Capitalism in America: Giving Crazy a Bad Name While Subverting Democracy

Ever since Milton Friedman’s series of essays on Capitalism and Freedom, conservatives have tried to link democracy and capitalism into essential handmaidens.  But as the evidence shows, it’s a reality-busting bundle that only a psychotic could love.  Or believe.The fact is, capitalism as practiced in America – far from being democracy’s handmaiden — is anathema to freedom, and ultimately, impoverishing to …

The Pentagon’s Scourge of Global Militarism

Next to secret warfare, new militarism has involved a selected range of major and overt “quickie” interventions…  Western militarism constitutes, next to climate change and poverty, the world’s greatest scourge. As internationally acclaimed Canadian academic Michel Chossudovsky has pointed out, NATO’s aggressive expansion into Eurasia and the Middle East has brought about the possibility of a “World War Three scenario.” Since …

China’s Bank & Waning USA Hegemony – JACK RASMUS

Two events occurred last week that mark a further phase in the waning of US global economic hegemony: China introduced its own Economic Development Bank, the ‘Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’ (AIIB); the IMF simultaneously announced it will decide in May to include the Chinese currency as a global reserve-trading currency alongside the dollar, pound, and euro—an almost certainly ‘done deal’ …

Are smartphones making our children mentally ill?

Julie Lynn Evans has been a child psychotherapist for 25 years, working in hospitals, schools and with families, and she says she has never been so busy. “In the 1990s, I would have had one or two attempted suicides a year – mainly teenaged girls taking overdoses, the things that don’t get reported. Now, I could have as many as …

Death of US Coal Exemplifies Need for Paradigm Shift for Global Energy System

A new report released Tuesday by the London-based Carbon Tracker Initiative warns that the crash of U.S. coal markets is but a harbinger of things to come for all fossil fuel investments. The report, The U.S. Coal Crash – Evidence for Structural Change (pdf), found that the slump in coal prices has forced more than two dozen U.S. coal companies into bankruptcy …

Gates Foundation’s Seed Agenda in Africa ‘Another Form of Colonialism,’ Warns Protesters

Food sovereignty activists are shining a light on a closed-door meeting between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which are meeting in London on Monday with representatives of the biotechnology industry to discuss how to privatize the seed and agricultural markets of Africa. Early Monday, protesters picketed outside the Gates …

How to Get Rid of Stuff

The house is burning. Smoke is curling around everything you have ever owned, ever wanted, believed mattered. That picture of the person you love, the dog’s favorite toy. The couch where you held each other when you cried. All on fire, blazing. The garbage that needed to be taken out yesterday goes up as easily as the receipt you saved from the …

John Kerry Arrives in Saudi Arabia Amidst Unprecedented Rise in State Executions

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Saudi Arabia coincides with a recent surge of executions in that country. So far this year, at least 39 people have reportedly been put to death by authorities. Amnesty International’s researcher on Saudi Arabia, Sevag Kechichian, told The Independent, “Since the beginning of the year we’ve seen an unprecedented rate of executions in the …