Category: Human Rights

The Price for Criticizing Israel

Part of the neocon grip on Official Washington comes from the harsh career damage inflicted on people who criticize Israel’s abuse of the Palestinians, with such critics deemed anti-Semitic and thus often denied work or a place to express their…

The Strange Ferguson Grand Jury

There is an old saying that prosecutors can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich and statistics bear that out. But the police slaying of a young African-American man in Missouri received startlingly different treatment with the grand jury…

Der Spiegel Tones Down Anti-Putin Hysteria

Exclusive: The mainstream U.S. news media continues to spew out a steady flow of anti-Russian propaganda over the Ukraine crisis, but the prominent German newsmagazine Der Spiegel has begun to temper its belligerent tone, finally reflecting the more nuanced reality,…

The Politics of Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day is rooted in a myth of friendly cooperation between Native Americans and European settlers, celebrated a year after the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts and nearly starved. But the reality was more of one-sided generosity and two-faced betrayal, as William…

Filling the Blanks in Snowden’s ‘Citizenfour’

Exclusive: To grasp the full story of Citizenfour, the documentary on Edward Snowden’s decision to expose NSA spying, you must go back four decades to see how the reality slowly dawned on Americans that their privacy and freedoms were at risk, writes…

Why JFK Still Matters

Since John F. Kennedy’s death, there’s been little presidential rhetoric that was not either bombastic and self-serving Reagan’s “tear down this wall” or cringingly dishonest Nixon’s “I am not a crook” or Clinton’s “I did not have sexual relations with…

CIA’s Torturous Maneuvers on Torture

Exclusive: The CIA is fighting congressional demands to release a report on its covert program for torturing “war on terror” suspects, even as the spy agency contemplates a reorganization that could give the covert-action side more ways to bend the truth,…

Why US Balks at Accord on Children’s Rights

With its powerful political-media apparatus, America’s right wing can create hysteria over pretty much anything, even something as innocuous as a U.N. agreement on the rights of children, leaving the U.S. as one of only three countries not to ratify…

Delusional US ‘Group Think’ on Syria, Ukraine

Exclusive: Official Washington’s “group think” on Syria and Ukraine is so delusional that it is putting the whole world in danger, but as with the Iraq War the mainstream U.S. news media is part of the problem, not part of any…