Crisis Management
As imagined
“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” — Mark Twain, “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”
Latest articles
Letters to Barack Obama
Short and Long and of United States’ Destruction of the Palestinian People
The Short Letter
Dear President Barack Obama,
You entered office with a call “for a new start to relations between the Muslim world and the West based on common interests and mutual understanding and respect.” We assumed your statement and dedication to social justice would orient your administration policies into halting Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people and finding an equitable solution to the Middle East crisis.
During your eight years in the Executive office, the destruction of the Palestinian people continued unimpeded. In September 2016, less than two months before a national election …
U.S. Regime Threatens to “Hang” Pakistan’s Deposed Leader if He Holds Anti-Coup March
Imran Khan had been the extremely popular progressive populist secular (non-sectarian) democratically elected Prime Minister (PM) of Pakistan during 18 August 2018 to 10 April 2022, when he then became overthrown by a U.S. coup and replaced by Shebaz Sharif, the younger brother of Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif, who was Pakistan’s 5th-wealthiest billionaire and who had been Imran Khan’s immediate predecessor as the PM. On October 14th, Geo TV in Islamabad Pakistan headlined “Imran Khan to be hung upside down if he launches long march: …
Did Latin America Gradually Turn Left? Or Neoliberal?
To the superficial observer, it may be a blessing the despots and dictators, human rights abusers, like Argentina’s Mauricio Macri, Colombia’s Iván Duque; Ecuador’s Lenin Moreno; Chile’s Sebastián Piñera; to name just a few, are gone, have disappeared from the Latin American political arena, in what was made believe to be democratic elections.
Good, you may think. These countries have a better future ahead. So, who are the new “leaders” of just these four “demo-countries”?
Argentina: Alberto Fernández; label “center-left”;
Colombia: Gustavo Petro; label “left”;
Ecuador: Guillermo Lasso; officially described as “the country’s first center-right president in nearly two decades”. What a lie! Moreno …
Israeli Apartheid Impedes Palestinian Access to Food
How oppression affects food sovereignty.
Mass Psychosis
What will one notice going on around one self when not gazing into one’s own hand-held device?
UN Votes against US’ Xinjiang Proposal
This week’s News on China in 2 minutes.
• UN votes against US’ Xinjiang proposal
• Xinjiang exports to more than 80 countries
• US policy of semiconductor “chokehold”
• China moved from 34th to 11th position in the Global Innovation Index
Charles III: Architectural Meddler and Saboteur
As a prince, the new British monarch developed some curious attitudes to architecture. He also proved to be a dedicated meddler behind building projects he did not like. Combined, this led to a number of interventions that cast a shadow over his accession to the throne. What will Charles III do when it comes to the next grand building proposal to interrupt the London skyline?
On the evening of May 30, 1984, the then Prince Charles told leading architects assembled at Hampton Court to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Royal Institute of British Architects how exactly he felt about …
Gimme (Fallout) Shelter
President John F. Kennedy created the national fallout shelter system in 1961. Within two years, the five boroughs of New York City were home to about 18,000 officially designated shelters.
This designation process was as faith-based as any religion I’ve ever encountered!
Local “civil defense agents” would survey a building to decide if it could survive (!) a nuclear explosion. Any building deemed indestructible would receive a government-issued placard (see my photo above) to be mounted outside to guide anyone who happened to be fleeing from World War III.
The ostensible belief was that …
Logic of Mutual Escalation leads to Nuclear Apocalypse
Canada’s obsession with NATO is escalating the conflict in Ukraine and increasing the possibility of nuclear confrontation.
During a press conference with her US counterpart last week foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly said Canada supported fast tracking Ukraine into NATO. If that transpired, alliance members would be treaty bound to invoke Article 5 of the NATO charter, which commits member states to consider an armed attack against one member an attack against all. It could lead to a formal declaration of war with Russia, which would greatly increase the odds of a nuclear exchange.
In response to Joly’s comment, John Ivison …
Collateral Damage
In July, 2006, Israel bombed Lebanon. The news released fury and anguish in me that was beyond words. I visualized innocent, helpless babies swimming in their blood as bombs blasted away their lives. I struggled to grasp the needless, wanton destruction of lives, homes, futures, and dreams. Why? Why had the decision been made to do this? Who made it? Who benefited? These questions exploded in my mind. I was driven to put on canvas what I couldn’t write on paper.
What appeared was a larger-than-life furious woman holding a dead …
Columbus is Buff and Ready for Genocide
(an annual article tradition)
Below the elevated platform at the Astoria Boulevard/Hoyt Avenue N train station, my neighborhood plays host to Columbus Square — which is actually shaped like a warped triangle. Let Manhattan have its mundane Columbus Circle, we in Queens are far more geometrically sophisticated. It’s a square triangle for us.
Naturally, a statue of Christopher Columbus adorns this triangular square. As you can see from the photo above, the city has given the bare minimum effort to protect this particular monument from being, um… canceled.
Anyway, if one were to believe sculptor Angelo Racioppi’s …
A Drug Lord and His Hungry, Hungry Cocaine Hippos
Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar had so much money that he literally could not spend it fast enough. He and the Medellín cartel he started dominated the cocaine trade in the 1980s. By then, he was earning about $420 million per week.
Storing piles of cash in fields and warehouses, he’d write off 10 percent of it each year (that’s more than $2 billion) accepting that it would inevitably be lost, destroyed by the elements, or eaten by rats.
Of his many palatial homes, the King of Cocaine’s favorite was a $63 million/7,000-acre …
When Will the Stars Shine Again in Burkina Faso?
Wilfried Balima (Burkina Faso), Les Trois Camarades (‘The Three Comrades’), 2018.
On 30 September 2022, Captain Ibrahim Traoré led a section of the Burkina Faso military to depose Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who had seized power in a coup d’état in January. The second coup was swift, with brief clashes in Burkina Faso’s capital of Ouagadougou at the president’s residence, Kosyam Palace, and at Camp Baba Sy, the military …
Beliefs
How does relying on belief stack up against evidence-based reasoning?
What They Want
What Do “They” Want?
Giorgia Meloni: The Great Replacement Moves In
Demographic angst is a terrifying thing, especially to leaders concerned about poor returns from horizontal folk dancing. Viktor Orbán of Hungary is particularly apprehensive that precious Hungarian blood is not being propagated, facing dilution, if not disappearance, from hordes of swarthy immigrants from the Middle East and Africa.
In Italy, the country’s imminent first female prime minister is much of that same view. Giorgia Meloni speaks about being a “woman, mother [and] Christian” with messianic purpose: to defend “God, country and family”. The stress is on mother virtue rather than female rights, the latter only being relevant when it comes …
Strangers Behind the Trees: On the Death of Rayan Suliman and His Fear of Monsters
Children of my Gaza refugee camp were rarely afraid of monsters but of Israeli soldiers. This is all that we talked about before going to bed. Unlike imaginary monsters in the closet or under the bed, Israeli soldiers are real, and they could show up any minute – at the door, on the roof or, as was often the case, right in the middle of the house.
The recent tragic death of a 7-year-old, Rayan Suliman, a Palestinian boy from the village of Tuqu near Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank, stirred up so many memories. The little boy with olive …
Why the US Imprisoned Venezuelan Diplomat Alex Saab
A year ago, October 16, the long arm of US extra-territorial judicial overreach abducted Alex Saab and threw him into prison in Miami, where the Venezuelan diplomat has languished ever since.
The official narrative is that Saab had bilked the Venezuelans in a “vast corruption network” and the US as the world’s self-appointed cop was simply enforcing good business practices. However, commentary by Washington insiders corroborates that Saab’s “crime” was trying to obtain humanitarian supplies in legal international trade but in circumvention of the illegal US sanctions on Venezuela.
Cabo Verde captivity
Back on June 12, 2021, Mr. Saab was on a …
When Police Become Judge, Jury, and Executioner
America’s Death Squads
You know, when police start becoming their own executioners, where’s it gonna end? Pretty soon, you’ll start executing people for jaywalking, and executing people for traffic violations. Then you end up executing your neighbor ‘cause his dog pisses on your lawn.
— “Dirty Harry” Callahan, Magnum Force
When I say that warrior cops—hyped up on their own authority and the power of the badge—have not made America any safer or freer, I am not disrespecting any of the fine, decent, lawful police officers who take seriously their oath of office to serve and …
OPEC: Is Washington Behind the OPEC Decision to Cut Petrol Output?
PressTV Interview with Peter Koenig
PressTV – Background
Tensions are heating up between the United States and Saudi Arabia after Riyadh-led OPEC and allied oil producing countries announced a big output cut, defying Washington’s pressure.
US Secretary of state, Antony Blinken, says the government is working closely with Congress to review alternatives regarding ties with Saudi Arabia. That’s a day after the 23 countries, together known as OPEC-Plus agreed to reduce the output by 2-million barrels per day from the coming November.
Oil producers insisted they want to boost the crude market already reeling from the global economic crisis. But the decision came amid soaring energy prices. Washington …
Biden’s Broken Promise to Avoid War with Russia May Kill Us All
Attack on Kerch Strait Bridge linking Crimea and Russia Credit: Getty Images
On March 11, 2022, President Biden reassured the American public and the world that the United States and its NATO allies were not at war with Russia. “We will not fight a war with Russia in Ukraine,” said Biden. “Direct conflict between NATO and Russia is World War III, something we must strive to prevent.”
It is widely acknowledged that U.S. and NATO officers are now fully involved in Ukraine’s operational war planning, …
Universal Tipping Points: Change is Coming
Much like individual change, societal developments happen gradually, often painfully; even when sudden shifts take place, seemingly ‘out of the blue’, they are the result of an accumulation of incremental steps – the last straw on the camel’s back as it were. Small developments may slip by unnoticed, major events scream out and demand our attention. Take man-made global warming – going on for 70 years or so, ignored for most of that time, until one July, when, in 40°C heat people collapse, crops are wiped out, water is rationed and drought blights the land.
Whilst it’s true that change is, …
Whenever it Truly Matters, from Assange to Corbyn, George Monbiot cripples the Left
Aside from his genuine passion for the environment, Monbiot’s position on every major issue chimes precisely with that of his employer, the Guardian. He is not his own man. He’s owned
Guardian columnist George Monbiot is, by his own admission, a very busy man. Dedicated as he is to issues such as soil loss, he has yet to find the time to throw his weight behind the campaign to free Julian Assange.
When thousands of supporters poured into London from all over the world at the weekend to besiege the British Parliament, creating a human chain around it, Monbiot, like his newspaper the Guardian, ignored the event.
The media mainly lie about Julian Assange’s case by ommitting information, helping to disappear him from public view. They did that this weekend by ignoring the many thousands who turned out to besiege Parliament with a human chain.
It was a figment of my imagination apparently pic.twitter.com/0QNDbf6kdf
— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) October 10, 2022
Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, has been rotting in a UK high-security prison for years, as the United States works through a series …
A Shower of Lies: Spanier, Sandusky and the Mess at Penn State
You remember Jerry Sandusky, right?
He’s the former Penn State assistant football coach and pedophilic monster who started a foundation, The Second Mile, in order to gain sexual access to prepubescent boys, hundreds of whom he molested, until eight heroic ones stepped forward to tell a jury about their ordeals in 2012, resulting in the sixty-eight-year-old Sandusky’s thirty-to-sixty-year prison term.
If you recall anything else about the case, it is probably the wrenching story of the ten-year-old “little boy in the shower,” who, on February 9, 2001, was seen being raped by Sandusky in a Penn State athletic facility. For some reason …
The Assassination of Frank J. Robinson
We exchanged sideways glances. It was a dubious claim, and the old judge we were talking to followed it with a glaring non sequitur.
“I think he killed himself,” insisted 76-year-old former judge Alexander Nemer. “I mean, look at the photos. Part of the man’s head is missing. Something blew it off. There’s a picture of a cat licking the inside of his skull when he’s there on the garage floor. I would generally say something took the top of his head off.”
Ignoring the disturbing image this statement conjured, Texas Public Radio …
Cynthia McKinney Interview
An Objective Look at U.S. Foreign Policy
Events continue to unfold at a quickening pace. Facing an alarming escalation in tensions around the world, we asked Cynthia McKinney for her current thoughts.
Cynthia McKinney is an American politician and assistant professor at North South University, Bangladesh. As a member of the Democratic Party, she served six terms in the United States House of Representatives, as the first African American woman ever elected to represent Georgia. She was also the first Member of Congress to demand an investigation of the events of 9/11 and the first to file articles of …
Surviving the Killing Fields, a Worldwide Challenge
Awaiting discharge from a hospital in Cairo, Adel Al Manthari, a Yemeni civilian, faces months of physical therapy and mounting medical bills following three surgeries since 2018, when a U.S. weaponized drone killed four of his cousins and left him mangled, burnt and barely alive, bedridden to this day.
On October 7th, President Biden announced, through Administration officials briefing the press, a new policy regulating U.S. drone attacks, purportedly intended to reduce the numbers of civilian casualties from the attacks.
Absent from the briefings was any mention of regret or compensation for the thousands of civilians like Adel and his family whose …
Assange Tests Positive for Covid-19 in Prison
The Wikileaks publisher has been put on 24/7 lockdown in Belmarsh, his wife reports
© Getty Images / Guy Smallman
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has tested positive for Covid-19 and is being kept in total isolation at Belmarsh Prison as he continues to fight extradition to the US, his wife Stella told media on Monday.
“The next few days will be crucial for his general health,” the lawyer, who married Assange in March, told reporters, adding “He is now locked in his cell for 24 hours a day.” Assange became sick on Friday with a cough and fever and was given …
Indigenous People’s Day Counts Only When We Become Human Beings
Someone needs to explain to me why wanting clean drinking water makes you an activist, and why proposing to destroy water with chemical warfare doesnt make a corporation a terrorist.
–Winona LaDuke, “Canadian Oil Companies Trample on Our Rights” by Winona LaDuke, progressive.org. June 18, 2013.
Water is life. We are the people who live by the water. Pray by these waters. Travel by the waters. Eat and drink from these waters. We are related to those who live in the water. To poison the waters is to show disrespect for creation. To honor and protect the waters is our responsibility …