It amazes me that alternative journalists would spend even a minute writing about the ongoing Democratic Party debates. They are meaningless and they are not debates. How many times do we have to go through this ridiculous charade before this can be accepted once and for all? The “debates” are farces, total theater, as are the Presidential elections. They don’t matter. The political quiz show of duopoly is fixed. Discussing who has won is the height of absurdity. It legitimizes the system of oppressive duopoly. It is political “jeopardy,” and only the fixers win when they suck us into watching …
I had Doctor Daniel Brown from Harvard spend 70 hours with Sirhan over almost three years [and] he comes away with this staggering, staggering evaluation. He says Sirhan was hypnoprogrammed ….. a technique of using chemicals as well as hypnosis ….. The program on him makes him forget everything within a certain time frame ….. He remembers when he gets a pinch on the neck [that] what he sees is not Senator Kennedy. It’s a paper target of a human being.
— William Pepper, 2013, speaking at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Two issues made explicit in the U.S Constitution had …
On June 28, the New York Times published an article by Bari Weiss that wasn’t moronic.
Titled “San Francisco Will Spend $600,000 to Erase History,” it was about the school board’s unanimous decision to destroy a New Deal-era mural by the famous Communist painter Victor Arnautoff that’s painted on the walls of a local high school. Called “Life of Washington,” the mural depicts Washington’s slaves picking cotton at Mount Vernon as a group of colonizers walks past a dead Native American. The painting is clearly meant to oppose the sanitized versions of American history that are taught in most schools.
“Venezuela,” Daniela Rodríguez explained, “is building socialism in the midst of a war.” According to Rodríguez, “the U.S. is using new tools of warfare trying to subjugate, dominate, and push back socialism not only in Venezuela but in any part of the world.” Nevertheless, she added, “we are learning new ways to defend humanity.”
A youth member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, Rodríguez was only nine years old when Hugo Chávez was elected president of Venezuela in 1998 and initiated the Bolivarian Revolution. Based on her activism, this millennial explained to a mostly seasoned audience at the Left Forum …
One of the biggest things we’re up against, and something few people are talking about, is social impact investing and pay for success finance. Within the hollowed out shell of the welfare state, which admittedly was always inadequate and used for purposes of racialized social control, global finance has built a new machine that will use predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, and wearable and screen-based technologies to monitor the global poor and profit from their misery.
This effort is being carried out in partnership with the non-profit sector, higher education, think tanks, and global foundations. Many involved identify as liberal, even progressive. …
by Dr. Hakim and the Afghan Peace Volunteers / July 5th, 2019
Dear fellow human beings,
Some of us have wondered, “Are people today too disconnected and frantic to calm down, in order to solve global challenges together? Are we so polarized and self-absorbed that we cannot stop judging one another or insisting on our partisan ways?”
In Kabul, our thoughts and feelings are diverse, complicated and flawed, so we center our three dreams on relationships.
We have felt much joy in creating this video-letter. We dedicate it to planet earth and to everyone in the human family.
We hope that each of us can take tiny actions to free ourselves from the ravages of …
Is Justin Trudeau a racist? He and his government certainly accept and promote anti-Palestinianism. Two recent moves reaffirm his government’s pattern of blaming Palestinians for their dispossession and subjugation.
Last week the government released its updated terrorist list. An eighth Palestinian organization was added and the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy (IRFAN) was re-designated. The first ever Canadian-based group designated a terrorist organization, IRFAN was listed by the Stephen Harper government for engaging in the ghastly act of supporting orphans and a hospital in the Gaza Strip through official (Hamas controlled) channels.
On June 26, the Labour Party lifted the suspension of pro-Corbyn MP Chris Williamson, triggering a maximum effort propaganda blitz designed to reverse the decision.
Williamson had been suspended on February 27, after footage emerged of him responding to claims of institutionalised anti-semitism in the Labour Party. This is what Williamson said:
The party that’s done more to stand up to racism is now being demonised as a racist, bigoted party. I’ve got to say I think our party’s response has been partly responsible for that …
Once upon a time, some of the people of this country had independence from rule and they had freedom. That state of liberty began to deteriorate almost immediately after it began, and has all but disappeared over this country’s history. Today, even Orwell would have great difficulty in identifying the scope of the inconceivable tyranny that exists.
The date the Declaration of Independence surfaced was July 4th, 1776. It actually was cause for celebration, because it was the impetus to eliminate the ruling government of England by seceding from it. In other words, casting out the King and all his armies …
What's much ado about this wild-eyed belief this Un-United States is superior to all others?
by Paul Haeder / July 4th, 2019
What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?
I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin …
Many Americans think of July 4th as some sort of very special flag day, but for those Americans bitterly ashamed of USA’s continuous criminal world wide violence and bloodletting, the sight of the flag is almost unbearably uncomfortable.
Americans who flinch at the sight of their nation’s flag, never forgot the rage in the voice of former President Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, during TV news bites of him shouting, his finger pointing to heaven, “God bless America? No, no! God damn America for her crimes against humanity,” and never forgot the snide smiles and head shaking of the criminal media …
Why did the European Food Safety Authority claim that glyphosate was not ecotoxic? This is the question environmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason poses in her new 23-page report which can be accessed in full here. In places, the report reads like a compilation of peer-reviewed studies and official reports that have documented the adverse impacts of chemicals used in modern agriculture.
Only a brief outline of Mason’s report is possible here. Readers are urged to consult the document to grasp more detailed insight into the issues she discusses as well as the evidence cited in support of her arguments and claims.
In the latest of the interminable media “furores” about Jeremy Corbyn’s supposed unfitness to lead the Labour party – let alone become prime minister – it is easy to forget where we were shortly before he won the support of an overwhelming majority of Labour members to head the party.
In the preceding two years, it was hard to avoid on TV the figure of Russell Brand, a comedian and minor film star who had reinvented himself, after years of battling addiction, as a spiritual guru-cum-political revolutionary.
Brand’s fast-talking, plain-speaking criticism of the existing political order, calling it discredited, unaccountable and unrepresentative, …
Considerate se questo è un uomo
Che lavora nel fango
Che non conosce pace
Consider if this be a man
Who works in the mud
Who knows no peace
— Primo Levi, Se questo è un uomo published in 1947.
Globalization is about many things. It‘s about flows. It‘s about identities. And, perhaps most importantly, it‘s about dreams.
The chief proponents of Globalization are mainly positive when it comes to global financial markets and the liberalization of trade. Even the more cautious (or prudent?) among them, such as the Harvard/Princeton economist Dani Rodrik, do not advocate the reversal of these trends but rather their regulatory synchronization with domestic …
Southern trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop
— “Strange Fruit”, Written by Abel Meeropol (Lewis Allan), recorded by Billie …
Europe’s “Scramble for Africa” began in earnest in 1881, but never ended. The attempt at dominating the continent using old and new strategies continues to define western relationship with this rich continent.
This reality was further validated when I arrived in Nairobi, Kenya on June 23. Although my objective was to address various Kenyan audiences at universities, public forums and the media, I also came here to learn. Kenya, like the rest of Africa, is a source of inspiration for all anti-colonial, liberation movements around the world. We, Palestinians, can learn a great deal from the Kenyan struggle.
The plastic contamination of the natural world flows from three main sources: complacency, apathy and ignorance, a poisonous trinity that is itself the result of a narrow and destructive approach to living. While there are signs of a shift in attitudes among many people, resistance to changing the lifestyle habits that feed the environmental crisis, is strong.
This apathy is partly fueled by a lack of knowledge about what products contain plastic and the impact it has; feeling overwhelmed by the scale of the crisis and ignorance about the interrelated nature of the Environmental Emergency more broadly. Underpinning these is the …
Traditional diplomacy is being given a makeover – at least where it is not being abolished altogether and being replaced by a replica of The Apprentice. US President Donald Trump’s seizure of the art has been violent and molesting. Had Roman emperors had access to Twitter and the twenty-four hour news cycle, they might have had such moments, bothering the empire’s citizenry with their latest self-absorbed act. Imagine Caligula making his horse Incitatus consul and the hyperventilating postings of enthusiasm that would have followed.
In the summations of the G20 leaders’ summit in Osaka, scribes scrounged for meaning, hoping to bring …
Prominent charter school advocates are understandably shaken and worried about the growing tide of opposition to privately-operated nonprofit and for-profit charter schools that have been wreaking havoc across the country for nearly 30 years. Charter school supporters are speaking out more in hopes of saving these deregulated and segregated schools that often perform poorly and foster corruption.
“We’ve seen this kind of resistance before, it’s no big deal” is the general refrain issued by worried charter school advocates. “Yes, we are experiencing some troubled times and blowback right now, but it is not unusual and it will eventually pass” is another …
Iconic rocks of Beirut
Beirut is mad! It is thoroughly insane. And that is not an insult. The inhabitants of this Middle Eastern metropolis are proud of their own lunacy. They wear it as a coat-of-arms, as their identity.
“Do you like Beirut?”
“Yes. But it is mad,” you reply.
“Yes!!!” They grin at you with delight. It means, you understand, and you are part of them.
My life has been connected to this city for exactly five years. I don’t live here always, but at least for a substantial amount of …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / July 2nd, 2019
(Photo from Common Dreams)
The political consensus in the United States is changing rapidly. While the corporate media is focused on the Democratic Party presidential debates and Trump’s tweets in response, the issues that have been advanced by the movement for economic, racial and environmental justice, as well as peace, are becoming central to the political dialogue. There is no reason to rejoice yet, as we still have work to do to win the transformation that people and planet need, but the consensus is moving in the direction …
“We oppose Netanyahu, we love Jews, that’s the message”: Former The Labour Party MP #GeorgeGalloway discusses Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders and anti-Semitism.
The next time you put your lips to a plastic bottle of “crystal-clear mountain spring water” think about Trump’s herculean efforts to dismantle federal agencies that protect health.
More to the point, Trump’s innate distrust of science is already starting to impact health risks; e.g., according to Consumer Reports (CR) excessive levels of arsenic are found in some bottled water that should have been spotted by federal regulators, and not by Consumer Reports.
As it happens:
The federal government’s safety inspections of water bottling facilities hit a 15-year low in 2017, according to documents CR obtained through a public records request.
RT America’s Michele Greenstein joins Rick Sanchez to discuss the ongoing protests in Hong Kong and the “National Endowment for Democracy,” the US-based NGO funding the protesters.
Up to 10,000 goldminers have invaded Yanomami lands in northern Brazil, spreading malaria in the region and polluting many of the rivers with mercury.
Although most Yanomami are in contact with non-indigenous society, one uncontacted group is known to live in the area being invaded, and authorities are investigating signs of up to six other uncontacted communities living there.
The Peace to Prosperity workshop, held in Manama, is just the latest in a long-running series of impossible propositions
by Jonathan Cook / July 1st, 2019
Donald Trump’s supposed “deal of the century”, offering the Palestinians economic bribes in return for political submission, is the endgame of western peace-making, the real goal of which has been failure, not success.
For decades, peace plans have made impossible demands of the Palestinians, forcing them to reject the terms on offer and thereby create a pretext for Israel to seize more of their homeland.
The more they have compromised, the further the diplomatic horizon has moved away – to the point now that the Trump administration expects them to forfeit any hope of statehood or a right to self-determination.
The year was 1947, a decisive turning point in our National Security State’s history. The Hot War was over: Nazis shot down, Japanese bombed out. Democracy had been saved, but there was a problem: a massive War Machine still smoking, smoldering like a Lucky Strike left over in the ashtray of our World War effort. And, things were getting colder — colder than a Siberian gulag. Put another way: out of the Manhattan Project, an alien child was born.
The first child of the Manhattan Project was, of course, the Atomic Bomb. The project itself cost about $2 billion in 1940s …
The central argument of Amusing Ourselves [Neil Postman] is simple: there were two landmark dystopian novels written by brilliant British cultural critics – Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell – and we Americans had mistakenly feared and obsessed over the vision portrayed in the latter book (an information-censoring, movement-restricting, individuality-emaciating state) rather than the former (a technology-sedating, consumption-engorging, instant-gratifying bubble).
So what would Neil Postman say about this fellow [note title of this essay, referencing Jeff Bezos’ proclamation on what work should mean to every breathing American], …
Advocates of privately-operated charter schools that siphon billions of dollars a year from public schools have been a little more defensive and restive than usual in recent months.
This is to be expected given the growing number of mainstream and academic reports exposing their long-standing problems, as well as the fact that more people are seeing charter schools for what they really are.
There is a growing unstoppable social consciousness that charter schools are not just over-hyped phenomena which regularly over-promise and frequently under-deliver, but that they are fundamentally pay-the-rich schemes masquerading as “innovations” that “empower parents,” “promote choice,” and “save minority …
