Latest articles
by Felicity Arbuthnot / June 18th, 2014
What a black, tragic irony. Just two months ago, on the 11th anniversary of the (illegal) invasion of Iraq, the Guardian reminded that the mass slaughter, the incineration of swathes of towns, cities and the use of US-UK weapons of mass destruction was not about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, but about oil (a fact long established for any one with even minimal gray matter.)
Today flames are rising from Iraq’s largest oil refinery at Baiji, 130 miles north of Baghdad, the result of mortar attacks by the varying forces sweeping towards the capitol city.
The Guardian outlined the invasion’s “real …
Australia’s Linguistic Blunder Snowballs
by Nicola Nasser / June 18th, 2014
Reacting to antagonized Palestinian snowballing protests to her government’s decision on June 5 to reverse a 47-year old bipartisan consensus on describing eastern Jerusalem as “occupied,” Foreign Minister Julie Bishop on June 13 denied any “change in the Australian government’s position.”
On June 5, Australian Attorney-General George Brandis in a statement said:
The description of East Jerusalem as ‘Occupied East Jerusalem’ is a term freighted with pejorative implications, which is neither appropriate nor useful.
The new Australian terminology provoked Jordan, the third largest importer of Australian sheep in the Middle East, to summon Australia’s charge d’affaires, John Feakes, to convey its “concern” because …
Francis Boyle
by Paul Craig Roberts / June 18th, 2014
As Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi, the Richest Representative of the One Percent in the House of Representatives, said: “Impeachment is off the table.” Nevertheless, insouciant Californians still send The bought-and paid-for hireling to Washington
In my day if an experienced professor of international and constitutional law, such as University of Illinois Professor Francis A. Boyle, called for impeachment of a president, it was a serious situation for the president. But no more. Today an American president can ride roughshod over constitutional lawyers, the US Constitution and US statutory law without any danger of impeachment. To avoid impeachment today, all a president …
by Scott Noble / June 18th, 2014
It is often said that the invention of terrible weapons of destruction will put an end to war. That is an error. As the means of extermination are improved, the means of reducing men who hold the state conception of life to submission can be improved to correspond.
— Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1849)
Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.
— Edward Abbey, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (1989)
According …
Bogus and Sinking Us More?
by James Hoover / June 18th, 2014
Education is in dire straits, mainly not because of poor teachers and principals but because the privatization movement and the profit motive has infested education’s inner sanctums with greed and an ideology which justifies it. The result is actually poorer education due to higher cost, lack of coordination, politics, commitment to profit rather than a good education, and too often amateurs guiding it.
The outgrowth of its testing focus during the George W. Bush years was ill-advised national programs like the sale of education in the form of “No Child Left Behind,” and the Obama administration is not far behind Bush’s …
by Mateo Pimentel / June 18th, 2014
From the late 1940s to the early 1970s, Latin America proved to the world that it was poised to grow. Its collective determination for social equality and economic reform promised many viable alternatives to alignment with Washington. Despite the fact that the region was by no means a fabric of interwoven utopias, Latin America was still able to distribute wealth and to sustainably grow sans the flavor of capitalism espoused by the US. The effects of this period in Latin American history had a global reach, inspiring countless other developing nations around the world to explore their economic options. For …
Redrawing the Map of Iraq, Again
by Ramzy Baroud / June 17th, 2014
“Labeiki ya Zaynab,” chanted Iraqi Shia fighters as they swayed, dancing with their rifles before TV news cameras in Baghdad on June 13. They were apparently getting ready for a difficult fight ahead. For them, it seemed that a suitable war chant would be answering the call of Zaynab, the daughter of Imam Ali, the great Muslim Caliph who lived in Medina 14 centuries ago. That was the period through which the Shia sect slowly emerged, based on a political dispute whose consequences are still felt until this day.
Dark Forces of Sectarianism
That chant alone is enough to demonstrate the ugly …
Part 1 of 3
by The Real News Network (TRNN) / June 17th, 2014
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges speaks with Professor Noam Chomsky about working-class resistance during the Industrial Revolution, propaganda, and the historical role played by intellectuals in times of war.
http://youtu.be/bwRf5HHm2Mo
by Paul Haeder / June 17th, 2014
Author’s note — House Organ out of Youngstown, New York, edited and published by Kenneth Warren. Number 87, Summer 2014, just arrived in the mailbox. Some good shit in it. Comes stapled, folded in half, ten total 11×8 1/2 sheets, printed to equal 40 pages. No web site, but plenty of accolades. What a back to the future idea? Out of your house, on a printer, no internet connection.
Some great and sometimes old world and then experimental poetry, some criticism, but all of it from a deep intellectual beat, drumming through time and pushing this epoc into the memory hole …
by James Petras / June 17th, 2014
Greece is experiencing a triple crisis which has a profound impact on the economy, society and political system. The economy has experienced a deep, prolonged depression lasting six years and continuing. Workers and employees have suffered a 40% loss in income and a commensurate decline in medical, pension, educational and welfare benefits. The political system has witnessed a precipitous decline in electoral support for previously dominant right and center left parties and the rapid rise of radical democratic-socialist and fascist parties.
The socio-economic effects of …
by Ian Hubbard / June 17th, 2014
Hello, all. It’s been something like 16 tumultuous months since I first checked in? I’m sure we’ve all been busy living life towards the infinity at play.
I was able to escape the guillotine of the gas station. It didn’t take my head, but it did take the last of my prejudices. You learn to hate everyone equally in a shit job.
Now? Instead of vices, it’s steaks, chops and fish, with the same bitch in a different outfit. Substitute the old ladies and their numbers for suburban housewives and holiday hams.
The old ladies only had money to lose and time …
by Yossef Ben-Meir / June 17th, 2014
On this world date to combat desertification – and when considering the great mountain ranges in Morocco as well as desert – we point to conditions replete with prosperity-potential, as well as systemtic poverty and serious risk to the region and nation that will come with delayed action.
My twenty years of not being able to walk away from transformative project possibilities in rural Morocco arises from precisely this dichotomy – between real development opportunities that would sustainably multiply the economy and engine social change, and the current subsistence conditions that see schools without running water, education cut short for most …
by Paul Larudee / June 16th, 2014
For three years, most residents of the old city in the center of Homs had not seen their homes, shops, churches and mosque. Homs was one of the first cities where armed fighters decided to take on the Syrian army, and those fighters named it “the capital of the revolution”.
That revolution ended in May, 2014 for the fighters in Homs, when they negotiated a retreat from the old city. Starving and running low on ammunition, they accepted the government offer to remove themselves to a different front, taking only their light arms. Some of the fighters gave up entirely, putting …
by Media Lens / June 16th, 2014
Over the weekend, the British media was awash with the blood-splattered Tony Blair’s self-serving attempts to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. The coverage was sparked by a new essay in which Blair claimed that the chaos in Iraq was the “predictable and malign effect” of the West having “watched Syria descend into the abyss” without bombing Assad. Blair advocated yet more Western violence, more bombing:
On the immediate challenge President Obama is right to put all options on the table in respect of Iraq, including military strikes on the extremists…
…
by Scott Thomas Outlar / June 16th, 2014
A Golden Soul Revolution is breaking out of the cosmic egg.
New perspective.
Fresh paradigm.
Cultivating the seed within. Watering the positive intentions. Nurturing the healthy soil. Strengthening the balanced approach.
Why is it that the world seems to be going through a stage of uncertainty, fear and chaos? Well, quite simply, because it is. The major institutions which the masses of humanity take their cues from are undergoing radical states of disturbance. The house of cards is implosively collapsing in upon itself. It is as it must be. The old systems must die so that something new can be born. The fire must …
by Dylan and Jo Murphy / June 15th, 2014
After years of talking about it, we are finally poised to control our own energy future.
— Barack Obama in 2013 State of the Union address
The myth of American energy independence from fracking has been dealt a huge blow by the downgrade of recoverable oil from the Monterey shale formation. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has slashed its estimate of oil reserves from the Monterey shale formation by a massive 96%.
In 2011 the EIA released a report that reviewed US shale oil and gas reserves. It stated that the largest shale oil formation in America was the …
The “Progessive” (aka, liberal) Antiwar Movement: RIP?
by John V. Walsh / June 15th, 2014
Ralph Nader wrote a very perceptive essay in the wake of the edifying defeat of the despicable arch-imperialist, Israel Firster and reliable servant of Wall St. Banksters, Eric Cantor, at the capable hands of the libertarian leaning Professor David Brat. It was titled “Can Progressives Learn From Eric Cantor’s Defeat”? Can they? Yes. Will they? It is highly doubtful. It is difficult to learn if you think you have nothing more to learn.
But here we are interested only in the lessons of Cantor’s electoral humiliation at the hands of Brat for the progressive antiwar, anti-Empire movement. (For the …
by Adam Engel / June 15th, 2014
“If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” – Shelley
Straight-jacketed and cuffed for sin of Tooth-fang (mocking Death’s assumption of my mirror), I was at liberty to …
"Lincoln didn’t call Confederates terrorists"
by RT / June 15th, 2014
Historical analogies may be inaccurate, but Americans may need to look at their own civil war and compare it to what is happening in Ukraine now. Today the US supports a murderous criminal adventure that has little to do with unifying the country.
This assessment came from Professor Stephen Cohen, prominent US scholar of Russian studies and author, who advised George H.W. Bush in the late 1980s. He spoke to RT about the mistakes of the consecutive American administrations in their Russia policies, the worst crisis in decades that they led to and the deterioration of political discourse in America …
by Stuart Jeanne Bramhall / June 14th, 2014
Presidential Puppetry: Obama, Romney and Their Masters by Andrew Kreig (Eagle View Books 2013) is a comprehensive expose of the wealthy corporate interests who are the real power behind the federal government. Kreig orients his book around Obama and Romney, the major presidential candidates in the 2012 elections. However in discussing Mitt Romney’s hidden ties to the financial oligarchy, he also explores the Bush family’s Wall Street connections, the history and structure of the Mormon Church (especially as it relates to corporate America) and Karl Rove’s role in orchestrating Republican dirty tricks and voting fraud. Presidential …
by Nicholas C. Arguimbau / June 14th, 2014
Wall Street is the government, and the New York Times is right across town. Maybe that’s all you need to know to understand what’s happened.
In January, 2011, this writer published a four-part article entitled “The War: Did We Sacrifice a Million Lives and a $Trillion Cash Just to Hand Our Jobs to China?” It was long (around 40 pages) and I must admit a little confusing, because the information was so stunning that I had a difficult time understanding what I was reading. The gist of the article was that Big Oil had asked Congress in 1998 to remove the Taliban …
Obama Does Not Have the Authority to go to War Without Congressional Authorization
by Kevin Zeese / June 14th, 2014
The same people who got the US into the mistaken Iraq War are now urging President Obama to use military force in Iraq again. Republican hawks are using the violence in Iraq as a political tool that is escalating pressure for US military intervention. But, if the US follows the rule of law — both US and international law — the president does not have the authority to attack Iraq without Congressional and UN authorization.
John McMain went roaring onto the Senate floor “calling on the entire Obama administration national security team to resign.” McCain urged immediate action saying “Every hour …
by Ahmed Youssef / June 14th, 2014
Amidst considerable local and international skepticism, the politically volatile Egypt has finally concluded it’s period of social, political, and economic instability in pursuit of the Egyptian symbol of the status quo: the military’s Abdel Fatah El-Sisi. El-Sisi’s victory in the recent May elections by an overwhelming 97% margin marked the rise of concerns across the spectrum warning of the return of the Mubarak garrison-state regime and the eradication of the “bread, social justice, and humanitarian dignity” method of government dominating the chants of the 2011-2014 revolutionaries.
Indeed, many of those skeptical views allege that influential actors within the Mubarak regime …
by Adam Engel / June 13th, 2014
Dear Diary,
Nothing much happened today in the great wide world. Some folks got whacked in, what was it, Sudan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Palestine, something like that who can tell the difference with those people always blowing up cars with themselves in them cause this or that god told ’em to do it. Heathens. If they’d just turned Christian like the missionaries told’em they wouldn’t be in this mess.
Also, some kind of fighting broke out or ‘situation deteriorated’ as the newsguy said, in — where else? — Iraq. Serves ’em right for…uh…what was it
again? …
Kinetic support: a euphemism for the President’s pre-authorized war
by William Boardman / June 13th, 2014
By the time you read this, America’s next, undeclared war in Iraq may already be under way.
Imperial militarists started floating trial balloons for the next American aggression as of June 11 in the Wall Street Journal, quoting “a senior U.S. official who added that no decisions have been made.”
Those seemingly reassuring words from one or another anonymous official may have meant only that the decision had not yet been made whether to use drones, planes, or missiles to start bombing Iraq again.
Militarily, any such bombing is likely to be pointless. Psychologically, it will allow the White House to …
by Fred Branfman / June 13th, 2014
I have been increasingly struck over the years by how America is divided between those who hear the screams of its millions of victims abroad and those who do not. This is the fundamental issue underlying Michael Kinsley’s recent attack on Glenn Greenwald, in which Kinsley wrote “newspapers should not have the final say over the release of government secrets. That decision must ultimately be made by the government.” (( “Eyes Everywhere,” NY Times.))
As the U.S. Executive increasingly turns to secret warmaking — relying on lawless assassination from the air as U.S. drone bases spread …
by Pepe Escobar / June 13th, 2014
SAO PAULO — One of the defining images of the World Cup, so far, has been the sight of the Mannschaft — aka the German team — fraternizing with Pataxo Indians a few hundred meters away from the spot where Brazil was “discovered” in 1500. Call it a European re-discovery of the exotic tropics.
Then there’s the English Team frolicking by the seaside, inside a military base, with the Sugarloaf as gorgeous backdrop, backed up by a scientific expert in humidity and industrial ventilators aplenty (after all there’s the Rumble in the Jungle against Italy this Saturday “deep in the Amazon …
by Ralph Nader / June 13th, 2014
The stunning upset defeat of House Majority Leader, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) by Professor David Brat, an economist from Randolph-Macon College, in Tuesday’s Republican Primary has several takeaways for progressives besides envy and shame over why they do not directly take on the corporate Democrats.
First, among all the reasons for Cantor’s fall, there were the ones encapsulated in the Nation’s John Nichols’ description of Brat as an “anti-corporate conservative.” Repeatedly, Brat said he was for “free enterprise” but against “crony capitalist programs that benefit the rich and powerful.” David Brat pointed out that Cantor and the Republican establishment have “been …
New Books Highlight the Debate between Radical Feminism and Transgender Movement
by Robert Jensen / June 13th, 2014
Within feminism there has been for decades an often divisive debate about transgenderism. With increasing mainstream news media and pop culture attention focused on the issue, understanding that feminist debate is more important than ever.
Two new feminist books that analyze transgenderism (Sheila Jeffreys’ Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism and Michael Schwalbe’s Manhood Acts: Gender and the Practices of Domination, which includes a chapter on “The Limits of Trans Liberalism”) are helpful for those who are concerned about the harms that result from the imposition of traditional gender …
by Jack A. Smith / June 13th, 2014
President Obama chose to ignore the most important strategic aspect of U.S. foreign policy in his major address May 28 at West Point graduation ceremonies. It was perhaps thought politically wise to emphasize current events rather than military preparations for a possible major future confrontation with China.
Instead Obama mainly focused on defending his policies against mounting criticism from warhawks in both parties variously demanding that the U.S. attack Syria, or Iran or Venezuela, and adopt more provocative measures toward Russia. He was even criticized for not being tougher toward China, which is preposterous, as we shall discuss in this article …
