“Stop Watching Us”: Who Get Pardoned?

The maligned Warren Harding commuted Eugene V. Debs’ prison sentence and then invited the socialist anti-war felon to join him for breakfast in the White House. Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon, who otherwise might have landed in Leavenworth. George H.W. Bush pardoned Elliott Abrams after Iran-Contra. Bill Clinton, neither moralist nor saint, pardoned the fugitive crook Marc Rich. Barack Obama, who forgave all our chicken hawks, neocons, and torture lovers who lied us into Iraq, has offered not one word of understanding about the hard choices taken by Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning except to say he didn’t “think Mr. Snowden was a patriot” and that Manning “broke the law.” Continue reading ““Stop Watching Us”: Who Get Pardoned?”

The Only Aerial Bombing of an American City During the Cold War

…was carried out by cops, on this day, 20 years ago. Will Grigg tells the story.


Philadelphia was the only U.S. city to be bombed from the air during the Cold War, and the perpetrator of that attack was not the Soviet Union, the Weather Underground, or some other offshoot of the Soviet-inspired “Tricontinental Movement.” The perpetrators of this act of mass terrorism was the Philadelphia PD – with the indispensable help of the FBI and the US military.”


“Eleven people were killed as a result of the bombing. Six of them – including five children — were cut down by gunfire as they fled the burning building.”


“As we retired that evening, the local television news carried accounts of the firebombing – which commanded less attention than another debacle that took place on the same day, the introduction of the “New Coke” in an event at Lafayette Park.

The Coca-Cola Company’s ill-advised decision to alter the formula of its toxic soft drink caused a paroxysm of national outrage on the part of a public that reacted to the Philadelphia fire-bombing with stolid indifference. Those who tampered with that product faced accountability. Jobs were lost, reputations were ruined, and corporate policies were changed. Nothing of the sort befell those responsible for a military assault on an urban neighborhood that left nearly a dozen people dead and hundreds of people homeless.

Coca-Cola’s decision to change its recipe was national news, as was the company’s chastened decision to rescind that change. The fire-bombing of West Philly received perfunctory notice in the State-aligned media, and was quickly forgotten by a materially sated population.

As Commissioner Sambor said in his overture to the holocaust on Osage Avenue, “This is America” – or, in any case, what we’ve allowed it to become.””


Read the whole essay.

 

Ralph Nader’s Left/Right Against War and More

On Tuesday May 27, 2014 from 9AM-5PM, Ralph Nader and the Center for Study of Responsive Law will be hosting a free all day event on war, civil liberties and crony capitalism at Carnegie Institute of Washington at 1530 P Street NW Washington, D.C. Registration begins at 8:30 AM. Many speakers familiar to readers of Antiwar.com will be part of panels on defense budgets and empire: Daniel McCarthy, Medea Benjamin, Chris Preble, Bruce Fein, Ron Unz and many more. RSVP to Matthew Marran at mmarran@csrl.org.

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The Day We Fight Back

We are fighting back too at Antiwar.com. Please visit The Day We Fight Back for events in your area.

If you are in Los Angeles, please join us tonight at Casey’s Irish Pub at 613 South Grand Ave, Los Angeles, California at 7:30pm. Restore The Fourth Los Angeles is hosting an event featuring the Tenth Amendment Center and ACLU of Southern California. Nick Hankoff, Development Associate with Antiwar.com, will be representing the Tenth Amendment Center. Both the USA Freedom Act (Federal) and the Fourth Amendment Protection Act (California) will be discussed.

Events in Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Germany, and elsewhere can be found here.

NSA Surveillance and Our “Almost Orwellian” State

Directly lifted from the Electronic Frontier Foundation blog:

January 23, 2014 – 7:30pm
Berkeley, CA
Join us for “NSA Surveillance and Our ‘Almost Orwellian’ State,” hosted by St. John’s Presbyterian Church on Thursday, January 23, 2014.

Address:
St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Avenue, Berkeley, CA

The event is open to the public. A donation will be requested, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Proceeds will benefit the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
Continue reading “NSA Surveillance and Our “Almost Orwellian” State”

Bitcoin Bolsters Antiwar Activism: An Interview with Antiwar.com’s Angela Keaton

Recently, I was interviewed by MK Lords, a manager at Roberts & Roberts Brokerage and correspondent for Bitcoin Not Bombs, of which Antiwar.com is a proud member. The transcript can be found here. Ms. Lords asks me all the major questions about antiwar activism, crypto currency for a peace economy and the ACLU’s lawsuit on behalf of our founder Eric Garris and editorial director Justin Raimondo.

Continue reading “Bitcoin Bolsters Antiwar Activism: An Interview with Antiwar.com’s Angela Keaton”