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
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Why Israel blows up media offices and targets journalists
The Israeli government is now exerting deadly force on a large scale to underscore an assertion of impunity—in effect, wielding power to subjugate Palestinian people with methodical disregard for their basic human rights.
Israel’s missile attack on media offices in Gaza City last weekend was successful. A gratifying response came quickly from the head of The Associated Press, which had a bureau in the building for 15 years: “The world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today.” Continue reading
Arizona analysis shows that many Republicans did not vote for Trump in 2020
At least 75,000 Arizonans voted for Republican candidates, but not for Trump.
About 75,000 Republican-leaning voters in Arizona’s two most populous counties did not vote to re-elect President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, according to an analysis of every vote cast by a longtime Arizona Republican Party election observer and election technologists familiar with vote-counting data. Continue reading
The Republican Party must be destroyed along with Trump
Leading Democratic Party figures, including President Biden, have lamented that America needs a viable two-party system. No it doesn’t. At least as long as the Republican Party remains a cult of personality vehicle for Donald Trump. Continue reading
We need to talk about Jeff Bezos’s boat
The Amazon CEO’s yacht actually requires its own “support yacht”—so he can land his helicopter.
Not only are the rich different from you and me—they’re getting more different than ever. Continue reading
The greatest knowledge we can bestow on our youth
The most important thing one may know, in order to function with minimal comprehension amidst the constant shot and shell of contemporary misinformation, is that mainstream media are controlled. Continue reading
‘Terrible news’: Tribune shareholders approve $633 million sale to vulture fund Alden Global
A union leader had urged the newspaper company's second-largest shareholder to vote "no," warning that "Alden ownership would be a disaster for Chicago, democracy, and society at large."
Tribune Publishing shareholders on Friday approved “vulture” fund Alden Global Capital’s $633 million bid to buy the Chicago-based newspaper chain—a development that sparked both confusion about how key ballots were recorded as well as outrage among journalists, union leaders, and readers alarmed over what the future may hold. Continue reading
Israel’s horrid occupation of Palestine
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
The failed bloody fascist coup of 2021
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’s 30 years of independence
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
Total tyranny: We’ll all be targeted under the government’s new precrime program
It never fails. Continue reading
Why we must prevent the U.S. from launching a hybrid war against China
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
Palestinian lives matter
We can’t say we support justice and human rights in this country while supporting violence and expulsion abroad.
I believe that all people share a common cause for basic freedoms. Continue reading
Why Big Pharma’s arguments against patent waivers don’t add up
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
When Israel’s regime buys US weapons, it buys them with your money
On May 5, Hamas commander Mohammed Deif issued a warning to Israel’s government: Unless Israeli police and troops stopped attacking Palestinians in Jerusalem—including not just those protesting against the regime’s theft of their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood on behalf of Israeli “settlers,” but also worshipers at al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam’s most sacred sites—rockets would fly. Continue reading
America’s worthless values
“Everyone, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex persons, deserves to live in dignity,” the State Department pontificates. Everyone? How about Palestinians?
The disproportionate deaths among Palestinians speak of a one-sided slaughter. Over 200 have been killed—almost a quarter of them children—during the past week of violence. Continue reading
Freedom Rider: The Palestine litmus test
President Joe Biden continues to proclaim endless support of apartheid Israel, but millions have decided that defense of Palestinian rights and lives is the only civilized response to barbaric aggression. Continue reading
The bigger picture in Israel-Palestine
My Jewish upbringing taught me to stand with the persecuted and the vulnerable. Today, that means the Palestinians.
Most of the news stories I see about Israel and Palestine focus on recent events. Continue reading
The congressman from hell is a symptom of our rotten political system
Decades of disdain for politics as a civic calling means we get the politicians we deserve.
Picture a member of congress and what do you see? He’s a guy (those in question are usually still men, despite Marjorie Taylor Greene) with an ego the size of the Capitol dome itself, but a strangely fragile and insecure one. He’d run down his grandmother to get his mug on camera and tell the world his profound thoughts, but in private he can be strangely hollow and ignorant when the occasion doesn’t call for prefabricated talking points. Imagine Ted Knight without the lovable charm. Continue reading
The story of how two sisters hurt, hindered, and healed each other
“When my nose was so clotted with blood [from cocaine] that I could not breathe—something that happened routinely—I went to the hospital.” So writes Lisa Scott, half of the sister duo who have authored the new book Hindsight: The Story Of How Two Sisters Hurt, Hindered, And Healed Each Other But this is more than an addiction story. It includes the raw emotions of the non-addicted sister, Sharon Bonanno, who is also buffeted by the forces that cause and result from addiction. Continue reading
Colombia’s rebellion against the capitalist system
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
Palestinian workers in Israel, West Bank launch general strike
Palestinians in both Israel and the West Bank declared a general strike Tuesday against the Israeli Netanyahu government’s escalation of aircraft bombing runs on Gaza, and the mounting death toll, now exceeding 219, including 59 children, among its inhabitants. Continue reading
Unity at last: The Palestinian people have risen
From the outset, some clarification regarding the language used to depict the ongoing violence in occupied Palestine, and also throughout Israel. This is not a ‘conflict.’ Neither is it a ‘dispute’ nor ‘sectarian violence’ nor even a war in the traditional sense. Continue reading
Arizona Senate’s hand count of 2020 ballots unlikely to match official election results
The recount process lacks precision at key junctures, possibly embedding errors and inaccuracies.
The Arizona Senate’s audit of 2.1 million fall 2020 ballots has been extremely controversial since its inception. As recently retired Arizona Republican U.S. Senator Jeff Flake reiterated on May 11, its premise is based on “the ‘big lie’ that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.” Continue reading
The secret tax loophole making the rich even richer
How do we prevent America from becoming an aristocracy, while also funding the programs that Americans desperately need? Continue reading
How the United States helps to kill Palestinians
The U.S. corporate media usually report on Israeli military assaults in occupied Palestine as if the United States is an innocent neutral party to the conflict. In fact, large majorities of Americans have told pollsters for decades that they want the United States to be neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Continue reading
Israel’s war on truth-telling media and journalists
Time and again, truth-telling journalism as it should be is a casualty of all things war and related violence. Continue reading
‘Anti-Zionist Naples’: Award-winning Italian Artist speaks about Palestine and why he quit photojournalism
On April 1, a mural appeared in the Southern Italian city of Naples, depicting Palestinian workers lining up at an Israeli military checkpoint near the occupied city of Bethlehem, in the West Bank. It is called ‘Welcome to Bethlehem.’ Continue reading
Looming Texas law would allow anti-choice ‘vigilantes’ to sue anyone who ‘aids or abets’ an abortion
"There's no low these legislators won't sink to in their efforts to gut Roe v. Wade and push abortion care as far out of reach as possible," said one rights advocate.
As part of an unprecedented wave of recent GOP attacks on reproductive rights across the United States, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is expected to sign a bill to not only outlaw ending a pregnancy as early as six weeks, but also allow anti-choice “vigilantes” to sue anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion that violates state law. Continue reading
Poverty and wealth clash in the Hamptons
Homeowners in one of America’s wealthiest zip codes are fighting their impoverished indigenous neighbors efforts to develop.
It’s tough being rich. For one thing, you have to be on constant alert to keep commoners from encroaching on your turf and upsetting your sense of proper social order. Continue reading
Why one state in India is showing promising signs of democracy as the world goes more authoritarian
In Kerala, the re-elected Left government has prioritized making life better for all, even during crises—contrasting sharply with Narendra Modi’s right-wing central government’s devastating mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic.
Just before the state elections in Kerala, in southern India, a television channel ran a program called “The Great Political Kitchen.” The anchor went to kitchens across the state to talk to homemakers about their views on politics. In one kitchen, the anchor asked a woman about a dispute surrounding a temple in southern Kerala where the courts had ordered that women must be allowed full access to the temple premises in 2018. For the past five years, Kerala had been governed by the Left Democratic Front (LDF), which had taken a democratic position over this issue and had supported the entry of women into this famous temple. The right wing claimed this was evidence that the LDF government was against religious freedom; such a claim would not be restricted to the majority-Hindu population but could also be extended to other minority communities in India such as Christians and Muslims. The woman told the TV anchor, “I am a devotee [of the temple], but hunger won’t go away if I cook and eat devotion. That’s all I have to say about it.” Continue reading
Workers matter and government works: Eight lessons from the pandemic
Posted on May 26, 2021 by Robert Reich
Maybe it’s wishful thinking to declare the pandemic over in the US, and presumptuous to conclude what lessons we’ve learned from it. So consider this list is a first draft. Continue reading →