Tag: Government

Turn that noise down!

I was going to review the year that is quickly coming to an end, in my typical cynical tone, but add a personal and somewhat optimistic touch at the end. Then I read Chris Hedges piece, 2011: A Brave New Dystopia, and suddenly everything that happened in 2010 seems quite inconsequential to what is more than likely to be waiting in 2011 and beyond.

Which, I think, says much more than it’s share. 2010 has been quite the year — The AlJazeera Top 10 does a relatively sufficient job rounding out the year, so I’ll urge all those interested to check it out. But it’s people like Mr. Hedges that can and continue to give the world in which we live a frightening context. A context we all must understand if we ever want to halt it.

Everything else has had it’s volume turned down since reading that…

EI needs your help!

The Electronic Intifada needs your support to continue its work publishing “news, commentary, analysis, and reference materials about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict from a Palestinian perspective. EI is the leading Palestinian portal for information about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its depiction in the media.”

What with “international solidarity and anti-war activists […] facing a new wave of repression in the United States,” there has never been a more important time, than now, for work of this kind to be done. And it desperately needs to continue.

So if you’re in a position to lend a hand, please consider supporting a valuable resource…

Spoon-Fed or Forked Over?

With the recent Julian Assange fiasco growing ever more convoluted with each passing day, it’s articles like Julie Webb-Pullman’s, Wikileaks: Play The Ball Not The Man and Check Who’s Kicking, that makes everything that much more difficult to follow.

Or so it would seem. But it’s words such as these that serve to “ground,” at least my opinions, concerning matters at hand. There are much more aspects to any one “story” than you hear from any one source or group of sources. “Play the ball not the man,” indeed. But it is what Julie wrote to end today’s Dissident Voice piece that everyone would benefit from;

But you don’t need me to tell you — read the links and their footnotes, and anything else you can get your hands on [emphasis mine!] — and take a stab at coming to your own conclusions. It beats being spoon-fed, or forked over.

No truer words could be written about these or any other issues of the day…

Things Could Be Worse

What’s with people? In what would be the supreme height of laughable — that is if the facts on the ground facing regular working American’s and the tragic implementation of their health care wasn’t so ridiculously deadly — ”conservative Maryland physician,” Andy Harris, “elected to Congress on an anti-Obamacare platform” demanded “to know why his government-subsidized health care plan takes a month to kick in.” And continued to ask “what he would do without 28 days of health care.” Irony, eh?

Realistically what I find much more ironic is the fact that as much as Republican’s and the Tea Baggers talk their shit about Obamacare, and how much they hate him — err, I mean it — those newly elected officials have absolutely no intention of repealing that legislation (watch today’s interview of Wendell Potter on Democracy Now!). Health care reform benefits business. That’s precisely where all that Republican money came from. People expecting change by voting for an industry funded solution have been had. Nothing will change. Or be repealed. But I digress.

So in a sorry attempt to cover his sloppy ass, Andy Harris, or I should say his spokeswoman, claimed — I’m assuming after the fact — ”he was just pointing out the inefficiency of government-run health care.” Believe it or not — which I don’t — that concern is fair…

Continue reading Things Could Be Worse