"Henry Norr" - US Needs a Declaration of Independence - from Israel

Published on Monday, July 4, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/04

 

by Henry Norr

ATHENS, Greece - 235 years after the American colonies declared independence from Britain, the passenegers on the U.S. Boat to Gaza call for a new American Declaration of Independence, this time from Israel.

The passengers issued their call from the decks of the U.S.-flagged boat, The Audacity of Hope, which is currently confined to a Greek military pier near Athens, while its captain sits in jail.

Like the Founders in Philadelphia, the passengers in Athens recognize that "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them to another, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separataion."

Just as the Founders cited "a long train of abuses and usurpations" committed by the British, The Audacity of Hope passengers detailed the Israeli abuses motivating their call for U.S. independence:

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"Frank Rich" - Obama's Original Sin

Published on Monday, July 4, 2011 by New York Magazine

http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/obama-economy/presidents-failure/

The president’s failure to demand a reckoning from the moneyed interests who brought the economy down has cursed his first term, and could prevent a second.

by Frank Rich

After 9/11, Rudy Giuliani went on Saturday Night Live to give New Yorkers permission to laugh again. But Mayor Bloomberg never did tell us when we could resume conspicuous consumption after the crash of 2008. And so, as we stumble through the second year of the official “recovery,” it’s been an improvisational return to high-end carousing in Manhattan.

A case in point was the late-May celebration of the centennial rededication of the New York Public Library. Surely no civic institution could be a more unimpeachable beard for a blowout. The dress code—no black tie—was egalitarian. The Abyssinian Baptist Church Gospel Choir, the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus, and that cute chorus from P.S. 22 in Staten Island—Gleediversity on steroids—were in the house along with some 900 invited guests, marquee names included (Toni Morrison, Jonathan Franzen). Bloomberg delivered a pre-dinner benediction from an altarlike perch on the main reading room’s balcony. “Free and open access to information may be the single most important component of any democratic society,” he said.

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"Scott Thill" - The UN Is Aiding a Corporate Takeover of Drinking Water

By Scott Thill, AlterNet
Posted on July 3, 2011, Printed on July 4, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151367/the_un_is_aiding_a_corporate_takeover_of_drinking_water

Early last month, pharmaceutical titan Merck became the latest multinational to pledge allegiance to the CEO Water Mandate, the United Nations' public-private initiative "designed to assist companies in the development, implementation and disclosure of water sustainability policies and practices."

But there's darker data beneath that sunny marketing: The CEO Water Mandate has been heavily hammered by the Sierra Club, the Polaris Institute and more for exerting undemocratic corporate control over water resources (PDF) under the banner of the United Nations. It even won a Public Eye Award for flagrant greenwashing from the Swiss non-governmental organization Berne Declaration. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

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Death by Vaccination: The Gates Foundation and the New Eugenics

By Gary Null & Richard Gale

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"Vaccines? I love them."

While lecturing at the elitist TED 2010 conference in Long Beach, CA,  Bill Gates slipped a statement while speaking on the dangers of climate change and over population: “Vaccines? I love them.”

Today the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is “the most powerful charity in the world, and one of the most quietly influential international organizations of any sort.”[1] The Foundation is funded to the tune of  $34.6 billion plus an additional $30 billion from Warren Buffet’s investments. This is almost the entire budget of the World Health Organization (WHO).  

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"Brasschecktv.com" - Where we're at without the sugar coating "We may not make it"

Can a country be so broken morally that
it's beyond repair?

Sobering commentary from a US Army colonel,
former War College instructor and former Chief
of Staff to Colin Powell.

http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/war-crimes/where-were-at-without-the-sugar-coating.html

"Alexander Higgins" - Rioters Turn Athens Greece Into A War Zone — Banks And Finance Ministry Set On Fire After Banker Bailout Passes

  Posted by Alexander Higgins - June 29, 2011 at 12:20 pm Watch the videos right here:

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/06/29/rioters-turn-athens-greece-war-zone-banks-finance-ministry-set-fire-banker-bailout-passes-32601/



"Tom Philpott" - Is Your Meat Habit Giving You Diabetes?

More research links traces of PCBs and pesticides in factory-farmed meat and fish to Type 2 diabetes.

Mother Jones

By Tom Philpott | Mon Jul. 4, 2011 2:30 AM PDT

http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/07/are-pesticides-giving-you-diabetes

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The United States has one of the highest diabetes rates in the developed world—and the malady is spreading faster here than it is in most other rich nations, a recent Lancet study [1] (registration required) found.

I've always associated our diabetes problem with the steady rise in sweetener consumption [2] since the early '80s, triggered by the gusher of cheap high-fructose corn syrup that opened up at that time. But another culprit may be contributing, too: exposure to certain pesticides and other toxic chemicals. A new peer-reviewed study [3] published in the journal Diabetes Care found a strong link between diabetes onset and blood levels of a group of harsh industrial chemicals charmingly known as "persistent organic pollutants" (POPs), most of which have been banned in the United States for years but still end up in our food (hence the "persistent" bit—they degrade very slowly).

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"Ralph Nader" - Leaving Elizabeth Warren Out in the Cold

By RALPH NADER

http://counterpunch.org/nader07012011.html

Dear President Obama:

Yesterday's Washington Post published a page one article headlined "President Waging A Charm Offensive. Obama woos big donors to help fund early campaign expansion."

Later in the article appears this unseemly behavior by a public servant paid for by public funds:

"A key player in the closed-door donor recruitment is White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley, a former banking executive who has huddled in recent weeks over breakfasts and dinners with business leaders and Wall Street financiers in Chicago, New York and Washington--seeking to ease tensions over new financial regulations and other administration policies."

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"Chris Hedges" - Ralph Nader Is Tired of Running for President

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/ralph_nader_is_tired_of_running_for_president_20110704

Posted on Jul 4, 2011

By Chris Hedges

The most important moral and intellectual voices within a disintegrating society are slowly discredited when their nonviolent protests and calls for justice cannot alter intransigent and corrupt systems of power. The repeated acts of peaceful civil disobedience, efforts at electoral and political reform and the fight to protect the rule of law are dismissed as useless by an embittered, dispossessed and betrayed public. The demagogues and hatemongers, the purveyors of violence, easily seduce enraged and bewildered masses in the final stages of collapse with false promises of vengeance, new glory and moral renewal. And in the spiral downward the good among us are reviled as naive and ineffectual fools.

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"RJ Eskow" - The New War of Independence - Against Corporate Politics

By RJ Eskow, AlterNet
Posted on July 3, 2011, Printed on July 4, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151506/the_new_war_of_independence_-_against_corporate_politics

This is the age of corporatized politics. That means we may admire our leaders, but we can't depend on them. We're paying the price for Thomas Jefferson's unfulfilled desire to "crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

This July 4th, politics is too important to be left to the politicians. The stakes are too high and the system is too broken. Citizen action is everyone's job now, and it will be as long as our political debate focuses on misplaced austerity and ignores the majority's yearning for jobs, growth, and those things that government does best.

But the problem isn't just with politicians, or even the system. The problem is dependence itself. 

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