It is understood by all that at least two sides are required in a war scenario. One side must be waging war on another side. It is not required that the aggressed side fight back. To surrender to a warmaker, however, means coming under the suzerainty of the warmaker. That is almost always anathema to a people since people cherish[Read More…]
A slice of president Joe Biden’s State of the Union address that calls for closer analysis: Putin’s invasion has been a test for the ages. A test for America. A test for the world. Would we stand for the most basic of principles? Would we stand for sovereignty? Would we stand for the right of people to live free from[Read More…]
The 26 January JTA Daily Briefing arrived in my mailbox with the subject: “Major Israeli Raid in Jenin Kills 9 Palestinians.” I was sadly dumbfounded by the imparted insensitivity and inhumanity. Would any humanity-loving organization blare such news about the killing of the Other? Supposedly, the Oslo accords were a movement toward peace, but Zionist Israel has continued to wreak[Read More…]
Can you imagine walking downtown in Seattle, Vancouver, New York, Toronto, or any other burg in Canada or the United States and not seeing any panhandlers? This homelessness, begging, and dumpster diving is not confined to major urban centers. Last week, I was in Yellowknife, the capital of Denedeh (Home of the People; colonially designated as Northwest Territories), home to[Read More…]
In fits of, what might well be termed, masochism, some of us now-and-then tune in to the legacy media. When doing so, one is likely to hear western-aligned politicians rhetorize ad nauseam about the linguistically vogue rules-based order. Now and then, the word “international” is also inserted: the rules-based international order. But what exactly is this rules-based order? The way[Read More…]
There are many western commentators who, apparently in profound dismay that a country which holds up the banner of socialism could be so economically successful, tiresomely deny that China practises socialism and insist that it is instead capitalist. Author Jeff Brown wrote that China is “history’s most successful socialist and communist country.” This conflation of communism and socialism is common but inaccurate.[Read More…]
It must be excruciatingly difficult having to decide whether to put some of one’s hundreds-of-billions of dollars, along with potential future profit, at risk to affirm one’s previous public declaration of support for the freedom of speech principle. That is the dilemma that Musk has before him. Musk finds Twitter threatened with an advertiser boycott. As I previously alluded to,[Read More…]
I feel for American basketball player Brittney Griner. Did she break the law? Yes, she did, and she pled guilty at trial. But a sentence of nine years — to be spent in what the New York Times calls a “penal colony” — for bringing hashish into Russia for self-treatment (assuming this is true) seems overly harsh. But the law[Read More…]
Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the United States House of Representatives, is reportedly scheduled to visit Taipei in August 2022. The stated purpose is supporting Asian democracy. The trip has more than irked the Chinese. The trip has obviously not been approved by the one recognized government of China in Beijing. Some may downplay the speaker of the US House of[Read More…]
The Tsilhqot’in Struggle On 26 March 2018, Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau spoke of the six Tsilhqot’in chiefs who were arrested during a sacred peace-pipe ceremony and subsequently hanged for their part in a war to prevent the spread of smallpox by colonialists: “We recognize that these six chiefs were leaders of a nation, that they acted in accordance with[Read More…]
Insanity has often been defined as trying the same thing over and over and getting the same result. Case in point, Ukraine was seeking NATO membership to bolster its security. This membership would have come at the expense of Russian security, as Russian president Vladimir Putin made clear. To thwart NATO’s (i.e., the US’s) hegemonic ambitions and preserve its own[Read More…]
The New York Times continues to selectively promote news that fits the Establishment narrative. The NYT portrays the nine-year sentence of the Russian “opposition leader” Aleksei Navalny to a high-security prison as a travesty of justice. Was it unjust? If so, justice must be demanded. What I can comment on is a factual inaccuracy by the NYT: Navalny is not the[Read More…]
Review of World War in Syria by A.B. Abrams On 30 August 2021, the United States’ 20-year military occupation of Afghanistan came to an end when the removal of American forces was completed. Although the withdrawal was botched, it was the correct move. The withdrawal is ignominious because it turns out that the much ballyhooed US fighting forces were, in[Read More…]
On 14 January, a breaking news story from the New York Times informed its readers: “U.S. Says Russia Sent Saboteurs Into Ukraine to Create Pretext for Invasion.” Unsurprisingly, Washington “did not release details of the evidence it had collected.” Why did the NYT not question the withholding of evidence? Why even deign to report what so easily could be dismissed,[Read More…]
For decades, Hollywood has produced a plethora of films extolling American military prowess in warfare. Aside from Oliver Stone films and a few others, e.g., Casualties of War, usually these Hollywood films depict the United States as a force for good defeating fascists and other evildoers. Never-ending US militarism has provided a cornucopia of potential war scripts for Hollywood. Currently[Read More…]
The Doomsday Clock has been sitting the past year at 100 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to civilization-ending apocalypse. The United States has done little to quell doomsday apprehensions by ratcheting up tensions with China over Taiwan and its warships in the South China Sea, as well as with Russia over Ukraine, further NATO expansion, and[Read More…]
The only place I want to hear him speak is in the dock at the Hague at the International Criminal Court facing trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity. — George Galloway, former British MP and the director of The Killing$ of Tony Blair Canada’s head of state, also the queen of Canada, has made the war criminal Tony[Read More…]
Settlers enjoyed a seeming free permission: to dispossess natives at will of all the best land, turn them out of traditional fishing locations, disrespect elders, women, children and religion, leave whole communities without political representation and punish men for breaking laws which they could have no means of knowing existed. It was inconceivable that all this change could happen overnight[Read More…]
The UK government is considering boycotting China’s winter Olympic Games to be held in Beijing. The British foreign office cites “international efforts to hold China to account for its human rights violations in Xinjiang.” “It is the longstanding policy of the government that the determination of whether genocide has taken place should be made by a competent court with[Read More…]
They send a hundred RCMP to go protect a pipeline and not protect people’s lives so we need to push back. They put industry, they put fracking, they put gas and oil over everyone’s lives. — Eve Saint, a Wet’suwet’en land defender In the nineteenth century, Gilbert Malcolm Sproat, a colonial official, wrote an account — The Nootka: Scenes and[Read More…]
The implications of the Baghuz Massacre should deeply underscore the integrity, morality, and vital importance of WikiLeaks and its heroic publisher and political prisoner Julian Assange. The Baghuz Massacre was a failed cover-up by the United States. WikiLeaks is the journalistic enterprise that shines a spotlight on the egregious crimes of states. Assange is imprisoned under tortuous conditions because he[Read More…]
As the world prepares to depart 2021 and head into 2022, it is clear that the United States is a declining economic power and that China continues its rapid upward trajectory. While homelessness and poverty sully the debt-laden US, China has eliminated extreme poverty. What is the American response to economic disparities domestically? Institute a guaranteed minimum income? Andrew Wang[Read More…]
Hegemony requires a coordinated mechanism to be in place for a belligerent entity to designate enemies, attack the leader(s) of the designated enemy, control the narrative (i.e., lie), launch unprovoked attacks that murder a citizenry, destroy the economic basis of the named enemy, loot its resources, topple the enemy’s leadership, and replace the leadership with one deemed acceptable to the[Read More…]
What are western values? One often hears a representative of a western country praising its western values. In a 2017 statement Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau adumbrated Canadian values as “openness, compassion, equality, and inclusion.” Given the psychological torture that Julian Assange has been subjected to over the years at the hands of western nations like the Britain, the United[Read More…]
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people … The General Assembly, Proclaims this Universal[Read More…]
I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. — Mike Pompeo, former US secretary of state on how the United States conducts its business One of the filters in the Propaganda Model propounded by professors Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky was stoking a fear of communism. [1] The establishment’s anti-communism has never abated in the United States.[Read More…]
A video in which Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev is interviewed by Orla Guerin has resurfaced; the interview took place in November 2020. (The BBC version.) Revealing is what is not seen in the BBC version. When Aliyev held up the mirror to Guerin’s “accusation” that there was no free media in Azerbaijan, the BBC responded by censoring Aliyev’s reference to[Read More…]
The coverage of groups of people, described as mobs, rioters, or protestors depending on one’s prejudice or adherence to accurate reporting, who “stormed” the Capitol in Washington and the Legislative Council in Hong Kong is revealing for how media and politicians react. The American media ran headlines such as: “Trump supporters storm Capitol,” Washington Post “Inside the mob that swarmed[Read More…]
Yes, there is a pandemic. And, yes, the COVID-19 numbers and deaths are rising in certain locales. In the Canadian province of Alberta, lockdown measures were put into effect that include shutting all casinos, gyms, dine-in restaurants, and bars. Mask wearing, despite what science says, has been mandated. As well, all outdoor and indoor social gatherings have been banned. As[Read More…]
When French president Emmanuel Macron was pilloried in some quarters for defending freedom of expression as a French value, Australian prime minister Scott Morrison backed his European counterpart: “We share values. We stand for the same things.” This professed French/Australian value for freedom of expression has now come back to bite the backside of the Australian prime minister. When it[Read More…]
France has seen a spate of attacks carried out by radicalized Muslims. The attacks and killings must be denounced. But more so must one denounce the terrorism and killings carried out by the French state against Muslims in its wars abroad. In a move that gives a strong inkling of French values, the French state has targeted 76 mosques for[Read More…]
Another Iranian nuclear scientist has been assassinated. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed by an elaborately planned and executed ambush. The complexity of the attack and the resources required to carry it out strongly indicate a state actor. Fingers of blame quickly pointed at a likely assassin: Israel. The United States was probably in some form of collaboration since it is widely[Read More…]
Education is supposed to encourage critical thinking. However, if critical thinking ever were a part of the education curriculum, it usually goes out the window around Remembrance Day. Take, for instance, Canada Remembers Times the Veterans’ Week Special Edition (5-11 November 2020). It is published by Veterans Affairs Canada and made available in BC provincial elementary schools. On page one[Read More…]
On 10 November 2020, the United States secretary-of-state Mike Pompeo, he of the ill-famed confession “We lied, we cheated, we stole,” spoke at the Ronald Reagan Institute. The liar Pompeo can even speak candidly, “I’ve talked about American exceptionalism. I did so in Brussels; I did it in Cairo; I did it in Jakarta, and every opportunity that I’ve had[Read More…]
There have been some horrendous, despicable killings by Muslim extremists in France. Such killings must be condemned. French president Emmanuel Macron played the victim card, saying that France “will not give into terrorism.” Yet when 21st century France engages in overseas militarism, otherwise known as state terrorism, in places with large Muslim populations – places that never attacked France —[Read More…]
There is a piece of news on an important anniversary missing from western state and corporate news. This year, 2020, is the 70th anniversary of the Chinese People’s Volunteers (CPV) army entering the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to help in, what the Chinese call, the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. It is described by the[Read More…]
Wherever we lift one soul from a life of poverty, we are defending human rights. And whenever we fail in this mission, we are failing human rights. — Kofi Annan, former United Nations Secretary-General Among other items “proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,” the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “… human beings[Read More…]
Biochemist, writer, humanitarian activist, and artist, Gideon Polya has had a selection of his essays gathered into a compendium titled US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide (Korsgaard Publishing, 2020). The compendium is important because it brings to the forefront, for anyone who cares an iota for peace and social justice, the horrible crimes of the “mendacious and politically dominant[Read More…]
Calculated Exoneration: Command Responsibility and War Crimes in Afghanistan 
DOJ Called Upon to Investigate Environmental Activists Abuses 
The World’s Coffee Shops Have Emerged as Plant Milk’s Front Line 
Lara Sheehi’s ordeal, like Steven Salaita’s, is not quite over 
“Facing Clear Evidence of Peril” in a Country of Lies 
The case of Kashmir: A Gandhian Resolution 
Non-Availability of Badly Needed Funds for Dalit Students Increases Their Difficulties 
A bureaucrat-turned- minister in a mess 
Hundreds Of Thousands Of Workers’ 24-Hour Mega Transport Strike Halts Germany 
Oldest Interfaith Organization in America Calls for Children to Have More Rights Than Guns 
What’s the Best Way Out from the War in Ukraine? 
How Indigenous Land Management Practices Are a Blueprint for Climate-Resilient Agriculture 
In memory of Hugo Chavez on 10th death Anniversary 
Xi’s ‘Chilling’ Remarks: A Multipolar World Offers Challenges and Opportunities to the Middle East and Africa 
Ukraine War – US-China Relations And the Doomsday Clock 
Anti-Rahul Defamation Card Has Its Limitations! 
Questions We Should Ask to Understand Real Impact of Poverty Reduction and Welfare Schemes 
Punjab: Democracy Under Siege? 
Declaration excessive dividends by the Board of HZL may not be in compliance with Section 123 of the Companies Act 
Men, masculinities, and gender equality 
EU Warns After Russia Plans To Place Tactical Nuclear Weapon In Belarus 
A Hazardous Decision: Supplying Ukraine with Depleted Uranium Shells 
Media and the March to War 
The Basic Issue is not of Taking Sides in Superpower Rivalry, it is of Durable Peace to Save Earth’s Life 
The Pentagon’s Budget from Hell 
“…I want poetry to be detonated like a bomb!” -Nathalie Quintane 
Bundelkhand Must Choose its Priorities Carefully 
Citizenship: Beyond the Forked Vision 
Caste-wise census is necessary for balanced development 
Tribal woman murdered after rape in Rohtas and strong protest demanding punishment of culprits 
Why Avoiding Catastrophic War is the Biggest Priority Today 
Labor in market, and the mainstream economics 
Serbia Shall Never Forget NATO Aggression, Vows Serb President 
Kerala’s New Public Health Bill 2023: Subservient to Market Forces rather than Deliberative Democracy 
The Piracy of Development – The 3-Ds: Dispossession, Displacement, Destitution 
The Contemporary Relevance of Rosa Luxemburg 
Does Court Judgement on Rahul Gandhi Breach Human Rights (Freedom of Expression) 
From Oslo to Sharm el-Sheik 
Is Washington now Khan’s Buddy? 
Nord Stream sabotage was to undercut Germany, says Seymour Hersh 
Our beloved K.P.Sasi is no more. Filmmaker, cartoonist, writer, mentor, friend and above all tireless activist championing the cause of every underdog, Sasi breathed his last, mid-afternoon this Christmas day – after battling a medical condition for months. I remember the last time I met him, almost exactly a month before he passed away, at the ayurvedic healing center in[Read More…]
