contributions

If the title of this article began with "socialism," many readers would click past without reading it—even though a majority of Americans want a government that nurtures their families and society. Largely because of the Cold War against communism and the rhetoric it engendered, the word socialism has taken on a negative meaning in the minds of most Americans. So, how does one define what the voters of the United States really want from their government?
Socialism is not the same as (…)

DONALD TRUMP IS ELECTABLE AS PRESIDENT, BUT…
John Chuckman
I think it entirely possible Donald Trump could be elected President. I am not in favor of it - but then neither am I in favor of any of the other candidates on offer - yet I do think his election is increasingly possible. America displays every four years - almost like a temporary clothesline erected on the front lawn of the White House loaded with soiled and tattered undergarments - the sheer poverty of its political system. (…)

BRITAIN’S DAVID CAMERON WANTS TO USE BOMBS TO PROSPECT FOR GOLD IN SYRIA
John Chuckman
Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the British Labour Party, is a man of genuine integrity and honesty in his opposition to British bombing of Syria.
Indeed, he is everything the Prime Minister of Britain, David Cameron, is not.
I think we see from the storm in the British press against Corbyn just how much the establishment values integrity and honesty, which is to say, not at all.
Almost every word of (…)

JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY
IN THE WAKE OF HORROR Paris & The Cycle of Response By Jack Random
At first we are stunned, senses deadened, mind and body paralyzed. We see without seeing, hear without sound, absorb without taste, touch or smell. It is not real. It is a video game, a you-tube contrivance, a trick of the mind. At length it seeps into our conscious minds. We deny it as if denying can make it stop. It does not stop.
Our senses kick in and we are (…)

Once again we are short of correct words, in the moment when events like these break with our established analytical grids - without giving way to any potentially positive thing for the times to come. In these hours, literature is maybe having a better time in saying something interesting about the subversion of the reference points (it is not by any chance that, here in Italy, a writer was able to grasp some basic elements in order to explain what is happening*).
Lucidity is not certainly (…)

FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH IN PARIS AND THE UGLY TRUTH OF STATE TERROR
John Chuckman
Mass murder, as that which just occurred in Paris, is always distressing, but that does not mean we should stop thinking.
Isn’t it rather remarkable that President Hollande, immediately after the event, declared ISIS responsible? How did he know that? And if he was aware of a serious threat from ISIS, why did he not take serious measures in advance?
Within days of Friday 13, French forces assaulted an (…)

Our association, CAPJPO-EuroPalestine naturally condemns the barbarous attacks perpetrated by the terrorists claiming to belong to Daesh, and shares the emotion and sadness of the friends and relatives of the 128 victims of these horrific killings, also the hundreds of men and women wounded during the Friday evening massacres.
All the same, we protest against the declarations and the policies of a government which is far from protecting the population and exposes it to the risks of new (…)

A GROUP of victims who lost family or were injured in two United States embassy bombings in Africa are suing BNP Paribas for $3.4 billion (US $2.4 billion), alleging the French bank helped finance the terrorist attacks by doing business with black-listed nations.
The suit, filed in a Washington federal court on Wednesday, is the first to target a global bank that has been penalised for violating US economic sanctions.
In June 2014, BNP paid a record $12.6 billion fine (US $9 billion) for (…)

Mumbai-based and global construction company Larsen & Toubro is settling in Middle-East. The State of Qatar is giving them major construction sites and the two seem to share the most ‘essential humane values’ – blood bricks: building infrastructures at the cost of human lives, including children’s, corruption and harassment.
With the 2022 Soccer World Cup approaching, the State of Qatar and its public work authority Ashghal had to make friends within the construction field and what (…)

As the legal battle between the disgraced art transporter Yves Bouvier and the Rybolovlev Family Trust continues, a group of colourful advisers is attempting to shape the case behind the scenes.
Despite his financial troubles, Bouvier still has enough of his loot stashed away to be able to afford some of the most expensive legal minds money can buy.
Many of them are high profile and genuinely big names in the jurisdictions where Bouvier finds himself facing serious criminal charges. Not (…)