CounterCurrents: Write-In Voting And Political Protest, Is Humankind Suffering Of A Global Alzheimer Disease?, The Unique Risks Of GM Crops: Science Trumps PR, Fraud And Smear Campaigns

Dear Friend,

If you think the content of this news letter is critical for the dignified living and survival of humanity and other species on earth, please forward it to your friends and spread the word. It's time for humanity to come together as one family! You can subscribe to our news letter herehttp://www.countercurrents.org/subscribe.htm. You can also follow us on twitter,http://twitter.com/countercurrents and on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/countercurrents

In Solidarity
Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org

Is Humankind Suffering Of A Global Alzheimer Disease? 
By Ugo Bardi

http://www.countercurrents.org/bardi310516.htm

Could it be that we suffer from an Alzheimer-like civilization disease? That would explain why civilization never arrives at doing something useful about the terrible threats if faces, first of all, climate change. Maybe there really is no ghost in the machine we call civilization. It is a giant machine that stumbles around while arguing with itself in an endless squabble and getting nowhere


$50 Oil Doesn’t Work 
By Gail Tverberg

http://www.countercurrents.org/tverberg310516.htm

$50 per barrel oil is clearly less impossible to live with than $30 per barrel oil, because most businesses cannot make a profit with $30 per barrel oil. But is $50 per barrel oil helpful? I would argue that it really is not


Building Trust In Afghanistan 
By Kathy Kelly

http://www.countercurrents.org/kelly310516.htm

U.S. people should earnestly ask how the U.S. could help build trust here in Afghanistan, and, as a first step, begin transferring funds from the coffers of weapon companies to the UN accounts trying to meet humanitarian needs. The “giant” could be seen stooping, humbly, to help plant seeds, hoping for a humane harvest


The Unique Risks Of GM Crops: Science Trumps PR, Fraud And Smear Campaigns 
By Colin Todhunter

http://www.countercurrents.org/todhunter310516.htm

The purpose of this piece is to draw readers’ attention to an important chapter from a document by Aruna Rodrigues that discusses the unique risks associated with GM crops. Contrary to what supporters of GM often claim, it shows that criticisms of this technology are based on credible concerns, sound logic and solid science


Write-In Voting And Political Protest 
By William John Cox

http://www.countercurrents.org/cox310516.htm

If America is to continue as a representative democracy, it must transform its government into one that actually represents and cares for those who elect it—rather than the corporations and financial elites who are now paying for election campaigns and bribing the candidates. The USVRA provides a constitutional basis for the transformation of the United States government; however, the energy to compel its enactment will come from the incredible power of the pen literally held in the hands of the People


The EU’s War On Refugees Is Repeating The Disasters Of The War On Drugs 
By Dan Glazebrook

http://www.countercurrents.org/glazebrook310516.htm

The EU’s “war on people smuggling”, escalated last week by David Cameron, appears to be modelled on the failed “war on drugs” – and a new House of Lords report shows it is already producing the same disastrous results


Obama Continues To Ignore Pleas To Free Puerto Rican 
Political Prisoner Oscar López Rivera 
By Matt Peppe

http://www.countercurrents.org/peppe310516.htm

The fact that Oscar López Rivera still sits unjustly in a prison cell is proof that the voices of Puerto Ricans simply do not matter to first-class American citizens on the mainland who hold power


Tolerance And Framework Of Islamic Democracy 
By G.Asgar Mitha

http://www.countercurrents.org/mitha310516.htm

Thus far, the image of Islam has been one of extremism, intolerance and terrorism. That certainly is not what Islam means. It means peace. So what has happened that this religion has been so vehemently tarnished? Historically all great religions have gone through this phase, predominantly by the misrepresentations by the clergy who have exploited the illiterate and impoverished followers. In the past half century Muslim clerics too have misrepresented Islam starting with those who've been exposed to Wahhabi teachings and fundings through their madressas (religious schools) in Saudi Arabia. Thousands of such madressas then sprung up in Pakistan’s cities, towns and villages giving rise to the vulnerable students known as Taliban. Pakistani political leaders picked the cue and bowed to the will of the masses giving rise to “political Islam”


Window 
A Poem By K.P. Sasi

http://www.countercurrents.org/sasi310516.htm

One day
I will open the windows of my dreams
To live in a world where there is no need
to write these words of troubled minds
or even to open the windows of my dreams


A Tale Of Two Vehicles: Sadhvi’s Motorcycle And Rubina’s Car 
By Ram Puniyani

http://www.countercurrents.org/puniyani310516.htm

Can there be two type of Justice delivery system in the same country? This question came to one’s mind with the U turn taken by NIA in the cases related to terror acts in which many Hindu names were involved. Now the NIA in a fresh charge sheet (May 13, 2016) has dropped the charges against Pragya Singh Thakur, has lightened the ones against Col Purohit and others. Along with this new line of NIA is that Hemant Karkare’s investigation in these cases was flawed and that it was ATS which had got the RDX planted in Purohit’s residence to implicate him in this case. The implication is that all this was being done at the behest of previous UPA Government


Dr. Sukant Khurana's Art Exhibition: A New Synthesis 
By Shikhant Sablania

http://www.countercurrents.org/sablania310516.htm

Dr. Sukant Khurana is a polymath of Indian origin who was trained in US and his cutting edge work spans neuroscience, biotechnology, drug-discovery, computation, artificial intelligence, data science, ecology, visual art, sustainable development, various entrepreneurial efforts, creative and non-fiction writing, and philanthropic projects on socioeconomic development. I am writing this article at the heels of his first solo art exhibition in New Delhi at AIFACS starting 3rd of June


Sairat: Love Is Not Blind But Caste 
By Chandra Sen

http://www.countercurrents.org/sen310516.htm

Film industry is considered as working within a binary; films which are considered as social issue based on the one hand and commercial films on the other hand. Films by directors like Shyam Benegal fall in the former category while the rest of the patriarchal/ communal/ Islamophobic/ casteist masala falls in the latter. However, Sairat has destroyed this constructed myth of a binary. It proves that successful star cast, big budgets are not the crucial factors in making a film successful


Peoples’Alliance For Democracy And Secularism (PADS)
Condemns Fundamentalist Violence In South Asia
By PADS

http://www.countercurrents.org/pads310516.htm

The past few years have seen an alarming increase in violent attacks on the democratic rights of ordinary people all over South Asia. Fundamentalist groups are attacking and/or killing people whom they perceive to be challenging their beliefs, or 'hurting their sentiments'