If Elected
A look at how to effectively orate one’s election promises.
Latest articles
The Tragic Killing of Dr. Shahnawaz Kumbhar
Blasphemy Allegations, Police Brutality, and the Fight for Justice
The September 2024 extra-legal murder of Dr. Shahnawaz Kumbhar exposed the lethal combination of blasphemy charges with improper policing practises in Pakistan. The incident reveals both human rights challenges that blasphemy accusation victims face and questions the proper role of law enforcement agencies regarding justice and human rights protection.
Background of Dr. Shahnawaz Kumbhar
The district of Umerkot in Sindh now associates its entire symbol with Dr. Shahnawaz Kambhar who suffered brutal murder despite being a resident. Religious fanatics murdered a doctor who remained innocent to his killers. Dr. Shahnawaz Kambhar distinguished himself as a community healthcare worker who received credit for …
Trump, Ukraine, and the EU
I deplore Trump’s actions domestically and also, so far, on Gaza. However, I trust you’re also experiencing a rare morale boost regarding what Trump has begun doing on Ukraine. One consequence we can expect is hysterical, excoriating commentary from the European and US media as they condemn Trump for “betraying Ukraine and appeasing Putin.” On the front page of New York Times (2/15/2025) we read about the “rising Russian threat.” Also, there may well be false flags from Zelensky as he attempts to disrupt and delay productive talks — and save his own ass. Given the absence of an independent media …
Brazil: Experts Alarmed by Landgrabbers and Settlers as Uncontacted Man Emerges from the Forest
An uncontacted man from the Mamoriá Grande area of Brazil who appeared at a settlement in an extractivist reserve in February 2025. © Anon
Experts working in the area where an uncontacted Indigenous man appeared last week say it reveals the acute pressures from landgrabbers and the extraction of forest produce in that part of Brazil’s Amazon.
The young man, from a group known as “Uncontacted people of Mamoriá Grande,” emerged last week at a settlement occupied by locals harvesting Brazil nuts and other …
Understanding Biology ≠ Biological Essentialism
Anyone who has critiqued, or even dared to question, the ideology of the transgender movement likely has been accused of being a “biological essentialist.”
The most recent episode of this in my life came when a friend read the chapter in my new book about the trans debate and told me that I was advocating “a mistaken position of ‘biological essentialism,’ that biological sex is absolute,” and denying the “evidence of ‘gender as a spectrum.’”
It’s common in these debates for people to use the terms sex (a matter of biology) and gender (a matter of social …
Feeling Very Fine: Picasso the Printmaker at the British Museum
This is Pablo Picasso the way he is rarely seen – at least in so far as the hundred or so pieces at the British Museum’s Picasso: Printmaker have been displayed. The viewer is treated to dazzling marked draughtsmanship that also evinces a mastery of techniques: the use of drypoint and etching, lithographs, linocuts and aquatints.
The span of the work humbles. From the early 1900s (Picasso moved to Paris in 1904, keeping an address at the Washhouse Boat in Montmartre), we find the almost shocking A Frugal Meal, where the much diminished couple sit together in strained impoverishment, their …
China-Africa Space Co-op Shows Tech’s Multipolarization, Democratization Trends
In recent years, cooperation between China and Africa in the space field has deepened. However, some Western media outlets have tried to distort the nature of this cooperation. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that China is “building space alliances in Africa to enhance its global surveillance network and advance its bid to become the world’s dominant space power.” The article also cited remarks from the Pentagon, claiming that China’s space projects in Africa and other parts of the developing world are a “security risk.”
The real security risk is not cooperation …
Anti-Palestinian Racism on Campus
In the midst of growing repression faced by Palestinians and supporters of Palestinian freedom, the VP team has worked on a new visual that focuses on the repression of Palestinian students and students who express solidarity with Palestinians on college campuses. This visual was created in partnership with the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association.
Special thanks to G. Laster for the design of these visuals. Explore the other two visuals in the series, one of which offers a framework for recognizing anti-Palestinian racism as a …
What Not to Listen to
The usual conspiracy theories to shunt aside.
Trump Didn’t Invent the Gaza Ethnic Cleansing Plan
It's been US policy since 2007
Trump’s innovation is not the threat to ‘clean out’ Gaza. It is dropping a long-standing aim to dress up Palestinian expulsion as a peace plan
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intention from day one of his “revenge” attack on Gaza, launched 16 months ago, was either ethnic cleansing or genocide in Gaza.
His ally in genocide for the next 15 months was former US President Joe Biden. His ally in ethnic cleansing is current US President Donald Trump.
Biden provided …
Trump Gives Peace a Chance in Ukraine
Photo: Daniel Reinhardt/AP
As we approach the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a monumental shift is taking place that might just lead to the end of this calamitous war. This is not a breakthrough on the battlefield, but a stark reversal of the U.S. position from being the major supplier of weapons and funding to prolong the war to one of peacemaker.
Donald Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine if he was re-elected as president. On February 12th, he started to make good on that promise by holding a 90-minute call …
China’s AI “Embracing Open Source” Offers Insights to the World
The breakthroughs in China’s artificial intelligence (AI) technology have sparked ongoing reverberations internationally. Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, publicly praised DeepSeek in recent days, saying it did some “nice work.” In a surprising 180-degree shift, he also expressed a desire to “work with China.” At the recently concluded Paris AI Action Summit, the French startup Mistral, also using an open-source model, was placed under high expectations. Moreover, when news broke of Apple collaborating with Alibaba to develop localized AI functions, both companies experienced a surge in their stock prices.
The fact is, China’s AI companies’ “embrace of open source” has …
Palestinians to be Expelled from Gaza and Emigrated to Mars
Mr. President, are you and Elon Musk on the same page? More precisely, do you support his current decision concerning the Palestinians?
My friend Elon has ideas, not decisions. I’m the one who makes decisions. Elon is a smart guy. Some would say he’s a very smart guy. He thinks outside of the box, which is a good thing, and then he brings his idea to me. I’m the commander in chief and I decide if his idea is a good one. Elon, who is merely my assistant by the way, has …
Anti-Palestinian Racism in the Media
In the midst of growing repression faced by Palestinians and supporters of Palestinian freedom, the VP team has worked on a new visual that addresses anti-Palestinian racism in mainstream media, exposing the pervasive dehumanization of Palestinians. The visual was created in partnership with the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association.
Our Stupid Species
In short: Our species was not “born” stupid, but started to become so late in our history. It then started on a downward course, and will “soon” go extinct.[1]
We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.[2]
Preface
January, 2025, was a busy month for me![3] First, on January 6, I celebrated my 85th birthday—on what has come to be called Insurrection …
A Return to Basics: Rasmus, the “Neoliberal” Turn, and Exploitation
Instead of the conservative motto, ‘A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work!’ they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: ‘Abolition of the wage system!’ Karl Marx, Value, Price, and Profit
Today, the point that Marx made in his 1865 address to the First International Working Men’s Association is largely lost on the trade unions and even with many self-styled Marxists. The distinction between the goal of “a fair day’s wage” and the goal of eliminating exploitation– the wage system embedded in capitalism– is lost before a common, but unfocused revulsion to the exploding growth …
The Development of New Technology
How is this development of new technology being carried out?
Good German
How does our great nation send billions in weaponry to a country that is committing the worst genocide of the 21st century? The slaughter of civilians is beyond any description. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been bombed, burned, and starved to death. Tens of thousands more have been crushed beyond recognition under mountains of twisted concrete and ash. The children who have survived are almost unrecognizable in their rags and wasted bodies. They carry empty pots, looking for food and water amid the massive rubble. Amid the charnel house that is now Gaza.
Should I mention our two party, one …
The Hijacking of Palestine
How Zionism Forged an Apartheid State from River to Sea by Thomas Suárez
A Review
Much has been written in the alternative press over the past year about the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians and its other war crimes in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, etc. This has often been viewed within the historical context of the self-declared Zionist Israeli state’s founding in 1948 up to the present day. But far less has been said about the Zionist’s racial-nationalist-settler-colonialist movement’s history of terrorism to seize Palestine and kill and drive the Palestinians into exile that goes back for …
Lies Too Big To Fail: The Culture of Grift
“Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, (The New Idol)
At present, according to recent polling, 52 percent of the US citizenry approve of Donald Trump’s performance in office, this is, even as Trump pulls from his bloated ass Joseph Goebbels’ grade lies e.g., Diversity hires are responsible for the recent aviation tragedy over the Potomac River. Hyperbole? The insidious declaration is right out of the Nazi era playbook. For example, the Nazi “stabbed in the back by international and internal parasitic Jews” lie, promulgated by …
Dallaire Continues to Justify Kagame’s Crimes
Romeo Dallaire has greatly enabled the “Butcher of Africa’s Great Lakes” region. The Canadian general’s fairy tale has repeatedly justified Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame who has once again unleashed horrible violence in Congo.
Two months ago a man in front of me at Salon du livre de Montréal asked Dallaire if his “opinion of Rwanda has changed since the M23 movement emerged in the Congo?” The retired general’s response to this question about a Kigali spurred force, which has recently killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands in capturing the Congolese city of Goma, was extreme Kagame propaganda. He said: “No …
War Is Making Us Poor
The Book
After World War 2, the US set its sights on becoming the dominant superpower. As a benevolent dictator — an enlightened hegemon — it would spread peace and prosperity across the globe. Its first objective was to defeat what it perceived as the #1 threat to the economic and political system it represented, which was capitalism and democracy, that being communism.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the US decided to leverage its new positioning as the world’s most militarily and economically powerful nation into becoming a full-blown empire. This was …
False Savior: Jimmy Carter
A pious Sunday school teacher confessing to lust in his heart but swearing never to lie, he came to Washington to reestablish public faith in government just when popular disgust at monstrous U.S. crimes in Indochina had reached unprecedented heights. The big business agenda during his term in office (1977-1981) was to roll back the welfare state, break the power of unions, fan the flames of the Cold War to increase military spending, engineer tax breaks for wealthy corporate interests, and repeal government regulation of business. While portraying himself as a peanut-farming populist, Carter delivered the …
How may I help you, today?
The human condition in the age of high technology and instant communication.
Far from Benign: The US Aid Industrial Complex
The US aid program began in earnest in the early stages of the Cold War, with an intention to beat off the contenders from the Soviet bloc in the postcolonial world. President Harry S. Truman proposed, in his 1949 inaugural address, “a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas.” In 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, enabling him to issue the executive order that created the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
In 1962, the …
Did Marx Have Anything Good to Say About Capitalism?
Those who assume that Karl Marx emphasized only the negative characteristics of capitalism such as alienation, crisis, and exploitation are mistaken. Indeed, throughout his intellectual career – in philosophic, journalistic, historical, and economic writings – Marx stressed the creative and progressive features of capital. His social theory makes no sense unless essential duality is retained.
For Marx, capitalism is inventive and advanced with respect to the past (pre-capitalist societies), the present (capitalism itself), and the future (post-capitalist society). First, capitalism has “revolutionizing properties” that transform all social, economic, and political relations, thus creating conditions for consolidation and universal development.
Second, capitalism …
Defending Truth
What will a fact check reveal about this unsourced Twain quotation?
The Demise of USAID: Few Regrets in Latin America
“Take your money with you,” said Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, when told about Trump’s plans to cut aid to Latin America, “it’s poison.”
USAID (US Agency for International Development) spends around $2 billion annually in Latin America, which is only 5% of its global budget. The temporarily closed-down agency’s future looks bleak, while reactions to its money being cut have been wide-ranging. Only a few were as strong as Petro’s and many condemned the move. For example, WOLA (the Washington Office on Latin America), a leading “liberal” think tank which routinely runs cover for Washington’s regime-change efforts, …