Blogosphere
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: The Legacy of 1918
Margaret Kimberley: Donald Trump is a racist boor, but the European leaders he snubbed are unreconstructed imperialists whose nations have enslaved and slaughtered tens of millions. ... Despite the pomp, circumstance and wreath laying, there is no reason to celebrate World War I. ... But the victors eventually got the spoils. Britain and France ended up taking the Ottoman Empire territories in the Middle East and snatching Germany’s colonies in Africa too. They stole Germany’s money and set the stage for another conflagration just 20 years later. The United States got in on the action towards the end of the war and ended up securing its own empire. .... One hundred years later the same nations are still making decisions that impact everyone in the world and they still do so with the worst of intentions...
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Nov 14, 2018, 1:37pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Black People Need Birthright Citizenship
Margaret Kimberley: If birthright citizenship were to disappear, black people would be victims along with the immigrant babies who are disparaged so badly. Children born to undocumented parents would be the first target but black people would follow close behind. If birthright were no longer the determining factor in citizenship status it could be changed or even disappeared altogether. ... White Americans know that black people aren’t going anywhere. But the presence of an unprotected class of some 30 million people is a fantasy they have long desired. If birth didn’t determine citizenship, any criteria could be used to take it away. Criminal conviction might end citizenship rights. Poverty could be the determining factor or anything that white nationalists wanted to propose...
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Nov 7, 2018, 2:44pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: American Terror Is Not New
Margaret Kimberley: “The most prevalent racially motivated murders are carried out by police across the country.” ... Trump differs from his predecessors mostly by tearing away the veneer of humanity and civility from a system which is relentlessly brutal. But the façade keeps many would be terrorists from carrying out their sick fantasies. There are people who keep their hatred to themselves until they know that they may be given some cover and acceptance. Hatred expressed by a president emboldens people who might not ordinarily act upon their racist impulses. ... “There were hate crimes before Donald Trump ran for president, most of them sanctioned by the state.” ... We always lived in a very dangerous nation...
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Nov 1, 2018, 3:46pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: The Migrant Caravan and U.S. Policy
Margaret Kimberley: The men and women in the Central American caravan should be allowed to apply for asylum and they should not be separated from one another. But a just decision should be of greater significance than allowing people to enter the U.S. The United States must stop interfering in other nations and end its subversion of other countries’ democratic processes. The U.S. coup against the elected Honduran president began a cascading effect that now involves Guatemala and Mexico too. ... The United States should be more generous to everyone, citizens and non-citizens alike. There would be less resentment of newcomers if people already here did not live in cut-throat competition with one another. A truly democratic United States would not destroy other countries and would do better by its own people. The migrant caravan and fear of it are proof of failure on both counts...
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Oct 24, 2018, 11:44am
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Jamal Khashoggi and U.S. Hypocrisy
Margaret Kimberley: The corporate media cry crocodile tears over the apparent murder of an elite, CIA-connected “dissident,” while papering over US complicity in Saudi war crimes in Yemen. ... The disappearance and presumed murder of Jamal Khashoggi puts the corrupt relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States in high relief. The two countries have been partners in crime over many years. Together they used jihadist proxies to make wars in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria that furthered U.S. interests. The brutal Saudi attack on neighboring Yemen could not happen without U.S. diplomatic and logistical support. ... It is easy to find yet another reason to look askance at Trump and his vulgar and incompetent family but Saudi Arabia will be a U.S. partner in wrong doing no matter who is in the White House...
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Oct 17, 2018, 2:09pm
Blogosphere
Future of Climate Activism: Dutch Court orders Gov’t to Reduce CO2 Emissions Dramatically
Juan Cole: An appeals court in the Netherlands has upheld a 2015 lower court ruling in a class action case that the Dutch government needs to do more to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 25% below 1990 levels be 2020. So far the Netherlands has only reduced 13% from 1990 levels. ... The court appealed to the principle that the government must attend to the welfare of citizens, enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights. ... The Netherlands is particularly at risk from one of the main effects of climate change, rising sea levels. ... since in countries with common law like the US, Britain and India, precedents can be taken from anywhere, the Dutch decision can be cited by courts in other countries as a precedent...
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Oct 13, 2018, 11:03am
Blogosphere
On not Writing Recommendation Letters for the Occupiers in Palestinian Territories
Juan Cole: My colleague John Cheney-Lippold in the American Culture Department of the University of Michigan has been disciplined by the Colleges of Letters, Sciences and Arts for declining to write a recommendation letter for a student to do summer study at Tel Aviv University. He took this position because of his support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement ... Not only has the Israeli occupation become criminal by virtue of its length and intensity, it is criminal because the Israeli government has flooded hundreds of thousands of its own citizens into the Occupied Palestinian West Bank, stealing massive amounts of Palestinian land from its rightful owners, building on it, and stealing resources such as water, as well. ... What makes the situation in Gaza and the West Bank so egregious is that people are being kept stateless. They cannot be sure they own the property they think they do, since Israeli squatters can take it at will...
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Oct 12, 2018, 11:10am
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Robert Mueller, Shahed Hussain and the FBI War of Terror
Margaret Kimberley: The news story about a deadly car crash in a small New York town has turned into a reminder about the racist law enforcement corruption which is a constant feature of government. Schoharie, New York is the place where a limousine crash killed 20 people. But it turns out that the owner of the limousine company is Shahad Hussain, one of the most infamous FBI agent provocateurs in history. He did his dirtiest work when the now sainted Robert Mueller was FBI Director. ... Hussain was falsifying drivers’ licenses and was on his way to jail until he made a deal to create phony terror plots on behalf of the federal government. ... It is important to reiterate that Hussain did not discover any terror plans. He used desperate and marginalized people to create terror plots that would not have existed without his involvement. He also played a role in the arrest of a man who knew he was being set up and planned to inform the public about Hussain...
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Oct 11, 2018, 2:26pm
Blogosphere
Hating Muslims in the Age of Trump: The New Islamophobia looks like the Old McCarthyism
Juan Cole: These days, our global political alliances seem to shift with remarkable rapidity, as if we were actually living in George Orwell’s 1984. ... there is one constant, though. The Trump administration has made Muslims our enemy of the first order and, in its Islamophobia, is reinforced by an ugly resurgence of fascism in Germany, Italy, Hungary, and other European countries. ... The Islamophobes like to argue that Islam is an inherently violent religion, that its adherents are quite literally commanded to such violence by its holy scriptures, the Qur’an. It’s a position that ... is both utterly false and ahistorical ... Having helped spread extremism and set in motion massive population displacements, Western elites then developed a profound fear of the millions of refugees they had helped chase out of the Middle East...
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Oct 10, 2018, 3:16pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: The Kavanaugh Farce
Margaret Kimberley: Now that it’s too late to prevent a total rightwing takeover of the Supreme Court, the Democrats pretend to be the party of opposition. ... They declined to use their power to filibusterand scuttle the right wing nominations they claimed were so antithetical to their beliefs. But thanks to them and other Democrats the Supreme Court is now firmly in the hands of Republican ideologues and protestations about Brett Kavanaugh are little more than kabuki theater. ... “Democrats hope to eke out victories while neglecting the issues that the masses of Democrats want them to advance.” ... Kavanaugh’s role in protecting the Bush administration torture regime has taken a back seat. ... Kavanaugh says that the bulk data collection of every American’s phone calls, emails and texts is “entirely consistent” with the Constitution...
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Oct 3, 2018, 12:22pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: World War Dangers in Syria
Margaret Kimberley: The American public is being force-fed dangerous lies about its government’s war policies.” ... President Bashar al-Assad has reconquered most of Syria from the United States-backed al Qaeda and Isis terrorists. But the war that should be over isn’t because the U.S., Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia refuse to walk away from their regime change scheme.Their goals haven’t changed and theyare determined to carve up as much of Syria as they can and prevent their venture from being a total loss. Their plots may yet create an even wider conflagration after a Russian plane was shot down as a result of Israeli skullduggery. ... Meanwhile the corporate media in this country spin lies for public consumption. They work with the political duopoly to create the worst kind of fake news. It is nothing but war propaganda which paints Syria and its allies as villains. They say nothing about America’s actions which killed and displaced millions of people and set the stage for a much wider conflict...
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Sep 26, 2018, 4:04pm
Blogosphere
Trump’s China Tariffs on Solar backfire; American Natural Gas hurt, as US PV sales Soar
Juan Cole: President Donald Trump’s 30% tariff on Chinese-made solar panels turns out not to have had as severe an impact on the industry as had been feared. Trump was attempting to slow renewables growth in favor of Big Carbon–natural gas and coal, but he failed spectacularly. ... As it turns out, the Chinese are so angry about his tariffs that they have slapped a 10% tariff on US liquid natural gas (LNG). The US now has a good deal of natural gas, which is exported by sea in the form of LNG in canisters on containment ships, because of hydraulic fracturing or fracking. The LNG companies in the US were expecting their primary customer to be China, which is trying to move away from coal to renewables and cleaner-burning natural gas...
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Sep 19, 2018, 4:08pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: The Plot Against Trump
Margaret Kimberley: Since there is no limit to what the ruling class will do to “get” Trump, there is no telling what person, agency or group actually wrote the “anonymous” New York Times article. ... Donald Trump presents many contradictions. He is the both the embodiment of white American nationalism and the mortal enemy of one wing of the ruling elite. He is a racist and therefore a threat to black people. But he is also hated by forces who are the enemies of all humanity. ... “Robert Mueller has identified Russians as the colluders but hasn’t connected them with Trump.” ... Black people cannot align themselves with Trump but would be extremely foolish to choose the neoliberal imperialists and their friends in the media. The enemy of one’s enemy is not necessarily a friend. Sometimes that force is an enemy too...
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Sep 12, 2018, 2:49pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: John McCain, Trump Derangement, and False Black Consciousness
Margaret Kimberley: The death of Senator John McCain was an opportune moment for the corporate media and bipartisan establishment elite to tighten their grip on public opinion and simultaneously attack Donald Trump, the man they can’t trust to do their bidding. It wasn’t difficult to do. White supremacy and the doctrine of Manifest Destiny never lurk far from the surface. It is easy to turn a white man into a saint when he is famous for dropping bombs on Asians who turned the tables when they captured and tortured him. ... The rehabilitation of George W. Bush and John McCain proves that the bad guys can be transformed into good if someone comes along who is thought to be worse. ... We have been transformed in the rightward shift too and erase our history and our consciousness in a sad effort to identify with a system which should always be understood as an adversary...
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Sep 5, 2018, 1:49pm
Blogosphere
On Labor Day, American Workers are Poor because they Aren’t Socialists
Juan Cole: The average purchasing power of the average worker’s wages in the United States has not increased for 40 years. ... One big reason for the failure of the American system to provide a better life for this generation of workers is the decline of unions. In fact, the decline of unions has depressed the wages and benefits even of non-union workers. Popular misconceptions promoted by the billionaires blame wage stagnation on immigration or free trade arrangements. The solid economic studies show that both immigration and open trade frameworks increase economic growth. It is knee-capping the unions that depress wages. ... It is the Democratic Socialists of America who recognize the disease and know the cure. It isn’t the Tea Party or the trickle down crowd or the P T Barnums of Washington, D.C., like Trump, who believe that a sucker is born every minute...
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Sep 3, 2018, 12:24pm
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