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The Black Alliance for Peace Condemns U.S. Convictions of Uhuru 3 As A Fascist Farce

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 …

Childish Fantasies: Age Verification for Social Media Down Under

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 …

The US Attempted Coup in Venezuela uses new Cyber Tools, but cannot Break the Chavista Wall

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 …

Lies about Haitians reflect racist imperialism

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 …

Message to Peons

The rulers speak to the ruled.

Antarctica’s Deep Vulnerability Exposed at 11th Scientific Conference

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, …

The Law of Force or the Force of Law

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, …

Another September 11th

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 …

Targeting Childhood in the West Bank-By Area

From October 7, 2023–July 31, 2024, Israeli forces and settlers killed Palestinian children in the West Bank at a rate of one child every two days. We partnered with Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) to create visuals for their new report, “Targeting Childhood: Palestinian Children Killed by Israeli Forces and Settlers in the Occupied West Bank”.

Israeli forces and settlers targeted Palestinian children playing outside, protesting in the streets, walking home from school, and even standing inside their own homes in various towns and villages in the West Bank, at distances ranging from five meters up to 300 meters …

Choice

Do we have freedom of choice?

The Collective Creativity of Workers, Part II

From Unconscious Sleeping Giant to Builder of Barricades Part II


Orientation
Summing up Part I

My purpose in this two-part article is to show how creativity can be understood not only at the micro level of the individual artist, but also at the macro level of world history. I began in Part I by describing the ways in which the individual artist is different from the other workers. But then I show how romantic theories of art get in the way of seeing creativity as also a collective process rooted in history. I discuss the creative process of the artist, but …

BAP Condemns U.S. Plans for Yet Another UN Military Occupation of Haiti

We urge people of conscience around the world to stop another United Nations invasion of Haiti.

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 …

Protecting the Merchants of Death: The Police Effort for Land Forces 2024

September 11.  Melbourne.  The scene: the area between Spencer Street Bridge and the Batman Park-Spencer Street tram stop. Heavily armed police, with glinting face coverings and shields, had seized and blocked the bridge over the course of the morning, preventing all traffic from transiting through it.  Behind them stood second tier personnel, lightly armed.  Then, barricades, followed by horse mounted police.  Holding up the rear: two fire trucks.

In the skies, unmanned drones hovered like black, stationary ravens of menace.  But these were not deemed sufficient by Victoria Police.  Helicopters kept them company.  Surveillance cameras also stood prominently to the north …

The Battle over Closed vs. Open Systems

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 …

Targeting Childhood in the West Bank-By Distance

From October 7, 2023–July 31, 2024, Israeli forces and settlers killed Palestinian children in the West Bank at a rate of one child every two days. We partnered with Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) to create visuals for their new report, “Targeting Childhood: Palestinian Children Killed by Israeli Forces and Settlers in the Occupied West Bank”.

Israeli forces and settlers targeted children playing outside, protesting in the streets, walking home from school, and even standing inside their own homes, at distances ranging from five meters up to 300 meters away. They killed a total of 141 Palestinian children during …

Nomophobia

Nomophobia: the fear of being without one’s smartphone. What’s so smart about that?

Contemplation: Which Values, What Actions?

By mediating between our minds and social reality, the all-encompassing communications media processes such raw social facts into more digestible morsels of factoids, benighted biases, ignorant assumptions, distorted opinions, and alluring pseudo-pleasures.

But imagine the following scenario: all interactive media break down.  Silence–and a blank, darkened screen.  No more conditioning and intermittent reinforcement and puppeteering–which string us along the information-glutted blind alley with its deafening roar of talktalktalk.

Cognitive dissonance: one sits alone, or perhaps fetishistically fondles one’s dead smartphone, Aladdin-like.  Panic: what is one to think?  But then, almost imperceptibly… one’s mind enters a state of relaxation, even repose.  Freed from …

Three New Kinds of Refugees in a World of Migrants

Rashid Diab (Sudan), Out of Focus, 2015.

One summer evening, the unrelenting sun over Niger refused to dip below the horizon. I sought out some shade with three anxious men in Touba au paradis, a small quiet restaurant in Agadez. These three Nigerians had tried to make the crossing at Assamaka, to our north, into Algeria, but found the border barred. They hoped their final destination would be Europe across the Mediterranean Sea, but first they had to make it into Algeria, and then across the remarkable Sahara Desert. By …

No Brainers

On July 23, 2022, the WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus went against the majority vote of the WHO expert committee (9 against 6 in favor): The committee was AGAINST the calling of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

“We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly through new modes of transmission,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing in Geneva on Saturday (July 23, 2022).

“I have decided that the global monkeypox outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern.” …

Bypassing Sanctions: Russia, Trade Routes and Outfoxing the West

Invention is the mother of necessity, and Russia’s response to largely Western-imposed economic and trade sanctions has shown the extent of that inventiveness.  While enduring attritive punishment in its Ukraine campaign, the war remains sustainable for the Kremlin.  The domestic economy has not collapsed, despite apocalyptic predictions to the contrary.  In terms of exports, Russia is carving out new trade routes, a move that has been welcomed by notable powers in the Global South.

One of the chief prosecutors of sanctions against Moscow was initially confident about the damage that would be caused by economic bludgeoning.  US President Joe Biden, in …

Overthrowing the Constitution: All Sides Are Waging War on Our Freedoms

It is both apt and ironic that the anniversary of 9/11, which paved the way for the government to overthrow the Constitution, occurs the week before the anniversary of the day the U.S. Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787.

All sides are still waging war on our constitutional freedoms, and “we the people” remain the biggest losers.

This year’s presidential election is no exception.

As Bruce Fein, the former associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, warns in a recent article in the Baltimore Sun, “In November, the American people will have a choice between Harris-Walz and Trump-Vance. But they …

At what point are we permitted to…?

Five questions, and a sixth:

1. At what point does it become irresponsible not to compare Israel’s slaughter of the Palestinian people with the genocide westerners know best: the Nazi Holocaust?

2. At what point does shielding Israel from the revulsion its actions naturally inspire not turn into complicity?

3. At what point should western publics be offered proper historical context to make sense of Israel’s genocide: one that lets them understand how the Zionist movement was ideologically shaped by its exposure to ugly, century-old European ethnic nationalisms that culminated …

The Evolution of Humans

In 1871, Charles Darwin wrote The Descent of Man.

Preventable Death

Unbecoming American

We should be clear about one thing. Death is not preventable. In fact it is assured. Even David Rockefeller, third generation patriarch of the gangster family on the Hudson, bit the dust at 101 in 2017. There may be some of his kind with ambitions of greater longevity but Daoist immortality has so far escaped them. However we may find that the improvements rendered notorious by Christiaan Barnard’s surgical experiments may reach a level to satisfy the most Methuselahaic of our ruling oligarchy. Perhaps some of these ancients are still around …

Israeli Torture Chambers Aren’t New; They Are What Provoked the Violence of October 7

If you can’t see the causal link between the Israeli abuse of generations of Palestinians and Hamas’ crimes, then you have no insight into human nature. You don’t understand yourself

For many years I lived just up the road from Megiddo prison in northern Israel, where new film of Israeli guards torturing Palestinians en masse has been published by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. I drove past Megiddo prison on hundreds of occasions. Over time I came to barely notice the squat grey buildings, surrounded by watch towers and razor wire.

There are several large prisons like Megiddo in Israel’s north. It is where Palestinians end up after they have been seized from their homes, often in the middle of the night. Israel, and the western media, say these Palestinians have …

The Decline of Summer Festivals

How the Nuclear Family, Globalisation of Food Production, and International Trade and Travel has changed our relationship with Nature

Bonfire Night, St. John’s Eve by Jack Butler Yeats (Ireland)
Traditional summer festivals have always revolved around the solstice and bonfires on the feast of St. John (24 June) in many countries. Maypole dancing was also an important aspect of some rural and agricultural summer events, and other summer festivals like Ferragosto (15 August), involved celebrating the early fruits of the harvest and resting after months of hard work. The summer solstice was seen as the height of the powers of the sun which has been …

Logic and Pandemics

“PCR is separate from that. It’s just a process that’s used to make a whole lotta somethin’ outta somethin. That’s what it is.”

Kary Mullis, inventor of PCR test

US Seizes Venezuelan Jet Plane Confirming Who is the Rogue Nation

The Biden/Harris administration is renewing its attacks on Venezuela. On Monday, September 2, US officials seized a jet plane belonging to the Venezuelan government when it was in the Dominican Republic for servicing, then flew it to Florida.

Contrary to a false report in the NY Times, the plane was not “owned by Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro”. It is owned by the Venezuelan government and used for travel by various Venezuelan officials in addition to the president.

The NYT article claims, “The Biden administration is trying to put more pressure on Mr. Maduro because of his attempts to undermine the results of …

Humans Rescue Doomsday Glacier?

Rolling Stone
It was only 3 years ago when a group of distinguished climate scientists led by Erin C. Pettit (Oregon State University) said Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf of the Thwaites Glacier/Antarctica, aka: Doomsday Glacier, could collapse “within as little as 5 years.” (Source: C34A-07 Collapse of Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf by intersecting fractures, American Geophysical Union, December 15, 2021)

Assuming they nail it, what happens around the year 2026? Sea levels start rising more than previously but nobody is sure by how much as millions of people could …

Six takeaways from the UK’s decision on arms sales to Israel the media are hiding

British Jewish leaders are incensed by the 8% cut in weapons to Israel. Judged by the very rules Starmer imposed on Labour, that makes him a proven antisemite

The Guardian reported this week a source from within the Foreign Office confirming what anyone paying close attention already knew.

By last February, according to the source, Britain’s then Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, had received official advice that Israel was using British arms components to commit war crimes in Gaza. Cameron sat on that information for many months, concealing it from the House of Commons and the British public, while Israel continued to butcher tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.

Several points need making about the information provided to the Guardian:

1. …