Dec. 9 has a grim meaning for the Republic, the date in 2004 when investigative reporter Gary Webb, driven to ruin by vindictive press colleagues for reviving the Contra-cocaine scandal, took his own life, a demarcation as the U.S. press went from protecting the people to shielding the corrupt, writes Robert Parry.
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
If the American Dream depends on skyrocketing debt built on a weakening foundation of stagnant productivity and income, then it is indeed over.
Thanks to Glenn Greenwald for pointing out that the U.S. media is acting as though Donald Trump just invented bigotry this week (one of those ugly details I'm happy to miss by never watching television). But not only is explicit bigotry toward Muslims not new, implicit bigotry toward Muslims has been the foundation of the largest public project in the United States for the past quarter century.
Republican presidential campaign rhetoric is red-hot regarding Islamic terrorism, with Sen. Cruz suggesting the use of nuclear weapons to see "if sand can glow in the dark," a threat even more troubling than Donald Trump's call to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the U.S., writes Robert Parry.
Given that an ISIS attack in Paris just helped fuel the sweeping election victory of an actually fascist party in France, it's a bit mystifying how someone can be so sanguine about the likelihood of a Trump victory in the U.S. In fact, with a couple of even low-level ISIS attacks successfully carried out on American soil, it's not at all hard to imagine.