But no matter what environmentalists do, our best efforts are insufficient. We’re losing badly, on every front. Those in power are hell-bent on destroying the planet, and most people don’t care. Frankly, I don’t have much hope. But I think that’s a good thing. Hope is what keeps us chained to the system, the conglomerate of people and ideas and ideals that is causing the destruction of the Earth.
I was happy, secure, and mostly unafraid until med school. I recall in vivid detail the first orientation day. Our anatomy professor stood before an auditorium filled with 125 eager, nervous, idealistic would-be healers and said these words: ‘If you decide to commit suicide, do it right so you do not become a burden to society.’ He then described in anatomical detail how to commit suicide.
— “Why Doctors Kill Themselves”, by Pamela Wible, KevinMD.com, March 23, 2016
RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA (Analysis) — It’s been nearly two years since Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) unveiled his “Saudi Vision 2030” to reduce the Kingdom’s reliance on oil in hopes of reviving its declining economy. The move was undertaken with the goal of transforming Saudi Arabia into an international investment powerhouse through non-oil trade, as the Kingdom’s oil exports reach a record low and U.S.
Can anyone still doubt that access to a relatively free and open internet is rapidly coming to an end in the west? In China and other autocratic regimes, leaders have simply bent the internet to their will, censoring content that threatens their rule. But in the “democratic” west, it is being done differently. The state does not have to interfere directly – it outsources its dirty work to corporations.
LAS PIEDRAS, PUERTO RICO – In this second part of her interview with MintPress News, Professor Déborah Berman-Santana’s focus turns to the cynical manipulation of post-Maria recovery efforts. The effect so far has been to enrich the powerful and delay return to normal life for millions of Puerto Ricans. You can read part one of Berman-Santana’s conversation with MintPress News here, or listen to audio recording of the interview below.
Largest U.S. Charities for 2016, with private donations received — #37. Planned Parenthood Federation of America, $354 million.
Indigenous and environmental activists scuffled with security guards after attempting to enter and interrupt an auction organized by the unelected President of Brazil, Michel Temer, last Thursday.
We’re embarking on a revolutionary era, an era that promises to be more radical even than the 1930s. No society of overwhelming decadence and moral rot, luxuriantly productive of elite human fungi whose function is but to drain the vitality of the whole, is destined to last very long. No society that can throw up a bewigged slug as its leader has much of a future.
I joined Robbie Martin to discuss the proposed plan to privatize the war in Afghanistan. We talk about the plan itself and the key players involved such as Erik Prince of Blackwater and Stephen Feinberg of Dyncorp.
