Articles by M
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Julian Assange: The Rolling Stone Interview
Michael Hastings – Rolling Stone,
23 Jan 2012
Under house arrest in England, the WikiLeaks founder opens up about his battle with the ‘Times,’ his stint in solitary and the future of journalism. It’s a few days before Christmas, and Julian Assange has just finished moving to a new hide-out deep in the English countryside.
→ read full articleWhen Is A Terrorist Not A Terrorist? & War with Iran or Not?
Alan Hart – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2012
When is a terrorist not a terrorist in the eyes of the Obama administration (not to mention all of its predecessors) and the governments of the Western world? Answer: When he or she is an Israeli Mossad agent or asset. In the case of the assassination of Iranian scientists, the Mossad’s assets are almost certainly members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) also known as The Peoples’ Mujahedin of Iran, which is committed to overthrowing the regime of the ruling mullahs.
→ read full article(Castellano) El Salvador: Funes Ordena Reescribir la Historia a la Luz de la Masacre de el Mozote
Fernando Romero/Amadeo Cabrera/ María José Saavedra – La Prensa Gráfica,
23 Jan 2012
Presidente ordena al Ejército hacer una revisión de su propia interpretación de la masacre de hace más de 30 años. Aseguró que no se considerará “héroes” a militares violadores de derechos humanos.
→ read full articleHow to Learn Nonviolent Resistance as King Did
Mary Elizabeth King – Waging Nonviolence,
23 Jan 2012
In commemorating Dr. King’s birthday, it is worth remembering that everyone can learn nonviolent action as he did. King may not have invented the nonviolent strategies that he advanced, but he was an apt student, and his understanding of them would in the decades to come encourage other movements on the world stage. He became one of history’s most influential agents for propagating knowledge of the potential for constructive social change without resorting to violence.
→ read full articleThe Myth of “Isolated” Iran: Following the Money in the Iran Crisis
Pepe Escobar - TomDispatch,
23 Jan 2012
So Iran may be “isolated” from the United States and Western Europe, but from the BRICS to NAM (the 120 member countries of the Non-Aligned Movement), it has the majority of the global South on its side. And then, of course, there are those staunch Washington allies, Japan and South Korea, now pleading for exemptions from the coming boycott/embargo of Iran’s Central Bank. No wonder, because these unilateral U.S. sanctions are also aimed at Asia. After all, China, India, Japan, and South Korea, together, buy no less than 62% of Iran’s oil exports.
→ read full article
Cancer Risk To Young Children Near Fukushima Daiichi Underestimated!
Global Research TV – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2012
In this video, Fairewinds introduces additional analysis by Ian Goddard showing that the BEIR VII report underestimates the true cancer rates to young children living near Fukushima Daiichi. Looking at the scientific data presented by Mr. Goddard, Fairewinds has determined that at least one out of every 20 young girls (5%) living in an area where the radiological exposure is 20 millisieverts for five years will develop cancer in their lifetime.
→ read full articleThe Future We Want? Between Hope and Despair on the Road to the Rio Earth Summit
Daniel Mittler, Greenpeace – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2012
The lack of spine is clearest in the last paragraph which calls for voluntary commitments announced at Rio to be stapled together in a “registry/compendium that will serve as an accountability framework.” In other words, there will be no enforcement or control. Your word will be taken at face value and the “accountability framework” will be the act of stapling all voluntary commitments together in one document. An invitation to greenwash, if there ever was one.
→ read full articleA Debt Based Monetary System, Export Warfare & Third World Debt
Mira Tekelova, Positive Money – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2012
Now, it is abundantly clear from this that the IMF and the World Bank are not just lending money; they are involved in creating it. Although Special Drawing Rights, SDRs, are described as amounts ‘credited’ to a nation, no money or credit of any kind is put into nations accounts. SDRs are actually a credit facility, just like a bank overdraft – if they are borrowed, they must be repaid. The IMF and the World Bank are all in a system of sustaining the unsustainable. Until we recognise that a debt based system will not work and cannot work the Third world poverty will worsen.
→ read full articleHoneybee Problem Nearing a ‘Critical Point’
Claire Thompson – Grist,
23 Jan 2012
Of particular concern is a group of pesticides, chemically similar to nicotine, called neonicotinoids (neonics for short), and one in particular called clothianidin. Instead of being sprayed, neonics are used to treat seeds, so that they’re absorbed by the plant’s vascular system, and then end up attacking the central nervous systems of bees that come to collect pollen.
→ read full articleA Close Look at SOPA-Stop Online Piracy Act
Jonathan Zittrain, Kendra Albert and Alicia Solow-Niederman – Future of the Internet,
23 Jan 2012
This document is a guide to the Stop Online Piracy Act as proposed in the United States House of Representatives. Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), H.R. 3261, 112th Cong. (2011). It represents our notes as we sought to understand exactly what it does and how it does it — along with our corresponding sense for why its principal mechanisms make for poor law. Our aim is for this analysis to be useful to anyone wanting to understand the Act — whatever his or her point of view may be on technology or intellectual property policy.
→ read full articleWant to be healed?
TMS Editor,
23 Jan 2012
Three guys were fishing in a lake one day, when an angel appeared in the boat.
→ read full article
Spain’s ‘Indignados’ and the Globalization of Dissent (VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
The Real News Network – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2012
The Occupy Movement has taken much of its inspiration from Spain’s “Outraged” Movement: what lessons does Spain have for Occupy now?
→ read full articleBlood on Whose Hands? Bradley Manning, Washington, and the Blood of Civilians
Chase Madar – TomDispatch,
23 Jan 2012
Who in their right mind wants to talk about, think about, or read a short essay about… civilian war casualties? What a bummer, this topic, especially since our Afghan, Iraq, and other ongoing wars were advertised as uplifting acts of philanthropy: wars to spread security, freedom, democracy, human rights, gender equality, the rule of law, etc.
→ read full articleHungary and the EU: A Constitutional Crisis
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2012
The Right Wing-Populist policies of the Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, symbolized by dropping the term ‘Republic’ from the name of the country, has created a constitutional crisis within the European Union (EU).
→ read full articleConfiguring the Varieties of Experiential Nothingness
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2012
The despair is necessarily both planet-wide and highly personal (Implication of Personal Despair in Planetary Despair, 2010). The condition can be described as a form of cognitive “ground zero” — a sense of pointlessness notably articulated through recognition that the future offers “nothing”, especially for those reduced to “nothing” by a combination of factors, as separately discussed (Reintegration of a Remaindered World, 2011; Way Round Cognitive Ground Zero and Pointlessness, 2012).
→ read full articleThe Cooperative Spirit and Its Many Manifestations
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2012
The United Nations General Assembly in Resolution A/RES/64/136 has designated 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives in order to highlight the large role that cooperatives can play in ecologically-sound development and poverty reduction.
→ read full articleOhio Quakes Raise Fracking Questions
Kristen Saloomey – Al Jazeera,
23 Jan 2012
Seismologists from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources-ODNR asked to study the quakes had already gone on record saying they were directly linked to one well in particular. “I think this case has reached point of being proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” John Armbruster told me when I visited him at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
→ read full articleThousands of Dogs and Other Animals Spared Cruel Chemical Tests in Europe
Humane Society International/Europe – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2012
HSI celebrates largest animal test reduction in history. Humane Society International/Europe is celebrating a change in European law on biocides, non-food pesticides, that will save tens of thousands of dogs, rabbits and rodents from painful and lethal chemical poisoning tests. Dogs, rabbits, rodents, birds and fish are all commonly used in biocides testing. The chemicals are injected into their blood, force-fed into their stomach and lungs, applied to their skin, or placed in their food and water. They can experience nausea, convulsions and death—all without pain relief.
→ read full articleFukushima Radiation Spreads Worldwide
Washington's Blog – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2012
California, Finland, Canada, Australia Hit by Radiation
→ read full articleAnti-peace Coalition Governing Israel – The Blockbusters
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2012
“Israel has no foreign policy, only a domestic policy,” Henry Kissinger once remarked. This has probably been more or less true of every country since the advent of democracy. Yet in Israel, this seems even truer. (Ironically, it could almost be said that the US has no foreign policy, only an Israeli domestic policy.)
→ read full articleMonsanto to Face Biopiracy Charges in India
Sayer Ji, OpEdNews – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2012
In an unprecedented decision, India’s National Biodiversity Authority(NBA), a government agency, declared legal action against Monsanto (and their collaborators) for accessing and using local eggplant varieties (known as brinjal) to develop their Bt genetically engineered version without prior approval of the competent authorities, which is considered an act of “biopiracy.”
→ read full articleDid the U.S. Leave Behind a Civil War in Iraq?
Ashley Smith – Socialist Worker,
23 Jan 2012
“Everything that the American troops have done in Iraq–all the fighting and all the dying, the bleeding and the building, and the training and the partnering–all of it has led to this moment of success,” Obama said. “[W]e’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people.” Such claims are a lie. Obama’s claims about America’s “extraordinary achievement” in Iraq are Orwellian. In reality, the U.S. war and occupation further wrecked an already devastated country, left it in a shambles rather than rebuild it and stoked sectarianism between Iraq’s three main groups–Kurds, Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims.
→ read full articleDecline ‘Friend’ Request: Social Media Meets 21st Century Statecraft
Cyril Mychalejkon- Upside Down World,
23 Jan 2012
While the positive contributions of technology to social movements and uprisings have been been amply noted, if not overstated, more attention needs to be paid to the intrinsic dangers looming in the co-optation of this technology-driven networking, specifically by Washington, but by other repressive governments as well.
→ read full articleComplexities of Post-Laden Politics in Pakistan and Implications
Debidatta Aurobinda Mahapatra – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jan 2012
The recent developments in Pakistan’s politics particularly the relations between the civilian government and military, in the background of troubled US-Pakistan relations exacerbated by the November killing of Pakistan soldiers by US drones and killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May, will have far reaching implications not only for Pakistan, but also for Afghanistan, South Asia, and far beyond.
→ read full articleWhy We Need To Stop SOPA and PIPA
Joi Ito and Ethan Zuckerman – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jan 2012
SOPA – the Stop Online Piracy Act – and a sister bill, PIPA – the Protect IP Act – seek to minimize the dissemination of copyrighted material online by targeting sites that promote and enable the sharing of copyright-protected material, like The Pirate Bay. While this goal may be laudable, entrepreneurs, legal scholars and free speech activists are worried about the consequences of these bills for the architecture of the Internet.
→ read full articleDavos: The 1% World
Johan Galtung, 16 Jan 2012 - TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jan 2012
How are the 1%’ers going to handle the country that has attacked more other countries and peoples than any other, and mainly in defense of a special type of hyper-connection: hyper-capitalism? It still has a monopoly on the world reserve currency exercised by a club of private banks, among them the worst culprits in the finance economy coup, the Federal Reserve. How are they going to handle the US hold on the rating agencies? And the growing inequality, from comfortable seats at the top? Answer: the same way as feudal aristocracy in France in the 18th century; by not handling it.
→ read full articleJustice in a Global Age: Becoming Counselors to the World
Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jan 2012
Invited Keynote Address, Counselors for Social Justice, American Counseling Association – I have no hesitation in telling you that I, like many of you, am deeply troubled and saddened by the abuses of privilege and power that are now occurring in our government, business, and religious sectors. Indeed the strategic convergence of shared interests and agendas among these three sectors of our society, in combination with a media failing to meet its responsibilities to accurately report news and to conduct investigative journalism, now constitutes, in my opinion, a serious threat to the foundations of our society, and ultimately, to global peace and harmony.
→ read full articleDoomsday Clock Moves to Five Minutes to Midnight
Science and Security Board, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jan 2012
It is five minutes to midnight. Two years ago, it appeared that world leaders might address the truly global threats that we face. In many cases, that trend has not continued or been reversed. For that reason, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is moving the clock hand one minute closer to midnight, back to its time in 2007.
→ read full article
Faking It: How the Media Manipulates the World into War (VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
Global Research TV – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jan 2012
As the US and Iranian governments escalate tensions in the already volatile Straits of Hormuz, and China and Russia begin openly questioning Washington’s interference in their internal politics, the world remains on a knife-edge of military tension. Far from being a dispassionate observer of these developments, however, the media has in fact been central to increasing those tensions and preparing the public to expect a military confrontation. But as the online media rises to displace the traditional forms by which the public forms its understanding of the world, many are now beginning to see firsthand how the media lies the public into war.
→ read full articleThe Political Psychology of Obama’s Iran Policy
Reza Marashi, Muftah – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jan 2012
The U.S. track record of implementing containment and destabilization policies worldwide is far from noteworthy. In the case of Iran, it is abysmal. With no on-the-ground presence and restricted interaction with Iranian counterparts, the United States is largely unable to accurately assess the real strengths and weaknesses of any policy. As a result, U.S. policy toward Iran under the Obama administration is rapidly falling prey to the same entrapments and mistakes that overwhelmed the four preceding U.S. administrations.
→ read full articleThe pessimist and the Dog
TMS Editor,
16 Jan 2012
An avid duck hunter was in the market for a new bird dog. His search ended when he found a dog that could actually walk on water to retrieve a duck.
→ read full article(German) Medienmacht – wie und zu wessen Nutzen unser Bewusstsein gemacht wird
Bernd Hamm – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jan 2012
”Wenn man eine grosse Lüge erzählt und sie oft genug wiederholt, dann werden die Leute sie am Ende glauben. Man kann die Lüge so lange behaupten, wie es dem Staat gelingt, die Menschen von den politischen, wirtschaftlichen und militärischen Konsequenzen der Lüge abzuschirmen. Deshalb ist es von lebenswichtiger Bedeutung für den Staat, seine gesamte Macht für die Unterdrückung abweichender Meinungen einzusetzen. Die Wahrheit ist der Todfeind der Lüge, und daher ist die Wahrheit der grösste Feind des Staates.” — Joseph Göbbels, Propagandaminister der Nazis
→ read full articleBradley Manning – The Undisputed Person of the Year
Eamonn McCann – Socialist Worker,
16 Jan 2012
If Bradley Manning had committed war crimes rather than exposing them, he wouldn’t be in so much trouble. As a beacon of moral light in the darkness which has deepened since the election of Obama, he is, indisputably and by some distance, the American Man of the Year.
→ read full article10 Reasons the U.S. Is No Longer the Land of the Free
Jonathan Turley – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jan 2012
The list of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11 puts us in rather troubling company. Below is today’s [15 Jan 2012] column in the Sunday Washington Post. The column addresses how the continued rollbacks on civil liberties in the United States conflicts with the view of the country as the land of the free. We seem as a country to be in denial as to the implications of these laws and policies. Whether we are viewed as a free country with authoritarian inclinations or an authoritarian nation with free aspirations (or some other hybrid definition), we are clearly not what we once were.
→ read full articleA Momentum of Cynicism
Robert C. Koehler – Common Wonders,
16 Jan 2012
At this late stage of the American republic, military-industrial corruption permeates not only our foreign policy but our ideals. We go to war because the business of war is beyond all constraint. “In a striking departure from the ideological preferences of the post-Vietnam Democratic Party, President Barack Obama has made overseas arms sales a pillar of U.S. foreign policy,” Loren Thompson, chief operating officer at the Lexington Institute, a D.C. think tank, wrote – uncritically – for Forbes last week.
→ read full articleIs Israel Suicidal?
MJ Rosenberg – Political Correction,
16 Jan 2012
A man wrote me the other day to complain about something I had written regarding my belief that Israel has every right to exist in peace and security. He responded that Israel should not exist, asserting that Israel is simply a Western colony implanted in the Middle East that is as “authentic as white Rhodesia” was.
→ read full article
Palestine 1896
TMS Editor,
16 Jan 2012
First Film Footage Taken in Palestine (Lumier Bros.) – Just one year before the first Zionist Congress…
→ read full article(Castellano) Galicia Prohibirá la Entrada de Menores de 12 Años en las Corridas de Toros
TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jan 2012
27 de diciembre de 2011 – Galicia prohibirá en la futura ley de espectáculos, cuyo borrador está actualmente en elaboración, la entrada de niños menores de 12 años a las corridas de toros, tal y como han acordado los tres grupos parlamentarios –PPdeG, PSdeG y BNG– en la Comisión Institucional.
→ read full article(Castellano) Peru: Prohibirían Ingreso de Menores a Espectáculos Taurinos
Congreso de Peru – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jan 2012
“Así como se prohíbe el ingreso de menores a la exhibición de pornografía, a las salas de juego, casinos, al acceso a las bebidas alcohólicas, el propósito es evitar que los menores sean afectados en su integridad moral”, sostuvo el legislador Julio Rosas Huaranga.
→ read full articleLearning from the Northern Ireland and South Africa’s Conflicts (Cont’d)
Pierre Celestin Bakunda – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jan 2012
Through my own participant observation during research at Queen’s University from September 2008 to March 2009, the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement is of a great help. Nowadays both communities coexist in peace even though some isolated cases of attacks can be observed. Some people believe that the wounds would take generations to be healed while others think that the South African process through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission-TRC would be an asset to grant forgiveness and amnesty to the ones who committed wrongdoings.
→ read full article(Italian) Chi Era Gesù?
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2012
La chiesa non era strapiena come soleva esserlo per la messa di mezzanotte alla vigilia di Natale. Ma il rituale si svolse come era stato fatto per secoli, attorno alla “piccola bibbia” di Giovanni 3:16, “Perché Dio amava il mondo tanto da dare il suo unico Figlio cosicché ognuno che creda in lui non perirà ma avrà vita eterna”.
→ read full article(Italian) Galtung e Gesù: Un Comment
Enrico Peyretti – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2012
In questo breve testo su Gesù, nell’occasione del Natale 2011, egli affronta una problematica dibattuta da un paio di millenni, in cui mi sembra che semplifichi in modo unilaterale la figura complessa di Gesù, con una scelta legittima, ma assai controversa. (Ho già commentato, il 30 aprile 2009, un analogo testo di Galtung su “Gesù, Giuda e Che Guevara”).
→ read full articlePolitical Transition in Nepal and the Role of the International Community
Yadab Bastola – Peace & Collaborative Development Network,
9 Jan 2012
UN including UN Human Rights (OHCHR) has to pressure to the government to improve the human rights situation and work on the post conflict justice system. UN and other international community should advice to work immediately on full picture of independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
→ read full articleThe Delusional Assumptions of Capitalism
Doug Harvey – Common Dreams,
9 Jan 2012
One of the more delusional aspects of capitalism is the idea that if one pursues the acquisition of private wealth with abandon, that this is somehow automatically “good” for human society. The pursuit of resources and markets to feed a system that MUST grow to survive has made the planet and all of its inhabitants commodities. In capitalist mythology, EVERYTHING has a monetary value, including and perhaps especially, people. Ultimately, our “house” is the planet – there is NO getting around this fact. For some time now we have had pictures of Planet Earth taken from space. The empirical evidence is clear: we are a very small household in a vast sea of time and space. We MUST cooperate or perish.
→ read full articlePreparing Peace Teachers and Peace Workers in the Community
Charles Mercieca, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2012
It is quite obvious that two of the most important groups we have in this world to make a big difference for endless future generations are peace teachers and peace workers.
→ read full articleHaiti: Seven Places Where Earthquake Money Did and Did Not Go
Bill Quigley and Amber Ramanauskas - Truthout,
9 Jan 2012
The effort so far has not been based a respectful partnership between Haitians and the international community. The actions of the donor countries and the NGOs and international agencies have not been transparent so that Haitians or others can track the money and see how it has been spent. Respect, transparency and accountability are the building blocks for human rights.
→ read full articleNo Therapy in Retail
Prof. Vandana Shiva – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2012
Firstly, rising prices are driven by the commodification of food and speculation on food commodities. Industrialisation and globalisation of food and agriculture has transformed food from a source of life into a commodity, and as a commodity, food is divorced from its sources – the seeds, the soil, the farmer – and from its end use as nourishment for our bodies.
→ read full articleFBI Tracking Videotapers as Terrorists?
Dean Kuipers – Los Angeles Times,
9 Jan 2012
The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force has recommended for many years that animal activists who carry out undercover investigations on farms could be prosecuted as domestic terrorists. New documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by activist Ryan Shapiro show the FBI advising that activists – including Shapiro – who walked onto a farm, videotaped animals there and “rescued” an animal had violated terrorism statutes.
→ read full articleHaiti: From Displacement Camps to Community
Alexis Erkert and Beverly Bell – Toward Freedom,
9 Jan 2012
As 2012 begins, a growing movement of displaced people and their allies in Haiti is actively claiming the right to housing, which is recognized by both the Haitian constitution and international treaties to which Haiti is signatory. Haitians displaced by the earthquake two years ago face many crises, but perhaps none worse than ongoing homelessness: 520,000 people still living in displacement camps.
→ read full article
Total Ignorance: Where’s Libya, Iraq or Iran? NYC doesn’t care!
Russia Today – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2012
Leaders of the ‘Free World’: the joke is on them – The men and women hoping to beco
me the next President of the U.S. appear to spend as much time demonstrating their ignorance of the world, as they do their political credentials. But as RT’s Anastasia Churkina found out, that could just be a reflection of society.
“Zombie” Fly Parasite Killing Honeybees
Katherine Harmon – Scientific American,
9 Jan 2012
John Hafernik, a biology professor at San Francisco State University, collected some belly-up bees from the ground around the University’s biology building. “But I left them in a vial on my desk and forgot about them. The next time I looked at the vial, there were all these fly pupae surrounding the bees,” he said. A fly (Apocephalus borealis) had inserted its eggs into the bees, using their bodies as a home for its developing larvae. And the invaders had somehow led the bees from their hives to their deaths.
→ read full articleMcDonald’s Goes Belly Up in Bolivia
Pravda – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2012
McDonald’s leaves Bolivia healthier forever! It is the first Latin-American country that will remain without any McDonald’s, and the first country in the world where the company has to close because it persists in having their numbers in the red for over a decade.
→ read full article‘Destroying Democracy’: Hungarians Protest Controversial New Constitution
Der Spiegel – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2012
Tens of thousands of Hungarians took to the streets of Budapest on Monday night [2 Jan 2012] to protest the country’s new constitution, which took effect on Jan. 1. The document, in combination with other recent laws, severely curtails the independence of the country’s central bank and courts. Religious rights have also been slashed.
→ read full article(Castellano) Maquiavelo ¿Maquiavélico?
Fernando Montiel T. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2012
La dedicatoria en los Discursos y no el texto de El Príncipe hablan del Maquiavelo real, y no del “realista”, del político y no del politólogo. Hablan pues, del maquiavelismo del hombre en detrimento de la idea que de él se tiene. Y sobre este hombre solamente queda la descripción -casi desconocida para los profanos en las artes políticas- que de él hizo Juan Jacobo Rousseau: “Un hombre honesto y un buen ciudadano”.
→ read full articleAustralia: Economic Forecasters Lose Their Way in Extreme Weather
Peter Martin – BusinessDay,
9 Jan 2012
WHO would have thought it? Certainly none of the 20-odd members of the economic forecasting panel this time last year. The rate of inflation turned out to be higher than the highest of their predictions, the budget deficit bigger than the biggest, and the sharemarket far lower than all but two thought likely. It is trite to say it, but they did not know what was coming.
→ read full articleIn West Bank, Israel’s Rule is that of the Jungle
Haaretz, Editorial – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2012
In the hands of this government, which mainly involve moving buildings built on private lands to ‘state lands’, have become instruments to deepen the occupation and obstruct the two-state solution. Defense Minister Ehud Barak has likened Israel to a “villa in the jungle.” Nothing is closer to the law of the jungle than a system of distorted laws and procedures that make it possible to build villa neighborhoods in the settlements and legalize wildcat outposts like Ramat Gilad.
→ read full articleAfghanistan: Catch ’em Young, for Prostitution
Rebecca Murray – Inter Press Service-IPS,
9 Jan 2012
Soma was a teenager in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif when her grandfather arranged her marriage to a husband she had never met. Every night Soma’s father-in-law hosted parties, where for 200 dollars visiting men could eat, drink alcohol and watch Soma and her two sister-in-laws dance. The girls would then be forced to sleep with up to four men in one night. Soma said she was regularly injected for her blood, which was then displayed on bed sheets as ‘proof’ to clients she was a virgin.
→ read full articleReflections on the Myths and Ethoses That Promote and Sustain War as a “Way of Life” and Acceptable Moral Code for the USA
Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D. - TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2012
The unassailable truth is that the United States of America is a culture of war! A culture of war is a shared set of meanings and behaviors that are socialized by macrosocial and microsocial institutions via support for certain cultural myths and ethoses that present war and associated acts of violence and aggression as an acceptable action for pursuing domestic and national goals and purposes.
→ read full articleCuba Launches World’s First Vaccine against Lung Cancer
ZeitNews – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2012
From the island nation known for the quality of its cigars comes some pretty big news today [3 Jan 2012]: Xinhua reports that Cuban medical authorities have released the first therapeutic vaccine for lung cancer. CimaVax-EGF is the result of a 25-year research project at Havana’s Center for Molecular Immunology, and it could make a life or death difference for those facing late-stage lung cancers, researchers there say.
→ read full articleWhere Are We Heading?
Johan Galtung, 9 Jan 2012 - TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2012
The clouds are dark. And we sense one on the horizon, black; a point so far. The name of the cloud: using a major war, even with Russia-China, to revive an economy in depression; destroying capital, rebuilding.
→ read full article
(Spanish, English, Portuguese) Eduardo Galeano – El Derecho al Delirio (VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
TMS Editor,
9 Jan 2012
Subtitles in English – The Right to Delirium
Legendado em Portugues – O Direito ao Delírio
Coca-Cola Accused of Propping Up Notorious Swaziland Dictator
David Smith in Johannesburg – The Guardian,
9 Jan 2012
The king has travelled to Coca-Cola’s headquarters in Atlanta in the US, much to the disgust of Swazi political activists. Mswati III has 13 wives and hosts an annual dance where he can choose a new bride from tens of thousands of bare-breasted virgins. With a fortune of about $100m, he presides over one of the worst-off countries in the world, with most people living in absolute poverty. Political parties are banned and activists are regularly arrested, imprisoned and tortured.
→ read full articleCombating Slavery in Coffee and Chocolate Production
Jeff Nall – Toward Freedom,
9 Jan 2012
Quite simply, much of the coffee and chocolate improving our health is simultaneously jeopardizing the freedom and lives of hundreds of thousands around the world including many children. Yet most American consumers are ignorant to the mounting evidence indicating that the laborers whom they have to thank for cultivating these products are being grossly exploited, live in spiraling poverty, and, in some cases, are modern-day slaves.
→ read full articleHow Congress Has Signed Its Own Arrest Warrants in the NDAA Citizen Arrest Act
Naomi Wolf – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2012
They may have supported this bill because—although it’s hard to believe—they think the military will only arrest active members of Al Qaida; or maybe, less naively, they believe that ‘at most’, low-level dissenting figures, activists, or troublesome protesters might be subjected to military arrest. But they are forgetting something critical: history shows that those who signed this bill will soon be subject to arrest themselves.
→ read full articleFallujah Babies: Under A New Kind of Siege
Dahr Jamail – Al Jazeera,
9 Jan 2012
While the US military has formally withdrawn from Iraq, doctors and residents of Fallujah are blaming weapons like depleted uranium and white phosphorous used during two devastating US attacks on Fallujah in 2004 for what are being described as “catastrophic” levels of birth defects and abnormalities.
→ read full articleRemembering the Best and Worst of 2011
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2012
We will learn in 2012 whether we are moving closer to fulfilling our hopes, dreams, and goals or are trying to interpret and overcome a recurrence of disappointment and demoralization with respect to progressive change in world affairs. The stakes for some societies, and for humanity, have rarely been higher.
→ read full articleWanna buy a frog?
TMS Editor,
9 Jan 2012
A man walks into a bar and asks the bartender, “If I show you a really good trick, will you give me a free drink?”
→ read full articleWestern Oil Firms Remain As US Exits Iraq
Dahr Jamail – Al Jazeera,
9 Jan 2012
The end of the US military occupation does not mean Iraqis have full control of their oil. While the US military has formally ended its occupation of Iraq, some of the largest western oil companies, ExxonMobil, BP and Shell, remain.
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Philosopher Slavoj Zizek on World Affairs
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2012
The Slovenian philosopher and critical theorist talks to Al Jazeera about the momentous changes taking place in the global financial and political system.
→ read full articleIn Nigeria, Boko Haram Is Not the Problem
Jean Herskovits – The New York Times,
9 Jan 2012
Governments and newspapers around the world attributed the horrific Christmas Day bombings of churches in Nigeria to “Boko Haram” — a shadowy group that is routinely described as an extremist Islamist organization based in the northeast corner of Nigeria. Indeed, since the May inauguration of President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the Niger Delta in the country’s south, Boko Haram has been blamed for virtually every outbreak of violence in Nigeria.
→ read full articleEnd of the Pro-democracy Pretense
Peter Martin – BusinessDay,
9 Jan 2012
A central staple of American domestic propaganda about its foreign policy is that the nation is “pro-democracy” — that’s the banner under which American wars are typically prettified — even though “democracy” in this regard really means “a government which serves American interests regardless of how their power is acquired,” while “despot” means “a government which defies American orders even if they’re democratically elected.”
→ read full article(Castellano) Israel, ¿El País Que Tiene un Ejército o el Ejército Que Tiene un País?
Carmen Rengel – Periodismo Humano,
9 Jan 2012
Israel, su ejército y su pueblo son tres realidades ensambladas a fuego en una sola. Imposible separarlas. Nacieron juntas, se forjaron juntas y juntas siguen, aunque cada vez se levanten más voces que reclaman una separación de poderes efectiva que haga de Israel un país con ejército, como en el resto del mundo, y no un ejército que domina un país.
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(Spanish/Portuguese) A Ordem Criminosa do Mundo / El Orden Criminal del Mundo
TVE2 – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jan 2012
Documental emitido por la española TVE que aborda la visión de dos grandes humanistas del mundo contemporáneo: Eduardo Galeano y Jean Ziegler.
Documentário exibido pela TVE espanhola, que aborda a visão de dois grandes humanistas contemporâneos sobre o mundo atual: Eduardo Galeano e Jean Ziegler.
→ read full article2012: The Davids and the Goliaths
Johan Galtung, 2 Jan 2012 - TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jan 2012
So, what is the message? Davids all over the world unite, you have only your goliaths to lose? Something like that, but with a major proviso: use david’s nonviolent slingshots. David knew what he wanted, so did Goliath: to slay each other. We have had enough of that. Smartness yes, but nonviolent, and of the positive variety, taking in, not only on, the adversary. Let the Icelands and Argentines teach them how to get their economies in order. Reduce the armor; save! Get down from nine feet to normal.
→ read full articleGlobal Brane Comprehension Enabling a Higher Dimensional Big Tent?
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jan 2012
The focus here calls into question personal experiential relationship to a vast “external” framework of knowledge — elaborated and promoted as a “universal” framework. This framework, to the extent possible, is anchored in a fabricated complex language of formal logic within which certain concepts and insights are held to be demonstrably true. This language effectively marginalizes the experience of those who understand it only partially or not at all. It is imposed upon them as a requirement for effective engagement with reality, with the implication that people should “get with it” or be socially irrelevant. This denies the integrative value for the individual of radical experiential coherence in the moment — frequently highlighted by personal hardship, tragedy and nostalgia over time.
→ read full articleMy Dreams for 2012
Dr Debidatta Aurobinda Mahapatra – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jan 2012
Coming to my nation, India, called the largest democracy in the world with thriving freedom and equality but in reality which is a nation, majority of which are stricken by poverty, poor health, poor education system, and poor governance. That one of the great Gandhians, Anna Hazare launched the movement for Lok Pal to make India corruption free is something which I dream to see successful in the New Year.
→ read full articleBrazil Overtakes UK as Sixth-Largest Economy
Phillip Inman – The Guardian,
2 Jan 2012
Brazil has overtaken the UK to become the world’s sixth-largest economy, according to a team of economists. The banking crash of 2008 and the subsequent recession has relegated the UK to seventh place in 2011, behind South America’s largest economy, which has boomed on the back of exports to China and the far east.
→ read full articleGenetically Modified Mosquitoes to be Released in the US for the First Time
Mike Barrett – Natural Society,
2 Jan 2012
Florida will be the first beta testing grounds to determine whether or not the mosquitoes lead to detrimental environmental and genetic impact. Residents in this area will also be subjected — without choice — to these genetically manipulated insects, unless the private firm decides to seek permission.
→ read full articleHow Did Our Friend Iran Become Our Enemy?
Jim Powell - Forbes,
2 Jan 2012
Before the United States goes to war with Iran, as many Americans seem anxious to do, we should first understand how Iran became our implacable enemy. In 1957, CIA secret agents helped the Shah establish SAVAK. If widely-published reports are to be believed, SAVAK had as many as 60,000 secret agents, informers and collaborators. SAVAK’s interrogation methods were said to include rape, extracting fingernails and attaching high voltage power lines to genitals.
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Stand By Me – Songs aroung the World: Peace through Music (VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
Playing for Change – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jan 2012
From the award-winning documentary, “Playing for Change: Peace through Music”, comes the first of many “songs around the world” being released independently. Featured is a cover of the Ben E. King classic by musicians around the world adding their part to the song as it travelled the globe.
→ read full articleFrom the East, Long Ago…
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jan 2012
Shortly after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, Hungary’s interior minister called the prime minister, telling him that his office had been burglarized.
→ read full articleUnemployed Portuguese Told To ‘Just Emigrate’
Mario Queiroz – TerrraViva Europe,
2 Jan 2012
Portugal’s prime minister has been criticized for suggesting that unemployed youth leave the country to find work. Portugal’s leaders “are becoming a laughing stock, starting with the prime minister, when he suggested that emigration was a way to deal with the crisis,” said a December 20 editorial in Publico. If skilled workers and professionals continue to leave, the situation in this country “will be even more miserable,” and “the government’s incredible message leaves floating in the air the idea that Portugal is not worth it,” the editorial added.
→ read full articleTen Social Justice Trends Changing the World
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jan 2012
Global Trends:
[1] The Decline and Fall of the US Empire; [2] The Decline of the West; [3] The Decline of States and Rise of Regions; [4] The Rise of the Rest; [5] The Rise of China.
Social Trends:
[6] The Rise of Nations; [7] The Rise of Civil Society; [8] The Rise of Youth; [9] The Rise of Women; [10] The Rise of Inequality and Revolts.
Two Thirds of U.S. Foreign Aid is Really Military Aid
David Wallechinsky & Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jan 2012
When some Americans complain that foreign aid is wasting taxpayer money abroad that could be put to better use at home, they may not realize that today’s version of foreign aid isn’t what it used to be. Call it the Pentagon-zation of U.S. foreign assistance.
→ read full articleViolence and Conflict Theories & Obstacles to Peace in Africa’s Great Lakes Region
Dr. Pierre Celestin Bakunda – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jan 2012
Parson Talscott analyses Marx’s theory in terms of social classes and class conflict in the light of sociological theory. His analysis brings about the state of the weaker and the powerful classes showing that Marxian ideas have had an important place, forming a point of departure for the formulation of many of the fundamentals of theory of social institutions.
→ read full articleWhat is Shame?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jan 2012
‘Shame’ is a disturbing, much admired, Steve McQueen film that has been misleadingly reviewed, but deserves our serious attention. Let me put my reasoning in provocative language: ‘Shame’ depicts with chilling realism the degeneracy of high-end capitalist life style in the urban landscape of Sodom on the Hudson, otherwise known as ‘The Big Apple,’ that is, New York City.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Filhotes Deixados na Neve Ilustram Campanha Contra Abandono de Cães Após Natal
BBC News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jan 2012
Dois cãezinhos abandonados na neve e no frio no fim do ano passado, e readotados em seguida, foram usados por uma fundação britânica em uma campanha para que os animais não sejam dados de presente de Natal, para evitar o seu abandono depois do período de festas.
→ read full articleCompassion Is Our New Currency: Notes on 2011’s Preoccupied Hearts and Minds
Rebecca Solnit - TomDispatch,
26 Dec 2011
Just look around you! This moment is so extraordinary that it has hardly registered. People in thousands of communities across the United States and elsewhere are living in public, experimenting with direct democracy, calling things by their true names, and obliging the media and politicians to do the same. The breadth of this movement is one thing, its depth another. It has rejected not just the particulars of our economic system, but the whole set of moral and emotional assumptions on which it’s based.
→ read full articleHIV Vaccine Trial Approved By FDA
CBC News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Dec 2011
Canadian-developed vaccine to start human clinical trials in January 2012.
→ read full articleWho Really Has Power In Burma?
Thelma Young – Waging Nonviolence,
26 Dec 2011
The question remains how much power does President Thein Sein actually have? Some have compared him with De Klerk or Gorbachev, and Thein Sein might genuinely want reform, but his powers are limited. Constitutionally the military still has complete autonomy in not just its own affairs, but also has vast powers over the three branches of government. “The whole constitution is based on a “wait and see” strategy: if the civilian government does what the Tatmadaw [the armed forces] wants, then it will be allowed to rule; if not, then not.”
→ read full articleMedical Journal Article: 14,000 U.S. Deaths Tied to Fukushima Reactor Disaster Fallout
PRNewswire – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Dec 2011
An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.
→ read full articleIt’s a Win-Win Situation!
Gilad Atzmon – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Dec 2011
In spite of Israel defining itself as the ‘Jewish State’, despite the fact that the warplanes that dropped their bombs on Palestinian civilians were covered in Jewish symbols, still no one was willing to openly ask exactly what Jewishness was all about or what it stood for – and those few who did dare to raise the question were subject to total abuse until they took cover or just faded away. But recently things have changed and the popularity of my book ‘The Wandering Who’ (TWW) is just one example of that clear shift in consciousness. Somehow, we have lost our fear, somehow we have found the courage to say what we know to be the truth.
→ read full articleSee you soon…
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Dec 2011
A couple from New York agreed to take a week vacation together in Florida.
→ read full articleThe Massacre Everyone Ignored: Up To 70 Striking Oil Workers Killed In Kazakhstan By US-Supported Dictator
Mark Ames – The eXiled,
26 Dec 2011
Last Friday [16 Dec 2011] in Kazakhstan, riot police slaughtered up 70 striking oil workers, wounding somewhere between 500 and 800, and arresting scores. The oil company whose workers are striking for better pay and union recognition, KazMunaiGaz, is “owned” by the billionaire son-in-law of Kazakhstan’s Western-backed president-for-life. Among Kazakhstan’s leading American partners are Chevron, whose website boasts, “Chevron is Kazakhstan’s largest private oil producer”–adding this black humor “In Kazakhstan, as in any country where Chevron does business, we are a strong supporter of programs that help the community.”
→ read full articleWhy Socialism?
Albert Einstein – Monthly Review,
26 Dec 2011
Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.
→ read full articleChristopher Hitchens: RIP
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Dec 2011
I knew Christopher Hitchens casually, envied his rhetorical fluency, abhorred his interventionist cheerleading, and was offended by his arrogantly dismissive manner toward those he deemed his inferiors in debate or discussion. Perhaps, his sociopathic arrogance is epitomized by the explanation he often gave of why he was such a heavy drinker: “I hate to be bored, and when I drink other people seem less boring.”
→ read full articleWho Was Jesus?
Johan Galtung, 26 Dec 2011 - TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Dec 2011
Jesus rejected the finance system in the Jerusalem temple, encouraged tax boycott, and had disciples-apostles from a caste known for violence. He enters with the disciples the enormous 262mx262m temple, carefully divided into sections also for non-Jews, only for Jews, also for women, only for men, only for priests and the Most Holy. He overthrew the tables of the money exchangers and seems to have propagated a very concrete political message about the Jewish people in a federally structured country, independent of Rome, with apostles as political leaders. When asked by Pontius “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus replied, “Yes, it is as you say” (Mark 15,2). INRI (Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudeorum), Jesus from Nazareth, the King of Jews they wrote ironically, but that may have been exactly how he saw himself. This is politics.
→ read full articleEconomy: Argentina Shows World How to Beat the Crisis
Marcela Valente – TerraViva Europe,
26 Dec 2011
What is happening in the European Union and the United States today happened a decade ago in Argentina, when it was a hotbed of protest and the streets of major cities were seething with people telling their leaders they had had enough. And then a new story began to be written.
→ read full article‘Alliance between Banks and Governments at the Heart of Eurozone Crisis’
Edmund S. Phelps, Nobel Economics laureate - Deutsche Welle,
26 Dec 2011
The ‘monstrous irresponsibility’ of European banks contributed to the current euro crisis, says Edmund Phelps. But at its core lies a fatal collusion between governments and banks, argues the Nobel Winner in Economics.
→ read full articleHow Freedom Became Tyranny
George Monbiot – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Dec 2011
Rightwing libertarians have turned “freedom” into an excuse for greed and exploitation. They speak as if the same freedom affects everybody in the same way, asserting their freedom to pollute, exploit, even – among the gun nuts – to kill, as if these were fundamental human rights. They characterise any attempt to restrain them as tyranny and refuse to see that there is a clash between the freedom of the pike and the freedom of the minnow.
→ read full article