CommonDreams Views
Obama Threatens to Veto Greater Intelligence Oversight
One of the principal weapons used by the Bush administration to engage in illegal surveillance activities -- from torture to warrantless eavesdropping -- was its refusal to brief the full Congressional Intelligence Committees about its activities. Instead, at best, it would confine its briefings to the so-called "Gang of Eight" -- comprised of 8 top-ranking members of the House and Senate -- who were impeded by law and other constraints from taking any action even if they learned of blatantly criminal acts.
The Unmaking of the Palestinian Nation
On March 10, I posted on the humiliation heaped on Vice President Joe Biden by the Israeli government of far-right Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu. Biden went to Israel intending to help kick off indirect negotiations between Netanyahu and Palestine Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. Biden had no sooner arrived than the Israelis announced that they would build 1600 new households on Palestinian territory that they had unilaterally annexed to Jerusalem.
Another Summer, Another Food Crisis?
Corn prices peaked during the run up to the 2008 economic crisis at $7.88 per bushel and as the prices of corn and other commodities rose we saw food riots worldwide. Commodity prices soon came back the earth — corn is currently trading at about $4 a barrel. Given that we’re in the middle of an anemic recovery, you’d think spiking food prices are thankfully the last thing we have to worry about.
Support Our Troops: Boycott the Israeli Occupation
I don't know about all you commiepinkos, but I believe we should Support Our Troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. General Petraeus, Admiral Mullen, and Vice-President Biden say that Israel's actions toward the Palestinians are putting our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq in danger. That's why, to Support Our Troops, the U.S. government must effectively pressure Israel to end its military occupation of the West Bank. And one thing every American can do to Support Our Troops is to shun products from companies linked to the Israeli occupation.
The Great Forest Die-Off
For many years, Diana Six, an entomologist at the University of Montana, planned her field season for the same two to three weeks in July. That's when her quarry - tiny, black, mountain pine beetles - hatched from the tree they had just killed and swarmed to a new one to start their life cycle again.
Labor's Leadership Lost
Remember when the U.S. model of "flexible" labor markets, deregulated transportation and innovative finance was supposed to be an example to the world? Freed from the constraints of minimum wages, burdensome product regulations and troublesome unions, American corporations would develop qualitatively superior products at competitive prices.
Pentagon Tells Obama to Press Israel for Peace
Israeli relations are worse now than they've been in 35 years, according to Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren. And you've got to wonder why.
Feeding Dependency, Starving Democracy... Still
Some of the advice for how Haiti ought to rebuild after the earthquake sounds hauntingly familiar, echoing the same bad development advice that Haiti has received for decades - even before the nation faced its current devastating situation. To avoid repeating the past failures, we would be wise to review how previous aid models led down the wrong path.
Yoo Besmirches Legacy of Jefferson
Initially I was shocked at the thought of the University of Virginia welcoming former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo to the "Academical Village" founded by Thomas Jefferson.
There was something very wrong about that picture. Was it not Mr. Jefferson who condemned tyrannical acts-including ones that fell far short of waterboarding-in the Declaration of Independence?
America Wakes Up to the Coffee Party
The stubborn weekend downpour was little match for a crowd of 40 or so chatty strangers, men and women mostly in their 30s, 40s and 50s, who met on the second floor of a nondescript deli in the shadow of the Rockefeller Centre, in midtown Manhattan. After a casual round of introductions, and group adherence to a "civility pledge" (" … I value people from different cultures, I value people with different ideas, and I value and cherish the democratic process"), the inaugural National Coffee Party Day was called to order.
Racing in Circles for Education Reform
Listening to school-choice cheerleaders you'd swear charter schools were the magic answer. The Way out of the "crisis" in public education.
So I was surprised to learn last week the Stanford New Charter School made the Golden State's preliminary list of "persistently lowest performing" schools.
Post-Disaster Reconstruction: Putting Haitian Citizens into the Equation
Haitian civil society has been completely bypassed in decision-making regarding the post-earthquake reconstruction process. They have thus created their own process.
US-Israel Rift Undermining Some Long-Standing Taboos
The rather extraordinary dust-up between the U.S. and Israel has, among other benefits, shined a light on two of the most taboo yet self-evidently true propositions: (1) our joined-at-the-hip relationship with Israel is a significant cause of anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world, fuels attacks on Americans, and entails a very high price for the U.S. on multiple levels; and (2) many American neoconservatives have their political beliefs shaped by allegiance to Israel.
Is Ethical Capitalism Possible?
We live in a time of transition, a time when all is changing and being challenged - weather systems, ecosystems, our interaction with nature, our understanding of other beings. We now understand that we are all interconnected and interdependent. Somewhere along the line, our actions as human beings have created enormous instability to the planet and the millions of species who reside here.
Black Presidents and Women MPs Do Not Alone Mean Equality and Justice
During a recent playdate, one of my son's white four-year-old friends looked up from Thomas the Tank Engine and pointed out the obvious. "You're black," he told my son. As a parent, these have never felt like particularly teachable moments. Toddlers have plenty of time ahead of them to acquire anxieties, affiliations and attitudes about race. But what they see primarily at their age is not race but difference - a fact that need prompt neither denial nor panic, rebuke nor rectification, unless some derogatory meaning is attached to that difference.
The Deadly Current Toward Nuclear Arms
Think of Niagara Falls. Think of the onrushing current as the river pours itself toward the massive cascade. Imagine a lone swimmer a hundred yards or so upstream, desperately stroking against the current to keep from being swept over the precipice. That swimmer is President Obama, the river is the world, and the falls is the threat of unchecked nuclear weapons.
Many Palestinian Protestors Already Use Nonviolent Tactics
Israel is escalating its quiet campaign to round up and detain nonviolent Palestinian protesters, from leaders to children, in nighttime raids. And although these protesters remain committed to nonviolence, the world continues to believe the Palestinian struggle is mainly based on violence.
This Time It's Pregnant Women: Another US Atrocity in the Bush-Obama War in Afghanistan
Another night-time raid on a housing compound in Afghanistan. Another bunch of innocent Afghans killed. Another round of lies by the US-led forces of the so-called International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Only this time, among the dead are two pregnant mothers and a teenage girl.
And once again the US media remain mute, accepting the official story, which was of ISAF forces responding to an attack which in reality appears never to have happened.
Sweatshops Won’t Save Haiti
The United Nations will host a Haiti donors' conference at the end of March.
This conference will be quite different from last year's event, of course, coming as it does on the heels of the worst earthquake to strike Haiti in two centuries. An agenda has already begun to take shape: It's already clear that a future Haiti must be populated with environmentally sustainable, earthquake-resistant buildings, for example, and it's also clear that the international community must do something to ease Haiti's massive debt burden.
Obama and the Denial of Genocide
The Obama administration, citing its relations with Turkey, has pledged to block the passage in the full House of Representatives of a resolution passed this past Thursday by the Foreign Relations Committee acknowledging the 1915 genocide by the Ottoman Empire of a 1.5 million Armenians. Even though the Obama administration previously refused to acknowledge and even worked to suppress well-documented evidence of recent war crimes by Israel, another key Middle Eastern ally, few believed that the administr
