After six years of dismal economic activity, two months of positive numbers on jobs and GDP have the political class and their media allies declaring that recovery has arrived. What would it take for ordinary Americans to feel the love?
Happy Gitmo Year
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s you celebrate the New Year and anticipate the glorious unknowns of 2015, take time to think about the men rotting away at American concentration camps, none of them charged in court, many of them innocent, for 13 years.
Progress Marches On
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Tokenism passes for progress in the American electoral political system. After six years of Barack Obama, you’d think progressives would be over the excitement of electing the first African-American president – given that he was anything but progressive. But here they go again, getting thrilled about the possibility of the first woman president – even though she is more conservative than Obama.
Normalization
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The United States says it requires human rights improvements in Cuba for normalization of diplomatic relations to occur. But much of the torture of political dissidents that happens in Cuba happens at Guantanamo.
Someday, Whites Will Get It Too.
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When will whites understand the pain and rage of African-Americans who watch fellow blacks gunned down by cops who don’t even get indicted? When it starts happening to them too. Which it will.
Best Bush
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Bushophiles say that Florida Governor Jeb Bush, currently considering running for president in 2016, is the “Best Bush.” Considering the previous two, that’s not saying much.
The Adams Family
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Now that Jeb Bush is considering a run to become the third President Bush in 30 years, why not resurrect the 19th century political John and John Quincy Adams dynasty?
Santa in Fatigues
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President Obama told troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq that they are like “Santa in fatigues.” Coming one week after the Senate torture report, and in the middle of a ferocious drone war that kills scores more civilians than the targets of assassination, it’s doubtful that they are viewed as benignly overseas.
The Cost of War
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Among the revelations in the Senate torture report are that CIA agents used “rectal feeding” and “rectal hydration” to torture and “control” Muslim detainees, and that some agents were traumatized by the experience. Here they are, the heroes of the war on terror!
This is What Moral Corruption Looks Like
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Though laudable for finally acknowledging that the United States tortures and kidnaps people, the Senate torture report’s principal arguments against torture rely not on the basis of morality or law, but its supposed ineffectiveness. This what moral corruption looks like.
