The Rag Blog | The Latest in News and Views from the Progressive Front

Ron Jacobs :
BOOKS | The evil that was Phoenix

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Douglas Valentine’s ‘The Phoenix Program,’ gives lie to the ongoing attempts to turn the U.S. war in Vietnam into a noble effort.

The Phoenix Program is now out in an eBook edition.

By Ron Jacobs | The Rag Blog | July 8, 2014

“Phoenix was far worse than the things attributed to it.” — Ed Murphy, former member of the Phoenix program.

[The Phoenix Program: America’s Use of Terror in Vietnam by Douglas Valentine (June, 2014: Open Road Media, Forbidden Bookshelf series); eBook ; 486 pp; $14.99. (Originally published in hardcover by William Morrow, 1990; Published in paperback by iUniverse in 2000). ]

There’s a reason the CIA wanted to prevent the publication of Douglas Valentine’s 1990 book, The Phoenix Program. This masterwork is more than an exposé of the U.S. pacification program in Vietnam the book is titled after. It is an indictment of a cynical and bloody plan to kill Vietnamese.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Alternative History, American History, CIA, Counterinsurgency, Douglas Valentine, Rag Bloggers, Ron Jacobs, The Phoenix Program, U.S. Foreign Policy, Vietnam War, War Crimes | 2 Comments

Alan Waldman :
Brit TV critics call ‘Line of Duty’ the best cop show ever, and for good reason

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

The BBC’s riveting, best-performing drama in a decade, starring Lennie James, is an intelligent, surprising look at police corruption.

Line of Duty investigators Adrian Dunbar, Martin Compston, and Vicky McClure.

By Alan Waldman | The Rag Blog | July 6, 2014

[In his weekly column, Alan Waldman reviews some of his favorite films and TV series that readers may have missed, including TV dramas, mysteries, and comedies from Canada, England, Ireland, Australia, and Scotland. Most are available on DVD and/or Netflix, and some episodes are on YouTube.]

My wife and I were blown away by the five-part, 300-minute first season of the 2012 British cop-corruption thriller Line of Duty, which was the BBC’s best-performing drama in 10 years. It is available on DVD and Netflix and has aired on Hulu. (To see it on YouTube you have to pay $5 to something called Acorn TV.) Britain is enjoying a six-part second season, and two further series have been ordered.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Alan Waldman, BBC Productions, British Television, Criticism, Jed Mercurio, Lennie James, Line of Duty, Rag Bloggers | Leave a comment

Mariann G. Wizard :
SPECIAL REPORT | The Drug War: ‘Against the Wind,’ Part 1

Posted on July 3, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Marijuana prohibition is a house of straw. During the past month, the winds of change have started to rip that house apart and now the DEA may be reevaluating cannabis’ status as a ‘dangerous drug.’

In a perfect storm for prohibition, the “house of straw” — the credibility of anti-marijuana lies — is the first to fall. Image from uni-paderborn.de.

By Mariann G. Wizard | The Rag Blog | July 3, 2014

Part 1: House of Straw

America’s long-running and expensive “War on Drugs,” despite claims that it protects citizens from the harms of dangerously addictive drugs, has been most aggressively focused on cannabis (marijuana, hemp; Cannabis sativa).

Cannabis is not physically addictive and has been consumed by humans for thousands of years without any documented deaths from its use alone. To even begin to catalog the harms of prohibition itself would take a book and cannot be undertaken seriously until the war is over.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Against the Wind, American Society, Cannabis, Controlled Substances, DEA, FDA, Hemp, Hempseed Food, Mariann G. Wizard, Marijuana, Medical Marijuana, NORML, Prohibition, Public Opinion, Rag Bloggers, Sanjay Gupta, War on Drugs | 7 Comments

Steve Russell :
Stopping an American jihad

Posted on July 2, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

It comes down to what Colin Powell used to call ‘the Pottery Barn theory.’ We will own what we break and we don’t want to own the Sunni and Shi’a argument.

Pottery Barn: “You break it, you own it.” Photo by Sajjad Hussain / AFP / Getty Images.

By Steve Russell | The Rag Blog | July 2, 2014

The talks over Syria have gone nowhere and the radical Sunnis have spilled across the Iraqi border to threaten Baghdad. So the chorus rises again:

“Obama is a wuss!”

“Something must be done!”
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Iraq, ISIS, Islamic Caliphate, Kurdistan, Middle East, Ottoman Empire, Rag Bloggers, Steve Russell, Sunni-Shi'a Conflict, Syria | 3 Comments

Jonah Raskin :
FILM | ‘Night Moves’ is about ecoterrorists gone awry

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

It’s hard to imagine that anyone would decide to make a bomb and blow up a dam after watching ‘Night Moves.’

Jesse Eisenberg and Dakota Fanning star in Night Moves.

By Jonah Raskin | The Rag Blog | July 1, 2014

Kelly Reichardt’s 2013 movie, Night Moves — now in theaters across the country — seems to be two movies in one. The first part might be called a how-to picture. The second part is a searing moral melodrama.

The main characters are ecoterrorists. They live in rural Oregon in what appears to be the present day. While there are almost no events that might locate the movie in time and provide an historical reference point, the characters talk on cell phones. Josh grows organic vegetables on a small local farm. Dena works at a spa where women come to relax and heal and where a grotesque and horrible crime occurs. I don’t want to give it away.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Dakota Fanning, Ecoterrorism, Film, Jesse Eisenberg, Jonah Raskin, Kelly Reichardt, Night Moves, Rag Bloggers | 3 Comments

Thorne Dreyer :
PODCAST | Suzanna Danuta Walters discusses the ‘Sabotaging of Gay Equality’

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

The author of the provocative cultural critique, ‘The Tolerance Trap,’ joins us in a lively and revealing discussion on Rag Radio.

Suzanna Danuta Walters.

Interview by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | June 30, 2014

Our Rag Radio podcast features Suzanna Danuta Walters, author of The Tolerance Trap: How God, Genes, and Good Intentions Are Sabotaging Gay Equality.

Listen to or download the podcast of our June 20, 2014, Rag Radio interview with Suzanna Walters here:

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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Authors, Cultural Critics, Gay Liberation, Interview, LGBT, Podcast, Rag Bloggers, Rag Radio, Sexuality, Suzanna Danuta Walters, The Tolerance Trap, Thorne Dreyer | 2 Comments

David P. Hamilton :
The Democrats’ delusions and a strategy for change

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

A central goal of the left in the U.S. should be to create an independent electoral base, a voice from which the left can speak directly to the mainstream.

Painting by Anthony Freda / AnthonyFreda.com.

By David P. Hamilton | The Rag Blog | June 30, 2014

Sometimes you might have cause to wonder, but the Democratic Party is indeed better than the Republican Party. That says almost nothing. The economic policies of contemporary Republicans are more right wing than those of Benito Mussolini, the founder of modern fascism. Being better than Mussolini is no great distinction.

During the “Obama recovery” since 2009, 95% of all income gains have gone to the top 1% economic elite, the capitalist ruling class. As their income rose 31%, the other 99% saw their income grow by a meager 0.4%. In the process, inequality increased rapidly. Such are the riches Obama’s economic policies have delivered.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged 2016 Elections, American Left, Bernie Sanders, David P. Hamilton, Democratic Party, Electoral politics, Hillary Clinton, Political Strategy, Progressive Democrats, Rag Bloggers, Third Party Politics | 18 Comments

Harry Targ :
The intellectual impacts of historians Joyce and Gabriel Kolko

Posted on June 29, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

The ‘Limits of Power’ demonstrated that the United States was committed to expanding its capitalist empire across the globe.

Historian Gabriel Kolko, September 1970. Photo by Franz Maier / The Globe and Mail.

By Harry Targ | The Rag Blog | June 29, 2014

I have been teaching courses on United States foreign policy since 1966. I came of age politically during the Vietnam War and the modern civil rights movement but was not born into a left-leaning political environment.

My formative college experiences of foreign policy came from articulate professors who had embraced the skeptical but limited vision of the United States role in the world shaped by the theorists of “political realism.” I was exposed to a later edition of Hans Morgenthau’s classic international relations textbook, Politics Among Nations, which declared that politics was about the struggle for power. Big or small nations, powerful or weak political actors of all kinds, were engaged in the pursuit of power for purposes of material gain or just to achieve more power.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Gabriel Kolko, Harry Targ, Imperialism, Joyce Kolko, Limits of Power, Rag Bloggers, U.S. Foreign Policy, World History | 1 Comment

Tom Hayden :
Who is creating a terrorist threat?

Posted on June 25, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

The imminent danger is that Obama is preparing to go to war not to ‘save Baghdad’ but to attack the perceived threat of a Sunni jihadist ‘sanctuary.’

Demonstration Saturday, June 21, outside the White House. Photo from AP.

By Tom Hayden | The Rag Blog | June 25, 2014

Contrary to the original spin, there seems to be no need or rationale for “saving” Baghdad from invading ISIS hordes. As I predicted, the growing Shiite counteroffensive seems to be a sufficient deterrent. It appears that al-Maliki will be forced out politically, perhaps to be replaced by a new Humpty-Dumpty and a patchwork agreement to “reform” the Shiite regime.

The imminent danger is that Obama is preparing to go to war not to “save Baghdad” but to attack the perceived threat of a Sunni jihadist “sanctuary” in the vast zone from southern Syria into northern Iraq. It has been U.S. policy, however, that is partly responsible for fostering the terrorist sanctuary threat, if one actually transpires.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Arab World, Barbara Lee, Counter-terrorism, Drone Warfare, Iraq War, ISIS, Jihadist Sanctuary, Long War, Obama Foreign Policy, Rag Bloggers, Syria, Tom Hayden, U.S. Foreign Policy, War on Terror | Leave a comment

Bob Feldman :
People’s History of Egypt, Epilogue/Update, Section 2, November 2013-April 2014

Posted on June 25, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Despite the brutal tactics of the counterrevolutionary Sisi military regime, a struggle for political, economic, and cultural democracy continues in Egypt.

People walk past huge banner for Egypt's army chief, Field Marshal al-Sisi in front of High Court of Justice in downtown Cairo

Eqyptians walk past banner showing Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in downtown Cairo, March 13, 2014. Photo by Amr Abdallah Dalsh / Reuters. Image from Al-Monitor.

By Bob Feldman | The Rag Blog | June 25, 2014

[With all the dramatic activity in Egypt, Bob Feldman’s Rag Blog “people’s history” series, “The Movement to Democratize Egypt,” which concludes here, could not have been more timely. Also see Feldman’s “Hidden History of Texas” series on The Rag Blog.]

According to a December 28, 2013 press release of Human Rights Watch, between July and December 2013 Egyptian government authorities “killed more than 1,000 pro-Muslim Brotherhood protesters; arrested thousands of its supporters, including the majority of its leadership; and engaged in a systematic media campaign to demonize the group” and “a Cairo court in September [2013}” then “found the Brotherhood to be an illegal organization.”
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Bob Feldman, Egyptian History, Egyptian Labor Movement, Egyptian Socialism, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Muslim Brotherhood, People's History of Egypt, Rag Bloggers | Leave a comment

Alan Waldman :
‘Exile’ is touching, thrilling, surprising three-hour Brit drama

Posted on June 23, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Superb acting by award-winners Jim Broadbent, John Simm, and Olivia Colman, plus powerhouse writing, make this a must-see.

Exile is a British psychological thriller.

By Alan Waldman | The Rag Blog | June 23, 2014

Exile is a terrific British psychological thriller TV series dealing with the topic of Alzheimer’s disease against a background of vile corruption. This gripping 2011 three-hour, three-part drama is available on Netflix and Netflix Instant streaming, and here too.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Alan Waldman, British Television, Criticism, Jim Broadbent, John Simm, Olivia Colman, Psychological Thriller, Rag Bloggers | Leave a comment

Jack A. Smith :
Obama’s foreign policy bait and switch

Posted on June 22, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Obama focused on defending his policies from the warhawks instead of the ‘pivot’ to Asia and maintenance of unilateral global hegemony.

President Barack Obama deliverers commencement address at West Point on May 28. Image from U.S. News.

By Jack A. Smith | The Rag Blog | June 22, 2014

President Obama chose to ignore the most important strategic aspect of U.S. foreign policy in his major address May 28 at West Point graduation ceremonies. It was perhaps thought politically wise to emphasize current events rather than military preparations for a possible major future confrontation with China.

Instead Obama mainly focused on defending his policies against mounting criticism from warhawks in both parties variously demanding that the U.S. attack Syria, or Iran, or Venezuela, and adopt more provocative measures toward Russia. He was even criticized for not being tougher toward China, which is preposterous, as we shall discuss in this article when deeds, not words, are examined.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged American Exceptionalism, American Hegemony, China, Jack A. Smith, Obama Foreign Policy, Pivot to Asia, Rag Bloggers, Trans-Pacific Partnership, U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Imperialism, U.S. Military, War on Terror | 3 Comments