“[Those in the Tea Party movement, who are frustrated and fed up with American government] shouldn’t be laughed at. It’s not a joke. Ridiculing the Tea Party shenanigans is a terrible mistake. Why are those voices of discontent being mobilized by the extreme Right?” –Noam Chomsky, 8 April 2010 A correspondent sends an apposite description [...]
(Text of the flyer for the regular monthly demonstration by the Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort of Champaign IL, 6 Feb 2010) It’s not “because of 9/11″ or to “stop terrorism,” as President Obama now says. The war is neither just nor legal: the real reason for it seems to be the long-standing U.S. policy of control [...]
Whether or not the Republicans do well in the 2010 congressional elections by mobilizing the general dismay with the Obama administration, it seems clear that the Republican opposition to Obama in 2012 will include opposition to his war policy. The question is what form it will take. I’m coming to doubt that it will consist [...]
A spontaneous and unrehearsed discussion of the news of the week and its coverage by the media, cablecast each Friday at 7pm on Urbana Public Television (cable channel 6 in Urbana, Illinois). Joining C. G. Estabrook this week are E. Wayne Johnson and Ron Szoke. Each participant takes up to ten minutes to talk about [...]
The NYT today publishes a more candid than usual article in its campaign to set the terms of public discussion of US war policy — in a way that will favor that policy.
The following are preliminary notes for a talk I was invited to give at the Midwest Liberty Fest in Du Quoin, IL , 9th-11th inst. The meeting included a wider variety of views than might have been predicted; I think it testifies to the failure of the Republicans and Democrats to constrain political debate within [...]
The German election has been seriously misreported in the US — an accident I’m sure. The real story is the breakdown of support of the major parties, and it may presage what’s to happen in US politics. First, it’s been represented as a victory for the party of Angela Merkel (who’ll continue as chancellor), the [...]
Frank Rich has a disgusting piece in the NYT today, an attempt to establish the limits of allowable debate for Obama’s Great Decision on Afghanistan. What are the (only) alternatives? McChrystal or Biden. God help us. McChrystal — tens of thousands more US troops; Biden — air war against our real enemy in the region, [...]
William Pfaff, who’s been writing from Paris roughly since the German army left, has a piece in the International Herald Tribune (alias European edition of the NYT) “Presidents Need a War to Call Their Own — Now Obama Has His” . Pfaff is an ex-CIA employee and a long-time member of the Hudson Institute, which [...]