2020

Corporate Media Blackout: Americans need to Hear from Iranians about Life Under Sanctions and Trump’s Attack

Here are a few illuminating and emotionally resonant pieces by real Iranians on life under sanctions, the brutality of war, and the recent crisis.

Climate Crisis

We need a Whole Revolution: Why Incremental Change won’t solve the Climate Crisis

The Conversation

By Matthew Hoffmann and Steven Bernstein | – Work crews descended on 12 commuter parking lots in Toronto in late November 2018, and headed to the electric vehicle (EV) charging stations. Their work came on the heels of an IPCC report that warned of dire environmental, economic and health consequences in the absence of any […]

Corporate Surveillance

Did Saudi prince Bin Salman personally Hack Jeff Bezos’s Phone, Vacuuming up Secrets? What about Jared Kushner?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Update 1/25/20: Subsequent reporting at WSJ and elsewhere has raised questions about how solid the conclusions were, of the cyber-security firm hired by Jeff Bezos, that pointed with certainty to a hack coming from the cell phone of Mohammed Bin Salman. We’ve long known that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s phone […]

Israel/ Palestine

Yawns from Int’l Community as Israel Goes for Annexation of Palestine and Abandons 2-State Solution

Ramona Wadi

By Ramona Wadi | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – The EU is predicting an increase in Israeli demolitions of Palestinian dwellings and structures in the occupied West Bank, thus perpetuating the problem of displacement. Israeli Defence Minister Naftali Bennett has described the plan to apply Israeli sovereignty to Area C as “a real […]

Pentagon

Why the Pentagon never Wins Wars any More but Needs Bigger and Bigger nearly trillion-dollar Budgets

Tomdispatch

By Mandy Smithberger | – (Tomdispatch.com) – Call it a colossal victory for a Pentagon that hasn’t won a war in this century, but not for the rest of us. Congress only recently passed and the president approved one of the largest Pentagon budgets ever. It will surpass spending at the peaks of both the […]

Displaced and Refugees

It’s Not Just Vets: Refugees and War-Crime Victims are also Vulnerable to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

The Conversation

By Arash Javanbakht | – Mental health is often used in political discourse and arguments. Post-traumatic stress disorder was the subject Jan. 8, when Rep. Ilhan Omar (D.-Minn.), herself a Somalian refugee who had spent years in a refugee camp in Kenya, said: “Every time I hear conversations around war, I find myself being stricken […]

Congress

US Public on Trump: Throw the Bum Out, He’s a Failure on Iran, Health Care

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new CNN poll done in mid-January (and reported by Jennifer Agiesta) finds that 51 percent of Americans favor the conviction and removal of Donald J. Trump as president. Only 45 percent disagree. 53 percent of Americans think he does a rotten job as a president. As George Conway pointed […]

African-Americans

A Dream Denied: Black Americans mostly left behind by progress since Dr. King’s death

The Conversation

By Sharon Austin | – On Apr. 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, while assisting striking sanitation workers. Back then, over a half century ago, the wholesale racial integration required by the 1964 Civil Rights Act was just beginning to chip away at discrimination in education, jobs and public […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israel’s fear of prosecution strengthens Palestine narratives

Middle East Monitor

By Ramona Wadi | – (Middle East Monitor ) – Israeli media has reported that the International Criminal Court (ICC) could issue secret arrest warrants for Israeli officials involved in war crimes against the Palestinian people. According to a senior Israeli official who spoke to Israel Hayom, “The very fact that an ICC investigation will […]

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