This week, super-compassionate, deeply caring progressive David Atkins (of Hullabaloo) read a story in the New York Times about farmers in the “Deep South” suffering from ruined crops after weeks of unusually heavy rains. The farmers face economic disaster not only from the loss of this summer’s crops, but also from the effects that the swampy weather is likely to have on fall crops as well. This follows last year’s ravaging droughts, which also left many farmers with ruinous losses. But super-compassionate, deeply caring progressive David Atkins doesn’t give a damn about these farmers, or their families, or their communities.

Many people have worried about the fate of Bradley Manning, a lone soldier who informed the world of war crimes being committed by the War Machine that has devoured the American republic and turned its ravaging, profit-reaping fury on the world. As we all know, Manning is now in the iron grip of that Machine, facing the prospect of life in prison for his truth-telling, having already endured a long incarceration marked by episodes of relentless psychological torture. Many people quite reasonably dread what awaits Manning when the Military Court hands down its inevitable verdict against him. But wait —

Arthur Silber asks a very pertinent question: what is the worth of ‘transparency’? So many of our vaunted dissidents have made ‘transparency’ one of great goals of their unending agon with the imperial state. If only, they cry, we can let more daylight in on the crimes and atrocities of security apparat and the war machine, then …. well, it’s not entirely clear what they believe will follow from this. Probably that ‘the people,’ now armed with the facts about the filth their rulers wallow in, will rise up and force our elites to sin no more. But as Silber

The acquittal of George Zimmerman for his killing of Trayvon Martin has already sparked a torrent of fervid commentary — millions of words — and will no doubt produce many millions more in the days and weeks to come. But good sense and insight have been near-impossible to find in the roiling surges of this tsunami. One place where you can find these rare commodities is — as you might expect — Arthur Silber’s blog. Silber has posted a powerful essay on the case and its implications, extending and deepening a likewise excellent piece by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic,

Atrios, ever alert to any follies on the political landscape that might be worthy of one of his Instapunditish snippets, names Laura Rozen as his “Twit of the Day.” (A lesser punishment, one supposes, than being labelled his “Wanker of the Day” or, dread fate, being placed in the fearsome stocks of his “Worst Person in the World” sobriquet). Rozen’s crime, apparently, is voicing mild approval of the idea of appointing Joe Lieberman as the new head of the sinister bureaucratic boondoggle known as the Department of Homeland Security. Rozen’s comment came — of course — via Twitter. Our entire

Arthur Silber is in trouble. The IRS has targeted his sole source of income — PayPal donations to his website — and have taken everything that was in it. Now his PayPal account is unusable. His situation is dire. Regular readers here will know that Silber — a peerless, powerful voice on the many madnesses that beset our world today — is dealing with catastrophic health issues and crippling poverty. Yet still he manages to produce an astonishing body of work — important essays of original, astringent insight and raucous, penetrating wit. Quite simply, there is no one else like

Here is my latest column for the print edition of Counterpunch. Shamming into Syria When I saw the news on June 13 that Bill Clinton had joined with John McCain in blasting Obama’s “inaction” on Syria and calling for direct U.S. military intervention in the conflict, I knew we would soon hear the other shoe dropping. And lo, just hours later, pat it came, with that reliable old house organ of the power structure, the New York Times, portentously reporting that “intelligence” had “confirmed” the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government  — the flashing “red line” that Obama

David Bromwich has some pertinent thoughts on Edward Snowden and his revelations about our USA (Unrestrained Stasi of Authoritarianism). Note: Bromwich was writing, in the LRB, before Snowden left Hong Kong. In ‘this our talking America’ (as Emerson called it), we prefer to talk about personalities. It could be anticipated that the ‘leaker’ of NSA secrets, and not the trespass by government against the people, would become the primary subject of discussion once the authorities produced a name and a face. He was destined to have his portrait fixed by the police and media, blurred and smeared to look, in