Latest articles
by Kathy Kelly / June 17th, 2016
Since 1983, Sharon Tennison has worked to develop ordinary citizens’ capacities to avert international crises, focusing on relations between the U.S. and Russia. Now, amid a rising crisis in relations between the U.S. and Russia, she has organized a delegation which assembled in Moscow yesterday for a two week visit. I joined the group yesterday, and happened to finish reading Sharon Tennison’s book, The Power of Impossible Ideas, when I landed in Moscow.
An entry in her book, dated November 9, 1989, describes the excitement over the Berlin Wall coming down and notes that:
Prior to the Wall’s removal, President Reagan assured …
by subMedia / June 17th, 2016
This week we catch up on the multi-layered insurrection taking place in France, where the state is struggling to get a handle on things, amidst regular protests, strikes, fuel shortages, and the general drunken chaos of soccer hooliganism.
For the musical break, we’ve got Skalpel (of Première Ligne), with Le Rap, La Soul, La Vie…
Next up, check back in on the fearless militants of the CNTE, who have gone on strike in Mexico, and check out the Paro Nacional that has brought Colombia to a standstill. Finally we wrap things up with an interview …
Terror in Orlando, Birstall and Sydney
by Binoy Kampmark / June 17th, 2016
Much of Britain is recoiling in the wake of the death of Labour MP Jo Cox, who was shot and stabbed on Thursday in broad daylight outside the public library in Birstall to the shouts of “Britain first!” It was the first killing of a serving MP since Ian Gow, whose life was taken by Irish Republicans in 1990.
The suspect, Thomas Mair, was said to have carried what was an “old-fashioned” possibly homemade gun, and also brandished a knife in the attack. At around 1 pm, the shots and blows rained down upon Cox, who was declared dead less than …
by Robert Hunziker / June 17th, 2016
“Obliteration” is intentionally Machiavellian, and over-reaching, but the hard truth is that obliteration (extinction) could really, truly happen, assuming certain things happen, or not, depending….
In such case, in order to gain a full understanding of Arctic ice loss as it relates to obliteration, query the world’s foremost Arctic expert, Peter Wadhams, professor of Ocean Physics, University of Cambridge.
All of which brings to fore a fascinating fact: How many people have traveled under the ice of the North Pole?
Well, other than sailors on nuclear submarines, probably nobody, other than Professor Wadhams, who over the past 40 years, traversed Arctic ice, submarined …
by Edward S. Herman / June 16th, 2016
The double standard in the media’s treatment of U.S. plans and actions (“us”) and those of our allies, on the one hand, and enemy/target plans and actions (“them”), on the other hand, applies at many levels. The United States has been intervening and fighting wars abroad almost continuously since World War II. This has involved frequent aggressions, using standard definitions of the word, with many of them extremely destructive, and with effects often not consistent with claimed objectives and very costly to U.S. taxpayers. But these cannot be designated “aggression” in our well-honed propaganda system. That word is reserved for …
by Adam W. Parsons / June 16th, 2016
A new report by leading sustainability experts has reaffirmed the case for a paradigm shift from industrial agriculture to diversified agroecological systems – fundamental to which is a call for redistributing power back into the hands of those who feed the world.
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An alternative vision of farming and food systems has long been upheld by civil society groups and small-scale producers around the world, based on the science of agroecology and the broader framework of food sovereignty. But while many reports and studies have shown how less intensive, diversified and sustainable farming methods can have far better outcomes than …
by Ramzy Baroud / June 15th, 2016
“(At dawn) … I will resist … (Since) upon the wall there is still a white sheet … And my fingers are yet to (completely) dissolve.”
This is a translated verse from Mu’in Bseiso’s “Three Walls of the Torture Chamber”. He was, and remains, one of Gaza’s most influential intellectual and renowned poets.
After Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967, he lived in exile for the rest of his life, hopping from one country to another. Many of Gaza’s great intellectuals were exiled as well; others languished in jail or were assassinated.
Bseiso died in some London hotel in 1984. …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / June 15th, 2016
The referendum on whether Britain leaves or stays in the European Union is just eight days away. A glossy leaflet dropped through my letterbox headed: “Vote Leave – The European Union and Your Family: The Facts.”
The Vote Leave campaign has a Board and Committee comprising of – broadly – the sort of far right “Little Englanders” that comedies derive from. There are a handful of Lords, there is Iain Duncan Smith who called for the invasion of Iraq within two months of September 11th, 2001, who by November 2001 was holding meetings on the topic with then Vice President …
by Matt Peppe / June 15th, 2016
In the aftermath of the horrific mass murder at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando over the weekend in which 50 people were killed, media including CNN, USA Today, NPR, NBC News, and CBS News, all reported that the gunman called 911 during his murderous rampage and pledged allegiance to ISIS. None of the journalists writing for any of these news outlets heard the call themselves; they all cite the FBI as their source.
The U.S. government has been engaged in a war against the self-professed Islamic State for the last two years. …
Panic in high places as unthinkable 'Brexit' suddenly looks possible
by Stuart Littlewood / June 15th, 2016
With a week to go, the UK’s referendum on whether to stay in or leave the EU (European Union) is finely balanced and, some pollsters say, leaning towards ‘Leave’. This has caused consternation in the marbled corridors around Westminster.
The gruesome assortment of self-appointed ‘champions’ on either side of the argument enjoy scant respect, have no entertainment value and are not the sort of people you would ever consider buying a used car from, let alone an economic future. The British public have quickly become bored with their unconvincing threats of hardship and disaster for households, businesses and public services if …
by David Boyajian / June 14th, 2016
For several decades the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and other leading Jewish American organizations (AIPAC, AJC, B’nai B’rith, and JINSA) have deliberately colluded with Turkey and Israel to defeat U.S. Congressional resolutions on the Christian Armenian Genocide and to diminish the factuality of that genocide.
Yola Habif Johnston, a director at JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs), once admitted that “the Jewish lobby has quite actively supported Turkey in their efforts to prevent the so-called Armenian genocide resolution from passing.”
The hypocrisy is breathtaking given these organizations’ loud, endless demands for recognition of, and legislation on, the Jewish Holocaust….
by Jack A. Smith / June 14th, 2016
From Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, October 2011 as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan appeared to be ending:
There are those on the American political scene who are calling for us not to reposition [to Asia], but to come home. They seek a downsizing of our foreign engagement in favor of our pressing domestic priorities. These impulses are understandable, but they are misguided. Those who say that we can no longer afford to engage with the world have it exactly backward — we cannot afford not to…. Rather than pull back from the world, we need to press forward and …
by Robert Hunziker / June 14th, 2016
A recent IMF study (June 2016) exposes flaws in neoliberal policy that have afflicted progressive issues for over 40 years. The title of the study itself “Neoliberalism: Oversold?” hints at the underlying thesis that something must be wrong. Why else pose the question?
“Instead of delivering growth, some neoliberal policies have increased inequality, in turn jeopardizing durable expansion.” ((Neoliberalism: Oversold? IMF, Finance & Development, June 2016, Vol.53, No.2″.)) Senator Bernie Sanders wholeheartedly agrees.
And, according to the study: “Austerity policies not only generate substantial welfare costs due to supply-side channels, they also hurt demand—and thus worsen employment and unemployment.” Bernie would probably …
Open Letter to Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin
by Andre Vltchek / June 14th, 2016
Dear Mr. President Xi Jinping,
Dear Mr. President Vladimir Putin,
The re-emerging specter of nuclear catastrophe is once again haunting the world.
The West is trying to isolate and provoke two great, proud, powerful and sovereign countries; China and Russia. It appears that the pathological desire to gain (or more precisely, re-gain) full control over the entire world is fully restraining all remaining flickers of rationale and humanism inside the brains of the politicians and business ‘elites’ in Washington, London and elsewhere.
The danger is real. It is enough to take a brief look at the map depicting the world at the beginning of …
A Deconstruction of Lerner's speech at the Muhammad Ali Funeral
by Gilad Atzmon / June 13th, 2016
I met Rabbi Michael Lerner twice in 2012. The rabbi kindly invited me into his home, we dined together, I met with members of his congregation and discussed my thoughts with them. However, I was recently troubled by Rabbi Lerner’s speech at Muhammad Ali’s funeral. Unlike many other peace loving people I was not impressed at all.
To watch Rabbi Lerner’s speech:
It takes some balls for a rabbi to stand in front of the American people and sing 4 bars of Kadish, the Hebrew prayer for the dead. But it takes more than balls for a rabbi to stand in …
by Binoy Kampmark / June 13th, 2016
Universities have become bastions of managerial madness. The trends began some time ago, when money became the ultimate pursuit, and Mr Dollar became chancellor and chief. The obsession with obtaining grants, the panjandrums awarding grants, the siphoning off funds, underwriting projects, have all made the academy a sad state. Since universities now obsess about having a “marketing unit”, the idea of making education a matter of commercial viability rather than educational worth has become all important.
There is another aspect to this development. Gone are the days when academic exposure was confined, left to the irate letters to the editor section …
by Buddy Bell / June 13th, 2016
In late May and early June, Chicago group Voices for Creative Nonviolence held a 150-mile walk against indefinite detention, solitary confinement, and the racist U.S. prison system. For two weeks, a group of 20 justice seekers walked across the state of Illinois from east to west, interacting with hundreds of passers-by, carrying placards to give a momentary reminder to thousands of motorists, and holding public face-to-face discussions at churches and libraries. They began on May 28 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago and then walked through Chicago’s west side, the western suburbs, on to DeKalb and the rural …
by John V. Walsh / June 12th, 2016
Hillary Clinton’s statement on the mass murder in Orlando is mostly a confection of the empty, saccharine pieties for which the entire American political class is known – but it concluded with a revealing statement.
There she said: “This is the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States and it reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets.” (Emphasis, jw)
But those “weapons of war” have been used on the streets of Iraq and in midnight raids on the civilian population in the war there that Hillary so ardently backed.
Does she even …
by Hasnat Sheikh / June 12th, 2016
Thousands of extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances, mass graves and recurrent incidents of violence brushed under the carpet away from plain sight. Under the power of the world’s largest democracy, an organized system of institutionalized violence has evolved, specifically in the occupied territory of Jammu and Kashmir. To enforce and legitimize this system of persecution and instrumental oppression, legislation such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) is employed.
AFSPA, one of the most dreaded words in a Kashmiri’s vocabulary, is not less then a curse on the population of the occupied territory. Conventionally applied in “disturbed areas” of …
by Binoy Kampmark / June 12th, 2016
There is something so fundamentally wrong about equating the joy and genius of scientific discovery with profit and markets. Initial discoveries in quantum physics had nothing to do with the idea of pursuing a remorseless “bottom line” or some specious market concept. The results of such discoveries were, however, gargantuan. Eventually, applications arise, with various economic benefits. Patience, however, is a golden virtue in that regard.
Australia’s scientific management (these comprise scientists who attempt to straddle the world of practice and business, and petty bureaucrats) have not taken kindly to the field of pure scientific endeavour.
The Turnbull government has continued what …
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 …
