Archives Bellaciao EN 1999-2016

Israel is tearing apart the Jewish people

2011-06-27T17:37:38Z

Israel has never had a government that so blatantly violates the core values of liberal democracy, which dismisses identities of 85% of the world's Jewry.
In June last year, Peter Beinart published an article in the New York Review of Books that created quite a storm by pointing out the deep estrangement between the young generation of American Jews and Israel. A year later, it is time to take stock.
Unfortunately, the situation has only grown a lot worse. In my travels to Europe I speak (…)

- contributions / Democracy, International

Tunisia, Egypt ... Will the US Be Next?

2011-02-05T21:35:43Z

Tunisia, Egypt ... Will the US Be Next?
It is truly scary as an American to admit that the U.S. isn't really a democratic society at all.
Paul Cienfuegos , 04 Feb 2011
American foreign policy democracy Egypt revolution Tunisia
Pooyan Tabatanaei This post is an excerpt from a longer article written by Paul Cienfuegos available at his website http://paulcienfuegos.com/node/79 .
Over the past few days, I've gathered the following quotations from Tunisia and Egypt which feel uncannily (…)

- contributions / Democracy, USA, Africa

WELCOME TO THE VILLAGE

2010-10-25T21:52:07Z

“Where am I?”
“In The Village.”
“What do you want?”
“Information.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“That would be telling. We want information, information, information.”
“You won't get it.”
“By hook or by crook, we will.”
“Who are you?”
“The new Number Two.”
“Who is Number One?”
“You are Number Six.”
“I am not a number. I am a free man!”
This brief exchange opened each episode of the 1960s science fiction drama THE PRISONER, starring the late Patrick McGoohan.
In this (…)

- contributions / Justice, Democracy, USA, David R. Hoffman

Va. woman executed for slayings in 2002

2010-09-24T10:06:15Z

JARRATT, VA. - Teresa Lewis, who plotted with her young lover to kill her husband and stepson for insurance money, became the first woman executed in Virginia in nearly 100 years Thursday night when she was killed by lethal injection.
Lewis, 41, was a mother who became a grandmother behind bars. Wearing a light blue prison-issued shirt and dark blue pants, Lewis looked anxious as she was led by officers into the death chamber at 8:55 p.m. She was placed on a white gurney, with leather (…)

- contributions / Justice, Democracy, USA

Letter from ELDH to Ban Ki-moon

2010-03-16T13:54:51Z

The Honourable Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary General
760 United Nations Plaza
United Nations
New York, NY 10017
U.S.A.
Western Sahara
MINURSO MANDATE
Dear Sir,
On behalf of the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights I would like to thank you for your action in the Case of Aminatou Haidar as well as your comments on the need for a settlement of this conflict.
As you will know, the human rights abuses against those who peacefully oppose the Morocco (…)

- contributions / Democracy, International

Global Petition to Amnesty International: Restoring the Integrity of Human Rights

2010-03-04T19:35:20Z

As organisations and individuals who stand for and support the universality of human rights, we have noted with concern the suspension of Gita Sahgal, Head of the Gender Unit at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International in London, for questioning Amnesty International's partnership with individuals whose politics towards the Taliban are ambiguous.
We come from communities that recognize and appreciate the work of Amnesty International in defending human rights and women's (…)

- contributions / Demos-Actions, Democracy

Online Sex and Other Dreams

2010-02-27T06:50:37Z

This is for all you techies and hackers out there. As I said last time, the fate of the world may be in your hands, and I'm not joking. The fact that you are reading this, perhaps passed on from a progressive friend even though your politics may be quite different from his or hers or mine, or even non-existent, makes my first point. I don't have to tell you, of all people, what an enormously powerful tool the internet is, or that (my second point) there are powerful forces gathering to bring (…)

- contributions / Internet, Democracy, USA

Restore the Power to the People: Amend the Constitution!

2010-01-28T11:17:39Z

¿Plata o plomo? Colombian and Mexican drug gangs ask government officials, judges and police officers which they prefer, “silver or lead,” when offering bribes and threatening violence.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision granting corporations the same free speech rights as natural persons allows them to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections and public affairs.
Corporations, foreign and domestic, can now force politicians to choose silver or lead when supporting or (…)

- contributions / Democracy, USA

Statism Sucks!!!!

2009-11-06T16:43:59Z

For a moral or political principle to be true, it must apply universally to all persons, at all times and places, because all persons have the same biological, mental and social needs. Statism breaks this universality because it starts from the premise that certain people should initiate force in order to suppress the actions of other people.
Most monopolies and cartels exist because of government. Government itself is the biggest monopoly of all, on the most dangerous product there is - (…)

- contributions / Movement, Democracy

THE UNFULFILLED RIGHTS OF HUMANKIND: AMERICA'S BROKEN PROMISE

2009-10-05T05:02:15Z

JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
In what Thomas Paine christened The Age of Reason, democracy supplanted the royal monarchy as the government of choice for enlightened nations. There was much discussion in those pivotal times of human advancement concerning the inherent Rights of Man. Borrowing from England's Magna Carta, the British philosopher John Locke and the French philosophers Jean-Jacque Rousseau and Francois-Marie Arouet (aka Voltaire), Thomas Jefferson immortalized the (…)

- contributions / Democracy, Governments