The use and misuse of George Orwell’s truth-telling is so widespread that we can easily miss his intended meaning. For example, with perfect (Orwellian) irony, the BBC has a statue of Orwell outside Broadcasting House, bearing the inscription:
‘If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’
Fine words, but suitably ambiguous: the BBC might argue that it is merely exercising its ‘liberty’ in …
Photo by Bill Hackwell
It is hard to believe that it has been ten years ago today since Reverend Lucius Walker suddenly died leaving an enormous emptiness and gap in the movement of solidarity with Cuba and other just causes that in many ways we are still recovering from. I still miss him dearly. We remember Lucius for his bold and charismatic leadership whose ideas influenced and guided many progressives around the world while being a constant thorn in the side of the United States government.
by Medea Benjamin and Leonardo Flores / September 9th, 2020
Election season is a difficult time to develop good policies towards Latin America, since both Democrats and Republicans cater to the small, but organized, conservative factions of the Latinx community in Florida, vying for their votes. But if Biden wins the White House, there is a chance to reverse the Trump administration policies that have been devastating for Latin America, policies that punish innocent civilians through harsh economic sanctions, destabilize the region through coups and attempts at regime change, and close our borders to desperate people fleeing north in …
Now is the time for the two most disgraced parties in America to unite, and join together to fight the good fight for Wall Street, war mongering, and maintaining an America that’s the pity of the world. With so many Republican standard bearers and war mongers rallying around Joe Biden, becoming one single party is the logical trajectory. Let the Democrats be the ‘liberal’ wing of the Capitalist Party. They can push their weak social issues but on issues of discrediting and undermining everything from the postal service, health care, housing, social justice and everything that’s Black Lives Matter, they …
Prof. Richard Wolff argues that the system in the US is falling apart. Capitalism is surviving because of all the support provided by the American government to corporations — who are receiving the bulk — and to Americans.
On 2 September, 2020, the US sanctioned two officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigating into alleged war crimes by US forces and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Afghanistan since 2003.The officials are ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, and the ICC’s head of Jurisdiction, Complementary, and Cooperation Division, Phakiso Mochochok (sanctioned for having materially assisted Prosecutor Bensouda). Announcing this decision, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said, “the United States is taking action to protect Americans from unjust and illegitimate investigation by the International Criminal Court …
Back in the 1970s, the left and even many liberals were clear that Nixon’s dropping napalm on Vietnamese villages was an abomination. By the 1990s, some thought Bill Clinton’s bombing of Yugoslavia was, perhaps, humanitarian. Fast forward to the present, there is sentiment that the US has a global “responsibility to protect” the less enlightened lands in the name of “democracy.” Some on the liberal-left fail to recognize the fallacy of what Jean Bricmont exposes as “humanitarian imperialism – using human …
The highlights of the second day of Julian Assange’s extradition proceedings at the Central Criminal Court in London yielded an interesting bounty. The first was the broader public purpose behind the WikiLeaks disclosures, their utility in legal proceedings, and their importance in disclosing instances of US extrajudicial killings, torture and rendition. The second involved a discussion about the practice of journalism and the politicised nature of the prosecution against Assange.
Human rights attorney Clive Stafford Smith and founder of Reprieve, an organisation specialising in investigating instances of US detention, rendition …
Always tell the truth. Always take the high road. Live each day like it could be your last. Drink it in. Be adventurous, be bold, but savor it. It goes fast.
— Ben, from the movie, Captain Fantastic.
Once you drive down the road overlooking Olalla Slough, you end up on a 6.7-acre paradise. Before humans emerge from the ranch-style house, the visitor is greeted by clicking of tongues, screeches and whistling.
Ram Papish and his wife, Dawn Harris, have a residence that includes an outbuilding called “The Love Shack.” No, the B-52’s song is not on …
The revelation that Canadian soldiers have been in Saudi Arabia for 17 years highlights Canada’s ties to the repressive monarchy, contribution to the Iraq war and hollowness of Canadian foreign policy mythology.
Recently researcher Anthony Fenton tweeted, “raise your hand if you knew that there was a ‘Detachment’ of Canadian soldiers serving under US auspices operating AWACS spy planes out of a Saudi Arabian air base since the war on Iraq began in 2003 to THE PRESENT DAY.”
The Canadian soldiers stationed at Prince Sultan Air …
The Only Foreign Interference America Should Worry About is British
by Matthew J.L. Ehret / September 8th, 2020
It has recently come to light that the primary source of the Steele Dossier and Mueller Investigation is none other than Igor Danchenko — a veteran Brookings Institute employee from Ukraine who not only hadn’t been to Russia for decades but who admitted to the FBI in January 2017 that the entire Steele dossier was a fraud.
For those who do not know, the Brookings Institute is a powerful DNC think tank founded by Bill Clinton’s former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott who stepped down as president in 2017. Brookings has become known for its revolving door between officials …
Losing Our Freedoms on the Road from 9/11 to COVID-19
by John W. Whitehead / September 8th, 2020
You can map the nearly 20-year journey from the 9/11 attacks to the COVID-19 pandemic by the freedoms we’ve lost along the way.
The road we have been traveling has been littered with the wreckage of our once-vaunted liberties, especially those enshrined in the Fourth Amendment.
The assaults on our freedoms that began with the post-9/11 passage of the USA Patriot Act laid the groundwork for the eradication of every vital constitutional safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse. The COVID-19 pandemic with its lockdowns, mask mandates, surveillance, snitch lines …
Racism proves again that it is a cancer that’s ravaging American society. As of late it seems to have metastasized to an uncontrollable disease that is snuffing our relationships, human dignity, careers, and common decency in the U.S. The various incidences of racial strife over the last several years, ranging from continued police brutality to the rise in racist extremist groups, points undoubtedly to the fact that America has a problem with race.
The recent events following George Floyd’s murder are only symptoms of the deep racial issues in the U.S. Civil rights leader Malcolm X famously barked in one of …
Kevin Zeese speaks at a rally for Chelsea Manning (by Ellen Davidson)
It is with a sad heart that I report the sudden and unexpected death of Kevin Zeese early Sunday morning. Kevin was working up until the end and died in his sleep of a possible heart attack.
Amazon Day, a day of celebration for over 100 years on September 5th, has passed. Amazon Day commemorates the year 1850 creation of the Province of Amazonas, encompassing 60% of Brazil and extending into Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela, and French Guyana.
Meanwhile, illegal fires in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest rage on, and on, and on stronger than ever. Nowadays, in spite of the spirit of Amazon Day, suicidal spates of lawlessness rule Brazil’s precious rainforest.
Indeed, leading scientists believe there is genuine concern that the Amazon rainforest ecosystem could collapse. Already, severe devastating drought sequences have hit every fifth year …
These days, when I walk into the courthouse, after the intense security screening that includes forbidding public access, I am reminded of a Sci Fi horror show. I don’t recognize my home ground, my territory, my place of worship of Lady Justice. It is all gone. I cannot see faces because everyone wears a mask. I cannot smell, voices are muffled, and people are not talking to one another, but sitting on masking tape in the shape of a large X, six feet apart.
The fine circus that is British justice resumed at London’s Central Criminal Court on September 7, with the continued extradition proceedings against Julian Assange. Judge Vanessa Baraitser was concerned that approximately 40 individuals had received remote video access they apparently should not have. “In error, the court sent out orders to others who had sought access. I remain concerned about my ability to maintain the integrity of the court if they are able to attend remotely.”
Showing a continuing obsession with controlling her court as manorial property, Baraitser felt that having such individuals access the proceedings might lead to breaches …
Having reported the long, epic ordeal of Julian Assange, John Pilger gave this address outside the Central Criminal Court in London on September 7 as the WikiLeaks editor’s extradition hearing entered its final stage.
When I first met Julian Assange more than 10 years ago, I asked him why he had started WikiLeaks. He replied: “Transparency and accountability are moral issues that must be the essence of public life and journalism.”
I had never heard a publisher or an editor invoke morality in this way. Assange believes that journalists are the …
Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia formally designate themselves in their state constitutions as “commonwealths” — a traditional term for a community founded for the common good. This is still the aim of the World Socialist Movement — to create a worldwide cooperative commonwealth.
It should be easy enough to set up a genuine popular democracy in the United States. Libertarian municipalism, as advocated by Murray Bookchin, inspired by New England town-hall meetings, proposes to do so by simply establishing sufficient numbers of general assemblies. There are over 16,000 townships in the United States. Could …
I’ll get to the punch line soon, since this is part two of a two-part mini-horror story of a neighbor’s 41-year-old MAGA son, the actual son’s 63-year-old MAGA-mean mom, and alas, the 41-year-old son’s 39-year-old brother. And then the lot of them under the roof of a 63-year-old stepfather who has “US Navy retired” on his Facebook account, as well as every single post about on-line Texas Hold’em. [Part One! Your Right Ends with My Right to Might]
The offending sign:
They are not what David Graeber said, “We Are the 99 Percent.” They are making …
As the presidential election draws near both contestants make fatuous appeals to America’s near-sainted Founding Fathers and that almost sacred scroll known as the Constitution. History has seen more than its share of distortion. Myths and misconceptions have sprung up that many people now take as fact. However, historical interpretation must be based on evidence, which in many cases is either lacking or contradictory. Myths are powerful because they say things people want to believe. History does matter, which is why people in power put so much energy into controlling it. To talk of elitist power today as something new …
A Review of David Roediger's book The Sinking Middle Class: A Political History
by John Hawkins / September 6th, 2020
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
— William Wordsworth, “The World Is Too Much With Us”, 1807
To Hell with the Middle Class!
Oh, wait. They’re already there. At least that’s what David Roediger argues in his new book The Sinking Middle Class: A Political History. There is no there there worth saving. Fuck it.
It often happens this way: extreme right-wingers, or call them ‘ultra-conservatives,’ either in the United States or Europe, suddenly fall from grace, after committing the most heinous crimes. Sometimes it is child abuse or sexual harassment, but most of the time, it is a corruption of tremendous proportions.
In theory, in their own theory, it is not supposed to be this way. Listen to the conservatives, and they will tell you that they are there in order to uphold law and order, as well as the traditional culture of their countries.
But the reality is often very far from the theory.
It’s been a weird time, the last six months, and so it continues; perhaps it always was. It’s certainly been an unjust violent mess in varying degrees of severity, for as long as most can remember. With selfishness, division and pleasure firmly in the driving seat, and the planet beautiful, slowly choking to death under the weight of human greed and stupidity.
After Covid-19 erupted, widespread lockdowns like a blunderbuss were enforced in many countries, and for a brief interlude hush descended on towns and cities across the world. Whole populations from Europe to New Zealand and most points in between …
Ugly. Rough. Police in the Australian state of Victoria muscling their way in. The father and children watching. It had all arisen because the pregnant mother in question had engaged in conduct defined as incitement. In a post on her Facebook page, Zoe Buhler had urged Victorians to protest the coronavirus lockdown rules over the weekend. She encouraged the practising of social distancing measures to avoid arrest and the wearing of masks, subject to medical exceptions. “Here in Ballarat we can be a voice for those in Stage 4 lockdowns [in metropolitan Melbourne]. We can be seen and heard and …
It’s the beginning of the month. Do you know your neighbors?
I have several questions for you. Can you imagine a society where the prospect of a forced eviction is considered completely barbaric, and is virtually or entirely unheard of in practice? Can you imagine the United States becoming one of those societies? And have you joined a local community group that is considering these questions where you live?
by Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker / September 4th, 2020
Workers in 2020 have a unique opportunity to vote to put two fellow workers in the White House. Howie is a recently retired Teamster and Angela is a dump truck driver. We know the economic realities that working people face in the United States. This Labor Day we call for a better class of people in the White House than the corporate crooks and flunkies that have been occupying it.
The COVID pandemic and economic collapse have highlighted the race and class inequalities in our society. With more than 35 million jobs lost, millions …
After UAE-Israel deal, missing is that the Emirates bewildering moment and the shattered Palestinian moment are due to a misrepresentation of what is called the Middle East conflict. The misrepresentation has led to a fallacious approach for rectification, and an impasse for obtaining peace with justice.
Even the terminology seems incorrect. Is this a conflict between Palestinians and Zionists or has it always been a crisis that the Zionists imposed on the Palestinians? Providing a correction is more than semantics, it places the dispute in proper context, a starting point for organizing a response.
In a conflict, two parties have clashing interests for the …
Today, who is a Democrat? Who is a Republican? Is there really a difference?
It is no secret that the current electoral system in the United States is rigged. The two hegemonic capitalist parties have made it nearly impossible for other parties to participate in elections. The first hurdle is simply to gather sufficient signatures to get on the ballot. A national candidate is obliged to go through this daunting procedure in each state. Furthermore, each state has its own rules for ballot access.
We are all victims of a deteriorating environment and rapid climate change that spares no one from its effects. Already, tens of millions of people have been turned into climate refugees while hundreds of thousands die annually from air …
