Latest articles
by Paul de Rooij / March 28th, 2018
One must marvel at the first few paragraphs of Amnesty International’s recent press release:
The international community’s catastrophic failure to take concrete action to protect the people of Syria has allowed parties to the conflict, most notably the Syrian government, to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity with complete impunity, often with assistance of outside powers, particularly Russia. Every year we think it is just not possible for parties to the conflict to inflict more suffering on civilians, and yet, every year, they prove us wrong…
Right now, in Eastern Ghouta 400,000 men, women and children, who have been living under …
Simple lessons in ocean acidification, shifting demographics, embedded pain
by Paul Haeder / March 28th, 2018
You ever wonder what a Martian might think if he happened to land near an emergency room? He’d see an ambulance whizzing in and everybody running out to meet it, tearing the doors open, grabbing up the stretcher, scurrying along with it. ‘Why,’ he’d say, ‘what a helpful planet, what kind and helpful creatures.’ He’d never guess we’re not always that way; that we had to, oh, put aside our natural selves to do it. ‘What a helpful race of beings,’ a Martian would say. Don’t you think so?
? Anne Tyler, The Accidental Tourist, April 2002
Respite. Oregon Coast. Tidepools, grey …
by Gary Leupp / March 27th, 2018
Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned by a nerve agent on March 4 on a park bench in Salisbury, England.
Skripal had been a Russian double agent, a spy who turned over 300 names of Russian spies to British intelligence from 1995 to 2004. He was (not so surprisingly) arrested in Russia in 2004 and sentenced to thirteen years in prison. He was released in a spy-swap in 2010, settled in the UK and became a British citizen.
I see no reason to judge his moral character, although some might reflect that in Kantian general terms what he did was rather …
by Jonathan Cook / March 27th, 2018
The supposed “anti-semitism crisis” in Britain’s Labour party is revealing an interesting paradox at the heart of modern discussions of anti-semitism.
Undoubtedly there are those who intentionally exploit anti-semitism for political gain. That should be obvious if we pause to consider how much attention left-wing “anti-semitism” (criticism of Israel) – formerly promoted as the “New Anti-Semitism” – is receiving compared to the old-fashioned type of anti-semitism beloved of right wingers. They wanted Jews out of Britain (the Balfour Declaration, anyone?), denied the Holocaust, desecrated Jewish graves, or refused Jews entry to elite schools and golf clubs.
Because right wingers now love Israel, …
by Gilad Atzmon / March 27th, 2018
Jewish power, as I define it, is the power to suppress criticism of Jewish power.
For the last few days the Brits have been shown a spectacular display of that power and the manner in which it is mobilised. Without any attempt to hide their behaviour, a bunch of Jewish leaders have chosen to slander Europe’s biggest party and its popular leader in the name of ‘Jewish sensitivities.’
This blitz attack was sparked by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s reaction to a mural back in 2012. The mural was painted by US street artist Kalen Ockerman. Apparently, at the time Corbyn defended the …
by Stuart Littlewood / March 27th, 2018
The ‘usual suspects’ have again tried to destabilise Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the UK Labour party and damage his prospects of becoming prime minister by firing another anti-Semitism broadside.
They are the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council, members of various Friends of Israel and assorted Israel lobby dogsbodies and flag wavers including Tony Blair.
The opening shot was a letter from the Board of Deputies to the chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party, saying: “Today, leaders of British Jewry tell Jeremy Corbyn that enough is enough. We have had enough of hearing that Jeremy Corbyn ‘opposes …
by Jonathan Cook / March 27th, 2018
After a short reprieve following Jeremy Corbyn’s unexpected success in Britain’s general election last year, when he only narrowly lost the popular vote, most of the Labour parliamentary party are back, determined to bring him down. And once again, they are being joined by the corporate media in full battle cry.
Last week, Corbyn was a Soviet spy. This week we’re in more familiar territory, even if it has a new twist: Corbyn is not only a friend to anti-semites, it seems, but now he has been outed as a closet one himself.
In short, the Blairites in the parliamentary party are …
No Small Victory
by Binoy Kampmark / March 27th, 2018
It’s really quite incredible how, at nearly every turn the New Zealand government has managed to mess up the legal case against Kim Dotcom.
— Mike Masnick, Techdirt, March 26, 2018
Put it down to his tigerish perseverance, or sheer faith in those powers of endurance, but Kim Dotcom’s victory before New Zealand’s Human Rights Tribunal had a stirring ring to it. The Tribunal found for Dotcom, awarding him NZ$30,000 for “loss of a benefit” and NZ$60,000 for “loss of dignity and injury to feelings” incurred by breaches of the Privacy Act by the previous NZ Attorney-General.
In July 2015, Dotcom made …
by Robert Hunziker / March 27th, 2018
Everybody’s heard about global warming. It is one of the most advertised existential events of all time. Who isn’t aware? However, there’s a new kid on the block. An alarming loss of insects will likely take down humanity before global warming hits maximum velocity.
For the immediate future, the Paris Accord is riding the wrong horse, as global warming is a long-term project compared to the insect catastrophe happening right now! Where else is found 40% to 90% species devastation?
The worldwide loss of insects is simply staggering with some reports of 75% up to 90%, happening much faster than the paleoclimate …
by Shepherd Bliss / March 27th, 2018
Over a million students and allies walked out of classes in the U.S., from Maine to Hawaii, and elsewhere in the world on March 14. Ten days later, March 24, hundreds of thousands of defiant marchers flooded the streets in Washington, D.C., and at more than 800 places on every continent except Antarctica. What might they do next?
Many surviving Parkland students are becoming familiar faces in D.C. Politicians hear from them regularly and some respond positively. They have captured the nation’s attention with their soaring speeches and emotional chants at what is being described as “sibling marches.”
They are protesting the …
by Binoy Kampmark / March 26th, 2018
There was an audacity about it, carried out with amateurish callowness. As it turned out Australian batsman Cameron Bancroft, besieged and vulnerable, had been egged on by Australian cricket captain Steve Smith and the Australian leadership to do the insufferable: tamper with the ball.
Before the remorseless eagle eyes of modern cameras, Bancroft, in the third Test against South Africa in Cape Town, was detected possessing yellow adhesive tape intended to pick up dirt and particles that would, in turn, be used on the ball’s surface. This, it was assumed, was intended to give Smith’s team an advantage over an increasingly …
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 …
