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Image via CrunchBaseNew Frontiers in Economic Barbarism
The growing militarisation of police
Is access to military-grade weapons changing the mentality of crowd control?The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has granted $34 billion over the last 10 years to state and local police departments to combat terrorist threats and drug trafficking. But critics say the advanced military-level training and weapons for police aren’t being used against Al Qaeda. Instead they are being utilised for crowd control in protests.
Outside of the United States, police forces in other nations have increased their use of non-lethal weapons to control riots. In the UK, authorities are testing the use of lasers that cause temporary blindness.
Social media is putting a spotlight on police brutality and military-style tactics used against protesters. Videos and images from Occupy Wall Street encampments to college campuses show police officers aggressively using pepper spray, tear gas, sound cannons and other weapons that have been described as “non-lethal.”
In this episode of The Stream, we examine the increasing militarisation of civilian law enforcement with Alex Vitale, associate professor of sociology at Brooklyn College, and Spencer Ackerman, senior reporter at Wired Magazine.
The Obama administration and The New York Times are teaming up to expose and combat the grave threat posed by a Twitter account, purportedly operated by the Somali group Shabab, and in doing so, are highlighting the simultaneous absurdity and perniciousness of the War on Terror. This latest tale of Dark Terrorist Evil began on December 14 when the NYT‘s Jeffrey Gettleman directed intrepid journalistic light on the Twitter account maintained under the name “HSMPress,” which claims to be the press office of Harakat al-Shabab al-Mujahedeen, the Shabab’s full name. Gettleman’s article included this passage early on in its account:
But terrorism experts say that Twitter terrorism is part of an emerging trend and that several other Qaeda franchises — a few years ago the Shabab pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda — are increasingly using social media like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter.That has to be the single most amusing phrase ever to appear unironically in the Paper of Record: Twitter terrorism. And, of course, the authority cited for this menacing trend is that ubiquitous sham community calling itself “terrorism experts,” which exists to provide the imprimatur of scholarly Seriousness on every last bit of inane fear-mongering hysteria.
What is more likely than compulsory action is thuggish extra-legal intimidation aimed at Twitter to “voluntarily” close the account. That path is less overt but just as insidious, if not more so. That is how government officials such as Joe Lieberman succeeded in cutting off all of WikiLeaks’ funding sources and web hosting options without the bother of charging that group with a crime: by demanding that Amazon, Master Card, Visa, Paypal and others “on their own accord” terminate WikiLeaks’ accounts and refuse to provide the group with any services. As EFF’s Trevor Timm asked today: “How fast does Joe Lieberman release a statement today saying we should censor the Net in the name of national security? I bet before noon.”
Cupcake Deemed 'Security Threat,' Confiscated By TSA
TSA: Frosting Too 'Gel-Like,' Posed Risk
Read more: http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/30062442/detail.html#ixzz1hP9q4sQU
Manning to be charged with aiding terrorists
( Presumably that means Julian Assange )
Global harms of industrial ag: We know enough.
Last month global experts released yet another report linking industrial agriculture with the dramatic degradation of soil, water and other natural resources currently threatening our ability to feed ourselves.
The State of the World's Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture (SOLAW), released by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization calls for new national policies in countries across the globe to effectively support sustainable management of water and land.It also recommends investment in local agricultural knowledge, together with modern technology and innovative farming practices such as conservation agriculture, agro-forestry, integrated crop-livestock systems and integrated irrigation-aquaculture. These systems will expand production, address food security and limit harmful impacts on fragile and pressured ecosystems.
Water & soil in crisis worldwide
The SOLAW authors report that in cereal producing areas across the globe, intensive groundwater use is drawing down aquifer storage and threatening the groundwater sources upon which rural communities depend. At the same time, food production is threatened by degradation of water quality from salinization, excessive build up of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, contamination by pesticides and the disappearance of wetlands.Best practices can protect, nourish, even build soil — if we haven't destroyed it altogether
Water quality and availability are inextricably linked to how we mange (or destroy) soils. While it takes thousands of years to develop soil, industrial agriculture practices can destroy soil at a rate 10 to 100 times its rate of formation. According to a 2006 Cornell University study, the vast majority — 99.7% — of human food comes from cropland, which is shrinking by more than 10 million hectares (almost 37,000 square miles) a year due to soil erosion by wind and water.
Scholarship and Advocacy: Bomb Iran Edition
Rick Perry Fracks Up, Denies Link to Groundwater Pollution
www.truth-out.org
The US Senate Appropriations Committee, in a move initiated by the Obama administration, has voted to waive Bush-era human rights restrictions on military aid to the Islam Karimov dictatorship in Uzbekistan, one of the most brutal and repressive regimes on the planet.
www.disinfo.com
Adrianne Jeffries explains the downside of maintaining a social media presence for Betabeat: Let’s take a trip with the Ghost of Christmas Future. The year
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