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. …
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. …
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 …
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
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, …
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 …
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 …
As the economy in Europe festers the New York Timesreports 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.
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 …
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 …
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.
Senator Bernie Sanders’ candidacy for the presidency of the United States is in full blossom, on tour with rousing speeches to standing room only extraordinarily motivated crowds. Senator Sanders, the tough-minded Independent with socialist tendencies, is labeled a long shot to win the Democratic nomination, especially in the face of the odds-on-favorite Hillary Clinton, whose political machinery is so well oiled that it is dripping.
But, maybe the former secretary of state is in for the surprise of her life as the senator’s message rings loud and clear with people standing on tip toes in lines reaching far outside of auditoriums. …
Today WikiLeaks has launched a campaign to crowd-source a $100,000 reward for America’s Most Wanted Secret: the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).
Over the last two years WikiLeaks has published three chapters of this super-secret global deal, despite unprecedented efforts by negotiating governments to keep it under wraps. US Senator Elizabeth Warren has said
[They] can’t make this deal public because if the American people saw what was in it, they would be opposed to it.
The remaining 26 chapters of the deal are closely held by negotiators and the big corporations that have been given privileged access. Today, WikiLeaks is taking steps to …
Here set out in black and white in the Israeli media is a moral conundrum that western politicians, diplomats and international human rights organisations are resolutely failing to address – and one I have been highlighting since 2006.
It was then that Israel implemented for the first time its Dahiya doctrine – turning Lebanon back to the Stone Age. It launched a horrific assault that wrecked Lebanon’s infrastructure, killed 1,300 Lebanese – most of them, as ever in Israel’s wars, civilians – and made refugees of more than a million inhabitants of the country’s south. The exercise has been repeated in Gaza on a regular basis ever since.
USA and Global Adjuncts Screwed and Tattooed by Neoliberalism -- story already covered 2011!
by Paul Haeder / June 2nd, 2015
Oh, ya. Riffing off my piece on the false flag attacks on the youth of our world, calling them the distracted generation, Generation Me, the Dumbest Generations Ever, Google, Inc. What have you. Read it here, “Distracted, Facebooking, Entitled?” I am forever on these list serves from faculty, climate change workers, ecologists, political radicals, and more, and, well, the amount of repetition in the entire mess is stupefying, really.
We have so many fissures in the entire USA project on faux democracy and freedom: cops that kill with each nervous tic; CEOs who should be sent to Devil’s Island; media who …
The corporate controlled media have hyped the threat from IS (ISIL, ISIS), the self-proclaimed Islamic State. IS has committed horribly brutal acts in part of the Middle East. Despite all the media attention, it is relevant to note the US media didn’t mention that IS has come nowhere close to the level of killing and destruction that the US did in Iraq. Regardless, there is an urgent need for a true diplomatic effort to stop further IS crimes.
Despite being a small regional group with a relatively limited goal — the intent to restore an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East …
The charge that Anthropocene scholars blame all of humanity for the actions of a small minority simply doesn’t hold water. Ecosocialists need to be positive contributors to Anthropocene discussions, not critics sniping from the sidelines.
According to Earth System scientists, the Earth has entered a new geological epoch that will be less stable and less hospitable to human life. Because the change is driven by human activity, the proposed name for the new epoch is Anthropocene – from the Greek anthropos, human being.
Recently, some critics have charged that the “Anthropocene narrative” blames humanity …
The candidate I’m voting for acknowledges that forgiving and forgetting U.S. war crimes has not worked. They continue to haunt and hamper us. Former administration officials who lied us into war in Afghanistan and Iraq must be brought to justice. We need to know who falsified the intelligence and why. Remember their catchy slogan: “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”?
Hundreds of thousands have died and many innocents continue to suffer for this cynical deception.
Those officials must include Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Libby, Feith, Wolfowitz, Powell and their many minions. We need open sessions, nothing in …
Or should that be the language of ‘assumed’ power? The United Kingdom has been swamped by examples of sneering, belittling statements issuing from the Westminster bubble over the last few months, many of the insults being directed at Scotland during the Independence Referendum and the General Election, making the Scots justifiably angry and an increasing number of the English equally embarrassed. That these comments came from all the main parties was an illustration of how low our political system has sunk.
One assumption made by Prime Minister David Cameron and his cronies is that they speak for the English, which they …
The Transatlantic and Transpacific Trade and Investment Partnerships have nothing to do with free trade. “Free trade” is used as a disguise to hide the power these agreements give to corporations to use law suits to overturn sovereign laws of nations that regulate pollution, food safety, GMOs, and minimum wages.
The first thing to understand is that these so-called “partnerships” are not laws written by Congress. The US Constitution gives Congress the authority to legislate, but these laws are being written without the participation of Congress. The laws are being written by corporations solely in the interest of their power and …
This week we break Bill C-51, down Kanada’s sinister new law, that would give the Canucks increased spying powers over its population.
On the break, long standing hip-hop act Onyx, returns with “Fuck The Law.” We wrap things up with an interview with Antoine, a computer security ninja, about how we can protect ourselves from surveillance.
I am wondering just how steeled those writers are who continually attack youth, millennials, the Dumbest Generation Ever, the distracted generation, Generation Like (as in F.U.Book). Really wondering how it can be in this insipid, inane, murderous, Mafioso Society, US of Israel, how anyone would want to even expend a few digital ink spots on the Fox News gotcha crap that has inseminated the mainstream, corporate and even faux lefty news that talks about the entitlement of today’s youth.
Have any of these writers been with fire department captains, city managers, stock traders, colonels and generals, CEOs in boardrooms, with Rotarians? …
Probably the most infamous cases of mass mind control involves religious cults, with the People’s Temple Jonestown Massacre in Guyana, South America being the most tragic. In 1978, Jim Jones, most likely suffering from megalomania, forced 912 followers into committing mass suicide. Attempts to rescue the followers, ultimately by a member of the US House of Representatives, ended in the representative’s murder and the deaths of all sect members.
The totality of Jim Jones’ control was blamed on a religious extremism administered through a charismatic leader with a regimen of 24/7 control of mind and body. In today’s world, religious …
A student sued Misericordia College because she failed a nursing class. Twice.
She said she suffered psychological problems. Those problems included anxiety, depression, and poor concentration skills.
The college had agreed to allow her to retake the final examination last summer.
It set her up in a stress-free room, gave her extra time to complete the test, and did not provide a proctor. The professor said the student could call her by cell phone. That professor was in another building monitoring another test.
The student again failed the required course.
So now she’s suing. She claims the professor didn’t answer her numerous cell phone calls. …
The despair of wanting a child you are unable to produce naturally has led to a multi-billion dollar Assisted Reproduction Technology (ART) industry offering a plethora of reproductive choices resulting in tens of thousands of births a year in the U.S. It has also led to controversy and a campaign to ban it.
Michele Goodwin, director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy, holds the Chancellor’s Chair at the University of California, Irvine with appointments at the School of Law, School of Public Health, and Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies.
These technologies provide a stunning candy store …
As China continues to grow, some people start to worry. Some take a dark view of China and assume that it will inevitably become a threat as it develops further. They even portray China as a terrifying Mephisto who will someday suck the soul of the world. Such absurdity couldn’t be more ridiculous, yet some people, regrettably, never tire of preaching it. This shows that prejudice is indeed hard to overcome.
— chairman Xi Jinping ((Xi Jinping, The Governance of China (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2014): location 3918.))
It is not just westerners that project a desire for hegemonism upon …
Mr Graham Peebles in his article, ‘A Lost Opportunity for Change‘ (Dissident Voice, May 28, 2015) appears to be living in a quite different part of the U.K. to the one I am familiar with. He states that the British Labour Party are, ‘frightened to be true to their socialist roots’ but fails to tell us how he defines ‘Socialist’.
Perhaps his definition includes the time when the Labour Government sent in troops to undermine striking Dock Workers? Perhaps he means by ‘Socialist’ the Labour Government building the Atomic Bomb without telling Parliament or even its own Members of …
Seven Mistaken Assumptions, Presumptions, and Prescriptions
by James Petras / May 29th, 2015
We will have a very strong (military) presence, very strong continued posture throughout the region to back our commitments to our allies, to protect and work with our partners and to continue ensuring peace and stability in the region, as well as back our diplomacy vis-à-vis China on the South China Sea.
— David Shear, US Department of Defense’s Assistant Secretary for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs
Indian President Modi ‘seals $22 billion of deals on China visit … China had already promised $20 billion of infrastructure investment during (Chinese President) Xi’s visit to India last year’
The 2015 Review conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) ended Friday May 22 in New York without a final document being accepted.
Up till the very end it seemed that the conference would produce a non-committal final document.
The outcome which a majority of the states desired, a plan for a total ban on nuclear weapons, as there is for chemical and bacteriological weapons, was unacceptable to the nuclear weapon states.
Consensus means in the NPT that the nuclear weapon states decide. They wish to keep their capacity to exterminate mankind for generations ahead.
The American government had told its allies, the …
