China has announced that in retaliation for the 25% tariffs imposed on Chinese steel, aluminum and other exports to the U.S. it will impose 25% tariffs on, among other things, U.S. soybean imports.
Let us think about soybeans.
The humble, high protein, vitamin-B rich legume is important for human health and the health of the world economy. This year soybeans will exceed corn as the most planted crop in the United States. The U.S. currently produces some one-third of the world’s total. But this is of course not the most traditional North American food. Most of it’s not intended for us.
People like me are not good for big business, like for animal business, medicine business and for many other businesses. That’s why they are discriminating and censoring us.
She claimed to have detested it, issuing fiery calls on her social media outlets, and asserting that this creature was demonic in its effort to limit talent, expression and the profits of others. Nasim Najafi Aghdam of San Diego spoke with a steely confidence that certitude brings, a self-perceived clarity of thought on such topics as veganism, the right to protest and animal rights.
The United States is in a major upheaval. Trump’s cabinet shake-up moves the country into an alarming direction. From the nomination of torturer Gina Haspel as the head of the Central Intelligence Agency to Mike Pompeo, former CIA Director and a vocal opponent of the nuclear deal with Iran as new secretary of state, his selection exposes the White House’s dangerous kill instincts.
An ultimatum came with the president’s appointment of John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations as his 3rd national security advisor. Bolton, who served in the George W. Bush administration is notorious …
On Tuesday (4/3/2018) the US published a list of Chinese imports, set to be hit with a $50 billion tariff increase. This is the latest in an escalating trade skirmish between the US and China, that could escalate into a war. On Monday (4/2/2018) China implemented a $3 billion tariff hike on several US imports including fruits, pork and steel. This was in response to Trump’s tariffs on Chinese aluminum and steel one month ago. Back then, he was tweeting, “trade wars are good and easy …
“Last week, following the brazen attempt by Russia to assassinate one of its former spies and his daughter in Britain with a chemical weapon, 27 countries expelled more than 150 Russian diplomats.”
Thus William J. Burns, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (sic), begins “Putin Has Overplayed His Hand,” an op-ed that the New York Times published, as part of its ferocious retro (one might say “Germanic”) propaganda drive to sharpen the mass appetite for war (of some kind) against Russia.
That drive has been especially vigorous (one might say “hysterical”) since Trump called Putin to congratulate him on his re-election, and without …
Quebec medical tribunal will decide if the psychiatrist-for-hire was allowed to provide a hatchet job based on hearsay
by Denis Rancourt / April 5th, 2018
Quebec medical tribunal will decide if psychiatrist-for-hire Louis Morissette was allowed to provide a hatchet job based on hearsay
The review committee of the medical tribunal of Quebec will decide within 90 days whether or not anyone anywhere, such as a political party or institution or individual in any province or state, can hire a Quebec expert psychiatrist to render a medical opinion about an opponent without interviewing or even informing the individual.
The said medical opinion could be made without any medical record or clinical evaluation or verification of information, and then used publicly or otherwise for political or institutional purposes.
Bayer and Monsanto have a long history of collusion to poison the ecosystem for profit. The Trump administration should veto their merger not just to protect competitors but to ensure human and planetary survival.
Two new studies from Europe have found that the number of farm birds in France has crashed by a third in just 15 years, with some species being almost eradicated. The collapse in the bird population mirrors the discovery last October that over three quarters of all flying insects in Germany have vanished in just three decades. Insects are the staple food source of birds, …
Example of How Liberal-Left Alternative Media Becomes a Conveyor Belt for US Regime Change Propaganda
by Stansfield Smith / April 4th, 2018
As has become a standard operating procedure, an array of Western environmental NGOs, advocates of indigenous rights and liberal-left alternative media cover up the US role in attempts to overturn the anti-imperialist and anti-neoliberal governments of Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Evo Morales in Bolivia.
This NACLA article is a recent excellent example of many. Bolivia’s TIPNIS (Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Secure) dispute arose over the Evo Morales government’s project to complete a road through the park, opposed by some indigenous and environmental groups.
As is NACLA modus operandi, the article says not one word about US and …
Jeremy Corbyn is currently enduring yet another well-organised smear campaign based on his alleged support for “anti-Semitism”. Although the allegation is too ridiculous for words, the smear campaign is nevertheless enjoying some success for two main reasons, each of which is pretty serious – yet neither one has any rational foundation that’s capable of withstanding even basic critical examination.
What’s in a word?
The first, and arguably most relevant reason, is the widespread misunderstanding of the expression “anti-Semitism”. Consider the most significant part of the expression – Semitism. This obviously derives from the word “Semite”. The 1993 edition of the …
Sonoma County, California — The organic Kokopelli Farm has been my home, as well as my main work, identity, and love, for the last two-dozen years. Then I fell into a badger hole in the ground, covered by grass, on January 15 this year. I crawled painfully uphill back into the house, as if I were a baby. This unwelcome anniversary will remain in my now 73-year old body and memory.
The fall plunged me into deep reflections, followed by life-changing behavior. “You must change your life” is a poetry line from Rilke that kept emerging as I spent hours each …
A Review of The Plot to Kill King by William Pepper
by Edward Curtin / April 4th, 2018
Very few Americans are aware of the truth behind the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Few books have been written about it, unlike other significant assassinations, especially JFK’s. For fifty years there has been a media blackout supported by government deception to hide the truth. And few people, in a massive act of self-deception, have chosen to question the absurd official explanation, choosing, rather, to embrace a mythic fabrication intended to sugarcoat the bitter fruit that has resulted from the murder of the one man capable of leading a mass movement for revolutionary change in the United States. Today …
Imagine! The western monotheistic world worships all these gods – never mind the contradiction in monotheistic – and variations of gods – the Jewish god, the Muslim god, the variety and shades of Christian gods, stretching from the god substitute in Rome, to the reformist gods of Calvins, Luthers, Zwinglis, and, of course, the god of the Freemasons – and surely many more – but none of these gods has the stomach, the courage, in fact, to scream murder for what Israel has been doing to the Palestinians for the last 70 years no end. None.
Fifty years ago, on 4 April 1968, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
The night before he died, King gave another of his many evocative speeches; this one at the packed Mason Temple in Memphis. The speech included these words:
Men for years now have been talking about war and peace. Now no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and non-violence in this world, it is non-violence or non-existence. That is where we are today.
In clearly identifying this stark choice and having been inspired by Mohandas K. Gandhi’s wide-ranging social concerns, …
Racism, Materialism and Militarism Still Reign Supreme
by John W. Whitehead / April 3rd, 2018
In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. [Y]ou can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization…filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with …
The Israeli army’s trigger-finger against Palestinian protesters close to the fence surrounding Gaza at the weekend, killing at least 18 and injuring hundreds more, has an explanation rooted in more than normal conceptions of security.
Even before Israel’s creation, its leaders were obssessed with demography and winning a zero-sum numerical war of attrition with the Palestinians. The consequences are still playing out to this day.
Last week, ahead of the Gaza protests, the Israeli army made an unexpected admission. It told parliamentarians that for the first time Jews are outnumbered by Palestinians living under Israeli rule, both inside Israel as citizens and …
Dick Cavett: A lot of people…were astounded at how you got [alleged assassin of Martin Luther King, James Earl] Ray to change the plea [from “not guilty” to “guilty”].
Percy Foreman [Ray’s lawyer and LBJ crony]: I didn’t get him to change the plea. [Laughing] I simply told him that I thought he would be executed if he didn’t.
In this letter, twenty-seven writers, journalists, film-makers, artists, academics, former intelligence officers and democrats call on the government of Ecuador to allow Julian Assange his right of freedom of speech.
If it was ever clear that the case of Julian Assange was never just a legal case, but a struggle for the protection of basic human rights, it is now.
Citing his critical tweets about the recent detention of Catalan president Carles Puidgemont in Germany, and following pressure from the US, Spanish and UK governments, the Ecuadorian government has installed an …
Salisbury is still suffering from the crazy Skripal/nerve agent event that took place on Sunday 4th March. Four weeks on the picture is still grim despite local efforts to encourage people to come to the city. It is after all a shopping and tourist magnet.
On 23rd March Environment Minister Michael Gove visited the city and promised government support. He said, “I know that local businesses have taken a bit of a hit understandably as a result of the events…” A ‘bit of a hit’?
Across the city, businesses have taken a 20% fall and are still far from back to …
1. Before the influx of Europeans the Indians of what is now Canada lived in organized societies with exclusive possession and jurisdiction of the land. But according to the Supreme Court of Canada in Tsilhquot’in v. British Columbia, 2014 SCC 44:
[113]… Can the [provincial] legislature have intended that the vast areas of the province that are potentially subject to Aboriginal title be immune from forestry regulation? And what about the long period of time during which land claims progress and ultimate Aboriginal …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / April 2nd, 2018
The eruption of youth protests over gun violence in schools and other issues is another indicator that the 2020s could be a decade of transformation where people demand economic, racial and environmental justice as well as peace. Students who are in their teens now will be in their twenties then. They will have experience in how protests can change political culture.
Some view the youth awakening in these protests as reminiscent of youth movements in previous generations, others are less optimistic. We cannot predict the role this generation will play, but throughout the history of mass movements, youth have been a key …
Is there no voice in Parliament willing to denounce Canadian interference in another country’s electoral process?
The Trudeau government is engaged in a wide-ranging campaign to weaken Venezuela’s elected government. In a bid to elicit “regime change,” Ottawa has worked to isolate Caracas, imposed sanctions, and supported the country’s opposition.
Recently, foreign minister Chrystia Freeland endorsed Peru’s decision to block Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from attending the mid-April Summit of the Americas in Lima. “As Venezuela slides deeper into dictatorship, and as Venezuelans continue to suffer, Maduro’s participation at a hemispheric leaders’ summit would have been farcical,” Freeland noted. But, Freeland …
Haiti, battered by natural disasters, is reeling from a scandal around the revelations of abuse by international aid workers. How will it affect the humanitarian efforts of NGOs and the UN in the country? We ask Ezili Danto, Haitian human rights lawyer.
Rim Banna passed away at the age of 51. Her death on March 24, after a decade-long battle with cancer, brought grief to Palestinians everywhere.
Rim, a Palestinian Christian from Nazareth, united the Palestinian people across political and geographic divides.
When she sang for the Homeland, nothing mattered but Palestine. Christians and Muslims, Fatah and Hamas, Gaza and Ramallah, all became one.
Through her soulful and warm voice, she imparted sorrow, yet celebrated life. Her songs ‘Fares Odeh’ and ‘Sarah’ were poetic interpretation of precious young Palestinian lives cut short by Israeli soldiers.
The butterfly will carry you to the back of a cloud
The …
Fukushima is full of nasty surprises, similar to John Carpenter’s classic film The Thing (1982), which held audiences to the edge of their seats in anticipation of creepy monsters leaping out from “somebody, anybody, nobody knows for sure,” but unlike Hollywood films, Fukushima’s consequences are real and dire and deathly. It’s an on-going horror show that just won’t quit.
Only recently, a team of international researchers, including a group of scientists from the University of Manchester/UK and Kyushu University/Japan made a startling discovery. Within the nuclear exclusion zone in paddy soils and at an aquaculture center located several miles from the …
In 2014 I wrote an article titled “The Global Elite is Insane.” I want to elaborate what I explained in the earlier article so that people have a clearer sense of what we are up against in our struggle to create a world of peace, justice and ecological sustainability.
Of course, as I explained previously, it is not just the global elite that is insane. All those individuals – politicians, business people, academics, corporate media editors and journalists, judges and lawyers, bureaucrats…. – who serve the elite, including by not exposing and resisting it, are also insane. And it is …
US Presidents, European leaders and their academic spokespeople have attributed China’s growing market shares, trade surpluses and technological power to its “theft” of western technology, “unfair” or non-reciprocal trade and restrictive investment practices. President Trump has launched a ‘trade war’ – raising stiff tariffs, especially targeting Chinese exports – designed to pursue a protectionist economic regime.
The China-bashers of the western world ignore the developmental experiences of the past two hundred and fifty years, starting with the …
One belonged to the establishment; the other hung out on the fringes. One preached to presidents; the other led a tiny cult. Both left their mark on the 20th century and lived on into the 21st. Rev. Billy Graham died in February at the age of 99, and Charles Manson passed away last November in his 80s. Thus ended the lives of two prominent gurus of the 20th century; both of them had been named by the Smithsonian Magazine as among “the 100 Most Significant Americans of all time.”
“The GREAT Billy Graham is dead,” tweeted President Donald Trump, “There …
Among liberals and the different types of socialists, when the subject of the Democratic Party comes up, there are at least two variations. One is the familiar liberal argument that the Democratic Party is the “lesser of two evils”. For them, the Republican Party is the source of most, if not all, problems while the Democratic Party is presented as shortsighted, weak and/or incompetent bumblers. Among some of the more compromising members of the Green Party, the lesser of two …
With due respect to the citizens of Pisa and their landmark bell tower, I am using it loosely as a metaphor for the permanent tilting of America’s institutions of higher learning to the corrupting influences of America’s corpocracy ever since the beginning of those institutions.
While I have written several times about the corruption of American education, this article limits itself to an overview of the corruption of America’s post-secondary education by America’s corpocracy. ((See, e.g., pp. 143-151 of my book, America’s Oldest Professions: Warring and Spying. 2015; also, my article, “The Militarization of American Education”, OpEdNews, August 17, 2014.))
The murder of six worshippers in January 2017 reached a dramatic conclusion in March when Alexandre Bissonnette pleaded guilty, avoiding a lengthy trial.
I’d like to ask for your forgiveness for all the harm I caused you, even though I know what I did is unforgivable. In spite of everything that was said, I am not a terrorist, nor Islamophobic … [I am] more a person who was carried away by fear and a horrible form of despair.
‘Semites’ and imperialism
Quebec has a long history of racial and religious problems, going back to the British conquest in 1763. The French were forced …
