Latest articles
by Andre Vltchek / February 19th, 2016
I thought about writing this essay when I was working in Iraqi Kurdistan, not far from the city of Mosul, one of the areas overrun by ISIS.
Since my last visit at the end of 2014, the entire “Kurdistan Region” has been collapsing. Unemployment has been on the rise, unofficially reaching 50%, poverty is rampant, official numbers are massaged. Salaries have not been paid for months, and the influx of refugees arriving from Mosul are often in near starvation, relying only on their relatives and friends for help.
But the West has been singing the praises of this obedient part of Iraq. …
Part 2 of 3
by Kim Petersen / February 19th, 2016
Read Part 1.
LAX KXEEN — The Salmon Nation Summit led to an emphatic declaration:
The undersigned First Nation leaders and citizens of the Nine Allied Tribes of Lax Kw’alaams hereby declare that Lelu Island, and Flora and Agnew Banks are hereby protected for all time, as a refuge for wild salmon and marine resources, and are to be held in trust for all future generations.
Our ancestral knowledge, supported by modern science, confirms this area is critical to the future abundance of the wild salmon our communities rely on. It is our right and our responsibility as First …
by Paul Craig Roberts / February 19th, 2016
This morning I was stuck in front of a Fox “News” broadcast for a short period and then with a NPR news program. It was enough to convince me that Nazi propaganda during Hitler’s Third Reich was very mild compared to the constant stream of dangerous lies that are pumped out constantly by the American media.
The New York Times, Washington Post, and a couple of think-tank types were represented on NPR. They delivered the most crude propaganda imaginable and questioned no US government statement.
Did you know that all the trouble in Syria is due to the Russians and Assad? The …
by Ralph Nader / February 19th, 2016
The passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin “Nino” Scalia evoked widespread commentary about how outspoken he was both on the Court and at law schools and other forums where he often lectured and sometimes tangled with audiences. Knowing of Justice Scalia’s unusual expressiveness for a jurist, my colleague Robert Weissman and I wrote him a challenging letter in 2006, starting with these words:
We are writing to inquire as to how the application of the Bill of Rights and related constitutional protections to the artificial creations known as corporations can be squared with a constitutional interpretation theory of “originalism.”
We referred to …
by Graham Peebles / February 19th, 2016
Division and fear are the age-old tools of tyrants; unity and peaceful coordinated action the most powerful weapons against them.
Frightened and downtrodden for so long, there are positive signs that the Ethiopian people are beginning to come together, – peacefully uniting in their anger at the ruling party – the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) — a paranoid brutal regime that suppresses the people, is guilty of wide-ranging human rights violations, and has systematically encouraged ethnic divisions and rivalries.
Anti-government protests have been growing over the last few years, and in recent months large-scale demonstrations have taken place throughout Oromia …
Blatant BBC propaganda
by Graham Vanbergen / February 19th, 2016
Mark Urban is the diplomatic and defence editor of BBC’s Newsnight that goes by the strap-line: “This is where the global struggle for peace and security gets incisive, informed, coverage.”
He has just written and headlined with “US remains reluctantly tied to global security role” – categorised under US/Canada.
Urban’s article starts with.
America’s military finds itself pulled in several directions – and even the $582bn (£403bn) defence budget rolled out earlier this month will not be enough to satisfy all of its needs. New challenges – from Russia and the so-called Islamic State (IS) group – are forcing the Pentagon to change its plans, and reopening …
by Eoin Higgins / February 19th, 2016
He’s just as bad as you tried to forget he was.
When former president George W. Bush kicked things off on Monday with a typically smug, heh-heh performance at a Jeb (!) Bush rally in South Carolina, I didn’t expect to have the same kind of visceral reaction I used to have to the sound of his voice.
For eight years I listened to that Texas drawl, dripping with patrilineal Connecticut Yankee privilege, explain away blatant corruption, governmental negligence, and the most destructive foreign policy in modern memory (and that’s saying something!).
I thought after seven years of the …
by Binoy Kampmark / February 18th, 2016
Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation.
— Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, February 16, 2016
The world of security and the world of capital can be unfriendly to each other. The incentive to make money is not necessarily one that works well with law enforcement, if one is to believe the arguments made by such entities as the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The latter insists on eliminating all risk, while those insisting on privacy as they make money out …
Part 1
by Kim Petersen / February 18th, 2016
As a scientist, I am dismayed by the common tactic of pleading scientific uncertainty as an excuse for continuing to allow people or companies to do things known to harm salmon.
— geomorphologist David R. Montgomery ((In King of Fish (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004): p. 242.))
LAX KXEEN ((The colonial designation is Prince Rupert, “British Columbia,” “Canada.” I discussed the subject of Indigenous versus colonialist designations in “America: The Morality of a Geopolitical Designation,” Dissident Voice, 6 August 2014.)), ((The city’s name is an eponym for Prince Rupert of …
Latest word from mom of three trapped in the hell we created...
by Stuart Littlewood / February 18th, 2016
There is little joy in writing about the plight of the Palestinians, as I have done for the last 10 years. But one of the rewards is that, occasionally, I receive a letter from someone who’s living the nightmare and prepared to share their innermost fears.
So I was delighted to hear from Amal again but dreaded what she might be about to tell me.
Amal (means ‘hope’) is a young wife and mother of three in Gaza. She is university educated and her English is excellent. As I’ve said before, Palestinians – especially the ladies – are very keen on education …
Bernie Sanders, Democratic Socialism, and the Other America (Part Two of a Five Part Series)
by Edward Martin and Mateo Pimentel / February 18th, 2016
In 1962, Michael Harrington wrote The Other America, which basically identified the causes of poverty and inequality in the United States as the result of unregulated free market capitalism. This book in turn had a significant impact on the thinking of John F. Kennedy and the role of government in promoting greater social justice. But it was the Johnson Administration and the War on Poverty programs (Medicaid, Medicare, Food Stamps, Expanded Social Security Benefits, etc.) that followed the Kennedy Administration’s lead. What the Johnson Administration did was address the issues facing The Other America, such as the fact that the …
Facing uncertainty, the Inland Empire (WA) needs more than a global warming bucket list
by Paul Haeder / February 18th, 2016
Ice, Heat, Rain, Drought
How can someone in the Inland Northwest not think about weather, the future of our valley, what the aquifer will look like in decades and the potential impacts of some scenario unfolding that is twice (or four times) more extreme/devastating than the windstorm event Spokane, Washington, experienced late last year?
Do we stash away gallons and gallons of potable water, hundreds of pounds of dry food, get certified as advanced first aid responders, cache cash, tools and battery-powered technologies to get through a more profound weather event — all on our own, survivalist style?
Did anyone think – while …
The Legacy of Michael Harrington, Hillary Clinton, and the Marxist Critique (Part One of a Five Part Series)
by Edward Martin and Mateo Pimentel / February 18th, 2016
As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems.
– Pope Francis I, Laudato Si
Democrats and Republicans, and all those who hold fast to the divine status of the market, clearly do not want a national discussion about free markets, capitalism, and those for whom free markets are really designed to serve. This is why the richest 1% in the United States is alarmingly …
by Chris Time Steele / February 18th, 2016
A new song by Time, “I Stole Time on the Clock to Write This” produced by Ephelant. The song is about economic inequality, patriarchy, and the turmoil of people being overworked. Ephelant and Time’s new album How to Sew Wounds With Words will be released April 2016.
https://soundcloud.com/ephelant/ephelant-x-time-i-stole-time-on-the-clock-to-write-this
by Vacy Vlazna / February 17th, 2016
In Palestine, you would be forgiven for thinking that there was no United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.
The SR, Christof Heyns, in the past 6 years, has never made a country on-site visit to Palestine to get first hand information on the hundreds of cases of Zionist perpetration of extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions of the people of Palestine.
Not even the dozens of extrajudicial street executions of Palestinian children and youth carrying the invisible knives of Allege-gate since October 1, 2015 has impelled Heyns to rush to Palestine to ensure the zionist war criminals uphold Palestinian …
by David Smith-Ferri / February 17th, 2016
Last month, as US border patrol agents began rounding up Central American women and children denied asylum, a small group of international peace activists from Voices for Creative Nonviolence boarded a plane for Helsinki, Finland, to visit two longtime Iraqi friends who fled Baghdad last summer and somehow completed a perilous seven-week journey over land and sea to reach this northern seaport. Negotiating our way from the airport in Helsinki to Laajasalo, a small island and suburb where we were to stay with a Finnish journalist, we crossed a frozen and snow-covered Baltic Sea, as white flakes swirled in the …
by John R. Hall / February 17th, 2016
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” Those were the last few words of one of the most inspiring speeches I’ve ever encountered. Written and delivered by peace angel Arundhati Roy at the World Social Forum in Porto Allegre, Brazil, January 27th, 2003, she inspired me to arise from lethargic insouciance and make some noise. I too have little doubt that another world is on her way, but what will she look like? Garden of Eden or nuclear wasteland? Will she be breathing freely or gasping for air? And if my words of anger are shouted …
Deconstructing the French free speech narrative
by Arindrajit Basu / February 17th, 2016
With increased globalisation, the last few decades have been witness to the increasing heterogeneity of communities and nations. This increasing heterogeneity has spurred a need to accommodate diverse cultural, religious, historical and linguistic identities within the social fabric. In many instances, this accommodation has been imposed through a process of assimilation where minority communities have been coerced to shed their identities and imbibe the cultural values and norms of the majority. The French nation state is a stark example of this. By constantly citing Liberalism and Progress as its raison d’être, the French State has manipulated many supposed liberal …
by Patrick Walker / February 17th, 2016
I must start by clarifying: I am no fan or today’s Democratic Party, and I strongly suspect the leftist hypothesis that today’s jackass party is beyond reforming is most likely true. But until strenuously tested, it is merely a hypothesis, while the Left treats it as a religious dogma that must be protected from all rational scrutiny.
For the sake of our nation’s common good—mostly likely, for the sake of saving human civilization from encroaching climate destruction—I think we must expose the hypothesis that Democrats are beyond reform to testing by purely rational experiment.
The experiment I propose is massive …
by Ramzy Baroud / February 16th, 2016
The Israeli ‘Right’, as demonstrated by a scary coalition of right wing nationalists, ultranationalists and religious zealots, deserves all the bad press it has garnered since its formation last May.
But none of this should come as a shock, as the ‘Right’ in Israel has never been anything but a coalition of demagogues that catered to the lowest common denominator in society. As unlikable as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is, he is, in fact, a fair representation of the worst that Israel has to offer, which, over the years, has morphed to represent mainstream thinking.
But Israel has not always …
by Matt Peppe / February 16th, 2016
Just an hour before my wife and I landed in her native Puerto Rico last month, the island’s government had defaulted on $1 billion in bond interest payments. It was the second default in five months for the cash-strapped government whose debt now totals $72 billion. None of this was evident as we waded through the crowds in Rafael Hernández airport in Aguadilla, which had been converted into a civilian airport after the closure of Ramey Air Force Base 40 years earlier. People hugged their relatives, welcoming them back home or bidding them farewell. It was a normal scene you’d see at any airport in the …
by Andre Vltchek / February 16th, 2016
It used to be presented as a huge success story. We were told that in the middle of a ravished Middle East, surrounded by despair, death and pain, a land of milk and honey was shining brightly like a torch of hope.
Photo: Andre Vltchek
Or was it more like a delicious cake surrounded by rot? This exceptional place was called Iraqi Kurdistan, or officially the “Kurdistan Region.”
This is where the victorious global capitalism has been injecting “massive investments,” while the West was “guaranteeing security and peace.”
Here, Turkish firms were building …
by Yves Engler / February 15th, 2016
Author’s Note: The below article was submitted to the Winnipeg Free Press perspectives and politics editor who edited it and asked me to look over her changes. A second editor then asked me to clarify/rewrite a sentence, which was done. The story was then spiked and, to the best of my knowledge, Manitoba’s leading newspaper has yet to mention the below controversy.
It’s the black eye few Manitobans knew they had.
“Senate Passes Motions on Unwholesome Practices by Manitoba Hydro Limited” read one recent Nigerian press headline while another blared: “Manitoba sued over transmission contract extension”.
Largely unbeknownst to …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / February 15th, 2016
… do we provide training and advice and help in order to make sure that countries actually obey the norms of humanitarian law? Yes, we do.
— David Cameron, Prime Minister’s Questions, January 21st, 2016
It has been a bad week for Prime Minister David Cameron’s decimation-bent government at home and abroad.
His Chancellor, George Osborne is hell bent on targeting, it seems, all but the mega-rich and the multi-nationals, determined to erase all affordable social housing in a country where the average salary – before tax – is £25,500 (2014 figure) and the average monthly rent for a modest flat is £816 …
by James Hoover / February 15th, 2016
Antonin Scalia is gone and with him – for now — the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court. The pity is that we pivot to this fact right after a dutiful declaration of loss and a mechanical ticking off of stellar skills and flawless accomplishments, as did the Republican candidates for president.
At the South Carolina debate, Trump was most truthful, saying that if he were president, he would nominate a replacement, himself, but that Obama’s nominee should be delayed by the Senate: “delay, delay” any hearings. Cruz described knowing Scalia for twenty years, and “a brilliant man.” Any nomination …
by David Berggren / February 14th, 2016
Aid, what is it good for? While many Bono-loving, bleeding heart liberals would be appalled at the very thought of questioning the importance of giving money to charity or to the less fortunate, such a belief is rooted in pure fiction. In fact, the seemingly innocuous act of transferring money abroad in voluntary Robin Hood fashion is at the root of most political problems wreaking havoc across the developing world. Why? Because doling out truckloads of cash has not only utterly failed to raise the living standards of Africans, but has served solely as a way for the United States …
Coercive Engineered Migration: Zionism's War on Europe (Part 8 of an 11 Part Series)
by Gearóid Ó Colmáin / February 14th, 2016
It is particularly ironic that the Zionist-controlled media are pushing the agenda of multiculturalism in Europe while insisting on the right of Israel, the world’s only racist, apartheid state, to exist. At the same time, the conditions for this artificial, dystopian form of multiculturalism involve the destruction of some of the world’s most successful multi-racial states such as Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria and, if they succeed, possibly Eritrea.
What we are witnessing here is a process of engineered acculturation where people are being uprooted, displaced and abandoned to the limitless tyranny of the market and commodity fetishism. The boats crossing the Mediterranean …
by Stansfield Smith / February 13th, 2016
The end of January a news article appeared, “Ecuador To Sell A Third Of Its Amazon Rainforest To Chinese Oil Companies,” and has resurfaced again and again on the internet. Posted on progressive websites such as Reader Supported News, Daily Kos, “The PeoplesVoice.org,” “ThinkGlobalGreen.org,” the story often comes with maps of the affected area, and include pictures of indigenous peoples living peaceably with nature or protesting against oil drilling.
Almost all these stories refer back to one article three years ago, in March 2013, in Australian online journal Business Insider:
“Ecuador is planning to auction off three million of the country’s 8.1 …
by Medea Benjamin / February 13th, 2016
At the February 11 Democratic Debate, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton had a spirited exchange about an unlikely topic: the 92-year old former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Sanders berated Clinton for saying that she appreciated the foreign policy mentoring she got from Henry Kissinger. “I happen to believe,”said Sanders, “that Henry Kissinger was one of the most destructive secretaries of state in the modern history of this country.”
In one of Sanders’ rare outbursts of enmity, he added, “I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend. I will not take advice from Henry Kissinger. …
by Paul Larudee / February 13th, 2016
12 February, 2016
Association France Palestine Solidarité
((Name deleted at correspondent’s request.))
Dear ((Name deleted at correspondent’s request.))
Thank you for your message of 12 February, 2016. We take very seriously the threats to freedom of speech in France and everywhere, and we are appalled that the courts have upheld the convictions of French activists for advocating a boycott of Israeli products. We feel compelled to ask one question, however. Are you concerned about the freedom to advocate BDS or are you concerned about freedom of speech?
France is the land of Voltaire, whose views have been characterized as “I disapprove …
