While international news headlines remain largely focused on the war in Ukraine, little attention is given to the horrific consequences of the war which are felt in many regions around the world. Even when these repercussions are discussed, disproportionate coverage is allocated to European countries, like Germany and Austria, due to their heavy reliance on Russian energy sources. Continue reading
The latest stab at reviving nuke power is mocked by the actual reactors. Continue reading
A year ago, the Washington Post reported that the Biden administration was poised to propose a ban on menthol cigarettes. Continue reading
The French election result has again demonstrated the hard-edged rigidities of European society which make the prospect of strong purposeful (i.e. transformative) government, of the ilk of say a de Gaulle, almost impossible to emerge today at national level. However, when such national rigidities are taken in combination with the European supra-national, ‘once size fits none’ institutional EU incapacity to respond to the specifics of complex situations, we get ‘full on’ immobilism—the impossibility to change policy in any way meaningfully, in the majority of EU states. Continue reading
Less than 24 hours after news broke that President Biden is seriously considering canceling tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, organizers mobilized. Continue reading
There is something about entrenched bureaucracies that transcend nations and cultures. When bureaucracies are confronted with unanticipated or new challenges, they freeze—like a deer facing headlights. Continue reading
On April 21, President Biden announced new shipments of weapons to Ukraine, at a cost of $800 million to U.S. taxpayers. On April 25th, Secretaries Blinken and Austin announced over $300 million more military aid. The United States has now spent $3.7 billion on weapons for Ukraine since the Russian invasion, bringing total U.S. military aid to Ukraine since 2014 to about $6.4 billion. Continue reading
Russia’s war on Ukraine both reflects and deepens a global split that should remind us of Karl Marx’s famous remark: “No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces, for which there is room in it, have been developed; and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society.” The United Kingdom already lost its particular social order—its empire—while the United States is now losing its. Despite differences, both of these social orders shared a mostly private form of capitalist relations of production (the organization of enterprises centered around private employers and employees). That social order has given way to a different, mostly public form of capitalist relations of production where state officials are major employers. The latter form of capitalism is developing most dramatically in China. Continue reading
In states across the country, small-minded lawmakers are pushing cruel, vicious new bills targeting transgender children. Continue reading
Why doesn’t Congress get anything done? Well, one chamber actually does. Hundreds of bills have been passed by the House of Representatives, but have been blocked from even getting a vote in the Senate. Continue reading
On April 21, 2022, former President Barack Obama gave a speech at Stanford University on the subject of social media. In typical Obamaesque fashion, he didn’t state his point plainly. He used a lot of time, more than an hour, to advocate for social media censorship. He only used that word once, in order to deny that it was in fact what he meant, but the weasel words and obfuscation couldn’t hide what Obama was talking about. Continue reading
“Keep On Truckin’” was an iconic underground cartoon created in 1968 by comic master Robert Crumb. Continue reading
Everyone’s anti-war until the war propaganda starts. Nobody thinks of themselves as a warmonger, but then the spin machine gets going and before you know it they’re spouting the slogans they’ve been programmed to spout and waving the flags the flags they’ve been programmed to wave and consenting to whatever the imperial war machine wants in that moment. Continue reading
With Russian shells raining down on Ukrainian cities, an uneasy ceasefire in Yemen, the attack on Palestinians at prayer in Jerusalem and many other conflicts around the world, it might seem to some to be inappropriate to talk about peace. Continue reading
Twitter has done an about-face and sold the company to the richest person in the world for $44 billion. Continue reading
A friend, a young journalist in Gaza, Mohammed Rafik Mhawesh, told me that food prices in the besieged Strip have skyrocketed in recent weeks and that many already impoverished families are struggling to put food on the table. Continue reading
On April 22, Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill dissolving the Reedy Creek Improvement District. Put that way, it sounds rather routine, but it isn’t. DeSantis called a special session of the legislature just to get this done. The only thing routine about it is that it’s an example of Rule Number One in Florida politics since 2018: Don’t publicly disagree with Ron DeSantis, or he’ll throw a tantrum and try to punish you. Continue reading
Instead of championing solar, wind and conservation energy, the GOP (Greedy Old Party) is championing the skyrocketing profits and prices for the omnicidal fossil fuel and atomic power companies. Continue reading
There is a reason why Israel is insistent on linking the series of attacks carried out by Palestinians recently to a specific location, namely the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank. By doing so, the embattled Naftali Bennett’s government can simply order another deadly military operation in Jenin to reassure its citizens that the situation is under control. Continue reading
The newsman tells me the CIA’s “Queen of Torture” now runs a life and beauty coaching business which helps midlife women “look good, feel good, and do good.” Continue reading
Much ink has been spilled over Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s failure to recuse himself from cases involving the 2020 election, despite his wife’s participation in efforts to overthrow it. Continue reading
The United States, its NATO allies, and their partners in corporate media are engaging in an unprecedented war propaganda effort. Their goal is to get and maintain public support for their actions against Russia which are playing out in Ukraine. The messaging is constant and isn’t at all subtle. One cannot go online for any purpose without seeing exhortations to help Ukrainian children, buy products colored in blue and yellow, or somehow “stand with Ukraine.” Continue reading
When Russian and Ukrainian delegations meeting in Turkey on March 29 reached an initial understanding regarding a list of countries that could serve as security guarantors for Kyiv should an agreement be struck, Israel appeared on the list. The other countries included the US, the UK, China, Russia, France, Turkey, Germany, Canada, Italy and Poland. Continue reading
War is an ugly part of the human experience. Everything about it is hideous. War is most obviously the act of invasion and the brutality that goes along with its operations. No war is precise; every war hurts civilians. Each act of bombardment sends a neurological shudder through a society. Continue reading
A mismatch between the title and subtitle to Matt Lewis’s April 18 column at The Daily Beast—“Canceling Student Loan Debt Only Leaves a Broken System in Place,” and “Democrats are delusional if they think student loan debt forgiveness is going to save them and Biden at the ballot box”—perfectly illustrates the fallacy of mistaking bad policy for bad politics. Continue reading
There is a reason why Israel is insistent on linking the series of attacks carried out by Palestinians recently to a specific location, namely the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank. By doing so, the embattled Naftali Bennett’s government can simply order another deadly military operation in Jenin to reassure its citizens that the situation is under control. Continue reading
I’m often asked whether consumers are better or worse off since the modern consumer movement took hold in the nineteen sixties. Continue reading
When a gruesome six-minute video of Ukrainian soldiers shooting and torturing handcuffed and tied up Russian soldiers circulated online, outraged people on social media and elsewhere compared this barbaric behavior to that of Daesh. Continue reading
Your life could get a lot more dangerous. Republican appointees on the Supreme Court seem poised to strip away basic safety standards for our workplaces, our food, our air and water. Continue reading
In a British film called Never Let Me Go, our world exists in a parallel universe in which second class children are raised to become organ donors. They will donate organs for the needs of the ruling class until they die, and willingly, since they are taught by doing so that they are thereby making a better world. Continue reading
The city of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts prohibit discrimination based upon race, color, gender, disability, religion, and national origin. Such discrimination is prohibited by most cities, states, and the federal government as well. But one wouldn’t know that due to a plethora of discriminatory acts carried out against Russian nationals. The latest perpetrator is the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) , which announced that citizens of Russia and Belarus who reside in those countries will be barred from participating in the Boston marathon taking place on April 18, 2022. The war in Ukraine, years of Russiagate hysteria, and corporate media demonization of Vladimir Putin and all Russians have led to this moment of dubious distinction. Continue reading
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Nothing is more personal than the right to control your own body
Roe doesn’t just protect abortion rights. It’s the keystone that keeps politicians out of the most intimate aspects of our lives.
Posted on May 5, 2022 by Olivia Alperstein
The personal, as they say, is political. And there’s nothing more personal than the right to control your own body. Continue reading →