Latest articles
by Felicity Arbuthnot / March 13th, 2014
Less than a month before the 11th anniversary of the illegal US-led invasion of Iraq, the near destruction of much of the country, heritage, culture, secularism, education, health services and all State institutions, the country is poised to revert “two thousand years” say campaigners.
On February 25th, Iraq’s Cabinet approved a draft law lowering the age of legal marriage for females to nine years old.
Iraq was, prior to the invasion, a fiercely secular country, with a broadly equal male, female workforce and with women benefiting from a National Personal Status Law, introduced in 1959, which remained “one of the …
by Robert Hunziker / March 12th, 2014
Recent developments up North are cause for concern. The Arctic “sea ice area” registered a record low on March 9, 2014 at 12.88 million square kilometers. ((Sam Carana, “Has the Descent Begun?” Arctic News, March 12, 2014.))
Further confirmation, according to reports from NSIDC (National Snow & Ice Data Center, Boulder) and Cryosphere Today (Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University or Illinois), Arctic sea ice area dropped to a record low of 12.95 million square kilometers on March 10 of 2014. It is a measure smaller than that seen during the late 1970s and breaking the previous record low, set just three years …
A Tale of the Internet Age
by Matt Reichel / March 12th, 2014
In one of a series of significant talks over the weekend by the world’s foremost Internet freedom activists, Julian Assange spoke on MSNBC about the central “battle” of the Information Age:
On the one hand, we are in many ways heading towards a transnational dystopian total surveillance society the likes of which the world has never seen . . . and on the other, people are coming together. Whenever people can communicate, they develop new values and a new consensus and a new polity. That is something that all young people are exposed to.
In other words, the Internet is the …
GMO Policy being Warped by Industry Groups Co-opting Language of the Left
by Jason Velázquez / March 12th, 2014
I remember seeing the bumper sticker “Coexist” for the first time sometime in the 90s. I thought then, and still do, that forging all the letters from spiritual symbols was pretty clever, while still being meaningful and respectful. You’ve seen the bumper sticker before, you know you have.
It’s often paired with the popular classic “Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost,” or (on my Top 10 List) “You Cannot Simultaneously Prevent and Prepare for War.”
And I think that different faiths are fair examples of things that should be able to coexist. Faiths are abstractions by definition. They exist in the …
Lenin's State and Revolution: Chapter 2, Sections 1, 2, 3
by Thomas Riggins / March 12th, 2014
In Chapter Two of State and Revolution Lenin discusses the lessons of the European revolutionary movement of 1848-51. There are three sections to this chapter. The first section is entitled:
1. The Eve of the Revolution
Lenin points out that the first “mature” works of the Marxist world view were created on the “eve” of the 1848 upheaval — namely Marx’s 1847 work The Poverty of Philosophy, and Marx and Engel’s joint work The Communist Manifesto. Every educated person has read the latter work but the former may not be so well known.
It was composed by Marx to confute the ideas of …
by James Petras / March 12th, 2014
In the biggest power grab since George Bush seized Eastern Europe and converted it into a NATO bastion confronting Russia, the Obama regime, together with the EU, financed and organized a violent putsch in the Ukraine which established a puppet regime in Kiev. ((The pro EU-US putsch regime in Kiev is a product of nearly 25 years of planning and enormous funding by political agencies of the US government. According to William Blum (Anti-Empire Report#126, 03/07/2014), the self-styled National Endowment for Democracy bankrolled 65 projects involving political indoctrination and the formation of political action groups. Under-Secretary of …
by Ramzy Baroud / March 12th, 2014
Something sinister is brewing around and below al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, and it has the hallmark of a familiar Israeli campaign to strip the Mosque of its Muslim Arab identity. This time around, however, the stakes are much higher.
The status of al-Aqsa mosque is unparalleled within the context of Muslim heritage in Palestine itself. It is also the third holiest Muslim shrine anywhere. But equally as important, it is a symbol of faith, resistance and defiance. Its story of struggle and perseverance goes hand in hand with the very modern Palestinian struggle for rights, freedom and identity. Praying …
by Johan Galtung / March 12th, 2014
There is much in the name. Ukraine means borderland. And it is time to think about solutions instead of further confrontations.
Diagnosis
The position of the extreme West – like US neocons – is clear: Get all into NATO, encircling, containing, defeating Russia. Some in Ukraine and Georgia share that goal.
The less extreme West would focus on EU membership, both being European countries. Some of them, in turn, might focus on loans as there is much money to be made. Thus, Bosnia-Hercegovina had $9 billion debt before the EU take-over as “high authority”; now $107 billion. “Austerity” around the corner.
The position of …
by Michael Werbowski / March 11th, 2014
National aspirations must be respected; people may now be dominated and governed only by their own consent. Self determination is not a mere phrase; it is an imperative principle of action. . . .
— Woodrow Wilson with his famous self-determination speech on 11 February 1918 after he announced his Fourteen Points on 8 January 1918.
Secessionist movements are nothing new to history and have been endorsed in the past, by some great statesmen such as US president Woodrow Wilson. Yet the upcoming Crimean referendum is given much attention by the west, almost as if it were setting some dangerous …
Beyonce's Collaboration with Washington and her Ascendency into the Black Misleadership Class
by Danny Haiphong / March 11th, 2014
This month is “Women’s History Month”, but what exactly is the importance of shedding light on the oppression of women under US/Western imperialism? If we understand the oppression of women as a necessary precondition of patriarchy, racism, and class exploitation inherent in the “Western way of life”, than it is untenable to imagine a world free of sexism without a world free of racism and class exploitation as well. In this period, the US corporate media has mass advertised a mainstream “feminism” that promotes collaboration with the US ruling order. In recent years, the American corporate ruling class has anointed …
Egypt Stops International Women's Day Delegation to Gaza
by Cayman Kai / March 11th, 2014
On International Women’s Day, although I woke up in America, my heart was in Gaza. After having been detained for over 22 hours in the Cairo airport without explanation, I had been deported to London and ultimately sent back to America. I was the youngest American of an International Women’s Day Delegation bound for Gaza to answer the call of the women of Gaza issued to the women of the world to come and stand with them in solidarity.
We were “armed” with microscopes for hospitals, toys for children, chocolate gifts, and solar lamps as a gesture to give them light …
by Alexander Mezyaev / March 11th, 2014
A number of international organizations are in the process of studying the legal aspects of the situation in and around Ukraine from the point of view of international law. The United Nations, in particular the Security Council, is the main entity authorized to come up with priority assessments according to article 21 of UN Charter and the very fact of Ukraine’s membership in the organization.
For the last days the UN Security Council (UNSC) has had three times the issue on its agenda. The first time was on February 28. There was nothing but an official communique informing that a session …
US Nuclear Missiles Pea Shooter Distance From Moscow?
by Bo Filter / March 11th, 2014
The media is clamoring to get Russia for attacking Ukraine, as if the US has had no influence on events. Yet, the riot in Kiev has a striking resemblance to US-sponsored color revolutions and Arab spring riots.
The template shows US mercenaries hiding behind peaceful protestors, then, igniting violence. The idea is sinister: to co-opt peaceful protestor’s legitimate cause, granting some air of legitimacy, followed by a coup to super-impose western imperial demands.
In Kiev, it started, as usual, with peace protests, then, thugs soon joined in as heavily armed trained militia. Western private media, holding its usual bag of secrets, dodges …
Scenarios behind the End of MH 370
by Binoy Kampmark / March 11th, 2014
The fate of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared over the South China Sea on Saturday, continues to baffle the authorities of ten countries involved in the search and rescue missions. Some 40 ships and 34 aircraft have been involved in the effort so far (Business Insider, March 11). False alarms have been registered – the report of an oil slick, and the appearance of various objects (passenger life jackets; an airplane door). A salvaged object retrieved by a Vietnamese rescue helicopter provided false assurance – it was not a life raft from the plane. The Chinese authorities are seething …
by subMedia / March 11th, 2014
by Yves Engler / March 10th, 2014
When a plane carrying 239 people disappears and everyone is presumed dead, the world’s TV networks devote hours of coverage to the tragedy. Newspapers run long and detailed stories. Experts are interviewed to discuss probable causes and remedies.
Government safety boards investigate and produce reports. There seems a genuine attempt to learn from what happened in order to prevent the same death and destruction from ever occurring again.
Contrast that to the reaction of death by automobile.
The latest year for which we have statistics (2010) 1,240,000 people died in vehicle crashes across the globe. That’s 3,397 people per day or 142 per …
by Media Lens / March 10th, 2014
Exactly what is happening in Ukraine is not easy to disentangle from corporate news media reports. The current crisis began last November when the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, withdrew from a cooperation agreement with the European Union to forge closer ties with Russia. As Peter Oborne notes:
Up to that point, the West had concealed any distaste for Yanukovych. Thereafter, we [sic] started to ally ourselves with the protesters against his regime.
These included ‘a group of violent and unpleasant Right-wing parties’. Three months of violent protests followed in Kiev. On February 22, Yanukovych suddenly fled Kiev and the pro-Western opposition …
by Linh Dinh / March 10th, 2014
I’ve been coming to Chicago forever, but always just for a day or two. The first time was when I was only a teenager and visiting an aunt in St Louis. Another time, it was to take a physical exam for now-defunct Midway Airlines. I was trying to get a job as a baggage handler. The day before, though, I had been at a Philly party where someone handed me a joint. Never one to refuse heartfelt hospitality, I inhaled, but somehow this didn’t prevent me from being hired by Midway. Perhaps they used the same urinalyst, piss parser …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / March 10th, 2014
On Wednesday March 5th, Ukraine’s Putsch “Prime Minister” Arseniy Yatsenyuk, arbitrarily sacked three senior Defence Ministry politicians,
Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Oleynik, with Deputy Defense Ministers Vladimir Mozharovskiy and Arturo Francisco Babenko. According to Itar-Tass (March 6th) they had drawn Yatsenyuk’s ire by expressing “sharp criticism over giving the Right Sector militants the status of regular military units.”
A contact of the publication stated that one of the three had also “told Yatsenyuk that actions of today’s Kiev authorities in overtures with radical nationalist organizations would destroy national unity” and that it was simply “harmful to involve the state military agency in …
by Ken Meyercord / March 10th, 2014
Here’s a way environmentalists can capitalize on Secretary of State Kerry’s characterization of climate change as the “most fearsome weapon of mass destruction”, a hyperbole he used in a speech in Indonesia last week. Despite the current surfeit of light oil resulting from the shale oil boom, the wave of the future is likely to be increasing production of heavy oil, the stuff that will flow (sluggishly) through the Keystone XL pipeline if it is ever built. That that is where the future lies is demonstrated by our refiners betting hard money on it, having geared up their refineries to …
The Snowden Testimony
by Binoy Kampmark / March 10th, 2014
If you want to help me, help me by helping everyone: declare that the indiscriminate, bulk collection of private data by governments is a violation of our rights and must end.
— Edward Snowden, Testimony, March 7, 2014
The case of Edward Snowden is an object study about why whistleblowers have mountains to climb when it comes to revealing abuses within a system. Last Friday, Snowden detailed a series of answers to submitted questions from the European Parliament outlining what those mountains were.
One particularly troubling one is the pressure exerted by the US intelligence community to spread the web of surveillance …
by Robert Hunziker / March 10th, 2014
The American Museum of Natural History/NY (AMNH-NY) conducted a survey about the likelihood of a mass extinction event. The majority of the 400 scientists polled were convinced that a “mass extinction of plants and animals is underway,” posing a threat to humanity in the next century. According to that same poll, the public is “dimly aware” of this threat of an extinction event.
The AMNH-NY survey took place in the year 1998; thus, “the next century” that they referenced is here now. Also, since 1998, above and beyond additional loss of habitat for plants and animals, the state of the climate …
by Paul Haeder / March 9th, 2014
Jeff Drones for Dildos Bezos . . . The TakeOver . . . The End Times . . . Useless Collective Consumerism . . . The Empire is Daft and Dangerous!
Oh, hell, I’ve been challenged to write some positive stuff on the DV blog, like, what, five straight blogs in a row that are all hopeful, positive, about the real heroes and heroines and hard-working people who never get their day in the limelight, day in court, or 15 petrabytes of fame.
Seems like a good thing, really. Can you imagine the world of mass suicide media, the …
by Bill Purkayastha / March 9th, 2014
Putsch, Pillage, and Duplicity
by James Petras / March 8th, 2014
The Obama regime, in coordination with its allies and proxies, has re-launched a virulent world-wide campaign to destroy independent governments, encircle and ultimately, undermine global competitors, and establish a new US – EU centered world order.
We will proceed by identifying the recent ‘cycles’ of US empire-building; the advances and retreats; the methods and strategies; the results and perspectives. Our main focus is on the imperial dynamics driving the US toward greater military confrontations, up to and including conditions which can lead to a world war.
Recent Imperial Cycles
…
by Felicity Arbuthnot / March 8th, 2014
Another day, another stitch up. On March 6th, Syria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, the eloquent and elegant Mr. Bashar al-Ja’afari and the Syrian UN Mission had restrictions placed on them by the US State Department, limiting their travel to no further than 25 miles from New York’s Columbus Circle intersection.
The UN Secretary General — representing the world organization avowed “to practice tolerance and live together with one another as good neighbours … to develop friendly relations among nations … to be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations …based on the principle of sovereign equality of all …
by Ann Wright / March 8th, 2014
Five years ago in March, 2009, only two months after the 22 day Israeli attack on Gaza, I was on an international delegation of sixty women organized by CODEPINK who traveled to Gaza for International Women’s Day. In the week in Gaza, we met with women where their homes used to be before they were destroyed by the Israeli attack that killed 1450, wounded 5,000 and left 50,000 homeless. We also met with women in 13 community centers throughout the country, to listen to their stories of life under attack and under siege.
Five years later, I joined an …
by Binoy Kampmark / March 8th, 2014
The journalistic credo is a difficult one. The line between corporate sponsored sycophancy and state sponsored guidance is an all too fine one. Little wonder that today’s news scape is awash with such experiments as those of WikiLeaks, or Glen Greenwald’s The Intercept, potent challenges to the numbing twenty-four hour news cycle.
The resignation of Russia Today (RT) America anchor Liz Wahl and the off-script outburst by RT employee Abby Martin on the program Breaking the Set have provided yet another example how the Cold War dynamics that lurk beneath the relations of West and East continue to pulsate …
by Walter Brasch / March 8th, 2014
The oil and gas industry, the nation’s chambers of commerce, and politicians who are dependent upon campaign contributions from the industry and the chambers, claim fracking is safe.
First, close your mind to the myriad scientific studies that show the health effects from fracking.
Close your mind to the well-documented evidence of the environmental impact.
Focus just upon the effects upon the workers.
The oil and gas industry has a fatality rate seven times higher than for all other workers, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control. (CDC). According to the CDC, the death rate in the oil and gas …
The Anti-Empire Report #126
by William Blum / March 8th, 2014
Ukraine
When it gets complicated and confusing, when you’re overwhelmed with too much information, changing daily; too many explanations, some contradictory … try putting it into some kind of context by stepping back and looking at the larger, long-term picture.
The United States strives for world domination, hegemony wherever possible, their main occupation for over a century, it’s what they do for a living. The United States, NATO and the European Union form The Holy Triumvirate. The Holy Triumvirate has subsidiaries, chiefly the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, International Criminal Court … all help to keep in line those …
