US politics

Amid Chauvin trial and more police killings, we need to stress Boycotts and the ‘Noncooperation’ in ‘Nonviolent Noncooperation’

By Maria J. Stephan | – ( Waging Nonviolence) – In his March 1956 sermon “When Peace Becomes Obnoxious,” Martin Luther King, Jr. responded to a headline in a local Alabama newspaper that read, “Things are quiet in Tuscaloosa today. There is peace on the campus of the University of Alabama.” The headline was referring […]

Climate Crisis

A big Effing Deal: On Eve of Climate Summit, news that Biden will cut US C02 Emissions 50% by 2030

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – ( Matthew Daly at the Associated Press reports that President Biden will announce at Thursday’s virtual international Climate Summit that the US will commit to reducing its annual carbon dioxide emissions by half of the 2005 peak by 2030. Joe Biden famously used an expletive to describe the passage of […]

African-Americans

Systemic Racism won’t End with One Trial, But Biden-Harris can enlist Government in addressing Economic Inequality at its Root

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – African-Americans face aggressive policing in part because, on average, they lack resources. Household wealth allows a family to donate to political campaigns, to ensure a good education for their children, and to join influential civic clubs and organizations. The Center for American Progress reports that in 2019, before the distortions […]

African-Americans

George Floyd’s legacy: Could Derek Chauvin guilty verdicts spell the end of police immunity?

The Conversation

By Kent Roach | – The police killing of George Floyd begs for effective remedies that respond both to past harms while also preventing future harm. Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of three counts in the killing of Floyd after he kneeled on the Black man’s neck for more than nine […]

Iran

Israeli Intelligence Chiefs Assess that Biden, Iran will Rejoin Nuclear Deal; Netanyahu wants to Stop it

Middle East Monitor

By Motasem A Dalloul | – After two weeks of deliberations in Vienna about reactivating the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal with Iran, EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell told reporters on Monday that, “There is a real goodwill on both parts to reach an agreement.” He pointed out that the […]

China

Washington is Spoiling for a new Cold War with China, but this Ambition needs a Reality Check

Dilip Hiro

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Like his immediate predecessor, Joe Biden is committed to a distinctly anti-China global strategy and has sworn that China will not “become the leading country in the world, the wealthiest country in the world, and the most powerful country in the world… on my watch.” In the topsy-turvy universe created by […]

Featured

Why the Founding Fathers would have approved of Biden banning phrase “Illegal Alien”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Biden administration has announced that it will no longer use the phrase “illegal alien” and will replace it with “undocumented noncitizen.” Biden will also drop “assimilation” in favor of “integration.” These changes are long overdue and necessary for human dignity. For one thing, human beings cannot be “illegal.” They […]

China

Despite Hawks Seeking new Cold War, the US and China can only Confront Climate Emergency by Cooperating

Juan Cole

( China Dialogue ) – They say don’t mess with Texas, but Mother Nature didn’t get the memo. A surprise winter storm killed at least 111 people in March, when rolling blackouts left several million Texans without power for several freezing days. Their misery came just a few years after Hurricane Harvey put a US$125 […]

Afghanistan

US spent $2.261 Trillion on Afghanistan War, in which ~240,000 Have Died; We could have Greened Half the Grid Instead

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Costs of War Project at Brown University has just brought out a new report on Afghanistan. The September 11, 2001 attacks were launched from Khost and Qandahar in Afghanistan by al-Qaeda, though it is not clear that this organization of Arab expatriates informed their Taliban hosts of what they […]