The story of Anne Frank is tragic. If not for the words that she wrote in her diary, she would be a digit of history. Her diary is relatable, and the thoughts that collected inside her being during a horrible time in history gives the reader an idea of who she was. She is immortalized because of the little things that she wrote, not because of any great deeds recorded by others. As a victim of tyranny she is remembered as an innocent murdered. She is a story found inside the numbers. Thanks to her diary, we have a human figure to know and mourn, despite the mechanized bureaucratic...
U.S. government
Salafis Throwing Bombs: How American and British Planners Partnered With Al-Qaeda Affiliated Groups At the Start of the Syrian Civil War
Introduction In the mainstream view, al-Qaeda did not play a role in the Syria conflict until Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi dispatched his deputy, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, to Syria in August 2011 to establish a wing of the group there, called Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front. Additionally, al-Qaeda allegedly did not carry out any military operations until December 2011 and did not announce its establishment until January 2012. However, there is evidence that al-Qaeda affiliated militants were involved in the Syrian conflict much earlier. Saudi intelligence...
For One Day, Protestors Stopped the War Machine
I’ve attended most of the major antiwar protests in Washington since 9/11. At a 2005 protest, a cop tried to whack me on the head with a wooden pole. At a 2007 protest, I snapped a picture showing George W. Bush hanging next to the U.S. Capitol. But my favorite protest was a potent little ruckus that I almost missed. On a sunny late summer day in 2013, I ambled to downtown Washington to hike with a bunch of folks who enjoyed bantering as much as I did. The route for the jaunt started on the National Mall, passing by the Smithsonian, heading toward the World War II Memorial and points...
End the War in Yemen: Today, Not Tomorrow. Now
Michael Boldin of the Tenth Amendment Center explains the U.S.-saudi coalition's war on Yemen and why the U.S. government must cease all support for the genocide immediately.
Trump: Israel First!
The U.S. government doesn't give a shit about you. US Department of Defense give 1 million masks to IDF They have other people's property they plan to steal, so they might come into close contact with some of their victims, and catch the Covid, which would be a real tragedy.
Sanctions Are Inhumane – Now, And Always
Asli U. Bali and Aziz Rana at Boston Review on the brutality of sanctions and why they must end. The current covid-19 pandemic has exposed the brutality of the economic sanctions imposed on the world by the U.S. government. This current crisis reveals all of Trump's personal deficiencies: his narcissism, xenophobia and brutal belief in "American Exceptionalism." He has filled his administration with Christian and Jewish Zionists, China haters and nationalist imperialists that have used sanctions as a weapon to conduct their "civilization wars" against countries that don't bow to pax...
Killing People is No Sin
If you're an employee of the exceptional U.S. government.
Use of Facial Recognition in Airports Draws Anger
Eoin Higgins at Common Dreams: We're basically capturing that picture at the boarding gate, providing it to U.S. Customs and Border Protection," said Farrell. "They're identifying the traveler." "It's actually the U.S. government that's implementing the biometric matching system that does all the hard analysis and crunching of the data," Farrell added." Oh, I thought this was another evil corporation behind this. Now that I know the government is involved I'm OK with it. After all, what do I have to hide. I'm sure the're doing it for our safety....
Nationalize Healthcare Now!
The U.S. government will take real good care of you. (Or, "Oh, you like playing the trumpet? You're a perfect fit for the U.S. Marine Corps.")
What I Don’t Like About Life in Post-9/11 America
“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”―Edward Abbey, American author Life in a post-9/11 America increasingly feels like an endless free fall down a rabbit hole into a terrifying, dystopian alternative reality in which the citizenry has no rights, the government is no friend to freedom, and everything we ever knew and loved about the values and principles that once made this country great has been turned on its head. We’ve walked a strange and harrowing road since September 11, 2001, littered with the debris of our once-vaunted liberties. We have...