by Robert Hunziker / April 12th, 2016
The soul of Greece has flown away, zipping past Mount Olympus, gone.
The negotiating position of Greece à la Troika has gone from bad to worse to much worse, as suffocation of the body politic is well underway. The politicians of Greece have become pliable pawns in the hands of the all-powerful European Troika.
It’s all about saving the Banks, saving the Creditors. The people, well, they don’t count for much “they’re nothing more than numbers,” maybe worse. Plastic bureaucrats see it that way.
Zoe Konstantopoulou, a Greek lawyer and former Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament, recently (April) discussed the issues at …
Coercive Engineered Migration: Zionism's War on Europe (Part 11 of an 11 Part Series)
by Gearóid Ó Colmáin / April 11th, 2016
During the 1920s General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Josef Stalin formulated what he considered to be the essential contribution of Lenin to Marxist political economy. Leninism, he wrote, is Marxism in the era of proletarian revolution. Since 1989 proletarian and national liberation revolutions throughout the world have been overturned by a general, global counter-revolutionary upsurge. It is a a political phenomenon that has seen the onslaught of US colour revolutions, which seek to do away with the bourgeois nation-state itself, the last barrier to the total exploitation of the world by the global corporate and financial …
by William Boardman / April 11th, 2016
So what happens if a campaign tries “disqualification” as a tactic?
Hillary Clinton and the Clinton campaign hinted and hinted and hinted that Bernie Sanders is not qualified to be president, but they may never have actually said it. No matter. Some news media believed them, took the hints for facts, and reported that Hillary said Bernie was not qualified. In response, Bernie openly and loudly said Hillary is not qualified to be president. New York media predators had a grand time chewing on all this raw meat. And that was just last week.
The week began predictably enough with …
by Ellen Brown / April 11th, 2016
Exposing tax dodgers is a worthy endeavor, but the “limited hangout” of the Panama Papers may have less noble ends, dovetailing with the War on Cash and the imminent threat of massive bail-ins of depositor funds.
The bombshell publication of the “Panama Papers,” leaked from a Panama law firm specializing in shell companies, has triggered both outrage and skepticism. In an April 3 article titled “Corporate Media Gatekeepers Protect Western 1% From Panama Leak,” UK blogger Craig Murray writes that the whistleblower no doubt had good intentions; but he made the mistake of leaking his 11.5 million documents to the …
by John Steppling / April 11th, 2016
After having stoked the civil wars and violent dismantling of Yugoslavia of 1991-1995, the United States—with the help of the ICTY—stoked a crisis in Kosovo which it used to force a war against Serbia, a war which enabled the U.S.-led NATO bloc to occupy Kosovo and later separate it from Serbia, and left Serbia a crushed and subservient state. The construction and use of the ICTY to demonize Serbs was part of the war-making plan, as the ICTY called for refusing to negotiate a settlement with, and pursuing as criminals, Serb targets.
— Edward S. Herman and David Peterson
The complacency and arrogance of NATO’s
…
Paul Krugman Over the Top
by Rick Sterling / April 10th, 2016
When Republicans are in the White House, Paul Krugman and the New York Times sometimes sound pretty good. But when someone starts seriously and effectively challenging core assumptions and values of our political economic system, the progressive veneer quickly vanishes. This is demonstrated in Paul Krugman’s verbal attack on the Bernie Sanders campaign in his “Sanders Over the Edge” editorial.
Krugman does not hold back. Bernie supporters and Bernie himself are described by Krugman as intolerant, cultish, shallow, vague, without substance, lacking character and values, dishonest, short on ethics, really bad, petulant and self-righteous. Wow!
Krugman’s diatribe deserves scrutiny and lampooning. …
by Clifton Ross / April 10th, 2016
My friend Jose tells me that the electrical outages haven’t so far had too great an impact on him and his family in Merida, Venezuela. I’d asked if the food in his refrigerator spoiled more quickly and he laughed. “Well, you know the ‘fridge stays cold for a while without electricity,” he said. “And besides, these days, there’s very little in the fridge.” He’d just come from spending eleven hours in a line: from 3 a.m. until 2 p.m., to get just two bags of flour, the first he’d had in some two weeks. Food was clearly a bigger concern …
Part 2
by Kim Petersen / April 10th, 2016
See Part 1.
Back in the 1960s, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry depicted a 23rd century future where the bridge of an Earth spaceship had an African, an East Asian, a Slav, Anglos, and a half human/half Vulcan crew exploring the galaxy together in — for the most part — respectful harmony. In the 1980s, Roddenberry was behind the series Star Trek: The Next Star Generation. The spaceship Enterprise again had a diverse crew. By the 1990s, TV executives felt comfortable enough to allow a Black captain on the Star Trek: Deep Space 9 series and a female captain …
by subMedia / April 9th, 2016
This week we take a look at the multiple converging flashpoints of resistance in France, which have combined into a popular movement that has inspired over a million peeps to take to the streets in a massive expression of collective rage.
On the music break, we have French antifa hip hop group Sang Mêlé, with Le Bal Des Insurgé.es.
From there we move onto a take-down of “the Donald”, and try to answer the question of why his angry message is resonating with millions of Americans. We finish things up with an interview with Crimethinc operative …
Judge Demands Constitution Be Respected in Louisiana Public Defender Catastrophe
by Bill Quigley / April 9th, 2016
New Orleans Criminal Court Judge Arthur Hunter, a former police officer, ruled that seven people awaiting trial in jail without adequate legal defense must be released. The law is clear. The US Supreme Court, in their 1963 case Gideon v Wainwright, ruled that everyone who is accused of a crime has a Constitutional right to a lawyer at the state’s expense if they cannot afford one. However, Louisiana, in the middle of big budget problems, has been disregarding the constitutional right of thousands of people facing trial in its most recent statewide public defender meltdown. Judge Hunter ruled …
by Robert Hunziker / April 8th, 2016
The Panama Papers, a one-year investigation by over 100 reporters worldwide (The International Consortium of Investigative Journalism) of offshore money hiding/laundering/taxation avoidance, is a cause célèbre of underhandedness seldom, if ever, revealed to the world’s public. It is comparable to lifting a rotting log in the woods and finding an active nest of millipedes, red worms, and cockroaches scampering about to escape the bright sunlight. They can’t stand the sunlight because darkness is their life.
It’s the biggest leak in history, dwarfing the data released by the Wikileaks organization in 2010. For context, if the amount of data released by Wikileaks
…
by Graham Peebles / April 8th, 2016
Migration is a major political and social issue throughout Europe; in the UK it is a highly emotive matter, distorted by the rabid right wing media and irresponsible politicians.
The numbers of asylum seekers (people fleeing conflict and persecution of one kind or another) arriving in the UK are small, tiny in fact – in 2014, according to UNHCR, a total of 31,400 people applied for asylum in Britain, compared to Turkey – 87,800, Sweden – 75,100, and Italy – 63,700. At the end of 2014,UNHCR relates, “refugees, pending asylum cases and stateless persons made up just 0.24% of …
by Andre Vltchek / April 8th, 2016
Lebanon cannot stand on its feet, anymore. It is overwhelmed, frightened and broke.
It stands on the frontline, facing the ISIS in the east and north, a hostile Israel in the south and the deep blue sea to the west. 1.5 million (mostly Syrian) refugees are dispersed all over its tiny territory. Its economy is collapsing and infrastructure crumbling. The ISIS is right at the border with Syria, literally next door, or even with one foot inside Lebanon, periodically invading, and setting up countless “dormant cells” in all Lebanese cities and all over its countryside. Hezbollah is fighting the ISIS, but …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / April 8th, 2016
It is hard to imagine that anything worse could befall Fallujah after the war crimes and criminal assaults by the US military in 2004. At the time, one correspondent wrote:
There has been nothing like the attack on Fallujah since the Nazi invasion and occupation of much of the European continent – the shelling and bombing of Warsaw in September 1939, the terror bombing of Rotterdam in May 1940.
Seventy percent of houses and shops were reported destroyed, with those still standing damaged. Iraqi doctor, Ali Fadhil, described a city:
… completely devastated, destruction everywhere. It looked like a city of ghosts.
…
Europe’s Islamist Legionnaires Come Home to Fight
by James Petras / April 8th, 2016
The terror bombings in Paris and Brussels have raised a cacophony of voices, ranging from state officials, Prime Ministers and Presidents, to academics, journalists and media consultants. Tons of ink and print have focused on the psychology, networks and operations of the alleged perpetrators – radicalized young Muslim citizens of the EU.
Few have examined the long-term, large-scale policies of the EU, US, and NATO, which have been associated with the development and growth of the worldwide terror networks. This essay will discuss the historical links between …
by Graham Vanbergen / April 7th, 2016
The recent revelation resulting from the Panama Papers is nothing new. It just helps to highlight the sheer scale of criminality being perpetrated by those wealthy enough to benefit. What we are witnessing from a tiny island, nestled neatly between North and South America, is a glimpse of a global money laundering fest on a truly oceanic scale.
There are 82 countries listed globally as tax havens or jurisdictions of financial secrecy. Collectively Britain is the number one on the list of offenders, mainly because of its extensive overseas territories such as Jersey, Isle of Man, Gibraltar etc. In reality, though, Britain …
by Binoy Kampmark / April 7th, 2016
The International Monetary Fund has been at odds with other partners in the Greek bailout saga. Its economists have wondered whether strangling a state with the noose of austerity is a decent way of either eliminating debt, let alone stimulating growth. Not that the body has gone entirely anti-austerity.
The European Commission, and the European Central Bank, have enjoyed taking the high road on trimming the Greek state while seeking debt repayments. Their obsession with credit, and their reduction of states and their citizens to bank balances, has betrayed a mania for debt hood over sovereignty. The point was amply illustrated …
by Joel S. Hirschhorn / April 7th, 2016
If you think that the worst thing for the country is electing yet another establishment politician to the presidency, what is your best, most principled action? By you I mean the millions of Americans who have supported the candidacy of either Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump. They have enormous potential power.
Skip forward to the general election and imagine that both Sanders and Trump have not made it to the presidential ballot, a very likely scenario. Clearly, both Trump and Sanders supporters strongly oppose the political establishment. The status quo of what amounts to more of a plutocracy than a legitimate …
by Yves Engler / April 7th, 2016
Last week students at L’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) disrupted a board meeting after learning administrators planned to sign a $50 million, seven-year, contract with security giant GardaWorld. Protesters are angry the administration has sought to expel student leaders and ramp up security at the politically active campus as they cut programs.
The world’s largest privately held security firm, Garda is open about its need for repressive university, business and political leaders. The Montréal firm’s chief executive, Stephan Cretier, called the 2012 Québec student strike “positive” for business. “Naturally, when there’s unrest somewhere – the Egyptian election or some disruption …
Trolling the Candidate on the Campaign
by Steve Breyman / April 6th, 2016
Following Bernie Sanders victory in Wisconsin—his seventh out of the last eight primaries and caucuses—Hillary Clinton remains ahead in the (super) delegate count. Her frontrunner status means the news media and citizen journalists ought to pose more questions to her in the coming months.
This is not easy given that Clinton has held very few press conferences during the campaign—it’s been about 120 days since the last one. She avoids the national press, wrote one reporter, out of “personal preference . . . and as a strategic choice.” Some voters might think she has something to hide, or would prefer …
