Latest articles
by Yves Engler / July 14th, 2017
Sometimes silence in politics speaks louder than words.
Israel lobby groups’ response (or lack thereof) to NDP leadership candidate Niki Ashton’s recent support of Palestinian rights suggests they believe previous criticisms backfired.
Two months ago B’nai B’rith attacked Ashton for attending a rally in support of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike and a subsequent Facebook post commemorating the Nakba, which saw 750,000 Palestinians driven from their homes by Zionist forces in 1947/’48. The self-declared ‘human rights’ organization published a press release titled “B’nai Brith Denounces MP Niki Ashton for Standing in ‘Solidarity’ with Terrorists.” Rather than harming Ashton, the attack …
by Gary Leupp / July 14th, 2017
The failure of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in four-day talks with the Qatari emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and a Kuwaiti official, to mediate an end to the inter-Arab dispute over Qatar, suggests that U.S. influence in the Middle East is waning. Even in the wake of the most recent massive Saudi arms deal announced during Trump’s visit to Riyadh on June 5, and the president’s receipt of the King Abdulaziz al Saud Collar, Washington is unable to dissuade its “enduring partner” from its highly rash course of action.
The New York Times reports that Tillerson flew out …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / July 14th, 2017
On Monday 10th July, a ruling was handed down by London’s High Court, which should, in a sane world, exclude the UK government ever again judging other nations’ leaders human rights records or passing judgment on their possession or use of weapons.
The Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) lost their case to halt the UK selling arms to Saudi Arabia, the case based on the claim that they may have been used to kill civilians in Yemen.
Anyone following the cataclysmic devastation of Yemen would think it was a million to one that the £3.3 Billion worth of arms sold by …
by Robert Hunziker / July 14th, 2017
David Wallace-Wells’ article “The Uninhabitable Earth,” ((New York Magazine, July 9, 2017)) has created a furor of criticism, people bouncing off walls from coast to coast. Consider – the title of the article says it all!
The critics, including prominent climate scientists, claim Wallace-Wells’ conclusions are dangerously exaggerated, but are they really? Additional criticism is leveled by some of the first-rate news sources on climate change, like Grist: “Stop scaring people about climate change. It doesn’t work.”
For sure, Wallace-Welles’ opening in his New York Mag article describes Armageddon. In one paragraph, the reader finds “terrors” beyond anything ever imagined, “even within …
by Binoy Kampmark / July 13th, 2017
The Catholic Church, much in the manner of a modern corporation, is a sprawling edifice of operations and functions. To hold part of it accountable for abuses – against human, bank account, or country – has presented a formidable legal obstacle.
This nightmare has taken place amidst a broader question: the extent Church officials believe they are accountable to secular justice, or those ordained by the Church itself. St. Augustine’s point was clear enough: of the two sovereignties – that of the City of Man, or that of God – the latter would prevail.
Apologies for the specific issue of clerical child …
by Paul Haeder / July 13th, 2017
Indeed, the young are tethered to a slumber land of no ideas or ideals. Shackled to the beasts of debt and endless consumer-rent-mortgage-fee-levy-tax-fine-surcharge-hidden add on Capitalism. They amble to the nearest Starbucks and find the plastic putrid world and shitty coffee essence safe, conformist, the place to snuggle in with Twitter-Snapchat-Instagram-Facebook-Spotify.
Add to that the general malaise of wanting nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with hipster joker-a-second crap they have downloading and meandering through their apps, and we have a country of no serious thinking. Tapped into the spine of the controllers, the brain centers micro-processing the …
by Graham Peebles / July 13th, 2017
Every day we are faced with numerous choices, some relating to practical issues and others based on more complex psychological demands – how to react, what to say and do. Whilst on the face of it choices appear to have been made, in the main we react habitually; many, if not all, of our decisions proceed from the past, and are, in fact, unconscious, conditioned responses to the challenges of the day.
The world is beset with a series of unprecedented inter-related crises: the urgent need to establish peace and the environmental catastrophe are the two most pressing issues facing humanity, …
(And never mind the slaughter in Yemen)
by Stuart Littlewood / July 13th, 2017
Campaigners are furious with a High Court decision in London allowing the UK Government to carry on exporting arms to Saudi Arabia for use against Yemenis.
The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) brought the legal action against the Secretary of State for International Trade for continuing to grant export licences for arms to Saudi Arabia, arguing that this was against UK policy, which states that the government must refuse such licences if there’s a clear risk that the arms might be used to commit serious violations of International Humanitarian Law.
It is undeniable that Saudi forces have used UK-supplied weaponry to violate …
by Binoy Kampmark / July 12th, 2017
The momentum against the Trump administration is building, and it should come as no surprise that it comes via the least original of avenues: the Russians did it, and someone must pay. For decades, the feared Russian has played a vital role in shaping US paranoia and a domestic landscape famous for its reactionary bursts and fearful lurches.
That paranoia has assumed galloping proportions. The US president’s approach to this assertion has been confused and varied. There is nothing surprising in this: from blanket, emphatic denial about any connections even smelling of a Russian touch, Trump has stated another variant of …
(How The Theory of Conceptual-Commodity-Value-Management Guarantees Increasing Profits With Less Workers)
by Michel Luc Bellemare / July 12th, 2017
Part One
Karl Marx has always claimed that the introduction of machinery within the capitalist labor-process was orchestrated to cheapen commodities and in the process also to cheapen labor-power. As he states, in Capital (Volume One), “the use of machinery [is] for the exclusive purpose of cheapening the product”, ((Karl Marx, Capital (Volume One), Trans. Ben Fowkes (London Eng.: Penguin, 1990) 575.)) that is, the commodity, and labor-power being a commodity, means in turn that labor-power is as well cheapened in the process. Moreover, according to Marx, besides lowering wages via the cheapening of workers and labor-power, the introduction of machinery …
Mayhem and Changing Opinions in the UK
by Lesley Docksey / July 12th, 2017
A year ago the UK voted to leave the EU after a stupid, unnecessary referendum. And although Brexiteers pronounced this an ‘overwhelming’ result, the true facts were that, out of the total electorate, 37 per cent voted Leave, 35 per cent voted Remain, and 28 per cent didn’t bother to vote. Hardly overwhelming.
Not only that, but it has emerged that the Brexit campaign was funded by some secretive and dodgy deals. The campaigns on both sides misled the public with the result that people voted without understanding the issues. So where are we now?
The United Kingdom is …
by Tim Scott / July 12th, 2017
As an intended outcome of neoliberal doctrine and a natural stage of capitalist development, global financialization constructs a borderless nexus of power in which debt and austerity fuels a cultural, political and economic landscape bound to enduring structures of domination, and creates unprecedented wealth through the accumulation of suffering.
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According to economist Richard Wolff, “Capitalism has always and everywhere oscillated between two phases.” One phase is operationalized by free-market doctrine, often referenced as economic liberalism, classical economics, laissez-faire capitalism, or neoliberalism which refers to a “new” or “revived form” of liberal economics. While some economists will distinguish differences …
by Ramzy Baroud / July 12th, 2017
Two officers sought me from within a crowd at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. They seemed to know who I was. They asked me to follow them, and I obliged. Being of Arab background, often renders one’s citizenship almost irrelevant.
In a back room, where other foreigners, mainly Muslims, were holed for ‘added security’, I was asked numerous questions about my politics, ideas, writing, children, friends and my late Palestinian parents.
Meanwhile, an officer took my bag and all of my papers, including receipts, business cards, and more. I did not protest. I am so used to this treatment and endless questioning that …
Near Future Fiction
by Othello / July 12th, 2017
Fresh off his election victory, Japanese Prime Minister Kobe as well as several of his cabinet members and top party officials, visited the Yasukuni Shrine outside Tokyo. As usual, reaction across Asia was hostile to the PM’s visit to a shrine that honored Class A war criminals that had been part of an Imperial Japanese war machine that had slaughtered and enslaved millions in the run up to and throughout World War II. Nowhere was the anger more sharply felt than in Korea, whose 1100 years as an independent kingdom had been brutally ended by the Japanese in 1910, followed …
by Ajamu Baraka / July 11th, 2017
The introduction of the Republican legislation to “repeal and replace” Obamacare is no more than latest scrimmage in the ongoing one-sided war against the poor and working class. The “Affordable Care Act” (ACA, better known as Obamacare) proved to be both unaffordable and unable to provide comprehensive care for millions. Nevertheless, with the ACA being one of the only tangible “victories” Democrats could claim for an administration with a dismal record of noteworthy accomplishments, neoliberal Democrats and the party’s liberal base led by Bernie Sanders are now coalesced around the ACA and have vowed to defend it to the bitter …
by Jonathan Cook / July 11th, 2017
When Israel passed a new counter-terrorism law last year, Ayman Odeh, a leader of the country’s large minority of Palestinian citizens, described its draconian measures as colonialism’s “last gasp”. He said: “I see … the panic of the French at the end of the occupation of Algeria.”
The panic and cruelty plumbed new depths last week, when Israeli officials launched a $2.3 million lawsuit against the family of Fadi Qanbar, who crashed a truck into soldiers in Jerusalem in January, killing four. He was shot dead at the scene.
The suit demands that his widow, Tahani, reimburse the state for the compensation …
by Yves Engler / July 11th, 2017
Imagine if the media only reported the good news that governments and corporations wanted you to see, hear and read about. Unfortunately, that is not far from the reality of reporting about Canada’s role internationally.
The dominant media almost exclusively covers stories that portray this country positively while ignoring or downplaying information that contradicts this narrative. The result? Canadians are ignorant and confused about their country’s role in the world.
In a recent example of ‘benevolent Canada’ bias, the Globe and Mail reported uncritically about a trip International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau made to the Congo. In a story last week …
New Report Details Baton Rouge Police Mistreatment of Locked Up Alton Sterling Protesters
by Andrea Armstrong / July 11th, 2017
Participating in a civil rights march in 2016 shouldn’t result in being jailed in inhumane conditions, denied medical care, and deliberately humiliated. But that is exactly what happened in Baton Rouge, Louisiana last July and it bears an uncanny resemblance to the treatment of those fighting for civil rights over half a century ago.
A year ago today, thousands of people protested the police murder of Alton Sterling, a local Black entrepreneur and father, in Baton Rouge Louisiana. Approximately 180 individuals were arrested and detained over the course of these protests. Over 67% of these arrestees were Black, and …
Seymour Hersh, confession and journalism as political warfare
by T.P. Wilkinson / July 11th, 2017
When I was a young boy completing catechism in preparation for my first communion, I had to learn the proper procedure for auricular confession, a primary ritual of Roman Catholicism.
At that age I did not really understand what I was supposed to do or really why. In fact, catechism, save for the fact that it offered about two hours leave from regular school instruction on Thursdays, would have been a torture except that I liked my teacher. I was just never good at memorising things and learning long texts like the Apostles’ (Nicene) Creed posed an insurmountable challenge. However, a …
by Kathy Kelly / July 10th, 2017
Several days a week, Laurie Hasbrook arrives at the Voices office here in Chicago. She often takes off her bicycle helmet, unpins her pant leg, settles into an office chair and then leans back to give us an update on family and neighborhood news. Laurie’s two youngest sons are teenagers, and because they are black teenagers in Chicago they are at risk of being assaulted and killed simply for being young black men. Laurie has deep empathy for families trapped in war zones. She also firmly believes in silencing all guns.
Lately, we’ve been learning about the extraordinary determination shown …
by Binoy Kampmark / July 9th, 2017
I think it’s very clear that we could not reach consensus, but the differences were not papered over, they were clearly stated.
— Angela Merkel, BBC News, July 8, 2017
Such gatherings and summits are not always smooth, but on a planet bearing witness to a Trump presidency, there was always going to be a chance for more excitement at the G20 meet at Hamburg. Storm clouds have been brewing over economics, trade, and security, and these threatened to open with a deluge of resentment and threat. As proceedings continued, a general sense did eek through discussions: the G20 would have been …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / July 9th, 2017
The G-20 summit highlighted a transition in geopolitical power that has been developing for years. The process has escalated in recent months since President Trump took office, but its roots go much deeper than Trump. Europe is tired of the US spying on its leaders and creating a massive refugee crisis from its chaos creating wars. Russia and China are being pulled together as the US threatens both with missiles and bases on their borders. Now Trump seeks more money from everyone to reduce the US trade deficit and holds …
by Edward S. Herman / July 8th, 2017
It has been amusing watching the New York Times (Times) and its fellow mainstream media (MSM) cohort express their dismay over the rise and spread of “fake news.” They take it as an obvious truth that what they provide is straightforward and unbiased fact-based news. They do offer such news, but they also provide a steady flow of their own varied forms of genuinely fake news, often in disseminating false or misleading information supplied them by the CIA, other branches of government, and sites of corporate power. An important …
by John Andrews / July 8th, 2017
It was recently reported that Hawaii may be the first US state to introduce Universal Basic Income (UBI). Given that it’s generally a good idea to be deeply suspicious of anything that any capitalist government does, perhaps this piece of news is not quite as hopeful as it may appear.
The idea of UBI has been around for quite a long time. It is, for example, a core policy of the Green Party in England and Wales. The Greens call it “Citizens’ Income”, and propose that it should replace most forms of state benefit, and be payable to every citizen …
by Pedro Aibéo / July 8th, 2017
The following is an interview by Jana Turk (from Moniheli) to Pedro Aibéo, on Direct Democracy, Demarchy, political activism and Architectural Democracy.
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Jana Turk: in your opinion, what are the best ways of participating and influencing?
Pedro Aibéo: The good and bad thing concerning your question is that there is no magic formula. There are many unpredictable ways of having a voice in the decision-making processes. It can be associated with the originality of it, the quality of one’s argument or simply due to perseverance. In my view, the …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / July 8th, 2017
I think most people who have dealt with me, think I’m a pretty straight sort of guy, and I am.
— Tony Blair, BBC “On the Record”, 16th November 1997.
On 30th November last year, Michael Gove, currently UK Environment Minister, pretty well unloved by swathes of the population whatever Ministry he heads, declared at the post-Chilcot Inquiry debate in Parliament regarding Tony Blair’s role in dragging the UK into a monumental tragedy for which history will not forgive: “History, I think will judge him less harshly than some in this House do.” Deciding whether or not to illegally invade Iraq was …
by Graham Peebles / July 7th, 2017
The existence of nuclear weapons is an ugly symbol of the violent consciousness that plagues humanity. Despite tremendous technological advancements, developments in health care and wonders of creative expression, little of note has changed in humanity’s collective consciousness: Tribalism, idealism and selfish desire persist, negative tendencies that under the pervasive socio-economic systems are exacerbated and encouraged. People and nations are set in competition with one another, separation and mistrust is fed, leading to disharmony, fear and conflict.
Such engineered insecurity is used as justification for nations to maintain a military force, and in the case of the world’s nuclear powers, arm …
by Shawgi Tell / July 7th, 2017
On July 4, 2017 the National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest teachers’ union, issued a policy statement on charter schools.
The lengthy statement begins with the oft-repeated erroneous claim that charter schools “were initially promoted by educators who sought to innovate within the local public school system to better meet the needs of their students.” On the real origin of charter schools, see:
The Untold History of Charter Schools. April 27, 2017
Podcast: The Origin of Charter Schools. September 13, 2016
This point on the origin of charter schools is not a minor one because many sources uncritically repeat it …
Loux the Vintage Guru in We are Dandy by Rose Callahan and Nathaniel Adams
by T.P. Wilkinson / July 7th, 2017
Thomas Carlyle wrote, “A dandy is a clothes wearing man, a man whose trade, office and existence consists in the wearing of clothes.” ((Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, 1821.)) Perhaps Carlyle, in his single most difficult and at the same time profound work, was by no means disparaging. After all Carlyle’s book, the title of which means “tailor retailored” presents an entire philosophy of clothes.
The Oxford English Dictionary conjectures that the word “dandy” may be a shortening of the word “jack-a-dandy”, in use between the 16th and 18th centuries, whereby “dandy” in the 18th century meant exquisite, swell. North Americans are …
Ideology of the Ruling Class
by James Petras / July 7th, 2017
Throughout the US and European corporate and state media, right and left, we are told that ‘populism’ has become the overarching threat to democracy, freedom and … free markets. The media’s ‘anti-populism’ campaign has been used and abused by ruling elites and their academic and intellectual camp followers as the principal weapon to distract, discredit and destroy the rising tide of mass discontent with ruling class-imposed austerity programs, the accelerating concentration of wealth and the deepening inequalities.
We will begin by examining the conceptual manipulation of ‘populism’ and …
