By Pablo Ouziel

Indignation is the catch phrase in Spain these days, most feel it and most express it, but the collective shouting seems to fall into a vacuum that can soon lead to despair. Much has been said about the popular-uprising taking place in Spain as a lead up to the regional and local elections. With citizens camped in city squares across the country, many feel this is the beginning of a much anticipated ‘European summer’ of discontent in which the people of Europe following the example set by Arab streets, take their turn in demanding democracy, justice and peace. Some commentary on the Internet has even begun to point to the possibility of a ‘North American Fall’ to follow from this uprising for change; but rather than predicting what might happen in North America, this is a time for reflection and critique of what it is that might have started in Spain, and what it is that such a popular movement is going to be coming up against in the coming months.

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Eric Walberg

As Russia gears up for its election season this winter, Putin’s Popular Front and Rogozin’s nationalist front are playing an old Soviet melody and even borrowing a tune from revolutionaries in Cairo.

On the eve of the 9 May Victory Day celebrating the defeat of fascism, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin raised eyebrows when he announced the formation of a “Popular Front”. He was speaking at a United Russia conference in Stalingrad (excuse me, Volgograd). Pulling down this pre-WWII anachronism from the communist history shelf was clearly intended to conjure up fond memories from Soviet times of people selflessly working together in harmony to defeat a common foe.

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by Stephen Lendman

Calling for Palestinian capitulation, not peace and liberation, Netanyahu delivered a litany of lies, fabrications, misstatements, and half-truths to AIPAC members on May 23, saying:

-- "Israel is unjustly accused of not wanting peace with the Palestinians. Nothing could be further from the truth." In fact, he once called the peace process "a waste of time," governing accordingly to avoid it.

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Interview by Kourosh Ziabari

Nima Shirazi is a political commentator from New York City. His analysis of United States foreign policy and Middle East issues, particularly with reference to current events in Israel, Palestine, and Iran, is published on his website, WideAsleepInAmerica.com.

His articles and commentaries are published on a variety of online and print publications including Foreign Policy Journal, Palestine Chronicle, Mondoweiss, Media with Conscience, Monthly Review, Dissident Voice, Salem-News, Middle East Online, Indymedia, The Palestine Telegraph and Axis of Logic.

Shirazi is widely acclaimed for his precise and accurate analysis of the Middle East events and the U.S. foreign policy.

The world-renowned author and political scientist Norman Finkelstein has praised Nima Shirazi's work, saying that he is "a very smart fellow and remarkably well informed. It's worth taking the time to read what he writes."

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Cynthia McKinney

While serving on the House International Relations Committee from 1993 to 2003, it became clear to me that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was an anachronism. Founded in 1945 at the end of World War II, NATO was founded by the United States in response to the Soviet Union's survival as a Communist state. NATO was the U.S. insurance policy that capitalist ownership and domination of European, Asian, and African economies would continue. This also would ensure the survival of the then-extant global apartheid.

NATO is a collective security pact wherein member states pledge that an attack upon one is an attack against all. Therefore, should the Soviet Union have attacked any European Member State, the United States military shield would be activated. The Soviet Response was the Warsaw Pact that maintained a "cordon sanitaire" around the Russian Heartland should NATO ever attack. Thus, the world was broken into blocs which gave rise to the "Cold War."

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by Stephen Lendman

Since May 21, anti-goverment protests rocked Georgia. Organized by an alliance of opposition parties, they erupted initially in September 2007 for early elections and democratic change, as well as ending corruption and police state terror. More on current protests below.

In 2003, Georgia's bloodless "Rose Revolution" replaced Edouard Shevardnadze with Mikhail Saakashvili, a totalitarian US-installed puppet with ties to other NATO countries and Israel.

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By Susan Lindauer, former Asset covering Iraq & Libya and the second non-Arab American indicted on the Patriot Act

Many Americans think they understand the dangers of the Patriot Act, which Congress has vowed to extend 4 more years in a vote later this week. Trust me when I say, Americans are not nearly frightened enough.

Ever wonder why the truth about 9/11 never got exposed? Why Americans don't have a clue about leadership fraud surrounding the War on Terror? Why Americans don't know if the 9/11 investigation was really successful? Why the Iraqi Peace Option draws a blank? Somebody has known the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden--- or his grave—for the past 10 years. But nobody's talking to the people.

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James Petras

The attempted rape and sexual abuse of an African cleaning woman by the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) embodies, in microcosm, the entire historical and contemporary legacy of colonial neo-colonial relations. Efforts to portray this criminal act as an individual obsession or a personal failing or a “Latin idiosyncrasy” fail to take account of the ‘deep history’ in which these psychological pathologies are embedded.

The first clue is evident on the very surface – skin deep – of the antagonists: On the one-hand, a powerful white European politician representing the collective will of an organization representing the global capitalist class, one with the financial resources to severely punish poor and indebted countries that disobey its prejudicial economic fiats; on the other, a single mother, a black working woman from a former French colony in West Africa (Guinea), which was ‘stripped clean’ by the departing French colonial officials for daring to assert its independence and subsequently forced to submit to endless ‘neo-colonial’ economic impositions ensuring its stagnation and subordination.

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by Stephen Lendman

Since mid-May, Spain's M-15 movement began protesting for "Real Democracy Now," drawing large numbers of students, activists, unemployed workers, and other "los indignados" (the outraged ones) on streets throughout the country, defying a ban ahead of May 22 municipal and regional elections.

Tens of thousands said "No nos moveran" (We shall not be moved), opposing government imposed austerity to repay bankers at their expense.

Experiencing its worse economic crisis in decades, official figures show around 45% of Spanish youths unemployed, a crisis affecting all workers facing worsening, not improving conditions, some of the worst in Europe.

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by Stephen Lendman

Edward Said once called AIPAC "the most powerful and feared lobby in Washington." For years, it's "drawn on a well-organized, well-connected, highly visible, successful, and wealthy Jewish population," subverting potential opposition.

As a result, fear and respect "for AIPAC (exists) all over the country, but especially in Washington, where in a matter of hours, almost the entire Senate can be marshaled into signing a letter to the president on Israel's behalf. Who is going to oppose AIPAC and continue to have a career in Congress, or" to represent the Palestinian cause "when nothing concrete can be offered by that cause to anyone who stands up to AIPAC?"

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