CounterCurrents: America’s Oligarchs Support Clinton Almost Unanimously, It Is Not “Ridiculous” To Reject Hillary; It Is Not Undemocratic To Disrupt The DNC

Dear Friend,

Today we have more stories on The Commons, The London knife attack, a revelation on Chelsea Manning, how the natioanlist, imperialist, oligarchy of US is trying to control the US election, on the humanitarian crisis in Narmada valley and Kashmir, a Dalit revolution emerging Gujarat that's shaking the foundations of the Hindutva nursery and many more. Don't forget, this is the breast feeding week!

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In Solidarity
Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org



The Economy Of Wastefulness: The Biology Of The Commons
by Andreas Weber 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/the-economy-of-wastefulness-the-biology-of-the-commons/

I wish to argue that nature embodies the commons paradigm par excellence. With that definition I do not only mean that man and other beings have been living together according to commons principles for an overwhelming majority of time. My argument is more complex: I am convinced that ecological relations within nature follow the rules of the commons. Therefore, nature can provide us with a powerful methodology of the commons as a natural and social ecology. The goal of this chapter is to give a brief outline of this “existential commons ecology.”




Efficiency And The Commons
by Stacco Troncoso 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/efficiency-and-the-commons/

Technology has enabled a massive level of efficiency to serve the rapacious appetite of profiteers and neo-liberal policy practitioners. It has also enabled us to begin to re assert the commons, enabling networking, participation and gifting to re emerge as tools by which people can make a living. It is only a failure of imagination and will that requires us to continue down the path where everything is owned. Participatory technologies, including social technologies like dialogue and collaborative learning and leadership, enable us to reintroduce inefficiency into our world to invite participation in the commons. Slow down, participate and benefit. 




Seeing Wetiko
by David Bollier 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/seeing-wetiko/

One of the most important languages for expressing the values of the commons, I have come to realize, is art. It can often express visceral knowledge more effectively than words and give those insights a more powerful cultural reality. Those were my thoughts when I saw “Seeing Wetiko,” an “online gallery” of artworks, music and videos just released by the global arts collective The Rules.  “Artists and activists from around the world have come together in a burst of creative energy to popularize the Algonquin concept of wetiko, a cannibalistic mind virus they claim is causing the destruction of the planet,” the group announced.





Meaningless Words: Terrorism, Mental Health And The London Knife Attack
by Dr Binoy Kampmark 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/meaningless-words-terrorism-mental-health-and-the-london-knife-attack/

How quick one judges.  The warning about taking the draught of knowledge deeply, as opposed to a shallow sip, before assuming all is clear, should be borne in mind.  A knife attack in London’s Russell Square by a nineteen-year old youth, leaving five injured and one fatality, becomes an instant magnet for terrorist assumptions and a rampant phenomenon.  (True, it was terrifying for those attacked, but an act of terrorism?)




Whistle-Blower Chelsea Manning: “I Became Very, Very Sad” During Torture
by Tom Carter 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/whistle-blower-chelsea-manning-i-became-very-very-sad-during-torture/

A 2015 interview with Amnesty International, published Tuesday in the Guardian, sheds light on the conditions faced by US Army whistleblower, political prisoner, and torture victim Chelsea Manning, who attempted suicide on July 5 and now faces a vindictive campaign of retaliation by the military.




America’s Oligarchs Support Clinton Almost Unanimously
by Eric Zuesse 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/americas-oligarchs-support-clinton-almost-unanimously/

On August 2nd, Carrie Dann at NBC headlined, “Clinton, Allies Have Reserved $98 Million in Ads”, and she opened: “Hillary Clinton and her allies are poised for a TV ad blitz of nearly $100 million dollars, compared to less than $1 million currently reserved on the airwaves by backers of Donald Trump.” That’s a wipe-out of Trump, by the oligarchs.




Patriotic Muslim Dad Hails Dead Son’s Participation In US Crime Against Humanity In Iraq    
by Jay Janson 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/patriotic-muslim-dad-hails-dead-sons-participation-in-us-crime-against-humanity-in-iraq/

Sen. Clinton voted for an obvious International Crime Against Humanity in Iraq. Prez Candidate Clinton features at her nominating convention a Muslin father, whose son died participating in US crime against Muslim people ranting about what a bad guy her opponent Donald Trump is, though Trump had spoken out against the illegal and criminal invasion of Iraq. Trump also faulted for non-participation in earlier genocidal crime in Vietnam.




The Climate Activist Mistake And What Is Needed Now
by Bill Henderson 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/the-climate-activist-mistake-and-what-is-needed-now/

John Michael Greer has written a provocative essay: Climate Change Activism: a Postmortem. His list of activist mistakes should be interesting to many of you but Greer makes the same tactical error as the activists he derides in his ‘postmortem’. Greer is still concerned about winning political and economic battles instead of getting to necessary emergency government as quickly as possible.





It Is Not “Ridiculous” To Reject Hillary; It Is Not Undemocratic To Disrupt The DNC
by Kieran Kelly 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/it-is-not-ridiculous-to-reject-hillary-it-is-not-undemocratic-to-disrupt-the-dnc/

In a post on Aotearoa’s The Daily Blog, a supposedly “leftist” blogger, Chris Trotter, took “Bernie’s die-hard supporters” to task for being “ridiculous”. He was endorsing Sarah Silverman’s words, but after some inconsequential waffle, he took it a bit further: “That makes the ‘Bernie or Bust’ crowd something much more than ridiculous, Sarah, it makes them dangerous.”





An Open Letter To PM Modi From A Sikh Of Kashmir
by Dr Raminder Jit Singh

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/an-open-letter-to-pm-modi-from-a-sikh-of-kashmir/

Hope Sikhs of Kashmir are rescued from their present predicament of woeful distress and writhing agony. Life should be put on wheels again without fear and fright.





It’s Breast Feeding Week 2016
by Marianne de Nazareth 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/its-breast-feeding-week-2016/

So the next time you see a mother tenderly nursing her baby in what is considered public areas, do give her that much needed support and affirmation, especially if you are an older woman. It takes a lot of courage as you can see to overcome the stigma we humans have created in our minds, which other mammals don’t have. It is a natural and much needed practice, which we need to welcome and bring back into the public arena for the comfort of our young mothers.





The Narmada River Valley Disaster: Open Letter To Chief Justice Of India
by S G Vombatkere 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/the-narmada-river-valley-disaster-open-letter-to-chief-justice-of-india/

I have again very recently (29, 30 & 31 July 2016) travelled in the Narmada Valley to meet PAFs in the submergence villages after the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) dam has been raised to its finished height of 138.68-m, with installation of the sluice gates. The on-going monsoon has already raised the water level upstream of the SSP dam and when it rises further as it surely will, it will submerge many villages and habitations, drowning 45,000 PAFs (2,25,000 people). The situation for these PAFs is therefore grim and very serious.





Kashmir’s Women Rulers
by Mohammad Ashraf 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/kashmirs-women-rulers/

Right from the earliest times Kashmir has had some women rulers. There are three womenwho have made an imprint on Kashmir’s history





Uniform Civil Code: Why And How?
by Ram Puniyani 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/uniform-civil-code-why-and-how/

It is true that communal forces which make loud noise on the topic have no interest in gender justice. Their central agenda is to frighten the Muslim community. Here the crocodile tears of those posing to give justice to Muslim women are more than obvious. Gripped in the patriarchal mind set men dominated Muslim organizations also don’t support such campaigns.





Stop Criminalising Communities
by Vidya Bhushan Rawat 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/stop-criminalising-communities/

The term ‘criminal tribe’ was introduced by the British in the legal system. It was definitely a racial profiling or clubbing of communities. It is not strange therefore most of the ‘criminal tribes’ were either Dalits, OBCs or aadivasis. Based on crime committed by one or two individuals, an entire community was placed as criminal tribe by the law which was like Manu’s law where communities used to get punished on the basis of their caste identities.




Kabali: From Caste To Consciousness
by B Prabakaran 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/kabali-from-caste-to-consciousness/

No film has been debated in the public domain, in recent times, as Kabali is being done, especially among the Dalits. Before the release one section of Dalits propagated that the film has Paraya politics. Then immediately, as a counter Pallars declared, “No, this is Pallar’s story”. This was followed by the intermediate caste claiming that “it is the story of migrated Tamil Udaiyar caste in Malaysia”. At last they seem to be arriving at a consensus around the film being based on politics and the image of Ambedkar, even if the story line is not based on him.




The Revolution We Are Waiting For
by Payal 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/the-revolution-we-are-waiting-for/

Everyone is buoyed by the recent Dalit uprising in Gujarat, as we should be. Much as the struggle of the Hyderabad university students taught us to fight against all odds despite the grief that we carry in our hearts, the recent incident of Dalits in Gujarat refusing to pick up cattle carcass revived memories of the militant Dalit struggle of the 1970s.





Open Letter By Burhan Wani To Major Arya  
by Mohd Azhardin Ganayee 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/open-letter-by-burhan-wani-to-major-arya/

I hope you are in good spirits. I will take the liberty of addressing you as my friend. I know that you consider me as a lowly terrorist but now that I am dead, the animosity can take a backseat; at least for the course of this letter. My friend, I am told that you have written an open letter to me. I thank you for making the effort to reach out to me even though it might be a little late. Better late than never.