Bill Quigley's blog

by Bill Quigley and Amber Ramanauskas

The military occupation of Haiti could not possibly have been intended to help the Haitian people, whose material conditions have dramatically worsened under foreign rule. Most dramatically, “360,000 Haitians are still displaced and living hand to mouth in 496 tent camps across the country.” “How can a nation be expected to grow unless it leads its own reconstruction?”

by Bill Quigley

The ties that bind the two corporate parties and their presidential candidates are much stronger than any differences that separate them. That’s why a progressive platform could be built almost entirely around opposition to those positions shared by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Below is a litany of issues that will not see the light of day in corporate campaign 2012.

by Bill Quigley

The United States is engaged in assassination and war crimes by drones in at least five nations around the globe, in violation of both U.S. and international law. It is a campaign of “extrajudicial ultimate death for people who have not been convicted of anything.” Barbarically, “the US also frequently fires drones again at people who show up at the scene of an attack, thus deliberately targeting rescuers and mourners.”

by Bill Quigley

The United States is the world leader in both mass incarceration and the systematic isolation of prisoners. President Obama has earned his own grotesque superlative, having “prosecuted more whistleblowers for espionage than all other presidents combined.” In the case of Bradley Manning, “much of what was published by Wikileaks was either not actually secret or should not have been secret.”

by Bill Quigley and Sam Schmitt

How large is the Black-white wealth gap? Is the U.S. really generous with its foreign aid, or a relative miser? We all know that America is Number one in mass incarceration, but who is Number Two? Test your social justice knowledge.

by Bill Quigley and Amber Ramanauskas

Billions in public and private aid was earmarked, promised or thought to be on the way to the Haitian people, yet the the physical and human landscape of the country shows few signs that such treasure ever existed. In fact, “almost none of the money that the general public thought was going to Haiti actually went directly to Haiti.” Some went to the U.S. war machine. “Thirty three cents of each of these US dollars for Haiti was actually given directly back to the US to reimburse ourselves for sending in our military.” Less than a penny per dollar went to the Haitian government.

by Bill Quigley

Is the Obama administration really better for civil liberties than his Republican predecessor? The author fails to find any fundamental difference between the two. For example, “Wireless fingerprint scanners first used by troops in Iraq are now being utilized by local police departments to check motorists.” If you’re Muslim, the intrusions are infinite. “Under the Obama administration, the Associated Press reported in August 2011, informants known as ‘mosque crawlers,’ monitor sermons, bookstores and cafes."