Tariq Ali pens a few words: I address this poem to the Muslim brothers who demonstrated in Cairo’s Tahrir Square after Friday prayers on 29 July Patience exhausted You emerged from the shadows To tell us what was forbidden and why. You spoke loudly and clearly, Each chant a whiplash: God is Great! The laws…
Israel’s fear of real free speech underlines its authoritarian heart
Ahmad Tibi, an Arab Israeli, is deputy speaker of the Israeli Parliament and has written the following article in the International Herald Tribune: Free speech in Israel was dealt a severe blow this month when the country’s Parliament passed antiboycott legislation that targets individuals or organizations publicly calling for a boycott against Israel or any…
What US occupation looks like on the ground
My following lead book review appeared in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald: INFERNAL TRIANGLE Paul McGeough Allen & Unwin, $32.99 This unblinking collection of dispatches separates the rhetoric from the reality of the post-September 11 battlefields. The new US Defence Secretary and former CIA director, Leon Panetta, recently told journalists the Obama administration was ”within reach”…
Is Serco really able to handle Australia’s asylum seeker trauma?
Thankfully and finally, Australia’s Ombudsmen will be investigating the high rate of self harm in immigration detention and the role, responsibility and actions of British multinational Serco. But, according to this report in today’s Australian by Paige Taylor, the contractor has little understanding of the conditions under which refugees find themselves (and where the government…
The idea of Murdoch running schools is as credible as Iraq being re-invaded
The New Statesman explains what the closeness between the Murdoch empire and Britain’s Cameron government says about the corruption of power: At last month’s Times CEO summit (…£) he called for all pupils to be provided with tablet computers, adding that he would be “thrilled” if 10 per cent of News Corp’s revenues came from…
At least some in US Congress recognise toxic culture of mercenaries in war zones
As we learn that the US has wasted tens of billions on contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11, few American politicians are opposed to this explosion of privatisation. Here’s a statement by Bernie Sanders, US Senator from Vermont: Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) today introduced legislation that would phase out private…
What Breivik’s manifesto tells us about his hatred of our way of life
Jeff Sharlet is the American author of the bestselling book The Family and expert on Christian fundamentalism in the US. He speaks on Democracy Now! about the massacre in Norway and the details of killer Anders Behring Breivik’s manifesto largely ignored by the corporate media: AMY GOODMAN: What were you most shocked by, Jeff Sharlet,…
Note to Zionists; it’s a civil duty to protest companies complicit with occupation
Which is why this story in Murdoch’s Australian – fair and balanced as usual, presuming that simply protesting outside a company with ties to the IDF is anti-Semitic by definition – is so revealing. There’s fear that BDS is taking off globally and what do critics do? Allege anti-Semitism and desperately hope that nobody talks…
David Mamet tells Christian fundamentalist about Jewish “self-hatred”
This is what Zionism has done to my people.