Atlantic Free Press - Hard Truths for Hard Times

Media Lens - Hired Hands Part I

editor@atlanticfreepress.com (Chris Cook) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:51:00 PDT

by Media Lens

Iran, Obama, Gaza, And MPs' Expenses

In a recent alert, we described how the modern corporation is an inherently predatory, even psychopathic, entity. We noted that business managers are legally obliged to subordinate human and environmental welfare to profit. (See here).

Inevitably, then, corporations do not restrict themselves merely to the arena of economics. Rather, as John Dewey observed, “politics is the shadow cast on society by big business”. Over decades, corporations have worked together to ensure that the choices offered by ‘representative democracy’ all represent their greed for maximised profits.

This is a sensitive task. We do not live in a totalitarian society - the public potentially has enormous power to interfere. The goal, then, is to persuade the public that corporate-sponsored political choice is meaningful, that it makes a difference. The task of politicians at all points of the supposed ’spectrum’ is to appear passionately principled while participating in what is essentially a charade. Thus, in a moving piece, Daily Telegraph journalist Con Coughlin lamented of Iran’s recent elections:

“... the democratic hopes of all those brave Iranians who have taken to the streets will ultimately be in vain. Even if Mr Khatami were to sacrifice Mr Ahmadinejad in the interests of preserving the regime, the president would simply be replaced by another Iranian leader whose first priority would be to protect the ideological foundations of Khomeini's Islamic revolution.” (Con Coughlin, ‘Iran's brave revolutionaries can change nothing but the faces,’ Daily Telegraph, June 17, 2009)

A Guardian leader shared the Telegraph‘s pain:

“Iranians do not want another revolution. They wanted the Islamic republic to respond and evolve. But there is a limit to the number of
Read more...

Bioweapons, Dangerous Vaccines, and Threats of a Global Pandemic

editor@atlanticfreepress.com (Chris Cook) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:44:00 PDT

by Stephen Lendman

Although international law prohibits the use of chemical and bacteriological weapons, America has had an active biological warfare program since at least the 1940s. In 1941, it began secret developmental efforts using controversial testing methods. During WW II, mustard gas was tested on about 4000 servicemen. Biological weapons research was also conducted. Human subjects were used as guinea pigs in various other experiments, and numerous illegal practices continued to the present, including secretly releasing toxic biological agents in US cities to test the effects of germ warfare.

The Hague Convention of 1907 banned chemical weapons usage, and the 1928 Geneval Protocol prohibited gas and bacteriological warfare. The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC)

"Prohibit(ed) the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and Their Destruction." The 1989 Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act "implement(ed the) Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and Their Destruction...."

In 2001, the Bush administration rejected the 1972 BWC, took advantage of a loophole allowing "prophylactic, protective or other peaceful uses," continued a secret Clinton administration bioweapons initiative, and asserted its right to spend multi-billions illegally to develop, test and stockpile "first-strike" chemical and biological weapons that potentially can kill millions.

In his August 14, 2008 article titled, "The Pentagon's alarming project: Avian Flu Biowar Vaccine," F. William Engdahl cited:

"alarming evidence accumulated by serious scientific sources that the US Government is about to or already has 'weaponized' Avian Flu. If reports are accurate, this could unleash a new pandemic on the planet that could be more devastating than the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic which killed an estimated 30 million people worldwide before it eventually died out. Pentagon and NIH experiments with
Read more...

Kill the Indian. Save the Man

editor@atlanticfreepress.com (Chris Cook) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:39:00 PDT

by Dahr Jamail

Manifest Destiny

In 1845, an American columnist, John O’Sullivan, writing about the proposed annexation of Texas, claimed that it was America’s “manifest destiny to overspread the continent.” Later in the same year, referring to the ongoing dispute with Great Britain over Oregon, he wrote that the United States had the right to claim “the whole of Oregon.”

And that claim is by the right of our Manifest Destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent that Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.

The westward expansion did not originate with O’Sullivan’s theory. In 1803, the United States acquired 23 percent of its existing territory through the Louisiana Purchase. Seeing land as a source of political power, the government began to actively pursue aggressive expansion of its territories through the 19th century. The idea of Manifest Destiny was one component of the process which captured the popular imagination. This was further fueled by the discovery of gold and other minerals in the West attracting Easterners acting on their conviction in their right and duty to expand.

The Mexican-American conflict generated massive casualties, and when it was over, the US controlled all of New Mexico and California, and more of the territory of Texas. When Texas was annexed in 1846 as the 26th state, Col. Ethan Allen Hitchcock wrote, “We have not one particle of right to be here.”

Acclaimed historian Howard Zinn told Truthout, “The Mexican War, presented as something we were doing because Mexicans had fired on our soldiers … no, we were going to Mexico

Atlantic Free Press - Hard Truths for Hard Times

Media Lens - Hired Hands Part I

Bioweapons, Dangerous Vaccines, and Threats of a Global Pandemic

Kill the Indian. Save the Man

Still a Rogue Nation: Time to change the course of U.S. ...

U.S. Troops (Sort Of...) Pull Out of Iraqi Cities Iraq now (sort of) sovereign (Sort of) ...

Health Care Industry Says "No Government Plan" For All

The Perfidious Comparison: Why Barack Obama is not another Tony Blair

North Korea: A Question of Sovereignty?

U.S. Occupation of Iraq Continues Unabated

The Revolution will not be medicalized: - The real reason we don't have single payer, universal ...

You Betcha Sarah Palin Has a Higher Calling

How Cynthia McKinney Honoured America - On The 4TH Of July From an Israeli Jail

Why Jerusalem? - Israel’s Hidden Agenda

Pediatrician Sees Three-Year-Old on Cell Phone

Walking Under the Influence?

President Obama, My Response To Your Fourth of July Letter

On Krauthammer, Obama and even Bush - Has Obama's Shelf-Life Expired?

A Matter of Trust - Mexico's July 5 Legislative Elections - A Three Part Series Part 2

Obama Has No Legal Authority to Escalate Afghan War and is Creating “Humanitarian ...

"Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent" - Book ...

Escalating Afghan War Will Destroy Obama

Cynthia McKinney in Israeli Prison!

Hamas’ Political Impasse: Between Principal and Necessity

Hondurans Call Out for Help from the International Community

No one is aware the propaganda machine is on

Questioning The Ethical Legitimacy of Drone Attacks in Pakistan And Afghanistan.

Tomgram: Chalmers Johnson, Baseless Expenditures

The Coup in Iran must not stand

The Anti-Empire Report - Much ado about nothing?

Beyond Independence: We are most free when we are most bound to others

Ethnic Cleansing as a State Policy

United Opposition Hezbollah After the Elections

Israel's Man of Conscience - Ezra Nawi - to be Imprisoned

Israel is a Racist, Colonizing Nation - The Unmentionable said by Auschwitz Survivor Hajo Meyer

A Matter of Trust - Mexico's July 5 Legislative Elections - A Three Part Series Part 1

Socialism and Obama

NFR: Traitors...

TH*NK*NG (CLIMATE)

Color Revolutions, Old and New

No US Bases in Vicenza, Italy Please!

Tribal Marxism for Dummies

Israeli doctors colluding in torture

Veterans' Suicide: A Painful National And Local Community Issue

Tomgram: Dilip Hiro, The Weeks of Living Dangerously

Liar Liar, Pants on Fire: I Told Them Everything but the Truth

Germany, 1939; America, 2009: And Perverted Science

Waking up

The End of the Beginning?

CIA Crucified Captive in Abu Ghraib Prison

Naomi Klein calls for boycott of Israel

THNKNG (CLIMATE)