Latest articles
by Robert Hunziker / November 6th, 2020
A notable satellite-telephonic call to colleagues in late October from Swedish scientist Örjan Gustafsson of Stockholm University briefly described a haunting discovery. On board the research ship R/V Akademik Keldysh, a 6,240-ton Russian scientific research vessel equipped with 17 on-board laboratories and a library, far off the coast of Russia, Dr. Gustafsson reported:
This East Siberian slope methane hydrate system has been perturbed and the process will be ongoing. ((“Sleeping Giant Arctic Methane Deposits Starting to Release, Scientists Find”, The Guardian, Oct. 27, 2020.))
That satellite call referenced a sleeping giant that has enough carbon firepower to adversely impact the world’s climate …
by Jonathan Cook / November 6th, 2020
At birth, all of us begin a journey that offers opportunities either to grow – not just physically, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually – or to stagnate. The journey we undertake lasts a lifetime, but there are dozens of moments each day when we have a choice to make tiny incremental gains in experience, wisdom and compassion or to calcify through inertia, complacency and selfishness.
No one can be engaged and receptive all the time. But it is important to recognise these small opportunities for growth when they present themselves, even if at any particular moment we may decide to avoid …
by Binoy Kampmark / November 6th, 2020
It was now the turn of other states to vent about, and at, the United States. The 2020 US presidential elections were coming down to a razor sharp wire. The Democrats were starting to feel confident in the swing states. Republicans and the Trump camp were mustering aggressive arguments on potential electoral fraud, lawyering up the heavies. The picture is increasingly ugly, and the view from political outsiders is a mix of concern laced with a touch of bemusement.
Various countries and organisations were weighing in on the US elections in a manner normally reserved for seedier regimes and states in …
Some Labour members may hope that the report will draw to a close the party’s troubling antisemitism chapter. They could not be more wrong
by Jonathan Cook / November 5th, 2020
• This is the full version of an article published in edited form by Middle East Eye
It was easy to miss the true significance of last week’s Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report on the British Labour Party and antisemitism amid the furore over the party suspending its former leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
The impression left on the public – aided by yet more frantic media spin – was that the EHRC’s 130-page report had confirmed the claims of Corbyn’s critics that on his watch the party had become “institutionally antisemitic”. In fact, the …
by The Jimmy Dore Show / November 5th, 2020
by Vijay Prashad / November 5th, 2020
Kyo?ichi Sawada (Japan), A mother and her children wade across a river in Vietnam to escape US bombing, 1965.
In mid-October, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its World Economic Outlook report, which offered some dizzying data. For 2020, the IMF estimates that the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will decline by 4.4%, while in 2021 the global GDP will rise by 5.2%. Stagnation and decline will …
by Paul Haeder / November 4th, 2020
Writing is not a searching about in the daily experience for apt similes and pretty thoughts and images… It is not a conscious recording of the day’s experiences ‘freshly and with the appearance of reality’… The writer of imagination would find himself released from observing things for the purpose of writing them down later. He would be there to enjoy, to taste, to engage the free world, not a world which he carries like a bag of food, always fearful lest he drop something or someone get more than he.
— William Carlos Williams, Spring and All
Ahh, just proposing a …
A review of Melissa A. Chappell's book, Doors Carelessly Left Ajar
by Candice Louisa Daquin / November 4th, 2020
I read a lot of manuscripts for publication as part of one of my roles as editor for an indie publishing company. It takes quite a lot to stand out these days, with everyone vying for attention.
Therefore, I appreciated the solace of honesty in Melissa Chappell’s little book, Doors Carelessly Left Ajar. She is a devout person as you can tell by her acknowledgements and this lends her a brevity of candor which is often not found in the inveigling of poetry writing. There is something refreshingly simple and …
by Roger D. Harris / November 4th, 2020
The polls closed with “no winner yet in cliffhanger presidential election,” as of Wednesday evening. Despite a period of uncertainty, which is typically the nemesis of Wall Street, the Dow climbed 0.9%, the S&P 500 opened 1.5% higher, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.6%.
The explanation is that the financial elites know that they win regardless of who occupies the Oval Office, which is something that some leftists, who had advocated temporarily subordinating an independent working-class alternative to campaign for the leading neoliberal candidate, did not firmly grasp.
Trouncing the contender that Noam Chomsky hyperbolically called …
by Ramzy Baroud / November 4th, 2020
There is no moral or ethical justification for the killing of innocent people, anywhere. Therefore, the murder of three people in the French city of Nice on October 29 must be wholly and unconditionally rejected as a hate crime, especially as it was carried out in a holy place, the Notre Dame Basilica.
However, we would be remiss to ignore the political context that led a 21-year-old Tunisian refugee to allegedly stage a knife attack against peaceful worshippers in Nice. While it is fairly easy to recognize the individual …
by Graham Peebles / November 4th, 2020
Destructive human behavior based on selfishness, greed and ignorance has created the interrelated environmental emergency. A global crisis of unprecedented scale that threatens the survival of over a million plant and animal species, the security of tens of millions of people and the health of the planet.
Unlimited irresponsible consumption of goods, services and animal food produce is the underlying cause; destructive unhealthy behavior encouraged by short-term political and business policies rooted in nationalism and the ideology of competition and greed.
Land sea and air are contaminated everywhere, more or less; the natural climatic rhythms have been radically disrupted, chaos created where …
by Shawgi Tell / November 4th, 2020
Perhaps no other word is more central to charter school discourse than the word “choice.” “Choice” is not only a central concept in charter school discourse but a persistent source of disinformation. Disinformation refers to the deliberate hiding of the real context and relations of things so as to disorient people and cause them to act against their own interests while making them think that they are acting in their own interests. It is a form of false consciousness or anti-consciousness, and we all pay a heavy price for it.
Advocates of privately-operated non-profit and for-profit charter schools that siphon billions …
by Ajamu Baraka / November 4th, 2020
Chaos, violence, legal challenges, voter suppression and party suppression all culminated in the pathetic display of democratic degeneration on Election Day. After two decades of losing wars, plus the economic collapse of 2008, the response to COVID-19, and now the election debacle, if there were any doubts the U.S. is a morally exhausted empire in irreversible decline, they would have been erased with yesterday’s anti-democratic spectacle.
Democratic Party propagandists and “frightened” leftists are desperate. They tell their supporters and the public that the republic will not survive another term of Donald Trump. They point to his despicable, racist descriptions of undocumented …
by Mohammad al-Deirawi and Ramzy Baroud / November 4th, 2020
Mohammad Ibrahim Ali al-Deirawi was born on January 30, 1978 in Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. His family is originally from Bir Al-Saba’, an ethnically cleansed Palestinian town located in the southern Naqab desert. Mohammad was arrested by the Israeli army at a military checkpoint in central Gaza on March 1, 2001. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his role in the armed Palestinian resistance, and was freed on October 18, 2011 in a prisoner exchange between the Palestinian resistance and Israel.
Mohammad’s interrogation commenced …
by Nan McCurdy / November 3rd, 2020
In 36 years of living in Latin America I have learned that any time a country changes its conditions so that poverty decreases and the standard of living improves, the United States wages some kind of war on that country. It has waged unconventional warfare on Nicaragua since the Sandinistas returned to the presidency in 2007 providing millions of dollars to nongovernmental organizations, more than 25 different media, three “human rights” groups and many individuals whose job is to lie for their salaries. Since 2017, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has disbursed over $89 million with the primary …
by Jay Janson / November 3rd, 2020
The good people of the 3rd World should not let themselves be taken in by worldwide satellite beamed CIA-fed media prattling on continuously about American democracy during ongoing presidential elections. Sadly, Americans are duped into participating in elections that back crimes against humanity ordered by the ruling genocidal Wall St. plutocracy which militarily and financially plunders 3rd World humanity and corrupts American society.
A great many Americans voting believe the lies their criminal corporate media pours out daily, and are therefore gung-ho proud of Americans killing media-designated ‘bad guys” all around the world. These completely fooled Americans are happy to vote …
by Michael K. Smith / November 3rd, 2020
A week before Christmas in 1972 Joe Biden’s first wife Neilia and their 13-month old daughter were killed by a tractor trailer that crashed into her car as she pulled away from a stop sign. The couple’s two sons were also injured in the accident. Recently elected to the Senate from Delaware, Biden wasn’t one to wallow in grief, preferring to get started on a long Washington career of inappropriate touching, making what the late Alexander Cockburn reported as “loutish sexual advances” to a female staffer of one of his fellow senators in the well of the Senate just …
by Binoy Kampmark / November 3rd, 2020
It’s an oxymoron with a long history: American democracy. In referring to the United States, it does not exist. Nor does it take a follower of refrigerated communism to note the obvious point that democracy plays a small part in the processes of the US political system. It is a republic, with all the glorious, problematic and deep seated problems that term implies. Factions are held in check; neither must get too powerful. To ensure political, propertied stability, the worst side of human nature is to be guarded against. One way lies the rule of the mob; the other, the …
by Edward Curtin / November 2nd, 2020
A few years ago, after reading a brillig academic article about how those who believe in conspiracy theories might be inclined toward unethical actions and petty crimes, my conscience got the best of me and I made a public confession. I had been accused of being a conspiratorial thinker, and I knew I had once committed an unethical act, one that might be called a petty crime. The article made me feel guilty and I felt a strong need to admit my transgression, which I did. It felt so good to come clean in public. Oprah would have been proud …
by George Salamon / November 2nd, 2020
One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share.
— Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit, (2005), p.1
The opinion pages of our leading newspapers are contributing more than their share, and it is second-rate puffery. The first one is a piece by the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, “ ‘Moderate’ Joe Biden has become the most progressive nominee in history,” (October 27, 2020) Milbank opens his pean to Biden by claiming that the Democratic candidate travelled to the place where FDR died (Hot Springs, NY) to promise “a …
by L'Ordre / November 2nd, 2020
Why does the state continue to act the same after elections?
It is unforgivable if there is even one apparently critical area of policy that cannot be overturned by an election, because this makes all so-called elections illegitimate mockeries and shallow rituals.
Why do elected leaders so often betray their campaign promises? Every time, even the simplest of promises are not honored by leaders, resulting in a failure to serve the people, no matter how obvious the people’s message was. An obvious example is that every US president promises …
by Binoy Kampmark / November 1st, 2020
Djab Wurrung women are in an abusive relationship with Victoria’s government.
— Sissy Eileen Austin, The Guardian, September 14, 2019
It was a penultimate day in the Australian state of Victoria. The state government had announced that some of harshest coronavirus lockdown restrictions in the developed world would be easing. Melbourne’s restaurants, bars and cafes could resume inviting customers through their doors. Retail outlets could reopen. Confident claims of “crushing the virus” frothed and bubbled on social media.
This elevation of mood provided ideal distraction for another ugly event. Early last week also saw the arrest of 60 people protesting the …
by Margaret Flowers / November 1st, 2020
This week, people are planning protests across the nation beginning the day after the election. Some, like Democratic Party-aligned groups and unions, will only demonstrate if President Trump loses and refuses to leave office. Trump will fail if he tries because the ruling class has clearly shifted its support to Biden. Professor Adrienne Pine explains this in her analysis of the opposition to Trump. Others such as issues-based groups, coalitions and community groups are planning to take the streets no matter what the outcome of the election is.
This …
by David Templeton / November 1st, 2020
The first time Edward Campagnola answers his phone, he admits he is just about to take a shower, his first in several days.
“Yeah, I’m at the brand new Wellness Center in Santa Rosa,” he says. “I’m literally just about to step into the shower, and when you live on the streets, when you get a chance to take a shower, you take it. But I can talk now if this is the best time, because I really want people to know about this book.”
The interview can wait.
A short 30-minutes …
by subMedia / November 1st, 2020
by Colin Todhunter / November 1st, 2020
Prior to the appearance of COVID-related restrictions and lockdowns, neoliberal capitalism had turned to various mechanisms in the face of economic stagnation and massive inequalities: the raiding of public budgets, the expansion of credit to consumers and governments to sustain spending and consumption, financial speculation and militarism.
Part and parcel of this has been a strategy of ‘creative destruction’ that has served to benefit an interlocking directorate of powerful oil, agribusiness, armaments and financial interests, among others. For these parties, what matters is the ability to maximise profit by shifting capital around the world, whether on the back of distorted free trade …
Cops Squelch Protest, Help AT&T Blanket City in 5G Radiation for Bright New Fascist Future with Full Surveillance
by Phoebe Sorgen / November 1st, 2020
Officer Shedowdy has a mean attitude. Given how he treated a female elder who was arrested for a non-violent act of conscience, I fear for young men of color who may be wise to keep quiet rather than ask his colleague, as I did twice, “Please don’t leave me alone with this guy.” I was left alone with him in the police garage prior to entering the jail. He should not have been allowed to reach in and check, and then double check, my four pants pockets. A female officer should have done that with a witness present.
Earlier, I had …
by Roger D. Harris / November 1st, 2020
All indications are that Joe Biden is heading for a landslide win. Losers will be Trump and those Republicans who have not already defected to the Democrat’s big tent. Collateral damage, however, may be the progressive cause. Some leftists have advocated temporarily subordinating an independent working-class alternative to campaign for the leading neoliberal candidate.
For example, the Open Letter: Dump Trump, Then Battle Biden argues for “the most urgent task – defeating Trump in the election with as big an Electoral College margin as possible, to undermine his predictable efforts to steal the election.” Among the 55 signatories …
by Robert Hunziker / October 31st, 2020
(Reuters)
For nearly a decade the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has been streaming radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. As it happens, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Co.) struggles to control it. Yet, the bulk of the radioactive water is stored in more than 1,000 water tanks.
Assuredly, Japan’s government has made an informal decision to dump Fukushima Daiichi’s radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. A formal announcement could come as early as this year. Currently, 1.2 million tonnes of radioactive water is stored.
The problem: TEPCO is running …
by K.J. Noh / October 30th, 2020
Few things are as dangerous as a poorly thought-out kidnapping. Kidnappings are serious business, often with unintended consequences. History is replete with dim-witted criminals who engaged in them on a whim, only to discover adverse outcomes far beyond their imagining. One dramatic example happened 90 years ago this week:
On October 24th, a mother with young children is kidnapped. She is the cherished wife of an important man whom the kidnapper’s group is in competition with. The plan of the kidnapper is that by kidnapping her, this will create unbearable …
