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AlterNet Radio: Noam Chomsky on OWS, the Arab Spring and America's Waning Influence; Progressives Push Back Against ALEC | AlterNet

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - Apr. 23 (Interview) - Joshua Holland talks to legendary linguist, author and political theorist Noam Chomsky about his new book, Occupy (which you can get here), and much more. AlterNet's own Lauren Kelley also brings listeners up-to-date about the progressive campaign to de-fang the hard-right corporate front group known as ALEC. Kelley also talks about how a similar organization, Americans United for Life, is helping drive the "war on women" in state houses across the country.

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Rick Steves: Reflections on Israel and Palestine

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Rick Steves - Apr. 05 (Opinion) - I've been duped. Do you know the frustration you feel when you believed in something strongly and then you realize that the information that made you believe was from a source with an agenda to deceive? I just watched a powerful and courageous documentar

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Ousted Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed on the Coup That Ousted Him & His Climate Activism

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Mar. 29 (Interview) - Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed, ousted in a coup several months ago, joins us in studio along with Jon Shenk, director of “The Island President,” a new documentary about Nasheed’s rise to power and his climate activism. The tiny Indian Ocean state of Maldives remains in a state of political turmoil seven weeks after Nasheed, the country’s first democratically elected president was ousted in what he has described as a coup at gunpoint. Nasheed had become an internationally recognized leader on climate issues as he urged the world to do more to save small island states from rising sea waters. He once held a cabinet meeting underwater to highlight the threat of global warming to the Maldives. He also pledged to make the Maldives the first carbon neutral country and installed solar panels on the roof of his presidential residence.

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World Bank Nominee Tied to Monsanto Shareholder Bill Gates, Soros

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

nationofchange.org - By Tim McCoy - Mar. 28 (Opinion) - Obama nominated Dartmouth University president Jim Yong Kim, M.D. to head the United Nations World Bank. Most people think that UN agencies benefit poor people, but this is far from the truth.

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Obama slams GOP for casual war talk re Iran, stresses Costs

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Informed Comment - By Juan - Mar. 07 (Opinion) - President Barack Obama, in his Super Tuesday news conference, explained his thinking on Iran and tensions between it and Israel. The most impressive thing he said was, Now, what’s said on the campaign trail – those folks don’t have a lot of responsibilities. They’re not Commander-in-Chief. And when I see the casualness with which some [...]

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Guatemala: Speaking Out on the Genocide of Indigenous Women

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Global Voices - By Juliana Rincón Parra - Feb. 22 (Opinion) - The 36 year civil war (1960-1996) that ravaged Guatemala left more than 200,000 people dead and at least 100,000 women raped: most of the victims were Mayan. Only recently have women started speaking out about the violence they suffered in hands of the Army and paramilitaries and finally, the sexual violence perpetrated against Mayan women is being investigated as part of the genocide proceedings taking place in Spanish tribunals.

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OpEdNews - Article: OWS is going to be what the people make it.

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Op Ed News - By Michael Cheverie Dewey - Jan. 02 (Opinion) - Some issues about State Banks helping fund States. State Public Options for Healthcare. And Foreign Policy changes needed to rebuild this Broken Promised Land.

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Mano Singham's Web Journal: Book Review: With Liberty and Justice for Some by Glenn Greenwald

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

blog.case.edu - By Mano Singham - Dec. 25 (Review) - The subtitle of the book How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful pretty much says it all. He points out that equality before the law is one of the bedrock principles upon which the US was built, and indeed is seen as the basis for any just society, but that ideal has been dramatically undermined in the last four decades

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U.S. Pulls All Funding for UNESCO After Sweeping Vote to Support Palestinian Membership

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Nov. 01 (Interview) - In an emotional—and largely symbolic—move, the United Nations cultural organization known as UNESCO overwhelmingly voted to grant membership to the Palestinians, despite opposition from the United States and Israel. Now the United States says it will cancel a $60 million payment due in November to the U.N. body. Membership dues paid by the U.S. account for about a fifth of UNESCO's annual budget. The U.S. is also threatening to veto any Palestinian effort to be recognized by the U.N. Security Council as an independent state. "By going to UNESCO, this was a way both of gauging where the public opinion is among the various governments and, more importantly, symbolically for the world, showing that this is a moment of recognition that the 20-year-old U.S.-controlled so-called 'peace process' simply hasn't worked," said Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies. [includes rush transcript]

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"Granito: How to Nail a Dictator": New Film Tracks Struggle for Justice After Guatemalan Genocide

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Juan Gonzalez, Amy Goodman - Sep. 15 (Review) - A new documentary links Guatemala’s turbulent past with those who are active players in its present.

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Climate Change: Crisis and Challenge

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

resistinc.org - By Orin Langelle, Anne Petermann - Jul. 01 (Opinion) - There is no better example of the interconnection of the root causes of social injustice, ecological destruction and economic domination than climate change. Climate change may well be humanity’s greatest challenge. It is a crisis that must be rapidly addressed if catastrophe is to be averted.

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Around the Globe, US Military Bases Generate Resentment, Not Security

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Katrina vanden Heuvel - Jun. 14 (Opinion) - “It makes as much sense for the Pentagon to hold onto 227 military bases in Germany as it would for the post office to maintain a fleet of horses and buggies,” writes Gusterson. In a recent Italian documentary Standing Army, the late author and Nation contributor Chalmers Johnson says, “The unit of empire in the classic European empires was the colony. The unit for the American empire is not the colony, it’s the military base.… Things that can’t go on forever, don’t. That’s where we are today.” The bases—isolated from the host communities and, as Gusterson writes, “generating resentment against [their] prostitution, environmental damage, petty crime, and everyday ethnocentrism”—face growing opposition from local citizens.

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Maher Arar: My Rendition & Torture in Syrian Prison Highlights U.S. Reliance on Syria As An Ally

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jun. 13 (Interview) - As Syria continues its brutal crackdown on demonstrators, we speak to a Canadian citizen who was repeatedly tortured by Syrian authorities after he was rendered to Syria by the United States in 2002. Maher Arar was seized at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport in September 2002 and sent to Syria, where he was tortured and interrogated in a tiny underground cell for nearly a year. He now works as a human rights advocate in Canada. “The cooperation with the Syrian government, as well as other dictatorships post-9/11, gave some legitimacy to those dictatorships,” says Arar. He calls on the United States and the United Nations to declare the Syrian regime illegitimate, and refer the matter to the International Criminal Court.

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How Twisted American Exceptionalism Leads to Criminal Behavior on a Global Scale

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Lawrence Davidson - Jun. 07 (Opinion) - perhaps, the nation in question has evolved a special way of life (democracy, capitalism, communism, or some religion) that its leaders feel it must share with others – whether they want this gift or not. So it sends out missionaries and diplomats and then usually follows them up with gunboats. Empire-building based on a claim of superiority often results. It turns out that almost all great powers, Western and non-Western, have expressed some form of exceptionalism.

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Exclusive Interview with Manuel Zelaya on the U.S. Role in Honduran Coup, WikiLeaks and Why He Was Ousted

Tue, 31 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - May. 31 (Interview) - Shortly after Manuel Zelaya returned to his home this weekend for the first time since the 2009 military coup d’etat, he sat down with Democracy Now! for an exclusive interview. He talks about why he believes the United States was behind the coup, and what exactly happened on June 28, 2009, when hooded Honduran soldiers kidnapped him at gunpoint and put him on a plane to Costa Rica, stopping to refuel at Palmerola, the U.S. military base in Honduras. “This coup d’etat was made by the right-wing of the United States,” Zelaya says. “The U.S. State Department has always denied, and continues to deny, their any ties with the government with the coup d’etat. Nevertheless, all of the proof incriminates the U.S. government. And all of the actions that were taken by the de facto regime, or the contista regime, which are those who carried out the coup, favor the industrial policies and the military policies and the financial policies of the United States in Honduras.”

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Let’s stop blaming America

Sun, 29 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

arabnews.com - By Khalid Alnowaiser - May. 29 (Opinion) - I am a proud and loyal Saudi citizen, but I am tired of hearing constant criticism from most Arabs of everything the United States does in its relations with other countries and how it responds to global crises. No nation is perfect, and certainly America has made its share of mistakes such as Vietnam, Cuba and Iraq. I am fully aware of what happened when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the unprecedented abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. However, what would we do if America simply disappeared from the face of the earth such as what happened to the Soviet Union and ancient superpowers like the Roman and Greek empires? These concerns keep me up day and night. It’s frustrating to hear this constant drumbeat of blame directed toward the United States for everything that is going wrong in the world. Who else do we think of to blame for our problems and failures? Do we take personal responsibility for the great issues that affect the security and prosperity of Arab countries? No, we look to America for leadership and then sit back and blame it when we don’t approve of the actions and solutions it proposes or takes. For instance, if a dictator seizes and holds power such as Egypt’s Mubarak and Libya’s Qaddafi, fingers are pointed only at America for supporting these repressive leaders. If the people overthrow a dictator, fingers are pointed at America for not having done enough to support the protestors. If a nation fails to provide its people with minimum living standards, fingers are pointed at America. If a child dies in an African jungle, America is criticized for not providing necessary aid. If someone somewhere sneezes, fingers are pointed at America. Many other examples exist, too numerous to mention.

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Cheering Netanyahu's Intransigence

Thu, 26 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Op Ed News - By Robert Parry - May. 26 (Opinion) - Congress, with repeated standing ovations, showed its love for Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but the valentine may have unintended consequences by stirring dangerous passions of Likud's rejectionist wing, which is now weighing the risks of transforming Israel into an overtly apartheid state. These hardliners might well interpret the congressional obsequiousness as signaling that Israel still has a free hand to do whatever it wants, even if that means defying President Barack Obama's mild pressure for movement toward peace with the Palestinians.

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Actions Not Words Show US Middle East Policy

Fri, 20 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Rep. Dennis Kucinich - May. 20 (Opinion) - We all want to be supportive of our President as he attempts to broaden America's positive role in the Middle East and North Africa. But it is important to critically analyze what the President does, not what he says, when it comes to U.S. policy abroad. When the President says '[i]t will be the policy of the United States to promote reform across the region, and to support transitions to democracy,' we must look more carefully at how this policy has been implemented as well as the implications of the actions that have already been taken.

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Sunday's Disqualifiers

Mon, 16 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

American Spectator - By Ross Kaminsky - May. 16 (Opinion) - Within days of their officially entering the presidential fray, two Republican Oval Office aspirants may have torpedoed what little chance they might have had with disastrous answers on Sunday morning television.

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"The U.S. And Its Allies Will Do Anything to Prevent Democracy in the Arab World"

Wed, 11 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Noam Chomsky: - May. 11 (Speech) - Speaking at the 25th anniversary of celebration of the national media watch group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, world-renowned political dissident and linguist Noam Chomsky analyzes the U.S. response to the popular uprisings sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. "Across the [Middle East], the overwhelming majority of the population regards the United States as the main threat to their interests," Chomsky says. "The reason is very simple ... Plainly, the U.S. and allies are not going to want governments, which are responsive to the will of the people. If that happens, not only will the U.S. not control the region, but it will be thrown out."

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My Reaction to Osama bin Laden's Death

Sat, 07 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Noam Chomsky - May. 07 (Opinion) - 'We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden's, and he is not a 'suspect' but uncontroversially the 'decider' who gave the orders to commit the 'supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole' (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.

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Is Now Not the Time to Start Leaving Afghanistan?

Thu, 05 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Real Clear Politics - By Larry Kudlow - May. 05 (Opinion) - With the killing of Osama, is the Afghan mission complete? The original post-9/11 goal was to kill bin Laden and wipe out al-Qaida. Now that we've killed bin Laden and dismantled so much of al-Qaida, do we really need to trudge through an even longer war in Afghanistan?

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Chris Hedges Speaks on Osama bin Laden’s Death

Mon, 02 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

TruthDig - By Chris Hedges - May. 02 (Opinion) - The language of violence, the language of occupation—the occupation of the Middle East, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—has been the best recruiting tool al-Qaida has been handed. If it is correct that Osama bin Laden is dead, then it will spiral upwards with acts of suicidal vengeance. And I expect most probably on American soil. The tragedy of the Middle East is one where we proved incapable of communicating in any other language than the brute and brutal force of empire.

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Liberals: Don’t Even Consider Gloating About Donald Trump

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By The New Republic - Apr. 29 (Opinion) - Now that Donald Trump appears on the verge of launching a presidential campaign, it is worth reflecting on the meaning of this low moment in American political history. Trump is a clown and a buffoon, and the odds of him winning even one Republican caucu

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A more militarized CIA for a more militarized America

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - Apr. 28 (Opinion) - It's rare for American media outlets to list all of our "wars" this way, including the covert ones (and that list does not even include the newest one, in Libya, where drone attacks are playing an increasingly prominent role as well). But Barack Obama does indeed preside over numerous American wars in the Muslim world, including some that he started (Libya and Yemen) and others which he's escalated (Afghanistan and Pakistan). Because our wars are so often fought covertly, the CIA has simply become yet another arm of America's imperial war-fighting machine, thus making it the perfect fit for Bush and Obama's most cherished war-fighting General to lead (Petraeus will officially retire from the military to take the position, though that obviously does not change who he is, how he thinks, and what his loyalties are).

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