‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Goes into the Dustbin of History (video)
Today, the 20th of September, 2011, the discriminatory US military policy known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, which required thousands of gay personnel to serve their country while keeping their private life secret. Honorable people were discharged only because someone else found out they were not heterosexual. In some cases, the ideal military officer for a highly skilled, difficult-to-fill position were discharged despite being the most qualified person for operationally vital positions.
Saturation vs. Scalability: Old & Costly vs. Clean & Efficient
Saturation means more of a given ingredient cannot be added to a given volume or fabric of activity, without spilling over, and being wasted. The fossil fuels market is saturated, in the sense that it cannot effectively capitalize on major new production investment without major new construction of productive facilities. The industry has effectively pushed prices higher and cannot reduce them without seeing a dropoff in profits. Most people can no longer afford the fuel they used to consume.
9/11 Should Be a Day of National Reflection & Reaffirmation
9/11 should, after this 10th anniversary, and in the aftermath of the deviation from and restoration of core values that we have undergone, become a national day of solemn recognition, collaborative restoration, and an affirmation of our civic space, in which citizenship is a sacred trust and human interest in the principal goal of our activity. It should be a day of national reflection and of the reaffirmation of the value of an open, democratic and voluntary civic space.
Hurricane Irene Evacuations Underway Across Eastern US (includes maps + links)
Across the eastern seaboard of the United States, from South Carolina to Maine, there is an intense and well-ordered preparation underway to brace against and limit the fallout from Hurricane Irene. In North Carolina, 300,000 people have been ordered to evacuate the Outer Banks and low-lying coastal areas. The mayor of New York City, Michael [...]
Libyan Rebel Forces Sweep into Qadhafi Compound in Tripoli
Two days after taking control of most of the capital, and a day after two of Qadhafi’s sons escaped house arrest as pro-Qadhafi forces staged a challenge to the rebel onslaught, Libya’s pro-democracy rebels swept into Qadhafi’s compound in Tripoli. Reports from the Libyan capital spoke of scenes of rebels destroying images of Qadhafi and [...]
Mustafa Abdel Jalil calls on all Libyans to Coexist in Peace
The morning after Tripoli fell to rebel forces, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, leader of the Transitional National Council, has called on all Libyans to coexist peacefully, and to respect the rule of law, as the war comes to a close. Abdel Jalil said there will be no street justice, and that regime figures will be tried [...]
Libyan Rebels Capture Qadhafi Son, Enter Tripoli (video) – updates
Reports from Tripoli, the capital of Libya, suggest rebel forces have taken territory inside the capital, and captured one of Qadhafi’s sons, after a top security official ordered troops to lay down arms and let the rebels in. There are reports of convoys of rebel soldiers moving into the capital, being welcomed and celebrated by unarmed civilians. Some news reports have talked of “uprisings” in the suburbs, and possibly within Tripoli itself.
Qadhafi Under Siege as Rebels Move into Tripoli – updates
After 42 years in power, ruling throughout with authoritarian force, the regime of Muammar Qadhafi now appears to be falling. Abandoned by the international community, his top commanders defecting, and reports his troops have laid down their arms and fled, the rebel forces are now reportedly moving into the capital Tripoli.
Elasticidad y resistencia: aprendiendo a ver qué futuro vamos construyendo
Futurismo Verde :: Desde el comienzo de la civilización humana, el proceso de montar sociedades organizadas, formular historias compartidas y diseñar visiones del futuro humano, el ser humano ha buscado maneras de profetizar y de pronosticar. La ciencia moderna ha descubierto indicios fiables que ayudan a describir el mundo, pero para saber qué vendrá después [...]
After six months of fighting, the Libyan rebel forces, representing the pro-demcoracy movement that came under military attack by 42-year dictator Muammar Qadhafi, are reportedly advancing on the capital Tripoli. Since the fighting began, the rebels’ Transitional National Council has won support from world powers, the international community and ultimately the United Nations, as the official governing and diplomatic authority for Libya. Now, an isolated Qadhafi looks likely to lose power in the coming weeks or months.
En servicio al proyecto del Foro sobre Política y Crisis, la Red Hot Spring de innovación y debate plantea una conversación global sobre la seguridad alimenticia y la escasez crónica de agua y comida en África. Las lecciones de este experimento en investigación y brainstorming colaborativos se podrá aplicar a otras situaciones de crisis y escasez alrededor del planeta.
Obama calls for Syrian Leader Assad to Leave Power
Pres. Barack Obama, who with Sec. of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has managed a complex array of shifting diplomatic relations throughout the developing democratic awakening across the Arabic-speaking world, yesterday demanded that Syria’s authoritarian leader Bashar al-Assad relinquish power. Assad has engaged in five months of full-scale military attacks on unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators.
En una reunión de científicos europeos, en Estocolmo, el hombre que inventó el término ‘antropoceno’ para describir una nueva época geológica—en la que la influencia humana domina los proceso naturales—ha anunciado que el término ahora se está aplicando desde múltiples campos de estudio. La importancia real del término es que la información ecológica es cada vez más imprescindible para poder llevar a cabo las ambiciones humanas de una forma responsable y sostenible.
Financial Collapse was Foreseeable, More People-centered Investment Needed
As I go back and look over what was being written about the economy, and the federal budget, the lost Clinton surpluses, falling wages, and the property bubble, throughout George W. Bush’s second term in office, it is clear the signs were there throughout that a major financial collapse was coming. Many observers, some more astute than others, predicted a correction was in the offing, without having to depend on very complex analysis.
Today, three-term Texas governor Rick Perry announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, promising to foster innovation and enterprise. The speech offered no specifics, but Perry called for simplifying the tax code and promoting private business interests. In what may be the most striking and unusual phrasing of the speech, Perry promised, with passion: “I’ll work every day to make Washington, DC, as inconsequential in your lives as I can.”
Roadmap for Solving the Debt Crisis & Restoring the Middle Class
The debt crisis is attributable to “structural” causes, meaning the way the nation’s financing is structured over the next several decades, but also to political and economic causes, meaning the way we make policy and the way our marketplace for trade, credit and consumer purchases plays out. We need to implement policies that make serious, sustainable corrections on all three fronts.
The Republican Candidates Debate in Iowa – A Full Report
Most of the Republican candidates for their party’s presidential nomination debated last night in Iowa, two days ahead of the crucial Ames Straw Poll, thought to be a leading indicator of which candidates are credible and which are less likely to win in January. Rick Perry, who has not yet announced his candidacy, was not in attendance, and Fred Karger—who met all the criteria for attendance—was not allowed to participate, some say because he is openly gay.
On Monday, the first day of trading after a credit downgrade of US Treasury bonds from Standard and Poors, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 624 points. On Tuesday, it gained 429 points. On Wednesday, it dropped by 509. And on Thursday, it gained 414. It is the first time in its history that the DJIA saw swings of 400 points or more for four consecutive days, swings that far out-strip some of the worst one-day declines in its history.
One year after Mohammed al-Bouazizi lit himself on fire in protest against mistreatment by police, sparking a movement that has toppled regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, a global wave of popular protest continues, from the Arabic-speaking world to Europe, India, Chile, the United States and Russia. Today, democracy advocates protest unlawful detention, arbitrary power and socio-economic injustice across the world.
December 17, 2011, marks the one year anniversary of Mohammed al-Bouazizis desperate self-immolation, the 24th birthday of Bradley Manning, a US Army private held in solitary confinement in conditions some have described as torture, for allegedly releasing secret documents, and the three-month mark of the Occupy Wall Street movement seeking to take back public spaces, Constitutional liberties, and the fundamental right to active participation.
Amid the mounting fiscal and economic crisis that is threatening to undermine the project of European integration, the Group of Lecce has issued a new statement on the need to reform European economic governance. The Group of Lecce aims to develop policies “to strengthen economic and financial multilateralism”, strengthening the democratic underpinnings of the Union, along with the dynamism of the European economy, through advanced ongoing cooperation.
According to this report: “we do not see any alternative to reinforcing cooperation and to achieving stronger unity across and within the EU, with the very same spirit that has animated in the past all major reforms of the European institutions. Indeed, a major step forward to greater cooperation and unity would make Europe the strong international player that all its national economies need to face the challenges of todayrsquo;s globalised world.”
Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians are gathering for a nonviolent “Last Chance” pro-democracy protest. Military police have killed at least 41 unarmed civilians since last Saturday. Today, the massive numbers of civilians who turned out are demanding an end to military rule, and an orderly transition to genuine democracy. The 9 months of military rule have seen little progress in the dismantling of the violent, corrupt Mubarak regime.
Once again, Egyptian citizens of all ages have converged on the square which was the heart of the peaceful uprising that brought an end to three decades of dictatorship under the presidency of Hosni Mubarak. The demonstrators include families with small children, and a broad cross-section of Egyptian society. The massive show of public support for the pro-democracy movement is yet another show of defiance as civilians demand an end to the use of lethal force against to crush dissent in Egypt.
The spreading Occupy movement has seen one after another sit-in, protest camp or march brutally and inexcusably assaulted by paramilitary police actions, using chemical agents and other weapons of war, against unarmed, nonviolent citizens exercising their basic constitutional rights. The result has been a rash of unfettered violence across the world against pro-democracy advocates.
Robert Reich explains how big money is taking over the privileges of democratic rights, to the exclusion of ordinary people, and to the detriment of citizens who seek to exercise their basic civil liberties. The violence of police against unarmed civilians is absolutely inexcusable, and it is motivated in part by a systemic disregard for the value of the human individual, of basic rights, of citizenship and of the obligation public servants have to work for, not against, the people they are elected to serve. Says Reich: “WE NEED TO OCCUPY OUR DEMOCRACY.”
The city of Oakland is experiencing a deep crisis of conscience, amid what appears to be the moral confusion of its administration. The mayor, who had marched with the Occupy Oakland demonstrators, has now ordered not one but two paramilitary strikes against nonviolent protesters, in which tear gas, “flash-bang” grenades, rubber bullets and powerful sonic pulses were fired directly at unarmed civilians.
An ex-Marine is now in the hospital, reported in critical condition, and authorities say the paramilitary tactics were justified. New video has emerged clearly showing a policeman firing directly at a group of unthreatening unarmed civilians simply attempting to assist a man injured by the attacks. To many, the crisis seems incomprehensible, even moreso because the mayor herself previously marched among them.
The European Union has reached an agreement to relieve Greece of half of its sovereign debt, and to boost the Eurozone bailout fund to €1 trillion. The agreement may well be funded, in part, by non-European governments, even private investors, but it shows a new commitment to the Union as such, even amid a surge of anti-Union feeling in several key democracies. For years, the leading obstacle to true integration of the European economies has been seen to be cultural and political reluctance to fully embrace political union.
Will this new commitment to shared responsibility and the future of the Euro currency mean the European Union itself will begin to commit more fully to long-term political union? - Join the discussion here
We need a system of cooperative public-private infrastructure financing, a national infrastructure bank. But we also need to use that fabric of cooperative investment and output to foster specific areas of major improvement to our national economy. The model could be replicated across the world, but the US is uniquely positioned to deploy this solution and to vastly improve its chances of restoring vibrancy to the wider middle class by doing so.
Two parallel projects are necessary to make the infrastructure redevelopment and economic recovery strategy a success:
a renewable energy infrastructure bank – to help target some of the wider funding options to the project of building a sustainable, smart energy economy, free of the massive externalized costs of carbon-based fuels
an economic opportunity bank – to aggressively, specifically and persistently direct funds to businesses that are hiring, building capacity at the community level, and restoring real wage gains to the middle class
The Occupy Wall Street movement—now being called “the American Autumn”, after the Arab Spring, or the September 17th movement, after the day it got started in lower Manhattan—is now completing four weeks on the scene. Yet we can still be astounded to hear so many incredulous “experts” unable to understand how a grassroots movement, infused with the zeitgeist of very problematic times, is working toward anything constructive. What is the meaning of this? Why don’t they have a ready-to-go list of demands? What are they asking us to think?
It’s actually very simple. It’s self-evident, but if you’re at a loss, you can also go to Zuccotti Park, or to any of the Occupy Together protest sites, and just talk to people, and what did not seem evident will rapidly become so. The meaning of the Occupy Wall Street movement that is spreading across the United States like wildfire is: democracy. The unifying sentiment, which is actively put into practice every day at Occupy encampments, is that citizens have a right to participate. They are building a participatory process to restore the principle of informed citizen participation to our political system and our economy.
News emerging this morning from the battle-torn city of Sirte, hometown of ousted dictator Col. Muammar Qadhafi, suggested Qadhafi was wounded in battle, captured, and had died from his injuries. Al Jazeera quickly began broadcasting images of a body it said was Qadhafi’s. Images were then published showing a young Misratan TNC fighter brandishing a gold-plated handgun he says he took from Qadhafi when he captured him.
Throughout the afternoon, we have seen images of Qadhafi’s body spread across the internet and global media. There are conflicting accounts of what happened in the moments leading up to Qadhafi’s death, including claims by supporters he was killed by the Transitional forces, perhaps executed by a single shot from his own gold-plasted pistol, claims by the Transitional forces that he had been wounded in combat and died of his injuries, and still other claims that he had been accidentally killed by his own fighters.
With gasoline prices at record highs in 2008, 2009 and 2010, 2011 has looked like a microcosm of the longer oil-market trend: consistent increases in pricing, fuel costs hurting small business and the middle class, slowing the pace of economic growth in the US, and—maybe most strangely of all—no national policy to motivate a rapid, comprehensive transition away from fossil fuels and the volatility and cost inefficiency of their products to the wider marketplace. Instead, we have seen a recommitment to ramping up production, expanding drilling and exploration, and prioritizing local importation (from Canada and Mexico), instead of real coordinated policy planning to end dependency on foreign-sourced fuels.
The above video shows the altercations leading up to the unprovoked macing of two women by an NYPD detective inspector, identified by online activists as Anthony Bologna, a finding confirmed by the NYPD itself. The incident has raised serious questions about what the planned response to the protests was, and whether there were orders in place for officers to intervene to halt the peaceful demonstrations. In the video, there are numerous incidents where individual officers, apparently acting in a disorganized and spontaneous fashion, physically strike, tackle, drag or pepper-spray unarmed civilians on a public street.
Cynicism often lends itself to the construction of intellectually convenient, overly facile descriptions of future events, which —bolstered by the impassioned worries and self-promotion of the cynic, the anti-prophet— quickly assume an air of prophetic certainty. Buoyed by the psychological satisfaction of carrying prophetic certainty within, the cynic then commits more and more fully to the proclamation of unshakeable doctrines about the future, based on bad-faith arguments and a passion for the despairing global outlook.
The Occupy Wall Street movement—now being called “the American Autumn”, after the Arab Spring, or the September 17th movement, after the day it got started in lower Manhattan—is now completing four weeks on the scene. Yet we can still be astounded to hear so many incredulous “experts” unable to understand how a grassroots movement, infused with the zeitgeist of very problematic times, is working toward anything constructive. What is the meaning of this? Why don’t they have a ready-to-go list of demands? What are they asking us to think?
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