compiled by Alice
[Thanks to ellwort and James Bennett
"Love and Gratitude to Water" ceremony.
Gravity and water Dr. Emoto invites you to participate in the 2008
"Love and Gratitude to Water" ceremony.
The ceremony will take place at Lake Baikal Siberia, Russia. August 3rd, 2008.
WASHINGTON – Both major-party presidential candidates should be rejected at the polls this November, writes Joseph Farah, founder and editor of the largest independent news source on the Internet in an unusual new book hitting bookstores nationwide in three weeks and available now exclusively through WND's online store. "None of the Above" is the first book of its kind in modern U.S. history – calling for Americans to send a message to the Democratic and Republican parties that they will not vote for candidates who do not honor and uphold the principles of the Constitution. Farah believes 2008 could be transformed into a history-making year in American politics if his book inspires millions to take up his challenge. ...
After playing a pirate in Pirates of the Caribbean series, versatile Hollywood actor Johnny Depp is set to play the Mad Hatter in the film version of Alice in Wonderland.
Thesun.co.uk reports the movie will be shot in 3D and Depp teams up with his friend and collaborator, director Tim Burton. The two have worked together on six movies.
A source said: "Burton has had designs on Alice In Wonderland since before he was famous. He has a knack for turning what seem like stories for just kids into gripping, spooky fables loved just as much by adults. He's held out on doing Alice till he got a big enough budget. Now this film is financed by Disney so money won't be a problem."
Unknown actress Mia Wasikowska will play Alice. Production will start next year and the release is planned for the summer of 2010.
Interview with Mickey Z.
There has been a plethora of articles and commentary in progressivist media focused on the Democratic Party — considered left of the Republican Party (but clearly, for a non-American observer, a right-wing party and not a left-wing party). Yet some progressives in the media — forgetful of the Bill Clinton era — continue to push for the effete strategy of lesser evilism that no matter how terrible the Democratic presidential candidate of the corporate political duopoly is s/he would not be as bad as the Republican presidential candidate. Other progressives point out that the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, is clearly aligned with corporatism and imperialism.
Despite all this, the progressivist media has excluded or severely marginalized progressivist “third” party candidates.
If there is any credence to the aphorism “any publicity is good publicity,” then Obama has reaped the benefits while progressivist candidates have been disadvantaged by independent/progressivist media.
To get a thoughtful analysis on lesser evilism and American “democracy,” I turned to Astoria, New York-based author Mickey Z., whose most recent offering is CPR for Dummies (Think: Henry Miller meets Bukowski and Vonnegut at Sunday Mass).
Kim Petersen: What is it about the political milieu in the United States that fosters lesser evilism?
Mickey Z.: I guess it’s one of the oldest tricks in the book (insert Eliot Spitzer joke here). You know: good cop, bad cop. Settle for less pain instead of demanding more pleasure. To delve a little deeper and risk armchair psychology, I’d say that when the “far left” engages in its despicable Anybody-But-Bush style delusion, it perhaps reveals their fear and unwillingness, re: radical change.
KP: Are the political duopoly and corporate media still so persuasive?
MZ: Well, ask yourself this: Why does every major newspaper and TV news show have a business section, but not a labor section? They cover automobiles, not bicycles. If the Dow Jones Industrial Average drops, it’s “Stop the presses.” But if the infant mortality rate rises, it questionable if it’ll even make the papers. If you created a blueprint for an apparatus that erased critical thought, there’s none more efficient than our (sic) corporate media.
KP: Obama exposes his regressivism with statements such as the recent: “But the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another.” This he said in Berlin on the heels of departing the greatest wall-building project since dynastic China.
MZ: Well, there’s “our” walls (“our” being the US, UK, and Israel) and then you have “their” walls, Kim. We only build walls when left with absolutely no choice. We really don’t want to. Really… we don’t. I mean it. We’re the good guys. I can prove it: It says so in our history books.
KP: Why do you think it is that even the independent media excludes or marginalizes “third” party candidates and focuses so preponderantly on Barack Obama?
MZ: It’s just so distracting to focus on more than two things at once. The media are us. The press is made up humans shaped by the same hypocritical and destructive culture as the rest of us. All of us lunatics trying to navigate the Space Age with Stone Age brains. If believing that Obama is living proof that American democracy works keeps things simple, then it’s just so much easier to believe that. More subtly, the unspoken reality is that those who look beyond the accepted parameters of discussion are excluded from all the (alleged) fun.
KP: Sometimes the focus is support for Obama since he is supposedly less evil than John McCain, or it can even be about revealing Obama’s lack of progressivism. But the focus is on Obama and not the progressivist candidates out there. Given that Obama presents himself as a thoroughly unattractive presidential candidate for many progressives, why does one seldom encounter articles on more attractive presidential candidates in the independent media?
MZ: Ah, now we get to the dirty little secret of the so-called Left. A big chunk of them just wanna fit in. They wanna win… even if it means incredible compromise. Then there’s some of them that are happiest when bitching and moaning and complaining. Give them a cartoon character to hate like Cheney or Guiliani and they’re pacified. So once again in 2008, the independent (sic) press will buy the line of bullshit being sold by a corporate Democrat (sorry, I’m being redundant) and, by proxy, support the status quo and the subsequent global nightmare.
KP: Even if Obama were an appealing candidate for progressives, he would still be entrenched in the corporate political duopoly. Is a “third” party the answer to steering the United States away from the policies of the corporate duopoly? Is party politics even the way to go?
MZ: Corporate America could buy the Green Party as easily as it owns the Democrats and Republicans… but this isn’t a preordained theology or force of nature. The planet is fucked primarily due to decisions made by humans. If different choices had been made in the past, it’s very likely we’d have had different outcomes. If we start making different decisions now, there just might be enough time to create new outcomes. It’s not about party politics or religion or the system or terrorism or any other fairy tale… it’s about human beings changing their god damned minds and rejecting what has nearly destroyed us — and every other living — so far.
KP: What is the most effective strategy for ditching lesser evilism?
MZ: I don’t know… but I’m guessing it begins with us in the privileged West waking the fuck up and taking drastic action as soon as possible.
KP: Lastly, is going for a “third” party a viable strategy? Or is participating in a rigged electoral system anathema?
MZ: In 2004, there were 202,746,417 eligible voters, but only 122,293,332 hit the polling booths. More than 80 million more Americans could have voted while George W. Bush won with 62,040,610 votes. Imagine if even 20% of those 80 million voted for Nader or McKinney in 2008 — if for no other reason than to demonstrate that what they (we) want isn’t on the menu. Sixteen million protest votes? In America? Hey, it’s at least a tiny step in the right direction… unless of course, they figure out a way to disappear all those votes. Oh well… never mind.
Listen -
Listen more carefully to what is around you
Right now.
In my world
There are the bells from the clanks
Of the morning milk drums,
And a wagon wheel outside my window
Just hit a bump
Which turned into an ecstatic chorus
Of the Beloved's Name.
There is the Prayer Call
Rising up like the sun
Out of the mouths of a thousand birds.
There is an astonishing vastness
Of movement and Life
Emanating sound and light
From my folded hands
And my even quieter simple being and heart.
My dear,
Is it true that your mind
Is sometimes like a battering
Ram
Running all through the city,
Shouting so madly inside and out
About the ten thousand things
That do not matter?
Hafiz, too,
For many years beat his head in youth
And thought himself at a great distance,
Far from an armistice
With God.
But that is why this scarred old pilgrim
Has now become such a sweet rare vintage
Who weeps and sings for you.
O listen -
Listen more carefully
To what is inside of you right now.
In my world
All that remains is the wondrous call to
Dance and prayer
Rising up like a thousand suns
Out of the mouth of a
Single bird.
~ Hafiz ~
(The Subject Tonight is Love -- versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky) 
Friday, July 25, 2008 By: Gloria La Riva Revolutionary movements battle U.S.-backed repression Colombian trade unionists and peasant leaders continue to be gunned down in record numbers by a death-squad government that is armed and financed by the Bush administration. More trade unionists are assassinated every year in Colombia than anywhere else in the world. The FARC is waging a struggle against Colombia's ruling class and their U.S. backers.
These facts are never reported in the U.S. corporate owned media. Such bastions of "free speech" could not care less about the epidemic of killings against progressive workers and small farmers. Instead, all concern and sympathy is being drummed up for the individuals who were taken prisoner by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP, or simply FARC). In the 1980s, when the FARC laid down its weapons and entered the political process to "peacefully" compete with the U.S.-backed political parties representing the ultra-rich landowners and capitalists, government-backed death squads murdered more than 5,000 of their members. Since 2000, the U.S. government has spent more than $5 billion on Plan Colombia to exterminate the revolutionary movement. Bombings, assassinations and every other conceivable tactic have been used against those resisting imperialism and capitalism. Now the imperialists’ operatives in the CIA and their Colombian puppets are organizing a worldwide campaign against "violence" and "hostage taking." The hypocrisy is so great that few parallels come to mind. Hitler organized a war crimes trial in 1942 that found French socialists guilty and, consequently, blamed them for "starting" World War II. Their punishment was their immediate dispatch to German concentration camps. ‘Rescuing hostages’: the hidden story The timing of "Operation Jaque"—the July 2 "rescue" of French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other prisoners held by the FARC—was designed to bolster Colombian president Álvaro Uribe's war against the country's progressive forces and to possibly win him a third (unconstitutional) term for that war. It was soon exposed as a set-up. Instead of a "brilliant Colombian military operation" that supposedly proved the end of the FARC, it was unmasked as a staged event to disrupt and destroy the active negotiations that were underway between FARC negotiators and Swiss and French emissaries to free Betancourt and others. The groundwork for negotiations was being established because the FARC has also sought the liberation of its members in an exchange of prisoners. Many FARC members are enduring extremely long sentences in U.S. and Colombian prisons after kangaroo trials on bogus charges of terrorism and narcotrafficking. In the thousands of media stories extolling Betancourt's release, scarcely a word has been uttered about the existence of imprisoned FARC guerrillas. On July 15, Alfonso Cano, the FARC's new leader, issued his first statement since taking over after the death of legendary founder Manuel Marulanda. Cano said in part, "We will insist for as many times as necessary our willingness to achieve a humanitarian accord that fixes clear and obligatory rules for both parties with respect to the civilian population, and above all, to prioritize the freedom of our extradited comrades Sonia, Simon, Ivan Vargas and of all the prisoners of war of both sides." Cano mentions Simon Trinidad, the nom de guerre of FARC member Ricardo Palmera Pinera. On Jan. 28, Trinidad was sentenced in Washington D.C.'s federal court to 60 years imprisonment in the United States. He is in prison as the result of a false conspiracy conviction linking him to the kidnapping of the three U.S. mercenaries who were just freed with Betancourt. The mercenary contractors were shot down in 2002 while flying military reconnaissance planes over FARC-controlled territory. Conspiracy is a charge that needs no real evidence for conviction. Interestingly, the maximum prison sentence in Colombia used to be 40 years, but it was extended after its penal code was modified under the direction and funding of the United States Agency for International Development. Class struggle in Colombia The most fundamental issue in Colombia's struggle is hidden by the media and denied by the U.S. and Colombian governments: There are two sides in Colombia's struggle representing irreconcilable classes—that of owners and that of dispossessed, of oppressors and of oppressed. Colombian President Álvaro Uribe is leading a U.S.-backed campaign to exterminate left-wing forces.
This is the real reason the U.S. and Colombian governments have done everything possible to thwart such a prisoner exchange from taking place in Colombia. Despite numerous FARC proposals for a peace settlement and prisoner releases, Uribe and Washington have deliberately sabotaged them. For U.S. imperialism, agreeing to a prisoner exchange would be a de facto recognition of the FARC and the National Liberation Army (ELN) as legitimate military armies. The United States is not interested in negotiations. Its objective is the wiping out of the opposition, armed and unarmed, at all cost. All the crocodile tears cried by U.S. government officials and Uribe over the fate of prisoners held by the FARC belie the fact that the real danger to the prisoners has come from U.S.-Colombian military operations, including the mass bombing of FARC encampments and other lightning attacks. One such military raid was carried out in June 2007 on a FARC camp with a goal similar to "Operation Jaque." It was meant to boost Uribe's presidency and make crystal clear that the U.S. and Colombian perspective of "no concessions, no negotiations under any circumstances" with the FARC, except for purposes of deceit. Twelve members of Colombia's congress had been taken prisoner by the FARC. While negotiations were ongoing for their release, on June 18, 2007, a SWAT team of CIA, British and Israeli mercenaries and the Colombian army stormed the FARC jungle camp. Eleven of the congress members were killed. FARC spokesperson Rodrigo Granda explained Uribe's intention in the raid in an October 2007 interview: "What has to be said about the deaths of the 11 congressmen is that it was undoubtedly a meticulously prepared plan, both politically and militarily, and also in terms of propaganda. "Uribe's government began its plan by talking about the possibility of releasing a number of FARC-EP prisoners for whom no one had made any request, because we had sought a bilateral humanitarian exchange of prisoners between the FARC-EP and the government. ... This, in my view, had to do with the preparations for action on a large scale in the Colombian mountains [the June raid]. "The intended blow was that, if this special force appeared to have successfully freed the 12 congressional representatives, Uribe would have kept in prison those he was supposedly attempting to free and embarked on a political campaign at home and abroad claiming that direct interventions would henceforth be the most appropriate way to secure the release of those being held by the FARC-EP, thereby ruling out the feasibility of humanitarian exchange or any possibility of dialogue." In November 2007, renewed negotiations for a prisoner exchange were at first agreed to by Uribe, who approved of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez's role as a mediator along with liberal Colombian senator Piedad Cordobas. Prominent individuals held by the FARC were set for release. At the last minute, however, Uribe abruptly called off the talks and accused Chávez of violating the ground rules by engaging in a telephone conversation with a Colombian general. This was a spurious accusation, yet the official relations between both countries almost came to a breaking point. Chávez has accused the U.S. government of having intervened to put a sudden stop to the talks. Despite Uribe's sabotage of the talks, the FARC unilaterally released two prisoners on Jan. 10: Clara Rojas, Betancourt's campaign manager in her 2002 presidential bid; and Consuelo González. On Jan. 31, four more civilians were released by the FARC to Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez in yet another unilateral gesture. Days later, Uribe's answer was, "We will exterminate the FARC." On March 1, the Colombian military conducted an attack at dawn on a FARC encampment a few miles inside Ecuador's territory along Colombia's southern border. The aerial bombing, which violated Ecuadorian airspace, lasted several hours. The assault killed almost all 20 encampment occupants, including four Mexican university students who had just arrived hours before to express their solidarity with the FARC. Raúl Reyes, the FARC's number two leader and actual ground commander, was executed in the mop-up operation after the bombing ended. The military intelligence and logistics were provided by the United States. Days later, another top FARC commander, Iván Rios, who had a million-dollar bounty placed on his head, was betrayed and executed by a member of his battalion. High-priced bounties have been issued against key FARC leaders. If it were still not clear to all those who follow developments in Colombia that the intent of the United States and the Colombian bourgeoisies is the brutal elimination of the FARC and ELN, Uribe stated it explicitly on July 9. Still flush with his "rescue" victory, Uribe announced a renewed military offensive against the ELN. According to the July 10 edition of Mexico’s La Jornada, "[T]he Colombian president Alvaro Uribe ordered the military forces to launch an offensive against the Army of National Liberation (ELN), the second most important guerrilla in the country, in particular to locate and capture their maximum leaders …" Organized resistance The FARC's methods as a revolutionary guerrilla force in wartime are not the cause of the violence in Colombia. It is the necessary outcome of a class war that was intensified in the late 1940s by U.S. imperialism and the Colombian oligarchy and that has never let up. With state power in their hands, U.S. imperialism and Colombia's comprador bourgeoisie have employed the most ruthless means to vanquish all opposition movements, armed or unarmed, including the trade unions. The fascist paramilitary forces, armed and supplied by the United States, have ferociously tortured and murdered workers and peasants trying to resist the aggressive free-trade and neoliberal policies of Bogota and Washington. The FARC and the ELN were born as a means of defense and survival for the peasants and working class against the state terror that was unleashed on the population in the 1940s. A turning point was in 1948, when the popular presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, from the left wing of the Liberal Party, was assassinated. The violence that broke out between the Conservative Party and Liberal Party supporters, known as the "Bogotazo," soon became the ruling class's justification for an unending war against Colombia's peasants. Colombian peasants had first begun to organize cooperatives and small units of self-defense to protect themselves against large landowners from the 1930s to the 1950s. These peasant organizations grew in size and influence by the 1960s. Throughout Latin America, movements of workers and peasants were gaining in organization and strength, many inspired by the Cuban Revolution of 1959. In response, the U.S. government pumped millions of dollars of military assistance to repress numerous popular movements. The 1960s and 1970s brought a wave of state terror and dictatorship throughout Latin America, with military coups directed and financed by U.S. imperialism, from Chile to Argentina, Bolivia to Brazil, and Haiti to Venezuela. A Marxist understanding of violence Literally hundreds of thousands of people across the continent were murdered in the U.S.-backed reign of terror. It is against this state violence that the rise of the revolutionary armed forces in Colombia must be understood. Funeral for Javier Suarez, a Colombian labor leader killed by right-wing paramilitaries, May 2000 Marxism, as a scientific method of assessing and giving direction to the class struggle, has a very particular view of violence. Marxism rejects the vile hypocrisy of the capitalist bosses and landowners who have always maintained their systems of slavery and exploitation by resort to the most extreme methods of violence. The rule over society by a tiny handful of the population would be impossible without the employment of repression. "Democratic" methods are fine, but only as long as the masses of the exploited remain meek. As soon as the oppressed take up arms to defend their organizations and their communities from the organized violence of the capitalist state, which is frequently supplemented by extra-judicial death squads, the corporate media condemns them as "terrorists." Unlike pacifism, Marxism is distinguished by its understanding that the armies of the capitalist state inevitably employ methods of violence, including outright war, assassination, prisoner and hostage taking, spying, covert operations, and other instruments of terrorism. The goal of these methods is not to kill all of their opponents. Only a relatively small number of opponents are killed in any war, be it a class war or one directed against targeted governments. The goal is to break the will of those who are still alive by inflicting sufficient casualties and widespread terror so that resistance appears futile. Pacifists denounce the violence of the oppressor state and those who resist it through armed struggle with equal fervor. Marxists, like all progressive people, do not "like violence." They would much prefer a non-violent end to the miseries of capitalist exploitation. But wringing one's hands about violence "from both sides" does not contribute in the slightest to arresting the violence of the oppressor state once the ruling class feels its interests are threatened. It is not possible for bourgeois pacifism to cite one example in history where a small exploiter class gave up its control over the economy and the political order without unleashing the fiercest, most violent war against the class forces that sought a new society. Colombia: a pivot in imperialist strategy For more than six decades, Colombia has been the anchor for U.S. imperialism in Latin America. Washington is intent on maintaining the oligarchy in power for its own means on the continent. By waging ruthless violence against the oppressed who have organized for economic and social betterment, Colombia's ruling class has been able to expand its wealth tremendously. It has also created the repressive environment necessary for greater U.S. exploitation. Today, the economic situation in Colombia is staggering. The country suffers the highest unemployment rate in Latin America, exceeding 15 percent in seven major cities. Over half of those who do work are based in the informal economy of street vending or living from scavenging in dumps; 54 percent of the population lives on only $1 to $2 a day. The richest 5 percent of Colombia’s population owns 90 percent of all property and almost 60 percent of peasants struggle to survive on less than 3 percent of the country’s land. Homelessness is estimated at almost 10 million out of a population of 44 million—the highest in the continent. To keep such an impoverished population down, Colombia's police, military and, by extension, paramilitary forces have received billions of dollars in U.S. military aid through the Plan Colombia and Plan Patriota programs of the United States. From 2000 to 2006, $5 billion were given to Colombia, 80 percent of it in the form of military aid. FARC leaders who were directly involved in negotiations over prisoner exchanges are being targeted for assassination or arrested and railroaded into U.S. prisons. All opposition activists, even those who do not employ armed resistance to the state terror, have been heavily targeted. That thousands of trade unionists have been slaughtered in recent years for peaceful, unarmed labor actions and for defending workers' rights strongly negates the argument that peace can be achieved by the FARC first surrendering their arms. The paramilitary death squads have particularly targeted trade unionists with the complicity of the government. Between 1986 and 2002, according to an AFL-CIO 2006 study, more than 3,000 labor leaders were assassinated in Colombia. Only five cases ended in a successful prosecution. The state terror against aboveground and legally recognized organizations and their members is not a thing of the past. Located in the northeast of the South American continent, Colombia shares extensive borders with Venezuela and Ecuador, whose governments are engaged in a radical societal transformation. Some leaders, including Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez, have called for the FARC to lay down its arms in order to initiate a peace process. History and on-the-ground reality in Colombia shows the reason for the revolutionary forces to maintain its arms and organization. Again, it is not a fetish for armed struggle; it is an estimate of reality that leads to basic calculations about strategy and tactics. In 1984, it was the FARC that agreed to a peace settlement with Colombian president Belisario Betancur. The FARC was instrumental in establishing the Patriotic Union (UP), an aboveground and legal political party created for electoral purposes. Despite the FARC’s efforts at peaceful forms of struggle, a bloodbath ensued in which paramilitary death squads murdered over 5,000 militants of the UP. Colombian struggle in international context With 60 years of state terror and violence, Colombia has seemed impenetrable by the phenomenon of the Latin American masses in motion, demanding dramatic change after the "lost decades" in the 1980s and 1990s. Those times were characterized by economic surrender to the U.S. imperialism. More than 200,000 Colombians take to the streets to protest paramilitary violence, March 6. But in fact, there has been a growing consciousness and mobilization among many sectors in Colombia in recent months. They do not receive much notice in the international press. Recently, more than 200,000 people marched in Bogotá demanding an end to death squad violence. And a major scandal involving Uribe's links to the paramilitary and narcotraffickers resulted in his lowest public ratings since he became president. There is also an ongoing investigation of the more than 70 members of Colombia's Congress—with direct links to the death squads—who used their offices to help re-elect Uribe for his second four-year term in 2006. The euphoria created among large sectors of Colombia by Operation Jaque, calling for a possible third presidential run for Uribe—despite the unconstitutionality of a third term—is bound to be short-lived. The country’s inescapable economic and social crisis will not be. Proclaiming victory over the guerrilla forces after a series of recent setbacks for the FARC will not resolve Colombia’s crisis for the vast majority of the people. Nor will it end the inextinguishable need to organize, mobilize and fight back with the means necessary for the people’s victory. The FARC, like any workers’ or peasants’ organization that is involved in a protracted conflict, may seek to fight at the same time as it engages in negotiations and diplomacy. Only the revolutionary organization can determine the usefulness of negotiations with a state that seeks to exterminate them. Ultimately, an estimate of the relationship of forces is required, which is dictated not only by the internal domestic situation but by an approximation of complex international factors as well. Any movement for change in Latin America has arrayed against it not only the forces of domestic counterrevolution, but also the vast interventionist instrument of U.S. imperialism. The Pentagon, CIA and the complex of transnational media corporations are working day and night to discredit and destroy the revolutionary forces. For people outside of Colombia, and especially for those of us living in the United States, our work must intensify to expose the macabre role of our own ruling class. Exposing Plan Colombia and extending real solidarity with the workers and farmers who are being viciously attacked because they dare to stand up for a better world are the top priorities. Castigating and lecturing those who are being hunted down by imperialism and by its legal and extra-legal death squads is no solution at all to the enduring crisis in Colombia.
Contributed by blackandred on Wed, 2008-07-23 02:11. By Kevin Parkinson; July 20, 2008 - Global Research
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9627
In the last 15 years or so, as a society we have had access to more information than ever before in modern history because of the Internet. There are approximately 1 billion Internet users in the world...and any one of these users can theoretically communicate in real time with any other on the planet. The Internet has been the greatest technological achievement of the 20th century by far, and has been recognized as such by the global community. The free transfer of information, uncensored, unlimited and untainted, still seems to be a dream when you think about it. Whatever field that is mentioned- education, commerce, government, news, entertainment, politics and countless other areas- have been radically affected by the introduction of the Internet. And mostly, it's good news, except when poor judgements are made and people are taken advantage of. Scrutiny and oversight are needed, especially where children are involved. However, when there are potential profits open to a corporation, the needs of society don't count. Take the recent case in Canada with the behemoths, Telus and Rogers rolling out a charge for text messaging without any warning to the public. It was an arrogant and risky move for the telecommunications giants because it backfired. People actually used Internet technology to deliver a loud and clear message to these companies and that was to scrap the extra charge. The people used the power of the Internet against the big boys and the little guys won. However, the issue of text messaging is just a tiny blip on the radar screens of Telus and another company, Bell Canada, the two largest Internet Service Providers (ISP'S) in Canada. Our country is being used as a test case to drastically change the delivery of Internet service forever. The change will be so radical that it has the potential to send us back to the horse and buggy days of information sharing and access. In the upcoming weeks watch for a report in Time Magazine that will attempt to smooth over the rough edges of a diabolical plot by Bell Canada and Telus, to begin charging per site fees on most Internet sites. The plan is to convert the Internet into a cable-like system, where customers sign up for specific web sites, and then pay to visit sites beyond a cutoff point. From my browsing (on the currently free Internet) I have discovered that the 'demise' of the free Internet is slated for 2010 in Canada, and two years later around the world. Canada is seen [as] a good choice to implement such shameful and sinister changes, since Canadians are viewed as being laissez fair, politically uninformed and an easy target. The corporate marauders will iron out the wrinkles in Canada and then spring the new, castrated version of the Internet on the rest of the world, probably with little fanfare, except for some dire warnings about the 'evil' of the Internet (free) and the CEO's spouting about 'safety and security'. These buzzwords usually work pretty well. What will the Internet look like in Canada in 2010? I suspect that the ISP's will provide a "package" program as companies like Cogeco currently do. Customers will pay for a series of websites as they do now for their television stations. Television stations will be available on-line as part of these packages, which will make the networks happy since they have lost much of the younger market which are surfing and chatting on their computers in the evening. However, as is the case with cable television now, if you choose something that is not part of the package, you know what happens. You pay extra. And this is where the Internet (free) as we know it will suffer almost immediate, economic strangulation. Thousands and thousands of Internet sites will not be part of the package so users will have to pay extra to visit those sites! In just an hour or two it is possible to easily visit 20-30 sites or more while looking for information. Just imagine how high these costs will be. At present, the world condemns China because that country restricts certain websites. "They are undemocratic; they are removing people's freedom; they don't respect individual rights; they are censoring information,” are some of the comments we hear. But what Bell Canada and Telus have planned for Canadians is much worse than that. They are planning the death of the Internet (free) as we know it, and I expect they'll be hardly a whimper from Canadians. It's all part of the corporate plan for a New World Order and virtually a masterstroke that will lead to the creation of billions and billions of dollars of corporate profit at the expense of the working and middle classes. There are so many other implications as a result of these changes, far too many to elaborate on here. Be aware that we will all lose our privacy because all websites will be tracked as part of the billing procedure, and we will be literally cut off from 90% of the information that we can access today. The little guys on the Net will fall like flies; Bloggers and small website operators will die a quick death because people will not pay to go to their sites and read their pages. Ironically, the only medium that can save us is the one we are trying to save- the Internet (free). This article will be posted on my Blog: www.realitycheck.typepad.com and I encourage people and groups to learn more about this issue. Canadians can keep the Internet free just as they kept text messaging free. Don't wait for the federal politicians. They will do nothing to help us. I would welcome a letter to the editor of the Standard Freeholder from a spokesperson from Bell Canada or Telus telling me that I am absolutely wrong in what I have written, and that no such changes to the Internet are being planned, and that access to Internet sites will remain FREE in the years to come. In the meantime, I encourage all of you to write to the media, ask questions, phone the radio station, phone a friend, or think of something else to prevent what appears to me to be inevitable. Maintaining Internet (free) access is the only way we have a chance at combatting the global corporate takeover, the North American Union, and a long list of other deadly deeds that the elite in society have planned for us. Yesterday was too late in trying to protect our rights and freedoms. We must now redouble our efforts in order to give our children and grandchildren a fighting chance in the future. Author's website: http://realitycheck.typepad.com/Contributed by blackandred on Wed, 2008-07-23 02:11. By Kevin Parkinson - July 20, 2008 Canada Will Become Test Case By Kevin Parkinson; July 20, 2008 - Global Research
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9627
In the last 15 years or so, as a society we have had access to more information than ever before in modern history because of the Internet. There are approximately 1 billion Internet users in the world...and any one of these users can theoretically communicate in real time with any other on the planet. The Internet has been the greatest technological achievement of the 20th century by far, and has been recognized as such by the global community. The free transfer of information, uncensored, unlimited and untainted, still seems to be a dream when you think about it. Whatever field that is mentioned- education, commerce, government, news, entertainment, politics and countless other areas- have been radically affected by the introduction of the Internet. And mostly, it's good news, except when poor judgements are made and people are taken advantage of. Scrutiny and oversight are needed, especially where children are involved. However, when there are potential profits open to a corporation, the needs of society don't count. Take the recent case in Canada with the behemoths, Telus and Rogers rolling out a charge for text messaging without any warning to the public. It was an arrogant and risky move for the telecommunications giants because it backfired. People actually used Internet technology to deliver a loud and clear message to these companies and that was to scrap the extra charge. The people used the power of the Internet against the big boys and the little guys won. However, the issue of text messaging is just a tiny blip on the radar screens of Telus and another company, Bell Canada, the two largest Internet Service Providers (ISP'S) in Canada. Our country is being used as a test case to drastically change the delivery of Internet service forever. The change will be so radical that it has the potential to send us back to the horse and buggy days of information sharing and access. In the upcoming weeks watch for a report in Time Magazine that will attempt to smooth over the rough edges of a diabolical plot by Bell Canada and Telus, to begin charging per site fees on most Internet sites. The plan is to convert the Internet into a cable-like system, where customers sign up for specific web sites, and then pay to visit sites beyond a cutoff point. From my browsing (on the currently free Internet) I have discovered that the 'demise' of the free Internet is slated for 2010 in Canada, and two years later around the world. Canada is seen [as] a good choice to implement such shameful and sinister changes, since Canadians are viewed as being laissez fair, politically uninformed and an easy target. The corporate marauders will iron out the wrinkles in Canada and then spring the new, castrated version of the Internet on the rest of the world, probably with little fanfare, except for some dire warnings about the 'evil' of the Internet (free) and the CEO's spouting about 'safety and security'. These buzzwords usually work pretty well. What will the Internet look like in Canada in 2010? I suspect that the ISP's will provide a "package" program as companies like Cogeco currently do. Customers will pay for a series of websites as they do now for their television stations. Television stations will be available on-line as part of these packages, which will make the networks happy since they have lost much of the younger market which are surfing and chatting on their computers in the evening. However, as is the case with cable television now, if you choose something that is not part of the package, you know what happens. You pay extra. And this is where the Internet (free) as we know it will suffer almost immediate, economic strangulation. Thousands and thousands of Internet sites will not be part of the package so users will have to pay extra to visit those sites! In just an hour or two it is possible to easily visit 20-30 sites or more while looking for information. Just imagine how high these costs will be. At present, the world condemns China because that country restricts certain websites. "They are undemocratic; they are removing people's freedom; they don't respect individual rights; they are censoring information,” are some of the comments we hear. But what Bell Canada and Telus have planned for Canadians is much worse than that. They are planning the death of the Internet (free) as we know it, and I expect they'll be hardly a whimper from Canadians. It's all part of the corporate plan for a New World Order and virtually a masterstroke that will lead to the creation of billions and billions of dollars of corporate profit at the expense of the working and middle classes. There are so many other implications as a result of these changes, far too many to elaborate on here. Be aware that we will all lose our privacy because all websites will be tracked as part of the billing procedure, and we will be literally cut off from 90% of the information that we can access today. The little guys on the Net will fall like flies; Bloggers and small website operators will die a quick death because people will not pay to go to their sites and read their pages. Ironically, the only medium that can save us is the one we are trying to save- the Internet (free). This article will be posted on my Blog: www.realitycheck.typepad.com and I encourage people and groups to learn more about this issue. Canadians can keep the Internet free just as they kept text messaging free. Don't wait for the federal politicians. They will do nothing to help us. I would welcome a letter to the editor of the Standard Freeholder from a spokesperson from Bell Canada or Telus telling me that I am absolutely wrong in what I have written, and that no such changes to the Internet are being planned, and that access to Internet sites will remain FREE in the years to come. In the meantime, I encourage all of you to write to the media, ask questions, phone the radio station, phone a friend, or think of something else to prevent what appears to me to be inevitable. Maintaining Internet (free) access is the only way we have a chance at combatting the global corporate takeover, the North American Union, and a long list of other deadly deeds that the elite in society have planned for us. Yesterday was too late in trying to protect our rights and freedoms. We must now redouble our efforts in order to give our children and grandchildren a fighting chance in the future. Author's website: http://realitycheck.typepad.com/
 |  |
Mohandas Gandhi opposed the State. The State is the military, police, prisons, courts, tax collectors, and bureaucrats. He saw the State as concentrated violence. "The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence." Gandhi recognized that the State claims to serve the nation, but he realized that this was a fallacy. "While apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, [the State] does the greatest harm to mankind."1
According to Dr. Dhawan, Gandhi was a philosophical Anarchist because he believed that the "[the greatest good of all] can be realized only in the classless, stateless democracy."2 While Gandhi advocated democracy, he differentiated between direct democracy and western democracy. Commenting on the parliamentary system, Gandhi says, "If India copies England, it is my firm conviction that she will be ruined. Parliaments are merely emblems of slavery."3 He had no more appetite for majority democracy of America, "It is a superstition and an ungodly thing to believe that an act of a majority binds a minority."4 By centralizing power, western democracies feed into violence. Thus, he thought decentralization was the key to world peace.
*
Towards a non-violent society: a position paper on anarchism, social change and Food Not Bombs by Chris Crass Gandhi writes of Tolstoy in his autobiography, "It was forty years ago, when I was passing through a severe crisis of skepticism and doubt that I came across Tolstoy's book, The Kingdom of God is Within You, and was deeply impressed by it. I was at that time a believer in violence. Its reading cured me of my skepticism and made me a firm believer in ahimsa(non-violence)... He was the greatest apostle of non-violence that the present age has produced".
Anarchist ideas also influenced Gandhi's ideas about the future society. In the book Gandhi Today, Mark Shepard explains, "India could become strong and healthy, Gandhi insisted, only by revitalizing its villages, where over four-fifths of its people lived - a figure that still applies today. He envisioned a society of strong villages, each one politically autonomous and economically self-reliant. In fact, Gandhi may be this century's greatest proponent of decentralism - basing economic and political power at the local level."
After Gandhi was assassinated, the person who was known as "Gandhi's spiritual heir", Vinoba Bhave led several major campaigns to reclaim land for the poor. In 1951 Bhave and the many workers from Sarva Seva Sangh (Society for the Service of All), started the Bhoodon (land gift) movement. Many felt that Bhave was a saint in the Hindu tradition, and so when he began walking across the country asking for acres of land from landowners, he received land gifts, which were then given to the poor. One and one third million acres, according to Shepard, were actual reclaimed by the poor (far more than had been managed by the land reform programs of India's government). Bhave was involved with other projects and campaigns to bring about the "non-violent revolution". Bhave was an anarchist.
Thousands of protesters take to the streets in Bogota
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
*
