The election of Donald J. Trump on Tuesday, November 8 terrified many who consider themselves notionally progressive or traditional republicans. It also terrified free trade ideologues, and those who believe that opening borders to boundless consumer goods and services eradicates poverty.
There are few better exponents of this idea on trade than Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, whose insistence that protectionism remains an evil to be combated has sounded pious. Keep the markets open, while shutting borders to people desperately seeking refuge. In other words, keep such monsters as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement on the table for full implementation, while flouting …
Sonoma County, California — “Think global and act local. This is the intention behind the actions of the Commission on Human Rights, which passed a resolution on Tuesday night in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline,” according to a November 18 press release from the Sonoma County Commission on Human Rights.
“We wanted to support the Standing Rock Sioux, but also the actions of our local tribal leadership from the Coyote Valley Band and Kashia Band of Pomo, Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria and Ya-Ka-Ama, as well as the many residents of Sonoma County who have mobilized around this issue,” says …
When the likes of Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad, and now Donald Trump, are declared the latest ‘New Hitler’, we learn little except that they are enemies of the establishment. It means the ‘On’ button has been pressed on a propaganda machine designed for maximal demonisation, leaving no room for public doubt. This inevitably drives comparisons in the direction of Hitler and the Nazis.
The rationale is well-understood by the public relations community. Phil Lesley, author of a handbook on PR and communications, explained the spectacularly successful strategy for obstructing action on environmental issues:
To be upfront, I strongly believe that President Trump is exactly what the USA desperately needs at this time, a disrupter. I say this as someone who worked in the political world for over 20 years, is white, highly educated, old and affluent. I ask all who have negative views of Trump to open their minds and consider my arguments.
In September 2015 I published an article in which I said: “Trump surely has more current and potential supporters than the media and political establishment can accept. Unlike Trump, they have no imagination. The Donald, to …
Every aspect of this year’s US Presidential election has been fraught with myths, distortions, fabrications, wishful thinking and invented fears.
We will proceed to discuss facts and fictions.
Electoral Participation
The mass media, parties and candidates emphasized the ‘unprecedented voter turnout’ in the elections. In fact, 48% of the eligible voters abstained.
In other words, nearly half of the electorate did not vote. There were many reasons, including widespread disgust at both major party candidates and the …
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas revives long-held suspicions over Arafat’s death ahead of Fatah congress next week
by Jonathan Cook / November 17th, 2016
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has revived long-standing suspicions that his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, was murdered. Abbas announced last week that he knew the killer’s identity, adding that the world would be “amazed when you know who did it”.
Abbas made the unexpected announcement during a commemoration, marking the 12th anniversary of Arafat’s death, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where the former Palestinian leader is buried.
Arafat died in a French military hospital in 2004, aged 75. He had been evacuated days earlier from his Ramallah headquarters after rapidly falling ill. His Muqata compound had been under …
On October 9, I was in the Nevada desert with Catholic Workers from around the world for an action of prayer and nonviolent resistance at what is now called the Nevada National Security Site, the test site where between 1951 and 1992, nine hundred and twenty-eight documented atmospheric and underground nuclear tests occurred. Since the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and the apparent end of the Cold War, The National Nuclear Security Administration, NNSA, has maintained the site, circumventing the intent of the treaty with a stated “mission to maintain the stockpile without explosive underground nuclear testing.”
As efforts to oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline grow, communities across the country are hearing from activists on their return from North Dakota and sending off fresh teams to lend support. The author believes that part of the support for the Standing Rock protests is a dawning consciousness that Native people have something important to teach us about living well on this planet. *****
On Sunday, November 6, in Redwood Valley, a tiny agricultural community in northern California known for its premium wine grapes and marijuana and its back-to-the-land ethics, cars spilled out of the parking lot at the local …
Part 3 of a 3 Part Series: A spiritual education for the Art of Being
by Mohammed Mesbahi / November 15th, 2016
Yet here again we must return to the original premise of our enquiry, for none of these future transformations are foreseeable without the large-scale release of compassion and awareness throughout the human population, which must be nurtured and inspired by a new education based on more spiritual values. However ardently we embrace the idea of implementing a sharing economy in its most universal form for the coming age, we are left with the reality of a modern era that is characterised by the greed and indifference of countless millions of individuals, and the systemic injustice of a corrupt world order …
As I was growing up, I was always reassured by the sound of the ‘Muadhin’ making the call for prayer in our refugee camp’s main mosque in Gaza. Whenever I heard the call very early in the morning, announcing in a melodic voice that the time for the ‘Fajr’ (dawn) prayer was upon us, I knew it was safe to go to sleep.
Of course, the call for prayer in Islam, like the sound of church bells ringing, carries a deep religious and spiritual meaning, as it has, five times a day, for the last 15 centuries, uninterrupted. But, in Palestine, …
Jailed for Refusing to Remove Black Lives Matter Lapel Pin
by Bill Quigley / November 15th, 2016
Andrea Burton, a 30 year old Ohio criminal defense lawyer, was rocketed onto the national social justice scene this summer after she was handcuffed and jailed for refusing to take off a Black Lives Matter pin while in court.
Burton’s stance received international attention. “I think that you can’t remain silent or you remain a party to oppression,” she told The Washington Post. “I am usually a pretty agreeable person. I’m always smiling. I’m polite. I have manners. But at some point it eats away at you …
Since the results of the latest Presidential elections were announced, I am longing for silence, while the overwhelming cacophony of deafening noises is assaulting my ears, and in fact all my senses.
Suddenly everyone around me wants to speak, to shout, and to declare. Lately, people who are surrounding me, as well as those who are far away from me are frantically watching the news, reading newspapers and browsing through countless political websites.
My friends and comrades all over the world are poking jokes at the US political establishment, or trembling in anticipation of something terrible, even apocalyptic.
Summary: I briefly describe the anthropological origin and recent statutory embodiments of human rights of individuals. I show that the modern “democratic” state moderates the rights of individuals by both: (1) violating the said rights in order to maintain and enforce the societal dominance hierarchy, and (2) preventing disproportionate violations, to avoid inciting rebellion. The courts are charged with these tasks but must not appear to represent an oppressive state. The courts’ practical solution has been to develop the legal artifice of “balancing conflicting rights”, where the court presents itself as a neutral arbitrator providing “access to justice”, rather than …
In an age where many pundits and pollsters ought to be put out to an ignoble pasture, predictions and astrology gazing on the US election continues. While he did have a better sense of this election than most, actually predicting the result, Michael Moore has decided to essentially ignore it except in the negative.
On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Moore took another stab at reading the future. “Here’s what’s going to happen, this is why we’re not going to have to suffer through four years of Donald J. Trump, because he has not ideology except the ideology of Donald J. Trump.”
Donald Trump was an outsider who boldly stormed the citadel of Washington DC and won. He has promised real change, but his infrastructure plan appears to be just more of the same – privatizing public assets and delivering unearned profits to investors at the expense of the people. He needs to try something new; and for this he could look to Abraham Lincoln, whose bold solution was very similar to one now being considered in Europe: just print the money.
In Donald Trump’s victory speech after the presidential election, he vowed:
Two days after the election, the New York Times ran a feel-good editorial. It was called “Being American in the Trump Years.” The basic message? Let’s bury our hatchets, all work together and assure a peaceful transfer of power. Hey, it’s a democracy. Way down in the text were the words: “Trump owes nothing to the traditional powers in his party — not the Koch brothers, not the leadership in Congress.”
Really? Trump owes nothing to the Koch brothers? That’s a statement the veracity of which can’t be tested – unless Donald releases his tax returns (which, of course, is not …
Castigating the US electorate as accomplices and facilitators of wars, or, at best, dismissing the voters as ignorant sheep-people (‘sheeple’) herded by political elites, describes a partial reality. Public opinion polls, even the polls overwhelmingly slanted toward the center-right, consistently describe a citizenry opposed to militarism and wars, past and present.
Both the Right and Left have failed to grasp the contradiction that defines US political life: Namely, the profound gap between the American public and the Washington elite on questions of war and peace within an electoral process …
For the despondent Democratic shills doing postmortems on the Clinton campaign, looking back on the big picture, assessing the damage and reflecting anew on how Trump became politically prominent in the first place, there are few sins greater than the president-elect’s original sin of questioning Obama’s “legitimacy” through his leadership of the “birther movement.”
Recall how that was an effort to undercut the new president’s authority by questioning his birthplace and indeed every aspect of his childhood. And recall how in 2009 Trump devoted resources to “investigating” the young Obama, announcing that he had had no friends at Punahou High School, …
Terrorists have launched a chemical attack on civilians and government forces in the Syrian city of Aleppo.
The Syrian army says terrorists, located in the eastern parts of the flashpoint city, fired shells containing chlorine, leaving scores of people injured. Terror groups, including Daesh, have a history of carrying out chemical attacks on civilians and government forces both in Iraq and in Syria. Earlier in the day, foreign-backed militants launched rocket attacks on several Syrian cities. At least five people were killed and three others were injured. The shelling also caused material damage in residential areas.
