Latest articles
by David Swanson / August 15th, 2013
I sat in the courtroom all day on Wednesday as Bradley Manning’s trial wound its way to a tragic and demoralizing conclusion. I wanted to hear Eugene Debs, and instead I was trapped there, watching Socrates reach for the hemlock and gulp it down. Just a few minutes in and I wanted to scream or shout.
I don’t blame Bradley Manning for apologizing for his actions and effectively begging for the court’s mercy. He’s on trial in a system rigged against him. The commander in chief declared him guilty long ago. He’s been convicted. The judge has been offered a promotion. …
An Interview with Greg Felton
by Kourosh Ziabari / August 15th, 2013
Canadian columnist and political author Greg Felton believes that the new round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority will ultimately fail and lead to nowhere as the Israeli regime is continuing to insist on its illegitimate demands and also is not ready to engage in talks on equal footing.
According to Greg Felton, the Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, is the sole loser of the talks as he already knows that he is “in the pay of Israel.”
“He [Mahmoud Abbas] and his cronies go through this moronic peace charade to give the illusion they are important and …
by Robert Hunziker / August 15th, 2013
Over the past 30 years, the Earth has absorbed unbelievably huge amounts of heat… substantially more than in prior decades. Now, scientists have discovered the whereabouts of this abnormality of excessive heat… deep in the oceans, the Earth’s Big Heat Sink! As time passes, the ocean heat sink may one day run over, in turn, prompting global warming to accelerate rapidly, very rapidly.
A little over one year ago, Dr. James Hansen, one of the world’s foremost climate scientists and former Head of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, spoke at the TED Conference in Long Beach, California, explaining the heat …
Canada Plays Major Role
by Yves Engler / August 15th, 2013
The one-sided extremism of the Conservative government’s support for Israel just keeps growing.
The latest example is Ottawa helping convince the European Union to list Hezbollah’s military wing as a “terrorist” organization. After that decision was taken, Foreign Minister John Baird declared, “We are thrilled that the European Union unanimously has agreed to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. We’ve been pushing for this.”
The National Post detailed Canada’s behind the scenes effort to get the EU to list Hezbollah as a “terrorist” organization. Despite opposition from the Lebanese government, a Foreign Affairs official told the paper that this was “a clear …
by Paul Haeder / August 14th, 2013
The planning of a city is a process that allows for corrections; it is supremely arrogant to believe that planning can be done only after every possible variable has been controlled.
— Jaime Lerner, former mayor Curitiba, Brazil; architect; urbanist
Preamble
I’ve done this before — using a city where I resided in to make a larger abstract, holistic, microcosmic point or set of propositions. See this DV piece. That “think locally and act globally” proposition, or “act locally and think globally” philosophy is as important to sanity and sustainability and ecosystems repair as is “it takes a village to raise a …
by subMedia / August 14th, 2013
Vieques is a small Caribbean island that boasts some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. It is home to generations of men and women, who survive from the bounty of the ocean and the land. It is also the stomping ground to thousands of feral horses. Vieques is a municipality of what is now known as Puerto Rico, a colony of the United States of America.
In the 1940?s the US Navy forcibly evicted the people of Vieques out of the east and west sides of the island and installed naval bases and used its pristine beaches, as heavy …
by Linh Dinh / August 14th, 2013
If the American Dream can be reduced to a single object, it is the suburban home, with its front yard, back yard and two car garage. This residence must not share a wall, ceiling or floor with any neighbor, a living arrangement highly unusual worldwide, but that’s why it’s called the American Dream, dummy, not the Cambodian or Italian Fantasy. If you want to dwell in a hive, go back to your country! Any country. The American Dream cannot perch over a coffee house, boulangerie or taqueria. To live apart is a core wish of the American Dream, with having …
by Binoy Kampmark / August 14th, 2013
It is about time that the Australian Parliament consider having a viable foreign affairs department or abolish it altogether. Affairs might as well be relocated to Washington, D.C. The libertarians would have a point were they to assert that claim. A government that does nothing for its citizens, yet demands everything of them, including following a monastic code of staying out of trouble, is an unnecessary task master.
This situation became painfully apparent when Australia’s current and one might hope brief foreign affairs minister Bob Carr made the astonishing claim that too many resources were being provided to Australians oversees as …
by Peter Breschard / August 14th, 2013
As a tenth generation New Yorker, one might imagine that extolling the virtues of the Garden State is a task which I do not particularly enjoy. New Jersey is often unnecessarily abused and that has usually been fine with me. But today I have arrived at a crossroads and have come to praise New Jersey, not to bury it.
Last week while driving along the Eastern Seaboard, I pulled into what was once known as a gasoline service station. I turned off the ignition, extracted my credit card, opened the door, and headed to the pump. Suddenly, I was confronted by …
by Nozomi Hayase / August 14th, 2013
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s volcanic revelations of ubiquitous US surveillance are in their third month. The aftershocks felt around the world continue. As Russia granted Snowden temporary asylum, the White House fell into anger and dismay.
Computer scientist Nadia Heninger argued that leaking information is now becoming the “civil disobedience of our age”. The late historian and activist Howard Zinn described the act of civil disobedience as “the deliberate, discriminate, violation of law for a vital social purpose”. He advocated it saying that such an act “becomes not only justifiable but necessary when …
The Jewish state’s bottom line
by Jonathan Cook / August 14th, 2013
There are many flies waiting to spoil the ointment of the Middle East peace talks, not least Israel’s recent announcement of a rash of settlement-building. That triggered an angry letter to Washington last week from the Palestinian leadership, though it seems Israel’s serial humiliation of Mahmoud Abbas before the two sides meet was not enough to persuade him to pull out.
However, as the parties meet today for their first round of proper negotiations, it is worth highlighting one major stumbling block that has barely registered with observers: the fifth of Israel’s population who are not Jews but Palestinians.
The difficulty posed …
by James Petras / August 13th, 2013
Representative democracies and autocratic dictatorships respond to profound internal crises in very distinctive ways: the former attempts to reason with citizens, explaining the causes, consequences and alternatives; dictatorships attempt to terrorize, intimidate and distract the public by evoking bogus external threats, to perpetuate and justify rule by police state methods and avoid facing up to the self-inflicted crises.
Such a bogus fabrication is evident in the Obama regime’s current announcements of an imminent global “terrorist threat.” …
by Ramzy Baroud / August 13th, 2013
Considering the off-putting reality, one fails to imagine a future scenario in which Yemen could avoid a full-fledged conflict or a civil war. It is true that much could be done to fend off against this bleak scenario such as sincere efforts towards reconciliation and bold steps to achieve transparent democracy. There should be an unbending challenge to the ongoing undeclared US war in the impoverished nation.
Alas, none of the parties in Yemen’s prevailing political order has the sway, desire or the moral authority to lead the vital transition necessary. It is surely not the one proposed by the Gulf …
by David Macaray / August 13th, 2013
Society used to get married, have kids, and then, happy or not, stay married their entire lives rather than suffer the stigma of divorce. Then society gradually began getting divorced without the fear of stigma, which was liberating. But despite this liberalization, kids born out of wedlock continued to be stigmatized. Being born out of wedlock was still pretty much frowned upon. In fact, we called these offspring “bastards.”
But, thankfully, all that has changed. Today there are not only no stigmas or labels or penalties or bastards, there is a growing number of women who’ve made the decision to become …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / August 13th, 2013
… war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children.
— Howard Zinn, 1922-2010
On July 22 two babies were born – in different worlds. Prince George Alexander Louis, son of Britain’s Prince William and his wife Catherine, arrived in the £5,000 a night Lindo Wing of London’s St. Mary’s Hospital, weighing a super healthy 8lbs 6 oz.
According to the hospital’s website:
The Lindo Wing offers private en suite rooms, designed to provide you with comfort and privacy during your stay. Deluxe rooms or a suite are available on request. Each room has a satellite TV with major …
by Robert Meeropol / August 13th, 2013
I feel a kinship with Bradley Manning. In all likelihood a few weeks from now a military judge will sentence him to serve several decades in prison for violating the Espionage Act of 1917. My parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, were convicted of violating the same act and executed just over 60 years ago when I was six years old. But that’s only the beginning of my sense of connection with him. The prosecutors, and now the judge, have labeled Manning’s actions espionage, theft and several other unsavory terms. Stripped of the pejorative legal expressions, however, what Manning really did, …
by Robert S. Becker / August 13th, 2013
Two sterling insights from Obama neighbor, noted writer, and good friend, Francis-Noël Thomas, capture the disaster that is the modern American presidency:
1) Whatever a president doesn’t know on election, he won’t learn in office. However willing, what newcomer has the time or attention to master key leadership gaps? Consider the expertise to negotiate effectively with Congress, let alone grasp counter-insurgency theories, the culture of the intelligence agencies, the Federal Reserve System, or multi-faceted energy or health care industries. Command demands know-how and practice.
2) Today’s voters cannot evaluate a candidate’s all-important qualifications. Blitzed by the media, the electorate often mistakes resume …
Mobilization is Not Enough!
by Ajamu Nangwaya / August 13th, 2013
Organization is the weapon of the oppressed.
– Kwame Ture (aka Stokely Carmichael)
Racialized working-class communities and individuals and Indigenous peoples in North America know the daily reality of police violence and containment. We do not need the intervention of civil liberties organizations, critical criminology courses or the exposure of police violence at a G20 Summit to become conscious of the fact that when the police serve and protect, we are not included within that protective cloak.
Based on our experience of colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy and capitalist exploitation, we are quite aware of the fact that the police serve and protect the …
by Paul Haeder / August 12th, 2013
Critical Thinking Skills – Like a Good Wine Takes Time
First: The same old, published recently in the Oregonian, the big newspaper in Portland and around the state which is going to four-days-a-week in October, as a cost-cutting and reorganizing thing. You know, since these millionaires and great economists can’t get it past their gold-filled teeth that we, a, need public journalism and investigative journalism supported, and, b, we need true public education.
“A three-year college degree would provide value and savings: Guest opinion”
August 09, 2013 at 5:00 AM,
By Bill Manning
The three-sided triangle is the strongest geometric format in today’s architectural design …
by Kim Petersen / August 12th, 2013
The Nobel Peace Prize is for the person who “shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” Obviously the committee that awards the peace prize erred miserably when it presented the prize to Barack Obama. Obama has been anything but a peacemonger. Since Obama never received the award for any peace-related actions on his part, it is widely assumed that the committee awarded the prize based on projections of what Obama would do (if otherwise, then the committee …
by Aruna Rodrigues / August 12th, 2013
The final report of the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) on field trials of genetically modified crops is packed with revelations on what is wrong with institutional governance and regulation in India when it comes to GMOs (genetically-modified organisms). The report’s release late last month came days before biotech giant Monsanto decided not to submit any further applications for GMOs to the European Union; a decision forced by non-acceptance on scientific grounds and rejection by civil society.
Remarkable consensus
The TEC Final Report (FR) is the fourth official report which exposes the lack of integrity, independence and scientific expertise in assessing …
by Stuart Jeanne Bramhall / August 12th, 2013
Why do American children study Karl Marx, the villain we love to hate, in school? Yet Henry George, whose views on land and tax reform gave rise to the Progressive and Populist movements of the 1900s, is totally absent from US history books. During the 1890s George, author of the 1879 bestseller Progress and Poverty, was the third most famous American, after Mark Twain and Thomas Edison. In 1896 he outpolled Teddy Roosevelt and was nearly elected mayor of New York.
In Neo-classical Economics as a Stratagem Against Henry George (2007), University of California economist Mason Gaffney argues thatGeorge and his Land Value Tax pose a far …
by Robert Hunziker / August 12th, 2013
Over the past couple of years, the nation’s media have trumpeted the fact that global warming has slowed during the past 15 years, for example, “A Cooling Consensus,” by W.W. Houston, The Economist, June 20th, 2013. (However, within the article, The Economist editorially states that some people affirm “that the urgent necessity of acting to retard warming has not abated, as does Brad Plumer of the Washington Post, as does this newspaper”).
There is no doubt that the planet is continuing to heat, but it has been heating less than scientists predicted, and scientists readily admit that no one ever expected …
by James Petras / August 12th, 2013
On July 16, 2013, Goldman Sachs, the fifth largest US bank by assets announced its second quarter profits doubled the previous year to $1.93 billion. J.P. Morgan, the largest bank made $6.1 billion in the second quarter, up 32% over the year before and expects to make $25 billion in profits in 2013. Wells Fargo, the fourth largest bank, reaped $5.27 billion, up 20%. Citigroup’s profits topped $4.18 billion, up 42% over the previous year.
The ruling elite, the financial CEOs pay is soaring: John …
by Sue Warrior / August 11th, 2013
(this christian nation — and some of its jews; but not muslims cause they’re communist — brought to you by desert nomads from outer space, who augured our future in seventeen organic lentils that clung to Essau’s beard –you can look it up: read your Koran, your Talmud, your No One Here Get Out Alive: Pilgrims in UFOs; Cowboys in Stutz Bearcats: sorry red injun man, sorry black negro man, sorry yellow asian man, sorry women and children first in line, fists full of soap, tossed overboard: the Ship of State can’t help you now. Apparent …
by Dylan Murphy / August 11th, 2013
As we enter week five of the hunger strike over 400 prisoners in seven prisons are still refusing to eat. This is the longest hunger strike in California’s history and is provoking a predictably savage response from prison authorities. Prisoners are being denied medical attention, prisoners accused of being reps are put in Administrative Segregation to further isolate them, many are being denied their mail. The tragic death of hunger striker Billy Sell, who had been asking for medical care for several days prior to his death, reveals the cruel and inhumane nature of the prison authorities who appear indifferent …
by Ron Jacobs / August 11th, 2013
August 9, 1974 is one of my favorite days in history. On that day, Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency of the United States. He only did so because he knew he was facing certain impeachment and a probable conviction on at least some of the charges he was facing. The look of despair obvious on his face during his last speech from the White House was enough to make anyone who had opposed his rule almost believe that there was such a thing as earthly justice. Of course, Nixon never had to answer for his …
by Vincent L. Guarisco / August 10th, 2013
Any sound that Watson made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it… There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment…You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
— George Orwell, 1984
There’s no denying Mr. Orwell was a visionary before his time. However, if George was with us today, he would surely cringe (even in darkness) and blush three shades of red if …
by Walter Brasch / August 10th, 2013
Royal Dutch Shell, which owns or leasesabout 900,000 acres in the Marcellus Shale, had a great idea.
It wanted to frack the Ukraine. But, there was opposition. So, Royal Dutch Shell decided to create a junket for some of the Ukrainians opposed to fracking to show them just how wonderful fracking is.
They were going to bring the Ukrainians to northeastern Pennsylvania, and give them an all-expenses-paid four-day tour. The tour was to begin at the end of July. Other shale gas corporations have created press junkets, where they lay out a nice day or two of activities, complete with handouts, …
by Paul Haeder / August 9th, 2013
Daily Newspapers a Thing of the Past Back to the Future
I knew I was a fool in 1975 when I was majoring in journalism at the University of Arizona, actually one of the country’s better undergraduate and master’s programs in journalism. A fool because even then, almost forty years ago, the writing was on the walls, or, in the headlines, or next to the obituaries — daily newspapers, independent ones, and cities with at least two competing dailies, and communities with a slew of weeklies and bi-monthlies and alternative presses, well, those days were numbered.
Well, all that nice theory and …
