Year: 2014

An Imperial Death Grip on Democracy

Official Washington controlled by a lethal mix of politics, ideology, media and money has an imperial death grip on what’s left of the American democratic republic, a hold so suffocating that it’s hard to envision any move to escape. But some…

Guardrail Design Raises Concerns

From the Archive: The New York Times just published a front-page article about state officials worried that guardrail end units installed on highways across America could kill and maim people. But Consortiumnews readers knew this problem in February 2013 based on a groundbreaking story by…

Can MSM Handle the Contra-Cocaine Truth?

Exclusive: “Kill the Messenger” tells the tragic tale of journalist Gary Webb who revived the Contra-cocaine scandal in the 1990s and saw his life destroyed by the mainstream media. The question now is: Will the MSM continue its cover-up of this sordid…

Unshackling US-Iran Policy from Distrust

The neocons still hope that by torpedoing a deal restricting Iran’s nuclear program that they can open a route to “bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” one of Israel’s longstanding priorities. But such a course could make a bad situation in the…

Do You Appreciate Ray McGovern?

From Editor Robert Parry: For the past decade, Consortiumnews.com has been home to the important writings of ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern, providing him editing support and supporting his extraordinary efforts to inform the world’s public about misuses of U.S. intelligence. But…

A Murder Mystery at Guantanamo Bay

Exclusive: America’s plunge into the “dark side” last decade created a hidden history of shocking brutality, including torture and homicides, that the U.S. government would prefer to keep secret, even though many of the perpetrators are out of office, writes…

The Lost Hope of Democracy

Western nations are fond of using “democracy promotion” as a justification for interfering in other countries, including overthrowing elected leaders (as in Ukraine). But Western democracies themselves often fall short of democratic values, as John Chuckman explains.

The Sordid Contra-Cocaine Saga

Special Report: If you ever wondered how the mainstream U.S. media changed from the hard-nosed Watergate press of the 1970s into the brown-nose MSM that swallowed the Iraq War lies, a key middle point was the Contra-cocaine scandal of the 1980s/1990s, the subject of a…

Forgetting Lessons of Terrorism

Terror tactics have always been partly theater designed to elicit public reaction, whether to draw attention to a grievance or to draw the U.S. military into a conflict. Yet, American pols and pundits seem to have forgotten this reality and…

Ducking War Responsibilities

Conservatives insist that they revere the U.S. Constitution, but congressional Republicans as well as Democrats hastily fled Washington to hit the campaign trail rather than vote up or down on authorizing new wars in Syria and Iraq, an abdication of…