Blogosphere
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: America Needs Protest
Margaret Kimberley: In recent months mass protests involving millions of people have emerged in countries such as Haiti, Ecuador, and Chile. In each instance the spark was unique to that nation. ... Political corruption, theft from the people, the desire for real democracy, and interference from the United States and its allies all play a role in these events. ... However, the country with an entrenched oligarchic class, a lying and useless media, and the world’s largest incarceration state is by and large silent. The United States is still the worst purveyor of violence in the world with high rates of inequality and a racist system that has gone on unabated. Yet Americans do not take to the streets....
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Nov 6, 2019, 2:29pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: The Baghdadi Scam
Margaret Kimberley: The tale of an assassination should not be accepted without question. The U.S. claimed that Baghdadi’s body was identified with the help of a DNA sample ... The story of Kurds, Turks and ISIL in Syria is complicated but the root cause of all the twists and turns is an old and very simple story. The United States under president Barack Obama used ISIL and al-Qaeda terrorists in an attempt to overthrow the Syrian government. The project was a completely bipartisan affair, with the supposed political rivals in the republican and democratic parties on board with using Baghdadi and his forces for their own purposes...
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Oct 30, 2019, 2:44pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: The Return of Hillary Clinton
Margaret Kimberley: It’s not clear if smear-mongering Clinton is running for president, or just fleeing reality. ... It isn’t clear if Hillary Clinton has just lost it and can’t control herself, really thinks she can make a third presidential run, or is trying to keep the unraveling narrative of her defeat together. Like all establishment Democrats she has Bernie Sanders in her crosshairs and will do anything to keep him from getting the nomination. ... Whatever her ultimate goal, her reappearance spells disaster for the Democratic Party. It is proof that their plot to upend Sanders will only end in defeat and another Trump term in office....
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Oct 23, 2019, 3:12pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Trump, Obama and Syria
Margaret Kimberley: Whether by mistake or design, Donald Trump is presiding over the – agonizing slow – demise of Barack Obama’s illegal and immoral scheme to overthrow the government of Syria using jihadist terror armies. ... Pointing out that the Trump team is particularly inept is only part of the story. The Democrats’ crocodile tears shed over the Kurds are part of their effort to undermine Trump while continuing to engage in the same criminality which both parties practice. Not one Democratic Party critic has questioned the premise of U.S. imperialism which brought the Kurds and the Syrians to this point...
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Oct 16, 2019, 4:11pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Botham Jean, Joshua Brown and Antonio Williams Freedom Rider: Botham Jean, Joshua Brown and Antonio Williams
Margaret Kimberley: The death of a police murder witness in Dallas is reminiscent of another police atrocity and coverup in New York City. ... There is always hope that justice will be done but also recognition that it is rarely the case. Yet in Dallas the killer cop was actually convicted by a multi-racial jury. But what should have been a cause for some relief turned into farce ... Just three days after the conviction Brown was also killed. ...While the facts surrounding Botham Jean’s and Brown's murders were somewhat anomalous, a man in New York City suffered the same fate but in a more typical fashion for police murder victims. ... Williams’ last words were, “I didn’t do nothing. Why are you bothering me? Why are you after me?” The police tackled and shot him but two of the bullets struck one of officers and he died along with Williams...
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Oct 9, 2019, 4:21pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: The Phony Ukraine Scandal
Margaret Kimberley: The blatant interference in the affairs of Ukraine is just one of the Barack Obama era scandals that the corporate media chose to cover up. ... Along with partner NGOs they assisted far right forces in overthrowing that country’s elected president. Ukraine is a failed state with an ongoing civil war because of this effort to pry it away from Russian influence ... Instead of letting sleeping dogs lie he (Trump) asked a foreign head of state to investigate another presidential candidate. Joe Biden is a walking disaster on his own. He is nearly as stupid and graceless as Trump but the Democratic Party is desperate to win with a neoliberal candidate who will please rich party donors and Wall Street. ... The real Ukraine scandal, the bipartisan attack on another nation’s sovereignty, will be unaddressed by the culprits and their media friends...
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Oct 2, 2019, 3:47pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: The WFP (Working Families Party), Phony Outrage and Black Misleaders
Margaret Kimberley: In 2016 the WFP membership endorsed Bernie Sanders with 80% of their votes. ... The WFP recently endorsed Elizabeth Warren but the leadership have declined to say by how much or if the vote of members differed from that of the leadership. ... It is fair to conclude that this reticence indicates that the game was rigged in favor of Warren and that the membership still supports Sanders. ... black leaders are joined at the hip with the Democratic Party, whose sole mission through the 2016 convention is to stop Bernie Sanders. They know that Sanders speaks to people’s needs and would win the nomination and election absent any interference from donors, the party or its operatives. The WFP is a perfect partner for the fraud because it exists only as a cover for the Democrats...
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Sep 25, 2019, 3:23pm
Blogosphere
Greta Thunberg’s Generational J’accuse: It’s a Crime to Cause the Climate Crisis
Juan Cole: Greta Thunberg, in her speech to the United Nations General Assembly, let them have it. ... Emile Zola (“I accuse” - j’accuse) changed the terms of discourse about the Dreyfus affair from the question of whether Dreyfus committed treason to the question of who framed him. ... Thunberg just changed the discourse about the climate crisis by fingering the culprits. ... What these corporations and their governmental enablers are doing is a crime. It is a tort, with real live victims. They include everyone who is now, like Ms. Thunberg, 16 years old, since the current corporate carbon dioxide emissions are creating increasing global heating that will rob them of a normal life ...
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Sep 24, 2019, 4:02pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: The Electability Canard
Margaret Kimberley: The latest scheme of getting Democratic voter support is to claim that particular presidential candidates are more electable than others. At this juncture that concept is highly problematic and the claims surrounding it are largely meaningless. Corporate media pundits and the party establishment use the idea of electability to get support for their favorites. Silencing progressives is also a rationale for bestowing the questionable designation. ... The charade is particularly laughable because Trump lost the popular vote. If Hillary Clinton had mustered 80,000 more votes from three states she would have won the electoral vote. Much of the speculation about electability and the need to win over Trump voters is unnecessary. ... The get out the vote effort that the 2016 campaign eschewed and an appealing program should result in a Democratic Party victory... But the Democrats don’t want a candidate who proposes what the people need and want..
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Sep 18, 2019, 3:44pm
Blogosphere
Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House
DANIEL LIPPMAN: The U.S. government concluded within the past two years that Israel was most likely behind the placement of cellphone surveillance devices that were found near the White House and other sensitive locations around Washington, according to three former senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter. ... The miniature surveillance devices, colloquially known as “StingRays,” mimic regular cell towers to fool cellphones into giving them their locations and identity information. ... The devices were likely intended to spy on President Donald Trump, one of the former officials said, as well as his top aides and closest associates ... Based on a detailed forensic analysis, the FBI and other agencies working on the case felt confident that Israeli agents had placed the devices...
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Sep 13, 2019, 1:43pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Hollywood Propaganda Attack on Venezuela
Margaret Kimberley: The US is starving and killing Venezuelans in real life and, for your family’s viewing pleasure, on television screens. ... Americans are loathe to think of themselves as being propagandized. ... But government propaganda does not work in a vacuum. It is bolstered by the corporate media and that includes the entertainment industry. ... The latest in the story of fictitious CIA agent Jack Ryan is a case in point. ... The new season premieres in November and in this latest incarnation Ryan fights to prevent a nuclear armed Venezuela . ... Venezuela is the victim of United States aggression in reality and now on the screen. ... Imperialism is quite bipartisan and liberal Hollywood never saw propaganda it didn’t want to hype. ... Media imagery is very powerful, that is why governments work so closely with corporate media to present their narratives...
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Sep 12, 2019, 9:43am
Blogosphere
China Defies Trump on Iran Big time with $400 bn Belt-and-Road Investment, 5000 Red Army Troops
Juan Cole: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was in Beijing recently for what turns out to have been the biggest triumph of his career. China has decided it has nothing further to fear from the Trump administration, and has decided to incorporate Iran into its One Belt, One Road plan with investments totaling some $400 billion. ... To guard the China-built oil and gas facilities, China will put 5,000 People’s Liberation Army troops into Iran. ... China will build new pipelines and roads, putting $120 bn. into transportation networks ... Zarif said Iran is eager to be incorporated into its massive globe-straddling “One Belt, One Road” plan to connect Asia to Europe with new sea and road and rail and pipeline infrastructure...
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Sep 7, 2019, 2:45pm
Blogosphere
On Labor Day, US Workers are 1/3 poorer than in 2003 & Top 1% is 2x Richer
Juan Cole: On Labor Day, American workers have little to celebrate. That’s alright. The September Labor Day, while initially proposed by some workers in the 1880s, was backed by conservative President Grover Cleveland over May 1, which he associated with radicalism (i.e. with workers who would demand their rights). So it really isn’t for the workers, it is for the bosses. ... David Harrison at the Wall Street Journal reports that the lower 50% of US households by wealth have 32% less wealth than in 2003 in real numbers. ... The poor got significantly poorer in the past two decades, and the rich got significantly richer. ... Trump repaid the backers by cutting taxes massively on the top 1%, creating a $1 trillion a year Federal budget deficit. Since the government supplies services to people, and it can no longer afford to provide the same level of service, this “tax cut” is actually a tax on workers...
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Sep 2, 2019, 1:50pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Protest and the Corporate Media
Margaret Kimberley: Corporate media always let us know who is in with the in-crowd and who is on the outs with the United States government. They don’t do so with any transparency, but by promoting some stories and disappearing others. They give great attention to events that they believe are advancing U.S. interests. The invisibility treatment goes to those who tell inconvenient truths and defy American dictates. ... Protests in Hong Kong against the Chinese government and in Moscow against the Russian government are covered extensively. ... “Only those who know where to look are aware that the #NoMoreTrump campaign in Venezuela drew thousands of people into the streets of Caracas.” ... China and Russia are full of contradictions that cause confusion among the uninformed. Neither country is democratic in the way that Americans understand but, then again, their country isn’t either. The important point is that they are viewed as enemies by a nation which isn’t satisfied unless all others are allies, lap dogs or utterly destroyed...
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Aug 25, 2019, 12:16pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Trump and Baltimore
Margaret Kimberley: Anyone feeling the need to defend Baltimore from Trump’s opinions ought to talk about what really ails that city. ... There is only one person worthy of being defended in the wake of Donald Trump’s twitter tirade against Congressional Black Caucus member Elijah Cummings and the city of Baltimore. That man is Keith Davis, Jr. ... In 2015 Davis was shot by Baltimore police. When he survived the 30-shot fusillade they planted evidence and charged him with the murder of another man. After three bites at the prosecutorial apple Davis was convicted of the killing this week. ... The days of shock and outrage over every Trump utterance should end. ... Cummings is nothing more than a go along to get along member of the black political class that has worked against the interests of the people they represent. ... Baltimore police violence and corruption are endemic and the cops are notoriously crooked...
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Jul 31, 2019, 1:58pm
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