Transcending Cultural Erasure

[Photo: Palestinians perform a folk dance on the 20th Palestinian Festival celebrations in Gaza City, Gaza on 8 July 2019. Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency. MiddleEastMonitor]

By Robert C. Koehler
Source: CommonWonders

Editor's Note

Sometimes when the pain lies so deep you cannot find its name or the words to express it, the only release is through song. When you find the rhythm of song the pain rushes out in a torrent of anguish and tears until you lie empty with tears on your face and your voice raw. Increasingly, I find my eyes welling with tears for no specific reason. Maybe it’s just a sign that I am an old woman, but I think that the pain of the world is being carried through the wind; which comprises the air that fills my lungs with each breath; that then weighs on my soul until I must cry … or sing out the pain. If you find others with whom to sing then perhaps you find that Kumbaya moment.

Category: Culture, Indigenous Struggles and Rights, Israel, Palestine, Robert C. Koehler, Silencing & Repression | Comments Off

23 March 2024

The extradition of Assange is really about a free press

[Photo: Protest poster via Sa Defenza.]

By Sukey Wolf
Source: Freedom Socialist Party (FSP)

Editor's Note

Julian Assange’s original sin was making public 750,000 military and diplomatic documents rated as classified, or sensitive that he received from Bradley Manning. Manning was an intelligence analyst with the US Army in Iraq who had access to highly sensitive databases. Manning argued he was acting as a whistleblower in getting the materials to Assange. Bradly Manning faced court martial and was imprisoned in 2010. During his confinement went through a sex change and became Chelsea Manning. In 2017, Barack Obama commuted her sentence (Wikipedia).

Category: Activists, Guest, Media, Rights | Comments Off

19 March 2024

Everyday Fascism: Brecht’s Warning about The Serpent’s Egg

[Photo: Neo-Nazis march to Phoenix Federal Building, 2010. John Kittelsrud, Flickr.]

By: Henry A. Giroux
Source: Counterpunch

Editor's Note

While modern fascism in the US may have come out of the shadows and launched like a rocket when Trump entered politics in 2010, the foundations were already laid and the mergers of nationalism with white evangelicalism and the GOP was already well underway. The featured picture above was taken in 2010 at a rally against a judge’s decision to “water down” an immigration bill. we are not at the beginning of the slide into fascism. We are well on our way down the slope.

Category: 2024, Extremism, Henry A. Giroux, Ideology, Neofascism, Pull Right - Fascism, Trump | Comments Off

12 March 2024

The War on Gaza and the End of Western Moral and Political Hegemony

[Photo: Gaza bombing site 10/11/2023 Milano in Movimento]

By Mahboob Khawaja, PhD

Mahboob Khawaja, PhD

Five months have gone and the US-supported Israeli violence and bombardment of Gaza unfolds prodigious lies of terror that have redefined and reshaped the so-called Western political hegemonic mental microscope of power exposing dreadful apparatus of moral and intellectual brimstone and failure of human consciousness to see planned human massacres, genocide and alleged crimes against humanity. The tyranny of reason ignores the sanctity of human life and continued occupation of Palestine and is implied while Israel obliterated the entire civilian population of Gaza with US-sent bombs and war machines. President Biden (MSNBC interview: 3/9/24), blames PM Netanyahu for irrational choices to invade Rafah that are ‘hurting Israel’ more than helping its cause. America is isolated in global affairs and lost when it comes to the shrouded mystery of strange choices to support Israel for the wrong actions or warn Netanyahu of the ‘red lines.’

Category: Gaza, Israel, Mahboob A. Khawaja, Ph.D., Palestine, U.S. | Comments Off

11 March 2024

Warning: The Great GOP Voter Purge of 2024 Is Underway

[Photo: Voting Rights. Dave WhamondCanada, Political Cartoons.com]

By Thom Hartmann
Source: CommonDreams

Editor's Note

The Republicans have spent at least 24 years manipulating voter access when the mass purging of Florida voters occurred before the 2000 vote. They even needed the Supreme Court to shut down a recount in Florida thereby selecting George W. Bush as President. SCOTUS stepped in again in 2013 to gut the Voting Rights Act (Shelby v Holder). At this point, there are at least 96 cases across the country aimed at restricting voting in some way. That does not include the efforts to intimidate voters, intimidate poll workers, and move or close polling places.

Category: Guest, The Vote | Comments Off

UncommonThought

Since 2002

Transcending Cultural Erasure

The extradition of Assange is really about a free press

Everyday Fascism: Brecht’s Warning about The Serpent’s Egg

The War on Gaza and the End of Western Moral and Political Hegemony

Warning: The Great GOP Voter Purge of 2024 Is Underway