Articles by RD
We found 3631 results.
Trump Pardons Blackwater Contractors Jailed for Massacre of Iraq Civilians
Michael Safi | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Dec 2020
23 Dec 2020 – Donald Trump has pardoned four security guards from the private military firm Blackwater who were serving jail sentences for killing 14 civilians including two children in Baghdad in 2007, a massacre that sparked an international outcry over the use of mercenaries in war.
→ read full articleEmbrace Communities to Save Humanity and the Planet
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Dec 2020
The unbounded idea includes sharing surplus, moving resources from where they are not needed to where they are needed, following the ancient principle Pope Francis is repeating every day: our property belongs not only to us but also to those we can help with our surplus. It is about peace by peaceful means; education, ethics, and practical applications; more than about playing hardball with people who choose to live by a different philosophy.
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What Time Is It in Lockdown?
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Dec 2020
24 Dec 2020 – Here where I dwell in the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice has just occurred. The darkest day of the year in a dark year. A few days ago was also the Grand Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn and the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, which is interesting to those who like the musical Hair and believe their fates lie in the stars and not in themselves.
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What Went Right in 2020: The Top 20 Good News Stories of the Year
Lucy Purdy | Positive News magazine - TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Dec 2020
22 Dec 2020 – It’s been a year like no other. As challenging as 2020 has been, the past 12 months have also seen big wins for the environment, society and culture, human rights – and even health. Read on for 20 stories of progress that got hidden behind the headlines in 2020.
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(norsk-Norwegian) Nedrusting må begynne hjemme
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Dec 2020
Vi ruster opp og bruker nærmere 100 milliarder bare på F-35-jagerfly. USAs og våre militære ledere anser Russland som en potensiell fiende. Den erfarne forskeren Richard Falk mener at global nedrustning neppe er mulig å få til før USA avruster sin egen, tungt bevæpnede befolkning.
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Palestine Legal: Please Support & Donate
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Dec 2020
18 Dec 2020 – Palestine Legal’s work is necessary not only for those of us involved in work for Palestinian human rights, but for anyone who believes in preserving space for open political debate and upholding our rights to protest, which are sacred elements of any genuine constitutional democracy. Needless to say, Palestine Legal’s work will remain urgently necessary under the next U.S. administration.
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Will China Run the World? Should It?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Dec 2020
14 Dec 2020 – Responses to interview questions from Javad Heiran-Nia on ‘World Order in the Time of COVID-19,’ with emphasis on China & United States, especially as reflected in the restructuring of the world economy. The underlying issue is whether the Chinese or U.S. approach to global policy and world order will gain the upper hand, and at what costs to humanity.
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Trump Is Spending the Last Days of His Presidency on a Literal Killing Spree
Austin Sarat | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Dec 2020
15 Dec 2020 – In disregard for political precedent or basic humanity, Trump is turning the anger and resentment which burnishes his brand into a virtually unprecedented string of fast-tracked federal executions before Biden takes office.
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Move of Rohingya Refugees Poses Environmental and Human Rights Concerns
Tina Gerhardt | EcoWatch - TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Dec 2020
18 Dec 2020 – On December 4, about 1,600 Rohingya traveled across the Bay of Bengal in seven navy boats from Chattogram to Bhasan Char. Bangladesh plans to move 100,000 families to the island. The move poses serious concerns, both with regard to the environment and human rights.
→ read full articleMurdering Nuclear Scientists Does Not Prevent Proliferation–A Nuclear Free Middle East Does
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2020
Interview published in the Tehran Times on 2 Dec 2020. Fakhrizadeh’s assassination cannot be legally and politically justified by any acceptable theory governing the use of force in international relations and has very negative implications as an international precedent.
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The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Empire
Tom Engelhardt | TomDispatch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2020
1 Dec 2020 – Or What It Means to Fall on a Failing Planet
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Qatar: Between the Scylla of Coercion and the Charybdis of Accommodation: An Inquiry into Sub-Regional Geopolitics
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2020
11 Dec 2020 – Qatar is caught between seeking the end of the coercive diplomacy led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE and not wanting to end its necessary cooperation with Iran, especially with respect to large maritime natural gas deposits. The efforts at accommodation can turn out to be either a lessening of a confrontational approach to Iran or its intensification.
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(Português) O que é ser, de fato, pró-vida?
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2020
10 dez 2020 – Magali Cunha é jornalista e professora universitária e escreve com paixão e com-paixão pelas vítimas das continuadas violência aos direitos humanos, especialmente, de inocentes crianças das periferias de nossas cidades. Neste dia 10 celebramos 72 da proclamação solene da Declaração dos Direitos Humanos da ONU
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Partly Truth and Partly Fiction – Totally Genius: Kris Kristofferson
Edward Curtin | Behind the Curtain – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2020
While great songs usually take but a few minutes to travel from the singer’s mouth to the listener’s ears, they keep echoing for a long time, as if they had taken both singer and listener on a circular journey out and back, and then, in true Odyssean fashion, replay the cyclic song of the shared poetic mystery that is life and death, love and loss, the going up and coming down, the abiding nostalgia for a future home.
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(Italiano) La sofferenza degli animali selvatici e il dilemma dei vegani
Jordi Casamitjana | Centro Studi Sereno Regis – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2020
10 Dicembre 2020 – L’etica vegana è per definizione anti-specista, così la definisce la Vegan Society. Per cui lo sfruttamento degli animali è inammissibile in tutte le sue forme, non solo quelle relative all’alimentazione. I vegani non hanno ancora raggiunto un accordo sul come affrontare la sofferenza degli animali selvatici, non sottoposti al diretto controllo degli esseri umani.
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Why Are Palestinians Being Forced to Prove Their Humanity?
Mohammed El-Kurd | +972 Magazine - TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2020
3 Dec 2020 – What is happening has a clear name: ethnic cleansing. Over the last few months, the Israeli Court of Jerusalem has ruled to displace at least 12 Palestinian families in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah — including mine. Our homes, at any minute, might be taken by squatters backed by police. If your oppressor is the judge, to whom do you complain?
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To Force Climate Action, We Need More Than Just Protests
Edward Carver | Jacobin Magazine - TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2020
11 Dec 2020 – Two years ago, the Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion both captured media attention through bold direct action. Since then, Sunrise has combined protest with political work challenging fossil-fuel interests. XR and other groups tepid about electoral politics should do the same.
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Warp Speed Ahead: COVID-19 Vaccines Pave the Way for a New Frontier in Surveillance
John W. Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2020
1 Dec 2020 – Like it or not, the COVID-19 pandemic with its veiled threat of forced vaccinations, contact tracing, and genetically encoded vaccines is propelling humanity at warp speed into a whole new frontier—a surveillance matrix—the likes of which we’ve only previously encountered in science fiction.
→ read full articleImportance of the “Practice-Research-Training” Nexus in Peacebuilding
Abbas Aroua | Cordoba Peace Institute Geneva – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2020
Peacebuilding, the equivalent of medicine in “social health”, benefits highly from this scheme to improve its approaches and tools and to be more effective and impactful. In fact, the development of peace studies in the last seven decades was grounded on the “practice-training-research” triad.
→ read full article(Português) O Cotidiano, a Fantasia e o Carisma
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2020
2 Dez 2020 – Nós viemos do útero comum donde vieram todas as coisas, da Energia de Fundo, daquele oceano sem margens, do big bang, do bóson Higgs que originou o top-quark, o tijolinho material mais primordial do edifício cósmico, passando por todas as fases da evolução até chegarmos ao computador atual e à inteligência artificial. E somos filhos e filhas da Terra. Melhor, somos a Terra que anda e dança, que freme de emoção e pensa, que quer e ama, que se extasia e adora o Ser que faz ser todos os seres.
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Robodoc: How India’s Robots Are Taking on Covid Patient Care
Kalpana Sunder | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2020
2 Dec 2020 – The pandemic has spurred on robotics companies building machines to perform tasks in hospitals and other industries.
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The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Empire
Tom Engelhardt | TomDispatch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2020
1 Dec 2020 – Donald Trump was the messenger from hell when it came to a falling empire on a failing planet. Whether, on such a changing world, the next empire or empires, China or unknown powers to come, can rise in the normal fashion remains to be seen. As does whether, on such a planet, some other way of organizing human life, some potentially better, more empathetic way of dealing with the world and ourselves will be found.
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Listening to the Silence with Don DeLillo
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2020
5 Dec 2020 – In 1997, Don DeLillo, the author of seventeen novels, published what many consider his masterpiece, Underworld. It was a prophetic book in many ways, especially with its focus on the World Trade Towers and the way the book’s cover, front and back, pictured the towers shrouded in smoke or clouds with what seemed like a large bird approaching it at its upper floors.
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Unspeakable Memories: The Day John Kennedy Died
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Nov 2020
23 Nov 2020 – There is a vast literature on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who died on this date, November 22, 1963. Unless one is a government disinformation agent or is unaware of the enormous documentary evidence, one knows that it was the U.S. national security state, led by the CIA, that carried out JFK’s murder. Confirmation of this fact keeps arriving in easily accessible forms for anyone interested in the truth.
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Study Finds Meatpacking Plants Were Responsible for 8% of Coronavirus Cases in Opening Phase of Pandemic in the US
Cordell Gascoigne | WSWS - TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Nov 2020
27 Nov 2020 – A recent study by Charles Taylor of Columbia University, and Christopher Boulos and Douglas Almond of the University of Chicago, found that outbreaks at meatpacking plants were responsible for 8 percent of all COVID-19 cases in the USA during the early months of the pandemic.
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Pompeo’s Diabolical Diplomacy
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Nov 2020
29 Nov 2020 – This interview, devoted to Pompeo’s three-day visit to Israel and Occupied Palestine, was conducted by Eshrat Mardi and published in the Tehran Times Interview Nov. 28, 2020.
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Remembering Robert Fisk
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Nov 2020
15 Nov 2020 – ‘Remembering Robert Fisk’ is the text of an interview conducted by Daniel Falcone, and published below on Nov. 9, 2020 in Counterpunch. There is one insertion mentioning Seymour Hersh as a fourth journalist in this style of exceptional devotion to the courage and craft of truth telling in place of danger or where transparency is obscured by state secrets.
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An Invitation to Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Nov 2020
16 Nov 2020 – The following is the Introduction to my new book, Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies. I offer it here as an invitation to consider joining me in the book so we may seek together. In putting together this selection of essays, I was reminded of what Albert Camus once wrote: “A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.”
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How the U.S. Military Buys Location Data from Ordinary Apps
Joseph Cox | Vice/Motherboard - TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Nov 2020
16 Nov 2020 – The U.S. military is buying the granular movement data of people around the world, harvested from innocuous-seeming apps, Motherboard has learned. A Muslim prayer app with over 98 million downloads is one of the apps connected to a wide-ranging supply chain that sends ordinary people’s personal data to brokers, contractors, and the military.
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A Comic Display of Geopolitical Subservience: Mike Pompeo’s Visit to Israel
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Nov 2020
22 Nov 2020 – On the entirely inappropriate and distasteful visit of the U.S. Secretary of State to Israel for three days. For me the entire event was a grotesque occasion of national embarrassment from start to finish. Even the most dimwitted imperialist would know better than to declare Pompeo’s subservience to Israel in these scary words: “Israel is everything we want the entire Middle East to look like going forward.”
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Robert Fisk of The Independent Has Died and Journalism Is Poorer
Robin Edward Poulton, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Nov 2020
Most of the borders of the modern Middle East were created by the British, French and Americans after WWI, by splitting up the Ottoman Empire. How many people discussing politics and elections in the pubs of US or UK understand that vital fact?
→ read full articleDemilitarization Begins at Home
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Nov 2020
In my view, until the American people are fully disarmed as a matter of law, reinforced by political sentiment, it is foolhardy to expect global demilitarization. The same worldview that exaggerates security threats to overinvest in the military, despite abundant evidence of the disastrous failure of militarist foreign policies in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, is what gives political traction to the powerful gun lobby that has a potency with politicians that seems to exceed even what the Zionist lobby is able to achieve.
→ read full articleReaching 90 in 2020
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Nov 2020
Note from TMS editor: Richard Falk and his friends around the world celebrated his 90th year on 13 Nov 2020.
Happy Birthday dear Richard! Thank you for existing.
Peace Proved to Be Possible, Even after Thirty Years of Cambodian Civil War
Robin Edward Poulton, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Nov 2020
As proponents of Peace Journalism in a world of wars and conflicts, a conflict resolution and disarmament success story is a precious commodity. Cambodia at the turn of the Millennium provided such a story.
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Interpreting the U.S. Election Results: Preliminary Observations
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Nov 2020
9 Nov 2020 – The victory by the Biden/Harris ticket is basically good news for the country and the world, although not as good as expected. And there is some bad news, as well, lurking just beneath the surface. Not only the strength of Trumpism in America, but the likely drift toward the center-right of the Biden presidency.
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Making Sense of Hunger Strikes and Symbolic Politics
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Nov 2020
12 Nov 2020 – My essay speaks to the hunger strikes as political resistance of a sublime character, and at the same time to the selective silence of the Western media when it comes to heroic moments in the Palestinian struggle
→ read full articleElections 2020: Everybody Knows the Fight Was Fixed
Edward Curtin | Behind the Curtain – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Nov 2020
11 Nov 2020 – Who is winning the battle, the people or the ruling elites? The answer is obvious. It matters not at all whether the president has been Trump or Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, Barack Obama or George H. W. Bush, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, or Jimmy Carter. The power of the national security state has grown under them all and everyone is left to moan and groan and wonder why.
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The UN Institute for Disarmament Research-UNIDIR Is 40 Years Old
Robin Edward Poulton, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Nov 2020
Happy Birthday UNIDIR! Yes, it is 40 years since French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing created it. Disarmament does not just happen! It requires a great deal of hard work and patience as you persuade armed rebels or armed governments to give up their arms, to immobilize them or even destroy them.
→ read full articleInterview on U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Nov 2020
2 Nov 2020 – A momentous test of whether the Trump challenge to constitutional democracy will be decisively repudiated by the American people and whether Republicans will mount a perverse challenge via the judicial system. The system is structurally rigged against democratic values by enabling Trump to be reelected via the anachronistic Electoral College even if he loses the popular vote by 5,000,000 or more.
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U.S. Presidential Elections: The Triumph of Neo-Tribalism
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Nov 2020
Tribalism is what happens when competing social groups identify themselves as peoples or “nations,” with each group embracing a narrative that expresses a commonly accepted version of its history, grievances and destiny. Political party affiliation is now as strong as religious identity. “You’re not going to change your religion if somebody tells you that Moses didn’t actually have the Ten Commandments.” It also helps to explain why conflicts formerly framed as differences over public policy tend to be reframed in terms of the defense of some threatened way of life.
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Medical Ignorance and the Mass Murder of Coronavirus Patients
W. Gifford-Jones, MD | Orthomolecular Medicine News Service - TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Nov 2020
20 Oct 2020 – I would not have the knowledge to write this article if one event in my life had not happened. At 74 years of age I nearly died of a serious heart attack. Doctors said I’d be dead in a few years without the help of cholesterol-lowering drugs. Now, 22 years later, the doctors who told me I’d be dead in a few years without cholesterol-lowering drugs are dead, and I’m in my 97th year, still alive.
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Why Gratitude Is Good for Us – And Five Ways to Practise It This Winter
Lucy Purdy | Positive News - TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Nov 2020
27 Oct 2020 – For many, this coming winter is tinged with sadness or anxiety. Science shows that, while it’s no fix-all, nurturing gratitude can help by shifting our attention to what’s positive.
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The Politics of Hunger Strikes
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Nov 2020
28 Oct 2020 – During my six years as UN Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine, I found disturbing the silence of the Western media about Palestinian hunger strikes, especially when these extreme expressions of nonviolent resistance were in reaction to prison confinement by Administrative Detention decrees, that is, without charges or any show of incriminating evidence.
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UK Massive Syria Propaganda
Robin Edward Poulton – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Oct 2020
20 Oct 2020 – Dear Antonio, it was satisfying to read Ben Norton’s exposé of the NATO propaganda machine in Syria. How right he is! A recent analysis posted on TMS of press reports in Swiss and Austrian media, showed that 80% come from AP, AFP or Reuters: our ‘free’ press is not free of bias. Thank you to TMS for keeping us all informed about the truth, while Western media supply NATO’s ‘alternative facts’ to the general public.
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‘It Affects Everything’: Hawaii Residents Demand Transparency over Pearl Harbor Munitions Storage
Jon Letman | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Oct 2020
22 Oct 2020 – A munitions storage complex being planned by the US army along the West Loch section of Pearl Harbor near densely populated Hawaiian neighborhoods to help counter Chinese influence in the Pacific is running into local opposition.
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The Public Sector Cannot Solve Our Problems–Their Hands Are Tied
Tshepiso Moahloli via Howard Richards - TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Oct 2020
I work for the government and not a single day goes by when I do not hear the same cries of alarm. You are going to scare away investors! Every day we are warned that anything we do for the good of the 99% is going to scare off investors.
→ read full articleA Gathering Global Storm
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Oct 2020
24 Oct 2020 – This is my chapter contribution to The Great Awakenkng: New Modes of Thinking Amid the Ruins of Capitalism (2020) edited by Anna Grear & Davd Bollier. My text is preoccupied with the decline of the state as an efficient problem-solving instrument in a period where global scale challenges are generating an ethical-ecological-bio crisis.
→ read full articleBig Pharma Is Not Willing to Help Us Defeat COVID-19
Nick Dearden | Al Jazeera - TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Oct 2020
18 Oct 2020 – To efficiently deal with the pandemic and keep everyone safe, we first need to transform the pharmaceutical industry. TRIPS extended Western-style patent protections across the whole world, allowing the business to sit on patents for a minimum of 20 years, during which time they are able to dictate who can use their creations and at what price.
→ read full articleSelectively Unwalking the Path of History
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Oct 2020
I would like to help you out. Which way did you come in? Unwalking the historical path that led us to where we are, we humans should seize the day, carpe diem. We should transition to the day when humans will spend their time doing intrinsically valuable activities (sports, music, science, philosophy, dance, religion, studies, gardening , yoga, etc.) while advanced technology produces more and better goods and services, and creates more surplus to share.
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This Is My Message to the Western World – Your Civilisation Is Killing Life on Earth
Nemonte Nenquimo | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Oct 2020
12 Oct 2020 – We Indigenous people are fighting to save the Amazon, but the whole planet is in trouble because you do not respect it.
→ read full articleVitamin C Cuts COVID Deaths by Two-Thirds
Patrick Holford | Orthomolecular Medicine News Service - TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Oct 2020
13 Oct 2020 – Twice Nobel Prize winner Dr Linus Pauling proved the power of high dose vitamin C in the 1970’s. It is thanks to him we know about the benefits of high dose vitamin C. The cover of his landmark book “Vitamin C and the Common Cold” has a statement that reads, “It is especially important that everyone know that he can protect himself to a considerable extent against the disease, and its consequences, with this important nutrient, vitamin C.” It’s been 50 years since Pauling proved the anti-viral power of vitamin C. Isn’t it time we took this seriously?
→ read full articleTo Rebel against Necessity and More
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Oct 2020
“I am convinced that it would be a waste of time to show a people of intimidated slaves a different manner of speaking, a different manner of gesticulating; but perhaps it would be worthwhile to show them a different way of living. No word and no gesture can be more persuasive than the life, and if necessary, the death of a man who strives to be free, loyal, just, sincere, disinterested: a man who shows what a man can be.” Che Guevara did that. Now it’s up to us.
→ read full articleWhy Biden Must Win: It Is Not about Democracy, It’s about Fascism
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Oct 2020
8 Oct 2020 – Interview with Iranian Journalist Javad Heiran-Nia on U.S. Elections: “What is the most important issue affecting the upcoming US presidential election? (Economy; Foreign Policy; Domestic Policy; etc.)”
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The Plot Against Gretchen Whitmer Shows the Danger of Private Militias
Mary B. McCord | The New York Times - TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Oct 2020
8 Oct 2020 – In the swirls of disinformation that now pollute our political discourse, one is particularly dangerous: that private militias are constitutionally protected. These groups have no constitutional right to exist.
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Revealed: Key Assange Prosecution Witness Is Part of Academic Cluster That Has Received Millions from UK and US Militaries
Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis | Declassified UK, Daily Maverick - TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Oct 2020
2 Oct 2020 – One of the US prosecution’s key medical witnesses in the Julian Assange hearing, who claimed that Assange’s risk of suicide is ‘manageable’ if extradited to the US, works for an academic institute that is funded by the UK Ministry of Defence and linked to the US Department of Defence, it can be revealed.
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Should Iran Be Concerned about the U.S. Elections?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Oct 2020
30 Sep 2020 – This interview was published by Mehr News Agency on 27 Sept 2020 in Tehran. It addresses questions that arise for foreign societies seeking to comprehend the spectacle of the 2020 US national elections. The outcome of the Trump/Biden struggle is, of course, of particular concern to Iran.
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Why Anarchism Is Dangerous
Dana Ward and Paul Messersmith-Glavin | Anarchist Agency - TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Oct 2020
30 Sep 2020 – Anarchists frighten privileged elites and their authoritarian followers not simply because the primary goals of the movement have been to abolish the sources of elite power – the state, patriarchy, and capitalism – but because anarchism offers a viable alternative form of social and political organization grounded in workplace collectives, neighborhood assemblies, bottom-up federations, child-centered free schools, and a variety of cultural organizations operating on the basis of cooperation, solidarity, mutual aid, and direct, participatory democracy.
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The Death of Andre Vltchek, a Passionate Warrior for Truth
Edward Curtin | Behind the Curtain – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Sep 2020
24 Sep 2020 – For decades, Andre Vltchek, an old-school journalist and artist (but a young man) who traveled the world in search of truth and who always stood up straight, tried to revolve the world and encourage people to revolt against injustice. In this age of arm-chair reporters, he stood out for his boldness and indefatigable courage. He told it straight.
→ read full articleUAE/Bahrain Normalization with Israel: Peace or Geopolitics?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Sep 2020
23 Sep 2020 – the willingness to endorse these normalization agreements in the White House setting was a dramatic expression of identification with Trump’s regional diplomacy in the Middle East and a formalized repudiation of Palestinian aspirations for a sustainable peace based on their inalienable right of self-determination.
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Iconic Deaths and What They Mean: George Floyd and Ruth Bader Ginsberg
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Sep 2020
26 Sep 2020 – 2020 is a year that will be remembered for its many distinctive features—the global reach and lethality of the COVID pandemic, worldwide protests against racism, and likely, to come, the outcome and aftermath of an American presidential election with likely severe worldwide reverberations. Yet one of the least conceptualized aspects up until now is the occurrence of two very different iconic deaths. By according an iconic status to an individual’s death is to acknowledge its historic impact.
→ read full articleTrump Induced Normalization Agreements with Gulf Monarchies: Is This What Peace Looks Like?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Sep 2020
18 Sep 2020 – Two interviews based on the normalization agreements between Israel and two Arab countries, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which are being perceived from a variety of angles depending on the agendas of the various political actors. In the present context it seems a win for Israel and Trump, and a loss for the Palestinians and Iran. However,…
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(Português) A Fábula da Águia e da Galinha
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Sep 2020
Era uma vez um camponês que foi à floresta vizinha apanhar um pássaro, a fim de mantê-lo cativo em casa. Conseguiu pegar um filhote de águia. Colocou-o no galinheiro junto às galinhas. Cresceu como uma galinha.
→ read full articleThe End of Reality?
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Sep 2020
So, if you feel you also may be going insane in the present climate of digital screen life, where real is unreal but realer than real, the apparent is cryptic, and up is down, true is false, and what you see you don’t, it has a history. One hundred and thirty-two years ago, Nietzsche added that “something extraordinarily nasty and evil is about to make its debut.” We know it did.
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Africa’s Catastrophic Covid Response
Ian Birrell | UnHerd - TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Sep 2020
11 Sep 2020 – As Covid-19 began to sweep across the planet earlier this year, the warnings about the disease’s impact on Africa were terrifying. The World Health Organisation predicted ten million cases within six months, raising the horrifying prospect of fragile health systems becoming overwhelmed with corpses piled up in hospital corridors.
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Facial Masking for Covid-19 — Potential for “Variolation” as We Await a Vaccine
Monica Gandhi, M.D., M.P.H., and George W. Rutherford, M.D. | The New England Journal of Medicine - TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Sep 2020
8 Sep 2020 – As SARS-CoV-2 continues its global spread, it’s possible that one of the pillars of Covid-19 pandemic control — universal facial masking — might help reduce the severity of disease and ensure that a greater proportion of new infections are asymptomatic. If this hypothesis is borne out, universal masking could become a form of “variolation” that would generate immunity and thereby slow the spread of the virus in the United States and elsewhere, as we await a vaccine.
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Vaccine-Derived Polio Spreads in Africa after Defeat of Wild Virus
Peter Beaumont | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Sep 2020
2 Sep 2020 – A new polio outbreak in Sudan has been linked to the oral polio vaccine that uses a weakened form of the virus. News of the outbreak comes a week after the World Health Organization announced that wild polio had been eradicated in Africa.
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Dengue Breakthrough after Mosquitoes Laced with Natural Bacteria
Rebecca Ratcliffe | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Sep 2020
27 Aug 2020 – Infecting mosquitoes with a naturally occurring bacteria dramatically reduces their ability to transmit dengue, according to a breakthrough study that could pave the way to eliminating the disease.
→ read full article
A Conversation at the Edge of the Human Future
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Sep 2020
12 Sep 2020 – I am posting below a long interview with Konrad Stachnio on wide-ranging questions, which stretched by knowledge past its breaking point, especially in assessing where the technological innovations on the horizons will lead us. It is one of 17 conversations published by Clarity Press under the title, Civilization in Overdrive: Conversations at the edge of the Human Future.
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How Philanthropy Benefits the Super-Rich
Paul Vallely | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Sep 2020
8 Sep 2020 – There are more philanthropists than ever before. Each year they give tens of billions to charitable causes. So how come inequality keeps rising?
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Facts vs. Feelings: How to Stop Our Emotions Misleading Us
Tim Harford | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Sep 2020
10 Sep 2020 – The pandemic has shown how a lack of solid statistics can be dangerous. But even with the firmest of evidence, we often end up ignoring the facts we don’t like.
→ read full articleGlobal Governance after the COVID Pandemic
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Sep 2020
31 Aug 2020 – In making conjectures about global governance in the post-COVID-19 era, it is important to be both cautious and clear. Cautious because there are many uncertainties. Clarity is equally important, especially drawing clear lines between what is expected and feasible, what seems necessary, and what is desirable but not likely attainable.
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Operation Condor: The Cold War US Conspiracy That Terrorized South America
Giles Tremlett | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Sep 2020
3 Sep 2020 – During the 1970s and 80s, eight US (Henry Kissinger)-backed right wing military dictatorships jointly plotted the cross-border kidnap, torture, rape and murder of hundreds of their left wing political opponents. Now some of the perpetrators are finally facing justice.
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Three Years since Their Genocide Began, the Rohingya Remain Desperate for Help
Editorial Board | The Washington Post - TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Sep 2020
13 Aug 2020 – The Rohingya Muslims three years after 750,000 of them were terrorized and torched out of their homes by Myanmar’s security forces and forced into miserable camps in Bangladesh. Using the word ‘genocide’ won’t bring the Rohingya home. But it will serve as a reminder to [Nobel Peace laureate] Aung San Suu Kyi – and to the world – of what happened.
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Covid Vaccine Rush Could Make Pandemic Worse, Say Scientists
Sarah Boseley | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Aug 2020
30 Aug 2020 – The rush to immunise populations against Covid-19 could lead to the rollout of a vaccine that is not very effective and risk worsening the pandemic, leading scientists have said. Experts say strong evidence of efficacy needed to avoid approval of inferior vaccines.
→ read full articleCan the U.S. Democracy Be Fixed?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Aug 2020
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, attention was redirected to the market-driven economy. With the support of both political parties, the U.S. Government focused on making the world safe for predatory capitalism, ‘the Washington consensus’ or more politely, ‘neoliberal globalization.’ This version of Marxist materialism encouraged consumerist orgies and the militarists required an enemy for continuing with wartime military budgets and restoring their self-esteem as guardians of national and global security.
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Palestinians Stage Surprise ‘Thank You’ Event for Banksy in Bethlehem
Jessie McDonald | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Aug 2020
21 Aug 2020 – Photographs of works go on display in Manger Square to celebrate British street artist’s contribution to diversifying tourism.
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‘Chasing the Light’ by Oliver Stone
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Aug 2020
26 Aug 2020 – Like the wandering and rascally Odysseus upon whom he models his life, Oliver Stone is “double-minded” in the most profound and illuminating ways. The title of his fantastic new memoir is a case in point. “One of the first basic lessons in filming,” he writes, “is chasing the light.
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These Poems
June Jordan | Academy of American Poets - TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Aug 2020
These poems
they are things that I do
Send in the Clowns for the Circus Is in Town
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Aug 2020
21 Aug 2020 – Trump, Biden, Pence, Harris, and their clownish sidekicks, Pompeo, Michelle Obama, et al., are performing daily. The Umbrella People run a three-ring circus, and although their clowns pop out of separate tiny cars and, acting like enemies, squirt each other with water hoses to the audience’s delight, raucous laughter, and serious attentiveness, they are all part of the same show, working for the same bosses. Sadly, many people think this circus is the real world and that the clowns are not allied pimps serving the interests of their masters, but are real enemies.
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(Português) Como o Crime Organizado Tem Explorado Benefícios Concedidos a Igrejas para Operar Seus Negócios Ilegais
Rebekah Ward, Beatriz Muylaert, Matthew Albasi e Giannina Segnini | Agência Pública – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Aug 2020
16 ago 2020 – Paraísos de Dinheiro e Fé – Investigação realizada por veículos de dez países descobriu que, amparados nas leis de liberdade de culto, algumas igrejas e líderes religiosos nas Américas abusam da confiança de seus fiéis e cometem crimes como lavagem de dinheiro e fraude.
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This Pandemic Brings Out the Worst in Our CEOs
Jim Hightower | Other Words - TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Aug 2020
12 Aug 2020 – Last year, CEOs signed a pledge to be better corporate citizens. Then the pandemic hit. As horrible as the COVID-19 crisis is, it has brought out the best in the American people. But it has also amplified the “me-first” greed of corporate chieftains.
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Modi’s Brutal Treatment of Kashmir Exposes His Tactics – And Their Flaws
Arundhati Roy | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Aug 2020
At midnight on 4 August 2019, phones in Kashmir went dead and internet connections were cut. On 5 August 2019, a year ago today, 7 million people were locked into their homes under a strict military curfew. Up to 10,000 people, from young children and teenage stone pelters to former chief ministers and major pro-India politicians, were arrested and put into preventive detention, where many of them still remain. On 6 August, a bill was passed in parliament stripping the state of Jammu and Kashmir of its autonomy and special status enshrined in the Indian constitution. It was stripped of statehood, downgraded into two union territories, Ladakh, and Jammu and Kashmir. Ladakh would have no legislature and would be governed directly by New Delhi.
→ read full article(Norsk) Politiet skyter, men det er systemet som dreper
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Aug 2020
Erkjenne rasisme? Ja! Mindre penger til politiet? Visselig. Men ingenting av dette vil få undertrykte lokalsamfunn dit de ønsker, med mindre USAs kapitalistiske orden blir endret eller rettet mot å tilfredsstille menneskelige behov.
→ read full articlePreliminary Report of Chinese High Dose Vitamin C for Covid-19 Treatment Studies
Richard Z. Cheng, M.D., Ph.D. | Orthomolecular Medicine News Service - TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Aug 2020
16 Aug 2020 – Covid-19 has caused more than 700,000 deaths and USD$86 trillion economic losses worldwide in just over half a year! And yet, there are still no specific drugs or treatments that the top medical advisors (medical agencies) in US are willing to recommend. Really? No specific treatments for Covid-19?
→ read full articleNuclear Complacency and the Dangerous Drift toward a New Cold War with China
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Aug 2020
22 Aug 2020 – I am increasingly worried by the either/or quality of the U.S. November elections that effectively suppresses concerns about a bipartisan drift toward a second cold war focused on China as geopolitical adversary that will be confronted.
→ read full articleTransformation: The Impact of the COVID-19 Plague on Western Political Attitudes
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Aug 2020
A silent revolution in political attitudes is taking place in response to Covid-19. To maintain that the pandemic of 2020 and its aftershocks have very likely inflamed existing social and cultural conflicts by no means forecloses the possibility that, by shaking up existing systems of governance, they have also created new opportunities for effective conflict resolution.
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While Israel Celebrates a New Peace Accord, Palestinians Once Again Lose
Jonathan Freedland | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Aug 2020
14 Aug 2020 – Who could be against an announcement of peace between two nations formally at war? Netanyahu may have agreed to halt annexation of parts of the West Bank, but the UAE has ensured the occupation itself is normalised. With this deal, it has signalled that Israel can remain an occupier, closing off the possibility of Palestinian self-determination, and still win regional acceptance.
→ read full articleInterpreting the UAE/Israel Agreement on Suspending Annexation
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Aug 2020
16 Aug 2020 – Responses to interview questions from Javad Heiran-Nia, an Iranian journalist, on the UAE/Israel Normalization/Annexation Agreement of Aug. 13, 2020.
→ read full articleThe Last of the Zoroastrians
Shaun Walker | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Aug 2020
6 Aug 2020 – A funeral, a family, and a journey into a disappearing religion.
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Lebanon: A Proposal
Robin Edward Poulton, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Aug 2020
14 Aug 2020 – Lebanon today is like Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge: the solution for Cambodia was to abandon everything and to start over. During 1993–following the Paris Peace Accord–the United Nations took over Cambodia and ran the country for one year.
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BREAKING: Israel Bombed Beirut
Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam תיקון עולם - TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2020
4 Aug 2020 – Exposure: Israel blew up a Hezbollah ammunition depot in the port of Beirut, but did not know in advance that a nearby warehouse contained a huge amount of ammonium nitrate. The government, overwhelmed by the scale of the carnage and destruction, was quick to deny Israeli involvement – even before anyone in Lebanon blamed Israel.
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‘Floating Bomb’: How the Beirut Blast Was Predicted
Michael Safi, Andrew Roth and Martin Chulov | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2020
6 Aug 2020 – The Lebanese prime minister on Tuesday [4 Aug] blamed the explosion on 2,750-tonne store of ammonium nitrate, a chemical used in bombs and fertilisers, stored at the port. Media reports from 2014 claimed a vessel carrying that load was impounded at Beirut’s after making an emergency stop in the city and being denied permission to leave by customs authorities because it was deemed unseaworthy. In a letter published by a journalist, the ship was described as “a floating bomb and the crew is a hostage aboard this bomb.”
→ read full articleTrumpism: What Will 2020 Bring?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2020
8 Aug 2020 – During the height of the Cold War when it was viewed as disloyal and compromising to show a sympathetic interest in Marxism or sympathies with Soviet ideology, someone at the U.S. military base at Frankfurt distributed to the soldiers stationed there, a handwritten version of the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments of the U.S. Constitution, in the form of petition.
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Theoretical Note: John Maynard Keynes vs. Milton Friedman
Prof. Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Aug 2020
The thesis of this note is that what is most important about Keynes was that he called attention to staggering features of the basic structure, namely the chronic insufficiency of effective demand and the chronic insufficiency of the inducement to invest. What is most important to extrapolate from Keynes survives the falsification of some of his empirical claims.
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Mental Illness
Khalil Bendib | Other Words - TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Aug 2020
What’s wrong with me, Doc?
→ read full articleA Solution to Keynes´ Problem
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Aug 2020
Don´t leave anybody high and dry, bored, and hungry, tempted to join a gang to have fun being bad! Homo sapiens should transition to the day when humans will devote themselves to fun and funded intrinsically worthwhile activities –sports, music, science, philosophy, dance, religion, scholarship, gardening, yoga and so on—while advanced technology produces more and better goods and services, and creates more surplus to transfer.
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With John Lewis in Stockholm 1969
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Aug 2020
1 Aug 2020 – Moved by the iconic recognition of John Lewis’ exceptional courage and perseverance on behalf of human rights, nonviolence, and opposition to American militarism, I recall a weekend spent together in Stockholm. We were the two invited American speakers at a conference opposing the American War in Vietnam.
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(Français) Amérique Latine en Résistance: Pandémie, Sanctions et Elections
Jessica Dos Santos et Ricardo Vaz | Investig'Action - TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2020
20 Juil 2020 – Un pays « normal », dans des conditions « normales », pourrait importer de la nourriture, des médicaments, des carburants et tout ce qui était nécessaire, dans un système hégémonique où les vertus du « marché libre » sont exaltées. De la même façon, un pays normal dans des conditions normales n’aurait aucun problème à exporter du pétrole ou toute autre matière première demandée sur le marché mondial.
→ read full articleIs the United States a Failing State? A Failed State?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2020
22 Jul 2020 – To ask whether the United States, the world’s dominant military power, is ‘a failing state’ should cause worldwide anxiety. Such a state, analogous to a wounded animal, is a global menace of unprecedented proportions in the nuclear age. Its political leadership is exhibiting a reckless tendency of combining incompetence with extremism. The November elections will send a strong signal as to whether the United States is failing or has failed.
→ read full articleMasked, Homeless, and Desolate
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2020
Fear and obedience oozes from them. Death walks the streets with people on leashes in lockstep. That they have been the victims of a long-planned propaganda campaign to use an invisible virus to frighten them into submission and shut down the world’s economy for the global elites is beyond their ken. This is so even when the facts are there to prove otherwise.
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