Ne News: Independent News

Tony Cartalucci Land Destroyer 27 September 2017 Many geopolitical analysts and commentators have noted many worthwhile similarities between the Syrian crisis and the one now unfolding in the Southeast Asian state of Myanmar. However, what is different about these two crises is just as important as what is the same. The Similarities  Particular focus has been placed on evidence emerging that US-ally Saudi Arabia is serving as an intermediary fueling militancy in Myanmar's western Rakhine state. The militants, however, consist of a foreign armed, funded, and led cadre, constituting a numerically negligible minority of the Rohingya population they claim to represent, and are in fact no more representative of the Rohingya people than militants of Al Qaeda and the so-called "Islamic State" are representative of Syria or Iraq's Sunni Muslim populations. While it is crucial to point out the foreign-funded nature of a militancy attempting to co-opt t...

Andrei Akulov Strategic Culture Foundation 29 September 2017 Internet development resulted in disappearance of America’s local media to benefit metropolitan mainstream outlets with large countrywide circulation. Predominantly pro-Democratic, they espouse liberal values, paying little attention to political views and everyday life problems of those who live outside megacities.   The mainstream media have lost trust of provincial America to engender the phenomenon of Trump, with public trust in mainstream media reaching its  lowest level  in history. The people living outside big cities  trust  President Trump more than media.   There were times US media served all Americans no matter where they lived, while meeting the highest journalism ethics and standards. True, outlets have always been divided to some extent between conservative and liberal camps but media were not antagonistic to each other as they are now. In the 1960s-19...

Ne News 30 September 2017 This week, there were elections in Germany and Norway, in which conservatives won. However, we have seen the rise of the far right in both Germany (Alternative for Germany) and Norway (Party of Progress). And earlier this year, we saw far-right wing parties do well in elections (most notably the National Front led by Marine Le Pen in France). These far-right wing parties claims to be against the European Union (as well as immigration). But can we trust them? As highlighted a number of times here on Ne News , the far-right cannot be trusted with maintaining the nation-state, as many of these far-right wing parties are actually in favour of the European Union, and it is mostly left-wing groups that are pushing back against these superstates. Take Norway for example, in which the right-wing parties (such as the Conservative Party) and the far-right parties (such as the Party of Progress) want to see Norway join the European Union, but is opposed by partie...

William Boardman Reader Supported News 27 September 2017 The flag is a symbol, and there is no agreement as to what it actually symbolizes. By design, the flag’s thirteen stripes stand for the original 13 states, none of which would ban slavery. The 14th state, Vermont, was the first state to ban slavery, doing it weakly in its 1777 state constitution (not that the principle was enforced: in 1802 the Town of Windsor sued a  State Supreme Court justice  to get him to take care of an elderly, infirm slave he had dumped on town welfare; the town lost the case). The original flag had 13 stars for those same original 13 states, and it took over 70 years before all 36 stars in the  1865 flag  represented states without slavery (but not states without racist Jim Crow laws and the freedom to lynch without consequence). The colors of the stars and stripes had  no meaning in 1777 , when it was adopted, as distinct from the colors of the Great Seal...

Dr. Gary G. Kohls Duluth Reader 29 September 2017 “We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth…For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.” — Patrick Henry , Virginia Convention, 23 March, 1775 “The completeness of the victory is established by this fact: that of the six hundred Moros (Muslims living in the southern Philippines at the beginning of the 20th century) not one was left alive. The brilliancy of the victory is established by this other fact, to wit: that of our six hundred heroes only fifteen lost their lives. General Leonard Wood was present and looking on. His order had been, ‘Kill or capture those savages.’ Apparently our little army considered that the ‘or’ left them authorized to kill or capture according to taste, and that their taste had remained what it has been for eight years – the taste of Christian butchers. . . .The enemy numbered six hu...

Asbjørn Wahl Socialist Project 28 September 2017 The centre-left failed in getting rid of the so-called ‘blue-blue’ government at the  parliamentary elections in Norway  on 11 September. The Labour Party was the main loser, while small parties on the centre-left advanced slightly. However, the parliamentary basis of the right-wing government has started to unravel. A deeper political crisis may be looming in the background, while social contradictions are on the raise. Social Democracy followed the general European downward tendency (except Britain). First, some basic facts on the Norwegian electoral system. There are 169 members of parliament, who are elected through proportional representation. The 19 counties serve as the electoral constituencies. There is a threshold of 4 percent to qualify for the proportional distribution of representatives, although it is possible to win direct representation from the counties also if the national gain of vote...

Alfred W. McCoy TomDispatch 26 September 2017 [This piece has been adapted and expanded from Alfred W. McCoy’s new book,  In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power .] For the past 50 years, American leaders have been supremely confident that they could suffer military setbacks in places like Cuba or Vietnam without having their system of global hegemony, backed by the world’s wealthiest economy and finest military, affected. The country was, after all, the planet’s “indispensible nation,” as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright  proclaimed  in 1998 (and other presidents and politicians have insisted ever since). The U.S. enjoyed a greater “disparity of power” over its would-be rivals than any empire ever, Yale historian Paul Kennedy   announced  in 2002. Certainly, it would remain “the sole superpower for decades to come,” Foreign Affairs magazine  assured  us just last year.  ...