CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—Which is why I was not surprised when this plucky nation knowingly took on the wrath of the western empire in granting Julian Assange political asylum in 2012. While my own sycophantic country Australia pathetically ignored the plight of its own citizen, Ecuador defiantly strode forward, locked eyes with the US-centralized power establishment, and did what no one else was willing to.
AMERICAN BRAINWASH
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Democrats are From Hell; Republicans are From Hell’s Lowest Circle, and Trump is From Somewhere Else Altogether
34 minutes readANDEW LEVINE—Democrats are more decent, more socially liberal, more civil (right-wingers would say “politically correct”), and less wedded to retrograde causes and notions. This can and often does matter around the margins.
But the respects in which Democrats are better are of little or no consequence for the fundamental economic and political problems faced by Americans, and peoples around the world who live under the sway of the American hegemon. On those problems, Democrats and Republicans are as alike as peas in a pod. -
PETER KOENIG—Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on up to $150 billion of Chinese goods to combat what he has labeled unfair trade practices on the part of Beijing. Meanwhile, China has warned of equal retaliation, including duties on some of its most significant U.S. imports, like aircraft, soybeans and vehicles.
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DAVE WALSH—Barr doesn’t represent working class anger, but a kind of diseased, wealthy-lumpen Hollywood element and she is definitely not under control. She remains a loose cannon even as she sinks into the right-wing swamp. Her comments and the explosion were entirely predictable.
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Five thousand deaths in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria
13 minutes readGENEVIEVE LEIGH—The study found that thousands of deaths were caused by lack of access to basic medical care. The report explained: “[T]he most frequently reported problems were an inability to access medications (14.4 percent of households) and the need for respiratory equipment requiring electricity (9.5 percent), but many households also reported problems with closed medical facilities (8.6 percent) or absent doctors (6.1 percent). In the most remote category, 8.8 percent of households reported that they had been unable to reach 911 services by telephone.”