Latest articles
by Don Monkerud / January 9th, 2015
Today Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor, Baptist preacher, and news commentator, announced he is changing his name.
“Nobody remembers a name like Huckabee, and besides I’m tired of jokes about a low-growing shrub,” said Huckabee.
The once chubby governor decreed that henceforth he would be known as Michael Chuckleberry.
“It sounds more upbeat and light hearted,” said Chuckleberry. “Plus it has an air of dignity and legitimacy.”
Speculation is rife that Huckabee changed his name in anticipation of the upcoming 2016 presidential race. Chuckleberry, running under his birth name, won the 2008 Iowa primary with strong support from conservative, backwoods …
by Roger D. Harris / January 8th, 2015
A day after President Obama announced initiatives to normalize relations with Cuba, he seemingly reversed course by enacting the latest round of sanctions against Cuba’s staunchest ally, Venezuela, on December 18. His action conclusively ended any threat of a thaw in frosty relations since the US and Venezuela withdrew their respective ambassadors in 2010. The US Senate had approved the legislation on December 8, followed two days later by the House in a bipartisan gush of unity with no debate or dissenting votes. The legislation will allow the president to deny visas and freeze assets of Venezuelan officials accused of …
by Ludwig Watzal / January 8th, 2015
Two Muslim killers wiped out the whole editorial team of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo at noontime in Paris on Wednesday, January 7, 2015. This cold-blooded murder is an indefensible crime. The killers claimed that they have “avenged the Prophet Mohammad”. And Allah was considered “great”. Have they committed their heinous crime in the name or in defense of Islam? Charlie Hebdo has a long history of angering Muslims with cartoons, but it caricatured also all religions.
Worldwide, the terrorist attack was amicably considered as an attack on freedom of …
Or Is It Just another False Flag Operation?
by Gilad Atzmon / January 8th, 2015
The massacre in France was a devastating crime against freedom and the right to laugh.
But was it really executed by a bunch of lunatic irrational Muslims who to decided to kill mercilessly because their prophet was mocked?
French people should be asking what led members of their society to commit such cold blood murders against their fellow citizens.
France should ask itself why it has been dropping bombs on Muslims. Who enthusiastically advocated these ‘interventionist’ wars? What was the role of Bernard-Henri Lévy, the prime advocate of the war against Libya for instance?
What was all this French fuss about …
by T.J. Petrowski / January 8th, 2015
The tragic shooting in Paris of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in 2011, that left 12 people dead is a direct consequence of Western imperialism’s interventions in the Middle East.
The U.S. and its Western imperialist allies have continuously violated the national sovereignty and the right to self-determination of every country in the Middle East and North Africa in the last 50 years. Attacks such as the shooting in Paris, the September 11th attacks on New York (if we are to believe the dubious official story of the U.S. government), the 1998 U.S. embassy …
by Paul Craig Roberts / January 8th, 2015
There are two ways to look at the alleged terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
One is that in the English speaking world, or much of it, the satire would have been regarded as “hate speech,” and the satirists arrested. But in France Muslims are excluded from the privileged category, took offense at the satire, and retaliated.
Why would Muslims bother? By now Muslims must be accustomed to Western hypocrisy and double standards. Little doubt that Muslims are angry that they do not enjoy the protections other minorities receive, but why retaliate for satire but not for France’s participation …
by Douglas Valentine / January 8th, 2015
Diana Johnstone asks the rhetorical question at CounterPunch, “What to Say When You Have Nothing to Say?” in regard to the I Am Charlie “terror” attack in Paris. Hers is an emotional response, exasperation; there is plenty to say that is quite rational.
America’s industrial sized war machine is never said by the corporate press to engage in terror, terrorism being “the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.” CNN, Fox, and Tommy Friedman never said America terrorized Iraq, which of course it did, on a massive scale. Iraq continues to be the most terrorized place …
by Shepherd Bliss / January 8th, 2015
2015’s opening offers an appropriate time to examine high technology and its development of weapons of mass destruction and other threats to the Earth. My own background to write about these issues includes being raised in the Southern military family that gave its name to Ft. Bliss, Texas. I served briefly as an officer in the U.S. Army, resigned my commission to protest the American War on Vietnam, and have engaged in an extensive study of the military. This includes teaching courses on “War and Peace” at Sonoma State University and contributing chapters and poems to half a dozen books …
Palestinians at the Hague
by Jonathan Cook / January 8th, 2015
Intense pressure from Israel and the US last week on members of the United Nations Security Council narrowly averted Washington’s embarrassment at being forced to veto a Palestinian resolution to end the occupation.
The Palestinians’ failure to get the necessary votes saved the White House’s blushes but at a cost: the claim that the US can oversee a peace process promising as its outcome a Palestinian state is simply no longer credible.
Looming is the post-peace process era. Its advent appears to have been marked by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ decision in the immediate wake of the Security Council vote …
Interview with Özgür Amed Journalist and Researcher
by Dylan Murphy / January 8th, 2015
The emergence of ISIS during the summer as a regional war lord in Iraq and Syria led to the usual media hysteria about the latest threat to our turbo-consumerist societies in the West. ISIS is going to take over the Middle East and then come to get us in our affluent homelands where freedom and democracy are under peril from the Islamist bogeyman.
Such simplistic nonsense echoes the media disinformation about ISIS and its ”irresistible” expansion across the Middle East. The media puts on the same tired old record. The plight of the Kurds and other ethnic minorities in Northern Iraq …
by Ajamu Nangwaya / January 8th, 2015
The ideological deficiency, not to say the total lack of ideology, within the national liberation movements — which is basically due to ignorance of the historical reality which these movements claim to transform — constitutes one of the greatest weaknesses of our struggle against imperialism, if not the greatest weakness of all.
— Amilcar Cabral ((Amilcar Cabral, “The Weapon of Theory,” Marxist.org, January 1966. Accessed January 4, 2015.))
What is it about the term “capitalism” that inspires many of us to not call its name in vain and in the public square? Why is it that many of us will …
The Palestinian application to the ICC has set in motion a series of events with potentially dramatic consequences for both Israel and the Palestinians
by Jonathan Cook / January 7th, 2015
At the weekend, Fatah posted an image on its Facebook page of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu next to a hangman’s noose, alongside the words ‘coming soon’ and the scales-of-justice logo of the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
This is certainly how many Palestinians would like to view Netanyahu’s fate over the coming months.
Last week, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, reluctantly signed on to the Rome Statute, paving the way for ICC membership, after he failed to win a vote at the UN Security Council on a resolution to end the occupation by 2017.
The loyalists of Abbas’ Fatah …
Part 2 of 2: Interview with author Arnold August
by Kim Petersen / January 7th, 2015
In Part 1, author Arnold August discussed the relationship between anarchists and communists in revolutionary Cuba as well as the development of democracy in Cuba. In December, the Obama administration made an overture toward Cuba by releasing the last of the Cuban Five and signalling a change in the relationship. Some Cuba followers are skeptical of this apparent thaw in relations. ((See, e.g., author Ron Ridenour’s “US-Cuba Policy Change: Score 11-1, US Wins,” Dissident Voice, 20 December 2014.)) In the conclusion to the interview, August gives his take take.
*****
KP: What is your take on the seeming …
by Ellen Brown / January 7th, 2015
Greece and the troika (the International Monetary Fund, the EU, and the European Central Bank) are in a dangerous game of chicken. The Greeks have been threatened with a “Cyprus-Style prolonged bank holiday” if they “vote wrong.” But they have been bullied for too long and are saying “no more.”
A return to the polls was triggered in December, when the Parliament rejected Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ pro-austerity candidate for president. In a general election, now set for January 25, the EU-skeptic, anti-austerity, leftist Syriza party is likely to prevail. Syriza captured a 3% lead in the polls following mass public discontent …
Time to Move Out
by Ramzy Baroud / January 6th, 2015
It was the moment many had been waiting for. On January 2, Palestine’s United Nations envoy, Riyad Mansour formally requested membership at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“We are seeking justice for all the victims that have been killed by Israel, the occupying power,” he said.
There was no explanation why Palestine’s membership of the Rome Statue (through which the ICC is governed) was delayed in the first place; of why no justice was ever sought for thousands of victims in Gaza, and many in the West Bank and Jerusalem, although such membership would have been granted much earlier.
In fact, …
Part 1: Interview with author Arnold August
by Kim Petersen / January 6th, 2015
Political economy is more often than not depicted as a Left-Right bifurcation. This is too simplistic. It overlooks the difference between, on the one hand, right-wingers such as the Conservatives, Labour Party, and Liberal Democrats from, on the other hand, the far Right British National Party in the United Kingdom. It also omits the differences on the Left, for example, between Communists and anarchists.
Since right-wingers are capitalist in orientation, they are supported by moneyed interests, aka elitist class interests. And, insofar as money denotes power, the right-wingers have a significant advantage over socialist-oriented left-wingers.
Given the uneven playing field, …
Stop the NYPD Coup and Create the Police-Community Relationship We Want to See
by Kevin Zeese / January 6th, 2015
Do the police serve the city or are they a law unto themselves? This is an issue of concern throughout the country but it has come into crisp focus in New York.
The conflict in New York City spurred by the death of Eric Garner and the failure of a Staten Island grand jury to indict the police officer who choked him to death; followed by the killing of two police officers, Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, by a deranged person has sharpened the conflict over policing in New York. The NYPD is trying to bully Mayor Bill de Blasio as they have …
by Herb Dyer / January 6th, 2015
Former Speaker of the House and perennially failed Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich told CBS’s Bob Schieffer on Sunday that President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are the real instigators and root causes of the current racial tension now evident and obvious throughout the US.
On the other hand, however, Gingrich averred that both former New York City Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg had actually “saved” more African-American lives than anybody else in the country by institutionalizing racial profiling against New York’s millions of black citizens.
Gingrich was gracious enough to admit that America’s “criminal justice” …
by Jordan Flaherty / January 5th, 2015
More than 100 years after the birth of cinema, it sometimes feels like every story has been told. But the best films of 2014 dared to break out of their genres, explore new ways of filmmaking, and inspire viewers. Some of them even provided tools for popular understanding of our current political moment. This year, Selma, Tales of the Grim Sleeper, and Out In The Night all told stories of a criminal justice system harming Black communities, while Dear White People used satire to address racist power structures. Documentaries like The Great Invisible and Citizenfour attacked government and corporate malfeasance, …
by David Swanson / January 5th, 2015
A former Governor of Virginia is expected to be sentenced to a long stay in prison. The same fate has befallen governors in states across the United States, including in nearby Maryland, Tennessee, and West Virginia. A former governor of Illinois is in prison. Governors have been convicted of corruption in Rhode Island, Louisiana, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Connecticut, and (in a trumped-up partisan scam) in Alabama. The statewide trauma suffered by the people of states that have locked up their governors has been … well, nonexistent and unimaginable.
Locking U.S. presidents up for their crimes is a different story. Former President …
by Matt Peppe / January 5th, 2015
Journalist Jorge Ramos recently leveled some serious accusations against former Cuban President Fidel Castro, accusing him of amassing a fortune stolen from Cuban taxpayers and engaging in widespread drug trafficking. Ramos, a hugely popular news personality on the Spanish language network Univision and new sister cable network Fusion, eagerly parrots the hearsay of a former Castro bodyguard who is — coincidentally — promoting a new book. With the U.S. government still bent on regime change in Cuba despite the recent announcement of the normalization of relations between the two countries, they must be pleased. The narrative Ramos creates could help lay the groundwork …
by Scott Thomas Outlar / January 5th, 2015
When tired, breathe, be thankful, smile, and recover with the swiftness of grace-inspired divine light and energy – that was the original title on this free-flowing, existential, apocalyptic, prose-fusion piece, but it’s a new year, so out with the old, and in with the…
Here comes the radical shift in perspective we’ve all been waiting for. Here comes the anarchic ideology based on evolution and enlightenment. Here comes the utopian future seen in the midst of today’s chaos. Here comes a new wave upon the old tide brought …
What happened in Vermont where a so-called single payer proposal died?
by Margaret Flowers / January 5th, 2015
For decades healthcare advocates in the state of Maryland worked with state senator Paul Pinsky who introduced a state health bill each year calling for a universal healthcare system that is publicly financed, a single payer system. Even when advocates educated lawmakers, gathered co-sponsors and testified in committees about the dire need for a health system that would solve the current healthcare crisis, one based on solid evidence, the bill fell flat. The closest we came was one vote short of getting it passed in one committee. We had all of the facts on our side, but no political muscle …
Waking up in the Fog of War
by Nozomi Hayase / January 4th, 2015
In late 2010, political activist John Perry Barlow tweeted: “The first serious info-war is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops.” In the last four years, new insurgencies have arisen from cyberspace to participate in the battle against government corruption and secrecy. From Snowden’s disclosure of NSA mass surveillance to the release of the CIA torture report evidencing war crimes and murder of innocent people, a crisis of legitimacy and moral depravity of authority are becoming increasingly undeniable. All of this reveals an invisible force of governance working to control the thought and perceptions …
by RT / January 4th, 2015
Gilad Aztmon is a lightning rod for controversy. He is fervently anti-Zionist, and because of the Zionist crimes committed by Jews, he has disavowed himself of being a Jew. It is not surprising, therefore, that he even gets attacked even by those who profess to be progressives. ((See Kim Petersen, “Independent News as Vehicle for Character Assassination,” Dissident Voice, 23 August 2013 and “TRNN and Intellectual Integrity,” Dissident Voice, 6 September 2013.)) For Gilad Atzmon, dissent and a media soapbox are verboten. But not for RT, hosted by another lightning rod for controversy, George Galloway.
They engage in …
by Abayomi Azikiwe / January 4th, 2015
Mrs. Simone Gbagbo, the former first lady of Ivory Coast, made an appearance in court inside the country on December 26. She is charged with alleged crimes in connection with the tenure of her husband, the ousted President Laurent Gbagbo, who is now under the custody of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
President Gbagbo was targeted by the former colonial power France and the United States for removal beginning in late 2010. French forces eventually put Gbagbo under siege and raided his hold-up residence in April 2011, taking him, his wife and other leading officials of the Ivorian …
American ghosts in Tehran
by Eric Walberg / January 3rd, 2015
The highlight to any trip to Tehran—if you can manage it—is a visit to the scene of the most spectacular hostage-taking in recent history, the US embassy, which Iranian students stormed in November 1979, holding 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, and dumping US diplomatic correspondence on the street in a spectacular premodern WikiLeak.
For Canadians and Brits, getting there is not easy. Neither country has diplomatic relations with Iran at present. Canadians must mail their passports to the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, DC, Brits must apply to the Omani Embassy in London. (Britain and Iran have only recently agreed to …
by James Petras / January 3rd, 2015
The balance sheet for 2014 and the prospects for 2015 provide us with a complex panorama of negative and positive outcomes. In most cases the advances, are not earth-shattering but open possibilities for further progress. The negative developments, however, have greater and more threatening systemic outcomes.
We will proceed in a telegraphic fashion to outline the positive and negative developments in 2014 and their real and potential symbolic and substantive impacts. In the second part of the essay we will sketch out some of the most …
The Year Starts With the Potential of a Major Victory of the People Over Corporate Power, but We Must Unite to Win It
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / January 2nd, 2015
The major task for the social movement: 2015 the Year We Build Power Together.
In 2014 we saw tremendous growth of the movement across numerous fronts of struggle – worker rights and the wages, racism and policing, climate, the environment and extreme energy extraction, building a new economy and so much more. We also saw how uniting and working in solidarity is essential for success.
“Building power together” means working together as a movement of movements to build on the progress of 2014 when people created a larger and bolder movement. We build together because our issues are all connected and unified power is when we …
by The Real News Network (TRNN) / January 2nd, 2015
Last week’s much-hailed normalization of relations with Cuba was followed by sanctions against Venezuela the very next day, says Alex Main of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
http://youtu.be/qu8dspy_mrY
