Новости за 23.11.2015

Congressman Michael McCaul of Texas sponsored a bill (HR4038) to block Iraqi and Syrian refugees from entering into the United States. The bill is known as the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act, which passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives. “We are a nation at war,” said Congressman McCaul. Given the name of the bill and the bellicose attitude of the Republicans and Democrats who voted for it, the enemies in that war are the refugees. Who are these refugees, these families... Читать дальше...

You have to feel for Benjamin Netanyahu. Just as he was engaging in another of his frequent bouts of foul mendacity with his attempt to exploit the carnage in Paris to justify Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, up pops the Spanish authorities with a warrant for his arrest. The decision of the Spanish courts to issue the warrant for the arrest of Mr Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, over the assault of the Turkish civilian vessel the Mavi Marmara in 2010, as it was attempting to ferry humanitarian aid to Gaza... Читать дальше...

It is a basic tenet of philosophy, known as Kant’s categorical imperative, that you can decide the morality or immorality of a particular course of action by applying the following test: Could the path you propose for yourself be accepted as a universal law for all? That is, if everyone else did what you propose More

The aftermath of terrorist attacks such as the massacre in Paris are a bad time to produce new policies, but they provide ideal political conditions for a government to take radical, if ill-thought-out, initiatives. Leaders are carried away by a heady sense of empowerment as a worried or frightened public demands that something be done in response to calamity and to prevent it happening again. The moment of greatest risk is not when the bombs explode or the guns fire, but when governments react to these atrocities. Читать дальше...

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a Montgomery city bus on her way home from work, and, fatigued, refused to give up her seat to a white man when the bus had filled up. Parks was arrested for violating the city’s segregation statutes, and within a few days, the African-American leaders of Montgomery responded with a highly successful boycott of the city’s bus system. In less than a year, by November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal district court ruling that bus segregation violated the 14th Amendment to the Constitution... Читать дальше...

Climate scientist James Hansen will be heading to Paris to promote nuclear power − and attack environmental groups − in the lead-up to the U.N. COP21 climate conference in Paris in December. The press release announcing his visit to Paris berates environmentalists for failing to support “safe and environmentally-friendly nuclear power” … which rather More

I’m sitting in the aftermath of Paris, feeling emotions tear me apart. One of the emotions is joy. My daughter, who lives there, is safe. Has “joy” ever felt so troubling? The aftermath of Paris seems likely to be intensified (“pitiless”) bombing raids in Syria, closed borders, heightened fear-based security and the deletion of “the More

‘When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.’ — Victor Hugo Even the most slow-witted, woolly-minded, scatter-brained armchair wikistorian among us cannot have failed to form some dim impression of what happens when you try to tell the French people what they can and cannot do. When our Gallic chums say ‘Non!’, they mean just More

I served in the French military. Not by choice. Then it was mandatory for all young men to serve. France had a draft, and it should bring it back if the country is at war. I could have tried to dodge the draft with various shenanigans, but I did not want to do so because More

Russian Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bombers and Kalbir cruise missiles fired from the Caspian Sea have changed the balance of power on the Syrian battlefield, at least in the short term. The intensity of the bombing has allowed the Syrian government forces to take the offensive again. It’s unsurprising that Putin is giving Bashar al-Assad this tactical support: More

“If I err, it will be on the side of not having another Paris, France.” -Tennessee State Rep. Glen Casada, Nov 19, 2015 Even in the face of expert warnings and reassurances; even in the face of those who spoke with assuring conviction that the border screening of refugees coming to the United States was More

Are the American corporate media largely propaganda organs, or news organizations? Here are a few points to consider, and then you the reader can decide. Check out how one should objectively answer these questions below, and then check how the US corporate media generally answer them: 1. If ISIS or Al Qaeda deliberately attacks a More

The notion of disappearance has existed throughout time involving the absence of an individual or group of people and can be found throughout historical tales and literature.  Originally disappearance took place during the Roman Empire as a means of discursive disappearance:  damnatio memoriae (literally “damnation of memory” in Latin), was a form of dishonor that More

“The IQ and the life expectancy of the average American recently passed each other in opposite directions.” — George Carlin Thanks to Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan for the title of this piece.  No other words seem to adequately describe my daily visits to CounterPunch and a few other websites where truth and intelligent analysis are More

Not to be outdone by the Eastsiders’ “92nd Street Y”, Manhattan’s Westside has its own popular cultural center: McDonalds at 96th Street. (No website.) A sunny autumn day in New York City, perfect for a stroll along Upper Broadway. Before noon restaurant staffs are arranging lunch tables on the wide sunlit sidewalk. It’s a school More

Yesterday, 19 November 2015, was the 100th anniversary of the execution of labor organizer and troubadour, Joel Emanuel Hagglund, aka Joe Hill.  I discovered when I woke up this morning and looked at my phone that it was also the day that my dear friend, Herman George van Loenhout, better known simply as Armand, died More