by Eric Walberg / February 1st, 2012
The Third Annual BDS Conference opened 17 December at Hebron’s Children’s Happiness Centre, “to expand Palestinian civil society’s active implementation of BDS that is deeply rooted in the Palestinian struggle.” European BNC coordinator Michael Deas affirmed, “BDS is now the main framework for solidarity. We are very close to closing the European market to Israel.”
A boycott bombshell in January was dropped by an 11th-grade American Jewish teenager, Jesse Lieberfeld, who won Dietrich College’s 2012 Martin Luther King, Jr Writing Award for his essay about his moral awakening when he realised his American Jewish culture was unavoidably identified with supporting Israel.
I
…
by Joel S. Hirschhorn / February 1st, 2012
Why am I so sick of all the media attention to the Republican presidential primaries and all the blabbering about President Obama’s advantages and disadvantages for the coming election? I just cannot get excited. My answer may also be yours: No matter who wins, our nation loses.
Come election night I would be overjoyed to see Obama lose and equally overjoyed to see the Republican candidate, whoever it is, also lose. I cannot see how either Romney or Gingrich or even Ron Paul could possibly offer what is truly needed to fix the root causes of all the dysfunction, corruption and …
It is Always Darkest Right Before it Goes Completely Black
by Phil Rockstroh / February 1st, 2012
When the poet stands at nadir the world must indeed be upside-down. If the poet can no longer speak for society, but only for himself, then we are at the last ditch.
— Excerpt from, The Time of the Assassins, a study of Rimbaud, by Henry Miller
There is no reality-based argument denying this: The present system, as defined by the neoliberal economic order, is as destructive to the balance of nature as it is to the individual, both body and psyche. One’s body grows obese while Arctic ice and wetlands shrink. Biodiversity decreases as psyches are commodified by ever-proliferating, corporatist/consumer state …
by Alan Hart / February 1st, 2012
There was a moment in a report from Tunisia by the BBC’s Wyre Davies when I could not stop myself laughing. I was listening to it on the Corporation’s generally excellent World Service radio. (In my view this particular BBC service is generally excellent because unlike all other BBC news and current affairs outlets, radio and tv, it often reflects some of the truth about what is happening in and over Palestine that became Israel).
Davies was in Tunisia to find out how its remaining 2,000 Jews (down from 300,000 once upon a time) were responding to a call from an …
by Alan Hart / January 31st, 2012
One very well informed and courageous Israeli who thinks the answer is “Yes” is Merav Michaeli, a radio and television presenter who also writes for Ha’aretz. She is completely without fear when it comes to telling it like it is. On 2 January this year, for example, she wrote: “The Israeli government doesn’t want peace. There’s nothing new in that. It has been the proven way since the establishment of the state.”
The headline over her latest article is Israel’s never-ending Holocaust. One of her main points is that Israel has never confronted the trauma of the Nazi holocaust and has …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / January 31st, 2012
… the enduring power of our moral example, America is back.
— President Obama, State of the Union address, 24 January 2012
First the world was sold imaginary weapons of mass destruction in Iraq with General Colin Powell, at the United Nations in February 2003, asserting:
My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.
Now it seems the world is sold a withdrawal from Iraq which was not quite what it seemed as presented by the Panetta-Obama-fest in the Baghdad, Fort Bragg …
by Adnan Al-Daini / January 31st, 2012
The optimism generated by the Arab spring is now giving way to anxieties about where these changes are taking Arab societies. The idealism of the young in their millions for a dignified life where human rights are respected, where the rulers serve the people instead of enslaving them, is being sorely tested by the emergence of destructive sectarianism and ethnic tensions. Imperial powers, assorted kings and despots play their power games by stoking up fear and divisions among the populace. “You don’t want another Iraq, do you?” dictators ask.
Aljazeera (Arabic) reported on a conference of Arab thinkers and commentators …
by Gary Leupp / January 30th, 2012
A recent column by the always insightful Ray McGovern succinctly demonstrates the problem.
The world of science acknowledges matter-of-factly that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program. There is simply no evidence for one. The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, staffed by specialists on nuclear power and maintaining a tight watch on Iran’s civilian facilities, finds no evidence of a military program. Two successive reports (National Intelligence Estimates) produced (in 2007 and 2010) by all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies have declared with confidence that there is no operative weapons program. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and (even) Israel’s Defense …
by Tom Burghardt / January 30th, 2012
When the European Union declared on Monday that it will impose an oil embargo on the Islamic Republic, it set the stage for a new escalation of the Western-created crisis over claims that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program.
In Tuesday’s State of the Union address, President Obama declared amid thunderous applause and a standing ovation from Congress, “Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.”
Similar to sanctions legislation signed into law by Obama on December 31, the EU-approved …
Return of “The Decider” Stuns Washington; GOP Presidential Debates Thrown Into Chaos
by Michael K. Smith / January 30th, 2012
Related Headlines
Bush Pick Hailed as “Pragmatic Master Stroke”
Outraged Biden Joins Tea Party, Threatens To Sue
Obama Lauds Bush Vow To “Follow the Cheney Tradition” as VP
Washington, January 27 — Barack Obama today named George W. Bush of Crawford, Texas as his running mate, the first ex-president selected to run for Vice President on a major party ticket. The president announced his historic step before an ebullient crowd of Blackwater mercenaries on the White House lawn. ”There’s an electricity in the air, an excitement, a sense of new possibilities and of pride,” Obama told a section of cheering snipers moments after disclosing …
by Ron Jacobs / January 30th, 2012
Unlike a couple of years ago, when the consensus was split, there recently seems to be a growing consensus among pundits and certain politicians that Washington will be launching a military attack on Iran. While pundits do not have the power to make war, politicians in Congress certainly do. Furthermore, pundits convinced that this is an advisable route will do their best to bend the ears of those politicians so that there wishes can be filled, especially if those pundits are representing interests that believe they would benefit from such an attack.
Why now? Part of the reason is because the …
by Kathleen Wallace Peine / January 30th, 2012
Sometimes you should just say you got it wrong or think there’s a high probability that you didn’t get it right.
I penned a piece just the other day voicing my frustration with the newly formed Justice Party and the presidential candidacy of Rocky Anderson. I never had any misgivings about the platform of that party which, if you take the time to research, covers all the hot spots — reform of Citizen’s United, restoration of basic Constitutional rights, curbing the MIC… In short, it’s a wish list for populists, or even those simply aware that we are on a path …
by Kathleen Wallace Peine / January 28th, 2012
I promised you. And here’s the party it turned into.
So sing the New Pornographers, and so sounds in my head, as I consider the third party option that dangled brightly for but a moment. I’m talking about the Justice Party and their candidate for president, Rocky Anderson.
Yes, the Justice Party was a bit of a hokey name to go with, providing mental images of superheroes in tights, but clearing that away, the word justice is pretty beautiful if ever realized. What I was able to glean from their talking points, the party and Anderson, that is, cover most of the issues …
by Fidel Castro / January 28th, 2012
Cuba found itself forced to fight for its existence against an expansionist power located a few miles off its coast that had declared the annexation of our island and that believed our destiny was to fall into their lap like a piece of ripe fruit. We were condemned to cease to exist as a nation.
Jose Marti was among the glorious legion of patriots who. throughout the second half of the 19th century, fought against the loathsome colonialism brandished by Spain for 300 years. Marti most clearly foresaw such a dramatic destiny and expressed this view in the last lines he …
by Martha Rosenberg / January 28th, 2012
“People love turkey. We love turkey, too,” says the corporate website for Butterball, the nation’s largest vertically integrated turkey producer.
Butterball is certified by the British Retail Consortium, says the site, on “300 elements related to food safety and quality, as well as worker safety, environmental impact and management commitment.” The turkey processor practices “good citizenship” based on “self-governance,” “social responsibility,” and “sustainability.”
But search for the words “welfare,” “Mercy For Animals” or “Shannon, North Carolina” (where a grisly Christmas-time expose took place) and you will get no results. Maybe you didn’t spell the words correctly.
…
