Legacy Links

Obama Thinks about Releasing Innocent Yemenis from Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington June 21, 2010

Three weeks ago, I wrote a bitter commentary about the repeated failures of the U.S. government to release an innocent Yemeni prisoner in Guantánamo — a student, Mohammed Hassan Odaini, now aged 26, but just 18 when he was seized — even though he was cleared for release by a military review board under President Bush in 2006, ...

Leading Humanity out of the Darkness, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 The ancient Chinese symbol for “crisis” perfectly depicts the situation currently facing the American people. That symbol was actually composed of two separate symbols. One was the symbol for “danger” and the other was the symbol for “opportunity.” The danger we face as Americans comes in the ...

Capitalism and the Free Market, Part 2

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 The taint of government intervention into economic activity carried over to the British North American colonies. The radical nature of the American Revolution has masked the class struggle within American colonial society between what historian Merrill Jensen called “radicals” and “conservatives” in his book The Articles of Confederation: An Interpretation of the Social-Constitutional History ...

Lessons for America from Germany’s Hyperinflation, Part 2

by Jim Powell June 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 By November 1922, the German economy was collapsing. Industries shut down. The government committed itself to paying money to the thousands of workers who became unemployed. Within six months, the government was providing a trillion marks a month in emergency credits to failing banks, railroads, manufacturing businesses, and agricultural cooperatives. On July 1, 1923, ...

Why is a Yemeni Student in Guantánamo, Cleared on Three Occasions, Still Imprisoned?

by Andy Worthington June 1, 2010

On the evening of March 28, 2002, Mohammed Hassen, an 18-year-old Yemeni student at Salafia University in Faisalabad, Pakistan, made a decision that was to change his life forever. He had been visiting fellow students in another house connected with the university, had stayed for dinner, and had decided to stay the night rather than traveling back to his ...

The Libertarian Legacy of R.C. Hoiles, Part 1

by Wendy McElroy June 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 The libertarian publishing giant Raymond Cyrus Hoiles created the newspaper and media chain known as Freedom Communications. He was an immensely successful businessman who opposed all governmental privileges for business. As a self-made man, he deeply respected the “working man” and willingly did the “grunt work” involved in ...

Rand Paul, Civil Rights, and More Liberal Hypocrisy on Race

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 21, 2010

I recently wrote two articles in which I criticized liberals for being two-faced and hypocritical when it comes to racial issues. The articles, which concerned the minimum wage, a longtime favorite government program among liberals whose negative effects fall disproportionately on blacks, were entitled “Why Do Daily Kos and Alternet Favor a Racist Government Program?” and “

Who is the Syrian Released from Guantánamo to Bulgaria?

by Andy Worthington May 17, 2010

On May 4, two prisoners were released from Guantánamo — one to Spain and one to Bulgaria. Spanish media revealed that the former prisoner offered a new life in Spain (following the arrival of Walid Hijazi, a Palestinian, in February) was a Yemeni, but no further information has yet been revealed regarding his ...

Immigration Socialism versus Freedom and the Free Market

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 7, 2010

Let me begin by making a very simple, direct point: There is one — and only one — solution to the so-called immigration crisis: freedom and free markets. Every other measure, including the recently enacted immigration law in Arizona, will accomplish nothing more than continue the “crisis” and actually exacerbate it. After all, how many times have we been here ...

Prosecuting a Tortured Child: Obama’s Guantánamo Legacy

by Andy Worthington May 3, 2010

Since coming to power 15 months ago, promising to close Guantánamo within a year, and suspending the much-criticized military commission trial system for terror suspects, President Obama’s zeal for repudiating the Bush administration’s “war on terror” detention policies has ground to a halt. The rot set in almost immediately, when the new administration invoked ...

Capitalism and the Free Market, Part 1

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 Writing in the Guardian last January under the headline “Caribbean Communism v. Capitalism,” respected journalist Stephen Kinzer began his article like this (https://tinyurl.com/y8wfrxb): Visiting unhappy Cuba is especially thought-provoking for anyone familiar with its unhappy neighbours. Cubans live difficult lives and have much to complain about. So do Jamaicans, Dominicans, Haitians, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Salvadorans, and ...

Unnatural Law, Natural Tyranny, Part 2

by William L. Anderson May 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 While the founding of the United States (and its legal system based on the English common law) was carried out by people who believed strongly in natural law, nonetheless the seeds of dissent were already being sown in England. Jeremy Bentham, a philosopher who also had a strong effect on ...