Profiting Off Nixon’s Vietnam ‘Treason’. "The notion of Wall Street bankers meeting in private to discuss profiting off a plot to extend the Vietnam War and risk the lives of thousands of American soldiers may sound like a conspiracy movie script, but it is a tragic reality..."

trendzetter · 2 months

The corrupt US gov't has for years portrayed Al Qaeda as some sort of existential threat to the US.

But somehow we're supposed to think that Syria is so important that we can be on the same side as Al Qaeda?

The US propaganda narrative is falling apart. Al Qaeda was never any sort of a serious threat to the US -- it was a "created enemy" to replace "communists" and to allow the US to invade the Middle East and central Asia and to break int'l laws.

idiomorph · 2 months

Of course they should boycott Israel -- if they have any backbone, integrity and principles.

Biafra's act of being clueless about the politics is not convincing. He's not a moron. Firmly grasping his values and a day's worth of research would educate him enough to make a decision about what is right.

I will not perform in Israel unless it is a pro-human rights, anti-occupation event that does not violate the spirit of the boycott.

I'm glad he came to this decision, but even traveling to Israel gives the apartheid regime money and business.

Each artist must decide this for themselves.

I disagree. Any artist who goes to Israel to perform is a sellout, plain and simple. It's as despicable as when the rock band Queen -- at a nadir in their popularity and needing money -- traveled to South Africa and broke the apartheid boycott. Artists breaking such boycotts either have no morals or they value money more than justice.

LWRelim · 2 months

I think that's an overstatement, because renewables are real and with conservation can be used and effectively developed.

But that would require the US to abandon our "Silk Road Strategy" of seizing control of key oil producing areas of the world, and, as the world's energy glutton, the US lifestyle and economy would have to undergo distinct changes.

The corporations and class of people running the US gov't show few signs outside of some rhetoric and lip service of actually changing our unsustainable capitalist system which is predicated on never-ending "growth".

newsfeather · 2 months

From the article:

Maintaining the Societal Status Quo

Americans have been increasingly socialized to equate inattention, anger, anxiety, and immobilizing despair with a medical condition, and to seek medical treatment rather than political remedies. What better way to maintain the status quo than to view inattention, anger, anxiety, and depression as biochemical problems of those who are mentally ill rather than normal reactions to an increasingly authoritarian society.

The reality is that depression is highly associated with societal and financial pains...

IMHO, other that more minor views such as Einstein would have been medicated if he'd been born today, the above is my main takeaway from the excellent -- and definitely political -- article.

trot-trot · 2 months

If the norm is defined as always obeying authority and working within the system, then anyone outside that norm can be diagnosed as abnormal.

This is exactly the point the author makes in this paragraph:

Maintaining the Societal Status Quo

Americans have been increasingly socialized to equate inattention, anger, anxiety, and immobilizing despair with a medical condition, and to seek medical treatment rather than political remedies. What better way to maintain the status quo than to view inattention, anger, anxiety, and depression as biochemical problems of those who are mentally ill rather than normal reactions to an increasingly authoritarian society.

The reality is that depression is highly associated with societal and financial pains...

IMHO, other that more minor views such as Einstein would have been medicated if he'd been born today, the above is my main takeaway from the excellent article.

rhott · 2 months

We have the best gov't money can buy... :-(

magister0 · 2 months

I came to reply and I was going to make the exact same points; you nailed it.

Well, I agree with everything other than the pedantic request about spelling. You sort of shot yourself in the foot (to use a violent metaphor, seems appropriate for this conversation) there:

...but to say this wasn't a war crime is ridicilous.

Err, that's "ridiculous". :-)

Kranky_Old_Dude · 2 months

You know someone has an axe to grind when they talk about "gov't schools".

I had to laugh when reading this one:

7 Exposed To Rampant Sexual Promiscuity

Have these parents watched TV lately?!

Here's an idea: Why don't the parents actually teach their kids something? Like how to be suspicious of authority and the police?

And here's an even better idea -- who don't the parents actually talk to other parents, organize with like-minded people, and go down to those public school board meetings and pitch a bitch and be vocal about how they want their schools to be run?!

Oh, yeah, I see the flaw in my plan. Both of those actions would actually require getting up away from the TV and not focus on chasing money and consumer dreams...

Mind_Virus · 2 months

You know someone has an axe to grind when they talk about "gov't schools".

I had to laugh when reading this one:

7 Exposed To Rampant Sexual Promiscuity

Have these parents watched TV lately?!

Here's an idea: Why don't the parents actually teach their kids something? Like how to be suspicious of authority and the police?

And here's an even better idea -- who don't the parents actually talk to other parents, organize with like-minded people, and go down to those public school board meetings and pitch a bitch and be vocal about how they want their schools to be run?!

Oh, yeah, I see the flaw in my plan. Both of those actions would actually require getting up away from the TV and not focus on chasing money and consumer dreams...

magister0 · 2 months

I have to wonder whether there's a method to that madness, a method beyond just the general bureaucracy.

Not only does this type of "slow roasting", as you call it, create the illusion that legal procedures (and not some pre-determined policy) are being followed, but the long-term publicity works to (a) reinforce that all is well in the public's mind, thus functioning as pro-gov't propaganda, and (b) works for a longer time period to remind other potential whistleblowers that they will be persecuted and prosecuted.

magister0 · 2 months

Shooting at unarmed, wounded civilians is a war crime. The video clearly shows this happening.

The attitude of the US military murderers is clearly indicated by the helicopter crew's response to learning that the civilian minivan they shot to pieces contained children -- the murderers blew the fact off and blamed the parents for driving around with kids in their van.

givemeabreak_oh · 2 months

I disagree completely. The minimum wage is so low it is de facto repealed. Needless to say, I think we should radically increase taxes on the rich and at least double the minimum wage. Those two actions with legally mandating a 30 or 35 hour workweek would be a boon for employment and would go a long way towards helping to eliminate the sickening gap between the rich and the poor.

magister0 · 2 months

What I said was:

...extraditing Assange on some treason-like charge... (emphasis added)

IANAL. I don't know what the US gov't will charge him with, but I'm confident they will twist some law or invent another law to file charges under, hold a widely publicized kangaroo trial with the corporate mass media debating and wallowing in legal minutiae before finding him guilty and locking him up in a cage for a very, very long time.

liquidzing · 2 months

And yet we say they're a "democracy"...

indigo_illusion · 2 months

Link to the source article which the discussion talks about.

magister0 · 2 months

So why isn't AU extraditing him back, before that happens? Couldn't they do that if they wanted? After all, he's their citizen.

There are two big factors at work here. First, Australia is not independent -- their gov't in large part is controlled by the US on major issues.

But secondly, Assange has committed no crime against Australia (just like he's committed no crime against the US), so why should they extradite him? And in a realpolitik mindset, why would Australia stick their neck out and suffer the inevitable US response for Assange? He's just one guy and the Australian gov't knows how much the US wants to use him as an example to deter other whistleblowers; there's no strong upside for Australia to defend him, especially considering the first point above.

indigo_illusion

TROPHY CASE

7 Exposed To Rampant Sexual Promiscuity

7 Exposed To Rampant Sexual Promiscuity

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