Slashdot Mirror

Socialists?

You are mistaken, aren't you. Or perhaps you like to take every opportunity to run a smear-campaign against socialism at every opportunity because you've been force-fed pro-capitalist shit since the time you were born.

The weapons certainly did come from the US, and the best ones at that. Russia and France sold Iraq conventional weapons: tanks ( as you pointed out ) and rockets. But the US gave Iraq chemical and biological weapons.

Links? Sure.

Arse-hole Rumsfield shaking hands with Iraq over a biological weapons deal.

A long blurb about the history of the Iran / Iraq war.

Robert Byrd questions the US Senate over the US's shipment of "witches' brew of pathogens," including anthrax, botulinum toxin and gangrene.

And don't call me a moron you fucking arrogant moron.

Presidents often decide not to spend certain funds. The absence of a line item veto does nor mean that all appropriated funds are spent.

A google search gave me an interesting site with the following comments:
"The Bush administration was directly responsible for the 9/11 security failure, one of the greatest and most inexcusable in U.S. history. The Administration had been warned by the outgoing Clinton team of the al Qaeda threat and essentially ignored that warning in its eight months in office before 9/11. The Administration failed to take any action based on a host of subsequent warning signals, including information on the flight training of suspicious individuals and explicit advisories of a threatened "spectacular" terrorist action provided by the intelligence agencies of half-a-dozen allied countries. Bush's August 6, 2001 intelligence briefing included an item, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US," which noted the "FBI judgment about pattern of activity consistent with preparation for hijackings and other types of attack." The Bush administration did nothing in response to these warnings in the way of checking out threatening "patterns of activity" like flight training or trying to strengthen airport security. On September 10, 2001, Attorney-General John Ashcroft submitted a Justice Department budget that reduced by $58 million FBI requests that would have provided for 149 counterterrorism field agents, 200 intelligence analysts, and 54 translators; and he proposed a $65 million cut for state and local governments for counterterrorism supplies, including radios and decontamination equipment. Ashcroft's priorities did not include terrorism; they featured "securing the rights of victims of crimes," immigration control, dealing with drug trafficking, and the threat of prostitutes in Louisiana."
(I have no information about this site. However, the claim here - "On September 10, 2001, Attorney-General John Ashcroft submitted a Justice Department budget that reduced by $58 million ..." is either true or false. If it is true, then the intent of the Bush administration was to reduce resources to use against terrorism.)

If the 1998-2000 tech boom and bust taught us anything where you're either a driver or a passenger it's that we need drivers. Translation: new business models that make money in the short and long haul. "Nickel and Dimed" author Barbara Ehrenreich recently spoke at my school, saying: "You can't blame the poor economy on character defects alone. There's not enough money." In short, let's help the financial representation incorporate some good biz models (capitalism + sustainability + socialism = something short of outright greed) that bring in more money for everyone, not just CEOs, management and sys admins on a lofty perch.

What I understand, freedom of expression is guaranteed in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights
"Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression ; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of fronteirs."
[emphasis added]. So if there is any nation that is not a part of the United Nations, sure, imposing these restrictions on the freedom of the government of these nations would be imposing their own beliefs on these other cultures. This does not sound like what these people are doing, however. There is no excuse whatsoever for government censorship by any government who is a member of the United Nations(this means you, China, United States of America, and Canada).

Sure, one may argue that the United Nations may be unnecessary, outdated, completely irrelevent or otherwise, but as it stands today, we are obligated to fufil our part of the bargain, despite how sometimes we may disagree with it, or alternatively, decline membership to the United Nations and become a Rogue State, with none of the protections to you that The Declaration provides.

These guys sound down-right nuts, though. If a dictator is willing to kill thousands of his own people, what makes you think they won't assasinate you, if you actively mess with them? Kudos to their efforts.

Indeed it would be demonized, but that hasn't stopped sites like What Really Happened or Turning the Tide, even though they are quite popular.

Then again, they don't reach millions of people with video, which for some odd reason works more convincing on most people.

Fine, have it your way. Text from the BofC website, links from elsewhere, unless too numerous to list, so I default to Michael Moore's page, full of links from government sources and the like.

1953: U.S. overthrows Prime Minister Mossadeq of Iran. U.S. installs Shah as dictator. Declassified CIA report, same uncensored report linked from a slashdot article.

1954: U.S. overthrows democratically-elected President Arbenz of Guatemala. 200,000 civilians killed. CIA documents from 1954 pertaining to Guatemala as well as book excerpt and newspaper article.

1963: U.S. backs assassination of South Vietnamese President Diem. President Johnson once called him "the Churchill of Asia" in 1961. Wikipedia and two books

1963-1975: American military kills 4 million civilians in Southeast Asia.

September 11, 1973: U.S. stages coup in Chile. Democratically elected president Salvador Allende assassinated. Dictator Augusto Pinochet installed. 5,000 Chileans murdered. Common knowledge, its in a ton of books (excerpt)and movies

1977: U.S. backs military rulers of El Salvador. 70,000 Salvadorans and four American nuns killed. (Chomsky) and full reports (another), and a piece by William Blum

1980's: U.S. trains Osama bin Laden and fellow terrorists to kill Soviets. CIA gives them $3 billion. --Reagan invited Afghani leaders to the white house, and said they were like the US' "founding fathers."

1981: Reagan administration trains and funds "contras". 30,000 Nicaraguans die. --Orchestrated by Oliver North from the White House

1982: U.S. provides billions in aid to Saddam Hussein for weapons to kill Iranians. Sworn affadavits by members of National Security council. Photo of Tariq Aziz at White House with Reagan. More evidence.

1983: White House secretly gives Iran weapons to help them kill Iraqis. --Part of Iran-contra

1989: CI

India and Japan are entirely different. Consider this. When the British Raj was setup in India, there were no industries - just a bunch of people practising whatever was the trade of their caste. About a century ago things changed because the Raj needed armies of accountants, clerks, managers, actuaries etc. So a whole generation of Indians gave up their traditionals skills, picked a bit of English and became employees of the Government. All this because the British gave them something unheard of in those days - permanent employment ( not to mention a pension as well)

The following generation saw armies of lawyers and doctors because being employed by the Government imposed an upper limit on one's income. The next generation saw a whole lot of engineers because that's where the money was. The latest trend is software/IT/telecomms. So if you looked at the past century, Indians have been practically reinventing themselves every generaion.

Another difference - India has umpteen "official" languages, yet when a group of Indians (possibly from different parts of India) sit together to conduct business, the language used is English! They're prepared to learn and use a foreign language if it can further their prospects. That's something you will never see in China or Japan.

When you have to compete with a billion other people for the same (and fast dwindling) resources, you'll learn to have your wits about you. You'll learn to be street smart.

Sorry for the longish post. If you're interested, there's a little bit of history behind India's growth here .

like this?

You'd think after the disaster in Iraq they'd settle down a little, eh?

These Robo-Tanks are obviously not for defence. They are for transport in hostile territory. It's clear the US is planning to keep up with their average of 3 invasions per year that they've been holding steady for the past century.

Who's next?

Is it worth it?

How about the 2003 State of the Union? It's public, and you will find it on the www.whitehouse.gov site. From Talking Points -- The Speech we have

No mention of the lies from the 2003 State of the Union and otherwise
--Iraq has weapons of mass destruction -- oops no it doesn't
--Iraq purchased uranium yellowcake from 'Africa' -- oops no it didn't
--Iraq is linked to al-Qaeda and September 11 -- oops no it isn't

No, the WMDs do not count as lying.

Do you honestly believe this?

If you can't distinguish honest mistakes from actual lying, then you're hopeless.

May I suggest that there are more reliable sources of information than Fox "News"?

I agree with the author in the broad thrust of his argument: that there is something useful in the technique of deconstruction but it's hard to tell what it is because there are no objective standards by which to measure things. I thought the sample deconstruction was excellent -- did no one else wonder why anyone would bother to discuss whether or not John F. Kennedy were homosexual?

I do wonder whether or not his assertion that commercial pressures keep engineers and others more "realistic" is true though. What about all the work done by scientists and statisticians in the employ of tobacco companies? Did they just look in the wrong place for the evidence? It can be plausibly argued that commercial pressures distort objectivity and hide truths as argued in this essay by Edward S. Herman:

Democratic and consumer-oriented systems would place testing in the hands of the EPA or independent (non-corporate funded) testing agencies. But the producers successfully prevent this. They have also been unwilling to place money into a blind pool for independent testing--they want testing to be left in their own hands, to assure an appropriate bias.

The point is supported by other essays on the subject Science, Rationality, Post-Modernism and the Left. The nice thing about this, however, is that there are objective scientific standards that can be used to inform public policy if we decide to apply those standards: if there weren't then the managerial-PoMos would walk all over us.

Other posters have already mentioned the Sokal's Hoax affair and might find another essay on the subject Post-Modernism and Science interesting.

WARNING: all the above information comes from people who agree with Karl Marx on many things. Edward S. Hermann was Noam Chomsky's co-author on Manufacturing Consent and Michael Albert is the editor/publisher of Z Magazine. To be sure these people are more anarchist or social-libertarian than anything, but they're probably in agreement with Marx about significant numbers of things. So, if you're afraid of reading ideas you may not agree with don't, for the love of mike, open any of those links. Just open another tin of Instant Dismissal and whip it up well with some bile until it froths.

I agree with the author in the broad thrust of his argument: that there is something useful in the technique of deconstruction but it's hard to tell what it is because there are no objective standards by which to measure things. I thought the sample deconstruction was excellent -- did no one else wonder why anyone would bother to discuss whether or not John F. Kennedy were homosexual?

I do wonder whether or not his assertion that commercial pressures keep engineers and others more "realistic" is true though. What about all the work done by scientists and statisticians in the employ of tobacco companies? Did they just look in the wrong place for the evidence? It can be plausibly argued that commercial pressures distort objectivity and hide truths as argued in this essay by Edward S. Herman:

Democratic and consumer-oriented systems would place testing in the hands of the EPA or independent (non-corporate funded) testing agencies. But the producers successfully prevent this. They have also been unwilling to place money into a blind pool for independent testing--they want testing to be left in their own hands, to assure an appropriate bias.

The point is supported by other essays on the subject Science, Rationality, Post-Modernism and the Left. The nice thing about this, however, is that there are objective scientific standards that can be used to inform public policy if we decide to apply those standards: if there weren't then the managerial-PoMos would walk all over us.

Other posters have already mentioned the Sokal's Hoax affair and might find another essay on the subject Post-Modernism and Science interesting.

WARNING: all the above information comes from people who agree with Karl Marx on many things. Edward S. Hermann was Noam Chomsky's co-author on Manufacturing Consent and Michael Albert is the editor/publisher of Z Magazine. To be sure these people are more anarchist or social-libertarian than anything, but they're probably in agreement with Marx about significant numbers of things. So, if you're afraid of reading ideas you may not agree with don't, for the love of mike, open any of those links. Just open another tin of Instant Dismissal and whip it up well with some bile until it froths.

I agree with the author in the broad thrust of his argument: that there is something useful in the technique of deconstruction but it's hard to tell what it is because there are no objective standards by which to measure things. I thought the sample deconstruction was excellent -- did no one else wonder why anyone would bother to discuss whether or not John F. Kennedy were homosexual?

I do wonder whether or not his assertion that commercial pressures keep engineers and others more "realistic" is true though. What about all the work done by scientists and statisticians in the employ of tobacco companies? Did they just look in the wrong place for the evidence? It can be plausibly argued that commercial pressures distort objectivity and hide truths as argued in this essay by Edward S. Herman:

Democratic and consumer-oriented systems would place testing in the hands of the EPA or independent (non-corporate funded) testing agencies. But the producers successfully prevent this. They have also been unwilling to place money into a blind pool for independent testing--they want testing to be left in their own hands, to assure an appropriate bias.

The point is supported by other essays on the subject Science, Rationality, Post-Modernism and the Left. The nice thing about this, however, is that there are objective scientific standards that can be used to inform public policy if we decide to apply those standards: if there weren't then the managerial-PoMos would walk all over us.

Other posters have already mentioned the Sokal's Hoax affair and might find another essay on the subject Post-Modernism and Science interesting.

WARNING: all the above information comes from people who agree with Karl Marx on many things. Edward S. Hermann was Noam Chomsky's co-author on Manufacturing Consent and Michael Albert is the editor/publisher of Z Magazine. To be sure these people are more anarchist or social-libertarian than anything, but they're probably in agreement with Marx about significant numbers of things. So, if you're afraid of reading ideas you may not agree with don't, for the love of mike, open any of those links. Just open another tin of Instant Dismissal and whip it up well with some bile until it froths.

• Obviously you have never lived in a country that kills its OWN citizens. For something closer to your home (assuming USA), check out the Waco atrocities committed by the government, as well as Ruby Ridge. Here is some If you are into films, you can also check out the controversial documentary on it.
• Obviously you haven't heard of the totalitarian regimes in Germany, USSR, and USA's close friends Saudi Arabia and Egypt. A couple of stories on the state of Egypt (USA's 2nd large recipient of military aid)
• Obviously you haven't heard of the damage done to civil rights activists in the 60's by the FBI and the CIA. Laws were actually changed to prevent this sort of thing.
• Obviously you have never been targetted by the police. (I have no proof of this but if you let me track you, I can find out :) )
• Obviously you are not a minority man (particularly black) living in some parts of USA. (Don't know this either. But I can easily verify this if you send your driver's license to me)
• Obviously you haven't heard of the infiltration of the FBI by organized criminals (particularly the Italian mafia in the 60's and 70's).
• Obviously you haven't heard of police fabricating information and jailing people.
• Obviously you haven't heard of the government cooking up bogus charges and jailing people. (Refer to the previous link and do your research)
• Obviously McCarthyism is not part of your collective mind.
• Obviously you haven't heard of John Ashcroft's recent decree to spy on antiwar activists.
• Obviously you believe the legal system represent justice. (I can't prove this to anyone. It is something that you will realize as you grow up and leave the cave that you have been living in--if you actually manage to do that!)
• Obviously you underestimate the power of the goverment.

"The United Stares supplied Iraq with intelligence throughout the war [with Iran] and provided it with more than $US5 billion in food credits, technology, and industrial products, most coming after it began to use mustard, cyanide, and nerve gases against both Iranians and dissident Iraqi Kurds."

And for the prospect of a public and fair trial (yes, even horrendous criminals has that right in a state ruled by Law) :

It is hard to believe that either Washington or London would relish the prospect of an open trial. They would not want Saddam to adumbrate their support for him - credit-by-credit, pathogen-by-pathogen, weapon-by-weapon - during the 12 years before he became an official enemy by invading Kuwait in August 1990.

So you see, some of the very members of the current administration was supporting Saddam at the height of his crimes. Do you know understand why so many are quite cynical about Bush'es declaration of democracy and human rights for all?

In Tasks For Our Times: remember, refuse, resist there is a quote from Tolkien of the spirit of refusal :

"[M]y story is not an allegory of Atomic power, but of Power (exerted for domination)," wrote Tolkien in 1956. "Nuclear physics can be used for that purpose. But they need not be. They need not be used at all ... If there is any contemporary reference in my story at all it is to what seems to me the most widespread assumption of our time: that if a thing can be done, it must be done. This seems to me wholly false. The greatest examples of the action of the spirit and of reason are in abnegation."

The power to deny deadly power. The power of refusal.

Is this REALLY about protection of US citizens? Then why does the current administration act the way it does, if this is the goal? I sure don't feel more secure, rather the opposite.

From Sorrows of Empire: An Interview we see that the administration is undermining security :

We are without question in greater danger of terrorist attacks today than we were on September 11 two years ago. Afghanistan has descended into an anarchy comparable to that which prevailed before the rise of the ruthless but religiously motivated Taliban.

And the effects are not one might like :

The United States will feel the blowback from this ill-advised and poorly prepared military adventure for decades. The war in Iraq has already had the unintended consequences of seriously fracturing the Western democratic alliance; eliminating any potentiality for British leadership of the European Union; grievously weakening international law, including the Charter of the United Nations; and destroying the credibility of the president, vice president, secretary of state, and other officials as a result of their lying to the international community and the American people.

yes it's invasive, yes it tacks on an additional 15 seconds, no we don't care if you don't like it

Oh yeah, the administration sendt that message too:

Most important, the unsanctioned military assault on Iraq communicated to the world that the United States was unwilling to seek a modus vivendi with Islamic nations and was therefore an appropriate, even necessary, target for further terrorist attacks.

And as far as Kevin goes, he's had a hard time so I forgive him for it. But I am not going to give stories so these corporate bastards can figure out how to keep people out. I am totally down with the grey-hat backlash that has started - people who are connected with the hacker scene and then go work for ISS or @stake or wherever, and make money off of it. Selling out is bad enough, worse is people who were with the hacker community, start working for security companies, and maintain contact with the active hacker community on an active and "professional" basis.

I am totally down the grey-hat backlash. I see there being two classes - workers and idle heirs. Idle heirs own the majority shares of corporations, thus they control the corporations, thus they control the means of production. I think they have no right to this, and thus I as a worker hacking into a corporate computer am more justified being on there than even another worker following orders from the heir (e.g. working at the company).

I think the fact that hacking machines is a crime is as much bullshit as the fact that more black men in the US go to prison than go to college. Yes, I DO think I have the right to hack anything I want, even if isn't mine - if you look at say bond ownership in the US, about half is owned by 0.5% of the population, and 90% is owned by the poorest 90% of Americans. I could give a flying fuck about these heirs and what they own. I am for anarchy and anarchism - fuck all authority, workers control the means of production. Parasitism like profits, interest, dividends, rent at an end. Up against the wall motherfuckers, this is a stickup!

There used to be a good web page on the hacker backlash against security BS, but it shut down. Here are some links, maybe the page will pop back up. Or maybe YOU can join the movement.

Speech at H2k2

post to full disclosure

post to indymedia

This is good shit

And here are some links about other topics

Chomsky rules

Learn about anarchism

And there's lots of good books on how the working class is regularly ripped off by the man. Just remember - people like Paul Krugman are good, but light. Check out the more radical analysis as well. Workers of the world unite! No gods, no masters!

Walden O'Dell, head of Diebold Election Systems, wrote a letter to Republican contributors in August that said "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

Many specialists remain convinced that a Republican team jiggered the vote-counting computers during the 1987 Presidential election that brought Chun's protege, Roh Tae Woo, to power.

Now, taking into concideration the election frauds in Florida, one does not need a tin-foil hat to see that voting computers will make election frauds even more easy.

Undoubtly, and with some luck he will have a fair trial, in stark contrast to his own former justice system.

Hopefully, this will stop the attacks on the coalition troops

Hopefully, but very unlikely. Contrary to official propaganda not only Saddam loyalists, but also ordinary people are attacking the occupation forces. US disregard for civilians has made them quite a few enemies : Oh The LIttle Saddams We Weave The War on Iraq's Workers

and the US can pull out and let Iraq start setting up its own country.

US are already planning to have several permanent bases in Iraq, and are there to stay. And in the process install a puppet regime to protect their oil interests.

Undoubtly, and with some luck he will have a fair trial, in stark contrast to his own former justice system.

Hopefully, this will stop the attacks on the coalition troops

Hopefully, but very unlikely. Contrary to official propaganda not only Saddam loyalists, but also ordinary people are attacking the occupation forces. US disregard for civilians has made them quite a few enemies : Oh The LIttle Saddams We Weave The War on Iraq's Workers

and the US can pull out and let Iraq start setting up its own country.

US are already planning to have several permanent bases in Iraq, and are there to stay. And in the process install a puppet regime to protect their oil interests.

I don't see him solving any political problems, and I don't know how well respected he is by those who study such things, but I think he's a loon.

Chomsky's political commentary is some of the best out there IMHO. He talks mostly about the United States and its aspirations for world dominance, but he explains exactly what is going on in the world with the utmost clarity. He explains the intent of the nation in question from a historical perspective and debunks the myths and lies stated by those in power. For example, he will give specific meaning to Bush's words: "Either you're with us, or you're with the terrorists" and other such infamous statements in many of his articles.

He is indeed an extremely well respected intellectual among those on the left, although many neo-conservatives both in and out of the political scene despise him immensely... probably because of the threat his ideas pose to them. He is also, however, given virtually no air time by the main stream media because his views aren't compatible with the interests of the corporations who own the main stream media (which aren't that many unfortunately).

Now usually even what I'm saying is seen as crazy left-wing hippie rhetoric, because that's how Chomsky is regarded by much of the population. But one should read what he has to say and find some flaws before dismissing his ideas based on political spectrum alignment.

I encourage anyone to read some of his political writings:
Articles by Noam Chomsky

I sincerely apologize to anyone who is extremely offended by my request for you to READ something, named TFAs.

That Noam Chomsky has a couple courses in there. He's apparently hated at MIT!

Move on - helps busy people be effective citizens.

Make them Accountable - Make Media and Politicians Accountable.

Fallout Shelter - News and Views from the shelter.

Citizens for Legitimate Government - Undo the Coup - opinion and discussion.

Petition to Senate to investigate "Oddities" of 9/11 - by Lori R. Price.

Education for Peace in Iraq Center - Speakers & projects.

War Resisters' League - promoting peace.

American Friends Service Committee - Quakers for peace.

Black Radical Congress - Election reform and voting rights.

Z-Net - Activist Community.

"In totalitarian states the military can compel scientists to perform research for weapons systems. That's not true in the United States, yet American scientists who refuse military work are exceedingly rare today. This may be in part because scientists, like most other citizens, agree that the U.S. is facing dangerous foes. But some dissidents argue the cause is more likely that Pentagon cash has become an addiction that scientists rationalize by working on 'dual use' technologies -- radar that maps planets and guides missiles; robots that peer through smoke in apartment fires to rescue victims, and through battlefield smoke to find human targets."

Err, which United States was this written from? Certainly not the North American superpower of the 20th & 21st centuries.

I mean, we're talking about the country where government subsidized research has produced or contributed to the production of nuclear weapons, intercontinental ballistic missiles, all manner of aircraft, the digital computer, electronic communications, and a host of others -- all of which have direct military applications, and might or might not have non-military uses.

They don't call it the military-industrial complex for nothing.

The current norm, where the ultimate source of funding behind a significant portion of public, private, and academic research is the US federal government (and particularly, the defence department), goes back at least as far as World War II. That was sixty years ago now, yet the patterns you see today are substantially in lines with ones that ran through the Cold War and back to the Manhattan Project and other WW2 efforts.

To suggest that this all on "21st century counter-terrorism efforts" is to ignore that the trends being observed have been in place for many decades.

Do yourself a favor and go read some of Noam Chomsky's writings & talks. Among his political arguments is the idea that these structural arrangements have been around for a long, long time, and much of both the strengths & the weaknesses of America can be traced to these activities -- e.g. the collusion between military & industry directly leads both to America's economic dominance and to the fact that the USA is the world's biggest target.

A lot of people disagree with Chomsky's arguments, but it seems to me that anyone trying to have a serious conversation about such matters has to at least be aware of these views, or they're basically arguing from ignorance.

I will respond to a selected few comments you have made.

I have been to Chile many times. I've talked to people who live there. The 1970s coup was very necessary. The whole country was an economic disaster and there were massive food shortages

I have lived in Chile since 1989, one year before Pinochet miscalculated the support he would get in a second plebiscite and was replaced by a "democratic" government.

The people you have talked to have told you one side of the story. As a matter of fact, you seem to have listened very carefully to them, as you have repeated the far-right-wing speech quite accurately.

Communists hate Pinochet because he was the only person to ever remove a communist government from power.

Might I point out that calling someone a "communist" in Chile amounts to saying that they do not glorify the military government and its actions? Note carefully that the criteria for being a communist has not changed. The difference is that from 1973 onwards you were "disappeared", tortured and often shot, while today you are just looked down upon by the right wing sector of society.

I bid you to take a few moments to think about your words: might it not be more likely that so-called communists resent the military government for having tortured and killed fathers, mothers, friends, family members, and, well, innocent people?

To this day, there is no understanding among the two sides in Chile. Day after day, year after year, the 11th of September comes and goes, and there is no understanding. So-called "communists" are told to their faces that the disappeared "do not exist", that they are a "marxist myth", or that they all ran away abroad. People mindlessly repeat the mantra that Allende's government was a disaster (it was, but not without considerable help from the USA and the Right), that it would have been much worse, look at Chile now, what a miracle, and so on.

Go on, I challenge you to read up about the Chicago Boys, about the amount of money spent manipulating Chile's media, about the right- and CIA- organized trucker strikes, about what Pinochet did to the public health system (AFP and ISAPREs).

Show your commitment to being well-informed, and form an opinion based not upon conversations with one side of an extremely polarised society, but on historical documents.

For your convenience, here are a few links, starting with an interview with Noam Chomsky: Secrets, Lies and Democracy, The Lawless State , U.S. Responsibility for the Coup in Chile. Please, take some time to Google a bit (or, heaven forbid, go to your local library ;-)

If you want to see some real left wing propaganda go check out Z Magazine. And if you are interested in exactly how the media control mechanisms work read Chomsky & Herman's Manufacturing Consent, one of the more prophetic books written in the 20th century.

Speaking as an actual liberal (not one of these pansy Lieberman/Dean wimps) I have to say that I am completely unrepresented in the American media. I know, I know your violin is bringing tears to your own eyes. But honestly, I think many liberals in this country are completely fed up with the Democratic party, the "liberal" media and the complete lack of political discourse on subjects that actually matter. That's why Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine was so wildly popular. Frankly I wouldn't be too surprised to see a liberal media movement, quite similar to the conservative one you described, start to really flare up in the next year.

Sorry, but Rand here and elsewhere is spouting apologetic nonsense, to justify the strong taking from the weak without compassion. She has no understanding of the many possible senses of self or types of selfishness (beyond a narrow conception of self as solitary body). If you had stopped paying attention in your history class :-) and instead lucked into some stuff written from other than the perspective of the current victors, you would have discovered that the United States of America's prosperity was built in large part on the genocide of the native peoples and theft of their land (including by use of biological warfare) [which destroyed many cultures far more egalitarian and generally pleasant than at present], the slavery of black people ripped from their native worlds and treated more cruelly and peversely than most slaves throughout the ages, the theft of patents and copyrights and trade secrets from old Europe, and the exploitation of seeds and plants and animals imported from a variety of countries by immigrants (as well as indigenous ones cultivated for millenia like corn, potatoes, and tobacco again taken without just compensation from the natives), assistance from countries like France which saw value in the US prospering to the detriment of England, as well as clever politics and global economic strategy which helped destroy Europe during two world wars and led to immense profits from the destruction and reconstruction of those countries (including by the Bush family). Yes, there was a lot of hard work involved too by some -- usually not those who got most of the riches. Try reading the book A People's History of the United States or the book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong or even the online: Confessions of a Recovering Economist. Never forget that there are two human components to wealth (beyond a healthy natural world underlying it all) -- labor and rent (or other monopolies enforced ultimately by state violence including patents and regulatory powers). It is in the control of rent monopolies that the greatest wealth is to be had -- and usually the greatest unfairness. And the trail of control over monopolies rarely leads entirely to labor -- except perhaps of an ingratiating or militaristic sort. Much of the generally undertold and underappreciated history of the US from the Trail of Tears to the fight for the forty hour work week (now being lost again) revolves around power struggles over monopoly power to make decisions about some resource (i.e. who has the right to use a piece of land or set working conditions in some factory).

If we are very lucky, robotics may bring us back to a level of spiritual and economic prosperity enjoyed by many native peoples for thousands of years, but supporting larger populations (maybe quadrillions around the solar system with self-replicating space habitats powered by sunlight and using asteoridal ore). Most anthropologists now accept that agriculture and related work was a huge step backwards in health and living conditions for most people, and only happened because of rising populations and ever more sophisticated militaristic bureaucracies.

You're not going to read about this in the mass media.

Interesting article about what set the scene for this historic blackout:

Power Outage Traced To Dim Bulb In White House: The Tale Of The Brits Who Swiped 800 Jobs From New York, Carted Off $90 Million, Then Tonight, Turned Off Our Lights

Of particular significance as I write here in the dark, regulators told utilities exactly how much they had to spend to insure the system stayed in repair and the lights stayed on. Bureaucrats crawled along the wire and, like me, crawled through the account books, to make sure the power execs spent customers' money on parts and labor. If they didn't, we'd whack'm over the head with our thick rule books. Did we get in the way of these businessmen's entrepreneurial spirit? Damn right we did.

One does not need to be a fringe paranoid to concede that professor Jim Cornehls in The USA PATRIOT ACT has a point :

If another power were to occupy the United States and institute the policies provided for in the USA PATRIOT Act--secret arrests, secret trials, secret investigations, secret deportations--the United States would be considered a police state.

1. Afghanistan, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003
2. Bosnia, 1994, 1995
3. Cambodia, 1969-70
4. China, 1945-46
5. Congo (now Zaire), 1964
6. Cuba, 1959-1961 ("Bay of Pigs" invasion)
7. El Salvador, 1980s
8. Grenada, 1983
9. Guatemala, 1954, 1960, 1967-69
10. Indonesia, 1958
11. Iran, 1987
12. Iraq, 1991-2000, 2003 (The U.S. government used radioactive bombs in the first war against Iraq. See United States War Crimes Against Iraq for what appears to be an accurate history.)
13. Korea and China, 1950-53 (Korean War)
14. Kuwait, 1991
15. Laos, 1964-73
16. Lebanon, 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
17. Libya, 1986
18. Nicaragua, 1980s
19. Panama, 1989. The U.S. government called it "Operation Just Cause". The link is to a U.S. military web site.
20. Peru, 1965
21. Somalia, 1993
22. Sudan 1998. There are doubts that the pharmaceutical plant that was bombed was making weapons.
23. Vietnam, 1961-73 (An estimated 2,000,000 Vietnamese were killed.)
24. Yugoslavia, 1999

There are many sources for this information. For example, see this PBS web page: PBS: A Chronology of U.S. Military Interventions (PBS is the Public Broadcasting System in the U.S.) Also see From Wounded Knee to Afghanistan: A Century of U.S. Military Interventions [zmag.org] and The government of the United States is a consistent opponent of international law. [prairie-fire.org]

I put some links and explanation together about wh

If another power were to occupy the United States and institute the policies provided for in the USA PATRIOT Act--secret arrests, secret trials, secret investigations, secret deportations--the United States would be considered a police state.

Sadly so, it's indeed ironic.

There do exist alternativ sources of informed and critical journalism. For instance, ZNet has many articles written by very good journalists from respected newspapers. Quite a few articles/interviews with Noam Chomksy as well on that site.

In USA the quality of the public school system is beeing deconstructed. The average PhD student in USA is not an american citizen, nor has any US style high school "education". What little social security US citizens had is actively deconstructed as well.

And all those millions americans without medical insurance, oh yeah, their economy is also beeing deconstructed.

From Profits Not Patients : ...Tenet Healthcare Corp., the USA's second largest hospital chain, charges uninsured patients three to 10 times more than HMOs. (Wall Street Journal, June 19)

Yes, sure does come with "great responsibility". I can see how the US is making the world a better place.

The thing is that the US continues to make mistakes in foreign policy. As does Russia, England, etc. And they suffer for it. England for what it does in Ireland, and now in Iraq, Russia for what they do to the Chechens and so on. Sweden has a higher rated freedom of the press, for example, as do many other countries. Slashdot had an article about this a while ago. The US is not, unfortunately, as high up in the freedom game as we used to be. And yet, these other countries don't get attacked or are not the target of such severe hatred by so many groups. "Look at the places in the world that hate us the most?" It'd good that you kept in "the most" as a qualifier. With the way our country is acting, almost everyone is starting to hate us, including free people. As much as I love this country, I'd like to travel outside of it every now and then.

Fortunately, we still have the basis of a country built on the spirit of freedom, so all isn't doomed. But legislation like the Patriot Act, all conjured up in the fear of terrorism, are making things worse. Just because other countries have been imperialistic in the past, including France, China, etc. doesn't excuse the US and it's new, unprecedented brand of unchallenged imperialism that will damage it's citizens and the freedom it was built on.

reestablish a Jewish homeland in Palestine..
While you provide more history, it is not inaccurate to call an idealogy whose major tenet is creating an ethnically pure "homeland" as racist. Even if the ethnic group in question wanted to establish their "homeland" in Antartica (where no one would have to be displaced) the whole idea still seems racist to me.

Nice to see that Phil is still waving the banner for privacy rights, especially in light of the Patriot bill and other "anti-terrorism" legislation. Check out for some great alternative news articles.

1. Afghanistan, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003
2. Bosnia, 1994, 1995
3. Cambodia, 1969-70
4. China, 1945-46
5. Congo (now Zaire), 1964
6. Cuba, 1959-1961 ("Bay of Pigs" invasion)
7. El Salvador, 1980s
8. Grenada, 1983
9. Guatemala, 1954, 1960, 1967-69
10. Indonesia, 1958
11. Iran, 1987
12. Iraq, 1991-2000, 2003 (The U.S. government used radioactive bombs in the first war against Iraq. See United States War Crimes Against Iraq for what appears to be an accurate history.)
13. Korea and China, 1950-53 (Korean War)
14. Kuwait, 1991
15. Laos, 1964-73
16. Lebanon, 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
17. Libya, 1986
18. Nicaragua, 1980s
19. Panama, 1989. The U.S. government called it "Operation Just Cause". The link is to a U.S. military web site.
20. Peru, 1965
21. Somalia, 1993
22. Sudan 1998. There are doubts that the pharmaceutical plant that was bombed was making weapons.
23. Vietnam, 1961-73 (An estimated 2,000,000 Vietnamese were killed.)
24. Yugoslavia, 1999

There are many sources for this information. For example, see this PBS web page: PBS: A Chronology of U.S. Military Interventions (PBS is the Public Broadcasting System in the U.S.) Also see From Wounded Knee to Afghanistan: A Century of U.S. Military Interventions [zmag.org] and The government of the United States is a consistent opponent of international law. [

Here is a good synopsis of the SARS situation.

yea nobody has used the term neoliberal or pragmatic liberal

How can we take you seriously when you affirm that Noriega was a candidate in the 1990 elections in Nicaragua - when almost anyone who knows anything about Central America knows that he wasn't. (Hint: check out Panama instead...)

Basically, the 1990 election was a sham, as the U.S. made it know that they would withdraw all help to Nicaragua if the Sandinistas (who overthrew Somoza, a brutal dictator who had the support of the U.S.) were elected again. Nicaragua couldn't stand up to the U.S., its citizens knew that very well. That's why the Sandinistas lost in 1990.

> And then we have the moron listed above, who is still clinging like grim death to the "war for oil" mantra. Yeah, we're in there for oil. Instead of just buying the oil from Saddam, we thought it would be cheaper to mobilize our army and risk blowing the infrastructure to kingom come.

Notice that if we had just bought the oil from Saddam then the profits of the trade would have gone to foreign energy companies instead of US energy companies. With that in mind, read this, and take particular notice of what happened when the Shah of Iran needed the USA to buy more of their oil from him to boost his revenues.

US meddling in the Persian Gulf hasn't historically bene about oil per se, it has been about who profits from the trade of the oil.

Q: You also cite [the American philosopher and educator] John Dewey. What did he have to say about this?

A: Dewey was one of the last spokespersons for the Jeffersonian view of democracy. In the early part of this century, he wrote that democracy isn't an end in itself, but a means by which people discover and extend and manifest their fundamental human nature and human rights. Democracy is rooted in freedom, solidarity, a choice of work and the ability to participate in the social order. Democracy produces real people, he said. That's the major product of a democratic society -- real people.

He recognized that democracy in that sense was a very withered plant. Jefferson's "banking institutions and monied incorporations" had of course become vastly more powerful by this time, and Dewey felt that "the shadow cast on society by big business" made reform very difficult, if not impossible. He believed that reform may be of some use, but as long as there's no democratic control of the workplace, reform isn't going to bring democracy and freedom.

Like Jefferson and other classical liberals, Dewey recognized that institutions of private power were absolutist institutions, unaccountable and basically totalitarian in their internal structure. Today, they're far more powerful than anything Dewey dreamed of.

This literature is all accessible. It's hard to think of more leading figures in American history than Thomas Jefferson and John Dewey. They're as American as apple pie. But when you read them today, they sound like crazed Marxist lunatics. That just shows how much our intellectual life has deteriorated.

I disagree.

The US is constantly changing, and growing, where Europe is trying to maintain the world super power status they once had.

The US is trying to increase the reach of its world hegemony. The EU is effectively becoming (over the long term) an increasingly needed counterbalance to the US.

Another example, visionary currency traders figured out how to call a nations "bluff" (eg when when HK artifically peged their currency to the dollar) reactioaries grouped their currences together into a single large one (the Euro, but notice how the two strongest Euopean economies passed).

I don't see how the Euro is reactionary. In the UK, which has not joined the Euro, the Euro is a totally cross party issue. Left-wingers like Tony Benn and right-wing reactionaries like the current Conservative leader oppose it. But visionary left-wingers like the Green Party, centrists like the Liberal Democrats, and so-called "moderate" right-wingers like Kenneth Clarke support it.

When visionary leadership in the US went to route out a ruthless dictator who terrorists could possibly get deadly weapons from, reactionaries desperately tried to block it every step of the way.

This invasion is not about weapons of mass destruction.

Dude, you just referenced two liberal rags claiming the Republicans are pulling the sky down.

Like, shaa, bro. You talkin' 'bout this den of commies or the pit of socialist vipers?

Chomsky ... let his ideology blind him from the atrocities committed by Pol Pot in Cambodia.

Incorrect. From an article by Edward S. Herman on the subject:

Lewis then goes on: "A few Western intellectuals, notably Prof. Noam Chomsky, refused to believe what was going on in Cambodia. At first, at least, they put the reports of killing down to a conspiratorial effort by American politicians and press to destroy the Cambodian revolution." This is a multiple lie: First, we did not disbelieve the reports in general and were very clear that "gruesome" atrocities were being carried out. We did contest some blatant lies, like those of Lacouture, and media gullibility, which in this case, where points were being scored against an enemy. reached remarkable levels. Second, we never believed or said that there was any conspiracy going on, and regularly cited State Department experts as sources of plausible information. Third, we weren't defending the "Cambodian revolution," and never believed that the propaganda campaign was designed to destroy it; in fact, we stressed that its spokespersons didn't do, or even propose doing, anything to help Cambodians. We saw the propaganda campaign as aimed at Americans, to help reconstruct an imperial ideology that had been badly damaged by the Vietnam War.

In fact, it was the U.S. that was supporting Pol Pot directly and via its ally at the time, China.

The Times editorial of June 24 recognizes a small problem in pursuing Pol Pot, arising from the fact that after he was forced out of Cambodia by Vietnam, "From 1979 to 1991, Washington indirectly backed the Khmer Rouge, then a component of the guerrilla coalition fighting the Vietnamese installed Government [in Phnom Penh]." This does seem awkward: the United States and its allies giving economic, military, and political support to Pol Pot, and voting for over a decade to have his government retain Cambodia's UN seat, but now urging his trial for war crimes. The Times misstates and understates the case: the United States gave direct as well as indirect aid to Pol Pot--in one estimate, $85 million in direct support--and it "pressured UN agencies to supply the Khmer Rouge," which "rapidly improved" the health and capability of Pol Pot's forces after 1979 (Ben Kiernan, "Cambodia's Missed Chance," Indochina Newsletter, Nov.-Dec. 1991). U.S. ally China was a very large arms supplier to Pol Pot, with no penalty from the U.S. and in fact U.S. connivance--Carter's National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski stated that in 1979 "I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot...Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him but China could."

Read that last sentence again. Carter's National Security advisor said that, while Pol Pot was an "abomination," the U.S. encouraged China to support him since the U.S. couldn't do so openly. Yet it is Chomsky who is accused of being an apologist for Pol Pot.

Take for example the current thread. Use Google and try and find the *original* reference to the 'Second Superpower'. No cheating and using the Register article as a hint for search terms. If you can do it at all, you'll have wade through pages of chaff. By definition, that's a bad search engine.

OK. I tried, pretending that I knew nothing about the original meaning of the term other than that it was different from, and more "radical" than, the one in Jim Moore's blog. It took me about five minutes to get to an article by David Edwards that says: "American dissident, Phyllis Bennis, writes of how the US superpower has been joined on the world stage by a second superpower - global public opinion.". It's clear that the article is referring to the original meaning, not to Jim Moore's watered-down one.

I don't think that's unreasonable.

I don't think we can reasonably expect Google, or any other search engine, to hand over the pages I'm interested in without any work, as long as there's variation in what people are interested in.