London —It has the air of being a well minted yet distinctly first world problem: inconvenienced commuters in one of the world’s first true megalopolises, gnashing their teeth as they are pushed and grounded together during the rush hour. All because of a strike by station workers on the London Underground, which supplies the arterial blood for commuter traffic in the city on a daily basis.
The strike, instigated by the Rail Maritime and Transport union and Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association, had been calculated to cause maximum inconvenience. Their grounds remain traditional: a persistent dislike for the closing of ticket offices, …
Another lonely man dies of exposure while the world around him shops
by Paul Haeder / January 8th, 2017
Amazing how crass this culture is. I know, the whole slavery DNA and before, expropriation of not just the land and culture, but the body whole of Original Peoples, and all the massacres, the lynchings, the endless firing squads against strikers, workers, the murders by the law, and worse, structural homicide of this land, granted, all pretty disgusting. With these yahoos in office (Obama-to-Trump), who have always been in office, pink donkey or yellow elephant, it’s 24/7 “we beat ’em fair and square, so why not take it all, these effing reservations, all those goddamned countries in the world, stopping …
Al Jazeera is to be congratulated on an undercover investigation exposing something most of us could probably have guessed: that some Israeli embassy staff in the UK – let’s not pussy around, Mossad agents – are working with senior political activists and politicians in the Conservative and Labour parties to subvert their own parties from within, and skew British foreign policy so that it benefits Israeli, rather than British, interests.
One cannot really blame Israel for doing this. Most states promote their interests as best they can. But one can and should expose and shame the British politicians who are …
Imperialist demagogues, as well as religious fanatics, are known to live in their grotesque realities. They erect huge sand castles, invent mascots, and bombard the public relentlessly with self-promoting messages.
Those who refuse to listen and believe, those who dare to doubt and resist, are sidelined, starved to death, humiliated or simply liquidated.
Western religions and European/North American brutal colonialist practices are intertwined culturally. Hand in hand, for centuries, they have been destroying our Planet, from corner to corner, on all continents and even on the high seas.
All conquests, all genocides, all plunders have been eternally rationalized, painstakingly justified. Grand bogus concepts …
*****Ryan Dawson: This is Ryan Dawson of the ANC Report. With me today is Doug Valentine. I’m going to be asking him tonight about the CIA’s role in Ukraine and in infiltrating the media. Mr. Valentine, …
It seems so strange, twenty-seven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, to be living through a new Cold War with (as it happens, capitalist) Russia.
The Russian president is attacked by the U.S. political class and media as they never attacked Soviet leaders; he is personally vilified as a corrupt, venal dictator, who arrests or assassinates political opponents and dissident journalists, and is hell-bent on the restoration of the USSR.
(The latter claim rests largely on Vladimir Putin’s comment that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a “catastrophe” and “tragedy” — which in many respects it was. The press …
The US Intelligence Community has accused Russia and Vladimir Putin personally of meddling in last year’s US presidential election, through hacking and propaganda. Craig Murray, a former UK diplomat and whistleblower joins RT to discuss this issue.
On April 4th, 1968, a single bullet forever silenced the man J. Edgar Hoover called “the most dangerous Negro in America”. A patsy named James Earl Ray would die in prison for the dirty deed, only to be exonerated after his death. Martin Luther King’s family, disbelieving the official U.S. Government song and dance, hired a friend and attorney named Bill Pepper to investigate and confirm their doubts. More than two decades of research and questioning, begun in 1977, culminated in a 1999 verdict from a Memphis jury. After listening to 70 witnesses testify under oath, the jury deliberated less than an …
Part 2 -- The Absolutely Essential Distinction: Wars of Aggression are not Equivalent to Wars of Self-defense
by Kim Petersen / January 7th, 2017
In part 1 it was stated that war is abhorrent. Most people undoubtedly would agree. However, an essential distinction must be made between/among the warring sides. Clearly, without the initiation of the violence, there would be no call for a violent self-defense. This is axiomatic and should be readily understandable to any mentally endowed person. That being the case, clearly blame, censure, and punishment should lie preponderantly with the initiator of the violence. If not for the violence of the initiator there would have been no requirement …
The global growth and survival of ISIS, in the face of opposition by governments, armies, intelligence agencies and police forces from nearly a hundred countries, requires analysis. We understand ‘ISIS’ as the organized, militant, violent Salafist movement sometimes funded by the royal family of Saudi Arabia.
The Opposition
Those generally opposed to ISIS, in many cases, have pursued a dual and contradictory approach. For example, the United States has, at different times and places, opposed or supported ‘ISIS’.
For example, Washington supported ISIS against the pro-Soviet regime in …
For many weeks we have witnessed the extraordinary attack by the CIA and its assets in Congress and the media on Donald Trump’s election. In an unprecedented effort to delegitimize Trump’s election as the product of Russian interference in the election, the CIA, media, senators and representatives have consistently made wild accusations for which they have no evidence. The CIA’s message to Trump is clear: Get in line with our agenda, or we are going to mess you over.
It is clear that the CIA is warring against Trump. But the CIA’s media assets have turned the facts on their head …
Critics of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, or Obamacare) have openly advocated the full repeal of the legislation since its implementation some years ago. It is no secret that Trump has advocated for a full repeal as well. Given his tendency to renege on his word, however, it remains uncertain whether the president-elect will, in fact, replace the PPACA quite as he has promised. Nonetheless, Trump has vowed time and again to realize several changes that portend sweeping and awful effects for the American public.
Specifically, under Trump’s health policy reform plan entitled “Healthcare Reform to Make America …
When I began reading the work of Douglas Valentine about six years ago, I had not read his books, only the articles that the US online journal Counterpunch had published. In fact, I only began reading Counterpunch because of the accident of having been introduced to the two original editors of what was then only a printed newsletter. Later I was even able to publish a few pieces in that journal before its more famous founding editor’s demise. Why do I preface a book review with such personal observations? To that question I will return later.
In an unprecedented move, a member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has agreed to investigate a complaint that the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has funded human rights abuses in Cameroon, beginning a process which until now has only been used for multinational businesses.
London — Populism has a much needed place in political arrangements, the necessary, disruptive gust that keeps the complacent from losing touch. For one, it often threatens to destroy those arrangements altogether, or at the very least provide a blustery challenge.
This, however, comes with its costs, notably in the modern State. For one, it promises a mixture of bloodletting and indifference to the technocrats and advisors who claim various skills and expertise. Killing the priest class, the monopolists on expertise and ritual, leads to blood, confusion, and the need for a good deal of re-ordering.
Tributes pour in after the death of Greek Melkite archbishop Hilarion Capucci, 94, who fought for Palestinian rights
by Jonathan Cook / January 4th, 2017
A Greek Melkite archbishop, described as an “icon” of the Palestinian liberation struggle, has died in Rome at the age of 94.
Hilarion Capucci, who was appointed the Patriarchal Vicar of Jerusalem in 1965, was arrested by Israel nine years later and jailed for arms smuggling.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas was among those praising him for “defending the rights of the Palestinian people”.
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), said Capucci was a reminder of an era when priests were actively engaged in political struggles, from opposition to the Vietnam war to leading …
Israel is dizzy. January 20th has been like another Christmas Day and Donald Trump is jolly old Santa Claus bearing gifts. The writing is already on the wall as President-elect Trump has appointed an extremist, David Friedman, as the next US Ambassador to Israel who intends to relocate the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and who supports the expansion of illegal colonies that have already sliced up the envisaged Palestinian state into South Africa-like Bantustans.
Thus, it must be odd, if not altogether provocative, to suggest that a Trump presidency could be the coup de grace that …
Journalist Glenn Greenwald has accused his former employer, the Guardian, of falsifying the words of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a report about the interview he gave to La Repubblica. For more on this, Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media studies at NYU, joins RT America’s Ashlee Banks.
The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, for it was properly done.
— Honoré de Balzac, Le Père Goriot, 1835
Among the current crop of Wall Street financiers, Laurence “Larry” Fink has received the greatest number of awards and plaudits. He is the CEO and Chairman of BlackRock (BR), the world’s largest multinational investment management corporation. By 2016, BR had over $5 trillion dollars under management with over 12,000 employees in 70 offices in 30 countries serving clients in 100 countries.
When President Obama expelled Russian diplomats over the hysterical and unproven accusation of “hacking the election” on December 29, Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to be drawn into a petty squabble, saying he would delay any response until Donald Trump assumed office. Instead Putin’s response was to issue an invitation to American diplomats and their families in Moscow to join the official holiday celebrations in the Kremlin.
Then came the shock from President Elect Trump, in the form of a tweet (what else) heard round the world that read: “Great move on delay (by V. Putin) – I always knew he …
