CounterCurrents: India' s beef ban frenzy is turning to be unimaginably horrific, The Empire Paradox: More Power Is More Weakness

Dear Friend,

Day 66 of Kashmir shut down. Clashes erupt in different parts of the valley. Tomorrow is is Eid and the valley remains tense. 

India's beef ban frenzy is turning to be unimaginably horrific. One of the gang-rape victims of Mewat, Haryana told media that rapists asked her if she ate beef! The 20-year-old muslim woman and her 14-year-old cousin were sexually assaulted by several men in their home in Mewat on the August 24. Their uncle and aunt were tied up and then beaten to death. Only humans can commit such horrific acts. A shame on humanity!

After so much blood and violence good strories have started to emerge from Syria. Franklin Lamb reports from Al-Moaddamiyeh a Damascus Countryside, where rebel  fighters  embrace Syrian soldiers  and chart a new life of peace and reconciliation. 

Dr Glen Barry of Ecological internet charts a new path towards an age of  ecological restoration that will ensure natural ecosystems continue to make Earth habitable.

Daniel Christian Wahl  of  International Futures Forum tells us in the face of multiple converging crises, mere sustainability is no longer enough. Too much damage has already been done. We need to restore ecosystem and community health, and create regenerative systems that allow us to face uncertainty creatively.

“The Garden Of Life” ? Yes, a group of people in Lower Saxony, Germany, has created the “Lebensgarten Steyerberg” out of a munitions factory housing project built in the late 1930s for World War II.    Yes, innovation, creative thinking, communities and Commoning will take us a long way in charting a new path towards a regenerative world. 

And more stories from around the world. 

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Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org




Mewat Gang-Rape Victim Alleges Rapists Asked If She Ate Beef

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/09/12/mewat-gang-rape-victim-alleges-rapists-asked-if-she-ate-beef/

Two women who were allegedly gang-raped two weeks ago in the Mewat region of Haryana one of the women told news reporters that attackers asked her if she ate beef. “They asked if we eat beef. We said we don’t, but they insisted we did. Then they said we’re hurting you before so you don’t and that if we tell anyone we’ll will be insulted”. The 20-year-old muslim woman and her 14-year-old cousin were sexually assaulted by several men in their home in Mewat on the August 24. Their uncle and aunt were tied up and then beaten to death.




Ending Ecocide And Genocide
by Dr Glen Barry 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/09/12/ending-ecocide-and-genocide/

We need many, many diverse leaders that bluntly and truthfully speak and live the language of peace and love for each other and the natural world. Only as we come together in such a manner can the omnipresent prophecy referred to in many indigenous cultures (perhaps apocryphal or maybe not) be realized of peace-makers of the rainbow (much preferred to warriors during these troubled times) rising during a period of natural destruction to regreen the Earth. Let’s make it so.




Creating Sustainability? Join The Re-Generation!
by Daniel Christian Wahl 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/09/12/creating-sustainability-join-the-re-generation/


In the face of multiple converging crises, mere sustainability is no longer enough. Too much damage has already been done. We need to restore ecosystem and community health, and create regenerative systems that allow us to face uncertainty creatively.





Living In “The Garden Of Life”
by Margrit Kennedy 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/09/12/living-in-the-garden-of-life/

Since 1985, an intentional community of about 100 adults and 40 children in the middle of Lower Saxony, Germany, has created the “Lebensgarten Steyerberg” out of a munitions factory housing project built in the late 1930s for World War II.1 The anchor of the community, which is spread out over 65 buildings, is a large community building that serves as a cultural and social center. One of the greatest miracles that we experienced here at Lebensgarten (in English, the Garden of Life), is the greater diversity of skills that people somehow find and develop when the kind of specialists available in major cities are not around. 





Can The Growing Number Of Government-Rebel Reconciliation Agreements End The Bloodshed In Syria?
by Franklin Lamb 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/09/12/can-the-growing-number-of-government-rebel-reconciliation-agreements-end-the-bloodshed-in-syria/

One senses  among those leaving al-Moaddamiyeh this weekend a will to let things calms down, partly due to exhaustion and not being sure of a military solution despite widespread social media posturing notwithstanding.  This feeling at least until they see if a serious transitional process can put agreed and put in place, perhaps under UN auspices. This observer senses, after talking with army and rebel guys that local ceasefires may well be the most effective way of gradually bringing peace to a country where more approximately half a million people have been killed.





The Human Rights Of The Settler
by Neve Gordon 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/09/12/the-human-rights-of-the-settler/

Just a few weeks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that he cares about the rights and lives of Palestinians in Gaza more than the Palestinian leadership does, he posted a new video message on his Facebook wall, arguing that any future dismantlement of Jewish settlements in the West Bank would amount to “ethnic cleansing.” He went on to intimate that insofar as the U.S. and other western countries support the uprooting of Israeli settlements as part of an agreement with the Palestinians, they were, in effect, supporting the cleansing of Jews.




A Flimflam Impeachment: The Overthrow Of Dilma Rousseff
by Dr Arshad M Khan 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/09/12/a-flimflam-impeachment-the-overthrow-of-dilma-rousseff/

What did Dilma Rousseff do to warrant impeachment? According to her opponents, she falsified the accounts to exaggerate the health of the economy, a practice not uncommon among governors. In her case, a fiscal court rejected the 2014 accounting report, which under normal circumstances would have prompted a revision; instead the Senate plotters seized upon it to draw up impeachment papers.





The Empire Paradox: More Power Is More Weakness
by Kieran Kelly 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/09/12/the-empire-paradox-more-power-is-more-weakness/

In response to my recent article on US imperial wars some people objected to my characterisation of the US empire. I wrote: “In global terms the US has never been more powerful” and some were quick to point out that the US empire is very weak. To those people I want to say that we are both right, but the weaknesses of the US empire do not generally affect its functioning. One day these weakness will become very, very important, but we cannot predict when that will be. In the meantime, critics of US empire undermine themselves by their focus on weakness, which often leads to millenarian predictions of immanent collapse.




Money And Power In America
by Bill Moyers 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/09/12/money-and-power-in-america/

The religion of inequality — of money and power — has failed us; its gods are false gods.  There is something more essential — more profound — in the American experience than the hyena’s appetite.    Once we recognize and nurture this, once we honor it, we can reboot democracy and get on with the work of liberating the country we carry in our hearts.




Fifteen Years After 9/11: Is America Any Safer?
by Taj Hashmi 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/09/12/fifteen-years-after-911-is-america-any-safer/

“Is America Any Safer” is the cover story of this September’s Atlantic magazine. CNN and other media outlets are also commemorating the catastrophic terror attacks on the morning of September 11, 2001. Reflecting their collective delusions of persecution, and exaggerated self-importance, Americans in general are perplexed about certain things with regard to 9/11: a) what went wrong with their intelligence; b) why some people hate them so much; c) America is no longer invincible; and d) theirs being “The land of the free and the home of the brave” will always remain “Number One”. However, the politics of fear- and hate-mongering has impaired American minds, which only think Islamist terrorists are the only security threat to their nation.





76% Want Four-Person Debates, Why Are Establishment Elites Preventing It?
by Kevin Zeese 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/09/12/76-want-four-person-debates-why-are-establishment-elites-preventing-it/


A recent USA Today poll found 76% of voters want debates with four candidates including not just the two most hated candidates in history, the Republican and Democratic nominees and their vice presidential running mates, but Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka of the Greens, and Gary Johnson and Bill Weld of the Libertarians.





Controlling Africa With Western “Democracy”
by Thomas C Mountain 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/09/12/controlling-africa-with-western-democracy/

Western “democracy”, a system adopted by slave owners and redesigned to enable the preservation of a system of barbarism, maintained by force and violence, which has been forced on Africa, with this foreign infection subsequently proving to be critical in the continuing subjugation of the African continent by the western powers.




A Moment Of Silence, Before I Start This Poem
By Emmanuel Ortiz, September 11th, 2002

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/09/12/a-moment-of-silence-before-i-start-this-poem/

Here is your silence.
Take it.
But take it all
Don’t cut in line.
Let your silence begin
at the beginning of crime But we,
Tonight we will keep right on singing
For our dead.





Kashmir’s Nationalist Idea
by Naveed Qazi 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/09/12/kashmirs-nationalist-idea/

Our people need to read other nationalist movements happened in the world, where the newly designed States helped in creating a strong economic and political background in countries. To qualify to be a nationalist, one has to be receptive to failures of the present and retrospect from history, and to be a nationalist leader, one has to learn international strategies out of geo-political movements. As Kashmiri people, we need to discuss problems from both sides, and not just think about only one perspective – our local one. Our goals need to be international.




Open Letter To Chief Justice Of India
by Shayesta Nazir 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/09/12/open-letter-to-chief-justice-of-india/

It’s moment of victory given the way incumbent Hon’ble Chief Justice of India has reacted to many a pleas and taken up the matter of ‘judicial clerkships’ in Jammu & Kashmir and by directions from Hon’ble Supreme Court, Jammu & Kashmir High Court has eventually started ‘judicial clerkship’ within J&K State and has invited applications for engaging ‘research assistants’