"Arun Gupta": The Revolution Begins at Home -- A Clarion Call to Join the Wall Street Protests

What is occurring on Wall Street right now is truly remarkable. For over 10 days, in the sanctum of the great cathedral of global capitalism, the dispossessed have liberated territory from the financial overlords and their police army. They have created a unique opportunity to shift the tides of history in the tradition of other great peaceful occupations, from the sit-down strikes of the 1930s to the lunch-counter sit-ins of the 1960s to the democratic uprisings across the Arab world and Europe today. While the Wall Street occupation is growing, it needs an all-out commitment from everyone who cheered the Egyptians in Tahrir Square, said "We are all Wisconsin," and stood in solidarity with the Greeks and the Spaniards. This is a movement for anyone who lacks a job, housing or health care, or thinks they have no future.

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"Brad Friedman"- Diebold voting machines can be hacked by remote control

By Brad Friedman It could be one of the most disturbing e-voting machine hacks to date. Voting machines used by as many as a quarter of American voters heading to the polls in 2012 can be hacked with just $10.50 in parts and an 8th grade science education, according to computer science and security experts at theVulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The experts say the newly developed hack could change voting results while leaving absolutely no trace of the manipulation behind.

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"Linh Dinh" - Banker Brutality -- Beyond Tony Bologna

Published on Thursday, September 29, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/29-2

by Linh Dinh

At the Wall Street protest, a young woman carried a sign, “REVOLUTION IS FUN,” and I don’t doubt that she was having a great time, because it can be exhilarating to engage in a just and noble fight, and to feel that you are an agent of change, a participant in history even, and not just one of its faceless victims, as is the common lot. So fun, yes, at least for her, and at least up to that moment, until the violence explodes, as nearly always happens in anything approaching a political revolution. NYPD Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna.

The violence of September 24th, the 8th day of the anti-Wall Street Protest, appears to not have caused severe or permanent injuries, though it was brutal enough, and some outrage has even flared in the mainstream media. Anthony Bologna, a 28-year-veteran of the New York Police Department, has emerged as a clear cut villain. Without provocation, he pepper sprayed two young women in the faces, and for this he should certainly be fired, then locked up, but this commotion has overshadowed, at least momentarily, the real target and meaning of this protest. Though police brutality is never to be taken lightly, Occupy Wall Street is aiming to expose and hold to account goons much more vicious than any garden variety Anthony Bologna. Though they maim and cripple countless households, even entire countries, these bigger thugs are rarely condemned and never indicted. In fact, some are given plush jobs in the US Treasury, if not a Cabinet appointment.  

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"Robert Jensen" - Going Global with Perennial Polyculture Agriculture

Published on Thursday, September 29, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/29-0

by Robert Jensen

Wes Jackson spent the weekend at The Land Institute’s annual Prairie Festival talking up -- with his usual precision and passion -- the science and strategy behind plans to revolutionize the way we grow food using perennial polyculture grains

A leading figure in the sustainable agriculture movement, Jackson has been pursuing the science and tweaking the strategy for more than three decades, building an impressive body of knowledge with his colleagues at “The Land,” as it’s known to everyone there. (The group also has produced an impressive full-bodied bread that was on the dinner table during the festival, made from an intermediate wheatgrass grain they’ve developed and dubbed “Kernza.”)

But, perhaps ironically, my faith in Jackson’s vision deepens not when he speaks from the depth of his knowledge (or when people happily bite into the bread) but when he emphasizes the uncertainty of what he knows. More on that, after some background.

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"Joseph Mercola" - Why Vegetarianism Will Not Save the World

Posted By Dr. Mercola | September 28 2011 | 23,051 views

 

By Dr. Mercola

Many vegans and vegetarians choose not to eat meat and/or animal products because they believe it is the morally superior, environmentally friendly choice. But this theory is being put to the test by the book The Vegetarian Myth, written by ex-vegan Lierre Keith.

In it she argues that saving the planet and ending the suffering found in factory farms can not be achieved by refusing to eat animals, it can only be achieved by boycotting modern agricultural practices, which Keith calls "the most destructive thing that people have done to the planet."

Have Vegans and Vegetarians Been Led Astray?

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization released a report in 2006 titled Livestock's Role in Climate Change and Air Pollution. In it, they estimated that 18 percent of the world's man-made greenhouse-gas emissions are produced by livestock. This information was heralded by vegetarians and environmentalists alike as proof that eating meat was bad not only for you, but for the entire planet.

But, it's important to realize that this detrimental effect comes from modern farming practices, not from cows being raised naturally as they were designed to be. The differences between the two are so vast, you're really talking about two different animals, and two separate industries with entirely different farming practices and environmental impact.

Keith states:

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"Habib Zohori" - U.N. Reports Big Increase in Afghan Violence This Year

Published on Thursday, September 29, 2011 by the McClatchy Newspapers

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/09/28/125542/un-reports-big-increase-in-afghan.html

by Habib Zohori

KABUL, Afghanistan — Violence in Afghanistan is up nearly 40 percent over last year, a United Nations report released Wednesday found, contradicting claims by the U.S.-led coalition that security has improved since last year.

The U.N. report, information for which is compiled by the U.N. mission here and submitted to the Security Council quarterly, said that as of the end of August, there had been an average of 2,108 "security incidents" each month this year, a 39 percent increase compared with the same period in 2010.

The average number of suicide attacks monthly, 12, remained unchanged, the report said, but more of those attacks were complex and coordinated, involving more than a lone bomber, the report said. The monthly average of three such complex attacks this year is 50 percent higher than the number for the same period in 2010.

A report from the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force in August painted a sharply different situation.

"Throughout 2011 ISAF has seen significant security improvements throughout Afghanistan and violence is down in 12 of the past 16 weeks as compared to the same period in 2010," the coalition's report said.

There was no comment from coalition spokesmen on the U.N. report.

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"GRAIN" - Food and Climate Change: The Forgotten Link

Published on Thursday, September 29, 2011 by GRAIN

http://www.grain.org/article/entries/4357-food-and-climate-change-the-forgotten-link

by GRAIN

[CommonDreams.org Editor's Note: Today, the Right Livelihood Award (frequently known as the Alternative Nobel Prize) was awarded to GRAIN (International) “for their worldwide work to protect the livelihoods and rights of farming communities and to expose the massive purchases of farmland in developing countries by foreign financial interests”.]

Food is a key driver of climate change. How our food gets produced and how it ends up on our tables accounts for around half of all human-generated greenhouse gas emissions. Chemical fertilizers, heavy machinery and other petroleum-dependant farm technologies contribute significantly. The impact of the food industry as a whole is even greater: destroying forests and savannahs to produce animal feed and generating climate-damaging waste through excess packaging, processing, refrigeration and the transport of food over long distances, despite leaving millions of people hungry.

A new food system could be a key driver of solutions to climate change. People around the world are involved in struggles to defend or create ways of growing and sharing food that are healthier for their communities and for the planet. If measures are taken to restructure agriculture and the larger food system around food sovereignty, small scale farming, agro-ecology and local markets, we could cut global emissions in half within a few decades. We don’t need carbon markets or techno-fixes. We need the right policies and programmes to dump the current industrial food system and create a sustainable, equitable and truly productive one instead.

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"Leonard Pitts" - Tea party is throwing more than a temper tantrum

Leonard Pitts Jr. | The Miami Herald

last updated: September 28, 2011 12:18:30 PM

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/09/29/v-print/125515/commentary-tea-party-is-throwing.html

This country is in a world of hurt if the likes of Michele Bachmann or Rick Perry wins the next election. It might be in greater trouble if Barack Obama does.

I can take no credit — or blame — for that analysis. It originated with one of my colleagues, a veteran political reporter, and he shared it one day not long ago as we were chatting in the office. It troubles me for one simple reason: it makes sense.

So here is how his thinking goes. The genteel, pragmatic Republicanism of the past has been supplanted by a pitchforks and torches mentality, a funhouse mirror distortion of traditional conservatism. Meaning, of course, the tea party.

These are folks who don’t just support the death penalty; they cheer for executions. They don’t just oppose health care reform, they shout “Let him die” to the uninsured individual who faces life-threatening illness. They are the true believers: virulently anti-government, anti-Muslim, anti-gay, anti-science, anti-tax, anti-facts and, most of all, anti the coming demographic changes represented by a dark-skinned president with an African name. They are the people who want “their” country back.

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"Bob Chapman" - Outsourcing and Offshoring in the Global Economy -- US Corporations Moving to Offshore Tax Havens

By Bob Chapman

Global Research, September 21, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26708

One of the greatest detriments to job creation in the US is the overseas income deferral law. This unbelievable gift to transnational corporations is at the heart of free trade, globalization, offshoring and outsourcing. Presently these corporations are sitting on $2.2 trillion in untaxed profits, which is costing the American taxpayer almost $800 billion in lost tax revenue if like in 2006 they are allowed to bring the funds back at 5-1/4% taxation. Those conglomerates want to bring those funds back into the US tax free, which means $1 trillion in lost taxes, taking advantage of the current financial situation in the US. Five years ago Congress passed legislation allowing $350 billion to be returned to the US at 5-1/4% taxation, not the normal 35%, because these corporations said they would use the funds to create jobs. Very few jobs were created and a large part of the funds were used to purchase company stock, which rose in value, allowing the officers of these corporations to sell stock from options and make billions of dollars in profit for themselves. These are the same corporations that have been responsible for the loss of 11.7 million jobs, the loss of good paying jobs 450,000 American companies and the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars in tax revenue. These corporations are responsible for the heart of American manufacturing being ripped out of America. It over time has spread as well into service and professional industries.

There was a secret meeting on December 24, 2010 with the president in the White House where these pressured Congress and the White House to exempt overseas corporate profits from taxation. It is our opinion that a continuation of such a policy would deprive the US of badly needed taxation. A cessation of present policy would as well help to stem the flow of jobs out of the country. This change would stop the flow of businesses leaving the US and would cause some companies to return to the US.

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"McClatchy Newspapers" - Obama fails to persuade Palestinians to abandon quest for U.N. membership

McClatchy Newspapers,

last updated: September 21, 2011 08:48:17 PM

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/09/21/124773/obama-at-un-no-shortcut-to-israeli.html

UNITED NATIONS — President Barack Obama failed Wednesday to talk Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas out of seeking full U.N. membership, setting the stage for a U.S. veto that could help shore up Obama's sagging domestic political standing but risk injecting the first serious anti-U.S. unrest into the turmoil wracking the Middle East.

Plunging into frenzied, high-level diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis, Obama spent about an hour Wednesday evening closeted with Abbas in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in what U.S. officials said was an attempt to persuade Abbas to return to peace talks with Israel that broke down last year.

But Abbas left the session still determined to submit a request on Friday for a U.N. Security Council resolution granting full U.N. membership to an independent Palestinian state. Obama has repeatedly vowed to block the move using the veto the United States controls as one of five permanent council members.

Abbas "has been very clear about what his intent is, which is to go to the Security Council," Ben Rhodes, a White House National Security Council spokesman, told reporters after the Obama-Abbas meeting, which he called "very candid and direct."

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