Latest articles
by Harry J. Bentham / November 22nd, 2014
In a video on November 4, Prince Charles decried the plight of Christians, arguing that they had to contend with the “spread” of Islam in the Middle East. From the Prince’s statement, we are reminded how a false and archaic image of Christendom as the innocent victim of Islam pervades public opinion in the United Kingdom, and is perpetuated by top public figures.
Since Prince Charles’ video, I have written this essay to respond to the spreading notion that Christianity is somehow more civilized than Islam and is less responsible for violence in the modern world. It isn’t.
It is …
by David Swanson / November 22nd, 2014
President Obama, who is just now un-ending again the ending of the endless war on Afghanistan, has never made a secret of taking direction from the military, CIA, and NSA. He’s escalated wars that generals had publicly insisted he escalate. He’s committed to not prosecuting torturers after seven former heads of the CIA publicly told him not to. He’s gone after whistleblowers with a vengeance and is struggling to keep this Bush-era torture report, or parts of it, secret in a manner that should confuse his partisan supporters.
But the depth of elected officials’ obedience to a permanent war machine is …
by Peter Breschard / November 22nd, 2014
(Transcript of Therapy Session Number 3)
First one’s always free. As universal a rule as you’re going to find.
That’s what they say.
When did you start? Was the first taste so attractive? So irresistible?
You don’t get it. It was always this way. Somebody makes a donation. You do them a favor. And if somebody owned you, well, that’s the way it is.
So, you think being bought is a good thing?
Listen, it’s like anything else. It’s like drinking. A couple of cocktails now and then. Nobody cares. Some people can drink like fish and not stumble. Others, a few belts and they’re butt …
by Denis A. Conroy / November 22nd, 2014
Detroit car workers have it in the form of the unionized pact — or had; Wall Street shysters have it in the form of lust for filthy lucre; competitive sport has it in the form of glorified accomplishments rewarded with accolades; Australian aboriginals had it before the power of the Anglosphere removed their right to identify with their land; religious extremists have it by virtue of their pathological belief systems; the British Royal Family have it in the blueness of their blood — or so the narrative goes; the untouchables of India have a unique form of it, because they have long forgotten why they were disenfranchised in the …
by Mark Weiser / November 22nd, 2014
Oh say can you see by the star spangled machine, with modern weapons in hand it conquers foreign lands. If uninhabited, these lands would be up for the taking. And while the U.S. Declaration of Independence says “all men are created equal” with “inalienable rights”, the U.S. has a history of internal conflicts arising from violating those principles domestically and through foreign policy. Since the event of 9/11 the U.S. government has become the undisputed champion bully unleashed on the world as though it was a children’s playground – while they decide who lives and dies to enhance their personal …
by Binoy Kampmark / November 22nd, 2014
Food is always more than the thick line of culture. It lets people communicate. Bad food causes the conversation to sour with indignation; good food stimulates and thrills. It is both medium and message, allowing individuals to engage, to discuss, and even to joust.
This year has seen this theme explored. There was Lasse Hallström’s The Hundred-Foot Journey, which sees an improbable effort to open an Indian establishment opposite a one star Michelin restaurant in provincial France. The effort does not only succeed, but the rivals – Helen Mirren’s stuffy Madame Mallory and Om Puri’s determined father of the protagonist, Hassan …
Cops Act Like “Military Police in Occupied Territories”
by Ajamu Nangwaya / November 21st, 2014
Random stops of people who are not suspected of having knowledge of any specific crime under investigation is not a ‘recognized policing reason,’ except for military police in occupied territories.
– Peter Rosenthal
The racialized, working-class community of Jane and Finch in the northwest area of the city of Toronto, especially residents of the high rise public housing and private rental buildings, have long complained about police brutality and racist policing. Glen Stuart, a former lawyer with the Community and Legal Aid Services Programme at York University’s law school, states, “Concerns around policing were one of the focal points (25 …
NATO’s "Final Offensive"
by James Petras / November 21st, 2014
There are clear signs that a major war is about to break out in Ukraine: A war actively promoted by the NATO regimes and supported by their allies and clients in Asia (Japan) and the Middle East (Saudi Arabia). The war over Ukraine will essentially run along the lines of a full-scale military offensive against the southeast Donbas region, targeting the breakaway ethnic Ukraine-Russian Peoples Republic of Donetsk and Lugansk, with the intention of deposing the democratically elected government, disarming the popular militias, killing the guerrilla resistance partisans and their mass base, dismantling the popular representative organizations and …
by Stephen Lendman / November 21st, 2014
Israeli policy is longstanding. Reflecting anti-Palestinian state terror. Institutionalized racism writ large. Vicious repression.
Brutalizing Muslims for not being Jews. Enforcing militarized occupation harshness. Denying Palestinians rights everyone deserves.
According to Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) director Jeff Halper:
…(T)he ‘Zionist answer’ to the downward cycle of senseless violence in which Jerusalem finds itself” includes:
house demolitions, mass arrests, revoking the ‘residency’ of native-born Jerusalemites, closing Palestinian neighborhoods with concrete blocks, arming Israeli Jewish vigilantes and cheap shots at the last person who believes in a two-state solution, Abu Mazen (Abbas).
Everything, that is, except an end to occupation and a just political solution.
This …
by James Hoover / November 21st, 2014
The Republicans and their news outlet, Fox News, are lockstep in calling up all the demons of the Apocalypse: Conquest, War, Famine, and Death. In the New Testament of the Bible, in the Book of Revelations, they are actually the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, most accounts deeming them a divine apocalypse upon the world as harbingers of the Last Judgment – which is the tenor of the Republican response to Obama’s executive action plan.
Use whatever it takes to control and conquer our country: war on the Democrats and the vulnerable, suppress income for the 90%, and suppress benefits for …
by Ismail Salami / November 21st, 2014
The not-very-independent UN body has made a mockery of justice by soldering a resolution on the so-called human rights violations in Iran.
The farce becomes more markedly absurd when you consider the plethora of human rights abuses going unpunished in the world with the UN laying a lid of ignorance on these blatant violations.
Late Tuesday, the United Nations voted to slam “Iranian human rights abuses”, singling it out for “executing upwards of 1,000 political opponents and prisoners in the past year”.
Iran has strongly lambasted the UN resolution, saying that “the UN’s legal mechanisms have turned into a tool in the hands …
The Order Responds to Transhumanism
by L'Ordre / November 20th, 2014
The interplay of science and matters of spirit is at the heart of change in the world today. As bloggers and catalysts for change, we in the Mont Order like to consider the interplay of the domains of science and spirit as well as their misguided state of conflict, and our findings have been constructive.
Through a 2012 booklet called The Praxis, noted technology enthusiast and Order participant Dirk Conrad Bruere presents a valuable thesis for what he terms as “the most important spiritual movement in history”: the advocacy of technological solutions to remedy all suffering in the world. This …
by Kathy Kelly / November 20th, 2014
On November 7, 2014, while visiting Kabul, The Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, that noted that NATO will soon launch a new chapter a new non-combat mission in Afghanistan. But it’s difficult to spot new methods as NATO commits itself to sustaining combat on the part of Afghan forces.
Stoltenberg commended NATO Allies and partner nations from across the world, in an October 29th speech, in Brussels, declaring that for over a decade, they “stood shoulder to shoulder with Afghanistan.” According to Stoltenberg, this international effort “has contributed to a better future for Afghan men, women and children.” Rhetoric from …
by Ellen Brown / November 20th, 2014
While 49 state treasuries were submerged in red ink after the 2008 financial crash, one state’s bank outperformed all others and actually launched an economy-shifting new industry. So reports the Wall Street Journal this week, discussing the Bank of North Dakota (BND) and its striking success in the midst of a national financial collapse led by the major banks. Chester Dawson begins his November 16th article:
It is more profitable than Goldman Sachs Group Inc., has a better credit rating than J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and hasn’t seen profit growth drop since 2003. Meet Bank of North Dakota, the U.S.’s …
Silicon Valley Sells the Illusion of Security
by William A. Blunden / November 20th, 2014
Yesterday the USA Freedom Act was blocked in the Senate as it failed to garner the 60 votes required to move forward. Presumably the bill would have imposed limits on NSA surveillance. Careful scrutiny of the bill’s text, however, reveals yet another mere gesture of reform, one that would codify and entrench existing surveillance capabilities rather than eliminate them.
Glenn Greenwald, commenting from his perch at the Intercept, opined:
All of that illustrates what is, to me, the most important point from all of this: the last place one should look to impose limits on the powers of the …
The Anti-Empire Report #134
by William Blum / November 19th, 2014
“Russia reinforced what Western and Ukrainian officials described as a stealth invasion on Wednesday [August 27], sending armored troops across the border as it expanded the conflict to a new section of Ukrainian territory. The latest incursion, which Ukraine’s military said included five armored personnel carriers, was at least the third movement of troops and weapons from Russia across the southeast part of the border this week.”None of the photos accompanying this New York Times story online showed any of these Russian troops or armored vehicles.“The Obama administration,” the story continued, “has asserted over the past week that the Russians …
by Joseph Grosso / November 19th, 2014
On May 16 of this year, in the rural Colombian town of Jardines de Sucumbíos (In the department of Narino), farmer Leonardo Obando offered the first floor of his home to four guests who had spent the day preparing for the town’s mother’s day festivities. The four men were: Brayan Yatacue Secue, Jose Antonio Acanamejoy, Jose Yinder Esterilla, and 15 year-old Deivi Lopez Ortega, all members of the agricultural union FENSUAGRO.
Around 4am, Obando and his family were awakened by the sound of gunfire as members of the Colombian military forcibly entered the house. Upon being …
by Binoy Kampmark / November 19th, 2014
It [the Garcia report] must be made public. That is the only way FIFA can deal with the complete loss of credibility.
— Reinhard Rauball, President of the German Football League, November 16, 2014
It seemed cheeky of them, but it could not have been any other way. Football’s governing body, FIFA, is a creature that is beyond reform. Solidly entrenched, heavily overgrown, and incapable of brooking an approach that might refresh its functions for the broader goals of football, it resists change with fundamentalist commitment. Every effort that has been made thus far has fallen. …
by Stephen Lendman / November 19th, 2014
On November 18, Senate Democrats derailed Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline plans. For now. Republicans controlling next year’s 114th Congress vowed to continue fighting for passage. It remains to be seen what follows.
Obama is veto-shy. Twice only so far. Compared to GW Bush’s 12. Including pocket vetoes. Clinton’s 37. Reagan’s 78. Dwight Eisenhower’s 181. Truman’s 250. FD Roosevelt’s astonishing 635. Overriding presidential vetoes seldom happens.
Throughout US history, presidents vetoed legislation 2,564 times. Overridden 110 times. Around 4% of the time.
Tuesday’s Senate roll call fell one vote short of passage – 59 to 41. One additional vote approves …
by Ramzy Baroud / November 19th, 2014
When a journalist tries to do a historian’s job, the outcome can be quite interesting. Using history as a side note in a brief news report or political analysis oftentimes does more harm than good. Now imagine if that journalist was not dependable to begin with, even more than it being “interesting”, the outcome runs the risk of becoming a mockery.
Consider the selective historical views offered by New York Times writer Thomas Freidman – exposed in the book The Imperial Messenger by Belen Fernandez for his pseudo- intellectual shenanigans, contradictions and constant marketing of the status quo.
In an article …
by Ben Norton / November 19th, 2014
Yale University American historian Beverly Gage was sifting through the US National Archives in the summer of 2014, doing research for a book on J. Edgar Hoover, when she came across a letter historians had been searching for for many a decade. Written from the perspective of an imaginary yet disappointed admirer of Martin Luther King, Jr., the missive encouraged the leading civil rights, anti-war, and socialist activist to kill himself.“There is only one thing left for you to do,” the anonymous author warned, “before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.” “…
by Matt Peppe / November 19th, 2014
Several years ago the Occupy movement captured the imagination of an American public disillusioned with the country’s socioeconomic system, which had failed to provide them with a standard of living commensurate with wealth of the richest country in the history of the world. Occupy provided a forum for average citizens to express their dissatisfaction with the status quo, and created a framework to view what was happening in society as a class war waged by the 1% against the 99%.
Many economic and social goals were proposed such as a living wage, free higher education, and single-payer health care system, to …
An African American Perspective on Israel/Palestine
by Ajamu Baraka / November 19th, 2014
For the many thousands of tourists who fly into Israel/Palestine every year, landing in the modern Ben-Gurion airport in Tel Aviv marks the beginning of a great adventure in the “holy land.” But for members of the “African Heritage” delegation, flying into Ben-Gurion was fraught with tension and foreboding. Before departing the U.S. on October 27, our delegation rehearsed how we would move and act, role-playing what to say and what to avoid when we would face Israel’s first line of defense – its custom officials at the airport.
The normally simple act of landing, showing that prized blue book …
Red and Ted Fight Evil
by Bill Purkayastha / November 18th, 2014
by Dissident Voice Communications / November 18th, 2014
Jenny Gonzalez-Blitz is a multi-disciplined artist born in Hell’s
Kitchen, NYC. Visually she works primarily in painting and comics art,
and also fronted a couple of local punk bands before gravitating
towards more experimental sonic art. She and her husband,
percussionist Eric Blitz, create soundscapes and noize under the name
Astral …
With Barack Obama and Xí Jìnpíng
by Robert Hunziker / November 18th, 2014
History is “made” when it’s least expected: This past week, as soon as Air Force One touched down at Beijing Capital International Airport — in nothing flat — President Obama sealed a climate initiative between China and the U.S.
By all appearances, it must be good policy with considerable merit, because, quick as a wink, 350.org’s Bill McKibben, and the Executive Director of the Sierra Club, Michael Brune, and Ben Adler of Grist, and Mother Jones all sent congratulatory notices. The consensus amongst pundits on climate change is: “It’s a gamechanger!”
Just like that, even before the dust settled on the …
by Tighe Barry / November 18th, 2014
On Thursday, November 13, I dropped down in my seat at the hearing room of the House Armed Services Committee on the Administration’s Strategy and Military Campaign against ISIL, a little depressed at what was to come. More war, less hope for peace. Just two days earlier, on Veterans Day, I was at the widely advertised and well attended “Concert for Valor” on the National Mall. Veterans Day was previously known as Armistice Day, started after WWI as a day to celebrate an end to war. Now it’s a day to glorify warriors, and I was threatened with arrest for …
by Medea Benjamin / November 17th, 2014
The Israeli government’s recent announcement that it had authorized the building of another 1,000 settlement homes in East Jerusalem left the US government seeing red, with State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki calling the settlement activity “illegitimate” and “incompatible with the pursuit of peace.” But the announcement must have left the US-based real estate giant RE/MAX “seeing green,” ready to cash in on the sale and rental of more illegal settlement homes.
Look around your neighborhood at homes for sale and you will undoubtedly see RE/MAX’s ubiquitous signs sporting red, white and blue hot air …
An Open Letter to Naomi Klein
by Ted Glick / November 17th, 2014
Dear Naomi,
I’ve just read, twice actually, your great new book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. It’s very valuable and a must-read for people who appreciate both the seriousness of the climate crisis and the importance of progressive, justice-based social change. You have clearly worked long, hard and well to put together a comprehensive narrative about the climate issue, its connections to other issues, the state of the movement and the state of the climate denier opposition, the necessity of up-from-below initiatives and alternatives, the importance of solidarity with and support for Indigenous peoples fighting …
How the U.S. Department of Justice Makes Murder Respectable, Kills the Innocent and Jails their Defenders
by Brian Terrell / November 17th, 2014
Political language can be used, George Orwell said in 1946, “to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” In order to justify its global assassination program, the Obama administration has had to stretch words beyond their natural breaking points. For instance, any male 14 years or older found dead in a drone strike zone is a “combatant” unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving him innocent. We are also informed that the constitutional guarantee of “due process” does not imply that the government must precede an execution with a trial. …
