Maybe something good will come out of the Trump plan, after all. By pushing the Middle East peace process to its logical conclusion, Donald Trump has made crystal clear something that was supposed to have been obscured: that no US administration has ever really seen peace as the objective of its “peacemaking”.
The current White House is no exception – it has just been far more incompetent at concealing its joint strategy with the Israelis. But that is what happens when a glorified used-car salesman, Donald Trump, and his sidekick son-in-law, the schoolboy-cum-businessman Jared Kushner, try selling us the “deal of …
As Canada prepares to violently invade our lands, we have no fear. We are peacefully living on our lands and upholding our laws, as we always have.
31 days after Coastal Gaslink was evicted from Wet’suwet’en territory, RCMP helicopters circle the Unist’ot’en healing center several times a day.
Busloads of police have taken over local community halls, airport hangers have become RCMP training grounds, while armored pickup trucks and police dogs have been spotted in the area. Canada is preparing to use militarized force to steal our lands and destroy them, with the world as witness.
Gene Weingarten, One Day: The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America, 2019.Denied entry to the US (who knows why, and welcome to the club), ((My fateful attempt to experience the underbelly of the beast firsthand was a bike trip along the south shore of Lake Erie to the legendary Chautauqua (of Zen of Motorcycle Maintenance fame) and on to the eastern Grand Canyon, Letchworth State Park. I recommend this bike trip to any Canadian (anyone) who doesn’t fear Homeland …
A radical call to action has never been more vital than today, as the abomination of capitalism known as neoliberalism tears apart society from stem to stern, continuing the grand experiment that originated under the watchful eyes and vision of aristocratic plantation-owners like Washington and Jefferson as wealthy patriots.
In honor of their hard fought war to avoid taxation as much as possible, Trump retroactively honored them with a gigantic tax cut for their distant namesakes, the wealthy.
Lo and behold, he has hardened the battle lines between them (1%) versus us (99%). Will the lines be crossed and how so?
It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.
— Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, 2005
While truth-tellers Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning sit inside jail cells and Edward Snowden lives in exile …
In the preface to his last and perhaps most significant work, Andre Gunder-Frank cited what he called “Fairbank’s Rule No. 2”: “Never try to begin at the beginning. Historical research progresses backward not forward… Let the problems take you back.” ((Andre Gunder-Frank, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age, University of California Press, July 31, 1998.)) My mother was a forensic photographer. One of her less appetizing assignments was for the record of corpses returned from Jonestown, Guyana, after what has since been billed as a mass suicide by a bizarre religious sect led by an American …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / February 2nd, 2020
President Maduro speaks to a massive crowd at Miraflores Palace on the anniversary of a failed Guaido coup (From Orinoco Tribune)
Juan Guaidó proclaimed himself the president of Venezuela a year ago but despite multiple coup attempts, he never took power and his support there rapidly disappeared. Now, with his foreign tour concluding, Guaidó’s support is shrinking around the world as well. Rather than looking presidential, he appears clownish. Rather than developing new plans to try to topple President Maduro, he is left without any concrete promises from European governments, …
Continuously, discussions focusing on degraded ecosystems and tipping points forcing climate change to ramp up to chaos many times center around the “C” word.
Not “c” as in “cancer.”
“Capitalism is destroying the planet,” said Pat DeLaquil, an energy policy expert working with various governments, NGO’s and the private sector to “help achieve economic development and combating climate change.”
He was one speaker in a two-guest gig at the Newport Library on January 27 as part of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby and 350 Oregon Central Coast.
The other person presenting is director of a plastics to road …
January 30, RCMP attempted to enter the Gidimt’en supply and monitoring post, attempting to walk in to our camp which is outside of the injunction area. Police have undertaken a daily harassment and surveillance campaign against our supporters, and have even threatened to arrest those monitoring the road. While RCMP have publicly stated they will stand down for 7 days while our Chiefs speak with the Province of British Columbia, they continue to harass and threaten us daily.
In 2012 Barack Obama was reelected following the disastrous US-led war on Libya that he began without approval from Congress, and two years after the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, without trial, inside a sovereign nation. In 2011 Obama also came out with this progressive chestnut: “Unlike the old empires, we don’t make these sacrifices for territory or for resources. We do it because it’s right.” Violence helps gets you reelected.
Reflecting on this history, the hope of a renewed antiwar movement …
The global socio-economic context here is that the United Nations, influenced by global finance tied to large pharmaceutical interests, has installed …
Iran’s Islamic Revolution remains as bellwether, even though attempts to emulate it have not yet succeeded.
— Journalist Eric Walberg ((Eric Walberg, Islamic Resistance to Imperialism (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2015), 277.))
In number theory, 41 is a prime number meaning it is not divisible by any number except itself and one. Similarly, the Islamic Revolution in Iran so far has been unique in its success and indivisible unity of purpose, despite numerous attempts at sabotage by external and internal actors. At this prime age of 41, Iran is fully capable …
Tim Anderson’s Axis of Resistance: Towards an Independent Middle East takes on the leftist position of ‘a plague on all your houses’. Yassin Al-Haj Saleh, ‘the intellectual voice of the Syrian revolution’ (for westerners), presents a bleak portrait of “three monsters … treading on Syria’s corpse”: (1) the Assad regime and its allies, (2) DAESH/ISIS and the other jihadists, and (3) the West (the USA, UK, France, etc). This is the general view from outside the Syrian cauldron, but leads nowhere.
Is Israel US property? In many ways, yes. Despite its willful ways, Israel is always pushing the envelope with the US. It has been getting away with murder since it was founded, abetted and funded by the US. But the US has failed, and Jared Kushner is the perfect envoy for this latest ultimatum, crafted by Netanyahu for his buddy Donald and his Orthodox Jewish son-in-law.
The Arab puppet regimes are either silent (UAE, Bahrain, Oman) or more ‘urging to negotiate’ (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar). The Palestinians are being told: …
by The Real News Network (TRNN) / January 31st, 2020
For example: Teams with racist names; only three Black coaches when 70% of players are Black; players like Colin Kaepernick are sidelined for life; billionaire owners who support Trump; and players who are treated like meat to be bought and sold.
It is another one of those contests and disagreements where the contestants should all loose, or at the very least, be subjected to a torturous stalemate. Hillary Clinton remains the nasty sprinkle on the Democratic Party in the United States, ever hopeful that some door might open to enable her to come sliding in, taking the reins to what she regards as her possession: the White House.
Not winning in 2016 against Donald Trump, a person considered less electable than most cartoon characters, requires more than sessions of therapy and good dozes of mind numbing medication. Clinton’s therapy has been one …
Public law and private law are separate spheres of law that operate according to different standards and relationships. ((Public and private, it should be noted, are antonyms.))
Private law governs relations between private citizens, whereas public law governs relations between individuals and the state. This distinction is critical. Private law does not concern society as a whole; public law does.
Private law includes tort law, contract law, commercial law, and property law. Public law encompasses constitutional law, administrative law, criminal law, tax law, and municipal law.
Public schools fall under public law and are considered to be government enterprises, i.e., agencies of the …
In a positive appeal to the Chinese people last Saturday, President Xi Jinping has called on the nation’s courage to defeat the deadly epidemic which has already claimed more than 80 lives and more than 2,000 infected worldwide, the vast majority in China. These figures are changing fast, as the spread of the epidemic is accelerating. President Xi warned that the situation was serious, but not unsurmountable.
“As long as we have steadfast confidence, work together, [rely on] scientific prevention and cures, and precise policies, we will definitely be able to win the battle,” President Xi told a politburo meeting, according to …
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
— Article 1. The Genocide Convention
On November 11, 2019 The Gambia filed at the International Court of Justice an Application of proceedings against Myanmar, which alleged violations of the Genocide Convention committed by Myanmar against the Rohingya people. ((“Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar) – Verbatim Record.” December 10, 2019. Public Sitting. The International Court of Justice.)) January 23, …
Review of Michael Shermer's book Giving the Devil His Due: Reflections of a Scientific Humanist
by Robert Hunziker / January 30th, 2020
Michael Shermer’s Giving the Devil His Due: Reflections of a Scientific Humanist ((Cambridge University Press, 2020.)) is a very special book written for people that actually spend time “thinking.” Geez, come to think of it, that’s kinda special in and of itself, “people thinking about things.” It’s especially true because nowadays society is geared to the opposite of deep thinking. Rather, in today’s world quick reflexes atuned to electrical whims rule the day. People increasingly react to impulses, not deep thought, as buttons/apps are pushed to communicate across …
There are obviously some serious linguistic issues and disagreements between the West and the rest of the world. Essential terms like “freedom”, “democracy”, “liberation”, even “terrorism”, are all mixed up and confused; they mean something absolutely different in New York, London, Berlin, and in the rest of the world.
Before we begin analyzing, let us recall that countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the United States, as well as other Western nations, have been spreading colonialist terror to basically all corners of the world. And in the process, they developed effective terminology and propaganda which has been justifying, …
The proposal deliberately includes a host of unrealisable preconditions before what remains of Palestine can be recognised
by Jonathan Cook / January 30th, 2020
Much of Donald Trump’s long-trailed “deal of the century” came as no surprise. Over the past 18 months, Israeli officials had leaked many of its details.
The so-called Vision for Peace unveiled on Tuesday simply confirmed that the US government has publicly adopted the long-running consensus in Israel: that it is entitled to keep permanently the swaths of territory it seized illegally over the past half-century that deny the Palestinians any hope of a state.
The White House has discarded the traditional US pose as an “honest broker” between Israel and the Palestinians. Palestinian leaders were not invited to the ceremony, and …
The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election Year finds me ensconced in Tucson, Arizona. This is definitely not Trump country. Our man in The U.S. House of Representatives is Raul Grijalva, possibly one of the most influential liberals in D.C. Tucson’s newly-elected mayor is Regina Romero, a Latina leftie who doesn’t shrink from the task of taking on every conceivable social issue. And I have begun attending what might just be the most influential church in the U.S.A. when it comes to actually DOING the work of Jesus Christ, and not just chatting about it: Southside Presbyterian, where the Sanctuary Movement began, …
A David vs. Goliath battle between the independent Virginia-based online journal Consortium News and the gigantic Security Communications Establishment of Canada has begun this week. As Consortium News’ Editor-in-Chief, Joe Lauria wrote in his recent press release:
Consortium News has sent libel notices to the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), Canada’s version of the US National Security Agency, and to a major Canadian television network, Global News, for a report that said Consortium News was “part of a cyber-influence campaign directed by Russia.”
One of George Carlin’s great lines said with apropos satirical condemnation was “Nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.” And what Carlin was speaking to was the ills of socioeconomic power, but when it comes to drastically dismantling the majority of the planetary ecology in under forty years his line is an even more salient observation of the mental state of the masses. This statement gives rise to a question that seems more pertinent than ever to ask the people of America, and the world over for that matter, the same basic question Marvin …
As predictable as death and taxes is the quadrennial injunction from liberals for progressive third parties to cease and desist. Equally predictable is the admonition that this will be the most decisive presidential election in US history. Given the prospect of four more years of Trump, do they have a valid thesis or are they once again just sheep-dogging those of little faith back into the true church of the Democratic Party?
Prominent left-liberals Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher, Leslie Cagan, Ron Daniels, Kathy Kelly, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters and Michael Albert issued an Open Letter entreating third parties …
On August 12, 1945, six days after the U.S. government obliterated the city of Hiroshima with a single atomic bomb, Robert Hutchins, the president of the University of Chicago, delivered a remarkable public address. Speaking on his weekly radio program, the Chicago Roundtable, Hutchins observed that Leon Bloy, a French philosopher, had referred to “the good news of damnation” under the assumption that only the fear of perpetual hellfire would motivate moral behavior. “It may be,” Hutchins remarked, “that the atomic bomb is the good news of damnation, …
Massive natural gas discoveries off the eastern coast of Israel and Palestine is slated to make Tel Aviv a regional energy hub. Whether Israel will be able to translate positive indicators of the largely untapped gas reserves into actual economic and strategic wealth is yet to be seen.
What is certain, however, is that the Middle East is already in the throes of a major geostrategic war, which has the potential of becoming an actual military confrontation.
Unsurprisingly, Israel is at the heart of this growing conflict.
“Last week, we started to stream gas to Egypt. We turned Israel into an energy superpower,” …
Sixteen years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, most Americans understand that it was an illegal war based on lies about non-existent “weapons of mass destruction.” But our government is now threatening to drag us into a war on Iran with a nearly identical “big lie” about a non-existent nuclear weapons program, based on politicized intelligence from the same CIA teams that wove a web of lies to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In 2002-3, U.S. officials and corporate media pundits repeated again and again that Iraq had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction that posed a dire threat to the world. The CIA produced reams of false intelligence to support the march to war, and cherry-picked the …
I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I’m a little worried about Donald Trump. I’m worried he may be on the verge of a sudden, major heart attack, or a stroke, or a fatal golfing accident.
Food poisoning is another possibility. Or he could overdose on prescription medication. A tanning bed mishap is not out of the question.
He could accidentally hang himself during autoerotic asphyxiation, or get shot by a lone-wolf white supremacist terrorist trying to start the RaHoWa. The Russians could spray him with that Novichok perfume.
