It was only a matter of time before the anti-Muslim sentiment in India turned violent.
A country that has historically prided itself on its diversity and tolerance, and for being ‘the largest democracy in the world’ has, in recent years, exhibited the exact opposite qualities – chauvinism, racism, religious intolerance, and, at times, extreme violence.
The latest round of violence ensued on February 23, one day before US President Donald Trump arrived in Delhi on his first official visit to India.
Trump is a beloved figure among Hindu nationalists, especially supporters of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has ruled …
You can almost smell the fear-laden sweat oozing from the pores of television broadcasts and social media posts as it finally dawns on our political and media establishments what the coronavirus actually means. And I am not talking about the threat posed to our health.
A worldview that has crowded out all other thinking for nearly two generations is coming crashing down. It has no answers to our current predicament. There is a kind of tragic karma to the fact that so many major countries – meaning major economies – are today run by the very men least equipped ideologically, emotionally …
After the warlord period of 15th century, Japan was united by a few families and then by a shogun family. The period is called the Edo period. They disarmed civilians and established a mild caste system. The country was closed except for a few ports controlled by the central government, travel restrictions were put in place and certain technological developments were prohibited. The Edo period also had an interesting feature called sankinkoutai. It forced regional leaders to march across the country in formal costumes along with their armies in order to alternate their residences between their home …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / March 25th, 2020
We’ve been writing for a while that the 2020’s would be a decade when multiple crises would come to a head and we would have an opportunity for major transformations if we were organized to mobilize and demand them. The current coronavirus pandemic, economic collapse, and falling oil prices are three events that are creating such opportunities. Each crisis shows the glaring shortcomings of healthcare, economic and environmental policies that are failing the people and planet. Nobody could have predicted that the crises would happen so quickly, but here we are.
General Smedley Butler and the ‘Wall Street Putsch’ Revisited
by Matthew J.L. Ehret / March 25th, 2020
The upcoming American elections are just around the corner and everyone is wondering if the new president will be named Trump, Biden, Sanders or none of the above.
I can hear the incredulous reader exclaim: Wait, what does “none of the above” mean?? It’s certainly going to be one of those three, isn’t it??
It is often too easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees and in the opinion-packed world of endless talking head commentaries, every leaf and branch is scrutinized by professional opinionators so closely that many forget that the entire forest is on fire. As I’ve written …
You can always count on the government to take advantage of a crisis, legitimate or manufactured.
This coronavirus pandemic is no exception.
Not only are the federal and state governments unraveling the constitutional fabric of the nation with lockdown mandates that are sending the economy into a tailspin and wreaking havoc with our liberties, but they are also rendering the citizenry fully dependent on the government for financial handouts, medical intervention, protection and sustenance.
Unless we find some way to rein in the government’s power grabs, the fall-out will be epic.
Everything I have warned about for years—government overreach, invasive surveillance, martial law, abuse …
A few years ago I wrote a piece for Labor Day suggesting that it become a “do-nothing day.” It was a bit satirical but, of course, had a serious point as satire does. I had little hope that my recommendation would be adopted. Now that we are suffering from coronavirus panic and people are being told to shelter in their homes, many are no doubt suffering withdrawal symptoms from having to slow down. After all, how many cookies can you bake, television and movies watch, liquor drink, emails and texts send and receive, toilet paper rolls count, etc.?
Never discount the importance of venality in international relations. While pandemics should provide the glue for a unified front in response – we keep being told of fighting this horrendous “invisible enemy” – it’s business as usual in other respects. The United States, with a disparate, confused medical system that risks being overwhelmed, remains committed against that other country floundering in efforts to combat COVID-19: Iran. Instead of binding the nations, the virus, as with everything else, has served as a political obstacle.
This has led to a few glaring oddities. The first lies on the policy approach to US-led sanctions, …
A certain amount of despair is, well, healthy. But that fine line between using it as a motivator and that other type of the neutering kind, or the type of despair that pushes one over the edge into depression, it’s a matter of degree. And perspective.
Denial certainly staves off despair. The huge swath of Americans who are either MAGA crazed or believers in the democratic party line of war, neoliberalism, austerity, and the facilitators of the dog eat dog mentality that is capitalism under any level of American self-declared …
The Middle East region, battered by wars and adjoining humanitarian crises that have left millions of people stateless, hungry and diseased, is in urgent need for peace, security and reconstruction. Thanks to the US, Russian, French, Israeli and other weapons manufacturers, however, it is now the dumping ground for military hardware, an ominous sign for the years ahead.
Data released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on March 9, paints a grim picture of the world, in general, and the Middle East, in …
As people around the world are taking social distancing measures to keep their communities safe Coastal Gas Link and the RCMP continue to bring in workers from all over Canada during a pandemic putting both workers and entire northern communities with limited medical staff at grave risk.
At the same time the the oil and gas industry are mobilizing to get government bailouts as the crash in oil prices has made much of their production unprofitable and made the economics of projects like LNG Canada even more dubious.
Many investors have already pulled away from CGL, but KKR an American investment firm …
As the coronavirus spreads fast in the U.S., the Trump administration – instead of helping – is taking the blame game to a new level. An example is found in a recent editorial in The Daily Beast. Called “White House Pushes U.S. Officials to Criticize China for Coronavirus ‘Cover-Up,'” that piece should, hopefully, wake up the world…
Our fundamental responsibility is to protect the American people, the homeland, and the American way of life.
— National Security Strategy of the United States, 2017 (President Donald Trump)
The United States government has no greater responsibility than protecting the American people.
— National Security Strategy, 2015 (President Barack Obama)
At home our most important priority is to protect the homeland for the American people.
— The National Security Strategy of the United States of Americas, 2002 (President George W. Bush)
The United States’ National Security Strategy is based on foundational Instruments of National Power (INP). The INP consists of Diplomacy, Informational, Military, Economic, Financial, …
Humanity is faced with a series of self-made, interrelated crises, from the environmental catastrophe to poverty, inequality, the absence of peace and an unprecedented level of displaced persons, among other pressing issues. All have been brought about by the negative behaviour of mankind, by the pervasive modes of living, the corrosive values and ideologies that dominate all aspects of contemporary life.
The latest crisis is the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic and the potential resulting collapse of the world economy. It is a collective crisis the like of which we have never seen before. Whole populations are being forced to change behaviour, to …
In what is being called the worst financial crisis since 1929, the US stock market has lost a third of its value in the space of a month, wiping out all of its gains of the last three years. When the Federal Reserve tried to ride to the rescue, it only succeeded in making matters worse. The government then pulled out all the stops. To our staunchly capitalist leaders, socialism is suddenly looking good.
The financial crisis began in late February, when the World Health Organization announced that it was time to prepare for a global pandemic. The Russia-Saudi oil price …
During the 2019 State of the Union Address United States president Donald Trump promised, “America will never be a socialist country.” This was followed by GOP chants of “USA, USA, USA.”
Donald Trump affirmed his antipathy of socialism during the 2020 State of the Union Address stating, “Socialism destroys nations.” This was followed by applause from the politicians present.
Apparently being totally in the dark about the contagiousness of COVID-19, Trump also promised during the 2020 SOTU: “To those watching at home tonight, I want you to know: We will never let socialism destroy American health care.”
On March 11th, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared the ongoing outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to be a global pandemic, the first since the H1N1 swine flu in 2009. Initially reported in the city of Wuhan in Central China in December, just four months later there are now over 150,000 cases in more than 130 countries which has put many on total lockdown while the world economy has been brought to a virtual standstill. While the People’s Republic of China was the first country to report COVID-19, there has been a widespread presumption that the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) …
Two categories of propaganda must be distinguished. The first strives to create a permanent disposition in its objects and constantly needs to be reinforced. Its goal is to make the masses ‘available,’ by working spells upon them and exercising a kind of fascination. The second category involves the creation of a sort of temporary impulsiveness in its objects. It operates by simple pressure and is often contradictory (since contradictory mass movements are sometimes necessary).
– Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, October 12, 1967
The French-Algerian writer Albert Camus’ great 1947 novel, The Plague, is a warning to us today, but a warning …
The coronavirus pandemic is sweeping the globe. There seems to be no way of containing it at this point, and health systems are struggling to keep up. The virus is exposing inadequacies in health systems all over the world, especially the U.S.’s abysmal health infrastructure. Health workers on the ground continue to provide care during the pandemic despite the severe lack of resources and dangers to their personal health. Photo: Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Coronavirus has officially hit the United States. Throughout the country, there have been …
Sun Yang is an Olympic Gold medalist and world record holding swimmer. He was recently ruled to be guilty of an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) and banned from competing for eight years. Unless his appeal to overturn the decision is successful, this will end the swimming career of the 28 year old athlete.
The decision was met with shock and anger among his many fans in China; glee and gloating by some western media and swimming competitors. What lies behind this important decision? Was it upholding ‘fair sport’ …
Lancet Editor Exposes Devastating Government Failure on Coronavirus
by Media Lens / March 20th, 2020
Over the last 20 years, we have documented some shocking examples of journalistic irresponsibility, but the tweet from ITV’s political editor Robert Peston on March 14 was something special. With China, South Korea, Italy, Spain and other countries in shutdown, lockdown and general medical meltdown, with the UK reeling from rising cases and deaths – with the elderly, in particular, facing a terrifying threat that had already claimed thousands of lives around the world – Peston tweeted:
A socialist electoral policy needs to take shape based on: (1) evaluations of the key players (Trump, the Republicans, the centrist Democrats, and the progressive Democrats); (2) social justice principles; and (3) appropriate strategy and tactics.
1st. Regarding the Republicans.
Almost all Republican politicians, some happily and others reluctantly, are overwhelmingly backing Trump as he persists in his bigoted rightwing populist demagoguery and his racist, xenophobic, misogynist, and other antisocial policies.
2nd. Regarding the Democrats
Responding to widespread popular discontent, the few social-liberal reformer politicians in …
One of the major concerns about COVID-19 in northern Italy after concern for the physically infirm and elderly is the impact treating patients will have on the healthcare system. The healthcare system in many northern Italian regions is already at a breaking point as within the first twenty days of the outbreak over 10,000 infections were reported with a current total of 41,035 coronavirus cases [19 March, Coronavirus Cases]. An uptick of cases is expected despite the curbs which were enacted on 23 February in the north of the country followed by a harsher regime around …
Amidst the current hysteria of the covid-19 pandemic, talk of general chaos and economic collapse have taken the forefront of peoples’ minds.
Increasingly over recent months, western media has been hit with warnings of “financial Armageddon” and the need for a “global hegemonic synthetic currency” to replace the collapsing US dollar under a new system of green finance. These statements have been made by former and current Bank of England Governors Mark Carney and Mervyn King respectively and should not be ignored as the world sits atop the largest financial bubble in human history reminiscent of the 1929 bubble …
Part 1. More of the Same Old Failed Electoral Policy
by Charles Pierce / March 19th, 2020
The broad left has been uniting behind the Democratic Party for the past four decades without having achieved much real progress for its base constituencies. In fact, there has been considerable regress: increased inequality of wealth and income, diminished collective bargaining, increased homeless numbers, rising student debt burdens, reduced abortion access, increasingly unaffordable costs of healthcare, mass incarceration, new cold wars, new arms race, and so forth. Longstanding abuses against the vulnerable remain, including: impunity for police violence; and abuses in the criminal justice system targeted against the poor …
The rush to elevate self-isolation to Olympian heights as a way to combat the spread of COVID-19 has gotten to the celebrities. Sports figures are proudly tweeting and taking pictures from hotel rooms (Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton being a case in point). Comics are doing their shows from home. Thespians are extolling the merits of such isolation and the dangers of the contagion. All speak from the summit of comfort, the podium of pampered wealth: embrace social distancing; embrace self-isolation. Bonds of imagined solidarity are forged. If we can do it, so can you.
So much is changing so fast, by the time I publish this piece, it will likely sound very yesterday very soon. But particularly now, there seem to be some salient points worth making, and a few recent moments worth recounting.
Over the past several weeks — which up until Sunday morning included a visit to Australia, which I cut short in order to return to the US — I have been following a wide spectrum of news from many different countries, largely while …
Let’s try a little thought experiment. Just for fun. To pass the time while we’re indefinitely locked down inside our homes, compulsively checking the Covid-19 “active cases” and “total death” count, washing our hands every twenty minutes, and attempting not to touch our faces.
Before we do, though, I want to make it clear that I believe this Covid-19 thing is real, and is probably the deadliest threat to humanity in the history of deadly threats to humanity. According to the data I’ve been seeing, it’s only a matter of days, or hours, until nearly everyone on earth is infected and …
A recent landmark study of massive ice loss in Antarctica and Greenland fulfills the “worst case” prognosis, as outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It’s a nightmare come true, as the impact of global warming on the planet’s most significant/biggest masses of ice multiplied six-fold in only 30 years. It wasn’t supposed to happen so unexpectedly, so suddenly.
Studies in the journal Nature conducted by an international team consisting of 89 climatologists reveals an unprecedented rate of ice melt at the planet’s greatest ice masses. They assessed ice loss data from 11 satellites that monitored both Greenland and …
If a disease can teach wisdom beyond our understanding of how precarious and precious life is, the coronavirus has offered two lessons.
The first is that in a globalised world our lives are so intertwined that the idea of viewing ourselves as islands – whether as individuals, communities, nations, or a uniquely privileged species – should be understood as evidence of false consciousness. In truth, we were always bound together, part of a miraculous web of life on our planet and, beyond it, stardust in an unfathomably large and complex universe.
It is only an arrogance cultivated in us by those narcissists …
