8 August - What We Have and What We Need

When Agrochemical Corporations Invented Nature
A civil society protest against a British agrochemical company that claims it has invented a particular sort of broccoli has again focused attention on the question who owns natural biodiversity, especially vegetables, seeds, and many forms of meat and animal food products.HT Care2 
Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commanders Supporting Taliban Forces -US Treasury **

 

The US Treasury department has added four Iranian Qods Force commanders to its list of specially designated global terrorists, two of whom are charged with directly providing support for the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.
General Hossein Musavi and Colonel Hasan Mortezavi, both senior officers in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps - Qods Force, were designated on Aug. 3 as terrorists under Executive Order 13224 "for their roles in the IRGC-QF's support of terrorism" and for providing "financial and material support to the Taliban."
On the same day, the Treasury department also designated Hushang Allahdad for aiding Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad; and Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the Qods Force commander in Lebanon, for acting as a "liaison to Hezbollah and Syrian intelligence services" as well as "guaranteeing weapons shipments" to Hezbollah.
The IRGC is tasked with defending the Islamic Revolution inside Iran while exporting the radical ideology to neighboring countries and worldwide. Qods Force is the IRGC's external special operations branch.
** As defined by the agency tasked with unilateral sanctions against a country which bought a U.S.-built reactor decades ago and has had a long time to be vilified for their temerity in providing electricity to their people. The effects of sanctions ? Mass murder by denying drinking water treatment and distribution ,sewage removal and treatment, power to universities and hospitals,etc.,etc. The reactor core is depleted and infrastructure for oilfields embargoed by the U.S.
The price for throwing out their U.S.-imposed tyrant.

But Saudi Arabia doing likewise is A O.K. ? The Taleban were the government that the US overthrew...tossing all experienced bureaucrats out the door...as in Iraq. And the 'reason' for doing so is based on - if not a lie - then certainly a misrepresentation of the facts.
I tried to give an old online friend at They Gave Us a Republic heck for misrepresenting this constantly, just like everyone else. A quick Search turned up the dirt.
http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2010/08/5-aug-dire-warning.htm 

"There was a time that good old America was supporting Talibans and nobody said anything." MH

DUO for World Peace

US SCHOOLS FACE PERFECT STORM

What are some of the structural problems, then? And how do you think they should be solved? And we know there's* kids sometimes even graduating from high school who can barely read. So there's something wrong. I mean, what do you think's wrong? And how should it be fixed?  ( *Common; S/B 'are' or 're )

LEWIS: Okay. So, first of all, we have to stop thinking of school buildings as magic castles where the real world doesn't penetrate. So when you have students that come into your classroom who may be hungry, who may be angry at the world, who may have not just—we used to have this problem: there was an absent father, and Mom's struggling. We have kids that don't have mothers. We have kids that have moms in jail. So we cannot pretend that those factors, that there are all these other factors [sic]. And this is what has happened in our country. We have turned this whole thing around and said, bad teachers, bad teachers, bad schools, when we haven't even begun to look at decades and decades and decades of abject poverty that lends itself to students who do not necessarily perform well.... we've got this new thing where we have a canned curriculum. Every teacher's on the same page every day: you're on this page; you're on this page. First of all, that's not teaching; that's reading. What they're trying to do is de-professionalize teaching and make teaching teacher-proof....what do we know works? The research tells us smaller class size, experienced teachers, and constant resources working with students. All of those things cost money. Right now we have situations where the governments have been starved of resources and revenue for years and years and years and years. Now add on that the recent economic crash, and what you have now is this perfect storm of disaster, where now we're going to pile more kids into classrooms, we're going to have fewer resources...

 The Broken Heart of a Wounded Warrior’s Mother

 For many months, I have kept this issue very private, fearing the judgment of stigma, however, I now know that just over a year later, I am not the only owner of this nightmare.  Each day I see more and more people walking along this bumpy road.  We need to walk together and gain strength from one another. That will never happen if we allow the stigma to stifle us in fear.

More on How Physicians Became Torture Doctors for CIA 

A good amount of documentation on the involvement of psychologists in the torture and abuse of detainees or “terror suspects.” And, a new study provides even more revelations on the involvement of physicians making it increasingly clear that medical professionals put limits on ethical standards they were expected to follow in order to help the CIA interrogate detainees. 

Physicians documented the effects of “enhanced interrogation techniques” [torture] like waterboarding and decided waterboarding “created risks of drowning, hypothermia, aspiration pneumonia, or laryngospasm.” They ignored “clinical experience/research” and assured lawyers “there was no ‘medical reason’ to believe that waterboarding [would] lead to physical pain.”

As suggested in the opening paragraph, it has been evident that physicians and psychologists have been involved in torture for some time, especially since Wikileaks leaked the Guantanamo Standard Operating Procedures Manual in November 2007.  

It was known those involved understood how they could be prosecuted for violating international law.  

( Even though other activities preceded this exploitation of foreigners to research non fatal methods to maximize suffering, laws were passed to ensure international 'restraints' enacted as U.S. law could be violated with impunity. In the 'Topical Index' Law category are notes on American Service Members Protection Act 2002, Military Commission Act 2006, Bilateral Immunity Agreements : international collusion to violate Geneva Conventions and international law )

 

Violence can be prevented  

The most effective solutions are almost never the most dramatic.
They are usually the ones that are thought through in the most rational manner.