<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!-- generator="WordPress/2.9.2" -->
<rss version="0.92">
<channel>
	<title>News from Neptune</title>
	<link>http://newsfromneptune.com</link>
	<description>"Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or  else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune."  --Noam Chomsky</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:54:38 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<docs>http://backend.userland.com/rss092</docs>
	<language>en</language>
	
	<item>
		<title>Although the Media and the President Seem to Ignore it, Americans Continue to Kill and Die in the Middle East. Why?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[(Text of the flyer for the regular monthly demonstration by the Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort of Champaign IL, 6 Feb 2010)
It&#8217;s not &#8220;because of 9/11&#8243; or to &#8220;stop terrorism,&#8221; 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 [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2010/02/06/197/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Anti-War Republicans</title>
		<description><![CDATA[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&#8217;m coming to doubt that it will consist [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2010/02/01/anti-war-republicans/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>News From Neptune on TV for Friday, November 20, 2009</title>
		<description><![CDATA[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 [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2009/12/05/news-from-neptune-53/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Setting the Agenda for the Intelligentsia</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The NYT today publishes a more candid than usual article in its campaign to set the terms of public discussion of US war policy &#8212; in a way that will favor that policy.

&#8220;Where Is U.S. Foreign Policy Headed?&#8221; appears on the inside back cover of the book review.  The article &#8212; by a well-known [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2009/10/25/setting-the-agenda-for-the-intelligentsia/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Securing Liberty: A Bailout for the Rest of Us</title>
		<description><![CDATA[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 [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2009/10/13/securing-liberty-a-bailout-for-the-rest-of-us/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Misrepresenting Germany</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The German election has been seriously misreported in the US &#8212; an accident I&#8217;m sure.  The real story is the breakdown of support of the major parties, and it may presage what&#8217;s to happen in US politics.
First, it&#8217;s been represented as a victory for the party of Angela Merkel (who&#8217;ll continue as chancellor), the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2009/09/28/misrepresenting-germany/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Liberal line on the empire&#8217;s wars</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Frank Rich has a disgusting piece in the NYT today, an attempt to establish the limits of allowable debate for Obama&#8217;s Great Decision on Afghanistan.
What are the (only) alternatives?  McChrystal or Biden.  God help us. McChrystal &#8212; tens of thousands more US troops; Biden &#8212; air war against our real enemy in the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2009/09/27/liberal-line-on-the-empires-wars/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Why are we in Afghanistan?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[William Pfaff, who&#8217;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) &#8220;Presidents Need a War to Call Their Own — Now Obama Has His&#8221; .
Pfaff is an ex-CIA employee and a long-time member of the Hudson Institute, which is [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2009/09/17/122/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Oh, Canada&#8230;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Canadian PM Stephen Harper has 42 minutes of face time with Barack Obama in Washington today.  While Canadian institutions (notably healthcare) are being compared favorably with those of the US, quite rightly, here are some other things to remember:

  1. On dozens of occasions since 1915 Canadian gunboats have been deployed to the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2009/09/16/oh-canada/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>&#8220;You lie!&#8221; &#8212; about Afghanistan</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The much-predicted demise of newspapers can&#8217;t happen too soon, so it seems to me, if we want a well-informed citizenry.
It was a 19th-century gibe that &#8220;newspapers are half advertisements &#8212; and the rest lies between them.&#8221;
But the lies can be subtle &#8212; and usually lie (sorry) in the unstated assumptions (unstated, they&#8217;re harder to refute). [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2009/09/16/you-lie-about-afghanistan/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Advance text of President&#8217;s speech</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
    Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery
    Address to Joint Session of Congress
    Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Madame Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, and the First Lady of the United States:
I come before you tonight in a spirit of remorse &#8212; [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2009/09/06/advance-text-of-presidents-speech/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Lincoln Cult &#8211; February 2009</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The Lincoln birthday celebrations seem to have included little attempt to learn from the past. Lincoln is celebrated &#8212; by few more than the current president, who insists upon a resemblance &#8212; but there&#8217;s little critique of the devastation over which Lincoln presided.  The end of chattel slavery is taken to be a retrospective [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2009/02/13/lincoln-cult-february-2008/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Real(ist) Washington Politics</title>
		<description><![CDATA[David Green writes to recommend &#8220;How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe&#8221; by Avi Shlaim in  The Guardian, Wednesday 7 January 2009.  (&#8220;Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state&#8217;s legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2009/01/10/realist-washington-politics/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Co-opting the Antiwar Movement</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Perhaps it betrays my essentially reformist rather than revolutionary disposition to think that there is something wrong with what Eliot has Abp. Becket say in Murder in the Cathedral &#8211;
	The last temptation is the greatest treason:
	To do the right deed for the wrong reason.

However much that may be a guide for oneself, Christians at least [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2008/12/31/co-opting-the-antiwar-movement/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>News from Neptune, the TV Edition, cablecast October 17, 2008</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This is a sample of the new video version of News from Neptune (radio with pictures), from the studios of Urbana (IL) Public Television, with thanks to Jason Liggett.  It features CGE and David Green.  Topics include *elitism and contempt*, *class in America*, and *the Pareto principle*.
New programs will be posted inshallah in the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2008/10/26/news-from-neptune-the-tv-edition-17-october-2008/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Tax and Expend</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Don&#8217;t tax productive economic activity, tax wealth.  Remove all corporate taxes (that&#8217;s practically been done) but also remove the civil rights of corporations as &#8220;legal persons.&#8221;
But wealth owned by corporations should be assigned to individuals (principally shareholders) for accounting purposes and then taxed. (We do that now informally &#8212; that&#8217;s why we say Bill [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2008/10/25/tax-and-expend/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Left or Right?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Friday&#8217;s NYT has an obit for an Italian anti-fascist, Vittorio Foa, who recently
died at 98.  Jailed by Mussolini, he led a left-wing labor union after WWII and
was a socialist senator.  The Times describes him delicately as &#8220;a leading
intellectual of the non-Communist left [who] in the 1960s inspired some
extra-parliamentary leftist groups.&#8221;
La Repubblica published his [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2008/10/25/left-or-right/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>The Democrats and Obama have co-opted the anti-war movement</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Senator Barack Obama said Wednesday he would order a surge of U.S. troops – perhaps 15,000 or more – to Afghanistan as soon as he reached the White House [Globe &#038; Mail 20081022].
Obama&#8217;s position has been clear for some time.  But it&#8217;s been expressed in such a way that he and the Democrats have [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2008/10/25/the-democrats-and-obama-have-co-opted-the-anti-war-movement/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>The Presidential Election Did Not Take Place</title>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;The people can vote for whoever they want.
I control the nominations.&#8221;
&#8211;Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall, ca. 1870

The presidential election campaign was primarily a distraction.  There were serious issues presumably at stake, notably the war and the economy, and the campaign not only ignored them but purposely obscured them.
The reason&#8217;s not far to seek.  As the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2008/10/02/the-presidential-election-did-not-take-place/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>A Better Bailout Plan</title>
		<description><![CDATA[[A DC lawyer of my acquaintance sends the best analysis of the bailout I've seen, and a counter-proposal.]
Taxpayers receive preferred stock and collateral from a bank borrowing from the Taxpayers, both in the full amount of the loan sought by the bank.  In other words, stock plus collateral in double the amount of the loan. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://newsfromneptune.com/2008/09/24/27/</link>
			</item>
</channel>
</rss>
