Society's Child

Austerity, mass migration, centralized power: Italian saga reveals deeper problems facing EU

Sreeram Chaulia
RT
Fri, 01 Jun 2018 17:39 UTC

© Raimund Kutter / Global Look Press
Dr. Sreeram Chaulia is Professor and Dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs in Sonipat, India. His latest book is ‘Modi Doctrine: The Foreign Policy of India’s Prime Minister’.

Rome was neither built in a day and nor did it decline instantly. Italy has been crumbling over the last two decades under the weight of structural malfunction.

The fall reached precipitous levels in recent days with institutional gridlock and economic panic threatening another Europe-wide meltdown.

Since March, Italy lacked a government amid extreme uncertainty and confrontation between firebrand right-wing populists and their liberal opponents. Constitutional principles like the 'will of the majority' and 'checks and balances' wrestled with each other in a nerve-wracking contest of wills.

Notwithstanding a last-minute deal to finally stitch together a government, the saga has revealed deeper underlying maladies. Italy is on the frontline of a fissure gnawing at the heart of the contemporary Western world- nationalistic reassertion vis-à-vis supranational globalization.

Comment: The EU was doomed to fail from the beginning:

Also check out SOTT radio's: The Truth Perspective: Weapons of Mass Migration: Interview with Michael Springmann on Europe's Migrant Crisis

How kids and families pay the real cost of health inequality

Michelle Chen
The Nation
Thu, 31 May 2018 20:05 UTC

© AP Photo / Pat Sullivan
A teenager walks around the track of a park across the street from the Valero refinery in Houston, Texas, on August 4, 2014.

When families can't take paid time off to care for a sick child, the social costs can be overwhelming.

When you're too sick to go to work, you shouldn't be punished for taking time to recover. That simple truth has driven many cities to enact paid leave policies in recent years, guaranteeing paid sick days, or some kind of paid medical- and family-leave time, as standard workplace policy. But those vital policies are still not available to everyone, which is having wide public-health ramifications: Working families most in need of paid time off are both disproportionately poor and more vulnerable to illness, and it costs everyone collectively an extraordinary amount of time and money.

The EU is about to destroy the Internet

IWB
Thu, 31 May 2018 00:01 UTC

The EU parliament will vote on Article 13 in less than a month. Article 13 will get rid of "fair use", will make platform operators liable for copyright infringements of its users (the only way to not be held accountable is implementing far-reaching censorship filters) and it even will introduce LICENSING FEES just for linking to other websites.

This is a transparent attempt to get rid of alternative information sources. It is an attempt to give power over the Internet to a handful of mega corporations and mainstream media. This is the desperate attempt of the failing EU to save their world order by openly authoritarian means. They don't even try to pretend otherwise, anymore.

Comment: They hate us for our freedoms.

Update:

Eyewitness in Douma: Syrian Civilians from Ground Zero Expose Chemical Weapons Hoax

Eva K. Bartlett
In Gaza and Beyond
Sun, 03 Jun 2018 19:11 UTC

Western media keeps referring to an alleged chemical attack on Douma, Syria, as an established fact, but have yet to produce one iota of evidence from the town that, until recently, was controlled by Jaysh al-Islam.

Unverified videos, emanating from the Western-funded propaganda construct the White Helmets, do not constitute evidence, nor do testimonies taken in Turkey or Idlib, Syria, which is under terrorist rule.

On the other hand, there are many testimonies that contradict the accusations, including those of 17 Syrians from Douma (among them doctors and medical staff), who, on April 26, spoke at the headquarters of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in the Hague, stating that there was no chemical attack.

Comment: That chemical weapons were present in Douma is without question. Who they belonged to and who was supplying the manufacturing materials is another matter

Google uses 'Nazi' label for GOP, blames Wikipedia

Charlie Nash
Breitbart
Fri, 01 Jun 2018 00:00 UTC

Google blamed "vandalism" at Wikipedia for inaccurate search results on their platform, which claimed the California GOP promotes Nazism, however Google failed to note that they prioritize results from Wikipedia as an authoritative source of information.

"We have systems in place that catch vandalism before it impacts search results, but occasionally errors get through, and that's what happened here," claimed Google in a statement. "This would have been fixed systematically once we processed the removal from Wikipedia, but when we noticed the vandalism we worked quickly to accelerate this process to remove the erroneous information."

Despite Google's efforts to shift the blame onto Wikipedia's often far-from-accurate information, Google prioritizes results from the site on their search engine, frequently placing Wikipedia information at the top of the page as an authoritative source.

Comment: Is it 'vandalism' or is it a swipe meant to influence?

How the west gets Russia wrong

Paul Robinson
Russia Insider
Tue, 29 May 2018 09:25 UTC

I had been planning to write a post today about the latest report on Russia by the British House of Commons, but something came my way which is so out of the ordinary that it has to take precedence. The item in question is an article by University of Rhode Island professor Nicolai Petro entitled 'Are We Reading Russia Right?' and published in The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs.

I urge you all to read the full text online here, and to spread it as far and wide as you can. But in case some of you only have time for a condensed version, below is a summary of what Nicolai has to say.

The article starts out by describing the extremely negative image of Russia painted by most Western commentators. This image, Petro says, is incomplete. There are indeed many shortcomings in Russia, but under Putin there has also been enormous progress. Focusing entirely on the former without mentioning the latter produces a thoroughly distorted picture.

Comment: Don't fall for the Deep State anti-Russia propaganda.

For years Roseanne Barr has been talking trash about Palestinians and Muslims, without regrets

Mondoweiss
Fri, 01 Jun 2018 00:01 UTC

Roseanne Barr lost her popular show on ABC two days ago after she tweeted a racist and Islamophobic comment about former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett. The network's response was fairly instant, and Barr launched into apology mode.

But as many have pointed out, Barr has a long history of hateful speech about Palestinians and Muslims, and of describing supporters of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) aimed at Israel as Nazis. And she did not suffer career-wise for those comments.

This comment from Barr, about putting Palestinians in ovens, is particularly repugnant.

Comment: Roseanne Barr has always been a bit of a mixed bag. She's been known to talk about MK Ultra, child trafficking, and prosecuting the banksters. But how does someone go from being anti-Zionist to enthusiastic pro-Zionist in such a short period of time? While she clearly isn't afraid to speak her mind, Roseanne is clearly lacking in discernment.

See also:

MSNBC's Joy Reid conveniently changes her position on past blog posts now that the spotlight is on her

RT
Fri, 01 Jun 2018 17:44 UTC

Controversial MSNBC commentator Joy Reid has apologized for blog posts about Israel, 9/11 and John McCain, choosing not to blame phantom "hackers" this time. The network is standing by Reid, saying she has "grown and evolved."

"There are things I deeply regret and am embarrassed by, things I would have said differently and issues where my position has changed. Today I'm sincerely apologizing again," Reid said in a statement on Friday.

On Thursday, the Daily Caller published excerpts from blog posts written by Reid, calling CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer "a former flak [sic] for the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)," and saying that AIPAC is a "powerful lobbying group that holds the whip hand over Republican and Dmeocratic [sic] members of Congress alike."

Why are so many American kids dying?

Dennis Thompson
CBS News
Fri, 01 Jun 2018 17:36 UTC

A perfect storm of murder, addiction and carelessness has fueled a recent and troubling increase in deaths among U.S. children and teens, a new government report shows.

The total death rate for those aged 10 to 19 rose 12 percent between 2013 and 2016, mostly due to an increase in deaths from accidental injury, homicide and suicide, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

In short, the United States is becoming less safe for teenagers.

The primary causes of injury deaths were motor vehicle accidents, suicide, firearms-related murders and drug overdoses, the report discovered.

"For children in the U.S., the rate of deaths has increased recently, and it's from a multitude of these injury death causes," said report author Sally Curtin, a statistician with the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. "You can't just say it's suicide or homicide. It really is a combination of causes."

Torrance, Ca: Police kill snake-dancing man brandishing a knife

CBS Los Angeles
Fri, 01 Jun 2018 17:32 UTC

A man who police say was wielding a knife was shot to death Friday by officers in the parking lot of a Planet Fitness location in Torrance.

The shooting occurred just before 9 a.m. in the 20000 block of Hawthorne Boulevard, according to Torrance police Sgt. Ronald Harris.

Officers responded to the location on "a service call involving a subject brandishing a knife in the area of Planet Fitness," he said.

Police say the suspect - described as in his 30s -had a folding knife that was approximately four inches in length, which he was waving around in the parking lot.

Witnesses said the man was holding a snake and doing some sort of "ritualistic dance" with the snake in the parking lot, according to CBS2's Michele Gile.

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It's also an indication of underactive Thyroid gland, which is absolutely rampant now.

bentpenny

Society's Child

Austerity, mass migration, centralized power: Italian saga reveals deeper problems facing EU

How kids and families pay the real cost of health inequality

The EU is about to destroy the Internet

Eyewitness in Douma: Syrian Civilians from Ground Zero Expose Chemical Weapons Hoax

Google uses 'Nazi' label for GOP, blames Wikipedia

How the west gets Russia wrong

For years Roseanne Barr has been talking trash about Palestinians and Muslims, without regrets

MSNBC's Joy Reid conveniently changes her position on past blog posts now that the spotlight is on her

Why are so many American kids dying?

Torrance, Ca: Police kill snake-dancing man brandishing a knife

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