Latest articles
Mass Surveillance Is Driven By The Private Sector
by William A. Blunden / April 22nd, 2015
Yet another report has surfaced describing how tools created by the malware-industrial complex are being deployed by U.S. security services. While the coverage surrounding this story focuses primarily on federal agencies it’s important to step back for a moment and view the big picture. In particular, looking at who builds, operates, and profits from mass surveillance technology offers insight into the nature of the global panopticon.
A report published by Privacy International as well as an article posted by Vice Motherboard clearly show that both the DEA and the United States Army have long-standing relationships with Hacking Team, an …
by Brian Terrell / April 22nd, 2015
On March 26, I was in Nevada in my role as event coordinator for Nevada Desert Experience, preparing for the annual Sacred Peace Walk, a 65-mile trek through the desert from Las Vegas to the nuclear Test Site at Mercury, Nevada, an event that NDE has sponsored each spring for about 30 years. Two days before the walk was to begin, a car load of us organizers traced the route.
The last stop but one on the traditional itinerary is the “Peace Camp,” a place in the desert where we usually stay the last night before crossing Highway 95 into what …
by Barb Weir / April 22nd, 2015
After a century of denial, the government of Turkey has finally expressed solidarity with what it calls “the Armenian tragedy” of 1915. “It was a traumatic experience,” acknowledged Turkish spokesperson E. Bulent Sbendokter. “There’s hardly a family without loss. We Turks want Armenians to know that we feel their pain.” I persuaded him to give me an interview.
Barb Weir: Why do you call the death of so many people a tragedy and not a genocide, Mr. Sbendokter?
E. Bulent Sbendokter: Because it was tragic, Ms. Weir. Is it not appropriate to call something tragic a tragedy?
BW: But why do you avoid describing it …
by Alton C. Thompson / April 22nd, 2015
With a new election cycle now in its early stages, Jeffrey Tayler has observed:
Aspirants to the White House, both Democratic and Republican, have, as we all know, begun “announcing,” thus initiating, from a rationalist’s point of view, a media carnival featuring, on both sides, an array of supposedly God-fearing clowns and faith-mongering nitwits groveling before Evangelicals and nattering on about their belief in the Almighty and their certainty that if we just looked, we could find answers to many of our ills in the Good Book.
The “Good Book” in question is, of course, the (Christian) Bible, and …
Or The Value of Political Commitments to Social Science
by James Petras / April 22nd, 2015
For many decades, mainstream social scientists, mostly conservative, have argued that political commitments and scientific research are incompatible. Against this current of opinion, others, mostly politically engaged social scientists, have argued that scientific research and political commitment are not contradictory.
In this essay I will argue in favor of the latter position by demonstrating that scientific work is embedded in a socio-political universe, which its practioners can deny but cannot avoid. I will further suggest that the social scientist who is not aware of the social determinants …
by Eoin Higgins / April 21st, 2015
Across the United States, the campaign for raising the minimum wage to 15 dollars is gaining momentum. From cities such as traditionally left wing Olympia, Washington, to more moderate Atlanta, Georgia, activists are pushing for better wages- and they’re starting to win the debate.
But will a higher minimum wage really change that much for the average American? It’s unlikely unless the struggle is broadened beyond the scope of the minimum wage in the United States. To explore this further, let’s start with a hypothetical future scenario of the results of the domestic struggle.
Once the groundswell of activism in …
by Robert Hunziker / April 21st, 2015
Just imagine the impact, the feeling, the awe-inspiring circumstance of one billion people all standing for the same purpose on the same day. Yes, that is the goal of The Billion People March, coming this December 19th. Don’t miss it. The world has never ever experienced such a spectacle. One (1) out of every seven (7) people on the face of the planet will attend. History will be made. #BILLIONPEOPLEMARCH.
The story line for that upcoming yet-to-be-famous march is: “We change the course of history.”
It’s all about COP21 (Conference of the Parties 21), the greatly anticipated Paris gathering of the nations, …
by Richard Layton / April 21st, 2015
I note with some disappointment but no real surprise that Edward Martin and Mateo Pimentel, the authors of “Revisiting Marx and Liberalism” have not responded to my article, “No Marx!” which challenged their contention that for Marx, Socialism was the first stage of Communism.
Given that Mr Pimentel is a long-term member of S.P.U.S.A., the Socialist Party U.S.A., it’s no wonder that confusion reigns when it comes to his and his co-author’s view of Marx in respect of a future post-capitalist society.
Mr Pimentel’s Party favours, “a classless socialist society that places people’s lives under their own control… where …
by Mirah Riben / April 21st, 2015
The actress, author, and businesswoman Sherri Shepherd, currently on The View, lost her court battle today over the custody of her surrogate-born son. She and her soon-to-be former husband Lamar Sally, a scriptwriter, had been embroiled in an odd custody and support battle involving a child born to a surrogate they hired.
Shepherd and Sally entered into a 23-page contract with Jessica Bartholomew to serve as a gestational surrogate for them, using a purchased egg. The three faced off in court over the custody and financial responsibility for the baby boy named Lamar Sally Junior.
Unlike other disputed surrogate agreements, this …
by James Hall / April 21st, 2015
Blaming the 1% for diminished prosperity avoids the real reasons for designed poverty. In round terms, the seven billion souls that populate this planet translate into seventy million to be part of the 1%. Well, that amount is still a very large number to blame for the systemic transfer of riches into the hands of the few. A far more relevant approach is to examine the .001% or around seven million that fall into the mover or shakers of asset and possessions. Before targeting this group of mega wealth, that figure includes a very significant number, who are non players …
by Paul Larudee / April 21st, 2015
There are many illusions about what is happening to the Yarmouk district of Damascus and its Palestinian refugee population. The district was originally set aside in 1957 for Palestinian refugees already living there, whom Israel had expelled from their homes in 1948, with periodic additional populations thereafter. Today it is home to around one million Syrians and Palestinians, of whom the Palestinians number roughly 170,000. Palestinians in Syria have all the rights of Syrian citizens except voting, and in Yarmouk their homes are indistinguishable from those of the Syrian residents.
Starting in 2012, armed elements trying to overthrow …
by Mateo Pimentel / April 21st, 2015
In conjunction with many geopolitical interests, general stability and prosperity in the Western hemisphere (i.e., the stratification and disparity in wealth) have kept Latin America, in Washington’s eyes, ripe for free trade and economic alignment. There exist unimaginable caches of resources, such as Venezuela’s oil stores, which could foreseeably feed into America’s global capitalist system over the course of its now decline. Hence the free trade agreements and America’s subversive efforts throughout the region. Additionally, the United States floats weak states with military aid when it is advantageous. And, as for nonaligned groups who resist and defend their sovereignty and/or …
by Michael K. Smith / April 20th, 2015
We are opinionated, yet we cannot offer our opinions. We have a right to the echo, not to the voice, and those who rule praise our talent to repeat parrot fashion. We refuse to accept this mediocrity as our destiny.
— Eduardo Galeano, opening speech at “Chile Creates,” an international meeting in support of Chilean democracy, July 11, 1988 ((Eduardo Galeano, We Say No, (Norton, 1992) p. 243))
In school, he hated history and was a lousy history student. He wanted to be a soccer player, a saint, and a painter. He abandoned the first two ambitions, and achieved the third only …
by David Swanson / April 20th, 2015
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
— Robert Frost. Fire and Ice
After a speech I gave this past weekend, a young woman asked me whether a failure by the United States to properly surround and intimidate China might result in instability. I explained why I thought the opposite was true. Imagine if China had military bases along the Canadian and Mexican borders with the …
by Lee Hall / April 20th, 2015
Once upon a time—in 1973, to be precise—Peter Singer suggested birth control for free-living animals as part of the “animal liberation” philosophy. Parenthetically at first. Publicly asked whether gazelles should be protected from lions, Singer replied in a letter for the New York Review of Books:
Lions play a role in the ecology of their habitat, and we cannot be sure what the long-term consequences would be if we were to prevent them from killing gazelles. (The way to do this, I suppose, would be by eliminating lions, perhaps by sterilization.) So, in practice, I would definitely say …
Never Forget the Nakba, Islamophobia, and Racism meted out to others
by Kim Petersen / April 20th, 2015
Contempt for the Arab population is deeply rooted in Zionist thought.
— Noam Chomsky ((Noam Chomsky, Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and The Palestinians (South End Press Classics, 1983, 1999). ))
Anti-Arab racism is, however, so widespread as to be unnoticeable; it is perhaps the only remaining form of racism to be regarded as legitimate.
— Noam Chomsky ((Noam Chomsky, Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and The Palestinians (South End Press Classics, 1983, 1999). ))
In a Times of Israel piece on the need to fight anti-Semitism a perplexing observation and conclusion was made:
Rabbi Yaacov Monsonego of Toulouse, France, made a quick …
by Robert Hunziker / April 20th, 2015
Ever since Milton Friedman, American economist (1912-2006), who considered himself the heir to Adam Smith, used the term neoliberalism in an essay “Neoliberalism and its Prospects” in 1951, the world has tilted in that direction, starting with Chile as the “Chicago Boys” lab experiment under the watchful eye of the infamous dictator General Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, president from 1974-90. The world has never been the same.
Today, neoliberalism reigns supreme across the oceans, whereby control of economic principles shifts from the public sector to the private sector with limited governmental interference, the less the better, open markets, free trade …
by Matt Peppe / April 19th, 2015
As negotiations continue between the governments of the United States and Cuba over the normalization of relations, the U.S. State Department has claimed Cuba is willing to discuss the extradition of political refugee Assata Shakur. While it may seem that Cuba would gladly make such a seemingly minor concession in return for the promise of normalized relations, this would greatly underestimate the Cuban government’s commitment to upholding its principles. Shakur need not worry that Cuba will cave for expediency’s sake and send her back to the country she escaped from after being harassed and persecuted for years.
According to …
by Paul Craig Roberts / April 18th, 2015
Graeme MacQueen’s 2014 book, The 2001 Anthrax Deception: The Case for a Domestic Conspiracy, has been vindicated by the head of the FBI’s Anthrax Investigation.
Four and one-half months ago I posted a review of MacQueen’s book. The hired government apologists, the despicable presstitute media, and the usual gullible patriots greeted the book with screams of “conspiracy theory.” In fact, MacQueen’s book was a carefully researched project that established that there indeed was a conspiracy–a conspiracy inside the government.
MacQueen’s conclusion stands vindicated by Richard Lambert, the agent in charge of the FBI anthrax investigation who has turned whistleblower. …
by William Manson / April 18th, 2015
Words, words, words—talk, talk, talk. It is as if techno-urbanized humanity, “living” within a consensually shared delusional-system, actually believes that experience must be verbalized and analyzed in order to be real. Every day, our ears/eyes (if not brain) are assaulted by the interminable stream of “news”—an incident-packed “tale told by an idiot [NPR?],” to quote Macbeth, “signifying–nothing.” Newspaper and TV commentators opinionate constantly, adding to this garrulous cacophony: a sewer (not tower) of Babble. Most of this relentless barrage is what Aristotle called “base rhetoric”: the clever, if insidious, arts of “persuasion”–in order to manipulate and control (i.e., constant marketing …
The Lomborg Factor
by Binoy Kampmark / April 18th, 2015
Eager to cut, savage and wind back constructive projects in the realm of medicine, science and education, Australia’s government has made its latest head-shaking announcement on budgetary issues. The veteran climate change sceptic Bjørn Lomborg is going to become the recipient of $4 million in Australian tax payers’ money. According to a spokesman for education minister, Christopher Pyne, the government was going to be providing the money over four years to “bring the Copenhagen Consensus methodology to Australia” houses at newly established centre at the University of Western Australia.
While Pyne and company have given the impression that university staff …
History and Reflections
by Jack A. Smith / April 17th, 2015
Forty years ago on April 30, 1975, the Vietnamese people, led by their Communist Party, were finally victorious in the long just struggle for national independence and unification against the United States and its puppet regime in Saigon.
America experienced an earthshaking lesson in Vietnam — “Stop your unjust wars of aggression!” —but Washington learned nothing from its humiliating defeat except to shift its battlefields of choice from Southeast Asia to Southwest Asia (i.e., the Middle East).
The U.S. went on to fight in Iraq three times and impose long sanctions in 25 continuous years; in Afghanistan the Pentagon has …
by Ted Glick / April 17th, 2015
From the time I walked yesterday into the FERC building—that’s the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the most powerful and dangerous federal agency most people have never heard of—things felt and looked different.
First were the cops. There are always FERC security personnel at the front entrance, but it seemed like there were twice as many yesterday as I’d ever seen before in past visits. In addition, and ominously, there were also a couple of Department of Homeland Security/Federal Protective Services police prominently stationed where they could not be missed.
Then there was the atmosphere in the auditorium where the five FERC Commissioners …
by Ralph Nader / April 17th, 2015
Following the heavy coverage of AIPAC’s (the virulently pro-Israeli government lobby) multi-day annual Washington convention in March, the mainstream media might have been interested for once in covering alternative viewpoints like those discussed at the April 10th conference “The Israel Lobby: Is it Good for the US? Is it Good for Israel?” Fairness and balance in reporting should produce at least some coverage of such an event.
Organized by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, which was launched about thirty years ago by a British Army Officer who served in World War II and two retired U.S. Ambassadors to countries …
Which Nuclear Powers May Fear the Most
by Barbara G. Ellis / April 17th, 2015
Amid the hullabaloo of the news about Iran’s agreeing not to make weapons from its nuclear capacity in exchange for the West’s lifting economic sanctions, none of those cheering—or raging—about this “historic understanding,” as President Obama put it to his email list, bothered to raise a long-standing and important question obvious to most of us since the Fukushima meltdown began in 2011. And millions since the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown.
The question wasn’t why participants and pundits were calling the Lausanne agreement a “framework” for a June 30 meeting instead of a permanent arrangement with the content’s technical points ironed out.
Nor …
But Notions of Independence are Flawed
by Stuart Littlewood / April 17th, 2015
The SNP (Scottish National Party), under feisty new leader Nicola Sturgeon, is scaring the daylights out of Labour and Conservatives with the prospect of a strong squad of MPs marching south headed by fearsome former leader and political bruiser Alex Salmond.
Cameron or Miliband for prime minister – warmongering toff or socialist nonentity? And with whose coalition help? That’s the bleak choice for British voters.
Since the Yes/No independence referendum last September the SNP has enjoyed such a huge surge in support that the main Westminster parties are terrified that Scottish MPs could wield disproportionate influence in the likely event of a …
by Walter Brasch / April 17th, 2015
Snaking its way through the Pennsylvania legislature is a bill that will block local governments from requiring companies to provide sick leave, even if unpaid, that is more than required by state or federal regulations.
There are no Pennsylvania or federal regulations requiring companies to provide sick leave. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 39 percent of all employees, and 79 percent of all employees in food service and hotel industries, have no sick leave. Unlike the United States, about 130 countries require employers to provide at least one week of sick leave per employee.
The Republican-controlled state Senate passed the …
by Edward Martin and Mateo Pimentel / April 16th, 2015
Though historically important in the evolution of justice theory, liberalism has evidenced limitations in providing a clear foundation for a just and equitable society. Rights set forth in liberal theory are related to each other by their common foundation in the freedom of the individual person to choose desired ends within the confines of designated policies and laws. However, to restrict these fundamental rights, that is, the right of the person not to be impeded in the pursuit of his or her happiness, is to attack individual liberty—the foundation of liberalism. For John Locke, one of the originators of the …
by Vladimir Kozin / April 16th, 2015
On April 13, 2015 Vladimir Putin lifted Russia’s ban on shipping S-300 antiaircraft defensive missile systems to Iran, self-imposed in 2010. Moscow and Tehran originally signed a contract to supply these systems back in 2007. At the time, the idea was to sell a number of Russia-manufactured S-300 divisions to Iran.
The term “self-imposed ban” is used here deliberately. UN Security Council Resolution 1929 from June 9, 2010 placed no restrictions of any kind on transferring S-300 systems to Iran. Paragraph 8 of the resolution introduced a “weapons” embargo on direct and indirect shipments to …
by Shepherd Bliss / April 16th, 2015
Rural folk from four Northern California counties came in mid-April to a magical juncture where the life-giving Russian River empties into the majestic Pacific Ocean. Though the small, unincorporated village of Jenner is a popular recreational destination, pleasure was not the intention.
Our mission was to preserve agrarian lifestyles and environments from further colonization by industrial wineries. Large corporate wineries–owned mainly by outside investors–were the main target.
Water and California’s worsening drought were discussed. Some reported that wells had gone dry after large wineries dug as much as 1000 feet into the ground to extract precious, limited water for their factories.
It takes …
