Paul Craig Roberts
VDare.com

Chuck Norris is no pinko-liberal-commie, and Human Events is a very conservative publication. The two have come together to produce one of the most important articles of our time, "Obama’s US Assassination Program."

It seems only yesterday that Americans, or those interested in their civil liberties, were shocked that the Bush regime so flagrantly violated the FlSA law against spying on American citizens without a warrant. A federal judge serving on the FISA court even resigned in protest to the illegality of the spying.

Nothing was done about it. "National security" placed the president and executive branch above the law of the land. Civil libertarians worried that the US government was freeing its power from the constraints of law, but no one else seemed to care.

Encouraged by its success in breaking the law, the executive branch early this year announced that the Obama regime has given itself the right to murder Americans abroad if such Americans are considered a "threat." "Threat" was not defined and, thus, a death sentence would be issued by a subjective decision of an unaccountable official.

There was hardly a peep out of the public or the media. Americans and the media were content for the government to summarily execute traitors and turncoats, and who better to identify traitors and turncoats than the government with all its spy programs. The problem with this sort of thing is that once it starts, it doesn’t stop.

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Danny Schechter
News Dissector

"God To Beck, Do Not Use My Name In Vain To Bolster Your Career"

Jesus was unavailable when Mediachannel sought out his opinion on Glenn Becks’s performance at the Lincoln Memorial today. Mr Christ, often called JEEEEZ-US by Beck’s faithful, was apparently watching another channel.

We did briefly touch base with his dad, God himself, often referred to as our Lord and Savior, or THE MAN above, who we thought would be pleased by all the adoring rhetoric emanating from the Lincoln Memorial where 47 years earlier a real religious leader held a nation spellbound.

God seemed as if was in a foul mood, as if he felt he was being used by the Fox News host and best selling author, who kept repeating that God was in charge even as he asserted leadership of the Tea Party minions and offered advice that was not found in the Bible or scriptures but on his not yet consecrated website, the one with an ad for LIBERTY SAFES.

Reached on the Royal Telephone, we were told by HIMSELF, “Look, with people in the West turning away from religion in droves, we are always happy to have someone invoke religious principles and spiritual insights. In that sense, Glenn’s Sermon from the Steps was welcome except it was so clear that he is serving a political agenda first.

“How disappointing that the crowd was so uni-cultural wearing T shirts like “I can see November from my House,” and carrying “Don’t tread on me” flags. Why did he have to drag me into it?

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Yuri Prasad
Uruknet

Pakistani flood survivors block highway, demanding food and shelter
from the government after being displaced in Thatta near Hyderabad,
Pakistan on Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010.

The flooding crisis in Pakistan continues to grow as thousands flee the historic city of Thatta in Sind after the Indus River broke a levee and flooded new areas.

Around 175,000 people, almost three quarters of the city’s population, are thought to have fled their homes overnight, said government official, Manzoor Sheikh.

"The situation is getting worse,’ said disaster official Hadi Baksh Kalhoro. "The water is flowing into a nearby canal endangering Thatta city."

Evidence of the growing crisis, and the completely inadequate response of the Pakistani state and the "international community", can be read in postings on the Pakistan Fisher Folk Forum.

One report comes from towns on the outskirts of Thatta:

"The situation of camps at Makli. This is the only safe place nearby and has attracted a wide number of affected people…[conditions are] miserable, as there was no food for the people, who were staying in the open.

"More than 100,000 people have migrated from different flood affected areas and are still pouring into there. They were crying for rations. The lack of food and shelter has exposed these people to the weather effects.

"In this situation it was obvious that due to the unavailability of food, safe water and health facilities the lives of women and children are under threat."

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Michael Warschawski
Alternative Information Center

When a state awards itself the right to demand from its citizens an expression of loyalty to the state and when it conditions their citizenship on this same loyalty, it no longer possesses any connection to democracy. In a democracy, the state is loyal to its citizens and obligated to protect them unconditionally. Loyalty to the state and a demand from its citizens to serve it are characteristics of fascist regimes.

In the past two years Israel has taken several steps toward becoming a fascist regime. True, Israeli democracy, defined as a “Jewish and democratic state,” is problematic in several aspects: it removes from the democratic norm approximately 3 million residents of the Occupied Palestinian Territory who are living under its rule for more than four decades, together with the 1.2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel – who do enjoy various civil rights but are not part of the governing landscape as the state of Israel defines itself as “the state of the Jewish people” and not as a state of its citizens and absentee residents.

On the table of the Knesset are various legislative proposals, proposals which are strange from the perspective of accepted democratic norms, and which question even the ethnic democracy existing in Israel to date. Only in fascist regimes, and under Stalinist authoritarianism, the citizenship of one born a citizen (and not those naturalized as a mutual decision between the person and the state) is dependent on the good will of the state: Nazi Germany, for example, annulled the citizenship of Jews, as did Vichy France. The USSR annulled the citizenship of Leon Trotsky.

The state of Israel is marching on the path to becoming a fascist regime, and on the way there are benchmarks. One of them is McCarthyism.

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Rannie Amiri
CounterPunch

“We will not even bring cooking knives.” ~ Samar al-Hajj, coordinator of the all-women Lebanese aid vessel Mariam

The bloody wake left by the Mavi Marmara after the May 31 Israeli commando raid has not deterred 50 female activists from trying to break the four-year-old siege of Gaza. To hear Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak speak of their planned relief effort, one would think the very existence of Israel was at stake.

The women plan to set sail aboard the Saint Mariam, a Bolivian-flagged cargo ship named in honor of the Virgin Mary, a figure sacred to both Christians and Muslims. Although they intend to depart from Tripoli, Lebanon, the crew is not only composed of multi-faith Lebanese but foreign nationals as well, including a group of nuns from the United States. So as not to give Israel pretext to attack, Hezbollah deliberately did not sponsor the mission nor were any members allowed to participate.

Its cargo? Books, toys, medical instruments and supplies, and most importantly, anticancer medication.

The ship cannot sail directly from Tripoli to Gaza since Lebanon and Israel remain technically at war (and Israel controls Gaza’s territorial waters) and thus must pass through a third country first. The Mariam was scheduled to leave for Cyprus last Sunday but authorities in Nicosia, capitulating to Israeli pressure, prohibited use of its ports for vessels departing to Gaza. Without the green light from Cyprus, Lebanon’s Transport and Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi was forced to cancel the voyage until another country with whom Lebanon enjoys maritime relations could be found. Negotiations with Greece are now under way.

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Glen Ford
Black Agenda Report

"The United States is an empire
that has never voluntarily withdrawn from any of its bases or 'fortified compounds.'"

Embedded corporate media rose to new heights of non-journalism as, on command, they conjured up an end to (America's) Iraq War based on nothing more than a change of nomenclature. Combat soldiers woke up one morning as "advise and assist" troops whose "bases" were magically transformed into "fortified compounds." Still, the U.S. empire has no intention of leaving Iraq - especially when there are so many available euphemisms for staying.

It was perversely hilarious to observe the corporate media, last week, as they collectively celebrated an event that never happened. "Last combat soldiers leave Baghdad" read the Washington Post headline, with variations on the same fantasy theme in Newsweek, UPI, Reuters...virtually everywhere. One had to turn to the Army Times newspaper for an accurate headline:"Combat Brigades in Iraq Under Different Name." It is a wonderment to watch the blind enthusiasm with which the corporate media embrace name changes as if they are actual facts.

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