Dean Baker – The Elite’s Childlike Commitment to Austerity

The landslide victory of left-wing candidate Jeremy Corbyn for Labor Party leader in the United Kingdom has many establishment types bent out of shape. The Blair-wing of the party was literally obliterated, with Corbyn drawing more than four times the votes of his nearest competitor. After giving the country the war in Iraq and the housing bubble whose collapse led …

Stephen Lendman – Stark Differences: Jeremy Corbyn vs. Bernie Sanders

Differences between them are stark. Sanders is more opportunist than populist, nearly always supporting Democrat pro-war, pro-Israel, pro-business, anti-human/civil rights policies – voting with party members 98% of the time, more than most Democrats, polar opposite his high-minded rhetoric, hiding his real agenda. In over three decades as a Labour party member, Corbyn opposed its policies over 500 times – …

David Swanson – Bernie Sanders Insists Saudi Arabia Should Kill More People

Senator Bernie Sanders taped a PBS show at the University of Virginia on Monday. I had corresponded with the host Doug Blackmon beforehand, and offered him ideas for questions on military spending and war, questions like these: 1. People want to tax the rich and cut military spending, which is 54% of federal discretionary spending according to National Priorities Project, …

Graham VanBergen – Financial Meltdown and the Confiscation of Bank Savings: The UK-EU Bank Depositor “Bail-In” Scheme

Shares and stocks are tumbling around the world, with investors worried that the next global crisis has already begun. There is considerable uncertainty and nervousness amongst economists and trend forecasters. Government’s sooth jittery markets with misinformation in the hope that confidence does not evaporate and their legitimacy with it. If another crisis gets underway – do you think that the money you …

Laurie Penny – What the Corbyn moment means for the left At long last, the left is asking itself whether power without principle is worth having.

The ultimate triumph of the political right in the 1980s was that its actions eventually forced the left to sell its soul for power – but many of today’s young voters neither remember nor care quite why it did so. All we have known are progressive parties that were callous in office and gutless in opposition. That’s why we almost suspect …

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh – The Age of Finance Capital—and the Irrelevance of Mainstream Economics

Despite the fact that the manufacturers of ideas have elevated economics to the (contradictory) levels of both a science and a religion, a market theodicy, mainstream economics does not explain much when it comes to an understanding of real world developments. Indeed, as a neatly stylized discipline, economics has evolved into a corrupt, obfuscating and useless—nay, harmful—field of study. Harmful, …

Glenn Greenwald – Two Short Paragraphs That Summarize the US Approach to Human Rights Advocacy

n his excellent article on the unique guilt-by-association standard being imposed on newly elected Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, my colleague Jon Schwarz references a passage from a 2013 Washington Post article that I want to highlight because of how illuminating it is. That Post article describes the Obama administration’s growing alliance with human-rights-abusing regimes in Africa, which allow the U.S. …

Paul Craig Roberts – Western Democracy Is An Endangered Species On Its Way To Extinction

The British Labour Party no longer represents the working class. Under UK prime minister Tony Blair, the Labour Party became a vassal of the One Percent. The result has been a rebellion in the ranks and the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, a principled Labourite intent on representing the people, a no-no in Western “democracies.” Corbyn is too real for the …

Sarah Marusek and David Miller – The Corporate Funding of Tony Blair, Illegal Israeli Settlements and Islamophobia

Tony Blair’s Faith Foundation received money from a financial fraudster linked with illegal Israeli settlements and an American Islamophobic network.  Tony Blair is again in the headlines, this time after Labour leadership frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn publicly voiced the opinion of millions of British citizens: that the former prime minister should stand trial on charges of war crimes if the evidence suggests that he broke international …

Lindsay German – Longtime Iraq War Opponent Jeremy Corbyn Has War Criminal Tony Blair Running Scared

Labour leadership frontrunner Corbyn has the advantage over many of his detractors in that he always opposed the Iraq war, and the War on Terror Longtime Iraq War Oppo Running scared. That is the only explanation for the increasingly desperate and angry denunciations from the right wing of the UK’s Labour Party, as Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign looks more …