Latest articles
by Yves Engler / August 25th, 2016
Sticks and stone may break my bones, but names will never hurt me — and they may come back to haunt the name-callers.
In finding anti-Semites behind every challenge to Canadian complicity with Israeli colonialism, mainstream Jewish organizations are emptying the term “anti-Semitism” of its historical weight.
“The Green Party of Canada’s vote in favour of the anti-Semitic boycott campaign against Israel shows the party has been infected by a vicious strain of anti-Jewish hate,” said the President of Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies Avi Benlolo. In case anyone missed his point the head of the …
but in a "liberal world" we can pine over 109 days before Christmas
by Paul Haeder / August 23rd, 2016
I can’t believe it, but then I can believe it, or I must believe it. These are compliant times, where people in the US workforce are kowtowed and then for years these multiple generations in the workforce have thrown in the towel and been so bullied by the Politically Crap Corrective Collective Group-Think that they are not even human — they can’t even rage against the injustice befalling them. I have both taught and worked alongside people who just believe deep down there’s no sense in fighting the powers that be, and that’s it, too bad, sure, but what can …
by Harvey Lothian / August 23rd, 2016
The world is in bad shape. Every reasonably intelligent, aware, objective person in the world knows, if only intuitively, that something is very, very wrong. There should not be this many armed conflicts, this much anger, this much violence, this much unemployment and underemployment, this much debt, this much homelessness, hunger, poverty, this ever widening gap between the income and wealth of the super rich and everyone else, and this much distrust in government and politicians. The future does not look good; a financial crisis and a socioeconomic collapse are just around the corner. Another World War or innumerable smaller …
by subMedia / August 23rd, 2016
In this sedition we bring you an exclusive interview with prison inmate Melvin Ray, secretly filmed inside Holman Prison in Alabama. Melvin is a member of the Free Alabama Movement, a national organization against mass Incarceration and prison slavery. They have teamed up with the IWW’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, to organize the largest prison strike in history, set to kick off on September 9th. Read more about the actions leading up to the strike at It’s Going Down.
You can listen to our entire interview with Melvin Ray …
A Poetry Review: I Remember My Name
by Hatim Kanaaneh / August 23rd, 2016
In penning this review, the primacy of Israel in North America’s hegemonic cultural circles limits my expectation of a sympathetic Western readership. The recent furor in Israeli government circles over the public broadcasting of Mahmoud Darwish’s poem is only a warning signal. Thugs and war criminals take on the mantel of literary critics to attack Palestine’s national poet and ascribe to him their own internalized fascist values. Judging from experience the malicious smear is bound to gain traction in Zionist-aligned literary circles at home and abroad. Our lead Palestinian politician in Israel, Ayman Odeh, explains well the Israeli officials’ …
by Rick Sterling / August 22nd, 2016
The Syria Propaganda Campaign
Neocons and Clintonites have launched a major campaign with the goal of direct US military intervention and aggression against Syria, potentially leading to war with Iran and Russia. An early indication emerged as soon as it was clear the Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic Party nominee. Following the California primary, the NY Times reported on State Department diplomats issuing an internal memo “urging the United States to carry out military strikes against the government of President Bashar al Assad.”
In early August Dennis Ross and Andrew Tabler opined in the NY Times about “…
by Medea Benjamin / August 22nd, 2016
Last week, the Pentagon announced the approval of the sale of an additional $1.15 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia. The callousness of this announcement – just days after Saudi Arabia rebooted its devastating bombing campaign in Yemen – is breathtaking. The Saudi-led coalition has used American-made fighter jets, bombs and other munitions in a relentless onslaught against Yemen that has left thousands of innocent civilians dead and created a humanitarian crisis that the United Nations characterizes as a “catastrophe.” In just the last few days, the Saudi-led coalition has killed at least 35 people – most of them …
by Shawgi Tell / August 22nd, 2016
Every day, more than a few news items, journal articles, books, and blogs expose a range of scandals, crimes, fraud, and corruption associated with charter schools—schools that barely make up seven percent of the nation’s schools. There are arrests, fugitives, government investigations, embezzlement, lawsuits, lies, mismanagement, Enron-style accounting, shell games, nefarious links between millionaires, legal loopholes of all kinds, little accountability, and rampant arrogance, anticonsciousness, and impunity, making a reckless “Wild West” atmosphere seem civilized, stable, and virtuous in comparison.
The charter school sector has taken all the antisocial, antipublic, and antipeople practices of medieval autocrats and opportunists to new extremes. …
by Paul Craig Roberts / August 22nd, 2016
News services abroad ask me if President Erdogan of Turkey will, as a result of the coup attempt, realign Turkey with Russia. At this time, there is not enough information for me to answer. Speculation in advance of information is not my forte.
Moreover, I do not know if it is true that Moscow warned the President of Turkey of the coup, and I do not know if Washington was behind the coup. Therefore, I do not know how to weigh the scales. As I see it, whether Turkey stays with Washington or realigns with Moscow depends first of all …
by Robert Hunziker / August 21st, 2016
As of August 17th U.S. Naval Research Lab measurements of Arctic sea ice over a 30-day period “shows that the multi-year sea ice has now virtually disappeared.” ((“Storms over Arctic Ocean”, Arctic News, August 19, 2016.)) This means the Arctic has lost its infrastructure. It’s gone.
That means no more 20’-25’ multi-year thick ice, leaving two-dimensional “ice extent” with little thickness and no substantial mass, which charlatans use to prey upon the public’s climate science ignorance by crowing about how far and wide the “ice extent” is during freeze-over so that anthropogenic global warming is made to appear as a hoax. …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / August 21st, 2016
And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
Tis that I may not weep.
— Lord Byron, 1788-1824
Back in “I cannot believe what I am reading” land, the Daily Telegraph reports that the US has warned Syrian Air Force ‘planes flying over Hasakah – capital city of Al-Hasakah Governorate in the far north-east of the country, eighty km south of the Turkish border – “against any new strikes that might endanger its military advisers …”
Said “advisors” are illegally in the country to aid the US-backed Kurdish forces as well as the varying Al-Qaeda spawned, organ eating head choppers who change names …
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 …
