Latest articles
by Andre Vltchek / May 23rd, 2015
After my two days marathon discussion with Noam Chomsky, (at MIT in 2012), a bestselling book was born. Later this year a film will hit the cinemas.
Noam and I discussed Western imperialism, and the terror it has been spreading around the world. After WWII, at least 50 million lives were lost. Lives of those whom Orwell used to call “unpeople”; lives brutally interrupted as a result of Western-led and orchestrated wars, invasions, coups and proxy-conflicts.
We discussed at length the Western propaganda, which, for centuries, worked extremely hard to justify everything from the colonialist insanity, to supremacist and exceptionalist theories.
After my …
by Ralph Nader / May 22nd, 2015
As a high school student, I came across an observation by Abraham Lincoln who said that “With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.” Today “public sentiment” would be called “public opinion.”
Over the years, I have been astonished at how less than one percent of the citizenry, backed by the “public sentiment,” have changed our country for the better by enacting reforms to protect the people from abuses of power, discrimination and deep neglect.
Specifically, if – one percent or less – were to dedicate a modest amount of their time and money working together for much-needed changes …
How the anti-green ‘Breakthrough Institute’ misrepresents science to advance a technocratic agenda and undermine grassroots environmentalism
by Ian Angus / May 22nd, 2015
When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.
—Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
What can lobbyists do when science contradicts their political messages? Some simply deny the science, as many conservatives do with climate change. Others pretend to embrace the science, while ignoring or purging the disagreeable content. That’s what the Breakthrough Institute (BTI) is doing with one of the most widely discussed issues in 21st century science, the proposal to define a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene.
BTI has been described as …
by Kevin Annett / May 22nd, 2015
It was eighteen years ago this month that I first handed to a Vancouver Sun newspaper editor a list of possible mass grave sites of Indian residential school children on Canada’s west coast, based on government documents and statements from eyewitnesses who buried children there. I and these witnesses were flatly ignored: not only then, but every other time over the subsequent years that we presented such evidence to the same newspaper.
Bone sample found at Brantford residential …
by Joe Francis / May 22nd, 2015
Revising our assessment of the Spanish empire is in vogue among economic historians. Most notably, Regina Grafe and Alejandra Irigoin (2006; 2008) have sought to revise the nature of the empire’s political economy. Their goal is to refute those who claim that the wealth gap between Anglo and Latin America today is due to the ‘extractive’ institutions established by the Spanish in their colonies compared to the more ‘inclusive’ institutions established by the British. ((E.g. North, D.C., W. Summerhill, and B.R. Weingast (2000), ‘Order, Disorder and Economic Change: Latin America Versus North America’, in B. Buenos de Mesquita and H.L. Root, eds., …
by Shepherd Bliss / May 22nd, 2015
Northern California’s Sonoma County has been known historically as part of the natural Redwood Empire. Wine industry lobbyists re-branded it as the commercial “Wine Country.” Its economy has been so colonized by outside investors, who extract water and resources from the environment and export them, that re-branding would be appropriate. A more accurate description would be that Sonoma County is now part of the multi-national Wine Empire.
Locals and nature have been dominated by these outside investors; they reap the benefits, while the environment and the residents pay the costs. They have de-localized, industrialized, commercialized, urbanized and commodified a once …
by Andre Vltchek / May 22nd, 2015
They say “may peace prevail on earth”, but every night, there are fires burning in the terrible slums of Nairobi, Jakarta, Guatemala City and Mumbai.
The World Education Forum is now taking place in Seoul, South Korea. UNESCO and Korea organized this colorful event. Everyone is talking, others are singing, and a few are dancing.
The Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, is talking peace, and the head of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, is talking peace.
Peace, peace, peace! It has been turned into one of those cliché words that are repeated in every political speech, words like “freedom” …
by John Scales Avery / May 22nd, 2015
The rapid growth of knowledge
Cultural evolution depends on the non-genetic storage, transmission, diffusion and utilization of information. The development of human speech, the invention of writing, the development of paper and printing, and finally, in modern times, mass media, computers and the Internet: all these have been crucial steps in society’s explosive accumulation of information and knowledge. Human cultural evolution proceeds at a constantly-accelerating speed, so great in fact that it threatens to shake society to pieces.
In many respects, our cultural evolution can be regarded as an enormous success. However, at the start of the 21st century, most thoughtful observers …
Why did U.S. Ignore the Analysis and Predictions?
by Rick Sterling / May 21st, 2015
Almost three years ago the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) of the U.S. Dept of Defense accurately characterized the conflict in Syria and predicted the emergence of the Islamic State. This stunning revelation has emerged as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch in connection with the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
The heavily redacted August 2012 seven page intelligence report reveals the following:
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) confirmed the sectarian core of the Syrian insurgency.
It says:
Events are taking a clear sectarian direction. The Salafist, The Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major forces …
Third in a Four Part Series: Anarchy as Alternative
by Edward Martin and Mateo Pimentel / May 21st, 2015
In Parts One and Two of this series, we argued that to prevent oligarchic rule, democratic and economic institutions need to be salvaged, ironically, through anarchist political activism and Marxist capital analysis, specifically Marx’s labor theory of value, which identifies the systemic and structural nature of exploitation. The point is that workers are “entitled” to the surplus value they create. We also argued that globalization as manifested in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), amounts to imperialism. In this particular case, we utilize the economic analysis provided by British economist John Hobson. In his great work Imperialism, Hobson, an anti-imperialist …
by T.P. Wilkinson / May 21st, 2015
For the vast majority of Westerners, that is to say both US Americans and their relatives (imagined or real) in Europe, the war against Vietnam was a brutal military conflict waged by the United States against a small Southeast Asian country by deploying up to some 500,000 combat personnel and more ordnance than dropped on Germany in WWII. The virtues of this endeavor are still disputed. In fact, there are numerous “technical” disputes which continue to make sober discussion of the period between 1945 and 1975 extremely difficult—never mind the attempts to draw coherent conclusions from the course of events.
After …
by Sonia Van den Broek / May 21st, 2015
For the first quarter of my life, I didn’t think much about sex offenders. Call it thoughtlessness or a naïve little bubble; it was probably both. This thoughtlessness might not be unique. But I began thinking about sex offenders when, at age 25, I was charged with a sex crime.
I had had sexual contact with my 17-year-old neighbor. I’m not proud of this and, if given the chance, would absolutely reverse that decision. But I slept with him once and joined the burgeoning ranks of women charged with sex offenses.
I think of these ranks both as a demographic and a …
by William Boardman / May 20th, 2015
“We don’t think the Ukrainian conflict is a nuclear crisis.”
That comment is a recent example of a US State Department diplomat deploying standard diplo-speak in order to engage in nuclear saber rattling by denying there’s any need to rattle any of the roughly 10,000 nuclear sabers that already worry the entire sentient world. The world can plainly see that the two most heavily nuclear-armed countries (between them, the US and Russia have about 95% of the global nuclear stockpile) are in …
The Ukraine story the media won’t tell, and why U.S. retreat is a good thing
by Patrick L. Smith / May 20th, 2015
The U.S. seems to admit it overplayed its hand over Ukraine. Caving to reality is actually the best possible policy
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry puts in an ear piece for translation during a news conference with Saudi Foreign Minister Saud bin Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Thursday, March 5, 2015, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Kerry sought Thursday to ease Gulf Arab concerns about an emerging nuclear deal with Iran and explore ways to calm instability in Yemen and other troubled nations in the Middle East.
It is just as well Secretary of State John Kerry’s momentous meetings with Russian …
by John Scales Avery / May 20th, 2015
This year, 2015, marks the 60th anniversary of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, which contains the following words:
There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise. If you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.
The background for the Russell-Einstein Manifesto is as follows: In March, 1954, the United States had tested a hydrogen bomb at the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. …
by Bill Quigley / May 20th, 2015
Governor Bobby Jindal yesterday announced he is praying over his decision whether to run for president. Yesterday he also issued an executive order supporting discrimination against marriages by Louisiana gay and lesbian citizens, minutes after a similar bill was overwhelmingly rejected by the Louisiana legislature. His action was interpreted as an effort to generate funds from fundamentalist religious organizations for his presidential campaign. Yesterday Jindal supporters started running $10,000 worth of ads casting him as a protector of freedom of conscience in Iowa.
The people and businesses of Louisiana already know they are paying the price for …
by Ramzy Baroud / May 20th, 2015
“What is the Palestinian strategy?” is a question that I have been asked all too often, including on 15 May, the day that millions of Palestinians around the world commemorated the 67th anniversary of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians by Zionist militias in 1947-48.
The question itself doesn’t require much elaboration, as in, “What is the Palestinian strategy to combat Israeli military occupation, siege violence, apartheid and racial discrimination?” The painful reality is well known to many, although few take on the moral responsibility to confront it.
And the posing of the question is telling in itself. It wouldn’t …
Activists Pledge to Cross Anyway and Call on the UN to Assist
by Codepink / May 20th, 2015
PYONGYANG, North Korea — International, Northern and Southern Korean women activists who plan to cross the Korean Demilitarized Zone said Wednesday they are determined to move forward with their walk, despite the announcement that United Nations authorities can’t guarantee their safety if they walk from the North to the South at Panmunjom. Panmunjom is where the Korean War armistice agreement was signed, and it is critical to the delegates that the DMZ crossing take place at this symbolic site.
Officials in Pyongyang have informed organizer Christine Ahn, a Korean-American peace activist, that without a formal letter from Seoul approving a crossing …
by Matt Peppe / May 20th, 2015
The New York Times ran two very different stories recently related to Israel. An analysis of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement titled ”Campus Debates on Israel Drive a Wedge Between Jews and Minorities” portrays the nonviolent campaign to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law as a cause of tensions between ethnic groups. Several days later, the Gray Lady printed “Israel Says Hezbollah Positions Put Lebanese at Risk” uncritically repeating Israeli propaganda justifying a future violent, illegal invasion that would likely kill thousands of civilians.
In the article on BDS, the Times pursues a biased …
Tracking the Latest Disaster in the Infrastructure Crisis
by Ellen Brown / May 20th, 2015
The dangerous underfunding of US infrastructure was underscored by a fatal train derailment on May 12th. The tragedy did not deter the House Appropriations Committee from voting to slash Amtrak funding the very next day. There are ways Congress could fund its massive infrastructure bill without raising taxes. But the conservative-controlled Congress seems to have other plans for the nation’s profitable public assets.
The May 12th train derailment near Philadelphia, which killed eight people and hospitalized 200, was the deadliest Amtrak accident in recent history. The train barreled around a dangerous bend at 106 mph, more than double the 50 …
by Ludwig Watzal / May 20th, 2015
Palestinian civil society thinks that calling for “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) represents a creative breakthrough to shake off the burden of Israel’s occupation regime in historic Palestine. Historically, resistance to Zionist intrusion into Palestine can be traced back to the mid-1920s. So far, however, all strategies have failed both before and after the establishment of the State of Israel.
The British colonial Mandate regime subdued the Arab revolt of 1936-1939 and killed its leader Izz ad-Din al-Qassam. In his memory, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas established in 1991 the “Al-Qassam Brigades” tasked to resist further Israeli land theft and …
Johnny Depp’s Dogs and Barnaby Joyce
by Binoy Kampmark / May 19th, 2015
It’s time that Pistol and Boo buggered back to the United States.
— Barnaby Joyce, Australian agriculture minister, ABC, May 14, 2015
One should be able to make light of it, though anything involving introduced species, pet sympathy and a community watery-eyed at thoughts they might be affected is bound to bring frowns and scowls. Attitudes to the environment in Australia tend to vary between loathing and anthropomorphic bliss. Rarely does a sensible mind get a word in.
Animal slaughter is sanctioned by scientific-agricultural establishments, armed to the teeth with lethal viruses. Elaborate techniques of killing the Indian Myna bird, to take but …
by John Scales Avery / May 19th, 2015
It is obvious, almost by definition, that excessive governmental secrecy and true democracy are incompatible. If the people of a country have no idea what their government is doing, they cannot possibly have the influence on decisions that the word “democracy” implies.
Dark government
Governmental secrecy is not something new. Secret diplomacy contributed to the outbreak of World War I, and the secret Sykes-Picot agreement later contributed to the bitterness of conflicts in the Middle East. However, in recent years, governmental secrecy has grown enormously.
The revelations of Edward Snowden and others have shown that the number of people involved in secret operations …
Letter from Mexico: Part Three
by Christy Rodgers / May 19th, 2015
Last Friday afternoon in Mexico City, I was waiting for a friend, a dedicated human and civil rights activist for many years in Mexico. He was going to tell me about his work on an initiative recently launched to call for a citizen’s convention to draft a new constitution for Mexico. This initiative, the “Constituyente Ciudadana Popular,” is spearheaded by Bishop of Saltillo Raul Vera, a leader of the Mexican Catholic Church.
Vera was assistant to the well-known Bishop of Chiapas Samuel Ruiz, an uncompromising advocate for Indigenous rights. During and after the Zapatista uprising in 1994, Ruiz denounced military …
by Robert Hunziker / May 19th, 2015
The G-7 annual summit is scheduled this June 7th-8th to be held at Schloss Elmau in Upper Bavaria.
“The Chancellor would like to use the G7 summit to push ahead with two UN projects: firstly, a worldwide climate agreement and secondly an agenda for sustainable development.” ((Angela Merkel at the Dialogue Forum, The Federal Chancellor, April 29, 2015.))
Fortunately, President Obama is representing the United States. Imagine how the sparks would fly if one of the current Republican presidential candidates attended, not that Obama has been great shakes on the climate issue. In fact, early on he missed a golden opportunity to …
Too many nightmares covering cops starting 40 years ago, nothing changes, just the hardware!
by Paul Haeder / May 19th, 2015
What does it mean to protect? To incarcerate? To uphold the law? What does it mean to strap on a gun and badge and go sadistically and forcefully into the night looking for stray people to shoot like rats?
What’s it like to be part of some paramilitary force and let the vengeance of the thin blue line overwhelm an entire city block with bombs and dead bodies ripped from the child’s bed?
What is it to be Janet Reno and firebomb a compound of religious nuts? To be that punk deputy who shoots a Seattle Pike Place woodcarver because he comes …
by Ted Glick / May 18th, 2015
If someone is upset with fracking, they should probably talk to the states.
— Norman Bay, Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), May 14, 2015
Why protest? Why demonstrate? Why nonviolent direct action? Part of the reason is to put pressure on those in power to smoke them out, to get them to say things publicly they might otherwise not say, to expose the truth about how and why things are working the way they are.
FERC has more to do with fracking than any other federal agency, and much more than any one state. They approve interstate pipelines to carry …
by Medea Benjamin / May 18th, 2015
Doug Hughes, a mailman from Florida who recently made headline news for flying his gyrocopter onto the West Lawn at the U.S. Capitol Building, will be in Washington DC for his first court hearing on May 21. Hughes has been charged with operating an unregistered aircraft and violating national airspace, which can potentially land him up to four years in prison, plus fines. I had the chance to interview him about his cause of getting money out of politics.
Medea Benjamin: Can you tell us a little about yourself?
Doug Hughes: I’m a mailman in Riverview, FL, near Tampa. I’m 61 years …
Health Concerns an Issue
by Shepherd Bliss / May 18th, 2015
Apple Blossom School has a nice ring to it, as does the Orchard View School at its side. The nearby Tree House Hollow pre-school, with children as young as two and three years old, continues this agrarian theme. These names evoke a pleasant scene of trees with students, teachers, and staff relaxing outside during recesses, as in old-fashioned one-room schools.
The winding rural Watetrough Road in the countryside around small town Sebastopol in Sonoma County, Northern California, leads to these rural schools, which have over 500 students. Sebastopol was known for decades as the home of the tasty Gravenstein apple. YUM! …
Press Simply Ignored It
by Eric Zuesse / May 18th, 2015
On Tuesday, May 12, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was asked at a press conference in Sochi Russia, to respond to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s recent statements promising renewed war against Donbass, which were made first on April 30, “The war will end when Ukraine regains Donbass and Crimea,” and which were repeated on May 11th, by his saying, “I have no doubt, we will free the [Donetsk] Airport, because it is our land.” In other words, Poroshenko had repeatedly made clear that he plans a third invasion of Donbass, and, ultimately, also to invade and retake Crimea. (The …
