Kathleen Wells of Race Talk interviews Noam Chomsky on Israel.
Understated, via Mission Mission.
It’s the 65th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in history today.
Let’s hope the U.S. and Israel do not try to trump it as some have been suggesting they might.
Click through for the video.
Collateral Murder, another U.S. massacre, this time caught on tape. When you watch the video bare in mind the U.S. military claimed the victims died in a battle that took place between U.S. forces and insurgents:
“There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force”
—Lieutenant-Colonel Scott Bleichwehl,
spokesman for U.S. forces in Baghdad. (New York Times)
The reality is a bunch of coward rednecks flying around in helicopters committing murder from high above.
When the Nuremberg Tribunal described a war of aggression as the supreme war crime, because it “contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole,” this is the kind of thing they were talking about. These trigger happy rednecks flying around in helicopters just shouldn’t be in Iraq in the first place.
And this redneck nation wonders why people want to fly planes into their buildings.
Back in 2003 and 2004 over 70% of American’s polled were telling pollsters not only that they believed Saddam Hussein had WMDs but that he was personally involved in the attack on the World Trade Centre.
Now they’re at it again, with over 70% telling pollsters that they think Iran has nuclear weapons.
Should this country really be allowed to deal in international politics?
There’s a campaign under way in the U.S. to “restore the First Amendment to its original purpose: to protect people, not corporations.” They need to hurry. The U.S. has long taken the road to corporatocracy. The longer this goes on the less likely they’ll ever be able to turn back.
In 1886 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations had the same constitutional rights as a person. This was the beginning of the end of any meaningful form of democracy in the U.S.
David Korten alludes to the reason:
The private-benefit corporation is an institution granted a legally protected right — some would claim obligation — to pursue a narrow private interest without regard to broader social and environmental consequences. If it were a real person, it would fit the clinical profile of a sociopath.
The basic design of the private-benefit corporation was created in 1600 when the British crown chartered the British East India Company as what is best described as a legalized criminal syndicate to colonize the resources and economies of distant lands to benefit wealthy investors far removed from the social and environmental consequences. That design has ever since proven highly effective in advancing the private interests of the world’s wealthiest people at enormous cost to the rest.
The private-benefit corporation uses its economic power to privatize (internalize) gains and socialize (externalize) cost.
The power afforded to corporations in the U.S. has, until now, been slightly curtailed by limits imposed on corporate spending in political campaigns. In a sweeping decision a right-wing majority U.S. Supreme Court has ruled to lift these limits.
Corporations, and the rich behind them, finally own America. Democracy for the rich.
The 20th century has been characterised by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy; the growth of corporate power; and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.
—Alex Carey, Taking the Risk out of Democracy