Why the industry of glib and vehement mainstream character assassinations of clinical and research psychologist Jordan Peterson? My examination of Peterson’s “Rule 1: Stand Up Straight with Your Shoulders Back” suggests that it is a seminal work anchored in a prestigious body of scientific research that should form the theoretical basis of social science in the coming years. Peterson is simply presenting this nascent scientific paradigm of the primacy of dominance hierarchy directly to the people, without an institutional filter, and using it in a cognitive therapy approach to solve the self-image catastrophe that white males in particular are experiencing. …
Should “Jewish Heritage Month” be used as a cover for Israeli nationalism and to suppress Palestinian protest?
A recent incident at a Toronto high school demonstrates the depravity of the pro-Israel lobby. It also illustrates their use of Canadian cultural and “diversity” initiatives to promote a country that declares itself to be the exact opposite of diverse.
Amidst the recent slaughter of nonviolent protesters in Gaza, a half-century illegal occupation of the West Bank and weekly bombings in Syria, an Israeli flag marked with “Jewish Heritage Month” was hoisted in the main foyer of Forest Hill Collegiate Institute. After a couple days …
Dedicated to my friend, a philosopher, John Cobb, Jr.
by Andre Vltchek / June 2nd, 2018
The West likes to think of itself as a truly “peace-loving part of the world”. But is it? You hear it everywhere, from Europe to North America, then to Australia, and back to Europe: “Peace, peace, peace!”
It has become a cliché, a catchphrase, a recipe to get funding and sympathy and support. You say peace and you really cannot go wrong. It means that you are a compassionate and reasonable human being. After addressing East African left wing opposition at Venezuelan embassy
Every year, there are “peace conferences” …
As a Marxist, I’m not very interested in the psychology of the powerful. I don’t think it matters much, and it tends to be pretty uniform and predictable anyway: self-overestimation, self-justification, moral rationalizations for every horrendous decision made, brutal callousness to human suffering beneath (at best) a veneer of concern, energies directed to machinations for increased power, cowardly accommodation to the path of least political resistance, a collective insularity of the golden-boy culture gilded with sycophants, etc. On the other hand, as a despiser of the complacent powerful, I enjoy belittling their grandiose pretensions. So sometimes I do like to …
Since Trump took office, the Israel lobby has mobilised four other powerful lobbies: Christian evangelicals, the alt-right, the military-industrial complex and Saudi Arabia
by Jonathan Cook / June 2nd, 2018
The Trump administration’s recent steps in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should surely lay to rest any doubts about the enormous, and dangerous, power of the Israel lobby in Washington.
Under Trump, the lobby has shown it can wield unprecedented influence – even by its usual standards – in flagrant disregard for all apparent US interests.
First, there was the move this month of the US embassy to Jerusalem, not quietly but on the 70th anniversary of the most sensitive day in the Palestinian calendar, Nakba Day. That is when Palestinians commemorate their mass expulsion from their homeland in 1948.
Part 9 of a 10 Part Series: Economic Sanity and Alternative Economic Systems
by Gary Brumback / June 1st, 2018
Dana Zohar and Ian Marshall, who wrote the book, Spiritual Capital: Wealth We Can Live By, ((Zohar, D. & Marshall, I. Spiritual Capital: Wealth We Can Live By, 2004.)) are a fascinating, couple married to each other. Zohar is broadly trained and thus taps into diverse resources such as classical literature, physics, religion, and psychology. Marshall is a Jungian-oriented psychiatrist and psychotherapist.
The authors recount the story of a neuroscientist who was probing his temporal lobes in the laboratory and claimed to “have seen God.” This neural mass, or “God Spot,” apparently is where “spiritual intelligence” is hardwired so that the …
Part 8 of 10 Part Series: Economic Sanity and Alternative Economic Systems
by Gary Brumback / June 1st, 2018
Jeff Gates wrote a book jam packed with ideas about what he calls “shared capitalism for the twenty-first century.” ((Gates, JR. The Ownership Solution: Toward A Shared Capitalism for the 21st Century, 1998.)) His is a decidedly populist view, not surprising since he was counsel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee (1980-87), working with Senator Russell Long of Louisiana, son of populist governor and U.S. Senator Huey P. Long. In this role, Gates crafted federal law on employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) and pension plans.
Capitalism creates financial capital, not capitalists, he notes. Moreover, most financial capital is held by institutional …
A recent unidentified White House staff email referred to a still-pending federal study on chemicals as “a public relations nightmare.” ((Annie Snider, “EPA Move On Chemical Study May Trip Up Pruitt”, Politico, May 16, 2018.))
People do not grasp the depth and extent of toxicity throughout the country because if they did, they’d be in the streets banging pots and pans in front of the con job White House as well as in front of the ultra-feeble bootlicking Congress.
Here’s why they’d be in the streets, angry, indignant, pissed-off: “Humans emit more than 250 billion tonnes of chemical substances a year, in …
We have blind men, one-eyed men, squint-eyed men, men with long sight, short sight, clear sight, dim sight, [and] weak sight. All that is a faithful enough image of our understanding; but we are barely acquainted with [men of] false sight.
Syrian President Bashar Assad says Moscow deterred the West from launching a devastating country-wide air strike last month, and believes that Damascus has nearly won the seven-year war, despite continued US ‘interference.’ Read more.
Part 7 of 10 Part Series: Economic Sanity and Alternative Economic Systems
by Gary Brumback / May 31st, 2018
Peter Barnes ((Barnes, P. Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons, San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2006.)) co-founder, president, or a director of various socially responsible businesses, wants “capitalism 3.0” to replace “capitalism 2.0,” the existing economic “operating system.” He complains that corporations, with no resistance from “our” government, are privatizing the commons, profiting from it and externalizing the costs.
He defines “the commons” as assets we all share by inheriting or creating them together and subdivides them into three sectors, nature, community, and culture. Together they represent our “common wealth” (a most insightful concept), in contrast to our “private wealth,” …
Transcript of PressTV Skype Interview of 29 May 2018
by Peter Koenig / May 31st, 2018
Background
Washington, May 29 (Reuters): The United States said on Tuesday that it will continue pursuing action on trade with China, days after Washington and Beijing announced a tentative solution to their dispute and suggested that tensions had cooled. By June 15, Washington will release a list of some $50 billion worth of Chinese goods that will be subject to a 25 percent tariff, the White House said in a statement. The United States will also continue to pursue litigation against China at the World Trade Organization.
In addition, by the end of June, the United States will announce investment restrictions …
The Organization of American States (OAS) is a Cold War-era group that acts as a vehicle for US influence, opposing leftist governments in Latin America. Journalist Max Blumenthal challenged the OAS on its extreme anti-Venezuela bias and enlisting of right-wing pro-Israel lobbyists to demonize Nicolas Maduro.
Thesis: the main achievement of the Trump administration to date has been to alienate European allies, in particular Germany, France and Britain, thus weakening the Atlantic Alliance. Originally concerned by candidate Trump’s questioning of NATO’s continuing relevance, they have been satisfied by Trump’s re-commitment to the alliance (even as he moans about the member countries’ general failure to shell out the 2% for “defense” the pact theoretically entails). But they’ve been dismayed by the U.S.’s withdrawal from the Paris Accord on climate, its pullout from the Iran nuclear deal (threatening sanctions on European companies that in accordance with the deal …
Backpack Full of Cash is a 90-minute documentary about the negative consequences of the growing privatization of public schools in America. Produced several years ago, the film focuses mainly on the harmful impact of charter schools on public schools and America’s most vulnerable children. The film has been viewed by thousands of people in many different venues, and many continue to organize film screenings in their communities.
Among other things, the film makers have produced a useful 28-page discussion guide which includes questions and answers surrounding privatization and charter schools.
This three-part series tackles a few of these questions in greater …
Part 6 of 10 Part Series: Economic Sanity and Alternative Economic Systems
by Gary Brumback / May 30th, 2018
The authors of Natural Capitalism ((Hawkins, P., Lovins, A., & Lovins, LH. Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, 1999.)) argue that it is needed to “create the next industrial revolution.” They warn that if we continue to ignore the value of natural capital; i.e., nature’s life-support systems for humankind, there will come a time when there won’t be any more life support. Doomsday may be a century or two away, but the quality of life up to that point will have deteriorated at an increasing pace.
Pursuing four central strategies of natural capitalism, these authors say, will enable commercial …
Western high-tech civilization can never fully enter the post-modern era without eradicating civilization of bourgeois-state-capitalism, namely, the meta-narrative of bourgeois-capitalism, that encrusted jewel, dead center, within the crown of the Enlightenment, which continues to infect and poison high-tech society with a most horrible sickness, insatiable avarice, an avarice for unlimited power and money. The post-modern era cannot achieve full maturity under current bourgeois-capitalism conditions as the grand-narrative of bourgeois-capitalism continually impedes the overwhelming diversity and plurality that post-modernity champions and inherently demands. In effect, post-modernism has not smashed to pieces all the grand-narratives of the Enlightenment, specifically bourgeois-capitalism which, itself, …
They call themselves non-profit professional societies, but they often act as enabling trade associations for the companies and businesspeople who fund them. At their worst, they serve their paymasters and remain in the shadows, avoiding publicity and visibility. When guided by their better angels, professional societies can be authoritative tribunes for a more healthy and safe society.
I am referring to the organizations that stand for their respective professions – automotive, electrical, chemical and mechanical engineers; physicians; architects; scientists; and accountants. The people working in these occupations all want to be members of a “professional” association, not a “trade” association.
In a recent article titled “Challenges for Resolving Complex Conflicts“, I pointed out that existing conflict theory pays little attention to the extinction-causing conflict being ongoingly generated by human over-consumption in the finite planetary biosphere (and, among other outcomes, currently resulting in 200 species extinctions daily). I also mentioned that this conflict is sometimes inadequately identified as a conflict caused by capitalism’s drive for unending economic growth in a finite environment.
I would like to explain the psychological origin of this biosphere-annihilating conflict and how this origin has nurtured the incredibly destructive aspects of capitalism (and socialism, for that matter) …
The modern university is a tertiary colonising institution. Like the old mercantilist bodies – the Dutch East India Company and its equivalents – the educational world is there to be acquired by bureaucrats, teachers and, it is hoped, suitable recruits.
To that end, a good degree of amorality is required. Scruples are best left to others, and most certainly not university managers, who prefer counting the sums rather than pondering deontological principles. Such a point seems very much at the forefront of an arrangement between the Melbourne Graduate School of Education (MGSE) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The MGSE, which …
On February 20, 2018, I embarked on a global book tour that has, thus far, taken me to eight nations. The main theme of all my talks in various cultural, academic and media platforms was the pressing need to refocus the discussion on Palestine on the struggle, aspirations and history of the Palestinian people.
But, interacting with hundreds of people and being exposed to multiple media environments in both mainstream and alternative media, I also learned much about the changing political mood on Palestine in the western world.
While the nations I have visited – the US, Canada, the UK (England and …
The first time it was reported that our friends were being butchered there was a cry of horror. Then a hundred were butchered. But when a thousand were butchered and there was no end to the butchery, a blanket of silence spread. When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out ‘stop!’ When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.
? Bertolt Brecht, Selected Poems, March 24, 1971
There are days I wake up, and I’m not sure what country I live in …
Voters waiting in line in Catia, a popular neighbourhood in Western Caracas (Photo: Ricardo Vaz) In a climate of dire economic war/crisis and foreign aggression, Venezuelans took to the polls to elect their president and regional legislative councils. Chavismo won big in both contests, with president Maduro securing a second term until 2025. The international reaction from the US and its allies was already pre-scripted, and the dishonest coverage from the mainstream media was also to be expected. We take a look at the election, how the electoral …
When Europeans first visited the east Atlantic seaboard, the hyperabundance of cod would not go unnoticed. In 1602, English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold named the peninsula, where the Nauset and Wampanoag people lived, Cape Cod after its fish stocks.
The Grand Banks of Newfoundland and Georges Bank of Massachusetts and Nova Scotia were immensely rich fishing grounds that were plundered by the early 1990s. Subsequently, a moratorium was imposed on the fisheries in hopes of recovery. ((It may well be that a recovery is underway, as there are signs that the the cod stocks are bouncing back. See Aaron Beswick, “…
Newly appointed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had every reason to expect that his first official appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would be the usual slam-dunk as mostly obedient, respectful Senators aligned with his testimony.
Instead of the typically gratuitous compliments and undeserved deference, there was a display (albeit a minority) of some moral courage with a rare slice of truth on Capitol Hill, epitomizing the real-time requirements of a Senator’s job: to be skeptical, provide oversight and demand accountability from every Federal government witness, no matter the rank – once referred to as ‘grilling the witness.”
Both North and South Korean government officials were reportedly shocked by Trump’s sudden cancellation of the Singapore summit. The South Korean president was taken by surprise. It makes me recall this historical incident.
In July 1971 Richard Nixon announced that he would visit the People’s Republic of China the following year, signalling a major shift in U.S. foreign policy. Japanese Prime Minister Sato Eisaku was not pleased; he’d been informed only hours before the announcement. Japan had been the U.S.’s closest ally in Asia since 1945, hosting tens of thousands of U.S. troops and supporting virtually every U.S. action on the …
Upon returning to the United States from Venezuela and reading the terrible media reporting of the election, it was evident that the people of the United States are being lied to. The Intrepid News Fund and Venezuela Analysis invited me and others to come to Venezuela for the election to see first hand what actually happened so we could report what we saw and break the media blockade against Venezuela.
The US is leading an economic war against Venezuela that is causing tremendous damage, but there is also a media blockade preventing the truth from being told. Mayor Carlos Alcala Cordones of …
It is the season for exposures and exposes, and the Catholic Church has been making regular ripples of the wrong and undeniably crude sort. Globally, the church is finding itself being picked bare in terms of institutional malfeasance, not merely on the issue of having harboured abusive priests, but of placing a dark, impenetrable cover over them.
No area of influence has been spared. In Guam, the disruptive efforts of former Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron made it into public eye with G. R. Pafumi’s work citing attempts to invalidate a 2016 statute lifting limitations for child sex abuse. In Pafumi’s …
Fathi Harb should have had something to live for, not least the imminent arrival of a new baby. But last week the 21-year-old extinguished his life in an inferno of flames in central Gaza.
It is believed to be the first example of a public act of self-immolation in the enclave. Harb doused himself in petrol and set himself alight on a street in Gaza City shortly before dawn prayers during the holy month of Ramadan.
In part, Harb was driven to this terrible act of self-destruction out of despair.
After a savage, decade-long Israeli blockade by land, sea and air, Gaza is …
In view of the alarming news emanating from your estimable embassy, as a concered ‘world citizen’ I am writing to you.
It is an open secret that the United States contemptuously considers the sovereign states, the independent nations, of Latin America as its ‘backyard,’ and frequently exerts enormous pressure on Latin American countries to do its bidding, to the extent of effecting changes in the government by means both peaceful and violent. This arrogant superpower is now pressuring your small country to evict Mr. Julian Assange from your embassy and render this valourous warrior for truth and justice to the …
