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"Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property. Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person."-- Anonymous

In 2010 the pro-corporate 5/4 United States Supreme Court decided, in the Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission ruling that favored multibillionaire corporate elites and their trans-national corporations by making it easier for them to steal US elections by allowing unlimited, anonymous monetary “contributions”/bribes to both major US political parties, political action groups and the many politicians who were then beholden to their newest corporate paymasters.

Gina Haspel has now been confirmed as the new Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) by a Senate vote of 54 to 45. She had previously been approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee by 10 votes to 5, with six Democrats joining all but three of the committee’s Republicans. Haspel seems fully qualified in terms of her experience to do the job, though it is admittedly difficult to make that judgement because her full professional biography has not been revealed by CIA. Claims by supporters seeking to enhance her record that she was “under cover” for 32 years are meaningless as many officers who serve at Agency Headquarters in Langley have that status.

I would like to tell you something about human depravity and illustrate just how widespread it is among those we often regard as ‘responsible’. I am going to use the Democratic Republic of the Congo as my example.

As I illustrate and explain what has happened to the Congo and its people during the past 500 years, I invite you to consider my essential point: Human depravity has no limit unless people like you (hopefully) and me take some responsibility for ending it. Depravity, barbarity and violent exploitation will not end otherwise because major international organizations (such as the UN), national governments and corporations all benefit from it and are almost invariably led by individuals too cowardly to act on the truth.

The Congo

Prior to 1482, the area of central Africa now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo was part of the Kingdom of the Kongo. It was populated by some of the greatest civilizations in human history.

Slavery

BANGKOK, Thailand -- The U.S.-trained military's coup-installed government has begun its fifth year in power confronting pro-election activists in the streets, a troubled economy, and widespread cynicism over plans to dominate this Buddhist-majority country after polls next February.

Fifteen protest leaders, who demand elections this year, were charged with sedition and other serious crimes on May 24 after leading hundreds of activists who were stopped while trying to march to the prime minister's office on May 22.

"We have tried everything, but in the end, we might not be able to bring change and a return to democracy," said Rangsiman Rome, one of the arrested leaders who reluctantly called off their "People Who Want Elections" march after hours of confrontation in the street.

Some had mocked Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha -- who led the May 22, 2014 coup when he was army chief -- by wearing face masks portraying him as a long-nosed Pinocchio.

By David Swanson
 

If you do a daily web search for “impeachment,” here’s what you’ll get used to seeing. Most use of impeachment is outside the United States. Most use of impeachment within the United States is outside of Washington, D.C. Most media mention of impeachment in relation to Trump is strongly opposed to it and to the small-d democratic threat it holds for those in power. And the very worst members of both major parties (yes, including the “resistance”) are leading the charge against any such challenge to the establishment.

Now that Donald Trump has punked out on peace in Korea, it’s time to give that Nobel Prize to the guy who really deserves it: Dennis Rodman.

Please sign the moveon.org petition urging the Nobel Committee to give him the award.  

Actor/playwright Tom Dugan’s superb award winning one-man show Wiesenthal is a must-see for anyone who loves great acting, writing, drama, human rights and/or Jews, plus hates fascism, crimes against humanity, war and atrocities. For almost 90 minutes sans intermission Dugan flawlessly incarnates Simon Wiesenthal, the greatest postwar Nazi hunter, who as a private entity tirelessly helped track down up to 1,100 Hitlerian war criminals and torturers from his cramped office in Vienna.

Dugan’s mesmerizing saga is set there, although as the title character he spins tales that transport us throughout Europe’s concentration camp archipelago (which Simon describes as “when barbarism met technology”) to Buenos Aires where the Final Solution’s über-bureaucrat, Adolf Eichmann, was hiding out and back to Austria, where Anne Frank’s captor lived in plain sight. Indeed, Wiesenthal’s peregrinations take us through the heart of darkness that, he fears, is harbored somewhere deep within the inner labyrinths of all men.

Most plays I review are full-length narrative works, so this critic is used to that familiar format, just like I prefer to read complete novels or nonfiction books over reading short stories. So I wasn’t a fan of short dramas and comedies - that is, not until I went to see the Actors’ Gang’s Angels, Devils and Other Things, and their head spinning show made a true believer out of me. Where else can one find a purgatory presided over by a sort of maitre d’ deciding who gets seats at the great bistro in the sky - or down below?

Some 360,000 Americans now work in the solar industry, more than in nukes and coal combined. In fact, more Americans are now working in California’s solar industry than are digging coal nationwide. And the U.S. wind business now employs more than 100,000 people.

But President Donald Trump wants to change that. He has already slammed the solar industry’s growth by slapping a 30 percent tariff on imported Chinese panels, slowing installations nationwide.

Nik Cruz, the Parkland shooter, and Dimitrios Pagourtzis, the Santa Fe shooter, uploaded these photos on to their Instagram account of their favorite pastime – First-person shooter games.

Both Nik Cruz, the Parkland shooter, and Dimitri Dimitrios Pagourtzis, the Santa Fe shooter, were emotionally distraught because of girls who rejected their advances. They were both outcasts in their respective high schools. They both played video games that simulated war.  In his Facebook bio, Dimitri showed interest in joining the US Marine Corps “starting in 2019.” Nik Cruz felt more at home with the Army.

This is not a cheap shot. The military recruits gamers from the virtual world.