CounterCurrents: Banking System In Trauma Care in India

Dear Friend,

India's demonetisation drive is pushing even the banking system into a coma. Most of the banks do not have cash. Most of the ATMs are not working. If they are filled, they get emptied in hours. There are reports of banks being attacked and bank officials seeking the safety of the police. 

Today, one of my friends went to a bank in Bangalore and met the branch manager.  He said the cash the bank received from Reserve Bank of India is only enough to disburse for a few hours, that too below the allowed withdrawal limit of Rs 24,000. He said he doesn't know what will happen on Monday. The bank employees fear that at anytime the bank can be attacked by the mob. Loans are not being disbursed. The whole banking system has come to a standstill. We are speaking of Bangalore, the IT capital of India, where the most e-educated Indians live! If that's the situation in Bangalore, you can imagine what's happening elsewhere and especially rural India. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance minister Arun Jaitley said yesterday that India is moving to a cashless society. We should suspect whether this cash shortage is deliberately created to push people to accept a 'Cashless India'. If that's the case that would one of the most tragic social engineering projects of human history. 

US president-elect Donald Trump expressed his support for the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) ahead of an evacuation order, due to go into effect on Monday. 

Veterans have arrived at Standing Rock to act as human shields. Sarah van Gelder and Rachel Olivia O'Connor puts forward some ideas how you can help the water protectors without being physically present at the site. 

Also more stories from around the world. 

If you don't mind, and 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 here http://www.countercurrents.org/news-letter/.

In Solidarity

Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org




Trump Declares Support For Dakota Access Pipeline Ahead Of Evacuation Order Against Protesters
by Joseph Kishore

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/03/trump-declares-support-for-dakota-access-pipeline-ahead-of-evacuation-order-against-protesters/

US president-elect Donald Trump expressed his support for the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) ahead of an evacuation order, due to go into effect on Monday, against thousands of people protesting the oil pipeline project.





Veterans Arrive At Standing Rock To Act As ‘Human Shields’ For Water Protectors
by Nika Knight

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/03/veterans-arrive-at-standing-rock-to-act-as-human-shields-for-water-protectors/

As tensions grow in North Dakota, with multiple eviction orders facing the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in their battle against the Dakota Access Pipeline, U.S. military veterans on Friday began arriving at the Oceti Sakowin protest camp.





The Many Ways to Help Standing Rock
by Sarah van Gelder 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/03/the-many-ways-to-help-standing-rock/

Even if you can’t show up at the wintry encampments, you can join water protectors in other ways: from calling the North Dakota governor to breaking up with your bank.






Standing Rock Stand From A Distance
by Rachel Olivia O'Connor 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/03/standing-rock-stand-from-a-distance/

WHY ISN’T EVERYONE GOING THERE? (Why aren’t we, all of us, going there?)
For most people, the immediate answer is that it’s too far. Or that they’ve got work where they are, or that they have family responsibilities.  But they are excuses. In the sense that even if one is remaining at home, one can do more than simply watch the mainstream media footage, or the so-called alternative media coverage that comes down. In the sense that there’s no reason whatsoever that anyone can’t become a proactive participant in next week’s movement in solidarity at Standing Rock.From a distance.





“My Whole Heart Is With You Tonight”: A Letter To The Dakota Access Front Line
by Kelly Hayes 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/03/my-whole-heart-is-with-you-tonight-a-letter-to-the-dakota-access-front-line/

I write these words on what’s a cold night in my city, and a much colder night where my heart is—with my friends in Standing Rock. My writing, which typically centers movements, often sways between news and analysis. My coverage of #NoDAPL has been no exception. But this piece is neither news nor analysis, because these words are for you, my people, for our protectors and resisters—for those who aren’t seeking to be heroes but who are nonetheless members of heroic movements and communities.






Water, History, And Finance Converge As Sioux Nation Mounts Storied Battle Over Oil Pipeline
by Keith Schneider 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/03/water-history-and-finance-converge-as-sioux-nation-mounts-storied-battle-over-oil-pipeline/

Viewed in one dimension, the standoff over construction of a 1,172-mile, $US 3.8 billion oil pipeline pits thousands of protesters massed on the prairie to safeguard a sole source of tribal drinking water from the fossil fuel industry and its allies in government and finance. But so many other dimensions of history, law, human rights, justice, finance, and climate change motivate the campaign to halt the Dakota Access pipeline. What has emerged on the wintry plains of North Dakota is a distinctive, if not unique event in the history of American environmentalism, and a seminal struggle over civil rights and Native American sovereignty.






The Great Deceleration
by Alex Jensen 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/03/the-great-deceleration/

Downscaling the economy, therefore, is not only necessary to save and perhaps enable regeneration of our beleaguered earthly home; it is also a genuinely humane, anti-poverty agenda. This may sound counter-intuitive to those marinading in trickle-down theory.






Why Are Media Outlets Still Citing Discredited ‘Fake News’ Blacklist?
by Adam Johnson 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/03/why-are-media-outlets-still-citing-discredited-fake-news-blacklist/

Almost everyone outside of  the Washington Post who critically examined the list concluded it was at best shoddy and ill-considered, and at worst a deliberate attempt to encourage a chilling effect on Russia-related reporting. That a group of Cold Warrior hacks would publish such a blacklist is not a surprise; that one of the most established names in American news would uncritically parrot it was. Its reporting, writing-up and referencing is a prime example of how fake real news on real fake news spreads without question.






Trump Outlines Right-Wing Program Of Extreme Nationalism At Cincinnati Rally
by Joseph Kishore 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/03/trump-outlines-right-wing-program-of-extreme-nationalism-at-cincinnati-rally/

In a rally in Cincinnati, Ohio on Thursday night, US President-elect Donald Trump outlined the right-wing program of extreme “America First” nationalism of the incoming administration. The Cincinnati speech was unlike any delivered by a president or president-elect in US history. It was a combination of blatant contradictions, exaggerations, wild hyperbole, empty demagogy and praise for himself as the man who would fix all the problems facing the country. It combined threats against political enemies with pledges to work with anyone and everyone to overcome gridlock and restore American jobs.






Plucking The Foreign Goose: Australia’s Tax On Backpackers
by Dr Binoy Kampmark 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/03/plucking-the-foreign-goose-australias-tax-on-backpackers/

The nature of the ploy is traditionally extortionate, a classic initiative of plunder. It involves changing the status of the short term, working holiday maker, truly the great bread and butter provider for the Australian farmer.  From July 1, 2016, the government, as the Budget Review Index notes, involves changing “the tax status of temporary working holiday makers from that of resident, to that of non-resident”






Liberal Disconnect
by Rahul Jayaram 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/03/liberal-disconnect/

American liberals have been pushed to reflect on their disengagement with common non-urban Americans. At a time of such funk, Michael Moore and Bernie Sanders have enumerated concrete ways to rebuild the Democratic Party. Under Modi’s rule, India’s urban liberals have come a cropper.





The History Of Ambedkarite Movement In United Kingdom
by Vidya Bhushan Rawat 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/03/the-history-of-ambedkarite-movement-in-united-kingdom/

Mr Arun Kumar, General Secretary, Federation of Ambedkarite and Buddhist Organisations ( FABO), UK and Ambedkar Mission Society, Bedford in conversation with Vidya Bhushan Rawat






Book Review: Nationalism And Imagination
by Ain ul Khair 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/03/book-review-nationalism-and-imagination/

Nationalism and Imagination which is a transcript of one of her lectures at University of Sofia in Bulgaria is a very rigorous philosophical work which touches many areas of study.