Latest articles
That's all the Gazans want
by Stuart Littlewood / August 19th, 2014
I have just received a very disappointing reply from my true-blue Tory MP to pleas for real government action over the slaughter in Gaza.
A similarly worthless response has been received in other parts of the country so I conclude that the ex-Etonian didn’t pen the twaddle himelf. More likely it was the work, as usual, of a Foreign Office scribbler trained by Mark Regev’s hasbara unit in Tel Aviv.
“Israel has a right to defend itself against indiscriminate rocket attacks”, it said. But no such right can be claimed when Israel is the illegal occupier inflicting collective punishment on its victim …
by Scott Thomas Outlar / August 19th, 2014
Be not deterred by the overall labor of the challenge before us. Seek only to take those actions in this very day that would move us one step further along toward the desired goal we intend.
And what goal is that?
Resistance of tyranny toward a Renaissance of spirituality and complete Revolution of the soul.
To wit: Taking Mad Scientists and Power Bankers to the cleaners to get their souls washed. And while these foes are away, we can go to work on all the Owned Politicians and Kept Media Propagandists. Then move on to the Religious Charlatans and False Idols.
It is not …
Ferguson, Mobilization, and Organizing the Resistance!
by Ajamu Nangwaya / August 19th, 2014
Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people–they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress.
— Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
The rebellion in Ferguson, Missouri, against the killing of unarmed Afrikan American teenager Michael Brown has inspired me to reflect on the question of the organizing model versus mobilizing or mobilization model in the struggle for Afrikan liberation in North America as well as the broader humanistic fight for liberation from various forms of oppression. Organizing the oppressed for emancipation is the preferred approach …
by Alton C. Thompson / August 18th, 2014
The two major known threats to our continued existence as a species today are global warming ((One should keep in mind that the term “global warming” is not a single phenomenon but, rather, is shorthand for a number of related phenomena: Not only a global trend in atmospheric warming, but also, e.g., (a) an increase in the number of storms, (b) an increase in their severity, and (c) increased variability, at any given location (more at some locations than others, of course), in weather conditions. An implication of this latter fact is that the very concept of “climate” is becoming …
by Michael K. Smith / August 18th, 2014
We are made miserable … not just by the strength of our beliefs, but by the weight of hard and all-too real situations, as they bear downward, robbing us of control … unhappiness treated by clinicians has much more to do with the sufferer’s situation than with anything about themselves, and for those with few privileges, this unhappiness is pretty well beyond the reach of therapeutic or any other conversation.
— Paul Moloney ((“The Therapy Industry – The Irresistible Rise of the Talking Cure, and Why It Doesn’t Work,” (Pluto Press, 2013))
Robin Williams’s body was scarcely cold when liberal commentators …
by Bill Quigley / August 18th, 2014
While the Governor of Missouri is sending in the National Guard to Ferguson, it is worth considering where the real violence is coming from.
One. Hours before the 12 pm Sunday night curfew went into effect, peaceful nonviolent protestors were legally marching in Ferguson. Then without warning the police turned on the marchers. Purvi Shah, a human rights lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, was marching with hundreds of others and reported just after 10 pm: “Just got tear gassed. Eyes burning. No warnings. People running with someone in wheelchair. This is lawlessness. Police fired on peaceful protestors.”
Two. …
by Kathy Kelly / August 18th, 2014
Here in Kabul, Sherri Maurin and I are guests of the Afghan Peace Volunteers recently formed live-in community for young women. Hollyhocks in the garden reach as high as the second floor of our living space. Rose bushes, morning glories and four-o-clocks have bloomed, and each day we eat tomatoes, mint and green onions plucked from the well-cared for garden. The water source is a hose and tank outside, (there’s no indoor plumbing) so that’s where dishes and clothes are cleaned. The latrine is also outside, –and unfortunately we’re sharing it with playful neighbourhood cats, but otherwise Zarghuna, Zahidi and …
Australia Reading the United States
by Binoy Kampmark / August 16th, 2014
There is a thesis in it. Versions of it certainly circulate: smaller, and weaker powers, tend to pre-empt the wishes of their masters or those who would promise to protect them. If performed successfully, rewards might issue from the mighty protector, be it in the form of dispensations and further guarantees of security.
The political environment of a democracy is peculiar in that regard, given that political pre-emption tends to be the internal province of police states. (To be in the dictator’s special invitations list, best try to predict what his wishes might be.) The democratic system adds the complication of …
by Ralph Nader / August 16th, 2014
“Hillary works for Goldman Sachs and likes war, otherwise I like Hillary,” a former Bill Clinton aide told me sardonically. First, he was referring to her cushy relationships with top Wall Street barons and her $200,000 speeches with the criminal enterprise known as Goldman Sachs, which played a part in crashing the U.S. economy in 2008 and burdening taxpayers with costly bailouts. Second, he was calling attention to her war hawkish foreign policy.
Last week, Hillary-The-Hawk emerged, once again, with comments to The Atlantic attacking Obama for being weak and not having an organized foreign policy. She was calling Obama weak …
by James Hoover / August 16th, 2014
We have become blasé about fearsome media images. One such image is police in SWAT gear, assault weapons trained on peaceful demonstrators, and huge armored vehicles with gun turrets at the ready, pointed toward activists. In tiny Ferguson, Missouri, peaceful citizens reacting to the alleged killing of a young, unarmed black teenager by a local police officer, are the enemies, the apparent target of militarized weapons.
What is the outgrowth of such scenes? Most likely, further polarization and thick tension among citizens.
Such warlike demonstrations seem to mock the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law … abridging … the right …
by Ron Jacobs / August 16th, 2014
What is clear about the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri is that the cop murdered Michael Brown pretty much in cold blood. What is also clear is that if Michael Brown was a suspect in this shoplifting case and regular procedures were followed, then he should have been arrested and gone to court. What is less clear is whether or not this killer cop will ever see justice. Indeed, whether he will even go to court. I bet many people reading this have shoplifted. I bet some have even been arrested for shoplifting. …
by Gary G. Kohls / August 16th, 2014
The Big Oil cartels have, for decades, been poisoning the Gulf of Mexico, the Persian Gulf and many other ocean floors with millions of gallons of toxic crude oil via their risky, and very leaky deep water oil wells. It wasn’t just the crime against the planet that British Petroleum and Dick Cheney’s Halliburton perpetrated in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. There are many other things that have contributed to the mortal wounding of the Gulf. A good example of the damage done to the Gulf by corporate entities includes the Mississippi River delta’s massive dead zone that has …
How liberal media shape reality to fit a preferred narrative
by Jason Hirthler / August 15th, 2014
Few groups can massage a dubious forecast into a decidedly optimistic one more readily than liberal Democrats, whose role in the American doctrinal system is to play the lesser of two dire and terminal evils. This banal, tepid, pulseless kind of faux-activism is perfectly suited to the habitués of this giant demographic, many of who exhausted their political passions cheering civil rights and picketing Vietnam in the Sixties. But they inhabit a curious and inviting place along the register of U.S. politics. Liberals know they will always be marginally better than the Republican right, which is caught in a nasty, …
by Walter Brasch / August 15th, 2014
The House Select Committee on Intelligence, following almost a two-year intense investigation, unanimously determined there is no basis for what has become known as the Benghazi Scandal.
The Committee consists of 12 Republicans and 9 Democrats.
The pretend-scandal began Sept. 11, 2012, when terrorists raided the U.S. consulate, and killed the ambassador and three others.
Although there was confusion, and the Obama administration didn’t have all the facts when it began to inform the American people about the events and the causes, there was no evidence of anything even remotely linked to a scandal. However, as expected, the blathering mouths …
If Shoe Were on the Other Foot
by Rick Sterling / August 15th, 2014
The Palestinian enclave known as Gaza is approximately 25 miles long by 5 miles wide. It is about the same area as the East Bay from Oakland in the north to Fremont in the south. To the west is open water; to the east are the hills (heavily-reinforced razor wire fence for Gaza).
What would life be like if the East Bay of San Francisco was Gaza?
Imagine that is where you were born, where you will spend all your years, where you will die. Your world will be confined to that narrow …
Forgetting Cypherpunk History
by William A. Blunden / August 15th, 2014
Ed Snowden recently gave fellow NSA whistleblower James Bamford an “extended cut” interview in Moscow. ((Jame Bamford, “The Most Wanted Man In The World,” Wired, August 13, 2014.)) While Snowden offered up a few morsels of headline-worthy information, like how he purposefully left forensic artifacts for investigators or details on the NSA’s automated cyber-attack system called MonsterMind, Bamford’s piece ends with Snowden describing what he views as the answer to the NSA’s global surveillance program:
We have the means and we have the technology to end mass surveillance without any legislative action at all, without any policy changes… By basically …
by Scott Thomas Outlar / August 15th, 2014
Two hundred pounds dropped from the artillery plane. A beast of a bomb calcified in the heart with naught but devastation roaring through its ugly mind. Nuclear holocaust teetering on the brink of apocalypse in the form of a hair point trigger. Too many maniacs with itchy fingers. Sweaty palms and ravaged agendas. Ready and overly willing to release the poisonous payload. How soon before it smashes? How many will be left standing? Mutation city. Radiation break away. Don’t take the candy when the stranger offers a sweet taste of …
by William Manson / August 14th, 2014
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?
— Macbeth
I heard an odd story the other day. It’s about a man down in Texas, and I’d like to share it with you. It seems this fellow is retired, not very active, and was looking for a hobby to pass the time. After a day spent pondering the sun-drenched, desolate landscape around him, he found that he enjoyed relaxing in a hot bath. And, as he reclined soaking, he developed the habit of scribbling on a sketchpad, making drawings of his legs and feet and so forth. He …
Blowhard versus “Bullhorn”
by John V. Walsh / August 14th, 2014
In the wake of the U.S.-engineered coup in Ukraine, the Western Press warns us solemnly and relentlessly that Vladimir Putin is Beelzebub himself, the leader of a vicious and backward Russia. Such deceit is reckless in the extreme since it puts the U.S. at odds with a nuclear power, one that is far from the weak nation that a condescending and insulting Obama sought to depict in his recent interview with The Economist, debunked here. Of course such lies are not new. In our own lifetimes they have been generated to justify U.S. interventions in Korea, Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, …
by Scott Thomas Outlar / August 14th, 2014
When the wind whispers sweet nothings into receptive open ears. When the water rushes over the falls and is gently caressed by the streaming river that gladly welcomes it home. When the rhythm of the peace drums can be heard beating in synchronized tune atop the hillock. When the sun peeks through the clouds and shines its golden rays down upon the world below. When the truth mounts a raging comeback and forces its way up from the core to break through the absurdity of lies that have played erstwhile king in its absence. When …
by Bill Quigley / August 13th, 2014
Like many cities in the South, New Orleans has a proud history of civil rights leadership—along with an equally grim history of civil rights violations. That history is repeating itself today. The African American community is again facing economic injustice and abuse from law enforcement. But, this time, the immigrant workers who rebuilt New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina are also the targets of brutal civil rights violations. And those same workers are showing extraordinary bravery in fighting to end them.
In November 2013, I was proud to stand alongside immigrant workers and community leaders engaging in peaceful civil disobedience in New Orleans to …
by Medea Benjamin / August 13th, 2014
It has been one year since the August 14, 2013 Rab’a Square massacre in Egypt, when the Egyptian police and army opened fire on demonstrators opposed to the military’s July 3 ouster of President Mohamed Morsi. Using tanks, bulldozers, ground forces, helicopters and snipers, police and army personnel mercilessly attacked the makeshift protest encampment, where demonstrators, including women and children, had been camped out for over 45 days. The result was the worst mass killing in Egypt’s modern history.
The government’s systematic effort to obscure what took place, beginning with sealing off the square the next day, has made it difficult …
The Tragedy of Honduras
by Joseph Grosso / August 13th, 2014
When President Obama requested $3.7 billion from Congress in early July he returned the issue of border security to the forefront where it had faded since the days of large scale Mexican migration a few years ago. The exodus from Mexico stemmed from the signing of NAFTA in 1994 which pitted Mexican corn farms, long a staple of the Mexican economy, against an influx of heavily subsidized corn inputs from the U.S. Over two million Mexicans left agriculture and many headed north, drawn by the Sunbelt building boom. It is quite easy to recall the hysteria of that epoch: the …
Robin Williams and the Virtues of Suicide
by Binoy Kampmark / August 13th, 2014
Now let the reader’s own moral feelings decide as to whether or not suicide is a criminal act.
— Arthur Schopenhauer, On Suicide, in Studies in Pessimism
The Grim Reaper never runs out of converts. Put another way, death never gets his full due. Comedians do not figure well in this – they are particularly attractive targets in the business of death. Ironic, then, that clowns are sometimes hired to make the ill in hospitals laugh, to give the impression that the world is not as dark as all that.
The more one is engaged in the business of making one laugh, the …
by Gary Engler / August 13th, 2014
Capitalist corporations suffer from a personality disorder characterized by enduring antisocial behavior, diminished empathy and remorse, and are rewarded by shareholders for acting that way. If corporations could be sent to a criminal psychologist’s office, they’d be diagnosed as psychopaths and locked away forever.
Capitalism encourages greed. But greed is only good for capitalists. For normal people it is anti-social and soul destroying, not to mention very bad for our communities, which rely on altruism, compassion and a generalized concern for others.
Capitalism is a system of minority privilege and class rule based on the private ownership of means of livelihood. This …
A hospital known as "Emergency" provides free medical treatment in the war-torn country of Afghanistan
by Kathy Kelly / August 13th, 2014
Here in Afghanistan, Carmen, Hakim, Faiz and I went to Kabul’s Emergency Surgical Center for Victims of War to donate blood. “Emergency” isn’t just an apt description of the hospital’s cases; it’s also the name of the Italy-based charity that runs war hospitals and clinics across Afghanistan. Emanuele Nannini, the program coordinator, and Giacomo Menaldo, the chief logistician, spoke with us for several hours about the work done in their facilities and the desperate emergency in health care which Afghanistan faces. Besides its Kabul center, “Emergency” operates two other major hospitals in Afghanistan, one in Lashkar Gah and one in …
by Mathew Maavak / August 12th, 2014
Not a month goes by without the West invoking yet another affront to humanity, another crime against humanity, another wave of sanctions, or yet another UN Security Council resolution. This is what North Korea would be like if it is ever armed with social media.
Occasionally, we were treated to a new Weapons of Mass Destruction allegation with the proof lying not just in the pudding or in yellow cakes attested by Colin Powell at the UN, but in the delectable offerings of Twitter and Facebook as well. Reality is defined by the bold, new ethos of “I imagined it and …
by Scott Thomas Outlar / August 12th, 2014
The only way out is through. In order to establish a more orderly society, we will first have to endure the chaos that ensues when the current system breaks down. So be it. If we want freedom, we have to shake off those elements which are informed by tyranny. If we want liberty, we have to do away with the bureaucracy of the government apparatus which prevents such a natural, anarchic state from arising. We must tend to the garden of sovereignty and weed out the poisonous plants which deplete our soil. We must starve the Beast through acts of …
Fiscal Mismanagement, Odious Debt or Pillage?
by Ellen Brown / August 12th, 2014
Argentina has now taken the US to The Hague for blocking the country’s 2005 settlement with the bulk of its creditors. The issue underscores the need for an international mechanism for nations to go bankrupt. Better yet would be a sustainable global monetary scheme that avoids the need for sovereign bankruptcy.
Argentina was the richest country in Latin America before decades of neoliberal and IMF-imposed economic policies drowned it in debt. A severe crisis in 2001 plunged it into the largest sovereign debt default in history. In 2005, it renegotiated its debt with most of its creditors at a 70% …
by William Manson / August 12th, 2014
In early January 1998, aware of the soon-to-break story about the Clinton/Lewinsky trysts, the Project for a New American Century saw its “window of opportunism.” On January 16—the day before the story appeared in the press—PNAC publicized their “open letter” to President Clinton urging him to consider military action against the Iraq regime of Saddam Hussein, who was again alleged to be evading UN inspections and stockpiling tons of lethal WMDs. By early February, Clinton, desperate to divert attention from his pathetic scandal, gave a speech to the nation enumerating in considerable detail the danger posed by these alleged stockpiles …
