Articles by: Justin Podur

Asking the Oppressed to Be Nonviolent Is an Impossible Standard That Ignores History

Asking the Oppressed to Be Nonviolent Is an Impossible Standard That Ignores History

In January 2023, after five police officers killed Tyre Nichols, President Joe Biden quickly issued a statement calling on protesters to stay nonviolent. “As Americans grieve, the Department of Justice conducts its investigation, and state authorities continue their work, I join Tyre’s family in calling for peaceful protest,” said Biden. “Outrage is understandable, but violence is never acceptable. Violence is destructive and against[Read More…]

by — 17/02/2023 — Comments are Disabled — World
How Pakistan Could Find a Development-First Path to Peace in Balochistan

How Pakistan Could Find a Development-First Path to Peace in Balochistan

The disappearances and killings of Baloch activists living in Pakistan and abroad under mysterious circumstances have made headlines in recent years. The surge in cases relating to these “enforced disappearances” highlights the urgency for Pakistan to resolve the grievances felt by the people of the region as it tries to forge an identity away from the U.S. and looks to China for its future[Read More…]

by — 09/03/2022 — 1 comment — World
Talking to Vijay Prashad about “Modernization”

Talking to Vijay Prashad about “Modernization”

Interviewing Vijay Prashad about the question of “What Should the Left do About China?” Transcript of the Anti-Empire Project’s Anti-Empire Radio Episode 101, recorded January 13, 2022. Justin Podur: Well, Vijay Prashad, welcome. Here we are. Vijay Prashad: Thanks. Great to be with you, Justin. Justin Podur: For the listeners who don’t know, Vijay is the director of the Tri[Read More…]

by — 31/01/2022 — Comments are Disabled — Life/Philosophy
Illustration by Nathaniel St. Clair

Sanctions as a weapon targeting development

The United Nations is currently sanctioning groups in Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Libya, Guinea-Bissau, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Mali. Sanctions in Non-African countries include Iraq, Yemen, the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Lebanon, and North Korea. The Security Council states that “since 1966, the Security Council has established 30 sanctions regimes, in Southern Rhodesia,[Read More…]

by — 04/11/2021 — Comments are Disabled — World
A destroyed Afghanistan has been an imperialist priority for 200 years

A destroyed Afghanistan has been an imperialist priority for 200 years

As the British before them, US imperial propaganda treats itself as the victim and those they invaded and occupied as the criminal On August 18th, shortly after the Taliban took Kabul, former British Prime Minister Theresa May stood up in the British House of Commons and asked: “Where is global Britain on the streets of Kabul?” The rhetorical question, as well[Read More…]

by — 27/10/2021 — Comments are Disabled — Imperialism
 Flags mark the spot where the remains of over 750 children were buried at former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan, June 25 © AFP / GEOFF ROBINS

Canada is Waging an All-Front Legal War Against Indigenous People

Canada is developing a new image: one of burning churches, toppling statues, and mass graves. There are thousands more unmarked graves, thousands more Indigenous children killed at residential schools, remaining to be unearthed. There can be no denying that this is Canada, and it has to change. But can Canada transform itself for the better? If the revelation of the[Read More…]

by — 10/08/2021 — 1 comment — Human Rights
Is Colombia’s Military Displacing Peasants to Protect the Environment or Sell Off Natural Resources?

Is Colombia’s Military Displacing Peasants to Protect the Environment or Sell Off Natural Resources?

Colombia witnessed a series of mass protests at the end of April following a call for a national strike in the city of Cali. Still ongoing, the protests have many causes: an apparent “tax reform” that was going to transfer even more wealth to the 1 percent in Colombia; the failure of the most recent peace accords; and the inability of Colombia’s[Read More…]

by — 22/05/2021 — Comments are Disabled — World
India’s right-wing government is so hungry for profit it will risk a famine

India’s right-wing government is so hungry for profit it will risk a famine

India’s right-wing government has been deploying all the modern tools of repression against a historic farmers’ protest. Much is at stake. For the people of India, their agricultural system is about to get far more precarious. For its farmers, ruin, and bankruptcy for millions, is all but guaranteed. For the government of Narendra Modi and his elite backers, it’s a[Read More…]

by — 19/03/2021 — Comments are Disabled — India
Economists’ solutions to health crises can be disastrous

Economists’ solutions to health crises can be disastrous

  Classical economics helped kill millions in the British Empire’s famines; following economic orthodoxy today could be just as deadly I’m writing this at 585,000 worldwide active cases, 26,000 deaths, and with only China and South Korea seemingly under some sort of control (using a social metric tool, Worldometer). The stimulus package announced by the US government is at $2 trillion,[Read More…]

by — 29/03/2020 — Comments are Disabled — World
Don’t expect justice from the Imperial Criminal Court

Don’t expect justice from the Imperial Criminal Court

The ICC provides no legal counterbalance to the arrogance of an empire’s power. It is the empire’s court. In June, a group of international lawyers sued the European Union for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The lawyers claim that when the EU switched to a policy of deterring refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean in 2014, in particular[Read More…]

by — 12/07/2019 — 1 comment — Imperialism
Sanctions Are Genocidal, and They Are the US’s Favorite Weapon

Sanctions Are Genocidal, and They Are the US’s Favorite Weapon

After withdrawing from the nuclear deal with Iran last year and resuming sanctions last November, the White House in April announced that its goal was to “drive Iranian exports to zero.” To make this drive happen, the White House stopped allowing (my emphasis) countries like India, China, Japan, Turkey, and South Korea to import Iranian oil: dictating to sovereign countries[Read More…]

by — 13/06/2019 — 4 comments — World
How Human Rights Organizations are part of the problem

How Human Rights Organizations are part of the problem

Who can we believe? Political parties and partisan organizations now present not only their own opinions but, as the old joke goes, their own facts as well. Are the Palestinians being shot at the Gaza fence trying to invade Israel, as the Israeli Army shooting them claims, or are they trying to protest their confinement in the open-air prison in[Read More…]

by — 17/04/2019 — Comments are Disabled — Human Rights
Inside the neoliberal laboratory preparing for the theft of Venezuela’s economy

Inside the neoliberal laboratory preparing for the theft of Venezuela’s economy

As we watch a US-backed coup unfold in a distant country, as in Venezuela today, our eyes are drawn to the diplomatic, military, and economic elements of the US campaign. The picture of a scowling John Bolton with a big yellow notepad with the message “5,000 troops to Colombia” reveals the diplomatic and military elements. The New York Times headline “U.S. Sanctions[Read More…]

by — 17/02/2019 — 1 comment — World
Just How Powerful Is Russia Internationally?

Just How Powerful Is Russia Internationally?

After the 2016 U.S. election, Barack Obama provided some perspective on the U.S.’s growing fear of Russia; fear that has only grown in the year since. “Russia can’t change us,” Obama said. “They are a smaller country, they are a weaker country, their economy doesn’t produce anything that anybody wants to buy except oil, and gas and arms.” Obama was[Read More…]

by — 13/03/2018 — 1 comment — World
Lessons From Ed Herman’s Lifelong War Against Lies

Lessons From Ed Herman’s Lifelong War Against Lies

  The story goes that Einstein’s theory of relativity began with a simple question: What if a person could sit on a beam of light? A single inquiry led to an entire field of study, and perhaps the world’s most famous scientific breakthrough. The late Ed Herman’s questions were less playful. They were about war and death, lies and power[Read More…]

by — 21/02/2018 — 1 comment — Life/Philosophy
5 Ways Capitalist Logic Has Sabotaged The Scientific Community

5 Ways Capitalist Logic Has Sabotaged The Scientific Community

Academics should be collaborating, not competing for pseudoscientific rankings. At a time when federal employees are prohibited from uttering the phrase “climate change,” the right routinely attempts to undermine universities’ legitimacy, and tuitions have skyrocketed alongside student debt, it seems perverse that academics would further endanger their mission to educate and enlighten. Yet by embracing a malignant form of pseudoscience,[Read More…]

by — 31/01/2018 — 1 comment — Life/Philosophy
Afghanistan’s Painful, Never-Ending War Takes A New Bad Turn

Afghanistan’s Painful, Never-Ending War Takes A New Bad Turn

The return of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Butcher of Kabul, is the latest symbol of the country’s destruction.   This past May, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, sometimes known as the Butcher of Kabul, Afghanistan’s most famous and probably most hated warlord, returned to Kabul through a negotiated deal with the government. He arrived in a convoy of trucks, with armed followers brandishing their[Read More…]

by — 29/10/2017 — 1 comment — World
Syria: The Afghans Are Coming!

Syria: The Afghans Are Coming!

  There’s a phrase that keeps popping up in discussions of Syria. It’s a string of words that always appear together, without variation, which is a tell for propaganda phrases and talking points. In the context of Libya, there was a line about “African Mercenaries”. The one I keep hearing about Syria is that Assad has “Afghan Shia militias” fighting[Read More…]

by — 19/05/2017 — 1 comment — World
The Much-Maligned Views Of Rania Khalek On Syria

The Much-Maligned Views Of Rania Khalek On Syria

When journalist Rania Khalek’s lecture was cancelled on February 27, the group that invited her, Students for Justice in Palestine – University of North Carolina (SJP-UNC) issued a statement saying that the cancellation was because of Rania’s “views” on Syria, and that they believed “her invitation would mistakenly imply SJP to hold such views”. They also added that they “do[Read More…]

by — 01/04/2017 — 1 comment — World
Women Rise Up Against Gender Violence In The Caribbean

Women Rise Up Against Gender Violence In The Caribbean

On March 11, survivors of violence against women and their allies and supporters held marches in six Caribbean countries. Started by two Barbadian women, Ronelle King and Allyson Benn, the movement had the hashtag #LifeInLeggings. In Jamaica, one of the groups marching was the Tambourine Army, a movement of activists dedicated to eradicating sexual violence against women and girls. Some[Read More…]

by — 23/03/2017 — 1 comment — Patriarchy
No To Peace In Colombia?

No To Peace In Colombia?

In the four years that it took to negotiate this peace deal, Colombia has been moving inexorably towards October 2, the day that the people could have their say about the deal that would end the five-decade long war. The polls predicted an easy win for the “yes” side. The government’s negotiators and the guerrillas (FARC) campaigned for a strong[Read More…]

by — 03/10/2016 — 1 comment — World
Free Homa Hoodfar

Free Homa Hoodfar

At the end of August, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif traveled to six Latin American countries: Cuba, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, and Venezuela. On what was mainly a business tour, Zarif discussed megaprojects like the Grand Interoceanic canal. An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said that “Iran has such a position that it can pick its political friends and trade[Read More…]

by — 10/09/2016 — 1 comment — Human Rights
Haiti 101 Years After US Invasion, Still Resisting Domination

Haiti 101 Years After US Invasion, Still Resisting Domination

US invaded and occupied Haiti 101 years ago today, and remained there for nineteen years. Accomplishments of the occupation include raiding the Haitian National Bank, re-instituting forced labor, establishing the hated National Guard, and getting a 25-year contract for the US corporation, United Fruit. There was a pretext for the invasion – the assassination of Haiti’s president in 1915. But[Read More…]

by — 29/07/2016 — 1 comment — Imperialism