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by Edward Curtin / July 20th, 2018
Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it, certainly, but degenerated to Vice.
— Frederick Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.
— D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover
The so-called consumer society …
by Ramzy Baroud / July 19th, 2018
“In my four years as High Commissioner, I have heard many preposterous claims. That claim is almost in its own category of absurdity. Have you no shame, sir, have you no shame? We are not fools.”
These were some of the remarks made by outgoing United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, in his final briefing to the Human Rights Council on July 4. He was responding to a Burmese official’s claim that his country is not targeting Rohingya in a genocidal campaign but is defending the rights of all of its citizen.
The Burmese government is now …
How America is a Cauldron of Self-Loathing, Fear and Dis-empathy Brought to us By Capitali$m
by Paul Haeder / July 18th, 2018
If I Don’t Feel It, The Problem Doesn’t Exist
You know we are cooked when the middling middle class, with educations from Duke, USC, Vanderbilt, Princeton, Columbia, and gobs of money in the bank, and an east coast upbringing, now California dreaming, are astonished that there are actually homeless veterans.
This is the state of the lobotomized America, one country that is a mix of Disneyland, Zombie-land, Filthy First Families, War Economics, General Anxiety Disorder gone rampant, and, well, everything one can imagine the White Race (sic) has become under the crystal meth bubble of money, debt, TV, Netflix, Cowboys and Indians Entertainment, …
by Yves Engler / July 18th, 2018
To the military, shaping media coverage of deployments is what roasting a marshmallow is to a summer camper’s S’mores; there isn’t one without the other.
Even before beginning a small “peacekeeping” mission the Canadian forces’ have an elaborate media strategy.
At the end of June Chief of the Defence Staff Jonathan Vance brought journalists with him on a visit to Mali. They toured the facilities in Gao where an advance team was preparing for Canada’s UN deployment to the African nation. An Ottawa Citizen headline described Vance’s trip as part of an effort at “selling the public on the Mali mission.”
The …
by Andre Vltchek and Rossie Indira / July 17th, 2018
This time it was really supposed to work! The turbo-capitalist, anti-Communist and obedient Indonesia got so used to hearing bizarrely inflated compliments from its Western handlers, that it began to believe that it finally could do it – to build at least one dignified, livable urban center complete with sidewalks, public parks, public transportation, sport facilities and decent cultural institutions. At least one showcase city that could shine and attract millions of visitors from abroad, while all its major urban centers like Jakarta, Surabaya or Medan have been, for years and decades, collapsing and increasingly resembling a hell on earth.
A …
by Robert Hunziker / July 17th, 2018
The Trump administration’s every move is marked with a strange creepiness as well as confusing messages that can only mean: They don’t get it. Their nefarious “destroy science” mentality promotes insane irreversible carbon emissions in good ole America, ultimately threatening the abilities of farmers to cope with ruinous global heat.
As scientists duck for cover from mean-spirited Orange Trumpeters, nature strikes back, emitting 220M tons of carbon from melting permafrost in Alaska. In response, Trumpeters, fighting back, have already taken the first steps towards drilling Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, thus setting the stage for oil and gas leases on 19-million-acres …
by Linda Ford / July 17th, 2018
What happened to Standing Rock water protector Red Fawn Fallis is what has happened to many women political dissenters who go up against Big Government/Corporate power. After she was viciously tackled by several police officers (caught on video), she was brought up on serious charges of harming those who harmed her. Fallis, after months of intense corporate/military surveillance and handy informant reports, was targeted as a coordinator and a leader, a symbol and an inspiration. For daring to make a stand for her people against the encroaching poison and destruction brought by the Dakota Access gas pipeline, she became a …
OPCW Interim Report on Douma
by Media Lens / July 17th, 2018
In terms of suffering caused, there is often not, in fact, much to choose between dismembering and burning people alive with high explosives, shredding them with shrapnel, and choking them with poison gas. Modern ‘conventional’ weapons can be far more cruel and devastating than, for example, chlorine gas. But chemical weapons, prohibited by international law, are extremely potent in allowing Western ‘humanitarians’ to justify ‘intervention’ in response to crimes – real, hyped or imagined – that the West has itself far surpassed using more respectable forms of mass murder.
Noam …
by Denis Rancourt / July 16th, 2018
I just did a live Sputnik International radio interview about the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki. This is the essence of my answers.
Trump is the USA and the USA mainly wants two things from Russia.
First, it wants Russia’s credibility. In the words of Trump: “I really think the world wants to see us get along.”
USA world credibility has crashed after Iraq-Afghanistan-Libya. The USA is known to abandon its allies and to work for gain even at the price of making long-term enemies.
The USA is habituated to being the most powerful and the most powerful can afford to make enemies. But the …
by Binoy Kampmark / July 16th, 2018
The first official meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his counterpart Donald Trump was a fairly casual, unpeopled affair, absent bureaucrats and note takers. This was what both wanted in Helsinki, men who believe in the gold weighting authority commands. According to Masha Gissen of The New Yorker, their meeting reflected “their shared understanding of power: the triumph of nothing over everyone.”
The Helsinki meeting, on the surface, did more for Putin than Trump, though the details about the actual discussions are scant. “Why did Trump,” inquired former director of the Central Intelligence Agency John Brennan, “meet one …
by John V. Walsh / July 15th, 2018
This is written July 14, two days before the Helsinki summit between Presidents Trump and Putin, and everything is on schedule in very predictable fashion – according to script.
In the US, Rod Rosenstein has released “indictments” of 12 Russians who are accused of “hacking” Democratic National Committee servers and other Democratic Party associated computers. These mysterious hackers are allegedly associated with the Russian government, for which there is not a shred of evidence. Right on cue, Schumer, Pelosi and other leading Democrats called on Trump to cancel his meeting with Putin. How lucky for them that these indictments …
by Binoy Kampmark / July 14th, 2018
Juraj Vrdoljak of Telesport was convinced. “I think half the population didn’t show up to work on the morning after the win against England.” The victory had inspired early shop closures, a feeling of rampant escapism. “Croatia is a country with a deep economic crisis. Every day, life is really hard. It’s full of bad stories and tough times. There is lot of poverty. A lot of people are emigrating.”
Members of Croatia’s football team have become national talismans of endurance, the shock troops of resilience and hope. Ivan Rakiti?, when he takes the field against France, will be playing his …
by Robert J. Burrowes / July 14th, 2018
While the world watched and waited with bated breath for the outcome of the substantial global effort – involving over 100 cave divers from various countries, 1,000 members of the Thai Army and 10,000 others in various roles – to rescue a team of 12 young football players and their coach, who were trapped inside a flooded cave in Thailand for 17 days, 850,000 children were killed by human adults in other parts of the world, many of them simply starved to death in Yemen or other parts of Africa, Asia and Central/South America.
But other children were killed in ritual …
by Graham Peebles / July 14th, 2018
Across the western world June is exam time; in Britain, written tests taken in halls of silence and tension have triggered a mini-epidemic of anxiety rooted conditions. Pupils have reported mental exhaustion, panic attacks, crying, nosebleeds, sleepless nights, hair loss and outbreaks of acne.
Over the past 25 years, depression and anxiety amongst teenagers in the UK has increased by 70%. This pattern is repeated across the developed world, and is the result of a cocktail of pressures, pressures that result in 10% of under 18-year-olds in America being dependent on mental health medication.
In parts of Asia things are just …
by James Petras / July 14th, 2018
Journalists, academics, pundits and experts have ignored the complexity of President Trump’s impact on the state of the US Empire.
To properly assess the geopolitical configuration of power, we will consider the military, economic, political and diplomatic advances and setbacks of the Trump regime in Latin America, the European Union and Asia (including the Middle East).
Secondly, we will examine the time frame – the shifting direction of the present configuration of forces.
…
by Gary Leupp / July 13th, 2018
There are growing indications that the Trump administration plans to use the Mojahedin-e Khalq (People’s Mojahedin of Iran, or MEK) as a key element in its strategy to destabilize Iran preparatory to regime change.
On June 30 Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani told the group in Paris: “We are now realistically being able to see an end to the regime in Iran. Trump doesn’t turn his back on freedom fighters.”
On July 1, 2017 John Bolton, former State Department official and Trump supporter, addressed a large gathering of MEK supporters in Paris.
There is a viable opposition to the rule of the ayatollahs,” …
Israel preserved a tribal idea of citizenship that followers of Trump and Europe’s far-right now seek to emulate
by Jonathan Cook / July 13th, 2018
Polarisation within western societies on issues relating to migration and human rights has been intensifying over recent weeks and months. To many observers, it looks suspiciously as if an international order in place since the end of the second world war – one that emphasised universal rights as a way to prevent dehumanisation and conflict – is rapidly unravelling in Europe and the United States.
In the past few weeks in Donald Trump’s America, it has emerged that thousands of migrant children have been snatched from their parents while trying to enter at the southern border, with some …
by Don Fitz / July 13th, 2018
It’s more than doors between government and the businesses that they supposedly regulate that go round and round. One of the other swinging doors is between the Democratic and Republican Parties.
A second door
Perhaps the best known case is when Al Gore ran for president in 2000, he picked Joe Lieberman as his running mate. Then, in 2008, Lieberman showed up at the Republican national convention to endorse John McCain for president. Between those two campaigns, John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, was rumored to be leaning to ask Republican John McCain to be his running mate.
Had Al …
by Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin / July 13th, 2018
Frances Black
Yesterday the Irish Seanad voted in favour of the Occupied Territories Bill which will prohibit the importation of goods or services from illegal settlements in occupied territories, including Israel’s settlements in Palestine which violate the Geneva Conventions. The Bill was introduced by the well-known Irish singer Frances Black whose albums feature both Irish ballads and traditional music. She was elected to Seanad Éireann as an independent Senator on her first attempt in 2016.
The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign welcomed the Seanad vote (25 in …
by Heather Stroud / July 13th, 2018
Media release by Heather Stroud before her trial at York Magistrates Court on 16th July for chaining herself to the gate at Third Energy Fracking Site at Kirby Misperton, North Yorkshire, UK (30th January 2018)
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It’s not pleasant to stand in front of a court and defend myself; however, the overwhelming evidence of harms that fracking would bring to our community, and, in fact, globally through depleted clean water resources and rising temperatures, is so great that I felt I had no choice but to take …
by John Andrews / July 12th, 2018
The Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) is currently undertaking a huge holistic review as to how the Party works. As it already has a superb set of highly radical policies encompassing not only its well-known concerns for saving the environment but also proposals for revolutionary reforms of the economy, British foreign policy, and our so-called constitution, the holistic review has the potential to be either a step towards a major peaceful revolution, or a damp squib.
Since the Greens were first established in Britain decision-making has been undertaken at annual conferences, where any Party member attending the conference may …
Press irresponsibly relies on single-source report to accuse Kim of breaking an agreement he never made.
by Gareth Porter / July 12th, 2018
President Trump and North Korean President Kim Jong Un shake hands in summit room, June 12, 2018. (Office of the President of the United States/Public Domain)
In late June and early July, NBC News, CNN, and The Wall Street Journal published stories that appeared at first glance to shed a lurid light on Donald Trump’s flirtation with Kim Jong-un. They contained satellite imagery showing that North Korea was making rapid upgrades to its nuclear weapons complex at Yongbyon and expanding its missile production program just as Trump and …
by Binoy Kampmark / July 12th, 2018
What a rotten guest, but then again, that was to be expected. Ahead of his visit to Britain, there was some indignation that US President Donald Trump should even be visiting in the first place. Protesters were readying their assortment of paraphernalia in anticipation. Walls of noise were promised. Trump, on the other hand, was bullish after his NATO performance, which did a good deal to stir and unsettle partners and leaders. On leaving Brussels, his singular account was that all partners had, in fact, agreed to a marked rise in defence spending.
Having settled into dinner with British Prime Minister …
by Ricardo Vaz / July 12th, 2018
Village of Gavidia in the Venezuelan Andes (Photo: Ricardo Vaz)
In the remote village of Gavidia, in the state of Mérida, a very interesting experience is taking place: the rescue of the native potato and other native foodstuffs; something that is fundamental in terms of food sovereignty. In this article we discuss this experience after visiting Gavidia and talking to one of the people involved, Cantalicia Torres.
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Cantalicia Torres, commonly known as “Alicia”, is a member of the Vertientes de Agua Viva cooperative. …
A Review of Home Truths by Ryan Guth
by Robert Lavett Smith / July 12th, 2018
When the original version of Home Truths appeared in 2006, it was already an accomplished work of great technical sophistication and emotional insight. This expanded and extensively revised edition manages to substantially improve upon the earlier book, drawing on recently-discovered source materials to clarify and deepen the complex and emotionally charged narrative of the author’s parents’ courtship in Dayton in the 1950s—a story of often short-lived triumphs and sometimes lingering disappointments—centered around the formidable figure of the poet’s maternal grandmother, a matriarch who did whatever she had to, to ensure that the family business, a funeral home, would continue to …
by Binoy Kampmark / July 11th, 2018
There is a certain haunting similarity between the President of the United States and the now former foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson. This does not merely extend to mad, oddly positioned hair, and misshaped mullets. Both share a philosophy of upending the order and permanent disruption, impossible for those on their putative side of politics to measure, predict or contain.
Last Friday, Prime Minister Theresa May thought that her cabinet, moulded by cabinet responsibility, would be able to go forth with the bare bones of a plan for negotiations with the European Union for Britain’s departure. Johnson, with …
by Ajamu Baraka / July 11th, 2018
There is no question that there is an acute, ongoing social, political, and economic crisis in the United States and the colonial/capitalist world. Liberal democracy along with the institutions and ideological justifications for the neoliberal order are under tremendous strain in the U.S. In the cultural and ideological sphere commonsense assumptions that provided meaning and societal unity are now contested. Politically, intra-ruling class contradictions sharpened with the election of Donald Trump and the social and class forces he represents. Those intensifying contradictions are being played out within the terrain of the duopoly with both parties and most governmental institutions suffering …
by Ike Nahem / July 11th, 2018
All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and [humans are] at last compelled to face with sober senses [our] real conditions of life, and [our] relations with [our] kind.
— Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto
An unfolding trade war pitting the United States simultaneously against China, the European Union, Canada, and Mexico has begun. The economic and political consequences – intended and unintended – are now unfolding. …
by John Steppling / July 11th, 2018
Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
— Mathew 10:16
While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
— Eugene Debs, Statement to the Court upon being convicted of violating the Sedition Act, September 18, 1918
Last month I called Bernie Sanders’ Democratic party primary run “sheepdogging” my term for a move the national Democratic party seems to execute every presidential primary season when there’s …
by Binoy Kampmark / July 10th, 2018
They have been falling like ninepins at one of the most unpredictable World Cups in generations. Even before the kick-off in the tournament, Italy’s absence was conspicuous. By the time the first phase of matches had been concluded, Germany, whose teams have made it to the elimination phase for eighty years, found itself in exit mode, a victim of exhaustion, desperation and South Korean determination. Die Welt deemed the performance an embarrassment of perfection, the team’s performance “harmless, unimaginative, listless”.
Spain, who won the 2010 World Cup, found its adventure prematurely aborted in the round-of-sixteen, falling to the inspired Russian team …
