catching up

It's been a while since I've posted anything here, but as the situation in America keeps worsening I feel I have to do something. Since my means are limited, basically to what I can accomplish with writing, I've decided to revive this blog.

Some time back, I stopped writing what I thought was original material when I discovered other writers who are better equipped and more talented saying the same things I tried to say, so I turned my attention to reading what they have to say and passing on the better articles I come across.

Today's picks are:

1. "America Is Being Destroyed By Problems That Are Unaddressed" by Paul Craig Roberts

2. Why "WWIII Is On the Horizon" also by Paul Craig Roberts


Paul Craig Roberts website can be found here

Also, a link to Wikipedia's article on the Project for a New American Century, which should be required reading for anyone taking current events seriously.


Bill

Easy to understand summary of disasters in the Middle East

If you're not clear on major events in the Middle East, please read this excellent commentary "The six most disastrous inventions of the 21st century"

Gary Leupp does say the people responsible for the invasion should be prosecuted. I'll go a step further and say their punishment should be to personally visit each family who suffered a casualty at their hand to apologize and ask for forgiveness.

Bill

Chris Hedges on Jeremy Corbyn

Please see this article
Where Is Our Jeremy Corbyn? by Chris Hedges

It's very refreshing to know there are people like Jeremy Corbyn in politics, and reporters like Chris Hedges to let us know about them.

This article outlines many important current issues and common sense responses to each. It's the antithesis of the MSM.


Bill

Bill Moyers and Charles Lewis

Bill Moyers is another great man in our times. He's brilliant, articulate, brave, and a whole bunch of other great adjectives.

Please click here to view his interview with Charles Lewis, author of "935 lies", which they discuss.


Bill

Andrew Bacevich

Andrew Bacevich is an astonishing man. His grasp of American foreign policy, and his ability to explain it in words average people can understand leaves him with few peers.

Please see this too-short (22 minute) video interview, available in an article run by the Huffington Post (it's the 2nd video down on the page). Reader comments are always interesting.

It's long been my intention to talk about my favorite thinkers as I discover them. Thanks to the Internet, this learning process has accelerated beyond anything I could imagine as a kid. In those days we had the newspaper, the radio and some television. Today I can sit here, as I often do, and page through my constantly improving list of information sources. What can be learned, and the speed with which this happens, continues to amaze me on an almost daily basis.

Here, today, a perfect example occurred. After listening to Bacevich, I felt like I had been brought to yet another level of understanding because he knew the words to bring it together. To be sure, I'm not saying any of this is new information as his understandings coincide with my own, with so much unsaid that I look forward to more from him, but we'll get to that it seems.

My difficulty, once I had this information, was that I couldn't pass it on. The obstacle I kept running into was going against the grain of the MSM propaganda, who people trusted to their peril as it marched them off to war time and time again.

Andrew Bacevich does have the knowledge and he has the verbal/thinking skills to sort it out and explain it. We are lucky to have him to listen to.


Bill

Will there be justice?

Please see "International Lawyers Seek Justice for Iraqis" by Dahr Jamail

The conference represents the most powerful and most current organized attempt in the world to bring justice to those responsible for the catastrophe in Iraq ..

Their goal for the conference was to begin taking concrete steps toward international lawsuits that will bring former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and former US President George W. Bush, along with those responsible in their administrations, to justice for the myriad war crimes committed in Iraq.

"Adriaensens is aiming to generate one massive lawsuit that condemns former (and current) members of the US and UK governments for war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace for their roles in the Iraq invasion and occupation."

Many people were duped by our information supply into supporting the invasion of Iraq. But now time has gone my and people have had the time to think about it, and likely have spoken with better informed people and the "alternate news" along the way, and now have a better sense of what happened.

By now, hopefully, a majority of Americans (and Brits) have come to realize that we've been duped and the total injustice of that invasion demands these proceedings and the justice that is likely to follow. Without a belief in justice we will -deservedly - lose it all.

Bill

An Indictment of the Invisible Hand

Please see "An Indictment of the Invisible Hand" by Jeffrey Madrick, Moyers & Company

Writing about Thomas Piketty's 700-page book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, some quotes:

The only way to rectify the imbalance is more aggressive taxes on property and high incomes to reduce inequality.

some of this capital has been put to good use, but as it grows so much faster than the economy, it seems more than obvious that it is the result of monopoly, rents that are not related to real returns of investment, manipulation of markets and regulations, political influence, and so on. Free market competition has not worked.

Instead, he believes higher taxes are the only solution. But regulation of monopolists and Wall Street manipulators would be part of such a solution. More vigorous anti-trust prosecution would be another. Fairer and more strongly implemented labor laws would have given workers a fairer shake, as would more union-friendly regulations and a higher minimum wage.

Bill