Articles by RT
We found 4093 results.
How Did Rwanda Cut Poverty So Much?
Emily Alpert – Los Angeles Times,
20 Feb 2012
The small African nation of Rwanda recently announced that it had cut poverty by 12% in six years, from 57% of its population to 45%. That equals roughly a million Rwandans emerging from poverty — one of the most stunning drops in the world.
→ read full articleWashington’s Insouciance Has No Rival
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
Washington is now in the second decade of murdering Muslim men, women, and children in six countries. Washington is so concerned with human rights that it drops bombs on schools, hospitals, weddings and funerals, all in order to uphold the human rights of Muslim people. You see, bombing liberates Muslim women from having to wear the burka and from male domination.
→ read full article“Human Rights” Warriors for Empire
Glen Ford – Black Agenda Report,
20 Feb 2012
“Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have chosen sides in the Washington-backed belligerency – the side of Empire.” Syria has no choice but to secure every square foot of its territory. “Faced with the certainty of superpower-backed attack under the guise of ‘protecting’ civilians in “liberated” territory, Syria cannot afford to cede even one neighborhood of a single city – not one block! – or of any rural or border enclave, to armed rebels and foreign jihadis.”
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Arts, Culture and Peacebuilding (Video of the Week)
Dominik ‘Nik’ Lehnert | XCHANGEperspectives – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
In this video Basti, Frank and Nik reflect on Xchange Perspectives’ work in South Sudan since 2005. Dominik ‘Nik’ Lehnert is TRANSCEND Media Service’s Video Production Assistant.
→ read full articleDo TV Networks ‘Practice’ for War?
Peter Hart – Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting-FAIR,
20 Feb 2012
I was visiting ABC News the other day to see a friend who works on graphics. When I went to his room, he showed me all the graphics he was making in anticipation of the Israeli attack on Iran; not just maps, but flight patterns, trajectories and 3-D models of U.S. aircraft carrier fleets. Does that kind of thing actually happen? Well, yeah.
→ read full articleElections Are for Suckers
Robert Scheer - Truthdig,
13 Feb 2012
Let’s just dip our fingers in purple ink and pose for photos now that voting has the same significance for us as it had for those Iraqis who got conned into thinking they were participating in some grand democratic experiment. Our own elections, the ones our government has modeled for the world, are a hoax.
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Keiser Report: Black Holes & Gold Hills in Finances Universe
Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert – Russia Today,
13 Feb 2012
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss the latest discoveries of black holes in the financial universe and the populations growing permanently poorer as a result. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Dr. Yanis Varoufakis about financial horror, a currency from which you can’t escape and the Greek situation.
→ read full articleWill Iran Be Attacked?
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Feb 2012
As Karl Marx said, money turns everything into a commodity that can be bought and sold. All other values are defeated–honor, integrity, truth, justice, loyalty, even blood kin. Nothing remains but filthy lucre. In the course of the conversation I asked [Warren Nutter] how Washington got so many other governments to do its bidding. He answered, “Money.” I asked, “You mean foreign aid?” He said, “No, bags of money. We buy the leaders.” Purchasing the leadership of their enemies or of potential threats was the Roman way. As long as the dollar rules, Washington’s power will rule.
→ read full articleNokia Publishes Policy on African Conflict Minerals
Curt Hopkins – The Christian Science Monitor,
13 Feb 2012
Nokia says it will not buy mineral products that benefit armed groups or those engaging in human rights abuses. How will they implement their policy? The mineral equivalent of blood diamonds, they include tantalum, tungsten, tin and gold, all of which are used to manufacture our electronics. Nokia, the world’s largest manufacturers of mobile phones, today published its policy on conflict minerals.
→ read full articleThe Scary Danger of Meat (Even For Those Who Don’t Eat It)
Martha Rosenberg - AlterNet,
6 Feb 2012
Antibiotics are routinely given to livestock on factory farms to make them gain weight with less feed and keep them from getting sick in confinement conditions. But the daily dosing, at the same time it lowers feed needs, lowers drug effectiveness and produces antibiotic resistant bacteria or super bugs that can be deadly to people.
→ read full articleBrazil: Community Radio Flourishes Online
Fabíola Ortiz – Inter Press Service-IPS,
30 Jan 2012
Community radio stations in Brazil are finding the internet and user-friendly information technologies to be valuable allies for their broadcasts, which focus on citizenship, social equity and human rights.
→ read full articleThematic Social Forum: Working Towards a Never-Ending Democracy
Antonio Martins – TerraViva Europe,
30 Jan 2012
For five centuries, Europe has taken it upon itself to enlighten the world, teaching it ways to address and overcome crises, from ideas and wars to missionary work and genocides. But it forgot it only held a part of the world’s knowledge and now it is on the verge of the abyss, and it is time for a different approach.
→ read full articleDying Honeybees: It Was the Insecticides All Along
Jeanne Roberts, Celsias – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Jan 2012
With news that the U.S. honeybee population has been so devastated that some beekeepers will qualify for disaster relief dollars, comes a report from Purdue University that one of the causes of honeybee deaths is – as long suspected – neonicotinoids.
→ read full articleThe Demise of the Dollar
Robert Fisk - The Independent,
30 Jan 2012
In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading. Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.
→ read full articleWhen Is A Terrorist Not A Terrorist? & War with Iran or Not?
Alan Hart – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2012
When is a terrorist not a terrorist in the eyes of the Obama administration (not to mention all of its predecessors) and the governments of the Western world? Answer: When he or she is an Israeli Mossad agent or asset. In the case of the assassination of Iranian scientists, the Mossad’s assets are almost certainly members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) also known as The Peoples’ Mujahedin of Iran, which is committed to overthrowing the regime of the ruling mullahs.
→ read full articleA Close Look at SOPA-Stop Online Piracy Act
Jonathan Zittrain, Kendra Albert and Alicia Solow-Niederman – Future of the Internet,
23 Jan 2012
This document is a guide to the Stop Online Piracy Act as proposed in the United States House of Representatives. Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), H.R. 3261, 112th Cong. (2011). It represents our notes as we sought to understand exactly what it does and how it does it — along with our corresponding sense for why its principal mechanisms make for poor law. Our aim is for this analysis to be useful to anyone wanting to understand the Act — whatever his or her point of view may be on technology or intellectual property policy.
→ read full articleA Momentum of Cynicism
Robert C. Koehler – Common Wonders,
16 Jan 2012
At this late stage of the American republic, military-industrial corruption permeates not only our foreign policy but our ideals. We go to war because the business of war is beyond all constraint. “In a striking departure from the ideological preferences of the post-Vietnam Democratic Party, President Barack Obama has made overseas arms sales a pillar of U.S. foreign policy,” Loren Thompson, chief operating officer at the Lexington Institute, a D.C. think tank, wrote – uncritically – for Forbes last week.
→ read full articleHaiti: From Displacement Camps to Community
Alexis Erkert and Beverly Bell – Toward Freedom,
9 Jan 2012
As 2012 begins, a growing movement of displaced people and their allies in Haiti is actively claiming the right to housing, which is recognized by both the Haitian constitution and international treaties to which Haiti is signatory. Haitians displaced by the earthquake two years ago face many crises, but perhaps none worse than ongoing homelessness: 520,000 people still living in displacement camps.
→ read full articleAustralia: Economic Forecasters Lose Their Way in Extreme Weather
Peter Martin – BusinessDay,
9 Jan 2012
WHO would have thought it? Certainly none of the 20-odd members of the economic forecasting panel this time last year. The rate of inflation turned out to be higher than the highest of their predictions, the budget deficit bigger than the biggest, and the sharemarket far lower than all but two thought likely. It is trite to say it, but they did not know what was coming.
→ read full articleEnd of the Pro-democracy Pretense
Peter Martin – BusinessDay,
9 Jan 2012
A central staple of American domestic propaganda about its foreign policy is that the nation is “pro-democracy” — that’s the banner under which American wars are typically prettified — even though “democracy” in this regard really means “a government which serves American interests regardless of how their power is acquired,” while “despot” means “a government which defies American orders even if they’re democratically elected.”
→ read full articleWhy Socialism?
Albert Einstein – Monthly Review,
26 Dec 2011
Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.
→ read full articleBankers Are the Dictators of the West
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
19 Dec 2011
It seems to me that the reporting of the collapse of capitalism has reached a new low which even the Middle East cannot surpass for sheer unadulterated obedience to the very institutions and Harvard “experts” who have helped to bring about the whole criminal disaster.
→ read full articleSanctions Are Only a Small Part of the History That Makes Iranians Hate the UK
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
5 Dec 2011
It’s a weird irony that Iranians know the history of Anglo-Persian relations better than the Brits. This was not a myth but a real, down-to-earth conspiracy. The CIA called it Operation Ajax; the Brits wisely kept their ambitions in check by calling it Operation Boot. They were successful. Mossadegh was arrested – by an officer assiduously done to death in the 1979 revolution – and the young Shah returned in triumph to impose his rule, reinforced by his faithful SAVAK secret police whose torture of women regime opponents was duly filmed and – according to the great Egyptian journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal – circulated by CIA officers to America’s allies around the world as a “teaching” manual. How dare the Iranians remember all this?
→ read full articleMan-Made Flu Virus with Potential to Wipe Out Many Millions If It Ever Escaped Is Created In Research Lab
Daily Mail Reporter – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2011
A group of scientists is pushing to publish research about how they created a man-made flu virus that could potentially wipe out civilisation. The study is one of two that have caused serious debate about scientific freedom and about regulating research that might have potential public health benefits but at the same time could also be useful for bio-terrorism.
→ read full article(Italian) Le Sanzioni Sono Solo Una Parte Dell’Odio Dell’Iran Per il Regno Unito
Robert Fisk – Centro Studi Sereno Regis,
5 Dec 2011
È ironico che gli iraniani conoscano la storia delle relazioni anglo-persiane meglio dei britannici. Non si tratta di una leggenda, ma di una cospirazione bella e buona. La CIA la chiamò Operazione Ajax; i britannici, saggiamente, tennero a freno le proprie ambizioni con la dicitura Operazione Boot. Ciò fu coronato dal successo. Mossadegh fu arrestato – da un ufficiale che nella rivoluzione del 1979 patì una morte truculenta – e il giovane shah ritornò in trionfo per imporre la sua regola con l’appoggio della fedele polizia segreta SAKAV, le cui pratiche di torture inflitte alle donne oppositrici furono doverosamente filmate e, secondo il giornalista egiziano Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, diffuse dai funzionari della CIA agli alleati degli Stati Uniti in tutto il mondo come manuale didattico. Come osano gli iraniani ricordarsi di tutto questo?
→ read full articleSales & the Winter of Discontent
James Albertini, Malu 'Aina, Hawai`i – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
The store ads all say “SALE, SALE, SALE! The real meaning is BUY! BUY! BUY! The ads are a lure to create “Wants” not “Needs.” This holiday season do not buy the hype. Buy nothing or buy local. Support an economy that benefits the 99%, not the 1% of global corporate interests that suck labor and resources out of our local economies. Add to this mess, endless wars for empire disguised as “war on terror” to keep us all in a state of fear and obedience to those in power. The oil companies and the arms merchants have never seen more profitable times; they like things just as they are.
→ read full articleThe Neuroeconomics Revolution
Robert J. Shiller – Project Syndicate,
28 Nov 2011
Neuroscience – the science of how the brain, that physical organ inside one’s head, really works – is beginning to change the way we think about how people make decisions. These findings will inevitably change the way we think about how economies function. In short, we are at the dawn of “neuroeconomics.”
→ read full articleThe Roads to War and Economic Collapse
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts – Global Research,
28 Nov 2011
November 23, 2011: The day before the Thanksgiving holiday brought three extraordinary news items. One was the report on the Republican presidential campaign debate. One was the Russian President’s statement about his country’s response to Washington’s missile bases surrounding his country. And one was the failure of a German government bond auction. As the presstitute media will not inform us of what any of this means, let me try.
→ read full articleBest Job in the Neighborhood—And They Own It
Susan Arterian Chang – YES! Magazine,
21 Nov 2011
How worker co-ops are expanding despite the rust-belt economy.
→ read full articleAnd the Big Time Banksters Come Marching In
Robert Wenzel – Economic Policy Journal,
14 Nov 2011
Mario Drgahi (European Central Bank), Lucas Papademos (Prime Minister of Greece), Mario Monti (Prime Minister of Italy), Mark Carney (chair, Financial Stability Board): The big time banksters are getting direct hands on control. If you get the sense that the elitist banksters are going to take this financial crisis and push it in whatever direction they want, you are probably very right.
→ read full articleCorzine’s Downfall
Nick Paumgarten – The New Yorker,
14 Nov 2011
The collapse this week of the broker-dealer MF Global and the comeuppance of its chief executive Jon Corzine, who resigned Friday [4 Nov 2011], have been and will be put to many political and rhetorical purposes. It doesn’t much matter, in these Zuccotti Park days, whether you’re too sanguine or too sly. Either way, you’re considered a crook. But if the firm did indeed use hundreds of millions of dollars of its customers’ money to prop up its own liquidity, in its waning hours, someone, perhaps even the former C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs and Governor of New Jersey, could wind up in jail.
→ read full articleCan Revolutionary Pacifism Deliver Peace?
Noam Chomsky - Reader Supported News,
7 Nov 2011
Not to be overlooked, however, is that Europeans came to realize that the next time they indulge in their favorite pastime of slaughtering one another, the game will be over: civilisation has developed means of destruction that can only be used against those too weak to retaliate in kind, a large part of the appalling history of the post-World War II years.
→ read full articleOccupy Demands: Let’s Radicalise Our Analysis
Robert Jensen – Al Jazeera,
7 Nov 2011
The crisis we face is caused by failed systems – replacing leaders while keeping the old system intact will not help. There’s one question that pundits and politicians keep posing to the Occupy gatherings around the country: What are your demands? I have a suggestion for a response: We demand that you stop demanding a list of demands.
→ read full articleToo Big to Jail
Robert Scheer - Truthdig,
7 Nov 2011
Can we all agree that a $1 billion swindle represents a lot of money? So why isn’t anybody at Citibank going to prison?
→ read full articleAmericans: Awash In Spin
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts – Global Research,
7 Nov 2011
I have come to the conclusion that Big Brother’s subjects in George Orwell’s 1984 are better informed than Americans. Americans have no idea why they have been at war in the Middle East, Asia and Africa for a decade. They don’t realize that their liberties have been supplanted by a Gestapo Police State. Few understand that hard economic times are here to stay.
→ read full articleOccupy Wall Street’s Elegant Message
Danny Schechter - Consortium News,
7 Nov 2011
One of the most frequently repeated, recycled and dismissive questions about Occupy Wall Street is its supposed lack of an “agenda.” The “what do you people want” question has featured in media interviews almost to the exclusion of all others. It’s as if the movement won’t be taken seriously by some, unless and until, it enunciates a list of “demands” and defines itself in a way that can allow others, especially a cynical media, to label and pigeonhole it. (So, it won’t be taken seriously then either.)
→ read full articleJudaism and Zionism Are Not the Same Thing
Neturei Karta, Jews United Against Zionism – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
The truth is that the Jewish faith and Zionism are two very different philosophies. They are as opposite as day and night. The Jewish people have existed for thousands of years. The Zionist movement created the Israeli state. The latter is a persuasion less than one hundred years old. Its essential goal was and is to change the nature of the Jewish people from that of a religious entity to a political movement. From Zionism’s inception the spiritual leaders of the Jewish people stood in staunch opposition to it.
→ read full articleU.N. Torture Investigator Says Access to Manning Denied, Condemns Solitary Confinement
The Bradley Manning Support Network – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2011
Juan Mendez, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, confirmed yesterday that the Department of Defense has blocked his requests for an unmonitored meeting with PFC Bradley Manning, the accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower. He told reporters gathered at a U.N. General Assembly committee on human rights that he would be issuing a report on Bradley Manning’s case “in the next few weeks.”
→ read full articleThe Solutions Generation
Robert Constanza – Al Jazeera,
31 Oct 2011
The next generation will have to bring about major transitions in order to build a more sustainable future. The Arab Spring, and now the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, are indications of growing unhappiness with the state of the world, especially in the younger generation. As Paul Krugman has pointed out, Americans are finally getting angry at the right people – the financial and corporate elites that currently govern the United States, and who have caused the ongoing economic crisis.
→ read full articleMillionaires Control 39% of Global Wealth
Robert Frank – The Wall Street Journal,
24 Oct 2011
According to the latest Global Wealth Report from Credit Suisse, the 29.7 million people in the world with household net worths of $1 million (representing less than 1% of the world’s population) control about $89 trillion of the world’s wealth. That’s up from a share of 35.6% in 2010, and their wealth increased by about $20 trillion, according Credit Suisse.
→ read full articleA Model for Macropolitical Crisis Prevention? The Rhodes Dialogue of Civilizations
Erika Degortes – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Oct 2011
It should be possible to respond to economic and social changes and it should be made able for civilizations to cope with them locally. The World Public Forum identified the “Dialogue of Civilizations” itself as a possible approach to the current economic crisis, as well as conflict resolution models, as proposed by Prof. Galtung among others, as a method to develop a new growth and distribution model that would act as an alternative to the current ones.
→ read full articleDon’t Sleep Through the Revolution
Rev. Jesse Jackson - Reader Supported News,
17 Oct 2011
Entrenched privilege does not surrender its privilege easily. Occupy Wall Street is taking on the most powerful interests. But nothing, as Victor Hugo wrote, is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. As Dr. King urged, “Don’t sleep through the revolution.” It is time to take a stand. So 99’ers, maintain your disciplined focus, your peaceful nonviolent approach to protest, and demand change. In the end we will win.
→ read full articleHappy Genocide Day!
Thom Hartmann - Truthout,
17 Oct 2011
If you fly over the country of Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, the island on which Columbus landed, it looks like somebody took a blowtorch and burned away anything green. Even the ocean around the port capital of Port au Prince is choked for miles with the brown of human sewage and eroded topsoil. From the air, it looks like a lava flow spilling out into the sea. The history of this small island is, in many ways, a microcosm for what’s happening in the whole world.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Saiba Como o Álcool Afeta Seu Corpo
Philippa Roxby, Repórter de Saúde - BBC News,
10 Oct 2011
Os efeitos do consumo do álcool a curto prazo são conhecidos: ressacas, cansaço, má aparência. A longo prazo, a ingestão da substância está associada a várias condições, entre elas o câncer da mama, câncer oral, doenças cardíacas, derrames e cirrose hepática, entre outras. Pesquisas também associaram o consumo de álcool em doses elevadas à problemas de saúde mental, perda de memória e diminuição da fertilidade.
→ read full articleIs The War On Terror A Hoax?
Paul Craig Roberts – Information Clearing House,
3 Oct 2011
In the past decade, Washington has killed, maimed, dislocated, and made widows and orphans millions of Muslims in six countries, all in the name of the “war on terror.” When I observe the gullibility of my fellow citizens at the absurd “terror plots” that the US government manufactures, it causes me to realize that fear is the most powerful weapon any government has for advancing an undeclared agenda.
→ read full article“Drug Addicts Are Sick, Not Criminals”
Fabíola Ortiz – Inter Press Service-IPS,
3 Oct 2011
“The Police Pacification Units-UPPs are not going to fix all of Brazil’s, or Rio de Janeiro’s, problems, but the areas that have been ‘pacified’ today have already seen a decline in the various indicators of crime,” said police Major Eliécer de Oliveira, coordinator of UPP training and teaching in the military police.
→ read full articleA Truly Courageous Response to Terror
Fran Korten – YES! Magazine,
26 Sep 2011
“Our answer will not be hate and revenge, but more openness, more tolerance, and more democracy.” What the U.S. could learn from Norway about how to respond to terror.
→ read full articleHomophobia in Africa
Peter Kenworthy – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Sep 2011
Many African leaders in particular see homosexuality as “un-natural” and “un-African” and do not believe that homosexuals should have any rights at all. Homophobia is therefore not only illegal and punishable in many African countries, but also legitimised by the leaders of these countries, and African homosexuals are frequently assaulted, expelled from their jobs, or chased from their homes.
→ read full articleBrazil-Africa: Teaching Diplomacy
Fabíola Ortiz – Inter Press Service-IPS,
26 Sep 2011
African countries are increasingly taking up Brazil’s offer of training in the art of diplomacy, seeing it as a partner that could help them set up or improve their own foreign service institutes.
→ read full articleWhy the Middle East Will Never Be the Same Again
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
26 Sep 2011
The Palestinians won’t achieve statehood, but they will consign the ‘peace process’ to history. The US has lost its purchase on the Middle East. It’s over: the “peace process”, the “road map”, the “Oslo agreement”; the whole fandango is history.
→ read full articlePunching Back at Big Oil
Robert Redford - Reader Supported News,
26 Sep 2011
When you challenge Big Oil in Houston, you can bet the industry is going to punch back. So when I wrote in the Houston Chronicle earlier this month that we should say no to the Keystone XL pipeline, I wasn’t surprised when the project’s chief executive weighed in with a different view. Let’s set the record straight, point by point.
→ read full articleTarred and Feathered: Exxon/Murdoch/Cheney … At It Again
Leslie Griffith - Reader Supported News,
19 Sep 2011
“It is said those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And, in my experience, to report on it … again and again … as if the failures of the past offer no instruction at all.” That thought slapped me sober while thinking about tar sands and, moments later, when running across this story on Rupert Murdoch’s and Dick Cheney’s forays into the sticky boondoggle of tar sands’ predecessor – oil shale.
→ read full articleThe Pursuit of Happiness
Robert Constanza – Al Jazeera,
19 Sep 2011
In Bhutan, progress is measured by how happy people are, not how much wealth people have. An oil spill, for example, increases GDP because someone has to clean it up, but it obviously detracts from well-being. More crime, more sickness, more war, more pollution, more fires, storms and pestilence are all potentially positives for GDP because they can cause an increase in economic activity. GDP also takes no account of how the national income is distributed among people, ignoring the fact that a dollar’s worth of income produces more well-being for a poor person than a rich one.
→ read full articleBrazil: African Refugees in the Amazon
Fabíola Ortiz – Inter Press Service-IPS,
19 Sep 2011
Wilson Nicolas, from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), was the first African refugee to find his way to Brazil’s Amazon jungle region, and seems to have started a trend.
→ read full article
‘unLawful Access’ – Battle for the Net
PressForTruth – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Sep 2011
Unlawful “lawful access” that would allow government’s surveillance of everything you do on the Internet — not only in Canada but everywhere. All the powers that be need is a precedent. Every citizen is a suspect – Preposterous!
→ read full articleThere Is a Better Way: How the Norwegian Tragedy Forces Us to Reexamine Our Response to 9/11
Ida Hartmann - AlterNet,
19 Sep 2011
“This country has become dependent on the dead of 9/11 — who have no way of defending themselves against how they have been used — as an all-purpose explanation for our own goodness and the horrors we’ve visited on others, for the many towers-worth of dead in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere whose blood is on our hands.”
→ read full articleThe Imperial Delusions of the United States
Robert Jensen – Al Jazeera,
12 Sep 2011
Ten years ago, critics of the United States’ mad rush to war were right, but it didn’t matter. Ten years later, we are still right and it still doesn’t matter. Empires rarely learn in time, because power tends to dull people’s capacity for critical self-reflection. While ascending to power, empires believe themselves to be invincible. While declining in power, they cling desperately to old myths of remembered glory. Today, the United States is morally bankrupt and spiritually broken. The problem is that we are still operating on delusional notions about manifest destiny, American exceptionalism, the right to take more than our share of the world’s resources by whatever means necessary.
→ read full articleFor 10 Years, We’ve Lied to Ourselves to Avoid Asking the One Real Question
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
12 Sep 2011
I’m talking about the volumes, the libraries – nay, the very halls of literature – which the international crimes against humanity of 11 September 2001 have spawned. Many are spavined with pseudo-patriotism and self-regard, others rotten with the hopeless mythology of CIA/Mossad culprits, a few (from the Muslim world, alas) even referring to the killers as “boys”, almost all avoiding the one thing which any cop looks for after a street crime: the motive.
→ read full articleBaha Mousa inquiry: It’s Not the Brutality That Is ‘Systematic’. It’s the Lying About It.
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
12 Sep 2011
It was Baha Mousa’s dad I will always remember. On an oppressively scorching day in Basra, Daoud Mousa first spoke of his son’s death, telling me how the boy’s wife had died of cancer just six months earlier, how Baha’s children were now orphans, how – not long after the British Army had arrested Baha Mousa and beaten him to death, for that is what happened – a British officer had come to his home and stared at the floor and offered cash by way of saying sorry.
→ read full articleAnalysis of Financial Terrorism in America
David DeGraw – AmpedStatus Report,
15 Aug 2011
Over 1 Million Deaths Annually, 62 Million People With Zero Net Worth, As the Economic Elite Make Off With $46 Trillion
→ read full articleA Rebellion against Racism and Poverty
James Illingworth – Socialist Worker,
15 Aug 2011
Symbolically, the riots in London broke out as world financial markets were in turmoil over concerns that the American economy is going back into recession and the European debt crisis is spreading to Italy and Spain. The crisis-ridden capitalist system has nothing to offer young people, and it was only a matter of time before their anger exploded into action. These aren’t the first riots of the crisis, and they won’t be the last.
→ read full articleMainstream Media Ignores S&P Attack on Republicans
Thom Hartmann – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Aug 2011
Have you seen, anywhere, in any media, or even heard reported or repeated on NPR, the following sentence? “We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.”
→ read full article
Norwegian Muslish Gunman’s Islam-Esque Atrocity
Colbert Report – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Aug 2011
July 25, 2011
→ read full articleCan’t Pay Back, Won’t Pay Back: Iceland’s Loud No
Silla Sigurgeirsdóttir and Robert H Wade – Le Monde Diplomatique,
8 Aug 2011
The small island of Iceland has lessons for the world. It held a referendum in April to decide, more or less, whether ordinary people should pay for the folly of the bankers (and by extension, could governments control the corporate sector if they depended on it for finance). Sixty per cent of the population rejected an agreement negotiated between Iceland, the Netherlands and the UK to pay back the British and Dutch governments for the money they spent to recompense savers with the failed bank Icesave. That was less resistance than the first referendum last spring, when 93% voted no.
→ read full articleNeocons Fume over US Boat to Gaza
Ray McGovern – Consortium News,
18 Jul 2011
My co-passengers and I of the U.S. Boat to Gaza have now gone from “High-Seas Hippies,” according to the right-wing Washington Times, to participants in a flotilla full of “fools, knaves, hypocrites, bigots, and supporters of terrorism,” says Alan Dershowitz in his usual measured prose.
→ read full articleThe World’s Largest Human Experiment: GMOs, Roundup and the Monsanto Monstrosity
Madison Ruppert - Activist Post,
18 Jul 2011
Informed consent is one of the most basic aspects of patient-physician relations, as well as subject-researcher relations in the case of research studies. This involves making the patient aware of and verifying that they understand the risks, benefits, facts, and the future implications of the procedure or test they are going to be subjected to. In the case of genetically modified organisms we have not been made aware of the risks. In fact, the GMO industry has deliberately hidden the real dangers behind the seeds and herbicides they peddle.
→ read full articleWhy I Had To Leave The Times
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
18 Jul 2011
When he worked at The Times, Robert Fisk witnessed the curious working practices of the paper’s proprietor, Rupert Murdoch. Despite their jocular exchanges, the writer knew he couldn’t stay… “He is a caliph, I suppose, almost of the Middle Eastern variety.”
→ read full articleDefaulting Rescued Argentina. It Could Work for Athens Too
Heather Stewart – The Guardian,
11 Jul 2011
Struggling under an impossible burden after its IMF bailouts, Buenos Aires knew its one hope was to stop paying its debts and become a pariah – and so it proved.
→ read full articleOn Flotillas and the Law
Lawrence Davidson - Reader Supported News,
11 Jul 2011
Civil Society Movements vs. Corrupt Politics – Most of us are unaware of the potential of organized civil society because we have resigned the public sphere to professional politicians and bureaucrats and retreated into a private sphere of everyday life, which we see as separate from politics. This is a serious mistake. Politics shapes our lives whether we pay attention to it or not. By ignoring it we allow the power of the state to respond not so much to the citizenry as to special interests.
→ read full articleVictim Blinded In a Post-9/11 Hate Crime Now Fights For His Attacker’s Life
Daily Mail Reporter – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jul 2011
Mr Bhuiyan, a devout Muslim who says he learned to forgive Stroman years ago, told MSNBC: ‘I’m trying to do my best not to allow the loss of another human life.’ He was a 26-year old recent immigrant when he encountered Stroman. It took him years to recover from the gun shot, and he still carries bits of metal embedded in his face. Mr Bhuiyan lost the sight in one of his eyes, but did not suffer brain damage. He did lose a fiancé in the ordeal but earned a degree in aeronautical engineering and works as a technology professional in Dallas, although he says he wants to go to journalism school and study human rights, after trying to save Stroman’s life.
→ read full articleRussia, Iceland & Afghanistan Stand Alone as the Only Nations with International Arrest Warrants out for Bankers Who Committed Fraud
stacyherbert, maxkeiser.com – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jul 2011
This is our single most urgent concern in all the banking disasters around the world – justice. Without justice, these banking crime waves will not stop. The Bank of Moscow fraudster is hiding out in London and will no doubt live it large there thanks to London’s safe haven status. Icelandic bankers are also hiding out in London after fleecing their country with ‘loans’ to close friends and family.
→ read full articleA World Overwhelmed by Western Hypocrisy
Paul Craig Roberts – Information Clearing House,
4 Jul 2011
The International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank are violating their charters in order to bail out French, German, and Dutch private banks. The IMF is only empowered to make balance of payments loans, but is lending to the Greek government for prohibited budgetary reasons in order that the Greek government can pay the banks. There is nothing left of the American character. Only a people who have lost their soul could tolerate the evil that emanates from Washington.
→ read full articleThe Painful Collapse of Empire: How the “American Dream” and American Exceptionalism Wreck Havoc on the World
Robert Jensen – Information Clearing House,
4 Jul 2011
Even tragic heroes can, at the end, celebrate the dignity of the human spirit in their failure. That may be the task of Americans, to recognize that we can’t reverse course in time to prevent our ultimate failure, but that in the time remaining we can recognize our hamartia, name our hubris, and do what we can to undo the damage. That may be the one chance for the United States to be truly heroic, for us to learn to leave the stage gracefully.
→ read full article9/11 and the Orwellian Redefinition of “Conspiracy Theory”
Paul Craig Roberts – Global Research,
27 Jun 2011
A “conspiracy theory” no longer means an event explained by a conspiracy. Instead, it now means any explanation, or even a fact, that is out of step with the government’s explanation and that of its media pimps. For example, online news broadcasts of RT have been equated with conspiracy theories by the New York Times simply because RT reports news and opinions that the New York Times does not report and the US government does not endorse.
→ read full articleChomsky: ”The West Is Terrified of Arabic Democracies”
Ceyda Nurtsch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jun 2011
There are constant democratic uprisings. They are crushed by the dictators we – mainly the US, Britain, and France – support. So sure, there is no democracy because we crush it all. You could have said the same about Latin America: a long series of dictators, brutal murderers. As long as the US controls the hemisphere, or Europe before it, there is no democracy, because it gets crushed.
→ read full articleUK: Victory in the Campaign to Ban Circus Animals
Martin Hickman – The Independent,
27 Jun 2011
MPs voted to ban wild animals in circuses last night [23 Jun 2011] after David Cameron’s attempts to bully Conservative backbenchers into voting against the measure backfired and ended in a humiliating public defeat. In a decision hailed by campaigners as an “historic victory for animal welfare and protection”, MPs of all parties unanimously backed a ban and the Government signalled that it would introduce one, ending forever the days of lions, tigers, elephants and other wild animals in the big top.
→ read full article90 Percent of Petraeus’s Captured ‘Taliban’ Were Civilians
Gareth Porter - Inter Press Service-IPS,
20 Jun 2011
In August 2010 Gen. David Petraeus released figures to the news media that claimed spectacular success. A total of 4,100 Taliban rank and file had been captured and 2,000 had been killed. Those figures were critical to creating a new media narrative hailing the success of SOF. But it turns out that more than 80 percent of those called captured Taliban fighters were released within days of having been picked up, because they were found to have been innocent civilians, according to official U.S. military data.
→ read full articleJournalism 101 – How to Avoid Being a Propaganda Tool
Leslie Griffith - Reader Supported News,
20 Jun 2011
It’s been a long, slow slide for CNN. The once-proud cable news pioneer has consistently crawled under the media’s lowering bar, but this week it blazed a new trail to the bottom.
→ read full articleCall Off the Global Drug War
Jimmy Carter, 2002 Nobel Peace laureate – The New York Times,
20 Jun 2011
In an extraordinary new initiative announced earlier this month, the Global Commission on Drug Policy has made some courageous and profoundly important recommendations in a report on how to bring more effective control over the illicit drug trade.
→ read full articleWhy the Pentagon Papers Matter Now
Daniel Ellsberg - Reader Supported News,
20 Jun 2011
“While we go on waging unwinnable wars on false premises, the Pentagon papers tell us we must not wait 40 years for the truth. Don’t wait until thousands more have died, before you go to the press and to Congress to tell the truth with documents that reveal lies or crimes or internal projections of costs and dangers. Don’t wait 40 years for it to be declassified, or seven years as I did for you or someone else to leak it.”
→ read full articleSlain Writer’s Book Says US-NATO War Served Al-Qaeda Strategy
Gareth Porter – Inter Press Service-IPS,
13 Jun 2011
Al-Qaeda strategists have been assisting the Taliban fight against U.S.-NATO forces in Afghanistan because they believe that foreign occupation has been the biggest factor in generating Muslim support for uprisings against their governments, according to the just-published book by Syed Saleem Shahzad, the Pakistani journalist whose body was found in a canal outside Islamabad last week with evidence of having been tortured.
→ read full articleA Fatally Flawed Recovery Plan: Greece Back on the Brink
Manfred Ertel, Christian Reiermann and Anne Seith – Der Spiegel,
13 Jun 2011
Greece needs even more money — EU officials estimate that a new bailout will cost over 100 billion euros rather than the previously assumed 60 billion. It will get the aid, even though the rescue strategy adopted so far seems doomed. The economy is shrinking, and ambitious privatization plans are illusory.
→ read full articleBankers and Politicians Have Turned Food into a Betting Game
Aditya Chakrabortty – The Guardian,
13 Jun 2011
The Result Is Soaring Prices and Starving Children
→ read full articleLandmark Agreement on Amazon Oilfields Shows Indigenous Movements’ New Power
Darrin Mortenson - Truthout,
13 Jun 2011
The twist on an otherwise old story was that, after several years of violent protests over resource extraction throughout the Amazon, this group of 18 Quechua Apus, or community chiefs, confidently strode into the government building wearing face paint and headbands, flanked by a team of lawyers, anthropologists and media, and demanded to see the governor. They walked out three days later with a contract for new schools, doctors, and other infrastructure, as well as a government pledge to conduct blood and water tests that could be used as evidence in a possible lawsuit. And, with Gov. Iván Vásquez, they seemed to have made a powerful new friend.
→ read full articleUndefeated, Freedom Flotillas Expand
Eva Bartlett – Inter Press Service-IPS,
6 Jun 2011
Flanked by flags of various nations whose citizens have sailed to the Gaza Strip to highlight the all-out siege on Gaza, the memorial’s inscription bears the names of the Turkish solidarity activists who died one year ago by Israeli commandoes firing onto the Freedom Flotilla, killing nine, injuring over 50, and abducting over 600 civilians in international waters, Gaza’s harbour bustles with people and energy. Undaunted by last year’s massacre, international activists have organised the Freedom Flotilla 2, due to sail in one month’s time with at least 10 boats and over 1,000 activists. Canadian and U.S. boats will join those of Europe, Turkey, and other nations.
→ read full article‘The People Don’t Want War’
Jim Albertini, Center for Nonviolent Education and Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jun 2011
Truth From An Unexpected Source – ”Why of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” – Herman Goering, Nazi Germany
→ read full articleWorld’s Food System Broken
Cahal Milmo, Chief Reporter – The Independent,
6 Jun 2011
Doubling of prices and 70 per cent rise in demand means millions more will go hungry.
→ read full articleWho Cares in the Middle East What Obama Says?
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
6 Jun 2011
President Obama has shown himself to be weak in his dealings with the Middle East, says Robert Fisk, and the Arab world is turning its back with contempt. Its future will be shaped without American influence.
→ read full articleChiquita Bananas Fund Terrorists
Curt Anderson, Associated Press – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jun 2011
The Chiquita lawsuit cites a number of AUC massacres, including a July 1997 operation in the town of Mapiripan in which at least 49 people were tortured, dismembered and decapitated. In February 2000, about 300 AUC troops tortured dozens of people and killed 36 people. In 2001, Chiquita was identified in invoices and other documents as the recipient of a shipment from Nicaragua of 3,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 5 million rounds of ammunition. The guns and ammo were unloaded by Chiquita employees, stored at Chiquita warehouses, and then delivered by trucks to the AUC, court papers said.
→ read full articleThe Unchanged Path to Mideast Peace
Jimmy Carter – The New York Times,
30 May 2011
It was not a new U.S. policy concerning the borders of Israel, nor should it have been surprising to Israeli leaders, when President Obama stated: “The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.”
→ read full articleLots of Rhetoric – But Very Little Help: Obama’s Speech
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
23 May 2011
Well, this weekend is Netanyahu’s weekend and the Israeli settlements – more were flagged only hours before Obama spoke – will go on as before. And by the time Obama ends up swearing eternal loyalty to the Israelis, the Arabs will forget yesterday’s posturing. And the reference to the “Jewish state” was obviously intended to make Netanyahu happy.
→ read full articleWhy No Outcry over These Torturing Tyrants?
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
23 May 2011
It is all about our fear of Saudi Arabia. Which also means it is about oil. It is about our absolute refusal to remember that 9/11 was committed largely by Saudis. It is about our refusal to remember that Saudi Arabia supported the Taliban, that Bin Laden was a Saudi, that the most cruel version of Islam comes from Saudi Arabia, the land of head-choppers and hand-cutters. Yes, our other friends. The Saudis.
→ read full article
Iraq’s Abandoned Children (VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
Jane Arraf reports from Baghdad – Al Jazeera,
23 May 2011
Iraq is full of street kids; children with one or both parents killed, or some who have merely been abandoned. It has been estimated that there are now over a million orphans in the country. But there are just four small orphanages in the capital, Baghdad – none of them filled to capacity. The Iraqi government says that relatives would rather abandon children they are unable to take care of, than bear the shame of bringing them to an orphanage.
→ read full articleWanted Dead or Alive
Robert Koehler – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2011
President Obama’s attempts this past week to call forth a heightened sense of national unity around Osama bin Laden’s assassination is a devil’s bargain because the need for more violence will never end. However, this need — for the next war, the next political assassination — always seems so reasonable. And as part of the bargain, “The meaning you’re making around violence is your own goodness.”
→ read full articleA Moment of Silence, Before I Start This Poem
Emmanuel Ortiz – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2011
Before I start this poem,
I’d like to ask you to join me
In a moment of silence
Press Release-UN High Commission for Human Rights: Palestinian Nakba
Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2011
On May 15 2011 the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Mr. Richard Falk, marks the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophic beginning of the Palestinian tragedy of dispossession and occupation, with the following statement.
→ read full articleIgnorance Is Strength: Americans Are Living In 1984
Paul Craig Roberts - LewRockwell,
16 May 2011
For those who haven’t read Orwell’s classic prediction of our time, Big Brother, the government, could tell the ‘citizens’ any lie and it was accepted unquestioningly. We Americans, with our ‘free press,’ are at this point today: ‘What is really alarming is the increasingly arrogant sloppiness of these lies, as though the government has become so profoundly confident of its ability to deceive people that they make virtually no effort to even appear credible.’ A people as gullible as Americans have no future.
→ read full articleThe Other BRIC in Latin America: India
Jorge Heine and R. Viswanathan – Americas Quarterly,
9 May 2011
India emerges as a major partner for Latin America. Welcome to the new kid on the block.
→ read full articleOsama bin Laden: Everyone’s Missing the Point
Barry Lando - Reader Supported News,
9 May 2011
Indeed, from the point of view of America and many of its allies, the most menacing symbol in the Arab World today is not Osama bin Laden but another Arab who recently met a violent death – Mohamed Bouazizi, the 26-year-old Tunisian fruit vendor who chose to set himself on fire. His act, of course, ignited the storm that has spread across the Arab World and proven a much more serious threat to America’s allies in the region than al Qaeda ever was. Ironically, his sacrifice probably also dealt a far more devastating blow to al Qaeda’s fortunes than the assassination of Osama bin Laden.
→ read full articleWas He Betrayed? Of Course. Pakistan Knew bin Laden’s Hiding Place All Along
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
9 May 2011
I met the man [bin Laden] three times and have only one question left unasked: what did he think as he watched those revolutions unfold this year – under the flags of nations rather than Islam, Christians and Muslims together, the kind of people his own al-Qa’ida men were happy to butcher? While the Arab dictators ruled uncontested with our support, they largely avoided condemning American policy; only bin Laden said these things. Arabs never wanted to fly planes into tall buildings, but they did admire a man who said what they wanted to say. But now, increasingly, they can say these things. They don’t need bin Laden. He had become a nonentity.
→ read full article