Eduardo Galeano

No vale la pena vivir para ganar, vale la pena vivir para seguir tu conciencia.

Nos quitaronla justicia y nos dejaron la ley.

Chris Hedges -The Liberal Class in the U.S.

The liberal class, which attempted to discredit the words my friend Cornel West spoke about Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, prefers comfort and privilege to justice, truth and confrontation. Its guiding ideological stance is determined by what is most expedient to the careers of its members. It refuses to challenge, in a meaningful way, the decaying structures of democracy or the ascendancy of the corporate state. It glosses over the relentless assault on working men and women and the imperial wars that are bankrupting the nation. It proclaims its adherence to traditional liberal values while defending and promoting systems of power that mock these values. The pillars of the liberal establishment—the press, the church, culture, the university, labor and the Democratic Party—all honor an unwritten quid pro quo with corporations and the power elite, as well as our masters of war, on whom they depend for money, access and positions of influence. Those who expose this moral cowardice and collaboration with corporate power are always ruthlessly thrust aside.

Derrame de mercurio en Choropampa

151 kilos de mercurio líquido de propiedad de la minera Yanacocha se derramaron a lo largo de 27 kilómetros de la vía que atraviesa la comunidad de Choropampa.

Un grupo de trabajadores de la minera llegó esa noche y ofreció 100 soles por cada kilo recuperado. Decenas de niños se lanzaron a las calles con cucharitas en mano para juntar en tazas el líquido letal.

Unas 750 personas –40% de ellas menores de edad– sufrieron las secuelas de la intoxicación por mercurio. Las quejas por una serie de malestares físicos continúan hasta hoy. Pareciera que una epidemia de migraña se hubiera instalado en esta comunidad ubicada a tres horas de Cajamarca.

Taibbi: 'U.S. Politics - Reality Show Sponsored by Wall Street'

Political journalism

The global corporations (and the politicians they own) have refined propaganda to a level that Hitler and other epic propagandists would envy.

Bill Maher

FLASHBACK: The Stay-Go Handbook

Obama becomes an obedient servant of the corporate elite

Cornel West believed in the potential for change and was encouraged by the populist rhetoric of the Obama campaign. He now nurses, like many others who placed their faith in Obama, the anguish of the deceived, manipulated and betrayed. He bitterly describes Obama as “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. And now he has become head of the American killing machine and is proud of it.”

“This was maybe America’s last chance to fight back against the greed of the Wall Street oligarchs and corporate plutocrats, to generate some serious discussion about public interest and common good that sustains any democratic experiment,” Cornel West laments. “We are squeezing out all of the democratic juices we have. The escalation of the class war against the poor and the working class is intense. More and more working people are beaten down. They are world-weary. They are into self-medication. They are turning on each other. They are scapegoating the most vulnerable rather than confronting the most powerful. It is a profoundly human response to panic and catastrophe. I thought Barack Obama could have provided some way out. But he lacks backbone."

"The tea party folk are right when they say the government is corrupt. It is corrupt. Big business and banks have taken over government and corrupted it in deep ways."

No dignity at Ground Zero

It was a shock to find hundreds of others had turned that hallowed ground into the scene of a home crowd celebrating an away victory they hadn't attended, the roots of which they were probably not there to experience or were too young to remember.

It didn't take 10 minutes for the frat party atmosphere to sicken me. Olympic-style chants of "USA! USA!" I could just about take as a freshly minted American, as of Friday. But "Fuck Osama! Ole ole ole!" crushed any ambition of dignity for the thousands killed, many of whom had jumped hundreds of storeys to their deaths, their bodies shattered to pieces close to where we stood.

I wanted to stand in vigil, too, for the thousands more killed in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq as part of the war on terror that George Bush unleashed and Obama hasn't done much to rein in. I wanted to stand in vigil as a Muslim who just last summer reminded Americans – insisting that Park 51 move "out of sensitivity for 9/11 victims" – that Muslims were also its victims.

The scene at Ground Zero was like a parody of Team America, the film created by the South Park team to parody Bush's America gone wild on nationalism. Now that we've parodied the parody, can the frat boys go home and can we return to the revolutions of the Middle East and north Africa that symbolically killed Bin Laden months ago?

I'm not hearing sympathy for Bin Laden from Muslims and Arabs I know. They're relieved he's finally gone. But they're understandably concerned that media obsession will let him hijack these noble revolutions. One man has been killed; dozens courageously staring down despots are slaughtered every day.

Osama Bin Laden is Dead: A Mindful Response

By Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.

Martin Luther King Jr. said:

“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

Osama Bin Laden is dead.

What does that mean exactly?

Vindication? A cause for celebration? Justice served? Revenge?

When I heard the news I was surprised, “Wow, I can’t believe it really happened,” was the thought that came up in my head.

Then I clicked on a video showing me the crowds of lively people screaming and jumping around in jubilation around the death of a man screaming, “USA, USA, USA,” like we had just won the World Cup.

I had this gut feeling that the reaction seemed sort of strange. This wasn’t like we just kicked in the winning goal, we just killed somebody, it seemed like I was watching some kind of dark comedy.

I thought what was the difference between what I was seeing on the video and a crowd standing cheering while some enemy was getting stoned to death in front of us?

You see, my reaction wasn’t to Osama Bin Laden dying, he was a man who caused so many people much lifelong pain and I’m glad we don’t have to worry about him anymore (that doesn’t mean we don’t have to worry about others who want to cause us harm.”)

But something just seemed off, as if we weren’t processing our emotions around this properly. It was a good day for America, yes, but a day for cheering, laughing and jubilation?

Anyway, I decided to sleep on it.

This morning when I woke up I saw a post from Susan Piver who seemed to have the same reaction to me.

She said something that made a lot of sense:

“Look at your own reaction this morning.

Was there even a hint of vengefulness or gladness at Osama bin Laden’s death? If so, that is a real problem. Whatever suffering he may have experienced cannot reverse even one moment of the suffering he caused. If you believe his death is a form of compensation, you are deluded.

There has been an outpouring of misdirected jubilation, as if a contest had been won. Nothing has been won. Unlike winning a sporting event, this doesn’t mean that our team has triumphed. Far from it. There is only one team and it is us.”

How long will it take or maybe a better question is what will it take for us to recognize that we are all connected to one another? Causing pain to another group of people is a strange place to derive happiness from. It seems to be a false happiness, at the root it’s really anger or fear.

Thich Nhat Hanh has a wonderful saying, “Peace in ourselves, Peace in the world.”

This isn’t a Pollyanna notion that we should all just hold hands, pretend there’s no war, pain, and trauma, this is a very real and practical path toward creating a better world.

We need to learn how to take a good look at the wars we have raging inside each and every one of us in response to our own personal traumas in life. Whether that’s the death of a loved one, harm inflicted on us, or some form of emotional trauma and learn ways to create peace within ourselves.

It’s a very simple path, but not at all easy. That’s why we default to being reactive and causing more war. Just my opinion here.

So goodbye Osama Bin Laden may the families and friends who have suffered at your hands feel more at peace without you around. And may you be at peace with the wars that raged within you to the point where you held the misguided delusion that killing thousands of people was somehow a path in the right direction.

May we all be free from our misguided reactions to the wars within and help guide all people into a direction of greater empathy, compassion, and peace within ourselves and the world.

Martin Luther King, Jr. -nonviolence

For through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can’t establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate through violence. Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that.” MLK 1967

Suiza revela las cuentas multimillonarias de los dictadores árabes

Muamar el Gadafi tiene allí 281 millones de euros, el expresidente egipcio, Hosni Mubarak 320, y el depuesto presidente tunecino, Ben Ali, 47

Swiss identify nearly $415-million Gadhafi assets to freeze