There are times when the Obama Administration’s deep attachment to U.S. militarism and excessive praise of the armed forces causes the White House to seem either out of touch with reality or intentionally dishonest in its praise of America’s past wars.
Commander in Chief Barak Obama’s latest exaggeration of American military prowess took place in Washington July 27 at an outdoor commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the armistice that temporarily halted hostilities in the 1950-53 Korean War.
“Here, today,” he told a cheering crowd of elderly U.S. and South Korean veterans, “we can say with confidence that this war was no …
As the secret state continues trawling the electronic communications of hundreds of millions of Americans, lusting after what securocrats euphemistically call “actionable intelligence,” a notional tipping point that transforms a “good” citizen into a “criminal” suspect, the role played by telecommunications and technology firms cannot be emphasized enough.
Ever since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden began leaking secrets to media outlets about government surveillance programs, one fact stands out: The zero probability these privacy-killing projects would be practical without close (and very profitable) “arrangements” made with phone companies, internet service providers and other technology giants.
Most of us are familiar with the fact that the global financial markets run twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week with just a few exceptions. This is due in part to the incredible improvements in technology which have enabled trading to occur at rocket speed and across national borders. Also important in this scenario is the loosening of laws restricting financial trading to domestic markets. The combination of these phenomena has helped create a world where the machinations of capital never stop, with the consequence that the insecurity natural to capitalism is enhanced exponentially. Economies are …
— French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, (20 January, 2013)
Presidential elections are due to take place in Mali on Sunday, July 28th. The latest polls indicate a victory for Ibrahim Boubecar Keïta, with Soumaila Cissé coming in second place. There are 27 candidates running in the election. The holding of the election just months after the French military intervention in January 2013 has been widely criticized due to the chaotic state of the country.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon admitted that the elections would not be ‘perfect’ but indicated that they would have …
This month, Canada’s media solemnly related “the sad truth that the country engaged in a deliberate policy of attempted genocide against First Nations people”, referring to government-sponsored abuse of Native children a century ago, which Canada’s Chief Medical Officer Peter Bryce exposed in 1907, but which was hushed up. Bryce was fired and the post of chief medical officer abolished in 1919.
This, of course, is a terrible crime, though the facts have long been known (the study referred to was published in 2006). A study published by Ian Mosby in May this year added fuel to the fire, revealing …
I have been deeply ashamed of my country a number of times. The Nixon Christmas bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong was one such time, when hospitals, schools and dikes were targeted. The invasion of Iraq was another. Washington’s silence over the fatal Israeli Commando raid on the Gaza Peace Flotilla–in which a 19-year-old unarmed American boy was murdered–was a third. But I think I have never been as ashamed and disgusted as I was today reading that US Attorney General Eric Holder had sent a letter to the Russian minister of justice saying that the US would “not seek the …
New negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians may begin next week, with much talk of a “new chapter” in the seemingly intractable conflict. A new chapter, perhaps, but who is writing the book?
Any public discussion about the “peace process” is tense, in part because there is no widely shared understanding of the history and politics of — even an appropriate terminology for — the conflict. That’s as true in the United States as in Palestine and Israel.
I never gave much thought to the question until I was 30 years old, in the late 1980s. Before that, I had a …
The Campaign for Peace and Democracy Champions the Proxy War Against Syria
by Jay Tharappel / July 27th, 2013
Recently in June the American activist organisation ‘Campaign for Peace and Democracy’ (CPD) issued a ‘Statement On Syria’ supporting the so-called “Syrian revolution”. If the CPD had issued a similar statement two years ago it would have been somewhat understandable given the fog of war at the time. However by now it should be obvious to all ostensible peace and anti-war activists that there is nothing progressive or worth championing about the imperialist sponsored proxy war currently being waged against the Syrian government of President Dr. Bashar al-Assad; a war fuelled by foreign powers who have outsourced their attack on …
The new advertisements for Apple computers have a curious but familiar tagline: “Designed by Apple in California.” It’s the kind of motto that draws your attention to two things: one, that the product is “designed” in California, but not “made” there; and two, that Apple is in California, and not somewhere outside of the United States, like, say, South Korea, where Samsung, Apple’s principal competitor, is located.
The Land Value Tax (LVT) is a “radical” form of taxation first proposed by Henry George in his 1879 Progress and Poverty (see What If Marx Got it Wrong?). What George proposes is to replace taxes on wages, purchases, and investments with a tax on unimproved land and natural resources. Fred Harrison’s The Traumatised Society: How to Outlaw Cheating and Save Our Civilisation (Shepheard-Wallwyn Limited, 2012) provides an exhaustive update of George’s original work.
As Winston Churchill famously observed, “History is written by the victors.” Nearly all history books written in the last 400 years were written by or on …
Fascism has presented itself as the anti-party; has opened its gates to all applicants; has with its promise of impunity enabled a formless multitude to cover over the savage outpouring of passions, hatreds and desires with a varnish of vague and nebulous political ideals.
— Gramsci
The Working class spontaneously gravitates towards socialism; nevertheless most widespread (and continuously and diversely revived) bourgeois ideology spontaneously imposes itself upon the working class to a still greater degree.
— Lenin
“It’s not just about 20 cents”. This was the status message of Mark Zuckerberg, head of Facebook last week, a message that was relayed through several of …
What’s the difference between fact and political spin in Canada’s “national” newspaper?
Not much if a recent Globe and Mail article is any indication.
In an article about the overthrow of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, foreign affairs reporter Campbell Clark claims Ottawa faced a “conundrum in responding to” Morsi’s ouster since “the Harper government [is] normally critical of any military takeover”.
Did anybody bother to check if this was true? If anybody had, it would have quickly become obvious that Clark’s claim has no basis in fact. The Harper government has backed military coups, opposed pro-democracy movements and deepened ties to monarchies from …
Understand that … people are dying who could be saved, that generations more will die or live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act.
— George L. Jackson, former Black Panther activist – shot to death by prison wardens on August 21, 1971.
The mass hunger strike by prisoners in California’s jails has run into its third week. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has refused to negotiate or address the strikers’ five main demands. Prison officials have shown no interest in negotiating an end to the mass hunger strike despite the obvious dangers to the …
Channel surfing these past few days all one sees are a preponderance of talk shows about sex scandals and PEDs (Performance Enhancing Drugs). These so called journalists are up in arms about the audacity of politicians like Anthony Weiner and athletes like Ryan Braun. Over the years, countless colleagues of both these men have done the same thing, some got outed and some never have. The American public, according to these media whores, ‘want justice’!
To this writer, what Braun did is far worse than what a jackass like Weiner is all about. Weiner has a right to have his private …
Lady Liberty committed suicide. She will be remembered fondly by all those who knew her. Usa was 227.
Though she had been in a state of declining health for a number of years, those who knew her remember Miss Liberty as a bold and vivacious woman. Liberty’s close friend, Thomas Jefferson, had some foresight when, years ago, he wrote,
“Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
Mr. Jefferson was alluding to the fact that Miss Liberty’s maiden name was Revolution. Like Lady Liberty, the Revolution family was vibrant and idealistic though sometimes misunderstood. Webster …
The spill out from rescuing banks and leaving homeowners to be foreclosed upon by banks. Detroit as a case study: subsidizing professional sport ownership while the city is in bankruptcy proceedings.
It is commonly assumed that “peace agreements” between pro-US rightwing regimes and leftwing insurgents lead to peace, justice and greater security. A number of peace agreements which were signed and implemented in the 1990’s in Central America, South Africa, Philippines and elsewhere provide us with ample data over two decades to confirm or reject this commonplace assumption.
We will examine the case of El Salvador where a powerful guerilla movement (FMLN) signed off on a peace accord in 1992.
It had to come. Soon after the announcement by the governing Australian Labor Party that Manus Island would re-open as part of a what is tantamount to a gulag solution, the opposition leader Tony Abbott has punched the air with his own option. It as unimaginative as it is brash, a military freak show that will convert boat arrivals into an invasion problem. There was none to begin with, but Abbott and his counterparts are on the hunt for demons to kill.
For Tony Abbott, there is everything in a name. Operation Sovereign Borders suggests that harsh measures are required against …
This article aims to reprise Marx’s 1844 article on Hegel’s philosophy of law which ends with the memorable prediction that the Germans will only become conscious of their revolutionary destiny when they respond to the “the ringing call of the Gallic cock.” Well, the last time the Gallic cock was heard from was in 1968 and it was rather subdued compared to is noisy past (1789, 1830, 1848, 1871).
Fortunately for those who read this pre-Communist Manifesto work of the young Marx (he was 25 when he wrote it) it has many useful ideas packed into its 13 pages that are …
Body Parts, Forearms and Souvenir Stars and Stripes from Predator Drones
by Felicity Arbuthnot / July 25th, 2013
When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.
— Sinclair Lewis, It Can’t Happen Here, 1935 (1885-1951)
It is impossible not to ponder that the military and military planning disciplines attract some with tendencies to extremes in deviance, psychosis and general psychological aberrancies.
When yet another example comes to light – “trophy” photographs of soldiers with dead and mutilated bodies, soldiers urinating on the dead, soldiers removing body parts as “souvenirs”, unspeakable torture on orders from on high, rapes, body burnings to hide the crimes – it is assumed it can get no worse. Inevitably …
Venezuela is at a critical moment in its Bolivarian revolution, dealing with serious economic issues due to its transitional economy that is under siege by local oligarchs. At the same time, President Nicolás Maduro’s decision to welcome Edward Snowden, if he opts for political asylum in Venezuela, means that the Obama administration is escalating its hostility towards his government.
Venezuela faces a situation analogous to that of the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende from 1970 to 1973 when, as is well documented, the CIA and the local business class conspired to destabilize the economy, overthrow the democratically elected …
Remember that hilarious Amadeus moment when Mozart’s jaw drops, all excitement dashed, when the Emperor belittles his latest tour de force as “a touch elaborate.” Meaning “too long,” since (absurdly) one can only hear “so many notes in . . . the course of an evening:”
Emperor: Your work is ingenious. It’s quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that’s all. Cut a few and it will be perfect.
Mozart: Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?
Emperor: Well. There it is.
Today’s pompously hidebound right wing displays no such royal restraint, full of self-ordained zealots knowing exactly how to …
In the second quarter of 2013, the third-largest U.S. bank by assets, Citigroup, posted a 42% increase in profits which CEO Michael Corbat praised as a “well balanced” result of “cost cutting” programs, including the firing of 11,000 workers.
This big bank has a sordid history of predatory profiteering and criminal activity, not unlike all the other large banks. In the early 20th century, what was then National City Bank was the main bank for the Rockefeller Standard Oil interests. Over ensuing decades and mergers it eventually came to be Citibank, and in the late 1990s, Citigroup. At that time, …
Growing movement decries Philippine President’s failure to address the widespread poverty, corruption, and human rights abuses during his State of the Nation Address.
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / July 24th, 2013
One of the major conflicts of the era that is not often highlighted for public debate is whether we want an economy that privatizes government services and public resources and continues to concentrate wealth; or whether we want to develop an economic democracy that invests in the public interest and creates shared prosperity.
Journalist Ted Koppel summarized the privatization trend:
We are privatizing ourselves into one disaster after another…. We’ve privatized a lot of what our military is doing. We’ve privatized a lot of what our intelligence agencies are doing. We’ve privatized our very prison system in many parts of the …
by Dooler Campbell and Allie Fry / July 24th, 2013
U.S. drone strikes have killed four American citizens to date. The families of three of the victims are bringing a lawsuit against those responsible for the targeted killings, seeking accountability from the U.S. government. On September 30, 2011, a U.S. drone strike killed five people, including U.S. citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. On October 14, 2011, another strike murdered Al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son Abdulrahman. The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the ACLU are representing plaintiffs Nasser Al-Awlaki, Anwar’s father and Abdulrahman’s grandfather, and Sarah Khan, mother of Samir Khan.
Codepink delegates met with Nasser Al-Awlaki in Yemen in …
Cornel West, on HBO’s Real Time, reiterated his criticism that President Obama is a “war criminal” for killing innocent people through drone strikes. He went on to make a simple, but rarely heard observation, that if you “have an empire, you’re going to have war crimes.”
Critical voices like his are an exception in the mainstream. For the most part, establishment liberals have either been silent or have cheered as Obama has expanded the national security state. West chastises these liberals as “morally bankrupt” for giving Obama a pass for the same problematic policies that Bush was roundly criticized for.
NorCal Democrats Get More Than They Bargained For in Campaign Fundraiser
by Christopher Fisher / July 24th, 2013
Belvedere, California — A group of over seventy Sonoma, Marin, and other Bay Area citizens, activists, and community leaders recently took House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) to task for supporting the National Security Agency (NSA) domestic spying programs exposed in early June by whistleblower Edward J. Snowden. The protesters staged a peaceful, boisterous picket outside a Democratic Party fundraiser in the swanky Marin community of Belvedere.
North Bay residents may be forgiven if they had not heard of the event, as the Marin Independent Journal and Pacific Sun (also of Marin) were among the few area news outlets …
The partial shutdown of Long Island College Hospital (LICH), which caregivers and patients have fought to save for months, has already spawned a health crisis that some are comparing to Superstorm Sandy, which struck the city last year.
Ryan Schiavon, who works as a paramedic at LICH, says he’s been forced by administrators to bypass the hospital and bring the patients he picks up to other facilities that are crowded stretcher-to-stretcher as a result.
“It’s utter chaos,” says Schiavon. “It’s stuff we haven’t seen since Hurricane Sandy. It’s getting back to that level.”
LICH is currently fully staffed with some 2,000 doctors, nurses, …
