The Plug Nickel Times is proud to bring you website links to select opinion articles that you may not find through your local media. 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 actual headline 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.
August 2006
August 28, 2006
Quote of the day
"I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it. My affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over Hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits."
William S. Burroughs
Havoc-monger of the day
"This enemy wears no uniform, has no regard for the rules of warfare, and is unconstrained by any standard of decency or morality. They plot and plan in secret, target the defenseless, and rejoice at the death of innocent, unsuspecting human beings.
...
Their goal in that region is to seize control of a country so they have a base from which to launch attacks and to wage war against governments that do not meet their demands. The terrorists believe that by controlling one country, they will be able to target and overthrow other governments in the region, and ultimately to establish a totalitarian empire that encompasses a region from Spain, across North Africa, through the Middle East and South Asia, all the way around to Indonesia."
Remarks by Vice President Cheney at the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention
You're either With Us or Against Us - it's six of one, and a half-dozen of the other...
Language in Rubble by Joseph Sobran
"At times like this, we need clear, spare, specific language that acknowledges what we are really talking about, the kind of prose that made writers like Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell, both unsentimental war correspondents as well as novelists, so useful, invigorating, and even in a way consoling to read. Even today, when you read them, you know you aren’t reading dated propaganda. Good reporters still, as ever, avoid the false, loaded language of politicians. This always irritates partisans, who suspect objectivity of being disloyal and treasonous. The more we kill, the more we seem to demand euphemism."
Will the US Again Attack Iran - This Time Without Saddam? by Chris Moore
"So the notion that the current Bush administration invaded Iraq somehow oblivious to the ruthless, cut-throat ways of Mideast warmaking, and didn't know it was blundering into a deadly Sunni-Shi'ite blood feud that harbored a huge side dish of hatred for America is specious at best. George W. may have been wet behind the ears going in, but Rumsfeld and Cheney (who served as Secretary of Defense during Gulf War I under Bush I) knew exactly what they were getting America into, and proceeded anyway.
The current Iraq quagmire, a Hobbesian free-for-all with American troops, Shi'ite militants and Sunni militants all battling one another for survival, is the result.
Knowing today what should have already been obvious given America's troubled history with Iraq and Iran, are Bush administration heavyweights willing to dig American troops even deeper by taking the U.S. to war yet again (this time directly), against the Iranian people?"
Karl Rove's Blood Libel by Chris Floyd
"It's time to be done with the dangerous fiction that this kind of thing is just 'hardball politics' - or indeed, politics of any kind, as the term is normally understood in a democracy. What Rove is giving voice to here is nothing less than the new blood libel of our age: that those who oppose the Bush Administration's unconstitutional actions are opening the door to a new 9/11. The implication is clear: anyone who speaks up for the Constitution is working for the death of innocent Americans. They are, by definition, traitors. Thus they deserve what traitors get: death."
DEA Snake Oil by Jacob G. Hornberger
"The irony of all this is that to the extent that there are terrorists financing the operations through drug sales, it’s a direct result of the exorbitant profits that the drug war produces, which would disintegrate with legalization. Thus, what the DEA officials fail to realize (or not) is that it is their own war that provides the monies to finance the terrorists. It’s just another perverse result of another perverse federal program."
Driving with Money a Crime by Michael Paladin
"Authorities were correct to assume nearly $125,000 they seized from a California man’s car during a traffic stop may have been connected to narcotics trafficking, despite finding no drugs in the vehicle, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, overturing an earlier decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Thalken in Nebraska in the case of Emiliano Gomez Gonzolez."
The Gun Went Off by David Codrea
August 19, 2006
Quote of the day:
"We Americans have found ourselves in a pivotal era where we have traded humanity for patriotism."
Sgt. Ricky Clousing
What do you say to a man whose family is buried under the rubble? by Robert Fisk
If you want the roots of terror, try here by Robert Fisk
The UK Terror plot: what's really going on? by Craig Murray
Hitting a nerve by Craig Murray
A follow-up to Mr. Murray's article immediately above.
Groundhog Day by James K. Galbraith
"Let's see... It's August. Bush is in Crawford on a 'working vacation.' His polls are in the tank. Congress is in revolt. The economy is going soft. The next elections don't look good. Cheney is off in Wyoming, or wherever he goes. It's 2001. No, it's 2006."
Victory Through Victim-Swapping by Roderick T. Long
"The trick, of course, is that each gang is blasting away at civilians in the other gang’s territory. If each gang were to attack its own civilians directly, those civilians would quickly turn against the gangs in their midst. But since in fact each side’s continuation of bombings is what allows the other side to excuse, and get away with, its bombings, the situation isn’t really all that different; each side is causing its own civilians to be bombed. It’s just that by following the stratagem of attacking each other’s civilians, the two gangs manage to avoid (and indeed promote the exact opposite of) the loss of domestic power that would follow if they were to bring about the same results more directly."
aggression by saltypig
"the beauty of the liberty view is that it may be summed up in one sentence with clear application - not some fuzzy-wuzzed 'i think people should be egalitarian, fair, and concerned' bullshit. my core principle for ideal human interaction:
no one (nor group of ones) may consider the property of another ('property' including self) in any way to be at the disposal of anyone except the owner(s), absent aggression or consent from that party.
everything i do is to be held against that standard. every opinion on social interaction must either conform to that standard or i'm full of shit. so i'll use that to repond to your questions."
Are Citizens Tame Humans? by Kevin Carson
9/11 Commission Chairmen Admit Whitewashing the Cause of the Attacks by Ivan Eland
"The book usefully details the administration’s willful misrepresentation of its incompetent actions that day, but makes the shocking admission that some commission members deliberately wanted to distort an even more important issue. Apparently, unidentified commissioners wanted to cover up the fact that U.S. support for Israel was one of the motivating factors behind al Qaeda’s 9/11 attack. Although Hamilton, to his credit, argued for saying that the reasons al Qaeda committed the heinous strike were the U.S. military presence in the Middle East and American support for Israel, the panel watered down that frank conclusion to state that U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. policy on Iraq are 'dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world.'"
Knights Of The State Round Table by Jim Willie CB
"The United States is finding itself awkwardly outside looking in, as its monolithic power has been diminished. The game is changing faster than the US is capable of adapting, so it seems. On the front of the emerging powerful state corporations, large US-based multi-national corporations have emerged. They seem less adapted to compete against Russian and Chinese adversaries, and more capable of exploit war and financial chicanery. Their prominence almost forebodes more military intrigue and more financial warfare."
All's fair in love and counterterrorism by Garry Reed
"The New York Times created a firestorm when it outed the Bush administration for secretly spying on Americans' financial transactions under the now infamous headline splashed across Fairly Unbalanced FoxNews, CNN Commie News Narrators and moribund over-the-air alphabet news network program TV screens: 'Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror.'"
August 10, 2006
Supporters of Hezbollah by Dahr Jamail
Also - Dahr Jamail indexes the photos he's taken in Lebanon during the last few weeks here.
They Hate Us Because We Kill Them by Arthur Silber
The Right to Ignore the State by Herbert Spencer
"Nay, indeed, have we not seen that government is essentially immoral? Is it not the offspring of evil, bearing about it all the marks of its parentage? Does it not exist because crime exists? Is it not strong - or, as we say, despotic - when crime is great? Is there not more liberty - that is, less government - when crime diminishes? And must not government cease when crime ceases, for very lack of objects on which to perform its function? Not only does magisterial power exist because of evil, but it exists by evil. Violence is employed to maintain it, and all violence involves criminality. Soldiers, policemen, and jailers; swords, batons, and fetters are instruments for inflicting pain; and all inflection of pain is in the abstract wrong. The state employs evil weapons to subjugate evil and is alike contaminated by the objects with which it deals and the means by which it works. Morality cannot recognize it, for morality, being simply a statement of the perfect law, can give no countenance to anything growing out of, and living by, breaches of that law. Wherefore, legislative authority can never be ethical - must always be conventional merely."
Refuse to be afraid by B.W. Richardson
"So what's a self-respecting freedom-loving individualist individual to do? Well, first, refuse to be afraid. There are worse things in life than being alone. (For one thing, there's being not-alone in a roomful of rabid statists.)"
Another 9/11 Anniversary is just around the corner by Vincent L. Guarisco
The Coming Retrenchment by Michael S. Rozeff
"America will have to retrench in a few short years. Its only choice is how to retrench. If it downsizes government and government spending, including existing government promises, then incomes can rise. Every bit by which it downsizes government programs and promises contributes to income increases. They won’t have to be downsized if cutbacks in government occur. They will increase. In the limit, downsizing government to nothing, that is, removing its monopolies over a wide range of activities, can not only prevent the retrenchment in American incomes that lies directly ahead but lead to a revival of income growth at rates not seen in a hundred years.
If, on the other hand, America decides to keep its excessive promises, then it will be forced to fund them through higher taxes, higher borrowing and eventual taxes, and higher inflation. Incomes will stagnate and decline. Capital accumulation will suffer. Income growth will suffer. If America increases its excessive promises, such as by creating prescription drug benefits and by creating never-ending wars, then the retrenchments in incomes and income growth will be exacerbated even more."
Imperial Paper by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
"Most Americans are aware that something has gone very wrong, but they are at a loss to sort out the causes, especially the ones that are most invisible. This is where the smashing book by William Bonner and Addison Wiggin, titled Empire of Debt, performs an extraordinary service. In addition to being accomplished financial analysts, Bonner and Wiggin are talented historical writers. And they put this talent to work in the cause of examining the political and economic effects of empire.
The authors not only provide a frightening picture of the mess that the U.S. government has made at home and abroad, they also understand the crucial role that the monetary regime has played in this debacle. They show how the legal right to counterfeit - that’s what the Federal Reserve grants the government - has changed the structure of the government and led to the loss of liberty and the rise of an imperial power unlike any in history."
Specter Caves to White House Demands on NSA Bill by Catherine Komp
"In a press conference announcing the negotiations last Friday, Specter, the Senate Judiciary Committee chair, admitted that he was advocating legislation on a program he knows nothing about and which the Bush administration 'hadn't even told the [congressional] intelligence committees [about], as required by law.'
Specter also said he did not want to force the administration to seek a secret-court review of its controversial snooping procedures, and told reporters both he and the president thought it would be an undue burden on Bush’s successors. The bill should 'not mandate the president to submit the program to the court,' Specter said, 'because the president did not want to institutionally bind presidents in the future.' The senator did not say why the legislation fails to simply require an initial review."
A Terrifying Distraction By Salim Muwakkil
"The arrest of seven men in Miami last month on specious terrorism charges smells strongly like a case of governmental entrapment."
Former House Congresscrat declares World War III by Garry Reed
"Former Speaker of the House Rich Newtgringe proclaimed that the USSA is actively engaged in fighting World War III and that President Bush should just publicly say so. 'There's a lot of cool stuff we can do,' the former Republican Congresscrat from Georgiabama mused, 'if we simply declare World War III, or IV, or V against ... against ... whoever. We can ration tires, force people to rip up their backyard decks and plant victory gardens, inflict big government's coercive powers onto every aspect of American life, at least on the last little bits of it that still languish beyond Washington's enlightened supervision, and draft everybody's kids into the Cannon Fodder Corps.'"
Sunni Maravillosa has published her June and July Salons.
The Real ID Rebellion site has several new postings from this last month.
A Clean, Well-lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway
"Good night," the other said. Turning off the electric light he continued the conversation with himself. It is the light of course but it is necessary that the place be clean and light. You do not want music. Certainly you do not want music. Nor can you stand before a bar with dignity although that is all that is provided for these hours. What did he fear? It was not fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it was already nada y pues nada y pues nada. Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee. He smiled and stood before a bar with a shining steam pressure coffee machine.
