Latest articles
by William Hawes / August 20th, 2016
The current state of American politics must make us question whether any of our leaders in the Beltway can be described as “grown-ups”; i.e., fully mature and sane individuals. Between the endless war crimes, corporate corruption, lobbyists who bribe congressmen and write legislation, and the ineptitude of federal entities who are supposed to protect our health such as the FDA, EPA, and CDC, it would appear that leaders in all three branches of government, as well as the leaders of the corporate world, are either insane, suffer from various psychological disorders, as well as suffering from a type of collective …
by Peter Breschard / August 20th, 2016
I’m voting for her because she’s a woman.
I’m voting for him because he’s black.
I’m voting for him because he’s white.
I’m voting for her because I’m afraid of him.
I’m voting for him because I’m afraid of her.
I’m voting for him/her because they are going to win/win.
This country is based on representative government. (Surprise!) Putting personnel peccadillos aside for the moment (You stinking, thieving, lying, amoral, son-of-a-bitch), citizens should base their choice of candidate to support on the person/party that best represents the way that citizen believes this government should be administered. A fairly simple concept, vote for the person who thinks …
by James Petras / August 20th, 2016
China and the United States are moving in polar opposite directions: Beijing is rapidly becoming the center of overseas investments in high tech industries, including robotics, nuclear energy and advanced machinery with collaboration from centers of technological excellence, like Germany.
In contrast, Washington is pursuing a predatory military pivot to the least productive regions with collaboration from its most barbaric allies, like Saudi Arabia.
China is advancing to global economic superiority by borrowing and innovating the most advance …
by T. Francis Curran / August 20th, 2016
Eligibility is the beautiful magic that fuels the American electoral system. Delivered in a log cabin or to the manor born, all may seek to lead the nation where, as Whitman said, the President takes off his hat to the people instead of they to him. Yet even as the process grows wonderfully more inclusive, flaws emerge. It appears that every 58th Presidential election things can go wrong. Horribly wrong.
As he seemingly sabotages his own campaign, some seek a motive in Mr. Trump’s late altruism. They marvel at the masses who believe that he could become, perhaps already is, “presidential.” …
by Bruce Lerro / August 20th, 2016
For those of you not familiar with Greek mythology, the “Harpies” were female birds sent by Zeus to steal the food of King Phineus of Thrace as punishment for the King for revealing Zeus’s secret plan. This continued until the arrival of Jason and the Argonauts who drove the Harpies back to their caves in Crete. Many of you are well prepared for what to say to the “Hillary Harpies” today who flurry around you at work, in your neighborhood, on social media and in the corporate media. But just in case, I’ve assembled some of my reasons for not …
by Graham Peebles / August 20th, 2016
After being frightened into silence for over two decades, the people of Ethiopia are finding their voice and calling for fundamental political change.
Thousands have been taking to the streets in recent weeks and months to peacefully protest against the ruling party, expressing their collective anger at the injustices and widespread human rights violations taking place throughout the country and calling for democratic elections.
The People are Rising Up
The people have awakened, and overcoming fear and historic differences are beginning to unite. The two main ethnic groups are rallying under a common cause: freedom, justice, and the observation of their constitutionally acknowledged …
by Andre Vltchek / August 20th, 2016
When some time ago Noam Chomsky and I met at MIT in order to write a book On Western Terrorism: From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare and to produce a film with the same title together, the topic we mainly aimed at discussing was that of the countless genocides the West has committed all over the world since the end of the WWII. The second topic was impunity.
But no matter what atrocities we re-visited, our conversation kept slipping towards one crucial theme: the propaganda that has been manufactured in media centers like New York, Paris, London and other North …
by Gary Brumback / August 19th, 2016
A small land situated between the North Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean, Iceland minds her own business and minds it very well. I was so impressed by what I saw and learned in a recent and first visit there with my family that I decided to write this short piece as a tribute to her people and their history and as a lesson that needs to be learned and practiced by the greatest troublemaking nation of all time during only 240 years of her existence, namely, America, a nation forever at odds with herself, constantly preparing for and engaging in …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / August 19th, 2016
In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People.
— Eugene Victor Debs, 1855-1926.
Oh dear, as the fantasy of Vladimir Putin as “Vlad the Terrible” ratchets up in the US-UK-NATO driven new Cold War, the Independent runs a piece headed “What lies behind the new Russian threat to Ukraine”, the sub-heading is: “Vladimir Putin, his opponents repeatedly point out, has form on this. The war between Russia and Georgia took place in 2008 at the time of the …
by Paul Craig Roberts / August 19th, 2016
Washington’s media presstitutes are using the image of the child to bring pressure on Russia to stop the Syrian army from retaking Alleppo. Washington wants its so-called moderate rebels to retain Alleppo so that Washington can split Syria in two, thereby keeping a permanent pressure against President Assad.
As for the little boy in the propaganda picture, he does not seem to be badly injured. Let us not forget the tens of thousands of children that Washington’s wars and bombings of 7 Muslim countries have killed without any tears shed by CNN anchors, and let us not forget …
by Dave Lindorff / August 19th, 2016
While I periodically have written commentaries dissecting and pillorying news articles in the New York Times to expose their bias, hypocrisy half-truths and lies, I generally ignore their editorials since these are overtly opinions of the management, and one expects them to display the elitist and neo-liberal perspective of the paper’s publisher and senior editors.
That said, the August 17 editorial about Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who has spent four harrowing years trapped in the apartment-sized Ecuadoran embassy thanks to a trumped-up and thoroughly discredited political rape “investigation” by a politically driven Swedish prosecutor and a complicit right-wing British government, moves …
by Andre Vltchek / August 19th, 2016
So many would like this to happen – to see Turkey go, to leave NATO, to break its psychological, political and economic dependency on the West. Now that Recep Tayyip Erdo?an and his allies are quarreling with the United States and the EU, there is suddenly great hope that Turkey may thoroughly re-think its position in the world, strengthen its ties with Russia and China, renew the historic friendship with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and improve its relationship with Iran.
Could this be really happening, so suddenly and so unexpectedly? If only Turkey were to join BRICS, if it decided to …
(Who cares about motives?)
by T.P. Wilkinson / August 19th, 2016
In the great scheme of things a minor confusion or disturbance in the routine of less mainstream journalism, whether called progressive, left or radical — terms which themselves confuse more than they clarify — has no great consequences. No revolts occur and none are quelled. But the exchange in these pages, especially the observation that certain essays were rejected by what might be called the less — or sub-mainstream establishment — should draw our attention to a constant and serious problem in our analysis of events: the problem of intention.
Since it is a matter of record, for those who have …
by Binoy Kampmark / August 18th, 2016
It all goes back to April, when the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court found the Manus Island detention facility, ostensibly directed and run by the Australian government, in breach of the PNG Constitution.
By the order of the court, “Both the Australian and Papua New Guinea governments shall forthwith take all steps necessary to cease and prevent the continued unconstitutional and illegal detention of the asylum seekers or transferees at the relocation centre on Manus Island and the continued breach of the asylum seekers or transferees constitutional and human rights.”
PNG’s Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill, did not wait long before announcing …
The Obama Doctrine is Ravaging the Middle East
by Ramzy Baroud / August 17th, 2016
Everyone seems to have a theory on how to obliterate ISIS, or ‘Daesh’. However, two points are rarely raised: one, concerning the origins of the group and the second, on whether there are genuine intentions to defeat it, in the first place.
We must boldly address the first to unravel the enigma behind the rise and growth of ‘Daesh’ – otherwise, how else can the group be dismantled.
We must contend with the second point before engaging in superfluous discussions about the most appropriate war strategy – that if war is, at all, the answer.
The questions are quite urgent yet, somehow, they …
by John V. Walsh / August 16th, 2016
Words matter, my friends. And if you are running to be president, or you are president of the United States, words can have tremendous consequences.
— Hillary Clinton, August 10, 2016
The corporate media (CM) is once again slinging mud at Donald Trump over his comments at a South Carolina rally. Hillary’s campaign joined in the claim that he encouraged violence against her. But Trump said nothing about violence. Absolutely nothing. ((Trump said: “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.” There is no mention …
by Matt Peppe / August 15th, 2016
As the economic and humanitarian crisis has worsened in Puerto Rico in recent months, playwright and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda, has given voice in interviews and Op-Eds to the severity of the crisis among ordinary Puerto Ricans. Miranda called the island’s debt crisis a matter of “life and death,” saying, “I have a lot of family who are struggling in Puerto Rico, that’s not an abstract issue to me.” He humanizes what the statistics – $73 billion in debt, $19,500 median household income, 11.5 percent sales tax, 64,000 people leaving per year – can not. Puerto Rico is a …
For elites, anything that distracts from empire is a good thing
by Jason Hirthler / August 15th, 2016
The Green Party might have had a realistic chance for the presidency had Bernie Sanders not amputated his “political revolution” and instead joined presidential nominee Jill Stein on the Green ticket. But Sanders was the sheep-dogging company man Glen Ford at Black Agenda Report said he was. The Green Party will not win this year, but with support it may win soon. A decade ago Syriza in Greece polled at five percent. Now it is in power. In 1853 there was no Republican Party. In 1861 they put an abolitionist in the White House. Stranger things have happened. Of …
US Delusion of Empire, Obstacle to Peace
by Eric Walberg / August 15th, 2016
It is time to assess the legacy that President Obama bequeaths us. Two timely books contribute to this; namely, The End of the Republic and the Delusion of Empire by James Petras, (Clarity, 2016) and Obstacle to Peace: The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict by Jeremy Hammond, (Worldview, 2016) with Hammond focusing on the “special relationship”, Petras, more broadly on US imperialism. Both are pessimistic about the possibility of any change without an active, articulate citizens’ movement that has staying power, thereby creating the conditions for a political renewal.
Hammond’s work is detailed, documenting the period starting with …
by Anthony Tarrant / August 15th, 2016
It’s an election year, as you know, and the demos, stupefied in aspic from too many years baking in front of a warm television screen, have awakened to the reality they have nothing, own nothing, save debt and perhaps a paltry 401k, the innards and working mechanics of which they haven’t the foggiest understanding of. Bereft of a truly social inclination or civic revelation once in their entire lives, now, now, after 50 years of showing up every four years to vote for shit after shit after shit after parading, mass murdering made for TV. shit, now, NOW they’re looking …
(Politically that was never the question)
by T.P. Wilkinson / August 15th, 2016
I do not consider it the sign of an intellectually critical person that he or she has a dogmatically predictable reply to any and every issue. It is perfectly legitimate to have doubts about something. ((Malcolm X made this point concluding his Oxford Union address, cited by this author in a previous article.))
Actually I have often disagreed with Bill Blum, but then I tend to share Gandhi’s insight about “Western civilization”. ((Mohandus Gandhi was to have been asked once what he thought of “Western civilization” whereby he replied that “it would be a good idea.”))
The last two essays …
by Eva Bartlett / August 14th, 2016
Since June 13, 2016, I have been visiting different regions of Syria but have not had sufficient time to post regularly. However, until I am able to, I will share some brief updates I had shared on social media, and otherwise refer to my writings/photos/videos from my prior 4 visits.
Down the Terrorist-Sniped Road to Aleppo, the Only Entrance to a City of over 1.5 Million (July visit)
Going through my …
It is not “Ridiculous” to Reject Hillary, Part 2
by Kieran Kelly / August 14th, 2016
In Part 1 of this article I argued that the 2016 US presidential race is the Alien vs. Predator election. The joke, which is at the expense of everyone on this planet, is that they are both aliens and both predators. Many ordinary people understand the situation perfectly well. A South Carolina real estate billboard shows Trump and Clinton and reads: “Moving to Canada? We can sell your home.” Even a month ago you could read this Onionesque headline at The Hill: “Poll: 13 percent prefer meteor hitting earth over Clinton, Trump”. It …
by Simon Threlkeld / August 12th, 2016
Many people think choosing politicians by popular vote is an essential part of democracy. Nevertheless, there is another way to choose politicians that is in important regards far more democratic and much better. That way is for politicians to be chosen by juries of citizens drawn from the public by random selection. Such juries could number from 25 to 1,000 or more citizens, with larger juries being used for the most important offices such as President.
In Classical Athens, widely considered the birthplace of democracy, a broad range of decisions were made by juries drawn from the citizens by lottery. The …
by William A. Blunden / August 12th, 2016
An army of networked kiosks is invading New York City. Hundreds of them. They’re large vertical slabs, practically ten feet tall and chock full of sensors. Reminiscent of the mysterious black monoliths from Stanley Kubrick’s movie 2001. These kiosks are replacing the city’s aging public telephone booths and after this initial wave of monoliths hits Gotham there will be thousands more installed throughout the city. John Young, the architect who runs the web site Cryptome, has called this forest of kiosks “the largest urban spying system in the United States.”
And this is merely the tip of the iceberg. …
by Andre Vltchek / August 12th, 2016
Once upon a time, there was a man called James Buchanan. He was a Democrat, a Secretary of State and then the President of the United States. A good friend of mine, a historian, told me about him.
Buchanan was the last U.S. President who previously served as Secretary of State. He was a Pennsylvania native, and he took his place in the Oval Office in 1857.
Now, more than 150 years later, Hilary Clinton may be about to follow in his footsteps. And some footsteps they were!
Before serving as Secretary of State (in the administration of President James K. Polk), James …
by Kim Petersen / August 12th, 2016
Back on 6 July 2016, anti-imperialist Bill Blum wrote an otherwise excellent article with the exception of one paragraph that detracted from its overall message. I responded to that paragraph in an article.
Blum affirmed that these were indeed his views in a second article. Now he has written a third article persevering on his thesis, albeit in a logically unsound piece.
Blum claims his “crime” was being “politically incorrect.” I demur. The reason that I dissented was because Blum was painting a diverse grouping as a monolith. He was, in effect, branding the …
The US Election and Free Trade Politics
by Binoy Kampmark / August 11th, 2016
Being savaged by Donald J. Trump on one side of the electoral aisle, and modestly beaten by the Democratic presumptive candidate, Hillary Clinton, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement is lying somewhere between near death and miraculous survival. Those breathing life into that unfortunate beast remain politicians who embraced the mythology of free trade while never questioning what was free.
The scurrying taking place in the White House over rushing the TPP through the relevant channels is evident as the Obama presidency enters its final stages. Stutters, delays, and reluctance has meant that much work, perhaps too much, has to be done …
by Graham Peebles / August 11th, 2016
Food, like shelter and health care, is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a fundamental right of all people, irrespective of circumstances or income. And yet one in nine of the global population does not have enough to eat – despite the fact that there is enough food to feed everyone.
The fact that around 800 million people are literally starving to death in a world of plenty is a level of human injustice which beggars belief. Women and children are the worst affected. Woman, who in many countries are not allowed to own land, make up …
by Lamont Lilly / August 11th, 2016
Workers World Party vice presidential candidate, Lamont Lilly gave the following speech at the Black Resistance March on the Democratic National Convention on July 26 in Philadelphia. This march was organized by the Philly Coalition for REAL Justice.
WWP Vice Presidential Candidate Lamont Lilly Addressing Crowd at DNC Via phillyvoicedotcom
When we talk about the police and police terror, what we are really talking about is “the state.” The State is the FBI, the CIA. It is the courts, the prosecutors, the judges, the parole officers — every institution …
