Fracking is a technique used by drilling companies to make oil and gas flow more easily out of the ground. It involves blasting a high-pressure mixture of water, sand, and chemicals underground to crack, or “fracture,” underground shale rock, thereby releasing oil and gas to flow back to the surface
Imagine if George Monbiot, John Pilger, Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, David Peterson, Jonathan Cook, Mark Curtis, Glenn Greenwald, Nafeez Ahmed, Robert Fisk, Naomi Klein, Russell Brand, Michael Moore, Julian Assange, Chris Hedges, Sharon Beder, Seumas Milne and others rejected the media moguls, billionaires, parent companies and advertisers, and offered their work completely free of charge from a single media outlet. Would the global public be willing to support such a group, such a cause, through donations? The answer, we think, is blindingly obvious.
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives.”
The Syriza chief is blissfully ignorant of the history of the euro. The horror of austerity is not the consequence of Greek profligacy – it was designed into the euro’s plan from the beginning, writes GREG PALAST
No solution to the crisis facing the Greek working class can be found within the framework of the pro-capitalist and nationalist program of Syriza. What is required is the building of an independent political movement of the working class, based on an internationalist and socialist perspective.
There is essentially no chance the Troika (well, really, Germany) will give them acceptable terms on a writedown. Negotiations should be intended only to go on long enough to demonstrate that a good deal is not possible. While they are ongoing, the Greeks should be preparing for Grexit and repatriating all the resources they can.
Over a week of fighting the partisans have delivered a heavy blow to the Ukrainian forces. The group of Ukrainian fighters in Donbas suffered huge losses, the soldiers are demoralized, the officers are confused and unable to control the situation.
“On international politics Charlie Hebdo was neoconservative. It supported every single NATO intervention from Yugoslavia to the present. They were anti-Muslim, anti-Hamas (or any Palestinian organization), anti-Russian, anti-Cuban (with the exception of one cartoonist), anti-Hugo Chávez, anti-Iran, anti-Syria, pro-Pussy Riot, pro-Kiev … Do I need to continue?
“A string of at least 69 arrests in France this week on the vague charge of ‘defending terrorism’ (‘l’apologie du terrorisme’) risks violaing freedom of expression,” Amnesty International said in an understated press release on Friday.
Paralyzing an eviction is an act of civil disobedience: we understand it against laws that we consider unjust, actively disobeying them is not only a right but also a duty of the population. This disobedience is not gratuitous: it is
rooted in a superior legality systematically violated by the Spanish state: that of human rights.
claims over the sacrosanct status of ‘free speech’ and its expression as ‘satire’ cannot elide the more elementary issue of human consideration and social responsibility. As cartoonist Joe Sacco observes, Hebdo’s output is a “vapid way to use a pen.” One might also add, pernicious, vulgar and racist.
it came to a significant ideological turning point at the end of the 1990s. Philippe Val supported NATO’s military intervention in Kosovo in 1999 and adopted an anti-Palestinian position during the Second Intifada. From then on it took on Islam, which was seen as a fundamental threat.
