So here comes John Kerry again, for the umpteenth time (but who is counting?) to make peace between us and the Palestinians.
It is a highly laudable effort. Unfortunately, it is based on a false premise. To wit: that the Israeli government wants peace based on the two-state solution.
Unwilling – or unable – to recognize this simple truth, Kerry looks for a way around. He tries approaches from different directions, in the hope of convincing Binyamin Netanyahu. In his imagination he hears Netanyahu exclaim: “Now, why didn’t I think of that?!”
Rose imparts the signature of respectability to all his guests—for better or worse
by Jason Hirthler / December 5th, 2013
There are few things more harmful to the public discourse than the cloak of false respectability. Especially on a nationally or globally disseminated news network or newspaper. Which is why mass media, when it broadcasts propaganda, is so effective at duping a benighted public into believing the twaddle of stark raving mad political ideologues, as though they were the very words of Socrates by satellite. The mainstream’s reach and influence is staggering, and when unchallenged, fatal. Take, for instance, the estimable Republican Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan. Let’s consider for a moment the aura of respectability that enveloped, like a …
Nelson Mandela will be eulogized as a great man and a hero. He led the resistance to apartheid and White South African rule, and he was jailed for many years. Upon his release he became president and sought reconciliation rather than vengeance. He served only one term as president before stepping aside. All this is laudable.
The sharply increasing scientific indicators of impending disastrous global climate change have failed to motivate the principal developed countries, led by the U.S., to accelerate the lackluster pace of their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
This was the principal conclusion of several key environmental groups attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNCCC) November 11-23 in Warsaw, Poland. The meeting lasted a day and a half longer than scheduled to resolve a dispute about new greenhouse emission targets. About 10,000 people attended the 19th annual meeting of the so-called Conference of Parties (COP19) that drew nearly all the UN’s 193 …
We’ll be seeing an interview of Mae-wan Ho, a 72-year-old “geneticist known for her critical views on genetic engineering and neo-Darwinism. Ho has authored or co-authored a number of publications, including 10 books, such as The Rainbow and the Worm, the Physics of Organisms (1993, 1998), Genetic Engineering: Dream or Nightmare? (1998, 1999), and Living with the Fluid Genome (2003).” [Wikipedia]. That is forthcoming. Also, get into this powerful issue of retracting a scientist’s work, because that scientist has findings AGAINST the almighty, all-Garden-of-Eden magic of genetically transferred-bombarded-fixed-engineered crops (sic) and meat (sic) industry. Retracting work so the feeding trough of chemical-oil-seed monopolies-BigAg can grow the unnatural human and other flora-faun …
In his refusal to sign the Afghan-US security pact which would enable some US troops to stay in Afghanistan after 2014, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is signaling a clear message to the United States: Afghanistan does not need US troops on its ground any more.
Unlike the US claim that the presence of its troops is meant to safeguard security and safety in the country, Karzai is manifestly no longer capable of bringing himself to envisage a safe country with American boots at its doorsteps. On the contrary, in the presence of US troops lingers an overriding sense of insecurity which …
The Group of Thirty (or G-30) describes itself as “a private, nonprofit, international body composed of very senior representatives of the private and public sectors and academia,” which “aims to deepen understanding of international economic and financial issues, to explore the international repercussions of decisions taken in the public and private sectors, and to examine the choices available to market practitioners and policymakers.”
Its membership consists of roughly thirty major figures in the global financial world, from central banks, academia, international institutions and major private financial institutions. These figures hold regular meetings, conduct research and produce highly-influential reports through various “working …
Chances are dim that elections will be held in Yemen next February. Yet without elections, the push for reforms and change that were inspired by the Yemeni revolution would become devoid of any real value. Yemenis might find themselves back on the street, repeating the original demands that echoed in the country’s many impoverished cities, streets and at every corner.
It is not easy to navigate the convoluted circumstances that govern Yemeni politics, which seem to be in a perpetual state of crisis. When millions of Yemenis started taking to the streets on January 27, 2011, a sense of hope prevailed …
If nature were a bank, they would have already rescued it.
— Eduardo Galeano
What do you think of this as an argument to use when speaking to those who don’t accept the idea that extreme weather phenomena are man-made?
Well, we can proceed in one of two ways:
We can do our best to limit the greenhouse effect by curtailing greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide) into the atmosphere, and if it turns out that these emissions were not, in fact, the cause of all the extreme weather phenomena, then we’ve wasted a lot of time, effort and money …
Last week in Switzerland big money staved off an important challenge to big paychecks. But the sentiment that spurred a Swiss effort to tie executive compensation to common workers’ wages will not be defeated so easily.
A Sunday ago Swiss voters said no to a referendum question that would have capped executive compensation at 12 times the lowest paid worker in the firm. After gaining over 130,000 signatures to put the question to voters, proponents of the initiative were overwhelmed by a flood of money claiming a ‘yes’ vote would drive companies away. Early polls found 46% of the Swiss public …
This question arose as part of a conversation about convincing members of Canada’s newest union, Unifor, to make saving the planet from climate change a priority.
“You’ll run up against working class culture,” said a friend who considers himself an anarchist.
“What do you mean?” I responded.
“Consumerism. High paying jobs with lots of overtime to buy ever more stuff, two cars, a big house in the suburbs with NASCAR and hockey on the two big screens in the basement, plus Housewives of Vancouver on the TV in the kitchen,” he said. “And how many thousands of your members …
The Mexican Revolution by Adolfo Gilly is an exhaustive analysis of the Mexican Revolution from a Marxist perspective. Gilly, himself a revolutionary, was introduced to this history while incarcerated at Mexico’s infamous Lecumberri prison in the 1960s. Friedrich Katz describes the radical milieu in the foreword:
The prisoners discussed social, political, and economic problems, lectures were given, and manuscripts were scrutinized and criticized. Octavio Paz concurred with the opinion of U.S. historian, John Womack, when he called the prison… ‘our Institute of Political Science.’
The result of these remarkable conclaves was The Mexican Revolution (2006), first published in Spanish …
Four national parties now endorse dispossession in the Negev
by Dru Oja Jay / December 4th, 2013
Elizabeth May made enemies on both sides of the Israeli-Palestine conflict this week when she accepted to speak at an event organized by Canadians for Peace and Justice in the Middle East (CPJME), then derided that organization as “anti-Israel” in an interview with the B’nai Brith-run Jewish Tribune, then issued a denial that she had called CPJME anti-Israel, provoking the wrath of the Tribune editors, who released a full transcript and recording in which she does in fact denounce CPJME as “anti-Israel.” CPJME then cancelled her speaking event. It was surprisingly flat-footed for someone …
Creating a humanitarian crisis in Syria, whether real or fabricated, and holding the Syrian government responsible for it as a casus belli for foreign military intervention under the UN 2005 so-called “responsibility to protect” initiative was from the very eruption of the Syrian conflict the goal of the US-led “Friends of Syria’ coalition.
Foreign military intervention is now ruled out as impossible, but what the Inquirer columnist Trudy Rubin described on last November 29 as “the biggest humanitarian crisis in a decade” was created and this crisis “is worsening and no end is in sight” according to the International Federation of …
Ben Swann Truth in Media takes a look at Vaccine Court established by Congress in 1985 and what that court has meant for families of vaccine injured children. Plus, has HHS secretly awarded families of autistic children damages while publicly stating there is no connection between autism and vaccines.
The PISA scores are out and American students are ranking pretty low. All who follow the corporate line are up in arms and blaming our educational system. For once they are right. Although American students have never scored high in these international tests, it only goes to show that the billions upon billions of dollars spent the last dozen years on testing, testing, testing, curriculum writing by non-teachers, privatization, charter schools, etc. have failed in their mission to remake our public school system for the better. No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top are abject failures, except for …
Comic relief has become an industry, its own self-justifying premise. In January this year, BBC2 hosted its Great Comic Relief Bake Off. It had four million viewers, meaning that 16.3 percent of the audience was nabbed between 8pm and 9pm on one specific viewing day. The object of this bakeoff – raising funds for the indigent and needy – were the spectres of the moment.
Comic Relief’s origins were not necessarily intended that way. As its website tells readers, “Comic Relief was launched from a refugee camp in Sudan on Christmas Day in 1985, live on BBC One. At that time, …
CALGARY, CANADA — Oil and natural gas drilling in the province of Alberta has turned Calgary in a boomtown. Glittering skyscrapers, monuments to the obscene profits amassed by a fossil fuel industry that is exploiting the tar sands and the vast oil and natural gas fields in Alberta, have transformed Calgary into a mecca for money, dirty politics, greed and industry jobs. The city is as soulless and sterile as Houston. The death of the planet, for a few, is very good for business.
The man who waged North America’s first significant war against hydraulic fracturing was from Alberta, an …
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Holed Below the Water Line
by Felicity Arbuthnot / December 2nd, 2013
Diplomacy: “Tact and skill in dealing with people. The art or practice of conducting international relations, alliances, treaties and agreements … relations between nations.”
As Ministers utter inane, ill-considered, uninformed statements, they also appear to compete as to who can construct the most idiotic policy.
The Minister for Health committed to Health Service of national pride, then shut down a swathe of practical, popular, walk-in health centres — open before and after working hours — with a great public satisfaction rating and which took the burden off overstretched hospital Accident and Emergency Units.
National Health Direct, an excellent medical help line, which advised …
In the late 1990s, the Human Resource rep at the paper mill where I used to work called me at home (I was the union president) and said she had something very serious to discuss. When I asked for a hint as to what the problem was, so I wouldn’t be blind-sided, she demurred. She said this was something she “wasn’t comfortable” discussing over the phone. That alarmed me.
When I arrived, she told me that someone in the mill had stolen coupons out of several bags of Huggies disposable diapers. What made it a serious offense (not that all incidences …
by The Real News Network (TRNN) / December 2nd, 2013
Demonstrations in Israel/Palestine and around the world protest The Prawer-Begin Plan aimed at annexing Bedouin lands for Jewish newcomers in Israel’s Negev Desert.
This is the pathetic nature of this Bennington Ad Cut-out Obama. Truly, a defining moment here, and one there, well, compiled, yes, Obama is rotten to the core, but it’s easy to play the current events and cultural consumerism game with this poser, this little Big Man. What was it, Eisenhower – that beastly thing – pardoned how many in his tenure as CEO of Corporate Amerika? Over 1,100. How many did Ray-Gun Committee on un-American (sic) Activities Ronald pardon? Over 300? We’re talking about incarcerated humans.
Gilad Atzmon and Ken O’Keefe scrutinize the role of language in political discussion and Palestine solidarity discourse in particular. In this segment they examine Zionism, Israel, Jewish tribalism and the usage of the “J word.”
In light of the continued siege on the Gaza Strip, and the silence on the humanitarian crises there, the government realized the need to give a detailed picture of the exacerbating electricity crisis:
The electricity problem is not a problem of the day; it’s an old, sequential one, but its severity differed in relation to the number of cut hours.
1. The focal point of the problem dates back to the first days of the PA’s establishment of the Power Generation Company, as the electricity generated had not been enough to meet the need of the overall population of the Gaza Strip …
Riding his dramatic Iranian breakthrough, President Obama aims to re-ignite his faltering presidency with a Christmas miracle. Interrupting the White House press briefing, Mr. Obama brashly challenged right wing nullification, calling for “a no-holds-barred summit to resolve the most serious and enduring threat to American prosperity: Tea Party Republicans.”
Mindful of past appeasement, Mr. Obama was resolute, like a war-president in the fight of his life:
The Tea Party may not yet boast nuclear centrifuges. But are its endlessly spinning subterfuges any less perilous, any less needy for exposure? My pledge against a nuclear Iran goes double for any insurgent group mounting …
The greatest challenge facing socialist organizations is learning how not to split. A veteran socialist said that in the 1970s. If we had we learned this lesson, the socialist left would be much, much larger today. But we have not learned it, and we remain relatively tiny. Since our primary goal is to grow, we need to examine what are we doing wrong, and what we must do differently.
The following is a contribution to preventing unproductive conflict that compels comrades to leave socialist organizations. It does not apply to productive conflict that clarifies differences and moves things forward. And it …
Militarism, False Patriotism and Remembrance Lead to a Lack of Peace
by Lesley Docksey / November 30th, 2013
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
— John McCrae, In Flanders Fields, May 1915
It was that time of year again, when sellers of poppies knock at the door and veterans line the streets of the local town with collecting tins and trays of fake red flowers sold in aid of the Royal British Legion; a time when, if you don’t buy or wear a poppy, you would be made to feel ‘unpatriotic’. But times they are a-changing.
The ‘Remembrance’ poppy grew out of WWI and became a symbol for that dire and catastrophic war. Catastrophic, that is, …
SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, MEXICO — Over the last few years, the Zapatistas in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas have garnered very little media attention and been infamously secretive. But although they’ve shifted away from their militant stance of the 1990s and their national political campaigning of the early 2000s, the movement itself isn’t dead.
This summer the Zapatistas opened their communities to teach outsiders what it really means to be a Zapatista today—their day-to-day life and acts of resistance, and their struggles in maintaining autonomy.
From August 11 to 17, Zapatistas ran the first Escuelita Zapatista (Little Zapatista School), a week-long …
This is the season of death, when we celebrate the dying of the sun with an orgiastic burst of consumption and environmental destruction. This is the season of rebirth when we spend time with loved ones and reach out to help others we don’t know.
Now would be an appropriate time to come to grips with public murder and make a public investment in peace. If I were summoning back ghosts of governments past for a press conference at the National Press Club, my first inclination — lasting only a split second — would be to bring the Filipinos, the Vietnamese, …
