Born into a Muslim family, I regularly encounter people who come to my house to invite me to religious gatherings. In these times of neoliberal fascism, it is interesting to note the ideological experience that piety seeks to provide. The most recent person whom I interacted with attempted to root the everyday relevance of religion in the material contexts of social life. For him, Islam is essentially compatible with the reality of capitalism: the motivation and dedication required for the attainment of your desired profession is mirrored by the strong purposefulness of religiosity. What’s more, pro-careerist enthusiasm falters unless it …
It’s been well over a year now since the health scare dubbed the Covid-19 pandemic has had any widespread impact upon the lives of the vast majority of humanity. Since the “fog of war” has lifted, so to speak, there has been very little introspection regarding the knee-jerk authoritarianism imposed upon humanity in the liberal press or mainstream academia. Eerie parallels connect the panic stirred up during the health crisis with the reaction to 9/11. There is also plenty of circumstantial evidence of prior knowledge and pre-planning for both of these events. In their wake, mass hysteria, government propaganda, tyranny, …
We know what the regime is like. Starving a country, bombing its hospitals and strafing its schools has been minor fare for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The population of Yemen has found this out to their colossal cost. Add to this the killing of dissident journalists, the enthusiastic employment of capital punishment, and an assortment of other merry brutalities, the House of Saud comes across as a fine specimen of barbaric endeavour. At least, as many of their supporters will say, they like international sporting events, and are willing to throw money at, if not completely purchase, full events.
my local newspaper and me . . . Stories for Our Coast and the World!
by Paul Haeder / August 28th, 2023
While August 19 was International Humanitarian Day, just a short stone’s throw from the Waldport Post Office is a hub of volunteers and one director feeding the soul of the needy on a weekly basis. For manager Nicole Person, her 10 years of service with Meals on Wheels in Waldport have been a lesson in humility and nutritional needs of those receiving the hot and frozen meals….
Rick Sterling: How did you wind up living in Mexico City?
Teri Mattson: I went to Mexico City in September of 2020 in response to how the Covid pandemic was being managed in Washington DC, where I was living at the time. I was walking every day outside to get moderate exercise, fresh air and sunshine to stay healthy during covid. And …
The most difficult aspect of writing about BWS — battered wife syndrome or intimate partner violence — is that as a man, I have to embrace reality: gender violence is not just fostered by the socialization of men to be more powerful than women, but for so many judges, lawyers, DAs and the public, this relationship is considered a two-way street with both man and woman to be equally responsible for the victimization.
This patriarchal false balancing then continues to socialize many men to believe they have a right to create the need to abuse …
Times of crisis can be glorious for some. The Great Depression bred its share of wealthy profiteers. The First and Second World Wars fostered many a multimillionaire. Over the bodies of millions, the returns for armaments companies were unparalleled. And during the current “cost of living crisis,” as it is so often dubbed, there are companies beaming at their profit margins even as they affect false modesty.
In the United Kingdom, for instance, earnings for household energy suppliers are booming, despite crushing bills. British Gas reported a staggering nine-fold increase in profits, from £98 million in 2022 to £969 million …
Across America, whispers softly speak about whether there’s an undeclared civil war. Well, maybe yes, maybe no, but what are the signals? What about January 6th hand-to-hand combat on the steps of the nation’s capitol with 136 (injured) police officers, was it civil unrest or incipient civil war?
Those questions are answered by Barbara F. Walter, Professor of Political Science/University of California/San Diego, who works with a CIA task force and recently gave a TED talk: Is the US Headed Towards Another Civil War?
As explained in Dr. Walter’s speech, civil wars are surprisingly common throughout the world. Since 1946, there …
Leslie Amine (Benin), Swamp, 2022
In 1958, the poet and trade union leader Abdoulaye Mamani of Zinder (Niger) won an election in his home region against Hamani Diori, one of the founders of the Nigerien Progressive Party. This election result posed a problem for French colonial authorities, who wanted Diori to lead the new Niger. Mamani stood as a candidate for Niger’s left-wing Sawaba party, which was one of the leading forces in the independence movement against France. Sawaba was the party of the talakawa, the ‘commoners’, or the petit …
1. Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.
2. Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.
— Sunzi, “Chapter 3: Attack by Stratagem,” The Art of War
So, the Germans are putting me on trial for my thoughtcrimes, and, apparently, I’ve already been found guilty and sentenced. Bear with me and I’ll try to explain.
The Berlin District Court has issued a so-called “penalty order” or “order of punishment,” in which I am advised that I am now officially a criminal in Germany, for tweeting two Tweets. According to my attorney, a trial will now be scheduled, at which my attorney will argue the case before the judge that just issued the “order of punishment.” At this trial, the judge will listen attentively to the arguments my attorney …
Peter Koenig (PressTV Interview – Transcript
23 August 2023
Background
The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are holding arguably one of their most important Summits from 22 to 24 August 2023 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Several new countries – up to 40 it is said, including Iran – would like to join the bloc and were invited to attend the South African Summit.
Iran applied for BRICS membership already in 2022. Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi has also been invited to Johannesburg to take part in the summit. BRICS is a consensus-based organization. Every five members must agree on the principle of …
Cosmopolitan — ‘world politics’, ‘world citizen’ — people of many races under a world empire. The word became a meme in the 1890s as British empire blossomed, supposedly the world now united around principles of the free market. Sounds cool. The market is the proven way to run economies. It is neutral, no favorites, harsh but just, making us work hard, the state ensuring people don’t cheat and undermine the sacred system. For if belief in all this wavers, the loss of faith in the market would spell doom for all, …
On critical matters, our medical authorities have no interest in settling the science. Instead, battles are won in the arena of smear and insinuation
by Jonathan Cook / August 23rd, 2023
The reality is that most of us are not ready for the truth. We want reassurance. We cling to our comfort blankets because the idea that we live in a world in which our and our families’ interests are not paramount is too disturbing.
The idea that our fates are entirely dependent on a giant Ponzi scheme that might come crashing down at any moment from any one of multiple design flaws – an ecological crisis, a nuclear catastrophe, a pandemic or a hubristic mis-step with Artificial Intelligence – is simply too terrifying.
Or is it just gullibility? Such as unquestioning acceptance of what authorities say without providing any evidence. Or is gullibility a variant of stupidity?
Are we witnessing the slow, inexorable decay of the human spirit? A human life–or rather, its degraded facsimile–has become cheap, even contemptible, in 21st century American “society,” an aberrant place where freakish celebrities are role-models and sociopathic mega-billionaires are revered. Wealth-concentration has now reached such extremes that, in the U.S. alone, over 500 billionaires ride roughshod over the hapless, wage-frozen populace, a populace largely condemned to lifelong indebtedness in its elusive (illusive?) quest for long-term financial security. Even so, a single ray of hope penetrates such gloom in the newly energized, militant resolve …
What happens when the looters are looted? Perhaps that strange sense of satisfaction called justice, an offence cancelled by another. One therefore greets the realisation that the British Museum has been suffering a number of such cases with some smugness. What makes them even more striking is the inability of staff to have picked up on the matter in the first place. When they did come to light, the habitual tendency to bury, or deny matters as best as possible, also found form.
by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / August 23rd, 2023
Make no mistake about it…your DNA can be taken and entered into a national DNA database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason.”
Whatever skeletons may be lurking on your family tree or in your closet, whatever crimes you may have committed, whatever associations you may have with those on the government’s most wanted lists: the police state is determined to ferret them out.
In an age of overcriminalization, round-the-clock surveillance, and a police state eager to flex its …
Australia’s funding priorities have been utterly muddled of late. At the Commonwealth level, there is cash to be found in every conceivable place to support every absurd military venture, as long as it targets those hideous authoritarians in Beijing. It seemed utterly absurd that, even as the Australian federal government announced its purchase of over 200 tomahawk cruise missiles – because that is exactly what the country needs – there are moves afoot to prune and cut projects conducted by the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD).
On July 10, an email sent to all staff by the head of division, …
Direct Energy Weapons (DEW) Create Forest and Bush Fires, Destroying Entire Cities and Igniting Boats in the Sea
by Peter Koenig / August 21st, 2023
Climate change – climate change – climate change – the world is burning. The Global North with the CO2 emission is the culprit. Weather maps in Southern Europe and Australia are deep red. Add an invented degree or two, and they are going to be black.
News are talking about 48 to 50 and more degrees C in Spain, Southern Italy, Sicily, Greece. Scary. Hardly anybody notices and reports that the temperatures are largely exaggerated by the media, to cause a fear and guilt effect. Possibly a precursor to heat-lockdowns.
Meteorologists are part of the lie-game. Often, for fear and shock effect, …
History tells us that a Third Party has never been successful. The American Federal system, majority rule, Electoral College, and voter perception that a third alternative serves as a spoiler, hinder the eagerness for a Third Party. The possibility of dividing the Electoral College vote so that no candidate gains the required 270 majority deters public endearment for a Third Party. Bringing the selection of POTUS to the House of Representatives, where the President is elected from the three Presidential candidates who received the most electoral votes, is not democracy in action.
Could we face collective decisions so fundamental that discourse itself buckles under conceptual strain? If so, maybe this is such a time and it would accordingly be wise to map it in the most reliable tradition, which prioritises agreed facts and valid inference from them.
This also befits a need to be incisive, given the gravity of the issue which is likely acknowledged by all, though in different ways with respect to details and priorities.
Such precision, however, might be well-prefaced with a stylistic counterpoint by way of a short story to set the scene in …
• Restrictions on US investment China’s tech sector
• Investment in R&D doubled in the last 5 years
• Anti-corruption campaign in healthcare
• Provincial renewable energy targets
In a historic referendum, people in Ecuador have voted to block oil drilling on uncontacted tribes’ land in the Yasuní National Park.
Leonidas Iza, President of Ecuador’s national Indigenous organization CONAIE, said today:
The Ecuadorian people, mindful of life, in solidarity with our uncontacted Tagaeri, Taromenane and Dugakaeri brothers and sisters, said “Yes to Yasuní” in this referendum on August 20th. We have saved their territory, their lives, their food sovereignty, and their medicines in the sacred Yasuní forest”. …
This is slavery, not to speak one’s thoughts.
– Euripides, The Phoenician Women, 410 BCE
Some time ago on a Sunday evening when my wife and I had just sat down to dinner, our phone rang. Since I didn’t recognize the phone number and it was dinnertime, I hesitated to answer it, but for some chance reason I did. The voice on the other end was agitated, intense, and asked for me.
Could he visit immediately because he had urgent news for me? he asked. He told me his name, one I was not familiar with, and said he was a big fan …
Climate change litigation is falling into pressing fashion. In Australia, the 2021 case of Sharma, despite eventually failing before three judges in the Federal Court in 2022, suggested that ministers had been put on notice regarding a potential duty of care regarding the consequences of approving fossil fuel projects.
The lower court decision had shaken the fossil fuel industry with its finding in favour of the eight children and their litigation guardian, an octogenarian nun. Justice Bromberg found that considering the potential harm arising from carbon dioxide emissions was a mandatory consideration of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. …
