The Poverty of Liberal, Social Contract Theory of Violence
by Bruce Lerro / May 31st, 2020
I wrote this article almost four years ago in reaction to the public’s claim to be inconvenienced by Oakland protesters stopping traffic on the freeway of Interstate 880 in Oakland in solidarity with the two black men shot and killed by police in Louisiana and Minnesota. The point of that article was to show that bystanders’ ideas of where violence starts, when it starts and who the perpetrators of violence are betrays an adherence to a liberal social contract theory rooted in Locke, Hobbes and Rousseau. Even those who …
Baghdad, March 20, 2003
Inscribed on a wall across from the United Nations in New York City are ancient words of incalculable yearning:
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.
— Isaiah 2:4
I’ve stood with activists in front of that same wall singing Down by the Riverside, a song promising we’ll lay down our swords and shields — “and study war no more, no more.”
In memorably eloquent words spoken after the onset …
Sawing off the branch you sit on can hardly be the best of policies. But that all depends on the nature of the branch. US President Donald Trump has huffed himself into another small historical moment, going on the offensive against social media companies using the very language his faux progressive opponents use against them. All seem to be in agreement on one point: the Silicon Valley giants have become too powerful, runaway monsters in the stakes of high influence. But sharp divergences and attitudes exist on how such companies are to be controlled, let alone disciplined.
If it wasn’t so tragic, it would be laughable: the political brigands in North America and Europe are fuming, spitting and rolling their eyes upwards towards the ceiling. They are pointing fingers in all directions, shouting incoherently “China!”, “Russia!”, “Venezuela and Cuba!”, “Iran!”; “You, You, YOU!”.
China and Russia are quietly building a new world, which includes brand new infrastructure, factories and entire neighborhoods for the people. Hospitals are being constructed, and so are universities, parks, concert halls and public transportation networks. Both countries are doing all this quickly and noiselessly, and with great determination. And despite sanctions and embargos, they …
I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against. -- Malcolm X
by Paul Haeder / May 30th, 2020
Caught with their proverbial pants down? The blustery conversations tied to corona virus, lockdown, Trump LLC, Pelosi and Comp., and the failed state that is the USA are to be expected.
It is a country of nanosecond attention spans.
A country with amnesia in vitro.
A country that has sacrificed future and future-future generations for the all mighty dollar.
Dog-eat-dog?
Survival of the fittest (or in the reverse Darwinism, survival of the least fit, the least smart, the least humane, the least human).
Yeah, sure, trolls abound in the social media morass. The putridity of a buffoon on one local Facebook page can be tiring.
One nurse told Clay, “I’ve given him the highest dosage I can. It’s enough to kill a horse. Most hospice patients die from morphine, but I can only OD him within an acceptable margin of error.”
— From Christopher Bollen, A Beautiful Crime, 2020
In this age of coronavirus, it has become abundantly clear that Western culture has little respect or reverence for its elders. Deaths of the elderly seem of no account and only to be taken in stride. Such an attitude has increased the opportunities for the hospice/medical industry as it profits off the expendable bodies of older, vulnerable human beings. For me, that …
Since Hunter Thompson isn’t here to continue along the Gonzo journalistic path of fear and loathing, I’ll just have to do the job. I’m quite certain he would do so if he hadn’t left us so abruptly. And unless I’m crazy, there’s never before been a situation quite this frightening and loathsome. My lady left me a couple days ago. Turned away from the embrace of a man who refuses to wear a mask as protection from the dreaded Carumba Virus. And now I’m alone. Sheltering in place in the foothills of The Tucson Range. Our relationship trashed by the good advice of her …
The despicable police murder of a person, another Black person, who allegedly used a counterfeit $20 bill has caused widespread revulsion among Americans. This time, however, authorities acted relatively quickly calling in the FBI and firing all four police officers at the scene — Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao, and J Alexander Kueng.
George Floyd, who did not resist, was forcibly extricated from his vehicle by police, handcuffed, whereupon officer Derek Chauvin knelt for 8 minutes on Floyd’s neck while he pleaded that he was unable to breathe. Floyd’s death was the result.
As the US continues to be ravaged by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the country remains in lockdown, a morbid irony of which is that we appear to have traded COVID-19 deaths for suicides. The catastrophe has laid bare the cruelties of neoliberalism, yet this has not stopped the media from unleashing a barrage of misinformation, blaming the disaster on the president, racism, and the Chinese, interspersed with other creative attempts at scapegoating. Indeed, the pandemic appears to have coincided with a peculiar outbreak of epidemiologic hallucinations.
Many have been happy to blame the president for the country’s …
The No Canada on UN Security Council (#NoUNSC4Canada) campaign has thrust critical discussion of Canadian foreign policy into the mainstream. It has also pierced through a stultifying ‘team Canada’ nationalism that infests much of the left. While the historical record suggests otherwise, it is widely assumed that Canadian power is good for the world.
Last Tuesday the Toronto Star published a powerful open letter calling on countries to vote against Canada’s bid for a seat on the Security Council. It was endorsed by 20 groups and more than 100 prominent artists, academics, activists and authors including David Suzuki, Roger …
The wrong conclusions are being drawn about Emily Maitlis’s comments on Dominic Cummings on the BBC flagship Newsnight show this week. Her remarks are not evidence of her courage, or that journalists are being gagged, or that the BBC is suddenly capitulating to the government.
The problem is caused by our desire to focus on whether Maitlis was right or wrong about Cummings, Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, breaking the lockdown rules. But it is actually a distraction to fixate on the issue of whether Maitlis should or should …
US cartoon from 1899: Uncle Sam (US) demands Open Door access to trade with China while European powers plan to cut up China for themselves. Color lithograph by J.S. Pughe. This image is available from the United States Library of Congress‘s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3b00548.One of the most tiresome clichés uttered by the western nations, including Australia, is their alleged commitment to the “rules based international order”. By this …
Protesters outside the torched police precinct building were frustrated with the U.S. police and authorities after African American George Floyd died in the hands of police. Derek Chauvin, the officer at the center of the incident, and three other officers involved were fired Tuesday from the Minneapolis Police Department. However, local and federal officials have yet to announce any charges against the four officers.
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / May 29th, 2020
On May 6th, President Trump vetoed a war powers bill specifying that he must ask Congress for authorization to use military force against Iran. Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign of deadly sanctions and threats of war against Iran has seen no let-up, even as the U.S., Iran and the whole world desperately need to set aside our conflicts to face down the common danger of the Covid-19 pandemic.
So what is it about Iran that makes it such a target of hostility for Trump and the neocons? There are many repressive regimes in the world, and many of them are …
If the planet Earth were animate, it would have shuddered at the news that S. David Freeman passed away this month. Freeman was that important to Earth’s future. In his 94th year, he inspired all he met with his burning passion, relentless energy, and keen intellect.
Freeman, an engineer and a lawyer, knew where decisions were being made or ignored regarding our energy future. He mocked the foolish embrace of fossil fuels and warned all who would listen about the deadly impact of coal, oil, and natural gas consumption on our environment. This humble son of an immigrant umbrella repair man …
In the haze of the morning, China sits on Eternity
And the opium farmers sell dreams to obscure fraternities
On the horizon the curtains are closing.
— Brian Eno, “China my China,” from the album Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, 1974
It’s a crazy and dangerous World out there, by Jingo! By now we’ve all heard what they’re saying, experts like Doc Fauci and friends: “If the coronavirus doesn’t get ya, then the giant Asian ‘murder’ hornets will!” Yikes! What’s next: an infestation of tiny totalitarians telling us all to wear masks everywhere and shut up about whatever’s going on? Well, as a scientist …
Book Review of Consciousness and the Quantum: The Next Paradigm by Dr. by Robert Oates, Jr.
by William T. Hathaway / May 28th, 2020
Consciousness and the Quantum: The Next Paradigm makes quantum physics understandable for general readers and also shows how it has practical value for us. Author Dr. Robert M. Oates Jr. presents this abstract, theoretical topic in a step-by-step manner that makes it comprehensible. He explains the discoveries that are revolutionizing the way we see the world, and he captures the drama and conflicts involved in overthrowing the old scientific worldview and building the new. In conclusion he presents the benefits this knowledge can have for our individual lives.
Question: In a society grown dictatorial and oppressive would your good friend X collaborate or resist? If you were to resist, would X support your rights or side with the apparent source of power? If asked by authorities to scrutinize neighbors, would X do so? Would X yield naturally to arbitrary requests or invasive questioning, or would a strong sense of personal identity tend to question authoritarian entitlement? How quickly might X, whom you’ve known only under the conditions of a materially rich and smoothly-running society, turn on you if society were to unravel and X’s interests were suddenly at …
A world gripped by a deadly virus has precipitated a deluge of punditry claiming to have found the primal cause of the pandemic. In a recent article Anthony Judge, for example, claims to have tapped into “the collective subconscious” to blame what he calls overpopulation. How well does this claim hold up?
Mr. Judge is concerned about “the epidemic of misinformation” regarding the cause of COVID-19 pandemic, “obscuring a neglected critical factor undermining global strategic viability.” Humanity, he posits, is “unconsciously endeavoring to communicate a vital message to itself…Collective Overpopulation Vitiating Individual Dreams.”
This time, we are told, it is different and that President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is absolutely serious about his decision to absolve his leadership from all previous agreements signed with Israel and the United States.
But this time is not different, and Abbas is not serious.
“The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the state of Palestine are absolved … of all the agreements and understandings with the American and Israeli governments … including the security ones,” Abbas declared at an emergency meeting of his leadership held in Ramallah on May 19.
Unsurprisingly, there were no massive demonstrations reported throughout …
Simply “printing” more money and adding more debt to the existing enormous debt load in the U.S. is not a solution. It is particularly irresponsible when it is done with no connection to social production and the working class. Non-fictitious value comes only from the labor-time of workers involved in the process of producing goods and services. Value cannot come from thin air. Capital does not magically produce value by itself.
Currently, the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet is approximately $7 trillion. The national debt is about $25 trillion. The federal debt-to-GDP ratio is 120%. The higher the ratio, the harder for …
A news website created by Tibetan exiles in India, Phayul, has featured an article on a bill (H.R. 6948) introduced in the House of Representatives by United States Congressman Scott Perry (R-PA) that promotes Tibetan separation from China.
The bill would “authorize the President to recognize the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China as a separate, independent country, and for other purposes.”
Other purposes? That the US was running geopolitical intrigues in …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / May 26th, 2020
Commemorating 100,000 COVID-19 Deaths
The official milestone of 100,000 dead in the United States from COVID-19 is near. This figure is certainly an undercount as thousands of deaths from COVID-19 are not being recorded. Before our weekly news analysis, we pause to commemorate those deaths.
The US, with 4 percent of the world’s population, has 28 percent of the COVID19 deaths, disproportionately impacting black and brown people. Why is the US doing so poorly? President Trump surely deserves a great deal of blame. He continues to make major errors and critical mistakes …
Christian Sorensen’s Understanding the War Industry
by Eric Walberg / May 26th, 2020
Christian Sorensen’s ambitious Understanding the War Industry documents the US war economy with zest. It’s a dull, monotonous topic but vitally important, and he manages to make it interesting. You see the military-industrial-political complex as a vast, complex hive, embedded in the larger economic monster called the United States.
That union has always been tenuous, from the revolution to the civil war and today, requiring enemies to keep very different groups in line. Ironically, since it kicked the British out, the US (i.e., the colonial settler …
Sun Yang Over the past 5 years, the sports “anti doping movement” has been distorted into a political tool to attack Russia and now China. This article reveals the bias behind the decision to ban Chinese athlete Sun Yang for eight years. For example, the president of the panel tweeted against a “yellow faced Chinese monster!” and secretly mocked the athlete’s mother in the hearing. I hope the facts presented here help get a new fair hearing for Sun Yang.
I never met the great basketball player, Bob Cousy, the man known as “the Houdini of the Hardwood,” yet he somehow influenced my life in ways I never knew, or to be more accurate, in ways I didn’t reflect upon except in superficial ways. He was the guy who brought professional basketball into the modern era with his bag of fancy tricks that included no-look and behind-the-back passes, uncanny dribbling, and a magical court sense that made the fast break into an exquisite art form. The captain and point-guard of the Boston Celtics from 1950-1963, Cousy led the Celtics to …
Leaving crises to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s management skills will never disappoint those who favour chaos and the attractions of vague direction. The double standard is to be preferred to the equal one. With the United Kingdom sundered by death and the effects of COVID-19 (the PM himself having had his battle with the virus), the population was hoping for some clarity. When, for instance, would the lockdown measures be eased?
On May 10, Johnson delivered an address from his comically staged desk which had the appearance of being trapped in the door during a bungled removal effort. “We have …
As a retired sheet metal worker, on Memorial Day, I watched the Memorial Day video put out by the general president of my union. This was my response to him.
I appreciate your stress on staying safe during this pandemic, as well as the listing of our 14 members who have died from COVID-19. I also appreciate your speaking of how our union has helped veterans transition from the military to our trade.
I want to comment on how your message affects me as a combat veteran of the Viet Nam War. It is a good thing to support veterans, in …
For several months, Western mass media called the Hong Kong rioters, “pro-democracy protesters”. It still does. But I began noticing a new, even deadlier, terminology. Now, the black-clad ninja-looking men and women that are periodically and violently clashing with the law enforcement forces are once in a while described as “pro-independence”.
Some Hong Kong citizens are defining the rioters, who recently celebrated the Americans’ “Mother’s Day” with further protests and aggressive actions, as a “political virus”.
Now many people living in Hong Kong are calling for the use of force against the predominantly young, badly-informed and poorly educated individuals — those who …
