Smarty-Pants
What does it indicate when people swallow assertions without demanding evidence?
Latest articles
Scrooged 2025
In Charles Dicken’s classic novel Scrooge, later made into the great film A Christmas Carol, we see Ebenezer Scrooge being paid a visit at his office on Christmas Eve. The men visiting him are looking for donations to help the poor and destitute:
“At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,” said the [one of the gentlemen], taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want …
Sporting Contradictions: Athletes, the Olympics, and Climate Change
The time has come for arguably the sporting world’s most famous mafia organisation to select its new chief. The various turf-conscious representatives of the International Olympic Committee will be busy with the task of finding a replacement for Thomas Bach when ballots are cast at Costa Navarino, Greece on March 20.
Seven candidates have made the list. They show little risk of cleaning the body’s spotty image. Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr.’s candidacy is a lovely reminder of his father, who was himself made IOC president in 1980. That Samaranch was not shy about his fascist sympathies, defending, not infrequently, the …
Neoliberal Micro-Psychology vs Communist Macro-Psychology
From Flatland to Spaceland Part II
Author Bruce Lerro, Co-Founder and Co-Organizer for Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism
Summary of Part I
In Part I of this article I contrasted sixteen ways in which communist macro-psychology differs from liberal micro-psychology as it is practiced in the United States. I described communist psychology in action in the field of eating habits and the impact of advertising on the public’s emotional life. I discussed the reasons why my readers might have a difficult time appreciating what communist psychology has to offer and I used the science fiction book Flatland …
What are Humans Railing Against?
And are humans railing against anything new?
Amazon Rainforest Cleared for Climate Conference
This year’s annual UN climate conference COP30 with 50,000 expected attendees held in Belém, Brazil is one-upping the past two COPs (UN Conference of the Parties) that were held by, and dictated by, Middle Eastern fossil fuel countries, eye-openers that many eco-minded people, still to this day, cannot stomach. Now, Brazil is set to upstage the oil sheiks by bulldozing tens of thousands of acres of “protected rainforest” to build a 4-lane highway to “help reduce traffic” during the two-week conference. This is not made-up. It is true.
The new highway smack-dab down the middle of thick rainforest is known as …
Seize the Moment: End the War in Ukraine!
The Peace In Ukraine Coalition is cautiously optimistic about emerging possibilities for ending the war in Ukraine. It is a good thing that the U.S. and Russia are talking. An end to the hostility between the two nuclear superpowers would bring a sigh of relief to people all over the world.
We do not know if the Trump administration, Russia and Ukraine will be able to achieve a lasting peace in Ukraine. We encourage diplomacy, however, rather than fear it. We want the killing to stop as soon as possible. For three years we have been calling for a ceasefire, negotiations and …
Militarising Europe: The EU Defence Spending Bug
We live in dangerous times, and politicians are happy to be cheerleaders of that supposed fact. They do not care to reassure; they merely care to strike fear into hearts and feed the sort of pernicious despondency that encourages conflict. Hope is not a political currency worth trading. These days, fear is the bankable asset, easily cashed at a moment’s notice.
The March 6 meeting of the Special European Council was a chance for 27 leaders of the European Union to make that point. …
What to Do When Faced with Tariffs? Diversify
The New York Times yesterday (11 March 2025) headlined: “Trump Intensifies Statehood Threats in Attack on Canada.” What particularly stood out was the sub headline: “The U.S. president on Tuesday reiterated his claims on Canada’s territory as he increased tariffs, threatening to bring the country’s economy to its knees.”
How are Canadians supposed to feel about being threatened? How are Canadians to feel about the indignity of being brought economically to their knees? It calls to mind the invocation of Mexican revolutionary Emilio Zapatista who stated: “It is better to …
The Healthcare System in Cuba
How a Tiny Island Defies U.S. Sanctions to Lead in Healthcare
In the heart of the Cuban capital, the Dr. Cosme Ordoñez Carceller Teaching Polyclinic stands as a testament to the nation’s unique approach to healthcare: universal, free of charge, accessible, regionalized, community-centered, and deeply rooted in preventive medicine. Unlike the profit-driven models that dominate much of the world, Cuba’s system prioritizes equitable access, public health education, and early intervention.
At the core of this approach is a commitment to health promotion through education, disease prevention through habit management, and the integration of medical care and rehabilitation. By emphasizing proactive healthcare rather than …
Empathy in Authoritarianism’s Valley of Dry Bones
“I can't go on. I'll go on.”
The Good Samaritan, 1890 by Vincent van Gogh
Empathy is weakness, asserts a man, who views the world through ego-inflated grandiosity not the grandeur that is spread before him in the form of the living earth.
“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” — Elon Musk
When the dismal, life-defying ways of humankind (embodied by the aforementioned tech billionaire grifter) cause life to seem unbearable to my sight, I’m compelled to turn my grief-darkened vision …
Blackholes
In outer space and on Earth.
Reflections on My Arrest and Lessons Learned
An extreme Jewish supremacist activist convinced the police to arrest me for criticizing her racist posts. She’s likely acting as a front for a vast Zionist ‘lawfare’ initiative hostile to embarrassing Canadian leaders.
Over the past 16 months I’ve annoyed many among the Jewish Zionist establishment. My writing, social media commentary and reporting on protests have circulated widely. But it’s a particular type of social media journalism/activism that’s had the widest impact.
Around two million watched an interview I did with the mayor of the Montreal suburb Hampstead, Jeremy …
When Dissent Becomes a Crime: The War on Political Speech Begins
Once the principle is established that the government can arrest and jail protesters… officials will use it to silence opposition broadly.
— Heather Cox Richardson, historian
You can’t have it both ways.
You can’t live in a constitutional republic if you allow the government to act like a police state.
You can’t claim to value freedom if you allow the government to operate like a dictatorship.
You can’t expect to have your rights respected if you allow the government to treat whomever it pleases with disrespect and an utter disregard for the rule of law.
There’s always a boomerang effect.
Whatever dangerous practices you allow the …
On Stupidity
Stupidity, stupidity everywhere – and not a word to witness.
“Stupid” is a commonplace term casually used in everyday conversation. Much less so in writing – especially when the subject is political personalities. It is heavily weighted with inhibition. Why this hesitation? Why at a time when manifest stupidity in speech and action is rampant?
“Stupid” is both blunt and conclusive. Straight-forward. It does not welcome qualification or discussion. It implies: matter settled, closed. Moreover, it suggests a character flaw as well as low intelligence. That somehow makes us uncomfortable. So we prefer: dense, slow, thick, dim or dim-witted; or pithy euphemisms, …
Taking Stock of the World
Donald Trump’s distasteful State of the Disunion address urged salvation, anything to give relief from the madness. A lack of empathy and gruff manner displayed a chilling use of the anguish of parents of ravished children to promote the war on immigrants. Did the parents want to be there? Did they want their deceased children used for political opportunity? Naming public places after the children, as if the parents had won a prize, is unconscionable. If a close relative had a major accomplishment and died peacefully and graciously, relatives would welcome having his/her name forged in the consciousness of the …
Worthy and Unworthy: How the Media Reports on Friends and Foes
The following is an extract from the introduction to the book Worthy and Unworthy: How the Media Reports on Friends and Foes (2024) by Devan Hawkins.
In the predawn hours of April 3, 1948, rebels assembled on the slopes of Mount Hallasan, a volcano that is located at the center of Jeju Island. On that highest peak in South Korea, the rebels lit fires that were meant to signal the start of armed resistance against both the occupation of South Korea by the United States and in support of the reunification …
The Script
How to direct our focus or how our focus is distracted?
The Trump Illness Hypothesis
Aggrieved Speculation
The critics are utterly beside themselves in trying to understand the bruising odds and turns of Donald J. Trump, the reality showman and business tycoon who became US president twice. One particular group that have become prominent are the aggrieved and estranged. Former employees who were given their marching orders after brief spells in Trump’s administration have made a career in podcasting and punditry on the man whose bilious orbit they seemingly cannot escape. A common theme to their recent criticism is that of mental health. Trump, we are told, is unhinged, …
The Return of Stagflation
When investing, as in horror films, the most terrifying villains are the ones we thought were dead. Stagflation that economic nightmare of the 1970s characterized by stagnant growth paired with persistent inflation was supposedly dead and buried decades ago. But like any good movie monster, it’s clawing its way back to the surface, and Americans need to prepare for its return.
The warning signs are unmistakable. Despite the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate-hiking campaign over the past two years, inflation remains stubbornly above target. February’s Consumer Price Index showed prices still rising at 3.2%, while previous months have delivered unwelcome upside surprises. …
European Leaders Plan Massive Increase in Defense Spending
European leaders meeting in an “Emergency War Summit” in Brussels have agreed on huge increases in arms spending. On entering the meeting, Denmark’s Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, declared “Spend, spend, spend on defense and deterrence.” And in response to an interviewer’s question, French Prime Minster Francois Bayrou dismissed the idea that the French public should have any say in this decision, adding “We can’t let the country be disarmed.” (CNews and Europe 1). …
Meta Shifts Right: Big Tech, Project 2025, and the Assault on DEI
When Mark Zuckerberg terminated Meta’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs for hiring and training employees and procuring suppliers in January 2025, he forged “inroads with the incoming Trump administration,” abandoned Meta’s founding ethos of open innovation, and dramatically realigned how the tech giant will now do business, as critics like Bärí A. Williams, former lead counsel for Meta (then Facebook) and creator of its now-dissolved Supplier Diversity program, noted. Zuckerberg’s changes play right into the ultra-conservative presidential handbook, Project 2025, with potentially devastating consequences for the safety of …
Won’t Get Fooled Again?
Of course I want peace. Probably as much as anyone reading this.
Naturally, I get excited and hopeful, whenever there are any signs that we are moving in the direction of a more peaceful world.
At the same time, I’m fed up with being led down a primrose path only to find an Abrams tank waiting at the end.
Trump has made enormous strides, or the appearance of enormous strides, toward rapprochement with Russia and ending the Ukraine war. He rightfully points out that this was a needless conflict. Whether he could and would …
BBC Credibility Nosedives Even Further
"A Dagger to the Heart"
The BBC’s withdrawal of the powerful documentary, ‘Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone’, epitomises how much the UK’s national broadcaster is beholden to the Israel lobby.
The corporation’s longstanding systematic protection of Israel, considered an ‘apartheid regime’ by major human rights organisations, has been particularly glaring since the country launched its genocidal attacks on Gaza in October 2023. We have all seen the repetition and amplification of the Israeli …
Trump’s Main Targets to be Cut
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Assistance to the Poor
Trump’s Presidency thus far exhibits the most extreme example that I have ever found of a national leader who not only represents ONLY the extremely rich but who especially despises the poor — it’s a value-system that a person’s moral value is his/her net worth: a person’s value is his/her wealth, neither more nor less than that. The four main federal expenditures that Trump and Musk are investigating for “waste, fraud, and abuse” are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Assistance to the poor. Whereas Social Security and Medicare are relatively safe …
Is This the Beginning or the End of a New Cold War?
Woman at rally supporting peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Berlin, Germany. (Photo: Reuters)
When European Union leaders met in Brussels on February 6 to discuss the war in Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron called this time “a turning point in history.” Western leaders agree that this is an historic moment when decisive action is needed, but what kind of action depends on their interpretation of the nature of this moment.
Is this the beginning of a new Cold War between the U.S., NATO and Russia or the end of one? Will Russia …
New BBC Documentary “The Road to 7th October” is an Utter Travesty
Pressured into removing a humanising portrait of Gaza’s children, the BBC offers instead a series on Israel-Palestine that frantically revives the very narrative that made the genocide possible
There has been a prolonged furore over the BBC’s craven decision to ban a documentary on life in Gaza under Israel’s bombs after it incensed Israel and its lobbyists by, uniquely, humanising the enclave’s children.
The English-speaking child narrator, 13-year-old Abdullah, who became the all-too-visible pretext for pulling the film Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone because his father is a technocrat in the enclave’s Hamas government, hit back last week.
He warned that the BBC had betrayed him and Gaza’s …
Aristotle
Slave owner and supporter of slavery
Nowhere to Belong: The Refugee’s Dilemma
Political gains and dominance are some of the most notable captivating culpable twin objectives cum baits behind waging war. But on the other hand, the hardships and struggle of being a refugee is one of the most dreadful tumultuous aftermaths a war can shave out in the hands of an ordinary man. Fear, uncertainty, and arguably the most dominant element, finding oneself amongst many more displaced lost like a grain of sand, are excruciating and provocative to one’s stimuli.
For refugees, life straddles between a lovely lost homeland and an unwelcoming new land, leaving them suspended in a fragile existence. This …