Australia is currently undergoing a wave of shocked realisation that for multiple years in Afghanistan some of its troops behaved outside what we are told is normal behaviour, and killed innocent young men. How could they do such a thing? And all done beyond the sight or knowledge of any soldier of higher rank than Sergeant! The public acknowledgment that its soldiers are less than perfect has led to a wave of political and upper military gnashing of teeth and solemn vows that the guilty will be punished.
Who do they think they are kidding? War crimes are part of waging …
With idle tales this fills our empty ears;
The next reports what from the first he hears;
The rolling fictions grow in strength and size,
Each author adding to the former lies.
Here vain credulity, with new desires,
Leads us astray, and groundless joy inspires;
The dubious whispers, tumults fresh designed,
And chilling fears astound the anxious mind.
From Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” XII. 56-61 (completed in 8 CE) as told in Jonathan Swift, “The Art of Political Lying” The Examiner
In this episode we look at the aftermath of the 2020 US Presidential elections, leading up to the so-called “Million MAGA March” in Washington, DC. We also feature an interview with Tom Nomad, author of The Masters Tools: Warfare & Insurgent Possibility.
Israel denies being behind the assassination of top Iranian nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, and the US is keeping quiet. But the fact remains, Iranian scientists have been continuously and mysteriously murdered for at least a decade now. Who do you think is doing it?
Making political sense of the world can be tricky unless one understands the role of the state in capitalist societies. The state is not primarily there to represent voters or uphold democratic rights and values; it is a vehicle for facilitating and legitimating the concentration of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands.
In a recent post, I wrote about “externalities” – the ability of companies to offset the true costs inherent in the production process. The burden of these costs are covertly shifted on to wider society: that is, on to you and me. Or …
The US spends more on military aid to Saudi Arabia than on humanitarian aid to Yemen as the former continues to wage war on the latter. RT America’s Alex Mihailovich reports. Then former UK MP George Galloway weighs in on the conflict and why it is met with such widespread ignorance and apathy in the West.
Australia’s ambassadorial offices and political leaders have a consistent record of ignoring their citizens in tight situations. David Hicks, Mamdouh Habib and Julian Assange are but a few names that come to mind in this inglorious record of indifference. In such cases, Australian public figures and officials have tacitly approved the use of abduction, torture and neglect, usually outsourced and employed by allies such as the United States.
Australian diplomacy, to that end, is nastily cheap. It comes at heavily discounted prices, when it comes at all. To then see the extent of interest and effort in seeking the release of …
The simple answer is that there are lax standards, poor oversight, and little accountability in the segregated charter school sector. This decades-old set-up is consciously built into many charter school laws, which exist in 44 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
It is no accident that charter schools are deregulated schools. ((Deregulation is a main feature of the neoliberal antisocial offensive that was launched at home and abroad in the late 1970s. Deregulation goes hand in hand with privatization and government abdicating its social responsibility for the well-being of people.)) Charter schools are not required to uphold most of …
by Medea Benjamin and Ariel Gold / November 28th, 2020
Protesters burn U.S. and Israeli flags flags in Tehran after the killing of Fakhrizadeh. (Credit: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA, via Shutterstock)
Israel used all four years of Trump’s presidency to entrench its systems of occupation and apartheid. Now that Joe Biden has won the U.S. election, the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, likely by Israel with the go-ahead from the US administration, is a desperate attempt to use Trump’s last days in office to sabotage Biden’s chances of successful diplomacy with Iran. Biden, Congress and the world community …
Despite claims to objectivity and fairness, when it comes to Canadian interference in other countries’ domestic affairs, there’s long been only one side to the story reported in the dominant media.
Even so, the pro-Ottawa slant on Venezuela is shocking.
Recently Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza published an op-ed titled “Regime Change with a Human (Rights) Face: Trudeau’s Venezuela Policy”. The commentary notes, “Relations between Venezuela and Canada are currently at their worst point. Although previous Canadian governments did not hide their dislike for our policies aimed at reclaiming sovereignty …
The Great Reset Hymn
I have heard a lot of discussion about when the war will end that began in April 2020.
Yes, war. I have spent the better part of the past ten months trying to determine what the best attitude or approach to the current unpleasantness ought to be taken.
A tension has been created over the course of the year between those who think about what has been happening and those who do not. I have alluded to this tension in previous articles. Meanwhile there are a few others who seem to have grasped not only the urgency …
I reviewed Sra. Michelle Bachelet’s Report on Venezuela, and was quite outraged at her lack of consideration and due diligence. I will, in a moment, tell everyone why this report needs to be trashed, but even before that, I think I should mention two systemic flaws about this type of reporting regardless of which country it is written for.
First
The Report treats Venezuela as an isolated entity, along with other entities, such as the United States, Colombia,… floating in separate air space, without impacting or being impacted by any other country, in any way, shape, or form.
After 10 years of restricted freedom, political exile and incarceration, Julian Assange finally came face-to-face with his accusers at the Old Bailey Criminal Court in London. For three weeks in September, a team of English lawyers argued on behalf of their client, the U.S. Department of Justice, that the beleaguered WikiLeaks founder and publisher should be handed over to a U.S. national security court to face 17 counts under the 1917 Espionage Act.
If convicted by the District Court of Eastern Virginia, where the indictments originated, Assange will spend the rest of his life in an American supermax facility for having …
As much as for his genius with the soccer ball, he will be remembered for his willingness to fight power and be a voice for the voiceless.
by David Zirin / November 27th, 2020
The world mourns today following the passing of Diego Maradona, the soccer God and revolutionary from Argentina whose play inspired all manner of poetry and prose. The best description of Maradona’s abilities came from the late Eduardo Galeano who wrote of Maradona in his book Soccer in Sun and Shadow,
No one can predict the devilish tricks this inventor of surprises will dream up for the simple joy of throwing the computers off track, tricks he never repeats. He’s not quick, more like a short-legged bull, but he carries the …
It has been more than three weeks since election day and the incumbent U.S. president still has yet to concede defeat. Despite the media’s distraction over the perspiration of his personal attorney during a bizarre press conference, the legal team led by former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has actually done a decent job uncovering potential fraud in battleground states where vote counting was delayed for several days before the former vice president was declared a “winner” by the news media and Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, the 2020 election is not a sporting event or academic paper, therefore evidence that …
The US finally appointed an ambassador to Venezuela after a decade hiatus and in the runup to the Venezuelan National Assembly elections. The new ambassador, James Story, was confirmed by US Senate voice vote on November 18 with Democrats supporting Trump’s nominee.
Ambassador Story took his post in Bogotá, Colombia. No, this is not another example of Trump’s bungling by sending his man to the wrong capital. The US government does not recognize the democratically elected government in Caracas.
Impasse of two Venezuelan presidents
US hostility to Venezuela started when Hugo Chávez became president in 1999 and continues to this day, according to …
This is intended for Trump voters, especially those making less than $150,000 a year and the millions who believed they were extending the middle finger salute to the establishment. Let me begin by recounting a Hillary Clinton fund raising campaign speech from 2016 in which she made some deeply disparaging comments about half your number, calling them “deplorables.” She also spoke about another “basket” of Trump supporters she described as “people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, …
China has reacted strongly to a senior U-S official’s unannounced visit to Taiwan, warning that it will take legitimate and necessary action according to circumstances.
The Chinese foreign ministry spokesman reiterated Beijing’s firm opposition to any official ties between Taiwan and the US. The reaction came after the media cited sources, including a Taiwanese official, as saying that U-S Navy’s Rear-Admiral Michael Studeman was on a trip to the self-ruled island. He’s the director of an agency which oversees intelligence at the U-S military’s Indo-Pacific Command. The administration of U-S President Donald Trump has recently …
ORIENTATION Why do political science and neoclassical economics go in one ear and out the other?
A human being who has a fully integrated social body understands that economics is about a social system of circulation of goods and services. In other words, provisioning for the population. Politics is the collective process of evaluating and deciding a) where have we been (our past) and b) where are we going (the future). Politics is about steering. With this framework, it would be inconceivable to steer or govern without referring to how …
Since the onset of the global pandemic, the idea of a universal basic income has rightly received high-level political attention—not only within individual countries (such as here in the UK where it was at least debated by Parliament back in March), but also on the international level as endorsed by the United Nations. Never has there been such a need for providing an immediate, guaranteed, unconditional income to the world’s poorest people. The pandemic has dramatically busted the myth that governments cannot afford to implement radical pro-social investments—the issue is one of political will, not cost.
Each couch by the street has a story
I wonder what this one maybe
Did they leave their home and move into a car
Or find a sofa to sleep on at a friend’s house
Did they stay near, or go far away
Disappear without a trace […]
When they come to evict your neighbor, what will you do?
— “Each Couch by the Street” song by David Rovics
When I checked the Street Roots archives by putting in the search window, “David Rovics,” I got one hit: a March 8, 2010 press release, “Peace groups, parents, …
People in the United States continue to pretend that the despair and futility we’ve caused isn’t our fault.
by Kathy Kelly / November 25th, 2020
Late last week, I learned from young Afghan Peace Volunteer friends in Kabul that an insurgent group firing rockets into the city center hit the home of one volunteer’s relatives. Everyone inside was killed. Today, word arrived of two bomb blasts in the marketplace city of Bamiyan, in central Afghanistan, killing at least fourteen people and wounding forty-five.
These explosions have come on the heels of other recent attacks targeting civilians. On November 2, at least nineteen people were killed and at least twenty-two wounded by gunmen opening fire at Kabul University. On October 24, at least two dozen …
In a few words, a close associate of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, summed up the logic behind the ongoing frenzy to expand illegal Jewish settlements in Israel.
“These days are an irreplaceable opportunity to establish our hold on the Land of Israel, and I’m sure that our friend, President (Donald) Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu will be able to take advantage,” Miki Zohar, a member of the Likud Party was quoted in the Christian Science Monitor.
By “these days”, Zohar was referring to the remaining few weeks of Trump’s …
It is tempting to dismiss last week’s statements by Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism and suggesting the global movement to boycott Israel is driven by hatred of Jews, as the last gasp of a dying administration. But that would be foolhardy.
Pompeo’s decision to label all but the most tepid criticism of Israel as antisemitism is fully in line with the current redrawing of the limits of western political debate about Israel.
To underscore his message, Pompeo issued his statement as he headed to an illegal Jewish settlement in the West Bank – …
Protest in Peru: The people demand neither corruption or exploitation
This weekend, ten thousand people took to the streets in Guatemala to protest the President and Congress over a proposed budget, the largest in its history, that cuts funds for health care and education as poverty rises, and provides slush funds to politicians and governments. In Colombia, the people held a national strike to protest their violent, right-wing government. In Peru, protests against a right-wing power grab have ousted one appointed president and people are …
A few nostalgic types still believe that the Union Jack continues to flutter to sighs and reverence over outposts of the world, from the tropics to the desert. They would be right, if only to a point. Britain, it turns out, has a rather expansive global reach when it comes to bases, military installations and testing sites. While not having the obese heft and lumbering brawn of the United States, it makes a good go of it. Globally, the UK military has a presence in 145 sites in 42 countries. Such figures tally with Ian Cobain’s prickly observation …
Grandmothers carrying babies, mothers, children, men young and old with nothing but the clothes on their backs are fleeing fighting in northern Ethiopia and making their way to Sudan, where emergency camps await them; according to the UNHCR 5,000 a day are making the journey.
Ethiopians are killing one another in the Tigray region of the country where an armed conflict is raging between the Ethiopian military and forces loyal to the regional government, the TPLF (Tigray Peoples Liberation Front), a group that some in the country describe as terrorists.
The TPLF formed the dominant force within the ruling coalition (the EPRDF), …
On 21 November, 2020, thousands of Guatemalans rallied in the central square of the country’s capital, took over the Congress and set fire to several rooms inside. The immediate trigger for this outburst of anger was the 2021 budget – now revoked by the Congress after sustained protests – which, despite being the largest in the country’s history, slashed funding for both education and healthcare. The spending plan was negotiated in secret and approved by congress before dawn on 18 November, 2020. It was passed while the country was recovering from the devastating hurricanes Eta and …
A throwback to legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh discussing exposing the My Lai massacre by American soldiers in the Vietnam War, among other war crimes.
The Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force Afghanistan Inquiry was always going to make for a gruesome read – and that was only the redacted version. The findings of the four-year investigation, led by New South Wales Court of Appeal Justice and Army Reserve Major-General Paul Brereton, point to “credible evidence” that 39 Afghan non-combatants and prisoners were allegedly killed by Australian special forces personnel. Two others were also treated with cruelty. The Report recommends referring 36 cases for criminal investigation to the Australian Federal Police. These involve 23 incidents and 19 individuals who have been referred to the …
