Articles by ICH
We found 2433 results.
Writing a Blank Check on War for the President: How the United States Became a Prisoner of War and Congress Went MIA
Andrew J. Bacevich - TomDispatch,
11 Apr 2016
With the safety or survival of the nation said to be at risk, the Constitution, basic law of the land — otherwise considered sacrosanct — becomes nonbinding, subject to being waived at the whim of government authorities who are impatient, scared, panicky, or just plain pissed off.
→ read full article(Français) Un réfugié, ça vaut combien d’euros ?
Michel Collon, Investig’Action – TRANSCEND Media Service|,
4 Apr 2016
Ainsi, l’Union Européenne vient de signer avec la Turquie cet « Accord de la honte ». Qui en fait supprime le droit d’asile, un droit fondamental pourtant garanti par l’article 14 de la Déclaration universelle des Droits de l’Homme : « Devant la persécution, toute personne a le droit de chercher asile et de bénéficier de l’asile en d’autres pays. »
→ read full articleThree Unshakeable Pillars of American Foreign Policy
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Apr 2016
3 Apr 2016 – It deserves to be noticed that it is only the two anti-establishment candidates who have challenged the foreign policy consensus that has guided American politicians ever since the end of World War II: consistently express unconditional support for the Pentagon, Wall Street, and Israel.
→ read full articleTruly Religious
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Apr 2016
A convent was being renovated. The workers worked hard all day practically without any breaks.
→ read full articleThe Great Ponzi Scheme of the Global Economy
Michael Hudson and Chris Hedges – CounterPunch,
28 Mar 2016
We’re going to be discussing a great Ponzi scheme that defines not only the U.S. but the global economy, how we got there and where we’re going. With economist Michael Hudson, a professor of economics who worked for many years on Wall Street, where you don’t succeed if you don’t grasp Marx’s dictum that capitalism is about exploitation. And he is also, I should mention, the godson of Leon Trotsky.
→ read full articleReflections on the Brussels Attack
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Mar 2016
The themes addressed and the policies proposed are advanced in a tentative spirit. Debate and reflection are urgently needed with respect to the political violence that is being unleashed in various forms in the West and non-West.
→ read full article
Earth Song (MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
Michael Jackson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Mar 2016
A pungent, powerful, moving video performed by Michael Jackson showing side by side beauty and destruction, life and death. Much sadness, pain and suffering caused by humankind. What about the earth? What about the children? He asks. Are we really destined to kill the planet and every life in it? What about us? This video was forbidden in the USA when it was launched in 1995.
→ read full articleWives
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Mar 2016
“My wife is good; she made me a necktie out of an old pair of pants.”
→ read full articleHow Neoliberalism Really Works: A Small Anecdote
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Mar 2016
27 Feb 2016 – Along with several million, I suffer from the eye disease known as glaucoma. It can be managed, rather than cured, by taking eye drops several times a day.
→ read full articleThe Impossibility of Politics – And How to Make Politics Possible
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Mar 2016
The thesis that politics today is impossible (or stated a bit less briefly, that the goals that politics sets out to achieve are unattainable) is so far more a provocation than a hypothesis. To make it into a meaningful claim I have to assign meanings to the word “politics” and to the word “impossible.”
→ read full articleWhy Democratic Party Foreign Policy Fails and Will Continue to Fail
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Mar 2016
5 Mar 2016 – An earlier version of this essay appeared on March 2, 2016 in The Progressive Magazine. It tries to explain the entrapment of liberal Democrats in an iron cage of militarism when it comes to international security policy.
→ read full articleMajor American Jewish Leader Changes His Mind about Israel
Rabbi Michael Lerner - Tikkun,
29 Feb 2016
The Israel of today is very far from anything I dreamed of and worked for throughout my career. I can clearly remember the day in 1948 when the State of Israel was established. I was in the fourth grade at the Yeshivah of Flatbush in Brooklyn. The entire school was summoned to the schoolyard in celebration of the momentous occasion.
→ read full articleKeen Observation
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Feb 2016
A famous surgeon told his students,
→ read full articleHollywood’s Grotesque Animal Abuse
Michael Howard - CounterPunch,
22 Feb 2016
Exposing Hollywood’s sordid history of animal cruelty.
→ read full articleFormer U.N. Chief Boutros Boutros-Ghali Dead at 93
Michelle Nichols, Reuters – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Feb 2016
Former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a blunt-spoken Egyptian who led the world body through global turmoil as it defined its peacekeeping role and lost his job over disputes with Washington, died on Tuesday [16 Feb 2016]. He was 93.
→ read full articleA Polyamorist View of Monogamy
Michael McDonald – Together Magazine,
22 Feb 2016
We think of monogamy as natural, but it’s actually quite advanced—the trouble is we default to it out of fear instead of choosing it consciously.
→ read full articleChurch Announcements
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2016
Ladies don’t forget the rummage sale.
→ read full articleAn Open Letter to Ban Ki-moon
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2016
We need all to realize what else should not be tolerated: while the Palestinian flag flies outside UN Headquarters, the Palestinian people have lived for almost 70 years under the daily brutalities of occupation, refugee camps, Gazan captivity, and involuntary exile. Can you bring yourself to call this ordeal ‘intolerable’? Then at least you could leave your UN post with a feeling that when your career was no longer in jeopardy you spoke truth to power.
→ read full articleRestructuring Rather Than Dividing Syria
Ghassan Michel Rubeiz – The Arab Daily News,
15 Feb 2016
8 Feb 2016 – Syrians are no longer in charge of their future; outsiders seem to be. The threat to divide Syria, as a solution, is tempting but fatal. Syria ought to be restructured and “reinvented” to allow healing and gradual reunification.
→ read full articleMorgan Stanley to Pay $3.2 Billion over Contributors to ’08 Crisis
Michael Virtanen, Associated Press – Reader Supported News,
15 Feb 2016
Morgan Stanley will pay $3.2 billion in a settlement over bank practices that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis, including misrepresentations about the value of mortgage-backed securities, authorities announced Thursday [11 Feb 2016].
→ read full articleWaiting for Rainbows
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2016
Below is the cover of my recently published book of poems that can be obtained from Amazon. I have received some inquiries, and although I have been writing poems for the past 60 years, I have never gathered the courage to publish them in one place before.
→ read full articleThe Russell-Einstein Manifesto [on Nuclear Weapons]
Student Pugwash University of Michigan– TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2016
“In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the Governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.”
→ read full articleU.S. Joins the Chorus of Countries Taking Steps to Distinguish between Israel and Its Illegal Settlements
Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man - +972 Magazine,
8 Feb 2016
The end of normalcy for Israeli settlements? Stricter trade guidelines, harsher rhetoric and corporate responsibility campaigns all send a clear message: Israel’s closest allies are no longer willing to passively accept the occupation, and the only consensus on settlements is that they are illegal.
→ read full articleIsrael’s Security Establishment Makes Public Plea for a Two State Solution
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2016
7 Feb 2016 – Rarely, if ever, has a newspaper ad mobilized such influential backing for a position of prominent Israelis at odds with the elected leadership of the Israeli state. A full page add appeared in the New York Times on February 4, 2016. Its message was proclaimed in large bold type: “Israel’s Security Chiefs Agree: Separation into two States is in Israel’s vital security interest.”
→ read full articleThe Complex Problematics of Palestinian Representation
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2016
This post attempts to address the current quandary that arises from the collapse of Oslo diplomacy and the seeming continuing encroachment of Israel on the territories long believed to provide the Palestinian people with a sovereign state of their own.
→ read full articleSigning Polluter-Friendly TPP Trade Deal Is Gambling Away Our Future
Michael Brune, EcoWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2016
For years, the Sierra Club has reported on and campaigned against the TPP’s threats to our air, water, climate, families and communities. The U.S. Trade Representative is gambling away our jobs, our clean air and water, and our future by pushing the polluter-friendly Trans-Pacific Partnership, so it only makes sense that it was signed in a casino and convention center.
→ read full articleClimate Change: Post-Paris Challenges and Concerns
Hilal Elver and Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Feb 2016
It is time to move on from the aura of good feelings of accomplishment created by the Paris Climate Change Conference and begin asking some hard questions. Above all we need to assess whether an agreement that consists of voluntary pledges is workable and sufficient, and whether its contribution to slowing global warming should be celebrated or lamented at this stage.
→ read full articleMartin Luther King, Jr.’s Timeless Vision
Michael Nagler, PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jan 2016
He came out against the war. Against all advice. Just as Gandhi honed his nonviolence in South Africa and then felt that he was ready to carry the struggle into the heart of the empire, King here announced that he had enlarged his passion from those of his own race in one region of the country to the policies of that country itself.
→ read full articleAn Open Letter to the American People: Political Responsibility in the Nuclear Age
Richard Falk, David Krieger and Robert Laney – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jan 2016
What is most notable about the Nuclear Age is that we humans, by our scientific and technological ingenuity, have created the means of our own demise. The world currently is confronted by many threats to human wellbeing, and even civilizational survival, but we focus here on the particular grave dangers posed by nuclear weapons and nuclear war.
→ read full article‘Voluntary’ International Law and the Paris Agreement
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jan 2016
16 Jan 2016 – Now that the celebrations by the diplomats have ended, it is time to take a hard look at what was and was not accomplished by the Paris Agreement. What we need and should seek is a moral epistemology that reconnects knowledge with human values configured so as to achieve justice, sustainability, and the pleasures of ‘a good life.’
→ read full article
Man in the Mirror (Music Video of the Week)
Michael Jackson - michaeljacksonVEVO,
25 Jan 2016
Music video by Michael Jackson performing Man in the Mirror. © 1987 MJJ Productions Inc.
44,401,244 Views on YouTube (Lyrics below video)
On Ghada Ageel’s Edited ‘Israeli Apartheid in Palestine’
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jan 2016
Ghada Ageel’s expertly edited ‘Israeli Apartheid in Palestine: Hard Laws and Harder Experiences’ has just been published by the University of Albert Press. It is an important contribution to Palestinian studies with an especially welcome linking of activism, scholarly analysis, and experiential narrative, each a vital perspective represented by excellent chapter writers.
→ read full articleThe Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare
Nathaniel Richjan – The New York Times Magazine,
11 Jan 2016
The farmer said that his cows were dying left and right. He believed that the DuPont chemical company, which until recently operated a site in Parkersburg that is more than 35 times the size of the Pentagon, was responsible. Tennant had tried to seek help locally, he said, but DuPont just about owned the entire town.
→ read full article(Castellano) Como Entender la Política y Como Cambiarla
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jan 2016
Lo que distingue el político de los demás oficios y profesiones no es en fin ninguna calidad moral distinta, sino el hecho que le corresponde cumplir una tarea que en la época que nos toca vivir es imposible. La tesis que hoy la política es imposible, o –dicho de una manera menos escueta– que los objetivos que la política se propone sean inalcanzables, es hasta aquí todavía más una provocación que una hipótesis.
→ read full articleWibisono’s Resignation as UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jan 2016
I am surprised, but not shocked. Surprised because he should have known that he was faced with a dilemma between doing the job properly of reporting on Israel’s crimes and human rights abuses and gaining Israel’s cooperation. Not shocked, indeed grateful, as it illuminates the difficulty confronting anyone charged with truthful reporting on the Palestinian ordeal under occupation, and by his principled resignation Wibisono doesn’t allow Israel to get away with neutering the position of special rapporteur.
→ read full articleChildren
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jan 2016
All parents want their children to be independent.
→ read full articleMyanmar’s Nobel Peace Prize Winner [Aung San Suu Kyi] and Crimes against Humanity
Nicholas Kristof – International New York Times,
11 Jan 2016
9 Jan 2015 – Soon the world will witness a remarkable sight: a beloved Nobel Peace Prize winner presiding over 21st-century concentration camps. [Pres. Barack Obama, another NPP recipient, sets the world on fire, killing by Drones indiscriminately around the globe.]
→ read full articleDrought and Heat Took a Heavy Toll on Crops, Study Finds
Nicholas St. Fleur – International New York Times,
11 Jan 2016
Droughts and heat waves wiped out nearly a tenth of the rice, wheat, corn and other cereal crops in countries hit by extreme weather disasters. The paper, published Wednesday [6 Jan] in Nature, examined data on the effects, over five decades, of extreme temperatures, floods and droughts on national crop harvests.
→ read full articleDespair and Hope for the New Year
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jan 2016
Most needed in these dark times is to hold tight to what we believe with an unruly embrace of faith, patience, and urgency. This is my most fervent New Year’s wish for 2016.
→ read full articleSlouching toward Global Disaster: Chaos and Intervention in the Middle East
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Dec 2015
Even the more thoughtful Democrats limit their proposals to enhanced militarism, hoping to induce the Arab countries to put ‘the boots on the ground’ with nary a worry about either igniting a regional war or the imaginative collapse that can only contemplate war as the recipe for peace, again recalling the degree to which Orwellian satiric irony is relied upon to shape foreign policy prescriptions by ambitious politicians.
→ read full articleThe NRA Is Actually Half Right: Guns Don’t Kill People — Americans Kill People
Michael Moore – The Hollywood Reporter,
28 Dec 2015
The ‘Where to Invade Next’ filmmaker argues that even if the U.S. banned guns, its lack of a social safety net would still turn many toward violence: “We just need to modify [the NRA’s slogan] to, ‘Guns don’t kill people — Americans kill people.'”
→ read full articleWhen Terrorism Becomes Counter-Terrorism: The State Sponsors of Terrorism Are “Going After the Terrorists”
Prof Michel Chossudovsky - Global Research,
28 Dec 2015
A complex network of Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist organizations overseen by US and allied intelligence agencies has unfolded, extending across the Middle East, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, Western China, South and South East Asia.
→ read full articleA Christmas Message in Dark Times
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Dec 2015
Christmas has an ecumenical resonance that calls for bright lights, ornamented trees, celebration, and wishes for peace on earth and good will toward all, bringing together those of diverse faith or no faith at all. The legions of ‘the politically correct’ determined to avoid offending those, especially Jews, who are not Christians, will carefully express their good wishes with such phrases as ‘happy holidays!’
→ read full articleMistaken Identity
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Dec 2015
An old cowboy, dressed in a cowboy shirt, hat, jeans and boots went to a bar, sat down, and ordered a drink.
→ read full articleA New World Order? ISIS and the Sykes-Picot Backlash
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Dec 2015
The shaping of world order remains mainly the work of the heavyweight states that act on the basis of geopolitical calculations with respect for international law and morality displayed only as convenient. Yet the political monoculture of territorial states remains formally the exclusive foundation of world order, but its political reality is being challenged in various settings and nowhere more so than in the Middle East.
→ read full articleGerry Spence on America Menaced by Impending Police State
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2015
The book pertains to the situation here in America, but as recent events in Paris, San Bernardino, and Colorado Springs confirm, we are in danger of moving without realizing it toward some kind of ‘global police state,’ all in the name of security, trampling on the rights and self-esteem of billions of people and extinguishing the freedom of all. Such a devastating scenario cannot be separated from the predatory features of global capitalism in its present neoliberal phase.
→ read full articleResponding to Megaterrorism after Paris
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2015
6 Dec 2015 – The post below is based on an opinion piece published by Middle East Eye on December 1, 2015 under the title “A Different Response to ISIS after Paris.” My modified text places its focus on the originality of megaterrorism and its distinctive challenges, suggesting that the choice of response needs to be extended beyond the iron cage of militarism and vengeance.
→ read full articleIt Figures…
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2015
Johnny and Billy, who sat next to each other at school, both had 17 mistakes in their dictation, and all in the same places.
→ read full articleConflict and Cooperation
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2015
During World War I, Muzafer Sherif from Turkey was in a group of civilians who were massacred by enemy soldiers. He was the only survivor, because he lay motionless under a pile of bodies and the soldiers thought he was dead. After that horrible experience, he decided to do everything he could to understand better the sources of hostility and ways to overcome them.
→ read full articleHuge: Monsanto Going to Trial for Crimes against Humanity
Christina Sarich, Natural Society – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2015
3 Dec 2015 – In The Hague, Netherlands, International Criminal Court. If you’ve been waiting to finally see Monsanto – one of the most hated companies in the world – to pay for its ecocide, knowing harm of human life, and devastation of our pollinators, then you won’t have to wait much longer.
→ read full articleConfessions of a Terrorist Sympathiser
Richard Jackson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2015
Recovering sympathy for the terrorist, recognising their humanity, their politics, their suffering, their aspirations, their sense of self in this particular historical epoch, is essential for understanding the roots of their violent actions. It is also essential for reconstituting our own shattered sense of collective morality, and for recognising and acknowledging our own role in the constitutive violence of the current system.
→ read full articleHow the Gates Foundation Reflects the Good and the Bad of “Hacker Philanthropy”
Michael Massing – The Intercept,
30 Nov 2015
A new book by Linsey McGoey reveals the influence over public policy that a massive philanthropy can wield.
→ read full articleAutomatism
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Nov 2015
Two people went along a road with pick and shovel.
→ read full articleBuckminster Fuller
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Nov 2015
Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) studied aerospace engineering, and later changed to architecture. One morning he decided to figure out how a house would look like if it was built according to the principles he had learned in aerospace engineering.
→ read full articleAlfred Nobel
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Nov 2015
Sometimes, mistakes, even lies, can have a serendipitous effect.
→ read full articleThree Harsh Realities to Help You Make Sense of Middle East Anger and the Paris Attacks
Michael Brull – New Matilda,
23 Nov 2015
15 Nov 2015 – There can be nothing but condemnation of the attacks in Paris. But there can – and should – also be understanding about why they occurred, and who created the conditions. The short answer is us.
→ read full articleThe Failure of U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Nov 2015
22 Nov 2015 – What follows is a modified version of the Morton-Kenney annual public lecture given at the University of Southern Illinois in Carbondale on November 18, 2015 under the joint sponsorship of the Department of Political Science and the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.
→ read full articleWaiting for the Myanmar Miracle
Michael Green & Daniel Twining – Foreign Policy,
23 Nov 2015
12 Nov 2015 – Myanmar’s election is a good reminder that authoritarian elites underestimate their political opponents at their peril. The [Aung San Suu Kyi’s] National League for Democracy won nearly three-quarters of the votes cast in last Sunday’s elections.
→ read full articleOn the Phone
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Nov 2015
A man spoke frantically into the phone.
→ read full articleCall Me by My Name
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Nov 2015
French Pres. Charles De Gaulle got up in the middle of the night and went to the bathroom in the dark, wearing nothing.
→ read full articleThe Milgram Experiment
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Nov 2015
The “student” was led away into a cabin where he was presumably hooked to electric wires. The “teacher” was told to ask him a series of questions, and each time he gave a wrong answer, to administer to the “student” an electric shock of increasing intensity, to study if the fear of pain would improve people’s concentration and ability to think straight.
→ read full articleEdward Said’s Humanism versus the U.S. State Department’s Antisemitism
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Nov 2015
There is an obvious tension that exists more vividly than when Edward Said was alive, and commenting on the Palestinian struggle. Israel has created on the ground a set of circumstances that seem irreversible and are institutionalizing a single apartheid Israeli state encompassing the whole of historic Palestine (minus Jordan).
→ read full articleBrain
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Nov 2015
George W. Bush went to see a specialist to examine his brain.
→ read full articleHopes for the Morning After in Ankara: Taking Stock (2002-2015)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Nov 2015
Let’s hope than when Erdoğan awakens the morning after his glowing victory, he chooses what is best for Turkey rather than to settle for becoming a grandiose figure who is certain to be both revered and feared. Only if he tames his ambitions will Erdoğan ensure his legacy as a great Turkish leader, second only to Ataturk.
→ read full articleThe Burlington 23
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Nov 2015
During the Vietnam war, a group of citizens in Burlington, Vermont, USA, tried for a long time in vain to persuade their Congressman to hold hearings about the legality of the war.
→ read full articleSmoke Signal
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Nov 2015
The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. Every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming.
→ read full articleAl Jazeera Turka Interview on Turkish Foreign and National Policy
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Nov 2015
28 Oct 2015 – This is a modified text of an interview conducted by Semin Gumusel Guner of Al Jazeera Turka, and published online in abbreviated form on October 19, 2015. The situation in Turkey is increasingly precarious and troublesome.
→ read full articleRandom Inspections
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Oct 2015
If a suspected drug smuggler could tell a border guard, “You may check my trunk, but don’t open the glove compartment,” such an “inspection” would be meaningless.
→ read full articleThe Nuclear Challenge: Seventy Years after Hiroshima & Nagasaki – Against Binaries (10)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Oct 2015
This is the last in this series of posts prompted by the 70th observance of the atomic attacks in 1945. The intention has been to explore several of the more important dimensions of what is called here ‘nuclearism,’ the securitization of nuclear weaponry in the face of international law, international morality, and simple common sense.
→ read full articleSaudi Arabia, Royal Impunity, and the Quicksand of Special Relationships
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Oct 2015
This post challenges the geopolitics of impunity from both principled and pragmatic perspectives, and also casts doubts on ‘special relationships’ that the United States has established in the Middle East with Israel and Saudi Arabia.
→ read full articleSurvival of the Nicest? A New Theory of Our Origins Says Cooperation-Not Competition-Is Instinctive
Eric Michael Johnson – YES! Magazine,
26 Oct 2015
As worker-owned cooperatives continue to gain prominence around the world, we may ultimately witness the downfall of Carnegie’s “law of competition” and a return to the collaborative environments that the human species has long called home.
→ read full articleThe Inexorable Logic of Sharing Economy
Michael Spence, Nobel Economics Laureate – China Daily,
19 Oct 2015
The truth is that the Internet-led process of exploiting under-utilized resources－be they physical and financial capital or human capital and talent－is both unstoppable and accelerating. Indeed, those who fear the job-destroying and job-shifting power of automation should look upon the sharing economy and breathe a bit of a sigh of relief.
→ read full articleBlood Circulation
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Oct 2015
biology teacher was giving a lesson on blood circulation.
→ read full articleThe Nuclear Challenge: Relying on International Law – Marshall Islands Nuclear Zero Litigation (9)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Oct 2015
From the time of the atomic explosions at the end of World War II, there have been two contradictory sets of tendencies at work: the repudiation of the weaponry and its contemplated uses as ultimate criminality and the secret feverish refinement of the weaponry to enhance its precision, destructive effects, battlefield capabilities, and delivery systems. To date, the latter tendency has prevailed.
→ read full articleCommuters
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Oct 2015
Alice used to come to the office with public transportation, and Bill, who lived a little farther away in the same direction, drove to the office by car. He offered to Alice to pick her up on his way to the office every morning and bring her home after work. Both were happy with this arrangement.
→ read full articleEconomic Theory and Community Development – An Exercise in Applied Philosophy
Prof. Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Oct 2015
The Imaginary World That Holds the Real World Captive
→ read full articleThe Nuclear Challenge: 70 Years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki – Civil Society Activism on Behalf of Nuclear Zero (8)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Oct 2015
The Jeffersonian faith in the future of democracy rested on the cumulative impact of education on citizen participation encouraging a robust and vigilant civil society. The advocacy of nuclear disarmament must become joined at the hip with the recognition that global demilitarization and conventional disarmament are part of a retrofitted political package of unconditional anti-nuclearism.
→ read full articleAfter 70 Years: The UN Falls Short, and Yet…
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Oct 2015
Seventy years later the UN disappoints many, and bores even more, appearing to be nothing more than a gathering place for the politically powerful. I think such a negative image has taken hold because the UN these days seems more than ever like a spectator than a political actor in the several crises that dominate the current agenda of global politics.
→ read full articleOctober 9, 1967: Che Guevara Is Executed in Bolivia
Richard Kreitner – The Nation,
12 Oct 2015
Che Guevara was executed by the Bolivian army on this day in 1967. When his self-selected executioner hesitated before firing, Guevara allegedly spat at him and shouted: “Shoot me, you coward! You are only going to kill a man!”
→ read full articleOver 40 Rodent Feeding Studies Show GM Food is Disastrous to Health
Christina Sarich, Natural Society – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Oct 2015
GMO Free USA has published a listing of more than 40 rodent studies showing that animals fed GM corn and soy suffer dire results. For those who say there is no ‘science’ to prove that GMOs are unsafe, I enjoin them to peruse the following list.
→ read full article(Deutsch) Gegen die Nato: Frankreich unterstützt Russland in Syrien
Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten - TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Oct 2015
5. Oktober 2015 – Die Franzosen unterstützen den Kampf Russlands gegen andere Terror-Gruppen in Syrien. Sie stellen sich damit auf die Seite von US-Präsident Barack Obama, der die Russen zu ihrem Einsatz ermuntert hat und über den Fortgang informiert wird.
→ read full articleThe Power of Nonviolence
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Oct 2015
When Ferdinand Marcos tried to rig elections to stay in power in the Philippines in 1986, two army units defected. He sent the rest of his army to crush them, but they were surrounded and protected by half a million unarmed civilians.
→ read full articleAnnoying Questions
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Oct 2015
Little Johnny came home from the first day in school. His mother asked him how his teacher was.
→ read full articleNonagon of Toxic Conflict: Notes on the Turkish Quagmire
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Oct 2015
The focus on Turkey, and its role with respect to Syria, PKK, and ISIS is not meant to minimize the importance of the other actors in the region that are part of the geopolitical nonogon. There are several overlapping regional proxy wars that have precluded a diplomatic resolution, including serious intraregional tensions between Saudi Arabia and Syria as well as the extraregional rivalry between the United States and Russia.
→ read full articleThe Nuclear Challenge: 70 Years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki – Nuclear Civil Disobedience (7)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Oct 2015
In the years after World War II there was a widespread belief that rational minds would prevail, and that nuclear weapons would not be further developed, and their possession as well as their threat or use prohibited.
→ read full articlePoland Becomes the 14th European Nation to Officially Ban GMO’s!
Amanda Froelich, True Activist – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Oct 2015
1 Oct 2015 – The fourteenth country to opt out of growing GM crops, Poland joins the ranks of Russia, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Latvia, Italy, Germany, Scotland, Wales, Lithuania, Austria, Ireland, France, and Greece.
→ read full article(Deutsch) Japan – 70 Jahre nach Kriegsende
Eiichi Kido - Informationsstelle Militarisierung-IMI,
5 Oct 2015
Erinnerungskultur – Pazifismus-Gebot – Remilitarisierung? Wird Deutschland damit die Militarisierung und die Verneinung der Rechtstaatlichkeit Japans weiter unterstützen? Das würde viele BürgerInnen in Japan stark enttäuschen, die für Freiheit, Frieden und Demokratie engagiert sind, weil sie in Deutschland ein Vorbild sehen.
→ read full articleEffect of Germany’s Occupation on Norway
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Oct 2015
Joint suffering can sometimes bring former opponents together if three conditions are fulfilled…
→ read full articleCIA Interventions in Syria: A Partial Timeline
Michael S. Rozeff, Lew Rockwell – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Oct 2015
3 Oct 2015 – This partial timeline provides evidence that the U.S. government and Obama in particular bear a significant responsibility for the Syrian war and the results of that war. The CIA meddling is distinct from the Pentagon’s failed plan to train moderate rebels, not covered in this timeline.
→ read full articleThe Yemen Catastrophe: Beset by Contradictions of Will and Intellect
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Oct 2015
The UN Security Council seems shockingly supportive of a major Saudi military intervention that started in March 2015, severely aggravating the overall situation by unanimously adopting a one-sided anti-Houthi Resolution 2216. This Saudi use of force is contrary to international law, violates the core principle of the UN Charter, and magnifies the violent disruption of Yemeni society.
→ read full articleThe Nuclear Challenge: 70 Years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki – Fukushima and Beyond (6)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Sep 2015
We can only wonder about the lingering effects on the Japanese national psyche of being twice so severely victimized by the diabolical power of the atom? Fukushima was an exemplary tragedy of this new century, exhibiting the destructive force of nature in lethal interaction with the Promethean embrace of nuclear technology.
→ read full articleEconomic Theory and Community Development
Prof. Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Sep 2015
The discursive strategy of this chapter takes up again a central idea of dominant discourse: the idea that economic growth is and must be the aim of every nation. It seeks to destabilize the basic cultural structure. It seeks to destabilize the inter-related ways of acting, talking and seeing that cement injustice into place and make it immovable. But it does not only destabilize. It also includes a number of constructive proposals.
→ read full articleA Gaza Centric History of Palestine: Past, Present, and Future
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Sep 2015
Jean-Pierre Filiu, ‘Gaza: A History,’ trans. John King, Oxford University Press, 2014, 440 pp., ISBN 9780190201890. This review was initially published in the Journal of the Contemporary Thought and the Islamicate World.
→ read full articleJeopardizing Japanese ‘Abnormality’: Rejoining the War System
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Sep 2015
Washington’s encouragement of Prime Minister Abe’s campaign for a ‘normal’ Japan represents a regressive move regionally and globally, and deserves critical attention from a wider geopolitical perspective as well as from the viewpoint of Japan.
→ read full articleHeaven and Hell
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Sep 2015
In heaven, the cooks are French, the police officers English, the mechanics German, the Swiss run the trains and the Italians are lovers.
→ read full articleStructural Violence
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Sep 2015
Structural violence is equivalent to 236 Hiroshima bombs being dropped on the children of the world each year. However, because the suffering is diffuse, not concentrated in one place at one time, it is ignored by the media and society.
→ read full articleKissinger: A Hero of Our Time
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Sep 2015
For me, Kissinger was the anti-hero, somehow available to justify the unjustifiable, and situate himself in a tradition of statecraft that celebrated the European invention of modern international relations in the 17th-19th centuries.
→ read full articleResponsibility
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Sep 2015
One can distinguish between two concepts of responsibility, in the narrow sense of someone who has caused a problem, and in the wider sense of anyone who can correct a problem, even if he or she has not caused it, as the following story told by Roger Fisher illustrates.
→ read full articleMonsanto’s Sealed Documents Reveal the Truth behind Roundup’s Toxicological Dangers
Richard Gale and Dr. Gary Null – Progressive Radio Network,
21 Sep 2015
Among the many cancers and diseases Monsanto’s own research found associated with glyphosate or Roundup are:
Adenoma cancer in the pituitary gland
Glioma tumors in the brain
Reticular cell sarcomas in the heart
Malignant tumors in the lungs
Salivary mandibular reticular cell carcinoma
Metastatic sarcomas of the lymph gland
Prostate carcinoma
Cancer of the bladder
Thyroid carcinoma
Adrenal reticulum cell sarcomas
Cortical adenomas
Basal cell squamous skin tumors
The Nuclear Challenge: 70 Years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki – The Weird ‘Good Fortune’ of Tsutomu Yamaguchi (5)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Sep 2015
“I was struck by the decision to bomb Hiroshima instead of Kyoto out of respect for Kyoto’s cultural heritage. It was the then Secretary of War, Henry L Stimson, who is credited with making the successful plea to the president to spare Kyoto.”
→ read full article