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Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking LogoImagine a world where every person had complete access to the truth
AND
had sufficient education to separate it from propaganda.
A goal of this site is to provide unbiased access to the truth. This section, in particular, is devoted to helping readers recognize the truth, in the midst of all the propaganda.

To the Person Sitting in Darkness

  • This essay attacking America's policy in the Phillipines in the context of European imperialism was originally published in North American Review, February 1901. Mark Twain never included it an any collection published during his lifetime, but it was reprinted as a pamphlet and widely distributed by the Anti-Imperialist League of New York.
  • MarkTwain | The War Prayer

Mark Twain, New York (NY) Sun

Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Kevin Zeese

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February, 1901 | "Christmas will dawn in the United States over a people full of hope and aspiration and good cheer. Such a condition means contentment and happiness. The carping grumbler who may here and there go forth will find few to listen to him. The majority will wonder what is the matter with him and pass on.--New York Tribune, on Christmas Eve.

"The purpose of this article is not to describe the terrible offenses against humanity committed in the name of Politics in some of the most notorious East Side districts. They could not be described, even verbally. But it is the intention to let the great mass of more or less careless citizens of this beautiful metropolis of the New World get some conception of the havoc and ruin wrought to man, woman and child in the most densely populated and least known section of the city. Name, date and place can be supplied to those of little faith--or to any man who feels himself aggrieved. It is a plain statement of record and observation, written without license and without garnish.

Full story…

Related:

The War Prayer, Mark Twain, WarPrayer.org

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fulttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory with stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.

 

 

 

The Deeper Meaning of Mass Spying in America

  • Constitutional–legal critiques do not go far enough; they fail to raise even more fundamental issues; they avoid basic political questions.
  • Special Report | NSA Spying: Week of June 16, 2013

James Petras, Axis of Logic

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Saturday, Jun 15, 2013 | The exposure of the Obama regime’s use of the National Security Agency to secretly spy on the communications of hundreds of millions of US and overseas citizens has provoked world-wide denunciations. In the United States, despite widespread mass media coverage and the opposition of civil liberties organizations, there has not been any mass protest. Congressional leaders from both the Republican and Democratic Parties, as well as top judges, approved of the unprecedented domestic spy program.. Even worse, when the pervasive spy operations were revealed, top Senate and Congressional leaders repeated their endorsement of each and every intrusion into all electronic and written communication involving American citizens. President Obama and his Attorney General Holder openly and forcefully defended the NSA’s the universal spy operations.

The issues raised by this vast secret police apparatus and its penetration into and control over civil society, infringing on the citizens freedom of expression, go far beyond mere ‘violations of privacy’, as raised by many legal experts.

Full story…

Related:

Special Report | NSA Spying: Week of June 16, 2013, David Culver, Ed., Evergreene Digest

 

  • The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
  • 9 New items including:
  • Now is the time to stand up to government surveillance

  • Massive spying on Americans is outrageous

  • Ellsberg | Snowden's NSA Leak More Important Than My Pentagon Papers

  • Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations

  • NSA Prism program taps in to user data of Apple, Google and others

  • NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily

  • Thank NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden

  • How Google, Facebook, Skype, Yahoo and AOL are all blatantly lying to their own users in denying NSA spy grid scheme

  • The government is snooping in real time on the whole Internet

 

Life Lessons in Fighting the Culture of Bullshit

  • I believe we may have reached "peak bullshit." And that increasingly, those who push back against the noise and nonsense; those who refuse to accept the untruths of politics and commerce and entertainment and government will be rewarded. That we are at the beginning of something important.
  • What politics taught me that current graduates need to know.
  • The Death of Truth

Jon Lovett, The Atlantic

This article is made possible with the generous contributions of all reader supported Evergreene Digest readers like you. Thank you!

May21 2013 | I recently turned thirty, which I know seems like a generation away to those of you graduating this morning. But it's more than just the worst. Thirty is a year where you're left straddling two worlds. One foot stands in the world of the young, among the bright eager minds and supple bodies of students like you. And the other foot stands in the world of the grey and decrepit; the ancient shapes of your professors and parents; their dulling senses; their craggily, wizened faces.

And by the way, congratulations parents! This is your day too.

But what it means is that I am in a position to talk about life after college -- as someone who just lived through it. For example, do you remember how your elementary school felt enormous? But then when you returned years later, you were amazed by how small it actually was? In time, your chosen professions will feel exactly the same way. That is not to say that you won't have almost unlimited opportunities. But it is to say that if you sleep with someone who works in your industry, just be aware that you're going to bump into that person at meetings and conferences and birthday parties for the rest of your life. I literally had to leave politics.

Full story…

Related:

The Death of Truth, Chris Hedges, TruthDig

The use of vast global resources against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks presages a dystopian world where anyone who exposes corruption, lies and crimes of power will be branded a terrorist. This Dig, centering on Chris Hedges' interview with Assange in the London embassy where he has found refuge since last June, also includes an interactive timeline of events surrounding the WikiLeaks disclosures, a sidebar of reader resources, sound bites and a partial transcript stemming from the interview, and an illustration by the acclaimed cartoonist Mr. Fish. The interview is a joint project of Truthdig and The Nation.
 

 

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