Israeli Aggression Creates Many Questions, Calm and Restraint Is Crucial

Can you imagine the uproar if any country, other than U.S.-backed Israel, attacked another country that is in so much turmoil as Syria, a country where civilian bloodshed has considerable international concern. If this did happen, I guarantee the U.S. government would be the first to deplore the attacks. But the United States, instead, has given its unconditional approval of Israel’s aggression.

President Obama’s response, “I am not going to comment on what happened in Syria … I will let the Israeli government confirm or deny whatever strikes they have taken.” He said that the U.S. coordinates closely with Israel.

This leads to some intriguing questions: Did the U.S. know of Israel’s plan beforehand? If the U.S. coordinates closely with Israel, the U.S. should have known of Israel’s intentions. Do Israel’s actions have the tacit approval of the U.S.? Is Israel’s airstrike a test run to determine the strength of Syria’s air defense system? Is Israel’s real purpose to show the U.S. the way?

Read article here: Israeli Aggression Creates Many Questions, Calm and Restraint Is Crucial

 

 

Steve Fraser: A Wall Street State of Mind

The financial crisis of 2007-2008 brought financial devastation to millions of Americans. Experts describe it as the most devastating financial event since the Great Depression. But was this event so frightening and devastating that it led to changes in the world of finance. The White House and Congress took steps to turn the economy around, but have done nothing meaningful to regulate the forces that caused it to prevent or marginalize the probability of another economic meltdown.
One of the leading obstacles to regulatory change is the capitalists’ vehement opposition to government interference in private enterprise. The greatest obstacle, however, is praxeological, in the sense that Americans prefer wealth to poverty. And of course, who wouldn’t prefer a life of wealth. The problem is that wealth is not achievable to all, no matter how hard one works toward this goal. So the goal should be a life of financial stability, and not wealth as a means of achieving the phantasmal American Dream.

Read article here: Steve Fraser: A Wall Street State of Mind

Obama’s Terror Remark Highly Hypocritical In Light Of U.S. Wars

“Anytime bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror,” so says President Obama regarding the Boston Marathon bombings.

That’s an interesting perspective considering the acts of terror the United States has carried out over the years. According to Obama’s definition, Iraq’s opening salvo of “shock and awe,” today’s deployment of weaponized drones, and the U.S. use of cluster bombs in war are all acts of terror. War itself is an act of terror.

So, of course, Obama is correct. The bombings were acts of terror. The Boston Marathon pressure cooker bombs and pipe bombs used by the Tsarnaev brothers were homemade versions of cluster bombs. Homemade bombs that are essentially the same improvised explosive devices (IED) used by terrorist in Iraq and Afghanistan that have killed and maimed many thousands of civilians, children, U.S. and coalition soldiers.

Ever since the Vietnam War, the U.S. has used cluster bombs in war.

Read article here: Obama’s Terror Remark Highly Hypocritical In Light Of U.S. Wars

Mass Shooting, Gun Control, Background Checks: Americans Part of Cause When They Fail To Act

Most major news outlets, so far, have uncritically reported the Senate’s failure to pass the Manchin-Toomey expanded background check bill. Even among the so-called left-leaning news outlets, there has been little condemnation. There has been almost no uproar from Social media. Why isn’t there indignation, an outcry of condemnation? Why isn’t there anger expressed beyond that expressed by President Obama and a few others?
Part of the reason, of course, is the Boston Marathon bombing rightly upstaged any media criticism of the Senate’s failure to act. The answers to two questions, however, will be interesting: Where did the bombers get their guns? Would any of the failed gun control measures have prevented the two from acquiring a gun?

Legislatively, the most significant in-your-face reason rests in one acronym: NRA. The National Rifle Association and its lobbying group, the Institute for Legislative Action, are a focused, influential, and sufficiently moneyed organization who can successfully turn any congressional gun legislation to their favor.

Read article here: Mass Shooting, Gun Control, Background Checks: Americans Part of Cause When They Fail To Act

 

As of this writing, the anticipated vote in the Senate on the Manchin-Toomey expanded background check plan’s passage is in doubt. Even if it does succeed, the measure will never pass the Republican majority in the House. Whatever the outcome, the plan does not go far enough anyway. 

The obstacle to any meaningfully effective gun control legislation falls on the shoulders of people like potential presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio, who does not support universal background checks. His reasoning, “Criminals don’t care about the laws that we pass with regards to guns. They never follow the law — that’s why they are criminals.”

Of course, that’s true. It’s a no brainer. But, if we require stringent comprehensive, universal background checks on all purchases, especially those that are private, making it harder for someone to buy a gun legally, the less likely they will be able to acquire it illegally. The problem with current gun law, as it will be with any more stringent law, is its enforcement, prosecution, and the penalties we place on its infringement. Without these parameters, no law holds any meaningful purpose.

Read article here: If Congress Cannot Pass Basic Gun Law, What Meaningful Law Will Ever Pass?

America Becoming Closer to the Police State of Orwell’s Oceania In 1984

No one will wake up one morning and discover that they are now living in a police state. Fear of crime and terrorism, however, are influencing Americans into accepting changes in law that will eventually bring us to that point. You see, in time these things will find a way of creeping up on society and fundamentally alter how Americans think and act about human rights and police authority until one day we realize we are living in a different America.
The evidence of this subtle evolution is clear.

Read article here: Bringing America Even Closer to the Police State of Orwell’s Oceania

The Inconvenient Truth of High Tech’s Silicon Valley

Conservatives and republicans attempt to sell the notion that when rich people get richer it filters down like raindrops from heaven and benefits society as a whole.

But then why are more and more people living in poverty? The sad truth is what these folks attempt to sell simply doesn’t work.

The fact is that if it were true, there would not be huge income gaps between the haves and have-nots, an inequality that is becoming increasingly “permanent”; 50 million Americans would not be struggling to survive; there would not be 700,000 Americans who “experience homelessness on any given night in the U.S.” And, if that were true, California’s Silicon Valley would not have just a thriving community of high tech workers, but a thriving non-tech community as well.

Read article here: The Inconvenient Truth of High Tech’s Silicon Valley