Author: Adam Dick

It may not be surprising that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) snooped on renowned singer-songwriter Pete Seeger for decades and even that the bureau’s file on Seeger runs to nearly 1,800 pages. After all, Seeger was a high-profile opponent of the Vietnam War, and war is the health of the state. But, Seeger was targeted by the FBI before his singing and songwriting gained widespread attention. About twenty-five years before Seeger sang “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” on the Smothers Brothers national television show in 1968, Seeger drew the attention of the FBI by writing a letter to the California chapter of the American Legion.

The year was 1942, and the 23-year-old Seeger, who had been drafted into the United States Army, wrote a short letter to the American Legion chapter expressing his opposition to the chapter’s vote supporting action, as Seeger put it, to “1) deport all Japanese after the war, citizen or not, 2) Bar all Japanese descendants from citizenship!!” Seeger characterized the vote as expressing “narrow jingoism” and noted that he “felt sick at heart to read of this matter.”

Continue reading “The FBI’s 1,800-Page Obsession With Peace Activist Pete Seeger”

Continuing his insightful analysis offered in October RT and November Real News Network interviews, Lawrence Wilkerson, a former United States Army colonel and chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, expands this month on his exploration of the US national security state. In an in-depth interview this week with host Abby Martin at teleSUR, Wilkerson explains how “interminable war” is a goal of the national security state.

Many people suppose that US foreign policy is purposed to protect the American people from danger or to achieve altruistic aspirations overseas such as the spread of democracy or the protection of human rights. Consider, for example, the Afghanistan War that was justified as a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on America and also promoted as having humanitarian purposes. In August of 2002, President George W. Bush claimed success in achieving some of these humanitarian purposes as follows:

In Afghanistan, the Taliban used violence and fear to deny Afghan women access to education, health care, mobility, and the right to vote. Our coalition has liberated Afghanistan and restored fundamental human rights and freedoms to Afghan women, and all the people of Afghanistan. Young girls in Afghanistan are able to attend schools for the first time.

Continue reading “US Foreign Policy of Interminable War to Support the National Security State”

Interviewed Tuesday on Fox Business, three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul rejected the ongoing United States intervention in Syria, stating emphatically that he sees “no reason in the world for us to be involved in Syria.”

Referring to the US government’s oft-repeated directive that Syria President Bashar al-Assad “must go” — be removed from power in the Middle East nation — Paul explains in the interview that it looks like that effort will fail while creating “a lot bigger chance that this is going to be a conflict between Russia and the United States.”

Watch Paul’s complete interview here:

Reprinted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Ron Paul revealed Thursday that he is preparing for publication a new book he has written about war. Paul made the revelation at the conclusion of a wide-ranging foreign policy interview on the Scott Horton Show.

The former United States House of Representative member and presidential candidate discloses in the interview that his new book concerns the issue of war and is “written from a personal viewpoint.” Paul says the book addresses his experience as a child during World War II and the question “How did I become so antiwar?”

The new book, the name of which Paul did not disclose in the interview, will be Paul’s first book-length examination of the war issue — an issue on which Paul has focused through decades of political and educational activities. Paul has continued this focus after retiring from the House of Representatives. In 2013 Paul founded the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, where he serves as chairman.

Paul is the author of several books including best-sellers The Revolution: A Manifesto, End the Fed, and Liberty Defined. Paul’s 2007 book A Foreign Policy of Freedom is a collection of his foreign policy speeches and writings from the previous 30 years.

Paul did not provide an expected publication date in the interview.

Listen to the complete interview here.

Reposted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.