powers of the president will continue to increase and the world will be plunged into another century of war.
--Mike Whitney
The fact is that there is no opposition to the war party in the United States. When someone like Juan Cole advocates an essentially immoral position intended solely to maintain American control over oil while reducing American casualty rates, with no real regard for the Iraqi people, and all the main Democrats are far to the right of Cole, you know there is no hope. All the Democrats are doing is posturing, trying to pretend that they are an alternative to the Republicans. They aren't.
--Xymphora
Thanks to America's ideological obsession with democracy, Iran is close to control of Iraq's oil-rich Shi'ite regions. On December 4, Iraq's Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a de facto endorsement of the pro-Iranian religious coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, pushing his country further into the Iranian sphere of influence. Sistani's appeal for support for religious parties ruins the prospects of Washington's favored politicians, the secular Shi'ites Iyad Allawi and Ahmad Chalabi.
--Spengler
Unlike his writing partner Carl Bernstein, who was the son of Communist parents and an early convert to the 1960s counterculture, Woodward came from a rock-ribbed Republican family in Wheaton, Illinois, a town that took its Christianity so seriously that alcohol sales were illegal.
--Louis Proyect
But most of all the film is funny, with a very arch humour consonant with the dysfunctional blue-blood family portrayed by the serpent’s tooth team of Harvey and Lansbury. They play their feud with a droll self-mockery that’s as dry as a martini and it’s this that keeps The Manchurian Candidate fresh today.
--Roger Westcombe
Granted, this Manchurian Candidate lacks the original's elegantly absurdist edge. And the storytelling sometimes gets a bit too convoluted for its own good. But it boasts numerous biting references--sometimes sardonic, sometimes chilling--to today's partisan, paranoia-charged political atmosphere.
--Carol Cling
Under the guise of a "blistering condemnation" of the administration, the 9/11 Commission panel . . . has circled the wagons for the New World Order, refreshing and refining the propaganda as needed with their self-congratulatory road shows, media events and bluster. The Bush administration, and all who were involved with the 9/11 crime, could ask for no greater friends.
--Larry Chin
Imagine the "more popular than Jesus" story surfaced not so innocently from an interview in Datebook, an American magazine, and caused a furor. It was something worthy of today's neocons and swift-boaters.
--Jerry Mazza
Gallipoli: The Front Line Experience was released in Turkey early this year and for five weeks was the country’s highest grossing movie. It is the most successful documentary in Turkish history. While most Australian critics praised the film following its Australian release in November, it is only being screened in a handful of cinemas. It is not expected to survive the surfeit of mindless comedies and blockbuster movies soon to hit the local cinemas for the Christmas season.
--Richard Phillips
The people that the 'Peak Oil' pitchmen are fronting for are deadly serious about selling 'Peak Oil' to the masses--and not just in theoretical terms, as a cynical ploy to raise prices and increase profits. No, it has become clear that the real goal is to actually cut off most of the world's oil supplies under the ruse that the oil simply no longer exists. The desired result is massive social unrest, widespread famine and endless war. The majority of the world's people will not survive. Those that do will find themselves living under the overtly authoritarian form of rule that will quickly be deemed necessary to restore order. And if you think that we here in America are exempt, you are sadly mistaken.
In order to pull off this stunt, all the world's major oil producing regions must be solidly under the control of the U.S. and it's co-conspirators, otherwise known as 'allies.' In other words, the puppet-masters have to control all the major oil taps, so that they have complete control over the flow of oil--or lack of it. And that, in a nutshell, is the real reason for America's recent military ventures. The goal, you see, is not to steal Iraq's oil, or the oil in the 'Stans, or in the Sudan, or in Venezuela, or anywhere else. We don't want to take their oil, because the truth is that we don't really need it. What we want to do is sit on the taps so no one else can get to the oil.
--Dave McGowan (10/12/04--with the weirdest reference I've seen--though later references are better--and other good ones are here)
It's about time.
--Joshua Frank
If it is true, as we have been told, that a) the US wants to combat fundamentalism and encourage secular rule and b) the US and Iran are enemies then c) why would Islamist Iran be helping plan the reform of the legal system of a country conquered by the US?
--Jared Israel (5/26/03--worth repeating--though Jared Israel dispenses his own share of disinformation--scroll through Man and Superman)
It seems that all revolutions end up with a personality cult--even the Chinese seem to need a father-figure. I expect this happens in Cuba too, with Che and Fidel. In Western-style Communism we would have to create an almost imaginary workers' image of themselves as the father-figure.
--John Lennon (interviewed by Tariq Ali 1971)
One of the things the movie argues, though, is that doubt isn't a state of mind that Americans feel comfortable with.
--Daniel Feinberg
In perhaps the funniest exposé of the Bushes yet written, St. Clair tells the story of this company masquerading as a family.
--Ashley Smith
Even if the marshals’ account is taken at its face value, the sudden lethal response to Alpizar’s actions is at best questionable. First, his bag had been inspected three times before he boarded the plane--once before boarding in Ecuador, once in clearing customs and a third time before boarding the connecting flight in Miami. The odds of getting a bomb on board were minuscule. Second, he was shot after leaving the plane.
--Bill Van Auken
It is significant that after nine hours of such questioning, no one has come forward to corroborate the Federal Air Marshal Service’s claim that Alpizar said he had a bomb. The obvious explanation is that the entire bomb threat story is a lie, most likely invented by the perpetrators immediately after the shooting to provide themselves with an alibi.
--Kate Randall
Actually, it's an encouraging sign of the resourcefulness of those Iraqi editors that they managed to get paid to print the Pentagon's handouts. Here in the Homeland, editors pride themselves in performing the same service, without remuneration.
--Alexander Cockburn
Hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid intended to help small downtown businesses that were reeling from the 9/11 attacks often went instead to huge international corporations, companies with little attachment to the stricken area and businesses that were never in jeopardy.
--Daily News
Revelations that the White House in 2001--two years before the invasion of Iraq and months before 9/11--invited oil executives to contribute planning toward the division of Iraq’s oil wealth would take on an explosive character under conditions in which all the official justifications--especially WMD--have been conclusively debunked as crude fabrications, and the war itself spirals uncontrollably toward ever-greater disaster. It would also explain why Cheney and the White House remain so intent on preventing any public accounting of what went on during the energy task force’s meetings, and why the oil executives would attempt to deny their very presence.
--Thomas Eley
The war on terror is the "seminal lie" from which all the administration's criminal excesses are mere tributaries. America's unprovoked aggression in Iraq, as well as the appalling assault on civil liberties, has been carried out in the name of the war on terror. In fact, it has been used to mask everything from police-state legislation at home to massive human rights violations abroad. The war on terror is an all-consuming fraud that poses the greatest threat to personal freedom and global security the world has ever seen. If unchallenged, the dictatorial powers of the president will continue to increase and the world will be plunged into another century of war.
--Mike Whitney
The fact is that there is no opposition to the war party in the United States. When someone like Juan Cole advocates an essentially immoral position intended solely to maintain American control over oil while reducing American casualty rates, with no real regard for the Iraqi people, and all the main Democrats are far to the right of Cole, you know there is no hope. All the Democrats are doing is posturing, trying to pretend that they are an alternative to the Republicans. They aren't.
--Xymphora
Thanks to America's ideological obsession with democracy, Iran is close to control of Iraq's oil-rich Shi'ite regions. On December 4, Iraq's Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a de facto endorsement of the pro-Iranian religious coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, pushing his country further into the Iranian sphere of influence. Sistani's appeal for support for religious parties ruins the prospects of Washington's favored politicians, the secular Shi'ites Iyad Allawi and Ahmad Chalabi.
--Spengler
Unlike his writing partner Carl Bernstein, who was the son of Communist parents and an early convert to the 1960s counterculture, Woodward came from a rock-ribbed Republican family in Wheaton, Illinois, a town that took its Christianity so seriously that alcohol sales were illegal.
--Louis Proyect
But most of all the film is funny, with a very arch humour consonant with the dysfunctional blue-blood family portrayed by the serpent’s tooth team of Harvey and Lansbury. They play their feud with a droll self-mockery that’s as dry as a martini and it’s this that keeps The Manchurian Candidate fresh today.
--Roger Westcombe
Granted, this Manchurian Candidate lacks the original's elegantly absurdist edge. And the storytelling sometimes gets a bit too convoluted for its own good. But it boasts numerous biting references--sometimes sardonic, sometimes chilling--to today's partisan, paranoia-charged political atmosphere.
--Carol Cling
Under the guise of a "blistering condemnation" of the administration, the 9/11 Commission panel . . . has circled the wagons for the New World Order, refreshing and refining the propaganda as needed with their self-congratulatory road shows, media events and bluster. The Bush administration, and all who were involved with the 9/11 crime, could ask for no greater friends.
--Larry Chin
Imagine the "more popular than Jesus" story surfaced not so innocently from an interview in Datebook, an American magazine, and caused a furor. It was something worthy of today's neocons and swift-boaters.
--Jerry Mazza
Gallipoli: The Front Line Experience was released in Turkey early this year and for five weeks was the country’s highest grossing movie. It is the most successful documentary in Turkish history. While most Australian critics praised the film following its Australian release in November, it is only being screened in a handful of cinemas. It is not expected to survive the surfeit of mindless comedies and blockbuster movies soon to hit the local cinemas for the Christmas season.
--Richard Phillips
The people that the 'Peak Oil' pitchmen are fronting for are deadly serious about selling 'Peak Oil' to the masses--and not just in theoretical terms, as a cynical ploy to raise prices and increase profits. No, it has become clear that the real goal is to actually cut off most of the world's oil supplies under the ruse that the oil simply no longer exists. The desired result is massive social unrest, widespread famine and endless war. The majority of the world's people will not survive. Those that do will find themselves living under the overtly authoritarian form of rule that will quickly be deemed necessary to restore order. And if you think that we here in America are exempt, you are sadly mistaken.
In order to pull off this stunt, all the world's major oil producing regions must be solidly under the control of the U.S. and it's co-conspirators, otherwise known as 'allies.' In other words, the puppet-masters have to control all the major oil taps, so that they have complete control over the flow of oil--or lack of it. And that, in a nutshell, is the real reason for America's recent military ventures. The goal, you see, is not to steal Iraq's oil, or the oil in the 'Stans, or in the Sudan, or in Venezuela, or anywhere else. We don't want to take their oil, because the truth is that we don't really need it. What we want to do is sit on the taps so no one else can get to the oil.
--Dave McGowan (10/12/04--with the weirdest reference I've seen--though later references are better--and other good ones are here)
It's about time.
--Joshua Frank
If it is true, as we have been told, that a) the US wants to combat fundamentalism and encourage secular rule and b) the US and Iran are enemies then c) why would Islamist Iran be helping plan the reform of the legal system of a country conquered by the US?
--Jared Israel (5/26/03--worth repeating--though Jared Israel dispenses his own share of disinformation--scroll through Man and Superman)
It seems that all revolutions end up with a personality cult--even the Chinese seem to need a father-figure. I expect this happens in Cuba too, with Che and Fidel. In Western-style Communism we would have to create an almost imaginary workers' image of themselves as the father-figure.
--John Lennon (interviewed by Tariq Ali 1971)
One of the things the movie argues, though, is that doubt isn't a state of mind that Americans feel comfortable with.
--Daniel Feinberg
In perhaps the funniest exposé of the Bushes yet written, St. Clair tells the story of this company masquerading as a family.
--Ashley Smith
Even if the marshals’ account is taken at its face value, the sudden lethal response to Alpizar’s actions is at best questionable. First, his bag had been inspected three times before he boarded the plane--once before boarding in Ecuador, once in clearing customs and a third time before boarding the connecting flight in Miami. The odds of getting a bomb on board were minuscule. Second, he was shot after leaving the plane.
--Bill Van Auken
It is significant that after nine hours of such questioning, no one has come forward to corroborate the Federal Air Marshal Service’s claim that Alpizar said he had a bomb. The obvious explanation is that the entire bomb threat story is a lie, most likely invented by the perpetrators immediately after the shooting to provide themselves with an alibi.
--Kate Randall
Actually, it's an encouraging sign of the resourcefulness of those Iraqi editors that they managed to get paid to print the Pentagon's handouts. Here in the Homeland, editors pride themselves in performing the same service, without remuneration.
--Alexander Cockburn