Sexual humiliation a tool to control the masses
by Naomi Wolf

Excerpted by the Coffee Coaster 4/16/12
Full 4.6.12 column in The Guardian here

In a five-four ruling this week, the supreme court decided that anyone can be strip-searched upon arrest for any offense, however minor, at any time. This horror show ruling joins two recent horror show laws: the NDAA, which lets anyone be arrested forever at any time, and HR 347, the “trespass bill”, which gives you a 10-year sentence for protesting anywhere near someone with secret service protection. These criminalizations of being human follow, of course, the mini-uprising of the Occupy movement. Bagram airbase was used by the US to detain its ‘high-value’ targets during the ‘war on terror’ and is still Afghanistan’s main military prison. Photograph: Dar Yasin/AP Continue reading →

Don’t want to hear their screams
by Christopher Cooper

Excerpted from Common Dreams column (the article is so good I could not resist the urge to copy and convey under the Coffee Coaster beachhead—though with reference to the full source, but admittedly more than fair use might dictate—a good share of it):

The whole thing is regrettable, really. Shocking, truth to tell. And so sad, I’m sure, for those people, those blanket-wearing, beard-growing, false-god-worshiping, probably-related-to-terrorists, citizens of Afghanistan whose wives and children and babies were gunned down in their beds, shot, murdered, slaughtered, and then burned by one of America’s finest Sunday morning. But hey, what are ya gonna do? These things happen. Continue reading →