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By: Andrew Gavin Marshall
The following is a sample from the first volume of The People’s Book Project, a crowd-funded initiative to produce a series of books studying the ideas, institutions, and individuals of power and resistance. Please consider donating to help the Project come to fruition.
As one of the most resource-rich countries on earth, and the largest single trading partner with the United States, Canada is strategically positioned to influence the changing nature of global power structures. Do we support – and siphon our resources for the benefit of – the American Empire, co-operating in the wholesale plundering of the world, the oppression and impoverishment of peoples, destruction of global ecology, all for the benefit of an increasingly small class of global corporations and banks… Or, do we become independent and free? Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper once said, “You won’t recognize Canada when I get through with it.” With multiple “free trade” agreements under way, expanded corporate rights, expropriation of vast amounts of natural resources, Canada is becoming one of the world’s foremost corporate colonies, unrecognizable from what Canadians once imagined our nation to be.
by Stephen Lendman
Propaganda wars precede hot ones. Conflicts and other forms of violence are glorified in the name of peace. Doublespeak duplicity claim it. Wars are waged to prevent it.
Ongoing ones assure more ahead. Unconscionable death counts rise. America, Israel, key NATO partners, and regional allies bear full responsibility. Humanity hangs in the balance.
Humanitarian intervention and responsibility to protect (R2P) mask ravaging one country after another. Slaughter and mass destruction are called liberating struggles.
from Kevin Zeese
This is one of the most important resistance actions in the country and it's great to see it growing. The Blockade is preparing for more and larger actions with a training from January 3rd to 8thand they are asking people to join them.We hear from those who have attended that it is a rewarding experience. If you can’t be there, you can support them by sending them some of the items on their wish list.
This week there was at least a temporary victory when a judge stopped pipeline work on one property owner's land after he sued alleging fraud – TransCanada claimed they’d be transporting crude oil when in fact they will be transporting a toxic sludge of chemicals mixed with Tar Sands.
Eric Walberg
France and Britain have begun to circle Syria like vultures (my apologies to vultures, who politely wait for their prey to die). They plan to save Syria from chemical bombs – a surreal replay of Suez 1956, where France and Britain cooked up a pretext to invade Egypt with the US posing as the more restrained gang member, not to mention Iraq 2003, when they reversed their roles.
Meanwhile, Canada sings on demand for its US-Israeli sponsors. The Canadian government solemnly announced this week it is ready -- if asked by NATO -- to deploy the Canadian Joint Incident Response Unit, which handles chemical, biological and radioactive attacks. Canada will also send a Disaster Assistance Response Team to provide clean water in Syrians, as well as engineers and staff who can help set up a field hospital. A friendly navy frigate is already offshore.
by Stephen Lendman
Major surgery for any reason is daunting. Imagine four times in 18 months for the same illness. On December 11, Chavez underwent it to remove cancerous tissue.
Malignancy reappeared weeks after examination revealed he was cancer free. Post-surgical chemotherapy, radiation, and other treatment now follows.
Hopefully it'll prove effective. He's too important to lose. He's Latin America's most charismatic leader since Fidel Castro. They inspire others to emulate their example.
James Petras
Introduction
The leaders of both major parties, Congress, the White House, the editorial writers, journalists of all the principle newspapers and most academic economists claim that Social Security and Medicare need to be ‘reformed’ in order to reduce the “unsustainable” fiscal deficit and avoid the bankruptcy of these social programs. An important aspect of this elite propaganda campaign is the perverse manipulation of the nature of those two programs. They are dubbed “entitlement programs”, implying some sort of government handout or individual privilege. In fact social security is a form of social insurance paid for through payroll tax deductions throughout the working life of the contributors, which usually approximates a half-century.
The “entitlement” rhetoric claims that the lifetime contributions are insufficient and that several regressive ‘reforms’ are necessary to “save the systems” – at the expense of the beneficiaries. The so-called “Grand Compromise” proposed by President Obama and the “Fiscal Reforms” proposed by the Congressional Republicans are all aimed at robbing working class contributors of their pension savings through various specific regressive changes.
by Stephen Lendman
America's war on workers dates from the 19th century. Labor learned the hard way what it takes to win.
It requires organizing, pressing demands, taking to the streets, going on strike, holding boycotts, battling police and National Guard forces supporting management, as wells paying with blood and lives to get results.
They came. Workers got an eight hour day, a living wage, important benefits, pensions, and passage of the landmark 1935 Wagner Act. For the first time, labor could bargain collectively with management on equal terms.
Grassroots struggles prevailed. Management and government give nothing unless forced to. Today, virtually everything gained was lost. Federal, state and local Republicans and Democrats wage war on worker rights.
Mahboob A. Khawaja
“….a transition from "the war on terrorism" to the outright demonization of Muslims. While underscoring the freedom of religion, the Obama administration is "beating the drums" of a broader war against Islam….. the objective is to instill fear, rouse and harness citizens' unbending support for the next stage of America's "long war….. A "war of religion" is unfolding, with a view to justifying a global military crusade.” (Professor Michel Chossudovsky, “America's Holy Crusade against the Muslim World”, Global Research, 8/30/2010).
American duplicity and political intransigence have lost the strategic direction and rational sense of glory and triumph in honoring its peacemaking commitments to the Arab Middle East. The new emerging Arab world and its politics is changing fast as the new generation informed people are taking over the responsibilities and slowly organize themselves to demonstrate courage, wisdom and new political imagination for a new value-based and free of foreign influence Arab world. Strangely, in this progressive struggle for change, freedom and co-existence, America and Israeli both have lost the opportunities to be partner in the peacemaking process and in the establishment of an independent State of Palestine to balance the disequilibrium in which Israel presently exists. It is becoming more obvious that by challenging the voices of REASON and implying denial of the rights of the Palestinian people, the embittered America and aggressive Israel could enjoin a terrible sense of helplessness and isolation and nothing could save them from the consequences of their own triviality, ignorance and wickedness.
by Stephen Lendman
America's longstanding policy is permanent war. It's the only nation ever to wage them every year in its history abroad and/or at home. Multiple direct and proxy wars rage now. Obama plans more. He's a war criminal multiple times over.
He violates fundamental human and civil rights. He mocks rule of law principles and democratic values. He should be in prison, not high office.
He serves wealth, power and privilege. He spurns peace, equity, justice, and basic human needs.
He and George Bush made America a police state. It's a hair's breadth from full-blown tyranny. He plans four more years of harsher than ever lawless governance.
by chycho
Below you will find two perspectives from a recent dinner conversation:
I. Candid and Confrontational
II. Compassionate and Personal
I recently attended a small family gathering, not my immediate family but my partners, so by extension people that I care for. I am Armenian and my partner is Jewish, and at the table were us and the elders, including a holocaust survivor.
During dinner the conversation drifted between various topics and at some point turned to politics, focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Those who have followed my blog know that I am quite outspoken regarding my political views and rarely do I mince words, and this night was not an exception. I believe that dialogue, discussion, honesty, and candidness are needed to come to terms with what is actually taking place in the heart of the Middle-East because what transpires in that region, what the final outcome will be between Israel and Palestine, will decide the fate of humanity.
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