Articles by John Scales Avery
We found 363 results.
“Humanitarian” Missile Strikes against Syria?
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Sep 2013
The issue of chemical weapons is obscuring the more important issues of legality and the question of whether an attack on Syria would not greatly increase the suffering of the people of that region because of escalation. A large-scale war in the Middle East would cause immense suffering to the people of the region, and it might turn into a Third World War. It would be a criminal act to initiate such a war, violating both the United Nations Charter and the Nuremberg Principles.
→ read full articleSyria, Democracy and International Law
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Sep 2013
The central purpose of the UN organization, when it was set up in 1945, was to make war illegal. The enormous suffering caused by two world wars had convinced the men and women who drafted the Charter that security based on national military forces had to be replaced by a system of collective security.
→ read full articleNobel Peace Prize Winner And War Criminal?
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Sep 2013
In 1946 the United Nations General Assembly unanimously affirmed “the principles of international law recognized by the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal” and established an International Law Commission to formalize the Nuremberg Principles, and the result was the following list.
→ read full articleSyria and Iran: The Danger of Escalation
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Sep 2013
The parallel with the start of World War I is particularly disturbing because the intervening century has witnessed the development of thermonuclear weapons with the capacity to destroy human civilization and much of the biosphere. Must we allow the actions of a few power-blinded politicians to start a conflict that could lead to the deaths of ourselves and our children?
→ read full articleSome Peace Education Initiatives in Denmark
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Aug 2013
This paper will discuss some Danish peace education activities, especially those of the Danish Peace Academy, the Danish National Group of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (Nobel Peace Prize, 1995), and the Grundtvigian adult education colleges.
→ read full articleProtecting Whistleblowers
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jul 2013
We need a new global ethic, an ethic as advanced as our technology. Of course we can continue to be loyal to our families, our localities and our countries. But this must be supplemented by a higher loyalty: a loyalty to humanity as a whole.
→ read full articleA Government with Many Secrets Is Not a Democracy
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jul 2013
President Obama has initiated an enormous Stasi-like program called “Insider Threats”, which forces millions of federal employees to spy on each other. It extends beyond the US national security bureaucracies to most federal departments and agencies nationwide, including the Peace Corps, the Social Security Administration, and the Education and Agriculture Departments.”
→ read full articleThe Social Responsibility of Scientists
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jul 2013
It has been proposed that graduates in science and engineering should take an oath, analogous to that taken by graduating medical students. They should promise never to use their education in the service of war, nor for the production of weapons, or in any way that might be harmful to society or to the environment.
→ read full articleThe Task before Us
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jul 2013
As a result of the Fukushima catastrophe, world public opinion now increasingly rejects nuclear power generation. We can hope that the disaster will also contribute to a rejection of nuclear weapons. We must feel that all of nature is part of the same sacred family; meadow flowers, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals, and other humans, all these are our brothers and sisters, deserving our care and protection.
→ read full articleCollected Essays – John Scales Avery
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Jun 2013
This book contains a collection of essays, most of which were first published in Countercurrents and in Professor Johan Galtung’s Transcend Media Service Weekly Digest during 2012 and early 2013. The Editor of Countercurrents, Mr. Binu Mathew, and the Editor of TMS Weekly Digest, Mr. Antonio C.S. Rosa, were kind enough to accept all the articles that I sent to them, and so I wrote more and more.
→ read full articleThe Arrogance of Power
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jun 2013
According to testimony given by CIA insider Susan Lindauer, the CIA knew about the planned attack on the World Trade Center as early as April, 2001. According to Lindauer, it was realized that airplanes striking the buildings would not cause their collapse, and so the disaster was deliberately made worse than it otherwise would have been by US government agents, who planted charges of explosives.
→ read full articleA Golden Age?
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 May 2013
We need to act today to save the future. We need to stabilize global population today; we need to achieve world peace today; we need to reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses today; we need to make the transition to renewable energy today; we need to stop overfishing today; we need agricultural research today; we need to save the rainforests today.
→ read full articleDoes the American Jewish Community Really Want a Large-Scale General War in the Middle East?
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 May 2013
A large-scale general war in the Middle East would be a catastrophe for Syria, Iraq and Iran; a catastrophe for the other Islamic states of the Middle East; a catastrophe for Pakistan and Russia, should they become involved; and a catastrophe for Israel and the United States. In fact, all of the peoples of the world would suffer. How could such a general war come about? Several paths are possible.
→ read full articleThe Arms Trade Treaty Opens New Possibilities at the UN
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Apr 2013
On April 2, 2013, an historic victory was won at the United Nations, and the world achieved its first treaty limiting international trade in arms. It is not only the ATT-Arms Trade Treaty that forms a precedent, but also the International Criminal Court, whose establishment was opposed by several militarily powerful states. Nevertheless, the ICC was adopted because a majority of the peoples of the world believed it to be a step forward towards a stable, peaceful and just global society.
→ read full articleMartin Luther King, We Need Your Voice Today!
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Apr 2013
The son of a southern Baptist minister, Martin Luther King, Jr received his Ph.D. in theology from Boston University in 1955. During his studies, he had admired Thoreau’s essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience,” and he had also been greatly moved by the life and teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.
→ read full articleCount Leo Tolstoy, We Need Your Voice Today!
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Apr 2013
“…The peoples of the Christian world have solemnly accepted this law, while at the same time they have permitted violence and built their lives on violence; and that is why the whole life of the Christian peoples is a continuous contradiction between what they profess, and the principles on which they order their lives – a contradiction between love accepted as the law of life, and violence which is recognized and praised, acknowledged even as a necessity in different phases of life, such as the power of rulers, courts, and armies…”
→ read full articleThe Armed Forces Special Powers Act in Northeast India
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Apr 2013
In 1958 the government of India passed the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which allows soldiers to arrest or shoot “anyone who has committed cognizable offences or is reasonably suspected of having done so”. The act also specifies that “Army officers have legal immunity for their actions. In practice, the AFSPA allows soldiers to terrorize the citizens of the states where it is being applied.
→ read full articleHenry David Thoreau, We Need Your Voice Today!
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Mar 2013
Thoreau refused to pay his poll tax because of his opposition to the Mexican War and to the institution of slavery. Because of his refusal to pay the tax (which was in fact a very small amount) he spent a night in prison. To Thoreau’s irritation, his family paid the poll tax for him and he was released. He then wrote down his ideas on the subject in an essay entitled The Duty of Civil Disobedience, where he maintains that each person has a duty to follow his own individual conscience even when it conflicts with the orders of his government.
→ read full articleMahatma Gandhi, We Need Your Voice Today!
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Mar 2013
If humans are ever to achieve a stable global society in the future, they will have to become much more modest in their economic behavior and much more peaceful in their politics. For both modesty and peace, Gandhi is a useful source of ideas. The problems with which he struggled during his lifetime are extremely relevant to us in the 21st Century, when both nuclear and ecological catastrophes threaten the world.
→ read full articleJust Staying Alive
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Mar 2013
It is clear that the 21st century will be a period of crisis for civilization. With the world’s human population growing at the rate of 200,000 people each day, or 80,000,000 people each year, our environment is under great stress.
→ read full articleAgainst the Institution of War
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Mar 2013
For the first time in history, science has given to humans the possibility of a life of comfort, free from hunger and cold, and free from the constant threat of infectious disease. At the same time, science has given us the power to destroy civilization through thermonuclear war, as well as the power to make our planet uninhabitable through pollution and overpopulation. The question of which of these alternatives we choose is a matter of life or death to ourselves and our children.
→ read full articleCancer Threat from Radioactive Leaks at Hanford
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Feb 2013
Hanford Health Information Network reports concluded that residents who lived downwind from Hanford or who used the Columbia River downstream were exposed to elevated doses of radiation that placed them at increased risk for various cancers and other diseases. The most significant challenge at Hanford is stabilizing the 53 million U.S. Gallons (204,000 m3) of high-level radioactive waste stored in 177 underground tanks.
→ read full articleTribalism and Agreed-Upon Lies
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Feb 2013
Truth has the great virtue that it allows us to accurately predict the future. If we ignore truth because it is unfashionable, or painful, or heretical, the future will catch us unprepared.
→ read full articleReciprocity and Karma
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Feb 2013
Reciprocity is the basis of non-market economies, and also the basis of social interactions between family members, friends and colleagues. In hunter-gatherer societies, it is customary to share food among all the members of the group. However, the concept of karma has a broader and more abstract validity beyond the direct return of actions to the actor. When we perform a good action, we increase the total amount of good karma in the world. If all people similarly behave well, the world as a whole will become more pleasant and safer.
→ read full articleUsing Material Goods for Social Competition
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Jan 2013
There is something ethically wrong with using material goods for the purpose of social competition at a time when excessive consumption is destroying our planet. The voice of Henry David Thoreau is a useful and wise one. “Most of the luxuries”, Thoreau wrote, “and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries, the wisest have ever lived a simpler and meager life than the poor.
→ read full articleSanctions as Collective Punishment
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Jan 2013
At present, we treat nations as though they were persons: We punish entire nations by sanctions, even when only the leaders are guilty, even though the burdens of the sanctions fall most heavily on the poorest and least guilty of the citizens, and even though sanctions often have the effect of uniting the citizens of a country behind the guilty leaders.
→ read full articleOptimum Population in the Future
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Jan 2013
What is the optimum population of the world? It is certainly not the maximum number that can be squeezed onto the globe by eradicating every species of plant and animal that cannot be eaten. As we strive to achieve peace throughout the world, and to eliminate the suffering caused by poverty, hunger and preventable disease, we should remember that all these goals will be more attainable with a global population of moderate size.
→ read full articleEconomic Predictions for 2013
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Jan 2013
Since the time of Adam Smith, self-interest has been the mainspring of human economic activity. What is required today is a change of values, so that instead of being motivated by selfishness, people throughout the world will work for the common good.
→ read full articleThe Mayan Apocalypse and Gell-Mann’s Curve
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Dec 2012
How are we to explain the fact that the population curve is not an exponential? We can turn to Malthus for an answer: According to his model, population does not increase exponentially, except under special circumstances, when the food supply is so ample that the increase of population is entirely unchecked, In his “Essay on the Principle of Population”, population pressure appears as one of the main causes of war.
→ read full articleHuman Rights: A Letter to Santa Claus?
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Dec 2012
On December 10, 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 48 nations voted for adoption, while 8 nations abstained from voting. Not a single state voted against the Declaration. Of course we have to earn a living, but in addition, all of us have the duty to work actively, to the best of our abilities, to save humanity’s future and the biosphere.
→ read full articleCollective Punishment and the Blockade of Gaza
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Nov 2012
Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, collective punishment is war crime. Article 33 states that “No protected person may be punished for an offense that he or she did not personally commit.” Articles 47-78 also impose substantial obligations on occupying powers, with numerous provisions for the general welfare of the inhabitants of an occupied territory.
→ read full articleIran and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Nov 2012
Four countries outside the NPT have nuclear weapons: India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel. North Korea had originally joined the NPT, but it withdrew in 2003. Looking at the NPT with the benefit of hindsight, we can see the third “pillar”, the “right to peaceful use of nuclear technology” as a fatal flaw of the treaty. In practice, it has meant encouragement of nuclear power generation, with all the many dangers that go with it.
→ read full articleKill or Be Killed (Or Both)
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Nov 2012
The doctrines of nuclear deterrence and massive retaliation are still based on the Stone Age maxim: “Kill or be killed”, and the voice at the back of the hall is still right in adding “Or both!” We have to remember that the total explosive power of the nuclear weapons in the world today is 500,000 times as great as the power of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What is threatened by a nuclear war today is the complete breakdown of human civilization.
→ read full articleRestoring Democracy in the United States
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Nov 2012
The United States is no longer a democracy, since neither the economic system nor the government serve the will and needs of the people. They serve instead the interests of the wealthy and powerful 1%, who control not only the mass media and the financial system, but also the politicians of both major parties. The situation in many other countries is very similar.
→ read full articlePerpetual War
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Nov 2012
Because the world spends roughly 1.7 trillion dollars each year on armaments, it follows that very many people make their living from war. This is the reason why it is correct to speak of war as a social, political and economic institution, and also one of the main reasons why war persists, although everyone realizes that it is the cause of much of the suffering of humanity.
→ read full articleAdverse Effects of Globalization
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Oct 2012
Today, economic globalization aims at increased trade throughout the world. At first sight, this might seem to be a benefit. However, laws preventing the exploitation of labor are not universal. The same unspeakable conditions experienced by workers in factories and mines during the early phases of the Industrial Revolution in Europe can be found today among factory workers in Indonesia, or children weaving oriental carpets in Pakistan; and it is estimated that in India alone there are 80,000,000 child laborers.
→ read full articleFlaws in the Concept of Nuclear Deterrence
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Oct 2012
Before discussing other defects in the concept of deterrence, it must be said very clearly that the idea of “massive nuclear retaliation” is completely unacceptable from an ethical point of view. The doctrine of retaliation, performed on a massive scale, violates not only the principles of common human decency and common sense, but also the ethical principles of every major religion.
→ read full articleOne Step Backward Taken
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Oct 2012
On his poem, “One step Backward Taken,” Robert Frost tells us that we can often save ourselves by taking a step backwards, by looking carefully at what has been happening and by avoiding going over the edge.
→ read full articleConstruction versus Destruction
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Oct 2012
It is easier to burn down a house than to build one, easier to kill a human than to raise and educate one, easier to force a species into extinction than to replace it once it is gone, easier to burn the Great Library of Alexandria than to accumulate the knowledge that once filled it, and easier to destroy a civilization in a thermonuclear war than to rebuild it from the radioactive ashes.
→ read full articleIran: Automatic Escalation to World War III?
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Oct 2012
A few days ago Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh , who is in charge of the Revolutionary Guards missile systems told that Iran would deem any Israeli strike to be conducted with US authorisation, so “whether the Zionist regime attacks with or without US knowledge, then we will definitely attack US bases in Bahrain, Qatar and Afghanistan.” US leaders would then be forced to respond despite the danger that Russia, China and Pakistan would be drawn into the conflict on the side of Iran.
→ read full articleBlood for Oil
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Sep 2012
“Modern warfare particularly depends on oil, because virtually all weapons systems rely on oil-based fuel – tanks, trucks, armored vehicles, self-propelled artillery pieces, airplanes, and naval ships. For this reason, the governments and general staffs of powerful nations seek to ensure a steady supply of oil during wartime, to fuel oil-hungry military forces in far-flung operational theaters.”
→ read full articleThe Future of International Law
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Sep 2012
It is becoming increasingly clear that the concept of the absolutely sovereign nation-state is a dangerous anachronism in a world of thermonuclear weapons, instantaneous communication, and economic interdependence. Probably our best hope for the future lies in developing the United Nations into a World Federation.
→ read full articleTargeting Civilians
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Sep 2012
Much was destroyed during World War II, and among the casualties of the war were the ethical principles that Roosevelt and Chamberlain announced at its outset. We live at a special time in history, a time of crisis for civilization. We did not ask to be born at a moment of crisis, but such is our fate. Every person now alive has a special responsibility: We owe it, both to our ancestors and to future generations, to build a stable and cooperative future world.
→ read full articleNobody Had the Slightest Idea of What It Would Be Like
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Sep 2012
The total explosive power of today’s weapons is equivalent to roughly half a million Hiroshima bombs. To multiply the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by a factor of half a million changes the danger qualitatively. What is threatened today is the complete breakdown of human society.
→ read full articleThe Protection Racket
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Aug 2012
One is reminded of the feudal system of the Middle Ages, in which industrious peasants paid for “protection” with a large fraction of their produce. Their gangster-like protectors, the knights and barons, did no useful work. All they did was to fight with each other. How much is it exactly that we pay today for “protection”? The total world military budgets cost us 1.7 trillion dollars each year, that is to say, 1,700,000,000,000 dollars, an amount of money almost too large to be imagined. What do we get for this? We do not get anything useful. We get war, a universal source of poverty, destruction of infrastructure, and human suffering.
→ read full articleDestroying the World for Profit
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Aug 2012
Does it make sense to destroy the world for the sake of profit or personal advantage? This is exactly what our governments and business leaders are doing today. This is what very many ordinary people are doing. But does it make sense? Does it make sense to saw off the branch on which you are sitting? Does it make sense to jockey for a place at the Captain’s table on board an iceberg-struck Titanic?
→ read full articleReformed Teaching of History
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Aug 2012
Today the world urgently needs a new global ethic, – an ethic where loyalty to family, community and nation will be supplemented by a strong sense of the brotherhood of all humans, regardless of race, religion or nationality. Schiller expressed this feeling in his “Ode to Joy”, a part of which is the text of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Today, the sharing of knowledge and culture is symbolized by the Internet, which binds us all together, no matter where we are living.
→ read full articleThe Nuremberg Principles and Individual Responsibility
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Aug 2012
The Nuremberg Principles are being used today as the basis for the International Criminal Court’s trials of individuals accused of genocide and war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere. According to them, it is not only the right, but also the duty of individuals to make moral and legal judgments concerning wars in which they are asked to fight. All of us are responsible for what our governments do! I personally would like to extend the principle of individual responsibility still further, whether the problems are related to the abolition of war, to the prevention of poverty, the prevention of famine, or to saving the biosphere.
→ read full articleFacing a Set of Linked Problems
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Jul 2012
Today, a number of serious and interconnected problems are facing human civilization and the biosphere. Because they are linked, we need to look at all of these problems together, and to find holistic solutions.
→ read full articleLimits to Growth and Climate Change
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jul 2012
According to the “empty-world” picture of economics, the limiting factors in the production of food and goods are shortages of capital and labor. The land, forests, fossil fuels, minerals, oceans filled with fish, and other natural resources upon which human labor and capital operate, are assumed to be present in such large quantities that they are not limiting factors
→ read full articleThe Origin of Cooperation
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jul 2012
The Mystery of Self-Sacrifice in War – Tribalism involves passionate attachment to one’s own group, self-sacrifice for the sake of the group, willingness both to die and to kill if necessary to defend the group from its enemies, and belief that in case of a conflict, one’s own group is always in the right. Unfortunately these emotions make war possible…
→ read full articleMaking a Game of Killing
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jun 2012
The mass media are an important part of our educational system. Perhaps it is time to look more closely at the values that they are transmitting. In particular, we should perhaps look at computer games designed for young boys. They often give the strongest imaginable support to a culture of violence.
→ read full articleFour Futures
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jun 2012
Although the problems facing the world in the 21st century are both severe and difficult they do have solutions, which are vehemently opposed by the power holders of today, who control both governments and mass media. Indeed this opposition by power holders, who profit from the status quo, is the main reason why rational solutions to global problems have not yet been found.
→ read full articleBenefits of Equality
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 May 2012
Taking advantage of their superior weaponry, Europe, the United States and Japan rapidly carved up the remainder of the world into colonies, which acted as sources of raw materials and food, and as markets for manufactured goods.
→ read full articleThou Shalt Not Kill
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 May 2012
It is an interesting fact that Leo Tolstoy, who is generally considered to have been one of the greatest novelists of all time, was deeply aware of ethical problems, especially as an old man. “…The sharpest of all contradictions”, Tolstoy wrote, “can be seen between the government’s professed faith in the Christian law of the brotherhood of all humankind, and the military laws of the state, which force each young man to prepare himself for enmity and murder…”
→ read full articleDangers of Nuclear Power Generation
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 May 2012
The exact number of casualties resulting from the Chernobyl meltdown is a matter of controversy, but according to a United Nations report, as many as 9 million people have been adversely affected by the disaster. Since 1986, the rate of thyroid cancer in affected areas has increased ten-fold. An area of 155,000 square kilometers (almost half the size of Italy) in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia is still severely contaminated.
→ read full articleValues for the Future
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Apr 2012
In the world of the future, a future of changed values, women will take their places beside men in positions of responsibility; children will be educated rather than exploited; non-material human qualities, such as kindness, politeness, knowledge and musical and artistic ability will be valued more highly; and people will derive a larger part of their pleasure from conversation and from the appreciation of unspoiled nature.
→ read full articleThe Titanic as an Allegory
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Apr 2012
On top are the enormously rich, enjoying a life of unprecedented luxury; below, the poor. But rich and poor alike are in the same boat, headed for disaster – surrounded by the miracles of our technology, but headed for a disastrous collision with environmental forces, the forces of nature that we have neglected in our pride and arrogance.
→ read full articleBread and Circuses
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Apr 2012
Modern science has, for the first time in history, offered humankind the possibility of a life of comfort, free from hunger and cold, and free from the constant threat of death through infectious disease. At the same time, science has given humans the power to obliterate their civilization with nuclear weapons, or to make the earth uninhabitable through overpopulation and pollution. The question of which of these paths we choose is literally a matter of life or death for ourselves and our children.
→ read full articleLinks between Poverty and War
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Apr 2012
There are several relationships between intolerable economic inequality and war. Today 2.7 billion people live on less than $2 a day – 1.1 billion on less than $1 per day. 18 million of our fellow humans die each year from poverty-related causes. In 2006, 1.1 billion people lacked safe drinking water, and waterbourne diseases killed an estimated 1.8 million people. Meanwhile, in 2011, world military budgets reached a total of $2,157,172,000,000 dollars (i.e. 2.157 million million dollars).
→ read full articleBack to Child Labor and Slavery?
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Mar 2012
Until the start of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries, human society maintained a more or less sustainable relationship with nature. However, with the beginning of the industrial era, traditional ways of life, containing both ethical and environmental elements, were replaced by the money-centered, growth-oriented life of today, from which these vital elements are missing.
→ read full articleLimits to Growth and Fractional Reserve Banking
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2012
Economists (with a few notable exceptions) have long behaved as though growth were synonymous with economic health. If the gross national product increases steadily most economists express approval and say that the economy is healthy. If the growth rate should fall, economic illness would be diagnosed. However, it is obvious that on a finite Earth, neither population growth nor economic growth can continue indefinitely.
→ read full articleAttacks on Iran, Past and Present
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Feb 2012
Today’s Iranians are highly intelligent and cultured, and famous for their hospitality, generosity and kindness to strangers. Over the centuries, Iranians have made many contributions to science, art and literature, and for hundreds of years they have not attacked any of their neighbors. Nevertheless, for the last 90 years, they have been the victims of foreign attacks and interventions, most of which have been closely related to Iran’s oil and gas resources. The first of these took place in the period 1921-1925, when a British-sponsored coup overthrew the Qajar dynasty and replaced it by Reza Shah.
→ read full article