Peace, Justice and the Ultimate Crime

“What is Aleppo?” asked third party libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson on nationwide US television. And everyone who is aware of the horrendous human drama unfolding in Syria gasped and wrote him off as too ignorant to run for dogcatcher let alone president of the most powerful nation on earth and leader of the Western world. US Presidential candidate Gary Johnson Devastated by the Syrian War over the course of the past five years, Aleppo will very likely be, for all intents and purposes, leveled within the next two months, under constant air attacks by the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and those of his Russian ally and overlord Vladimir Putin. While many may know where Aleppo lies in the bitter war between Assad and nationalist rebels and in the proxy wars of regional and worldwide rivals, fewer know what Aleppo means in terms of world history and culture. Possibly in existence since as far back as the 6 th millennium before the Christian era, it has been i...

To read Parts I and II, please visit the following links: http://vivoonwarpeaceandjustice.blogspot.com.ar/2016/08/the-rise-of-nationalist-populism.html http://vivoonwarpeaceandjustice.blogspot.com.ar/2016/08/the-rise-of-populist-nationalism-part.html In a recently released documentary video written and directed by Kelly Nyks, Peter D. Hutchinson and Jared P. Scott for PF Films ( http://requiemfortheamericandream.com/ ) , the internationally esteemed dean of US intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, provides, like no one else to date, a clear, concise analysis of how the much-touted American dream has become an American nightmare for all but a privileged elite. And as goes the United States, so too goes the world, often with devastatingly multiplied effect. The failure of the majority of the public to understand the causes behind this dream’s demise and, worse still, their lack of tools for dealing with it, are at the root of the fears and frustrations currently fueling populist nationa...

To read Part I, please visit the following link: http://vivoonwarpeaceandjustice.blogspot.com.ar/2016/08/the-rise-of-nationalist-populism.html Despite the general proliferation of far-right nationalist groups across Western Europe, certainly the most alarming example of the swift emergence of populist nationalism to date—not only because of the potential consequences for the country involved, but also because of those for the world at large, given that nation’s superpower status—has come in the United States, with the meteoric launching on the political horizon of billionaire real estate czar and reality show host Donald Trump. The flamboyant tycoon has skyrocketed from political obscurity to the position of presidential candidate for one of the country’s two major parties in just a few short months, solely on the strength of his populist nationalist rhetoric and its effect on the angriest segments of the population. Trump was not the pick of the Republican Party itself, ho...

Hitler said what beleaguered Germans wanted to hear. Ever since World War II, people in the Western world have been asking rhetorically how a nation of the education and cultural excellence of Germany could have believed in and rallied around such a sinister, bigoted, megalomaniacal and xenophobic leader as Adolf Hitler. Perhaps there is no single, clear-cut response to that question. But part of the answer is that such an autocratic, über -nationalist leader,  whose stilted them-and-us world vision led to the most tragic global conflict in the history of the human race, was a product of his era, a supremely-driven opportunist who saw clearly how to take advantage of the widespread sense of discontent, disenfranchisement, humiliation and despair bred in his nation as of the end of World War I, in order to build a witheringly powerful and highly militarized movement “to make Germany great again.” Hitler’s so-called Nazi movement evolved by challenging the democratic syste...

     Turkey’s close call with a military coup this past week not only sent shockwaves through that country but also through the Western world. Because of its strategic position between East and West and its ever-tense alliance with the Western powers, instability in Turkey sets off alarms in Europe and the United States, particularly so at a time like this, when Western allies have Islamic State (ISIL) on the run in battlefield combat but when the ultra-Islamist terrorist network is changing tactics and encouraging small terrorist cells or lone-wolf killers to infiltrate Western capitals and wreak havoc. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan It is believed that the reasons behind the attempted coup were not only President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authoritarian advances against democratic rule in Turkey but also because of attacks carried out by ISIL in the heart of Turkish society. The perception among many is that Turkey is paying with innocent blood for the sins...

There can be little doubt that the result of last week’s referendum in Britain on whether or not to remain within the European Union (EU) was not about liberal economics or overlapping legal boundaries, but about immigration and radical nationalism. By extension, it was also about shirking accountability in the Middle East, and about trying to turn back the clock to a time when Europeans themselves were divided by borders, language and cultural jingoism. Ultimately, it was about racism and fundamentalism, about suspicion and fear, and about isolationism and the ill-feelings that it necessarily engenders. David Cameron - taken by surprise The so-called Brexit Referendum came as a staggering surprise to just about everyone who still believes that this is a world where, despite abundant controversies, everyone basically wants to work together. Not among the least surprised was Britain’s own Prime Minister David Cameron, who, almost immediately following the vote—in which Britons ...