Right now, it’s still up to Joe “All War, All the Time” Biden to end the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. He has the power to do so, and to pretend that he doesn’t is arrant nonsense. But, but, you object, what about Bibi Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin? Well, they won’t. The former without an […]
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Charlotta Bass, the first African American woman to serve on a major presidential ticket as part of the Progressive party, stated in 1952, “We fought to destroy Hitlerism—but its germs took root right here.”[1] Now, Bass wasn’t entirely correct in her timeline of fascism rearing its head on the domestic scene, considering how at the […]
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+ On October 13, 2024, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a joint letter demanding that Israel take concrete steps within 30 days to improve the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza. This would avoid potential policy and legal repercussions triggered by Section 620i of the Foreign Assistance Act, which requires […]
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Image by Alexander Mils. As has long been the case, the U.S. health care system is by far the world’s most expensive while providing the worst results among the world’s advanced capitalist countries. And that expense continues to get larger and more unaffordable. Just how large is the cost of private profit in health care? […]
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Still from Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink. The Commodification of Newspapers In the Bill of Rights, there is only one private industry singled out for protection by the federal government: The press. Yet, despite being enshrined in the First Amendment and being “a vibrant part of American life since the beginning of […]
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“A year of the most intense bombardment of a civilian population since World War II and the severe restriction on humanitarian aid have transformed Gaza into a dystopian horror.” – Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA + The Netanyahu regime announced this week that the Israeli army is close to completely displacing the Palestinian population of North Gaza […]
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For the past 13 months, the world has witnessed a campaign of carnage waged by the State of Israel against the people of Gaza on a scale unprecedented in this century. Not even the bombings against Nazi Germany at the end of World War II match the destruction and killing inflicted by the Jewish State […]
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Boys don’t cry. The first time I swam in the Gulf of Mexico off the Central Florida coast was also the last. It was deep summer, early 1980s. I was visiting the parents of my boyfriend at the time in Fort Myers. The father had had a brilliant career in military intelligence until, it was […]
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North Gaza In the past three weeks, more than 71,000 people have been displaced from North Gaza governorate to Gaza City and about 100,000 people remain in North Gaza, Office of Secretary-General of UN: The plight of Palestinian civilians trapped in North Gaza is unbearable. Just in the past few weeks, hundreds of people have […]
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Every atrocity Israel has accused Hamas of committing, Israel has perpetrated itself on a far grander scale: mass rapes, killing and decapitating babies, looting, using civilians as human shields, indiscriminate and intentionally killing civilians, desecrating religious sites, kidnapping, torture, stealing aid, conducting military operations while disguised as civilians, violating ceasefire agreements, denying medical care to […]
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Why don’t we have a maximum wage? Asking that question is another way of asking why some people can rake in millions while others struggle to earn enough to eat. A maximum wage might be one way to tamp down some of the massive inequality that exists around the world. The political conditions for a […]
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He possesses a captivating intellect, and spending even a few minutes with him feels like an extraordinary privilege. He, who identified as an accidental diplomat, served as the Singapore Ambassador to the UN and then served as the President of the United Nations Security Council. Kishore Mahbubani, an esteemed scholar, diplomat, and author, is well-known […]
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+ Let’s allow Volker Türk, the UN’s human rights chief, to set the scene for one of the bloodiest weeks yet in Israel’s pitiless extermination campaign in North Gaza: “Today, one of the darkest moments of the Gaza conflict is unfolding in the north of the Strip. As we speak, the Israeli military is subjecting […]
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Are you troubled or insane, broken down and filled with pain? Don’t be a jerk; get to work! Can you no longer walk? Cannot see? Can’t hear or talk? Don’t be a jerk; get to work! You all must work, you see, For work will make you free; you’ve got to bust a gut to […]
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As polls remain alarmingly deadlocked, Kamala Harris’ campaign is doubling down on its commitment to good vibes. In the recent vice-presidential debate, Tim Walz declared that Harris has unified a coalition consisting of Bernie Sanders, Dick Cheney, and “a whole bunch of folks in between,” saying, “They don’t all agree on everything, but they are truly optimistic people. They believe in a positive future for this country, and one where our politics can be better than it is.” After this startling characterization of the glowering, undeniably malevolent architect of Bush fils’ rampages in Iraq and Afghanistan as a “truly optimistic” visionary, Walz went on to assert that “Franklin Roosevelt was right. All we have to fear is fear itself. Kamala Harris is bringing us a new way forward. She’s bringing us a politics of joy.”
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More than 100,000 dead Palestinians later, Israel finally killed Yahya Sinwar. He wasn’t wearing a dress. He wasn’t hiding in a tunnel with Israeli hostages. He wasn’t shielded behind women and children. Bodyguards didn’t surround him. AI didn’t track him down. Another Palestinian didn’t rat him out. He hadn’t strapped explosives to his body.
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We belong to nature, we are one flesh and one blood with nature, we are one brain with nature. – Friedrich Engels, Dialectics of Nature, 1883. A year ago, the Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant probably said more than he meant to: “We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly … We are imposing […]
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It’s the final countdown for America’s Presidential race. Trump’s failed summer debate debacle is a dimmed memory, as is the sugar high of Harris’ Age of Aquarius “joy” convention. Post Chicago (and also Milwaukee where she announced her Presidency), Harris’ campaign settled into the worst parts of Obama and Clinton’s campaigns (of course the facsimile […]
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This was the week that Israel, with the backing of the Biden administration, went to war against…the United Nations by attacking UN peacekeepers (UNIFIL) in Lebanon and seizing the UN HQ in East Jerusalem. This brazen assault comes after a year of attacks on UN aid workers in Gaza, killing more than 300. After it has bombed UN food and supply convoys, UN health clinics, UN schools and refugee camps. After it has banned UN investigators from entering Gaza and threatened UN courts and prosecutors. All with the shameful acquiescence of Biden, Blinken and Harris.
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With the world at war, the feeling that the international system has failed humanity is increasing. The challenges posed to international law and the United Nations are structural—a minority of violent, militarized governments dictate the terms and play by their own rules. But can the will of the majority result in real change? Every year, […]
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Congrats to renowned author and novelist Pankaj Mishra, who recently won Canada’s prestigious Weston International Award! As winner of this impressive honor, Pankaj was asked to deliver a lecture at the Royal Ontario Museum, excerpts of which were to be published in Canada’s paper of record, the Globe and Mail. For his lecture, Pankaj chose […]
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+ This week, Israel bombed Beirut and southern Lebanon. Iran bombed Israeli military bases and intelligence sites. The US and Israel launched interceptor missiles at Iranian rockets. Israel invaded Lebonan with ground troops. The Houthis launched drone attacks on Israel. Israel bombed Yemen. The US bombed Syria. Israel bombed Gaza and the West Bank. The […]
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Flag of the Jewish National Fund.
In 1967, in the course of the Israeli invasion of the West Bank, the Israeli military razed three Palestinian villages which stood along a corridor connecting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. In keeping with longstanding practice, the Israeli government turned the land over to the Jewish National Fund, which sought to permanently displace the Palestinian villagers through “afforestation,” or redevelopment of the area as a public park, where the former residents would be considered squatters if they tried to return to their homes. To fund the displacement-as-conservation, JNF solicited the Jewish community in Canada, whose contributions also lent the park its name: Canada Park.
Now, more than half a century later, as the Israeli occupation of the West Bank persists amid its ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, JNF’s activities have come under new scrutiny. Most significantly, the Jewish National Fund of Canada has lost its charitable status due to even more outright support for Israeli violence: financing projects for the Israeli military in violation of regulations prohibiting charities from supporting foreign armed forces and activities contrary to public policy, such as illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
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Image by Allison Saeng.
America and its origin story are full of unexamined assumptions, one of the biggest being that voters actually cast their ballots for presidential candidates. Is democracy – which comes from the Greek words for people (demos) and rule (kratos) – the USA’s foundational “Big Lie”? Consider that, according to Ari Berman’s new book Minority Rule, only 1.8% of the population of the 13 original states voted in George Washington’s 1789 presidential election. In One Person, One Vote? director Maximina Juson goes behind the closed doors of 1787’s Constitutional Convention, when America’s anti-democratic original sin was enshrined in the new nation’s framed rules, and – like Howard Zinn’s People’s History and Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States – reveals hidden truths about “the land of the free.”
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+ Recall that this week of ferocious Israeli airstrikes inflicting mass civilian casualties across Lebanon began with Emanuel Macron and Joe Biden introducing a plan for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon that they said had the support of Netanyahu… + Shortly after Netanyahu delivered his lunatic rant at the UN, where he gave Israel the […]
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Facebook data center Los Lunas, New Mexico. Image courtesy of Facebook.
In David Pogue’s book, How to Prepare for Climate Change, he suggests readers consider relocating to what he deems “climate safe-havens,” or fifteen cities that offer protection from the worst of climate disaster. These so-called safe havens spread across the northeastern part of the United States, from Minnesota to New York, and as far south as Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the Virginias. Like the “rust belt,” “bible belt,” or “cornbelt,” these post-industrial cities are being redefined by their legacy infrastructure access to freshwater and moderate weather.
The designation of climate safe havens offers a little bit of hope alongside the litany of dire studies highlighting the irreversible effects of climate change. Studies like this one from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)tell us that this past May was the hottest May recorded on Earth, marking it the 12th consecutive month of record-breaking heat. The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) reports that last year brought 28 weather and climate disaster that cost over a billion dollars in damages—yet another record broken.
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Around 3:30 local time on Tuesday, thousands of rigged pagers exploded across Lebanon and in some parts of Syria, including Damascus. Most of the explosions seemed to be targeted in Beirut’s Dahiya district and the southern Lebanon cities of West Beqaa, Sidon, Tyre, Nabatieh and Marjaayoun. The explosions, which happened simultaneously, killed at least nine […]
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Image by Andrej Lišakov.
Under threat from Israeli tanks, the parents and siblings of Ms. Kamla (a pseudonym) were forced to evacuate al-Bureij camp and relocate to her central Gaza home in al-Maghazi on December 25, 2023. Three days later an Israeli tank fired a shell into her home, though thankfully their family was gathered in a different room of the house so there were no injuries. Since December 28, Kamla and her family have been displaced 7 or 8 times.
When the Israeli tanks finished their operation, Kamla left the tent she had evacuated to in Dier al-Balah. She went to see if her house was still standing. She found it partially destroyed, yet still she tried to clear the rubble to live in it once more. That was not the end however, as Israel returned with more tanks and bombs.
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+ Here’s a snapshot of Israel’s escalating war on the West Bank… + Since January 2023, 772 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli armed forces (747) or settlers (18), including 181 children. + In the same time period, 14,632 Palestinians have been injured by Israelis, including 2,167 children. + Since January 2023, 6,202 Palestinians, including […]
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Image by Planet Volumes.
Although any country that challenges domination by United States corporate or military power will inevitably be the target of a sustained demonization campaign, the lies consistently issued in a torrent against Venezuela are beyond the usual level of invective. Venezuela is the most lied-about country in the corporate press of the Global North, especially in U.S. corporate media outlets.
That Venezuela has sought to align its economy to benefit its own people, instituting an impressive array of social services, health programs and political structures to facilitate grassroots participation, has drawn the consistent ire of U.S. authorities. An unrelenting cascade of lies is necessary to generate public support for the unrelenting campaign targeting the Bolivarian Revolution.
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