American interventions in Haiti are often sold as paternalistic charity for a basket-case country, but the U.S. interference has often done more harm than good for the impoverished nation where two lawyers have tried to a different approach, building human…
Category: Human Rights
Haiti and America’s Historic Debt
From the Archive: Some Americans view Haiti through a lens of racial bigotry, seeing the poverty-stricken Caribbean country as proof that black people can’t govern themselves. But there is a very different historical narrative regarding America’s profound debt to Haiti,…
The One Percent’s Great Escape
F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that the rich “are different from you and me,” which remains true today except now they don’t even want to be around regular people, seeking more and more remote locations to escape from the increasingly…
‘Group-Thinking’ the World into a New War
Exclusive: The armchair warriors of Official Washington are eager for a new war, this time with Russia over Ukraine, and they are operating from the same sort of mindless “group think” and hostility to dissent that proved so disastrous in Iraq,…
Honoring NSA’s Binney and Amb. White
In our age of careerism, it’s rare for high-ranking officials to sacrifice their powerful posts for principle, but that was what NSA’s William Binney and the late U.S. Ambassador Robert White did. Their sacrifices and integrity were honored by likeminded…
Flattering the Dead Saudi King
Though Saudi King Abdullah was a repressive leader at home who contributed to political and sectarian violence across the Middle East, his death is mourned by Western leaders who were dependent on his vast ocean of oil and his vaults…
Jesus as Whistleblower
Christian churches typically present the religious mythology about Jesus, as the supernatural Son of God who was sacrificed on the cross as atonement for man’s sins. But there is a more historical Jesus who instructed the poor about the injustices they…
The Battle over Dr. King’s Message
From the Archive: Martin Luther King Day is a rare moment in American life when people reflect even if only briefly on the ideals that guided Dr. King’s life and led to his death. Thus, the struggle over his message…
MLK and the Curse of ‘Moderation’
From the Archive: When Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. went to jail to focus national attention on the injustice of segregation, he was stung by criticism from Christian clergy who feared upsetting the status quo and urged “moderation,” prompting his historic rejoinder…
Hypocrisy on Parade in Paris
At the Paris procession honoring the victims of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, world leaders locked arms in defense of free speech although many of the participants including the French have been busy cracking down on freedom of expression, notes Michael…