Stopping Orwell's nightmare

The God of War doesn’t dine on raw shank bone or bellow orders quite like he used to. When he talks to Congress, say, it goes more like this:
“And, oh, while you’re up, I’m going to be needing, uh (cough, cough) . . . $159 billion this go-around, you know, for the troops. Thanks.”
It works.

With the war on terror in its ninth year and disappearing from even the pretense of national debate, let alone outrage and protest, and with the President of Hope prosecuting it so quietly most of us no longer notice, we could be at an eerie national transition point, beyond which war is no longer controversial or a big deal but just the way things are: “normal,” like background noise. And the enormous transfusions of cash it requires — well, nice people don’t talk about it.

Oh Lord.

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

The one thing we can agree on is peace

Anna Janek is a Republican candidate for Congress from West Bloomfield, Mich. She says: "Socialism, Communism, Welfare-ism, Globalism, Fascism, Obama-ism…it's all the same: State control of the Human Spirit under the guise of benevolence."

Marcy Winograd is a Democratic candidate for Congress from Los Angeles, Calif. She promises to "establish a new federal agency to employ millions of Americans building rapid transit and repairing bridges, ports, water treatment plants and other infrastructure."

What could Janek and Winograd possibly agree on?

Winograd on healthcare, says: "We need Medicare for All – or a single-payer system that pays doctors, nurses, and other health care providers from a single fund."

Nick Coons, a Libertarian candidate for Congress from Tempe, Ariz., disagrees: "Wherever government is most involved, we see skyrocketing prices and decreased quality. Years ago, our free-market health care system was the envy of the world . . . government involvement was nowhere to be found."

UPDATE! - Dairy Farm Worker Arrested on 12 Counts of Cruelty

Yesterday police arrested one of the dairy workers documented maliciously torturing animals at Conklin Dairy Farms in Plain City, Ohio by an undercover Mercy For Animals investigator. Billy Gregg, Jr., 25, was taken into custody by the Union County Sheriff's Department and charged with 12 counts of misdemeanor cruelty to animals.

MFA commends the City Prosecutor and law enforcement for their swift and decisive apprehension of Gregg, a violent individual who is extensively documented sadistically abusing newborn calves and cows.

Following the arrest, MFA conducted news conferences statewide and released the undercover footage of farm workers beating, stabbing, clubbing, and kicking cows and calves. Even the owner was caught on camera kicking a cow.

A media flurry erupted as the case crossed the nation on outlets such as CNN, ABC, Fox and the Los Angeles Times, and in scathing coverage on CBS affiliate WOIO in Cleveland. The case went on to receive worldwide coverage, including in the UK and Australia.

MFA's investigator documented Ohio dairy workers:

"The Internet is a Game Changer" - a paperless world

The debate is no longer confined to a few academics in distant universities. It is now a widely prevalent, mainstream topic of discussion.

How will the news of the future be distributed? The jury is still out, but not completely. Increasingly, we are driven to believe that the future will be paperless. Some argue that the “paper” will be taken out of the “newspaper” within a few years. Their logic might have come across as far-fetched in the late 1990s, but it can hardly be dismissed in 2010.

Two American intellectuals added their voices to the chorus of those predicting that the print media would not continue to define the news for long. In October 2009, Leonard Downie Jr., vice president at large and former executive editor of The Washington Post, and Michael Schudson, professor of Communication at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, co-authored a 98-page paper entitled, “The Reconstruction of American Journalism.”

Beyond Fundamentalism

I first encountered Reza Aslan on the Jon Stewart Show and was somewhat perturbed by his interview - unfortunately I have not been able to retrieve that reference on the internet, but it did intrigue me and led me to purchasing his book Beyond Fundamentalism. More than likely that was what his intentions originally were for, to promote purchase and readership of his latest book, originally published as “How to Win a Cosmic War.”

At first appearances the writing seemed highly sensationalized, presenting definitions about the differences between holy wars and ‘cosmic’ wars as if there was a substantial difference between the two. That a “cosmic war is a religious war,” does not seem to offer much differentiation to that of a holy war. That cosmic warriors “are fighting a war of the imagination,” seems all too obvious, either from a secular perspective without a god, or from a religious perspective in which the image and reality of god are often described as unknown realities to mere humans.

Will an "emergency" military vote tomorrow fund more nukes?

As oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, a shocking vote tomorrow (Thursday, May 27) may rush $9 billion worth of taxpayer guarantees into building three new nuclear power plants---two of them on that already tortured Gulf of Mexico.

Environmental groups (NIRS.org, PSR.org) are posting alerts and circulating at least one letter asking House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI) to stop the handout. The public is being urged to contact Obey and other Representatives on the committee (202-225-3121). Shrouded in murky haste, the vote is currently scheduled for 5pm.

The bailout may be attached to an emergency appropriations bill meant to provide funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. How that "emergency" relates to building new nuclear power plants remains a mystery.

Insider accounts say the bill may provide $9 billion in loan guarantees for two reactors to be built at the site of the South Texas Nuclear Plant, currently home to two aging reactors. Funding may also go to a new reactor proposed for Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, where two two-decade-old reactors are also licensed.

Fear, war, greed, disaster, and journalism

The Independent Film Channel is airing a series of four programs this week that illustrate the kind of media we need in this country. The four programs, titled "Fear," "War," "Greed," and "Disaster," feature the reporting of four independent unembedded journalists: Max Blumenthal, Nir Rosen, Charlie LeDuff, and Andrew Berends. The 30-minute episodes premiere Monday, May 24 through Thursday, May 27 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT.

I've had a chance to preview the "War" episode, featuring Nir Rosen, and highly recommend it. Rosen is a freelance, unembedded writer, photographer, and filmmaker who has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia. The IFC show is, necessarily, self-referential, but the reporting included is of the sort that ought to be routine and not need to call attention to itself. That independent online and cable video always presents serious journalism as a novelty is precisely what's wrong with our communications system; there ought to be serious journalism in all news media all the time.

The learning curve of peace

"Why are we violent, but not illiterate?"

This question, originally posed by writer Colman McCarthy, was asked at the Midwest Regional Department of Peace conference, which was held last weekend outside Detroit. It cuts to the core of our troubles. The answer is agonizingly obvious: "We're taught to read!" Could it be we also need to be taught, let us say, calmness, breath and impulse control, practical applications of the Golden Rule? But until we know enough to ask these questions, violence, like ignorance, is just a fact of life.

Oh, humanity. In Russian, the word "mir" means "earth"; it also means "peace." We know the answers. They're hidden in our language. We long for peace with every fiber of our being, yet we spend countless trillions annually pursuing its opposite, as though determined in our perversity to be the worst we can be, to squander our enormous intelligence chasing fear and rage to their logical conclusion and annihilating ourselves.

Editorial cartoon for every week ever

Don't Ask, Don't Tell if George Washington was gay

As Congress at last debates the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, we might ask ourselves: "What if George Washington was gay?"

The question is posed by "Thomas Paine's" shocking new PASSIONS OF THE POTSMOKING PATRIOTS (www.harveywasserman.com).

The answer, of course, is that---under today's laws---he would have been drummed out of the Revolutionary Army, and we might still be a colony of the King.

Because he "could not tell a lie," a gay General Washington would have been obliged to turn himself in. Under current policy, the Continental Congress would have sent him packing back to Mt. Vernon.

Like many gays in today's military, Washington was irreplaceable. Possessed of an iron will and Vesuvian temper, it's hard to imagine anyone else holding the ragtag Revolutionary army together. His 1776 crossing of the Delaware to surprise the mercenary Hessians in Trenton was one of the great military strokes in all history.

Pages

Subscribe to Freepress.org RSS