Sections
-
Recent Posts
Search Results for: Poverty
Future of American democracy: On inequality, polarization and violence
In January 2017, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Democracy Index downgraded the state of democracy in the United States from “full democracy” to “flawed democracy.” Continue reading
Will the Biden team be warmongers or peacemakers?
Congratulations to Joe Biden on his election as America’s next president! People all over this pandemic-infested, war-torn and poverty-stricken world were shocked by the brutality and racism of the Trump administration, and are anxiously wondering whether Biden’s presidency will open the door to the kind of international cooperation that we need to confront the serious problems facing humanity in this century. Continue reading
Calling this ‘our democracy’ is like slaves referring to ‘our plantation’
While Americans are reprogrammed every four years for the most important desperately crucial national emergency election since the last one, which will assure that Wall Street, the Pentagon, Israel and billionaires maintain power and control over everything that matters, most eligible voters will choose neither of the ruling power’s candidates and in a sense exercise democratic values by refusing to act as majority puppets. Continue reading
Out of the UK, a bold pay prescription for a post-Trump America
Two British think tanks are calling for a cap on the compensation that goes to corporate chiefs.
On November 9, 1932, the day after Election Day, progressively minded Americans woke up feeling a sense of relief—and a sense they might finally have an opportunity to forge real social change. At that moment, in the depth of the Great Depression, progressives could sense a new beginning. Continue reading
Egypt has struck the right balance on COVID-19
Egyptian government deserves praise for delivering stability and growth over the years
There is hardly a nation on earth that hasn’t been negatively impacted by the lethal, highly-contagious virus that has swept over our planet killing the most vulnerable, stealing jobs and hurling families into poverty. Egypt hasn’t escaped the pandemic’s tentacles but so far it has weathered the storm with remarkable success when compared to developed nations such as the UK, France, Belgium, Spain and the United States of America that alone accounts for almost a quarter of global cases. Continue reading
Instability, poverty and nuclear weapons
The president of the United States has the power to fire off thousands of nuclear weapons and destroy the world. As succinctly explained by William Perry and Tom Collina in the New York Times, “Mr. Trump has the absolute authority to start a nuclear war. Within minutes, the president could unleash the equivalent of more than 10,000 Hiroshima bombs. He does not need a second opinion. The defense secretary has no say. Congress has no role.” Continue reading
Media responds with apathy, disappointment as US-backed coup gov’t concedes defeat in Bolivia
Across the spectrum, corporate media has endorsed last year’s rightwing takeover of Bolivia, refusing to label it as a coup. Coverage of Sunday’s historical elections hasn’t been much better.
Bolivia’s Movement to Socialism (MAS) party is celebrating what appears to be a crushing, landslide victory in Sunday’s elections. Although official vote counting is far from over, exit polls show an overwhelming triumph for the socialists, and a repudiation of the right-wing military government of Jeanine Añez, who has ruled since the coup last November. At the same time, the corporate press appears less than pleased about the return to democracy for the Andean country. Continue reading
IMF seizes on pandemic to pave way for privatization in 81 countries
76 of the 91 loans the IMF has negotiated since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic come attached with demands for deep cuts to public services and policies that benefit corporations over people.
The enormous economic dislocation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique opportunity to fundamentally alter the structure of society, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) if using the crisis to implement near-permanent austerity measures across the world. Continue reading
Another capitalist market brand: Brain death
America and the world are suffering a crisis of capitalism like no other in recent history. With an economy teetering on a mountain of incredible debt without which it could not continue, and a virus threatening the globe but with the highest death toll in America and even a president leading in gross ignorance about it testing positive, stresses and strains are created that, while showing positive awakening among some to systemic rather than personal problems, also creates negative descents into fantasy among others that make immaterial religious mythology seem like critical examinations of material reality. Continue reading
Renewed Azerbaijani attacks seek to destabilize Caucasus region and deprive Armenians of right to live on their own lands
Repelling foreign invaders has been the single most recurring event throughout all of Armenian history. This year is no different. Continue reading
How to become the ultimate progressive
People wonder at times, “Why am I here? What is my purpose? What am I destined to do before I die?” Continue reading
Afghanistan peace talks illuminate America’s failure
It might also result in the Taliban taking the nation all the way back to square one
US President Donald Trump is no foreign policy strategist. His plan to bring US troops home from Afghanistan was one of his most popular pre-election pledges in 2016 and now he is rushing to fulfil it whatever the consequences to boost his flagging campaign which is why his administration is brokering negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Continue reading
Freedom Rider: Losers, suckers and war
Democrats are up in arms over Trump’s latest mouth-burst, but the truth is that both corporate parties have made the people suckers for endless, ‘bipartisan’ wars.
Americans certainly love war. Most will deny having those feelings, they will instead talk about warfare as a means of protecting freedom, spreading democracy or fighting tyrants. The end result of course is mass death, mostly of people in far away and non-white lands, but also of significant numbers of Americans. The carnage is usually downplayed in favor of worshipping those who go to kill and perhaps be killed themselves. This twisted dynamic is most visible when anyone dares to question the narrative of exceptionalism and benevolent warriors. Continue reading
Billionaires lives matter far, far more than yours
As we stagger towards the ultimate expression of our fake democracy in November it’s important to acknowledge what won’t be changing a bit whichever of the two parties of capital come out ahead with a minority of the American electorate’s support. The richest people in the nation, an ever-smaller group as inequality, showing massive growth of poverty, disease and the profits of warfare, will not only maintain their historic control but also exercise more of it than ever in the past. The capitalist pandemic and economic collapse will get worse before things get better and they won’t get better until we stop swallowing the Republican-Democratic Party line about what high ideals this nation stands for in contradiction to the low reality of what it is. You know, all that stuff many are upset about, divided over and struggling to understand without needing more therapy, drugs, religion, guns, shopping, voting and other distractions. Continue reading
‘Dying to fish’: How Israeli piracy destroyed Gaza’s once thriving fishing industry
On August 16, the Israeli navy declared the Gaza sea a closed military zone. A few days later, a group of Gaza fishermen decided to take their chances by fishing within a mere two or three nautical miles off the Gaza shore. No sooner had they cast their nets, Israeli navy bullets began whizzing all around them. Continue reading
Trump’s 50 promises to be broken
All politicians lie. Rare exceptions prove the rule. Continue reading
The great election fraud: Will our freedoms survive another election?
And so it begins again, the never-ending, semi-delusional, train-wreck of an election cycle in which the American people allow themselves to get worked up into a frenzy over the misguided belief that the future of this nation—nay, our very lives—depends on who we elect as president. Continue reading
“A disturbing milestone”: America’s top 12 plutocrats now own $1 trillion in wealth
New figures from the Institute for Policy Studies show that, despite a pandemic that has stunted the economy for months, America’s billionaire class is becoming richer than ever, adding nearly $700 billion to their fortune since the nationwide lockdown in March.
For the first time in history, the 12 richest individuals in the United States collectively hold over $1 trillion in wealth. New figures from the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) show that, despite a pandemic that has stunted the economy for months, America’s billionaire class is becoming richer than ever, adding nearly $700 billion to their fortune since the nationwide lockdown in March, now holding $1.015 trillion. Continue reading
CIA-sponsored propaganda has been around for 75 years
The release of a report by the U.S. Department of State’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), billed as the Donald Trump administration’s “dedicated center for countering foreign disinformation and propaganda, cites the Strategic Culture Foundation in Russia, Canada’s Global Research Center, and other online publications as “proxy sites” for Russian intelligence and the Russian Foreign Ministry. The State Department’s report is titled, “Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem” and it is not much different than the series of reports issued by the State Department’s “International Information Program” in the mid-2000s that were used to debase U.S. journalists and authors critical of the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney neo-conservative wars of choice. Those diatribes, like the recent one masquerading as a “special report,” were written on the U.S. taxpayers’ dime and represent a squandering of money. Continue reading
On its 85th anniversary, ‘no damn politician’ should be allowed to scrap Social Security
On this anniversary, we must renew our commitment to preserving and expanding Social Security in the face of these relentless efforts to undermine it.
When President Franklin Roosevelt signed Social Security into law 85 years ago today [August 14, 1935], he expressed hope that the program would offer Americans a “measure of protection” from the “hazards and vicissitudes of life.” True to FDR’s vision, Social Security has protected workers from some of the costliest hazards and vicissitudes of life—including loss of income from retirement, disability, and the death of a family breadwinner. This year, though, Americans have faced “hazards and vicissitudes” unseen for one hundred years—a deadly global pandemic and the resulting economic fallout. Now, as Social Security continues to provide basic financial security to 68 million Americans during this tumultuous time, the program itself needs protection. Not only are Social Security’s resources strained by the pandemic; the program’s opponents seek to undermine and eventually dismantle it amid a national crisis. Continue reading
Military recruiters don’t belong in high schools
Recruiters deliberately exploit the financial and social insecurities of teenagers to enlist more soldiers.
Schools have become contested territory. Continue reading
Trump’s payroll tax deferral aims to weaken and kill Social Security and Medicare
All politicians lie. Rare exceptions prove the rule. Continue reading
Trump usurps congressional appropriations authority
On Saturday, Trump unconstitutionally breached exclusive congressional appropriations authority. Continue reading
Majority forces need to combat market dictatorship
An economy on the brink of more serious failure than the usual cyclic form entered an even more critical state when the COVID virus hit. We now find the mind-boggling debt before the capitalist pandemic growing to be very near breaking the capitalist bank. Along with the awakening public opposition to racism experienced by some who are encountering it for the first time, this is producing the greatest surge for substantial change since the near transformation that took place back in the 1930s, when capitalism defensively improved the lives of much of its working class to avoid social revolution. So, naturally, our intellectually and morally crippled rulers are making every effort to incorporate into the market any and all efforts at creating change, while blocking when not totally smothering public consciousness in the thickest fog of dis-and mis-information to make all previous treatment of mind management seem almost thoughtful by comparison. Continue reading
Visiting Wisconsin: The presidential Zoom convention that will make Milwaukee famous!
My reconnaissance trip to Milwaukee this week is going quite well. I’ve spied out the lay of the land here. Everything looks good. Let the invasion of happy Democratic convention delegates begin! Continue reading
U.S. Cold War China Policy will isolate the U.S, not China
Tensions between the United States and China are rising as the U.S. election nears, with tit-for-tat consulate closures, new U.S. sanctions and no less than three U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups prowling the seas around China. But it is the United States that has initiated each new escalation in U.S.-China relations. China’s responses have been careful and proportionate, with Chinese officials such as Foreign Minister Wang Yi publicly asking the U.S. to step back from its brinkmanship to find common ground for diplomacy. Continue reading
When corporate power is your real government, corporate media is state media
The New York Times published an astonishingly horrible article the other day, titled “Latin America Is Facing a ‘Decline of Democracy’ Under the Pandemic,” accusing governments like Venezuela and Nicaragua of exploiting COVID-19 to quash opposition and oppress democracy. Continue reading
‘The world’s most dangerous man’ picks on Portland to pick up votes
Trump’s quest for scenes of urban chaos may not be over, but for now, it could be ending with a whimper not a flashbang.
Watching the news from Portland, Oregon, where night after night anonymous Federal forces in combat gear and camouflage continued to go after protesters with tear gas, flashbangs, rubber bullets and batons, doing their damnedest to make a tough situation worse, I was again reminded of a simple fact. It will come as a shock to no one other than the most credulous: Reality TV isn’t real! A pearl-clutching revelation, I realize. Continue reading
GOP coronavirus relief package to include Romney bill that would ‘fast-track Social Security and Medicare Cuts’
‘They will use every opportunity and every crisis—including the mass death and economic carnage from COVID—as cover for their sick desire to destroy our Social Security system.’
Shortly after publicly ditching one attack on Social Security—the payroll tax cut—Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell confirmed Thursday that the Republican coronavirus relief package will include legislation sponsored by Sen. Mitt Romney that one advocacy group described as an “equally menacing” threat to the New Deal program. Continue reading
Long overdue for Latin America: A new ‘good neighbor policy’
U.S. policy towards Venezuela has been a fiasco. Try as it might, the Trump regime-change team has been unable to depose President Maduro and finds itself stuck with a self-proclaimed president, Juan Guaidó, who President Trump was reported to have called “a kid” who “doesn’t have what it takes.” The Venezuelan people have paid a heavy price for Trump’s debacle, which has included crippling economic sanctions and coup attempts. So has U.S. prestige internationally, as both the UN and the EU have urged lifting sanctions during the pandemic but the U.S. has refused. Continue reading
Despite surging need amid pandemic, GOP moves to roll back SNAP when food assistance ‘matters now more than ever’
‘SNAP delivered. Like it always does.’
Pointing to the success of the SNAP food assistance program during the coronavirus pandemic, economists on Monday said Republicans’ plan to end the expansion of the aid would be “unconscionable.” Continue reading
America after the election: A few hard truths about the things that won’t change
Posted on November 4, 2020 by John W. Whitehead
The American people remain eager to be persuaded that a new president in the White House can solve the problems that plague us. Continue reading →