Here in Russia, where I have been traveling as part of a small delegation organized by Voices for Creative Nonviolence, the people with whom we have spoken have no illusions about war and its effects. “We remember what war is like,” Nikolay, a scientist and businessman, told us. “We have a genetic memory,” referring to close relatives – parents, grandparents – who passed on their experience of the Great Purge and/or the siege of Leningrad, when nearly a million Russians died of starvation and disease because Germany cut off all imports and exports. “Three of my grandmother’s brothers …
Summary: I argue that in the many societal battles that serve to repair continually arising unjust features of the societal hierarchy, individuals must respect two fundamental “rules of war”: (1) Not to violate the natural right of individual self-determination (control over one’s body and mind) and (2) not to violate the natural right of individual free expression (control over one’s expression and attempts to have societal influence by expression). This centrally includes not allowing the state and its institutions to violate the said rights. My main example is drawn from the current society-wide battle around sexual identity and the language …
Readers of the Guardian woke up last Tuesday (November 1, 2016) to find that the newspaper and website had been given over to promoting MI5. To be more precise: the paper was trumpeting a fearmongering ‘exclusive‘ with MI5 Director-General, Andrew Parker. It was billed as ‘the first interview of its kind’ and was conducted by the paper’s deputy editor, Paul Johnson, and the diplomatic editor, Ewen MacAskill. However, it quickly became clear that this ‘interview’ consisted largely of the two senior Guardian journalists listening to the MI5 chief and diligently writing …
Sebastopol, California — An inspiring Standing Rock benefit to support Native Americans and others seeking to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) happened November 6 from early in the afternoon to past 10 p.m. at the Sebastopol Grange in Northern California. A steady stream of animated folks of all ages coming and going was estimated to be around 600 people. The event raised thousands of dollars through donations, food and drink sales.
The 1,172-mile-long pipeline currently is scheduled to cross both the Missouri and Mississippi rivers to carry oil that was obtained by fracking and would be an environmental disaster. It …
Americans spent $329.2 billion on prescription drugs in 2013. Big Pharma will tell you that their high drug prices are necessary for the research and development of new drugs. That is far from the truth. In actuality, data shows that pharmaceutical’s obscenely high prices are used mostly for sales and marketing. Accordingly, statistics show that most pharmaceutical companies spend much less for research and development than they do for marketing and sales.
A 2013 accounting included a report on spending by Johnson and Johnson (USA), Novartis (CH), Pfizer (USA), Glaxosmithkline (GB), Merck, Sanofi, Roche, AstraZeneca, Lilly and Abbvie among the …
The outcome of the 2016 presidential election will show that the American political system – as we have known it – will apparently cease to exist. Trump is nothing like those Republican pawns who, along with the puppets of the Democratic party, have spent the last 40 years erecting the facade of American democracy. It really looks like he is ready to make good on the threat he made even prior to the Republican National Convention – to send millions of his supporters into the streets.
Today Trump represents an entirely new party made up of half of the American electorate, …
Ever since the telling of biblical fairy tales, few stories have lived up to the hype around the mismatch between the shepherd boy David and the giant Goliath. In the biblical encounter, David prevailed by keeping his foe Goliath at a distance with a formidable weapon, his sling.
Today a modern-day version of David and Goliath is playing out.
Although granted political asylum by Ecuador, a target of US empire finds himself ensconced under a form of arbitrary detention in Ecuador’s London embassy under constant surveillance by British police. The fully …
People all over the world are fed up with capitalism. They don’t always know how to formulate their aversions anymore (the result of a confusing ‘education’ and disinformation campaign pouring out of the West). But intuitively they are increasingly longing for socialism or even Communism; definitely for some humane, compassionate system based on social justice, kindness and anti-imperialist principles.
Such sentiments are everywhere, in countries as diverse as the Philippines and Bolivia, South Africa and Kirgizstan.
The rulers and propagandists in the West are well aware of this ‘dangerous trend’. And they are trying to reverse it, with increasing determination, even with …
Due to the pressures of popular demand for relevance in education, we have lost sight of the purpose for which true education exists. I would like to make a plea for irrelevant education, one that does not begin with a presumption of what is relevant – the thing most needful, as Strauss would put it – and what is not.
Genuine education does not prepare us merely to exercise what Kant calls “the private use of reason,” where one essentially has to resolve a problem that is already given and defined and, in so being, is simply a matter of applying …
When the Chicago Cubs closed out a thrilling 8-7 victory over the Cleveland Indians in extra innings of Game 7 of the World Series on Tuesday night, they became World Champions for the first time since 1908. Their win disproved not only the Curse of the Billy Goat, but the notion that privately owned sports teams need to have publicly funded stadiums to survive and be competitive.
Since the gates of the Cubs’ beloved Wrigley Field (then Weeghman Park) opened to the public in 1914, owners of professional sports teams across the United …
The U.S. political charade is nearing its finale with the most hated presidential candidates in history rushing to the finish line. At this point, the contest of the greater of two evils has escalated. An allegation of Trump raping a 13-year-old girl has come forward, while the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of private email servers was reopened, along with the Clinton Foundation scandal of accepting millions of donations from foreign countries.
“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal”. These words of Emma Goldman have never been more true than with this …
Liliana Sergura at The Intercept has posted a must-read article on two death-penalty propositions Californians will vote on next Tuesday: Prop 62 takes the death penalty off the table entirely; Prop 66 puts post-sentencing proceedings in death penalty cases on a fast track.
With these two mutually exclusive propositions, the issue of how California deals with its muddled capital punishment situation could not be placed before the voters more clearly. The almost 800 convicted murders on California’s death rows will be sleeping uneasily from now until next Wednesday morning.
Most people who identify as left wing would agree that systems of governance that enable exploitation by the world’s most powerful corporations, governments and individuals should be changed. Most would also agree that militarism and military solutions are best avoided.
Why then do so many people ‘on the left’ support UN missions that claim to be about “peacekeeping” but often serve as little more than fig leafs to cover up imperialism?
Unfortunately, from the Cold War era on, there is a substantial record of nominally left wing organizations effectively supporting imperialism by failing to look closely at what particular UN missions actually …
Louis XVI needed a revolution, Napoleon needed two historic military defeats, the Spanish Empire in the New World needed multiple revolutions, the Russian Czar needed a communist revolution, the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires needed World War I, Nazi Germany needed World War II, Imperial Japan needed two atomic bombs, the Portuguese Empire in Africa needed a military coup at home, the Soviet Empire needed Mikhail Gorbachev … What will the American Empire need?
I don’t believe anyone will consciously launch World War III. The situation now is more like the eve of World War I, when great powers were armed and …
A binding treaty to regulate the activities of corporations could provide a vital counterpoint to controversial free trade and investment agreements, with potentially radical implications for a new international political, economic and legal order.
*****
In the last week of October, civil society came another step closer to achieving a legally binding instrument on transnational corporations (TNCs) and other business enterprises with respect to human rights. Delegates from many large social movements and networks met alongside state representatives at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, to further proceedings for an open-ended intergovernmental working group set up two years …
. . . the potential first female president represent[s] a purely cosmetic form of diversity that works against the structural changes that need to be made at every level of culture and politics to expose and depose a political class that has acted with impunity to promote policies that benefit wealthy donors and powerful multinational corporations.
— Professor Catherine Liu
Hillary Clinton is not responsible for the terrible policies of the Bush Administration, but she is responsible for following in lock-step with those policies during her tenure as Secretary of State under the Obama Administration.
— Robin D., Tits and Sass
Interest groups and lobbyists have been busy peddling their client’s interests since 1816 when Delaware manufacturer Isaac Briggs teamed up with his colleagues in an attempt to convince federal lawmakers to impose tariffs on the import of foreign made manufactures.
Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in his two volume set Democracy in America (1835, 1840), observed the unique American characteristic of banding together in civic and issue specific interest groups for the purpose of influencing lawmakers, regulators and public opinion at the local, state and national levels.
Congressional legislation to limit the influence of lobbyists in the US Congress and the …
As human beings, we are naturally social and creative. The inherent curiosity that drives us to innovate is ultimately a testament to the creative impetus that resides within all of us. And the richness and flexibility of human behavior, including our capacity for cooperation and adaptation, further allow us to envisage and create a world that far outstrips the current economic and political models many regard as immutable and take for granted. Consider the standard economic model of human behavior, which holds that we are naturally self-important, rational consumers, simply striving to achieve maximum individual utility.
This is undoubtedly what a majority of voters are thinking as Election Day draws near because they aren’t happy with their options: In a CNN/ORC poll, when asked “How enthusiastic are you about voting?” neither presidential nominee—Clinton or Trump—eclipsed even 40 percent. ((Bump, Philip. “Why You Should Panic/Rejoice Over that New Poll from CNN, Whomever You Support.” The Washington Post. September 6, 2016.))
This discontent is reflected in third party support—to the tune of seven out of every 100 voters (Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson has steadily polled at five …
Seven is a winning throw of the dice. But in our civil society, seven now signifies the multi-thong scourge, the whip used by the Western world as its instrument of punishment and, in response; seven signifies Nemesis and her sisters, the inescapable agents of the West’s downfall.
The seven scourges of the Western world are used against the people of Asia, Africa, Latin and North America. These whips are constructed, wielded and unleashed especially by the US and the UK.
We’re monitoring this closely. And, you know, I think, as a general rule, my view is that there is a way for us to accommodate sacred lands of Native Americans. And I think that right now the Army Corps is examining whether there are ways to reroute this pipeline in a way…. So—so, we’re going to let it play out for several more weeks and determine whether or not this can be resolved in a way that I think is properly attentive to the traditions of the first Americans….
— President Obama on the Now This News website, November …
Parliamentary supremacy in British law and politics is akin to the fetish of the union in the United States. Challenge it at your peril; question it to your misfortune. The point was tested, with rumbling consequences, by the May government in its latest Brexit stumble dealing with Britain’s painful and at times confused response to exiting the European Union.
The way Theresa May’s government has respected that referendum result so far is open to question. Behind closed doors, it has promised various versions of what it might do, when in truth, it may well not know what it is doing at …
All Hallow’s Eve has come and gone, and so has the day when the dead come back for a visit, but we’re not out of the dark woods of our self-inflicted nightmare yet. The days are still getting shorter, the nights longer, as we edge toward the spooky haunted house of a national election marked, more than any in my memory, by an overwhelming sense of dread.
The obsession with the Witches’ Sabbath in a culture as denatured, as stripped of meaningful and time-bound ritual as ours is something that seems particularly perverse to me these days. Cheesy decorations started going …
Julian Assange talks to John Pilger (FULL INTERVIEW)
by RT / November 5th, 2016
Whistleblower Julian Assange has given one of his most incendiary interviews ever in a John Pilger Special, courtesy of Dartmouth Films, in which he summarizes what can be gleaned from the tens of thousands of Clinton emails released by WikiLeaks this year.
Zionism has always seemed to me to be a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom.
— Lord Edwin Montagu
Show me one time where a Jew was persecuted in any country because of his religion…. It’s always their impact on the political, social, or economic customs and traditions of the community in which they settle.
— Benjamin Freedman
The latest anti-Semitism witch-hunt being conducted by the Zio-Inquisition in the UK is all hogwash if the statements of two leading Jews are to be believed.
One is the speech by successful Jewish businessman Benjamin Freedman at the Willard Hotel, Washington, …
Survival International has learned that an elephant-hunting safari operation jointly owned by a French billionaire has been implicated in human rights abuses against local Baka “Pygmies” and their neighbors, including illegal evictions and torture.
Media coverage of the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline has been hopelessly myopic. Certainly environmental justice, police brutality and the violation of sacred burial grounds are important topics, but no one has addressed the larger systemic issues at play: Native American treaty rights and how their handling portends dismally for the everyone else. Even the most self-centered and politically apathetic must realize Pastor Martin Niemöller’s warning that it’s only a matter of time before even the most mainstream of society are persecuted.
To truly appreciate the full significance of the face-off at Standing Rock, one has to …
Julian Assange interview with John Pilger (Courtesy Darthmouth Films)
by RT / November 4th, 2016
As Wikileaks releases another batch of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign, RT presents the next part of an exclusive interview given by the whistleblower website’s co-founder Julian Assange to renowned documentary maker John Pilger and Dartmouth Films.
People should have known they were being played for fools when Cameron said “the British people have made a very clear decision….” In reality, under 52% of Britons voted to leave the EU in a non-binding referendum. Think about that, because apparently nobody has in these last 5-and-a-bit months. Less than 52% voted to leave and they only represent 37% of the total electorate because 13 million people did not vote at all. There was only a 72% turn-out and roughly half voted on each side.
So why are people like Cameron and Theresa May so adamant that “Brexit means Brexit”? …
Collars serve to rein dogs in,
Quell their nerve with shades and sin.
Wild wolf’s kin such bangles scorn,
Free-born I stay, son of Fionn.
— From the Fenian Brotherhood, “Ní Bóna Ná Coróin”
With the election nearing, massive amounts of citizens are finally beginning to understand the dangerous and growing divisions, the serious sickness in our society. The mainstream media makes it appear that the battle between those on the right and left will be fought mainly on issues of identity politics and the wider “culture wars”. This is nonsense, of course. The real fault line lies between those brave and imaginative enough to join …
