by Nicholas C. Arguimbau / October 29th, 2010 ()
Michael Nasuti of Kabul Press recently published an article in which he calculated that killing each Taliban soldier in Afghanistan costs on average of $50 million to the US. The article, seemingly carefully researched with all assumptions laid out so that anyone can examine them, is well worth reading. Nasuti, “Killing Each Taliban Soldier Costs $50 million.”
He points out that at this rate, killing the entire Taliban forces (only 35,000) would cost $1.7 trillion, not a small amount for a country suffering from a severe economic downturn to spend on a war with no apparent purpose. …
by Bill Noxid / October 29th, 2010 ()
It’s an all but unfathomable situation President Obama has placed the American people in. In a mere two years he has managed to squander the momentum and enthusiasm of the clear majority of this country, systematically discredit and disregard the voluminous grievances of the American People, continuously cede the moral and factual high ground to ignorance and hate, and ensure that the criminal elements that shredded the Constitution, killed millions in war crimes, and collapsed the global economy go into the 2010 midterm elections with more money, power, and influence than ever.
Given the horrendous crimes, lies, and manipulations committed …
Protest met with rubber bullets
by Jonathan Cook / October 29th, 2010 ()
Israeli police injured two Arab legislators on Wedensay in violent clashes provoked by Jewish right-wing extremists staging a march through the northern Arab town of Umm al-Fahm.
Haneen Zoubi, a parliament member who has become a national hate figure in Israel and received hundreds of death threats since her participation in an aid flotilla to Gaza in the summer, was among those hurt.
Ms Zoubi reported being hit in the back and neck by rubber bullets as she fled the area when police opened fire. In an interview, she said she believed she had …
by Ramzy Baroud / October 29th, 2010 ()
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to claim that the resumption of peace talks between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority have thus far yielded nothing of value, at least not as far as settling the decades-long struggle.
For one, the media has paid the talks little attention, aside from the ceremonial coverage of the first round of talks in Washington on September 2. It barely noticed the following round in the Middle East nearly two weeks later. What did capture the media’s attention was US President Barack Obama’s attempt to minimize the damage he invited upon himself for …
by Gene DeNardo / October 28th, 2010 ()
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
— Thomas Jefferson, em>(Attributed)
3rd president of US (1743 – …
by Roberto Rodriguez / October 28th, 2010 ()
When people the world over think of Arizona, nowadays, they generally think of Gov. Jan Brewer, Sheriff Joe Arapio or state rep. Russell Pearce – the poster children of the state’s move toward legalized discrimination and racial profiling. If they are closely following the politics of the sun state, they also think of state superintendent of schools, Tom Horne, the architect of the state’s move to abolish Ethnic/Raza Studies.
Here, we think of the human toll.
Combined, these Arizona measures are becoming the modern version of Indian Removal and the colonial policy of “reducciones” – a policy aimed at civilizing …
by Mickey Z. / October 28th, 2010 ()
Election Day is mental illness in plain view — unabashed, unfettered lunacy not even trying to masquerade as sanity. If we woke up, it would take perhaps 3-5 seconds to recognize this: Obama is a heinous criminal. His Republican rivals (sic) are heinous criminals.
Then again, the same can be said for the volunteer soldiers and all those who give the orders; the law enforcement types and all those who give the orders; the judges; the professional liars who stock the media ranks; and, of course, the humans that comprise the power structure of …
by Jim Prues / October 28th, 2010 ()
Many of us are aware that the elitists currently pouring millions into this election cycle anonymously care little about education. Indeed, these elitists prefer ignorance and misinformation as the best tactic to maintain power and control. As such, the poor state of our elections and electorate is to be expected.
The charade called the 2010 Election brings to an end any honest discussion about the quality of information and education we the people receive through the corporate-controlled media. The litany of ridiculous ideas a substantial minority of our electorate holds deserves mention only …
by Maidhc Ó Cathail / October 28th, 2010 ()
Helen Keller’s pithy observation about American democracy being little more than a choice “between Tweedledum and Tweedledee” was never more true than in the upcoming mid-term elections in the ninth congressional district of Illinois.
In a district which includes the affluent northern suburbs of Chicago along the shore of Lake Michigan, the central issue is not the two wars — or is it now three? — the country is fighting, nor is it the tanking economy, in great part caused by those debt-inducing wars. No, the burning issue here is… who cares more about Israel?
“A Jewish candidate has been trying to …
Advancing the Revolution in the Concrete World Situation of Today
by Ike Nahem / October 27th, 2010 ()
Marxism is the concrete analysis of a concrete situation.
— Lenin
On September 13, 2010 the Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC) – the mass trade-union organization that is a central component and pillar of the Cuban workers’ state and the revolutionary government headed by Raul Castro – issued an announcement which codified and specified new measures and significant changes in economic, financial, and commercial policies that will be implemented in Cuba over the coming months and years. These new economic policies have been long-debated and broadly discussed inside Cuba from local grass-roots mass organizations and work places to the highest levels …
by James Keye / October 27th, 2010 ()
In 1949 I was abducted from my family home, a little two-story brick farmhouse in Ohio, and taken, by a man and woman who bore remarkable resemblance to my parents, to a small farming community on the central Gulf coast of Florida. Not only was I taken from my home, my way of life was dramatically changed only weeks after the abduction by my being sent to labor with the strangest of strangers in the local elementary school.
I soon discovered that there had been a war – I knew about World War II, …
by Rosemary and Walter Brasch / October 27th, 2010 ()
It will be cold tonight in Pennsylvania, but that means nothing to dozens of politicians who are in their final week of a ubiquitous campaign to get a government job.
There isn’t a household in Pennsylvania that has active voters that hasn’t been subjected to at least two dozen TV political ads each day, several robo-calls a week, and a few dozen direct mail full-color 8-1/2-by-11 inch postcard campaign ads. Many households have already received three or four dozen such ads in the past month.
Pennsylvanians aren’t the only ones who have been subjected to a …
by Anna White / October 27th, 2010 ()
From the burgeoning popularity of farmers’ markets and co-operatives to the revitalisation of community banking, people are organising to reclaim the economy from large profit-driven corporations and ‘too big to fail’ financial institutions. The small-scale and diversity of these local initiatives masks the immense potential they hold for addressing fundamental flaws in the current model of economic development. Rather than treat the swing towards the local as a fad or misplaced radicalism, the policy community should work to support this alternative vision for sustainable, human-scale development.
Why localise?
The concept of discriminating in favour of local economies is by no …
by Stephen Lendman / October 27th, 2010 ()
On October 22, AP reported that over 7,000 square miles of Gulf waters off Florida’s Panhandle were declared oil-free and reopened to fishing. According the the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 96% of Gulf waters are now safe and reopened, spokeswoman Jane Lubchenco saying, “Our tests continue to reveal seafood from the reopened areas is safe to eat.” Others disagree. More on that below.
The newly opened area is about 60 miles east of the Macondo wellhead. About 9,400 square miles of fishing waters remain closed, 4% of federal waters, down from 37% earlier.
From the start, The New Times provided …
Been there, done that… the answer is NO!
by Jack Lohman / October 27th, 2010 ()
Conservatives say that private companies are more efficient than government, but they ignore that Medicare already has a private arm put into place by George Bush in 2003. It’s called Medicare Advantage and 25% of seniors have opted for it. (Some “tricked” into it, but I’ll not go into that here.)
But that privatized Medicare system costs taxpayers 17% more than the traditional public system. So much for private being more efficient than public.
The reason it got congressional approval in the first place is that private insurance companies can give campaign contributions and Medicare cannot. And that’s a major slap …
