The bumper sticker on the beat-up pickup truck read: “Friends don’t let friends vote Democrat.” The driver was obviously not affluent. Yet, despite all the news about mega-trillion dollar bankster bailouts, mega-million dollar bonuses for financial crooks, and unimaginable compensation packages for corporate CEOs who have moved middle class jobs out of America, something made the down-and-out pickup truck driver associate with the political party of the super-rich. As I wondered at this strange alliance of the dirt poor with the mega-rich, I remembered that in 2004 Thomas Frank wondered about how the Republicans had managed to convince the poor to vote against their best interests. Frank’s answer, or part of his answer, is that the Republicans use “social issues,” such as gay marriage and Janet Jackson’s exposed nipple to work up indignation over the threat to moral values posed by liberal Democrats.
Category: UN
Currently, the crisis in Syria is chaotic and ever-changing with the situation consistently on uneven ground. The ongoing fighting between Western-backed rebel forces and the Syrian regime have plunged the country into a civil war…
BEIRUT, Lebanon – The Syrian Free Army has announced that if the Russians intend to supply weapons to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, it will attack the Russian base at Tartous, which is…
Last week the House passed yet another bill placing sanctions on Iran and Syria, bringing us closer to another war in the Middle East. We are told that ever harsher sanctions finally will force the…
In 1985, a social scientist, Gene Sharp, published a study commissioned by NATO on Making Europe Unconquerable. He pointed out that ultimately a government only exists because people agree to obey it. The USSR could…
On August 3 the United Nations General Assembly voted on a resolution written by Saudi Arabia condemning both the government of Syria for the preponderance if not all the violence in the country and Russia…
Occasionally individuals complain that I fail to address one subject or another. One Berkeley denizen got in my face and announced: “You leftists ought to become aware of the ecological crisis.” In fact, I had…
The Australian government denies a US aircraft carrier will be based near Perth. AAP/US Department of Defence. Defence Minister Stephen Smith has been saying long and loud that there are no US military bases in Australia, and that anyone who says otherwise is misinformed. Last week, after Australian media reported the recommendation to the Pentagon from a leading Washington think tank to consider basing a US Navy aircraft carrier task force at HMAS Stirling in Perth Mr Smith repeated his mantra: We don’t have United States military bases in Australia and we are not proposing to. What we have talked about in terms of either increased aerial access or naval access is precisely that – greater access to our facilities. What we are looking at down the track is the possibility of further or enhanced naval access to HMAS Stirling. Mr Smith, like so many of his predecessors, is misleading the public on a matter of vital interest to Australians. There are US bases in Australia – they are just not called that. All that is at issue is the degree of “jointness”.
Washington bears full responsibility for imposing illegitimate sanctions on Iran. Other countries are pressured to agree. Doing so harms their own interests. Heavy-handed US bullying largely gets its way. Rule of law principles and norms…
Kofi Annan, UN envoy to Syria, has quit his mission by stepping down from his attempts to facilitate peace through his 6 point peace plan. Mainstream media is blaming Annan for failing to bring peace in an obvious…