kuro5hin: “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves the much higher compensation.”

 Abraham Lincoln, State of the Union message, 1861

Truthdig : “While contemplating the ill-starred presidency of G.W. Bush, I looked about for some sort of divine analogy. As usual, when in need of enlightenment, I fell upon the Holy Bible, authorized King James version of 1611.”

Counterpunch: “Terrorism directed or supported by the most powerful states continues to the present, often in shocking ways.”

Portland Phoenix: For 2005, my annual task of reviewing the past year has been complicated by an old adage: oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. Here I sit, tangled in a web that many people began weaving way back when the Gipper was protecting us against deadly pollutants released by old-growth forests. It was a jumble out there this year — one that defies linear documentation

Nanovirus: For thousands of years humanity had celebrated the beginning of days getting longer in a peaceful and celebratory manner: No longer. There is a war on. Historians generally agree that the Cult of Christ started the War on Solstice. They began by coopting the symbols of this most ancient of celebrations: holly, evergreen trees and the Yule log. Those cultists even moved the date of their god’s birth from summer to winter!

Guardian Unlimited Books: “The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”

DIRELAND: “All this godbothering is, of course, designed to cover up Tyson’s dirty record as a rapacious, union-busting, exploitative corporation that endangers the lives of its workers, exploits immigrant labor, and doesn’t stop at utilizing violence and fraud to achieve its reactionary goals.”

National Security Archive: “The Archive has worked for many years to open U.S. government files on Indonesia and East Timor. In December 2001, the Archive posted newly declassified documents showing that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and President Gerald Ford gave the green light to Indonesia’s 1975 invasion of East Timor, the beginning of a 24-year occupation in which more than 100,000 Timorese died.”