by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / February 13th, 2020
UK protest against iraq war February 15, 2003. (Credit: Stop the War Coalition)
February 15 marks the day, 17 years ago, when global demonstrations against the pending Iraq invasion were so massive that the New York Times called world public opinion “the second superpower.” But the U.S. ignored it and invaded Iraq anyway. So what has become of the momentous hopes of that day?
The U.S. military has not won a war since 1945, unless you count recovering the tiny colonial outposts of Grenada, Panama and Kuwait, but there …
A negotiated solution to the ‘Palestinian-Israeli conflict’, at least the way envisaged by successive US administrations, has failed. Now, Palestinians and their allies would have to explore a whole new path of liberation that does not go through Washington.
It is easy to place all the blame on the current US administration, setting apart dodgy characters such as the President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as the man who has single-handedly diminished any real chances for a just peace in Palestine and Israel.
The truth, however, greatly differs from conveniently molded assumptions. The US-championed ‘peace process’ has been in a hiatus since the …
In Canada, armed forces raided native Wet’suwet’en territory in British Columbia Monday, with at least 14 arrests being reported. Land defenders faced off with Royal Canadian Mounted Police as the police breached two checkpoints set up to keep pipeline workers out of protected territory. Indigenous leaders are reportedly being blocked from their territory. TransCanada Corporation has been seeking entry into indigenous territory, where they are planning to build the massive $4.7 billion Coastal GasLink pipeline. Land protectors from First Nations clans set up two encampments where they had been physically blocking entry to TransCanada workers.
If there is one issue that denotes the terminal decline of Labour as a force for change – desperately needed social, economic and environmental change – it is not Brexit. It is the constant furore over an “antisemitism crisis” supposedly plaguing the party for the past five years.
The imminent departure of Jeremy Corbyn as leader will not end the damage that has been done to Labour by such claims. Soon Brexit will become a messy fait accompli. But the shadow of Labour’s so-called “antisemitism problem” will loom over it darkly for the foreseeable future, making sure that Corbyn’s successor dare …
Both Republicans and Democrats have blocked all attempts to build a rational, universal health care policy for the U.S. This is because capitalism prioritizes profit over the health and well-being of the working class. Creating a truly just health care system will require moving beyond capitalism.
by Michael Pappas / February 12th, 2020
On Tuesday, February 4, Donald Trump delivered his third State of the Union (SOTU) address. As expected, it was filled with contradictions, falsehoods, and distortions. Among other things, Trump spoke for close to ten minutes about health care in the U.S., claiming that he “will always protect Medicare.” However, neither Trump and the Republicans, nor the Democrats can be trusted when it comes to health care.
Just last week, for example, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump suggested he would think about cutting Medicare and Social …
It’s a thriving nation; Taiwan gets a lot of visitors for whom English is often a first or second language. As an aid to its travelers, translations are added to many public signs. Several years ago, I came across this helpful notice: “APPROACH INTIMATELY FOR CLEANLINESS AND DISCRETION.” It was in a Taipei subway station, posted above a row of restroom urinals. The English instructions were pretty clear in context, but could also, I mused, be suitably displayed behind the bar of a singles bistro. Translation happens.
I sometimes flash back to that notice when I hear testimonial to the will …
Steve Bannon, a former White House strategist and Breitbart editor, was finally kicked out of an Italian monastery, which even Newsweek wittily described as a “far-right boot camp”.
This author, along with a few others, has been warning for some time that the former Trump’s top advisor had crossed all lines, and began directly interfering in the internal affairs of the European Union, by promoting and amalgamizing dangerous extreme right-wing alliances of all natures; political, philosophical and religious. The monastery was supposed to offer “classes”, which Bannon described as “the kind of underpinnings of the Judeo-Christian West”.
If Chloe Eudaly can keep her seat, and Margot Black wins hers, we could have a pro-worker, pro-renter majority in the Portland City Council.
What is a city? I mean, what is a city for? That, of course, depends on who you ask. For most rich people, for real estate speculators and developers, cities are their main source of income. Cities are places where millions of people need housing, and housing is an investment you profit from …
Leaked documents from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) suggest that high-level officials manipulated or ignored the findings of those actually on the ground to investigate the alleged chemical attack that killed dozens of people in Douma, Syria in 2018. Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter shares his insights. He argues that the OPCW failed to maintain an adequate chain of custody when collecting evidence in Douma, relying instead on opposition-aligned White Helmets to gather it.
Canada is celebrating the agents of Palestinian misery.
Last month the Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv held an event to celebrate Canadians fighting in the Israeli military. They invited all 78 Canadians in the IDF to the ambassador’s residence to demonstrate their appreciation. Referring to non-Israelis who join the IDF, ambassador Deborah Lyons told the Jerusalem Post, “Canadian lone soldiers are a particularly special group … This is something we want to do on a yearly basis to show our support.” At the event Canada’s ambassador said, “we both share a love of Canada and a love of …
His broken body crushed into the soil so closely resembled a tiny green human, he gave me cause to reflect upon my dirty deed. Those dying remains matched perfectly the leaves of the newly planted Valencia Orange tree, upon which he had been happily feeding, only moments before the sole of my sandal abruptly ended his short life. Tiny legs still contracting in his final death throes, the three inch long grasshopper no longer posed a threat to my future orange crop. A wave of guilt and remorse swept over me, causing momentary nausea and light-headedness. Poor little guy was only doing …
PM Boris Johnson is planning to do a trade deal with the US that could see the gutting of food and environment standards. However, Johnson recently suggested that the UK will be “governed by …
As of now people in the Healing Center are safe and not being threatened with arrest, and the four brave land defenders from 44 were released today after spending the weekend in jail.
Rail lines continue to be blocked and people have poured into the streets, banks, and Government offices outraged by the RCMP’s arrest of Unist’ot’en Matriarchs and grotesque violation of Wet’suwet’en Law.
Indigenous Youth who have been occupying the ceremonial entrance to the BC Legislature with an encampment since Thursday are calling for people to join them as police action has been threatened in advance of John Horgan’s speech from …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / February 10th, 2020
The 21st Century nuclear arms and developing outer space arms races, which began under Obama and are increasing under Trump, are going to be something the world has never seen before. They are a bonanza for weapons makers, the Pentagon budget and capitalists in space. They will create a less secure world, a greater wealth divide, a tattered safety net and new, more dangerous forms of war.
Last week, the United States increased the risk of nuclear war by deploying “low yield” nukes. While this sounds friendlier than planet-killing “thermonuclear missiles,” …
For Israel’s so-called peace camp, the past 12 months of general elections – a third ballot is due on 2 March – have felt more like a prolonged game of Russian roulette, with ever-diminishing odds of survival.
Each time the electoral gun barrel has been spun, the two parliamentary parties associated with liberal Zionism, Labor and Meretz, have braced for their imminent political demise.
And now with Israel’s ultra-nationalist right celebrating the release of Donald Trump’s so-called “vision” for peace, hoping it will further rally the Israeli public to its side, the left fears electoral extinction even more.
Kuwait’s National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Ali Al-Ghanim throws US president Donald Trump Mideast peace plan in the dustbin during the 30th emergency conference of the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union (AIU) held in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
People need to see what the government of Canada is doing!
by Kim Petersen / February 8th, 2020
Over 20 #Wetsuweten and supporter vehicles have amassed at 27km mark, effectively blockading the exit route to RCMP paddy-wagons leaving the territory. They’re holding a ceremony and ensuring the safety of those arrested. Reports state Hereditary Cheifs at 27 KM are now being surrounded by RCMP.
In the nineteenth century, Gilbert Sproat, a colonial official, wrote an account of his time among the Nuu Chah Nulth people on the west coast of Vancouver Island. He noted that the original inhabitants have “known …
After several weeks of intensive reading and discussion on class, capitalism and socialism in my undergraduate course, The Politics of Labor, we would do following exercise: Standing before the blackboard (google it) I encouraged the students to list existing, objective and determining conditions that might prompt the American working class to seek the abolition of capitalism. As the response flowed there wasn’t enough space on the left side of the board to write down all the urgent unmet needs, egregious grievances and vanquished hopes. And the fact these young …
There are few things in life more surreal than being on the ground when election fraud is taking place, feeling that knot in the stomach growing as tales of intrigue trickle in like slow-drip coffee on a particularly rough morning.
I was in Georgia in 2018, when the gubernatorial race between Republican Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams became the culmination of a years-long effort by Kemp, who was at that time the state’s Attorney General and electoral rule-keeper, to rig an election. There, it was polling locations closed or …
Numerous inequalities characterize societies in which the majority produce the wealth but only a handful own it. The so-called “achievement gap” is mainly an expression of the harsh social class divide in society that keeps growing.
One of the conceited claims of charter school advocates is that privately-owned-operated non-profit and for-profit charter schools will close the nagging “achievement gap” in America. Charter schools are supposedly a panacea because they will “out-perform” America’s “failing” public schools, rescue kids, empower parents, and provide a brighter future for all.
But nearly 30 years later, with hundreds of studies and endless real-life examples, privately-owned-operated non-profit and …
On 29 January WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that there was no reason to declare the outbreak of the coronavirus 2019-nCoV in China a pandemic risk. On 30 January, he declared the virus an international emergency, but made clear that there was no reason for countries to issue travel-advisories against travelling to China. Let me speculate. The ‘international emergency’ was declared at the request of Washington, and the comment against the travel-advisory was an addition by Dr. Tedros himself, as he realized that there was indeed no reason for panic, that China is doing wonders in stemming the …
While U.S. advocates and local politicians struggle to get their first public banks chartered, Mexico’s new president has begun construction on 2,700 branches of a government-owned bank to be completed in 2021, when it will be the largest bank in the country. At a press conference on January 6, he said the neoliberal model had failed; private banks were not serving the poor and people outside the cities, so the government had to step in.
When bailiffs broke down his door on the 20th June 2018 they found Errol Graham emaciated and dead. He weighed just four and a half stone (28.5kg). There was no food in the flat except for two tins of fish that were four years out of date, no gas or electricity supply. He was 57, lived alone in Nottingham, England and due to severe anxiety had little or no contact with family or friends. Unable to work he relied on state benefits to pay his rent, cover the bills and feed himself, benefits that were stopped when Graham did not …
Demand from the Israeli extreme right to strip Palestinians of citizenship has moved out of the shadows with US help
by Jonathan Cook / February 7th, 2020
The Trump administration’s decision to green-light Israel’s annexation of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank grabbed headlines last week. But US support for a related proposal – one equally cherished by Israel’s extreme right – was far less noticed.
Under the terms of the “Peace to Prosperity” document, the US could allow Israel to strip potentially hundreds of thousands of its own inhabitants of their citizenship in a so-called “populated land swap” with the settlements.
Those in danger of having their citizenship revoked are drawn from Israel’s large Palestinian minority – one in five of the country’s population.
Australia has produced extraordinary journalists across three generations: Wilfred Burchett (deceased in 1983), John Pilger (80 years old but still active) and Julian Assange (48 years old, currently in London’s Belmarsh prison).
Each of these journalists made unique contributions to our understanding of the world. Although Australia is part of the western world, each of these journalists exposed and criticized Western foreign policy.
Wilfred Burchett
Wilfred Burchett lived from 1911 to 1983. He was a farm boy and his experience in the depression shaped his dislike of oligarchs and preference for the poor. He went to Europe trying to volunteer for Republicans in …
by Ajamu Baraka and Bahman Azad / February 7th, 2020
On February 4, Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell issued a ruling on what the jurors will be allowed to be told in the trial of the Embassy Protectors scheduled to begin on February 11. She granted most of the government’s requests to prevent the jury from hearing important facts about the case, leaving the protectors with little in the way of a defense.
The courtroom will not be an oasis of truth in Washington, DC. The fact that Nicolas Maduro is the lawful president of Venezuela, not the coup leader …
Never undertake a prosecution unless you have good grounds, and prospects, for a solid conviction. In the case against President Donald Trump, there was never a serious prospect that the Senate would cool sufficiently to give the Democrats the votes necessary to affirm vote of impeachment in the House. The GOP remains very much in Trump’s pocket, a remarkable if opportunistic transformation given the innate hostility shown towards him prior to the 2016 elections. With their allegiance pinned to the Trump juggernaut, the hope is that, come November, the entire effort won’t sink under the toxic miasma that is US …
President Trump’s fraudulent Middle East deal runs roughshod over Palestinian rights, harms long-term Israeli interests, and is only the latest example of the US arrogance and disdain for international law. Essentially Trump’s offer, negotiated without any Palestinian input, requires the Palestinians to sell out their hopes for justice and a decent life free of occupation for money. Trump was attempting to satisfy Israel and its US supporters, including many of his big money donors, with this deal that would allow Israel to steal even more Palestinian land.
Former President Carter’s office said in a statement that Trump’s plan “breaches international law …
On December 18th, Donald Trump became the third U.S. president in history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. The second to be indicted before completing a first term, the 45th commander-in-chief must now survive a Senate trial before seeking reelection later this year. As many nonpartisan analysts predicted, the charges appear to have only improved his chances with the electorate as his approval rating saw an uptick after the articles were approved on grounds of “obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.” After dragging the country through three years of Russiagate which never panned out, …
A major German TV network has aired an interview with the UN rapporteur on torture that reveals the invention of the Swedish “rape” case against Julian Assange.
Truth has broken through for those confused about how a publisher ended up in a maximum security prison in London with a one-way extradition ticket to court in the U.S. and the rest of his life behind bars.
One of the main German TV channels (ZDF) ran two prime-time segments on Wednesday night exposing authorities in Sweden for having “made up” the story about …
