From manifest destiny to American exceptionalism and an indispensable nation, Americans have been sold a steaming pile of excrement, aka shit. Continue reading
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What happens to wildlife swimming in a sea of our drug residues?
Wastewater exposes plants and wildlife to hundreds of chemical compounds. Researchers are learning about potential side effects and solutions.
Fish hooked on meth? It’s a catchy headline that made the rounds a few weeks ago, but it represents a serious and growing problem. Our rivers and streams have become a soup of hundreds of drugs—mostly pharmaceuticals—that come from the treated water released from wastewater facilities. Continue reading
Will Americans who were right on Afghanistan still be ignored?
America’s corporate media are ringing with recriminations over the humiliating U.S. military defeat in Afghanistan. But very little of the criticism goes to the root of the problem, which was the original decision to militarily invade and occupy Afghanistan in the first place. Continue reading
The system is rigged for endless war: Notes from the Edge of the Narrative Matrix
I still can’t find words to describe how insane it is that all the “experts” who spent twenty years being wrong about Afghanistan remain esteemed and wealthy while those who spent that time being right about Afghanistan remain marginalized and regarded as fringe kooks. Continue reading
How California’s top Democrats paved the way for a Republican governor this fall
Whether Newsom will remain governor past mid-autumn now looks like a coin flip. And what's at stake in the recall goes far beyond California—in fact, all the way to the nation's capital.
In fewer than four weeks from now, a right-wing Republican could win the governor’s office in California. Some polling indicates that Democrat Gavin Newsom is likely to lose his job via the recall election set for Sept. 14. When CBS News released a poll on Sunday, Gov. Newsom’s razor-thin edge among likely voters was within the margin of error. How this could be happening in a state where Republicans are only 24 percent of registered voters is largely a tale of corporate-friendly elitism and tone-deaf egotism at the top of the California Democratic Party. Continue reading
Not telling people, then blaming them for not knowing all their government has done
We’re getting a taste of what the civil rights and antiwar movements of the ‘60s would have been like without the not-quite-yet corporate media reporting on the daily events. But over the past half century with just about all the major media gobbled up by corporations, the monied powers and politicians decided very little of their criminal actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen would be televised. Now some are criticizing the American people for not caring about the death and destruction the US has rained on Afghanistan when it wasn’t being served up as a nightly dinner course by TV. Continue reading
The oligarchic empire is actually simple and easy to understand
If you’re like me and spend entirely too much time on Political Twitter, you may have recently observed a bunch of people saying you shouldn’t post your opinion about the Afghanistan situation unless you’re an expert who has studied the nation’s dynamics in depth. Like an empire invading a nation and murdering a bunch of people for decades is some super complicated and esoteric matter that you need a PhD to have an opinion about. Continue reading
We are the least trustworthy people on the planet: Another ghastly retreat from empire
Kabul, it’s been noted, was not lost yesterday. It was the inevitable final fall of a calamitous, arrogant, 20-year, trillion-dollar, too-many-deaths imperial misadventure doomed, like too many before it, to failure from its inept start. In Biden’s speech, generally deemed resolute but callous about the mayhem unfolding, he asked a tough, good question – “How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghanistan’s civil war?” – but framed it in a cynical, disingenuous way by adding, “when Afghan troops will not?” The fourth president to oversee yet another senseless war in “the graveyard of empires,” he thus found an easy target for what is the “breathtaking failure” of longtime U.S. foreign policy while blithely ignoring the blood-soaked, hubris-laden history behind it – a “post-imperial Western fantasy” of disastrous military or CIA interventions through Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and then Iran, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, which was never at war with the U.S. and where Donald Rumsfeld, may he have no rest, demanded Bush “punish and get out.” Bush and his imperious ilk spoke of nation-building, “as if nations were made of Legos.” Instead, we got our forever war, where rather than offer schools, clinics, water, job training to a beleaguered population, the U.S. blew up whatever infrastructure they had and spent 86% of a staggering trillion dollars – though some say it’s closer to 2 trillion – on often hapless military initiatives that, thanks to “a complex ecosystem of defense contractors, Washington banditry” and corruption, largely returned to the U.S. economy. Add in corruption by Afghan elites, and ultimately less than 2% of U.S. money actually went to the people who needed it. A final irony: Even as the West frantically fought to stop it, soaring Afghan poppy production fueled the insurgency, spreading from six to 28 provinces: “Opium floated the Taliban back to power.” All topped by a rushed, artless, possibly balance-tipping “deal” giving too much to the Taliban by the idiot Former Guy. Continue reading
Working from home—while your boss watches on video
A company that handles Amazon customer service calls wants cameras in employees’ homes—even on their kids.
If you’re a corporate employee, you know that something unpleasant is afoot when top executives are suddenly issuing statements about how committed they are to their employees, making sure that all of them are treated with dignity and respect. Continue reading
The quiet rebellion: Why US Jews turning against Israel is good for Palestinians
A unique but critical conversation on Israel and Palestine is taking place outside the traditional discourse of Israeli colonialism and the Palestinian quest for liberation. It is an awkward and difficult—but overdue—discussion concerning American Jews’ relation to Israel and their commitment to its Zionist ideology. Continue reading
Afghanistan
Afghanistan has been at the mercy of U.S. interventions for more than 40 years.
The scenes of people desperately trying to board planes in Kabul, Afghanistan, hanging from and even falling from landing gear, are reminiscent of past United States exits, most notably from Vietnam. Yet these images should not be surprising nor should they change anyone’s views about the terror that the U.S. brought to that country. The turmoil in present day Afghanistan is the end result of more than 40 years of U.S. involvement and it should not be discussed without an analysis of that history. Continue reading
Afghanistan: After action report
President Joe Biden plans to hold a Summit of Democracies in December of 2021. This meeting will bring together all the usual cast of characters of “heads of state, civil society, philanthropy, and the private sector” according to a White House statement. Private citizens will be included but most likely those participants will be screened and have a question to pose to the “leaders” that will undoubtedly be carefully scripted. Nothing will come of this as the US will seek to steer the narrative towards America’s creation of the Post World War II order over which it lords and to trumpet its questionable premise that only it alone is capable of leading because, after all, Americans always work in the best interests of global peace and prosperity and, besides, it has the mightiest military with which to back up its words with violent deeds. Continue reading
The return of the Taliban 20 years later
On August 15, the Taliban arrived in Kabul. The Taliban’s leadership entered the presidential palace, which Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had vacated when he fled into exile abroad hours before. The country’s borders shut down and Kabul’s main international airport lay silent, except for the cries of those Afghans who had worked for the U.S. and NATO; they knew that their lives would now be at serious risk. The Taliban’s leadership, meanwhile, tried to reassure the public of a “peaceful transition” by saying in several statements that they would not seek retribution, but would go after corruption and lawlessness. Continue reading
Opening and closing US embassies—from Sierra Leone to Afghanistan
U.S. officials are very well aware that local citizens who work with the U.S. military are endangering themselves and their families when the U.S. departs.
The people of Afghanistan are in a state of fear of the Taliban who now control Afghanistan’s capital, major cities, and countryside—after the U.S. and NATO twenty-year occupation. Here are some of my personal observances during sixteen years in the U.S. diplomatic corps and experiencing the opening and closing of U.S. embassies in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan and the effects on the civilian populations of the countries involved. Continue reading
Now, about that peace dividend …
As I write this, the Taliban have assumed full political control—to the extent that such a thing can exist—of Afghanistan. They’ve taken Kabul. They’ve put the US occupation’s puppet president, and many Afghans who served the occupation presence, to flight. They’ve declared the restoration of their “Islamic Emirate.” Continue reading
The liars ignorant of history are worse than the lies they tell
Worse than the lies that get us into wars that never should have happened are the liars who know nothing of the history of the countries they are determined to attack. Continue reading
When will we stop letting our presidents lie America into wars?
Let’s never forget that what we are watching happen right now in Afghanistan is the final act of George W. Bush‘s 2004 reelection strategy. Continue reading
Now would be a great time for George W Bush to shut the fuck up
George W Bush has issued a statement on the situation in Afghanistan, and there are not enough shoes in the world to adequately respond to it. Continue reading
A day in the death of British justice
I sat in Court 4 in the Royal Courts of Justice in London on August 11 with Stella Moris, Julian Assange’s partner. I have known Stella for as long as I have known Julian. She, too, is a voice of freedom, coming from a family that fought the fascism of Apartheid. On August 12, her name was uttered in court by a barrister and a judge, forgettable people were it not for the power of their endowed privilege. Continue reading
How the system is failing young people
There’s a narrative out there that millennials and the Generation Zs behind them are lazy. Continue reading
Afghan lesson for Uncle Sam’s running dogs
Afghanistan is the most glaring proof of the American treachery. It’s a cautionary tale for others who incredibly still seem trusting in hitching their wagon to a U.S. alliance.
U.S. President Joe Biden said last week that he has “no regrets” about pulling American forces out of Afghanistan as the Taliban militants looked set to over-run the entire Central Asian country. The lesson here is: anyone acting as a running dog for Washington does so at the peril of ultimate U.S. betrayal. Continue reading
The murder of the ‘menacing’ water technician: On the shadow wars in the West Bank
There is an ongoing, but hidden, Israeli war on the Palestinians which is rarely highlighted or even known. It is a water war, which has been in the making for decades. Continue reading
Two years after the largest workplace raid in U.S. history, a path forward for undocumented workers
Democrats just passed a budget framework that could make millions of immigrant workers less vulnerable to exploitation.
Immigration agents arrested over 600 undocumented workers at a poultry plant in Jackson, Mississippi, two years ago in what remains the largest workplace raid in U.S. history. Continue reading
How a Black Lives Matter leader started a ‘Freedom School’ summer program for kids
Jasmine Richards views the education and empowerment of young Black and Brown children in her community to be just as important as fighting racist police brutality.
Middle- and upper-income parents know that summers are an opportunity to give one’s children the sort of well-rounded education that can enhance future college applications. Summer camp rosters fill up months in advance, and price tags for enrichment programs can run upwards of $500 a week. This is especially true in high-priced Southern California, where I live and where Jasmine Abdullah Richards started the Black Lives Matter Pasadena Freedom School, a free, three-days-a-week summer camp for children who live in her neighborhood. Continue reading
Stop believing US military invasions have noble intentions: Notes from the Edge of the Narrative Matrix
I love how everyone’s just pretending the Afghanistan Papers never happened and the Taliban takeover is some kind of shocking tragedy instead of the thing everyone knew would happen because they’ve been knowingly lying about working to create a stable government this entire time. Continue reading
Is Biden about to have his “fall of Saigon” moment in Afghanistan?
Are we about to replay, in Kabul, the 30 April 1975 scene in Saigon as desperate South Vietnamese, who had worked for the Americans, attempted to get aboard US military helicopters that would carry them to safety as the city fell to the North Vietnamese? Continue reading
WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange and free press setback
It is imperative that everyone who understands the need for a free press, the people’s fundamental-democratic right to know, must act to defend Julian Assange.
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, is in greater danger of being extradited to the United States for publishing its crimes, and those of many other countries’ governments. Continue reading
Are Bezos and Musk launching us into a new space age or just a U.S. space grab?
We are entering a new space age in which billionaires can leave this world, which they are destroying, hoping to find another world to conquer and destroy.
The space race was once between two countries—the Soviet Union and the United States. It is now (at least on the surface) between three billionaires—Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson. Two of them—Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic, and Bezos, founder of Blue Origin—recently rode their respective companies’ suborbital flights (meaning that they cannot be considered proper spaceflights, as they did not reach a stable orbit around the Earth). Branson’s space ambitions seem to be limited to developing a market for the exotica of space tourism. Elon Musk and his company SpaceX have been playing for the long haul, with a series of rockets and launches already to the company’s credit, including to the International Space Station. Bezos and Blue Origin also fall into the latter camp. Continue reading
Greed and consumption: Why the world is burning
Rome is scorching hot. This beautiful city is becoming unbearable for other reasons, too. Though every corner of the beaming metropolis is a monument to historical grandeur, from the Colosseum in Rione Monti to the Basilica of Saint John Lateran in San Giovanni, it is now struggling under the weight of its own contradictions. Continue reading
“Nobody is above the law”—except the “big boys”
Law schools should have courses on the expanding immunities of government and corporate officials from criminal prosecution and punishment. Guest lecturers, speaking from their experience, could be Donald J. Trump, George W. Bush (criminal destruction of Iraq), Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, the Sackler Family of opioid infamy, and the top officials at Boeing, led by its CEO Dennis Muilenburg, for the 346 homicides in their deadly 737 MAX aircraft. Continue reading
Away from non-binding UNGA resolutions, the EU follows the U.S. narrative on Cuba
If the EU truly prized democracy, it would lobby for an end to the illegal blockade and U.S. interference.
Why does the U.S. illegal blockade on Cuba conveniently disappear from the EU’s narrative in the context of the protests against shortages in the country, and in which dissidents have been funded by the U.S.? Continue reading
The fall of the House of Cuomo—lessons unlearned
Posted on August 24, 2021 by Ralph Nader
The resignation of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo invites comparisons, historical context, and proposals for the future. Continue reading →