Most Americans know Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as one of the twentieth century’s most revered voices for racial equality, the charismatic leader of the American Civil Rights movement, who gave the famous “I Have A Dream” speech. Perhaps they even know a thing or two about his role in the MontgomeryBus Boycott and the Birmingham Campaign. This knowledge by and large derives from compulsory education and mainstream media. It is significantly less likely, however, that very many Americans know much at all, if anything, about King’s radical and controversial activities related to the issues of poverty …
The mutilation happened in an isolated corner in Myanmar. A Buddhist mob have recently hacked more than a dozen Muslim women and children with knives, a horrendous crime which the activists in the country put a lid on.
The carnage of the Muslims has been going on for years now with the international community gradually waking up to the horror of the human tragedy.
A new era could be dawning, and the history of capitalism will, thusly, need to undergo revisionism. As a result, there will be joyous celebrations within the canyons of Wall Street. Here’s why: Profit may be crowned a King.
The level of excitement is already registering in consecutive new highs for the Dow Jones Industrial Averages.
Yes, a coronation worthy of Louis XIV of France (1638-1715) “the Sun King,” who successfully increased the influence of the crown by establishing authority over the church and the aristocracy, thereby consolidating absolute monarchy in France.
The upcoming coronation (maybe) of King Profit, therefore, shall be the …
Unlike the Europeans, Americans have never hated the rich, only envied them.
— Gore Vidal
Given our reputation, it’s puzzling and demoralizing why more Americans don’t root for the underdog. On second thought, maybe it isn’t puzzling. Maybe that reputation was little more than self-serving, textbook propaganda taught to school children. Still, it’s hard to reconcile. After all, rooting for the underdog—having empathy for the “little guy”—has always been presented as a component of our national character.
But that empathy seems to be sorely lacking today. And nowhere is it more apparent than in the public’s understanding and appreciation of labor unions. Instead …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / January 19th, 2014
The White House is calling January “TPA (Trade Promotion Authority) Month” and has made it their task to pass Fast Track. President Obama needs Fast Track to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). When Congress returned this month, a bill was quickly introduced after delays of more than a year.
The lies begin with title of the bill: “The Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities Act of 2014.” Bi-partisan? In the House there was only one sponsor, Republican David Camp (MI). The Republicans demanded the Democrats add a sponsor before it was introduced, but due to public pressure, they could not find one.
1. “The State — A Product of the Irreconcilability of Class Antagonisms”
Lenin begins by remarking that the great leaders of oppressed humanity are reviled and hated by the rulers of the day but after their deaths attempts are made “to convert them into harmless icons.” Martin Luther King was reviled in his day as a troublemaker because of his civil rights work and as a traitor because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. Now he has schools named after him and his birthday is a national holiday. His fiery rhetoric against racism and imperialism forgotten. Malcolm X has suffered …
The 1970s and 1980s are often disparaged by commentators and historians as years of narcissistic, cocaine-fueled times of political ennui and right wing resurgence. While there is certainly an element of truth to this perception, there are certainly other perspectives that are equally valid. Unfortunately for today, these perspectives have been mostly left out of the narrative. Even in the more complete popular histories of the period, like Bruce Shulman’s The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society and Politics, tend to accept this context.
One important exception to this standard is Max Elbaum’s exploration of the New Communist Movement, …
American nuclear officials are wary of Japan’s new nuclear push
Official Japanese policy on nuclear power has swung full circle since the Fukushima disaster of 2011 – from avidly pro-nuclear power then, to rejecting nuclear power as too dangerous, and now back to avidly pushing on to re-start old reactors and build new ones. Adding the chronic secrecy and denial of the nuclear industry to such politically-driven indecision making, Japan has created a funhouse of distorting mirrors from which emerging information about the on-going Fukushima disaster cannot be considered credible without reliable, independent verification. Reliable and credible information about …
Somalia has become a breeding ground for Washington’s black operations since 2001, with the African country suffering human losses due to US hegemonic policies.
Only recently, it has been revealed that the US secretly deployed two dozens of troops under the guise of military advisors. It is naïve to think that the US has no ulterior motives other than giving advisory clues to the military men in Somalia or protecting the security of the African people.
In 1993, the US embarked on a military expedition dubbed Operation Gothic Serpent in Somalia under the pretext of eliminating a Somali warlord, an operation which …
The first thing you notice about Texas in 2014 is there are some new sheriffs in town and they’re not male or Caucasian. Electorally speaking, they’re female and/or Hispanic. Women and Hispanics may not have been beating down the door for the role because they were busy as bees, making inroads, building careers, bringing home the bacon, raising kids, etc., etc. But a nefarious assemblage commonly referred to as the ruling class (or Good Ol’ Boys Club) has kicked the proverbial beehive one too many times and now it’s likely to pay.
Imagine a 1,160 square mile ice sheet (equivalent in size to Los Angeles, Dallas plus Chicago), which had been stable for thousands of years, suddenly collapsing and crumbling into thousands of icebergs within weeks.
It happened in Antarctica, and the message therein challenges humankind to beware of its own devices, i.e., burning fossil fuels for energy.
A team of researchers from the University of Chicago and Princeton lead by Alison Banwell, ((Alison Banwell, et al., Breakup of the Larsen B Ice Shelf Triggered by Chain Reaction Drainage of Supraglacial Lakes, Geophysics Research Letters, 40, 5872-5876, DOI: 10.1002/2013GLO57694.)) may have cracked the …
by The Real News Network (TRNN) / January 17th, 2014
Jessica Gonzalez who leads the National Hispanic Media Coalition’s legal and policy work: As US Court of Appeals rules against net neutrality, internet service providers will restrict access for communities of color.
Scholar John Gerassi recalls in one of his books a meeting that took between Jean-Paul Sartre and Herbert Marcuse in a Paris café at the height of the 60s student movements of the 1960s. As a member of the professorate for the past 15 years, I have been thinking about these two philosophers a great deal lately, and how far we have retreated from the educational goals and values of that era. Some of the pedagogical and curricular reforms of that era have been severely watered down, or in some cases abandoned altogether. This has led me to wonder if …
Seven months of shale gas resistance in New Brunswick
by Miles Howe / January 17th, 2014
K’JIPUKTUK (HALIFAX) — In early June, I walked with Suzanne Patles from Eskasoni First Nation and two Mi’kmaq women from Elsipogtog First Nation along Highway 126 near Harcourt, New Brunswick. People told us not to go, not to approach the seismic testing trucks; that people had been arrested earlier in the day; that there would be trouble.
I knew Patles, to some degree, as a shy and hesitant person but highly intelligent. At Millbrook First Nation, earlier in March, I had watched her read from prepared documents as Shelly Young and Jean Sock starved themselves in an attempt to get the …
Canadian rock legend Neil Young has taken to the road with a mission. Sunday night, he laid down the gauntlet on national TV, calling the Canadian government “completely out of control” as he began his “Honour the Treaties” tour in Toronto. His goal is to help First Nations in their fight against the expanding oilsands projects in Alberta. To the government, “Money is number one. Integrity isn’t even on the map.”
Honour the Treaties is a series of benefit concerts in Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina and Calgary to raise money to support the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) in their …
When the demise of Nelson Mandela was proclaimed to the nation by South African president Jacob Zuma the streets were hushed, and in restaurants, bars and nightclubs, there was pin drop silence as people listened in utter despondency.
ANC described him as a large baobab tree that had fallen, whose roots would nourish the soil forever.
Mandela was one of the founding fathers of the South African struggle against apartheid, who dedicated his life to emancipating his people from political bondage. He led them during the darkest days of apartheid; always resolute and standing tall for his principles.
Mounting efforts by Israel to divide its large Palestinian minority along sectarian lines have heightened fears that the Biblical city of Nazareth may be about to return to the scenes of violent clashes witnessed 15 years ago.
Tensions in the city, the hometown of Jesus and a destination for hundreds of thousands of tourists each year, have risen sharply in recent months after the Israeli government unveiled plans to encourage Christian school leavers to serve in the military.
Although Nazareth and its surrounding villages are home to the bulk of Israel’s 130,000 Palestinian Christians, the city itself has a Muslim majority.
“To realize the great revival of the Chinese nation,” President Xi Jinping has told the people of the People’s Republic, “we must preserve the bond between a rich country and a strong military, and strive to build a consolidated national defense and a strong military.”
Some might find it slightly ironic that Xi Jinping’s slogan: “rich country and a strong military” is precisely the same slogan–fukoku-kyohei in Japanese–popularized by the Meiji oligarchs in Japan from 1868. These were the ex-samurai who humiliated China in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 and proceeded to colonize Taiwan, Korea, …
The blinkered members of the US Congress are confused. Not an unusual condition, but it is particularly evident in proposed legislation on how best to cope with Iran should it show bad faith on its nuclear program.
The American fist hovers above the Washington-Tehran negotiations, a constant reminder that sovereignty on matters nuclear tends to be qualified and held in deep storage. The question for those politicos in Washington, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is whether they would like to withdraw the fist, allowing negotiators to breathe a bit, or darken matters further.
It’s been a bit of a gap week or two, since pining in with this sort of catharsis, but some of us schmucks have to make some really lousy money and attend to some really rotten job hunting in a time of pure delusion, all the while that white noise buzzing, the white static noise of the mush of NPR and mainstream mindlessness and the BS of labor stats and economists who deserve what the SEALs and Obama said what happened to Osama (right, US punk prez, directs US amped-up murder incorporated to shoot to kill, ask no questions later, …
The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has.
— Will Rogers
Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s…
— Jesus of Nazareth
During the 2012 presidential election, the principal debate was largely about debt and taxes, and most of that debate — as Paul Krugman, the Prophet of Princeton, pointed out at the time — was being conducted by the people who knew the least about either. But conspicuous by its absence, because no politician had the guts to mention it, was that manque emperor’s clothing, the billion-dollar churches of America and their blanket exemption from …
Since last December, Brazilian shopping malls ((The first rolezinhos happened in São Paulo. However, in light of the reactions to them and, particularly, the violent repression participants experienced, many rolezinhos are now being planned throughout the country.)) have become the stage for a new style of youth gathering: the rolezinho. Roughly translated as “little excursions” or outings, the rolezinhos can be characterized as planned meetings (via social network) of a large group of youth from poor neighborhoods, with the intent of seeing each other, flirting, eating and drinking at McDonald’s, taking pictures to post on Facebook, and simply having …
Recently there was an uproar of sorts concerning NPR, after they aired an interview with a white adoptive mother of black children. The main point of offense most stated by those commenting on this show was that in this report and on her blog, the woman interviewed claims for herself a voice which is basically not hers, and there was a perceived need for “balance”, which was to come from transracial adoptees. This was witnessed by the discussion that followed in various social media as well as at their web …
During the first half of the 20th century, socially conscious Jews in the United States organized a large network of solidarity and charity associations financed mostly through small donations, raffles, and dues by working and lower middle class supporters. Many of these associations dealt with the everyday needs of Jewish workers, immigrants, and families in need. Some were linked to labor unions, social democratic, and leftist parties. Their leaders were, in many cases, individuals who worked long hours engaged in resolving problems and intervening in local crises. They drew a modest paycheck – (when funding was available) – …
It will be a bitter pill for people to swallow–the idea of having less so that big business can have more. Nothing that this nation or any other nation has done in modern history compares with the selling job that must be done to make people accept the new reality.
— Business Week editorial, October 12, 1974
The “new reality” spoken of above was old capitalist private profit-public loss economics. It only seemed new to those raised in a time that averted total systemic collapse under what is now being called “unbridled capitalism”, by those who still seem to think a terminal …
Governor Jerry Brown and his staff are exchanging high-fives over balancing California’s budget, but the people on whose backs it was balanced are not rejoicing. The state’s high-wire act has been called “the ultimate in austerity budgets.”
Welfare payments, health care for the poor, and benefits for the elderly and disabled have been slashed. State workers have been downsized. School districts in need of cash have been reduced to borrowing through “capital appreciation bonds” bearing 300% interest. In one notorious case, the Santa Ana school district actually borrowed at 1,000% interest. And the governor acknowledges that California …
The death of former Israeli leader Ariel Sharon enlivened US media’s interest in the legacy of a man considered by many a war criminal, and by some a hero. In fact, the supposed heroism of Sharon was at the heart of CNN coverage of his death on January 11.
Sharon spent the last eight years prior to his death in a coma, but apparently not long enough for US corporate media to wake up from its own moral coma. CNN online’s coverage presented Sharon as a man of heroic stature, who was forced to make tough choices for the sake of …
At a critical time for Japan and the region, the country is undergoing a right-ward political shift under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was re-elected just over a year ago. As head of the Liberal Democratic Party, Abe is known as a conservative hawk who has pushed nationalistic and pro-nuclear policies. In December, he visited the controversial Yasukuni war shrine, which honors Japanese soldiers who died in battle, including several war criminals who were tried by the International Military Tribunal after World War II. The visit sparked outrage from China and South Korea, who consider the shrine a symbol of …
