Latest articles
Now is the Time for change
by Graham Peebles / September 23rd, 2016
Usually September 11th, or 1st of Meskerem on the Ethiopian calendar, is a day of celebration. It is the Ethiopian new-year. However, this year there was a distinct shortage of happy gatherings or collective jubilation to mark the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, either inside the country or amongst the diaspora.
The country is in crisis and the majority of Ethiopians believe there is little to celebrate; instead many people spent the day in quiet reflection, dressed in black. Prayers were said at church services in Ethiopia and abroad for those who have been killed protesting (a constitutional …
by Yves Engler / September 23rd, 2016
Media coverage of world affairs mostly focuses on Ottawa/Washington’s perspective. While the dominant media is blatant in its subservience to Canadian/Western power, even independent media is often afraid to challenge the foreign policy status quo.
A recent Canadaland podcast simultaneously highlighted anti-Palestinian media bias and the fear liberal journalists’ face in discussing one of the foremost social justice issues of our time. The media watchdog’s discussion of the Green Party’s recent resolutions supporting Palestinian rights started strong with Canadaland publisher Jesse Brown laying out three “facts”:
In an editorial titled “[Elizabeth] May must renounce anti-Israel resolutions” …
by Rick Sterling / September 23rd, 2016
Manipulation of public perception has risen to a new level with the emergence of powerful social media. Facebook, Twitter and Google are multibillion dollar corporate giants hugely influencing public understanding. Social media campaigns include paid ‘boosting’ of Facebook posts, paid promotion of Tweets, and biased results from search engines. Marketing and advertising companies use social media to promote their clients. U.S. foreign policy managers hire these companies to influence public perception to support U.S. foreign policy goals. For example, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made sure that Twitter was primed for street protests in Iran following the 2009 election. She …
by Lauren Gavilan / September 22nd, 2016
There’s the potential at this juncture for bold black athletes to blend many identity issues and address concerns about Mother Earth simultaneously.
— Organizer for the 2016 Facing Race national conference, which will take place November 10-12 in Atlanta, Georgia.
Let’s think about fighting the good fight really well ringing the public bell from an entirely new angle.
In the 60s, when I was writing for Nat Fleischer, the Ring Magazine publisher and eventual inductee into the Boxing Hall of Fame, the old man told me about how Heavyweight Champion of the world Jack Johnson managed to secure a shot at the …
by Adnan Al-Daini / September 22nd, 2016
Recently the back bumper on my car sustained a few cracks as a result of a minor accident. I took the car to the dealer’s garage. I was told that the bumper needed to be replaced at an extortionate cost. Not only that but also the car had to be taken to another city for that to be done. I said I would think about it.
Returning home, I contacted a relative who owns a small garage locally. He said the bumper did not need to be replaced, it could be welded easily, costing about a fifth of the price quoted …
by Radmilo Bozinovic / September 21st, 2016
The current point in the US presidential race offers a short-lived window of opportunity for some real positive change that rarely comes around. For it not to be wasted requires direct and forceful action by a majority of stakeholders – specifically, the large swath of American electorate that was moved and inspired by the recent Sanders campaign.
The main premise is simple: just how in china stores “if you break it, you own it”, or if you stir up a hornets’ nest, you are forced to deal with it. So here sen. Sanders has the supreme moral obligation to steer towards sensible …
... and Obliterates US War Crimes?
by Felicity Arbuthnot / September 21st, 2016
The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
— Candidate Barack Obama, December, 2007
As the US heaps blame and accusations on Russia and Syria for the alleged air strike on the aid convoy on Monday September 19th, as ever there are more questions than answers – and whatever US spokespersons state, absolutely no certainties.
The only undeniable fact is that another tragedy killed at least twenty Syrian Arab Red Crescent volunteers and the organisation’s local Director Omar Barakat, father …
by Binoy Kampmark / September 21st, 2016
The tensions between those engaged in the dangerous and compromising pursuit of whistleblowing, and those who use the fruit of such efforts has been all too coarsely revealed in the Washington Post stance on Edward Snowden.
Oliver Stone’s Snowden has done a good deal of stirring on its release, suggesting that the pardon powers of the Presidential office should be activated. A recent petition calling for a pardon of the former National Security Agency contractor has already received signatures from Steve Wozniak, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jack Dorsey.
The ACLU, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch similarly believe that Snowden should …
Part 2: What Does the Rise of China Mean for the Rest of the World?
by Kim Petersen / September 21st, 2016
In Part 1, I interviewed Jeff Brown, author of 44 Days Backpacking in China and the recently published China Rising, to get a perspective from an American ex-pat who has lived in, deeply studied China, and learned Mandarin.
I am glad that Jeff Brown raised the 15th century voyages of Zheng He in Part 2. Zheng He was a Muslim Chinese admiral who navigated much of the world in colossal wooden treasure ships conducting trade and spreading news of a China that was then …
by Dr. Hakim / September 20th, 2016
https://youtu.be/WWcv1yCL0Qs
Government officials and business people today routinely negotiate: “We’d like to extract the oil.” Or gas, or such and such a mineral. Water? “Oh don’t worry, we’ll see to that too….”
But they’re not angels, and their bottom line is profit, so Nature and human beings have a problem having enough to drink, and to survive, not just along Kabul River, but also along the Missouri and Mississippi of the Standing Rock Sioux.
They craft the ‘legal’ rules of the industry, and embellish their plans with ‘democracy, or development, or rights’.
They enjoy impunity, unless, together, we speak up, and ‘vandalize’ the ‘norms’, …
Obscuring the end game
by Jason Hirthler / September 20th, 2016
A new band out of Los Angeles called PartyBaby recently released their excellent pop-punk debut album, the title of which perfectly captures the time we’re living through: The Golden Age of Bullshit. On the cover three or four teens scamper through a splashing surf. There’s lots of laughter and frivolity. It’s just an innocent day at the beach. But behind them, a mushroom cloud erupts out of the deep water. The teens are oblivious. Isn’t that a perfect picture of America today? The electorate gearing up to place a neoconservative war criminal in the White House by virtue of …
by Peter Breschard / September 20th, 2016
Buddy boy, don’t you get it? This isn’t the year to cast a “protest” vote. If you don’t vote for Trump, you’re really voting for Hillary.
Huh?
Listen, kid, you just don’t know how all this works, do you? I know you pretty much think neither Clinton2 nor the Trumpster should be controlling the White House joy stick. Am I right or am I right?
I guess so.
You don’t want to vote for someone who helped bomb the shit out of the Middle East or somebody who you don’t know if they’ll blow up the whole world either. The Big H has the …
by John V. Walsh / September 20th, 2016
By now Hillary Clinton’s comment that half of Donald Trump’s supporters are “sexist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic” and hence “irredeemable” is known throughout the land. They, said she, belong in a “basket of deplorables.” She thus consigns to her “basket” many millions of Americans, in fact, more each day as Trump does ever better in the polls.
Make no mistake about it, this bit of invective was no accident. Hillary is carefully scripted, and especially so in these months of her campaign. Cameras were rolling and she knew it. Moreover, she has said the same thing repeatedly on camera in front …
Obama and the Multi-Nationals
by James Petras / September 20th, 2016
The concentration and centralization of the agro-business multi-nationals advances with gigantic strides: Potash Corp and Agrium have combined into a $30 billion monopoly over the world fertilizer market. Dow Chemical and DuPont combine in a $130 billion dollar deal in the seed and agricultural chemicals sector. ChemChina prepares to take over Syngenta in a $44 billion acquisition. Bayer is preparing to buy out Monsanto for $56 billion and further concentrate control over worldwide seed and chemical markets. A quarter of a trillion dollars worth of mergers and acquisitions is poised to concentrate control of global agriculture prices, profits and markets …
by Syria Support Movement / September 19th, 2016
The Syria Solidarity Movement unequivocally condemns and denounces the vicious US bombing attack on the Syrian army defending Deir ez-Zour, and we wish to make the following observations.
The attack killed at least 62 Syrian soldiers and wounded more than 100. This is larger than the number of casualties inflicted in any US bombing on any terrorist target in Syria since the US announced its “war on ISIS”.
The bombing inflicted no known casualties on ISIS, which the US says was its intended target.
The US has produced no evidence that it notified its Russian counterparts, as required by agreement. …
... It's not applicable to Palestine
by Stuart Littlewood / September 19th, 2016
Seems our politicians, on both sides of the Atlantic, are under instructions to drop the J-word from their vocabulary. I mean J-for-Justice, conspicuously missing from any discussion about Middle East peace and, more specifically, an end to the hell in the Holy Land.
Only the other day at Westminster a parliamentary question was put to the Secretary of State for International Development asking what assessment had been made of the effectiveness and value for money of the UK’s aid assistance to the Palestinian Territories.
It was answered by Rory Stewart who repeated the tired mantra: “The UK remains committed in its support …
by Nozomi Hayase / September 19th, 2016
Last week, Oliver Stone’s biopic “Snowden” hit the theaters. The film illuminates the life of Edward Snowden between 2004 and 2013, aiming to humanize one of the most wanted men in the world. Just before its release, a public campaign was launched urging President Obama to pardon this renowned NSA whistleblower.
The massive US government persecution of truthtellers over the past years has exiled conscience from civil society, locking it behind bars and driving it into asylum. Yet, despite these attacks, it refuses to die.
From prison where she is serving 35 years, Chelsea Manning is standing up for her …
by Andre Vltchek / September 19th, 2016
In Europe, oppression is never really called by its true ugly name. It is constantly concealed by lofty slogans such as culture, even tolerance. Repression, discrimination and harassment are administered in order for the ‘entire society to be free’.
Or so at least the official narrative goes.
In France, a recent and ugly row over so-called burkinis, a swimsuit used by many Muslim women all over the world, has demonstrated how little tolerance there really is in today’s Europe for other cultures and for different ways of life.
Recently, France’s highest administrative court has ruled that “burkini bans” being enforced on the country’s …
Exiting Society Before They Slap You Hard with Retribution for Being Flawed, Human
by Paul Haeder / September 19th, 2016
Sixty days. A year. Five years. A week. A day. An hour. Right now.
That’s the curse of addiction, those needles, inhalants, the entire barbarity of cheap booze shilled by the chosen ones, the money changers, all amortized and bundled debts in trans-capital, sold next to the playground, the trees cut down for billboards pronouncing sexual prowess and football hero-dom with the flick of the Mike’s Hard Cider or a fucking Bud.
“I wake up with a pint of 100 proof vodka, just to take care of the shakes, in one gulp. I carried around half a gallon, and I fucked up …
by Robert Hunziker / September 19th, 2016
The planet’s air conditioning system is on the blink, working intermittently, losing its glinting, lustrous white reflectiveness, as it turns deep blue, absorbing 90% of sunlight rather than reflecting it back into outer space. The repercussions of Arctic sea ice loss are immense.
“Our planet has actually changed colour,” Peter Wadhams, A Farewell to Ice (Allen Lane an imprint of Penguin Books, 2016). Loss of Arctic sea ice has such an overriding powerful impact on the planet, it warrants this 206-page book. “It is Man’s first major achievement in reshaping the face of his planet, and it is of …
Damning Report Shreds Another War Monger
by Felicity Arbuthnot / September 18th, 2016
Former UK Prime Minister David Cameron is consistent in just one thing – jumping ship when the going gets tough. He announced his resignation in the immediate wake of the 23rd July referendum in which Britain marginally voted to leave the EU, a referendum which he had fecklessly called to appease right wing “little Englanders”, instead of facing them down.
He lost. The result is looming financial catastrophe and the prospect of unraveling forty-three years of legislations (Britain joined the then European Economic Community on 1st January 1973.) No structure was put in place for a government department to address the …
by Binoy Kampmark / September 18th, 2016
Island mentalities do not travel well. When their sellers hawk the agenda before world forums, these start looking ludicrous. Coming close to this ludicrous display is Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who has done what other Australian prime ministers have in previous years: sell the great discovery, the great hit of life on how best to protect borders in the face of threats.
No greater hits in the Australian record of cruelty and mania come close than the approach of outsourcing refugee obligations and the conjectures of global terrorism. The former stance assumes that refugees are disposable on arrival, repellent jumpers …
Open Letter to My Progressive Pal Who Votes for the Lesser-of-Two-Evils
by Roger D. Harris / September 17th, 2016
I asked you who is the lesser evil when even the Washington Post posits Hillary Clinton to the “political right” of Trump on international issues?
And you responded: “So I guess I should vote for Trump?”
Gimme Shelter: Fleeing Trump to the Democrat’s Big Tent
You are right that there are differences between the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. No one recognizes that better than the ruling elites who are tripping over each other to join the Clinton bandwagon.
Mainstream Republicans, such as Romney and the Bush bunch, are gravitating in droves to the better Republican who happens to be a nominal Democrat. …
by John R. Hall / September 17th, 2016
They say that home is where the heart is. If this is so, my heart must be of the restless variety, for I’ve changed the location of home some forty plus times during my adult life. Apparently I’m not finished yet.
It’s September, and Mohave Desert heat is still intense here in Laughlin, Nevada. But lately, in the glow of predawn, I detect the faint howl of the north wind. Much like Vianne Rocher, the enigmatic chocolatier in the 2000 movie Chocolat, I’m feeling the irresistible urge to move on once more. Like Vianne, I’m an athiest, a free spirit, and …
by Ellen Brown / September 17th, 2016
Several central banks, including the Bank of England, the People’s Bank of China, the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve, are exploring the concept of issuing their own digital currencies, using the blockchain technology developed for Bitcoin. Skeptical commentators suspect that their primary goal is to eliminate cash, setting us up for negative interest rates (we pay the bank to hold our deposits rather than the reverse).
But Ben Broadbent, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, puts a more positive spin on it. He says Central Bank Digital Currencies could supplant the money now created by private banks …
by Yves Engler / September 17th, 2016
A Metro should never be wrapped in car ads.
On Monday the whole front of Montréal’s Metro paper promoted Kia. All of page two and the back of a paper targeted at the city’s transit riders also promoted an unhealthy, lethal, inefficient and utterly unsustainable mode of transportation.
Incredibly, public transit systems regularly glorify the private automobile. Car ads are not uncommon on buses or in metros. During a trip to Philadelphia a few years ago, the great hall at the city’s beautiful old train station was covered with a 50 ft x 30 ft car ad. It seemed more than a …
by subMedia / September 16th, 2016
In a world ruled by ceaseless capitalist competition, where people are pitted to work against each other, anarchists offer a different vision: Mutual Aid.
by Binoy Kampmark / September 15th, 2016
Australian values and way of life are also at risk from insidious institutions such as the unelected swill that is the United Nations.
— Senator Roberts, One Nation Party, September 14, 2016.
It all begins with a promise. A promise, less for a better future than a reclaimed past. Reclamation of the familiar, in fact, being the fundamental idea. “As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I’m here to discuss with the chamber and the Australian people how we will rebuild our great nation.” These words from the inaugural speech of One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts set the trend in …
Jacques Pauwels: The Great Class War 1914 - 1918
by T.P. Wilkinson / September 15th, 2016
In 2014 I reviewed what was promoted as a significant revision in the interpretation of what in Britain and continental Europe is called “The Great War” and since 1945 has been popularly called the “First World War”. ((T.P. Wilkinson. “Peculiar Omission in Award Winning Book,” Dissident Voice, July 21, 2014.)) The revisionary aspect was the author’s contention — expressed in his title The Sleepwalkers — that the cause of the great slaughter between 1914 and 1918 was far less the intentions of the belligerents than their general incapacity to grasp the full consequences of their actions. The argument is …
by Andre Vltchek / September 15th, 2016
Yesterday I watched Ms. Clinton on the television screen, stumbling towards her van, after attending a ceremony at the WTC in New York City. She had to be grabbed by both arms by her aids, and then literally pulled into the vehicle.
Embarrassing? Not really. People get exhausted; they get sick and sometimes they can even hardly remain standing on their feet. When they stumble, when they fall, their close ones should offer them support and help, immediately.
Several days earlier I met my German translator in Heidelberg, and he showed me an introduction to a book he was working on, a …
