Prison-Wide Hunger Strike Still Rages at Guantánamo by Andy Worthington March 29, 2013 Three weeks ago, I wrote an article entitled, “A Huge Hunger Strike at Guantánamo,” in which I reported the stories emerging from Guantánamo of a prison-wide hunger strike, the most severe since George W. Bush was president, and the gulf between what was being reported by the prisoners through their attorneys, and what the U.S. authorities were ...
The Streets of America Feel Different by Wendy McElroy March 29, 2013 Zeitgeist: noun, German. The spirit of the time; general trend of thought or feeling characteristic of a particular period of time. The word zeitgeist occurred to me while reading a March 22 headline in the New York Post: “Military-Style Drones Will Patrol NYC.” The report sprang from comments made by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his weekly radio ...
The Calling: Back to the Future of Freedom by Steven Horwitz March 28, 2013 As an economist, I am always more than happy to talk about how great the market is and to undertake the task of educating people on how markets work and why they are good. Certainly, one of the central concerns of the modern libertarian movement has been to extol the virtues of the market, especially the freed market. But ...
Another Day, Another Bailout by Tim Kelly March 28, 2013 Well, the Cypriot banking crisis has been “resolved.” It is being reported that the government in Nicosia has agreed to a deal with the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) lenders. The deal involves a large loan from the European Central Bank (ECB), the imposition of austerity measures and capital controls, and the restructuring of the country’s ...
How the News Media Betrayed Us on Iraq by Sheldon Richman March 26, 2013 The tenth anniversary of the start of America’s illegal and aggressive war against Iraq should not pass without recalling that the mainstream news media eagerly participated in the Bush administration’s dishonest campaign for public support. It is no exaggeration to say that most news operations were little more than extensions of the White House Office of Communications. Abandoning even ...
Restrooms and a Free Society by Laurence M. Vance March 26, 2013 We have all done it. While on a trip across the country with the family, we have all exited the Interstate and pulled into a McDonald’s or some convenience store to use the restroom — and then driven away without making a purchase. A woman in Tennessee will probably never do that again. She stopped at a restaurant in Erin, ...
The Libertarian Angle: March 25, 2013 by Future of Freedom Foundation March 26, 2013 The Libertarian Angle features FFF vice president Sheldon Richman and president Jacob Hornberger. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly.
Market Manipulations by Tim Kelly March 25, 2013 With all the government meddling in the economy, it is virtually impossible to sort out free-market functions from political manipulations. It is also impossible to predict the economy’s future performance with any degree of accuracy. There are simply too many variables, and with most economic data being manipulated to serve political agendas, the chances of getting an accurate picture ...
TGIF: Bastiat on the Socialization of Wealth by Sheldon Richman March 22, 2013 That … veil which is spread before the eyes of the ordinary man, which even the attentive observer does not always succeed in casting aside, prevents us from seeing the most marvelous of all social phenomena: real wealth constantly passing from the domain of private property into the communal domain. Wealth marvelously passing from the private to the communal domain? ...
Obama’s “No Fly” List for FedEx and UPS by Wendy McElroy March 22, 2013 The Obama administration is notorious for crony capitalism, through which big businesses reap huge riches by virtue of their cozy association with government. Big oil, big car companies, big agrobusinesses, big banks, and big drug corporations are among the legally privileged cronies who are profiting at the expense of nonprivileged competitors and of customers who pay higher prices. Now the ...
“No Indefinite Detention at Guantánamo,” U.S. Claims, Defying Reality by Andy Worthington March 22, 2013 We live in surreal times. Barack Obama, who promised “hope and change,” has, instead, proven to be a worthy successor to George W. Bush as a warmonger and a defender of those in positions of power and authority who authorized the use of torture. Moreover, when it comes to another hallmark of Bush-era crimes — indefinite detention without charge or ...
The Disasters that U.S. Intervention Created by Sheldon Richman March 21, 2013 Americans have forgotten about the Iraq war, which began 10 years ago this week, and the Afghan war, the longest in American history, but the U.S. government is still throwing its weight around in both countries. The Iraq war, the pretext for which was nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, officially ended in 2011 with the withdrawal of virtually all of ...