Truthout Daily Digest Sunday March 16, 2014

“Do What You Gotta Do”: Cop Shows Bolster Idea That Police Violence Works

Aaron Cantu, Truthout: What is the social impact of a cop booster program like “Chicago PD”? What audience – and what ends – does it serve?

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Holder a Lonely Holdout as Death Row Enters Death Throes

Susanne Dumbleton, Truthout: In seeking the death penalty for the accused Boston marathon bomber, Eric Holder violates his personal opposition, Boston public opinion and growing nationwide resistance to execution as criminal punishment.

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Fashion Faux Pas? Free Trade and Sweatshop Labor in Guatemala

Cyril Mychalejko, Truthout: Free trade agreements have not delivered promised protections to workers, as the case of Guatemalan sweatshop labor illustrates.

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Shame Shame Shame

Sarah Rosenblatt, Zombie Basil Press: Radical comic artist and illustrator Sarah Rosenblatt examines the many ways in which women are shamed in our society in this graphic art.

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Ten Reasons Why Nukes Are Nuts

David Krieger, Truthout: A nuclear weapons convention, a treaty to achieve Nuclear Zero by means of the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons, is the only way to counter the obvious insanity of nuclear weapons in any form.

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Truthout Interviews Featuring Candice Bernd on Aging Nuclear Power Plants

Ted Asregadoo, Truthout: Truthout reporter Candice Bernd describes the highly suggestive results of a decades-long study of strontium-90 in baby teeth from the central coast region of California near the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in San Luis Obispo County.

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Coming Home to Roost: American Militarism, War Culture and Police Brutality

Colin Jenkins, The Hampton Institute: Rather than seeing themselves as public servants, police officers have increasingly embraced the “us vs. them” mentality – anyone who isn’t a cop is a potential threat. That attitude makes police “mindless drones” void of conscience in a world that is becoming increasingly unconscionable – the ultimate tool of an ever-intensifying class war.

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IMF Urges Redistribution To Tackle Growing Inequality

Carey L. Biron, Inter Press Service: The International Monetary Fund (IMF), arguably the world’s premiere financial institution, is stating unequivocally that income inequality “tends to reduce the pace and durability” of economic growth. But the new advice on income inequality will likely be received skeptically by some.

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America’s $1 Trillion National Security Budget

Winslow T. Wheeler, Project On Government Oversight: Pentagon costs, taken together with other known national security expenses for 2015, will exceed $1 trillion. The problem is not scarcity of money; the problem is how it is being spent. We are getting very little defense – training, maintenance, hardware, and troops – for a gigantic amount of money.

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Striking for the Public University

Marjorie Elizabeth Wood, OtherWords: Once hailed as the “Great Equalizer,” public higher education today has arguably become a driver of inequality.

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This week in Speakout:

Dan Falcone interviews Walter Naegle, partner of the late Bayard Rustin who organized the 1963 March on Washington; Kate Zen argues for support for the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in Massachusetts; Tony Brown questions California’s exorbitant spending on prisons rather than education; Mark Brenner and Jane Slaughter pitch a new book that demonstrates how the strike remains labor’s most powerful weapon; Benjamin Hale sheds light on the resurgence of ethnic violence in South Sudan; Cayman Kai discusses her harrowing ordeal trying to get to Gaza for International Women’s Day; Steven Starr assesses the possible nuclear ramifications of NATO involvement in Ukraine; and more.

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BuzzFlash

The Buzzflash commentary for Truthout will return soon.

Where Incomes Diverge, So Too Does Longevity

Read the Article at The New York Times

The Town That Turned Poverty Into a Prison Sentence: Harpersville, Alabama Reopens Debtor’s Prison

Read the Article at The Nation

Compare the NSA’s Facebook Malware Denial to Its Own Secret Documents

Read the Article at The Intercept

Corporate Interests Behind Ukraine Coup: From Cargill to Chevron, Companies See the Country as a Potential “Gold Mine” of Profits

Read the Article at Consortium News

There Is No Meritocracy: It’s Just the 1%, and the Game Is Rigged

Read the Article at Salon

NASA-Funded Study: Industrial Civilization Headed for “Irreversible Collapse”?

Read the Article at The Guardian

Ralph Nader | What a Destructive Wall Street Owes Young Americans

Read the Article at The Nader Page

Revolutionary Daily Thought

Thank you for posting this!

PressTV: Washington sets world on war path, by Paul Craig Roberts . . . analysis

Thank you for posting this Jean!

RT: Defensive blockade: Activists stop Kiev’s military trucks heading to Russian border

Thank you for sharing this Jean! So good to see the people taking charge and demanding peace. And the military is on the side of the people-i wonder who the unidentified young people were?

NorthPoint Astrology Journal March 17 to 23, 2014 By Pam Younghans

Today‘s photo: Auroras over Inari, Finnish Lapland, on March 13, 2014 (photo by Rayann Elzein, posted on Spaceweather.com)

OUR REASONING MINDS have been wrestling with how to navigate the leaps back and forth between waking reality and the inner realms of meditation, dreaming, and other travels into alternate realities. Is it any wonder we are having a hard time focusing on the practicalities of physical life? And is it surprising that our brains are easily overwhelmed when we ask them to do what seem like routine mental tasks?

Adding to the potential confusion, Mercury slips into Pisces on Monday, on a quest to further blur the boundaries between our conscious minds and the vast, unfathomable realms of infinite wisdom and compassion.

MERCURY actually goes on a very interesting journey this week. On Tuesday, the planet forms a trine aspect with Ceres. This interaction enhances empathy and our ability to merge communication and compassion. It also assists in transforming our negative thinking patterns and lack of trust through holding the space for us to feel greater self-acceptance.

Then, on Saturday, Mercury aligns with Neptune. At first glance, this might seem to be indicative of a foggy day mentally, but one also conducive for meditative or creative activities.

WHILE SOME may have this experience on Saturday, the interpretation of this alignment is altered a bit by the fact that the planets will be aligning in Pisces. This means that the dissolving power of Neptune, while indeed working to soften the boundaries between our thinking minds and the cosmos, is also working to expose our illusions.

It’s a bit like the rules of arithmetic. As confusing as it may be to conceptualize, when we multiply two negative numbers together,the answer is always a positive number. So, the dissolving power of Neptune, when placed in a boundary-less sign like Pisces, is actually working to “undream the dream,” or bring a dose of reality to the fantasy.

Perhaps the best way to use Saturday’s energies would be to engage in extended times of either meditation or creative/artistic endeavors, while also staying open to receiving insights of truth in areas where we have been in denial or illusion.

THIS WEEK, of course, also brings the Aries Equinox, when the Sun begins a new transit of the 12 signs of the zodiac. This is the astrological New Year, and carries all the expectation (and hype) that we culturally assign to January 1.

A chart drawn for the moment of the Sun’s ingress into Aries (Thursday, 9:57am PDT) is said to reveal the themes of the coming season — spring in the Northern Hemisphere and autumn in the Southern. This means that we can consider the energies of the Neptune-Mercury alignment as continuing, in some form, into the next three months.

ANOTHER strong energy in the Equinox chart is the alignment between Vesta and the North Node in Libra. We’ve only just started working with the North Node in this sign, so this alignment will give us a good opportunity to make our commitment to what the North Node in Libra means for our personal development.

Jan Spiller’s excellent book on the Moon’s nodes, Astrology for the Soul, gives us this list of attributes that we are asked to develop when the North Node is in Libra:

• Cooperation, diplomacy, and tact
• Awareness of others’ needs
• Creating win/win situations
• Communicating clearly who we are

These may all sound like excellent qualities to embody. But, as a client asked me this past week, how does someone with North Node in Aries, who is in a lifetime of learning to be independent, self-aware, self-nurturing, and constructively self-interested, deal with what appears to be a contradiction in guidance?

ALTHOUGH I do not retain much of what I say within personal astrology sessions, I believe my answer was centered around the themes of Balance and Fairness. This is, after all, what Libra the Scales is all about.

Each of us must be self-aware enough to know where we’ve been for most of our lives on this scale of balance between Self and Other. Some have spent years in self-denial or self-sacrifice, perhaps not even knowing their true needs or desires due to an over-focus on others’ needs.

FOR THESE FOLKS who have struggled with claiming their needs and wants, it will be helpful to consider this 18-month transit of the North Node in Libra as an opportunity to check their balance point. The questions to ask are:

• Do I know what I want, or is my wanting still colored by my perception of what would make others happy?
• When was the last time my mouth said “Yes” while my gut was saying “No”? Have I gained the self-awareness needed to catch myself in this habit?
• If I consider that my needs are as valid as anyone else’s, how does that awareness change this decision?
• And, ultimately, if what is truly best for ME is actually best for EVERYONE, how does that change my perception of the situation?

We can all benefit, of course, from those Libra aspirations of being creators of harmony. The greatest challenge is often to realize that inner harmony needs to be first priority, and that outer harmony will follow — perhaps not immediately (!), but in time.

I ALSO FIND Demetra George’s book Asteroid Goddesses helpful as I’m considering the meanings of the Vesta-North Node alignment. Her interpretation of Vesta in Libra reads in part:

“The need to be recognized as an equal and to exchange reciprocal give-and-take is an important factor. Due to the need to be accepted, there is a tendency to give up one’s own needs and desires. Achieving a sensible balance between personal preferences and those of others is vital.”

In mythology, Vesta is the goddess of the heart and the keeper of the sacred flame. Her priestesses in ancient Rome were the “vestal virgins,” known for their dedication to their spiritual purpose above all else. Astrologically, Vesta represents our capacity for commitment and devotion.

AS WE WORK with the intentions of the Vesta-North Node alignment — both this week and over the next three months — we may want to think about our dedication to what we have determined is most important in our lives.

We may also consider ways to adjust our energy field so that we are working with rather than against — not in accommodation of others’ needs over our own, but in alignment with and acknowledgement of the flowing river of positive energy we all are traveling upon.

Blessings,

Pam

NorthPoint Astrology Blog: To read recent blog posts, please visit http://northpointastrology.blogspot.com/. I look forward to your comments!

“The White Man March” Protests Against Blacks Having The Same Rights As Whites

Thank you for sharing this. I know poor white people who have learned this kind of thinking primarily from an overwhelming media push to convince them to think like this. From Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to Ted Nugent and FOX news this kind of programmed divisive and stupid is constantly pushed to keep poor white people from joining together with poor black, Hispanic, Asian and indigenous people to resist the REAL source of all our suffering’the 1% who own the media. Its really disappointing on many levels. Trying to argue with any of the nonsense is impossible-i have tried and facts don’t seem to penetrate.

We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident

Beginning in 2008 with the presidential election of Barack Obama, they started coming out of hiding.

39-year-old Kyle Hunt of Massachusetts organized a “White Man March” for today, March 15, 2014 in New York City.  Hunt graduated from Amherst College with a double major in psychology and theater and dance.  He goes by “Kaiser Kyle” on YouTube and “Nyte Hulk” on Alternative Social, a pro-white answer to MySpace that he founded a few years back.

Kyle Hunt

Hunt wrote:

“We are planning to show that White people are organized and impassioned, that we know what the anti-white agenda is all about, and that we are dedicated to waking up as many of our folk as possible. We will make it clear that we will not sit idly by as our race is discriminated against, mocked, displaced, and violently attacked, all of which amount to white genocide, according to the…

View original post 603 more words

Kp Message… the “P.E.A.C.E event”… 3-17-14 at 3:33 (your local time) (#kppeace333)

Thank you K!