Whenever possible I avoid eating at corporate chain restaurants, have never eaten at a Chipotle Mexican Grill, have no known friends or relatives employed by Chipotle, and own no stock in the company. Big corporations are a lot like politicians. They are required by corporate charter to have no hearts, no souls, and regardless of the business, their only motivation must be profit. It’s what they do. Public health and welfare be damned if it gets in the way. But every now and then, a Paul Wellstone manages to get himself elected to public office, and in an equally rare occurrence, sometimes a corporate CEO will announce …
In August, 2015, 57 brand new members of the U.S. House of Representatives bowed their heads and promised to obey their Israeli overlords. They allowed themselves to be taken to Israel, plied with good food and propaganda. They then returned home to do Israel’s bidding in the Congressional seats that Israel helped them win. Sixty were invited, but only three decided not to go, for unknown reasons.
But isn’t there a more innocent explanation? Perhaps they just wanted to learn more about the issue and would equally have …
Murphy’s Law has found a permanent home in Fukushima: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”
For instance, only recently, radioactive cesium in tunnels at Fukushima suddenly spiked by more than 4,000 times similar measurements from one year ago. This spooky/huge spike in radiation levels hit 482,000 Becquerels per liter. TEPCO intends to investigate the reason behind the enormous anomalous increase. ((“Radiation Spikes in Fukushima Underground Ducts,” NHK World, December 9, 2015.)) “Radiation Spikes in Fukushima Underground Ducts,” NHK World, December 9, 2015. Over the course of a year, 4,000 times anything probably is not good.
In the light of the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, there has been much talk about the clouding of US-Russian relations. Somevoices in the Internet’s alternative media sections have conjured the possibility that these conflicts might lead to a new major war, while social networks like Twitter saw the usage of the hashtags #WorldWarIII and #WorldWar3 explode after Turkey shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 jet in the vicinity of the Syrian border. Headlines in mainstream media outlets likeForeign Policy and theGuardianalsoproclaimed, “Welcome to Cold …
He’s “unhinged, offensive, reprehensible,” and “ridiculous.” His proposals are “unconstitutional.” He’s a “racist, xenophobic, religious bigot” who doesn’t understand “our laws” or “our history.” He must be rejected by all “real” Americans.
Wow. What accounts for such an emotional outburst from U.S. politicians and media commentators? Mostly it’s that Trump is not simply repeating focus-group tested sound-bites and bumper-sticker slogans pre-approved by slick media managers, but is saying what he actually thinks about the U.S. being subject to continual terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists. The proposals themselves leave much to be desired (he says nothing about U.S. foreign policy crimes continually …
The December 6, 2015 election resulted in a clear victory of the opposition over the Bolivarian alliance led by the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV). The opposition won 112 seats, obtaining votes from 67.7% of the approximately 74% of the electorate who voted. The Bolivarian coalition won 55 seats and garnered 42% of the votes. This provides the opposition with one more seat than the minimum 111 needed to be declared a full majority. The 112-seat block holds 20 seats more than a simple majority. This status provides the opposition with the control of the unicameral National Assembly.
In pondering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and in discussions I have had, I have found that very few people actually have a basic understanding of the conflict nor could they provide a definitions of the conflict even in rough approximating terms.
Thus one sometimes hears that it is all about Arab/Palestinian ‘terrorism’ and suicide bombings and the ultimate goal of the terrorists-Palestinians is to ‘push all the Jews into the sea, dead or alive” and that their motives are those of anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews. Those who hold this view see the conflict as one of the survival of the …
Cultural pessimists don’t see much they like at the Paris climate talks. Skepticism at times like these is nearly always justified. At the same time, it may be that Paris was a minute improvement — on some issues — upon the previous gatherings of elected officials, diplomats, corporate hacks, activists, celebrities, and media that constitute these annual circuses. And it’s likely that the angry and energized climate justice movement is primed to pressure the big polluters like never before. No, the glass is not half full. Delegates will not agree to emissions reductions necessary to meet even their own inadequate …
As a world community we have agreed that everyone has a right to a home, (article 25 of the UNDHR makes this clear), however, like many such ‘rights’ – food, adequate health care, good education for example, the ‘right’ to a home is dependent upon your ability to pay for that right.
Having spent almost two years sleeping on sofas, sharing beds and moving from one friends’ home to another, on Tuesday November 10th, Vera, an asylum seeker to the UK, and her three teenage children were made street homeless.
After waiting all day in Lambeth …
There’s this woman I know, I’ll call her Doris, and she has a son, I’ll call him Mike. Mike and I did some temporary wage-slavery in the same warehouse about ten years ago, but I can’t say I know him, and we probably wouldn’t even recognise each other now.
I bump into Doris quite often, and because half a lifetime ago we came from the same town on the other side of the planet, and because she’s a nice person, we usually stop and have a chat. She’s quite old now, even older than me, and Mike has a family of …
As an American, I am terrified of Muslims. And you should be, too.
That’s certainly what the media conveys. Every news source we encounter is debating whether we should trust or distrust “those” Muslims, as if over 2 billion people can be painted by a single brush.
Tonight, I confirmed the belief that we should remain terrified – though not in the way you may think. I visited a local Islamic Center in Washington, D.C. for an open discussion led by American-Muslims. The meeting’s topic was “self-care while dealing with trauma.” Interesting, I thought, as the entire nation is also discussing the …
After photographing the new, enormous and undoubtedly sinister building of the US embassy in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, I was driven by a local left-wing politician towards the mountains. We agreed to have lunch; simple, good local food.
In front of the restaurant, which my friend selected, was parked an indescribable monster: a white double-decker ‘extremely stretched’ limousine with tinted windows. I had never seen a double-decker limo before.
“An American-style wedding”, my host commented gloomily.
The bride was dressed all in white. She looked rather depressed. The groom appeared to be concerned, scared of something. Some 100 guests were desperately trying …
Have you ever thought that who you are as a person is determined in part by the government you live under? Political philosophers have been considering such a possibility going all the way back to the early Greeks. Government shapes us either by engaging and empowering us through participation or by assuming all power unto itself and leaving us to go our separate ways alone and isolated.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti was a fourteenth-century Italian painter. Between 1338 and 1340, he painted a series of frescoes on three walls of the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena. The panels are commonly known as “Allegory of …
Global developments in finance and geopolitics are prompting a rethinking of the structure of banking and of the nature of money itself. Among other interesting news items:
In Russia, vulnerability to Western sanctions has led to proposals for a banking system that is not only independent of the West but is based on different design principles.
In Iceland, the booms and busts culminating in the banking crisis of 2008-09 have prompted lawmakers to consider a plan to remove the power to create money from private banks.
In Ireland, Iceland, and the UK, a recession-induced shortage of local credit has prompted proposals for a …
Syria is to David Cameron what Iraq was to Tony Blair and International Law be Damned
by Felicity Arbuthnot / December 11th, 2015
Russia bombing Syria will lead to further radicalization and increased terrorism.
— Prime Minister David Cameron, October 4th, 2015.
How desperately Prime Minister Cameron has been yearning to bomb the Syrian Arab Republic.
In August 2013 when his aim was defeated in Parliament by a 285-272 vote, his vision of the UK joining US-led strikes bit the dust. His dreams of illegally joining the bigger bully and bombing an historic nation of just 22.85 million people (2013 figures) three and a half thousand kilometers away, posing no threat to Britain, was thwarted.
Where oh where have all the critical thinkers gone? Walmartization of schools WINS
by Paul Haeder / December 11th, 2015
It’s thirty years of consumer orgasm and vocational thinking, educating to push away anything good and deep and critically thought out, those great books and thoughts that distract one from making money, hand over fist, or struggling trying to do something in the social services. Americans proud of not needing all those courses on Swift, Alice Walker, Dickens, Neruda, all that history, all those cultural studies, all the human psychology and ecosystems fun stuff, all the Classics, voices of the people’s history, the reason for cultural studies in Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii, anywhere the white conqueror has come in …
President Obama’s oval office talk on terrorism promises more of the same failed strategy based on no serious reconsideration of changed reality. From the top, by focusing on 14 Americans killed in San Bernardino, the President plays into the terrorists’ hands. President Obama, like the rest of the US establishment, appears to have learned nothing since President Bush played the fear card after 9/11, then used it to terrorize the Muslim world with ever more disastrous results (carried on by President Obama).
It’s not as though the madness of the fear-based …
War Against the People: a timely jolt to spur civil society action
by Stuart Littlewood / December 11th, 2015
If you want something to scare the pants off you this Christmas ask Santa for this excellent book.
The author, Jeff Halper, is an American-Israeli Jew who trained as an anthropologist, joined the anti-Vietnam war movement and eventually moved to Israel. He is widely known to activists in the struggle for Palestinian freedom as the director of ICAHD (the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition). This is an extraordinary organisation that resists the illegal Israeli occupation by often standing in the way of the bulldozers sent to destroy Palestinian homes, then rebuilding them – as a political act. Halper has been arrested …
What is so special about “democracy” and “Western values” that it is worth committing such horrific atrocities and war crimes for these ideas? In the short time that they have dominated this century so far, the “democracies” have started more wars than anyone else.
They have kicked doors down, machine-gunned civilians and inflicted starvation on entire populations with economic sanctions. The “democracies” have ravaged and destroyed Libya in military aggression, and today wage new wars of occupation and regime change against a conspicuous number of different states. They cause so much suffering that anyone proud of “the West” and “democracy” today …
Scott Thomas Outlar’s first poetry submission to Dissident Voice was entitled “Three Part Harmony” which was published on June 8, 2014. Since that date he has become a regular contributor to DV’s Poetry on Sunday. Now with his book of poetry, Songs of a Dissident, published, I decided to send him a few questions via e-mail and find out his reaction to the news.
Angie Tibbs: Hey, Scott Thomas, first of all, congrats hugely on having your book of poetry published; in fact, having the publication date moved up a month! What was your reaction when you heard the …
Who's Afraid Of Laurence Fink and His Overpowering Institution?
by Andrew Gavin Marshall / December 10th, 2015
It’s not a bank, nor an insurance company, central bank, finance ministry or sovereign wealth fund. But it advises or owns such institutions. It operates virtually unregulated, often in the background, yet there is scarcely a company, country or region of the planet that this, the world’s largest asset management firm, does not touch or influence.
At a mere 27 years of age, BlackRock manages $4.5 trillion in assets, making it the single largest investor on Earth. It manages more wealth than Japan and Germany have in GDP. In fact, only China and the United States have a larger GDP than …
All proceeds of sales raise money for the victims of the war in Iraq
by Angie Tibbs / December 10th, 2015
Today, December 10, 2015, the pro-peace Christmas CD Not in our Name will have its limited edition release, and as it is not limited time wise, the CD will be available as a download on CD Baby. It can also be bought by going onto the website and clicking on the “Order CD” button.
And Caroline Kennedy, who came up with the idea a mere five months ago, is “euphoric!!” In an email on this momentus date, Caroline told me:
I had no idea when I threw out that germ of an idea almost 5 months ago that it would take …
I have long maintained that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank defies the moral principle behind the creation of the state. Contrary to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s assertion, the occupation erodes rather than buttresses Israel’s national security and cannot be justified on either security or moral grounds. Unless Israel embraces a new moral path, no one can prevent it from unravelling from within only to become a pariah state that has lost its soul, wantonly abandoning the cherished dreams of its founding fathers.
There are four ethical theories—Kantian, utilitarian, virtue-based, and religious—that demonstrate the lack of moral foundation in the continuing …
LUND, SWEDEN — December 10, 2015, on the day of the Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony at Oslo City Hall
We know – and Alfred Nobel knew – how devastating war and arms races are, and how little security we get for all the money we spend on military forces.
The campaign to reclaim the Nobel Peace Prize is first and foremost a campaign to revive the idea that global peace requires global cooperation on disarmament and replacing the law of force with the force of law. Every day more and more …
On May 19, 1916, representatives of Great Britain and France secretly reached an accord, known as the Sykes-Picot agreement, by which most of the Arab lands under the rule of the Ottoman Empire were to be divided into British and French spheres of influence upon the conclusion of World War 1. That this agreement was conducted in secrecy, reveals to what extent the voices of the inhabitants of this region were absent from negotiations. It was as if the voices of the ruling Colonial elites were the only ones that had credibility. The Sykes-Picot agreement went ahead with little concern …
Cancer arises from stress-induced breakdown of tissue homeostasis: Part 4
by Denis Rancourt / December 9th, 2015
This is Part 4 of a four-part article. Part 1 provides a general introduction for the whole article. Part 2 is a critical review of the randomized trials of cancer treatments and screening. Part 3 is a critical review of the dominant paradigm of cancer as mutation-centric “metastasis”. The whole article is available as a single PDF file on ResearchGate. The article was presented at the University of Ottawa on November 21, 2015, and is available in video as parts One and Two.
Part 4: Cancer as age-dependent stress-induced breakdown of tissue homeostasis
by The Real News Network (TRNN) / December 9th, 2015
Vijay Prashad, author of sixteen books, the latest book Letters to Palestine, says that ISIS oil is smuggled through Turkey to Israel and is a major source of ISIS funding.
On December 7 the Cyber-Berkut made public another set of evidence exposing preparations for false flag attacks in Syria by the Ministry of Defense of Qatar. According to a hacked mail by Anton Pashynskyi, a SpetsTechnoExport (official Ukrainian arms trader) functionary, on October 21, 2015 he wrote to his Polish partner Level 11 the following:
Good afternoon! There is a new proposal. The Qatari military want to buy 2 thousand High Explosive Fragmentation bombs OFAB 250-270. The issue is urgent, they are ready to pay US$2100 per item. Consider how to deliver ASAP. The …
First of all I know many of you must be doing some soul searching right now. I’ve spent the past two years retracing my steps and trying to understand the nature of the Bolivarian project I once supported and why I supported it.
The latter question I can easily answer: President Hugo Chávez proposed a “Twenty-First Century Socialism” that would be different from the nightmare socialism of the twentieth century, the “real socialism.” He proposed an anti-imperialist bloc of Latin American countries that would unite in solidarity against international capitalism in the construction of a definitive economic, political and …
When Egypt decided to open the Rafah border crossing which separates it from Gaza for two days, December 3 and 4, a sense of guarded relief was felt in the impoverished Strip. True, 48 hours were hardly enough for the tens of thousands of patients, students and other travelers to leave or return to Gaza, but the idea that a respite was on its way helped to break, albeit slightly, the sense of collective captivity felt by entrapped Palestinians.
Of course, the Rafah border crisis will hardly be resolved by a single transitory decision, mainly …
