by Michael Gurnow / November 7th, 2009 ()
Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is one the most famous books in history as its popularity continues after three hundred years of readership. The titular figure’s perseverance and ingenuity fascinates us as he surmounts one seemingly impossible predicament after another. Yet do Crusoe’s triumphs merit our accolades? Exactly how admirable is Robinson Crusoe? Irrefutably, one of the qualities which make Defoe’s novel such an intriguing narrative is that it frequently presents its central character with paradoxical moral dilemmas. Consequently, we witness Crusoe judiciously deliberating upon a state of affairs only to defer to standards, ideas, and …
by William H. Kötke / November 7th, 2009 ()
Humans must create paradise or they cannot live on the planet Earth. Paradise here is described as a human community that lives in perpetuity and in peace on one place on the earth, over many generations. In the modern view, generated from the Alternative Culture and Cultural Creatives, we have a permaculture design in a valley that has been ecologically restored and has added additional trees in different ecological niches to create a food forest of fruits and nuts. Under the forest canopy are tall bushes also of fruit and nuts. Under this, the lower berry bushes and vining …
by MediaLens / November 7th, 2009 ()
In an interview last week, Jeremy Paxman — leading interviewer on BBC 2’s flagship Newsnight programme — claimed that he had been “hoodwinked” by US government propaganda prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Paxman commented:
As far as I personally was concerned, there came a point with the presentation of the so-called evidence, with the moment when Colin Powell sat down at the UN General Assembly and unveiled what he said was cast-iron evidence of things like mobile, biological weapon facilities and the like…
When I saw all of that, I thought, well, ‘We know that Colin Powell is an …
by Richard C. Cook / November 7th, 2009 ()
If you want to get an idea of what America once was like, read the poems of Walt Whitman. Whitman was born in Long Island in 1819 and grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. His family was poor, but even though he left school at the age of 11 he gave himself an education by reading and working in the printing shop of a newspaper until he gradually became a published writer. He worked as a teacher and news reporter and owned his own newspaper by the age of 20.
In 1848 Whitman was a delegate to the founding convention of …
by Jack A. Smith / November 7th, 2009 ()
Where is the U.S. peace movement when the White House is preparing to escalate the Afghanistan war for the second time since President Barack Obama took office over 10 months ago?
The Bush era antiwar movement has ebbed and flowed a few times since it abruptly materialized just after 9/11 and then exploded into a massive force in the months leading up to President George W. Bush’s unjust and illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003. This was actually the high point of mass activism. A decline began with the invasion and the bipartisan congressional declaration of support for …
by Stephen Lendman / November 7th, 2009 ()
On October 29, Honduran coup d’etat “president” Roberto Micheletti announced: “….a few minutes ago I authorized my negotiating team to sign a final agreement” to let Congress and the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) decide whether or not deposed President Manuel Zelaya may return to office and complete the remaining weeks of his term, expiring on January 27. If he does, will it matter?
Zelaya is a wealthy businessman, a member of the right-wing Liberal Party (PL), a former National Congress Deputy from 1985-1998, a former PL Minster for Investment, and president from January 27, 2006 to when he was deposed …
by Michael Dawson / November 7th, 2009 ()
Hold onto your hats, boys and girls: Cocoa Krispies is apparently not a health food after all!
Advertising Age is reporting that, due to its fear of a backlash arising from “parental concerns that [its] advertising and packaging was preying on fears of the H1N1 virus,” Kellogg Company, the billion-dollar-a-year profit engine that peddles Cocoa Krispies and other junk food, is removing preposterous “anti-oxidant” claims from Cocoa Krispies boxes.
Here is Kellogg’s official announcement:
Kellogg Company today announced its decision to discontinue the immunity statements on Kellogg’s …
by Michael Werbowski / November 7th, 2009 ()
20 years after the fall of communism , American style capitalism has also fallen. But the downfall was silent, without any visible walls toppling or crumbling. The 9/11 like collapse of the financial firms of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers left no piles of rubble or slabs of fractured concrete on the ground, just lots of laid off traders and deal makers. But the brokerage and investment banks’ end signalled the death knell of market capitalism as we knew it; another misbegotten ideology born out of the musings of Adam Smith, Ricardo and Milton Friedman was laid to rest unceremoniously. …
by Eileen Fleming / November 7th, 2009 ()
The only surprise regarding November 3, 2009’s vote in the House of Representatives that attempted to censor the Goldstone Report is that 46 fewer Yes’s and 31 more No’s were raised to shield Israel from accountability, than were heard on January 9th with the Pelosi/AIPAC driven House Resolution 34, which recognized only Israel’s right to “defend” itself, reaffirmed the United States’ strong support for Israel and the so-called ‘peace process’ -which has never addressed what is required for peace: justice which begins with an end to the occupation and equates to equal human rights for all.
The Ileana Ros-Lehtinen/AIPAC driven House …
by Gareth Porter / November 7th, 2009 ()
WASHINGTON (IPS) — The Barack Obama administration is talking tough to Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the need for decisive action on corruption and governance reform, but its main objective is to prevent particularly corrupt and incompetent warlords from getting plum ministries as rewards for helping clinch his fraudulent reelection, IPS has learned.
Obama told reporters Monday that he had emphasised to Karzai in a phone call to congratulate him on his re-election that there would have to be “a much more serious effort to eradicate corruption” and that “the proof is not going to be in words, it’s going to …
