É importante, ao ouvirmos os formadores oficiais de opinião na mídia, perguntarmo-nos o que eles realmente querem dizer com as palavras que usam. Como Orwell destacou em “A Política e a Língua Inglesa,” aqueles no poder usam a linguagem para obscurecer o significado, mais amiúde do que para torná-lo inteligível. Bom exemplo é a recorrência…

In a recent piece that got lots of replay from the online liberal commentariat, Michael Lind (“The Question Libertarians Just Can’t Answer,” Salon, June 4) posed what he considered an unanswerable question to libertarians: “Why are there no libertarian countries?… If libertarianism was a good idea, wouldn’t at least one country have tried it?” If anything, Lind’s…

Naomi Wolf is taking a lot of flak this week from supporters of alleged NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for her suggestion (via Facebook post) that Snowden may “not be who he purports to be” and that his “emphases seem to serve an intelligence/police state objective, rather than to challenge them.” The upshot, of course, being…

The following article is translated into Portuguese from the English original, written by Trevor Hultner. Parece que a reação padronizada da mídia ao surgirem denunciantes em nossos dias é distorcer-lhes a imagem de tal maneira que nunca ninguém possa vê-los como pessoas simpáticas. Assim aconteceu com Daniel Ellsberg. Aconteceu com o segundo cabo B. Manning. E, agora,…

It’s important, when listening to the official shapers of opinion in the media, to ask ourselves what they really mean by the words they use. As Orwell pointed out in “Politics and the English Language,” those in power use language to obscure meaning more often than to convey it. A good example is the recurrence…

It seems that the standard media response when whistleblowers come out these days is to twist their images in such a way that no one could ever find them sympathetic figures. It happened to Daniel Ellsberg. It happened to Pfc. B. Manning. And now, it ‘s former Booz Allen Hamilton system administrator Edward Snowden’s turn…

Last week Michael Lind asked a silly question (“The question libertarians just can’t answer”): if libertarianism is so great, why hasn’t any country tried it? The question is silly because the libertarian answer is obvious: Libertarianism is great for ordinary people, but not for the power elites that control countries and determine what policies they…

The Fourth Amendment: “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…

Muitos economistas acham que a próxima bolha a estourar em nossa atual crise será a dos empréstimos a estudantes. A dívida de empréstimos a estudantes encontra-se em alta histórica, e as taxas de empréstimos federais estão prestes a dobrar, de 3,4% para 6,8% – a despeito de pequeno esforço para fazer com que os juros dos empréstimos a estudantes acompanhem…

The following article is translated into Portuguese from the English original, written by R.A. Childs, Jr. O artigo a seguir foi originalmente publicado na edição de maio de 1971 de The Abolitionist, escrito por R.A. Childs, Jr. Uma das muitas questões que separam os “libertários de esquerda” dos “libertários de direita” diz respeito a o quanto o Governo dos Estados Unidos…

The following article is translated into Spanish from the English original, written by Roderick T. Long at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Nacida Alisa Rosenbaum en San Petesburgo, Rusia, el 2 de febrero de 1905, Rand llegaría a ser una de las principales voces del siglo XX a favor de la libertad humana. Después de…

Every once in a while I’m inspired to write a column by looking through my feeds and stumbling across two items that dovetail together so well the column almost writes itself. This is one of those times. There are several hard realities that most liberals — as opposed to those of us on the genuine…

Many economists think that the next bubble to burst in our current crisis will be student loans. Student loan debt is at a historic high, and federal loan rates are about to double, from 3.4% to 6.8% – despite a small effort to have student loan interest rates mimic the rates government grants big banks. This…

President Barack Obama lifted a moratorium on transfers of Guantanamo bay detainees to Yemen – a moratorium he put in place. Why Obama put this moratorium into place after vowing, on a multitude of occasions, to do whatever he could to restore justice and shut down Gitmo is neither here nor there. I don’t intend…

Memorial Day in the United States is a time for absentminded, almost spontaneous, flag-waving and military worship; a time when yellow ribbons become ubiquitous and the mantra “support the troops” enjoys renewed life. For those of us who are keenly critical of the United States, its foreign policy in particular, those accoutrements of Memorial Day…

The US government has declared war on us. By “us,” I mean the many thousands of people who work as journalists in this country, myself included. This war extends a larger, more subtle war on whistleblowers that the government, and the Obama administration more specifically, has waged for several years. Last week, the first overt…

On Tuesday, May 21, 2013, anarchist lawyer and activist Gerald “Jerry” Koch was taken into custody in New York City for refusing to testify before a grand jury regarding the 2008 Times Square Military Recruitment Center bombing. This is the second time Koch has been subpoenaed, after the government informed his lawyers that it was…

Katrina vanden Heuvel, publisher of The Nation, is at it again, this time on Twitter (@KatrinaNation). This morning she tweeted: “Ginning up IRS story to make government seem like oppressor fits into Right’s decades-long narrative. Government for common good is needed.” Pssssh. That America has ever had government for common good is one of those…

It seems official, the United States is a permanent wartime state. Senior Obama Administration officials have stated that the War on Terror, in its “limitless form,” will carry on for another decade, possibly two. Given our role in the world, as an economic and military super-power, and given the economic, social and environmental crisis we…

The following article is translated into Portuguese from the English original, written by Kevin Carson. Com os níveis de uso de drogas nos Estados Unidos essencialmente os mesmos que — e os níveis de violência relacionada com drogas iguais ou mais baixos (*) que — os daqueles em países, como a Holanda, com leis liberais relativas a…