Articles by ICH

We found 2433 results.


Let It Cool Down
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 21 Nov 2016

A folktale from Uganda told by TRANSCEND member Stella Sabiiti. A king had a beautiful daughter. Many men asked to marry her, but the king gave them a difficult test.

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Moralizing Military Intervention
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 Nov 2016

Ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union there has been an upsurge of international undertakings that have claimed humanitarian justifications for military interventions in foreign societies. A second kind of justification for such interventions all of which are launched by Western countries (especially the United States) was associated with the global “war on terror.”

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The Salary Theory…
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 Nov 2016

Dilbert’s “Salary Theorem” states that “Engineers and scientists can never earn as much as business executives and sales people.”

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Now What Should We Do?
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 Nov 2016

An Agenda for Berniecrats after the United States Election

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Six Theses on Saving the Planet
Richard Smith | The Next System Project – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 Nov 2016

From the earliest days of the Industrial Revolution, workers, trade unionists, radicals, and socialists have fought against the worst depredations of capitalist development: intensifying exploitation, increasing social polarization, persistent racism and sexism, deteriorating workplace health and safety conditions, environmental ravages, and relentless efforts to suppress democratic political gains under the iron heel of capital.

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Anticipating the Trump Presidency
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 Nov 2016

It is wildly premature to think that this election signals that the American people have descended into the swamps of racism and nativism, but it will still take a vigilant opposition movement to prevent Trump’s government from imposing its horrendous agenda on our collective future.

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UNESCO Censures Israel’s Administration of Jerusalem
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 7 Nov 2016

In response to UNESCO resolutions adopted in October that were highly critical of Israel’s protection of sacred and cultural Islamic heritage sites in Jerusalem, there is again a fiery confrontation between Israel and this UN organ whose actions have so often touched the raw nerves of Western political sensibilities.

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Why Is the Foreign Policy Establishment Spoiling for More War? Look at Their Donors
Dennis Kucinich – The Nation, 7 Nov 2016

War is first and foremost a profitable racket. We must not accept war as inevitable, and those leaders who would lead us in that direction, whether in Congress or the White House, must face visible opposition.

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Musicians
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 7 Nov 2016

A little boy rang the neighbor’s bell. “Does it disturb you that I practice the piano every day?”

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The Kapp Putsch and Modern Memory
Michael N. Nagler | PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service, 7 Nov 2016

Nonviolence in Today’s USA – Nonviolence cannot simply mean you wait for the putsch to happen, then rush to the street and non-cooperate. It has to mean a complete overhaul of the cultural factors that led to our putting more citizens in prison than any other democracy, having more guns than people and a higher rate of murder or suicide, a larger military budget than most of the world’s countries put together, and a foreign policy incapable of any but endless war.

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Clean Politicians
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 31 Oct 2016

A cannibal was walking through the jungle and came upon a restaurant operated by a fellow cannibal.

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USA: What Are We to Think?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 31 Oct 2016

29 Oct 2016 – A cascade of developments should make us afraid of what seems to be emerging politically in the United States at this time. Although politicians keep telling us how great we were or will be or are.

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Vote All You Want – The Secret Government Won’t Change
Jordan Michael Smith – Boston Globe, 24 Oct 2016

The people we elect aren’t the ones calling the shots, says Tufts University’s Michael Glennon.

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Interview on Palestine for Middle East Eye with Hilary Wise
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 Oct 2016

I want above all that Palestine will not suffer the fate of other oppressed people, and be written off as ‘a forgotten struggle,’ or worse, ‘a lost cause.’ “Apartheid, annexation, mass displacement and collective punishment have become core policies of the state of Israel.”

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Natural Rights: A Solution in the 18th Century, a Problem in the 21st
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 Oct 2016

Individual and Human Rights – Let’s talk about natural rights. What shall we say? Well, let’s begin the way students in law schools begin when they brief a legal opinion to prepare for a class. They read the dissenting opinion before they read the majority opinion. Starting with the dissent is a good way to bring the issues into focus.

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War or Peace?
Dennis Kucinich – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 Oct 2016

20 Oct 2016 – The most consequential statement by Secretary Clinton in last night’s debate was her pronouncement that a no-fly zone over Syria could “save lives and hasten the end of the conflict,” that a no-fly zone would provide “safe zones on the ground” was in “the best interests of the people on the ground in Syria” and would “help us with our fight against ISIS.” It would do none of the above.

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Drunks
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 Oct 2016

Recently, a routine police patrol was parked outside a local neighborhood bar in Minnesota. Late in the evening, the officer noticed a man leaving the bar so intoxicated that he could barely walk.

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Why Okinawa Should Matter
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 Oct 2016

12 Oct 2016 – An earlier version of this post appeared in the Japanese publication, Ryukyu Shimpo. The article is devoted to a critical discussion of Okinawa’s role in serving American and Japanese strategic interests. Since the end of World War II Okinawa has been a mostly unhappy host of American military bases, and the issue has been prominent at times on the agenda of the Japanese peace movement.

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The Network of Global Corporate Control
Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder and Stefano Battiston | Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule ETH Zürich – TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 Oct 2016

Abstract: The structure of the control network of transnational corporations affects global market competition and financial stability. So far, only small national samples were studied and there was no appropriate methodology to assess control globally. We present the first investigation of the architecture of the international ownership network, along with the computation of the control held by each global player. We find that transnational corporations form a giant bow-tie structure and that a large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions. This core can be seen as an economic “super-entity” that raises new important issues both for researchers and policy makers.

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Was the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 Wrongly Awarded?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 Oct 2016

My comment critical of the award is printed below, and is followed by an even more critical comment by Fredrik S. Heffermehl, a Norwegian jurist who has taken a special interest in the Nobel Peace Prize, especially making a great effort to call attention to the failure of the Norwegian committee that is responsible for deciding on recipients to adhere to the will and intentions of Alfred Nobel who established this most coveted of international awards at the end of the nineteenth century.

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The Geopolitics of Shimon Peres’ Legacy
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Oct 2016

Basically, the question posed is whether to celebrate Peres’ death as that of a man dedicated to peace and reconciliation or to portray him as a wily opportunist, a skillful image-maker, and in the end, a harsh Zionist and ambitious Israeli leader.

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(Castellano) ¿Hay una Crisis Chilena?
Prof. Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Oct 2016

6 Oct 2016 – “Chile vive una muy profunda crisis de confianza de todas las instituciones.” La opinión arriba citada no es la opinión de cualquiera. Es la opinión de quien fue el Ministro de Economía en la transición del gobierno militar al gobierno civil de 1990.

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The Enigma That Was Shimon Peres
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 Oct 2016

My own experience of the man was direct, although rather superficial, but it did give me greater confidence to trust my reservations about his impact and influence, which collides with the adulation that he has inspired among American liberals, in particular.

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Could Turmeric Really Boost Your Health?
Michael Mosley – BBC Magazine, 3 Oct 2016

20 Sep 2016 – Bold health claims have been made for the power of turmeric. Is there anything in them? There are at least 200 different compounds in turmeric, but there’s one that scientists are particularly interested in. It gives this spice its colour. It’s called curcumin.

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A Warming of US/Turkish Relations?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Sep 2016

There are continuing concerns in Washington and Ankara about whether and to what degree United States-Turkey relations can be restored; it depends on the behavior of the two governments, and likely will be influenced by the outcome of the American presidential elections.

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Poor Driver
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Sep 2016

After a summit meeting, Reagan, Brezhnev and Deng Xiaoping were being driven to the airport in a limousine.

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Interview on Israel, Palestine, and Peace
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Sep 2016

14 Sep 2016 –The U.S. Government and Israel have signed a military assistance agreement promising Israel $38 billion over the next ten years, the largest such commitment ever made. Again, we should grieve over the extent to which ‘reality’ and morality is sacrificed for the sake of the ‘special relationship’ while looking the other way whenever the Palestinian ordeal is mentioned.

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(Castellano) Las Bajas Jubilaciones en Chile
Prof. Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Sep 2016

“Nuestro mayor problema político es la falta de imaginación”. –Michel Foucault ~ La apuesta de la economía social y solidaria es que la misma lógica cálida que rescata a los victimas del sistema es capaz de transformar el sistema.

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The Uses and Abuses of Uncertainty: The Case of Turkey
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Sep 2016

9 Sep 2016 – One of the paradoxes of the digital age with its real time awareness is the degree to which information overloads clouds our imagination with cheaply achieved and false clarity, which in political contexts is often the Mad Men work of selective interpretation or deliberate manipulation.

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Clinton versus Trump: How It Might Matter for the Middle East
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Sep 2016

If voting for an American president was only about the Middle East, I would rate the candidates as a tossup, but it isn’t. When the American domestic scene is taken into account, as well the rest of the world, Clinton holds the clear edge unless one feels so disgusted her candidacy as to write in Bernie Sanders on the ballot or cast a vote of conscience for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. I remain uncertain as to which of these choices to make.

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US-NATO-Turkey Invasion of Northern Syria: CIA “Failed” Turkey Coup Lays Groundwork for Broader Middle East War?
Prof Michel Chossudovsky | Global Research – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Sep 2016

Public opinion was led to believe that relations with the US had not only deteriorated, but that Erdogan had vowed to restore “an axis of friendship” with Moscow, including “cooperation in the defence sector”. This was a hoax. The failed coup was indeed supported by the CIA, but the failure was coordinated with President Erdogan. It was an intelligence op which was meant to fail and mislead public opinion.

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South African Elections 2016
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Aug 2016

Bloomberg frames the expected reforms as the efficient causes that will generate prosperity and employment. That investors are already expecting higher profits is framed as good news for the poor. The proposition that more investor-friendly reforms (on top of the many South Africa has already had) will serve the common good is treated as a given needing no proof; as if it were a joke that had already been told; as if those who did not understand the joke and did not know when to laugh, or did not know whether to laugh or cry, were not so much mistaken as left out of the conversation, deprived of voice.

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Failures of Militarism in Countering Mega-Terrorism
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Aug 2016

27 Aug 2016 – A critique of the American response that is based on a ‘war’ rather than a law enforcement paradigm. An argument is then made to adapt international law to new modalities of conflict while at the same time learning the right lessons from the repeated militarist failures of transnational counterterrorism.

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Start with Worker Self-Directed Enterprises
Richard D. Wolff | The Next System Project – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Aug 2016

Richard Wolff describes a next economic system centered on worker-directed cooperatives. To transition to a non-capitalist system we must change the “who and the why of key economic decision making.” To do so he proposes changes at the “basic enterprise level” by “making workers their own bosses.”

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Arithmetic
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Aug 2016

Little Billy returns home from school and says he got an F in arithmetic.

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The Sky above Turkey
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Aug 2016

23 Aug 2016 – It seems so important at this time for the sake of the future of Turkey that the West look at the country and its political circumstances in a far more balanced way than how the situation has been portrayed since the coup. How to explain this imbalance is another matter that should be explored at some point, but for now is largely put aside.

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Individual and Human Rights
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Aug 2016

Take a cue from the days when Jesus could say “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.” In those days money belonged to sovereigns and sovereigns used their financial privileges to defray their expenses, mainly the expenses of waging wars. Now banks and other financial institutions have privileges that the sovereign people should have and should use to make social rights real rights.

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Human Rights after the Failed Coup in Turkey
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Aug 2016

It is probably wise to separate human rights concerns from an appraisal of Turkish constitutional democracy. It is quite possible that present tendencies toward a more inclusive democracy will continue, and at the same time, denials of human rights are almost certain to persist, and justify scrutiny and vigilance.

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Beyond Jewish Identity: Exceptionalism Revisited
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Aug 2016

20 Aug 2016 – The problem with Jewish identity is Jewish identity! By this I mean, the hegemonic forms of Jewish exceptionalism to which most Jews are enthralled, including a provocative insistence on willed disaffiliation in a few rate instances… Instead of Jewish exceptionalism (or American exceptionalism) the call of this bio-political moment is for species exceptionalism.

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Will Russia Reject Neoliberalism?
Paul Craig Roberts and Michael Hudson – CounterPunch, 15 Aug 2016

Paul Craig Roberts and Michael Hudson explain why hooking Russia’s fate to Western neoliberalism would doom the country’s sovereignty.

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‘Dreaming of Freedom:’ Palestinian Child Prisoners Speak
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Aug 2016

8 Aug 2016 – This is a collection of reflections by child prisoners in their own words, edited by Norma Hisham. It is a successor to her earlier volume of Palestinian prison recollections. I post below some blurbs that convey the importance of Dreaming of Freedom and the text of my Foreword. As much as anything I have read, these texts convey the reality of the experience of all Palestinians living under occupation or as exiles or as a subjugated minority.

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Musicians
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Aug 2016

Ben Zanders, the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, led an audience of 1000 at a conference…

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(Castellano) Intento de Golpe de Estado en Turquía, Nueva Constitución en Chile
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Aug 2016

¿Qué es lo que es la democracia? Según el realismo critico la palabra “democracia” –y cualquier otra palabra—es una herramienta de acción social. Hablar es actuar. Esgrimir la palabra “democracia” es una acción. Debe ser una acción responsable. Sucesos actuales en Turquía y en Chile subrayan la importancia práctica de esta perspectiva teórica.

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Aftermath of Political Ruptures: Iran, Egypt, Turkey
Richard Falk | Social Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Aug 2016

12 Aug 2016 – This post offers a commentary of recent dramatic developments within Turkey and the largely critical international media and diplomatic responses. It compares international reactions to political ruptures in Iran (1979) and Egypt (2011, 2013), and encourages greater public attention to the importance attached by the Turkish citizenry to the defeat of the coup attempt and more sympathy with the kind of political leadership provided by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan since the coup attempt of July 15th.

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Context Matters: Turkey after the Failed Coup
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Aug 2016

Part of the prescribed contextualization, given Turkish realities, is to avoid premature international appraisals, admit underlying uncertainties, and allow enough imaginative space to enable a hopeful future for Turkey.

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Beat It – Solo Guitar Arrangement (Music Video of the Week)
Michael Jackson | Miguel Rivera – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Aug 2016

I decided to start working on this arrangement because it was a great challenge. When you listen to the chorus of the original song, you can hear the main riff sounding together with the Michael’s vocal melody and, of course, drums, bass and other instruments. My objective was to play all of these parts together.

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Growing Justice: Transcending the Oppressive History of Our Food System
Michelle Stearn | The Next System Project – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Aug 2016

Transforming our system into one rooted in provision means more than just creating new organizations that aim to do well for the community; it will require that we rewrite the beliefs, exchanges, and rules of our own interactions.

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Climate Change Activism: A Post-Mortem
John Michael Greer | The Archdruid Report – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Aug 2016

It’s not inappropriate to ask what happened to all the apparent political momentum the climate change movement had ten or fifteen years ago, and why a movement so apparently well organized, well funded, and backed by so large a scientific consensus failed so completely. In my experience, at least, if you raise this question among climate change activists, the answer you’ll get is that there was a well-funded campaign that deployed disinformation against them. So?

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Trump vs. Clinton vs. Sanders: The Blind Leading the Blind Leading the Blind
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Aug 2016

My thesis is that the proposals put forward by Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders offer no solutions to the fiscal crisis of the state, and partly for this reason do not and cannot promise social integration. I am not complaining. I am just trying to do my part as a philosopher to help generate better ideas, ideas that will work.

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Never Thought of That…
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Aug 2016

Gee!

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Is Genocide a Controversial International Crime?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Aug 2016

Why ‘Genocide’ is still a Controversial Crime? In this strikingly original, strange, and brilliant book, Philippe Sands raises a haunting question among a tangle of other intriguing issues discussed throughout East-West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity (New York: Knopf, 2016).

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How the United States Government Obstructs Peace for Palestine/Israel
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Jul 2016

The United States Government has not only taken Israel’s side in diplomatic negotiation between Israel and Palestine, but has actively opposed all moves toward the establishment of an independent sovereign state for the Palestinian people (meaning that the American endorsement of the two-state mantra as the consensus formula for peace was a deliberate official lie).

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Narrating Turkey at a Time of National Crisis
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Jul 2016

In times of tension, it is particularly important for the defense of what is good and identification of what would worsen the status quo, to strive for balanced assessments, always hoping for the best, while trying to identify and oppose any and all steps toward coercive authoritarianism. I have had the same reaction to conversations in the United States with friends who deem the country to have become ‘fascist.’

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A Farmer and His Horse
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Jul 2016

How a Seemingly Bad Luck Can Turn Out to Be a Good Luck

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The Nice Terror Attack: Mind at the End of Its Tether
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 Jul 2016

Nice is an opportunity to work on learning what we should be trying to learn anyway: how to live in peace with one another. As Baruch Spinoza pointed out in 1677 –and it was already old news then—anybody can kill anybody. Nice dramatizes the fact that peace through law enforcement is not feasible. Anybody can kill people with a truck, and there is no way to deploy police everywhere to stop that from happening. Peace is a table with four legs: justice, justice, justice, and justice.

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An Unlikely AMEXIT: Pivoting Away from the Middle East
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 Jul 2016

Unfortunately, for America and the peoples throughout the Middle East the US seems incapable of extricating itself from yet another geopolitical quagmire that is partly responsible for generating extra-regional terrorism of the sort that has afflicted Europe in the last two years.

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Heaven and Hell
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 Jul 2016

St. Peter showed a visitor heaven and hell.

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Smearing BDS Supporters
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Jul 2016

The misappropriation of anti-Semitism as a propaganda weapon to smear pro-Palestinian activists, especially those supportive of the BDS Campaign. Also the issues of representation by explaining the formal differences between the PLO and PA, which do not seem presently consequential in my understanding.

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Death in Black and White
Michael Eric Dyson – The New York Times, 11 Jul 2016

7 Jul 2016 – We, black America, are a nation of nearly 40 million souls inside a country of more than 320 million people. And I fear now that it is clearer than ever that you, white America, will always struggle to understand us. But there’s one thing most of us agree on: We don’t want cops to be executed at a peaceful protest. We also don’t want cops to kill us without fear that they will ever face a jury, much less go to jail, even as the world watches our death on a homemade video recording. This is a difficult point to make as a racial crisis flares around us.

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Why Arms Control Is the Enemy of Nuclear Disarmament
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Jul 2016

No First Use: Arms Control versus Disarmament Perspectives

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(Português) O que as castanhas do Brasil têm a ver com o Colesterol?
Michael Greger M.D. | Projecto Naturopatia – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Jul 2016

Um estudo avaliou o impacto que o consumo de uma única porção de castanhas do Brasil poderia ter nos níveis de colesterol em voluntários saudáveis.

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Are We Heading Toward Global Autocracy, Ecological Collapse, Political Malaise?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 4 Jul 2016

The failures of neoliberalism, the successes of digitization, the scourge of random violence, and more broadly, the dilemmas posed by late modernity are among the root causes of this global crisis of legitimate governance, which is deepened while being mishandled by unprecedented ecological challenges, extremely irresponsible geopolitical leadership, and a variety of ultra-nationalist backlashes against the encroachments of economic globalization.

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TransCanada Files NAFTA Suit Demanding More Than $15 Billion for Keystone XL Rejection
Michael Brune | EcoWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 27 Jun 2016

On Jun 24 2016, foreign oil company TransCanada filed a lawsuit against the U.S. under NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, arguing that the U.S. rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline violated NAFTA’s broad rights for foreign investors by thwarting the company’s “expectations.” As compensation, TransCanada is demanding more than $15 billion from U.S. taxpayers.

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Reconciliation in Bosnia
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Jun 2016

In Travnik, there were two communities (Bosniaks and Croats). For one and a half year of weekly lectures, they did not mingle at all. All the Croats, who are Catholics, sat on the left side of the room, along with a nun, separated by a walkway from all the Bosniaks, who are Muslims, who sat on the right side, along with an Imam. During breaks, they went to separate rooms to drink tea.

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(Português) Touradas em Portugal
Cláudia Vantacich | RiseUp Portugal – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Jun 2016

Reportagem espectacular sobre touradas. Todos os argumentos, todos os factos, todas as razões num brilhante trabalho.

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(Português) As Touradas: Violência, Crueldade, Ignorância, Futilidade – A Vergonha de Portugal
Cláudia Vantacich – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Jun 2016

“A etologia como ramo da zoologia, explica que o comportamento não é determinado pela genética, mas pelo ambiente e interacções do animal. Ou seja, independentemente das características genéticas, o seu comportamento será sempre condicionado, em última análise, pelo propósito e personalidade de quem os cria, tal como acontece com os cães.”

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Aung San Suu Kyi Is in Power. So Why Is She Ignoring Her Country’s Most Vulnerable People?
Richard Cockett – Foreign Policy, 20 Jun 2016

For the Rohingya, Burma’s new democratic government is little better than the old dictatorship.

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Assembly Line & Automation Works
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Jun 2016

Two people went along a road with pick and shovel.

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A Weak UN Ensures a Weak Secretary General
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jun 2016

13 Jun 2016 – There are many angles of interpretation relevant to the startling admission by Ban Ki-moon that he succumbed to undisguised diplomatic pressure when removing Saudi Arabia from the ‘shame list’ of countries whose armies are found responsible the maiming and killing of children, earning them dishonorable mentioned in an annex to the annual UN report on violations of children’s rights.

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Life Management
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jun 2016

A professor was giving a lecture on time management.

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NGOs Call on Thailand to Better Protect Rohingya Refugees, Victims of Trafficking
Nontarat Phaicharoen – Benar News, 13 Jun 2016

9 Jun 2016 – A group of NGOs has marked the anniversary of the 2015 Andaman Sea migration crisis by calling on Thailand to end “arbitrary and indefinite detention” of refugees from Myanmar who came ashore then, and do more to protect survivors and witnesses of human trafficking.

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Zionism, Anti-Semitism, BDS, and the United Nations
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jun 2016

The misuse of anti-Semitism by those defending Israel to deflect a rising tide of civil society activism and public criticism of Israeli policies and practices.

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Managers
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jun 2016

A man is flying in a hot-air balloon and realizes he is lost.

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By the Way
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jun 2016

Having email is like…

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A Moral Revolution? Reflections on President Obama’s Visit to Hiroshima
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jun 2016

5 Jun 2016 – There is doubt that President Barack Obama’s visit to Hiroshima this May crossed some thresholds hitherto taboo. Above all the visit was properly heralded as the first time a sitting American president has dared such a pilgrimage… The whole idea of impunity for the victors and capital punishment for the losers is morally regressive.

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BDS Is Free Speech, Says Dutch Government
Michael Deas | The Electronic Intifada – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 May 2016

25 May 2016 – The Netherlands has affirmed that activism calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions on Israel is a form of free speech. Dutch foreign minister Bert Koenders said that “statements or meetings concerning BDS are protected by freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, as enshrined in the Dutch constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.”

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The Scope for Parallel Diplomacy Has Never Been Greater
David Richmond – Foreign Policy In Focus, 30 May 2016

One of the great diplomatic breakthroughs for which the Obama presidency will undoubtedly be remembered is the re-establishment of relations with Cuba. The role of the Vatican in this rapprochement serves as a reminder that even in the era of systematised diplomacy, significant benefit can be derived from an informal process that takes place away from the limelight.

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Drunks
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 May 2016

Recently, a routine police patrol was parked outside a local neighborhood bar in Minnesota. Late in the evening, the officer noticed a man leaving the bar so intoxicated that he could barely walk.

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On (Not) Loving Henry Kissinger
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 May 2016

There is an irony that would be amusing if it was not depressing about news that Donald Trump has been courting the 92-year old foreign policy sorcerer Henry Kissinger. Of course, the irony is that earlier in the presidential campaign Hilary Clinton proudly claimed Kissinger as ‘a friend,’ and acknowledged that he “relied on his counsel” while she served as Obama’s Secretary of State.

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General Golan’s Holocaust Remembrance Day Speech
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 May 2016

Speaking at Tel Yitzak Kibbutz, where the Massuah Institute for Holocaust Studies is located, General Golan urged that this very special day of observance in Israel be treated as an occasion for soul-searching. He placed this call in an extraordinary context by suggesting that conditions in Israel were disturbing in ways relevant to the Holocaust, horror of horrors.

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(Français) Brésil: le coup d´Etat
Michael Löwy – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 May 2016

Michael Löwy é um brasileiro de ascendência austríaco- francesa, sociólogo da religião e analista político. Foi por muitos anos professor na Sorbonne mas nunca deixou dar sua contribuição ao Brasil com frequentes viagens e cursos dados a distintos grupos, inclusive a grupos de base. Da França nos oferece esta pertinente análise do golpe parlamentar sofrido contra a presidenta Dilma. É um olhar de fora cuja distância permite ver melhor o interor deste processo ilegítimo. Lboff
15 mai 2016 – Appellons un chat un chat. Ce qui vient de se passer au Brésil, avec la destitution de la présidente élue, Dilma Roussef, est un coup d’état.

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Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Daniel Berrigan
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 May 2016

I was privileged to know Daniel Berrigan in the last stages of the Vietnam War, not well, but well enough to appreciate his quality of moral radiance and to admire the spiritual dedication that he exhibited in opposing the Vietnam War, and later nuclearism. I also knew Dan’s brother, Phil, who shared these remarkable qualities.

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The TTIPing Point: Protests Threaten Trans-Atlantic Trade Deal
Dinah Deckstein, Simone Salden and Michaela Schießl – Der Spiegel, 16 May 2016

An unprecedented protest movement of a scope not seen since the Iraq war in Germany has pushed negotiations over the TTIP trans-Atlantic free trade agreement to the brink of collapse. The demonstrations are characterized by a level of professionalism not previously seen.

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Dictionary Wisdom
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 May 2016

Ruth and Golda were walking along Hendon High Street. Ruth says,

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Making the Most of Obama’s Hiroshima Visit
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 May 2016

Message to President Barack Obama with Respect to Forthcoming Hiroshima Visit – 11 May 2016 | I sent the following message to the White House today, and encourage readers of this blog to do the same.

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Dreaming of the Next UN Secretary General
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 May 2016

The Charter is astonishingly silent about the qualifications that should guide the selection of a secretary general, but it is clear on the procedure: a recommendation must be made by the Security Council to the General Assembly for its approval. This means that any one of the P-5 can use their veto to block a candidate.

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Good Deeds
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 May 2016

Scouts are supposed to do at least one good deed every day. A scout master asked three little scouts at camp in the evening, “What good deed did you do today?”

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Zupta Scandal Causes South African Government to Intervene to Save Indian Investor
Richard Smallteacher | CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 May 2016

The South African government has intervened to support the Indian-born Gupta brothers, owners of a sprawling conglomerate with interests from mining to media, following a scandal that suggested that the brothers had accumulated so much power that they could dictate cabinet-level decisions in the country.

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If Obama Visits Hiroshima
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 May 2016

As the global approach to nuclear weapons, climate change, and neoliberal globalization should make clear, we are not likely to survive as a species very much longer if we continue to base world order on a blend of state-centric national interests and dominant actor geopolitics. Obama has this rare opportunity to choose the road not often traveled upon, and there is no better place to start such a voyage than at Hiroshima.

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Debacle at Doha: The Collapse of the Old Oil Order
Michael T. Klare - TomDispatch, 2 May 2016

For a country that more than any other has rested its claim to wealth and power on the production and sale of petroleum, this is a revolutionary statement. If Saudi Arabia says it is ready to begin a move away from reliance on petroleum, we are indeed entering a new world in which, among other things, the titans of oil production will no longer hold sway over our lives as they have in the past.

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Refugee Crisis: When Is a Tragedy a Massacre?
Richard Seymour – Al Jazeera, 2 May 2016

The EU is simply determined not to be a destination for refugees. With illegal pushbacks, brutal detainment, and harassment at sea, the options for refugees are increasingly severe.

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Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine: Home Demolitions on the Rise
Richard Hardigan - CounterPunch, 25 Apr 2016

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that during the years 2012-2015, an average of 50 homes were demolished in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem every month. So far this year, the army has destroyed 539 structures, a rate that is more than three times higher. In all of 2015, 453 buildings were demolished, so the sharp surge in this kind of activity is an extremely recent phenomenon.

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An Anecdote about Fascism
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Apr 2016

I tried to engage her in conversation about evolving Israeli attitudes toward the Palestinians and the related failed diplomacy, but she seemed rather uninformed and perhaps even disinterested as if the peace agenda was not really present in her active consciousness. Then all at once she said something that surprised me. “I am not looking forward to returning to Israel, it is becoming a fascist state.”

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Minor Mistake
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Apr 2016

A new monk shows up at a monastery where the monks spend their time making copies of ancient books.

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If Obama Visits Hiroshima
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Apr 2016

Obama has this rare opportunity to choose the road not often traveled upon, and there is no better place to start such a voyage than at Hiroshima. We in civil society would then with conviction promote his nuclear legacy as ‘From Prague to Hiroshima,’ and feel comfortable that this president has finally earned the honor of the Nobel Peace Prize prematurely bestowed.

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Should We Vote for Hillary Clinton? A Meditation
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 Apr 2016

14 Apr 2016 – It seems now almost inevitable that Hillary Clinton will be the candidate for the Democratic Party in November. This inevitability came about by a combination of ‘a Southern strategy’ […] Should feelings of solidarity and revolutionary patience outweigh a principled refusal to go along with militarist opportunism?

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Ovarian Cancer Victims Win Talcum Powder Lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson
Richard Smallteacher, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Apr 2016

4 Apr 2016 – Johnson & Johnson has been sued by over 1,200 women who blame the company’s talcum powder products for their ovarian cancer. Not only are U.S. courts beginning to agree with them, juries have started to award victims millions of dollars in compensation.

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Rest in Power Toussaint L’Ouverture: Saluting Haiti’s Triumph against Colonialism
Richard Sudan – Russia Today, 11 Apr 2016

April 7th marks the passing of one of the greatest, most revered and most important figures of African and world history, Toussaint L’Ouverture one of the liberators of Haiti. By 1801 Haiti, an island made up of half a million slaves, two-thirds of whom had been born in Africa, declared independence from European colonialists.

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Reading Jeff Halper’s ‘War against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification’
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Apr 2016

I believe that Jeff Halper’s book deserves the widest possible reading. It explains clearly and convincingly one of the deepest and least understood roots of Israel’s diplomatic support throughout the world, which is its role as a niche arms supplier and influential tactical specialist in waging wars against peoples who dare offer resistance to state power as variously deployed against them.

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Successful Skills
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Apr 2016

The radio announcer Daniel Shorr was considering working in television early in his career and asked someone what it would take to be successful there.

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