In this blog I write about world affairs, presenting a view of the world free from NATO propaganda.
Peace Anthropology and Development Anthropology and History are the tools with which I analyze international affairs, as part of a world-wide web of people working for peace through Transcend, UNIDIR and other agencies. Terrorism? This is largely political propaganda: my EPES Mandala Consulting group specialized in “terrorism” and far more people die each year from road accidents or from the flu, than from terror attacks. A lot of news is fear-mongering and most comes from a small number of corporate and government sources. Investigative journalists are a threatened species.
“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.”
Trump – like Biden – has supported Israel and its genocide in Gaza. Trump – like Biden – supplies the bombs and bullets for genocide. Netanyahu’s aim is to make Gaza unlivable for Palestinians. Trump and his family want to turn Gaza into a sea-side paradise for billionaires.
Below is a series of articles published this month by TRANSCEND, the network for peace journalism of which I am a proud member.
Read MoreAmerican billionaires are now 33% richer that before the pandemic and their corporate profits are causing 50% of the U.S. inflation. In the 5 years since 2020, their collective wealth has increased by 81% or $8.2 trillion - enough to eliminate world poverty 26 times over.
Read MoreTens of thousands marched against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and many hundreds of protesters have been killed by his thugs.
But it would be incredibly stupid to believe that American bombs offer a solution.
Read MoreHistory repeatedly teaches us this lesson: external powers that topple governments through military force rarely produce the outcomes they promise. More often, populations rally behind nationalist forces, even authoritarian ones, when faced with foreign invasion.
Read More“Never again” I was taught, as I absorbed the horrors of the Holocaust and the hideous fascist ideologies of Hitler and Mussolini.
“Never again” is becoming “Oh yes, once again: but who cares?”
Read MoreDear Prime Minister
We want you to succeed. We NEED you to succeed, both as Labour prime minister, and as a rebuke to 14 years of Tory incompetence and sleaze. For that to happen, we need a few policies and A FEW RISKS that show real change, while respecting principles that show moral standing and rectitude.
Read MoreSome Israelis focus on their national tradition of freeing hostages. Israel’s leaders focus on killing Palestinians – offering the ridiculous argument that this may destroy Hamas and make Israel safer.
Read MoreIS IT POSSIBLE THAT ISRAELI GENOCIDE IN GAZA WAS THE ORIGINAL BIBI-IDF PLAN?
Read MoreIsrael’s defense minister - a man called Israel Katz - outlined plans in early July to create a concentration camp into which he intends to herd two million Palestinian citizens of Gaza …. The ones whom the Israeli army have not yet killed.
Read MoreA different leader would have saved the hostages, negotiating without bombs in favor of peace. Instead, Netanyahu has opted for destruction and genocide: and I agree with the governments of South Africa, Brazil, and others that genocide is what Israel is perpetrating in Gaza.
Read MoreThe war-mongering, and profit and revenge-driven calls for Russia to be defeated, are based on the mistaken assumption that the theater of war—including nuclear war—can be limited. This was not, however, the case in either the First or Second World Wars.
Read MoreThe evidence suggests that inside the Israeli State Apparatus, there are people who wish to destroy Gaza and use famine as one weapon of war. The killing of aid workers is a deliberate policy of these people, aiming to disrupt the flow of aid.
Read MoreNetanyahu has lost the support of most of the world.
Now we are all witness to his IDF drones bombing aid workers, killing the dedicated volunteers devoted to alleviating the famine Netanyahu has created in Gaza. These aid workers could have been my friends or members of my family.
Read MoreGenocide is genocide, whoever commits it.
We were horrified by the deaths of 1200 Israelis on October 7th, and we cannot be anything other than horrified by the deaths of >30,000 Gaza citizens at the hands of Israel.
Read MoreWhile the Hamas attack against Israel in October 2023 was appalling, brutal, savage, and unacceptable, the Netanyahu response has been worse. Hamas created a criminal, disgusting massacre. Netanyahu created war.
Read MoreA sustainable peace needs to be rooted in the particular community itself. Each conflict and each peace process is different and specific to the people involved. Unarmed civilian protection draws on the peace infrastructure that exists within all communities.
Read MoreHow can I stay silent when American bombs, dropped by Israeli planes, are flattening the city of Gaza and killing Palestinian children? Of course, the October 7th attack by Hamas on civilians dancing, or living in their houses, was horrendous. But the Jewish law “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” produces nothing but a world filled with blind and toothless people, all hating one another.
Read MoreWar is never a win: both sides always lose.
Associated Press (AP) reported May 17th that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have agreed to separate meetings with a delegation of leaders from six African countries to discuss a possible plan to end the war in Ukraine, South Africa’s president said Tuesday.
Read MoreKeeping the peace is not what turns on military leaders. American generals have new weapons they are longing to try out on the battlefield. You should not be giving these people a platform, Mr Kristof. You should be talking to the Peace Makers, and providing a platform to people who seek to end the war.
Read MoreErnst Friedrich Schumacher (1911 –1977) was a German-British statistician and economist who pushed for human-scale, decentralized and appropriate technologies. We live in a world that took the exact opposite route. Big operators are encouraged to swallow their rivals: this concentration of economic power being facilitated by the venal politicians that the corporations finance. Corporate consolidation has led to obscene concentrations of power.
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