The Cheapest Way to Save the Planet Grows Like a Weed
[Economic]
The Cheapest Way to Save the Planet Grows Like a Weed
By Ellen Brown
Posted August 22, 2019
William Randolf Hearst, the newspaper mogul, owned vast tracts of forest land, which he intended to use for making wood-pulp paper. Cheap hemp-based paper would make his forest investments a major money loser. Hearst was a master of “yellow journalism,” and a favorite target of his editorials was “reefer madness.” He was allied with the DuPont Corporation, which provided the chemicals to bleach and process the wood pulp used in the paper-making process. DuPont was also ready to introduce petroleum-based fibers such as nylon, and hemp fabrics competed with that new market.
In fact, hemp products threatened the entire petroleum industry. Henry Ford first designed his cars to run on alcohol from biofuels, but the criminalization of both alcohol and hemp forced him to switch to the dirtier, less efficient fossil fuels that dominate the industry today. A biofuel-based infrastructure would create a completely decentralized power grid, eliminating the giant monopolistic power companies. Communities could provide their own energy using easily renewable plants. More…
U.S. Economic Warfare and Likely Foreign Defenses
[Economic]
U.S. Economic Warfare and Likely Foreign Defenses
by Michael Hudson
Posted August 21, 2019
Today’s world is at war on many fronts. The rules of international law and order put in place toward the end of World War II are being broken by U.S. foreign policy escalating its confrontation with countries that refrain from giving its companies control of their economic surpluses. Countries that do not give the United States control of their oil and financial sectors or privatize their key sectors are being isolated by the United States imposing trade sanctions and unilateral tariffs giving special advantages to U.S. producers in violation of free trade agreements with European, Asian and other countries.
This global fracture has an increasingly military cast. U.S. officials justify tariffs and import quotas illegal under WTO rules on “national security” grounds, claiming that the United States can do whatever it wants as the world’s “exceptional” nation. More…
Alarm as Trump Requests Permanent Reauthorization of NSA Mass Spying Program Exposed by Snowden
[Social]
Alarm as Trump Requests Permanent Reauthorization of NSA Mass Spying Program Exposed by Snowden
by Jake Johnson
Posted August 20, 2019
Civil liberties groups and privacy advocates raised alarm Thursday after the Trump administration called on Congress to reauthorize an NSA mass surveillance program that was exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The New York Times, which obtained the Trump administration’s request to Congress, reported that “the administration urged lawmakers to make permanent the legal authority for the National Security Agency to gain access to logs of Americans’ domestic communications, the USA Freedom Act.”
“The law, enacted after the intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden revealed the existence of the program in 2013, is set to expire in December, but the Trump administration wants it made permanent,” according to the Times. More…
Lessons of Impermanence
[Spiritual]
Lessons of Impermanence
by Sunita Puri M.D.
Posted August 19, 2019
As a palliative care doctor, I spend much of my time face-to-face with pain and suffering, debilitating disease and death. When I began my training, I thought I was comfortable with the idea of mortality, and with the notion that fighting death at all costs wasn’t the sole purpose of medicine. But I hadn’t expected that the type of medicine I’d chosen to practice would require a strength and perspective that medical training hadn’t offered.
It was a chance encounter with a sand painting that helped me learn how to doctor patients I knew I would lose.
At the time, I was in the middle of my yearlong fellowship in hospice and palliative medicine, seeing patients at a county hospital in San Jose. I’d immersed myself in learning how to treat patients living with serious illnesses: end-stage heart failure, widespread cancer and devastating strokes. More…
Takers and Makers: Who are the Real Value Creators?
[Economic]
Takers and Makers: Who are the Real Value Creators?
by Mariana Mazzucato
Posted August 18, 2019
We often hear businesses, entrepreneurs or sectors talking about themselves as ‘wealth-creating’. The contexts may differ – finance, big pharma or small start-ups – but the self-descriptions are similar: I am a particularly productive member of the economy, my activities create wealth, I take big ‘risks’, and so I deserve a higher income than people who simply benefit from the spillovers of this activity.
But what if, in the end, these descriptions are simply just stories? Narratives created in order to justify inequalities of wealth and income, massively rewarding the few who are able to convince governments and society that they deserve high rewards, while the rest of us make do with the leftovers. More…
Our Ruling Elites Have No Idea How Much We Want to See Them All in Prison Jumpsuits
[Social]
Our Ruling Elites Have No Idea How Much We Want to See Them All in Prison Jumpsuits
by Charles Hugh Smith
Posted August 17, 2019
Divide-and-Conquer has been the absurdly easy strategy of the Ruling Elites to fragment and disempower the citizenry. It’s child’s play for the Ruling Elites to ceaselessly promote a baker’s dozen of divisive issues via the corporate media, and then watch the resulting conflicts split the citizenry into fragmented camps which subdivide further with every new toxic injection.
The one issue that could unite the fragmented citizenry is moral revulsion: As the Epstein case promises to reveal, there is literally no limit on the excesses and exploitations of the privileged few in America, no limit on what our Ruling Elites can do with absolute impunity.
Like all Ruling Elites, America’s Elites are absolutely confident in their power: this is hubris taken to new heights. More…
The Facts:
Divide and conquer has long been used against people to divide them and keep them focused on each other, rather than on those who control the system.
Reflect On:
The next time you feel angry after watching the news, recognize this tactic. The next time you feel tempted to resort to name calling such as libtard, Trumptard, etc, recognize that you are falling for the divide and conquer tactic.
Georgia’s New Election System Raises Old Computer Security Concerns
[Politics]
Georgia’s New Election System Raises Old Computer Security Concerns
By Timothy Pratt
Posted August 16, 2019
Earlier this year, Georgia’s Secure, Accessible, and Fair Elections Commission held a public meeting at the state capitol to answer a pressing question: What should Georgia do to replace its aging, touchscreen voting machines, as well as other parts of its election system? In the preceding years, security vulnerabilities in the state’s election system had been repeatedly exposed: by Russian operatives, friendly hackers, and even a Georgia voter who, just days ahead of the 2018 midterms, revealed that anyone could go online and gain access to the state’s voter registration database.
Computer scientists and elections experts from around the country had weighed in during the seven months of the commission’s deliberations on the issue. They submitted letters and provided testimony, sharing the latest research and clarifying technical concepts tied to holding safe, reliable elections. More…
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Quotable Sayings
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.
Mahatma Ghandi
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Mainstream American liberals think they’re clear-eyed because they can see the propaganda strings being pulled by Fox and Donald Trump, and mainstream American conservatives think they’re clear-eyed because they can see the propaganda strings being pulled by MSNBC and the Democrats, but the propaganda strings on both trace back to the same puppet master. And seeing that is just the beginning.
Caitlin Johnstone
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Consumers will ultimately revolutionize our world. When we refuse to give our money to companies that destroy the Earth and its beings, they will either change their ways or cease to exist.
Rachel Horton White
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The Shocking Truth about Our Money System and How We Can Break Free!
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Great story on why we need to remove ALL of our elected government representatives
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