Only around a quarter of people eligible to vote chose to cast their votes for the ANC in the recent election. The mass stay away from the polls is a mass rejection of the ANC, along with the DA and the EFF which could not attract the support of significant numbers of former ANC voters. When you do not respect the dignity of the people and you undermine their power you always pay the price.
We have always said that the day is coming where South Africans will no longer have the loyalty to the ANC and will vote them out …
During his eventful time in office, US President Donald Trump took much delight in reflecting about the lethal toys of his country’s military, actual or hypothetical. These included a hypersonic capability which, his military advisors had warned, was being mastered by adversaries. Such devices, comprising hypersonic cruise missiles and hypersonic boost-glide vehicles, have been touted as opening a new arms race, given their ability not merely to travel at five times the speed of sound – as a general rule – but also show deft manoeuvrability to evade defences.
Undeterred by any rival capability, Trump claimed in May 2020 that …
Another World Series – the twelfth in a row – without the New York Yankees, the richest franchise in the Major Leagues. The reason for this fall of the once formidable Yankee baseball dynasty is not difficult to discern. It is inept, smug management starting with the 23-year reign of General Manager Brian Cashman, to the amiable but overwhelmed manager, Aaron Boone. Against other baseball managers, Mr. Boone is out of his league. Competitors with far less money – think Tampa Bay – have teams that have run circles around the …
Just in time for the UN’s policy push for “30 x 30” – 30% of the earth to be “conserved” by 2030 – a new Wall Street asset class puts up for sale the processes underpinning all life.
A month before the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (known as COP26) kicked off in Scotland, a new asset class was launched by the New York Stock Exchange that will “open up a new feeding ground for predatory Wall Street banks and financial institutions that will allow them to dominate not just the human economy, but the entire natural world.” So writes …
The Nicaraguan elections are on November 7, 2021. The US government, the media that does its bidding, and even some self-described “leftists,” present a Nicaragua in “turmoil” and “crisis” – and the elections as a farce. These attacks against the Sandinista government also emanate from academics, intellectuals, and journalists with ties to the members of the now-defunct MRS, an organization with no political relevance or popular support whose members pretend to be leftist to an international audience but support the Nicaraguan right-wing and do the bidding of the US – …
Since its origin in the early 19th century by followers of Robert Owen, the term “socialism” has evolved to mean many different things to many different people and has been misused by dictatorships to describe their draconian management of capitalism. At the present time “socialism” is an unpopular word. Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot have poisoned our understanding by applying the word “socialism” to their barbaric tyrannies. In the course of the 20th-century socialism, as a word, came to be transformed from a doctrine and aim associated with the emancipation of the working class into a doctrine and aim associated …
Well well, some of us try-try. We end up having to take pittance jobs, with pitiful nonprofits, where the bottom line is, well, poverty pimping.
So in a time of Covid Capitalism, in a time of quick silver circling the drain, quitting after 5 weeks on the job may appear rash, or self-defeating.
But here is the rub — working in Oregon, on the coast, in areas that are tourist-centric, rural, redneck, we have to juggle our principles and our ethics with the prevailing job market. Social services in USA are feces factories, and in Oregon, we as a state hit rock …
It is perhaps fitting that United States President Joe Biden arrived in Glasgow for the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) on the climate catastrophe with eighty-five cars in tow months after declaring ‘I’m a car guy’ (for details on the climate catastrophe, see our Red Alert no. 11, ‘Only One Earth’). Only three countries in the world have more cars per person …
The corrupt, mendacious, racist, anti-science, and climate criminal National Party-Liberal Party Coalition that rules climate criminal Australia has succeeded in sabotaging the COP26 Climate Change Conference (as it has all previous climate conferences) in 10 key ways:
(1). Racist ignoring of the right of Developing Countries with relatively low “GDP per capita” and “GHG pollution per capita” (e.g. India and China) to achieve modest socio-economic improvement for all their citizens while also achieving “zero net pollution” 20 years later (India) and 10 years later (China) than rich Developed Countries that aim for “zero net pollution by 2050”. In terms of population, …
We are a nation on the brink of a nervous breakdown.
Undeniably, the blowback from COVID-19 lockdowns and mandates continues to reverberate around the country, impacting the nation’s struggling workplaces, choking the economy and justifying all manner of authoritarian tyrannies being inflicted on the populace by state and federal governments.
Yet while it is easy to be distracted by political theater, distressed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and divided over authoritarian lockdowns and mandates, there are still darker forces …
The international uproar in response to Israel’s approval of a massive expansion of its illegal settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian West Bank may give the impression that such a reaction could, in theory, force Israel to abandon its plans. Alas, it will not, because the statements of ‘concern,’ ‘regrets’, ‘disappointment’ and even outright condemnation are rarely followed by meaningful action.
True, the international community has a political, and even legal, frame of reference regarding its position on the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Unfortunately, however, it has no genuine political mandate, or the inclination to act individually or collectively, to bring …
Neopagans have a great deal to teach 21st Century socialists, if only we would listen. As capitalism has gone into deep decline in the United States and England beginning in the 1970s, two spiritual movements have sprung up outside Judeo-Christianity: The New Age and Neopaganism. Contrary to some sociologists’ claims that Neopagan Wiccans, Druids and Ceremonial Magicians are not part of the New Age, I argue that there are at least 27 differences between the two. I claim that these differences could be the basis of an alliance between Neopagans and …
In the twenty-four-hour news cycle, scraps of information become flecks of distracting gold. Information sifters go through coverage with anorak enthusiasm. Instead of good copy and measured consideration, journalists are encouraged to become manufacturers of news in the hope that what they produce lasts for posterity.
For eighteen days, four-year old Cleo Smith could not be found. She had gone missing from the Quobba Blowholes Shacks campsite north of Carnarvon in Western Australia, “last seen,” according to a notice, “at 1.30 am on 16th October 2021”. The Western Australian government had promised a $1 million reward for information on her disappearance.
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / November 3rd, 2021
Greta Thunberg leads protests in Italy ahead of COP26. Credit: Radio Habana Cuba
COP Twenty-six! That is how many times the UN has assembled world leaders to try to tackle the climate crisis. But the United States is producing more oil and natural gas than ever; the amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere and global temperatures are both still rising; and we are already experiencing the extreme weather and climate chaos that scientists have warned us about for forty years, and which will only get worse …
New Political Realities in the Fight to Defeat the US Economic War on Cuba
by Ike Nahem / November 3rd, 2021
Cuba will always remember your expressions of support, your permanent call for the lifting of the embargo…[My invitation to attend the Independence Day celebrations] has an immeasurably greater value in times in which we are suffering the ravages of a multidimensional war, with a criminal blockade opportunistically intensified in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic with 240 [new] measures…In parallel, we are facing an aggressive campaign of hate, disinformation, manipulation, and lies assembled on the most diverse and influential digital platforms that ignore all ethical limits…Under the fire of this total war, the solidarity of Mexico with Cuba has awakened …
As climate change leads humanity’s march to Armageddon, data surfacing during late 2021 suggests that the march could be much briefer than previously thought. “Nature is starting to emit greenhouse gases in competition with cars, planes, trains, and factories,” asserts Robert Hunziker. The Amazon has switched from soaking up CO2 to emitting it. Likewise, the Arctic has flipped from being a carbon sink to becoming an emission source. Permafrost is giving off the three main greenhouse gases (GHGs): CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide. So much …
It looked like something of an ambush, but a coterie of Australian journalists had their man where they wanted him. Between sessions at the G20 Summit in Rome, and French President Emmanuel Macron found himself blunter than usual. The sundering of the relationship between Australia and France over the new trilateral security relationship between Canberra, Washington and London, and, more importantly, the rescinding of the submarine contract with Australia, was playing on his mind. Did he think, came the question, whether he had been lied to by the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, about the intended scrapping of the Franco-Australian …
What are western values? One often hears a representative of a western country praising its western values. In a 2017 statement Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau adumbrated Canadian values as “openness, compassion, equality, and inclusion.”
Given the psychological torture that Julian Assange has been subjected to over the years at the hands of western nations like the Britain, the United States, Sweden, and the silent host of western states and their media, one wonders where the compassion is. At the heart of the case against Assange is an …
In 2015 the Obama administration signed what is popularly referred to is the Iranian nuclear deal, under which Iran pledged not to acquire nuclear weapons. In exchange, the punitive sanctions on Iran were to be lifted. The Trump administration cancelled United States participation in the deal, which in any case had not resulted in the lifting of United States sanctions.
The new Biden administration had made promises during the United States presidential campaign that it would re-join the deal. In the event, the new Biden administration not only made no attempt to return to the deal, but in fact inserted new …
As November 5 neared, I did something cliché but nonetheless powerful. I re-watched the film, V for Vendetta. It always resonated with me in a variety of ways. During Occupy, it felt omnipresent due to the endless sea of masks. But in 2021, it plays like a documentary. Another cliché perhaps but I challenge you to watch it and tell me different.
*****
Schools in North Ayrshire, Scotland are readying themselves …
“Could China’s economy collapse?” was the title of an October 15 article published by QUARTZ magazine. The article makes an ominous case of a Chinese economic crash and its impact on China’s and global economies.
This is one of numerous reports appearing in recent weeks in Western mainstream media, all motivated by recently published economic indicators pointing to less-than-expected growth in various sectors of the Chinese economy, especially in the field of construction.
It is understandable that the volatility of global markets could instigate immediate concern among economists worldwide, especially when the economic output of a country the size of China – …
That’s right, it’s nearly time once again for the global-capitalist ruling classes to whip the New Normal masses into a state of mindless mass hysteria over an imaginary apocalyptic virus. the same imaginary apocalyptic virus that they have whipped the New Normal masses into a state of mass hysteria over throughout the Winter for the last two years.
They’ve got their work cut out for them this time. Seriously, how much more mass hysterical could the New Normals possibly get at this point?
In “The Son My Sister Placed for Adoption Wants to Find Her. What Should I Do?”, NY Times, October 26, 2021, Ethicist Kwame Anthony Appiah questions the ethics of confidentiality versus a right to know one’s biological ancestry for those separated by adoption. The case at hand involves a woman contacted by the son her sister placed for adoption decades before who asks if she should tell her sister or respect her alleged wishes to maintain confidentiality imposed on her decades prior.
How can anyone opine on the ethics and rights of people seeking their truth while ignoring the ethics …
As the new government led by Prime-Minister Ahmed Abiy takes office for their second term, the West’s relentless propaganda campaign against Ethiopia continues. Since the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) attacked the Ethiopian State on 4 November 2020 (the day after President Biden was elected coincidentally), the US and allies, factions within UN agencies and human rights organizations have worked to undermine and discredit the democratically elected government.
Aided by mainstream western media – The Economist, BBC, The Guardian, New York Times, Al Jazeera, Facebook (who, …
We speak to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer on the trial of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. He discusses his assessment that Julian Assange has been psychologically tortured by UK authorities, why it has become harder for the UK courts to refuse the US extradition request, the parallels between the video of the murder of George Floyd and Julian Assange’s revelations and what Julian Assange’s persecution means for the average citizen’s rights.
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people …
The General Assembly,
Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples …
— preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
A few days back, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdo?an was angered by ambassadors from ten western countries — US, Germany, Canada, …
“When elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled.”
So warned Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte in his address to the UN General Assembly on September 22, 2020. He was referring to the consequences for East Asia of a conflict between the US and China.
Fast forward to October 2, 2021, about one year later, and the first patch of grass has been stomped on by the U.S. elephant, trudging stealthily about, far from home in the South China Sea. On that day the nuclear-powered attack submarine, the USS Connecticut, suffered serious damage in an undersea incident which the …
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.
— Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology, (1932)
If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress. If you pull it all the way out that’s not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven’t pulled the knife out, much less healed the wound. They won’t even admit the knife is there.
There’s a reason that Catcher in the Rye, published 70 years ago, has become such an iconic book, praised and condemned in equal measure. It is because it is about lying, phoniness, acting, Hollywood, theater, plagiarism, and at its core, a society of liars. Actors in a masquerade willing to don masks and face other faces with the veiled glances of the defeated. It is about the massive social confusion that entered American life in an intense way following World …
