Latest articles
by James King / August 18th, 2017
I recently had an exchange that got me questioning the nature of Capitalism. What I’ve come to understand in my exploration of the topic is that it is not particularly well defined. I honestly think that’s by design; many of the behaviors that we attribute to natural cooperative exchange between entities is often claimed as Capitalist.
In my discourse, I was confronted with this definition of Capitalism. To paraphrase:
Capitalism = the natural right of ownership of that which is produced by a person by that person as well as the natural right to engage in the free exchange with others of …
by Stansfield Smith / August 18th, 2017
As the class struggle heated up in Venezuela this year, fueled by interventionist threats by the pro-US Organization of American States (OAS) bloc, many former supporters of the Bolivarian revolution have remained sitting on the fence. Fed up with these fair-weather friends and their critiques which recycle corporate news propaganda, some defenders of Venezuela such as Shamus Cooke, Greg Wilpert, Maria Paez Victor, have come with articles clarifying the stakes and calling the so-called “left” to account.
Among the disaffected is Venezuelan-American lawyer Eva Golinger, the author of The Chávez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela and self-described …
“As ye sow, so shall ye reap”
by Gregory Barrett / August 18th, 2017
We have been here quite often recently. Screaming headlines, non-stop coverage in the mainstream corporate-government media which Paul Craig Roberts so aptly dubbed the “presstitutes”. Hours and hours of analysis of the event, at some point lots of information about the dead victims, endless soul-searching and a desperate spate of interviews with “experts” about how to fight this growing horror. This is not supposed to happen in The West. It is boring everyday stuff when it happens in the Middle East, Africa or Asia, but when it hits Barcelona or some other part of the empire’s heartland, the presstitutes go …
by John Steppling / August 18th, 2017
The summer of 1919, called “The Red Summer” by James Weldon Johnson, ushered in the greatest period of interracial violence the nation had ever witnessed. During that summer there were twenty-six race riots in such cities as Chicago, Illinois; Washington, D.C.; Elaine, Arkansas; Charleston, South Carolina; Knoxville and Nashville, Tennessee; Longview, Texas; and Omaha, Nebraska. More than one hundred Blacks were killed in these riots, and thousands were wounded and left homeless. The seven most serious race riots were those which occurred in Wilmington, N. C. (1898), Atlanta, Ga. (1906), Springfield, Ill. (1908), East St. Louis) Ill. (1917), Chicago, Ill. …
by Paul Craig Roberts / August 18th, 2017
The liberal/progressive/left are enjoying their drunkfest of denunciation. I can’t say I have ever witnessed anything like it. These are the people who sat on their hands for 16 years while Washington destroyed in whole or part seven countries. Not being satisfied with this level of warmongering and crimes against humanity, Washington orchestrated a conflict situation with Russia. Americans elected a president who said he would defuse this dangerous conflict, and the liberal/progressive/left turned on him. In contrast, one person is killed after the hated Charlottesville protest event was over, and there is endless absurd outrage against the president of …
by John Andrews / August 18th, 2017
The vast majority of human beings are pretty intelligent. A tiny percentage are noticeably slower than others, and an even tinier percentage are considerably brighter than others, but the vast majority of us are about the same, intelligence-wise. So the reason that most people don’t understand how the world really works has very little to do with intelligence; it has everything to do with two well-established and powerful institutions: education, and the mainstream media.
Public education has never even pretended to teach people how their world really works. Whilst it’s quite good at explaining some of the parts of the whole, …
by Daniel Borgström / August 17th, 2017
On the night of June 20th I came home from a Berkeley City Council meeting feeling like I’d met the Berkeley Strangler in a dark alley; later I saw this photo in the SF BayView newspaper:
(Credit:) SF BayView newspaper
You can see three of us holding a banner “Stop Urban Shield.” To the left of me is a woman named Bridget, on my right (though not shown in the photo) was Russell Bates, a Navy veteran. The large cop in front of me is Brian Mathis, one …
by Yves Engler / August 17th, 2017
Like bears attracted to spawning salmon, politicians seek out power. The former needs to build stores of fat to survive the winter, while the latter must attract the resources and support necessary for successful electoral campaigns. Given the survival imperative, neither bear nor politician should be criticized too harshly for what comes naturally. But, the two best ways to judge politicians are by taking a look at whom they choose to gather resources from and what they are prepared to do to get them.
At worst politicians pander to society’s wealthiest and reactionary social forces, further solidifying their grip on the …
by Mateo Pimentel / August 16th, 2017
When editor-in-chief of the Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg asserts that “the struggle in Charlottesville is a struggle within our own civilization, within Trump’s own civilization,” and that in the wake of such events “an American president should speak up directly on behalf of the American creed, on behalf of Americans who reject tribalism and seek pluralism, on behalf of the idea that blood-and-soil nationalism is antithetical to the American idea itself,” who, exactly, can place his logic?
It reads nicely, and it seems a conscionable thought to have after a woman dies fighting Nazis on American soil. But, really, what history books …
by Ramzy Baroud / August 16th, 2017
On August 1, the Palestinian Bedouin village of Al-Araqeeb was destroyed for the 116th time. As soon as Israeli bulldozers finished their ugly deed and soldiers began evacuating the premises, the village resident immediately began rebuilding their homes.
Twenty-two families, or about 101 residents, are estimated to live here. By now, they are all familiar with the painful routine, considering the first round of destruction took place in July 2010.
It means that the village has been destroyed nearly 17 times per year, since then. And every single time, it was rebuilt, only to be destroyed again.
If the repeated destruction of …
by Ajamu Baraka / August 16th, 2017
What is the character of racist right-wing politics today? Is it the crazed white supremacist who plows into an anti-fascist demonstration in Charlottesville, VA or can it also be the assurance by Lindsay Graham that an attack against North Korea would result in thousands of lives lost…. but those lives will be “over there”? What about the recent unanimous resolution by both houses of Congress in support of Israel and criticism of the United Nations for its alleged anti-Israeli bias? Would that qualify as racist and right-wing, since it appears that the ongoing suffering of the Palestinians is of no …
Interview with K.J. Noh
by Ann Garrison / August 16th, 2017
After Donald Trump threatened the Democratic People’s Republic of [North] Korea with “fire and fury like the world has never seen,” I spoke to K.J. Noh, a peace activist and scholar on the geopolitics of the Asian continent.
Rehearsing Armageddon
Ann Garrison: North Korea is standing up to the US’s 4800 “locked and loaded” nuclear weapons with an estimated 30 to 60 of its own. Do you think it would still be standing without them?
K.J.Noh: It’s hard to imagine so.
North Korea has been in a defensive crouch since the inception of its state. It has been under risk of nuclear attack almost …
by T.P. Wilkinson / August 16th, 2017
Like obscene profits from great fraud or theft, “wonder weapons” of mass destruction, to which the atomic bomb certainly belongs, have their origins in the inability and unwillingness to accept the equality and dignity of one’s opponents/ competitors (never mind whether one’s cause/product is legitimate).
The ambivalence of the US position during WWII — the discrepancy which became apparent after 1945 between the stated and unstated policies — allowed and even promoted the mythic justification for US atomic bombing.
When I first moved to Germany more than thirty years ago, I was appalled at the insensitivity — to put it mildly — …
by John R. Hall / August 16th, 2017
Dead, decaying industrial cities, teeming with illicit drugs, prostitution, and desperation. Condemned, dilapidated factories and foreclosed, rat-infested houses, offering temporary shelter to disposable, hopeless, unwashed minions. Back alleys where life is cheap. Where they wouldn’t think twice about cutting your throat for a buck, and leaving your carcass for packs of hungry dogs. A very dangerous place.
Prison yards, where hope is but a distant memory, and neither innocence nor guilt have meaning. Where you learn to do as you’re told. Slave to the guards and gangs. Thrall to corporations which exploit your labor. Unwilling bitch to a beastly cellmate, you learn to bend over and take it …
by Binoy Kampmark / August 14th, 2017
The Australian banker is a smug species, arguably more than his international peers. Caught off guard by the financial disasters of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Australian banking system has become an expression of a classic oligopoly, manipulating prices and squeezing customers. Such an Australian banker is perky as well, self-assured that any inappropriate — let alone illegal — behaviour might be passed off as an effort to do better, to buck trends, to be audacious.
Over the last few weeks, AUSTRAC has had little time for that audacity. The financial intelligence agency and regulator had picked up on …
by Bob Anschuetz / August 14th, 2017
Most people in the world will agree that war is a horrible thing. Throughout history, it has not only killed and maimed young men in their prime without regard to the justice or injustice of their cause, but, in its modern form, also brought death, homelessness, and misery to millions of innocent civilians. In addition, war has in our own time helped breed the spread of terrorism, raised the specter of nuclear holocaust and the annihilation of life as we know it, robbed us of wealth that might otherwise have been invested in meeting real human needs, and …
by Andre Vltchek / August 14th, 2017
From Lebanon — It came unexpectedly, rapidly and with great force: on 21 July 2016, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Syrian army from their side, in unison, attacked positions of the malevolent terrorist group, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly known as Al-Nusra Front), in the mountainous province of Jroud Arsal in Bekaa Valley, on the border of two countries.
Simultaneously, the Lebanese Army surrounded and hermetically sealed the area around Arsal town, preventing new terrorist forces from entering the battle zone.
More than 150 militants were killed. Two dozen Hezbollah fighters lost their lives. Despite the difficult mountainous terrain, the battle was swift, …
by Kim Petersen / August 14th, 2017
United States president Donald Trump said of North Korea: “We want to talk about a country that has misbehaved for many, many years, decades…” [emphasis added]
Misbehaved? What constitutes this misbehavior by North Korea? Has it attacked any countries since the end of the warring ((Technically the war is not ended since an armistice was signed, but no peace treaty has been signed among the parties involved.)) on the Korean Peninsula? What about the US’ behavior since 1953? It has since gone on to attack, among others, Viet Nam, …
by C.A. Davis / August 14th, 2017
I remember, vividly, on a certain Martin Luther King Jr Day during my childhood—back before schools regularly observed the federal holiday—when my kindergarten teacher passed out coloring pages of Dr. King’s portrait which the class was to fill in. Not a minute after I began coloring brother Martin’s face the same color as my Afro-Filipino father—brown—I noticed all but two or three of my white classmates were coloring the page with black crayons.
When I asked my friend why he was using that particular shade of crayola, he replied with an undisturbed confidence in what he felt was obvious.
“Because: he’s black.”
BLACK—the …
by Robert Hunziker / August 14th, 2017
Bluefin tuna at 3%, that’s it!
Pacific bluefin tuna has unique worldwide status as one of the most awe-inspiring remarkable creatures on the planet. They grow to 12 feet and 1,500 pounds and live up to 35 years whilst swimming super-fast, crossing the entire ocean in 21 days. They are the essence of nature’s wonderful creativity and beauty.
Unequivocally, the bluefin’s days are numbered, almost guaranteed to go extinct, prompting the question: Is bluefin tuna a metaphor for global warming’s impact on civilization? And if so, how so? It’s a fair question as the impact of the Great Acceleration (BGNG 1940s) increasingly …
by James O'Neill / August 13th, 2017
The war of words between North Korea and the United states reached new heights last week. US President trump pledged to meet any further threats by North Korea to the US “with fire and fury like the world has never seen”. North Korea’s response was a threat to vaporize Guam, a US colony and important military base in the Pacific.
Such an escalation of rhetoric carries its own risks, including miscalculations by either side that could rapidly lead to a shooting war. In such a situation what is needed is a period of clam reflection, especially by the American President, and …
by David Zirin / August 12th, 2017
Donald Trump’s immigration policies—and the marching orders he has given to Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE)—are destroying lives. Many people intuit this in the abstract, but when it hits home it gets very real, very quickly.
It’s a reality that recently smacked the members of the elite Bethesda Soccer Club right between the eyes: Their teammate and friend Lizandro Claros Saravia was detained by ICE, along with his older brother Diego. Both were deported on Wednesday.
Lizandro, like many players on the Bethesda Soccer Club, has an athletic scholarship waiting for him at Louisberg College in North Carolina. He is considered one …
To: Rt Hon David Mundell MP, Secretary of State for Scotland
by Stuart Littlewood / August 12th, 2017
Dear Mr Mundell,
It was a pleasure meeting you at the Dumfries Agricultural Show. If you recall, we talked briefly about Mrs May’s perverse plan to celebrate the centenary of the Balfour Declaration “with pride” and invite Israel’s PM Netanyahu to the jollifications.
The infamous Declaration was a pledge contrived by Zionists inside and outside the British Government. It was in effect a ‘promissory note’ to the Zionist movement for their help in bringing the US into WW1; and it was made with utter disregard to the consequences for the majority Arab population in Palestine. Worse, it amounted to a betrayal of …
by Binoy Kampmark / August 11th, 2017
The only responsible and humane thing for our government to do is immediately evacuate every single man on Manus, every single family and child on Nauru to safety on Australia.
— Daniel Webb, Human Rights Law Centre, August 7, 2017
Murder comes in various forms. It can be directly inflicted. It can be willed and directed from afar. It can also be the consequence of conditions planned, fostered, enacted. This sequential logic results in one dark conclusion: Australian refugee policy, spearheaded by the dreary, monotone immigration minister, Peter Dutton, is murderous. At the very least, it suggests complicity in manslaughter.
The gulag recipe for …
by Sophie Mangal / August 11th, 2017
According to Inside Syria Media Center military correspondence on the ground, Aleppo, the largest Syrian city, is beginning to come back to peaceful life. Just in December a number of districts of the city were held by terrorists, who were destroying urban infrastructure and keeping the entire region in fear.
However, after eight months of the city’s complete liberation, rehabilitation works are boiling in the streets right now. The locals and the representatives of the authorities are taking part in them. At the same time, Aleppo governor Hussain Diab personally supervises repair works at key infrastructure facilities….
Part 3 of a 3 Part Series: The Currency Paradox
by James King / August 11th, 2017
A New Idea Addresses Some Old Problems
The chron was conceptualized to solve the biggest problem in Capitalism: labor costs. Controlling labor costs to maximize profitability has unleashed the forces of Capital against the world’s population. Globalization is a direct result of capital institutions’ need to control costs and undermine the bargaining power of workers in developed regions by creating competition with workers from less developed regions. Implementation of the chron will eliminate labor costs for Capital because people will essentially pay themselves through their effort. It will also eradicate the exploitation of workers in developing regions. The chron will enable …
by Alex Anfruns / August 11th, 2017
Alex Anfruns: You are preparing a new documentary film about a big island, Borneo, which is shared by three Asian countries. Which was the triggering factor for making this film now?
Andre Vltchek: The triggering factor was a simple shock. I’m not what you’d call an environmentalist. Of course, I care about our planet, about our wonderful creatures, plants, oceans, rivers and deserts. I don’t want them to suffer, to disappear. I wrote an entire book about the plight of South Pacific island nations, called Oceania, but that was all – I never made one single film about the environmental …
Mobilizing for the August 19 Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March in Washington DC
by Angola 3 News / August 10th, 2017
Robert H. King and Albert Woodfox of the Angola 3 are issuing a call to everybody concerned about the human rights of US prisoners: “We know the economic situation for African Americans, other minority communities, and poor whites is very difficult. However, if there is any way possible for you to get to the Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March in Washington DC on August 19, so that your voice can be heard, so that we can speak in one voice, please join us. Enough is Enough!”
Albert Woodfox was released from prison in February, 2016 …
by Binoy Kampmark / August 10th, 2017
It all began as a series of daring accretions starting last December. Now, Tent City in Sydney’s Martin Place has become something of an institution, albeit of the fleeting sort. But this gathering of the homeless, rather than being considered a social consequence of galloping house prices and general cost of living, has been uneven in pulling heartstrings.
Benedict Brook, writing for the site News.com.au, commences by describing a site where “dining is alfresco, the security 24/7 and the view, of some of Sydney’s most historic buildings, is sublime.” This lends itself to an inadvertent act of nose-turning disgust, with …
by Yves Engler / August 10th, 2017
Does the NDP consistently support a foreign policy that benefits ordinary people around the world? Or does the social democratic party often simply fall in line with whatever the American Empire demands?
Hélène Laverdière certainly seems to support the US-led geopolitical order. While the NDP foreign critic has called for stronger arms control measures and regulations on Canada’s international mining industry, she’s aligned with the Empire on issues ranging from Venezuela to Palestine, Ukraine to Syria.
Echoing Washington and Ottawa, Laverdière recently attacked the Venezuelan government. “On the heels of Sunday’s illegitimate constituent assembly vote, it’s more important than ever for …
