CounterCurrents: How Corrupt The U.S. Is: An Extraordinary Example, Jimmy Carter's Blood-Soaked Legacy - Part II, 2016: Oil Limits And The End Of Debt Supercycle

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Binu Mathew
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www.countercurrents.org

2016: Oil Limits And The End Of Debt Supercycle 
By Gail Tverberg

http://www.countercurrents.org/tverberg120116.htm

2016 looks likely to be a much worse year than 2008 from a financial perspective. The problems will look similar to those that might have happened in 2008, but didn’t thanks to government intervention. This time, governments appear to be mostly out of approaches to fix the problems


The Refugee Tragedy And The European Union: The Balance Sheet For 2015 
By Martin Kreickenbaum

http://www.countercurrents.org/martin120116.htm

The barbaric treatment meted out to refugees fleeing to Europe has revealed before the whole world the inhumane and barbaric nature of the European Union. The EU responded to the hundreds of thousands of desperate people trying to escape the war-ravaged regions of the Middle East and North Africa or the social misery of the Balkans by sealing off the EU's external borders, erecting barbed wire fences, locking up refugees in detention centres and carrying out mass deportations


How European Are European Values? 
By Nagothu Naresh Kumar

http://www.countercurrents.org/kumar120116.htm

In the European context, an appreciation of ‘European values’ as products of a remarkable dialectic of ideas and material exchanges rather than singular social achievements means puncturing any essentialist conceptions about regions and embracing a topography of shared histories and future that can go a long way in tempering attitudes towards refugees in contemporary Europe. An understanding that follows from such a viewpoint does not search for or brag about stable, well-polished identities or ideas but appreciates fuzziness and fluidity of identities, as well as the forgotten amalgam of boundary-defying encounters that led to the constitution of European values


Sorry, We Could Not Quite Find The Time For Sexual Revolution! 
By Deniz Bozkur

http://www.countercurrents.org/bozkur120116.htm

Neither Middle Easterners nor North Africans are essentially sexual oppressors, harassers or rapists. The dogmatic world view and the cruelty towards women are not the inevitable fate of these geographies. They are simply the results of a colonial history followed by the promotion of radical Islam against anything that goes against western interests. So is the “refugee crisis” we are facing now. Even though the attacks in Cologne and other cities are abysmal, they are the effect of a history which did not constitute a safe background and time for sexual revolution


Congress Of Vienna 2015 For Global Stability Fails To Address Key, 
Existential Nuclear, Poverty And Climate Change Threats 
By Dr Gideon Polya

http://www.countercurrents.org/polya120116.htm

200 years after the 1815 Congress of Vienna re-organized post-Napoleonic Europe, the Canadian Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership in collaboration with a number of leading policy organisations and universities hosted a lavish Congress of Vienna 2015 to explore policies for a stable world order that unfortunately was opened by mass murderer Henry Kissinger and generated a Draft Report that - as set out in my tough critique, reality check and Alternative Report - is soft, wishy-washy, myopic and predicated on the Big Power- and Big Money-dominated status quo that kills 17 million people annually through deprivation and threatens to wipe out most of Humanity and the Biosphere


The Palestinians MUST Put Their Political Act Together If Their Cause Is To Be Kept Alive
By Alan Hart

http://www.countercurrents.org/hart120116.htm

For several years I have been wondering, sometimes on public platforms and in writing, if Palestine is a lost cause. I have now come to the conclusion that as things are it is and will remain so unless the Palestinians, the occupied and oppressed and the diaspora, put their political act together in order to give their cause new life with some real hope of justice eventually


Jimmy Carter's Blood-Soaked Legacy - Part II 
By Matt Peppe

http://www.countercurrents.org/peppe120116.htm

Five months ago, I wrote an article titled “Jimmy Carter’s Blood-Soaked Legacy” about how the former President’s record in office contradicted his professed concern for human rights. Despite campaigning on a promise to make respect for human rights a central tenet of the conduct of American foreign policy, Carter’s actions consistently prioritized economic and security interests over humanitarian concerns


Obama Offers Definition of ‘Anti-Americanism’ 
By Robert Barsocchini

http://www.countercurrents.org/barsocchini120116.htm

Obama has for approximately seven years censored thousands of pictures documenting US torture of Iraqis committed during the illegal US invasion of their country. The censored photos are supposedly “worse” than those leaked from the US torture/snuff facility at Abu Ghraib. The stated reason for censoring the images is that they would “inflame anti-American opinion”. Thus, by the president’s definition, “pro-Americans” are people who support or are apathetic towards torture and, presumably, the many other forms of imperio-terrorism, including aggression, while “anti-Americans” are people opposed to torture and other forms of imperio-terrorism


How Corrupt The U.S. Is: An Extraordinary Example 
By Eric Zuesse

http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse120116.htm

Out of the world's 223 countries, the U.S. has the world's second-highest incarceration rate: 698 per 100,000, just behind #1 Seychelles, with 799 per 100,000. Seychelles doesn't even have as many as 100,000 people (but only 90,024 — as many people as are in the city of Temple, Texas). By contrast, the U.S. has 322,369,319; so, the U.S. is surely the global leader in imprisonment


The State Of The Nation: A Dictatorship Without Tears 
By John W. Whitehead

http://www.countercurrents.org/whitehead120116.htm

It doesn’t matter that the government has shown itself to be corrupt, abusive, hostile to citizens who disagree, wasteful and unconcerned about the plight of the average American.For the moment, Americans are continuing to play by the government’s rules. Indeed, Americans may not approve the jobs being done by their elected leaders, and they may have little to no access to those same representatives, but they remain committed to the political process, so much so that they are working themselves into a frenzy over the upcoming presidential election, with contributions to the various candidates nearing $500 million


Sri Lanka: The Constitution Making And Brutal Police Murder At Embilipitiya
By Asian Human Rights Commission

http://www.countercurrents.org/ahrc120116.htm

The Government has announced another attempt at constitution making in Sri Lanka which, this time is to begin, with the hope to complete the process, by the end of this year. A resolution to this effect has already been introduced in the Parliament and a Drafting Committee has been named. A valid question that begets asking is; what, does a constitution making in Sri Lanka imply? Some reflections of the alleged brutal murder in Embilipitiya, may provide some answers to this very important question about the purpose and direction of constitution making in Sri Lanka


Mufti, The Schematic Collaborator 
By Abdul Majid Zargar

http://www.countercurrents.org/zargar120116.htm

If Mufti’s schematic political career started with bringing Congress to State it ended with facilitating entry of RSS to Kashmir. It remains to be seen whether his daughter & likely successor does anything to reverse the process to bring a qualitative change & restore the constitutional sanctity of the State. Incidentally she has given a poor initial signal by giving preference to mourning over the more sacred duty of holding a public office


How Relevant Are Madrasas (Islamic Schools) In The Modern Age? 
By Moin Qazi

http://www.countercurrents.org/qazi120116.htm

Let the students of these madrasas acquire a better perspective and a larger worldview and let their knowledge be tempered with liberal thought. We should build a culture which allows the two streams of learning to replenish each other in enabling Muslims to lead lives that are as true to their faith as they are attuned to modem need