Category: US Politics
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
U.S. Police State Decades in the Making / Politics / US Politics
By: Global_Research
David Swanson writes: Andrew Kolin's new book "State Power and Democracy: Before and During the Presidency of George W. Bush" actually begins with the war for independence and continues into the Obama years. A 231-page monotone recounting of endless facts, it doesn't pick up with Bush the Lesser until page 137. Kolin chronicles a gradual slide into an imperial presidency that really got going after World War II. Along the way he chronicles the damage done to the forces of resistance, making a compelling case that our movements for peace and justice are weak in part because of the extreme repression of recent decades.
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Monday, January 31, 2011
American Eulogy / Politics / US Politics
By: James_Quinn
The Founding Fathers described the kind of country they were shaping on July 4, 1776 with the most well known sentence in the English language:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - Declaration of Independence
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Friday, January 28, 2011
Obama State of the Union Pie in the Sky Speech / Politics / US Politics
By: John_Browne
Following the huge gains made by Republicans in the midterm elections, it was widely expected that President Obama would use the State of the Union address to signal a major policy shift toward the center of the political spectrum. On the surface, at least, he appeared to do just that, hinting that he took budget management very seriously and that Americans should be prepared for shared sacrifice. However, as the final applause still echoed in the House chamber, many astute pundits were left trying to make sense of the many contradictory policy prescriptions the President proffered.
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Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Obama's State of the Union Rhetoric: Denying the Crisis, Ignoring the Lessons of History / Politics / US Politics
By: Global_Research
Kevin Zeese writes: Members of the corporate political duopoly switched seats and sat next to each other making it even harder to tell the corporate welfare party from the crony capitalist party. Sadly, the spokespersons for both failed to learn the lessons of history and as a result the American economy will continue to falter with U.S. militarism continuing to expand.
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Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Obama's Corporate State of the Union Address / Politics / US Politics
By: Shamus_Cooke
Finally, Obama will be delivering real change. But not the kind envisaged by those who voted for him. Rather, Obama's revolutionary change builds upon the foundations laid by Reagan, who drastically altered American society by promoting the corporate sector at the expense of working people.
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Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Why Free Trade Can’t Abolish International Economic Rivalry / Politics / US Politics
By: Ian_Fletcher
A recent article criticizing my work contained this multi-faceted gem of fallacies:“Even a dumb lawyer like me can see that modern global supply chains have made "a world of ruthless economic rivalry" a thing of the distant past, and that trade (i.e., voluntary, mutually beneficial exchanges) has never, ever been a zero sum game. (This, by the way, is the entirety of Fletcher's "economic argument" in his eight HuffPo paragraphs.)”Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Will China's Yuan Overtake US Dollar? / Politics / US Politics
By: Andrew_G_Marshall
US President Barack Obama is hosting China's President Hu Jintao to discuss their economic co-dependence, currency and trade. Does this mean the US is losing ground to China's new found success?
RT's Kristine Frazao is joined by Andrew Gavin Marshall from the Centre for Research on Globalization and Michael Hudson, Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri.
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Saturday, January 22, 2011
U.S. Wars to Continue Until Economy Goes Bust / Politics / US Politics
By: Submissions
Chris Hedges writes:American wars will continue until the country's giant corporations, which pay the politicians in Washington's corridors of power, become financially unsustainable, says senior fellow at the Nation Institute, Chris Hedges.
Hedges told Press TV's U.S. Desk in a Wednesday interview that the economy will fail "because we're paying for it through debt, through borrowing."
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Saturday, January 22, 2011
The Libertarian Delusion That "Real" Free Trade Would Work / Politics / US Politics
By: Ian_Fletcher
In the angry responses to my recent blog post, "Libertarianism, the new Anti-Americanism," one argument came up again and again:
"The problems with free trade that we see today are not the result of true free trade; they are the result of the bastardized version inflicted on us by treaties like NAFTA and the proposed Korea free trade agreement, and if only we had true, authentic free trade, all these problems would go away."
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Friday, January 21, 2011
Net Worth of the 25 Richest People in Congress and the White House / Politics / US Politics
By: Chris_Kitze
To paraphrase author Jim Hightower, our political system doesn't need a third party. It needs a SECOND party.
Every time you encounter someone bashing Conservatives or Liberals, think back on this chart (which is only the tip of the iceberg). Our members of Congress all belong to the same party: the party of the rich and elite.
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Friday, January 21, 2011
U.S. Breaking China Legally / Politics / US Politics
By: Walter_Brasch
Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the United States this past week has been met by both praise and political posturing. Hu, an intellectual with a strong sense of culture, hopes he is leading what he wishes to be "a Harmonious Society" with peaceful development. To that end, Hu said his government was prepared to “engage in dialogue and exchanges with the United States on the basis of mutual respect and the principle of noninterference in each other's internal affairs” on human rights questions. Although it seems as if Hu is saying that he wants each nation to continue to conduct its business without interference, he also acknowledged that “A lot still needs to be done in China in terms of human rights."Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, January 20, 2011
The Fourth American Revolution / Politics / US Politics
By: James_Quinn
The next Fourth Turning is due to begin shortly after the new millennium, midway through the Oh-Oh decade. Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood. Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation and empire. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II. - The Fourth Turning - Strauss & Howe -1997Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Libertarianism, the New Anti-Americanism / Politics / US Politics
By: Ian_Fletcher
Sometimes the bad guys do us all a big favor, by openly stating what they stand for after spending years denying it. I recently received exactly this sort of favor from an economist, one Don Boudreaux, at the renowned libertarian Cato Institute, a hotbed of free-trade thinking. He wrote:
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Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Hu’s On First: It Is China-US Summit Time / Politics / US Politics
By: Danny_Schechter
On the eve of the Chinese President’s visit to the United States, and the intense speculation about his intentions—and ours—I found myself a dark room at the Anthology Film Archive in the East Village watching a spectacular documentary by Chinese filmmaker Zhao Liang called Petition.
It's about the tens of thousands of people with grievances who seek redress in China at offices ostensibly set up to resolve their problems.
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Monday, January 17, 2011
Prepping Minds for War Against China / Politics / US Politics
By: Shamus_Cooke
You'd think the U.S. was already at war with China, given the immense amount of anti-China rhetoric spouting from the government and media. But selling wars takes time. The average American hasn't bought in to this false advertising yet. So the big lie will be repeated until its roots are deeply sunk into the American psyche: China, says the U.S. government, is a threat that needs to be "dealt with.”
Saturday, January 15, 2011
How Many U.S. Senators Does It Take To Screw A Taxpayer? / Politics / US Politics
By: James_Quinn
"Today, the government decides and they misdirect the investment to their friends in the corn industry or the food industry. Think how many taxpayer dollars have been spent on corn [for ethanol], and there's nobody now really defending that as an efficient way to create diesel fuel or ethanol. The money is spent for political reasons and not for economic reasons. It's the worst way in the world to try to develop an alternative fuel." - Ron Paul
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Arizona Shootings, The Lunatic is in My Head / Politics / US Politics
By: Ashvin_Pandurangi
"The possibility of madness is therefore implicit in the very phenomenon of passion."
- Michel Foucault (Madness and Civilisation)
The mass shooting in Tuscon, Arizona was a sad and unpleasant event, but it was fully expected by those of us who stay informed. We couldn't predict exactly where such an event would occur, when it would occur or how it would occur, but we knew that it was only a matter of time before people began lashing out against "the system" in violent ways. In early 2010, a man lashed out by flying a plane into an IRS building in Texas, but this time the violence directly targeted a federal politician, who is currently hospitalized in critical condition.
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Saturday, January 15, 2011
Arizona Republican Resigns Over Tea Party Threats / Politics / US Politics
By: Global_Research
Patrick Martin writes: A local Republican Party official in Arizona resigned his position this week after the attempted assassination of Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, citing the threat of violence from Tea Party members in his area.
Anthony Miller, who was hailed as a rising star in state Republican circles as one of the party’s few black leaders, was reelected last month to a second term as chairman of the Arizona Legislative District 20 of the Republican Party. District 20 is a heavily Republican area in the southwest suburbs of Phoenix, including Ahwatukee Foothills and parts of Chandler and Tempe.
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Friday, January 14, 2011
Does Fascism Lurk Around The Corner In The USA? / Politics / US Politics
By: Danny_Schechter
Fascism is one of those words that sounds like it belongs in the past, conjuring up, as it does, marching jack boots in the streets, charismatic demagogues like Italy’s Mussolini or Spain’s Franco and armed crackdowns on dissent and freedom of expression.
It is a term we are used to reading in histories about World War 2---not in news stories from present day America.
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Thursday, January 13, 2011
Congressional Security and the Tucson Shooting / Politics / US Politics
By: STRATFOR
Following the Jan. 8 shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Federal District Judge John McCarthy Roll and 17 others in Tucson, Arizona, discussion has focused on the motivations and ideology of the accused shooter, Jared Loughner. While it was important to make a quick assessment of Loughner’s profile in order to evaluate the possibility of an organized threat, all the available evidence (though not conclusive) indicates that he acted alone.