Latest articles
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, …
“Quantitative Easing with Chinese Characteristics”
How to Fund an Economic Miracle
China went from one of the poorest countries in the world to global economic powerhouse in a mere four decades. Currently featured in the news is DeepSeek, the free, open source A.I. built by innovative Chinese entrepreneurs which just pricked the massive U.S. A.I. bubble.
Even more impressive, however, is the infrastructure China has built, including 26,000 miles of high speed rail, the world’s largest hydroelectric power station, the longest sea-crossing bridge in the world, 100,000 miles of expressway, the world’s first commercial magnetic levitation train, the world’s largest urban metro network, seven of the world’s 10 busiest ports, and solar …
Exposing Albion’s Rot: Why I Write About Political Corruption
Has the world lost its last thread of sanity? Mass media drowns us daily with never-ending cycles of calamities, from cataclysmic global events to political quagmires. These scandals are nothing new, some more egregious than others, but all spark outrage across the political spectrum. It’s tempting to dust off that old protest sign. Sadly, it’s still relevant.
Writers like me craft sociopolitical fiction to explore and process society’s critical issues with the hope that change will follow. But hope implies a futuristic expectation. What can I as a writer do to bring these injustices to light and engage readers who might …
“No specific signals” from US on Resuming Dialogue – Moscow
Washington has yet to take steps to re-establish contacts with Russia, including on Ukraine, Vassily Nebenzia has said
Brainwashing Is Not a Form of Personal Hygiene
Nor is being brainwashed a guarantee of personal bliss, though it’s becoming apparent that there are many who swear by it.
It’s like reverence for innocence. Well, yes, kids sure are sweet, unsullied, open, positive, vibrant, curious. They wear their innocence well and we all envy their abandon. But we’re protecting them. So we bear all the risks and potential for endangerment. They play. We watch the playground to make sure there are no perverts, rabid dogs, snipers, or kidnappers.
As adults, it’s a different story. ‘Ignorance is bliss’ and ‘What you don’t know won’t hurt you’ work …