The world is experiencing a massive loss of insects. In turn, this threatens ecosystems with utter total collapse, and, by way of direct association, loss of human civilization. Zap, it’s over! Insectageddon!
Insect populations around the world are under massive attack and dropping like… well… like flies. The negative implications run very deep, indeed, especially for the foundation of ecosystems, and thus for the survival of all life. Ironically, insect death equivalence becomes human extermination as ecosystems crumble. It’s already happening, and the evidence is compelling, in fact, overwhelming. What can be done has no ready answers, although begrudged solutions are …
It’s the season to be jolly, and the Trump administration has been busy doling out gifts. Sanctions seem to be top of the pile, derived from that trove of options outlined in the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. The law, initially introduced in 2012, targets the bank assets of those unfortunate enough to make it to the US Treasurer’s list.
“Today,” went the US Treasury press release, “the Trump administration launched a new sanctions regime targeting human rights abusers and corrupt actors around the world.” As is the nature of Trumpist language, every executive order to expand existing legislation …
How Soldiers with Newly Attuned Consciences Almost Stopped a War
by Gary G. Kohls / December 24th, 2017
…and the ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame;
And on each end of the rifle we’re the same”
— John McCutcheon, “Christmas in the Trenches”
103 years ago this Christmas something happened near the beginning of the “War to End All Wars” that put a tiny little blip of hope in the historical timeline of the organized mass slaughter that is war.
The event was regarded by the professional military officer class to be so profound and so important (and so disturbing) that strategies were immediately put in place that would ensure that such an event could …
Today, December 19, 2017, the US Congress voted for A Trillion dollars in tax cuts for corporations and the rich, but no money for train safety.
Yesterday, six people were killed, scores injured as a train jumps tracks and crashes in Washington state, December 18th, 2017. The train had no positive train control system.
Remember the Metro-North Railroad Hudson Line passengers’ train derailed December1, 2013- killing 115 passengers, and injuring another 61. It was caused by a Lack of safety controls.
Remember the Amtrak Northeast Regional train that derailed in Philadelphia May12, 2015- killing 8 and injury over 200, 11 injured critically. It …
Seoul — Atrocity tourism and what might be termed the tourism of divisive obstacles (fences, barbed wire, mine fields) can be great money earners. Former concentration and extermination camps in Europe bring in currency even as visitors shake with stunned grief and moral disturbance – tears and foreboding as valuable currency.
In South Korea, the money earner is the Demilitarised Zone, shortened to the seemingly innocuous DMZ. Euphemised in such a manner, and one can forget the tens of thousands of helmeted men who gaze at each other at border points, or the thousands of artillery pieces in concealed spaces waiting …
"Outlaws trying to dictate the law" used gutter tactics to threaten UN member states that dared "disrespect" America's crazed foreign policy
by Stuart Littlewood / December 23rd, 2017
As if Trump’s crass announcement moving the US embassy to Jerusalem wasn’t enough, his minions on Monday vetoed a UN Security Council draft resolution calling on the President to withdraw US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Even his hand-in-hand friend Theresa May, another pimp for Israel, is against him in this. “On Jerusalem, I made it clear that we disagree with the United States’ decision to move its embassy and recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital before a final status agreement,” she declared. “Like our EU partners, we will not be following suit, but it is vital that we continue …
This is our anti-poaching/animal slaughter anthem. It’s almost Christmas 2017 and nearly every iconic animal on Earth is in dire straights. To their survival we give this gift, please get involved, donate $1.00 to World Wildlife Fund and tell them we sent you.
On May 2, 2017, before becoming Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, as Minister of Defense, spoke about the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen, a war he orchestrated since March of 2015. “A long war is in our interest,” he said, explaining that the Houthi rebels would eventually run out of cash, lack external supplies and break apart. Conversely, the Saudis could count on a steady flow of cash and weapons. “Time is on our side,” he concluded.
Powerful people in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Sudan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Morocco, Senegal and Jordan have colluded with Saudi Arabia’s Crown …
I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus. Christmas is coming, but I’m not happy. I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel.
? Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Christmas
I keep waiting to encounter the “kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant” Christmas-time environment that Charles Dickens describes in A Christmas Carol: “when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”
Instead, every time I read a news headline or flip …
A change in Quantity also entails a change in Quality.
? Friedrich Engels
No one can define or measure justice, democracy, security, freedom, truth, or love. No one can define or measure any value. But if no one speaks up for them, if systems aren’t designed to produce them, if we don’t speak about them and point toward their presence or absence, they will cease to exist.
? Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer
If it seems self-serving and pedestrian to chronicle my own slice of heaven called Working as a Precariat USA, then so be it. I have …
The effects of humankind-created Climate Chaos are proving to be more devastating than even the most grim predictions. Wealth inequity is worse than in the Gilded Age. The US empire wages perpetual war, hot and cold, overt and covert, including military brinksmanship with the nuclear power, The Russian Federation.
Speaking of the latter, the US media retails a storyline that would be considered risible if it was not so dangerously inflammatory; i.e., L’affaire du Russia-gate, wherein, according to the lurid tale, the sinister Vladimir Putin, applying techniques from the Russian handbook for international intrigue, Rasputin Mind Control For Dummies, has wrested …
‘Drain the swamp’ was a popular Donald Trump campaign slogan that referred to reducing the influence of Washington lobbyists. While the three words reflect an extreme lack of ecological consciousness — wetlands need to be protected and recreated, not destroyed — the image of politicians slogging their way through lobbyist infected, tangled, dense vegetation and deep oozing mud is a useful one.
Like the US capital, much of Ottawa was also built on mosquitoes’ favourite habitat and both cities today have an ongoing pest problem: blood sucking influence peddlers swarming the countries’ decision makers. That image helps explain why there is …
America was born in the womb of war, has never stopped warring, and her fate will most likely be to die in the arms of war. Her warring addiction has been passed down from one generation to the next as her very few power elite have instigated war for self-serving purposes.
Would it be an exaggeration to say that precisely because of America’s corpocracy and its unbroken history of power elites (i.e., captains of industry and Wall Street, influential politicians, and influential members of the military and the deep state) that America is the most evil and destructive nation in the …
(Image credit Banksy) The holiday period provides us with a unique opportunity to express the new awareness that must inform a less commercialised and more sharing-oriented world. Rather than spending all our time partaking in conspicuous consumption, why don’t we commemorate Christmas by organising massive gatherings for helping the poor and healing the environment?
*****
At this time of year, our overconsuming lifestyles in the affluent Western world are impossible to ignore. Brightly-lit shops are bursting with festive foods and expensive indulgences, while seasonal songs play in the …
Congress created individual retirement accounts (IRAs) in 1974. Four years later it added 401(k)s. A third variety, Roth IRAs, won approval in 1997. Together the accounts dominate America’s private retirement system.
Today we’re a hugely unequal society. Updating our private system could reduce inequality, and help make the golden years golden for all Americans.
Let’s begin with the millions of workers we’re not even giving a chance:
The 1974 bill aimed to provide a workplace retirement plan for all private-sector employees not otherwise covered. Forty-three years later over 70 million workers, mostly low- to middle-income, still lack a workplace option.
??Traditions of the Winter Solstice
Christmas is an ancient feast that has many positive associations for people around the world. While the bible places the birth of Christ in Bethlehem it does not say when, but by the 4th century the Churches in the East were celebrating it on January 6 and the Churches of the West on December 25.
One thing is certain about Christmas is that it is rooted in many traditions and superstitions relating to nature that existed long before Christmas …
Jesus is too much for us. The church’s later treatment of the gospels is one long effort to rescue Jesus from ‘extremism.’
— Gary Wills, What Jesus Meant
The Christmas narrative of a baby born in a manger is a familiar one.
The Roman Empire, a police state in its own right, had ordered that a census be conducted. Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary traveled to the little town of Bethlehem so that they could be counted. There being no room for the couple at any of the inns, they stayed in a stable, where Mary gave birth to a baby boy, …
Let it Fall: L.A. 1982-1992 (2017), a documentary film written and directed by John Ridley and released on Netflix, has participants in the ’92 L.A. riot give a history of police brutality and racist attitudes towards Black people by the South Central store owners and cops, along with recounting events of the riot, and, of course, the police give their version. I found it dubious that the official position of the police blamed the massive destruction, arson, and deaths of 48 people on the decision of the precinct/district lieutenant to retreat in order to save their own lives. Chief Gates …
America’s history is rife with discrimination. When Europeans came to America, the native people had large populations and well developed societies and agriculture. The Europeans did not understand their cultures, their religions or their languages. Nor did they want to. The Europeans had better technologies, so the natives were considered savages, something less than people, unpeople. Historians have used the term unpeople to describe the indifference developed societies have for the lives of their victims for many years. The American indigenous people were just something to be disposed of, and they were.
Black Africans were the next unpeople in America. Their …
The task of setting free one’s gifts was a recognized labor in the ancient world….the spirit that brings us our gifts finds its eventual freedom only through our sacrifice, and those who do not reciprocate the gifts of their genius [daemon, personal spirit that comes to us at birth] will leave it in bondage when they die.
– Lewis Hyde, The Gift
In a capitalist culture of commodification, people have been reified and things reanimated. Our national artists – the advertisers – have mastered this trick. People become persons through things, or the things images can secure; things possess a life of …
Unfortunately, the hope for peace and justice on earth and goodwill to all seems to be receding with each passing year. US politicians, particularly the neo-cons and neo-libs in Washington DC, seem to respond with a bah, humbug to this desire. These neo-folks, like other Americans, are people who have not directly experienced the ravages, destruction and killing of war here and are thus all too quick to ignore diplomacy. Instead they resort to the military in response to challenges, whether they are real or manufactured.
There are a number of potential flash points where, if the situation is mishandled, the …
Within hours after Akayed Ullah, a Bangladeshi immigrant, allegedly detonated a pipe bomb in New York City on December 11, severely injuring himself and wounding four others, a most comprehensive official and media narrative emerged.
The formulation of the narrative concerning Ullah’s motives, radicalization and assumed hate for the US was so immaculate, one would have thought it took authorities months, not hours to compile such demanding evidence.
Strangely, Ullah’s own family was surprised by the accusation concerning their son.
However, the exact nature of what truly happened matters little. Not only was Ullah instantly found guilty by the media, all …
When President Trump on 6 December 2017 declared unilaterally Jerusalem as the capital of Israel to where the US Embassy shall relocate, he violated UN Resolutions, international law, common sense and went against all diplomatic efforts to eventually bring peace to the region, not to speak about 130 countries that have already voiced opposition to such a decision. And this, before the Peace Process is coming to an end, at which point the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords would play out. They are also called the Road Map for Peace, between Palestine and Israel, which foresees a two-state solution and accordingly …
It is tempting to interpret the announcement of a delay, however brief, in US vice-president Mike Pence’s visit to the Middle East this week as the ultimate travel warning. It follows an eruption of regional unrest over Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
During protests on Friday, Israeli occupation forces killed four Palestinians and injured more than 250.
US officials, however, are not worried about the safety of Mr Pence, who is due in Israel on Wednesday. In fact, predictions of a third Palestinian uprising in response to Mr Trump’s Jerusalem declaration may be premature.
Imagine a world where politicians are bought and sold, not by corporations, but by religious activists hell-bent on policing your sex life. A world where thought crimes are punishable under the law.
This dystopian world is currently being pursued by the GOP under the guise of “tax reform”.
The biggest problem with the Republican tax plan has nothing to do with taxes.
There are many causes for concern in regards to the financial aspects of the GOP’s tax reform bill.
According to the non-partisan CBO report, the bill increases the national debt by 1.7 trillion dollars over the next decade.
Pesticide suicide refers to toxic chemicals mucking up the health of animals, plants and insects. This worldwide causatum may be totally out of control or maybe not; nobody knows for sure. Therein lies the scary part.
However, what is known is not encouraging:
Industrial toxins are now routinely found in new-born babies, in mother’s milk, in the food chain, in domestic drinking water worldwide… Humans emit more than 250 billion tonnes of chemical substances a year, in a toxic avalanche that is harming people and life everywhere on the planet. ((“Scientist Categorize Earth as a Toxic Planet”, Phys Org, February 7, 2017.))
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?
— Mahatma Gandi, 1869-1948
When the UN was established on 24th October 1945, little over five months after the end of World War 11, the organization’s stated aims were to prevent further devastating conflicts. In spite of the fact that 193 out of the world’s 195 nations are Member States, it has failed woefully.
The US alone has been involved, since the UN’s founding, in fifty-seven overt murderous meddlings, …
Being a moralist in the Olympics doesn’t carry you very far. Turn one way, and there are enterprising drug cheats; turn another, there are wads of cash in envelopes finding their inexorable way to an official’s accounts. The challenge of the Olympics is, in a fundamental way, a challenge of institutional decay, ruination and sport as profit.
Having the International Olympic Committee banish a state from a competition that is itself compromised is a truly tall order. It reeks, by its nature, of falsely applied judgment. In the case of the Russia ban for the Winter Olympics to be held …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / December 17th, 2017
Ajit Pai, the former Verizon lawyer who is chair of the FCC, went too far last Thursday in undermining the Internet when he led the dismantling of net neutrality rules. As a result, he has fueled the energy needed to protect Internet rights. It is time for Movement Judo, where the energy created by the overreach of the FCC is turned into energy not just to overturn the FCC’s decision, but to also create the Internet we need in the 21st Century.
Over the past few months, there has arisen an epic mass mobilization in support of net neutrality and national …
On December 11, in response to the growing humanitarian crisis in Yemen, more than 50 concerned people, including representatives of various peace, justice and human rights organizations and communities, gathered in New York City’s Ralph Bunche Park, across First Avenue from the United Nations. Our message, which was communicated on signs and banners and by speakers addressing the rally, was simple and direct: end the war crimes being committed by the military of the United States along with Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners abetted by the US and end the blockade of Yemeni ports.
