Events continue to unfold at a quickening pace. Facing an alarming escalation in tensions around the world, we asked Norman Solomon for his most current thoughts. We focus on the realities of the international power struggle unfolding in real time, specifically addressing the role of the U.S. in the tensions and its capacity to reduce them.
Norman Solomon is an American journalist, media critic, activist, and former U.S. congressional candidate. He is a long time associate of the media watch group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. In 1997 he founded the Institute for Public …
by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / September 29th, 2022
In so many of the little places of everyday life in which life is lived out, somehow democracy doesn’t exist. And one of the creeping hands of totalitarianism running through the democracy is the Federal Bureau of Investigation… Because why does the FBI do all this? To scare the hell out of people… They work for the establishment and the corporations and the politicos to keep things as they are. And they want to frighten and chill the people who are trying to change things.
international bat awareness week leading up to Halloween
by Paul Haeder / September 29th, 2022
Lately, I’ve been thinking about bats. A few dozen have been flying around our Waldport, Oregon, Cyprus tree: California Myotis, Fringed Myotis, and the Big Brown Bat. Near White Salmon, WA, I have seen dozens of Silver-Haired Bats, flying low to the ground on 20 acres we own.
This creature accounts for almost a third of all mammal species (more than 1,400). Bats are both talisman and a bright memory in these dark times.
Recall: Bats and the SARS-CoV2 used to be the talk of the town, beginning March 2020. More than 90 coronas have been …
The arrest of a prominent Palestinian activist, Musab Shtayyeh, and another Palestinian activist, by Palestinian Authority police on September 20 was not the first time that the notorious PA’s Preventive Security Service (PSS) has arrested a Palestinian who is wanted by Israel.
PSS is largely linked to the routine arrests and torture of anti-Israeli occupation activists. Several Palestinians have died in the past as a result of PSS violence, the latest being Nizar Banat who was tortured to death on June 24, 2021. The killing of Banat ignited a popular revolt against the PA throughout Palestine.
Imagine the tobacco producer who invests in smoke limitation programs, or the arms manufacturer who attends a conference proposing to ban weapons and seek a better future. Gautam Adani, one of India’s most ruthlessly adept billionaires, has added his name to the growing list of corporate transvestism, using ecological credentials as his camouflage for fossil fuel predation.
The central feature of Adani is having a nose for getting on the bandwagon and pushing to its front. Everyone is doing it, at least when it comes to renewable energy sources. Recently, the Adani Group, an entity specialising in power generation, real estate, …
The French Academy of Sciences was established in 1666.
Lest we forget, the birth of modern physics and cosmology was achieved by Galileo, Kepler and Newton breaking free not from the close confining prison of faith (all three were believing Christians, of one sort or another) but from the enormous burden of the millennial authority of Aristotelian science. The scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was not a revival of Hellenistic science but its final defeat.
— David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian …
It’s no secret that the political process in the U.S. has devolved from “consensus” to “contest,” with political factions on the Left (“liberals”) championing the inclusion of marginalized groups, freedom of choice and environmental concerns; while those on the Right (“conservatives”) increasingly standing for preserving the status quo, if not rolling back some progressive advances, and privilege, particularly of white males.
After this year’s Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade, threatening women’s right to have an abortion, I read a report that, according to surveys, most people in the U.S. support …
Roberto Matta (Chile), Cuba es la capital (‘Cuba Is the Capital’), 1963.
In 2002, Cuba’s President Fidel Castro Ruz visited the country’s National Ballet School to inaugurate the 18th Havana International Ballet Festival. Founded in 1948 by the prima ballerina assolutaAlicia Alonso (1920–2019), the school struggled financially until the Cuban Revolution decided that ballet – like other art forms – must be available to everyone and so must be socially financed. At …
The Religiosity of "The Myth of Chinese Capitalism"
by Ron Leighton / September 27th, 2022
https://chuangcn.org/2022/03/china-faq-capitalist/ The Greanville Post recently republished China watcher Jeff Brown’s 2015 piece, “The Myth of Chinese Capitalism“. Brown calls the supposed myth, “One of the greatest fabrications of Western media, among academics and on Wall Street…” He asserts that the West promotes a “self-assuring message…that China is fully in the fold of Western capitalism, except…Beijing plays dirty, using its own set of rules” (emphasis in the original). Further, he disputes the “superficial image” of China as “just a copycat, eastern version of crass Americana.” He is correct that these …
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s, there are few.” ((Shunryu Suzuki, Prologue Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, (1973).))
Has there ever been a more urgent time to embrace many possibilities? This age of pervasive uncertainty and division may well be very fertile ground for questioning our assumptions and interrogating our beliefs. In fact, we just might be living in the ideal time to accept that there are limitless ways to perceive even the most contentious issues.
Last May a remarkable column by Stephen Kinzer appeared in the Boston Globe. It was headlined: “Republicans Return To Their Roots As The Antiwar Party.”
More significantly, the subheading ran: “Since the Vietnam era, Americans have come to expect antiwar rhetoric from liberal Democrats. Cancel that.” It began:
Be careful who you praise and the degree of zeal you do it with. The slain Shinzo Abe, shot dead in Nara on July 8, towered over Japanese politics. In doing so, he cast a lengthy shadow. In death, this shadow continues to grow ever more darkly.
The reaction from certain figures outside Japan left an impression of distorted admiration. There was Hillary Clinton’s cloying tribute about Abe being “a champion of democracy and a firm believer that no economy, society, or country can achieve its full potential if women are left behind.”
• Outcomes from the SCO meeting
• Challenges for China’s “sandwich generation”
• China releases a report on food and nutrition
• Archaeological work on ancient Chinese civilization
Even Seven Billion Simple Acts of Kindness will not Alter the Outcome
by John Stanton / September 26th, 2022
Mutilation & Burning at the Stake: United States 1899 in the US State of Georgia:
Sam Hose was brought to a patch of land known as the old Troutman field. Newspapers reported that members of the mob used knives to sever Hose’s ears, fingers and genitals while others plunged knives repeatedly into his body, to cheers from the mob. Men and boys gathered kindling from the nearby woods to create a pyre. The skin from Hose’s face was removed, and he was doused with kerosene. He was then chained to a pine tree. Several matches were thrown onto the pyre by …
A Brief History of Hollywood’s Justification of Israeli War Crimes
by Ramzy Baroud / September 26th, 2022
The introduction of an Israeli Mossad agent as the latest Marvel movie character crosses the line, even by Hollywood’s poor moral standards. However, the Israeli superhero, Sabra, must be understood within the rational progression of the Israelification of Hollywood, a phenomenon that is surprisingly new.
Sabra is a relatively old character, dating back to a Marvel comic, the Incredible Hulk, in 1980. On September 10, however, it was announced that the Israeli character will be included in an upcoming Marvel film, ‘Captain America: New World Order’.
Expectedly, many pro-Palestine activists in the United States and around the world fumed. It …
It’s impossible to know whether the new British Prime Minister is genuinely serious about constructive policy or not. She is certainly interested in greasing palms and calming the storms, if only to delay the inevitable. Having proven herself the shallowest of candidates to succeed her disgraced, not wholly banished predecessor, Liz Truss has leapt into economic policy as her starting point.
Kwasi Kwarteng, the newly minted Chancellor of the Exchequer, has given us a sense of what Trussonomics looks like in his “mini budget” announced on September 23. In line with this new policy, undertaken at a time of stroppily rising …
Australia has a mixed relationship with the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Irritation, dismissal and even the occasional openly hostile comment, have registered. But in 1994, the Toonen decision filtered through the Australian legal process, leading the federal government to remove archaically noxious provisions in the Tasmanian criminal code criminalising sodomy.
The UNHRC has since found Australia’s compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to be patchy. In November 2017, the body released its observations in a five-year review of the Commonwealth’s record noting glaring problems of protection in such areas as refugees and asylum seekers, Aboriginal …
South Korea's President Yoon gives a piece of his mind after a "drive-by summit" with Joe Biden
by K.J. Noh / September 24th, 2022
Zola not Hemingway at the White House
According to the US State Department, President Joe Biden met with South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol at the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting on September 21st. The White House readout is worth quoting in its entirety:
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. met today with President Yoon Suk Yeol of the Republic of Korea (ROK) on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to strengthen the U.S.-ROK alliance and ensure close cooperation to address the threat posed by …
In his anticipated speech at the United Nations General Assembly on September 23, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is expected to, once more, make a passionate plea for the recognition of Palestine as a full member.
Abbas’ ‘landmark speech’ would not be the first time that the President of the Palestinian Authority has lobbied for such a status. In September 2011, the PA’s quest for full recognition was stymied by the Barack Obama Administration, forcing Palestinians to opt for the next best option, a ‘symbolic’ victory at the General Assembly the following year. In November 2012, UNGA Resolution 67/19 granted …
In the US, we proudly point to the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights that was adopted in 1791:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
We believe that our freedom of speech and of the press are two of the ways the US differs from more dictatorial nations such as Germany under the Nazis and the former Soviet Union.
Federal Court Justice Mordecai Bromberg has been in the environmental news again, this time throwing a large judicial spanner in the works of Santos and its drilling efforts in the Timor Sea.
On this occasion, the Federal Court found that the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority should never have approved the Barossa Gas Project off the Tiwi Islands, which would entail drilling at a site 140 kilometres from the Tiwi Islands. NOPSEMA’s primary role is to regulate offshore petroleum activities in Australian waters and is tasked with examining environmental plans under the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas …
The right to protest, fragile and meekly protected by the judiciary in Britain’s common law tradition, did not really hold much force till European law confirmed it. In the UK, condemning other countries for suppressing rights to protest is standard fare. So it was with some discomforting surprise – at least to a number of talking heads – that people were arrested for protesting against the monarchy after the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.
Such surprise is misplaced. In the UK, protestors can be marched away before the operation of vast, and vague discretionary powers wielded by the police. An old, …
Well healed individuals have the right to cheer on war criminals as they raise funds to promote apartheid and if anyone asks uncomfortable questions they are denounced as antisemitic. That about sums up the Canadian Jewish News’ position regarding a recent United Jewish Appeal of Toronto event with George W. Bush and Stephen Harper.
Last week 3,000 attended a fireside chat between the former US president and Canadian prime minister. Tickets for the launch of UJA’s annual fundraising campaign were $250. Billed as “one of the most important conversations UJA has ever hosted”, the event marketing noted, “Witness these legendary …
If you support freedom of speech, then it goes both ways. With the exception of disinformation, freedom of speech must be protected just as much for views you oppose as for those you support.
40 years on, after the 1982 massacre of Sabra and Shatila, Palestinian Refugee Camp, Lebanon
by Heather Stroud / September 21st, 2022
As Lebanon plunges into political chaos — banking corruption, power cuts and exploding prices — the Palestinian refugees, already marginalised without rights and unable to climb out of poverty, have fallen deeper into despair.
Walking through the camps one sees tangles of bare electric cable, dripped on by corroded air conditioning units, hanging dangerously low in the narrow, dark passages that run between people’s homes. This combination of raw electricity and water frequently results in puddles of electrified water. Adults and children alike have fallen victim to electrocution as they have passed along these narrow corridors. Ironically the only positive aspects …
