Civil Society – Page 113 – Public Intelligence Blog

2014/06/142014/06/14

Schwartz Report: Irish Catholic Church Rents Babies (Taken Away from Unwed Mothers) for Drug Trials, Puts the Dead Ones in a Septic Tank — Over 800 of Them…

06 Family, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce

This story broke almost a week ago, but it was so inflammatory that I decided not to run it immediately. I wanted to be sure it was accurate. Nearly 800 dead babies found in a septic tank on the grounds of a Roman Catholic home for “unwed mothers” was just too damning. As time as gone on however the story just gets worse. Here is the current state of the situation. This is part of the trend of the imploding Catholic Church. And I suspect there will be more revelations to come.

The Catholic Irish Babies Scandal: It Gets Much Worse
MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS – AlterNet (U.S.)

It gets worse. One week after revelations of how over the span of 35 years, a County Galway home for unwed mothers cavalierly disposed of the bodies of nearly 800 babies and toddlers [3] on a site that held a septic tank, new reports are leveling a whole different set of charges about what happened to the children of those Irish homes.

2014/06/132014/06/12

Stephen E. Arnold: Libraries Hurt If Net Neutrality Dies

Civil Society, Ethics, IO Impotency

Libraries Hurt If Net Neutrality Dies

The Washington Post blog The Switch interviewed the American Library Association’s Director of Government Relations Lynne Bradley in the article “Why The Death of Net Neutrality Would Be A Disaster For Libraries” about how libraries would be adversely affected without net neutrality. As public institutions with most of their resources online, libraries rely on free Web to serve their users and provide information. With budgets already stretched to their limits, libraries will not be able to afford to pay to ISPs. More people are going to the public libraries to have access to the Internet and other digital services. If that is taken away, not only will libraries suffer, but public education institutions will also suffer.

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: Libraries Hurt If Net Neutrality Dies”

2014/06/122014/06/16

Andrew Garfield: Two New Surveys Suggest Ghani Will Win the Presidency of Afghanistan

08 Wild Cards, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Peace Intelligence

June 12, 2014

For further information contact

Andrew Garfield, 571 228-4813

Two Surveys in Afghanistan Suggest Ghani Will Win Presidency

Both telephone and face-to-face polls favor Ghani over Abdullah in Saturday’s Election

Continue reading “Andrew Garfield: Two New Surveys Suggest Ghani Will Win the Presidency of Afghanistan”

2014/06/122014/06/11

Jean Lievens: Self-Determination as Anti-Extractivism – Indigenous Resistance is Changing World Politics (and Countering Predatory Capitalism)

Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics

Self-Determination as Anti-Extractivism: How Indigenous Resistance Challenges World Politics

Written by Manuela Picq

Monday, 02 June 2014 19:46

Indigeneity is an unusual way to think about International Relations (IR). Most studies of world politics ignore Indigenous perspectives, which are rarely treated as relevant to thinking about the international (Shaw 2008; Beier 2009).

Yet Indigenous peoples are engaging in world politics with a dynamism and creativity that defies the silences of our discipline (Morgan 2011). In Latin America, Indigenous politics has gained international legitimacy, influencing policy for over two decades (Cott 2008; Madrid 2012). Now, Indigenous political movements are focused on resisting extractive projects on autonomous territory from the Arctic to the Amazon (Banerjee 2012; Sawyer and Gómez 2012). Resistance has led to large mobilized protests, invoked international law, and enabled alternative mechanisms of authority.

Continue reading “Jean Lievens: Self-Determination as Anti-Extractivism – Indigenous Resistance is Changing World Politics (and Countering Predatory Capitalism)”

2014/06/122014/06/11

Eagle: Practical Guide to Collapse and Revolution

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics

300 Million Talons... — 300 Million Talons…

A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse

David Graeber

[from The Baffler No. 22, 2013]

What is a revolution? We used to think we knew. Revolutions were seizures of power by popular forces aiming to transform the very nature of the political, social, and economic system in the country in which the revolution took place, usually according to some visionary dream of a just society. Nowadays, we live in an age when, if rebel armies do come sweeping into a city, or mass uprisings overthrow a dictator, it’s unlikely to have any such implications; when profound social transformation does occur—as with, say, the rise of feminism—it’s likely to take an entirely different form. It’s not that revolutionary dreams aren’t out there. But contemporary revolutionaries rarely think they can bring them into being by some modern-day equivalent of storming the Bastille.

At moments like this, it generally pays to go back to the history one already knows and ask: Were revolutions ever really what we thought them to be? For me, the person who has asked this most effectively is the great world historian Immanuel Wallerstein. He argues that for the last quarter millennium or so, revolutions have consisted above all of planetwide transformations of political common sense.

Continue reading “Eagle: Practical Guide to Collapse and Revolution”

2014/06/112014/06/13

Andrew Garfield: Afghan Government Indicted for Fraud – Ghani Wins Unless International Community Fails to Run Polls and Contest Massive Fraud by Abdullah and Karzai

08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Peace Intelligence

Afghanistan On The Brink – The Last Chance For A “Correction”

By Andrew Garfield

Foreign Policy Research Institute, June 10, 2014 – 10:03am

PBI Executive Summary: Significant fraud in first round (at least one seventh of the total votes); 3,000 election staff fired, Afghan government indicted for forbidding polls (the major fraud detection measure) and allowing repeat of massive fraud. New polls indicate Ghani wins easily on demographics alone. If normally standard measures do not counter fraud, election will be polarizing, civil war the outcome, and all investment to date made moot.

Continue reading “Andrew Garfield: Afghan Government Indicted for Fraud – Ghani Wins Unless International Community Fails to Run Polls and Contest Massive Fraud by Abdullah and Karzai”

2014/06/082014/06/07

SchwartzReport: Privatization Eliminates Government As Intentional Ladder of Opportunity — Wages Drop, Benefits Vanish

03 Economy, Civil Society, Ethics, Government

Privatization is the curse laid upon society by vampire capitalism. As this article shows it only benefits the rich, and it degrades the lives of ordinary Americans.

One Percent’s Twisted New Heist: What’s Really Behind Privatization
ELIAS ISQUITH – Salon

As most experts and layman enthusiasts will tell you, there’s no one, single explanation for the past 30-plus years of growing economic inequality. Its drivers are multiple and separating one from the other is often quite complicated. Low taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations, the gutting of labor unions, the increased mobility of capital, technological gains, overly protective intellectual property law; the list goes on.

In fact, here’s another one to add to the list: privatization. According to ‘Race to the Bottom: How Outsourcing Public Services Rewards Corporations and Punishes the Middle Class,” a new study from In the Public Interest, a think tank focused on how privatization affects the economy, the routine practice of outsourcing government functions is another important reason why the middle class is shrinking as those at the very top reap more and more of the fruits of our economy. To explain how that is – and why it’s important that people committed to economic justice push back against the practice – Salon recently spoke with ITPI research and policy director Shar Habibi. Our conversation is below and has been edited for length and clarity.

Read full article.