Our culture of violence marches forward as the US continues to threaten military action against sovereign countries, as if America is the ultimate moral force and everyone living there is doing just fine. Whether or not Syria used chemical weapons is completely irrelevant to any rational discussion of foreign policy, and war will never help us meet any respectable goals. There is nothing humanitarian about bombs -- America has shown repeatedly that it does not care about "the innocent children" -- and the use of military force will not help anyone. This time everyone agrees war is bad, yet no one is talking about the real reasons President Obama wants to bomb yet another state in the middle east. While the president cements his legacy as a war criminal, John Kerry ruins his own honorable legacy as a Vietnam War soldier-turned-protestor by offering what is quite possibly "the most stupid thing ever said by a human being" (according to Karl Pilkington). We hear part of a Democracy Now! interview with Representative Alan Grayson and a short clip of Professor Cornel West explaining how we must fix our own country before telling anyone else what to do.
On the domestic front, I explain why bipartisanship is a very bad thing and share a few kinds words for Republicans who are once again using a routine budget process to issue a laundry list of right-wing demands. The government is about to shut down and hurt a lot of people and they couldn't care less.
Other items in the news include US-Iran relations, the terrorist attack in Kenya, ongoing Chicago gun violence, and why the NSA is recording your phone calls (hint: they're lying). Music is from Anti-Flag and Bob Marley.
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