Mois : octobre 2013

Gallup’s just-released poll showing a majority of Americans support the drug’s legalization isn’t quite true … at least not yet – Published on The Guardian, by Harry J. Enten, Oct 23, 2013.

Ever feel like you’re experiencing deja vu? I’m sure it’s happened to those of you who have smoked cannabis – you know, grass, marijuana, or, as the cool kids might say, weed. And while I’m not personally smoking the stuff, I get the same feeling when talking about marijuana polling.

It was big news Tuesday when Gallup released a poll showing that a record high 58% of Americans believe marijuana should be legalized. But the proof that a majority of Americans are in favor of cannabis legalization is, as I wrote earlier this year, simply not there yet. Take the Gallup poll, and the trend in it over the past few years.  Continuer la lecture de « US: is there really a majority in favor of marijuana legalization? »

The Coming Era of Tiny Wars and Micro-Conflicts – Published on ZNet (first on TomDispatch), by Tom Engelhardt, Oct 23, 2013.

In terms of pure projectable power, there’s never been anything like it … //

… Despite this stunning global power equation, for more than a decade we have been given a lesson in what a military, no matter how overwhelming, can and (mostly) can’t do in the twenty-first century, in what a military, no matter how staggeringly advanced, does and (mostly) does not translate into on the current version of planet Earth.   Continuer la lecture de « Why Washington Can’t Stop »

Published on World Socialist Web Site WSWS, by Barry Grey, Oct 23, 2013.

A series of reports released over the past several days document the killing of thousands of people, including hundreds of non-combatant civilians, in US drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and other countries. The reports, issued by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, 105 pages, on Tuesday and the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions last Friday, expose as lies the claims of President Obama and administration officials that the drone strikes are “surgical” attacks that kill few civilians.  Continuer la lecture de « Reports document US slaughter of civilians in drone strikes »

Published on truthdig, by Chris Hedges, Oct 20, 2013.

“The rich are different from us,” F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have remarked to Ernest Hemingway, to which Hemingway allegedly replied, “Yes, they have more money.”

The exchange, although it never actually took place, sums up a wisdom Fitzgerald had that eluded Hemingway. The rich are different. The cocoon of wealth and privilege permits the rich to turn those around them into compliant workers, hangers-on, servants, flatterers and sycophants. Wealth breeds, as Fitzgerald illustrated in “The Great Gatsby” and his short story “The Rich Boy,” a class of people for whom human beings are disposable commodities.   Continuer la lecture de « Let’s Get This Class War Started »

Published on VOX.org, by Knut Are Aastveit, Gisle James Natvik, Sergio Sola, October 19, 2013.

Many analysts blame uncertainty for at least part of advance nations’ poor economic performance since the crisis. This column discusses new research showing that the economic impact of monetary policy is dampened when uncertainty is high. This means that high uncertainty forces monetary policymakers into a trade-off between acting decisively and acting correctly as policy must be more aggressive than otherwise in order to stabilise economic activity. The finding is particularly stark when uncertainty measures from financial markets are utilised.   Continuer la lecture de « Economic uncertainty and the effectiveness of monetary policy »