Latest articles
by Mickey Z. / September 26th, 2021
These days, things appear to be happening at an accelerated pace. It can be challenging to keep up as a writer. Meanwhile, some events are interesting but may not warrant a full article of their own. Therefore, I will occasionally compile a few stories into one piece… starting with these three right here:
If you’ve watched any television or YouTube videos over the past decade or so, you’ve likely seen ads for Chantix featuring Ray Liotta. Chantix is a Food & Drug Administration (FDA)-approved prescription pill designed to help users …
Sept. 26 - Oct. 2, National Banned Books Awareness at your local (Zoom-brary) Library!
by Paul Haeder / September 26th, 2021
Note: I try and keep the plates spinning in Newport-Lincoln County, where I live, write and work. So, this piece came out in the rag, The Newport News Times, a Wednesday and Friday newspaper sucking wind for sure, but still, a newspaper. This is what the community standards can take, so after this piece, I’ll comment, take out the machetes, and blaze through what it really means, Banning Books (ideas/curricula/discussion/debate/protest/public displays/thinking) .
Banning Books – An American Tradition that Should be Stopped…
Review of Gender Dysphoria: A Therapeutic Model for Working with Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults
by Donovan Cleckley / September 25th, 2021
Psychology, what the analyst makes of the mind, by necessity, must see toward the complex, above the ideologically convenient and beyond the simple. “Our psychology,” William James writes, “must therefore take account not only of the conditions antecedent to mental states, but of their resultant consequences as well.” Approaching the psyche, then, it is not only that which comes before that matters, all that has been, but that which comes after, one’s development onward—all that could be. On the relation between the mind and the body, the self in one’s state of being, this observation appears at the beginning …
by Alton C. Thompson / September 25th, 2021
Webinar update with UMWA District Vice President Larry Spencer
by Stansfield Smith / September 25th, 2021
Striking miners (Source: UMWA)Larry Spencer, UMWA District 20 Vice President, represents the 1,100 coal miners in three UMWA locals which on strike against Warrior Met in Alabama since April 1, 2021. He will give an update on the strike in a September 28 webinar. The strikers are fighting to reverse concessions that were foisted on them in 2016 when BlackRock and other billionaire creditors set up Warrior Met Coal and took over mine operations with the aid of a bankruptcy court.
To keep their jobs, Warrior Met made …
by E.R. Bills / September 25th, 2021
I watched Jordan Peele’s Candyman last Thursday night, and it freaked me out.
Especially as a Texan.
Can acts of injustice curse a place? Can acts of monstrosity—as Peele et al. suggest—stain a community?
A quasi-sequel to the 1992 film of the same name, Candyman explores the affirmative answer to these questions. And that’s what scares me.
Over the last several years I’ve researched and written about numerous acts of injustice and monstrosity in Texas. And, no, monstrosity is not too strong a word. In 2014, The History …
by Gary Olson / September 25th, 2021
The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the hunting of black skins, signaled the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief moments of primitive accumulation. On their heels tread the commercial wars of the European nations, with the globe for a theatre.
— Karl Marx ((Capital 1: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production, ed. …
by Vijay Prashad / September 24th, 2021
Milwa Mnyaluza ‘George’ Pemba (South Africa), New Brighton, Port Elizabeth, 1977.
On 13 July 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted a landmark resolution on the prevalence of racism and for the creation of an independent mechanism made up of three experts to investigate the root cause of deeply embedded racism and intolerance. The Group of African States pushed for this resolution, which had emerged out of global anger over the murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police on 25 May 2020. The …
September 28 webinar update with UMWA District 20 Vice President Larry Spencer
by Stansfield Smith / September 24th, 2021
Larry Spencer, UMWA District 20 Vice President, represents the 1,100 coal miners in three UMWA locals which are on strike against Warrior Met in Alabama since April 1, 2021. He will give an update on the strike in a September 28 webinar. The strikers are fighting to reverse concessions that were foisted on them in 2016 when BlackRock and other billionaire creditors set up Warrior Met Coal and took over mine operations with the aid of a bankruptcy court. …
by Ralph Nader / September 24th, 2021
If you think elementary, middle, and high school students know too little history, geography, and government, try asking them about the corporations that command so many hours of their day, their attention, what they consume, and their personal horizons.
Howard Zinn published A Young People’s History of the United States (2009), to go with his best-selling pioneering work, A People’s History of the United States (1980), but he didn’t do justice to all the modern corporate controls of just about every facet of American life, including educational institutions.
Today, school children are engulfed by corporate apps and …
by Yves Engler / September 24th, 2021
Which is the Canadian political party most likely to stand up to the world’s rich and powerful? Which is willing to help the poorest of the poor gain a semblance of dignity and respect? Which can proudly proclaim, we stand for what is right, not just what is easy and expedient?
Unfortunately, the answer is not the Conservatives, Liberals or the NDP.
When it comes to Canada’s most flagrantly racist and colonial alliance NDP truly does stand for No Difference Party.
In response to a Canadian Foreign Policy Institute election questionnaire asking, “Does …
by Peter Koenig / September 24th, 2021
Transcript of a presentation at a Webinar sponsored by the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing, 23 September 2021.
*****
An early priority for China – at least two to three decades back – was to reduce Carbon Dioxide (CO2) output, as well as that of other greenhouse gases, such as methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and some artificial chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), to eventually reach carbon neutrality, meaning, eliminating as much CO2 as is produced, by 2050.
With industrialization and excessive consumption, the output of CO2 and other greenhouse gases has increased rapidly and especially in later years. And this …
by Media Lens / September 24th, 2021
During last week’s Tory Cabinet reshuffle, ITV political editor Robert Peston inadvertently summed up the primary function of political journalists:
‘I simply pass on’
His tweet was in reference to a ministerial source saying that Priti Patel was ‘not looking happy’. She remained in her job as Home Secretary.
Peston’s phrase was a tragicomic echo of a remark by Nick Robinson, ITV political editor during the Iraq war, who infamously declared that:
‘It was my job to report what those in power were doing or thinking… That is all someone in …
by John Rachel / September 24th, 2021
Amidst all of the sensible and sane cries to eliminate nuclear weapons, we are caught in a self-sustaining, self-reinforcing feedback loop. Call it the Death Spiral of Human Annihilation.
Yes, the U.S. throughout its history, despite official denials even among historians who should know better — maybe they do but prefer being manufacturers of myth rather than chroniclers of history — has been territorial, possessive and aggressive. The Monroe Doctrine declared the entire Western hemisphere as America’s backyard. The U.S. was hardly shy about grabbing as much as it could …
by Ramzy Baroud / September 23rd, 2021
Zakaria Zubeidi is one of six Palestinian prisoners who, on September 6, tunneled their way out of Gilboa, a notorious, high-security Israeli prison. Zubeidi was recaptured a few days later. The large bruises on Zubeidi’s face told a harrowing story, that of a daring escape and of a violent arrest. However, the story does not begin, nor end, there.
Twenty years ago, following what has been etched in the collective Palestinian memory as the ‘Jenin Massacre’, I was introduced to the Zubeidi family in the Jenin refugee camp, …
by Binoy Kampmark / September 23rd, 2021
With that orange haired brute of a president supposedly ushered out of the White House with moralising delight, the Biden administration was all keen to turn over a new leaf. There would be more diplomacy, and still more diplomacy. There would be a more humanitarian approach to refugees and asylum seekers – forget, he claimed, the Border Wall. Kindness would come over border officials and guards of the imperium.
Instead, we have had secret diplomacy culminating in the trilateral security pact of AUKUS, one reached unbeknownst to allies in Europe, Asia and the Indo-Pacific. And we have had a particularly ugly …
by Stansfield Smith and Roger D. Harris / September 23rd, 2021
It is almost taken for granted, if not an article of faith, in the progressive milieu (e.g., here) that the US empire is declining. Does this hold up, or is it comfort food for the frustrated hoping for the revolution?
First, it is essential not to confuse the ongoing decline of the living conditions of US working people with a decline in the power of the US corporate empire. The decline of one often means the strengthening of the other.
In the aftermath of World War II, the US was the world manufacturing center, with the middle class rapidly expanding, and …
by William T. Hathaway / September 22nd, 2021
The baby-boom generation is ending its lap in the human race, and the Fridays-for-future generation is beginning its run. Generational shifts of power are symbolized by the image of passing the torch, but now what the older has to pass on to the younger seems not a torch but a time bomb, a legacy of crises.
To find a way out of the disaster, we need to look at how we got into it, the historical context. The economic and social system of capitalism shapes our times and shapes us. It is …
No job interview, no job offer, targeting by city, county, state honchos, watched by the pigs, shadowed by all the sub humans
by Paul Haeder / September 22nd, 2021
No no no, that is not too harsh. Sub-humans? Really, that’s wrong, off the mark or just plain mean?
One of a thousand examples pulled from my file cabinet — I was substitute teaching in the Lincoln County School District. At the High School in Waldport. You know, short notice, no notes from the teacher of record. And English class. He calls me on the phone while I am taking roll for first period. Juniors and seniors. I have written about this before, and that fact comes into play soon, just wait.
Of Mice …
by Ramzy Baroud / September 22nd, 2021
Scenes of thousands of Afghans flooding the Kabul International Airport to flee the country as Taliban fighters were quickly consolidating their control over the capital, raised many questions, leading amongst them: who are these people and why are they running away?
In the US and other Western media, answers were readily available: they were mostly ‘translators’, Afghans who ‘collaborated’ with the US and other NATO countries; ‘activists’ who were escaping from the brutality awaiting them once the Americans and their allies left the country, and so on.
Actually, the answer is far …
Part One of a Two-Part Series
by Cynthia Chung / September 22nd, 2021
The roots of the Great Reset agenda can very clearly be traced back to 80 years ago, when James Burnham, wrote a book on his vision for “The Managerial Revolution,” Cynthia Chung writes.
Klaus Schwab, the architect of the World Economic Forum (f. 1971), a leading, if not the leading, influencer and funder for what will set the course for world economic policy outside of government, has been the cause of much concern and suspicion since his announcement of “The Great Reset” agenda at the 50th annual meeting of the WEF in June 2020.
The Great Reset initiative is a somewhat vague …
by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / September 22nd, 2021
No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.
— Edward R. Murrow, broadcast journalist
America is in the midst of an epidemic of historic proportions.
The contagion being spread like wildfire is turning communities into battlegrounds and setting Americans one against the other.
Normally mild-mannered individuals caught up in the throes of this disease have been transformed into belligerent zealots, while others inclined to pacifism have taken to stockpiling weapons and practicing defensive drills.
This plague on our nation—one that has been spreading like wildfire—is a potent mix of fear …
by Finian Cunningham / September 22nd, 2021
It’s nice to hear President Joe Biden saying that the US “era of relentless war is over”. But “nice” doesn’t mean “credible”. Indeed, the probable chances are that Biden’s words are sugary, hollow and disingenuous. Sentimental candy-floss. © REUTERS / Eduardo Munoz
So hold on to the ticker-tape celebrations and champagne toasting a new era of world peace.
When Biden addressed the annual United Nations General Assembly this week he was giving the usual spiel that we have come to expect from US presidents at the podium. Rosy, …
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / September 22nd, 2021
LONDON, ENGLAND: Protesters hold signs at the YouthStrike4Climate student march on April 12, 2019 in London, United Kingdom. Students are protesting across the UK due to the lack of government action to combat climate change. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
President Biden addressed the UN General Assembly on September 21 with a warning that the climate crisis is fast approaching a “point of no return,” and a promise that the United States would rally the world to action. “We will lead not just with the example of our power …
by Binoy Kampmark / September 22nd, 2021
It began just after a news interview. Time: a quarter past nine. Morning of September 22, and yet to take a sip from the brewed Turkish coffee, its light thin surface foam inviting. The Australian city of Melbourne in its sixth lockdown, its residents fatigued and ravaged by regulations. Rising COVID-19 numbers, seemingly inexorable.
Then, an initial, gentle movement of floors, a slight, barely detectable swaying of the walls of the apartment. Across City Road in South Bank, one part of the beleaguered Crown Casino establishment seemed to be rippling, the glass forming gentle, shimmering waves across the surface. Melbourne was …
And we have zero compulsion to just stop paying military industrial complex and prison complex and surveillance capitalism taxes
by Paul Haeder / September 22nd, 2021
*Military Industrial Complex, or Lawrence Wilkerson’s, Military Industrial Congressional Complex*
You get a story on the supposed Havana Syndrome, and then you also get the concept of mass psychogenic illness (you know, it’s all in your head, buster, those heart palpitations, the sweats, the throbbing veins, after getting mRNA “vaccinated”) explained, and, well, no huge outrage on these weapons of mass destruction created by USA, Israel, UK, France other shit-holes. None. Yes, of course, China and Russia, they have their directed energy weapons, their lasers, their rail guns.
As a collective, we just take it up the rear end daily, a …
by James O'Neill / September 21st, 2021
Australia has just caused surprise among its friends, concern among its neighbours, and an overtly hostile reaction from the Chinese with its announcement that it was scrapping the submarine deal it had signed with France and replacing it with a scheme, cooked together with British and American allies, to buy 8 nuclear powered submarines.
The scheme as announced was extraordinarily short on details. There is apparently at least 18 months of negotiating ahead before the contract is even signed. After that there will be a lengthy delay, estimated being at least 10 years in length, before the first submarine is ever …
by Binoy Kampmark / September 21st, 2021
It seems utterly beyond debate but acknowledging legal rights to clean air has assumed the makings of a slow march over the years. The 1956 Clean Air Act in Britain arose from the lethal effects of London’s 1952 killer smog, which is said to have taken some 12,000 lives. The Act granted powers to establish smoke-free zones and subsidise householders to shift to the use of cleaner fuels (gas, electricity, smokeless solid fuel).
There is certainly no shortage of advocates for the self-evident point that clean air is vital. Some of this has been reduced – at least historically – …
Shielding the Western elite from justified rage.
by John V. Walsh / September 21st, 2021
The recent outbreak of the Delta variant in China “shows that its strategy no longer fits. It is time for China to change tack.”
So declared a lead essay atop the New York Times Opinion/Editorial section on September 7 by Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Delta outbreak that “changed the game” in Huang’s words emerged after an outbreak at Nanjing international airport in July traced to a flight from Russia. Did this outbreak change anything, in fact?
Let’s do the numbers.
Let’s do something that Huang did not; let’s look at the numbers from July …
by Mickey Z. / September 20th, 2021
A novel coronavirus, deadly and unnecessary lockdowns, civil unrest, political division, economic crises, a rise in mental health issues — the list goes on and on and on. Since March 2020, most of the world has suffered immensely in one way or another. But, amidst the madness, there is room for gratitude. More specifically, I’m suggesting we should be grateful for who and what has been exposed over the past 18 months or so.
6 Reasons to Feel Grateful During Covid
1. EXPOSED: Science and Medicine
If you ever had a doubt that these …
