Latest articles
by Binoy Kampmark / October 12th, 2016
While British Prime Minister, Theresa May, keeps insisting that Brexit pathway will be a smooth, relatively painless process filled without dramatic compromise to lifestyle and outlook, the traders, stockbrokers and wolves of the City have gone about their own business. They, the suggestion goes, knew better, whereas the idiotic Brexiteer ventured to the ballot in total ignorance.
Central to the post-Brexit dark is discussion about the British pound, which has been accorded magical powers to reward, anoint or strip. Reading its fortunes is tantamount to consulting a wizened oracle, though the results are sometimes puzzling.
The last few days have seen the …
by Kevin Zeese / October 11th, 2016
Personally, I like Gary Johnson. I got to know him in the 1990s when he was governor of New Mexico. I was working to end the drug war, legalize marijuana and treat hard drugs as a public health, not criminal issue. Johnson came out for marijuana legalization, so I spent some time in New Mexico helping that agenda.
But, the more I got to know him the less I liked his political views. He took money from the private prison industry and proudly supported private prisons. Making prisons into profit centers creates ongoing human rights violations. Prisons should be a function …
by Ramzy Baroud / October 11th, 2016
The Israeli official narrative regarding its conflict with the Palestinians is deliberately confounded because a muddled up discourse is a convenient one. It allows the narrator to pick and choose half-truths at will in order to create a falsified version of reality.
For instance, this is part of what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the United Nations on September 22:
“Ladies and Gentlemen: Israel fights this fateful battle against the forces of militant Islam every day. We keep our borders safe from ISIS, we prevent the smuggling of game-changing weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, we thwart Palestinian terror attacks …
by James Petras / October 11th, 2016
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was removed from office through a well-organized, carefully planned operation among the corrupt Brazilian political elite, closely linked to the stock-market, financial institutions and foreign energy companies. This ‘legislative coup d’état ’eliminated the democratically-elected ‘political intermediaries’ and installed a regime directly controlled by the CEOs of leading multi-nationals. The corporate composition of the post-coup regime insured there would be a radical restructuring of the Brazilian economy, with a massive shift from wage support, social spending and public ownership toward profits, a foreign capital take-over of strategic sectors and foreign-domestic elite dominance over the entire economy.
This paper …
by Adnan Al-Daini / October 11th, 2016
What is it with this government and fracking? They seem to be obsessed with drilling; the proven safe and truly renewable wind and solar energies are not for them. They want the earth penetrated by drilling and the injection of high pressure water, laced with a cocktail of nasty chemicals and sand, to frack the hell out of the rocks beneath our beautiful countryside.
All of that is to release fossil fuel, in the form of natural gas (methane). It is true that natural gas, when burned, releases half the CO2 per unit …
by Jonathan Cook / October 11th, 2016
I thoroughly recommend the new documentary Amanda Knox to anyone interested in either human nature or the role of the media – which should include most of us. Here is the chance to hear the main protagonists tell their stories. Don’t be put off by the lukewarm reviews. Journalists don’t much like this film because it reveals so much about how journalism works – and it isn’t pretty.
The man feeding the media monster in the Knox case was Giuliano Mignini, the local prosecutor. He shifts uneasily in his chair as he justifies a series of poor decisions that led to …
by Yves Engler / October 10th, 2016
Israel apologists often complain about leftists “singling Israel out” or “obsessing” over that country, inferring a motivation of anti-Semitism. Putting aside the obvious truth that “obsessing” over the plight of an oppressed people ought to be considered a compliment and campaigning on any issue amounts to “singling” it out, the accusation often represents what a Freudian analyst would call a “projection”.
It is the Israeli nationalists themselves who single out and obsess over that country.
In Understanding the Zionist Religion National Post columnist and Walrus Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Kay explains:
At a recent large speaking event at Holy Blossom …
by Arlene V. Edmonds / October 10th, 2016
Why can’t I get a full time job after working 30 years as an adjunct professor and advisor? This is the question of Linda D. Evans, PhD, who has taught and advised at the Community College of Philadelphia for three decades. She carries around overstuffed manila folders with the statement of employment discrimination that she filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and a Pennsylvania Humans Relations Commission questionnaire. There is a copy of the adjunct seniority list where her name appears. She also has a copy of a letter she sent to Philadelphia Mayor James Kenney pleading for help, …
Review of Dr. Hudson's book The Bubble and Beyond
by Paul Majchrowicz / October 10th, 2016
Economists like to treat money in an economy like a politician treats air in politics. It is absolutely necessary to the exchange of ideas but plays no fundamental role in history. Dr. Hudson’s book, The Bubble and Beyond, is an attempt to disabuse you of that idea.
Money is fundamental to an economy. How it comes into existence, how much of it there is in circulation relative to how much is required to clear the markets of goods and services, how interest rates are established and how money is taxed determine the winners and losers in an economy. Money …
by Nozomi Hayase / October 10th, 2016
The US presidential debacle is rolling out like hyped up reality TV. Scandals of Trump’s graphic sex talks and Hillary’s leaked Goldman Sachs speeches add to the sensation. The captains of this managed democracy are pulling high ratings on their show, successfully distracting people from real issues. Multinational corporations behind the scene have now captured not only economic, but also political power. Through gutting regulation and guiding government policies, unbridled greed has made fraud a normal course of business and plunder a way of life.
From cradle to grave, commercial interests infiltrate every aspect of our lives. Education has …
Part 3 of 3: What Does the Rise of China Mean for the Rest of the World?
by Kim Petersen / October 9th, 2016
“China and Russia have their work cut out for them, fighting for their countries, peoples, ways of life, and indirectly, for humanity’s 99% and the survival of our Pale Blue Dot. This, against the onslaught of …
by William Hawes / October 7th, 2016
Realize that the system can’t exist without belief
Appreciate your true potential, un-twist your mouth and speak
We’re working on building a world our children can live in
Understand I can’t be free while you’re still in this prison
And I can spend my days preaching and so on and so forth
But it won’t change ’til we don’t wanna go on no more
— Sweatshop Union, “The Thing About It”
As the election cycle drags on, it’s quite revealing that citizens still believe that our future policies and legislation will revolve around which candidate wins. Our government is fully controlled by the deep state, a fusion …
by Jonathan Cook / October 6th, 2016
As world leaders congregated in Jerusalem last weekend to eulogise Shimon Peres as a “great peacemaker”, the peace camp of which he was the figurehead went to war against its main Palestinian partner in Israel.
Ayman Odeh, head of the only Jewish-Arab party in the Israeli legislature, is the most prominent representative of Israel’s 1.7 million Palestinian citizens. He also serves as chairman of a coalition called the Joint List, formed with other Palestinian parties, that is now the third largest in parliament.
Mr Odeh, nonetheless, enraged the Israeli Jewish public by refusing to attend Peres’s funeral.
The Joint List leader is known …
A review of Peace Plays by Johan Galtung, Vitahl Rajan, and S. P. Udayakumar
by Gary Corseri / October 6th, 2016
But where can wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?”
— The Book of Job
… with the finding of the language the feelings begin to change again.
— Phyllis Rose
Part One
These are ideational works. They are clever and literate, but rather unusual, and even the judicious reader might like a little “framing.” The authors, and/or publisher, seem aware of that need with this blurb on the book’s back cover:
“Peace studies are usually presented as essays, in social science, political or philosophical-ethical discourses. This book is an experiment with drama as peace discourse, by authors versed in the other three. …
by Ahmad Barqawi / October 6th, 2016
He was a Jordanian Journalist, a Leftist, a self-proclaimed “anti-Imperialist”. He was a pro-Syria activist and a fierce supporter of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s Government against the West’s war of aggression for regime change in that country. And now he is the victim of Jordan’s first ever political assassination.
Nahed Hattar, a secular Jordanian author and writer, was shot dead on September 25th, at the steps leading to the High Court Of Justice in Amman, the very court he was about to be tried in for “offending the Islamic religion” after sharing a “caricature” drawing mocking ISIS’s skewed version of …
by Alli McCracken / October 6th, 2016
Pressure from human rights organizations like Oxfam to victims of the 9/11 attacks are helping erode the bond between these old political allies, but the results of this election season could squander our chance at change.
Congress recently passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) allowing families of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks to sue other governments, including Saudi Arabia, for possible damages.
Despite threats by the Saudi government to sell billions of dollars’ worth of their assets and reexamine the bilateral relationship with the U.S., Congress snubbed the …
by Allen W. Smith / October 5th, 2016
My article, “Let the Public Know the Truth About Social Security,” Dissident Voice, September 26, 2016, raised doubts in the minds of some readers. One reader wrote: “Unlike protests such as Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter, no one is taking to the streets to protest this big theft. So, what will it take to well up enough anger to stage protests?”
The reason there are no protests is that most people don’t know about the theft, and they are still getting their checks on time. On July 12, 2011, during a stalemate between President Obama and the Congress over …
by Frank Scott / October 5th, 2016
With daily bulletins from consciousness control informing us of the dangers of electing a textbook capitalist as president while daily news of textbook capitalism’s increasing dangers to humanity go unreported, it is long past time for an “alt-left” to balance the “alt-right” which seems to represent the only organized critical voice in american politics.
An electorate is being forced to choose between a lesser evil representative of the rich with excrement clogging his brains and a lesser evil representative of the rich with pus clogging her veins, while a real alternative for the 90% is not allowed to debate them for …
by Binoy Kampmark / October 5th, 2016
We believe in what we are doing… If you are pushed you push back.
— Julian Assange
The mutterings have become furious, and it is clear that the Democratic contender for the White House has again shown how traditional her ploys towards power are going to be. Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have again managed to pull the blinds off an episode of some consequence, not least because it casts insight into the inner workings of the already maligned Clinton complex.
For one, it shows that Hillary Clinton will not be averse to muddying the waters of international law she is so happy to …
by Yves Engler / October 4th, 2016
When reading wild propaganda about Canada’s role in Haiti I often wonder if the reporter is a sycophant or whether they’ve been duped.
With the Caribbean nation set to hold its most credible presidential election in sixteen years Ottawa announced it was withdrawing support for the October 9 poll. The Trudeau government’s decision to follow Washington in seeking to undermine the election was confirmed in an anti-Haitian screed titled “Canada showing Haiti some tough love”. In it CBC reporter Evan Dyer ignores …
by Matt Peppe / October 4th, 2016
As the Syrian Arab Army dug in for a fight against the self-declared Islamic State on September 17, they were struck by an air raid that killed 62 soldiers and injured 100 more. The culprit was a foreign military that has never been attacked by, and has not declared war on, Syria. Two weeks later, that same nation’s military killed 22 soldiers in a strike inside Somalia, another country which it had never been attacked by nor declared war on. The very next day the New York Times published a stinging editorial decrying flagrant violations of international law …
by Nozomi Hayase / October 4th, 2016
“To me, freedom of speech is something that represents the very dignity of what a human being is… that’s what marks us off from the stones and stars.” These are words spoken by Mario Savio, the spokesperson for the Free Speech Movement in the 60’s. Decades later, the power of free speech has surged onto the global stage and began reclaiming the dignity of humanity.
We are now entering WikiLeaks 10 year anniversary. The organization registered their domain on October 4, 2006 and blazed into the public limelight in the spring of 2010 with the publication of Collateral …
by Denis Rancourt / October 4th, 2016
In my recent article “The Climate Religion”, I argued that “climate change”, the widespread belief that atmospheric CO2 controls climate and climate events, satisfies the defining criteria of a state religion. Professor Paul Brown responded to my article in his article entitled “The Religion of Climate Change Denial”. This is my reply to Professor Brown.
Professor Brown is silent on my argument that climate change science and policy serve global financiers and US-dominated geopolitics. He prefers a sanitized argument essentially limited to a pronouncement that “most scientists…”. Fine, let us examine the scientific question.
An elementary rule of scientific theorizing, …
by Rick Sterling / October 4th, 2016
There is a hypocritical disconnect in Western and especially U.S. foreign policy. When it comes to Israel, the US is quick to claim “Israel has a right to defend itself”. For Syria, that same right does not seem to exist.
Is Israel Defending Itself or Defending Occupation/Apartheid?
When Israel executed intense bombing campaigns against Gaza in 2008, 2012 and 2014 the US justified the attacks. At the United Nations on 18 July 2014, US Ambassador Samantha Power said:
President Obama spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu this morning to reaffirm the United States’ strong support for Israel’s right to defend itself…. Hamas’ …
by Syria Support Movement / October 3rd, 2016
On 29 April, 2016, Syria Solidarity Movement member Vanesa Beeley placed the following petition on Change.org. On or about 27 September, Change.org removed the petition, citing “violation of community standards”. What community standards? Judge for yourself.
Do Not Give the Nobel Peace Price 2016 to the Syrian White Helmets
To do so would prolong the suffering of the Syrian people and reward the White Helmets for being US and UK Government funded and trained agents of “regime change” in Syria.
The White Helmets have received over $40 million in funding from the US Government [USAID] and the UK Foreign Office despite their claims of …
The Anti-Empire Report #145
by William Blum / October 3rd, 2016
“Russia suspected of election scheme. U.S. probes plan to sow voter distrust.”
That’s the Washington Post page-one lead headline of September 6. Think about it. The election that Americans are suffering through, cringing in embarrassment, making them think of moving abroad, renouncing their citizenship; an election causing the Founding Fathers to throw up as they turn in their graves … this is because the Russian Devils are sowing voter distrust! Who knew?
But, of course, that’s the way Commies are – Oh wait, I forgot. They’re no longer Commies. So what are they? Ah yes, they still have that awful old hangup …
by John R. Hall / October 3rd, 2016
By the turn of the 21st century, the United States military had already appropriated the entire earth, and was ready to flood the most obscure areas of it with troops at a moment’s notice. The Pentagon divided the planet into five area commands–similar to the way that the Indian Country of the American West had been divided in the mid-nineteenth century by the U.S. Army…’Welcome to Injun Country’ was the refrain I heard from troops from Columbia to the Philippines, including Afghanistan and Iraq. To be sure, the problem for the American military was less (Islamic) fundamentalism than anarchy. The …
by Ramzy Baroud / October 3rd, 2016
Former Israeli Prime Minister and President, Shimon Peres, was a very successful brand. He was presented to the world as stately, wise, a relentless advocate of peace, and a sane voice amidst a conflict deemed senseless and unending.
Now that he is dead at 93, international media are rife with touching tributes and heartwarming eulogies of the Nobel Peace Prize winner, one of Israel’s most sagacious ‘founding fathers’, who was also seen as a ‘giant among men’.
These attributes were mostly based on sentiment rather than fact, however. Full knowledge of the man’s legacy certainly lingers among many Palestinians, …
by Kim Petersen / October 3rd, 2016
On his second day in office as president of the United States, Barack Obama issued an executive order to make good on his promise to shut down the Guantánamo Bay incarceration facility in Cuba. Nearly at the end of his second term as president, Obama has not yet realized his promise. The act of holding rendered people continues.
It is hardly surprising to the people when their political representatives fail to make good on their pledges. It is all too common in a system that the ruling classes bill as “democracy.”
North of the border the political process plays out much the …
by Media Lens / October 3rd, 2016
National newspapers were ‘unimpressed by Jeremy Corbyn’s victory’ in the Labour leadership election, Roy Greenslade noted in the Guardian, surprising no-one. Corbyn secured almost 62% of the 506,000 votes cast, up from the 59% share he won in 2015, ‘with virtually no press backing whatsoever’.
In reality, of course, Corbyn did not just lack press backing. He won in the face of more than one year of relentless corporate media campaigning to politically, ethically, professionally, psychologically and even sartorially discredit him. That Corbyn survived is impressive. That he won again, increased his vote-share, and took Labour Party membership …
