Latest articles
by Nan McCurdy / November 3rd, 2020
In 36 years of living in Latin America I have learned that any time a country changes its conditions so that poverty decreases and the standard of living improves, the United States wages some kind of war on that country. It has waged unconventional warfare on Nicaragua since the Sandinistas returned to the presidency in 2007 providing millions of dollars to nongovernmental organizations, more than 25 different media, three “human rights” groups and many individuals whose job is to lie for their salaries. Since 2017, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has disbursed over $89 million with the primary …
by Jay Janson / November 3rd, 2020
The good people of the 3rd World should not let themselves be taken in by worldwide satellite beamed CIA-fed media prattling on continuously about American democracy during ongoing presidential elections. Sadly, Americans are duped into participating in elections that back crimes against humanity ordered by the ruling genocidal Wall St. plutocracy which militarily and financially plunders 3rd World humanity and corrupts American society.
A great many Americans voting believe the lies their criminal corporate media pours out daily, and are therefore gung-ho proud of Americans killing media-designated ‘bad guys” all around the world. These completely fooled Americans are happy to vote …
by Michael K. Smith / November 3rd, 2020
A week before Christmas in 1972 Joe Biden’s first wife Neilia and their 13-month old daughter were killed by a tractor trailer that crashed into her car as she pulled away from a stop sign. The couple’s two sons were also injured in the accident. Recently elected to the Senate from Delaware, Biden wasn’t one to wallow in grief, preferring to get started on a long Washington career of inappropriate touching, making what the late Alexander Cockburn reported as “loutish sexual advances” to a female staffer of one of his fellow senators in the well of the Senate just …
by Binoy Kampmark / November 3rd, 2020
It’s an oxymoron with a long history: American democracy. In referring to the United States, it does not exist. Nor does it take a follower of refrigerated communism to note the obvious point that democracy plays a small part in the processes of the US political system. It is a republic, with all the glorious, problematic and deep seated problems that term implies. Factions are held in check; neither must get too powerful. To ensure political, propertied stability, the worst side of human nature is to be guarded against. One way lies the rule of the mob; the other, the …
by Edward Curtin / November 2nd, 2020
A few years ago, after reading a brillig academic article about how those who believe in conspiracy theories might be inclined toward unethical actions and petty crimes, my conscience got the best of me and I made a public confession. I had been accused of being a conspiratorial thinker, and I knew I had once committed an unethical act, one that might be called a petty crime. The article made me feel guilty and I felt a strong need to admit my transgression, which I did. It felt so good to come clean in public. Oprah would have been proud …
by George Salamon / November 2nd, 2020
One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share.
— Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit, (2005), p.1
The opinion pages of our leading newspapers are contributing more than their share, and it is second-rate puffery. The first one is a piece by the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, “ ‘Moderate’ Joe Biden has become the most progressive nominee in history,” (October 27, 2020) Milbank opens his pean to Biden by claiming that the Democratic candidate travelled to the place where FDR died (Hot Springs, NY) to promise “a …
by L'Ordre / November 2nd, 2020
Why does the state continue to act the same after elections?
It is unforgivable if there is even one apparently critical area of policy that cannot be overturned by an election, because this makes all so-called elections illegitimate mockeries and shallow rituals.
Why do elected leaders so often betray their campaign promises? Every time, even the simplest of promises are not honored by leaders, resulting in a failure to serve the people, no matter how obvious the people’s message was. An obvious example is that every US president promises …
by Binoy Kampmark / November 1st, 2020
Djab Wurrung women are in an abusive relationship with Victoria’s government.
— Sissy Eileen Austin, The Guardian, September 14, 2019
It was a penultimate day in the Australian state of Victoria. The state government had announced that some of harshest coronavirus lockdown restrictions in the developed world would be easing. Melbourne’s restaurants, bars and cafes could resume inviting customers through their doors. Retail outlets could reopen. Confident claims of “crushing the virus” frothed and bubbled on social media.
This elevation of mood provided ideal distraction for another ugly event. Early last week also saw the arrest of 60 people protesting the …
by Margaret Flowers / November 1st, 2020
This week, people are planning protests across the nation beginning the day after the election. Some, like Democratic Party-aligned groups and unions, will only demonstrate if President Trump loses and refuses to leave office. Trump will fail if he tries because the ruling class has clearly shifted its support to Biden. Professor Adrienne Pine explains this in her analysis of the opposition to Trump. Others such as issues-based groups, coalitions and community groups are planning to take the streets no matter what the outcome of the election is.
This …
by David Templeton / November 1st, 2020
The first time Edward Campagnola answers his phone, he admits he is just about to take a shower, his first in several days.
“Yeah, I’m at the brand new Wellness Center in Santa Rosa,” he says. “I’m literally just about to step into the shower, and when you live on the streets, when you get a chance to take a shower, you take it. But I can talk now if this is the best time, because I really want people to know about this book.”
The interview can wait.
A short 30-minutes …
by subMedia / November 1st, 2020
by Colin Todhunter / November 1st, 2020
Prior to the appearance of COVID-related restrictions and lockdowns, neoliberal capitalism had turned to various mechanisms in the face of economic stagnation and massive inequalities: the raiding of public budgets, the expansion of credit to consumers and governments to sustain spending and consumption, financial speculation and militarism.
Part and parcel of this has been a strategy of ‘creative destruction’ that has served to benefit an interlocking directorate of powerful oil, agribusiness, armaments and financial interests, among others. For these parties, what matters is the ability to maximise profit by shifting capital around the world, whether on the back of distorted free trade …
Cops Squelch Protest, Help AT&T Blanket City in 5G Radiation for Bright New Fascist Future with Full Surveillance
by Phoebe Sorgen / November 1st, 2020
Officer Shedowdy has a mean attitude. Given how he treated a female elder who was arrested for a non-violent act of conscience, I fear for young men of color who may be wise to keep quiet rather than ask his colleague, as I did twice, “Please don’t leave me alone with this guy.” I was left alone with him in the police garage prior to entering the jail. He should not have been allowed to reach in and check, and then double check, my four pants pockets. A female officer should have done that with a witness present.
Earlier, I had …
by Roger D. Harris / November 1st, 2020
All indications are that Joe Biden is heading for a landslide win. Losers will be Trump and those Republicans who have not already defected to the Democrat’s big tent. Collateral damage, however, may be the progressive cause. Some leftists have advocated temporarily subordinating an independent working-class alternative to campaign for the leading neoliberal candidate.
For example, the Open Letter: Dump Trump, Then Battle Biden argues for “the most urgent task – defeating Trump in the election with as big an Electoral College margin as possible, to undermine his predictable efforts to steal the election.” Among the 55 signatories …
by Robert Hunziker / October 31st, 2020
(Reuters)
For nearly a decade the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has been streaming radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. As it happens, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Co.) struggles to control it. Yet, the bulk of the radioactive water is stored in more than 1,000 water tanks.
Assuredly, Japan’s government has made an informal decision to dump Fukushima Daiichi’s radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. A formal announcement could come as early as this year. Currently, 1.2 million tonnes of radioactive water is stored.
The problem: TEPCO is running …
by K.J. Noh / October 30th, 2020
Few things are as dangerous as a poorly thought-out kidnapping. Kidnappings are serious business, often with unintended consequences. History is replete with dim-witted criminals who engaged in them on a whim, only to discover adverse outcomes far beyond their imagining. One dramatic example happened 90 years ago this week:
On October 24th, a mother with young children is kidnapped. She is the cherished wife of an important man whom the kidnapper’s group is in competition with. The plan of the kidnapper is that by kidnapping her, this will create unbearable …
by Ramzy Baroud / October 30th, 2020
Why does Israel hate Palestinian singer, Mohammed Assaf?
On October 16, Avi Dichter, Israeli Member of Parliament from the right-wing Likud Party, announced that Assaf’s special permit to enter the occupied Palestinian West Bank would be revoked.
Assaf, originally from Gaza, now lives with his family in the United Arab Emirates. He achieved stardom in 2013, when he won the ‘Arab Idol’ singing contest. His winning song, “Raise your Keffiyeh”, represented a rare moment of unity among all Palestinian communities everywhere. As the audience, the judges and millions …
Sowing and Reaping?
by Kim Petersen / October 30th, 2020
There have been some horrendous, despicable killings by Muslim extremists in France. Such killings must be condemned.
French president Emmanuel Macron played the victim card, saying that France “will not give into terrorism.” Yet when 21st century France engages in overseas militarism, otherwise known as state terrorism, in places with large Muslim populations – places that never attacked France — such as Afghanistan, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Chad, Somalia, Libya, North Mali, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen then what is to be expected? Is it okay for France to engage in militarism abroad and expect no blowback on French soil? Must not …
by Binoy Kampmark / October 30th, 2020
Even that title strikes an odd note. It should not. The Fourth Estate, historically reputed as the chamber of journalists and publishers keeping an eye on elected officials, received a blast of oxygen with the arrival of WikiLeaks. This was daring, rich stuff: scientific journalism in the trenches, news gathering par excellence. But what Julian Assange and WikiLeaks did was something unpardonable to many who pursue the journalist’s craft: sidestepping the newspaper censors, permitting unadulterated access to original sources.
People could finally scrutinise raw documents – cables, memoranda, briefing notes, diplomatic traffic – without the secondary and tertiary forms of self-censorship …
Facebook, Google and Twitter are not neutral platforms. They control the digital public square to aid the powerful – and can cancel any of us overnight
by Jonathan Cook / October 29th, 2020
There is a growing unease that the decisions taken by social media corporations can have a harmful impact on our lives. These platforms, despite enjoying an effective monopoly over the virtual public square, have long avoided serious scrutiny or accountability.
In a new Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, former Silicon Valley executives warn of a dystopian future. Google, Facebook and Twitter have gathered vast quantities of data on us to better predict and manipulate our desires. Their products are gradually rewiring our brains to addict us to our screens and make us more pliable to advertisers. The result, as we are …
by Frank Scott / October 29th, 2020
While Americans are re-programmed every four years for the most important desperately crucial national emergency election since the last one, which will assure that Wall Street, the Pentagon, Israel and billionaires maintain power and control over everything that matters, most eligible voters will choose neither of the ruling power’s candidates and in a sense exercise democratic values by refusing to act as majority puppets.
Meanwhile the people of Bolivia and Chile recently went to the polls and in dramatic contrast to America actually voted on substantial issues that could radically change their country’s futures. Bolivia chose returning to the socialist government …
by John W. Whitehead / October 28th, 2020
Every day I ask myself the same question: How can this be happening in America? How can people like these be in charge of our country? If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I’d think I was having a hallucination.
— Philip Roth, The Plot Against America, 2004, Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Things are falling apart.
How much longer we can sustain the fiction that we live in a constitutional republic, I cannot say, but anarchy is being loosed upon the nation.
We are witnessing the unraveling of the American dream one injustice at a …
by Binoy Kampmark / October 28th, 2020
“Ambition is the subtlest Beast of the Intellectual and Moral Field,” wrote John Adams to his son, John Quincy Adams, in January, 1794. “It is wonderfully adroit in concealing itself from its owner.” Father Adams was thinking of Thomas Jefferson in penning these words, that sly devil of a man who sought to gain power while falsely claiming to eschew ambition and vanity. It worked: Jefferson duly became the third president of the United States, succeeding Adams himself in 1801.
Such a biting description might well describe the digital giants of Silicon Valley, and one in particular. Google, a company so …
by Yanis Iqbal / October 28th, 2020
In Bolivia, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) – a major leftist political force – has returned to power following a thumping victory in the 2020 elections. The MAS presidential candidate Luis Arce obtained 55.09% of the votes, decisively ahead of the neoliberal candidate Carlos Mesa and the right-wing extremist Luis Fernando Camacho who garnered 28.83% and 14% of the votes, respectively. The triumph of MAS in Bolivia is highly significant since it follows hard on the heels of the 2019 US-backed coup which violently overthrew the MAS president Evo Morales and attempted to re-institute neoliberalism through blood and …
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / October 28th, 2020
Bolivian woman votes in October 18 election
Less than a year after the United States and the U.S.-backed Organization of American States (OAS) supported a violent military coup to overthrow the government of Bolivia, the Bolivian people have reelected the Movement for Socialism (MAS) and restored it to power.
In the long history of U.S.-backed “regime changes” in countries around the world, rarely have a people and a country so firmly and democratically repudiated U.S. efforts to dictate how they will be governed. Post-coup interim president Jeanine Añez …
by Bruce Lerro / October 28th, 2020
ORIENTATION
In my last article I showed how the word “totalitarian” was used as a loaded vice word to attack the Soviet Union after World War II and to red-bait communists around the world. The use of the word totalitarian began in the 1930s, but even before then in the 1920’s, the word “dictator” began to surface in order to explain another political response to the crisis in capitalism. We will study the use of this term from the 1920s to the end of World War II, although, of course, the word …
by C.J. Hopkins / October 27th, 2020
by Ramzy Baroud / October 27th, 2020
The outdated notion that China ‘just wants to do business’ should be completely erased from our understanding of the rising global power’s political outlook.
Simply put, Beijing has long realized that, in order for it to sustain its economic growth unhindered, it has to develop the necessary tools to protect itself, its allies and their combined interests.
The need for a strong China is not a novel idea developed by the current Chinese President, Xi Jinping. It goes back many decades, spanning various nationalist movements and, ultimately, the Communist Party. What …
by John Stanton / October 27th, 2020
The most radical socialists; Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters (Black, White, Latino or Asian); liberal and conservative zealots; diversity and equity gurus; pacifists; denizens of corporates and non-profits; rappers, rockers and country western musicians; Bernie Sanders; racists and White guilt pushers; Baptists, Catholics, and Muslims; children; bland K-16 teachers; members of the military; indeed, every social, cultural, political and economic demographic of the United States of America drinks, swims and drowns in an ocean of Liquid Capitalism. It is nearly as old as humanity itself.
Liquid Capitalism is impressive and horrifying. It floods and absorbs every political movement and message. It …
by Binoy Kampmark / October 27th, 2020
In 2016, Australian Major General Jeff Sengelman approached the then chief of the Australian army Lieutenant General Angus Campbell with a nagging worry. The concern lay in allegations that Australian special forces had committed various war crimes in Afghanistan. Sengelman was then special forces commander; Campbell was chief of the army. Sociologist Samantha Crompvoets was duly commissioned to write a report on “Special Operations Command Culture interactions”. It was leaked in 2018, and claimed that Australia’s special forces had engaged in the “unsanctioned and illegal application of violence on operations” aided by a timorous leadership and perception …
