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Environmental Degradation, Indigenous Resistance, and a Place for the Sciences
For roughly five hundred years, Indigenous peoples have been struggling against the dominant institutions of society, against imperialism, colonialism, exploitation, impoverishment, segregation, racism, and genocide. The struggle continues today under the present world social order and against the dominant institutions of ‘neoliberalism’ and globalization: the state, corporations, financial institutions and international organizations. Indigenous communities continue to struggle to preserve their cultural identities, languages, histories, and the continuing theft and exploitation of their land. Indigenous resistance against environmental degradation and resource extraction represents the most direct source of resistance against a global environmental crisis which threatens to lead the species to …
On Herman Wallace, California Hunger Strikers, and the Horror of Solitary Confinement
Opening the Box
Last month, we were devastated to learn that the Angola 3’s Herman Wallace had been diagnosed with liver cancer, and that he was continuing to be held in isolation in a locked room at Hunt Correctional Center’s prison infirmary. Reflecting on his confinement while battling cancer, Herman said: “My own body has now become a tool of torture against me.”
On July 10, Amnesty International launched a campaign directed at Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, calling for Herman’s immediate release on humanitarian grounds (take action here). “After decades of cruel conditions and a conviction that continues to be …
Raking Muck: WikiLeaks, Manning, and the Newer Journalism
The broad case establishes a precedent that publishing national security related information about the United States is espionage.
— Julian Assange, on Russia Today, June 2013.
The Manning Trial, with all its state-like ghastliness, the prosecution pawing and bruising those who disagree with it into submission, has thrown up a few distinct and disturbing trends. Ecclesiastes 1:9 claims there is nothing new under the sun, and we have been greeted to the predictable prosecution seeking to paint WikiLeaks as the spectre haunting global security. This is backhanded flattery of sorts – the organisation has to be seen by the security …
China’s Capitalistic Pranayama
According to many cultures, breathing is the essence of being. It is the only bodily function that we do both voluntarily and involuntarily. In yoga, the breath is known as prana or a universal energy that can be utilized to find balance between body and mind. Pranayama is the yoga practice that means control of life or energy, and it is used to change energies within the body for health purposes… unless… you live in Beijing, where regular breathing is hazardous to your health, as such, the balance between body and mind is a real challenge.
For a thousand years China …
The Moneychangers
Consumerism will cross any cultural boundary in search of the everlasting coin.
There’s a church at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 20th Street in the Flatiron District. The solid brick edifice rises impressively into the open air like so many ancient cathedrals in New York, but it is no longer a church. It is a marketplace. A festival of commerce where worshippers once kneeled. They still come, the worshippers, but they no longer bend a knee. They have swapped the Book of Common Prayer for the Pocketbook of Common Plastic. Now they come for the brand buzz. The church …
Onward Back to Feudalism
From the Tuesday July 9 USA Today Money Section: “Big investors have poured more than $10 billion into the single family home rental market in recent years… The biggest, the Blackstone Group, has bought 29,000 homes in 13 markets, 25,000 of them in the past year.” Of the top 10 cities with the highest institutional investor purchases of rental housing three are in my state of Florida (Lakeland with 29%, Miami with 22% and Orlando with 19%). So, as the subprime and “I flip, you flip” bubble bursts, the sharks move in to become like their counterparts from hundreds of …
Obama’s “Humanitarian Hawk” and Israel’s New Gladiator at the UN
In her first appearance before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Samantha Power, Obama’s pick for next U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, made clear that she will spend her time in the role much as her predecessor Susan Rice did: acting as Israel’s consummate defender, fear-mongering about Iran, and opposing any move to champion Palestinian human rights or self-determination.
Rice, who has been appointed as Obama’s National Security Adviser, has said repeatedly that the American delegation to the UN “often works in ‘lockstep’ with the Israeli delegation” and spends “an enormous amount of time defending Israel’s …
Public Prevented from Knowing about Diseased Farmed Salmon
Biologist Alexandra Morton has co-authored a journal article on a Norwegian virus entering BC; she has commissioned a film about the implications of this situation; and she has taken the Minister of Fisheries and Marine Harvest to court on this issue. Says Morton, “The unfortunate news is that from the sequence it would appear it is Norwegian, and just arrived 5-7 years ago. This means wild salmon have not felt its full impact yet. We don’t know what this virus can do to wild Pacific salmon so Twyla went to Norway to ask the experts.”
Profiting from Food Stamps, Student Loans, Unemployment
Wall Street, US Congress, Obama Cash-in
Despite being the richest country in the world, poverty remains an important social issue in the United States. All too often poverty in America is used as a political weapon by both political parties to galvanize their voting base. What is lost in the midst of such politicking is the crony connection of corporations that have positioned themselves to profit from poverty. The welfare programs we use to attempt to alleviate poverty actually play directly into the plans of companies that lobby on behalf of legislation lauded as anti-poverty programs. Rather than overcoming poverty, these programs line the pockets of …
Documents Show Undersea Cable Firms Provide Surveillance Access to US Secret State
Documents published last week by the Australian web site Crikey revealed that the US government “compelled Telstra and Hong Kong-based PCCW to give it access to their undersea cables for spying on communications traffic entering and leaving the US.”
The significance of the disclosure is obvious; today, more than 99 percent of the world’s internet and telephone traffic is now carried by undersea fiber optic cables. An interactive submarine cable map published by the Global Bandwidth Research Service is illustrative in this regard.
Since the late 1960s as part of its ECHELON spy project, the United States has been …
System-wide Demonization of Whistleblowers
I expect state and corporate media to pursue elitist interests. Therefore, when a whistleblower exposes malfeasance in the system, I expect the state/corporate media will attack the person who threatens the system that privileges the elitists. The malfeasance arising from within the system will be thrust to the margins of debate and the whistleblower will be demonized.
One might, though, expect more disinterested reporting from science-focused media and academic media. The case of Edward Snowden, US-government designated demon of the moment, reveals otherwise.
Newswise runs a headline “Agents Like Snowden Prone to Irrational Decision Making.” ((“Agents Like Snowden Prone to Irrational …
Postcard from the End of America: North Philly
The corner of Broad and Erie is the Times Square of North Philly, but instead of flashy signs pushing Kodak, Samsung, Canon or Virgin Airlines, you have stark billboards urging you to “ELIMINATE YOUR DEBT” and “REBUILD YOUR CREDIT.” On utility poles, styrofoam signs promise, “JOBS! $400-$600 PER WEEK. CALL TODAY, START TOMORROW.” Is it legit? Ring to get sucked in, or you can stock your fridge, finally, by ditching your junk wheels for “$400,” according to one flyer, or “$250-$400,” per another. The biggest billboard touts “RAND SPEAR 1-800-90-LEGAL. He Eats Insurance Companies for BREAKFAST!” …
The Military Coup in Egypt
Requiem for a revolution that never was
Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.
— Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
As the military in Egypt consolidates its putsch against the leadership and political structures of the Muslim Brotherhood, it should be obvious that the initial narrative rationalizing intervention …
Practicing Un-Medicine
Clutching a sheaf of newspaper clippings in one hand and a medical bag in the other, Dr. Franklin Peterson Comstock III, knocking down pregnant ladies, students, the elderly, and even two burly construction workers who were waiting for a bus, rushed past me, leaving me in a close and personal encounter with the concrete. Since he had given up medicine to invest in a string of service stations and an oil distributorship, I assumed what was in his medical bag was the morning’s take from obscene profits.
“Medical emergency!” Comstock cried out. “Gang way!”
“You’ve returned to medicine?” I shouted after him.
“I’m …
The Mind of B37, Guilt and Acquittal
If Juror B37 reflects the mindset of the jury, those five white and one black women made a collective decision to dismiss the actions of George Zimmerman on February 26, 2012 in their collective rush to convict Trayvon Martin. In that rainy, prematurely dark twilight, Zimmerman stalked Trayvon Martin, a young Black man walking to his father’s home during an NBA All-Stars half-time, talking to a friend on his phone, carrying some snacks for the second half of the game. They scuffled, and Zimmerman drew on Martin and killed him. In acquitting him, the jury decided Trayvon was responsible for his own death.
In the United States, …
This Land is your Land, this Land is Gas Land
The Obama Administration has proposed new regulations for hydraulic fracturing on 756 million acres of public and tribal lands. The rules were written by the drilling industry and will be streamlined into effect by a new intergovernmental task force established by the president, to promote fracking — a practice that has been linked to water poisoning, air pollution, methane emissions and, most recently, earthquakes.
Environmentalists, many of whom are highly skeptical that fracking can even be regulated, hope to use a brief window for citizen participation in the rule approval process to leverage the growing anti-fracking movement.
The Interior …
Banking on Influence With Bank of America
Global Power Project, Part 6
This July, Bank of America was expecting to report an earnings increase of 32% from last year. The Washington Business Journal declared the bank among the top 10 “most improved brands” of the year. Bank of America is the second-largest bank in the United States following JPMorgan Chase.
So why does this bank deserve such an “improved” reputation? Perhaps it’s worth looking at a little of the bank’s record for some clarity.
During the first year of the global financial crisis, which the big banks helped to create and which they profited enormously from, the government stepped in to bail out …
UK Foreign Secretary Supports Prosecution of War Crimes
“Whoever they are.”
On July 16, Foreign Secretary William Hague answered questions in the British Parliament from the Foreign Affairs Committee on Developments on UK Foreign Policy.
Ann Clwyd (Labour, Cynon Valley) whose cheerleading and misleading for the invasion of Iraq and whose numerous visits to Iraqi Kurdistan and alleged close friendship with Kurdish war lord, Jalal Talabani, led Iraqis and Iraq watchers to dub her “Mrs Talabani”, is seemingly on the war path again.
She asked the Foreign Secretary: “ … to what extent the UK government is prepared to hold the (Syrian) opposition to account, as well as Assad, for serious human rights …
On Leaks and Pseudo-Reality
The US’ Futile Search for "World Domination"
Those enchanted by pseudo-reality must have been at the edge of their seats as they watched ‘Zero Dark Thirty’, a Hollywood account of how US SEAL Team Six killed Osama Bin Laden on May 1, 2011.
But a recently leaked report shows that the ‘riveting’ Hollywood account of the ‘greatest manhunt of all time’ was hardly as glamorous as it was made to be. In fact, if it were not for the ‘shocking state of affairs’ in Pakistan itself, where local governance had ‘completely collapsed’, the raid would have been yet another botched attempt at killing a man that had been …
Riled Over Zimmerman
Self-Defense in Florida
An intelligent, self-interested observer of this case, who happens to live in Florida, would not be wrong to do as George Zimmerman did – buy a gun, master the finer points of Florida self-defense law, and then wait.
— Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic, July 14, 2013
Deliberations in the law court are one thing, often dull, often sterile. The result can be something else. George Zimmerman’s acquittal has unleashed a furious storm, though it is a complex one, riddled with overtones of race and legalism.
Among the great U.S. curses is that of race. Colour blind legal systems only belong to the land …
Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged?
The decision in the Florida murder trial of George Zimmerman is being treated as a case of racism, but while the murder itself could well have been motivated by race, the jury decision hardly needed to have been.
The crippling social disease of American racism is all too often dumped on individuals or groups or locales thereby leaving the social order relatively unquestioned and allowing certain Americans to feel free of the disease and superior to those who seem to more obviously suffer its worst aspects. Thus we have divisions of the public into “minorities” and Red state – Blue state …
America’s Most Reasonable “Unreasonable Woman” Drags Gitmo to Obama
Diane Wilson Exclusive
No one outdoes Texan Diane Wilson for unflinching, off-the-wall, over-the-fence, ingeniously brilliant protests. That insight struck me after a phone chat about her dramatic, face-to-face White House fence insurgency against relentless Guantanamo abuses. Then, for perspective, I asked her celebrated CODEPINK cohort to pinpoint Diane’s special gifts and activist standing.
“One of a kind,” says the anti-war group’s co-founder, Medea Benjamin, amazed how this “fearless, clairvoyant visionary” brings to every protest action an “enormous compassion” for those wronged by official powers. “She gets it,” Benjamin explained, “how separate parts are linked, intuitively connecting human suffering with key corporate, environmental, legal …
United States of Zimmerman
Zimmerman Case As a Metaphor for America Today
A Jury Verdict is Not the Same as Moral Judgment
The most important thing about the Zimmerman verdict is that it’s a clear demonstration of how the American legal system is only about law. It is not about justice. It is not even about the consequences of killing another person.
The verdict demonstrates that, despite the protestations of the law that it is about justice, that’s only a pretense to cover the reality: that when the law produces justice, it’s a fluke, an accident, a surprise. The law is only about the law.
And it’s no wonder, when you stop to think about …
Obama’s Promise of Open Government
"Is it naive to think Mr. Obama really believed this stuff?" YES.
Houston, The Economist “Secret government: America against democracy,” is a compelling and scary analysis of secret government in America — a nation that has become a caricature of the open government President Obama promised when he came to office.
There is nothing new about broken campaign promises. Obama, however, has taken that many steps farther. He offered us a vision in 2008 of a nation of open government, democracy operating as it was designed to operate. Reality is now so stunningly different that his maintenance of the same vision has become virtually psychotic.
When President Obama was running for office, he …
Snowden in Moscow
In the midst of its short summer, Moscow is balmy and relaxed. Sidewalks brim with tables and merry customers, even traffic jams are less severe due to holiday season. The only danger for men is the girls’ dresses, they are precariously short.
In a few days, perhaps even tomorrow, the charms and dangers of the city will be available to Edward Snowden, who is about to receive a refugee ID, allowing him to roam freely the whole length and breadth of Russia and to socialise with its folk.
It will be a nice change from Sheremetyevo International Airport, where he was marooned …
The “A” in Adjunct is little “a” for apartheid
Dog-eat-dog?
It’s Corporate-loving/protecting Dogs Eat Pomeranian — that would be them eating us
Oh, can we reconcile the stupidity, meanness, vicious dog-eat-dog nature of the average American now when it comes to assessing our education systems? These people are in high and low office, and many are on boards and many are parents with kids, and, unfortunately, many are just done-with-anything-worthy-for-society people who pronounce More-Ett-Toes (mojitos) for their muddled drinks set out on slave-labor patio furniture next to the five-gallon bucket of Doritos and dog dish bowls of goo-wok-oh-mo-lee (guacamole).
Oh, maybe they were never worthy-for-society, somehow getting the shaft in elementary school, never …
Reclaiming Our Memories
How can we face a future of climate change if we have forgotten our past?
Climate change, along with the disastrous effects it will have on the earth and humanity, is being ignored by much of society. I differentiate between the earth and humanity because many people only relate to the problems that humans might suffer, not fully understanding that what damages the earth also damages us. During the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio, media headlines were screaming “We’ve only got 20 years to save the earth!” An environmentalist dryly pointed out, “No. The earth will survive. We have 20 years to save humanity.”
But we cannot even begin to contemplate our own extinction. So …
Edward Snowden, True Hope for Change
Amid shock waves from the revelations of mass global NSA spying, the US government reaction to leaker Edward Snowden took a dramatic turn. From media smearing to overcharging him with espionage, this followed the predictable pattern of Obama’s war on whistleblowers; shooting the messengers by demonizing and discrediting them in order to kill the message or distract people from it.
This has occurred numerous times with the Obama administration with the aggressive attacks on WikiLeaks and its source Bradley Manning, as well as other NSA whistleblowers like Thomas Drake and imprisoned former CIA officer John Kiriakou.
The US government’s …