Read the dépêche filed by Stevan Konstantinović, our correspondent in Serbia. Right under our noses, under our sleeping eyes, when all the good people roam the Malls on this Memorial Weekend, Macedonia (FYROM) is being as methodically disintegrated as the rest of the former Yugoslavia has been for the past decade thanks to western humanitarianism. One of these days we'll rub those sleeping eyes and wake up to face a new clash of civilizations -- Islam vs. Orthodoxy -- in the Balkans; and we'll say, "Oh, but I didn't know....Must be a fairy tale!"
One event that has been neatly brushed under the rug is Kerrey's dance—his deceitful soul searching thirty some years after he directed his SEAL team to kill innocent civilians in Vietnam. Did you notice how "Officialdom" closed ranks and rallied around him? From Moscow, Russia, Matt Taibbi, the co-Editor in Chief of the iconoclastic eXile explains, in words that will make the prude cover their face and go to confession, what it says "about you if you don't even blink when the society you live in tells you that murder is bravery and deceit is candor."
Yet again Deck Deckert uses satire to demonstrate the US's asinine war on drugs. But, eh, it has not worked in over twenty years. Good reason to carry on, I suppose! If you wonder how the system works, then read Milo Clark's Events. Says Clark, "How deeply fear corrodes possibilities of compassion. How desperate the power people must feel. How infecting this human perversity. How enduring."
There's been lot of talk about the latest Hollywood release, Pearl Harbor. We won't add to the fracas. Instead, to make the case once more that "there is no excess which will not be exceeded," we re-publish the excellent essay of Michael Stowell on the myth behind the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Enjoy this rendition and Sandy Lulay's poem; as always please form your own opinion.
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Stevan Konstantinović: Macedonia — The Last Act
While the West is expressing its apprehension concerning the possible civil war brewing in Macedonia, it is actually already in full swing, bringing both human and material victims. What looks at first sight to be a conflict between two national identities, Slav and Albanian, is much broader in scope; directly or indirectly, all Balkan countries are present here, as are the EU and the USA. More...
Stevan Konstantinović, a member of the Authors' Guild of Vojvodina, is an advisor for culture, education and science in the provincial administration of Vojvodina, Yugoslavia.
Matt Taibbi: Kerrey to Thanh Phong Villagers: Shit Happens!
There are a lot of things in life which do not make a whole lot of sense.
Take Christianity, for instance. I spent years trying to figure this one out. It's headed by a God who is supposedly all-powerful and good. However, he appears to be not exactly all-powerful, because he allows the existence of evil-Hitlers and Stalins, etc. More...
Matt Taibbi is co-Editor in Chief of The eXile, an iconoclastic English-language magazine published in Moscow, Russia.
Michael W. Stowell: Debunking the Myth Behind the Nuclear Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
On July 16, 1945, U.S. President Harry Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin met in Potsdam, Germany to discuss surrender terms for the Japanese and Russia's planned entry into the Pacific campaign. Stalin had received communications outlining a conditional surrender that would allow Japanese Emperor Hirohito to remain as a ceremonial functionary.
On the same day, approximately 230 miles from Los Alamos, New Mexico in the Jornada del Mueto valley at the "Trinity" test site, the world's first atomic bomb was detonated. More...
Michael W. Stowell is chairperson of the City of Arcata Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Commission, Humboldt County, CA.
Deck Deckert: Substance Abuse
Once upon a time, a wise ruler decided something must be done for the benefit of his people.
He had just discovered that millions of citizens were ingesting a very dangerous substance that endangered their health. More...
A former copy, wire and news editor, Deck Deckert is a freelance writer. He is the author, with Alma Hromic of Letters from the Fire.
Milo Clark: Events
A near continual scattering of events: a teachers' strike in Hawaii, anesthesiologists break away from major insurer in Hawaii, Supreme Court marijuana decision, Red Cross workers hacked to death in Congo, FBI and so on and so forth across and around the planet. More...
Milo Clark is a Swans' founding member, advisor and columnist.
Sandy Lulay: ESCAPE
Beneath the oak
Winded leaves watch a butterfly.
The silence, quite beautiful,
Draws the colors of it's
Innocence.
More...
An "Original Woodstock Girl," Sandy Lulay is also a "Swans kind of girl" who's been writing poetry since age 10.