Articles by ICH
We found 2433 results.
The European Union and the Rhetoric of Immaturity
Michael Marder – Al Jazeera,
27 Feb 2012
The tendency to infantalise select member states is in line with their animalisation, evident in the insulting abbreviation of Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain in the word PIGS, neither as human nor as rational as the rest of the EU countries. Throughout Western philosophy, both children and animals, with their capricious wills, have been considered deficient from the standpoint of fully developed rational adults and, hence, in need of training, education, and disciplining.
→ read full articleWhen Is An ‘NGO’ Not An NGO? Twists and Turns Beneath the Cairo Skies
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
A confusing controversy between the United States and Egypt is unfolding. It has already raised tensions in the relationship between the two countries to a level that has not existed for decades. It results from moves by the military government in Cairo to go forward with the criminal prosecution of 43 foreigners, including 19 Americans, for unlawfully carrying on the work of unlicensed public interest organizations that improperly, according to Egyptian law, depend for their budget on foreign funding.
→ read full articleSaving Khader Adnan’s Life Saves Our Own Soul
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
The world watches as tragedy unfolds beneath its gaze as Khader Asnan enters his 63rd day as a hunger striker in an Israeli prison being held under an administrative detention order without trial, without charges, and without any indication of the evidence against him.
→ read full articleThe Menace of Present & Future Drone Warfare
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Feb 2012
This nonproliferation approach has been accompanying by three massive forms of deception that continues to mislead public opinion and discourage serious debate about the benefits of nuclear disarmament even at this late stage: First, the fallacious implication that the states that do not possess nuclear weapons are currently more dangerous for world peace than the states that possess, develop, and deploy these weapons of mass destruction, and have used them in the past; secondly, …
→ read full articleTurkey’s Foreign Policy: Zero Problems with Neighbors Revisited
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Feb 2012
We can only hope that Turkey stays the Dautoglu course, pursuing every opening that enables positive mutual relations among countries and using its diplomatic stature to encourage peaceful conflict resolution wherever possible. Rather than viewing ‘zero problems’ as a failure, it should be a time to reaffirm the creativity of Turkish foreign policy in the course of the last decade that has shown the world the benefits of soft power diplomacy, and a pattern that other governments might learn from while adapting to their own realities.
→ read full articleSupport for BDS [Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions] National Conference at the University of Pennsylvania
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Feb 2012
I commend the conveners for taking this initiative in the face of efforts to intimidate and confuse by those who systematically oppose debate and free inquiry concerning the various dimensions of the Israel/Palestine conflict and its bearing on American foreign policy. I have long supported the BDS as a constructive and creative movement that raises awareness and mobilizes support for the Palestinian struggle to achieve a sustainable peace based on international law and a sense of justice.
→ read full articleNuclear Free Middle East: Desirable, Necessary, and Impossible
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Jan 2012
Finally, there is some argumentation in the West supportive of a nuclear free zone for the Middle East. Such thinking is still treated as politically marginal, and hardly audible above the beat of the war drums.
→ read full articleStop Warmongering in the Middle East
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2012
To be objective commentators we must ask ourselves whether Iran’s posture toward its nuclear program is unreasonable under these circumstances. When was the last time [Iran] resorted to force against a hostile neighbor? The surprising answer is over 200 years ago! Can either of Iran’s antagonists claim a comparable record of living within its borders? Why does Iran not have the same right as other states to take full advantage of nuclear technology?
→ read full articleJulian Assange: The Rolling Stone Interview
Michael Hastings – Rolling Stone,
23 Jan 2012
Under house arrest in England, the WikiLeaks founder opens up about his battle with the ‘Times,’ his stint in solitary and the future of journalism. It’s a few days before Christmas, and Julian Assange has just finished moving to a new hide-out deep in the English countryside.
→ read full articleHunger Is a ‘Weapon of Mass Destruction’, Says Jean Ziegler
Siv O'Neall - ICH,
23 Jan 2012
In his latest book “Mass Destruction – the Geopolitics of Hunger”, Jean Ziegler talks about the current state of the world and the neoliberal politics of starvation of the poor, which has led to a crisis situation amounting to calculated murder. What we are witnessing today is the worst hunger crisis in human history is. And it is all because of human greed, colossal mismanagement for profit.
→ read full articleHealing Wounds: Seeking Closure for the 1915 Armenian Massacres
Richard Falk & Hilal Elver,
16 Jan 2012
Recently the National Assembly, France’s lower legislative chamber, voted to criminalize the denial of the Armenian genocide in 1915, imposing a potential prison sentence of up to one year as well as a maximum fine of 45, 000 Euros. The timing of this controversial initiative seemed to represent a rather blatant Sarkhozy bid for the votes of the 500,000 French citizens of Armenian descent in the upcoming presidential election.
→ read full articleHow to Start a War: The American Use of War Pretext Incidents
Richard Sanders – Global Research,
16 Jan 2012
With regard to the confrontation in the Persian Gulf, is the Obama administration prepared to sacrifice the Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain as a means to create public outrage and drum up support for a war on Iran on the grounds of self-defense.
→ read full articleRemembering the Best and Worst of 2011
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2012
We will learn in 2012 whether we are moving closer to fulfilling our hopes, dreams, and goals or are trying to interpret and overcome a recurrence of disappointment and demoralization with respect to progressive change in world affairs. The stakes for some societies, and for humanity, have rarely been higher.
→ read full articleFrom the East, Long Ago…
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jan 2012
Shortly after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, Hungary’s interior minister called the prime minister, telling him that his office had been burglarized.
→ read full articleWhat is Shame?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jan 2012
‘Shame’ is a disturbing, much admired, Steve McQueen film that has been misleadingly reviewed, but deserves our serious attention. Let me put my reasoning in provocative language: ‘Shame’ depicts with chilling realism the degeneracy of high-end capitalist life style in the urban landscape of Sodom on the Hudson, otherwise known as ‘The Big Apple,’ that is, New York City.
→ read full articleSee you soon…
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Dec 2011
A couple from New York agreed to take a week vacation together in Florida.
→ read full articleChristopher Hitchens: RIP
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Dec 2011
I knew Christopher Hitchens casually, envied his rhetorical fluency, abhorred his interventionist cheerleading, and was offended by his arrogantly dismissive manner toward those he deemed his inferiors in debate or discussion. Perhaps, his sociopathic arrogance is epitomized by the explanation he often gave of why he was such a heavy drinker: “I hate to be bored, and when I drink other people seem less boring.”
→ read full articleA Man in Tunisia, a Movement on Wall Street, and the Soldier Who Ignited the Fuse
Michael Moore – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Dec 2011
It’s Saturday [17 Dec 2011] night and I didn’t want the day to end before I sent out this note to you. One year ago TODAY (December 17th), Mohamed Bouazizi, a man who had a simple produce stand in Tunisia, set himself on fire to protest his government’s repression. Three months ago TODAY, Occupy Wall Street began with a takeover of New York’s Zuccotti Park. Twenty-four years ago TODAY, U.S. Army Spc. Bradley Manning was born. He has now spent 570 days in a military prison without a trial — simply because he allegedly blew the whistle on the illegal and immoral war in Iraq.
→ read full articleRole Model
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Dec 2011
With a couple celebrating their 50th anniversary at the church’s marriage marathon, the minister asked Brother Ralph to take a few minutes and share some insight into how he managed to live with the same woman all these years.
→ read full articleMuddle and Create
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Dec 2011
World leaders and the economists who advise them are now debating whether more stimulus or more austerity, or some combination of the two, is the path toward restoring the normal functioning of capitalist accumulation, and therefore toward higher levels of employment and economic growth. There is no solution within the terms of their debates, only an historical necessity to muddle through somehow. Nor are there well-known solutions waiting in the wings, for both central planning and social democracy are discredited by good logical reasons and by historical experience.
→ read full articleIsrael and Apartheid? Reflections on the Russell Tribunal on Palestine Session in South Africa
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Dec 2011
This post is a modified and expanded version of an article published by Al Jazeera and also a continuation of a series of posts on the general theme of a jurisprudence of conscience.
→ read full articleClassless Society
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Dec 2011
President Nehru from India was on a state visit in Moscow.
→ read full articleLincoln: “Labor is the Superior of Capital”
Alan Grayson, Michaelmoore.com – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2011
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” -Pres. Lincoln.
Capital is wealthier, better organized, and far more powerful today than it was in Lincoln’s time. Capital gorges on Republican tax cuts for the rich, on bailouts, on government contracts and corporate welfare, on free money from the Fed, and on monopoly profit. Capital treats politicians and whole political parties like puppets.
Representative Schakowsky Receives Letter of Intimidation from Former Blackwater CEO
Yana Kunichoff - Truthout,
5 Dec 2011
Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s (D-Illinois) attempt to end the multimillion dollar business of outsourcing in Iraq and Afghanistan doesn’t sit well with the former CEO of the notorious Blackwater company, Erik Prince, who sent a hand-delivered cease-and-desist letter to the Congresswoman threatening legal action if she continued to make “false and defamatory” statements about him.
→ read full articleKuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal: Bush and Blair Guilty
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2011
This is a modified version of a text published by Al Jazeera. It is a sequel to the piece entitled “Toward a Jurisprudence of Conscience,” and will be followed by an assessment of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine session in Cape Town, South Africa investigating the allegations that Israel is guilty of imposing apartheid on the Palestinian people, considered by the Rome Treaty framework of the International Criminal Court to be a crime against humanity.
→ read full articleGetting Even
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2011
A very loud, unattractive, mean woman walked into a market with her two kids, yelling obscenities at them all the way through the entrance.
→ read full articleBeg Your Pardon
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
Saddam Hussein came to hell. The devil received him and said…
→ read full articleToward A Jurisprudence of Conscience
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
The existence of double standards is part of the deep structure of world politics. It was even given constitutional status by being written into the Charter of the United Nations that permits the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, that is the winners in 1945, to exercise a veto over any decision affecting the peace and security of the world, thereby exempting the world’s most dangerous states, being the most militarily powerful and expansionist, from any obligation to uphold international law.
→ read full articleLanguage, Law, and Truth
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
It may be time to acknowledge that governmental lawlessness in foreign policy has become a bipartisan reality for the United States Government, and that the face in the White House or the political party in control, while not yet irrelevant, is a matter of secondary interest, at least to those who are drone targets or torture victims.
→ read full articleOn (Im)Balance and Credibility in America: Israel/Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
I could not begin to count the number of times friends, and adversaries, have give me the following general line of advice: your views on Israel/Palestine would gain a much wider hearing if they showed more sympathy for Israel’s position and concerns, that is, if they were more ‘balanced.’
→ read full articleOccupy Movement: Two Texts in Solidarity
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
I wish to disseminate two texts that I have signed in support of the Occupy Movement. United for #Global Democracy deserves careful study and reflection. We got comments, suggestions, support, and wrote and rewrote it again and again. The text has been supported by Canadian-based Naomi Klein, Indian-based Vandana Shiva, the US-based Michael Hardt and Noam Chomsky, as well as Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano.
→ read full articleReturning the Favor
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
A man asked his neighbor, “May I read your newspaper when you are done with it?”
→ read full articleGlobal Revolution after Tahrir Square
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
This history-making global Occupy Movement with a presence in over 900 cities would not have happened without the revolutionary awakening culminating in driving Hosni Mubarak from Egyptian state power. We need also to acknowledge that the courage exhibited by those gathered at Tahrir Square might not have been exhibited to the world if not for the earlier charismatic self-immolating martyrdom of an unlicenced street vendor of vegetables, Mohamed Bouazi, in the interior Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid on December 17, 2010.
→ read full articleEurope Bans X-Ray Body Scanners Used at U.S. Airports
Michael Grabell – ProPublica,
21 Nov 2011
The European Union on Monday [14 Nov 2011] prohibited the use of X-ray body scanners in European airports, parting ways with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration. The European Commission, which enforces common policies of the EU’s 27 member countries, adopted the rule “in order not to risk jeopardizing citizens’ health and safety.” X-ray body scanners use ionizing radiation, a form of energy that has been shown to damage DNA and cause cancer.”
→ read full articleBig Change Whether We Like It or Not: Only Washington Is Clueless
Andrew Bacevich – TomDispatch,
21 Nov 2011
By attributing cosmic significance to every novelty and declaring every unexpected event a revolution, self-assigned interpreters of the contemporary scene — politicians and pundits above all — exacerbate the problem of distinguishing between the trivial and the non-trivial. Arrangements that once conferred immense prerogatives upon the United States are coming undone. In Washington, the governing class pretends that none of this is happening, stubbornly insisting that it’s still 1945 with the so-called American Century destined to continue (reflecting, of course, God’s express intentions).
→ read full articleRedeeming Desire
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
My digital friend, the respected author and journalist, Erik Wahlberg, sent me a message recently suggesting that I abandon the use of ‘horizons of desire’ as a way of framing human aspirations. He believed, with abundant justification, that desire is tied to consumerism, and the social construction of market demand for the luxurious, the wasteful, and the superfluous.
→ read full articleTwo Occupations
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
If we are to find ‘solutions’ we all need quickly to liberate our imaginations from the tyranny of ‘the feasible.’ The ‘realists’ presently holding the reins of power are unknowingly inhabiting realms of fantasy while the train of history approaches a station named DOOM. The young people are awakening to this grim realization, and for this the rest of us can be thankful, and even allow ourselves to enjoy the momentary privilege of hope.
→ read full articleCriminalizing Diplomacy: Fanning the Flames of the Iran War Option
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
How many times have we heard in recent weeks either outright threats to attack Iran mainly emanating from Israel or the more muted posture adopted by the United States that leaves ‘all options’ on the table including ‘the military option’?
→ read full articleRejecting Neoliberalism, Renewing the Utopian Imagination
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 two dismal consequences followed that have been rarely acknowledged: neoliberal orthodoxy became unchallenged and unchallengeable in the formation of global economic policy; the World Economic Forum, convening annually in Davos, became the true capital of world order after the ending of the Cold War.
→ read full articlePreparing For Revolution
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
To be human
is to be
naked
before and after
the law
‘J. Edgar’: Hoover’s Hubris Writ Large
Richard Schickel - Trughdig,
14 Nov 2011
Even by Clint Eastwood’s austere standards, “J. Edgar” is a very plain movie. It simply tells the story of J. Edgar Hoover, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation—or America’s “top cop” from 1924 until his death in 1972. There were, of course, oddities about him, notably his sexuality. He lived in an era when “perpetual bachelorhood” was not an automatic signal of covert homosexuality. The idea that a highly placed public figure might be gay was simply not thought about.
→ read full articleStingy…
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
Why did Adam and Eve have a perfect marriage?
→ read full articlePalestine’s Time
Michel Rocard – Project Syndicate,
7 Nov 2011
For a long time, Israeli leaders have lobbied supporters like me, who, since the Holocaust, have defended the Jewish people’s right to security and statehood. But Israel’s tactics regarding Palestine have been unconscionable. They have strengthened Hamas, a hostile opponent of peace, pushed the US to vote against the Palestinian state whose birth it defends, and refused outright to accept any conditions that might resolve the conflict. No civilized country can permit this behavior.
→ read full articleUNESCO Membership and Palestinian Self-Determination
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
It may not ease the daily pain of occupation and blockade or the endless anguish of refugee status and exile or the continual humiliations of discrimination and second class citizenship, but the admission of Palestine to membership in UNESCO is for so many reasons a step forward in the long march of the Palestinian people toward the dignity of sunlight!
→ read full articleGoldstone’s Folly: Disappointing and Perverse
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
Now on the eve of the third session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine scheduled to be held in Cape Town between November 5-7 Goldstone has again come to the defense of Israel in a highly partisan manner that abandons any pretense of judicious respect for either the legal duties of those with power or the legal rights of those in vulnerable circumstances.
→ read full articleTwo More
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
An Indian went with his wife on a trip to Jerusalem.
→ read full articleLibya after Muammar el Qaddafi’s Execution
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2011
The death of the despised despot who ruled Libya for forty-two years naturally produced celebrations throughout the country. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s end was bloody and vindictive, but we should remember that his rants against his own people—and his violent repression of what was initially a peaceful uprising—invited a harsh popular response.
→ read full articleTaking Offense
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2011
A man had been through a difficult divorce and been taken to the cleaners.
→ read full articleDetail
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Oct 2011
Two girlfriends were married for ten years and still childless.
→ read full articleOral Statement Introducing Report on Israeli Violations of Human Rights in Occupied Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Oct 2011
Oral Presentation on 20 October 2011 of Report to the General Assembly by Special Rapporteur on “Situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territories occupied since 1967,” submitted in 13 September 2011.
→ read full articleSome Church
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Oct 2011
At an Irish bar, there was a contest for the best toast.
→ read full articleOccupy Wall Street and “The American Autumn”: Is It a “Colored Revolution”? (Part I)
Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research,
17 Oct 2011
There is a grassroots protest movement unfolding across America, which includes people from all walks of life, from all age groups, conscious of the need for social change and committed to reversing the tide. The grassroots of this movement constitutes a response to the “Wall Street agenda” of financial fraud and manipulation which has served to trigger unemployment and poverty across the land.
→ read full articleDrone Attacks: American Citizens and Foreign Civilians
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Oct 2011
The execution of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-Yemeni imam, by a drone attack in Yemen on September 30, 2011 has generated a lively debate among liberally minded lawyers in the United States because al-Awlaki was an American citizen.
→ read full articleWhy No Demands – Occupy Wall Street is a Rebellion, Not a Protest
Michael Levitin – Nation of Change,
17 Oct 2011
Let’s get something straight: this movement has issued no demands. It is not a protest. It’s an occupation. Rebellions don’t have demands.
→ read full articleIs this a Global Gandhian Moment?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Oct 2011
Mahatma Gandhi has been dead for more than 63 years, and yet his relevance to the politics of our time has never been greater. It is a tribute to the power of Gandhi’s inspirational ideas and life that his current influence is far greater than that of any other leader of the past century.
→ read full articleMissing the Point Twice: International Law as Empire’s Sunday Suit
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Oct 2011
In effect, post-9/11 American ideas of self-defense incorporate by stealth the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war used to justify aggression against Iraq in 2003, which had seemed discredited in international until quietly revived by the Obama presidency.
→ read full articleClass Warfare Indeed
Michael Parenti – Toward Freedom,
10 Oct 2011
And who knows, once we learn to talk about the realities of class power, we are on our way to talking critically about capitalism, another verboten word in the public realm. And once we start a critical discourse about capitalism, we will be vastly better prepared to act against it and defend our own democratic and communal interests.
→ read full articleInterview on the Palestinian Statehood Bid
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Oct 2011
This post consists of my responses to questions put to me by a Greek journalist, C.J Polychroniou, who long followed intellectual thought in the West, and is a keen analyst of the current European economic crisis.
→ read full articleAn American Awakening?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Oct 2011
We must hope and engage. We can be thankful that this initiative places its focus on financial and corporate structures, and not on the state. Further along these lines, if the struggle will gain momentum it will be totally thanks to politics-from-below. The implicit not so subtle point is that the center of power over the destinies of the American people has shifted its locus from Washington to New York, and from the penthouse to the the basement!! We’ll see!!
→ read full articleA Modest Proposal: Is It Time for the Community of Non-Nuclear States to Revolt?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Oct 2011
There are 189 countries that are parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) that entered into force in 1970. Only India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea have remained outside the treaty regime so as to be free to acquire the weapons. The nuclear weapons states have done an incredibly successful job, especially the United States, in getting a free ride, continuously modernizing their arsenals while keeping the weapons out of most unwanted hands.
→ read full articleBrian Stelter and the Pathology of Objectivity
Michael Tracey – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Oct 2011
So I had a question for Stelter — what evidence indicated to him that a “battle” had taken place yesterday, or in other words, what evidence indicated that protesters had “battled” police? Again, the term “battle” implies the participation of at least two parties, but there is no reason (as yet) to believe that protesters attacked police. Here’s what Stelter said in response: “I used the word “battle” in an attempt not to judge either side.”
→ read full articleWhat Facebook Really Wants
Nicholas Thompson – The New Yorker,
3 Oct 2011
The more our online lives take place on Facebook, the more we depend on the choices of the people who run the company – what they think about privacy, how they think we should be able to organize our friends, what they tell advertisers (and governments) about what we do and what we buy. We’ll rely on whom they choose as partners to give us news and music. Real issues are at stake, in other words – not just the size of photos and whether you can poke.
→ read full articleSmall Price
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Oct 2011
A pole goes to a bank with 100 zlotys and asks, “What is the safest thing to do with my money?” “Deposit it in a bank,” the teller says.
→ read full articleReflections on the Abbas Statehood/Membership Speech to the UN General Assembly
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Oct 2011
There is a natural disposition for supporters of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination to suppose that the Palestinian statehood bid must be a positive initiative because it has generated such a frantic Israel effort to have it rejected.
→ read full articleLockdowns and the IMF on Occupied Wall Street
Richard (RJ) Eskow – Nation of Change,
3 Oct 2011
You know why otherwise smart hedge fund managers say crazy things, why they call themselves “a persecuted minority” or react to the suggestion that they pay the same tax rates as a firefighter by comparing it to the invasion of Poland? Because they’re addicts. Junkies, even the smart ones, say crazy things to get their next fix. Especially the smart ones. Wall Street is occupied by … addiction.
→ read full articleRethinking Afghanistan After a Decade
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Sep 2011
This post is a short essay responding to a question about my dramatic change of position on the Afghanistan War with regard to its initial justification and flawed execution. It is both a reconsideration of errors of judgment and reflections on how the world has changed in the course of this decade, focusing on the inability of the United States to grasp either its own decline or the related decline in the historical agency of hard power approaches to security.
→ read full articleSocialism, Communism…
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Sep 2011
At a political meeting the chairman asks the audience, “Who is Gomulka?” There is silence.
→ read full articleWe the Ruled
Michael S. Rozeff - LewRockwell,
26 Sep 2011
And the Criminals Who Dominate Us – I am saying little that is new, although it bears repetition until it motivates action. I echo and strongly endorse Henry David Thoreau in Civil Disobedience (1849): “When a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.”
→ read full articleThe American and Global Experience of 9/10, 9/11, 9/12 +10:
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Sep 2011
There is unacknowledged freedom associated with any event inscribed in our individual and collective experience of profoundly disabling and disturbing public occurrences. For most older Americans what is most vividly remembered among such occurrences is likely to have been Pearl Harbor, the assassination of JFK, and the 9/11 attacks, each coming as a shock to a shared societal sense of exceeding the limits of what could be expected to happen.
→ read full articlePreliminary Libyan Scorecard: Acting Beyond the UN Mandate
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Sep 2011
If the governments will not act to uphold agreed and fundamental limits on state violence, especially directed at vulnerable countries and peoples, then as citizens of the world, ‘we the peoples of the United Nations,’ as proclaimed by the Preamble to the Charter need to raise our voices. We have the residual responsibility to act on behalf of international law and morality when the UN falters or when states act beyond the law.
→ read full articleLast Wishes
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Sep 2011
A dying man asked his wife, “Are you going to marry again?” “If you wish, I will,” she said.
→ read full article
Sloppy Journalism or War Propaganda? Fake Images from Tripoli
Michel Chossudovsky – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Sep 2011
Tripoli’s Greeen Square in India: BBC 24 Aug 2011 Hoax Report – It’s not Green Square and it’s not the King Idris Flag (red, black green) of the Rebels. It’s the Indian flag (orange, white and green) and the people at the rally are Indians. Sloppy journalism at the BBC or outright Lies and Fabrications? Image manipulation seems to be a routine practice of the mainstream media.
→ read full articleThe Legal Flaws of the Palmer Commission Flotilla Report
Richard Falk & Phyllis Bennis – TRANSCEND Media Serivce,
19 Sep 2011
The latest United Nations report on last year’s lethal flotilla incident – in which nine people were killed and many injured by Israeli commandos on board a humanitarian ship bound for Gaza – was released at the beginning of September, and generated much controversy. Astonishingly, the only other independent member was its vice-chair, the former president of Colombia. Alvaro Uribe’s notorious history as a human rights abuser who called human rights advocates such as Amnesty International “rats,” as well as his legacy of seeking out the closest possible ties to and defense of Israel while in office, make him wildly inappropriate for such an assignment.
→ read full article9/11 Did Not Start or End At Midnight
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Sep 2011
All too often we view 9/11 from the perspective of the nation-state rather than from a global standpoint.
→ read full articleAgainst Our Principles
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Sep 2011
A Rabbi, a Hindu and a lawyer are riding down the road when their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere.
→ read full articleAnother UN Failure: The Palmer Report on the Flotilla Incident of 31 May 2010
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Sep 2011
Israel has managed up to now to avoid paying the price for defying international law. For decades it has been building unlawful settlements in occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. It has used excessive violence and relied on state terror on numerous occasions in dealing with Palestinian resistance, and has subjected the people of Gaza to sustained and extreme forms of collective punishment.
→ read full articleSpeculating with Lives: How Global Investors Make Money Out of Hunger
Horand Knaup, Michaela Schiessl and Anne Seith – Der Spiegel,
5 Sep 2011
In recent years, the financial markets have discovered the huge opportunities presented by agricultural commodities. The consequences are devastating, as speculators drive up food prices and plunge millions of people into poverty. But investors care little about the effects of their deals in the real world.
→ read full articleOops…!
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Sep 2011
A Catholic priest was being honored at his retirement dinner after 25 years in the parish.
→ read full articleYou Only Believe the Official 9/11 Story Because You Don’t Know the Official 9/11 Story
Jesse Richard – TV News LIES,
5 Sep 2011
During the past 10 years I have not met a single individual who, after doing research on the subject, switched from questioning the official narrative of the events of 9/11/2001 to believing the official narrative of those events.. It is always the other way around. Why do you think that is?
→ read full articleStrategy Lesson at the Soviet War College
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Aug 2011
A general is a guest lecturer and tells the class of officers that the session will focus on potential problems and the resulting strategies. One of the officers in the class begins by asking the first question:
→ read full articleLibya without Qaddafi: Decoding an Uncertain Future
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Aug 2011
There is so much spin surrounding the Transitional National Council victory in Libya that it is difficult to interpret the outcome, and perhaps premature to do so at this point considering that the fighting continues and the African Union has withheld diplomatic recognition on principled grounds.
→ read full articleSomalia Tragedy, Islamist Extremists and Climate Change Skeptics
Hilal Elver and Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Aug 2011
The unfolding tragedy in East Africa is a dramatic indicator of what humanity as a whole can expect in the near future ‘if business as usual’ continues to be the phrase that most accurately expresses global climate change policy. The unwillingness of the developed countries to provide adequate humanitarian aid to the most vulnerable peoples in the world also helps explain this worsening regional tragedy has reached such dire extremes.
→ read full articleSyria: Geopolitical Mentoring versus Rehab for Addicted Geopolitical Leaders
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Aug 2011
Of course, the future should not be entrusted to the political leaders representing sovereign states. It is up to the peoples of the world to propose and demand better solutions for the unfolding global tragedies that are sidestepped by the egocentric behavioral goals of national governments. Populist complacency is part of what gives this geopolitical posturing a semblance of credibility in our post-colonial era.
→ read full articleBack in 1967… In Eastern Europe
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Aug 2011
Czechoslovakia announced that it was going to create a ministry of the Navy.
→ read full articleFear of the Executioners: The Sinister Power of the Rating Agencies
Michaela Schiessl, Christoph Schult and Thomas Schulz – Der Spiegel,
22 Aug 2011
The most obvious solution — perhaps even the only solution — to break the power of the agencies without also destabilizing the entire financial system would be to remove the rating stipulations from the regulations. This would allow investors to seek alternative sources of information without being bound, for better or for worse, to the agencies’ opinions.
→ read full articleEconomic Crisis or Nonviolent Opportunity? Gandhi’s Answer to Financial Collapse
Michael Nagler – Waging Nonviolence,
15 Aug 2011
The real purpose of an economic system is to guarantee to every person in its circle the fundamentals of physical existence (food, clothing, shelter) and the tools of meaningful work so that they can get on with the business of living together and working out our common destiny. This was Gandhi’s vision, among others’. We can no longer afford to ignore him in this sector any more than we can ignore his spectacular contributions to peace and security.
→ read full articleThe Afghanistan War in the Mirror of the Tet Offensive: When ‘Defeat’ Became ‘Victory’
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Aug 2011
It is true the war dragged on for several more years with heavy casualties on both sides, but the Tet Offensive changed the American goal from ‘victory’ to ‘peace with honor,’ that is, ‘defeat in disguise.’ The subsequent Christmas bombing of the North and the disastrous invasion of Cambodia in 1970 were part of the bloody effort during the Nixon/Kissinger period of American leadership to produce ‘honor.’ Actually, when the war finally came to an abrupt end in 1975, the dominant image at the time being that of Vietnamese collaborators with the American intervention desperately seeking to escape from Vietnam by clamoring aboard a helicopter taking off from the roof of the embassy. Not honor but humiliation, chaos, and defeat…
→ read full articleOslo: Europe, Islam and the Mainstreaming of Racism
Miriyam Aouragh and Richard Seymour – Jadaliyya,
8 Aug 2011
European media coverage of the Norwegian tragedy has led with dangerous and clichéd arguments about ‘Islamic extremism’ and multiculturalism, even after the identity of the killer was confirmed – thus contributing to the mainstreaming of racism that helped make Breivik what he is.
→ read full articleCan Humanitarian Intervention Ever Be Humanitarian?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Aug 2011
Not since the debate about the Kosovo War of 1999 has there been such widespread discussion of humanitarian intervention, including the semantics of coupling ‘humanitarian’ with the word ‘intervention.’
→ read full articlePeak Oil: A Chance to Change the World
Richard Heinberg – Yes! Magazine,
8 Aug 2011
For advice about life after graduation, students at Worcester Polytechnic wanted to hear from peak oil scholar Richard Heinberg instead of Exxon’s CEO. Here’s what he told them.
→ read full articleParadigm Meltdown and Opportunities for Peacebuilding
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Aug 2011
A question that it would seem to be reasonable to ask is how to raise wages and employ everyone who wants a job, without raising prices, without militarism, and without damage to the environment.
→ read full articleWarfare without Limits: A Darkening Human Horizon
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Aug 2011
There are several pressures that push war in the direction of the absolute, and imperil the human future. Perhaps, the foremost of these is emergence, use, retention, and proliferation of nuclear weapons, as well as the development of biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction.
→ read full articleQuestions the Media Are Not Asking about Norway
Michael N. Nagler and Stephanie N. Van Hook – Metta Center for Nonviolence,
1 Aug 2011
The law enforcement entities dealing with the appalling massacre in and around Oslo last Friday have been understandably preoccupied with the question, did the perpetrator, Anders Behring Breivik, act alone. That is an important question for them, but it does nothing to help the rest of us understand and respond to this tragedy.
→ read full articleBreaking the Power of the ‘Big Three’
Peter Müller, Michael Sauga and Christoph Schult – Der Spiegel,
18 Jul 2011
German Firm Wants to Set Up New Rating Agency – European politicians are blaming the escalation of the euro crisis on the major rating agencies, and are determined to break the monopoly of the “Big Three.” Supporters of an intiative by a German consulting firm to set up a European rival agency believe that their time has come.
→ read full articleDilemmas of Sovereignty and Intervention
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jul 2011
The Arab Spring (and its troublesome, yet still hopeful, aftermath in Egypt), intervention in Libya, nonintervention in Syria and Bahrain, drone military operations in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the influx of unwanted immigrants and walls of exclusion, and selective applications of international criminal law draw into question the most basic of all ideas of world order: the sovereignty of territorial states, and its limits.
→ read full articleWar without Humans: Modern Blood Rites Revisited
Barbara Ehrenreich - TomDispatch,
11 Jul 2011
12,000 Drones, Lethal Cyborg Insects, See-Shoot Robots — How Machines Are Taking Over War – How far will the automation of war and the substitution of autonomous robots for human fighters go?
→ read full articleSabotaging Flotilla II: Waging War against Civil Society
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jul 2011
It is useful to compare the Flotilla II unfolding experience with the Rainbow Warrior incident. At the time, the French nuclear tests in the Pacific were considered legal, although intensely contested, while the blockade of Israel is widely viewed as a prolonged instance of collective punishment in violation of international humanitarian law, specifically Article 33 of the 4th Geneva Convention.
→ read full articleInstances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2010
Richard F. Grimmett, Congressional Research Service – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jul 2011
March 10, 2011 – This report lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its armed forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes.
→ read full articleMao Inc. – China’s Terribly Successful Communist Party Turns 90
Erich Follath and Wieland Wagner – Der Spiegel,
4 Jul 2011
Beijing’s communists are among the world’s most successful capitalists, but their economic ascent is often overshadowed by its human rights violations. The Communist Party now faces a crucial test: Can it become more democratic without jeopardizing its hold on power?
→ read full articleThe International Criminal Court Plays Politics? The Qaddafi Arrest Warrants
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jul 2011
This politicized use of the ICC in the course of the Libyan War offers an opportunity for those dedicated to global justice, especially in the Arab world, to insist that international law should no longer serve as a plaything for those who intervene with hard power in their region from the comfort zone of NATO headquarters.
→ read full article