Propaganda often involves taking the words of an adversary out of context and making them seem far worse or more dangerous than they are. When the news media joins in the distortion, the public can easily be stampeded into confrontation…
Category: Obama Administration
The Value of Bradley Manning
Pvt. Bradley Manning faces possible life imprisonment for opening up windows into the unsavory actions of the U.S. government and many allies around the world. A valuable new book examines what turned the 24-year-old into one of history’s great whistleblowers,…
World Military Spending Still Rising
Despite economic recession and government austerity, the world’s military spending continued to grow last year, exceeding $1.7 trillion, with the United States accounting for more than two-fifths of that money, as Lawrence S. Wittner reports.
Mitt Romney: Professional Liar
Exclusive: Last week, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney claimed his dad had been attacked by President Obama, who “likes to attack fellow Americans.” Yet, Romney’s verbal assault on Obama was itself a multi-layered fabrication that revealed Romney consummate skill as…
‘Occupy’ Eyes May Day ‘Strike’
The Occupy movement vows to reemerge this spring with a focus on May Day, the traditional day of workers’ protests. But Occupy’s call for a general strike on May 1 may be undercut by the movement’s unwillingness to lay out…
Poland Probes CIA ‘Black Site’ Prison
Even as the Obama administration continues to ignore the worst crimes of George W. Bush’s presidency including torture and aggressive war authorities in Poland are investigating its alleged hosting of a CIA “black site” prison. An inquiry that may be the best hope…
A Voice for Domestic Workers
For 15 years, Ai-jen Poo has been fighting for the rights of domestic workers in the United States, an organizing task that many labor experts thought impossible given the sketchy information about who these housekeepers and caregivers are and where…
Will Big Bird Reject Attack Ads?
A federal appeals court has extended the Citizens United “logic” into the realm of public television, opening the door to cluttering up those stations with campaign attack ads like the rest of TV, an ominous development to Bill Moyers and…
Measuring Obama’s Record
It seems Campaign 2012 will turn more on how Americans view President Obama and what he has done than how they view his likely Republican challenger Mitt Romney, who comes across as a conservative cipher. So, Beverly Bandler says Americans…
Iran’s Distrusted Fatwa Against Nukes
In a pre-Super Bowl interview, President Obama urged Iranian leaders to renounce nuclear weapons, which Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei did, labeling them a “grave sin.” But Khamenei’s fatwa against nukes was not new, just widely ignored by Official Washington, as Gareth…