Latest articles
by Ramzy Baroud / March 12th, 2019
More US measures have been taken in recent weeks to further cement the Israeli position and isolate the Palestinian Authority (PA), before the official unveiling of President Donald Trump’s so-called ‘deal of the century’. But while attention is focused on spiteful US actions, little time has been spent discussing the PA’s own responses, options and strategies.
The last of Washington’s punitive measures came on March 3, when the US shut down its Consulate in Jerusalem, thus downgrading the status of its diplomatic mission in Palestine. The Consulate has long served as a de-facto American embassy to the Palestinians. Now, the …
by Edward Curtin / March 12th, 2019
You road I travel and look around! I believe you are not all that is here! I believe that something unseen is also here.
— Walt Whitman, Poem of the Road
Tragic
Jimmy C., age 9, died on the evening of December 28, 19_ _ from a gunshot bullet to the heart. He was shot by his seven-year-old brother Dennis, while, as The New York Times reported, “the two were playing with a rifle in a neighbor’s apartment in the northeast Bronx.” The boys were visiting with their mother and found the rifle under a bed. It was loaded and accidently fired, hitting Jimmy …
by Binoy Kampmark / March 12th, 2019
“I will not comply with this, or any other grand jury.” So explained Chelsea Manning in justifying her refusal to answer questions and comply with a grand jury subpoena compelling her to testify on her knowledge of WikiLeaks. “Imprisoning me for my refusal to answer questions only subjects me to additional punishment for my repeatedly stated ethical obligations to the grand jury system.”
Manning, whose 35-year sentence was commuted by the Obama administration in an act of seeming leniency, is indivisibly linked to the WikiLeaks legacy of disclosure. She was the source, and the bridge, indispensable for giving Julian Assange …
by James Petras / March 11th, 2019
The US is currently engaged in negotiations with at least a dozen countries — which involve fundamental political, military and economic issues.
The US has adopted diplomatic strategies in the face of its ‘inability’ to secure military victories. The purpose of adopting a diplomatic approach is to secure through negotiations, in part or fully, goals and advantages unattainable through military means.
While diplomacy is less subject to military and economic losses it does require making concessions. …
by Peter Koenig / March 11th, 2019
Once the all-encompassing chittering and chattering about tariffs on Chinese imports by the western corporate media subsided, Trump, egocentric businessman rather than the President of the Empire, “out of the blue”, one could almost say, under the pretext of ‘unfair’ Chinese trading, launches a new ferocious and as usual totally illegal campaign of aggression against China’s fast-growing economy. It’s an illicit campaign against Chinese competition, against Chinese unstoppable growth. It’s a tacit recognition of China’s emerging supremacy which the United States can only confront with fraud, deceit and illegal activities. And this only as long as Washington controls the western …
by Media Lens / March 11th, 2019
One of us had a discussion with an elderly relative:
He can’t be allowed to become Prime Minister.
Why not?
It’s so awful…
What is?
The way he hates the Jews.
The last comment was spoken with real anguish, the result of continuous exposure to just two main news sources: the Daily Mail and the BBC.
What is astonishing is that, just four years ago, essentially no-one held this view of Jeremy Corbyn.
Corbyn first became an MP in 1983. He stood for the Labour leadership 32 years later, in May 2015. We searched the ProQuest database for UK newspaper articles containing:
Jeremy Corbyn and anti-semitism before 1 May …
by Yves Engler / March 11th, 2019
While the Justin Trudeau government’s interference in the prosecution of SNC Lavalin highlights corporate influence over politics, it is also a story about a firm at the centre of Canadian foreign policy.
In a recent story titled “Canada’s Corrupt Foreign Policy Comes Home to Roost” I detailed some of SNC’s controversial international undertakings, corruption and government support. But, there’s a great deal more to say about the global behemoth.
“With offices and operations in over 160 countries”, the company has long been the corporate face of this country’s foreign policy. In fact, it is not much of an exaggeration to …
by Jonathan Cook / March 11th, 2019
The United Nations postponed last week for the third time the publication of a blacklist of Israeli and international firms that profit directly from Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied territories.
The international body had come under enormous pressure to keep the database under wraps after lobbying behind the scenes from Israel, the United States and many of the 200-plus companies that were about to be named.
UN officials have suggested they may go public with the list in a few months.
But with no progress since the UN’s Human Rights Council requested the database back in early 2016, Palestinian leaders are increasingly …
The fight for bans on single-use plastic grocery bags is the plastic straw in the Pacific gyres
by Paul Haeder / March 10th, 2019
It was a heck of a thing – a hundred people at the Newport City Council at 6 pm most of whom wanted to talk about the proposed single-use plastic bag (grocery) ban that is an ordinance largely led by citizens, and members of the Surfrider organization. Interestingly, the Newport voters five years ago were asked in a vote to decide whether a plastic bag ban was what they wanted.
A minority of citizens brought that up – how very few of the registered voters voted in 2014, and the vote against a plastic bag ban was …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / March 10th, 2019
US Peace Delegation to Iran February 2019 outside of Iran’s Foreign Ministry. From CODE PINK.
One of the lessons from our recent visit to Iran as a Peace Delegation is that Iran is a mature country. It is 2,500 years old, ten times as old as the United States and one of the world’s oldest continuous major civilizations with settlements dating back to 7,000 BC. It was an empire that controlled almost half the Earth for over 1,000 years. It is hard not to see the US-Iran relationship as one between …
by John R. Hall / March 10th, 2019
The euphonious spirit of Miles Davis must have found his way into el viento on this fine late winter morn here in Chuk-son. A jazz symphony performed by a dozen wind chimes permeates every cell, tickles a quadrillion brain synapses, and thrills my bones to the marrow. Even my newly made friends the hummingbirds seem to enjoy the Afro-Arizonan fusion rhythms. More commonly known as Tucson, Chuk-son was the name given to my new home by the ancient resident O’odham inhabitants of this particular part of the Sonoran Desert. Loosely translated as “village of the dark spring at the base of the mountain”, Chuk-son has grown from village into full …
by Kathy Kelly / March 10th, 2019
Chelsea Manning, who bravely exposed atrocities committed by the U.S. military, is again imprisoned in a U.S. jail. On International Women’s Day, March 8, 2019, she was incarcerated in the Alexandria, VA federal detention center for refusing to testify in front of a secretive Grand Jury. Her imprisonment can extend through the term of the Grand Jury, possibly 18 months, and the U.S. courts could allow formation of future Grand Juries, potentially jailing her again.
Chelsea Manning has already paid an extraordinarily high price for educating the U.S. public about atrocities committed in the wars of choice the U.S. waged in …
by David Rovics / March 10th, 2019
If you are getting your news from mainstream media, whether it’s from supposedly “conservative,” “liberal,” or “objective” outlets, whether a corporate-owned or so-called “public” network, if you’re in the US, the UK, and many other countries, you are being lied to. How much they’re lying depends on what they’re reporting on. What you can be sure of, though, is if it’s something we really, really need to know the truth about right now — if a light needs to be shone on an urgent issue, like a possibly imminent invasion of a sovereign …
by Jonathan Cook / March 9th, 2019
Owen Jones has made a short video discussing Labour’s crisis over anti-semitism. There are some good elements to it, not least the warning against conspiratorial thinking, and an admission, admittedly a fairly limited one, that the Labour leadership should not be accused of being anti-semitic (and implicitly that the party is not “institutionally anti-semitic”.)
Sadly, however, there is little more to recommend. This is another example of how Jones has failed to grasp the larger issues involved, and how he views the anti-semitism issue through an astoundingly narrow lens – one that refuses to depart from a simplistic identity politics.
Given that …
by Andre Vltchek / March 9th, 2019
For a while, all the guns have fallen silent.
I am near Idlib, the last stronghold of the terrorists in Syria. The area where the deadliest anti-government fighters, most of them injected into Syria from Turkey, with Saudi, Qatari and Western ‘help’, are literally holed up, ready for the final showdown.
Just yesterday, mortars were falling on villages near the invisible frontline, separating government troops and the terrorist forces of Al Nusra Front. The day before yesterday, two explosions rocked the earth, only a couple of meters from where we are now standing.
They call it a ceasefire. But it’s not. It is …
by Michel Luc Bellemare / March 9th, 2019
There is no doubt private property is fundamentally retrogressive. It is retrogressive in the sense that it rips the social fabric apart, fraying the social bonds beyond repair. Private property is all about the radical atomization of socio-economic existence. Ultimately, there is no legitimate reason, or rational argument, which can legitimate and justify the notion of private property since private property kills intellectual and material development, including all human advancement. Private property does this by blocking accessibility for the vast majority to the means of life. Consequently, private property denies life, itself, human and nature. Private property negates all capacities …
by Graham Peebles / March 9th, 2019
By any measure these are extraordinary times, revolutionary times in which a ‘new normal’ is evolving as existing systems and practices crumble. A clash of values and ideals is increasingly evident throughout the world, as we move deeper into this time of collective, planetary transition: a turning point from one chapter, age or civilization into another in which totally different ways of living are required to accommodate the new and allow healing to take place. As the past fights for survival and The New lights revolutionary fires in the hearts of men and women everywhere, humanity flounders, old certainties fracture, …
by Kathy Kelly / March 9th, 2019
Impoverished people living in numerous countries today would stand a far better chance of survival, and risk far less trauma, if weapon manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon stopped manufacturing and selling death-dealing products.
Family Visit in Kabul (Photo by Dr. Hakim)
About three decades ago, I taught writing at one of Chicago’s alternative high schools. It’s easy to recall some of their stories—fast-paced, dramatic, sometimes tender. I would beg my students to three-hole-punch each essay or poem and leave it in a binder on …
Part I: 1968 to 1989
by Bruce Lerro / March 9th, 2019
Bruce Lerro with one of his latest books
Only sissies read books
When I was growing up there were no books to speak of in our house. My Italian-American parents were middle class: my father was a self-made commercial artist; my mothers’ father was a shoemaker; and my father’s father was a bartender who deserted the family. In other words, we were middle class without the culture that usually comes from being middle class. My neighborhood sandlot baseball friends were working class and the Catholic school I …
by Yves Engler / March 9th, 2019
Hypocrisy, lying, disdain for the victims of ‘our’ policies and other forms of rot run deep in Canadian political culture.
The latest example is former prime minister Paul Martin nominating Irwin Cotler for the Nobel Peace Prize, which has been applauded by the likes of Bernie Farber, Michael Levitt and Anthony Housefather.
This supposed promoter of peace and former Liberal justice minister has devoted much of his life to defending Israeli violence and has recently promoted war on Iran and regime change in Venezuela.
In a story titled “Irwin Cotler’s daughter running with Ya’alon, Gantz” the Jerusalem Post recently reported that Michal …
Washington and the Convict Appointed to Overthrow Venezuela Continue the Lies
by Paul Craig Roberts / March 8th, 2019
Don’t you think something is fishy when the presstitutes orchestrate a fake news “humanitarian crisis” in Venezuela, but totally ignore the real humanitarian crises in Yemen and Gaza?
Don’t you think something is really very rotten when the expert, Alfred Mauricer de Zayas, sent by the UN to Venezuela to evaluate the situation finds no interest by any Western media or any Western government in his report?
Don’t you think it is a bit much for Washington to steal $21 billion of Venezuela’s money, impose sanctions …
by Ralph Nader / March 8th, 2019
Citizens challenging the towering threat of climate crisis should never underestimate the consequences of our dependence on fossil fuel corporations. Real engagement with the worsening climate disruption means spending more of our leisure hours on civic action. The fate of future generations and our planet depends on the intensity of these actions.
This was my impression after interviewing Dahr Jamail, author of the gripping new book, The End of Ice, on my Radio Hour. Jamail, wrote books and prize-winning articles, as the leading freelance journalist covering the …
Threats by a Jewish group to split from Labour is not evidence of anti-semitism, but of the party’s long indulgence of anti-Palestinian racism
by Jonathan Cook / March 7th, 2019
An announcement this week by the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) that it is considering splitting from the British Labour Party could not have come at a worse moment for Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader is already besieged by claims that he is presiding over a party that has become “institutionally anti-semitic”.
The threats by the JLM should be seen as part of concerted efforts to oust Corbyn from the leadership. They follow on the heels of a decision by a handful of Labour MPs last month to set up a new faction called the Independent Group. They, too, cited anti-semitism as …
by Ronald M. Glassman and Gerald E. Scorse / March 6th, 2019
With great fanfare, politicians on the left are thinking big on tax reform: a 70 percent rate on incomes over $10 million, a wealth tax on the super-rich, estate taxes as high as 77 percent. With no fanfare at all, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has made the case for thinking small. According to the CBO, a mini-tax on sales of stocks, bonds and other holdings could boost revenues by scores of billions a year.
The estimate came in December 2018 when the CBO released its list of options for cutting the federal deficit. For the …
by David Mellonie / March 6th, 2019
In just over a week’s time, on March 15th, primary and secondary school students around the world concerned about climate change and the refusal of most politicians and business leaders to take it seriously, will be holding a series of School Strikes and other activities centred around climate change and the environment.
A Swedish student, Greta Thunberg, is credited with initiating the movement, which aims to give students around the world a voice in their future, even if they are too young to vote.
The movement is run by students and for students, and while parents, grandparents and other adults are encouraged …
by Ramzy Baroud / March 6th, 2019
Immediately after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forged an alliance with the fringe political group, Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), a widespread outrage ensued.
The anger did not emanate only from the Center, Left and Arab parties, but from some in the Right as well. Even the pro-Israel lobby in the US, known for its hawkish political views, spoke out against the sinister union.
“The views of Otzma Yehudit”, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) tweeted, “are reprehensible. They do not reflect the core values that are the very foundation of the State …
The moral panic generated by journalists and politicians over a supposed Labour ‘anti-semitism crisis’ is rooted in a perverse kind of reality – unconscious dread at the prospect of their inner narrative and worldview breaking apart
by Jonathan Cook / March 6th, 2019
John Harris, a columnist who by the Guardian’s current dismal standards is considered on the newspaper’s left, has added his voice to the paper’s endless contributions on Labour’s supposed “anti-semitism crisis”. Sadly, his is typical of the paper’s misrepresentations of the issue.
It is easy – and lazy – to accuse those who peddle these distortions of acting solely in bad faith. But speaking as someone who was himself once deeply immersed as a journalist in the corporate culture of the Guardian, I know how simple it is from within that culture to fail to scrutinise one’s most …
by Luke Eastwood / March 6th, 2019
Back in 1968 The Population Bomb, by Paul and Anne Ehrlich, created a sensation with its predictions of famine and Malthusian disaster. Ultimately their predictions were proven to be incorrect, at least in terms of the time-frame that the authors suggested. What the Ehrlichs had failed to take into account was the so-called Green Revolution in agriculture that had begun in the 1950s but was a long way from reaching its potential impact on food production. Technological innovation, through new methods, new crop varieties, the use of oil-powered machinery, artificial pesticides and fertilizers transformed farming across the world, particularly in …
by Binoy Kampmark / March 6th, 2019
Think charity, think vulnerability and its endless well of opportunistic exploitation. Over the years, international charity organisations have been found with employees keen to take advantage of their station. That advantage has been sexual, financial and, in the case of allegations being made about the World Wild Life Fund for Nature, in the nature of inflicting torture on those accused of poaching.
BuzzFeed, via reporters Tom Warren and Katie J.M. Baker, began the fuss with an investigative report claiming instances of torture and gross violence on the part of rangers assisted by the charity to combat poaching. It starts with …
by Paul Haeder / March 6th, 2019
Needle in a haystack. Little Dutch Boy putting fingers in leaking dike.
The beach clean-up along the Central Oregon Coast, near Devils Punch Bowl, down south to Beverly Beach, is an exercise in patience, Sisyphus, maybe, as many beach and marine life lovers are volunteering with tweezers in hand harvesting the global micro-plastic harvest.
Might as well have a fork to bring in all the world’s wheat crops.
Piece by piece. Or, scoops of sand, with organic matter like shells pieces and driftwood and these microplastic and plastic nurdles plopped on a gurney-sized fine mesh, is akin to …
