Propaganda

A Chink of Aussie Light

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation shamed the BBC by putting out a Four Corners documentary on the Panama leak that had real balls. In stark contrast to the BBC, the Australians named and shamed Australia’s biggest company and Australia’s biggest foreign investor. BBC Panorama by contrast found a guy who sold one house in Islington. The Australians also, unlike the BBC […]

Trump and Clinton: Censoring the Unpalatable

A virulent if familiar censorship is about to descend on the US election campaign. As the cartoon brute, Donald Trump, seems almost certain to win the Republican Party’s nomination, Hillary Clinton is being ordained both as the “women’s candidate” and the champion of American liberalism in its heroic struggle with the Evil One.   This is drivel, of course; Hillary […]

When “fundamentally” = “not”

Jill Abramson, the latest EMT wheeled out to provide life support for Clinton’s clinically dead reputation, is telling us via the Guardian (where else?) that “this may shock you: Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest” Well, Jill (I’m assuming first name terms since we’re all girls together here), I have to say it doesn’t shock me at all. If I were […]

The Astonishingly Crap Science of ‘Counter-Extremism’

A new United Nations report published this February has criticised prevalent approaches to countering ‘radicalisation’ as ineffective, conceptually flawed, and more likely to reinforce extremist narratives than prevent them. The report to the UN Human Rights Council is authored by Ben Emmerson QC, the UN Special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights. Emmerson is a leading British lawyer, deputy […]

‘Chilling Effect’ of Mass Surveillance Is Silencing Dissent’

Thanks largely to whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013, most Americans now realize that the intelligence community monitors and archives all sorts of online behaviors of both foreign nationals and US citizens. But did you know that the very fact that you know this could have subliminally stopped you from speaking out online on issues you care about? Now research […]

One Time 4 the Mind by Frankie Boyle

I’ve never given a lecture before, so let me apologise in advance. I’ll be talking about things which some of you will know more about than me, I’ll touch on struggles that are not my own, and I’ll definitely get some of this wrong. I had second thoughts about doing this: guys with beards telling everybody how it is is […]

Profits of death: disaster capitalists fan flames of war in Syria

American, European and Russian corporations are the only ones winning from humanitarian disasters of their own making. As a tentative ceasefire continues to hold in Syria, with the next round of peace talks having resumed this week, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there might be an end in sight to a conflict that has raged for nearly five years. […]

Edward Snowden: ‘we must seize the means of communication’ to protect basic freedoms

A gathering of journalists, hackers and whistleblowers in Berlin this weekend heard former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, Edward Snowden, issue a call for citizens to find ways to take direct control over the information technologies we use everyday. The Logan Symposium, organized by the Center for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) based in Goldsmiths University, London, also heard from Wikileaks publisher […]

The Hateful Trait: Demonisation Of Poor Reaches New Low

Is a mother who has just given birth and is sitting in her hospital bed, by definition, work-shy? Is a father who raises three young kids full time while his partner works by definition work-shy? If you answered no to those questions, congratulations! You have managed to understand employment statistics in a more nuanced way than Dr Adam Perkins, the new […]

The real coalition against Daesh is the “4+1”: Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq plus Hezbollah

The real coalition against Daesh is the “4+1”: Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq plus Hezbollah. Their advances on the ground, and on the record, speak for themselves. The US-led-from-behind coalition is mostly for show.  Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for RT, Sputnik and TomDispatch, and is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging […]