OBRA MAESTRA » Politics

Shrink Your Brain Wreck The Planet by Joel Bomane

Joel Bomane — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:18:31 +0000

“BRAIN ODYSSEY SERIES” Resources for Show#1: “Shrink your Brain, Wreck the Planet.”

“BRAIN ODYSSEY SERIES” Resources for Show#2: “Shrink your Brain, Wreck the Planet.”

The Brain Odyssey:

Uncertain times? Global financial collapse? Political unrest?…

* Ever since his “Enlightening Meeting” in the early 90’s with famed neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin Carson (the first to separate a pair of Siamese twins) Joel Bomane has been exploring with great passion – self taught - “The Role of the Brain in Human History.” *

* Please come and Listen weekly ( every Thursdays 8:00 P.M Central TIME) to the:

“Brain Odyssey” Series!

Note: French Version=Version Francaise: 9:00 P.M CST on Thursdays.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/voaradio/2012/01/27/shrink-your-brain–wreck-the-planet-part-1-1

http://www.mentorsharbor.com/

The_Scale_of_the_Universe

Credit to Cary and Michael Huang: http://htwins.net

Note: Zoom from the edge of the universe to the quantum foam of spacetime and learn the scale of things along the way!
Press left or right or drag the scroll bar to zoom in and out.

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About This Talk:

Daniel Wolpert: The real reason for brains

Neuroscientist Daniel Wolpert starts from a surprising premise: the brain evolved, not to think or feel, but to control movement. In this entertaining, data-rich talk he gives us a glimpse into how the brain creates the grace and agility of human motion.

Translated into French (France)
by Amélie Gourdon
Reviewed by Joel Bomane

After the Crisis: by Jacques Attali

Steven Pinker on the myth of violence:

http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html

Detoxify or Die…by Gabriela Segura, M.D.

Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity (paid course)

Taught by Professor David Christian, D. Phil., Oxford University, Macquarie University

http://www.joelbomane.com/dr-david-christian-big-history

Gifted Hands 20th Anniversary Edition: The Ben Carson Story

Gifted Hands (2009) Cuba Gooding Jr. (Actor), Loren Bass (Actor),

Thomas Carter (Director) | Rated: Unrated | Format: DVD

John Adams (UNABRIDGED CD) [AUDIOBOOK CD] [Unabridged] [Audio CD]

David McCullough (Author)

The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives

by Shankar Vedantam

The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Iain McGilchristh

Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: by Daniel G. Amen

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

Outwitting the Devil: The Secret to Freedom and Success

Napoleon Hill (Author), Sharon L. Lechter CPA (Editor), Michael Bernard Beckwith (Afterword), Mark Victor Hansen (Foreword)

Cover via Amazon

ABOUT WATER CRISIS? SINCE WE ARE IN THE BRAIN ODYSSEY SERIES…

Did YOU know that your brain is 85% water?

and that it needs plenty of liquids to keep it from becoming dehydrated, something that can decrease your thinking and impair your judgment. And also…two of the best and cheapest beverages you can drink are skim milk and water. Skim milk is low in fat and high in protein and calcium, and fortified with vitamins A and D that can provide you with a nutritional punch.

Again water is one of the best things for your brain and body health. Fortunately, you don’t need to buy pricey bottled water. With a water filter that fits on your kitchen faucet, you can drink from the tape and get healthy, filtered water that will keep your brain and body hydrated for optimal performance. And You WANT a more flavorful beverage, fill up a jug with filtered water, add a few orange slices, and keep it in the refrigerator for easy access.

WE SAID THERE IS A FOOD AND FOOD PRICE CRISIS:

There is an interesting story about Dr. Amen, a physician, child and adult psychiatrist who appeared on MSNBC’s nationally televised forum About Our Children, hosted by Bill Cosby. Bill asked him a very intriguing question. They were talking about how important good nutrition is for optimal brain performance and physical health when Mr. Cosby asked…:

“How do we teach poor people to eat right when bad food is so cheap?”

Dr. Amen with the help of Dr. Jeff Fortuna, the author of Nutrition for the Focused Brain came up with ….the following 10 tips to help people living in poverty, as well as those…. who are simply strapped for cash during these tough economic times, to eat healthier without spending a fortune.

I’ll summarize the 10 TIPS here:

First of all: Go for Satisfying Grains: Give your children oatmeal for breakfast (make sure it is the old-fashioned kind, not the instant kind). They are loaded with soluble and insoluble fiber, they moderate blood sugar for hours, which helps keep you feeling full longer.

Also, buy Vitamin-Rich Vegetables : frozen vegetables such as broccoli, and carrots. The freezing process does remove some of the vitamin content, but frozen vegetables are still a great source of brain-boosting, anti-aging, disease-fighting nutrients.

You can boost with Antioxidants such as Apples, Oranges, and Bananas: Just one orange can provide more than 200 percent of the daily vitamin C requirement . Eating an orange is so much better for you than drinking orange juice – and cheaper.

You should eat Cottage Cheese: It is a dietary protein that primes dopamine, a brain neurotransmitter that is involved with attention span.

You can Pump Up Protein with Affordable Eggs : Eggs are a great source of protein. If you have high cholesterol, toss the yolks and just eat the egg whites, the only food source that is a perfect protein.

Now think about it…there is a way to Fill Up on High-Fiber: Low-Cost Beans: beans are loaded with fiber and high in protein, they should be a staple in any household struggling financially. To be extra economical, choose uncooked black beans, red beans, lima beans, garbanzo beans, white beans, or any other variety rather than canned beans which are more expensive.

Finally…you should Stock Up on Canned Tuna: Eating fish like tuna is a great source of omega-3 fatty acids, which have been shown to improve heart health, reduce the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, reduce depression, and lower blood pressure.

SOME FACTS ABOUT YOUR AMAZING BRAIN…

Did you know…

• The average human brain weights about 3 pounds. Compare that to the brain of a sperm whale brain (17 pounds), dog (2.5 ounces), cat (1 ounce=about 30 grams), and goldfish (1/333 ounce).

• The human brain may not be the largest of all brains, but it is the biggest when compared to body size.

• During waking hours, the brain generates between 10 and 23 watts of power—enough to light a light bulb.

• Information in the brain travels at speeds of up to 268 miles per hour, faster than the racecars in the Indy 500, unless of course you are drunk, then things really slow down.

• Your brain is approximately 85% water.

• Your brain is estimated to have more than 100 billion neurons (also called nerve cells or brain cells), which is about the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

• Each neuron is connected to other neurons by up to 40,000 individual connections called synapses.

• Your brain has more connections than there are stars in the universe? 1 followed by 15 ZEROS more than stars in the universe.

• A piece of brain tissue the size of a grain of sand contains 100,000 neurons and 1 billion synapses all “talking” to each other.

• Sorry FOR THE FACE LIFT INDUSTRY…A wrinkled brain makes you smarter! Yes!  The brain’s wrinkles, and grooves give it more surface area and more processing power.

• Your brain represents only about 2 percent of your body weight, but it consumes about 25% of the calories you consume, 25% of the total blood flow in your body, and 20% of the oxygen you breathe.

• The idea that we only use 10% of our brains is a MYTH! You may not use every neuron in your brain at the same time, but each is important.

• Your brain doesn’t fully mature until you reach about 25 years of age.

• Your brain NEVER turns off or even rests, not even while you sleep. Your brain is very active at night, especially during dreaming.

• And finally contrary to popular belief, your brain never stops changing and can continue to form new neural connections throughout your lifetime.

Oskar Schindler

Joel Bomane — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:24:00 +0000

Oskar Schindler

Born	28 April 1908 Zwittau, Moravia, Austria-Hungary (present-day Svitavy,Czech Republic)
Died	9 October 1974 (aged 66) Hildesheim, West Germany
Resting place	Jerusalem, Israel 31.770164°N 35.230423°E
Occupation	Industrialist
Political party	National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi)
Religion	Catholic
Spouse	Emilie Schindler
Parents	Hans Schindler Franziska Luser

Oskar Schindler (28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974) was an ethnic German industrialist born in Moravia. He is credited with saving over 1,100 Jewsduring the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories, which were located in what is now Poland and the Czech Republic respectively. He is the subject of the novel Schindler’s Ark, and the film based on it, Schindler’s List.

Schindler was born on 28 April 1908 into a Sudeten German family in Zwittau, Moravia, Austria-Hungary. His parents, Hans Schindler and Franziska Luser, were divorced when he was 27. Oskar was always very close to his younger sister, Elfriede. Schindler was brought up within the Roman Catholic Church. Although he never formally renounced his religion, Oskar was never more than an indifferent Catholic. After school he worked as a commercial salesman.Early life and career

Oskar and Emilie in 1946

On 6 March 1928, Schindler married Emilie Pelzl (1907–2001), daughter of a wealthy Sudeten German farmer from Maletein. A pious Catholic, Emilie had received most of her education in a nearby monastery. During theGreat Depression, Oskar changed jobs several times. He also tried starting various businesses, but always went bankrupt. He joined the separatist Sudeten German Party in 1935. Though officially a citizen of Czechoslovakia, Schindler also became a spy for the Abwehr, then commanded by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. He was convicted of espionage and imprisoned by the Czechoslovakian government in July 1938, but after the Munich Agreement, he was released as a political prisoner. In 1939 Schindler joined the Nazi Party. One source contends that he also continued to work for Canaris and the Abwehr, paving the way for the Wehrmacht’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939.

World War II

The Holocaust

As an opportunistic businessman, Schindler was one of many who sought to profit from the German invasion of Poland in 1939. He gained ownership from a bankruptcy court of an idle enamelware factory in Kraków, named Pierwsza Małopolska Fabryka Naczyń Emaliowanych i Wyrobów Blaszanych “Rekord”, which he renamed Deutsche Emaillewaren-Fabrik or DEF (location). With the help of his German-speaking Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern, Schindler obtained around 1,000 Jewish forced labourers to work there.

Schindler soon adapted his lifestyle to his income. He became a well-respected guest at Nazi SS elite parties, having easy chats with high-ranking SS officers, often for his benefit. Initially Schindler may have been motivated by money, as Jewish labour cost less, but later he began shielding his workers without regard for cost. He would, for instance, claim that certain unskilled workers were essential to the factory.

While witnessing a 1943 raid on the Kraków Ghetto, where soldiers were used to round up the inhabitants for shipment to the concentration camp atPłaszów, Schindler was appalled by the murder of many of the Jews who had been working for him. He was a very persuasive individual, and after the raid, increasingly used all of his skills to protect his Schindlerjuden (“Schindler’s Jews”), as they came to be called. Schindler went out of his way to take care of the Jews who worked at DEF, often calling on his legendary charm and ingratiating manner to help his workers get out of difficult situations. Once, says author Eric Silver in The Book of the Just, “Two Gestapo men came to his office and demanded that he hand over a family of five who had bought forged Polish identity papers. ‘Three hours after they walked in,’ Schindler said, ‘two drunk Gestapo men reeled out of my office without their prisoners and without the incriminating documents they had demanded’”. The special status of his factory (“business essential to the war effort”) became the decisive factor for Schindler’s efforts to support his Jewish workers. Whenever “Schindler Jews” were threatened with deportation, he claimed exemptions for them. Wives, children, and even handicapped persons were shown to be necessary mechanics and metalworkers.

In the factory itself, Jewish workers were treated civilly, with none of the “shouting, abuse and random killing” that was going on in the Płaszów camp next-door. The Jews were able to pray in a minyan daily, and gathered at night to learn Chumash and exchange words of Torah and stories of Gedolim. At the close of Shabbat, the workers gathered for Shalosh Seudos and sang zemirot (Shabbat-table songs), said words of Torah, and told stories of tzaddikim.

Schindler’s factory at Kraków in 2006

Schindler’s factory at Brněnec in 2004

Schindler was arrested three times on suspicion of black market activities and complicity in embezzlement, as well as breaking the Nuremberg Laws by kissing a Jewish girl. Amon Göth, the commandant of the Płaszów camp, and other SS guards used Jewish property (such as money, jewellery, and works of art) for themselves, although according to law, it belonged to the Reich. Schindler arranged the sale of such items on the black market. None of his arrests led to a trial, primarily because he bribed government officials to avoid further investigation.

As the Red Army drew nearer to Auschwitz concentration camp and the other easternmost concentration camps, the SS began evacuating the remaining prisoners westward. Amon Göth’s personal secretary, Mietek Pemper, alerted Schindler to the Nazis’ plans to close all factories not directly involved with the war effort, including Schindler’s enamelware facility. Pemper also persuaded and encouraged Schindler to switch production from enamelware to anti-tank grenades in an effort to save Schindler’s Jewish workers. Tipped off to the factory closure, Schindler persuaded the SS officials to allow him to move his 1,200 Jewish workers to Brünnlitz (Czech: Brněnec), in the German-speaking Sudetenland, thus sparing them from certain death in the gas chambers. Mietek Pemper further aided Schindler’s efforts by compiling and typing the list of 1,200 Jews—1,000 of Schindler’s workers and 200 other inmates—who were sent to Brünnlitz in October 1944.

In Brünnlitz, Schindler gained another former Jewish factory, which was scheduled to produce hand grenades and parts for V2 rockets. It is unclear how much armament was actually produced there; Schindler and some of the workers claimed in the immediate post-war years that there had been no production that would have been useful to the German war effort, and even that some or all of the output had been deliberately faulty product.

After the war

Schindler and his wife fled to Austria’s U.S. zone, escaping prosecution by dressing in prison clothes and carrying a letter testifying to their heroic actions. By the end of the war, Schindler had spent his entire fortune on bribes and black-market purchases of supplies for his workers. Virtually destitute, he moved briefly to Regensburg and later Munich, but did not prosper in postwar Germany. In fact, he was reduced to receiving assistance from Jewish organizations. Eventually, Schindler emigrated to Argentina in 1948, where he went bankrupt. He left his wife Emilie in 1957 and returned to Germany in 1958, where he had a series of unsuccessful business ventures. Schindler settled down in a small apartment at Am Hauptbahnhof Nr. 4 in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany and tried again – with help from a Jewish organization – to establish a cement factory. This, too, went bankrupt in 1961. His business partners cancelled their partnership. In 1968 he began receiving a small pension from the West German government.

Commemorative plaque at Goettingstrasse 30, Hildesheim

In 1971, Schindler moved to live with friends at Goettingstrasse Nr. 30 in Hildesheim. Due to a heart complaint he was taken to the Saint Bernward Hospital in Hildesheim on 12 September 1974, where he died on 9 October 1974, at the age of 66. At the time of his death, he was surrounded by friends and family. He died penniless; the costs for his stay in the hospital were paid from social welfare of the city of Hildesheim.

Schindler’s grave

Schindler wanted to be buried in Jerusalem, as he said, “My children are here”. After a Requiem Mass, Schindler was buried at the Catholic Franciscans’ cemetery on Mount Zion, the only member of the Nazi Party to be honoured in this way. A sign at the entrance to the cemetery directs visitors “To Oskar Schindler’s Grave”.

Side view of Schindler’s grave, piled with small stones left by Jewish visitors

Schindler’s grave is located on the mountainside below Zion Gate and the Old City walls. Stones placed on top of the grave are a sign of gratitude from Jewish visitors, according to Jewish tradition, although Schindler himself was not Jewish. On his grave, the Hebrew inscription reads: “Righteous among the Nations“, an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis. The German inscription reads: “The Unforgettable Lifesaver of 1200 Persecuted Jews”

No one knows what Schindler’s motives were. He was quoted as saying “I knew the people who worked for me… When you know people, you have to behave towards them like human beings.”

The writer Herbert Steinhouse, who interviewed Schindler in 1948 at the behest of some of the surviving Schindlerjuden(Schindler’s Jews), wrote:

“Oskar Schindler’s exceptional deeds stemmed from just that elementary sense of decency and humanity that our sophisticated age seldom sincerely believes in. A repentant opportunist saw the light and rebelled against the sadism and vile criminality all around him. The inference may be disappointingly simple, especially for all amateur psychoanalysts who would prefer the deeper and more mysterious motive that may, if it is true, still lie unprobed and unappreciated. But an hour with Oskar Schindler encourages belief in the simple answer.”

Legacy

Schindler’s List (Schindler’s Ark)

Schindler’s story, retold by Holocaust survivor Poldek Pfefferberg, was the basis for Thomas Keneally’s book Schindler’s Ark (the novel was published in America as Schindler’s List), which was adapted into the 1993 movie Schindler’s List by Steven Spielberg. In the film, he is played by Liam Neeson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal. The film won sevenOscars, including the Academy Award for Best Picture. The prominence of Spielberg’s film introduced Schindler into popular culture. As the film is the sole source of most people’s knowledge of Schindler, he is generally perceived much as Spielberg’s film depicts him: as a man who was instinctively driven by profit-driven amorality, but who at some point made a silent but conscious decision that preserving the lives of his Jewish employees was imperative, even if requiring massive payments to induce Nazis to turn a blind eye.

Other film treatments have included a 1983 British television documentary produced by Thames Television, narrated by Sir Dirk Bogarde entitled, Schindler: The Documentary (released in the US in 1994 as Schindler: The Real Story), and a 1998 A&E Biography special, Oskar Schindler: The Man Behind the List.

Schindler’s suitcase

In late 1999 a suitcase belonging to Schindler was discovered, containing over 7,000 photographs and documents, including the list of Schindler’s Jewish workers. The document, on his enamelware factory’s letterhead, had been provided to the SS stating that the named workers were “essential” employees. Friends of Schindler found the suitcase in the attic of a house in Hildesheim, where he had been staying at the time of his death. The friends took the suitcase to Stuttgart, where its discovery was reported by a newspaper, the Stuttgarter Zeitung. The contents of the suitcase, including the list of the names of those he had saved and the text of his farewell speech before leaving his Jewish workers in 1945, are now at the Holocaust museum of Yad Vashem in Israel.

Schindler’s enamel factory in 2009

List of Schindlerjuden

Main article: List of Schindlerjuden

In early April 2009, a second list was discovered at the State Library of New South Wales, Australia by workers combing through boxes of materials collected by author Thomas Keneally. The 13-page document, yellow and fragile, was filed between research notes and original newspaper clippings. This list, given to Keneally in 1980 by Leopold Pfefferberg, who was listed as worker number 173, differs slightly from the other list, but is nonetheless considered to be genuine and authentic. It is believed that several lists were made during the war as the protected population changed. This particular list, dated 18 April 1945, was given to Keneally by Pfefferberg when he was persuading Keneally to write Schindler’s story. In the last months of the war, German Nazi camps stepped up their extermination efforts. This list is believed to have saved the lives of 801 people from death in the gas chambers. It was this list, taken with the surrounding events of the time, that inspired Keneally to write his novel.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e “Oskar Schindler, Saved 1200 Jews” (PDF). The New York Times. 13 October 1974. Retrieved 2009-01-20.
^ BBC NEWS | Middle East | Schindler list survivor recalls saviour. Other sources vary, placing the number at 1,098 according to the list, along with an additional 100 people according to a letter signed by Isaak Stern, former employee Pal. Office in Krakow, Dr. Hilfstein, Chaim Salpeter, Former President of the Zionist Executive in Krakow for Galicia and Silesia.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ Herbert Steinhouse, “The Real Oskar Schindler”, Saturday Night Magazine, April, 1994.
^ Thomas Keneally, Schindler’s Ark. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982 (ISBN 0-340-33501-7).
^ “Emilie Schindler, 93, Dies; Saved Jews in War”. The New York Times. October 8, 2001. Retrieved 2009-01-20.Schindler’s wife Emilie was born on 22 October 1907, the daughter of Josef and Maria Pelzl, and died on 5 October 2001, at age 93 in a hospital in Berlin. They did not have children.
^ Jitka Gruntová, Legendy a fakta o Oskaru Schindlerovi. Naše vojsko, 2002 (ISBN 80-206-0607-6).
^ Brzoskwinia, Waldemar (19 June 2008). “Spacerownik. Zabłocie: chłodnia i fabryki”. Gazeta Wyborcza (Kraków).
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d “Oskar Schindler: An Unlikely Hero”. U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 2008-05-29.
^ Eric Silver (1992). The book of the just – the silent heroes who saved Jews from Hitler. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson. ISBN 0802113478.
^ Werdyger, Duvid (1993). Songs of Hope. Lakewood, N.J.: CIS Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 1560622261.
^ ^a ^b ^c “Mietek Pemper”. The Telegraph. 2011-06-15. Retrieved 2011-06-26.
^ ^a ^b Martin, Douglas (2011-06-18). “Mietek Pemper, 91, Camp Inmate Who Compiled Schindler’s List”. New York Times. Retrieved 2011-06-26.
^ Gutman (1995). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. MacMillan Publishing Company. ISBN 0028645278.
^ Maslin, Janet. “Movies: About Schindler’s List”. The New York Times. Retrieved 20 May 2010.
^ ^a ^b Bulow, Louis (2009). “Oskar Schindler: His List of Life”. oskarschindler.com. Retrieved 2010-07-04.
^ “City of Hildesheim Archives (in German)”. 2 October 1999. Retrieved 2007-12-16.
^ Photos of house and plaque located at Göttingstr.30 in Hildesheim where Oskar Schindler lived from 1972 to his death in 1974. He was a guest of Dr. Staehr and his wife.
^ Deutsches Historisches Museum Article Oskar Schindler.
^ Crowe, David M. (2004). Oskar Schindler: The Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activities, and the True Story Behind The List. Philadelphia: Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-3375-X.
^ Bellafante, Ginia. “Test”. The New York Times. Retrieved 20 May 2010.
^ Goodman, Walter. “Test”. The New York Times. Retrieved 20 May 2010.
^ Bulow, Louis (2009). “The Suitcase”. oskarschindler.com.
^ “Schingler” (^{[dead link]}). News (Yahoo!). 2009-04-06.

Source: Wikipedia

Weidner Jean – Adventiste et résistant

Joel Bomane — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:10:25 +0000

En l’honneur de Jean Weidner, que j’ai eu la chance de rencontrer aux USA dans les années 90.

[John Weidner, 1946, recevant la médaille de la Résistance aux Pays-Bas source photo : Block, Gay and Malka Drucker crédit photo : D.R."][/caption]

Jean Weidner : article de R. Lehmann dans “Dictionnaire du monde religieux dans la France contemporaine” (Beauchesne, 1996)

Weidner Jean – Adventiste, résistant (22.10.1912-27.5.1994). Officier de la légion d’honneur, titulaire de la Croix de Guerre, de la Médaille de la Résistance et des plus hautes récompenses des Etats-Unis, des Pays-Bas, de la Belgique et de la Grande-Bretagne, J. Weidner a un arbre planté avec son nom dans l’avenue des Justes à Yad Vashem en Israël.

Petit-fils d’un pasteur réformé de Hollande, fils d’un pasteur adventiste, il apprend tôt à résister pour raison de conscience : son père doit se rendre chaque semaine durant l’année 1924 à la prison du chäteau d’Aigle, parce qu’il n’envoie pas son fils à l’école le samedi, jour de repos religieux. En 1925, il découvre Collonges-sous-Salève, où son père est nommé professeur de grec et de latin au séminaire adventiste. Après dix ans d’études, il dispose d’un diplôme de commerce et d’une bonne connaissance de la région. En 1941, il organise avec son ami Gilbert Beaujolin, de Lyon, un groupe oecuménique des Amitiés chrétiennes pour secourir les personnes internées dans les camps. Il a l’appui du cardinal Gerlier, du pasteur Boegner et le soutien actif du P. Chaillet et du pasteur de Pury. En 1942, il met sur pied et prend la tête du réseau Dutch-Paris. Avec l’aide de centaines de résistants, il fait passer des Pays-Bas vers la Suisse ou l’Espagne plus de huit cents juifs et deux à trois cents aviateurs, résistants ou réfugiés. Au début il ouvre un magasin à Lyon, Annecy et Collonges-sous-Salève pour justifier ses allées et venues en Genevois. Il passe aussi fréquemment en Suisse pour rencontrer le pasteur Visser’t Hooft, responsable du Conseil oecuménique des Eglises, et porter des messages. A Cruseilles, il est arrêté, torturé et enfermé par les policiers français. Il est sauvé par un juge résistant de Saint-Julien-en-Genvois. A Toulouse, il échappe à la Milice, la veille de son exécution, en sautant par la fenêtre du troisième étage de son lieu de détention. La Gestapo met sa tête à prix pour cinq millions de francs. Sa soeur Gabrielle meurt en déportation. Après la Libération, il devient membre du corps diplomatique néerlandais et assiste le ministre de Justice dans la recherche des criminels de guerre. Il se charge d’une association de secours aux anciens membres du réseau en difficulté, aux veuves et aux orphelins. En 1955, il quitte l’Europe pour s’installer en Californie et ouvrir un commerce de produits diététiques. Chaque année, il répond aux sollicitations des organisations juives américaines ou des anciens combattants et vient à Collonges-sous-Salève renouer avec son passé et ses amis savoyards. Une salle d’exposition du séminaire adventiste du Salève porte son nom et un musée du souvenir est crée en 1994 à Atlantic Union College (Boston).

Lehmann R. “Weidner Jean”. In Dictionnaire du monde religieux dans la France contemporaine, vol. 8 La Savoie. Paris : Beauchesne, 1996. p. 419-420

Source: http://www.archivesadventistes.org/blog/2006/09/jean-weidner-ar.html

Elizabeth Wright Dies

Joel Bomane — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 10:04:34 +0000

by Jared Taylor on August 24, 2011

[Originally published on American Renaissance]

Elizabeth Wright, the editor of Issues and Views, has died. The Booker T. Washington Society posted a brief notice of her death, but I know of no other mention, in paper or on the Internet, of the passing of this remarkable woman.

On June 20, she had posted an ominous notice on her blog, in which she wrote that “If all goes according to plan, I shall be entering a hospice for cancer care.” I wrote to her usual e-mail address, asking for more details about her health, but got no reply. It pained me that her final blog notice was titled, “To All Those Friends I Never Met.” I was one of those friends she never met.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that I have been fascinated by Elizabeth Wright ever since I became aware of her many years ago, when Issues and Views was still a paper publication. I discovered that Elizabeth had a piercingly clear understanding of race, and wrote in an uncompromising style. We corresponded, and AR posted several of her essays—and yet I never really knew her. Elizabeth wanted it that way.

We spoke on the phone only a few times, and she spoke as she wrote—clearly and vigorously. And yet she kept me at a distance. The last time we spoke I was in New York City, where she lived, and I practically begged her to let me meet her. She declined. She wasn’t keen on meeting people, she said.

There was a great deal I wanted to know about Elizabeth Wright. How did a black woman arrive at a view of race so similar to my own? There is usually a story about how whites become dissenters. There must be a whole book about her. And who were her friends? What did her family think of her views? Whenever I asked in passing about her personal life in our e-mail correspondence, she politely deflected my questions.

I therefore know almost nothing about this remarkable and very private woman. I don’t know how old she was, whether she was married or had children, what kind of education she had, or what her interests were aside from smashing taboos. And I know nothing of the price she paid—it must have been very high—for her uncompromising defense of what she held to be true.

Anyone who could write and think as Elizabeth did could have achieved prominence, but that would have required her to bow to convention. Instead, she did that old-fashioned thing now so rare it comes almost as a shock; she put principle first.

Perhaps if I had tried harder, Elizabeth would have let me into her life. But perhaps not. I knocked, but she kept the door closed.

Therefore, much as I admire Elizabeth Wright, I know her only through her writing, and in tribute to her I can offer readers nothing more than a selection from some of her columns. I think that is what she would have wanted.

Rest in peace, Elizabeth. Your friends you never met—and I am sure I am one of a great many—will be poorer without you.

On April 4, 2007, radio host Don Imus referred to the largely black Rutgers women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed hos.” Mr. Imus even abased himself to Al Sharpton, but lost his job anyway. Elizabeth Wright wrote this:

“So, after all this cringing and groveling, what was accomplished? Nothing more than could have been, if Imus had initially said, “Take this job and stuff it!” And how many more white men will feel compelled to prostrate themselves at the feet of blacks? While he was down there, it’s surprising that Imus failed to wash Sharpton’s feet—a practice that actually was performed on the feet of black men by the contrite white members of the “Christian” organization Promise Keepers. What a wonderful set of role models they make.

One of the most unfortunate consequences of this episode is the fact that yet another white man has helped to restore credibility and social power to those two cynical buffoons, Jackson and Sharpton. Just when it looked like their stars were waning, along comes the groveling Imus, to remind us blacks of just who our “leaders” are.”[On Imus - Last thoughts from a long-time listener,April 17, 2007]

In the same essay, she touched on Trent Lott, who also did the white man’s crawl for having said “insensitive” things about race:

“Although other whites had disgraced themselves in their various apology stances, Lott set a precedent for white cringing and submission over the race issue. In addition, he sent strong messages, not only to white children, who learned how best to behave when confronted by howling blacks and their confederates, but also to black children, who learned what simple steps are required to bring about the subjection of The Man.”

This is from a review of a book by a black woman who railed against “white privilege” and all its evils. Elizabeth was skeptical:

“Her depictions of the unyielding, recalcitrant white, who struts around like a know-it-all, egotistical peacock, had me wondering if she is paying attention to what’s really happening in this society, or if her antenna is picking up signals from a distant era. Where are these preening whites, “insulated by privilege” from the problems of blacks, who “simply choose not to know”? Is there really anywhere in this society where one can escape the relentless retelling of the story of slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, and segregated water fountains? Set upon with the type of charges made by people like Dickerson, and eager to comply with the rules of the race game, most whites strive to keep their heads below the radar, so as not to be slammed with the ruinous accusation of “racist.”

She had this to say after hearing former New York City mayor Ed Koch moaning about racism:

“Similarly, Ed Koch had claimed that in this terrible society of America, “all blacks” face racism “every day.” According to Koch, from the minute a black leaves his home in the morning to go to work, he encounters ugly, persistent racism, which goes on throughout the day. My ears perked up, because I wanted to know in just which city or state or region were blacks being tormented openly and on a daily basis. Mind you, he was talking about the year 2008. Of course, he, like the young man in the Bodeker film, did not offer any examples of this horrendous treatment.

My instinct was to get in touch with Koch and challenge him to pick any black man, and go off to work with him, spending the entire day on his job, as well as remaining with him in the evening. I would have liked for Koch to come back on radio and report on the terrible, racist encounters suffered that day by that black man.

Of course, we know that no such encounters are occurring on a daily basis… .

However, there are clever blacks who insist on invoking the spirit of that earlier scenario and hyping the “pain of racism,” a disposition that a great many whites eagerly buy into. The goal of such blacks is to keep whites preoccupied forever with the Black Cause, while expanding the scope of just what constitutes “racism.” That scope, of course, must encompass the very thoughts in the heads of others.”

But of all Elizabeth wrote, this powerful passage is perhaps my favorite.

“When the white population falls below the 50% mark, the days of whites running interference for blacks will be over. And so will those special laws biased towards safeguarding perquisites for the “Disadvantaged,” which can be mighty expensive to enforce.

Again, what are the odds that those 18th century injunctions devised by those funny little men in britches and waistcoats will prevail, once the polyglot new Americans from Asia and Central and South America begin to flex their political muscle?

So many blacks and their white liberal gurus failed to appreciate those Anglo-originated laws based on “self-evident truths” and the consent of the governed, which were flexible enough to take under their protection the nation’s former slaves. Who will there be to ensure that jobs and scholarships and government contracts, and the surfeit of other entitlements, will be available for a people who have grown used to looking to others for slices from the economic pie, instead of baking their own share of it?

Once what’s left of constitutional law is gone, partly out of neglect, because the story of the Constitution and its creators will no longer be taught in the various Chinese-Indian-Latino-Arab colored school systems, a new corner will be turned. If blacks think they’ve been mistreated at the hands of whites, just wait until the affirmative action, set aside party is over—when there is no one to insist that they get undeserved perks, or have a “right” to intrude themselves into places where they are not wanted.

The new dominant ethnics come to this land with their own sob stories of oppression. Unlike whites, they are hardly likely to fall over one another to apologize for past wrongs. Nor are they likely to spend their time in Congress concocting new laws designed to discriminate against their own sons and daughters in favor of blacks.

“Reparations,” did you say? Just wait until the first move is made to un-name and re-name some of those Martin Luther King, Jr. boulevards.”

Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the Nation

Joel Bomane — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:05:55 +0000

January 17, 1961

Good evening, my fellow Americans: First, I should like to express my gratitude to the radio and television networks for the opportunity they have given me over the years to bring reports and messages to our nation. My special thanks go to them for the opportunity of addressing you this evening.

Three days from now, after a half century of service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on questions of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the nation.

My own relations with Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and finally to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.

In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the nation well rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the nation should go forward. So my official relationship with Congress ends in a feeling on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America’s leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

Throughout America’s adventure in free government, such basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among peoples and among nations.

To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people.

Any failure traceable to arrogance or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us a grievous hurt, both at home and abroad.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle – with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in the newer elements of our defenses; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research – these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

But each proposal must be weighed in light of a broader consideration; the need to maintain balance in and among national programs – balance between the private and the public economy, balance between the cost and hoped for advantages – balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between the actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their Government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well in the face of threat and stress.

But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise.

Of these, I mention two only.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system – ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society’s future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war – as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years – I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.

So – in this my last good night to you as your President – I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.

You and I – my fellow citizens – need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nations’ great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America’s prayerful and continuing aspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.

Now, on Friday noon, I am to become a private citizen. I am proud to do so. I look forward to it.

Thank you, and good night.

Source: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm

Good-Bye… Truth Has Fallen And Taken Liberty With It

Joel Bomane — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 18:02:01 +0000

Paul Craig Roberts

3-25-10

There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest.

Image via Wikipedia

Today, Americans are ruled by propaganda. Americans have little regard for truth, little access to it, and little ability to recognize it.

Truth is an unwelcome entity. It is disturbing. It is off limits. Those who speak it run the risk of being branded “anti-American,” “anti-semite” or “conspiracy theorist.”

Truth is an inconvenience for government and for the interest groups whose campaign contributions control government.

Truth is an inconvenience for prosecutors who want convictions, not the discovery of innocence or guilt.

Truth is inconvenient for ideologues.

Today, many whose goal once was the discovery of truth are now paid handsomely to hide it. “Free market economists” are paid to sell offshoring to the American people. High-productivity, high value-added American jobs are denigrated as dirty, old industrial jobs. Relicts from long ago, we are best shed of them. Their place has been taken by “the New Economy,” a mythical economy that allegedly consists of high-tech white collar jobs in which Americans innovate and finance activities that occur offshore. All Americans need in order to participate in this “new economy” are finance degrees from Ivy League universities, and then they will work on Wall Street at million dollar jobs.

Economists who were once respectable took money to contribute to this myth of “the New Economy.”

And not only economists sell their souls for filthy lucre. Recently we have had reports of medical doctors who, for money, have published in peer-reviewed journals concocted “studies” that hype this or that new medicine produced by pharmaceutical companies that paid for the “studies.”

The Council of Europe is investigating the drug companies’ role in hyping a false swine flu pandemic in order to gain billions of dollars in sales of the vaccine.

The media helped the US military hype its recent Marja offensive in Afghanistan, describing Marja as a city of 80,000 under Taliban control. It turns out that Marja is not urban but a collection of village farms.

And there is the global warming scandal, in which NGOs. the UN, and the nuclear industry colluded in concocting a doomsday scenario in order to create profit in pollution.

Wherever one looks, truth has fallen to money.

Wherever money is insufficient to bury the truth, ignorance, propaganda, and short memories finish the job.

I remember when, following CIA director William Colby’s testimony before the Church Committee in the mid-1970s, presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan issued executive orders preventing the CIA and U.S. black-op groups from assassinating foreign leaders. In 2010 the US Congress was told by Dennis Blair, head of national intelligence, that the US now assassinates its own citizens in addition to foreign leaders.

When Blair told the House Intelligence Committee that US citizens no longer needed to be arrested, charged, tried, and convicted of a capital crime, just murdered on suspicion alone of being a “threat,” he wasn’t impeached. No investigation pursued. Nothing happened. There was no Church Committee. In the mid-1970s the CIA got into trouble for plots to kill Castro. Today it is American citizens who are on the hit list. Whatever objections there might be don’t carry any weight. No one in government is in any trouble over the assassination of U.S. citizens by the U.S. government.

As an economist, I am astonished that the American economics profession has no awareness whatsoever that the U.S. economy has been destroyed by the offshoring of U.S. GDP to overseas countries. U.S. corporations, in pursuit of absolute advantage or lowest labor costs and maximum CEO “performance bonuses,” have moved the production of goods and services marketed to Americans to China, India, and elsewhere abroad. When I read economists describe offshoring as free trade based on comparative advantage, I realize that there is no intelligence or integrity in the American economics profession.

Intelligence and integrity have been purchased by money. The transnational or global U.S. corporations pay multi-million dollar compensation packages to top managers, who achieve these “performance awards” by replacing U.S. labor with foreign labor. While Washington worries about “the Muslim threat,” Wall Street, U.S. corporations and “free market” shills destroy the U.S. economy and the prospects of tens of millions of Americans.

Americans, or most of them, have proved to be putty in the hands of the police state.

Americans have bought into the government’s claim that security requires the suspension of civil liberties and accountable government. Astonishingly, Americans, or most of them, believe that civil liberties, such as habeas corpus and due process, protect “terrorists,” and not themselves. Many also believe that the Constitution is a tired old document that prevents government from exercising the kind of police state powers necessary to keep Americans safe and free.

Most Americans are unlikely to hear from anyone who would tell them any different.

I was associate editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal. I was Business Week’s first outside columnist, a position I held for 15 years. I was columnist for a decade for Scripps Howard News Service, carried in 300 newspapers. I was a columnist for the Washington Times and for newspapers in France and Italy and for a magazine in Germany. I was a contributor to the New York Times and a regular feature in the Los Angeles Times. Today I cannot publish in, or appear on, the American “mainstream media.”

For the last six years I have been banned from the “mainstream media.” My last column in the New York Times appeared in January, 2004, coauthored with Democratic U.S. Senator Charles Schumer representing New York. We addressed the offshoring of U.S. jobs. Our op-ed article produced a conference at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. and live coverage by C-Span. A debate was launched. No such thing could happen today.

For years, I was a mainstay at the Washington Times, producing credibility for the Moony newspaper as a Business Week columnist, former Wall Street Journal editor, and former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. But when I began criticizing Bush’s wars of aggression, the order came down to Mary Lou Forbes to cancel my column.

The American corporate media does not serve the truth. It serves the government and the interest groups that empower the government.

America’s fate was sealed when the public and the anti-war movement bought the government’s 9/11 conspiracy theory. The government’s account of 9/11 is contradicted by much evidence. Nevertheless, this defining event of our time, which has launched the US on interminable wars of aggression and a domestic police state, is a taboo topic for investigation in the media. It is pointless to complain of war and a police state when one accepts the premise upon which they are based.

These trillion dollar wars have created financing problems for Washington’s deficits and threaten the U.S. dollar’s role as world reserve currency. The wars and the pressure that the budget deficits put on the dollar’s value have put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block. Former Goldman Sachs chairman and U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is after these protections for the elderly. Fed chairman Bernanke is also after them. The Republicans are after them as well. These protections are called “entitlements” as if they are some sort of welfare that people have not paid for in payroll taxes all their working lives.

With over 21 per cent unemployment as measured by the methodology of 1980, with American jobs, GDP, and technology having been given to China and India, with war being Washington’s greatest commitment, with the dollar over-burdened with debt, with civil liberty sacrificed to the “war on terror,” the liberty and prosperity of the American people have been thrown into the trash bin of history.

The militarism of the U.S. and Israeli states, and Wall Street and corporate greed, will now run their course. As the pen is censored and its might extinguished, I am signing off.

Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury.

His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press.

http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html

He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts03242010.html

Paul Craig Roberts: How The Law Was Lost

Dorothy Height

Joel Bomane — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:01:06 +0000



Born	Dorothy Irene Height March 24, 1912(1912-03-24) Richmond, Virginia, U.S.
Died	April 20, 2010 (aged 98) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Occupation	Educator and social activist

Dorothy Irene Height (March 24, 1912 – April 20, 2010)was an African American administrator, educator, and social activist. She was the president of the National Council of Negro Women for forty years, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.

Early life

Height was born in Richmond, Virginia. At an early age, she moved with her family to Rankin, Pennsylvania, a steel town in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Height was admitted to Barnard College in 1929, but upon arrival, she was denied entrance because the school had an unwritten policy of admitting only two black students per year.She pursued studies instead at New York University, earning a degree in 1932, and a master’s degree in educational psychology the following year.

Career

Height started working as a caseworker with the New York City Welfare Department and, at the age of twenty-five, she began a career as a civil rights activist when she joined the National Council of Negro Women. She fought for equal rights for both African Americans and women, and in 1944 she joined the national staff of the YWCA. She also served as National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority from 1946 to 1957. She remained active with Delta Sigma Theta Sorority thoughtout her life. While there she developed leadership training programs and interracial and ecumenical education programs.

Dorothy Height

In 1957, Height was named president of the National Council of Negro Women, a position she held until 1997. During the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Height organized “Wednesdays in Mississippi“,^[5] which brought together black and white women from the North and South to create a dialogue of understanding.

American leaders regularly took her counsel, including First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and Height also encouraged President Dwight D. Eisenhower to desegregate schools and President Lyndon B. Johnson to appoint African American women to positions in government. In the mid 1960s, Height wrote a column entitled “A Woman’s Word” for the weekly African-American newspaper, the New York Amsterdam News and her first column appeared in the March 20, 1965 issue on page 8.

Height served on a number of committees, including as a consultant on African affairs to the Secretary of State, the President’s Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped, and the President’s Committee on the Status of Women. In 1974, Height was named to the National Council for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, which published The Belmont Report, a response to the infamous “Tuskegee Syphillis Study” and an international ethical touchstone for researchers to this day.

Later life

In 2004, Height was recognized by Barnard for her achievements as an honorary alumna during its commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

The musical stage play If This Hat Could Talk, based on her memoirs Open Wide The Freedom Gates, debuted in the middle of 2005. It showcases her unique perspective on the civil rights movement and details many of the behind-the-scenes figures and mentors who shaped her life, including Mary McLeod Bethune and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Height was the chairperson of the Executive Committee of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the largest civil rights organization in the USA. She was an honored guest and seated on stage at the inauguration of President Barack Obama on January 20, 2009.

She attended the National Black Family Reunion, celebrated on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., every year until her death in 2010.^{[citation needed]}

On March 25, 2010 Height was admitted to Howard University Hospital in Washington D.C. for unspecified reasons. Her spokeswoman issued a statement stating that at that time she was in a “very serious, but stable” condition but that they were remaining optimistic about her recovery. On April 20, 2010, Height died at the age of ninety-eight. Her funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral on April 29, 2010 was attended by President and Mrs Obama plus many dignitaries and notable people.^[6] She was later interred at Fort Lincoln Cemetery.

Awards and honors

Presidential Citizens Medal (1989)
Spingarn Medal from the NAACP (1993)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Freedom From Want Award (1993)
inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame (1993)
Presidential Medal of Freedom (1994)^[1]
7th Annual Heinz Award Chairman’s Medal (2001)^[7]
Listed on Molefi Kete Asante’s list of 100 Greatest African Americans (2002) ^[8]
Congressional Gold Medal by President George W. Bush on behalf of the United States Congress (Approved, 2003) (Awarded, 2004)^[1]
Flag Half-Staff Day for Death of Dorothy Height, observed on April 29th, 2010. Ordered by President Barack Obama on April 26th, 2010, to mourn her death.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Iovino, Jim (2010-04-20). “Civil Rights Icon Dorothy Height Dies at 98″. NBC Universal. http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local-beat/Civil-Rights-Icon-Dorothy-Height-Dies-at-98-91581204.html. Retrieved 2010-04-20.
^ ^a ^b “Civil Rights Pioneer Honor 75 years after rejection Barnard College recognizes woman the school once barred because of admission limit for blacks”. Newsday. 2004-06-04. p. A22.
^ “Dorothy Height was educator and activist organizer”. Post-Tribune. 2003-02-16. p. A2.
^ ^a ^b Height, Dorothy (2003). Open Wide the Freedom Gates: A Memoir. PublicAffairs Press. ISBN 9781586482862.
^ Evans, Ben (2010-04-20). “Dorothy Height, civil rights activist, dies at 98″. Associated Press. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g1wclP0PXt3NaBWLcwbFUjRs9bawD9F73F081. Retrieved 2010-04-20.
^ “Dorothy Height, U.S. Civil Rights Leader, Buried”. The Epoch Times. http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/34397/. Retrieved 2010-04-30.
^ The Heinz Awards, Dorothy Height profile
^ Asante, Molefi Kete (2002). 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Amherst, New York. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-963-8.

Ephemeral Eternity

Joel Bomane — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:38:29 +0000

le 19 janvier 2010 8h12 | par Joël Bomane

January 19, 2010 9:05 | by Jacques Attali

As often, a natural event can be used as a metaphor for a social phenomenon.
And, to describe and understand crises, nothing is better than the metaphor
of an earthquake.

First, an economic crisis, like any earthquake, is the result of an
accumulation of imbalances, consequence of long movements, followed by a
sudden break. In the case of geology, the long trend is the continental
drift; in the case of the economy, it is the fall of the centers of power,
from one ocean to another. Both of these trends bring about accumulations of imbalances (in one case, geological; in the other, financial) being
translated by breaks (in one case, earthquakes; in the other, crises).

In both cases, there is very often before the disaster, a lack of concern
for the risks involved and a refusal to take seriously the alarmist
predictions, there is also extreme inequality in the treatment of victims,
there are countless replicas, shaking or relapses, extending the initial
chaos, there is still a chaotic management of relief and support, and
finally a quasi immediate loss of memory, once the situation returns back to
normal, of the underlying reasons of the disaster.

The metaphor goes even further, because earthquakes have an economic impact.

Not only because they destroy everything they are called to reconstruct, and
provide opportunities for public expenditure, so necessary, according to
Keynes, for the resumption of growth; but above all because living in an
earthquake zone is a constant call to newness, change, inventivity. This
leads to the emergence of a culture of vigilance, of the precarious, of
being light, nomadic, of the short-lived; to an acceptance of modernity,
the condition for progress.

No wonder that among the most creative lands of humanity, we find at the
forefront some of the most seismically active lands: Greece, Italy,
Flanders, California, Japan, all have, each in turn, experienced the threat
of earthquakes as an incentive to change, as an appeal to what the Greeks
called "the tyranny of the new." And Haiti has done better than anyone else
in the world, demonstrating the only creativity that it could afford,
cultural creativity, one that puts everything into perspective, in a
constant search for surpassing oneself and the beautiful.

It would be wise to learn this lesson from the current tragedy: the wealth
of humanity comes from its capacity to imagine the coming changes and to
live them the best way possible; and for this to admit that can only survive
those who are capable of giving meaning to the destruction of the past; and
to understand that wealth always comes from "creative destruction" of which
Joseph Schumpeter, the greatest 20th century economist spoke, far more
discerning than John Maynard Keynes.

At least, may this terrible tragedy serve this purpose. And may Haiti be
rebuilt (who would dare talk about "rebuilding" when it comes to such
slums?). So Haitians can finally make their art not a refuge in their misery
but a way to live with dignity their brilliant contribution to History.

j@attali.com

© L’Express

Note: Conversation avec Jacques Attali

http://blogs.lexpress.fr/attali/

Jacques Attali (born 1 November 1943 in Algiers, Algeria) is a French economist and scholar. From 1981 to 1991, he was an advisor to President François Mitterrand.

Foreign Policy’s First Annual List of the 100 Top Global Thinkers | Foreign Policy: http://bit.ly/8aLXLi

#86 Jacques Attali French Economist

Harvard University’s Justice with Michael Sandel

Joel Bomane — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:38:28 +0000

Michael Sandel

“Justice is one of the most popular courses in Harvard’s history”

Copyrights: WGBH Boston and Harvard University

“Sandel has opened up an important area of debate at a time when some of the unquestioned assumptions underlying economic policy and praxis of the last few decades have been exposed as fraudulent and are being questioned. What happens to the human person in a greedy society? What happens when people and values become commodities that can be traded? What happens when morality is reduced to what is technically practicable? And who is willing to take responsibility instead of just blaming others for what they don’t like?” Nick Baines

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Western philosophy 21st-century philosophy
Full name	Michael Sandel
Born	March 5, 1953 (1953-03-05) (age 56)
Main interests	Political philosophy Legal philosophy Moral philosophy

Michael J. Sandel (born March 5, 1953) is a political philosopher and a professor at Harvard University. He is best known for his critique of Rawls‘ Theory of Justice (1971) in his Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982).

Education

Sandel graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brandeis University in 1975, and received his doctorate from Balliol College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, where he studied under Charles Taylor.

Philosophical views

Sandel subscribes to the theory of communitarianism (although he is uncomfortable with the label), and in this vein he is perhaps best known for his critique of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice. Rawls’ argument depends on the assumption of the veil of ignorance, which allows us to become “unencumbered selves.”

Sandel’s view is that we are by nature encumbered to an extent that makes it impossible even in the hypothetical to have such a veil. Some examples of such ties are the ties we make with our families, which we do not make by conscious choice but are born with them already attached. Because they are not consciously applied, these ties are impossible to separate from someone. Sandel believes that only a less-restrictive, looser version of the veil of ignorance can be possible. Rawls’s argument, however, depends on the fact that the veil is restrictive enough that we make decisions without knowing who will be affected by these decisions, which of course is impossible if we are already attached to people in the world.

Teaching

Justice

Sandel has taught the famous “Justice”^[1] course at Harvard for two decades. More than 10,000 students have taken the course, making it one of the most highly attended in Harvard’s history. The fall 2007 class was the largest ever at Harvard, with a total of 1,115 students.^[2] The fall 2007 course was recorded, and is offered online for students nationwide through the Harvard Extension School. An abridged form of this recording is now a 12-episode TV series, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, in a coproduction of WGBH and Harvard University. Episodes are available on the Justice with Michael Sandel website.^[3] There is also an accompanying book Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, and the sourcebook of readings Justice: A Reader.

Click here for Other episodes -videos- of Justice by Michael Sandel

Other teaching

Sandel also co-teaches with Douglas Melton “Ethics and Biotechnology”, a seminar considering the ethical implications of a variety of biotechnological procedures and possibilities.

Authorship

Sandel is the author of multiple publications including Democracy’s Discontent and Public Philosophy. His Public Philosophy is a collection of his own previously published essays, examining the role of morality and justice in American political life. He offers commentary on the roles of moral values and civic community in the American electoral process – a much-debated aspect of the 2004 U.S. election cycle and current political discussion.

Michael Sandel gave the 2009 Reith Lectures on “A New Citizenship” on BBC Radio, addressing the ‘prospect for a new politics of the common good’ ^[4]. The lectures were delivered in London on May 18, Oxford on May 21, Newcastle on May 26 and Washington DC in early June ^[5].

Public service

Sandel served on the George W. Bush administration’s President’s Council on Bioethics.

2009 immigration commentary

In 2009, he described a controversial ’solution’ to immigration. Sandel suggested that the international community should impose annual refugee quotas on nations according to their wealth. Countries would be allowed to pay other, poorer countries to take refugees allotted under their quota.^[6]

Sandel does not endorse this view. He merely uses it as an illustration of the markets inevitably presupposing and promoting certain norms. He concludes: “There is something distasteful about a market in refugees, even if it’s for their own good, but what exactly is objectionable about it? It has something to do with the fact that a market in refugees changes our view of who refugees are and how they should be treated. It encourages the participants — the buyers, the sellers and also those whose asylum is being haggled over — to think of refugees as burdens to be unloaded or as revenue sources rather than as human beings in peril.”^[7]

Works

Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, (September 15, 2009), ISBN 978-0374180652
Michael J. Sandel, Justice: A Reader, Oxford University Press, (September 27, 2007), ISBN 978-0195335125
Michael J. Sandel, The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, (January 31, 2007); paperback (September 30, 2009), ISBN 978-0674036383
Michael J. Sandel, Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics, Harvard University Press (October 31, 2006), ISBN 978-0674023659
Michael J. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, Cambridge University Press, (March 28, 1998), ISBN 978-0521567411
Michael J. Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (February 6, 1998), ISBN 978-0674197459

Other languages

Michael J. Sandel, Plädoyer gegen die Perfektion (German), Berlin University Press, (January 1, 2008), ISBN 978-3940432148
Michael J. Sandel and Maria Luz Melon, El Liberalismo y los Limites de la Justicia (Filosofia del Derecho) (Spanish), Gedisa Editorial, (November 2000), ISBN 978-8474327069

References

^ Justice: A Journey in Moral Reasoning, Michael J. Sandel
^ Makarchev, Nikita. “Sandel Wins Enrollment Battle.” The Harvard Crimson. September 26, 2007.
^ “Justice”—On Air, in Books, Online, by Craig Lambert, September 22, 2009]
^ BBC Radio 4 Programme details for Start the Week, 25 May 2009.
^ Guardian, 5 February 2009, “Michael Sandel to deliver Radio 4’s Reith Lectures”.
^ Should We Sell American Citizenship? – Michael Sandel ForaTv
^ http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article6485444.ece

External links

Harvard University Bio
Podcast interview with Nigel Warburton on Philosophy Bites on What Shouldn’t Be Sold
Podcast interview with Nigel Warburton on Ethics Bites on the topic of Genetic Enhancement in Sports
The President’s Council on Bioethics
FORA.tv The Case Against Perfection
FORA.tv Michael Sandel on Justice: A Journey in Moral Reasoning at the Aspen Institute, one hour excerpt
A page of links relating to the 2009 Reith Lectures
Justice with Michael Sandel, WGBH Boston and Harvard University, complete online video with discussion guides, readings and discussion circle
Justice: What’s The Right Thing To Do? on Harvard University’s YouTube channel

A passionate plea by Bob Geldof

Joel Bomane — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:59:23 +0000

Recently the Dalai Lama Center Canada organized a Peace Summit in Vancouver with the Dalai Lama and other Nobel Prize winners and speakers. One evening the rock singer and humanitarian Bob Geldof, whose Live Aid concerts have raised 100s of millions of dollars for Africa, made this passionate plea:

“For most of us, all we can do when witnessing suffering is to put our hand in our pocket. If a million of us do that, it is a lot of people, a lot of help, and governments should take note. We need to keep children alive long enough so that they can become the doctors and engineers of tomorrow. Without that something will wither and die inside of us.

Many of these children don’t have parents because of man-made mistakes like wars. In my life I have met extraordinary people such as Mother Theresa. She would tell me that she saw the suffering of Christ on the broken backs of the poor. I don’t see that. I don’t see God. I see the malignant hand of man laid bare. And if that is so, it can be remedied, because it we have done it and we can undo it. We can say: “Enough!” All this is the symptom of poverty revealed in lack of education and in ill health.

In terms of global wealth, the need is infinitesimal if the political will would be there. How many times do we have to manifest the will of the people to the politician and say: “GET-THIS-DONE!” How many times do we have to create African children’s choirs and pop concerts in order to convince human beings to join in the glory of humanity? What are we – a circus or a society?

In truth, the real need represents only a tiny proportion of national budgets.

In the case of America, it is 0.16% of the national economy. It is not that Americans are selfish. Surveys show that when asked what percentage of their GDP do they believe goes into foreign aid, Americans say: “10%”. And when asked “it that enough”, they say “no”. But when they actually find out that it is only 0.16%, they are dismayed.”

The Commission for Africa has requested a doubling of aid by 2010 that will total 50 billion US dollars. Three months ago, one private bank in Britain was given 75 billion pounds within 30 minutes to save it from going under.

Yet a billion people will go down, and the cost is less that one private British company, in an economic system representing more than 50 trillion per annum. And one of the world’s richest economies can’t find a fraction of that.

We really are a joke.

When we break our promise to the poor, we break the most sacred promise, because breaking this promise kills people.

About Matthew Ricard

The New Wealth Creators

Joel Bomane — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:59:05 +0000

social enterpreneurs

They put society above self. They use entrepreneurial means to drive social change. These 50 social entrepreneurs are enriching the nation.

Naren Karunakaran

IN THIS STORY:

What if a million issues found a million crusaders? What if each one of us transformed into a social entrepreneur? What if each one of us picked up one of the many intractable challenges confronting society, and tried to address it, in ways small or big? It’s a powerful thought indeed, perhaps a far-fetched one, a pie in the sky. The 50 people whose work, mindset and philosophy this special issue shines a light on may not think so. Chiselling away at solutions and bringing them within the realm of the possible is what these 50 people have demonstrated. Their tribe is growing. Stan and Marie Thekaekara from the Gudalur Valley of Tamil Nadu are trying to humanise globalisation by linking adivasis from tea plantations with low-income enclaves in Europe. Dharavi’s Jockin Arputham is enabling slums dwellers in Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg and Phnom Penh to craft housing and hygiene infrastructure solutions on their own.In Mumbai, Anurag Gupta of A Little World uses mobile networks to enable banks, financial institutions and governments to conduct financial transactions with over 3.5 million people spread across 8,300 gram panchayats in 22 states. It’s yielding amazing dividends for him and the people embraced by the technology.

The New Changemakers

Bill Drayton too believes in the ocean-like expansiveness of crusaders. He also believes that our future depends a great deal on seeding millions of such men and women. It’s difficult to cast away Drayton’s conviction as the yearnings of an incorrigible romanticist. After all, he’s the one who coined the term ‘social entrepreneur’ in the 1980s, much before it became fashionable and entered popular lexicon.


	“The young can lead social change by starting small. It’s about moving ideas from local adaptations to pattern changes in society…I’d like to see the day when 20-30% of young Indians are changemakers before 21.”—Bill Drayton, CEO and founder, Ashoka: Innovators For The Public

Drayton began by defining the term ‘social entrepreneur’ in a simple way: “men and women with system-changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems.” He went on to create Ashoka: Innovators For The Public, a vibrant community of over 2,000 social entrepreneurs across 60 countries. Ashoka provides professional support and funds to social entrepreneurs in their early days. The late Anil Agarwal of the Centre For Science And Environment was one of the first Ashoka fellows in India, in 1982. Since then, an eclectic lot of over 300 have got the fellowship, including a large posse of human-rights activists, who wouldn’t really fit in the present day construct of a social entrepreneur.Ashoka fellows, typically, are of the grassroots variety. They are different from the emerging lot of social entrepreneurs, who craft ventures that seek solutions for bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers through a variety of products and services—solar lighting, community water plants, low-cost healthcare, and the like.

Now, in a game-changing move, Drayton, the high priest of the global social entrepreneurship movement, is crafting a broader category. He roots for the word ‘changemaker’. He has devised a programme christened the Youth Venture, which embodies his vision of “everyone a changemaker”.

He is beginning to foster a global ecosystem for the young, even teenagers, by telling them that they too can lead social change by starting small. “It’s about moving ideas from local adaptations to pattern changes in society,” he says. The youth under the programme are expected to gain skills and confidence to remain powerful change-agents long into their adult lives. Ashok Rathod, a 20-year-old from a chawl in Mumbai, runs a football club for school dropouts. He is from the new breed that Drayton has taken under his wings.

Drayton believes the progress of a country, city, or even a company or organisation, will depend a great deal on the number of changemakers thrown up by the system. “Why is Bangalore a successful city,” he asks, and also proffers an answer, “because it’s attractive to changemakers.” The 66-year-old has set himself a tall task: he would like to see the day when 20-30% of young Indians are changemakers before they turn 21.

Touching Lives

While we wait for the new crop to emerge, we have attempted to showcase the work of 50 inspirational social entrepreneurs who have, over the years, changed forever the lives of the people they have touched.


	“Social entrepreneurs have to be self-destroying entities. We have to morph into commercial entities. Otherwise, we have no reason to exist. We are basically transitioning products.”—Vineet Rai, founder and CEO, Aavishkaar India Micro Venture Capital Fund

These 50 deploy entrepreneurial strategies to drive social change. They are a bunch of “unreasonable people”, as John Elkington of the think-tank SustainAbility and Pamela Hartigan of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford like to describe the tribe. Several from the list have a public profile, many continue to work unmindful of recognition.They are not a preserve of innovative Bangalore alone. They can be found across the country, in Spiti Valley of the Himalayas, the highlands of the Nilgiris, in the remote interiors of our states, in the dry Thar, in municipal dumping grounds, in slums of Mumbai, in low-cost hospitals, in artisan clusters, on shop floors…

There are veterans who started work long before they were even recognised as social entrepreneurs and whose influence runs beyond India’s borders. Ela Bhatt of Sewa, the ‘gentle revolutionary’ is one of The Elders, a global grouping of 10 leaders put together by Nelson Mandela. Ashok Khosla of Development Alternatives is President of the Club of Rome, a global think-tank on development challenges. Bunker Roy is helping conflict-torn Afghanistan with renewable-energy solutions.

The Indian elders have apparently inspired shoals of the younger lot. Some of them are educated in Ivy League universities, IITs and IIMs, and are former bankers, consultants and technocrats. Some of them are utterly unlettered. They are all ushering in disruptive innovations in the social space.

Kaushlendra is perfecting a vegetables supply chain in Patna. Solomon JP and Gayatri from Bangalore are addressing the challenges of migration and skills. Varun Sahni and Anant Kumar are rolling out a low-cost maternal care hospital every 27 days. Nedjip Tozun of D.Light Design is tweaking a model to manufacture millions of solar lanterns. Kousalya Periasamy is the face and voice of thousands of HIV-positive women across India.

The list is only representative of the wonderful work being done by social entrepreneurs. There are scores who merited being here, but didn’t make it for space reasons. In the limited space we have, we have attempted to present a diversity of activities undertaken by social entrepreneurs—education and skilling, livelihood generation, agriculture, healthcare, water and sanitation, responsible tourism, renewable energy, disaster management, and more.

What we have deliberately left out is microfinance. In recent years, microfinance has turned into a veritable industry with its own ecosystem. Vikram Akula of SKS Microfinance, the scale-up warrior, and Vijay Mahajan of Basix, who intertwines livelihood approaches with microfinance, are sorely missed on these pages. Both are exemplary social entrepreneurs. In many ways, it was microfinance that turned the attention of mainstream businesses and investors to the immense possibilities in the social sector.

As microfinance triggered the interest of mainstream investors, the economic meltdown is also doing its bit in reshaping a world order favourable to social entrepreneurs. “Capitalism, which focused only on the generation of wealth hitherto, will now have to concentrate on the issue of wealth distribution too,” says Vineet Rai, founder and CEO of Aavishkaar India Micro Venture Capital Fund and also the moving spirit behind Sankalp, a forum for social enterprises and investors.

New Capitalism


	“It’s a hugely exciting time…this (new capitalism) is fertile ground for creating a ‘phoenix economy’ that rises from the ashes of the old, driven by accelerating entrepreneurial approaches and disruptive innovations.”—Pamela Hartigan, Director, Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship

The future of capitalism is being redrawn for a more “inclusive” or even a “creative” one, as Bill Gates put it. In the new order, social entrepreneurs are expected to play an integral role in laying the road ahead. “This is fertile ground for creating a ‘phoenix economy’ that rises from the ashes of the old, driven by accelerating entrepreneurial approaches and disruptive innovations, including new technologies, new business models, new laws and regulations, all geared towards creating new market systems,” says Pamela Hartigan of the Skoll Centre. “It’s a hugely exciting time.”Rai and Hartigan also nurse the rather radical hope that, in the not too distant future, the distinction between a social venture and most businesses will vanish. “Who would have thought they would hear Jack Welch say ‘maximising shareholder value is the dumbest thing in the world’,” asks Hartigan.

Successful companies of the future will be those that generate a unique value proposition: one that appeals to the hearts of all its stakeholders, not just shareholders keen on profit maximisation. While companies, big and small, grow social shoots, on the other end, social enterprises are expected to eventually resemble commercial enterprises.

SKS Microfinance was a traditional NGO till about 2005. It reinvented itself as an enterprise and is now bang in the middle of a transition. Some say it’s now more commercial and businesslike in its approach than many traditional businesses. “Social entrepreneurs have to be self-destroying entities. We have to morph into commercial entities. Otherwise, we have no reason to exist. We are transitioning products,” insists Rai.

‘Patient Capital’

The times indeed are changing. We know it’s truly changing when the finance guys get into the act. “Change first happens on the operating side. Finance is a laggard. They follow,” says Drayton.

A whole new investing edifice is now being catalysed by big names in global finance, including the US-based Rockefeller Foundation. It is being described as ‘impact investing’ or ‘patient capital’. The emerging industry comprises of investors endeavouring to generate financial return, and social and environmental value.

Impact investors offer a bridge between traditional philanthropy and the capital markets. “Impact investors are willing to provide seed funding to an enterprise to refine a business model or take first-loss position to reduce the risk of an investment,” says Antony Bugg-Levine, Managing Director, Rockefeller Foundation.

Again, SKS comes to mind. In its initial years, a band of investors with a soul chaperoned it with small sums of money. Later, mainstream investors like Sequoia Capital, with no social conscience whatsoever, took over and are now taking the company to stratospheric heights. The model apparently works.

“We are looking at timelines of even nine years before we exit an investee company,” says Varun Sahni, India Director, Acumen Fund, as if to reinforce the ‘patient’ in patient capital. Funds like Acumen, which has invested $20 million in 12 Indian social enterprises, are comfortable with compounded returns of 6-8%.

A recent study by the US-based Monitor Institute says the impact-investing industry could be as big as $500 billion within the next decade. Quaintly, it’s a philanthropic foundation that is leading the charge to catalyse the industry. “With the advent of a strong impact-investing market, philanthropy’s limited resources can be focused laser-like on where we are most needed: to fund crucial activities markets will never fund,” says Bugg-Levine. “These include movements for social justice, human-rights campaigns, and outreach to the most poor and remote communities.”

Social Businesses


	“With the advent of a strong impact-investing market, philanthropy’s more limited resources can then be focused laser-like on where we are most needed: to fund crucial activities the markets will never fund.”—Antony Bugg-Levine, Managing Director, Rockefeller Foundation

The financial sector is undergoing a churn. Businesses and the social sector are responding with an amazing variety of hybrid models. NGOs are partnering corporations in a more comprehensive and uninhibited manner, and are metamorphosing in strange ways to link with market systems. These hybrids, more often than not, combine a commercial activity with service provision and even social activism. Looks like the most viable and sustainable approach to social progress is partnerships between NGOs, government, business corporations and philanthropic outfits. Boundaries are clearly blurring.Bill Drayton is certain the proliferation of hybrid value chains (HVCs) is the most innovative structural change to happen in decades. In Mexico, Cemex, a large cement company, provides low-cost engineering services to slum dwellers who save up money for cement to rebuild their homes. Lafarge, a multinational, and several others are now cementing ties with such communities.

Swayam Shikshan Prayog, a Mumbai-based NGO, is not only co-creating innovative products for rural markets with Godrej & Boyce, but is also helping the company market them. Hybrids now seem an imperative not only for not-for-profits, but also for corporations. “Companies not engaged in HVCs are exposing themselves to grave risks,” warns Drayton. Socially relevant projects are now good business.

Interestingly, companies engaged in renewable energy, waste recycling—the cleantech companies, so to speak—are also being bracketed as social enterprises. This is despite the fact that many entered the space because they saw a business opportunity, and not because they nursed a social heart.

So, is Pramod Chaudhuri of Praj Industries, the green fuels company, or Tulsi Tanti of Suzlon, the wind energy giant, a social entrepreneur? Yes, in a generous sense. They do address some pressing, socially relevant global challenges. But to bracket them with, say, Harish Hande of Selco India, who provides solar-energy solutions to underserved rural households, would be incongruent. “Selco is social-focused and is addressing the most difficult part of the business. That’s why he is different,” says Aavishkaar’s Rai.

Hande doesn’t just sell solar solutions. He focuses on livelihoods of the poor households he serves. Women who purchased solar lamps to fix on their sewing machines realised they could sew more garments now that they also had the night. They turned to Hande to find markets for them, although it’s not his mandate to do so. You know a social entrepreneur when you see one.

Get Down to Business by Jacques Attali

Joel Bomane — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:43:52 +0000

Get Down to Business

Original date of publication (French) June 3d 2009 7:21 | by
JACQUES ATTALI

Contrary to what they want us to
believe, the crisis deepens: in the United
States, all deficits are rising; banks defaulting are worsening, and even if
Wall Street is up, its value is still 40% lower than that of October 2007.
In addition,everyone whispers within informed circles, that we should expect
many more tsunamis: on private real estate loans, on credit cards, and on
commercial real estate.

In response, the United States, in a crazy bet, is investing money it does
not have in leading sectors. And China, in an equally bold gamble, is
abandoning all hope of an upturn in its exports to America and is investing
in a huge economic revival, 20% of its GDP in domestic infrastructure.

Europe in return, does nothing. Paralyzed by its history and its caution it
prefers to believe the crisis will solve itself. Having invested on reform
of global governance, which of course the London comedy did not give birth,
it seems now waiting for the market to bring out of its pocket a miracle
cure. Deprived of bold leaders in Brussels, the EU does not give itself any
new means to protect its banks, or to revitalize its leading sectors. 2008
and 2009 will remain as the years of European void. The euro itself will not
resist such a shock.

It’s about time for France to understand that at this pace, the worst is
almost certain: a declining real estate market, a surplus of production
capacity in key sectors, a recession in 2009, 2010 and even 2011,
unemployment will exceed 3.5 million people, the budget deficit will reach,
despite all the makeup, 8 or even 10% of GDP, unless taxes are massively
increased, which will be extremely difficult, with the presidential
elections coming, the technical and scientific elites will revolt or will
leave, disgusted by the revelation of fortunes made in finance.

We must confront a difficult reality, repeat it every day until we
understand it: If the government does not act massively, in a real
revolutionary way, recession will be there for at least ten years, it will
lead Europe and France to fall behind, forever distanced by countries that
will have understood the importance of the revolutions in progress.

Action therefore means to boost massively the industry by targeted spending
on promising sectors: health, energy, agriculture, infrastructure,
environment, new materials, softwares, nanotechnology , neuroscience,
cutting-edge services and cultural industries. And in order to do so
increase significantly the salaries of researchers, professors, doctors,
engineers, meaning all those who bring their creativity to countries. At the
expense, if necessary, of the incomes and the privileges of those who lead
them, finance them or entertain them. It’s accepting temporarily targeted
deficits to fund these expenditures of the future. It is promoting new
business models that are more mindful of the long term, and close to those
of NGOs and public services, it is to direct the world of finance toward
risk-taking in sectors based on the long term, and not toward profit for
itself.

It’s not a new recovery plan that we need, but a true awareness of the
cultural and political urgencies. And in particular a radical questioning of
the division of powers between those who create and those who finance, the
condition, once again, of our survival.

————————————————————————————————————
Translation from French made possible with permission of Mr. Jacques Attali

http://blogs.lexpress.fr/attali/

————————————————————————————————————

Mr. Jacques Attali Jacques Attali (born 1 November 1943 in Algiers, Algeria)
is a French economist and scholar. From 1981 to 1991, he was an advisor to
President François Mitterrand, In April 1991 he became the first President
of the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the
financial institution established by western governments to assist the
countries of eastern and central Europe and the former Soviet Union in their
transition to democratic market economies. He worked at the bank until 1993.
In 1998 Attali founded the French non-profit organization PlaNet Finance
which focuses on microfinance. Attali is perhaps best known in America as
the author of Noise: The Political Economy of Music. More Info:

http://blogs.lexpress.fr/attali/about.php

————————————————————————————–
Original Post: (French)

http://blogs.lexpress.fr/attali/

—————————————————————————————

Passer aux choses sérieuses

3 juin 2009 7h21 | par JACQUES ATTALI

Contrairement à ce qu’on voudrait faire croire, la crise s’approfondit : aux
Etats-Unis, tous les déficits augmentent ; les défauts des banques
s’aggravent ; et même si Wall Street est en hausse, sa valeur est encore 40%
inférieure à celle d’octobre 2007. De plus, chacun murmure, dans les cercles
informés, qu’il faut s’attendre à bien d’autres tsunamis : sur les crédits
immobiliers privés, sur les cartes de crédit, et sur l’immobilier
commercial.

Pour y répondre, les Etats-Unis, dans un pari fou, investissent l’argent
qu’ils n’ont pas dans les secteurs de pointe. Et la Chine, dans un pari tout
aussi audacieux, abandonne tout espoir d’une reprise de ses exportations
vers l’Amérique et investit, dans une relance gigantesque, 20% de son PIB en
infrastructures internes.

L’Europe, face à cela, ne fait rien. Paralysée par son histoire et par ses
prudences, elle préfère croire que la crise va se régler d’elle-même. Ayant
tout misé sur une réforme de la gouvernance mondiale, dont la comédie de
Londres n’a naturellement pas accouché, elle semble désormais attendre que
le marché sorte de sa poche un remède miracle. Privée de dirigeants
audacieux à Bruxelles , l’Union ne se donne aucun moyen nouveau ni pour
protéger ses banques, ni pour relancer ses secteurs de pointe. 2008 et 2009
resteront comme les années du néant européen. L’euro lui-même ne résistera
pas à un tel choc.

Il est temps pour la France de comprendre que, à ce rythme là, le pire est
presque certain : un marché immobilier en baisse ; une surcapacité de
production dans les grands secteurs ; une récession en 2009, 2010, et même
de 2011 ; le chômage dépassera les 3,5 millions de personnes ; le déficit
budgétaire atteindra , malgré tous les maquillages, les 8 ou même les 10 %
du PIB, à moins d’augmenter massivement les impôts, ce qui sera de plus en
plus difficile, avec l’approche des élections présidentielles ; les élites
scientifiques et techniques se révolteront ou partiront, écœurées par la
révélation des fortunes faites dans la finance .

Il faut affronter une réalité difficile, la répéter tous les jours, jusqu’à
ce qu’on la comprenne : Si le pouvoir politique n’agit pas massivement, de
façon véritablement révolutionnaire, la récession est là pour au moins dix
ans ; elle débouchera sur un décrochage de l’Europe et de la France, à
jamais distancées par les pays qui auront compris l’importance des
révolutions en cours.

Agir, c’est donc relancer massivement l’industrie par des dépenses
clairement ciblées sur les secteurs d’avenir : la santé, l’énergie,
l’agriculture, les infrastructures, l’environnement, les nouveaux matériaux,
les logiciels, les nanotechnologies, les neurosciences, les services de
pointe et les industries culturelles. Et pour cela augmenter
significativement les salaires des chercheurs, des professeurs, des
médecins, des ingénieurs, c’est-à-dire de tous ceux, qui par leur créativité
apportent aux pays. Au détriment, si nécessaire, des revenus et des
privilèges de ceux qui les dirigent, les financent ou les distraient. C’est
accepter provisoirement des déficits ciblés pour financer ces dépenses
d’avenir. C’est promouvoir de nouveaux modèles d’entreprises, plus soucieux
du long terme, et proches de ceux des ONG et des services publics ; c’est
orienter la finance vers la prise de risque dans les secteurs de long terme,
et non vers le profit pour compte propre.

Ce n’est pas d’un nouveau plan de relance que nous avons besoin, mais d’une
véritable prise de conscience des urgences culturelles et politiques. Et en
particulier d’une remise en cause radicale de la répartition des pouvoirs
entre ceux qui créent et ceux qui financent, condition, une fois de plus, de
notre survie.

j@attali.com

A RETRO-GOVERNMENT

IN NEED OF IRAN

PROMISES OF THE SUBURBS

OPTIMISMS

THREE YEARS

En version originale par Jacques Attali:

OPTIMISMES

TROIS ANS

Les 8 Secrets de la Réussite

dédié aux entrepreneurs de FRANCE,
tout particulièrement ceux de la

Région
PACA et du 13006...qui se
reconnaitront.

N.B:

pour sous titrage en Français, prière de
cliquer sur”view subtitles” et
faire le choix France (French) .

USA Fiscal Imbalance

Joel Bomane — Sat, 23 May 2009 16:30:41 +0000

I still wonder how the leading country on this planet can expect to have debt free citizens…while having a national debt that is already $8.5 trillion?

The problem is not new from: Ross Perot’s in 1992 presidential election… Mr. “r-e-a-d m-y l-i-p-s” and raising taxes…

Bill Cliton in 1993...(where they first lost the Congress in 30 years…)

David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States (2007) thinks USA have four deficits:

1) Debt/Budget
2) Balance payment,
3) saving,
4) Leadership

Americans have a vague sense of their government’s long-term fiscal prospects… Young people worry more about the war in Iraq, terrorism, jobs than the bad shape of the economy.

By 2030 Medicare will be about $5 trillion in the hole. Isn’t this an unfair burden on future generations? David Walker has planned a fiscal wake-up tour for 2008?

Here is a short video on this topic from David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States:

N.B: Lucidity...bring together…the recent “An Inconvenient Truth” by Al Gore with “USA growing fiscal imbalance” by David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States What is at stake? …

It’s not just the future of the USA…

“whenever America sneezes…rest of the world…flue”

I let you make your own conclusions.

Mark Joyner: Bill O’Reilly…About The 600,000 in Iraq

Joel Bomane — Sat, 23 May 2009 16:09:16 +0000

Mark Joyner wrote: Mark Joyner Logs

March 13, 2007 Dear Bill O’Reilly

(About The 600,000 in Iraq Bill Maher Mentioned)

I sent this letter to Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly (The O’Reilly Factor)

the other day after watching him “debate” Bill Maher. He likes “pithy,” so that’s what I gave him: Bill, you said that the 600,000+ death toll figure in Iraq is from a “far left website.”

This characterization is flatly incorrect. It was a study conducted by American and Iraqi epidemiologists. It was overseen by Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health*.

Does “far left” mean “presents evidence that contradicts my beliefs?” That seems to be how you use the phrase. I hope you have the courage to correct this disinformation, sir. Respectfully … Mark Joyner

————————————————————————————————————–

A comment from Sunny Sudden FRANCE

-Earth Citizens sin- “indifference”

Thank you Mark for opening the issue on “disinformation.” Everyone seems very passionate: “O”Reilly, Maher, politics, facts, truth”…

In the meantime “Earth Citizens” (God’s creatures if you believe there is a “Higher Power”) are still dying daily in Irak. (lost Iraqi, American lives… many being innocent people= Earth Citizens)…

Is the debate about “disinformation”?…

We live in a global “fear” based society. We are becoming increasingly “indifferent”… to “others” suffering.

Gandhi said: “in the midst of death, life persists, and in the midst of darkness, light perists…We can say “no” to violence, and “yes” to life.”

If we really felt the weight of our own individual actions,and responsability… Instead of spending so much time “arguing with words”…

We would strengthen our life daily by our personal “acts”…

Noone can be “neutral” and “indifferent” to what’s happening to Planet Earth, its Earth Citizens (specialy in Irak)… certainly NOT because we’ve got 3 meals a day, a job, a fat bank account, or because we have too much responsability or are too poor to “care”…

In a fear based society, Earth Citizens are being daily bombarded by GIGABITS of “disinformation” and crippled with “information overload”…

In this context what should Mark Joyner have said?

“For God’s sake, don’t disturb me…leave me alone…with your “true lies…Let’s keep it simple…Let me mind only Simpleology Training”…

My friend as you have a “fight with words”: “disinformation”, “white lie”, “true lie”… let me remind you that Earth Citizens are dying DAILY in Irak…

So I ask you Earth Citizen:

“Are you blind”… and “is your heart made of stone”?…

that you do not SEE what’s at stake (LIVES: HUMAN LIVES)…

We have right here and right now a crisis of: Truth, Honesty, Courage, and LUCIDITY…

This is not just about “disinformation”…and O’Reilly…

It’s foremost about “indifference”…and “fear”…

The higher we are socialy the more we seek security... no disturbance…”leave me alone”… “I have enough of my own problems”

And slowly “inertia” takes place in our lives… (physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual inertia) while EVERYTHING is constantly changing in this dynamic universe…

As we are “debating” Earth Citizens in Irak give their last breath on Planet Earth…

Albert Schweitzer*, “le Grand Docteur” who fought for growth of brotherhood among races was right when he said:

“Men do not think”…

In fact the last thing “WE”… YOU and I…want to face is that YOU and I are responsible for this violence…

- FIAT LUX -

*Albert Schweitzer: His whole life and all of his work are a message addressed to all men regardless of nationality or race…

Note: “In these troubled and uncertain times men are searching for something which will allow them to believe that mankind will one day enjoy the reign of peace and goodwill. “If altruism, reverence for life, and the idea of brotherhood can become living realities in the hearts of men, we will have laid the very foundations of a lasting peace between individuals, nations, and races.”

Presentation Speech by Gunnar Jah for: -Dr. Albert Schweitzer NOBEL PEACE PRIZE RECIPIENT 1952-

Joel Bomane

NOTE FROM Mark Joyner: Beautiful! Read my “constructs” and you’ll see we’re very much on the same page. It’s one thing to think it, another to do something about it. Look at “Construct One” for the first step …

OBRA MAESTRA » Politics

Shrink Your Brain Wreck The Planet by Joel Bomane

Daniel Wolpert: The real reason for brains

Oskar Schindler

World War II

After the war

Legacy

Schindler’s List (Schindler’s Ark)

Schindler’s suitcase

List of Schindlerjuden

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Weidner Jean – Adventiste et résistant

En l’honneur de Jean Weidner, que j’ai eu la chance de rencontrer aux USA dans les années 90.

[John Weidner, 1946, recevant la médaille de la Résistance aux Pays-Bas source photo : Block, Gay and Malka Drucker crédit photo : D.R."][/caption]

Jean Weidner : article de R. Lehmann dans “Dictionnaire du monde religieux dans la France contemporaine” (Beauchesne, 1996)

Elizabeth Wright Dies

by Jared Taylor on August 24, 2011

Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the Nation

January 17, 1961

Good-Bye… Truth Has Fallen And Taken Liberty With It

Paul Craig Roberts: How The Law Was Lost

Dorothy Height

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Ephemeral Eternity

Harvard University’s Justice with Michael Sandel

Michael Sandel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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2009 immigration commentary

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A passionate plea by Bob Geldof

The New Wealth Creators

Get Down to Business by Jacques Attali

USA Fiscal Imbalance

Mark Joyner: Bill O’Reilly…About The 600,000 in Iraq