Articles by RD
We found 3631 results.
Howard Zinn on How Karl Marx Predicted Our World Today
Howard Zinn – In These Times,
13 May 2019
4 May 2019 – In the September 2000 issue of In These Times, Howard Zinn wrote this review of a book about the life of Karl Marx by Francis Wheen. On the 200th anniversary of Marx’s birth, we present Zinn’s review in full, in which he discusses how “Marx predicted the world of today, with ever increasing concentrations of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, with capitalism roaming the globe in search of profits, with a deepening contradiction between the colossal growth of production and the failure to distribute its fruits justly.”
→ read full article
In Search of Equivalence
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 May 2019
Poem at Springtime
→ read full article
(Italiano) L’effimera aspettativa di vita delle democrazie autocratiche
Richard Falk | Centro Studi Sereno Regis – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 May 2019
Le varie democrazie autocratiche ora dominanti il paesaggio politico del mondo sono condannate in quanto forma politica, ma che cosa verrà dopo di esse non si può prevedere. Potrebbe essere un’occasione di celebrazione o di disperazione, o entrambe se società differenti si sposteranno in direzioni opposte, chi verso più profonde democrazie, chi verso una governance fascista.
→ read full article
Blackwater Founder Calling for 5,000 Mercenaries to Topple Maduro
Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 May 2019
30 Apr 2019 – As if the past months of US push for regime change in Venezuela with officials like Elliott Abrams of Iran-Contra conviction infamy at the helm wasn’t bizarre enough, things just got weirder, as Erik Prince has apparently been pitching a plan around Washington to privatize US coup efforts using his latest Blackwater inspired mercenary empire.
→ read full article
Istanbul Elections: A Turkish Constitutional Crisis? Davutoglu’s Manifesto
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 May 2019
10 May 2019 – Despite all the deficiencies of Turkish political life and democracy, the most important power is the legitimacy of the elections. The most fundamental value of our political future is the voice of the people, and this will be manifested at the ballot box. Regardless of the excuse given and whatever the rationale, what happened after the March 31st election and the decision of annulment by the High Electoral Council has inflicted damage on these core values.
→ read full article
D Is for a Dictatorship Disguised as a Democracy
John W. Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 May 2019
7 May 2019 – What characterizes American government today is not so much dysfunctional politics as it is ruthlessly contrived governance carried out behind the entertaining, distracting and disingenuous curtain of political theater. We have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered a new age. You can call it the age of authoritarianism. Or fascism. Or oligarchy. Or the American police state. Whatever label you want to put on it, the end result is the same: tyranny.
→ read full article
Plastic in Paradise: The Battle for the Galápagos Islands’ Future
The Guardian – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 May 2019
3 Apr 2019 – The Galápagos Islands are one of the most pristine locations on the planet, but plastic pollution arriving by sea is threatening this unique habitat. How the archipelago is hoping to lead the worldwide fight against plastic.
→ read full article
(Français) Êtes-vous plutôt tourismophobe ou touristophobe?
Bernard Duterme | CETRI – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 May 2019
15 avril 2019 – «Tourismophobie », « touristophobie », les deux néologismes sont apparus ces dernières années dans la foulée d’un autre, le « surtourisme », lui-même avatar 2.0 du « tourisme de masse », boosté par l’explosion des minitrips low-costs et l’« airbnbisation » des centres-villes historiques. Qui est touristophobe, qui est tourismophobe aujourd’hui ? Les critiques du tourisme international publiées par le CETRI le sont-elles ? Focus sur les contours et les raisons d’une aversion… moins récente qu’il n’y paraît.
→ read full article
Venezuelan Military Putsch Defeated as Leopoldo Lopez Takes Refuge in Spanish Embassy
Ricardo Vaz | Venezuelanalysis – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 May 2019
30 Apr 2019 – “Interim President” Juan Guaido and right-wing opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez spearheaded an unsuccessful coup attempt in Caracas today. Opposition protesters clashed with security forces while government supporters swiftly mobilized to defend the presidential palace.
→ read full article
(Italiano) Quando si arriva alla fine della strada è ora di pensare fuori dagli schemi
Howard Richards | Centro Studi Sereno Regis – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 May 2019
22 Aprile 2019 – il mondo di ieri basato sulla premessa di guadagnarsi da vivere con un lavoro è finito. Finito! Tassare i ricchi per sovvenzionare i poveri – proposta con le migliori intenzioni da qualcuno a sinistra – è impossibile perché se si prova a tassarli, si trasferiscono. Inoltre, nessuno sa davvero quanto denaro è nascosto in fondi fiduciari dei paradisi fiscali sotto nomi fittizi, o quanto ne guizza per il mondo in frazioni di secondo in transazioni speculative mega-milionarie che rendono insignificante l’economia reale.
→ read full articleMy TED Talk: How I Took on the Tech Titans in Their Lair
Carole Cadwalladr – The Guardian,
29 Apr 2019
21 Apr 2019 – For more than a year, the writer has been probing a darkness at the heart of Silicon Valley. Last week, at a TED talk that became a global viral sensation, she told the tech billionaires they had broken democracy. What happened next? [Watch the Video in the end]
→ read full articleDoes the Overthrow of el-Bashir in Sudan Signal a Second Arab Spring?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Apr 2019
28 Apr 2019 – Of particular interest is whether the mass movement of the Sudanese people and the counterrevolutionary dangers posed by the retention of emergency powers by the military entourage surrounding the former dictator will destroy the hopes of the mobilized population as happened in Egypt in seemingly analogous circumstances.
→ read full article
(Português) Amor em Tempos de Ira e de Ódio
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Apr 2019
25 abr 2019 – Vivemos no Brasil bolsonariano e no mundo afora tempos de ira e de ódio, fruto do fundamentalismo e da intolerância como se viu em Siri Lanka onde centenas de cristãos foram assassinados no momento em que celebravam a vitória do amor sobre morte na festa de ressurreição. Este cenário macabro nos faz renovar a esperança de que, apesar de tudo, o amor é mais forte do que a morte.
→ read full article
Anti-Semitism and Jewish Self-Determination
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Apr 2019
Is There a Jewish Right of Self-Determination?
Self-Determination on What Territory?
Self-Determination for Whom and for What?
The Short-Lived Life Expectancy of Autocratic Democracies
Prof. Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Apr 2019
The rise of autocratic leaders via democratic procedures is an outcome that can be either reversed or accentuated. The various autocratic democracies now dominating the political landscape of the world are doomed as a political form, but what will come after them cannot now be foreseen. It could be either an occasion for celebration or despair, or both if different societies move in opposite directions, some toward a deeper democracies, some toward fascist governance.
→ read full article
‘We Are Hostages’: Indigenous Mapuche Accuse Chile and Argentina of Genocide
Mat Youkee – The Guardian,
29 Apr 2019
12 Apr 2019 – Representatives of South America’s indigenous Mapuche people have petitioned the International Criminal Court to take action against the governments of Chile and Argentina for acts of genocide and crimes against humanity.
→ read full article
The Essence of Evil: Sex with Children Has Become Big Business in America
John W. Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Apr 2019
23 Apr 2019 – Children, young girls—some as young as 9 years old—are being bought and sold for sex in America. The average age for a young woman being sold for sex is now 13 years old. This is America’s dirty little secret.
→ read full article
2019 World Press Freedom Index – A Cycle of Fear
Reporters Without Borders – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Apr 2019
The 2019 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) shows how hatred of journalists has degenerated into violence, contributing to an increase in fear. The number of countries regarded as safe, where journalists can work in complete security, continues to decline, while authoritarian regimes continue to tighten their grip on the media.
→ read full article
On Taking Controversial Public Positions: A Reflection
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Apr 2019
18 Apr 2019 – I have chosen activism to the end, both continuing with sports to the limit of my ability and to honor the political commitments of a citizen pilgrim (dedicated to a journey to a desired and desirable political community that functions now only as an imaginary, yet has the ambition to become a political project) to the best of my ability.
→ read full article
Between Yes and No, Heaven and Earth with Albert Camus on a Spring Morning
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Apr 2019
18 Apr 2019 – For a writer to fight injustice to the exclusion of creating beauty and living passionately contradicts the deepest desires of the human heart. Albert Camus taught us this. The love of life must inform the rebel’s resistance to injustice… You are right, Albert, “We must simultaneously serve suffering and beauty.”
→ read full article
(Castellano) El Final del Camino
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Apr 2019
No hay soluciones económicas (es decir, no hay soluciones pro-vida) porque la economía vive y se mueve y tiene su ser dentro del marco del derecho de propiedad y del derecho contractual tal como se lo desarrolló primero en el Imperio Romano, después en los estados sucesores del Imperio Romano durante el período moderno temprano. La ley europea fue impuesta a los habitantes de las Américas, África y Asia por la fuerza. (Consultar Patriarcado y acumulación a escala mundial de María Mies)
→ read full article
Why Can’t the World’s Greatest Minds Solve the Mystery of Consciousness?
Oliver Burkeman – The Guardian,
22 Apr 2019
Philosophers and scientists have been at war for decades over the question of what makes human beings more than complex robots. The answer might lie with the spiritualists.
→ read full article
Dismay as Trump Vetoes Bill to End US Support for War in Yemen
Ed Pilkington – The Guardian,
22 Apr 2019
17 Apr 2019 – Donald Trump has vetoed a bill passed by Congress to end US military assistance in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. Politicians decry Trump’s decision as a cynical move and missed opportunity for humanitarian help.
→ read full article
US Makes Stuff Up to Grease the Skids for War on Iran
William Boardman - Reader Supported News,
22 Apr 2019
19 Apr 2019 – With absolutely zero good reasons for waging war on Iran, the Trump administration goes on making stuff up to lie the country into yet another war. The template looks like the Bush administration’s successful effort to lie the US into the Iraq War, the catastrophic effects of which keep unfolding.
→ read full article
Julian Assange: Criminal or Benefactor?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Apr 2019
14 Apr 2019 – I suppose it is of interest that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have found something to agree about—the criminal indictment of Julian Assange. Trump is acutely vulnerable to the exposure of truth and Clinton blames her electoral defeat in 2016 partly on what WikiLeaks disclosed about her improper use of a government computer to send private emails. Such are the perverse ways of the deeply unjust.
→ read full article
8 Things You May Not Know about Leonardo Da Vinci, on the 500th Anniversary of His Death
Richard Gunderman – The Conversation,
15 Apr 2019
10 Apr 2019 – Dead five centuries, Leonardo retains a rock star’s fame, well known around the world by just one name. Here, some facts about the man and his legacy.
→ read full article
Making Peace: Israel/Palestine
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Apr 2019
Interview with Samu Tamás Gergő, a Hungarian journalist, April 9, 2019, on conditions of peace for the Palestine/Israel, with some initial emphasis on my experience as UN Special Rapporteur addressing human rights in Occupied Palestine on behalf of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
→ read full article
Leonardo da Vinci (15 Apr 1452 – 2 May 1519)
Leonardo da Vinci – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Apr 2019
In 1466, at the age of fourteen, Leonardo was apprenticed to one of the most successful artists of his day, Andrea di Cione, known as Verrocchio. Verrocchio’s workshop was at the centre of the intellectual currents of Florence, assuring the young Leonardo of an education in the humanities. Leonardo would have been exposed to a vast range of technical skills and had the opportunity to learn drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, mechanics and carpentry as well as the artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting and modeling.
→ read full articleWhen You Get to the End of the Road It Is Time to Think Outside the Box
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Apr 2019
Thinking outside the box means thinking outside private law and outside the political and ethical philosophies that legitimate what Karl Polanyi called ‘market society’ (market society is a genus of which capitalism is a species). It means acknowledging that traditional Muslims are not stupid, in the light of their life experience, when they prefer Sharia Law. Sharia Law with all its faults is at least a possible way to organize human life including everybody (at least ‘all the faithful’) and respecting nature.
→ read full article
Zimbabwe’s £118,000 Outlay on Judges’ Wigs Met with Fury
Nyasha Chingono – The Guardian,
15 Apr 2019
5 Apr 2019 – Lawyers in Zimbabwe have hit out at a government decision to spend thousands of pounds on wigs made in England for local judges, saying the tradition evokes a colonial past that should not exist in modern Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans reacted with anger questioning the wisdom of the government’s expenditure at a time when courtrooms are cramped and ill-equipped, the national economy is crumbling and, according to the World Food Programme, 63% of the population live below the poverty line.
→ read full article
The CIA Takeover of America in the 1960s Is the Story of Our Times
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Apr 2019
A Quasi-Review of, A Lie Too Big To Fail: The Real History of the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, by Lisa Pease
→ read full article
I Fought South African Apartheid. I See the Same Brutal Policies in Israel
Ronnie Kasrils – The Guardian,
8 Apr 2019
3 Apr 2019 – As a Jewish South African anti-apartheid activist I look with horror on the far-right shift in Israel ahead of this month’s elections, and the impact in the Palestinian territories and worldwide. I was shut down in South Africa for speaking out, and I’m disturbed that the same is happening to critics of Israel now.
→ read full article
The Communitarianism of Violence in the Sahel: States Confronted with the Challenge of Identity
Abdoulaye Bâ | Cordoba Foundation of Geneva – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Apr 2019
31 Mar 2019 – The new violent intrusion of “jihadism” in the Sahel in the early 2000s has plunged the region into a new, atypical phase of insecurity, which is putting a strain on social cohesion in these countries. Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon, among others, have increasingly been hit in the last decade, and to varying degrees, by groups proclaiming “jihad”.
→ read full articleBlood in the Water: How the U.S. and Israel Conspired to Ambush the USS Liberty, by Joan Mellen
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Apr 2019
29 Mar 2019 – The author on the basis of meticulous research probes every detail to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that the sinking of USS Liberty in the midst of the 1967 War is the greatest moral and political scandal in all of American history. In what was long described as a ‘mistake’ or ‘accident’ Israeli planes and submarines attacked the Liberty, killing 34, wounding 174 American naval personnel.
→ read full article
The Matrix 20 Years On: How a Sci-Fi Film Tackled Big Philosophical Questions
Richard Colledge – The Conversation,
1 Apr 2019
27 Mar 2019 – Cult film The Matrix was released 20 years ago this month. From the Vedic Scriptures to Plato to Descartes to Kant to Baudrillard, the film explored philosophical dilemmas humanity wrestles with permanently.
→ read full article
Operation Condor and the United States: Torture, Death Squads and Echoes in the New Millennium
Edward B. Winslow – Global Research,
1 Apr 2019
25 Mar 2019 – On December 2, 1823 in the wake of rebellions in Latin America that had ended Spanish rule in the Western Hemisphere, US President James Monroe announced that European colonial powers that attempted to assert influence in the region would be an overt threat to the national security of the US. Monroe claimed that European monarchies and colonialism were incompatible with the notions of democracy and republicanism that were featured in the New World. Monroe’s proclamation set the stage for US foreign policies for nearly 200 years: US hegemony over Latin America was a natural extension of the messianic visions of Manifest Destiny and US exceptionalism.
→ read full article
Brunei Introduces Death by Stoning as Punishment for Gay Sex
Hannah Ellis-Petersen – The Guardian,
1 Apr 2019
28 Mar 2019 – Brunei is to begin imposing death by stoning as a punishment for gay sex, rape and adultery from next week, as part of the country’s implementation of sharia law. Homosexuality has been illegal in Brunei since British colonial rule but under the new laws it is now punishable by whipping or death by stoning rather than a prison sentence. The announcement was met with horror by human rights groups.
→ read full articleThomas Piketty vs. Yanis Varoufakis
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Mar 2019
Markets are the primary institution. Governments are secondary. Markets govern governments. Governments do not control markets. The first imperative for any government is to make the economy work for the people. The government can only comply with that imperative by pleasing the markets… This is why the disagreement between Thomas Piketty and Yanis Varoufakis is a splendid educational opportunity to move the conversation to a deeper level, to take to heart the words of Albert Einstein: ‘We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.’
→ read full article
Total Recall: The People Who Never Forget
Linda Rodriguez McRobbie – The Guardian,
25 Mar 2019
An Extremely Rare Condition May Transform Our Understanding of Memory – If you ask Jill Price to remember any day of her life, she can come up with an answer in a heartbeat. What was she doing on 29 August 1980? “It was a Friday, I went to Palm Springs with my friends.
→ read full articleChallenging Pitzer/Haifa Study Abroad Program: Can Civil Society Act?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Mar 2019
22 Mar 2019 – This post is an open letter to the President of Pitzer College urging support for reconsideration of his veto of a resolution urging the college to suspend its study abroad program with the University of Haifa until Israel ends its discriminatory policies in the educational sphere that affect Palestinians and anyone exercising rights of free expression in a manner that Israel disapproves, and more specifically the BDS Campaign.
→ read full article
Vaping Is an Urgent Threat to Public Health
Elliott M. Reichardt and Juliet R. Guichon – The Conversation,
25 Mar 2019
14 Mar 2019 – Youth are using e-cigarettes (also known as vaping devices) at a rapidly increasing rate — a practice that constitutes an urgent threat to public health. The evidence shows that vaping is creating a generation of nicotine-addicted youth, who start with e-cigarettes and move on to smoke tobacco products.
→ read full article
Brazil to Open Indigenous Reserves to Mining without Indigenous Consent
Sue Branford and Maurício Torres | Mongabay – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Mar 2019
14 Mar 2019 – For many years, international and Brazilian mining companies have dreamed of getting access to the mineral wealth lying beneath indigenous lands. And finally, the government of Jair Bolsonaro seems determined to give them that opportunity. On 4 March, while Brazilians were distracted by Carnival celebrations, the new Minister of Mines and Energy Admiral Bento Albuquerque announced plans to permit mining on indigenous land.
→ read full article
The Attack on the Amazon Accelerates under Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro
Andre Cardoso | Tricontinental Institute for Social Research – Independent Media Institute,
25 Mar 2019
19 Mar 2019 — As the largest tropical forest, biggest reserve of minerals, and main biogenetic reserve on the planet, the Amazon is among the most sought-after territories by global capital. As the attack against the Amazon advances under Brazil’s right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research launches its 14th dossier analyzing the socio-environmental impact on the region.
→ read full article(Italiano) Perché la chiesa ufficiale non vuole discutere né la sessualita né la legge del celibato
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Mar 2019
15 mar 2019 – È innegabile il coraggio di Papa Francesco nell’affrontare apertamente la questione della pedofilia all’interno della chiesa. Ha fatto consegnare alla giustizia civile i pedofili, a cominciare dai preti e religiosi fino ai cardinali per farli giudicare e punire. Nell’incontro di Roma verso la fine di febbraio del 2019 sulla protezione dei minori, il Papa ha imposto otto punti tra i quali “pedofilia zero” e la “protezione dei bambini abusati”.
→ read full articleIlhan Omar, AIPAC, Congress, and the Future of American Democracy
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Mar 2019
The Ilhan Omar Incident: A Zionist Witch Hunt?
→ read full article
Facebook’s New Move Isn’t about Privacy. It’s about Domination
Siva Vaidhyanathan – The Guardian,
18 Mar 2019
7 Mar 2019 – Mark Zuckerberg announced on 6 Mar that Facebook would be ‘pivoting to privacy’. That’s an empty pledge.
→ read full article
Elizabeth Warren Is Right – We Must Break Up Facebook, Google and Amazon
Robert Reich – The Guardian,
18 Mar 2019
10 Mar 2019 – The presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren announced on Friday [8 Mar] she wants to bust up giants like Facebook, Google and Amazon. The titans of the new Gilded Age must be busted and the idea has bipartisan support. It’s time big tech was brought to heel.
→ read full article
Venezuela – Guaidó Planned to Use Arms – Frustration over Stalemate Sets In
Bernhardt Horstmann | Moon of Alabama – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Mar 2019
6 Mar 2019 – New reports about the U.S. coup attempt in Venezuela describe the current mood in Washington as ‘frustration’. They also shine new light on why of the opposition’s plans failed.
→ read full article
Debunking the Myth That Anti-Zionism Is Antisemitic
Peter Beinart – The Guardian,
11 Mar 2019
7 Mar 2019 – It is a bewildering and alarming time to be a Jew, both because antisemitism is rising and because so many politicians are responding to it not by protecting Jews but by victimising Palestinians. Conflating anti-Zionism with Jew-hatred is a tragic mistake.
→ read full article
Neoliberalism – The Ideology at the Root of All Our Problems
George Monbiot – The Guardian,
4 Mar 2019
15 Apr 2016 – Imagine if the people of the Soviet Union had never heard of communism. The ideology that dominates our lives has, for most of us, no name. Mention it in conversation and you’ll be rewarded with a shrug. Even if your listeners have heard the term before, they will struggle to define it. Neoliberalism: do you know what it is? Financial meltdown, environmental disaster and even the rise of Donald Trump – neoliberalism has played its part in them all. Why has the left failed to come up with an alternative?
→ read full articleWorrying about Huawei: Is China Winning the G5 Race?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Mar 2019
20 Feb 2019 – My responses to questions posed by Sputnik News Agency a few days ago. The effort to warn European countries not to use equipment from the Chinese telecom giant, Huawei, is part warning and part threat. It claims to be a matter of security, but seems like an effort to avoid the competitive challenge posed by the superior technology of Huawei by claiming a threat to the security of European countries because China will be able to engage in unauthorized data surveillance.
→ read full article
Rohingya Crisis: UN Investigates Its ‘Dysfunctional’ Conduct in Myanmar
Emanuel Stoakes and Hannah Ellis-Petersen – The Guardian,
4 Mar 2019
27 Feb 2019 – The UN has launched an inquiry into its conduct in Myanmar over the past decade, where it has been accused of ignoring warning signs of escalating violence prior to an alleged genocide of the Rohingya minority.
→ read full article
Trump Has Turned Foreign Aid into Shabby Political Theatre
Peter Beaumont - The Guardian,
4 Mar 2019
20 Feb 2019 – Stalled relief supplies for Venezuela at the Colombian border are a stark illustration of Trump’s crudely transactional approach to aid. The flights look something more shabby: a dangerous stunt utilising aid for other purposes, alluded to by UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric: “Humanitarian action needs to be independent of political, military or any other objectives.”
→ read full article
(Français) José Martí et l’Anti-Impérialisme Etats-Unien: Une Analyse d’Actualité
Christine Gillard | Journal Notre Amérique – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Feb 2019
20 Fév 2019 – Depuis une dizaine d’années les États-Unis regardent à nouveau vers les pays d’Amérique du sud, attentifs à la remontée des oppositions des droites aux gouvernements progressistes. Cette attention vigilante se traduit par des stratégies d’aide plus ou moins directe aux opposants, ainsi que par le déploiement de forces armées sur les frontières sensibles en s’appuyant sur les pays amis comme la Colombie.
→ read full article
The French Army Has Killed Hamadoun Kouffa, the Malian Robin Hood
Robin Edward Poulton – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Feb 2019
How might the Malian government find a way to negotiate with his successors, to avoid genocide or civil war?
→ read full article
Training in Conflict Transformation, Morocco
The Cordoba Foundation of Geneva – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Feb 2019
The Cordoba Foundation of Geneva’s work in Morocco has focused on building the capacity of university activists in conflict transformation with the aim of equipping them with the skills to alleviate violence between political groups in university campuses. When we asked these activists how their participation in our workshops changed their awareness about conflict and peace promotion, this is what they said.
→ read full articleCan We Imagine Peace for Palestine?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Feb 2019
In such a binational situation, the newly created single state could offer homelands to Jews and Palestinians, while finding a name for the new state that is congenial to both peoples. Maybe this will never happen, but it the most sustainable vision of a peaceful future that responds to decades of diplomatic failure, massive Palestinian suffering and abuse, and recognizes the moral authority and political potency of national resistance and global solidarity, a legislative victory by that unacknowledged Parliament of Humanity.
→ read full articleA Response to Heikki Patomaki: Is the Time Right for a World Political Party?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Feb 2019
16 Feb 2019 – My commentary on an essay by Heikki Patomiki, a leading Finnish scholar, where he explores and cautiously advocates a civil society global effort to establish a world political party in a form appropriate to global conditions and with the overriding goal of the enhancement of the individual and collective wellbeing of humanity.
→ read full article
Deflagging of Refugee Rescue Ship a ‘Dark Moment’ for Europe
Karen McVeigh – The Guardian,
18 Feb 2019
12 Feb 2019 – The deflagging of the Aquarius, the last migrant rescue ship in the Mediterranean, represents a “dark moment” in European history, setting a dangerous precedent for states to flout international humanitarian laws.
→ read full article
Young Woman Dies in Fourth ‘Period Hut’ Tragedy This Year in Nepal
Rebecca Ratcliffe – The Guardian,
18 Feb 2019
6 Feb 2019 – A 21-year-old woman has been become the fourth person known to have died this year as a result of the illegal practice of chhaupadi, whereby menstruating women in Nepal are banished from their homes and forced to sleep in huts.
→ read full articleDenouncing Socialism, Practicing Fascism
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Feb 2019
8 Feb 2019 – With Trump the silences are usually as expressive of his intentions as the incoherent dogmas. Indeed, his Second State of the Union Address (delivered in Congress on February 5, 2019) gives a clear insight into the political mentality of tormentor in chief when it comes to the human condition.
→ read full articleEurope is in Danger! But Why?
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Feb 2019
8 Feb 2019 – Now a hue and cry has gone up that Europe is in danger. The continued existence of Europe’s core ideals –of its very essence– is said to be threatened. The occasion of today’s hue and cry is the possibility that the populist far right might sweep the elections of May 2019. I take this opportunity to question what I take to be the conventional wisdom of the official story.
→ read full article
Revealed: FBI Investigated Civil Rights Group as ‘Terrorism’ Threat and Viewed KKK as Victims
Sam Levin – The Guardian,
11 Feb 2019
Bureau spied on California activists, citing potential ‘conspiracy’ against the ‘rights’ of neo-Nazis.
→ read full article
Career War Criminal Elliott Abrams to Lead US on Venezuela
William Boardman - Reader Supported News,
11 Feb 2019
4 Feb 2019 – Some say history repeats itself. Mark Twain said history doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes. The January 25 appointment of convicted perjurer Elliott Abrams as the new US Special Envoy on Venezuela is evidence that history just goes on and on and on with ironic cruelty and relentless injustice. That would be especially true if you happen to have the world’s largest proven oil reserve, as Venezuela does.
→ read full articleTrump vs. the Anti-Trumps: It’s the System That Needs Changing, Not just the Personnel
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Feb 2019
President Trump’s adversaries do not understand that in making attacks on his character their primary strategy, they are playing his game, in his stadium, according to his rules. By doing so, they reinforce the stereotypes that Trump has successfully marketed to his base. This sort of personalism excludes a discourse that is essential to solving the problems that gave Trump the presidency: the discourse of systems and system-change.
→ read full article
The Mysterious Destiny of Each One
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Feb 2019
3 Feb 2019 – Each of us is as old as the universe, 13.7 billion years. We were all there in that tiny point, smaller than the head of a pin, but full of energy and matter. The big bang created the enormous red stars, containing all the physical-chemical elements that comprise the universe and all beings that were created from them. We are the sons and daughters of the stars and cosmic dust.
→ read full article
(Português) Catástrofe de Brumadinho: O que sobra depois de não sobrar nada?
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Feb 2019
29 Jan 2019 – Muitos no Brasil vivemos uma situação de luto. O luto se impõe quando sofremos perdas: os muitos mortos e centenas de desaparecidos do rompimento da barragem da Vale que destruiu criminosamente a cidade de Brumadinho. A perda da pessoa amada, do emprego que garantia a família, a emigração forçada por causa de ameaças de morte. Maior é o luto quando atinge bens fundamentais de um país: a perda da democracia, dos direitos trabalhistas…
→ read full article
US Nuclear Weapons: First Low-Yield Warheads Roll Off the Production Line
Julian Borger – The Guardian,
4 Feb 2019
28 Jan 2019 – The US has begun making a new, low-yield nuclear warhead for its Trident missiles that arms control advocates warn could lower the threshold for a nuclear confrontation. New type of weapon, ordered by Trump’s nuclear posture review, could make violent response to conflict more likely, say experts.
→ read full article
The Future of Statehood: Israel & Palestine
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Feb 2019
3 Feb 2019 – Fatah, Hamas, the Future of Statehood and Peace Prospects – Interview from Brazilian journalist Rodrigo Craveiro for Correio Braziliense on current prospects of Palestinian national movement.
→ read full article
Framed: The Politics of Stereotypes in News
Edward Said – Al Jazeera English,
4 Feb 2019
Palestinian-American literary historian Edward Said showed how the West had the power to represent the colonial ‘other’ – while simultaneously leaving them silent.
→ read full articleThe CIA Then and Now: Old Wine in New Bottles
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Feb 2019
When the CIA’s dirty tricks were made public in the 1970s, it is not hard to imagine that the intellectual pimps who do their long-range thinking were asked to go back to the drawing board and paint a picture of the coming decades and how business as usual could be conducted without further embarrassment. By that time it had become clear that intellectual or high culture was being swallowed by mass culture and the future belonged to electronic screen culture and images, not words.
→ read full articleA Talel of Two Speeches: Marc Lamont Hill on Palestine, Martin Luther King, Jr., on Vietnam
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Jan 2019
21 Jan 2019 – In my last post I criticized the news approach of CNN, and by indirection, that of the MSM. I complained that by being Trump-obsessed CNN ever since 2016 helps pacify the American political scene, making us view demagogic politics as nothing more serious than ‘a reality show.’ Beyond the obsession itself, is the inexplicable redundancy in which successive news programs cover the latest episode from virtually identical viewpoints, while ignoring the whole panorama of major developments elsewhere in the world.
→ read full article
Destroy ‘Period Huts’ or Forget State Support: Nepal Moves to End Practice
Rojita Adhikari – The Guardian,
28 Jan 2019
After the custom of consigning menstruating women to outdoor sheds claimed three more lives, a new system of penalties offers hope of change.
→ read full article
Good News at Last: The World Isn’t As Horrific As You Think
Hans Rosling – The Guardian,
28 Jan 2019
Training yourself how to put the news into perspective – practising ‘factfulness’ – will change your outlook for the better.
→ read full article
1,500 Private Jets Fly into Davos for World Economic Forum Climate Talks–Oxymoron?
Rebecca Ratcliffe – The Guardian,
28 Jan 2019
22 Jan 2019 – David Attenborough might have urged world leaders at Davos to take urgent action on climate change, but it appears no one was listening. As he spoke, experts predicted up to 1,500 individual private jets will fly to and from airfields serving the Swiss ski resort this week.
→ read full article
James W. Douglass Talks about Gandhi and the Unspeakable: His Final Experiment with Truth
Introduction by Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Jan 2019
Gandhi was assassinated on January 30, 1948 but the spirit of his nonviolent experiments with truth live throughout the world in individuals and groups. The writer and peace-activist James Douglass, a guide to such experiments with truth and author of many books on nonviolence and the meaning of political assassinations, recently travelled to Gandhi’s home district in India and delivered the following talk. It begins at 26:58 minutes into the video.
→ read full article
The Guardian View on Israel’s Democracy: Killing with Impunity, Lying without Consequence?
Editorial – The Guardian,
28 Jan 2019
22 Jan 2019 – In the last nine months of 2018, according to the UN, hundreds of Palestinians – many of them children – were killed and many thousands injured. They included medics and journalists. Most of the dead were unarmed and posed no danger to anyone, with little more than rocks in their hands and slogans on their lips. Yet Israel continued with an immoral and unlawful policy that sees soldiers of its military teargas, shoot and kill protesters, including those who pose no credible threat. Hospitals in Gaza, which already struggle under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade, have been stretched to breaking point in dealing with the flood of patients ferried in from the protests.
→ read full article
Meu Pedacinho do Céu [My Little Corner of Heaven] (Music Video of the Week)
Waldir Azevedo, Vinicius Sete Cordas, Ivo do Cavaco – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Jan 2019
Players: Vinicius Sete Cordas and Ivo do Cavaco – Brazilian Youth Talent
Homemade Facebook Video
News Avoidance
Antonis Kalogeropoulos | Univ. of Oxford – Reuters Institute,
21 Jan 2019
The issue of news avoidance is a matter of concern if it means that citizens are not sufficiently equipped to take decisions in elections or referendums. There are also concerns that the abundance of other types of media (e.g. entertainment) may be squeezing exposure to news for less interested news consumers.
→ read full article
Academic Who Defined News Principles, Galtung Says Journalists Are Too Negative
Ulrik Haagerup – The Guardian,
21 Jan 2019
18 Jan 2019 – The academic paper concluded with a warning on the consequences for society if news organisations continued to promote confrontation, tension and sensation over collaboration, resolution and compassion. “The consequence of all this is an image of the world that gives little autonomy to the periphery but sees it as mainly existing for the sake of the centre,” the paper said. “Conflict will be emphasised, conciliation not.” “And this is exactly what has happened,” Galtung said. “News media give a total biased picture of reality. The perception of reality in the public becomes overly negative.”
→ read full articleMartin Luther King Day and the Unspeakable
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Jan 2019
21 Jan 2019 – “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous,” warned Dr. King, “than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” How true those words. For the government that honors Dr. King with a national holiday killed him. This is the suppressed truth behind the highly promoted day of service. It is what you are not supposed to know. It is what Thomas Merton, as quoted by James W. Douglass, called The Unspeakable.”
→ read full article
What’s Wrong with CNN?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Jan 2019
16 Jan 2019 – CNN presents itself as the most ‘trusted name in news’ available to the TV viewing public. Of course, this claim of integrity is to be greatly valued if the news channel lives up to such a standard when fairly scrutinized.
→ read full articleWhat Is the Question?
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Jan 2019
“The question is whether finance will promote economic growth and rising living standards or create unproductive credit and use government to enforce creditor claims by imposing austerity and reducing large swathes of the population to debt peonage.” This précis of the pickle that is our prison was written by Michael Hudson but could have been written by Yanis Varoufakis, Joseph Stiglitz, Robert Reich, Bernie Sanders’ advisor Stephanie Kelton, or any of the distinguished scholars which I shall call “the Economists on the side of the Angels.” (EA)
→ read full article
(Português) A Estupidez Social e Ambiental Condena Toda a Vida: Eduardo Gudynas
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Jan 2019
8 jan 2019 – Eduardo Gudynas, uruguaio, é um dos grandes ecólogos mundiais. Está entre os primeiros a formular uma ecologia social.Este artigo é um balanço de 2018 sobre os dramas ecologicosocias que se aproximam, se não mudarmos a nossa relação para com a Mãe Terra -tema central da encíclica do Papa Francisco “sobre o cuidado da Casa Comum – e para com a natureza em geral.
→ read full articleToward Geopolitical Disengagement: Uncertain yet Desirable
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Jan 2019
13 Jan 2019 – For a region that has endured so much suffering and abuse, I offer fervent wishes that we will be surprised by hopeful developments during coming months. Already the shakeup of regional politics and perceptions due to the Trump withdrawal move is ambiguous in its implications, but seemingly leading in the positive direction of U.S. political disengagement, and an end to the delusions of being ‘a force for good.’
→ read full article
Palestinian Aspirations versus Zombie Geopolitics
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Jan 2019
8 Jan 2019 – The mental processes that infuse zombie geopolitics with political vitality long after their viability has vanished is partly mysterious, and partly a calculated effort to deny a changed reality. More concretely, I have in mind the afterlife of ‘the two-state solution’ to the long Israel-Palestine confrontation. It retained its status as the only practical solution for years after it became crystal clear to even semi-informed observers that it would never happen.
→ read full articleWhat Are We Working for “At Eternity’s Gate”?
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Jan 2019
Vincent, responding to Gauguin, a former stock broker, when he urged him to paint slowly and methodically, said, “I need to be out of control. I don’t want to calm down.” He knew that to be fully alive was to be vulnerable, to not hold back, to always be slipping away, and to be threatened with annihilation at any moment. When painting, he was intoxicated with a creative joy that belies the popular image of him as always depressed.
→ read full article
When the Ice Melts: The Catastrophe of Vanishing Glaciers
Dahr Jamail – The Guardian,
14 Jan 2019
8 Jan 2019 – As global temperatures rise, shrivelling glaciers and thawing permafrost threaten yet more climate disruption. How should we confront what is happening to our world? While western colonialist culture believes in “rights”, many indigenous cultures teach of “obligations” that we are born into: obligations to those who came before, to those who will come after, and to the Earth itself.
→ read full articleReflections for the New Year: 2019
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Jan 2019
31 Dec 2018 – My private commitment for 2019 is to nurture humility, while trusting the formation of identities that link a progressive vision for our nation to a cosmopolitan embrace of humanity, with a major infusion of empathy. And as citizens, we need to be rooted in our particular personal and public experiences, while reaching out to the world and to the future.
→ read full articleJerusalem and Foreign Embassies: Legal, Political, and Diplomatic Implications
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Jan 2019
6 Jan 2019 | Interview with Rodrigo Craveiro, Correio Braziliense – It seems obvious that Israel is trying to induce enough governments to move their embassy to Jerusalem so as to weaken the legal, political, and diplomatic weight of the UNGA Resolution that declared such an initiative by the USA to be ‘null and void’ by a vote of 128-9, finding the proposed move unlawful and lacking any political effect.
→ read full articleWill 2019 Bring Opportunities to Change the System?
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Jan 2019
1 Jan 2019 – Some of us think 2008 was a lost opportunity. Humanity had a chance to change course to save itself and the biosphere. We blew it. Could 2019 be a second chance? The reason why 2008, instead of some other recent year, stands out as a change opportunity is that toward the end of that year investors were losing money.
→ read full article
(Português) A Revolução Cubana Completa 60 Anos: Frei Betto
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Jan 2019
4 jan 2019 – Frei Betto é muito conhecido e não preciso apresentá-lo. Publico este seu texto por amor à verdade contra todos os preconceitos imperantes em nosso país, reforçados pelos muitos que elegeram Jair Bolsonaro e pelo governo que montou propondo desmontar o socialismo e a cultura marxista. Seguramente nunca leram nada sério sobre Cuba. Aqui há um relato sumário, poderia ser muito mais detalhado sobre a situação daquele país.
→ read full article
Afghanistan in 2019: Fewer US Troops, More CIA Torture and Killings
William Boardman - Reader Supported News,
7 Jan 2019
3 Jan 2019 – Perhaps it’s just another sign of American psychic numbing, but the Times story seems to have provoked little response from other media, from politicians of any stripe, or from the public. More American war crimes in some Muslim country? Well, Happy New Year!
→ read full articleIn Praise of the Syria Withdrawal
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Dec 2018
29 Dec 2018 – Trump’s withdrawal of American troops from Syria that defied the bipartisan consensus that has shaped U.S. foreign policy since 1945 poses the biggest challenge to the Trump presidency, especially as it shook Israel’s confidence and coincides with woes of Wall Street. In coming weeks it should become clear whether the American version of the deep state remains asleep or perceives this ‘watershed moment’ as the opportunity to restore confidence in the pre-Trump version of world order.
→ read full article
A Major Win for the Whales
Captain Paul Watson | Sea Shepherd – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Dec 2018
27 Dec 2018 – Despite bribing nations and insidious tactics, the proposal by Japan to overturn the 31-year moratorium on commercial whaling has failed by a vote of 41 to 27 with 2 abstentions. Following yesterday’s most welcome Florianopolis Declaration, this defeat of the Japanese Proposal has made the 67th meeting of the International Whaling Commission an awesome historical event for the world’s whales.
→ read full article
Continued Debate over the Crime of Aggression: A Supreme International Irony
Donald M. Ferencz | Harvard Int’l Law Journal – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Dec 2018
Notwithstanding the fact that it took the U.N. only seventy-one days to affirm aggression as a customary law offense, today, almost seventy-one years later, it remains a crime in legal limbo. Though the International Criminal Court (ICC) is technically vested with jurisdiction over the crime of aggression, it is, as yet, powerless to exercise such jurisdiction.
→ read full articleCan Yemen Be Saved?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Dec 2018
23 Dec 2018 – The people of Yemen have been experiencing devastating civil strife for several years. This ordeal was greatly intensive by a massive and sustained Saudi-led air attacks and other belligerent tactics that have targeted civilians, even hospitals. Several recent events hint at the possibility of restoring peace to the country, thereby averting the worst effects of a threatened mass famine, risks starvation for more than 75% of Yemen’s population of over 22 million.
→ read full articleA Spiritual Special Ops Team’s Christmas Gift
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Dec 2018
24 Dec 2018 – “It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came out to inform the public. They thought it was a jest and applauded. He repeated his warning, they shouted even louder. So I think the world will come to an end amid general applause from all the wits, who believe that it is a joke.” — Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or
→ read full article
Chickens Freezing to Death and Boiled Alive: Failings in US Slaughterhouses Exposed
Andrew Wasley and Natalie Jones – The Guardian,
24 Dec 2018
17 Dec 2018 – Chickens slowly freezing to death, being boiled alive, drowned or suffocating under piles of other birds are among hundreds of shocking welfare incidents recorded at US slaughterhouses, according to previously unpublished reports.
→ read full article
Google’s Earth: How the Tech Giant Is Helping the State Spy on Us
Yasha Levine – The Guardian,
24 Dec 2018
20 Dec 2018 – We knew that being connected had a price – our data. But we didn’t care. Then it turned out that Google’s main clients included the military and intelligence agencies.
→ read full article