Thank you for your report: A record of war crimes, by Bill Van Auken. The ruthless gangsters running this Empire should be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law for their war crimes, mass murder, crimes against humanity, and international terrorism. They repeatedly lie us into illegal wars, committing egregious atrocities against innocent civilians in country after country. We need to punish these rotten bastards to establish human decency, and the rule of law. Nazi America has destroyed law and order, freedom, justice, and civilization. The world deserves better.
Greg
28 July 2010
On “The New York Times and the Afghan documents”
Not too long ago, in an editorial, the Times described Obama’s decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan as “courageous and sound.” Does it surprise anyone that those two words least describe the decision?
That’s the Times for you, wholly dishonest in every way, every day.
CW
28 July 2010
On “Congress ratifies Obama escalation of Afghanistan war”
“The bloody-minded consensus in official Washington was summed up in an editorial Tuesday in the Washington Post, which denounced claims that the WikiLeaks documents constituted, ‘evidence for war crimes prosecution.’”
The US and NATO’s Presence in Afghanistan, in and of itself, constitutes the over-arching war crime.
RJC
Montclair, New Jersey, USA
28 July 2010
On “Australian election takes place in a ‘parallel universe’”
Your paragraph featuring David Cameron makes him sound like a beacon of truth! The ‘parallel universe’ of the electioneering stage was certainly in existence here in the UK but perhaps the boundaries were different. The election campaigns of all three leading parties (Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat) played on public fears surrounding very limited and xenophobic notions of the global economic crisis, and used these as a lever to tout their ‘necessary’ austerity strategies. It was a battle to see who could most convincingly sell crooked notions of future-prosperity-by-belt-tightening-now.
The campaign itself was certainly engineered to avoid any clear view of the crisis of the entire global economic system, or to provide any alternative to propping up the corruption that has got us into the current mess. All of Cameron and the Conservative/Lib-Dem coalition government’s economic policies since coming to power seem to be measured to do just that propping-up.
The campaign here in the UK was also powerfully manipulated by Murdoch’s media empire and installing Cameron at all costs was clearly the aim.
If the fiction of the Australian election campaign is so obvious, perhaps that’s a good thing, and will start people thinking about what the realities and alternatives might be?
Andy C
28 July 2010
On “Australia: Gillard and Abbott stage sham election debate”
On the question of who has the “courage to stand against the mob,” and seeing that Gillard credits herself with such, having “stared down” the ... schoolteachers (!), this is a definite warning to the whole working class, a subset of which are schoolteachers.
The remark in a way is brilliant, given that the Gillard gang is committed carrying out the destruction of free public education. It certainly should send shivers down the spines of the less conscious among parents, whose children are portrayed as being caught in the clutches of mobsters.
Charles H
Houston, Texas, USA
26 July 2010
On “An insider’s critique of education ‘reform’”
Thank you for this penetrating critique of Ravitch’s book on educational reform. The whole debate on improving achievement among disadvantaged students reminds me about the elephant in the room joke. That elephant is, as Gilberti and White point out, the social and economic conditions that low achieving pupils live under, a point that was made so effectively by James Coleman years ago in his study, On Equality of Educational Opportunity, which is still ignored today by so many groups, such as The Gates Foundation. That well researched magnum opus on educational realities should be read or reread by anyone who wants to be serious about educational reform. A study of it should convince any reasonable person that the notion of accountability should be extended beyond schools to the culture at large with a focus on disparities in wealth and income in capitalism savage America as the chief source of our educational ills. The federal government, along with business and industry, should be held accountable for creating a full employment economy and insuring that every American family has a living wage, decent shelter, adequate healthy food, and socially constructive and meaningful work. Then schools will accomplish their ideal mission as all kids will bring to schools out-of-school experiences that will enable them to take advantage of what schools can offer.
Richard L
Bradenton, Florida, USA
27 July 2010
On “Crowding, rising tuition at Michigan community colleges”
I am an employee at a community college in Texas. While we have not yet experienced tuition increases as the schools mentioned in your article have undergone, budgetary shortfalls are causing the administration to cut employees and reduce the library hours at different campuses. I fear it is only a matter of time before deeper cuts will be required. In the meantime, the employees that remain are forced to pick up the slack left by their departed coworkers.
Andy H
28 July 2010
Rachel Maddow has tasted success and now will do everything in her power to keep it. The people running this country have massive mortgages, insane college tuition costs, aging parents, health insurance bills, and who knows what other large expenses. Is it unrealistic that these people not rock any boats by stating the truth. Sure, we do not have the HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) working to prevent this because people in power are self-censoring.
The days of burning draft cards and throwing rocks and bottles at the Ohio National Guard are pretty much ancient history at this point and it's only going to be people with nothing-to-lose who dare bring up the subject of rational truth.
Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann make quite a bit of money posing as anti-government and anti-torture and anti-war crimes reporters, but they only bring this up when they are given the green light by their parent company to do so. Losing a prime-time show on a major cable news channel has a way of gripping the mind.
PK
26 July 2010
On “‘Massey has destroyed the wells and the water’”
I produced the film, Coal Country (www.coalcountrythemovie.com) and THANK YOU FOR THIS ARTICLE!
Mari Evans
27 July 2010