Latest articles
by Bill Quigley / November 19th, 2015
A jury trial is underway in Detroit for human rights activists arrested for blocking trucks which were going to cutoff water to low-income families.
On July 18, 2014, dozens of people successfully blocked the trucks of the Homrich Inc., a private wrecking company that the City of Detroit contracts with to carry out water shutoffs. The trucks were leaving to cutoff water for Detroiters who were more than $150 past due on payments. After an eight hour blockade nine people were arrested.
Those on trial said civil disobedience was their only option to address the grave public health crisis of …
by Walter Brasch / November 19th, 2015
Fear, laced with paranoia, is driving the American response against allowing Syrian refugees into the United States.
President Obama has said he would accept 10,000 refugees, all of them subjected to intense scrutiny before being admitted to the country. France, with a population about one-fifth that of the United States, despite the worst attack on its soil since World War II, will accept 30,000 refugees.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told the Senate, “We are not a nation that delivers children back into the hands of ISIS because some politician doesn’t like their religion.” Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), a Jew, said the nation …
by Daniel McGowan / November 19th, 2015
Deir Yassin Remembered, a not-for-profit organization of Jews and non-Jews working for the human rights of Palestinians, rented a billboard in Detroit. The message was simple: “America first, not Israel.”
The mega billboard company, Lamar, designed the message and produced the 14’ x 48’ vinyl for $700. It charged an additional $3,000 to display it for four weeks and agreed to ship the vinyl to the next location at the end of the rental period.
But when Deir Yassin Remembered tried to rent a billboard in Bergen County …
by James Petras / November 19th, 2015
Over the past 15 years the US has been engaged in a series of wars, which has led many writers to refer to the ‘rise of militarism’ – the growth of an empire, built primarily by and for the projection of military power – and only secondarily to advance economic imperialism.
The rise of a military-based empire, however, does not preclude the emergence of competing, conflicting, and convergent power configurations within the imperial state. These factions of the Washington elite define the objectives and targets of imperialist warfare, …
by Steve Breyman / November 19th, 2015
Rolling Stone reporter Jeff Goodell tagged along on President Obama’s recent climate-change themed trip to Alaska. Goodell’s report included an interview with the President. The interview provides a window into central features of Barack Obama’s politics and policies.
Style Over Substance
The thin stuff of the trip was evident from the outset. Sum total of new initiatives announced during the visit: we now get to call Mt. McKinley Denali again (what the indigenous locals always called it, and already the name of the national park over which it towers); construction of a new icebreaker for the Coast Guard (aimed at narrowing the …
by Ajamu Baraka / November 18th, 2015
I received a message from one of my friends in Lebanon who asked with feigned curiosity why the U.S. media only gave a passing reference to the bombing in Beirut before turning to non-stop coverage of the attacks in Paris. Of course, like many of us she already knew the answer – that in the consciousness of the White West there is a premium on the value of White life.
Acknowledging this fact is neither new nor should it be particularly controversial. Its obviousness is apparent to anyone who is honest. We saw it in the response to the Charlie Hebdo …
How to Forge a Democracy and Get Away with It
by Ramzy Baroud / November 18th, 2015
Writing in the New York Times in an article entitled “Myanmar Generals Set the Stage for Their Own Exit”, Thomas Fuller expressed his and the media’s failure to recognize the total fraud that is Burmese democracy.
“The official results are still being tabulated,” he wrote, “but all signs, so far, point to that rarest of things: an authoritarian government peacefully giving up power after what outside election monitors have deemed a credible vote.”
Fuller, who said nothing about the persecuted Rohingya minority and little about the other millions of Burmese who were denied the chance to vote, only managed to contribute …
by Harvey Lothian / November 18th, 2015
A few years ago I was walking with my dog on one of the many forest trails in this area, when we crossed paths with a man I knew only by sight. He was a distant neighbor. Since we were going in the same direction we fell into step and engaged in small talk about the weather and recent news events. When it became obvious we had somewhat similar views about the world I said I was upset that reliable sources estimate 32,000 children die every day in the world, from hunger and hunger-related diseases when there is enough …
It’s not what you think
by Ira Glunts / November 17th, 2015
I was happy to learn that Professor Steven Salaita reached a $600,000 settlement (plus $275,000 in attorney fees) yesterday in his lawsuit against the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). As others, including Steven Salaita, himself, have said, universities may now think twice before violating freedom of speech rights of faculty in order to satisfy wealthy Jewish donors. Here is a statement about the settlement by Salaita recently published on The Nation website.
In the article titled, “I Will Always Condemn Injustice, No Matter What The State Of My Employment,” Salaita wrote:
We can claim meaningful victory against UIUC. The most decisive of those victories …
by Jack Balkwill / November 17th, 2015
Did I hear you say that there must be a catch?
Will you walk away from a fool and his money?
If you want it, here it is, come and get it,
But you better hurry cause it’s going fast
– Paul McCartney, “Come and Get it” recorded by Badfinger for the movie The Magic Christian, 1969
Data from the last Democratic Party “debate,” suggests that the strategy of the Democratic National Committee to suppress viewership is working. Democratic debates are only drawing about half the viewers as are the Republican debates.
This strategy is obviously to help Hillary Clinton, as her Democratic rivals …
by Cécile Lawrence / November 17th, 2015
by Andre Vltchek / November 16th, 2015
Our Planet Earth is heading straight towards the most dangerous collision in its history. It is not a collision with some foreign body, with an asteroid or a comet, but with the most brutal and selfish chunk of its own inhabitants: with people who proudly call themselves “members of the Western civilization.”
Who is killing whom, lately? Who is behind what?
Again and again it is clearly demonstrated that Western culture, which the paramount psychologist Carl Jung used to call “pathology”, couldn’t be trusted.
This “culture” had already mercilessly slaughtered several hundreds of millions of people in all corners of the world; it …
Structural Changes Needed to Counter ISIS-ISIL
by John Stanton / November 16th, 2015
The system is broken.
Governments and state institutions are increasingly incapable of protecting their own civilians from militants who have become weary of seeing their homelands, friends, relatives, children, livelihoods, futures and institutions obliterated. They are sick of the oppression of their own Western backed governments to the point that death is no longer relevant to them. Until structural cracks in the foundation of the global capitalist system are addressed and repaired, the rewind button will stay locked and organizations like Daesh-ISIS-ISIL-AQ, and ultimately its offshoots, will continue to kill and maim citizens with impunity. They have seen the same done …
by William A. Blunden / November 16th, 2015
I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.
— Jay Gould
Metanoia Films has released a new documentary, Plutocracy: Divide et Impera (Divide and Rule). It’s the first entry of a multi-part series directed by filmmaker Scott Noble. The movie assembles a rich historical mosaic which examines the constitutional roots of democratic elitism in the United States, the subsequent emergence of the labor movement during industrialization, and the various schemes employed by private capital to sabotage popular mobilization. Plutocracy is available online and can be viewed free of charge. Your author, who helped to …
by Yves Engler / November 16th, 2015
The hypocrisy of “free market” advocates is astounding. While they trumpet increased competition and the elimination of state imposed barriers as a means of spurring economic advancement, they ignore how the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and other “free trade” accords increase monopolistic intellectual property provisions.
In a recent CTV interview on the TPP Carleton business professor Ian Lee began by saying we’ve known for three centuries that “free trade” increases wealth while a Maclean’s editorial “celebrating” the accord noted “as with most things, the best sort of trade is free: free from tariffs, restrictions and other government-imposed barriers.”
But the …
by John Pilger / November 16th, 2015
In transmitting President Richard Nixon’s orders for a “massive” bombing of Cambodia in 1969, Henry Kissinger said, “Anything that flies on everything that moves”. As Barack Obama ignites his seventh war against the Muslim world since he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the orchestrated hysteria and lies make one almost nostalgic for Kissinger’s murderous honesty.
As a witness to the human consequences of aerial savagery – including the beheading of victims, their parts festooning trees and fields – I am not surprised by the disregard of memory and history, yet again. …
by Brenda Heard / November 16th, 2015
On 15 November, the New York Times published an article entitled “Beirut, Also the Site of Deadly Attacks, Feels Forgotten.” It highlights the disparity between the global solidarity expressed for Paris following the deadly 13 November attacks and the lack thereof expressed for Beirut after it too was attacked the day prior. But the headline suggests a petulant attitude from Lebanese who “feel forgotten,” as though they were a bratty child or a snivelling spouse.
Granted the Times expresses a degree of compassion for Beirut’s victims, who like those in Paris “were killed at random, in a bustling urban area, …
This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
by Anne Meador / November 16th, 2015
At the first debate for left-leaning candidates for U.S. Senate to represent Maryland, there’s no place on the stage for the most progressive candidate on the ballot.
Dr. Margaret Flowers, the Green Party candidate, claims she’s been forced out because one of the Democratic contenders vying for the Senate seat objects to her presence. She’s blazing mad and vows to attend with or without the host’s blessing.
“I told them I am serious about this campaign. I want to win,” she said. “I’m going to fight to be heard in order to be elected. I’m going to show up there whether or …
by Denis Rancourt / November 15th, 2015
The US and its allies murdered one million civilians in Iraq, using indefinite sanctions and war, destroyed all public infrastructure, and gutted all institutions. Do you think that would cause some people to be pissed off and desperate?
These “leaders of the free world” went on to inflict the same such “humanitarian” medicine on Afghanistan, Libya, and now Syria (by proxy) and Yemen. And these “leaders” condone the regular genocidal slaughters perpetrated by Israel as part of its brutal occupation and program of land seizures.
Do you think some people are starting to grasp the meaning of US “freedom and democracy”?
These wars …
by Pedro Aibéo / November 14th, 2015
People who posted their profile pictures in social media with the French flag as a background and also those who projected its colors into buildings all over the world are either lazy or ignorant. I guess both!
France has a long history of aggression, killings and acts of terrorism against civilians around the world in its former colonies, including an extensive record of economic extortion and political destabilization.
Paris has been attacked many times before: in the 1950s by the Algerian Liberation Front, in the 70s and 80s by the Popular Front of the Liberation of Palestine, and by the Armenian group …
by Andrey Fomine / November 14th, 2015
Yesterday night things changed in an instant in Paris. The available evidence suggest that the assaults were carried out by a professional killer group who used live bombs among other weapons Today’s post by Pepe Escobar on his Facebook page sheds some light on symbolism and timimg of the massacre:
Scouring a ton of reports, I found a Danish citizen describing one of the attackers to a Paris café; ultra-pro, black-clad head to toe, AK-47, very well trained. These are not your usual al-Zawahiri underwear bombers; these are precision killers. This one left the scene undisturbed, and …
by Eve Mykytyn / November 14th, 2015
Read Part 1.
On November 12th the jury found Mr. Topham guilty of ‘inciting hate.’ This leads to a few questions.
First, the jury found Mr. Topham guilty on Count 1 but not guilty on Count 2. Ordinarily, this is a result we are comfortable with since the state (the Crown) may have proved ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ that a defendant committed an assault but not have shown sufficient evidence of battery. Mr. Topham’s case is different. He was charged with two virtually identical counts, both relating to his website but covering different periods of time, that is, count 1 …
by Jonathan Cook / November 14th, 2015
An article in the Australian publication New Matilda gets to the real point about last night’s attacks in Paris – one that no one wants to talk about. What westerners feel right now is a powerful and very selective outrage that identifies with the suffering of people “like us”. We mourn the deaths in Paris while not even noticing those killed in Lebanon a day earlier and almost certainly by the same fanatics that launched the attacks in France.
Lots of westerners like to dismiss such observations as “whataboutery”. It is natural, they say, to care more about people we know and …
by Press TV / November 14th, 2015
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has condemned the string of coordinated terrorist attacks that killed at least 127 people in and around the French capital of Paris.
“What France suffered from – savage terror – is what the Syrian people have been enduring for over five years,” he said on Saturday, hours after the attacks in France.
The attacks in France were carried out late on Friday, when assailants struck at least six different venues in and around the French capital.
President Assad added in a meeting with a delegation of French lawmakers in the Syrian capital of Damascus that “mistaken policies” adopted by …
by Allen W. Smith / November 14th, 2015
During the past three decades the American people have been kept in the dark about the true status of the Social Security program. Politicians, from both political parties, give out false and conflicting information on a regular basis, and nobody knows who to believe. At the Republican presidential debate, held in Boulder, Colorado, on the night of October 28, 2015, New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, shocked a lot of people when he said, “Let me be honest with the people who are watching at home. The government has lied to you and they have stolen from …
by The Real News Network (TRNN) / November 14th, 2015
Greek port worker and union leader Giorgos Gogos says most of the demonstrations across the country were peaceful and unified against austerity measures imposed by the lenders and accepted by SYRIZA.
https://youtu.be/BrN1U1NAp5c
by Bill Annett / November 14th, 2015
News item: California’s Right to Rest Act would give homeless people the right to use public space without discrimination. It also describes the right to rest in public, to protect oneself from the elements in public, to eat in public and to occupy a legally parked car.
*****
I first became aware of the complex of societal problem related to poverty when — one winter in downtown Toronto — I was confronted by a homeless man. In fact, I had to step over him because he was rolled up …
by Paul Craig Roberts / November 14th, 2015
At 7pm on Friday 13th we do not have much information about the “terrorist attacks” in Paris other than that Paris is closed down like Boston was after the “Boston Marathon Bombing,” also a suspected false flag event.
Possibly believable evidence will be presented that the Paris attacks were real terrorist attacks. However, what do refugees have to gain from making themselves unwelcome with acts of violence committed against the host country, and where do refugees in France obtain automatic weapons and bombs? Indeed, where would the French themselves obtain them?
The millions of refugees from Washington’s wars who are overrunning Europe …
by John R. Hall / November 13th, 2015
Awakening once again to songs of mourning doves and the clanging of numerous church bells, I’m counting my last few precious days here in the heart of Mexico. Ornately painted calacas (skulls), elegantly clad skeletal Catrinas, ten foot tall mojigangas (giant puppets), fireworks and parades of Dia de Los Muertos are finished. Now it’s back to life as usual the streets of San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato.
My wife and I love this beautiful little city. What’s not to love? Eternal spring weather, picturesque countryside. A World Heritage Site with some of the most painstakingly preserved Spanish Colonial architecture anywhere. And …
The problem with half-measures
by Jason Hirthler / November 13th, 2015
Recently there was a chalk picture drawn on a particular sidewalk in Greenwich Village—a colorful image of Hillary Clinton. Her face was upturned, much like Obama’s starry gaze in 2008. Her cosmetic upgrades this summer—dutifully rendered in finely contoured jowls—returned to her cheeks a faint glow of youth. Her shut-lipped grin, a poor man’s Mona Lisa, gave her face a humble cast, almost grandmotherly in its saintliness. The picture got its point across: here was someone we could believe in. Had there been a companion portrait of Bernie Sanders gazing up at Hillary, it would have only been appropriate.
Like this …
