A conspiracy is defined as “a secret plan made by two or more people to do something that is harmful or illegal.” Since nobody doubts that the infamous acts of violence and destruction carried out in Manhattan and Arlington VA on September 11, 2001 were planned by two or more people, it follows that, strictly speaking, no one really doubts that a conspiracy was carried out on that fateful day. This is worth repeating: everyone is a conspiracy theorist (at least in this one sense) with respect to the events of 9/11. Accordingly, the intense and vitriolic debates over 9/11…
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Climate change and capitalism
Scientists have been ringing the alarm bells about climate change for decades now, but the message, which is barely filtering through into the public consciousness, has yet to do anything to reverse the destructive path that human civilization is on. There are perhaps many reasons for this, but the crux of the matter is corporate capitalism and it’s control of the political process. Corporations are driven by the logic of maximizing profits at all costs, including costs to society and to the environment, and politicians are driven by the logic of catering to these corporations, on whom their political careers…
Do the Math (documentary)
Bill McKibben is one of the greatest environmental writers and activists of our time. In 1989 he wrote The End of Nature, which is considered by many to be the first book on global warming written for a general audience. Since then he has written countless articles, given hundreds if not thousands of public lectures, and is the main organizer of the 350.org movement to solve the climate crisis. One year ago McKibben published an influential article in Rolling Stone magazine entitled “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math.” The thesis of the article is that there are three significant numbers that everyone needs…
The Unbelievers
The Wikipedia entry for the “new atheism movement” reads as follows: New Atheism is the name given to the ideas promoted by a collection of modern atheist writers who have advocated the view that “religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises.” This is not a terrible definition, but it is not particularly good either. What’s unfortunate about it is that it is defines “new atheism” in terms of its negative goal of criticizing or rebutting religion and religious ideas. But new atheism also has a positive goal, which…
Islamophobia and gender equality
A recent article reprinted in Truthout has the provocative title “The biggest lie you’ve told about the oppression of Muslim women.” And what is that biggest lie? According to Lauren Rankin, author of the article and graduate student in Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, the biggest lie is that Islam is a “violent and misogynistic faith, one from which Muslim women need to be saved.” Rankin adds that those who perpetuate this lie–as Joyce Carol Oates allegedly did in this series of tweets–suffer from a form of racism known as “Islamophobia,” a term that has also recently been…
Why we should care about government surveillance
In releasing information concerning the top-secret US and British government surveillance programs to the press, Edward Snowden initiated–at great personal cost–a much-needed discussion concerning the costs and benefits of, and ultimate justification for, these mass government surveillance programs. Some people, especially those in positions of power in the US and UK, have tried their best to conflate this important public discussion with a spurious debate over whether or not Snowden is a traitor. That Snowden is a hero, not a traitor, barely needs mentioning at this point, but what does need to be pointed out is that the debate over…
Zombie education
William Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel of the US Air Force who now writes for TomDispatch and other publications. In his latest piece for Truthout he explains the concept of “zombie education.” True education, Astore writes, is transformative and soul-enriching. “It opens alternative paths to living that don’t begin and end at the workplace. It measures personal fulfillment in ways that aren’t restricted to take-home pay… It’s about becoming a savvier citizen whose appreciation of, and dedication to, democracy is keener and more heartfelt.” Zombie education, on the other hand, is narrowly focused on individual profit or vocational training. “Students are…
The Banality of ‘Don’t Be Evil’ (article by Julian Assange)
In a recent New York Times opinion piece, “The Banaility of ‘Don’t be Evil,” Julian Assange critiques the book “The New Digital Age – Reshaping the future of people, nations and business,” co-authored by Jared Cohen and Google CEO Eric Schmidt. A short summary of the book can be found here. The title of Assange’s article, which is fiercely critical of Cohen and Schmidt’s ideas for the future of a digitized civilization, is a reference to a phrase long ago used by Hannah Arendt to note that the greatest evils in human history (particularly the Holocaust) were not executed by sociopaths and…
Another hero
A recently created Wikipedia entry on Edward Snowden read as follows: Edward Joseph Snowden (born 1984) is an American technical contractor, a former CIA employee, and a traitor. Snowden released classified material on top-secret United States National Security Agency (NSA) programs including the PRISM surveillance program to The Guardian and The Washington Post in June 2013. PRISM is a top-secret government surveillance program, in operation since 2007, that enables the NSA to access the servers of nine major Internet companies, including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo! and Facebook, to collect data on the emails, documents, audio and video chats, photographs, and connection logs of not only Americans but also billions of people around the world…
Should animals be off the menu? (a public debate)
The official description of the debate: Do you eat meat? Did you know you are in the minority? Out of an audience of hundreds, 73.6% agreed meat should be off the menu – find out why, then ask yourself if you are making the right choice. Intelligence Squared‘s 2012 series of debates kicked off with a look at the ethics of eating meat. Six speakers are divided into two teams for lively and insightful arguments for and against the proposition, ‘Animals Should Be Off the Menu’. Speaking for the proposition are Peter Singer, Philip Wollen and Veronica Ridge; against it, Adrian Richardson,…
Harris, Greenwald, and elementary logic
An opinion piece written by Murtaza Hussain and posted on the Al Jazeera website last month has given rise to a rather heated and very public dispute between Sam Harris and Glenn Greenwald. The dispute can be found in this vitriolic email exchange, which Harris posted on his blog, this response from Greenwald, published in the Guardian, and this follow-up piece from Harris. All are well worth reading. Those who have skimmed through this material may well wonder why these two well-educated and highly articulate men, who share much in common, can’t seem to agree on anything. What exactly is it that so divides…
Sam Harris and the ethical argument for guns
In a recent and lengthy blog post entitled “The Riddle of Guns” author Sam Harris takes issues with the “fanatacists and zealots” on both sides of the gun debate in America. He claims to be searching for some rational middle ground between the two extremes of, on the one hand, the “liberals”who respond to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School with calls for much stronger gun control and, on the other, the right-wing NRA types who respond to the tragic mass shooting with calls for more guns in the form of armed guards at elementary schools and other public…
The week the world stood still (by Noam Chomsky)
In his article “The week the world stood still,” published originally on TomDispatch, Noam Chomsky reminds us how close the world came to thermonuclear apocalypse in 1962 and also provides some insight into what really happened behind closed doors during the standoff between the US and the Soviet Union. It is of great importance to get the facts right about this dark moment in human history right, especially since the majority of people on earth were not alive in 1962 and can only learn about it through historical scholarship. Noam Chomsky therefore does us a great service in this article; his…
Evidence of the existence of God?
Eben Alexander recently wrote this article in Newsweek magazine describing the amazing experiences he had while in a coma, experiences which he claims prove that consciousness survives the brain, that there is life after death, that heaven is real, and that there is a divine and all-loving God. He writes, for instance, the following: In the fall of 2008, however, after seven days in a coma during which the human part of my brain, the neocortex, was inactivated, I experienced something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death… There is no scientific…
Sex, Lies and Julian Assange (documentary)
Julian Assange and Wikileaks continue to be popular topics for the media, although most of the media coverage is either biased or superficial. Sex, Lies and Julian Assange, reported by Andrew Fowler and presented by Kerry O’Brien, is an exception to this trend. In the brief space of 43 minutes, the investigative documentary revisits the advent of Wikileaks and the controversy surrounding its editor-in-chief, Julian Assange. Through well-selected interviews and detailed research, especially on the sexual offence allegations in Sweden, the documentary presents the story of Wikileaks and Julian Assange in a remarkably clear, unbiased way. It states what the mainstream…
Julian Assange interviews Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali
The official description of 10th episode of The World Tomorrow reads as follows: A surprise Arab drive for freedom, the West’s structural crisis and new hope coming from Latin America. That’s the modern world in the eyes of Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali, two prominent thinkers and this week’s guests on Julian Assange’s show on RT.
Why the US and Israel are the greatest threats to peace
One of the most remarkable things about Noam Chomsky is his ability to distance himself from conventional assumptions and biases. Throughout his career, not only in his political writings but also his work in linguistics and the philosophy of language, he engages in thought-experiments which ask what conclusions an objective observer, a Martian, for instance, would draw were he to examine the problem at hand without the usual biases and presuppositions. This strategy is on display once again in a characteristically insightful piece by Chomsky recently posted on Alternet entitled “Why the US and Israel are the greatest threats to…
Interview with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian Embassy
Originally aired on GamaTV, August 30, 2012, Uruguayan journalist Jorge Gestoso interviews Julian Assange from within the Ecuadorian Embassy. In this wide-ranging and fascinating interview Gestoso asks Assange if the Wikileaks’ cause is worth dying for. Assange answers yes. The interview can be seen here:
Julian Assange interviews Cypherpunks (The World Tomorrow)
In the 8th and 9th episode of RT‘s The World Tomorrow, Julian Assange is joined by cypherpunks from the US, Germany, and France to discuss the future of our increasingly digitalized world. What is the ultimate purpose of Twitter, Facebook and other social media? What is the current state of online privacy and data protection? These are some the questions examined in this excellent two-part discussion with people who understand perhaps better than anyone else the challenges that cyberspace poses to human freedom. Part I: Part II:
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