Latest articles
by Elizabeth West / March 26th, 2018
What can we do? We are without doubt in an historically unique and incredibly challenging position. The Anthropogenic extinction is here, now. It is not something we are anticipating or awaiting. It is upon us. Today, we are in it, watching the life we have known unravel on a hundred different fronts. And I find myself asking with crazy-making regularity: how can I — one ordinary human amongst 7.5 billion — honor this extraordinary time with whatever gifts and goods I happen to be carrying?
Many of us are posing similar questions to ourselves, to one another. These are my own …
by Yves Engler / March 24th, 2018
Is it a charity or political fundraiser for a right-wing foreign government?
People need to take a look at Canada’s Jewish Federations.
Together the United Jewish Appeal/Combined Jewish Appeal of Toronto, Montréal, Winnipeg, Windsor, Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton, London, Ottawa, Vancouver and Atlantic Canada raise over $100 million annually. The largest in the network, UJA Toronto’s endowment and planned giving arm has $500 million in assets and planned gifts. CJA Montréal has over $300 million on hand.
In a recent letter to the Canadian Jewish News Morris Sosnovitch asked why UJA Toronto gives a quarter of its budget to a country with …
by Gary Leupp / March 24th, 2018
Everyone except the NRA and Donald Jr. thinks it’s a beautiful sight. These high school students, so many of them (have you noticed?) extraordinarily articulate, marching to demand changes in gun laws and mental health care so that they don’t have to fear for their lives in math class.
It’s natural to refer to this movement poetically as a Children’s Crusade (although that episode in the thirteen century did not end well). I think of random Bible verses. “And a little child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:6) and Jesus’s comment that you have to become like a child to enter heaven …
by Binoy Kampmark / March 24th, 2018
The hacking community, like poets, tend to be irritable tribesmen and women. Their modus operandi functions on the stab, the enthusiastic penetration of insecure computer systems and mockery. Their role is as much to instruct as it is to disrupt.
To that end, such figures cut different forms. There is the lonesome soul finding solace in being a nuisance, or the idealist intent on revealing a compromised state of affairs (those working for Anonymous, by way of example). It was questionable whether Adrián …
by William Hawes / March 23rd, 2018
In the groundbreaking work, Humanity: The World Before Religion, War, and Inequality, author Barry Brown has provided definitive evidence of humankind’s natural tendency to be peaceful, cooperative, and egalitarian. Brown’s work is the first ever to document the history of humankind before and after the advent of warfare. Brown takes the reader on a tour de force through humanity’s prehistory as well as providing detailed evidence about ancient mysteries such as the Venus statues, the original meaning of the swastika, his theory about the location of …
They are Stealing our Livelihood and We aren’t Even Noticing
by Peter Koenig / March 23rd, 2018
Yesterday, 22 March 2018, marked World Water Day. It is also the week, when the 8th World Water Forum (WWF-8) convenes, 18 to 23 March 2018, in Brasilia. It is no coincidence, for sure, that Brazil was chosen for this noble WWF – about the water equivalent to the political and corporate elites, represented at the WEF – World Economic Forum, in Davos. The two are intimately related, and interlinked, as we will see.
The WWF is organized by the World Water Council, just another layer to confuse who is …
by Jan Oberg / March 23rd, 2018
The ethnic map few understood. Should make it clear that cutting up Yugoslavia in independent republics could not be done without bloodshed. ((There are only three cases in the 20th century where dividing states were done without bloodshed: Norway from Sweden in 1905; Singapore from Malaysia in 1965 and the division of Czechoslovakia in 1993. All others were violent. Where those who advocated that Yugoslavia be divided by force unaware of history or just cynical?))
Yellow = Serbs, Dark Green = Muslims, Light Blue = Croats, Light Green = Slovenes, …
by Robert Hunziker / March 23rd, 2018
In an economically/socially-advanced pluralistic society, like the United States, the integrity of the EPA should never need to be questioned. However, simply posing the thought “whether the EPA is hazardous” suggests a disquieting response.
As such, and if true that the EPA is hazardous to health, it is incumbent upon the public to root out and toss out perpetrators because a democracy, or an autocracy for that matter, should never allow public servants to knowingly harm/kill/maim its own people.
Still, according to Karen Perry, senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists:
This EPA is not interested in protecting people from harmful pesticides. …
by Binoy Kampmark / March 23rd, 2018
It might have made a bit more than a whimper had the US political scene not found itself in yet another paroxysm of the drama known as the Trump White House. Fifteen years before, governments aligning with the dogs of war decided, in defiance of millions of protestors globally, to invade a sovereign state. Papers cheered with blood lust; propagandists and public relations firms were hired to push the politics of regime change in a country that was already hemmed in by sanctions and surveillance.
The invasion of Iraq must, over time, be given its own specific criminal gravity. It sundered …
by Medea Benjamin / March 22nd, 2018
Saudi Arabia’s 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, heir to the Saudi throne after eliminating his rivals, is on a two-week whirlwind visit to the United States starting March 19. He plans to cement his ties to the Trump administration, shore up support for his war in Yemen while whipping up more opposition to Iran, and make lucrative business deals. From political meetings with Donald Trump and Congress to cultural events at DC’s Kennedy Center, a talk at MIT, gatherings with tech leaders in Silicon Valley and oil executives in Houston, the prince will be selling dolled-up versions of both …
by Carl Doerner / March 22nd, 2018
When troubled youth Nikolas Cruz picked a fight with a classmate who was dating his ex-girlfriend he was expelled from high school. Three days later he bought an AR-15. The gun dealer reportedly suggested an accessory to make the rifle fully automatic. Anger prompted Cruz to show up at the Parkland, FL school on Valentine’s Day and fire 160 rounds, slaying 17. For doing little to launch follow-up intervention, let’s blame the school administration.
Police reportedly responded 39 times to circumstances at the home where Nikolas lived after the deaths of both his parents. Let’s blame the local authorities for not …
by John W. Whitehead / March 22nd, 2018
Those who created this country chose freedom. With all of its dangers. And do you know the riskiest part of that choice they made? They actually believed that we could be trusted to make up our own minds in the whirl of differing ideas. That we could be trusted to remain free, even when there were very, very seductive voices – taking advantage of our freedom of speech – who were trying to turn this country into the kind of place where the government could tell you what you can and cannot do.
— Nat Hentoff, The Day They Came to …
by James Petras / March 21st, 2018
For the greater part of a decade the US, the UK and the EU have been carrying out a campaign to undermine and overthrow the Russia government and in particular to oust President Putin. Fundamental issues are at stake including the real possibility of a nuclear war.
The most recent western propaganda campaign and one of the most virulent is the charge launched by the UK regime of Prime Minister Theresa May. The Brits have claimed that Russian secret agents conspired to poison a former Russian double-agent …
by Media Lens / March 21st, 2018
Fifteen years ago this month, the US-led ‘Shock and Awe’ offensive began against Iraq, supposedly to disarm the country of its ‘weapons of mass destruction’. The illegal invasion and subsequent brutal occupation led to the loss of around one million lives, created millions of refugees, destroyed the infrastructure of a country already ravaged by over a decade of cruel UN sanctions, and contributed significantly to the rise of Islamic State. All of this might never have happened were it not for an intense campaign of propaganda and deception in which the so-called ‘mainstream’ media, including …
by Thierry Meyssan / March 21st, 2018
The week that has just ended was exceptionally rich in events. But no media were able to report it, because they had all deliberately masked certain of their number in order to protect the story that was being woven by their government.
The British government and certain of its allies, including US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, have attempted to launch a Cold War against Russia. Their plan was to fabricate an attack against an ex-double agent in Salisbury and at the same time a chemical attack against the “moderate rebels” in the Ghouta. …
by Yves Engler / March 21st, 2018
We should be concerned about Jagmeet Singh’s support for political violence. But not the stuff that’s making news. While the media makes much of the new NDP head’s ties/indifference to Sikh violence, they’ve ignored Singh’s leadership of a party/community that has repeatedly backed Canadian aggression.
In a Rabble story on the controversy, Karl Nerenberg described Singh as the “leader of a party that has throughout its history favoured peaceful and non-violent solutions.” As such, Nerenberg called on the NDP leader to “make a stronger statement against any use of violence in furtherance of Sikh goals.”
While not downplaying the terrible human …
by Jan Oberg / March 21st, 2018
Today marks the 15th Anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq.
Neither solid analyses, moral reasoning and decent argument nor history’s probably largest pre-war, anti-war demonstrations worldwide had any discernible impact on the Bush and Blair Administrations’ decision to go to war and do so on a false pretext. Neither could major allies like France and Germany by their opposition to the war on Iraq persuade Washington and London to first try a peaceful resolution in accordance with the UN Charter provisions.
TFF was deeply engaged in preventing this war – also by being on the ground in Iraq – and wants …
by Binoy Kampmark / March 20th, 2018
The policy of responding to assassinations on British soil is a near non-existent one. Her Majesty’s Government is certainly in the habit of huffing, and steam can issue from deliberations in the House of Commons. But substance is often absent.
When Buzzfeed conducted an investigation into the mortuary of incidents in 2017, it found a degree of indifference on the part of British authorities. Trumpeting findings that fourteen individuals had “been assassinated on British soil by Russia’s security services or mafia groups, two forces that sometimes work in tandem”, the reporters honed in on British sluggishness. While the Russian bear …
by Lesley Docksey / March 20th, 2018
From the moment the news came out that on Sunday March 4th in Salisbury, one of England’s revered cathedral cities, a Russian spy and his daughter had been poisoned by some form of ‘nerve agent’ my reaction was ‘Oh dear’.
Jeremy Corbyn correctly reminded Parliament of Tony Blair’s attempt to frighten people into going to war with Iraq with his ‘’dodgy dossier’ and 45 minutes claim. But most have forgotten that, four days before the huge demonstration in London the Army very visibly arrived at Heathrow airport, because there was a possible threat of planes …
by Andre Vltchek / March 20th, 2018
“How many years have you been living in Beirut?” I asked my barber, Eyad, after he told me, beaming, that in three months from now, he will be returning home, to Damascus.
Even one year ago, such conversations would not be easy to commence. But now, everything has been changing, rapidly and, one wants to believe, irreversibly.
Although nothing is truly irreversible, the better things are on the ground in Syria, the more threatening the West is becoming, particularly the United States. Now it is, once again, intimidating Damascus, ready to attack the Syrian army, something that could easily drag Russia and …
by Ramzy Baroud / March 20th, 2018
On March 13, while on his way to the besieged Gaza Strip, two 33-pounds bombs targeted the convoy of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, Rami Hamdallah.
Hamdallah was visiting Gaza, through the Israeli border checkpoint, Erez, to open a large sewage treatment plant that, if allowed to operate regularly, will make life easier for hundreds of thousands of Gazans, who have endured a perpetual Israeli siege since 2006.
The Prime Minister’s visit was also seen as another important step in the reconciliation efforts between the two main Palestinian factions, Fatah – led by PA President, Mahmoud Abbas, in the Occupied West Bank …
by Gregory Barrett / March 20th, 2018
Europe is suffering the tortures of the damned as it struggles with split-personality psychosis.
Here in the center of Western Europe one can tune in Germany’s national public broadcasting networks any day of the week and hear scornful diatribes against Trump, outrage over his withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, shock and anger regarding his threats against our German automobile industry in his incipient trade war, calls for more EU independence and self-sufficiency.
Every Washington Post CIA-funded-Big-Breaking-News-Report about Mueller’s latest move to impeach and bring down the Orange Menace is always the top headline here: “The Washington Post reports that …” No …
by John Andrews / March 20th, 2018
Never forget the Dodgy Dossier. That was the supposed evidence claiming in 2003 that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that could be used against Britain within forty minutes. The Dodgy Dossier was presented in Britain’s House of Parliament as the truth – and was unchallenged by the mainstream media. It was included in the case for war presented to the UN by the United States, and became the given reason for Britain then joining forces with the US in the illegal war that followed, a war which, in addition to costing almost two hundred British lives, killed tens …
by John V. Walsh / March 20th, 2018
“Public Troubled by Deep State” is the headline that the Monmouth University Polling Institute tags to its recent poll.
Polling about the term “Deep State” is problematical, because as the polling report says:
Few Americans (13%) are very familiar with the term “Deep State;” another 24% are somewhat familiar, while 63% say they are not familiar with this term.
So the careful pollsters at Monmouth defined the term as follows for their interviewees:
The term Deep State refers to the possible existence of a group of unelected government and military officials who secretly manipulate or direct national policy.
Then they asked whether such a …
by Binoy Kampmark / March 19th, 2018
Let’s put it out there with suitable portions of provocation: free trade has never actually taken place. There is an uncomfortable, skirmish-ridden middle ground, where states compete for primacy over surplus and deficits, where the notion of prosperity is language deferred, not to citizens, but corporations who are often backed for pursuing technological remits.
The debate about US President Donald Trump’s tariffs belies a fundamental point: the surrender of the state to non-elected entities which claim privileges over and above citizens and electors; the illusion that lifting citizens out of poverty demands an absence of government interference in favour of corporate …
by John Steppling / March 19th, 2018
The war mentality represents an unfortunate confluence of ignorance, fear, prejudice, and profit. … The ignorance exists in its own right and is further perpetuated by government propaganda. The fear is that of ordinary people scared by misinformation but also that of leaders who may know better but are intimidated by the political costs of speaking out on such a heavily moralized and charged issue.
— Gabor Mate, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, 2009
The manufacturing of Russia as the arch enemy of not just the U.S. but mankind in general has reached levels of absurdity and …
by Dan Lieberman / March 18th, 2018
Military strength is one pillar of Israel’s strategy to incorporate all the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and possibly beyond, into its territorial borders. Other pillars are a strong economy to finance the adventure and a worldwide deception plan that confuses those who aid Israel and, if they had all the facts, may object to Israel’s illegal tactics. Because Israel devotes excessive resources in a worldwide plan of public relations and deception, its government must sense an importance to that battleground.
The economy is robust but vulnerable, depending upon satisfying imports, armaments exports, tourism, US military assistance, limited contributions from the Jewish community, and providing …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / March 18th, 2018
US empire is in decline. Reports of the end of the US being the unitary power in world affairs are common, as are predictions of the end of US empire. China surpassed the United States as the world economic leader according to Purchasing Power Parity Gross National Product, and Russia announced new weapons that can overcome the US’ defense systems.
What is happening in the United States, in response, is to do more of what has been causing the decline. As the Pentagon outlined in its post-primacy report, the US’ plan is more money, more aggression and more …
by Peter Koenig / March 18th, 2018
The onslaught of western Russia bashing in the past days, particularly since the alleged poison attack by a Soviet-era nerve agent, Novichok (the inventor of which, by the way, lives in the US), on a Russian double agent, Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, has been just horrifying. Especially by the UK. Starting with PM May, who outright accused Russia of using chemical weapons (CW) on UK grounds, without delivering any evidence. Strangely, there is no indication where Skripal and his daughter are, in which hospital the pair is being treated, no poison analysis is being published, they cannot be …
by Jonathan Cook / March 18th, 2018
Seemingly unrelated events all point to a tectonic shift in which Israel has begun preparing the ground to annex the occupied Palestinian territories.
Last week, during an address to students in New York, Israel’s education minister Naftali Bennett publicly disavowed even the notion of a Palestinian state. “We are done with that,” he said. “They have a Palestinian state in Gaza.”
Later in Washington, Mr Bennett, who heads Israel’s settler movement, said Israel would manage the fallout from annexing the West Bank, just as it had with its annexation of the Syrian Golan in 1980.
International opposition would dissipate, he said. “After two …
