Latest articles
by Robert Hunziker / June 2nd, 2014
Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, famously said: “Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only paranoid survive.”
Grove’s sage advice hopefully rings a bell with advocates of the climate change issue. They should take heed, stop and listen to what is said, because they may be inadvertently breeding complacency when paranoia is needed more so than ever before.
For example, The Economist “Digital Highlights,” May 24-30, 2014, carries an article, “Weighing the Future”, that says the following about the climate change issue: “Scientists have recently given warning that polar ice is melting at a faster rate than was previously thought. For many …
by Gary Engler / June 2nd, 2014
Is Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century a left-wing book?
Yes and no. It depends on how you define “left wing”.
If you believe the litmus test of being “left” is opposition to capitalism, then the book may be interesting and important, but it is not left wing. If, on the other hand, you believe capitalism is a dynamic economic system worth preserving, but in need of a tune-up, you would likely have a different answer. In the range of political/economic opinion allowed in the corporate North American media the book is certainly at the left end of the spectrum.
…
Global Power Project: Part 4 of 4 Part Series
by Andrew Gavin Marshall / June 1st, 2014
In Part 1 of this series, I examined the history and early evolution of the annual meeting that takes place among world bankers and financial and monetary officials at the International Monetary Conference. Part 2 looked at the role of the IMC in the lead-up to the 1980s debt crisis.Part 3 examined the influence of the IMC throughout that decade’s debt crisis. This last installment – published just as the IMC prepares for its June 1-3 meeting at Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich, Germany – looks at what the IMC has done since the 1990s to maintain its status among the world’s most …
by Howie Hawkins and Steve Breyman / June 1st, 2014
New York State faces a fateful choice over its energy, environmental, and economic future.
It can chose a 21st century upgrade to clean energy and create a sustainable prosperity that protects our climate, cleans our air, and revives our economy. Or it can continue to rely on a 19th and 20th century fossil fueled energy system that will leave it battered by climate change, poisoned by pollution, and economically stagnant while other states and nations pass it by as they adopt the new sustainable technologies of the 21st century.
Unfortunately, New York’s draft Energy Plan points backward to the fossil fueled past …
British Government Blocks Transparency
by Felicity Arbuthnot / June 1st, 2014
Amidst howls of “whitewash” from media commentators and interested observers of all political hues, it seems the findings of the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war are finally to be published by the end of this year.
The Inquiry, Chaired by Sir John Chilcot, ran from autumn 2009 to February 2011. The Report is expected to run to several thousand pages with the total cost incurred from the date of the establishment of the hearings “on 15th June 2009 up to 31st March 2012 — £6,129,000.” As of 16th May this year, “On the present timetable, the Inquiry may incur …
Financing Costs More than Construction
by Ellen Brown / June 1st, 2014
Funding infrastructure through bonds doubles the price or worse. Costs can be cut in half by funding through the state’s own bank.
“The numbers are big. There is sticker shock,” said Jason Peltier, deputy manager of the Westlands Water District, describing Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to build two massive water tunnels through the California Delta. “But consider your other scenarios. How much more groundwater can we pump?”
Whether the tunnels are the best way to get water to the Delta is controversial, but the issue here is the cost. The tunnels were billed to voters as a $25 billion project. That …
Greek EU Elections
by Christos Kefalis / May 31st, 2014
The Greek EU elections have produced what is clearly a historical result, not only for Greece but for the European Union as well. SYRIZA won by a clear margin of almost 4% (3.8% to be more precise), scoring 26.5% against 22.7% of ND, the governing right party. Moreover, in the municipal and regional elections SYRIZA gained an impressive victory in Attica district with Rena Dourou, though it failed to elect Sakellaridis in Athens, who lost by a small margin to Kaminis.
SYRIZA’s victory is widely discussed by the European mass media, together with Marine Le Pen’s impressive first place in France, …
by Pepe Escobar / May 31st, 2014
The unipolar model of the world order has failed.
— Vladimir Putin, St Petersburg, May 22
In more ways than one, last week heralded the birth of a Eurasian century. Of course, the US$400 billion Russia-China gas deal was clinched only at the last minute in Shanghai, on Wednesday (a complement to the June 2013, 25-year, $270 billion oil deal between Rosneft and China’s CNPC.)
Then, on Thursday, most of the main players were at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum — the Russian answer to Davos. And on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin, fresh from his Shanghai triumph, addressed the participants …
by Arshad M. Khan / May 31st, 2014
The President’s foreign policy address at West Point was interesting in that he advocated a judicious use of military force. But proxies can be just as devastating and proxies of proxies uncontrollable. Thousands upon thousands are dead in Libya and we now have the general (Khalifa Haftar) who found shelter and further training in Langley (1990 onwards after a betrayal by Muammar Gaddafi) rampaging across the country, while marines wait offshore. The blowback from Libyan chaos has already led to a well-armed Boko Haram causing new chaos in Nigeria.
In Syria, hundreds of thousands have been killed and …
by Myles Hoenig / May 31st, 2014
I have just finished Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel by Max Blumenthal. It’s written well enough to read in just a short week of a few sittings but this took me several weeks. For those unfamiliar with it, Blumenthal wrote about the day-to-day humiliations faced by Palestinians in Occupied Palestine and Jewish activists in Greater Israel.
What makes this so difficult to read is that it paints Israel as a Jewish state doing horrible things, not just in the name of Judaism, but by an entire population who does it just because they are Jewish. The insane fanaticism …
by Walter Brasch / May 31st, 2014
During this past week, in Scranton, Pa., a 16-year old put two bullets into the head of a taxi driver and then stole about $500 earned by the cabbie that evening.
The teen, who showed no remorse when arrested a few hours later, mumbled a few words about his reasons. He said he murdered the cabbie “’Cause that’s what I do to people that don’t listen.” The teen thought the cabbie was taking too long to get him to his destination. The driver was a 47-year-old man with a wife and two children. The gun was an unlicensed 9-mm.
A few days …
by William Boardman / May 30th, 2014
Fallout from Fukushima? A re-make of Godzilla! That’s the good news
There’s not much new to say about Fukushima. It remains an out of control disaster with as yet unmeasurable dimensions that continue to expand. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that everything new about Fukushima is just the same-old same-old getting worse at an uneven and unpredictable rate. Either way, it’s not good and, while it’s worse in degree, it’s not yet apparently worse in kind, so that’s one reason you don’t hear that much about it in the news these days.
Whatever the full truth is about …
Coming to a Town Near You
by Brian Terrell / May 30th, 2014
On April 15, 2014, when the story broke on the world that the Central Intelligence Agency’s covert program of assassination by remotely controlled drones is not distinct from the drone program of the U.S. Air Force as we had been told, I was on the “Sacred Peace Walk,” an event sponsored each spring by the Nevada Desert Experience, a 70 mile trek from Las Vegas to the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. Creech Air Force Base is along the way and we had already made plans for a protest there the next morning. While the CIA’s drone program is shrouded in …
by James Hoover / May 30th, 2014
Aside from the misogyny evidenced by the Elliot Rodger massacre at Isla Vista, there are broader cultural issues: mental health, affluent entitlements, and the rampant accessibility of guns. Put them all together and we have problems to address, but they are more akin to a culture run amok than to passing more regulatory laws.
Feeding this morass are two forces fighting for power and control, one led by conservative forces and the other led by progressive forces. Moderates are in the middle. Conservatives believe in free market forces and unbridled, but lawful, personal choices with small government and little regulation. In …
by Stuart Jeanne Bramhall / May 30th, 2014
Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past, and What They Can Tell Us about Our Future by Peter D Ward, is a chronology of the paleontological research linking mass extinction events with prehistoric episodes of global warming caused by high atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane. Ward explores the likelihood that current, unprecedented increases in both greenhouse gasses will lead to a new mass extinction.
The dinosaurs were wiped out by a mass extinction 144 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous …
by Brenda Heard / May 30th, 2014
On 28 May 2014, expatriated Syrian nationals in numerous countries flocked to Syrian embassies to begin the voting process in a presidential election. With all its potential flaws, perhaps even inherent flaws, this quintessential element of democracy is still the most effective means of finding consensus. As the saying goes, you can’t please all the people all the time. Thus elections provide an opportunity for peaceful compromise. But to work, democracy requires participation.
President Bashar al Assad is being challenged by Maher Hajjar and Hassan Nouri, even if sneered at by those who label them as merely symbolic candidates. …
Up Yours!
by John Stanton / May 30th, 2014
The Howard P. “Buck” McKeon National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2015 (Defense Authorization Act) should be renamed the Howard P. “Buck” McKeon Global Manifest Destiny Act of FY2015. The Defense Authorization Act reads like something that the Biffer-Baum Birds in Dr. Seuss’ Sleep Book might have written. And the image that most accurately depicts the collective efforts of President Obama, the Pentagon and the US Congress in the design of American national security strategy is Dr. Seuss’ illustration of the Biffer-Baum Birds constructing their nest out of bricks and threads: a precarious construction indeed.
The Defense Authorization Act, and …
by Mateo Pimentel / May 30th, 2014
As billions from around the globe await the World Cup in advent, the social and political situation is sure to grow more polemic for the Brazilian people. Untold amounts of money will change hands; untold numbers of unassuming foreigners will trickle into and saturate Brazil. But who will benefit from the economic boom wrought by this year’s soccer circuses?
Possibly, one of two realities will emerge. Either people from around the world will witness the curious amount of civil unrest that couples the looming soccer celebration, scratching their heads about the mix, or, by peering into the history that will …
People Power and the New Cooperative Movement
by Lamont Lilly / May 30th, 2014
Once home to some of the most violent racists in the U.S., Jackson, Mississippi is now a key training ground for self-determination and organized “people power” throughout the U.S. South. From May 2 through May 4, 2014 activists, organizers and fellow revolutionaries from all over the world gathered at the Jackson Rising: New Economies Conference at Jackson State University. An estimated 500 people participated in some or all of the conference.
The primary objective of such an assembly was “to educate and mobilize the people of Jackson to meet the economic and sustainability needs of their community,” and to share …
by Chris Time Steele / May 30th, 2014
This is the premiere of my new music video.
The song is entitled “Brittle Action Figures” and features Chris Barron from DeVotchKa on trumpet.
The song is about my parent’s home, which was foreclosed on by Bank of America last year. The house was built by my grandpa and is where my dad grew up as well as me.
http://youtu.be/_NxglRF7QmQ
For full album stream of Newstalgia click here.
by James Petras / May 30th, 2014
The European parliamentary elections witnessed a major breakthrough for the right-wing parties throughout the region. The rise of the Right runs from the Nordic countries, the United Kingdom, the Baltic and Low countries, France, Central and Eastern Europe to the Mediterranean.
Most, if not all, of these emerging right-wing parties mark a sharp break with the ruling neo-liberal, Christian and Social Democratic parties who have presided over a decade of crisis.
The ‘new Right’ cannot be understood …
by Jan Oberg / May 29th, 2014
In a speech by the President of the United States of America – read by millions in all corners of our world in minutes – rest assured that every single word has been weighed with utmost care.
With this in mind, Obama’s speech can be analysed as both offending to the rest of us and – exceptionally – weak.
It caused no enthusiasm among the future army officers he spoke to and no enthusiasm among leading Western media.
I will argue that:
• Intellectually and morally the speech doesn’t have the basics – full of contradictions and imbued with unbearable self-praise.
• While there is …
by Kim Petersen / May 29th, 2014
A reader reacted to my recent article, “The Left,” which calls for the dissolution of borders (and hence the state) and “the rights of people everywhere to move about freely, peacefully, respectfully, and contribute to communities wherever they might find themselves in the world.” The reader demurred:
Opening the borders for unrestricted immigration and the free movement of labor will harm the working class tremendously with the current and continuous scarcity of jobs. The working class has the full right to resent unrestricted immigration.
In the essay, I wrote:
It is easily understood that the presence of many immigrants expands …
by Thomas Riggins / May 29th, 2014
Proemium
In “The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell” volume in the Library of Living Philosophers (1944) V.J. McGill (1897-1977) published a detailed critique of Russell’s political and economic philosophy. Russell was not pleased and made short shrift of professor McGill’s efforts in his “Replies to Criticisms”. Russell dismisses McGill’s contribution as dealing with material “lying wholly outside philosophy” and says, in effect, he won’t even bother to argue against McGill’s positions as it would be “futile.” Seventy years later in retrospect we might agree with Russell that his efforts to refute McGill would have been “futile.” But why would they have been? …
by Kieran Kelly / May 29th, 2014
Recently I wrote an article objecting to labeling a false Left as Left — in effect erecting a strawman to criticize the Left. In his essay, Kieran Kelly elaborates on what is Left and how it differs from ideologies toward the Right. — DV coeditor
*****
The term “left-wing” is seldom defined and is often grossly misapplied. Some point at Stalinist repression and say that that is an example of how bad the left can be, but such authoritarianism contravenes the defining left-wing principle of anti-authoritarianism. Others have tried to characterise Nazism and Fascism as being half-left and half-right simply because …
Selling the Never-Ending War on Terror
by Steve Breyman / May 29th, 2014
Mark Landler’s “US Troops to Leave Afghanistan by End of 2016” was the lead story in the New York Times on Wednesday, May 28. Landler reports President Obama’s decision to reduce troop levels from the present 32,000 to 9,800 by the end of 2014 to half that by the end of 2015 to “a vestigial force” by the end of 2016. There are several reasons why one ought to be skeptical of these numbers (not least of which are that that Obama for years referred to Afghanistan as “a war of necessity,” he ordered two troop surges during his …
The Financial Sector Fights Back
by Binoy Kampmark / May 29th, 2014
The industry still prizes short-term profit over long-term prudence, today’s bonus over tomorrow’s relationship.
— Christine Lagarde, IMF Chief, May 27, 2014
Capitalism has always had an image problem. A public relations make-over had to be done of its rather dark image during the Cold War. The term “free enterprise” was preferred, giving the impression that accumulating capital and chasing it was a matter of initiative and creative impulse. With the end of the Cold War, the chest thumping began. De-regulation became de rigueur. The 1990s was the Greenspan-Clinton era, one where the very idea of institutional control over capitalist excesses was …
by Jim McCluskey / May 29th, 2014
The first sentence in Steve Taylor’s book, The Fall: The Insanity of the Ego in Human History and the Dawning of a New Era, reads:
For the last 6,000 years, human beings have been suffering from a kind of collective psychosis. For almost all of recorded history human beings have been – at least to some degree – insane.
Through much of recorded history it has been accepted as normal that, periodically, large groups of men should meet and hack each other to pieces. This was the method of choice for resolving disputes. In the last few hundred years, with the …
by Charles Orloski / May 29th, 2014
Holidays in Northeast Pennsylvania towns typically include parades, an assembly of high school bands, fire trucks, National Guard, bagpipers, local politicians, vintage cars, dogs adorned in patriotic garb. On special holidays, for example, Saint Patrick’s Day and Veterans Day, the Scranton Times-Tribune provides anxious citizens with vivid street maps, indicating the parade’s planned route. At 7:00 a.m. Saturday, May 24, 2014, after “hard boiling” an egg and toasting Augustine’s Italian Bread, I sat alone at our kitchen table, lazily turned the pages of a PA Commercial Driver’s License Manual, section “Pre-trip vehicle inspection,” and removed the rubber band which surrounded …
by Frank Scott / May 28th, 2014
Each day another culturally reduced group is stricken with abuse, panic, anger and driven to what seem fresh new demands for justice.
Black youths killed by police or vigilante bullets? Check. Women raped or physically abused? Check. Workers left jobless with no hope for the future? Check. Students wondering how to pay for an education that produced low paying work? Check. Immigrants supplying the economy with profitable cheap labor and treated as sub-humans? Check. Another crazed person imitating an army and killing many people? Check.
The latest murders committed by a tortured and demented person and media labeled a “rampage” or a …
