Latest articles
by Bruce Lerro / January 14th, 2022
Orientation
Why bother?
“Why should I care about the past? The past is over. What matters is the present and the future. Besides, the only people in the history books are usually kings, generals, or politicians. I could care less about them. What do they do? Fight wars? Attend Congress? Schmooze? History is about dead people and dead institutions. History has nothing to do with me, my family, or my friends. As for politics, I don’t vote. Why bother? They don’t represent me. Why should I care about their inaugurations, balls, and conferences? …
by Binoy Kampmark / January 14th, 2022
Anniversaries for detention centres, concentration camps and torture facilities are not the relishable calendar events in the canon of human worth. But not remembering them, when they were used, and how they continue being used, would be unpardonable amnesia.
On January 11, 2002, the first prisoners of the absurdly named “War on Terror”, declared with such confused understanding by US President George W. Bush, began arriving at the newly constructed Camp X-Ray prison at the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay. Structurally crude, it was intended as a temporary facility, remote and out of sight. Instead, it became a permanent and …
by Yanis Iqbal / January 14th, 2022
On January 10, 2022, National Security Advisor (NSA) Moeed Yusuf said, “It [Pakistan] is still not [free from US influence] and I doubt that there is any country which is free from it.” He added that the country does not have any financial independence, being dependent on loans from International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other foreign organizations. “When we cannot [fulfill] the demands, we seek foreign loans. When you procure loans, your economic sovereignty is compromised.” These comments are not entirely stunning; they encapsulate the ambivalent essence of the US-Pakistan relationship. …
by Ron Forthofer / January 14th, 2022
Given all the attention focused on the covid-19 pandemic, the Build Back Better bill, the January 6th attack on the Capitol and the media-hyped crises over Ukraine and Taiwan this past year, many other important issues have not received much attention. One example is the Palestinian/Israeli situation.
Views of Israel
There have been some major breakthroughs in the perception of Israel in 2021 with two major human rights organizations, B’Tselem in Israel and Human Rights Watch, concluding that Israel is an apartheid state. In addition, this past May, 93 US rabbinical students wrote a letter challenging the Zionist perception of Israel. They …
by Kim Petersen / January 14th, 2022
For decades, Hollywood has produced a plethora of films extolling American military prowess in warfare. Aside from Oliver Stone films and a few others, e.g., Casualties of War, usually these Hollywood films depict the United States as a force for good defeating fascists and other evildoers. Never-ending US militarism has provided a cornucopia of potential war scripts for Hollywood. Currently designated bête noires have already featured in Hollywood war films. In 1984, Hollywood made Red Dawn about an invasion of the US by the Soviet Union. In 2012, Red Dawn was updated to the other source of US demonization, China. …
by Jan Oberg / January 14th, 2022
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO’s chief Jens Stoltenberg
To deceive, telling half-truths, or a complete lie is nothing new in politics, particularly security politics. But until some 20-30 years ago, I would – perhaps naively – see it as an exception. Tragically – and perhaps to many readers’ surprise – it is now the rule. At least in U.S. and NATO circles, and that is particularly regrettably since The …
by Robert Hunziker / January 14th, 2022
A polar bear and her cub on sea ice in the Arctic north of Svalbard (Image © Larissa Beumer / Greenpeace)
The world’s oceans in 2021 witnessed the hottest temperatures in recorded history. ((Lijing Cheng, et al, “Another Record: Ocean Warming Continues Through 2021 Despite La Niña Conditions”, Advanced in Atmospheric Sciences, January 11, 2022.))
According to the Ocean Conservancy: “From the beginning of industrialization until today, the ocean has absorbed more than 90 percent of the heat from human-caused global warming and about one-third of our carbon emissions. But we …
by Visualizing Palestine / January 13th, 2022
*****
Systems of colonialism and militarism are destroying both human rights and the environment. Palestinians live in a part of the world that is warming faster than the global average, under a system of Israeli settler colonialism, military occupation, and apartheid. Their experiences offer a clear example of how climate change multiplies existing injustices and inequalities.
Today, we introduce “Between a Rising Tide and Apartheid,” a new series of visuals that illustrates the intersection between the Palestinian rights movement and the environmental/climate justice movements. Learn from Palestinian experiences with climate vulnerability, green colonialism, …
by Vijay Prashad / January 13th, 2022
Chittaprosad, Indian Workers Read, n.d.
In October 2021, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) released a report that received barely any attention: the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2021, notably subtitled Unmasking disparities by ethnicity, caste, and gender. ‘Multidimensional poverty’ is a much more precise measurement of poverty than the international poverty line of $1.90 per day. It looks at ten indicators divided along three axes: health (nutrition, child mortality), education (years of schooling, school attendance), and standard of living (cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, …
by Ramzy Baroud / January 12th, 2022
As soon as media reports emerged regarding a deal between Palestinian prisoner, Hisham Abu Hawash and the Israeli prison authorities, Israeli extremists, led by Knesset member Itamar Ben-Gvir, angrily raided the Assaf Harofeh Hospital where Abu Hawash was being held.
A Palestinian political activist, Abu Hawash, 41, is a father of five. He was arrested by the Israeli army from his home in the town of Dura near Al-Khalil (Hebron) in October 2020. For the last consecutive 141 days, prior to the agreement, Abu Hawash has staged a hunger strike, which will go down in the history of Palestinian resistance as …
by Binoy Kampmark / January 12th, 2022
Julian Assange has now been in the maximum-security facilities of Belmarsh prison for over 1,000 days. On the occasion of his 1,000th day of imprisonment, campaigners, supporters and kindred spirits gathered to show their support, indignation and solidarity at this political detention most foul.
Alison Mason of the Julian Assange Defence Committee reiterated those observations long made about the imprisonment at a gathering outside the Australian High Commission in London on that day. The WikiLeaks founder was wrongfully confined “for publishing the war crimes of the US military leaked to him by whistleblower Chelsea Manning.” She, along with supporters, had …
by Paul Haeder / January 12th, 2022
W.E.B. DuBois: ‘To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.’
This documentary (see below, first one linked) is not news, and then, of course, it’s Trump in office blather, too. As if UK, Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Portugal are havens for social and people and environmental justice.
How Poor People Survive in the USA — vapid.
The documentarian is done, really, through the auspices of Euro trash context, POV, narrative framing. Contrarily, you have to be in the mix, in the middle, from …
by Robert Hunziker / January 12th, 2022
Tokyo Electric Power Company-TEPCO- has been attempting to decommission three nuclear meltdowns in reactors No. 1 No. 2, and No. 3 for 11 years now. Over time, impossible issues grow and glow, putting one assertion after another into the anti-nuke coffers.
The problems, issues, enormous danger, and ill timing of deconstruction of a nuclear disaster is always unexpectedly complicated by something new. That’s the nature of nuclear meltdowns, aka: China Syndrome debacles.
As of today, TEPCO is suffering some very serious setbacks that have “impossible to deal with” written all over the issues.
Making all matters nuclear even worse, which applies to the …
by Binoy Kampmark / January 12th, 2022
The operating doctrine of many a defence ministry is premised on fatuity. There is the industry prerogative and need for employment. There are the hectoring think tanks writing in oracular tones of warning that the next “strategic” change is peeking around the corner. Purchases of weapons are then made to fight devils foreign and invisible, with the occasional lethal deployment against the local citizenry who misbehave. This often leads to purchases that should put the decision maker in therapy.
Australia’s war-wishing Defence Minister Peter Dutton may be in urgent need of such treatment, but he is unlikely to take up the …
by Peter Koenig / January 12th, 2022
Kazakhstan reminds of Armenia (September 2015), also energy price increases, Georgia (April 2009), opposition attempting to force pro-Russian President Mikheil Saakashvili, from power; and even to some extent of Ukraine (2014) – Maiden riots supposedly because then President Viktor Yanukovych, lured into negotiations with Europe for an association agreement with the European Union, behind which was – who else – NATO. The majority of Ukrainians had no idea about these ongoing negotiations and their background. So, the riots were planned by long hand and had nothing to do with the short-cut …
With its socialist central planning, China easily escapes the periodic crises that afflict the capitalist West
by Godfree Roberts / January 12th, 2022
2021 was the best year. Ever.
The robust growth of the domestic market also further stabilises the economy.
Amidst global gloom, 2021 was the best year in modern Chinese history. Here’s what they accomplished:
Eliminated extreme poverty.
Reached 98% home ownership.
Kept Covid death rate at 0.6% of America’s.
Grew the economy $2 trillion PPP, the fastest growth ever.
Became the richest country on earth.
Became the world’s biggest overseas investor.
Became the world’s largest movie …
by Media Lens / January 12th, 2022
If we didn’t have better things to do, it would be a simple matter to produce The Media Lens Book of Obituaries.
The cover might feature grim Death shrouded in tattered newsprint carrying a five-bladed scythe with ‘Ownership’, ‘Advertising’, ‘Sources’, ‘Flak’ and ‘Patriotism’ printed on the blades in reference to the famous five filters of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s ‘propaganda model’ – the filters by which the lives and deaths of famous people are forever sliced and diced to suit the ghoulish needs of power.
Following his death in 2004, we described …
by Allen Forrest / January 12th, 2022
The adventures of the starship Enterprise reveal that even far into the future viruses will plague humans and other humanoid species.
by Edward Curtin / January 12th, 2022
Albert Camus, Michel y Jeannine Gallimard by Antonio Marín Segovia
The person with whom we are all most intimate is oneself. It’s just the way it is. I don’t mean that in some oracular Delphic “know thyself” way, or in any deep psychoanalytical sense, but very simply. We have our own thoughts and feelings that come and go like breaths, most of which never get expressed in words. Together with our actions, including speech, they make up our lives. We try to anchor them with photos and memorabilia and lots …
by Roger Annis / January 11th, 2022
VANCOUVER BC–Vancouver’s impressive ‘seawall’ oceanside walk along the edges of historic Stanley Park as well as the seawall along the shoreline of West Vancouver (north shore of Vancouver harbour) were torn apart in places on January 7 by a winter wind storm. This news report, with video, reports on the damage.
Damage to Stanley Park Seawall in Vancouver following Jan 7, 2022 storm (Global News)
The storm produced wind speeds of some 80 km per hour, well below the maximum windspeeds that occasionally hit the British Columbia coastline. Past …
The Age of Intolerance
by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / January 11th, 2022
Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners.
— George Carlin
Cancel culture—political correctness amped up on steroids, the self-righteousness of a narcissistic age, and a mass-marketed pseudo-morality that is little more than fascism disguised as tolerance—has shifted us into an Age of Intolerance, policed by techno-censors, social media bullies, and government watchdogs.
Everything is now fair game for censorship if it can be construed as hateful, hurtful, bigoted or offensive provided that it runs counter to the established viewpoint.
In this way, the most controversial issues of our day—race, religion, …
by Ramzy Baroud / January 11th, 2022
Although 2021 is now behind us, there are many issues that will linger for a while, or much longer, and will certainly dominate much of the news in 2022, as well. These are but a few of the issues.
NATO-Russian Brinkmanship
Exasperated with NATO expansion and growing ambitions in the Black Sea region, Moscow has decided to challenge the US-led Western alliance in an area of crucial geopolitical importance to Russia.
Ukraine’s quest for NATO membership, especially following the Crimea conflict in 2014, proved to be a red line for Russia. Starting in late 2021, the US and its European allies began accusing …
by Shawgi Tell / January 11th, 2022
About 3.5 million students currently attend roughly 7,400 privately-operated charter schools in the U.S. This represents around 7% of all students and 7% of all schools in the country. Unlike public schools, all charter schools are run by unelected individuals.
Approximately 90% of these outsourced privatized schools have no teacher unions. The vast majority of charter school teachers have no collective organization or unified voice that represents and defends their legitimate and valid interests. As a general rule, the overwhelming majority of charter school owners and operators work overtime to block teachers from forming unions and having greater control over their …
by David Perez / January 11th, 2022
After talking and writing about it, I finally ditched my smartphone and switched to a flip phone, with the aim of being rid of a cell phone altogether.
It’s only been a few days, but the psychological and spiritual effect has been uplifting. I had come to view the stupid smartphone as one of the principal portals into our individual and collective imprisonment. Vaccine passports, digital ID’s, constant surveillance and control, all rely on us remaining chained to a gadget less than two decades old.
So chucking it felt not only necessary but cleansing, a Detox from addiction and dependency, a small …
by Colin Todhunter / January 11th, 2022
Farmerless farms manned by driverless machines, monitored by drones and doused with chemicals to produce commodity crops from patented genetically engineered seeds for industrial ‘biomatter’ to be processed and constituted into something resembling food. Data platforms, private equity firms, e-commerce giants and AI-controlled farming systems.
This is the future that big agritech and agribusiness envisage: a future of ‘data-driven’ and ‘climate-friendly’ agriculture that they say is essential if we are to feed a growing global population.
The transformative vision outlined above which is being promoted by the likes of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation amounts to a power grab. Whether through all …
by Shawgi Tell / January 11th, 2022
Economic and social conditions have been worsening for decades at home and abroad, especially in the context of the neoliberal antisocial offensive which was launched more than 40 years ago by the international financial oligarchy. But they have been getting even worse in recent years and over the past two years in particular.
Inequality, poverty, and debt, along with homelessness, unemployment, and under-employment are on the rise in an increasingly interconnected globe. It is no surprise that suicide, depression, illness, and anxiety persist at very high levels. There is an unbreakable connection between economic, social, and personal conditions. As economic and …
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / January 11th, 2022
August 2020 U.S. drone strike in Kabul killed 10 Afghan civilians. (Credit: Getty Images)
The Pentagon has finally published its first Airpower Summary since President Biden took office nearly a year ago. These monthly reports have been published since 2007 to document the number of bombs and missiles dropped by U.S.-led air forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria since 2004. But President Trump stopped publishing them after February 2020, shrouding continued U.S. bombing in secrecy.
Over the past 20 years, as documented in the table below, U.S. and allied air forces have …
by William Boardman / January 11th, 2022
Julian Assange in 2019. (photo: Matt Dunham/AP)
Any wishlist for the future is potentially infinite. My Wishlist for 2022 is finite, limited to the first several things that came to mind, more than can be expected to be fulfilled, but things to hope for in a year that is about as inauspicious as any we’ve had of late.
Global Wishlist for 2022
UKRAINE recedes into its proper status quo as a quasi-Nazi independent state that is neither a threat to Russia nor a pawn of the hegemonic forces of the US and …
The corporate media is not our friend. The aim of its coverage of the pandemic is not to promote the public good. It is there to feed our anxieties, keep us coming back for more and monetize that distress
by Jonathan Cook / January 11th, 2022
When I criticize meddling in Syria by Britain and America, or their backing of groups there that elsewhere are considered terrorists, it does not follow that I am, therefore, a cheerleader for the dictatorship of Bashar Assad or that I think that Syrians should be denied a better political system. Similarly, when I criticize Joe Biden or the Democratic party, it does not necessarily follow that I think Donald Trump would have made a better president.
A major goal of critical thinking is to stand outside tribal debates, where people are heavily invested in particular outcomes, and examine the ways debates …
by Binoy Kampmark / January 11th, 2022
January 10, 2022 will be remembered as one of the odder days in the annals of sport. For one, it had little to do with physical exertion. Tennis proved secondary to the claims of one Novak Djokovic, currently the world’s number one ranked player. Instead of finding himself training on court in preparation for the Australian Open, he found himself with a legal team in the recently created Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia. His purpose: to challenge the decision to cancel his Temporary Activity visa (subclass 408 in bureaucratic lingo), after his arrival in Australia just prior to …
