Latest articles
And Wish I Had More Resignations to Give!
by Ann Wright / March 18th, 2025
Two years ago, on March 19, 2003, I resigned from the US Department of State. I was the Deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in UlaanBaatar, Mongolia and the third U.S. government employee to resign in opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq. I resigned on the day the Bush administration began the 10-year U.S. war on Iraq, March 19, 2003.
Twenty-two years later, I don’t regret my decision one bit.
President Bush, like the presidents before and after him, lied. His specific lie was about the reason for the U.S. to attack and kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
In …
by David Penner / March 18th, 2025
As transpired in Weimar Germany, cataclysmic times invariably induce great suffering, yet they can also serve as inspiration for poignant and moving works of art. What follows is a discussion of six works of insightful and intellectually nuanced contemporary American cinema which explore this distressing age in all its viciousness and depravity, while engaging the anguish of the individual struggling to survive amidst a maelstrom of unprecedented corporate pillage and political and socio-economic chaos.
While I have tried to limit them as much as possible, these reviews may contain spoilers.
The East, directed by Zal Batmanglij; starring Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgård, …
by Paul Haeder / March 18th, 2025
[photo: The billionaire and now Trump adviser grew up amid the collapse of white rule, attending an all-white school and then a more liberal one]
The good news is that young people are resisting the giant knives of 10 million cuts deployed by a South African seemingly pro-apartheid fellow with his dodgy DOGE.
We have multiple prong crises in the United States, and that unelected “death by 10 million cuts” Musk is just the tip of the spear in this next iteration of a dying Empire.
Yes, think …
by Helen Yaffe / March 18th, 2025
On February 25, US secretary of state Marco Rubio announced restrictions on visas for both government officials in Cuba and any others worldwide who are “complicit” with the island nation’s overseas medical-assistance programs. A US State Department statement clarified that the sanction extends to “current and former” officials and the “immediate family of such persons.” This action, the seventh measure targeting Cuba in one month, has international consequences; for decades tens of thousands of Cuban medical professionals have been posted in around sixty countries, far more than the World …
by Allen Forrest / March 18th, 2025
Denis G. Rancourt, PhD, and Joseph Hickey, PhD, “Quantitative evaluation of whether the Nobel-Prize-winning COVID-19 vaccine actually saved millions of lives,” 08 October 2023.
Fantastic statements that the Nobel-Prize-winning COVID-19 vaccines saved millions (and tens of millions) of lives are based on the theoretical scenarios of Watson et al. (2022), published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. Watson et al. (2022) theoretically inferred massive mortality reductions distributed globally, occurring solely during vaccine rollouts. We calculated the quantitative consequences of Watson et al. (2022)’s low-value (14.4 million lives saved) theoretical scenario on all-cause …
by Ted Glick / March 17th, 2025
The attempted deportation of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, met with dramatic and widespread resistance, is one of the first, high profile, specifically targeted repressive acts by the Trump regime, but it won’t be the last. There is no question about their intention to create a permanently repressive and dictatorial government, a government of, by and for the overwhelmingly white and male billionaire elite and those sucking up to them for their own personal gain.
Fortunately, this is not a popular government. Polls taken a few days ago by CNN, Reuters and Quinnipiac put Trump’s favorable ratings at an average of 44% …
by Dissident Voice Communications / March 17th, 2025
Managua, Nicaragua — If you asked 100 people in the U.S. or the U.K. to name the country leading gender equity in the Americas, it’s unlikely anyone would correctly answer Nicaragua. This lack of awareness reflects the success of a decades-long imperialist campaign to discredit and undermine Nicaragua’s remarkable achievements since the 1979 revolution.
The U.S has continuously attempted to destroy the Sandinista revolution, from the contra wars, through active support for the 16 years of neo-liberal government, to the 2018 attempted coup, and the current punitive economic sanctions.
In March 2025, during International Women’s Day, a delegation of solidarity …
by Edward Curtin / March 17th, 2025
Accomplished fingers begin to play./Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,/Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.
– W. B. Yeats, Lapus Lazuli
The old man in the Irish cap sat on a chair on the sidewalk outside his house across from ours. I would usually see him on my way home from school. He would raise his shillelagh to greet me and sometimes played a tune on the penny whistle he kept on his lap. Often he was puffing on a pipe which I could smell even as I kept to my side of the street because he frightened me a bit, …
by Allen Forrest / March 17th, 2025
by Zeeshan Nasir / March 17th, 2025
They say only bad news from Balochistan makes the headlines–Pakistan’s largest and most impoverished province marred in a decades long insurgency. The local newspapers are flooded with the news of people being killed in bomb blasts, target killings and the loss of lives in incidents of terrorism. However, amid this backdrop of turmoil, a problem that is just as terrible is subtly developing: climate change. Its perennial consequences are changing the lives of women and children, particularly in the remote and underprivileged parts of Balochistan.
Noora Ali, 14, was oblivious to the …
The Script of Anxiety
by Binoy Kampmark / March 17th, 2025
With the Ukraine War and the retreat of the United States from what has routinely been called Europe’s security architecture, states are galloping to whatever point of presumed sanctuary is on offer. The general presumption is that the galloping is done in the same step and rhythm. But Europe, for all the heavy layers of union driven diplomacy, retains its salty differences.
Poland is particularly striking in this regard, having always positioned itself as a defender against the continent’s enemies, perceived or otherwise. This messianic …
But no longer do
by Eric Zuesse / March 15th, 2025
The key decision was when Barack Obama finally decided in December 2012 to arm al-Qaeda in Syria so as to bring down Syria’s Government. That culminated a U.S. policy since 1949, which was aimed against Russia and against Palestinians.
It is an established fact that U.S. President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Hagel, and the rest of Obama’s Administration, were seeking to replace the non-sectarian Assad Government in Syria, by a government that would please the fundamentalist-Sunni, or “Salafist,” Saud family, who own Saudi Arabia. Throughout the U.S.-and-allied media, …
by Joe Lauria / March 15th, 2025
May 18, 2015: Remains of an Eastern Orthodox church after shelling by the Ukrainian Army near Donetsk International Airport. Eastern Ukraine. (Mstyslav Chernov. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)
Special to Consortium News and published there on February 25, 2025
The way to prevent the Ukraine war from being understood is to suppress its history.
A cartoon version has the conflict beginning on Feb. 24, 2022 when Vladimir Putin woke up that morning and decided to invade Ukraine.
There was no other cause, according to this version, other than …
by Philip A. Faruggio / March 15th, 2025
In the film Scrooge, based on Charles Dicken’s classic novel 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 of common …
by Allen Forrest / March 15th, 2025
What does it indicate when people swallow assertions without demanding evidence?
by Binoy Kampmark / March 15th, 2025
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 …
From Flatland to Spaceland Part II
by Bruce Lerro / March 14th, 2025
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 …
by Allen Forrest / March 14th, 2025
And are humans railing against anything new?
by Robert Hunziker / March 14th, 2025
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 …
by Peace in Ukraine Coalition / March 14th, 2025
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 …
by Binoy Kampmark / March 14th, 2025
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. …
by Kim Petersen / March 13th, 2025
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 …
How a Tiny Island Defies U.S. Sanctions to Lead in Healthcare
by Renée L. Quarterman / March 13th, 2025
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 …
“I can't go on. I'll go on.”
by Phil Rockstroh / March 13th, 2025
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 …
by Allen Forrest / March 13th, 2025
In outer space and on Earth.
by Yves Engler / March 13th, 2025
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 …
by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / March 13th, 2025
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 …
by Michael Brenner / March 12th, 2025
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, …
by Dan Lieberman / March 12th, 2025
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 …
by Devan Hawkins / March 12th, 2025
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 …
