Reflections from the Center of the Universe

Published on Progressive.org, by Mrill Ingram, Dec 12, 2016.

In the middle of Utah’s Canyonlands National Park, more than fifty miles of backcountry roads from the closest town of Moab, I stumble across a dance floor. It lies only a few hundred yards from the Green River, and although large parts of the cement floor are covered by reddish alluvial dirt, it looks to be some 500 square feet. That’s a big dance for the middle of nowhere … // Continue Reading…

Has the US and Its Allies Used Covert Airdrops to Supply the Islamic State?

Published on Land Destroyer Report LD (first on New Eastern Outlook NEO), by Ulson Gunnar, Dec 11, 2016.

Is there a way the United States or one of the Islamic State’s admitted state sponsors could be airdropping supplies without triggering suspicion? How have modern airdrop technology and techniques evolved that might make this possible?   Continue Reading…

Socialism for the Rich, Capitalism for the Poor

… an Interview With Noam Chomsky – Published on truthout, by C.J. Polychroniou, Dec 11, 2916.

… C.J. Polychroniou: Noam, in several of your writings you question the usual view of the United States as an archetypical capitalist economy. Please explain. Continue Reading…

If Russia and Saudi Arabia lead, rest will follow

… Saudi energy minister Khalid Al-Falih on historic oil deal [VIDEO] – Published on Axis of Logic, Dec 11, 2016.

… The Saturday meeting of the members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) with 12 oil exporting countries outside the group “is significant because [it] has brought so many countries together for the first time,” Al-Falih said. Continue Reading…

It Takes a Village to Maintain a Dangerous Financial System

… the Original PDF – Published on The Banker’s New Clothes, by Anat R. Admati, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, May 2016, 32 pages … if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse a child … the financial system is meant to facilitate efficient allocation of resources and help people and businesses fund, invest, save and manage risks. This system is rife with conflicts of interests. Reckless practices, if uncontrolled by market forces and effective rules, can cause great harm. Most of the time, however, the harm from excessive risk in banking is invisible and the culprits remain unaccountable. They rarely violate the law …; Continue Reading…

South Africa’s junk credit rating was avoided, but at the cost of junk analysis

Published on ZNet, by Patrick Bond, Dec 8, 2016.

Standard&Poors (S&P) gave South Africa a fearful few hours of anticipation last Friday, just after dust from the political windstorm of the prior week settled. The agency downgraded the government’s securities that are denominated in the local currency (the rand) although refrained from the feared junk status on international securities. It was a moment for the ruling business and political party elites’ introspection, but in heaving a sigh of relief they are not looking far enough … // Continue Reading…

A Crisis-Prone and Fragile Financial System

Published on WEA Pedagogy Blog, by Asad Zaman, Dec 7, 2016.

Prior to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC 2007), many senior economists and policy makers expressed confidence that they had finally solved the problem of business cycles, booms and busts, that plagues capitalism. Because of this over-confidence, early warnings of a looming crisis by Nouriel Roubini, Ann Pettifor, Peter Schiff, Steven Keen, Dean Baker, and Raghuram Rajan, were ridiculed and dismissed … // Continue Reading…

zu Schuldgeld, Demokratie, Propaganda, Lügen, das ganze Leben ökonomisieren …

von Frubi TV auf YouTube hochgeladen:

The Lesson from Standing Rock: Organizing and Resistance Can Win

Published on ZNet, by Naomi Klein, Dec 6, 2016.

… Less than two hours earlier, news came that the Army Corps of Engineers had turned down the permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline to be built under the Missouri River. The company will have to find an alternate route and undergo a lengthy environmental assessment … // Continue Reading…

Real Power? Real Money?

… a reflection on Participatory Budgeting in New York – Published on Public Seminar.org, by Eric Dirnbach, Dec 1, 2016.

… This process is known as participatory budgeting (PB) and I wanted to see how it worked. My main questions were: Is PB as currently practiced an innovative way to enhance local democratic decision-making and empowerment? Or is this token inclusion, while the real decisions are made elsewhere, as usual? Continue Reading…

Egypt: whitewashing political Islam

… a parliamentary delegation in London accuses UK MPs of promoting Islamism – Published on Al-Ahram weekly online, by Gamal Essam El-Din, Nov 30, 2016.

A delegation including 12 MPs from parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee visited London to exchange views with British politicians on political Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood and relations between Egypt and the UK. Continue Reading…

Julian Assange’s life, Pizzagate, actual turmoils …

Julian Assange:

The Loving Contagion of Courage: Veterans Standing for Standing Rock

Published on truthout, by Four Arrows, Dec 1, 2016.

In spite of freezing weather and orders from the North Dakota governor to curtail emergency medical services to Standing Rock and deem people’s mere presence there illegal, thousands of veterans are coming to take part in a massive, peaceful operation December 4-7 at Standing Rock, the site of ongoing Indigenous resistance to the construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline (DAPL).   Continue Reading…

General Flynn’s Proposals to Reform Intelligence

Published on Voltairenet.org, by Thierry Meyssan, Dec 1, 2016.

Thierry Meyssan considers that General Flynn is getting ready to rock the world of US intelligence and override all post 9/11 reforms. This would put an end to the obsession with secret prisons and targeted assassinations and mark a return to the true nature of intelligence: making sense of and anticipating developments around the world.   Continue Reading…

On Peace and Ukraine, Trump, Putin, Gandhi, and …

… an Interview with Johan Galtung – Published on Dissident Voice, by Gary Corseri, Nov 29, 2016.

… Gary Corseri: I’m here in the Washington, D.C. area, with Johan Galtung — master teacher, and originator, since 1959, of “Peace Studies” programs at universities around the world. Continue Reading…

Hillary Lost, the World Won

Published on Axis of Logic, by Siv O’Neall, Nov 22, 2016.

Paul Craig Roberts, one of the most reliable progressive Anglophone journalists wrote “the day after” under the heading The Working Class Won the Election? What Kind of Trump Administration?   Continue Reading…

Index November 2016

2016-11-01: Doomsday Seed Vault in the Arctic;
2016-11-02: France: burnt homes and broken promises, the Jungle evicted;
2016-11-03: US: Inequality As Policy, Selective Trade Protectionism Favors Higher Earners;
2016-11-04: Public Servants or Corporate Security?
2016-11-05: Syria and the Antiwar Tradition;
2016-11-06: UK: Caught at a crossroads, it’s time to build an alternative to neoliberalism;
2016-11-07: Turkish Gov’t arrests 15 Opposition MPs in Further Descent into Dictatorship;
2016-11-08: Red Scare 2, Russia and the 2016 US election;
2016-11-09: Top Secret: These are actually Socialist Countries;
2016-11-09: Trump’s victory speech;
2016-11-10: Now We Can Finally Get to Work;
2016-11-11: A new world is born with Trump’s foreign policy and the UK is left behind;
2016-11-12: Cyber-warfare: Five Major Russian Banks Repel Massive DDoS Attack;
2016-11-13: Trump, Mair and The Gods That Failed;
2016-11-14: The sneering response to Trump’s victory reveals exactly why he won;
2016-11-15: One-third of children in developing countries miss school to work – survey;
2016-11-16: India: Demonetisation And The Loss Of Faith In Rupee;
2016-11-17: The True Sharing Economy, Inaugurating an Age of the Heart, Part 3 of 3;
2016-11-18: US: Schooled in Terror, the Tactical Trainings where Cops Militarize their Brutality;
2016-11-19: In the gig economy, recruitment agencies are the gangmasters;
2016-11-20: Fed set to lift key interest rate;
2016-11-21: White Supremacy as a Political Doctrine;
2016-11-22: todays latest links;
2016-11-23: Gypsy children and their clans in Europe;
2016-11-24: So you want to get out of your bubble;
2016-11-25: The Financial Press and its Keepers – Foibles, Fables, and Failures;
2016-11-26: Asking whose lives matter in the battle for social, cultural, and economic rights;
2016-11-27: some actual concerns;
2016-11-28: Why the Ural Mountains Are (Not) So Important, the New Silk Road through Eurasia;
2016-11-29: about survival of this humanity … for real?
2016-11-30: Why are there Coats of Arms for Nobles and Nothing for Us? – Punditry by Other Means.
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See also this page: All articles sorted chronologically.

Why are there Coats of Arms for Nobles and Nothing for Us? – Punditry by Other Means

Published on Dissident Voice, by Denis A. Conroy, November 28, 2016.

… Was that special Tuesday in November a dream-like experience for anybody? If it was for some, it certainly wasn’t for the unemployed, the homeless and other victims of a system myopically focused on privatising prosperity while pillaging the prospects of the nothing-for-us-proles to have a fair share of anything … // Continue Reading…

about survival of this humanity … for real

Secret US Bunkers Being Destroyed for Humanity, 4.32 min, uploaded by Mind Body Spirit, Nov 27, 2016 … maybe related with this: #8 Secret Underground Complex, on Elohim Leaks.
(my comment: I would be really happy if we could get a proof that this is the complex mentionned in Elohim Leaks (there it is speculated about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault financed by Bill Gates, the Rockefeller family, Monsanto and others). Hopefully it is not like in this Star Trek Voyager’s episode where the ship was inside a big stomach wanting digest it … they had all signals to be out but this was a dream … they were still in … so, please bring us all the real proof there is no more escape for our biggest gangsters – Heidi).   Continue Reading…

Why the Ural Mountains Are (Not) So Important, the New Silk Road through Eurasia

Published, on Dissident Voice, by Gary Leupp, Nov 26, 2016.

The Border between Europe and Asia:

The Ural Mountains run north to south roughly from the Arctic Ocean to what is now the border between Russia and Kazakhstan, about 400 miles north of the Caspian Sea. They separate Western (or European) Russia from Russian Siberia. So they don’t define national boundaries or separate cultures; they merely divide one country. They just happen to be a rather humble, 1600 miles long mountain range, with the highest mountain just 6000 feet high. These are no Himalayas, Rockies or Andes. They’re more like the Appalachians … // Continue Reading…

some actual concerns

Asking whose lives matter in the battle for social, cultural, and economic rights

Published on open Democracy, by DANIELA IKAWA, Nov 19, 2016.

Why the failure to enforce social, cultural, and economic rights means that the lives of some groups are valued more than others.

2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Over the past five decades, there has been growing recognition of economic, social and cultural rights in both international and domestic systems of law. However, there is still resistance to accepting the indivisibility between civil and political rights on the one hand and economic, social and cultural rights on the other. Continue Reading…

The Financial Press and its Keepers – Foibles, Fables, and Failures

Published on Dissident Voice, by James Petras, Nov 23, 2016.

US officialdom and their media megaphones have systematically concocted narratives having less to do with political reality and more with their hallucinogenic world view. Pre-election and post-election reportage weaves a tapestry of fiction and fantasy.   Continue Reading…

So you want to get out of your bubble

… try reading these conservative websites – Published on The Guardian, by Jason Wilson, Nov 22, 2016.

In his last broadcast of the year, John Oliver talked about how his own show offered comforting political catharsis to people who already agreed with him. Continue Reading…

Gypsy children and their clans in Europe