Latest articles
by Andre Vltchek / August 6th, 2020
WhatsApp Image 2020-08-04 at 12.19.47
To see Beirut and its port area with a huge mushroom cloud hanging above is a truly surreal sight. But what is not surreal in battered Lebanese capital?
A big part of the downtown looks flattened, thoroughly ruined.
One of my Japanese friends based in Beirut exclaimed:
It looks like Hiroshima!
It does.
Who is behind the carnage? What really happened? Nobody is claiming responsibility. Was it sabotage, a direct attack against Lebanon, or a politically motivated terrorist act?
What is certain is that the “earth moved.” One of …
by Kathy Kelly / August 6th, 2020
Another Mother for Peace (Poster Credit: Lorraine Schneider, 1966)
With survival at stake, can weapon makers change course?
Today, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the atomic attack on Hiroshima, should be a day for quiet introspection. I recall a summer morning following the U.S. 2003 “Shock and Awe” invasion of Iraq when the segment of the Chicago River flowing past the headquarters of the world’s second largest defense contractor, Boeing, turned the rich, red color of blood. At the water’s edge, Chicago activists, long accustomed to the river being …
by Vijay Prashad / August 6th, 2020
Greta Acosta Reyes (Cuba), Neoliberalism, 2020.
Dear Friends,
Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
Beirut, mon amour.
Those shattered mirrors once were
The smiling eyes of children,
Now are star-lit.
This city’s nights are bright.
and luminous is Lebanon.
Beirut, ornament of our world.
Faces decorated with blood
Dazzling, beyond beauty.
Their elegant splendor
Lights up the city’s lanes.
And radiant is Lebanon.
Beirut, ornament of our world.
Every charred house, every ruin
Is equal to Darius’ citadels.
Every warrior brings envy to Alexander.
Every daughter is like Laila.
This city stands at time’s creation.
This city …
And so are You
by Terry Everton / August 6th, 2020
Most corporate retailers rely and count on maintaining constant environments of mistrust, fear and turnover of the people they employ to boost their profitability. By avoiding anything resembling allegiance among their staff, these barons of modern day capitalism turn and burn personnel while avoiding costly expenditures such as benefits and pay increases, instead transferring that money into their already-bloated coffers. If you’re unfortunate enough to have chugged a six pack of big box corporate Kool-Aid propaganda you may temporarily fall under the spell of their we’re one big happy family façade, but it’s only a matter of time until the …
Alleged Cover-up of Civilians Murdered by UK Special Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan
by Media Lens / August 6th, 2020
On August 1, a rare in-depth investigative piece appeared on the BBC News website based on credible and serious allegations that UK Special Forces had executed unarmed civilians in Afghanistan. The BBC article was produced in tandem with a report, ‘“Rogue SAS Afghanistan execution squad” exposed by email trail’, published by the Sunday Times.
Special Forces are the UK’s elite specialist troops, encompassing both the SAS (Special Air Service) and the SBS (Special Boat Service). The allegation, by two senior officers, is that there was a ‘deliberate policy’ of British Special …
by Yves Engler / August 6th, 2020
On Sunday a demonstration is planned in Montréal against the Canada Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA). Under the banner “Against Israel’s annexation of the Jordan Valley. No to the Canada Israel Free Trade Agreement!”, the march is seeking to politicize CIFTA amidst Israel’s plan to formally annex parts of the West Bank.
The march follows an open letter released last month by over 100 Montréal artists and activists calling for the cancellation of CIFTA.
Signed in 1997, CIFTA was Canada’s fourth free trade agreement and first outside the Western hemisphere (US, NAFTA and Chile). In an implicit …
by Colin Todhunter / August 6th, 2020
“Some fell to the ground and their stomachs already expanded full, burst and organs fell out. Others had skin falling off them and others still were carrying limbs. And one in particular was carrying their eyeballs in their hand.”
The above is an account by a Hiroshima survivor talking about the fate of her schoolmates. It was read out in the British parliament in 2016 by Scottish National Party MP Chris Law during a debate about Britain’s nuclear arsenal.
In response to a question from another Scottish National Party MP, George Kereven, the then British PM Theresa May …
by Binoy Kampmark / August 5th, 2020
Silicon Valley continues to sprawl in influence, and its modern robber barons bestride the globe with a confidence verging on contempt. The technology giants that mark that region of California are praised as “virtuosos of ingenuity,” to use Steve Forbes’ words, “creating and supplying products and services that were once unimaginable and that have been enabling us to survive the COVID lockdowns and working from home”.
For the most part, they have been encouraged to do so by those in Congress, who have been their handmaidens and coddlers. Now, big and bold, the likes of Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook …
by Ramzy Baroud / August 4th, 2020
What will it take for the idea of a two-state solution, which was hardly practical to begin with, to be completely abandoned?
Every realistic assessment of the situation on the ground indicates, with palpable clarity, that there can never be a viable Palestinian state in parts of the West Bank and Gaza.
Politically, the idea is also untenable. Those who are still marketing the ‘two-state solution’, less enthusiastically now as compared with the euphoria of twenty years ago, are paralyzed in the face of the Israeli-American onslaught on any attempt at making ‘Palestine’ a tangible reality.
The Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas …
by John W. Whitehead / August 4th, 2020
When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; a culture-death is a clear possibility.
— Professor Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Discourse in the Age of Show Business
While America continues to fixate on the drama-filled reality show scripted by the powers-that-be, directed from the nation’s capital, and played out in high definition across the country, the American Police State …
Excerpts from the writings of Esmeralda Chang from her forthcoming book Tracking the Feral Hog: The Confessions and Polemics of Esmeralda Chang.
by Esmeralda Chang / August 4th, 2020
On American Democracy
In American political discourse we frequently hear the term “our democracy.” For example, the Russiagaters are fond of this term. The term grates. The sound of the utterance “our democracy” is not as bad as the sound of fingernails scratching a chalkboard, but it’s reminiscent.
It’s been said that a great advantage of democracy is that there will be no wars under it. Since the people have no desire for war they will not vote for it. The people do not have the motive the dictator or king or queen has to start war for self enrichment. But the …
by David Rovics / August 4th, 2020
My best effort to describe the current precipice we’re on in 2,000 words.
I have been a resident of Portland, Oregon since 2007. So I have been hearing from more people than usual lately, all asking the same question: what’s going on in Portland?
Portland Federal Court House Protest
I find myself struggling to give any kind of an answer to this question. As with any substantive answer to a question, so much depends on …
by Gilbert Mercier / August 4th, 2020
Photo by Nathan O’Nions
Flee, Flight or Freeze
In the natural world, there are two kinds of responses to imminent threats: either flee or fight. Most of the time, in order to maximize chances of survival, the decision has to be made by individuals or groups in less than a split second. On one hand, the option to flee is motivated by this immediate assessment. It has, of course, an important fear factor. On the other hand, the option to fight seems brave on the …
by Binoy Kampmark / August 4th, 2020
Melbourne — Being in control of a sinking ship is not enviable. Regulations previously passed have a museum feel to them, distinctly obsolete. Directions, once dictated with confidence, lack timbre. Coronavirus is serving as that most wily and cheeky of agents, with the most appropriate of accomplices: Homo sapiens. Human beings are fed up, munching on conspiracy tales, wondering when a vaccine will arrive, and generally fatigued.
Globally, people are exhausted, disgusted, deluded and dying. Somewhere in that cocktail of ill-taste are those who think they are doing their best and abide by regulations with understanding obedience. They are told about …
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / August 4th, 2020
CODEPINK (Credit)
Tensions between the United States and China are rising as the U.S. election nears, with tit-for-tat consulate closures, new U.S. sanctions and no less than three U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups prowling the seas around China. But it is the United States that has initiated each new escalation in U.S.-China relations. China’s responses have been careful and proportionate, with Chinese officials such as Foreign Minister Wang Yi publicly asking the U.S. to step back from its brinkmanship to find common ground for diplomacy.
Most of …
by David Rovics / August 4th, 2020
Our landlord doesn’t read my letters, as far as we know, but it feels like it’s only fair to write a letter each month, if we’re not going to be paying the rent.
Well, hello again. This is the fifth full month in the pandemic, and the fifth month of the suspension on evictions here in Oregon, the fifth month that we’re not paying our rent, and the fifth month that I’m writing you a letter, instead of giving you another check.
I say I’m writing “you,” and “you” is a convenient word in the English language, since it can be either …
by Beau Peters / August 3rd, 2020
Ivan Samkov (Pixels)
This is a year unlike most we have ever seen. Few could have predicted the continuous impacts of the coronavirus, a struggling economy, the civil unrest in the streets, and deeper conversations about race and civil liberties. On top of all of that, our businesses are beginning to reopen, and the masses are returning to work.
This is not a process that will happen overnight and for good reason. Before a business can reopen, considerations need to be made regarding the employees. They are going …
by Binoy Kampmark / August 3rd, 2020
Belief in Google’s promises is much like believing in virgin births. For a company so proud of its pursuit of a transparent information environment, it has remained committedly opaque about informing customers on the way it gathers user data. Statements from the company over the years have not been reassuring, and should foster prolonged scepticism and dread. “Google policy,” former Google executive Eric Schmidt explained with flesh-crawling discomfort in 2010, “is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.” Don’t bother typing at all, he claimed. “We know where you are. We know where you’ve …
by Peter Koenig / August 3rd, 2020
The World Economic Forum (WEF) has just made a grandiose discovery and declared (21 July 2020) under the alarming title “This is now the world’s greatest threat – and it’s not coronavirus”. The superb discovery is listed as “Affluence is the biggest threat to our world, according to a new scientific report.”
This “shocking and revealing news” is the “main conclusions of a team of scientists from Australia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, who have warned that tackling overconsumption has to become a priority. Their report, titled Scientists’ Warning on Affluence, explains that “affluence is the driver of environmental and …
by Linda Ford / August 3rd, 2020
If you protest against police brutality in America, you are definitely going to get brutalized by the police. And lately, federal marshals, homeland security, ICE officers, and assorted militarized federal goons and thugs will pile on. If you led a movement against police brutality in Rochester, NY in 2006, like Rev. Joy Powell did, you will be set up on felony burglary and then murder charges, and spend a long time in prison—doing very hard time as a female, African-American, political prisoner. It’s important to make sure Rev. Powell’s story is out there, because she was in the forefront of …
Demonstrations have yet to draw a connection between Netanyahu’s personal abuses of office and the systemic corruption of Israeli politics, with the occupation its beating heart
by Jonathan Cook / August 3rd, 2020
Israel is roiling with angry street protests that local observers have warned could erupt into open civil strife – a development Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be encouraging.
For weeks, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have been the scene of large, noisy demonstrations outside the official residences of Mr Netanyahu and his public security minister, Amir Ohana.
On Saturday night around 13,000 marched through Jerusalem shouting “Anyone but Bibi”, Netanyahu’s nickname. Their calls were echoed by tens of thousands more at locations across the country.
Turnout has been steadily growing, despite attacks on demonstrators from both the police and Netanyahu’s loyalists. The first …
(A reply to Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin) *
by T.P. Wilkinson / August 3rd, 2020
We need a robust discussion about Romanticism as has been properly introduced, though not for the first time in these pages. Some very important observations have been made with the proposal that Romanticism is something we “need to talk about”.
In fact, there is a serious need for placing much of the political and economic debate here and today in the context of cultural history. In a part of the world, or a population, that has been schooled for the past century to look forward and never look back — except under the most circumscribed and frankly quite dishonest conditions — …
by Terry Everton / August 3rd, 2020
Though most restaurant jobs in general aren’t necessarily the most difficult to obtain, they can certainly be the easiest to lose. The service industry is essentially one gigantic slippery slope of potential pitfalls for any employee who consistently places his or her own self-interest ahead of the unique commitments service employment commands.
According to a study conducted by The National Restaurant Association, the employee turnover rate in the hospitality industry is approximately 66%. Restaurant turnover is higher than the private sector due to several factors, including higher portions of teenagers, students and temporary employees in the industry workforce, according to …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / August 3rd, 2020
Positive COVID-19 Test (Shutterstock)
The US is at a moment of truth. This week, Congress has to face up to a pandemic that is out of control and an economy that is collapsing. The Republican’s and Democrat’s proposals show they will fail this test. The people will need to protect themselves and lead from below.
The pandemic is worsening with more than 60,000 new cases and approximately 1,000 new deaths daily. Deaths, now over 158,000, are spiking across the sunbelt and increasing across the Midwest. By Election Day, …
or "a little institutional joke in the showroom"? *
by Todd Smith / August 3rd, 2020
In all of the bizarre and ridiculous iconography of our first cartoon President, Donald J. Trump, the photo-op of Trump holding an upside-down Bible in front of St John’s (of Patmos?) Episcopal Church, near the White House, really takes the cake — and, perhaps, eats it, too. Of course, the whole scene was a fiasco right out of Hollywood, as militarized police and actual military units violently suppressed a considerable throng of protesters, so that the embattled “leader” could awkwardly lurch to the Church for a weird evangelical pose (In the event, the President should have taken a golf cart; …
by Andre Vltchek / August 2nd, 2020
Hong Kong skyline taken from Kowloon site (Andre Vltchek)
I just spent two weeks in the United States, investigating, analyzing the situation there.
I worked in Washington D.C., Minneapolis, where Mr. George Floyd was murdered by deranged cops, in New York City and Boston. COVID-19 was at my tail, as the states kept opening and closing, frantically. Demonstrations were shaking the country, protests against endemic racism and discrimination have been erupting in hundreds of cities and towns.
In several of my reports, I described confusion and deep contradictions, which have …
by Bob Scofield / August 2nd, 2020
In this essay I will sketch an outline for an argument that, from a left-wing and especially an environmentalist perspective, a second Trump presidency will be a lesser evil than a Biden presidency. Before doing so, I will discuss my personal views on lesser-of-two-evils voting, protest voting, and the article that led me to stumble onto the argument that voting for Trump is a lesser evil than voting for Biden.
For as long as I can remember I have been opposed to lesser-of-two evils voting. I have not voted for …
by subMedia / August 2nd, 2020
by Michael K. Smith / August 2nd, 2020
The American idea of progress is how fast I become white. And it’s a trick bag. Because they know perfectly well I can never become white. I have drunk my share of dry martinis; I have proven myself civilized in every way I can. But there is an irreducible difficulty: something doesn’t work. Well, I decided: I might as well act like a nigger.
— James Baldwin, UC Berkeley, 1979 ((Reflections of James Baldwin, C-SPAN, March 3, 2007.))
A dangerous individual.
— F.B.I. field report ((William J. Maxwell, James Baldwin – The FBI File (Arcade Publishing, 2017) Chapter 21, p. …
by Ramzy Baroud / August 1st, 2020
As illegal Jewish settlers increase their attacks on Palestinian civilians in the occupied city of Al Khalil (Hebron), the people of the Palestinian city continue to mount a campaign of popular resistance.
One of the channels of resistance is Human Rights Defenders, “a grass-roots, non-partisan Palestinian organization, working to support nonviolent popular resistance through popular direct action and documentation of human rights violations committed by the Occupation.”
To understand the situation in Hebron better, I spoke to Badee Dwaik, head of ‘Human Rights Defenders’, Raghad Neiroukh, a journalist, and Flora Thomas, a British solidarity activist.
The conversation included another member of …
