Articles by RD
We found 3491 results.
US Cluster Bombs Kill Children for Decades in Laos, and Now Yemen
William Boardman - Reader Supported News,
12 Sep 2016
Does anyone think America is accountable for its own actions? The preposterous ironies of President Obama’s unapologetic visit to Laos on September 6 have not yet generated the attention they deserve, but they provide an excellent measure of the self-righteousness of the monstrous continuity of American violence inflicted on the world from Viet Nam in the 1950s to Yemen more than sixty years later.
→ read full articleHow Alcohol Affects the Gut Microbiome
Dr. Edward Group | Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Sep 2016
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism considers at-risk drinking to be more than four drinks per day or fourteen per week for men, and more than three drinks per day or seven per week for women. Heavy drinking can lead to an array of serious health issues. In this article, we will focus on one of the lesser known—dysbiosis—which is an imbalance in the gut microbiota.
→ read full articleClinton 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.
→ read full articleNew US Policy: Kill the Kurds
William Boardman - Reader Supported News,
5 Sep 2016
The incoherence, insanity, and ultimate inanity of US policy in and around Syria was highlighted by Vice President Joe Biden on a state visit to Turkey August 24, when he threatened the most effective fighting force against the Islamic State – the Kurdish militias – with American punishment if they didn’t play nice with the Turks, who have spent years supporting the Islamic State (aka ISIS or ISIL), attacking “bad” Kurds in Turkey and Iraq, and who are now attacking “good” Kurds in Syria.
→ read full articleAftermath
Leonard Roy Frank – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Sep 2016
With “therapeutic” fury
search-and-destroy doctors
using instruments of infamy
conduct electrical lobotomies
in little Auschwitzes called mental hospitals.
(Castellano) “El dia triste” de Brasil: el golpe de clase trámite el parlamento
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Sep 2016
3 septiembre 2016 – Y sucedió que en aquellos días sicarios se travistieron de senadores, en gran número, no todos, y decidieron atacar a una dama honrada e incorruptible que les cortaba el atajo para llegar al poder de Estado.
→ read full articleThe Olympic Games: A Metaphor for a Humanized Humanity
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Aug 2016
In the Olympic Games another logic prevails, different from the daily logic of our capitalist culture, whose articulating axis is an excluding competition: the stronger triumphs and, in the market, if it can, devours its counterpart. In the Olympic Games there is competition, but it is an inclusive competition, because everyone participates. The competition is to be the best, while appreciating and respecting the qualities and virtuosity of the other… The Olympic Games invite us to reflect on the anthropological and social importance of play.
→ read full articleSaudi Arabia Kills Civilians, the U.S. Looks the Other Way
Samuel Oakfordaug – The New York Times,
29 Aug 2016
19 Aug 2016 – In the span of four days earlier this month, the Saudi Arabia-led coalition in Yemen bombed a Doctors Without Borders-supported hospital, killing 19 people; a school, where 10 children, some as young as 8, died; and a vital bridge over which United Nations food supplies traveled, punishing millions.
→ read full articleSouth 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.
→ read full articleI Created the Burkini to Give Women Freedom, Not to Take It Away
Aheda Zanetti – The Guardian,
29 Aug 2016
The burkini does not symbolise Islam, it symbolises leisure and happiness and fitness and health. So who is better, the Taliban or French politicians?
→ read full articleFailures 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.
→ read full articleUS Okay With Surgical Strikes on Yemen Hospitals
William Boardman - Reader Supported News,
29 Aug 2016
This war is a war of aggression [on Yemen], started by Saudi Arabia in March 2015, with crucial US blessing, participation, personnel, and ordnance. The US has been a willing, guilty partner and enabler in 18 months of military atrocities in a one-sided war that everyone involved knew – or should have known – was a pure war crime.
→ read full articleStart 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.”
→ read full articleThe 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.
→ read full articleIndividual 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.
→ read full articleHuman 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.
→ read full articleBeyond 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.
→ read full articleThe Disappearance of Silence
Edward Curtin - Intrepid Report,
22 Aug 2016
Silence is a word pregnant with multiple meanings: for many a threat; for others a nostalgic evocation of a time rendered obsolete by technology; for others a sentence to boredom; and for some, devotees of the ancient arts of contemplation, reading, and writing, a word of profound, even sacred importance. Gandhi, the revolutionary, put it perfectly, “In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.”
→ read full article(Português) De tempos em tempos a plutocracia brasileira tenta um golpe
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Aug 2016
No atual processo de impeachment à Presidenta Dilma contam com um aliado poderoso: o complexo jurídico-policial do Estado que substitui as baionetas. O vice Presidente usurpou o título de Presidente e montou um ministério de pantomima com vários ministros corruptos.
→ read full article‘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.
→ read full articleDark Past: So Little Has Changed in Australia’s Posture towards Asylum Seekers
Antony Loewenstein – The Guardian,
15 Aug 2016
After more than two decades of brutalising asylum seekers on the Australian mainland and offshore, this is what Australia represents. These are our ‘values’.
→ read full articleUkraine, Instability, and the US Election – No Way Out?
William Boardman - Reader Supported News,
15 Aug 2016
Headline: Ukraine claims Russian invasion possible ‘at any minute’ – The headline shown above is from the Irish Times, over a story quoting unnamed sources in the Kiev government, who in turn quote unnamed sources in Crimea. Nothing in the story, taken as a whole, supports the fearmongering headline. Even Kiev acknowledges that Russian troop movements are exercises, of unstated scale at an unstated distance from the border.
→ read full article(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.
→ read full articleAftermath 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.
→ read full articleGlobal Surveillance Industry Database Helps Track Big Brother Worldwide
Deirdre Fulton – Common Dreams,
8 Aug 2016
“Without instruments capable of restricting transfers and shining a light on the companies and the trade, surveillance technologies developed in and traded from the West will further undermine privacy and facilitate other abuses,” says report.
→ read full articleContext 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.
→ read full articleTrump 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.
→ read full articleThe Movement to Free Hens from Cages May Be Going Global
Karin Brulliard – The Washington Post,
1 Aug 2016
On Monday [25 Jul], one of the world’s largest food service suppliers, Paris-based Sodexo, upped the ante, saying it would switch to cage-free eggs in all its global operations by 2025. The announcement by a major international company is a sign that the rapid shift to cage-free eggs, led by consumers but long championed by animal rights activists, is going more global.
→ read full articleIs 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).
→ read full articleHow 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).
→ read full articleNarrating 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.’
→ read full articleKinetics of Empire
Paul Edwards – Information Clearing House,
25 Jul 2016
Whether our dissolution comes through annihilation by war or evisceration through financial meltdown, it will be the greatest act of state terrorism ever inflicted on humankind. In this catastrophic imperial suicide, the collateral damage will be the world.
→ read full article(Português) A Violência: Uma contribuição a suas várias interpretações (1ª Parte)
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jul 2016
O Brasil comparece como um dos países mais violentos do mundo. Só no ano de 2015 foram assassinados 66 mil pessoas, a maioria delas negros e habitantes pobres das periferias. Isso é mais que as vítimas das guerras do Iraque, do Afeganistão e atualmente da Síria.
→ read full article(Português) A Violência: Uma contribuição a suas várias interpretações (2ª Parte)
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jul 2016
Se a violência em uma origem histórica, cultural, social e radical, é mediante outro tipo de história, de cultura, de sociedade e de radicalidade que ela será minimizada e controlada em seu aspecto destrutivo.
→ read full articleThe 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.
→ read full articleAn 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.
→ read full articleBlair Misled the Country over Iraq – Something Similar Could Happen Again
Clare Short – The Guardian,
11 Jul 2016
Chilcot’s devastating critique of the events that took us to war shows that power in the UK is still concentrated in too few hands, with too little oversight.
→ read full articleSmearing 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.
→ read full articleBlood Spills on to the Shores of the Danish Faroe Islands in the First Pilot Whale Slaughter of the Year
Sea Shepherd News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jul 2016
6 Jul 2016 – The ordeal began this morning when locals spotted a pod of between 100-150 pilot whales passing by Svínoy. Several boats then drove the pod of whales approximately 11 kilometres to Hvannasund, where the whales were forced to beach, and slaughtered by locals. Faroese media outlets have confirmed between 30-50 pilot whales have been killed.
→ read full articleWhy 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
→ read full articleThe 1% Are Recovering from 2008 Recession While 99% Are Still Waiting
Jana Kasperkevic – The Guardian,
11 Jul 2016
In 2015, the income of the 99% grew by just 3.9% – ‘the best real income growth in 17 years’ – while the rich saw growth was twice that at 7.7%.
→ read full article
Oprah Winfrey’s Harvard Commencement 2013 Inspirational Speech
Harvard University – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jul 2016
”It doesn’t matter how far you might rise — at some point, you are bound to stumble. Because if you’re constantly doing what we do — raising the bar — if you’re constantly pushing yourself higher, higher, the law of averages predicts that you will, at some point, fall. And when you do, I want you to know this, remember this: There is no such thing as failure — failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.”
→ read full articleAre 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.
→ read full articleSupport Your Digestive System with Aloe Vera
Dr. Edward Group | Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jul 2016
A healthy gut reacts positively to good nutrition and is also the result of good nutrition. Refined sugar, artificial ingredients, and artificial coloring offer no nutrition and, even worse, can upset gut balance. Aloe vera, on the other hand, is a nutrient-dense superfood that soothes, nourishes, and promotes detoxification and normal bowel movements.
→ read full articleSri Lanka Wants the World to Forget about Justice for War Victims – Please Don’t
Nirmanusan Balasundaram – The Guardian,
4 Jul 2016
With the Sri Lankan government winding back commitments to reconciliation and justice measures, it’s up to the international community to hold them to account.
→ read full articleCluster Bombs Used in Sri Lanka’s Civil War, Leaked Photos Suggest
Emanuel Stoakes – The Guardian,
27 Jun 2016
Exclusive: images appear to confirm use of the indiscriminate weapon in a conflict which cost the lives of at least 100,000.
→ read full articleEnjoy These 10 Detox Water Recipes All Year Long!
Dr. Edward Group | Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jun 2016
Detox water is basically water infused with fruits, vegetables, and/or herbs. Sometimes called infused water, many people use it as part of a body detox strategy. I know many people who don’t enjoy drinking water. Some say it’s tasteless and dull. That’s what makes detox water so excellent. It adds flavor to plain water while also infusing key, beneficial nutrients.
→ read full articleCounting the Crimes of the War on Terror
Rebecca Gordon – TomDispatch,
20 Jun 2016
Should George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Others Be Jailed? Maybe we’ll never see America’s torturers behind bars. They should still have to tell the truth about what they did.
→ read full articleAung 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.
→ read full articleA 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.
→ read full articleZionism, 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.
→ read full articleAustria Elects a New Green President against the Rising Right
Rene Wadlow | Toward Freedom – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jun 2016
There was a sense of relief among Europeans when it was announced that Alexander Van der Bellen won the election for President of Austria over his far right-wing opponent Norbert Hofer. Austria was split: 50.3% for Van der Bellen, leader of the Green Party and an active ecologist, and 49.7% for Hofer. The vote was also a rural-urban split that also reflected educational levels as well as a generation gap.
→ read full articleWhat Are the Benefits of Turmeric and Curcumin?
Dr Edward Group, Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jun 2016
Turmeric has been traditionally used for pulmonary and gastrointestinal system problems. Research within the 50 years has shown much of the supposed benefit of turmeric is due to curcumin, the active component, a polyphenol that has displayed activity in antioxidant, anti-redness, anti-harmful organism capacities.
→ read full articleA 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.
→ read full articleHow the Pentagon Punished NSA Whistleblowers
Mark Hertsgaard – The Guardian,
30 May 2016
Long before Edward Snowden went public, John Crane was a top Pentagon official fighting to protect NSA whistleblowers. Instead their lives were ruined – and so was his.
• Snowden calls for whistleblower shield after claims by Pentagon source
• Exclusive: Pentagon source goes on record against whistleblower program
Putin Vows Retaliation over US Missile Shield; Warns Poland, Romania Now in the “Cross Hairs”
Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 May 2016
28 May 2016 – While Obama was in Hiroshima as the first standing president of the only nation to have ever used a nuclear weapon during wartime, and without offering an apology to Japan, Russian president Putin was in Greece. The Greek people have turned increasingly against remaining in the Eurogroup, a shift Putin certainly hopes to capitalize on. But it wasn’t the latest Greek pivot toward Russia that was the highlight of Putin’s trip: it was his latest warning that the Russian response to the most recent NATO provocation in Europe will be significant.
→ read full article(Português) A Volta da Classe do Privilégio e o Golpe Parlamentar no Brasil
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 May 2016
Segundo o Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada são apenas 71 mil pessoas (ou 1% da população que representa apenas 0,05% dos adultos), multibilionários brasileiros, que controlam praticamente nossas riquezas e nossas finanças e através delas o jogo político. Essa classe do privilégio, além de perversa socialmente, sempre consegue manobrar o poder de Estado em seu benefício.
→ read full articleOn (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.
→ read full articleAs Palestinians Mourn Their Nakba, the UK Must Acknowledge Its Responsibility
Ahmad Samih Khalidi – The Guardian,
16 May 2016
15 May 2016 – Today marks the 68th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe): the Palestinians’ dispossession and the loss of their homeland. Next year is the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. It behooves the UK to face up to its role in the dispossession of the Palestinians. Their plight remains without redress in the UK.
→ read full articleGeneral 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.
→ read full articleUs Defies Myanmar Government Request to Stop Using Term Rohingya
The Guardian – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2016
Ambassador Scot Marciel says Washington will continue to call persecuted Muslim minority by name objected to by Aung San Suu Kyi’s administration.
→ read full articleBuilding a Cooperative Solidarity Commonwealth
Jessica Gordon Nembhard |The Next System Project – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2016
The next system that we need, and that hopefully we are moving toward, is a cooperative commonwealth within interlocking local solidarity economies. Such a system is created from the bottom up, building upon multiple grassroots cooperative enterprises, and democratic community-based economic practices. These networks collaborate and federate from the local to municipal, regional, national, and international levels.
→ read full articleCelebrating 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.
→ read full articleWashington’s Military Addiction – And the Ruins Still to Come
Tom Engelhardt - TomDispatch,
16 May 2016
But don’t bother to blame the politicians and national security nabobs in Washington for this [their solution — more of the same –militarism]. They’re addicts. They can’t help themselves. What they need is rehab. Instead, they continue to run our world. Be suitably scared for the ruins still to come.
→ read full article[Nobel Peace Laureate] Aung San Suu Kyi’s Cowardly Stance on the Rohingya
Editorial Board – The New York Times,
16 May 2016
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi — Myanmar’s leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate — does not want to call them Rohingya, the name they use, because nationalist Buddhists want to perpetuate the myth that they are “Bengalis” who don’t belong in Myanmar. She has also asked the United States ambassador not to use the term.
→ read full articleMaking 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.
→ read full articleWhistleblowing Is Not Just Leaking — It’s an Act of Political Resistance
Edward Snowden – The Intercept,
9 May 2016
One of the challenges of being a whistleblower is living with the knowledge that people continue to sit, just as you did, at those desks, in that unit, throughout the agency, who see what you saw and comply in silence, without resistance or complaint. They learn to live not just with untruths but with unnecessary untruths, dangerous untruths, corrosive untruths.
→ read full articleLeaked TTIP Documents Cast Doubt on EU-US Trade Deal
Arthur Neslen – The Guardian,
9 May 2016
1 May 2016 – Talks for a free trade deal between Europe and the US face a serious impasse with “irreconcilable” differences in some areas, according to leaked negotiating texts. The two sides are also at odds over US demands that would require the EU to break promises it has made on environmental protection.
→ read full articleDreaming 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.
→ read full articleAnarchism’s Mid-Century Turn
Kristian Williams | Toward Freedom - TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2016
Review & Response: Unruly Equality: U.S. Anarchism in the Twentieth Century, By Andrew Cornell, University of California Press, 2016, 300 pages. No matter how one feels about it, the current state of anarchism has represented something of a mystery: What was once a mass movement based mainly in working class immigrant communities is now an archipelago of subcultural scenes inhabited largely by disaffected young people from the white middle class.
→ read full articleWhy the US Will Not Sign the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea
Ken Meyercord – Dissident Voice,
9 May 2016
Symptomatic of our hypocrisy, we protest Chinese “aggressive” actions in the area by sailing the Seventh Fleet through atolls turned into landing-strips to demonstrate our commitment to freedom of navigation. Yet we refuse to sign the UN’s Convention on the Law of the Sea to formalize the rules of navigation that has been around since 1982 and ratified by over 160 UN members, including China, but not by the U.S. of A.
→ read full article(Deutsch) Die Krise Brasiliens und die Weltgeopolitik
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2016
Die Spionage der USA, wie von Snowden ans Licht der Öffentlichkeit gebracht, erreichte die Petrobras und die Reserven von Pré-Sal und hat auch Präsidentin Dilma Roussef nicht ausgelassen. Dies ist Teil der Strategie des Pentagon, um alle Gebiete unter dem Slogan „Eine Welt, ein Reich“ zu vereinen. Im Folgenden einige Punkte, die uns zum Nachdenken bringen.
→ read full articleZupta 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.
→ read full articleOnshore Tax Havens: American Elites Don’t Have to Go to Panama to Hide Their Money — They Can Go to Delaware
Josh Hoxie | Other Words – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2016
Who needs offshore tax havens in Panama? Nearly 300,000 corporations — including some owned by Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton — are incorporated at a single Delaware address.
→ read full articleThe Chernobyl Secret Protocols: Lies in the Aftermath of Disaster
Alla Yaroshinskaya | The Right Livelihood Award Foundation - TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2016
In my journalistic archives there are mountains of classified Chernobyl documents from the USSR Communist Party and Soviet government. The price paid for these archives is tens of thousands of dead emergency responders and other victims of the fallout, as well as nine million people who lost their health and quality of life and are still surviving in the affected areas.
→ read full articleDefying the Spies: Free Thought as Resistance in the Age of Surveillance
Benjamin Dangl – Toward Freedom,
9 May 2016
A brand new study from Oxford provides empirical evidence to prove that the very fact that the surveillance state exists spreads conformity and subservience. The study examines how, following whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013 about US government spying, there was “a 20 percent decline in page views on Wikipedia articles related to terrorism, including those that mentioned ‘al Qaeda,’ ‘car bomb’ or ‘Taliban.’”
→ read full articleThe Possibilities of Anti-Austerity Politics: A Spanish Drama
Immanuel Wallerstein – Toward Freedom,
9 May 2016
Is there any way that any government is able to maintain an anti-austerity policy in the middle run, amidst the pressures that reduced government real revenues are imposing on states throughout the world? As this drama plays out in Spain, the world will be watching, reacting, and drawing lessons.
→ read full articleSolitary Confinement Is ‘No Touch’ Torture, And It Must Be Abolished
Chelsea E Manning – The Guardian,
9 May 2016
For 17 hours a day, I sat directly in front of at least two Marine Corps guards seated behind a one-way mirror. I was not allowed to lay down. I was not allowed to lean my back against the cell wall. I was not allowed to exercise. Sometimes, to keep from going crazy, I would stand up, walk around, or dance, as “dancing” was not considered exercise by the Marine Corps.
→ read full articleNothing Is Real: “It’s All Being Played to Keep People Believing the System Is Working”
Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
The entire system is built upon a fraud. The losses have been hidden and papered over with trillion dollar cash infusions by governments and central banks around the world. Every single asset now… I don’t care what asset… you want to look at currency, debt, housing, metals, the stock market… pick an asset… there’s no price discovery mechanism behind it whatsoever… it’s all fake… it’s all being distorted. It’s time to prepare for a collapse of a magnitude never before witnessed.
→ read full article(Português) Prêmio Nobel da Paz Adolfo Pérez Esquivel traz apoio do Papa a Dilma
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
29 de Abril de 2016 – O vencedor do prêmio Nobel da Paz em 1980, o argentino Adolfo Pérez Esquivel revelou, em entrevista ao jornalista Darío Pignotti, do jornal Página 12, que levou à presidente Dilma Rousseff o apoio do Papa Francisco. O pontífice é também argentino e mantém estreita ligação com movimentos de defesa dos direitos humanos na América Latina.
→ read full articleIf 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.
→ read full article2016 World Press Freedom Index: Leaders Paranoid about Journalists
Reporters Without Borders – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
20 Apr 2016 – Most of the movement in the World Press Freedom Index unveiled today by Reporters Without Borders is indicative of a climate of fear and tension combined with increasing control over newsrooms by governments and private-sector interests. 180 Countries Ranked According to Freedom Allowed to Journalists
→ read full articleRefugee 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.
→ read full articleThe Evolution of Union Co-ops and the Historical Development of Workplace Democracy
James Anderson, Toward Freedom – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
“Every worker has an equal, democratic vote at weekly meetings that decide all matters of the organization. And we are all members of the Industrial Workers of the World to protect that process so that it can’t be hijacked.”
→ read full articleEthnic 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.
→ read full articleCan Lemon Water Detox Your Body?
Dr. Edward Group, Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
Adding a little lemon to your water is a great way to add flavor and experience the benefits offered by lemons. It’ll also help cleanse your body of toxins and waste. The American Cancer Society recommends hot lemon water for alleviating constipation and clearing the bowels. [4] Let’s look at four more benefits of lemon water.
→ read full articleAn 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.”
→ read full article300+ Arrests as Pro-Democracy Forces Converge for Final Day of Spring Revolt
Deirdre Fulton, Popular Resistance – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
Sunday saw thousands rally in Washington, D.C., while hundreds risked arrest during mass sit-in on Monday [18 Apr]. Capitol Police say 1,240 people have been arrested in the last seven days. Civil Disobedience may be more important than voting.
→ read full articleIf 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.
→ read full articleHillary Clinton and Haiti
Ricardo Seitenfus – CounterPunch,
18 Apr 2016
The Clintons’ high-profile interest in Haiti dates back to their wedding in 1975. Shortly after their honeymoon in Acapulco, Bill and Hillary Clinton received an invitation from David Edwards — a friend and Citibank executive — to accompany him to Haiti. Edwards’s motivation was neither cultural nor humanitarian. The reason was Citibank’s long-standing financial interests in the country, which now go back over a century.
→ read full articleShould 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?
→ read full article(Português) Dez lições da múltipla crise brasileira
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Apr 2016
10 abril 2016 – Toda crise acrisola, purifica e faz madurar. Que lições podemos tirar dela? Elenco algumas.
→ read full articleOvarian 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.
→ read full articleLeftist Multi-Issue Activism: Possible Ideas for Going Forward
Various Authors ,Toward Freedom – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Apr 2016
We the signers of “Some Possible Ideas for Going Forward” think one high priority for progress is activists developing, discussing, and settling on priorities around which to organize multi issue activism in coming months and years. We hope this document can help inspire more conversations within groups and movements that, over time, come to a synthesis.
→ read full articleRest 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.
→ read full articleDefenders of Freedom: Why Anarchism Is Misunderstood
Greg Guma – Toward Freedom,
11 Apr 2016
Anarchists have been tarred for a century as subversives, bomb-throwers, terrorists; deluded utopians at best. But no “ism” is more misunderstood, purposely distorted or entwined with America’s traditions of self-government and free speech.
→ read full articleReading 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.
→ 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 articleRevealed: How Associated Press Cooperated with the Nazis
Philip Oltermann – The Guardian,
4 Apr 2016
German historian shows how news agency retained access in 1930s by promising not to undermine strength of Hitler regime.
→ read full articleCIA Photographed Detainees Naked Before Sending Them to Be Tortured
Spencer Ackerman – The Guardian,
4 Apr 2016
28 Mar 2016 – The CIA took naked photographs of people it sent to its foreign partners for torture, the Guardian can reveal. A former US official who had seen some of the photographs described them as “very gruesome”. The CIA declined to comment for this story.
→ read full article