Latest articles
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / January 7th, 2019
A truth about movements is, they move. They morph, evolve and move around a country or even around the globe. This occurs over months and often over years.
The US Occupy encampment era occurred ten months after the Arab Spring and six months after the Spanish Indignado movement – early versions of occupy. It started in New York and then spread across the United States and to other countries. It was a global revolt against the 1% that changed politics in the United States and continues to have …
by Andre Vltchek / January 6th, 2019
Syria and Afghanistan.
Two terrible wars, two mighty destructions, but two absolutely opposite outcomes.
In Syria, it may be autumn now, but almost the entire country is blossoming again, literally rising from ashes. Two thousand miles east from there, Afghanistan is smashed against its ancient rocks, bleeding and broken. There, it does not really matter what season it is; life is simply dreadful and hope appears to be in permanent exile.
Historic Damascus
Damascus, the ancient and splendid capital of Syria, now the Syrian Arab Republic, is back to life again. …
by J.B. Gerald / January 6th, 2019
Disproportionate numbers of First Peoples are in Canadian prisons. Society arranges this fact to not seem that extraordinary. It could be argued that aboriginal peoples are political prisoners in North America, in or out of prison. Or that this is true for all minorities. Or that as the war on terror proceeds all Canadians may find themselves in a political prison.
Privilege and prejudice are clarified when we note that aboriginal men and women damaged in government (police) custody are not often plaintiffs in trials for damages. And properly, this account would run to several thousand pages listing the individual cases …
by Yves Engler / January 6th, 2019
An explosive CBC expose Friday on the Jewish National Fund should be the beginning of the end for this powerful organization’s charitable status. But, unless the NDP differentiates itself from the Liberals and Conservatives by standing up for Canadian and international law while simultaneously opposing explicit racism, the JNF may simply ride out this short bout of bad publicity.
According to a story headlined “Canadian charity used donations to fund projects linked to Israeli military”, the JNF has financed multiple projects for the Israeli military in direct contravention of Canada Revenue Agency rules for registered charities. The organization has also …
by Binoy Kampmark / January 5th, 2019
The worm has gotten into Apple, and is feasting with some consistency. Revenue has fallen. Chief executive Tim Cook is cranky. The celebrated front of Apple’s wealth – the iPhone with its range of glittering models – has not done as well as he would have hoped. Dreams of conquering Cathay (or, in modern terms, the Chinese market) have not quite materialised.
In a letter to Apple’s investors, Cook explained that “our revenue will be lower than our original guidance for the quarter, with other items remaining broadly in line with our guidance.” This somewhat optimistic assessment came with the …
by Graham Peebles / January 5th, 2019
Change, discontent and uncertainty are some of the most prominent characteristics of the times. These interconnected terms are routinely used to describe global affairs and are key factors animating the global protest movement as well as the growing tide of nationalism. Both movements arise from the same seed, one is progressive and in harmony with the new, the other is of the past and seeks to obstruct and divide.
These are transitional times, as humanity moves out of one civilization imbued with certain ideals, values and beliefs to a new way of living based on altogether different principles; times of unease …
by William Boardman / January 5th, 2019
No other country in the world symbolizes the decline of the American empire as much as Afghanistan. There is virtually no possibility of a military victory over the Taliban and little chance of leaving behind a self-sustaining democracy — facts that Washington’s policy community has mostly been unable to accept…. It is a vestigial limb of empire, and it is time to let it go.
– Op-Ed by Robert D. Kaplan, The New York Times, January 1, 2019
This is the voice of American imperialism speaking through one of its more reliable hand-puppets. Foreign Policy has twice named Robert Kaplan one of the “Top 100 …
by Colin Todhunter / January 5th, 2019
As humans, we have evolved with the natural environment over millennia. We have learned what to eat and what not to eat, what to grow and how to grow it and our diets have developed accordingly. We have hunted, gathered, planted and harvested. Our overall survival as a species has been based on gradual, emerging relationships with the seasons, insects, soil, animals, trees and seeds. And out of these relationships, we have seen the development of communities whose rituals and bonds have a deep connection with food production and the natural environment.
However, over the last couple generations, agriculture and food production …
by Peter Koenig / January 5th, 2019
The US will withdraw her troops from Syria. Will they really? Let’s take Trump at his word, just for argument’s sake. Though in the meantime, RT reports that the withdrawal may be slower than anticipated, to allow Erdogan making his own “strategic arrangements”, while US troops depart. During his flash visit to the US troops in Iraq on Christmas Day, Mr. Trump already indicated that any US intervention – if necessary – would be launched from Iraq. Of course.
The US will not let go of such a strategic country with access to Four Seas, as promoted by President Bashar al-Assad, …
by Mirah Riben / January 3rd, 2019
There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.
— Nelson Mandela, Pretoria South Africa, May 8, 1995
Is having a baby that results from a loving relationship the same as having a baby being created via a business transaction?
Are a husband and wife with two kids a house and a dog, a single career woman who decides to be inseminated because time is running out for her to be a mother, a family who decides to foster one or more special needs children, and a gay couple who have …
Part 2
by Kim Petersen / January 3rd, 2019
It is time for a renewed, nation-to-nation relationship with First Nations peoples, one that understands that the constitutionally guaranteed rights of First Nations in Canada are not an inconvenience but rather a sacred obligation.
— Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau speaking to First Nation leaders, 8 December 2015
In Part 1, it was noted that Canadian politicians repeatedly claim that Canada is a nation bound by the rule of law.
People can claim whatever they want; that does not make the claim true. Likewise anyone can pooh-pooh a claim. But that doesn’t refute the claim. Bogus claims are revealed …
by Shawgi Tell / January 3rd, 2019
The intensely controversial nature of nonprofit and for-profit charter schools in the U.S., due in no small part to endless news about the infinite problems plaguing them, is increasingly a major issue in local, state, and federal election campaigns. It is hard to find a political race today where a candidate, especially a school board candidate, is not expected to have some position, hopefully well-worked out, but usually not, on charter schools. Tens of millions of dollars are being spent in some places based almost entirely on whether a candidate supports or opposes charter schools (e.g., California recently). This point …
by Edward Curtin / January 3rd, 2019
A few years ago I married myself, but we’ve reconsidered and have filed for divorce. It’s no one’s fault, really, but we are emotionally devastated nevertheless. At least we have no children. Sologamy didn’t seem to suit us. We had acted impetuously. I had gotten the idea after hearing a NPR radio report about a woman who fell in love with herself and said that after she tied the knot she had never been happier.
The world was getting me down at the time with all the political news about the Russians coming and insinuating themselves between me and you and …
by Max Parry / January 3rd, 2019
The rich are only defeated when running for their lives.
— C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins
In less than two months, the yellow vests (gilets jaunes) movement in France has reshaped the political landscape in Europe. For a seventh straight week, demonstrations continued across the country even after concessions from a cowing President Emmanuel Macron while inspiring a wave of similar gatherings in neighboring states like Belgium and the Netherlands. Just as el-Sisi’s dictatorship banned the sale of high-visibility vests to prevent copycat rallies in Egypt, corporate media has predictably worked overtime trying to demonize the spontaneous and mostly leaderless working class …
by John Steppling / January 3rd, 2019
In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis.
— Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Red, January 1, 2001
… the totality of which the psyche is a part becomes to an increasing extent less ‘society’ than ‘politics’ … society has fallen prey to and become identified with domination.
— Herbert Marcuse, Five Lectures: Psychoanalysis, Politics and Utopia, Boston Beacon Press, 1970
By every measure, the Pentagon is the largest institutional user of petroleum products and energy … Yet, the Pentagon has a …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / January 3rd, 2019
There will be important opportunities in the next few years to advance the movement for economic, racial and environmental justice as well as peace. This article will focus on three opportunities: the 2020 elections, the decline of US empire and an economic slowdown.
The movement is in a stronger position than it has been in for years. The current movement took off during Occupy in 2011. Occupy’s headline was “We Are The 99%,” which emphasized inequality and money corrupting government. Occupy included every major front of struggle; e.g., economic insecurity, …
by Robert Hunziker / January 3rd, 2019
In 1429 Joan of Arc (17) led French troops to victory over English forces at the Siege of Orleans after she had a vision. Today, eco warrior Greta Thunberg (15) is leading the battle against the ravages of climate change. Greta has vision. She’s taken the leadership mantle from Joan of Arc whether she knows it or not. Some things in life just happen!
For nearly three decades, the global movement to fix climate change has been stuck in low or no-gear ever since the nations of the world agreed to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 1992 at the Kyoto …
by Ramzy Baroud / January 2nd, 2019
“A historic mistake” is how Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu responded to calls for early elections last November. A few weeks later, he spoke, in exaggerated confidence, of the “unanimous” agreement of his right-wing coalition that early elections must be held next April.
So why the change of heart?
Netanyahu may not be a good leader, but he is certainly a cunning politician. The fact that he is gearing up for a fifth term at the helm of Israel’s fractious political scene speaks volumes of his ability to survive against many odds.
But it is not all about Netanyahu and his clever ways. …
by Kim Petersen / January 2nd, 2019
Canada’s fealty to the rule of law is much spoken of nowadays by Liberal politicians in regards to a current pending extradition request made by the United States to Canada. Canada became embroiled in the international trade spat between the US and China when it arrested Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of telecommunications giant Huawei at the behest of the US government. Indeed, some more critical types would characterize it as nothing short of a kidnapping. Meng has been alleged to have …
by Tim Scott / January 2nd, 2019
This article is part of a project that critically analyzes the historical and present day purposes of U.S. public education. Related articles focus on the history of Secondary Education, the undemocratic nature of Local Control and the finacialization of education via Impact Investing, Social Impact Bonds and Personalized Learning. The point of this project is to further expose the underlying social control function of U.S. public education and the interests it has consistently served over time, which cannot be extracted from the undemocratic nation-state it was designed – and continually redesigned – to preserve.
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Over the past forty-years federal and state …
by Binoy Kampmark / January 2nd, 2019
London, New Year’s Eve 2018.
It is a very English middle-class trait: the world will end if the price of a certain life style goes up. Certain services will be cut. Access to certain travel destinations might be restricted. (The usual European haunts in France and Spain rendered dearer if not inaccessible.) But there is no denying that the attitude to the New Year from this side of the world is one of gloom made normal.
Not a day goes by without a digest of panicked revelations about what will happen in the event of a “no-deal Brexit”. A lack of certainly …
by Colin Todhunter / January 2nd, 2019
The dubious performance (failure) of genetically engineered Bt cotton, officially India’s only GM crop, should serve as a warning as the push within the country to adopt GM across a wide range of food crops continues. This article provides an outline of some key reports and papers that have appeared in the last few years on Bt cotton in India.
In a paper that appeared in December 2018 in the journal Current Science, P.C. Kesavan and M.S. Swaminathan cited research findings to support the view that Bt insecticidal cotton has been a failure in India and has not provided livelihood security for mainly resource-poor, small …
by Denis Rancourt / January 2nd, 2019
In this article, I develop a physics model of the bimodal personality of the social animal. The model uses free-energy barrier-crossing theory and provides a new and testable paradigm of individual behaviour and perception in a dominance hierarchy.
A realistic theory of social organization must use a correct model of the individual. The said correct model must not only contain correct elements but it must also be sufficiently complete to be predictive and to produce observed social behaviour.
For example, it is correct to say that the individual is intrinsically driven to seek safety, resources and to reproduce, however actually expressed in …
by Andre Vltchek / January 1st, 2019
How low can a country governed by an unbridled greed, a notorious lack of morals and ubiquitous servility to its neo-colonialist masters, really sink?
And how can people tolerate lies, the naked cynicism and fanatical incompetence of the rulers? Can the regime in Indonesia, which was created in 1965, and then nurtured by the West, really get away with absolutely everything, even, literally, murder?
As I write this report, it has been confirmed that the tsunami which struck West Java on the 22nd of December, 2018, killed hundreds of people. It is almost certain that the death toll will soon climb to …
by Peter Koenig / December 30th, 2018
The New York Times wrote Christmas Day that an 8-year old Guatemalan boy died in US Border Control custody. The circumstances are not clear, or are simply not reported. A month earlier, a 7-year old girl, also from Guatemala, died also in US Border Control custody. Here too, the circumstances are not revealed. How many more children, not mentioned by any media, or any statistics have already perished, trying to make their way to a better future? A better future, because their real and beloved future in their own countries has been miserably destroyed by the US empire’s imposed corporate …
Bombarded by disinformation campaigns, many British Jews are being misled into seeing Corbyn as a threat rather than as the best hope of inoculating Britain against the resurgence of right-wing anti-semitism menace
by Jonathan Cook / December 29th, 2018
End-of-year polls are always popular as a way to gauge significant social and political trends over the past year and predict where things are heading in the next.
But a recent poll of European Jews – the largest such survey in the world – is being used to paint a deeply misleading picture of British society and an apparent problem of a new, left wing form of anti-semitism.
The survey was conducted by the European Union’s agency on fundamental rights and was given great prominence in the liberal-left British daily the Guardian.
The newspaper highlighted one area of life in which Britain scored …
by Roger D. Harris / December 29th, 2018
Bathed in the soothing waters of the Blue Wave, such that it was, a new US Congress will be baptized on January 3rd. But what portends when “Mad Dog” Mattis, arch racist Jeff Sessions, and deep state spooks are canonized by self-identified liberals and leftists as bulwarks against fascism? When all mainstream “opposition” politics can be reduced to a single issue: Trump. And when the mid-term elections ignored deepening impoverishment at home, endless wars abroad, and climate calamity – let alone the tax cut for the super-rich – and instead focused on the “threat” posed by (take your pick) immigrants …
by Ellen Brown / December 28th, 2018
Calls for a Universal Basic Income have been increasing, most recently as part of the Green New Deal introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and supported in the last month by at least 40 members of Congress. A Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a monthly payment to all adults with no strings attached, similar to Social Security. Critics say the Green New Deal asks too much of the rich and upper-middle-class taxpayers who will have to pay for it, but taxing the rich is not what the resolution proposes. It says funding would primarily come from the …
Interview with Aruna Rodrigues
by Colin Todhunter / December 28th, 2018
In a recent article published on the India-based News18 site (CNN), prominent US biologist Nina Federoff was reported as saying it is time for India to grant farmers access to genetically modified (GM) crops. In an interview with the site, she says there is no evidence that GM crops are dangerous when consumed either by people in food or by animals in feed. Federoff says that the commercial release of various GM crops in India has been halted by the Indian government due to opposition from environmental activists.
She adds that we are rapidly moving out of the climate regime in which our primary crops were domesticated, arguing …
by Richard Hugus / December 28th, 2018
Gilad Atzmon
More facts have come to light in the case of Gilad Atzmon and his banning by the Islington Town Council from performing at a jazz concert on December 21, 2018. The original scenario was that one e-mail from one person calling Atzmon an antisemite somehow persuaded the Islington council to take the drastic step of removing Atzmon from a town-owned venue. Many who heard the story felt this was a rash decision which would surely be reversed when the facts were brought to light. But the …
