Latest articles
by Graham Peebles / January 14th, 2019
In December 2018 David Runciman, Head of Politics at Cambridge University, made the radical proposal that children as young as six should be allowed to vote in elections to deal with the age bias in contemporary democracies. Allowing children to vote he said, would give a ‘jolt of energy’ to democracy. While the thought of six year olds voting sounds extreme and will no doubt be broadly dismissed, there is a strong democratic argument for lowering the eligible age from 18, which is the standard voting age in most countries, and allowing children to vote.
In response to Professor Runciman’s suggestion …
... in Syria
by Gary Leupp / January 14th, 2019
The fact is, the U.S. interventions in the Middle East since 9/11–especially the illegal, immoral war on Iraq based on lies—has, as regional leaders predicted it would, generally “destabilized” the area, and nearby regions.
The ruination of the Baathist Iraqi state has by this point produced a Sadrist-led regime that must maintain a degree of friendship with the U.S. that ushered in its ascent to power but is closer to Iran and will, defying the U.S., maintain that relationship based in part on religious commonality. This is an awkward situation, in that a regime produced by U.S. imperialist aggression chooses to …
by T. Mayheart Dardar / January 14th, 2019
I recently had the interesting experience of sitting in on a fundamentalist Christian sermon in a small church in southeast Louisiana. The text of the pastor’s sermon was drawn from 2nd Thessalonians, a Pauline epistle exhorting young believers of a fledgling congregation. The emphasis taken from the block of scripture this Sunday was Paul’s encouragement to his flock in the face of persecution. After setting the narrative in motion the preacher sought to establish an analogy between the persecuted 1st century church at Thessalonica and the 21st century church in America and Western Europe.
It was at this point that my …
by Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin / January 14th, 2019
January the 1st, 2019 marked the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. Back in December 1958 the city of Santa Clara fell to the combined forces of Che Guevara, Cienfuegos, and Revolutionary Directorate (RD) rebels led by Comandantes Rolando Cubela, Juan (“El Mejicano”) Abrahantes, and William Alexander Morgan. Upon hearing the news of the defeat of his forces by the Fidel Castro-led revolutionaries, Batista left Cuba and flew to the Dominican Republic on 1 January 1959.
Havana (October 2018)
Since then the Cuban people have …
by Andre Vltchek / January 14th, 2019
There used to be a pair of beautiful swings for children, not far from an old rural temple in Mie Prefecture, where I used to frequently power walk, when searching for inspiration for my novels. Two years ago, I noticed that the swings had gotten rusty, abandoned, and unkempt. Yesterday, I spotted a yellow ribbon, encircling and therefore closing the structure down. It appears that the decision had already been made to get rid of the playground, irreversibly.
Abandoned swings Mie Perfecture
One day earlier, I observed an old …
by Charles Andrews / January 13th, 2019
Many people are cynical about government, with good reason. They see leaders who don’t care about getting a job done, who just maneuver and finger-point and yell to puff themselves up and put someone else down. They read about tunnels and transportation terminals that cost three times what they were supposed to, are opened for business years behind schedule, and need endless fixes.
These realities are not enough for the rich and the reactionaries. They drown us in propaganda attacks on government and demands to get it off our back (actually, their back). Of course, the huge corporations they own keep …
As Benjamin Netanyahu demands a televised showdown with his corruption accusers and Roseanne Barr prepares to address the Knesset, the poverty of public discourse has never been more apparent
by Jonathan Cook / January 13th, 2019
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu commandeered the country’s airwaves last week in what many assumed would prove a moment of profound national import. They could not have been more wrong.
The context was his decision last month to move forward the general election to April, widely seen as a desperate effort to turn the vote into a referendum on his innocence as long-standing corruption investigations close in.
The police have recommended that he be charged over three separate allegations of bribery. By calling the election, Netanyahu has forced the attorney-general, Avichai Mendelblit, onto unfamiliar – and constitutionally tricky – terrain.
Mendelblit, an appointee …
by J.B. Gerald / January 13th, 2019
Writing from another country I remember the Americans I’m supposed to forget, those forced into the lives that made them prisoners or simply targets of law enforcement programs. Some are religious people, Christians and Muslims. Many were Black Panthers. Some were and are radicals. Most are Americans. All cared for their communities and people. They were condemned by society at large. Under the FBI’s COINTELPRO activists in the Sixties and Seventies political and community movements but particularly the Black Panthers were targeted and hunted and engaged in fire-fights by law enforcement. Any police casualty brought charges of murder in court. …
Interview with author John Rachel
by Ron Ridenour / January 13th, 2019
Ron Ridenour: You wrote the book, The Peace Dividend: the most controversial proposal in the history of the world, (Lulu Publishing). What is the basic idea of this project?
John Rachel: In 1992 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the citizens of the United States and the world were promised the arrival of a new era of peace and prosperity. The Cold War was over. Much of the money spent in the military standoff with the Soviets, and the preparation for a cataclysmic war, would now be diverted to peaceful ends. This massive reordering of our priorities and the …
by Gareth Porter / January 13th, 2019
Virtually from the moment Donald Trump announced that he would be removing U.S. troops from Syria, corporate media have converged around a narrative that the president has been forced to walk back his decision. But while a withdrawal will undoubtedly prove more challenging than the president originally anticipated, this verdict simply does not reflect the facts on the ground.
When John Bolton spoke in Jerusalem earlier this month, leading news outlets reported that Trump’s national security adviser had declared that withdrawal would not be completed unless and until specific conditions had been met or objectives achieved. The New York Times announced …
by Colin Todhunter / January 13th, 2019
In their rush to readily promote neoliberal dogma and corporate-inspired PR, many government officials, scientists and journalists take as given that profit-driven transnational corporations have a legitimate claim to be custodians of natural assets. The premise is that under capitalism water, food, soil and agriculture should be handed over to powerful and wholly corrupt transnational corporations to milk for profit, under the pretence these entities are somehow serving the needs of humanity.
These natural assets (‘the commons’) belong to everyone and any stewardship should be carried out in the common interest by local people assisted by public institutions and governments acting on …
Part One of review and discussion of Linda G. Ford's Women Politicals in America: Jailed Dissenters from Mother Jones to Lynne Stewart
by Paul Haeder / January 13th, 2019
I was born a protester … My mother had to go to the school a lot and talk to the principal.
— Dorli Rainey (In conversation with author Paul Haeder)
I am being jailed because I have advocated change for equality, justice, and peace. … I stand where thousands of abolitionists, escaped slaves, workers and political activists have stood for demanding justice, for refusing to either quietly bear the biting lash of domination or to stand by silently as others bear the same lash.
— Marilyn Buck, at her 1990 sentencing (epigram in Linda Ford’s book, Women Politicals in America)
Personal Truth
Personal experience is …
An interview with Brazilian Dominican Frei Betto: Part 1
by T.P. Wilkinson / January 12th, 2019
Frei Betto spoke with the author at the Dominican convent in São Paulo, Brazil.
Frei Betto (Carlos Alberto Libânio Christo) was born in 1944 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. He began his political engagement as Catholic student and was imprisoned by the military regime that seized power in 1964 and ruled until 1985. I interviewed him first in 1986 after the publication of his book of interviews Fidel and Religion. This is the first of two interviews given in December after the election of Jair Bolsonaro as president of …
by Paul Craig Roberts / January 11th, 2019
US Senator Marco Rubio poses as a representative of Florida Republicans, but in truth he represents the interests of Israel. He is sponsor of legislation that punishes Americans who boycott Israel as their way of protesting Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. That Rubio is doing his best to dismantle what little is left of the First Amendment doesn’t seem to bother Florida voters or the presstitute media, who are no longer protective of the First Amendment.
Yesterday (January 9, 2019) the legislation failed to pass the Senate, because Democrats blocked it. But not really. The Democrats are not opposed to …
Idiocy and Violence of Immigration
by Reza Aziz / January 10th, 2019
A term ‘unperson’, from George Orwell’s newspeak, refers to an individual or a member of a group who is systematically stripped of social and political rights, including basic human rights. Who are the ‘unpeople’ of South Korea? They are an overwhelming majority of illegal migrants in the country who lack basic rights and security and believed to deserve it according to the laws and principles under which Korean society operates.
As of September 23, 2018, there are 330,005 foreigners, mostly from South East Asia and post-Soviet countries, who are …
by C.J. Hopkins / January 10th, 2019
Remember when the War on Terror ended and the War on Populism began? That’s OK, no one else does.
It happened in the Summer of 2016, also known as “the Summer of Fear.” The War on Terror was going splendidly. There had been a series of “terrorist attacks,” in Orlando, Nice, Würzberg, Munich, Reutlingen, Ansbach, and Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, each of them perpetrated by suddenly “self-radicalized” “lone wolf terrorists” (or “non-terrorist terrorists“) who had absolutely no connection to any type of organized terrorist groups prior to suddenly “self- radicalizing” themselves by consuming “terrorist …
by Gilad Atzmon / January 9th, 2019
Some may be happy to learn that the US Senate didn’t pass the ‘anti BDS bill’ on Tuesday. But a look at the vote reveals that America’s politicians are fully removed from the American ethos of freedom. Fifty six mostly Republican Senators, just 4 shy of the 60 needed to pass the bill, voted to enact a law contrary to the Constitutional right to Freedom of Speech as granted by the 1st amendment. The defeated bill …
by Ramzy Baroud / January 9th, 2019
Newly-inaugurated Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, is set to be the arch-enemy of the environment and of indigenous and disadvantaged communities in his country. He also promises to be a friend of like-minded, far-right leaders the world over.
It is, therefore, not surprising to see a special kind of friendship blossoming between Bolsonaro and Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We need good brothers like Netanyahu,” Bolsonaro said on January 1, the day of his inauguration in Brasilia.
Bolsonaro is a “great ally (and) a brother”, Netanyahu replied.
But, while Bolsonaro sees in Netanyahu a role model – for reasons that should worry many Brazilians …
by Yves Engler / January 9th, 2019
Justin Trudeau likes making high-minded sounding statements that make him seem progressive but change little. The Prime Minister’s declaration marking “Haiti’s Independence Day” was an attempt of the sort, which actually demonstrates incredible ignorance, even antipathy, towards the struggle against slavery.
In his statement commemorating 215 years of Haitian Independence, the Prime Minister failed to mention slavery, Haiti’s revolution and how that country was born of maybe the greatest example of liberation in the history of humanity. From the grips of the most barbaric form of plantation economy, the largely African-born slaves delivered a massive blow to slavery, colonialism …
by Edward Curtin / January 9th, 2019
One also knows from his letters that nothing appeared more sacred to Van Gogh than work.
— John Berger, “Vincent Van Gogh,” Portraits
Ever since I was a young boy, I have wondered why people do the kinds of work they do. I sensed early on that the economic system was a labyrinthine trap devised to imprison people in work they hated but needed for survival. It seemed like common sense to a child when you simply looked and listened to the adults around you. Karl Marx wasn’t necessary for understanding the nature of alienated labor; hearing adults declaim “Thank God It’s …
by John Andrews / January 9th, 2019
Although this essay is written with mainly British Green Party activists in mind, the Greens are a steadily growing international community, and the points made here will be as relevant to Greens in Argentina, say, as they are in Japan, Zimbabwe, or anywhere else. The vitally important questions that I will address is this: when the Green Party wins a general election for the first time what exactly will it do in the first days and weeks of forming a government? Are the Greens just a toothless pressure group, or are they serious about changing the world for the better?
The …
by Binoy Kampmark / January 9th, 2019
It starts with a presumption, makes its way through a discussion, and becomes a set, moulded stereotype: Africa is the continent of tin pot dictatorships, unstable leaderships, and coups. Latin America, attuned to brigandage and frontier mentalities, is not far behind. Such instances lend themselves to the inevitable opportunity to exploit the exception. Gabon, ruled by the same family without interruption since 1967, is being stated as a possible example.
The news so far, if one dares trust it, suggests that a coup was put down in the African state with the loss of two lives. Seven of the plotters were …
by Frederick B. Mills, William Camacaro, and Roger D. Harris / January 8th, 2019
Venezuelan President Nicholás Maduro’s inauguration for his second term on January 10 is targeted by the US, the allied Lima Group, and the hardline Venezuelan opposition. They have demanded that Maduro refuse inauguration. A multifaceted attack aimed at regime change is underway using sanctions, military threats, and a campaign of delegitimization to replace the democratically elected president.
Since President Hugo Chávez began his first term as president in 1999, the Bolivarian Republic has promoted regional integration and independence, resisted neoliberalism, opposed “free trade” agreements that would compromise national autonomy, and supported the emergence of a multipolar world. On account of …
by subMedia / January 8th, 2019
On January 7, the Canadian settler-colonial state sent its federal police force, the RCMP, to enforce an injunction against the Wet’suwet’en nation. Members of the Gidimt’en and Unis’tot’en clans have been defending their lands – which have never been ceded to the Canadian state – from an incursion from members of the extractive industry who are seeking to push through the multi-billion dollar CoastalGasLink pipeline, which aims transport fracked gas across their territories to refineries in Kitimat and ultimately to export markets in Asia. Today the RCMP succeeded in raiding the first checkpoint, set up on the Gidimt’en territories. At …
Part-One: The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Salvation Army's Faith-based 'One Treatment Fits All'
by Paul Haeder / January 8th, 2019
So, we have a coalescing of white male repressions projecting outward by way of a latent Puritanical reflex, one that must keep someone in the stocks, with an insidious white nationalism out to create hierarchies within hierarchies regarding passports and citizenship — in the interest of controlling surplus populations, and a neo left anti-communism made up of a structural Ayn Randian Capitalism, with equal parts Lyndon LaRouche, and Hannah Arendt by way of Noam Chomsky.
— John Steppling, “Communism, Fascism and Green Shaming“
Gunning Down a Vet – Turkey Shoot 101
Watching a dozen SWAT members donned in full Robo cop gear …
by Dan Corjescu / January 8th, 2019
To characterize modern day America as a fascist state is at one and the same time both ahistorical and close to the present truth.
In order to resolve this apparent contradiction we must understand that modern day fascism displays certain rough, jagged continuities as well as discontinuities with its interwar past.
Operationally, fascism was, at least initially, an alliance between ancien regime conservatives, socially and economically insecure elements of the middle classes, and a significant fragment of alienated, radicalized workers. Ideologically what united these disparate groups was a utopian belief in the nation as a higher structural unit uniquely suited to the …
by Linda Ford / January 8th, 2019
There have been many women dissenters who have been jailed by the American government as political prisoners. There are women in jail now who are undergoing punishment as perceived enemies of the American Empire. Two such women are nuclear resister Elizabeth McAlister and alleged “terrorist” Aafia Siddiqui. When I wrote about Pakistani-born Aafia Siddiqui as one of the “women politicals (not) in the news” eight years ago, she had just begun her 86-year sentence at Carswell Federal Prison in Texas for allegedly assaulting US soldiers of the Empire in …
by Eric Zuesse / January 7th, 2019
Polling on the border wall shows that Trump’s proposal is very unpopular amongst the American electorate, especially amongst the people who live near the Mexican border; but Republicans nationwide do support his proposal — and overwhelmingly. Trump’s base is the mass of people who approve of Trump and his initiatives no matter what (they buy the Trump brand, regardless), but even Republicans who live near the Mexican border oppose him on this.
During 14-17 October 2018, CBS News asked 1,108 registered voters “Do you favor or oppose building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to try to stop illegal immigration?” and …
by Firas Samuri / January 7th, 2019
Since the beginning of the Arab Spring, the population of Northern Africa and the Middle East found out about the events based on the news transmitted by the Western corporate media only. Exactly these outlets set the tone for the information flow and the local magnates like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya which spread talking points given by CNN and BBC.
The Arab population has felt the need for an alternative point of view as the Western giants repeatedly have been caught for spreading fake news and disinformation. An obvious example is a chemical attack in Eastern Ghouta in 2013 that …
by Binoy Kampmark / January 7th, 2019
They set out early in the morning, men with axes, boys in tow and, for some, the odd girl champing at the bit. The woods are some way from Bujanovac, but these columns of individuals resembled statues who have moved off their plinths, heading to the woods that call them with mesmerising force. The groves seem to speak in this part of Europe, where the Serbs still commune with a spirit of past. Industrialisation has yet to kill off this element, yet to estrange the citizens from the south from their magical ends.
The woods have, historically, served as links between …
