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by Ramzy Baroud / July 16th, 2022
The G7 summit in Elmau, Germany, June 26-28, and the NATO summit in Madrid, Spain, two days later, were practically useless in terms of providing actual solutions to ongoing global crises – the war in Ukraine, the looming famines, climate change and more. But the two events were important, nonetheless, as they provide a stark example of the impotence of the West, amid the rapidly changing global dynamics.
As was the case since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, the West attempted to display unity, though it has become repeatedly obvious that no such unity exists. While France, Germany …
by Mickey Z. / July 16th, 2022
As some of you may know, I didn’t go to college. Sure, I took some classes at a local CUNY school but that was just to appease my parents. I decided early on to chart my own course and not spend most or all of my life with student debt.
I wasn’t a fan of traditional education anyway. I cruised through four years of high school without bringing home a book once. Got straight A’s. When I got to those college classes, I was faced with the reality that I’d have to …
by Ramzy Baroud / July 15th, 2022
The collapse of the short-lived Israeli government of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid validates the argument that the political crisis in Israel was not entirely instigated and sustained by former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Bennett’s coalition government consisted of eight parties, welding together arguably one of the oddest coalitions in the tumultuous history of Israeli politics. The mishmash cabinet included far right and right groups like Yamina, Yisrael Beiteinu and New Hope, along with centrist Yesh Atid and Blue and White, leftist Meretz and even an Arab party, the United Arab List (Ra’am). The coalition also had representatives from …
by Binoy Kampmark / July 15th, 2022
The fall and ignominious retreat of Sri Lanka’s Gotabaya Rajapaksa has enlivened one distinct possibility. Having formally resigned as Sri Lankan President, a point made via email from Singapore, those wishing to see him account for war crimes may get their wish.
There have been various efforts in train regarding a man who ruthlessly concluded his country’s civil war in an orgy of mass killing. The war itself, waged between the forces of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism and the minority Tamils seeking independence, was the rotten fruit of discrimination, exclusion and ethnocratic politics heralded by the passage of the Sinhala Only …
by Robert Hunziker / July 15th, 2022
“With 35% loss globally since 1970, wetlands are our most threatened ecosystem, disappearing three times faster than forests. Wetlands’ services for climate mitigation, adaptation biodiversity, and human health outweigh all other terrestrial ecosystems.” ((“Wetlands are Being Lost at Alarming Rates”, Global Wetland Outlook, 2021.))
Sudd is Africa’s largest freshwater wetland at roughly 3,500 square miles in an otherwise dry region of South Sudan. It’s under threat by a megaproject named Jonglei Canal that has the potential to devastate this ecological gem.
According to conservationists: “Even a partial loss of the Sudd would be an ecological disaster, desiccating the world’s second largest swamp …
by Allen Forrest / July 15th, 2022
Laws are like the governments that write them: susceptible to vicissitudes.
by Farooque Chowdhury / July 15th, 2022
U.S.-attributable climate damages. (a) Ensemble mean GDPpc changes in each country attributable to U.S. emissions, over 1990–2014 with territorial emissions accounting and a short-run (contemporaneous) damage function. Missing data (white countries) denotes countries without continuous GDPpc data from 1990 to 2014. b, c U.S.-attributable damages in the five countries with the greatest GDPpc percent decreases (b) and percent increases (c). The black lines show the mean, the boxes denote the 95% ensemble range, and the colored portions denote the additive fraction of each 95% range due to each.
With its carbon footprint from 1990 to …
by Frank Breslin / July 14th, 2022
Did it ever strike you as odd that the foundation on which standardized testing is based is a self-contradiction? Standardized testing embodies the assumption that only the learning that can be measured is better than learning which cannot be measured. The problem is, can that assumption itself be measured? No, it cannot. Can it even be proven? No, it also cannot because it’s a value judgment, which cannot be proven, nor can its converse.
It’s like claiming that “classical music is better than popular music,” or its converse that “popular music is …
by William Manson / July 14th, 2022
James Webb’s First Deep Field is galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
We have seen the startling images provided by the $10 billion James Webb telescope, images relentlessly hyped as an incredible scientific breakthrough by those involved in the research–but of no conceivable relevance or benefit to humanity as a whole. I would venture to say that, in a moral-humanistic sense, a single photo of a starving child (say, in Yemen) has more value than all the thousands of photos this “exciting” project will produce. Why? Because, as …
by Vijay Prashad / July 14th, 2022
Nú Barreto (Guinea-Bissau), A Esperar (‘Waiting’), 2019.
The world is adrift in the tides of hunger and desolation. It is difficult to think about education, or anything else, when your children are not able to eat. And yet, the sharp attack on education during this past decade forces us to consider the kind of future that young people will inherit. In 2018, before the pandemic, the United Nations calculated that 258 million, or one in six, school age children were out of school. By March …
by Charles Pierce / July 14th, 2022
OPTIONS. There are three means by which the unconstitutional rulings by the current Supreme Court could be lawfully corrected: (1) thru new legislation, or (2) & (3) thru changing the composition of the Court (either by adding 4 addition Judges or by removing and replacing the rogue Judges) followed by obtaining reconsideration of said rulings by the reconstituted Court.
(1) Corrective legislation is currently not achievable because the Senate majority is unable to muster the unity and will to reform the filibuster. Moreover, even if the Supreme Court’s rogue …
NATO’s new posture towards Beijing brings into question its whole claim to be a ‘defensive’ alliance
by Jonathan Cook / July 13th, 2022
As the saying goes, if you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The West has the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato), a self-declared “defensive” military alliance – so any country that refuses its dictates must, by definition, be an offensive military threat.
That is part of the reason why Nato issued a new “strategic concept” document last week at its summit in Madrid, declaring for the first time that China poses a “systemic challenge” to the alliance, alongside a primary “threat” from Russia.
Beijing views this new designation …
by Binoy Kampmark / July 13th, 2022
As the bloody conflict in Ukraine continues, the rhetoric from the imperial spear-holders in Washington and some allies is becoming increasingly fixated with one object: victory against Russia. Such words should be used sparingly, especially given their binding, and blinding tendencies. When the term “unconditional surrender” was first used by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the January 1943 Casablanca conference in the context of defeating Nazi Germany, not all cheered. It meant a fight to the finish, climbing the summit and dictating terms from a blood-soaked peak.
With such language crowning the efforts of the Allies, the Axis powers …
Police No Longer Have to Honor the Right to Remain Silent
by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / July 12th, 2022
That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn’t even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on.
— Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
We are witnessing the gradual dismantling of every constitutional principle that serves as a bulwark against government tyranny, overreach and abuse.
As usual, the latest assault comes from the U.S. Supreme Court.
In a 6-3 ruling in Vega v. Tekoh, the Supreme Court took aim …
by Colin Todhunter / July 12th, 2022
As oil and gas prices rise so does the price of artificial chemical fertilisers – the lynch-pin of industrial agriculture’s claims to be ‘efficient’. In the UK, the price of nitrogen fertiliser has doubled over the past year to around £330 per tonne. With oil currently at over $130 a barrel and with OPEC warning it could reach $200 by the end of the year, it has been suggested that fertilisers could hit GBP 500 a tonne. At these prices, the claimed efficiency of fossil-fuel and fertiliser dependent industrial farming begins to collapse.
The above extract is from a 2008 Soil …
Unless you wake up and stand up, you’re next
by Mickey Z. / July 12th, 2022
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. It has 206 million inhabitants and at least 200 million registered cellphones. Keep that fact in mind. It becomes relevant a little later in this post. For now, I want to demonstrate what I mean with all the writing and podcasting I’ve done about the Great Reset, digital IDs, cashless societies, World Economic Forum, etc.
The continent of Africa — particularly West Africa — has long been a laboratory of sorts for the Bill & …
by Allen Forrest / July 12th, 2022
What is it like to date a human?
by Roger D. Harris / July 12th, 2022
While the political balance between progressive and reactionary states south of the Rio Grande continues to tip to the left, even the corporate press pronounced Biden’s June Summit of the Americas meeting in Los Angeles a flop. Most recently, Colombia elected its first left-leaning president, following similar victories in Chile, Peru, and Honduras, which in turn followed Bolivia, Argentina, and Mexico. And the frontrunner in Brazil’s presidential contest slated for October is a leftist. However, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and especially Cuba – countries led by explicitly socialist parties – are critically threatened by US imperialism, subjected to severe sanctions. …
by Kathy Kelly / July 12th, 2022
Sana’a, Yemen (Photo credit: Rod Waddington via Flickr)
As President Joe Biden embarks on his trip to the Middle East, those of us back home must acknowledge that a “sensitive” trip would visit the victims rather than the butchers.
President Joe Biden’s foreign policy advisors are applauding themselves for devising a “sensitive” itinerary as he plans to embark on a trip to the Middle East on July 13.
In a Washington Post op-ed, Biden defended his controversial planned meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud …
by Binoy Kampmark / July 11th, 2022
The lobbying of Uber should, along with those of other corporate giants, only surprise those prone to pollyannaish escapism. Its hungry, desperate behaviour takes place in plain sight, and denials merely serve to emphasise the point. It resembles, in some crudely distant way, the operating rationale of the notorious British sex pest Jimmy Savile, who preyed upon his victims with the establishment’s complicity.
In terms of the gig economy, there are few more ruthless buccaneers than this San Franciscan ride-share company that has persistently specialised in cutting corners and remaking them. Those taken aback by the latest leaked files about …
by Ike Nahem / July 11th, 2022
[T]he heroism of normality in Cuba does not generate headlines.
— Cuban revolutionary journalist Rosa Miriam Elizalde
July 11, 2021 in Cuba quickly went from legitimate, valid, peaceful street protests to violent provocations and destructive acts directed by US clients in Cuba. Thousands of people in many cities, towns, and working-class neighborhoods took to the streets in response to harsh, deteriorating conditions — the worst of the Covid Delta infections, hospitalizations, and deaths on the island before the application of the Cuban-vaccines; the electricity blackouts in the scorching Cuban summer; on top of the existing shortages of food, gasoline, and medicines …
by Yves Engler / July 11th, 2022
Flagrant antisemitism at a rally attended by leading politicians has been ignored because the targets of the racist attack stood with the oppressed.
At United Jewish Appeal Toronto’s May 29 Walk with Israel a group of Israel flag-waving individuals crossed the street to berate a half dozen Hasidic Jews holding a Palestinian flag. One woman waves a small Israeli flag at them yelling “shame on you” and “you’re a shame on Jewish people”. Another Zionist says, “Hitler made a big mistake, you should have been in the gas chambers. Too bad. We’re here and you’re gonna go to hell.” She states repeatedly, …
by Allen Forrest / July 11th, 2022
What have crickets ever done to be so scorned?
by Peter Koenig / July 11th, 2022
• This article was first published by the International Monetary Institute, China.
Under normal circumstances inflation occurs when too many monetary units (US-dollars, Euros, Chinese Yuan) chase too few goods. But we are not living in normal times. To the contrary. We are living in an increasingly divided world, not only in political terms – West vs. East / Global North vs. Global South – but also in monetary terms.
The gradual but ever faster faltering of the US-dollar hegemony, followed by related so-called hard currencies, like the Euro, the British Pound, the Japanese Yen, as well as the Australian and Canadian …
by Media Lens / July 11th, 2022
Millions of people in the UK are beset by insecurities and worries about the rising cost of living. Fuel and energy prices are escalating, variously blamed on Brexit, Covid, and the war in Ukraine. A recent survey reported that 67% of Britons are worried about paying food and fuel bills, and 56% believe their household finances have worsened in the past 12 months.
The NHS is experiencing huge pressures. Rachel Clarke, a palliative care doctor and the author of Breathtaking: Inside the NHS in a Time of Pandemic, …
by Paul Haeder / July 11th, 2022
So., why is the Ides of March bad luck? If you want to avoid death or worse, 1,000 cuts, beware the ides of March. The date was certainly unlucky for Julius Caesar, who was assassinated in front of the Roman senate on March 15. William Shakespeare dramatized the event in his play about Caesar with the famous quote, ‘beware the ides of March.” For us, the 80 Percent, we have 24/7, 365 days a year of those Ides of March!
As a communist, I have deep understanding of the hate toward communists throughout history, and why countries in Africa and elsewhere …
by Rick Sterling / July 11th, 2022
There are significant parallels between the international crises in Cuba in 1962 and Ukraine today. Both involved intense confrontations between the USA and the Soviet Union or Russia. Both involved third party countries on the doorstep of a major power. The Cuban Missile Crisis threatened to lead to WW3, just as the Ukraine crisis does today.
Cuban Missile crisis and the current crisis in Ukraine
In 1961, the US supported an invasion of Cuba at the “Bay of Pigs”. Although it failed, Washington’s hostile rhetoric and threats against Cuba continued, the CIA conducted many assassination attempts against Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Cuba, seeking …
by Shawgi Tell / July 10th, 2022
Below is part 11 of the series called “Booming” Economy Leaves Millions Behind. It contains 50 new and updated statistics from multiple sources. New dismal records continue to be set and the long depression that started many years ago continues to intensify. Part 12, the last part, will appear in a few weeks. Facts, discussion, and analysis on the economic and social decline unfolding worldwide will still be provided in future articles on the economy under different applicable titles. Links to all previous ten parts of this series can be found below.
*****
U.S. Conditions
“Biden drops to just 32 …
by Ellen Brown / July 10th, 2022
The solution to the current food crisis is small and local, including growing food locally. But how to fund local food co-ops without pricey loans from big banks?
“Deglobalizing” and “dedollarizing” have been much in the news. Reducing dependence on the global supply chain and the U.S. dollar are trends that are happening not just internationally but locally. In the United States, we have seen movements both for local food independence and to divest from Wall Street banks. The burgeoning cryptocurrency movement is another push to “dedollarize” and escape the international bankers’ control grid.
This article is a sequel to one …
by Allen Forrest / July 10th, 2022
What does one do against the sinister machinations of the Davos elitists? Against the violations by the same elitists of personal body integrity? Against violation of personal privacy?
