Many Americans facing unemployment and home foreclosures today rightly blame the excesses of unfettered Wall Street greed. They rightly see the contribution to financial chaos made by the removal of regulations by a Congress, White House, and Supreme Court bought by corporate wealth.
Source: Al Jazeera
One does not think of archaic papal bulls when witnessing democratic states like Brazil or the United States building dams on Amazon rivers or drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean. Yet today’s political ethics are surprisingly similar to the doctrine of discovery set by the Vatican back in 1452.
Fifteenth-century papal bulls that declared war against all non-Christian peoples also encouraged the conquest and exploitation of enemy territories throughout the world. European explorers like Columbus took possession of newly “discovered” non-Christian lands with the express authorisation of the Catholic Church.
Throughout the world, women are working to make peace in areas torn by war and resource conflicts. Sometimes this means creating a peace zone, a space of safety in the midst of violence. In other places, women are at the forefront of efforts to end national or regional conflicts.
Timbuktu was once a metaphor for the middle of nowhere. Now it is in the middle of a struggle that has important implications for the whole Sahel zone that runs from Senegal to Sudan.
Source: Shareable.net
For the past year powerful voices around Washington have singled out programs to improve biking and walking as prime examples of wasteful government spending.
Since last summer, Republican proposals have flown around the Capitol to eliminate all designated funds to make biking and walking safer—even though biking and walking account for 12 percent of all trip across America but receive only 1.6 percent of federal funding.
Last week (March 29) the U.S. House of Representatives—a hotbed of opposition to biking and walking as well as transit programs—voted to extend the current surface transportation bill for another three months, saving the funding of bike and ped programs. The Senate followed two hours later. (This marks the 9th extension of the existing transportation bill since 2009 and another victory for the growing movement to ensure federal support for biking and walking projects.)
Few nations have such extensive borders or coasts as the United States. Few have borders as blessedly uncontested and unthreatened. Why, then, is the US so contemptuous of international law? Why does the US intervene in and invade other lands, often far from our shores, with such alarming frequency?
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019