Glenn Greenwald Tears Apart the Propaganda Driving the Insane Push for War With Iran

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on March 6, 2012, Printed on March 8, 2012


Iran is diplomatically isolated, has a weak and antiquated military relative to Israel and the United States, and its economy is being squeezed hard by international sanctions. The consensus among both American and Israeli intelligence agencies is that an attack on the country would be disastrous, and might lead to a regional nuclear arms race.

But that view seems to have a limited impact on the mainstream discourse surrounding Iran. Last week, Glenn Greenwald, writing on Salon, noted that for months, “Americans have been subjected to this continuous, coordinated, repetitive messaging from israeli officials, amplified through the US media.”

The Big Reagan Recovery Was Government Spending And Hiring

By Dave Johnson

March 5, 2012 - 10:49am ET 

Conservatives like to talk about how well the economy did under Reagan, and how poorly it is doing now. Then they say that government "takes money out of the economy." But the difference in economic growth was that under Reagan the government was spending and hiring, and now it isn't.

Lovins: End of Fossil Fuel Era an 'Exciting Time'

Author and scientist Amory B. Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute see a bright future beyond dirty fuels... and sooner than you think

- Common Dreams staff 

 

In an essay in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs and a recent interview with Yale Environment 360, Amory Lovins discusses his latest book, Reinventing Fire, written with his colleagues at the Rocking Mountain Institute, which looks at what a transition away from an economy and energy system based on fossil fuels towards one based on renewable energy would look like.

"Weaning the United States from fossils fuels would require two big shifts," writes Lovins at Foreign Affairs, naming "oil and electricity" which he says are "distinct."  He points out, "In the US, three-fourths of electricity powers building, three-fourths of oil fuels transportation, and the remaining oil and electricity run factories. So saving oil and electricity is chiefly about making buildings, vehicles, and factories far more efficient." This, admits Lovins, is "no small task."

Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France

By Ezra Klein, Published: March 3

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There is a simple reason health care in the United States costs more than it does anywhere else: The prices are higher.

That may sound obvious. But it is, in fact, key to understanding one of the most pressing problems facing our economy. In 2009, Americans spent $7,960 per person on health care. Our neighbors in Canada spent $4,808. The Germans spent $4,218. The French, $3,978. If we had the per-person costs of any of those countries, America’s deficits would vanish. Workers would have much more money in their pockets. Our economy would grow more quickly, as our exports would be more competitive.

There are many possible explanations for why Americans pay so much more. It could be that we’re sicker. Or that we go to the doctor more frequently. But health researchers have largely discarded these theories. As Gerard Anderson, Uwe Reinhardt, Peter Hussey and Varduhi Petrosyan put it in the title of their influential 2003 study on international health-care costs, “it’s the prices, stupid.”

Profiting Off Nixon's Vietnam 'Treason'

March 4, 2012

 

Exclusive: The notion of Wall Street bankers meeting in private to discuss profiting off a plot to extend the Vietnam War and risk the lives of thousands of American soldiers may sound like a conspiracy movie script, but it is a tragic reality reflected in once secret White House documents, reports Robert Parry.


By Robert Parry

As I pored over documents from what the archivists at Lyndon Johnson’s presidential library call their “X-File” – chronicling Richard Nixon’s apparent sabotage of Vietnam peace talks in 1968 – I was surprised by one fact in particular, how Johnson’s White House got wind of what Johnson later labeled Nixon’s “treason.”

According to the records, Eugene Rostow, Johnson’s Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, got a tip in late October 1968 from a Wall Street source who said that one of Nixon’s closest financial backers was describing Nixon’s plan to “block” a peace settlement of the Vietnam War. The backer was sharing this information with his banking colleagues to help them place their bets on stocks and bonds.

Paul Krugman: States of Depression

The economic news is looking better lately. But after previous false starts — remember “green shoots”? — it would be foolish to assume that all is well. And in any case, it’s still a very slow economic recovery by historical standards. 

There are several reasons for this slowness, with the most important being the overhang of household debt that is a legacy of the housing bubble. But one significant factor in our continuing economic weakness is the fact that government in America is doing exactly what both theory and history say it shouldn’t: slashing spending in the face of a depressed economy. 

In fact, if it weren’t for this destructive fiscal austerity, our unemployment rate would almost certainly be lower now than it was at a comparable stage of the “Morning in America” recovery during the Reagan era.

Guantanamo Prison's True Secret: Jason Leopold in Conversation With Andy Worthington

Monday 5 March 2012

British journalist Andy Worthington, the author of "The Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison," has been documenting the array of human rights abuses at Guantanamo for over six years now, after he personally became angry that the US government would not say who they were holding at Guantanamo. Worthington was recently a guest speaker alongside investigative journalist Jason Leopold at the UC Hastings College of Law, in San Francisco on January 13, 2012, hosted by the college's chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. The event, entitled "Ten Years of Guantanamo," was held amidst protests around the world calling for the prison to be immediately shut.