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 …
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.
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 …
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)
*****
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 …
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 …
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 …
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.
*****
Cantalicia Torres, commonly known as “Alicia”, is a member of the Vertientes de Agua Viva cooperative. …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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. …
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 …
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 …
A recent European Council summit in Brussels was meant to articulate a united policy on the burgeoning refugees and migrant crisis. Instead, it served to highlight the bitter divisions among various European countries. Considering the gravity of the matter, Europe’s self-serving policies are set to worsen an already tragic situation.
True, several European leaders, including Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, went home to speak triumphantly of a ‘great victory’, achieved through a supposedly united European position.
Italy’s Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini, used more derogatory terms in explaining his country’s new policy on refugees and migrants. “They will only see Italy on a …
There is a great deal of false and inaccurate information about Nicaragua in the media. Even on the left, some have simply repeated the dubious claims of CNN and Nicaragua’s oligarchic media to support the removal of President Ortega. The narrative of nonviolent protesters versus anti-riot squads and pro-government paramilitaries has not been questioned by international media.
This article seeks to correct the record, describe what is happening in Nicaragua and why. As we write this, the coup seems to be failing, people have rallied for peace (as this massive march for peace held Saturday, July 7 showed) and the …
There are now in the public sphere two totally contradictory narratives of the assassination in 1968 of Martin Luther King, Jr. with each being advanced again and again over the years by respective advocates as if the other did not exist.
Attorney William Pepper, confidant of Martin Luther King, Jr., became convinced in 1978 that James Earl Ray, the officially declared lone gunman, was innocent. Years of investigation led to his 1995 book, Orders to Kill, in which Pepper presented evidence of governmental involvement in the assassination. Three years later, Gerald Posner, already famous for his support for the …
Following is the text of an invitation from Amal Wahdan, on behalf of herself and the rest of the Steering Committee of the Free Palestine Movement, for congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to visit Palestine.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortes won the Democratic primary election for New York State’s 14th congressional district on June 26, 2018. Two things were surprising and encouraging about her victory. First, she won against the heavily favored incumbent, the Chair of the New York Democratic Caucus, Joseph Crowley.
On the heels of the historic June 12 Trump-Kim Singapore Summit that de-escalated tensions between North Korea and the US, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made his third visit to NK to move the negotiations for denuclearization and security on the peninsula forward. He met with his North Korean counterpart, Vice Chair of the Party Central Committee, Kim Young Chol, on July 6 and 7, for intensive negotiations. At the end of the meeting, on leaving Pyongyang, Secretary Pompeo declared that the summit had been conducted in good faith …
There are no nations. There are no peoples … There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business.
There are those who will tell you that any mention of a New World Order government—a power elite conspiring to rule the world—is the stuff of conspiracy theories.
I am not one of those skeptics.
What’s more, I wholeheartedly believe that one should always mistrust those in power, take alarm at the …
It was meant to be an away day at Chequers in total hermetic isolation, an effort on the part of UK Prime Minister Theresa May to sketch some common ground in a cabinet that has struggled to agree on much regarding the imminent departure of Britain from the European Union. The clock is ticking, for many ominously, with the departure date slated for March 29, 2019.
The initial signs seemed good: a consensus had, initially, been reached by all brands of Brexiter. Chief Brexit minister David Davis and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had, in principle, come on board, though there were …
Protecting our citizens and our nation remains the Justice Department’s top priority,” U.S. Attorney [Justin] Herdman said. “This defendant plotted and scouted locations in downtown Cleveland for an attack on July 4th, when he knew it would be packed with people celebrating our nation’s birthday. We will continue to do all we can to identify, arrest and prosecute those threats while working to keep our communities safe and secure.
Judge Sérgio Moro intervened from vacation to ensure that former president Lula would not be released, says Brian Mier of Brasil Wire. We talk to him about the process by which Lula was almost released on Sunday and how authorities managed to prevent it – all in order to derail his new presidential bid.
Israel finally built an access road to the West Bank village of Khan Al Ahmar last week, after half a century of delays. But the only vehicles allowed along it are the bulldozers scheduled to sweep away its 200 inhabitants’ homes.
If one community has come to symbolise the demise of the two-state solution, it is Khan Al Ahmar.
It was for that reason that a posse of European diplomats left their air-conditioned offices late last week to trudge through the hot, dusty hills outside Jerusalem and witness for themselves the preparations for the village’s destruction. That included the Israeli police viciously …
India is under siege from international capital. It is on course not only to be permanently beholden to US state-corporate interests but is heading towards environmental catastrophe much faster than many may think.
According to the World Bank’s lending report, based on data compiled up to 2015, India was easily the largest recipient of its loans in the history of the institution. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the World Bank exerts a certain hold over India. In the 1990s, the IMF and World Bank wanted India to shift hundreds of millions out of agriculture. In return for up to £90 billion in loans, India was directed to dismantle …
Regime change, both the term and the strategy it describes, has become all too familiar to those who follow the machinations of U.S. foreign policy. Enshrined in the lexicon of our 24 hour media I would not hesitate, however, to say that most people do not dwell on the historic implications associated with its applications. As the current administration proclaims nations such as Venezuela, Syria and Iran to be targets for regime change it would be worthwhile to examine how this weapon of American hegemony has been deployed by previous administrations in previous centuries. While 21st century …
Robert (Bob) Parry was born in 1949 and died suddenly from pancreatic cancer in January 2018. An enthusiastic tribute to him and his work was recently held in Berkeley California. A video of the event is online here.
Although Robert Parry never became personally famous, many readers will recall news stories he played a key role in bringing to public consciousness. He uncovered the “Iran-Contra scandal” where the US secretly sold weapons to Iran via Israel with profits supporting mercenary “Contras” attacking the Nicaraguan government. He uncovered Lt. Col. Oliver North secretly working at the Reagan White House to supervise support …
Words can be teasing in their meaning. In the realm of political and financial discussion, they can become absurdly changing. Take Malaysia’s political status. On the surface, all looks delightfully democratic in that multi-ethnic state. Once the eyewash is applied, a certain ugliness manifests: the ethnic tensions that are only ever a stone’s throw away from bloodshed and riot; the thieving of state assets as a measure of self-enrichment by representatives; the periodic threatening and at stages jailing of opponents and dissidents unhappy with the vision of its leaders.
While the Mahathir Mohamad show is in full force, the former prime …
In June 2018 alone, more than 500 refugees drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. Their boats were refused access to land in either Malta or Italy. They were force-driven back by gun-boats to the North African shores they came from, mostly Libya, but many boats capsized and countless refugees didn’t make it.
These are de facto murders, high crimes against humanity, committed by the very European Union. The same “leaders” (criminals, rather), whose forebears are known to have raped, exploited, tortured, ravaged peoples and their lands of Asia, Africa, Latin America over the past 1000 years of abject colonization. Europeans have it …
A missing piece from most critiques of modern capitalism revolves around the misunderstanding of ecology. To put it bluntly, there will be no squaring the circle of mass industrial civilization and an inhabitable Earth. There is no way for energy and resource use, along with all the strife, warfare, and poverty that comes along with it, to continue under the business as usual model that contemporary Western nations operate under.
There is also the problem of constructing millions of solar panels and gigantic wind farms to attempt to bring the entire world’s population to a middle class existence based on a …
