Antibiotics, once considered benign drugs, are raising new and disturbing questions. Excessive medical and agricultural use of antibiotics is now clearly linked to antibiotic-resistant microbes or superbugs. Worse, antibiotics are now known to have negative effects on the microbiome, sometimes called the body’s second brain, contributing to obesity, diabetes and problems with mood. Continue reading
President Donald Trump’s zero tolerance policy stands to create a zombie army of children forcibly injected with medications that make them dizzy, listless, obese and even incapacitated, according to legal filings that show immigrant children in U.S. custody subdued with powerful psychiatric drugs. Continue reading
America is being systematically thirdworldized—notably since the neoliberal ‘90s, escalated under Bush/Cheney, social justice further assaulted under Obama. Continue reading
First broadcast in America 50 years ago, “The Prisoner”—a dystopian television series described as “James Bond meets George Orwell filtered through Franz Kafka”—confronted societal themes that are still relevant today: the rise of a police state, the freedom of the individual, round-the-clock surveillance, the corruption of government, totalitarianism, weaponization, group think, mass marketing, and the tendency of humankind to meekly accept their lot in life as a prisoner in a prison of their own making. Continue reading
Europe is facing the most significant refugee crisis since World War II. All attempts at resolving the issue have failed, mostly because they have ignored the root causes of the problem. Continue reading
The process of Donald Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong-un was as singular as the event itself. His ignorance, incompetence and egomania moved him from “fire and fury” and “little rocket man” to scheduling a meeting to cancelling the meeting to finally holding the summit. But a process has begun which might free two nations from American threats and put them in charge of their own destiny. The Democrats are left with nothing except attacking Trump from the right. Continue reading
Victims of repression by U.S.-supported fascist governments in Latin America will soon skyrocket as a result of the election of Colombian narco syndicate and death squad-linked Ivan Duque as president of Colombia. Many of those now seeking political asylum from Honduras and Guatemala are fleeing U.S.- and Israeli-supported right-wing regimes in those countries. Refugees from violence-plagued El Salvador are trying to escape from death squads that have their roots in U.S.-supported paramilitary forces propped up in that nation’s civil war in the 1980s. These asylum-seekers will soon be joined by those fearing for their lives in Colombia. Continue reading
The USA has launched a “soft coup” in Ethiopia in an attempt to relieve growing revolutionary pressure from the Ethiopian people after three years of failed martial law rule. Continue reading
In our technological age, the protocols of the zeitgeist are shrouded in dubious practices. Like the use of the term ‘force’ in Star Wars, force has become a very special fluid simultaneously circulating in the body politic and the imagination of speculative investors. The monographic stamp of neoconservative politics is everywhere apparent, showing how money has become what it is today in capitalist modernity, an unpredictable and ungovernable human institution that benefits the financial elites. It is a force that subjects the polity to the ambiguities of casino casuistry. Continue reading
It has happened at slaughterhouses run by Smithfield Foods, Swift and Agriprocessors. Continue reading
I remember when America was a free country. You could get on an airliner without an ID. Driving licenses didn’t even have photos. If a friend was coming through your city on a flight and had a few hours layover, you could meet them inside the airport for lunch or dinner. You could meet friends, children, and relatives at the gate or see them off at the gate. Parents could actually put children on the plane and grandparents could take them off. Continue reading
The locations of young girls and toddlers, who are being detained and separated from their parents at the U.S. southern border, are not being disclosed by either U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The latter has been tasked with running several detention centers around the country, however, many of the detention facilities are being operated by private prison contractors known for providing substandard services to inmates. Continue reading
Make no mistake: Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions’ assault on immigrant families and their “tactic” of separating parents from their children are right out of the Nazi playbook. Continue reading
While outraged Americans across the country are calling their elected representatives and taking to the streets to protest the Trump administration’s forcible separation of parents and children at the U.S.-Mexico border, intelligence and defense contractors are raking in millions thanks to the cruel practice. Continue reading
Things are getting serious. Tit-for-tat tariff announcements assure losers, not winners, if implemented and stick. Continue reading
The Republican Party has been falling apart for at least 54 years. The official start of this process can be dated to 1964, when the conservative Republican Barry Goldwater captured the GOP nomination for president. When asked his plans if elected, he replied, “I do not plan to pass laws. I plan to repeal them.” That was a signal that he was intent on changing the role of government. His goal was to narrow the government down to the basic tasks of defending the realm (the military), enforcing a diminishing number of federal laws (the courts), and providing only those few necessary services that the “free market” could not take care of. Continue reading
Near the end of Hermann Hesse’s novel Narcissus and Goldmund, Goldmund returns to the abbey for the last time where he had begun his education decades earlier. The setting is medieval Europe, in what is now the south of Germany. Hesse’s novel, a coming of age story about the battle between the spirit and the senses does not fit neatly into today’s assessment of plot and character development. Goldmund is the artist in search of what it means to live a full life, however, critics will immediately take offense at the way in which women are portrayed in this writing: They are not developed as characters and generally serve the needs of the protagonist Goldmund on his many trips of wanderlust. Continue reading
The pattern is familiar. Ongoing violence in Nicaragua has the earmarks of another US-staged color revolution attempt. Continue reading
Israel’s right-wing government has apparently decided that the best way to stop global criticism of its flagrant human rights violations against the Palestinian people is not to stop committing them, but to silence and punish anyone who attempts to document its crimes. Continue reading
Gallup’s recently published annual Global Law and Order poll places Egypt the safest country in Africa and 16th out of 135 countries in terms of personal safety on par with Denmark, Austria and the Netherlands. Down the scale comes the United Kingdom (21st) and the United States which ranked 35th. Respondents were asked how they felt walking around after dark and whether they had ever been assaulted or mugged among other pertinent questions. Continue reading
An anti-doping bill was introduced to Congress on June 12 to make the use or distributing drugs during international sports events a punishable crime. The act offers fines of up to $250,000 for individuals and prison sentences of up to 10 years for those who make, distribute or use banned substances at sports events including four or more US athletes and other athletes from three or more countries. Continue reading
Federal courts are supremely pro-business, including the nation’s highest one throughout its history. Continue reading
It’s happening on commercial deer farms in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and Pennsylvania. Hundreds of captive deer stricken with the dreaded chronic wasting disease (CWD) are being euthanized. As state Departments of Natural Resources (DNR) try to contain the lethal, incurable disease which threatens their all important hunting revenues, cattle farmers now worry the disease will “jump species.” Deer on 11 farms in Wisconsin, alone, have been annihilated. Continue reading
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one of the most translated and celebrated documents in the world, marking its 70th anniversary this year. But relatively few people are aware of the significance of its 25th Article, which proclaims the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living—including food, housing, healthcare, social services and basic financial security. As our campaign group Share The World’s Resources (STWR) has long proposed, it is high time that activists for global justice reclaim the vision that is spelled out in those few simple sentences. For in order to implement Article 25 into a set of binding, enforceable obligations through domestic and international laws, the implications are potentially revolutionary. Continue reading
As Trump stokes tensions around the world, he’s adding fuel to the fire by demanding even more Pentagon spending. It’s a dangerous military buildup intended to underwrite endless wars and enrich defense contractors, while draining money from investment in the American people. Continue reading
I was just interviewed by two Temple University journalism students, Amelia Burns and Erin Moran, and though they appeared very bright and enterprising, with Erin already landing a job that pays all her bills, I feel for these young ladies, for this is a horrible time to make and sell words, of any kind, and the situation will only get worse. We’re well into postliteracy. Continue reading
Sometimes you have to draw a line in the sand. Continue reading
In an “unprecedented” effort to revoke citizenship, the Trump administration is analyzing decades-old records of fingerprints from thousands of legally documented immigrants to identify anyone “who may have lied or falsified information on their naturalization forms,” according to the Washington Post. Continue reading
What is taking place in Palestine is not a ‘conflict.’ We readily utilize the term but, in fact, the word ‘conflict’ is misleading. It equates between oppressed Palestinians and Israel, a military power that stands in violation of numerous United Nations Resolutions. Continue reading
In their casual rhetoric at election time, Democrats pretend to represent the public interest, saying you should vote for them to stop the Republicans, but never tell you they are the Republicans in a two-corporate-party duopoly made up of clones with two names. Continue reading
There were two summits of world leaders held very recently. The one which got Americans’ attention was the Group of Seven (G7), comprised of Canada, the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan, and Germany. The meeting, held in Quebec, proved that Donald Trump means what he says. He campaigned on a theme of “America first” and he is making good on his slogan. Continue reading
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Trump’s mean boy nation
Posted on June 25, 2018 by Michael Winship
Our “I alone can fix it” president has gotten us in another fix, all right. Continue reading →