So, in Washington, the defeat of I-522, the genetically modified organisms, i.e. food, labeling initiative has been aided and abetted by, well, they call it a “war in the media” with the armies of the corporations launching frontal, rear, aerial, underground, cyber and Madison Avenue assaults. So, the “media” are the balancers and arbiters of justice. When the GMO-GE activists — armed with science and grassroots ground-truthing and logic on their side — set up a system that is precautionary principle-perfect — LABEL ingredients that are not Mother Nature’s and let the citizen eater decide — and then have the …
Early on Thursday, 7 November 2013, Greek riot police stormed the offices of Greece’s main public broadcaster, which had been under a five-month occupation by workers who opposed the government’s decision to shut down the broadcaster, firing thousands and destroying a major cultural institution. The broadcast seems to have come to an end.
The long and painful Greek tragedy continues, where society and culture are gutted, people impoverished, driven into a deep depression, with growing political and social conflicts, the rise of fascism, detention camps filled with immigrants from Africa and the Middle East, trying to escape the dictators we …
Challenging the falsehoods and simplifications that surrounded the so-called Arab Spring from the very start doesn’t necessarily mean that one is in doubt of the very notion that genuine revolutions have indeed gripped various Arab countries for nearly three years.
In fact, the revolutionary influx is still underway, and it will take many years before the achievements of these popular mobilizations be truly felt. One can understand the frustration and deep sense of disappointment resulting from the state of chaos in Libya, the political wrangling in Yemen and Tunisia, the brutal civil war in Syria, and, of course, the collective heartbreak …
Incantations of “revolution” rise from right and left choirs, reminiscent of the visionary ’60’s. That turned out well – as “the system” swallowed the great divergence, spitting out what it couldn’t digest. How easy to declare war against today’s power-hungry elites, firming up one’s credentials as insightful contrarian, even revered prophet. And yet, sweeping declarations, especially if premature or overstated, won’t likely achieve the core objective: to win over a critical mass. Pie-in-the-sky proclamations alienate, even demoralize newcomers when predictions peter out.
So pardon my skepticism, but permanent revolutions are rare birds, …
If you walk along Manhattan’s West Side Highway, upon the long strip of bike lanes and greenery between the Hudson River and the droning automobiles, you’ll come to a fresh patch of pavement that’s a stone’s throw away from the Pier 51 Playground. You can’t tell by the look of it, but beneath the new asphalt hundreds of millions of cubic feet-worth of natural gas are flowing.
While the national climate movement has focused on the transnational Keystone XL pipeline, this tiny site has been the object of a more-than-two-year local battle over the first natural gas pipeline to enter New York City …
The elections are over and while many Demo-liberals are heartened by the results the rest of us should understand that we have a long way to go.
The DiBlasio victory in New York shows hopeful signs for a city that has been run for more than twenty years exclusively by Wall Street, banking and financial interests and their upper income servant class. Of course, that’s true for the nation as a whole, so one victory for a candidate at least speaking to more humane values is a step in the right – as well as slightly left – direction. And more …
The Aftermath of 9/11: America’s Second Great Transformation and the Emergence of a Brave New World
by John Chuckman / November 6th, 2013
I call America’s pattern of behavior since 9/11 a “great transformation” because it involves revolutionary changes for the country and, unavoidably, the entire world. In its internal affairs, America has effectively weakened the protections of the Bill of Rights and instituted many of the practices of police states – all under the insidious rationale of “protection from terrorists,” a subject heading which incapacitates the courts and serves to draw a great dark cloak over matters vital to all. Secrecy, always a favorite tool of cowardly politicians, now has assumed an enormous, central position in America. Spying, both on your own …
Hans-Christian Stroebele has just landed a perfect political coup by visiting Snowden in Moscow. Even the NSA, CIA and the other 15 spy agencies of the U. S. were caught by surprise, not to speak of the dozy German Federal Intelligence Service (BND). Stroebele’s visit has sparked an intense debate over the question whether Snowden should testify in front of a parliamentary investigation committee of the German Parliament in Germany or be heard in Russia. This question has been coupled with the granting of asylum for Snowden.
Already in July, Snowden’s asylum request was turned down because he was not considered …
What would a trade agreement intended to benefit all Canadians look like?
This is of more than academic concern right now as the Harper Conservative government will eventually unveil the full details of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).
From what we know about it now this agreement is little more than a ‘corporate bill of rights’. It gives corporations even more power to shift investment as they see fit and directly strengthens their interests in everything from public procurement to patent laws.
The one-sidedly pro-corporate nature of the agreement reflects the power that corporations yield over discussions of international …
I am 57 years on the long road as an adoptee warrior.
In the past year, my adoption wariness rose to a whole new level with the Baby Veronica and Dusten Brown story. When asked how this tragedy affected me, I’d say, “I am Ronnie Brown 50+ years later. My dad would have raised me too.” I hurt to think about Ronnie. The adoption industry had won again.
It brought up memories of my own loss, isolation, grief, disappointment, what I call “anger turned inside,” and how it tore me to shreds. With the very real long-term effects of assimilation by closed …
Remember, remember the 5th of November! On Tuesday, November 5th, protesters wearing Guy Fawkes masks gathered all around the world to rally in over 400 cities. Twitter hashtag #MillionMaskMarch became the banner that united people across borders. From saying no! to Monsanto’s GM foods to calling for an end to the global mass surveillance by the National Security Agency, this legion goes beyond political and ideological allegiance to call out government and corporate corruption.
Guy Fawkes masks were everywhere: On the streets of Barcelona, Istanbul, Wukan, London, Milan, Amsterdam, Budapest, Beirut, Prague and Tokyo, this growing movement seized the day and …
Over the last week the German newspaper Der Spiegel and Sydney Morning Herald disclosed that the Australian Government was carrying out electronic surveillance and eavesdropping on phone and internet communications. The security organization Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) concealed special electronic equipment within the Australian High Commissions in Kuala Lumpur and Port Moresby, PNG, and embassies in Bangkok, Beijing, Dili, Jakarta, and Hanoi, based upon information released by intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden and a former Australian intelligence officer.
Although these revelations are not new and have most probably already been suspected by the host governments concerned, the exposing of espionage activities from …
New Research Shows that US has Saved Millions of Iraqi Lives
by Kieran Kelly / November 5th, 2013
In 2006 The Lancet published the second of two ideologically-driven mortality “surveys” which claimed that the US had caused over 600,000 deaths in Iraq. This was followed by other such “research” conducted by those who made no effort to conceal their own political bias against George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. Some of these organizations claimed to have found astronomical numbers of fatalities, even over a million. One of those who has led the fight to correct these subjective and biased studies is Jim Slobberdrib. For eight years Slobberdrib headed Applied Research Science Enterprises’ prestigious Iraq Death List project. …
A decade has passed since President Thabo Mbeki’s consent to the Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Act (53 of 2003). Also known as BBBEE, or simply BEE (if the prefix ‘Broad-based’ is dropped), the act has recently been amended and is set to be applied much more comprehensively from 2014 onward. As wonderful as ‘empowerment’ may sound, BEE comes with dire consequences for holders of property rights and for the overall South African economy. Moreover, the act is ironic because, despite its name, it is patently harmful to the vast majority of black South Africans.
When billionaires start complaining about taxation policies that are too lenient on the rich, you know something is out of whack.
According to billionaire Bill Gross, the U.S. can “challenge more productive economies such as Germany and Canada,” by improving equality of income, an area where the U.S. ranks “barely ahead of Spain and Greece.” ((Gil Weinreich, PIMCO’s Gross Calls for Tax Hike on Rich, Laments 1% ‘Scrooges’, ThinkAdvisor, November 1, 2013.))
Bill Gross is one of Wall Street’s darlings, a living legend of sorts whose pronouncements and “Current Investment Outlooks” are avidly devoured by Wall Street chieftains. In many respects he …
[Note: More New Statesman non-news in a time of global Big Brother, Climate Calamity, $5.5 Trillion Held by 1,400 People, War is Peace, Lies are Truth, in a piece, titled: “A Discourse on Brocialism … On Brand, iconoclasm, and a woman’s place in the revolution: a dialogue with Richard Seymour on the question of how to reconcile the fact that people need stirring up with the fact that the people doing the stirring so often fall down when it comes to treating women and girls like human beings.” Whew, more of the toilet training hissy fits!]
At each of the over 200 cities I’ve traveled to this past year with my book Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, I ask the audience an easy question: Have they ever seen or heard from drone strike victims in the mainstream US press? Not one hand has ever gone up. This is an obvious indication that the media has failed to do its job of humanizing the civilian casualties that accompany President Obama’s deadly drone program.
This has started to change, with new films, reports and media coverage finally giving the American public a taste of the personal tragedies …
The conundrum of what you do with that puma that comes wondering into town. Or that wolf jumping electronic fences for some of papa’s Angus beef. What do you do with that toothless meth head, crazed and full of steam pipe madness when he comes rushing at you with a machete. What to do with the careening car jumping curbs while you bicycle around town. What to do with the woman about to push the child in the stroller off the cliff. What to do with the disheveled dude with the lab coat with the syringe of gasoline about to …
Part 4: The Drug War, Civil Rights, Civil Liberties, and Space
by Burkely Hermann / November 4th, 2013
Part One of this series discussed the intricacies JFK’s presidential cabinet and a brief background of JFK. Then, Part Two addressed how the Kennedy Administration, while not being liked by the whole business community, pushed forward proposals that benefited international capital such as GATT and the Kennedy Tax Cuts. Part Three talked about how JFK’s anti-communist view of the world influenced his support for right-wing dictators, allowing assassinations and much more. The final installment of this series, Part Four, will conclude by talking about how JFK dealt with social issues such as civil rights, civil liberties and …
What a week! Shortly after Secretary of State John Kerry admitted that maybe our government had gone “too far” in its surveillance programs, the Washington Post dropped another Edward Snowden bombshell demonstrating that it is going a whole lot farther than we knew.
If Kerry’s ersatz admission — couched in a defense of National Security Agency surveillance — provoked a collective yawn from many who follow these developments, the latest Snowden stuff snapped us to attention. The Postpublished an article detailing the NSA’s interception of information coming in and out of Google and Yahoo servers over non-public, internal network …
by The Real News Network (TRNN) / November 3rd, 2013
Shir Hever, an economic researcher in the Alternative Information Center, a Palestinian-Israeli organization active in Jerusalem and Beit-Sahour: Official Israeli statements on integrating Palestinians into workforce exposes apartheid system.
Susie Abulhawa, Palestinian poet, author of Mornings in Jenin, founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, exile, mother, lover, friend, stands naked in My Voice Sought the Wind (Just World Books); her collection of trenchant and beautiful poems replete with honesties and literary seductions.
Reading her poems is akin to being in conversation with a lyrically intelligent and passionate woman; a conversation that is at once intimate and universal shifting vividly in place and time, in emotion and insight, in self and the people of her poetic landscape.
There are many reasons why we should feel rage, if not actual hatred, towards most of our trusted leaders. They have, after all, ruined our country and now, having realised that the ship is going down, are presiding over the final plundering of whatever meagre pickings are left before the bandits finally ride out of town for the no-doubt sunnier climes of whichever tax-havens they’re using to stash their ill-gotten loot. But in addition to that there are also their unspeakably repulsive foreign policies which are more than enough to deserve every bit of bile we’re capable of flinging in …
Haiti and Syria are victims of their rescuers. The two nations are now sites of major disease outbreaks. Cholera in Haiti and polio in Syria didn’t just happen. Through negligence, those who claim to rescue the people imported the disease entities and fostered the conditions for wider outbreaks.
680,000 cases of cholera in Haiti since UN rescue mission
The 7.0 Mw earthquake that devastated Haiti on January 12, 2010 collapsed an already fragile society and infrastructure. The United States and major European powers sprung into action. Bill Clinton was the front man for the relief effort. The United Nations provided the vehicle to deliver …
Part 3: Assassinations, Anti-communism, Interventionism and Right-wing Dictators
by Burkely Hermann / November 2nd, 2013
Part One of this series discussed how power and privilege are integral to JFK’s presidential cabinet. Part Two addressed the Kennedy Tax Cuts, the influence of international capital and how Kennedy pushed forward ‘free trade’ through increased negotiations at GATT. Part Three will talk about JFK’s foreign policy specifically relating to assassinations, support for right-wing dictators, how all revolved around his quest to fight communism or what he thought was communism.
President Kennedy was not following the views against military intervention expressed by the American public before WWI and during the 1920s and 1930s. Instead, he liked to use …
The Irish have a long history of being tyrannized, exploited, and oppressed—from the forced conversion to Christianity in the Dark Ages, to slave trading of the natives in the 15th and 16th centuries, to the mid-nineteenth century “potato famine” that was really a holocaust. The British got Ireland’s food exports, while at least one million Irish died from starvation and related diseases, and another million or more emigrated.
Today, Ireland is under a different sort of tyranny, one imposed by the banks and the troika—the EU, ECB and IMF. The oppressors have demanded austerity and more austerity, forcing the public to pick up …
Pro-Israel Policy groups such as AIPAC work with unlimited funding to divert US policy in the region (Middle East).
— Jack Straw, Member of Parliament and former Foreign Secretary of the British Labor Party
The United States should drop a nuclear bomb on Iran to spur the country to end its nuclear program.
— Sheldon Adelson, biggest donor to the Republican Party and major fundraiser for pro-Israel political action committees, speech at Yeshiva University, New York City, October 22, 2013
The question of war or peace with Iran rests with the policies adopted by the White House and the US Congress. The …
On August 24, 2013 tens of thousands of people gathered to celebrate a protest fifty years ago when hundreds of thousands of other people marched and rallied in Washington DC demanding equal rights for African-American residents of the United States. It was on that day the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. made one of his best-known speeches; a speech from which just a few phrases are usually quoted. “I have a dream…” said King that day. “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of …
Now that serious talks with Iran over its nuclear program are underway, one seemingly insurmountable issue is whether Iran has the right to enrich uranium. The short answer is: Yes.
Those who are trying to torpedo the ongoing talks, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, want Iran to be forced to agree to the whole monty–a complete cessation of uranium enrichment and a dismantling of all enrichment facilities.
Iran claims that it has the inalienable right to enrich uranium as guaranteed in the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) to which it is a signatory.
The NPT treaty language is quite clear. In Article IV …
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
— Sir Walter Scott, 1771-1832
In Syria now, apart from funding weapons to a reported thousand different factions of foreign terrorists from perhaps eighty plus countries, NATO, the US, UK and their Middle East cohorts have seemingly delivered polio.
Prior to interruption by the devastating uprising — designed largely from within the US Embassy in Damascus before Ambassador Robert Ford fled across the border for a flight to the safety of Maryland — Syria had one of the highest polio vaccination rates in the region, with the World Health …
