Truthout Daily Digest Wednesday, 2 July 2014

Police Departments Ignore Rampant Sexual Assault by Officers

Candice Bernd, Truthout: There is scant comprehensive data about victims of sexual violence by police, but news accounts of such crimes are abundant. Some advocates believe the solution is to apply the Prison Rape Elimination Act to those in police custody.

Read the Article

Workers Resist Scofflaw Employers in Wage Theft Capital of the US

Jordan Melograna, Truthout: Wage theft is so prevalent in the United States that its 2012 total exceeded the amount stolen in all robberies of banks, gas stations and convenience stores. Recovery is extremely difficult, but in Los Angeles, workers are fighting back.

Read the Article

Lyndon Johnson on Civil Rights – Where Are We Now?

The Daily Take Team, The Thom Hartmann Program: Despite the progress made since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this country still has a very long way to go. A reflection on President Lyndon Johnson’s speech upon signing the Civil Rights Act provides a look into the past – an important step in moving forward.

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Why Harris and Hobby Lobby Spell Disaster for Working Women

Sarah Jaffe, In These Times: Both the SCOTUS Hobby Lobbyand Harris decisions rested on narrowly tailored legal arguments that just happen to cut wide enough to impact groups of workers who are almost exclusively female. If you are not affected by these rulings yet, you well could be in the future.

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Cheney’s Campaign for Iraq War 3: Shaping the Narrative

Mark Weisbrot, Truthout: With his latest media blitz, Dick Cheney hopes to preserve and solidify the “war on terror” as the dominant narrative presented to Americans as an explanation of US foreign policy.

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Domestic Care for Family Members Isn’t Valued if Its Givers Are Exploited

Sheila Bapat, Ig Publishing: Domestic workers have been excluded from labor protections that workers in the rest of the economy take for granted. However, in the past decade, a growing movement has emerged calling for domestic workers to share in the same rights guaranteed to others.

Read the Excerpt

The US-Mexico Caravan for Peace Takes On the Drug War

Chris Moore-Backman, Truthout: Talking with Michelle Alexander, Javier Sicilia and other members of the US-Mexico Caravan for Peace and Justice with Dignity, Moore-Backman examines connections between the struggle for peace in Mexico and the struggle to end the racist system of mass incarceration in the United States.

Listen to the Radio Segment and Read the Transcript

Child Migrants and Media Half-Truths

Laura Carlsen, CIP Americas Program: While the American mainstream media has suddenly turned its attention to the long-standing issue of child refugees fleeing their home countries to the US southern border, they generally mischaracterize the circumstances surrounding the phenomenon which is causing more harm than good.

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Slow Rites, Fast Wrongs: Migrant Workers Killed in Italian Factory Fire Wait 203 Days for Funeral

Betsy Krause and Massimo Bressan, Truthout: A funeral for the victims who died in a Tuscany factory fire was held 203 days after that tragic dawn. The long span of time between the deaths and the mourning rite was poignantly ironic given the furiously fast conditions that defined these migrant workers’ lives.

Read the Article

Brazilian Workers Buck Union Officials to Strike

Claudia Costa, Labor Notes: While the World Cup and propaganda surrounding it are in full swing, the massive public spending on it contrasts the poor pay, high fares and starved public services Brazilians endure.

Read the Article

Bike-Train-Bike: A New European Program to Promote Car-Free Commutes

Anna Brones, Care2: Bicycles and trains, what could be a better combination? A new European program is launching to promote that partnership, with a goal of making sure that cities across Europe are healthier, more livable and less congested.

BuzzFlash

The Oligarchy’s Greed Knows No End: New Tax Cuts for the Rich Proposed in House

Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: One of the Academy Awards’ favorites this year was the filmAmerican Hustle. In reality, the name of the movie could describe what the US economic elite has been doing to the 99% for the last few decades.

Read the BuzzFlash Commentary

Jim Hightower: Koch-Headed Billionaires Plan to Save the US by Looping Big Money Around Democracy’s Neck

Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Flawed Oversight Board Report Endorses NSA’s General Warrants

Read the Article at the Electronic Frontier Foundation

More Shocking Examples of Police Overreach and Militarized SWAT Mistakes

Read the Article at Salon

College Students in Four States Filed Lawsuits Against Their Campuses in Challenge to Free Speech Restrictions

Read the Article at Los Angeles Times

Coal Mine’s Rejection on Global Warming Grounds Has Major Implications

Read the Article at InsideClimate News

A Spanish Social Movement Releases “A Charter for Democracy”

Read the Article at Guerrilla Translation!

How Right-Wing Extremists Took Over Texas

Read the Article at Rolling Stone

The Oracle Report | Thursday, July 3, 2014

NEPTUNE ON VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA

NEW AUDIO UPDATE June 18, 2014:

Cancer Cycle June 27, 2014: Shift in the Game

Shift in the Game: Cancer Cycle 2014

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Crescent Moon Phase: expand

Moon in Virgo

Ruling Mahavidya: Dhumavati (Goddess of Death) and Kali (The Destroyer)

Skill: endeavor to maintain balance in all things

Negative Imprint: lashing out or lashing in from fear, anger, frustration

Positive Imprint: opening up to allow transformation

By the end of the day, some sort of wisdom finds its way to us. Today’s energy teaches us something we need to know.

Two waves of energy, one produced by the Sun opposing Pluto and one produced by Mars opposing the Eris Point, begin to dominate. These waves tend to make people grumpy, angry, critical, impatient, depressed, reactionary, and sharp-tongued.

But, with a little work, these waves can also help people be balanced, whole, light, open, self-possessed, and free.

This energy is made primarily by oppositions in astrology, so we notice opposites and differences. We see how opposite or different we are from someone/others/situations or how opposite things are from the way they should be (or the way we want them to be). Be aware of the tendency for things to be in sharp contrast. This energy takes things to extremes and can swing back and forth quickly.

Recall also that all this month, people, places, and things are loosening, breaking, or opening up. The energy of sharp contrasts enhances this theme.

We navigate all of this acrobatically by being aware of the course. We see the negative potential, but we understand that underneath all of the presenting issues is the hallmark for change. We see how, in some way in some part of our lives, we need to shift. We recognize that we are undergoing a period of transformation, liberation, and re-alignment deeper into the mystic.

Remember, today teaches us something we need to know.

(Note for those readers who follow the Mahavidyas, the Wisdom Goddesses who are aspects of Gaia-Sophia and interface with humanity: Today Dhumavati and Kali are “releasing the Kraken,” so to speak. [The Kraken is a giant squid-like sea creature that derives from Norse mythology.] The Archons will attempt to use the power that is available from these potent astrological signatures to imprint reality with fear, chaos, and gloom. Essentially, protection and buffering from these extremes spreads through the collective like the tentacles of the Kraken. It is a metaphor.)

Click here and scroll down to listen to the July 1 “Galactic Connection” radio show where I was Alexandra Meadors’ guest. We take an in-depth look at what’s happening right now and how we can navigate it.)

http://www.oraclereport.com/

‘Why Do You Indians Always Live in the Past?’ – ICTMN.com

So, I recently took down my Facebook page. About a third of my many friends were Indians from various reservations around me; most of these had never gotten past their GED. The rest were white Mormons and white non-Mormons from Utah. This was an educated group and also a rather vocal one, constantly expressing their opinions on my Facebook wall and debating/arguing with other posters like themselves. The Indians, on the other hand, sent me frequent private messages, jokes and invites to join them for various parties, dinners and events on the rez but rarely posted publicly on my wall, although most of them keenly followed what one of them called the “white discussions.”

One day, one of my Facebook friends ran into me on campus. He asked me, “Why do you always live in the past?” I didn’t pay much attention to his question back then but remembered not arguing with him or his very strong Mormon beliefs about why Indian languages need to die out and the Mormon placement program. The same evening, another friend ran into me when I was riding a horse. She asked me the very same question and she wasn’t Mormon. The same evening, I put up an informal poll on Facebook and, without exception, all whites who responded agreed that I “always lived in the past.” They also seemed rather angry, upset and resentful about it. They said things like, “Get over your past!” I tried to get to the bottom of their resentment by asking questions such as, “But don’t you remember 9/11 every year?” or “Should Jews also forget about their near extermination in concentration camps?”

Their responses, the contradictory feelings they expressed, and the very ambiguity in their responses made me sit up and analyze my posts over the two-year duration of my Facebook. Less than 10 percent of my posts dealt with tribal issues; these were mainly news items neglected by the mainstream media that I didn’t want my Indian friends to miss. Another 5 percent of my posts were announcements of upcoming events like the Circle Dance, a powwow in a town an hour away, an Indian health fair, announcements of language and culture classes, the free medical clinic, personal updates like my adventures in Australia, etc. But the bulk of my posts, over 85%, talked about issues that were of interest to the educated white audience. I talked about game theory, happiness research, genomics, the new MCAT, exchange-traded funds, cancer detection by canines, research by a physicist that showed how racial profiling to limit terror attacks is mathematically flawed, compassion fatigue in physicians, artificial intelligence in medicine, new open courseware by MIT, research on the neurogenics of niceness, and other very contemporary topics. So what really bothered my white friends on Facebook? In my case, in-depth, in-person discussions with my buddies revealed that the 10 percent content that related to news articles from Indian media was what bothered them and led to their distorted perception. Even though over 85 percent of my Facebook content dealt with very contemporary issues, I was perceived as “living in the past.”

Which brings me to the question: Why do we Indians always hear that we live in the past when we don’t? Why are we always told to “get over the past?” The real reason is that Indian discussions serve as an unpleasant reminder to whites that this country is not theirs. Indeed, our very existence serves to reiterate to them that Turtle Island is not their land. Indian news articles from ICTMN and other sources are unpleasant to them because on a subconscious level they realize that they are as much aliens on this land as newly-arrived Arabs or the illegal Mexicans they despise so much. Our stories send home a message to them that their ancestors committed a holocaust against Indians and nearly exterminated us. When we speak about our dying languages, our high rates of diabetes and cancers, alcoholism or the poverty on our reservations, it reiterates to them that this country was built on deceit and lies and their ancestors did something horribly wrong. Our values tell them that their way of life—with the environmental destruction, the divorces, the crime, the wars, deteriorating family values, etc.—is going horribly South. The very fact that you and I are alive and that there are still “full bloods” around undermines the white sense of legitimacy and ownership of America. So my friends, don’t let it bother you when people tell you to “stop living in the past” and to “get over the past.” It is just another of those issues mainstream America needs to get over and resolve in their own minds.

By:
Mike Taylor
April 23, 2012
‘Why Do You Indians Always Live in the Past?’

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/04/23/why-do-you-indians-always-live-past