The Base Heather Stroud
Obsolete: The AI Industry’s Trillion Dollar Race to Replace You–and How to Stop It Garrison Lovely
The Political Economy of Dissent Peter Blunt
What I Saw in Ukraine: 2015-2022: Diary of an International Observer Benoit Paré
At the Lost and Found: Personal & Political Dispatches of Resistance and Hope Edward Curtin
Class War, Then and Now: Essays toward a New Left Chris Wright
America's Hijacked Peace Dividend: Long Overdue and Immediately Payable John Rachel
Mind Abuse: Media Violence and Its Threat to Democracy Rose Dyson
Anthropause: The Beauty of Degrowth Stan Cox
Broken Stars: Gaza Poems Buff Whitman-Bradley
If “we” are to forgive elitist individuals and structures for alleged mistakes, then by all that is fair, shouldn’t individuals among the masses be forgiven for their honest mistakes?
News on China No. 122
This week’s News on China in 2 minutes.
• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visits China
• Renowned biologist’s returns to launch medical research institution
• Reemergence of rural cooperatives
• New plan for integrated communities
How smart is it to drop fossil fuels before putting alternative, stable energy sources in place?
Heloisa Hariadne (Brazil), Com uma gota já se faz oceano pra sede se matar em mergulho (‘A drop of water becomes an ocean to quench a diver’s thirst’), 2021.
In the last week of October, João Pedro Stedile, a leader of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) in Brazil and the global peasants’ organisation La Via Campesina, went to the Vatican to attend the International Meeting of Prayer for Peace, organised by the Community of Sant’Egídio. On 30 October, Brazil held a presidential election, which …
My title comes from a song sung by soldiers as they marched to hell in the trenches of World War I and the same song my sisters and I sang in the car as our parents drove us to our summer vacation in paradise at Edgewater Farm.
I think of this as we march to WW III.
The soldiers, who would be slaughtered by the millions as pawns in the great game, sardonically sung it to the tune of Old Lang Syne to express their bewilderment at why they were fighting in the so-called “War to End All Wars” or …
Skidrow in Los Angeles, California (Photo: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
The agenda was set with the Lewis Powell Memorandum in 1971. Written at the request of the United States Chamber of Commerce, probably the most influential structure of capitalist rule at the time, the concern for the Chamber was the need to find a more coherent counter-offensive to the attacks against the system over the previous years. At the center of the anti-system attacks during the 1960s was, of course, the Black Liberation Movement and the Anti-War …
dedicated to all from north america: u.s, canada, newfoundland and labrador who were killed during, or due to, service in the great war
the bells ring out again
this time
the eleventh hour
the eleventh day
the eleventh month
their tolling symbolizes
a temporary pause in large scale inhumane events
smaller scale atrocities may continue as needed
warmongers
the great war didn’t change ‘em
the holocaust didn’t change ‘em
world war II didn’t change ‘em
the wars in asia didn’t change ‘em
the wars in the middle east didn’t change ‘em
all the world’s wars be they great
be they small didn’t change ‘em
armistice day
is a time out day
the living joyfully shout
the dead have no say
the bell rings out
the day is done
but
it will not be long
until another war
be it …
Who comes up with all these pithy sayings?
A trolley load of books, chapters and treatises have been written on the subject of sovereignty. Usually, the concept entails control and power, the latter a corollary of the former. In international law, sovereignty finds some form of expression in the Montevideo Convention of 1933 but can hardly be seen as exhaustive. In truth, the concept is a fruit-salad and medley, an “organized hypocrisy”, as Stephen D. Krasner describes it.
All of this leaves some room for the pantomime element sovereignty might allow: the eccentric who declares his own principality; the refusenik determined to avoid the taxing authorities; the …
This is a rite of passage that needs to go the way of the Dodo.
Mercenaries, and now, we have a blue blood son, grandson to Robert Kennedy, heading out to Ukraine with some sad sack ideas about what he in the name of Hell is going to do in that country?
Yep, RFK Jr., let out the news recently, on Megyn Kelly. The newspapers picked it up:
“He felt that he shouldn’t be arguing about it unless he was willing to have skin in the game and take his own risk,” Kennedy said on “The Megyn …
A look at the hand behind the forces of evil.
When Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was still in Zuccotti Park, I became close friends with a woman named Ashley. She shared a thought-provoking anecdote with me. But first, some context:
Firstly, as some of you may know, there was always a massive police presence surrounding the park at all times. The vibe was mutually confrontational and the NYPD used any pretense to exercise violence upon the occupiers.
Still, some protestors carried signs like this:
I never felt any such solidarity with …
The European Union’s Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell is not particularly perceived by the EU’s political elite or mainstream media as a rightwing ideologue or warmonger. But seen through a different, non-western prism, it is hard not to mistake him for one.
Borrell’s recent comments that “Europe is a garden” and that “the rest of the world is a jungle” were duly condemned as ‘racist’ by many politicians around the world, but mostly in the Global South. Borrell’s remarks, however, must also be viewed as an expression of superiority, not only of Borell personally, but of Europe’s ruling classes as …
A presentation at the 5th Hongqiao International Economic Forum on November 5-6, 2022
President Xi Jinping made history by opening the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), when he announced the beginning of a New Era of socio-political development with focus on the Global South.
The initiative embarks on a path of peaceful modernization and moderate prosperity, bringing more equilibrium to a world often beset by conflicts.
He made history again by having been confirmed for his 3rd Five-Year term as China’s leader. This is good for continuity of a successful policy of growth and for the transformation of China as a moderately prosperous society – a socialism with Chinese characteristics.
The next …
… the Emissions Gap Report 2022: The Closing Window – Climate crisis calls for rapid transformation of societies finds that the international community is falling far short of the Paris goals, with no credible pathway to 1.5°C in place. Only an urgent system-wide transformation can avoid climate disaster.
— “Emissions Gap Report 2022” UN Environment Programme
The UNEP sounds the alarm, but what is the morality of cutting back sharply on fossil fuels without sufficient climate-friendly alternative energy sources in place to keep people warm and working?
Chilling to think the Palestinians may be doomed, but active and passive resistance, international protests, UN Declarations, boycotts, divestments, silent sanctions, myriad of articles, sympathetic words, and anger at Israel’s violent repression have not changed the direction of their struggle. Since 1948, the pendulum has swung in one direction, a consistent increase in repression and destruction of the Palestinian community. The Israel government now includes Religious Zionism, which won 15 seats, making it the second largest bloc in the expected ruling coalition. A Wall Street Journal report, October 23, 2022, “…
On Monday, October 31, Palestinians in the town of Al-Eizariya, east of Occupied East Jerusalem, observed a general strike. The strike was declared to be part of the community’s mourning of 49-year-old Barakat Moussa Odeh, who was killed by Israeli forces in Jericho a day earlier.
This is not an isolated case. General strikes were observed throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories in recent weeks as a form of civil disobedience, and protest of the Israeli attacks on the cities of Nablus, Jerusalem, Jenin, and Hebron, as well as to mourn Palestinian fighters who were killed, following shooting operations against Israeli soldiers …
Israel is not suddenly a more racist state. It is simply growing more confident about admitting its racism to the world
The most disturbing outcome of Israel’s general election this week was not the fact that an openly fascist party won the third-biggest tally of seats, or that it is about to become the lynchpin of the next government. It is how little will change, in Israel or abroad, as a result.
Having Religious Zionism at the heart of government will alter the tone in which Israeli politics is conducted, making it even coarser, more thuggish and uncompromising. But it will make no difference to the ethnic supremacism that has driven Israeli policy for decades.
Israel is not suddenly a …
A novel coronavirus, deadly and unnecessary lockdowns, civil unrest, political division, economic crises, a rise in mental health issues — the list goes on and on and on.
Since March 2020, most of the world has suffered immensely in one way or another. But, amidst the madness, there is room for gratitude. More specifically, I’m suggesting we should be grateful for what and who has been exposed over the past 32 months or so.
6 Reasons to Feel Grateful for the “Pandemic”
1. Exposed: Science …
It must be excruciatingly difficult having to decide whether to put some of one’s hundreds-of-billions of dollars, along with potential future profit, at risk to affirm one’s previous public declaration of support for the freedom of speech principle. That is the dilemma that Musk has before him.
Musk finds Twitter threatened with an advertiser boycott. As I previously alluded to, the boycotters of free speech on Twitter could well find themselves boycotted by free-speech supporters. Two can play the boycott game. Musk seems to realize that now. He warned …
Soon, the US government may be making waves regarding another extradition request for a figure connected with that oft exaggerated notion of national security. While the high profile and insidious effort to extradite Julian Assange from the United Kingdom continues, the case of former US pilot, Marine Corps major and flight instructor Daniel Edmund Duggan has crossed the radar of reporters and international lawyers.
On October 21, Duggan was arrested by Australian authorities in the New South Wales town of Orange at the request of Washington. He appeared in Orange Local Court and was refused bail.
After his formal tenure as a …
The Religious Right’s War on Sex and the Inevitable Ban on Birth Control
With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and as residents in the first state to officially ban abortion, sexually active Missourians are f*cked or, rather, will be literally unf*cked in the near future once state legislators succumb to a targeted pressure campaign to criminalize contraceptives. Historically and politically, all roads lead to Missouri’s small, but powerful, evangelical lobby winning the war it has, and continues, to wage against sex, beginning with Roe and ending when Griswold v. Connecticut is overturned by the Supreme Court, which will allow state lawmakers to outlaw birth control. The only remaining variable is when … …
Regardless of the outcome of the latest Israeli elections, Arab parties will not reap meaningful political benefits, even if they collectively achieve their highest representation ever. The reason is not about the parties themselves, but in Israel’s skewed political system which is predicated on racism and marginalization of non-Jews.
Israel was established on a problematic premise of being a homeland of all Jews, everywhere – not of Palestine’s own native inhabitants – and on a bloody foundation, that of the Nakba and the destruction of historic Palestine and the expulsion of its people.
Such beginnings were hardly conducive to the establishment of …
For some, worrying about things out of their control is futile, but does worrying ever help? Worrying is inaction, and dire situations, such as a world on the precipice of WWIII, usually require action for prevention.
I refer you to one of the first articles I ever posted on my personal website: You Don’t Use A Microscope To Find The Cow That’s Left The Barn. To quote myself . . .
You can magnify a single bacteria a thousand times but it will not tell you that your entire herd is missing or that everything is dying on the farm.
The point is that when we’re too focused on the so-called details, we often miss what’s truly important to understand what’s going on.
This is an old story, …
News on China No. 121
This week’s News on China in 2 minutes.
• Lula’s victory and China-Brazil relations
• New study on global perceptions of China
• China passed a law to protect the Yellow River
• China’s 93-year-old woman conductor
Chai?bia Talal (Morocco), Mon Village, Chtouka, 1990.
On 17 October, the head of US Africa Command (AFRICOM), US Marine Corps General Michael Langley visited Morocco. Langley met with senior Moroccan military leaders, including Inspector General of the Moroccan Armed Forces Belkhir El Farouk. Since 2004, AFRICOM has held its ‘largest and premier annual exercise’, African Lion, partly on Moroccan soil. This past June, ten countries participated in the African Lion 2022, with observers from Israel (for …
Governments around the world including the Canadian government are working in conjunction with the World Economic Forum (WEF) to eliminate cash and implement a new financial payment system called Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
Unlike Bitcoin and other digital currencies not controlled by a central authority, CBDC would involve complete control of our money via constant surveillance and monitoring of our every move.
— “No Cashless Digital Prison”
Cashless society seems like an inevitable progression into an easier, faster and more convenient future. But this comes at a huge of …
