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by John V. Walsh / June 24th, 2015
“I am the least popular guy in Washington.” Thus spoke Rand Paul at a stopover rally in Massachusetts on his way to New Hampshire on June 7. Who can doubt that claim after the events of the last few weeks.
When you have Barack Obama, John McCain, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell all arrayed against you, you are bound to get the award for least popular guy in Empire’s capital city. An accolade of this magnitude also means that you must be doing something right. And that something right was Paul’s filibuster against the PATRIOT Act in the Senate in defiance …
by Rick Sterling / June 24th, 2015
The June 7 parliamentary election in Turkey could have a huge impact on the conflict in Syria. The invincible image of President Erdogan has been cracked. There is a real chance that the election might lead to substantive change in Turkish foreign policy promoting the war in Syria.
Even though Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the most votes, they lost their majority in parliament and must now find a coalition partner. Turkey’s new parliament was seated for the first time on Tuesday June 23. Now begins the political bargaining and negotiations to form a governing coalition. Depending on the …
by John Stanton / June 24th, 2015
Most Americans apply a yardstick to America’s actions which is very different than the yardstick they apply to Russia’s actions. Whenever their bias in favor of their own nation gets into conflict with the truth, the odds are that the bias will prevail. As a result of this they are not capable of seeing current events in their historical perspective…In Washington, wisdom has no chance to prevail at this point…If we intend to drop bombs on Russia in case of war, and expect Russia to drop bombs on us…then our threat to drop bombs on Russia is tantamount to murder …
by Ramzy Baroud / June 24th, 2015
Over the year, I realized that the term ‘left’ is not exclusive to a political ideology, but a mode of thinking championed mostly by self-tailored ‘leftist’ western intellectuals. I grew to dislike it with intensity.
But that has not always been the case.
My father was a communist, or so he called himself. He read the translated work of great communist and socialist thinkers, and passed on to me his own reading of what a socialist utopia could possibly be like. Living in a squalid refugee camp in Gaza, locked in by a heavily militarized sea to the west, and various Israeli …
by David Swanson / June 23rd, 2015
June 28 will mark 6 years since the U.S.-backed military coup in Honduras took the people’s government away from them. Thousands of people are still in the streets every week demanding that the wrongful president step down.”Whoever’s not jumping supports the coup!” is the shout as a sea of people leaps repeatedly into the air. The makers of an amazing new film called Resistencia: The Fight for the Aguan Valley, will be allowing anyone to view it online for free for two weeks. I recommend you do so.
Honduras has …
by Lesley Docksey / June 23rd, 2015
It was to be expected, and nothing more clearly illustrated the gap between the uncaring rich and the 99 per cent.
On the day when many thousands of people from across Britain poured into London (and elsewhere) to demonstrate against the Tory government’s austerity measures, high society poured out of London to attend the last day of racing at one of the main events of the summer season for the privileged – Royal Ascot. While coaches, buses, cars and trains decanted protestors, Waterloo Station was awash with top hats and posh frocks waiting to board the Ascot train….
by Joanie Hieger Fritz Zosike / June 23rd, 2015
Let the dialogue be raised, that so horrendous a crime may have had some purpose other than the hellish intent of its alleged perpetrator. Let it further be said that if the families of those killed at AME Church in Charlston, SC can say they have forgiven the murderer, then let us learn from their good example that hate and violence have no place in our society. Even hate of or violence toward the murderer himself. The cry for the death penalty, in respect for those who died and what they stood for, should cease and be dismissed as an …
by Robert Hunziker / June 23rd, 2015
Disasters have an uncanny way of bringing out the best in humanity. In the aftermath of tragedy, compassion, understanding, compatibility, accommodation, and accord usually lead the way forward. That’s when remarkable people stand out in the face of adversity. Therefore, it is extraordinarily unfortunate that Japan’s government choses to dishonor its own citizenry as well as its lost heroes like Dr. Josh Park in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
In the aftermath of Japan’s worst tragedy since WWII, the government of Japan enacted The Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets, Act No. 108 promulgated on December 13, …
Through the Eyes of a Father of Five
by Vacy Vlazna / June 23rd, 2015
We prepare the suhoor. We all sit around five dishes: white cheese, hummus, orange jam, yellow cheese, and olives. Darkness eats with us. Fear and anxiety eat with us. The unknown eats with us. The F16 eats with us. The drone, and its operator somewhere out in Israel, eat with us.
I read The Drone Eats With Me: Diaries from a City Under Fire by Atef Abu Saif in almost one sitting — resenting that I had to break to cook and eat dinner. These beautifully written searing diaries recounting each of the horrific 51 days of Israel’s monstrous war …
by Eoin Higgins / June 23rd, 2015
The call to take down the South Carolina capitol’s Confederate flag by the governor, Nikki Haley, has been met with a lot of praise for her political courage from the “left” and the right. But this praise is at best premature. All indications are that the act was a craven genuflection to corporate interests and her own political ambition, and not an act of conscience.
Let’s look at the chain of events leading up to Haley’s announcement.
On Wednesday, June 17, 2015, a white supremacist named Dylann Roof murdered nine black people in the Mother Emmanuel Church in …
by James Hoover / June 22nd, 2015
The poor are usually out of earshot and positioned out of sight in our bunker-like society; in other words, not on our immediate radar. It seems to be “shock and awe” or celebrity gazing. The former is reserved for things like mass killings or overblown pandemics. The latter is daily splashed on all news outlets: check-stand displays of yellow rags, magazine covers, billboards, TV news, and internet ads that overshadow, intercept, and sometimes annoyingly drive out, all your targeted interfaces.
We have been mentally conditioned to treat the less privileged with neglect, to disregard their struggles, even to demonize them. The …
A Metaphor for the “New Iraq”
by Felicity Arbuthnot / June 22nd, 2015
As with everything to do with “The New Iraq”, the death, on June 5th, 2015, of the country’s former Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz, 79, was announced with a lie.
The Deputy Governor of Nasiriya, Adel Aldikhaly, stated that he had died of a heart attack after “a long term incurable disease.”
Mr Aziz had been transferred from Baghdad’s Khadamiyah prison to Nasiriya’s jail three hundred kilometres south – notorious for appalling conditions at best and torture at worst – a year ago. The reason for his move is so far unknown. It might be surmised as just another …
by James Petras / June 22nd, 2015
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 …
The Alice in Wonderland World of Fast-tracked Secret Trade Agreements
by Ellen Brown / June 21st, 2015
“Let the jury consider their verdict,” the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
“No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first–verdict afterwards.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” said Alice loudly. “The idea of having the sentence first!”
“Hold your tongue!” said the Queen, turning purple.
“I won’t!” said Alice.
“Off with her head!” the Queen shouted at the top of her voice.
— Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Fast-track authority is being sought in the Senate this week for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), along with the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) and any other such trade agreements coming down the pike in the next six years. The …
The Rise of the Non Leftist Left
by James Petras / June 21st, 2015
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 …
by Eoin Higgins / June 20th, 2015
A white man guns down nine black people in a church in South Carolina. The state’s Confederate battle flag stays waving in the wind the next day. The white man is arrested. He is given a Kevlar jacket.
Welcome to the United States of America in 2015.
The atrocity in Charleston on June 17, 2015, exemplifies the value of black life in America today. Dylann Roof’s crime was an abomination. He slaughtered nine people in cold blood. But in the broader context of the American reality of black people and black lives, Roof’s attack is just another instance of white terrorism.
Even …
by Martha Hennessy / June 20th, 2015
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 …
by David Swanson / June 20th, 2015
Books about how World War I started, and to a lesser degree how World War II started, have tended in recent years to explain that these wars didn’t actually come as a surprise, because top government officials saw them coming for years. But these revised histories admit that the general public was pretty much clueless and shocked.
The fact is that anyone in the know or diligently seeking out the facts could see, in rough outline, the danger of World War I or World War II coming years ahead, just as one can see the threats of environmental collapse and World …
Neoliberalism’s Refuse
by Matt Reichel / June 19th, 2015
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, …
by Walter Brasch / June 19th, 2015
If you don’t mind working hard—and partying even harder—why not get a business degree, take a couple of state and federal tests, and become a Wall Street trader?
These are the people who are the current crop of Gordon Gekkos—you know, the pretend-fictional character portrayed by Michael Douglas in Wall Street. The men spend thousands of dollars on suits, ties, and cocaine. The women spend thousands just to own a closet of Jimmy Choo shoes.
But their existence is shrouded by a coop they call an office or cubicle. Their tools are multiple phone lines and computer screens.
The chase for money—and perhaps …
by Ralph Nader / June 19th, 2015
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, …
by Peter Breschard / June 19th, 2015
Consider the under-represented majorities in the United States, in the world for that matter, and pretty soon you’re going to come across the most ignored majority of them all. Sure, they’ve been getting a lot of broadcast media time these days, but that’s simply a way to placate their aspirations with shiny objects while the real power remains where it always has been. Having television shows named after them and hiring many as roaming extras is one thing, but what’s been missing is real power. Political power. It’s time to rectify this egregious deliberate oversight. It’s time for a great …
by Rozali Telbis / June 19th, 2015
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 …
by Fernando Andres Torres / June 19th, 2015
Why is it so difficult for the mainstream media to mention the word racism?
Reviewing the national headlines and news of the latest massacre – this time in Charleston, S.C., I find no mention of the word. I checked the AP stylebook just to be sure and saw no problem with the word “racism”. So what is this reticence to mention it? With massacres of this type happening almost every five weeks, has it perhaps become a dirty word?
Not even the President had the guts to spell this word out. Too bad. We are not going in the right direction. If …
by Andre Vltchek / June 19th, 2015
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!”
…
by Israel Shamir / June 19th, 2015
I had to whip up my courage to go to the Ukraine. There was a recent spate of political killings in the unhappy and lovely land, and the perpetrators never apprehended; among those killed was Oles Buzina, a renowned writer and a dear friend. Two years ago, well before the troubles, we had a drink under a chestnut tree in a riverside café. Buzina was in his forties, rather tall and slim, had a narrow sarcastic face of Mephistopheles, a bald head, a hint of moustache and a bad temper. He was a Thersites among the warlike nationalists of Kiev, …
by John Pilger / June 19th, 2015
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 …
by Survival International / June 19th, 2015
Indigenous Venezuelans blocked the landing strip of Canaima National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in protest at illegal miners destroying their lives and lands.
The Hoti in Venezuela and other Amazon Indigenous peoples depend on the forest for their survival. But their forests are being destroyed by illegal mining. © Eglée Zent/SurvivalOver the last decade, illegal mining for gold, …
by Makia Freeman / June 19th, 2015
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 …
An Insult to the People and Democracy
by Graham Peebles / June 18th, 2015
Every five years the Ethiopian people are invited by the ruling party to take part in a democratic pantomime called ‘General Elections’. Sunday 24th May saw the latest production take to the national stage.
With most opposition party leaders either in prison or abroad, the populace living under a suffocating blanket of fear, and the ruling party having total control over the media, the election result was a foregone conclusion. The European Union, which had observed the 2005 and 2010 elections, refused to send a delegation this time, maintaining their presence would legitimise the farce, and give credibility to the government.
With …
