Latest articles
by subMedia / March 22nd, 2016
It’s no secret that anarchists don’t like states. In fact, we anarchists are generally defined by our rejection of, and opposition to state institutions, such as governments, police, and prisons. But while opposing these physical manifestations of the state is certainly an important part of anarchist practice, anarchist critiques of the state go much further, and include the underlying social relationships and ideologies that have historically been used to create states, and to uphold their authority. One of the most important of these concepts is nationalism. So what is it, exactly, and what do anarchists have against it?
by Norman Ball / March 21st, 2016
David Brooks’ recent Op-Ed is a flaccid and flailing attempt to denigrate democracy without denigrating democracy. The ghost of Eddie Bernays’ circular sophistry permeates this snoot-fest like a cheap uninterrogated suit. We recall Mr. Ed in one of his more breathtaking loopty-loops:
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.”–from Propaganda
The impudence!
Brooks is no Lippmann. If this is the best they’ve got in the centennial run-up to Public Opinion, then NASCAR Nation might be in the driver’s seat, even in the battle of ideas. Scary much? My intertextualisms appear in italics.
*****
The voters have …
by Lamont Lilly / March 21st, 2016
Below is a slightly modified speech that I gave at the 50th Anniversary Tribute to the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense on February 27th at the Solidarity Center in Manhattan, NY. Organizers requested insight on how the Black Panther Party applied revolutionary socialist theory. This is my response.
In January of 1971, Black Panther Party co-founder, Huey P. Newton declared, “The Black Panther Party grew out of the Black Power Movement, but the party transformed the ideology of Black Power, into a socialist ideology, a Marxist-Leninist ideology.”
Black Panther Party …
by Robert Hunziker / March 21st, 2016
The cocksure pro-nuclear crowd has trumpeted Fukushima as an example of Mother Nature taking lives because of an earthquake and tsunami; whereas, the power plant accident proves nuclear power can withstand the worst without unnecessary death and illness. All of the deaths (16,000) were the fault of Mother Nature, not radiation.
After all, it’s only one year ago that science journalist George Johnson’s article, “When Radiation Isn’t the Real Risk,” appeared in the New York Times, September 21, 2015: “This spring, four years after the nuclear accident at Fukushima, a small group of scientists met in Tokyo to evaluate the deadly …
by Eric Walberg / March 20th, 2016
Trudeau’s budding “bromance” with US President Barak Obama in March marks the first official visit by a Canadian leader since 1997, when Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien visited the last charismatic Democratic president, Bill Clinton. Both visits were friendly–Clinton gushed at the time: “We have the most comprehensive ties of any two nations on earth.” Chretien was not invited by Clinton’s successor, George Bush, who was furious when Chretien refused to join his “coalition of the willing” to invade Iraq. More like ‘bro-hate’.
Trudeau’s new-found mentor had some witty advice. Obama joked about Trudeau’s previous jobs: “If things get out of …
by Binoy Kampmark / March 19th, 2016
The hunt for evidence before embarking on a course of state action is becoming less and less important. Such matters as accusations of terrorism seem to have a suspending effect on the laws of proof. State authorities, and their respective ministers, seem indifferent about proving the case against the accused. Charges without more are sufficient. The reversal of the onus of proof is assumed.
The relevant Australian laws dealing with foreign incursions by its citizens and residents are to be found in Part 5.5 of the Criminal Code Act 1995. A person is said to commit an offence if he …
Despite his controversial past, David Keyes is taking over as Netanyahu’s foreign media adviser and spokesman
by Jonathan Cook / March 19th, 2016
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the appointment of a new foreign media adviser and spokesman this week, the latest in a series of moves viewed as snubs to the Obama White House.
US-born David Keyes replaces Mark Regev, who became familiar to English-language audiences as the voice of the Netanyahu government during Israel’s repeated attacks on Gaza. Regev will be Israel’s new ambassador to the UK.
Keyes, aged 32, has been plucked from his current position as executive director of Advancing Human Rights, a New York-based lobby group he founded in 2010. He also heads a web operation known as Cyberdissidents, …
by James Hoover / March 18th, 2016
There is no need to argue for the US Senate to provide “Advice and Consent” for presidential appointments to the Supreme Court. It’s right there in the U.S. Constitution: Article II, Section 2, Clause 2.
The crass partisanship of majority Republicans in the U.S. Senate in refusing such consent is grossly insulting to citizens of the United States, not only in terms of the lame arguments posed by our illustrious Senate majority leader, for example, but also in terms of the continued affront to a constitutional democracy that Republicans violate. Republicans’ professed reverence for the Constitution especially highlights their hypocrisy.
However, …
by Andre Vltchek / March 18th, 2016
Soon, most likely, there will be new brutal sanctions imposed against North Korea. And there will be massive provocative military exercises held, involving the US and South Korea (ROK). In brief, it is all ‘business as usual’: the West continues to torture DPRK; it is provoking it, isolating, demonizing and dehumanizing it, making sure that it wouldn’t function normally, let alone thrive.
Border at Panmunjom from DPRK side
The submissive Western public keeps obediently swallowing all the shameless lies it is being served by its mainstream media. It is not really …
The White Savior
by Daniel Drennan ElAwar / March 17th, 2016
In a recent article written for Information Clearing House, Franklin Lamb states: “I confess to having purchased four children near Ramlet el Baida beach recently from a stressed-out Syrian woman.” The article goes on to describe the illegal practices of brokering, bartering, purchasing, and trafficking children. The eventual goal seems to be a “re-homing” of these young ones, with the side benefit of a journalistic coup in terms of self-promotion. In this light, Franklin Lamb represents the very worst of “white savior syndrome”, and reveals a complete inability to understand his privilege as a foreigner in this region. …
by Jack Balkwill / March 16th, 2016
“Hillary slams the door on Bernie,” screamed a headline after Bernie Sanders failed to win in Ohio. Once again, the left most Democratic Party candidate has been thwarted. Most of the super delegates, an anti-democratic rule employed to keep a leftist candidate from having a chance, have gone to Madam Clinton.
But even as events would appear to go against the left in this election, other events have opened the possibility for a race which could actually allow voters a choice this year. Before we show how Bernie could get back into the race, let’s address the Republican side first.
This …
A Moral Threshold to Combat Racism in Israel
by Ramzy Baroud / March 16th, 2016
A foray of condemnations of the boycott of Israel seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Calls from Western governments, originating from the UK, the US, Canada and others, to criminalize the boycott of Israel have hardly slowed down the momentum of the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). On the contrary, it has accelerated.
It is as if history is repeating itself. Western governments took on the pro-South African Anti-Apartheid Movement, fighting it at every corner and branding its leaders. Nelson Mandela and many of his comrades were called terrorists.
Once he passed away in 2013, top US politicians vied …
by Ariel Gold / March 16th, 2016
On Wednesday March 9 the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) announced that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has accepted an invitation to speak at their March 20-22 annual policy conference in Washington DC. Two days later they announced that Republican candidate, Donald Trump has also accepted their invitation to speak. AIPAC relishes its ability to trot out leading politicians who then jostle to outdo each other in proving their “pro-Israel” credentials. But AIPAC’s unquestioning support for Israeli policies that undermine any hope of peace in the region and that undercut even the modest pressure the Obama Administration has brought …
by John Stanton / March 16th, 2016
In 2007 I wrote and presented a conceptual paper to an international studies group in Portugal. The subject matter was, generally, the use of Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience (ECN) to manage humanity. That paper would eventually finds its way, remarkably, into Rebecca Costa’s seminal The Watchman’s Rattle.
I said back in 2007 that America’s ongoing obsession with national security and the enormous funding necessary to soothe a national psyche of fear and war was a key driver for enhancing security thereby eliminating the uncertainty of daily living. I suggested that ECN could generate predictive and diagnostic biotechnologies to reduce tension. Such …
Reflections on a Life Cut Short 13 Years On
by Eoin Higgins / March 16th, 2016
Wednesday, March 16, 2016, will mark 13 years since American peace activist Rachel Corrie was killed by the Israeli military in the Palestinian city of Rafah.
When Corrie stood in front of a Caterpillar bulldozer that was preparing to demolish the home of her host family, she thought her American citizenship could protect her and, by extension, the home, from the Israeli military. She was wrong.
For Rochelle Gause and Serena Becker, the event would change and reshape their lives. I talked to the two women to get their perspectives on …
Humanity's Last Call for a Culture of Sharing and Cooperation
by Rajesh Makwana / March 16th, 2016
The real crisis is not the influx of refugees to Europe, per se, but a toxic combination of destabilising foreign policy agendas, economic austerity and the rise of right-wing nationalism, which is likely to push the world further into social and political chaos in the months ahead.
Razor-wire fences, detention centres, xenophobic rhetoric and political disarray; nothing illustrates the tendency of governments to aggressively pursue nationalistic interests more starkly than their inhumane response to refugees fleeing conflict and war. With record numbers of asylum seekers predicted to reach Europe this year and a morally acceptable humanitarian response nowhere in sight, the …
The anti-Viet Nam speech that wasn't
by Yves Engler / March 15th, 2016
While coverage of Justin Trudeau’s recent visit to Washington was embarrassingly banal in its emphasis on “bromance” between Obama and the Canadian PM, at least it was accurate (in the limited sense valued by the dominant media), except for the 60 Minutes feature that comically confused a photo of Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall for Margaret Trudeau. However, one aspect of the reporting did stand out as both a lie and dangerous nationalist mythology.
A number of media outlets discussed Lester Pearson visiting Lyndon Johnson the day after he reportedly gave a “scathing speech on American involvement in …
Methane Threatens as Scientists Censor
by Robert Hunziker / March 15th, 2016
The question of whether methane (CH4) in the atmosphere is a threat to life is extraordinarily complex and generally not well understood. But, yes, it is a serious threat, very serious and horribly real.
Okay, but don’t scientists understand this, and why aren’t they speaking out?
They are speaking out but only a very few.
Here’s the “speaking out” problem: Leading climate scientists are not willing to honestly expose their greatest fears, as discovered by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! whilst at COP21 in Paris this past December, interviewing one of the world’s leading climate scientists, Kevin Anderson (University of Manchester) of Tyndall …
Coercive Engineered Migration: Zionism's War on Europe (Part 10 of an 11 Part Series)
by Gearóid Ó Colmáin / March 15th, 2016
Winston Churchill once described the Soviet Union as a ‘puzzle wrapped inside an enigma’. The same could be said for Russian President Vladimir Putin today. From the intricate and sometimes unpredictable diplomatic maneuvers of his foreign policy to his contradictory and sometimes ambiguous pronouncements on the legacy of the USSR, enigmatic is perhaps one of the most apposite words to describe him. This enigma is particularly evident in his approach to the politics of the Middle East and Israel in particular.
A further complication in the notion of a contemporary Russian bourgeois state representing some form of ‘anti-imperialist’ resistance is the …
by James Hoover / March 14th, 2016
In the steamy summer of 2012, at the Irving, Texas, megachurch that helped elect Ted Cruz to the U.S. Senate, Rafael Cruz summoned followers to take dominion over leadership of our country. He named his son, Ted Cruz, as one of the anointed. Ted, he said, is one among the evangelical Christians who are anointed as “kings” to take control of all sectors of society and “bring the spoils of war to the priests,” in this way bringing about a prophesied “great transfer of wealth” from the “wicked” to righteous gentile believers.
This Dominionism, in its extreme form, would create …
by Ellen Brown / March 13th, 2016
Critics have long questioned why violent intervention was necessary in Libya. Hillary Clinton’s recently published emails confirm that it was less about protecting the people from a dictator than about money, banking, and preventing African economic sovereignty.
The brief visit of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Libya in October 2011 was referred to by the media as a “victory lap.” “We came, we saw, he died!” she crowed in a CBS video interview on hearing of the capture and brutal murder of Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi.
But the victory lap, write Scott Shane and Jo Becker in the …
by John R. Hall / March 13th, 2016
Eons before our forefathers climbed down from trees, shed vestigial tails, discovered their thumbs, and began walking upright, the fire goddess Pele was hard at work on the bottom of earth’s mightiest ocean. There, four miles beneath the turbulent salty surface, she toiled. Building Islands of white-hot, molten basalt, pushing them far into the sky, then watching as rock, buffeted by wind and rain, wore down to soil, as birds dropped seeds from faraway lands, as lush forests grew, as the ancestors of parrot-fish gobbled coral and crapped golden sand beaches which, in turn, became home to ancient species of crabs, turtles, and seals, then smiling knowingly …
by Matt Peppe / March 13th, 2016
Last month Cuban baseball stars and brothers Lourdes and Yulieski Gourriel left the national team in the Dominican Republic in order to pursue careers in Major League Baseball. It was reported widely from the official Communist Party newspaper Granma to regional and national news outlets. The coverage certainly represents a change from some years ago, when the issue would have been considered taboo, but was unremarkable considering the progression of Cuban society and media since then. But for New York Times editorial writer Ernesto Londoño the incident represented a dramatic emergence of free …
by Michael Howard / March 13th, 2016
Donald Trump is occurring. He’s no longer merely a punchline. Only a fool can say that his antics are not worth talking about (my line during the first few months of his campaign). Despite the GOP establishment’s best efforts, which were necessarily lame (we’re talking about the GOP here), Trump is the probable Republican nominee. Unless the “true” conservatives like Mitt Romney can manage to swing a brokered convention, The Donald’s got this in the bag. His opposition tells us a lot about how this happened.
There are two principal forces working against Trump. First is the Republican establishment—the Bush’s and …
by Binoy Kampmark / March 12th, 2016
Subservience is a terrible state, not merely because of its indignities, but its distortions. Speech from the main political centre is garbled and marred, ever mediated by the higher power. Media releases from departments from the vassal or satrap state tend to be coloured by the broader interests of the larger power. For years, that has been characteristic of US-Australian relations.
The Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was again sallying forth with a whitewashing measure, hoping that no one would notice that Australia was again offering itself up for conspicuous targeting in the event of any future conflict. In February, the …
by Norman Ball / March 12th, 2016
Chicago is the Circus. TPP steals the bread. America, TV’s not showing you all the pictures again. As a bonus Trump-Sanders give you a pass on WW3. Make FDR proud!
by William Boardman / March 12th, 2016
I’m not here to announce my candidacy for office…. America will remain, as it is today, the envy of the world….
If we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished….
A person so untrustworthy and dishonest as Hillary Clinton must not become president….
I understand the anger Americans feel today…. Mr. Trump is directing our anger for less than noble purposes…. This is the very brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss.
— Mitt Romney, Hinckley Institute of Politics, Salt Lake City
Mitt Romney, former Republican candidate for …
by Graham Vanbergen / March 12th, 2016
When it comes to The City of London, the term ‘tax haven’ is not describing all that it should. It doesn’t just shield the mega-wealthy from paying their fair dues it goes further and offers a departure from the rule of law as you would know it. Secrecy is its raison d’être. These secrecy laws do not benefit the local people living in its jurisdiction but only those individuals and corporations with enough money and with something to hide.
The reality is that the City of London caters for those above the law, it operates on the basis of bypassing democratic society as …
by Clifton Ross / March 11th, 2016
Today is a big media day in Venezuela. Today, Friday, March 11, 2016, the news is all about the news and it’s as if the Bolivarian government was taking a page out of President Obama’s playbook to make a whole movie. Yet while the U.S. president can only go after individual whistleblowers (and boy does he ever! with more whistleblowers serving more jail time under Obama than all previous presidents combined) in Venezuela the government shuts down whole newspapers.
There are, of course, other differences between a capitalist national security state like the U.S. where some checks and balances remain …
Open Letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo
by Mina Hamilton / March 11th, 2016
One of the stupidest schemes on the planet has just hit a snag.
The plan is for natural-gas giant, Spectra Energy, to construct a new high-pressure, 42-inch gas pipeline in the immediate vicinity of the Indian Point nuclear power plants. The pipeline would carry fracked-gas from Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale wells up into New England and then to LNG terminals in Canada. From there the gas would be exported to India, Japan and elsewhere around the planet.
The proposed new pipeline has been bitterly opposed for over two years.
The Spectra project, known as the Alconquin Market (AIM) project, has been opposed by local …
