Cyrano's Dispatch®

Triumphalism on Berlin Wall Anniversary Is Unfounded (0)

By Amitabh Pal, November 12, 2009

A false note of triumphalism is marking the twentieth anniversary of the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. Certainly, the demise of the Stalinist system that ruled the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was for the good. But it is wrong to assert—as many commentators are doing—that the people there [...]

THE TEABAGGER’S PLEDGE (1)

I, ________________________, do solemnly swear to uphold the principles of a socialism-free society and heretofore pledge my word that I shall strictly adhere to the following:
I will complain about the destruction of 1st Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 1st Amendment Rights.
I will complain about the
destruction of my 2nd Amendment [...]

This Isn’t Reform, It’s Robbery (0)

This Isn’t Reform, It’s Robbery
By Anonymous
Created 08/26/2009 – 02:29
no reform hereby Chris Hedges
The debate over health care “reform” has devolved to a frenzied assault on the U.S. Treasury, abetted by corporate enablers in both parties. “The proposed plans rattling around Congress all ensure that the profits for these corporations will increase and the misery for [...]

Why centrism can’t cure shit (among other things) (0)

Half measures never accomplished anything
(Open letter exchange, Sept. 13, 2009)

Hey Joe,
I’ve written to you before. I said that you had pointed me in the right direction about dealing with class and race and all. I think I spoke too soon.
I’m not working class. At least, not really.
For starters, I’m Asian.
I’m not the kind of Asian [...]

THE ANIMAL QUESTION (0)

ANIMALS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Animals, people and endless war: personal reflections about the Middle East, and on the challenge of humane education
By Kim Bartlett, Publisher, Animal People

Among the uncomputed wounds of constant conflict, poverty, and oppression is the cumulative brutalization of people, who, in turn, take their frustrations out on helpless animals.

THERE ARE PROBABLY [...]

Beyond Obama’s Rhetoric / Kim Petersen (0)

OBAMA HOLDING FORTH ON NORTH KOREA ON 5.25.09. Sanctimonious declarations are a favorite tool of the nation’s Demagogue in Chief. |||
North Korea’s “crime” was the desire to develop a nuclear deterrent against US aggression. If such actions are a violation of international law, then what were the 1,054 nuclear tests by the US? If nuclear missiles endanger the people of Northeast Asia — and never minding the fact that the US had nuclear missiles stationed in South Korea for years — then what should one infer about the presence of US nuclear submarines that ply waters near North Korea ?

Blum's Anti-Empire Report: Being serious about torture. Or not. (0)

“The UN Convention Against Torture (first adopted in 1984), which has been ratified by the United States, says quite clearly, “An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.” The Torture Convention enacts a prohibition against torture that is a cornerstone of international law and a principle on a par with the prohibition against slavery and genocide.”

US healthcare sham (0)

Dateline: Le Monde Diplomatique  September 2009  | http://mondediplo.com/2009/09/ushealthcare

By Serge Halimi

A REPUBLICAN CONGRESS AND PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON abolished a welfare programme in 1996 under the (largely fallacious) pretext that it bred fraud, waste and abuse. Thirteen years on, the reforms that Barack Obama is proposing will not fundamentally change the United States’ abysmal healthcare system because [...]

Obama’s support base slowly eroding in disgust and disenchantment (2)

Posted: August 13, 2009 09:44 AM / Originally at Huffington Post

Change We Can Believe In: Feelings Toward the Administration by Those Who Elected It
By Drew Westen

OVER THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS I’VE BEEN HEARING RUMBLINGS.
-
They’re not from the staged or misinformed protestors at town hall meetings who have decided that shouting down a member of [...]

The Anti-Empire Report: Blood for Oil Again, Now in Afghanistan (0)

The Anti-Empire Report
September 2nd, 2009
By William Blum
www.killinghope.org
“And on the most exalted throne in the world sits nothing but a man’s arse.” Montaigne
If there’s anyone out there who is not already thoroughly cynical about those on the board of directors of the planet, the latest chapter in the saga of the bombing of PanAm 103 over [...]

Did the Soviet Union Invade Poland in September 1939? (9)

(The answer: No, it did not.)
By Grover Furr, Montclair University, NJ
Here’s a recent article in The New York Review of Books (April 30, 2009, p. 17) by Timothy Snyder, Yale University professor, academic expert in this area — and fanatic anticommunist — who just has to know that what he writes here is, to put [...]

It’s history, now, but for the record… (4)

President Obama will give his big health-care speech tomorrow. Let’s hope he does it right.

What does that mean? It means not playing professor; it means not having the speech read as if it were written by a committee (like that woefully weak op-ed in the Times a couple of weeks back); it means showing real [...]

Obama’s False Financial Reform / Wm. Greider (0)

Dateline for original piece: The Nation   June 19, 2009

By William Greider

The most disturbing thing about Barack Obama’s call for financial reform was the way in which the president falsified our predicament. He tried to make it sound as though everyone was implicated in the financial breakdown and therefore no one was really [...]

LORI PRICE: Appalling US Hypocrisy Toward Iran (6)

‘Hello, Pot? This is Kettle. You’re Green.’ –US Hypocrisy Toward Iran By Lori Price, www.legitgov.org
The world’s biggest hypocrite and meddlesome nosy parker, the United States, has outdone itself with its reaction to the post-election events in Iran. At least five glaring ‘grand hypocrisy’ categories have emerged, with more likely on the way. What other country — [...]

U.S. Out of Iraq, Afghanistan Now! (Revised) (0)

U.S. Imperialism’s Massacre in Haditha

A military judge, Col. Steven Folsom, dismissed charges against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani after finding that a four-star general overseeing the case was improperly influenced by an investigator probing the November 2005 shootings by a Marine squad in Haditha. In essence everybody walked. Image: Chessani.

War crimes and atrocities against civilians are [...]

CIA War Crimes: A Report By Douglas Valentine (0)

A CounterPunch Special Report 
Revised version of first edition published May 17, 2001
Fragging Bob:
Bob Kerrey, CIA War Crimes, 
And The Need For A War Crimes Trial

The Vietnam War abounded in atrocities. In this famous image, National Police Chief Gen. Nguyễn Ngọc Loan murders a Viet Cong officer in Saigon during the Tet Offensive (1968), before Western photographers and [...]

More Pigs at the Trough: What Enron and WorldCom Can Teach Us About Goldman and AIG (0)

By Arianna Huffington

America, it seems, can’t wait to get back to business — risky business — as usual. No matter how atrocious business has been.

Newsweek’s latest cover story declares that The Great Recession is over. A Merrill Lynch report concurs, saying, “The recession is over…We are bullish on global equities.” Goldman Sachs is placing riskier [...]

How Chic Was My Progress | By Morris Berman (1)

“When it was hip to be hep, I was hep.”–From “I’m Hip,” by Dave Frishberg and Bob Dorough  
AT ONE POINT IN THE LABYRINTH OF SOLITUDE, Octavio Paz quotes the German philosopher Max Scheler, who asked, “What is progress?”  It’s a crucial question, and in the United States there is basically only one answer, involving [...]

Filthy lives have filthy consequences (0)

Editors’ Note: We entirely agree with Ms. Laurier’s review, but must also note that despite these politically insightful and valid arguments, the film remains diabolically entertaining. Evil can be seductive, and director Sam Mendes is very good at manufacturing it in its celluloid form.
The Road to Perdition, directed by Sam Mendes
By Joanne Laurier |  Dateline 25 [...]

The Honduran coup: another US destabilization operation (0)

THE HONDURAN COUP—DENIALS ASIDE, US INVOLVEMENT IS CLEAR
While Barack Obama keeps mouthing platitudes, and is (so far) refraining from endorsing the coup, the usual jackals–local and American–are busy doing the dirty work in the shadows to make the coup a success.  Hypocrisy has rarely reached such heights of cynicism in the highest pulpits of US officialdom, [...]

Venezuela: Blows and Counterblows (0)

  Presidents Morales (Bolivia) and Chavez (Venezuela). They  managed to survive Bush’s intrigues, but will they survive Obama’s?  
Originally July 4th 2007, By Marta Harnecker – Abiven

1. The failure of the military coup in April 2002 (more than 80% of the generals in operational positions remained faithful to Chavez and the constitution) constituted the first great defeat of [...]

Reviewing President Rahm Emanuel’s Health Care Speech (0)

David Sirota

Posted: September 9, 2009 11:28 PM

Despite the oratory, a signally cowardly speech, equating progressives with his tormentors on the right.

Not to be too much of a downer, but I found Obama’s speech tonight a big O-bummer. Really, other than his very important reminder that ”we’re all in this together,” it was disappointing (although that’s probably not the [...]

Brave New World Order / By Jeff Huber (3)

Notes Associate Editor Gary Corseri: “Jeff Huber describes a situation in which a kind of covert military coup has already occurred here in the Land of the Free. It’s more complicated than one man’s ambition. The effects of this “coup” have been so wide-ranging, and have become so entwined with our political, economic, psychological, and, even spiritual, lives, we’ve lost sight of its dimensions, its insidiousness and perniciousness….”

My Father Was a Megalomaniac (0)

THE POETRY OF STEPHEN TOSKAR:
My Father Was a Megalomaniac
STEPHEN TOSKAR has lived and taught on the island of Hokkaido in Japan since he wound up there by mistake in 1976. He has published in Japan and India and his work has been anthologized in Manifestations (edited by Gary Corseri) in the States.  He tends a [...]

Interview with Paolo Ferrero of Italy’s Communist Refoundation Party (1)

The politics of tactical manoeuvre
Interview with Paolo Ferrero of Italy’s Communist Refoundation Party
By Marianne Arens and Peter Schwarz
[Note: Original dateline is 2 May 2003. Republished due to recent events in Europe.]
The Italian Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (PRC) is seen as a role model by many on the European left. The Communist Refoundation Party, as its name correctly [...]

Another Left is Possible: Europe shows the way (0)

The Protests in France and
the New Anti-Capitalist Party
Nathan Rao
France has just gone through another day of mass strikes and protests against the hard-Right government of president Nicolas Sarkozy. The protest action is hugely popular in opinion polls and comes on the heels of another successful but smaller day of action on January 29, a victorious [...]

The Weimar Hyperinflation? Could it Happen Again? / By Ellen Brown (2)

“It was horrible. Horrible! Like lightning it struck. No one was prepared. The shelves in the grocery stores were empty. You could buy nothing with your paper money.” – Harvard University law professor Friedrich Kessler on the Weimar Republic hyperinflation (1993 interview)

Germany’s hyperinflation got so bad that people found it cheaper to wallpaper with [...]

Mission Shrink: We've Gone From Saving Wall Street in Order to Save Main Street to Just Saving Wall Street (1)

For those who can see past the con man rhetoric, in less than half a year Obama has given abundant proof that he’s no leader when it comes to the interests of the people, and that his allegiances are clearly on the side of the reigning plutocracy. Even a populist plutocrat, Arianna Huffington, can testify [...]

Wendy and Lucy: A picture of American life (0)

FILMS
Reichardt’s film confirms the elementary truth that real, engaging drama exists in life, not in the pointless activities of fantasized super-heroes of various shades and stripes.

By Joanne Laurier 
20 February 2009
Wendy and Lucy by Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy, 2006) is an honest picture of American life—in other words, a very rare occurrence in contemporary cinema.
Set in a [...]

US-PAKISTAN: CIA Secrecy on Drone Attacks Data Hides Abuses (0)

A “Kill Ratio” of 50 to 1!  Drones, Scattered Computer Chips …

& Losing Hearts, Minds and Bodies in Afghanistan!
By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON, Jun 12 (IPS) – The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s refusal to share with other agencies even the most basic data on the bombing attacks by remote-controlled unmanned predator drones in Pakistan’s northwestern [...]

Why I’m Joining The Academic Boycott of Israel (2)

Dateline: Jake Lynch | Transcend Media Service | 1-7 June 2009

By Jake Lynch

Quite a few movies and TV programs have focused on the Israeli commando raid on Entebbe, Uganda. The Israeli commando exploits eventually helped to create the notion among Israelis that resort to force was always an easy, glorious, and sure option in [...]

Honduran military henchmen do US bidding once again (0)

It’s Not about Zelaya
by David L. Wilson
Zelaya (center), in happier times, flanked by Raul Castro and Pres. Chavez.
Manuel “Mel” Zelaya is a rancher and business owner who wears large cowboy hats and, in November 2005, was elected president of Honduras, an impoverished Central American country with a population of 7.5 million.  On June 28 [...]

Independent Candidate Challenges Chilean Political Establishment (0)

For the first time since Chile’s return to democracy, the country’s ruling political coalition may lose the presidency. The centrist “Concertación” coalition is being challenged from both the left and the right, facing perhaps its toughest electoral battle yet. Previous elections have been mostly battled out between a consensus Concertación candidate and a right-wing opponent. But this year a relative newcomer to Chile’s political scene has shaken things up, gaining momentum in the race for the presidency. The political ascendance of 36-year-old Congressman Marco Enríquez-Ominami sets up a competitive three-way contest in the December 2009 election.

Obama’s economic “stimulus” paves way for multi-trillion-dollar handout to the banks – By Barry Grey (1)

Timothy Geithner being sworn in. Geithner, key architect for the new bank bailout program, is an old family friend of Obama’s and a protegé of Robert Rubin, arguably one of the most toxic figures in the American plutocracy in the last 30 years.
Dateline: World Socialist Web Site wsws.org || 9 February 2009
By Barry Grey [...]

Lobbyists on a Roll: Gutting Reform on Banking, Energy, and Health Care (2)

By ARIANNA HUFFINGTON  / Dateline June 25, 2009

REMEMBER ALL THAT CHANGE AMERICANS VOTED FOR IN NOVEMBER? Well, there’s been a change in the plans for change.
The detour has come courtesy of a familiar nemesis: DC lobbyists who, this year alone, have watered-down, gutted, or out-and-out killed ambitious plans for reforming Wall Street, energy, and health [...]

Piracy off the Promised Land: the Ramming of the Dignity with Clear Lethal Intent / David Halpin (1)

ONLY THE BEST AT CYRANO. WHERE ELSE?
Piracy off the Promised Land: when piracy ceases to be piracy
By David Halpin, FRCS (Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons) | dateline: 4.23.09
“Piracy: 1. the practice of attacking and robbing ships at sea.”  (Compact Oxford English Dictionary.)

Wide publicity has been given to piracy in Somalian waters since Captain [...]

The Healthcare Deceit (0)

Dateline: September 14, 2009
It is the War in Afghanistan Obama Declared a “Necessity,” Not Health Care
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The current health care “debate” shows how far gone representative government is in the United States. Members of Congress represent the powerful interest groups that fill their campaign coffers, not the people who vote for them.

The [...]

Sylvain Lamoureux: A Society Of B.S. (Bad Science) (0)

Simulposted with thomaspainescorner on April 4, 2009

By Sylvain Lamoureux
4/4/09
OVER 5 BILLION PEOPLE live on less than $10 a day on this planet but I am not one of them; so let us say that the rest are the rich and middle classes (assumed ‘middle class’ also). These numbers tell us that less than 20% of [...]

The Art of Susanne Still (1)

THE ART OF SUSANNE STILL
Specializing in fine, contemporary, iconographic arts, Susanne Still is a stage and portrait photographer, painter, and fine arts ceramicist. She is known for her museum-quality world petroglyphic reproductions. She is co-founder of Blue Jaguar Medicine Arts Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a private arts and healing center. [...]

Olbermann’s special comment on health care reform (0)

IN EARLY AUGUST (2009) KEITH OLBERMANN prepared the following SPECIAL COMMENT, singling out Republicans for specific censure, but not forgetting that democrats, too, have been complicit in this horrendous fiasco.

The Poetry of Miriam Stanley (0)

POEMS: TO  MY HALF‑BROTHER, ISHMAEL
By Miriam Stanley
Presented by Gary Corseri
“… and G‑d said to Abraham … in Isaac shall thy seed
be called, but I will make Ishmael also a great nation,
because he, too, is thy seed.
                   —Genesis, 21:12-13  
[READ ON]

Light at the End of the Tunnel? / By Mike Whitney (1)

(It’s an oncoming train!)
The Decade of Darkness
IT’S BEEN 21 MONTHS SINCE TWO BEAR STEARNS HEDGE FUNDS DEFAULTED, setting off a series of events which have led to the gravest economic crisis since the Great Depression. No one expected the financial earthquake to shake this hard or ripple this fast. The failure at Bear triggered a [...]

The Town Hall Mob (0)

By PAUL KRUGMANAugust 6, 2009Originally at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/07/opinion/07krugman.htmlThere’s a famous Norman Rockwell painting titled“Freedom of Speech,” depicting an idealized Americantown meeting. The painting, part of a seriesillustrating F.D.R.’s “Four Freedoms,” shows anordinary citizen expressing an unpopular opinion. Hisneighbors obviously don’t like what he’s saying, butthey’re letting him speak his mind.That’s a far cry from what has been [...]

The case of Massachusetts: A failed model for health care reform (0)

BY PATRICE GREANVILLE
NOW THAT THE OBAMA administration is touting ever louder the need to provide healthcare “for all Americans,” it’s time to put on our doubting caps and subject his proposal to detailed scrutiny, lest the public end up with the short end of the stick, as usual. Citizens concerned about Barack Obama’s true political objectives [...]

The Gaza Tragedy Continues / Reports By M. Shahid Alam & Kathy Kelly (0)

A Gaza War Full of Traps and Trickery |||
New analyses of a human tragedy of horrendous proportions by correspondents M. Shahid Alam & Kathy Kelly  |||
Editor’s note: To recap: It’s six weeks now since the “nation’s paper of record,” The New York Times, borrowing a page from Fox News’s “fair and balanced” Shawn & Hannity comedy [...]

Governor Palin’s Crazed Health Care Rant: Blame The Washington Post (0)

Once again, the American media fail the public miserably. But what needs to be remembered in each of these occurrences is that this level of grotesque ineptitude is built-in, inherent in capitalist “journalism”, with the media’s operating values almost designed to foster ignorance and confusion, and that relying on them for anything more substantive than [...]

SATIRE: TORTURE? WHAT TORTURE? WE NEED MORE TORTURE! (3)

S • A • T • I • R • E
TORTURE? WHAT TORTURE? WE NEED MORE TORTURE
BY GARY CORSERI

“What they regard as Tao is not Tao, and what they consider as right is often wrong. [They] do not really understand Tao, but understand some [...]

The Next 100 Days: Major Foreign Tests Likely for Obama / By Jim Lobe (0)

WHILE BARACK OBAMA has clearly improved Washington’s image abroad during his first 100 days in office, the next 100 will almost certainly prove much more challenging for the new president’s foreign policy.
Putting aside the possibility that the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression could become much more severe than the White House currently anticipates, [...]

Military Escalation and Obama’s “War on Terrorism” (0)

US Officials “Rediscover” ISI-Taliban Nexus
BY Tom Burghardt
LONG CONSIDERED THE REALM OF “conspiracy buffs” The New York Times, citing anonymous “American government officials,” have belatedly “discovered” that Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI) is aiding the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
That ISI operatives were reportedly involved in planning the 9/11 attacks, the ostensible reason for the 2001 U.S. invasion and [...]