Remember how the notion of freedom was spun by the ideologues of neoliberalism for decades prior to COVID? The freedom to consume. The freedom to make money. The freedom to be plunged into poverty and debt.
Platitudes about ‘individual responsibility’ and ‘standing on your own two feet’. A relentless ideological attack on the state and collective responsibility. The doctrine of ‘no such thing as society’ Thatcherism. Ideologically, at least, the individual and ‘the market’ were paramount. But in reality, of course, there was no genuine rolling back of the state: its machinery was used differently to facilitate the needs of …
I had to check. Was I still at an actual news site, or had I inadvertently clicked myself into a satirical outlet? Perhaps the article came from The Onion or some other humorous blog? Well, it hadn’t. I was still viewing news through The NYT, and with a quick search, I could see the same article posted at several valid news sites: “Pastor Resigns After Incorrectly Performing Thousands of Baptisms.”
It seems the Rev. Andres Arango was heard performing a baptism using the words “We baptize you …” rather than the Vatican approved “I baptize you …” What’s more, he had apparently used …
Let us begin a conversation in response to what currently qualifies as the most profound question, the one that needs most urgently to be addressed if we are to have any chance of understanding what we conveniently refer to as the “Ukraine crisis.” This is, more accurately, a planetary crisis—close in magnitude to the near-certainty of species extinction within the next century, but in some ways ahead of secondary catastrophes such as the obscene, raging inequality between peoples and nations unleashed by President Ronald Reagan and UK Prime Minister Margaret …
John Emerich Edward Dalberg wrote in a letter to archbishop Mandell Creighton: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority…”
Working with Russian academics and institutions. The attack upon Ukraine by Russia. These are two features playing out heavily in university discussions. As typifies such chitchat, nuance features rather less than cant and sanctimony. As writer and lecturer Paolo Nori of Milano-Bicocca University stated after discovering that his course on Fyodor Dostoevsky would be cancelled in response to the war, “Not only is it a fault to be a living Russian in Italy today, but also to be a dead Russian.” (Dostoevsky has since been reprieved; the course will now run.)
Throughout history, academic cooperation between universities and academic institutions, …
… the claim that Russia should not have violated Ukrainian sovereignty is based on the erroneous belief that Ukraine was invaded. This assertion is based on ignorance. Quite aside from the international-law issues posed by the sovereign claims of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), and hence whether they could exert sovereign rights to conclude treaties and hence invite military aid, there is the long-standing original threat and active aggression of NATO in and through Ukraine’s governments. The recognition of sovereignty does not outweigh the right of self-defense.
Viewing the Ukraine war as starting with the current Russian invasion leads to very different conclusions than if you consider that the starting point of this war was the 2014 US-orchestrated coup in Ukraine. The coup, which had elements of an authentic popular revolt, has been used by outside powers to pursue geopolitical ends.
The conception that the war started on February 24 of this year is like viewing the “invasion” by the US and its allies of Normandy in June 1944 against the “sovereign” and “democratic” Vichy French as the start of World War II. Never mind that the …
Unlike many who seem to believe that freedom of movement (since 2020 extinguished in the EU) must mean an end to national borders, I have only felt that borders should be recognised as the product of political will and history.
In the entrance to the museum at the Invalides in Paris there is a quote attributed to Charles de Gaulle, “France was made by the sword.” The idea that anywhere in Europe especially borders are natural or that they are defined by some innate qualities is absurd. ((The cultural historian Morse Peckham …
A devastating new report from Survival International – launched on International Women’s Day, March 8 – exposes how Adivasi (Indigenous) women in India are being brutally persecuted for defending their lands against a massive corporate and governmental mining rush.
Amongst its key findings:
– This mining rush, including plans to increase coal production …
Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.
— Ernest Hemingway, 1946
Imagine you’re in an escape room with strangers. Each of you holds a key that can unlock several padlocks to the final door that lets you out. You’re so close to finishing, and you can’t wait to leave. Then something peculiar happens — you turn around and find these strangers rolling on the floor, aggressively attacking each other. Why? Because one left their coffee cup too close to the centre of a table.
Konstantin Yuon (USSR), People of the Future, 1929.
It is impossible not to be moved by the outrageousness of warfare, the ugliness of aerial bombardment, the gruesome fears of civilians who are trapped between choices that are not their own. If you read this line and assume I am talking about Ukraine, then you are right, but of course, this is not just about Ukraine. In the same week that Russian forces entered Ukraine, the United States launched airstrikes in Somalia, Saudi …
The American population was bombarded the way the Iraqi population was bombarded. It was a war against us, a war of lies and disinformation and omission of history. That kind of war, overwhelming and devastating, waged here in the US while the Gulf War was waged over there.’ ((Howard Zinn, ‘Power, History and Warfare’, Open Magazine Pamphlet Series, No. 8, 1991, p. 12.))
What a strange feeling it was to know that the cruise missile shown descending towards an airport and erupting in a ball of flame was not …
Finally, France will be leaving Mali, nearly a decade after the original military intervention in 2013. The repercussions of this decision will hardly be confined to this West African nation, but will likely spread to the entirety of the Sahel Region; in fact, the whole of Africa.
France’s decision to end its military presence in Mali – carried out in two major military operations, Operation Serval and Operation Barkhane – was communicated by French President, Emmanuel Macron. “Victory against terror is not possible if it’s not supported by the …
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — IPCC — has issued its direst warning of all-time: “Climate breakdown is accelerating rapidly.” Additionally, they readily admit to overly conservative predictions: “Many impacts will be more severe than originally predicted.” ((The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Working Group II Sixth Assessment Report, 2022.))
The crowning blow of this heavy-hitting report is a chilling statement: “There is only a narrow chance left of avoiding its worst ravages.”
Moreover, the IPCC claims that even at current levels dangerous widespread disruptions threaten devastation of swathes of the natural world: “Many areas will become unlivable.”
Canadians calling for a no-fly zone over Ukraine have lost the plot. Unless their real aim is nuclear war.
Recently, former Conservative cabinet minister Chris Alexander, New Brunswick education minister Dominic Cardy and former Chief of the Defence Staff Rick Hillier have raised the idea of creating a “no-fly zone” (NFZ) over Ukraine. “We’re calling on all governments of the world to support creating a no fly zone over Ukraine,” declared Michael Shwec, president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, at a rally in Montréal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US Congressman Adam Kinzinger have also called for NATO to adopt a …
“Those awful Russians!” That was in the late 1940s, just after WW II, and I was a little kid then. As I got older, I was told that Russia was Communist, and Communism was bad in every way. Above all, it was a police state, spying on people and watching their every move. Most of the details went over my head; what I understood was that Russia was bad. Russians were bad. Russians were the enemy.
The Cold War, from its very beginning, was all within my lifetime and that of the people around me. We didn’t just live through it, …
The following is an email I wrote on February 20 to a group of progressive political activists from Syracuse, NY, a city less than one hour’s drive west from where I live. For the last three years the Jewish Federation of Central New York (JFCNY) has sent a series of letters to the Syracuse Peace Council (SPC), a local progressive organization, attacking a number of their members who participated in pro-Palestinian actions and events. The JFCNY falsely claimed those events were expressions of antisemitism, which were the cause of increased violence against local Jews. Half of the recipients of my …
China criticizes NATO expansion, supports national sovereignty. It calls for both sides, Russia and Ukraine, to end the war. China restates its opposition to unilateral economic sanctions. The de-dollarization of China-Russia trade is about to increase. China is the world leader in transitioning to clean energy. The rate of urbanization slows down.
Reminder: War propaganda is always hiding in plain sight
by Mickey Z. / March 4th, 2022
(my book from 2004) When I write or post about the blatant propaganda swirling around the situation in Ukraine, some people get angry… at me. They don’t want to accept the truth so they take my highly-researched analysis personally. In turn, some will even attack me personally. I’ve been doing this a long time so I’m used to it and it will not deter me. With such programming in mind, I’ll once again offer one of the many, many examples of what passes for “normal” in the Home of the …
… a rich, fertile, beautiful land, capable of satisfying all the needs of its people – It could be paradise on earth if it belonged to the people, not to a small owning class*
by Paul Haeder / March 4th, 2022
It’s a no-brainer. Every day should be women’s appreciation day. Sure, we have these Hallmark milestones in the country – Black History Month, Native American Culture Month and now, March, Women’s History Month.
[Death toll in Bangladesh garment factory fire rises – CBS News November 25, 2012 ]
My own roots are embedded with strong independent women mentors. For my Scottish grandmother, she came over to Canada as a teen and worked all her life as a cook, nanny, hospital nutritionist. She played the …
1. Wouldn’t a new “Cold War” simply work wonders for Corporate America and keep that upward transfer of wealth thing going strong?
2. Could it be that the Russian Army is moving so “slowly” because it has no interest in destroying Ukraine but rather in transforming it into an intact puppet state?
3. Did you know that the Ukrainian government broke the Minsk Protocol first by bombing the Donbass region?
4. Did you know there’s such a thing as the Minsk Protocol or Donbass region?…
The New York Times, floundering in the deep waters of truth and desperately trying to stay afloat in the shallows by continuing its history of lying for its CIA masters, has just published a front page of propaganda worthy of the finest house organs of totalitarian regimes. Right below its February 26, 2022 headline denouncing Russia and Putin as evil dogs pursuant to the American empire’s dictates concerning Ukraine, it posts an unflattering photo of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. sandwiched between American flags with the title of its hit piece, “A Kennedy’s Crusade Against Covid Vaccines Anguishes Family and …
These people are not people we are used to… these people are Europeans.
— Kiril Petkov, Bulgarian Prime Minister, Associated Press, March 1, 2022
In the history of accepting refugees, countries have shown more than an erratic streak. Universal human characteristics have often been overlooked in favour of the particular: race, cultural habits, religion. Even immigration nations, such as the United States and Australia, have had their xenophobic twists and turns on the issue of who to accept, be they victims of pogroms, war crimes, genocide, or famine.
The Russian attack on Ukraine has already produced refugees in the hundreds of thousands. …
Can Israel be pressured? Or is Tel Aviv the only exception to the global political order in which every country, big or small, is subjected to pressures and subsequent change in attitude and behavior?
Several events, in recent days, bring the question of Israel’s legal and moral accountability to the fore. On February 21, Israel’s Nature and Park Authority decided to withdraw a plan which aimed at illegally seizing church-owned lands in the Mount of Olives in occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem. The plan has sparked anger and resistance among Palestinian Christians and Muslims alike. Palestinian Christian leaders had denounced …
The Liberal government abetted by the NDP and complicit media used the draconian Emergencies Act to send in the gendarmes to crush the human rights of the demonstrators. Soon after another flash point occurred in Europe and the media transferred its focus to the big enemy elsewhere.
The guilty can be devious in concealing their crimes, and their role in them. The greater the crime, the more devious the strategy of deception. The breaking of international law, and the breaching of convention, is a field replete with such figures.
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has presented a particularly odious grouping, a good number of them neoconservatives, a chance to hand wash and dry before the idol of international law. Law breakers become defenders of oracular force, arguing for the territorial integrity of States and the sanctity of borders, and the importance of the UN Charter.
