War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
During these uprisings across northern Africa, a lot of talk has been about national security, or the nearly-mechanical catch-phrase, “police apparatus,’ which is just a soft-lotion locution for an ugly, nefarious secret cop operation. All strong-armed, dictator regimes must have these organizations or they couldn’t exist for very long — the Soviets had the old…
As one can see via the uprising in Egypt, a government has the power to shut down communications, or at least try and control access to transmissions of whatever information to wherever — CNN reported earlier this morning, Egypt’s information ministry took the country offline with the shutting down of the Noor Group, an Internet…
According to a review of official documents, the FBI have compromised the civil liberties of American citizens far more frequently, and to a greater extent, than was previously assumed, and more-over, the actual number of violations that may have occurred from 2001 to 2008 could approach 40,000 possible violations of law, Executive Order, or other…
Egypt is a way-ancient land now exploding via extreme-modern media, but a good reason for all the unrest is as old as time — food. And a near-twist-a-flex attitude in the US, where prices are fairly stable, mainly because American consumers aren’t really paying much for the actual agriculture product. From a NPR report on rising…
In September 2000, a peek into the future. During a Labor Day campaign stop in Illinois, George Jr., oblivious of a mic just inches from his mouth, blubbered an aside to The Dick, which eventually revealed a nasty, two-faced-lying politician. Via salon.com: “There’s Adam Clymer — major league asshole — from the New York Times,”…
One wonders at the wonder of technology. I moved last weekend — on Friday transferred the power and gas, and the telephone, to the new address (just a couple of blocks from the old one) in a matter of 120 minutes. My Internet provider, however, took three days to relocate the Web to my laptop’s…
Tony Blair’s speech before the UK’s House of Commons, March 18, 2003: “It will determine the way in which Britain and the world confront the central security threat of the 21st century, the development of the United Nations, the relationship between Europe and the United States, the relations within the European Union and the way…
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, wrote in 1993 that in the last century (the 20th, if you don’t remember) 167 million to 175 million men, women and children had their “lives deliberately extinguished by politically motivated carnage.” And, of course, the first decade in this new century has been nothing but war. (Illustration…
(Illustration found here). This country is in a shotgun-wedding to strange disaster. From Reuters: A victim of last week’s Arizona shooting rampage was arrested on Saturday and ordered to undergo a mental evaluation after threatening a Tea Party leader during the taping of a television show, police said…Fuller stood, turned and snapped a picture of…
In the shadow of the horrible Tucson shooting and all the political bullshit foamed up in its wake, the earth continues its wild spin into disaster. Peak oil and climate change, to use a nightmare analogy, are similar to a huge, unlimited-clipped Glock 19 firing into an unsuspecting crowd — except in this case, there…