Daily Briefing—20th April 2010

News and views from around the web posted to the Wonderland Wire

Zubaydah’s Torture, Detention Subject of Senate Intelligence Inquiry

Jason Leopold, deputy managing editor at Truthout, reports on the U.S. investigation of the kidnapped, rendition and extensive torture of Abu Zubaydeh. He was regarded as a “high-value detainee” of the Bush Administration—a claim which has since been recanted by the government, after submitting him to secret prisons around the world and numerous application of torture as a ‘guinea pig in an experiment’, a former N.S.C. official said.

Daily Briefing—19th April 2010

News and views from around the web posted to the Wonderland Wire

Government, Violence, and Bill Clinton

Radley Balko, senior editor of Reason magazine, on Bill Clinton distracting people from ‘the day we remember and lament the Clinton’s administration’s monumental fuck-up, and possibly reflect on massive power of government to simply eliminate people it deems weird or fringe or threatening to take to the pages of the New York Times to celebrate government, and to denounce and marginalize the people who dare to criticize it’.

Waco and the New Brown Scare

Anthony Gregory on the real meanings of Waco and Oklahoma City on their anniversaries and the partisan fearmongering to create loyalty and submission to the ruling class because, of course, no matter who you vote for, the government wins and humanity loses.

Chomsky’s Lectern: ‘The Role of the Radical Intellectual—Some Personal Reflections’ (Video)

Professor Noam Chomsky reflects on:

* His early personal exposure to anarchism and activism through people we wouldn’t today call ‘intellectuals’, but the insight of ‘everyday people’;
* The crushing of liberation ventures by “fascism, Stalinism and liberal democracies” and the “miraculous sympathy and humanity” of the most brutally oppressed from Vietnam to Palestine to Southern Colombia;
* His introduction to the “intellectual class” of “liberal democrat” gatekeepers during his graduate studies and its manipulation of the word “enemy” for “conquerors”, ‘radical rewrite’ of John F. Kennedy’s “legacy” to communicate him as a “dove” after the Tet Offensive, ‘liberal imperialists’ and their ‘unprincipled’ objection to the U.S. invasion of Iraq as a “strategic blunder” showing its ‘deeply rooted imperial mentality’;
* The validity of the “Tea Party Movement”, the “big business community” and their love for Obama, the “owners of society” and how policy is engineered for “their interests”;
* The “global shift in power” from the “workforce to multinational capital” making China a giant “assembly plant”, the financial community’s ‘rational externality’ of “systemic risk” for “institutional reasons” provided by the “Nanny State”, the “doom loop” of government bailouts that provide incentive for those in power to create “financial crises”;
* The “moving” and “articulate”, though “ridiculed”, “manifesto” of terrorist Joe Stack before his suicide bombing

The Story of Your Enslavement (Video)

We can only be kept in the cages we do not see. A brief history of human enslavement—up to and including your own. From Freedomain Radio, the largest and most popular philosophy conversation in the world

‘Threat’ of ‘Non-Violent Resistance’ Means ‘Deporting Gandhi From Palestine’ (Video)

The amendment to the Israel military Order #1650 is the government’s fear is of “non-violent resistance”, which—according to journalist Jamal Dajani—”could be” the “biggest threat to Israel’s ability to justify its continued military aggression and occupation of Palestinian lands”

‘Transgenerational Trauma’ Inflicted on Palestinian Children Kidnapped by Israel (Video)

An estimated 9,000 Palestinians kidnapped to Israeli jails every year. Up to 700 minors were among those detained last year. More than 270 Palestinian children are currently held captive in Israeli prisons. Those who have been released share claims of having been tortured during captivity. More than 20% of patients at Palestine’s only torture victim center are indeed children as post-traumatic stress disorder soars among the demographic.

Daily Briefing—16th April 2010

News and views from around the web posted to the Wonderland Wire

Was Joe Stack a Terrorist? (Video)

Jack Hunter, a.k.a. “The Southern Avenger”, doesn’t think to nonsensically disagree he was. But adds that understanding terrorism isn’t condoning it, but imperative to ending it—no matter what dirt on what hemisphere on which the terrorist was born.

Israel Accusation About to Lead to Preemptive Strike on Syria?

Mere posturing or testing the propaganda waters for consent to strike?

Iraq Vet Denouncing War Crimes: ‘We Fired on Buses Full of Civilians’

Leo Paz reports from an anti-war rally in Los Angeles supported by Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Optimal Education Requires ‘Opening the Source’

Miles Berry’s ‘provocation paper’ for the recent Open Source Schools think tank on open source education. (h/t: Michael Bauwens)

Daily Briefing—15th April 2010

News and views from around the web posted to the Wonderland Wire