Latest articles
by Marti Hiken and Luke Hiken / April 28th, 2015
What if they played a professional baseball game, but excluded the public? Sound Kafkaesque? Welcome to Baltimore, 2015!
To close a baseball game to the public and lock the fans out is representative of the state of “democracy” in the United States today. The Baseball Czars decided that playing to rows of empty seats was more important and consistent with “American values” than having an actual baseball game. First, Baltimore issued a curfew for the citizens of the city; then they closed their schools; and then they closed the ballpark.
Well, who is baseball for, anyway? Certainly not for the fans. The …
Rejecting the Framework of the Oppressor
by Ajamu Baraka / April 28th, 2015
Anti-Black racism, always just beneath the surface of polite racial discourse in the U.S., has exploded in reaction to the resistance of black youth to another brutal murder by the agents of this racist, settler-colonialist state. With the resistance, the focus shifted from the brutal murder of Freddie Gray and the systematic state violence that historically has been deployed to control and contain the black population in the colonized urban zones of North America, to the forms of resistance by African Americans to the trauma of ongoing state violence.
The narrative being advanced by corporate media spokespeople gives the impression that …
by John Andrews / April 28th, 2015
It’s very reassuring that more people are slowly learning how our monetary system really works: if you want to fix something, you need to know a bit about it. The indefatigable Ellen Brown has been hugely helpful in this regard with her regular well-informed and easy-to-read articles that relentlessly confront the myths of capitalist monetary theory. Her early work Web of Debt is an authoritative account of something that everyone should know about and understand; and if everyone were to read just one book on the subject that should be it: if everyone clearly understood the lessons of Ellen’s work …
Established decades ago to "Judaise" the Galilee, Upper Nazareth fights back as Arabs from surrounding communities try to buy homes
by Jonathan Cook / April 28th, 2015
For nearly 60 years, the historic city of Nazareth has been living with an unwelcome neighbour.
Upper Nazareth was built on Nazareth’s confiscated lands on the orders of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion. It was part of an official campaign to “Judaise” the only Palestinian city to survive relatively unscathed from the 1948 war.
But if Upper Nazareth and its Jewish residents were supposed to overwhelm the Galilee city that, according to the Bib`le, was home to Jesus, it has largely failed.
A far greater danger, admit Upper Nazareth’s officials, is that their small city now risks being overrun by the …
by Lamont Lilly / April 28th, 2015
The unique approach of Boston School Bus Union, Steelworkers Local 8751 offers a much needed new blueprint for building power within poor and working class communities. This particular union marks the spot where organized labor meets oppressed and marginalized people where they are. During my travels there, it was quite inspiring to see a local union work hand in hand with neighborhood youth against police brutality. It was quite encouraging to see the rank-and-file of the Boston school bus drivers work with parents and community members to organize against school closings and badly timed budget cuts to public …
by Shepherd Bliss / April 28th, 2015
SONOMA COUNTY — in the heart of California’s Redwood Empire — California Governor Jerry Brown spent this year’s Earth Day at the elite Iron Horse Winery in the Sebastopol countryside. It was a great photo opportunity and promotion for the winery. Iron Horse is known for donations to President Bill Clinton and other politicians, with whom it has cozy relationships, and from whom it receives favors, such as these visits. I operate a small berry and apple farm nearby and teach sustainable agriculture, mainly to college students.
“Hope Amid Drought” headlined the April 20 pro-wine industry daily Press Democrat’s (PD) …
by Denis Rancourt / April 28th, 2015
“Affirmative action” means imposing positive discrimination or quotas for members of disadvantaged groups. In the case of a university department, it means imposing a hiring practice designed to select more candidates from disadvantaged groups.
One view is that the tenured professors of the academic department should have total professional independence to select the most qualified candidates in their area of knowledge, without government or administrative interference. The idea here is that they have the knowledge and experience to best select candidates, and that it is most desirable for society that the most talented teachers and researchers be selected.
In the 1960s this …
by Ralph Nader / April 28th, 2015
The pro-big business President Barack Obama and his corporate allies are starting their campaign to manipulate and pressure Congress to ram through the “pull-down-on-America” Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade and foreign investment treaty between twelve nations (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam).
The first skirmish is a fast track bill to have Congress formally strip itself of its constitutional authority to regulate trade and surrender this historic responsibility to the White House and its corporate lobbies.
Lest you think the TPP is too commercially complex to bother about, think again. This mega-treaty …
by Jan Oberg / April 28th, 2015
The refugees in the Mediterranean
The European Union members states are trying to look as if they are doing something serious to care for the poor, catastrophe-stricken people who flee from war zones to Europe under the most risky and inhuman conditions.
Apart from the lack of genuine humanism and compassion and the cynical intention to uphold the ”deterrence” factor – other features surround these tragic events.
Refugees and migrants
In various media reports and political statements the word ”refugee” is increasingly being replaced by ”migrant” – hardly just a coincidence given the fact that the number of refugees, internally displaced …
by Gary Leupp / April 28th, 2015
The national secular religion of this country consists of a cluster of rarely questioned premises, usually inculcated in childhood, comparable to the articles of a real religious creed.
The first proposition is the idea that we live in a “free” country, as symbolized by the Statue of Liberty idol that towers over New York City’s harbor. The system absolutely insists on this point, incessantly hammering it in. It’s its basic tenet. Indeed it’s presented as “self-evident.” You’re in this country, ergo, you are FREE.
It’s inflicted by osmosis. Every institution transmits it. Those who doubt it are encouraged to think they must …
by T.J. Petrowski / April 28th, 2015
Nowhere in recent years have the contradictions of imperialism been so clear than in the West’s war against ISIS. Working people are bombarded with messages in the media of the worldwide threat of ISIS, with the aim of the messages to convince working people of the need to sacrifice their civil liberties and democratic freedoms to counter ISIS and to support more military interventions in the Middle East. If Barack Obama, David Cameron, Tony Abbot, and other Western leaders were truly interested in countering the threat of ISIS, perhaps they should follow Stephen Harper’s “strong leadership” by finding the nearest …
by Eoin Higgins / April 27th, 2015
In the week beginning April 20, 2015, the American people got three object lessons about equal treatment and the stratification of status in the twenty-first century.
Three events in the week beginning April 20, 2015, show convincingly that the American promise of national and global societal justice is a lie. They specifically show that in this new American century, one’s economic status, access to power, and place of birth determine one’s access to human rights and equal protection under the law. Any illusions to the contrary are just that.
The separating of people into groups in which the privileged few look at …
Part Two: In the Ointment
by T.P. Wilkinson / April 27th, 2015
In 1966, the US anthropologist Jules Henry wrote in The Nation:
The establishment throughout Southeast Asia of industrial complexes backed by American capital is sure to have a salutary effect on the development of our foreign involvement: the vast land’s cheap labour pool will permit competition with the lower production costs of Chinese and Japanese industry, which have immobilized our trading capabilities in Asia for many years… The destruction of the Vietnamese countryside is the first, and necessary step, to the industrialization of Vietnam and the nationalization of its agriculture. ((Jules Henry, “Capital’s last frontier”, The Nation, 25 April 1966))
Henry’s assessment of US Asia-Pacific policy was quite …
by William Boardman / April 27th, 2015
US-sponsored war crimes resume as Yemenis fail to give up their country
While the US publicly plays Pontius Pilate washing his hands clean, the Saudi-led coalition of Arab police states continue to enjoy US support for their one-sided war. The same Arab dictatorships that continue to wage aggressive war with impunity against a defenseless Yemen have, at the same time, scaled back on fighting the militant Islamic State despite its hold on large parts of two other Arab countries, Syria and Iraq. Seriously, why fight someone who might …
No One is Facing a Firing Squad for Looting the Country
by Andre Vltchek / April 27th, 2015
Indonesia, the country which did not earnestly punish one single top military brass for the genocides in East Timor and not one single person for horrendous and ongoing genocide in Papua, is now ready to execute another nine people for drug trafficking. In January 2015 it already slayed six drug convicts including five foreigners, sparking international indignation.
AFP reported:
“Indonesia on Sunday signaled it was determined to push ahead with the execution of eight foreign drug convicts, despite a growing wave of global condemnation led by United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon.
Authorities on Saturday gave formal notice to the eight — from Australia, …
by Denis Rancourt / April 27th, 2015
You have been had.
You can’t see the obvious.
When the obvious is stated, you viscerally reject it, or fain being deaf.
Stated as plainly as I can manage:
You are workers in a controlled economy. The educational and service-professional sectors are integrated parts of the same system of extraction of your intellectual labour. If you withdraw your labour, the system grinds to a halt. This means you have real leverage to extract fair working conditions.
You should be salaried for your school work. The points of negotiation need to be the amount of salary, the working conditions, and your participation …
by James Petras / April 27th, 2015
A recent article by Jorge Elbaum, the former executive director of DAIA (Delegation for Argentine Jewish Associations), the principle Argentine Jewish umbrella groups, published in the Buenos Aires daily Pagina 12, provides a detailed account of the damaging links between the State of Israel, US Wall Street speculators, and local Argentine Zionists in government and out. Elbaum describes how their efforts have been specifically directed toward destabilizing the incumbent center-left government of President Cristina Fernandez, while securing exorbitant profits for a Zionist Wall Street speculator, Paul Singer …
by Walter Brasch / April 26th, 2015
Vera Scroggins of Susquehanna County, Pa., was found to be in contempt of court, Thursday, and fined $1,000.
Her offense? She tells the truth.
Truth is something that apparently has bypassed the court of Judge Kenneth W. Seamans, who retired at the end of 2014, but came out of retirement to handle this case.
The case began in October 2013.
Scroggins, a retired real estate agent and nurse’s aide, was in Common Pleas Court to explain why a temporary injunction should not be issued against her. That injunction would require her to stay at least 150 feet from all properties where Cabot Oil and …
Part One: A War of Unlimited Opportunity
by T.P. Wilkinson / April 26th, 2015
The US invaded Vietnam publicly in the “wake” of the so-called Tonkin Gulf Resolution in 1964. ((Southeast Asia Resolution, 7 August 1964. Adopted unanimously in the House of Representatives, only two US Senators voted against it, Wayne Morse (Oregon) and Ernst Groening (Alaska), both Democrats.)) Since then this action by the US regime is customarily dignified by the term “intervention”. Although the pretext for the congressional resolution was at least suspicious then and long since discredited as fraudulent, the perception of the war as an “intervention” is still widely shared. ((The term “intervention” is used throughout the historical literature to …
Guaranteed profits—at any price
by Jason Hirthler / April 26th, 2015
Last Tuesday, President Barack Obama told beltway bullhorn Chris Matthews that Senator Elizabeth Warren was “wrong” about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the largest trade deal in American history, linking United States and Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam in a pervasive and binding treaty. The president was referring to Warren’s claim that the trade treaty will license corporations to sue governments, and her contention that this was, to put it mildly, a bad idea.
Warren isn’t wrong, Obama is. And he knows it. The entire TPP, as understood, is based on a single overarching …
Introduction: Landing on the Table,1976
by T.P. Wilkinson / April 25th, 2015
Who won which war?
After 40 years there remains no easy answer to this question or better said, there are at least as many answers as there were wars.
In 2005 at a US State Department conference held in combination with the publication of the FRUS volumes covering the US war, Barry Zorthian said in an exchange with Marvin Kalb, “I say to you there is no single Vietnam War.” ((The Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), is the official documentary record of US foreign policy published by the US Department of State (Office of the Historian). Barry Zorthian (1920-2010) was …
When Medicine and Politics Mix
by Binoy Kampmark / April 25th, 2015
Hate, disgrace, and pitiful editorial standards. Are these the terms to be ascribed to The Lancet, which, bar a few blemishes, has shown a distinguished pedigree in the world of medical research? Stroppy academics have made an argument that an open letter published within its pages last year be denounced and withdrawn. “An Open letter to the people of Gaza” triggered a furious reaction within the magazine, with complainants suggesting that the publication has sided with the forces of “anti-Jewish bigotry”.
The letter itself (July 22, 2014), authored by Paola Manduca, Iain Chalmers, Derek Summerfield, Mads Gilbert, Swee Ang on behalf …
by Ellen Brown / April 24th, 2015
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government. — Article IV, Section 4, US Constitution
A republican form of government is one in which power resides in elected officials representing the citizens, and government leaders exercise power according to the rule of law.
In The Federalist Papers, James Madison defined a republic as “a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people . . . .”
On April 22, 2015, the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive trade agreement that would override our republican …
by Jonathan Cook / April 24th, 2015
The question of punishing illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territory was considered separately in Europe and Israel last week, with only superficial differences in the conclusions reached. Israel’s near half-century occupation is in no immediate danger, either at home or abroad.
Some 16 European foreign ministers sent a letter to the European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Federica Mogherini, calling for the EU to label clearly Israeli settlement products to alert shoppers to their true provenance.
Yair Lapid, Israel’s former finance minister who is widely regarded as a moderate, angrily phoned Mogherini to warn that major European states were calling for a “de …
April 24th, 2015, Twelfth Anniversary of a US Travesty of Justice
by Felicity Arbuthnot / April 24th, 2015
Vincent Nichols, Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, is spiritual leader of the four million Catholics of England and Wales. He was also elevated to Cardinal on February 22nd, 2014, receiving the Cardinal’s red hat from Pope Francis in Rome’s St Peter’s Basilica. He has been cited as a man: “not afraid to speak out when he feels compelled to do so.”
He has indeed railed against “punitive” welfare cuts, calling them a “disgrace”, he has spoken in defence of Catholic masses for gay, lesbian and transgender Catholics and has come under attack for defending Irish priests and nuns who had abused children …
by Jonathan Cook / April 24th, 2015
Academia is far from the bastion of free thinking and free speech it would like to claim for itself, as a newly confected “row” involving the leading medical journal The Lancet confirms.
Recently Southampton University in the UK caved in on hosting an important conference examining Israel and international law, following an intensive campaign of intimidation from Israeli apologists.
Now some 400 medical professors are blackmailing Reed Elsevier, publishers of The Lancet, by threatening to boycott its publications unless the company sacks editor Richard Horton – or as they duplicitously phrase it, “enforce appropriate ethical standards of editorship”.
By refusing to publish papers or peer review them, the professors, …
by Robert Hunziker / April 23rd, 2015
Somebody’s gotta do it!
Meanwhile, America’s Congress ignores one of the biggest problems of all time, global warming/climate change. America’s entrepreneurs know better. They’re not waiting for Congress to fiddle whilst the planet burns.
American ingenuity, in the hands of Tesla Motors Inc., is taking on global warming head on. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, is risking a fortune to make a fortune with renewable energy. And, yes, he’s in it for profits, not as a benefactor to “Greenies,” but who really cares if he sets in motion an unstoppable nationwide renewable revolution.
In that regard, America is about to witness one of …
by Edward Martin and Mateo Pimentel / April 23rd, 2015
The future of solidarity in Catholic social teaching provides the basis for a human rights policy that grants priority to the claims of people whose human dignity is threatened by systemic and structural injustice. This development has been supported by the inclusion of Marxist analysis. In a world that is constantly assuming new organizational institutions, the rights and dignities of persons are still at risk. Consequently, solidarity in both Catholic and Marxist notions prioritize institutional protection and human rights. David Hollenbach, S.J. states:
Thus, since Vatican II, the documents have emphasized the importance of discriminating (or discerning) attention to the differences …
Interview with Saïd Bouamama
by Michel Collon / April 23rd, 2015
In 2010, Saïd Bouamama co-writed the book Fuck France with Saidou from the ZEP group. After its release, an extreme right-wing association pressed charges for incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence. In January 2015, shortly after the freedom of speech defense “march,” Saïd Bouamama and Saidou appeared before the Court of First Instance. Saïd Bouamama, a sociologist specializing in discrimination towards the popular class’ immigrants, analyzes the context of the post Charlie French society.
Michel Collon: In which context did the book that lately brought you to the District Court of Paris did emerge? And for what reason?
Saïd Bouamama: The book …
by James Hoover / April 23rd, 2015
The basic conservative movement has never altered its views. It has always been based on the domination of society by an aristocracy, but its approach has varied to suit the times.
Since the ascendency of Reagan conservatism, that aristocracy is increasingly measured by money and power, cementing both with a redistribution of wealth from middle class to the rich. Policy in a 21st century world embedded with democratic principles required changes in voting allegiance. With a government remake and the election of conservative allies in government, the first goal is to release any union constraints on private industry, which then …
