Recent Blogs
The task of the Left now is to stake out opportunities for radical thought and action in the essentially hopeless conditions of the present. And to frame this struggle not as a reaction to the traumatic rise of the populous Right but within the context of present suffering where domination, cruelty and inhumanity repeat and Read more…
i. witness the word in extinction as it tries to catch flame but there is no past as you try to forget but there is no hint of yearn to climb out of the past as you try to forget and the word it catches a sorry flame a flight a plight of memory the rot will address you with Read more…
Nasir Khan, December 22, 2016 On the Saudi flag is the Islamic confession of faith, which in English reads, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his preophet”. But what is the sword doing here under this text? A sword is not made to cut vegetables or grass but to fight with and Read more…
Cato the Elder, a Roman senator and historian, once remarked: “Cessation of work is not accompanied by cessation of expenses.” For centuries, retirees have been aware of this unfortunate fact, which led them to demand and, in many cases, secure old age pensions to help provide financial security during their “golden years.” But as Read more…
Green Time TV Environmental Obstacles, But Forging Ahead by Don Fitz Lots of things stand in the way of environmental sanity – including international trade deals, attacks on local farmers and “food sovereignty,” racist deterioration of inner cities, and irrational war on a potentially beneficial weed. January 2017 Green Time episodes delve into a variety Read more…
The Syrian War What You’re Not Being Told Sep 3, 2013
Facebook Partners With Snopes & Other So-Called ‘Fact Checking’ Sites to Burry ‘Fake News’ December 15, 2016 Facebook is partnering with Snopes.com and other sites which have apparently been unofficially deemed the new ministries of truth to decide what is and what is not ‘Fake News.’ Do we trust these agencies more than we trust the intelligence Read more…
Hands Off Syria Coalition Fighting for Peace in Syria Home https://www.facebook.com/handsoffsyria/ Aleppo eastern neighborhoods’ evacuation suspended after terrorists’ breach Aleppo eastern neighborhoods’ evacuation suspended after terrorists’ breach Aleppo Update. Noura Erakat Speaking For MECA Today on Flashpoints: Eyewitness testimony from Syria as indie journalist Eva Bartlett reports back on Aleppo. Also an Read more…
ALEPPO: The Liberation of East Aleppo – Vanessa Beeley on UK Column December 16, 2016 By Vanessa Beeley Independent journalist and 21st Century Wire special contributor, Vanessa Beeley has just returned from three days spent in Aleppo. She has visited a number of the districts of East Aleppo recently liberated by the Syrian Arab Army Read more…
Since Occupy it has become fashionable for progressives to talk about the 1% vs the 99%. This two class analysis, however, has a much longer history. For example, Marxists typically highlight two classes – the capitalist class and the working class – and like Occupy focus people’s attention on the problem with an economic system Read more…
Nasir Khan, December 12, 2016 The question about the inferior status of women runs through many old civilisations but not all. For instance, in ancient Persian civilisation that flourished under Achaeminid and Sassanid rulers, women were given a much more exalted status than under the Greek and Roman civilisations. However, under the teachings and the Read more…
Recently, many commentators have expressed surprise at the romance between the incoming Trump administration and the hate-filled ranks of racial, religious, and nativist bigots. But, in fact, the phenomenon of scapegoating―blaming a hapless and helpless minority for problems caused by others―has been fundamental to advancing the fortunes of the political Right throughout modern history. In Read more…
Some on the ‘left’ have been using the occasion of Fidel Castro’s death, just like the incoming trump has, to call for an end to the Cuban Revolutionary Leadership and that with these figures out of the way the Cuban People will finally be free to be free and that any on the left who Read more…
Two Men & Two Words. In this winter month of dying light that waits to be reborn. Two words, that are also names, embodied and lived by two men, have appeared on our world’s conscious stage ‘trump’ and ‘Fidel’, and as poor Earth, our only eden sails like the Titanic into an environmental collision, full Read more…
http://mwcnews.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=62382&catid=39&Itemid=127 Despite all the hostile American policies and sabotage, the Cuban revolution stood its ground. by Nasir Khan The death of Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro is a sad occasion for all those comrades and friends who for decades have shown solidarity with the people of Cuba and the Cuban revolution. Since the victory of the Read more…
William Finnegan’s New Yorker article about Venezuela states “He [Hugo Chavez] soon rewrote the constitution, concentrating power in the executive.” A constituent assembly was elected by the public. The constituent assembly – not Hugo Chavez – drafted a constitution that was then approved in a referendum. Finnegan’s gross distortion of the process that created Venezuela’s Read more…
Green Time TV Can We Build a Healthy Future? by Don Fitz People across the globe are seeking ways to improve health – from breastfeeding to controlling genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food to redesigning health care. December Green Time episodes delve into some of these efforts in Missouri, the US and Denmark. What is Read more…
— Nasir Khan, November 16, 2016 In 1971, the people of East Pakistan achieved their political separation from West Pakistan at a very high cost. The country since then called Bangladesh like many Asian countries has been a traditional country where religions in the lives of its people have played an important part as a Read more…
Go to source It happened. Yes, I was surprised. Since I spend a lot of time in western Pennsylvania, I knew there was more support for Trump than the media let on, but he just seemed too incompetent, incoherent, and disorganized a candidate to defeat the Clinton machine. I enjoyed torturing my friend who has Read more…
Home » Making of History Facebook VK blogger LiveJournal Twitter Google+ Email Print Share Political philosophy 12.11.2016 Nasir Khan “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of Read more…
Michael Moore talks nonsense sometimes but, credit where due, he was completely on target months ago about how and why Trump could pull off a victory. Angry white people in states like Ohio & Michigan, knowing damn well they’ve been screwed over by decades of trade deals, would use Trump as their “human Molotov Cocktail”. Read more…
Hail King Prick! The vain glorious dick has been elected King Prick. A mourning of victory for all the worlds pricks! Hide your son from the colours, go lock up all your daughter’s ships. For hear a World full of slaughter happily skips. Calamity of blind rages, has spoke a joke for all our ages. Read more…
What are poetics given to power? First, metaphors cannot be substantiated by references to reality. So they start referring to each other using erudition and authority, a hopelessly futile exercise in insulated creativity. Second, it is masculine in intent and hence inherently damage-bent. Third, it grows inward as it pretends to reach outward. the poet Read more…
“Working at UPS should be the best job in America and it just isn’t.” — — a Teamster negotiator to a UPS official during the tense 1997 national contract negotiations. I was once a package driver for a brief time back in the 1970’s at a non-union local Silver Spring MD delivery company. I did enjoy being Read more…
Earlier this year my book Anarchist Accounting: Accounting Principles for a Participatory Economy was released in both a Swedish and an English version (www.anarchistaccounting.info). The book outlines a proposal for an accounting system in a post-capitalist economy. Do we really need accounting in a Libertarian Socialist Economy? Do we really need an accounting system, or Read more…
At present, nuclear disarmament seems to have ground to a halt. Nine nations have a total of approximately 15,500 nuclear warheads in their arsenals, including 7,300 possessed by Russia and 7,100 possessed by the United States. A Russian-American treaty to further reduce their nuclear forces has been difficult to secure thanks to Russian disinterest and Read more…
Nasir Khan Kemal Ataturk was the first Muslim ruler who understood that religion and State have to be separated in the interest of the people. He had seen the decadent Ottoman Caliphate and the abysmal stagnation of State and society under its Sultans and Caliphs. For a long time decaying Turkey was regarded as the Read more…
Go to source. As an old SDS-er, I found it hard to see Tom Hayden go. However meandering his path, he was at the heart of radical history in the 60s, an erstwhile companion, if not always a comrade, on the route of every boomer lefty. One of his finer moments for me, which I’ve Read more…
Nasir Khan, October 27, 2016 “They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.” ― American author and journalist Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) ————– At Read more…
Nasir Khan Islam is a religion, a great religion, but it is not a political ideology for multicultural, multi-religious and multi-ethnic societies of the present times. It contains some golden principles such as equality, fairness and justice that are applicable in politics because such universal principles are recognised as the pillars of democracy and open Read more…
The Wall Street Journal just published an article with the headline INFANT MORTALITY SOARS IN VENEZUELA WITH HOSPITALS SUFFERING A CATASTROPHIC LACK OF SUPPLIES, THE COUNTRY’S BABIES ARE DYING AT A RATE HIGHER THAN SYRIA’S The article reported Venezuela’s overall infant mortality rate—defined as deaths within the first year of life—is currently 18.6 per 1,000 Read more…
Go to source This Sunday’s New York Times (NYT) article by Amy Chozicko, headlined “Issues in Hillary Clinton’s Past Leave Her Muted in Furor Over Donald Trump” (“Clinton Treads Lightly Amid Furor Over Trump” in the print edition) provides a fine example of how the mainstream press covers up Hillary Clinton’s problems, even when they Read more…
Green Time TV Barriers to Better Being by Don Fitz It seems like every plan to improve the environment is met with barriers that get in the way for a month, a year or a century. November Green Time episodes delve into surmounting some of those barriers, including criminalization of medical marijuana, power grid disruption, Read more…
This is a reply to a specific part of this article: http://www.workerscontrol.net/authors/spectrum-trajectory-and-role-state-workers%E2%80%99-self-management In the fifth paragraph the authors of this article mention the participatory economics (parecon) model – as developed by Albert and Hahnel. As an advocate of that model I want to address what seem to me to be some misunderstandings of the way Read more…
Nasir Khan, October 10, 2016 The Twin Towers in New York did fall on 9/11. In fact, the third high building, not far from the twin towers, also mysteriously fell without any plane crashing into it on the same day. There are two main versions of the tragic happening. First, the official version that has Read more…
Nasir Khan, October 7, 2016 Despite Indian army’s blinding of hundreds of Kashmiri youth and terrorising millions of Kashmiris in the recent weeks, there is only one outcry that is reverberating throughout the Kashmir Valley: Azadi, Azadi (Freedom, Freedom) from the Indian occupation of Kashmir. Instead of heeding to the demands of the people who Read more…
The chart below lists avoidable child deaths in various countries calculated as the difference between the number of child deaths listed by UNICEF for 2015 and the numbers of child deaths there would have been if each country had Cuba’s child mortality rate. There is no excuse for any country in the Western Hemisphere having a child Read more…
Hillary Clinton, in the first presidential debate, pointed out that Trump didn’t pay any federal tax one year, and added that he probably didn’t pay in other years as well. Trump responded to her by saying “That makes me smart”. The appropriate rejoinder is “that makes you corrupt” but Hillary Clinton and Trump, her husband’s Read more…
I wrote this blog post the other day which said that the UK Labour party should completely reject the neoliberal dogma that the central bank (Bank of England in this case) should be independent of the elected government. The UK Independent just ran an article which brought up the questions posed in my blog post. Read more…
Nasir Khan, September 30, 2016 Russian think tank Katehon’s journalist Anastasia Zhukova interviewed me recently per telephone. The following is her summary of the interview: The Palestinian Authority (PA) has been under the virtual control of Israel and its authority limited to the West Bank. It has no control over the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Read more…
I am delighted that Jeremy Corbyn was re-elected leader of the Labour party in the UK. John McDonnell, Corbyn’s right hand man and go-to guy on economic policy, recently talked about the importance of monetary policy and that it should not be narrowly focused on inflation. That was excellent, but why in the world is McDonnell guaranteeing Read more…
The ‘end justifies the means’ Machiavelli’s axiom that was gleefully consumed by the powerful & that capitalism proudly lives by, is a ridiculous & mistaken denial of consequence. It leads to the desperation & violent terror of war on all its terrible scales & blindly guides our Titanic environmental collision. Those who do whatever to Read more…
In early September 2016, Donald Trump announced his plan for a vast expansion of the U.S. military, including 90,000 new soldiers for the Army, nearly 75 new ships for the Navy, and dozens of new fighter aircraft for the Air Force. Although the cost of this increase would be substantial―about $90 billion per year―it would Read more…
Green Time TV Looking Forward by Don Fitz Did you ever ask what a positive future for all of us might include? October Green Time episodes look forward to when MLK Blvd is fixed up as nice as the Delmar Loop, when solar panels can be a key part of efficient home energy use, when Read more…
Although the mass media failed to report it, a landmark event occurred recently in connection with resolving the long-discussed problem of what to do about nuclear weapons. On August 19, 2016, a UN committee, the innocuously-named Open-Ended Working Group, voted to recommend to the UN General Assembly that it mandate the opening of negotiations in Read more…
Nasir Khan, September 4, 2016 In response to my today’s post “Indian forces’ atrocities and murders in Kashmir continue” in a Facebook group (“Daring Facts”) one Mr Jaffar Safi wrote a comment. I am producing his comment, which was not directly related to my post but I replied to him where I tried to clarify Read more…
Check out the following headlines as captured by Google today: Now if Corbyn had said “I am wealthy” he would also have been mocked by the press: “Deluded Corbyn think’s he is ‘wealthy’ with net worth of 650K when Richard Branson’s is 3.8 billion!” “Corbyn thinks he is in the same class as Richard Branson Read more…
Shortly after the Democratic Party’s platform committee concluded its deliberations this July, Bernie Sanders announced: “Thanks to the millions of people across the country who got involved in the political process . . . we now have the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party.” Although the Sanders forces didn’t obtain all Read more…
Nasir Khan, August 24, 2016 Dr Richard Falk looks at the present situation in Turkey under Erdogan from different angles, and he weighs in both positive and negative sides of the likely scenarios after the July 15 coup. Shifting political partners and allies is a common addiction of all power-hungry leaders. We who have the Read more…
Nasir Khan, August 21, 2016 This is a scholarly paper, originally in Swedish, authored by Lars Djerf in which he has concentrated mainly on the Arabic inscriptions on the Dome of the Rock (DR), their meaning and purpose in a wider political and religious context at a time when Islam had emerged as a dominant Read more…