Latest articles
by Allen Forrest / September 20th, 2024
“In a peer reviewed study Scientists show that Nano structures self assemble after Pfizer/Moderna shots are injected into humans.” RealWorldNewsChannel.T.ME.
Videos show Israeli soldiers push three Palestinian men off a roof in a West Bank town under illegal Israeli occupation. The western media can barely stifle their yawns.
by Jonathan Cook / September 20th, 2024
The coverage of Israeli soldiers pushing three Palestinians off a roof in the West Bank town of Qabatiya – it’s unclear whether the men are dead or near-dead – is being barely reported by the western media, even though it was videoed from two different angles and a reporter from the main US news agency Associated Press witnessed it.
AP reported on this incident some nine hours ago. Its news feed is accessed by all western establishment media, so they all know.
Yet again, the media has chosen to ignore Israeli war crimes, even when there is definitive proof that they occurred. …
The Thirty-Eighth Newsletter (2024)
by Vijay Prashad / September 19th, 2024
Niniko Morbedadze (Georgia), The Orange Clouds on the Boundary, 2018.
Dear Friends,
Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
On 13 September, at a conclave in Washington, DC, US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer indicated that it would be acceptable for Ukraine to fire missiles, provided by the West, into Russian territory. No official decision has been announced as of yet, but it is clear where the conversation among North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) member states is …
by Becca Mohally Renk / September 19th, 2024
Peace has always been fundamental to me.
My first forays into activism were for peace: as an elementary school student blowing up balloons for a protest when the white train carrying nuclear warheads passed through my hometown in Idaho, organizing a protest of the first Gulf War in junior high school, writing letters to protest Army recruiters being allowed on school grounds in high school. I love peace so much that I studied it in college – my bachelor’s degree is in Peace and Global Studies.
So it was with some surprise …
by Binoy Kampmark / September 19th, 2024
With each ludicrously diabolical move, Israel’s security and military services are proving that they will broaden the conflict ignited when Hamas breached the country’s vaunted security defences on October 7. Notions such as ceasefire and peace are terms of nonsense and babble before the next grand push towards apocalyptic recognition.
The pager killings in Lebanon and parts of Syria on September 17 that left almost 3000 people injured and 12 dead were just another facet of this move. On September 18, a number of walkie-talkies used by members of Hezbollah were also detonated, killing 14. (The combined death toll continues …
by Allen Forrest / September 19th, 2024
Can one even be ready for World War Three?
Material and rhetorical support for the genocide of the Palestinian people is everywhere. It’s time to ask why
by Jonathan Cook / September 18th, 2024
Nearly a year into the world’s first live-streamed genocide – which began in Gaza, and is rapidly expanding into the occupied West Bank – the establishment western media still avoid using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s rampage of destruction.
The worse the genocide gets, the longer Israel’s starvation-blockade of the enclave continues, the harder it gets to obscure the horrors – the less coverage Gaza receives.
The worst offender has been the BBC, given that it is Britain’s only publicly funded broadcaster. Ultimately, it is supposed to be accountable to the …
by Daniel Borgström / September 18th, 2024
Longtime KPFA listeners remember 1999 as the year of the Hijacking, the Lockout, and the massive response. Ten thousand people marched through the streets of Berkeley chanting “Take back KPFA!” and “Save Pacifica!” The battle was waged in the station’s studio, on the streets, and even in the courts. The good guys won, and the hijackers were thrown out. But acolytes of that regime remained, and their proteges are today very much back in control — the gatekeeper clique at KPFA.
Sadly, the KPFA scenario is often repeated in the affairs of humankind. I missed the French Revolution, but I imagine …
by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / September 18th, 2024
In questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.
—Thomas Jefferson
Public trust in the government to “do what is right” understandably remains at an all-time low.
After all, how do you trust a government that continuously sidesteps the Constitution and undermines our rights? You can’t.
When you consider all the ways “we the people” are being bullied, beaten, bamboozled, targeted, tracked, repressed, robbed, impoverished, imprisoned and killed by the government, one can only conclude that you shouldn’t trust the government with your privacy, your …
by Allen Forrest / September 18th, 2024
What does one require to understand the narratives promoted by elitists and their corporations?
by Binoy Kampmark / September 18th, 2024
A lecture series can promise much. But one run out of a corporatised university comes with its own burdens and blemishes. There is the stifling sense of brand and name that hovers over proceedings. The logo is everywhere, a permanent reminder about the role of the chief donor, sponsor or name of the individual associated with the event. Then there is the risk of who will be the first speaker to smash the bottle against the ship before embarkation.
For the Peter Fensham AM Lecture Series (AM is not to be confused with a radio frequency), few finer choices than Professor …
by Randy Shields / September 17th, 2024
Once upon a time a group of Marxist vegan scientists weren’t happy with the way the world was going.
They noted that most USians more easily imagined the end of the world than the end of capitalism.
They also noted that the capybara, a large rodent found in South America, seemed to get along very well with all other creatures, sleeping and playing with turtles, cats, rats, rabbits, humans, monkeys, birds, dogs, sometimes even caimans.
So these Marxist vegan scientists, building on the work of Harry Harlow’s infamous maternal deprivation experiments on baby rhesus monkeys and Martin Seligman’s dog-shocking experiments at Penn, applied …
by Allen Forrest / September 17th, 2024
[E]xposing the constitution for what it really is – a rulebook to protect capitalism for the elites. Written by 55 of the richest white men of early America, and signed by only 39 of them, the constitution is the sacred text of American nationalism. Popular perceptions of it are mired in idolatry, myth, and misinformation – many Americans have opinions on the constitution but have no idea what’s in it.
— Review of We the Elites: Why the US Constitution Serves the Few (Sept. 17 2022) by Robert Ovetz
by Binoy Kampmark / September 17th, 2024
Like eager lice on a ripe scalp, tourists have become a much-reviled feature of various economies. While cash and contributions come in their wake, such an industry depletes, drains and pollutes the very site it idealises. International tourism does its bit to bloat global greenhouse gas emissions, with transportation constituting the lion’s share. All this has engendered yet another addition to the uninspiring jargon of tourism research: overtourism.
Overtourism can be seen as the apotheosis of the Irridex Index (irritation index), an unremarkable idea formulated by George Doxey in 1975 to describe the way attitudes in a local community evolve …
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / September 16th, 2024
A moment of prayer and meditation at the opening of the UN General Assembly, September 10, 2024 (Photo credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe)
On September 18th, the UN General Assembly is scheduled to debate and vote on a resolution calling on Israel to end “its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” within six months. Given that the General Assembly, unlike the exclusive 15-member UN Security Council, allows all UN members to vote and there is no veto in the General Assembly, this is an opportunity for …
New Version of the book Food, Dependency and Dispossession: Resisting the New World Order
by Colin Todhunter / September 16th, 2024
A revised version (September 2024) of the open-access e-book Food Dependency and Dispossession: Resisting the New World Order (2022) by Colin Todhunter is now available.
A brand-new concluding chapter, “The Violence of Development”, rounds off a book that presents a scathing critique of the global industrial agriculture system and its proponents. The book takes aim at the Green Revolution and its modern equivalent (genetically modified organisms), the displacement of traditional farming practices, and the devastating impacts of a neoliberal agenda that is conveniently passed off as ‘development’.
By critically examining the concept of ‘development’ and how it has been implemented globally, the …
Money Talks so Voters Won't Squawk
by Dan Lieberman / September 16th, 2024
In every presidential election, office seekers elbow each other to position themselves as favoring tax breaks for the electorate. Kamala Harris raced in quickly with proposals for a tax break for the middle class and a tax deduction of up to $50,000 for new small businesses ─ two debt producing polices. To her credit, the vice president intends to roll back a Trump administration law by raising the corporate tax rate to 28%, a needed revenue-raising policy. The first two tax proposals sound good but aren’t good. Both candidates favor Child tax credits, a worthy policy for a huge class …
by Allen Forrest / September 16th, 2024
by C.J. Hopkins / September 15th, 2024
OK, this will be one of my non-satirical essays … or mostly non-satirical essays.
It will serve as a companion piece to The New Normal Left, another non-satirical essay that I published in April 2023, which was basically just a reiteration of a speech I gave at a conference in London. It went over pretty well back then. I republished most of it in my latest column, A Brief History of Global Capitalism. It didn’t go over quite as well this time. Political perspectives appear to …
by Eros Salvatore / September 14th, 2024
Emad, a thirty-five-year-old Palestinian man, has a dog named Shuhaybar. He’s a small, white fluffy guy with hair hanging over his eyes. Americans call him a West Highland White Terrier. Emad calls him a friend. He looks completely out of place in Gaza, yet somehow he fits. Maybe it’s Emad’s handmade chamois sombrero that he places on the dog to protect him from the sun. Or the piece of silver tarp he uses as a dog collar. Whatever the reason, this snowball, nose to the ground, never complaining canine, who accompanies Emad wherever he goes—bread lines, water lines, charging …
by Vijay Prashad / September 14th, 2024
Mahankali Parvati (left), Moturu Udayam (middle), and Chintala Koteshwaramma (right) perform an anti-war song during World War II with the group they led, Burrakatha Squad. Credit: Praja Natya Mandali Photography Archives
Mallu Swarajyam (1931–2022) was born with an appropriate name. From deep within the mass movement against British colonialism that was initiated by India’s peasants and workers, and then shaped by M.K. Gandhi into the movement for swaraj (self-rule), Bhimireddy Chokkamma drew her baby daughter into the freedom movement with a powerful name that signalled the fight for independence. Born into …
by Black Alliance for Peace / September 13th, 2024
After being forced to acquit Omali Yeshitela, Jesse Nevel, and Penny Hess – the “Uhuru 3” – on being agents of Russia, a U.S. federal court jury resorted to the sham conviction of “conspiracy,” in what amounted to them being guilty of internationalism and the work of liberating African people. The state’s claim is that the defendants are guilty of “planning to sow discord and inflame American political tensions at the behest of Russia,” a charge carrying a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Although the conspiracy charge is being regarded as the less serious of the …
by Binoy Kampmark / September 13th, 2024
The Australian government has been in a banning mood of late. In keeping with an old, puritanical tradition, the killjoys and wowsers have seized the reins of power and snorting a good deal while doing so. In important matters such as anti-corruption and environmental protection, the government of Anthony Albanese is showing fewer teeth and no gumption. On foreign policy, it has proved craven in its Middle Eastern policy, obsequious to the United States, to which it has handed the wealth of the land to in the event of any future conflict Washington wishes to fight.
With such an impoverished policy …
by Stansfield Smith / September 13th, 2024
The peoples around the world have looked to Venezuela as a vanguard leading Nuestra América in its second independence struggle, against the US. The US rulers operate as the inheritor of the European colonial empires, assuming the right to interfere in other countries’ elections, and dictate who are the winners. No other country – save US underlings in Europe, and Israel – dares to violate international law so brazenly.
The Venezuelan right-wing had no real plan to win a democratic election, but instead prepared for a coup d’etat even before the polls closed. Working with the US government and corporate media, they …
by Yves Engler / September 13th, 2024
A crass new iteration of anti-Haitianism has recently received a remarkable amount of attention. This novel form of racism with deep anti-Black roots was even referenced in the US presidential debate.
Recently racist and ignorant social media users have circulated the idea that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating pets. US Vice presidential candidate JD Vance greatly boosted the anti-Haitian claim with a post to X stating, “Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio. Reports now show that people have had …
by Allen Forrest / September 13th, 2024
The rulers speak to the ruled.
by Robert Hunziker / September 13th, 2024
The 11th Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research conference was held in Pucón, Chile August 19-23, 2024. Fifteen-hundred academics, researchers, and scientists specializing in Antarctica met to share cutting-edge research. Reports at the conference exposed new dimensions of the Antarctic risk profile that should move the world’s leadership posthaste to mitigate society’s self-destructive dependence on fossil fuels.
Antarctica is starting to carry the brunt of too much CO2 leading to too much heat, leading to unstable ice sheets. And it’s happening much, much faster than anybody thought possible. This is a relatively new development that could have far-reaching consequences.
For example, Gino Casassa, …
by Lawrence Wittner / September 13th, 2024
Are the nations of the world doomed to go on fighting the brutal, horrifying wars that have long characterized human history?
We might well wonder about that as we watch, aghast, while Israeli armed forces slaughter thousands of Palestinian civilians, Russian military might relentlessly pounds Ukrainian towns and cities into rubble, and new, bloody wars erupt in numerous other lands.
Why does such widespread destruction and human suffering persist in the modern, ostensibly “civilized,” world?
A variety of explanations have been advanced. Some observers point to capitalism, others blame dictatorial rule, while still others place the onus on xenophobia, religious differences, racism, …
by Edward Curtin / September 12th, 2024
Rolling out of my crib before dawn today (I was in it long before the charlatans Harris and Trump began their theatrical “debate”), it being another September 11th, I wondered where Dick Cheney was.
And I was still wondering where Elmer Gantry was, having received the previous day a form message from RFK, Jr.’s faith-based engagement team leader, Rev. Wendy Silvers, that she was conducting a “pop-up” prayer service for the great Ciceronians’ debate, with Bobby Kennedy in the press room, rooting for his boy Donald. Cheney and Harris vs. Kennedy and Trump. A tag-team match perfect for the …
by Visualizing Palestine / September 12th, 2024
