Society's ChildS


Better Earth

Peace as a human right

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© Delawer-Omar
"Individuals and peoples have a right to peace."

In the beginning was the word. OK. This is the beginning, and these are the words, but they haven't arrived yet - at least not officially, with full force of meaning.

It's our job, not God's, to create the new story of who we are, and millions - billions - of people fervently wish we could do so. The problem is that the worst of our nature is better organized than the best of it.

The words constitute Article 1 of the U.N.'s draft declaration on peace. What alerts me that they matter is the fact that they're controversial, that "there is a lack of consensus" among the member states, according to the president of the Human Rights Council, "about the concept of the right to peace as a right in itself."

David Adams, former UNESCO senior program specialist, describes the controversy with a little more candor in his 2009 book, World Peace through the Town Hall:
"At the United Nations in 1999, there was a remarkable moment when the draft culture of peace resolution that we had prepared at UNESCO was considered during informal sessions. The original draft had mentioned a 'human right to peace.' According to the notes taken by the UNESCO observer, 'the U.S. delegate said that peace should not be elevated to the category of human right, otherwise it will be very difficult to start a war.' The observer was so astonished that she asked the U.S. delegate to repeat his remark. 'Yes,' he said, 'peace should not be elevated to the category of human right, otherwise it will be very difficult to start a war.'"
And a remarkable truth emerges, one it's not polite to talk about or allude to in the context of national business: In one way or another, war rules. Elections come and go, even our enemies come and go, but war rules. This fact is not subject to debate or, good Lord, democratic tinkering. Nor is the need for and value of war - or its endless, self-perpetuating mutation - ever pondered with clear-eyed astonishment in the mass media. We never ask ourselves, in a national context: What would it mean if living in peace were a human right?

Bomb

Nigeria school blast in Potiskum kills 47 students

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© BBCMedics are treating the wounded though reports say the hospital is overcrowded.
At least 46 students have been killed by a suicide bomber at a school assembly in the north-eastern Nigerian town of Potiskum, police have said.

A suicide bomber dressed as a student is believed to have caused the blast at the boys' school in Yobe state .

Police suggested the militant group Boko Haram carried out the attack.

Yobe state's governor has shut all public schools around Potiskum and criticised the government for not tackling the group.

Comment: With kidnapped girls and ebola and the continuing violence, what makes Nigeria so interesting? Could it be its large oil reserves and that it is the world's 21st largest economy with a low debt-to-GDP ratio?


Sheriff

Ferguson police gear up for worst-case scenario resulting from Michael Brown grand jury decision

ferguson riot
USA Today is pointing out the obvious - that anxiety over the grand jury's yet-to-be released decision over the Ferguson shooting of Michael Brown is growing. A response is mounting to the potentially explosive news:
No matter what a grand jury decides in the case of a white Ferguson police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, people will take to the streets, whether in anger or celebration.

Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III has said he is preparing for "all worst-case scenarios" when the grand jury finally speaks. Police are gearing up for riots. Since August, police have spent more than $100,000 stocking up on body armor, tear gas, handcuffs and other crowd control items.

The [Don't Shoot] coalition created a list of 19 demands they dubbed "rules of engagement," including a plea to police to avoid using armored vehicles, tear gas, rubber bullets or rifles, and to don riot gear only as a last resort.
Police, however, are not ruling out riot gear in an area that has already seen violent protesters, and in turn, heavy handed tactics against protesters and members of the media.

Roses

'The Internet's Own Boy': The story of Aaron Swartz and how the 'old world killed him'

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© UnknownInternet activist Aaron Swartz, 26, was persecuted relentlessly by the establishment before he was found dead in his apartment. His death was deemed suspicious by some
Aaron Swartz was using the Internet in a way that was "challenging" to the US govt, but by trying to make his story a deterrence for any followers, it instead made him an inspiration, the director of 'The Internet's Own Boy' Brian Knappenberger told RT.

RT: Aaron Swartz was basically driven to suicide for standing up to the government for what he believes in. Do you think his fate will put others off following in his footsteps?

Brian Knappenberger: No. I mean I think that treatment of Aaron Swartz was awful and it was outrageous. But I actually think that if it was meant to be a kind of persecution to put people off of this kind of behavior, I think it backfired. If it was meant as deterrence, or it was meant to make an example, as the prosecution said to Aaron's dad and to Aaron's council, I think that effort, probably, backfired.

People are inspired, looked at what he did and are inspired by it. I don't think that the legal efforts against him actually would put off future Aarons. And if anything they'll inspire them.

RT: You said the US authorities made an example of Aaron Swartz. Why was the government so afraid of him?

BK: Well, the government wanted to make an example out of Aaron Swartz, and they did threaten him with huge fines, huge potential jail sentences. And they even said they wanted him to be used as a case for deterrence.

Comment: The Internet's Own Boy is a tribute to Aaron's inspirational life, but doesn't deal with the question whether he was murdered or not.
Did Aaron take his own life or was he killed? Moti Nissani is Wayne State University Department of Biology Professor Emeritus. "Who Killed Aaron Swartz," he asked?

He quoted Bob Marley saying: "How long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look?" He listed reasons why Obama administration scoundrels wanted him dead.

His death "was preceded by a vicious, totally unjustified, campaign of surveillance, harassment, vilification, and intimidation."

CIA/FBI/Mossad/MI5 assassins expertly "mak(e) murder look like suicide." Numerous "enemies of the state" die under suspicious circumstances. Media scoundrels don't explain.

US authorities "had excellent reasons to kill" Aaron. He was legendary in his own right like John Lennon, MLK, Malcolm X and others. He threatened status quo dominance. He denounced Obama's kill list and anti-Iranian cyber attacks.
Aaron Swartz's suspicious death
The bankers, generals, and spooks who comprise our invisible government had plenty of reasons to kill Aaron Swartz, especially because the internet - along with a well-armed citizenry - are the last remaining obstacles on the road to their totalitarian horizon. He was creative, idealistic, and unbendable. He was young and admired by many. If not checked, he might have slowed down the Syndicate's attacks on the biosphere, freedom, peace, justice, free flow of information, and common decencies. So the invisible government probably did kill him. They did so either indirectly through constant harassment, as his loved ones publicly state, or, most likely, directly by hanging him and alleging that he hung himself.
Who killed Aaron Swartz?


Cheeseburger

Best of the Web: Society going mad: Furious Philadelphia women trash McDonald's after missing breakfast orders

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Restaurant Violence: The women threw furniture after being told breakfast wouldn't be served
We all know the disappointment of turning up too late to grab our Egg McMuffin in the morning. However the realisation proved a little too much for a pair of women at a US chain of McDonald's.

The pair began a frenzied attack on workers, picking up tables and chairs and throwing them around the room while ranting and raving.

Baffled customers looked on as the women screamed and swore at them while hurling furniture around the restaurant.

Comment: There's been a lot of this kind of thing lately. Check out the recent brawl on the New York subway:


People are really feeling how screwed up the world is, but they're lied to, and believe the lies about their condition, and so they turn on each other like animals in cages. It's very sad, and it's something to watch out for as it happens more and more regularly.


Hearts

Woman miraculously revives after not having a pulse for 45 minutes

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© Mark Randall/Sun Sentinel/MCT/Getty ImagesRuby Graupera-Cassimiro of Deerfield Beach, Fla., holds her newborn daughter, Taily, Nov, 4, 2014, as she describes her near-death experience after undergoing a scheduled C-section in Sept. 2014.
Doctors glanced up at the monitors to call the time of death for a patient whose heart hadn't beat in 45 minutes and who hadn't breathed in three hours.

Then, they saw it: a blip on the screen.

Ruby Graupera-Cassimiro was alive.

"She spontaneously resuscitated," Boca Raton Regional Hospital spokesman Thomas Chakurda told ABC News. "We had brought the family in. We had announced to them that we had done all we could."

Graupera-Cassimiro, 40, had gone to the hospital for a cesarean section on Sept. 23. The surgery was uneventful and the baby was healthy, but Graupera-Cassimiro started to experience shortness of breath and doctors had to call a code when she stopped breathing. They tried for three hours to revive her but it was no use. She had no pulse for 45 minutes. Then, her heart started beating again on its own.

Doctors think she had a rare condition called an amniotic fluid embolism, which is what happens when the amniotic fluid leaks into the blood stream, causes blood clots and leads to cardiac arrest, according to Mayo Clinic.

"It's normally diagnosed post mortem," Chakurda said.

Heart - Black

Cop throws homeless man's backpack, which contained last remaining photos of his deceased wife, into river

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© Shutterstock

A West Virginia police officer reportedly was planning to resign after throwing a homeless man's backpack into the Elk River in August.

According to a criminal complaint obtained by the The Charleston Gazette, Charleston Patrolman Brian Lightner confronted 26-year-old Andrew Joel Hunt on the Spring Street bridge on Aug. 18 over an argument that several homeless people were having while standing in the road.

Hunt admitted that he had been drinking. And when he refused to leave, Lightner arrested him.

After getting out of jail, Hunt complained that Lightner had tossed his backpack off the bridge, including a laptop with the only photos he owned of his dead wife.

The Charleston Police Department eventually agreed to an undisclosed settlement with Hunt after the dive team recovered his belongings.

Brendan Doneghy, who was representing Hunt on the public intoxication and disorderly conduct charges, told The Charleston Gazette that he found it strange at the time that the police department would file a motion to drop the charges without an explanation.

"I received a dismissal out of nowhere," Doneghy recalled. "It made me suspicious the allegations [against Lightner] were true."

For his part, Lightner called dealing with homeless people a "frustrating job."

"It takes a toll on you," he said.

Charleston Police Chief Brent Webster confirmed had been suspended without pay since Sept. 9. But he would not comment on sources who said that Lightner had agreed to resign to avoid being charged with destruction of property.

Sheriff

Civil asset forfeiture: Police are using a wish list to take your stuff

Buick LeSabre
© Mark Makela NYTA Buick LeSabre was seized in September by the Robbinsville Police Department in New Jersey
The seminars offered police officers some useful tips on seizing property from suspected criminals. Don't bother with jewelry (too hard to dispose of) and computers ("everybody's got one already"), the experts counseled. Do go after flat screen TVs, cash and cars. Especially nice cars.

In one seminar, captured on video in September, Harry S. Connelly Jr., the city attorney of Las Cruces, N.M., called them "little goodies." And then Mr. Connelly described how officers in his jurisdiction could not wait to seize one man's "exotic vehicle" outside a local bar.

"A guy drives up in a 2008 Mercedes, brand new," he explained. "Just so beautiful, I mean, the cops were undercover and they were just like 'Ahhhh.' And he gets out and he's just reeking of alcohol. And it's like, 'Oh, my goodness, we can hardly wait.' "

Comment: For more on this outrageous practice see:

Civil forfeiture: How the police get away with taking your stuff without charging you with a crime

Feds seize family grocery store's entire bank account!

Psychopathic greed: Texas cops steal millions through 'policing for profit'


Quenelle

Poppy Appeal: Joss Stone criticised for sentimentalising famed anti-war song

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The futility of war - will we remember, and learn from history?

“man's blind indifference to his fellow man. And a whole generation who were butchered and damned”

“the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame. The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain.”
The composer of the anti-war anthem No Man's Land (Green Fields Of France) has criticised Joss Stone for recording a "sentimentalised" version of his song, which omits key verses about the horrors of war, as part of the Poppy Appeal.

Stone teamed up with guitarist Jeff Beck to record a revamped version of the song, a reflection on the grave of a young man, Willie McBride, killed in the First World War, which was written by Scottish folk musician Eric Bogle.

Chosen as the official single for the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal, Stone will perform her version in front of the Queen on Remembrance Sunday.

However Stone's soul version, sung to a gospel choir backing, removes the final two verses, which deliver a withering condemnation of the futility of the First World War.

The missing lines refer to "man's blind indifference to his fellow man. And a whole generation who were butchered and damned" and "the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame. The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain."

Bogle, 70, who wrote the much-covered song in 1976, said Stone's omissions "diminished" its intended anti-war message.

"Believe it or not I wrote the song intending for the four verses of the original song to gradually build up to what I hoped would be a climactic and strong anti-war statement," Bogle said. "Missing out two and a half verses from the original four verses very much negates that intention."

Comment: The original version of No Man's Land (Green Fields Of France) by The Furey Brothers and Davey Arthur:




USA

Former judge calls America a police state

Marc
© YouTube Screen CaptureMarc Victor at the Casey Research Conference.
Constitutional and civil rights lawyer Marc Victor answered the question "Is America a police state?" at the recent Casey Research conference in San Antonio.

Frequently in the news while defending clients against police corruption and government abuse, Victor cut right to the chase. "Let's get this straight," he said. "We're a police state. There is just no question that we're a police state."

Victor made the case that the written constitution has been easily bypassed and ignored in a number of ways, something he knows first hand after being kicked off the bench as a judge in Arizona for publicly announcing that he believes that the War on Drugs is unconstitutional.

"The only thing that matters, if you're interested in a free society," is the question, "Do you have a significant percentage of the people with whom you live that have in their hearts and minds a desire for freedom?" according to Victor.

"Today, unfortunately, we have a huge, significant amount of people who are just simply for a cradle-to-grave welfare state. That's what they like. They're for big government. They don't call it tyranny, but I would call it tyranny."