Latest articles
by Ramzy Baroud / July 7th, 2015
On the “BBC This Week” program, historian Tom Holland labored to counter the argument that the so-called Islamic State should not be labeled as such: “The Islamic State”.
Holland’s logic in the program seemed more philosophical, concerned with dialectic and logic of language, and hardly situated in any proper historical context.
His comments were in response to British Prime Minister David Cameron’s objection to the BBC’s use of the phrase ‘Islamic State’. Cameron prefers ISIL – which, itself, stands for the ‘Islamic State in the Levant’ or the cynical qualifier ‘so-called’ to be placed before the phrase.
Although Holland asserts that …
by Andre Vltchek / July 7th, 2015
Greece is white, it is European, and therefore the eyes of the entire Western “progressive” world are now directed towards Athens: will its government dare to default, would Greece leave the euro-zone and eventually the European Union? As if the answer to this question could change the world; as if Athens is where the fate of humanity will be decided.
Some 10 thousand kilometers away, Ecuador is predominantly indigenous, and therefore, inhabited by ‘un-people’, to borrow from George Orwell’s colorful terminology. Battered by its own, mainly Euro-centric and pale-skinned ‘elites’ who are enjoying extremely close links with both the EU and …
by Eric Walberg / July 7th, 2015
Al-Quds Day, celebrated around the world by millions, is marked on the last Friday of Ramadan, coinciding with the most sacred time of Ramadan, the Night of Destiny. This year it is on July 11. This night especially empowers Muslims with God’s mercy, as the starting point of Muslims’ awakening and awareness in all aspects of life. Al -Quds Day was initiated in 1979 by Ayatollah Khomeini to express solidarity with the Palestinian people and oppose Zionism and Israeli occupation, especially of Jerusalem.
JDL ‘celebrate’ al-Quds …
by Jonathan Cook / July 7th, 2015
The Israeli government believes it is locked in an epic struggle to save Israel from the growing movement calling for an international boycott. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu warns that Israel must quickly “rebrand” itself to avoid pariah status.
Ordinary Israelis are therefore being conscripted into an army of spin-doctors in a campaign termed “hasbara” – Hebrew for “public diplomacy”, or more literally “propaganda”.
In the latest offensive, the education ministry has launched a compulsory hasbara course for Israeli students travelling abroad. All youth delegations are now required to learn how to justify to outsiders Israel’s policies in the occupied territories. According to …
by David Swanson / July 6th, 2015
I lead a sheltered life. Apart from visiting Afghanistan once during a war, the closest I come to danger is in sports, and the closest I come to violence is in emailed death threats from war fanatics — and even those pretty much dried up when the president became a Democrat.
When rats moved into the garage, I trapped them one-by-one and let them go in the woods, even as people claimed the same rats were finding their way back over and over again, like local troops getting guns and training from the U.S. Army over and over again so they …
by Teresa Mei Chuc / July 6th, 2015
When the plane was landing in Hanoi, I began to cry tears of joy to finally see my motherland and land of birth again. Later, I would realize that my tears were like the downpour of rain nearly every night that week of summer I was in Hanoi. To be in Hanoi was special to me because it was my grandmother and father’s birth city. During the first part of my journey, “Uncle” Quang (Tr?n Huy Quang), a Vietnamese writer who had served in the North Vietnamese Army during the U.S. war in Vietnam, took care of me and took …
Can All-Out War Be Far Behind?
by William Boardman / July 6th, 2015
Hillaryite Senator McCaskill shoots from her hip, hits her foot
A month after attacking Game of Thrones, Claire McCaskill, Democratic senator of Missouri, shifted her attack from fiction to her very real fellow senator, Bernie Sanders. She took the Independent senator from Vermont to task for having the temerity to challenge Hillary Clinton’s divine right to ascend to the American political throne of the presidency. Or as McCaskill put it on MSNBC June 25:
Any other candidate that had the numbers that Hillary …
by Mateo Pimentel / July 6th, 2015
Japan’s Social Disintegration
Japanese sociologist and Tokyo Metropolitan University professor, Shinji Miyadai, argues that European nations progressed from the communal self-governance of food to the communal self-governance of energy after World War II. Miyadai compares Europe’s post-war developments with those of post-war Japan in his article entitled ‘Pitfalls of the Nuclear Power Reduction Movement’. His contention is simple: As opposed to Europe, Japan had actually “accelerated its dependence on the market through trade liberalization and deregulation…”
Post-war economic indenture was exactly what the United States wanted from Japan. Moreover, the US was able to procure Japanese market dependence through discussions on …
Interview with Carolyn Baker
by Ophelia Murphy and Dylan Murphy / July 6th, 2015
For human beings… to destroy the biological diversity of God’s creation; for human beings to degrade the integrity of the earth by causing changes in its climate, by stripping the earth of its natural forests or destroying its wetlands; for human beings to contaminate the earth’s waters, its land, its air, and its life – these are sins.
— Encyclical Letter of the Holy Father Francis on Care of our Common Home, June 2015
The recent intervention by Pope Francis into the debate over climate change has once again put this pressing issue back into the public eye. His intervention merely …
by Jonathan Cook / July 6th, 2015
The language the Guardian and all other corporate media have been using about Syriza’s victory at the weekend against draconian EU-imposed austerity is revealing. Here are some examples of the subtle but effective framing from the paper’s front page today:
* The referendum is described in the standfirst and text as “polarising” rather than what it is: an exercise in direct, participatory democracy. If a 61% win is an illustration of a polarised society, what does that make David Cameron’s recent absolute victory in British parliamentary elections with 24% of the total vote? In the face of massive threats and intimidation from …
by Jason Hirthler / July 5th, 2015
Some might think it strange for a country founded on a proposition of equality to send so much aid to regimes that are doing everything they can to disfigure it. Of course, slipping on one’s Orwellian eye wear, it makes perfect sense. Freedom is Slavery, not just in Oceania. And that is the proper perspective in which to digest the perversity of market incentives in three specific areas: foreign aid, defense contractor stocks, and—that bête noire of peace—the stock price of oil companies. Some interesting correlations exist between these three sectors and the prevalence of civil, regional and international conflict, …
by David Swanson / July 5th, 2015
Max Blumenthal’s latest book, The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza, tells a powerful story powerfully well. I can think of a few other terms that accurately characterize the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza in addition to “war,” among them: occupation, murder-spree, and genocide. Each serves a different valuable purpose. Each is correct.
The images people bring to mind with the term “war,” universally outdated, are grotesquely outdated in a case like this one. There is no pair of armies on a battlefield. There is no battlefield. There is no aim to conquer, dispossess, or rob. The people …
by Kim Petersen / July 5th, 2015
The people of Greece have rejected austerity with an emphatic “No” in a referendum. The corporate media reacted predictably. Reuters depicted Greeks as defying Europe.
The language in the Reuters piece was palpably biased. It portrayed Greeks as having “overwhelmingly rejected conditions of a rescue package” [italics added] put together by “creditors” and “lenders.”
Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras said to his countrymen and women: “You made a very brave choice.” He construed the referendum victory: “The mandate you gave me is not the mandate of a rupture with Europe, but a mandate to strengthen our negotiating position to seek …
by Robert Hunziker / July 5th, 2015
Because of Japan’s unconscionable open-ended new secrecy law, it is very likely journalism in the nation has turned tail, scared of its own shadow. Nevertheless, glimmers of what has happened, of what is happening, do surface when brave people come forward.
On May 22nd 2015 Hiromichi Ugaya, a photojournalist who is well-informed, insightful, and engaging, was interviewed about what he witnessed in the aftermath of one of the world’s most horrendous disasters.
Hiromichi Ugaya was born in Kyoto City, Japan in 1963. He is an accomplished photojournalist with experience in both Japan and the United States, receiving his bachelor’s degree at …
by Gilad Atzmon / July 5th, 2015
Two days ago, some invaluable information surfaced relating to the treacherous role of Jewish liberals in derailing the BDS campaign. A Ynet article disclosing the Israeli strategy relating to the pro Palestinian campaign disclosed the close links between the Israeli Government and the Jewish ‘pro’ Palestinian organizations. It revealed the manner in which both have been acting in concert to subvert this humanitarian discourse.
According to the Ynet article, Eran Shayshon, Director of Policy and Strategy at the Reut Institute, ((Reut Institute — an agency advising the Israeli National Security Council, the Strategic Affairs Ministry and the Foreign Ministry.)) had a …
by Ralph Nader / July 4th, 2015
Are you one of the millions of people in the United States who drives a car every day? How do you react to the trucking industry, whose lobbyists with ample campaign cash swarm over Congress, pressing for a rider to a transportation appropriations bill to be passed to overturn laws in 39 states that currently ban unsafe double 33 foottractor-trailer combinations? What is your opinion of another provision in this bill to permanently increase truck driver working and driving hours up to 82 hours per week, abolishing the “weekend off” for two nights of restorative rest? Or what is your …
by Wikileaks / July 4th, 2015
WikiLeaks publishes today, 4 July at 08:00 BRT, a top secret US National Security Agency target list of 29 key Brazilian government phone numbers that were selected for intensive interception. The publication proves that not only President Dilma Rousseff was targeted but also her assistant, her secretary, her chief of staff, her Palace office and even the phone in her Presidential jet. The US targeted not only those closest to the President, but waged an economic espionage campaign against Brazil, spying on those responsible for managing Brazil’s economy, including the head of its Central Bank. The US also extensively targeted …
by Ellen Brown / July 3rd, 2015
Pope Francis’ revolutionary encyclical addresses not just climate change but the banking crisis. Interestingly, the solution to that crisis may have been modeled in the Middle Ages by Franciscan monks following the Saint from whom the Pope took his name.
Pope Francis has been called “the revolutionary Pope.” Before he became Pope Francis, he was a Jesuit Cardinal in Argentina named Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the son of a rail worker. Moments after his election, he made history by taking on the name Francis, after Saint Francis of Assisi, the leader of a rival order known to have shunned wealth to …
by Andre Vltchek / July 3rd, 2015
To overlook the tremendous progress that Ecuador registered under the current administration, would take great determination and discipline.
New airports, highways, hospitals and culture centers are everywhere, and they are impressive. Cities are counting with wide sidewalks, and public parks are equipped with all sorts of playgrounds for children, some extremely innovative.
There are public libraries in some of the parks, armed with free Wi-Fi zones. Buses and trolleybuses are running on dedicated lanes and are heavily subsidized (25 cents per ride), while Quito is planning to build its first line of metro.
Government puts great emphasis on health, education and culture.
You want …
by Graham Peebles / July 3rd, 2015
Humanity is a group. As Mohandas Gandhi famously said: “All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family.” This is not a sycophantic religious concept, but the fact of our inherent nature; a nature that the current World socio-economic order systematically works against, forcing us to live in unnatural, unhealthy, un-fulfilling, and unjust ways.
The negative inter-related consequences of living under such a perverse system are many and varied – painful all: disharmony, depression, anxiety, and loneliness are some of the effects of the resulting dis-connect – with ourselves, with others, and with the natural environment.
An Epidemic
Loneliness, particularly in developed countries, …
by Robert Hunziker / July 2nd, 2015
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as world governments, ignores the risks of an ice-free Arctic (Wadhams). Rather, an ice-free Arctic is widely applauded by much of the world as a positive way forward for re-opening of northern shipping routes, new trips for cruise lines, and access to a huge cache of fossil fuels.
According to Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University, an ice-free Arctic with its concomitant methane outbreak potential is scarcely mentioned by the IPCC in its assessment. Evidently, the IPCC does not want to discuss the possibility of major catastrophes.
In truth, an ice-free Arctic tempestuously …
Muslim Women and the Hijab
by Ghasem Akbari and Maria Sliwa / July 1st, 2015
The BBC News recently reported that Kubra Khademi, an Afghani female artist, wore unusual armor called “iron underwear” on the streets of Kabul’s western district during her performance to highlight the sexual harassment faced by women. Within minutes she was forced back into her car by an infuriated mob of men. She says she has since gone into hiding because she receives constant death threats.
Kubra says Afghan women are suffering in silence. Her decision to wear her unusual self-tailored iron underwear and walk the streets of one of the most conservative countries, was considered improper and against Afghans’ Islamic values. …
"No humanitarian crisis here" say Netanyahu and Ya'alon
by Stuart Littlewood / July 1st, 2015
Governments should support brave humanitarian voyagers and back their play in future.
Welcome to the latest chapter in a long tale of unspeakable cruelty.
Israel’s military are once more raiding mercy ships on the high seas in an effort to prevent humanitarian aid reaching the 1.8 million souls in shattered Gaza.
The Jerusalem Post reports that the Swedish boat Marianne with 18 passengers has been “interdicted” by Israeli commandos 85 miles from the Gaza coast and towed to Ashdod. The three other vessels in the flotilla turned back and another big-hearted mission ended “with a whimper”.
Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon called his operation …
Just read Rabbi Alissa Wise!
by Gilad Atzmon / July 1st, 2015
The following is a compendium of duplicitous and manipulative Judeo centric statements that illustrate precisely what many of us dread to admit – liberal Jews are not the solution; they are the core of the problem. These quotes are taken from a transcript of Rabbi Alissa Wise’s speech to a Christian Pro Palestinian organisation- Friends of Sabeel, North America Conference in Vancouver, BC, April 2015.
Rabbi Alissa Wise is not a Zionist zealot, she is much worse – a supremacist Jew dressed in dove’s clothing. Rabbi Alissa Wise is also JVP’s Director of Campaigns.
The Holocaust
In order to prepare the …
by Nick Fillmore / July 1st, 2015
In what could hopefully lead to a significant change in the nature of Third World development financing, a new research paper from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) admits that the strong pro-capitalist policies at the centre of its development support activities do not work.
Since the 1980s, the IMF has bailed out countries during financial crises. In return, poor countries receiving loans have had to follow strict rules, such as privatizing government resources, deregulating controls to open markets to foreign investment, and restricting what they can spend in areas such as education and health care.
Now the paper, Causes and Consequences of …
by Glen Barry / July 1st, 2015
Long prophesied by native thinkers, Earth is dying. The global ecological system is collapsing under the weight of industrial development. More ecosystems including the atmosphere have been lost and degraded than the biosphere can bear. Concurrently perma-war, injustice, and inequity have hit epidemic proportions and are worsening ecocide and obstructing solutions.
While social movements of many types work on these issues, the forces of ecocide are pernicious, resolute, and massive. To date adoption of solutions including smaller families, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, protecting and restoring natural ecosystems, and transitioning our communities to bioregional sustainability have proven orders of …
Why Puerto Rico can’t push itself out of the fiscal and economic malaise…
by Victor M. Rodriguez Domínguez / July 1st, 2015
On Tuesday June 23, the Special Decolonization Committee of the United Nations heard 30 petitioners who came to denounce from various perspectives the colonial situation of Puerto Rico. For the 34th time the UN committee approved a resolution requesting that the United States allow Puerto Rico to exercise its right to self-determination and independence. In 1953, the U.S. and colonial administrators lied to the UN in order to get Puerto Rico off the list of territories which still had not achieved self-determination. They told the UN that Puerto Rico in 1952 had drafted a constitution and now was exercising self-determination. …
The De-politicization of Black Oppression
by Ajamu Baraka / July 1st, 2015
Where are the international marches of solidarity with African Americans? The statements from world leaders condemning the terrorist attack and calling on U.S. Authorities to crack down on the white nationalist terror networks developing in the U.S.? Where are the marches in white communities condemning racism and standing with black people? Why no ‘Je Suis Charleston’?
The fact that these questions are not being raised by most people speaks to the adroit way in which the propagandists of the U.S. state, with the corporate media in lockstep, successfully domesticated and depoliticized the murderous attack in Charleston, South Carolina.
First, President Obama, as …
by Matt Peppe / July 1st, 2015
After nearly a month on the run after breaking out of a maximum-security prison in Upstate New York, convicted murder David Sweat was shot on Sunday by a New York State trooper and apprehended. Two days earlier fellow convicted murderer and escapee Richard Matt was shot dead by a federal agent nearby. While Governor Andrew Cuomo was quick to label Sergeant Jay Cook, who shot and captured Sweat, a “hero” – a claim that was repeated by CNN, the Daily News, Time and many other outlets – there was no serious analysis about …
by Paul Craig Roberts / July 1st, 2015
Like Marathon, Thermopylae, Plateau, and Mycale roughly 2,500 years ago, Western freedom again depends on Greece. Today Washington and its empire of European vassal states are playing the part of the Persian Empire, and belatedly the Greeks have formed a government, Syriza, that refuses to submit to the Washington Empire.
Few people understand that the fate of Western liberty, what remains of it, is at stake in the conflict, and, indeed, the fate of life on earth. Certainly the German government does not understand. Sigmar Gabriel, a German vice-chancellor, has declared the Greek government to be a threat to the European …
