The pressure of an all-powerful totalitarian state creates an emotional tension in its citizens that determines their acts. When people are divided into "loyalists" and "criminals" a premium is placed on every type of conformist, coward, and hireling; whereas among the "criminals" one finds a singularly high percentage of people who are direct, sincere, and true to themselves-Czesław Miłosz
All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior
man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him. If
it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to protect the man who
is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it
be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is inferior in every
way against both. One of its primary functions is to regiment men by
force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one
another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them.
All it can see in an original idea is potential change, and hence an
invasion of its prerogatives. The most dangerous man to any
government is the man who is able to think things out for himself,
without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost
inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under
is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he
tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very
apt to spread discontent among those who are.
H. L. Mencken
Hactivist Faces 100 Years, You Are What You Eat, Surveillance: Modern Internment
http://www.democracynow.org
- A David versus Goliath case heard by the Supreme Court this week pits
a 75-year-old farmer from Indiana against Monsanto, the world's largest
seed company. The dispute began when soybean farmer Vernon Bowman
bought and planted a mix of unmarked grain typically used for animal
feed. The plants that grew turned out to contain the popular
herbicide-resistant genetic trait known as Roundup Ready that Monsanto
guards closely with patents. Monsanto accused Bowman of using their
technology without paying for it. Their contracts with farmers give them
the exclusive rights to supply the Roundup Ready soybeans. They sued
Bowman for patent infringement. We discuss the case with Debbie Barker,
program director of Save Our Seeds, and international director of the
Center for Food Safety.
To watch the entire weekday independent
news hour, read the transcript, download the podcast, search our vast
archive, or to find more information about Democracy Now! and Amy
Goodman, visit http://www.democracynow.org.
Save Dr. King's Dream Act - Supreme Court to Hear Case to End Voting Rights Act
Marijuana is the third most popular
recreational drug in America (behind only alcohol and tobacco), and
has been used by nearly 100 million Americans. According to government
surveys, some 25 million Americans have smoked marijuana in the past
year, and more than 14 million do so regularly despite harsh laws
against its use. Our public policies should reflect this reality, not
deny it.
My single pair of eyes Contain the universe they see; Their mirrored
multiplicity Is packed into a hollow body Where I reflect the many, in
my one.
--Stephen Spender
Too frequent rewards indicate that the general is at the end of
his resources; too frequent punishments that he is in acute distress.
"The wealth gap between blacks and
whites has ballooned since the middle of the Reagan administration,
nearly tripling between 1984 and 2009, according to a new Brandeis
University study.
Published on Feb 27, 2013
"Sean Hannity got an earful from
Democratic congressman Keith Ellison on his Tuesday show. Ellison
exploded at the Fox News host, calling him "the worst excuse for a
journalist I've ever seen."
Pedophilia & Corruption: Will next Pope stop Catholic hell?
Published on Feb 28, 2013
Nearly 90 million Mexicans profess to being Catholic and will be closely watching who is chosen to lead the Church.
Highway 61 Revisited is the sixth studio album by the American singer-
songwriter Bob Dylan, released in August 1965. Having until then
recorded mostly acoustic music, Dylan used rock musicians as his backing
band on every track of the album, except for the closing 11-minute
ballad, "Desolation Row". Critics have focused on the innovative way in
which Dylan combined driving, blues-based music with the subtlety of
poetry to create songs that captured the political and cultural chaos of
contemporary America. Leading with the single "Like a Rolling Stone" (a
top-10 hit in several countries), the album features songs that Dylan
has continued to perform live over his long career, including "Ballad of
a Thin Man" and "Highway 61 Revisited". He named the album after the
major North American highway connecting his birthplace, Duluth,
Minnesota, to southern cities famed for their musical heritage,
including St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans. The album, which peaked
at No. 3 in the United States charts and No. 4 in the United Kingdom,
was ranked No. 4 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
"Like a Rolling Stone" was listed at No. 1 on Rolling Stone's 500
Greatest Songs of All Time list.
-The
role of climate change in the development and disintegration of classic
Maya civilization from AD 300 to 1000 has been controversial for
decades because of the absence of well-dated climate and archaeological
sequences.
In a recent article, scientists
present a precisely dated, high resolution regional climate record for
the past 2000 years that for the first time shows how the Maya political
systems developed and disintegrated in response to climate change.
Since
2009, companies have announced new oil palm plantation projects in the
Congo Basin covering a total area of 1.6 million hectares. Projects
currently underway cover 500,000 hectares. A new report by Rainforest
Foundation UK warns that vast areas of the Congo Basin forests are
potentially threatened by the expansion of oil palm plantations. The
[...] [...]
For
too long the church has been becalmed in the backwaters of a dying age,
frightened by the swift waters of the new age coming into being. The
church has for too long structured its life for survival rather than
mission. The church must set its sail and move into the mainstream of
life in the revolutionary world where every structure and form is called
into question. The church must pattern its life in ways designed to
make possible obedience to Christ regardless of institutional survival.
The slogan, quoting Che, reads: “The
life of a single human being is worth, but millions of times more, than
all the properties of the richest man on earth.”
Published on Feb 27, 2013
Can Cannabis cure cancer? Today we are joined by Rick Simpson to discuss the all natural alternative options to chemotherapy.
The Cannabis Cancer Cure with Rick Simpson
Published on Feb 27, 2013
This sequester drama they building up is political theater it has no bearing on the real economic collapse headed our way.
Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/StormCloudsGathering
In his 2012 State of the Union address, President Obama pledged that he
would initiate a task force that would lead broad investigations into
the financial crisis, and the widespread financial fraud that led to it.
One year later: nothing. It's time to ask what happened:
bit.ly/telluswhathappened
By Jo MacLean
That Cuba has already developed four vaccines or inoculations against different types of cancer is without doubt important news for humanity. The World Health Organisation says each year about 8 million people die from this illness.
However, the international mainstream media have almost totally ignored this news.
Last year, Cuba patented the first therapeutic vaccine against advanced lung cancer in the world, called CIMAVAX-EGF. In January, the second one, called Racotumomab, was announced.
Clinical testing in 86 countries shows that these vaccines, although
they don’t cure the illness, do managed to reduce tumours and allow for a
stable stage of the illness, thereby increasing hope and quality of
life.
The Molecular Immunology Centre of Havana, a Cuban state organisation, is the creator of all these vaccines.
In 1985 it developed the vaccine for meningitis B, the only one in the world, and later others that fight hepatitis B and dengue. For years, the centre has been conducting research to develop vaccines against AIDS-HIV.
The other Cuban state-run centre, Laboratories LABIOFAM, has developed homeopathic medicine for cancer such as VIDATOX,
created from the blue scorpion’s venom. Cuba exports these medicines to
26 countries, and takes part in joint companies with China, Canada, and
Spain.
All of this goes against the well-enforced stereotype, reinforced by
the media silence regarding advances achieved by Cuba and other global
south (so-called Third World) countries, that vanguard medical research
takes place only in so-called developed countries.
Undoubtedly, the Cuban state obtains an economic benefit from the
international sale of these pharmaceutical products. However, its
philosophy of investigation and commercialisation is diametrically
opposed to the business practices of the large pharmaceutical industry.
Nobel Prize for Medicine winner Richard J Roberts recently denounced
the pharmaceutical industry for orienting its research not to curing
illnesses, but to developing medicine for chronic ailments, which is
much more economically profitable.
Roberts suggested the illnesses that are particular to poorer
countries, because of their low profitability, simply are not
researched. That is why 90% of the budget for research is aimed at
illnesses suffered by 10% of the world’s population.
Cuba’s public medicine industry, even though it is one of the main
sources of foreign currency for the country, is guided by radically
different principles.
In the first place, its research is aimed at, in a large part,
developing vaccines that prevent illnesses and as a consequence, reduce
the population’s spending on medicine.
In an article in the prestigious magazine Science, researchers from Stanford University (California), Paul Drain and Michele Barry, said Cuba has better health indicators than the United States, despite spending up to 20 times less on the sector.
The reason for this is the absence, in the Cuban model, of commercial
pressures and encouragement by pharmaceutical companies, and a
successful strategy of educating the population about preventative
healthcare.
Furthermore, traditional and natural therapies, such as herbal
medicine, acupuncture, hypnosis and many others — practices that are not
very profitable for the makers of medicine — have been integrated into the free public health system of the island for years.
Also, in Cuba, medicine is distributed via the national public
hospital network as something that is either free or highly subsidised,
thanks to the income from exporting it.
The Cuban medicine industry also barely assigns any of its budget to
publicity. In the case of the multinationals, publicity spending is
higher than what they invest in actual research.
Finally, Cuba promotes the production of generic medicine. These are
made available in other poor countries and to the World Health
Organisation at much lower prices than those offered by the global medicine industry.
But these measures, removed from market rules, generate a lot of pressure from the pharmaceutical industry.
Recently, the Ecuadorian government announced it would buy a large
number of medicines from Cuba in exchange for scholarships for
Ecuadorian students to study in Cuba and for the support provided by
Cuban specialists in .
Protests against the move by the Ecuadorian Association of Pharmaceutical Laboratories were immediately converted into a media campaign, spreading the message of the supposed bad quality of Cuban medicine.
On the other hand, many analysts see the international pharmaceutical
industry as being behind the coup in Honduras in 2009. The elected
government of Manuel Zelaya, in the framework of agreements made within
the Cuba- and Venezuela-founded Bolivarian Alliance for the People of
Our Americas to which Honduras then belonged, aimed to substitute Cuban generic medicine for imports from multinationals.
The US blockade against Cuba imposes big obstacles to the
international commercialisation of Cuban pharmaceutical products, but it
is also directly detrimental to US citizens. For example, each year the
80,000 diabetics in the US who suffer the amputation of their toes
don’t have access to the Cuban vaccine Heperprot P, which would prevent such amputations.
The Chemistry Nobel Prize winner Peter Agre recently said: “Cuba is a magnificent example of how scientific knowledge and research can be integrated.”
Irina Bokova, general director of UNESCO, said she was impressed by Cuba’s scientific achievements and her organisation is willing to promote them to the rest of the world.
The inevitable question is, will she count on the essential
collaboration of the international mainstream media to spread this
information?
[Original can be found at www.cubainformacion.tv. Translated for Green Left Weekly by Tamara Pearson.]
"Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed." - Friedrich Nietzsche
"There are two different types of people in the world, those who want to know, and those who want to believe." - Friedrich Nietzsche
"The
snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which
are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Italy Elections: Euro Limbo, No Privacy with Smart Meters, Don't Sequester Me Bro
From Corporate Funders to Access for Donors, Does Obama Still Care About Campaign Finance Reform?
Published on Feb 27, 2013
Julianna Forlano speaks with economist Richard Wolff about the myth of wealthy people being "Job Creators".
You Should THANK Every Apathetic Person You Meet
Should Unions Tear a Page From Clicktivism Playbook?
Labor unions should be wary of the short-termism of many online activism sites.
February 27, 2013 |
In the last half-decade a number of new online campaigning platforms
have emerged, inspired in large part by MoveOn – the progressive
American online campaigning group launched back in the Clinton era.
MoveOn, which now claims seven million supporters, has spun-off a
number of similar platforms including Avaaz (a global version of
MoveOn), SumOfUs (like Avaaz, but completely focussed on corporate
misbehavior), 38 Degrees (a UK version of MoveOn), and GetUp (the
Australian version).
In addition, there are commercial organizations like Change.org, which charge fees to campaigners who wish to keep the email addresses of their supporters.
These organizations have become the subject of a vigorous debate in campaigning circles around the notion of “clicktivism”.
Some seasoned campaigners have argued that people taking a few
seconds to click on a link in an email message hardly constitutes
“activism” and is no substitute for more traditional forms of
engagement.
Malcolm Gladwell, the acclaimed author of “The Tipping Point”, took
on the clicktivists in a long article for “The New Yorker” in October
2010.
Online campaigning, he wrote, is “a form of organizing which favors
the weak-tie connections that give us access to information over the
strong-tie connections that help us persevere in the face of danger. It
shifts our energies from organizations that promote strategic and
disciplined activity and toward those which promote resilience and
adaptability. It makes it easier for activists to express themselves,
and harder for that expression to have any impact. The instruments of
social media are well suited to making the existing social order more
efficient. They are not a natural enemy of the status quo.”
Gladwell’s words – especially regarding “organizations that promote
strategic and disciplined activity” – should resonate inside trade
unions.
Unions are in it for the long haul and aspire to big
changes – unlike the short-term, superficial approach of some of the
clicktivists. (more)
How is America Threatened by Iran?
By Pat Buchanan
Iran
has no missile that can reach us, no air force or navy that would
survive the first days of war, no nuclear weapons, no bomb-grade
uranium from which to build one.
The Power to Assassinate a Compliant and Submissive People
By Jacob G. Hornberger
The
president doesn't want to alarm Americans by informing them that he
now wields the power to assassinate anyone he wants, including
Americans here in the United States.
The US Government Has Constructed a Ubiquitous Surveillance State
By Glenn Greenwald
The
Obama DOJ just succeeded in convincing the five right-wing members of
the Court to allow it to conduct its Surveillance State beyond the rule
of law.
Billions For Wall Street, Sacrifice For Everyone Else
By Richard Eskow
We're
collecting nothing from the big banks in return for our generosity.
Instead we're demanding sacrifice from the elderly, the disabled, the
poor, the young, the middle class - pretty much everybody, in fact, who
isn't "too big to fail."
If
Labor and community groups united in a demand of 'No Cuts, Tax the
Rich' and organized massive mobilizations, there would be a very
different public debate happening right now.
Can
we just put aside ideology for one minute and agree that businesses
hire more workers if they have more customers, and fire workers if they
have fewer customers?
The Norwegian Prison Where Inmates Are Treated Like People
By Erwin James
On
Bastoy prison island in Norway, the prisoners, some of whom are
murderers and rapists, live in conditions that critics brand 'cushy'
and 'luxurious'. Yet it has by far the lowest reoffending rate in
Europe.
Savaged
by dogs, Electrocuted With Cattle Prods, Burned By Toxic Chemicals,
Does such barbaric abuse inside U.S. jails explain the horrors that
were committed in Iraq?
The
13th Amendment states, "involuntary servitude and slavery is abolished
except for those duly convicted of a crime." The "exception clause"
leaves slavery still in effect for those convicted of crimes. Today
America, with 5% of the world's population, has 25% of the world's
prisoners.
Syrian troops kill dozens of gunmen on outskirts of Damascus:
A
number of gunmen were killed during intense clashes with Syrian troops
in the town of Daraya, located 8 kilometers (5 miles) southwest of
Damascus, on Tuesday, the state-run SANA news agency reported.
Syrian troops secure vicinity of Aleppo's airport:
The
troops have advanced into the surrounding of the airport at a depth of
seven kilometers, a pace sufficient for ensuring the resumption of air
trafficking soon, al-Watan said, quoting Syrian Airline officials as
saying flights to the airport are expected to resume by mid March.
Syrian rebels claim to kill Hezbollah deputy chief:
Hezbollah's
deputy chief was killed Tuesday when Syrian rebels bombed a convoy
consisting of high-ranking Syrian government officers near the Lebanon
border, news portal Now Lebanon quoted the Free Syria Army as saying on
Wednesday.
Syria: Rebels 'shoot down military helicopter in north':
The
rebels shot down the helicopter near the Minnigh airbase, which rebels
have been trying to seize for months, the London-based Syrian Human
Rights Observatory said.
Rebel
commanders and fighters told Reuters that a shipment which reached
Syria via Turkey last month comprised shoulder-held and other mobile
equipment including anti-aircraft and armor-piercing weapons, mortars
and rocket launchers.
Turkey's support to Syrian rebels is a declaration of war against Iraq, minister says:
"Presenting
money and weapons to al Qaeda (in Syria) by Qatar and Turkey is a
declaration of armed action against Iraq," Amiri told Reuters in an
interview this week. "These weapons will reach Iraqi chests for sure."
Saeed
Jalili, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator said on Wednesday all sides
agreed to meet in the same city on April 5-6 after first gathering
their nuclear experts for consultations in Istanbul in March.
No offer made to Iran on oil, financial sanctions: U.S. official:
Six
world powers did not offer to suspend oil or financial sanctions
during talks with Iran on its nuclear program in the Kazakh city of
Almaty, a senior U.S. administration official said on Wednesday.
U.S. moves to expand economic sanctions on Iran as nuclear talks end:
U.S.
lawmakers will introduce a bill on Wednesday that expands economic
penalties against Iran and is designed to force countries like China to
buy less Iranian crude oil, according to a copy of the legislation
obtained by Reuters on Tuesday.
Two
of the diplomats held during the 444-day Iranian Hostage Crisis are
speaking out in favor of stronger diplomatic overtures between the
United States and Iran.
EU report recommends economic sanctions on Israeli settlements:
The
European Union (EU) consuls in Jerusalem and Ramallah issued a report
calling for imposing economic sanctions against Israeli settlements in
the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem
The
report referred to Israel's settlement construction in east Jerusalem
as "systematic, deliberate and provocative" and stated that Jewish
settlement construction was "the biggest single threat to the two state
solution."
Israel 'secretly deports' 1,000 Sudanese who may face persecution at home:
The
UN Refugee agency said it was not informed of the move, and that the
deportees were forced to return to Sudan where visiting or living in
Israel is a crime.
Hagel takes charge as defense secretary after bitter Senate fight over his nomination:
Hagel
promised to work closely with Congress, but he faces lingering
reservations about his ability to handle the responsibilities. Shortly
after the vote, Sen. Lindsey Graham said he still has serious questions
about Hagel and his qualifications.
AIPAC takes on the latest threat to Israel - sequestration:
There
is a palpable fear that the aid spigot to Israel is about to turn off,
or at least slow down, given the budget face off taking place in
Washington
At the
conference, AIPAC officials plan to unveil a new "strategic concept"
related to the US-Israel relationship, one official told The Times of
Israel Tuesday: "Introducing legislation in the Senate and House that
will designate Israel as a major strategic partner of the United
States."
Seven
people were killed in a suicide car bomb attack by suspected Islamist
militants in the remote northern Malian town of Kidal on Tuesday, Feb
26, the MNLA Tuareg rebel group said, in the second such attack there
in less than a week, Reuters reported.
US prosecutors go all-out against Manning, claim bin Laden benefitted from WikiLeaks:
US
prosecutors are set to call a Navy SEAL - possibly one who participated
in the killing of Osama bin Laden - to testify against alleged
whistleblower Bradley Manning to prove he 'aided the enemy,' a crime
punishable by death in the US.
FISA Supreme Court Decision Makes a Mockery Of Civil Liberties:
Specifically
at issue was the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which was reenacted by
Congress in December. The act established the existence of secret
courts capable of issuing warrants authorizing law enforcement
officials to monitor communications between individuals inside the U.S.
corresponding with individuals overseas.
How much data can police swipe from suspects' phones without a warrant?:
Call
logs, text messages, geo-locations and even data relating to
proprietary technologies, such as Apple's iMessage service: All of
these can be downloaded by U.S. law enforcement when a suspect's phone
is plugged in and the data harvested for intelligence purposes.
The
so-called "Copyright Alert System" is backed by the President Barack
Obama administration and was pushed heavily by record labels and
Hollywood studios.
"We
are not trying to infringe upon anyone constitutional rights
whatsoever. It's just to protect the workers working out there in a
disaster," Dollar said.
Outrage
over the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre may or may not spur any
meaningful gun control laws, but you can bet your Crayolas that it
will lead to more seven-year-olds getting handcuffed and hauled away to
local police precincts.
94 percent of Americans don't know the deficit is falling.: There is no deficit problem.
The
deficit is down 50 percent as a share of gross domestic product just
since President Bush's fiscal year 2009 deficit and is falling at the
fastest rate since the end of World War II. Yet the Washington debate
is about how and where to cut us back into recession. Why?
