The UK has been instrumental in consolidating relations between the disparate and isolationist opposition groups in Syria—not because the British elite want genuine democracy, of course, but because Syria’s President Assad would not acquiesce to the neo-liberal economic policies of the Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative (BMENAI).1 Unlike... » read this article

In August 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdan Anderson, asking Jourdan to come back to work on his farm. Since being emancipated, Jourdan had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family. He responded spectacularly with the... » read this article

Editor's Comment: Across the decades, public schools in the United States have been teaching young children negative, distorted ideas and images about Muslim people whom the same children have never had an opportunity to meet. The images of Muslim/Arab people burned into my mind and memory by public school books... » read this article

John Riddell interviews Felipe Stuart Cournoyer In a fit of petulant anger, the U.S. government has lashed out on January 25 against the outcome of Nicaragua’s recent presidential election. To understand the context of the U.S. threats, I talked to Felipe Stuart Cournoyer, a Nicaraguan citizen and member of Sandinista... » read this article

Editor's Commentary: Our publication of this interview with Chris Hedges does not necessarily mean that we are on board with everything he has to say. Actually, that's never the case with anything we publish on Axis of Logic. This video contains complexities within US liberalism and Chris Hedges is a... » read this article

I left Guantanamo Bay much as I had arrived almost five years earlier -- shackled hand-to-waist, waist-to-ankles, and ankles to a bolt on the airplane floor. My ears and eyes were goggled, my head hooded, and even though I was the only detainee on the flight this time, I was... » read this article

Editor's Comment: Venezuela's opposition once again appears to be withering on a vine that has not taken root since President Chavez was first elected 12 years ago. The men who would be president this year are little more than plastic media candidates, reading scripts written by their funding source in... » read this article

Editor's Note: We bring this article back for those who may have missed it first time around. Axis of Logic Editor, Paul Richard Harris republished it first on December 27, 2011. - LMB In January of 2011, we were told that “spontaneous,” “indigenous” uprising had begun sweeping North Africa and... » read this article

“Over earth and ocean with gentle motion This pilot is guiding me.” P.B. Shelley, The Cloud After the Haiti earthquake in 2010, which the US used as yet another excuse to militarise the tortured country’s aid relief, Hugo Chavez bravely quoted a Russian Northern Fleet document suggesting that America’s huge... » read this article

Editor's Note: It's one thing for a writer to explain a complex issue with his or her peers within their own discipline. But there's a certain genius among those who can translate the story into lay terms which the rest of us can grasp. We are grateful to Annibale Marsili... » read this article

William James Martin teaches mathematics. We’ve been in email contact for a few years, and during that time, he’s moved schools more than once. I don’t know if he moves because he hasn’t been able to find a school that will offer him tenure, if he simply has an adventurous... » read this article

Editor's Comment: We received the following letter from our friend John Spritzler in response to William Martin's essay, On the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, which we featured on Axis of Logic on January 2, 2012. There are two levels in this challenge which we will briefly consider in this editorial commentary.... » read this article

Reinvent America and the world. -Lawrence Ferlingehtti, from Poetry As Insurgent Art  About the only inventions that the guardians of the corporate-state covet and have recently employed are high and low tech gadgets. While the high tech is mostly unleashed by the military for wars, the low tech, being used... » read this article

Editor's Note: Please permit me to add a few things to Greg Grist's brilliant essay: if anyone by happenstance were to take our publication of this essay as even the slightest suggestion of our endorsement or liking of Ron Paul as a US presidential candidate ... well ... you're wrong... » read this article

EDITOR'S COMMENTARY: As can be seen, Mr Martin's original essay below generated a significant response from readers. While the author did engage in the debate, it is clear that both sides had little tolerance for the views of the other. Mr Martin requested the opportunity to craft a formal response... » read this article

Every year brings changes, but some years really are turning points: 1492, 1789, 1914 and 1989, for example. Does 2011 belong in the august company of such really important years? Probably not, but it definitely qualifies for membership in the second tier of quite important years. Three big stories ran... » read this article

It's been some time now since history didn't end. Twenty-odd years ago, when the Berlin Wall was coming down, there were many who believed that there would be no more serious conflicts. The American writer Francis Fukuyama, who promoted the idea of the end of history in the autumn of... » read this article

In the United States, where it is almost impossible to get elected unless you profess a strong religious faith, it would have passed completely unnoticed. Not one of the hundred US senators ticks the "No Religion/Atheist/Agnostic" box, for example, although 16 per cent of the US population does. But it... » read this article

In a review last week of the year's best and worst, Rex Murphy offered up his choice for the most overrated politician of the year: Stephen Harper. Speaking on the "At Issue" panel on CBC-TV's The National, Murphy mused that the Prime Minister is not nearly as menacing a character... » read this article

Western intelligence agencies have been warning for years about the terrible consequences that would ensue if Iran were to get nuclear weapons. Better bomb the place before they do. But North Korea already has nuclear weapons, and now they are falling into the hands of a young man whose main... » read this article