In August, I’ll be releasing through Melbourne University Press my new book, Profits of Doom: How Vulture Capitalism is Swallowing the World. In the same month in Sydney (and hopefully Melbourne and overseas after that), there will be this below. Many more details in the coming while:
Category General
What’s happening at Guantanamo Bay is daily torture
Independent journalist Jason Leopold just visited Guantanamo Bay and sent this report and photos (see this link): Last week, thanks to the generous support of the Freedom of Press Foundation, I traveled to Guantanamo during the height of a mass hunger strike to tour the detention facility, along with four other members of the media.…
Obama’s war on terror could last for decades
The open-ended nature of this “war”, plus a plethora of global targets, should make us concerned. Resistance is vital. Here’s Charlie Savage in the New York Times: A top Pentagon official said Thursday that the evolving war against… Al Qaeda… was likely to continue “at least 10 to 20 years” and urged Congress not to modify the…
Our online tolerance for brutality in war
Barely a day passes when another horrific video doesn’t emerge from Syria, showing either the “rebels” or government forces engaged in some act of terrorism/death/flesh eating. The New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson: I first heard about the Syrian rebel who was supposed to have eaten a heart on Monday, when a friend who lives in…
The sounds from below; Omar Musa is rare Australian voice
A dear friend, performance poet, political activist, slam artist, rapper and unique Australian man. Here’s his stunning recent performance at the Sydney Opera House for TedxSydney which received a standing ovation:
Lessons in real journalism from Jeremy Scahill
The author of the New York Times best-seller Dirty Wars explains to PBS’s Tavis Smiley on what important journalism means and why it’s far too rare: Tavis:… Let me start before I get into the text, just as we’re talking about this, where it is that this commitment to being a truth-teller comes from. What in…
20th century Middle East is disappearing but what replaces it?
Astute Patrick Cockburn in Counterpunch on how the new imperial powers are intent on creating a new reality that may ignore the majority of the populations: In the aftermath of the First World War, Britain and France famously created the modern Middle East by carving up what had been the Ottoman Empire. The borders of…
Consider the devastating effect of nuclear strikes in Iran and Israel
Sober analysis by Nick Turse in TomDispatch that challenges the bellicose war-mongering all too prevalent in the mainstream media: In those first minutes, they’ll be stunned. Eyes fixed in a thousand-yard stare, nerve endings numbed. They’ll just stand there. Soon, you’ll notice that they are holding their arms out at a 45-degree angle. Your eyes…
Glenn Greenwald explains role of constant US violence on world
From this week’s HBO Real Time with Bill Maher: