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A Bankrupt Superpower

The Collapse of American Power

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

In his famous book, The Collapse of British Power (1972), Correlli Barnett reports that in the opening days of World War II Great Britain only had enough gold and foreign exchange to finance war expenditures for a few months. The British turned to the Americans to finance their ability to wage war. Barnett writes that this dependency signaled the end of British power. (full article)

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Land Behind Bars

The Hidden Casualities of America's "War on Crime"

By MARLENE MARTIN

The number of people behind bars in the "land of the free" is grown as large as the combined populations of Atlanta, Miami, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Kansas City and Pittsburgh.

That's the shocking fact in a Pew Center on the States report showing that one in 100 adults in the U.S. are in prison or jail--more than 2.3 million people.

When it comes to locking up its people, the country that claims to be the "world's greatest democracy" is far ahead of every other nation--ahead of China, ahead of Russia, ahead of all the tyrannies that the U.S. government supports around the world--both in absolute numbers of prisoners and the rate of incarceration.

As has always been the case in a country founded on slavery, the inmates of America's prisons are disproportionately people of color. Among African American men over 18, one in 15 are in prison--between the ages of 20 and 34, fully one in nine Black men are behind bars. When those on parole, probation or otherwise involved in the criminal justice system are included, that statistic rises to one in three. (full article)

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Liquidators, Incorporated

Blood and Champagne

By URI AVNERY

Every people elevate the profession in which they excel.

If a person in the street were asked to name the area of enterprise in which we Israelis excel, his answer would probably be: Hi-Tech. And indeed, in this area we have recorded some impressive achievements. It seems as if hardly a day passes without an Israeli start-up company that was born in a garage being sold for hundreds of millions. Little Israel is one of the major hi-tech powers in the world. (full article)