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Beyond Money in Politics: Corruption Now “Business as Usual”
“I wrote Unaccountable to bring to your attention the invisible corruption that has become business as usual when it comes to how so much power and influence work nowadays. I come to this work as a social anthropologist — not the stereotypical one who dons a pith helmet to live among a long-lost tribe in Borneo, but one who has spent her career in exotic places like Washington and Warsaw as a participant observer in think tanks, government agencies, and academic institutions. As an anthropologist who has long studied how systems and organizations actually work (as opposed to how they…
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Police Militarization “Quick Fix”
“There needs to be a focus on the demand side rather than the supply. As long as there is a high level of demand for heavy military equipment by local law enforcement, you’re not really fixing the problem. There’s evidence that the first SWAT teams were formed to deal with civil unrest.”
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Mubarak Case Dismissed; Two Killed in Cairo Protests
“Many people weren’t that surprised by the ruling, given the nature of the judiciary we have seen over the past year, given the nature of the political situation in Egypt right now. Many were surprised at their capacity to still feel anger and indignation and to be disappointed and upset by this verdict — to see not only Mubarak but Habib el-Adly, his interior minister, and the top police chiefs all be acquitted and basically no one being held responsible after scores of police officers have been acquitted by trials as well. Hardly anyone being held responsible for the killing…
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The Myth of Thanksgiving
“It was during the Great Depression that the Thanksgiving holiday was transformed into a nationalistic origin story to bind a chaotic society experiencing economic and social collapse. But this idea of the gift-giving Indian, helping to establish and enrich what would become the United States, is an insidious smoke screen meant to obscure the fact that the very existence of the country is a result of the looting of an entire continent and its resources.”
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Ferguson: Prosecutor’s “Charade”; “Oppression and Pushback”
“Ferguson is the deadly and combustible combination of state-sponsored violence and structural racism. We are witnessing similarly sinister developments in other cities, such as Detroit. Whether it’s the weapon of economic oppression or heavily militarized suppression, the terrorizing of marginalized America is igniting a revolution. The people’s protest is just the beginning of a perpetual pushback against the increasing abuse of power. And it will be felt from coast to coast and in cities big and small.”
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Hagel’s “Forced Resignation”
Goodman said today: “White House forced the resignation. Obama people dissatisfied with Hagel’s inability to act as spokesman for the Pentagon — and Hagel’s inability to control the public remarks of senior flag officers, particularly chairman of the joint chiefs Martin Dempsey.”
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Obama Secretly Extended Afghanistan War
“The administration, in its leak to the New York Times, affirmed that there had been ‘heated debate’ between Pentagon advisers and others in Obama’s cabinet chiefly concerned not to lose soldiers in combat. Oil strategy isn’t mentioned as having been debated and neither is further encirclement of China, but the most notable absence in the reporting was any mention of cabinet members’ concern for Afghan civilians affected by air strikes and ground troop operations, in a country already afflicted by nightmares of poverty and social breakdown.”
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U.S. and UK Whistleblowers Challenge Policies of War and Attacks on Liberty
“The answer therefore is to right this upside-down system. There should be increased sharing of governmental information while citizens’ privacy and their legal rights to free speech, association, religion and press, the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure, the right to due process, right to attorney, etc, should be afforded protection.”
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Immigration Move a “Stopgap Measure”
“The administration’s decision to step away, at least partially, from the policy of mass deportations that have hurt millions of people over the last six years is a good step, but it is only a step. It leaves millions more people subject to deportation and vastly increased enforcement.The administration is imposing increasing enforcement and labor programs as a price for deportation relief. The U.S. already spends more money on immigration enforcement than all other federal law enforcement programs combined.”
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XL Pipeline: Scrutinizing Politicos and PR
“Houston Chronicle energy reporter Jennifer Dlouly described the looming vote on the northern leg of Keystone XL as a ‘Hail Mary’ for both U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) ‘to claim the title of the oil industry’s biggest champion.’ But if Big Oil catches the Hail Mary pass and runs the ball into the end-zone, it will mean more melting glaciers in the Arctic at the hands of climate disruption, caused by the tar sands production Keystone XL North will incentivize.”
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“With a tiny staff, it has managed to place on the air and in newspapers, points of view otherwise excluded from the national debate.”
Howard Zinn