Category: American Empire

by Howard Zinn

On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

Is not nationalism — that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder — one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota began what is expected to become the broadest shutdown of state services in its history early Friday, after Republicans and Democrats there failed to agree on how to solve the state’s budget woes in time for the new fiscal year.

And so, on the eve of a holiday weekend, residents were likely to find the state’s parks, historical sites and the Minnesota Zoo closed, hunting and fishing licenses no longer being issued, and that state’s lottery system and racetracks unavailable.

by John Lawrence / Will Blog for Food / June 30, 2011

Everyone is talking about how to get the economy moving again and how to create jobs. President Obama talks about “winning the future.”

This means more education, more entrepreneurialism, more new industries, more new products for consumers to buy.

Surely, all this new economic activity is exactly what we need or is it?

By Lucas O’Connor / Issa Exposed / June 29, 2011

Darrell Issa is back in hot water for using his powerful Congressional perch to help his personal investments. A new report out today from Think Progress finds that Issa was busy last year buying up Goldman Sachs High Yield Bonds worth up to $50,000 a pop while pressing strongly to thwart an SEC investigation into potential wrongdoing at Goldman Sachs

Plagued by ethical breaches and links to groups calling for armed insurrection against the U.S. government, Clarence Thomas must resign his seat on the Supreme Court.

Time was when, at any right-wing gathering, chances were that you’d hear the justices of the Supreme Court derided as black-robed usurpers of democracy. Today, not so much. Ever since the seating of the Roberts court, the right has been pretty happy with high court’s decisions, especially the outcome of Citizens United v. FEC, the case through which the court, in a decision handed down last year, opened the floodgates of corporate money into the electoral system.

By Tom Hayden / The Nation / June 23, 2011

Two years ago I was on a Chicago panel with a just-retired military officer, Charles Tucker, a former top adviser to the US embassy in Iraq, general counsel to the Pentagon and a major general in the Air National Guard. During our debate, he made a statement worth remembering on this night of Barack Obama’s speech on Afghanistan. His words were these:

“The only relevant debate in the next two years will be counterinsurgency versus counterterrorism. After that, Obama will begin surrendering to the peace movement.”

By John Lawrence / Will Blog for Food / June 23, 2011

War is immensely profitable; that’s why there is so much of it. It’s the only domestic industry to speak of. All the rest have been outsourced.

War constitutes almost the entire GDP of Afghanistan while enriching the corrupt Karzai and his henchmen. War is immensely profitable to Pakistan too – $2 billion a year profitable.

Editor: Last night Activist San Diego held the annual election to its Board of Directors. One of those nominated was Jeeni Criscenzo. Her nomination speech to the assembled crew of activists was remarkable and I asked her if we could re-print it. Here it is:

by Jeeni Criscenzo

Please don’t ask me to do this.
I only want to be a homemaker, …

By John Lawrence/ Will Blog for Food

The Republicans have Obama exactly where they want him: a failing economy with no chance for any significant job creation program. Why isn’t there any chance for a job creation program? Because Republicans control the House and have veto power in the Senate.

The Supreme Court on Monday blocked the massive sex-discrimination case female employees brought against Wal-Mart in a decision that might make it harder to bring future discrimination lawsuits against large corporations.

Here’s America’s 10 wealthiest billionaires:

No. 1. : Bill Gates – Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates is worth a huge net $54 billion.

No. 2.: Warren Buffett – Financial magnate Warren Buffet smiles as he is introduced at the Berkshire Hathaway. Chairman Warren Buffett has $45 billion to smile about.

No. 3: Larry Ellison – Larry Ellison, chief executive officer of Oracle Corp., a computer technology company, is worth $27 billion ….

The gap between America’s rich and poor is so extreme levels of inequality are worse in the land of the free than they are in many developing countries.

The U.S. ranks way behind the European Union and the United Kingdom in terms of inequality of pay, figures show.

In fact, the situation is so extreme the land of the free falls behind countries such as Cameroon, the Ivory Coast and revolutionary Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen – and only just in front of Uganda and Jamaica.