A startling and important new study that surely shows a Jewish community evolving into a far more mature entity. Less Zionist. More open. More multicultural. Less keen on maintaining a ghetto. More, please. The New York Times reports: The first major survey of American Jews in more than 10 years finds a significant rise in…
Showing all posts tagged United States
US selling drone warfare to impoverished African nations
The future of surveillance and warfare, and US-based arms manufacturers are very happy about it. The Wall Street Journal reports: Taking a cue from the U.S., more African governments are spying from the skies. From Kenya to Nigeria, African air forces are acquiring surveillance drones—often made in the U.S.—to track militants, poachers and drug traffickers…
Seymour Hersh; journalism isn't propaganda
Far too many reporters see themselves as extensions of power instead of checks on it. One of the finest journalists in the world, Seymour Hersh, unloads on this trend. I couldn’t have put it better myself (via Guardian): Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news…
Jeremy Scahill gives background to Somalia's Al-Shabab
The horrific attack on the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi continues to generate headlines around the world. But what’s the background to the attacks, who are Somalia’s Al-Shabab terror group and what’s been the position of US and Kenyan intervention in the region? Jeremy Scahill, author of the recent book Dirty Wars, tells Democracy Now!…
Why #Hashtag love is the worst way to run your online life
Sheer genius: Jimmy Fallon & Justin Timberlake show you what a Twitter conversation sounds like in real life.
Guardian editor on how Orwell would be turning in his grave over NSA spying
A sad state of affairs that a serious media (which most of the corporate press is not, too keen to wine and dine with the powerful) would vehemently oppose (via the Guardian): The potential of the… surveillance… state goes way beyond anything in George Orwell‘s 1984,… Alan Rusbridger,… the Guardian‘s editor-in-chief, told an audience in New York on Monday.…
How much $ are US prison profiteers making?
Image compliments of Top Criminal Justice Degrees More here from Top Criminal Justice Degrees.
ABC Radio Triple J's Sunday Night Safran interview on Profits of Doom
This was enjoyable. On Sunday an extended interview with John Safran and Father Bob, hosts of Triple J’s Sunday Night Safran, was aired and we discussed detention centres, Serco, Palestine, Haiti, Afghanistan, private war, BDS, democracy and human rights:
US soldiers weep in Afghanistan at loss of KFC
With the war thoroughly lost years ago, American troops had to entertain themselves in the time-honoured, imperial tradition of completely ignoring local customs. Good story by McClatchy: There is nothing quite like coming off a patrol, your body-armor-shaped sweat stains still drying and ears ringing from grenades, only to have the hostess at T.G.I. Friday’s…
Congratulations America; you just love imprisoning your citizens by the millions
That’s quite a record (via Alternet): The United States imprisons almost three times as many Black people than were jailed in South Africa during Apartheid,… Rep. Spencer Bachus said Thursday… [3]… during a subcommittee oversight hearing on the Federal Bureau of Prisons. While games of comparison are rarely productive, the American prison industrial complex has seen cries of…