Latest articles
USA Freedom Act replaces USA Patriot Act, sort of, and so?
by William Boardman / June 9th, 2015
0ne needs a wicked sense of humor these days to fully appreciate the present moment in American history, as a supposedly free country debates which police state practices to adopt, while ignoring any thought that maybe the United States should not be a police state at all.
For a brief shining moment early on June 1, parts of the USA Patriot Act expired and, miraculously, the republic remained standing. Now the lapsed portions of the USA Patriot Act have been replaced by the USA Freedom Act, and officials from President Obama on down are saying things like “…
by Robert Hunziker / June 9th, 2015
In the farthest regions of the north, the Russians have already drilled, but the Americans are coming. Shell makes preparation to drill. So it is, the most distant Northern Hemisphere will never be the same.
Not only that, but astonishingly, Russia is doubling down on its risky energy play with grandiose plans to power Arctic drill rigs with floating nuclear reactors. Indeed, the oil thirsty Russians plan to mass-produce floating nuclear reactors once their original model proves itself. Imagine that, an Arctic Sea filled with floating nuclear reactors used to power oil exploration drill rigs. Well now, what to say, other …
by John Scales Avery / June 9th, 2015
As we stand in line for security checks at airports, we may have the distinct feeling that we are being herded like cattle. Air travel has changed, and has become much less pleasant, since the fear of terrorism replaced the fear of communism as the excuse that governments give for diverting colossal sums of money from desperately needed social goals to the bottomless pit of war. Innocent grandmothers, and their grandchildren, are required to remove their shoes and belts. Everyone is treated like a criminal. It is a humiliating experience. We may well feel like dumb driven cattle; and the …
by Kathy Kelly / June 8th, 2015
Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world… Shall we say the odds are too great? … the struggle is too hard? … and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message — of longing, of hope, of solidarity… The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.
— Dr. Martin Luther King, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence“, Riverside Church, New York City, April 4, 1967
Kabul — I’ve spent a …
by The Real News Network (TRNN) / June 7th, 2015
With the text of Trans-Pacific Partnership hidden from the public, TRNN’s Jessica Desvarieux speaks to those who have read the document and who say this level of secrecy is unprecedented.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=123&v=Um_dKgUAv00
by John Scales Avery / June 7th, 2015
I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional.
— Barak Obama, speech, 10 September 2013
It seems to be possible for nations, and the majority of their citizens, to commit the worst imaginable atrocities, including torture, murder and genocide, while feeling that what they are doing is both noble and good.. Some understanding of how this is possible can be gained by watching the 3-part BBC documentary, “The History of Racism”. ((Part 1, part 2, part 3.))
The series was broadcast by BBC Four in …
When the Killers conduct the Autopsy, don’t expect the Truth
by Kevin Annett / June 6th, 2015
Whenever the winners of a war write its official history and pronounce absolution on themselves, the results are both tragic, and comic. Canada demonstrated that in spades this past week when the government-run Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) released its “official” report on the homegrown church-and-state slaughter of thousands of native children in the so-called “Indian residential school” system.
Despite the rapturous attention the TRC report received in the world press, it said nothing we didn’t already know, and that I personally didn’t broadcast to a deaf world as far back as June of 1998. What the TRC report did do …
The Israeli government has indicated it is preparing to take a hard line against human rights groups, the media and Supreme Court
by Jonathan Cook / June 6th, 2015
A month into resuming his premiership, Benjamin Netanyahu has been accused of an increasingly autocratic rule, as critics warn that his new government is preparing to take a draconian line against Israeli institutions opposing its policies.
Israel’s new right wing coalition has already indicated it will make a priority of tackling three fronts – human rights organisations, the media and the Supreme Court. All repeatedly clashed with Netanyahu during his previous terms in office.
The leader of the parliamentary opposition, Isaac Herzog, sounded the alarm last month, cautioning Netanyahu not to “raise a hand” against the judiciary, media or the country’s minorities, …
Colombia, Iran, China, Cuba, Ukraine, Yemen, and Syria
by James Petras / June 5th, 2015
On May 21, 2015, the Colombian Air Force (FAC) bombed the base camp of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) killing 26 guerrillas. Three days later the FAC bombed other FARC bases killing 14 more guerrillas. This was part of an official offensive, launched by President Juan Manuel Santos, the US’s most loyal client in Latin America. Among the victims were FARC Commanders Jairo Martinez, a participant in the ongoing peace negotiations in Havana and Roman Ruiz.
Colombia works closely with the US, through Bernard …
by Ralph Nader / June 5th, 2015
Our nation has a penchant for creating unnecessary complexity and obstacles for its people in areas such as the tax, health insurance and student debt miasmas. The prison industry adds to this with what it euphemistically calls “collateral consequences.” In simple language, this means a series of state-based statutory punishments – rooted in the medieval English practice of “civil death” – that greet ex-felons who have served their time and paid their debt to society.
Our country’s overall policy is that once punished, ex-felons are released from prison to be free to re-integrate themselves into society as normal productive human-beings, yet …
by Jonathan Power / June 5th, 2015
The Russian European dreamers have included Pushkin, Lenin, Gorbachev and, until relatively recently, President Vladimir Putin. They have all seen their country’s future as part of the “European house”.
But history and events have not been kind to Russia. Napoleon’s invasion, revolution, two world wars, Stalin’s communism and, most recently, the expansion of NATO, have shattered the dream again and again.
At the end of the Cold War and with agreement on the NATO-Russia Founding Act it seemed that big steps towards that goal were being taken. First, Russia would have a seat at NATO’s table. Later it would join …
Can SYRIZA Put Forward a Progressive Alternative?
by John Milios / June 5th, 2015
The Nexus of Economic Crisis and Austerity
1.1 Austerity as a cost saving capitalist strategy
After the outbreak of the 2008 global economic crisis, extreme austerity policies prevailed in many parts of the developed capitalist world, especially in the European Union (EU) and the Euro-area (EA). Austerity has been criticized as an irrational policy, which further deteriorates the economic crisis by creating a vicious cycle of falling effective demand, recession and over-indebtedness. However, these criticisms can hardly explain why this ‘irrational’ or ‘wrong’ policy persists, despite its ‘failures’. ((For a critique of these approaches see: D. P. Sotiropoulos, J. Milios, S. Lapatsioras, …
by Eman Khammas / June 5th, 2015
The situation of Iraqi refugees, both those who have fled to other countries and those internally displaced, is disastrous. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, said that there are 15 million refugees in Iraq and Syria living in unimaginable conditions. Refugees lack the most basic necessities such as food, water, and shelter. They are constantly subjected to humiliating treatment by security forces, including bribes and beatings. The situation is the worst for the most vulnerable: children, the elderly, and people with special needs.
A Human Rights Watch report in mid-May stated that 3.7 million Iraqis have been internally …
by Allen W. Smith / June 5th, 2015
During a presentation to the Peter J. Peterson Foundation’s, Fiscal, 2015, Summit last month, former Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, was asked about the status of the Social Security Trust Fund. Here is his response, “The notion that we have a trust fund is nonsense—that trust fund has no meaning whatsoever. The trust fund is a meaningless instrument that has no function. Greenspan’s comments were first reported by Nicholas Brady in the May 30, 2015 issue of PJ Media.
Greenspan’s words come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the history of Social …
by Douglas Valentine / June 5th, 2015
Lia Tarachansky’s heart-wrenching documentary, On the Side of the Road, reveals the Big Lie at the heart of the myth of the creation of Israel.
Tarachansky had to break through a lot of personal and social barriers to produce this often infuriating film about the Nakba, the “catastrophe” of 1948, when approximately 750,000 Palestinians (a number that has grown to 1.5 million refugees living in camps over the ensuing 67 years) were expelled from their homes and forced into squalid camps, where they are denied basic human rights.
Tarachansky’s toughest challenge was overcoming her own deeply ingrained assumptions. Born in …
by Jacob Ertel / June 5th, 2015
If you’ve ridden the New York City subway recently, you’ve likely been confronted with a host of new, paternalistically worded signage. An embodiment of the broken windows theory of policing that criminalizes small-scale misdemeanors with the ostensible goal of restoring order to a “city out of control“, these signs scold subway goers for infamous dance routines, primping, and, perhaps most notably, ‘manspreading.’ Most recently the banning of ‘manspreading’ has made news due to the arrest of two Latino men, “presumably because they were taking up more than one seat and therefore inconveniencing other riders.”
The MTA’s outlawing …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / June 5th, 2015
We are in the final battle of the year to stop Congress from handing power over to the White House to fundamentally alter global governance in a way that further empowers multinational corporations and strips us of our democratic rights.
Washington, DC – The movement to stop Fast Track, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and other rigged trade agreements is huge and very diverse. It has delayed previous attempts over the past few years by Congress to pass Fast Track legislation that would allow the President to sign international agreements like the TPP, Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trade …
A flagrant disregard for democracy
by Yves Engler / June 4th, 2015
With flagrant disregard for democracy, the Harper Conservatives recently signed a deal with a transition regime to circumscribe future governments’ capacity to regulate Canadian miners. But, those victimized are impoverished Africans so the move elicited little reaction.
In April Harper’s Conservatives signed a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) with the interim government of Burkina Faso. According to the official release, the West African nation was represented at the signing ceremony in Ottawa by Prime Minister Yacouba Isaac Zida, who was deputy commander of the presidential guard when Blaise Compaore was ousted by popular protest last October. A U.S. and …
Regime change by any means necessary
by Jason Hirthler / June 4th, 2015
Once during the Q&A session of a lecture, Noam Chomsky was asked when it was okay to trust one’s own government. Without a moment’s hesitation, he replied that you could and should never trust one’s government. Never. At the time, I thought perhaps the great dissident had for once overstated the case. But the more one learns about the intrigues of Washington, the more apt his radical precept seems.
When the official history of the realm is one day written, it may contain several chapters that establish President Barack Obama as a great flag-bearer of liberty, free trade, and economic recovery. …
by Graham Peebles / June 4th, 2015
The vast majority of India’s 1.3 billion people live in its 630,000 villages. They have seen little or no benefit from the country’s economic growth; over 80% do not have ‘approved sanitation’ according to UNICEF, and are forced to defecate in public; village health care, where it exists at all, is poor and inaccessible; education is basic, with large class sizes and schools lacking desks and chairs, let alone books.
The caste system dominates all areas of life, and, despite the fact that the Constitution of India prohibits discrimination based on caste, violent exploitation and prejudice are the norm. …
by Kim Petersen / June 4th, 2015
I have been amazed by the rosy images so many Chinese youth hold of the West. Chinese Communist Party (CPC) officials are faced with an unenviable task. The CPC needs to provide jobs and a decent standard of living for the Chinese people, and these goals can come in conflict. The CPC has delivered in terms of improving the economy and pulling hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty. However, the environment has suffered as a consequence. The CPC does not hide this fact (it is after all pretty hard to hide air pollution and water pollution) and publishes …
A Case Study in Distortion and Bias on Syria
by Rick Sterling / June 4th, 2015
Introduction
Frontline is an influential television program which examines important foreign and domestic issues. The shows tend to be technically well done – combining concise writing with compelling video. Many North Americans watch and have their beliefs shaped by Frontline documentaries.
Last week Public Broadcasting System channels across North America broadcast the Frontline special titled “Obama at War”. The 52 minute video portrays the following:
* Origins of the Syrian conflict
* Response of the Obama administration
* Evolution of the conflict
* The run-up and response to alleged chemical attacks in 2013
* Emergence of ISIS, Nusra and other extremist groups
* Where is the conflict headed? …
by James Hoover / June 3rd, 2015
Is there a chargeable offense in Western jurisprudence, some level of murder, depraved indifference, or, perhaps, reckless disregard of human life (See NY law) that can be ascribed to so-called public servants who inflict undue harm, even death, due to their decision making? Much power and control is in their hands, much potential for abuse, and too much self-serving behavior.
For the police, it’s “protect and serve,” applying to the people they are pledged to serve, not to do unwarranted harm. For most of the rest at various levels of government, it is to abide by laws, ultimately, the Constitution, …
by Yves Engler / June 3rd, 2015
In their bid to brand Canada a “warrior nation”, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives seek to glorify Canadian military history, regardless of its horrors.
On Saturday Canada’s Minister of Veteran Affairs released a statement to mark “113 years since the end of the South African war.” Erin O’Toole said, “Canada commemorates all those who served in South Africa, contributing to our proud military history.”
But the Boer War was a brutal conflict to strengthen British colonial authority in Africa, which ultimately led to racial apartheid. In the late 1800s the Boers, descendants of Dutch settlers, increasingly found themselves at odds …
by Ramzy Baroud / June 3rd, 2015
No matter what Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas does, his popularity is declining. In some ways, Abbas’ threshold for popularity was really never impressive to begin with, a trend that is unlikely to change in the near future.
But now that a power struggle in his Fatah party is looming, and his two-decade investment in the ‘peace process’ scheme has proven to be fruitless, Abbas is doing what he should have done a long time ago: internationalize the Palestinian struggle, and break away from the confines of American influence and double-standard ‘diplomacy’.
Considering Abbas’ grim legacy among Palestinians, his leading …
The Corporate Treadmill Keeps a Lid on Things
by William A. Blunden / June 3rd, 2015
As the economy in Europe festers the New York Times reports that the ranks of the Eurozone’s unemployed are finding solace in a curious parallel economy populated by thousands of counterfeit businesses known as “practice firms.” This alternate universe doesn’t actually produce tangible goods or services, rather it offers people with unpaid positions that foster a sense of routine, structure, and personal connection. And while participating in this bogus job market may offer some relief on a superficial level the tendrils of social control are visible to those who know where to look.
Originally designed to offer job training in …
by Paul Craig Roberts / June 3rd, 2015
Washington’s attack on world soccer is following the script of Washington’s attack on the Russian-hosted Sochi Olympics. The difference is that Washington couldn’t stop the Olympics from being held in Sochi, and was limited to scaring off westerners with lies and propaganda. In the current scandal orchestrated by Washington, Washington intends to use its takeover of FIFA to renege on FIFA’s decision that Russia host the next World Cup.
This is part of Washington’s agenda of isolating Russia from the World.
This Washington-orchestrated scandal stinks to high heaven. It seems obvious that the FIFA officials have been arrested for political reasons and …
by Adnan Al-Daini / June 3rd, 2015
I have always believed, perhaps naively, that in a democracy, if a system is shown to be manifestly unjust and unfair, then those who have the power to address the problem will respond positively. Action will then follow to address the grievance. Alas, this often is not the case.
Take the case of reforming the “first-past-the-post” electoral system in Britain. The change to some form of proportional representation has been argued about for decades. I remember the Jenkins’ commission, chaired by Roy Jenkins, one of four senior Labour politicians dubbed the “gang of four”, who left the party in …
by Norman Ball / June 3rd, 2015
A leading spokesperson for the lobbying reform community predicts the 2016 election will galvanize fresh anti-corruption initiatives.
Craig Holman, Ph.D., Government Affairs Lobbyist for the advocacy group Public Citizen was on the job when the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal broke in 2005. He went on to play a major role in the legislation assembled in the scandal’s wake, 2007’s amendment to the 1995 Lobbying Disclosure Act, The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act or LOGA. Suffice to say Holman was feeling déjà vu all over again when I sat down with him recently.
First though, a brief …
Paul Krugman Of The New York Times and Gary Younge of the Guardian
by Media Lens / June 3rd, 2015
Paul Krugman and Gary Younge are two of the most honest commentators currently writing in two of the best American and British newspapers. The extent of their truth-telling tells us much about the current state of free speech.
Paul Krugman is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University and a columnist for the New York Times. He is regularly cited as a courageous, honest commentator challenging power. In 2008, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Gary Younge is an award-winning progressive journalist, one of the Guardian‘s highly-respected counterparts to Krugman.
‘A Frank Discussion’
If we take a step …
