Kevin Barrett

This revolution – the overthrow of the global oligarchy – is the only revolution that matters.

Since the days of President Woodrow Wilson – that is, for roughly 100 years – the USA has been on a self-styled crusade to “make the world safe for democracy.” Colossal wars, hot and cold, were fought against German Kaisers and Führers, Russian communists, and Third World nationalists. The American people were told they were “defending democracy.”

Americans slaughtered 3.5 million Vietnamese, and nearly another million Cambodians, to “defend democracy” in Southeast Asia. They murdered millions of Iraqis through wars and sanctions to “defend democracy” in the Middle East. According to André Vltchek and Noam Chomsky's book On Western Terrorism, the US government has murdered between 55 and 60 million people since World War II in wars and interventions all over the world. If we believe the imperial propagandists, this American Holocaust has been one big defense of democracy.

But now, on the eve of the 100th anniversary of World War I, the US has embarked on a new crusade – to make the world UNSAFE for democracy.

In Ukraine, Venezuela, and Thailand, the US is spending billions of dollars to unconstitutionally eject democratically-elected governments. In Palestine, the US has been trying to overthrow the democratically-elected Hamas government ever since it came to power. In Egypt, the US – under Zionist pressure – recently overthrew the only genuinely democratic government in 5,000 years of recorded history. In Syria, the US insists that the people must not be given the opportunity to re-elect Assad, no matter how many international observers and safeguards ensure honest elections. And in Turkey, the US is undermining the democratically-elected Prime Minister Erdogan in favor of CIA puppet Fethullah Gulen. Taking the long view, the US is working patiently to destroy democracy in Iran, Russia, and Latin America. — Why does the US government hate democracy?

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Noam Chomsky

Humans are social beings, and the kind of creature that a person becomes depends crucially on the social, cultural and institutional circumstances of his life. We are therefore led to inquire into the social arrangements that are conducive to people's rights and welfare, and to fulfilling their just aspirations—in brief, the common good.

For perspective I'd like to invoke what seem to me virtual truisms. They relate to an interesting category of ethical principles: those that are not only universal, in that they are virtually always professed, but also doubly universal, in that at the same time they are almost universally rejected in practice.

These range from very general principles, such as the truism that we should apply to ourselves the same standards we do to others (if not harsher ones), to more specific doctrines, such as a dedication to promoting democracy and human rights, which is proclaimed almost universally, even by the worst monsters—though the actual record is grim, across the spectrum.

A good place to start is with John Stuart Mill's classic On Liberty. Its epigraph formulates “The grand, leading principle, towards which every argument unfolded in these pages directly converges: the absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest diversity.”

The words are quoted from Wilhelm von Humboldt, a founder of classical liberalism. It follows that institutions that constrain such development are illegitimate, unless they can somehow justify themselves. Concern for the common good should impel us to find ways to cultivate human development in its richest diversity.

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Stephen Lendman

On December 18, The New Times ran a full-page anti-Iranian ad. It did so disgracefully. On December 19, the Wall Street Journal published it. It's an Elie Wiesel rant. It's hateful. It's racist. It's malicious misinformation.

It's typical Wiesel. It's titled "Iran Must Not Be Allowed To Remain Nuclear." Wiesel is no humanitarian. He's a shameless self-promoter. He's a holocaust exploiter. He made a career as a pseudo-official spokesman.

Norman Finkelstein calls him the "resident clown" of the holocaust circus. He described him as "vain, arrogant, gullible, naive about international affairs, (and defender of) the worst excesses of previous Israeli governments."

Noam Chomsky calls him "one of the major frauds of our time." He's an apologist for Israel's worst crimes. His "shameful subservience to the State of Israel (is) all the more grotesque in his case because of the pretense of saintliness," Chomsky explained.

He's a notorious Islamophobe. He ignores Palestinian suffering. "I cannot say bad things about Jews," he stresses. He claims Jerusalem "belongs (exclusively) to the Jewish people." He dismissively ignores its Islamic and Christian importance. He ignores history. Other times he reinvents it.

He perpetuates the myth about Arab nations attacking Israel in 1967. IDF forces launched premeditated aggression. It was planned long in advance. When it was too late to matter, Israeli generals admitted it.

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John Robles

An Interview With Edward Herman. PART I here

The United States is behaving like an insane power, like the threat of the Nazis back in the 1930s and 40s. It’s out of control, and it’s engaging in war after war, violating international law and considers itself to be above the law. It is also the richest country in the world but it’s having trouble feeding its own citizens while preparing for yet another war. Dr. Edward Herman spoke to the Voice of Russia stating that and more, he also said it is time that the international community rose up and brought the US under control and has to take much more vigorous, hostile actions against the US war threats. He also called the Secretary General of NATO and NATO a menace and part of a US program for global domination. The world has to wake up and stop it!

Hello! This is John Robles, I’m speaking with Dr. Edward Herman. He is Professor Emeritus at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the author of several books, namely “Manufacturing Consent”, which he wrote with Noam Chomsky, and the “Srebrenica Massacre: Evidence, Context, Politics”.

Robles: My next question is: isn’t the US financially “stressed out” maybe if you would put it… to engage in yet another war? Is this financially viable for the US or maybe a move to actually save the economy?

Herman: For those of us that are critical of US policy, of the situation with respect to the use of resources, it’s amazing! The United States is in a financial crisis. It’s cutting back on all kinds of public expenditures, on Food Stamps, it’s cutting back on its schools and it’s really stripped for resources, and here it’s about to go into another war which is going to be extremely costly.

So we’re dealing with a country that is kind of a little “crazy”. It has unlimited resources for its military policies and its wars abroad but it’s struggling to provide for its own citizens. It’s amazing! This may be a good part why the public is against this war. The public is troubled, it’s getting very poor support from its government. And yet this government is preparing for another war of choice! It’s really quite amazing.

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John Robles

An Interview With Edward Herman. PART II here

The United States has no legal or moral authority to bomb or attack Syria and they are chemical war criminals themselves, on a much grander scale than an other country in history. The US media has no problem with the fact that their leaders obtained positions of power by guaranteeing they would follow the rule of law but have become worse war criminals than their predecessors. In an interview with the Voice of Russia renown author Dr. Edward Herman discussed these matters and more.

Hello! This is John Robles, I’m speaking with Dr. Edward Herman. He is Professor Emeritus at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the author of several books, namely “Manufacturing Consent”, which he wrote with Noam Chomsky, and the “Srebrenica Massacre: Evidence, Context, Politics”.

Robles: Hello Sir! It is a pleasure to be speaking with you again.

Herman: Good to be with you, John.

Robles: Regarding this situation in Syria, does the US in your opinion have the legal authority to launch military action or bomb Syria?

Herman: That’s one of the clearest things we can say “no” to. They certainly do not. The UN was organized to prevent war, aggression, cross-border attacks by individuals – it is very clear. And in fact, the Nuremberg Tribunal, should you actually read this: “war is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression therefore is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”. That’s from the Nuremberg Tribunal.

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Kim Petersen

Common decency demands that when someone slanders you in a public forum that you should have the right to respond in that same forum.

TRNN is an independent news network that provides thought-provoking news, analysis, and commentary. TRNN is much more than news headlines. For the greatest part, news events are reported in context and with relevant background information. This distinguishes TRNN very much from state and corporate media news. In addition, TRNN senior editor Paul Jay is very adept at playing devil’s advocate, laying out the corporate media/government line whereby guest analysts can probe and expose propaganda and disinformation.

Since criticizing the corporate media is very much like flogging a dead horse and because getting the real news out there is so important, I tend to focus my media criticism on TRNN. For instance, I criticized TRNN for parroting a corporate-state media message about North Korea (without providing relevant background information).[1] Its US electoral coverage in 2008 and 2012 was fundamentally anti-democratic because of its inordinate focus on the evilist parties rather than alloting equal coverage to all parties (albeit third party coverage did increase from 2008 to 2012).

Recently TRNN has been presenting a series called “Reality Asserts Itself.” Some fine insight has been provided by Chris Hedges, Vijay Prashad, and Max Blumenthal. However, in a recent installment of the show, Blumenthal engaged in, what can best be described as, character assassination. Blumenthal’s target was the jazz musician/author Gilad Atzmon.[2]

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John McMurtry

The following essay was delivered at a forum entitled "The Assault on Iraq and the War Against Democracy: How Should Canadians Respond?" held on Sunday March 23, 2003 in Toronto, Ontario, under the auspices of Science for Peace.

"It is easy. All you have to do is tell the people they are being attacked, and denounce the the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." ~ Hermann Göring

Genocide used to be a crime without a name. Although the most heinous of all crimes, the concept was not introduced into international language until after World War 2. Until then, military invasion and destruction of other peoples and cultures masqueraded under such slogans as progress and spreading civilisation.

I was shocked many years ago when I heard Noam Chomsky say that genocide was America's defining political tradition. Then I realised that the United States (like Canada to a much lesser extent) was based on destroying the lives and cultures of the 25 million or so first peoples who had lived in America for millennia. In the case of the U.S., the story continued with the forcible seizure of Texas in 1845 from Mexican farmers and indigenous peoples, and Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, California and other state territories shortly afterward in 1849. U.S. troops under the slave-owning General Zachary Taylor unilaterally invaded its southern neighbour under the false pretext of avenging American blood, and General Taylor soon vaulted into the White House as a presidential war hero. Even though a young Congressman, Abraham Lincoln, exposed the pretext, and connected it to a Anglo-British business strategy to impose free trade on the regions by financing the prior president, James Polk, into the White House as General Taylor's commander.

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Konstantin Gordeev

Edward Snowden, a young American, grabbed the world attention in the wink of an eye making the revelations on US global surveillance come into the open. The world telecommunications are under constant surveillance carried out by the watchful eye of US special services. The snooping is ubiquitous encompassing US citizens and people in other countries of the world. It’s really complete, there is no exaggeration here, it spreads on bums and presidents, bitterest enemies and bosom friends - all of them watched at any given moment. Phone calls are eavesdropped, fax messages, including the coded ones, are tapped, Internet networks and electronic messages are intercepted, bank transactions are followed, each and every thing is under the eagle eye, there is no escape and no exclusion from the rule.

No surprise, many in America think Snowden is a «traitor» and a «spy». But there is something else that is important: according to polls, over 40% of US citizens say no to the persecution of Snowden, they approve his actions and think he is the one who has revealed the illegal activities of US special services.[1] What has he done to make the US authorities exert pressure on other countries so that they would land foreign presidential planes or make the United States threaten everyone who dares to grant him political asylum at the time tens of thousands Americans come out to show their support for Snowden and his courageous deed? That’s what the Americans say in their in website and blogs posts comparing the US administration actions with fascism, in particular, that’s what an article published by the Truthout says.[2] A petition asking President Barack Obama to pardon admitted state secret leaker Edward Snowden and stop his persecution has passed 100,000 signatures.[3-4]

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Introduction by by Paul Craig Roberts

In my latest book, The Failure Of Laissez Faire Capitalism And Economic Dissolution of The West: Towards A New Economics For A Full World (Clarity Press, 2013), I emphasize that nature’s capital, not man-made capital, is the limiting factor for life on earth. I learned from ecological economist Herman Daly and others who were able to escape dogma and to think independently that the measure used by economists to measure economic success – the growth of GDP – does not include the most important costs. What this means is that economics as presently understood is defective and is leading humanity to its destruction.

Noam Chomsky has a brilliant mind and the courage to use it. As a critic of Israel’s inhumane policies toward the Palestinians, Chomsky has been branded by the Israel Lobby as an anti-semite and a “self-hating Jew.” (See here.) There is an entire industry that demonizes Chomsky. (See here.) Jews who make constructive criticisms of Israeli policies in attempts to protect Israel from the follies and mendacity of its government are branded “self-hating Jews.” Gentiles who provide constructive criticisms are branded “anti-semites” and “holocaust deniers,” even though they have never denounced Jews or denied the holocaust. The Israel Lobby has worked overtime to establish that any criticism of Israeli government policy reeks of total evil and is an indication that the writer intends a new holocaust. Absurd denunciations by the Israel Lobby of Israel’s critics have deprived “anti-semite” of its traditional meaning and given it a new meaning–possessor of a moral conscience.

Chomsky, a MIT professor who is the father of modern linguistics, has a moral conscience, and he turned his astute mind to the horrors of our time. Now that Chomsky is 85 years old, I am unsure what we will do without him.

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Sherwood Ross

In a recent interview, Noam Chomsky said he never expected much of President Obama, adding, ”The one thing that did surprise me is his attack on civil liberties. They go well beyond anything I would have anticipated, and they don’t seem easy to explain.”

Maybe the reasons for Obama’s transformation from a Chicago law professor into a world-class totalitarian thug is that he is a creature of the Central Intelligence Agency; that both his parents were CIA payrollers; that the CIA financed his college education and gave him his first job afterwards—-so that we may well have a president beholden to this international criminal organization, an agency that has left a trail of blood, turmoil, and assassinations around the globe.

According to the May 6th The New Yorker, when General James Cartwright, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asked at an Obama Situation Room meeting why the U.S. was building a second air force in the form of a CIA drone attack fleet, Obama told him, “The CIA gets what it wants.” That Obama holds this view is reinforced by Cameron Munter, President Obama’s former ambassador to Pakistan. Munter questioned whether the drone strikes in Pakistan weren’t having a blowback effect on the Pakistani public. Writing in the magazine, Steve Coll says Munter learned under Obama: “It was what the CIA believed that really counted.”

Reporter Coll says America’s drone war is a major factor in why U.S. relations with Pakistan have “collapsed.” Today, he writes, “the U.S. has surpassed India as the most hated nation in Pakistan.” Coll adds, “Obama seems unwilling to confront the possibility that drone strikes may be creating more enemies than they’re eliminating.”

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