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ALL ARTICLES, War State America June 11, 2018

Bipartisan Boost To American ‘Forever’ War

By Renee Parsons Common Dreams (6/5/18) As the Forever AUMF 2018 (SJRes 59) (Authority for the Use of Military Force) continues to await action by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, one can only imagine the extent of the behind-the-scene efforts underway to sway those few wavering Senators who may be reluctant to go down in American history as voting to eliminate Congress’ sole, inviolate Constitutional authority ‘to declare war’. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11.    The law would remove Congress from its statutory authority as it transfers “uninterrupted” authority on “the use of all necessary and appropriate force” to one individual, allowing…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, Rethuglicans, Trumpenstan, War State America May 31, 2018

Trump’s Leverage: Study Links White American Intolerance With Support For Authoritarianism

  By Noah Berlatsky NBC News (5/27/18) Since the founding of the United States, politicians and pundits have warned that partisanship is a danger to democracy. George Washington, in his Farewell Address, worried that political parties, or factions, could “allow cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men” to rise to power and subvert democracy. More recently, many political observers are concerned that increasing political polarization on left and right makes compromise impossible, and leads to the destruction of democratic norms and institutions. A new study, however, suggests that the main threat to our democracy may not be the hardening of political ideology, but rather…

ALL ARTICLES, History They Don't Want You To Know, War State America May 31, 2018

One Last Memorial Day Musing: The Pawns Of War

  By Philip Farruggio Nation of Change (5/28/18) She would always have the brightest smile as she stood at the intersection of Avenue T and Ocean Ave in Brooklyn, N.Y. circa 1968. She was our crossing guard and we all loved Mrs. Lombardo. Each morning and afternoon during school days she would greet each and every kid who passed by her post. On Sundays, before and after each Catholic Mass at St. Edmunds church, she would be there, again with that contagious smile. The young kids loved her as one would love a favorite aunt, and the seniors, who seemed to make…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Trumpenstan, War State America May 28, 2018

In Our Name: Agency Documents Reveal Physical & Sexual Abuse Of Migrant Kids, Teens By Border Patrol

The authoritarian, fascist mind: ”Just following orders”.   By Gabe Ortiz Daily Kos (5/24/18) Internal government documents dating back to 2009 and obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago School of Law, detail horror stories of child abuse, physical and sexual assault, verbal abuse and medical negligence at the hands of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents. The details should be a national security concern, because border agents were already “monstrous” under Barack Obama, and under Donald Trump they have been unleashed and stand to endanger untold numbers: “In one…

ALL ARTICLES, War State America May 28, 2018

Time To Audit The Outlaw Military Budget That Is Bleeding Away America’s Future

  By Ralph Nader Common Dreams (5/24/18) Top military, diplomatic, and political leaders have exposed, warned of, and condemned our runaway, unaudited military budgets for decades, to no avail.  (For many examples, see America’s War Machine: Vested Interests, Endless Conflicts by James McCartney, with Molly Sinclair McCartney.)  They usually come to the same desperate conclusion: that only organized citizens back in their Congressional Districts can make Congress stop this spending spree. Only us, Americans! From 1953, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered his “Cross of Iron” speech before the Convention of Newspaper Editors, to full-length addresses by President Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Robert…

ALL ARTICLES, War State America May 21, 2018

The Largest Rip-Off In American History: The Pentagon Can’t Account For $21 Trillion (That’s Not a Typo)

Our whole mindscape is filled to the brim with nonsense and vacant celebrity idiocy. Then, while no one is looking, the largest theft humankind has ever seen is going on behind our backs—covered up under the guise of “national security.” By Lee Camp TruthDig (5/14/18) Twenty-one trillion dollars. The Pentagon’s own numbers show that it can’t account for $21 trillion. Yes, I mean trillion with a “T.” And this could change everything. But I’ll get back to that in a moment. There are certain things the human mind is not meant to do. Our complex brains cannot view the world…

ALL ARTICLES, Climate Change, War State America May 14, 2018

Pentagon Watered Down Realities Of Climate Report For Trump-Era Publication

  By Olivia Rosane EcoWatch (5/11/18) A Department of Defense (DOD) report on the potential impacts of climate change on U.S. military infrastructure paradoxically downplayed the importance of climate change, an earlier draft of the report obtained by The Washington Post and publicized Thursday revealed. The earlier, more urgent draft was written in 2016, while Barack Obama was still president, while the final was published in January 2018, a year into the presidency of Donald Trump. The differences suggest that the military is altering its tone to avoid antagonizing an administration that went so far as to remove mentions of climate change from its national security strategy. According to…

ALL ARTICLES, War State America April 23, 2018

National Insecurity — Astronomical’ Cost of War: Average US Taxpayer Sent $3,456 To Pentagon Last Year & Just $39 To The EPA

  Arms industry executives make out like bandits. By Jake Johnson Common Dreams (4/17/18) As Americans rushed to pay their taxes on Tuesday before the official deadline, peace groups reminded the public of the uncomfortable fact that an “astronomical amount” of the money sent to the IRS each year goes not to funding education or a single-payer healthcare system the U.S. supposedly can’t afford, but straight into the bloated coffers of the Pentagon. “Congress appropriates more for U.S. military spending than the next eight countries combined, but year after year refuses to adequately invest in access to quality education and healthcare…

ALL ARTICLES, Climate Change, War State America April 12, 2018

Don’t Sweat The Apocalypse: A Tour of Fun, Amenities-Stuffed Bunkers For The 1% In The Middle of Kansas

“A ‘Wow experience’ — Winner of multiple industry awards.” By Daisy Luther The Organic Prepper It’s time for another episode of Doomsday Bunkers of the Rich and Famous. You can find the last article about a doomsday neighborhood in Germany right here. This time, we’ll travel a bit closer to home – right in the middle of…Kansas. In the small town of Glasco, Kansas, population 473, lies the ultimate in luxury bunker destinations: Survival Condos. Basically, they prep for you and you only have to learn some stuff. So, if you’re curious about how the other half intends to ride out the…

ALL ARTICLES, War State America March 29, 2018

Americans And Their Endless Love Of Perpetual War

  By Chris Kanthan Nation of Change (10/22/17) “With great power, comes great responsibility” – a quote from the movie, Superman. However, the superpower known as America can’t stop waging incessant, futile wars. With the tectonic changes in geopolitics, the callous American attitude can result in devastating global wars. Although one can justifiably blame the elites for this debacle, equally culpable are the American people who loudly cheer or silently bless the perpetual wars. Selling a war in the U.S. is like giving out candies on Halloween. At the very fundamental level, most Americans don’t even realize that they live in…

ALL ARTICLES, CIA, FEATURE, War State America March 19, 2018

All American Torture: Bipartisan Republican & Democrat Assault On Human Rights

  Democrats’ Abject Surrender On Torture Is Nearly Complete By Marcy Wheeler The HuffPost (3/15/18) In the same tweet he used to unceremoniously fire Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump announced the twin nominations of CIA Director Mike Pompeo as Tillerson’s replacement and CIA veteran Gina Haspel as the new head of the nation’s premier intelligence agency. Haspel, the CIA’s current deputy director, now stands to become the agency’s first female director, despite the fact that she previously supervised a CIA black site where detainees were tortured and was later implicated in the destruction of video…

ALL ARTICLES, Democrats, Gun Cult, War State America February 26, 2018

Democrats Call For Gun Control At Home, While They Join GOP Pushing Bloody Arms Deals Abroad

  By Adam Johnson In These Times (2/22/18) In the aftermath of the shooting in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 dead, many Democrats in Congress are once again calling for gun control, as they have for decades. But all too often, this concern for the unchecked spread of weapons ends at America’s shores. Last week, top Democratic senators, such as Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), expressed outrage over the lack of action by Congress to stop gun violence in America. However these same senators voted against an effort in 2017 to end the U.S. arming of the Saudi Arabian government—a flagrant human rights…

ALL ARTICLES, War State America February 15, 2018

Urging Peace Talks, Open Letter From Taliban Asks American People To Recognize Total Failure Of 16-Year War

  By Andrea Germanos Common Dreams (2/14/18) Two and half weeks after President Donald Trump rejected the idea of peace talks with Taliban, the militant group published an open letter to the American people urging them to pressure their government to end the occupation of Afghanistan, now in its 17th year, and engage in peace talks. The letter, published on the group’s website, denounces the Bush administration’s justification for launching the invasion, as well as the Trump administration, which “again ordered the perpetuation of the same illegitimate occupation and war against the Afghan people.” “No matter what title or justification is presented by…

ALL ARTICLES, War State America February 15, 2018

What A War With North Korea Would Look like

Crazy American warmonger. Vox (2/8/18) Five experts discuss what a war on the Korean peninsula would look like, how close we are to conflict, and the terrifying consequences. Read about the implications of war with North Korea on Vox.com: http://bit.ly/2nNK2ei With tensions between the US and North Korea escalating, we asked a group of experts including Senator Tammy Duckworth, about the likelihood and consequences of reigniting war on the Korean Peninsula. International sanctions have put pressure on the North Korean regime, but they have yet to capitulate to US demands to unilaterally disarm their nuclear armaments program. The Trump administration…

ALL ARTICLES, CIA, War State America February 12, 2018

‘Directorate S’ — Steve Coll On The CIA & America’s Failed Secret Wars In Afghanistan & Pakistan

    Democracy Now! (2/8/18) The U.S. is intensifying its air war in Afghanistan as U.S. Central Command has announced it is shifting military resources from Iraq and Syria back to Afghanistan, where the United States has been fighting for over 16 years in the longest war in U.S. history. U.S. Air Force Major General James Hecker recently said Afghanistan has “become CENTCOM’s main effort.” The news comes after a particularly bloody period in Afghanistan. Despite the spiraling violence, President Trump recently ruled out negotiations with the Taliban during a meeting of members of the United Nations Security Council. We…

ALL ARTICLES, War State America February 12, 2018

Drug War And A Phantom $500 Million: Pentagon Watchdog Calls Out Two Commands For Financial Malfeasance

  By Nick Turse TomDispatch (2/8/18) 2017 was a year of investigations for US Africa Command (AFRICOM). There was the investigation of the two-star commander of US Army Africa who allegedly sent racy texts to an enlisted man’s wife. There was the investigation into the alleged killing of a Special Forces soldier by Navy SEALs in Mali. There was the inquiry into reports of torture and killings on a remote base in Cameroon that was also used by American forces. There was the investigation of an alleged massacre of civilians by American special operators in Somalia. And don’t forget the inquiry into the killing of four…

ALL ARTICLES, War State America February 8, 2018

After Flushing Away $850 Billion To $1 Trillion Failed Afghanistan War Continues, 16 Years & Counting

  On Point/WBUR (2/1/18) America’s war in Afghanistan has been raging for 16 years, and a new spate of violence could deal a blow to peace prospects there. Is there any way to win or get out? Highlight From This Show: ‘We’ve lost the war of the story in Afghanistan, and we can’t recover.’ “America has been at war in Afghanistan for 16 years – and the situation on the ground is a chaotic, deadly mess. Just in this week, a string of brazen insurgent attacks killed more than a hundred people. The Afghan capital is a war zone. Western aid groups are…

ALL ARTICLES, CIA, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know, War State America February 1, 2018

“The Devil’s Chessboard” — Interview With Author David Talbot On The Evil History Of The CIA

  “Writing is fighting.” By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (2/1/18) Author David Talbot’s “The Devil’s Chessboard” (2015) provides an intriguing and necessary “counternarrative” to understanding American history since World War II. Talbot’s in-depth reporting exposes the bloodied cutting edge of the darkest wing of the Wall Street oligarchy. It is the nepotism and incestuous American secret corporate state that has led the nation into a parade of bloody and completely failed wars, coups and international murder and torture. From Central America to Vietnam, to Africa and the Middle East and Afghanistan the trail of bloody American failure and…

ALL ARTICLES, War State America January 29, 2018

WARNING: War Never Ends

“All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory . . . . Memory is haunted, not just by ghostly others but by the horrors we have done, seen, and condoned, or by the unspeakable things from which we have profited.” ― Viet Thanh Nguyen

ALL ARTICLES, War State America January 29, 2018

‘Doomsday Machine’ Author Daniel Ellsberg Says Americans Have Escaped Self-Annihilation By Luck

PBS News Hour (12/21/17) The military analyst turned whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers looks at the existential threat of America’s nuclear capacities in his new memoir, “The Doomsday Machine.” Very little has changed, says author Daniel Ellsberg, when it comes to what he calls the immoral and insane policies regarding nuclear weapons. William Brangham sits down with Ellsberg to discuss the looming danger. Link to 7-Minute Video (Commoner Call cartoon by Mark L. Taylor, 2017. Open source and free to use with link to www.thecommonercall.org )  

ALL ARTICLES, Trumpenstan, War State America January 25, 2018

Daniel Ellsberg: Under Trump, The Threat Of Catastrophic War With North Korea Is Real & Growing

  By Lucy Feldman Time (1/18/18) The country is currently not the closest we’ve ever come to nuclear war, says Daniel Ellsberg, but we are still likely to face annihilation. And recent false alarms in Hawaii and Japan, erroneously alerting residents to incoming missiles, do nothing to quell the anxiety. “This was a little rehearsal,” Ellsberg says, “but not the first one, of being right on the edge of destruction.” The history-making whistleblower softens no blows, sugarcoats nothing. The 86 year-old went to battle with the U.S. government when he released the Pentagon Papers in 1971, walking away a free man after a…

ALL ARTICLES, Resist!, War State America January 25, 2018

The Duty To Disobey A Nuclear Launch Order & Other Military War Crimes

“Donald Trump can launch nuclear war as easily as his Twitter account.” (Editor’s Note: It would be lovely to believe that the United States War Department was a vigorous defender of the rules of war, but as we are seeing with it’s logistical support of the Saudia genocide in Yemen, that too often is not the case. There are many good and law abiding members of the military but can they stand up to the criminal commander-in-chief they answer to. Let us hope — and pray — so. If you know someone serving in the military, forward this story to…

ALL ARTICLES, War State America January 15, 2018

Trump Boasts Of Selling “Call Of Duty” Video Game F-52 Jet Fighters To Norway

  By Alex Horton The Washington Post (1/11/18) President Trump caused a stir with his announcement that the United States had delivered F-52 fighter jets to Norway. Was it a secret advanced jet capable of beating its Russian counterparts? A ruse to fool intelligence analysts? Neither, it turns out. The “F-52” is a fictional jet only available to fly if you’re a gamer at the controls of “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.” Trump lauded the sale of the fictional planes alongside Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg at the White House on Wednesday, remarking on the very real and growing defense relationship with…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Gun Cult, History They Don't Want You To Know, Police State America, Rethuglicans, War State America, Your Brain On Politics December 28, 2017

A Bad Deal: Swapping Out Democracy For A State Of Perpetual American Fear

‘Scairdy Cat Nation By Ray Suarez NPR (12/17/17) Historian Elaine Tyler May says that ever since the Cold War, fear has crept into American life and created apathy toward democracy. During that time, the government and media gave Americans constant warning about nuclear war and communism — adults were encouraged to build shelters, children practiced hiding under their desks to prepare for a possible nuclear attack. “Basically, the message was the bomb could drop at any time,” she says. “Each person was responsible for their own safety. There’s really nothing the government or the leaders of the country can do…

ALL ARTICLES, War State America December 21, 2017

Bombs In Our Backyard: US Military Waging Active Chemical Warfare Against Americans

  By Abrahm Lustgarten ProPublica (12/18/17) IT WAS A SECRET wartime project, with a code name and an urgent mission: develop a more powerful bomb, one that could be mass produced in time to fend off the German forces ravaging Europe. It was 1940. British chemists toiled with a tripod-shaped bond of nitrogen and oxygen molecules linked by carbon and hydrogen they referred to as “research department explosive” — a substance one and a half times as powerful as TNT, but so delicate it had to be mixed with beeswax to be stable and pliable enough to fit into warheads. Even then,…

ALL ARTICLES, Documentaries, History They Don't Want You To Know, War State America December 21, 2017

Story Behind The Famous Pentagon Papers: The Story Of A Whistleblower & A Young Reporter

Secrets, Lies and Leaks. The Center For Investigative Reporting & PRX (5/21/17) In this episode of Reveal, we’re using the full hour to take a deep look at the leaking and publication of the Pentagon Papers. At the center of the episode are two guys who have a knack for being in the room when history gets made: Robert J. Rosenthal and Daniel Ellsberg. For Rosenthal, the Pentagon Papers came calling when he was at the beginning of his journalism career. When Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971, he was turning his back on a long career close…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, CIA, War State America December 11, 2017

Pandora’s Box: An Ex-CIA Officer Speaks Out About The Explosive & Illegal Italian Rendition Case

“It’s really important that this entire story be told because this case is emblematic of a broader, larger political and policy issues.” – CIA whistleblower Sabrina De Sousa VICE News (11/3/15) Sabrina De Sousa is one of nearly two-dozen CIA officers who was prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced by Italian courts in absentia in 2009 for the role she allegedly played in the rendition of a radical cleric named Abu Omar. It was the first and only criminal prosecution that has ever taken place related to the CIA’s rendition program, which involved more than 100 suspected terrorists and the assistance of…

ALL ARTICLES, War State America December 7, 2017

Daniel Ellsberg Reveals He Was A Nuclear War Planner, Warns Of Nuclear Winter & Global Starvation

  Democracy Now! (12/6/17) Could tension between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un bring us to the brink of nuclear war? As tensions ramp up, we discuss what nuclear war would look like with a former nuclear war planner and one of the world’s most famous whistleblowers—Daniel Ellsberg. In 1971, Ellsberg was a high-level defense analyst when he leaked a top-secret report on U.S. involvement in Vietnam to The New York Times and other publications, which came to be known as the Pentagon Papers. He played a key role in ending the Vietnam War. Few know Ellsberg was…

ALL ARTICLES, Trumpenstan, War State America November 30, 2017

If Trump Wants Nuclear War, Virtually No One Can Stop Him

By Dennis Jett The Conversation (11/21/17) The general in charge of America’s nuclear arsenal, John Hyten, recently said he would resist carrying out an illegal order from the president to use those weapons. His comments echoed the ones made a few days earlier by one of his predecessors, retired Air Force Gen. Robert Kehler. At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Nov. 14, Kehler asserted that nuclear operations officers would refuse to implement an unlawful order. While the generals are no doubt military men of integrity, my four decades of experience as a diplomat and scholar of American foreign policy suggest there is…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, War State America November 6, 2017

American Injustice: Innocent Man Restores Autobiographical Account Of Being Held & Tortured For 14 Years In Guantanamo

  On The Media (11/3/17) When Mohamedou Ould Slahi was released from Guantanamo Bay in 2016, after 14 years behind bars, he was finally able to read Guantanamo Diary, the bestselling book he had written while imprisoned. And for the first time, he saw the thousands of black bars the FBI had placed over much of his account of capture, torture, and interrogation. This year, Slahi and his original editor, writer and activist Larry Siems, set to work unredacting his work. Bob speaks with Siems about their efforts to finally release the full Guantanamo Diary.  Link to Story and 8-Minute Audio ***** Resilience in Guantanamo: More Honorable Than The Govt. That…

ALL ARTICLES, History They Don't Want You To Know, War State America November 2, 2017

50 Years Of Ongoing Atrocities & Impunity: The Hidden US War In Colombia You Never Hear Of

  Approximately 40 mass killers and torturers spirited out of Columbia by CIA and given refuge in United States. One was known as the “Drill” for his penchant for molesting girls as young as 9 years old. Empire Files (10/4/17) Colombia and Venezuela: two neighboring countries that receive extremely different treatment by the US Empire and the mass media. While Colombia is known for one of the worst human rights records in the world, it remains a top recipient of US military aid and enjoys uncritical press coverage in Western media. To explain the 50+ year history of US intervention…

ALL ARTICLES, War State America October 30, 2017

More US Caused War & Misery: War Dept. Is Conducting Secret Missions All Over Africa

Pentagon photo. By Nick Turse Vice News (10/24/17) U.S. troops are now conducting 3,500 exercises, programs, and engagements per year, an average of nearly 10 missions per day, on the African continent, according to the U.S. military’s top commander for Africa, General Thomas Waldhauser. The latest numbers, which the Pentagon confirmed to VICE News, represent a dramatic increase in U.S. military activity throughout Africa in the past decade, and the latest signal of America’s deepening and complicated ties on the continent. With the White House and the Pentagon facing questions about an Oct. 4 ambush in Niger in which four…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, War State America October 16, 2017

The Empire Comes Home: The Militarization Of American Cities Leads To Shredding Of Rights

  By Danny Sjursen TomDispach (10/12/17) “This… thing, [the War on Drugs] this ain’t police work… I mean, you call something a war and pretty soon everybody gonna be running around acting like warriors… running around on a damn crusade, storming corners, slapping on cuffs, racking up body counts… pretty soon, damn near everybody on every corner is your f**king enemy. And soon the neighborhood that you’re supposed to be policing, that’s just occupied territory.” — Major “Bunny” Colvin, season three of HBO’s The Wire I can remember both so well. 2006: my first raid in South Baghdad. 2014: watching on YouTube…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, War State America October 16, 2017

The Growing Domestic Terror Of Federal Anti-Terrorism Programs

  Guess Why: The Airport Bomber Arrested Last Week That You Never Heard About In The Mass Media By Shaun King The Intercept (10/11/12) It’s strange how some things really catch on and go viral and others don’t. These days, nothing quite makes a story blow up — no pun intended — like the president’s fixation with it. That’s why it’s so peculiar that what sure looks like an attempted terrorist attack was narrowly thwarted at an American airport this past Friday without so much as a peep from Donald Trump about it. No tweets. No nicknames for the alleged…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, War State America October 12, 2017

In Our Name: Inside The CIA’s Black Site Torture Chambers

  By Larry Siems The Guardian There were 20 cells inside the prison, each a stand-alone concrete box. In 16, prisoners were shackled to a metal ring in the wall. In four, designed for sleep deprivation, they stood chained by the wrists to an overhead bar. Those in the regular cells had a plastic bucket; those in sleep deprivation wore diapers. When diapers weren’t available, guards crafted substitutes with duct tape, or prisoners were chained naked in their cells. The cellblock was unheated, pitch black day and night, with music blaring around the clock. “The atmosphere was very good,” John…

ALL ARTICLES, War State America October 12, 2017

How We Learned Not To Care: Sixteen Years Of Autopilot Wars, But Who The Hell Is Counting?

  By Andrew Bacevich TomDispatch (10/5/17) Consider, if you will, these two indisputable facts.  First, the United States is today more or less permanently engaged in hostilities in not one faraway place, but at least seven.  Second, the vast majority of the American people could not care less. Nor can it be said that we don’t care because we don’t know.  True, government authorities withhold certain aspects of ongoing military operations or release only details that they find convenient.  Yet information describing what U.S. forces are doing (and where) is readily available, even if buried in recent months by barrages of…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, War State America October 12, 2017

The Man Who Knew Too Much: Heroic Whistleblower Thomas Drake Has Some Blunt News For Americans

“I shiver with the conversations I have had with people from the 1930’s. They talk about the siren call of authority and order … everything seemed normal…” Real News Network (8/7/15) On Reality Asserts Itself, Mr. Drake says that in the name of national security we are eating out the very heart of democracy; what will be left will be a garrison state. Thomas Andrews Drake (born 1957) is a former senior official of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), decorated United States Air Force and United States Navy veteran, computer software expert, linguist, management and leadership specialist, and whistleblower. In…

ALL ARTICLES, M. Taylor Columns, War State America October 9, 2017

There Are Many Kinds Of American Violence – Gun Violence Is But A Symptom

    By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (10/8/17) A week out from the Las Vegas massacre and the post mass shooting ritual is well underway. Flags are once again flapping limply at half-mast. Sidewalk memorials have sprung up with the requisite teddy bears, heart-shaped balloons, flickering candles and heartfelt messages on cards and posters. Bouquets of flowers pile up on sidewalks and decorated white crosses dot the cityscape. Politicians, who could actually do something to trim and manage the domestic arsenal a bit, mouth their cynically empty and oh-so-tiring “thoughts and prayers” rap and will in the next week…