contributions

On Thursday morning, Feb. 25, 2010, a sidewalk summit advocating “Medicare for All,” was staged in Washington, D.C., at Lafayette Park, North, not far from the White House. Here are some sights and scenes from that spirited event. For background, see: http://www.healthcare-now.org/

Letter sent on 02/24/2010, by Mr Thomas Schmidt, General Secretary of European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights (ELDH) to the european governments :
Dear Sir/Madam,
With interest but also with great concern we have read the Statement by the Council of the European Union after the Eighth Meeting of the EU-Morocco Association Council, dated 7th December 2009.
We fully agree with the statement of the European Union when mentions the need of “promotion of human (…)

Ed Norris is the former Police Commissioner for Baltimore City. He said our drug policy doesn’t work. Norris urged ‘legalizing” all drugs. He said prohibition doesn’t work. Norris said: “As long as it is illegal, they’re [the drugs], going to be in demand...They’re not killing each other for the drugs. They’re killing each other for the money. And, that’s the problem... You can’t legislate morality.” The ex-Mayor of Baltimore, Sheila Dixon also participated in the exchange of views. (…)

"George Washington" suggests that we use the tools of the enemy, "psychology or marketing techniques," i.e., propaganda, to "promote the truth," and he is quite right to anticipate "ethical reservations," but my reservations are not only ethical but tactical. He is "completely opposed" to using to using these techniques to spread "disinformation," but what in the world does he think would then enable us to distinguish "good" propaganda from bad?
The answer is of course the very "facts and (…)

By William A. Cook
February 23, 2010 "Information Clearing House" — Earlier this month, the Wiesel Foundation for Humanity published, as an advertisement, an open letter to the President of the United States and the leaders of France, Russia, Britain and Germany, a letter carried by the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune. The issue eliciting the need for such a public letter, essentially a letter written to the world, stood boldly as a heading: “How Long Can We Stand Idly (…)

On Monday, Feb. 22, 2010, the Pulizter Prize winning author Taylor Branch, spoke in Baltimore, MD. He talked about the necessity of Healthcare Reform in the U.S. Mr. Taylor drew some parallels with this current struggle for social justice and with the heroic battle for Civil Rights in America, under the leadership of the legendary Martin Luther King, Jr. Mr. Taylor is a noted biographer of MLK. See: http://taylorbranch.com/ The event was held at the Church of the Redeemer in Baltimore. It (…)

The European Parliament will hold a mini plenary session in Brussels this week (24-25 February). The reform of the common fisheries policies is one of the items on the agenda. The EPs opinions on the EU’s fisheries policies have become very important, since the institution now has full co-decision rights within this area. I think that one particular area of the fisheries policies of the EU deserves special attention, namely the fisheries agreements with developing countries.
The (…)

67 years ago today Sophie Scholl was beheaded by the Nazis for distributing leaflets published by the White Rose Society, along with her brother Hans and Christoph Probst. She was 22 years old. I suppose many of us have seen the movie, but I feel a proper tribute to her and her fellow resisters would be to read their words, as printed in their first leaftlet, especially if we substitute "American" for "German" and (with a bit more gumption) "New York City" (WTC) for "Cologne":
“Nothing (…)

[Publisher, Novelzine, 2010,164 pp., soft cover, $15.99]
Baltimore, MD — Stephen Janis is an awarding-winning investigative reporter. The urban crime scene is his beat. His engrossing, surreal novel, “This Dream Called Death,” is his second book.
The fast-paced story is set in the decaying, crime-saturated and once-highly industrialized, “City of Balaise.” It’s a look into a grim, but maybe a not-too-distant future, where your worst fears of an ultra-controlling “Homeland Security-like” (…)

By David Glenn Cox
It has long been offered that politics is the art of telling your constituents to go to hell and then convincing them that they really want to go. It’s the art of convincing them that what they think is good for them really isn’t. Sometimes it’s a promise to make the sunshine brighter or the rain fall on command.
When you ran for office as a Democrat in the good old days you could promise new and better schools, highways and more jobs. It was a pretty easy task as most (…)