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Libya and Syria: Humanitarian War is a “Monstrous Illusion”
JAMES PECK, jlpeck1098 at aol.com Peck is author of the new book “Ideal Illusions: How the U.S. Government Co-Opted Human Rights.” He was a Senior Editor at Pantheon Books for almost two decades where his authors included J. William Fulbright, Noam Chomsky, George Kennan, and Edward Said. He also worked in China for more than a decade as Executive Director of the US-China Book Publication Project. Peck is the author of “Washington’s China” and editor of “The Chomsky Reader.” He said today: “The war in Libya today, and calls for intervening in Syria tomorrow, epitomize a tragic development in the human rights and humanitarian…
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A Simple Deficit Fix
DOUG HENWOOD, dhenwood at panix.com Editor of Left Business Observer and author of the book “Wall Street,” Henwood said today: “Global markets panicked after the S&P downgrade of the U.S. Treasury (though, paradoxically, in the classic “flight to quality” reaction, investors poured billions into the very same U.S. Treasury securities that had just been downgraded).
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Verizon Strike
Time Business is reporting: “Thousands of striking workers in Verizon Communication Inc.’s landline division joined picket lines and rallies Monday at company offices from Massachusetts to Virginia, a union official said. “The contract for 45,000 employees expired at midnight Saturday after the company and the workers were unable to come to terms on issues including…
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Wall Street and Washington Downgrade America
SCOTT KLINGER, scottklinger at businessforsh…
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Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the Age of Fukushima
“Against the backdrop of the disastrous…
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U.S. “Special Operations” Forces Expanding
NICK TURSE, nat9 at columbia.edu, http://www.tomdispatch.com, https://twitter.com/#!/NickTurse Turse is a fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute and author of “The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan.” He recently wrote “A Secret War in 120 Countries: The Pentagon’s New Power Elite.” In the article he says: “From a force of about 37,000 in the early 1990s, Special Operations Command personnel have grown to almost 60,000, about a third of whom are career members of SOCOM; the rest have other military occupational specialties, but periodically cycle through the command. Growth has been exponential since September 11, 2001, as SOCOM’s baseline budget almost tripled…
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Unemployment Insurance Hit by “Drastic” Budget Cuts
CHRISTINE OWENS, via Norman Eng, neng at nelp.org, @NelpNews Owens is the executive director of the National Employment Law Project, which just released a report titled “Unraveling the Unemployment Insurance Lifeline.” She said today: “It’s disconcerting that these lawmakers would expend so much energy making cuts to state unemployment insurance programs when more people are out of work for longer than any other period on record. Rather than adopting responsible financing practices and doing the hard work of fostering job creation, far too many state lawmakers have taken the easy out of cutting workers’ unemployment insurance benefits.”
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Debt Deal Creates “‘Catfood Commission’ on Steroids”
GWENDOLYN MINK, wendymink at gmail.com Available for a limited number of interviews, Mink is co-editor of the two-volume Poverty in the United States: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics and Policy and author of Welfare’s End. She said today: “The debt deal certainly is better than the Boehner Bill, and better still than the Tea Party favorite, the Cut, Cap, and Balance bill. But it is nonetheless bad policy, bad process, and bad faith. Arbitrary spending caps and across-the-board spending cuts are lazy, wicked, and destructive mechanisms that disguise glacial policy change. The proposed Super Committee and its fast-tracked decisions are…
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“Super Congress” Budget Deal a “Turkey;” a “Lesson in Investment Theory of Political Parties”
THOMAS FERGUSON, thomas.ferguson at umb.edu Ferguson is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and a senior fellow of the Roosevelt Institute. He said today: “Even by American legislative standards, this deal is a turkey and it’s totally appropriate that the new bipartisan Congressional committee should have to report at Thanksgiving. The U.S. economy is plainly stalling out, but beginning in October, the bill enforces sharp cuts in annual appropriations — about $300 billion. It’s obvious that tax rises will not be a significant part of the package: if you couldn’t get any now, what are the…
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“Medicare Is the Answer, Not the Problem”
Saturday is the 46th anniversary of Medicare. MARGARET FLOWERS, M.D., mdpnhp at gmail.com Flowers is congressional fellow for the 18,000-member Physicians for a National Health Program. She has written recently: “Medicare Is the Answer, Not the Problem. Both Democrats and Republicans are missing the point by putting the emphasis on controlling Medicare and Medicaid costs without effectively addressing the reasons for our rising health care costs. Rather than embracing the Republican rhetoric which blames our public insurances, Democrats would do well to call out the real reason for our health care spending crisis: our current fragmented and profit-driven model, and…
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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