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Project Censored director Mickey Huff was recently interviewed for "Inside Story." He discussed the ongoing problems of censorship and under-reporting in the US. Moreover, he highlighted some of 2012's most significant stories -- like the emerging police state, Fukushima, Occupy -- published in Censored 2013: Dispatches From the Media Revolution.
Censored 2013 focuses on the importance of independent journalism for democratic self-government. And it holds to account the corporate-owned ("mainstream") media for their failure to provide responsible and relevant news coverage.
The book has additional chapters of original analysis covering drones and targeted killing, “GuatánamoSpeak,” the democracy movement in Kashmir, corporate education “reform,” Iraq...
(Marc Pilisuk) The unjust foundations favoring the 1% over the 99% are everywhere. The Occupy Movement has found many targets among the corporate elite. The financial and extraction sectors have been clearly located (Phillips and Soeiro, 2012). But one hard to find target is the behind-the-scenes force propelling us toward nuclear war...
This is how we are spreading our influence in the name of spreading peace, progress, and democracy. Is this what the MIC, Obama, and NATO have in store for the world?
At one point the Arab news person is heard saying, "Those who kill their own people have lost all credibility" a reference to those involved in 9/11, which is known throughout the Arab world to have been an inside job.
When you make war, you have to kill some kids
How can anyone stand by while drones and jets bomb innocents killing 50 collaterals to every intended target? If all we can do is stand by then we cannot hypocritically cry so loudly when one of our own kills our own children!
Bush-era policies, continued and expanded by Obama, have led to the murder of over 1 million Iraqi children and civilians. It was a US war crime to target their water purification facilities. These victims of our military-industrial complex (MIC) aggression are no threat to us. But we are to them. We are to them.
How inhuman we must seem the longer we dehumanize them. They live, feel, die, love, work, take care of their children just as we do. Yet our government, for and by the people, has been taken over by war mongers and passive profiteers.
How many of us protested when Bush invaded in spite of the will of the American public? How many more of us did nothing, or even attached patriotic flags to our cars and homes in support of military aggression?
Now a newer better storyteller sits in the White House making excuses for the powers that be, a man who took his Nobel Peace Prize and started eight new wars with it. And what are we doing? Mourning a minor incident of military-grade killing, what our soldiers do on an average morning abroad, calling it the worst catastrophe ever.
Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, E. Landau, Wisdom Quarterly
Don't you dare criticize Israel, and god help you if you say the US backs war crimes!
The world has spoken, through the UN, recognizing unconscionable Israeli war crimes. It runs the largest open-air prison called Gaza and the West Bank, holding a 1.2 million-plus stateless population hostage without a means of support, sufficient food or means of providing for itself, without freedom to govern itself, to control its own borders, airspace, or access to the sea.
The population is systematically dislocated (forced relocation), bombed, terrorized, given a collective case of PTSD, told to fight back and secretly supported to do so so that it can then illegally be collectively retaliated against. Where is the American military-government? Behind Israel. Where are fundamentalist Christians? Behind Israeli atrocities in the name of God and the Bible. Where is Obama and many presidents before them? Where else could they be? Israel is worth ten CIAs.
But now the UN has spoken and given Palestine "observer state" status, thereby recognizing it as a state, its population as citizens, and a providing a rare first step toward survival against Israel's genocidal activities (mass killings, blockades, arrests, indefinite detentions, etc.)
The UN voted in favor of Palestinians regardless of the threats and blowback already being imposed on member states. The US objects, but more telling is Israel's declaration that this will not change anything: Israel won't let it, announcing 3,000 illegal settlements being built on more stolen land. It does so with impunity, with US backing, and with the whole world becoming aware of what has been going on as these two actors manipulate the UN Security Council.
Why does the MIC (military-industrial complex) continue to allow the US to be brought down by Israel? Is it because its objectives are aligned in the region against human rights or the long-term survival of either country? The US has a fiscal cliff to fall off of and a currency to finish destroying. So it can't really be bothered with answering allegations of joint crimes against humanity. We've got great lawyers to work out a deal. And poor Obama has dictators to appease and entertain.
UN vote recognizes Palestine; US objects
Edith M. Lederer (Associated Press, Nov. 30, 2012)
The United Nations voted overwhelmingly Thursday to recognize a Palestinian state, a victory decades in the making for the Palestinians after years of occupation and war. It was a sharp rebuke for Israel and the United States. More
Saturday, Dec. 1, see noted women’s activist Selma James talk about grassroots efforts to eliminate child poverty in the Age of Obama and to stress the importance of caregiving.
Meanwhile, the US keeps torturing accused Army whistle blower Pfc. Bradley Manning (after Obama extra-judicially convicted him in the court of public opinion because, like, who needs due process?) and makes certain Julian Assange,author of a new book, remains a embassy-captive political prisoner...
FORT MEADE, Maryland - Private First Class Bradley Manning, the American soldier accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified and confidential military and diplomatic documents [showing US complicity in war crimes and their concealment as well as the day to day activity of diplomats kept illegally secret by abusing the classification process marking even mundane items "top secret" to avoid transparency and/or judicial review] to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, took the stand in a military court today to make his first public statements since his arrest in 2010. Manning appeared confident and animated at a pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade in... More
10,000 Days of Hun Sen: “I not only weaken the opposition, I’m going to make them dead...and if anyone is strong enough to try to hold a demonstration, I will beat all those dogs and put them in a cage.”
(HuffPo)Gloomy teens, take heed -- your more happy-go-lucky classmates will likely earn more than you, according to new research. Researchers followed more than 10,000 U.S. adolescents over a decade and found that happiness during the teen years and young adulthood was linked with income at age 29.
(Yale Daily News) Hundreds of students flooded into LC 101 last night to hear a panel of professors discuss happiness. The talk, hosted by Vita Bella ["Good Life"]...
(Herald Sun, Nov. 25, 2012) Workers now happiest they have been in ages, finds study... Happiness among their workers also is up by 40 per cent as they too enjoy better...
(MSN NZ News, Nov. 26, 2012) A study claiming porn actresses are happier in their sexuality and self-image than other women has been discredited by an Australian expert.
"Travelers and Magicians"
In Bhutan, the last Himalayan Buddhist kingdom, dreaming of coming to Buddhist America
A Bhutanese fable [available for DVD rental] about lives in transition will be shown Monday at Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor St., Hartford."Travelers and Magicians" tells the story about Dondup, who wants to leave Bhutan for America, and a monk who tries to talk him out of it. To do this, the monk tells the story of another man restless and dissatisfied, whose story does not end well.It is the first movie shot entirely in Bhutan, and is in the Bhutanese language, Dzonghka, with subtitles. More
iJAN helps FREE Palestine: The WorldSocial Forum Free Palestine (WSF FP) is approaching. More than 10,000 Palestinian and solidarity activists from 36 countries will converge on Porto Alegre to learn from each other and together organize to build a strong movement to confront Israel and Zionism and the broader injustices they represent and support. TheInternational Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and activists in the US, Canada, and around the world are building a joint struggleframework to the WSF FP. More
(LINK)Director Ang Lee ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon") recruits an actual trained Bengal tiger to create a groundbreaking movie about a young man who survives a tragic disaster at sea. He is hurtled on an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While marooned on a lifeboat, he forms an amazing and unexpected connection with the ship's only other survivor, thetiger. WARNING: Many viewers say the movie tries to inspire wonder and awe and a belief in GOD.
This Wachowski film features handsome Halle Berry and America's very own sweetheart Tom Hanks with Buddhist themes reminiscent of "Looper." Except this is without a time-travel conceit to make the karmic connection perfectly clear. "Cloud Atlas" is an exploration of how the actions (karma) of individual lives impact one another. This happens in the past, present, and future. One living being, in the course of becoming, is shaped from a killer into a hero. And a single act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution. Not since Hanks nearly ruined "Cast Away" have we been so torn between wanting to watch a film for thematic reasons and being kept away by its male lead. In that epic adventure, Hanks' character is adrift on a raft ("Life of Pi"-style) with no one to talk to but a soccer ball. He draws eyes on it, places a wig atop it, and constantly whines: "Wilson, will I ever get home? Wilson, does my wife still love me? Wilson, what are we going to do?!!" Later in a hallucination, the ball answers him: "My name is Voit, dumb@ss!" Wait, that pay-off only came much later in a "Family Guy" cutaway:
"Cloud Atlas" might be bearable with the help of co-stars Susan Sarandon, Zhou Xun, Hugo Weaving, Doona Rae, Jim Sturgess, James D'Arcy, Hugh Grant, Ben Whishaw, Jim Broadbent, Keith David,David Mitchell, David Gyasi... because if the worst thing one has tosay about a prospective film is that Tom Hanks is in it, that is probably one great film.
E. Landau, A. Dorrian, P. Macpherson, edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly
Is compassion for Palestinians in Gaza anti-semitism? Absolutely not. But one would never know that from reading through the mainstream mead's coverage of Israel's war crimes against Palestinians in the name of self-defense. And wherever Israel goes, the US/MIC is not far behind.
Often "we" (as if the average American had much to do with the decision-making motives of corporate war-profiteers and violence-prone generals at the Pentagon) are leading Israel around by the nose to do the bidding most profitable to us in the region. "Israel is worth ten CIAs" a CIA official once famously admitted.
Benjamin Netanyahu, "Bibi," was educated in America. That is why he has barely an accent. Yet no one speaks eloquently for the Palestinians. And it seems no one tells Muslim men and women being bombed to stop shouting and behaving "emotionally" when reporting the facts on the ground. Jewish soldiers are not allowed to brag or are not asked by reporters to explain why they kill and terrorize civilians. Is there an Arab League representative, an unbiased translator, any voice in the wilderness? Palestinians do not have a fraction of the sterling public relations support Israel and the US military take for granted.
Israeli warcrimes against Palestine: witnessessee KL War Crimes Commission(sabbah.biz)
The coverage, particularly on NPR, is astoundingly pro-Israel even when it seems to be showing the other side of the argument. The obvious slant is in reporting Netanyahu's spin; the subtle bias is far more insidious, leaving one to wonder how they do not lose all credibility news story after news story.
Such is the power of money, intellectual capital, and misguided sympathy for historical wrongs towards Jews and, only more recently "Israelis," if there is such a thing. Zionists? Usurpers? The people of the Bible? Anyone who claims the bloodline and mantle of The Chosen Ones?
It takes an Arabic or Palestinian scholar to point out that the people who call themselves and whom we call "Jews" today are hardly as distinct or rooted in and around Jerusalem as we now take for granted. The whole history of the genocidal founding of the modern state of "Israel" and its location in Palestine as their "promised land" is problematic.
However, PR firms pay off Christian scholars and other scientists to jump into the fray in favor of all things Israel. It doesn't even take that; for it is understood in scholarly circles that if one wants to make a name for him or herself and be widely cited and published, one's finding had better be in favor of Israel and its revisionist history. If all these voices silenced themselves, the CIA and its operatives would still rule the discussion. How much nicer that they self-select and use their clout to justify and further war.
This is not a question about Semitic languages, proto-Hebrew (apparently any earlier or current form of Arabic on any shard of pottery), or how far back the Bible can be pushed as unbiased historical document not a story of a people told by those very people to perpetuate themselves at the expense of neighbors or outsiders coming in claiming to be those descendents continuing a long tradition of forced relocation and cultural genocide.
The blame does not fall on individuals like Romney-supporting Netanyahu, his similarly educated brother, or the Kanesset. It is displaced onto other actors, even stone throwers trying to defend themselves against atrocities wrought by the super power on the other side of the wall. Yes, wall, not "fence."
Israeli nationalists are wrong. And their right-wing media machines, owned and operated by billionaires and multi-millionaries rather than the dogged journalists and editors who constantly bear the brunt, are hopelessly biased. Here is one problem. Polls are taken and reported acting as if the vast majority, 80%, of Israelis are for genocide, rubber stamping anything the Israeli Department of War (IDF) wants to do, short of ground invasions unless Netanyahu should deem them "unavoidable."
What are the poll questions being asked? And who is doing the asking and tabulating and spinning the results, an Israeli nationalist paper?
"Do you disapprove of a country defending itself from hostile rocket fire?"
"Are you for terrorism?"
"If a peaceful nation, which only wants peace, is brutally attacked by thugs hiding in slums on the other side of a Security Fence, is it all right for the peaceful nation to defend itself, or should it allow bombs to rain down on its children and elderly?"
Answer honestly and anonymously, and we promise not to twist or construe your answers as being in support of genocide, mutilation, or asymmetrical warfare against those godforsaken "dogs" in Gaza and the West Bank.
Has anyone ever heard something more true than that Sarah Silverman joke from her feature-length movie, "J is Magic"? She complains about someone criticizing Jews then, rhetorically, with biting satire, asks: Hey, I thought we owned the media. How are others getting their say?
The gist of it is, of course Israeli nationalists have an inordinate influence on the media around the world, but we aren't ever allowed to point that out. Wink-wink. That would be, pick your offending term, "racist," anti-Semitic, hateful, so unfair, so biased.
Angry Netanyahu, a real CIA asset (Al Jazeera)
God (YHWH) forbid anyone attribute anything negative to any Jewish person (except Bernie Madoff or Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, those pariahs), Israelis in and around Palestine, or any Hebrew-speaking person from here in Hollywood to there in Tel Aviv, that's "anti-Semitism!"
If a right-wing leader in Israel acts like that German guy andanyone dares to point out a similarity or two, dares to point out that the Emperor has no clothes, forgetaboutit. The gloves are off. Just last week Southern Californians were sympathizing with the plight of Palestinians in Westwoodat the beloved Federal Building, site of all the best protests.
Jews, Israeli nationalists, Christian fundamentalists, and/or students feeling guilty about not doing enough to support the Promised Land Project (i.e., the new state of Israel), which gives them dual US-Israeli citizenship while Palestinians have no citizenship anywhere, and free trips to Israel while Palestinians are free to travel to a neighbor's house but no farther, went to confront and provide a counterpoint to those Palestinian sympathizers. Violence erupted on the streets of Los Angeles as a result of their intimidating counter protest. West LA is the heart of the Jewish and pro-Israel presence in LA.
Most Los Angelenos slept in. We can't be bothered. We've got homework, housework, work (business), and lots of other busy-work to see to.
They may say we're "racists," but Wisdom Quarterly has to stand up and call it what it is: Israeli-planned attacks on a nearly defenseless population using Iran-made "missile strikes" as pretext, propaganda, atrocities, the world's biggest prison, ethnic cleansing, and if only there were a word for the attempted systematic elimination of a people...
What's the real motive? Even God (the war-like Jewish tribal one) doesn't know, but the MIC sure does.
Although some one or some "cabal" put him up to it, P.M. Netanyahu has to be called on to answer for it. Sec'y of State Clinton has to be called to answer. (Pres. Obama is smart using Bibi's pro-Romney comments to stay out of the fray, sort of earning his Nobel Peace Prize by sending in Hillary to do the handshaking and historic signing, while he himself enjoys the sights in Buddhist Asia instead).
Mansfield: "I chose to sit in here. Now there was a film showing, 'Where Should Birds Fly.' Now those of you who were in here would have been as shocked -- even though I thought I knew what was going on -- shocked as anybody could be about the appalling situation. We've heard a lot about the appalling situation, but the film says it all. Farmers being shot at as I speak... It's in that context that I have a feeling...that there's a sense of urgency, emergency, and that that has to be communicated into legal redress."
The RToP held its fourth international session in New York City on Oct. 6-7. It took place in the Great Hall at Cooper Union located at 7 East 7th Street, New York, NY.
The RToP is an International People's Tribunal created in response to the international community's inaction regarding Israel's recognized violations of international law.
The Tribunal aims to bring attention to the complicity and responsibility of various national, international, and corporate actors in the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the perpetuation of Israel's impunity under international law.
RToP has no legal status, but like other tribunals on Vietnam, Chile, and Iraq, its legitimacy comes from its universality and the strength it draws from the will of citizens and the support of international personalities who advocate for an end to the Israeli occupation and Israel's denial of Palestinian rights.
Why are we at war with Iraq? It was initiated by Ehud Barak for Israel's strategic benefit and US influence in the region.That's what "Israel" is for. It has its intelligence organization, Mossad, carry out false flag operations, deceiving others into attacking its enemies, getting others to fight wars for them. Wars for territory, wars for oil (or its control), wars for regional influence... Iraq is being turned into another Palestine for Israel.
Of great interest in Mes Aynak ["Copper Well"] is the association of many Buddhist monasteries with the economic activity of copper mining. There is no doubt that the wealthy decoration of the monasteries is linked to the wealth that people living nearby derived from the mine.
In May 2012 I traveled to Afghanistan on an assignment for the Czech edition of National Geographic magazine. I photographed excavation and rescue efforts at the world’s largest archaeological excavation site, located in Mes Aynak (“copper well”) area, Logar Province, Afghanistan.
Being an equally inspiring and unique place, experts on site believe that uncovering the ancient city of Mes Aynak would not only re-write the history of the Silk Route but also the history of Buddhism.
[According to maverick Indian archeologist Dr. Ranajit Pal, modern Bamiyan, Afghanistan, was ancient Kapilavastu, India, the Buddha's hometown. We at Wisdom Quarterly agree that the historical Buddhist sites were far west of modern Nepal.]
That is, however, unlikely to happen. At the end of December 2012, the first part of the ancient site will be destroyed [by corporate Chinese interests bent on extracting rare earth minerals, copper, and gold].
Policeman guards excavation (time.com)
Due to the economic interests of China and Afghanistan [the former desperately needs rare minerals for producing electronics like iPhones, whereas the latter desperately needs cash in the face of an invasion by a foreign army that has occupied the country with no end in sight] a massive open copper mine complex just where the ancient city lays will be established.
US strike team soldier drives bulldozer through infrastructure to help make country "safe" for capitalism during US war on and continued occupation of Afghanistan (defense.gov)
[The upshot is that this massive Buddhist archeological site located west of India in Central Asia will be destroyed and covered by a massive mining city before it is ever excavated or even fully documented. Afghanistan's Department of Archeology is working as fast as it can with no hope of even describing all of its wonders before the Chinese are contracted to start their demolition of the site. While China may have one billion uncounted Buddhists, it is ruled by an officially atheist Communist regime bent on capitalist riches.]
Mes Aynak is also a home to a second-largest unworked cooper deposit in the world.
To give you a hint, this earth-covered ancient city -- yet to be excavated -- sprawls across a territory of approximately 1.5 by 1.5 kilometers [distance, perhaps a temple complex a square mile in size. Wisdom Quarterly does not refer to it as "the World's Greatest Buddhist Site" for nothing].
Recent findings suggest that underneath the 2,600 years-old town [which, not coincidentally, is the exact official age of Buddhism itself -- since Buddhism came to Afghanistan just seven years after Siddhartha's great enlightenment, when as the "Buddha" (Shakyamuni, "the Sage of the Shakya Clan") he visited his home town and converted his father King Suddhodana who entered the first and second stages of enlightenment and continued to rule (reaching full enlightenment on his death bed when the Buddha returned to help him awaken), his stepmother Maha Prajapati who became the first Buddhist nun, his son Rahula who at 7-years-old became the first Buddhist novice, his half-brother Nanda and half-sister Sundari Nanda, and many of his relatives like his cousin Ananda from the royal Shakya clan's territory, shakya meaning "grey earth," a reference to the strangely grey soil in this area of Afghanistan], Mes Aynak was inhabited in an organized manner as early as 5,000 years ago, well into Bronze Age.
It is considered a literal missing-link between worlds East and West, a trading hub, a money factory, a place where two civilizations met and interacted.
According to international archaeologists on site, Mes Aynak is one of the five most important findings in the entire history of archaeology. It is in the same category as Petra and Machu Picchu. [It is, in fact, the world's greatest Buddhist site -- rivaling Indonesia's Borobudur, Cambodia's Angkor Wat, and Sri Lanka's Anuradapura.]
Unfortunately, we will never learn about it. For underneath Mes Aynak City exists the second-largest known unworked copper deposit in the world. MCC (China Metallurgical Group Corporation, a government-owned giant) bought rights to it for about $3 billion. It plans to excavate copper and rare earths for the next 30 years, aiming to extract approximately $100 billion worth. As such, a massive open copper mine visible from outer space will completely destroy this ancient site.
So far only about 15% of the newest archaeological layer has been uncovered. A second earlier layer will never be accessed. The entire city’s history, including its administrative center, Buddhist burial mound/reliquary shrines (stupas), monasteries, nunneries, as well as evidence of its Bronze Age past will be forever lost.
CIA-funded Afghan Muslims (uberhumor.com)
Archaeologists say they would require 20 to 30 years to fully uncover and simply document this site -- to say nothing of preserving or restoring it. But they have no power to oppose decisions taken by the [CIA-corrupted Karzai] government of Afghanistan and MCC [just as mere archeologists could neither oppose or prevent the planned ransacking of priceless treasures in the Iraqi Museum, which the West considers the "Cradle of Civilization." A further complication exists: Islamic regimes are in no hurry to uncover their pre-Islamic/Buddhist pasts.
So sites in Pakistan, Iran/Persia (where the Buddha's mother, Maya Devi, was likely born, according to Dr. Ranajit Pal, who posits that she was from Seistan-Baluchistan, which is a border area between Afghanistan-Iran-Pakistan), Kazakhstan, and elsewhere go largely unprotected in spite of the meager efforts of earnest archeologists].
A team consisting of international and Afghan archaeologists is conducting so called “rescue archaeology” -- digging out as much as possible in the remaining few months before demolition begins.
(Nadia, Afghan Treasures) Fantastic news! We have blown past our original goal of 10,000 signatures for our petition to protect the Afghan Mes Aynak site from Chinese mining developers. Who can imagine these incredible archaeological treasures being destroyed for commercial profiteering? More than 10,000 signatories think that is a bad idea. As of today, we have collected 10,360 signatures and are stretching the goal to 20,000 [2011]. We will report our progress the April newsletter, which features an exclusive article on Mes Aynak by Prof. Tarzi. (We welcome comments and feedback). Here are three things to do right now:
(Marc Pilisuk) The unjust foundations favoring the 1% over the 99% are everywhere. The Occupy Movement has found many targets among the corporate elite. The financial and extraction sectors have been clearly located (Phillips and Soeiro, 2012). But one hard to find target is the behind-the-scenes force propelling us toward nuclear war...
+Gandhara_BuddhawikipediaMarksofaGreatPersonwikipediaorg.jpg)
