we see the connections between animal husbandry and pollution in the ocean, diminishment of life in the seas, the destruction of the rainforests and climate change. Veganism is real conservation in action. It goes beyond talking about climate change and diminishment of biodiversity and actually does something to address the problems.
“A string of at least 69 arrests in France this week on the vague charge of ‘defending terrorism’ (‘l’apologie du terrorisme’) risks violaing freedom of expression,” Amnesty International said in an understated press release on Friday.
Due to these “transit risks for European consumers in the territory of Ukraine,” Gazprom cut gas exports to Europe by 60%, plunging the continent into an energy crisis “within hours.” Perhaps explaining the explosion higher in NatGas prices (and oil) today, gas companies in Ukraine confirmed that Russia had cut off supply; and six countries reported a complete shut-off of Russian gas.
Paralyzing an eviction is an act of civil disobedience: we understand it against laws that we consider unjust, actively disobeying them is not only a right but also a duty of the population. This disobedience is not gratuitous: it is
rooted in a superior legality systematically violated by the Spanish state: that of human rights.
claims over the sacrosanct status of ‘free speech’ and its expression as ‘satire’ cannot elide the more elementary issue of human consideration and social responsibility. As cartoonist Joe Sacco observes, Hebdo’s output is a “vapid way to use a pen.” One might also add, pernicious, vulgar and racist.
Like the rest of the media, the Guardian protests passionately when ‘bad guys’ commit an atrocity against ‘us’, but emotive defences of free speech are in short supply when ‘good guys’ bomb Serb and Libyan TV, or threaten the life of progressive US filmmakers. Far fewer tears are shed for Serb, Libyan or Palestinian journalists in US-UK corporate media offices.
it came to a significant ideological turning point at the end of the 1990s. Philippe Val supported NATO’s military intervention in Kosovo in 1999 and adopted an anti-Palestinian position during the Second Intifada. From then on it took on Islam, which was seen as a fundamental threat.
ISIS was itself birthed in the chaos that accompanied our invasion and conquest of Iraq, and McCain and the War Party are intent on duplicating that Orc factory in the territory of Syria.
In the West, journalists are usually threatened with jail rather than assassination, which can be a risk in some countries around the world, but nevertheless there is a lot of fear which is ‘corrosive’ and ‘damages the capacity of the press to serve democracy.’
It was not pencils and pens – let alone ideas – that left Iraq, Gaza and Afghanistan shattered and hundreds of thousands of human beings dead. Not twelve. Hundreds of thousands. All with stories, with lives, with families. Tens of millions who have lost friends, family, homes and watched their country be torn apart.
The terrorist attack in France that took place at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo was not about free speech. It was not about radical Islam. It did not illustrate the fictitious clash of civilizations. It was a harbinger of an emerging dystopia where the wretched of the earth, deprived of resources to survive, devoid of hope, brutally controlled, belittled and mocked by the privileged who live in the splendour and indolence of the industrial West, lash out in nihilistic fury.
This points right at – what else – blowback. Yes, they could be Daesh/ISIS/ISIL mercenaries trained by NATO (crucially, France included) in Turkey and/or Jordan. But it might get even false-flag nastier. They could also be former or current French special forces.
