Latest articles
by Ramzy Baroud / September 9th, 2015
What does it mean to be a ‘liberal Arab’? Even in the West, definitions of the ‘liberal’ vary.
In the American context, the demarcation of the ‘liberal’ overlaps cultural and political lines. Republicans use the term in a derogatory way to describe their opponents. Watch Fox News to understand. (On second thought, please do not watch Fox News!). Europeans are hardly keen on the term altogether. Many often use the term ‘progressive’ to liberate the ‘liberal’ from its political baggage and imprecise cultural insinuations.
So when the newly-launched Huffington Post Arabi – the Arabic edition of …
by Ajamu Baraka / September 9th, 2015
Rosa Clemente, who ran for Vice President with Cynthia McKinney in 2008, reminds us that Cornel West and many other notable left activists and intellectuals who have given lip-service to the need for an independent left politics in the U.S., dutifully lined-up to give their support to Barack Obama. For many of these leftists, the rationale offered to support the Democrat candidate wasn’t even about the traditional “lesser of two evils,” but a strange belief that somehow this individual, selected and pushed by powerful forces within the liberal democrat establishment and some defectors from the Clinton DLC wing of the …
Rigging nominations may or not win elections, but it’s despicable
by William Boardman / September 9th, 2015
The Democratic Party is showing some ugly faces these days, as entrenched party leaders find both their president and much of their constituency headed in directions that the “party” disapproves. From Sen. Chuck Schumer choosing to risk war to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz stifling supporters of her party’s president and the peace deal with Iran, to the insurgent candidacies of Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, party leaders find themselves leading toward goals widely rejected by others.
This is actually a hopeful sign – that there’s resistance. But the struggle to define …
Sharing a Personal Perspective
by Anthony Tarrant / September 9th, 2015
So I finally received the call I’d been dreading for years. It was about mom, of course. She’d been suffering from an illness under that quasi medical rubric “dementia” for at least nine years. That’s back when she started repeating herself noticeably, voluntarily giving up her drivers license and not helping pack for the big move to Costa Rica because the task confused her. For nine years the disease progressed relentlessly, shredding and collapsing her short, intermediate, and long term memory stacks – essentially everything that made her the extraordinary woman she was. The fortitude, commitment, …
by Edward S. Herman / September 9th, 2015
It was amusing to see Peter Baker refer to the Democratic Party legislators’ threat to President Obama’s possible “legacy” of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), often described in the media as a “free trade” agreement, although Baker here makes it only a “trade: deal” (“A Trade Deal And a Legacy,” New York Times, June 15, 2015). “Legacy” is commonly (but not invariably) used as a purr word, that expresses approval of an act or action (in contrast with a snarl or growl word), something nice one has left to posterity like a gift of property or a beneficially transforming piece of …
by Yves Engler / September 8th, 2015
Former Prime Minister Kim Campbell once said “an election is no time to discuss important issues.” But surely the opportunity to free up $40 billion while making the world a safer place ought to spark a discussion about the Canadian Navy’s role in the world.
Four years ago the Conservatives announced the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy, a $30-$40 billion effort to expand the combat fleet over three decades. But, the initiative is stalled and this is a perfect time to consider other priorities, such as putting the money into a national daycare program, building co-op/public housing, investing it in light rail …
by Kieran Kelly / September 8th, 2015
The world has suddenly realised that there is a “refugee crisis”. There are more refugees now than at any time since World War II. The number has grown three-fold since the end of 2001. The problem is treated as if it arose just recently, but it has been a long time coming. The pressure has been building and building until it has burst the dams of wilful ignorance.
Death and despair has migrated to the doorsteps of Europe. But tens of millions of people do not simply abandon home and native land for an insecure dangerous future of desperate struggle. The …
by T.P. Wilkinson / September 8th, 2015
Sometimes so much electronic data has been configured and processed from keystroke to platform software (one used to say “ink spilled” but we already have a generation that has probably never seen ink, and certainly not in fluid form) that the written equivalent of a shout is necessary. When the chattering becomes loud enough, one can scarcely avoid the breach of good manners by yelling “shut up!”.
European mass media is broadcasting in every form the language and images designed to inflame the “white” population about a massive influx of refugees, mainly from the Middle East. The fact is that NATO …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / September 8th, 2015
On Freedom’s tree there rained a withering blight,
Glory to proud Palmyra sighed adieu,
And o’er her shrines Destruction’s angel flew.
— Nicholas Michell, 1807-1880, Ruins of Many Lands
At a meeting of Foreign Ministers in Cairo in September 2002 the then Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa warned US President George W. Bush that the proposed invasion of Iraq would “open the gates of Hell … in the region.” Iraq and Syria would be the first to be engulfed in the fire.
German’s Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said it would be a “big mistake” for the United States to launch its …
by Brian Littlefair / September 8th, 2015
It’s no fun to be put in your place. It’s all the worse if you’re a big shot. Take it from the fly on the wall who watched it happen to the Asian Development Bank, the bagmen for Japanese bribes to Asian Security Council members. In retrospect, the rising sun had just begun to set. ADB came a cropper on the ground floor of the Bank of China (they don’t let foreigners upstairs.) Very good tea, insufficient time to savor it, as the whole thing was over in no time, a spanking and a bum’s rush. Pretensions popped more loudly …
A Short Fable on the Amnesic Hypocrisy of the Republican Party
by Mateo Pimentel / September 7th, 2015
Once upon a time, there was a boorish rattlesnake named Donald. He was notorious for flashing his fangs at the other desert creatures. But some were slightly demented; in fact, they were charmed by the toxicity of Donald’s hypodermic fangs. Others slowly gravitated toward Donald with the passage of time. The lore surrounding his dangerous potential drew them ever near—even to the point of mental constriction, or paralysis.
Donald hadn’t any compunction. He was highly inegalitarian by nature, and he frequently hissed about the “vermin” he viewed as lesser amongst the desert fauna. Donald was especially mercurial about lashing out at …
by John Andrews / September 7th, 2015
A vitally important remark appeared in a recent piece by the guys from the usually-excellent Media Lens. Their article was about media coverage of Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign for leadership of the Labour Party, and it opened with a reference to a recent column in The Times by Rachael Sylvester. Sylvester suggests that a victory by Jeremy Corbyn will render the Labour Party unelectable – a fairly common theme in Britain’s right-wing press, and a not uncommon opinion of many Labour Party supporters – especially the vociferous aristocracy of the so-called “new” Labour faction, anti-Corbynites such as – Blair, “Two …
by James Petras / September 6th, 2015
Right-wing politics now dominate the globe. Broadly speaking, the Right can be divided into a US-centered right-wing bloc and a variety of anti-US right-wing regimes and social forces.
The US-centered right-wing includes absolutist monarchies, like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States and Jordan; neoliberal electoral regimes and opposition parties in the European Union and Latin America and the military dictatorships of North and Sub-Sahara Africa and Thailand. Finally, there are US-armed and trained terrorists operating in Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen – which make up a kind of extra-parliamentary …
by Binoy Kampmark / September 5th, 2015
Is it not worrying in itself that European Christianity is now barely able to keep Europe Christian?
— Viktor Orbán, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 3, 2015
The Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, is getting his figures, and history, muddled. In many contexts, history is often cited, less as an opportunity to inspire than to enrage and enforce a status quo. The better spirits of men and women are left behind, and in place, fear plays takes centre stage.
The human throngs making their way to various European transit points as of this writing have struck fear into the right wing Orbán government. A …
by James Hoover / September 5th, 2015
Donald Trump is considered to be a plain-spoken, say-it-as-it-is, straight-talker, one who shoots from the hip. Media consistently describes him as a non-political candidate for president. Few mention that he is a celebrity who knows thoroughly the media ropes. And most evidence proves that he is anything but non-political, in fact, intelligent and quite media-savvy – always relentlessly on message, whatever he’s asked by reporters, never straying from his ascribed image nor from a pre-designated message.
Though more outspoken than conventional candidates, he is more attuned to the GOP-base, and appears unscripted. In effect, he is a more clever operator than …
The Bond between Israel and World Zionism
by James Petras / September 4th, 2015
The single greatest feat of Israel and its overseas missions has not been material success, or the military conquest of millions of unarmed Palestinians, it has been ideological – the widespread acceptance in the US of a doctrine that claims ‘Jews are a superior people’.
Apart from small extremist right-wing sects who exhibit visceral anti-Semitism and denigrate everything Jewish, there are very few academics and politicians willing to question this supremacist doctrine. On the contrary, there is an incurable tendency to advance oneself by accepting and embellishing on it.
…
by Ralph Nader / September 4th, 2015
Here’s an experiment to try this holiday weekend. Quiz your friends, family and acquaintances on the meaning of Labor Day. You might be surprised by the answers you hear. To many, the true meaning of Labor Day has been unfortunately lost?it’s merely a three-day vacation weekend, unless you work in retail, in which case it is, ironically, a day of work and “special” sales.
Commercialists have transformed Labor Day into a reason for shopping. The fact that Labor Day was conceived as an occasion dedicated to America’s workers and what they have endured is sadly under-acknowledged and unappreciated. (In many other …
by Mitchell Thompson / September 4th, 2015
As tensions rise in Mexico, Canada is being called on to push for reforms, but our continued inaction is – according to critics – possibly an attempt to protect business interests.
Mexico is Canada’s fifth largest trading partners, where recent events have seen an explosion of state violence. While human rights groups have called on the Harper government to press for improvements – Canada has done nothing.
Kathy Price, Campaigner for Mexico at Amnesty International Canada describes current situation in mexico as a humanitarian crisis of the sort that obligates Canada to push for change.
Luis Horacio Najera …
by Uri Avnery / September 4th, 2015
The misdeeds of Napoleon’s occupation army in Spain were not photographed. Photography had not yet been invented. The valiant fighters against the occupation had to rely on Francisco Goya for the immortal painting of the resistance.
The partisans and underground fighters against the German occupation of their countries in World War II had no time to take pictures. Even the heroic uprising of the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw was not filmed by the participants. The Germans themselves filmed their atrocities, and, being Germans, they catalogued and filed them in an orderly way.
In the meantime, photography has become common commonplace. The Israeli …
by Media Lens / September 4th, 2015
Unsurprisingly perhaps, our search of UK newspapers for the terms ‘Jeremy Corbyn’, ‘Vikings’ and ‘Mayans’ delivered only one result. After all, how could they possibly be linked? Rachel Sylvester explained in The Times on September 1:
Just as the Vikings and the Mayans brought about their own extinction by destroying the environment on which their cultures depended…
Already the heart has dropped. Is this really leading where we think it’s leading?
…so the Labour party is threatening its survival by abandoning electoral victory as a definition of success. If Labour chooses Jeremy Corbyn – a man who will never be elected …
The Disgrace of Britain’s Immigration Detention Centres
by Graham Peebles / September 3rd, 2015
Fleeing war, persecution and acute poverty, men, women and children have been arriving in Britain for generations. They come in search of peace: for work or education, and to build a decent life in a country were the rule of law is observed and human rights are respected.
Currently the largest numbers, according to Mary Bosworth, (author of Inside Immigration Detention), arrive from the sub-continent: India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. They also come from Nigeria and Jamaica, and from current and recent war zones: Syria, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. Many of those making the hazardous journey have been the victim of …
by John R. Hall / September 3rd, 2015
An antiemetic might possibly help with this little recurring problem I have. As the years roll by, the sessions seem to be getting much more severe and frequent. It doesn’t take much to kick it off. A bumper sticker with some patriotic phrase like “Proud Grandparents of a U.S. Marine”, “God Bless our Snipers” (really!), or simply “Freedom isn’t Free”. A Norman Rockwell-esque moment where an elderly veteran sporting a V.F.W. cap is vigorously shaking the hand of a uniformed pimple-faced adolescent, fresh out of boot camp, exchanging thank you’s for their service. President Obama gushing about American exceptionalism and how the U.S.A. has the finest fighting force in the history of mankind, …
by Ramzy Baroud / September 2nd, 2015
The crisis of leadership throughout Palestinian history did not start with Mahmoud Abbas and will, regrettably, be unlikely to end with his departure. Although Abbas has, perhaps, done more damage to the credibility of the Palestinian leadership than any other leader in the past, he is also a by-product of a process of political fraud that started much earlier than his expired Presidency.
Abbas’ unforeseen announcement on August 27 that he, along with a few others, will resign from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee and his call for an emergency session of the Palestine National Council (PNC) is …
The UK Labour Frontrunner’s Controversial Proposal
by Ellen Brown / September 2nd, 2015
British MP Jeremy Corbyn has proposed a “People’s QE” that has critics crying hyperinflation and supporters saying it’s about time.
Dark horse candidate Jeremy Corbyn, who is currently leading in the polls for UK Labour Party leadership, has included in his platform “quantitative easing for people.” He said in a July 22nd presentation:
The ‘rebalancing’ I have talked about here today means rebalancing away from finance towards the high-growth, sustainable sectors of the future. How do we do this? One option would be for the Bank of England to be given a new mandate to upgrade our economy to invest in new …
An Anonymous Senior Official at the White House provided the following confidential letter to us.
by John V. Walsh / September 2nd, 2015
Dear President Xi,
On September 3, your country is hosting a commemoration of the end of World War II on the 70th Anniversary of the day recognized as its termination in the Asia-Pacific. You have invited both me and President Abe of Japan. We both have chosen to refuse – just as we refused to attend the earlier commemoration of the defeat of Fascism in Moscow last Spring.
As you very well know, Jinping, if I may use your given name, this makes the United States look pretty mean spirited. And to put it plainly, your cooking up these events with Vlad …
by Jack Balkwill / September 2nd, 2015
I’d love to change the world,
But I don’t know what to do,
So I’ll leave it up to you.
— Alvin Lee and Ten Years After, I’d Love to Change the World, (From Space in Time album, 1971)
Have you ever asked yourself, “Why am I here, what is my purpose?”
The Great Masters of the East, Buddhist monks who devoted their lives to long meditations through which they claim to have discovered the secrets to our existence, believed they knew the answer: that we are here to make a better world.
In the eighth and final week of my basic meditation course I …
Is there anyone who believes that Yemeni Lives Matter?
by William Boardman / September 2nd, 2015
Saudi ground forces invaded Yemen for the first time in this war on August 27. Officially, the Saudi government characterizes the invasion as an incursion that will be limited and temporary. The Saudi government made similar representations about their terror-bombing of Yemen that began March 26 and has continued on a near-daily basis to the present.
Other foreign troops have invaded southern Yemen in support of the ousted Yemeni government.
At the same time as the Saudi invasion, the ousted Yemeni government, now talking tough from the safety of Riyadh, the Saudi capital, says …
by Salah eddine Salmi / September 1st, 2015
On September 4th Morocco will hold municipal elections, after having postponed them as a response to the political parties’ demand, and due to tremendous reluctance among citizens to register as voters. As elections approach, Moroccan society has been divided into two major groups. One that advocates participation in the elections, and another group that is in favor of boycotting the elections. As always in Morocco during the lead-up to elections, debate has been rampant on Facebook and on other social media.
Generally speaking, elections are of great significance in any democratic country. Democracy is premised on all people having the same …
Canadian Behind-the-Scenes Imperialism
by Yves Engler / September 1st, 2015
Unlike the US or France, Canada is not a leading military force in Africa. But Ottawa exerts influence through a variety of means including training initiatives.
Canadian Forces have trained hundreds of African soldiers at the Canadian Army Doctrine and Training Centre in Kingston Ontario and Lester B. Pearson Centre in Nova Scotia. Canadian forces have also directed or participated in a slew of officer training initiatives, running courses in Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, Mali among other places. In recent years Ottawa has funded and staffed various military training centres across the continent such as the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center …
by Laurie A. Couture / September 1st, 2015
I have worked as a professional in the human services and as an advocate of social justice for nearly two decades. I have worked with thousands of children and families in multiple roles including as a mental health counselor, parenting coach, social worker, educator, and mentor. I am also the proud Mom of a 21-year-old son who I adopted from the foster care system when he was 11. Through my extensive research and work with children and families over many years, I have been able to see the threads of how childhood trauma and attachment breaks in each individual family …
