Politics is not merely the art of the possible but the pursuit of concerted hypocrisy. When it comes to that matter of funding good causes – foreign aid, for instance – wealthy states are often happy to claim they open their wallets willingly. As good international citizens, they fork out money for such causes as education, healthcare, sanitation. The goals are always seen as bigger than the cash, a measure of self-enlightened interest.
Hemp fuel and other biofuels could reduce carbon emissions while saving the electric grid, but they’re often overlooked for more expensive, high-tech climate solutions.
On July 14, the European Union unveiled sweeping climate change and emissions targets that would, according to Gulf News, mean “the end of the internal combustion engine”:
The commission’s draft would reduce permitted emissions from new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles to zero from 2035 – effectively obliging the industry to move on to battery-electric models.
While biofuels are a less high-tech, cheaper and in many ways more effective solution to our dependence on petroleum, the …
Daniel Hale, a former US air force intelligence analyst, leaked information about how trigger happy the US military was when it came to drones and innocent civilians in Afghanistan. Aaaaaand for having a conscience, he’s been slapped with a 4 year prison sentence! As RT’s Polly Boiko explains.
Craig Murray, a former ambassador to Uzbekistan, the father of a newborn child, a man in very poor health and one who has no prior convictions, will have to hand himself over to the Scottish police on Sunday morning. He becomes the first person ever to be imprisoned on the obscure and vaguely defined charge of “jigsaw identification”.
Murray is also the first person to be jailed in Britain for contempt of court in half a century – a period when such different legal and moral values prevailed that the …
A historical analysis of how moral gatekeepers determine freedom of expression
by Sheri Heller / July 30th, 2021
Once upon a time a new class of people emerged. They were scholars and elitists, ‘special people,’ well ensconced in academia, politics, economics and military intelligence. They righteously demanded eradication of current norms and established ways of being. They insisted that prevailing antiquated inferior practices be replaced with new better ways of living. This required a purging of the old system by any means necessary. Accordingly, those who dissented were either re-indoctrinated, thrown in jail, exiled to other lands or done away with.
These notable visionaries pontificated a whole new outlook on life. Society will prosper! The masses will flourish! There …
On July 25, 2021, Tunisian President Kais Saied dismissed Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, froze the parliament, suspended the legal immunity of parliament members and took control of the general prosecutor’s office. He warned against any armed response to his actions: “Whoever shoots a bullet, the armed forces will respond with bullets.” In the hours after Saied’s announcement, huge crowds gathered in his support in Tunis and other cities, while the military blocked off the parliament and state television station.
The popularity of Saied’s decisions stems from the legitimate …
Please allow me to introduce a brief recap before I get to the latest news. I’ve already told you how and why the Covid rules make no sense and should not be trusted. Click here to read more. I also explained how Covid deaths are counted using vague criteria like “may have been caused by” or “was likely a result of COVID-19 or COVID-19-like symptoms.” Click here to read more.
More recently, I highlighted a study (pre-published in …
Ben & Jerry’s decision to suspend its operations in the occupied Palestinian West Bank is an event that is proving critical to Palestinian efforts, which ultimately aim at holding Israel accountable for its military occupation, apartheid and war crimes.
By responding to the Palestinian call for boycotting apartheid Israel, the ice cream giant has delivered a blow to Israel’s attempts at criminalizing and, ultimately, ending the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
What differentiates Ben & Jerry’s decision to abandon the ever-growing market of illegal Jewish settlements in the …
An international online petition calling for an investigation into a US military laboratory and the possible origin of Covid-19 was hacked at the weekend. The hackers were reportedly based in the US.
Fort Detrick in Maryland is the center of American biowarfare research. It is just one of the hundreds of such infectious disease laboratories located across the United States. During the Cold War, Fort Detrick was the main site for experimenting with lethal pathogens, including viruses causing deadly influenza.
In 2001, when a disgruntled researcher is believed to have killed five people by mailing …
The Montreal Canadiens hockey team drafted a player fined for a sex-related offence. The 17-year-old player, Logan Mailloux, surreptitiously took photos of a consensual sex act and showed them to his teammates — this without the consent of the other person.
The draft selection was a major PR gaffe on the part of the team, especially since the player, now 18-years old, asked not to be drafted so that he could work on bettering himself as a person. The opprobrium became so heated that, finally, the owner of the team, Geoff Molson, felt compelled to write a …
Interrogate the devil; he will tell you that beauty is a pair of horns, four claws and a tail.
— Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary
This is what real education looks like — Evo Organizes Anti-Imperialist Day School For Youth
Iris Varela spoke about the history of the Bolivarian Revolution and explained in detail how the economic blockade in her country works. The PSUV lawmaker concluded with an invitation for participants to visit Venezuela for the inauguration of a similar project in Caracas; “we’re opening a university to
n the fall of 2006, Glen Ford, Bruce Dixon, Margaret Kimberley and Leutisha Stills of CBC Monitor left Black Commentator, which Ford had co-founded and edited since 2002, and launched Black Agenda Report.
Historic “firsts,” “mosts,” and “onlys” are the hallmarks of Glen Ford’s long career.
The son of famed disc jockey Rudy “The Deuce” Rutherford, the first Black man to host a non-gospel television show in the Deep South – Columbus, Georgia, 1958 – Glen was reading newswire copy on-the-air at age eleven. Glen’s first full-time broadcast …
Why should you care about a bunch of dead white guys?
To pull some lyrics from Sam Cooke’s Wonderful World, the Yankee working class “don’t know much about history, don’t know much about geography”. So why would they care at all about an intellectual movement that began 300 years ago in a country notorious for not liking Americans? This article attempts to answer this question.
I have a Facebook friend who is a mutualist, Will Schnack, who was posting about this topic recently, so I asked him to write an article …
On 23 July 2021, a full-page appeal appeared in the New York Times calling on United States President Joe Biden to withdraw the vindictive US blockade against Cuba. As that appeal went to press, I spoke to Chinese journalist Lu Yuanzhi of Global Times (GT). The remainder of this newsletter carries the contents of that interview, which ranges from the US policy against Cuba to the New Cold …
Apocalypse is complete destruction of the world as described in some detail in the biblical book of Revelation. Nothing worse can happen to humanity. Interestingly, it has been a recurring aspect of civilization for over two thousand years but every prediction of “End Times” has failed.
Yet, modern day society is proving that apocalypse has multiple possible outcomes. In fact, a case can be made that it’s never been closer to reality because it’s already happening here and there.
At the turn of the new century Frontline aired a two-hour PBS Special, APOCALYPSE! The program traced the evolution of apocalyptic belief from …
In May 2019, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, that famous bastion of anti-whistleblowing fervour, unsealed an indictment charging former intelligence analyst Daniel Everett Hale with five counts of providing classified information to a reporter. The first four focused on obtaining national defense information, retaining and transmitting that information, causing the communication of that same information and disclosing classified communications intelligence information. The fifth alleged the theft of government property.
Yet again, the US government was making use of the beastly Espionage Act of 1917. Between 2009 and 2013, Hale worked with the US Air Force …
These ambitious goals, which included the eradication of “extreme poverty and hunger”, to “combating lethal diseases” and “reducing child mortality worldwide”, proved to be yet another empty gesture which, unsurprisingly, amounted to little.
Even if the architects of the project were well-intentioned as they labored to meet the 2015 deadline, the lack of true international solidarity made their commendable program simply impossible.
Sadly, whatever positive difference that these objectives registered is now quickly vanishing, not …
by Bill Hackwell and Alicia Jrapko / July 27th, 2021
Today with the height of imperial arrogance and hubris, the US State Department issued a joint statement to further its plans to destroy Cuba and all the gains it has made in health, education and welfare. Lining up 20 spineless, neo liberal countries beholden to them and led by right wing governments including; Austria, Brazil, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Guatemala, Greece, Honduras, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Republic of Korea, and Ukraine to sign on to the statement that read in part, “we condemn the mass arrests and detentions of protestors in Cuba and …
Cartier Erecting a Cross at Gaspé Charles W. Jefferys Canada’s Past in Pictures, 1934, p.12On 24 July 1534, French navigator Jacques Cartier voyaged to the Gulf of Kaniatarowanenneh (River of the Mohawks, St Lawrence) and planted a cross on the shore of Gaspé. It signified claiming possession of the territory on behalf of the king of France, Francis I. Donnacona, chief of Stadacona (Québec city), was unhappy at this effrontery. Surmising this, Cartier lied and downplayed the significance of the 9-meter (30-ft) cross.
With the recent passing of your close associate Donald Rumsfield, we felt compelled to share with you our many thoughtful remembrances. Many of us are also approaching our final years, and have already suffered the first indications of failing memory. (In public figures of Rumsfeld’s and your high stature, the condition is termed “I do not recall syndrome.”) Despite your outstanding impact on the state of the world as of 2021, you too, like any other 75-year-old, may already be experiencing the tragic signs of failing memory. It is in this spirit of helpful remembrance that we write to you, …
On July 20, 2021, the Milwaukee Bucks won the National Basketball Association (NBA) championship. Their MVP was Giannis Antetokounmpo, a.k.a. “The Greek Freak.” His performance in the deciding game was stellar and this sent the sports media world in a predictable series of paroxysms. Antetokounmpo was virtually inducted into the Hall of Fame overnight by traffic-hungry sports reporters who succumbed to recency bias. There are far too many examples to list but here’s the title of one such article: “Giannis …
Citoyen Chouette Archive Liberte-Egalite-Fraternite: under Macron’s pass sanitaire guillotine?
For the few of us who are students of history, and its aficionado travelers, meaning those who muse and wonder at times about how significant figures of the past would view our often dire predicament, it is rather obvious that, for example, the founding fathers of the French Revolution such as Danton, Mirabeau, St Just, and Robespierre would be shocked and angry by what has recently happened to their Republic. Even France’s last great statesman …
So, maybe it didn’t begin there, but is that where it all came together and became the lip signed treaty between President and Party? Was the infamous 2017 around-the-table butt-kissing spectacle the inflection point; the official surrender of the Republican Party to Donald Trump?
They took turns demeaning themselves and the America people, with Reince Priebus offering up the best summation: “On behalf of the entire senior staff around you, Mr. President, we thank you for the opportunity and the blessing that you’ve given us to serve your agenda … and the American people.”
It might have come as a surprise, even to him – not just the willingness, …
It is a country other powers simply cannot leave alone. Even after abandoning its Kabul post in ignominy, tail tucked between their legs, Australia is now wondering if it should return – in some form. The Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs has been sending out a few signals, none of them definitive. “We will not comment on intelligence matters,” a spokesman for foreign minister Senator Marise Payne stated tersely earlier this month.
The spokesman was, however, willing to make general remarks about a belated return. When, he could not be sure, but Canberra’s diplomatic arrangements in Afghanistan “were always …
About 3.3 million students are currently enrolled in roughly 7,400 privately-operated charter schools across 45 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Five states remain opposed to these outsourced schools that appeared in the U.S. 30 years ago.
Today, thousands of segregated charter schools run by unelected individuals are either openly operated as for-profit schools or managed, directed, or overseen by one or more for-profit entities and businesses. In Michigan and Florida, for example, charter schools openly run for profit are the majority of charter schools in the state.
Review of Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It
by Donovan Cleckley / July 26th, 2021
“Knowledge of death helps us also to find a good road,” Jack D. Forbes tells us, “because perhaps it can bring us to deep considerations of our place in nature.” I recall this reflection Forbes makes, among other revelations, in his 1978 book Columbus and Other Cannibals, now, rather queerly, in relation to the environmental movement. Written by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert, Bright Green Lies comes at a critical moment, as this machine called by the …
With a population of 118 million (expected to top 200 million by the end of 2049) Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa. 70% (c.80 million) are under thirty, the median age being just 20.
The majority of people live in rural areas where infrastructure is poor or non-existent: around 67 million are currently without electricity; for millions of others (including in the capital, Addis Ababa) the supply is inconsistent, with frequent power cuts, 62 million, according to the WHO Joint Monitoring Programme, do not have access to safe drinking water (7.5% of the global water crisis is …
Yet another topic I’ve been asked to write about is why I quit activism all those years ago. To be radically honest, I’ve already tackled this subject in several ways but… I think I’ve found a new angle. Read on to learn more.
Recently, I was walking down Steinway Street in my neighborhood when I passed a man wearing two Covid masks. Not shocking these days, for sure, but the outer of the two masks had words printed on it: “I can’t breathe.” (insert deep sigh here) It wasn’t just …
Well, they say that time flies when you’re having fun, and as you grow older such an expression seems to have an increased impact and meaning as each new cycle spins. But I’m not sure that any point in human history has seen as much flux as this still-young decade of the 2020s has already been through.
We began the journey with a cool launch as version 2.0 of the roaring twenties commenced, but that quickly gave way to the Age of Terror in which the villainous machinations of mad scientists were revealed as they unleashed their plagues, which in turn …
