If humans are to achieve a stable society in the distant future, it will be necessary for them to become modest in their economic behavior and peaceful in their politics. For both modesty and peace, Gandhi is useful as a source of ideas.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in 1869 in Porbandar, India. His family belonged to the Hindu caste of shopkeepers. (In Gujarati “Gandhi” means “grocer”.) However, the family had risen in status, and Gandhi’s father, grandfather, and uncle had all served as prime ministers of small principalities in western India.
In 1888, Gandhi sailed for England, where he spent three …
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has just been sentenced to death by a federal jury for his role in the Boston Marathon bombings. The sentence has been met with a lot of discomfort in Boston and the surrounding environs. Massachusetts is predisposed to rejecting capital punishment as a general rule. Even in this case, where the terror and horror hit so close to home, the people of Massachusetts are leery of the death penalty.
And for good reason.
The application of the death penalty in the United States is rife with racism, false guilt, and corruption. The nation is slowly …
It’s tempting to look at Baltimore and think that this is an urban event, impacting the lives and futures of relatively few who are relatively insignificant. It’s convenient to think of a ‘riot’ as breakdown of civil society, but civil society broke down long ago. The streets of Baltimore are the parallel to Reagan’s fantasy view of America. They reflect a reality that in spite of the effort to hide and marginalize it won’t go away. It proves that no matter how much we try to argue otherwise, our collective fate must honor all those who are part of it, …
Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is one of the few members of Congress who has taken the time to jump through the hoops and read the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). But, he has gone a step farther than other members – he told members of Congress what he read. He told the truth about what the TPP says and why Congress should oppose it in a five page letter to his colleagues.
Sessions’ action flies in the face of the threats made by the US Trade Representative to prosecute elected officials who tell people what is in the trade agreement. Others should follow …
We have to make sure America writes the rules of the global economy and we should do it today while our economy is in a position of global strength. If we don’t write the rules for trade around the world, guess what, China will. And they’ll write those rules in a way that gives Chinese workers and Chinese businesses the upper hand.
— Barack Obama on the Trans-Pacific Partnership in a Speech at Nike Factory in Oregon, May 8, 2015
Those very few words of Obama’s, his most widely circulated PR effort to garner support for the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) …
A play that re-tells one of the most shameful episodes in the continuing Israeli occupation of Palestine had its premiere this week at The Lowry in Salford, Manchester. It is called The Siege.
The Freedom Theatre company, which produced the play, had traced exiled Palestinian resisters scattered across Europe and collected their accounts of that infamous event.
An internal memo from Lowry’s management warned staff about the ‘sensitive’ nature of the performance. “As with any work relating to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, The Siege is likely to attract comment and emotion for both sides of the debate.
In a couple of days, the so-called US Justice Department will be announcing an “agreement” reached with five large banks, including two of the largest in the US — JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup, the holding companies for Chase and Citibank — under which these banks or bank holding companies will plead guilty to felonies involving the manipulation of international currency markets.
This is not really a plea deal, or what in the lingo of criminals is called “copping a plea.” It’s a negotiation in which the nation’s top law-enforcement organization — the one that just sentenced a teenager to death …
A Talk by Gilad Atzmon. Los Angeles May 10th, Levantine Cultural Center.
Says Atzmon, “[T]his is pretty much a summary of my argument against Jewish power and the corrosive impact of Jewish left. If you are interested in my work or even oppose everything I do, I urge you to watch (or read) this talk.”
American history is replete with acrimony born of political opposition and its emotional heat. Racism has been a weapon, but never such a searing whip of bias and disrespect.
Now deep in the seventh year of the Obama presidency, Michelle Obama is reflecting on her family’s experiences as the first black family to inhabit the White House as First Family. It is instructional for all of us who mostly focus on the racism witnessed across our land – of late, young unarmed black men being shot dead — perhaps not focusing on the continual racist treatment of the first family.
Because the western mass media is so overwhelmingly slanted to corporate and state interests, the need for principled and independent news and information that can reach the masses is vital. Because TRNN presents itself as independent news, and because the vast bulk of its reporting and backgrounders are very good, it is important that it be held to the highest standard. ((See Kim Petersen, “Dispelling the Murkiness of the Corporate Media: The Real News,” Dissident Voice, 3 July 2008.)) There are, however, odd instances when I find its reporting to be less than solid ((Kim Petersen, “Independent …
The only Latino candidate is also the only opponent to Mayor Ed Lee for the November’s mayoral race. So far, no other candidate has shown interest to be in Lee’s shoes. The shortage of candidates may seem surprising or better said, astonishing, considering that the city, paraphrasing the mayor himself, is going through one of the most serious social crisis in its history.
With over one hundred volunteers, zero money, the indifference of the big-money media and against all odds, activist, singer and long-time Mission resident, Francisco Herrera announced a few weeks ago his intention to run for the highest …
Last month when Florida postal worker, Doug Hughes, landed his tiny aircraft, known as a gyrocopter, on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol with 535 letters addressed to every member of Congress, the conversation should have been about his desperate message. Instead, his letter to each Senator and Representative arguing for an end to the corruption of private money in public election campaigns was largely ignored. The media focused instead on an airspace violation with an unregistered aircraft. The delivery of a letter remarking on racism or sexism in the United States may have gotten far more attention. While issues …
Unprecedented assembles evidence that carbon emissions from fossil fuels are pushing humankind to unprecedented crises. Weather events are becoming more severe. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, storms are more frequent. Ice caps and glaciers are melting. Sea levels are rising. Oceans are becoming more acidic.
A professor emeritus of philosophy and religion, David Ray Griffin discusses in his book, Unprecedented: Can Civilization Survive the Co2 Crisis? (Clarity Press, 2015), human-caused climate change from economic, moral, political, religious, philosophical and environmental perspectives. Griffin concludes that humankind cannot avoid suffering damaging …
Palestinian minority fears decision will revive legislation to drive tens of thousands of Bedouin off their lands in Negev
by Jonathan Cook / May 15th, 2015
Israel’s Palestinian minority is preparing to hold a “day of rage” to protest against a court ruling last week that cleared the way to destroy an entire Bedouin village so that it can be replaced by a Jewish town. The Israeli Supreme Court’s decision marks the end of a 13-year legal battle by the 800 villagers of Umm al-Hiran in the Negev (Naqab) to prevent the establishment of the town on the site of their current homes.The new town – also to be called Hiran – is expected to include 2,500 homes designated for ultra-nationalist religious groups closely identified with the …
The BC Liberal government and LNG industry suffered a blow this week with a final losing vote amongst Lax Kw’alaams Band members over a billion-dollar package offered to support Petronas’ Pacific NorthWest LNG plant near Prince Rupert.
First they manufacture monstrous lies, and then they tell us that we should be objective!
Is love objective; is passion?
Are dreams defendable, logically and philosophically?
When a house is attacked by brigands, when a village is overran by gangsters, when smoke, fire and cries for help are coming from every corner, should we award ourselves with the luxury of time to calculate, analyze and aim at complete logical, ethical, holistic and objective solutions?
I strongly believe no! We are obliged to fight those who are burning our dwellings, to hit with full force those who are attempting to rape our women, and to …
Haneen Al Zoubi, champion of democracy and embattled Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, spoke in the northeastern US in late April. Al Zoubi is from Nazareth in the Galilee, northern Israel/Palestine, whose population stubbornly remains 50% Palestinian Arab despite nearly 70 years of intensive Judaization, to the consternation of Israel. She is an outspoken opponent of the Jewish state, and its oppression of the Palestinians, be they citizens, under occupation or in exile. She was aboard the Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara in 2010 as it led a flotilla attempting to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Israeli commandos boarded it …
As it turns out, Jean Ziegler – author, lecturer, and United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food 2000-2008 – writes a far more concise review of Yash Tandon’s latest book, Trade is War, than I can. Fortunately for me you’ll have to buy the book to read Ziegler’s powerful assessment as it serves as the preface to Tandon’s vital, timely, and unflinching chronicle of world trade as one of the West’s most violent weapons used in its tireless campaign of imperial warfare on the global South.
Deeply and uniquely qualified to “seize the narrative”, Tandon sets …
Methane (CH4) is 25 times more efficient at entrapping solar radiation and effectuating global warming than is carbon dioxide (CO2).
As the Arctic becomes more and more ice-free, the release of methane entrapped for millennia in Arctic ice accelerates. This, in turn, increases the risks of a planetary catastrophe. Yet, the scientific community does not like using words like “catastrophe,” which is considered alarmist. So, forewarned, this is an alarmist article.
Not only is this article alarmist, it is an indictment of views about climate change held by most, if not all, of the Republican candidates for presidency. Regardless of their individual …
by Edward Martin and Mateo Pimentel / May 14th, 2015
In Part One of this series, we argued that anarchy is the solution to the problem of oligarchic control of democratic institutions. This holds true for economic institutions as well. And no better example can be provided than Obama’s sinister Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is designed in neoliberal fashion to financially reward the 1 percent on Wall Street and the 1 percent internationally, because it is all about the international elite, not just the average people in the United States who are expendable under the TPP arrangement. Obama knows this. We argue that it is not just anarchism that …
A friend recently asked to meet for coffee. ‘I’ve had some more bad news,’ his text said. A ‘fifty something’ year old friend had taken his own life the day before. Jack had hanged himself from a tree in a public park on the outskirts of London; it was his fourth attempt. He had four children. This was the second, middle-aged, male friend to have committed suicide within six months.
Their stories are far from unique. Suicide occurs everywhere in the world to people of all age groups, from 15 to 70 years. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that …
In 1990 Amnesty International made a horrendous mistake in the midst of the media campaign leading up to Gulf War 1. While U.S. military action was being debated and the public was significantly opposed, it was reported that Iraqi troops were stealing incubators from a Kuwaiti hospital and leaving babies to die on the floor. In dramatic testimony before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, a Kuwaiti teenage girl claimed she was a hospital volunteer and eye-witness. Congress members were in tears, the event received huge publicity and had significant influence in changing public opinion. The event was a fabrication …
A complex class system exists in the United States, but the mass media and political rhetoric generally reduces it to three components — one middle class, and two economic generalizations — rich and the poor. Indeed the term “class” itself, as a means of defining the economic and social status of the population, has been fading away. There are, of course, a number of other classes, particularly the all-important capitalist class.
Virtually the only class ever mentioned these days is the middle class, and now that seems on the way out, at least until the next election if not longer. The …
The CIA’s Phoenix program changed how America fights its wars and how the public views this new type of political and psychological warfare, in which civilian casualties are an explicit objective.
The CIA created Phoenix in Saigon in 1967 to identify the civilian leaders and supporters of the National Liberation Front; and to detain, torture, and kill them using every means possible, from B-52 raids and “Cordon and Search” operations, to computerized blacklists, secret torture centers, and death squads.
Photo: CIA Organized and Advised Montagnards. Courtesy of II Corps Phoenix Advisor …
by Medea Benjamin and Nalini Ramachandran / May 13th, 2015
Washington DC is presently the converging point for some of the world’s most oppressive regimes. On May 13th and 14th, President Obama is hosting a billionaire conglomerate known as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which consists of the Middle Eastern countries of Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Oman. The cozy US-GCC relationship exemplifies the twisted nature of US foreign policy, especially in regards to one particular monarchy: Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has been accused of human rights violations against its own citizens, including political activists, journalists, and women. The Saudi king has decided to …
It’s an Arab-Palestinian Nakba, and We Are All Refugees
by Ramzy Baroud / May 13th, 2015
In a western capital far away from Gaza and Cairo, I recently shared a pot of tea with an “Egyptian refugee”.
The term is familiar to me, but never have I encountered an Egyptian who refers to himself as such. He stated it as a matter of fact by saying: “As an Egyptian refugee ..” and carried on to talk about the political turmoil in his country.
It made me shudder as I tried to conjure up a possible estimation of Arabs who have been made refugees in recent years. But where does one start the estimation if we are to set …
Author/jazz artist Gilad Atzmon has combined with cartoonist Enzo Apicella to produce, as it is entitled, The Definitive Israeli Lexicon: A to Zion. And true to its title, provided are the definition of words from A to Z — from a Jewish-Israeli standpoint.
As the book’s composers make clear, it is a “truthful yet satirical book.” They also unashamedly state that it “is probably the ultimate toilet book.” In a sense this is very true because it is full of shit which is a euphemistic way to describe the belief that …
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was quick to congratulate Israeli soldiers on their relief efforts in Nepal, where an earthquake late last month claimed many thousands of lives.
“These are the true faces of Israel,” he said of a 260-strong team that arrived to pull survivors from the rubble, treat the injured, help deliver babies, and entertain traumatised children. Israel’s field hospital in Kathmandu was the biggest and best-equipped after India’s, Nepal’s large neighbour.
Similar relief operations by Israel were prominent in Haiti after its 2010 earthquake, in Japan a year later after a quake there, and in 2013 when a typhoon …
When the NDP party triumphed in the Alberta provincial election last week, there were three primary responses: conservatives inside the province declared that they no longer recognized Alberta and were going to move to Saskatchewan, such was their collective shock at the end of a 44-year conservative dynasty; progressives in Alberta and across the country seemed ecstatic by the NDP victory, convinced, apparently, that a progressive government had conquered the conservative heartland of Canada, despite winning only 41% of the popular vote with a moderate election platform; and finally, environmentalists inside Alberta and anti-Keystone XL pipeline liberals in the United …
Education, jobs, community, self-worth, culture and being-buying-living locally
by Paul Haeder / May 12th, 2015
As always, writing about a middle-sized community in the Pacific Northwest is like peering into the looking glass. All references to the One Percent, de-emphasizing community rights, brain drain and monopolization of all business sectors and privatizing the profits and socializing all the heavy burden and costs to the local community/economy, all of that applies to You Name It, USA!
I truly believe that Spokane is the most compassionate community in America.
— Spokane Mayor David Condon, February 2015
Today, we have the largest gap of income inequality ever seen in this country, with no signs of a reversal happening. We have a …
