Latest articles
by David Swanson / July 26th, 2015
Israel is trying to expel the population of a village for the crime of not being Jewish, the same crime for which Israel bombs the people of Gaza for a month or so every few years and blockades them in between these bursts of violence.
Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee declares that making peace with Iran amounts to marching Israelis “to the door of the oven.”
Guess which of the two stories will get more coverage!
A crime of over 70 years ago, part of a war that in my unscientific estimate forms the single most common theme of U.S. historical …
by James Petras / July 26th, 2015
The Greek people’s efforts to end the economic depression, recover their sovereignty and reverse the regressive socio-economic policies, which have drastically reduced living standards, have been thrice denied.
First, the denial came as tragedy: When the Greek majority elected Syriza to government and their debts increased, the economy plunged further into depression and unemployment and poverty soared. The Greek people voted for Syriza believing its promises of ‘a new course’. Immediately following their victory, Syriza reneged on their promise to restore sovereignty – and end the subjugation …
by The Real News Network (TRNN) / July 26th, 2015
Aboriginal Legal Service of Toronto’s Christa Big Canoe explains why government policies are leaving Indigenous women four times more likely to be murdered than non-indigenous women and what can be done about it.
https://youtu.be/lTL__A1UT-Y
by Adrian Kuzminski / July 26th, 2015
Something’s profoundly wrong with our global financial system. Pope Francis is only the latest to raise the alarm: “Human beings and nature must not be at the service of money. Let us say no to an economy of exclusion and inequality, where money rules, rather than service. That economy kills. That economy excludes. That economy destroys Mother Earth.”
What the Pope calls “an economy of exclusion and inequality, where money rules” is widely evident. What is not so clear is how we got into this situation, and what to do about it.
Most people take our monetary system for granted, and are …
by David Swanson / July 26th, 2015
Governor Terry McAuliffe of Virginia campaigned on green energy (and I hear some people may have believed him, though I haven’t met one) and then immediately backed the proposed construction of a giant fracked-gas pipeline through the mountains and farms of Virginia to carry fossil fuels from West Virginia to North Carolina.
Dominion Virginia Power paid $1.3 million this year in legal bribes to candidates’ election campaigns, more than anyone else in Virginia except the two Parties. Every single bill Dominion opposed in the legislature died. Dominion, according to the dictionary, is “the power or right of governing and controlling; sovereign …
by Mark Weiser / July 26th, 2015
The not so mysterious capitalist economy
A capitalist economy is thought to be somewhat mysterious with different theories as to how it actually works, while it’s often stated no one really understands because of its “complexity”. The complexity issue, or excuse, is what we hear while economists and politicians continue the game of charades by not defining America’s political economic reality for what it is. The real economy itself is not complicated, but what makes it seem complicated are the laws in place along with various invisible “products” and practices which are designed to extract wealth from the real economy.
Defining the …
by Nizar Visram / July 25th, 2015
On July 16 this year protests erupted outside Greek parliament as lawmakers were approving further harsh austerity plan in exchange for a third European bailout. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras won by 229 votes to 64 while 32 members of his own Syriza party voted against the measures, including his ex-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis.
The vote took place after a fiery debate when Tsipras energetically defended his stand under threat of resignation.
The parliamentary approval came despite the fact that, on 5 July 2015, people rejected the reforms in a referendum. They said ‘No’ (Oxi) to retirement age increases, tax hikes, cuts …
Shameless Government minister hightails it from an angry crowd protesting against the 'hurt and misery' of savage cuts that are pushing millions into poverty and hunger.
by Stuart Littlewood / July 25th, 2015
It was not your usual celebration to mark the launch of a new venture. While Secretary of State for Scotland David ‘Fluffy’ Mundell was opening a food bank upstairs from a baker’s in Dumfries town centre, noisy demonstrators gathered in the street outside demanding he came down to explain himself. But ‘Fluffy’ chose to treat his constituents with contempt and slink out the back door under police protection and into a waiting car.
Photo by Stuart Littlewood
I was witnessing another extraordinary moment in the Tories’ suicide mission in Scotland. Mundell, …
by John R. Hall / July 25th, 2015
The Hawaiian language is simple yet complex. Originally an unwritten language, it was translated and put to letters by the early Christian missionary intruders about 200 years ago. The alphabet was only one of a basketful of gifts which arrived with the first Bible-thumpers. Those presents included a myriad of mainland diseases, a dress code, The Bible itself, and the wonders of capitalism. Only a dozen letters were necessary. All the vowels plus h,k,l,m,n,p, & w. Vowel-intensive. Many words have multiple and diverse meanings.
“Kanaka maoli” is a good example. To those who consider themselves to be native Hawaiians it means: Full-blooded Hawaiian person. But kanaka maoli …
Pilot Program will Begin in US Pacific Command
by John Stanton / July 24th, 2015
In an exclusive interview with General Joseph Dunford, likely to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 1 October 2015, he discussed the Pentagon’s newest and boldest program: The Aquatic Terrain System (ATS).
Look. With a successful ATS we could joint-operate with Black Sea Sprat and F-&^% with Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. But first we have to understand the way they operate and what they want in return for working with us. It’s a plus-plus situation. That same logic applies wherever there is water. Did you know that 70 percent of the Earth is water? I’m going to push …
The End of Difference
by Binoy Kampmark / July 24th, 2015
Much writing has been spent on the wonders of how the supposedly progressive side of politics has bedded down all too intimately with the conservative, Right side of the aisle. The conservatives – or let us call them reactionary Tories – have been insinuating themselves into the party manifestos of the left for years.
It was Britain’s Tony Blair who demonstrated how Margaret Thatcher’s hemlock had become his blood. Under the slogan of “modernisation” and various workshopped banalities, New Labour moved into the highest form of technocracy imaginable. The technocrat, by definition, prides pragmatic resolution over …
Why are some people in Massachusetts suddenly Flying it?
by Keith Harmon Snow / July 24th, 2015
Some neighbors in our predominantly white western rural Massachusetts town of Williamsburg have hoisted the confederate battle flag up their flag pole and displayed it on the wall of their business. Why would some Yankee from rural western Massachusetts choose to fly this symbol of divisiveness and hatred? And why now, after it has been further tarnished by the egregious hate crimes committed in South Carolina and the resurgence of church burnings in the southern United States?
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For many years I have seen the confederate battle flag …
by Andre Vltchek / July 24th, 2015
I have always liked this country of red earth, mighty rivers and rough cobblestone streets. I have liked its bougainvillea, its long silent nights, and its endless open spaces.
But almost everything that could went wrong for the Paraguayan people, or at least for its indigenous majority.
Before Evo Morales became the President, Bolivia had been the most destitute country in South America. Paraguay was slightly “above it” – the second poorest nation. Now, most likely, it is the most deprived.
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It is pitch dark outside, and the road is flooded. As in other extreme right wing countries worldwide, from Indonesia to Kenya, …
by T.P. Wilkinson / July 24th, 2015
At this site I have already reviewed scholarship and recent history with which I would otherwise seek to illustrate my position. For the sake of brevity I will refrain here from submitting the entire indictment again.
However, the “Greatest Show on Earth” is starting to roll into a town near you — thankfully not one near me — and with it the usual battalions of charlatans and hypocrites will also come, those waving what George Carlin so poignantly called “America’s greatest theatrical prop” (aka as Bible, Holy Scripture etc.)
I’m not talking about the Fundamentalists or those of the Jerry Falwell generation …
by Robert Hunziker / July 23rd, 2015
All across America, from West Quoddy Head, Maine, the easternmost point, to Cape Wrangell, Alaska, the westernmost point, a distance of 3,625 miles, people are confronted by politics, Democrats and Republicans, but do they know the two parties merged into a neoliberal juggernaut some time ago? It’s Purple Politics, a de facto single party.
America’s illusory two-party system is so badly corrupted and perverted with such lowly debauchery, undermining any semblance of democracy, it is like a reign of terror that has emerged right underneath people’s noses. There is no election when both parties are one. Similar to the Communist Party …
by Graham Peebles / July 23rd, 2015
Given the catalogue of calamities raging round the world, one could be forgiven for concluding that we are a civilisation in terminal decline. The socio-economic system, which promotes negative divisive ideals, dominates all areas of life and is the cause of much of our difficulties. It is an outworn, unjust way of organising society; does not serve the majority of people – the 99.9%; and is causing far-reaching damage to the planet that, unless radical action is taken, may well prove irreparable.
The environmental crisis is the greatest of a range of interconnected problems facing humanity, the answers to which are …
by James Hoover / July 23rd, 2015
It seems that Republicans would rather cut their throats than to offer affirmation to anything that President Obama might do or favor. It’s not just a personal thing. It’s political. It’s spiteful, and in some cases, it’s racist.
Don’t tell me ideological. They have rejected Obama policies that they themselves favored the day before Obama proposed them. Even, Mitt Romney, the architect of Romney Care, which Obamacare was patterned after, rejected/demonized/vilified the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) in 2012, along with every other Republican. It’s not ideological.
So now it is a nuclear deal with Iran. None of the eyes, sporting the baying …
by J.B. Gerald / July 22nd, 2015
On November 12, 2014 the American Psychological Association commissioned a study of the organization’s relationship with its own ethics guidelines, the national security establishment’s interrogation practices, and torture. Now released, the report by David H. Hoffman and others ((David H. Hoffman et al, “Report to the Special Committee of the Board of Directors of the American Psychological Association: Independent Review Relating to APA Ethics Guidelines, National Security Interrogations, and Torture,” Sidley Austin LLP, July 2, 2015.)) confirms the APA’s complicity in Department of Defense programs and the APA’s intentional misrepresentation of its role, deluding its membership and the American people. David …
by Manuel Garcia Jr. / July 22nd, 2015
Why has Donald Trump surged in popularity with Republican Party partisans?
The two stout legs on which the Republican Party firmly stands are bigotry and greed. In order to grasp control of American public attention to meet the demands of its two core principles, the Republican Party reaches out with a left hand of lying and a right hand of hypocrisy.
The candidates seeking to be the Republican Party’s nominee for the presidency of the United States in the 2016 election are competing with one another to win the affections of like-minded and cash-contributing voters (euphemistically called “conservatives”) by projecting what they …
by Andrew Gavin Marshall / July 22nd, 2015
From the outbreak of Europe’s debt crisis in 2010, Germany and the Troika institutions of the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF have come to wield immense influence over the continent and the populations within it. This video examines the individuals and institutions of power in Europe.
https://youtu.be/ro8WOFSgmOo
by Dru Oja Day and Yves Engler / July 21st, 2015
Election season can be the worst time to be a radical. Which is to say, it’s tough to be someone who believes that fundamental systemic change is needed when the parties that have our democratic imagination in a sleeper hold are sucking the air out of the living rooms of the nation pitching their tweaks to the status quo.
There’s not much to do for those who believe in dealing with environmental destruction, colonial pillage, alienation and inequality: the fundamental features of capitalism. If you see radicals out and about during election season, they’re either eating ballots or sporting a cynical …
by Barb Weir / July 21st, 2015
As many of you already know, Alison Weir (no relation, and she pronounces her name WEER while mine is pronounced WAH-YER) and her organization, If Americans Knew (IAK), have been expelled from the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (USCEIO). I decided to get to the bottom of this important development, so I got in touch with Rube Joshner at the USCEIO, who agreed to be interviewed on condition of anonymity.
Barb Weir: For our readers who may not know, could you please explain why the USCEIO expelled IAK and Alison Weir from your organization?
Rube Joshner: Alison Weir violated our …
But Does Anyone Hear Pope Francis?
by John Stanton / July 21st, 2015
Though not explicitly stated, America’s most powerful instrument of national power is Capitalism. The pistons that power Neoliberal American Capitalism are: Diplomacy, Information, Military, Economic, Financial, Law Enforcement, Intelligence and Human Capital/People. The clearest exposition of the instruments of national power on record can be found in the US Army’s 2008 Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare Manual.
No assessment of American political, economic, international, cultural or military strategy/action can be stamped “legitimate” without reference to, and understanding of, these Olympian tools of power that America’s leaders have at their disposal. Combined they are the elements that form the spear and …
by James Hoover / July 21st, 2015
Are we special? Scientists have been asking that question for perhaps centuries. In various philosophical and religious ways, we have too.
The truth is that we don’t really know. Politicians, more assuredly, American politicians, feel obligated to say that America and Americans are special. The GOP, especially, bases its politics on a version of America having jingoistic trump (not with a big T) cards, one seen especially with the George W. Bush administration.
Americans justified an imperialistic vault into the West based on what we called “Manifest Destiny,” the belief that we are so special that displacing “inferiors,” more primitive than us, …
by Roshan Kissoon / July 21st, 2015
The recent celebration of two hundred years of Gurkha recruitment into the British Army in London, at the Royal Chelsea Hospital on the 11th of June, attended by the Queen and various dignitaries and celebrities, was not really a cause of celebration. In fact, it is disgraceful and a should be a source of shame for the British, the Nepalese, the Indians, and any country that has ever been invaded by the British Army and was ever part of the British Empire. Its time to call for an end to this outdated colonial practice.
The Gurkhas were first recruited by …
Email to the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
by Free Palestine Movement / July 21st, 2015
Please be advised that the Free Palestine Movement resigns from the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, effective immediately.
We resign because of the disgraceful, disrespectful and unjust treatment of Alison Weir and her organization, If Americans Knew, in the procedures to expel her from the Campaign on the spurious grounds of insufficient avoidance of anti-Semitic persons and institutions.
We resign because it is clear that the decision had been made to expel IAK before the proceedings to do so had ever begun.
We resign because, in defiance of the most basic principles of justice, Ms. Weir was not given the …
by Alton C. Thompson / July 21st, 2015
In her This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate (2014), Naomi Klein states:
What is really preventing us from putting out the fire that is threatening to burn down our collective house? I think the answer is far more simple than many have led us to believe: we have not done the things that are necessary to lower emissions because those things fundamentally conflict with deregulated capitalism, the reigning ideology for the entire period we have been struggling to find a way out of this crisis. (p. 16)
By posing climate change as a battle between capitalism and the planet, I …
by Chris Wright / July 21st, 2015
One doesn’t have to be a brilliant social analyst to see that the contemporary world order is doomed, destined to start visibly crumbling within the next decade or two at the latest. The neoliberal system, in fact the corporate capitalist system, is radically unsustainable. It is too unstable, too universally rapacious, too humanly exploitative and environmentally destructive, too demoniacally self-consuming–for capitalism can profit from its self-immolation!–to last much longer.
Is it even necessary anymore to argue for these claims?
Capitalism means self-sabotage. Its profit-making interest lies in paying wage-earners as little as possible, and ideally in mechanizing and automating them out …
by Eric Walberg / July 21st, 2015
Kevin Barrett has become known in the US as a fearless journalist who cuts to the quick, his political and analytic skills leading to provocative, truthful explanations of our mostly inexplicable reality. He has written several books dealing with 9/11, and is currently an editor at Veterans Today, and pundit at Press TV, Russia Today, al-Etejah and other international channels. His website is TruthJihad.com. He builds on a well-established American journalistic tradition of brave exposers of government misdoings. Bill Blum and Seymour Hirsh are best known, but there are hundreds more.
Great American tradition
Blum is a legend from the 1960s, as …
by David Swanson / July 21st, 2015
Behind John Rawls’ veil of ignorance, an American ethics professor would imagine himself or herself choosing a society of wonderful economic and social justice, unheard of equality and liberty, and the “right” to “defend” itself through the counterproductive and self-destructive instrument of military empire and war. Peace isn’t permitted even in utopia, in U.S. academe. Why? Because John Rawls murdered Japanese people “in defense” and occupied their nation as philanthropy.
And why do others support other wars? Principally because of where they happen to have been born and what flavor of fairy tales they have been told as children. Which ancient …
