Quote

"If you assume that every child is sensitive, vulnerable, readily injured, and easily broken, then you will never be far from the truth. If you assume that all children are motivated by pride and justice, you will be able to communicate with them. If you assume that all children should be treated as sacred trusts who deserve your full measure of devotion, you will be on the right path. If you seek to find the vulnerable, precious child in yourself and in all other adults at all times in your dealings with yourself and others, you will have achieved enlightenment. You will become a gift to the children in your life to whatever degree that you remain enlightened in your dealings with them." Peter R. Breggin, M.D., Reclaiming Our Children: A Healing Plan for a Nation in Crisis ******************** Submitted by Maureen

Quote Rotator

When the song of the angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone, When the kings and the princes are home, When the shephers are back with their flock, The work of Christmas begins: To find the lost, To heal the broken, To feed the hungry, To release the prisoner, To rebuild the nations, To bring peace among brothers and sisters, To make music in the heart.

Howard Thurman

Congress is not preparing to defend the people of the United States. It is planning to protect the capital of American speculators and investors…. Incidentally this preparation will benefit the manufacturers of munitions and war machines…. Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought! Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder! Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings! Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction! Be heroes in an army of construction!

Helen Keller at Carnegie Hall January 5, 1916

Noah’s Ark : Everything I need to know, I learned from Noah’s Ark .. ONE: Don’t miss the boat. TWO: Remember that we are all in the same boat! THREE: Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the Ark. FOUR: Stay fit. When you’re 60 years old, someone may ask you to do something really big. FIVE: Don’t listen to critics; just get on with the job that needs to be done. SIX: Build your future on high ground. SEVEN: For safety’s sake, travel in pairs. EIGHT: Speed isn’t always an advantage. The snails were on board with the cheetahs. NINE: When you’re stressed, float awhile. TEN: Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals. ELEVEN: No matter the storm, there’s always a rainbow waiting. Most people walk in and out of your life, but FRIENDS leave footprints in your heart.

Unknown

Hope........And it is not a dream of a fancy proud,
With a fool for its dull begetter;
There's a voice at the heart that proclaims aloud--
'We are born for a something better!'
And that Voice of the Heart, oh, ye may believe,
Will never the Hope of the Soul deceive!'

Friedrich Schiller

“Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.”

Molly Ivins

there is no longer any doubt as to whether the (Bush) administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

Maj. Gen. Antonio, M. Taguba / Investigator of Abu Ghraib

'Newt Gingrich is a stupid person's idea of a smart person.'

Alan Grayson

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig deep in our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak , to associate with and defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular. . . .(Senator McCarthy) didn’t create this situation of fear, he merely exploited it, and rather successfully. . . Cassius was right, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

Edward R. Murrow

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.

Blaise Pascal

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear.”
Quote by:
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Roman Statesman, Philosopher and Orator
Date: 42BC

“Any life lost in war is the life of a human being, irrespective of whether it is an Arab or an Israeli...........................................

The wife who becomes widowed is a human being, entitled to live in a happy family, Arab or Israeli..............................................

Innocent children, deprived of paternal care and sympathy, are all our children, whether they live on Arab or Israeli soil, and we owe them the biggest responsibility of providing them with a happy present and bright future.”

Mohammed Anwar El-Sadat

'God shouldn't be put in charge of everything until we get to know Him a little better' Kurt Vonnegut, The Nation, 11/28/81

Kurt Vonnegut, The Nation, 11/28/81

It's coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It's here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.
It's here the family's broken
and it's here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Leonard Cohen

We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives…inside ourselves.

Albert Camus

'The law is meant to be my servant and not my master, still less my torturer and my murderer'

James Baldwin, The Nation, 7/11/66

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil … is for good men to do nothing.~~

Edmond Burke

The bottom line is this: Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law, with the Roadmap for Peace, with official American policy, with the wishes of a majority of its own citizens–and honor its own previous commitments–by accepting its legal borders. All Arab neighbors must pledge to honor Israel’s right to live in peace under these conditions. The United States is squandering international prestige and goodwill and intensifying global anti-American terrorism by unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories.

Jimmy Carter / Palestine Peace Not Apartheid

The Republican Party is doing a great job in provoking such a dangerous episode by making consensual governance impossible in a time of awful practical problems and challenges. They’re in the process, right now, of transforming themselves from the party of “no” to the party of no decency, no common sense, no ideas, no conception of the public interest, and no respect for the traditions that they pretend to stand for, like due process of law. In the days since the passage of health care reform, they’ve gone as far as inciting mobs to violence against their fellow congressmen and senators — bricks thrown through windows, death threats made, coffins placed in the yards of their adversaries. One day soon, somebody with a gun or an explosive device, someone with a very sketchy sense-of-self, and perhaps a recent record of personal failure and humiliation, is going to sacrifice himself to become the Tea Party’s first martyr by shooting up a shopping mall in some blue district.

James Howard Kunstler

There is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again, now.

Eugene O'Neill

Archive for the 'Videos' Category

18 May

Travel Day

New postings will be delayed.

Posted in General by: The McGlynn
No Comments

17 May

Truth Out Today, 17 May 2012

Thursday 17 May 2012

On the News With Thom Hartmann: Judge Rules NDAA “Indefinite Detention” Provision Unconstitutional, and More
In today’s On the News segment: College graduates see high unemployment, nuclear contamination fears in Japan increase, a Washington lawmaker is barring women from an abortion bill hearing, JPMorgan Chase reports an additional $1 billion loss, and more.
Watch the Video and Read the Transcript

Mobilizing Military Moms Against NATO
Sarah Lazare, Truthout: “The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are marked by widespread mental health problems among US service members, with nearly one in five Iraq and Afghanistan veterans reporting symptoms of PTSD or severe depression. The Army’s own studies show an alarming spike in Army suicides which have soared past civilian rates These grim statistics continue to climb: 2011 saw the highest number of Army suicides in military history, with 164 soldiers reported to have taken their lives. This coincides with a 2011 spike in violent sexual assaults perpetrated by active duty soldiers, mostly targeting young active duty female soldiers.”
Read the Article

Truthout Contributor Richard Wolff on Challenging Capitalism in His New Book, “Occupy the Economy”
Matt Renner, Truthout: “Can we challenge capitalism and prevail, considering that the top 1 percent control 50 percent of the available capital and the top 5 percent some 70 percent of the nation’s private funds? Richard Wolff is a closely followed Truthout contributor on economics. Currently, you can obtain his just-released ‘Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism’ directly from Truthout.”
Read the Article

Occupy the Farm Dug In, Dug Up
Susie Cagle, Truthout: “The crowd cheered as the chains on the gates were cut open and hundreds flooded onto the Gill Tract, several acres of University of California (UC) property that have been contested for more than a decade. They brought tools, straw, chickens in portable coops and 15,000 starter plants that had been growing in green houses around Northern California for the past several months before finding their home in this Class I soil in the sleepy bedroom community of Albany, just north of Berkeley. Three weeks later, police in riot gear raided the property, arresting nine activists, including Dayaneni.”
Read the Article

Activists Win Preliminary Injunction Blocking Enforcement of NDAA’s Military Detention Provision
Jason Leopold, Truthout: “Seven journalists and activists who sued President Barack Obama earlier this year over the controversial indefinite detention provision in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) were handed a surprise victory Wednesday by a federal court judge who issued a preliminary injunction blocking its enforcement. Congress may go a step further. An amendment to the 2013 NDAA introduced by Reps. Adam Smith (D-Washington) and Justin Amash (R-Michigan) would eliminate the provision in the bill that authorizes indefinite military detention without trial for those captured in the US.”
Read the Article

GOP Super PAC Weighs Hard-Line Attack on Obama
Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zeleny, The New York Times News Service: “A group of high-profile Republican strategists is working with a conservative billionaire on a proposal to mount one of the most provocative campaigns of the ‘super PAC’ era and attack President Obama in ways that Republicans have so far shied away from. Timed to upend the Democratic National Convention in September, the plan would ‘do exactly what John McCain would not let us do,’ the strategists wrote.”
Read the Article

Occupy Chicago Takes on the War at Home
Yana Kunichoff, Truthout: “In a week of action before the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) summit hits Chicago, activists are connecting the war abroad waged by NATO and its associates with the war at home, waged by some of the 1 percent that are welcoming and profiting from bringing the summit to Chicago. ‘What we have is a war in our communities and that war is done by the global 1 percent,’ said Brian Bean, an activist with Occupy Chicago. ‘The same people that will be meeting in McCormick Place [for the summit] in a couple of days drop bomb in Afghanistan and destroy our homes here in America. That is why we are here to fight back. Today we take back our homes, tomorrow we take back our world.’”
Read the Article

Court Ruling May Force Advocacy Groups to Disclose Secret Donors
Matea Gold, The Los Angeles Times: “Election law lawyers expect most groups will now try to find alternative methods of communicating rather than reveal the sources of their funding. But just the possibility that the curtain will be pulled back to reveal who has been driving campaign-related ads has buoyed reform advocates. ‘It’s the first major breakthrough in overcoming the massive amounts of secret contributions that are flowing into federal elections,’ said Fred Wertheimer, president of the reform group Democracy 21. ‘It certainly gives us momentum.’”
Read the Article

Kucinich: NDAA Authorizes War Against Iran
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, The Office of Dennis Kucinich: “This week, Congress is considering two pieces of legislation relating to Iran. The first undermines a diplomatic solution with Iran and lowers the bar for war. The former Chief of Staff of Secretary of State Colin Powell has stated that this resolution ‘reads like the same sheet of music that got us into the Iraq war.’ The second authorizes a war of choice against Iran and begins military preparations for it. A plain reading of these provisions in H.R. 4310 taken together with H.R. 568 makes it clear: Congress is setting the stage for war with Iran.”
Watch the Video and Read the Article

Are JPMorgan’s Losses a Canary in a Coal Mine?
Bill Moyers, Moyers & Co.: “That sound of shattered glass you’ve been hearing is the iconic portrait of Jamie Dimon splintering as it hits the floor of JPMorgan Chase. As the Good Book says, ‘Pride goeth before a fall,’ and the sleek silver-haired, too-smart-for-his-own-good CEO of America’s largest bank has been turning every television show within reach into a confessional booth. Barack Obama’s favorite banker faces losses of $2 billion and possibly more – all because of the complex, now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t trading in exotic financial instruments that he has so ardently lobbied Congress not to regulate.”
Read the Article

Preying on the Poor: How Government and Corporations Use the Poor as Piggy Banks
Barbara Ehrenreich, TomDispatch: “It’s not just the private sector that’s preying on the poor. Local governments are discovering that they can partially make up for declining tax revenues through fines, fees, and other costs imposed on indigent defendants, often for crimes no more dastardly than driving with a suspended license. And if that seems like an inefficient way to make money, given the high cost of locking people up, a growing number of jurisdictions have taken to charging defendants for their court costs and even the price of occupying a jail cell.”
Read the Article

Pilots as Lab Rats: The Reprehensible Risk-Taking on the F-22 Raptor
Dina Rasor, Truthout: “But the Air Force hates to admit that their highly classified stealth – their major justification for every new airplane they have bought for the last thirty years – could poison and condemn their workers, mechanics and pilots to cancer. Instead, they circled the wagons around the ‘hypoxia’ theory, then ordered the pilots back into the air without knowing or fixing the root cause. Asked about the danger to pilots’ lives, the generals declared the risks acceptable, citing the need to keep flying to collect data in the hopes of getting to the bottom of their problem. In other words, they were comfortable with using their highly F-22 trained pilots as lab rats.”
Read the Article

Click to continue reading “Truth Out Today, 17 May 2012″

Posted in General by: The McGlynn
No Comments

17 May

Events of Interest and Analyses, A Foreign Perspective

News

Mladic trial postponed over ‘errors’

Presiding judge adjourns trial of Bosnian Serb military leader in The Hague until further notice.

Last Modified: 17 May 2012 18:19 GMT

France will not ratify current EU fiscal pact

New finance minister Pierre Moscovici says eurozone pact must be renegotiated to promote growth rather than austerity.

Last Modified: 17 May 2012 11:44 GMT

Libyan women hope for gains in elections

D. Parvaz 17 May 2012 15:16 GMT

Next month’s elections to the national assembly present women with a rare chance to step out of the shadows.

Marissa Alexander convited victim of domestic abuse, Florida

Lawmakers in Florida say Marissa Alexander’s case is precisely the kind where the controversial defense should apply. Photograph: CNN

Stand-your-ground law put to test

Woman says she was defending herself, but a jury – and the prosecutor now on George Zimmerman’s case – disagreed

France eager to avoid Nato clash over Afghanistan troop withdrawal

President Hollande to adopt conciliatory tone despite earlier pledge to pull out all French combat troops by end of the year

Mladic trial shown Srebrenica footage

Bosnian Serb wartime commander accused of ordering the execution of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys in July 1995

Pig iron in Brazil : Amazon and Cerrado deforestation and Illegal charcoal kilns in Pará state

Ford, GM and BMW linked to illegal logging and slave labour in Brazil

17 May 2012: Car makers source iron from Brazil that contributes to Amazon deforestation, says Greenpeace ahead of Rio+20

US car industry drives deforestation in Brazil – in pictures

Posted in General by: The McGlynn
No Comments

16 May

Events of Interest and Analyses, A Foreign Perspective

News

European court to hear CIA rendition case

Khaled el-Masri is suing Macedonia for allegedly collaborating with US intelligence in his abduction seven years ago.

Last Modified: 16 May 2012 12:09 GMT

China dissident says family being abused

Chen Guangcheng telephones US Congressional hearing from Beijing hospital to raise concerns about harassment of family.

Last Modified: 16 May 2012 05:53 GMT

Asia-Pacific

Protesters dispersed from Moscow park

Up to 14 anti-Putin activists arrested after riot police crack down on sit-in at Chistiye Prudy Park in Russian capital.

Last Modified: 16 May 2012 18:28 GMT

In Depth

Autopsy finds torture behind Bahrain drowning

Matthew Cassel16 May 2012 14:23 GMT

Report exclusively obtained by Al Jazeera says 23-year-old had been electrically tortured before drowning in January.

Tracy Thorne-Begland

Virginia thrown into equality wrangle after rejection of gay judge

Democrats reeling after Republican delegates move to block prosecutor Tracy Thorne-Begland’s appointment to the bench

New York City stop and frisk

New York City public advocate Bill de Blasio talks about a campaign to reform the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk programme. Photograph: Keith Bedford/Reuters

NYPD stop-and-frisk lawsuit now class action in victory for civil rights groups

16 May 2012:Federal judge grants class action status to lawsuit alleging the NYPD’s controversial programme amounts to racial profiling

Charles Rothschild’s incredible legacy on the Wildlife Trust’s 100th birthday

A hundred years ago today, Rothschild created the first organisation committed to protecting the UK’s wildlife areas

Posted in General by: The McGlynn
No Comments

15 May

The agreement marks a historic moment in the long history of Palestinian nonviolent resistance to unjust Israeli actions

Dear The McGlynn,

Yesterday morning I felt chills talking to our close allies in Palestine/Israel as they shared with us the news: nearly 2,000 Palestinian political prisoners holding one of the largest hunger strikes in history had succeeded.

As details emerge, we should all look to Palestinian civil society leaders to interpret the nuances of the agreement.But for now, there is one thing all of us can all agree on. This agreement marks a historic moment in the long history of Palestinian nonviolent resistance to unjust Israeli actions.The success of the massive hunger strike may very well inspire a new generation of unarmed struggle.

Yesterday, as long term strikers entered their 77th day, and 2,000 more approached a full month of refusing all sustenance, Israel was compelled to allow family visits for prisoners from Gaza, end the policy of solitary confinement, and significantly reduce and limit the use of detention without trial, also known as administrative detention.

The hunger strike inspired unprecedented support throughout Palestinian society and the world. And Jewish Voice for Peace supporters were an important part of the story.

The leaders of unarmed resistance in the villages of Palestine, the Popular Struggle Coordinating Committee, came specifically to Jewish Voice for Peace to ask for our help.

And we did not let them down!

Just hours before the strike ended, we delivered our 8,000 signatures to the United States State Department with our friends at the US Campaign to End the Occupation. And over 500 of us from 350 cities around the world had already volunteered to lead solidarity protests on Thursday. Many thousand more were set to join us.

The news yesterday is surely cause for celebration, and it’s also a great reminder of what will be possible if we redouble our efforts in the nonviolent movement for justice in Palestine/Israel. This morning our allies in Palestine/Israel issued a statement about the hunger striker victory and a call for further action.

Click here to read more from Palestinian leaders about the hunger striker victory and what you can do now!

Stefanie Fox,
Jewish Voice for Peace

Posted in General, Human Rights, US Middle-East Policy by: The McGlynn
No Comments

Polls

Follow Us!

Quote

Pages

Videos

Upcoming Events

Archive

Categories

Blogroll

Blogs Against The War

Administration

Guerra No

Our Children

Media

Posts By Author

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Quote Rotator

Archive for the 'Videos' Category

New postings will be delayed.

News

News

News

News

In Depth