by T. Mayheart Dardar / May 24th, 2012
I will begin with a recital of the relations of the Creeks with the government of the United States from 1861 and I will explain it so you will understand it. I look to that time- to the treaties of the Creek Nation with the United States- and I abide by the provisions of the treaty made by the Creek Nation with the government in 1861. I would like to enquire what had become of the relations between the Indians and the white people from 1492 down to 1861?”
– Chitto Harjo (Crazy Snake), address to the Special Senate Investigation Committee …
by Shepherd Bliss / May 24th, 2012
The largest bank in the United States, Chase, and the globalized CVS pharmacy have been trying for over a year to get permission to move into Sebastopol’s downtown. Like the Biblical small David in his fight against the giant Goliath, Sebastopudlians are armed with little more than sling-shots and the good-will of the people. Many residents are fighting these two mighty corporations and the possibility of a lawsuit against the city if they do not get what they want.
Located in semi-rural Sonoma County in Northern California, this small town has fewer than 8000 residents. Fierce resistance from the community has …
An Israeli “peacenik” comes out of the cold
by Dan Lieberman / May 24th, 2012
On May 17, 2012, the Washington based Woodrow Wilson Center featured Amihai Ayalon in a book presentation: Peace Without Partners: Can Israeli Unilateralism Lead to a Two-State Solution?. The controversial topic provoked questions − did the book contain a genuine proposal for achieving peace or, was it only another distraction for those who desire a just solution to the Israeli/Palestinian crisis? Because hope is eternal, are Ami Ayalon’s words designed to keep it that way?
Ami Ayalon arrived with credentials; a former Labor Party member in the Israeli Knesset, he gains attention by having previously been commander-in-chief of the navy and …
Another in the Series on Amazon.com and that Bezos Billionaire Cyber-Smile
by Paul Haeder / May 24th, 2012
It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.
— John Steinbeck (1902-1968), East of Eden
I’ve been thinking about those angels/devils after contemplating the death of Carlos Fuentes. I spent time with him in El Paso, Juarez and Las Cruces. I’ve been thinking about my years in Latin America; thinking about those international bridge blockades against wars in Central America, against NAFTA, against the first Iraq oil war. What Fuentes said above and all that he has been oft-quoted tying to some of the same political things Octavio Paz, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel …
by Ramzy Baroud / May 24th, 2012
The age of revolutionary romance is over. Various Arab countries are now facing hard truths. Millions of Arabs merely want to live with a semblance of dignity, free from tyranny and continuous anxiety over the future. This unromantic reality also includes outside ‘players’, whose presence is of no positive value to genuine revolutionary movements, whether in Egypt, Syria, or anywhere else.
Shortly after long time President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted in the Tunisian revolution in January 2011, some of us warned that the initial euphoria could eventually give way to unhelpful simplification. Suddenly, all Arabs looked the same, …
by Linh Dinh / May 23rd, 2012
Until 1982, Philadelphia had three daily newspapers, and the surviving two, the Inquirer and Daily News, are owned by the same company. Both are hurting. Fewer and fewer readers force extreme cost-cutting measures that reduce the quality of each rag, which means even fewer readers. Competition from the internet, as well as the degraded reading habits it fosters, choppier and sloppier, are mostly to blame, but corporate greed and shortsightedness also played an important role.
The Inquirer used to rake in Pulitzers, but serious reporting required a sustained investment of money, time and intellect, so when its then-owner, Knight Ridder, balked …
by Media Lens / May 23rd, 2012
Advertising revenue is almost the life-blood of the press. Although the figure has fallen in recent years, today it constitutes around 60 per cent of newspapers’ total income, including ‘quality’ titles like the Guardian and the Independent.
This obviously has profound implications for media performance, as even the corporate media are sometimes willing to accept. Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson notes in the Financial Times: ‘Behind their journalistic missions, most news organisations have always been commercial operations that sell audiences to advertisers.’
Media corporations are also typically owned …
by Glen Barry / May 23rd, 2012
The year was 1988 – current Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is running for Marquette University student body President. Hoping to shake off the embarrassing loss to a write-in candidate for resident hall President the year before, Walker is pulling out all the charm and hardnosed political tactics at his disposal. Things are going well until the student newspaper retracts its endorsement, calling candidate Walker “unfit for office”, but I am getting ahead of myself.
For the 99% of you reading this essay – who are not from Wisconsin – Scott Walker is the latest tea party right wing, uneducated, superstitious nut …
by Jonik / May 23rd, 2012
Jonik examines the hypocrisy and hysteria behind banning marijuana use.
by Nathan Fuller / May 23rd, 2012
On Friday, 93% of the U.S. House of Representatives affirmed a resolution escalating America’s already aggressive position on Iran, from “crippling” sanctions to a zero-tolerance policy on nuclear weapons. The Congressional Research Service summarized the bill:
Affirms that it is a vital national interest of the United States to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability and warns that time is limited to prevent that from happening. Urges increasing economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran to secure an agreement that includes: (1) suspension of all uranium enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, (2) complete cooperation with the International Atomic
…
by Alexandra Morton / May 22nd, 2012
On May 15 Mainstream, owned by Cermaq, which is largely owned by the Norwegian government announced their farm at Dixon Island, Clayoquot Sound is positive for IHN virus. This is different from the European ISA virus I have been tracking. IHN virus is local to BC, but what happens to it in salmon farms is highly unnatural. Mainstream reports, “Third-party lab PCR test results have shown the presence of the virus. Sequencing has confirmed the presence of IHN virus in these fish.” No one I know has seen these results. Since reading all their emails posted now as Cohen …
by Burkely Hermann / May 22nd, 2012
It was a cold, dreary day. Right after I heard the articulate, fiery man speak to a crowd of about fifty for over an hour, I went up the stairs to get my book signed. That fiery man was Chris Hedges, a vocal participant in the Occupy movement and anti-corporate activist. When I got my chance, I asked Mr. Hedges if he had expected President Obama to voice approval of the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline after he had previously rejected it. Hedges said that he did expect Obama to voice his approval for the project because …
by Gary Brumback / May 22nd, 2012
President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, gave a talk on behalf of the administration April 30 of this year at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. The talk’s title was “The Ethics and Efficacy of the President’s Counterterrorism Strategy.” What chutzpah! I read the transcript and George Orwell immediately leapt to mind. Political prose, he said, makes “lies sound truthful and murder respectable—.”
Let’s examine the administration’s political prose in claiming that its drone strikes are efficacious, ethical, legal, and wise.
On the Orwellian Claim that Drone Strikes are Efficacious
To be efficacious, drone strikes must a) actually achieve their objective and by …
by Ko Tha Dja / May 22nd, 2012
From the China Post on May 21st, 2012, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the suspension of sanctions at a news briefing on Thursday with Myanmar Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin, on his long-isolated nation’s first official visit to Washington in decades.
“Today we say to American business: invest in Burma and do it responsibly,” Clinton said.
As inglorious as it sounds, Myanmar is open for plunder to American corporations. All of which, will, ahem, plunder responsibly.
Several months ago at a posh hotel lounge three Norwegian officials with their Burmese guide sat near me. A part of their indiscreet conversation was …
Watch For These New Diseases
by Martha Rosenberg / May 22nd, 2012
The first week in May brought a new leader in France and new prospects for same sex couples seeking marriage. But at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting in Philadelphia, attended by 11,000 psychiatrists, it was the same old same old. Instead of listening to the public outcry about overmedicated children, soldiers, elderly and everyday people watching too many drug ads, the psychiatry group re-affirmed its resolve to pathologize healthy people and even rolled out new groups to target.
This is the year the APA puts the finishing touches on DSM-5, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a compendium …
Countering the myths spread by pro-Israel ideologues
by Annette Herskovits / May 21st, 2012
Annette Herskovits writes, “The myth that Israel is the victim of unprovoked attacks by uncivilized Arabs persists, even in the face of Israel’s brutality and violations of international law in its 44-year long occupation of the Palestinian Territories.” Superficially, her article based on a review of Gilbert Achbar’s The Arabs and the Holocaust reads as a courageous acknowledgement of Palestinian dispossession and suffering, but how morally grounded is it?
Past Events Do Not Obviate That We Are All Equally Human
by Kim Petersen / May 21st, 2012
Annette Herskovits wrote an essay that is strongly supportive of Palestinians rights and dismissive of many myths surrounding Palestine. For example, she states, “That Israel was built on Arab land, whether bought or confiscated, is undeniable.”
It is a seeming admission that the entirety of Israel is situated on historical Palestine, something few Jews care to admit. It is similar to how few Canadians or Americans care to admit that their states are erected on the territory of Indigenous nations. However, Herskovits also writes of Israel’s “44-year …
David Harvey's Rebel Cities
by Ron Jacobs / May 21st, 2012
I live in the small city of Burlington Vermont in the United States. Most every day I walk through the city’s main public square known by its street name, Church Street. A public street that has been semi-privatized, the street is often the center of a struggle between citizens and private interests over the nature of the public square. Battles over the rights of street performers, political activists, panhandlers and regular citizens that want to hang out without shopping are frequent. Thanks to quick public reaction from these groups and others, most efforts by merchants and politicians to further …
by Frank Scott / May 21st, 2012
A world without workers is impossible. A world without capitalists is necessary.
– World Federation of Labor
The unemployment rate in the USA is down to just over 8%. This is evidence that we are in a recovery from a recession. But that rate is actually higher than it was when this particular recession began.
The patient’s temperature has gone up, a sure sign that the patient is getting better. Huh?
Living under the rules of a profit and loss religion in a market church controlled by private clergy, almost anything negative can be made to sound positive, especially to those …
by Binoy Kampmark / May 21st, 2012
Investors that shoot for IPO allocations needn’t worry that a high stock price overvalues the company if they are confident they can find a ‘greater fool’ willing to pay more.
— Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2012
With cult-like projections, Mark Zuckerberg’s face was beamed across a screen at Hacker Square. Facebook was, after all, having its heralded float as a public company, though the occasion could not cease but be a social event of some magnitude. That, and the fact of its founder’s marriage, which received the usual empty adulation that such a network facilitates.
The shares in the company’s shares finished …
