(and the Need for Revolution)
by Gary Leupp / October 13th, 2016
The Illegality of the U.S. War on Iraq
One overlooked lesson of the invasion and occupation of Iraq is that international law–even the most fundamental one embodied in Article 2 of the UN Charter prohibiting use of force in international relations–can be violated with impunity, without legal ramifications or sanctions. Even Henry Kissinger–that embodiment of vicious amorality and imperialist aggression–noted in 2002 that the planned invasion would upset the structure of international relations existing since the Treaty of Westphalia 1648. Never mind, it happened anyway.
The U.S.-led assault on Iraq, in a war based entirely on lies–about Iraq’s 9/11 complicity; mobile chemical …
by David Boyajian / October 12th, 2016
Few people can honestly dispute that Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) is the Queen of Flip-Floppery and that her flip-flop record is lengthy:
The North American Free Trade Agreement, Trans-Pacific Partnership, Cuban embargo, Keystone oil pipeline, sanctuary cities, same-sex marriage, charter schools, and more.
But HRC’s flip-flops on the most extreme form of mass murder — genocide — may be the most disturbing. In her case, it’s the proven genocide of 1.5 million Christian Armenians (as well as Hellenics and Assyrians) committed by Ottoman Turkey from 1915–23.
Evolution of a Flip-Flopper
HRC probably learned genocide flip-floppery as First Lady …
A Mont Order View of the New "Cold War"
by L'Ordre / October 12th, 2016
With an all-but official declaration of a new “Cold War” on Russia by the United States, the journalistic atmosphere in the US, the EU and the exiting UK has become poisonous. Dissent is hardly permitted. All evils are now assumed to be the work of Moscow until proven otherwise, even by the most liberal of publications.
The US state has successfully pimped every hollow scribbler in the press and every brainless celebrity it can find to promote its foreign policy, word by word. The extent of such control is conspicuous and disturbing already.
Those of us who hold dissident perspectives towards our …
by Binoy Kampmark / October 12th, 2016
While British Prime Minister, Theresa May, keeps insisting that Brexit pathway will be a smooth, relatively painless process filled without dramatic compromise to lifestyle and outlook, the traders, stockbrokers and wolves of the City have gone about their own business. They, the suggestion goes, knew better, whereas the idiotic Brexiteer ventured to the ballot in total ignorance.
Central to the post-Brexit dark is discussion about the British pound, which has been accorded magical powers to reward, anoint or strip. Reading its fortunes is tantamount to consulting a wizened oracle, though the results are sometimes puzzling.
The last few days have seen the …
by Kevin Zeese / October 11th, 2016
Personally, I like Gary Johnson. I got to know him in the 1990s when he was governor of New Mexico. I was working to end the drug war, legalize marijuana and treat hard drugs as a public health, not criminal issue. Johnson came out for marijuana legalization, so I spent some time in New Mexico helping that agenda.
But, the more I got to know him the less I liked his political views. He took money from the private prison industry and proudly supported private prisons. Making prisons into profit centers creates ongoing human rights violations. Prisons should be a function …
by Ramzy Baroud / October 11th, 2016
The Israeli official narrative regarding its conflict with the Palestinians is deliberately confounded because a muddled up discourse is a convenient one. It allows the narrator to pick and choose half-truths at will in order to create a falsified version of reality.
For instance, this is part of what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the United Nations on September 22:
“Ladies and Gentlemen: Israel fights this fateful battle against the forces of militant Islam every day. We keep our borders safe from ISIS, we prevent the smuggling of game-changing weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, we thwart Palestinian terror attacks …
by James Petras / October 11th, 2016
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was removed from office through a well-organized, carefully planned operation among the corrupt Brazilian political elite, closely linked to the stock-market, financial institutions and foreign energy companies. This ‘legislative coup d’état ’eliminated the democratically-elected ‘political intermediaries’ and installed a regime directly controlled by the CEOs of leading multi-nationals. The corporate composition of the post-coup regime insured there would be a radical restructuring of the Brazilian economy, with a massive shift from wage support, social spending and public ownership toward profits, a foreign capital take-over of strategic sectors and foreign-domestic elite dominance over the entire economy.
This paper …
by Adnan Al-Daini / October 11th, 2016
What is it with this government and fracking? They seem to be obsessed with drilling; the proven safe and truly renewable wind and solar energies are not for them. They want the earth penetrated by drilling and the injection of high pressure water, laced with a cocktail of nasty chemicals and sand, to frack the hell out of the rocks beneath our beautiful countryside.
All of that is to release fossil fuel, in the form of natural gas (methane). It is true that natural gas, when burned, releases half the CO2 per unit …
by Jonathan Cook / October 11th, 2016
I thoroughly recommend the new documentary Amanda Knox to anyone interested in either human nature or the role of the media – which should include most of us. Here is the chance to hear the main protagonists tell their stories. Don’t be put off by the lukewarm reviews. Journalists don’t much like this film because it reveals so much about how journalism works – and it isn’t pretty.
The man feeding the media monster in the Knox case was Giuliano Mignini, the local prosecutor. He shifts uneasily in his chair as he justifies a series of poor decisions that led to …
by Yves Engler / October 10th, 2016
Israel apologists often complain about leftists “singling Israel out” or “obsessing” over that country, inferring a motivation of anti-Semitism. Putting aside the obvious truth that “obsessing” over the plight of an oppressed people ought to be considered a compliment and campaigning on any issue amounts to “singling” it out, the accusation often represents what a Freudian analyst would call a “projection”.
It is the Israeli nationalists themselves who single out and obsess over that country.
In Understanding the Zionist Religion National Post columnist and Walrus Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Kay explains:
At a recent large speaking event at Holy Blossom
…
by Arlene V. Edmonds / October 10th, 2016
Why can’t I get a full time job after working 30 years as an adjunct professor and advisor? This is the question of Linda D. Evans, PhD, who has taught and advised at the Community College of Philadelphia for three decades. She carries around overstuffed manila folders with the statement of employment discrimination that she filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and a Pennsylvania Humans Relations Commission questionnaire. There is a copy of the adjunct seniority list where her name appears. She also has a copy of a letter she sent to Philadelphia Mayor James Kenney pleading for help, …
Review of Dr. Hudson's book The Bubble and Beyond
by Paul Majchrowicz / October 10th, 2016
Economists like to treat money in an economy like a politician treats air in politics. It is absolutely necessary to the exchange of ideas but plays no fundamental role in history. Dr. Hudson’s book, The Bubble and Beyond, is an attempt to disabuse you of that idea.
Money is fundamental to an economy. How it comes into existence, how much of it there is in circulation relative to how much is required to clear the markets of goods and services, how interest rates are established and how money is taxed determine the winners and losers in an economy. Money …
by Nozomi Hayase / October 10th, 2016
The US presidential debacle is rolling out like hyped up reality TV. Scandals of Trump’s graphic sex talks and Hillary’s leaked Goldman Sachs speeches add to the sensation. The captains of this managed democracy are pulling high ratings on their show, successfully distracting people from real issues. Multinational corporations behind the scene have now captured not only economic, but also political power. Through gutting regulation and guiding government policies, unbridled greed has made fraud a normal course of business and plunder a way of life.
From cradle to grave, commercial interests infiltrate every aspect of our lives. Education has …
Part 3 of 3: What Does the Rise of China Mean for the Rest of the World?
by Kim Petersen / October 9th, 2016
“China and Russia have their work cut out for them, fighting for their countries, peoples, ways of life, and indirectly, for humanity’s 99% and the survival of our Pale Blue Dot. This, against the onslaught of …
by William Hawes / October 7th, 2016
Realize that the system can’t exist without belief
Appreciate your true potential, un-twist your mouth and speak
We’re working on building a world our children can live in
Understand I can’t be free while you’re still in this prison
And I can spend my days preaching and so on and so forth
But it won’t change ’til we don’t wanna go on no more
— Sweatshop Union, “The Thing About It”
As the election cycle drags on, it’s quite revealing that citizens still believe that our future policies and legislation will revolve around which candidate wins. Our government is fully controlled by the deep state, a fusion …
by Jonathan Cook / October 6th, 2016
As world leaders congregated in Jerusalem last weekend to eulogise Shimon Peres as a “great peacemaker”, the peace camp of which he was the figurehead went to war against its main Palestinian partner in Israel.
Ayman Odeh, head of the only Jewish-Arab party in the Israeli legislature, is the most prominent representative of Israel’s 1.7 million Palestinian citizens. He also serves as chairman of a coalition called the Joint List, formed with other Palestinian parties, that is now the third largest in parliament.
Mr Odeh, nonetheless, enraged the Israeli Jewish public by refusing to attend Peres’s funeral.
The Joint List leader is known …
A review of Peace Plays by Johan Galtung, Vitahl Rajan, and S. P. Udayakumar
by Gary Corseri / October 6th, 2016
But where can wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?”
— The Book of Job
… with the finding of the language the feelings begin to change again.
— Phyllis Rose
Part One
These are ideational works. They are clever and literate, but rather unusual, and even the judicious reader might like a little “framing.” The authors, and/or publisher, seem aware of that need with this blurb on the book’s back cover:
“Peace studies are usually presented as essays, in social science, political or philosophical-ethical discourses. This book is an experiment with drama as peace discourse, by authors versed in the other three. …
by Ahmad Barqawi / October 6th, 2016
He was a Jordanian Journalist, a Leftist, a self-proclaimed “anti-Imperialist”. He was a pro-Syria activist and a fierce supporter of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s Government against the West’s war of aggression for regime change in that country. And now he is the victim of Jordan’s first ever political assassination.
Nahed Hattar, a secular Jordanian author and writer, was shot dead on September 25th, at the steps leading to the High Court Of Justice in Amman, the very court he was about to be tried in for “offending the Islamic religion” after sharing a “caricature” drawing mocking ISIS’s skewed version of …
by Alli McCracken / October 6th, 2016
Pressure from human rights organizations like Oxfam to victims of the 9/11 attacks are helping erode the bond between these old political allies, but the results of this election season could squander our chance at change.
Congress recently passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) allowing families of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks to sue other governments, including Saudi Arabia, for possible damages.
Despite threats by the Saudi government to sell billions of dollars’ worth of their assets and reexamine the bilateral relationship with the U.S., Congress snubbed the …
by Allen W. Smith / October 5th, 2016
My article, “Let the Public Know the Truth About Social Security,” Dissident Voice, September 26, 2016, raised doubts in the minds of some readers. One reader wrote: “Unlike protests such as Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter, no one is taking to the streets to protest this big theft. So, what will it take to well up enough anger to stage protests?”
The reason there are no protests is that most people don’t know about the theft, and they are still getting their checks on time. On July 12, 2011, during a stalemate between President Obama and the Congress over …
