China is now the world’s largest exporter of vaccines. China’s earlier smog problems caused the Chinese leadership to aim for high-quality economic growth, thereafter easing particulate emissions.
The preventable plight of the U.S. Postal Service, with its over 30,000 post offices, is an important issue for all Americans. When President Donald J. Trump’s donor and henchman Louis DeJoy became postmaster general in 2020, he started to dismantle the agency. Thousands of citizens responded by participating in demonstrations that revealed a deep civic commitment to preserving the people’s post office.
While DeJoy triggered a crisis that threatened the presidential election process, attacks on the Postal Service have been ongoing for decades. The anti-postal campaigns by corporate interests have remained a continuing source of frustration to those of us who …
Edward Curtin returns to discuss deep politics and what links the assassination of JFK, 9/11, and Covid-19. No president since Kennedy has dared to buck the Military-Industrial-Complex, including Trump, who is part of the same system that produced both Obama and Biden. He discusses the 1967 CIA memo which told mainstream media to use the disparaging term “conspiracy theory” to quell all deviation from the official narrative, and how this propaganda technique has continued to function from JFK to 9/11 to Covid-19. Many of the same actors involved in the …
Leon, Nicaragua, November 7, 2021 — On the fight down to Nicaragua a few days ago to be one of 225 international official election accompaniers from 27 countries, the expat Nicaraguan woman sitting next to me was hostile to the current Sandinista government. She said there will be an election but no vote, because only one person is on the ballot. At the polling station in the colonial city of Leon this election morning, November 7, candidates from six political parties standing for president were, in fact, on the ballot: PLC, FSLN, CCN, ALN, APRE, and PLI.
Rarely is the pragmatist admired. Be it in policy or politics, such a figure induces suspicion, a concern that principles will have to be subordinated to broader goals. True dreamers and visionaries, for all their glaring faults, can take the accolades; the pragmatists can be given lower pegging.
These differences have proven stark with the late FW de Klerk, South Africa’s last apartheid president. “De Klerk,” suggested Mac Maharaj, formerly official spokesperson for President Jacob Zuma, “was a man of the moment and [Nelson] Mandela was a man of history.” The late Colin Eglin went one better in his observation …
The “invisible hand” gives rise to a situation where it becomes natural and normal to conclude that no one knows how things work or what to expect. It renders the future unpredictable and unmanageable. Uncertainty and unpredictability become the norm because the economy as a whole is not under conscious human control. Different sectors and components of the economy do not work in harmony, free of crisis, because they are divided amongst competing owners of capital obsessed with their own narrow private interests. This inter-capitalist rivalry does not lend itself to the healthy balanced extended reproduction of society. It mainly …
Why do Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela pose such an existential threat to the U.S.? The promise of socialism and their resistance to US class warfare.
One of the extreme ironies of the latest attack by the settler-colonial regime of the United States against the national democratic project of Nicaragua is that in Nicaragua, the second poorest nation in the Americas, universal healthcare and education are guaranteed to the population as a human right, while in the U.S. those kinds of basic human rights are distant dreams.
The day after the so-called progressive block of legislators in the U.S. House of Representatives surrendered …
echoes of my friend, Rusty Nelson, who was a USAAF veteran who spoke at a Spokane commencement articulately decrying Bush’s war
by Paul Haeder / November 11th, 2021
I’m rushing this since it is officially, November 11, the dreaded day of dishonor we call Veterans Day. Parades, ceremonies, and a fake day off—Veterans Day, observed on November 11 each year, is one of the country’s 12 Congressionally designated federal holidays. Make now bones about it — this holiday is distinct from Memorial Day: more nonsense with roots from a Civil War-era tradition of decorating the graves of deceased soldiers.
Veterans Day didn’t always celebrate all military veterans. Once tagged as Armistice Day, November 11 has roots in one of the most perverted and destructive rich …
Author’s Note: This is my presentation at a webinar by the Chonyang Institute of the Renmin University of Beijing.
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What always impresses me about the Chinese concept of development is the vision for sharing – the intent of sharing wealth and prosperity. It fits typically the concept of Socialism with Chinese characteristics.
This Chinese Vision on Common Prosperity is no different.
China is embarking on her vision of comprehensively building a modern socialist country, envisioning a future where prosperity is shared by everyone in the country.
And let me add China’s vision of a shared prosperity goes way beyond her …
Kang Minjin of the Justice Party of Korea at COP26 in Glasgow, 6 November 2021. Photograph by Hwang Jeongeun.
Nothing useful seemed to emerge from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at COP26 this week. The leaders of developed countries made tired speeches about their commitment to reversing the climate catastrophe. Their words rang with the clichés of spin doctors, their sincerity zero, their actual commitments to lowering …
Those who are not familiar with how Israel, particularly the Israeli military occupation of Palestine, is actively and irreversibly damaging the environment might reach the erroneous conclusion that Tel Aviv is at the forefront of the global fight against climate change. The reality is the exact opposite.
In his speech at the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 in Glasgow, Israel’s right wing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett pushed the Israeli brand of “innovation and ingenuity” to “promote clean energy and reduce greenhouse gases”.
Israel uses this particular brand to sell everything, whether to promote itself as the savior of Africa, to help …
Former Australian prime ministers tend to be less conspicuous in public life than their counterparts in other countries. Occasionally, they make an appearance at political functions and events to remind us that they are still alive, their estate still breathing, their lawyers still working. For the most part, the pronouncements are less than profound, let alone relevant. But there are a few radiant surprises. Malcolm Fraser was one, considered dour when prime minister through the latter part of the 1970s and early 1980s, yet utterly provocative on becoming an elder statesman. It was he, a Cold War warrior so keen …
Here we go, what will most likely be published in the Newport News Times, two-times a week dwindling newspaper. I will then follow up, for sure, at the end of this fit-for-small-town-news column.
November is National Native American Indian Heritage Month
By Paul K. Haeder
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
Is it possible or desirable for socialists to integrate pantheism into dialectical materialism? Can Wiccan covens be integrated into anarchist affinity groups? Can socialism improve itself by embracing celebratory Neopagan seasonal rituals? All this is possible if socialists could admit that being atheists has not been attractive, fun or inspiring in organizing the working class.
Orientation
The term “New Age “means different things to different people: some positive, some negative. But I disagree with those sociologists or scholars of New Religious Movements who are overly inclusive and lump all kinds of alternative movements …
If the US aspires to protect its long-held vital interests and democratic values in its relations with Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, it is time to reset its ill-consulted policies pushed by the Egyptian and Tigray rebel’s paid US lobbyists, organizations that are interested in nothing but the destabilization of the Ethiopian State, and anti-Ethiopian forces hoping for the country’s disintegration along ethnic lines. Therefore, US officials should learn a lesson or two from careful approaches adopted by sub-Saharan African states, Eastern African states’ own Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD), eastern powers such as China and the Russian Federation …
President Bashar al-Assad made a telephone call on Friday with Chinese President Xi Jinping, during which the two sides discussed the close bilateral relations and means of expanding mutual cooperation.
During the phone call, the two sides affirmed the great importance given to develop bilateral relations as President al-Assad considered the relationship with China as pivotal and important in order to support the Syrian people’s struggle against internationally-backed terrorism and the blockade that largely affected different aspects of their life.
President al-Assad stressed Syria’s keenness to develop ties between the government institutions in …
Leaders at the COP26 summit have no intention of tackling the growing environmental impacts caused by their ‘defence’ spending
by Jonathan Cook / November 9th, 2021
World leaders gathered in Glasgow last week for the COP26 summit in a bid to demonstrate how they are belatedly getting to grips with the climate crisis. Agreements to protect forests, cut carbon and methane emissions and promote green tech are all being hammered out in front of a watching world.
Western politicians, in particular, want to emerge from the summit with their green credentials burnished, proving that they have done everything in their power to prevent a future global temperature rise of more than 1.5C. They fear the verdict of unhappy electorates if they come back empty-handed.
One of the most damning assessments of COP26, the UN climate conference being held in Glasgow, came from Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist:
‘#COP26 has been named the must excluding COP ever.
This is no longer a climate conference.
This is a Global North greenwash festival.
A two week celebration of business as usual and blah blah blah.’
And, indeed, if you scour news reports from COP26 they yield a familiar litany of political rhetoric and weasel words: vows, pledges, promises, commitments, sign up, phase out, green investment, innovation, transition, progress, …
Wall Street investors have hit the jackpot. Soon they’ll be able to buy, own, and dictate The Commons, public lands, the world of Mother Nature. In fact, a pilot project is already in the works with ecosystems up for sale as Wall-Streeters anxiously prepare to gobble up the valued benefits of Mother Nature.
According to the NYSE PR Dept. they’ll IPO nature: “To preserve and restore the natural assets that ultimately underpin the ability for there to be life on Earth.” What? Really?
And, according to NYSE COO Michael Blaugrund: “Our hope is …
Nearly as suspenseful as the Taliban’s meteoric return to power after the final withdrawal of American armed forces from Afghanistan is the uncertainty over what will come next amid the fallout. Many have predicted that Russia and China will step in to fill the power vacuum and convince the facelift Taliban to negotiate a power-sharing agreement in exchange for political and economic support, while others fear a descent into civil war is inevitable. Although Moscow and Beijing potentially stand to gain from the humiliating U.S. retreat by pushing for an inclusive …
Review of British journalist Michela Wrong’s remarkable new book Do Not Disturb:The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad replete with a survey of some of the more notable reviews and the notorious ((The word ‘notorious’ is neutral, though its interpretation is usually colored by the presumption of a pejorative connotation)) reviewers who reviewed it.
Do Not Disturb is a book out some six months now that has catapulted author Michela Wrong to a new low of infamy in the eyes of Paul Kagame, …
Hegemony requires a coordinated mechanism to be in place for a belligerent entity to designate enemies, attack the leader(s) of the designated enemy, control the narrative (i.e., lie), launch unprovoked attacks that murder a citizenry, destroy the economic basis of the named enemy, loot its resources, topple the enemy’s leadership, and replace the leadership with one deemed acceptable to the attacking entity. Such a mechanism is multifaceted, and it requires a government, industry, military, and media that operate as a unit, along with other supporting facets. The United States is an entity that functions to support capitalism, imperialism, militarism, and …
Researching registered charities is a window into the pathology of Canadian Zionism.
The number, variety and sums raised by taxpayer-subsidized groups focused on Israel is remarkable. Does a country with a GDP per capita equal to Canada’s need this country’s taxpayers to subsidize 200+ organizations raising over a quarter billion dollars a year for it? Is there really a need for a Canadian Friends of the Israel Guide Dog Center for the Blind? Or Canadian Friends of Dental Volunteers for Israel? Or Canadian Friends of Yad L’Achim, which campaigns against Jewish and Palestinian/Muslim intermarriage?
In a modest effort to disrupt the global spyware market, the United States announced last week that four entities had been added to its blacklist. On November 3, the US Department of Commerce revealed that it would be adding Israel-based companies NSO Group and Candiru to its entity list “based on evidence that these entities developed and supplied spyware to foreign governments that used these tools to maliciously target government officials, journalists, business people, activists, academics, and embassy workers.”
Russian company Positive Technologies and the Singapore-based Computer Security Initiative Consultancy also made the list “based on a determination that they …
It is important that progressive people of all colors and cultures, including people of European ancestry, learn about the violent, pernicious history of European colonization of Africa and its peoples. Milton Allimadi’s recently-published book, Manufacturing Hate: How Africa Was Demonized in Western Media, is an excellent, well-written, concise and accessible source to learn about some of that history.
Allimadi combines a broad historical sweep with specific stories of European/African interactions, from major military battles to recorded, individual African-to-European conversations. He is extremely critical of Western mass media reporting …
$1.75 Trillion for the Social Welfare/Climate Bill; $1.75 trillion for “modernizing” nukes
by John V. Walsh / November 7th, 2021
Last Friday Congress passed the Biden “Infrastructure” Bill which will be signed into law post haste says the White House. The bill, designed to upgrade roads, bridges, transport and broadband, is a bricks and mortar affair and will benefit industry and commerce. It is the first of two bills that have been the center of attention for months now.
The second bill is the Build Back Better Bill. This bill has provisions for child care and preschool, eldercare, healthcare, prescription drug pricing, immigration and curbing greenhouse gas emissions. This might be described as a bill for people not for …
A review of David Lorimer's book A Quest for Wisdom: Inspiring Purpose on the Path of Life
by Edward Curtin / November 7th, 2021
This is a fascinating and beautiful book, one of those gems you serendipitously discover and shake your head at your good fortune. Although it is new and I received it as a gift, it reminds me of a few books I have discovered over the years while rummaging through used bookstores that have startled me into a new perspective on life. Ironically, these books have advised me, whether explicitly or implicitly, to be done with books, because what I was seeking cannot be found in them, for it floats on the …
Events are unfolding at a quickening pace. Facing an alarming escalation in tensions around the world, we are looking to our most respected and renowned thought leaders for an honest assessment of both U.S. foreign and military policy to offer their most current thoughts and insights. We know they have some ideas for improving the prospects for peace.
At the G20 leaders’ summits, President Xi calls on developed countries to lead on emissions reductions and support developing nations. China’s per capita emissions are only 40% of the US’s (2019).
Chinese scientists develop technology to produce animal feed from industrial gas by-products, which could reduce soy imports and carbon emissions.
China implements Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL), regulating the collection, use, and transfer of data to safeguard consumer privacy.
