The Plug Nickel Times is proud to bring you archived website links to select opinion articles. All links are offsite unless otherwise noted- followed links should open in another browser window. Links can become dated or otherwise fail to function, for this reason we quote the title of an article. This may allow you to find an alternate copy of the article through a news index or search engine. Some sites we link to may require a registration process to view an article- this website may be useful to you in those instances. Comments, corrections and submissions are welcome- an email link is at the bottom of the page.
March 1-15, 2004
July 15, 2004
Politics and the English Language by George Orwell
"As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse."
"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
Christian Zionists soldier to prophecy by Jane Lampman
(interesting to see this piece show up in the Washington Times...?)
The Past Is All Coming Back by William S. Lind
"We see here in this remarkable vignette one of the most important, most powerful and also most unremarked features of our age: the past is all coming back. As modernity crumbles, all ancient ways and causes of war return..."
Iraq: Follow the Money
"Will Congress, on learning of the shaky pretenses behind the appropriation of $18 billion, schedule hearings on the matter?"
Moore's film is not enough
"For what possible reason would a leadership cabal in America go to such grave and expensive trouble, if the purpose of so destructive a war is only to sustain an apparently stable--perhaps the world's most stable--social order? Maybe the social order of America is not as stable as it appears, and maybe there are threats to that order that only designers of America's War on Terror know about."
July 14, 2004
TERRORISM AND THE ELECTION by Wayne Madsen
Arguing with Bush yet Again by Juan Cole
"So, no, Americans are not safer, Mr. Bush. They face the threat of substantial narco-terrorism from Afghanistan. Iraq is a security nightmare that could well blow back on the American homeland. Pakistan remains a military dictatorship with a host of militant jihadi movements that had been fomented by the hardline Pakistani military intelligence. Saudi Arabia is witnessing increased al-Qaeda activity and attacks on Westerners. And the Israeli-Palestine dispute is being left to fester and poison the world."
Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules by Conn Hallinan
The Model for Iraq was Ireland, 1692
Correspondence with an Iraqi Attorney by Stephan Kinsella
"Iraq will be fine, eventually. It will return to an equilibrium that will be a watered down version of what it was before. It will still be a somewhat dictatorial state and will be dominated by security, rather than law, but material wealth may promote good things in the long run, and the future should be bright. It will be tough for the next 2-5 years though. It could take a good 10 years before it really emerges in a form that would be stable and sustainable."
All Loyalty Is Local by Fred Reed
"The localness that made towns memorable withers further under the onslaught of television. Regional accents vanish. Across the continent people gawp in electronic synchronicity at sitcoms devised in Hollywood and New York. These carefully, deliberately, gnaw away at local views of things and replace them with Appropriate Values. People no longer raise their children. The box does. Their schooling is determined by texts written far off, also designed to instill the politics of elsewhere."
Butler Report: Error Did It by Paul Craig Roberts
July 13, 2004
BY HOOK OR BY CROOK: FOUR MORE STOLEN YEARS by Rodger Jacobs
"The cocky, dictator-toppling President of the United States and his acid-tongued, swaggering war-profiteering pirate of a cohort are already laying the cornerstone to memorialize their second term."
(onsite link)
Liberty, Vigilance and the Writing on the Wall by Maureen Farrell
"here is a brief run down of statements experts, pundits and regular Joes have been making for months that suggest even more terror -- and more unconstitutional clampdowns -- may be headed our way"
Only Cowards Cancel Elections by William Rivers Pitt
Welcome to Bushworld: Notes from the imperium by Tom Engelhardt
Bush: Safely in Denial By Richard Cohen
Ten Reasons to Fire George W. Bush: And nine reasons why Kerry won't be much better by Jesse Walker
"One of the silliest arguments for the invasion held that our presence in Iraq was a "flypaper" attracting the world's terrorists to one distant spot. At this point, it's pretty clear that if there's a flypaper in Baghdad, the biggest bug that's stuck to it is the U.S.A."
The Cult of Power by Justin Raimondo
From Leon Trotsky to Paul Wolfowitz
George Bush's Crumbling Credibility by Chris Farrell
None of Your Business! by Rep. Ron Paul, MD
"You may not have heard of the American Community Survey, but you will. The national census, which historically is taken every ten years, has expanded to quench the federal bureaucracy’s ever-growing thirst to govern every aspect of American life."
Nine Months Up In Smoke by Roger Young
"Amazing, but despite Chong’s reputation, he's never been busted before, not even a parking ticket."
July 12, 2004
Corrupted Intelligence by Ray McGovern
"In the wake of the report, McGovern worries media across the political spectrum aren't doing their job. They are buying without question the administration spin about the Senate report: that the White House led the nation to war because of bad intelligence, rather than ill-conceived policy."
Iraq: The Words of Mass Deception by Mike Rivero
Most Serious Warning Ever by Richard Maybury
"anyone who lays so much as one finger on the Bill of Rights is a traitor, cut from the same cloth as Osama bin Laden. These people deserve all the scorn we can heap upon them. They must be shunned and laughed at for their so-called patriotism."
Booga Booga!: Who Really Benefits from Terrorist Threats? by Matt Hutaff
Europe should take its own Mideast stand by William Pfaff
"The European allies have an obligation to themselves, to the Muslim world and indeed to their ally the United States to stop the present slide toward what would amount to a war of societies."
Musharraf repackaged
"Pakistan's military dictator, General Pervez Musharraf, has done such a good job of repackaging himself as a vital American ally against radical Islamic terrorism that it is easy to forget how alarming Washington found so many of Musharraf's policies not very long ago."
Keeping America safe from foreign writers by Elena Lappin
"While old and new ideology seemingly mesh within the Patriot Act, the truth is that in the name of fighting terrorism, it has transformed a free, open, inimitably attractive democracy into something resembling an insular fortress of Kafkaesque absurdity."
July 11, 2004
Powell's 'Solid' C.I.A. Tips Were Soft, Committee Says by Charley Hardman
A Scheme to Cancel the Elections? by Justin Raimondo
"It's the same old color-coded cacophony of scaremongering that has had the Bush administration manipulating the American people from one end of the manic-depressive scale to the other. Go shopping: buy duct tape: "They hate us for our freedom" - oh, and, by the way, we're canceling the elections...."
The Rise of Global Resistance by Omar Barghouti
Why Do We License Marriage in the First Place? by Deroy Murdock
July 10, 2004
America's criminal occupation by Roger Normand
"The manipulation of legal language to serve unlawful ends is, of course, not a uniquely American position. Throughout history, powerful nations have stood above the law and claimed the right to liberate "less civilised" peoples through the use of military violence disguised as humanitarian intervention."
Nuclear Israel: Belling the cat By Ehsan Ahrari
July 9, 2004
Bagged and Tagged! by Karen Kwiatkowski
"One wonders how long the rush to lay the blame in a neat package on the CIA corporate culture doorstep will distract the media from the obvious. With 80% of the cash, 80% of the blame may well flow to the Pentagon."
Facing the Enemy on the Ground by Scott Ritter
"The strength of this anti-American resistance depends on how long the United States chooses to "stay the course" in Iraq. The calculus is quite simple: The sooner we bring our forces home, the weaker this movement will be. And, of course, the obverse is true: The longer we stay, the stronger and more enduring this by-product of Bush's elective war on Iraq will be."
July 8, 2004
Some Phony Security Plans Are More Equal Than Others by Mike Tennant
The October Surprise? by William S. Lind
Our Broken System by Sibel Edmonds
The Enemy Within by Harvey Silverglate
Dumb and Getting Dumber by Rodger Jacobs
"So here we are, the country that has wrapped itself up in the mantle of moral, ethical, and intellectual superiority, a tribe increasingly cozy with the idea of global domination, and we can’t get up off our lazy asses and get down to a bookstore and buy a book . . . and read it."
July 7, 2004
A Message From Your Government
THE DEATH OF A PROGRESSIVE by Rodger Jacobs
Cathy Seipp goes to bat for Joe McCarthy
(onsite link)
Torture as Due Process by James Bovard
"The Supreme Court’s June 28 decisions will not end the battles over who is an enemy combatant and how much arbitrary power the president should possess. This issue remains a live wire in part because top administration officials have repeatedly said that it is only a matter of time until another terrorist attack occurs. And a second major attack could result in a round of abuses that will make the post-9/11 actions look like a law-school picnic."
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank? by James Brooks
July 6, 2004
The Legacy of Deceit by William A. Cook
In the Driver's Seat by Tom Engelhardt
And yet the neocons weren't completely wrong. They imagined Iraq as the motor for reorganizing first the region, then the world -- a kind of wild force for change, a chaos machine that would scramble the previous world order in ways advantageous to them. Their only mistake was to believe that the levers of change in that scrambling would remain in their hands. They loosed -- to use a classic phrase -- the whirlwind and now it seems to be in the process of sweeping them away."
Jobs, Education, Health Care, Who Cares by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
"even the people who are desperate to see Bush tossed out find nothing in Kerry to inspire confidence. Someone needs to reach this man with a dose of reality."
The Irrationality of Patriotism by Andrew Young
"They never bothered to tell us that France opposed the war largely because a great majority of its population did. Therefore, while claiming to be bringing democracy to the Iraqis, the warmongers were criticizing another democracy for actually following the wishes of its people."
Hitler, Hitler Everywhere by Joseph Sobran
"Instead of seeing World War II for the colossal blunder it was, we have made it the model for further intervention. The story must be constantly retold, its propaganda constantly reheated as 'the lessons of history.' Few really ask what that war was 'all about.' Glib analogies with it seem to lend meaning and purpose to other wars."
Securing the Bushes by Hunter S. Thompson
"Buy the ticket, take the ride"
Beware All Who Enter: Here There be Monsters by Bob Wallace
"I suppose I could make a joke in which Man goes before God and says, "Want security!" and God answers, "Okay, but it'll cost you your brains!" Like most accurate jokes, it's half humorous and half horrible."
I write badly, therefore I am a would-be terrorist by Charles C. Green
July 5, 2004
Independence From Washington by Rep. Ron Paul, MD
"Our Founding Fathers felt freedom was worth their 'lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.' Do we?"
Ain't Got the Sense God Give a Crabapple by Fred Reed
"I haven’t impressed many people, but I haven’t made a fool of myself either. Well, not that way, anyhow."
School Architecture Gives the Game Away by Tom White
What game is given away by this architecture? Actually, it’s quite a simple one. These new schools, prisons, factories, and distribution warehouses are all boxes for holding things, sorting them out, and issuing them on demand to other 'centers.' It’s all mass production and assembly line stuff. The boxes are for 'processing.'"
Construction Starts at World Trade Site
"Conventional local wisdom is that nothing of architectural value will ever come of the WTC opportunity to change the way cities are destroyed and rebuilt"
Where Was the Pitchfork? by Rodger Jacobs
Minitrue: the Ministry of Truth
July 4, 2004
I Should Not Be Allowed To Say The Following Things About America by Ellen Dunst
The Fifth of July by L. Neil Smith
Bush's Police State and Independence Day by Elaine Cassel
A Joke called "Justice" by Linda S. Heard
July 3, 2004
FOX NEWS FOLLIES by Rodger Jacobs
(onsite link)
Waking Up to the War by Bob Herbert
"We have certainly known since Sept. 11, if not before, that terrorism poses the gravest and most immediate threat to the United States. Instead of marshaling the nation's resources and the support of our allies for a sustained, all-out campaign aimed at destroying Al Qaeda and its offshoots, President Bush launched the war in Iraq and turned that country into a breeding ground for such terrorists."
Spillover by William S. Lind
"What Washington cannot understand is that the crumbling of Saudi Arabia is part of the war in Iraq, and that in Afghanistan as well. We still think of wars as delineated by state boundaries, because we still envision a world made up of states."
Geronimo's Cadillac by Vaughn Croteau
(onsite link)
July 1, 2004
A show trial
"The trial of Saddam is a distraction tactic that will do nothing to stop the growing Iraqi resistance, argues George Galloway"
Add `sovereignty' to Bush's grand illusions about Iraq by H.D.S. Greenway
Who you callin’ sovereign? by George Ochenski
"The Great American Deception goes on"
America Is Not a Free Country by Doug Newman
The Mental State of Our Union by Jonathan David Morris
