Latest articles
Part 6 of 6: The Utility of Jordan Peterson's Digressions
by Kim Petersen / February 18th, 2019
“Prepare for Struggle, Prepare for Famine, Work for the People.”
Jordan Peterson posits IQ tests as indicators of intelligence and predictors of long-term success. This is not scientific. Intelligence is definitionally problematic as is designing tests to measure whatever is deemed to denote intelligence. Nowadays, intelligence is considered a multi-faceted concept that cannot be measured comprehensively and accurately by a paper-and-pencil test. Moreover, it is extremely difficult to isolate a …
The war on Corbyn heats up
by Stuart Littlewood / February 21st, 2019
Today there’s an important addition to the group of MPs defecting from the UK Labour Party: Joan Ryan.
Important because Ryan is Chair of Labour Friends of Israel. She recently lost a no-confidence vote in her constituency so her days as an MP are probably numbered anyway.
Are we beginning to see an orchestrated drip-drip of resignations following the departure of ‘The Insignificant Seven’, as the Morning Star called them, at the start of the week? Their destructive intent is clear for all to see from their dizzy remarks.
In a statement Labour Friends of Israel said:
Under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, anti-Jewish hatred
…
Breakaway MPs hope that smearing Corbyn will obscure the fact that they are remnants of an old political order bankrupt of ideas
by Jonathan Cook / February 21st, 2019
The announcement by seven MPs from the UK Labour Party on Monday that they were breaking away and creating a new parliamentary faction marked the biggest internal upheaval in a British political party in nearly 40 years, when the SDP split from Labour.
On Wednesday, they were joined by an eighth Labour MP, Joan Ryan, and three Conservative MPs. There are predictions more will follow.
With the UK teetering on the brink of crashing out of the European Union with no deal on Brexit, the founders of the so-called Independent Group made reference to their opposition to Brexit.
The chief concern cited for …
by Gilbert Mercier / February 21st, 2019
(Photo by U.S. Army Spc. Luther L. Boothe Jr., Task Force Currahee Public Affairs Office)
Imperial logic I: External crises distract from internal ones
Empires with internal problems tend to create external crises to distract the public opinion and unite their political and economical ruling class in a fictitious nationalistic fervor. The current United States policy of overt regime change in Venezuela, backed entirely by its NATO vassals, follows an evergreen imperial playbook of creating new crises …
by Binoy Kampmark / February 21st, 2019
Caught in the backwater of the world’s existence, Australia struggles for relevance in various ways. It might show itself a leader in creating a sovereign fund (too late for that now); it might demonstrate, in various ways, a singular approach to solar energy (impossible, we are told, on that score). Lacking a decent number of terrorist attacks, it feels left out, stranded in a provincialism that ignores the decent, maiming bombing that might signal a boost in security funding. Lacking the millions of refugees Jordan and Turkey host, it feels cast aside, preferring to persecute the few that it has. …
by Jonathan Cook / February 20th, 2019
It’s some achievement to get me sympathising with Mark Zuckerberg. But denunciations from a powerful combination of a parliamentary committee in the UK and self-appointed watchdogs of the new media like the Guardian almost managed it.
The digital, culture, media and sport select committee finally published a damning report into Facebook after an 18-month investigation, as reported today by the Guardian.
The solutions demanded by the committee, however, are intended not to make Facebook and new media more accountable, as the report claims, but to reassert the dominance of the British state in surveilling the public and revive the declining …
by Paul Haeder / February 20th, 2019
Both of my parents were assassinated by death squads in our country. My siblings and I fled because we were afraid. We entered the U.S illegally. We crossed the river, and once inside the U.S., we applied for asylum. We were among the very few who were granted asylum. In 1988 I graduated from Bowie and studied at UTEP, receiving a bachelor’s of science.
— Former refugee at a press conference in El Paso, at Annunciation House
I once volunteered at Annunciation House, in El Paso, during the 1980s. I was chipping away at my graduate …
by Edward Curtin / February 20th, 2019
In a fair boxing match, opponents enter the ring with similarly padded gloves and battle under the bright lights for the world to see. There are, of course, cases where one fighter cheats, as in the infamous case in 1983 when Luis Resto wore weakly padded gloves and hand wraps hardened with plaster to make them rock solid. His opponent, Billy Collins, an up-and-coming boxer from Tennessee with a 14-0 record, was permanently and very seriously injured in the fight at Madison Square Garden. His eyes were battered shut and his vision damaged. He never fought again and died depressed …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / February 20th, 2019
The political system in the United States is a plutocracy, one that works for the benefit of the wealthy, not the people. Although we face growing crises on multiple fronts – economic insecurity, a violent and racist state, environmental devastation, never-ending wars and more – neither of the Wall Street-funded political parties will take action to respond. Instead, they are helping the rich get richer.
The wealth divide has gotten so severe that three people have more wealth than the bottom 50% of people in the country. Without the …
by Yves Engler / February 20th, 2019
If the dominant media was serious about holding the Canadian government to account for its foreign policy decisions, there would be numerous stories pointing out the hypocrisy of Ottawa’s response to recent political developments in Haiti and Venezuela.
Instead silence, or worse, cheer-leading.
Venezuela is a deeply divided society. Maybe a quarter of Venezuelans want the president removed by (almost) any means. A similar proportion backs Nicolas Maduro. A larger share of the population oscillates between these two poles, though they generally prefer the president to opposition forces that support economic sanctions and a possible invasion.
There are many legitimate criticisms of Maduro, …
by Ramzy Baroud / February 20th, 2019
The Russian-sponsored Palestinian unity talks in Moscow on February 11 were neither a success nor failure. Uniting Palestinian factions was not the main objective of the Moscow conference in the first place.
Instead, the nature of the event, the host country and the clear messages sent to Washington and Tel Aviv were all meant to communicate something else entirely. And they did.
The head of the Fatah delegation to the conference, Azzam al-Ahmed, apologized to his hosts on behalf of Palestinians for failing to achieve political reconciliation.
But that apology could have been prepared in advance. It would not have been rational …
by Eric Walberg / February 18th, 2019
Where’s the voting booth?
It’s time to think about the likely future of poor Afghanistan. It isn’t terribly bright, but we have to, so the sooner, the better.
There are probably still a few neocons dreaming of a happy puppet state emerging from the shambles. The “grand strategy” was laid out by PNAC (Project for a New American Century) in 2000, calling for the US to maintain its unrivaled superpower status. This required a “new Pearl Harbor” to justify launching preemptive wars against suspect nations (after Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, …
by Roger Stoll / February 18th, 2019
Forty years ago this March, the Caribbean island nation of Grenada, population 110,000, made a revolution.
Prime Minister Eric Gairy had for years headed a neocolonial dictatorship on behalf of Grenada’s minute capitalist class and British and US interests. A private and brutal militia known as the Mongoose Gang was tasked to silence Gairy’s political opponents. Though the island was rich in agricultural resources, like nutmeg, mace, cacao and bananas, too much of its population lived in poverty.
On March 13, 1979, after years of unarmed struggle, the New Jewel Movement, …
by Binoy Kampmark / February 18th, 2019
The aircraft business has always been a dear affair. More than other forms of transport, it remains susceptible to oscillating costs (materials, fuel), ever at the mercy of the uncontrollable. The Airbus A380 was meant to be a giant’s contribution to aviation. In time, its makers came to the conclusion that the bird had already flown.
In the solemn words of outgoing Airbus chief executive Tom Enders, “We have no sustainable A380 backlog and hence no basis to sustain production, despite all our sales efforts with other airlines in recent years.”
As much as it was a “technical wonder” (an …
by Julian Vigo / February 18th, 2019
Last week, Canadian feminist and journalist, Meghan Murphy, announced that she is suing Twitter. Having been permanently suspended from Twitter last Fall, Murphy’s lawsuit challenges Jack Dorsey’s contention made last September to the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Twitter Transparency and Accountability wherein he stated, “We don’t consider political viewpoints, perspectives, or party affiliation in any of our policies or enforcement decisions, period.” Taking aim at Twitter’s contradictory and unevenly-applied policy, Murphy’s lawsuit is legally challenging Twitter by accusing this big tech company of censoring content made by users based on conflicting political perspectives (eg. conflicting …
by Graham Peebles / February 18th, 2019
We are living amongst the largest generation of young people in history; young people who are better educated, better informed and more widely connected than ever before. Around 42% of the world’s population is under 25 years of age, 25% are under 15 – that’s 1.8 billion. The largest group is in South-East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, where the median age is only 19, compared to 38 in America, and an ageing 45 in Germany, Italy and other parts of Europe.
This huge army of young people is cause for great optimism; they are more politically and socially engaged and certainly …
by Shawgi Tell / February 18th, 2019
For most individuals, life without competition is inconceivable. Competition seems to be part of everything we know and do. It saturates everything. Nothing seems to escape its grip. It directs and conditions people at the conscious and subconscious levels. Competition appears natural, inevitable, and normal, as if it has always existed and can never go away.
Generations of conditioning tells us that competition is what motivates us, drives us, and makes us want to improve, excel, and achieve. Competition is supposedly intrinsic to us and makes us break through barriers and reach new heights every day.
Nothing would ever supposedly get done …
by Andre Vltchek / February 18th, 2019
It may sound incredible, but it is true: in countries that have been damaged, even totally robbed and destroyed by the West, many people are still enamored with Europe and North America.
For years, I have been observing this ‘phenomena’, even in the most plundered, devastated war zones and slums. Often I was shocked, other times thoroughly desperate. I did not know how to respond, how to react, how to describe what I have been observing.
Then, a few days ago, in Syria, right next to the Idlib battlefield, close to the deadly positions of Al-Nusra Front, in a country where the …
by Jonathan Cook / February 18th, 2019
You might imagine that a report by a multinational observer force documenting a 20-year reign of terror by Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers against Palestinians, in a city under occupation, would provoke condemnation from European and US politicians.
But you would be wrong. The leaking in December of the report on conditions in the city of Hebron, home to 200,000 Palestinians, barely caused a ripple.
About 40,000 separate cases of abuse had been quietly recorded since 1997 by dozens of monitors from Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Italy and Turkey. Some incidents constituted war crimes.
Exposure of the confidential report has now provided the pretext …
by Ron Forthofer / February 18th, 2019
The focus is now on Venezuela, but the US is really the key actor in this long-running drama. In reality, Venezuela is simply another repeat victim in the US centuries-long imperial campaign that began with the genocide of America’s Original People. Ever since then, and particularly since WWII, the US has pursued an expansive and aggressive foreign policy.
William Blum, a former State Department official, addressed US foreign policy in his series of books and articles. His 2004 book, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, documented US interference in political affairs in over 50 nations between …
by James Petras / February 17th, 2019
In these times, when the United States pursues an unprecedented military build-up, promotes coups and trade wars, breaks weapons agreements, organizes the illegal seizure of overseas financial accounts, building barriers and walls along the southern border, Washington can count on the mass media to provide a variety of propaganda messages, ranging from the predictable ‘yellow ’ to the sophisticated ‘serious press’ .
While the political class dismisses the sensational press, they are avid readers of the ‘prize winning’ propaganda newspapers and their columnists
Among the perceptive readers who follow the serious press …
by Ramzy Baroud / February 16th, 2019
American politicians from the two main parties have finally found something to agree upon: more intervention in Venezuela.
“Now, despite (President Nicolas) Maduro, there is hope (in Venezuela)”, wrote Democratic Senator, Dick Durbin, in USA Today. “These events (meaning the current political instability in the country) are a welcome development of Latin American nations defending democracy.”
“He’s picked a battle he can’t win,” Republican Senator, Marco Rubio, said, referring to Maduro in an interview, quoted in the New York Times. “It’s just a matter of time. The only thing we don’t know is how long it will take – and whether …
by Binoy Kampmark / February 16th, 2019
The passage of amendments to the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) by the Australian House of Representatives and the Senate this week was less a case of celebration than necessitous deliverance. The mental wellbeing of asylum-seekers on Manus Island and Nauru, or lack thereof, has been documented extensively from Australian legal representatives to members of Médecins Sans Frontières.
The Medevac Bill is scripted in clunky fashion typical of Australian drafting, but it does what other items of legislation have not: privilege, to some extent at least, medical opinion on the desperate situation of those kept in indefinite detention. Australia’s own crude …
by Shawgi Tell / February 15th, 2019
One of the many tired claims of “free-market” loving, pro-consumerist millionaires and billionaires behind nonprofit and for-profit charter schools is that charter schools “empower parents” to “choose” which school to send their child to. Charter schools, according to the top one percent, should be one of many options available to families. Taking social responsibility to invest in, defend, and strengthen real public schools that have been around for more than a century and a half is not part of the agenda of major owners of capital. Instead, the rich and their representatives routinely valorize “choice” and treat it as the …
by Ajamu Baraka / February 15th, 2019
The hypocrisy and confusion on the issue of race and white supremacy revealed itself once again in the United States with a governor dressed in blackface and a decision by the Trump administration and supported by the European Union to execute a coup against the democratically elected government of Venezuela.
And while Virginia Governor Ralph Northam was outed as a racist when photos surfaced from his yearbook as a medical student in the 1980s that depicted him in either blackface or in a KKK outfit, the assumption that the U.S. and European Union had the right to determine the leadership of …
by Yves Engler / February 15th, 2019
US presidents have bombed or invaded places like Grenada, Panama, Iraq and Sudan to distract from domestic scandals or to gain a quick boost in popularity. But, do Canadian politicians also pursue regime change abroad to be cheered on by the dominant media as decisive leaders?
In a discussion on regime change in Venezuela after last Monday’s “Lima Group” meeting in Ottawa, Conservative foreign affairs critic Erin O’Toole praised Canadian policy but added that the Liberals used the meeting of countries opposed to Nicolas Maduro’s government to drown out criticism of their foreign policy. O’Toole claimed the “Lima Group” meeting …
by Peter Koenig / February 15th, 2019
The Forth International Conference for “The Equilibrium of the World” took place in Havana., Cuba from 28 to 31 January 2019. The Conference, organized by the José Marti Project of International Solidarity, was sponsored by UNESCO and a number of local and international organisms and NGOs. It coincided with the 60th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution and as such was also a celebration of that successful demonstration to the world that socialism, solidarity and love for life can actually survive against all odds and, yes, Cuba, has faced more …
by Robert Hunziker / February 15th, 2019
Capitalism not only owns global warming, there’s a big red mitigation arrow pointed at the heart of today’s rampant capitalism, which is eerily similar to the loosie goosie version of the Roaring Twenties, but with a high tech twist.
After all, somebody’s got to pony-up for climate change/global warming mitigation. Who better than deep pocket capitalists?
For historical perspective: Today’s brand of capitalism runs circles around the Eisenhower 1950s with its 90% top marginal tax rate amidst harmony and good feelings all across the land, an age of innocence aka Leave It To Beaver.
In sharp contrast to the fifties era of good …
by William Boardman / February 14th, 2019
In 1985, an activist for the relatives of the disappeared [persons in Guatemala], named Rosario Godoy, was abducted by the army. She was raped. Her mutilated body was found alongside that of her baby. The baby’s fingernails had been torn out. The Guatemalan army, when asked about this atrocity, said, “Oh, they died in a traffic accident.”
When [US human rights official] Elliott Abrams was asked about this accident, he affirmed also that they died in a traffic accident. This activist raped and mutilated, the baby with his fingernails pulled out, Abrams says it’s a traffic accident.
— Allan Nairn, on Democracy
…
by Media Lens / February 14th, 2019
We were sad to hear that the comedian Jeremy Hardy had died on 1 February. Typically, media reports and obituaries prefixed the label ‘left-wing’ before the word ‘comedian’ as a kind of government health warning. What they really meant was that he was ‘too far left’. Normally, the media don’t label entertainers as ‘extreme centrists’, ‘neocon sympathisers’ or ‘Israel supporters’, when perhaps they should.
Hardy was a regular panellist on BBC shows, the News Quiz and I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. His ability to be extremely funny and sharp-witted, as well as being popular with other panellists and the public, …
