Juan Cole – Top 10 Signs the US is the Most Corrupt Country in the World

Those ratings that castigate Afghanistan and some other poor countries as hopelessly “corrupt” always imply that the United States is not corrupt. VOA reports : While it is true that you don’t typically have to bribe your postman to deliver the mail in the US, in many key ways America’s political and financial practices make it in absolute terms far …

Paul Buchheit – 5 Depressing Signs America Just Isn’t the Country It Used to Be

While Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning and John Kiriakou are vilified [3] for revealing vital information about spying and bombing and torture, a man who conspired [4] with Goldman Sachs to make billions of dollars on the planned failure of subprime mortgages was honored by New York University [5] for his “Outstanding Contributions to Society.” This is one example of the distorted thinking leading to the demise of a …

Jeff Faux – Collateral Damage in Afghanistan: America’s Soul

On the night of October 3, 2015 an American attack helicopter bombed and strafed a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. At least 22 medical staff and patients, including three children, were killed. Twenty-four are still missing. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights suggested it might be a war crime. On October 15, almost a year and a …

Shane Harris – Marines Trained That Rape in Afghanistan Is a ‘Cultural’ Issue

U.S. Marines preparing to go overseas are given a detailed training session about the Marine Corps’ own rules against sexual assault. But they are offered practically no guidance on what to do if they witness rape and other sexual abuses by “local nationals” in other countries, including Afghanistan, where child rape is common. A 45-minute scripted presentation given to Marines …

John Whitehead – Public School Students Are the New Inmates in the American Police State

In the American police state, you’re either a prisoner (shackled, controlled, monitored, ordered about, limited in what you can do and say, your life not your own) or a prison bureaucrat (police officer, judge, jailer, spy, profiteer, etc.). When you’re a child in the American police state, life is that much worse. Microcosms of the police state, America’s public schools …