from The Ground Truth: the human cost of war

BBC: US Civil War 150th anniversary: How US remains divided
(the US Civil War started on April 12th, 1861, 150 years ago today)


I'd never heard of Jennifer Matsui until today, when I came across her name in a Joe Bageant essay, "The Simulacran Republic", which also worth reading.


Matsui:"The Unmitigated Gall of O-Dacity" is from December 2009, but still relevant.

Awarding the current US Murderer-in-Chief the same prize that was bestowed upon Dr Martin Luther King Jr in 1964 is yet just another example of the Corporate State's ability to subvert dissident thought and action into establishment enabling PR. The same institutions that rely on Bono to lend legitimacy and rock star "cred" to their violent neo-colonial agenda have now appointed a youthful former community organizer to head their global operations. In Bono's case, the peace activism of John Lennon was successfully reconfigured to serve the interests of the ruling class as 'New Labour' rallied rock stars and other "anti-Establishment" figures to rise up and allow a new super elite to emerge. We can see the same brain trust at work as neo-cons embrace 'feminism' to justify their unending war on the Muslim world, invoking the dreaded veil to get western women on board with their military objectives.

And, yesterday from the BBC, "Egypt blogger Maikel Nabil jailed by military court"


Chris Hedges,
''Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System''

Uh, oh: "General: U.S. troops not ideal, but may be considered in Libya"(CBS News)

April 3rd: Telegraph, "People with Norman names wealthier than other Britons"

People with "Norman" surnames like Darcy and Mandeville are still wealthier than the general population 1,000 years after their descendants conquered Britain, according to a study into social progress.

Twenty facts on inequality in the US. Charts and information.
(via Jodi Dean)

March 26: Vivek Wadhwa, "Friends Don’t Let Friends Get Into Finance"

Pepe Escobar, "Let me bomb you in Peace"

I will admit I haven't followed the developing situation in Ivory Coast very closely. As you probably know NATO has been involved in their civil war there, and earlier this week helped remove Laurent Gbagbo from power.

I note however, that a couple of weeks ago Paul Craig Roberts remarked in "The New Colonialism" that

Forty-nine countries participate in the US Africa Command[aka AFRICOM-JV], but not Libya, Sudan, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, and Ivory Coast. There is Western military intervention in these non-member countries except for Zimbabwe.

Then again, maybe Empire is an alphabetical project.-JV

Monday, 7 June 2010

Asia Times, "We are all Gazans Now", Pepe Escobar


BBC[text and video link] "21 Miles Off The Coast of Palestine" (about 43 minutes)

Adam Curtis links to an early 70s documentary about the 1947 passage of the Exodus, which was also intercepted outside territorial waters. The Exodus, carrying Jewish refugees from a port in Marseilles, was intercepted by the British who were enforcing an immigration limit on Palestine. No, this is not the Hollywood film with Paul Newman.


CBS News(AP) "Many Gulf Federal Judges Have Oil Links"

More than half of the federal judges in districts where the bulk of Gulf oil spill-related lawsuits are pending have financial connections to the oil and gas industry, complicating the task of finding judges without conflicts to hear the cases, an Associated Press analysis of judicial financial disclosure reports shows.

Friday, 18 December 2009

John Caruso, "Why they're worse", includes another discussion of whether or not voting for the democrats matters. Read the comments too.

Glenn Greenwald in Salon, on Corporatism vs. healthcare. (by the way Salon, your new format sucks.)

at Hugo Zoom I embedded a Google Video copy of Alex Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side.[imdb, Wiki] Yes, I know, the voice sync is terrible, but this was the only embeddable Google Video version still available.