By RON JACOBS - January 15, 2013

Low-intensity conflicts that included the massacre of Salvadoran farmers by US-funded death squads and militaries; the murderous subversion of a popular government by CIA- contra forces in Nicaragua; the arming of religious extremists in Afghanistan to fight a secular and progressive government in Kabul...All of these elements and hundreds more are what describe US foreign policy. They are not mistakes any more than the US war on the Vietnamese people was a mistake. Indeed, they are the price the world must pay.

Do imperial wars bother you? Does human suffering matter? Is business as usual OK? Are sham elections? Is democracy for the few alone?

By Dave Lindorff - December 28th, 2012

“The documents we’ve obtained show that the FBI was acting as a private intelligence and protective agency for Wall Street and the banks against people who are engaged in First Amendment-protected free speech activities. Yet here you had a real terrorist threat, which, if the FBI were serious about combating and preventing terrorism it would have acted upon, and it did nothing!”

- Partnership for Civil Justice Executive Director Maya Verheyden-Hilliard

Advocates of online openness and freedom lost a committed champion. The Economist said to call him "gifted would be to miss the point. As far as the internet was concerned, he was the gift."

They've gone at each other before. Neither one likes the other.

Throughout his tenure, Obama's done what supporters thought impossible. He's governed to the right of George Bush. He mocks rule of law principles and other democratic values. He prioritizes wars on humanity. He's waging multiple direct and proxy ones. War on terror subterfuge disguises them.

He was an Internet folk hero. He supported online freedom and copyright reform. He advocated free and open web files. He championed a vital cause. He worked tirelessly for what's right.

January 14, 2013 - AlterNet

In an interview broadcast on Al Jazeera English, Noam Chomsky argues that people who have the most privilege owe the most to society. "The more privilege you have the more responsibility you have...It's elementary"...Asked why the opposite seems to be true in America...Chomsky replies that the lack of public responsibility among many elites makes sense; after all, if you've devoted your life to enriching yourself and wealth is what you value the most, you don't care as much about other people..."It's also institutional...[I]t's Ayn Rand ideology: 'I just don't care about anyone else. I'm only interested in benefiting myself'..."

By Arun Gupta - January 2013

The U.S. government described the five as hell-bent on sowing terror to fulfill their “violent anarchist ideology.” In reality, the FBI supplied ten pounds of inert plastic explosives to drifters, suicidal drug addicts and emotionally troubled. Like hundreds of post-September 11 cases against Muslim-Americans, the FBI conjured up the terrorism it takes credit for pre- venting.

By David Walsh - 14 January 2013

“Everyone who contributes skill and energy to a motion picture...shares responsibility for the impressions the picture makes and the ideas it expresses...[If] torture is a crime...then it doesn't matter whether it ‘works’ or not. Zero Dark Thirty condones torture. … If the deeply racist Birth of a Nation was released today, would we vote to honor it? Would we give an award to [German filmmaker] Leni Riefenstahl's brilliant pro-Nazi documentary, Triumph of the Will?”

- Actor David Clennon

We've heard it all before. Media scoundrels hype fear. So do drug companies. Doing so boosts sales.

January 11, 2013 marks Guantanamo's 11th anniversary. On January 11, 2002, its first 20 prisoners arrived. It's one of many US torture prisons globally. Most held there are innocent victims. They're not terrorists. They're lawlessly detained. Many remained for years uncharged and untried. Fundamental rights are denied.

By Alexander Fangmann - WSWS

The lead negotiators for the NHLPA acted from beginning to end as though concessions were entirely normal and expected. The team owners easily extracted from the players nearly everything they originally sought, including wage cuts and player contract restrictions.

At Treasury, Lew becomes Obama's deficit-cutting point man. He'll function in his low key/soft-spoken way. He'll mask what's really going on.

By MICHAEL D. YATES - Counterpunch

The Vietnam War should never be forgotten. It was a stain on our country and on humanity itself. To glorify it is an ignominious crime. We should instead honor the Vietnamese people, who fought more valiantly and suffered more for their liberation from foreign rule than we ever did for our own.