Global
On the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a group of over 60 prominent American citizens is calling upon Congress to reopen the investigations into the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Signers of the joint statement include Isaac Newton Farris Jr., nephew of Reverend King and past president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Reverend James M. Lawson Jr., a close collaborator of Reverend King; and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, children of the late senator.
Bob Fitrakis will be interviewing John Potash, author of Drugs as Weapons Against Us, about his documentary based on the book, WGRN at 5:30 PM on the show The Other Side of the News .
Drugs as Weapons Against Us: The CIA war on musians and activists was released yesterday for rent or purchase.
Please ignore (but do what you can to protest against) the US Mainstream Media’s gleeful, one-sided support of what can be justifiably regarded as Crimes Against Humanity that are being committed in plain sight by our nation’s (and Venezuela’s) oligarchs, corporatists, war-profiteers, war-mongers, militarists, neo-liberals, neo-conservatives, politicians, and assorted sociopathic, neo-fascist greed-heads who care not about humanity, human rights or true democratic principles.
State-sponsored economic sanctions have been routinely used by America’s ruling oligarchs since the Johnson/Nixon Vietnam era in order to de-stabilize – and then privatize – the oil reserves and other natural resources of any and all oil- or resource-rich country on the planet.
Such immoral actions also meet the definition of crimes against humanityand crimes against the peaceand often morph into international war crimesas well.
The regimes of Nixon, Reagan, both Bushes, both Clintons, Madeleine Albright, John Bolton, Elliot Abrams, Obama, Trump, Pence, etc are good examples of perpetrators of such international crimes.
Seven-plus decades ago, as humanity was ensnarled in a monstrous world war, its instinct to win — to dominate others above all else — achieved ultimate manifestation: the capacity to annihilate all life on Planet Earth.
Nuclear weapons are, you might say, the logical outcome of the 10,000-year journey of civilization: “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.’”
And so we have. And now we’re stuck with ourselves, as are all other forms of life.
Openly transgender persons have been serving in the military for two and a half years and leaders from each branch have testified that their service has not harmed the military. Although the government cries that the sky is falling, it has offered no evidence to support its dire claims.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869: 150 years ago this year.
There will be many tributes to Gandhi published in 2019 so I would like to add one of my own.
This reflects not just my belief that he gave the world inspiration, ideas and powerful strategies for tackling violence in a wide range of contexts but because my own experience in applying his ideas has proven their worth. This included his awareness that led him to declare that ‘If we are to make progress, we must not repeat history but make new history. We must add to the inheritance left by our ancestors.’ and his encouragement to reflect deeply and listen to one’s ‘inner voice’: ‘you should follow your inner voice whatever the consequences’ and ‘even at the risk of being misunderstood’.
In essence, we can productively learn from history but we can build on it too. And, vitally, this includes dealing more effectively with violence.
So how did Gandhi influence me?
“ALL tailings ‘ponds’ are a problem. If they don't breach and spill massive amounts of toxic sludge into the environment like at Mount Polley, they leach that contamination slowly, poisoning the waters and lands (and aquifers) around them for centuries.” – Quote from: http://canadians.org/blog/update-mount-polley-mine-disaster-imperial-metals-and-government-focus-covering-instead. ______________________________________________________________________________
A solemn message to the residents of Hoyt Lakes, Aurora, Meadowlands, Floodwood, Brookston, Cloquet, Scanlon, Carlton, Thomson, Wrenshall, Duluth, Superior WI, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Canada and most of all, Lake Superior, please seriously heed the warnings in the message below.
Even state-of-the-art mine tailings ponds that use earthen dam walls (especially if they are intended to grow to become 250 feet tall like PolyMet’s!!) are subject to sudden, unexpected – and very catastrophic – breaches that could easily destroy for a generation every living thing in the watershed downstream. Even tributaries can be contaminated and even destroyed in the sudden deluge that can reverse the flow of the creeks temporarily.
And be warned that foreign multinational mining corporations – just like every other profit-minded, multinational corporation that anybody can think of - has their profits as their number one goal; the long-term adverse environmental effects from their mining operations be damned!