Bernie Sanders: There Is A WAR Being Waged Against The Working Families Of America!

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Bernie Sanders (I-VT) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

geeksquad1001 | November 30, 2010

Larry Wilkerson: Why Might a Saudi King Want the US to Attack Iran?

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TheRealNews | November 30, 2010

Wilkerson: Wikileaks cable not about Iran’s threat to security; the Middle-East is still about oil rivalries

Mainstream media has been quick to highlight WikiLeaks’ cable reporting a statement from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia that the U.S. should attack Iran, because it is a danger to the region. Larry Wilkerson, the former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, gives The Real News a series of reasons why such information requires questioning. He questions the media’s willingness to treat the cables as the gospel truth, as well as pointing out that a Saudi King would have reasons beyond security to want an attack on Iran. Namely it would hinder an oil competitor and financier of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah which Saudi Arabia opposes, while also causing the price of oil to sky rocket.

Noam Chomsky on the Economy, US Midterm Elections, Climate Change, and Haiti Part 2

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Chomsky at the World Social Forum (Porto Alegre) in 2003 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Democracy Now!
Nov. 30, 2010

Noam Chomsky is a Professor Emeritus at MIT, where he taught for over half a century. He is author of dozens of books. His most recent is “Hopes and Prospects.”

Watch Part 1: Noam Chomsky: WikiLeaks Cables Reveal “Profound Hatred for Democracy on the Part of Our Political Leadership (Part 1)

via Noam Chomsky on the Economy, US Midterm Elections, Climate Change, Haiti, and More

Religion as a Tool of Repression By Charles Sullivan

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By Charles Sullivan
Information Clearing House
November 30, 2010

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Free speech and dissent are always curtailed in times of war. Whenever soldiers occupy foreign nations, rational thinking is proscribed in favor of nationalistic hubris. Minority opinions, although grounded in ethics and reason, are repressed, often brutally. The majority becomes intolerant of dissenting views. Thoughtful dialog is suspended and irrational ideology gains ascendancy. Civil discourse breaks down, and the social order disintegrates into anti-intellectual emotionalism and chaos.

During World Wars I and II, it was dangerous for anyone to oppose war or to speak truth to power. When Eugene Debs delivered his Canton anti-war speech in 1918, he went to prison. In An Enemy of the People, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen demonstrated that the majority of the people are easily deceived, their emotions manipulated by profiteers and special interests. It requires serious conviction to take a principled stand in the midst of nationalistic fervor in which men and women so easily turn upon one another. During war, nationalism and repression are conducted with the fervor of a religious crusade.

Noam Chomsky: There is a solution to the Israel-Palestine issue

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Noam Chomsky. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

TheRealNews | November 30, 2010

Noam Chomsky: What needs to be done has been clear for decades

[…]

Noam Chomsky: This one happens to be uniquely easy to figure out the solution–there is one. It’s been on the table for 35 years. Virtually the entire world supports it. The only holdouts are the United States and Israel. At least in theory and words, Europe, the Non-Aligned countries, the Arab states, the Organization of Islamic States, which includes Iran, they basically all agree on a political settlement on the internationally recognized border. It’s the so-called Green Line, pre-’67 borders, with two states, Israel and a Palestinian state in the occupied territories, and possibly some adjustment of the border. It was a ceasefire line. So when the US was still part of this consensus, it called for moderate and mutual border adjustments.

Noam Chomsky: WikiLeaks Cables Reveal “Profound Hatred for Democracy on the Part of Our Political Leadership”

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Democracy Now!
Nov. 30, 2010

Noam Chomsky: WikiLeaks Cables Reveal “Profound Hatred for Democracy on the Part of Our Political Leadership”

Daniel Ellsberg: The lying is being enforced by the upper levels

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Democracy Now!
Nov. 29, 2010

U.S. Facing Global Diplomatic Crisis Following Massive WikiLeaks Release of Secret Diplomatic Cables

The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has begun releasing a giant trove of confidential U.S. diplomatic cables that is sending shockwaves through the global diplomatic establishment. Among the findings: Arab leaders are urging the United States to attack Iran; Washington and Yemen agreed to cover up the use of U.S. warplanes to bomb Yemen; the United States is using its embassies around the world as part of a global spy network and asking diplomats to gather intelligence; and much more. We host a roundtable discussion with Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg; Greg Mitchell, who writes the Media Fix blog at The Nation; Carne Ross, a British diplomat for 15 years who resigned before the Iraq war; and As’ad AbuKhalil, a professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus.

[…]

Daniel Ellsberg: For what it’s worth, we are finding that the big problem with our awful, miserable, incompetent foreign policy in Iraq and Afghanistan is not the fault of foolish, stupid or lying mid-level staffers down below. They are speaking fairly honestly, not with a lot of local knowledge often, but fairly shrewdly in many cases, doing their best job to their superiors. The lying- as in Vietnam- is being enforced by the upperlevels. What we need to see, really, is someone following Bradley Manning, or whoever the source is, following his example. He gave what he could- at his twenty-two year old level, corporal’s level, or whatever was available to him- to inform the public. We need somebody with higher access, the kind that I had at that time, and unfortunately didn’t use then, I’m sorry to say, I apologize. But somebody should put out the higher level papers that reveal the high level dealing and stupid formulations, theories, ‘mad man’ theories and others that are informing our policy so that the American people can begin to get some grip on our incoherent policy and enforce a more humane and productive thrust to it.

[…]

via U.S. Facing Global Diplomatic Crisis Following Massive WikiLeaks Release of Secret Diplomatic Cables