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.
November 16-30, 2004
November 29, 2004
The Ukrainian Divide by Jude Wanniski
Ukraine Elections/US Elections by John Young
"The bloated intelligence community, like the military, does not have enough to fully utilize its overkill resources. The Iraq-Afghan wars hardly dented their capabilities, despite claims made of needing more resources, more funding, more troops. Congress has swamped both sinkholes with more resources than they know what to do with."
The Reactive State by Butler Shaffer
"In order to carry out this ordering function, the state must convince its subjects that it has the capacity to marshal and analyze information that is unavailable to others, in order to create programs, policies, and practices that can produce predictable and desired ends. Modern political systems are grounded in the belief that legislation has magical powers to transform humanity; to mandate "good" and to enjoin "evil." It is presumed that a combination of wise leaders and expert advisors will employ political power to achieve wondrous social ends."
November 28, 2004
Elections in Iraq will be Held on Schedule, But with What Result? by Prof. Juan Cole
November 27, 2004
Smoking while Iraq burns by Naomi Klein
On second thoughts, perhaps Miller does deserve to be elevated to the status of icon - not of the war in Iraq, but of the new era of supercharged American impunity. Because outside US borders, it is, of course, a different marine who has been awarded the prize as "the face of Falluja": the soldier captured on tape executing a wounded, unarmed prisoner in a mosque. Runners-up are a photograph of a two-year-old Fallujan in a hospital bed with one of his tiny legs blown off; a dead child lying in the street, clutching the headless body of an adult; and an emergency health clinic blasted to rubble."
Dead-Check in Falluja by Evan Wright
"A sergeant in the platoon told me he had consulted with his priest about killing. The priest had told him it was all right to kill for his government so long as he didn't enjoy it."
November 25, 2004 Thanksgiving Day (alternate versions)
And Then There Were None by Eric Frank Russell
Short Story - Science Fiction - Anarchy - and the meaning of MYOB
When America kills children, is God on its side? by David B. Livingstone
"In Falluja, in Mosul, in Baghdad the rotten fruits of the American freedom tree are falling to the ground in the form of 500-pound bombs, white phosphorus, air-to-surface missiles, and an unending hail of bullets. Freedom - the freedom to die - is on the march, with George W. Bush leading the parade. Behind follow his glassy-eyed syncophants, a Bible in one hand and a flag in the other, the world's ugliest citizens on a merry march to hell."
Freedom, what crimes are committed in thy name? by Edward Teague
"We are all born free. We are all born with nature's bar code, a fingerprint. It is unique, we share it with no-one, but if all goes to plan you will share its image with every law enforcement agency and God knows who else besides, who has access to the EU database. Everyone qualifies; you don't even have to commit a crime. Or even be arrested and not charged, you simply have to apply (and pay) for a passport, so that you may freely travel about the EU."
November 24, 2004
Crisis towers over the dollar by W Joseph Stroupe
November 23, 2004
Remember the Alamo--In Downtown Iraq by Douglas Herman
"The pitiful, lightly armed insurgents hardly had a chance. Some foreign fighters--they were almost all foreign fighters--were from as far as England, Scotland and Germany. They were encircled, outgunned and outnumbered--and just about to become martyrs in the mythical legend that passes for history."
Bush's Plan For the Coercive Medication of America by Thomas Guzman
"Dr. Sally Satel appointed by President Bush, has called for vastly increasing the amount of forced outpatient psychiatric drugging in the June 2004 meeting of the National Advisory Council for the US Center for Mental Health Services. If that sounds ominous consider a new federally mandated vehicle that psychiatrists like Dr. Satel may soon use. This vehicle comes from Bush’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health.
President George W. Bush established the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health in April 2002. It was built on the 'No Child Left Behind Act' and the reauthorization of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), improve and expand mental health programs in schools to ensure that youth with emotional and behavioral disorders succeed and graduate from school."
November 22, 2004
Fixing the Tiger by Michael Bradshaw
"The reason for that is that all government is set up and run by psychopaths, for psychopaths, for psychopathic reasons and goals. In short, politicians and the people who believe in and worship them - are insane. That is why all government always selects its members from the worst dregs of society and excludes the sane people. Other, mentally healthy, people suffer from what I call, for want of a better term, the 'Solipsist Fallacy'; by which they ascribe their own feelings, thoughts or goals to others in the mistaken belief that those others are just like them. In social situations that can cost one embarrassment. In politics it can, and often does, cost one his life and the lives of his family. And in the last century it has cost the lives of about 250,000,000 people - to war and genocide - the politician's 'great games'."
A moment of utter clarity by Perry de Havilland
"Those who were marching against banning foxhunting completely miss the issues at stake here. The issue is not and never has been foxhunting but rather the acceptable limits of politics. And you cannot resolve that issue via the political system in Britain. It is only once the people who oppose the ban on foxhunting and the people who oppose the Civil Contingencies Act and the people who oppose the introduction of ID cards and data pooling all realise that these are NOT separate issues but the same issue will effective opposition be possible. And I fear that opposition will, at least until the 'facts on the ground' can be established, have to be via civil disobedience and other ways to make sections of this country ungovernable by whatever means prove effective. The solution does not lie in 'democracy' but rather by enough people across the country asserting their right to free association and non-politically mediated social interaction by refusing to obey the entirely democratic laws which come out of Westminster."
'We'll be busting your door in' by Vin Suprynowicz
A follow-up to his article of last week - What do police departments really do?
November 21, 2004
Investing in War: The Carlyle Group profits from government and conflict by M. Asif Ismail
On 'Iraqifying' the Quagmire by Tom Engelhardt
Still Trying to Hustle the East by Bill Bonner
November 19, 2004
Ring of Fire by Chris Floyd
"The reality of a major city being ground into rubble was meant to be obscured by the Infoglomerate's wall of noise: murder trials, state visits, Cabinet shuffles, celebrity weddings -- and, above all, the reports of 'embedded' journalists shaping the 'narrative' into its proper form: a magnificent feat of arms carried out with surgical precision against an enemy openly identified by American commanders as 'Satan,' The Associated Press reports."
Read the WSJ, If You Can Stand It by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
Fisking the Wall Street Journal.
Thou Shalt Not Kill by Robert Klassen
"So what of this so-called Christian army that once again calls for the death and destruction of our fellow human beings in far off lands? Are they Christians? They say they are, though they don’t follow the law laid down by God. What do you call these Christians? Hypocrites? I mean, if somebody wants to throw the Ten Commandments out the window, fine, but they should then call themselves something else, not Christians."
The Right To Keep and Bear Arms by Jacob G. Hornberger
"Keep in mind the entire philosophy that underlies both the Constitution and Bill of Rights - that the biggest threat to the freedom and well-being of the American people lies with their own federal officials. Now, some people find that notion embarrassing - that is, the notion that our own federal officials would ever impose tyranny on their own people. But the Founders and the Framers didn’t find that notion embarrassing at all, which is precisely why federal powers are expressly limited and restricted, both in the original Constitution and in the 10 amendments that followed soon after it was enacted."
A Nation of Brainwashed Statists by Thomas DiLorenzo
Hellraising for Dummies by Andy von Sonn
A review of The Freedom Outlaw's Handbook: 179 things to Do 'Til the Revolution, by Claire Wolfe
November 18, 2004
U.S. Media Propaganda--Phase II: Preparations for Attack on Iran by Ted Lang
November 17, 2004
Balance of Power: Political Power by Sunni Maravillosa
"Thus, many Libertarian voters remind me of my children -- they want magic to be real. Just as my children focus exclusively on the coolness of magic, and all the neat things it could enable, Libertarian candidates and voters seem to think only of the benefits of having a "good guy" in office. Forgotten is the possibility that the power of the office will corrupt that individual, as it has so many others. Conspicuously absent is any awareness that the leash is still there."
The Arrival of Secret Law
"Thus, in a qualitatively new development in U.S. governance, Americans can now be obligated to comply with legally-binding regulations that are unknown to them, and that indeed they are forbidden to know. This is not some dismal Eastern European allegory. It is part of a continuing transformation of American government that is leaving it less open, less accountable and less susceptible to rational deliberation as a vehicle for change."
November 16, 2004
American Heroes... by Riverbend
"It's typical American technique- every single atrocity is lost and covered up by blaming a specific person and getting it over with. What people don't understand is that the whole military is infested with these psychopaths. In this last year we've seen murderers, torturers and xenophobes running around in tanks and guns. I don't care what does it: I don't care if it's the tension, the fear, the 'enemy'... it's murder. We are occupied by murderers. We're under the same pressure, as Iraqis, except that we weren't trained for this situation, and yet we're all expected to be benevolent and understanding and, above all, grateful. I'm feeling sick, depressed and frightened. I don't know what to say anymore... they aren't humans and they don't deserve any compassion. So why is the world so obsessed with beheadings? How is this so very different? The difference is that the people who are doing the beheadings are extremists... the people slaughtering Iraqis- torturing in prisons and shooting wounded prisoners- are 'American Heroes'. Congratulations, you must be so proud of yourselves today."
His Red Right Hand by William Rivers Pitt
"At last, these scabrous terrorists have felt the awful price to be paid for defying our God-blessed right to bring 'democracy' wherever we wish by the point of the sword and the Sidewinder missile. The level of devastation wrought upon Fallujah is clear proof that the people who dwelled there were the scum of the earth, deserving of death and disaster. This must certainly be so, because George W. Bush would never order an all-out assault on a city filled with civilians in order to cover up his gross mismanagement of the situation lo these last twenty months. This is what I've been told, anyway."
Slouching toward Gilead by Kurt Nimmo
"Did you really think Kerry was going to win? One look at these guys, the vicious neocon artists and their religious right compatriots, and it should be obvious what they have in mind for you, me, and our kids - and our kids’ kids, for the war on terrorism is truly generational, especially now that elections are not only irrelevant, they are entirely superfluous."
WIMBLEHACK: THE SAD END by Matt Taibbi
"It was all a game to these people, which is why they covered it like a game. There were some people I know personally out there who hated it, who felt guilty about being part of the whole ugly charade. But there were a lot more who were really proud of this life of free lunches, VIP seating and the chance to be the planted audience for the occasional dick joke in an off-the-record chat with some of the hired liars on Air Force One. The maintenance of these privileges for certain people dwarfed the more abstract matter of which millions down there on the ground won or, more to the point, which ones lost."
The war on pleasure continues apace
"While checking out the special offers that British supermarkets have on at the moment, I found myself at Somerfield's website a few minutes ago. Despite all of the nonsense that has come from the British government over the years, and especially in recent months, I was still shocked when I read a link asking Somerfield customers to register their views on the government's plans to ban buy one get one free offers. Surely even this nanny government would not come up with so ridiculous and controlling a measure, I thought."
Drug Store Cowboys by Dan Frosch
"The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (PRC), a consumer advocacy group, filed a lawsuit in September against supermarket giant Albertsons in California Superior Court, for allegedly selling the private prescription drug information of its customers to pharmaceutical companies. PRC also named 17 pharmaceutical heavyweights, like AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and GlaxoSmithKline, as co-defendants, claiming that the companies use the information to promote their drugs through unsolicited phone calls and letters."
Bill's Bottle: In Memory of William Holden by Rodger Jacobs
(an excerpt from Rodger's new book!)
An American Prayer by Jim Morrison
