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Throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia, right-wing governments have increasingly adopted extremist socio-economic policies, slashing social expenditures, labor and welfare legislation, while increasing corporate subsidies and reducing taxes for the elite.
           
The right-wing has launched increasingly reckless military interventions via-invasions, proxy wars and massive weapon build-ups on the frontiers of Russia, China and Iran, while engaging in military provocations.
           
In this essay we will outline the scope and depth of right-wing extremism on a global scale, analyze its consequences and then evaluate the successes or failures of the ‘hard right’. In discussing the rise of hard-right socio-economic regimes and …

Over the past decade fundamental changes have taken place in Southern Europe, which have broken with previous political alignments, resulting in the virtual disappearance of traditional leftist ’parties, the decline of trade unions and the emergence of ‘middle class radicalism’.

New political movements, purportedly on the Left, no longer are based on class conscious workers nor are they embedded in the class struggle. Likewise on the right, greater attention is paid to escalating the repressive capacity of the state instead of state intervention in pursuit of economic …

Kabul — Outside the windows of the room where I sleep here in Kabul, the Afghan Peace Volunteer (APV) women’s community maintains a small walled garden filled with roses.  The community planted tomatoes, cilantro and greens. An apricot tree grows in one corner, a mulberry tree in another. The prayer Afghan Peace Volunteer (APV) call, chanted from a nearby mosque, awakens me just before dawn. Light appears in the sky around four, and soon after, the doves and neighborhood children begin to stir. Normal activities and routines persist here in Afghanistan, despite the decades of war and impoverishment.  Military helicopters …

A report issued by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) this week provided a jarring statistical glimpse at the unprecedented crisis facing 59.5 million people who are currently displaced. With ongoing wars and sectarian conflicts raging in Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, South Sudan and Somalia, and record numbers moving in search of economic betterment, an additional 8.1 million people were uprooted in 2014. If all of the world’s refugees were to form one independent country, it would be the 24th largest, just behind Italy and ahead of South Africa. This country would contain .8% of the global population, …

Donald Trump, the bombastic builder of Trump towers and Trump gambling casinos is moving from his reality TV show to the theater of presidential elections. If he survives the first three months of mass media drubbing him and his notorious affliction of ‘leaving no impulsive opinion behind,’ he’s going to be trouble for the other fifteen or so Republican presidential candidates.

Already the commentators have derided his massive egotitis – he said “I” 195 times in his announcement speech, not counting the 28 times he said “my” or “mine” or the 22 mentions of “me.” But Trump revels in self-promotion and, …

Oscar Wilde’s assertions on the degradation of man under capitalism remain as relevant today as it did over a century ago. His essay, “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” tackles the inherent demoralizing nature of charity under capitalism in modern society. Wilde’s critique serves as a crucial starting point for the feel-good campaigns that are ubiquitous today.

While altruism itself is a practice based on selflessness, the fundamental issue is the way in which altruistic acts are carried out under capitalism – the very foundation of inequality remains unaddressed and unquestioned by many. Capitalism has created the problems that …

At the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), in Los Angeles, a gigantic, carnivorous flag with torn ends was waving in an artificial wind created by enormous propellers.

There were no visitors at the exhibition. For a while I thought that in all this huge space I was totally alone. But soon I noticed two figures in black torn dresses, moving slowly, in semi-darkness, desperately clinging to the walls. Backs bent, they passed by the bookstore right near the place where someone had put a small sign on the wall that said, “I cannot breath!”

…

Julian Assange, founder and editor of WikiLeaks, has now been a refugee in the Ecuadoream embassy in London for three years. The key issue in his extraordinary incarceration is justice. He has been charged with no crime. The first Swedish prosecutor dismissed the misconduct allegations regarding two women in Stockholm in 2010. The second Swedish prosecutor’s actions were and are demonstrably political. Until recently, she refused to come to London to interview Assange. Finally, when the British government almost pleaded with her to come, she agreed. She has now cancelled her trip. It is a farce, but one with grim …

A currency crisis is coming to the US and it’s only a matter of when, not if. Many have been warning about it for years, from politician Ron Paul to economist Peter Schiff to many other voices in the alternative media. It’s a mathematical certainty, and a question of when, not if. Recent events, within the US and abroad, are beginning to indicate that it’s going to happen sooner rather than later. No one knows exactly when; there are way more predictions that don’t come true than those that do. However, making an accurate prediction of the exact date when the currency crisis hits is …

“The reason why we have made this decision is because we have a very strong view: if you’ve left this country to join a terrorist army in the Middle East, we don’t want you.”  These were Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s words in response to the Cabinet dissent that has characterised the debate about stripping Australian citizenship from those believed (though not necessarily known) to be terrorists.

The proposal was always going to be riddled with problems. For one, it flies in the face of citizenship conventions internationally.  To strip citizenship is to eviscerate a legal being, casting the individual into …

George Osborne’s, Britain’s Chancellor of the exchequer, plan to enshrine permanent budget surpluses in law will chime favourably with many people. The reason is simple; most of us look at financial matters in terms of our family finances. The argument that as a family: “wouldn’t you want to pay your debts and live within your means” is a very appealing proposition. However, there is a fundamental difference between running a household budget and a government budget.

I intend to rely on my engineering and science knowledge to show the difference. In science if you want to study the behaviour …

Sometimes scrolling through your Facebook Newsfeed feels tedious — until you come across a status update that makes your breath catch, that reminds you the world isn’t as it should be. Recently, I lingered over the random dog video, and fashion dos and don’ts, before forgetting everything else when reading the following status update:

Had a roofer over to check out a leak in the roof over Alex’s bedroom. You are never going to believe what is causing the problem…A BULLET HOLE!!!!! Over my son’s room!! I won’t lie, I’m freaked out!

In the comments that followed, my friend, Suzi, detailed …

The latest, astute Media Lens alert examines the astounding regurgitation – entirely unfiltered – by the Sunday Times and the BBC of British state propaganda against Edward Snowden.

The misinformation campaign – alleging, without a shred of evidence, that the Russians and Chinese have cracked Snowden’s encrypted files, placing secret agents in harm’s way – was designed both to discredit Snowden and smooth the way for Britain to subject us to new, even more draconian surveillance.

In Britain, the only major media organisation to come out of this affair smelling of roses is the Guardian, which questioned the credibility of the allegations. …

Over the last few years the killing of unarmed African Americans including Michael Brown, Eric Garner, John Crawford, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott and Freddie Gray by agents of the state have generated massive protests against a political system that almost never punishes police violence. Activist groups like Black Lives Matter have emerged as voices on the front lines from Ferguson to Baltimore. Their message is simple: American society and the political system it has created do not value black lives the same as white lives. They draw powerful connections between the state-sanctioned use of force, a discriminatory criminal justice system, mass …

Governments and the illiberal cherish Magna Carta not despite its lack of legal significance, but because of it.

— David Allen Green, Foreign Policy, June 15, 2015

Idolatry is the natural consequence of abuse and disregard.  Forget something, and revere it. Edification entails that no regard need be had to substance.  When human rights conventions make it into the political argot, cited by the very individuals who are controlled by them, we know that a degree of amnesia and calculation has set in. They are the last ones who are interested in what those documents enshrine.

Magna Carta has suffered more than most. …