Most Democrats in Congress are now locked into a modern Cold War mentality that endangers human survival.
No matter what happens at today’s summit between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin in Geneva, a grim reality is that Democratic Party leaders have already hobbled its potential to move the world away from the worsening dangers of nuclear war. After nearly five years of straining to depict Donald Trump as some kind of Russian agent—a depiction that squandered vast quantities of messaging without electoral benefits—most Democrats in Congress are now locked into a modern Cold War mentality that endangers human survival. Continue reading →
We are led to believe that history is being made in Israel following the formation of an ideologically diverse government coalition which, for the first time, includes an Arab party, Ra’am, or the United Arab List. Continue reading →
In totalitarian regimes they have massacres and wars. In free democracies they have humanitarian interventions. Continue reading →
Unsustainable logging by the forest products industry is driving massive carbon emissions.
Covering a third of the planet’s land surface, forests are massive carbon sinks, absorbing and storing carbon dioxide and keeping it out of the atmosphere where it would contribute to global warming. Only the world’s oceans store more carbon. Keeping forests intact has long been considered essential to maintaining a healthy planetary environment, but scientists are now beginning to understand just how critical they are in the fight against climate change. Continue reading →
“Guilt by association” has taken on new connotations in the technological age. Continue reading →
How did Benjamin Netanyahu manage to serve as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister? With a total of 15 years in office, Netanyahu surpassed the 12-year mandate of Israel’s founding father, David Ben Gurion. The answer to this question will become particularly critical for future Israeli leaders who hope to emulate Netanyahu’s legacy, now that his historic leadership is likely to end. Continue reading →
Their conferences reveal them for what they are, black shirts with the smiles of sharks. Mac the Knife is back in town. Be warned. Be prepared.
On May 10-11 a conference was presented by the “Alliance of Democracies” in Copenhagen that claimed to “unite free peoples” against authoritarianism, to promote the rule of law, to advance the “technological control of democracy,” freedom of expression and US leadership. It was heralded as a forum for guests to hear from prominent individuals on “the frontlines of defending democracy.” Continue reading →
The GOP “fraudits” underway now in Arizona and elsewhere were never about a belated installation of Donald Trump as the real president of the United States. They are not mere silly exercises designed to keep a sore loser ex-president happy and therefore supportive of certain Republican candidates. They are instead a purposeful part of a multi-pronged plan by a now clearly neo-fascist GOP to destroy elections and with them democracy itself in America. Continue reading →
Indian states have been left to compete with each other in the global market for vaccine procurement.
If the month of April was marked by images of endless rows of burning funeral pyres from major Indian cities, the images of floating bodies in the Ganges River near the north Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in May were a grim reminder of the unchecked spread of the virus in rural India where a majority of Indians, without access to basic health care, vaccines or infrastructure, have been fighting the virus. Continue reading →
Silvia from Miami, Eduardo from Hialeah, Abel from Lakeland. The names pour in on the donations page for “Syringes to Cuba” as Carlos Lazo promotes the campaign on his popular Facebook livestream. An energetic Cuban-American high school teacher in Seattle, Lazo created a group called Puentes de Amor, Bridges of Love, to unite Cuban Americans who want to lift the searing U.S. blockade that is immiserating their loved ones on the island. Continue reading →
One major unsettling similarity between the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler and the Republican Party of Donald Trump is that both would resist an independent investigation of the attacks on the respective legislatures of the two nations: the February 27, 1933, Reichstag Fire in Berlin and the January 6, 2021, storming by Trump loyalists of the U.S. Capitol complex. Hitler and his Nazis falsely claimed the Reichstag arson was carried out by a mentally deranged Dutch Communist named Marinus van der Lubbe, who was allegedly aided by German Communists. In the case of the U.S. Capitol attack, several far-right Republicans have claimed the attack was actually carried out by members of “antifa” (an acronym for “anti-fascist”) and Black Lives Matter (BLM). Using Nazi propaganda from 1933, some Republicans also falsely claim that BLM is a “communist” organization. Continue reading →
The ceasefire on May 21 has, for now, brought the Israeli war on Gaza to an end. However, this ceasefire is not permanent and constant Israeli provocations anywhere in Palestine could reignite the bloody cycle all over again. Moreover, the Israeli siege on Gaza remains in place, as well as the Israeli military occupation and the rooted system of apartheid that exists all over Palestine. Continue reading →
Native American communities living alongside the route of the Line 3 pipeline project in northern Minnesota are asking all activists to join them in solidarity this June.
A decades-old pipeline called Line 3, run by the Canadian company Enbridge, is in the midst of a controversial upgrade sparking fierce resistance from Indigenous communities living along the route. Line 3 is being replaced in order to enable the transport of nearly 800,000 barrels of dirty tar sands crude oil per day from Calgary, Canada, to Wisconsin. The majority of the pipeline cuts across northern Minnesota through the heart of lands where the Anishinaabe people have treaty rights to hunt, fish and harvest wild rice and maple syrup. Continue reading →
Across the United States, the Republican Party, through bills passed in state legislatures and signed by GOP governors, is adopting one of the central platforms of fascism, namely, the elimination of the powers of state officials, including secretaries of state, governors, and others. Continue reading →
The Chilean right-wing government has been given yet another resounding rejection by the people, as the elections for a body to write the country’s new constitution has veered strongly towards independent and left-wing candidates. Only 38 candidates from the right-wing coalition “Vamos por Chile” were elected. The rest of the body is composed of 25 candidates from the centre-left coalition Lista del Apruebo, 27 candidates from the left-wing coalition Apruebo Dignidad, 48 independent candidates and 17 indigenous representatives. Continue reading →
We don’t have to organize our economy around enterprises that pay CEOs over 1,000 times what workers make.
McDonald’s workers in 15 U.S. cities staged a one-day strike last week. They’re demanding at least a $15 hourly wage for every McDonald’s worker. McDonald’s is resisting, pledging only to raise average wages to $13 an hour. Continue reading →
President Biden’s April 24 statement acknowledging the Armenian Genocide (1915–1923+) carried out by Turkey was welcome but flawed. Indeed, “Turkey” appears nowhere in the document. Moreover, the State Department swiftly undermined Biden’s virtuous-sounding words. Continue reading →
The ‘Palestinian Revolt of 2021’ will go down in history as one of the most influential events that irreversibly shaped collective thinking in and around Palestine. Only two other events can be compared with what has just transpired in Palestine: the revolt of 1936 and the First Intifada of 1987. Continue reading →
In the English lexicon of the day, it is verboten to mention that some inspiration, sense of wonder, or a pause to reflect on a passage from the texts of ancient myth and/or religion is a positive. You run the risk at a Washington, DC, cocktail party of being ostracized if you praise Pope Francis for washing people’s feet or visiting Iraq, discussing the myths of the Saints, or even the tales of more ancient deities of Rome, Athens, Babylon, and pharaonic Egypt. Who cannot but like the Greek story of Orpheus and Eurydice? Continue reading →
The world is reeling in horror at the latest Israeli massacre of hundreds of men, women and children in Gaza. Much of the world is also shocked by the role of the United States in this crisis, as it keeps providing Israel with weapons to kill Palestinian civilians, in violation of U.S. and international law, and has repeatedly blocked action by the UN Security Council to impose a ceasefire or hold Israel accountable for its war crimes. Continue reading →
The crisis of 2020 has created the greatest wealth gap in history. The middle class, capitalism and democracy are all under threat. What went wrong and what can be done? Continue reading →
No one can ignore the events in Palestine. No one disputes the horror of it all. Images of the Israeli bombing of Gaza and the human toll exacted against the Palestinians who live in Gaza have saturated social media and have increasingly drawn attention to the violence by the Israeli state and Zionist settlers against Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and inside Israel’s de facto border. All of it is ugly. Continue reading →
Had the coup plotters of January 6, 2021, been successful, today the United States would have been under the rule of dictator Donald Trump. The traitorous retired General Michael Flynn would be vice president and be granted by Trump with unlimited powers to order arrests, seize private property, and rule states and cities by decree. Political purges of the armed forces, state and local governments, the courts, and corporations would be de rigueur. Continue reading →
Africa’s role model, Eritrea, located on the Red Sea marked 30 years of independence today, May 24. When a rag tag band of afro coiffed Eritrean rebels drove captured Ethiopian tanks into the streets of our capital Asmara 30 years ago, it marked the first successful armed struggle for national liberation on the continent. Others had fought but only Eritrea took it all the way, defeating the occupying colonial army of Ethiopia and winning power “by the barrel of a gun.” Continue reading →
U.S. President Joe Biden’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year was recently announced, and it requests $715 billion for his first Pentagon budget, 1.6 percent more than the $704 billion enacted under Trump’s administration. The outline states that the primary justification for this increase in military spending is to counter the threat of China, and identifies China as the U.S.’s “top challenge.” Continue reading →
While President Biden is backing the temporary lifting of COVID-19 vaccine patents, drugmakers are making dire predictions of stifled innovation and eroded public trust. What they really fear is losing profits.
Days after he publicly opposed the waiving of patents for lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates had a change of heart. He released a statement saying, “No barriers should stand in the way of equitable access to vaccines, including intellectual property, which is why we are supportive of a narrow waiver during the pandemic.” His statement came after President Joe Biden, in a surprising move, and in contrast to his European allies, backed a temporary waiver on COVID-19 vaccine patents. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai released a statement saying, “extraordinary circumstances… call for extraordinary measures.” Immediately, the big drugmakers’ share prices fell, and they shot back in anger with a litany of dire predictions. Continue reading →
Colombia has been burning with the flames of resistance ever since a national strike began on April 28, 2021. The initial impetus for the large-scale demonstrations came from a regressive tax reform. The tax bill came into being due to the necessity of the Colombian state to push down the rising fiscal deficit, which could reach 10% of GDP this year. On top of this, the tight integration of the Colombian economy into the architectures of imperialism has resulted in an external debt of $156,834,000,000 (51.8% of GDP, projected to come up to 62.8%). Continue reading →
There are two separate Sheikh Jarrah stories—one read and watched in the news and another that receives little media coverage or due analysis. Continue reading →
On April 20, President Joe Biden remarked that the police murder of George Floyd “ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see the systemic racism” in American policing, and he called for action at all levels of government “to ensure that Black and brown people or anyone… [doesn’t] fear the interactions with law enforcement.” Continue reading →
The combination of unemployment and additional stimulus support has made staying home a better economic decision than working for peanuts under stressful conditions. Continue reading →
The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 was criminal. It was criminal because of the immense force used to demolish Afghanistan’s physical infrastructure and to break open its social bonds. Continue reading →
