Month: March 2016

Are We in a New American World? Don’t Blame It All on Trump

Tom Engelhardt March 29, 2016 Tom Engelhardt

Source: Tom Dispatch

The other week, feeling sick, I spent a day on my couch with the TV on and was reminded of an odd fact of American life. More than seven months before Election Day, you can watch the 2016 campaign for the presidency at any moment of your choosing, and that’s been true since at least late last year. There is essentially never a time when some network or news channel isn’t reporting on, discussing, debating, analyzing, speculating about, or simply drooling over some aspect of the primary campaign, of Hillary, Bernie, Ted, and above all — a million times above all — The Donald (from the violence at his rallies to the size of his hands). In case you’re young and think this is more or less the American norm, it isn’t. Or wasn’t. read more

No Picture

Blackwater Founder Faces Multi-Agency Federal Investigation

Matthew Cole, Jeremy Scahill March 25, 2016 Matthew Cole, Jeremy Scahill

Source: The Intercept

Erik Prince, founder of the now-defunct mercenary firm Blackwater and current chairman of Frontier Services Group, is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies for attempting to broker military services to foreign governments and possible money laundering, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the case.

What began as an investigation into Prince’s attempts to sell defense services in Libya and other countries in Africa has widened to a probe of allegations that Prince received assistance from Chinese intelligence to set up an account for his Libya operations through the Bank of China. The Justice Department, which declined to comment for this article, is also seeking to uncover the precise nature of Prince’s relationship with Chinese intelligence. read more

They Came for the Children: Truth Commission Sheds Light on Canada’s Genocide Against Indigenous Peoples

Alexis Lathem March 23, 2016 Alexis Lathem

Imagine a village with all its children gone. For aboriginal peoples all across Canada, this was their lived reality, not the stuff of imagination. The story of what happened to the children – who were forcibly removed from their families and sent to military-style camps that were euphemistically called “schools” – has at last been told, compiled in the monumental six-volume Truth and Reconciliation Report released in 2015.

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The Oilman Who Loved Dictators: How Texaco Supported Fascism

Adam Hochschild March 22, 2016 Adam Hochschild

Source: TomDispatch

This piece has been adapted from Adam Hochschild’s new book, Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939.

“Merchants have no country,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1814. “The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.” The former president was ruing the way New England traders and shipowners, fearing the loss of lucrative transatlantic commerce, failed to rally to their country in the War of 1812. read more

No Picture

Vijay Prashad – A Fearful Ascendency: the Rise of Trump

Vijay Prashad March 22, 2016 Vijay Prashad

Source: Frontline

What began as a joke is now no laughing matter. Donald Trump will most likely be the Republican nominee for the President of the United States. Given the deep uncertainty of this presidential campaign, there is a sense that he could even win the presidency. The headquarters of the Republican National Committee in Washington, D.C., teeters in fearful anticipation. No one would like to speak openly about the presumptive nominee, but most of the party faithful fear his ascendency.

Trump, the real estate baron, is truly an outside candidate. He says anything he wants, including dismissing the formidable pieties of the Republican Party on trade and foreign policy, and is therefore out of the party establishment’s control. Each of the mainstream candidates (Jeb Bush and Chris Christie) fell before Trump’s withering attacks and the massive support these attacks generated. Christie fell and then joined Trump’s juggernaut. Along New York City’s western highway are a series of buildings that bear—in large letters—Trump’s name. He was the real estate developer of these Trump Place Apartments. The Republican Party fears that it has been transformed into the Trump Party. He has done a hostile buyout under their noses. read more