Latest articles
Google and YouTube Suppress Controversial 9/11 Truth?
by Elizabeth Woodworth / October 6th, 2013
With polls consistently showing that approximately 50% of Canadians and Americans doubt the official story of 9/11, the feat of keeping the lid on a public debate for over 12 years has been nothing short of miraculous.
This article presents a simple case study showing that this miracle is being performed with the assistance of Google and YouTube search engine interference.
On September 8, 2013, the popular Russia Today “Truthseeker” program, with over a million subscribers on YouTube, ((The number of subscribers may be seen on any episode of “Truthseeker” — by searching YouTube for “RT Truthseeker.” Russia Today’s television outlets are available …
by Linh Dinh / October 6th, 2013
Wandering around so much, I’m constantly among strangers, in completely unfamiliar neighborhoods. Though these novel situations have opened my eyes much, it would take but a single unfortunate encounter to blacken or close them, even for good, and in Norristown this week, I had to call 911 as I quickly ducked into a store to wait for the cops to save my ass.
Having prowled around Gary, Camden, Newark, Detroit, Oakland and North Philly, all on foot, I still don’t think of Norristown as all that menacing, though, all over town, there are unmistakable signs …
On black pots and black kettles...
by Bill Annett / October 6th, 2013
In enlightened Toronto, the National Post, that leading Canadian broadsheet, ever on the alert to report on bad stuff, particularly about foreigners, not long ago struck a blow for freedom, humanity and motherhood, of a sort. Commodore Nadarajah Kuruparan, a Sri Lankan naval officer, had arrived at the Canadian border in August about four years ago with his wife and two children, and made a claim for refugee status.
With typical dispatch, the Canadian Federal border officials and the Federal Court took only three years to review the case, during which time, the …
Minority Government At Work –Why don’t we call these people nihilists?
by William Boardman / October 6th, 2013
Is the phrase “government shutdown” actually an oxymoron?
By the time you read this, the government shutdown may or may not be over, and it may or may not matter to you personally, and it may or may not matter to the country – depending on the criteria you use to assess it. Those who say it’s not actually a “government shutdown” are correct in an obvious way – it’s actually only a partial executive and judicial branch shutdown, with Congress very much alive, well, and dysfunctional as ever.
A real government shutdown would bring the troops home from their dozens (hundreds?) …
by Matthew Vickery / October 6th, 2013
Only last month a military strike on Syria looked likely; today it appears that diplomacy has stalled any strike and opened up a potential space for dialogue. It was a moment that changed, if only slightly, the dynamics of the war in Syria.
A little over 200km from Damascus lies a city that is crying out for a similar change in political dynamics, yet Jerusalem currently hosting direct peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, will not see any change in conversational space. Twenty years since the Oslo accords were signed, a fair and viable peace agreement appears to have dissipated. …
Open Letter to Judge Preska
by Nozomi Hayase / October 5th, 2013
Dear Judge Preska,
I became aware of Mr. Hammond’s case through the 2012 defining Rolling Stone article on him. I saw a young person full of idealism and a sense for justice, which are admirable qualities in anyone. The ending remark of the article summarizes how I see him. It reads: “[Hammond] was an idealist who even after being jailed, kept fighting at every occasion, and he never betrayed himself.” This statement captures the essence of why I support leniency for Mr. Hammond.
Hammond has helped the public become aware of the insidious surveillance network that has been conducted in the dark by …
From a talk at the Rhodes Forum, 5 October 2013
by Israel Shamir / October 5th, 2013
First, the good news. American hegemony is over. The bully has been subdued. We cleared the Cape of Good Hope, symbolically speaking, in September 2013. With the Syrian crisis, the world has passed a key forking of modern history. It was touch and go, just as risky as the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. The chances for total war were high, as the steely wills of America and Eurasia had crossed in the Eastern Mediterranean. It will take some time until the realisation of what we’ve gone through seeps in: it is normal for events of such magnitude. The turmoil …
by Robert Hunziker / October 5th, 2013
“The next mass extinction may have already begun.” — IPSO
The International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) State of the Ocean Report d/d October 3, 2013 was released this week. The accompanying IPSO press release states: “Latest Review of Science Reveals Ocean in Critical State from Cumulative Impacts.”
Considering the conservative bias of scientists, who require nearly 100% proof before making definitive statements, “Critical State” is not good news, and as stated in the report, the bad news extends across all spectrum of marine life, starting at the base of the food chain, marine phytoplankton.
Most phytoplankton are invisible to …
A Review of Public Enemy
by Ron Jacobs / October 5th, 2013
I remember reading the New York Times review of Bill Ayers’ first book Fugitive Days while sitting on a curb in Greenwich Village on September 11, 2001. The haze from the demolished towers hung on the air as thick as the fear felt by almost every person in the city that day. After reading the review, I thought to myself about how the book’s release could not have come at a worse time. The destruction of the Twin Towers and the media hullabaloo around that destruction was already overriding any shred of common sense. It would be …
Badgers, Power and Protest
by Lesley Docksey / October 5th, 2013
Till kicked and torn and beaten out he lies
And leaves his hold and cackles, groans, and dies.
— John Clare – The Badger
The lanes of Somerset and Gloucestershire are being haunted by people from all walks of life but they all have one thing in common – they want to bring a halt to the killing of badgers. It takes dedication to turn out, night after night, being stopped and questioned by police and, on occasion harassed by those carrying out the highly unpopular badger cull. And other people in other parts of Britain are preparing to do the same if …
by Andre Vltchek / October 5th, 2013
Imagine a small country, the size of Massachusetts, with no arable land, irrigation, or permanent crops, nor any forests. The rocky desert is everywhere, falling all the way to the sea.
To ‘cheer one up’, there is the lowest point on land, in Africa (and the third lowest on earth); an eerie crater lake called ‘Lac Assal’ (?155 m). And there are countless rock formations, bare, hostile, and frightening.
This tiny country has one of the most strategic locations on earth, at least from the West’s geopolitical interest’s point of view. It lies between Somalia, Ethiopia and what is often called the …
by Bill Annett / October 4th, 2013
Just a year ago, near The Hague in Holland, where history has been made more than once in the realm of international justice, a very unusual event took place.
As of this day, a Public International Court of Justice is hereby convened to consider evidence related to charges of crimes against humanity and criminal conspiracy by institutions of church and state, and their fiduciary officers… These crimes occurred not randomly by isolated individuals, but historically, systematically, deliberately, and officially, by express command of heads of church and state according to their laws and customs… This Court is a unique experiment, in …
Lower classes strengthen social but chauvinist opposition
by Wilhelm Langthaler / October 4th, 2013
First: the ruling system has been confirmed though losing consensus. Second: the electoral protest remains within systemic forms. Third: an anti-systemic, let alone social revolutionary momentum continues to be a mere desiderate.
For decades Austria has been ruled by what is called “Big Coalition” between the Social Democrats (SPOe) and the Christian Democrat People’s Party (OeVP) with only few exceptions. Both regime components attempted to claim Merkel’s sweeping electoral victory for themselves. In a certain sense both were right – and nonetheless failed to achieve the same victory.
The SPOe, for two generations the strongest party, is the anchor of (alleged) stability. …
by Balbir K. Singh / October 4th, 2013
On the evening of Saturday, September 21, 2013, Dr. Prabhjot Singh was attacked in Harlem, New York, by what is estimated to have been around 20 males riding bicycles. The event has been publically labeled a violent hate crime, as Singh described his attackers yelling words such as “terrorist” and “Osama.” Particularly notable is the emergent discourse that has come out of Singh’s attack, as the conversation harkens back to other more noticeable moments of racist violence against Sikhs. These include the murder of Balbir Singh Sodhi in the days following 9/11, as well as the attack of the Oak …
by George S. Svokos / October 4th, 2013
Lest we muddle the matter further, let us define precisely what we mean by the term “Armageddon” because for some, the preposterous has become credulous. It is not in the Christian sense, that is, the coming of apocalyptic destruction of an evil world to be followed by the messiah and his reign over the “kingdom of heaven.” God will not send a monstrous flood to wash away the evil in this world and leave planet Earth to the chosen people (whoever they are, or believe themselves to be,) nor will the “meek inherit the earth.” It is also not what …
by Gary Engler / October 4th, 2013
If all you care about is making more stuff, capitalism may be the best system ever. But if you want to save the planet from environmental catastrophe our current economic system is a dead end.
I remember in my socialist youth often being told: “Your ideas sound good but that’s just not how things work in real life.”
In my socialist sixties these same words seem appropriate as an analysis of mainstream environmentalism today.
Here is the harsh reality:
The capitalist drive to maximize profits explains the externalizing of environmental costs. Capitalism allows small minorities to profit at the expense of others. Private ownership …
by Jack A. Smith / October 4th, 2013
In the last month, the U.S. government has reversed course on its intention to attack Syria, and it conveyed the impression that it wants to mitigate Washington’s long-term hostility toward Iran. Is a new era of peace and friendship emanating from the Obama Administration? Or is it, perhaps, a move to both spare President Obama a rejection of his war plans by Congress and to further U.S. global interests?
A few weeks ago, President Obama was determined to attack Syria over President Assad’s alleged order to his army to use outlawed chemical weapons against civilians in a suburb of Damascus. Both …
by Uri Avnery / October 4th, 2013
Binyamin Netanyahu aroused my pity. From my 10 years of membership in the Knesset I know how unpleasant it is to speak before an empty hall.
His die-hard followers – a pathetic residue of Casino magnates and burnt-out Zionist right-wingers – sat in the gallery and an over-blown Israeli delegation sat in the hall, but they only underlined the general emptiness. Depressing.
How different from President Hassan Rouhani’s reception! Then the hall was overcrowded, the General Secretary and the other dignitaries leapt from their seats to congratulate him at the end, the international media could not get enough of him.
Much of …
by East Timor & Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) / October 4th, 2013
President Obama must emphasize human rights and the rule of law in U.S.-Indonesia relations. The president is scheduled to travel to Indonesia this weekend.
“The U.S. must not ignore injustice and human rights violations to advance narrow strategic and economic interests that have little to do with the well-being of the U.S. or Indonesian people,” said ETAN National Coordinator John M. Miller. “While much has changed in Indonesia since the Suharto dictatorship, U.S. security assistance does not promote further change. Instead it encourages impunity and further violations of human rights.”
“We are calling for a new relationship between the two countries built …
Badger Culls Kill Scientific Honesty
by Lesley Docksey / October 3rd, 2013
When midnight comes a host of dogs and men
Go out and track the badger to his den
— John Clare – The Badger
One always knows that when government Ministers resort to defending Ministry policy in the local press, they are losing the argument with Joe Public. So it came as no surprise to read in the Gloucester Echo the justifications for the highly unpopular badger cull as written by Owen Paterson, UK Minister for the Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) – he who loves England’s green and pleasant land so much that, among other environmentally unfriendly practices, …
by Jay Knott / October 3rd, 2013
A Victorian bishop’s wife allegedly reacted to Darwin’s findings as follows: “My dear, descended from the apes! Let us hope it is not true, but if it is, let us pray that it will not become generally known.” ((Alleged quotation from the Bishop of Worcester’s wife, 1860.))
In this article, I consider three books which claim races and nations are “constructed”: Imagined Communities, by Benedict Anderson, ((Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, Verso, 1983 (new edition 2006).)) The Invention of the Jewish People, by Shlomo Sand, ((Shlomo …
by Eve Human / October 3rd, 2013
What is freedom, really?
Is it the ability to do whatever you like without regard for anyone but yourself?
Some people think so. But more often than not there will eventually come a time of the great hang-over, when that ultimate freedom that had been sought so diligently has somehow lost its meaning.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
This is what Shakespeare’s Macbeth laments after his wife, driven by her feelings of guilt, has committed …
by Walter Brasch / October 3rd, 2013
Tokelau, an independent territory of New Zealand, is a small three island archipelago of about 1,400 residents about 300 miles north of American Samoa in the South Pacific. In October 2012, the Polynesian nation turned off the last of its diesel generators and became the first country to use solar power as its only energy source.
“We know that the longer the fossil fuel industry gets its way, the worse climate change will be, and the more sea-level rise will threaten our islands,” wrote Mikalele Maiava, one of its residents.
About 9,300 miles west of Tokelau is Saudi Arabia. Beneath its sands …
by Tom Burghardt / October 2nd, 2013
In 2008, the Armed Forces Journal published a prescient piece by Colonel Charles W. Williamson III, a staff judge advocate with the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, the National Security Agency listening post focused on intercepting communications from Latin America, the Middle East and Europe.
Titled “Carpet bombing in cyberspace,” Col. Williamson wrote that “America needs a network that can project power by building an af.mil robot network (botnet) that can direct such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no longer communicate and become no more …
by Ellen Brown / October 2nd, 2013
(Public banking is featured today in a debate in the New York Times Opinion Pages “Room for Debate” section called “In Banking, Should There Be a ‘Public Option’?” Here’s my oped:)
To ask whether public banks would interfere with free markets assumes that we have free markets, which we don’t. Banking is heavily subsidized and is monopolized by Wall Street, which has effectively “bought” Congress. Banks have been bailed out by the government, when in a free market …
We Won’t Be Fooled By Rigged Corporate Trade Agreements
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / October 2nd, 2013
This week, President Obama will attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Coordination (APEC) meeting in Bali, Indonesia where he is expected to announce his goal of having the Trans-Pacific Partnership signed into law by the end of 2013. Obama will host a meeting of the leaders of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) nations during the APEC conference.
The Obama administration has been negotiating the TPP in secret for more than three years. Unlike past trade agreements, the text of the TPP is classified and members of Congress have restricted access to it. If they do read the text, they are not allowed to copy …
by Nathan Schneider / October 2nd, 2013
In his complaints against the wing of the Republican Party that engineered the present government shutdown, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid derided his opponents as “Tea Party anarchists.” It’s hard to decide who should be more annoyed — the Tea Party or the anarchists. In any case, Reid’s remark is revealing of how the long tradition of anarchist philosophy has been thrown under the bus of U.S. political discourse, then rolled over, then dragged along in mangled form so as to be pointed at when doing so seems expedient.
Many may be surprised, for example, that actual anarchists aren’t necessarily rejoicing over …
by David Macaray / October 2nd, 2013
In May of 1994, the Executive Board of our local union voted to accept my idea (I was president) to hand out free Thanksgiving turkeys to our membership. This idea, while new, was far from original. Indeed, labor unions across the country had been passing out Thanksgiving turkeys for decades. But it was a new idea to us, and, as everyone knows, new ideas—even the good ones—can be tricky.
The vote was 7-2. The two dissenters presented three excellent arguments for voting against it: (1) Not knowing what the future will bring, we should be “saving for a rainy day,” not …
by Frank Scott / October 2nd, 2013
The government shutdown, whether it causes a minor economic bleep or major economic explosion, is another indicator of the larger crisis of global capital. This emergency is especially critical at its U.S. headquarters where a deteriorating situation has factions fighting for control and calling upon the gods of creation, madness or both in backing their efforts. This is a further sign of what international events – and some public response – may be showing more clearly.
The American people finally said no to an attack on a foreign country, Syria, and in the process added to the well-deserved decline in reputation …
by Robert S. Becker / October 2nd, 2013
Knee-jerk House tantrums hit new comic highs as the Wily E. Coyote party continues its madcap leap to self-destruction. Can’t zealots who hate government find more imaginative ways not to govern? The latest cartoon antics only dramatize what happens when the party of stupid slides further:
1) How will the TP-GOP compete nationally after this laughable “rebranding” boomerangs?
2) Will not election penalties accrue to hostage-taking poseurs “begging America to fail,” in Bill Clinton’s phrase?
3) What if Obama is the second worst Washington negotiator, bowing to the Boehner Follies?
Oblivious to shame and ridicule, Republican extremists appear to learn nothing either from the …
