Back in the early 1970s, I worked for Pacific News Service (PNS), a small antiwar media outfit that operated out of the Bay Area Institute (BAI), a progressive think tank in San Francisco. The first story I ever wrote for PNS came about because an upset U.S. Air Force medic wanted someone to know about …
Continue reading “The Wonderful American World of Informers and Agents Provocateurs“
At least 34 Iraqis were killed and 88 more were wounded across the country. Soccer fans were targeted yet again as they gathered in cafes across central Iraq to watch international games on television.
Given the fact that the Internet and phone intercepts made by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) are in violation of the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution, there is only one nevertheless completely irrelevant argument for the government to make in their defense: that they have made Americans safer. But is that …
Continue reading “The ‘Making You Safe’ Lie”
Which is more dangerous to personal liberty in a free society: a renegade who tells an inconvenient truth about government law-breaking, or government officials who lie about what the renegade revealed? That’s the core issue in the great public debate this summer, as Americans come to the realization that their government has concocted a system …
Continue reading “The Truth Shall Keep Us Free”
At least 23 people were killed and 32 more were wounded in fresh attacks. In Baghdad, ten people were killed and 16 more were wounded as they watched a soccer match on television, when a bomb exploded at a café in Doura. Six people were wounded in a blast in Suleikh. In Mosul, four people …
Continue reading “Soccer Fans Among 23 Iraqis Killed in Ongoing Attacks”
The Obama administration’s decision to directly supply weapons to the Syrian opposition may end up torpedoing the possibility of a political settlement. It will almost certainly accelerate the chaos spreading from the almost three-year old civil war. It will also align Washington with one of the most undemocratic alliances on the planet, and one that …
Continue reading “Syria and the Monarchs: A Perfect Storm”
Amid all the drama over Edward Snowden‘s flight from "justice" – the media stakeout at a Moscow airport, the smear campaign aimed not only at Snowden but at Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who broke the PRISM/eavesdropping story, and the obsessive media focus on Snowden as a personality – the really interesting aspect of all this …
Continue reading “Blue State Fascism”
During almost every media interview on the Edward Snowden leak story, the person being interviewed (including me) is almost always asked whether Snowden should be considered a whistleblowing hero or a dishonorable traitor to the nation. The question probably arises from American society’s focus on the individual, leading to a celebrity-loving culture, and the black …
Continue reading “Edward Snowden: Hero or Traitor?”
Today’s attacks focused on a group of Turkmen demonstrators and football players. Shi’ite pilgrims and security officials were also targeted. At least 53 people were killed and 142 were wounded across the country.
Gulf War veterans involved in federal efforts to define and treat the mysterious illness plaguing a quarter of a million of their ranks say they are being retaliated against for telling the truth. Sound familiar? This spring, members of the Research Advisory Committee for Gulf War Illness (RAC) joined former Veterans Affairs (VA) scientist, Dr. …
Continue reading “Gulf War Advocates Purged for Telling the Truth?” 
