Cat’s Paw
The big cat and the people.
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American Censorship is Bad for Peace
I cannot sit back and allow the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids.
— General Jack D. Ripper in Dr Strangelove
Most people would agree that in any modern, wealthy, multicultural, free, non-colonized, democratic society, people have the right to know what is going on in their community. In fact, in order to fulfill their various responsibilities as citizens, consumers, workers, company presidents, government officials, family members, etc., they have to know what is going on. We want and need to know what our own government and foreign governments are doing; what products, …
Why US Immigration Law Must be Federal
It would seem to me that Texas immigration law is not only unconstitutional, but fails to meet the requirements of and violates the Treaty of Guadalupe. The definition, status of Mexican nationals in the American southwest on what is now US soil, immigration, and movement of peoples between the US and Mexico, is actually defined in part by treaty law, which actually is above even federal law and becomes the “law of the land” per article 2, section 2.
This simple fact certainly makes it clear why border issues including immigration can only be a matter of …
There’s Not a Single Hospital in Gaza Israel Hasn’t Attacked
The US pier show is not about bringing aid to Gaza but exporting its citizens, hospitals levelled, the crimes of the IDF, murder most foul in Moscow and the Kate cover-up revealed.
Ramadan Fasting
Less is more
Ramadan (Arabic: رَمَضَان, Ramaḍān, Ramadhaan) is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, and the month in which the Quran is believed to be revealed to the prophet Muhammad
Quran 20:81 Eat of the good things We have provided for your sustenance, but commit no excess therein.
Fasting is good for you. Very good. Josh Mittledorf, in Cracking the aging code: The new science of growing old and what it means for staying young, 2016, estimates he’s added a decade, a good, healthy decade, to his life with his regime, …
Reimagining “Nationalism” and “Democracy” with “the View from the Shore”
Having no Native American ancestry, I nevertheless want to express a deep admiration for the intense beauty of the spiritual foundations of what Steve Newcomb (Shawnee-Lenape) suggests we refer to as “the view from the shore”—the perspectives of peoples enjoying a genuinely free and independent existence before what Tink Tinker (wazhazhe/Osage) has called “the eurochristians” invaded bringing with them a foreign system of domination that has since been maintained by their heirs and successors.
If we take this “view from the shore” seriously, it calls into question all of the crumbling dominant narratives of our world today—especially narratives based in “nationalism” …
Dissecting Politicians
When I was an undergraduate eons ago in my zoology lab class, I examined varmints under a microscope and then dissected them with my scapple back at my dorm room with a bag of toxic formaldehyde hanging out the window. I nicknamed the varmints after the U.S. politicians at the time. Are you wondering what on earth comes next in this article? Please stay with me.
The idea for this article occurred to me after my e-mail encounters a few days ago with two candidates for the next U.S. Presidency, first Dr. Jill Stein and next former President Donald J. Trump. …
Who Should We Blame for Israel’s Actions?
It’s not often I agree with opinions expressed in the pro-business, pro-Conservative Party and self-proclaimed Canada’s national newspaper. But the editorial board written piece, which appeared Friday in the Globe and Mail makes an important point, captured in the following sentence concerning their suggested motion for the House of Commons.
“We’ve taken the liberty of writing the motion they ought to bring forth and adopt unanimously: This House unequivocally condemns antisemitism in all of its forms, and in particular rejects the idea that Jewish Canadians are in any way responsible …
The Jewish Defense League is at Gaza’s Border
Despite Palestinians in Gaza facing a genocide, despite indifference from those in Washington who could stop it, and despite glee from Tel Aviv and the majority of the Israeli population over the mass death and suffering, it would seem that there would be nothing more that could faze those of us who want justice for Palestine.
It is as if we were not already drowning in waves of outrage and despair as new waves continue to barrel in. In addition to the IDF denying aid from coming into Gaza, many groups of Israel’s most depraved citizens are sitting in and blocking …
Redefining Normal?
Does new normal mean that the old normal was abnormal? Or vice versa?
Voices from Gaza
Photo Credit: Roger D. Harris
The book Gaza Writes Back is a collection of short stories from twenty young Gazans. Although published in 2013, the book is highly relevant today. The stories reveal how the last five months is the culmination of a process which has been going on for decades.
The title is curious: Gaza Writes Back. Perhaps it is an alternative to “Gaza Fights Back”. Certainly in the context of Gaza, writing is an important form of resistance to Israeli repression, occupation and massacres. The …
Julian Assange and the Plea Nibble
Be wary of what Washington offers in negotiations at the best of times. The empire gives and takes when it can; the hegemon proffers and in equal measure withdraws offers it deems fit. This is all well known to the legal team of WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange, who, the Wall Street Journal “exclusively” reveals, is in ongoing negotiations with US Justice Department officials on a possible plea deal.
As things stand, the US Department of Justice is determined to get its mitts on Assange on the dubious strength of 18 charges, 17 confected from the brutal Espionage Act of 1917. …
The World Stands Still and its Inhabitants Spin
Light is dark and dark is light
From battlefields to legislative arenas, and to Academy Awards, it is difficult to reconcile reality with the manner in which events are presented to the public. The world stands still and its Inhabitants spin.
Battlefield
The Trump administration’s State Department declared, “The Chinese government is committing genocide and crimes against humanity through its wide-scale repression of Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in its northwestern region of Xinjiang, including in its use of internment camps and forced sterilization.” Before being elected, President Joe Biden affirmed the previous administration’s rhetoric. He said, through a spokesperson that “the policies by Beijing …
The War Waged on the Public
“The New World Order is Coming Fast“: Interview with Legendary Constitutional Lawyer, Rocco Galati
The Russiagate Hoax illustrates the Power the National Security Police State
How the CIA, DNI, FBI, and NSA Interfered in a Presidential Election and How Progressives Bought the Lie
The US rulers and their national security state foisted two major campaigns of lies on us to win our support for their planned wars. The first that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. This bogus story was rejected by the progressive and anti-war movements. The second that Trump colluded with Putin to steal the 2016 election; this, progressives fell for. It remains a shocking example of manipulation of supposedly well-educated progressive people – many of whom do not hesitate to ridicule MAGA people for their bigotry and ignorance.
Russiagate, packaged as a tale of Putin and Trump collusion, was a …
CO2 Bursting into the Atmosphere
CO2 is bursting into the atmosphere like never before, up and away, like it has wings.
According to climate scientists, we’re fast approaching white-knuckle time. This reinforces the outlook for 2024 as expressed by WMO: “Every major global climate record was broken last year and 2024 could be worse.” (Celeste Saulo, secretary-general, World Meteorological Organization)
Making matters more nerve-wracking yet, Carbon dioxide, CO2, in the atmosphere is setting new all-time records, soaring above expectations and well above previous readings at Mauna Lua Observatory, Hawaii:
March 18, 2024, CO2 measured 426.02 ppm.
March 15, 2023. CO2 measured 420.24 ppm.
That’s +5.78 ppm in only one year. …
Terrorism’s Ugly Face
In August, 2008, Ismail Haniyeh, the elected Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, welcomed me and other members of the Free Gaza Movement to his home in the relatively small al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza, not far from the larger Jabalia camp. We had just arrived on the first boats to enter Gaza by sea in 41 years, breaking the Israeli siege, and all of Gaza was celebrating. The home was very simple, not different from most others in the camp, and the Prime Minister was proud to show it to us.
This was the beginning of my …
Putin Officially Declared Russia’s President-elect
The incumbent has received over 87% of the vote, securing a fifth term in power, according to the country’s election authority
The Struggle for Women’s Emancipation Will Always Be Worth It
8 March was not always International Women’s Day, nor has there always been any such day at all. The idea emerged from the Socialist International (also known as the Second International), where Clara Zetkin of the German Social Democratic Party and others fought from 1889 to hold a day to celebrate working women’s lives and struggles. Zetkin, alongside Alexandra Kollontai of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, sustained a struggle with their comrades to recognise the role of working women and the role of domestic labour in the creation of social …
How they get away with it in Gaza…
Declassified talks to Jonathan Cook about the western media’s Israel bias
I sat down with Phil Miller of Declassified UK to talk about the ways the western media disguise genocide in Gaza:
This Day in Anarchist History
The Paris Commune
Hello and welcome to the first of what we hope will be a many episodes of our new series, This Day in Anarchist History!
In this series we’ll make brief primers on historical anarchist events, uprisings, bios of famous anarchists and beginnings of autonomous communities around the world and throughout time. It’s our hope that by understanding our past we can put our current social movements into broader perspective and fight for a better future.
In our premier episode we examine The Paris Commune, a short lived uprising when a broad coalition of the working classes took control of the …
Still No Human Rights for the Poor
The poor and marginalised have not seen any gains in almost 30 years of democracy. The poor remain poor and unemployment, poverty and inequality are worse today than at the end of apartheid. Many more people live in shacks than in 1994.
Those who live in shack settlements continue to be denied access to basic services such as water and sanitation. Violent evictions continue. Those in the rural areas continue to walk long distances to the nearest health facilities. Those who live in farms continue to be abused by farmers who see them as less than human.
For almost thirty years we …
The Enemy
Who is the biggest enemy?
Censors Celebrated: Misinformation and Disinformation Down Under
The heralded arrival of the Internet caused flutters of enthusiasm, streaks of heart-felt hope. Unregulated, and supposedly all powerful, an information medium never before seen on such scale could be used to liberate mind and spirit. With almost disconcerting reliability, humankind would coddle and fawn over a technology which would, as Langdon Winner writes, “bring universal wealth, enhanced freedom, revitalized politics, satisfying community, and personal fulfilment.”
Such high street techno-utopianism was bound to have its day. The sceptics grumbled, the critiques bubbled and flowed. Evgeny Morozov, in his relentlessly biting study The Net Delusion, warned of the misguided nature …
Private Profits vs. Social Prophets
…What we see at work is not an expression of the sentiments of the American people; rather it reflects the will of a powerful minority which uses its economic power to control the organs of political life.
— Albert Einstein, Einstein on Peace, p. 343.
We entered the massive marketplace labeled “our democracy” as always long before any election and at this date hundreds of millions have already been spent both officially and off the books to insure that ruling power maintains control over American capitalism no matter who or what may be elected sheriff, mayor, animal control officer or president of …
The Language of Force: How the Police State Muzzles Our Right to Speak Truth to Power
Tyrants don’t like people who speak truth to power.
Cue the rise of protest laws, which take the government’s intolerance for free speech to a whole new level and send the resounding message that resistance is futile.
In fact, ever since the Capitol protests on January 6, 2021, state legislatures have introduced a broad array of these laws aimed at criminalizing protest activities.
There have been at least 205 proposed laws in 45 states aimed at curtailing the right to peacefully assemble and protest by expanding the definition of rioting, heightening penalties for existing offenses, or creating new crimes associated …
Monotheistic Roots of Nationalism Part II
Summary of Part I
After briefly reviewing the theories of the relationship between religion and nationalism, I find the theories of Anthony Smith, George Mosse and Adrian Hutchinson the most compelling. They all agree that religion provides the propagandistic foundation for nationalism. But I also claim that it is a particular kind of religion, monotheism, that is directly connected to nationalism. Animistic tribal societies and Bronze Age agricultural states did not have the same religious paraphernalia as monotheism, and societies like ancient Egypt, Mesopotamian, China and India were never nationalistic.
The second part …
How the Western media helped build the case for genocide in Gaza
From obscuring the West’s role in starving Gaza to sensationalised accounts of mass rape by Hamas, journalists are playing the role of propagandists, not reporters
The past five months have been clarifying. What was supposed to be hidden has been thrust into the light. What was supposed to be obscured has come sharply into focus.
Liberal democracy is not what it seems.
It has always defined itself in contrast to what it says it is not. Where other regimes are savage, it is humanitarian. Where others are authoritarian, it is open and tolerant. Where others are criminal, it is law-abiding. When others are belligerent, it seeks peace. Or so the manuals of liberal democracy argue.
But how to keep the faith when the world’s leading liberal democracies – …
Glimpses of Gaza: Anwar’s Story
Meet Anwar, a 29-year-old English teacher, his wife, a 25-year veteran elementary school teacher, and their sweet 9-month-old son. Life in the Khanyounis refugee camp turned upside down when war struck.
Another family died yesterday. A dozen families die everyday. They usually manage to pull a few bodies out of the rubble. The rest remain. No one has the energy to dig them out. They’re too busy being tired and hungry. Besides, what would they …