Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has created the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. While millions of Ukrainian refugees have since returned home, almost 2.9 million moved to Russia, according to October 2022 figures, and roughly 7.9...
Counterpunch
On Being Called “Terrorist”
A major media story last month, Israel’s deportation of Palestinian attorney Salah Hamouri from East Jerusalem to France – though widely recognized as a war crime – is now old news. Another forgotten news item occurred a year earlier, in 2021, when the Israeli...
Central Banks are a Symptom, Capitalism is the Cause
Image by Ibrahim Boran. Wishing for central banks to act in the interest of working people rather than the financial industry is about as fruitful as hoping a starving wolf won’t eat the chicken that was just placed next to it. Pigs will fly, the Amazon will freeze...
Central Banks are a Symptom, Capitalism is the Cause
Image by Ibrahim Boran. Wishing for central banks to act in the interest of working people rather than the financial industry is about as fruitful as hoping a starving wolf won’t eat the chicken that was just placed next to it. Pigs will fly, the Amazon will freeze...
Fiery Flying Roll
Bad luck on Friday the thirteenth, at least in 1650, because on that day, 13 January 1650, Abiezer Coppe was transferred from a prison in Warwick to one in Coventry and then some time later to London and Newgate prison. Coppe was imprisoned for “putting forth,” or...
The Bridge of Stones: a Migrant Christmas Story
Carefully treading a crossing of slippery stones strung across the shallow Rio Grande between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, trickles of migrants climbed up the embankment on the U.S. side. Joining with others who had crossed from down river, the asylum seekers waited...
The Far-Right Assault on Our Future
Lost in the rush of political and climate-related news in the closing weeks of 2022 was the small but intriguing story of a December 3 armed attack on two power substations in Moore County, North Carolina. The installations were severely damaged by gunfire, leaving...
Health Care in Crisis: Warning! US Capitalism is Lethal
Under capitalism, industrial production and consumer buying expands. Greenhouse gases fill the atmosphere, the climate changes, and people die. U.S. leadership of global capitalism leads to wars and from there, potentially, to nuclear annihilation. There is extra...
The Invisible Global Heat Danger Zone
NASA claims that 2022 was one of the hottest years ever recorded with record-breaking heat waves around the world, as major commercial waterways, like the Danube, Po, Rhine, Yangtze, and Mississippi rivers temporarily dried up leaving humongous river barges choking in...
Whipped Inflation, Now
The December Consumer Price Index (CPI), following a great December jobs report, shows the economy has turned the corner and seems on a path to stable growth with moderate inflation. The CPI showed prices actually fell by 0.1 percent for the month. This brought the...
Vaguely Left Dems and Moderate Republicans – the Only Remaining Hope?
Who isn’t sick of corporate, corrupt, war-mongering, Wall Street Dems like Joe “Fight to the Last Ukrainian” Biden and Nancy “Stock Profits from Legislation” Pelosi? Who doesn’t want to see the back of even more crooked neofascists like Donald “Scrap the Constitution”...
Amtraks Across America: Biking New York City
In the 1970s, when I moved back to New York after college, the city was a bicycle hell-hole. After the 1980 transit strike, I brought my childhood Raleigh into my apartment, but only ever felt safe riding it in Central or Prospect parks, although in those days cars...