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God won’t save us: Memorial Day, honest history and our new military-industrial complex

God won’t save us: Memorial Day, honest history and our new military-industrial complex

May 25, 2014 · by Patrick L. Smith · in Articles, Salon

Americans believe we are guided by divine providence. Obama’s strange presidency shows the work of something else Memorial Day comes, always a curious occasion in a nation devoted to forgetting so much of its past. Count this column one among…

Glenn Greenwald’s heroism: Standing up to our new Orwellian police state

Glenn Greenwald’s heroism: Standing up to our new Orwellian police state

January 23, 2014 · by Patrick L. Smith · in Articles, Salon

Empty NSA reforms will change nothing. The surveillance state subverts the law — and the president is complicit The deed has been done, there now for all to see. President Obama’s speech on the authority of the National Security Agency confirms…

Our Orwellian reality: Drone wars, surveillance, a lapdog media — and you

Our Orwellian reality: Drone wars, surveillance, a lapdog media — and you

January 2, 2014 · by Patrick L. Smith · in Articles, Salon

Our government lies to itself — and to us. Like Edward Snowden, it is time for us all to stand up for our values This column is not another look back, another of those tedious end-of-year rituals the very best…

I want American foreign policy to fail

I want American foreign policy to fail

November 1, 2013 · by Patrick L. Smith · in Articles, Salon

Drones, wiretapping foreign leaders, NSA out of control: Change will only come when our foreign policy truly fails It is difficult, and it will never be any other, to be an American and write in an American publication that the…

There is no terrorist threat: The feds want you to think there is, compliant media goes along

There is no terrorist threat: The feds want you to think there is, compliant media goes along

August 9, 2013 · by Patrick L. Smith · in Articles, Salon

“Chatter” from “affiliates” causes a “crisis,” while media reports nonsense generated to justify NSA surveillance Summertime, and the chicanery is easy. The Obama administration’s latest rendering of our invisible but eternal “terrorist threat,” I mean. After a week of ghost…

Snowden, Manning: The face of patriotism

Snowden, Manning: The face of patriotism

August 2, 2013 · by Patrick L. Smith · in Articles, Salon

Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden are really standing up to those who would radically reinterpret the Constitution A big week on the spookery front — and some of the news is good. With asylum in Russia, Edward Snowden stands a…

America’s imperial decline: Must Dick Cheney always be president?

America’s imperial decline: Must Dick Cheney always be president?

July 3, 2013 · by Patrick L. Smith · in Articles, Salon

Barack Obama talks like a constitutional lawyer, but acts like Dick Cheney. Snowden shows it’s the same old America Edward Snowden has been on the lam for nearly three weeks now. The 30-year-old computer whiz has gone from Hawaii to…

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About Patrick Lawrence

Writer, commentator, longtime newspaper and magazine correspondent abroad. Writes often on Europe and Asia. Published five books.

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