or riverside wetlands that actually help to filter and clean the water
Sounds like the Borg.Where do you think the writers derived the source material for the concept? The precepts of Marxism decry the evils of the bourgeois family and the destruction of the proletariat family in the pursuit of the bourgeois family model. The current situation appears to support the concept because the number of single parent households, according to Gotea and Busuoic at the University of Brasov, appears to have risen from 9% in the 1960's to 26% in the 1990's in the United States of America (98). The majority of the single parent families appear in the lower income classes, and the single parent family holds a number of significant negative influences on the outcomes of the members. The children of the single parent households hold a lower educational attainment, higher levels of delinquency, and lower socioeconomic status as adults. The proposed system ensures the people of every class possess the necessary connections to produce the best possible child for the circumstances through the intervention of the joint family unit. The joint family unit ensures the people have the ability to discipline the child in a productive manner since the other members of the group would possess the ability to intervene in the development of the child through a response from the childcare expert of the group.
History has taught us that humans are spectacularly bad at figuring out which grand, utopian plans are good and which are monstrous. We do not yet have Hari Seldon and his psychohistory, so for the foreseeable future (ha), we are stuck groping blindly for answers. My suggestion is to listen widely and discuss without attempting to persuade, and through that process slowly realize that your political ideology is probably hokum (just as mine is).I believe you understand the true euphemism for the paper. The fiction writers can proselytize his or her beliefs, but the concern for the pragmatic aspects of social life remains a concrete consideration. The ability to read remains an essential component, but the current system remains an amalgamation of dissident parts where the major corporations influence the perception of society through the proliferation of non-governmental propaganda. The question remains on the ability to select from the choices of deception, activism, professionalism, or a truth. The position of apathy remains a component of the ill inside the current problem. The professionals often remain complicit in the delusions of society, and the majority of the social groups remain under the delusional thoughts. The only path left remains a passive activism where the people attempt to destroy the delusions of the professionals and to awaken the alternative perspectives in the population from the crass consumerism in the United States of America.
It’s being branded by proponents as an attempt at transparency, but critics of a new law say the United States government just got the green-light to use propaganda made for foreign audiences on the American public.
Until earlier this month, a longstanding federal law made it illegal for the US Department of State to share domestically the internally-authored news stories sent to American-operated outlets broadcasting around the globe. All of that changed effective July 2, when the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) was given permission to let US households tune-in to hear the type of programming that has previously only been allowed in outside nations.
The BBG is the independent government agency that broadcasts Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other networks created “to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy" - and a new law now allows the agency to provide members of the American public with program materials originally meant to be disseminated abroad.
The Smith-Mundt Act has ensured for decades that government-made media intended for foreign audiences doesn’t end up on radio networks broadcast within the US. An amendment tagged onto the National Defense Authorization Act removed that prohibition this year, however, and as of earlier this month those news stories meant for nations abroad can now be heard easily by American ears.
Back in 1972, Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright equated those government stories with propaganda when he said they "should be given the opportunity to take their rightful place in the graveyard of Cold War relics.” A couple of current lawmakers were singing a different tune when they proposed the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 last year, though, which became official just two weeks ago.
When Reps. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) and Adam Smith (D-WA) introduced their changes last year, they said their bill would modify “a Cold War-era law that hampers diplomatic, defense and other agencies’ ability to communicate in the twenty-first century.” Amid much debate, however, their argument quickly became one that focused less on ensuring Uncle Sam has his say within the media and more on making sure a taxpayer-funded program became available to those footing the costs.
“Effective strategic communication and public diplomacy should be front-and-center as we work to roll back al-Qaeda’s and other violent extremists’ influence among disaffected populations,” Rep. Smith wrote in May 2012 in support of his bill. “An essential part of our efforts must be a coordinated, comprehensive, adequately resourced plan to counter their radical messages and undermine their recruitment abilities. To do this, Smith-Mundt must be updated to bolster our strategic communications and public diplomacy capacity on all fronts and mediums – especially online.”
But a Buzzfeed article published days later by late journalist Michael Hastings opened a can of worms on Smith and Thornberry, and the lawmakers were forced to quickly diffuse critics who said their bill made it so that the government could effectuate propaganda on its own public. On his part, Thornberry told Foreign Policy that the BuzzFeed article and the subsequent blowback was “one level of sloppiness on top of another,” caused by an uninformed Hastings story being hijacked by pundits from other publications who were all the more ignorant. “And once something sensational gets out there, it just spreads like wildfire," said Thornberry.
"The idea that the State Department could be so effective as to impact domestic politics is just silly,” Thornberry told Foreign Policy last year. “This gives Americans the chance to see what the State Department is saying to people all over the world,” he insisted.
Weighing in to Foreign Policy one year later, BBG spokeswoman Lynne Weil said that the maneuver is nothing more than to show Americans how their money is being spent abroad. "Now Americans will be able to know more about what they are paying for with their tax dollars - greater transparency is a win-win for all involved," she said.
A view inside the BBG Middle East Broadcasting Networks newsroom. (Image from whitehouse.gov)
In the wake of others’ comments, though — and the actual text of the legislation itself — critics can’t help but suggest that the latest amendment courtesy of Smith and Thornberry have opened the door for the use of propaganda to persuade the American public at a time when the popularity of both Congress and the president are lower than what either would prefer.
Those opinions and others could change, of course, if the American government can infiltrate the radio waves and introduce news aimed at specific demographics that has previously only been pushed outside of the US. The statement from Smith and Thornberry last year suggested that the Cold War-era legislation previously prevented a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based radio station with a large Somali-American audience from broadcasting a piece produced by the BBG’s Voice of America that rebutted efforts from Somalia’s al- Shabaab extremist group to recruit members within the US.
“Even after the community was targeted for recruitment by al-Shabaab and other extremists, government lawyers refused the replay request, noting that Smith-Mundt tied their hands,” wrote the lawmakers.
"Somalis have three options for news" a former US government source with connections to the BBG told Foreign Policy. The source added that those three options are word of mouth, al-Shabaab or VOA Somalia.
"Those people can get al-Shabaab, they can get Russia Today, but they couldn't get access to their taxpayer-funded news sources like VOA Somalia," the source said. "It was silly."
“Previously, the legislation had the effect of clouding and hiding this stuff," the source said. "Now we'll have a better sense: Gee some of this stuff is really good. Or gee some of this stuff is really bad. At least we'll know now."
According to a document from the Office of the Federal Register published this week by Cryptome, the Smith-Thornberry act “does not require or prompt the public to take any action; rather, it functions to relieve the prohibition that prevented the Agency from responding to requests for program materials from the US public, US media entities or other US organizations.”
“This rule benefits the public, media, and other organizations by allowing them to request and access BBG program materials, which previously could not be disseminated within the US,” it reads.
The rule applies only to media published by the State Department and does not involve any initiatives created or funded through the Pentagon.
Oh ya.
He said, she said BS comments typically.
Basically, think of the worst case water cooler rumor mill. Now, mix it with instant communication, hot headed teens who have no idea what a fact check is, and a level of maturity that goes hand in hand with multi generational poverty - and you get a true mess. In the past 2 school years, I know of only 1 actual fight that didn't involve a phone and social media among a 550 odd strong population. I know also of 2 shooting, 1 stabbing, 1 attempted vehicular homicide and an unknown number of fights but well over 100, 5 of which were serious enough to warrant police action along with state level expulsion.
It's just so senseless to have one person hospitalized and the other jailed. Shoot it out on HALO or something. At least that way you won't ruin each other's lives or kill any bystanders.
I always found either playing football or working out a great way to release aggression caused by a frustrating day at school. Kept me out of trouble, mostly.
Never too early to get the word out?
-FWIW, I don't think girls are as bad about most of that among themselves.
Btw, based on your corpus, it sounds like you've got it all worked out what kinds of thoughts people should be having. Maybe consider that for a moment.Your comment suggests a deep intellectual mind who would benefit from a healthy dose of philosophical and sociological education on the topic. Although the notion of a vanguard constitutes a necessity in the beginning, a constitution and a checks and balance system will ensure the population does not suffer from the same affliction as Russia after the death of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov in 1924 due to a stroke.
New road brings Xinjiang closer
By Luo Wangshu | China Daily | Updated: 2017-07-17 08:23
New road brings Xinjiang closer
An aerial view of part of the Gansu section of the Beijing-Xinjiang Expressway. CAI ZENGLE/CHINA DAILY
The Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in far northwestern China has just become a bit closer to the capital, as three sections of a new expressway along risky terrain opened to traffic on Saturday.
The new sections have a combined length of more than 1,200 kilometers. The 930-km Linhe-Baigeda section is in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region; the 134-km Baigeda-Mingshui section is in Gansu province; and the 178-km Mingshui-Hami section is in Xinjiang.
The sections run through the Gobi Desert, which is characterized by drought and other poor natural conditions. The more than 500 km running through desolate and uninhabited areas of Inner Mongolia, which posed a challenge to construction workers.
The Beijing-Xinjiang Expressway, or G7, is one of seven expressways connecting Beijing with other major cities under a national expressway plan.
"The expressway is a new passage ... and the most convenient road to link Beijing with the northwestern region of Inner Mongolia, northern Gansu and Xinjiang, which will enhance communication between northern China's eastern, central and western areas," said Ren Jinxiong, an inspector in the Ministry of Transport's planning division.
The link will also better serve the Belt and Road Initiative and Western Development Plan, improving regional economic and social development along the route, according to a statement from the ministry.
New road brings Xinjiang closer
The 2,768-km G7 has been built across Beijing and five other provincial-level regions－Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Xinjiang. It passes Zhangjiakou, Ulanqab, Hohhot, Baotou, Linhe, Ejin Banner, Hami, Turpan and Urumqi.
Some sections are still under construction, with drivers taking detours in some parts of Beijing, Hebei, Shanxi and Xinjiang, sharing routes with the Beijing-Tibet Expressway and Lianyungang-Khorgos Expressway.
Once the Beijing-Xinjiang Expressway is fully operational, it will cut more than 1,300 km off the journey from Beijing to Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.
"By 2016, the total length of expressways in China had reached 131,000 km, the most in the world," Ren said.
About 41,000 km of expressways have been open to traffic since 2012, and 98 percent of towns and cities with a population of more than 200,000 have access, he added.
The national expressway network is expected to be completed by the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20). The ministry will also carry out capacity expansion along some busy national expressway routes, Ren said."
N. Korean defectors show locations of mass graves using Google Earth
NGO creates maps to guide future investigation of crimes against humanity.
Ars Technica
Sean Gallagher - 7/19/2017, 4:15 PM
Much of what happens in North Korea remains hidden from the outside world. But commercial satellite imagery and Google Earth mapping software are helping a human-rights organization take inventory of the worst offenses of the North Korean regime and identify sites for future investigation of crimes against humanity.
A new report from the South Korea-based Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG) (https://en.tjwg.org/)—a non-governmental organization that tracks human-rights abuses and crimes against humanity by the world's most oppressive regimes—details how the organization's researchers used Google Earth in interviews with defectors from North Korea to identify sites associated with mass killings by the North Korean regime. Google Earth imagery was used to help witnesses to killings and mass burials orient themselves and precisely point out the locations of those events.
Entitled “Mapping Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea: Mass Graves, Killing Sites and Documentary Evidence,” the report does not include the actual locations of what the researchers deemed to be sensitive sites out of concern that the North Korean regime would move evidence from those sites. But it does provide location data of other sites with potential documentary evidence of crimes, including police stations and other government facilities that may have records of atrocities.
(https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/tjwg2.png)
A map showing sites in one North Korean city where documentary evidence of human rights abuses could be located.
(https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/tjwg1.png)
A map showing the location of reports of mass killings and burials in North Korea, as detailed by witness reports.
(https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Screen-Shot-2017-07-19-at-3.08.14-PM-1440x979.png)
A diagram of one site of reported mass killings—a mining site—with geographic details removed to protect the data.
The report is an early set of findings from the Mapping Project, an effort by TJWG to identify sites of abuses over the past two decades based on eyewitness testimony and satellite imagery. The project also wants to examine remote sensing technologies that could be used in the future to detect and analyze sites in North Korea containing human remains.
"Although it is beyond our current capabilities to investigate and analyze the sites due to lack of access," the researchers noted, "this research is a crucial first step in the pursuit of accountability for human rights crimes. It is also designed to serve first responders [NGO workers, forensic scientists, journalists, and others] who may enter North Korea in the future."
Efforts to bring charges against North Korea's regime in the International Criminal Court have been held up by resistance in the United Nations from China and Russia. However, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea (UN COI) continues to bring attention to abuses by the North Korean regime, and it has called for measures to be taken to end human rights abuses and hold those responsible for the abuse accountable. And the UN COI continues to gather evidence in a repository for use in a future process. TJWG believes the Mapping Project could significantly aid the push to hold the North Korean regime accountable while aiding "future efforts to institute a process of transitional justice following a change in the political conditions in North Korea." In other words, the project could aid in prosecution after a regime change.
While the Mapping Project is still in its early stages, TJWG released the report to "attract wider participation from both informants and technical practitioners with expertise and knowledge that will advance the project," the researchers said.
Every dispatch I've read from China (other than those released by the government itself) paints it as a desperately unhappy and corrupt country where it is essentially impossible to live with integrity due to a complete lack of accountability and transparency, combined with the breakdown of basic social trust. Getting anything done requires a bribe, state jobs and social services are given preferentially based on personal rank and influence, and its vast body of rural workers is reduced to something nearly identical to serfdom. They can leave their land to work in the cities, but they can't stop being rural-status, which means their descendants will be pathetic migrant laborers indefinitely. Also, ridiculous amounts of censorship.The presence of the dramatic differences in the quality of the sources would indicate the potential bias from the people in the article. The western journalists who promote the information tend to disseminate the disillusionment of the journalist with the potential damage from the current affairs in the country, and the migrants from the country tend to demonstrate a pro American bias since the individual undertook the efforts to migrate from the country. Who would ask an American immigrant in China about the quality of life in the United States of America? The answer would likely contain a negative or derogatory tone about the country. The Americans tend to distort the images of the countries with a tenuous relationship because the government fears to provide an objective truth about the situation, and the objectivity of the matter revolves around the ability of the individual to distance the analysis from the biased perspective of.the individual or company. With the development of the western superpower, an objective analysis of the material, in consideration of the conditions and circumstances of the country from a historical perspective, remains an essential tool to dispel the power of bias on the goal of an analysis. The presence of the information from the activity demonstrates the important role of the activity in the dissemination of propaganda in the country.
The thought reform process represents a modified version of cognitive behavioral therapy...
The United States of America and China both possess a form of court mandated treatment and therapy sessions for offenders; China employs a similar principle for certain classes of offenders. https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/principles-drug-abuse-treatment-criminal-justice-populations/legally-mandated-treatment-effective (https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/principles-drug-abuse-treatment-criminal-justice-populations/legally-mandated-treatment-effective)The thought reform process represents a modified version of cognitive behavioral therapy...
Where I'm from therapy is voluntary.
EXCLUSIVE: Chinese scientists are creating CRISPR babies
A daring effort is under way to create the first children whose DNA has been tailored using gene editing.
by Antonio Regalado November 25, 2018
When Chinese researchers first edited the genes of a human embryo in a lab dish in 2015, it sparked global outcry and pleas from scientists not to make a baby using the technology, at least for the present.
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It was the invention of a powerful gene-editing tool, CRISPR, which is cheap and easy to deploy, that made the birth of humans genetically modified in an in vitro fertilization (IVF) center a theoretical possibility.
Now, it appears it may already be happening.
According to Chinese medical documents posted online this month (here and here), a team at the Southern University of Science and Technology, in Shenzhen, has been recruiting couples in an effort to create the first gene-edited babies. They planned to eliminate a gene called CCR5 in hopes of rendering the offspring resistant to HIV, smallpox, and cholera.
Photo of Jiankui He
He Jiankui leads a team using the gene-editing technology CRISPR in an effort to prevent disease in newborns.
Southern University of Science and Technology
The clinical trial documents describe a study in which CRISPR is employed to modify human embryos before they are transferred into women’s uteruses.
The scientist behind the effort, He Jiankui, did not reply to a list of questions about whether the undertaking had produced a live birth. Reached by telephone, he declined to comment.
However, data submitted as part of the trial listing shows that genetic tests have been carried out on fetuses as late as 24 weeks, or six months. It’s not known if those pregnancies were terminated, carried to term, or are ongoing.
[After this story was published, the Associated Press reported that according to He, one couple in the trial gave birth to twin girls this month, though the agency wasn't able to confirm his claim independently. He also released a promotional video about his project.]
The birth of the first genetically tailored humans would be a stunning medical achievement, for both He and China. But it will prove controversial, too. Where some see a new form of medicine that eliminates genetic disease, others see a slippery slope to enhancements, designer babies, and a new form of eugenics.
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The step toward genetically tailored humans was undertaken in secrecy and with the clear ambition of a stunning medical first.
“In this ever more competitive global pursuit of applications for gene editing, we hope to be a stand-out,” He and his team wrote in an ethics statement they submitted last year. They predicted their innovation “will surpass” the invention of in vitro fertilization, whose developer was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2010.
Gene-editing summit
The claim that China has already made genetically altered humans comes just as the world’s leading experts are jetting into Hong Kong for the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing.
The purpose of the international meeting is to help determine whether humans should begin to genetically modify themselves, and if so, how. That purpose now appears to have been preempted by the actions of He, an elite biologist recruited back to China from the US as part of its “Thousand Talents Plan.”
The technology is ethically charged because changes to an embryo would be inherited by future generations and could eventually affect the entire gene pool. “We have never done anything that will change the genes of the human race, and we have never done anything that will have effects that will go on through the generations,” David Baltimore, a biologist and former president of the California Institute of Technology, who chairs the international summit proceedings, said in a pre-recorded message ahead of the event, which begins Tuesday, November 27.
It appears the organizers of the summit were also kept in the dark about He’s plans.
Regret and concern
The genetic editing of a speck-size human embryo carries significant risks, including the risks of introducing unwanted mutations or yielding a baby whose body is composed of some edited and some unedited cells. Data on the Chinese trial site indicate that one of the fetuses is a “mosaic” of cells that had been edited in different ways.
A gene-editing scientist, Fyodor Urnov, associate director of the Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences, a nonprofit in Seattle, reviewed the Chinese documents and said that, while incomplete, they do show that “this effort aims to produce a human” with altered genes.
Urnov called the undertaking cause for “regret and concern over the fact that gene editing—a powerful and useful technique—was put to use in a setting where it was unnecessary.” Indeed, studies are already under way to edit the same gene in the bodies of adults with HIV. “It is a hard-to-explain foray into human germ-line genetic engineering that may overshadow in the mind of the public a decade of progress in gene editing of adults and children to treat existing disease,” he says.
Big project
In a scientific presentation in 2017 at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which is posted to YouTube, He described a very large series of preliminary experiments on mice, monkeys, and more than 300 human embryos. One risk of CRISPR is that it can introduce accidental or “off target” mutations. But He claimed he found few or no unwanted changes in the test embryos.
He is also the chairman and founder of a DNA sequencing company called Direct Genomics. A new breed of biotech companies could ultimately reap a windfall should the new methods of conferring health benefits on children be widely employed.
Photo of stage and audience at Human Gene Editing Summit
The first International Summit on Human Gene Editing, held in December 2015 in Washington, DC. The second is taking place in Hong Kong on November 27-29, 2018.
The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine
According to the clinical trial plan, genetic measurements would be carried out on embryos and would continue during pregnancy to check on the status of the fetuses. During his 2017 presentation, He acknowledged that if the first CRISPR baby were unhealthy, it could prove a disaster.
“We should do this slow and cautious, since a single case of failure could kill the whole field,” he said.
A listing describing the study was posted in November, but other trial documents are dated as early as March of 2017. That was only a month after the National Academy of Sciences in the US gave guarded support for gene-edited babies, although only if they could be created safely and under strict oversight.
Currently, using a genetically engineered embryo to establish a pregnancy would be illegal in much of Europe and prohibited in the United States. It is also prohibited in China under a 2003 ministerial guidance to IVF clinics. It is not clear if He got special permission or disregarded the guidance, which may not have the force of law.
Related Story
First Human Embryos Edited in U.S.
Researchers have demonstrated they can efficiently improve the DNA of human embryos.
Public opinion
In recent weeks, He has begun an active outreach campaign, speaking to ethics advisors, commissioning an opinion poll in China, and hiring an American public-relations professional, Ryan Ferrell.
“My sense is that the groundwork for future self-justification is getting laid,” says Benjamin Hurlbut, a bioethicist from Arizona State University who will attend the Hong Kong summit.
The new opinion poll, which was carried out by Sun Yat-Sen University, found wide support for gene editing among the sampled 4,700 Chinese, including a group of respondents who were HIV positive. More than 60% favored legalizing edited children if the objective was to treat or prevent disease. (Polls by the Pew Research Center have found similar levels support in the US for gene editing.)
He’s choice to edit the gene called CCR5 could prove controversial as well. People without working copies of the gene are believed to be immune or highly resistant to infection by HIV. In order to mimic the same result in embryos, however, He’s team has been using CRISPR to mutate otherwise normal embryos to damage the CCR5 gene.
The attempt to create children protected from HIV also falls into an ethical gray zone between treatment and enhancement. That is because the procedure does not appear to cure any disease or disorder in the embryo, but instead attempts to create a health advantage, much as a vaccine protects against chicken pox.
For the HIV study, doctors and AIDS groups recruited Chinese couples in which the man was HIV positive. The infection has been a growing problem in China.
So far, experts have mostly agreed that gene editing shouldn’t be used to make “designer babies” whose physical looks or personality has been changed.
He appeared to anticipate the concerns his study could provoke. “I support gene editing for the treatment and prevention of disease,” He posted in November to the social media site WeChat, “but not for enhancement or improving I.Q., which is not beneficial to society.”
Related Story
US scientist who edited human embryos with CRISPR responds to critics
Can we safely fix the DNA of human embryos in a lab dish?
Still, removing the CCR5 gene to create HIV resistance may not present a particularly strong reason to alter a baby’s heredity. There are easier, less expensive ways to prevent HIV infection. Also, editing embryos during an IVF procedure would be costly, high-tech, and likely to remain inaccessible in many poor regions of the world where HIV is rampant.
A person who knows He said his scientific ambitions appear to be in line with prevailing social attitudes in China, including the idea that the larger communal good transcends individual ethics and even international guidelines.
Behind the Chinese trial also lies some bold thinking about how evolution can be shaped by science. While the natural mutation that disables CCR5 is relatively common in parts of Northern Europe, it is not found in China. The distribution of the genetic trait around the world—in some populations but not in others—highlights how genetic engineering might be used to pick the most useful inventions discovered by evolution over the eons in different locations and bring them together in tomorrow’s children.
Such thinking could, in the future, yield people who have only the luckiest genes and never suffer Alzheimer’s, heart disease, or certain infections.
The text of an academic website that He maintains shows that he sees the technology in the same historic, and transformative, terms. “For billions of years, life progressed according to Darwin’s theory of evolution,” it states. More recently, industrialization has changed the environment in radical ways posing a “great challenge” that humanity can meet with “powerful tools to control evolution.”
It concludes: “By correcting the disease genes … we humancan better live in the fast-changing environment.”
Note: This story was updated after publication to include claims by He Jiankui that the trial had produced live births.
The list nullifies the influence of religion on the holidays...
What's the social appeal of New Year's Day?The New Year's Day represents a new year on the basis of scientific analysis of the Earth's revolution based on the works of a man under the influence of religion.
Looks like the Gregorian calendar to me.
The New Year's Day represents a new year on the basis of scientific analysis of the Earth's revolution...
I will concede the point on the scientific basis for the New Year's Day.
No. New Year's is scientifically meaningless. If you want a scientifically meaningful new year, it should be based around equinoxes/solstices. But those are all heavily religiously tinged, because we've been studying them for millennia.
. . . he didn't inform the parents of what he was doing, . . . the children developing AIDS didn't justify the risk he was taking with the therapy. I think all in all there were like a dozen ethical objections.Ethics from the U.N. requires China to concern itself with anything beyond a desire for money and power. Socialist countries tend to weaken the social fabric and institutions of a country through the eradication of any alternative institutions outside the state approved groups. Why would ethics represent a concern for China beyond the desire to increase the power of the government and ensure the stability of the social society through the resolution of social conflicts?
NJ immigrant rights carolers demand: ‘Shut ICE down!’
By Esteban Guevara
Dec 24, 2018
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Photo: Rebeldia Radio.
Some 20 members and supporters of the coalition Resist the Deportation Machine Network or RDM gathered at the Essex County Freeholders meeting on Dec. 19 to demand the immediate shut down of the Essex County ICE Center in northern New Jersey. Speaking out during public comments, they held the Freeholders accountable for their inaction and their collusion with the racist and criminal ICE, which is terrorizing our communities.
Members of the immigrant community gave heart-wrenching testaments of the horror which migrant working families are being subjected as ICE has declared it will increase in raids and expand them into local communities and worksites when previously these raids had centered around criminal justice buildings. ICE was responding to a directive issued by New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Growl limiting local police department cooperation with ICE. Stories of children filled with the fear of not knowing if they’ll see their parents again once they go to school were some of the statements heard during the public comments.
Empty seats at holiday dinners
Some members of the RDM network made this point by dressing as Santa Claus and interrupting the meeting by singing pro-immigrant and anti-ICE Christmas carols. The lyrics of traditional Christmas songs were replaced with words such as “We wish you an ICE-free Christmas,” and “Prison Cells, ICE, please go away, immigrants are here to stay.”
Activists emphasized the vacant seats that will be found at many Christmas dinners in immigrant families throughout Essex County due to arrests. Fathers and mothers, who otherwise should be home with their families this Christmas, will find themselves behind bars in the concentration camps known as the ICE detention center.
Democrats and Republican both enemies of immigrants
For close to two years, RDM has demand the immediate closure of the Essex County ICE detention center. This coalition of activists, political organizations, faith leaders and grassroots organizations has organized protests and demonstrations, pressuring the Essex County Executive, Joseph DiVincenzo, and County of Chosen Freeholders to break the contract with ICE, which allows the agency to house over 700 immigrants and asylum seekers at the government-owned facility in Newark. In return, Essex County receives over $100 per detainee daily. The revenue created by this contract, blood money obtained on the suffering and tears of broken migrant families, is staunchly defended by the Democratic County Executive and Democratic-led board of Chosen Freeholders.
This demonstrates once more that both Democratic and Republican politicians are not friends of the migrant communities. Moreover, the notion that Newark is a sanctuary city, as Mayor Ras Baraka alleged, or that New Jersey is a sanctuary state, as many politicians would have us believe, is nothing but a vile farce.
Essex County among top colluders with ICE
Photo: Rebeldia Radio
The Transactional Record Access Clearing House (TRAC), a Syracuse University nonpartisan research center, recently reported that Essex County is seventh on the list of top ten counties with the most “ICE community arrests” between October and 2017 and May of this year. Essex County ranked above Maricopa County, Arizona, where racist and bigoted ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio oversaw the persecution and illegal profiling of Spanish speaking and dark-skinned residents (After being convicted of illegal profiling, he was pardoned by Donald [Sleezebag]).
According to TRAC, in this period ICE made 676 “community arrests” in Essex County. The actual numbers of immigrants jailed is even higher, as the TRAC figures do not include immigrants transferred from the county to ICE custody. Many of these detainees are never charged with any crime. They are just fingerprinted and booked into custody before being handed over to ICE.
Members of the RDM network, including the Party for Socialism and Liberation, will keep fighting until the Essex County breaks its contract and the ICE detention center is shut down.