Monday, October 29, 2018
Values Ethics & Morality
It isn't the I-pad that makes things happen, it's the idea. While the invention of the blog platform made it possible for 'bloggers of resistance' to communicate with a mass audience, it was the 2003 'Green Zone' war-profiteering that inspired them to write. Likewise in the wake of the 2008-2009 Wall Street bailout--leading to the 2010 mass foreclosures and evictions--citizen journalists attacked the corporate establishment online. The 2012 #Occupy campaign exposed the culprits.
With the 2016 socialist revolution--ignited by the Bernie Sanders campaign--the launch of The Intercept by Glenn Greenwald and a new wave of independent reporters are prompting the discussion of values, ethics and morality, especially as applied to the central conflict between indigenous nations and modern states.
With the 2016 socialist revolution--ignited by the Bernie Sanders campaign--the launch of The Intercept by Glenn Greenwald and a new wave of independent reporters are prompting the discussion of values, ethics and morality, especially as applied to the central conflict between indigenous nations and modern states.
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
An Affront to Civilization
According to the Irish novelist Eoin McNamee, the armed border partitioning the island of Ireland was "a moral wrong, in the sense that the Berlin Wall was a moral wrong, an affront to civilization." Now, two decades since that partition was removed, English nationalists--opposed to open borders--threaten to return Ireland to the troubling past of manned security checkpoints and wanton violence that terrorized its citizens.
As Andrew Maxwell puts it,
As Andrew Maxwell puts it,
It's not the Irish border--It's the British border in Ireland. The Irish border is the beach.
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Scapegoating Strategy
The criminalization of homelessness--blaming the victim--is the latest GOP electoral campaign scapegoating strategy. As noted at CounterPunch,
There isn't a single county in the United States where you can rent a two-bedroom, market-rate apartment working a full-time, minimum-wage job. Many of our neighbors are one emergency or missed paycheck away from losing their homes.
Thursday, October 18, 2018
Data for Progress
Small donors can make a big difference in defeating Republicans across the country.
Thursday, October 04, 2018
Pattern of Deception
Inherited fortune and tax fraud made Donald Trump a wealthy man. As the New York Times special investigation, Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father, notes, The president has long sold himself as a self-made billionaire, but a Times investigation found that he received at least $413 million in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate empire, much of it through tax dodges in the 1990s.
Tuesday, October 02, 2018
Critical Thinking
Language is not neutral. That is one of the lessons drawn by Paige Raibmon, professor of history at the University of British Columbia, in As I Remember It: Teachings from the Life of a Sliammon Elder--the K-12 textbook she co-authored about relations between Indigenous Peoples and Europeans.
As Raibmon observes, assumptions are not universal, but rather, culturally specific to a people, place and time. Many assumptions presented by Europeans as universal, she says, unwittingly promote continuity of the racist concepts these assumptions are based on.
As Raibmon observes, assumptions are not universal, but rather, culturally specific to a people, place and time. Many assumptions presented by Europeans as universal, she says, unwittingly promote continuity of the racist concepts these assumptions are based on.
As Raibmon notes, We all believe at some point that our particular ideas and practices are the norm. Those of us who benefit from various forms of privilege can retain that illusion because the world around us endorses our perspective. This is why the “First Peoples Principle of Learning” that “Learning requires exploration of one’s identity” applies to all learners of all ages. It invites non-Indigenous learners to start with themselves, rather than the Indigenous “other.”
