Howard Dean Is Raising Key Questions About Obama and Democratic Party Leadership
I was glad to read about Howard Dean's statement a couple of days ago, raising basic questions about the current leadership of President Obama and the Democratic Party. What's below is from an article...
View ArticleThe Orwellian Warfare State of Carnage and Doublethink
After the bombings that killed and maimed so horribly at the Boston Marathon, our country’s politics and mass media are awash in heartfelt compassion -- and reflexive “doublethink,” which George Orwell...
View ArticleTime to Renounce the "War on Terror"
As a perpetual emotion machine — producing and guzzling its own political fuel — the “war on terror” continues to normalize itself as a thoroughly American way of life and death. Ongoing warfare has...
View Article“Primary” a Democrat Near You
Progressives often wonder why so many Republican lawmakers stick to their avowed principles while so many Democratic lawmakers abandon theirs. We can grasp some answers by assessing the current...
View ArticleObama in Plunderland: Down the Corporate Rabbit Hole
The president’s new choices for Commerce secretary and FCC chair underscore how far down the rabbit hole his populist conceits have tumbled. Yet the Obama rhetoric about standing up for working people...
View ArticleOur Twisted Politics of Grief
Darwin observed that conscience is what most distinguishes humans from other animals. If so, grief isn’t far behind. Realms of anguish are deeply personal—yet prone to expropriation for public use,...
View ArticleBradley Manning Is Guilty of “Aiding the Enemy” -- If the Enemy Is Democracy
Of all the charges against Bradley Manning, the most pernicious -- and revealing -- is “aiding the enemy.”A blogger at The New Yorker, Amy Davidson, raised a pair of big questions that now loom over...
View ArticleAn Open Letter to Dianne Feinstein About the Bill of Rights
Dear Senator Feinstein:On Thursday, when you responded to news about massive ongoing surveillance of phone records of people in the United States, you slipped past the meaning of the Fourth Amendment....
View ArticleEdward Snowden's Profound Gift to Us
In Washington, where the state of war and the surveillance state are one and the same, top officials have begun to call for Edward Snowden’s head. His moral action of whistleblowing -- a clarion call...
View ArticleClarity from Snowden -- But Murky Response from Progressives in Congress
House Speaker John Boehner calls Edward Snowden a “traitor.” The chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, labels his brave whistleblowing “an act of treason.” What about the...
View ArticleDavid Brooks, Tom Friedman, Bill Keller Wish Snowden Had Just Followed Orders
Edward Snowden’s disclosures, the New York Times reported on Sunday, “have renewed a longstanding concern: that young Internet aficionados whose skills the agencies need for counterterrorism and...
View ArticleUncle Sam and Corporate Tech: Domestic Partners Raising Digital Big Brother
A terrible formula has taken hold: warfare state + corporate digital power = surveillance state.“National security” agencies and major tech sectors have teamed up to make Big Brother a reality. “Of the...
View ArticlePursuing Edward Snowden: Washington in a Rage, Striving to Run the World
Rarely has any American provoked such fury in Washington’s high places. So far, Edward Snowden has outsmarted the smartest guys in the echo chamber—and he has proceeded with the kind of moral clarity...
View ArticleDenouncing NSA Surveillance Isn’t Enough—We Need the Power to Stop It
For more than a month, outrage has been profuse in response to news about NSA surveillance and other evidence that all three branches of the U.S. government are turning Uncle Sam into Big Brother.Now...
View ArticleObama’s Escalating War on Freedom of the Press
The part of the First Amendment that prohibits “abridging the freedom … of the press” is now up against the wall, as the Obama administration continues to assault the kind of journalism that can expose...
View ArticleCongress: Obama’s Willing Executioners of the Fourth Amendment
It’s now painfully clear that the president has put out a contract on the Fourth Amendment. And at the Capitol, the hierarchies of both parties are stuffing it into the trunks of their limousines, so...
View ArticleThe Moral Verdict on Bradley Manning: A Conviction of Love in Action
The sun rose with a moral verdict on Bradley Manning well before the military judge could proclaim his guilt. The human verdict would necessarily clash with the proclamation from the judicial bench.In...
View Article‘You Failed to Break the Spirit of Bradley Manning’: An Open Letter to...
Dear President Obama:As commander in chief, you’ve been responsible for the treatment of the most high-profile whistleblower in the history of the U.S. armed forces. Under your command, the United...
View ArticleRepression of Whistleblowers: Making It Easier to Attack Syria
Without whistleblowers, the mainline media outlets are more transfixed than ever with telling the official story. And at a time like this, the official story is all about spinning for war on...
View ArticleWhile Cameron Defers to Parliament, Obama Locks into Warfare State of Mind
The British Parliament’s rejection of an attack on Syria is a direct contrast—and implicit challenge—to the political war system of the United States.“It is clear to me that the British Parliament,...
View Article
