Recent Blogs
Back in 2016, while campaigning for president, Donald Trump discovered a useful tactic for drawing the votes of disgruntled blue-collar workers: denouncing the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs and promising to restore them. At a rally in hard-hit Ohio, he assailed the Democrats and assured his listeners that he would turn the state into a Read more…
On September 15, UN investigators ( the so called “Mission”) published a 411 page report about the human rights situation in Venezuela.[1] Part 1 of my analysis of the report focused on its gross dishonesty about opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez. The Mission reviewed his career since 2000 but never mentioned his proud participation in coup Read more…
Unlike their elected riulers, most Germans don’t want to be part of the nuclear ‘theater’ Trump, once again doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, wants to pull US troops out of Germany because Germany doesn’t spend enough on “defence”. The German population tend to like it but don’t like his reasons. And, as Read more…
The proposed hate crime clauses of the Scottish Crime Bill are being redrawn because of claims they will criminalize ‘legitimate acts of expression’. Climbdown on the Scottish Hate Crime Bill: a small setback for those who believe that attacking freedom of speech is the way to deal with prejudice and hatred of minorities. Without free Read more…
Back in July 1962, when, according to Donald Trump, America was “great,” I was in the Deep South, working to register Black voters. It was a near-hopeless project, given the mass disenfranchisement of the region’s Black population that was enforced by Southern law and an occasional dose of white terrorism. It all started in the Read more…
India is burning. In the months from March to May the news and social media were flooded with heart rending stories and images of the trauma of out-of state workers who lost their livelihood overnight when the coronavirus lock down was imposed without adequate notice. With all modes of transportation brought to a halt they Read more…
After nearly four years of the Trump administration, U.S. voters have a pretty good idea of the policies that the President and his Republican allies champion when it comes to America’s dealings with other nations. These policies include massive increases in military spending, lengthy wars abroad, threats of nuclear war, withdrawal from climate and nuclear Read more…
I’m surprised there is not more interest in a logical solution that definitely works and is ready to produce now, far easier than an unproven vaccine that may or may not work. Great if it did, but even if it eventually does it will take years to have an effect, that is waves and waves Read more…
UPDATE: I revised the second paragraph to be more fair to Bachelet whose position on US sanction has improved (most recently on September 25) – albeit from a terrible starting point). *** On September 15, UN investigators published a 411 page report about the human rights situation in Venezuela. They were not granted access to Read more…
Free daily home testing for the contagious form of the virus, by mass producing these simple, cheap, self administered, non invasive and quick test strips, this is a ready to go solution, that will save lives and restore society and all we can produce, by shining an inescapable light on this virus at root, in Read more…
The company ‘e25bio‘ has made a simple paper strip test, which only identifies Covid-19’s infamous spike protein that allows it to hook onto, spread and infect others so well, its the best cheapest test which does not require doctor or a machine and is just like pregnancy test, a simple paper strip, can be mass Read more…
1) Court-appointed attorney for Donziger says thanks but no thanks, citing ‘irreconcilable conflict’ … Donziger, the American lawyer who spent more than two decades suing… legal saga, Donziger’s ex-lawyer Frisch told the court in filings that he… SEPTEMBER 02, 2020 04:48PM EDT 2) Judge drags Donziger’s ex-atty back in to court to represent him at conduct trial …By Sebastien Read more…
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/08/how-to-test-every-american-for-covid-19-every-day/615217/ Scroll down this linked article to read about a company ‘e25bio‘ who have successfully made a simple paper strip test, which only identifies Covid-19’s infamous spike protein that allows it to hook onto, spread and infect others so well, its the best cheapest test which does not require doctor or a machine and is Read more…
Although Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that American workers are “thriving” during his presidency, this contention rings hollow. The mishandled coronavirus pandemic, of course, has created levels of unemployment, hunger, and misery in the United States not seen since the Great Depression. But even in the years before the pandemic, when Trump claimed he had Read more…
I give the solution’s basis right here at the start, in case you only have time or patience to read a bit. The practical way, to shut this pandemic down permanently and allow the full re-opening of society, removing the need for all the social limits and restrictions, is for the state to mass produce Read more…
Here are 26 articles (in English) on Reuters website about Ecuador since the country’s super shady “auditor genera” Pablo Celi began demanding (on June 19) that various political parties be banned from participating in the 2021 elections. One of the four parties Celi targeted was Fuerza Compromiso Social which Correa and his allies have joined Read more…
Although few Americans seem to have noticed, China and the United States are currently on a collision course—one that could easily lead to war. Their dispute, which has reached the level of military confrontation, concerns control of the South China Sea. For many years, China has claimed sovereignty over 90 percent of this vast, island-studded Read more…
Ignorance is often Trump’s saving grace. He doesn’t get why anti-Russsian propaganda has to be kept at full volume. One of the greatest threats to UK and US world hegemony has been the possibility of a completely natural alliance between geographical neighbours, Germany and Russia, or now the EU and Russia. That such an alliance Read more…
Eid observors buy animals to slaughter The lamb having its throat slit didn’t want to die. “The animal tried to stand up but couldn’t as the ground was slippery,” said Christine Hafner of the International Fund For Animals on the Today’s Zaman website. Hafner was monitoring the 2008 Eid animal sacrifices in Turkey, a Read more…
Americans who grew up with nightmares of nuclear weapons explosions should get ready for some terrifying flashbacks, for the Trump administration appears to be preparing to resume U.S. nuclear weapons tests. The U.S. government stopped its atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in 1962, shortly before signing the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963. And it Read more…
Have you noticed recently that things are collapsing? Sure, the rightwing, nationalist rulers of many countries never stop telling us that they have made their nations “great” again. But we would have to be dislocated from reality not to notice that something is wrong―very wrong. After all, the world is currently engulfed in a coronavirus Read more…
The view of the US government and the pro-Guaidó faction of the opposition was summed up by a New York Times headline and subhead that on January 5 that said Venezuela’s Maduro Claims Control of National Assembly, Tightening Grip on Power It was the last political institution in opposition hands. Now President Nicolás Maduro’s has Read more…
“Tonight we’re speaking with Professor of history at Illinois State University, Touré Reed, about the political implications of seeing racial identities, separated from material relationships, as the engine of American history. Instead, he spells out why the road to a more just society for African Americans broadly is inextricably linked to that of poor and Read more…
“What white people have to do is to find out, in their hearts, why it was necessary to have a n… in the first place…If you think I’m a n.. it means you need him. You invented him, and you’ve go to find out why.” James Baldwin and embracing the “stranger”
Matt Taibbi on ‘white fragility’ “DiAngelo isn’t the first person to make a buck pushing tricked-up pseudo-intellectual horseshit as corporate wisdom, but she might be the first to do it selling Hitlerian race theory. White Fragility has a simple message: there is no such thing as a universal human experience, and we are defined not Read more…
FAIR Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting: “Many of the reports gave background about Emily Thompson’s life, the cost of the F-35 and other military matters. But none questioned whether this was really a victory for equality, nor the ethics of nearly two decades of continuous US warfare and occupation in the region. The effect was Read more…
Frequent Z writer Justin Podur is in the midst of writing what appears to be a young adult-aimed book of fiction (sci-fi perhaps) that seeks to relate what a “leftist,” revolutionary point of view is. Entitled “The Path of the Unarmed,” the story describes the political education of a youth named Unarmed Warrior who receives Read more…
On November 10 of 2019, Bolivian President Evo Morales was overthrown and barely escaped the country alive. The military publicly ”suggested” that he resign. The military and police also made it clear that they would not protect him from vigilantes who wanted to lynch him. His house was ransacked by opposition supporters the night he Read more…
This is Part II Part I is here: https://zcomm.org/zblogs/smashing-the-illusion-farmer-clout-a-white-paper-by-brad-wilson/ (Continuing from Part I.) Specific Farm State Data I’ve also started crunching the commodity crop numbers for various “farm states,” such as states where House and Senate Agriculture Committee members are based. For example, Iowa (Tom Harkin, Charles Grassley & Steve King, Leonard Boswell) and Kansas Read more…
In late May of this year, President Donald Trump’s special envoy for arms control bragged before a Washington think tank that the U.S. government was prepared to outspend Russia and China to win a new nuclear arms race. “The president has made clear that we have a tried and true practice here,” he remarked. “We Read more…
“If we are being born, then our rage must turn insurrectionary, revolutionary. Charity won’t cut it. Charity’s nice, but charity douses anger with pity. Charity reduces the receiver and bestows upon the giver a power and a self-righteousness that they oughtn’t really to have. Charity keeps the structure in place. There is no one to Read more…
The starting point for Venezuela’s current depression has been the subject of some debate. It can get a bit technical, so I’ll weigh in on it here. Looking at Real GDP Inflation adjusted (i.e. real) Gross Domestic Product (GDP ) is essentially a country’s aggregate income. I say “essentially” because there is an adjustment that Read more…
Today Code Pink is making a push for that. It would be a lock in a civilized world. Click below to here to read Farmer’s letter. In it, he glowingly sums up his decades of working closely with Cuban doctors in Haiti.
According to UNICEF’s latest figures which can be downloaded here. I should add that UN agencies like UNICEF are not biased in favor of states like Cuba that the US has been trying to destroy for decades.
The Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) The IACHR claimed in 2009 report on Venezuela that its reaction to the “the attempted coup d’état [of 2002] was immediate and decisive” and that it “warned that these acts constituted an interruption of the constitutional order as defined in the Democratic Charter.” The evidence it offered Read more…
Given the overwhelming support opposition voices have been given in western media since Hugo Chavez was first elected in 1998, it is unsurprising that some would have had the audacity to attempt at least a partial whitewash of what the opposition and its foreign allies did in April of 2002. I’ll address some of those Read more…
What began as a casual lunchtime conversation in the office, turned out to be a very interesting question with surprising answers: do you make more money per month than a slave in ancient Rome? Although at first glance it sounds like an oxymoron, the question is indeed valid, since a slave has a cost, not Read more…
Although most Americans currently face hard times, with unemployment surging to the levels of the Great Depression and enormous numbers of people sick or dying from the coronavirus pandemic, the nation’s super-rich remain a notable exception. Financially, they are doing remarkably well. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, between March 18 and April 28, Read more…
Henri Falcon was a viable candidate – attacked by his own side Venezuela’s opposition had a viable candidate in Henri Falcon, a two-time governor of the state of Lara. He was first elected governor of the state of Lara in 2008 as a pro-Chavez candidate.[1] He broke with Chavez in 2010 and was then re-elected Read more…
On March 19, 2020, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, spurred to action by the coronavirus pandemic, issued a memorandum that identified the nation’s 2.5 million farmworkers as “essential” workers. Soon thereafter, agribusinesses began distributing formal letters to their farm laborers, also declaring that that they were “essential.” Of course, it shouldn’t have required a Read more…
Decades ago, when I began teaching international history, I used to ask students if they thought it was possible for nations to end their fighting of wars against one another. Their responses varied. But the more pessimistic conclusions were sometimes tempered by the contention that, if the world’s nations faced a common foe, such as Read more…
We live with a profound paradox. Our lives are powerfully affected by worldwide economic, communications, transportation, food supply, and entertainment systems. Yet we continue an outdated faith in the nation-state, with all the divisiveness, competition, and helplessness that faith produces when dealing with planetary problems. As we have seen in recent weeks, the coronavirus, like Read more…
It seems when it’s about Julian Assange no evidence is required to find him guilty of rape or other sexual offences, and no evidence of any lawbreaking whatsoever to hold him in jail before trying to extradite him on trumped-up spying charges. All that’s needed is a mob led by the intellectual classes armed with Read more…
In Spain around 80.000 people are infected, or sick, and around 7000 have been cured. Deads are approximately 8000. There is a big gap between the number of ill people (80,000) and the rest. I don’t understand why these 80.000 (infected/sick/ill) ) citizens have barely presence in the media. In my opinion, there should be Read more…
Don’t quite understand the attitude nor the point of view of Dylan’s last song. Elitism, anti-capitalism? I can’t see Kennedy’s murder as such a turning point, either. “Play darkness and death will come when it comes.” Would throwing in the towel, knowing it is what it is, be “Murder Most Foul”? Of course, his encyclopedic Read more…
Diana Johnstone, Circle in the Darkness: Memoir of a World Watcher. Clarity Press, Inc. 2020. Diana Johnstone’s book opens up in an excellent way how the world’s current intellectual atmosphere has corrupted much of the media world. A few decades ago there was still some openness in the way journalists were reporting world affairs. Recently, Read more…
Long before the advent of the coronavirus pandemic left people around the world desperate for survival, a popular assumption emerged that national governments are also supposed to promote the happiness and well-being of their citizens. This idea was expressed in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed that governments are instituted to secure humanity’s “unalienable Read more…