• For India’s Hindu Nationalists, Religion Alone Defines Entitlement, Rights and Citizenship | Alternet
    https://www.alternet.org/world/indias-hindu-nationalists-religion-alone-defines-entitlement-rights-and-ci

    It’s a worldview at odds with modernity and republicanism crafted in the Indian Constitution and the state: A fundamental belief, indoctrinated through skewed ‘history’ lessons in the shakha, that asserts religion and faith systems, some more than others, inherently determine entitlement, rights and citizenship.

    It is this prism that governs officialdom and India today and that tells us—quite unashamedly—that the Rohingyas (never mind that they are poor, distraught and below any poverty line) are a security threat, simply because they are Muslim. The Chakmas are not, the Hindus from Myanmar are not, but Rohingyas are a threat, simply because of their faith. (Source: Indian government’s affidavit before the Supreme Court of India dated September 18, 2017.)

    At the core of this instrumental use of a militarized form of faith is the transformation—through a climate and fear of violence and death—of India as articulated in the decades long struggle for independence from British colonial rule and exemplified in India’s founding document: its Constitution.

    Theocracy, or religion based nationhood, was unequivocally rejected by India’s Constituent Assembly, by leaders of all ideological dispositions. It was exclusivist outfits who were one in their worldview, the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha, with the Muslim League—who also successfully projected that Muslims could not be part of a composite nation with India’s Hindus.

    Today, this worldview, which unashamedly articulates nationhood, citizenship and entitlements based on narrow definitions of faith, dominates Indian Parliament and rules 12 states (another five in alliance). The game of numbers, finally, is on their side.

    For any dispensation in the 21st century, in a country of over 1.324 billion people, a good 15 percent of whom are Muslim, 2-3 percent Christian, 27 percent Dalit, a physical ethnic cleansing of those ‘not Hindu’ may not be easy nor practical. But periodic and brute lynchings, by the brainwashed and armed cadres of these multi hydra organizations, are useful to build such an ethos, based on the fear of death.

    #Inde #Théocratie #Epuration_ethnique #Fascisme #Religion

  • Americans Who Don’t Want War With Iran Must Speak Out Now | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/americans-who-dont-want-war-iran-must-speak-out-now?akid=16112.2663896.a8k

    President Trump’s comments at the United Nations General Assembly urging the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal sounded familiar to our guest, Jeffrey Sachs. “The last time we had this kind of rhetoric was George W. Bush with the axis of evil,” Sachs said. “It was immediately followed by the Iraq War, which was the most disastrous single step of American military action and ’diplomacy,’ or anti-diplomacy, in modern times. So this is a setup, again, for war, for conflict. And it is extraordinarily ignorant and dangerous. Iran is in compliance with the agreement that was reached.”

    JEFFREY SACHS: —bewildered. But after the deal was made, Iran had elections, and the moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, was re-elected, despite opposition from hardliners. And the U.S. response is to provoke. Now, why is this happening? Because two U.S. allies—Israel and Saudi Arabia—are luring our ignorant president into this kind of vehemence. This is Israeli and Saudi policy, Saudis because of the Sunni-Shia conflict and battle for regional power, Israel because of its own narrow concerns. And all the United States is doing, Trump is doing, is being lured into this and making the U.S. unsafe and making the world unsafe. It’s shocking.

    JEFFREY SACHS: I believe the American people who do not want war—and we need to avoid war—need to speak out right now, because I believe these are the drumbeats of war. We’ve heard them many times before. Our government absolutely is war-oriented. We have a deep security state which believes in overthrowing other countries. We have a secret army called the CIA, which is engaged in covert wars all over the world. And we have a president who is openly provocative, openly gunning for war, it seems, with these two countries and heaven knows how many more.

    #Guerre #Politique_USA #Iran

  • The Fertility Rate in Flint Has Plummeted After the Water Crisis | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/water/fertility-rate-flint-has-plummeted-after-water-crisis

    The area has seen a dramatic rise in miscarriages and stillbirths.

    Lead-poisoned water in Flint, Michigan, may have led to a significant drop in the number of babies born in the town, according a newly released study. Researchers found that after elected leaders decided to save money by switching the city’s water supply source in 2014, the area saw a precipitous rise in miscarriages and stillbirths, as well as infants born with “health complications.” The new report was undertaken to underscore the urgent necessity of a registry to trace health effects of the contaminated water and establish precisely how many residents were exposed.

    In April, the Michigan Civil Rights Commission released a paper concluding that “the underlying issue [of the water crisis] is historical and systemic, and dates back nearly a century, and has at its foundation race and segregation of the Flint community.” The city’s population is 53 percent African American, and 45 percent of residents live below the federal poverty line, according to the Washington Post.

    #Flint #Pollution #Plomb #Néo-libéralisme

  • Conan and the Barbarians: Talk Show Host’s Propaganda Tour Stars Israeli Soldiers and Syrian Al Qaeda | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/conan-obrien-israel-hospitals-syrian-al-qaeda-rebels

    Blithely unaware of Israel’s sinister role in the region, Conan O’Brien walked right into the middle of an unofficial alliance between the apartheid state and al-Qaeda. The surreal image of O’Brien’s comically pale figure in the middle of an Israeli hospital where Salafi-jihadist insurgents are being treated would have been the perfect fodder for a late-night comedy monologue, if only it weren’t so outrageous and sad.

    #sans_vergogne

  • The New York Times Grovels for the Right Wing, and Other Despicable Media Moments This Week | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/media/new-york-times-grovels-right-wing-and-other-despicable-media-moments-week

    Un ensemble d’exemple montrant comment les médias US s’accommodent de l’extrême droite, et jouent un jeu dangereux. L’exemple de la France n’aura pas suffi.

    #Médias #Alt_right

  • ’Weeping Nazi’ Christopher Cantwell went from Libertarian to Fascist—and He’s Not Alone | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/weeping-nazi-christopher-cantwell-went-libertarian-fascist-and-hes-not-alo

    Sheffield traced the paleo-libertarian movement — which is essentially a merging of free-market fundamentalism and far-right cultural populism — back to the “anarcho-capitalist” economist Murray Rothbard, who is famous for, among other things, advocating child labor and claiming that parents should have the legal right “not to feed [their] child [and] allow it to die.” Rothbard was a co-founder of the Koch-funded think tank Cato Institute, and later the Ludwig von Mises Institute, which “enabled the fledgling [libertarian] movement to establish affinity with the neo-Confederate Lost Cause movement.”

    “To solve the problem that few Americans are interested in small government,” Sheffield explained, “Rothbard argued that libertarians needed to align themselves with people they might not like much in order to expand their numbers.” These people included Evangelical Christians and neo-Confederates (i.e., white supremacists) who despised the federal government — especially after it stepped in to defend the civil rights of oppressed African-Americans in the South during the 1960s.

    Paleo-libertarianism was, in other words, a thoroughly reactionary ideology that combined the very worst aspects of both libertarianism and right-wing populism. This makes it distinct from the broader libertarian movement, which tends to be more socially liberal or at least socially tolerant. The “alt-right” was an outgrowth of this unholy alliance.

    This “survival of the fittest” mentality ended up driving Cantwell into outright fascism and white supremacy as he began espousing a pseudoscientific racialist worldview. Many of the white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville no doubt followed a similar path.

    It has long been common knowledge that the libertarian movement in America is dominated by young white males. A 2013 survey from Public Religion Research Institute found that, compared to the general population, “libertarians are significantly more likely to be non-Hispanic white, male, and young.” Nearly all libertarians, the researchers write, “are non-Hispanic whites (94%), more than two-thirds (68%) are men, and more than 6-in-10 (62%) are under the age of 50.” It hardly needs to be pointed out that the “alt-right” is also overwhelmingly white, male and young.

    What this reveals is that young white males are far more susceptible to reactionary thinking. This is not surprising in itself. The explicit (or implicit) aim of any reactionary movement or ideology is to restore society to some golden age of the past. Needless to say, it is much easier for white men to romanticize history than it is for women, people of color or LGBTQ people.

    #Libertariens #Politique_USA #néo_fascisme

  • Mark Zuckerberg Might Be the Most Dangerous Presidential Candidate Who Isn’t Yet | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/mark-zuckerberg-might-be-most-dangerous-presidential-candidate-who-isnt-ye

    There are some very good reasons why Mark Zuckerberg should not be allowed anywhere near the presidency. For a start, he will lose—to Trump or to whatever other monstrosity the Republicans run against him. He can only embody the politics of bland aspiration and imperious technocratic mumblings, alienating the left and inflaming the right. Second, with the entire media basically functioning as a command economy run by Facebook, Zuckerberg in office would constitute a conflict of interests and a potential for corruption so vast it would make any of Trump’s misdeeds look like minor accounting problems. Third, it would entrench the long slow rot of electoral politics, permanently establishing the nuclear codes as the private property of TV clowns and gussied-up motivational speakers. Fourth, he keeps on describing Facebook as a “community” based on “friendship,” rather than what it is—a social utility that occasionally reveals itself as a seething plasm of technologically mediated dislocation. Finally, the tech industry is a hive of inflated egos and reckless self-regard, widening the wealth gap, steadily consigning most of the human population of Earth to the status of surplus flesh, and it must not be let anywhere near political power.

    All of these are very good reasons. But they’re not the most pressing or the most urgent. The real reason all Zuckerberg’s dreams of power have to be crushed now before they bear terrible fruit is this: in the 13 years since he first launched Facebook, he never gave us the dislike button.

    It says a lot about his style of leadership. He knows what’s best for us, and he’ll do it, and what we think doesn’t really matter. But it’s more fundamental than that. Commenting on his refusal to add the dislike button, Zuckerberg said, “Some people have asked for a dislike button because they want to be able to say, ’That thing isn’t good.’ That’s not something that we think is good… I don’t think there needs to be a voting mechanism on Facebook about whether posts are good or bad. I don’t think that’s socially very valuable or good for the community to help people share the important moments in their lives.”

    He wants to deprive people of their ability to say no.

    More simply, this is not how society or politics really work. They do not form a kind of harmonious totality, where we all start from the same place and reach upward. Politics is a sphere of competing interests, agonisms and class struggle, in which the success of one set of aims always means the defeat of others.

    #Facebook #Politique_USA #Zuckerberg

  • India’s Progressive-Minded Vice President Steps Down: Minorities Are Now More Vulnerable to a Hindu Theocratic State | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/world/indias-progressive-minded-vice-president-steps-down-minorities-are-now-mor

    The timing, the eve of the 70th anniversary of India’s independence, ruled as it is by a majoritarian proto-fascist party, could not have been more apt. India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has seen a serious deterioration in law and order and in the security of the minorities with repeated incidents of lynchings that reflect hate-ridden public discourse apart from the legitimization of violence.

    Ansari then went further. On his last day as vice president, in his interview to the Rajya Sabha TV channel, he said, “Muslims were experiencing a feeling of unease.” “A sense of insecurity is creeping in,” he noted. In his speech in Bangalore too, he had spoken of the “enhanced apprehensions of insecurity amongst segments of our citizen body, particularly Dalits, Muslims and Christians.”

    Not known to be the epitome of either dignity or tolerance, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi—for whom Hamid Ansari has been a bête noire ever since the former swept to power in May 2014—responded crudely, with a speech that has been roundly assailed for the depths to which it has taken public discourse in India.

    It was clear what Narendra Modi, a committed soldier of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh before he acquired political office, meant. Though he did not say the word ’Muslim,’ that was what India’s prime minister told his people that day in the upper house of Parliament when he insinuated that Ansari’s entire worldview was stained by his long association with a constrained mahaul (environment) and dayara (circle).

    For the RSS and BJP under Modi and his close associate, Amit Shah, freeing India from the hold of the Congress is close to an irrational obsession.

    #Inde #Néo_fascisme

  • Steve Bannon, Destruction Machine: He’s Back to Trying to Rebuild a Right-Wing Media Empire | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/steve-bannon-destroyer-world

    Bannon is, however, highly influential among Trump supporters, although not as much as when he was building the Trump mystique. As conservative talk show host and Never-Trumper Charlie Sykes has been pointing out for some time, Trumpism is not a movement — it is now a full-fledged cult of personality in which the president’s followers believe themselves to be under siege from the same forces Donald Trump rails against: the media, political correctness, elites of both parties, liberals, racial and ethnic minorities. The more they see Trump being attacked the more they identify with him.

    #Extrême_droite #Alt_right #USA
    Nonetheless, as I pointed out on Friday, Bannon is a professional propagandist with a feel for the right-wing Zeitgeist. We can expect that he will be a player going forward. He told people different things in his manic series of exit interviews, at once claiming the Trump presidency was effectively over and promising to go to war on its behalf. But it’s pretty clear that Bannon is going to war for Bannon, and for a movement that he apparently believes still exists outside of Trump: “In many ways, I think I can be more effective fighting from the outside for the agenda President Trump ran on,” Bannon told The New York Times. (Emphasis mine.) “And anyone who stands in our way, we will go to war with.”

  • CNN ’Analyst’ Michael Weiss Hosted Anti-Muslim Rally with Far-Right Hate Queen Pamela Geller
    http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/michael-weiss-anti-muslim-rally-pamela-geller

    Today, Weiss is best known as a self-styled expert on Russia and Syria who has promoted regime change in both countries with an almost unmatched fervor. Despite the irony of an anti-Muslim free speech crusader emerging as one of the most aggressive promoters of Syria’s Islamist rebels, or perhaps because of it, Weiss has become the face and voice of next generation neoconservatism. His hiring by a top American cable news network marked the culmination of his long, strange transformation from political public relations agent to credentialed reporter. Behind the patina of journalistic seriousness, Weiss still bears all the sectarian fervor of a neocon operative carrying out an ulterior ideological agenda.

  • What Can We Learn from 1967’s Summer of Love to Help Us Through Our Current Political Nightmare? | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/activism/danny-goldberg-hippie-trump-interview

    An interview with Danny Goldberg, author of the new book “In Search of the Lost Chord,” a book that definitively captures the events and the meaning of 1967, a magical year in our history, but a time that is often misunderstood.

    #Psychédéliques #Politique_USA #Hippies

  • World’s Leading Hackers Explain Why You Don’t Want Huge Tech Companies Controlling Everything in Your House | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/investigations/ef-con-25-hackers-deride-internet-things-internet-sht

    The internet of things is a way to extract wealth from your every day life.

    The term was coined in 1999 by Kevin Ashton, a British technology pioneer at MIT. But it was presciently forecast by inventor and futurist Nikola Tesla in 1926, “When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain … and the instruments through which we shall be able to do this will be amazingly simple ... A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket."

    The first smart device—a toaster that could be turned on and off over the internet—was developed for an earlier tech convention in 1990. Why you need to turn your toaster on and off over the internet is unclear, but in 2017 the list of these programmable objects has expanded exponentially. “Every single device that’s being put in your home probably has a computer in it now,” says Christopher Grayson, a security expert and red-team hacker currently working for Snapchat. He lists water bottles, locks and even a WiFi slow cooker as just a few of the items that are being networked.

    Unfortunately, massive organized botnet attacks are not the only problem with IoT devices. Not only are they a potential entry point for unwanted intrusion into your home, they are also extruding private information from your home. Companies are acknowledging that they have plans to monetize the data they are collecting from these smart objects.

    What’s more fun than hacking into things? Hacking into things while winning serious street cred and cash. DEF CON 25’s IoT Village challenged hackers to pit their skills against the security of Small Office/Home Office routers. Eighty-six teams competed to discover the 0-day (undisclosed) vulnerabilities that were required to earn points. Teams were up late into the night, sometimes all night testing their skills against the security provisions that companies had put in place. Ultimately all the routers in the contest fell victim to the hackers. Independent Security Evaluators, the company that organizes the village, claims that the winning team Wolf Pack was able to exploit all 18 routers in play, capturing the “flag” and the $500 prize. Is your router one of the ones they hacked into? You might want to check.

    #Internet_des_Objets #Cybersécurité

  • 7 Pundits Who Spread the Myth of Trump’s Working-Class Voter Base | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/7-pundits-who-spread-myth-trumps-working-class-voter-base

    Following Donald Trump’s ascent to the U.S. presidency, both liberal and conservative pundits and commentators have circulated a dangerous myth that the white working-class propelled Trump to the White House. This has led the media to blame poor and working-class whites for the rise of Trump, which is an oversimplification and misevaluation of how we arrived at the current political moment.

    As data from NBC indicates, during the 2016 primaries, more than one-third of Trump supporters had incomes of over $100,000, and two-thirds of Trump supporters earned over $50,000 a year, or above the median national household income. In other words, Trump’s base is not the working class, but what might be called the petit bourgeoisie: small-business owners, property owners and inheritors, technicians, electricians, plumbers, policemen, firemen, and other highly skilled workers.

    This is not to say that poor and working-class whites didn’t turn out for Trump in large numbers—they did—but rather that working-class whites should not be seen as the core of Trump’s constituency.

    #Politique_USA #Classe_ouvrière #élections

  • Why is #Liberia’s Government rushing to sell its public schools to U.S. for-profits?
    http://africasacountry.com/2017/07/why-is-liberias-government-rushing-to-sell-its-public-schools-to-u-

    When Liberia’s Minister of #education, George Werner, announced last spring that he was inviting foreign education companies and non-profits to run our public schools, our country came under the international spotlight, both in Western media and for education activists. The Minister and the supporters of the government’s plan excitedly championed the notion that clever thinking…

    #AFRICA_IS_A_COUNTRY

  • Redneck Revolt : The Armed Leftwing Group That Wants to Stamp out Fascism | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/activism/redneck-revolt-armed-leftwing-group-wants-stamp-out-fascism

    Ce que la politique des USA peut être comlpliquée...

    Wooly liberals, they’re not. Redneck Revolt is a nationwide organization of armed political activists from rural, working-class backgrounds who strive to reclaim the term “redneck” and promote active anti-racism. It is not an exclusively white group, though it does take a special interest in the particular travails of the white poor. The organization’s principles are distinctly left-wing: against white supremacy, against capitalism and the nation-state, in support of the marginalized.

    #Politique_USA #armes

  • Why Are So Many People Dying from Opiate Overdoses? It’s Our Broken Society | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/drugs/why-so-many-people-dying-opiate-overdoses-broken-society

    Most drug-related deaths result from the use of opioids, the molecules that are marketed as painkillers by pharmaceutical companies and heroin by drug lords. Opioids, whatever their source, bond with receptors all over our bodies. Opioid receptors evolved to protect us from panic, anxiety and pain – a considerate move by the oft-callous forces of evolution. But the gentle impact of natural opioids, produced by our own bodies, resembles a summer breeze compared to the hurricane of physiological disruption caused by drugs designed to mimic their function.

    Most street opiates (including heroin) are now laced or replaced with fentanyl – the drug that killed the singer Prince – and its analogues, far more powerful than heroin and so cheap that drug-dealing profits are skyrocketing at about the same rate as overdose deaths.

    But the peculiar appeal of opioids tells us more about ourselves as a society, as a culture, than the tumultuous ups and downs of addiction statistics. Today’s young people come of age and carve out their adult lives in an environment of astronomical uncertainty. Corporations that used to pride themselves on fairness to their employees now strive only for profit. The upper echelons of management are as risk-infected as the lowest clerks. Massive layoffs rationalised by the eddies of globalisation make long-term contracts prehistoric relics. I ask the guys who come to the house to deliver packages how they like their jobs. They can’t say. They get up to three six-month contracts in a row and then get laid off so the company won’t have to pay them benefits.

    People pour out of universities with all manner of degrees, yet with skills that are rapidly becoming irrelevant. But people without degrees are even worse off. They find themselves virtually unemployable, because there are so many others in the same pool, and employers will hire whoever comes cheapest. The absurdly low minimum wage figures in the US clearly exacerbate the situation. As hope for steady employment fizzles, so does the opportunity to connect with family, friends and society more broadly, and there is way too much time to kill. Opioids can help reduce the despair.

    #Opiod_crisis #santé_publique

  • CNN’s Man of the ’Resistance’ Is the Person Most Responsible for Trump Being President | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/media/same-media-who-assisted-rise-trump-now-rebrand-themselves-anti-trump-resis

    Les médias sont là pour le spectacle, pas pour une quelconque « résistance » politique... Un rappel important de ce que le spectacle veut dire pour la démocratie.

    It’s no secret that Trump received outsized media coverage early on in the 2016 race, nabbing in 2015 alone nearly 2 billion in free media (compared, for example, to Bernie Sanders’ $321m) –including much from Zucker’s CNN–on his way to securing the Republican nomination. While much of this coverage was negative in tone with a marketing product like Trump, there really is no negative coverage; so long as his name remained in the headlines, that’s all that mattered. CNN rushed to cover, for months, each and everyone of Trump’s manufactured controversy and did so to the tune of record-smashing ratings. CNN even hired Trump aide Corey Lewandowski while he was not only still under contractual agreement not to say anything bad about Trump, but was still collecting checks from the campaign.

    Aside from raking in record profits riding the Trump spectacle as President of CNN in 2015 and into 2016, Zucker’s role in the rise of Trump is far more direct. Before taking over CNN in 2012, Zucker hired Trump to be the face of the reality show juggernaught The Apprentice while serving as head of NBC Entertainment in 2004. The show not only boosted the Trump brand, it almost certainly saved Trump from the brink of financial and marketing extinction.

    #Médias #Politique #Spectacle

  • India Is on Its Way to Becoming a Hindu Nation, Suppressing Multiculturalism | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/world/india-its-way-becoming-hindu-nation-suppressing-multiculturalism

    Much has changed since 2013. Narendra Modi, who was then chief minister of a western Indian state, the first chief minister who was a direct recruit from the supremacist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is now India’s prime minister, heading a majority government that has already implemented several changes in laws and statutes that arguably militate against India’s constitutional framework.

    This government rose to power in May 2014, led by Modi’s charisma with the masses, backed by a high-voltage campaign funded by crony capital; yet no victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) within Indian politics has ever been possible without the organizational mettle of its parent body, the RSS. The RSS, since its birth in 1925, has openly advocated not just to create a Hindu nation, but also to continue propagating the “overthrow of the constitutional framework.”

    Despite these violent schisms, as this author tells students of history and law in her classes, the rich deliberations contained in India’s Constituent Assembly debates reveal a deep maturity in the political leadership of the day, from all political persuasions, that was clear and committed to an India that was inclusive and based on equality of citizenship, irrespective of color, class, gender or community.

    Despite the deep schisms, even bloodshed, caused during India’s vivesection, the vast section of India’s political leadership opted for India to remain democratic, inclusive and secular. This was a deeply principled and pragmatic decision, as only through this promise (as encapsulated in the Indian Consitution) of equality for all could India and Indians—with all their attendant diversities of language, faith and culture—remain as one. The Indian Constitution recognizes 22 languages, though we have more than 740 dialects, and through this abiding respect for our deep diversity has this nation been born. It is this basic assumption that is under direct threat from an ideological force that believes in the overthrow of India as was born in 1947 and established in 1950.

    It is not mere words but the actions of those in power and the mob on the streets after Modi assumed power, that give weight to these potential dangers. “The recent election of Adityanath, who is a strong proponent of Hindu rashtra, with a brute majority (to the post of chief minister of Uttar Pradesh) shows that people want a Hindu rashtra in India,” Uday Dhuri, spokesperson of the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, told the Hindustan Times ahead of the Goa conclave. The Samiti’s agenda, available on its website, is a good example of the priorities of a Hindu rashtra, should it emerge. Hatred and bile against India’s religious minorities and Dalits, authoritarian rule, the imposition of “one culture, one language” to create a strong “militarized, Hindu nation.”

    The ongoing convention in Goa represents a very real threat—and not just to India, known as it is as the largest democracy with well-negotiated principles of equality and non-discrimination. Another win for Modi and his lot in the next general election could make this threat into a chilling reality, where discrimination rules and violence, threat and intimidation become an easy norm.

    #Inde #fascisme #religions #politique_monde

  • Perverse Law in 9 States Enriches Donors to Private Schools: Trump Could Be on the Verge of Taking It National | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/education/perverse-law-9-states-enriches-donors-private-schools-trump-could-be-verge

    Education
    Perverse Law in 9 States Enriches Donors to Private Schools: Trump Could Be on the Verge of Taking It National
    A GOP-sponsored bill finds more ways to starve traditional public schools.
    By Steven Rosenfeld / AlterNet
    June 5, 2017, 1:39 PM GMT

    The Trump administration’s push to privatize public education not only seeks to deprive traditional K-12 schools of billions in federal aid, but may greatly expand existing tax loopholes that already allow wealthy people and firms to make money on donating to private schools.

    The proposed Education Opportunities Act would “put two new federal voucher tax shelters within reach for many more Americans and lead to an explosion in funding for private schools,” a joint release from the School Superintendents Association (ASSA) and Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) said. “It would also keep in place an existing federal loophole that permits savvy taxpayers to benefit from certain ‘double-dipping’ practices, where they receive a federal deduction and state tax credit on the same donation to a private school.”

    #Education #Impôts #Privatisation_école #Etats-Unis

  • We Know for Sure That Bread Is Unhealthy—for the Environment, at Least | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/environment/bread-really-unhealthy-least-environment?akid=15668.2663896.KgMr77&rd=1&sr

    The good news is there’s now a clear target to reduce the impact: Nearly half of the emissions (0.589kg, or 13.7oz) come from fertilizer used to grow the wheat. Writing in Nature Plants, Peter Horton and his colleagues from the University of Sheffield analyzed the whole manufacturing process, from planting the seed to putting the bread on the shelf. They found the bulk of the greenhouse gases come from the farm.

    “Our findings bring into focus a key part of the food security challenge—resolving the major conflicts embedded in the agri-food system, whose primary purpose is to make money not to provide sustainable global food security,” commented Horton, who is chief research advisor to the University of Sheffield’s Grantham Center for Sustainable Futures.

    We know plenty of ways to reduce the impact of using fertilizer, such as using it at key points during the season rather than continuously, and using different cropping systems—by planting vegetables between crop cycles (decreasing “fallow frequency"), farmers can keep the land in use and improve the ability of the soil to hold carbon.

    The biggest challenge will be implementing these changes in places where farmers rely on fertilizer to protect their income; after all, it’s a surefire way to make sure the crop grows, regardless of the impact it has on the environment.

    #agriculture #engrais #énergie