Latest articles
by Paul Craig Roberts / May 8th, 2015
May 8. Today’s payroll jobs report is more of the same. The Bureau of Labor Statistics claims that 223,000 new jobs were created in April. Let’s accept the claim and see where the jobs are.
Specialty trade contractors are credited with 41,000 jobs equally split between residential and nonresidential. I believe these are home and building repairs and remodeling.
The rest of the jobs, 182,000, are in domestic services.
Despite store closings and weak retail sales, 12,000 people were hired in retail trade.
Despite negative first quarter GDP growth, 62,000 people were hired in professional and business services, 67% of which are in administrative …
by Lesley Docksey / May 8th, 2015
My heart bleeds, my soul is sick and my land is broken and dying. How else can I describe how I felt when I learnt that the dis-United Kingdom was back in the greedy and unfeeling grasp of the ‘nasty’ party, the Conservatives. I was not alone.
“I was quite happy this morning – until I saw a newspaper on my way to work… I hope to God my children end up living abroad,” was one acquaintance’s reaction, her face still shocked hours later.
But my heart sings for Scotland, a nation that has shown corrupt Westminster the door, the Scottish National …
by Ralph Nader / May 8th, 2015
Suddenly, the mass media is writing about or televising the conditions in West Baltimore. Conditions that Washington Post columnist, Eugene Robinson, summarized as decades long “suffocating poverty, dysfunction and despair.”
Suddenly, reporters and camera teams are discovering Baltimore’s inner city—crumbling or abandoned housing; mass unemployment; too many merchants gouging the locals (the poor pay more); too many drug dealers; schools, roads and sidewalks in serious disrepair; debris everywhere; lack of municipal services (which are provided to the wealthier areas of the city); and, as always, grinding poverty and its many vicious circle consequences.
Suddenly, media highlights a report by Harvard economists putting …
by Eric Zuesse / May 8th, 2015
Oxfam’s recent report, “Wealth: Having It All and Wanting More,” contains shocking figures that the press haven’t sufficiently publicized; so, the findings and the reliability of their sources will be discussed here. The results will then be related to the central political debate now going on in the U.S. Presidential contests for 2016, which is about equality and inequality.
First, the findings:
1. The richest 80 individuals own as much as do all of the poorest half of humanity.
2. During 2009-2014, the wealth of the 80 richest people doubled, yet the wealth of the bottom 50% declined slightly.
Now, the sources:
These data are calculated …
by John Stanton / May 8th, 2015
It is wrong to believe that postwar American suburbanization prevailed because the public chose it… Suburbanization prevailed because of the decisions of large operators and powerful economic institutions supported by federal government programmes… ordinary consumers had little real choice in the basic pattern that resulted… Essentially city planners saw the atomic threat as a means to accelerate the trend of suburbanization. Plans to circle American cities with open spaces, highways and circumferential life belts was long overdue…The federal government played a more effective role in reducing urban vulnerability [to atomic attack] in future residential development by working through the Federal …
A Personal View: No Cheery Prospect
by Stuart Littlewood / May 8th, 2015
I said it would be bad, and it is. Worse than bad. The British people have given the Zionist tool Cameron another five years, and he’s off the see the Queen.
So what price Churchill’s (Randolph, that is) advice to “trust the people”? The great man said: “You, who are ambitious, and rightly ambitious, of being the guardians of the British Constitution, trust the people, and they will trust you—and they will follow you and join you in the defence of that Constitution against any and every foe.” The Constitution, of course, mostly needs protecting from its ambitious guardians while they …
by Andre Vltchek / May 8th, 2015
Trust between the West and Russia is broken. It has been for quite some time, but now it is broken irreversibly. A good thing, because what kind of trust there could be between fascist imperialism and the forces that are fighting for the freedom of mankind?
It is really easy to trick the Russian people. It takes very little to gain their trust; sometimes only a kind smile, a handful of loving words, a few sincerely sounding pledges and promises. Russians can be easily ‘bought’ with kindness. They are very trusting, vulnerable people.
When approached with tenderness and sympathy, they soon open …
The British Election Result
by Binoy Kampmark / May 8th, 2015
So fell spin doctor par excellence Alastair Campbell on the BBC’s commentary regarding the exit poll from the broadcaster. The temperature in various party rooms wasn’t quite right either. According to the Beeb’s prediction, the Tories would be increasing their numbers to 316 seats, with Labour getting a reduced 239 when all the results would be in. Another prediction then followed: the conservatives would be able to govern in their own right, heaving past the majority line. Others suggested that the exit poll was “incredible” and “unbelievable”, a sort of forecast from distant Narnia. Treat it …
by William A. Blunden / May 8th, 2015
While congress ponders the merits of the USA Freedom Act of 2015, a bill which revises the business records provisions of the Patriot Act, a panel of judges in a federal appeals court has just thrown a clump of sand into the gears of the global panopticon. Overturning an earlier ruling, where federal judges dismissed a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled that the NSA’s bulk collection of telephone metadata is illegal.
The Good News
In their ruling the judges focused heavily on the scope of …
by Gordon Edwards / May 8th, 2015
Ontario Power Generation owns 20 nuclear power reactors. Two of them permanently shut down. Six more scheduled to be retired by 2020.
The largest nuclear power station in North America is the Bruce NPP, located close to the shore of Lake Huron. The Western Waste Management Facility (WWMF) is sited on land adjacent to the eight operating reactors at Bruce. At WWMF, radioactive reactor wastes of all kinds from all of Ontario’s reactors are stored in surface or near-surface facilities. In recent years, because of the removal of large volumes of materials from inside the cores of these reactors and other …
by Rachel Gardiner / May 8th, 2015
Picture this! Your child is browsing through the latest teen magazine and she’s analysing all the latest ‘in-crowd’; Victoria Beckham, Lindsay Lohan, etc, who generally have a body mass index that would rival that of an infant suffering from malnutrition. She stops and looks closer and then declares “Gosh I wish I had a figure like that!”
I remember when my daughter was seven (she happened to be built like willow the wisp!) attempted to grab her tiny tummy, as she stood analysing herself in my mirror and announced that she was too fat! At which point I told her …
by Uri Avnery / May 8th, 2015
Binyamin Netanyahu seems to be detested now by everyone. Almost as much as his meddling wife, Sarah’le.
Six weeks ago, Netanyahu was the great victor. Contrary to all opinion polls, he achieved a surprise victory at the last moment, winning 30 seats in the 120-member Knesset, leaving the Labor Party (re-branded “The Zionist Camp”) well behind him.
The extra seats did not come from the Left. They came from his nearest competitors, the Rightist parties.
However, it was a great personal triumph. Netanyahu was on top of his world. Sarah’le was radiant. Netanyahu left no doubt that he was now the master, and …
by Imani Altemus-Williams / May 8th, 2015
In the early morning of March 23, Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner Lanakila Mangauil heard that construction of the world’s largest optical telescope had begun atop the Hawaiian sacred mountain Mauna Kea. He immediately spread the word to the community, who had been keeping vigilant watch, and ran up the summit to stop the desecration of this wahi pana, a place of cultural significance and practice. Others followed Lanakila’s lead, however, nobody expected that this would spark a global movement to protect one of our planet’s sacred sites.
…
by Jan Oberg / May 8th, 2015
Virtually everyone with an expertise in humanitarian crisis has warned about the unfolding catastrophe these very days in Burundi – the head of UNHCR, former UN Humanitarian chief Jan Egeland, the UN Secretary-General and his envoy, the International Crisis Group, specialists on Burundi, human rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch, civil society organisations inside Burundi, etc. TFF did it in PressInfo 319 of April 29, 2015.
Everyone who cares will see all the red lamps and hear the alarm bells. We have a history of genocide in this country and neighbouring Rwanda just a few years ago. …
by Gilad Atzmon / May 8th, 2015
The Nabil Test
In order to grasp the way in which contemporary solidarity terminology operates to deceive and derail the Palestinian cause, we will look at a few theoretical simulations that will help to clarify the corrosive nature that is the contemporary pro Palestinian discourse.
Nabil is a fictional 25 year old Palestinian, 3rd generation refugee born and living in Sabra and Shatila, Lebanon. Nabil is unemployed. No prospect of a future for him. As a Palestinian refugee his chances of higher education or a decent job are non-existent. Nabil cannot even obtain a travel document. He is stranded in the …
First in a four-part series
by Edward Martin and Mateo Pimentel / May 8th, 2015
There is a tendency for democratic self-governing institutions to become oligarchies, specifically because elite interests within these institutions are prioritized over the needs of their members. According to researchers, such as Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, and conservative theorists, such as Robert Michels, democratic institutions primarily serve elite interests. In “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens”, (in Perspectives on Politics, September 2014 Vol. 12/No. 3, p.564-581), Gilens and Page argue that oligarchies within democratic institutions ultimately undermine their democratic goals, in which the institution is co-opted by elites. And on the other hand, conservatives like …
The prez comes to Portlandia and here we are, stuck in 5 hour traffic while his motorcade plows right by the real people
by Paul Haeder / May 8th, 2015
So his motorcade comes to Portland and clogs traffic. The mainstream news yammers on about where he might end up for pie or a smoke or which trendy place Barack might get an artisan beer or vegan cheese sandwich. All the rotten facts about his bullet and missile proof Cadillac. How the Murder Incorporated Entourage will have secret service, local SWAT, special forces and a slew of private mercenaries around to protect this GQ guy? America, 2015, and that 3 billion dollar Obama smile, in stumptown.
Portland, Oregon, hobbled by high taxes to the middle class, gentrification, no affordable housing, a …
by James Hoover / May 8th, 2015
We are fossil fools. In fact, fossil fuel companies have been playing us for fools for so long that we barely notice their power, their control, and the destructive consequences these monolithic companies have over us; that is, until directly affected. Subtle exploitation is all around, but special harm has come through deepwater drilling off our coast or penetration of our shale with the ravages of fracking.
We have taken our beatings at the gas pump and believe their oligopolistic dribble about market forces pushing up prices. We let our representatives refuse to eliminate subsidies to companies like Exxon-Mobil ($20 B/yr …
Letter from Mexico: Part Two
by Christy Rodgers / May 7th, 2015
While the front pages and TV news reports in Mexico are full of accounts of ghastly levels of corruption and violence that would have boggled the imagination of the most jaded pulp fiction writer, in every corner of the country there are spaces where “you breathe a different air,” as the saying is here.
On the outskirts of San Cristobal de Las Casas, famed colonial center of the southern state of Chiapas, on the wooded campus of the Indigenous Center for Comprehensive Training (Spanish acronym: CIDECI – follow the link to learn more about this remarkable alternative university) over a …
by Vacy Vlazna / May 7th, 2015
The shocking decision by the government-owned New Zealand Super Fund (NZSF) to not divest from Israel Chemicals Ltd (ICL), manufacturer of white phosphorus, blatantly violates the NZSF Responsibilities:
ethical investment including policies, standards and procedures for avoiding prejudice to New Zealand’s reputation as a responsible member of the world community
and Standards for Human Rights:
1. Support and respect human rights 2. No complicity in abuses
set out in the NZSF cautionary but brushed off Responsible Investment Framework.
Moreover, NZSF CEO, Adrian Orr, pragmatically amnesic of Israel’s infinite violations of international law and UN resolutions, assured members that,
In 2013, …
by Shepherd Bliss / May 6th, 2015
In the heart of what corporate wine industry lobbyists have re-branded “Wine Country,” activists from four North Coast California counties gathered in early May for their third monthly meeting. They created a regional network of groups from Sonoma, Napa, Lake, and Mendocino counties.
Participants came to the attractive resort town of Calistoga in Napa to discuss how to contain the rampant, sprawling growth of corporate vineyards and wineries as commercial, industrial event centers. They pave over agricultural land, damage the quality of rural life, and create multiple negative impacts upon the environment with respect to water, land, noise, traffic, wildlife habitat, …
The complicated mess that is the UK
by Lesley Docksey / May 6th, 2015
After the election every Westminster politician will have to come and face the reality of the electorate’s judgment. There is no disrespect or disgrace in any politician coming to terms with the democratically expressed position of the electorate. All politicians, those of us who are lucky enough to be elected, chosen by the people, will try to do their best as they see it in the interests of the people who elected them.
— Alex Salmond, ex-First Minister of Scottish Parliament, now running for a seat in Westminster
Where much of the electorate is concerned politicians, apart from a noble few, will …
More than a “Royal Baby Bounce” Needed
by Felicity Arbuthnot / May 6th, 2015
For great swathes of the UK, Prime Minister Cameron is seen as an arrogant, out of touch, over-privileged aristocrat who hates the poor, disadvantaged, elderly, disabled, affordable social housing, those unable to find work in a shrinking job market and just about anyone not from his money-mired hunting and country mansion pals. In a family tree festooned with titles he is also a lineal descendent of King William 1V.
His government’s swinging welfare cuts have led to suicides and many other financially-related deaths, such as diabetic ex-soldier, David Clapson, who died with just £3.44 in the bank, six tea bags, a …
by Ajamu Baraka / May 6th, 2015
Just as the announcement was being made that military forces were being withdrawn and the curfew on the black community lifted in Baltimore, images of another black rebellion exploded in social media and the airwaves of the world, this time from “democratic” Israel.
Last Thursday in Jerusalem Ethiopian Israelis gathered in peaceful protest in reaction to the release of a video that showed Israeli police violently attacking an Ethiopian member of the Israeli army who was in full uniform. Ethiopian Israelis, long victims of systematic racial discrimination in Israel, evoked the spirit of Baltimore and demanded an end to discrimination and …
by Colin Jenkins / May 6th, 2015
Anarchy is synonymous with chaos and disorder. It is a term that stands in direct contrast to the archetype of society we have become accustomed to: hierarchical, highly-structured, and authoritative. Because of this, it carries negative connotations. Merriam-Webster, the consensus source of meaning within the dominant paradigm, defines anarchy as: a situation of confusion and wild behavior in which the people in a country, group, organization, etc., are not controlled by rules or laws; or, a state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of authority. The implications made in these definitions are clear – any absence of authority, structure, …
by T.P. Wilkinson / May 6th, 2015
Every year millions of tourists from around the world visit London, Europe’s largest city (if Britain can even be included in Europe). They do not travel there because it is cheap, like so many Far Eastern package holiday destinations; nor for the weather, which can scarcely match that of the Mediterranean or Caribbean. It is certainly not for the food, which only becomes edible above the 50 (dollar, euro, pound, take your pick) per meal price range. London’s theatre is also not what it used to be. No, London’s greatest attraction is the legacy of an empire upon which the …
by Ramzy Baroud / May 6th, 2015
In November 1993, I was on a mission. At the age of 21, I wanted to change the world, starting with Birzeit University, the second largest Palestinian university in the West Bank, situated near Ramallah, in the heart of the occupied territories.
Back then I had made a name for myself with my nationalist poetry and my first poetry collection was published a year earlier in Gaza. It was called The Alphabets of Decision. Each assortment of verses started with a letter in the Arabic alphabet, going in order. “It was time for the poor and peasants of Palestine to …
Reclaiming WW2
by Chris de Ploeg / May 6th, 2015
In the beginning of May, depending on which precise date your country was liberated from Nazi rule, Europeans commemorate the victims of WW2. I did, however, not commemorate the dead that day, nor did I celebrate my freedom the next. I cannot participate in a mass ritual that desecrates the memories of all the martyrs of WW2 by turning them into mere tokens of Anglo-American chauvinism.
Who defeated the Nazis?
Obama and Cameron characterized the common perception of WW2 in the West when they opened their column in the Washington Post, stating that “our forces began to turn the tide of …
by Sufyan bin Uzayr / May 5th, 2015
Of late, checking the news has become monotonous. Every other day, in virtually all publications and verticals of repute, there is some “expert” or the other busy discussing ways in which Islam is in conflict with the rest of world, or how Islam is having trouble dealing with itself, etc.
None of these so-called “insights” are original, nor do they add any merit to the news in general. Yet, such opinions continue to remain in vogue, and are preferred by the common populace. You know, when you segregate people and talk about ‘us’ versus ‘them’, people enjoy taking sides….
Attack on Gaza last year raises pressure on Ban Ki-moon to put Israeli army on same list as Islamic State and Taliban
by Jonathan Cook / May 5th, 2015
Palestinian solidarity groups have taken to social media to step up the pressure on United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to include Israel for the first time on a “shame list” of serious violators of children’s rights.
The campaign, which culminates in the submission of an online petition to Ban’s office on 7 May, was launched after indications that Israel is exerting enormous pressure on UN officials to avoid being named.
Ban’s office is due to make the list public in the coming weeks.
A senior UN source, who wished to remain anonymous because of the diplomatically sensitive nature of any announcement, told Middle …
