Latest articles
by Roger D. Harris / October 20th, 2020
With the seemingly interminable US presidential campaign season mercifully drawing to a close, the buzz is about a possible coup. That would make the US one of the few countries in recent history to experience regime change not masterminded by a US embassy, because there is no US embassy in Washington.
There are other reasons why a coup is unlikely. Namely, most of the politically active public believe that they live in an exceptional democracy. This conviction is held despite the abysmal candidate choices they are given and the obscene mountains of money backing them. Surely, the ruling …
by Robert Hunziker / October 20th, 2020
Ice is seen here under permafrost soil in Spitzbergen, the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. (SeppFriedhuber/Getty Images)
Twenty-five percent (25%) of the Northern Hemisphere is permafrost. By all appearances, it is melting well beyond natural background rates, in fact, substantially!
Making matters much, much worse, new research has identified past warming events of large-scale permafrost thaw in the Arctic that may be analogous to today, thus spotting a parallel problem of large-scale thawing accompanied by massively excessive carbon emissions spewing into the …
by Kim Petersen / October 20th, 2020
Wherever we lift one soul from a life of poverty, we are defending human rights. And whenever we fail in this mission, we are failing human rights.
— Kofi Annan, former United Nations Secretary-General
Among other items “proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,” the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “… human beings shall enjoy freedom … from want.”
The UDHR preamble goes on to state that “fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person … have [been] determined to promote social progress and better standards of …
by Margaret Flowers / October 20th, 2020
Are you or do you know an emerging activist who needs support? Popular Resistance and the Kevin Zeese family are launching the Kevin Zeese Emerging Activists Fund with an online celebration on his birthday, October 28, from 7:30 to 9:00 pm Eastern. Learn more and buy tickets here. We will begin accepting applications after October 28.
The United States’ elections will occur in a few weeks and many people are concerned about what will happen. Will they be able to vote? Will their votes be …
by Dan Corjescu / October 19th, 2020
The great Italian writer, Ignazio Silone, often described himself as a “Socialist without a party, a Christian without a church”.
With this, he expressed his belief in commitment outside of authority and all forms of hierarchy.
Because Silone, as a historical witness of both Stalinism and Fascism, knew the dangers inherent in organized belief. Group think, in the extreme, can lead to mass executions and, even, genocide.
To believe sincerely is to stand apart from the crowd. To believe rightly is not to compel but to express. To welcome debate. To be ready to stand alone without recourse to power, influence, or money….
by Todd Smith / October 19th, 2020
What, precisely, is QAnon? The Second Coming of, I don’t know — Jesus Christ? No, no, no! Try Jerry Springer, or Jimmy Swaggart, even. QAnon appears to be more of a likeness than an actual thing; provisionally, we could describe it as a peculiar conspiracy theory that aggregates all the other conspiracy theories…
Now, looking back to the official beginning of the current pandemic in America, the irrational run on Toilet Paper stands out as a critical signpost marking the Consumer-Citizenry’s awakening to the drastic nature of the crisis. Somehow, this product in particular, and its conspicuous absence, reflected both a …
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / October 19th, 2020
Toward the end of Joe Biden’s October 15 town hall session, a Trump supporter asked Biden the only foreign policy question of the night. “So peace is breaking out all over the world,” the questioner claimed. “Our troops are coming home. Serbia is talking to Kosovo. And the Arabs and Israelis are talking peace, which I believe is a modern-day miracle, what’s going on. Does President Trump’s foreign policy deserve some credit?”
This question encapsulated all the smoke and mirrors that Trump has used to confuse the public and …
by Binoy Kampmark / October 19th, 2020
It was highly probable. Given the howls of concern that social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook nurse and nurture a bias (every choice on content entails one), a gift was made to critics to show just that. Last Wednesday, Twitter prevented users from posting links to a New York Post story. The story, claimed Twitter, was “potentially unsafe,” replete with “hacked materials”. Those attempting to post links to the article faced a terse message. “We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.” Facebook followed suit …
by Bill Vernon / October 18th, 2020
For our flu shots, my wife and I drive eight familiar miles, basically the route to a school where she taught, and the placid, ordinary neighborhoods and business locales we’ve passed through a thousand times are no longer friendly. The habit of isolation colors what we see. It dims the glare of familiarity and reveals dangers. Isolation is something like hiding.
We’re in a mood, you might say, going to expose ourselves to what a busy Pharmacy encloses, its air, its merchandise, and its people. It will be the first building we enter besides our house and our grandchildren’s home in …
by John V. Walsh / October 18th, 2020
A sun-drenched day finds two lone figures strolling along a deserted beach, 10 feet apart and wearing masks, Brilliantina and her friend, Progresso.
Progresso: Have you voted yet, Brilliantina?
Brilliantina: No, I have not yet decided what to do. It needs a bit more thought.
Progresso: I was slow to decide at first, Brilliantina, but I decided on Biden — reluctantly since I disagree with most all of his positions.
Brilliantina: That is strange logic, Progresso.
Progresso: Well, I know that, and I don’t feel entirely comfortable with it. But you know the argument – nothing is more important than ejecting Trump. The clincher for me came …
by Ted Glick / October 18th, 2020
[She led a campaign] demanding that the National Student Association pay reparations to an affiliated student group, the National Association of Black Students. Although this and other accounts from those ‘Black Power’ years are informative, even riveting, in the end the central story line is Gwen herself through the life she exercises with dedication, principle, and an unbending devotion to justice, equality, and the well-being of all people.
— Bob Moses, Forward to My Race for Freedom
Gwendolyn Patton was a long-distance runner for the freedom of Black people and all …
by Yves Engler / October 18th, 2020
Should antiwar forces challenge power or praise government officials in the hopes of getting some crumbs for their pet issue?
Douglas Roche’s recent Hill Times column suggests the latter. In an article extolling Canada’s new ambassador to the UN Roche writes: “When Canada lost its bid for a seat on the UN Security Council the second successive time last June, I thought a foreign policy review from top to bottom was the solution to get Canada back on track internationally. But I’ve changed my mind for two reasons: the …
by Binoy Kampmark / October 17th, 2020
It was praised by Michael Clarke, former Director-General of the Royal United Services Institute, as “clear and entire laudable” – at least up to a point. The UK Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill would “give [British] troops serving overseas much-needed extra protection against fraudulent or frivolous claims against them of criminal behaviour.” It was also part of a commitment made by the Conservatives that British personnel would be padded with more legal protection against the nasty designs of future litigants.
Veterans minister Johnny Mercer had his lines in order, and they were not particularly convincing. “This …
by Max Parry / October 17th, 2020
With the 2020 U.S. presidential election less than a month away, there is widespread speculation concerning Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s mental and physical fitness at 77 years of age if he were to defeat incumbent Donald Trump on November 3rd. The former Vice President and Senator from Delaware would surpass his opponent as the oldest to ever hold the office of the presidency if victorious, while his generally acknowledged cognitive decline has led many to question whether he is even capable of serving a single term. Given the concerns …
by Romana Rubeo and Ramzy Baroud / October 16th, 2020
A Zionist-led war on a Palestinian cultural festival in Rome has exposed the fragility of the Italian political system when it comes to the conversation on Palestine and Israel. The sad truth is that, although Italy is not often associated with a ‘powerful’ pro-Israel lobby as is the case in Washington, the pro-Israel influence in Italy is just as dangerous.
The latest episode began on September 24, when the Palestinian community in Rome announced plans to hold ‘Falastin – Festival della Palestina’, a cultural event that aims at illustrating …
by Binoy Kampmark / October 15th, 2020
In July 2017, two journalists working for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Dan Oakes and Sam Clark, wrote of a stash of incriminating documents, running into hundreds of pages. They were “secret defence force documents leaked to the ABC”. These documents gave “an unprecedented insight into the clandestine operations in Australia’s elite special forces in Afghanistan, including incidents of troops killing unarmed men and children.”
In exposing these depravities of invasion, adventurism and war, the devotees of secrecy got busy. Bureaucrats chatted; investigations commenced. On June 5, 2019, officers of the Australian Federal Police raided the Sydney offices of the …
by Gerald E. Scorse / October 15th, 2020
Conservatives have every reason to love Ronald Reagan. He cut taxes hugely on high incomes. Once a union leader, he became a ruthless union-buster. He warred endlessly against welfare.
But the darling of the Right made one sharp Left. His landmark Tax Reform Act of 1986 called for equal taxes on income from wealth and income from work. For the first time in over 60 years, there would be no preferential rate for capital gains. Income earned sitting by the side of the pool would be taxed the same …
Pena’s questionable concept of “ecological socialism”
by Robin Cox / October 15th, 2020
Read Part 1 here; Part 2 here
Perhaps Pena does not see this because he does not appear to grasp the point that in the Marxian concept of socialism (aka communism – unlike Lenin, Marx never differentiated between these two terms), the question of “exchange value” becomes completely redundant (and, with that, the preoccupation with ensuring “equivalent exchange”). This is because in socialism, as Marx saw it, commodity production would completely cease to exist.
The “actually existing socialisms” that Pena refers to have nothing in common with Marxian socialism. In all of these, commodity production and wage labour prevails. From …
There is no "most prestigious environmental prize" if the poor young people aren’t leading the charge
by Paul Haeder / October 14th, 2020
I also know that one must do what one can do. No matter how little it is, it is nonetheless a human testimony and human testimonies, as long as they are not based on greed or personal ambition for power, can have unexpected positive effects.…I believe in local action and in small dimensions. It is only in such environments that human creativity and meaningful identities can truly surface and flourish.
? Manfred Max-Neef
There are many-many gross things in the news every nanosecond of anti-social media’s and mass mainlining media’s dead from the navel up “stories.”
Imagine, now, the Great White Hope, …
(Crusades against Humanity)
by T.P. Wilkinson / October 14th, 2020
Morgen in Riesengebirge by Caspar David Friedrich
Sometimes it can be useful to be brief. Last year, the wave of worry, promoted by the Swedish Alberich, without at least the artistic virtue of her deceased compatriot, Birgit Nilsson, stimulated predictions of imminent Götterdämmerung. This virtually Wagnerian kitsch was further dramatised by the pretensious performers of troupes apocalyptical like Extinction Rebellion. As 2019 ended we were all to believe that indeed Valhalla lay around the corner- at least for the sustainable. Instead we should have anticipated the Götzendämmerung. Yet 2020 proved …
by John V. Walsh / October 14th, 2020
More than a dozen young visiting scholars from China had their visas abruptly terminated in a letter from administration of the University of North Texas (UNT), Denton, on August 26, in a letter dated …August 26! The letter informed the students that they could return to campus from their lodgings to pick up belongings, but all other access was closed to them. The students and fellows were given no explanation. They were left with no legal basis to be in the U.S. and began scrambling for the very few and very expensive flights back to China.
At first the …
by Lawrence Wittner / October 14th, 2020
Back in July 1962, when, according to Donald Trump, America was “great,” I was in the Deep South, working to register Black voters. It was a near-hopeless project, given the mass disenfranchisement of the region’s Black population that was enforced by Southern law and an occasional dose of white terrorism.
It all started in the fall of 1961, the beginning of my senior year at Columbia College. My roommate (Mike Weinberg) and I, both white, had joined the campus chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and participated in a few of its New York City projects. The real …
by James O'Neill / October 14th, 2020
The nomination to the United States Supreme Court of Amy Coney Barrett has raised again the issue of access to abortion, legalised in the United States in the decision in Roe v Wade 410 US 113 (1973) 47 years ago. If Ms Barrett is confirmed as a member of the Supreme Court it will make the conservative majority of the court 6:3. It is difficult to see why her appointment would make a difference to the United States abortion laws. The conservative capacity to make such changes already existed.
What her prospective appointment has done, however, is to raise the issue …
by John R. Hall / October 14th, 2020
George Carlin warned all good Americans to think critically at their own peril. Although life has now become somewhat difficult…even lonely at times, I have forsaken his fascetious advice. When I was a child, my grandfather was my god. Pops. I can still see his steady eyes touching some secret place deep inside me as he softly said that there is only one unforgivable sin. Nobody has the right to take another human life. He was emphatic when he added that the worst offenders of this basic precept are …
The standoff is ongoing
by UnistotenCamp / October 13th, 2020
We call for solidarity actions from coast to coast. Take action where you stand, or come stand with us on the yintah.
— Gidimt’en Checkpoint
Callout from Gidemt’en Checkpoint
Coastal GasLink has called in the RCMP to try and remove Wet’suwet’en community members and Indigenous youth as they hold a ceremony at a proposed drill site for Coastal Gaslink’s pipeline. Coastal Gaslink has been evicted from our territories by the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs – who have full jurisdiction over Wet’suwet’en lands. As CGL continues …
by C.J. Hopkins / October 13th, 2020
One of the hallmarks of totalitarianism is mass conformity to a psychotic official narrative. Not a regular official narrative, like the “Cold War” or the “War on Terror” narratives. A totally delusional official narrative that has little or no connection to reality and that is contradicted by a preponderance of facts.
Nazism and Stalinism are the classic examples, but the phenomenon is better observed in cults and other sub-cultural societal groups. Numerous examples will spring to mind: the Manson family, Jim Jones’ People’s Temple, the Church of Scientology, Heavens Gate, …
by Frank Scott / October 13th, 2020
America and the world are suffering a crisis of capitalism like no other in recent history. With an economy teetering on a mountain of incredible debt without which it could not continue, and a virus threatening the globe but with the highest death toll in America and even a president leading in gross ignorance about it testing positive, stresses and strains are created that, while showing positive awakening among some to systemic rather than personal problems, also creates negative descents into fantasy among others that make immaterial religious mythology seem like critical examinations of material reality.
Approaching a national election which …
by Margaret Flowers / October 13th, 2020
(Photo Credit: Jenna Pope)
This weekend, celebration of Indigenous People’s Day will replace the federal holiday, Columbus Day, in at least eight states and over 130 cities in 34 states. Along with the toppling of Columbus statues and the removal of a racial slur as a name for a major football team, this signals a shifting awareness in the United States of our colonial roots and ongoing Indigenous genocide and a desire for change.
If, like me, you are not indigenous, there are ways each of us …
by Binoy Kampmark / October 12th, 2020
The tide has been turning against UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Oafishly, he has managed to convert that tide into a deluge of dissatisfaction assisted by the gravitational pull of singular incompetence. Much of this is due to such errors of communication as committed last month, when he got into a tangle over new coronavirus restrictions in England’s northeast.
In responding to a question on these new regulations, the prime minister erred in stating that the rule-of-six limit on gatherings did not apply to people meeting outdoors. “It is a six in a home or in hospitality but not six outside.” …
Graduate Student Workers Reckoning with the Policing University at the University of Michigan and Beyond
by Kylie Broderick and Mekarem Eljamal / October 12th, 2020
As the dust settles after the end of the University of Michigan’s (UM) historic eight-day strike, autopsies investigating the labor action are already being churned out. Why the strike ended, who is responsible for breaking the strike, and what future labor action at UM will look like are now questions that will doubtlessly rise to the forefront of debates among laborers at the university for many months—if not years—to come.
But we cannot allow those truly responsible for curtailing labor action to sink into the background: the university administration. Now is the time we should turn our focus to its functions, …
