Indictment of the Federal Government of the U.S. for the commission of international crime
by Francis A. Boyle / October 13th, 2013
Information Clearing House — All citizens of the World Community have both the right and the duty under public international law to sit in judgment over a gross and consistent pattern of violations of the most fundamental norms of international criminal law committed by any member state of that same World Community. Such is the case for the International Tribunal of Indigenous Peoples and Oppressed Nationalities in the United States of America that convenes in San Francisco during the weekend of October 1-4, 1992. Its weighty but important task is to examine the long history of international criminal activity …
It’s time to take some of the profit out of the for-profit healthcare system currently victimizing the people of the United States. This is a small step and one which can be implemented on levels which do not necessitate the consent of an entire nation.
If you’re not intelligent enough to already have realized that the present for-profit healthcare system in the United States constitutes a human rights violation, you might as well go back to watching black and white 1950s sitcoms on your smart phone, and stop reading altogether.
“I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients …
October 16, 2013 is World Food Day. Fours days before this event thousands took to streets across the world’s cities to protest the use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) products and pesticides that are suspected of being linked to diseases. The giant multi-national corporation Monsanto was one of the main targets of the protests. Over 50 countries took part in the march for World Food Day, and all across the United States and Canada.
Many of the demonstrators have been calling for the permanent boycott of GMOs and “other harmful agro-chemicals,” according to March Against Monsanto’s official web page. Protesters …
Cities are where most humans live, with more people moving to them every day. As anyone who has lived in a big city knows, existence in urban environments is a challenge. This challenge is greater the less money one has. Like everything else, the advent and growth of the neoliberal economy has exacerbated the challenges associated with urban life in a multitude of ways. In response to these challenges, various movements have arisen. Perhaps the most important of those movements is the one involved with creating a just and sustainable existence. A multi-faceted movement, this movement has almost as many …
The dawning of a brave new world order of all-powerful, robust energy may be right around the corner, and it’s a game changer.
Solar-power may be on the brink of an incredible discovery so thrilling it nearly takes one’s breath away! Indeed, this new solar blockbuster may solve many of the world’s climate change problems… Exhale! But, it is still too early to know for sure, and similar to all good things that happen on a large scale, it will take time.
Meanwhile, fossil fuel energy appears old, tired, and archaic, especially when compared to sleek, glistening solar-power, which is …
In 1961, German-Jewish philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt travelled to Jerusalem to cover the trial of Adolf Eichmann for The New Yorker. Margarethe von Trotta’s 2012 docudrama Hannah Arendt tells the story of her journey and the controversy following her report.
What Arendt (Barbara Sukowa) saw in Eichmann was not stupidity, but actually a thoughtlessness – a complete incapacity for independent critical thought. Arendt understood that it was within this thoughtlessness that the evil becomes banal as opposed to being a sinister premeditated crime. The ‘banality of evil’, as such, is the structure that allows the ethical …
Petitioning the American government and the United Nations to take over the Fukushima clean-up would be morally wrong and a political folly.
The argument goes that since TEPCO and the Japanese government have shown themselves incompetent and untrustworthy in their information policies regarding the Fukushima disaster, now the international community and especially the United States government should step in and take over.
However, looking at the US’s own track record in giving comprehensive and accurate information about its nuclear accidents and the failure of its nuclear industry to even implement the most basic safety precautions would actually be letting the fox guard …
Which will impale you—humanitarian intervention or deficit reduction?
by Jason Hirthler / October 12th, 2013
The word dilemma springs from the Greek for di and lemma, basically a “double proposition.” The idea is that you have found yourself in a situation in which your only choice is between two ‘horns’, and your only question is which horn you would prefer to be gored by? As Americans, we may look abroad to avoid the calamity of Congress, but there we find war. We may look homeward to avoid the horror of industrial warfare, but here we find gangs of elitists jockeying for position in the great race to privatize the commons. We are left to ask …
He did not seem the sharpest sandwich at the picnic. But that did not matter. Australia’s notorious Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read, a half-comic, half-sinister crim who blazed his quixotic way into that country’s limited folklore, dead at 58, did not feel the need to be. He was mocking the very public who took him seriously, and evidently relished it. He mocked the journalists, and liked that even more. And most of all, he mocked himself.
How much of that notoriety was merely a celluloid blast remains the paradox of criminal obsessions. Cruelty indulges curiosity. People who tend to abide by the …
Nah, think hard, readers: I am tough as nails, and I dare you to challenge that with ANYONE who knows me. I have spit in the faces of colonels, cops, Aryans, the pigs of capital. I have danced on the graves of bankers and thrown tequila bottles, empties that is, on John Wesley Hardin’s grave. Had my time with Lee Marvin, some Sandinistas, some Zapatistas, and a whole lot of infamous and small-time hoodlums throughout Tex-ass and Mexico. Hitchhiked from Nogales to Panama.
Nah, I am not special, because, there are many like me. Thanks effe-ing Christ. Unique like a snowflake? …
IPS — In an effort to provoke any possible opposition in U.S. political circles to a nuclear deal with Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has returned to exploiting an old claim that Iran is building intercontinental ballistic missiles that could hit the United States.
The Netanyahu claim takes advantage of the extreme position that has been taken on the issue by Pentagon and Air Force intelligence organisations but goes even further.
In an Oct. 1 interview with Bob Schieffer of CBS News, Netanyahu said Iranians are “building ICBMs to reach…the American mainland within a few years”. And in an interview with …
Though the spill occurred on September 29, the U.S. National Response Center — tasked with responding to chemical and oil spills — did not make the report available until October 8 due to the ongoing government shutdown.
“The center generally makes such reports available on its website within 24 hours of their filing, but services were interrupted last week because of the U.S. government shutdown,” explained Reuters.
They say you get more conservative, nostalgic for the past and critical of young people as you age. In my case it’s true, but maybe not in the same way most people expect.
This 60-year-old grandfather’s conservatism is reflected in a growing respect for the institutions, programs and social services that previous generations of ordinary working people built through organizing and struggle. I believe in preserving these institution, programs and social services despite the onslaught of right-wing choppers and cutters who proclaim “progress” when in fact people’s lives are being made worse.
My nostalgia for the past is reflected in fond memories …
Are we witnessing the beginning of user-generated politics, even hashtag politics, with no need for leadership? Since the dawn of user-generated content, it has become ever easier for us common people to assert political views in forums where they can be viewed and studied by all.
Now, popular grievances and political ideas can be expressed by anyone in chat-rooms, in the comments sections of websites, or simply condensed and inserted into the debate as a hashtag on Twitter. Distrust of authority necessarily extends from the anarchic democratization favored by the internet, as each person sticks to his own user-generated political theory. …
When Rabbi Ovadia Yosef first appeared on the national scene, I heaved a deep sigh of relief.
Here was the man I had dreamed of: a charismatic leader of oriental Jews, a man of peace, a bearer of a moderate religious tradition.
“Rabbi Ovadia”, as everybody called him, who died this week at the age of 93, was born in Baghdad, came to Palestine as a boy of 4, gained huge respect as a religious scholar. During the 1948 war he was the chief rabbi of Egypt, later he became the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel. When his appointment was not renewed, …
The new version of the exam has tougher questions and a higher registration fee--plus it requires computer proficiency
by Kavitha Cardoza / October 11th, 2013
Kiana Rucker dropped out of school when she was 15 years old to look after her younger brothers and sisters. Five years later she had a baby herself. For years, she relied mostly on food stamps, medical assistance, and subsidized housing to get by. But it always bothered her. “I don’t want to rely on anyone,” Rucker, now 35, says. “I don’t want government help.”
So in 2010 Rucker decided to get her General Educational Development certificate. She took classes at Southeast Ministries, a nonprofit in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. This past June–three years and five attempts …
This is the first of a series of exposés focusing on the Institute of International Finance (IIF), the very “visible hand” of financial markets. It is a continuation of the Global Power Project produced by Occupy.com. Part 1 examines the origins of the IIF.
Founded in 1983, the Institute of International Finance (IIF) describes itself as “the world’s only global association of financial institutions” with a membership that includes “most of the world’s largest commercial banks and investment banks,” along with sovereign wealth funds, asset managers, hedge funds, insurance companies, law firms, multinational corporations, development banks, multilateral agencies, credit ratings agencies …
Obama’s rhetorical exercise in ‘peace talk’ at the United Nations General Assembly impressed few delegations and even fewer Americans: Far more eloquent are his five years of wars, military interventions, cyber-spying, drone murders, military coups and the merciless prosecution of patriotic truth tellers.
If his ‘peace message’ fell flat, the explicit affirmations of imperial prerogatives, threats of military interventions and over two dozen (25) references to Israel as a ‘strategic ally’, confirmed the suspicions and fears that Obama was preparing for even more deadly wars.
Is the NDP the solution or part of the problem for those us who promote a Canadian foreign policy that favours ordinary people around the world?
While pushing arms control measures and oversight of Canadian mining companies, this ‘Left’ party generally backs the military and a Western pro-capitalist outlook to global affairs.
In 2011 the party supported two House of Commons votes endorsing the bombing of Libya. The party’s most recent election platform called for maintaining the highest level of military spending since World War II. In a more recent display of militarism NDP veterans affairs critic Peter Stoffer joined some veterans …
by The Real News Network (TRNN) / October 10th, 2013
Jesse Hagopian, a leader of Garfield High’s historic test boycott, given rare opportunity to challenge corpate education reform policies at the Gate’s funded Education Nation, a testament to the growing national opposition to high stakes testing.
by International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State / October 10th, 2013
DUBLIN — Four years ago, this city on the Liffey River hosted the formation of the ITCCS: a grassroots movement that has successfully prosecuted and deposed one pope and rallied survivors of church crimes in twenty one countries.
Today, Dublin is once again witnessing the birth of an historic movement, an offshoot of the ITCCS: a network of Roman Catholic priests who are aiming to break away from Rome, and establish an independent Irish Church that is free of any complicity with the crimes of the Vatican.
The new group is called Not in Our Name (NON), and it formed at a …
“Nothing is more precious than freedom,” is a quotation attributed to Vo Nguyen Giap, a Vietnamese General who led his country through two liberation wars. The first was against French colonialists, the second against the Americans. And despite heavy and painful losses, Vietnam prevailed, defeating the first colonial quest at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu (1954) and the second at Ho Chí Minh Campaign (1975).
General Giap, the son of a peasant scholar, stood tall in both wars, only bowing down to the resolve of his people. “Any forces that would impose their will on other nations will most certainly …
So, here’s the deal. We live in a time where the technocrats, the military-prison-economic-chemical scientists rule the roost. We have an allegiance to the engineers in communities looking for more ways to pave over more land and to put up more stuff to keep the capitalist engine fueled. We bow to the nerds, we stiff arm salute the geo-pharma-biotech engineers, and we lick the boots of the techno-creeps who design the junk of planned and perceived obsolescence. Who work with the PT Barnums of media-marketing might. These people have infected our world, and they are part of the 20 percent, …
RT — On the 6 October 2013, in Cairo, on the 40th anniversary of the Arab-Israeli War, everything that could have gone wrong, did. It was bit like that great short novel by the Columbian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Chronicle of a Death Foretold.
Everyone knew that there would be murder, brutal and cold-blooded, and there was candid talk about its inevitability for days and weeks. But nothing was done to prevent it and nobody really intervened.
On that ill-fated Sunday, since the early morning, a constant flow of vehicles took millions of city-dwellers away from the capital to the countryside. There were …
The “Line 9? and “Energy East” pipelines threaten to bring tar sands “crude” from Alberta for export through ports in the Atlantic. These pipelines will traverse through many Indigenous communities and natural areas, threatening not only the health of the land but the sovereignty of these territories and their peoples. We have teamed up with Indigenous organizer Amanda Lickers to produce Kahsatstenhsera: Indigenous Resistance to Tar Sands Pipelines. This video will focuses on Indigenous resistance and seeks to build capacity in Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities by providing an educational and accessible resource to build awareness across communities. Featuring stories …
Two Pennsylvania legislators who have taken money from—and enthusiastically supported—the natural gas industry have teamed up to now praise coal.
State Sen. Gene Yaw (R-Williamsport), chair of the Environmental Resource and Energy Committee, and Rep. Tim Solobay (D-Canonsburg, Pa.) are co-chairs of the newly-established Coal Caucus.
It’s a strange move on their part, since both have praised natural gas as the economic future of Pennsylvania.
Yaw, in his first run for the Senate in 2008 accepted only $3,700 in campaign contributions from energy companies; the largest were $1,000 donations from Anadarko Petroleum and Chesapeake Energy. In his first re-election campaign in 2012, he …
NEW YORK, 17 September — Six students were arrested this evening in a brutal, unprovoked police attack against a peaceful protest by City University of New York students and faculty against CUNY’s appointment of former CIA chief ex-General David Petraeus. Students were punched, slammed against vehicles and against the pavement by police captains and officers, after the NYPD forced them off the pavement and into the street. The demonstration was called by the Ad Hoc Committee Against the Militarization of CUNY.
The arrested students are presently being held and are to be …
A high school teacher tells college educators what they can expect in the wake of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top
by Kenneth Bernstein / October 8th, 2013
You are a college professor.
I have just retired as a high school teacher.
I have some bad news for you. In case you do not already see what is happening, I want to warn you of what to expect from the students who will be arriving in your classroom, even if you teach in a highly selective institution.
No Child Left Behind went into effect for the 2002–03 academic year, which means that America’s public schools have been operating under the pressures and constrictions imposed by that law for a decade. Since the testing requirements were imposed beginning in third grade, the students …
Doves Darken the Sky as They Take Flight from Dem Party
by John V. Walsh / October 8th, 2013
A funny thing happened on the way to a war on Syria – in fact, several funny things. First the road to Damascus was blocked by the sentiment of the American people who are fed up with war. Second, international opposition from every corner of the earth, save two or three, joined the barricade, even unto the British House of Commons and its Tory majority, which derailed the clueless Cameron’s bid to join the planned strike on Syria. Third, Putin and Lavrov backed by Iran and China drew a line in the sand in Syria – and they won, a …
Conservative parties are lobbying to remove Palestinian history from school curriculum
by Jonathan Cook / October 8th, 2013
Israel’s right-wing government and its supporters stand accused of stoking an atmosphere of increasing intimidation and intolerance in schools and among groups working for a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The latest efforts by the right to stifle dissent have included censoring schoolbooks and seeking to silence organisations that raise troubling questions about Israel and its past – in what appears to be an escalating war for the minds of Israelis.
Groups allied to the government tried to prevent the recent staging of an international conference in Tel Aviv that examined events surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948 – known as the …
