Al Jezera: Fault Lines "A Tale of Two Bankruptcies"

Two American Families (Frontline)

This week PBS's Frontline released its ground breaking documentary following two blue collar families from Milwaukee over the past 22 years--"Two American Families." From the halcyon days of well paid industrial labor through the leaner years of the creation of Alan Greenspan's precariate to the economic non-existence of the Lesser Depression, Bill Moyers and Frontline trace the hardships and struggles of the once mighty American Middle Class.

They provide a front row seat to see first-hand the atomization of American culture through the eyes of "ordinary people" drawing a correlation between the macro level power-plays and politics and the micro level bills that are unmet, gutted communities, and hopelessness of the forsaken. Marx once said that the history of a family is the history of a nation. "Two American Families" is the story of the United States as the American Dream began to evaporate in the twilight of Empire.

Check it out on the PBS website, here, or tune into your local PBS station.

Thoughts on the NSA

By Gene Ogorodov

On the 4th of July, a day where we ostensibly celebrate our freedoms and liberties as Americans, it seems reasonable to share a few thoughts on the negation of American privacy by the NSA and the National Security State that has arisen in the last few years.  So:  

NSA et, ut dicitur, homo non est. Sunt inferiora naturae quam in lege est simia. Nunc ergo veni, ut eas transferre in linguam Anglicam.