3,000 Years of Abusing Earth on a Global Scale
A new perspective emanating from archaeology and ecology suggests that humanity has spent thousands of years making widespread and profound changes to the “natural” world
Article Source: scientificamerican.com
"The Obama administration should terminate any practice, such as the reported signature strikes, that does not comply with principles of international humanitarian and human rights law. It must also introduce transparency to the drone program, including its governing rules, how targets are selected and how civilian damage is weighed."
— from Crisis Group’s recent report, Drones: Myths and Reality in Pakistan
The Context of Radical Islam
The context of radical Islamic militancy is a complex one, rooted in poverty, imperialism, desperation, and exploitation. Radical political Islam is far from being some remnant of the barbaric, ultra-religious past – it’s rise during the 20th century was simultaneously a tool of imperialism by Western powers, and a means to resist imperialism by local populations… >continue<
related: Pre 20th Century origins of Wahabbism in BBC’s “Clash of the Worlds”
May 16th
11:52 PM
11:52 PM
Rafsanjani into the Breach
Ian Black and Saeed Kamali Dehghan »
Green activists are setting up Facebook pages to mobilise support for Rafsanjani’s campaign. Mousavi and fellow reformist Mehdi Karroubi remain under house arrest and are banned from political activity.
Mohammed, Karroubi’s son, said Rafsanjani would now win the support of those who voted for change in 2009 but instead got Ahmadinejad for a second term. “The majority of the Green movement feel they now have a voice in this election,” he told the Guardian.
Speaking on Thursday to Tehran University students, Rafsanjani struck a confident note. “I entered the race to perform my religious and national duty given the country’s situation … and its problems at home and abroad,” the Mehr news website reported. “Certain people and movements have resorted to lying and falsification and slurs to discredit others. These people, intentionally or unintentionally, are harming the Islamic revolution.” >continue<
May 11th
11:41 PM
11:41 PM
"The conviction of Rios Montt sends a powerful message to Guatemala and the world that nobody, not even a former head of state, is above the law when it comes to committing genocide"
— José Miguel Vivanco, Human Rights Watch
"In 1600 the human population was about half a billion. In the 1990s it increased by the same amount. People who are now over forty have lived through a doubling of the world’s population. It is natural for them to think these numbers will be maintained. Natural, but - unless humans really are different from all other animals - mistaken.
The human population growth that has taken place over the past few hundred years resembles nothing so much as the spikes that occur in the numbers of rabbits, house mice and plague rats."
The human population growth that has taken place over the past few hundred years resembles nothing so much as the spikes that occur in the numbers of rabbits, house mice and plague rats."
— John Gray, Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals. (via therelentlessprocessionoftime)
April 20th
1:52 PM
1:52 PM
Coleen Rowley | Consortium News »
I almost choked on my coffee listening to neoconservative Rudy Giuliani pompously claim on national TV that he was surprised about any Chechens being responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings because he’s never seen any indication that Chechen extremists harbored animosity toward the U.S.; Guiliani thought they were only focused on Russia.
Giuliani knows full well how the Chechen “terrorists” proved useful to the U.S. in keeping pressure on the Russians, much as the Afghan mujahedeen were used in the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan from 1980 to 1989. In fact, many neocons signed up as Chechnya’s “friends,” including former CIA Director James Woolsey.
For instance, see this 2004 article in the UK Guardian, entitled, “The Chechens’ American friends: The Washington neocons’ commitment to the war on terror evaporates in Chechnya, whose cause they have made their own.”
Author John Laughland wrote: “the leading group which pleads the Chechen cause is the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC). The list of the self-styled ‘distinguished Americans’ who are its members is a roll call of the most prominent neoconservatives who so enthusiastically support the ‘war on terror.’
“They include Richard Perle, the notorious Pentagon adviser; Elliott Abrams of Iran-Contra fame; Kenneth Adelman, the former US ambassador to the UN who egged on the invasion of Iraq by predicting it would be ‘a cakewalk’; Midge Decter, biographer of Donald Rumsfeld and a director of the rightwing Heritage Foundation; Frank Gaffney of the militarist Centre for Security Policy; Bruce Jackson, former US military intelligence officer and one-time vice-president of Lockheed Martin, now president of the US Committee on Nato; Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, a former admirer of Italian fascism and now a leading proponent of regime change in Iran; and R. James Woolsey, the former CIA director who is one of the leading cheerleaders behind George Bush’s plans to re-model the Muslim world along pro-US lines.” >continue<
Young miners and soldiers in a conflict gold mine in the Congo
Report on M23 & the DRC | Rebel Group’s Quest to Liberate Congo
"In asserting the dictatorship of the dollar over the whole world, the ruling class of the United States will introduce the contradictions of the whole world into the very basis of its own dominance. The economy and the politics of the United States will depend more and more directly upon crises, wars, and revolutions in all parts of the world. The position of ‘observer’ cannot long be maintained formally. I think that America will create the most colossal system of land, sea, and air militarism that can be imagined."
— Trotsky, 1932 New York Times interview
March 22nd
10:21 AM
10:21 AM
"Put yourself in their shoes – look at the world through their eyes. It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of her own, and lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements of her parents every single day. It is not just when settler violence against Palestinians goes unpunished. It is not right to prevent Palestinians from farming their lands; to restrict a student’s ability to move around the West Bank; or to displace Palestinian families from their home. Neither occupation nor expulsion is the answer. Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland, Palestinians have a right to be a free people in their own land."
— President Barack Obama, Address to the Israeli People
March 9th
12:41 PM
12:41 PM
Kim Jong-un-Hinged
Bob Hardy via Business Insider »
I find the recent actions and words coming from North Korea particularly ominous and would not be surprised to see an incident, Kim and his regime seem to have misread the situation and are indoctrinating the population to prepare for something grim. They have created a crisis atmosphere by announcing the end of the Armistice Agreement. This will of course mean that a state of war exists, and the fact the DPRK is cutting off all communication with the U.S. and South Korea would seem to indicate it feels it is not being taken seriously. Cutting off communications is a basic indicator of preparations for War, which I doubt will occur, but view it possible that a live fire incident could be about to occur on or about March 11th. If they recall diplomatic missions and close airports that will be a sign of war readiness. A significant change to the security situation in the region is evident… >continue<
11:35 AM
So Long, Chávez
Michael Shifter | Foreign Policy »
Whatever Chávez’s intentions, his insatiable craving for control crippled his government. For all of his effort and bravado, Chávez failed to build a coherent model that could be adopted elsewhere. His legacy in the region can be illustrated by comparing his administration with that of other countries, especially other leftist governments that are also independent of the United States and committed to a social agenda. The 2002–10 administration of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party is a good example. Lula managed to combine the give-and-take of democratic politics with fiscal discipline and well-designed social policies that lifted millions out of poverty. Venezuela’s debt-ridden economy, marked by chronic shortages and high inflation, is hardly an appealing alternative. The Latin American recipients of Chávez’s beneficence were understandably grateful, but it is telling that no other government in the region has sought to replicate his example… >continue<
February 22nd
9:21 AM
9:21 AM
"No one is a worse advocate for al-Qaeda than al-Qaeda itself. Killing thousands of innocent civilians - including Muslims - does not strike most people as a convincing demonstration that you are holy warriors…in service to a merciful and compassionate God. At the same time, no one is a better advocate for al-Qaeda than the American government, whose war-on-terror response to 9/11 was first to validate al-Qaeda’s previously imaginary status as warriors, then to validate al-Qaeda’s broader claim that America was at war with Islam itself."
— Paul Rosenburg - The lost promise of Barack Obama
February 12th
7:03 PM
7:03 PM
Doctors Struggling to Fight 'Totally Drug-Resistant' TB in South Africa
A new paper published earlier this week in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Emerging Infectious Diseases journal warns that the first cases of “totally drug-resistant” tuberculosis have been found in South Africa and that the disease is “virtually untreatable.” >continue<
related: TB’s Drug Resistant Threat
February 5th
11:30 AM
11:30 AM
From Arab Spring to global revolution
Excerpt from “Why It’s Still Kicking Off Everywhere” | Paul Mason »
To survive, the young have become a generation of drifters, reliving the plotlines of movies from the 1930s. Without some massive and cathartic turnaround, the generation in their 20s, in the west, will never accumulate pay, conditions or savings at the level their parents did. What they are accumulating is resentment….
Here, there is a parallel with the 1930s that is worth exploring. The first four years of the crisis, from 1929 to 1933, were not marked by effective mass resistance. That happened later. The early 1930s saw social disorientation, catastrophic policy choices, dysfunctional and autocratic governments and the rapid rise of the fascist right.
It was Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 that focused minds, amid the fear that something similar could happen in France, Austria and Spain. At the same time, Roosevelt’s New Deal signalled the possibility of a progressive government after all. The events of 1933-34 forced movements that had been socially weak, divided, heavy on rhetoric and self-obsessed, to, basically, get real. Fear was the key.
Although you can – as the anarchist slogan says – “live despite capitalism”, you can’t live “despite” fascism, genocidal racism, extreme sexual counter-revolution and war. As the gears of mainstream politics and economic crisis clash and grind above their heads, I would expect this realisation to be the guiding factor in where the movements that began in 2011 turn next. >continue<
