Why is the mainstream media, so ostensibly free, so unable to provide the public the information and perspectives it needs -- unable, for example, in the current context, to refrain from parroting the inane absurdities relentlessly proferred by administration officials? Chomsky & Herman's "propaganda model" of media goes a long way toward answering this question....


Chalmers Johnson, the distinguished professor emeritus from the University of California, San Diego, whose Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire virtually predicted 9/11, published in early 2004 a new volume devoted to the militarism that is undermining the values of the constitutional republic that the United States has always been, transforming America into something of a different nature altogether, and "compelling Americans," as the dust jacket to Johnson's volume puts it, "to pick up the burden of empire." In the brief passage below, Johnson contrasts the U.S. in 1874 and the U.S. in 2003 to show what America has become....


Some thoughts for Presidents' Day 2004....