CounterCurrents: The Standing Rock water protectors readying for the Last Stand, Fake News, Hacked Mail, Alternative Facts – That’s Old Hat For Climate Scientists

Dear Friend,

The water protectors at Standing Rock are readying for the last stand. Many well meaning people of USA are also with them. They will challenge the Trump administration order to grant final easement on the Dakota Access pipeline in court. And with actions planned nationwide on Wednesday, the administration won’t get off in the court of public opinion, either.

Meanwhile city of Seattle divested from Wells Fargo, one of the main backers of DAPL. 

Climate scientist are attacked by the ignorant mass media. Stefan Rahmstorf, one of the most respectable climate scientists, writes "Distortion? False information? Conspiracy theories? Hacked email? Climate scientists have known all this for decades. What can be learned from their rich experience with climate propaganda."

Meet the boy Umar, one of more than a thousand victims of indiscriminate pellet gun firing in Kashmir whose eyesight is failing day by day. 

And 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





‘This Is The #NoDAPL Last Stand’: Tribe To Sue As Actions Planned Nationwide
by Deirdre Fulton 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/02/09/this-is-the-nodapl-last-stand-tribe-to-sue-as-actions-planned-nationwide/

The Trump administration “will be held accountable in court” for its decision to grant the final easement on the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL), Indigenous people and environmental allies vowed Tuesday. And with actions planned nationwide on Wednesday, the administration won’t get off in the court of public opinion, either.






Seattle Just Divested Billions From Wells Fargo Over Dakota Access Pipeline
by James Trimarco 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/02/09/seattle-just-divested-billions-from-wells-fargo-over-dakota-access-pipeline/

The movement to stop the controversial Dakota Access pipeline through financial activism took an important step forward today, as the Seattle City Council voted 9-0 to approve a bill that terminates a valuable city contract with Wells Fargo. The bank, one of the largest in the United States, has provided more than $450 million in credit to the companies building the pipeline.






A Universal Revolution Or End-Of-World Scenario?
by Irwin Jerome 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/02/09/a-universal-trump-style-revolution-or-end-of-world-scenario-2/

Will a ‘Trump-Style’ revolution, that already is beginning to show ugly signs of happening, now explode among the world’s other governments or will they instead listen to, and take to heart, before it’s too late, the sacred wisdoms of their own aboriginal peoples or those indigenous mentors and wise ones from among the 194 signatories to the Paris Accord? Or will the future’s new suicidal norm now be Trump’s Way or the Highway and that cataclismic brick wall that inevitably await’s? A lot of unanswered questions and unknowns beckon in 2017 and yet another arduous yesteryear’s journey Back to the Future.  Let’s hope it truly proves to be not only the Chinese Year of the Rooster and the Australian Year of the Kookaburra but the Year of the Awakener within us all.






Fake News, Hacked Mail, Alternative Facts – That’s Old Hat For Climate Scientists
by Stefan Rahmstorf 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/02/09/fake-news-hacked-mail-alternative-facts-thats-old-hat-for-climate-scientists/

Distortion? False information? Conspiracy theories? Hacked email? Climate scientists have known all this for decades. What can be learned from their rich experience with climate propaganda.






Populism In Australia: Channelling Trump Down Under
by Dr Binoy Kampmark 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/02/09/populism-in-australia-channelling-trump-down-under/

But unlike Trump, Bernardi is a professional politician, the very figure of the establishment common room that many Australian voters would have trouble identifying with. The immediate future is more prosaic, though no less problematic for the government. It means that Turnbull will have a fully-fledged reactionary on the Right of the spectrum, a person outside the tent piddling in: a grim proposition for him indeed.






A Portrait Of The President As A ‘Mad’ Man
by Mustapha Marrouchi 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/02/09/a-portrait-of-the-president-as-a-mad-man/

As a business man, Trump developed an attractive yet horrible way of dealing with his innocent dinizens.  He is “so necessarily mad,” as the French philosopher Pascal once wrote, “that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.”  But how can we return to that “zero point in the course of his [Trump’s] madness at which madness was an undifferentiated experience, a not yet divided experience of division itself?” 






The Uncomfortable Truth: Are We Hating Donald Trump For The Wrong Reasons? 
by Dr Ramzy Baroud 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/02/09/the-uncomfortable-truth-are-we-hating-donald-trump-for-the-wrong-reasons/

Trump may be described with all the demeaning terminology that one’s livid imagination can muster: evil, wicked, tyrannical, misogynist, war-mongering, rich buffoon, ‘insulting our allies’, infatuating with ‘dictators’, etc. But do not miss the point. If you chant in the street: ‘I am with her’, with reference to the defeated Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, it means that you are entirely missing the point.






Learning In The Line Of Fire
by Sarah Algherbawi 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/02/09/learning-in-the-line-of-fire/

Wala, 16, always finds a seat away from the windows. The girl is a student at the Hayel Abdul Hamid secondary school in Beit Hanoun, a United Nations facility in the northern Gaza Strip. She has developed a phobia of sitting next to windows, afraid, she told The Electronic Intifada, of stray bullets. Her fear is well-founded. Beit Hanoun lies close to Gaza’s boundaries with Israel, and the concrete wall that marks the boundary is visible from Wala’s school. In such boundary areas Israeli gunfire is common and fatalities frequent






Living In A Man’s World
by Peter Van Els 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/02/09/living-in-a-mans-world/

Let me end by saying that an evolved future for humanity is possible, when wise people are ready to rewrite the twisted history, and uncover truthful findings, so that humanity can finally truly evolve. Otherwise history will repeat itself, because humanity has not really learned, or will learn from its repetitive errors. Let now be the time to rise to greater truths, and become truly free. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” Martin Luther King






A Vision of America’s Future With Ratification Of The USVRA
by William John Cox 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/02/09/a-vision-of-americas-future-with-ratification-of-the-usvra/

Let us imagine two things. First, that the United States Voters’ Rights Amendment has been enacted and ratified as the result of a mass, nonpartisan, political movement, and that we can take a time trip into the future to see the results. Let’s visit that not-so-distant time and observe what the People have been able to accomplish—once they took control of their own government.






GM Mustard Case Returns To Court In India
by Colin Todhunter 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/02/09/gm-mustard-case-returns-to-court-in-india/

This week, India’s Supreme Court will hear the next installment of the case brought by Aruna Rodrigues to stop the commercial release of genetically modified mustard. 






Pellet Hit Umar Nazir -An Untold Story
by Mohammad Shoaib 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/02/09/pellet-hit-umar-nazir-an-untold-story/

This is not the story of a single Umar; same is the story of an estimated 1100 people who were hit by the pellets and bullets during 2016’s heartless summer. A significant number of them are youth whose vision has been impaired, for many of them irreparably. Govt figures say only six people have completely lost their sight which entitles them to govt job. But this is not the complete reality. Truth is that the pellet guns have wrought havoc






Kashmir: Living In Cocoons!
by Mohammad Ashraf 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/02/09/kashmir-living-in-cocoons/

The excessive security measures have forced Kashmiris, historically reputed to be very sociable people, to live in cocoons with only interactions through social networking sites on the internet!






Dalit Middle Class: Mobility, Identity and Politics of Caste
Co-Written by Shraddha Jalan & Swapnil Dhanraj

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/02/09/dalit-middle-class-mobility-identity-and-politics-of-caste/

The emergence of the term ‘Dalit middle class’ should be considered as an important development in the discourse of caste and Dalit politics in India.  This book by G. Srinivas concerns itself with providing empirical evidence to the emergent ideological trends and patterns of identities among the middle class Dalits in India, specifically in Hyderabad city. By focusing on the emergence, growth and consolidation of Dalit middle class in the city of Hyderabad, this body of work, attempts to understand the trends and patterns in ideology and identity among the Dalit middle class.