The Digger

August 23, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - After falsely accusing Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), Washington unilaterally repudiated the treaty. Thus did the US military/security complex rid itself of the landmark agreement achieved by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev that defused the Cold War. The INF Treaty was perhaps the most important of all of the arms control agreements achieved by American 20th century presidents and now abandoned in the 21st century by US neoconservative governments. The treaty removed the threat of Russian missiles against Europe and the threat of European-based US missiles to Russia. The importance of the treaty is due to its reduction of the chance of accidental nuclear war. Warning systems have a history of false alarms. The problem of US missiles on Russia’s border is that they leave no time for reflection or contact with Washington when Moscow receives a false alarm. Considering the extreme ir...

Surely no culture punches further above its weight than Jamaica. No country of its size—few countries of any size—could claim to have left such a profound mark on the modern world. Jamaican influence has been particularly marked in certain times and places—and one of those was Aylestone High School, Kensal Rise, West London in September 1976, when I walked into my class for the first time. For me, a recent migrant from Wembley Park (four miles to the north-west), some things were immediately different: most obviously the lack of white faces. I was one of four white children in a class of thirty-six. Most of the rest were black, but there was a sizeable group whose origins were on the Indian subcontinent as well. Wembley may have only been a short drive away, but in the compartmentalised London of the mid-1970s, it could have been another country. I had only encountered a handful of non-white people before. I remember feeling more fascinated by the new accents and cultures than da...

Twitter is relying on organizations funded by the US government and European allies, such as right-wing lobby group Freedom House, to crack down on foreign state media and suspend accounts that challenge Washington’s narratives. By Ben Norton Twitter has continued to demonstrate how Big Tech corporations in Silicon Valley operate as arms of the American national security state. On August 19, the social media giant announced that is relying on numerous organizations funded by the US government and European allies to help it police foreign state media on its platform. Among the Twitter allies is Freedom House, a notorious right-wing lobby group almost entirely bankrolled by Washington that is heavily invested in regime-change operations against foreign adversaries. In announcing new changes to its advertising policies, Twitter reflected the relationship with the US national security state: “Going forward, we will not accept advertising from state-controll...