However law-abiding a person we think we are, there are myriad laws on the books that all of us unwittingly break every single day. We are all secretly felons. Most of us go through life without being aware of this or prosecuted for our ‘offenses’ but that picture changes if for some reason the government wants you to doing something for them. Then they can use the threat of prosecution to coerce you into agreeing.
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After seeing Pulp Fiction I swore never to watch any more of Quentin Tarantino’s films, seeing them as vehicles for him to indulge his personal fantasies of violence and the use of racist language, especially the N-word. However I am aware of many fans of his who claimed that he was some kind of genius filmmaker and that I was just not getting it. One of these was a highly respected professor of film at my university. When I wrote about his films five years ago, some readers of this blog tried to explain to me why he was good. I was not convinced.
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In the US, whether something is called a riot or not has little to do with the amount of damage or harm caused by it. If the rioting crowd is largely white and the cause is because their team won some sports event, as happened on Sunday in Philadelphia when the local team won the Super Bowl, then it is ok. If the crowd is of mixed ethnicities and is protesting social and economic injustices, it is not ok. If the crowd is largely black and the cause is police brutality, then the riots squads are brought out to deliver a brutal crackdown.
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Those who have been following the recent sexual abuse cases may have heard of the Shitty Media Men online spreadsheet that allowed people to anonymously post their experiences and name their harassers. Harper’s teased an upcoming article by Katie Roiphe that promised to reveal the name of the person who created the list but Moira Donegan she decided to out herself before it appeared and explained why she did it, saying that until then the ‘whisper networks’ that warned people to avoid certain people in power only reached the few who were well-connected.
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Wacky former Republican congresswoman Michele Bachmann had announced that she was thinking of running for the Minnesota senate seat vacated by Al Franken and that she was going to ask her god what he thought about the idea. There was a time when I would have welcomed the entry of a loony right-winger into an election because they would not win but would provide plenty of entertainment. But after Donald Trump won, that has ceased to be a risk-free option..
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There will be a primary election on March 20 to select Republican and Democratic candidates to vie for congressional seats in Illinois and the third district has drawn some interest. On the Republican side, only one person has filed to run in this election, guaranteeing that he will be the party’s candidate. Not having a rival in primaries is not unusual. What is unusual is that this unopposed person has the most appalling views.
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Investigative journalist Robert Parry died last week at the age of 68. Jon Schwarz writes about the qualities that made him a great journalist which, as should not be too surprising, made it hard for him to work for his former employers at the Associated Press and Newsweek that he said tried to suppress his accounts that held the powerful to account, so he started his own news service called ConsortiumNews.
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January 30 was the 50th anniversary of the launch of what is known as the Tet Offensive, Tet being the name of the Vietnamese New Year. The forces of the National Liberation Front and the North Vietnamese army launched a concerted attack on US and South Vietnamese all over South Vietnam and even right in the heart of Ho Chi Ming City (then called Saigon), including the headquarters of the South Vietnamese General Staff, the Independence Palace, the US Embassy, the Navy Headquarters, and the National Radio Station.
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Today the Intelligence Committee of the House of Representatives finally released the so-called Nunes memo, so named after the chair of the committee. I have rarely seen such an extended period of hype over whether the memo would be released or not, with speculation extending for weeks. To be honest, this is the kind of absurd Washington kabuki that I abhor and tend to ignore because it is almost invariably much ado about nothing. If you are interested you can read the four-page memo here and read about it here.
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The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Movement has as its goal to “end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international law.” An overview of its mission states:
Israel is occupying and colonising Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes. Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the BDS call urges action to pressure Israel to comply with international law.
BDS is now a vibrant global movement made up of unions, academic associations, churches and grassroots movements across the world. Eleven years since its launch, BDS is having a major impact and is effectively challenging international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.