Population control is a taboo topic in most sustainability circles. It shouldn’t be. According to a University of Oregon study, childbearing is the number one carbon intensive activity. Having just one has twenty times the impact of a lifetime of carbon frugality.
How Many People Can the Earth Support?
The human species lives on a finite planet with finite resources. Growing evidence suggests we have already exceeded the earth’s carrying capacity. WHO and World Hunger data reveal our current system of industrial agriculture only feeds 84% of the global population. At present nearly a billion people (out of 7 billion) …
Ever reckon how future earthlings will sum up our whirling, unhinged, hyper-partisan dervish of an era? Nix on “Golden Age,” though even worse times ahead will inflate this era with a nostalgic glow. Forget “Renaissance” as one-third of our country considers classical, liberal humanism the menace. Too much fundamentalist shaking goin’ on, let alone the onrushing Rapture. Even so, no “Age of Faith” either as church membership plummets and god-fearing fret over impious children.
Surely “Age of Enlightenment” is out, first because the 18th C. bagged it, and second, today’s merciless scorn for evolution and climate change, let alone Birtherism, passion …
Seven of Canada’s most prized scientific libraries are being shut down and some of their contents have already been burned, thrown away or carted off by fossil fuel consultancy firms. This development is part of a Harper administration plan to slash more than $160 million in the coming years from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, or DFO — an agency charged with protecting the country’s vast waterways.
The Harper government has portrayed the move as necessary in order to reduce the country’s deficit and provide Canadians with greater access to scientific information through the Internet. But alongside the cuts, the …
African Americans More Pro-NSA, Anti-Snowden Than Whites and Hispanics
by Glen Ford / January 22nd, 2014
In yet another example of African American moral and political deterioration in the Age of Obama, a new Pew Research poll shows Blacks are more in favor of NSA spying on Americans than are whites or Hispanics. Moreover, the data indicate that Blacks are probably more likely to favor prosecution of Edward Snowden for his NSA spying revelations, than are other ethnic groups.
Back in September, polling history was made when Black Americans were more in favor of air strikes against Syria than whites and Hispanics – the first time, ever, that African Americans were ranked as the …
President Wallace Loh
Office of the President
University of Maryland
College Park, Md 20742
Dear President Loh;
I have read your response to the ASA boycott of Israeli academic institutions. In fact, if reports are correct, you said:
We firmly oppose the call by some academic associations—American Studies Association; Asian-American Studies Association—to boycott Israeli academic institutions. Any such boycott is a breach of the principle of academic freedom that undergirds the University of Maryland and, indeed, all of American higher education.
Faculty, students, and staff on our campus must remain free to study, do research, and participate in meetings with colleagues from around the globe. …
It shows a distinct lack of imagination. Therein lies a paradox of technology, and its specific application to human needs or wants: the more sophisticated it becomes, the less sophisticated it assumes humans are. If Google Glass is anything to go by, we are not merely a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but short of the picnic altogether.
Google Glass is the camera of Twitter and the profane eye of Big Brother. It renders its users augmented reality cyborgs while engaging that very reality. It is considered the neat, spare, minimalist acquisition for the busy modern tech freak using “modular …
Ariel Sharon was a serial mass murderer, engaged in massacres of unarmed victims in four countries, of all ages and conditions. He was a “hero” for hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews who settled on land and in houses seized from Palestinians in the West Bank. He was praised by Western leaders at his funeral for his violent, lifelong opposition to Arab nationalist movements throughout the Middle East. That he was a fanatical upholder of Jewish supremacist policies and practices did not go unnoticed by wealthy Zionist donors in the US. During his tenure as a senior …
In recent years, the concept and practice of sharing resources is fast becoming a mainstream phenomenon across North America, Western Europe and other world regions. The internet is awash with articles and websites that celebrate the vast potential of sharing human and physical assets, in everything from cars and bicycles to housing, workplaces, food, household items, and even time or expertise. According to most general definitions that are widely available online, the sharing economy leverages information technology to empower individuals or organisations to distribute, share and re-use excess capacity in goods and services. The business icons of the new sharing …
Is There Finally Daylight Between Israel and the US?
by Jonathan Cook / January 22nd, 2014
Things have come to a strange state of affairs when Washington regards Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s far-right foreign minister, as the voice of moderation in the Israeli cabinet.
While Lieberman has called the soon-to-be-unveiled US peace plan the best deal Israel is ever likely to get, and has repeatedly flattered its chief author, US secretary of state John Kerry, other ministers have preferred to pull off the diplomatic gloves.
The most egregious instance came last week when Moshe Yaalon, the Israeli defence minister, launched an unprecedented and personal attack on the man entrusted by President Barack Obama to oversee the negotiations between Israel …
That Iran can play an instrumental role in helping stymie the Syrian crisis is an irrefutable reality and every politically-minded person owns to the fact but what seems bizarrely inacceptable is the UN’s decision to disinvite Iran to the Geneva-II talks.
Apparently, pressure was piling up from every corner on UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon to rescind the Iran invitation. Earlier, the National Coalition had said it would pull out if the invitation to Iran was not rescinded.
Monzer Akbik, the National Coalition’s chief of staff, told the BBC’s Newshour program that Iran’s inclusion was against the promises his group had received.
Oderint Dum Metuant: “Let them hate you so long as they fear you.”
— Lucius Accius, 2nd Century, BCE).
Fear secures the rule of most despots. And when that fear erodes and hatred takes over, the despot is overthrown.
Such is likely to be the fate of Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey.
Christie is renowned as a “control freak.” Even so, as Richard Nixon learned to his sorrow, events often have a way of eventually taking control. With “Bridgegate,” events have forced the initiative from the Governor’s office into the hands of the investigating committees of the New Jersey Legislature and the …
There’s a scene in Lee Daniel’s The Butler when the son of Forest Whitaker’s character is sitting in the Lorraine Motel with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., shortly before his assassination. Dr. King asks those assembled, “How many of your parents support the war?” All the young men gathered in the room raise their hands, and in one sentence King summarizes that his opposition to the war is because the Vietnamese do not prejudice blacks. There is something insidious in this scene, unintentional by the director, no doubt. It is the reproduction of the simplification myth of Dr. King the …
1. The integration of Greece into the EU is the real cause of its catastrophic crisis
The almost complete destruction of the lower classes in Greece is not due to the causes usually attributed to it by the “Left”. ((See the recent book by two members of the SYRIZA leadership, (one of them a member of Parliament representing the party), Christos Laskos and Euclid Tsakalotos, Crucible of Resistance: Greece, the Eurozone and the World Economic Crisis, (Pluto Press, Sept. 2013).)) In fact, contrary to the misleading “explanations” provided by this Left and the Right alike, the actual cause is the …
Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. … A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.
Most Americans know Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as one of the twentieth century’s most revered voices for racial equality, the charismatic leader of the American Civil Rights movement, who gave the famous “I Have A Dream” speech. Perhaps they even know a thing or two about his role in the MontgomeryBus Boycott and the Birmingham Campaign. This knowledge by and large derives from compulsory education and mainstream media. It is significantly less likely, however, that very many Americans know much at all, if anything, about King’s radical and controversial activities related to the issues of poverty …
The mutilation happened in an isolated corner in Myanmar. A Buddhist mob have recently hacked more than a dozen Muslim women and children with knives, a horrendous crime which the activists in the country put a lid on.
The carnage of the Muslims has been going on for years now with the international community gradually waking up to the horror of the human tragedy.
A new era could be dawning, and the history of capitalism will, thusly, need to undergo revisionism. As a result, there will be joyous celebrations within the canyons of Wall Street. Here’s why: Profit may be crowned a King.
The level of excitement is already registering in consecutive new highs for the Dow Jones Industrial Averages.
Yes, a coronation worthy of Louis XIV of France (1638-1715) “the Sun King,” who successfully increased the influence of the crown by establishing authority over the church and the aristocracy, thereby consolidating absolute monarchy in France.
The upcoming coronation (maybe) of King Profit, therefore, shall be the …
Unlike the Europeans, Americans have never hated the rich, only envied them.
— Gore Vidal
Given our reputation, it’s puzzling and demoralizing why more Americans don’t root for the underdog. On second thought, maybe it isn’t puzzling. Maybe that reputation was little more than self-serving, textbook propaganda taught to school children. Still, it’s hard to reconcile. After all, rooting for the underdog—having empathy for the “little guy”—has always been presented as a component of our national character.
But that empathy seems to be sorely lacking today. And nowhere is it more apparent than in the public’s understanding and appreciation of labor unions. Instead …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / January 19th, 2014
The White House is calling January “TPA (Trade Promotion Authority) Month” and has made it their task to pass Fast Track. President Obama needs Fast Track to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). When Congress returned this month, a bill was quickly introduced after delays of more than a year.
The lies begin with title of the bill: “The Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities Act of 2014.” Bi-partisan? In the House there was only one sponsor, Republican David Camp (MI). The Republicans demanded the Democrats add a sponsor before it was introduced, but due to public pressure, they could not find one.
1. “The State — A Product of the Irreconcilability of Class Antagonisms”
Lenin begins by remarking that the great leaders of oppressed humanity are reviled and hated by the rulers of the day but after their deaths attempts are made “to convert them into harmless icons.” Martin Luther King was reviled in his day as a troublemaker because of his civil rights work and as a traitor because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. Now he has schools named after him and his birthday is a national holiday. His fiery rhetoric against racism and imperialism forgotten. Malcolm X has suffered …
The 1970s and 1980s are often disparaged by commentators and historians as years of narcissistic, cocaine-fueled times of political ennui and right wing resurgence. While there is certainly an element of truth to this perception, there are certainly other perspectives that are equally valid. Unfortunately for today, these perspectives have been mostly left out of the narrative. Even in the more complete popular histories of the period, like Bruce Shulman’s The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society and Politics, tend to accept this context.
One important exception to this standard is Max Elbaum’s exploration of the New Communist Movement, …
American nuclear officials are wary of Japan’s new nuclear push
Official Japanese policy on nuclear power has swung full circle since the Fukushima disaster of 2011 – from avidly pro-nuclear power then, to rejecting nuclear power as too dangerous, and now back to avidly pushing on to re-start old reactors and build new ones. Adding the chronic secrecy and denial of the nuclear industry to such politically-driven indecision making, Japan has created a funhouse of distorting mirrors from which emerging information about the on-going Fukushima disaster cannot be considered credible without reliable, independent verification. Reliable and credible information about …
Somalia has become a breeding ground for Washington’s black operations since 2001, with the African country suffering human losses due to US hegemonic policies.
Only recently, it has been revealed that the US secretly deployed two dozens of troops under the guise of military advisors. It is naïve to think that the US has no ulterior motives other than giving advisory clues to the military men in Somalia or protecting the security of the African people.
In 1993, the US embarked on a military expedition dubbed Operation Gothic Serpent in Somalia under the pretext of eliminating a Somali warlord, an operation which …
The first thing you notice about Texas in 2014 is there are some new sheriffs in town and they’re not male or Caucasian. Electorally speaking, they’re female and/or Hispanic. Women and Hispanics may not have been beating down the door for the role because they were busy as bees, making inroads, building careers, bringing home the bacon, raising kids, etc., etc. But a nefarious assemblage commonly referred to as the ruling class (or Good Ol’ Boys Club) has kicked the proverbial beehive one too many times and now it’s likely to pay.
Imagine a 1,160 square mile ice sheet (equivalent in size to Los Angeles, Dallas plus Chicago), which had been stable for thousands of years, suddenly collapsing and crumbling into thousands of icebergs within weeks.
It happened in Antarctica, and the message therein challenges humankind to beware of its own devices, i.e., burning fossil fuels for energy.
A team of researchers from the University of Chicago and Princeton lead by Alison Banwell, ((Alison Banwell, et al., Breakup of the Larsen B Ice Shelf Triggered by Chain Reaction Drainage of Supraglacial Lakes, Geophysics Research Letters, 40, 5872-5876, DOI: 10.1002/2013GLO57694.)) may have cracked the …
by The Real News Network (TRNN) / January 17th, 2014
Jessica Gonzalez who leads the National Hispanic Media Coalition’s legal and policy work: As US Court of Appeals rules against net neutrality, internet service providers will restrict access for communities of color.
Scholar John Gerassi recalls in one of his books a meeting that took between Jean-Paul Sartre and Herbert Marcuse in a Paris café at the height of the 60s student movements of the 1960s. As a member of the professorate for the past 15 years, I have been thinking about these two philosophers a great deal lately, and how far we have retreated from the educational goals and values of that era. Some of the pedagogical and curricular reforms of that era have been severely watered down, or in some cases abandoned altogether. This has led me to wonder if …
Seven months of shale gas resistance in New Brunswick
by Miles Howe / January 17th, 2014
K’JIPUKTUK (HALIFAX) — In early June, I walked with Suzanne Patles from Eskasoni First Nation and two Mi’kmaq women from Elsipogtog First Nation along Highway 126 near Harcourt, New Brunswick. People told us not to go, not to approach the seismic testing trucks; that people had been arrested earlier in the day; that there would be trouble.
I knew Patles, to some degree, as a shy and hesitant person but highly intelligent. At Millbrook First Nation, earlier in March, I had watched her read from prepared documents as Shelly Young and Jean Sock starved themselves in an attempt to get the …
Canadian rock legend Neil Young has taken to the road with a mission. Sunday night, he laid down the gauntlet on national TV, calling the Canadian government “completely out of control” as he began his “Honour the Treaties” tour in Toronto. His goal is to help First Nations in their fight against the expanding oilsands projects in Alberta. To the government, “Money is number one. Integrity isn’t even on the map.”
Honour the Treaties is a series of benefit concerts in Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina and Calgary to raise money to support the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) in their …
