The Collective

We have talked elsewhere about the implications of the little discussed hydrocarbon law being formulated by the “Iraq Government,” specifically why the U.S.’s allies in Iraq are often those most closely aligned with Iran. In my view it is quite possible that the real deal breaker for the U.S. is not any ideological beliefs but rather the willingness to fork over the counties oil resources.

(Let’s also not forget that Iraq is also a lot of fresh water . . . something very important to the region)

Read more

By Paul R. Weeks

This most recent “revelation” that wounded soldiers are not being properly cared for, after The Washington Post uncovered the tragic status quo at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, should really come as no surprise.

“But Paul, I thought that Republicans and this administration are all about ‘supporting the troops!’ Surely this instance of ‘cutting and running’ from those who fought bravely abroad is one of an isolated nature…”

Well, I’m afraid that when said GOP members are insistent upon supporting the troops, they are simply substituting ‘troops’ with what they really mean; ‘war’. However, when a war is as increasingly unpopular, undefined and unwinable as this current one in Iraq, ‘support the war’ does not sound as idyllic and patriotic as ‘support the troops’.

Read more

By Jonathan Hull

***

I have recently come to think that the corporate media outlets here in the U.S. have way over-played the sectarian split between Sunni and Shiites in Iraq. I suspect these epic narratives of mortal enemies battling it out on the streets are fostered as part of a misinformation campaign by the US government. Mainstream media has all to willingly played along, as simple yet dramatic stories are easier to sell than complex and murky ones.

What does the ruling class achieve by casting the situation in Iraq in this way?

Read more

Excerpts from Robert Jensen’s “Men being men is a bad deal: Guys should evolve beyond masculinity”

…We need to get rid of the whole idea of masculinity. It’s time to abandon the claim that there are certain psychological or social traits that inherently come with being biologically male. If we can get past that, we have a chance to create a better world for men and women…

…But we can see that the short-term material gains that men get are not adequate compensation for what we men give up in the long haul — which is to surrender part of our humanity to the project of dominance. Full Article

Excerpt from “Obama-Mania vs. The Issues” by Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report:

Most urgently, Obama’s corporate media anointment has brought to the forefront the question: Who and What is a “Black leader”? Certainly, Black people did not - could not - elevate an obscure Illinois state senator to national prominence in the space of two years. If he is not a creature of Black politics, then whose creature is he? And if he rejects race-conscious solutions to race-based problems, where does he fit among the historical pantheon of genuine, politically indigenous Black leadership whose mission has been to address the woefully unfinished business of race in America? Or is his candidacy “a palliative - a soothing potion that…serves as an historical benchmark showing how far ‘America’ - meaning white America - has come?” ….If so, then one must conclude that Obama is The Great Diversion, whose ascent to prominence as a Black individual is meant to signal the end of the national debate on race - an end to Black struggle in the United States.

Read the whole article here

Read more

by Michael Pollan

***

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy. I hate to give away the game right here at the beginning of a long essay, and I confess that I’m tempted to complicate matters in the interest of keeping things going for a few thousand more words. I’ll try to resist but will go ahead and add a couple more details to flesh out the advice. Like: A little meat won’t kill you, though it’s better approached as a side dish than as a main. And you’re much better off eating whole fresh foods than processed food products. That’s what I mean by the recommendation to eat “food.” Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat. FULL ARTICLE

This excellent piece over at Asia Times asserts that the recent battle in Najaf - contrary to mainstream media reports to be the actions of a millenarian suicide cult - may be an opening salvo in a new civil war between a U.S. backed coalition of Iranian partisans (SCIRI, Da’wa and Sistani) and an emerging coalition of nationalist Sunni and Shia.

A Massacre and a New Civil War by Pepe Escobar

by V.S. Ramachandran

The discovery of mirror neurons in the frontal lobes of monkeys, and their potential relevance to human brain evolution — which I speculate on in this essay — is the single most important “unreported” (or at least, unpublicized) story of the decade. I predict that mirror neurons will do for psychology what DNA did for biology: they will provide a unifying framework and help explain a host of mental abilities that have hitherto remained mysterious and inaccessible to experiments. FULL ARTICLE

By C. Derick Varn

Derick Varn: The first one is somewhat simple, how you would like to introduce yourself to our readers?

Fr. Jordan Stratford: Okay, I’m 39, four kids, hopelessly in love with my wife of six years. I work as a Creative Director for a small ad agency, and I live in Victoria BC Canada. I’ve been a Sophianic Gnostic for about 17 years. I consider myself a Priest of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. What that means to me is that, if you go back say six, eight thousand years – well, further, actually – you have people employing a Eucharistic ritual to invest the material with the spiritual. The central idea of Western Religion is incarnation, that the Divine is real and can (and does) become manifest in the world. There are specific forms of this ritual that are unique in the West, and have a continuity from antiquity to the present day. You see this in ancient Egypt, throughout the Greek Mysteries, Persian Mithraism, through the Sol Invictus Cult of ancient Rome, continuing through Christianity. Later it winds through nominally Christian but distinctly heretical movements such as the Templars, the Cathars, the Rosicrucians, the Liberal Catholics and occult investigations of the late 19th Century. I am a part of that Tradition.

Read more