Latest articles
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 …
by Yves Engler / August 11th, 2016
As hard as it is to admit for a former junior hockey player who spends many hours writing at the neighbourhood Tim Hortons, some things are better in the USA.
For example, comparing Green Party leader Elizabeth May to her American counterpart Jill Stein on foreign-policy issues puts Canada to shame. While Stein has articulated forthright criticism on various international issues, May spouts nationalist platitudes as often as she challenges unjust policies.
Recently, Stein endorsed the Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel, called for Washington and Moscow to work together and said, “US pursuit of regime change in Libya, Iraq, …
by Rick Sterling / August 11th, 2016
There is an ugly anti-Russian mood in various Rio Olympic venues. When the Russian swimmers entered the pool for the 4 x 100M Freestyle team event, they were loudly booed. When the Russian team barely lost 3rd place, the announcer happily announced that Russian had been “kept off the medal stand”.
Last Sunday it was announced that the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) had decided to ban the entire Russian team from the upcoming Paralympics to held in Rio in September. Thus, 267 mentally or physically disabled Russians who have been preparing for the Rio Paralympics for years are now banned from …
by Ramzy Baroud / August 10th, 2016
As Palestinians in the Occupied Territories begin preparations for local elections which are scheduled for next October, division and factionalism are rearing their ugly head.
Palestinian political platforms and social media are abuzz with self-defeating propaganda: Fatah supporters attacking Hamas’ alleged failures, and Hamas’ supporters doing the same.
What is conveniently overlooked by all sides is that the performance of Palestinian municipalities is almost entirely irrelevant in the greater scheme of things.
In the West Bank, local councils are governed by strict Israeli-PA arrangement. Aside from very few chores, village and town councils cannot operate without a green light: an endorsement from the …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / August 10th, 2016
It’s really 19th century behavior in the 21st century. You just don’t invade another country on phony pretexts in order to assert your interests.
— Secretary of State, John Kerry, “Meet the Press”, March 2nd, 2014
Were it not so serious it would be hilarious. The British have voted to leave the European Union on the basis of the combination of a pack of lies by Government Ministers backing the “out” campaign and a whipped up xenophobia about all those “foreigners” taking jobs, homes, places on public transport etc. A truly shameful throwback to the era of hotels and boarding houses exhibiting …
by Steven Chovanec / August 10th, 2016
When analyzing the issues of police brutality in America and the Black Lives Matter movement, a lot the most important aspects of the situation are rarely talked about.
Firstly, we have to ask how the criminal justice system operates and how it relates to power and inequality. The best and most detailed analysis that I have found is The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison by Jeffrey Reiman.
It argues that the justice system does not function by identifying and pursuing the most harmful and threatening criminal …
Review of The 1% and the Rest of Us
by Kim Petersen / August 10th, 2016
Legalized chattel slavery did not die out because it was an abhorrent system but because the system of wage labour and debt money offered a more effective and useful economy of power for dominant owners.
— Tim Di Muzio, The 1% and the Rest of Us: A Political Economy of Dominant Ownership, p 100
Tim Di Muzio, a senior lecturer in international relations and political economy at Wollongong University in Australia, has written a book – The 1% and the Rest of Us: A Political Economy of Dominant …
Obama versus Trump, Putin and Erdogan
by James Petras / August 9th, 2016
Many of our interlocutors have been purged or arrested.
James Clapper, US Director of Intelligence on Turkish Coup, Financial Times, 8/3/16, p. 4
Washington has organized a systematic, global, no holds barred campaign to oust Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump from the electoral process. The virulent anti-Trump animus, the methods, goals and mass media resemble authoritarian regimes preparing to overthrow political adversaries.
Comparable propaganda efforts led to political coups in Chile in 1973, Brazil 1964, and Venezuela in 2002. The anti-Trump forces include both political parties, a Supreme Court …
by Simon Threlkeld / August 9th, 2016
Judges should not be chosen by popular vote, nor by politicians. Both approaches are undemocratic and deeply flawed, perhaps even absurd, despite the fact that the former is in widespread use at the state level, and the latter has always been used at the federal level (in the form of appointment by the President and confirmation by the Senate). A far better option is for judges to be chosen by juries drawn from the public by random selection.
In Classical Athens, often called the birthplace of democracy, a wide range of decisions were made by juries drawn from the citizens by …
by Nick Fillmore / August 8th, 2016
The annual gathering of the World Social Forum (WSF) – the left’s response to the elitist annual Davos World Economic Forum – runs in Montreal from August 9 to 14 with several thousand people from dozens of countries attending.
More than 1,000 self-managed sessions have activists discussing and creating progressive alternatives to traditional political, economic and social policies that they will take back to their own countries.
While as many as 100,000 people have attended sessions some years in some developing countries, perhaps only as many as 10,000 are taking part in Montreal.
While Montreal was selected this year …
Erdogan Trumps Gulenist Coup
by James Petras / August 8th, 2016
For the past decade, the US intelligence agencies operating in Turkey have worked closely with the increasingly influential parallel government of Fethullah Gulen. Their approach to power was, until recently, a permeationist strategy, of covertly taking over political, economic, administrative, judicial, media, military and cultural positions gradually without resort to elections or military coups. They adopted flexible tactics, supporting and shedding different allies to eliminate rivals.
In 2010 in support of Erdogan, they played a major role in arresting and purging 300 Kemalist military officials. Subsequently the …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / August 7th, 2016
Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.
— J. Robert Oppenheimer, “father of the atomic bomb”, quoting from the Bhagavad Gita, after the explosion of the first atomic bomb, New Mexico, July 16, 1945
When Paul Tibbets was thirteen years old he flew a bi-plane over Florida’s Miami Beach dropping a promotional cargo of Babe Ruth Candy Bars directly on to the promotional target area, in an advertising stunt. It was his first solo flight and: “From that moment he became hooked on flying.”
He became a test pilot and: “one of the first Americans to fly in world War …
by Matthew Behrens / August 6th, 2016
Rabble — There’s something about Justin Trudeau and his PR-spinning Liberal Team that reminds me of the Tennessee Williams character Harvey “Big Daddy” Pollitt from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Pollitt famously uttered the line:
What’s that smell in this room? Didn’t you notice it, Brick? Didn’t you notice a powerful and obnoxious odour of mendacity in this room?… There ain’t nothin’ more powerful than the odour of mendacity… You can smell it. It smells like death.
Mendacity, for those without instant dictionary access, is a code word for behaviour that is disingenuous, two-faced, deceitful, hypocritical. In other words, …
Scandinavia on the Skids: The Failure of Social Democracy
(Part 7 of a 7 Part Series on Scandinavia’s “Socialism”)
by Ron Ridenour / August 6th, 2016
Illegally I stepped upon the Royal Family’s castle grass in central Copenhagen during the flag day ceremony (September 5, 2013) honoring Danish voluntary soldiers’ return from their war in Afghanistan. My sign read and my voice shouted: “Stop the War! War Criminal Mercenaries!”
An angry civilian rushed up behind me and placed an iron grip over my mouth. The large man was quickly accompanied by a soldier and police who dragged me away. I refused to agree to not demonstrate again and was jailed for six hours so that Social Democrat Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt could honor her warriors unbothered. …
Afterthoughts in a world tied to bats in the belfry as our daily existence to just make it past the 10 pm news
by Paul Haeder / August 6th, 2016
A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.
— Franz Kafka, Letter to Max Brod, July 5, 1922
I’m listening to Hedges and Reich, on the other millionaire’s venue, Amy Goodman. Let’s make no bones about it – that former labor secretary and now professor at UC-Berkley, and then the former NYT journalist and now best-selling Pulitzer Prize winning author, and the War and Peace Report Democracy Now host and producer, they all have a few cool million in the bank.
Retirements, investments, equity, all of that, and power, a certain powerful First World elite self-agency, the power of …
by Binoy Kampmark / August 6th, 2016
Obsessions of any sort, notably of a consuming nature, are never healthy matters. The drive to win gold, laced with a desperation often reflected in steroid consumption and psychological battering, has made the Olympic Games the least of savoury spectacles.
Even worse than the physical reduction of the athlete to mechanism and medal winning machine is the complicity towards it from the coaching establishment and hungry spectators. Nothing is quite as terrifying as triumph – or failure – by association, the vicarious delight, or woe, the groupies feel when their chosen champion falls. “We,” they claim, were also in the pool …
New information has come to light about thousands of mostly Yemeni children believed to have been abducted in the 1950s
by Jonathan Cook / August 5th, 2016
For nearly 40 years, everything about Gil Grunbaum’s life was a lie, including his name.
He was not, as he had always assumed, the only son of wealthy Holocaust survivors who owned a baby garments factory near Tel Aviv. Grunbaum had been stolen from his mother by doctors at a hospital in northern Israel in 1956, moments after she gave birth.
His biological parents – recent immigrants to Israel from Tunisia – were told their child had died during delivery. They were sent home without a death certificate and denied the chance to see their baby’s body or a grave.
Despite his darker …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / August 5th, 2016
In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.
— “George Orwell” – Eric Arthur Blair, 1903-1950
The UK, it seems, has joined the US in its authorities and government developing a collective form of acute paranoia. A mildly deviant act by any petty criminal or a soul with mental health problems is immediately labeled a potential terrorist act before investigations have even begun.
“We are fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here” was the …
by Ralph Nader / August 5th, 2016
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has recently advanced a clean energy plan which mandates that New York transition half of its energy needs to renewables by 2030. By regressive contrast, New York’s Public Service Commission (PSC) has approved enormous subsidies for three aging nuclear power plants?Ginna, Nine Mile Point and FitzPatrick?located in Upstate New York. Estimates of the costs of these subsidies range from $59 million to $658 million by 2023, with specialists such as Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group predicting that costs could grow to $8 billion. New York consumers will be covering the …
by Yves Engler / August 4th, 2016
Imagine during Jim Crow a Canadian political party polled its members about pressing Ottawa to stop subsidizing US racism only to be smeared by an organization driving the discrimination. But, instead of relishing the attacks, party leaders sought to placate the racist group by inviting them to address their convention, which the said organization refused, claiming… discrimination.
This hard to fathom scenario mirrors the Jewish National Fund of Canada/Green Party scrimmage since members put forward a resolution calling for the Canada Revenue Agency to revoke the JNF’s charitable status because …
