- Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Stephen Dunifer, Ramzy Baroud, Janine Bandcroft Dec 17, 2012
- Remembering: Andrew Weaver Likes B.C. Liberals
- Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, J.M. Porup, Sandra Finley, Janine Bandcroft Dec. 10, 2012
- Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Zoe Miles, Jim Miles, Janine Bandcroft Dec. 3, 2012
- Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Karl Grossman, David Rovics, Janine Bandcroft Nov. 26, 2012
Login
| Enter your email address for the Pacific Free Press Daily Newsletter: |
Partners
Popular Articles
Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Karl Grossman, David Rovics, Janine Bandcroft Mon. Nov. 26, 2012
Nov 25, 2012
This Week on GR by C. L. Cook It's been…
Read More...
Settler States' Support of Settler State Atrocities
Nov 26, 2012
Peter MacKay’s “atrocities across the…
Read More...
Senate Bill Seeks Mail-Opening "Rights"
Nov 25, 2012
Senate Set to Introduce Bill for Broad…
Read More...
Random Articles
The Gods Are Crazy: Fighting American Wars From On High
Apr 13, 2010
Gods and Monsters: Fighting American…
Read More...
Dwarfing Chernobyl: When the Meltdown Hits Groundwater
Mar 29, 2011
When the Fukushima Meltdown Hits…
Read More...
U.N. Report Cites Israel's War Crimes in Gaza
Sep 16, 2009
UN Inquiry Finds Israel “Punished and…
Read More...
Home
Welcome to Year Zero: Looking the Planetary Gift Horse in the Mouth
- Published Date
- Written by Tom Engelhardt
The Sky’s the Limit: The Demanding Gifts of 2012
by Rebecca Solnit - TomDispatch
As this wild year comes to an end, we return to the season of gifts. Here’s the gift you’re not going to get soon: any conventional version of Paradise. You know, the place where nothing much happens and nothing is demanded of you. The gifts you’ve already been given in 2012 include a struggle over the fate of the Earth. This is probably not exactly what you asked for, and I wish it were otherwise -- but to do good work, to be necessary, to have something to give: these are the true gifts. And at least there’s still a struggle ahead of us, not just doom and despair.
Think of 2013 as the Year Zero in the battle over climate change, one in which we are going to have to win big, or lose bigger. This is a terrible thing to say, but not as terrible as the reality that you can see in footage of glaciers vanishing, images of the entire surface of the Greenland Ice Shield melting this summer, maps of Europe’s future in which just being in southern Europe when the heat hits will be catastrophic, let alone in more equatorial realms.
For millions of years, this world has been a great gift to nearly everything living on it, a planet whose atmosphere, temperature, air, water, seasons, and weather were precisely calibrated to allow us -- the big us, including forests and oceans, species large and small -- to flourish. (Or rather, it was we who were calibrated to its generous, even bounteous, terms.) And that gift is now being destroyed for the benefit of a few members of a single species.
How Trade Aids Colombia's Genocidal Indigenous Displacement
- Published Date
- Written by Daniel Kovalik
How the Colombia Trade Agreement Accelerates Human Rights Abuses
In October of 2011, President Obama, over the objections of the U.S. and Colombian labor and human rights community, submitted the Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) for passage by the U.S. Congress. Congress quickly passed the FTA — which was originally negotiated by George W. Bush who was unable to obtain passage due largely to the protests of U.S. labor – and Obama signed the agreement into law. At the time, those opposing this agreement argued that, just as NAFTA in Mexico and like policies toward Haiti, the FTA would lead, indeed by design, to the immiseration and mass displacement of rural peoples, especially Indigenous and Afro-Colombian. The experience of the past year has proven these predictions to be correct.
Thus, as just publicized by ColombiaReports.com, the well-respected Colombian human rights group known as the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES) has reported that there were 83% more mass displacements in 2012 than in 2011, and that these displacements have disproportionately affected Colombia’s Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities. (1)
Overall, CODHES estimates that well over 259,000 Colombians were forcibly displaced in 2012.
Add a comment Read more: How Trade Aids Colombia's Genocidal Indigenous Displacement
Busting the Shale Boom's Hype Bubble
- Published Date
- Written by Oil Price.com
Don't Fall for the Shale Boom Hype - Chris Martenson Interview
by James Stafford - Oilprice.com
Perhaps the most important thing we need to pay attention to is net energy returns, on which we run society. Massive new discoveries are only netting a fraction of the returns compared to earlier decades.
While we must proceed into the energy future with caution—and the knowledge that analysts may be overselling the shale boom—there are also, as always, major opportunities in this story and they can be found in the wider trends related to improving energy efficiency.
Looking at our energy future in more detail we were fortunate to speak with the well known economist and author of the Crash Course Chris Martenson.
Washington's Rendition Underground Unearthed
- Published Date
- Written by Andy Worthington
Torture, Torture Everywhere
For those of us who have been arguing for years that senior officials and lawyers in the Bush administration must be held accountable for the torture program they introduced and used in their “war on terror,” last week was a very interesting week indeed, as developments took place in Strasbourg, in London and in Washington D.C., which all pointed towards the impossibility that the torturers can escape accountability forever.click here for full picture
That may be wishful thinking, given the concerted efforts by officials in the US and elsewhere to avoid having to answer for their crimes, and the ways in which, through legal arguments and backroom deals, they have suppressed all attempts to hold them accountable.
However, despite this, it seems that maintaining absolute silence is impossible, and last week one breakthrough took place when, unanimously, a 17-judge panel of the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of Khaled El-Masri, a German used car salesman of Lebanese origin, who is one of the most notorious cases of mistaken identity in the whole of the “war on terror.” See the summary here.
Add a comment Read more: Washington's Rendition Underground Unearthed
That may be wishful thinking, given the concerted efforts by officials in the US and elsewhere to avoid having to answer for their crimes, and the ways in which, through legal arguments and backroom deals, they have suppressed all attempts to hold them accountable.
However, despite this, it seems that maintaining absolute silence is impossible, and last week one breakthrough took place when, unanimously, a 17-judge panel of the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of Khaled El-Masri, a German used car salesman of Lebanese origin, who is one of the most notorious cases of mistaken identity in the whole of the “war on terror.” See the summary here.
Add a comment Read more: Washington's Rendition Underground Unearthed
Weeds in the City's Streets: Harper Foreign Investment Rules Imperil Canadian Agriculture Too
- Published Date
- Written by Wendy Holm
Smarten Up Stephen!
by Wendy Holm - Holm on Policy
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's recent bleating about protecting Canada's resources from takeover by foreign state investors (Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation's $15 billion-dollar takeover of Nexen) is not only disingenuous; it is also hypocritical.
Disingenuous because FIPA, the Canada-China Foreign Investment Protection Agreement, will give existing investors - be they state or private - the right to expand. And Canada is powerless to stop that.
Hypocritical because foreign investors are presently buying up Canadian farmland at an alarming rate, state funds are a major player in the global farmland grab, and all of it is happening silently. For more see my column appearing on front page of Ontario Farmer
Add a comment Read more: Weeds in the City's Streets: Harper Foreign Investment Rules Imperil Canadian Agriculture Too
Timid Prescriptions for a Recurring American Tragedy
- Published Date
- Written by Chris Cook
Timid Ambitions: Newtown Reax
by C. L. Cook - Pacific Free Press
Last Friday, remembrance ceremonies were held for those killed at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. Billed as an unofficial national day of mourning, a minute of silence was observed for the dead. A few days after the shooting, President Obama expressed his sadness and regret that 20 children, and six of their teachers, died in such a violent and seemingly senseless circumstance. Part of the president's speech touched on the existential mystery of all our lives, saying:
"You know, all the world’s religions, so many of them represented here today, start with a simple question. Why are we here? What gives our life meaning? What gives our acts purpose? We know our time on this Earth is fleeting. We know that we will each have our share of pleasure and pain, that even after we chase after some earthly goal, whether it’s wealth or power or fame or just simple comfort, we will, in some fashion, fall short of what we had hoped. We know that, no matter how good our intentions, we’ll all stumble sometimes in some way."
President Obama used the occasion to also question the nation's political environment, apparently challenging a status quo unable to prevent the growing number of hyper-lethal gun attacks. Assuring America, he said:
"In the coming weeks, I’ll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens, from law enforcement, to mental health professionals, to parents and educators, in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this, because what choice do we have? We can’t accept events like this as routine." And questioning: "Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard?"But is the problem in America today really something law enforcement can address? Is it a matter of the failure of mental health professionals, or parents and educators?
Watching the Watchers: HRW Expels Richard Falk
- Published Date
- Written by Gilad Atzmon
Watch Human Rights Watch – A Tribute to Prof Richard Falk
by Gilad Atzmon
This week we learned that Human Rights Watch (HRW) has expelled from its ranks top U.N. official Professor Richard Falk.
The juicy details have been kindly supplied by Israeli Hasbara outlet UN Watch blog.“We commend Human Rights Watch and its director Kenneth Roth for doing the right thing, and finally removing this enemy of human rights from their important organization,” said Hillel Neuer, a rabid Israeli supporter as well as Executive Director of UN Watch. “A man who supports the Hamas terrorist organization, and who was just condemned by the British Foreign Office for his cover endorsement of a virulently antisemitic book, has no place in an organization dedicated to human rights,”
Hasbara stooge that he is, Neuer using every Zionist trick in the book, misinforms and misleads his readers. First of all, Hamas is not a ‘terrorist organisation’, it is a democratically elected government and the book to which Neuer refers is obviously mine - ‘The Wandering Who’ – which, was endorsed by Richard Falk and some of the most important humanists and scholars of our time– a book which has been a best-seller for six months in both Britain and the USA, has been translated into 10 languages and is available in seven editions in countries that all strictly legislate against any form of racial incitement as well Holocaust denial.
The fact is that the Zionists and their ‘Progressive’ twins will have to accept that The Wandering Who is, after all, strictly kosher.
British Columbia First Nations and Enviros Marching Happily to "Natural" Gas Chamber: LNG, Fracking, ENGOs and All
- Published Date
- Written by Michael Major
LNG, Fracking, ENGOs and All
by Michael Major
[Article extracted from an ongoing listserve discussion, and reprinted here with permission of the author. - ed.]
Fracking, for the Haisla or at least for the person you are quoting, is done far away and in someone else's territory.
Within Haisla territory, there is only a gas pipeline from nowhere carrying $100 million per day in raw material in which the Haisla have a compelling financial interest. But to put the fracked shale gas in the pipe, more water has to be inseparably polluted with noxious chemicals than is presently used daily in all of the other industrial and residential activities throughout the province.
Pulp mill effluent is a lot less toxic than waste fracking water and relatively easy to treat. Fracking water is not and cannot be treated for its pollution at a cost less than the value of the resulting produced fracked gas.
Add a comment
Read more: British Columbia First Nations and Enviros Marching Happily to "Natural" Gas Chamber: LNG, Fracking, ENGOs and All
Gaza's Next Generation of Trauma Survivors
- Published Date
- Written by The Real News
Gaza's Children Haunted by Nightmare of War
by TRNN
UNICEF report indicates vast majority of Gaza's children are struggling to cope with war trauma and PTSD
More at The Real News
Watch full multipart The Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza
Add a comment
UNICEF report indicates vast majority of Gaza's children are struggling to cope with war trauma and PTSD. This is the first of a two part series on the psychological toll the war and siege has taken on Gaza's most vulnerable population. TRNN explores the Oum el Qurra school in the Tar el Hawa neighborhood in Gaza city where many of the students were still being pulled out of class for counseling one month after Israel's eight day assault.
Mental health workers, psychologists and therapists are overwhelmed by lack of resources. The second part will explore what methods are being used to treat, rehabilitate and recover children and adults from war trauma.
Ahmed Deeb and Nosier Abdullah contributed to this report
After the Taj: Police State of India's Democracy
- Published Date
- Written by Andre Vltchek
Police State India
by Andre Vltchek - CounterPunch
In the middle of December 2012, New Delhi was once again choking on a thick stratum of smog. Everyone around me was coughing, while I was supposed to be filming, for one of my documentaries. But in such conditions, filming became almost impossible, unless one was yearning for some peculiar special effects.
While I was modifying my script, the President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, was attending a meeting of a group of local industrialists, somewhere on the ground floor of the hotel where I was staying. Security that was always tight suddenly became impenetrable.
Between the smog and the overzealous security personnel, I felt that I had almost no breathing space left; I was choking.
Since my first visit to India more than a decade ago, I noticed that the country has been radiating some sort of militarized Djibouti-style vibes. Occasionally it felt as if some sadistic security freaks had been running the place, after a vigorous training on Mars or at West Point, or somewhere else – one would not want to ask where.
FOX in the White House: Rupert's Play for Pennsylvania Avenue
- Published Date
- Written by Jonathan Cook
Why The Washington Post Killed The Story Of Murdoch’s Bid To Buy The US Presidency
by Jonathan Cook
Carl Bernstein, of All the President’s Men fame, has a revealing commentary in in the Guardian today, though revealing not entirely in a way he appears to understand. Bernstein highlights a story first disclosed earlier this month in the Washington Post by his former journalistic partner Bob Woodward that media mogul Rupert Murdoch tried to “buy the US presidency”.
A taped conversation shows that in early 2011 Murdoch sent Roger Ailes, the boss of his most important US media outlet, Fox News, to Afghanistan to persuade Gen David Petraeus, former commander of US forces, to run against Barack Obama as the Republican candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Murdoch promised to bankroll Petraeus’ campaign and commit Fox News to provide the general with wall-to-wall support.
Murdoch’s efforts to put his own man in the White House failed because Petraeus decided he did not want to run for office. “Tell [Ailes] if I ever ran," Petraeus says in the recording, "but I won't … but if I ever ran, I'd take him up on his offer.”
Bernstein is rightly appalled not just by this full-frontal attack on democracy but also by the fact that the Washington Post failed to splash with their world exclusive. Instead they buried it inside the paper’s lifestyle section, presenting it as what the section editor called “a buzzy media story that … didn't have the broader import” that would justify a better showing in the paper.
In line with the Washington Post, most other major US news outlets either ignored the story or downplayed its significance.
We can probably assume that Bernstein wrote his piece at the bidding of Woodward, as a covert way for him to express his outrage at his newspaper’s wholesale failure to use the story to generate a much-deserved political scandal. The pair presumably expected the story to prompt congressional hearings into Murdoch’s misuse of power, parallel to investigations in the UK that have revealed Murdoch’s control of politicians and the police there.
As Bernstein observes:
“The Murdoch story – his corruption of essential democratic institutions on both sides of the Atlantic – is one of the most important and far-reaching political/cultural stories of the past 30 years, an ongoing tale without equal.”
What Bernstein cannot understand is why his media masters don’t see things the way he does. He reserves his greatest dismay for “the ho-hum response to the story by the American press and the country's political establishment, whether out of fear of Murdoch, Ailes and Fox – or, perhaps, lack of surprise at Murdoch's, Ailes' and Fox's contempt for decent journalistic values or a transparent electoral process.”
But in truth neither of Bernstein’s explanations for this failure is convincing.
A far more likely reason for the US media’s aversion to the story is that it poses a danger to the Matrix-like wall of static interference generated by precisely the same media that successfully conceals the all-too-cosy relationship between the corporations (that own the media) and the country’s politicians.
The Petraeus story is disturbing to the media precisely because it tears away the façade of US democratic politics, an image carefully honed to persuade the American electorate that it chooses its presidents and ultimately decides the direction of the country’s political future.
Instead, the story reveals the charade of that electoral game, one in which powerful corporate elites manipulate the system through money and the media they own to restrict voters’ choice to two almost-identical candidates. Those candidates hold the same views on 80 per cent of the issues. Even where their policies differ, most of the differences are quickly ironed out behind the scenes by the power elites through the pressure they exert on the White House via lobby groups, the media and Wall Street.
The significance of Woodward’s story is not that it proves Rupert Murdoch is a danger to democracy but rather that it reveals the absolute domination of the US political system by the global corporations that control what we hear and see. Those corporations include, of course, the owners of the Washington Post.
The saddest irony is that the journalists who work within the corporate media are incapable of seeing outside the parameters set for them by their media masters. And that includes even the most accomplished practitioners of the trade: Woodward and Bernstein.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His new website is www.jonathan-cook.net
More Articles...
New Advertiser
BetDSI with their NFL Betting - has come onboard as a platinum sponsor of Pacific Free Press.
