Latest articles
by Paul Haeder / June 11th, 2016
The homeless people’s suffering belongs to amusement of our political order under a game over the right of marginalized group being transformed into citizens for merely punishment and humiliation. The Public Space Protection Orders is a penalty over one’s condition suffering – it is a fine over the disempowered for being disempowered. This act allows power to fragment the homeless into sub-humans punishable for the state of utter misery.
— Bruno De Oliveira
Just the right juxtaposition of colors, forces, themes, subjects, words, images, things, create some of the most amazingly unjust situations in life if we are willing to scrap over …
There are alternatives to greed and division
by Graham Peebles / June 10th, 2016
Over and above the greed and corruption of wealthy and powerful individuals, the leaked ‘Panama Papers’ revealed the need for a worldwide, standardised tax code, as part of a radical new global economic model. Not globalisation – which is ideologically based, designed by the ruling elite and set up to serve the interests of national and multi-national corporations and banks, but a new and just system designed to meet the needs of everyone, with sharing and social justice at its heart.
Within the current economic system not only are individuals and companies competing against one another, but geographical regions, countries, …
... Canadian "charities" (NGOs) call on Canadians to "walk for hope" in Africa
by Yves Engler / June 9th, 2016
What is wrong here? While Canadian companies exploit African resources for their own benefit this country’s charities call on us to join Africa “hope” walks.
Last week Toronto-based Lundin Mining hired the Bank of Montreal to help it decide what to do with its stake in the massive Tenke Fungurume copper-cobalt mine in Eastern Congo (Kinshasa). Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for Toronto firms to make economic decisions that affect hundreds of thousands of Africans and for Canadian companies to exchange African mineral assets among themselves.
A number of companies based and traded here have even taken African …
Israel is concealing vital records to prevent darkest periods in its history from coming to light, academics say
by Jonathan Cook / June 9th, 2016
Israel is locking away millions of official documents to prevent the darkest episodes in its history from coming to light, civil rights activists and academics have warned as the country’s state archives move online.
They claim government officials are concealing vital records needed for historical research, often in violation of Israeli law, in an effort to avoid damaging Israel’s image.
The Israeli army has long claimed to be the “most moral” in the world.
Accusations of increased secrecy come as Israel marks this week the 49th anniversary of the 1967 war, when it seized and occupied Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank, and …
by Binoy Kampmark / June 9th, 2016
It appears that political power and diplomatic clout have been allowed to trump the UN’s duty to expose those responsible for the killing and maiming of more than 1,000 of Yemen’s children.
— Sajjad Mohammad Sajid, Oxfam Director in Yemen, June 7, 2016
It is such cases that give the United Nations a bad name. And if heads and decay say something about the rest of the body, Ban Ki-Moon says all too much in his role as UN Secretary General. Always inconspicuous, barely visible in the global media, his presence scarcely warrants a footnote. This has been a point of much …
by Gary Leupp / June 9th, 2016
As the wizard Gandalf declared during the darkest hour: “There never was much hope… Just a fool’s hope.”
The narrow thread of hope now rests on the Justice Department investigation into Hillary Clinton’s illegal concealment of her emails from the State Department she headed from 2009 to 2012. If she’s hit by a true scandal between now and the Philadelphia convention in July, all bets could be off.
The email server matter is, of course, an internal ruling class issue that doesn’t much concern the masses on a moral level. But it just might — just by chance (what Hegel called “the …
by Lisa Sullivan / June 9th, 2016
For 32 years I have called Venezuela home. Its mountains have given me beauty, its barrios have given me music, its struggles have given me purpose, and its people have given me love.
Its Bolivarian Revolution gave me hope. How could I not feel hope when most of my neighbors, ages 2 to 70, were studying, right in our little potato-growing town in the mountains of western Venezuela. How could I not be hopeful when 18 neighbor families received new homes to replace their unhealthy, crowded living spaces?
How could I not be grateful when my partner received life-saving emergency surgery? Or …
Corporate Media Coverage of Chad
by Media Lens / June 9th, 2016
One of the essential functions of the corporate media is to marginalise or silence acknowledgement of the history – and continuation – of Western imperial aggression. The coverage of the recent sentencing in Senegal of Hissène Habré, the former dictator of Chad, for crimes against humanity, provides a useful case study.
The verdict could well have presented the opportunity for the media to examine in detail the complicity of the US, UK, France and their major allies in the Middle East and North Africa in the appalling genocide Habré inflicted on Chad during his rule – from 1982 to 1990. After …
by Nauman Sadiq / June 8th, 2016
Although people often conflate democracy and liberalism, there is a fine distinction between politics and culture; a democratic system of governance falls in the category of politics while liberalism, as a value system, falls in the category of culture. When we say that Islam and democracy are inconsistent, we make a category mistake as serious as the Islamists’ misperception that democracy is somehow un-Islamic. They too mix up democracy with liberalism.
I do concede, however, that there is some friction between liberalism as a cultural temperament and Islam as a religion. But democracy isn’t about religion or culture. It is simply …
by Rick Sterling / June 8th, 2016
Richmond California is a refinery town in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is also where there is a diverse working class community with a strong Richmond Progressive Alliance which previously elected a Green Party Mayor. Bernie Sanders visited the city and actively supported the populist movement in February 2014 making it likely that Bernie Sanders would receive strong support in Richmond.
My daughter is a school psychologist in Richmond’s local school system. Here is her experience yesterday in the California Primary Election:
Never have I felt so much that my vote doesn’t count! My Richmond, CA polling place at 1340 …
by Kathy Kelly / June 8th, 2016
Along with VCNV companions, I’m part of a 150 mile walk from Chicago to Thomson, IL, a small town in Northwest IL where the U.S. Bureau of Prisons is setting up an Administrative Maximum prison, also known as a Supermax. Prison laborers from U.S. minimum security prisons now labor to turn what once was an Illinois state prison into a federal supermax detention facility with 1900 cells that will confine prisoners for 23 hours of every day.
Razia, Maya, Sabia, Kathy, Libby and Buddy participate in a …
by Ramzy Baroud / June 8th, 2016
In their defense, the Israelis seem to have figured out the whole thing and opted out. But the hapless Palestinian leadership, along with their Arab League partners, joined by the French, EU and UN representatives, and even US Secretary of State, John Kerry, decided to play along.
However, the French peace initiative-turned-conference in Paris on June 3 is nothing but a charade, and they all know it, Palestinians included.
So, why the colossal waste of time?
If you have been following the Middle East ‘peace process’ business in the last quarter of a century, you are certainly aware that the …
The Positive Case for “Remain” Is made by the Greens
by Adnan Al-Daini / June 8th, 2016
The latest opinion poll on the upcoming European Union Referendum (23 June) is predicting that the “Brexiters” are leading the “Remainers” by 3 percentage points. This does not surprise me; the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are using fear tactics to scare people into voting remain, and it is not working. The latest is that the annual cost of an average mortgage will go up by £920. Nicola Sturgeon, Leader of the Scottish National Party, warned that “fear-based” campaigning could have a negative effect on voters.
There is …
A young South Korean loses faith in the official dogmas that have been shaping his worldviews for most of his life
by Andre Vltchek / June 8th, 2016
Thus now I have come to recognize the recently implemented sanctions against North Korea as an ‘injustice’.
— Mr. Kim Dol
Above is a short excerpt from the letter that I received in May 2016, a letter from one of my readers, Mr. Kim Dol, a young South Korean professional based in Seoul.
Mr. Kim Dol, it seems, has been lately suffering from a gradual but irreversible loss of faith in the official dogmas that have been shaping his worldviews for most of his life – dogmas manufactured by his own country, South Korea (ROK), as well as those that have been imported …
by William Hawes / June 7th, 2016
Critiques of the modern nation-state have been growing in recent decades, due to the abysmal failures of the capitalist, neoliberal order. In particular, conservative-libertarian arguments are tinged with isolationist and protectionist trade rhetoric, low taxes and regulations, and supply-side economics. On the other side, the mild leftism of social-democratic reforms promote endless government spending, increases in social programs and minimum wages, increases in taxes for the rich and the corporate world, and supra-national governmental organizations with endless bureaucracy and profligate waste. Neither of these models offers anything new, nor do they address the many crises that our world will inherit: …
The impact of the North America Nakba Tour
by Paul Larudee / June 7th, 2016
For two months in the spring of 2016, two stateless Palestinian women from two refugee camps in Lebanon carried their message thousands of miles to audiences throughout North America. Mariam Fathalla, expelled from Palestine in 1948 at the age of 18 and now 86 years old, and Amena Ashkar, born 22 years ago in the Bourj el-Barajneh camp, overcame many obstacles and were unable to overcome some, but their message never waivered. Palestine runs through our veins and we intend to return and to recover every square inch of it. It is our land and no one else is entitled …
by Kieran Kelly / June 7th, 2016
I started a conspiracy to harm Her Majesty’s Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (HMGUKGB&NI). I wanted to deal as much damage to them as possible so I conspired with a poet to plant an explosive and incendiary petition right in the heart of their own website. It was a petition to make the UK Government respond or debate the question of appearing before the International Court of Justice and allowing it to rule on the case of the Chagos Archipelago.
At issue is the terrible injustice to the Chagossians and their descendants …
by Kim Petersen / June 7th, 2016
In 1949, Communist troops led by Mao Zedong defeated the Nationalist forces led by Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek). The Guomindang (KMT) escaped across the Taiwan Strait to the island of Taiwan. The United States continued to recognize the KMT as the government of all China and pledged the US 7th fleet to the so-called defense of Taiwan. With that policy, the United States effectively intervened in the Chinese civil war with the declared aim to to prevent the reintegration of all China under a Communist government.
In 1979, US president …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / June 7th, 2016
It’s really 19th century behavior in the 21st century. You don’t just invade another country on phony pretexts in order to assert your interests.
— John Kerry, Meet the Press, March 2nd, 2014
If “a week is a long time in politics”, a quote attributed to British Prime Minister Harold Wilson (1964-1970 and 1974-1976), under David Cameron’s tenure – a man who has been kicked into myriad U-turns over feckless, reckless decisions – a day is an age.
On June 3rd it was announced that a summary of the long awaited Iraq Inquiry (November 24th, 2009 to February 2nd, 2011) chaired by Sir …
by Robert Hunziker / June 7th, 2016
Disasters can be cleaned up.
Naohiro Masuda, TEPCO Chief of Decommissioning at Fukushima Diiachi Nuclear Power Plant, finally publicly “officially” announced that 600 tons of hot molten core, or corium, is missing, ((“Fukushima Nuclear Plant Operator Says 600 Tons of Melted Fuels is Missing”, Epoch Times, May 24, 2016.))
Now what?
According to Gregory Jaczko, former head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), it is not likely the fuel will ever be recovered: “Nobody really knows where the fuel is at this point, and this fuel is still very radioactive and will be for a long time.” ((Ibid.))
A big part of the …
by Frank Scott / June 6th, 2016
Failing institutions, nations or empires are often run by people whose capacities reflect the deteriorating material conditions. The greater the crisis, the more likely that morally crippled, mentally challenged or psychologically disturbed leadership may assert command. But when disastrous conditions are systemic and transcend borders, the weapons handled by the incompetents are the most lethal in recorded history and the area blanketed in propaganda and ignorance extends from municipality to province to nation, far more than a local population is under assault.
As the international political economic crisis becomes more serious the reaction from capital takes on a more desperate nature. …
by Ike Nahem / June 6th, 2016
Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?
No, I am not going ten thousand miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would put my …
by Gary Brumback / June 6th, 2016
There are roughly 15,000 publically traded companies and countless millions of people who invest in them. Each of these companies belongs to an industry of companies in similar businesses. Three industries are the subject of this short article; the funeral service industry, the gun industry, and the war industry.
The first provides burial and crematory services and paraphernalia for people no longer living due to nonviolent domestic deaths. The second provides the means to cause violent domestic deaths. The third provides the means to murder people in foreign lands.
The first industry is tangential to the focal point off this article. The …
by Gary Leupp / June 6th, 2016
Rachel Maddow, the famously progressive MSNBC show host, pronounced it “her greatest speech of the campaign.” Chris Matthews agreed, adding that it would “have a very strong appeal to the neocon movement.” He mentioned in particular Bill Kristol, the Weekly Standard editor and TV commentator, as someone likely to be impressed. “A very smart man,” opined Matthews, the conservative Democrat and “Hardball” host, causing the entire cosmos to shudder.
You’d think that that war in Iraq, which Kristol had tirelessly championed, had never happened. And that its results had been anything other than horrific for the entire Middle East.
Hillary Clinton’s fiery …
by Paul Larudee / June 6th, 2016
The group SSUK (s?k), has registered its strong objection to, and condemnation of, the participation of Dr. Tim Anderson in the Crossing Borders Conference on Refugees, to convene July 7-10 on the Greek Island of Lesbos. Dr. Anderson is the author of The Dirty War on Syria: Washington, Regime Change and Resistance. Their complaint is that Anderson presents facts and a point of view that SSUK does not like.
We understand their concern. It is difficult enough to justify their support for some of the world’s most vicious terrorists without having someone like Dr. Anderson presenting genuine facts and …
Free-speech organisers pull the plug on her 'Birds not Bombs'
by Stuart Littlewood / June 6th, 2016
In a highly-regarded public speaking competition 15 year-old Leanne Mohamad, a pupil at Wanstead High School in London, stood up and gave an impassioned speech about the appalling situation back home in the Holy Land. It was so moving that she won the regional final and a video of her speech was posted on the organisers’ website.
Then a blogger called Edgar Davidson complained and Leanne’s speech was deleted. He said it was “full of ignorant lies and blood libels”.
The Speak Out Challenge! operates in nearly every secondary school in London and Essex and claims to be the largest …
by Jonathan Cook / June 6th, 2016
In a familiar muddying of the waters, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spent the past week talking up peace while fiercely criticising Friday’s summit in France – the only diplomatic initiative on the horizon.
As foreign ministers from 29 nations arrived for a one-day meeting in Paris, Netanyahu dusted off the tired argument that any sign of diplomatic support for Palestinians would encourage from them “extreme demands”.
France hopes the meeting will serve as a prelude to launching a peace process later in the year. French president Francois Hollande said he hoped to achieve a “peace [that] will be solid, sustainable …
by James Hoover / June 5th, 2016
As suggested by Jane Mayer in Dark Money, never have two members of one American family spent so much time and money to control our democracy, and in their effort, foster economic damage for most Americans. The guilty parties: Charles and David Koch. It is also likely that self-delusion and insularity from the less-fortunate have rendered both impervious to any recognition that their course is detrimental to the well-being of a great majority of Americans.
Ironically, “well-being” seems to be an overblown term Charles has used to describe his goal for the good of all Americans, claiming that free-market ideology …
by James Petras / June 5th, 2016
During her 4 years as Secretary of State of the United States (2009-2014), Hillary Clinton controlled US foreign policy. She had access to the most confidential information and state documents, numbering in the tens of thousands, from all of the major government departments and agencies, Intelligence, FBI, the Pentagon, Treasury and the office of the President. She had unfettered access to vital and secret information affecting US policy in all the key regions of the empire.
Today, Mme. Clinton’s critics have focused on the technical aspects …
Warlords, military industrialists, neoliberals, neocons, political killers beware
by Paul Haeder / June 5th, 2016
They are young, high school, seniors, boys and girls, running hard, 8 am, along Salmon Creek, a place where I burn the body in a course of hard bicycling waiting for a bald eagle to baptize my day. Great blue herons, red-tailed hawks, egrets, meadowlarks, red winged black birds, and dozens of other species capturing the soul before facing off the empire.
Oh, maybe 50, hot and pink faced, running toward the big park and the pond. Running into hell, into the cornering that the empire paints into almost everyone’s life. What in hell is the US Marines offering these middle …
