Dear Mr. Parsi, glad to see your writing on FDL. Your book, “Treacherous Alliance, The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the US,” should be required reading for anyone who really wants to understand the dynamics of power politics in the Middle East.

You could try:

http://www.answercoalition.org/

They send out email announcements about upcoming events all around the country.

Not even that. His speech last night was clueless.

His speech was the most awful drivel I have ever heard; blabbering on about the Washington monument and the wonderful agreement reached with the deplorable Republicans. At least with the Republicans you can always tell which side they are on. I really don’t see how this man can get re-elected, because most of us who [...]

I am reminded of Galileo’s recantation at the hands of the inquisition. The earth didn’t stop moving just because Galileo was forced to renounce his ideas. Ultimately, the Church was proven wrong and he was proven right.

If you believe the latter paragraph, I suggest you read: Shlomo Sand, “The Invention of the Jewish People.”

Me, too.

Perhaps you should have started off by reading this Wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#Illegal_literature
You would have been made aware of the number of so-called democracies that
limit free speech in one way or another, particularly speech that is intended to incite racial, religious or other types of bigotry.

I don’t think you and Bin Quick even know the history of your own country when you can talk such rubbish about “democracy.” Were we disqualified from democracy because of slavery, genocide of American Indian tribes, the American Civil War (one of the most vicious and violent wars in history up to that point), conquest [...]

This wasn’t an act of throwing your personal property into a fire place and burning it. It was a public act of vandalism, carried out with the intent of gaining public attention and showing hatred to someone else’s religion. Had he burned the Koran in his fireplace with no public attention or fanfare obviously there [...]

Who are the barbarians? Afghanistan is a country that has been under foreign aggression for the past 30 years, first by the Soviets and then by us. There was recently a headline in the NY Times, “Civilian Deaths Imperil Support for Afghan War,” “Villagers Blame US, as Inquiry by Military Looks at Taliban.” More than [...]

I am reminded of Galileo’s recantation at the hands of Inquisition and the phrase attributed to him under his breath, “and yet it moves.”

Vandalism is not confined to private property. The definition is “the malicious destruction or defamation of public or private property.” Jones’s act was vandalism and a hate crime, clearly. To put it in the category of “free speech,” really stretches the meaning.

You look at the response to September 11th. Over 4,000 American soldiers dead, 30,000 maimed and mutilated for life. More than a million Iraqi’s displaced from their homes, and anywhere from 100,000 to a million Iraqi’s killed. We don’t really know because we didn’t count how many Iraqi’s we killed – they were just not [...]

You say, “Until the Arab world can accept insults to the Koran and Islamic institutions just as the Christian world accepts insults to the Bible and Christian institutions, the Arab world isn’t ready for Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech, or democracy.” So far we haven’t seen any Bible or Torah burnings, so your claim [...]

Rather than squabbling amongst ourselves, maybe we should focus more on how the conservative, right wing is operating in this country to get their message out to people. Probably some of you saw the article about Professor Bill Cronon and his new website that presents a study guide on whose behind the right wing efforts [...]

For a less simplistic understanding of the origins of the cold war, I suggest reading the following: Drawing the Line: The American Decision to Divide Germany, 1944-1949, Carolyn Woods Eisenberg

On segment of our economy is already based on socialism, central planning and control by state apparatus and that is the Pentagon. Most people don’t think about it, but the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex is a centrally planned economy. All spending and decision-making on military matters comes from the military bureaucrats at the Pentagon [...]

Follow this link for a nice explanatory animated video based on the book by
Professor David Harvey, “The Enigma of Capitalism.”
http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/06/28/rsa-animate-crisis-capitalism/