According to the US Census Bureau’s Median Value of Debt by Household (2011), the median household debt (both secured and unsecured) for 35–44 year olds was $108,000 (USD); for those 45–54, $86,500; and for 55–64 age group it was $70,000. The data in the Census Bureau report also shows that the less formally educated one is, the less debt one has. Continue reading
Since the Guardian and The Washington Post revealed the existence of the NSA’s PRISM program, there’s been a confusing debate about what exactly the program is and how it works. While the Obama administration has tacitly acknowledged the program’s existence, tech companies have angrily denied that they had given the NSA “direct” or “unfettered” access to their servers. So what’s going on? Let’s try to separate the facts from the hype. Continue reading
In many ways, National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden is more wanted by the U.S. government than was Osama Bin Laden just six months after the 9/11 attack on the United States. Continue reading
President Barack Obama’s policy toward the Arab and Muslim world was born in Cairo and it died there. Continue reading
The US Supreme Court struck down a key portion of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, gutting one of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation in American history, and marching the country resolutely towards open fascism and authoritarianism. Continue reading
Barack Obama’s rise to power in 2008 raised fundamental questions about the duty of a newly-elected government in a country that has been engaged in war crimes, from aggression against other countries to systematic violations of the Geneva Conventions and human rights laws. Continue reading
Following the Peter Principle that “work expands to fill the time allotted for it,” so too does the eight-hundred pound gorilla of the Military Budget that hardly ever enters into the discussion of our inflated national debt expand, closing the door on infrastructure development, entitlements, educational debt and a myriad of other worthy causes. But let’s take a look at that ever Expanding U.S. Military Budget, from Wikipedia. Read as much of it as you can take. Continue reading
It is way too soon to bet the house fortune on the reliability of reports by the Washington Post (Washington, DC) and The Guardian (United Kingdom) on President Obama’s data harvesting program, known for the moment as PRISM. Continue reading
The strategy of tension (Italian: strategia della tensione) in any language, even as reported by Wikipedia in an article dotted with claims for documentation that appear to be distractions, is a tactic that aims to divide, manipulate, and control public opinion using fear, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents provocateur, and false flag terrorist actions. Sound like today’s news? It’s not. But it does have an inglorious tradition that goes back to the CIA-supported, neofascist movement, Operation Gladio, post World War II. Continue reading
It was understandable, even if unadvisable, for Ankara to put its weight behind the Syrian uprising when largely peaceful Sunni protests first erupted in the countryside. The Arab Spring was in full force; history was turning a new leaf. Tunisia and Egypt had been epic revolutions, at least initially. Libya was more tragic. But even if it diverged from the narrative, it allowed outside powers a manner of relevance and, more importantly, set the NATO precedent for long-time non-conformists. Syria did, for all intents and purposes, seem next. And Erdogan wanted to be on the right side of history. Continue reading
An air of uncertainty is engulfing most matters related to Egypt. Since the Egyptian revolt started over two years ago, the country remains hostage to a barefaced power struggle with many destructive implications that have polarized society in unprecedented ways, perhaps in all of Egypt’s modern history. And while in Egypt itself nothing is sacred and no one is safe from the massive campaigns of defamation, demonization and sheer lies that each political camp is launching against the other, Palestinians find themselves in a most precarious position. Continue reading
In response to the hacking to death of Lee Rigby, a young off-duty British soldier killed on a London street in broad daylight, Britain’s Home Office plans measures to prevent the radicalization of Muslim youth which include censorship of jihadist Internet websites, a crackdown on extremist organizations and the cleansing of mosques and place of learning from preachers promoting “a poisonous narrative.” That’s all very well but unless the government acknowledges the root of the problem those steps will constitute a mere band-aid covering a suppurating sore. Continue reading
In an article published May 15, 2013, American historical social scientist Immanuel Wallerstein wrote, “Nothing illustrates more the limitations of Western power than the internal controversy its elites are having in public about what the United States. in particular, and western European states should be doing about the civil war in Syria.” Continue reading
Ten months into Mohammad Mursi’s presidential term, Egypt remains divided, volatile and severely economically-challenged. Confidence in the president’s ability to turn the country around is sapping month-on-month. Whereas 78 percent of the population supported him following his first 100 days in office, according to a recent poll conducted by the Egyptian Centre for Public Opinion Research, a mere 30 per cent (mainly Muslim Brotherhood diehards and people living in rural areas) said they would vote for him again. Continue reading
Have you heard the latest on Obama’s Justice Department secretly subpoenaing the telephone records of AP editors and journalists, and tracking their ingoing and outgoing calls? Continue reading
Pakistan’s elections come at a key junction in the region’s geopolitics, with the public firmly opposed to the US ‘war on terror’ being conducted on Pakistani soil with no regard for its sovereignty. Pakistan’s new prime minister has a mandate to take his country in a new direction, but will he use it? Continue reading
Once again (just as in the recent US Embassy bombing in Ankara) a spectacular terrorist attack takes place in Turkey and the government immediately blames another obscure Marxist terrorist group, that they have conveniently resurrected from Turkey’s distant past. Continue reading
First, you find two or more young, disgruntled immigrants and/or U.S. citizens, preferably from countries that have been violated by the U.S. or another superpower, like Russia. They might have been taken to the U.S. by parents who were refugees, looking for asylum from some part of the world like Chechnya, split by civil war, brutal repression of the larger power, seeming to breed terrorists who had already been creating attacks against civilians, including schools, movie theaters, public events, within that larger power. Continue reading
Swing state Ohio mocks the very idea of democracy. As it so often does, Ohio reflects a national trend: this one the plunge toward corporate one-party state governments very much at odds with what the public thinks and wants. Continue reading
The UN has announced that in 2010–2012, including the Great Horn of Africa Drought period, at least 250,000 Somalis starved to death. Continue reading
The soldiers were trapped between slow moving clouds of the grey-green poisonous gas. Those closer to the chlorine cylinders felt a distinctive peppery-smell and metallic taste before the poisonous element stung their throats and chests. Those of their friends standing further away panicked as the green-death silently swallowed their friends. Continue reading
DALARNA, Sweden—The word ‘surreal’ was the first which came to my mind, what I witnessed during the last third of April indeed seeming best described by it. Of course, too much has too long been overblown, the strongest of adjectives too frequently employed to mask the weakest of circumstances; but, in this instance the word ‘surreal’ seems appropriate, although what brings it to mind are events that indeed seem ‘overblown.’ Continue reading
What more time-honored practice in the long history of state sponsored servitude than the institutionalization of prisoners? Incarceration for offenses against government laws is a cornerstone for power and survivability of any regime. Prisons may have been hellholes over the centuries, but seldom has the internment of convicted lawbreakers been a growth industry for private profit. It almost makes one wonder exactly who are the crooks. While most hard-pressed citizens want a safe and secure society, few ever give even a passing thought to the insatiable corporatist criminalization of the criminal justice system. Just how many Americans agree with the proposition, if you did the crime, you need to serve the time? Continue reading
Iraq expert and author Jeff Archer recalls, in one of his columns, an Iraq which existed once. Continue reading
Europe’s anti-austerity popular revolt is not benefitting the political parties of the authentic left that should be reaping electoral support from disaffected workers, pensioners, and students. Instead, the parties of the far-right, which are in lockstep with the corporate-fascist goals of multinational banks and corporations, are gaining in strength. Continue reading
America will never be a “no drone zone.” Continue reading
On Sep. 17, 2012, Ismail Haniyeh, Prime Minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, made another appeal to his Egyptian counterpart, Hisham Kandil, to consider setting up a free trade area between Gaza and Egypt. Continue reading
On Tuesday March 27, 2013, Kofi Annan gave a speech at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. In his usual careful and diplomatic tone, Annan spoke firmly against Western calls for more direct military intervention in Syria. Continue reading
In 2011, before he was the Republican nominee for vice-president, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) proposed a federal budget. He called it, “The Path to Prosperity: Restoring America’s Promise.” Continue reading
Governments must accept that the root causes of poverty, inequality and climate change will never be addressed without substantial reforms to the global economy. In the meanwhile, the post-2015 development goals need to be much more ambitious about preventing avoidable poverty-related deaths within an immediate timeframe. Continue reading
Pressure is mounting on Canada to finish up a long-delayed trade deal with the EU. Despite outstanding issues that still must be settled, there is a final push to try and complete an agreement this summer. Continue reading
Given Canada’s neo-realpolitik internationally, it is no surprise that Canadian domestic affairs are following an identical logic. In the past, Canada appeared to stand apart from such settler colonies as the US and Australia in dealing more fairly with its natives. John Ralston Saul argues for the “originality of the Canadian project”, that contained elements of a rejection of the Enlightenment project of Europe/the US, which was based on secular rationality and liberal revolution. Continue reading
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