Showing all posts tagged United States
Hands up who wants to make money from the downtrodden?
How our capitalist system is increasingly ordered (and sold to the highest bidder): Late last month, a national backlash forced Bank of America to abandon its plan to charge customers $5 a month to use their debit cards. But Huffington Post reports that the corporation has quietly been mining other sources of fees, preying on…
Privatisation running rampant in “liberal” American cities
When there is largely bi-partisan support for the false God of privatisation (to increase “efficiency”) we shouldn’t be surprised, as Salon reports, that America is being transformed with little public discussion: If you’ve listened to a political pundit predict any election in the last 50 years, you’ve been told that there are Republican small towns…
Desperate Greece still needed to produce deadly weapons
Sigh (via The Independent): As Greece is forced by European leaders to abandon a referendum to allow the people the chance to vote on its latest bailout conditions, the country is preparing for yet another dose of austerity. The conditions of the next €130bn rescue package will be severe, yet there is an elephant in…
The complicated Wikileaks web (and why they must survive)
In typically idiosyncratic style, David Carr writes in the New York Times – hardly a paper with much respect for Wikileaks for most of this year – outlines the myriad of issues faced by Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Regardless, we must defend transparency in government and challenge the inherent secrecy of “democracies”: Let’s concede that…
Israel has a fund-raising problem (funny what endless occupation does to the image)
Hello Zionist lobby, any thoughts on why anybody with honesty would want to blindly support a state that proudly demonises the Palestinian people? Haaretz reports: It is getting increasingly difficult to persuade donors, especially younger ones, to give money for Israel – this was the main conclusion one could draw from a series of “round…
Why WikiLeaks forces accountability on the insular journalistic and political club
Last week I was invited down to Canberra to give the keynote speech at the Independent Scholars Association of Australia 2011 Conference. It was held at the National Library to an appreciative audience. The following are my notes: -… … … … … … Quote from Julian Assange, The UnAuthorised Autobiography, p. 119/120 + 168 -… … … … … … … What is modern journalism…