I don’t really want to go too far down the road on this when there are far more important things happening in the world, but really, take just a moment to look at the language in the Ken Silverstein piece on the world-historical tragedy of him finding out that it was less than ideal to work for a rapacious, dodgy billionaire: “[Matt Taibbi] hired some incredible writers, including Alex Pareene, Edith Zimmerman and other insanely talented people [for the oligarch-funded vehicle called Racket] …. During my short time at Racket, we talked about how we should have the courage to

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As always, Bill Blum gives us meet food to feed upon in his latest Anti-Empire Report. I was going to quote some pertinent excerpts, but why not just read the whole thing. Of special interest is Blum’s look at the true history of today’s “Greek crisis”— and, given that history, the grim prospects ahead for Syriza; the jaw-dropping (but not surprising) ignorance of history evinced by the “experts” in our State Department; and the all-consuming ideology of the “non-ideological” American media. In the latter, he digs up one choice quote from Brian Williams’ former boss at NBC, Bob Wright, who

Robert Ford, once one of the most vociferous champions of an aggressive American policy toward Syria has now changed his mind, McClatchy reports. Ford, who famously resigned from his diplomatic post last year in protest at the Obama Administration’s “weak” support of Syrian rebels, now says the United States should not give any weapons to the rebels at all; they are too “disjointed and untrustworthy because they collaborate with jihadists.” Ford, at one time Obama’s ambassador to Syria, had long insisted that “moderate rebels” in Syria could turn the tide in their war with both the Syrian government and the

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Millions of words have already been written about the Charlie Hebdo spectacle. No doubt readers have seen much of the small proportion of this verbiage that was pertinent, informative and insightful. There have been laudable attempts to provide political context, cultural nuance, historical background — and that rarest of unicorns, the voice of reason — amidst the Niagra-level roar of bullshit that engulfed the Hebdo case within minutes of the first tweets about the incident. And of course, it is good that we go on trying to make sense of a reality that is at all times besieged by a

The American record in Somalia is shameful beyond measuring. Few people even know that 10 years ago, the US had a direct military involvement in Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia, which destroyed the country’s first stable government in 15 years, killed thousands of innocent people, and opened the door for the radical extremists who plague the country today.  I wrote about this Terror War sideshow for years (see below); nobody cared then, and nobody cares now. And still the beat goes on. George Monbiot details a new move by the Peace Prize Laureate in the White House that puts the lives