Saturday, December 17, 2011
THE REVOLUTION is a neverending love story
2011 will be remembered as the year that launched the global revolution?
Music:
NEVERENDING R-EVOLUTION
by MADLIBER in Clubcreate
Occupy and The Mayan Calendar: Will 2012 Be the Year of a Global Revolution?
Various prophecies of doom and gloom or even of an Apocalypse have been linked to calendar year 
2012. An Apocalypse ( Greek etymology: “lifting the veil” or “revelation”) is often wrongly viewed as the end of all things, but of course the very etymology of the word contradicts this notion. As a powerful revelation, an Apocalypse is a universal moment of truth, a quantum leap into uncharted territories. It appears, that the world at large has already entered this unique phase in human history.
How Young Women's Procreative Drive is Fueling the Global Revolution
In this episode of Exploring the Illusion of Free Will, produced and hosted by George Ortega, I talk about how young women, who have been asked by society to unnaturally post-pone raising a family, and have apparently reached their limit, are a powerful force behind the global revolution of the 99 percent.
Bradley Manning You're a Hero
From Occupy Washington, DC:
Nate Goldshlag -- a board member of Vets for Peace who was on the steering committee that organized Occupy Freedom Plaza spoke up inside the hearing room today. It was a small room so Bradley no doubt heard "BRADLEY MANNING YOU'RE A HERO". Nate was escorted from the hearing room, not arrested and told he could not come back.
Nate Goldshlag -- a board member of Vets for Peace who was on the steering committee that organized Occupy Freedom Plaza spoke up inside the hearing room today. It was a small room so Bradley no doubt heard "BRADLEY MANNING YOU'RE A HERO". Nate was escorted from the hearing room, not arrested and told he could not come back.
Whistleblowers or Offenders?
I found this article tonight by Andrew Wilkie. He was a former intelligence officer who spoke out against the Australian Government in respect of the legitimacy of Australian involvement in the war in Iraq.
The article raises questions about whistleblowers being smeared for speaking out. Democracy is about freedom of speech so these issues run to the core of what our society stands for. Do we listen to some and not others because they differ? Do we undermine or find ways to discredit them in the game of influence? or do we learn what real democracy is and embrace differences with courage? I think of Don Dunstan who stated ‘keep the bastards honest’. I really like that down-to-earth statement.
http://thecornfieldonline.com/index.php?topic=25834.5;wap2
Australian member of Paliament believes Assange has been set up:
Quote
Former intelligence official and independent MP Andrew Wilkie says the rape charges brought against WikiLeaks’ Australian founder Julian Assange “could definitely be a set-up”.
Latin America’s message to the Arab world
Take a good look at this 1970 photo.
The 22-year-old woman in the photo is about to be examined by a bunch of subtropical inquisitors.
She has just been tortured, electrocuted and waterboarded - what Dick Cheney dismisses as "enhanced interrogation" - for 22 days.
Yet she didn’t break down.
Today this woman, Dilma Rousseff, is the President of Brazil - the perennial "country of the future", the world’s seventh-largest economy by purchasing power parity (ahead of the UK, France and Italy), a member of the BRICS, and exercising a soft power way beyond music, football and joy of living.
This photo has just been published, as part of a Rousseff-biography, exactly when Brazil finally launches a Truth Commission to establish what really happened during the military dictatorship (1964-1985). Argentina, way ahead, already did it - judging and punishing its own surviving inquisitors in uniform.
This Saturday, Rousseff will be in Buenos Aires for the swearing-in ceremony of Cristina Kirchner, re-elected as President of Argentina. The presidents of these two key South American countries are women. Tell that to the Tantawi junta in Egypt - or those democratic paragons at the House of Saud.
These things take time.
The West should bet on freedom in Egypt
Natan Sharansky:
One Western response to the Egyptian revolution was to back elections. These are far from a bad thing, but they are not the main thing. Thus far, post-Mubarak elections in Egypt have sparked further turmoil, alarm, disillusionment and fatalism among Western observers beguiled by the dream of a democratic triumph. “It’s not the French Revolution,” moaned an Israeli columnist.
One Western response to the Egyptian revolution was to back elections. These are far from a bad thing, but they are not the main thing. Thus far, post-Mubarak elections in Egypt have sparked further turmoil, alarm, disillusionment and fatalism among Western observers beguiled by the dream of a democratic triumph. “It’s not the French Revolution,” moaned an Israeli columnist.
This is, inadvertently, an instructive point. For if the bloody aftermath of the French Revolution proves anything, it is that a gap exists between the moment people decide they will no longer live in a society ruled by fear and the moment a democratic society forms — a society that will protect not only “correct” thinking but also the thoughts one hates.
Nothing is instantaneous in politics. To think of elections as a panacea, let alone a sure road to real democracy, is to evince a failure of historical imagination. The proper role of the free world is not to encourage or to stop elections. Its role should be to formulate, and to stick by, a policy of incremental change based on creating the institutions that will lead ineluctably to pressure for more and more representative forms of government. The free world should place its bet on freedom — the hope and demand of Tahrir Square — and work toward a civil society defined by that value.
More...We live in revolutionary times ... but what does this mean?
Encouraged by the Spanish movement for ‘Real Democracy Now!’, the Occupy network and above all the Arab Awakening, Anthony Barnett asks what revolution might actually mean in the developed democracies of the West. This is his foreword to the new edition of Raymond Williams' "The Long Revolution".
More...
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What Impact Has FoI Had on Local Democracy?
We know that many of the greatest challenges we face as a society, such as reforming public services, rebuilding local economies and caring for an ageing population cannot be met by centralised, one-size-fits-all solutions rolled out from central government. Instead, we need to build upon and aggregate local innovation driven by local communities.
The new Localism Act responds to this agenda by giving citizens and community groups new powers over council tax levels, neighbourhood planning, community buildings and how local services are run (and who runs them). But while the devolution of power to local level is to be welcomed, for this to work there has to be demand within communities to take advantage of the raft of provisions coming their way. There also has to be enough information available for them to make good decisions about how to do so and most importantly about what the benefits of doing so might be.
This is where FoI comes in. The scenario that many opendata campaigners yearn for is one where the Freedom of Information Act actually becomes irrelevant because all data is already available and free to all to use and make interesting things with. This is where the real democratic value is. It will be sites like OpenlyLocal and citizen-led hyper-local websites that contextualise data, so that people can connect, debate and even mobilise around purposive information. We are still some way from this point, but we are on the road towards it.
John Ashbery ~ Arthur Rimbaud 'Après Le Déluge' - French & English Subtitles
Poet John Ashbery came to New York University's La Maison Française to read from his new book of translations of Rimbaud's 1886 prose poems " Illuminations" and to be presented with yet another honor, a medal of the Center for French Civilization and Culture. First he was interviewed by poet Ron Padgett who sits besides him in the video.. Next the prose poem "Après le Déluge" was read flawlessly in French by an NYU grad student whose name wasn't given. ( If anybody knows it, please send me a message.) After, John Ashbery presents his English translation, "After the Flood."
What happens after the flood? Here flood, as in biblical times, represents the purification of the human race. But after, sadly, Rimbaud shows it as returning to what it was about before: commerce, cruelty and cowardliness which grasps at false piety. The "precious stones " are buried in the earth again. It's so boring! ("C'est l'ennui".) He then calls for the floods to rise again, despite the sorrow and destruction they bring. Calling for the flood to return to alleviate boredom is a twisted idea, imagine presenting it in New Orleans! Some analysts explain the deluge metaphorically as the revolutionary spirt, which was how the word "déluge" was understood in Rimbaud's time.
For a deeper understanding of the symbolism in this poem if you can read French go here:
http://abardel.free.fr/petite_anthologie/deluge_panorama.htm
You will find out things like how this poem may relate to the socialist revolutionary Communards of Paris and their destruction by the church, why Madame X set up a piano in the Alps, and that there really was a Hotel Splendide which was a luxury hotel for wealthy Brits which burned down. Rimbaud sent it to be rebuilt at the North Pole, changing fire to ice and darkness, and putting the English millionaires at a distance where he would have them. You will find out who Eucharis is and Bluebeard . I was fairly lost in two languages until I read this piece although I had studied the poem in school long ago. There was no discussion or Q & A after the presentation. This event took place May 12, 2011 in New York City.
See also:
The Illuminated Text - John Ashbery translates Rimbaud
TIME 10 Questions: 10 Questions for Poet John Ashbery
The Instruction Manual - How to read John Ashbery
Statue Deepens Dispute Over Wartime Sexual Slavery
The unsmiling teenage girl in traditional Korean dress sits in a chair, her feet bare, her hands on her lap, her eyes fixed on the Japanese Embassy across a narrow street in central Seoul. Within a day, the life-size bronze statue had become the focal point of a simmering diplomatic dispute as President Lee Myung-bak prepared to visit Tokyo this weekend.
The statue, named the Peace Monument, was financed with citizens’ donations and installed Wednesday, when five women in their 80s and 90s, who were among thousands forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military during World War II, protested in front of the embassy, joined by their supporters. Such protests have been held weekly for almost 20 years.
For them and for many other Koreans, the statue — placed so that Japanese diplomats see it as they leave their embassy — carries a clear message: Japan should acknowledge what it did to as many as 200,000 Asian women, mostly Koreans, who historians say were forced or lured into working as prostitutes at frontline brothels for Japanese soldiers.
The Japanese government’s main spokesman, the chief cabinet secretary Osamu Fujimura, called the installation of the statue “extremely regrettable” and said that his government would ask that it be removed.
More ...
See also: Mexico admits responsibility in rape, torture of indigenous woman
The statue, named the Peace Monument, was financed with citizens’ donations and installed Wednesday, when five women in their 80s and 90s, who were among thousands forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military during World War II, protested in front of the embassy, joined by their supporters. Such protests have been held weekly for almost 20 years.
For them and for many other Koreans, the statue — placed so that Japanese diplomats see it as they leave their embassy — carries a clear message: Japan should acknowledge what it did to as many as 200,000 Asian women, mostly Koreans, who historians say were forced or lured into working as prostitutes at frontline brothels for Japanese soldiers.
The Japanese government’s main spokesman, the chief cabinet secretary Osamu Fujimura, called the installation of the statue “extremely regrettable” and said that his government would ask that it be removed.
More ...
See also: Mexico admits responsibility in rape, torture of indigenous woman
Occupy Wall Street-- Signs of Our Times
Signs of protest from the New York City demonstration against greed and corruption in the capitalist banking system leaving many without jobs, homes and health care. Sept. 30, 2011. Liberty Plaza, Zuccotti Square, New York City, USA.
Occupy Wall Street-- Signs of Our Times by lightning49
Occupy Wall Street-- Signs of Our Times by lightning49
Dogs! Cars! Ice! AT&T Moves Beyond Phones
The wireless backbone of the Garmin GPS is provided by AT&T, a company that is aggressively moving beyond phones to connect all kinds of devices from ice machines in Colorado to a new Amber Alert monitoring device to… baby pajamas. Recently a company introduced bio-sensor baby pajamas that can measure a baby’s vital signs and transmit that data to a parent’s device.
Cairo clashes mar Egypt parliamentary election
Demonstrators armed with stones and petrol bombs clashed with troops wielding truncheons and electric prods in Cairo on Friday, witnesses said, in the worst violence since the start of Egypt's first free election in six decades.
Military police tried to break up a sit-in by pro-democracy activists overnight and anger at their rough tactics erupted into clashes that quickly turned the streets around parliament into a rock-strewn battle zone.
In a pattern of spreading violence that has become a familiar refrain during nine months of army rule since President Hosni Mubarak's overthrow, protesters regrouped in growing numbers as resentment at security forces' tactics grew.
By early afternoon, troops were trying to disperse around 10,000 protesters with truncheons and what witnesses said appeared to be cattle prods that they used to give electric shocks to some of the demonstrators.
Ambulance sirens wailed, reports of beatings of well-known democracy activists buzzed across social media and politicians from Islamists to liberals lined up to condemn the army's heavy-handed tactics.
"Even if the sit-in was not legal, should it be dispersed with such brutality and barbarity?" presidential candidate and former U.N. nuclear watchdog director Mohamed ElBaradei said on Facebook.
A health ministry official said 99 people had been injured in the clashes and five had gunshot wounds.
The sit-in outside the cabinet office was a remnant of far bigger protests last month in Cairo's Tahrir Square and nearby streets that left dozens dead and overshadowed the build-up to the first parliamentary vote since Mubarak's fall in February.
In Friday's disturbances, cars were set alight and part of a state building was torched.
Troops and unidentified men in plainclothes hurled rocks from the roof of one parliament building on protesters who threw stones, shards of glass and petrol bombs.
Demonstrators piled car tires and plastic materials in the street and set them alight to send up plumes of black smoke and block the view of the street from above.
The head of the ruling military council, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, ordered that everyone injured in the fighting be treated in army hospitals, state television said.
BREAKING!! EPA Finds Radiation 300% Over Limits In Milk and Drinking Water In 13 US Cities
This is an upload of an interview with Alexander Higgins on the IntelHubradio show. The Corporate controlled media have been criminally negligent in covering up the truth about the horrific scale and scope of the Japanese nuclear disaster. Thanks to individuals like Alexander Higgins and alternative media sites like IntelHub, Jeff Rense and others, the truth about the Japanese nuclear disaster is being reported. The radioactive fallout is now in the air, water, milk, and the food supply across North America, Europe, and Asia, and it is getting worse every day. Do not believe the Corporate controlled media, THERE IS NO SAFE or HARMLESS Levels of radiation, period!
Here is some of the radiation data that the EPA has been collecting and suppressing.
•Little Rock milk radiation -- 3 times the EPA Maximum
•Radiation in Philly Drinking Water 73% of federal drinking water standards.
•Los Angeles milk radiation was above federal drinking water standards.
•Radiation found in Phoenix milk was almost at the federal drinking water standard.
•Radioactive Iodine in Boise Idaho rainwater was 130 times above Federal Drinking Water standards.
•Radioactive Caesium was 13.66 times above federal limit for Caesium-134, 2 year half-life.
•Radioactive Caesium was 12 times federal limit for Caesium-137, 30 year half-life.
•Tennessee drinking water was detected with radiation slightly above 1/2 the federal maximum.
•Radioactive Iodine has been detected in the drinking water across the entire US in the following states: California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Tennessee, Montana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey, and Alabama, as well as in Canada.
•Cesium and Tellurium were found in Boise, Las Vegas, Nome and Dutch Harbor, Honolulu, Kauai and Oahu, Anaheim, Riverside, San Francisco, and San Bernardino, Jacksonville and Orlando, Salt Lake City, Guam, and Saipan.
•Uranium-234, with a half-life of 245,500 years has been found in Hawaii, California, and Washington.
Here are some sites that contain information and research about the nuclear disaster and global radioactive fallout
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/
http://theintelhubradio.com/
http://enenews.com/
http://www.rense.com/
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/UCBAirSampling