Latest articles
by Ellen Brown / March 4th, 2021
Just over two months into the new year, 2021 has already seen a flurry of public banking activity. Sixteen new bills to form publicly-owned banks or facilitate their formation were introduced in eight U.S. states in January and February. Two bills for a state-owned bank were introduced in New Mexico, two in Massachusetts, two in New York, one each in Oregon and Hawaii, and Washington State’s Public Bank Bill was re-introduced as a “Substitution.” Bills for city-owned banks were introduced in Philadelphia and San Francisco, and bills facilitating the formation of public banks or for a feasibility study were introduced …
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / March 4th, 2021
Credit: The Intercept: U.S.-led coalition airstrike – Mosul, Iraq on November 7, 2016
On February 25th, President Biden ordered U.S. air forces to drop seven 500-pound bombs on Iraqi forces in Syria, reportedly killing 22 people. The U.S. airstrike has predictably failed to halt rocket attacks on deeply unpopular U.S. bases in Iraq, which the Iraqi National Assembly passed a resolution to close over a year ago.
The Western media reported the U.S. airstrike as an isolated and exceptional incident, and there has been significant blowback from …
by Greg Maybury / March 4th, 2021
The emergence in 2020 of the Coronavirus (or Covid-19) and the putative dire implications for us all of its unchecked spread and virulence caught most people on the planet off guard. This development signalled an epochal turning point for the global political economy, for our society and humanity. Greg Maybury gets ‘up close and personal’ with the virus, reflecting more on the ‘popular delusions and madness of crowds’ attending it, and those purporting to manage the crisis in our best interests. In this context, he offers a more off-piste reflection on the forces driving us to a destination almost surely …
by Binoy Kampmark / March 4th, 2021
The papers are full of suggestions on what US President Joe Biden should do about his country’s seemingly perennial involvement in Afghanistan. None are particularly useful, in that they ignore the central premise that a nation state long mauled, molested and savaged should finally be left alone. Nonsense, say the media and political cognoscenti. The Guardian claims that he is “trapped and has no good choices”. The Wall Street Journal opines that he is being “tested in Afghanistan” with his opposition to “forever wars”. The Washington Post more sensibly suggests that Biden take the loss and “add …
by Beau Peters / March 3rd, 2021
Image Source: Pexels
There’s a lot going on in the world at the moment, which means there’s a lot we need to talk about. It seems as though every day there is another incident that raises issues related to the socio-economic imbalances in our society, systemic racism, or the political decisions that shape our lives. These deserve considerate thought and productive debate.
Yet, we are so often told that there are places where it is inappropriate to talk about social justice topics, no matter how vital they …
by Ramzy Baroud and Romana Rubeo / March 2nd, 2021
On February 4, representatives from the Palestinian Movement, Hamas, visited Moscow to inform the Russian government of the latest development on the unity talks between the Islamic Movement and its Palestinian counterparts, especially Fatah.
This was not the first time that Hamas’s officials traveled to Moscow on similar missions. In fact, Moscow continues to represent an important political breathing space for Hamas, which has been isolated by Israel’s Western benefactors. Involved in this isolation are also several Arab governments which, undoubtedly, have done very little to break the Israeli siege …
by Binoy Kampmark / March 2nd, 2021
Every power worth its portion of salt in the Levant these days seems to be doing it. On February 25, President Joe Biden ordered airstrikes against Syria. The premise for the attacks was implausible. “These strikes were authorized in response to recent attacks against American and Coalition personnel in Iraq,” claimed Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, “and to ongoing threats to those personnel.”
More specifically, the strikes were in retaliation for rocket attacks in northern Iraq on the airport of Erbil that left a Filipino contractor working for the US military dead and six others injured, including a Louisiana National Guard …
by Kathy Kelly / March 2nd, 2021
Amid the ongoing horror, it’s important to find ways to atone for war crimes —including reparations.
Thirty years ago, when the United States launched Operation Desert Storm against Iraq, I was a member of the Gulf Peace Team. We were 73 people from fifteen different countries, aged 22 to 76, living in a tent camp close to Iraq’s border with Saudi Arabia, along the road to Mecca.
We aimed to nonviolently interpose ourselves between the warring parties. Soldiers are called upon to risk their lives for a cause they may not know much about. Why not ask peace activists to …
by Margaret Flowers / March 1st, 2021
The American Rescue Plan (ARP) was passed in the House this past week and now heads to the Senate, where it will no doubt be changed before it becomes law some time in mid-March. The current unemployment benefits expire on March 14.
While we don’t know what the final bill will look like, at least now we can get an idea of what is in it. Overall, as expected, the provisions in the bill will help to provide some financial assistance to some people, but they won’t solve the crises …
by Binoy Kampmark / February 28th, 2021
Having made something of a splash last month with the fuss over Australia’s News Media Bargaining code, Facebook, and the digital giants, are facing another stormy front in India. The move here has nothing to do with revenue so much as alleged bad behaviour. “We appreciate the proliferation of social media in India,” stated Ravi Shankar Prasad, India’s minister of electronics and information technology. “We want them to be more responsible and more accountable.”
Such responsibility and accountability will purportedly be achieved through the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. They are part of …
by Shawgi Tell / February 28th, 2021
Putting aside the endless problems with punitive high-stakes standardized tests produced by a handful of large for-profit corporations, charter school advocates have never stopped making a fetish out of students’ scores on these political instruments. Charter school promoters obsess endlessly over racist psychometric tests that have been rejected by many for decades. They appear to be immune to all criticism of these widely-rejected tests. No critical examination of these top-down corporate tests is even attempted. It is as if everyone is expected to automatically embrace them and treat them as being useful, flawless, and meaningful.
What is odd, however, is that …
by Ramzy Baroud / February 28th, 2021
What is taking place in Burma right now is a military coup. There can be no other description for such an unwarranted action as the dismissal of the government by military decree and the imposition of Min Aung Hlaing, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, as an unelected ruler.
However, despite the endless talk about democratization, Burma was, in the years leading up to the coup, far from being a true democracy.
Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the country’s erstwhile ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), has done very …
by David Perez / February 27th, 2021
In his comprehensive and educational book, Coders (2019 Penguin Press), tech writer Clive Thompson tells the story of computer programmers, a workforce that is undoubtedly one of the “most quietly influential on the planet.” Thompson writes:
You use software nearly every instant you’re awake. There’s the obvious stuff, like your phone, your laptop, email and social networking and video games and Netflix, the way you order taxis and food. But there’s also less-obvious software lurking all around you. Nearly any paper book or pamphlet you touch was designed using software; code inside your car manages the braking system; ‘machine-learning’ algorithms at …
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / February 27th, 2021
Photo: CODEPINK
The February 25 U.S. bombing of Syria immediately puts the policies of the newly-formed Biden administration into sharp relief. Why is this administration bombing the sovereign nation of Syria? Why is it bombing “Iranian-backed militias” who pose absolutely no threat to the United States and are actually involved in fighting ISIS? If this is about getting more leverage vis-a-vis Iran, why hasn’t the Biden administration just done what it said it would do: rejoin the Iran nuclear deal and de-escalate the Middle East conflicts?
According to the …
by Binoy Kampmark / February 26th, 2021
It was a brutal way to go, and it had the paw prints of the highest authorities. On October 2, 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian insider turned outsider, was murdered by a squad of 15 men from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He was dismembered and quite literally cancelled in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
This state sanctioned killing was a vile, clumsy effort against a journalist and critic of a person who has come to be affectionately known in brown nosing circles as MBS, the ambitious, bratty Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Since then, every effort has been made …
by Kim Petersen / February 26th, 2021
I learned a while back to be especially skeptical of western mass media and their governments.This can also hold for the purportedly progressivist media. Paul Jay, then with the Real News, interviewed the former United States state department employee Lawrence Wilkerson and received a jaundiced opinion on North Korea. The Real News presented an account that the DPRK had fired a missile that sank the ROK navy ship Cheonan without definitive evidence. Abrams questions placing blame on the DPRK, (p 411-415) noting, “Pyongyang has …
by Roger D. Harris / February 25th, 2021
US President Biden bellicosely proclaimed, “American is back,” in his major foreign policy priorities speech at the Munich Security Conference on February 19. Repeated twice for effect, Biden signaled the end of the Trump interregnum.
No more assuring words could have been uttered for George W. Bush’s former Defense Secretary Colin Powell and the 70 odd Republican national security officials, who wrote an open letter endorsing Biden out of fear that Trump would upset the bipartisan foreign policy consensus of regime change, forever wars, and the NATO alliance. Republican neo-cons now shelter in the Democrat’s big tent, today’s party …
by Edward Curtin / February 25th, 2021
It’s hard to say where things begin, but they do, as do we, and we are somehow in them and they in us, and a story begins.
Then the story gets silently disclosed as we live it, even though most of us don’t tell it until later, if we can find our tongues. But when we tell it we are in another story, often nostalgic for the future but finding the creative past pulling us back down and deep to illuminate the present.
Life is dangerous; we can end at any time. We can also be swallowed by the inarticulate, …
by David Gamble / February 25th, 2021
French Secular State, Judiciary and Education on Trial
The October 16, 2020, slaying of French civics teacher, Samuel Paty, drew intensely impassioned responses from the French state, members of the society and, specifically, the Muslim immigrant community, the teacher having shown a naked caricature of the Prophet. Displaying this image from the infamous Charlie Hebdo magazine crossed a “red line” for faithful Muslims. Therefore, the conflict between the Muslim community (3.3% of the population) and the dominant French society invoking the firmly held principle of secularism and separation of church …
by William Boardman / February 25th, 2021
We’re also stepping up our diplomacy to end the war in Yemen — a war which has created a humanitarian and strategic catastrophe. I’ve asked my Middle East team to ensure our support for the United Nations-led initiative to impose a ceasefire, open humanitarian channels, and restore long-dormant peace talks….
And to underscore our commitment, we are ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.
– President Biden, foreign policy speech, February 4, 2021
This announcement does not augur peace in Yemen any …
by PopularResistance / February 25th, 2021
Above photo: By Professor Danny Shaw who is currently in Haiti
United States – Today, February 24, 72 organizations and 700 individuals published an open letter calling for the Biden administration to end its illegal and destructive intervention in Haiti. While Joe Biden and the Democrats condemned the Trump forces for not respecting the results of the U.S. election, they are supporting Jovenel Moïse’s refusal to leave office after his term as president ended on February 7, 2021. Moïse has unleashed violent gangs, the …
by Peter Koenig / February 24th, 2021
The first human right is the right to life.
— Wang Yi, Minister of Foreign Affairs and State Counselor of the People’s Republic of China
A secret paper from the Swiss Federal Council (Swiss Executive) was leaked to the Swiss Newspaper Der Blick divulging that the Federal Council is considering granting owners of restaurants, theatres, cinemas, and more, as well as private event organizers, the right to allow access to those people only, who have had their corona virus shots.
In addition to the Blick, Swiss Radio and Television (SRG) repeated this news item in the morning of 23 February. SRG, …
Review of Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies by Edward Curtin
by Ray McGinnis / February 24th, 2021
American news these past few decades has been an almost constant non-stop spectacle of shock and awe. Breaking news is emotionally gripping, often disorienting, a 24/7 drama without rest. Key talking points are relentlessly asserted. And with each passing year news commentators grow ever more certain of their talking points, with no sense that dissenting points of view have any merit, or in some cases even exist. Side-by-side, there are comforting assurances, appeals for unity, hope and renewal. In the midst of the spin, like me, you may hunger for …
by Todd Smith / February 24th, 2021
What happened most recently in the broad daylight of modern times in the case of the French Revolution…[was] that the text finally disappeared under the interpretation.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, from Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 38, 1886, the Walter Kaufmann translation
The January 6 events at the U.S. Capitol are open to a variety of interpretations, but you wouldn’t know that from the Corporate Mainstream Media, which quickly made up its narrative mind and labeled the incident an “insurrection”– or an act of “domestic terrorism,” even. My goodness, but all of this hoopla at the Capitol caused CNN to call in the …
by Ramzy Baroud / February 24th, 2021
For Palestinians, exile is not simply the physical act of being removed from their homes and their inability to return. It is not a casual topic pertaining to politics and international law, either. Nor is it an ethereal notion, a sentiment, a poetic verse. It is all of this, combined.
The death in Amman of Palestinian poet, Mourid Barghouti, an intellectual whose work has intrinsically been linked to exile, brought back to the surface many existential questions: are Palestinians destined to be exiled? Can there be a remedy for …
by Shawgi Tell / February 24th, 2021
Months before he became president, many pointed out that harmful neoliberal policies would continue unabated in K-12 education under a Joe Biden administration. Indeed, there is a long record of both democrats and republicans supporting harmful education policies like high-stakes standardized testing, charter schools, performance-based pay schemes, NCLB, ESSA, and more.
But U.S. presidential elections always have a way of successfully enforcing amnesia and intensifying false hope in the context of a discredited political set-up that has long failed to affirm the interests of people. To be fair though, there has emerged in recent years a level of social consciousness that …
by Beau Peters / February 24th, 2021
Spend an evening watching television on any network in pretty much any town in America and you’d probably think that Big Pharma had already created a pill for anything that might ail ya. And, of course, in some ways, that’s not entirely wrong.
Today we have a world of therapies to extend our lives and help make those lives worth living, even in the face of historically lethal conditions, from diabetes to HIV/AIDS.
But that doesn’t change the fact that medicine is still a business. And, like most any business, healthcare …
by Binoy Kampmark / February 23rd, 2021
The Australian Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, was unconvincing in his efforts to summon up courage. The Australian government had been left reeling in the wake of Facebook’s decision to scrap and block Australians from sharing and posting news items on hosted pages. The company’s target of opprobrium: the News Media Bargaining Code.
The Code’s ostensible purpose is to address the inequalities in the news market place by pushing digital giants and news outlets into reaching commercial deals. Failing to do so will lead to final offer arbitration between the parties, where the independent arbitrator selects one of the deals on …
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / February 23rd, 2021
NATO headquarters in Brussels (Photo: NATO)
The February meeting of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Defense Ministers, the first since President Biden took power, revealed an antiquated, 75-year-old alliance that, despite its military failures in Afghanistan and Libya, is now turning its military madness toward two more formidable, nuclear-armed enemies: Russia and China.
This theme was emphasized by U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in a Washington Post op-ed in advance of the NATO meeting, insisting that “aggressive and coercive behaviors from emboldened strategic competitors …
by Media Lens / February 23rd, 2021
The Insiders
In a 2002 interview with the Observer, the BBC’s John Cody Fidler-Simpson CBE of Kabul, to give him his full name and title, was asked to define the ‘essential qualities’ of a journalist. Simpson responded with typical left-field quirkiness:
There’s something slightly wrong with most of us, don’t you feel? We’re damaged goods, usually with slightly rumpled private lives and unconventional backgrounds.
This certainly rings true. In our experience, the average male journalist is pretty much as Bogart described Captain …
