Latest articles
by Jack A. Smith / December 22nd, 2014
The United States seems destined to plague us with miseries in the name of liberty.
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator of Latin America
Once the United States is in Cuba, who will get it out?
— José Martí, Cuban national hero
Fair minded people and governments around the world have praised the U.S. decision to finally ease up on Cuba after 55 years of unmitigated hostility. The final agreement, which included a prisoner swap, was hammered out in nine meetings over 18 months of secret talks in Canada between representatives of Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro, with the Vatican acting as …
by Simon Ash-Moccasin / December 22nd, 2014
Tansi, here’s the lowdown on something that happened to me on Wednesday, December 10 in Oskana (Pile of Bones), or Regina, Saskatchewan. But first, let me introduce myself.
My name is Simon Ash-Moccasin (Thomas). I am a proud Nehiyiwak (Cree person) from Saulteaux First Nation, formerly called Little Jack/ Fish Lake Reserve, in Treaty 6 territory, Turtle Island. I assist in keeping two wonderful gifts form the Creator, my daughters Sage and Maija. I have a degree in education. I’ve been an actor, playwright, and slam poet, as well as a community volunteer and a board member for various organizations in …
by Matt Peppe / December 22nd, 2014
There is no principle in international law more fundamental than the right of all peoples to self-determination. This is universally accepted by the entire world, yet nearly 70 years after the signing of the UN Charter, the United States continues to fight tooth and nail against this most basic human right.
On December 18, the U.S. was one of only seven countries to vote against a UN General Assembly resolution that passed with 180 votes affirming the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.
Earlier this year, the U.S. also found themselves on the wrong side of the international …
Part 2: Broken Windows, Workfare, and the Battle for Public Space in Giuliani’s New York
by Jacob Ertel / December 22nd, 2014
In March 1982, conservative theoreticians James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling published a brief article in The Atlantic entitled “Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety” that was to drastically alter the scope of policing. As opposed to previous ‘community policing’ stratagems in which police officers were encouraged to play an active if not collaborative role in building relationships with the community in their designated location, Wilson and Kelling advocated for the deployment of heightened police aggression—‘zero tolerance’—towards small-time offenders.
The central thesis in “Broken Windows” is that petty crimes inevitably lead to serious, potentially violent ones. Only by …
by Ruth Kinna / December 22nd, 2014
It’s no surprise to discover that anarchist theorist Pyotr Kropotkin was interested in Christmas. In Russian culture, St. Nicholas (??????? ??????????) was revered as a defender of the oppressed, the weak and the disadvantaged. Kropotkin shared the sentiments. But there was also a family link. As everyone knows, Kropotkin could trace his ancestry to the ancient Rurik dynasty that ruled Russia before the upstart Romanovs and which, from the first century CE, controlled the trade routes between Moscow and the Byzantine Empire. Nicholas’s branch of the family had been sent out to patrol the Black Sea. But Nicholas was a …
by Steve McGiffen / December 22nd, 2014
In 1964 my wife was 18 years old, too young at that time to vote in England, where she lived. She was nevertheless present when her boss – she worked for an advertising agency in Manchester – assembled the staff and told them to vote Tory, implying dark economic times would accompany the arrival of a Labour government and hinting at possible redundancies.
Factory bosses in the United States did the same on a much wider scale in the election of 1896. In many towns in eastern seaboard states, when men arrived for work on the morning of the day the …
by James Hoover / December 22nd, 2014
Most of us know that the NSA is spending billions of our taxpayer dollars to track our every move, though the data is collected and only used if some hired dude, following procedures that look for programmed threats, decides you’re doing something suspicious. We know that companies like Amazon follow your moves on its website so that it can plaster your Internet Protocol (IP) path with purchase recommendations. They use your Tracking Cookies or Browsing history to determine your past inquiries.
Furthermore, some of us know how organizations of political candidates collect data on voter preferences and habits, but few know …
New research pinpoints how music helps heal PTSD, restores memories, rebuilds neuron pathways
by Paul Haeder / December 21st, 2014
Note: Alive Inside just came out, about music therapy. My work here is for my regular gig as a writer – Spokane Magazine. It is currently out. Before my piece, a compelling quote from an MD from the documentary, Alive Inside.
Dr. Bill Thomas, a gerontologist and advocate for long-term care reform, points out the film, “The health care system imagines the human being to be a very complicated machine. We have medicines that can adjust the dials, but we haven’t done anything medically speaking to touch the heart and soul of the patient.
“What we’re spending on drugs that …
by Scott Thomas Outlar / December 21st, 2014
When in the course of human destiny the aggressions of a Government against the people it has been formed to protect become so untenable and egregious as to threaten the security and freedom of that people, it is the sacred duty and obligation of said people to detach from and dissolve that Government until such a time arises when it is safe to once more reconstitute the union with the proper assurances allowed for that prove conditions have been made congruent and agreeable with the basic God-given rights that all people are naturally born with, including among these: the right …
Part 1
by Jacob Ertel / December 21st, 2014
Daniel Pantaleo, the rogue police officer who choked the unarmed 43-year-old Black man named Eric Garner to death for allegedly selling single untaxed cigarettes, will not go to trial. Garner was murdered on July 17, 2014 in his native borough of Staten Island. A grandfather as well as a father of six, Garner had previously submitted a complaint in federal court in 2007 after an officer conducted a cavity search on him in a public street. ((Joseph Goldstein and Nate Schweber, “Man’s Death After Chokehold Raises Old Issue for the Police,” New York Times, July 18, 2014.)) In …
by Kim Petersen / December 20th, 2014
Any conditions that compel the teacher to take note of failures rather than of healthy growth give false standards and result in distortion and perversion.
— John Dewey ((John Dewey, Moral Principles in Education (NY: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1909): 189.))
School failed me, and I failed the school. It bored me. The teachers behaved like Feldwebel (sergeants). I wanted to learn what I wanted to know, but they wanted me to learn for the exam.
— Albert Einstein ((Quoted in William Hermanns, Einstein and the Poet: In Search of the Cosmic Man (Branden Books, 2013): 8-9. ))
It is widely recognized that …
by Ron Ridenour / December 20th, 2014
The United States of America, the global policeman, is “changing its relationship with the people of Cuba”, as President Barack Obama put it. With this announcement of a resumption of diplomatic relations after John F. Kennedy severed them January 1, 1961 we need to evaluate what is behind it and what is positive and negative.
By Ron RideourI feel compelled to spell out my take on this new policy after having Cuba in my heart for five decades, from the day of my first protest during …
by Peter Koenig / December 20th, 2014
The world is still hell-bent for hydrocarbon-based energy. Russia is one of the world’s largest producer of energy. Russia has recently announced that in the future she will no longer trade energy in US dollars, but in rubles and currencies of the trading partners. In fact, this rule will apply to all trading. Russia and China are detaching their economies from that of the western financial system. To confirm this decision, in July 2014 Russia’s Gazprom concluded a 400 billion gas deal with China, and in November this year they signed an additional slightly smaller contract – all to be …
by Colin Jenkins / December 20th, 2014
Dystopian narratives have long been an alluring and thought-provoking form of entertainment, especially for those who take an interest in studying social and political structures. From classics like Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World to the current hit, The Hunger Games, these stories play on our fears while simultaneously serving as warning signs for the future.
Their attractiveness within American society is not surprising. Our lives are driven by fear. Fear leads us to spend and consume; fear leads us to withdraw from our communities; and fear leads us to apathy regarding our own social and political processes. This fear is …
by Ellen Brown / December 19th, 2014
The sudden dramatic collapse in the price of oil appears to be an act of geopolitical warfare against Russia. The result could be trillions of dollars in oil derivative losses; and the FDIC could be liable, following repeal of key portions of the Dodd-Frank Act last weekend.
Senator Elizabeth Warren charged Citigroup last week with “holding government funding hostage to ram through its government bailout provision.” At issue was a section in the omnibus budget bill repealing the Lincoln Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act, which protected depositor funds by requiring the largest banks to push out a portion of their derivatives …
The Anti-Empire Report #135
by William Blum / December 19th, 2014
In 1964, the Brazilian military, in a US-designed coup, overthrew a liberal (not more to the left than that) government and proceeded to rule with an iron fist for the next 21 years. In 1979 the military regime passed an amnesty law blocking the prosecution of its members for torture and other crimes. The amnesty still holds. ((Associated Press, December 11, 2014.))
That’s how they handle such matters in what used to be called The Third World. In the First World, however, they have no need for such legal niceties. In the United States, military torturers and their political godfathers …
What Does Normalization of Relations mean?
by Paul Craig Roberts / December 19th, 2014
Paul Craig Roberts views normalization of relations with Cuba as a Trojan horse for a US corporate takeover of the Communist island. Is this the beginning of the end for the Cuban Revolution?
The Proclamation of a Lone Superpower above the Law
by Matt Peppe / December 19th, 2014
Twenty five years ago, before dawn on December 20, 1989, U.S. forces descended on Panama City and unleashed one of the most violent, destructive terror attacks of the century. U.S. soldiers killed more people than were killed on 9/11. They systematically burned apartment buildings and shot people indiscriminately in the streets. Dead bodies were piled on top of each other; many were burned before identification. The aggression was condemned internationally, but the message was clear: the United States military was free to do whatever it wanted, whenever it wanted, and they would not be bound by ethics or laws.
The invasion …
by Martha Rosenberg / December 19th, 2014
There is good news and bad news when it comes to conflicts of interest (COI) between the drug industry and clinical medicine. The good news is the “Sunshine Act,” part of the Affordable Care Act, has been implemented and many drug company web sites now list the payouts–including to “grassroots” groups that are actually Pharma fronts like the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
The bad news is that editors and publishers sill cooperate with pulling the wool over the public’ eyes when it comes to conflicts of interest. Here are some …
Was it all a Waste?
by Winston Alpha / December 19th, 2014
Disclosures from the vast trove of NSA documents obtained by Edward Snowden were first published in The Guardian exactly 560 days ago, and it’s worth asking ourselves whether we have gained anything from the revelations since then. The answer to that question increasingly seems clear: no.
I agreed with the publication of those documents and was appalled by the breadth and depth of America’s surveillance state apparatus. I agree with the principle that those who would trade security for freedom deserve neither. (For a reminder on just how wide-reaching the NSA’s capabilities are, this timeline of …
by Richard Falk / December 19th, 2014
TFF brings excerpts of a longer analysis by professor Richard Falk who until recently also served as the UN Secretary-General’s envoy for the Occupied Territories.
His main argument is that the process of recognising Palestine and the Palestine Authority’s initiative at the UN Security Council will turn out to be futile unless accompanied by an entirely new approach consisting of a global civil society movement — citizens rather than government diplomacy.
*****
The Palestinian Authority will seek a vote in the Security Council on a resolution mandating Israel’s military withdrawal from Occupied Palestine no later than November …
by Uri Avnery / December 19th, 2014
Almost a thousand Israeli personalities have already signed an appeal to European parliaments for their governments to recognize the State of Palestine.
I am honored to be among the signatories, which include former ministers and members of the Knesset, diplomats and generals, artists and businessmen, writers and poets, including Israel’s three outstanding writers Amos Oz, David Grossman and A. B. Yehoshua.
We believe that the independence of the Palestinian people in a state of their own, next to the State of Israel, is the basis for peace, and therefore as important for Israelis as it is for Palestinians. This, by the …
by Andre Vltchek / December 19th, 2014
This year as in every other year, Christianity and fundamentalist capitalism, two great allies, are joining their forces to extract billions of dollars, all over the world, mainly from the poor.
As money flies towards the coffers of the church and into corporate accounts, over-sugary, kitschy Christmas carols and gospels are soaring out from the audio systems of department stores and malls all over the Empire and in almost all of its colonies (Saudi Arabia being an exception).
‘White Christmas’ is re-enacted and faked in the steaming-hot tropical ‘client states’, into where Christianity with all its nomenclature was forcefully injected decades and …
Netanyahu’s Throw of the Dice
by Binoy Kampmark / December 19th, 2014
The iron hand crush’d the tyrant’s head,
And became a tyrant in his stead.
— William Blake, The Grey Monk
The use of historical suffering is standard fare for the descendants. The descendants of history’s victims tend to be the modern day avengers. History’s record is not so much to be righted as washed, cleansed and made anew.
When the political reserves are empty, forms of credit have to be found. In the historical context, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has often had an enormous reserve to draw upon: the terrifying, seemingly bottomless legacy of the Holocaust, the negative …
Delegates at UN conference struggle with weak agreement
by Nick Fillmore / December 18th, 2014
With yet another United Nations-hosted climate change conference making very little real progress, a near miracle will be required if countries are to reach a meaningful and binding global agreement on carbon emissions in Paris next December.
The ‘Lima Call for Climate Action’ document, agreed to on Sunday by 194 countries, is not a new “deal” for the climate. It is a 12-month work plan leading to COP21 a year from now.
The major change – a victory for rich countries – expects countries with rising economies, such as China, India and South Africa, to take action on climate change in …
by Pepe Escobar / December 18th, 2014
November 18, 2014: it’s a day that should live forever in history. On that day, in the city of Yiwu in China’s Zhejiang province, 300 kilometers south of Shanghai, the first train carrying 82 containers of export goods weighing more than 1,000 tons left a massive warehouse complex heading for Madrid. It arrived on December 9.
Welcome to the new trans-Eurasia choo-choo train. At over 13,000 kilometers, it will regularly traverse the longest freight train route in the world, 40% farther than the legendary Trans-Siberian Railway. Its cargo will cross China from East to West, then Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, …
by Matt Peppe / December 18th, 2014
Six years into his Presidency, Barack Obama has finally taken steps he campaigned on in 2008 to normalize relations with Cuba. The new policy towards Cuba will include important changes including establishing formal diplomatic relations, removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and expanding trade relations. However, Obama is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. His rationale for finally abandoning the hard-line Cold War stance demonstrates his belief that the morality and legality of United States actions are beyond reproach.
“In the most significant changes in our policy in more than fifty years, we will end …
by The Real News Network (TRNN) / December 18th, 2014
In a historic move bypassing congress President Obama restores diplomatic relations with Cuba and in a simultaneous telecast President Raul Castro hails the decision but reminds us that the blockade is still in place, says Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
http://youtu.be/QF4Hatc12I8
by Arthur D. Robbins / December 18th, 2014
Which #Democracy? There are so many to choose from: Rhetorical Democracy (R.D.), Civic Democracy (C.D.), Economic Democracy (E.D.), Political Democracy (P.D.), Social Democracy (S.D.). Let’s start with rhetorical democracy.
It was only after the drafting of the U.S. Constitution that the word “democracy” entered the political dialogue. Once it came, it would not leave. For two centuries since, anyone who wishes to be elected to higher office in America must proclaim himself a friend of democracy. And so Rhetorical Democracy (R.D.) was born, the form of democracy that prevails in the United States as of this writing.
This particular kind …
by Paul Craig Roberts / December 18th, 2014
A dangerous new trend is the successful manipulation of the financial markets by the Federal Reserve, other central banks, private banks, and the US Treasury. The Federal Reserve reduced real interest rates on US government debt obligations first to zero and then pushed real interest rates into negative territory. Today the government charges you for the privilege of purchasing its bonds.
People pay to park their money in Treasury debt obligations, because they do not trust the banks and they know that the government can print the money to pay off the bonds. Today Treasury bond investors pay a fee in …
