In recent weeks, prisoners in California’s over-crowded prison system have been on hunger strikes demanding more humane treatment. This crisis has prompted Jesuit-schooled, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern to write an open letter an appeal for justice to California Gov.…
Author: Consortiumnews.com
Brian Willson’s Blood on the Tracks
In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan made many Americans feel good again, after Vietnam in the 1960s and the Oil Shocks in the 1970s. However, when part of Reagan’s “Morning in America” involved death-squad slaughters in Central America, some Americans, like Vietnam veteran…
Fixing the American Narrative
We all are familiar with the age-old warnings about what happens if we don’t know the past, or if we base assumptions on foundations made of sand, or if we delude ourselves into thinking that safeguards exist when they have…
Tea Party’s Misguided Love of the Rich
The Tea Party crowd idolizes the America’s Founders along with today’s corporate titans, whose taxes must be kept low so they can be the great “job creators.” But the contrast is striking, since the Founders risked everything for the country while…
The Two Sides of South Africa
In the Western news media, South Africa is often treated as an African success story, with attention focused on its wealthy businessmen, its elegant neighborhoods and its glimmering malls. But the glitz obscures another reality, one of continuing inequality, poverty and injustice,…
Anti-Torture Strike in California Prisons
Many Americans were shocked by how the Bush administration treated “war on terror” detainees and others were startled when the Obama administration abused suspected WikiLeaks leaker Bradley Manning in a military brig. But the larger scandal may be how common…
American Right and Limits of Logic
American politics is increasingly defined by a struggle that pits religious fundamentalism and anti-government true-belief against rationality and liberalism, with the former combination gaining gradual dominance over the latter. But poet Phil Rockstroh says both sides fail to grasp the coming collapse of…
Fixing a Glitch on Comments
A number of readers had trouble making comments at the end of Consortiumnews.com stories, a glitch that came from the format we were using. We have switched to a different format that, we hope, should make commenting simpler. Our apologies for…
The Why Behind the Gaza Mission
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern has submitted these two YouTube videos to help explain why he considered challenging the Israeli blockade of Gaza as important enough to become a passenger on the U.S. boat named The Audacity of Hope.
The Rise of Pro-Democracy Journalism
The old idea of journalism arming the people with facts they need for democracy to work has been betrayed by major U.S. news outlets, like the New York Times and Washington Post, which have instead aligned themselves with national power under…