US Imperialism // Current

Obama and Latin America

Hylton: Will Obama recognize Latin America is no longer "America's backyard'? Who will get the key job? Barack... more

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Howard Zinn: The financial and war crisis have created an opportunity for real change. Part 5

In the final segment of our interview with Howard Zinn we explore the idea of the United States as a source of freedom and democracy in the world. Prof. Zinn outlines the long history in the US of linking military pursuits with the cause of freedom and democracy, a marriage which Prof. Zinn believes is still used due to inappropriate historical education. Prof. Zinn believes that it is time to drop war altogether as a practice and begin the hard but fruitful transition to an economy based on domestic improvement rather than military dominance. He finishes by adding that education is most effective when coinciding with a changing reality and that the combination of the financial crisis and the military crisis are creating such a scenario.

Howard Zinn is an American historian, political scientist, social critic, activist and playwright. He is best known as author of the best-seller 'A People's History of the United States'. Zinn has been active in the Civil Rights and the anti-war movements in the United States. Zinn was raised in a working-class family in Brooklyn, and flew bombing missions for the United States in World War II, an experience he now points to in shaping his opposition to war. In 1956, he became a professor at Spelman College in Atlanta, a school for black women, where he soon became involved in the Civil rights movement, which he participated in as an adviser to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee SNCC and chronicled, in his book SNCC The New Abolitionists. Zinn collaborated with historian Staughton Lynd and mentored a young student named Alice Walker. When he was fired in 1963 for insubordination related to his protest work, he moved to Boston University, where he became a leading critic of the Vietnam War.

See Part 1 at: http://current.com/items/89436711_zinn_vote_for_obama_but_direct_action_needed

See Part 2 at: http://current.com/items/89443553_zinn_bailout_is_trickle_down_theory_magnified

See Part 3 at: http://current.com/items/89443567_howard_zinn_on_taxes_and_class_war

See Part 4 at: http://current.com/items/89447830_guns_or_butter

Howard Zinn: The financial and war crisis have created an opportunity for real change. Part 5 In the final segment of our... more

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8 responses

1 month ago

Obama, McCain and the Empire

Chalmers Johnson: No president has stood up to the military-industrial complex. Part 4 In Part 4 of his series of interviews... more

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6 responses

1 month ago

Who is Randy Scheunemann?

McCain's neocon foreign policy adviser has been a lobbyist for arms companies & Saakashvili's Georgia.

Randy Scheunemann, John McCain’s Senior Foreign Policy Advisor, Lobbyist, and a former director of the neo conservative Project for a New American Century. A group which advocates global strategic and ideological predominance of the United States through military force. He has been a Republican political insider In Washington since 1986. He served on the staffs of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and as National Security Adviser to Senate Republican and Majority Leaders Bob Dole and Trent Lott from 1993-99. He was also McCain’s defense and foreign policy advisor during the bid for the White House in 2000. About his relationship with McCain the web site RIGHT WEB reports: He introduced the senator to the foreign ministers of Albania, Croatia, and Macedonia as they tried to win admission to NATO, and a representative of Taiwan as it lobbied for free trade, records show.

Mr. Scheunemann also accompanied Mr. McCain to Latvia in 2001 and Georgia in 2006. He has led 3 lobbying firms, SCHEUNEMANN & ASSOCIATES, ORION STRATEGIES and the MERCURY GROUP. He has lobbied for among others: Arms manufacturers and gun associations, Oil Firms, And represented foreign governments Including Georgia. The Wall Street Journal reported that “Mr. Scheunemann's firm (Orion Strategies) has earned more than $2 million since 2004 lobbying U.S. officials, including Sen. McCain and his staff, on behalf of various clients including Georgia, records show. His lobbying for Saakashvili has led to the inference by Journalist Robert Scheer on TruthDig, Conservative Columnist Pat Buchanan on Creators Syndicate, and indirectly Vladimir Putin of Russia, to suggest that he had something to do with Georgia’s attack on the breakaway region of South Ossetia in early August. Randy Scheunemann has been described as John McCain’s Henry Kissinger or Zbignew Brzeniski.

Senior Analyst at Political Research Associates, Chip Berlet is a veteran freelance writer and photographer who specializes in investigating right-wing social movements, apocalyptic scapegoating and conspiracism, and authoritarianism. A PRA staffer since 1982, he has written, edited and co-authored numerous articles on right-wing activity and government repression for publications as varied as the The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Progressive, The Nation, The Humanist, and The St. Louis Journalism Review. Mr. Berlet edited Eyes Right! Challenging the Right-wing Backlash, co-published by PRA and South End Press (1995), a popular primer on the right. He is also co-author with Matthew N. Lyons of Right-wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort, published by Guilford Press (2000).McCain's neocon foreign policy adviser has been a lobbyist for arms companies & Saakashvili's Georgia. Randy... more

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12 responses

3 months ago

Ron Paul revolution against empire and draft

Matt Welch of Reason.com, says Ron Paul's supporters feel shut out of political process. Matt Welch is a journalist,... more

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7 responses

3 months ago

No moderate, no realist, McCain the neocon

Matt Welch, of Reason.com, provides a history of McCain and his move to the militant neocons. Part 4 See Part 1 at:... more

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9 responses

3 months ago

McCain and the Independent vote

Matt Welch, editor of the libertarian magazine Reason.com, says McCain is more interventionist than Bush. Part 2 Matt Welch is... more

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17 responses

3 months ago

US tries to create an 'iron curtain' around Russia

F.W. Engdahl : US in decline as Russia asserts its rising power. President Dimitri Medvedev criticized the European Union for... more

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15 responses

3 months ago

Ron Paul says it's time to end the empire

Paul Jay interviews Ron Paul from the "Rally for the Republic".

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34 responses

3 months ago

Will Obama-Biden question military dominance?

The Obama-Biden worldview with Eric Margolis, Phyllis Bennis and Paul Heinbecker. Part 2

Phyllis Bennis is a Senior Analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC. She is the author of Before and After: US Foreign Policy and the September 11 Crisis and Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy US Power. Her newest book Understanding the US-Iran Crisis: A Primer will be available in September 2008.

Eric Margolis is a journalist born in New York City and holding degrees from Georgetown the University of Geneva, and New York University. During the Vietnam War he served as a US Army infantryman. Margolis is the author of War at the Top of the World –- The Struggle for Afghanistan and Asia is a syndicated columnist and broadcaster whose articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The International Herald Tribune, Mainichi Shimbun and US Naval Institute Proceedings.

Paul Heinbecker joined the [[Department of External Affairs (Canada)|Department of External Affairs]] immediately after graduation, and received postings abroad in [[Ankara]], [[Stockholm]], and [[Paris]]. From 1989 to 1992, Heinbecker served as Chief Foreign Policy Advisor and speechwriter for [[Prime Minister of Canada|Prime Minister]] [[Brian Mulroney]], and as Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet for Foreign and Defence Policy. In 1992, he was appointed ambassador to [[Germany]]. In the late 1990s, he organized the task force on the Kosovo conflict, and served as head of the Canadian delegation to the Climate Change Convention in [[Kyoto]]. In 2000, Heinbecker was appointed as Ambassador to the United Nations. There he was a strong proponent of the [[International Criminal Court]] and argued for compromise in the lead-in to the [[2003 Invasion of Iraq|2003 attack on Iraq]].

See Part 1 at: http://current.com/items/89245887_the_obama_biden_worldview

See Part 3 at: http://current.com/items/89259573_obama_biden_and_iran

See Part 4 at: http://current.com/items/89262719_obama_biden_and_iraqThe Obama-Biden worldview with Eric Margolis, Phyllis Bennis and Paul Heinbecker. Part 2 Phyllis Bennis is a Senior Analyst... more