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The War We’re Finally Allowed To See

June 2, 2023 Patrick Lawrence, Scheer Post. , , ,
As astute readers will already know, apart from a few staged forays near the front lines—officially controlled and monitored, never at the front lines—correspondents from The New York Times, the other big dailies, the wire services, and the broadcast networks have accepted without protest the Kyiv regime’s refusal to allow them to see the war as it is. Content these professional slovens have been to sit in Kyiv hotel rooms and file stories based on the regime’s transparently unreliable accounts of events, all the while pretending their stories are properly reported and factual. The exceptions here are Times correspondents such as Carlotta Gall, whose Russophobia seems reliably unbalanced enough to satisfy the Kyiv regime.

Lee Camp: The Threat Of Dangerous Ideas And Why We Need Them

May 30, 2023 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , , ,
Political comedian Lee Camp recently published his second book, "Dangerous Ideas," which provides a bitter dose of reality in a way that makes it hard not to laugh. He explains that most journalists avoid covering the major crises of our times with any depth, leaving the public grossly misinformed. Camp, who has the courage to take on difficult topics, such as the oligarchy, capitalism, militarism and racism, and what to do about them, has had his work censored, banned and erased in retaliation. On Clearing the FOG, Camp discusses the challenges of living in a country that is afraid or unable to face reality and why he still has hope for humanity.

Montana TikTok Ban A Sign Of Intensified Cold War With China

May 28, 2023 Ari Paul, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. , , , , , ,
There is an emerging consensus in US foreign policy circles that a US/China cold war is either imminent or already underway (Foreign Policy, 12/29/22; New Yorker, 2/26/23; New York Times, 3/23/23; Fox News, 3/28/23; Reuters, 3/30/23). Domestically, the most recent and most intense iteration of this anti-China fervor is the move to ban the Chinese video app TikTok, which is both a sweeping assault on free speech movement and a dangerous sign that mere affiliation with China is grounds for vilification and loss of rights. Several TikTok content creators are suing to overturn “Montana’s first-in-the-nation ban on the video sharing app, arguing the law is an unconstitutional violation of free speech rights,” on the grounds “that the state doesn’t have any authority over matters of national security” (AP, 5/18/23). TikTok followed up with a lawsuit of its own (New York Times, 5/22/23).

Volcanic Eruptions In Mexico And The Dangers Of Fetishizing Natural Disasters In The Global South

May 28, 2023 Tamara Pearson, The Real News Network. , , , ,
On Sunday, I came home and washed the volcanic ash out of my hair. My eyes were irritated. I had to wash my clothes and shoes, too. You could see the ash falling in the streets of Puebla, in central Mexico, near the currently erupting Popocatépetl volcano. It looked like snow, but gray. The whole city was coated in light gray, from the roads and trees to the rooftops, benches, and bins. It was all mildly apocalyptic. Ash from the volcano has been falling heavily for a few weeks now, but Sunday was much worse. Nevertheless, many people still had to work outside all day, despite the hazards. The fish and vegetable street vendors were working, a woman was pacing up and down my street selling flower bouquets, the pizza and taco and corn sellers on other nearby corners were working, too.

Henry Kissinger Is a Disgusting War Criminal

May 27, 2023 Ben Burgis, Jacobin . , , ,
The late Anthony Bourdain wrote in 2001 that “once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands.” However many people might have wanted to do that over the decades, Kissinger remains with us. Today is his hundredth birthday. And he continues to be treated as a respected elder statesman. That should tell you everything you need to know about America’s global empire. Tributes have been flowing to Dr Kissinger all week. At CNN, foreign correspondent David Andelman enthuses that “at 100, Henry Kissinger is still teaching us the value of ‘Weltanschaüng.’”

John Durham And The Burying Of American History

May 24, 2023 Patrick Lawrence, Scheer Post. , , , ,
There are certain things I do not quite get since Special Counsel John Durham’s report on the epically corrupt conduct of Donald Trump’s enemies during the 2016 election campaigns went to Congress last week. Many things, actually. For all the ground Durham covers in his 306–page report, I don’t get why he left a lot of things undone and unexamined, a lot of names unnamed and a lot of conclusions unconcluded after a four-year investigation into the very unfunny fiasco known as Russiagate. And then there are a few things I do get. Chief among these is that, with the already-evident burying of the Durham Report, we now witness the obliteration of a highly significant passage in our national history.

US Labor Agency Rejects Starbucks’ Effort To Obtain Records Of Worker Communications With Media

May 23, 2023 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , , ,
A judge for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) determined it was unlawful for Starbucks to request records of communications between unionized workers and news media organizations. The decision [PDF] reversed a prior ruling from a United States court, which upheld subpoenas issued to 21 workers that were sought by Starbucks to help the corporation defend against allegations that they engaged in unfair labor practices against Starbucks Workers United. Under the National Labor Relations Act, workers are guaranteed a right to form a union. They are also supposed to be protected from interference, restraint, or coercion by an employer that may be intended to prevent them from unionizing.

Why The Conspiracy Theory About Trump And Russia Won’t Go Away

May 22, 2023 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. , , ,
There is no report, investigation or new revelation, including the recent release of Special Counsel John Durham’s “Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns” that will implode the myth that Russia was responsible for the election of Donald Trump. Myths are impervious to facts. They fulfill an emotional yearning. They are a short circuit from reality into a world of childish simplicity. Hard and painful questions are avoided. Thought-terminating cliches are spat out to blissfully embrace a willed ignorance. The cynical con the Democratic Party and the FBI carried out to falsely portray Donald Trump as a puppet of the Kremlin worked, and continues to work, because it is what those who detest Trump want to believe.

Israel Has Yet To Answer For Shireen Abu Akleh’s Assassination

May 21, 2023 Chris Hedges, The Real News Network. , , , ,
Veteran Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh was covering an Israeli raid on Jenin Refugee Camp in her official capacity as a reporter for Al Jazeera on May 11, 2022, when an unnamed Israeli sniper fired a bullet into the thin space between the back of her helmet and her flak jacket, killing her. At the time, Abu-Akleh was fleeing Israeli gunfire directed towards her and other observing journalists, including Al Jazeera producer Ali Al-Samudi, who was wounded moments before Abu-Akleh’s death. One year later, Israeli military forces have issued an apology for killing Shireen Abu Akleh. This follows countless reports from journalist eyewitnesses, analyses by multiple international outlets, condemnation from world governments, and a joint investigation which determined Israeli forces deliberately targeted Abu Akleh.

Bakhmut Has Fallen; Artyomovsk Has Been Liberated

May 21, 2023 Moon of Alabama. , , ,
The largest battle so far of the 21st century ended today. Bakhmut has fallen. Artyomovsk (the Russian/Soviet name of the city) has been liberated. This was announced today by the titular leader of the Wagner forces, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in a video posted on Telegram. Why the Ukrainian leadership had decided to hold onto the city even months after the situation there was already in its disfavor is beyond me. The fight was decided by the numerical superiority of Russian artillery fire and the Ukraine never had a chance to top that. The losses there for the Ukrainians amounted to 300 to 500 men per day over that last 5 months. That sums up to a total of 60,000 casualties.

The Ukraine Refugee Question

May 20, 2023 Seymour Hersh, Scheer Post. , , , ,
Last Saturday the Washington Post published an exposé of classified American intelligence documents showing that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, working behind the back of the Biden White House, pushed hard earlier this year for an expanded series of missile attacks inside Russia. The documents were part of a large cache of classified materials posted online by an Air Force enlisted man now in custody. A senior official of the Biden administration, asked by the Post for comment on the newly revealed intelligence, said that Zelensky has never violated his pledge never to use American weapons to strike inside Russia. In the view of the White House, Zelensky can do no wrong.

Can The Global South Build A New World Information And Communication Order?

May 19, 2023 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute For Social Research. , , ,
It is remarkable how the media in a select few countries is able to set the record on matters around the world. The European and North American countries enjoy a near-global monopoly over information, their media houses vested with a credibility and authority inherited from their status during colonial times (BBC, for instance) as well as their command of the neocolonial structure of our times (CNN, for instance). In the 1950s, the post-colonial nations identified the West’s monopoly over media and information and sought to ‘promote the free flow of ideas by word and by image’, as the 1945 Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) put it.

The USA’s Soviet-Style President

May 17, 2023 Patrick Lawrence, Consortium News. , , ,
Joe Biden announces — via a video, not in person so we can see him live — that he will run for reelection in 2024. Immediately we read that Forty-Six is playing his cards close to his chest, letting his record speak for itself — a daring proposition — and has no plans to begin campaigning in earnest, not even in those states we commonly refer to as “swing.” No, Joe will remain sequestered in the White House, behind those walls and porticos and ridiculous sunglasses, a man of the people taking care of America’s business. Get ready, readers. We are in for 19 months of relentless, insultingly transparent spin, propaganda, and lies of omission, by way of which a senile, patently incompetent man will be offered to us as the president for another four years.

NY Times Is Wrong On Dedollarization

May 12, 2023 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. , , ,
oday we’re going to be talking about de-dollarization. Michael and Radhika just did a series on the decline in the US dollar system and the move by countries around the world to seek alternatives to the dominance of the US dollar. Specifically, I wanted to bring on Michael today to respond to articles that were published in the New York Times by the economist Paul Krugman, arguing against de-dollarization, arguing in defense of the US dollar system. We’re going to look at two articles that Krugman wrote, one in April and the other in May. Michael, I’m going to start with the article that Paul Krugman published in April, called “International Money Madness Strikes Again“.

New Media Project Brings Incarcerated Writers To The Forefront

May 10, 2023 Mansa Musa, The Real News Network. , , ,
The call for prison abolition has been popularized over the last decade of mass movements against police violence, many of which have operated under the banner of Black Lives Matter. But what does abolition mean, and who gets to define it? Thus far, much of the conversation has been steered and curated by mainstream media. A new initiative from Scalawag Magazine tentatively titled ‘Project Abolition’ seeks to disrupt the dominant narrative by platforming voices from within prisons themselves. Scalawag Editor-At-Large Da’Shaun Harrison joins Rattling the Bars to explain Project Abolition.
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