If you want a glimpse of the fundamental moral obscenity that underlies our bold new era of hope and change, look no further than Barack Obama’s promise this week to “overhaul” Social Security and Medicare. This effort to cut back on support for the sick, the old, the weak, the unfortunate and the abandoned will be a “central part” of the new administration’s economic program, a linchpin of its struggle to curb federal spending, Obama declared. He pointed to a looming federal deficit of $1.2 trillion this year, with more to follow, as urgent reasons to deal with “entitlement spending.”

What are Israel’s true goals in the ongoing decimation of Gaza? Former Israeli soldier, and now professor of international relations at the University of Oxford, Avi Shlaim, tells us in the Guardian. You won’t see truth like this in an American newspaper, or hear it from the political poltroons playing musical chairs with Senate seats on Capitol Hill. The only way to make sense of Israel’s senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context. Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of

(UPDATED BELOW.) (***NEW UPDATE***) Here we see Israelis in Sderot – the chief target of the homemade bombs which we are told are the cause of the current ravaging of Gaza. These Hamas “terror bombs” are so frighteningly powerful and destructive that no response against them can be “disproportionate,” we are told by Israeli and American leaders; everything is justified in “retaliation,” including the complete destruction of the social, civic and physical infrastructure of an entire human community, and the killing and terrorizing of innocent people. It’s those homemade bombs falling on Sderot, you see; they are such an overwhelming,

The Israeli military is reportedly using napalm-like white phosphorus shells in its all-out attack on Gaza, according to the conservative Times of London. The phosphorus in the smoke-emitting shells causes agonizing, unquenchable burns, sometimes searing flesh right down to the bone. These savage tools of terror are “legal” when used as smokescreens to mask military operations, although their use as an offensive weapon is war crime. This is a rather ludicrous distinction when the shells are fired into heavily populated civilian areas, exploding and spraying phosphorus in all directions. Anyone who orders their use on cities and refugee camps knows

I. Hunkering Down in BactriaAs always, wise man William Blum asks the relevant questions — and has many of the answers. From his latest Anti-Empire Report: The Pentagon pushes hard for a large increase in troops for Afghanistan. Barack Obama has been calling for the same since well before the November election. Listen to the drumbeats telling us that the security of the United States and the Free World necessitates increased action in this place called Afghanistan. As urgent as Iraq 2003, it is. Why? What is there about this backward, reactionary, woman-hating, failed state that warrants hundreds of deaths

In the midst of the anguish and emotion sparked by Israel’s savage assault on Gaza, we would do well to mention this post from Professor As’ad AbuKhalil, whose “Angry Arab” site is essential for anyone trying to get a full picture of what’s really going on in the Middle East. AbuKhalil writes: On Hate.I had written this post on hate back in the Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006. I still believe in it of course. Political anger and rejection of Zionist colonization of Palestine is acceptable and imperative, but not hate — not on racial, religious, or ethnic grounds.

Here’s a message from an ancient sage for these never-changing modern times, at the bleak dawning of a new year:  

Death and sorrow continue to pour down in torrents over Gaza. And every death is delivered with the backing of the full faith and credit of the United States. American money, American weaponry — and unstinting, unquestioning American diplomatic support — are underwriting the brutal carnage. There is scarcely a single voice along the commanding heights of American power to raise the slightest protest against a savage war crime being committed in broad daylight, day after day, with the approval and connivance of the “civilized” world. The hard, enclosed, impenetrable shell of American “bipartisanship” has achieved a steely perfection on

As the American-supplied carnage in Gaza goes on, let’s turn to Nir Rosen, who, as he says, has “spent most of the Bush administration’s tenure reporting from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia” and other hellish quadrants of the Terror War. Here he blazes with truth and fury in the pages of the Guardian: Once again, the Israelis bomb the starving and imprisoned population of Gaza. The world watches the plight of 1.5 million Gazans live on TV and online; the western media largely justify the Israeli action. Even some Arab outlets try to equate the Palestinian resistance with the might of

Here is a simple, stone cold fact. You cannot read or hear the truth about what is happening in Gaza from any corporate media in the United States. The only thing you will find there are regurgitations of Israeli spin, which are themselves only regurgitations of the kind of spin that American militarists have put on their own depredations — for centuries now. Up and down the American media and political establishments, you will find nothing but bleatings about Israel being “forced” to launch its vicious blunderbuss attacks against heavily populated Gaza because of the “recent spate of Hamas bombings”