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Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion.  The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.  But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets:  How to justify it?  Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence.

Such cover also takes the form of false fairness and forced balance. “We don’t have to choose between defending Israel and aiding Palestinian civilians,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote inanely in the Washington Post on October 31.  …

These are difficult, perilous, and frustrating times. Many cherished beliefs are coming unraveled. Many once-shared values are no longer shared. And distrust of unshakeable institutions is widespread.
Yet it was only a little more than three decades ago that North America and European intellectuals joined in acknowledging the triumph of the Western world’s “gift” to all: political and economic liberalism. For nearly half a century, Western liberalism had waged a “cold” war against the most serious challenge to its dominance. Apart from the fascist counter-revolution of the 1930s against political liberalism, no movement shook the Western liberal establishment and …

It was such a bucolic setting. Even now, more than fifty years later, I can still see little Opie (Ron Howard) in his rolled-up jeans scrambling beside Andy; both carry fishing poles as they head to the lake. It introduced every episode of The Andy Griffith Show, along with that catchy whistled tune. It’s what first comes to mind when I think of fishing…but that’s just the first thing. 

Cunning, subtle, understated.  Israeli policy in the Pacific has seen United Nations votes cast in its favour, the foreign policies of certain countries adjusted, and favours switched.  While China may be considered the big, threatening beast competing alongside that large, clumsy figure called the United States, the small state of Israel is directing its expertise, and charm, in very specific ways in the Indo-Pacific.

When it came to voting for a nonbinding resolution in the United Nations General Assembly on the subject of a “humanitarian truce” regarding the conflict in Gaza in October, 14 countries were steadfastly opposed.  Of those …

COP28, the UN Conference of the Parties in oil-rich Dubai currently underway will not resolve the issue of oil and gas companies agreeing to slow down oil production. To the contrary, all signals point to an increase according to formal plans already laid out by the industry, as stated by the International Energy Agency. Reuters November 2023 headline says it all: “Global Fossil Fuel Production Plans Far Exceed Climate Targets”.

Greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rip roar, snort, huff and puff higher ever higher post COP28. It’s guaranteed. The oil companies insist upon it. And a new kid on the …

The unsolved border dispute between Venezuela and Guyana sparked renewed tensions in recent weeks. The two governments have engaged in a war of words, military presence has increased, as well as fears of US intervention.

The following infographic recaps the main chapters of the longstanding controversy over the resource-rich Essequibo Strip.

During the past three years, the country has seen a dramatic increase in book bans at public and K-12 school libraries and in rightwing pro-censorship activism, usually targeting books that address race, gender identity, or sexuality.

In Texas, Suzette Baker was fired from her job as director of a rural public library for refusing to withdraw books about racial justice and the lives of LGBTQ people from circulation. A mob of neo-fascist Proud Boys descended on a Downers Grove, Illinois, school board meeting to demand that school libraries under the district’s control remove …

After months of research and analysis, CJPME published a landmark study highlighting the widespread problem of anti-Palestinian racism (APR) in Canada.  Entitled, “Anti-Palestinian Racism in Canada: CJPME’s 2022 Report,” the report constitutes the first-ever, non-exhaustive study of APR in Canada, and exposes more than 500 examples of this form of racism in online written content from 2022.

Although the study focused exclusively on examples from 2022, the report acknowledges the huge uptick in incidents of anti-Palestinian racism in 2023. …

Left-progressive websites don’t always get it right. Take Media Lens, for example. In October, we discussed the corporate media invention of so-called ‘disinformation experts’. We lampooned the claim that although journalists are ‘working within profit-maximising, billionaire-owned, advertiser-dependent, government-subsidised media, they are nevertheless exposing “disinformation” without the slightest trace of bias’.

Last May, the BBC unveiled just such an initiative:

BBC Verify is transparency in action – fact-checking, verifying video, countering disinformation, analysing data and explaining complex stories in the pursuit of truth.

We took it for …

by T.P. WilkinsonThere have been recent elections in numerous principalities. The constellations by which governments — the outward and visible signs of obscured and conspiratorial power — have been formed since 2020 are not in themselves unique but have occurred with an intensity — I like here the German term Verdichtung, i.e. thickening or coagulation — perhaps unlike anything since the financial coup d‘etat that inaugurated the Great Depression (as it was called in the US).

In fact, one could date this phenomenon to …

Which way ahead?

As the genocide in Gaza resumes, it becomes ever more clear that the Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood”, launched by the Palestinian Resistance on October 7, and the events that followed, have not only destroyed the prestige of the Israeli army: they completely unmasked the hypocrisy of the West, who is not only silent but accomplice of the unprecedented massacres perpetrated against a defenseless and trapped civilian population, as well as the duplicity of most of the so-called Western “friends” of Palestine, be they political forces, media, Unions or associations.

The sequence of COP meetings, ostensibly a United Nations forum to discuss dramatic climate change measures in the face of galloping emissions, has now been shown for what it is: a luxurious, pampered bazaar for the very industries that fear a dip in their profits and ultimate obsolescence.  Call it a drugs summit for narcotics distributors promoting clean-living; a convention for casino moguls promising to aid problem gamblers.  The list of wicked analogies is endless.

Reading the material from the gathering that is known in its longer form as the United Nations Climate Change Conference, one could be forgiven for falling …

Although they have been around for more than 30 years, and although they are frequently touted as being superior to public schools, the U.S Department of Education reports that between 2010-11 and 2021-22, an 11-year period, 2,315 charter schools failed and closed in the U.S.

That is a huge number of school closures in a short time frame. By any measure, it is hard to call such a phenomenon “successful.”

And this figure probably does not capture the real number of charter schools that have failed and closed over the years, leaving thousands of parents, students, teachers, education support staff, and …

Now is the season when priests proclaim, “Peace on earth, goodwill towards men” and mainstream media soothe us with stories and images of kindness.

But why do peace and goodwill remain just dreams? Why is kindness so rare in the world today? Why is it limited to the personal sphere? Why is the wider world so cruel?

The root cause of this is capitalism, an intrinsically violent and harsh social-economic system that shapes us. By forcing people to compete for the essentials of life, it generates selfish, aggressive personalities. Individual accumulation is the priority rather than cooperative sharing.

But capitalism is not as …