Edward Snowden and the Emerging Police State

“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It…

How Egypt’s ‘Revolution’ Betrayed Itself

“The revolution is dead. Long live the revolution,” wrote Eric Walberg, a Middle East political expert and author, shortly after the Egyptian military overthrew the country’s democratically elected President Mohammed Morsi on July 3. But…

The Progressive Movement Is a PR Front for Rich Democrats

There is good news in the Boston Globe today for the managers, development directors, visionaries, political hacks and propaganda flacks who run “the Progressive Movement.”   More easy-to-earn and easy-to-hide soft money, millions of dollars,  will be…

US Criminal Propensity Justifies North Korea's Nukes: A Beacon of Rationality and, Incredibly as It May Seem, PEACE

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea stands out. But it is not because the secretive Stalinist regime is a nuclear pariah threatening global security, as the Western corporate media would have us believe. No, North Korea stands out for being a beacon of rationality and, incredible as it may seem, peace. Bear in mind the following features: No other state on earth has endured a trade embargo or a gamut of diplomatic, financial and economic sanctions more than North Korea. For more than 63 years, since the beginning of the Korean War (1950-53), the DPRK has been frozen out of normal relations with other international states because of a trade embargo imposed by Washington. This illegal straightjacket has been tightened several times down through the decades with resolutions and sanctions implemented by the UN Security Council – the latest being instigated last Friday.

Russia Must Beware US Chicanery Over Bahrain, Syria: Mustn't Be Fooled Again

Moscow should be careful not to buy into recent cosmetic efforts by the West to revamp its Persian Gulf client monarchy – and to sell the Bahraini people short for the sake of saving its ally in Syria. As Bahrain marked the second anniversary of its popular uprising on 14 February, the embattled Western-backed monarchy has renewed attempts apparently to seek a negotiated political settlement with various opposition groups to its two-year crisis. However, many analysts both within and outside the Persian Gulf kingdom see the new push for “national dialogue” as nothing more than a cynical political maneuver by the Sunni regime to buy off a popular, mainly Shia, challenge to its unelected rule.