By Gary G. Kohls, MD

The US Supreme Court has finally, without any sign of shame, revealed to everybody its true anti-democracy/pro-corporate colors in their recent ruling. The granting of unlimited funding of elections to wealthy, highly political corporations, may be the death knell for true democracy. It was a giant step toward totalitarian control over what is already a corrupted electoral process. Pay no attention to the heavily advertised fact that the labor unions will have the same rights; labor unions already been virtually emasculated to death by corporatism. There is no money any more to compete against the 800 pound gorillas in the funding of political campaigns.

Full story »

Open Letter to Barack Obama

President Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear President Obama,

I was overjoyed to hear you say in your State of the Union address last night:

"But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know."

My colleagues, fellow health advocates and I have been trying to meet with you for over a year now because we have an approach which will meet all of your goals and more.

I am a pediatrician who, like many of my primary care colleagues, left practice because it is nearly impossible to deliver high quality health care in this environment. I have been volunteering for Physicians for a National Health Program ever since. For over a year now, I have been working with the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care/ National Single Payer Alliance. This alliance represents over 20 million people nationwide from doctors to nurses to labor, faith and community groups who advocate on behalf of the majority of Americans, including doctors, who favor a national Medicare for All health system.

Full story »

BY GILAD ATZMON

"Ynet reports:" Peres in Berlin, Netanyahu in Auschwitz, Lieberman in Budapest and Edelstein at the UN headquarters in New York all plan to attack the Goldstone report into the Gaza war on International Holocaust Day this Wednesday.

Israel's political echelon will once again try to divert attention from the fact that the Israeli crime is beyond comparison.

Israeli Propaganda Minister Edelstein told Ynet before leaving for New York. "The connection between the Goldstone Report and the international Holocaust memorial day is not an easy thing”. He is indeed correct. The true interpretation of the Goldstone report is that Israelis are the Nazis of our time. “We must learn the lessons from what happened” Says Edelstein, “then too, those who yelled out were told that Hitler is a clown and that all the gloomy predictions of the 1930s were nonsense.”

Full story »

Edited excerpts by Carolyn Bennett

What flamethrowers omit: American 'values' at war with America's interests - Steven Hill's Europe/U.S. values comparisons in Europe's Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age are instructive.

Europe has about thirty cities with populations exceeding a million. The United States has ten cities with populations exceeding a million people.

Full story »

Michael Collins

Just a few cynics doubted the magnificent procession of then Senator Barack Obama to the highest office in the land. He was the redemption of our past sins, the proof that we were a better nation than we had been. After all, race has been at the center of American politics since Bacon's Rebellion was crushed in 1667 but we were moving beyond that. And we did. Race was set aside for most of those who voted.

As it turned out, the campaign wasn't about redeeming anything other than the bill that Wall Street presented to the citizens of the United States in October, 2008. The financial system was grinding its gears, about to flame out in a series of big investment bank failures. The Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, told a private session of Congress that absent immediate aid, the financial calamity would be so devastating that Congress should prepare for riots by outraged citizens.

Full story »

By: Peter Chamberlin

All the players in the world claim that they want to get it right in Afghanistan, so that the Afghan people might be freed from the burdens of the thirty year war, which keeps them in the Stone Age. The problem with Afghanistan is that everyone invokes false piety, claiming concerns for the well-being of the Afghan people, while promoting war as the solution to their problems. We head into an international conference looking for these answers through the prism of the same old lies.

Afghanistan will never have a chance as long as everyone keeps treating it as an international arena, in which to fight-out all their problems. As long as Americans treat it as a staging area to launch expeditionary resource wars from, and as long as Pakistan and India are allowed to continue using Afghan men to fight their proxy war, then there will be no peace in the world and no rest for the war-weary Afghans. Neither peace for the world, nor peace for Afghanistan is truly being considered in London.

Full story »

Ogaden Online Editorial

If I do not vote on Election Day they [the TPLF] will come and ask me and even take me out of my house… The candidates are not elected to alleviate my problems. They are elected to be crowned [as Kings]1.

The above quote provides an on the scene recording and a perfect opening for an article whose intention is to shed some light on the phenomena of electioneering for personal profit in Ethiopia. This phenomena is exercised by a privileged view led by Meles Zenawi of TPLF and most of the outside world only hears about it once every three to four years. May be you have heard it by an other name; may be you did not as you may have been blinded by the skeletal pictures of famine victims news emanating from Ethiopia; or worse you may still be wondering whether all the electioneering money could be better spent on rehabilitating those affected by the famine. However it is imperative that we look in depth as to what happens in the name of ‘Democracy’ in Ethiopia once every four years.

Full story »

Jalal Alavi

Iran’s Green Movement is the subject of much controversy these days.

While some are of the opinion that it is no more than a civil rights movement in pursuit of specific concessions from those in power, there are those to whom the movement is no less than a revolutionary phenomenon destined to topple the Islamic Republic [1].

Whatever the truth behind such speculations, one thing is for certain: Iran’s Green Movement is the concrete embodiment of an emerging democratic consciousness on the part of the majority of Iranians, and, as such, cannot be reduced to its component parts, including its leaders.

Full story »

Joel S. Hirschhorn

Sensible, intelligent Americans are furious over the recent Supreme Court 5-to-4-decision referred to as Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that struck down limits on corporate spending in presidential and congressional elections. Those of us who wail against the corpocracy with its corruption of government could hardly believe that this decision could in any way be justified. A major reaction has been a number of groups calling for a constitutional amendment to fix the problem.

It helps to know that three current constitutional amendments resulted because of Supreme Court decisions that needed remedial action: the Eleventh Amendment (shoring up states’ legal immunity), the Sixteenth Amendment (authorizing a federal income tax), and the Twenty-sixth Amendment (assuring eighteen-year-olds the right to vote).

Full story »

by Stephen Lendman

Human activity can cause destructive harm. Columbia University geophysical hazards research scientist, Christian Klose, studies how, including from mining. In a recent paper, he said:

"mining activities disturb the in-situ stress in the upper continental crust and can trigger earthquakes (human-triggered seismicity)."

Past examples are numerous:

Full story »