Israeli Aggression Creates Many Questions, Calm and Restraint Is Crucial

Ban Ki-moon has called on all sides “to exercise maximum calm and restraint, and to act with a sense of responsibility to prevent an escalation of what is already a devastating and highly dangerous conflict.” In his wisdom, the U.S. must take heed.

Can you imagine the uproar if any country, other than U.S.-backed Israel, attacked another country that is in so much turmoil as Syria, a country where civilian bloodshed has considerable international concern. If this did happen, I guarantee the U.S. government would be the first to deplore the attacks. But the United States, instead, has given its unconditional approval of Israel’s aggression.

President Obama’s response, “I am not going to comment on what happened in Syria … I will let the Israeli government confirm or deny whatever strikes they have taken.” He said that the U.S. coordinates closely with Israel.

This leads to some intriguing questions: Did the U.S. know of Israel’s plan beforehand? If the U.S. coordinates closely with Israel, the U.S. should have known of Israel’s intentions. Do Israel’s actions have the tacit approval of the U.S.? Is Israel’s airstrike a test run to determine the strength of Syria’s air defense system? Is Israel’s real purpose to show the U.S. the way?

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Steve Fraser: A Wall Street State of Mind

It’s the illusion of opulence, wealth that anyone can achieve, that drives the American psyche. You see, there is nothing characteristically or intrinsically different between Wall Street types and the rest of us. What drives Wall Street drives America.

The financial crisis of 2007-2008 brought financial devastation to millions of Americans. Experts describe it as the most devastating financial event since the Great Depression. But was this event so frightening and devastating that it led to changes in the world of finance. The White House and Congress took steps to turn the economy around, but have done nothing meaningful to regulate the forces that caused it to prevent or marginalize the probability of another economic meltdown.

One of the leading obstacles to regulatory change is the capitalists’ vehement opposition to government interference in private enterprise. The greatest obstacle, however, is praxeological, in the sense that Americans prefer wealth to poverty. And of course, who wouldn’t prefer a life of wealth. The problem is that wealth is not achievable to all, no matter how hard one works toward this goal. So the goal should be a life of financial stability, and not wealth as a means of achieving the phantasmal American Dream.

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Obama’s Terror Remark Highly Hypocritical In Light Of U.S. Wars

An attack on the innocent is paradoxical to what it means to be an American. It should never be the American way. Instead of better ways to kill, maim, and torture, the U.S. should be finding ways to stop the killing and maiming, and find ways of peace.

“Anytime bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror,” so says President Obama regarding the Boston Marathon bombings.

That’s an interesting perspective considering the acts of terror the United States has carried out over the years. According to Obama’s definition, Iraq’s opening salvo of “shock and awe,” today’s deployment of weaponized drones, and the U.S. use of cluster bombs in war are all acts of terror. War itself is an act of terror.

So, of course, Obama is correct. The bombings were acts of terror. The Boston Marathon pressure cooker bombs and pipe bombs used by the Tsarnaev brothers were homemade versions of cluster bombs. Homemade bombs that are essentially the same improvised explosive devices (IED) used by terrorist in Iraq and Afghanistan that have killed and maimed many thousands of civilians, children, U.S. and coalition soldiers.

Ever since the Vietnam War, the U.S. has used cluster bombs in war.

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Mass Shooting, Gun Control, Background Checks: Americans Part of Cause When They Fail To Act

Someday there will be another mass shooting and Americans certainly will be a part of its cause because they didn’t do everything in their power to try to prevent it.

Most major news outlets, so far, have uncritically reported the Senate’s failure to pass the Manchin-Toomey expanded background check bill. Even among the so-called left-leaning news outlets, there has been little condemnation. There has been almost no uproar from Social media. Why isn’t there indignation, an outcry of condemnation? Why isn’t there anger expressed beyond that expressed by President Obama and a few others?

Part of the reason, of course, is the Boston Marathon bombing rightly upstaged any media criticism of the Senate’s failure to act. The answers to two questions, however, will be interesting: Where did the bombers get their guns? Would any of the failed gun control measures have prevented the two from acquiring a gun?

Legislatively, the most significant in-your-face reason rests in one acronym: NRA. The National Rifle Association and its lobbying group, the Institute for Legislative Action, are a focused, influential, and sufficiently moneyed organization who can successfully turn any congressional gun legislation to their favor.

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If Congress Cannot Pass Basic Gun Law, What Meaningful Law Will Ever Pass?

The obstacle to effective gun control legislation falls on people like potential presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio, who does not support universal background checks. If Sandy Hook is not reason enough to act, what will be reason enough?

As of this writing, the anticipated vote in the Senate on the Manchin-Toomey expanded background check plan’s passage is in doubt. Even if it does succeed, the measure will never pass the Republican majority in the House. Whatever the outcome, the plan does not go far enough anyway.

The obstacle to any meaningfully effective gun control legislation falls on the shoulders of people like potential presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio, who does not support universal background checks. His reasoning, “Criminals don't care about the laws that we pass with regards to guns. They never follow the law -- that's why they are criminals.”

Of course, that’s true. It’s a no brainer. But, if we require stringent comprehensive, universal background checks on all purchases, especially those that are private, making it harder for someone to buy a gun legally, the less likely they will be able to acquire it illegally. The problem with current gun law, as it will be with any more stringent law, is its enforcement, prosecution, and the penalties we place on its infringement. Without these parameters, no law holds any meaningful purpose.

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America Becoming Closer to the Police State of Orwell’s Oceania In 1984

No one will wake up one morning and discover that they are now living in a police state. Fear of crime and terrorism, however, are influencing Americans into accepting changes in law that will eventually bring us to that point. You see, in time these things will find a way of creeping up on society and fundamentally alter how Americans think and act about human rights and police authority until one day we realize we are living in a different America.

The evidence of this subtle evolution is clear.

Read article here: Bringing America Even Closer to the Police State of Orwell’s Oceania

The Inconvenient Truth of High Tech’s Silicon Valley

Conservatives and republicans propagate how rich people benefit society more than the rest of us. That they alone will bring people struggling to survive out of poverty. However, Silicon Valley’s real story reveals the fallacy behind their words.

Conservatives and republicans attempt to sell the notion that when rich people get richer it filters down like raindrops from heaven and benefits society as a whole.

But then why are more and more people living in poverty? The sad truth is what these folks attempt to sell simply doesn’t work.

The fact is that if it were true, there would not be huge income gaps between the haves and have-nots, an inequality that is becoming increasingly “permanent”; 50 million Americans would not be struggling to survive; there would not be 700,000 Americans who “experience homelessness on any given night in the U.S.” And, if that were true, California’s Silicon Valley would not have just a thriving community of high tech workers, but a thriving non-tech community as well.

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North Korea: Let’s Not Forget Iraq’s Greatest Lesson

Of the many lessons Americans should take away from the Iraq War debacle, one of the greatest and more important lessons is that the U.S. government, indeed all governments, lie. As the drums of war begin, let’s not forget that governments lie. Let’s not heed the propaganda from either side. We need to pay close attention folks because the United States may be equally culpable in the threat to peace.

“Shock and awe.” That was the battle cry of the Iraq War. It’s a military principle meaning rapid dominance. Predicated on the military success of the Gulf War, the Iraq war was to be quick and easy through the employment of rapid and overwhelming firepower to destroy the Iraqi will to fight.

President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech a month and eleven days later, exemplified that expectation. But quick and easy it was not. The war raged on for approximately another nine years. "Shock and awe” failed Iraq. The idea behind the theory was that it would shorten the war and thereby reduce its devastation and save lives.

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The U.S. Supreme Court and Society Should Not Accept Arguments That Keep America in the Dark Ages

Now it’s time for the nation’s highest court to weigh the pros and cons of same-sex marriage. But they and every American should heed the words of Thomas Jefferson: “laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.” Now the nation’s highest court has heard the arguments. It’s now time for justices to weigh the pros and cons of same-sex marriage and to rule on its merits. The decision, expected by late June, will be complete with all the legal language and complexity associated with legal opinion. But it’s not so difficult to understand that people should be able to acquire all the legal rights and protections that benefit married couples. It should not matter whether it’s a sexual relationship between a man and a woman, a relationship between two people of the same-sex, or just simply two friends who desire to spend a non-sexual life together. It should not matter if we label it a marriage or a civil union. After all, marriage is a legal social contract … Read article here: The U.S. Supreme Court and Society Should Not Accept Arguments That Keep America in the Dark Ages

Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity”: Easy Street for Some, Calamity for Most

The republican’s prosperity budget protects wealthy Americans at everyone else’s expense. While America’s less fortunate may have to prepare for the impact of safety net cuts, defense spending continues and the extreme cost of weapons systems prevail

The most expensive weapon system ever developed is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It’s years behind schedule, 70 percent over its initial cost projection, and its life-cycle cost could be as high as $1.5 trillion. Its production has experienced substantial cost overruns. Contractor Lockheed Martin and engine maker Pratt & Whitney have realized billions in revenue and profit. Moreover, it’s unnecessary.

In face of concerns over increasing debt and deficit, with an unnecessary, incredibly expensive system, and such a longstanding boondoggle, you would think Congress would act to curtail such programs. But Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and his peers are more concerned with repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), and with watering down Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and other programs that assist low-income and vulnerable Americans, the elderly and poor.

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