The book of hours on Julian Assange is now being written. But the scribes are far from original. Repeated rituals of administrative hearings that have no common purpose other than to string things out before the axe are being enacted. Of late, the man most commonly associated with WikiLeaks’ publication project cannot participate in any meaningful way, largely because of his frail health and the dangers posed to him by the coronavirus. Having already made an effort to attend court proceedings in person, Assange has come across as judicial exotica, freak show fodder for Judge Vanessa Baraitser’s harsh version of …
So, the White Black Nationalist Color Revolution (“made possible in part by GloboCap”) appears to be going extremely well. According to Foreign Policy magazine, the Trump regime is clinging to power, but it’s only a matter of time until the identitarian moderate rebels drive the Putin-backed fascists out of office and restore democracy to the Western world.
Yes, that’s right, just when it looked like the corporate-sponsored, totally organic, peaceful uprising against racism was over, and the Russo-fascist Trump regime had survived, the Global Capitalist Anarchists of Portland and other militant “Resistance” cells have launched a …
Contrasting the Jewish establishment’s reaction to alleged bigotry from a left-wing Toronto restaurant and unambiguous hatred from a far-right politician is a sad comment on their political priorities.
As I detailed here and here, the anti-Palestinian lobby went into overdrive after Foodbendors owner Kimberly Hawkins posted to Instagram at the start of the month: “Open Now – 8 PM for non-racist shoppers #Bloordale #Bloorstreet, #Toronto, #Open, #ftp [fuck the police] #FreePalestine and #ZionistsNotWelcome.”
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and others claimed the #ZionistsNotWelcome hashtag discriminated against Jews. CIJA tweeted no less than 25 times about …
The right to have a slave implies the right in some one to make the slave; that right must be equal and mutual, and this would resolve society into a state of perpetual war.
— William Seward, from the “Freedom in the New Territories” speech, March 11, 1850
Long after they have set fire to the values of the New Deal and the civil rights movement, neoliberals continue to regard themselves as a bulwark protecting civilization from barbarism. In reality, they have betrayed all the values that the New Dealers and the civil rights leaders courageously and nobly fought for. Indeed, a …
A member of Tohono O’odham Nation, a migrant in the Sonoran desert, a Palestinian at an Israeli checkpoint, or a resident of a segregated and over-policed U.S. neighborhood — all are increasingly subject to the same technologies of repression.
— Gabe Schivone, journalist, co-author of Facing Down Settler Colonialism
In 2014, Elbit Systems of America (a subsidiary of Israel’s Elbit Systems) won a $145 million U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) contract to construct a network of 53 camera and radar-equipped Integrated Fixed Towers (IFTs) …
On July 11, a video footage which showed a popular Israeli TV celebrity demeaning Palestinian children from the Bedouin community in the Naqab area, went viral on social media.
“Let’s feed a Bedouin. Don’t you want to feed a Bedouin?” Israeli Children TV host, Roy Oz, repeatedly asks his children, who were seated in the back seat of his car. Outside the vehicle, two Palestinian children were filmed as they stood waiting eagerly for the cookies promised to them by the Israeli driver.
Palestinian Bedouins are treated like “monkeys”, said Atia al-Asem, head of the Regional Council of Palestinian Villages …
In “Marx’s Labor Theory of Value: Bad Science and Bad for Ecological Socialism,” ((Pena, David. “Marx’s Labor theory of Value: Bad Science and Bad for Ecological Socialism.” Dissident Voice, January 12, 2020.)) I argued that Marx’s theory is unscientific and incompatible with the task of building ecological socialism. Robin Cox objected to these views in “The LTV: A Bad Criticism of Marx’s Labour Theory of Value.” ((Cox, Robin. “The LTV: A Bad Criticism of Marx’s Labour Theory of Value.” Socialist Standard, March 2020.)) The present article is my response to Cox’s critique. I will show that his ignorance …
The British government, regulators and global agrochemical corporations are colluding with each other and are thus engaging in criminal behaviour. That’s the message put forward in a new report written by environmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason and sent to the UK Environment Agency. It follows her January 2019 open letter to Werner Baumann, CEO of Bayer CropScience, where she made it clear to him that she considers Bayer CropScience and Monsanto criminal corporations.
Her letter to Baumann outlined a cocktail of corporate duplicity, cover-ups and criminality which the public and the environment are paying the price for, not least in terms of the …
US president Donald Trump has expressed pride about a cognitive test he “aced.” The Montreal Cognitive Assessment, or MOCA, has been used to screen for signs of dementia.
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / July 27th, 2020
Portland protests say Go Home Feds as protests grow (by Noah Berger, AP)
Today is the 60th day of protests since the murder of George Floyd. This weekend, people marched in cities across the country in solidarity with Portland and in opposition to the US becoming a police state.
President Trump sending troops to cities added fuel to the nationwide uprising against racist police violence. Protests have grown not only in Portland but in Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Omaha, Austin, Oakland, San Francisco, …
by Dean Baker and Gerald E. Scorse / July 27th, 2020
Prescription drugs have long provided two bad examples of American exceptionalism. They cost three-to-four times more than anywhere else, and we’re one of only two countries in the world that allows prescription drug advertising to consumers.
Far better to be like everybody else. Americans deserve drug prices in line with those in other countries. They don’t deserve a constant barrage of confusing and misleading ads.
Advertising is the lesser of two evils and the simplest to counter: just stop it already. Important voices have already made that recommendation.
TV commercials for prescription drugs always tell consumers to …
Santiago de Cuba. Photo: Bill Hackwell
Today Cuba celebrates the 67th anniversary of the assault on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks that mark the beginning of the Cuban Revolution. From this beginning, Cuba’s altruistic view of making the world safer and healthier began.
It has developed into a society that gives everything it has without expecting credit. There are hundreds of examples of this; for instance, what took place in 1986, after the nuclear catastrophe of Chernobyl, when blockaded Cuba took in over 20,000 young cancer …
In 2015 the Washington Post shared this observation of privately-operated charter schools by a veteran public school official:
David Hornbeck was the Maryland State Superintendent of Schools from 1976 to 1988 and the superintendent of the Philadelphia school district from 1994 to 2000. For years he was a supporter of charter schools, seeing them as an important tool in the school reform arsenal, and as Philadelphia’s superintendent, he recommended that more than 30 charter schools be allowed to open. Now, in a reversal that is rare in education, he said this: “The last 20 years make it clear I was wrong.” …
Well over a century ago the German statesman Otto von Bismarck remarked that countries have neither friends nor enemies only interests. History since then has done nothing to dispel the wisdom of his observation. There are many people still alive today who were alive when this country fought for its very existence against the two mortal enemies of the day: Germany and Japan.
What is the status of those two countries today? Germany is the most economically powerful nation in Europe, a vital member of the European Union and finally after decades in which its economic power was vastly greater than …
They killed black woman
Recently, when a retired Chilean U.N. employee tried to enter ECLAC (United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, based in
Santiago de Chile) to claim her pension in a bank inside the compound, her car was stopped by a U.N. security officer. She was asked to complete formalities. To her taste, the process was taking too much time, and she began honking. The head of security approached her, trying to explain the procedure, which had recently toughened up, due to the outbreak …
by Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker / July 24th, 2020
The US Senate returned to work this week after a two-week vacation during which COVID-19 exploded and the economy imploded. The moment of truth has now arrived. Will the House and Senate now bring forth a Covid relief package adequate to the Covid health and economic crises?
The last six months of the pandemic and economic collapse show that the two governing parties are presiding over a failed state. Most other organized societies have test, contract trace, and quarantine programs that have suppressed community spread of the virus and enabled a safe reopening of businesses and schools. The two major parties …
It’s no surprise that first prize, or the blue ribbon, for exceeding 2°C above baseline goes to the Arctic with permafrost that covers 25% of the Northern Hemisphere. Recognition is long overdue, as it’s been totally neglected far too long by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
This crucial nugget of knowledge comes by way of a recent virtual science session (1:27 in length) sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences and can be watched in its entirety on YouTube:
The webcast is entitled: Thawing Arctic Permafrost: Regional and Global Impacts, hosted by John P. Holdren, Teresa and John Heinz, Professor …
By the late-90s we must have sensed that the shit was hitting the fan. The fire at Waco. The Unabomber envelopes. The downing of Flight 800. The World Trade Center bombing. Blowjobs in the White House. Oklahoma City. Tokyo’s subway sarin attack. The Khobar Towers bombing blamed on bin Laden. The ascent of Atlanta’s radio jockstrap Sean Hannity to national status on Roger Ailes’ newly established Fox News Network. OJ taking off the gloves. Rodney King wondering if we could all just get along. Cruise missiles on Bosnia on the eve of Clinton’s impeachment for blowjobs. Distracted from distraction by distraction, …
July 28 will mark almost the 90th anniversary of one of most controversial protests in U.S. history and yet it remains virtually unknown to most Americans. On that day, in 1932, 500 U.S. army infantrymen with loaded rifles, fixed bayonets and gas grenades containing a vomit inducing ingredient, 200 calvary, a machine gun squadron, 800 police and 6 M1917 army tanks, prepared to attack 17,000 unarmed men, plus thousands of their wives and children. Moments before the assault, Gen.Douglas MacArthur, in charge of the operation, turned to a police …
Is the U.S. ripe for a real revolution, where the disenfranchised and repressed overthrow the enfranchised and privileged?
Unfortunately, there are many weapons in the hands of the existing U.S. power structure. These include racism, control of the media, chauvinism, greed and more. These are all put into the service of weakening and dividing the population, and pitting them against each other, thus preventing the unity that might otherwise become …
For the first time since the Israeli war on Gaza in 2014, the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is signaling its willingness to engage in negotiations regarding the release of the bodies of two Israeli soldiers believed to be held by resistance groups in Gaza. But will another prisoner exchange similar to that of October 2011 follow anytime soon?
On July 9, Palestinian and Israeli media reported on an Israeli government communication sent to the Palestinian group, Hamas, through an intermediary. It included an Israeli offer to swap the bodies of Palestinians held in Israel in …
If he’s good enough for you,
He’s good enough for me!
If he scores another few,
Then I’ll be Muslim, too!
— Sung by Liverpool supporters at Anfield, their home stadium
You must be saying to yourself, what is THAT? It doesn’t sound like anti-Muslim sentiment, but why are English Premier League football (soccer) fans singing about converting to Islam? The “he” they are referring to is Mohamed Salah, a winger for the Liverpool Reds, who over the past 3 seasons has scored 94 goals in all competitions. Salah won the Golden Boot Award in consecutive seasons, 2017-18 and 2018-19, given to the player who …
Fifteen years ago or so, after getting some books from my local library Taos, New Mexico, I came upon a meeting featuring an Indigenous man from Taos Pueblo. I forget his name but I believe the topic of his lecture was related to spirituality. He was fielding questions at the time I arrived.
One middle-aged Anglo woman asked, “I know this is a bit off topic, but can you tell me what you think of the current presidential election race between John Kerry and George Bush?”
The Pueblo leader, also middle-aged, sighed and replied, “You know, our peoples have been struggling …
So, how are you enjoying the “New Normal” so far? Is it paranoid and totalitarian enough for you? If not … well, hold on, because it’s just getting started. There is plenty more totalitarianism and paranoia still to come.
I know, it feels like forever already, but, in fact, it has only been a few months since GloboCap started rolling out the new official narrative. We’re still in the early stages of it. The phase we’re in now is kind of like where we were back in February of 2002, a few months after the 9/11 attacks, when everyone was still …
Despite the sustained protests and pleas for justice and peace, demonstrations, and riots, George Floyd’s murder continues to resonate because it accompanies an interminable chronicle of shame connecting it to other recent events. It becomes another tragic entry in the Book of Disgrace. In this sense, Floyd becomes other victims of the police. He becomes Eric Garner, attacked from behind and strangled on the sidewalk in broad daylight. He becomes twelve-year-old Tamir Rice, murdered while playing in the park. He becomes seven-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones. He becomes Miriam Carey, Thurman Blevins, Javier Ambler, Manuel Ellis, Terence Crutcher. Atatiana Jefferson, Elijah McClain, …
In front of White House
Americans are angry. I suspected they would be, but I got confirmation that they are, all over the place: in Miami, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Minneapolis, New York, and Boston. Basically, everywhere I went, while “taking pulse and temperature” of this country where I used to live, cumulatively, for more than a decade, I felt frustration and bewilderment.
“What is your job?” Shouted an African-American lady, right in the middle of the Union Station in the nation’s capital. Obviously, it was a rhetorical …
The Jewish National Fund has won plaudits for its environmental work, but its agenda has been to evict on behalf of the state
by Jonathan Cook / July 22nd, 2020
The Jewish National Fund, established more than 100 years ago, is perhaps the most venerable of the international Zionist organisations. Its recent honorary patrons have included prime ministers, and it advises UN forums on forestry and conservation issues.
It is also recognised as a charity in dozens of western states. Generations of Jewish families, and others, have contributed to its fundraising programmes, learning as children to drop saved pennies into its trademark blue boxes to help plant a tree.
And yet its work over many decades has been driven by one main goal: to evict Palestinians from their homeland.
We have recently been able to view the early 1970s communications that took place between the then Governor General John Kerr and Buckingham Palace. This has been thanks to the tireless work of Melbourne academic Professor Jenny Hosking. The mainstream media have published extracts from this correspondence. The picture that emerges from the correspondence, chiefly between John Kerr and the Queen’s principal private secretary Sir Martin Charteris, is that Kerr disapproved of the Labor government and in particular the foreign policy stances that it embraced.
One of those stances was of critical relevance to the sequence of events leading up to …
By the time Alfred Marshall became prominent, the theory of capitalism formulated in Marx’s Capital had become a theoretical pillar of organised working class politics in Europe. Remarkably the so-called “marginalist revolution”, of which Marshall became a leading figure, coincides roughly with the abolition of slavery in Brazil (1886) and a major economic depression. ((For a discussion of the so-called “marginalist revolution” see, for example, Nuno Martins, “Interpreting the capitalist order before and after the marginalist revolution”, Cambridge Journal of Economics 2015, 39, 1109-1127.)) Thus the shift from economics, for the …
