ADDED 04/03/2018
FROM 03/15/2018 | Al Jazeera
BY Jonathan Cook
Nazareth, Israel – After seven years of delays, the Israeli governing parties have agreed the final terms of controversial new legislation that would define Israel exclusively as “the nation-state of the Jewish people”. The bill is now expected to be fast-tracked through the Israeli parliament and on to the statute books in the coming weeks. Approval by […]
see source
ADDED 03/28/2018
FROM 03/28/2018 | Slate
BY Slate
Anand Giridharadas on why many rich people do harm—even when they think they’re doing good. Yascha Mounk discusses the limits of philanthropy, how the hopey-changey narrative of the affluent cloaks the power they exercise, and how they can do better with author of the forthcoming book Winners Take All and former New York Times and current NBC […]
see source
ADDED 03/22/2018
FROM 03/20/2018 | AlterNet
BY Mehreen Kasana
The practice of governments and security firms conducting wide-scale exploitation of major disasters, natural and otherwise, is nothing new. Last week, the Intercept reported on TigerSwan, a mercenary security firm that follows a similar disaster-capitalist model and has attacked the No Dakota Access Pipeline (NoDAPL) movement since 2016, at least. But that’s not all: TigerSwan has also been preying […]
see source
ADDED 03/16/2018
FROM 03/14/2018 | Medium
BY Robert Greenfield IV
Maduro’s new Petro token is consolidating power and crowdfunding oppression. “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.” ― Simone Weil Last year, token sales raised approximately $5.6 billion. The crypto-method of crowdfunding has opened the floodgates to decentralized funding, which […]
see source
ADDED 03/08/2018
FROM | The Economist
BY Bagehot
British institutions may not withstand the authoritarian-populist wave. IN HIS dystopian novel of 1935, “It Can’t Happen Here”, Sinclair Lewis described the rise of an American Caesar, Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip. Buzz easily defeats Franklin Roosevelt for the presidency by promising to make America great again. He then sets about destroying the country’s system of checks […]
see source
ADDED 03/05/2018
FROM | NPR
BY Shankar Vedantam
Several years ago, sociologist Brooke Harrington decided to explore the secret lives of billionaires. As she told us in this favorite episode from 2016, what she found shocked her.
see source
ADDED 03/05/2018
FROM 03/02/2018 | Other 98%
BY Alexander Zaitchik
A sweeping study of drug R&D funding shows the public pays for the crucial foundations of medical breakthroughs. So why not let the public have access to them? Something odd happened when the Trump administration submitted the original version of its latest pro-corporate budget: Big Pharma didn’t like it. The problem wasn’t a tax hike […]
see source
ADDED 01/19/2018
FROM |
BY
Author Jeff Halper says the usual explanations of Israel’s behavior didn’t make sense to him. In June, Israelis and Palestinians marked the 48th anniversary of the Six Day War, and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip that began in its aftermath. President Obama has admitted that he doesn’t expect to see an end to […]
see source