Ben Cohen

I was extremely saddened to see a bad tempered back and forth between two important intellectual figures, Noam Chomsky and George Monbiot, over an article written by Monbiot on the definition of genocide. The two men, particularly Chomsky, have made enormous contributions to their respected fields and broadly...

It is easy to be cynical about politics, particularly in the media age where substance counts for little and image is everything. But on Wednesday, President Obama did something that rose above the usual games and gave hope to millions of people around the world. Obama came out in support...

After enacting extreme austerity measure in the UK with the promise that cutting spending would solve the economic crisis, the Conservative government has a lot of explaining to do after it was announced last week that Britain was falling back into recession again.

David Cameron has desperately...

The culture you grow up in usually has a significant effect on the values you hold. If you have moved to another country you become keenly aware of this fact as you are able to contrast the values of your own society against that of your host's.

When people are...

I'd bet a significant amount of my own money that Mitt Romney will not be victorious in the 2012 Presidential election. But with a fragile economy and a breaking middle class, the possibility that Romney could pull an upset is not out of the question. And it is worth worrying...

In modern society, we are conditioned from an early age to want things we don't need. An entire industry has been built around manipulating us into buying products we believe will make us more attractive, happier and respected. Children watch other children on TV play with newer and better toys,...

For 30 years, Republicans have espoused an economic theory that has wreaked havoc on America's poor, funneled wealth upwards at an unprecedented rate and brought the economy to the brink of destruction. Their simple mantra that tax cuts for the rich and deregulation solve all of humanity's problems is chanted...

Nobody knows what really happened during the tragic shooting of black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida last month. As the facts stand, it doesn't look too good for the shooter, George Zimmerman. Martin was unarmed and was on the phone with his girlfriend at the time of the shooting, apparently...

The departure of Greg Smith, the executive director and head of Goldman Sachs' United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, has made huge ripples in the financial industry. While there have been other Wall Street bankers quitting the industry out of disgust, none have been...

Barack Obama has tried and largely failed to rein in Israel's aggression against the Palestinians while he has been in office. The right-wing Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has continued to build on Palestinian territories, allegedly allowed the execution of Palestinian leaders, and refused point-blank to engage seriously...

Watching the presidential election take shape in modern times is a painful process. I have been following U.S. elections closely for 12 years and each time have been astonished at the spectacle. While half the country lives with chronic food insecurity, billions of dollars are poured into strategists, analysts, makeup...

I have been struggling to collect my thoughts about the riots in the UK this past week largely because they have affected the areas in which I grew up in London. Watching your home town being burnt and looted is not much fun, and although...

I stopped watching television about 8 months ago, partly because the bill was so high but mostly because I could not bear to watch the corporate news a second longer. The evening line-up on MSNBC (Maddow, Olbermann etc) was really the only remotely intelligent one around, while the rest focused...

The death toll will mount and so will the structural damage to the country. Regardless of the hatred for Gaddafi, there will be inevitable resentment from...

According to my fellow Huffington Post blogger and editor of OLAM Magazine, David Suissa, oppression of Arab people by Arab dictators justifies Israel's brutal occupation of the Palestinians.

I have read, and re-read his piece and can honestly say that it is one of the most ridiculous...

Whenever Goldman Sachs gets involved with anything, you can rest assured it will end badly. Having played a key role in bankrupting the country through massively risky investments and possibly criminal trading activity, the investment bank Matt Taibbi aptly refers to as a 'Vampire Squid wrapped around the...

If it were my job to advise President Obama on what to do over the next two years to ensure his reelection, I'd probably quit. The political situation in Washington is now so dire it is hard to see any way for Obama to retake the initiative and pull the...

I rented the infamous 'Network' last night, a stunningly intelligent and prescient movie about the dangers of the corporate media. Written by Paddy Chayefsky, the 1976 film follows the mental breakdown of UBS News Anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch), a man at...

Alex Perry, Time Magazine's Africa bureau chief, wrote a highly offensive and inaccurate piece essentially calling for the recolonization of the Congo by China. Perry wrote of the former Belgian colony:

Independent Congo gave the world Mobutu Sese Seko, who for 32 years impoverished his people while traveling...