Commentary
Commentary
Most Iraq and Afghanistan Vets now Regret the Mission
Fred Gardner: Among veterans, 64 percent say the war in Iraq was not worth fighting, according to a study by the Pew Research Center, slightly higher than the 62 percent of civilians who feel the same way. ... Disagreement with the conflict in Afghanistan is lower — 58 percent of veterans and 59 percent of the general public believe that was not a worthy war. ... While some veterans support continued military engagement in Syria, more than half — 55 percent — oppose it... Many who served are concerned that the suicide rate among veterans outpaces that of the civilian population and is rising faster among younger veterans. ... And homelessness is a stubborn problem...
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Nov 11, 2019, 2:39pm
Commentary
A Bold Plan to Strengthen and Improve Social Security Is What America Needs
Dean Baker: The Social Security 2100 Act proposed by Connecticut Representative John Larson is getting closer to being passed by the House of Representatives. ... The biggest item on the benefit side is that it guarantees a benefit of at least 125 percent of the poverty level for anyone who has worked for at least 30 years. ... The second big change on the benefit side is that it changes the cost-of-living formula for adjusting benefits by tying it to an index of consumption items purchased by the elderly rather than the overall Consumer Price Index. ... The third feature on benefits is a change in the formula that will increase average benefits for a bit less than $400 a year...
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Nov 9, 2019, 3:20pm
Commentary
End PG&E’s Reign of Error With a Hostile Takeover
Greg Palast: Power companies have two jobs: Keep the lights on and don’t kill your customers. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. of Northern California flunks on both counts. ... . The answer: Make this so-called “public utility” into a true public system—a customer-owned power cooperative, a plan proposed by the city of San Jose. Currently, the only things “public” about PG&E are the bills the public pays and the charred homes and bodies this bankrupt beast leaves behind. .... PG&E’s transformation from a public utility into an Academy for Accidental Arsonists began 30 years ago with Ken Lay, chief executive of Enron. Enron, a criminal enterprise parading as a power company, convinced California to lead the nation in “deregulating” its power markets... San Jose has the right idea: consumer cooperative ownership... Democracy keeps the lights on...
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Nov 7, 2019, 2:52pm
Commentary
Trump's Tells: A Poker Player's Perspective
Jaime O'Neill : Even bad poker players know how important it is to avoid exhibiting tells at the tables. ... You don't have to be particularly savvy or astute in order to read Trump's tells. As the saying goes, if his mouth is moving, odds are that he's lying. If he's angry, he's been called out dead to rights. If he says you are crooked, he's simply projecting his own character on you. When he's frightened, he blusters. When he's hurt, he whines. When he's peeved, he folds his arms across this chest like a petulant child. ... As does the fact that he puts his name on every building he owns, that he brags about himself incessantly, that he finds it essential that he be seen as winning even when he doesn't, or even when he cheats...
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Nov 4, 2019, 11:09am
Commentary
Baghdadi, the Invisible Leader of a Fake Army
Gordon Duff: Behind the curtain exists a Deep State, a world super-government that will minimally influence and in most cases control national governments. ... Governments are controlled to control resources, to manipulate markets through manufactured needs and shortages, through currencies, though militarization and humanity is little but fodder, tolerated only so long as it serves these efforts. ... Governments are fragile. Elections can be rigged, politicians purchased for a paltry sum and in a world where “everyone has a price,” anyone worth purchasing has been purchased. ... There are a thousand reasons the Baghdadi killing is fake, but top of the list is this one, there are no ISIS fighters, no facilities, no groups friendly to ISIS within hundreds of miles from where he was allegedly chased down by a dog...
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Nov 1, 2019, 2:34pm
Commentary
The Militarization of Everything
William J. Astore: The expanding cultural authority of the armed forces is a problem for U.S. democracy ... Besides TV shows, movies, and commercials, there are many signs of the increasing embrace of militarized values and attitudes in this country. The result: the acceptance of a military in places where it shouldn’t be, one that’s over-celebrated, over-hyped, and given far too much money and cultural authority, while becoming virtually immune to serious criticism. ... As Americans embrace the military, less violent policy options are downplayed or disregarded. ... Consider the State Department, America’s diplomatic corps, now a tiny, increasingly defunded branch of the Pentagon...
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Oct 31, 2019, 2:56pm
Commentary
How the Supreme Court and the Morbidly Rich Are Ruining Democracy in America
Thom Hartmann: In 1976, for the first time in America’s history, five conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that rich people owning their own personal politicians was constitutionally protected because the money they were using to buy legislators and legislation was “free speech.” ... The result was predictable. Rich people and corporations rose up and took over the government, as money poured into Reagan’s coffers and the corporate-funded GOP began to dominate the American political scene. ... In 2014, ... study that found that in this post-Reagan era, the political goals—the legislative outcomes hoped for—of Americans in the bottom 90 percent of income were, essentially, ignored by the U.S. Congress and presidency...
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Oct 29, 2019, 11:43am
Commentary
Russia: Friend or Foe?
Myles Hoenig: When did Russia start to become an enemy of the US? ... That Cold War did constitute enemy status. But when was the last time Russia, or even the Soviet Union, ever purposely kill an American, civilian or military personnel? ... Isn’t that a basic criteria for enemy status? Al Queda is our enemy because they killed thousands in 2001. But in all likelihood, they were backed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ... In 1967 the Israelis killed 34 US sailors aboard the USS Liberty and injured 171, with the intention of killing them all, and knew it was an American ship ... Why is Israel not considered our enemy? ... We clearly cannot say that Putin deserves our thoughts and prayers...
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Oct 28, 2019, 12:21pm
Commentary
Now the Generals Speak Up?
Maj. Danny Sjursen: In unprecedented numbers, a litany of prominent military leaders have recently spoken out. Unfortunately, they’ve chosen to do so in the name of continuing perpetual war — specifically in Syria. ... In doing so, the generals haven’t just violated their purported core principles of nonpartisanship, but they have shown their true colors as unabashed militarists in a rare wave of public defiance. ... That they’re doing so to prolong an unsanctioned war with a muddled and dubious mission is dangerous, scary, and hypocritical — a serious threat to the republic...
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Oct 25, 2019, 4:27pm
Commentary
Exxon’s Climate Fraud Trial Opens to a Packed New York Courtroom
Nicholas Kusnetz: It’s the first major climate change lawsuit against Big Oil to reach trial, and the outcome could influence future cases. ... the oil giant stands accused of defrauding investors by misleading them about the risks it faces from future climate regulations. ... The central allegation is that Exxon fraudulently used two sets of books to estimate the risks it faces as governments take steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions: one that was shared with investors and another that was used only internally....
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Oct 23, 2019, 3:38pm
Commentary
On Psychopathy & Power
Caitlin Johnstone: The way we design systems that elevate psychopaths to positions of leadership have been causing problems throughout history ... we have found ourselves ruled by psychopaths because we have a system wherein (A) those who are willing to do anything to anyone are rewarded with immense wealth, and (B) immense wealth translates directly to immense political power. Add in the fact that studies have shown that wealth itself kills off empathy and compassion, and you’ve got yourself a perfect recipe for a plutocratic dystopia dominated by antisocial personality disorder. ... It’s also possible to imagine a culture in which manipulation is seen as an unacceptable taboo which immediately draws public backlash in the same way....
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Oct 18, 2019, 12:07pm
Commentary
Why Russia and China Stand Together
Andre Vltchek: The capitalist world is in decay. The West is rotting. Anger and nihilism are pouring from the imperialist empire whose citizens are frustrated; not at peace with themselves. ... But it is China and Russia who are at the forefront of spite of the Western nation and their propagandists. ... Russia which saved the world from Nazism, and which helped to decolonize dozens of nations, is now “least liked country” in Europe. ... China, a mighty Communist country, (or call it a “socialist country with Chinese characteristics”), is being mocked and humiliated by Western propaganda. Arrogance of the European and North American indoctrinators and most of their servile pseudo-intellectuals, from the so-called center to the right, has no boundaries...
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Oct 15, 2019, 5:00pm
Commentary
The Rights Of Nature
Robert C. Koehler: "When the U.S. Constitution was ratified, women, indigenous peoples, and slaves were treated as property, without rights." ... This isn't over yet. In the same vein of exploitative ignorance, we're still treating a living, life-sustaining, crucial being as property: the ecosystem. And in the process, we're choking our own habitat—that is to say, ourselves—to death. ... The Rights of Nature movement, as it tinkers with governmental bureaucracies on every continent, is about ushering humanity back onto a living planet. This is where we used to live. This is where the indigenous people of the world still live. ... "... Indigenous worldviews around the planet share a common perspective: the world is alive and meaningful and our relationship with the rest of life is one of participation, communion and co-creation."...
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Oct 11, 2019, 3:04pm
Commentary
The Two Internationalisms
Lawrence Wittner: In recent years, internationalism — cooperation among nations for promotion of the common good — has acquired a bad reputation. ... Focusing on their nation’s supposed superiority to others, a long line of right-wing demagogues, including Adolf Hitler (“Deutschland Über Alles”) and Donald Trump (“America First”), have stirred up xenophobia, racism, and militarism, often with some success in public opinion and at the polls. ... If the people of the world are to stave off the global catastrophes ... they need to cast off their lingering tribalism, recognize their common humanity, and begin working for the good of all....
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Oct 5, 2019, 2:53pm
Commentary
When the Fringe Is Mainstream and the Mainstream Is Fringe: On Orwell and US Oligarchy
John Atcheson: ... both the press and the Democratic Party leadership routinely represent issues and policies that are preferred by the vast majority of Americans—often beliefs held by Democrats, Independents and Republicans alike—as “fringe.” ... Examples: Medicare for All—favored by 53 percent of Americans; Green New Deal—supported by 63 percent of Americans and 60 percent of registered voters; ... But the Orwellian reality is, each of these issues have been labeled as “extreme” or “fringe” ... the Democrats—rejecting popular policies and embracing unpopular ones on behalf of the rich, while the other is embracing a cult of hate, fear and blame, elections are reduced to a contest between the deliberately ignored and the passionately ignorant...
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Oct 4, 2019, 4:58pm
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