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There Are More Slaves Today Than at Any Time in Human History
Terrence McNally
[An Interview With Benjamin Skinner] The world suffers global recession, enormous inequity, hunger, deforestation, pollution, climate change, nuclear weapons, terrorism, etc. To those who say we’re not really making progress, many might point to the fact that at least we’ve eliminated slavery. -But sadly that is not the truth.
One hundred forty-three years after passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and 60 years after Article 4 of the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights banned slavery and the slave trade worldwide, there are more slaves than at any time in human history -- 27 million. Today’s slavery focuses on big profits and cheap lives. It is not about owning people like before, but about using them as completely disposable tools for making money.
During the four years that Benjamin Skinner researched modern-day slavery, he posed as a buyer at illegal brothels on several continents, interviewed convicted human traffickers in a Romanian prison and endured giardia, malaria, dengue and a bad motorcycle accident.
AFGHAN TERRORISTS OR FREEDOM FIGHTERS?
Allen L Roland
Afghanistan is rapidly becoming Obama's waterloo as he accelerates our presence in an unwinnable war that is really an illegal occupation. If I were an Afghan, as I am an American, while a foreign force was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms ! ~ Never! Never! Never! :
This is exactly the same column I wrote almost three years ago, on September 30, 2006 except the title was IRAQI TERRORISTS OR FREEDOM FIGHTERS ? ~ but now it's an illegal occupation of Afghanistan which could well be Barack Obama's waterloo versus Bush's Iraq quagmire.
Urgency of the American Monetary Act
by Richard C Cook
On Thursday, April 23 2009, Stephen Zarlenga, director of the American Monetary Institute (AMI), delivered two briefings on Capitol Hill on the American Monetary Act that AMI drafted and that may be introduced as legislation during the current congressional session. This single measure has the potential of bringing together the tens of millions of people who have realized it's our bank-run debt-based monetary system that lies at the center of the financial rot that is destroying our republic and its values.
Attending the briefings were congressional staffers and members of the public. Zarlenga was introduced by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (Democrat, Ohio), who has spoken in favor of wholesale reform of the monetary system on the floor of the US House of Representatives. Kucinich is also sponsor of HR 7260, the "Transparency in the Creation of Wealth Act of 2008". This act would require the Federal Reserve to resume reporting on the quantity of M3 in the economy (mega-money accessible only to large financial institutions), along with several other economic indicators it now keeps to itself, such as total credit market debt and the holding of Federal Reserve notes by foreign interests.
The Smearing of Mary Robinson
by William Hughes
“The IDF...acted in violation of basic human values.” - Report of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel. (1)
One must praise the ability of Israel Worshippers to change the subject! As I write, the 1.5 million people of Gaza are barely existing under the heel of a brutal Israeli occupation and its most recent terror-driven siege. From Dec. 27, 2008 to Jan. 18, 2009, in a 22 day rampage, about 1,400 innocent Gazan civilians, many of them children--Christian and Muslim alike--were slaughtered by the IDF. (2) Prior to that blood bath, the population was subjected to and continues to be victimized by an Israeli blockade of vital goods necessary to sustain life. (3) George Galloway, MP, a champion of a “Free Palestine,” put it this way: Gaza is “locked-up!” (4)
I live in a tent, with no privacy
Ayman T. Quader
And every time, she tries to understand what happened to her, she asks herself : what was my fault?, what’s going to happen to me in my tent?
Ilham, 30 years old, a mother of 6 , she lives in Al-atatra district , in the northern part of the Gaza strip. The Israeli war had a huge impact on her, it actually destroyed her house, her parent’s house and killed her brother.
Ilham and her family spent 25 days in one of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s schools (UNRWA), to take shelter from phosphorous missiles of death that was chasing all the population of the strip. She was saying: "Israeli armed forces bombarded our house with many missiles, destroyed its walls, set fire in its rooms, and spread darkness all around us (she meant the missiles fumes), to a point that we couldn’t breathe anymore… and after hours, during which we were facing death, the ambulance transported us to the hospital.
Holder on the Verge of Violating Convention Against Torture With Very Limited Investigation by Special Prosecutor
from Kevin Zeese
"The Holder Department of Justice is putting politics ahead of the law."
Washington, DC: Today, Kevin Zeese, an attorney who filed complaints seeking the disbarment of 15 Bush-Cheney torture lawyers, derided the likely appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate less than a dozen cases of torture.
“The Attorney General does not have the discretion to selectively prosecute torture cases. The Convention Against Torture requires an investigation of all incidents of torture including the policy makers and lawyers who facilitated the policy. It is a shame to see that politics comes before law enforcement in the Holder Department of Justice,” said Kevin Zeese, executive director of www.VotersForPeace.US.
The Widening Gap In America's Two Tiered Society
By Emily Spence
Americans, particularly ones from the middle class, need to realize that there are no core entitlements imparted by their government representatives, nor any other sources. They have none and should adjust their expectations accordingly.
If the U.S. populace somehow imagines that its members are viewed any differently than any other populations across the world that are used to produce maximal profits for the top economic class, there's a rude awakening in store ahead. Further, most legislators simply do not care whether middle and lower class interests are or aren't well served as long as they, themselves, can somehow make out well in the times ahead.
Besides, why should any Americans feel that they deserve to be treated more favorably by the transnational moneyed elites and their government backers than their counterparts across the rest of the world? As A. H. Bill reminds: "The richest 225 people in the world today control more wealth than the poorest 2.5 billion people. And... the three richest people in the world control more wealth than the poorest 48 nations."
Panetta Mailing to CIA Employees and Media Demonstrates Need for Broad Investigation, Not Enough Just to Go After Low-Level Interrogators
from Kevin Zeese
Washington, DC: Today, Kevin Zeese, an attorney who filed complaints seeking the disbarment of 15 Bush-Cheney torture lawyers, pointed to Leon Panetta’s statement on the Inspector General’s CIA report as indication that a broad torture investigation is needed.
“Panetta claimed that ‘The Agency sought and received multiple written assurances that its methods were lawful’ in a letter to CIA employees that was shared with the media. This attempt to protect CIA interrogators involved with torture with a false legal shield of the Department of Justice indicates that Attorney General Holder must appoint an independent special prosecutor to investigate the torture program, not just individual cases,” said Kevin Zeese, executive director of VotersForPeace.US.
Codex Alimentarius (CA) Threatens Human Health
by Stephen Lendman
On its web site, CA (Latin for food code) says:
"The Codex Alimentarius Commission was created in 1963 by the FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN) and WHO (World Health Organization) to develop food standards, guidelines and related texts such as codes of practice under the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme. The main purposes of this Programme are protecting health of the consumers and ensuring fair trade practices in the food trade, and promoting coordination of all food standards work undertaken by international governmental and non-governmental organizations."
Whatever its founding purpose, CA is much different today because corporate interests control it - global pharmaceutical, food, and banking giants in league with complicit UN and government agencies to promote GMOs over healthy foods, and drugs over natural remedies by restricting or banning vitamin and dietary supplements, except ones they control. Organic food as well by irradiation and hidden synthetic additives or ingredients.
Weaponizing Psychology Treating People Like Dogs
By: Peter Chamberlin
Nearly all of the Pentagon’s counter-insurgency warfare doctrine has been based on distortions of the pirated theories of former president of the American Psychological Association, Prof. Martin Seligman. Now we learn that post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) treatments for war veterans have been developed from his work as well.
The US military has totally embraced Seligman’s controversial theories, twisting them to suit their deadly purposes, basing their computer-modeled psyops plans, plans for homeland security, even their recruitment strategies, upon his theories of “learned helplessness,” looking for ways to bring-about its most debilitating form, learned hopelessness. Every one of these programs is geared towards finding and exploiting the human breaking point.
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