Stephen Lendman

It's been planned for years. Republicans want them eliminated. Democrats agreed to incremental cuts to make ending core social contract programs look normal. Slashing Social Security comes later.

On November 24, New York Times writer Robert Pear headlined, "Support Builds for a Plan to Rein in Medicare Costs," saying:

Congressional Supercommittee members "built a case for major structural changes in Medicare (and Medicaid) that would limit the government's open-ended financial commitment...."

Privatization is recommended. Republicans and some Democrats agree. Expect more to come on board. Methodology might be to provide beneficiaries fixed sums for private plans. They'll cost more and deliver less.

Proponents call the idea "premium support." At issue is shifting government's responsibility to beneficiaries. Washington would pay premiums in increasingly smaller amounts until they bear full responsibility.

Doing so will leave seniors entirely on their own for healthcare when they most need it. Unaffordability won't matter. Understating the problem, John Rother, National Coalition on Health Care president said:

"The Supercommittee may have laid the groundwork for future reductions in the growth of Medicare."

In fact, "the gang of 12" secretly agreed to major cuts on the way to eliminating government's responsibility for healthcare entirely. After that, attack Social Security.

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William T. Hathaway

From the book RADICAL PEACE: People Refusing War by William T. Hathaway. Published by Trine Day 2010. This is a collection of reports from peace activists in the USA, Europe, Iraq, and Afghanistan. An American exchange student in one of my courses here in Germany contributed the following essay.

Jason was my boy-friend for a while in high school. It wasn't a match made in heaven. Looking back, I think the main thing we had in common was that I wanted a boy-friend and he wanted a girl-friend. Other than that there wasn't much between us, as we discovered whenever we tried to talk about anything. I broke up with him when he asked me to go rabbit hunting with him. We stayed friends, though, probably because since it was obvious we could never be a real couple, neither of us had hard feelings.

We both left town after graduation; I went to college, Jason went to the marines. Two years later we were both back home; I was on summer vacation, Jason was on medical leave after having half his leg blown off in Iraq. He'd been riding in a truck that hit a mine.

Everybody in town felt terrible about what had happened to him. The American Legion post gave him a parade. The high school marching band played, the vets marched, and Jason walked in front next to the mayor, who was carrying the American flag. Jason could walk pretty well, considering.

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Kourosh Ziabari

Syria crisis: Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora (C) meets
with members of the Arab League delegation. (UPI)

After the Arab League hypocritically suspended the membership of Syria amid the mounting pressures of NATO and the United States, the resurgence of violence in Egypt and the increasing use of excessive force in Bahrain and Yemen and the unrelenting massacre of innocent civilians by the barbaric regime of Al Khalifa and Ali Abdullah Saleh once again attracted the attention of conscientious observers in the international community.

According to official figures released by the "Bahrain Center for Human Rights" website, so far 44 Bahraini citizens were killed at the hands of the mercenaries of Al Khalifa regime. The Bahraini martyrs include the 6-year-old Mohammed Farhan, 14-year-old Ali Jawad Alshaikh and 15-year-old Sayed Ahmad Saeed Shams. The Bahraini organization has reported that many of these martyrs were killed while in custody. The Center has also published documents indicating that more than 1,500 Bahrainis including about 100 women were incarcerated since the eruption of turmoil in the Persian Gulf country on February 14, 2011 and that more that 90 journalists face life threat.

It's also said that the Bahraini government has blocked the citizens' access to more than 1000 opposition websites which are mainly used to organize and plan protests and mass demonstrations.

The Bahraini regime commits all of these aggressive and brutal actions with the direct involvement of the Saudi Arabia and the implicit support and backing of NATO and the United States. The author of the "Hidden Harmonies China" blog in a March 14, 2011 post referred to the abuses of human rights in Bahrain with the flagrant, duplicitous support of the White House: "the Entry of Saudi security forces to crack down on the protesters with deadly force is a complication for U.S. policies, to say the least, since U.S. is reluctant to criticize its oil ally dictators in the region."

He also called Bahrain the "Las Vegas" of the Middle East, host to the U.S. 5th Fleet and a haunt for the rich Saudis who are forbidden by Islamic laws at home from indulging in alcohol and other immoral enjoyments, "but who often vacation in Bahrain for these reasons."

Bahraini citizens have uploaded several video files on the internet, showing the cruel and ruthless torturing and persecuting of the protesters by the Al Khalifa lackeys. These videos depict the Bahraini forces using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters and killing many of them straight away. Some of these videos also show the Saudi and Bahraini cars nonchalantly running over Bahraini children and women, killing them at once.

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