WELCOME TO THE ABATTOIR.

By Iris Vander Pluym on 06.08.14

[CONTENT NOTE: extreme hostility to consent, bodily autonomy and agency.]

Welcome to the Abattoir! Here, we perform extractions of lifesaving organs–whether people consent to them or not!

Don’t worry: we don’t harvest organs from just anyone. All of our involuntary donors must meet one very specific criteria: they would eagerly and happily force other people to donate lifesaving organs without their consent. Since they feel so very strongly about this particular principle, it is only right and fair that they live by it!

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No-Account Accountability, Bald-Faced Lies, and the High Cost of Trusting Government Leaders: Part I

By Mickey Walker-June 8, 2014

Sometimes an old buddy of mine and I digress and descend to debate the inequities in the human race.  You know, trying to make sense out of paradox.  Neither of us has ever denied that great Orwellian proclamation:  “Some animals are more equal than others.”  Yet even though the speaker was a pig (as is the case with most dictators and self-declared Deciders) the truth of the matter is that it is hard to argue the point.  If you are the ruler in charge (or even his brother-in-law sometimes), the Decider, the one...

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Marching On Moscow

By Conn Hallinan - 05.27.14

British Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery had three laws of war:

One, never march on Moscow;
Two, never get in a land war in Asia;
Three, never march on Moscow.

So why are the U.S., the European Union (EU), and NATO on the road to the Russian capital? And exactly what are they hoping to accomplish?

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DEMOGRAPHICS IS ONLY A DREAM

By Loren Adams, 6.08.14

The Democratic Party bases its vision of the future on demographics while Republicans mount a proactive, preemptive strike by instituting voter suppression (voter ID, eliminating days/hours for voting, “consolidating” polling places to tip the scales in favor of their core constituents, the wealthy). It’s the same old story: Cheaters win if guardians fail.

Meanwhile, Mid-term 2014 fast approaches. Is the Democratic leadership ready to lose big-time like 2010? ...

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THE MANY FACES OF FASCISM – THEN AND NOW

By Michael Faulkner - 06.08.14

The rise in Europe of parties of the xenophobic right, with which this column was concerned last month, has prompted some discussion in sections of the media about the use of the term “Fascism” to describe some of them. The readers’ editor of The Guardian writes, in a piece on how to describe the far right in modern Europe, that “fascist is a word that should be used with pin-point accuracy if the voters throughout Europe are to retain focus in the gloop of far-right rhetoric.” This is sensible...

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An Education-Based Alternative to Reparations for Slavery

By Donald B. Ardell - 06.04.14

Introduction

In a first season episode of the hit TV series “The West Wing,” there was an exchange between a black nominee for appointment to the post of assistant attorney general (played by Carl Lumbly) and a top staff aide to the president. The appointee explained to the aide why he favors this controversial view, noting his agreement with those who claim the government owes black people a trillion dollars in slavery reparations.

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