Kategori: Engelske
Mandel and Capitalist Breakdown
“Martin Monath: A Jewish Resistance Fighter Among Nazi Soldiers”
The Struggle Against Dalit Oppression in India
THE LAST BIG GULP – Jello Biafra and The Guantanamo School Of Medicine
Right Wing Migrant Freakout
I Shouldn’t Have to Be a “Strong Black Woman” for My Life to Matter
Silicon Valley’s Vast Data Collection Should Worry You More Than TikTok
If a world historical crisis being mismanaged by a far-right leader weren’t bad enough, it now seems the government is coming for your beloved social media apps. Trump’s latest gambit to distract from his monumental mismanagement of the pandemic response is a threat to ban the social media app TikTok, a video sharing service with [...]
Democratic VP Candidate Susan Rice Has Made a Lot of Money on Fossil Fuel Investment
Former national security adviser Susan Rice, reportedly one of two finalists in Joe Biden’s vice presidential search, had millions invested in fossil fuels and energy companies as recently as 2015. The revelations come as Biden has faced renewed questions about his commitment to environmental policies that would combat climate change. A financial disclosure form obtained [...]
Want Progressive U.S. Politics? Continue to Reform the Democratic Party Rules
Cori Bush on How She Took On the Political Establishment and Won
This Tuesday, Cori Bush unseated St Louis congressional incumbent Lacy Clay, who has represented the district for two decades and whose father Bill Clay represented it for three decades before him. Bush is a nurse who was a dedicated activist during the Ferguson uprising in 2014. She’s also an outspoken progressive whose campaign was endorsed [...]
Congress Has Failed to Extend Unemployment Benefits. We Need Them Desperately, and Much More.
Democrats and Republicans have failed to reach an agreement to extend desperately needed relief and benefits for millions of Americans. For twenty weeks in a row, more than a million additional people have newly filed for unemployment benefits. Extra benefits from the federal government have kept the country from sliding into an all-out second Great [...]
Kerala’s Pandemic Response Owes Its Success to Participatory Politics
The southern Indian state of Kerala has received laudatory national and international media coverage for its response to the Covid-19 crisis. However, when the statistics are given even a cursory glance, it’s a wonder why Kerala has not received more praise, attention and analysis. For a state of 36 million people to have recorded a [...] Abdullah Öcalan: My Solution for Turkey, Syria, and the Kurds
Capitalist modernity is history’s deadliest and most continuous crisis of civilization. In particular, the general destruction of the last two hundred years has disrupted thousands of evolutionary links in the natural environment. We are probably not yet fully aware of the devastation this has caused the plant and animal worlds. It is, however, clear that, [...]
The deep history of police
Parents Like Me Shouldn’t Have to Fight This Hard to Ensure Schools Go Remote
When the whole world shut down in March, parents like me faced endless challenges. School closings meant juggling remote school for our kids, our own working from home, easing our children’s anxieties about the pandemic and loss of social interaction, and the day-to-day work of running a household increased by everyone being home all the [...]
We denounce the renegotiation of the debt by Lenín Moreno’s government
The COVID Interregnum
A little over 500 years ago, Europeans, driven by a lust for riches and enabled by new technologies, colonized the Americas and set about making them productive in an entirely new way. The reasonably self-sustaining economies of the indigenous peoples were swept away and the organic and mineral resources of their lands were incorporated into systems of production that generated [...]
20 Postcard Notes From Iraq: With Love in the Age of COVID-19
I was in the Iraqi Kurdistan region when COVID-19 hit the world hard in March of this year. Suddenly, all airports, roads between cities in Iraq, and life itself were shut down in Iraq and many countries around the world. A strict curfew was imposed while I was visiting my relatives in Duhok city. The curfew kept getting extended, mostly [...]
War and Pandemic Journalism: the Truth Can Disappear Fast
The struggle against Covid-19 has often been compared to fighting a war. Much of this rhetoric is bombast, but the similarities between the struggle against the virus and against human enemies are real enough. War reporting and pandemic reporting likewise have much in common because, in both cases, journalists are dealing with and describing matters of life and death. Public [...]
Fixing the COVID Numbers
Right on schedule, when the death rate started to rise again, the Trump regime put the kibosh on any further CDC covid reporting. In the weeks before this death-rate spike, as the covid conflagration burned through Trump country, regime spokesmen crowed about the death rate being flat. No matter that all health experts warned death is a lagging indicator. No [...]
Roaming Charges: Every Which Way to Lose
“And through the fog of the plague, most art withered into journalism.” — Pete Hamill + Four years of Trump, the most precipitous collapse of the US economy in history and one killer pandemic later and we’re right back to where we were in the late summer of 2016… Joe Biden's national polling lead is More
Trump is Not Conceding: This is Happening Here
Sorry, Trump’s Not Conceding I have been hearing liberals and lefties fantasizing that Donald Trump is conceding the presidency to Joe Biden. The evidence for this curious thesis? 1. Biden’s significant polling lead over Trump not just nationally but in the battleground states where the presidency is contested. 2. The real or rumored pulling of More
The World on Fire
Massive uncontrolled unprecedented wild fires are consuming portions of the Amazon rainforest and several regions of the Arctic. Somebody somewhere must be asking why all of a sudden in unison, all over creation, two of the planets largest ecosystems are going up in smoke. It’s eerily spine chilling. “Major fires have hit the Amazon and More
Neoliberal Centrists and the American Left
The rapid end to the electoral fortunes of the Anglo-American left in 2020 was engineered by radical centrists for the benefit of capital. What was banished, in addition to vibrant and informed opposition to an atrophied political class, was the prospect of Federal government programs that are both desired and needed by the American people. More
USAF Vet Could Face ‘20 Days for 20 Bombs’ for Protest Against US H-Bombs Stationed in Germany
Hamburg, Germany With this week’s commemorations of the US atomic massacres at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there will be countless hours spent on speeches, sermons, hymns, and warnings; tons of ink spilled in op/eds, editorials and articles. All will solemnly promote the need to pursue a world without nuclear weapons. However, many of the same voices More
Clyburn’s Complaint
For the most part, when people use words like “sick” or “demented” or “insane” in political contexts, they are speaking metaphorically or for rhetorical effect. Sometimes, however, these and related words actually do denote phenomena of clinical interest. The latest edition of the DSM, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. was published in More
Revisiting the Idea of Pigou Wealth Tax in the Time of Covid-19
Arthur Cecil Pigou (1877-1959), a British economist, is well known for his contributions to welfare economics. One of the most prolific writers of his time, Pigou wrote over a dozen books and more than 100 articles and pamphlets dealing with both theoretical and practical aspects of welfare economics. His writings cover a wide range of More
Here Come the 1968 Mistakes Again
“In our countercultural bubble, we assumed everyone watching the convention shared our feelings of revolt, but the spectacle in Chicago, as history showed us, had an unintended effect. It was the ‘law-and-order’ [Richard] Nixon who got elected.” This statement comes from David Ansen in “First Look at Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7” More
Fighting Over Kashmir Could Blow Up the Planet
Jammu and Kashmir, widely referred to as Kashmir, has had many designations since India and Pakistan were partitioned by Britain and gained their respective independence from the Empire: a Princely State, a State, a Union Territory. The 86,000 mile, Muslim-majority region sits in the Himalayas on the border with China. It is of strategic significance More
Haven’t We All Known Guys Who Were Exactly like Donald Trump?
Although it gives me no pleasure to report this, while growing up in the shady suburban confines of Southern California, in the Sixties, I probably knew half a dozen guys who—other than being middle or lower middle-class rather wealthy, and shorter rather than taller—were otherwise exactly like President Trump. I’m also certain that I never More
What’s Driving the Simmering Conflict Between India and China
Chinese and Indian forces have pulled back from their confrontation in the Himalayas, but the tensions that set off the deadly encounter this past June—the first on the China/India border since 1975—are not going away. Indeed, a combination of local disputes, regional antagonisms and colonial history have brewed up a poisonous elixir that could pose More
American Failures: August, 2020
It’s probably unpatriotic and maybe treasonable to talk about American failures but they are now so glaring that some 12 minutes of read time seems pardonable in this Age of Twitter “discourse.” That such obvious failures, if admitted at all, are politicized relative to which side of the Blue/Red street you are one is itself More
Apartheid or One State: Has Jordan Broken a Political Taboo?
What will it take for the idea of a two-state solution, which was hardly practical to begin with, to be completely abandoned? Every realistic assessment of the situation on the ground indicates, with palpable clarity, that there can never be a viable Palestinian state in parts of the West Bank and Gaza. Politically, the idea More
The US Left Needs Humility to Understand Mexican Politics
The US Left Needs Humility to Understand the Politics of México The recent visit to the US by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) for a meeting with President Trump has stirred a great deal of media reaction in the US and México. Nearly all US media articles about the visit characterize it as More
Easy Targets: Trump’s Attacks on Transgendered People
As the nation celebrated Independence Day on July 4th, 2020, Summer Taylor, a white non-binary person was killed after a car drove into a crowd of protestors in Seattle on July 4. Taylor was participating in the Black Femme March in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and against police brutality. Taylor worked full time at More
The Neoliberal Virus
To date, and to the extent that alleged political leaders have even tried to come to terms with the origins of the COVID-19 crisis at all, they have sought to do so in xenophobic terms; though not the only perpetrator on that count, Donald Trump has been most prominent in looking to characterise COVID-19 as More
Is Netanyahu Serious About Annexing Jordan Valley?
On July 1, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised he would annex part of the Jordan Valley. He did not, but he may still do so before U.S. elections in November and while President Donald Trump is still in office. It could be his legacy. Trump’s challenger, former vice president Joseph Biden, has joined the More
When the Chickens Came Home to Roost In Portlandistan
Well folks, it’s official, Donald Trump has declared war on America. Probably should have saw that coming. After all, I’ve long argued that our dayglow duce isn’t an isolationist but merely the world’s shittiest imperialist. After trying and failing miserably to bring fascism to Nicaragua and Venezuela, Trump has set his sites on targets much More
The Power of the White Man and His Symbols is Being De-Mystified
With the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is warning us today that if we fail to build alternatives to the current system governed by voracious, ruthless and extractive capitalism, it will rob our descendants of the future. This historical moment that we are all living through is also serving to reveal that extreme inequalities are not More
Reversal: Boeing’s Flow of Blood
Today, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the atomic attack on Hiroshima, should be a day for quiet introspection. I recall a summer morning following the U.S. 2003 “Shock and Awe” invasion of Iraq when the segment of the Chicago River flowing past the headquarters of the world’s second largest defense contractor, Boeing, turned the rich, red More
Ireland and Slavery: Framing Irish Complicity in the Slave Trade
The first instalment in this two-part series, which focused on dismantling the ‘Irish slaves’ myth, made three critical assertions: first, that the attempt to draw equivalence between Irish (and British, Scottish) indenture and African chattel slavery was “untenable, and callous in the extreme” and “almost always deliberately concocted at source through flagrant manipulation of numbers More
South American Nations Adopt Different COVID-19 Stategies, With Different Results
On May 23, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the epicenter of COVID-19 had moved to Latin America, particularly South America. The region now has the highest number of new cases and deaths in the world. Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Chile, in this order, have the highest number of deaths in the region. The More
Exorcism at Boston’s Old West Church, All Hallows Eve 1971
First, it seems one should freeze the time. To do so places them in the autumn of 1971. October 31, exactly. All Hallows Eve. Nineteen months previous, Ohio National Guard troops had killed four college students in Kent, Ohio. Others in Jackson, Mississippi were murdered in the weeks that followed. The students were among millions More
Bolsonaro’s Continuous Follies
It seems every day since I last wrote about Amazonia and COVID-19 about three months ago, another Amerindian leader has died from Coronavirus, another knowledgeable elder gone, and more tragedy compiling upon tragedy not only in the Brazilian Amazon but throughout indigenous communities in Lowland South America. By any standard, at least in Brazil, the More
Right-Wing Populism and the End of Democracy
For many reasons, democracy is associate with the word liberal. A liberal shows commitment to fundamental democratic values such as freedom of speech, the separation of powers, and the protection of individual rights. In this understanding, George W. Bush is as much of a liberal as Barack Obama. In the American understanding, however, only one More
Trump’s Real Record on Unemployment in Two Graphs
Donald Trump and his supporters routinely boast about his great success in reducing the unemployment rate. While the unemployment rate did fall to low levels under Trump, this was just a continuation of the downward trend that had been in place under Obama since 2010. Here’s the picture with the overall unemployment rate. See the More
Listening, Conflict and Citizenship
In Strong Democracy (1984), Benjamin Barber argues that liberals have reduced “talk to speech” which has “unfortunately inspired political institutions that foster the articulation of interests but that slight the difficult art of listening” (p. 174). He thinks that our representative form of politics enhances the “speaking function … while the listening function is diminished” More
Donald Trump Is The Only One Who Should Be Going To School This Fall
“In thinking specifically about the abolition of prisons using the approach of abolition democracy, we would propose the creation of an array of social institutions that would begin to solve the social problems that set people on the track to prison, thereby helping to render the prison obsolete. There is a direct connection with slavery: More
Without the Ability to Democratically Plan Our Society, We Don’t Have True Freedom
Work or starve. That was the simple message to Ohio workers from their state government already in May. Reflecting the zeal among the Right and parts of the business class to “re-open” the economy as quickly as possible, Ohio set up a website in early May for companies to report workers who refused to come [...]
America’s Multiple Infections
On a per capita basis, Belgium has been the European country hardest hit by the coronavirus. With a population of 11.5 million, it registered over 66,000 infections and nearly 10,000 deaths. In fact, Belgium’s level of mortality of 860 deaths per million inhabitants is the highest in the world. Belgium suppressed the first wave of More
Thinking Outside the Social Media Echo Chamber
Social media algorithms serve us up with what we like to see because the more we scroll, the more data they can harvest, and selling that data is their business model. Lately, it’s been popular to refer to the increasingly narrow worldview that we receive this way as an “echo chamber.” Commentators have been warning More
The Military is Sick
American military personnel are getting sick in significant numbers in the midst of the ongoing pandemic. As The New York Times reported in a pieceburied in the back pages of its July 21st edition, “The infection rate in the services has tripled over the past six weeks as the United States military has emerged as More
How the Middle Half Lives
The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;— Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! – William Wordsworth, “The World is Too Much With Us” To Hell with the MIddle Class! Oh, wait. They’re already More
The Plight of Refugees and Migrant Workers under Covid
In a world where nationalism and social division is increasing, bigotry growing, are the words refugee, asylum seeker, migrant worker, derogatory labels triggering prejudice and intolerance? Such terms create an image of ‘the other’, separate and different, strengthening tribalism, feeding suspicion, our common humanity denied. Under the shadow of Covid-19 those living on the margins More
The Next Coronavirus Bill Must Protect the 2020 Election
First, it was a public health crisis. Now, it’s decimating the economy. And for it’s next trick, the coronavirus is threatening to undermine the 2020 election. Unless, that is, Congress steps in to ensure we can vote by mail. If you’re curious what the worst case scenario is, look no further than Wisconsin, where a More
Ottawa Bluesfest at Zib: Development at Sacred Site Poses Questions of Responsibility
These first two August weekends, the RBC Bluesfest Ottawa drive-in concerts – livestreamed online with #CanadaPerforms, a federal program to support artists during the COVID pandemic – are being hosted at a venue that may raise eyebrows to anyone supporting the current protests against racism and monuments to a racist-colonial past. The ‘Zibi’ development-in-construction is More
Tensions Escalate as Logging Work Commences Near Active Treesits in a Redwood Rainforest
Cupcake, Treesitter/Redwood Forest Defense (502)298-8654 Lupine, Treesitter/Redwood Forest Defense (510)904-7352 Link to additional media in Google Drive Trinidad, CA — On Wednesday, August 6, Green Diamond Resource Company, an industrial logging company that owns nearly 400,000 acres in Humboldt County, started logging another forest that is being actively defended by activists living in trees. The More
The Low Magic of Charles Bukowski
Among my favorite writers, Harvey Pekar and Charles Bukowski share an uncommon distinction. Despite having lowly jobs as a Cleveland veterans hospital file clerk and sorting mail in the post office, they received the highest accolades for their work. In a 1985 New York Times book review, David Rosenthal wrote that “Mr. Pekar’s work has More
Rural America Deserves a Real COVID-19 Response
As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads, many rural communities are in a uniquely difficult position. According to Kaiser Health News, nearly 80 percent of rural America is categorized as a “medical desert,” meaning the nearest hospital is more than 60 minutes away. These hospitals are also much harder pressed to come up with ventilators and personal More
Crossing the Creepy Line: Google, Deception and the ACCC
Belief in Google’s promises is much like believing in virgin births. For a company so proud of its pursuit of a transparent information environment, it has remained committedly opaque about informing customers on the way it gathers user data. Statements from the company over the years have not been reassuring, and should foster prolonged scepticism More
Giants and Warriors Give Their Workers the Boot
I got the email firing me from my job at the Giants ballpark on Monday evening, July 27. On Tuesday evening I learned from the San Francisco Examiner website that I was also being fired from my job at the Warriors new stadium, and that there were 2,154 other food service workers being shown the door at these two sports venues. That More
Time for an Emergency Charity Stimulus
We are living through a time of unprecedented challenges: a major public health crisis and a deepening recession. Congress has already authorized trillions in stimulus funds. But millions of Americans are still relying on the support of local nonprofits such as food banks and human services. These nonprofits are going to need major infusions of More
Celebration of Change
Raving about Joe: What if grandad showed up at a rave? You’d probably be smart to dip out of the nearest exit and find your kicks somewhere else that night. Or maybe you could just gyrate over to a dark corner and hope that all the dry ice, electro-lightning bolts and shock-and-awe subwoofers would dazzle More
Are Right-wingers an Oppressed Minority?
Ash Sarkar explores how the language of minoritarian grievance has been appropriated by the most powerful people in political [...] Hiroshima, Nagasaki Survivors Remember
The For-Profit Aged-Care Industry Has Led to Crisis
According to data collected from twenty-six countries, residents of aged-care homes make up 47 percent of COVID-19 associated deaths so far. In Melbourne, which, despite its earlier lockdown, has been hit with a wave of runaway infections since early July, care homes have become one of the predictable flash points of the crisis. There are [...]
We Deserve Better Than Trump Versus Biden
In the past week, two videos have appeared showing the presidential nominees of the two major political parties in action. Each is grimmer than the last. They are indescribable — they have to be viewed in full to be comprehended, preferably one after the other for full effect. Here is the first, a video of [...]
The TikTok Saga Shows How the Internet and Technology Are Political
In 1984, as it became increasingly clear that the USSR was falling further behind the US in both technological and economic leadership, computer science guru Stewart Brand uttered the words: “information wants to be free”. In the years following the end of the Cold War, this phrase would become the calling card for digital utopians, [...] Israel Is in the Middle of a Summer of Mass Unrest
July was supposed to be a crowning month for Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli right wing. Despite three charges of bribery and corruption, and three election cycles in one year, Netanyahu managed to capture a fourth term as prime minister. The coronavirus and the ensuing state of emergency were Netanyahu’s lucky charm. They forced a [...]
Biden Promises a Return to the Obama Era. That’s Bad News for Palestinians.
Joe Biden is running a campaign of restoration. The presumptive Democratic nominee never tires of saying he wants to “restore the soul of the nation,” or of invoking his time as vice-president under Barack Obama.
It’s comforting rhetoric for many Democrats, a way to dream about returning to a time before Donald Trump.
But for Palestinians and their allies, Biden’s plan to [...]
Minnesota Democrats File FEC Complaint Against Ilhan Omar’s Opponent
The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party announced on Tuesday that it’s planning to file a federal election complaint against Antone Melton-Meaux and the team of anonymous vendors assisting his bid against progressive freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar, citing reporting by Too Much Information (TMI). As TMI reported last week, the Melton-Meaux campaign has routed most of its spending [...]
AOC Is Right: Get Military Recruiters Off Twitch and Out of Schools
In July, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) proposed two amendments to the House Appropriations Bill to restrict the military’s ability to target children and teenagers for recruitment. With these proposals, Ocasio-Cortez joins a growing network of counter-recruitment organizers who have identified the military’s focus on young people as an intolerable intrusion into their lives, especially at [...]
Why Bill Clinton Attacked Stokely Carmichael
Last week, as he eulogized John Lewis, Bill Clinton blasted the black radical icon Stokely Carmichael (later known as Kwame Toure). Referring to the Black Power–oriented direction the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) took after Carmichael replaced Lewis as chairman, the former president said: “And I say there were two or three years there, where [...]
How the Fascists Won World War II
Come you masters of war You that build the big guns You that build the death planes You that build all the bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks –“Masters of War,” Bob Dylan This is a mystery story. More
The American Narrative of Hiroshima is a Statue that Must be Toppled
In August 1945, the United States attacked two cities in Japan with nuclear weapons in the last days of World War Two. The US used weapons of mass destruction against a primarily civilian population, instantly killing over 100,000 human beings, with tens of thousands of wounded and irradiated people who would die in the subsequent More
Reverse the New Nuclear Arms Race
August 6 is the 75th anniversary of the only time any nation in the world dropped an atomic bomb on people. On August 6, 1945, President Harry Truman ordered Fat Man dropped on Hiroshima. 210,000 people were killed instantly. Three days later, Little Boy was dropped on Nagasaki, killing 70,000 more people instantly. Now would More
Ireland and Slavery: Debating the ‘Irish Slaves Myth’
Over recent months, social media in Ireland and the United States has been saturated with claims and counterclaims about ‘Irish slaves’ and a broader controversy about Irish complicity in the transatlantic slave trade. The timing of the ‘debate’ is far from coincidental: a series of false and malicious assertions that the American far Right have More
Trouble in Paradise Valley
Paradise Valley, Montana, is aptly named. The Yellowstone River flows north to Livingston, Montana, framed by the Absaroka Mountains on the east and the Gallatin Range on the West. It’s one of the most stunning landscapes in the entire West. Due to its location immediately adjacent to Yellowstone Park and the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness, Paradise More
Native Americans Win Historic Victories in U.S. High Court Rulings
Heat on the U.S. Presidential election campaign thermometer reached new highs during the dog days of summer 2020, with the final rulings of the Supreme Court calendar year favoring indigenous causes diametrically opposed to those of incumbent candidate Donald Trump. The highest court in the land ruled in favor of the exercise of Native American More
“Man Attacks Grizzly” and Other Leading Bleeding Stories
My Google Alerts inbox has been flooded during the last week by an article making the rounds among national and regional media outlets with a title that virtually screams “Official: 7 Grizzly Bear Attacks This Year.” More matter-of-factly, the article leads off with the observation that “Wildlife officials have documented seven grizzly bear encounters resulting More
US GDP Collapses and Economic Rebound Fades
This past week US economy collapsed in the 2nd quarter by 32.9% at annual rate and nearly 10% just for the April-June period. Never before in modern US history—not even in the worse quarters of the 1930s great depression—has the US economy contracted so quickly and so deeply! All the major private sectors of the More
Suffrage: The Myth of Sisterphus
“The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.” – The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments, 1848 Woman is the nigger of the world Yes, she is If you don’t believe me, take More
An Unbelievably Disastrous State of Affairs
Like most of the rest of the U.S. population, Montanans are wondering how we’re going to get out of the very serious and growing problems afflicting our state and nation right now. They are also, on an increasing basis, growing very angry that our Republican president and his snarling pack of enablers are ignoring the More
A New Trump Rule Tries to Help Big Oil Crush the Climate Movement
If you’ve ever seen Tom Cruise force Jack Nicholson to admit that he ordered the code red, then you know that one of the best ways to expose bullshit is to spotlight glaring discrepancies between public statements. If you want to know how companies are misleading regulators, look at the difference between what they tell [...]
‘A queer cry for freedom’: Meet the LGBTQ Palestinians demanding liberation
State of Pandemic Disaster: Melbourne Moves to Stage Four
Being in control of a sinking ship is not enviable. Regulations previously passed have a museum feel to them, distinctly obsolete. Directions, once dictated with confidence, lack timbre. Coronavirus is serving as that most wily and cheeky of agents, with the most appropriate of accomplices: Homo sapiens. Human beings are fed up, munching on conspiracy More
The ACLU Has Never Done a Damn Thing for Me
It’s actually worse than that in terms of the ACLU. When I was a school counselor in a public high school, the ACLU screwed me royally, even though I had helped them with the case of a student. A federal district court found for the student in a freedom of speech case, and I was a More
Time to Empower the Invisibles: India Awaits a Mental Health Revolution
Mental health is an inherent and the most paramount aspect of our well being, without it a qualitative life is barren to imagine. These ‘Covidnary Times’ are extremely turbulent, where ‘Normality’ will be more sidelined with ‘Abnormality.’ The side-effects of Covid-19 will keep hunting our World for ages to come. Surging mass layoffs, transcendental change More
Conservationists to Federal Agencies: Restore Protections for Imperiled Wildlife in the Flathead National Forest
Flathead Forest Plan favors resource extraction over grizzly bears, Canada lynx, wolverine, and bull trout MISSOULA, MT—Four conservation groups have filed their opening salvos in a lawsuit to require the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to restore proven safeguards for the protection and recovery of imperiled grizzly bears, Canada lynx, wolverine, and bull More
Nina Simone: Mississippi Goddam
Robert Reich: How Mitch McConnell’s Republicans Are Destroying America
After Last Night’s Elections, “the Squad Is Here to Stay”
For leftists and progressively minded Democrats still reeling from Bernie Sanders’s defeat, this week’s elections were very welcome news indeed. In what can only be called an historic electoral upset, formerly homeless nurse and Black Lives Matter activist Cori Bush defeated the scion of a half-century-old political dynasty to to secure the Democratic nomination in [...]
The Republican Coronavirus Plan Is Sadistic
Last week, Senate Republicans finally unveiled their blueprint for the next coronavirus relief package: the Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection and Schools (HEALS) Act. Since any legislation will ultimately need the votes of Democrats, the bill is unlikely to pass in its current form. But it’s still worth examining as a formal statement of Republicans’ [...]
The Beirut Explosion
Chicago Teachers Threatened a Strike. Hours Later, Chicago Schools Went Remote.
Strikes work. On Tuesday afternoon, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) planned to call a strike authorization vote to keep students from returning to schools in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. A few hours later, the city government cancelled a plan to bring students back to schools two days a [...]
Beyond Guilt and Privilege: Abolishing the White Race
If Black rebellion is often the spark for mass struggle in the United States, white chauvinism is a wet blanket. The materials in this pamphlet aim to move the discussion from a fixation on individual experiences of whiteness toward the broad possibilities of collective struggle for abolition and human freedom.
The post Beyond Guilt and Privilege: Abolishing the White [...]
Newly Revealed Documents Show How the AFL-CIO Aided US Interference in Venezuela
During the Cold War, the United States sought to defeat communism. Key to that effort was the United States’ attempt to match and defeat the Soviet Union’s influence around the world. In many locations, though, communist and socialist movements developed not as puppet movements of Moscow, but organically — particularly student, labor, and peasant organizations. [...]
John Hume (1937–2020)
Neither Washington nor Beijing: the Left Must Stand With the Uighurs
An advert posted in November 2019 alerted employers across China to a lucrative opportunity. “1000 ethnic minorities” from Xinjiang were available for hire in batches of 100 or more. “Semi-military style management” under “government-appointed cadres” assured their compliance. Prospective employers could even “apply for police to be stationed 24 hours a day for in-factory management”. [...] Meet the 25-Year-Old Socialist Organizer Running for State Senate in Connecticut
Justin Farmer is a twenty-five-year-old Legislative Councilman in Hamden, Connecticut running a grassroots campaign for Connecticut State Senate’s 17th district. Farmer is running on what he calls a Black Liberation Agenda, a platform that includes defunding state police, divesting from prisons, ending cash bail, and reinvesting resources in communities with a homes guarantee, a Green [...]
“Our System Is Not Doing the Thing It Says It Intends to Do: Deliver Justice.”
In the last few years, the #MeToo movement has brought renewed attention to sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and the ways they are used by mostly powerful, wealthy men to maintain social and economic hierarchies. At the same time, the push for decarceration and opposition to policing have exploded into a national movement. For leftist feminists, [...]
Black Lives Matter: Resisting the Propaganda of Status Quo Defenders
First came the new names—Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, and others—all added one by one to the long list of tragic, unjustifiable police killings of Black Americans. Then came the batons, the pepper spray, the tear gas, the flash-grenades, the helicopters, the armored vehicles, and the rubber bullets wielded against nonviolent Black Lives Matter protesters across the United States, More
The Department of Homeland Security: the Ideal Authoritarian Tool
In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration made a series of blunders that have created havoc in U.S. governance. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the worst of these decisions, but not far behind was the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The DHS has turned out to be the perfect authoritarian tool in the hands [...]
Misleaders at a Funeral: Bill Clinton and Barack Obama Eulogizing Racial Justice in the Name of John Lewis
New Age Racists Anyone who thinks it was fine and proper for the Jeffrey Epstein pal Bill Clinton to be a featured speaker at the funeral of John Lewis, a former Black Civil Rights icon, ought to read Elaine Brown’s brilliant 2002 book The Condemnation of Little B. In this classic radical Black text, Brown More
Hiroshima, Technique, and Bioweapons
My family comes from Hiroshima, and I was born there myself. On August 6, 1945, my father was thirteen and just far enough away from home in the center of Hiroshima, across a few hills assigned to digging potatoes. The rest of his immediate family was scattered far enough from Ground Zero to survive. Branches of his family and branches [...]
How Trump Managed to Lead the World with the Worst Response to the COVID Pandemic
Six months ago, on January 30, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). Ten days before this, the Chinese government had said—to great alarm—that the coronavirus could be transmitted from human to human. The contagiousness of this virus led the WHO More
Trump’s Alternative
It seems as if President Donald Trump is trying to sabotage the November election by publicly proposing postponing it and denigrating the untouchable democratic mainstay by repeatedly and forcefully arguing that it will be rigged. That’s his way of preparing his hyper narcissistic self for what could be a huge loss. After all, he recently More
The Worst Hunger Season Yet to Come: Global Moral Failure in the Time of Covid-19
As the moral philosopher Peter Singer asserts, we are just as obligated to save a child half a world away than we are to save a child that is drowning right in front of our eyes. While in the past, even the most powerful individuals could not affect what is happening in distant places, we More
The Battle for Kashmir
The erasure of Islam, its decimation in Kashmir, India’s only Muslim majority state, has accelerated since last August 5 when Prime Minister Modi drew down Kashmir’s limited autonomy, claiming that it was a hurdle towards Kashmir’s development. Since then, Delhi’s functionaries have blocked 8.8 million mobile phones; they have arrested 7,000 Kashmiris, including politicians, activists, including More
Malaysia’s Arch-Kleptocrat is Found Guilty
Malaysia’s former prime minister Najib Razak was found guilty in the first of 5 trials he faces for his multibillion-dollar looting of Malaysia’s 1MBD development fund. This particular trial concerned US$14m of funds deposited in Najib’s personal accounts from a unit of 1MDB. In all, it is alleged that US $4.5 bn was stolen from More
U.S. Cold War China Policy Will Isolate the U.S, Not China
Tensions between the United States and China are rising as the U.S. election nears, with tit-for-tat consulate closures, new U.S. sanctions and no less than three U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups prowling the seas around China. But it is the United States that has initiated each new escalation in U.S.-China relations. China’s responses have been More
Why Housing Is a Human Right
Congress’s inability to actually represent the real-live human beings of America, combined with an economic system that rewards lack of empathy and an excess of greed, has brought us to a dark time when an oncoming tsunami of financial ruin, destitution and evictions towers over our heads, blocking out the sunlight. The impending evictions may More
For Egalitarians, a Sudden Sense of Possibility
Something seems to be in the air these days — besides coronavirus. A hopefulness. A boldness. A conviction that we now have a real opportunity for blunting the corporate power that’s done so much to make the United States the world’s most unequal wealthy nation. How can we seize that opportunity? New reports from two More
Can Israelis Broaden Their Protests Beyond Netanyahu?
Israel is roiling with angry street protests that local observers have warned could erupt into open civil strife – a development Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be encouraging. For weeks, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have been the scene of large, noisy demonstrations outside the official residences of Mr Netanyahu and his public security minister, More
Ten Years After Lieberman’s “Internet Kill Switch,” the War on Freedom Rages On
In 2010, US Senators Joe Lieberman (D-CT), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Thomas Carper (D-DE) introduced their Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act. Better known as the “Internet Kill Switch” proposal for the emergency powers it would have conferred on the president, the bill died without receiving a vote in either house of Congress. A More
A Marxist Guide to Understanding the Gulf States’ Political Economy
Brazil’s Anti-Corruption Investigation Lava Jato Gave Us the Ultra-Corrupt Bolsonaro
What happens when a landmark anticorruption investigation, its lead prosecutors and the judge that presided over it, are found to be corrupt? What if the cure to the corruption pandemic turns out to be worse than the plague? We need only look to Brazil to see an example of this in practice. Brazil’s anticorruption investigation [...]
Staying on Message: Australia, the US and the AUSMIN Talks
The Satrap Chronicles of the US imperium will have, near the top of their various ingratiating themes, such Australian politicians as Senators Linda Reynolds and Marise Payne. They resemble Siamese consuls, hard to tell apart (robust build, similar of voice and manner). For another, their views form the putty of derivative policy that has characterised More
The View From Saturn
The View From Saturn In the time it takes the earth to make Eight trips around the sun Saturn completes just a quarter of one And there’s nowhere to do laundry No place to clean clothes Every laundromat’s closed The streams, polluted, Are thick with waste Or dried away Yet you’re still here And can More
The Democratic Platform Fight Shows It’s Still Obama’s Party
Few processes are given more importance, yet are as arcane and opaque, as the writing of the Democratic Party platform. Ostensibly the policy agenda of the next Democratic president (and the party as a whole), the platform is the result of hours of intense debate and negotiation between sometimes contentious factions of competing political interests. It is also, more often than [...]
Australia Is Doubling Down on Fossil Fuels
After twenty-nine years without a recession, Australia now faces the worst economic downturn in living memory. Unemployment is officially at 7.4 percent. With the addition of those receiving government wage subsidies or who have stopped looking for work, the figure is closer to 12 percent. On any substantive reading of the employment data, this is [...]
Free Public Early Childhood Education Is the Only Solution to the Current Childcare Crisis
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, childcare centers and the childcare industry as a whole have been at particular risk. In late July, Congress finally began serious discussions to address this crisis, one that will affect millions of working families and their teachers. As late as March 20, massive childcare corporations continued to operate, [...]
Defend California’s Redwoods
Along the northern coast, Just back from the rock-bound shore, and the caves, In the saline air from the sea, in the Mendocino country, With the surge for bass and accompaniment low and hoarse, With crackling blows of axes, sounding musically, driven by strong arms, Riven deep by the sharp tongues of the axes—there in [...]
Bolivians Are in Revolt Against Their Illegitimate Coup Regime
Late last month, Bolivia’s transitional government decided to postpone elections yet again, propelling the country into its most profound political crisis in decades. The most popular party — the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) — has been repeatedly denied its right to govern. The MAS won Bolivia’s last four elections by historic margins: 54-29 percent in [...]
Spain’s Former King Has Fled, But His Cronyism Remains
Juan Carlos de Borbón is the only man whose name appears in Spain’s 1978 Constitution. Yet on Sunday night, the former king was forced to flee Spain as evidence builds up of his financial scandals. After crossing over to Portugal he boarded a private jet to the Dominican Republic, where he is now in exile. [...]
Let Us Drink in Public
The aromas of freshly stewed gumbo and boiled crawfish wafted out onto the street in front of Broadview Seafood at the edge of New Orleans’s Seventh Ward. On Ash Wednesday this year, as I recovered from the revelry of Mardi Gras, I salivated as I considered my meal: Should I pick up some crab legs? [...]
Everlane’s Promises to Its Workers Were Made to Be Broken
In a saturated market, branding is the key to turning a profit. And in 2010, the founders of the clothing company Everlane hit on a brand strategy that positioned them well in the competitive field of online fashion: they promised to be honest and good. The notion, dubbed “radical transparency,” rhymed with the firm’s apparel [...]
Beyond Bernie: Down-Ballot Races to Watch in August and September
After a turbulent year in US politics, the progressive movement enters the final months of primary season with high-hopes of adding to its tally of down-ballot victories. It is now well over a month since the New York State elections and the full results are finally in. In an unprecedented sweep of NYC, all five [...] Another Hiroshima is Coming…Unless We Stop It Now
When I first went to Hiroshima in 1967, the shadow on the steps was still there. It was an almost perfect impression of a human being at ease: legs splayed, back bent, one hand by her side as she sat waiting for a bank to open. At a quarter past eight on the morning of More
“The people are active” – interview with Bolivian miners’ leader Orlando Gutiérrez
Unsung Heroes of Los Alamos: Rethinking Manhattan Project Spies and the Cold War
Instead of sharing the bomb with the USSR, which, remember, was America's ally in World War II, and then working for its being banned, the US began producing dozens and eventually hundreds of Nagasaki-sized atom bombs, moving quickly from hand-made devices to mass produced ones. The US also quickly started pursuing the development of a vastly more powerful bomb — [...]
Escalating State Repression and Covid-19: Their Impact on the Poor in Kenya
Soon after Kenya experienced its first Covid-19 case on 13 March 2020, President Uhuru Kenyatta invoked the Public Order Act to activate a series of tough measures, including wearing face masks at all times, the closure of schools and all ‘non-essential’ businesses, and a dusk till dawn curfew. Reports of police brutalities quickly followed. Even before the start of the [...]
We Need an Economic Survival Package Not Another Stimulus
There continues to be enormous confusion about what we should be trying to accomplish in the next pandemic relief package. This is best demonstrated by Republicans’ obsession with getting people back to work, with a mixture of cuts to unemployment benefits and return to work bonuses. Ignoring the questionable economic logic (there is zero evidence More
Globalization and the End of the American Dream
Immanuel Wallerstein provocatively begins one of his essays with the following cautionary note: “Globalization is a misleading concept, since what is described as globalization has been happening for 500 years.” Nevertheless, in a 2000 article, “Globalization or the Age of Transition?,” Wallerstein notes that after WW-II the U.S. was “the only major industrial power whose More
The Pandemic Reveals a Europe More United Than the United States
During the Trump era, America increasingly seems like a motley collection of states brought together for reasons of territorial contiguity and little else. The conservative South is ravaged by a pandemic. The liberal Northeast waits patiently for elections in November to oust a tyrant. A rebellious Pacific Northwest faces off against federal troops sent to More
The Government’s Failed Track-and-Trace System is a Disaster for England
Aggressive contact tracing is the strategy that will help most now, although it would have been easier to implement before Boris Johnson’s credibility was shredded When I got polio on a farm in the middle of the Irish countryside in 1956, an Irish Health Ministry official visited our nearest neighbour, a farmer called Dick Cunningham, the next More
‘Optimism of the Will’: Palestinian Freedom is Possible Now
In a recent TV discussion, a respected pro-Palestine journalist declared that if any positive change or transformation ever occurs in the tragic Palestinian saga, it would not happen now, but that it would take a whole new generation to bring about such a paradigm shift. As innocuous as the declaration may have seemed, it troubled More
Statement From Yale Faculty on Hydroxychloroquine and Its Use in COVID-19
We write with grave concern that too many are being distracted by the ardent advocacy of our Yale colleague, Dr. Harvey Risch, to promote the assertion that hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) when given with antibiotics is effective in treating COVID-19, in particular as an early therapeutic intervention for the disease. As his colleagues, we defend the right More
Ocean Heat: From the Tropics to the Poles
The heat being captured by the increasing load of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is subsequently transferred into the oceans for storage. This process — global warming — has raised the temperature of the biosphere by 1°C (or more) since the late 19th century. Heat introduced into any material body at More
Why the Idea of Jobless Benefits Scares the Conservative Mind
When Congress passed the CARES Act earlier this year, lawmakers gave some low-wage Americans who lost their jobs an income they’ve been demanding for years: $600 a week, which works out to $15 an hour for a 40-hour workweek. Because the federal minimum wage is less than half that rate—stuck there due to the intransigence More
Framing Wolves in New Mexico?
Late in May 2020, the Arizona Daily Star ran an article titled, “Advocates question investigations used to target ‘problem’ wolves,” detailing some of the work that Western Watersheds Project has been doing to review and assess Wildlife Services’ work on livestock killed by Mexican wolves in New Mexico. Together with my colleague – WWP’s Arizona More
Pulling Out of Germany: Trump Adjusts the Military Furniture
One noisy theme in the Donald Trump Disruption Show in an otherwise chaotic assemblage of messages has remained fairly constant: winding back US troop commitments. The US has fought its complement of wars, bloodied and bloodying. Time to up stakes and head home. It was a message that sold in 2016 across the aisles of More
COVID Stimulus Checks Shouldn’t Penalize One-Parent Households
Both the HEROES Act passed by the House in May and Senate Republicans’ HEALS Act announced this week would provide a new round of stimulus in the form of one-time cash payments to most Americans, but with some major differences. One of these differences is in how the bills treat one-parent households with children, the More
The 1 Percent’s Attack on Unemployment Benefits is a Sign of Our Broken Democracy
Members of the One Percent, such as former restaurateur Andrew Puzder, have urged Congress to not renew the $600 a week unemployment supplement Congress enacted as part of the CARES Act. They argue, in Puzder’s words, that “this $600 per week bonus is discouraging work” for low-wage earners. No one receiving unemployment benefits will make themselves More
On the Beauty of Life
Some friends were wondering how I spend my days. I told them I write most of the time. I explained my books and essays are invisible conversations, if not with the present, at least with the future. I keep asking questions about life, all of its gigantic spectrum: biological, social, political and historical. I published More
Mohammed Rafi: Singer and Human Par Excellence
Mohammed Rafi, the greatest humanitarian and singer, breathed his last forty years ago today, on July 31, 1980, due to multiple heart attacks while rehearsing for an album at home. Over 20,000 people, including film people, attended his funeral amidst heavy downpour. Rafi’s versatility; his command over different genres; his modulating techniques to suit a vast More
Eight A-Bomb Haiku
Eight A-Bomb Haiku The desert glowed brighter than a thousand suns — everything changed Japan was clearly defeated … still the A-bombs found their targets The A-bombs killed and maimed massively — mostly civilians Hiroshima — city of a thousand cranes calls out for peace Nagasaki — may you be the last victim of an More
Hollow Resistance
Why the South Needs Pro-Worker Media
Cornel West and Richard Wolff talk about Capitalism and White Supremacy
The Search for a Covid Vaccine Is Not an Arms Race
In U.S. political discourse, the search for a Covid-19 vaccine is largely framed as an arms race, in which the aim of the United States is to beat out other countries in procuring a vaccine, which will presumably go first to its own people. This vaccine nationalism, as global infections surge past 18 million and deaths near 700,000, is playing [...]
Accused, Convicted, Protected?
Over the last five days a former Tory MP has been convicted of sexual assault, an unnamed ex-Tory Minister has been arrested, and Prince Andrew faces a wave of new allegations of his involvement in sexual abuse. All the men involved have one thing in common. They have been protected by our establishment. Plus, we speak [...] When Arab-American Detroit Auto Workers Struck for Palestinian Liberation
On November 28, 1973, nearly two thousand auto workers walked off the job at Chrysler’s Dodge Main assembly plant near Detroit, bringing production to a halt. The one-day strike was unusual in three respects. First, it was a wildcat action, unsanctioned by the leadership of the workers’ union, the United Auto Workers (UAW). Second, the [...]
Comparing the US and Canada Shows Just How Badly America Has Bungled the Pandemic
In his 2006 book Differences that Matter: Social Policy and the Working Poor in the United States and Canada, the Canadian sociologist Dan Zuberi examines the experiences of low-wage hotel workers in Seattle, Washington, and Vancouver, British Columbia. His conclusion, unsurprising but powerfully documented, is that the policies and institutions on the Canadian side of [...]
Academic Freedom in Palestine Matters, Too
In Ireland, the history of boycott is a mixed one. The term has its origins in an episode in the Land War, a series of agrarian struggles in Ireland in the 1880s. Captain Charles Boycott, the agent for Lord Erne in County Mayo, sought to evict tenant farmers for nonpayment of rent. The farmers, organized [...]
Economic Update: Pandemic Capitalism in Asia
What a Time to Be Governed by Callous Morons
Even non-connoisseurs are reeling from the miserable second-quarter GDP numbers released this morning. Between the first and second quarters of this year, GDP was off 33 percent after adjustment for inflation. That’s by far the biggest decline since quarterly numbers began in 1947. That 33 percent figure is at an annualized rate, meaning GDP would [...]
“To Fight Unemployment, We Have to Fight Capitalism”
Almost five months into South Africa’s lockdown, new studies are finally indicating the extent of economic devastation it has caused. An estimated 3 million people lost their jobs in the early stages of the lockdown, and once the rest of the lockdown period is factored into future studies, the numbers are bound to increase. Unemployment already [...]
Workers Blow the Whistle on Mass Death
Ecuador’s Neoliberal Government Is Trying to Ban Rafael Correa from the 2021 Elections
In recent weeks, the lawfare waged against Ecuador’s former president Rafael Correa reached new levels of viciousness — and desperation. On July 20, Ecuador’s national court ratified its previous decision sentencing Correa to eight years in prison in the “Bribes Case,” alleging that the left-wing president had operated a web of corruption during his time [...]
Coronavirus Has Made Things Even Worse for Migrant Workers on Spain’s Fruit Farms
Strawberries, a symbol of British summertime, have long been tainted by the myriad human rights abuses that take place before they arrive on our supermarket shelves. In the summer of Covid-19, these abusive practices have reached their apex. The supply chains of supermarkets like Tesco and Marks and Spencer trace back to Huelva, in southern [...] The Resistible Rise of Nuclear Gangsters…and Their Downfall
It would be tempting to describe last week’s nuclear scandals — in three states — as something out of the Wild West. But Al Capone’s Chicago would be a more accurate analogy. While no actual shots were fired, some pretty powerful metaphorical ones were, warnings that engaging in criminal racketeering and fraud to fleece ratepayers More
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters
The name Homeland Security grates on a lot of people, understandably. Homeland isn’t really an American word, it’s not something we used to say or say now. It has a vaguely Teutonic ring – Ve must help ze Fuehrer protect ze Homeland! – and Republicans must always be on guard against sounding Teutonic. –Peggy Noonan The federal More
Their Heroes and Ours: California’s Health Care Crisis
Patients and visitors to Sutter Health’s shiny new hospital in Santa Rosa, Calif., are greeted with large banners, “Heroes Work Here.” This no doubt is true. At Kaiser Permanente’s hospitals we learn much the same, the giant HMO has awarded itself Five Stars for service. And this of course is all about Covid-19. California’s new spike in Covid cases is [...]
Renouncing White Privilege: A Left Critique of Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility”
White supremacy is not only white over black, it is also the small number of rich whites over the much larger number of poor and working class whites. In return for a guarantee that the latter group of whites will suffer the many calamities of life afflicting working people in a capitalist society less intensely and less frequently than do [...]
Free Joy Powell! America’s Political Prisoner for Fighting Police Brutality
If you protest against police brutality in America, you are definitely going to get brutalized by the police. And lately, federal marshals, homeland security, ICE officers, and assorted militarized federal goons and thugs will pile on. If you led a movement against police brutality in Rochester, NY in 2006, like Rev. Joy Powell did, you More
Trump’s Withdrawal From WHO: a Cover-Up for His Abject Failure on COVID-19
Microbes do not recognize borders. We are all safe only when everybody is safe. In a pandemic, to attack the only body we have for global cooperation endangers everyone. That is why the U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) is dangerous not only for the United States, but for all of the world. More
The Plunge in Consumption of Services Leads to a Record 32.9 Percent Drop in GDP
The saving rate hit a record 25.7 percent level in the first quarter, indicating that few of the pandemic checks were spent. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) shrank at a record 32.9 percent annual rate in the second quarter. While almost all the major categories of GDP fell sharply, a 43.5 percent drop in consumption More
Human Rights Defenders: Palestinian Eyewitness Testimony of the Execution of Abdul Fattah al-Sharif by Israeli Soldier, Elor Azaria
As illegal Jewish settlers increase their attacks on Palestinian civilians in the occupied city of Al Khalil (Hebron), the people of the Palestinian city continue to mount a campaign of popular resistance. One of the channels of resistance is Human Rights Defenders, “a grass-roots, non-partisan Palestinian organization, working to support nonviolent popular resistance through popular More
Accountability is Gone in America
Whether you consider the appalling death toll or the equally unacceptable rising numbers of Covid-19 cases, the United States has one of the worst records worldwide when it comes to the pandemic. Nevertheless, the president has continued to behave just as he promised he would in March when there had been only 40 deaths from More
A Wrong Message for the Pandemic
Public health messages addressed to the general population should be clear and unambiguous. This is particularly important in times of a pandemic like that caused by the coronavirus. Millions of lives are at stake. One of the messages, “social distancing,” widely used by public health authorities during the present pandemic, exemplifies this shortcoming. It should More
Chesa Boudin: Reformer in the San Francisco DA’s Office
Only time will tell whether Chesa Boudin, the current San Francisco DA, really walks the walk and talks the talk in the tradition of legendary DA Terence Hallinan. But after six months in office—he took over in January 2020—Boudin is off to a good start. Hallinan, who died on January 17, 2020, would surely approve of More
Forest Plan Failure in the Montana Rockies
The recently released Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest Service (HLCNF) plan is a huge disappointment by recommending only 153,000 acres out of 1,500,000 eligible aces of the forest for new wilderness. The Forest Service did not recommend wilderness for many deserving areas like the Elkhorn Mountains, Teton/Blackleaf along the Rocky Mountain Front, Camas Creek in More
Speaker Nancy Pelosi Writes to Me!
Years ago, Elizabeth Brennan Moynihan told me about her disgust with the Democratic Party’s outside consultants. These consultants were not competent. They were arrogant, costly, and looking out first for their interests, not the candidates they were supposed to advance. She threw them out and personally took over her husband, Senator Daniel P. Moynihan’s successful More
Take on the Tech Mob Now or Perish
Six months into a global pandemic, the US economy just took its most grievous hit on record, while Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook only added wealth. In just three months, April through June, so many workers were furloughed, laid off or forced to work and school from home, that the economy shriveled by 32.9% or More
U.S. Imperialism and Africa’s “Perfect Storm”
Conservationists Intervene to Oppose New Dam Project Near the Grand Canyon
New hydropower project would harm Little Colorado River and endangered species Washington, D.C. — A coalition of conservation groups filed a motion to intervene today to oppose a preliminary permit for a hydropower project near the Little Colorado River by the same company that proposed two similar projects last year. Earthjustice is representing Save the More
The Lost History of Socialism’s DIY Computer
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was a political anomaly. Ruled by a Communist Party but spurned by the Eastern Bloc following the 1948 Tito–Stalin split, this federation of six republics was held together under Tito’s banner of an inter-ethnic, inter-religious, and international “brotherhood and unity.” Subsequent to its repudiation by the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia [...]
Unconscious Bias Training Is Not the Answer
Last month, Labour leader Keir Starmer announced that all Labour staff members, including himself, would undergo compulsory unconscious bias training. This comes after the criticism he received following a BBC Breakfast interview where he described the Black Lives Matter movement as a “moment” and dismissed one of the fundamental aims of the movement — defunding [...]
How Capitalism Changed Football for the Worse
Seven years ago, two teams from England’s North West went down to Wembley Stadium to play out one of football’s great David-and-Goliath stories. In the final moments of the FA Cup Final, Ben Watson’s bullet header won the game for plucky Wigan Athletic against cash-rich Manchester City, whose two strikers cost four times more than [...]
Fighting Back against Hungary’s Ban on Legal Gender Recognition
Enrique Peña Nieto and His Corrupt Government Stole From the Mexican People
After stepping down from the Mexican presidency in December of 2018, Enrique Peña Nieto has been having a swell old time. Following his divorce from Angelica Rivera, the soap-opera star who stayed by his side just long enough for him to complete his term, Peña Nieto has been flouncing around the world in the company [...]
Patrice Lumumba’s Daughter: I’m Demanding Belgium Give Back My Father’s Remains
Cormega: “When It Comes to Art, What Kind of Artist Are You?”
Praised for his lyrical ability, Cormega might not have gotten the commercial success of some of his peers, but he’s more than made up for it in respect and acclaim. Listeners might have first encountered him when he was shouted out on Nas’s “One Love” or for his brief spell as a member of The [...]
The Portuguese Revolution and Women’s Liberation
When Isabel Telinhos left her apartment all dolled up on January 13, 1975 — high heels, tight skirt, fake eyelashes, and a curly blond wig like Marilyn Monroe — she had no idea what would happen next. “I brought my kid with me and everything, like all these other women. It was supposed to be [...]
Nigerian solidarity with July 20 BLM strike
Hands, Face, Space… SPIKE?
The Inner Chronicle of What We Are – Understanding Werner Herzog
A Widening Canadian Charity Scandal Is the Perfect Metaphor for Justin Trudeau’s Canada
On its face, the scandal currently embroiling Canada’s Liberal government looks like a fairly pedestrian conflict-of-interest story. In brief: back in April, the government unveiled a new, $912-million student grant program which would pay students up to $5,000 for volunteer work. On June 26, prime minister Justin Trudeau announced that the program would be administered [...]
The Struggle Against Dalit Oppression in India
Hot spots and kill shots in the (post)colonial state
Abolish DHS
On the streets of Portland unidentified men in full body armor and military style uniforms pulled people into unmarked cars in a manner that was all too similar to the behavior of authoritarian regimes. This paramilitary operation in an American city was carried out by the US Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Rapid Deployment Force [...]
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo Blocks Tax Hikes on Billionaires Bankrolling His Political Machine
New York governor Andrew Cuomo has stood firm against intensifying pressure to avert massive budget cuts by raising taxes on the many billionaires who live in his state. As that campaign to tax billionaires got a recent boost from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York’s Democratic state legislative leaders, Cuomo has insisted that he fears [...]
Tech Monopolies Like Google Have a Friend in Kamala Harris
This week, a House subcommittee held a high-profile hearing interrogating the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google about their growing market power. But as more congressional Democrats scrutinize corporate America’s monopolistic business practices, their party may end up giving the vice presidential nomination to a lawmaker who previously expressed misgivings about antitrust enforcement when [...]
Outrage Drives Clicks, Rage Sells Stories: the Brutal Economy of the Culture War
It’s all too easy to dismiss the current ‘culture wars’ as frivolous and tedious diversions from the real issues at hand. But behind the Twitter fights and think pieces lies a brutal economic logic with very real – and harmful – consequences. Simply put, culture war is – or perceives itself to be – a [...] How Partially Nationalizing the Highways Turned Italy Into “Another Venezuela”
A specter is haunting Italy’s highways: the specter of Chavismo. “Highways: the Venezuelan model has won,” claimed journalist Nicola Porro in a video addressed to his 700,000 Facebook and 400,000 Twitter followers. Porro is a famous face on Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset TV stations and deputy editor of the tycoon’s newspaper Il Giornale; and within just [...]
Tear Gas and Thugs at the BLM Protests in Portland
On the 59th night of BLM protests on July 25th at the federal courthouse, I was one of the thousands of protestors who went there. It took me a while to struggle through my fears of getting infected with the virus and the limits to my mobility due to old age and hip arthritis. More
Russiagate, Nazis, and the CIA
The political success of Russiagate lies in the vanishing of American history in favor of a façade of liberal virtue. Posed as a response to the election of Donald Trump, a straight line can be drawn from efforts to undermine the decommissioning of the American war economy in 1946 to the CIA’s alliance with Ukrainian fascists in 2014. In 1945 [...]
Roaming Charges: Demon Seeds
They came for Portland and Portland didn't back down in the face of extreme state-sponsored violence. Instead, the resistance grew every night. The Feds got their asses kicked, here and in Seattle. Let's hope it provides a model for the people of Cleveland, Chicago, Kansas City, and ABQ. More
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