Новости за 16.10.2015

Click here to listen to Heather Gray interview Alexander Cockburn in 2009.

Why is the economy still in the doldrums after 6 years of zero rates and three rounds of Quantitative Easing? It's because consumers aren't consuming and there's too much debt. You see, despite the Fed's wacko theories about pumping liquidity into the financial system to make investors feel wealthier, people actually have to buy things to generate growth. And the truth is, consumers have reduced their spending because wages are flat, incomes are falling and many of them are still hanging on by the skin of their teeth. Читать дальше...

The term “sustainable” has been used by so many people in so many different contexts that it has lost much of its meaning. It has become a buzzword in political, economic and development circles. But it is not the excessive use of the word that has ultimately rendered it largely meaningless but the fact that too many efforts to achieve sustainable development do not seriously attempt to actually achieve sustainable development. It is too often suggested that we can simply incorporate more environmentally-friendly... Читать дальше...

Our 0.001% benefit egregiously from a duopoly party system comprised of Democrats and Republicans. The very very rich therefore seldom run for top political offices; they don’t need to. For changing the world to accord with their own (typically warped) notions of what is good for it, they have philanthropy. The idea that the rich ought to give something back through public service nowadays seems almost quaint. In view of what happens when one or another of them comes down with Potomac Fever, this is not an altogether bad thing. Читать дальше...

We are told again and again, in both explicit and implicit ways, that we are locked in an existential struggle with Islamic extremists in that region and the rest of the world. Assuming that this is, in fact, the case, a number of strategic emphases in that battle are—or at least should be—axiomatic. The first would be a clear priority on attacking those places in the Islamic world where Islamic fundamentalism is most powerful and well financed. The second would be to actively prop up those governments where the cultures of secularism... Читать дальше...

The world is once again being subjected to a Hillary Clinton campaign, with all the showmanship, pomp, hype, lies and distortions that the candidate is famous for. Her coronation seems to be a foregone conclusion, unless someone (anyone?) steps out of the shadows as then Senator Barack Obama did in 2008 and derails the speeding More

David Brower & Martin Litton, Photo: John Loeffler On May 3, 1969, after hours of bitter debate, the Sierra Club fired David Brower. The organization’s first paid staffer, Brower had transformed the Club from an exclusive, politically timid, white male hiking outfit of 2,000 members. But the old guard didn’t like the direction that Brower, its executive More

‘Plus ça change …’ say the French; or ‘The more things change, of course, the more they stay the same.’ That thought, with all its despair and wisdom, resonates with particular power when we look at the Black Freedom Struggle, which, despite its ebbs and flows, has a sameness that seems to suspend it in More

In 2013, I discussed several epidemiological studies providing good evidence of radiogenic risks at very low exposure levels. A powerful new study has been published in Lancet Haematology [1] which adds to this evidence. However the study’s findings are more important than the previous studies, for several reasons. First, it provides “strong evidence”, as stated More

In the U.S. there are 88 guns floating around for every 100 people, which comes to about 300 million of these weapons in circulation. This includes military-style assault weapons, of which it is estimated there are about 3.75 million in private hands. This state of affairs makes the U.S. the most weaponized modern society on the planet. This weaponized status is not because most Americans want it this way. As President Obama has pointed out, multiple national polls have shown that most Americans want stricter gun control... Читать дальше...

Donna Nevell’s Oct 7th article published in Alternet, about a new report called “The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the US” – released by Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights (See more here.) points to the rise in North American academia, of a phenomenon that I encountered head-on back in the late 1970s when I arrived as a grad student in Massachusetts from my native Pakistan, and which I’ve continued to witness (and experience the brunt of, throughout my 25 years of teaching... Читать дальше...

Hurricane Isabel. Photo: NASA. Some Darkness Behind the “Sun-Washed Days” There is a tendency among senior and middle-aged liberal and progressive United States intellectuals to sentimentalize the post-World War II “golden age” of American and Western capitalism between 1945 and the early to middle 1970s.   The inclination is understandable. During those “sun-washed days” (liberal author More

Progressive is not an unusual label for Sen. Bernard “Bernie” Sanders (I-VT). In 1991 he was a founding member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), along with Rep. Ron Dellums, Rep. Lane Evans, Rep. Thomas Andrews, Rep. Peter DeFazio, and Rep. Maxine Waters (all Democrats). The CPC now has 70 members, 68 of them members More

One of the most positively commented on articles I have written recently was the piece on freedom of the press and Cuba–US relations, published on September 9, 2015. The emails coming from the US, Canada, Europe and Cuba reflected a pent-up frustration – and even a barely veiled anger – at how some of the More

When Amer Jubran reported that he had been tortured by Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate (Jordan’s secret police or mukhabarat) while in detention in Jordan in 2014, no one was surprised. For years, human rights groups have cited the Jordanian government’s abysmal human rights record. Violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International More

Armed settlers in the West Bank. Israeli democracy is sliding downwards. Sliding slowly, comfortably, but unmistakably. Sliding where? Everybody knows that: towards an ultra-nationalist, racist, religious society. Who is leading the ride? Why, the government, of course. This group of noisy nobodies which came to power at the last elections, led by Binyamin Netanyahu. Not More

When we met in Copenhagen in 2009 and, literally, President Obama and I were hunting for the Chinese, going throughout this huge convention center, because we knew we had to get them to agree to something. Because there will be no effective efforts against climate change unless China and India join with the rest of More

Problematic clichés abound in Christianity. Yet, since we were reared in and serve Black churches, we are concerned about the ones that circulate in Black-American Christianity. Our previous article about problematic clichés in Black churches was widely discussed and debated. One of our mothers said we went too far. Well, we are back with three more. The More

“The reason Sanders is unlikely to win the nomination for president is because only 31% of Americans “react positively” to the word socialism. However, among 18 to 29-year olds, about half view socialism favorable and only 47% see capitalism as a good thing.” — RMuse, “According To Polls Most Americans Are Socialists Like Bernie Sanders,” Politics USA, More

Historian Marc Bloch. Sleep dear children until the food is ready In the early hours of morning the baby cries. Ear closely attuned, mother leaves her bed and hurries to the nursery. Picking up the frightened child, mother says softly: “Everything will be all right, sweetheart. Everything will be fine.” In Arabic, the stone soup More

Still from “The Searchers.” He’s the iconic American: strong, individual, physically pristine, self-sufficient and armed. The future lies open before him (but never her): a vast, endless expanse of land there for the taking. His life is simple. He is unencumbered by petty bureaucracy and restrictive social codes. He is laissez-faire. But, when trouble presents More

The Pacific International Maritime Conference is held every two years in Australia and is sponsored by the Royal Australian Navy. The latest gathering took place in Sydney from 6-8 October and focused “exclusively on naval defence and maritime security issues and equipment procurement.” According to the US Naval Institute  it “brings together Navy chiefs from More

Americans have an amazing killing ability – every year, about 85,000 Americans are shot by a firearm, and 11,000 of these die.  The death rate from guns in our country is far, far higher than any other developed nation.  Compare the 11,000 number to some other national totals last year, including the U.K. (41), France (35), Japan More

A new addition to the growing number of “free trade” agreements (FTAs) took center stage last Monday as the United States and 11 Pacific Rim countries announced the conclusion of a mammoth “trade” deal that covers more than 60% of the global economy. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement has drawn strong opposition from countries involved More

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster,” warned Nietzsche. “For when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” Russian tanks rolling into Hama, its airforce bombing Idlib, its missiles flying from the Caspian, its fighters violating Turkish airspace, all of it backed by the familiar More