A peaceful world requires collective measures for the prevention of war, international cooperation to solve economic and social problems, and respect for human rights.

Goran Persson

NOTE:The title and much of the quoted text are from Jackson Browne's brilliant Before the Deluge

Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent
They were gathering the tools
They would need to make their journey back to nature
While the sand slipped through the opening
And their hands reached for the golden ring
With their hearts they turned to each other's hearts for refuge
In the troubled years that came before the deluge

As we head into the abyss...

For far too long far too many of us have mostly ended up just going along with some of the worst acts against humanity, ever. Either in outright denial of reality or via superhuman feats of rationalization...or by being misled in one way or another, or by simple exhaustion, pummeled as we are by the constant torrent of media-borne propaganda.

It's symbolic of the U.S. today. Poor African countries are alarmed at the deterioration of human rights in the United States.

Capitalism's Report Card

Part One: Basic Principles

The United States is "deeply troubled" by the conditions of prisoners in Cuba.

On Tuesday the New York Senate Investigations and Government Operations Committee took up S502, sponsored by Daniel L. Squadron, (D-Brooklyn waterfront and lower Manhattan), known as GENDA, the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act

The bill's purpose: