To Understand Fidel's Legacy Read Outside the US News Box

US news is full of hate and disrespect. One Canadian blogger writes and I agree, "Despite squeals the bottom line for Castro is that he made the vast majority of Cubans better off, and even after Soviet aid was cut off, Cuba under Castro was able to recover.  Cuba, like all nations, suppresses some political dissent, but it is far from a police state and has a far smaller percentage of people imprisoned than the US, and those prisoners are treated far better than American prisoners.  Human welfare statistics are high, including lifespan, infant mortality, education and so on.

One can qualify Cuba’s success, but it is, overall, a success, especially compared to most Latin and South American countries.

As for Castro himself, he outlived pretty much all his enemies and many of their children, and died in bed.  Can’t ask for much more than that as a revolutionary leader."  From Castro’s Legacy | Ian Welsh:

From the UK Guardian this is thorough and historical journalism and I highly recommend reading it first.  Fidel Castro obituary: revolutionary icon finally defeated by infirmity of old age | World news | The Guardian:

I  follow Corbyn and value his perspective. Castro was ‘champion of social justice’ despite flaws, says Corbyn | World news | The Guardian:

I will add more articles as the come in

Bringing back the commons: Land Trust idea is taking root in France

Why Are the Residents of This Small Village So Happy? They're Managing Their Farmland as Commons

When we attended the Convergence in Hopland earlier this year, one of the most urgently felt workshops I participated in was about the commons.  There is a dire need for land and housing to be taken out of the speculative market and cooperatively managed  in perpetuity if we are to move toward a sustainable future. These authors says of this community that, "their fundamental premise is that the value of farmland lies in its contribution to food production, lasting ecosystems and human life—not financial gain."

By Véronique Rioufol, Sjoerd Wartena / Levellers Press November 18, 2016

http://www.alternet.org/food/why-are-residents-small-village-so-happy-theyre-managing-their-farmland-commons?akid=14897.228694.WkGXNJ&rd=1&src=newsletter1067467&t=22

Will Trump's Immigration Crackdown Be a "Cash Machine" for Military and Private Prison Contractors?

A holding facility for children detained at the U.S.-Mexico border in Nogales, Arizona. (photo: Ross D. Franklin)

Of course they will. This will be one of thousands of deeply corrupting laws the will be passed to benefit big business and harm people and we will pay for it. However let us not forget that the Obama administration was already in the lead in building this marriage of police state and business. We have been at this a long time and we can not blame Trump without losing sight of the big picture.
Will Trump's Immigration Crackdown Be a "Cash Machine" for Military and Private Prison Contractors?:

I offer this repost for my friend suffering from post election dread

Your Responsibility for the American Election

2016 NOVEMBER 6

by Ian Welsh

My friends, and the people who read me because they love to hate me:

There are a few hundred people in America who have noticeable individual influence over America’s elections and political system.

You aren’t one of them.

Responsibility is proportionate to power. As an individual American, your individual responsibility is miniscule.

It’s not your fault.

Now, as a group, Americans have great responsibility; Americans are responsible for America.

Americans are responsible, but most individuals have so little responsibility that they might as well have none.

I bring this up because I am seeing people in vast amounts of stress, guilt, anger, and fear over the election.

Don’t.

Also, even if you think that a particular result will be bad for you personally, the same rule applies: There is so little you can do about it, worrying about it is worrying about something over which you have no control.

This, my friends and haters, is a great way to be fantastically unhappy all the time.

Now, it’s easier said than done to stop a lifetime of worrying about stuff you can’t control, but the first step is understanding the pointlessness of it.

The food is still good, the world still holds plenty of beauty, and there is still happiness to be found.

But not if you are tying yourself in knots of guilt or worry over events over which you have no control.

Go do something nice for yourself, or someone else (doing something nice for someone else is one of the best things you can do for yourself), and let it all go.

http://www.ianwelsh.net/your-responsibility-for-the-american-election/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IanWelsh+%28Ian+Welsh%29

Read this New York Times op-ed post-election by Bernie Sanders

Bernie is not the final word on democracy nor fixing this broken system.  He is not the spokesperson for the Occupy Movement Redux.  You may not agree with his decision to support Hillary, you may blame him for her defeat, but his assessment is worth a read.

LOL, love this image.  Looks like the leadership is firmly planted at the bottom of a cesspool!

He begins, "Millions of Americans registered a protest vote on Tuesday, expressing their fierce opposition to an economic and political system that puts wealthy and corporate interests over their own. I strongly supported Hillary Clinton, campaigned hard on her behalf, and believed she was the right choice on Election Day. But Donald J. Trump won the White House because his campaign rhetoric successfully tapped into a very real and justified anger, an anger that many traditional Democrats feel."

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/opinion/bernie-sanders-where-the-democrats-go-from-here.html?_r=1&referer=https://t.co/zRRkendrzz

Klein is one of my favorites and here is her take on what is predictably happening on the left because of Hillary's defeat

First my suggestion. Read this now, then turn off your TV and your so-called Progressive news feeds, take a mental vacation to clear your brain of the political plaque, hate, fear, blame and victimization. The Democratic party is full of this and can go suck lemons .

Klein is author of Shock Doctrine, the rise of disaster capitalism and recently This Changes Everything about climate change. Both are radical critiques with which I strongly agree. Here she voices her critique of the mainstream Democratic establishment.

"They will blame James Comey and the FBI. They will blame voter suppression and racism. They will blame Bernie or bust and misogyny. They will blame third parties and independent candidates. They will blame the corporate media for giving him the platform, social media for being a bullhorn, and WikiLeaks for airing the laundry."

"But this leaves out the force most responsible for creating the nightmare in which we now find ourselves wide awake: neoliberalism. That worldview – fully embodied by Hillary Clinton and her machine – is no match for Trump-style extremism. The decision to run one against the other is what sealed our fate. If we learn nothing else, can we please learn from that mistake?"

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/40206-it-was-the-rise-of-the-davos-class-that-sealed-americas-fate

Is voter suppression the problem?

If we were to universally and automatically register everyone and make an effort to educate and make voting easy, a vote of this importance that involves a mere 40% of voters as in 2012 by that universal democratic matrix would not even be valid in most other countries with newer constitutions. That said any vote in the age of corporate mass media, government secrecy and corporate cash is always about lies, deception, hate and divisiveness and not issues and self interest. In essence we are not really voting anyway, it is just a big, sick show, manipulating public opinion with a lowest common denominator methodology.


In "The Great Suppression: Voting Rights, Corporate Cash, and the Conservative Assault on Democracy: Reporter Zachary Roth reveals how the GOP has been conspiring to control the country through gerrymandering, voting restrictions and gutting campaign finance laws. Frances Fox Piven calls The Great Suppression "a punchy and to-the-point chronicle of the desperate right-wing campaign to hold onto government power by limiting democratic rights." Voter suppression is despicable to be sure, but my point here is that even if we fix this, we are still all voting for the wrong things based on the carnival show we call elections.

Great timing for book promotion,. True as it is, this pitch coming out now is "woe is me Hillary lost" and would not have if more democrats voted but Hillary and her Neo-Liberal, war mongering and Wall Street friendly agenda is not in the self interest of the 99%  anyway so go figure why they would really care based on issues .  It's just a numbers game with thin margins where democrats loose when nobody is motivated and they cheat more than a little.  Apparently hating Trump was not sufficient motivation.

Don't get me wrong.  I applaud the research.  I do question the context of Trump vs Hillary.

Truthout | Fearless, Independent News and Opinion: "The Great Suppression: Voting Rights, Corporate Cash, and the Conservative Assault on Democracy"

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Naomi Klein, Guardian UK, Climate Change Is Intergenerational Theft. That's Why My Son Is Part of This Story

Naomi made a movie about the loss of one of the wonders of the world, the Great Barrier Reef.  Beautifully spoken of the loss we all feel, a kind of hopelessness that anyone with children and grandchildren feels if they know the ecological score in this corporate-made catastrophe the rulers have foisted on us all.

    Yet I still struggle with a nagging feeling that I’m not doing justice to the enormous stakes of this threat. The safety and habitability of our shared home is intensely emotional terrain, triggering perfectly rational feelings of loss, fear and grief. Yet climate discourse is usually pretty clinical, weighed down with statistics and policy jargon.
    All that information is important, of course. But I have started to worry that, by being so calm and clinical, we may be tacitly sending the message that this isn’t really an existential emergency after all. If it were, wouldn’t the people raising the alarm sound more … alarmed? Wouldn’t we share more of our own emotions?

                                                                             Naomi Klein November 2016

  .FOCUS: Climate Change Is Intergenerational Theft. That's Why My Son Is Part of This Story:



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