Articles by ICH
We found 2516 results.
The Nuclear Challenge: 70 Years after Hiroshima and Naasaki – Gorbachev’s Response (3)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Sep 2015
Of course, Gorbachev is appreciated in the West mainly as having presided over a political process that led to the nonviolent ending of the Cold War, the peaceful liberation of Eastern Europe, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet he was also perhaps the only head of an important sovereign state…
→ read full articleThe Nuclear Challenge: 70 Years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki (2)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Aug 2015
This is a legal issue, as this book makes clear, but it is also a moral issue, a security issue and, ultimately, a spiritual issue. Humankind must step back from the nuclear abyss now, before it is too late.
→ read full articleBreast Fed
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Aug 2015
A woman and a baby came into the doctor’s office. She was told to go into the room and wait for the doctor.
→ read full articleThe Camera Is Mightier Than the Sword
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Aug 2015
From 1936-79, Nicaragua was ruled by the corrupt Somoza family, which owned more than half of Nicaragua’s land. In the 1970s, the Sandinista guerrilla movement fought against the Somoza dictatorship.
→ read full article(Français) Le véritable but de la « thérapie de choc » en Grèce
Michel Collon, Investig’Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Aug 2015
12,5 millions d’Allemands vivent sous le seuil de pauvreté. Malgré ce bilan pitoyable, Angela Merkel prétend imposer le « modèle allemand » au monde entier. L’exemple de l’Allemagne.
→ read full articleWhy Congress Must Support the Nuclear Agreement with Iran
Akbar Ganji & Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Aug 2015
Akbar Ganji is an important human rights defender who spent several years for his efforts in an Iranian jail. He is a leading commentator on Iranian affairs and recipient of an International Press Association World Press Hero award. Our article stresses the critical importance of obtaining American approval of the nuclear agreement.
→ read full articlePeace Research Is Value-Oriented
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Aug 2015
Imagine you are sick and visit a doctor. He takes your temperature, pulse, listens to your lungs and looks at your tongue. Then he tells you, “You have a very interesting disease, I will write it up in my next scientific publication.” You ask, “But don’t you have a cure for me?” The doctor protests, “Oh no, I am objective! I simply observe, I do not intervene.”
→ read full articleThe Nuclear Challenge: 70 Years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Aug 2015
The time is now ripe for the total de-linkage of nonproliferation from disarmament with respect to nuclear weapons policy. Without such a de-linkage false consciousness and confusion are unavoidable. It is time to generate populist impatience with the refusal of decades by government establishment to act on the basis of reason, ethics, and prudence.
→ read full articleAmong Geniuses
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Aug 2015
Albert Einstein met a colleague on the campus of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
→ read full articleThe Anarchist Impulse
Richard Swift – New Internationalist Magazine,
24 Aug 2015
The other great historic alternative to capitalism has been anarchism. Often dismissed as a dirty word, its influence ebbs and flows but its libertarian principles remain profoundly influential.
→ read full articleHumor Defeating the Law about Conscientious Objectors
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Aug 2015
When [TRANSCEND member] Jorgen Johansen from Norway (born 1956) was 18, he received a letter requesting that he join the army. He wrote back that he would not do so, as a conscientious objector to military service. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison, the standard Norwegian punishment at that time for refusing military service.
→ read full articleLiving in the 21st Century
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Aug 2015
A confessional to the extent of acknowledging my own surroundings of digital devices that while liberating in some respects are repressive in others. To sustain our freedom under these ‘postmodern’ conditions requires the rechristening of meditative intelligence (as distinct from the instrumental rationality that acted as wet nurse of the ‘modern.’
→ read full articleScotland Completely Bans GMO Crops
Amanda Froelich, True Activist – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Aug 2015
10 Aug 2015 – Joining a growing number of nations concerned about the effects GMO’s pose, Scotland just banned the cultivation of genetically modified crops. The country’s Rural Affairs Secretary, Richard Lochhead, announced last week that the clean, green nation will no longer be permitting GM crops to be grown within its borders.
→ read full articleHow Switzerland Ended Its Involvement in War
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2015
For the first 200 years of its history, Switzerland was involved in many wars, first to defend itself against repeated attempts by the German emperor to reconquer the cantons that had declared themselves independent in 1291, and later to acquire more territory. Two events brought an end to this involvement in war.
→ read full articleWartime Journalism: Mohammed Omer on Gaza
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2015
Omer’s prior reporting earned him the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in 2007, recognizing the excellence of his reportage on Gaza (‘a voice for the voiceless’). After receiving the award in The Netherlands, Omer on his return home received a brutal reception at the Gaza border by Israeli security guards being beaten so severely as to endure serious injury that required specialized surgery.
→ read full articleHow to Live Wisely
Richard J. Light – The New York Times,
10 Aug 2015
Imagine you are Dean for a Day. What is one actionable change you would implement to enhance the college experience on campus? I have asked students this question for years. The answers can be eye-opening. A few years ago, the responses began to move away from “tweak the history course” or “change the ways labs are structured.” A different commentary, about learning to live wisely, has emerged.
→ read full articleTruthful
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2015
Someone was walking with the devil. The person in front of them bent down and picked something up.
→ read full articlePondering Jonathan Pollard’s Release
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2015
Loyalty to the state continues to be the north star of conventional patriotism. For the citizen pilgrim solidarity with an emergent eco-humanist insurgency is the keystone of 21st century political community and ethical responsibility deserving precedence when in conflict with nationalist and tribal affinities.
→ read full articleEco-Insurgency, Tribal Vision, and Ultra-Nationalist Geopolitics
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Aug 2015
Thinking hopefully, the Anthropocene Age may soon witness the first species insurgency against the eco-tyrannical elites of the world, who have become the suicidal guardians of our neoliberal market forces joined in an unbreakable alliance with dominant forces of tribalism and nationalism. In moments of despair, the end-time hegemony of this unbreakable alliance are likely to retain control of species destiny.
→ read full articleSome Charity
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Aug 2015
After the church service a little boy told the pastor, “When I grow up, I’m going to give you some money.”
→ read full articleThe Tiger’s Whisker
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Aug 2015
A Korean Folktale – A woman came to seek help from a famous herbalist.
→ read full articleAlliance Blackmail: Israel’s Opposition to the Iran Nuclear Agreement
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2015
JCPOA imposes more restrictions on Iranian enrichment capabilities and stockpiles, and on inspection and monitoring of compliance, than has been imposed on any country in the course of the entire nuclear era. Left out of consideration altogether was the nuclear weapons arsenal of Israel acquired with Western complicity and by covert means, as well as through operations outside the Nonproliferation Treaty regime, which is used to tie Iran’s hands and feet.
→ read full articleTurning Enemies into Allies
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2015
At the 1919 Versailles peace conference after World War I, the French Prime Minister Georges Clémenceau insisted that Germany be held solely responsible for starting World War I, and be forced to pay huge reparations over the next fifty years, to bring Germany to its knees, so that it would never be able again to build up its industrial capacity and become a military threat to its neighbors.
→ read full articleAccuracy
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2015
The following joke was circulating in Moscow in 1998:
→ read full articleHow Goldman Sachs Profited from the Greek Debt Crisis
Robert B. Reich – The Nation,
20 Jul 2015
The investment bank made millions by helping to hide the true extent of the debt, and in the process almost doubled it.
→ read full articleWhy Greece Should Leave the Euro Zone
Michael R. Strain – The Washington Post,
20 Jul 2015
Sure, there would be short-term pain. But in the long term, the euro is an economic mistake. And leave today Greece should, beginning the painful work of rebuilding an economy and crafting public policies over which it has primary control, hopefully achieving more success than it has in the past.
→ read full articleMalaysia Just Passed a New, Stricter Welfare Act for Animals
Amanda Froelich, True Activist – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jul 2015
On Tuesday [14 Jul 2015], the Malaysian government passed into law a new animal welfare act that imposes harsher penalties for those torturing or neglecting animals in order to reduce the number of crimes against animals in the country.
→ read full articleAn Active Peace Policy
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jul 2015
In the nuclear age, we can no longer afford to wait until war breaks out and then react with military force. We must pursue an active peace policy that seeks to avoid or resolve conflicts long before they lead to war.
→ read full articleOn Life
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jul 2015
A minister, a priest and a rabbi were discussing when life begins.
→ read full articleCall for Sanity on 60th Anniversary of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto
Emanuel Pastreich – Foreign Policy In Focus,
13 Jul 2015
July 9, 2015 – Sixty years after Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell issued their manifesto about the growing threat of world war, the globe continues to face the prospect of nuclear annihilation — coupled with the looming threat of climate change.
→ read full articleWomen Preventing War
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jul 2015
In 1905, Norway declared its independence from Sweden. Norwegian and Swedish troops faced each other along the border, ready to fight.
→ read full articleHawaii Just Banned Plastic Bags at Grocery Checkouts
Amanda Froelich, True Activist – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jul 2015
Hawaii is the first US state to ban plastic bags from being distributed at grocery store checkouts.
→ read full articleNew Study Concludes Fruit Helps Your Body Burn Stored Fat
Amanda Froelich, True Activist – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jul 2015
2-4 fresh servings of fruit per day can help your body convert ‘bad’ fat into ‘good’ fat.
→ read full articleUN Gaza Report Part I: War Crimes during Israel’s 51-Day Assault on Gaza
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jul 2015
Exactly a year ago, for 51 days between July 7 and August 26 Israel carried out its third major military assault on Gaza in the past six years. This last one, code named Operation Protective Edge, was the most vicious, killing 2,251 Palestinians, of which 1,462 were civilians, and included 299 women and 551 children, as well as injuring 11,231, a number that includes 3,436 children, 10% of whom have permanent disabilities, and another 1,500 have been orphaned.
→ read full articleUN Gaza Report Part II: Israel’s Counterinsuurgency Apologist, Colonel Richard Kemp
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jul 2015
On June 25, 2015 the New York Times published an opinion piece by Kemp assessing the UN Report. What I find scandalous and perverse on the part of this self-claiming authoritative media source, is to publish such a harsh and partisan dismissal of a prudent and overly balanced report without any kind of offsetting piece.
→ read full articleReading Claudia Rankine on Race
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jul 2015
What Claudia Rankine shares and teaches is that every African American citizen must live with the existential concreteness of racism while even the most liberal of American white citizens live with only an abstract awareness of their own unconscious racism or, at best, their rather detached empathy with the historical victimization of our African American co-citizens.
→ read full articleA New Mode of Warfare: The Greek Debt Crisis and Crashing Markets
Michael Hudson - CounterPunch,
6 Jul 2015
I’m in Germany now and have heard from Germans that the Greeks are lazy and don’t pay taxes. There is little recognition that what they call “the Greeks” are really the oligarchs. They have gained control of the old coalition Pasok/New Democracy parties, avoided paying taxes, avoided being prosecuted (New Democracy refused to act on the “Lagarde List” of tax evaders with nearly € 50 billion in Swiss bank accounts), orchestrated insider dealings to privatize infrastructure at corrupt prices, and used their banks as vehicles for capital flight and insider lending.
→ read full articleIn Church
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jul 2015
During the sermon, a little boy kept moving in his seat and making noises.
→ read full articleDare to Change
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jul 2015
A bird barely survived in a nest on a lonely tree on a vast deserted plain.
→ read full article(Deutsch) Ein missglücktes anarchistisches Farbenspiel
Sebastian Kalicha , Graswurzelrevolution – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jul 2015
Schwarz-Weiß – die Farben des gewaltfreien Anarchismus?
→ read full articleGifts for Mom
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jun 2015
Four brothers left home for college, and they became successful doctors and lawyers and prospered.
→ read full articleMajority Rule
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jun 2015
A Frenchman arrives on a South Sea island.
→ read full articleGreed
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2015
An antique dealer used to visit farms in his area to try to find valuable old furniture, and buy it cheap.
→ read full articleThe Undisclosed Second Paradox in Michael Walzer’s ‘The Paradox of Liberation’
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2015
My contention is that Walzer’s paradox dissolves as soon as the claim to categorize Zionism as a mode of ‘national liberation’ is deconstructed while the second paradox, which dwells on the moral and political interplay of what transpires when the liberation of the self is organically linked to the dispossession of the other, remains to be explained.
→ read full articleEcuador Just Set the World Record for Reforestation!
Amanda Froelich, True Activist – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2015
19 May 2015 – More than 45,000 people came together last weekend and set the Guinness World Record for single-day reforestation efforts.
→ read full articleThe Polio Vaccine: A Global Scourge Still Threatening Humanity
Richard Gale and Dr. Gary Null - Global Research,
22 Jun 2015
This horribly simplistic belief that polio and smallpox are exemplary models for all other vaccines is both naïve and dangerous. Vaccinology does not follow a one-size-fits-all theory. Among some of the more alarming discoveries since the discovery of the SV40 in Salk’s and Sabin’s vaccines and its carcinogenic footprint in millions today are:
→ read full articleForgot
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2015
A weed scientist goes into a shop.
→ read full articleAn Immodest Wish
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jun 2015
A wealthy maharajah was so delighted with the game of chess that he offered the inventor of the game anything in his realm that he might wish.
→ read full articleDuality
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jun 2015
There are 10 kinds of people in this world:
→ read full articleIs the Middle East America’s to Lose?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jun 2015
I was appalled by the embedded colonialism of a recent issue of The Economist [June 6-12, 2015], “Losing the Middle East.” Any doubt about the intent of the magazine is removed by displaying a bedraggled American flag on the cover accompanied by the sub-title “Why American must not abandon the region.”
→ read full articleTobacco Companies Ordered to Pay C$15.6 Billion to Quebec Smokers
Richard Smallteacher, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jun 2015
4 Jun 2015 – Over one million people in the Canadian province of Quebec will receive a total of C$15.6 billion ($12.5 billion) in damages for smoking related diseases from three of the biggest tobacco companies in the country. The settlement is the result of a 17-year long court battle.
→ read full articleTurkish Elections: It’s Not Just Erdoğan!
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jun 2015
9 Jun 2015 – The Turkish general election on June 7th ended more or less as the polls predicted. Turkey has been put back on the shelf and yet relieved that the AKP was again supported by a significant plurality of Turkish citizens in an impressively free and fair electoral process.
→ read full articleThe Human Rights Issue a Nobel Laureate Doesn’t Want to Touch
Michael Sullivan, NPR – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jun 2015
2 Jun 2015 – It’s not often that the Dalai Lama calls out a fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate. But that’s what happened last week when he was asked about Aung San Suu Kyi, who has declined to speak out on the worsening plight of the Rohingya minority in her homeland of Myanmar.
→ read full articleFIFA Scandals Are Worse Than Bribes
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jun 2015
The Palestinian Soccer Association was persuaded by Blatter to drop its charges, with a renewal of previously empty pledges to ameliorate conditions confronting Palestinians coupled with a surely ironic plea to keep ‘politics’ from intruding on ‘the beautiful game.’ As if the humiliations and constraints imposed on the Palestinian teams were not political!
→ read full article
Costa Rica: A BOLD PEACE – Documentary
Matthew Eddy and Michael Dreiling - Soul Force Media,
8 Jun 2015
Over 60 years ago, Costa Rica became one of the only nations in the world to disband their military. ‘A Bold Peace’ juxtaposes the national policy of demilitarization with their investment in education, health, and the environment. Pointed parallels and contrasts are made with recent U.S. debates over the national debt, healthcare, the environment and the escalating cost of U.S. militarism.
→ read full articleWind Energy vs. Fossil Fuels: Hurdles and Hopes for a Renewable Future
Michael Walsh, Yahoo! News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jun 2015
5 Jun 2015 – The colossal oil spill in Southern California last month spurred many to wonder why we have not abandoned fossil fuels for wind and other sources of renewable energy. The fossil fuel industry receives billions in taxpayer subsidies as the wind industry fights to take flight.
→ read full articleThrust into Freedom
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jun 2015
A husband and wife in the city of Medellin, Colombia, had a cow on a small plot of grass land in front of their house, and they barely subsisted by feeding some of her milk to their children and selling the rest.
→ read full articleSick
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jun 2015
A little boy did not want to go to school.
→ read full articleOur Dogs Can Read Our Minds: The New Neuroscience of Animal Brains and Understanding
Michael C. Corbalis - Salon,
1 Jun 2015
Understanding emotion in others is basic to survival, grounded in evolution. Animals have the skill just as we do.
→ read full articleThe Olive Jar
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jun 2015
A merchant in 8th century Baghdad went on a long trip to the orient.
→ read full articleAmerica at Its Best Is Strange
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jun 2015
America even at its best is a strange place, alive with contradictions, a Teflon political culture that has an unshakable faith in its innocent and virtuous national character and its overall impact on the world, impervious to the ghosts of slavery and of ethnic cleansing of native Americans that should be tormenting our sleep and darkening our dreams, comfortable with its robust gun culture, and with its promiscuous reliance on rogue drones engineered to kill on command and on the brutal happenings that take place in black sites immorally situated in countries whose leaders agree to avert their gaze from the dirty work taking place.
→ read full articleIndia´s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jun 2015
Today “governability” is standardly defined as the overall capacity for governance of any societal entity or system. This definition has the defect of being somewhat circular since it uses the word “governance” to define the word “governability.” But before busying ourselves with improving the definition of the word, let us instead look at some of the important issues at stake in governability-talk.
→ read full articleDemands
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jun 2015
A group of terrorists burst into the Annual Convention of the American Bar Association at the New York Hilton Hotel and took three hundred lawyers as hostages.
→ read full articleThe Oak Tree and the Reed Grass
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 May 2015
A mighty oak tree ridiculed the soft thin reed grass bending back and forth in the lake.
→ read full articleChecking for Accuracy
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 May 2015
A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales.
→ read full articleHonesty and Insight
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 May 2015
An Indian Guru realized that he was getting old and could not teach much longer.
→ read full articleA Sharp Spike in Honeybee Deaths Deepens a Worrisome Trend
Michael Wines – The New York Times,
18 May 2015
13 May 2015 – A prolonged and mysterious die-off of the nation’s honeybees, a trend worrisome both to beekeepers and to farmers who depend on the insects to pollinate their crops, apparently worsened last year.
→ read full articleArriving
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 May 2015
The director of a prison tells the warden, “Tomorrow, everything has to be perfectly clean, the chief justice is coming.”
→ read full articleParodies of Parity: Israel & Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 May 2015
Peace will come to Israel and Palestine, and be sustained, if and only if the oppressor becomes ready to dismantle its oppressive regime by withdrawing, not merely by disengaging Gaza style. So long as this is not so, direct negotiations and these periodic calls issued by Washington to resume direct talks have one main effect–to free Israel to realize its ambition to establish ‘Greater Israel’ while keeping the Palestinians in chains.
→ read full articleThe Semantics of Struggle
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 May 2015
What is not helpful, actually diversionary, is to respond as if the struggle was between good and evil, and that is what happens as soon as the insurgent challenger is labeled ‘a terrorist.’ Such language exempts the defenders of the status quo from self-criticism and considering accommodationist tactics, proscribing negotiation and assessment of grievances.
→ read full articleMathematicians
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 May 2015
A physicist, a chemist and a mathematician were stranded on an island after a shipwreck.
→ read full articleFlying Lessons
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 May 2015
A flock of birds that could not fly met in a nice hotel on top of a cliff overlooking the sea for a training workshop on flying.
→ read full articleDifferent Customs
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 May 2015
A Chinese man put a bowl of rice on his deceased wife’s grave every day.
→ read full articleApartheid and the Palestinian National Struggle
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 May 2015
American citizens have a special responsibility for the long ordeal of the Palestinian people. The Jewish philosopher, Abraham Heschel observed “[f]ew are guilty, but all are responsible.” The Legitimacy War scenario gives each of us ample opportunities to exercise our individual responsibility. We owe the Palestinian people and ourselves nothing less.
→ read full articleWhere Is the World… ?
Imani Michelle Scott, Ph.D. – The Huffington Post,
4 May 2015
I love the black men in my life. They are my brothers, my nephews, my cousins, my best friends. The politics of distraction successfully leads attention away from what occurs in the U.S. to focus on inhumanity in those nations beyond America’s borders. Where is the world when the collective of humanity is so needed to help end police violence against blacks in America?
→ read full articleToo Proud?
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 May 2015
Most American politicians talk as if they had been born in a log cabin…
→ read full articleWar Journalism and News Distortion
Michael Krona – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Apr 2015
For example: what do you think is the conflict from its inception in 1998 has had over five million dead, has had involvement of military forces from nine countries and played out in an area the size of Western Europe, but few in the West even noticed?
→ read full articleIsrael’s Early Nuclear Deceit Damages Iran Nuclear Talks Today
Richard Silverstein – Middle East Eye,
27 Apr 2015
Instead of demonising Iran and treating it as a pariah state, wouldn’t there be more to gain from collaboration and cooperation? American Jewish money built Israel’s bomb.
→ read full articleOn the Historic Role of the Peace Movement
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Apr 2015
One can distinguish between four forms of power: military, economic, cultural and political. Military power says, “If you don’t do what I want, I will hurt you.” Economic power says, “If you do what I want, I will reward you.” Cultural power says, “If you do what I want, I will praise you, and if you don’t do what I want, I will criticize you.” Political power manipulates the other three forms of power to achieve goals.
→ read full articleSolution
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Apr 2015
One reverend complained to the other, “I have no people coming to listen to my sermon.”
→ read full articleThe Geopolitical Right of Exception at the United Nations
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2015
Overcoming the geopolitical right of exception would require its repudiation by the United States, in particular, through a recognition that it is incompatible with a peaceful, just, sustainable, and more participatory world order. This geopolitical right is also a vehicle of influence by private sector corporate and financial interests contrary to the global public interest.
→ read full articleScholar Maung Zarni Defines Genocide in ‘Holocaust and Human Rights Project’ Lecture
David Reich - Boston College Law School Magazine,
20 Apr 2015
15 Apr 2015 – The word genocide calls to mind events like the Jewish and Armenian holocausts, but according to Maung Zarni, a Burmese scholar affiliated with Harvard and the London School of Economics, smaller-scale killing can also fit the definition “if done in an attempt to destroy a people.”
→ read full articleWeakening and Discrediting the UN: The Mission of Israeli QGOs [Quasi-Government Organizations]
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2015
This is the full text of my presentation at the conference “The Israeli Lobby: Is it good for US? Is it good for Israel?” National Press Club, April 10, 2015. Although there were many illuminating presentations during the day, I would call particular attention to the memorable remarks of two highly informed Israelis, Gideon Levy and Miko Peled.
→ read full articleThe Black Hole
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2015
When Johan Galtung, widely recognized as the founder of the academic discipline of peace research, founded the first International Peace Research Institute in Oslo in 1959, he and his colleagues sent copies of their working papers regularly to about 400 social science institutes around the world, including the Institute for World Economy and International Relations in Moscow.
→ read full articleArmenians 1915: The Genocide Controversy
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2015
According to the great American novelist William Faulkner, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” This year being the centenary of the contested events of 1915 makes it understandable that was simmering through the decades has come to a boil, with the anniversary day of April 24th likely to be the climax of this latest phase of the unresolved drama.
→ read full articleBlessed Ambiguity
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Apr 2015
King Louis XI of France was superstitious. One time, his astrologer predicted nice weather.
→ read full articleSecurity versus Peace Discourse (after Johan Galtung)
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Apr 2015
The prevailing discourse used by governments today is the security discourse, which briefly is the following: “We have a problem, our enemies. Through military superiority we can deter or prevent their evil designs and achieve security–and through this peace.”
→ read full articleFlying Lessons
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Apr 2015
A flock of birds that could not fly met in a nice hotel on top of a cliff overlooking the sea for a training workshop on flying.
→ read full articleReplacement
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Apr 2015
An attorney telephoned the governor just after midnight, insisting that he talk to him regarding a matter of utmost urgency.
→ read full articleJerusalem
Yehuda Amichai – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Apr 2015
The late Israeli poet captured this urban division well.
→ read full articlePeace Journalism
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Apr 2015
The time has come for “peace journalists” to write not only about war, but also about its causes, prevention, and ways to restore peace. They need not invent solutions to conflicts themselves–in the same way as health journalists need not invent cures for diseases themselves; they ask specialists.
→ read full articleAmerican Sniper and America’s “War on Terror”
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Mar 2015
The issue I want to emphasize here is how extreme focus, eliminating both breadth and depth, historical context and psychological motivation, afflicts our general approach to the “War on Terror” and effectively rules out conflict resolution.
→ read full articleHow Haiti Abolished Its Military
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Mar 2015
A soft spoken, retired Quaker couple from Troy, New York, took a crucial step that led to the complete abolition of Haiti’s army, which in 1991 had violently overthrown the democratically elected government of President Aristide and arbitrarily arrested, tortured and murdered many Haitian citizens.
→ read full articleChange versus Continuity in the Philippines
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Mar 2015
When I asked how was it possible that the Marcos past has been so cleanly erased from the contemporary blackboard of Filipino awareness, I received various answers: “They have lots of money” “They never lost popularity in their home province where lots of development took place while Marcos governed ” “The past no longer matters; it is the present that counts” “the oligarchy still rules the country and includes all leading families regardless of their political affiliations.”
→ read full articleEaster Dress
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Mar 2015
Towards the end of the Sunday morning service, a pastor invited all the children to come forward for a children’s prayer.
→ read full articleInsurance
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Mar 2015
Three retirees were sitting on a bench in Miami.
→ read full articleBuddhist Nationalists Stoke Hatred in Myanmar
Richard Bennett – Al Jazeera,
23 Mar 2015
Myanmar’s Proposed ‘Race and Religion Laws’ Fuel Hatred and Fear – Authorities should work for reconciliation between religious and ethnic groups – not play into hatred and fear, and seek to cement already widespread discrimination.
→ read full articleIran’s Nuclear Program: Diplomacy, War, and (In)Security in the Nuclear Age
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Mar 2015
Iran is expected not only to forego the option to acquire nuclear weapons, but to agree to a framework of intrusive inspection if it wants to be treated as a ‘normal’ state after it proves itself worthy. As indicated, this approach seems discriminatory and hypocritical in the extreme.
→ read full articleStalking Netanyahu’s Victory: Palestine and Iran
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Mar 2015
My immediate reaction to the outcome of the Israeli elections is that for Palestinian solidarity purposes, it was desirable for Netanyahu to receive this electoral mandate. It exhibits as clearly as possible that the long discredited Oslo ‘peace process’ is truly ‘discredited.’
→ read full articleDon’t Want NSA to Spy on Your Email? 5 Things You Can Do
Michael Liedtke, Associated Press – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Mar 2015
Pew researchers found that a majority of those surveyed don’t know about online shields that could help boost privacy or believe it would be too difficult to avoid the government’s espionage.
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