In defence of the Visegrad Group

The name of a quiet medieval town in Hungary—Visegrad—has in recent times become synonymous with the word “rebellion” in Brussels. Continue reading

History lesson: From Dunkirk to Berlin

To better understand the threat that Zionism poses to the world, and especially Iran, allow me to turn to a historical analogy. The scenario is eerily reminiscent of the late-1930s, as the earlier aggressive, racist state, Nazi Germany, was allowed to pursue its selfish, warlike agenda against its peaceful neighbors, despite its agenda of world war. The actors in that drama were Nazi Germany versus the Soviet Union, the latter being the only credible peaceful resistance to fascism. Britain, France, and the US refused to stand up to the threat to peace, mistaking the Soviet Union for the enemy, despite it being the only credible resistance to the Nazis. Continue reading

On World Wide Web’s 29th birthday, its inventor warns of threats to digital rights

On the 29th anniversary of the founding of the World Wide Web, British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee—the inventor of the Internet as we know it and a long-time advocate of digital rights—penned an open letter to call for stricter regulations of the major tech corporations that aim to control the web. Continue reading

Trust in China remains top; trust in U.S. plunges

The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer survey, which is the latest in the annual Edelman series taken in 28 countries, shows that the people of China have the highest trust in their country’s institutions, and that the people of U.S. recorded an all-time-record loss of trust as compared to the prior year: a stunning 37% loss of trust—that’s comparing 2017’s 52% of Americans trusting America’s institutions, down to 43% of Americans trusting them, a 9% slide, which Edelman referred to by saying, “Trust decline in the U.S. is the steepest ever measured.” Continue reading

America: World’s leading merchant of death

The Center for International Policy’s (CIP) Security Assistance Monitor (SAM) follows US foreign security aid and arms sales. Continue reading

Kevin Love: Making a hole in denial

In his moving essay revealing his existential anxiety and panic attack, NBA star Kevin Love has touched a nerve that underlies not just sports and male experience, but life itself. He is right to say, “This is an everyone thing.” In doing so, he has performed a public service far beyond getting men and boys to open up about their fears and feelings. He has, as befits his surname, opened many people to a consideration of the marriage of love and death, and why all efforts to divorce them result in the diminishment of life’s passion and intensity. Continue reading

Beware of Saudis bearing mega-city projects

Saudi Arabia’s 32-year old crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is on a whirlwind tour of Egypt, Britain, and the United States. What he is selling is a Middle East that should worry everyone on the planet, but most of all, the Palestinian people. Continue reading

Putin explains why Russia’s new weapons can’t be stopped by ABMs

In a “Russia Insight” TV interview of Russian President Vladimir Putin that was uploaded to YouTube with English subtitles on March 10, NBC’s Megyn Kelly asked him why America’s ABMs wouldn’t be able to knock out Russia’s new missiles. He answered (16:40): “We have created a set of new strategic weapons that do not follow ballistic trajectories, and the anti-missile defence systems are powerless against them. This means that the U.S. taxpayers’ money has been wasted.” Continue reading

The banality of evil in the war on drugs

The New York Times published a story last week about prisoners who die while still incarcerated. Continue reading

America’s Shkreli problem

On Friday, Martin Shkreli was sentenced to seven years in prison. What if anything does Shkreli’s fall tell us about America? Continue reading

Language and empathy in Cambodia

Cambodia makes good, cheap beer, so I was sitting in some lunch place with yet another can of Angkor, after having polished off a plate of fatty pork with rice. Two tables away, a girl sat, doing her homework. She had a machine that sang out, “Old McDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!” and so on. Suddenly, it switched to, “and girls . . . just want to have fun!” It’s all good, for it was all in English, and this girl needed a constant fix of the world’s master language, if she wanted to get ahead, that is, but what if English should wane as the lingua franca during her lifetime? It won’t matter much, as long as she can make a few bucks from her English skills. Continue reading

Dictator for life: The rise of the American imperial president

I’m not a fan of Communist China. Continue reading

Federal Judge’s unprecedented order on climate science ‘could open floodgates’ for Big Oil lawsuits

With a decision that could have far-reaching implications, a federal judge in California has ordered the first ever U.S. court hearing on climate science for a “public nuisance” lawsuit, meaning that major oil and gas companies for the first time may have to go on the record regarding what they knew about the planetary impacts of their products—and when. Continue reading

Make-believe America

Americans live a never-never land existence. The politicians and presstitutes make sure of that. Continue reading

Ahed’s generation: Why the youth in Palestine must break free from dual oppression

As global voices continue to demand the freedom of 17-year-old teenage Palestinian girl Ahed Tamimi, Israeli authorities have arrested nine additional members of her family. Continue reading

The only Jewish ghetto in the Middle East

Al Jazeera reported Wednesday that the Israeli parliament has passed a law that allows the Minister of Interior to revoke the residency rights of any Palestinian in Jerusalem on grounds of a “breach of loyalty” to Israel. Continue reading

Kushner foreign dealings dealt heavy blows to Palestine, Qatar, and Iran

According to The Washington Post, U.S. intelligence has yielded information that Donald Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, a presidential adviser with numerous portfolios, including Middle Eastern adviser, was manipulated by several foreign governments, including, primarily, Israel, to seek favors with the Trump administration. Other nations named by U.S. intelligence sources as influencing Kushner are the United Arab Emirates—a present Israeli ally, China, and Mexico. Continue reading

Netanyahu at AIPAC’s annual Israel lovefest

Benjamin Netanyahu is a world class thug, facing possible indictment for fraud and breach of trust, his dark side ignored at AIPAC, attendees welcoming him rapturously. Continue reading

Washington is intent on destroying Iran

On February 18, the leader of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, declared that Iran “is trying to establish this continuous empire surrounding the Middle East from the south in Yemen but also trying to create a land bridge from Iran to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. This is a very dangerous development for our region.” Netanyahu’s presentation was dismissed by the Iranian foreign minister as “a cartoonish circus,” but it was nonetheless a reflection of the policy of the United States, which is Israel’s mentor and unconditional ally. Continue reading

Freedom Rider: ‘Black Panther’ movie: A black face in a high place

The desire to see a black face in a high place is a legacy of slavery and the century of Jim Crow segregation that followed. The psychological impact of America’s apartheid is enduring, and unlikely to end without true revolutionary change. Continue reading

Corporations are spending their tax cut—on themselves

Instead of creating jobs, big businesses are using their tax cut bonanza to hike stock value and CEO pay.

Remember last year when Donald Trump and his congressional Trumpeteers bragged that their “yuge” tax cut for corporations would spark a “yuge” corporate spending spree to create new jobs and higher wages? Continue reading

Trump prefers dictatorships, including one for the U.S.

At a Republican Party fundraising dinner and reception held at his Mar-a-Lago resort over the weekend, Donald Trump remarked that he envies Chinese President Xi Jinping for having recently abolished the two-term limit for his office, thus opening the way for Xi to remain as president of China for life, well past what had been a presidential term that was due to expire in 2023. At 64 years of age, Xi could remain as president well into the 2030s and, quite possibly, beyond. Continue reading

The ‘pure madness’ of our vigilante president

Trying to write about the current resident of the White House and his odious pals is like being trapped in a warehouse, condemned to assemble endless Ikea products without instructions or that little hexagon key doohickey. The work never ends, you have no idea what goes where, illogic reigns and there always are extra parts left over. A screw loose, for example . . . Continue reading

Trump and Netanyahu plot next moves

On Monday in Washington, Trump and Netanyahu met for the fifth time, discussing their imperial agenda, their partnership in regional wars of aggression, their strategy for what’s planned. Continue reading

Rolling into Cambodia

Traveling, I prefer to be on the ground, for that’s how you get an overview of the countryside. The bus from Saigon to Phnom Penh took more than seven hours, but that included 30 minutes for lunch, plus 45 more at the border. My seatmate was a young fellow, Morris, from Halle, Germany, and we had a fruitful, wide ranging conversation. For a moment, I had mistaken him for a woman, for he had a pony tail and such a smooth, unblemished face. Continue reading

Freedom’s perversities

For much of human history, the idea of freedom had little meaning. This was because life was, as Thomas Hobbes put it, “poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” And while he thought this descriptor applied to life outside of society, for a long time it did not really matter—life within pre-modern societies often had the same limiting character. Religious belief in these same times reflected this depressing fact by asserting that there was no hope of meaningful freedom in this life. To achieve it you would have to die and go to Heaven. So, what set you free was death. Continue reading

How the U.S. Establishment lies through its teeth for war against Russia

The same people, Republicans and Democrats, who lied through their teeth for an invasion of Iraq in 2003, are doing it again for an invasion of Russia, sometime soon, so as to ‘defend’ ‘democracy.’ The U.S. has by now swallowed up virtually all lands surrounding Russia, at least in Europe, the latest being Ukraine, and is placing its missiles now on and near Russia’s borders, which is to Russians like would be to Americans if Russia had swallowed up Canada and were placing its missiles there. But the lying holier-than-thou U.S. Establishment accuses Russia of being ‘aggressive’ when Russia holds war-games on and near its borders in order to prepare for a U.S.-NATO invasion, which actually looks increasingly likely to them every day—and not because of ‘Russian propaganda,’ but because of the U.S. government’s actions. Continue reading

Trump’s brand is Ayn Rand

Donald Trump once said he identified with Ayn Rand’s character Howard Roark in “The Fountainhead,” an architect so upset that a housing project he designed didn’t meet specifications he had it dynamited. Continue reading

The NYT pays homage to fascist Venezuelan coup plotter

In 2015, Leopoldo Lopez was arrested, prosecuted and convicted, and imprisoned for inciting months of violence and related crimes against the state—a US-regime change plot still ongoing to replace Bolivarian social democracy with fascist tyranny. Continue reading

Does the BBC favour the Muslim Brotherhood?

Can it be pure coincidence that the BBC has chosen to broadcast two scathing documentaries presented and written by Orla Guerin—The Shadow over Egypt and Crushing Dissent in Egypt—alleging forced disappearances and torture literally weeks before the presidential election? Continue reading

Teen solidarity against the merchants of death

Here in Kabul, as the rising sun begins to warm our chilly rooms, I hear excited laughter from downstairs. Rosemary Morrow, a renowned Australian permaculture expert, has begun teaching thirty-five young students in a month-long course on low-resource farming. Continue reading

For all practical purposes, the American system of government is failing

How and why

On January 17, 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969), 34th President of the United States, (1953–1961), and a five-star general, gave a Farewell address that has echoed through the years. He not only warned his fellow citizens about the danger of a “military-industrial complex,” which could “endanger our liberties or democratic processes,” but he also issued a wish in saying that “we want democracy to survive for all generations to come.” Continue reading