Syrian Refugees Should Not Be Used as Political Pawns
by Ramzy Baroud / March 18th, 2020
In a surprising move, Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, announced on February 29 that he will be re-opening his country’s border to Europe, thus allowing tens of thousands of mostly Syrian refugees into Greece and other European countries.
Expectedly, over 100,000 people rushed to the Ipsala border point in the Edirne province separating Turkey from Greece, hoping to make it through the once-porous border.
Even though, initially, the sea route was not opened for the refugees, many attempted to brave the sea, anyway, using small fishing boats and dinghies. A …
If you are a saver in a money market account or in a bank, you’ve already noticed your dwindling interest income as interest rates have been at their lowest in modern American history. Well, brace yourself. Your saving account has just become little more than a lock box, thanks to the supreme dictatorship of the Federal Reserve.
On Sunday, March 15, the Federal Reserve announced that it would cut interest rates to “near zero.”
After ignoring the largely unproductive spiral in corporate debt, now a staggering $9.3 trillion, the risk of …
For the purposes of preserving any status quo in the present day United States, nothing surpasses a strategy of any question or issue ‘cultural.’ This has the immediate effect of splitting even slight difference of opinion into hostile camps and deliberately provokes absolutist, visceral responses. Such exchanges, particularly in the sewer of social media or cable news shows fiercely competing with each other as much of this as can by squeezing as much as this as possible into a given timeslot, provoke further tribal response and so it goes until we have things like ‘Red States vs Blue States’, the …
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / March 18th, 2020
While the world is consumed with the terrifying coronavirus pandemic, on March 19 the Trump administration will be marking the 17th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq by ramping up the conflict there. After an Iran-aligned militia allegedly struck a U.S. base near Baghdad on March 11, the U.S. military carried out retaliatory strikes against five of the militia’s weapons factories and announced it is sending two more aircraft carriers to the region, as well as new Patriot missile systems and hundreds more troops to operate them. …
Epidemiologist William Hanage was more than perplexed by the plan. “When I heard about Britain’s ‘herd immunity’ coronavirus plan,” he reflected in The Guardian, “I thought it was satire.” Much public policy, foolishly considered and expertly bungled, tends to succumb to satire; having Prime Minister Boris Johnson leading the show provides an even better chance of that happening.
Herd immunity, as a policy, would involve easing off risk and preventive measures, allowing what would effectively be a mass infection, and focusing on recovery from younger members of the populace. Doing so would provide the assurance of immunity to prevent the …
Cuban Medical Brigade (Photo by Bill Hackwell)
Some years ago I was talking to a Cuban doctor about what a remarkable achievement it was that Cuba was able to eliminate Malaria in 1973. He took the discussion in stride and said that it didn’t mean much until we eradicate Malaria in the entire world.
Today Cuba is proving once again that their view of health and battling diseases is one that is global in scope and despite living under the unilateral 60 year old US blockade, with additional sanctions …
On 12 May 1996, Lesley Stahl, moderator for the US TV show “60 Minutes” interviewed former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Stahl: “We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Albright: We think the price is worth it.
The “price” was US sanctions imposed on Iraq under colour of a UN Security Council Resolution, the effect of which was to deny Iraq access to basic medical supplies. Of course, the death toll in Iraq was not confined to the denial of medical …
Protester’s sign decries sanctions, “a silent war” (Photo Credit: Campaign for Peace and Democracy, 2013)
U.S. sanctions against Iran, cruelly strengthened in March of 2018, continue a collective punishment of extremely vulnerable people. Presently, the U.S. “maximum pressure” policy severely undermines Iranian efforts to cope with the ravages of COVID-19, causing hardship and tragedy while contributing to the global spread of the pandemic. On March 12, 2020, Iran’s Foreign Minister Jawad Zarif urged member states of the UN to end the United States’ unconscionable and lethal economic warfare.
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / March 17th, 2020
The coronavirus epidemic is creating an ongoing teachable moment that could be used to transform the US economy. COVID-19 and the oil war are triggers leading to a recession that has its roots in record corporate and personal debt, longterm low wages and an artificially-inflated stockmarket. The shortcomings of US economic policy, the healthcare system, and workers’ rights are being magnified by the current crisis.
These days, local is global. Dorset is a small rural county on England’s south coast. That doesn’t mean that its inhabitants aren’t worried about climate change. They are. Very. Unfortunately, Dorset Councillors are more concerned about following government policies, policies that back using public money to invest in climate-damaging projects. ‘Global’ doesn’t do ‘local’. Global makes money for corporations and their investors, not the people who have to live with the result.
Sometimes it takes a threat to our own neighbourhood, our own county or country, before we wake up to what is happening across the world. It will take food …
WORLD / COUNTRIES / CHINA
Last updated: March 17, 2020, 14:20 GMT
China
Coronavirus Cases: 80,881
Deaths: 3,226
Recovered: 68,715
ACTIVE CASES
8,940 Currently Infected Patients
5,714 (64%) in Mild Condition
3,226 (36%) Serious or Critical
Total Coronavirus Cases in China:
Jan 22 near 0
Feb 11 50K
Feb 12 60K
Feb 15 70K
Feb 27 80K
Mar 13 80K
That’s 0 to 50K in 20 days, and in only 16 more days there was a stable total of 80K …
What do zombies have to do with the U.S. government’s plans for dealing with a coronavirus outbreak?
Read on, and I’ll tell you.
The zombie narrative was popularized by the hit television seriesThe Walking Dead, in which a small group of Americans attempt to survive in a zombie-ridden, post-apocalyptic world where they’re not only fighting off flesh-eating ghouls but cannibalistic humans.
Understandably, zombie fiction plays to our fears and paranoia, while allowing us to “envision how we and our own would thrive if everything went to hell and we lost all our societal supports.” Yet as journalist Syreeta McFadden points out, …
It is often said that government budgets are “an expression of values.” Those values are clear in the Trump administration’s $4.8 trillion budget proposal for 2021, unveiled early this February.
The budget calls for deep cuts in major U.S. government programs, especially those protecting public health. The Department of Health and Human Services would be slashed by 10 percent, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has already been proven to be underfunded and unprepared to deal with the coronavirus outbreak, would be cut by 9 percent. Spending on Medicaid, which currently insures healthcare for one …
It threatened to disappear under the viral haze of COVID-19, but February 29 saw representatives from the US and Taliban, loftily acknowledged as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, sign the “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan”. After two decades of conflict, the agreement sets in motion the process that should see American troops leave Afghanistan within 14 months. Initially, 8,600 troops will leave over a 135-day period; the balance is set to do so after 9 months.
The Doha ceremony was attended by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Taliban deputy leader Mullah Baradar, a person said by former …
Having postponed his own trial for two months, Prime Minister Netanyahu may have left his rival with no option but to accept an offer to form a unity government
by Jonathan Cook / March 16th, 2020
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s caretaker prime minister, is preparing to squeeze every last drop of personal advantage from a local and global crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. He has needed to move fast.
Following this month’s election, Netantyahu’s efforts to establish a governing coalition appeared to have been thwarted yet again – for the third time in a year of elections. His ultra-nationalist bloc fell short by just three seats of winning a majority in the Israeli parliament.
And looming large has been his trial for corruption, which was due to start on Tuesday. His main opponent, former general Benny Gantz of …
“I am a Zionist. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist,” current Democratic Presidential candidate, Joe Biden, said in April 2007, soon before he was chosen to be Barack Obama’s running mate in the 2008 elections.
Biden is, of course, correct, because Zionism is a political movement that is rooted in 20th century nationalism and fascism. Its use of religious dogmas is prompted by political expediency, not spirituality or faith.
Unlike US President, Donald Trump, or Bernie Sanders, Biden’s only serious opponent in the Democratic primaries, Biden’s stand on Israel is rarely examined.
Despite the sustained exposure of endless problems in the segregated charter school sector, charter school promoters are permanently stuck in “blindly repeat disinformation” mode and cannot seem to understand what is happening to them. Their social being and social consciousness objectively prevent them from grasping why the public increasingly opposes charter schools.
The most recent and significant epicenter of the charter school saga is Pennsylvania, where all kinds of changes or expected changes are coming to that state’s charter schools. And charter school promoters are not happy. They do not like accountability or the thought of losing billions of dollars in …
A funny thing happened on the way to remote Central Asia following the events of 9/11. The militarists who spawned this modern “crusade,” the invasion of Afghanistan, decided to call it “Operation Infinite Justice.” Unfortunately for the philosophers at the Pentagon and their neo-con-liberal friends, this initial title was a resounding failure; further, it was also a telling mis-step foreshadowing the unspectacular disaster that this conflict would soon become and, to this very day, remains, as the third Afghan War administration now considers the Taliban to be legitimate international negotiating partners, just like in the pre-9/11 Clinton era.
Capitalism gathered together resources, labor, and capital to start an industrial revolution that brought prosperity and elevated standards of living to much of the earth’s inhabitants. Once in motion it generated additional capital that gathered more labor and more resources in a perpetual cycle of increased production that constantly benefitted populations. The achievements did not occur smoothly, they sputtered from periodic recessions that solicited government policies to recharge the system.
Soviet style socialism did not wait for a capitalism to provide capital formation, industrial development, allocation of resources and prosperity, including housing and luxuries for much of the population. The Soviets …
One of the slogans I learned in an earlier, albeit brief, phase of my life was called the 5 Ps: “Prior planning prevents poor performance.”
While it is true that planning, which by definition is somehow prior, can improve performance of any task, like all such slogans there is much tautology. Planning can define performance in such a way that it cannot be “poor.” On the other hand, performance can be judged “poor” simply because it does not conform to the plan.
(Image: Wikimedia Commons)
The over 1000 point plunge of the stock market on February 27th and broader ruptures of the financial system last week have been yet another wake-up call for those who have been contented so far to “live in the moment” of fast money.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, which is considered the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, many have not been able to go back to sleep after such a lucid nightmare. Some have chosen the path of stocking up …
The coronavirus panic has resulted in hordes of people running after toilet paper. Such actions are the flip side of running with the bulls, except that I suspect those who run with the bulls have some sense of why they do it. I imagine the thrill is a bit different, even if the goal is similar.
The overriding narratives of every society are composed of myths and symbols. Societies operate within controlling mythic symbol systems whose primary purpose is to allow people to move through their lives on automatic pilot, believing they are safe from death and chaos in the arms …
It takes only a cursory scanning of what counts as journalistic product in the significant mass media to see that whereas it may be impossible to keep public hospitals sterile, what passes for news and public debate is beyond normal standards of sterility—it is clearly a vacuum. We can largely discount the alternative media—including where I have been able to post—because this is NOT what feeds the public debate or motivates public action, whether official or unofficial. At the risk of incurring wrath among readers and some sympathetic friends I have insisted that first climate hysteria and now virus hysteria …
American ‘news’-media present a very distorted view of America’s international relations. For example, consider this:
We discussed the executive order [banning Iraqis from coming to U.S.], and their displeasure in this executive order, why they feel like they’ve been betrayed by the United States, and … I asked a simple question: As an American if I went out into the town right now, would I be welcomed? And they answered absolutely not, you would not be welcomed. And I said, what would happen? And they said, the locals would snatch me up and kill me within an hour. I’d be tortured …
I was only introduced to the term ‘Chilestinians’ last February at a conference in Istanbul, during a presentation by the Director of the Palestinian Federation of Chile, Anuar Majluf.
When Majluf referred to the well-rooted Palestinian community in Chile, who number between 450,000 and half a million, using that unfamiliar and peculiar phrase, I smiled. Others did, too.
It is quite rare that a conference on Palestine, anywhere, would include such an upbeat atmosphere as that introduced by the Chilean-Palestinian leader, as the current discourse on Palestine is one that is saturated with a deepening sense of political failure, disunity and betrayal.
Frankly and in summary: recently The United States of America has crossed several lines, committing atrocities, in many parts of the world. In the past, no country could get away with this; such situations would inevitably lead to war.
Presently, war is “avoided” only because the world is too frightened of Washington and its mafia-style deeds. Countries on all continents are accepting the lawlessness and thuggery of Washington and the allies; bitterly, but accepting. If ordered, many of them have been falling on their knees, begging for mercy. If hit hard, they have lost the courage and strength to hit back.
If the Bill of Rights contains no guarantee that a citizen shall be secure against lethal poisons distributed whether by private individuals or by public officials, it is surely only because our forefathers, despite their considerable wisdom and foresight, could conceive of no such problem.
— Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring
One might think running across a 78-year-old woman living in a cabin on 20 acres near Five Rivers is not unusual. Add to the biography: this activist’s menagerie of a Patagonia parrot; Archie the cockatiel; Patience, a blue-footed Amazon; two Sicilian donkeys, one of which is named Oakie; 25 …
“Condemnation before investigation is the height of ignorance” — widely attributed to Albert Einstein, but whoever the author was had it right. [William Paley — DV Ed]
A peer-reviewed journal, Alternatives, recently published an article, “9/11 Truth and the Silence of the IR Discipline,” by David Hughes, a faculty member at the University of Lincoln in the UK. The article is very well written and may be the single best succinct summation of 9/11 history available. “IR” refers to the academic study of international relations, so the …
As I listened to some Trump Administration crony recently drone on about “American democracy” I recalled with sarcastic irony President Obama in Cuba lecturing Raul Castro on democracy. At the same time Republican officials in the State of Arizona and several other states were working to block as much citizen access to the voting booth as possible. There is nothing new here. When it comes to promoting “democracy” around the world the United States Government has a pretty dreadful record. Our role in assisting the overthrow of elected governments is on-going. Be it Iran in 1953 to Honduras under Obama …
Not satisfied with Canada’s largest public relations machine, the Canadian Forces also employ various “arm’s-length” institutions to push their influence over the discussion of military and international affairs.
For example, the Conference of Defence Associations (CDA) Institute recently published a half-page ad in the Globe and Mail to announce its Conference on Security and Defence. The March 3 and 4 meeting at the venerable Château Laurier was sponsored by the Department of National Defence (DND) and Global Affairs as well as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and other arms companies. As in previous years, CDA’s confab in Ottawa drew leading military and political …
