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Domestic policies aside, America has often billed itself as a promoter of freedom globally. But what’s its foreign policy record in recent years?

https://youtu.be/BhwGiit8N1g

A parliament of tears, or at the very least, a chamber of parliamentarians keen to shed tears.  It all seemed that a feeling of genuine empathy was streaming forth in Australia’s national capital in February.  A mother, Hannah Clarke, and her three children (reciting their names is now political ritual: Aaliyah, Laianah, Trey), had been killed by a former partner and their father.  The ingredients of cruelty, and their cataclysmic denouement, were there: incessant harassment, stalking, nursed thoughts of pre-meditative violence.  Then came the car, the incineration of Clarke and the children, and the perpetrator taking his own life.

How such …

I did not complete a journalism degree at university. I do not work for a professional news outlet, whether electronic, acoustic or print in format. I have always understood myself as a curious person, interested in public affairs or what ought to be public, and with a desire and some ability to write both to my friends and to the public at large.

However, I have written and edited periodical publications. I attended workshops and seminars designated as journalism courses. I was briefly recorded as a journalism major at my university. But I do not hesitate to say that was because …

The devastating effects of neoliberal economic schemes have laid the foundation for rebellion against this very system. Neoliberalism, understood as unrestricted free market economics can be traced to the sixteenth-century European colonization of the “new world” and its later manifestation in imperialism and neo-imperialism. This strategy has also fueled the industrial revolution until it met its fate with the Great Depression. The New Deal policies of the Roosevelt administration in the 1930s provided a temporary reprieve, but ultimately failed to secure a permanent solution to market failure. The proof of this vulnerability is made clear in the Great Recession some …

There is something profoundly offensive about this declaration and, worse, there is something profoundly insufferable about the sentiments and beliefs behind it.

First of all, it is a matter of extreme white privilege to be able to “Vote Blue No Matter Who!”  What this says is that anyone that appears on the ballot as the Presidential challenger to Donald Trump is better than Donald Trump.  Anyone.  What this means is that if _______ (fill in the blank) wins/won the Democratic nomination, well, it wouldn’t matter what his/her policies are, what his/her age is, what his/her mental acuity is, or their voting …

This week, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), Saudi Arabia’s 34-year-old de facto ruler, was on a tear. He arrested members of his own royal family and initiated an oil price war with Russia that has sent the price of oil—and the world’s stock markets—plummeting. Behind the headlines, however, another critical event will take place in Saudi Arabia starting March 18: women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul, who was arrested almost two years ago for advocating the right to drive, …

When the World Health Organization announced on February 24th that it was time to prepare for a global pandemic, the stock market plummeted. Over the following week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by more than 3,500 points or over 10%. In an attempt to contain the damage, on March 3rd the Federal Reserve slashed the fed funds rate from 1.5% to 1.0%, in their first emergency rate move and biggest one-time cut since the 2008 financial crisis. But rather than reassuring investors, the move fueled another panic sell-off.

Exasperated commentators on CNBC wondered what the Fed was thinking. They …

This week, the markets took a 1000 point hit which was more than a little startling for many investors since the last 1000 point fall only happened three days prior… all in all bringing the financial markets to lows not seen since April 2008, and veering dangerously close to a precipice which has 1929 written all over it. Across the internet, panicky discussion has erupted over whether this foretells another 1987 collapse as Donald Trump warned, or something more akin to Black Tuesday of 1929. Others have pondered whether this is more similar to a 1923 Weimar hyperinflation where …

In 2016, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called for a moratorium on new charter schools, citing many problems with these privatized schools, including poor performance, extensive waste, widespread segregation, and inadequate accountability.

Oversight, transparency, accountability, and good governance have never been the strong suits of charter schools or charter school authorizers. Both have been poor stewards of the public interest for more than a generation.

A new report confirms what many already know about chronically poor oversight in the segregated charter school sector.

The report, titled “Improving Oversight of Michigan Charter Schools and Their Authorizers,” was released …

The venerable professor Noam Chomsky continues to speak and write about human rights, equality, and improving the lot of the working class. But his concern focuses on the exigent: the survival of the human race. This is one of many reasons I appreciate Chomsky. I may differ, foolishly or not, with some of his conclusions, but I admire that Chomsky didn’t just slide into a cozy retirement away from the turmoil in the world. He is a warrior, a warrior for peace and social justice, who continues to fight …

It seemed an unlikely prospect.  The International Criminal Court has tended to find itself accused of chasing up the inhumane rogues of Africa rather than those from any other continent.  It has also been accused of having an overly burdensome machinery and lethargy more caught up with procedure than substance.  Critics fearing a behemoth snatching soldiers from the armed forces of various states could rest easy, at least in part.

Law tends to be a manifestation of power and international law, in particular, tends to be a manifestation of consensus.  And the powerful rarely give their consent in matters of …

Merely two weeks after Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, declared that the PA will suspend all ‘security coordination’ with Israel, Palestinian security forces in the West Bank killed unarmed teenager, Salah Zakareneh.

Zakareneh is not the first and, sadly, will not be the last Palestinian to be killed by the PA security forces, which in recent years have dramatically increased their oppressive tactics against any form of political dissent in Palestine.

The 17-year-old boy died soon after PA security was dispatched to the village of Qabatiya, south of Jenin, in the northern West Bank to allegedly confront a “military-style demonstration” that …

The Democratic presidential nomination race is a fascinating case study in how power works – not least, because the Democratic party leaders are visibly contriving to impose one candidate, Joe Biden, as the party’s nominee, even as it becomes clear that he is no longer mentally equipped to run a local table tennis club let alone the world’s most powerful nation.

Biden’s campaign is a reminder that power is indivisible. Donald Trump or Joe Biden for president – it doesn’t matter to the power-establishment. An egomaniacal man-child (Trump), representing the billionaires, or an elder suffering rapid neurological degeneration (Biden), representing the …

While navigating through today’s propaganda-heavy world of misinformation, spin and outright creative writing which appears to have replaced conventional journalism, it is most important that two qualities are active in the mind of any truth-seeker. The first quality is the adherence to a strong top down perspective, both historic and global. This is vital in order to guide us as a sort of compass or North Star used by sailors navigating across the ocean. The second quality is a strong power of logic, memory and discernment of wheat vs. chaff to process the mountains of data that slaps us in …

I have watched for the past couple months as Bernie Sanders has risen in the polls and then proceeded to do well in the first primary and caucuses as these people have done everything to try and kneecap his success. The amount of negative press about Sanders that has been pumped out by all of the mainstream “liberal” media during this period of time is truly breathtaking. They don’t make any effort whatsoever to disguise their biases which is really ironic when they have all been prescribing themselves as the necessary antidote to the alternate reality the Trump administration is …