by Ron Jacobs / May 19th, 2013
Albert Camus is arguably one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. His relatively short life is well chronicled and the fodder of multiple conversations in university literature classes. His novels and essays raise fundamental questions about life in a world where life can easily be seen to mean absolutely nothing. Like Jean Paul Sartre–another writer with whom Camus is often compared and contrasted–Camus’ search for meaning in a world rendered meaningless strikes a chord in every human, especially those who do not seek easy answers. The conclusion these men reached was that it is up to us to …
War on SNAP
by Binoy Kampmark / May 18th, 2013
The United States might well be the most powerful nation on earth in terms of military muscle, and wield economic clout despite being severely humbled by the financial crisis. The country of business and capital is not bound to fall off the historical stage too soon. Its poor, however, might. Little is known about the huge swath of poverty that prevails in the country, other than an unhealthy sense that the existence of wealth presumes the existence of poverty. The United States remains transfixed by a gilded age, obsessed, as William Dean Howells suggested, by inequality. …
by Allen W. Smith / May 18th, 2013
The government has embezzled all surplus Social Security revenue, generated by the 1983 payroll tax hike, and spent the money on wars and other government programs. None of the money was saved or invested in anything. Social Security is not broken, but at the moment, it is broke. The cost of paying full benefits in 2010 was $49 billion more than Social Security tax revenue for the year. So the government had to borrow $49 billion (probably from China) in order to pay full benefits. And the gap between the cost of benefits and Social Security …
by Jay Janson / May 18th, 2013
Presiding Judge Yassmin Barrios said of former US President Ronald Reagan: “He knew about everything that was going on and he did not stop it, despite having the power to stop it from being carried out.” Reagan also had the power to stop the massacres being perpetrated by dictator General and President Ríos Montt. Instead he visited him in Guatemala City and praised Montt as “a man of great personal integrity and commitment.” Who was more guilty?
by Ron Ridenour / May 18th, 2013
Point of No Return, a mixture of novel and autobiography, it is an engaging story of an intrepid war correspondent who resembles a saucy crime detective. It is superb story telling.
80% of Gitmo Prisoners on Hunger Strike for 100 Days
by The Real News Network (TRNN) / May 17th, 2013
by The Real News Network (TRNN) / May 17th, 2013
Mark Seibel (McClatchy Newspapers): Seizure of a news organization’s phone records should be illegal as it limits the ability of journalists to investigate and report — something guaranteed by the Constitution.
by Linh Dinh / May 17th, 2013
In most European cities and towns, the church is at the center, with a square in front of it. In Texas towns, it’s the courthouse. In New York, it’s Times Square, where you can be dazzled by bombastic signs from the world’s largest corporations. In Washington, the Mall affords long vistas of the Capitol, Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. You are meant to be awed and feel elated, so proud you might send the President or Pentagon a bounced check. In many American downtowns, banks occupy the tallest buildings, and downtown stadiums are also named after banks. Perpetual debt …
by Uri Avnery / May 17th, 2013
There was this Israeli man who from time to time put a slip of paper in the cracks between the stones of the Western Wall, asking God for favors – as Jews have been doing for centuries. They believe that the gates of heaven are located directly above the Wall, making it easy for their missives to arrive quickly.
The man always wondered what all the other petitioners were requesting from the Almighty. One night his curiosity got the better of him. In the wee hours of the morning he stole to the Wall, extracted all the pieces of paper …
by Christy Rodgers / May 17th, 2013
Good afternoon, and welcome to all of you. It is an honor and a privilege to be standing before you today. As I look out on your avid faces, on the sea of eyes which glitters before me, I can only think back along the long road that has led us to this momentous occasion, to my presence on this podium and yours in this great hall, and remember the terrible trials we had to overcome to make this golden and glorious day possible. I hope you will bear with me as I reminisce—not at too much length, I promise—about …
by William Manson / May 17th, 2013
As a mere human being, I guess I’m sort-of—out-of-date. You see, so many of the activities I used to do—can be performed better by…well, you know. It’s getting so that I wonder what I’m supposed to do?
I’ve heard that, as humans, we evolved over millions of years—so I guess our bodies and senses must be pretty fine-tuned to the “environment” (I mean “nature,” I guess). We can perceive “information,” you see, and then “process” it in our human brains. Didn’t our cerebral cortex, especially, evolve over hundreds of thousands of years? So I guess it’s pretty good at processing, analyzing, …
The Prospects of an Enduring Democracy
by Robert DePaolo / May 17th, 2013
This article discusses the evolution of democratic society and the impact of the information environment on human cognition and the decisions and behavior of citizens. It is an integrative discussion weaving information science, psychology, and sociopolitics into a predictive view of the future of the United States.
by Bill Annett / May 17th, 2013
I’m lucky to live here in British Columbia where the waters are free from oil rigs and pipelines.
– Carin Bondar, lucky Vancouver writer
Carin Bondar, a worried but reconciled Vancouver writer, supports the view of the David Suzuki Foundation, from whence the founder and namesake has recently retired, presumably to spend more time with non-GMOs. And sick and tired, I understand, of banging his head against the conservative, anti-tree-hugging establishment.
For my vast international readership, I’ll explain that David Suzuki is one of those rare CBC emeriti, luminaries of the stature of Max Ferguson, Lorne Green (Pa Cartwright to American audiences) and …
by Gilad Atzmon / May 17th, 2013
Every so often we come across a secular Jewish ‘anti’ Zionist’ who argues that Zionism is not Judaism and vice versa. Interestingly enough, I have just come across an invaluable text that illuminates this question from a rabbinical perspective. Apparently back in 1942, 757 American Rabbis added their names to a public pronouncement titled ‘Zionism an Affirmation of Judaism’. This Rabbinical rally for Zionism was declared at the time “the largest public pronouncement in all Jewish history.”
Today, we tend to believe that world Jewry’s transition towards support for Israel followed the 1967 war though some might argue that already in …
by Yitzhak Maplebury / May 17th, 2013
Blue Velvet is run by an all-women’s collective of what Mayor Michael Bloomberg called “some of the most talented female-impersonators on the New York Club scene.”
The ghosts of William Burroughs and J. Edgar Hoover will read from their new book, No Small Change: Gender Bending for National Security and Profit.
Discussion to follow.
It was the fictionalized postulate of Mr. Burroughs that “with the right chemicals and gadgets, women could be easily replaced by men,” which inspired Mr. Hoover to initiate Operation Switcheroo, initially to enable him to become the woman he’d always wanted to become so Jack Kennedy would finally love …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / May 17th, 2013
Every week we are inspired by the many people throughout the country who are doing excellent work to challenge the power structure and put forward a new path for the country. The popular resistance to plutocracy, concentrated wealth and corporatism is decentralized, creative and growing.
One growing series of protests has been the “Moral Monday” demonstrations in North Carolina. They do not have ‘one demand’ but rather are challenging the systemic corruption, undermining of democracy and misdirection of a state government that puts human needs second to corporate profits – which they have dubbed ‘Robin Hood in Reverse’. This week 49 of …
The Case of Libya
by Ludwig Watzal / May 16th, 2013
In Destroying Libya and World Order: The Three-Decade U.S. Campaign to Terminate the Qaddafi Revolution Francis A. Boyle tells the story of what happened, why it happened, and what went wrong between the United States and Libya from a perspective of a professor of international law. Among the U.S. Empire’s serving international law professors, Francis A. Boyle is an exception among American international law professors, because he offers his legal advice for government of states that are the victims of Western aggression. He has been opposing unlawful policies of states with his only available “weapon”: international law. …
by Mazin Al Nahawi / May 16th, 2013
It is a shame that John Baird and his boss Stephen Harper haven’t learned yet from Canada’s colonial past.
For over a century, the Palestine question has been described as the most complex political issue of our modern time. A very “complicated” equation that after a half of a century of Zionist colonization to set up and establish a colonial “Jewish state” in Palestine, a mathematician, none other than Einstein himself, had something to say about the crimes committed in his name as a Jew, and in the name of Judaism.
In a letter by Einstein to the Zionist, Shepard Rifkin, executive …
by Fran Quigley / May 16th, 2013
In just ten months, the United States managed to transform an 82 year-old Catholic nun and two pacifists from non-violent anti-nuclear peace protestors accused of misdemeanor trespassing into federal felons convicted of violent crimes of terrorism. Now in jail awaiting sentencing for their acts at an Oak Ridge, TN nuclear weapons production facility, their story should chill every person concerned about dissent in the US.
Here is how it happened.
In the early morning hours of Saturday June 28, 2012, long-time peace activists Sr. Megan Rice, 82, Greg Boertje-Obed, 57, and Michael Walli, 63, cut through the chain link fence surrounding the …
by Ramzy Baroud / May 15th, 2013
It is an event “of cosmic proportions”, said one Palestinian academic, a befitting description regarding Stephen Hawking’s decision to boycott an Israeli academic conference slated for next June. It was also a decisive moral call which was communicated on May 8 by Cambridge University, where Hawking is a professor.
Hawking is a world-renowned cosmologist and physicist. His scientific work had the kind of impact that redefined or challenged entire areas of research from the theory of relativity, to quantum mechanics and other fields of study. This towering figure is also wheelchair-bound – suffering from complete physical paralyses caused by amyotrophic lateral …
