IMPORTANT READS

GELFAND’S WORLD--A couple of decades ago, some of my environmentalist friends started talking about something they called the precautionary principle.

MY TURN-We are now being told (and I assure you I am not making this up) that if the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons doesn’t find evidence that the Syrian government conducted a chemical weapons attack in Douma last week, it’s because Russia hid the evidence. 

WITNESSING WAR CRIMES-Write down: I, Uri Avnery, soldier number 44410 of the Israel army, hereby dissociate myself from the army sharpshooters who murder unarmed demonstrators along the Gaza Strip, and from their commanders, who give them the orders, up to the commander-in-chief. 

MY TURN--One year ago, the Trump administration transgressed establishment Washington orthodoxy by asserting that it was no longer pursuing regime change in Syria as a priority.

WHEN TRUTH IS OBSCURED-It can be argued that the multilateral coordinated military action against Bashar al-Assad was carried out for the right reasons; after-all, the use of chemical weapons is intolerable and must be met with disciplinary force. In the staunch words of President Trump: “No nation can succeed in the long run by promoting rouge states, brutal tyrants and murderers dictators.” 

STAND FOR SOMETHING--Last night Fox’s Tucker Carlson did what may have been the most amazing thing that has ever happened on American television. As the drums of war beat louder than they have in years, Carlson stared right into the camera and did the exact opposite of what every mainstream US pundit is doing right now: he told the truth. 

OTHER WORDS-How much of your paycheck do you plan to hand over to corporate Pentagon contractors this year?

MIDDLE EAST PERSPECTIVE--The ongoing Palestinian demonstration along the Israel-Gaza border has turned out to be, not surprisingly, violent.

FIRED FOR HIS VIEWS--When Kevin Williamson was fired by The Atlanticon Thursday afternoon, the Twittersphere lit up with mournful statements from conservatives, claiming Williamson had been martyred for his “views.” In their rush to defend him, they revealed several crucial truths about anti-abortion thinking in 2018 and gave the lie to the idea of a “compassionate” pro-life movement. 

VIEW FROM HERE--For historians, the current president of the United States is terra incognita. Donald John Trump is the first of the 44 individuals who have held the office to never have been a government functionary. Even men like U.S. Grant and Dwight Eisenhower served in high-ranking military positions, overseeing the huge bureaucracy of war. As far as I am aware, Trump has never even been a local commissioner, let alone an elected official. 

SHOOT FIRST, ASK LATER BEING QUESTIONED-On the heels of police officers shooting a young, unarmed black man to death in Sacramento, California, last month, state lawmakers announced a first-of-its-kind bill on Monday that raises the standard for when officers may open fire. 

VIEW FROM HERE--The online Oxford dictionary defines the word siege as a “military operation in which enemy forces surround a town or building, cutting off essential supplies, with the aim of compelling those inside to surrender.”

FIRST PERSON-In her book Democracy inChains, Professor Nancy MacLean of Duke University in North Carolinalays out how the over 40-year master plan funded by the Koch brothers and other mega-rich oligarchs has dumbed down the American electorate to the point that it is now incapable of understanding what she is talking about because they no longer have the requisite critical thinking skills needed to do so. In 2018, we see that these skills have been systematically removed from our public education system, much like in the Orwellian “newspeak world” presciently described in George Orwell's novel,1984. 

SPOILING THE MESSAGE-Liberty means freedom. Freedom is not about borders, passports, drivers’ licenses, tax stubs and censuses. Freedom is not about race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, or one's economic worth. What is freedom if not the feeling of being free? What is freedom if not the pursuit of life and happiness? 

MY TURN-It’s time for the DNC to wake up and realize that the so-called “progressives” of the Bernie Sanders group are neither progressive nor interested in really supporting any platform that doesn’t pass their “Bernie Purity test.”

GUEST WORDS--A record? Come on! Don’t minimize what’s happening. It’s far too unique, too unprecedented even to be classified as “historic.” Call it mega-historic, if you wish. Never from Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar to Soviet despot Joseph Stalin, from the Sun King Louis the XIV to President Ronald Reagan, from George Washington to Barack Obama, has anyone -- star, icon, personality, president, autocrat, emperor -- been covered in anything like this fashion.

SIBBLING SENDUP-She is the balanced, stable, sane Trump sibling and she’s not happy about the behavior of her little brother, the President of the United States.Maryann Trump Barry, Donald Trump’s older sister and a United States Circuit Judge, told reporters over the weekend, “Donnie’s not acting right -- I’m afraid he left his marbles back in Queens.” 

AMERICAN OLIGARCHS-I often look at Jeff Bezos when trying to understand how American oligarchy functions.First of all, by currently occupying the number one slot on Forbes’ billionaires list, he is the top dog. He figured out how to play the plutocracy game quickly, and how to play it better than anyone else. 

GUEST WORDS--John Bolton, President Trump’s new (and improved) National Security Advisor argues a nuclear first strike against N. Korea is “legal.”

CORRUPTION WATCH-During the last election, Russia’s job was to screw with America. Cambridge Analytica’s business model was to data mine the www for memes in order to package and sell them to political campaigns. The job of Americans was to be educated. Two of these entities did their job while the last one failed miserably. 

POLITICAL DIVIDE--While the country is in the middle of realizing that we have had an illegitimate Presidential election, we are also continually battling the daily onslaught of misinformation that is being spewed by both Trump and his followers. This is a time when Democrats need to rally together to pursue fact checking and attempt to maintain some form of sanity.