Muslim's inflammatory rhetoric promotes the killing and suffering of more Muslims
by Denis R. O'Brien / August 3rd, 2016
I have never seen a political convention exploit dead children like this year’s DNC. Sure, we’ve come to expect Joe Biden’s perennial tear-jerking allusions to Beau, but this cycle we’ve also had eight black mothers of kids gunned down by cops, all wearing black except the lady who didn’t get the memo and who wore a gorgeous blue dress, probably not intending it to be a sign of solidarity with the silent blue line. And we’ve got the Mad Muslim from Maryland, Khizr Khan, who has gone mega-viral by turning his hero son’s death into a …
In a post on Aotearoa’s The Daily Blog, a supposedly “leftist” blogger, Chris Trotter, took “Bernie’s die-hard supporters” to task for being “ridiculous”. He was endorsing Sarah Silverman’s words, but after some inconsequential waffle, he took it a bit further: “That makes the ‘Bernie or Bust’ crowd something much more than ridiculous, Sarah, it makes them dangerous.”
Trotter is not alone in this sentiment, but it is highly arrogant to presume to criticise without showing any insight or seeming to know much about the subject at all. Not only is the disruption and protest valid, the circumstances that …
Donald Trump wants to keep us out of the country altogether. But Bill Clinton, former president and husband of a Democratic presidential nominee, does not mind us staying, as long as we, Muslims, behave ourselves.
Welcome to America where racial profiling is the country’s most popular idea, and where citizenship is now conditioned on blind obedience.
This is what Clinton said at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) on July 26: “If you’re a Muslim and you love America and freedom and you hate terror, stay here and help us win and make a future together, we want you.”
A Look at the Green Candidate’s Radical Funding Solution
by Ellen Brown / August 3rd, 2016
Bernie Sanders supporters are flocking to Jill Stein, the presumptive Green Party presidential candidate, with donations to her campaign exploding nearly 1000% after he endorsed Hillary Clinton. Stein salutes Sanders for the progressive populist movement he began and says it is up to her to carry the baton. Can she do it? Critics say her radical policies will not hold up to scrutiny. But supporters say they are just the medicine the economy needs.
Stein goes even further than Sanders on several key issues, and one of them is her economic platform. She has proposed a “Power to the People …
After baseless allegations from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) that the Russian government was behind a hack of the DNC’s emails, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump sarcastically quipped that he hoped Russia would find and release the deleted emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server from her time as secretary of state. The New York Times failed to note the sarcasm and treated the comments as evidence of high crimes against the state. It was an example of the modern day red-baiting against Trump, who is portrayed as being in league with Russian President Vladimir Putin to conspire against the United States …
Donald Trump’s campaign to defeat Hillary Clinton may be a sideshow in comparison to his matter-of-fact campaign to defeat planet Earth. Yes, he is campaigning to defeat all of 195 nations that signed onto the Paris Climate Accord, COP21. He likely thinks they are stupid!
“Global warming is a total and a very expensive hoax!” which is only one of many Trump tweets on the subject of climate change.
He is running for the presidency, and in his first major speech on energy policy (May 2016) in Bismarck, North Dakota, which is smack dab in the heart of fracking country, Trump vowed …
With the Rio Summer Olympics starting on August 5, there is huge controversy about Russian participation. On the basis of a report by Canadian lawyer Richard Mclaren (the “Mclaren Report”), the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has recommended the banning of all Russian athletes from the Rio Games. Before his report was even issued, Mclaren influenced the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF) in their decision to ban all Russian athletes from track and field events, including those who never failed any doping tests, in Russia or elsewhere.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been under media pressure to ban all Russian …
The Democratic National Committee under Debbie Wasserman Schultz, in fact, served as the Hillary Clinton Coronation Organizing Committee, operating, step by step, to ensure that the front-runner would become the party’s nominee.
Some of us assumed all along that it was all preprogrammed. But then, on the eve of the coronation itself, leaked emails revealed to everyone that, indeed, top DNC officials conspired to defeat the Sanders campaign. Just as the party leaders were lavishing praise on Sanders for bringing in so many new, enthusiastic activists—and stressing how close Clinton and Sanders have become programmatically—somebody released these emails that cannot but …
What is the purpose of the European Union? This question has been on the minds of everyone following the UK vote in favor of Brexit. Yet in the mad scramble to make sense of the United Kingdom’s rejection of the EU, little lucid commentary has been made. European leaders, the fawning media, and UK citizens alike portrayed the vote as either a refusal of EU austerity, or unhappiness with immigrants and open borders.
So which one was it: a rejection of austerity or immigration? Were UK citizens fed up with austerity measures, and with unreasonable and onerous regulations and taxes paid …
When it comes to voting red or blue, there is an optimism that compels us to approach presidential elections like a football rivalry between two teams. And, equally as bad, there is a cynicism that makes fueling our two-piston political engine seem logical—not because it is optimal, but simply because it runs. But if neither optimism nor cynicism are on our side at such a critical juncture in the timeline of our democracy, what can we do?
The truth is, our political psychosis is conquerable. We can begin remedying the situation by paying ever more critical attention to candidates outside the …
Wounds have opened; recriminations are all around. The Rio Olympic Games, even before the first act, has already shown how it will be one of the more interesting ones for all the wrong reasons. (Eventually, such wrong reasons tend to seem right.)
A glaring feature of the latest ruckus lies in the administration (or maladministration) of international sport. Disagreement, for instance, about regulating doping regimes and taking action about them, is particularly fractious. Multiple deals, often of a trans-national nature, have been made over the years. The cover-up is very much in.
No notable international organisation has been sparred bungling …
Scandinavia on the Skids: The Failure of Social Democracy
(Part 6 in a 7 part series on Scandinavia’s “Socialism”)
by Ron Ridenour / July 31st, 2016
“Do I live in a rogue state?” Mette Fugl’s column was headlined in Politiken, June 4, 2016.
Mette Fugl is a major name in Danish Establishment journalism. She worked for the largest broadcast media, Denmark’s Radio (DR), for nearly 40 years, mainly as foreign correspondent. Many view her as a prima donna in mainstream journalism. So it has special meaning that she implies that her traditionally harmless, cozy country has become unprincipled, a swindler state.
Fugl outlines recent political and legal developments that warrant the “rogue” characterization:
The so-called “respect package”, which permits the state to punish people more severely who act …
So far there have been 44 U.S. presidents, each with their own legacy. Two of these presidents were in office for only a month, so their legacies are short. Generally, the more malevolent a particular president was in office the more the legacy needs to be spun to flatter the subject and keep America’s powerless in the dark so as not to weaken the power elite of America’s corpocracy; namely, its corporate, political, and military leaders, along with the shadow government (e.g., the CIA director), and, in the inner circle, fanatical proponents of America’s manifest destiny to control the world’s …
TRNN’s Kwame Rose interviews Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein on the last day of the Democratic National Convention about why she thinks she can mobilize voters who were inspired by the Bernie Sanders campaign.
The DNC emails released by WikiLeaks showed that the Democratic National Committee has been implementing a coordinated force to undermine Bernie Sanders’ campaign and also the media’s collusion with the DNC. It is now clear that the democratic presidential primary was rigged from the start. Bernie Sanders Delegates drop this Wikileaks Banner as Hillary Clinton speaks #DNCinPHL#DNCLeak#FeelTheBern
Just before the Democratic National convention kicked off, DNC chair Debbie …
The political and elite class have us in a continual experiment of the new Inquisition
by Paul Haeder / July 30th, 2016
…the bourgeois order . . . has become a vampire that sucks out its [the smallholding peasantry’s] blood and brains and throws them into the alchemist’s cauldron.
— Karl Marx, 18th Brumaire
This is proportionally one of a 30-part serialization of a life, mine, in 30 segments, or 30 oddly disenfranchising anti-autobiographical parts, as if a significant chunk of my shaky 59 years on earth is being exhumed and sewn together with twine, or cat guts.
It’s one of a hundred things I coulda-shoulda-woulda written as tomes, but alas, the arteriosclerosis of the mind in America while working as a slave wager, in …
Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, awarded itself a draconian new power last week: A three-quarters majority of its members can now expel an elected politician if they do not like his or her views.
According to Adalah, a law centre representing the fifth of Israel’s population who are Palestinian citizens, the so-called expulsion law has no parallel in any democratic state. The group noted that it was the latest in a series of laws designed to strictly circumscribe the rights of Israel’s Palestinian minority and curb dissent.
Others fear that the measure is designed to empty the Knesset of its Palestinian parties.
The 2016 Democratic Convention in Philadelphia was a multi-layered, raucous display of political theater. A host of delegates loyal to Senator Bernie Sanders were inside in large numbers exclaiming “No more war” during former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s speech and raising all kinds of progressive, rebellious signs and banners against the Hillary crowd. Although Hillary addressed them directly in her acceptance speech, “Your cause is my cause,” those dissatisfied delegates in the hall saw her rhetoric for what it was: insincere and opportunistic.
She said she’d tax the wealthy for public necessities, but declined to mention a sales tax on …
It is a dark night in New York, a city that knows how to keep its secrets. But on the top floor of Trump Tower, one man sits in solitude, tweeting out life’s painful truths. Donald Trump, billionaire.
Far below, a black limousine pulls up at the rear entrance in an unlighted, narrow alley. A lone figure in dark glasses, a black trench coat and an even blacker fedora alights with the agility of a seasoned athlete. He is quickly admitted.
Running up the many flights to the top floor he is ushered into the billionaire’s presence. He takes off his hat …
A fortnight ago the London School of Economics published a report showing that uniformly the British press had misrepresented and denigrated Jeremy Corbyn from the moment he won the Labour party leadership last year. It was not that he had failed as leader; he was never given a chance to succeed.
LSE researchers found that 75 per cent of articles “either distorted or failed to represent his actual views on subjects”. Worse, in only 11 per cent of stories were his views fairly represented. In terms of tone, less than 10 per cent of reports were judged as positive.
Possibly I have spent too many years ‘abroad’, outside of North America and Europe. Perhaps I don’t feel ‘white’, or ‘Western’ anymore. Or who knows, maybe I never really felt too ‘Western’ anyway, thanks to my Russian and Chinese blood.
That could help to explain why, when I listened to the acceptance speech delivered by Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, I felt detached. In fact I felt great emptiness. I understood the words and their meaning, and I was even able to analyze what these words would mean to the world, were this forceful man to …
The strident anti-Corbyn headlines are endless. Almost every day a new headline drums the message home: Jeremy Corbyn must go. So many ‘false’ stories. Take the story of Corbyn ‘threatening rebel MPs with deselection’. When he launched …
A month on from the Brexit vote and Scotland’s EU-smitten First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, continues to stamp her foot in frustration. But hopefully, after her frantic tour of European capitals pleading for Scotland to remain a vassal of the EU one way or another, the absurdity of her stance is beginning to dawn on her. She’s a little less strident, a touch more subdued.
Nevertheless the two-times loser is still viewing the future through a wonky SNP prism, still pulling every trick and still straining every sinew to impose her peculiar brand of independence on Scotland, claiming it’s in our best …
Few sights are sadder in international diplomacy than seeing an aging figure desperate for honours. In a desperate effort to net them, he scurries around, cultivating, prodding, wishing to be noted. Finally, such an honour is netted, in all likelihood just to shut that overly keen individual up.
Such a figure is former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who has become something of a prattler in chief, roaming an assortment of international stages in the vain hope that he might, just might, become the next UN Secretary General.
Nominees, of which former Portuguese prime minister António Guterres is said to be the …
Contemporary art is often criticised as pointless or overvalued by art market elites. Even the word ‘artist’ has lost much of its meaning. The many ongoing global socio-political crises seem to make even the idea of art fade into insignificance. Most art either reflects local reality (landscapes, cityscapes, portraits) or internal ‘reality’ (surrealism, conceptual art). But there are artists (in this case, I will focus on painters) who do not shy away from depicting the difficulties facing ordinary people or the elites who create those difficulties in the first place. Here we will look at particular ways in which painters …
Despite a backlash evocative of those who defended the Jim Crow US South, Green Party members recently voted in favor of a resolution calling on Ottawa to stop subsidizing racist land covenants. Next weekend the Greens will make a final decision on whether they support the principles underlying a half-century old Supreme Court of Canada decision outlawing discriminatory land-use policies.
Two months ago Green Party member Corey Levine put forward a resolution calling on the Party to pressure the Canada Revenue Agency to revoke the Jewish National Fund’s charitable status. The Independence Jewish Voices activist crafted a motion criticizing the JNF’s …
Sentenced to death on charges of apostasy and promoting atheism, Ashraf had his sentence reduced to eight years and 800 lashes.
by Paul MM Cooper / July 27th, 2016
Somewhere, maybe on the other side of the world from you right now, countless people are sitting locked in small rooms because of things they wrote. It’s a strange idea. How could the written word be so dangerous that the person responsible for it should be placed in a box, locked away from society along with arsonists and murderers? So many of these journalists and artists are unknown. They do not have hashtags. But one of them, Ashraf Fayadh, has become a rallying call around the world. More than 60 international arts and human rights groups have campaigned for his …
New Cold War is now in full swing and the West is using both old and new tactics, in order to demonize and discredit all of its opponents: from Russia to China, Venezuela, North Korea, South Africa and Iran.
Our anti-imperialist media outlets, including those of the RT, TeleSUR, Press TV, CCTV and Sputnik are being labeled as ‘propaganda’ channels. Defensive and internationalist initiatives of our countries are branded as aggressions. Those governments that are relentlessly working on behalf of the people are defined as ‘evil’ or at least as ‘dictatorships’.
The Empire is erecting a complex and destructive web of lies …
(Author’s Note: Based on interviews with Palestinian refugees from Syria.)
The refugee camp of Yarmouk was ever present in his being, pulling him in and out of an abyss of persistent fears that urged him to never return. But what was this refugee without Yarmouk, his first haven, his last earth?
How could any other spot in this unwelcoming universe ever be a ‘home’ when he had learned that only Palestine, which he had never visited, can ever be a home? When questioned, he always answered without hesitation: “I am from the village of so and so in Palestine.” Yet the Yarmouk …
