The Comment Factory

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That’s a possibility. It’s only a possibility but I think whether that grassroots movement inside the Democratic Party develops or not what is most important is the development of a mass movement outside of the party system. That is, yes, the streets. The kind of movement that in the years of the civil rights movement against racial segregation or in the years of the movement against the Vietnam. A movement that is outside of the orthodox political institutions but which creates an atmosphere in the country and enlists enough people in its cause and frightens the establishment sufficiently so that something is changed

Pilger on Lieberman

Until the so-called underpants bomber failed to strike, you would have been hard pressed to find much information on the Yemen insurgency outside of Press TV. Of the Anglophone media, only the wire services seemed to pay much attention to the Houthi rebellion, and Saudi air strikes against it. US involvement in the Saudi air strikes, some of them ostensibly against ‘Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula’, started to be reported this month. Now this clueless bampot/false flag (take your pick) and his combustible loin cloth have been taken into custody (I’ll let you riff on how it could have been a ‘dirty bomb’), the former reported as saying that he was trained by ‘Al Qaida’ in Yemen. So, Obama has his opportunity to come out openly and demand more US attacks in Yemen

In the “City of God,” St. Augustine tells the story of a pirate captured by Alexander the Great. The Emperor angrily demanded of him, “How dare you molest the seas?” To which the pirate replied, “How dare you molest the whole world? Because I do it with a small boat, I am called a pirate and a thief. You, with a great navy, molest the world and are called an emperor.” St. Augustine thought the pirate’s answer was “elegant and excellent.”

Is Obama’s new age of multilateralism all it’s cracked up to be?

Matt Kennard reports from his local area, Stoke Newington, on a political meeting with Tony Benn.

The Obama administration have gone ‘realist’ in Afghanistan, with their rhetoric shorn of paeans to democracy. Now it is just a strategic war to maintain control of the region.

Somalia could be the new Afghanistan, or Pakistan could be the new Somalia. Welcome to the ‘war on terror’.

Trivers on the proposed 20,000 domestic troop response unit.

The disgraceful attacks in Mumbia may have been committed by Muslims, but the targets of the violence would indicate there is a wider context that is not being explored yet.

There is much pontification in the media about the roots of Muslim extremism and violence. Why not look at our own actions one time?

The approach to Iran is misguided and deluded. If you are listening, Barack Obama, here are the three things you should do to improve the situation.