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• 2018, Week 42

  15 Oct - 21 Oct

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  • (Français) «Hollywood Propaganda»: La fabrication du consentement au cinéma
  • (Português) Como podemos subestimar o sofrimento de um animal reduzido a comida?
  • (Português) Brasil: A democracia diante do abismo
  • (Português) Filmagem denuncia bezerros criados em pequenas gaiolas e cobertos de fezes
  • (Français) Impérialisme et Fascisme
  • (Français) Les empreintes digitales de la CIA sont sur l’élection au Brésil
  • (Français) La solution souffle dans le vent

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Peace Journalism Perspective

EDITORIAL

The Importance of Alternative Media

The mass media could mobilize us to action, but they have failed in their duty. Our educational systems could also wake us up and make us act, but they too have failed us. The battle to save the earth from human greed and folly has to be fought in the alternative media. The alternative media, and all who work with them deserve both our gratitude and our financial support. They alone can correct the distorted and incomplete picture of the world that we obtain from the mass media. They alone can show us the path to a future in which our children, grandchildren, and all future generations can survive.

TRANSCEND VIDEOS

Symposium on Global Environmental Law

The symposium aimed to discuss whether and to what extent emerging concepts in global environmental law can help shed new light on the evolution and challenges of environmental law across different levels and sectors.

FEATURED RESEARCH PAPER

The Invisible Army: Explaining Private Military and Security Companies

2 Aug 2018 - Recent US administrations, specifically under President Obama, continued to make private military and security companies part and parcel of their military efforts abroad.

Other Commentaries

TRANSCEND News

End of the Rope, TMS Deficit Dilemma: Must We Pay to Work? Last Month of Operation if No Further Support Forthcoming…

Nothing else to say. Really! Except: OUR HEARTFELT THANK YOU TO ALL WHO BET ON OUR WORK! Most Did Not.

NEWS

Vatican Conference on Peace Journalism: Empathy, Not Only Sympathy

13 Oct 2018 - Four peace journalists spoke today in an International Conference on “Peace Journalism”, at the Vatican. Professor Johan Galtung, the creator of the concept and one of the speakers, defines PJ as “editors and reporters making choices – about what to report, and how to report it – that create opportunities for society at large to consider and to value nonviolent responses to conflict.”

NONVIOLENCE

Nonviolence Charter: Progress Report 13 (October 2018)

This is the latest six-monthly report on progress in relation to 'The People's Charter to Create a Nonviolent World' together with a sample of news about Charter signatories and organizations. Our collective effort to build a worldwide consensus against the use of violence in all contexts continues to make progress, even against rather overwhelming odds!

BY TRANSCEND MEMBERS

Women’s Critical Role in the Food Chain

15 OCTOBER is the U.N. designated INTERNATIONAL DAY OF RURAL WOMEN. It is a day in which to highlight the need to increase food production, especially in those countries that face a persistent food deficit. There is a need to increase production, create better storage methods to prevent post-harvest loss, and improve distribution methods.

Wasting Food in a Hungry World

WORLD FOOD DAY: 16 OCTOBER - India produces enough food to meet the needs of its entire population, and has at its disposal arable land that has the potential to produce food surplus for export. Yet, it is unable to feed millions of its people. It ranks 100th among 119 countries in the Global Hunger Index 2017, where it has consistently ranked poorly.

Cognitive Embodiment of Nature “Re-cognized” Systemically

Part III of Collapse and Renaissance of Civilization: Dilemma of Communication and Engagement Understood Otherwise - The argument here is that, rather than depending on authorities anxious to ensure that their particular worldview is faithfully reproduced in any Renaissance (however ineffectually), individuals may in effect be free to adopt and test alternative modalities at will.

Palestine: Transfer Anxiety and the Anxiety of Alternatives

7 Oct 2018 - A state of anxiety prevails among the Palestinians, a situation that stems from two sources: the first: the escalation and acceleration of the annexation and its procedures, the growing fear of official annexation to Israel and expulsion to abroad; and the second: concern over the vague Palestinian responses to what is happening.

Gutless Wonders

A chief aim of political or business propaganda is to put ‘common people’ in doubt about their own judgement – and thereby to make them dependent on the judgement of ‘the elites’. Throughout history, it has been a cunning political and business strategy to induce – through ceaseless propaganda – an inferiority complex amongst ‘common people’.

Trump’s Idea of World Order Endangers the Human Future

This is an interview with Daniel Falcone that was published in slightly modified form in Counterpunch on October 4, 2018. Question: What are your general thoughts on Trump’s recent UN talk and how world opinion received it?

Buddhist Dhammapada — Seeking Happiness, Nirvana, Enlightenment

A collection of verses dealing with various human aspects are contained in a Buddhist collection called Dhammapada. These verses written in Pali language, were compiled about 2,600 years ago, are part of the Buddhist scripture Tipitaka, which literally means three baskets.

SPOTLIGHT

Global Warming of 1.5 °C

8 Oct 2018 - An IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty

IN FOCUS

To Fix the Climate Crisis We Must Face Up to Our Imperial Past

8 Oct 2018 - It’s time to join the dots between our overlapping crises of – and shared solutions to – environmental degradation, damaged health, racial oppression and gender injustice.

Feeding 10 Billion People by 2050 within Planetary Limits May Be Achievable

10 Oct 2018 - A global shift toward healthy and more plant-based diets, halving food loss and waste and improving farming practices and technologies are required to feed 10 billion people sustainably by 2050. The study, led by University of Oxford, was published in the journal Nature.

ENVIRONMENT

Global Warming Report, an ‘Ear-Splitting Wake-Up Call’ Warns UN Chief

A special report on limiting global warming released on Monday [8 Oct] by a UN scientific panel, should be heard around the world as an "ear-splitting wake-up call" said UN chief António Guterres. He said the long-awaited findings show that "climate change is running faster than we are - and we are running out of time."

Fossil Fuels Are a Threat to Civilization, New U.N. Report Concludes

On Monday [8 Oct], the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a daunting report: we are on track for around 3 degrees Celsius of warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions. We will see coastal cities swallowed by the sea, global food shortages, and $54 trillion in climate-associated costs as soon as 2040.

ANGLO AMERICA

Across the US, More Cities Ditch Columbus Day to Honor Those Who Really Discovered America

Columbus Day Gets Dropped in Favor of Indigenous Peoples Day

Roche Presents Reasons to Hope for Peace in the World: Herr Lectures

11 Oct 2018 - It may be easy to get jaded by happenings around the world but Douglas Roche, an author, former parliamentarian and senator, and UN Disarmament Committee chair, believes there are signs more peaceful times are ahead.

CAPITALISM

How Disaster Capitalism Has Ruined Puerto Rico

And what Cuba can teach the world about going a different route.

ASIA-UPDATES ON MYANMAR ROHINGYA GENOCIDE

The World Decries Myanmar’s Rohingya Abuses – Myanmar’s Reply: Denial, Defiance and Propaganda

9 Oct 2018 — The Myanmar government and military has held firm to the explanation that their operation in Rakhine state was provoked by Rohingya militant attacks on police posts, but reports from both the United Nations and State Department indicate a degree of premeditation and coordination.

BRICS

Brazil’s Neo-Liberal Fascist Road to Power

10 Oct 2018 - The decisive electoral victory of far-right Brazilian presidential candidate, Jair Bolsonaro startled politicians and analysts of the traditional parties of the left and right. The possible implications for the present and near future raises a number of fundamental questions whether it represents a ‘model’ for other countries or is the result of the specific circumstances of Brazil.

The CIA Finger in Brazil’s Elections

5 Oct 2018 - The growth of Bolsonarian fascism in the final stretch of the election campaign, turbo charged by an avalanche of fake news disseminated on the internet, is not surprising. It is an old tactic developed by American and British intelligence agencies, with the goal of manipulating public opinion and influencing political processes and elections. It was used in the Ukraine, in the Arab Spring and in Brazil in 2013. There is science behind this manipulation.

Good Bye, Gandhi!

Writing on Gandhi in an India stricken by faux patriotism and jingoism causes gloom. A poem in Indian English provides an antidote.

“Pinochet via Fujimori”: Wall Street’s New Man in Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro

“No room for feelings” say Wall Street insiders as they back another Neofascist to deliver Neoliberalism, at the point of a gun, in the most resource-rich nation on earth.

MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA

Iranian-Saudi Detente Could Transform the Region but US Power Is There to Prevent It

10 Oct 2018 - The rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia has for decades roiled the Middle East with sectarian conflict, instability and war. Thinking about how the region would look if these two powerhouses normalized relations is intriguing. But, sadly, such an outcome is unrealistic. American power and Saudi rulers are a symbiotic scourge on the region, which, shamefully, will never permit restoration of relations with Iran. Peaceful relations may only come when American and Saudi power are democratized.

Israeli PM’s Wife Goes on Trial in Delivery Meals Case

7 Oct 2018 - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife Sara appeared in court today for the first hearing in the fraud trial against her, in which she is alleged to have misused state funds in ordering catered meals.

PALESTINE - ISRAEL

My Grandfather Nelson Mandela Fought Apartheid. I See the Parallels with Israel

It took an international effort to end institutionalised racism in my country – now it must happen again, for Palestinian people.

Insightfulness and Palestine

14 Oct 2018 - Observing the evolution of the Palestinian solidarity movement and the growing influence of Jewish bodies within this movement has provided me with the opportunity to monitor a spectacular anti-insightful operation. For many years I have wondered why the Palestinian solidarity discourse is uniquely anti-intellectual. It basically jettisons critical thinking and acts instead from a rigid activism manual.

SYRIA IN DEPTH

Faked Concern: Haley & Corporate Media Bleating about Idlib Civilians, Ignore Terrorists’ Presence

8 Oct 2018 - They ignore, too, the reality of life in areas which were once occupied by these terrorists: the torture, imprisonment, maiming, assassination, and starvation endured by the civilian population at the hands of these extremists and paid mercenaries supported by the USA.

MILITARISM

The Pentagon’s Insect Army

10 Oct 2018 - Swarms of insects, transporting genetically modified infectious viruses, attack the agricultural crops of a country and destroy its food production – this is not a science-fiction scenario, but a plan that is actually being prepared by DARPA, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

BIG BROTHER - SPYING - SURVEILLANCE - WHISTLEBLOWING

Amazon Atlas

11 Oct 2018 - Today, WikiLeaks publishes a "Highly Confidential" internal document from the cloud computing provider Amazon. It lists the addresses and some operational details of over one hundred data centers spread across fifteen cities in nine countries. To accompany this document, WikiLeaks also created a map showing where Amazon’s data centers are located. Amazon is the leading cloud provider for the United States intelligence community.

HEALTH

A Nobel Prize-Winning Cancer Therapy Will Be Unaffordable for Most. Public Pharmaceuticals Can Help Change That.

9 Oct 2018 - Cuba has, perhaps, the most developed public pharmaceutical sector in the world and is actually known for its achievements in biologics. It nationalized the pharmaceutical sector in 1960 and consolidated a number of pharmaceutical manufacturing companies under the auspices of the Ministry of Health. By 2013, the Cuban biotechnology industry held around 1,200 international patents and was marketing pharmaceutical products and vaccines in more than 50 countries.

16 Science-Based Health Benefits of Probiotics

Probiotics are a type of beneficial bacteria that live in your gut. They’re actually a very important part of your immune system; 70 percent of your immune system cells reside in your gut! Many of the scientific studies on probiotics show that they can provide positive changes for those with food allergies, behavioral disorders, mood changes, autoimmune disease, arthritis, chronic fatigue, skin disorders, and even cancer. That’s why a probiotic-rich diet is so valuable.

Stop Measuring Obesity with a Ruler: We’ve Discovered a Far Better Predictor of Health

11 Oct 2018 - For over a century, we have relied on a simplistic measure to determine if someone is a “healthy” weight or not. This is the body mass index, the ratio of a person’s weight to the square of their height. The limits of this ratio are clearly demonstrated by professional rugby players; most of whom would be classified as “overweight”, despite having less than 10% body fat.

ANIMAL RIGHTS - VEGETARIANISM

Calves in Confinement: Gruesome Footage of Dairy Calves Exposes a Gaping Loophole in California’s Landmark Animal Welfare Law

8 Oct 2018 - An investigation by activist group DxE showed thousands of dairy calves held in tight hutches, despite efforts to outlaw such confined conditions. This article includes graphic images that some readers may find disturbing.

HISTORY

Transformational Journey – John F. Kennedy’s Turning toward Peace

In 1963, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy gave the commencement address to the graduating class at American University. Saturday Review editor Norman Cousins summed up the significance of that remarkable speech: “At American University on June 10, 1963, President Kennedy proposed an end to the Cold War.” Khrushchev called the American University Address “the greatest speech by any American President since Roosevelt.”

INSPIRATIONAL

Dogs as Teachers

If dogs were our teachers, we would learn:

BIOGRAPHIES

Friedrich Nietzsche (15 Oct 1844 – 25 Aug 1900)

Friedrich Nietzsche’s attempts to unmask the motives that underlie traditional Western religion, morality, and philosophy deeply affected generations of theologians, philosophers, psychologists, poets, novelists, and playwrights. He thought through the consequences of the triumph of the Enlightenment’s secularism, expressed in his observation that “God is dead.”

POETRY FORMAT

I Love Therefore I Am!

The Evolution of Homo Sapiens

IN ORIGINAL LANGUAGES

(Français) La solution souffle dans le vent

7 octobre 2018 - Je suis tombé sur an article à propos de deux réunions le même jour aux Nations Unies sur les armes nucléaires. Les principaux États nucléaires (États-Unis, France, Royaume-Uni, Chine et Russie) se sont tous rendus à la réunion sur la non-prolifération et ils ont boycotté ainsi la réunion sur le désarmement! Comme l’article le conclut à juste titre, les États nucléaires “n’accordent pas de priorité à leur obligation d’éliminer leurs propres armes de destruction massive, mais se concentrent plutôt sur l’empêchement des autres d’acquérir de telles armes”.

(Français) Les empreintes digitales de la CIA sont sur l’élection au Brésil

La montée du fascisme bolsonarien dans la dernière ligne droite de la campagne présidentielle*, suralimentée par une avalanche de fausses informations disséminées sur Internet, n’est pas surprenante. C’est une vieille tactique développée par les agences de renseignement américaines et britanniques dans le but de manipuler l’opinion publique et d’influencer les processus politiques et les élections. Elle a été utilisée en Ukraine, dans le Printemps arabe et au Brésil en 2013. Il y a de la science derrière cette manipulation.

(Français) Impérialisme et Fascisme

Le fascisme, au même titre que l’impérialisme, est un phénomène international.

(Português) Filmagem denuncia bezerros criados em pequenas gaiolas e cobertos de fezes

Por trás da indústria de laticínios: filmagens de fazenda da Califórnia mostram como animais estão sendo criados no local - condições desumanas

(Português) Brasil: A democracia diante do abismo

10 out 2018 - Há momentos na vida em que temos que escolher de que lado politicamente nos colocamos. Ou do lado da democracia que respeita as liberdades, permite a manifestação dos cidadãos. Ou do lado de quem a nega, exalta a ditadura militar de 1964, magnifica seus torturadores, que, segundo ele, nem deviam torturar, mas simplesmente fuzilar, ...

(Português) Como podemos subestimar o sofrimento de um animal reduzido a comida?

O ser humano é embrutecido pela naturalização do destino terrível dos animais que são colocados à nossa mesa.

(Français) «Hollywood Propaganda»: La fabrication du consentement au cinéma

8 octobre 2018 - La publication d’Hollywood propaganda de Matthew Alford est assurément la bienvenue, tant les travaux récents sur le pouvoir idéologique du cinéma américain sont rares en français, a fortiori quand il est question de la politique étrangère des États-Unis et des guerres qui lui sont consubstantielles. Pour la première fois un ouvrage analyse de façon approfondie et documentée ce soft power au service de l’hégémonie américaine, passant en revue des dizaines de films sortis depuis le début des années 1990.

IN-DEPTH VIDEOS

“On Company Business” – A Documentary about the CIA

30 Sep 2018 - There is a new version of a 1980 film on the CIA called On Company Business. It is a history of the CIA told by men and one woman who have worked there and later turned against it. There is a lot of amazing real-time video included.

SHORT VIDEO CLIPS

Kavanaugh Hearing on Saturday Night Live with Matt Damon

Matt Damon Kills It as Kavanaugh - Have a laugh!

My Way (Music Video of the Week)

The Voice of the 20th Century – Composition: Paul Anka

EDITORIAL CARTOON / SATIRE

As Interventions Go…

The Fact of the Matter

JOKE OF THE WEEK

No Joke…

... and, we promise we are not savages.