by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / July 29th, 2022
Solving unsolved crimes is a noble objective, but it occupies a lower place in the American pantheon of noble objectives than the protection of our people from suspicionless law-enforcement searches… 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… Perhaps the construction of such a genetic panopticon is wise. But I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.
Fuyuko Matsui (Japan), Becoming Friends with All the Children of the World, 2004.
The fragility of Europe’s energy supply has once again been on display in recent months. Gas shipments through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which runs from Russia to Germany, were reduced to 40% of capacity in June, a cut that Moscow said was due to delays in the servicing of a turbine by the German firm Siemens. Shortly thereafter, on 11 July, the pipeline was taken offline for ten days for annual routine maintenance. Despite receiving assurances …
For much of the period since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the US was politically, militarily and economically unchallenged. The US was now the world’s hegemon and, to remain dominant, it couldn’t allow powerful challengers to arise. This goal meant that the US viewed the relationship with nations such as Russia and China as a zero-sum game, thus reducing the space for cooperation.
If we examine the past 30 years, what might one conclude about the outcome of this period? Has the US been a benign hegemon or has it acted primarily to remain the hegemon and to advance its …
We live in a time when it’s become a boring cliché to say that democracy is under attack. Whether it’s an ultra-reactionary Supreme Court, a nationwide Republican assault on voting rights, a MAGA movement that hopes to put an amoral power addict back in the presidency in 2024, a gathering backlash against women’s rights and LGBTQ rights, or the very structure of an oligarchical, billionaire-dominated political economy, circumstances in the U.S.—and abroad—are hardly encouraging for people who value democracy and human rights. It seems that things get bleaker every year, so much so that it can be …
The language is far from reassuring. Despite being caught red handed using facial recognition technology unbeknownst to customers, a number of Australia’s large retail companies have given a meek assurance that they will “pause” their use. The naughty will only show contrition in the most qualified of ways.
It all began with an investigation by CHOICE which found that the department store chain Kmart, and household warehouse chain Bunnings, were using FRT to ostensibly protect customers and staff while reducing theft in select stores. The group also found a third retailer, The Good Guys, had not lived up to its …
Rather than making money harder to get, the U.S. government needs to focus on the other side of the demand vs. supply equation.
In prescribing cures for inflation, economists rely on the diagnosis of Nobel laureate Milton Friedman: inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon—too much money chasing too few goods. But that equation has three variables: too much money (“demand”) chasing (the “velocity” of spending) too few goods (“supply”). And “orthodox” economists, from Lawrence Summers to the Federal Reserve, seem to be focusing only on the “demand” variable.
The Fed’s prescription is to suppress demand (borrowing and spending) by raising …
In April 1965, U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) explained why he was escalating US involvement in Vietnam. With an Orwellian touch, LBJ titled the speech “Peace without Conquest” as he announced the beginning of US air attacks on Vietnam. He explained that:
We must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny and only in such a world will our own freedom be secure… we have made a national pledge to help South Vietnam defend its independence and I intend to keep that promise. To dishonor that pledge, to abandon …
The government and monopoly media urged the people to “follow the science” without presenting the scientific evidence. Dissenting views were marginalized or shut down. The COVID “danger” seems to have abated for now, but where does that leave all of “us”?
Not all addictions are rooted in abuse or trauma, but I do believe they can all be traced to painful experience. A hurt is at the centre of all addictive behaviours. It is present in the gambler, the Internet addict, the compulsive shopper and the workaholic. The wound may not be as deep and the ache not as excruciating, and it may even be entirely hidden—but it’s there. As we’ll see, the effects of early stress or adverse experiences directly shape both the psychology and the neurobiology of addiction in the brain.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, most humans were engaged in agriculture. Our relationship with nature was immediate. Within just a few generations, however, for many people across the world, their link with the land has been severed.
Food now arrives pre-packaged (often precooked), preserved with chemicals and contains harmful pesticides, micro-plastics, hormones and/or various other contaminants. We are also being served a narrower menu of high-calorie food with lower nutrient content.
It is clear that there is something fundamentally wrong with how modern food is produced.
Although, there are various stages between farm and fork, not least modern food processing practices, which …
Why Mahmoud Abbas is Seeking New "Powerful" Sponsors
by Ramzy Baroud / July 27th, 2022
To judge US President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Israel and Palestine as a ‘failure’ in terms of activating the dormant ‘peace process’ is simply a misnomer. For this statement to be accurate, Washington would have had to indicate even a nominal desire to push for negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian leadership.
Political and diplomatic platitudes aside, the current American administration has done the exact opposite as indicated in Biden’s words and actions. Alleging that the US commitment to a two-state solution “has not changed”, Biden dismissed his Administration’s interest in trying to achieve such a goal …
Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the United States House of Representatives, is reportedly scheduled to visit Taipei in August 2022. The stated purpose is supporting Asian democracy. The trip has more than irked the Chinese.
The trip has obviously not been approved by the one recognized government of China in Beijing. Some may downplay the speaker of the US House of Representatives as being largely ceremonial, but the Speaker is second in line, after the vice-president, should the addled president be unable to fulfill his duties, a scenario wholly within the realm of possibility.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian warned that Pelosi’s …
As UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson set the scene in spectacular fashion. All who sought to confine him to history, perished. He was the only one who seemed to survive, and reject, one diabolical scandal after the next – till now.
No leader with such a destructive sense of presence could do anything but impair those who followed him. But that impairment lingers in the contenders who are seeking to replace him, and it shows.
In a system that is admirably daft, the governing party, namely the Conservatives, have given themselves a remarkable span of time to pick Johnson’s successor. A number …
On July 12, the UN Security Council extended the authorization for humanitarian aid to cross through Bab al Hawa on the Turkey-Syria border for another six months. The US and allies had wanted a one-year extension, but Russia vetoed it. The US, UK and France abstained on the six-month approval, while all others supported it.
There is much misinformation and deceit about the Bab al Hawa crossing in Idlib province, Syria. First, Western media rarely mention that after the aid crosses the border, it is effectively controlled …
There was a brief moment in time in the 1940s, when the USA was at one with Russia or as it was known then, the Soviet Union. During the Second World War, America entered into the war on the same side as the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, and Hollywood was rallied to the cause of victory against fascism.
In this article I will look at the cinema produced in the United States supporting the Allies during WWII, in this case the Soviet Union. After the war the political climate changed and HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) blacklisted actors, directors and …
by Medea Benjamin and Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan / July 26th, 2022
Revolution Square, Havana. Credit: Medea Benjamin
As the Cuban government celebrates the July 26 Day of the National Rebellion–a public holiday commemorating the 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks that is considered the precursor to the 1959 revolution–U.S. groups are calling on the Biden administration to stop its cruel sanctions that are creating such hardship for the Cuban people. In particular, they are pushing President Biden to take Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Being on this list subjects Cuba to a series of devastating international …
I know, you’re probably sick and tired of hearing about the Rise of the New Normal Reich. You want it to be over. So do I. It isn’t over … not by a long shot. It might seem like it’s over where you are. I imagine it does if you live in Florida, or in Texas, or the UK, or Sweden, or Croatia, or in some other country or state in which the majority of the “Covid restrictions” have been lifted, or perhaps were never introduced in the first place. If that’s the case, I’m happy …
Charter school promoters and operators have long believed that scores on unsound high-stakes standardized tests produced by large for-profit corporations are useful and meaningful measures of teaching and learning. They rarely say anything critical about these tests that have been rejected for years by millions of teachers, parents, students, and education advocates across the country.
And while charter school promoters and operators never miss an opportunity to boast about high test scores at privately-operated charter schools that routinely cherry-pick their students, the fact is that many privately-operated charter schools perform poorly every year (see here and here). Not surprisingly, …
The indomitable spirit of Raphael Lemkin, bibliophile, assiduous documenter of humanity’s dark deeds and inexecrable conduct, is bound to be an unsettled one. This brilliant, committed and peculiarly dedicated creature took years to come up with what would, in time, become a word so horrifying as to transfix judges of international law. The amalgam word of genocide stalks the conscience of state leaders, commanders and politicians, an insidious reminder of the inner prejudice that becomes a murderous plan, a design, a means of ridding one of enemies and counterparts.
Given the nature of international institutions, often weak and onerously bureaucratic, there …
In a blog entry, reflecting on the G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Bali, Indonesia on July 7-8, the High Representative of the European Union, Josep Borrell, seems to have accepted the painful truth that the West is losing what he termed “the global battle of narratives”.
“The global battle of narratives is in full swing and, for now, we are not winning,” Borrell admitted. The solution: “As the EU, we have to engage further to refute Russian lies and war propaganda,” the EU’s top diplomat added.
Borrell’s piece is a testimony to the very erroneous logic that led to the so-called ‘battle …
It’s a tad over three hundred years since Britain had what is generally regarded as its first Prime Minister. Since 1721 and Robert Walpole, 76 have held the highest public office, some good, some indifferent, many rubbish, but none as appalling as the current resident of 10 Downing Street. The soon-to-be-ousted Boris “there were no parties” Johnson, who is without doubt the worst prime minister Britain has ever had.
Not only is he a compulsive liar, an arrogant, spoilt misogynist, he and his gaggle are completely incompetent. As a result of their appalling governance over the last 12 years, yes the …
Should anti-racists collaborate with leading promoters of apartheid?
An absurd question? Unfortunately, not.
Recently Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) researchers Dan Collen and Étienne Quintal helped United Jewish Appeal (UJA) Toronto create Hatepedia. Collen and Quintal also work for the UJA-run Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre.
But UJA organizes Canada’s largest annual apartheid celebration (Walk with Israel) and it sponsors Canada’s most influential apartheid lobby group (Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs). Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Al Haq, B’tselem and the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinians have all concluded Israel is …
• Heat wave and underground bunkers
• Nigeria’s China-financed deep-water port
• Easing bank credit for indebted developers
• “Positive dramas” and public participation
Gaza Fights Back is a MintPress News original documentary, directed by Dan Cohen. It tells the story of how Gaza’s armed resistance intervened in occupied Jerusalem as Israeli settlers expelled Palestinians from their homes and created provocations at the al-Aqsa compound. Featuring rare interviews with the Palestinian armed resistance and innocent victims of Israeli aggression, Gaza Fights Back offers a unique look at how Hamas’ armed wing outwitted the region’s most powerful military, and the toll exacted against the civilian population.
