Blogosphere
Blogosphere
Not only Is Trump’s Refugee Policy Morally Wrong, it is Illegal in US and Int’l Law
Juan Cole: In essence, the Trump administration is attempting gradually to abolish the acceptance by the US of asylees, in stark contravention to US treaty obligations (and hence to domestic US law). ... Relief Web - “It is cruel and unnecessary to prosecute asylum seekers for crossing borders without authorization. Moreover, under Article 31 of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, to which the United States is bound by its accession to the 1967 Refugee Protocol, parties ‘shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened ... enter or are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.’” ...
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Jun 21, 2018, 2:46pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Democrats Unhinged by Korea
Margaret Kimberley: The Democrats like war, interventions and United States hegemony. They always have. If anyone wants proof they need only look at their collective hissy fit regarding the Trump and Kim summit. Part of the reaction is caused by fear of Trump getting credit for a foreign policy achievement. But Democrats are also true believers in imperialism. The last thing they want to see is any reduction in the American military presence in Korea or anywhere else. ... There are many parties to thank for bringing about a possibility of peace in the region. The two Koreas themselves, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea in the north and the Republic of Korea in the south have made great strides towards peacefully co-existing. Their neighbors China and Russia have also played a role in minimizing tensions...
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Jun 20, 2018, 3:58pm
Blogosphere
The corporate media’s world of illusions
Jonathan Cook: The Great Western Narrative has been developed and refined over centuries to preserve a tiny elite’s privileges and expand its power. The role of journalists like me was to keep feeding these illusions to readers so they would remain fearful, passive and deferential to this elite. It is not that journalists lie – or at least, not most of them – it is that they are as deeply wedded to the Great Western Narrative as everyone else. ... Once one is prepared to step through the door, to discard the old script, the new narrative takes its hold because it is so helpful. ... On the other side of the door lies a truth that humans are all equally human. ... The conclusion from this is that the way to change our societies fundamentally for the better depends on a change in our consciousness...
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Jun 16, 2018, 2:12pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: A Tale of Two Summits
Margaret Kimberley: There were two summits of world leaders held very recently. The one which got Americans’ attention was the Group of Seven (G7), comprised of Canada, the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan, and Germany. ... Vladimir Putin was on the other side of the world in Qingdao, China where the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was also meeting. ... made up of eight Eurasian nations including not only China and Russia but also India and Pakistan. ... The United States is not the center of the world. China is the center of the economic world and Russia is its intimate friend. ... The order needs to be upset but not by any of the G7 leaders. They have created problems for most of the world’s people. ... The party held in China was also worthy of attention. A multi-polar world is a reality whether Americans know anything about it or not...
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Jun 13, 2018, 3:28pm
Blogosphere
War Crimes: Israeli Snipers Kill Palestinian Nurse, Injure 100, at Gaza March of Return
Juan Cole: “Israeli forces shot and killed a 21-year-old Palestinian woman paramedic on Friday, as she was treating injured protesters during ongoing demonstrations along the Gaza border with Israel, in the southern Gaza Strip. ... For the Israeli Army to shoot unarmed Palestinians who posed no danger to anyone simply because they were in a zone declared off limits within Gaza is a war crime. Shooting unarmed civilian nurses is certainly a war crime ... Since 30 March, at least 118 Palestinian demonstrators have been martyred — and thousands more injured — by Israeli army gunfire near the Gaza-Israel security fence.”...
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Jun 2, 2018, 12:03pm
Blogosphere
China’s Green Shift is Positioning it to Overtake US in Energy Technology, Security
Juan Cole: Chinese adoption of solar panels is the major cause for the rapid decline in their price since 2012, and that this price drop will continue ... By generating its own electricity through renewables and by switching in a big way to electric cars, China is preparing for a vast reduction in its imports of hydrocarbons. In turn, that move makes China less vulnerable to hydrocarbon blackmail or blockade and increases its energy security. ... the US still imports nearly half of the oil it needs to run its economy, and some of those imports come from unstable places like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. On transportation (the major use of petroleum), the US is highly vulnerable. ... The turn to wind and solar is thus not only about the environment (though the Chinese government was increasingly facing urban protests if it did not clean up the air and switch from coal). It is also about energy security and the forging of new industries in which China can show its technological innovation chops...
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May 26, 2018, 11:38am
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: CIA and FBI Election Interference
Margaret Kimberley: All talk of democracy in the United States is a lie meant to ensure devotion to and acceptance of a system that is inherently undemocratic. The word that is used with such reverence should mean more than holding elections. People living in a democracy ought to have some say in how they are governed; instead, Americans have none. But the electoral process itself is rife with vote theft, suppression schemes against black voters in particular and a variety of tactics meant to undo the little bit of popular will that is permitted to take place. ... The same forces which went after Trump will come after anyone else who is seen as a danger to the system...
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May 23, 2018, 2:23pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Black Support for the Police State
Margaret Kimberley: The worst hate group in the United States is not the Ku Klux Klan or any self-proclaimed alt-right group. The most racist, vicious, and deadly menace to black people in this country is law enforcement. The police, courts and prisons exist primarily to keep as many black people under control as possible. All other claims of usefulness are phony and cover up the racist cruelties inherent to their existence. ... The presence of black cops and elected officials doesn’t stem the tide of state sponsored terror. They are in fact put into these positions to defend the onslaught and to silence protest. ... Even when there are positive developments such as the effort to end cash bail, the most important points are missed. It is good that attention is called to this pernicious practice of profiting off of black people’s bodies. But the protest should be against the police state itself that turns minor infractions into felonies and locks up people who should be free...
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May 16, 2018, 3:42pm
Blogosphere
US and Israeli Ziofascists Partner in State Terror Against Palestinians
Stephen Lendman: Israel gets away with mass murder and much more because Washington supports and encourages its ruthlessness. ... Both nations partner in each other’s high crimes – raging on Monday in besieged Gaza. As of 4:00 PM local time, 44 Palestinians were murdered in cold blood by Israeli snipers, another 1,700 injured, many seriously – the death and injury toll sure to rise. ... Trump and other administration Ziofascists are ruthlessly contemptuous of Palestinian rights. They deplore peace and stability, instigating and supporting endless violence and chaos. ... Palestinian Center for Human Rights’ fieldworkers in the Strip reported “continuously fired live and rubber bullets, tear gas canisters and artillery shells at the whole area, and not only at Gazans” ... Thousands of Gazans demonstrated peacefully, it stressed, many women, children, and entire families involved...
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May 14, 2018, 11:39am
Blogosphere
Costa Rica’s new President Promises 100% Green Energy, aims to be 1st such Nation
Juan Cole: Carlos Alvarado, 38, has had his inauguration as the Americas’ youngest head of state, coming to power in Costa Rica. Standard-bearer of an ambitious platform aiming at slashing corruption, government costs, poverty and unemployment, the journalist and author stands out for his dedication to decarbonization and a completely green energy grid. His new cabinet, by the way, has 14 women and 11 men. ... The country hopes to have a completely green electricity grid by 2021, less than three years from now. ... The big carbon-producing sectors Costa Rica needs to improve on are transportation, construction and agriculture...
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May 10, 2018, 5:12pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Trump and Israeli Collusion
Margaret Kimberley: Fealty to the state of Israel is a constant in United States foreign policy. ... Ultimately Israel wants to instigate an American attack on Iran and a Trump presidency is their best chance to make that happen. ... One needn’t know history to figure out who is a friend of the United States government and who is a foe. But the ruling elite can’t be allowed to make that decision for everyone else. In fact we should know that the friends of the empire are the enemies of the people. There are plenty of other enemies who work with American presidents to undermine national sovereignty and human rights all over the world. Israel is just the most blatant and most successful of them all...
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May 9, 2018, 3:10pm
Blogosphere
The Hugest Solar Plant in the New World is in Mexico, not the US
Juan Cole: Mexico wants to produce 43% of its electricity from renewables by 2024, in only 6 years. It has 58 new power plants planned, the majority of them solar and the rest wind. Toward that end, in December it opened the Vilanueva solar farm in the desert, with 2.3 million solar panels, generating enough just to power 1.3 million homes. It is the largest solar project in the Western hemisphere. ... That’s right. The largest solar installation in the New World is not in the United States. It is in Mexico. The US has withdrawn from the Paris climate accords and has no plans to generate any particular percentage of its electricity from renewables by any particular year. In fact, it is going backward in wanting to revive coal. ... In the first quarter of 2018, India set a record with the addition of 4.6 gigawatts of solar!...
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May 5, 2018, 10:15am
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: How to Remember Lynching
Margaret Kimberley: The National Memorial for Peace and Justice recently opened in Montgomery, Alabama, to great fanfare. The memorial tells the stories of the more than 4,000 recorded lynchings perpetrated against black men, women and children by American terrorists for nearly 100 years. The crimes were gruesome public spectacle. Victims died by gunshots, hanging, fire, dismemberment and castration. ... Having a memorial dedicated to our oppression is not a victory in and of itself. Lynch law is still practiced today by police across the country. There may not be a mob invited to a hanging or a burning but the police surely function in that role. Lynching didn’t end and it should not be seen as some sort of anomaly rooted in the distant past. ... The police are the 21stcentury Ku Klux Klan and white citizens councils ...
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May 2, 2018, 3:06pm
Blogosphere
Why the time is right for universal jurisdiction
Inder Comar: In hindsight, it is almost too extraordinary: the leader of a Western-friendly government responsible for the deaths thousands, and the torture of tens of thousands, arrested and brought to account for his crimes before a court and a judge. ... But this is exactly what happened in 1998, when Judge Baltasar Garzon, a Spanish magistrate, issued an arrest warrant for the former dictator of Chile, Augusto Pinochet ... Governments around the world, including the American government, have been open and earnest in using the excuse of terrorism to tear down an international human rights mandate ... The time is right to revive the concept of "universal jurisdiction" -- the idea that a person, whatever their nationality, can be called to account before the court of any civilized country for grave international crimes...
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Apr 27, 2018, 12:15pm
Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Windrush and Britain’s Crimes Against Black People
Margaret Kimberley: It was true that the sun never set on the British empire. The voracious appetite for resources and wealth, including human property, made Britain one of the most criminal nations in all of human history. From Australia to Africa to India to the Caribbean the British empire committed numerous genocides and thefts on a massive scale. ... On June 22, 1948 the ship HMT Empire Windrush arrived in the United Kingdom with 492 people from colonies in the Caribbean. The passengers were British subjects and thus had the right to emigrate. They had in fact been invited to live in the United Kingdom, recruited in the years of the post war labor shortage. ... They were the first arrivals of those who came to be known as the Windrush generation. ... But laws are always malleable when black people depend upon white power structures to protect their human rights. In 2014 the new Immigration Act brought new rules which destroyed the lives of thousands of Windrush generation migrants...
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Apr 25, 2018, 3:17pm
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