Saul: And what they did, most universities, was they did an intellectual cleansing of the economic historians to remove the possibility of doubt, the possibility of speculation on ideas, leaving these sort of hapless--mainly hapless macroeconomists, who fell quite easily into the hands, frankly, of the ideologues, the neoliberals, neoconservatives...
DN!: We speak to Klein about her trip to the Vatican and the importance of the pope’s message – not only on climate change, but the global economy.
Expansion is the path to security, and to achieve security you have to control everything of value. This is the blueprint that has guided US leaders for decades, but is this empire worth building – and at what cost?
Astore: When you define something as war, it dictates the use of the military (or militarized police forces, prisons, and other forms of coercion) as the primary instruments of policy. Violence becomes the means of decision, total victory the goal. Anyone who suggests otherwise is labeled a dreamer, an appeaser, or even a traitor.
Pilger: The Assange case amplifies many truths, and one is the growing, global totalitarianism of Washington, regardless of who is elected president.
Hedges: The pathology of the rich white family is the most dangerous pathology in America. The yearning for positivism that pervades our corporate culture ignores human nature and human history. But to challenge it, to state the obvious fact that things are getting worse, and may soon get much worse, is to be tossed out of the circle of magical thinking that defines American and much of Western culture. The left is as infected with this mania for hope as the right. It is a mania that obscures reality even as global capitalism disintegrates and the ecosystem unravels, potentially dooming us all.
Beaudoin: The U.S. could provide leadership in world nuclear disarmament. It could also stop acting as arms exporter par excellence; a recent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute report revealed that the U.S. has been leading the world in exports to other regions of the world.
Fang: Drawing largely from these disclosures,The Intercept has identified several former government and military officials whose voices have shaped the public discourse around government spying and surveillance issues but whose financial ties to NSA contractors have received little attention. These pundits have played a key role in the public debate as the White House and the agency itself have struggled to defend the most controversial spying programs revealed by Snowden’s documents.
From the article: According to documents whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked to the Washington Post, the U.S. spent $500 billion on its intelligence agencies in the dozen years after the 9/11 attacks, including annual appropriations in 2012 of $11 billion for the National Security Agency (NSA) and $15 billion for the CIA. If we add the $790 billion expended on the Department of Homeland Security to that $500 billion for overseas intelligence, then Washington had spent nearly $1.3 trillion to build a secret state-within-the-state of absolutely unprecedented size and power.
Noam Chomsky on How the Iraq War Birthed ISIS & Why U.S. Policy Undermines the Fight Against It [youtube=http://youtu.be/_uDY_ekatWQ] Noam Chomsky: Opposing Iran Nuclear Deal, Israel’s Goal Isn’t Survival — It’s Regional Dominance http://youtu.be/1aklj-bvmvY Subscribe or “Follow” us on RiseUpTimes.org. Rise Up Times is also on Facebook! Check the Rise Up Times page for posts from this blog and More
Facing increasing opposition abroad, over the past several decades, global water privatizers like Veolia and Suez have begun to see U.S. cities as expansion markets. These corporations have aggressively interfered in the democratic governance of water and have sought to trap cities in unfavorable privatization contracts. By Ellen Dannin, Portside | News Analysis Truthout.org November More
