That Which Is Seen -- may I unerringly consider All to be imbued with Divine Presence
Thanks for ten years of Media Lens Categories: Uncategorized, JournalismSend feedback » •I thought I'd post something saying thanks to the editors of Media Lens. This year they've posted articles regarding their ten years with Media Lens, including:
Ten Years Of Media Lens - Operation Rheinübung, Or: Our Problem With Mainstream Dissidents
Permalink
Justice for Lynne Stewart Link lynnestewart.org Categories: Criminal Injustice, People under attack1 feedback » •"The Lynne Stewart Defense Committee has a speakers bureau made up of attorneys and activists able to speak at an event in your area."
Mailing Address:
The Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
350 Broadway, Suite 700, New York, NY 10013
approvideo Categories: UncategorizedSend feedback » •link to many Appropriate and Sustainable Technology videos and documents
Another link that might work is http://wiki.edc-cu.org/blogs/index.php/videos
chomsky article on znet from left forum 3-21-10 Categories: Sí se puede1 feedback » •"rekindling the radical imagination"
I believe in the value of practicing control of this mind before more kindling, though I do see myself looking forward to performing positive actions with everybody as much as I can every day sometime sooner than later so let us improve. Amen
EFF on social network monitoring issues Categories: Uncategorized1 feedback » •The EFF's post today is titled
EFF Posts Documents Detailing Law Enforcement Collection of Data From Social Media Sites
Consequences of 9/11 chart by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth Categories: UncategorizedSend feedback » •
information slideshow selection link:
http://www.ae911truth.org/ppt_web/ppt_selection.php
Haiti - medialens.org Categories: People under attackSend feedback » •"Joining compassion with reason means asking why over 80 per cent of Haiti's population of 10 million people live in abject poverty. Why less than 45 per cent of all Haitians have access to potable water. Why the life expectancy rate in Haiti is only 53 years. Why seventy-six per cent of Haiti's children under the age of five are underweight, or suffer from stunted growth, with 63 per cent of Haitians undernourished. Why 1 in every 10,000 Haitians has access to a doctor. (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/haiti/intro.htm)"
re: surveillance of mobile phone GPS location Categories: Uncategorized, ShadySend feedback » •"Sprint received over 8 million requests for its customers' information in the past 13 months. That doesn't count requests for basic identification and billing information, or wiretapping requests, or requests to monitor who is calling who, or even requests for less-precise location data based on which cell phone towers a cell phone was in contact with. That's just GPS. And, that's not including legal requests from civil litigants, or from foreign intelligence investigators. That's just law enforcement. And, that's not counting the few other major cell phone carriers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. That's just Sprint."
Read the entire article at eff.org
You may be interested in an earlier link I made to an article "FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool" -- even when it's "powered off"
US, Alt. media, Report on the G20 Mobilization in Pittsburgh Categories: UncategorizedSend feedback » •...the link to this informative article is provided thanks to:
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About AnarchistsAnd amongst many others, many thanks to Pittsburgh Indymedia, the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project, Pittsburgh Organizing Group, and Pittsburgh Thomas Merton Center...
I think yinz did good
Check out some videos of the G20 events in Pittsburgh at the G-Infinity site ( currently at http://indypgh.org/g20/ )
nukulur issues propaganda continues to dominate the 'liberull media' - Media Lens Media Alert Categories: UncategorizedSend feedback » •MEDIA ALERT: IRAN - THE WAR DANCE
On September 19, the Irish Times reported:
“Israel has rejected the call by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and open up its atomic sites to international inspection.” (Mark Weiss, ‘Israel spurns nuclear watchdog's call to open atomic sites to inspection,’ Irish Times, September 19, 2009; http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/0919/1224254860406.html)
The IAEA, which met in Vienna on September 18, adopted a resolution expressing concern about “Israeli nuclear capabilities” and called on agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei to work on the issue. The motion was adopted by 49 votes to 45, with 16 abstentions.
Free Leonard Peltier Categories: Political Prisoner
Leonard Peltier: Decades in Prison for a Crime He Didn't Commit
I am Barack Obama's Prisoner Now ...I first read this at http://denverabc.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/i-am-barack-obamas-political-prisoner-now/ also at http://www.counterpunch.org/peltier09112009.html
I've seen info on Leonard Peltier at http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info and http://www.leonardpeltier.net
~ Love, Chris
Alice Walker, Gaza Categories: Uncategorized, People under attack Send feedback » •
Newspeak Newsweek Categories: ShadySend feedback » •I saw a Newsweek at a coffeeshop today that said on the front in huge letters... "We are all socialists now"
I noticed that someone had made it a point to strategically place it on top of an International Socialist Review. That was funny...
U.S. Supreme Court denies Mumia Abu-Jamal ...without comment Categories: Political Prisoner
US Supreme Court rejects appeal by Mumia Abu-Jamal for new trial
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/mumi-a07.shtml"The United States Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal for a new trial by Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose struggle over more than a quarter century against his murder conviction in a politically and racially motivated frame-up has become a focus of international opposition to capital punishment and political repression.
The Court rejected, without comment, a writ of certiorari filed by Abu-Jamal's lawyers charging that his 1982 trial in the killing the previous year of a Philadelphia police officer should be discounted because the prosecution illegally excluded African-Americans from the jury. It requires only four of the nine justices to agree to hear such an appeal, meaning that at least one of the four nominally liberal members of the court refused to support the writ. The fact that the decision was issued without comment or dissent suggests that the decision was unanimous."
Some links:
Saturday, April 11, 2009 at 6:00 p.m
NYC: Emergency Meeting in Response to the U.S. Supreme Court Ruling on Mumia Abu-Jamalhttp://millions4mumia.org
http://www.freemumia.com
http://www.abu-jamal-news.com
Iraq Occupation Anniversary Categories: Criminal Injustice, U.S. Foreign PolicySend feedback » •
- Six years since the U.S. invasion
- In six years likely more than 1.3 million Iraqi deaths
- Millions of Iraqis are out of their homes, displaced
- 4,260 acknowledged U.S. Military deaths
- 30,000 Iraqis remain detained, most of them without charges, in US and Iraqi prisons, where torture continues
- The majority of the U.S. people are opposed
- U.S. President Obama has indicated he is with the military Wall Street
1 http://www.arthistoryclub.com/art_history/Iraq
2 http://countrystudies.us/iraq/30.htm
29.3 million population estimate for 2007? 0, 0.9 25.4 million estimate for 2004? 1 17.9 million people lived there as of a 1991 estimate, a different estimate says 16.28 million in 1987 and 12 million + in 1975 2
"One Million Dead in Iraq: Our Own Holocaust Denial"
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18765.htmthere are various other official "credible" counts, there are efforts to confuse
http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/conflicts/iraq_handover/numbers_game_revisited
U.S. ganja laws link (NORML) Categories: DrugsSend feedback » •National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML)
NORML provides U.S. state law info regarding marijuana:
Oakland CA Resident Tristan Anderson Critically Injured by IDF Tear Gas Canister in Ni'lin Categories: People under attackSend feedback » •Tristan Anderson Critically Injured in Demonstration Against Israeli Wall
He was reportedly hit in the head with an Israeli military tear gas canister
Om
Zinn: Sacco and Vanzetti Categories: Criminal InjusticeSend feedback » •"[This essay is part of the ZNet Classics series. Three times a week we will re-post an article that we think is of timeless importance. This one was first published April 14, 2007.]"
Their ultimate crime was their anarchism, an idea which today still startles us like a bolt of lightning because of its essential truth: we are all one, national boundaries and national hatreds must disappear, war is intolerable, the fruits of the earth must be shared, and only through organized struggle against authority can such a world come about.
What comes to us today from the case of Sacco and Vanzetti is not just tragedy, but inspiration. Their English was not perfect, but when they spoke it was a kind of poetry. Vanzetti said of his friend Sacco:
Sacco is a heart, a faith, a character, a man; a man lover of nature and mankind. A man who gave all, who sacrifice all to the cause of liberty and to his love for mankind: money, rest, mundane ambition, his own wife, his children, himself and his own life.... Oh yes, I may be more witful, as some have put it, I am a better babbler than he is, but many, many times, in hearing his heartful voice ring a faith sublime, in considering his supreme sacrifice, remembering his heroism I felt small, small at the presence of his greatness, and found myself compelled to fight back from my eyes the tears, quench my heart throbbing to my throat to not weep before him -this man called chief and assassin and doomed.
Worst of all, they were anarchists, meaning they had some crazy notion of a full democracy in which neither foreignness nor poverty would exist, and thought that without these provocations, war among nations would end for all time. But for this to happen the rich would have to be fought and their riches confiscated. That anarchist idea is a crime much worse than robbing a payroll, and so to this day the story of Sacco and Vanzetti cannot be recalled without great anxiety.
Sacco wrote to his son Dante: "So son, instead of crying, be strong, so as to be able to comfort your mother...take her for a long walk in the quiet country, gathering wild flowers here and there, resting under the shade of trees...But remember always, Dante, in this play of happiness, don't you use all for yourself only...help the persecuted and the victim because they are your better friends.... In this struggle of life you will find more love and you will be loved."
Generic Invader Nonsense - Obama on Iraq (Media Lens Media Alert) Categories: UncategorizedSend feedback » •Here is an example of a recent Media Lens Media Alert
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 10:53:15 UT
From: Media Lens Media Alerts noreply@medialens.org
Subject: Generic Invader Nonsense - Obama on IraqMEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media
March 5, 2009
MEDIA ALERT: GENERIC INVADER NONSENSE - OBAMA ON IRAQ
As a presidential candidate, Barrack Obama described the war in Iraq as one that “should never have been authorised and never been wagedd”. (www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/pers-m02.shtml) On February 27, as president, Obama saw it differently. He told US troops at Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base in North Carolina:
“You have fought against tyranny and disorder. You have bled for your best friends and for unknown Iraqis. And you have borne an enormous burden for your fellow citizens, while extending a precious opportunity to the people of Iraq. Under tough circumstances, the men and women of the United States military have served with honor, and succeeded beyond any expectation..” ((’Obamaa’s Speech at Camp Lejeune, N.C.,,’ New York Times, February 27, 2009; http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/us/politics/27obama-text.html)
This might best be described as Generic Invader Nonsense (GIN). Much the same has been said by every war leader and general of every invasion in history. Did Goebbels not argue that Germany was fighting “tyrannyy” on the Eastern front in 1941? Were Indonesian armed forces not offering a “precious opportunityy” to the impoverished people of East Timor in 1975?
Obama next directed his GIN to the people of Iraq:
“Our nations have known difficult times together. But ours is a bond forged by shared bloodshed, and countless friendships among our people. We Americans have offered our most precious resource – our young men and women – to work with you to rebuild what was destroyed by despotism; to root out our common enemies; and to seek peace and prosperity for our children and grandchildren, and for yours..”The precise moment when the illegal invasion demolishing Iraq - the attack that "should never have been authorised and never been waged" - became a selfless act of friendship in pursuit of peace and prosperity was not identified. Did this happen half-way through 2003? Perhaps early 2004?
Trial Begins - Churchill vs. University of Colorado Categories: People under attackSend feedback » •March 9-27, 2009: Churchill v. University of Colorado scheduled for trial in Denver State Court.
link to Essay: The Politics of Self-Emancipation by Steve D'Arcy Categories: UncategorizedSend feedback » •"Anarchists and Marxists have not always agreed on very much. Indeed, Karl Marx and his anarchist contemporary and rival, Mikhail Bakunin, were especially prone to disagree with one another. But there was one key political judgment of which they both became convinced: that "the emancipation of the working class must be the act of workers themselves." This principle of self-emancipation was enshrined in the Rules of the organization to which they both belonged in the late 19th century, the "International," as it was then called, or the "First International," as it came to be known. Today, it is perhaps best known through the song dedicated to it, The Internationale."
Read more at mostlywater.org
- or -
Read more at Znet
Leonard Peltier's safety is in jeapordy Categories: Criminal InjusticeSend feedback » •"We feel that prison authorities at the prompting of the FBI orchestrated this attack and thus, we are greatly concerned about his safety. It may be that the attackers, whom Leonard did not even know, were offered reduced sentences for carrying out this heinous assault. Since Leonard is up for parole soon, this could be a conspiracy to discredit a model prisoner."
Related:
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/pressrelease20090127.htmMEDIA ADVISORY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
27 JANUARY 2009Contact: Kari Ann Cowan
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee
PO Box 7488
Fargo, ND 58106
Phone: 701-235-2206
whoisleonardpeltier.infoNative Americans and supporters outraged at FBI and George W. Bush
Fargo, North Dakota — The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) recently influenced the federal prison system to transfer elder Native American, Leonard Peltier, to a facility for young gang members whereupon his arrival he was immediately attacked and severely beaten. He was thrown into solitary confinement and denied proper medical care and food. The FBI has put out a letter encouraging others to indulge in whatever activities they can to block a possible pardon by President Obama for Leonard Peltier.
READ MORE...
Noam Chomsky, Video: The U.S. - Israel's Godfather Categories: People under attackSend feedback » •See chomsky.info
Here is another relevant and recent video featuring Professor Chomsky:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DqgVHn7TiQ
The full video of this event (the second video) held at the MIT Center for International Studies on January 13, 2009, is out there on YouTube and is also archived at the MIT site -- linked from http://web.mit.edu/cis/eventposter_011309_chomsky.html and from http://web.mit.edu/cis/starr.html
On other topics, there are privacy issues when embedding videos that place cookies on computersBut those Bill Hicks videos I linked to last year are so funny!
I am using Gnash to play these videos. You should try it. http://getgnash.org
Gnash is a high priority project of the Free Software Foundation, and needs your support:
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority.html
David Swanson: Dangerous Executive Orders Categories: ShadySend feedback » •The Center for Constitutional Rights has expressed concern that President Obama's executive order banning torture may contain a loophole. But no president has any right to declare torture legal or illegal, with or without loopholes. And if we accept that presidents have such powers, even if our new president does good with them, then loopholes will be the least of our worries.
Torture is, and has long been, illegal in every case, without exception. It is banned by our Bill of Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 2340A. Nothing any president can do can change this or unchange it, weaken it or strengthen it in any way.
Read more at http://www.afterdowningstreet.org
Chomsky: No change coming with Obama Categories: U.S. Foreign PolicySend feedback » •Iraqis get some deserved credit, as should many others:
"What happened in Iraq is extremely interesting and important. [...]
What has happened is that there was a remarkable campaign of non-violent resistance in Iraq, which compelled the United States, step-by-step, to back away from its programs and its goals. They compelled the US occupying forces to allow an election, which the US did not want and tried to evade in all sorts of ways.
Then they went on from there to force the United States to accept at least formally a status of forces agreement, which if the Obama administration lives up to it, will abandon most of the US war aims. It will eliminate the huge permanent military bases that the US has built in Iraq. It will mean the US will not control decisions over how the oil resources will be accessed and used. And in fact just every war aim is gone.
Of course there is a question of whether the US will live up to it"
Chomsky: No change coming with Obama
Noam Chomsky interviewed by Afshin Ratansi
Press TV, January 24, 2009
Medical Marijuana: DEA Hits California Dispensary in First Raid of Obama Administration -- New President [had] promised End to Raids Categories: People under attack, Drugs
This, as with many other things, is not going as Obama promised.
According another article on stopthedrugwar.org , Obama's whitehouse dot gov agenda also does not mention " a word about the nation's most widely used illicit drug or the nearly 900,000 [US!!] arrests a year generated by marijuana prohibition"
Chomsky article: Obama on Israel-Palestine Categories: U.S. Foreign PolicySend feedback » •"Obama is not directly falsifying the Arab League proposal, but the carefully framed deceit is instructive."
I read this recent Chomsky article at Znet
All of this is happening as Obama's new foreign policy team prepares escalated bloodletting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, writes Patrick Martin at the World Socialist Web Site.
Chomsky article: "Exterminate all the Brutes": Gaza 2009 Categories: U.S. Foreign Policy, People under attackSend feedback » •"Exterminate all the Brutes": Gaza 2009
January, 20 2009
By Noam Chomsky
On Saturday December 27, the latest US-Israeli attack on helpless Palestinians was launched. The attack had been meticulously planned, for over 6 months according to the Israeli press. The planning had two components: military and propaganda. It was based on the lessons of Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon, which was considered to be poorly planned and badly advertised. We may, therefore, be fairly confident that most of what has been done and said was pre-planned and intended.
That surely includes the timing of the assault: shortly before noon, when children were returning from school and crowds were milling in the streets of densely populated Gaza City. It took only a few minutes to kill over 225 people and wound 700, an auspicious opening to the mass slaughter of defenseless civilians trapped in a tiny cage with nowhere to flee.
In his retrospective "Parsing Gains of Gaza War," New York Times correspondent Ethan Bronner cited this achievement as one of the most significant of the gains. Israel calculated that it would be advantageous to appear to "go crazy," causing vastly disproportionate terror, a doctrine that traces back to the 1950s. "The Palestinians in Gaza got the message on the first day," Bronner wrote, "when Israeli warplanes struck numerous targets simultaneously in the middle of a Saturday morning. Some 200 were killed instantly, shocking Hamas and indeed all of Gaza." The tactic of "going crazy" appears to have been successful, Bronner concluded: there are "limited indications that the people of Gaza felt such pain from this war that they will seek to rein in Hamas," the elected government. That is another long-standing doctrine of state terror. I don't, incidentally, recall the Times retrospective "Parsing Gains of Chechnya War," though the gains were great.
The meticulous planning also presumably included the termination of the assault, carefully timed to be just before the inauguration, so as to minimize the (remote) threat that Obama might have to say some words critical of these vicious US-supported crimes.
who says it's "A Just War" Categories: UncategorizedSend feedback » •A Just War? Hardly
May, 20 2006
By Noam ChomskySpurred by these times of invasions and evasions, discussion of "just war" has had a renaissance among scholars and even among policy-makers.
Concepts aside, actions in the real world all too often reinforce the maxim of Thucydides that "The strong do as they can, while the weak suffer what they must" - which is not only indisputably unjust, but at the present stage of human civilisation, a literal threat to the survival of the species.
In his highly praised reflections on just war, Michael Walzer describes the invasion of Afghanistan as "a triumph of just war theory," standing alongside Kosovo as a "just war." Unfortunately, in these two cases, as throughout, his arguments rely crucially on premises like "seems to me entirely justified," or "I believe" or "no doubt."
Facts are ignored, even the most obvious ones. Consider Afghanistan. As the bombing began in October 2001, President Bush warned Afghans that it would continue until they handed over people that the US suspected of terrorism.
The word "suspected" is important. Eight months later, FBI head Robert S. Mueller III told editors at The Washington Post that after what must have been the most intense manhunt in history, "We think the masterminds of (the Sept. 11 attacks) were in Afghanistan, high in the al-Qaida leadership. Plotters and others - the principals - came together in Germany and perhaps elsewhere."
What was still unclear in June 2002 could not have been known definitively the preceding October, though few doubted at once that it was true. Nor did I, for what it's worth, but surmise and evidence are two different things. At least it seems fair to say that the circumstances raise a question about whether bombing Afghans was a transparent example of "just war."
Walzer's arguments are directed to unnamed targets - for example, campus opponents who are "pacifists." He adds that their "pacifism" is a "bad argument," because he thinks violence is sometimes legitimate. We may well agree that violence is sometimes legitimate (I do), but "I think" is hardly an overwhelming argument in the real-world cases that he discusses.
By "just war," counterterrorism or some other rationale, the US exempts itself from the fundamental principles of world order that it played the primary role in formulating and enacting.
After World War II, a new regime of international law was instituted. Its provisions on laws of war are codified in the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg principles, adopted by the General Assembly. The Charter bars the threat or use of force unless authorized by the Security Council or, under Article 51, in self-defense against armed attack until the Security Council acts.
In 2004, a high level UN panel, including, among others, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, concluded that "Article 51 needs neither extension nor restriction of its long-understood scope ... In a world full of perceived potential threats, the risk to the global order and the norm of nonintervention on which it continues to be based is simply too great for the legality of unilateral preventive action, as distinct from collectively endorsed action, to be accepted. Allowing one to so act is to allow all."
The National Security Strategy of September 2002, just largely reiterated in March, grants the US the right to carry out what it calls "pre-emptive war," which means not pre-emptive, but "preventive war." That's the right to commit aggression, plain and simple.
In the wording of the Nuremberg Tribunal, aggression is "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole" - all the evil in the tortured land of Iraq that flowed from the US-UK invasion, for example.
The concept of aggression was defined clearly enough by US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who was chief prosecutor for the United States at Nuremberg. The concept was restated in an authoritative General Assembly resolution. An "aggressor," Jackson proposed to the tribunal, is a state that is the first to commit such actions as "invasion of its armed forces, with or without a declaration of war, of the territory of another State."
That applies to the invasion of Iraq. Also relevant are Justice Jackson's eloquent words at Nuremberg: "If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us." And elsewhere: "We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well."
For the political leadership, the threat of adherence to these principles - and to the rule of law in general - is serious indeed. Or it would be, if anyone dared to defy "the single ruthless superpower whose leadership intends to shape the world according to its own forceful world view," as Reuven Pedatzur wrote in Haaretz last May.
Let me state a couple of simple truths. The first is that actions are evaluated in terms of the range of likely consequences. A second is the principle of universality; we apply to ourselves the same standards we apply to others, if not more stringent ones.
Apart from being the merest truisms, these principles are also the foundation of just war theory, at least any version of it that deserves to be taken seriously.
Conversations Between Michael Albert and Noam Chomsky Categories: UncategorizedSend feedback » •These are interviews from Jan 1993.
There is a 'part two' and 'part three' linked below:
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20037
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20038
FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool Categories: People under attackSend feedback » •You may not be able to really turn your mobile phone microphone off. What about the camera?
politics of Facebook you may want to consider Categories: Shady, Nursing / BreastfeedingSend feedback » •And, like MySpace and probably others, Facebook won't even let a mom publish a photo of a nursing baby. Enough said. Relevant link follows:
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090101/facebook-nudity-policy-draws-nursing-moms-ire.htm
Utilities cut off to 1 in 20 US households in 2007 Categories: UncategorizedSend feedback » •
People were paid to riot and stop the vote recount in Miami in 2000, remember? Categories: Elections, ShadySend feedback » •People were paid to riot and stop the vote recount in Miami in 2000.
Here is a newer article regarding that Supreme Court's decision.
Election Protection Wiki Categories: ElectionsSend feedback » •"Citizens tracking voter suppression and election integrity."
Is your printer spying on you? Categories: Shady, ComputersSend feedback » •"the US government has succeeded in persuading some color laser printer manufacturers to encode each page with identifying information."
also see http://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display-tracking-dots
US Supreme Court clears way for execution of likely innocent death row inmate Categories: Criminal InjusticeSend feedback » •By Kate Randall
16 October 2008The US Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to hear the appeal of Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis. The case against Davis, convicted in the 1989 killing of an off-duty Savannah police office, has gained worldwide attention, with demands by human rights activists and high-profile figures for his life to be spared.
The Court’s refusal to hear the case paves the way for the state-sponsored murder of an individual who is very likely innocent of any crime.
Chomsky: Anti-democratic nature of US capitalism is being exposed Categories: People under attack, EconomicsSend feedback » •Anti-democratic nature of US capitalism is being exposed
October 12, 2008
By Noam ChomskyTHE SIMULTANEOUS unfolding of the US presidential campaign and unraveling of the financial markets presents one of those occasions where the political and economic systems starkly reveal their nature.
Passion about the campaign may not be universally shared but almost everybody can feel the anxiety from the foreclosure of a million homes, and concerns about jobs, savings and healthcare at risk.
The initial Bush proposals to deal with the crisis so reeked of totalitarianism that they were quickly modified.
NSA Spied on US Service Members and Aid Workers Categories: Shady, People under attackSend feedback » •October 10th, 2008
New NSA Whistleblowers Say NSA Spied on US Service Members and Aid Workers
Deeplink by Hugh D'Andrade
This has been a bad week for President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. First, a government study reported that data-mining is actually a hindrance in the fight against terrorism. And now, two new whistleblowers have come forward with firsthand accounts of how innocent Americans' communications have been swept up in the NSA's dragnet.
According to ABC News and a new book by James Bamford, David Murfee Faulk and Adrienne Kinne witnessed and participated in the interception of hundreds of personal, intimate calls from American service members and aid workers. They say NSA employees have been routinely intercepting the calls of individuals with no involvement in terrorism.
Intelligence is not enough Categories: Uncategorized, Uncategorized, Uncategorized, Ayurveda, quoteSend feedback » •"We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character -- that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate."
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Columbus Day: A celebration of the brutality Categories: Criminal Injustice, People under attackSend feedback » •Maybe it's worth thinking about monsters like Columbus and how they brutally hack their way to the ends of the physical earth, and now hide amongst the people waiting for their next profit. What makes a monster?
Seizing Cell Phone Location Records Categories: Uncategorized, ShadySend feedback » •New Court Decision Affirms that 4th Amendment Protects Location Information
Government Must Get a Warrant Before Seizing Cell Phone Location Records
San Francisco - In an unprecedented victory for cell phone privacy, a federal court has affirmed that cell phone location information stored by a mobile phone provider is protected by the Fourth Amendment and that the government must obtain a warrant based on probable cause before seizing such records.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) had asked the federal court in the Western District of Pennsylvania to overturn a magistrate judge's decision requiring the government to obtain a warrant for stored location data, arguing that the government could obtain such information without probable cause. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), at the invitation of the court, filed a friend-of-the-court brief opposing the government's appeal and arguing that the magistrate was correct to require a warrant. Wednesday, the court agreed with EFF and issued an order affirming the magistrate's decision.
Chomsky - Ossetia-Georgia-Russia-USA Categories: U.S. Foreign PolicySend feedback » •Ossetia-Georgia-Russia-U.S.A.
Towards a Second Cold War?
By NOAM CHOMSKY
Aghast at the atrocities committed by US forces invading the Philippines, and the rhetorical flights about liberation and noble intent that routinely accompany crimes of state, Mark Twain threw up his hands at his inability to wield his formidable weapon of satire. The immediate object of his frustration was the renowned General Funston. “No satire of Funston could reach perfection,” Twain lamented, “because Funston occupies that summit himself... [he is] satire incarnated.”
It is a thought that often comes to mind, again in August 2008 during the Georgia-Ossetia-Russia war. George Bush, Condoleezza Rica and other dignitaries solemnly invoked the sanctity of the United Nations, warning that Russia could be excluded from international institutions “by taking actions in Georgia that are inconsistent with” their principles. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations must be rigorously honored, they intoned – “all nations,” that is, apart from those that the US chooses to attack: Iraq, Serbia, perhaps Iran, and a list of others too long and familiar to mention.
Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth Categories: UncategorizedSend feedback » •
information slideshow selection link:
http://www.ae911truth.org/ppt_web/ppt_selection.php
Voting systems, wikipedia entry Categories: Uncategorized, ElectionsSend feedback » •
Media Lens on the Georgian conflict media coverage etc. Categories: UncategorizedSend feedback » •WHEN NEWS IS NOISE - GEORGIA, SOUTH OSSETIA AND THE POLITICAL PIPELINE
A Los Angeles Times editorial observed last month that China had persuaded world leaders to attend the Olympic Games "despite their misgivings about Beijing's horrific human rights record both domestically and abroad". The horror, the editors noted, could not be entirely suppressed:
"What planners in Beijing miscalculated is that no matter how well you teach performers to smile, the strain behind the lips is still detectable." ( http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-olympics26-2008aug26,0,5033807.story )
Needless to say, no mainstream British or American journalist referred to the host nation's "horrific human rights record" at the time of the US Games in Atlanta in 1996, or of the Los Angeles Games in 1984. And of course no media outlet has discussed "misgivings" about the awarding of the 2012 Games to Britain. But why on earth would they? Historian Mark Curtis explains:
"Since 1945, rather than occasionally deviating from the promotion of peace, democracy, human rights and economic development in the Third World, British (and US) foreign policy has been systematically opposed to them, whether the Conservatives or Labour (or Republicans or Democrats) have been in power. This has had grave consequences for those on the receiving end of Western policies abroad." (Curtis, The Ambiguities of Power, Zed Books, 1995, p.3)... More...
50 Percent of Food is Wasted Causing Water, Food and Hunger Crisis Categories: Signs of Decreasing Health, People under attackSend feedback » •I'm reading some of this:
http://www.siwi.org/documents/Resources/Policy_Briefs/PB_From_Filed_to_Fork_2008.pdf
after I read:
http://www.siwi.org/sa/node.asp?node=343which is a policy brief describing how 50 percent of food is wasted.
The same articles are linked from:
http://www.worldwaterweek.org/press/index.asp
Frequently Awkward Questions for the Entertainment Industry Categories: Shady, ComputersSend feedback » •There are many useful links available from the linked version of this article on the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) site. Go there to see the latest version.
Frequently Awkward Questions for the Entertainment Industry
Learn More About These Issues
- Intellectual Property
- The Battle for Your Digital Media Devices
- Digital Video
- A User's Guide to DRM in Online Music
The RIAA and MPAA trot out their spokespeople at conferences and public events all over the country, repeating their misleading talking points. Innovators are pirates, fair use is theft, the sky is falling, up is down, and so on. Their rhetoric shouldn't be given a free pass.
To that end, EFF has prepared a sample list of tough questions for times when you hear entertainment industry representatives speaking and want to challenge their positions.
On eve of Democratic convention, Obama advances agenda of global militarism Categories: Elections, U.S. Foreign PolicySend feedback » •"With less than a week to go until the Democrats officially nominate Obama at their convention in Denver, and with barely two-and-a-half months until the election, the candidate's speech underscores a stark political reality confronting the American people. Once again this November, the two-party system will offer no means of expressing the massive popular opposition to war, but rather an empty choice between two big business candidates who are committed to the expanded use of militarism in pursuit of US corporate and financial interests."
US government survey: Most corporations pay no taxes Categories: ShadySend feedback » •Everyone who paid taxes this year, raise your hand. If you made at least $8,750 as an individual in the US last year, I think you were obligated to by law.
Corporations are supposed to pay a percentage of their income, but the Government Accountability Office recently disclosed that many of them do not pay anything.
Inshallah Categories: People under attackSend feedback » •Gratitude to this military jury for not locking an innocent man up for the rest of his life.
Article: Guantánamo trial sentence stuns Bush administration
Texas executes Mexican and Honduran nationals Categories: UncategorizedSend feedback » •US Supreme Court rejects appeals despite international protests
Mexican-born Jose Ernesto Medellin died by lethal injection Tuesday night, ignoring a ruling by the International Court of Justice (World Court) that his execution be stayed, as well as protests by the Mexican government.
See "World Court orders US to stay execution of Mexicans in Texas"
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jul2008/texa-j18.shtmlSee Also:
"US: Executions in Texas and Mississippi"
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jul2008/exec-j24.shtml
The lies of Hiroshima are the lies of today Categories: UncategorizedSend feedback » •"In an article for the Guardian on the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, John Pilger describes the 'progression of lies' from the dust of that detonated city, to the wars of today - and the threatened attack on Iran."
supreme court supports murdering retarded people Categories: Criminal Injustice1 feedback » •Despite evidence of mental retardation, Mississippi executes inmate by lethal injection
By Kate Randall
22 May 2008Earl Wesley Berry was executed Wednesday evening at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. His lethal injection was administered at around 6 p.m. local time after all last-minute appeals for a stay had been exhausted.
Berry’s attorney provided evidence to state courts that he was mentally retarded, which would have rendered his execution unconstitutional, but he was denied an evidentiary hearing on procedural grounds.
Znet Categories: UncategorizedSend feedback » •Znet is a great resource for finding alternative media.
Participatory Economics Q&A Categories: Sí se puedeSend feedback » •Been reading about Parecon for a while... Michael Albert and Company have done a lot of serious visioning. Their work helps me develop applied sciences.
Regarding the olympic protests Categories: ShadySend feedback » •"The anti-Chinese protests, which, while vociferous, have not mobilized massive numbers of participants, have received wide coverage in the US media. It should simply be noted that vast worldwide demonstrations against American intervention in Iraq in February 2003, which numbered in the millions, did not garner one-tenth the airtime or column space."
"Murdered by Mumia" examined Categories: Criminal Injustice, People under attackSend feedback » •There is a factsheet published by the Partisan Defense Committee that examines the "facts" portrayed in Maureen Faulkner and Michael Smerconish's book Murdered By Mumia.
Israel’s Illegal Assault On The Gaza ‘Prison’ [Media Lens Media Alert] Categories: Uncategorized, People under attackSend feedback » •Subject: Israel’s Illegal Assault On The Gaza ‘Prison’
From: "Media Lens Media Alerts" noreply@medialens.org
Date: Mon, March 3, 2008 8:42 amMEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media
March 3, 2008
MEDIA ALERT: Israel’s Illegal Assault On The Gaza ‘Prison’
Attacking The Prisoners
Israel has drawn international criticism for its latest series of onslaughts against the ‘prison’ of Gaza, the crowded home to 1.4 million Palestinians. Since last Wednesday (February 27), 112 Palestinians have died under Israeli air attacks and ‘incursions’ by Israeli troops. The dead include many women and children, such as four boys who had been out playing football and even babies killed in their homes. Last Saturday alone saw the deaths of 60 Palestinians under Israeli attacks. Three Israelis have died - one a civilian killed during a rocket attack by Hamas last Wednesday and, since then, two Israeli soldiers.
On February 29, Ron Prosor, Israel's ambassador to the UK, said on the BBC Today programme that:
“We've been restraining ourselves for a very, very long time. But we have a responsibility to defend our citizens. This is the context.” (BBC Radio 4 Today interview with Edward Stourton, Friday, February 29, 2008, 7.30 am; http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/ram/today3_israel_20080229.ram
The same day, a senior Israeli source threatened a “holocaust” in Gaza.
CA court: "go ahead and discriminate against medical marijuana patients" Categories: Criminal Injustice, ShadySend feedback » •...on January 24, 2008, in a 5-2 opinion, the California Supreme Court narrowly construed the Compassionate Use Act to rule in favor of [an] employer and hold that medical marijuana patients cannot state civil causes of action for employment discrimination.
politics of birth Categories: Criminal Injustice, People under attackSend feedback » •What is it that causes this culturally accepted criminal action that is so widespread in our culture... the abuse of mother and baby?
ambiguous language to categorize people exercising First Amendment rights and people in targeted communities as "homegrown terrorists". Categories: Uncategorized, ShadySend feedback » •Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007
From the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (http://bordc.org)
"Thought Crime" Bill Still Threatens in Senate
The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act (H.R. 1955) passed by an overwhelming 404-6 in the House last October, and is currently in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Critics say the bill uses ambiguous language to categorize people exercising First Amendment rights and people in targeted communities as "homegrown terrorists".
Center for Constitutional Rights factsheet:
National Lawyers Guild opposes along with the Society of American Law Teachers
The National Lawyers Guild and the Society of American Law Teachers strongly oppose this legislation because it will likely lead to the criminalization of beliefs, dissent and protest, and invite more draconian surveillance of Internet communications.
Bush's Last State of the Union Categories: U.S. Foreign PolicySend feedback » •January 31, 2008 By Stephen Zunes
Source: Foreign Policy In FocusOn January 28, President George W. Bush gave the last State of the Union address of his two-term tenure. Many of his remarks centered on foreign policy. FPIF’s Stephen Zunes annotates the president’s claims and statements.
bush gives us the bird link Categories: ElectionsSend feedback » •Over 62 Million people voted for G.W. in the 2004 U.S. presidential election.
http://www.youtube.com/v/w_bylg-Jjz8
Obama probably moons us in his video.
voting confusion Categories: Elections2 feedbacks » •What do you think? Any candidates worth voting for in the upcoming election?
Free Jarvis Jay Masters Categories: Criminal Injustice, Political PrisonerSend feedback » •Another man on death row who wrote a moving book Finding Freedom--Writings from Death Row. Powerful reflections on prison life and how people end up there too. Check out the site dedicated to getting him out from behind bars. http://freejarvis.org
Freedom for all political prisoners. Period. Categories: Political PrisonerSend feedback » •Free Leonard Peltier
http://www.freeleonard.org
http://www.leonardpeltier.net/Free Mumia Abu Jamal
http://millions4mumia.org/
http://mumia.org(Deutsch)
http://mumia.de
Lakota secession from the U.S. Categories: Uncategorized
http://www.republicoflakotah.com/
Love and respect
