Latest articles
by Subhankar Banerjee / March 28th, 2014
Oso is a small rural community along the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River. It’s in the State of Washington, where I live. As of Wednesday morning, the death toll in the tragic mudslide in Oso has reached 24, and is expected to rise, with another 176 people still missing, although some may have been double–counted. It’s being called “one of the deadliest [mudslides] in recent U.S. history.” The near–record rainfall this month has been attributed as the likely cause of the mudslide. Although Washington residents are used to rain, this recent deluge seems like an …
Call Them What They Are
by Gary Engler / March 28th, 2014
There’s nothing worse than ignorant and opinionated.
You know the type: Most mainstream newspapers have at least one; they dominate radio talk shows and certain TV “news” networks.
Loud supporters of the existing economic system who deny inequality is a problem or even claim it doesn’t exist.
Business leaders/columnists/celebrities/media hacks and the “think tanks” they come from who also deny climate change is a problem or even claim it doesn’t exist.
Apostles of greed who claim to be “conservative”, defend chemical-laden, genetics-manipulating industrial food production, ignore all the ways corporations poison our environment, ridicule anyone who points out there must be some limit to …
by Al Engler / March 28th, 2014
The burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet, melting glaciers and polar ice caps, raising sea levels, causing more destructive hurricanes, floods, and droughts, and increasing ocean acidity. Leading climate experts hold that a third of existing petroleum reserves will add enough carbon dioxide to push the planet past the tipping point of irreversible climate change.
Faced with this nearly unanimous scientific consensus, corporations, governments, electoral parties, and the media promote the development of additional fossil fuels from tar sands and by fracking. The failure to act to stop a looming catastrophe is justified by the claim that climate change is …
The Jaw-Dropping Media Bias On Crimea
by Media Lens / March 28th, 2014
Prior to the March 16 referendum, the BBC website reported:
Crimeans will vote on whether they want their autonomous republic to break away from Ukraine and join Russia.
The title of the news report indicated the focus: “‘Is Crimea’s referendum legal?”
The answer: “Ukraine and the West have dismissed the referendum as illegal and one that will be held at gunpoint, but Russia supports it.”
Legality was not an issue in BBC coverage of the January 2005 election held in Iraq under US-UK occupation. This was accepted on the main BBC evening news as “the first democratic election in fifty years”. ((David Willis, …
by Brian Littlefair / March 27th, 2014
Some sights are so strange that you can’t stop to look: that corpse with rigor mortis on the roadside; the monkey butcher’s stand; the mummy-wrapped form balanced crosswise on that slow bicycle’s cargo rack. You just blink and proceed. We all have doubtful memories like that.
This was one of those disorienting sights. The hurtling juggernaut of the deep state pulled over for a brief inspection. The drivers emerged and showed their manifests. The human livestock they were carrying made agonized sounds inside. Shiny chrome hood ornament Barack Obama glinted inertly in the background like the bowlegged dog on a …
The Perpetuation of Myths, Misrepresentation and Falsehoods about the English Badger Cull
by Lesley Docksey / March 27th, 2014
The British Government seems as determined as ever to pursue its policy of killing badgers to prevent TB in cattle. This despite the “complete failure” of the pilot culls to reach their targets, the leaked information from the as yet unpublished report from the Independent Expert Panel and the slow but steady fall of the incidence of TB in English cattle due, not to dead badgers, but to tighter testing and cattle movement regulations.
But an increasing number of MPs, from all political parties, are demanding an end to the culls. The pro-cull lobby counter this with patronising statements …
by Linh Dinh / March 27th, 2014
The first lesson, and it’s a very old one, is that violent protest does work, and also sinister tricks such as having your own snipers shoot at police and fellow protesters. Without this ramping up of mayhem and bloodshed, the Ukrainian government would not have been discredited, destabilized and finally overthrown.
The shock troops for this violence, the masked thugs at the frontline, didn’t come out of nowhere. Primarily made up of young men from the Right Sector, they had been preparing for a long time for this confrontation with the government. For years, they had been honing their skills at …
by Ron Ridenour / March 27th, 2014
Five years after the ethnic civil war in Sri Lanka was won by the Sinhalese government, with massive killings of Tamil civilians in the last few months, the UN Human Rights Council authorized the High Commissioner of the HRC to investigate if human rights abuse occurred.
On a vote of 23 for, 12 against and with 12 abstentions, the HRC voted to promote reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka by having its High Commissioner, Navi Pillay, and her successor soon-to-be:
To undertake a comprehensive investigation into alleged serious violations and abuses of human rights and related crimes by both parties …
by David Boyajian / March 26th, 2014
After two fair and lengthy hearings, the eight elected members of the Massachusetts Governor’s Council, in a 4-4 tie vote on March 5, refused to confirm attorney Joseph Berman to be a Superior Court judge. It was a defeat for Governor Deval Patrick, who had nominated Mr. Berman. But the Council took its responsibilities seriously and rendered a well-considered judgment.
Councilors voiced many concerns about the nominee. Foremost was a lack of truthfulness.
Berman, under oath, was asked three times whether he had requested anyone to lobby the Council to advance his nomination. Each time, he replied no.
Later, after some stumbling, he …
by Paul Craig Roberts / March 26th, 2014
America does not at the moment have a functioning democracy.
— Former US President Jimmy Carter
I doubt that the Ukraine crisis precipitated by Washington’s overthrow of the democratic government is over. Washington has won the propaganda war everywhere outside of Russia and Ukraine itself. Within Ukraine people are aware that the coup has made them worse off. The Crimea has already separated from the US puppet government in Kiev and rejoined Russia. Other parts of Russian Ukraine could follow.
In Kiev itself where the unelected, imposed-by-Washington dictatorial government resides, extreme right-wing Ukrainian nationalists, whose roots go back to fighting for National Socialist …
by Paul Haeder / March 26th, 2014
I’ll flip the classroom on this post, putting down my response to another middling post from that middling thing called, Inside Higher Education, this on-line blog advertising sheet, DC-based (first problem) and one that is just a hotbed of behind-the-times (second knock against it) and failing to really know the on-the-ground (third, knock) reality of school, community, real faculty and, well, the non-dominant white male/female perspectives (4th knock), the ones bred and enabled on that east coast (another knock) where we have seen a galaxy of pain put upon us, the 80 percent, by elites and their not-so-elite little Eichmanns …
by Jack A. Smith / March 26th, 2014
The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country. Russian history began in what was called Kievan-Rus. The Russian religion spread from there. Ukraine has been part of Russia for centuries, and their histories were intertwined before then.
— Henry Kissinger, Washington Post, March 6, 2014
Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.
— Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard (1998)
Russia has taught the United States a stern and embarrassing …
by Charles Orloski / March 26th, 2014
Author’s Note: I sincerely wish to live long enough to be regretful, ashamed to learn this essay was written out of self-delusion, unfounded fear.
In the late-1970s, while employed as a dockworker at Roadway Express, Inc., Tannersville, PA, I read a scary chapter in Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn’s book, The Gulag Archipelago. Chapter I is titled “Arrest”, and
I never experienced anything quite so terrifying as “the long and crooked streets of rammed earth, brick, concrete, iron railings…” that is where Gulag country began. “Nothing possibly worse than an arrest,” Solzhenitsyn indicated. “Night time arrests were most effective, and were distinguished to large …
The Showdown Begins
by Ramzy Baroud / March 26th, 2014
When late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was confined by Israeli soldiers to his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Mohammed Dahlan reigned supreme. As perhaps the most powerful and effective member of the ‘Gang of Five’, he managed the affairs of the ruling Fatah movement, coordinated with Israel regarding matters of security, and even wheeled and dealed in issues of regional and international affairs.
That was the period between March and April 2002 and it was a different time. Back then, Dahlan – a former Palestinian Authority (PA) minister, a former National Security advisor and a former head of …
In the Age of Neo-liberal Monopoly Capitalism
by Danny Haiphong / March 25th, 2014
The first half-year of my post-college life has been spent in the non-profit industrial complex. INCITE!, a radical organization by and for women of color, wrote a book entitled The Revolution Will Not be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex. This important text contains essays from radical scholars, activists, and organizers who assess the non-profit’s place in US monopoly capitalism. The book concludes that non-profits co-opt and corrupt grassroots social movements that seek to replace monopoly capitalism with a new and just social system. The following essay adds to this important work by covering the ways in which non-profits have changed in US capitalism’s neo-liberal stage …
by Ron Jacobs / March 25th, 2014
On December 4, 2013, the New York Times reported the death of General Paul Aussaresses, one of the top military men in Algeria during the years of the Algerian national liberation struggle. Aussaresses was an unabashed colonialist whose politics were quite rightist in nature. One of his primary roles in the French war in Algeria was to interrogate anti-colonial fighters. Of course, this involved torture. Unlike many torturers before and since Aussaresses’ time in Algeria, the general never seemed ashamed of the torture he ordered. In fact, he spoke about it in interviews and eventually wrote a book in 2001 …
by James Petras / March 25th, 2014
Protest, dissent and the destructive terror of war are obviously very distinct forms of expressing opposition and bringing about change. The Obama-Kerry regime support the opposition in Venezuela as a ‘protest movement’ composed of ‘peaceful democratic opponents’ expressing their discontent with economic conditions, while they denounce the democratically-elected Maduro Administration as an ‘authoritarian regime’ violently repressing legitimate dissent. Washington disingenuously claims to have played no part in the actions of the Venezuelan opposition and that its pronouncements are merely directed at promoting democratic freedoms.
The overwhelming …
by Paul Craig Roberts / March 24th, 2014
The Spanish-American War was caused by three people: Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Randolph Hearst. The war, which killed a number of Spaniards and Americans, including some prominent Harvard “Swells,” was based entirely on lies and machinations of these three men and served no purpose other than their personal needs. Princeton University historian Evan Thomas calls these three monsters The War Lovers.
Hearst needed a war to build his newspaper circulation. Roosevelt needed a war to sate his blood-lust and desire for military glory. Lodge needed a war to reinvigorate American manhood and to enlist American manhood in his …
The BBC's "Amazing Litany" Of Bias
by Media Lens / March 24th, 2014
Coverage of the Scottish independence referendum, due to be held on September 18 this year, is a compelling example of the deep establishment bias of the corporate media. Some critics have characterised the BBC’s coverage, in particular, as though Scotland is merely a region or a county of the United Kingdom called ‘Scotlandshire‘.
The establishment, pro-Union bias of ‘mainstream’ coverage emerges clearly from a careful analysis by an experienced media academic, and by the BBC’s reprehensible attempt to rubbish both the study and its author. The year-long study was conducted by a small team led by Professor John …
Author responds to review of her book
by Alison Weir / March 24th, 2014
“Zionist Power” by Jay Knott (the pen name of an anonymous writer), published March 21, 2014 by Dissident Voice, tells more about the views of its writer than about my book, Against Our Better Judgment: The hidden history of how the U.S. was used to create Israel, which it is allegedly reviewing.
Unfortunately, I don’t always have the time to respond to inaccurate articles about me on the Internet. However, since this piece was published by a serious website, I think it’s important to address some of its errors:
1. In the article Knott states: “Weir gives the impression America …
by Medea Benjamin / March 24th, 2014
The Egyptian court has just handed down one of the most grotesque sentences in Egyptian history, condemning 529 people to death in one fell swoop. The US State Department said it was “shocked” and that the verdict defies logic. “While appeals are possible, it simply does not seem possible that a fair review of evidence and testimony consistent with international standards could be accomplished with over 529 defendants after a two-day trial,” a State Department official said. Amnesty International issued a condemnation, and CODEPINK has launched a campaign to pressure the Egyptian government to overturn the verdict and …
US Desperate to keep Futile Peace Process Show on the Road a Little Longer
by Jonathan Cook / March 24th, 2014
For the first time since the US launched the Middle East peace talks last summer, the Palestinian leadership may be sensing it has a tiny bit of leverage.
Barack Obama met the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Washington last week in what Palestinian officials called a “candid and difficult” meeting. The US president hoped to dissuade Abbas from walking away when the original negotiations’ timetable ends in a month.
The US president and his secretary of state, John Kerry, want their much-delayed “framework agreement” to provide the pretext for spinning out the stalled talks for another year. The US outline for peace …
A Personal Memory and a Word about Free Research
by Jan Oberg / March 24th, 2014
Media with a pro-Western bias usually remind us of 9/11 based on a victim narrative. We just passed 3/20 – the 11th Anniversary of the war on Iraq. Every year they forget 10/7 (Afghanistan) and 3/24, the destruction of Serbia-Kosovo in 1999.
What to do when NATO’s raison d’etre – the Warsaw Pact – had dissolved? Answer: Turn NATO into a humanitarian bombing organisation which in – fake – Gandhian style could say: We are bombing for a higher ethical humanitarian purpose to save lives and on this exceptionalist moral high ground we ignore international law.
Kosovo 15 years later
Kosovo remains a …
by Alan Hart / March 24th, 2014
On the face of it that’s a silly question and the speculation it represents – that Palestinian “President” Abbas could be replaced by an Israeli agent or asset – is not worthy of discussion. But before dismissing it readers might do what I did and consider two things.
The first is that Mohammed Dahlan, formerly one of the most powerful Fatah leaders and almost certainly the one who administered for Israel the polonium that killed Arafat, is now putting a big effort into getting rid of Abbas by one means or another and replacing him with – guess who? – himself.
In …
by Rosemarie Jackowski / March 23rd, 2014
Can you think of anything more arrogant than being a guest in someone’s home and criticizing them because you don’t like their drapes? Maybe yes, criticizing their drapes when you have none decorating the windows in your own home. Most people would agree that that behavior would cross the line. How could anyone be so lacking in common courtesy and finesse – especially when that person is a brilliant, well-educated First Lady?
Well, that is what happened this week in China. Mrs. Obama did not discuss home décor issues – she discussed something far more important. She made a point of insulting China …
Open letter to Omar Barghouti, Co-founder, PACBI
by Paul Larudee / March 23rd, 2014
Dear Omar,
Let me start by saying that you have done a lot for BDS and that BDS has done a lot for the Palestinian cause. It is perhaps for this reason that we should all be concerned with potential corruption of the movement, and you most of all. I refer to changes of wording, changes of direction and changes of priority within the movement.
The change of wording is the infamous four words “occupied in June, 1967” inserted into the first of three objectives in the mission statement portion of the 2005 BDS Call signed by 173 Palestinian organizations, such that …
by James Petras / March 22nd, 2014
Captain Jose Guillen Araque, of the Venezuelan National Guard, recently gave President Maduro a book on the rise of Nazism, warning that “fascism has to be defeated before it’s too late”! In retaliation for his prophetic warning, the patriotic young captain was shot by a US-backed assassin on the streets of Marcay in the state of Aragua on March 16, 2014. This raised the number of Venezuelan soldiers and police killed since the fascist uprising to 29. The killing of a prominent, patriotic officer on a major street in a provincial capital is one more indication …
by Frank Scott / March 22nd, 2014
There are more than 300 million people in the USA. 492 of them are billionaires. That represents roughly 16 millionths of 1%. In decimal form that’s 0.0000016, or as a fraction, 16 over 1 million. This is not the 1% the Occupy Movement imprinted on (some of) the national consciousness. Even an innumerate person can understand that represents a teeny, tiny, microscopic portion of our supposedly democratic, equal opportunity, propaganda spouting world’s most deadly military killing machine in history.
But hey, we’re a free enterprise system, right? Those less than 500 of us are brilliant, industrious, hard working people who’ve earned …
by Bill Purkayastha / March 22nd, 2014
The further comic misadventures of Raghead.
by John Andrews / March 22nd, 2014
The hardest thing about doing what I do is trying to write relatively calmly about things that quite literally make the blood boil. Sometimes after I’ve written a piece, such as this one, I feel the need for a long hot shower, because you have to spend so long immersed in the vile excrement of the 1% that you wonder if you can ever be clean again. I’m sure that many others know what I mean.
Nothing better illustrates the unsuitability of the 1% to their self-appointed role as lords and ladies of the universe than their complete and utter contempt …
