contributions

Whenever America commemorates past wars, or wages new ones, one persistent theme is how a particular war was essential to “the defense of freedom.” Although the United States has fought some wars where its liberty interests were at risk, in recent times this “defense of freedom” mantra has become little more than a subterfuge to conceal the fact that America’s military is increasingly being deployed so that multi-national corporations can plunder the human and natural resources of weaker (…)

Philippine Extra-Judicial Killings Continue, Obama’s Response In Question by Brian McAfee
On March 23rd, Sabina Ariola, the leader of "Citizens for Excellence, Progress, Peace towards the Country’s Great Future," was gunned down. She is the 992nd civilian to be killed in the ongoing spree of extra-judicial killings that have been occurring since 2001, when Gloria Macapagal Arroyo assumed the (…)

Money in Crisis
by Lionel Trilling
Historical changes, involving unparalleled speed, scale and complexity, are reshaping our money system. Banks and financial services, under pressure from the cyber-economy, are transforming dramatically. Market innovations, such as Open Finance, make it more difficult than ever for regulators to define what a bank even is, or what money is theirs to manage. New players are vying for power and influence, both in our societies and in our monetary systems. (…)

by Scott Weinstein
An organization the FBI, the US State Department and US courts have branded a ’terrorist organization’ has given advice to the Harper government that led Immigration Minister Jason Kenney to bar a British MP from Canada.
http://mostlywater.org/terrorist_or...

US Predators Provoke Pakistan
by Michael Carmichael
Global Research, March 26, 2009 PlanetaryMovement.org
Commenting to the New York Times about the rapidly deteriorating situation in Pakistan, Admiral Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence, admitted, “No one that I have talked to has come up with a grand strategy for that area.”
Given the now official fact of a strategy vacuum for Pakistan as well as the smoldering carcass of US strategy in Afghanistan, the US has (…)

Hidden Homeless Emerge as US Economy Worsens
Global Research, March 26, 2009 Reuters SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Emergency shelters brimming with homeless people in California’s capital are quietly turning away more than 200 women and children a night in a sign of the deteriorating U.S. economy.
The displaced individuals on waiting lists at St. John’s Shelter and other facilities often turn instead to relatives or friends for temporary living quarters, perhaps moving into a spare room, (…)

Netanyahu and the ‘Future of the Peace Process’
by Ramzy Baroud
Global Research, March 27, 2009
It seems that the Palestinian-Israeli ‘peace process’ is in serious jeopardy. At least, this is the immediate impression one gleans from media reports from Israel. Unlike, Israel’s Kadima and Labor party ‘moderates’, Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu is largely considered to be a possible impairment to the negotiations aimed at facilitating a two-state solution. The media story, (…)

Just after the 6th anniversary of the illegal, war criminal invasion of Iraq by the US, UK and Australia I received from the eminent Brussels Tribunal organization a detailed statement by Iraqi woman academic Professor Souad N. Al-Azzawi. We are both members of the Advisory Board of the BRussells Committee (see: ) .
Her article is entitled “Let the Numbers speak” and details horrendous carnage in Occupied Iraq over 6 years of foreign occupation and is reproduced below in the interests of (…)

China Talks Tough with Call to Dump Dollar
China’s top central banker says it’s time to replace the country’s reliance on the dollar, but such a move likely won’t happen any time soon
By Dexter Roberts
People’s Bank of China governor Zhou Xiaochuan. LIU JIN/AFP/Getty Images
Just over one week before President Barack Obama and other world leaders meet in London for a summit focusing on the global recession, China is making clear it wants a greater say in managing economic policies (…)

I think I have already mentioned it - I hate domestic work. I find no glory, no satisfaction and no pleasure in cleaning, sweeping, dusting, washing and vacuuming...
I noticed my rug, it needs a clean sweep. Major vacuuming. An industrial, highly efficient, manufactured machine to suck out all the dust...
But I force myself to do it. I think of it as a stoic enterprise in "character building". And while am building my character, I fantasize that this huge industrial complex has invented (…)