barack obama

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at Strategic Culture
No democracy can survive censorship. If there is censorship, then each individual cannot make his/her own decisions (voting decisions or otherwise) on the basis of truth but only on the basis of whatever passes through the censor’s filter, which is always whatever supports the censoring regime and implants it evermore deeply into the public’s mind — regardless of its actual truthfulness.

UK protest against iraq war February 15, 2003. (Credit: Stop the War Coalition)
February 15 marks the day, 17 years ago, when global demonstrations against the pending Iraq invasion were so massive that the New York Times called world public opinion “the second superpower.” But the U.S. ignored it and invaded Iraq anyway. So what has become of the momentous hopes of that day?

On Tuesday, February 4, Donald Trump delivered his third State of the Union (SOTU) address. As expected, it was filled with contradictions, falsehoods, and distortions. Among other things, Trump spoke for close to ten minutes about health care in the U.S., claiming that he “will always protect Medicare.” However, neither Trump and the Republicans, nor the Democrats can be trusted when it comes to health care.

It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.
— Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, 2005

Damn The Man, Damn The Empire (January 16th)

The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election Year finds me ensconced in Tucson, Arizona.  This is definitely not Trump country.  Our man in The U.S. House of Representatives is Raul Grijalva, possibly one of the most influential liberals in D.C.  Tucson’s newly-elected mayor is Regina Romero, a Latina leftie who doesn’t shrink from the task of taking on every conceivable social issue.  And I have begun attending what might just be the most influential church in the U.S.A.

He was the world’s most popular leader. Now he is “the world’s most prominent political prisoner” according to American political philosopher Noam Chomsky. From extremely humble beginnings as a peanut seller and a shoeshine boy on Brazil’s streets, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva rose to become president of his nation in 2002. Yet he is now being kept hostage by the country’s fascist Bolsonaro administration.

On January 20, Donald G. Trump completed his third year in office. My one blog that received five-digit Facebook shares predicted Trump would lose in 2016. I was spectacularly wrong but not alone. Even the Las Vegas bookies thought Clinton was a shoo-in with her unbeatable two-punch knockout of (1) I’m not Trump and (2) World War III with the Russians would be peachy at least until the bombs start falling. What could possibly have gone wrong?

In the cynical spectacle that is called politics in the United States, the latest insult to the intelligence of the people is the Democrats who are posturing as Anti-war champions in reaction to the Trump Administration’s assassination of Qassem Soleimani and the possibility of further attacks on Iran.

Former U.S. President Barack Obama is now in severe legal jeopardy, because the Russiagate investigation has turned 180 degrees; and he, instead of the current President, Donald Trump, is in its cross-hairs.