Latest articles
Erekat wakes up; Abbas still in Cloud Cuckoo Land
by Stuart Littlewood / January 6th, 2014
The Times of Israel reports that Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, who recently resigned (again) but mysteriously remains in post, said in an interview that the Palestinians will not agree to extending latest talks with Israel one minute beyond the allotted nine months, ending in April.
“The objective is to reach an agreement on all issues pertaining to a final-status deal. And according to the wording of the agreement with [US Secretary of State] Kerry, there will be no transitional or interim agreement.” He said the US administration was trying to cut the talks short to preempt any …
It’s in the Script
by Robert Bonomo / January 6th, 2014
As gold broke below the psychologically important level of $1,200 an ounce late in December of 2014, the mainstream financial media burst with headlines like this one from Marketwatch: “Gold’s Safe-Haven Role is Over.” The Nobel prize winning economist from the New York Times, Paul Krugman, penned a wicked missive on the ‘barbarous relic’ by invoking Keynes and the absurdity of miners going to “great lengths to dig cash out of the ground, even though unlimited amounts of cash could be created at essentially no cost with the printing press.”
The basis of a vibrant and dynamic society is …
by subMedia / January 6th, 2014
This week:
1. Aldeia resiste the world cock
2. The War on Christmas Trees
3. NYE Noise Demos
4. Rote Flora Defense
5. 20 years of Zapatistas
6. RATM – People of the Sun
7. Anarchists come out of the closet
To start, click on the above video box.
by Kathy Kelly / January 6th, 2014
KABUL — The fire in the Chaman e Babrak camp began in Nadiai’s home shortly after noon. She had rushed her son, who had a severe chest infection, to the hospital. She did not know that a gas bottle, used for warmth, was leaking; when the gas connected with a wood burning stove, flames engulfed the mud hut in which they lived and extended to adjacent homes, swiftly rendering nine extended families homeless and destitute in the midst of already astounding poverty. By the time seven fire trucks had arrived in response to the fire at the refugee camp, …
by Walter Brasch / January 5th, 2014
It’s been about two weeks since the news media began smothering the nation with stories about UPS and FedEx delivering packages late during the holiday season.
A short shopping season of less than 30 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, combined with extraordinary numbers of deliveries and extreme weather problems caused thousands of packages not to be delivered by Christmas. For some media, this was the top story.
FedEx says it delivered more than 275 million packages in that one month period. UPS doesn’t say how many it delivered or how many were late. But it does say that if customers sent their …
by Paul Haeder / January 5th, 2014
Cute, really, calling it, Surveillance Valley, that abomination of elitist, mostly Zionist, and certainly white male-dominated reverse Darwinism IT bootcamp, where the most hostile sub-species exists to shred all human agency. These are Ivy League/Stanford/Georgia Tech types, very strange, indeed, humans who are possessed of the most puerile of spirit, the most usury, psychologically defective, narcissistic, Oedipal hearts on earth, and they just keep that lie going. Silicon Valley my ass!
As if this drone-loving, Fidel-exploding cigar-loving, misfit, racist, bio-hazard, NSA, CIA, DARPA, DoD is somehow more dangerous than Google, Yahoo, Amazon, the entire Brave New World of Media. Really, we …
Build Broad National Consensus for Paradigm Shifting Change
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / January 5th, 2014
In our last article, “Major Social Transformation Is a Lot Closer than You May Realize,” we defined where today’s social-political movement is within the eight stages of successful movements. We have passed the “Take-Off Stage” (Stage 4), gotten through the “Perception of Failure” (Stage 5) and are in the phase of “Building Majority Support” (Stage 6) which is the last stage before “Victory.” In this article we delve deeper into the tasks of the movement in this stage and apply those tasks to current issues faced today.
In this stage, which can take many years, the primary task of …
by Arshad M. Khan / January 5th, 2014
What propels lust? Lust for power; lust for wealth; lust for … well plain lust. The latest in acquisitiveness by parvenus and politicians centers on stolen German luxury cars smuggled to Poland (a mere 50 miles from Berlin) and beyond, in the former Soviet Union’s orbit of influence. ‘Come to Poland, your car is already here’, has become a German joke playing on a travel slogan. Equipped with GPS-using anti-theft devices, the cars have been traced to luminaries such as the Ukrainian Minister of Justice, close associates and family of the President of Tajikistan, and other eminences favoring …
Inoculating against Canadian genocide guilt
by Bill Annett / January 5th, 2014
Compensation? After we pay the government lawyers, there’s about enough left for one good drunk before we commit suicide.
— Johnny (Bingo) Dawson, No fixed address, Vancouver, Canada
Preamble: Questioning Canadian mathematics, as revealed by two news items, albeit separated by a lapse of 107 years.
(1) In June, 1907, both the Montreal Gazette and the Ottawa Citizen reported that Dr. Peter Bryce, a medical director appointed by the Canadian Government, had completed a national inspection tour and concluded that the death rate in 141 Indian Residential Schools among the incarcerated …
People of Conscience Must Respond
by Ron Ridenour / January 5th, 2014
The fact that a month ago the Permanent People’s Tribunal found Sri Lanka guilty of committing genocide against the Tamil people and so few non-Tamil media has informed us of such is unjust oversight at best. I didn’t find out about this important decision until today (January 4). The western media, including left-wing web sights, has been silent or ignorant of this.
The Rome-based Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) is an outgrowth of the original war crimes tribunal created during the war against Southeast Asia by Bertrand Russell and Jean Paul Sartre.
Its panel of 11 judges, experts in international law, former UN …
by Kieran Kelly / January 5th, 2014
The Iraqi government has declared that Fallujah has fallen entirely into the hands of “Al Qaeda and Daash”. This follows over a month of US and Iraqi PR campaigning in the news media touting Al Qaeda’s ambitions to carve out an emirate in the region. It also comes just days after the revelation that the regime in Baghdad has received hellfire missiles and drones from the United States for the stated purpose of fighting Al Qaeda in the last month.
Behind the scenes, however, Shafaq News reports that some government sources admit that the claims are a …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / January 5th, 2014
If war should come, whichever side may claim ultimate victory, nothing is more certain that victor and vanquished alike would glean a gruesome harvest of human misery and suffering.
— UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, July 31, 1939, to the House of Commons
Fallujah has become a symbol of Iraq’s suffering since the onslaught on the country in 1991, numerous, uncounted interim US-UK bombings, then the 2003 invasion, occupation – and misery unending.
In 1991, a busy market was bombed, as was a hotel, which was “leveled.” Two hundred people were incinerated. Another attack: “destroyed a row of modern, concrete, five …
by Nozomi Hayase / January 4th, 2014
In 2010, ongoing wars and government corruption spread through a fog of apathy. The world appeared to be reaching a tipping point for either global crisis or transformation. In this climate, WikiLeaks emerged into the limelight like a call to the conscience of humanity. Over the last few years, they released secret documents revealing Kenyan government corruption, Iceland’s financial collapse, the criminality of US wars in the Middle East and more. Their very existence and what they revealed called into question the legitimacy of imperial power structures around the world.
Ever since its initial public …
by Paul Craig Roberts / January 4th, 2014
Have you seen the economic recovery? I haven’t either. But it is bound to be around here somewhere, because the National Bureau of Economic Research spotted it in June 2009, four and one-half years ago.
It is a shy and reclusive recovery, like the “New Economy” and all those promised new economy jobs. I haven’t seen them either, but we know they are here, somewhere, because the economists said so.
Congress must have seen all those jobs before they went home for Christmas, because our representatives let extended unemployment benefits expire for 1.3 million unemployed Americans, who have not yet met up …
by David Swanson / January 4th, 2014
1. Any article listing the top 10 of anything will be widely read.
2. A poll of people in 65 countries, including the United States, finds that the United States is overwhelmingly considered the greatest threat to peace in the world. The consensus would have been even stronger had the United States itself not been polled, because the 5 percent of humanity living here is largely convinced that the other 95% of humanity — that group with experience being threatened or attacked by the United States — is wrong. After all, our government in the U.S. tells us it’s …
by Jonathan Cook / January 3rd, 2014
Two months ago officials from Israel and Texas made an unexpected announcement, unveiling an ambitious plan to build in Israel the first branch of an American university, at a probable cost of $100 million.
The greatest surprise of all was the location: Texas A&M University, one of the biggest in the US, is set to open its new campus in Nazareth, a town of 80,000 in the Galilee, home to the largest community of Christians in Israel and the unofficial capital of the country’s Palestinian minority.
Israel hopes to accomplish several goals from the venture: silence international criticism for its having the …
Zapatista Uprising 20 Years Later
by Democracy Now! / January 3rd, 2014
On the same day North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect on January 1, 1994, the Zapatista National Liberation Army and people of Chiapas declared war on the Mexican government, saying that NAFTA meant death to indigenous peoples. They took over five major towns in Chiapas with fully armed women and men. The uprising was a shock, even for those who for years worked in the very communities where the rebel army had been secretly organizing. To learn about the impact of the uprising 20 years later and the challenges they continue to face, we speak with Peter Rosset, …
by Gary Leupp / January 3rd, 2014
Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.
It seems like, to me, a vagina – as a man – would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical.
[What do you consider sinful?] Start with homosexual behavior and just morph …
by Andre Vltchek / January 3rd, 2014
For days, the Kenyan capital of Nairobi has been on edge over the carnage in South Sudan.
Both of its major newspapers, Daily Nation and Standard, are running cover stories concentrating on the plight of thousands of Kenyan citizens who are stranded in Juba and other cities inside the ‘youngest nation on earth,’ often in desperate conditions.
Foreign countries — including Uganda, Kenya, and the United States — are now sending military aircrafts to the juvenile Frankenstein nation they were recently so busy creating. But this time, the aircrafts are there to rescue; to airlift their citizens to safety.
As always, there are …
by Kim Petersen / January 2nd, 2014
Zionist Jews have, predictably, taken umbrage to the vote of American Studies Association to boycott Israeli universities. David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, contends that the vote casts a “long shadow” on the American Studies Association. ((David Harris, “Parsing an Academic Boycott of Israel,” Letters to the New York Times, 17 December 2013.))
A Stupid Question
“After all,” Harris writes, “how else to explain the fact that no other country in the world — not Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Sudan or any other serial human rights violator — has been the object of such a …
by John Stanton / January 2nd, 2014
The USA and European Union (EU) continue on their downward trajectory in the 14th year of 21st Century. The perpetual state of war against terror, drugs, immigrants, the press and whistle-blowers moves on uninhibited. Another war, this time named Austerity, is being waged by USA and EU leaders against the middle and lower classes. Youth are particularly hard hit with the average unemployment rate in the EU at 23 percent. In the USA the figure is 17 percent according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But never mind that.
Cutting benefits, or, rather, throwing people away, will reduce the unemployment …
by Ralph Nader / January 2nd, 2014
Dear Mr. Bush:
A few days ago I received a personalized letter from your Presidential Center which included a solicitation card for donations that actually provided words for my reply. They included “I’m honored to help tell the story of the Bush Presidency” and “I’m thrilled that the Bush Institute is advancing timeless principles and practical solutions to the challenges facing our world.” (Below were categories of “tax-deductible contributions” starting with $25 and going upward.)
Did you mean the “timeless principles” that drove you and Mr. Cheney to invade the country of Iraq which, contrary to your fabrications, deceptions and cover-ups, never …
by Adam Engel / January 2nd, 2014
Awake night suddenly not night four AM. Three figures bedside: Short Man; Tall Surly Man, aka “Mr. Personality;” Thin Woman. Long white lab coats aqua scrubs. Young.
“This is him. Here’s his chart,” Mr. Personality.
“Amazing,” Short Man.
“Freak me out,” Thin Woman.
“I’ve never heard of anyone born with The Condition. I thought it just happens. Toxic exposure or something like that. They see it in kids on the Enemy side,” Mr. Personality.
“Which Enemy? I forgot which Enemy of the Nation we’re out to get this week,” Short Man.
“Very funny, Mr. Patriot,” Mr. Personality.
“Report me to the ‘authorities.’ …
by BBC / January 2nd, 2014
An frank portrayal of the ever creeping dispossession of Palestinians in the guise of comedy by the BBC Three.
http://youtu.be/e6KqarWbN7A
by Charles Sullivan / January 2nd, 2014
The ideological chains that bind and subdue us are stronger and more effective than any chain forged from steel. These manacles are more freedom inhibiting than a prison cell or solitary confinement. Belief, faith, and hope can imprison as well as liberate us. By the power of suggestion, a thin cotton string can effectively tether an elephant.
Politicians and their associates in the corporate media are master manipulators of language and images. Anytime you hear them speak, think of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Virtually everything that we see and hear, nearly everything we have been told, is an …
by Richard Hugus / January 2nd, 2014
Drone aircraft, which we first heard of as weapons of war used by the United States in foreign lands, are now poised for a full-scale invasion of the skies above the US itself. On December 30, 2013 the US Federal Aviation Administration announced its choices for drone testing in six states around the country — Alaska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Texas and Virginia. These six states may in turn do their testing in more than one location, For example, according to the Anchorage Daily News, drone testing centered in Alaska at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks will …
by Ramzy Baroud / January 1st, 2014
2013 was a year in which the so-called peace process charade was allowed to continue, leading Palestinians on yet another futile journey of broken promises. Meanwhile, the Israeli colonial project in the West Bank and East Jerusalem carried on unabated. But it was not entirely a year of doom and gloom either, for the global boycott campaign (BDS) has taken off like never before, surpassing the capricious Palestinian leadership and its confined political platforms.
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas is an unsuccessful leader, to say the least. But a much harsher judgment can arguably be made. When he out rightly …
by Michael K. Smith / January 1st, 2014
Given academia’s almost total failure to treat the theme of exploitation and injustice, one could be forgiven for despairing of ever encountering penetrating political commentary in American universities. Happily, however, there are occasional exceptions to this dismal and habitual avoidance, such as Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin Jr’s Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party, which rescues memory of that radical organization from demonization and romanticization both.
For those who value honesty and analytical rigor over impotent polemics, this book is a …
Black liberation activists who are safely dead and widely ignored
by Gary G. Kohls / January 1st, 2014
Now that he is safely dead let us praise him,
build monuments to his glory,
sing hosannas to his name.
Dead men make such convenient heroes.
They cannot rise to challenge the images
we would fashion from their lives.
And besides,
it is easier to build monuments
than to make a better world.,
— Carl Wendell Hines
“Now That He Is Safely Dead” is the poignant poem that was written by black poet/musician Carl Wendell Hines soon after Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965. The poem has since then been appropriately associated with the death of Martin Luther King and his legacy of nonviolent struggle for black liberation, freedom, …
by Yves Engler / January 1st, 2014
A just society should provide everyone with access to a job yet nearly 2 million Canadians can’t find work.
Officially 6.9 per cent of the Canadian workforce is unemployed. But this number rises to 10.3 per cent when those who’ve given up searching for work are included. Counting “discouraged workers”, about 1.8 million Canadians can’t find a job.
Looked at from a different perspective, StatsCan announced last week that there were six job-seekers for every job available in September. Counting “discouraged workers” that number increases 50 percent.
Incredibly, some consider Canada’s unemployment rate a success. In his October throne speech …
