President Barack Obama took to the stage last week to announce the latest initiative in his crusade to make it more difficult for Americans to purchase firearms. He even shed some tears for American children killed in mass shootings. But there is a blatant hypocrisy in Obama’s position on domestic gun control given that he has bombed more countries during his time in office than any president since World War Two. Where are his tears for the innocent Afghan, Iraqi, Pakistani, Libyan, Syrian, Somali and Yemeni children who have been killed by his use of drones and other weapons? Continue reading
Comments Off on The Hypocrisy of Obama’s Gun Control Crusade | tags: arms exports, gun control, human rights, middle east, obama, war on terror | posted in Uncategorized
The term “sustainable” has been used by so many people in so many different contexts that it has lost much of its meaning. It has become a buzzword in political, economic and development circles. But it is not the excessive use of the word that has ultimately rendered it largely meaningless but the fact that too many efforts to achieve sustainable development do not seriously attempt to actually achieve sustainable development. It is too often suggested that we can simply incorporate more environmentally-friendly practices into our daily lives while only tinkering with our consumption habits in order to achieve sustainability. But this simply is not true. Each of us living in wealthy nations must massively, and I mean MASSIVELY, reduce our levels of material consumption if we are to achieve a sustainable ecological footprint. And this reality is the elephant that is too often ignored in discussions about sustainable development. Continue reading
Comments Off on The Elephant in the Room: Capitalism and Sustainable Development | tags: capitalism, climate change, cuba, ecological footprint, socialism, sutainable development | posted in Uncategorized
US Secretary of State John Kerry travelled to Havana this past August for the flag-raising ceremony at the re-established US Embassy in Cuba. While this event was viewed as a landmark occasion by many in the United States, including the mainstream media, it was just the latest in a never-ending stream of landmarks for Cuba. From the victory of the socialist revolution in 1959 to emerging ties with the Soviet Union and the Socialist bloc during the 1960s to political and economic reforms in the mid-1970s to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and resulting “Special Period” during the 1990s to the far-reaching economic reforms of recent years. In other words, socialism in Cuba is not stagnant; nor is it reliant on US policy. To the contrary, Cuba’s socialism has constantly evolved as it has responded to both domestic and international conditions, and this constant redefining of the model continues today. Continue reading
Comments Off on Redefining Socialism in Cuba | tags: agriculture, cooperatives, cuba, economy, john kerry, organic, reforms, socialism, united states | posted in Uncategorized
The Zionist narrative exists to justify the existence of the state of Israel. It is the narrative that dominates the perspectives of the US and Canadian governments as well as the mainstream media in North America. This narrative accepts as its starting point the right of a Jewish state to exist based on the fact that Jews lived in the biblical lands 2,000 years ago and that these lands belong to God’s chosen people: the Jews. But does this narrative reflect the truth? Or is it self-serving propaganda? After all, given this starting point, the inevitable outcome of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine was the ‘cleansing’ of the existing Arab population in that region because a Jewish majority was required to make a Jewish state viable. Continue reading
Comments Off on Correcting the Zionist Narrative of Israel | tags: ethnic cleansing, gaza, israel, occupied territories, palestine, west bank, zionism | posted in Uncategorized
The creation of a Jewish state in the middle of the Arab world represents the continuation of European colonialism, in the form of settler colonialism, in Palestine and constitutes an apartheid system that has consisted of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by a rogue nation that has repeatedly violated international law. Given this reality, and the fact that Palestine is the Holy Land of three religions, the only just solution to the Zionist project of the Israeli state and its Western backers is the establishment of a single country: a democratic secular state of Palestine in which Jews, Arabs and Christians all have equal rights. Continue reading
Comments Off on Why Israel Should Not Exist | tags: apartheid, ethnic cleansing, israel, occupation, palestine | posted in Uncategorized
