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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 …

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 …

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 …

[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

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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, …

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 …

Do we have freedom of choice?

Once again, the Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) strongly denounces the latest attempts by the U.S. to push for yet another UN military occupation of Haiti. We condemn this action and the relentless assaults on Haitian self-determination by the US and its criminal allies. We also urge Caribbean and Latin American governments to stand in solidarity with Haiti – just as they have stood with one another against violations of national sovereignty in Venezuela, Cuba, Honduras, etc. – as the Haitian people continue to bear the brunt of U.S. imperial policies and actions in the region.

On …

The world is now moving through an epoch-shifting transition, and a new system will be brought online as the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives time bomb that has cancerously taken over the western economy crashes.

Now, this may not be a bad thing, as the system created over the dead bodies of JFK and his brother (which some have dubbed ‘post-industrial society’, consumerism or globalization) was always an atrocity premised around a Malthusian paradigm that rejected America’s historic tradition of morality and technological progress.

However, as the multipolar alliance races to bring a system of win-win cooperation, large scale development and long term thinking …