By Ali Bilgic, Loughborough University | – The longstanding neutrality of Sweden and Finland was abandoned when both states submitted formal applications to Nato. But they are facing an unexpected obstacle on the way to membership: Turkey. While Turkey supports the alliance’s “open door” policy, Ankara’s veto reflects its aims to change the status quo […]
Archives for May 2022
One-Off Demonstrations are not Enough: Progressives need Standing Mass Organizations
By Beverly Gologorsky | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – To begin, an anecdote. This past summer, a pigeon walked through my open balcony door while my attention was elsewhere. I shooed it out, but when I turned around two more pigeons walked out of my bedroom. In the 20 years I’ve lived in my apartment, […]
Turkey wants Anti-Kurdish Pledges in Writing from Finland and Sweden before they can Join NATO
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Turkey is still holding up the application of Finland and Sweden to join NATO over what President Tayyip Erdogan says is the two countries’ support for what he considers Kurdish terrorist organizations and the Gulen sect. Turkey has been a member of NATO since it was formed in 1949 and […]
People Die as Weapons Industry Profits
Gainesville, Florida (Special to Informed Comment) – Citizens are waking up to the fact that so many politicians can be so easily bought by the weapons industry, an industry that doesn’t care how many people must die to protect their huge profits. SafeHome.org reports that after a record year in 2020, gun sales in the […]
Iran: The Killing Of Revolutionary Guards Colonel Could Complicate Rapprochement With the West
By Hannah Kaviani | – ( RFE/RL ) – I’m Hannah Kaviani, a senior broadcaster and editor at RFE/RL’s Radio Farda, filling in this week for senior correspondent Golnaz Esfandiari. Here’s what I’ve been following and what I’m watching out for in the days ahead. The Big Issue Colonel Hassan Sayad Khodaei, a shadowy figure […]
How the NRA evolved from backing a 1934 Ban on Machine Guns to blocking nearly all firearm Restrictions Today
By Robert Spitzer, State University of New York College at Cortland | – The mass shootings at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, just 10 days apart, are stirring the now-familiar national debate over guns seen after the tragic 2012 and 2018 school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and Parkland, […]
When it comes to Guns, the US is a Third World Country run by Corporate Lobbyists for a Profit
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – 21 are dead in another mass shooting, including 19 schoolchildren. The white slavers of the Old Souoth used to call US slavery our “peculiar institution.” Nowadays we have another peculiar institution, the gun culture. And we are peculiar. When it comes to gun violence, the United States is less like […]
As Biden heads to Israel, Bennett announces 4,427 New Squatter Units on Palestinian Land; State Department Tut-Tuts
( Middle East Monitor ) – “In the face of enemy violence, the Zionist answer has always been settlement, security and immigration,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett declared during a visit to the illegal Elkana settlement in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday. Days earlier, the Israeli rights organisation Peace Now announced that Israel had […]
Climate Change: radical Activists benefit social Movements – History shows Why
By Heather Alberro, Nottingham Trent University | – Wynn Bruce set himself on fire on April 22 2022 – Earth Day. His self-immolation in front of the US supreme court was a protest against inadequate action on the climate crisis. He later died of his injuries. Two days earlier in the UK, climate activist Angus […]