The true struggle is not left versus right, democrat versus republican, liberal versus conservative, or libertarian versus socialist. The true struggle is that of people against the institution: the State, the banks, the central banking system, the corporation, the international financial institutions, the military, the political parties, the mainstream media, philanthropic foundations, think tanks, university, education, psychiatry, the legal system, the church, et. al.

'God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden's God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam's God was bad, except he didn't have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don't chop people's heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don't you forget it.'

Books that attempt to look honestly at our contemporary condition often run amok when they attempt to show “the way forward.” What we ought to do is form political coalitions that lock out veto groups, curb the power of corporations, revise the tax code, bring back financial regulations from the 1950s and... so on. This would require reform. However, any reform of a complex system, such as our existing one, involves further investment in social complexity through a wide variety of costly initiatives. And here's the problem: there is no longer either the money or the energy for such initiatives. The default is to just let it collapse, but such an outlook, perfectly reasonable though it is, is generally not regarded as optimistic enough by the people who publish books (New Society Publishers is an exception). Some time ago (during the sustainability movement of the 1970s, which were Greer's formative time) optimistic, reform-minded expositions seemed useful; now they are starting to seem like compulsive anxiety coping behaviors: knock three times on wood, throw a pinch of salt over the left shoulder, mention sustainability and renewables.

I'd also like to point out that large financial centers in certain cities around the planet are certainly going to kill millions of us by destroying our social safety networks in the name of their imaginary financial efficiency. You're a thousand times more likely to die because of what some urban banker did in 2008 than from what some Afghan-based terrorist did in 2001.

"We formed the co-operative with the criteria of equal wages and making basic decisions by assembly; we are against the separation of manual and intellectual work; we want a rotation of positions and, above all, the ability to recall our elected leaders."

Remember that someone who points out a problem early is a troublemaker; someone who fixes a problem at the last minute is a hero.

The earnest voter might be pardoned for feeling, during the throes of a presidential campaign, that the best outcome would be for the two candidates to stop their electioneering, engage in a manly duel, and shoot each other dead.

I am currently guardedly optimistic that the USA will still exist as a political entity in 2023, and that the EU (possibly under a different name; certainly with a different political infrastructure) will do so as well. But in planning the background for that novel set in 2023, I can't rely on the simple assumption that the USA and the EU still exist.

The Times added that American officials resisted a war crimes investigation because the warlord who allegedly orchestrated the mass killing, Dostum, was a paid CIA asset who had worked closely with U.S. Special Forces. At the time of the killings, Dostum was working hand-in-glove with soldiers from the Army's 5th Special Forces Group.

I get a lot of guff for speaking all folksy, and salt-of-the-earth, like the Texan I pretend to be, instead of the Yankee political scion I actually am. My speechification might be uncorrect, but if talking good is what makes good deciders, then go ahead and elect a lawyer. Oops! You idiot fruit baskets already went and done that. Well, then on behalf of the entire ruling class, I thank you. That's the great thing about our democracy: it's always the same turd, different coil.

And to the trying-too-hard-it’s-painful folks at Twitter: this is not a chance to turn your ridiculous “service” into the saviour of democracy. When you start delaying maintenance in order to help protests that don’t happen to coincide perfectly with US foreign policy interests, then we’ll tweet—er, talk.

My grandfather had a donkey while he was living in Tashkent in Central Asia during World War II. There was nothing much for the donkey to eat, but, as a member of the Communist Party, my grandfather had a subscription to Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, and so that’s what the donkey ate. Apparently, donkeys can digest any kind of cellulose, even when it’s loaded with communist propaganda. If I had a donkey, I would feed it the Wall Street Journal.

Optimists like to point out that Europe and Japan have much worse unfunded liability problems than the U.S. That is like taking pride in being the best looking horse at the glue factory. In the end, we’ll all still be glue.

"Prophesying catastrophe is incredibly banal. The more original move is to assume that it has already happened" - Jean Baudrillard

Speaking from the Oval Office, Bush assured citizens that in these times of great uncertainty, the best and only course of action is to come under the throes of a sudden, overwhelming fear marked by hysterical or irrational behavior.

Actually, it's just that the brain of the clone he was replaced with in 2001 is starting to decay.

The activist was identified as Max Obuszewski. His "primary crime" was entered into the database as "terrorism - anti govern(ment)." His "secondary crime" was listed as "terrorism - anti-war protestors."

That's what makes speculators a perfect target: by going after them, Congress can demonstrate to voters that it understands their pain, and at the same time avoid doing anything that might require real sacrifice from Americans.

Barclays Capital has advised clients to batten down the hatches for a worldwide financial storm, warning that the US Federal Reserve has allowed the inflation genie out of the bottle and let its credibility fall "below zero".

Now, many Americans are doomed to live in the ruins of a civilization that no longer works.

Cryptogon---and thousands of other sites---have been telling this story for years, but that has just been a bunch of tinfoil hat, conspiracy theory nonsense unsuitable for discussion in polite circles... Except for now, it's on U.S. Federal Reserve letter

Steal a hundred dollars, go to jail; steal a trillion dollars, go on to fame and fortune as a public servant. Kill one man, go to the gas chamber; kill a million people, go on to well-paid retirement at public expense and big bucks on the lecture circuit.

China is becoming more like us in very visible ways (Starbucks, Hooters, cellphones that are cooler than ours), and we are becoming more like China in less visible ones (torture, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention, though not nearly on the Chin

You may spend hours in the supermarket, keenly scrutinizing the labels, but, when it comes down to it, most of what you eat is derived from the high-yield, low-maintenance crops that the food industry prefers to grow, and sells to you in myriad foodish fo

The United States House of Representatives Select Committee on U.S. National Security and
Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China

Looks like a (at least potentially) good source of history on Israel/Palestine.

In 'US Army War College Quarterly - Spring 1998'

A group blog primarily about law and the court system, but touching on many other interesting areas