Latest articles
by Andre Vltchek / March 13th, 2018
People in the Middle East are joking, cynically:
“From Incirlik, Turkey to Al-Azraq, Jordan with love.”
That is, if they pay any attention to the movement of NATO troops in this part of the world.
They should.
At least one substantial part of an incredibly deadly and aggressive force has been gradually relocated, from an ‘uncertain’ and according to the West suddenly ‘unreliable’ country (Turkey), to the impoverished but obedient Kingdom of Jordan.
It is now clear that NATO is not sure, metaphorically speaking, which direction Turkey is going to fly in, and where it may eventually land. It is panicking and searching, ‘just in …
by Andrey Fomine / March 12th, 2018
Last week it was widely reported that a former Soviet and Russian military intelligence officer Sergey Skripal, working for MI6 since 1995, convicted in Russia of high treason in 2006 and released to UK under the 2010 US-Russia spy swap, was found unconscience with his daughter on a public bench near a shopping center in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. The British media and its eccentric foreign minister were swift blaming Russian secret services in attempting to assassinate Skripal, who up to now is still in a coma in Salisbury …
Parades, tin soldiers, demigods, faux leaders, commercials and military toys invading DC
by Paul Haeder / March 12th, 2018
Cognitive dissonance in Psychology
The psychological tension that occurs when one holds mutually exclusive beliefs or attitudes and that often motivates people to modify their thoughts or behaviors in order to reduce the tension.
Anxiety that results from simultaneously holding contradictory or incompatible attitudes, beliefs, or the like, as when one likes a person but disapproves of one of his or her habits.
Motivated Ignorance in Politics
Motivated ignorance can be simply defined as when people don’t want to know the facts. While ignorance is defined as a lack of knowledge, education or understanding; motivated ignorance is when others choose not to educate themselves out
…
by Peter Koenig / March 12th, 2018
President Trump’s bold ‘protectionist’ move of introducing import duties of 25% and 10% for steel and aluminum, respectively – and possibly more to come – may be more than just ‘populism’ and fulfilling a campaign promise. And why is the term ‘populism’ always used with a derogative slant? As if it was way below the intellect of those who deride it as addressing the thoughtless and primitive behavior by the people? Aren’t politicians supposed to work for the people? Educate them with the truth instead of ridiculing them; giving them real news instead of ‘fake news’ – and giving them …
by Andrew Glikson / March 12th, 2018
Arctic Ice Melt
As extreme temperatures, the rate of sea ice melt, the collapse of Greenland glaciers, the thawing of Siberian and Canadian permafrost and increased evaporation in the Arctic drive cold snow storms into Europe and North America, and as hurricanes and wild fires affect tropical and semi-tropical parts of the globe, it is becoming clear Earth is entering a shift in state of the atmosphere-ocean system associated with destructive climate tipping points. As Arctic permafrost is thawing an analogy with geological methane-release events such as the …
by Binoy Kampmark / March 12th, 2018
The status of dissident offers a certain moral latitude in behaviour, and, in various cases, misbehaviour. The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is one such figure. He is a feted figure of dissent of the Chinese political establishment, and celebrated by the artistic fraternity. He is the anointed and favoured contrarian. “The one thing I should give the Chinese government credit for,” he claims to Artsy, “is the fact that being unable to travel allowed me to focus on my work.”
Ai has found refugees a suitable subject of identification. This identification can be taken further, a form of ritualised pornogrification …
by Robert Hunziker / March 12th, 2018
The worldwide effort to harness, slow down, lessen, reduce, remove the threat of global warming is epitomized by the Paris ’15 climate accord. This agreement calls for nations of the world to implement plans to slow down greenhouse gas emissions, specifically CO2 from fossil fuels, and to take other remedial actions necessary to hold global temps below 2°C but preferably 1.5°C relative to the start of the industrial revolution over 200 years ago.
That task may be an overwhelming one, more so than realized, due to the simple fact that according to YaleEnvironment360:
Frighteningly, this modern rise of CO2 is also accelerating
…
by Edward Curtin / March 11th, 2018
For behind the sense of insecurity in the face of danger, behind the sense of discouragement and depression, there always lurks the basic fear of death, a fear which undergoes most complex elaborations and manifests itself in many indirect ways….No one is free of the fear of death.
— Gregory Zilboorg, psychanalyst, as quoted in The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker
An anxiety is a lack that causes pain; a game is a lack that causes pleasure.
— John Fowles, writer, The Aristos
What we play is life.
— Louis Amstrong
In his moving essay revealing his existential anxiety and panic attack, NBA star …
by Stuart Littlewood / March 10th, 2018
It seems the UK trains killers and supplies weapons with no regard for the humanitarian consequences.
The toxic situation (by which I mean the continuing mega-slaughter of innocents) surrounding the Saudi crown prince’s royal welcome to London will have reminded many of the Vietnam-era chant of peace activists in response to the lies and blunders and excuses at that time: “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”
This was borrowed and amended in 2006 to “Peretz, Halutz, hey hey hey! How many kids did you kill today?” by Israeli peace activists demonstrating outside the home of IDF Chief of …
by William Hawes / March 10th, 2018
My own little world
Is what I deserve
‘Cause I am the only child there is.
A king of it all
The belle of the ball
I promise I’ve always been like this.
Forever the first
My bubble can’t burst
It’s almost like only I exist.
Where everything’s mine
If I can keep my mouth shut tight, tight, tight.
— Guster, “Center of Attention”, Lost and Gone Forever Live, 2014
So much for the city on the hill. Narcissism has changed to nihilism and solipsism: “climate change isn’t real”, and the ravages of history continue down the rabbit hole of memory.
Take another look. Genocide and chattel slavery. The war against Mexico, the …
Espionage Claims and the Failed Tory Campaign
by Binoy Kampmark / March 9th, 2018
It was public, expressive and demanded. The apology by Ben Bradley, a social media hazard but also Tory member of the UK House of Commons, is something that will put detractors of Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn on notice. While accusations have been made about the emerging cult of the Corbynista ringed by the steel of Momentum, Corbyn has weathered his fair share of accusations from espionage turn coat to terrorist sympathiser.
On the milder end of the spectrum come suggestions that Corbyn the Prime Minister would disable Britain as a nuclear power. To have Corbyn at Number 10, for instance, would be …
by John Seed / March 9th, 2018
The tropical Andes of Ecuador are at the top of the world list of biodiversity hotspots in terms of vertebrate species, endemic vertebrates, and endemic plants. Ecuador has more orchid and hummingbird species than Brazil, which is 32 times larger, and more diversity than the entire USA.
In the last year, the Ecuadorean government has quietly granted mining concessions to over 1.7 million hectares (4.25 million acres) of forest reserves and indigenous territories. These were awarded to transnational corporations in closed-door deals without public knowledge or consent.
This is in direct violation of Ecuadorean law and international treaties, and will decimate headwater …
by Andre Vltchek / March 8th, 2018
When it comes to Russia or the Soviet Union, reports and historical accounts do get blurry; in the West they do, and consequently in all of its ‘client states’.
Fairy tales get intermingled with reality, while fabrications are masterfully injected into the subconsciousness of billions of people worldwide. Russia is an enormous country, in fact, the largest country on Earth in terms of territory. It is scarcely inhabited. It is deep, and as a classic once wrote: “It is impossible to understand Russia with one’s brain. One could only believe in it.”
The Western mind generally doesn’t like things unknown, spiritual and …
by Binoy Kampmark / March 8th, 2018
The Commission instead opted for the easiest way out, which is a shame as in my perception it reveals a lack of impartiality on your behalf!
— Xanana Gusmão, Chief East Timorese negotiator, February 28, 2018
In the scheme of things, Australia has deputised as regional bully for imperial powers since it became an outpost of the British empire. Neighbouring states have been ridiculed, mocked and derided as sub-human and incapable. The term “failed state” is still used in Canberra’s circles of presupposing power over desperate basket cases. Little wonder that China smells a wounded reputation.
It is in that spirit that …
by Stuart Littlewood / March 7th, 2018
Prince William, second in line to the throne, is being sent to the Holy Land by the UK Government “to promote diplomatic and cultural ties”. In effect he’ll be helping to normalise 70 years of Israeli occupation and sanitise the unimaginable cruelty that has gone with it. His trip cuts across the Boycott Divestment & Sanctions movement’s efforts to bring pressure for justice.
*****
Kensington Palace has announced in a tweet that “the Duke of Cambridge will visit Israel, Jordan and the Occupied Palestinian territories in the summer.”
The visit “is at the request of Her Majesty’s Government.”
The Jerusalem Post reports …
by Media Lens / March 7th, 2018
‘I have tried trade, but I found that it would take ten years to get under way in that, and that then I should probably be on my way to the devil.’
Noam Chomsky once emailed us:
Am really impressed with what you are doing, though it’s like trying to move a ten-ton truck with a toothpick. They’re not going to allow themselves to be exposed.
These were kind words from Chomsky. But, in fact, ‘they’ – corporate journalists – often do an excellent job of exposing themselves.
Consider that, last week, one of …
by Kim Petersen / March 7th, 2018
On 2 March, the Real News interviewed Steve Cohn, author of Competing Economic Paradigms in China (Routledge, 2017). Host Sharmini Peries began by asking:
Professor Cohn, in your book you analyze the transition of the Chinese economy from Maoist to ‘iron rice bowl’ policy to a neoliberal policy. What kind of domestic factors contributed to this transition?
Part of Cohn’s response was:
… I think the Chinese government, starting with Deng Xiaoping but has continued since then, came to the conclusion that certain capitalist-oriented policies were necessary to increase
…
by Binoy Kampmark / March 6th, 2018
Art and politics mix, often poorly. Artists are sometimes the hoodwinked emissaries of the latter, sponsored, enlisted and marshalled by the state and corporate entities. Self-proclaimed radical artists can become compliant, or at the very least mute cogs, aware of their patronage and finite sources of funding. To question is to impoverish.
In Australia, the links between security companies and the art world have come in for a recent sniping. Such episodes should be more regular, but artists in Australia have woken up from a prolonged slumber of selfish apathy to push back against companies who provide the gruesome bill for …
by Peter Crowley / March 6th, 2018
Simply ‘calling it like you see it’ doesn’t cut anymore. We now know that conscious and unconscious intuitions are socially constructed by our surroundings, with cultural, religious, social biases all included.
Hence, confirmation bias is at work when new information is gathered and quickly aligns with one’s world schema. For example, a white person may come across an African American man who is paying child support and on welfare. Many whites in America may nod their heads to this, conforming what they already think they ‘know’. However, they fail to look to the majority of African American men who do not …
by Ricardo Vaz / March 6th, 2018
Anti-imperialist mural in Caracas (Photo: Venezuelanalysis)
With presidential elections announced in Venezuela, the US State Department moved quickly to declare that the contest was illegitimate and that its results would not be recognised. But less than a year ago the tune was quite different, as a cursory look through State Department briefings and press releases will show. We also examine how political developments from the past year have led to the current scenario, and how US demands for “free and fair” elections are not …
by Robert Hunziker / March 6th, 2018
Every once in a while a climatic event hits that forces people to sit down to catch their breath. Along those lines, abnormal Arctic heat waves in the dead of winter may force scientists to revaluate downwards (or maybe upwards, depending) their most pessimistic of forecasts.
By the end of February 2018, large portions of the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland were open blue water, meaning no ice. But, it’s wintertime, no daylight 24/7, yet no ice in areas where it’s usually meters thick! In a remarkable, mindboggling turn of events, thick ice in early February by month’s end turned into …
by Gareth Porter / March 6th, 2018
The CIA’s “Operation Merlin,” which involved providing Iran with a flawed design for a nuclear weapon and resulted in an alleged whistleblower going to prison, was the perfect example of creating intelligence in order to justify operations, reports Gareth Porter.
*****
Jeffrey Sterling, the case officer for the CIA’s covert “Operation Merlin,” who was convicted in May 2015 for allegedly revealing details of that operation to James Risen of the New York Times, was released from prison in January after serving more than two years of a 42-month sentence. He had been tried and convicted on the premise that the revelation …
by Yves Engler / March 6th, 2018
The NDP leadership’s naked suppression of debate on the “Palestine Resolution” is rooted in a long pro-Israeli nationalism history.
At last month’s convention the party machine blocked any debate of the Palestine Resolution, which mostly restated official Canadian policy, except that it called for “banning settlement products from Canadian markets, and using other forms of diplomatic and economic pressure to end the occupation.”
As I detailed previously, the Palestine Resolution was confusingly renamed, deprioritized and then blocked from being debated on the convention floor. The suppression of a resolution unanimously endorsed by the NDP youth convention, many outside groups and …
by Ramzy Baroud / March 6th, 2018
As global voices continue to demand the freedom of 17-year-old teenage Palestinian girl, Ahed Tamimi, Israeli authorities have arrested nine additional members of her family.
Those who were detained on February 26 include Ahed’s 15-year-old cousin, Mohammed Tamimi.
Israeli troops had shot Mohammed in the head last December, shattering his skull. The teenager, who is awaiting reconstruction surgery, is unlikely to receive proper medical care in Israeli prisons.
Ahed’s crime was that she slapped an Israeli soldier in a video that, since then, went viral, shortly after her cousin was shot. He was then placed in a medically-induced coma.
The Israeli soldier …
(Highlights of The Post-Industrial, Post-Modern Theory of Value and Surplus Value)
by Michel Luc Bellemare / March 5th, 2018
One of the primary economic paradoxes that has always perked the curiosity of both bourgeois and Marxist political economists alike can be neatly encapsulated in a notorious quip uttered by the famous New York Yankee’s catcher and manager, Yogi Berra, who, once upon a time, famously pronounced: “a nickel isn’t worth a dime, anymore”.
In this simple Yogism lies one of the primary post-modern financial mechanisms by which neoliberal bourgeois-capitalists have sucked value out of the workforce/population, under the cover of western economic opulence, into their own coffers to the bewilderment and detriment of the workforce/population, which slowly sinks ever-deeper into …
by Jonathan Cook / March 5th, 2018
It is has been a very bad week for those claiming Israel has the most moral army in the world. Here’s a small sample of abuses of Palestinians in recent days in which the Israeli army was caught lying.
A child horrifically injured by soldiers was arrested and terrified into signing a false confession that he was hurt in a bicycle accident. A man who, it was claimed, had died of tear-gas inhalation was actually shot at point-blank range, then savagely beaten by a mob of soldiers and left to die. And soldiers threw a tear gas canister at a Palestinian …
by Binoy Kampmark / March 4th, 2018
While the bibliophile and aphorist Samuel Johnson claimed that people of appropriate mental discipline could avoid talking about the weather, the British have found weather an irresistible topic of conversation. Storms are recalled with nostalgic exaggeration; accounts are rendered colourful after the fact.
The Beast from the East, as this latest cold freeze has been termed, stands as a form of climactic terror, storming its way through life without care or favour. Even the language is laden with suggestiveness, a Siberian nightmare forcing its way into the lives of Europeans with refrigerating potential. Ominously, it has been working in tandem with …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / March 4th, 2018
President Trump ordered the Pentagon to start planning a military parade on Veteran’s Day this November. Trump wants to outdo the military parade he attended in France on Bastille Day. Estimates are it could cost up to $50 million. The last military parade was after the Gulf War in 1991.
A coalition of groups is organizing to oppose the parade, click here to learn more.
Military parade in dangerous times
This display of military power and glorification of war comes when the risks of nuclear conflict and wars are …
Two Rabbits, Twenty-eight Days of Testing, and a 91-Year Old Salt Called Aluminum Hydroxide captured in new documentary
by Paul Haeder / March 4th, 2018
H-o-p-e Spells Help Our People Exist
Fact One: Aluminum is present in U.S. childhood vaccines that prevent hepatitis A, hepatitis B, diphtheria-tetanuspertussis (DTaP, Tdap), Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), human papillomavirus (HPV) and pneumococcus infection
For someone always skeptical of big money-big business tied to anything in the realm of medicine or science in general, I have lifted myself way beyond hope when it comes to any amount of efficacy in medicine or all the other nodes tied to our modern industrial-postindustrial world.
The vaccination debate is a misnomer in itself, since the debate is really an attack on anyone who dares question …
by Binoy Kampmark / March 4th, 2018
The hide of Australia’s political classes has been worn. Some members, admittedly, never had one. With tiptoeing around language ravaging, and in some cases savaging discussion, pondering policy has become nigh impossible. What matters after the Barnaby Joyce affair is rumour and private speculation.
First came the threatening malice associated with Jobs and Innovations minister Michaelia Cash. Having been pressed by Labor Senator Doug Cameron in a Senate Estimates hearing about her newly hired chief of staff, including relevant employment record, Cash went volcanic. The minister, wrote Jenna Price with tart disgruntlement, “is what you get when you hire on …
