A New World View: Why Americans Really Need to Get Out More Often

by Nomad

Surveys tell us that fewer Americans are traveling abroad anymore. There are, of course, a good reasons why people would prefer to stay home, However, as country with a record of intervening in other nations, it is strange how incurious and uninformed so Americans have become about the rest of the planet.

How does our stay-at-home attitude influence our ideas about the rest of the world? Has it made us more arrogant and more ignorant?

Mark Twain, the travel writer, once said

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” 

For citizens of a nation with so many imperial ambitions, it amazes me how few Americans actually have ever been abroad.
That's a kind of a pity too. In comparison to a lot of other nationalities, average Americans are not bad ambassadors for their country.

In fact, 35 per cent of all Americans admit that they do not even own a passport and more than half - 54% - have never traveled outside the U.S.

According to one survey of over 2000 citizens,  41 per cent of travelers who have never been abroad feel that everything worth visiting is in the U.S.
About half of the respondents said that if they had the money, they would like to travel to other countries while about 26% said they would rather not go abroad.

Chelsea Manning, Dianne Feinstein and the Far Right's Magic "T" Word

by Nomad

Formerly known as Bradley, Chelsea Manning turned 27 years old earlier this month. He really doesn't have a lot to celebrate. Without a presidential pardon, the military whistle-blower who was convicted on 20 of 22 counts cannot expect to be a free person until he reaches the age of 63.

His crime is familiar to all of us now. He dared to disclose to the public that the US army, the CIA and Iraqi and Afghan forces committed human rights violations.

That was something that Manning never denied. When investigations tracked him down, he admitted to sending Wiki Leaks more than 700,000 confidential files, including U.S. embassy cables, Guantanamo detainee profiles, and footage of airstrikes that killed civilians. 

Unlike many famous spies of the past, his rationale wasn't based on ideological support of America's enemy, like the Rosenbergs or Jonathan Jay Pollard, and it wasn't based on some financial motive, like John Anthony Walker, Jr. 

In many ways, Manning is a prisoner of conscience.

How Christian Right's Defense of Family Helps Hide Russia's Biggest Problems

by Nomad

The same political evangelicals who have wasted taxpayer's money in the US are taking the Christian Right's homophobic defense of family show to Russia.

And there's a good reason why Putin and the Russian government supports the extreme conservative propaganda.

Back in February, Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council (FRC), a far right Christian political organization, declared that the American Economy was doomed. It was only a matter of time.

The cause for the meltdown?  America's acceptance of gay rights, naturally.

Perkins' American Apocalypse 

In case you don't know, the Family Research Council- a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) charity- lobbies in Washington against all things homosexual in the name of supporting family values. "Homosexual conduct is," according to the FRC, "harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at large, and can never be affirmed." 

Perkins' argument that acceptance of gay equality can actually cause the economy to tank is a new one. It works like this: Gay rights, Perkins predicts, will weaken the nation to such a point that Russia and China will feel emboldened to drop the dollar as an international currency standard. American money will be worthless.
Thereafter every time you open your purse or wallet all you will hear is a flushing sound.

Happy Holidays from Nomadic Politics

by Nomad

Torture vs Medical Ethics: Should Doctors that Assisted in CIA interrogations be Held Accountable?

by Nomad

Dick Cheney recently claimed that controversial procedures applied to detainees were a medically necessity. Experts dispute this and call for a full investigation of possible ethics violation and crimes committed by contracted physicians. 

Cheney's Attempt at Damage Control

Recently, ex-vice president Dick Cheney appeared on MSNBC's "Meet the Press." Following the release of the Senate report on CIA detention and interrogation program. Cheney was in full damage control mode.
In spite of his attempt, it was pretty clear that the master manipulator's tricks had worn tissue thin. 

During the interview, Cheney repeatedly tried in vain to use 911 as an excuse for what went on behind prison walls. Nobody has ever argued that the detainees were nice people but without a trial, they were still innocent. Nobody has ever argued that the things done on September 11 2001 should be forgotten or that we must do everything- within the law- to stop attacks.
Nevertheless, Cheney's argument was that the ends justified the means, even when those means included torture (as defined by various international treaties that the US is a party to.)

All in all, even Cheney's supporters were embarrassed by what amounted to what can charitably called "misrepresentations." When asked about one of the more inexcusable techniques used by the CIA, namely "rectal feeding  and "rectal hydration"

Cheney claimed these procedures were done only as a medical necessity.  Michael Hayden, former CIA director recently used the same rebuttal to torture allegations.

The Experts Respond

Of course, the defense was ridiculous but it also opened the door for yet another problem for the CIA and its contracted physicians.