Michael Moore

Occupy Wall Street will only get bigger

Cornel West on Occupy Wall Street

Occupy Wall Street

No Logo -100 Best NonFiction Books

Known as the bible of the alterglobalization movement, Naomi Klein's No Logo catalogs the modern history of branding and casts the labels from your closet and fridge — Coca-Cola, Gap and Nike. These multinationals leave no billboard unplastered, squelch all competition and drive up profits on the backs of the exploited poor of the First and Third Worlds. A string of passionately woven anecdotes, like one about Nike factory workers being beaten with shoe parts in Vietnam, amounted to a call to action in an era known for activism like the protests at the 1999 WTO conference in Seattle. And the Canadian-born journalist is not above the radical's method of elevating bogeymen in the interest of nurturing rage. "Logos have grown so dominant that they have essentially transformed the clothing on which they appear into empty carriers for the brands they represent," she writes.

Mario Vargas Llosa sobre Palestina

En nuestros días, Israel ha perdido aquella superioridad moral que la opinión pública del mundo entero le reconocía, cuando la imposibilidad de un acuerdo de paz entre palestinos e israelíes parecía sobre todo culpa de aquellos, por su intolerancia a reconocer el derecho de Israel a la existencia y su justificación del terrorismo. Ahora, la impresión reinante y justificada es que aquella intolerancia ha cambiado de campo y el obstáculo mayor para que se reanuden las negociaciones de paz con los palestinos es el propio gobierno de Netanyahu y su descarado apoyo político, militar y económico al movimiento de los colonos que sigue extendiéndose por Cisjordania y Jerusalén oriental y encogiendo como una piel de zapa el que sería territorio del futuro Estado palestino.

El avance y multiplicación de los asentamientos de colonos en territorio palestino, tanto en Cisjordania como en Jerusalén oriental, que no ha cesado en momento alguno, ni siquiera durante el período de cuarentena que dijo imponer el gobierno, hace que sean muy poco convincentes las declaraciones de los actuales dirigentes israelíes de que están dispuestos a aceptar una solución negociada del conflicto. ¿Cómo puede haber una negociación seria y equitativa al mismo tiempo que los colonos, armados hasta los dientes y protegidos por el Ejército, prosiguen imperturbables su conquista del Gran Israel?

Grbavica

Grbavica is a 2006 film by Jasmila Žbanić about the life of a single mother in contemporary Sarajevo in the aftermath of systematic rapes of Bosniak women by Serbian troops during the war. It was released in the United Kingdom as Esma's Secret: Grbavica, and in USA asGrbavica: Land of My Dreams.

Contra el fanatismo y el antifanatismo fanático. Amos Oz

Sobre la necesidad de llegar a un compromiso

Amos Oz es un intelectual que no se cansa de repetir que el choque entre judíos israelíes y árabes palestinos no es una historia de buenos y malos, sino una tragedia: un choque entre derecho y derecho. Entre lo justo y lo justo, no entre lo justo y lo injusto.

Proclama que tanto los judíos como los palestinos tienen una reivindicación muy fundamentada. Una causa muy justa, que ambos defienden a veces de forma equivocada. Y lo ha dicho tantas veces que se ha ganado el título de traidor a ojos de muchos de sus compatriotas así como a los de sus amigos los árabes palestinos a los que nunca ha conseguido satisfacer por completo, en parte, porque piensan que su postura no es lo suficientemente radical, propalestina ni proárabe.

Le acusan de traidor como a Profi, el protagonista de la novela Una pantera en el sótano, con la que ganó en 1988 el premio nacional de literatura y que desencadenó un escándalo en Israel, llevando la derecha el caso al Tribunal Superior de Justicia, el cual finalmente desestimó el recurso.

De padres sobrevivientes de Europa oriental, Amos Oz nació en 1939 en Jerusalén, una de las ciudades más cosmopolitas del mundo, en la que había barrios árabes, barrios judíos, barrios armenios, barrios alemanes, una colonia americana y otra griega. Una ciudad mestiza en la que en cada barrio se rezaba de forma diferente, se hablaba una lengua diferente, se vestía de forma diferente. Había tensiones pero no violencia, pese a que todos pensaban que Jerusalén era realmente suya.

A los catorce años Amos Klausner nos cuenta cómo se rebeló contra el mundo de su padre: «Ya estaba harto de esa atmósfera erudita, de los valores burgueses de la clase media y de la política de derecha. Así que decidí convertirme en todo lo que mi padre no era. El era de derecha, yo decidí ser socialista. El era un erudito, yo decidí manejar un tractor. El era un intelectual, yo decidí ser granjero socialista. Y entre otras cosas, también decidí adoptar un nuevo apellido hebreo, Oz, que significa coraje, determinación, fuerza, cosas que yo necesitaba profundamente cuando dejé mi casa y me fui a vivir solo en un kibbutz».

“Contra el fanatismo” del escritor israelí Amos Oz

¿Quién habría pensado que al siglo XX le seguiría de inmediato el siglo XI?”

“¿Cómo curar a un fanático? Perseguir a un puñado de fanáticos por las montañas de Afganistán es una cosa. Luchar contra el fanatismo, otra muy distinta. Me temo que no sé exactamente cómo perseguir fanáticos por las montañas, pero puede que consagre una o dos reflexiones a la naturaleza del fanatismo y a las formas, si no de curarlo, al menos de controlarlo. Se trata de una lucha entre los que piensan que la justicia, se entienda lo que se entienda por dicha palabra, es más importante que la vida, y aquellos que, como nosotros, pensamos que la vida tiene prioridad sobre muchos otros valores, convicciones o credos.
La actual crisis del mundo, en Oriente Próximo, o en Israel/Palestina, no es consecuencia de los valores del islam. No se debe a la mentalidad de los árabes como claman algunos racistas. En absoluto. Se debe a la vieja lucha entre fanatismo y pragmatismo. Entre fanatismo y pluralismo. Entre fanatismo y tolerancia. El 11 de septiembre no es consecuencia de la bondad o la maldad de Estados Unidos, ni tiene que ver con que el capitalismo sea peligroso o flagrante. Ni siquiera si es oportuno o no frenar la globalización. Tiene que ver con la típica reivindicación fanática: si pienso que algo es malo, lo aniquilo junto a todo lo que lo rodea.
El fanatismo es más viejo que el islam, que el cristianismo, que el judaísmo. Más viejo que cualquier estado, gobierno o sistema político. Más viejo que cualquier ideología o credo del mundo. El fanatismo es un componente siempre presente en la naturaleza humana, un gen del mal. La gente que ha volado clínicas donde se practicaba el aborto en Estados Unidos, los que queman sinagogas y mezquitas en Alemania, sólo se diferencian de Bin Laden en la magnitud pero no en la naturaleza de sus crímenes. Desde luego, el 11 de septiembre produjo tristeza, ira, incredulidad, sorpresa, melancolía, desorientación y, sí, respuestas racistas –antiárabes y antimusulmanas– por doquier. ¿Quién habría pensado que al siglo XX le seguiría de inmediato el siglo XI?”

Oscar Wilde

La misión del arte verdadero es socavar los cimientos de una sociedad moralmente corrupta, como la de la Inglaterra victoriana. "Esencialmente, no hay contradicción entre la cultura y el crimen", afirmó con contundencia. Según el contexto, ser criminal podía revestir caracteres heroicos. Fue eso lo que hizo que alguien como Thomas Mann emparentara su heroísmo y su rebeldía en nombre del arte con una actitud tan radical como la de Nietzsche.

Einstein - revuelos a la velocidad de la luz

Si fueran correctos los datos de un experimento de partículas elementales, se pondría patas arriba toda la física del siglo XX, la teoría de la Relatividad de Einstein habría perdido uno de sus pilares y sería posible viajar al pasado. Los científicos, en medio de un gran revuelo, piensan que debe haber algún error en esos datos, pero el problema es que no saben dónde está ese fallo. De momento, los físicos del experimento Opera (bajo los Apeninos, Italia) han presentado los detalles de su investigación de manera que todos los expertos del mundo pueden zambullirse en sus resultados y dar su diagnóstico.

Si fueran correctos los datos de un experimento de partículas elementales anunciados ayer, se pondría patas arriba toda la física del siglo XX, la teoría de la Relatividad de Einstein habría perdido uno de sus pilares y sería posible viajar al pasado. Los científicos, en medio de un gran revuelo, piensan que debe haber algún error en esos datos, pero el problema es que no saben dónde está ese fallo. De momento, los físicos del experimento Opera (bajo los Apeninos, Italia) han presentado los detalles de su investigación de manera que todos los expertos del mundo pueden zambullirse en sus resultados y dar su diagnóstico.

Support for Palestine in New York

Obama government will veto Palestine statehood.

Too Pig To Fail

La nueva dieta anti-cancer

El papel de la alimentacion.

Se recomienda una alimentacion pobre en carbohidratos.

La glucosa es un veneno para las estructuras celulares.

El azucar destruye celulas sanas.

Consumir alimentos a base de proteinas y grasas (omega 3 y 6)

Mantenerse activo

Restablezca de nuevo el equilibrio

Huir de la pereza. El ejercicio es salud.

Light Speed May Have Been Exceeded By Subatomic Particle

GENEVA — One of the very pillars of physics and Einstein's theory of relativity – that nothing can go faster than the speed of light – was rocked Thursday by new findings from one of the world's foremost laboratories.

Berlin Pirata Party

Their irreverent campaign captured the imagination of young voters as the party expanded its platform from an original focus on filesharing,censorship and data protection, to include social issues and citizens' rights. The party, which was founded in 2006, was "in tune with the Berlin vibe with their relaxed campaign", Holger Liljeberg of the Info polling institute, told Reuters. "They focus a lot on liberalism, freedom and self-determination."

Berlin Pirata Party

By winning 8.9 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election in this city-state, these political pirates surpassed — blew away, really — every expectation for what was supposed to be a fringe, one-issue party promoting Internet freedom. The Pirates so outstripped expectations that all 15 candidates on their list won seats — seats are doled out based in part on votes for a party rather than for an individual. Normally parties list far more candidates than could ever make it, because if they win more than they nominate, the seat must remain unfilled.

These men in their 20s and 30s, who turned up at the imposing former Prussian state parliament building, some wearing hooded sweatshirts, and one a T-shirt of the comic book hero Captain America, were no longer merely madcap campaigners and gadflies. They had become the people’s elected representatives.

Karl Marx - Bolivar y Ponte

BOLÍVAR Y PONTE, Simón, el "Libertador" de Colombia, nació el 24 de julio de 1783 en Caracas y murió en San Pedro, cerca de Santa Marta, el 17 de diciembre de 1830. Descendía de una de las familias mantuanas, que en la época de la dominación española constituían la nobleza criolla en Venezuela. Con arreglo a la costumbre de los americanos acaudalados de la época, se le envió Europa a la temprana edad de 14 años. De España pasó Francia y residió por espacio de algunos años en París. En 1802 se casó en Madrid y regresó a Venezuela, donde su esposa falleció repentinamente de fiebre amarilla. Luego de este suceso se trasladó por segunda vez a Europa y asistió en 1804 a la coronación de Napoleón como empe rador, hallándose presente, asimismo, cuando Bonaparte se ciñó la corona de hierro de Lombardía. En 1809 volvió a su patria y, pese a las instancias de su primo José Félix Ribas, rehusó adherirse a la revolución que estalló en Caracas el 19 de abril de 1810. Pero, con posterioridad a ese acontecimiento, aceptó la misión de ir a Londres para comprar armas y gestionar la protección del gobierno británico. El marqués de Wellesley, a la sazón ministro de relaciones exteriores, en apariencia le dio buena acogida. pero Bolívar no obtuvo más que la autorización de exportar armas abonándolas al contado y pagando fuertes derechos. A su regreso de Londres se retiró a la vida privada, nuevarnente, hasta que en setiembre de 1811 el general Miranda, por entonces comandante en jefe de las fuerzas rectas de mar y tierra, lo persuadió de que aceptara el rango de teniente coronel en el estado mayor y el mando de Puerto Cabello, la principal plaza fuerte de Venezuela.

Chris Hedges -Death of the Liberal Class

Independent Media

Bioneers

Mari Margil -The associate director of the Community Environmental Defense Fund (CELDF) describes the inspiring, groundbreaking work she and CELDF are doing to recognize Rights of Nature in law in both the U.S. and Ecuador, which recently became the worlds first nation to enshrine such rights in its constitution.

Millions against Monsanto

The corporations own the Federal Government

CAMPAIGNING FOR HEALTH, JUSTICE, SUSTAINABILITY, PEACE, AND DEMOCRACY

March, Protest and Rally! Washington D.C. Protest This October!

For many Americans, being fed up with war, government impropriety, Wall Street malfeasance and partisan politics is nothing new. Now is our chance to do something about it! October 2011 is an organization which has taken the initiative! Protesting government policy, right in the heart the capital of the United States, this October. The mission is broad. The event will be democracy working at its best. Freedom where it should be, with the people’s voice, in Washington. October2011.org media is a group fed up with endless war, partisan politics, economic policy, foreign policy and corporate greed. The organization has seen time and time again what can happen when no one cares to do anything about it. Why October? Because while many Americans are aware of the endless war the American government has participated in, now occurring on three fronts (Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq) many have already forgotten that this month represents the ten year anniversary of the United States War on Iraq. Ten years ago, a country riddled with pain, angst and misery, stemming from tragic and horrendous 9-11 attacks, chose to engage its people in what now appears to be an endless war. October 2011 believes, that until people get off the couch, so to speak, the government will not yield.

October2011.org

March, Protest and Rally! Washington D.C. Protest This October!

Create a new world

Stop the machine!

Can We Increase Gross National Happiness?

The richest one per cent of Americans

The richest one per cent of Americans earn nearly a quarter of the country's income and control an astonishing 40 per cent of its wealth.

Inequality in the US is more extreme than it has been in almost a century - and the gap between the super-rich and the poor and middle class people has widened drastically over the last 30 year.

Mexico - Food and Free Trade Agreement

From the farm to the kitchen table

Monsanto Uses Latest Food Crisis to Push Transgenic Corn in Mexico

There is an intense PR campaign to open the door to transgenics in Mexico: industrial farmers in the north are pushing the government to ease the establishment of commercial transgenic corn operations and the national press is not short on people willing to echo Monsanto’s sound bites.

Paul Krugman on 9/11

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

What happened when Ludwig Wittgenstein applied his philosophy to architecture

The house that Ludwig built was not cosy. Wittgenstein forbade carpets and curtains. Rooms were to be lit by naked bulbs, and door handles and radiators were left unpainted. The floors were of grey-black polished stone, the walls of light ochre.

The Wittgenstein House was very Viennese - its absence of decoration came from a conviction that Austrian ornament had become as unhealthy as Viennese sachertorte cake. Fin de siècle Vienna was a city of aesthetic and moral decay and, at the same time, of creatively frenetic reaction against that decadence: Schoenberg's atonal music insisted that everything that could be expressed had been expressed by tonal music; Loos's architecture railed against decoration; Freud argued that unconscious forces seethed below a purportedly ordered and elegant society. Established values were being turned upside-down in Vienna. According to Karl Kraus, Vienna was a "research laboratory for world destruction".

Wittgenstein and Freud

Wittgenstein says, Freudian psychoanalysis is based in myth, its application to actual psychological problems does not, indeed cannot, resolve them. Instead, all it can do is clarify them or present them in a different light. Implicit in my argument is that this is how Wittgenstein thought of the results of psychoanalysis, much like he thought of the application of his philosophical technique to philosophical problems, especially those of metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics. As such, Wittgenstein is also subverting a larger myth: that the insights gained in psychoanalysis lead to the scientific resolution of psychological problems.

Freud considered his approach to be scientific. Wittgenstein considered both his and Freud's approach to be philosophical, not scientific.

Weltanschauung. Freud's agenda, Bouveresse says, was "to eliminate metaphysics in favor of the 'scientific' conception of the world." Wittgenstein thought such agendas naive.

Theory. Freud attempted to construct a theory that explained the range of psychological behavior. Wittgenstein thought misguided the construction of a single philosophical theory, and he may have thought that psychoanalysis lacked the power to explain the range of psychic behavior.

The Myth of Psychoanalysis: Wittgenstein Contra Freud

The Myth of the Scientific Solution

The ambiguity lies in Wittgenstein's praising of Freud's theory while repeatedly condemning it as unscientific, an ambiguity that has led at least one scholar astray: Grahame Lock concludes, as quoted by Jacques Bouveresse in Wittgenstein Reads Freud, that "Wittgenstein is the `disciple' of Freud who seems to do nothing but raise objections to his master."9 Even though Wittgenstein indeed raises objections to Freud, many of them areleveled against Freud's view of his own theory, not against the explanatory power of the theory itself. For Wittgenstein, psychoanalysis is based in myth, not science. But this position must not be taken as merely a criticism of Freud, as Lock has done. Although it is an attack on Freud's view that his theory is a science, it is also a glorification of its inventiveness in going beyond a scientific theory to explain the scientifically unexplainable. Wittgenstein believed Freud "had something to say."10 Freud, Wittgenstein would have said, "invented a line of thinking."11 And it is a view of Freud's psychoanalysis that bodes with Wittgenstein's view of his own developed philosophical method, leaving Wittgenstein to see himself as a disciple of Freud, even though he did not believe he had himself invented a new line of thinking.

Enrique Krauze - Redeemers - Foreign Affairs

Enrique Krauze warns against the temptations to seek redemption through revolutionary violence, heroic martyrdom, and political absolutism. He also helps readers understand the anti-USA in Latin America -- “the abstract ideological disdain of the Southern Cone and the grievance-fueled resentments of the Caribbean”.

Chomsky on 9/11 ten years later.

The debt is being cynically exploited by the far right, with the collusion of the Democrat establishment, to undermine what remains of social programs, public education, unions, and, in general, remaining barriers to corporate tyranny.

Adam Curtis -All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (BBC), Adam Curtis' new and insightful documentary, traced links between Ayn Rand's Objectivism and Bill Clinton's affair, the September 11 attacks, the economies of the Far East and the financial crisis.

Rand's Objectivism, we are told, has given birth to a culture of selfishness among the world's most powerful. For the uninitiated it discourages altruism and pushes for every man and woman to become solely selfish beings, driving their own interests to the bitter end. There is no time for weakness, religion or irrationality and each person should make their priority their own happiness. Rand set out this belief in her two best-selling novels, The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957). Generally, critics hated her but she amassed a cult following nonetheless.

Enrique Krauze -Redeemers

Latin America has been of vital importance to the United States almost since the birth of our nation, and the significance of this relationship has only increased in recent decades. But mutual understanding between these regions is lacking, even as Latin Americans are striving to promote the values of democracy in their native countries and beyond. Why has this process proved to be such a struggle, and what does the future of the region hold?

Krauze explores the Latin American intellectual tradition by deftly animating its decisive figures, from Octavio Paz to Che Guevara, José Vasconcelos to Hugo Chávez, and inscribing them upon a vivid landscape of patriotism, opportunism, morality, and avarice—and of love, honor, loyalty, and identity. Redeemers delivers an unparalleled explication of the roots of ideology and action in Latin America today.