Saturday 27th of April 2024
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on the left...

about ed...

In the USA, the left leaning media has been marginalised. Some silly pundits call “The New York Times” a publication of the left — as if being a capitalist/Democrat supporter means being an organ in favour of equality and restraint of governmental abuses. It’s a bit like Le Monde in France or Der Speigel in Germany. These papers will expose the trickery of the Right but rarely expose the mischiefs of the “fancy caffe latte left”, which in the USA are the establishment hawks, the warriors and the cash manipulators of the Democratic party. 

In the past it was slightly different but many socialist publications go shuttered down by successive government decrees.

Today, in the USA, the rise of alternative media has been overshadowed by the Russians. Thus cometh the core of “the Russians have interfered in the US Presidential elections”. The Russian did no such thing, but the theme is used by the Hillary Clinton supporters to explain her unexplainable defeat. This is where publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post loose credibility. If supporting the Clinton machine represents being on the left, then we may as well give up. The Democrat establishement and the liberal media (of the so-called left), which did everything it could to destroy Sanders, is firmly entrenched in super-capitalism and war for profit. These are not the ideals of the true left. 

The war is always about fake news... and the NYT and the WP are full of it, while clinging to the straws of the Russian scarecrow. 

From after WWII “the Russians have been working to keep peace on earth while the Yanks tried to sow discord as much as possible”. Big statement that rings somewhat true despite skirmishes in Korea and Afghanistan. This statement comes from one of the characters in The Napalm Bugle by Ed Lacy (real name: Leonard “Len” S. Zinberg — see later on)... Meanwhile:


The [present] Russian campaign is “successful not only because they are putting a billion dollars a year into it, but also because the KGB has become so damn effective at it,” Royce explained. It is not quite clear which service he meant since the KGB ceased to exist back in 1991 together with the Soviet Union.

The senator reiterated mainstream media claims of the lavish state funding received by RT, which the broadcaster has refuted on numerous occasions.

RT’s budget in 2017 stands at roughly $300 million, which includes financing for all of its seven television channels and digital platforms, according to the organization’s press office. As for Sputnik news agency, it was funded by around $100 million this year.

To put that into perspective, the 2017 budget of the US Broadcasting Board of Governors, which runs Radio Free Europe and Voice of America, among other outlets, is over $748 million.


RT and Sputnik are not socialist voices either. They represent an alternative view to those of war often peddled by the USA mainstream media — possibly with more apparent truth in RT and Sputnik. And they do it effectively with decent articles that are well researched and to say the least often very philosophically sound. The US mainstream media has lost its nettle because, even “if on the left” like the NYT, they cannot walk on the toes of the rich industries they feed upon. 

The true alternative left media in the USA are now mostly small and edgy publications (see the alternatives...) that use the net as much as possible, as well as unsyndicated local radio and TV. They are quite fragmented in the sense that they rarely cross-reference each other, but the Russian media (RT and Sputnik) often quote them to express this alternative viewpoint. Hence the success of RT and Sputnik using western decent and hard journalists as well.

 

In my CIA exposé (the CIA good fairy: the bad witch of the west...), I mention one book, The Napalm Bugle by Ed Lacy. It is the only book I have from this prolific and interesting edgy author "who has been forgotten" but should actually be elevated on par with Ernest Hemingway, though Lacy’s style is more raw and edgy. Lacy is a hard one to get a fix upon. Biographies are hard to come by. Usually, a Wikipedia would have a reasonable article on such an author, but nothing much. Lacy both defined and followed a John Lecarré which Lacy admired for example. I say defined because Lacy came first and published in Left papers such as The New Masses (1926 — 1948) and Blast. TNM was an American Marxist magazine closely associated with the Communist Party, USA. It succeeded The Masses (1912—1917) and later merged into Masses & Mainstream (1948—1963). 

With the coming of the Great Depression in 1929 America became more receptive to ideas from the political Left and The New Masses became highly influential in intellectual circles. The magazine has been called “the principal organ of the American cultural left from 1926 onwards.”

Wikipedia tells us that the editorial staff of the New Masses included Hugo Gellert, John F. Sloan, Max Eastman, Mike Gold, as well as Joseph Freeman, Granville Hicks (starting in 1934), Walt Carmon, and James Rorty. Many contributors are now considered distinguished, even canonical authors/writers: William Carlos Williams, Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos, Upton Sinclair, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Day, John Breecher, Langston Hughes, Eugene O’Neill, Rex Stout and Ernest Hemingway. 

More importantly, The New Masses  also circulated works by avowedly leftist, even “proletarian” working-class artists: Kenneth Fearing, H.H. Lewis, Jack Conroy, Grace Lumpkin, Jan Matulka, Ruth McKenney, Maxwell Bodenheim, Meridel LeSueur, Josephine Herbst, Jacob Burck, Tillie Olsen, Stanley Burnshaw, Louis Zukofsky, George Oppen, Wanda Gág, and Albert Halper.

The vast production of left-wing popular art of the 1930s and 1940s was an attempt to create a radical culture in conflict with mass culture [including mass media]. Infused with an oppositional mentality [the resistance of today’s Democrats being pitifully hypocritical], this cultural front was a rich period in American history and is what Michael Denning calls a “Second American Renaissance” because it permanently transformed American modernism and mass culture.

 

“Lynch Him!” in Francis R. Bellamy’s monthly Fiction Parade (July 1935) by its title alone suggested Zinberg’s deep-seated concerns with racial matters. The white Zinberg (Ed Lacy’s real name) was enmeshed in the black culture by more than his interracial marriage to Esther (in articles he referred to her as “the wife”). An Ed Lacy story titled “The Right Thing” originally appeared in the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper shortly after World War Two and was later anthologized in The Best Short Stories by Afro-American Writers. This story tells the strange, sad tale of Ed Jordan who in an auto accident severs a young girl’s arm. Jordan waits for the disfigured girl to grow up so he can wed and thereby redeem her. In the end, she jilts him for a younger fellow nearer her own age. Such an ironic, bittersweet ending is classic Ed Lacy.

 

Ed Lacy sometimes wrote in two narrative, one short (in italics) that represents the present (or flash forward), usually that of a contrariant ending — like that of a beaten imprisoned defeated hero, Brad, in The Napalm Bugle — and the past, narrated in present time, in which the hero is manipulated by others, nonetheless succeeding in the assigned mission, but to become a sad victim. Thus from the start, we are forewarned that things are going to turn real nasty for Brad. His involvement with the “General” is unhealthy, yet the general has been his only viable meal ticket — his war veteran pension suplemented by his medal (awarded by the General) pension. We have no clue whether the general is telling porkies or not when he informs brad of a problem. Brad, a honest man, falls for the General’s cash and the spin of “saving America”. Brad starts lying to Kay, his loving assistant in his strugling anti-war magazine, about the provenance of the cash. The CIA, the FBI and NISA (the precursor of the NSA) are all observing his movements, as are the Russians via the Roumanians — and MI6. The plot is build around the possibility that the USA blew the first Hydrogen bomb or not. At the time, many countries also experimented with rocket fuel [possibly based on boron chemicals] which proved totally unreliable. Rockets blew up. Ed Lacy did thorough research. Ed was a true pacifist fully against war and most of his writing reflected this commitment. 

 

In 1957, Ed Lacy’s Room to Swing introduced the first credible African-American PI, Toussaint “Touie” Marcus Moore.  MWA (Mystery Writers of America) liked it enough to award him the 1958 Edgar for Best Novel, beating out Bill Ballinger, Marjorie Carleton, and the Australian novelist Arthur Upfield (whom Ed Lacy also admired. Upfield was best known for his works of detective fiction featuring Detective Inspector Napoleon “Bony” Bonaparte of the Queensland Police Force, a half-caste Aborigine). Room to Swing’s structure uses an interesting sequence of six sections including flashbacks. Touie deals with the black thing, but his investigation leading to Bingston in backward Ohio outshines his native New York City setting. Touie reflects how “it was a far cleaner world than Harlem, or a big city.” Here also Ed Lacy’s best figurative language  (“If he had a cellophane head I couldn’t have seen his little bird brain working any cleaner.”) is worthy of comparison to Raymond Chandler’s metaphoric gems.     

After praising Room to Swing as having “honesty, vigor, and power,” Critic Anthony Boucher threw down the gauntlet to challenge Ed Lacy.  “One regrets Mr. Lacy’s habit of creating an excellent detective for one story only; Touie deserves a second case soon.” The renowned critic would have to wait until 1964 with Lacy’s PI sequel, Moment of Untruth.

Lacy disliked “series” characters which he found “boring.”

 

Today Ed Lacy has his avid fans and admirers. Edgar-winning critic Marv Lachman describes Lacy as “one of the most interesting writers of the paperback originals.” For this profile Ed Gorman focused on specific reasons why Lacy’s Edgar-awarded title enjoys such durability. “Room To Swing remains high on my list of hardboiled mystery novels.  There was a lyricism, almost a poetry, to the writing that touched not only the powerful, melancholy storyline but also the elegant and evocative place descriptions.  I’ve always regarded this as a true masterpiece. Certainly, its take on race makes it a milestone, too.  But the sociology of it too often overshadows the sad truth of the tale itself.  I liked several other Lacy novels very much, too, but Room is the one that got him to heaven.”  

 

This foretells the famous movie "in the heat of the night..." and The Napalm Bugle foretells the surveillance of "Enemy of the State"...

 

Famed New York Times critic Anthony Boucher consistently praised the Lacy projects.  Welsh critic and writer John Williams also admired Room to Swing as “a fine, taut piece of crime writing.”  Jon L. Breen selected the same title as one of the twenty-five best PI novels ever. Sad to report, Ed Lacy’s native New York City shows none of his books in its public library online catalog.

Within the academy, opinions about Lacy seem mixed. Matthew J. Bruccoli has sought to reprint Lacy’s fiction for the New Black Mask series and cites The Best That Ever Did It as possibly his favorite read. Alan Wald ventures an opinion that such Lacy books as In Black and Whitey or Room to Swing might well inspire Ph.D. dissertations.  

At the same time, Ray B. Browne has written Lacy “is a run-of-the-plot writer with a talent for fast, racy hard-knuckled plots and for language that reads easily and is worth spending a small amount of money or time to obtain and an hour or two in the reading.” 

 

By choice and then necessity a commercial writer, Lacy though not a “big money writer” made a respectable living at it.  His Harper imprint hardcovers are ambitious, articulate, and original enough to arguably veer into the literary arena. After all, he had cut his teeth in The New Yorker and The New Republic. To his credit, Len Zinberg/Ed Lacy sensibly refused to draw distinctions between genres. “Frankly, I don’t consider the mystery novel on any higher or lower literary level than any other commercial novel,” he declared.  He went on to lump Faulkner and Hemingway in with Spillane and Faith Baldwin as all “commercial” novelists.  

Ed Lacy wrote a funny, wise article called “I Dunit” in August 1966 for P.S., the last issue of a non-fiction magazine from Mercury Press.  He told of the ins and outs about what it took to be a professional writer. In self-deprecating humor, he pinned his hopes on a stab at a mainstream novel to revive his career, The Hotel Dwellers. He decried the advent of television and arrogance of celebratory writers such as Truman Capote. By the end, he wishes for the good old days.

Len Zinberg/Ed Lacy was a gifted storyteller. Above all, he trusted his “common sense” to create the realistic novel with “characterization as important as plot.”

 

Acknowledgements: Gus borrowed a lot from Wikipedia and an article By Ed Lynskey who also thanked Matthew J. Bruccoli, Ed Gorman, Marv Lachman, Bill Pronzini and Alan Wald for their insights and assistance in the writing of this profile on Ed Lacy.

 

In the presence of the gross hysteria about Russia in the USA, one should read The Napalm Bugle once more... with new fresh eyes on what the CIA, the FBI and the NSA are doing...

 

 

the alternatives...

From wikipedia: 

 

 

Alternative news services[edit]
  • AlterNet
  • Common Dreams
  • The Intercept
  • Indymedia
  • Project Censored
  • Raw Story
  • The Real News
  • Truthdig
  • Truthout
  • US Uncut
Alternative blogs[edit]
  • Atrios
  • Crooks and Liars
  • Hullabaloo
  • WhoWhatWhy
  • Media Matters
Alternative television networks[edit]
  • Free Speech TV
  • Link TV
Alternative television programs[edit]
  • Democracy Now!
  • Redacted Tonight
  • The Young Turks
Alternative radio programs[edit]
  • Air America Radio
  • Democracy Now!
  • Free Speech Radio News
  • Pacifica Radio
Publications[edit]
  • The Nation, weekly, established 1865. Circulation 190,000.[1]
  • In These Times, monthly, established 1976. Circulation 17,000.[1]
  • Mother Jones, bimonthly, established 1974.[1]
  • The Progressive, monthly, established 1909.[1]
  • The American Prospect, monthly, established 1990. Circulation 55,000.[1]
  • Z Magazine, monthly established 1977. Circulation 10,000 print and 6,000 online subscribers.[1]
  • Dissent, quarterly, established 1954.[1]
  • Jacobin, established 2010.
  • Monthly Review, monthly, established 1949. Circulation 7,000.[1]
  • Review of Radical Political Economics, quarterly, established 1968.
  • Fifth Estate, quarterly, established 1965.[1]
  • Labor Notes, monthly, established 1979.
  • Left Business Observer, established 1986.
  • The Indypendent, published 17 times per year, established 2000.[1]
  • Left Turn, quarterly.[1]
  • The Baffler, established 1988.[1][1]
  • Utne Reader, bimonthly, established 1984. Circulation 150,000.[1]
  • Dollars & Sense, bimonthly, established 1974.[1]
  • The New Hampshire Gazette, fortnightly, press run 5,500.[1]
  • Texas Observer, established 1954.[1]
  • CounterPunch, established 1993.
See also[edit]
  • Alternative media (U.S. political right)
  • American Left
  • Progressive talk radio
  • Underground press

 

meanwhile in bagdhad...

 

 

Russian military and political presence in Iraq would bring balance to the whole Middle Eastern and North African region, Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi vice-president, said during his visit to Moscow.

"It’s well known that Russia has historically strong relations with Iraq, therefore we would like Russia to have a substantial presence in our country, both politically and militarily,” al-Maliki said during his meeting with the speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament, Valentina Matviyenko.

“This way, a balance would be established that would benefit the region, its peoples and its countries,”he added.

 

The vice president said that Baghdad wants to boost relations with Moscow as it believes “in Russia’s role in solving most of the key international issues as well as improving stability and balance in our region and worldwide.”

Matviyenko, in turn, praised the commitment of the current Iraqi authorities to widening their cooperation with Moscow.

“Russia is also determined to expand its interaction with Iraq both politically and economically as well as in the military-technical sphere, and, of course, on the parliamentary level,” she said.

In his talks with Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, earlier Monday, al-Maliki stressed that a Russian presence in Iraq would bring the balance which couldn’t be “undermined in a political sense in favor of any external party.”

“Today we need Russia's greater involvement in Iraqi affairs, especially in the energy field. Now when we are done with Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), Iraq needs investments in energy and trade,” he said.

Earlier in July, the Iraqi authorities announced that the last IS stronghold in the country, Mosul, had been fully liberated from the terrorists, following an eight-months-long campaign backed by the US-led coalition.

Al-Maliki told Lavrov that Moscow and Baghdad “should enhance… cooperation in countering terrorism in the region.”

“We believe that both our countries are targets for terrorists and those who stand behind them," al-Maliki said.

read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/397380-maliki-russia-iraq-isis/

 

This could be why the US wants to send more troops in Iraq. Iraq, mostly Shia, has aligned with Iran, especially against the influence of the Saudis (Sunnis). 

 

on fake news and nattering nabobs of negativism...

 

Before the rise of professional journalism in the early 1900s and the conception of media ethics, newspapers reflected the opinions of the publisher. Frequently, an area would be served by competing newspapers taking differing and often radical views by modern standards.[4] Ethnic newspapers were the norm in every metropolitan city during the 19th and early 20th century, including German, Dutch, Finnish, French and various Eastern European newspapers, which disappeared as their readership, increasingly, assimilated. In the 20th century, newspapers in various Asian languages, Spanish, and Arabic appeared and persist catering to the newer respective immigrant groups.

In 1728, Benjamin Franklin, writing under the pseudonym "Busy-Body", wrote an article for the American Weekly Mercury advocating the printing of more paper money. He did not mention that his own printing company hoped to get the job of printing the money. It is an indication of the complexity of the issue of bias, that he not only stood to profit by printing the money, but he also seems to have genuinely believed that printing more money would stimulate trade. As his biographer Walter Isaacson points out, Franklin was never averse to "doing well by doing good."[5]

In 1798, the Congress of the United States passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which prohibited the publication of "false, scandalous, or malicious writing" against the government and made it a crime to voice any public opposition to any law or presidential act. This act was only in effect only until 1801.

In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln accused newspapers in the border states of bias in favor of the Confederate cause and ordered many of them closed.[6]

In the 19th century, many American newspapers made no pretense to lack of bias, openly advocating one or another political party. Big cities often had competing newspapers supporting, various political parties. To some extent this was mitigated by a separation between news and editorial. News reporting was expected to be relatively neutral or at least factual, whereas editorial sections openly relayed the opinion of the publisher. Editorials might also have been accompanied by editorial cartoons, which would frequently lampoon the publisher's opponents.[7]

The Progressive Era, from the 1890s to the 1920s, was a period of relative reform with a particular journalistic style, while early in the period some American newspapers engaged in yellow journalism to increase sales. For example William Randolph Hearst, publisher of several major market newspapers, deliberately falsified stories of incidents, which may have contributed to the Spanish–American War.[8]

In the years leading up to World War II, politicians who favored the United States entering the war on the German side accused the international media of a pro-Jewish bias and often asserted that newspapers opposing entry of the United States on the German side were controlled by Jews. They claimed that reports of German mistreatment of Jews were biased and without foundation. Hollywoodwas said to be a hotbed of Jewish bias, and pro-German politicians in the United States called for Charlie Chaplin’s film The Great Dictator to be banned as an insult to a respected leader.[9]

During the civil rights movement in the 1960s, some White Southerners [who?] stated that television was biased against White Southerners and in favor of mixing of the races. In some cases, Southern television stations refused to air programs such as I Spy and Star Trek because of their racially mixed casts.[10]

During the labor union movement and the civil rights movement, newspapers supporting liberal social reform were accused by conservative newspapers of communist bias.[11][12]

In November 1969, Spiro Agnew, then Vice President under Richard Nixon, made a landmark speech denouncing what he saw as media bias against the Vietnam War. He called those opposed to the war the "nattering nabobs of negativism."

read more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias_in_the_United_States

 

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spiro (MAD)

Spiro (MAD Magazine)

CNN tells porkies...

A CNN report claiming that Russia is arming the Taliban terror group in Afghanistan is part of an American disinformation campaign in which the broadcaster is being used as a propaganda tool, said Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.

“We stated repeatedly that a disinformation campaign has been launched in the US media over alleged arming of Taliban by Russia and so on,” Zakharova told Govorit Moskva radio station.

“CNN is a reliable propaganda tool in this game by the relevant US agencies,” she added.

Earlier Tuesday, CNN released videos of Taliban factions in various parts of Afghanistan claiming to be in possession of weapons that they said originated from Russian government sources.

A Taliban group operating near the town of Herat said they got hold of Russian guns after defeating a rival Taliban unit, while another militant brigade claimed that it received weapons supplied by “the Russians” via Tajikistan, according to the report.

CNN acknowledged that “the videos don't provide incontrovertible proof” that Moscow has been dealing with the Taliban.

read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/397500-russia-taliban-us-disinformation-campaign/

 

This "report" by CNN is designed to absolve the US from supplying weapons to Syrian "rebels"... See the pink pigs flying high...

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they make a desert and call it peace...

“One knowledgeable official estimates that the CIA-backed fighters may have killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers and their allies,” writes columnist David Ignatius.

Given that Syria’s prewar population was not 10 percent of ours, this is the equivalent of a million dead and wounded Americans. What justifies America’s participation in this slaughter?

Columnist Eric Margolis summarizes the successes of the six-year civil war to overthrow President Bashar Assad.

“The result of the western-engendered carnage in Syria was horrendous: at least 475,000 dead, 5 million Syrian refugees driven into exile in neighboring states (Turkey alone hosts three million), and another 6 million internally displaced. … 11 million Syrians … driven from their homes into wretched living conditions and near famine.

“Two of Syria’s greatest and oldest cities, Damascus and Aleppo, have been pounded into ruins. Jihadist massacres and Russian and American air strikes have ravaged once beautiful, relatively prosperous Syria. Its ancient Christian peoples are fleeing for their lives before US and Saudi takfiri religious fanatics.”

Realizing the futility of U.S. policy, President Trump is cutting aid to the rebels. And the War Party is beside itself. Says The Wall Street Journal:

“The only way to reach an acceptable diplomatic solution is if Iran and Russia feel they are paying too high a price for their Syria sojourn. This means more support for Mr. Assad’s enemies, not cutting them off without notice. And it means building up a Middle East coalition willing to fight Islamic State and resist Iran. The U.S. should also consider enforcing ‘safe zones’ in Syria for anti-Assad forces.”

Yet, fighting ISIS and al-Qaida in Syria, while bleeding the Assad-Iran-Russia-Hezbollah victors, is a formula for endless war and unending terrors visited upon the Syrian people.

What injury did the Assad regime, in power for half a century and having never attacked us, inflict to justify what we have helped to do to that country?

Is this war moral by our own standards?

We overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003 and Moammar Gadhafi in 2012. Yet, the fighting, killing and dying in both countries have not ceased. Estimates of the Iraq civilian and military dead run into the hundreds of thousands.

Still, the worst humanitarian disaster may be unfolding in Yemen.

After the Houthis overthrew the Saudi-backed regime and took over the country, the Saudis in 2015 persuaded the United States to support its air strikes, invasion and blockade.

By January 2016, the U.N. estimated a Yemeni civilian death toll of 10,000, with 40,000 wounded. However, the blockade of Yemen, which imports 90 percent of its food, has caused a crisis of malnutrition and impending famine that threatens millions of the poorest people in the Arab world with starvation.

No matter how objectionable we found these dictators, what vital interests of ours were so imperiled by the continued rule of Saddam, Assad, Gadhafi and the Houthis that they would justify what we have done to the peoples of those countries?

“They make a desert and call it peace,” Calgacus said of the Romans he fought in the first century. Will that be our epitaph?

read more:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/are-americas-wars-just-a...

hillary to reveal how she lost: blame the russians...

 

 

Hillary Clinton has revealed the title of her new memoir recounting the events of the 2016 presidential election from her own perspective. The memoir, “What Happened,” is slated for a September 2017 release.

According to Amazon's online description of the new book, "Now free from the constraints of running, Hillary takes you inside the intense personal experience of becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party in an election marked by rage, sexism, exhilarating highs and infuriating lows, stranger-than-fiction twists, Russian interference, and an opponent who broke all the rules."

"She lays out how the 2016 election was marked by an unprecedented assault on our democracy by a foreign adversary," the blurb goes on to say. "By analyzing the evidence and connecting the dots, Hillary shows just how dangerous the forces are that shaped the outcome, and why Americans need to understand them to protect our values and our democracy in the future."

 

"In the past, for reasons I try to explain, I've often felt I had to be careful in public, like I was up on a wire without a net. Now I'm letting my guard down," wrote Hillary in the book's introduction. 

The book is expected to focus on howalleged Russian interference and the testimony of then-FBI Director James Comey cost her the election, along with lesser factors such as sexism and misogyny.

"She wants the whole story out there from her own perspective. I think a lot of people are going to be really surprised by how much she reveals," said an anonymous source close to Clinton to The Hill. They added that the book will be a "bombshell."

"What Happened" is available for preorder on Amazon.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/politics/201707271055943214-hillary-clinton-memo...

 

The problem is not "how much" she reveals but what she won't reveal... and how her party manipulated her nomination so that Sanders was left out... Meanwhile what rules did her opponent broke? Being supported by Murdoch? Getting the number of Colleges? Making a deal with the evangelicals (of which throwing out the transgenders and gays out of the army was part of)? Being a winning loony instead of being a losing warmonger? I can wait for the summary and the critics, in between my toilet breaks...

See also:

https://sputniknews.com/cartoons/201707281055947378-hillary-clinton-what-happened-cartoon/

 

no more wars...

His trademark grin quickly returned.

"I will say too, that there was more aircraft in that film than there ever was on the beach! I didn't recognise anybody," Mr Power laughed.

Mr Power says the film makes one thing clear: we must avoid returning to war, at all costs.

"Remember: no more wars. We don't want any more," he said.

"If [young people] want to join the Army, OK, join the Army. For a sense of purpose, for an education, yes. But not to go to war."

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-31/dunkirk-veteran-victor-power-on-ch...

 

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hell would have been kinder...

 

Documents unearthed by independent researchers offer a glimpse into the grim halls and cells of "Cobalt" - the Central Intelligence Agency's flagship offshore prison, which the detainees nicknamed "The Darkness."

Shocking details have emerged about Cobalt — the "black site" prison used by the CIA during the agency's post-9/11 torture program, where techniques crafted by shamed psychologist pair James Mitchell and John Jessen were inflicted on hundreds of inmates.

In August, Mitchell and Jessen settled out of court with former inmates of Cobalt. Their settlement precluded full details of the program from being aired publicly — but Freedom of Information requests lodged by Torture Database researchers have unearthed 274 documents released in the case.

While partially redacted, they paint a vivid picture of the grim reality of the secret world that existed within Cobalt's walls.

read more:

https://sputniknews.com/military/201710101058098065-cia-cobalt-torture-p...

 

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