While American neo-cons (many of them Jewish) continue to push for a military strike against Iran and Israeli “democracy” decreases by the day – witness the story of a key Jewish dissident, Yonatan Shapira, being interrogated by Israeli intelligence for daring to support BDS. Hilariously, he’s asked to feel sorry for soldiers maintaining the West…
Showing all posts tagged United States
America’s elites benefit from economic meltdown
What economic downturn? Such news only convinces those who question the robustness of globalisation (and probably helps the Tea Party movement, too): America is struggling with a sputtering economy and high unemployment — but times are booming for Washington’s governing class. The massive expansion of government under President Barack Obama has basically guaranteed a robust…
Get the EU to grow a voice on Palestine
A welcome call to almost force the EU to actually become a useful body in the Middle East. Right now, it’s little more than a mostly silent American partner: The European Union must shake off US dominance and take a bolder approach in pressing for a settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the former EU commissioner…
Twitter won’t really help America be more liked
A very revealing essay in today’s New York Times Magazine on the US State Department’s major use of the web, Twitter, Facebook and online tools to push Washington’s agenda globally. The article is curious for its almost complete lack of discussion about whether Obama administration policies are in fact useful or productive but instead focuses…
Why Americans love to hate Europeans
“Expressing one’s anti-European sentiment can be a way of building up and displaying one’s American identity and patriotism,” said Patrick Chamorel in a European University Institute study published in Italy in 2004. “Anti-Europeanism has always been part of American exceptionalism, which defined itself in contrast to European history, politics, and society.”
Can we please hear Muslims when writing about Muslims?
The recent move in the French parliament to ban the public wearing of the burka was a major story that showed the growing intolerance of Western Europe towards Islam. It wasn’t really about women’s rights as much as subjecting Muslims to boundaries. Furthermore, much of the American press while reporting the story couldn’t even bother…
Hicks demands justice and transparency for being abused in our care
A welcome development to erase the stain of the ongoing “war on terror”. I look forward to hearing those in Australia who backed David Hicks’ incarceration and torture saying sorry for this terrible injustice: David Hicks has enlisted legal experts in the hope of having his terrorism conviction quashed. In the three years since his…
Don’t touch anything Palestinian, it’s toxic
Any company that dares work for a pro-Palestinian cause is being targeted by the Zionist lobby (nobody is safe): A U.S. public relations firm said it will not renew its contract with a pro-Palestinian group that helped to organize the flotilla that aimed to breach Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. The announcement from Fenton…
Mercenaries are dying in Afghanistan and nobody really seems to care
A secret war reported by virtually no media outlets. I wonder why that is: In one of the least examined aspects of President Obama’s escalation of the Afghan war, armed private security contractors are being killed in action by the hundreds — at a rate more than four times that of U.S. troops, according to…
What would a progressive agenda look like?
I’ve spent the last 24 hours traveling across the world (currently in Canada) and read this fascinating 17,000 word essay by Eric Alterman in The Nation. It discusses the importance of a progressive agenda, the difficulty of achieving this in the US with so many vested interests, the disappointment of Barack Obama, lobbying in the…