Obama ran for President on the promise he would make the government transparent. Now that it is clear that the promise won’t kept we must ask, “Who will tell us what is being done in our name?”
The recent release of classified documents by Wikileaks revealed:
“The Minton Report” which exposed a toxic waste dump by the multinational company Trafigura that affected108,000 people on the Ivory Coast. The report was kept classified to protect the corporation.
The “Global Intelligence Files” of Strafor which provides intelligence services for corporate giants, and also Homeland Security, the Marines and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. According to the Wikileaks website, “The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods.”
779 Prisoner files from Guantanamo Prison including health reports.
We are waging wars in the name of Democracy. For the word “Democracy” to mean anything, the American people know the truth about our military actions abroad, domestic spying at home or the incestuous relationship between corporate giants and governmental agencies. Setting aside the virtues or vices of individuals like Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, whistle blowers may be the only way to get the information we need to be responsible citizens in an irresponsible empire. 
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To visit the Wikileaks site, click here.
The following appeal comes from ColorofChange. Recently the hip-hop magazine XXL had an interview where a 45 year old rapper talked about how to manipulate middle school aged girls to have sex. ColorofChange is trying to change this kind of rhetoric in light of teh fact that three out of five black girls experience sexual abuse by the time they turn 18. ColorofChange wants to remove the editor who permitted such a message. They want to send a message to the whole industry that mysogyny will not be ignored.
(Thanks to Mary Rust for link.)
To sign petition, click here
We are so bombarded by propaganda that it infiltrates the very grammer of our thought. Intelligent people who are capable of enormous nuance in every other area of their lives can be simplistic when it comes to political thought.
Election year is a deadly time for critical thinking. People are only concerned with which team you are on. Most people collect wise sayings of their hero, and collect the dumbest things their opponent has said. This practice leads to a people with two languages, neither of which can be translated for the other.
The world is a very complicated place. We will not survive this game of “cops and robbers” where every issue is reduced to a struggle of pure good against pure evil. How do we break the trance? Every day it is good exercise to think of one weakness in your hero, and one strength in your “enemy”. You’ll be surprised at the violent reaction from both sides to critical thinking. As people try to hammer you back to acceptable cliches you will realize the importance of daily trance breaking practices.
Let’s begin a conversation on ways to “break the trance” this election cycle.
It is very useful for a politician to talk tough about attacking an enemy. It works in Israel to threaten Iran, it works in Iran to threaten Israel. The problem is the game can eventually escalates to actual conflict.
They don’t say how they got the information, but according to the Huffington Post Israel said in private conversations that it will protect the U.S. by not notifying it before it attacks Iran. Of course, the pressure will be enormous to back Israel up in any such attack.
I’m not willing to believe this story on face value, but it raises a deeper question. What is our ethical principle, if we attack other nations for wanting the same weapons we have?
To read article, read here.
We in the U.S. have grown numb to political deception. We’re so used to being lied to that we don’t react much any more when someone like Santorum just makes up facts, but people in Holland were stunned to hear his made up figures about euthanasia in Holland:
“In the Netherlands, people wear different bracelets if they are elderly. And the bracelet is: ‘Do not euthanize me.’ Because they have voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands but half of the people who are euthanized — ten percent of all deaths in the Netherlands — half of those people are enthanized involuntarily at hospitals because they are older and sick. And so elderly people in the Netherlands don’t go to the hospital. They go to another country, because they are afraid, because of budget purposes, they will not come out of that hospital if they go in there with sickness.”
To see video of Santorum and or read evaluation by “Fact Check”, click here.
I am always sad when people give up on religion at the same time they stop believing in God. Atheists have not lost their reverence for life, only in one symbol of that reverence. They are still enriched by sharing reverence in community regardless of the names they use or don’t use.
The symbol “God” is like a compass pointing to a mysterious power behind things. The power is not in the needle. In fact, the invisible magnetic field to which the compass aligns us, can only be discovered if we remember the symbolic nature of a compass. Symbols wear out as do compasses, which isn’t a problem if we remember that the symbol is only a contact point to a larger truth that never goes away.
Doubt is an indispensable aspect of faith. It is the refining fire which purifies our beliefs and prevents them from becoming dogmas. Paul Tillich used to say, “Serious doubt is confirmation of faith. It indicates the seriousness of the concern, its unconditional nature.”
When a symbol loses its meaning it is important not to pretend to still believe. It is equally important not to make a belief system out of your doubts. Turn doubt on itself and it will take to you the same radiant mystery the religious symbol was originally pointing. The real problem in life is not belief or doubt, but our lack of trust in life, in ourselves, and in others. In the life of faith, belief and doubt are equally important.
No dentist likes root canals in the abstract, they are a lamentable necessity. In the same way, I have worked on reproductive rights for decades and in all that time I have never met anyone who likes abortion per se. I’ve been from state capitals to the national capital and have only met people who treat the decision with sad determination. Depicting women’s health care workers who perform abortions as “anti-life” is as ludicrous as depicting dentists who perform root canals as “anti-teeth”.
What follows is an article on the movement to make the anti-choice message seem mainstream.
To read the article, click here
Glen Greenwald has posted an interesting article on the protests in Afghanistan. According to U.S. press it’s about burning the Koran, but when reporters actaully asked people why they were protesting one man said, “This is not just about dishonoring the Koran, it is about disrespecting our dead and killing our children…”To read the more, click here
Foreign spies are nowhere near as dangerous to a democracy as are secret levels of government. We cannot even call ourselves “democratic” so long as the people have no idea what their government is doing. Interestingly, “The Yes Men” and Wikileaks have called a press conference today. Commondreams has several articles on this subject.
To read an article on the release, click here.
I realize it’s not a news flash, but we must keep lifting up the fact that females are a majority of the population in the U.S. and yet have little voice when it comes to issues like women’s health. What an embarrassment this number is when the U.S. wants to preach to others about mistreating women. If you want to talk about taxation without representation you don’t have to go to Pakistan.
To read article, click here
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