Latest articles
by Ramzy Baroud / June 22nd, 2016
Entire communities in the West Bank either have no access to water or have had their water supply reduced almost by half.
This alarming development has been taking place for weeks, since Israel’s national water company, “Mekorot”, decided to cut off – or significantly reduce – its water supply to Jenin, Salfit and many villages around Nablus, among other regions.
Israel has been ‘waging a water war’ against Palestinians, according to Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, Rami Hamdallah. The irony is that the water provided by “Mekorot” is actually Palestinian water, usurped from West Bank aquifers. While Israelis, including illegal West Bank …
by James Hoover / June 22nd, 2016
It is official! The vast majority of Senate Republicans may be enemies of the people. Their photos could be posted on post office bulletins boards. Their faces could well be featured in the dossiers of FBI agents as friends of enemy combatants. They could be considered supporters of terrorists and thus on the no-fly list.
They might even be considered traitors. They are truly representatives of the NRA, though most of its five million members support some regulation. Their vote indicates they are not representatives of Americans who oppose free use of guns by terrorists, the mentally ill …
by Gary Leupp / June 22nd, 2016
In the beginning — as you know — God created the heavens and the earth. On the Sixth Day, after creating cattle, creeping things, and the first two people (Genesis 1:26-28), sleepless, fidgeting, and for no particular reason, He created what we call “the Two Party System.”
(In God-language: ???????-???????.)
Now, why the Two Party System? you ask. As opposed to something else?
As it turns out, that was the very question in the Creator of Everything’s own mind at that very time. You might think He’d have consulted with Adam and Eve, the first two humans He’d made in His own image. …
by E.R. Bills / June 22nd, 2016
Two years ago, on June 23, 2014, Dallas resident Charles Robert Moore drove to his hometown of Grand Saline, Texas and parked his car in a Dollar General parking lot on East Garland Street. He lingered there momentarily and then placed a foam mat on the ground. He knelt down on the mat, poured gasoline over his head and lit a match. He immediately burst into flames.
As Moore stood up and began to scream, two men rushed over and extinguished the blaze. He was transported to Parkland Hospital, but succumbed to his burns later that day.
By all accounts, Charles Robert …
by Steve Church / June 22nd, 2016
This is getting really frustrating. We’ve got a “security” agent, employed by a British outfit, shooting up a bar in Florida. A British MP is murdered by one of her own constituents. The US teams up with the Middle East’s former masters, the Brits (again), to recolonize that part of the world. The US teams up with the French in a joint effort to recolonize former French interests in Africa so as to enlist the French in Libya’s destruction, along with other subsidiary projects (TAFTA/TTIP/TISA, Russia sanctions, for example). The US has somehow strong-armed Germany into doing its economic dirty …
by Eric Walberg / June 22nd, 2016
Nino Ricci’s latest novel, Sleep, inspired by his own sleep disorder, is really more a fun text book on the latest brain research and the blind use of powerful drugs to alter — and possibly restructure (who knows?) — the brain. It’s like a ‘don’t smoke’ ad that’s actually informative and hilarious, with a classic ‘death of a salesman’ plot moving it along.
The complexity of the brain and the perilousness of the chemical warfare we casually inflict on it is far greater than, say, sending a …
Spastic Nature of University Work Under Capitalism
by Barbara MacLean / June 22nd, 2016
Orientation
I received my masters degree in career development from a private, upper-middle class college. This school was preparing most of the students in the program to work either in private practice or with an ‘out-placement’ firm. Without realizing it we were also being trained to imagine what counseling would be like in these settings. The scene included working in “50-minute hour” appointments, in a private, soundproofed room, with a schedule we set for themselves, with time to chat with the client for 5 minutes or so as we escorted them to the door. In the case of working in an …
by Jonathan Cook / June 22nd, 2016
In a little-noticed move last week, Israeli defence minister Avigdor Lieberman barred an official close to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas from entering Israel. Mohammed Madani is accused of “subversive activity” and “political terror”.
His crimes, as defined by Lieberman, are worth pondering. They suggest that Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians is rooted less in security issues and more in European colonialism.
In his role as chair of the Palestinian committee for interaction with Israeli society, Madani had understandably used his visits to Israel to meet Israeli Jews – but he chose the wrong kind.
He tried to open a dialogue with what are …
by William Hawes / June 22nd, 2016
And he recalled the ancient adage: Who must do the harsh things? He who can.
— Trevanian, Shibumi
Europe is about to face a series of difficult decisions that will affect its future for years to come. The social contradictions of keeping an expanding globalized economy running, which at the same time disenfranchises millions of workers, are now too obvious to turn a blind eye to. Many efforts towards making a livable European community are in disarray, and most of the benefits accrue to the core EU states of Germany, the UK (for now), and France.
Immigrants from South and Eastern Europe move west …
Interview with Andre Vltchek
by Alessandro Bianchi / June 21st, 2016
The AntiDiplomatico (Italy) interviews philosopher, Andre Vltchek: “Russia and China are forming an incredible defensive wall to protect humanity from Western terrorism.”
Andre Vltchek has become renowned in Italy for being the co-author, along with Noam Chomsky, of the famous book Western Terrorism (Ponte alle Grazie).
A documentary filmmaker, novelist, essayist, philosopher and intellectual, multi-faceted Vltchek is the cosmopolitan man par excellence, a “true revolutionary” as he likes to call himself. In recent years with his camera and his extraordinary commitment against injustice on this planet he has explored every corner of the Earth and taken over the length and breadth of …
by Stuart Littlewood / June 21st, 2016
I have a bad feeling about the referendum vote tomorrow (Thursday).
All the mainstream political parties – Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Greens – want us to remain in the EU. The Establishment wants us to remain. The US wants us to remain. And roughly half of British voters are bribed by cosy perks like EU-guaranteed employment and maternity rights to remain; or they feel the devil they know is better than the devil they don’t. The trouble is, they neither know nor properly understand the EU and its devilish machinations. Hardly anyone outside the Brussells bubble does. If the proverbial man …
by Gary Brumback / June 21st, 2016
Life is a crap shoot whether walking down the street, driving on the highway and across the bridge, flying overhead, depending on other organizations (besides those that build cars, trucks, bridges and planes), or just plain living. We take our chances no matter how selective and careful we may be.
But the chances get riskier when dealing with any of the more risky organizations or any of the card-carrying corporate members of the Devil’s marriage, the unequal partnership between corporations and subservient government.
Trained as an organizational psychologist I still stay tuned to organizations and their people nearly six decades later. Recently, …
Evolutionary Anthropology of Police Practice in Maintaining a High-gradient Hierarchical Social-class Structure
by Denis Rancourt / June 21st, 2016
Summary: I show that the de facto police practice of constant random harassment by carding and other means, combined with less frequent unprovoked executions and prosecutions using false charges, in containing groups targeted for containment is exactly the most effective and efficient strategy for hierarchical containment developed by evolution and described by primate anthropologists. As such, the said practice should be understood to be an intrinsic feature of the societal dominance hierarchy. The harm from this practice can be mitigated using further knowledge from primate anthropology, to lower the hierarchy gradient and produce a net societal benefit (and less senseless …
by Denis A. Conroy / June 21st, 2016
CEOs of evil are hard to identify, due mainly to the fact that they clothe their style in masquerade. Take the current election fiasco in America, for instance, which goes from ugly to uglier, and one gets the impression that the mask of exceptionalism and faux patriotism projected into the public domain is little more than a joke extended to the 99% by the 1%. It’s just another way of saying, ‘we’re making America great again’, so, ‘shut the fuck up’. After all, capitalism is only for those who possess loads and loads of money! Hegemony means putting rules in …
by Media Lens / June 21st, 2016
Last week, climate scientists warned that:
Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 will shatter the symbolic barrier of 400 parts per million (ppm) this year and will not fall below it in our lifetimes.
Adding to the sense of urgency, NASA reported that last month was the hottest May on record since 1880. Since October 2015, every month has been globally the hottest ever measured. Meanwhile, scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in the US say that ‘future summers could regularly be hotter than the hottest on record’.
Dangerous climate change …
by Ron Forthofer / June 20th, 2016
There are dangerous provocations along Russia’s western border that have received little or incredibly one-sided coverage by the U.S. media. Thus the U.S. public is not aware of the possibility of a major conflict between two nuclear-armed powers occurring due to an accident or misinterpretation. The genesis of this current situation goes back in ancient history to 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
After the fall, the U.S., along with the West German leader Helmut Kohl, pushed for the reunification of West and East Germany. The Soviet Union allowed reunification based on the promise made by U.S. Secretary of …
by Brian J. Trautman / June 20th, 2016
In the days following the horrific attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando – one of the worst mass shootings in modern U.S. history, which claimed the lives of 49 people (50 counting the shooter) and left over 50 wounded – evidence began to mount that the gunman likely possessed multiple motives. This evidence is not surprising in light of what research has revealed about the origins of violence, which includes the knowledge that most people who commit violent acts are driven by a complex, multifaceted and intertwined set of factors. The underlying root causes of violence, then, cannot be …
by Bill Quigley / June 20th, 2016
“Even from prison, you can still light a candle”.
Waleed Abu al-Khair began to practice law in Saudi Arabia in 2007. He quickly earned an international reputation as one of the most respected human rights lawyers in one of the world’s most repressive countries. Within a year he joined in a high profile critique of the ruling monarchy. He repeatedly and openly advocated for democracy. He controversially defended the human rights of women, dissidents, and prisoners targeted by the authorities.
Waleed Abu al-Khair
Before long, the government called his …
by John V. Walsh / June 20th, 2016
Until recently the progressive mind has been resolutely closed and stubbornly frozen in place against all things Trump.
But cracks are appearing in the ice. With increasing frequency over the last few months some of the most thoughtful left and progressive figures have begun to speak favorably of aspects of Trump’s foreign policy. Let us hear from these heretics, among them William Greider, Glen Ford, John Pilger, Jean Bricmont, Stephen F. Cohen and William Blum. Their words are not to be construed as “endorsements,” but rather an acknowledgement of Trump’s anti-interventionist views, the impact those …
Charles Foster’s Being a Beast
by Christy Rodgers / June 20th, 2016
The renowned biologist E.O. Wilson gave us the term “biophilia,” which he defined as “the urge to affiliate with other forms of life.” As the world’s human population goes on expanding and walling itself up in cities, and the Sixth Extinction gathers steam, this urge is often expressed as an increasingly desperate kind of nostalgia. It drives support for conserving wild places many will never visit, as well as pastoral landscapes in which most will never work. Not to mention the proliferation of pretty floral, animal, and landscape images on our laptops and phones.
We know we’re missing something – we …
by Center for Citizen Initiatives / June 20th, 2016
On June 16, the New York Times reported:
More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo sharply critical of the Obama administration’s policy in Syria, urging the United States to carry out military strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad to stop its persistent violations of a cease-fire in the country’s five-year-old civil war.
The memo, a draft of which was provided to The New York Times by a State Department official, says American policy has been “overwhelmed” by the unrelenting violence in Syria. It calls for “a judicious use of stand-off and air weapons, which would undergird …
by John R. Hall / June 19th, 2016
Confucius is credited with saying “When we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.” Likely much was lost in translation, given the language difference and passage of 2500 years, but I think I catch the drift. For those of us who find ourselves constantly at odds with a vast majority of our contrary neighbors, it follows that our lives should be a never-ending series of self-examinations. Maybe I don’t do so often enough. In truth, it would be more accurate to say almost never.
It’s far too easy to be smug and self-righteous when you try so …
The law will have a "chilling effect" on Palestinian minority’s solidarity efforts with Palestinians under occupation
by Jonathan Cook / June 19th, 2016
Wearing a T-shirt, chanting songs at a demonstration or donating clothing could be enough for Israel’s large Palestinian minority to fall foul of a newly passed anti-terrorism law, civil rights groups have warned.
The legislation, applied in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, has been condemned as a “dangerous” threat to civil liberties. It dramatically broadens the range of offences to include sympathising with, encouraging and failing to prevent terrorism.
According to legal experts, it also gives Israeli police sweeping new powers to arrest suspects and deny them access to lawyers. Courts will be required to hand out long jail sentences.
Leaders of Israel’s …
by Michael Perino / June 19th, 2016
The 2016 presidential election presents the American working class with a historic moment. No, I am not talking about the possibility of the first rich, neoliberal woman president. Nor am I talking about the social democrat masquerading as a socialist. Nor am I talking about the arrogant, racist, borderline fascist Donald Trump.
The historical moment is not in the outcome of the election itself. After all, the State is subservient to capitalist elites. So long as economic power is concentrated in the hands of a privileged few, the State will always act to safeguard the private property and power of the …
by Gary Leupp / June 19th, 2016
In his quasi-concession speech last Thursday, broadcast without a live audience (probably due to the fear of loud boos), Bernie Sanders began with the observation: “Election days come and go. But political and social revolutions that attempt to transform our society never end.”
In other words: Even if I concede, I want the movement I generated to continue.
Citing various ongoing mass movements, he declared: “And that’s what this campaign has been about over this past year. That’s what the political revolution is all about.”
Subtext: It’s all about bringing you kids into the Democratic Party—in order to change it.
Then comes the now-familiar …
by Vacy Vlazna / June 19th, 2016
In April, President Abbas, true to form, buckled under international pressure to sacrifice the integrity of the land of Palestine on the altar of another bogus ‘peace’ initiative by friends of Israel.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) had been circulating to UN Security Council members a draft resolution condemning Israeli settlements when the French government effortlessly convinced Abbas to cease and desist the demand to protect diminishing Palestinian land being razed for settlement expansion until after France held its Paris talkfest.
Well, the Paris shindig, attended by foreign ministers from Europe, Arab States and the US has come and gone with notable diplomatic …
by Nauman Sadiq / June 18th, 2016
In order to understand the hype surrounding the phenomena of Islamic radicalism and terrorism, we need to understand the prevailing global economic order and its prognosis. What the pragmatic economists have forecasted about the free market capitalism has turned out to be true; whether we like it or not. A kind of global economic entropy has set into motion. The money is flowing from the area of high monetary density to the area of low monetary density.
The rise of the BRICS countries in the 21st century is the proof of this tendency. BRICS are growing economically because the labor in …
Dirty Tricksters Swing into Action
by Stuart Littlewood / June 18th, 2016
The question whether to remain in the EU or leave has been distorted beyond recognition by political pimps and spivs on both sides of the argument. They were not invited into our living rooms but set themselves up as our advisers all the same.
Every political party (except UKIP) has hitched its waggon to the EU. They can’t afford to lose. The public therefore cannot rely on their politicians for a balanced view. Here are some of the silly things they are telling us to justify their insistence we remain enslaved to Brussels.
A vote to leave is to put our freedom …
by Julian Vigo / June 18th, 2016
In Regarding the Pain of Others (2003), Susan Sontag writes:
A painting or drawing is judged a fake when it turns out not to be by the artist to whom it had been attributed. A photograph—or a filmed document available on television or the internet—is judged a fake when it turns out to be deceiving the viewer about the scene it purports to depict.
This quote seamlessly speaks to the reaction to the events at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida and the ways in which various media pundits are attempting to label this tragedy through politically divisive and problematic terms. What …
by Eric Walberg / June 17th, 2016
The Orlando shooting on June 12 has nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with US policies, both domestic and foreign.
By domestic, I’m referring to “soft power”* cultural destablization, intended for export around the world to keep the natives distracted and happy. Think Disney on steriods. By foreign, I’m referring to “hard power” US imperialist policies, neoliberalism (in former days, anti-communism).
Omar Mateen was part of the jetsam washed up on US shores as a result of the US-sponsored ‘jihad’ in Afghanistan in the 1980s. He was born in New York and grew up as a product of the …
