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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 …

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 …

The human condition in the age of high technology and instant communication.

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 …

“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, …

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 …

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 …

The wide mix of acts of resistance over the past week have made it clear that there is and will be widespread resistance to the Trump/MAGA regressive, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic and pro-billionaire plans, There have been actions in the streets in DC and all over the country. Congressional Democrats are speaking up, filibustering and organizing town meetings. Numerous creative social media postings have helped to keep up people’s morale. Rachel Maddow on MSNBC five nights a week is playing an important role as have other TV/podcast/written reports and commentaries. And there have been a number of federal court filings, …

What would be said? What would happen when it was back to the news as distraction?

Many people who never liked Donald Trump are predictably outraged by many of his actual and potential foreign policy changes. These include new tariffs on goods from countries with which the US had, until the current administration, enjoyed free trade or Most Favored Nation status, including Mexico, Canada, and the European Union. In addition, he announced imposition or intended imposition of increased sanctions against Iran, Russia and potentially other nations. He also ordered the suspension of all foreign aid except to Israel and Egypt. (The order is currently blocked in federal court.) But his most outrageous proposals are undoubtedly to …

Rwanda has broken international law with the visible presence of Rwandan troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo alongside Rwanda’s covert M-23 militia. M-23 is reported to have captured Goma (again) and the civilians are in a state of emergency. This is familiar because M-23 previously took over the city in 2012 but had to withdraw because it wasn’t equipped to administer the city of two million. As the M-23 rebels and their allies increase their takeover of the East Congo with reported vows of advancing to the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo …

President Donald J. Trump likes teasing out the unmentionable, and the Israel-Palestinian situation was hardly going to be any different.  With a touch of horror and the grotesque, he offered a solution to the issue of what would happen to Gaza at the conclusion of hostilities.  In a White House press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he declared that the United States “take over and own the Gaza Strip”, in the process promising to “create an economic development that will supply an unlimited number of jobs and housing for people of the area.”

The strip, one of the …

On 3 February there appeared in the local paper of record, the Sydney Morning Herald (Independent. Always), a number of letters regarding Israel and Gaza. The first opines:

… the more often people hear lies and see troubling incidents like violence and vandalism associated with Jews, the more likely people are to blame Jews for causing those troubles, regardless of the truth.

A sub-editor attached an AP-credited photograph of a devastated Gaza with the caption ‘Destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Gaza’.

Is this seeming carnage a fabricated Hamas photoshop of a functioning Gaza Strip, a propaganda …

Lawyers and judges know it all too well: If parsed with proper eloquence, the intent of words and phrases can be twisted to one’s own purpose or made meaningless. It’s no secret that particular judicial interpreters (judges/justices) are championed by special interest groups and then appointed by politicians in anticipation of how eloquently the U.S. Constitution or Bill of Rights will be argued in support of a desired position. To that end, a state court in Texas or even the Supreme Court of the United States may soon be called upon …

“A handful of wealthy donors dominate electoral giving and spending in the United States.”