Barack Obama's speach in tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.

Barack Obama's speach in tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.:


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/10272306/50-years-on-Obama-stands-on-the-shoulders-of-Martin-Luther-King.html

Full transcript: Obama on 'I Have a Dream'

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/28/politics/obama-king-speech-transcript/index.html

http://m.washingtonpost.com/politics/transcript-president-obamas-speech-on-the-50th-anniversary-of-the-march-on-washington/2013/08/28/0138e01e-0ffb-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/28/barack-obama-speech-full-transcript

lessons of Nelson Mandela

As long as you hate your enemies you will continue to be their prisoner.


Do not allow negative emotions (hatred,resentment,bitterness) to control and consume your life.


This is why we are to forgive those who have trespassed against us (injured us),and why we must love our enemies, and do unto them as we would be done by.
...lest we become entrapped in and victimized by our own resentments (hatred poisons the soul of the hater)

It is said that harboring feelings of resentment against another person is like
swallowing poison with the expectation
that the poison swallowed will hurt the object of our resentment .
By far the greater harm is to the one/subject who experiences the resentment.

First you must free yourself of hatred and fear;
then you can help to free others.


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Bill Clinton's speach at the UN on the occasion of
Nelson Mandela's 95th. birthday:


. Bill Clinton, UN leader Ban Ki-moon and Andrew Mlangeni, who was a prisoner with Mandela, honoured the legendary freedom fighter in a special ceremony at the UN headquarters as Mandela spent his 95th birthday in hospital. Bill Clinton said Mandela ended his 27 years in an apartheid jail "a greater man than he went in" but also told how the ordeal had left its mark on the legendary figure. "Every day was a struggle, I could see it in his eyes even after he became president. Some old demon would rise up and somebody would do or say something stupid, but he fought it every day," Bill Clinton said at the UN General Assembly. Bill Clinton told how he had discussed with Mandela his now historic walk to freedom from the jail along a dirt road and how he had been a "canny politician" inviting his jailer to his inauguration and bringing opposition parties into his government. "Tell me the truth: when you were walking down the road that last time didn't you hate them?" Bill Clinton said he questioned Mandela. "He said briefly: 'I did. I am old enough to tell the truth.' He said: 'I felt hatred and fear but I said to myself, if you hate them when you get in that car you will still be their prisoner. I wanted to be free and so I let it go.' "He said: 'People can take everything from you. I lost my family, the chance to see my children grow up, the best years of my life. They can take everything except your mind and your heart. Those things I decided not to give away.' "He looked at me and smiled and said: 'Neither should you'." Bill Clinton said he was also one of the rare people alive who had seen Mandela "in a less saintly role" when the two were arguing as presidents of the United States and South Africa. "On rare occasions he would even get angry with me when he disagreed with our positions. But what I know is his heart was so big and his humanity so great we often had trouble keeping our official roles apart from our personal friendship," Bill Clinton said. Ban told the assembly the world is united in praying for Mandela in hospital. "We are united in concern. We are also joined in admiration for a towering figure in the worldwide fight for equality and justice," the UN secretary general told the ceremony. AFP 


http://www.rappler.com/world/regions/africa/nelson-mandela/34210-bill-clinton-mandela-tribute-birthday

"closed party" system of government is undemocratic

Closed party system of politics

One day of democracy(vote day) followed by 4 years of dictatorship

Instead of representing the people to govt. those elected to represent us
are constrained into the role of representing the govt. to the people.
Elected representatives become "trained seals" ,parroting scripted talking points
and tbe party line. (because maintaining power is all about "controlling the message"!)

They do not represent the wishes/interests of their constituents who they were elected to represent, but rather their first loyalty is to the party and its leader.


A political candidate must obtain the endorsement of the party leader before they can run under the party banner.
Thereby they become beholden to the
party leader, and loyalty to the party takes precedence over loyalty to their constituents

After that if you don't do what your told
you're kicked out of the party!...ostracized to the "outer darkness" and the status of "independent"
Critics and dissenters who don't "get with the program" are perceived as enemies.

Despite widespread lipservice to the idea of democracy, in practice it's a " one man government" wch when it occurs elsewhere is pejoratively called "dictatorship"!

To glimpse the true dynamics of "closed party politics" view:

http://www.cpac.ca/eng/programs/cpac-special/episodes/whipped-secret-world-party-discipline

16 year old Malala's message to humanity

Video of Malala Yousafzai at U.N. Calling on World Leaders to Provide Education to Every hild


http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23291897
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23282662

US spy program to remain

http://m.yahoo.com/w/legobpengine/news/intelligence-official-says-us-spy-program-remain-despite-075136697.html?.b=world%2F%3F.b%3Dphotos%2F%3F.b%3Dindex%2F&.cf3=Jumbotron&.cf4=2&.cf5=The+Canadian+Press&.cf6=%2Fworld%2F&.h=World&.ts=1370972697&.intl=ca&.lang=en-ca

Contractor who leaked NSA files drops out of sight, faces legal battle

By John Whitesides | Reuters – 18 hours agoBy John WhitesidesWASHINGTON (Reuters) - A contractor at the National Security Agency who leaked details of top-secret U.S. surveillance programs dropped out of sight in Hong Kong on Monday ahead of a likely push by the U.S. government to have him sent back to the United States to face charges.Edward Snowden, 29, who provided the information for published reports last week that revealed the NSA's broad monitoring of phone call and Internet data from large companies such as Google and Facebook, checked out of his Hong Kong hotel hours after going public in a video released on Sunday by Britain's Guardian newspaper.The disclosures by Snowden have sent shockwaves across Washington, where several lawmakers called on Monday for the extradition and prosecution of the ex-CIA employee who was behind one of the most significant security leaks in U.S. history.There were some signs, however, that Snowden's stance
against government surveillance and his defense of personal privacy was resonating with at least some Americans.Supporters flocked to Snowden's aid on the Internet - more than 25,000 people signed an online petition urging Obama to pardon Snowden even before he has been charged. A separate effort on Facebook to raise funds for Snowden's legal defense netted nearly $8,000 in just a few hours.In Hong Kong, officials were cautious in discussing a spy drama that could entangle U.S.-China relations just a few days after U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping met at a summit in California where cyber security was a prime topic.Snowden told the Guardian that he went to Hong Kong in hopes it would be a place where he might be able to resist U.S. prosecution attempts, although the former British colony has an extradition treaty with the United States.On Monday, some local officials suggested that Snowden might have miscalculated."We do have
bilateral agreements with the U.S. and we are duty-bound to comply with these agreements. Hong Kong is not a legal vacuum, as Mr. Snowden might have thought," said Regina Ip, a Hong Kong lawmaker and former security secretary.Snowden said he turned over the documents to The Washington Post and the Guardian in order to expose the NSA's vast surveillance of phone and Internet data.The former technical assistant at the CIA, who had been working at the NSA as an employee of contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, said he became disenchanted with Obama for continuing the surveillance policies of George W. Bush, Obama's predecessor."I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things ... I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded," Snowden told the Guardian, which published the video interview with him, dated June 6, on its website.In Washington, several members of Congress and intelligence officials showed little sympathy
for Snowden's argument. The U.S. Justice Department already is in the initial stages of a criminal investigation."Anyone responsible for leaking classified information should be punished to the fullest extent of the law," said Republican Mike Rogers, chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee.'A SACRED TRUST'James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told NBC that the leaks "violate a sacred trust for this country. The damage that these revelations incur are huge."Some lawmakers were more cautious, however, saying the surveillance programs revealed by the Guardian and The Post raised concerns not just about citizens' privacy, but also whether the Obama administration had done enough to keep Congress informed about such surveillance, as required by law."The government does not need to know more about what we are doing. We need to know more about what the government is doing," said Ron Paul, a former House member and
unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate in 2012 who has long said that the U.S. government is too intrusive into Americans' daily lives."We should be thankful for individuals like Edward Snowden," Paul said.At the White House on Monday, Obama spokesman Jay Carney sidestepped questions about Snowden. Responding to questions about the White House's efforts to brief Congress about the NSA's surveillance programs, a senior administration official released a list of 22 briefings that had been conducted for lawmakers over a 14-month span.There will be more briefings on Tuesday, when a half-dozen national security, law enforcement and intelligence officials will meet with House members. The Senate will be briefed on Thursday.Snowden, who the Guardian said had been working at the NSA for four years as a contractor for outside companies, told the Guardian he had copied the secret documents at the NSA office in Hawaii three weeks ago and had told his
supervisor that he needed "a couple of weeks" off for epilepsy treatments. He flew to Hong Kong on May 20.Staff at a luxury hotel in Hong Kong told Reuters that Snowden had checked out at noon on Monday. Ewen MacAskill, a Guardian journalist, said later in the day that Snowden was still in Hong Kong."He didn't have a plan. He thought out in great detail leaking the documents and then deciding rather than being anonymous, he'd go public. So he thought that out in great detail. But his plans after that have always been vague," MacAskill said."I'd imagine there's now going to be a real battle between Washington and Beijing and civil rights groups as to his future," MacAskill said. "He'd like to seek asylum in a friendly country but I'm not sure if that's possible or not."HONG KONG ASYLUM POLICY 'IN LIMBO'Legally speaking, where does Snowden go from here?If Snowden is charged on criminal counts as many lawmakers and officials expect, the focus will turn to
the extradition treaty that the United States and Hong Kong signed in 1996, a year before the former British colony was returned to China.The treaty, which allows for the exchange of criminal suspects in a formal process that also may involve the Chinese government, went into effect in 1998.It says that Hong Kong authorities can hold a U.S. suspect for up to 60 days after the United States submits a request indicating there is probable cause to believe the suspect violated U.S. law. In Snowden's case, such a request could lead Hong Kong authorities to hold him while Washington prepares a formal extradition request.Snowden could try to stay in Hong Kong by seeking political asylum. Simon Young, a professor of law at the University of Hong Kong, said there are strong protections for people making asylum claims under Hong Kong's extradition laws.A decision this year by Hong Kong's High Court requires the government to create a new standard for reviewing
asylum applications, putting the cases on hold until the new system is finished."He's come really at probably the best moment in time because our asylum laws are in a state of limbo," Young said.MORE REVELATIONS TO COME?Snowden's revelations launched a broad national debate on privacy rights and the limits of security programs in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.On Monday, Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian's lead reporter on the Snowden case, used Twitter to chide Clapper for claiming that Snowden's disclosures harmed national security. Greenwald also suggested that there were more revelations to come."Clapper: leaks "literally gut-wrenching" - "huge, grave damage" - save some melodrama and rhetoric for coming stories. You'll need it," Greenwald tweeted.Many members of Congress have expressed support for the surveillance program but raised questions about whether it should be more tightly supervised and scaled back."In
my mind, things that may have been appropriate in the aftermath of 9/11 and in the weeks and months and even years after that, may no longer be appropriate today," Republican Representative Luke Messer of Indiana said on MSNBC.Some officials said the U.S. government might need to reconsider how much it relies on outside defense contractors who are given top security clearances. As of October 2012, about 483,000 government contractors has top-secret security clearances, according to a report issued in January by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence."We do need to take another, closer look at how we control information and how good we are at identifying what people are doing with that information," said Stewart Baker, former general counsel at the NSA and former assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security.(Additional reporting by James Pomfret, David Ingram, Mark Hosenball, Susan Heavey, Patricia Zengerle; Editing
by David Lindsey, Jim Loney and Mohammad Zargham)

Pope Francis speaks out against the "cult of money,"

Pope Francis Blasts Free Market System, Urges Rich to Help the Poor
Stoyan Zaimov ("The Christian Post," May 16, 2013)

Pope Francis has spoken out against what he called a global "cult of money," including the free market system, and urged the world's leaders to come together and adopt ethics to help the poor.

"While the income of a minority is increasing exponentially, that of the majority is crumbling. This imbalance results from ideologies which uphold the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and thus deny the right of control to States, which are themselves charged with providing for the common good. A new, invisible and at times virtual, tyranny is established, one which unilaterally and irremediably imposes its own laws and rules," Francis told foreign diplomats at the Vatican in a speech focused on the economic crisis.

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church also criticized the "heartless cult of money" that many around the world have embraced, and compared it to the worship of the golden calf a found in Exodus 32:15-34.

"Money has to serve, not to rule," the pope urged when talking about future financial reform.

Pope Francis has come to be known as the pope for the poor, and took the name of early church reformer St. Francis of Assisi when he was elected by his fellow cardinals in March.

While archbishop of Buenos Aries, he gained popularity for choosing modest options over lavish ones, such as taking the bus to work rather than being driven around. He has also chosen to live in a modest Vatican accommodation block instead of palatial apartments, and in April cut traditional bonuses to 4,500 city state employees and redirected them to charity.

The Vatican leader commented that some positive advancements have been made in recent times in the fields of health, education and communications, but the majority of people today continue to live in dire situations and struggle to survive.

"People have to struggle to live and, frequently, to live in an undignified way. One cause of this situation, in my opinion, is in our relationship with money, and our acceptance of its power over ourselves and our society," Francis said.

The pope continued by suggesting that many economists and politicians "consider God to be unmanageable, even dangerous, because he calls man to his full realization and to independence from any kind of slavery." He called for financiers to adopt ethics, because they "lead to God, who is situated outside the categories of the market."

He encouraged financial experts and political leaders to consider the words of Saint John Chrysostom: "Not to share one's goods with the poor is to rob them and to deprive them of life. It is not our goods that we possess, but theirs."

Of his own duties, Francis said: "The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but the Pope has the duty, in Christ's name, to remind the rich to help the poor, to respect them, to promote them. The Pope appeals for disinterested solidarity and for a return to person-centered ethics in the world of finance and economics."

The entire speech, translated into English, is available on the official website of the Holy See.

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http://www.nationalreview.com/node/348850/print

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Read more

Pope Francis urges global leaders to end 'tyranny' of money - Telegraph
Pope Francis has attacked the "dictatorship" of the global financial system and warned that the "cult of money" was making life a misery for millions.

how the wealthy avoid paying their fair share

Amount of wealth sheltered from taxes is staggering

August 17, 2012 7:01 PM By PETER GOLDMARK

http://www.newsday.com/opinion/columnists/peter-goldmark/goldmark-amount-of-wealth-sheltered-from-taxes-is-staggering-1.3911233

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Watch W5's 'Tax me if you can'

George Hoff, W5 Producer
Published Friday, April 5, 2013 4:00PM EDT
Last Updated Saturday, April 6, 2013 11:02PM EDT

http://www.ctvnews.ca/w5/are-all-canadian-taxpayers-treated-equally-by-the-taxman-1.1225858

Benjamin Franklin is famous for declaring that “nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.” But in some cases there are ways to avoid the latter.
The only question is: who pays?

Al Fulcher and Wally Erickson are two retired Canadians living in British Columbia. They filed their taxes and believed they did everything right. But both ran into auditors from the Canada Revenue Agency who reassessed their claims.

The CRA told Fulcher he owed $217,000 and put a lien on a commercial property he bought to finance his retirement. The CRA maintained that the money Fulcher used after the BC government expropriated his property was subject to capital gains tax. That meant Fulcher couldn’t refinance his mortgage at a normal commercial rate.




Al Fulcher speaks about his ordeal with Canada Revenue Agency after he was told he owed $217,000.




After being told by the CRA that he owed $200,000, Wally Erickson fought back, representing himself before Canada’s tax court.




Liechtenstein is one of the many tax-havens countries Canadians use to avoid paying billions of dollars to the Canada Revenue Agency.

Suddenly Fulcher was facing bankruptcy. Fulcher said the CRA action “ruined my credit rating. It’s ruined my credibility.”

Erickson also got audited. The CRA told him he owed $200,000. Erickson was denied a capital cost allowance and other claims on a boat he purchased after his retirement. He said the audit “has so many errors in it, mathematical errors, calendar years, money was included in both calendar years, it was just ludicrous.”

Erickson fought back representing himself before Canada’s tax court.

They’re two Canadians of limited means, willing to pay their fair share of taxes but not willing to accept rulings by CRA auditors.

But 106 other Canadians, much richer and with more resources, took a different approach to their tax obligations. They put their money, a total of more than $100 million, into 47 accounts in the tiny tax haven principality of Liechtenstein.

The Canada Revenue Agency only found out about the accounts in 2007 after it got the names from files stolen from LGT Trust, a bank owned by the monarch of Liechtenstein.

A data processor, Heinrich Kieber, at a Liechtenstein bank walked out with discs containing all the information of 3,500 accounts. Kieber then traded the information to the German government for millions and a new identity.

Germany and Austria used the Kieber files to prosecute their citizens who were evading taxes. Heinz Frommelt, a former Justice Minister in Liechtenstein and now a tax lawyer, said Kieber’s files “have all the data needed to prosecute.”

Katja Gey, Liechtenstein’s Director of International Financial Affairs confirmed the files “are probably good enough for an investigation or prosecution.”

Canadian funds abroad

What about Canada’s investigation of those Canadians named in Kieber’s files?

W5 asked the CRA about the 106 Canadians. The CRA says all were audited and 25 were reassessed. After those audits were completed, the back taxes, interest and penalties totaled $22 million but so far only $8 million has been collected.

The CRA says its investigation is complete and no tax evasion charges will be laid.

Sen. Percy Downe has followed the Liechtenstein case for six years. He said that “people who hide their money overseas are getting a sweetheart deal and the rest of us have to pay our taxes.”

Downe pointed to CRA’s own documents. He said, “The CRA has proven in their own internal audit that they go after the easier cases.”

“The people who are hiding money overseas are intentionally trying to avoid paying taxes,” Downe said.

After six years, we do not know any of the names of those 106 Canadians who put their money in the LGT Bank. The CRA says privacy laws prevent them from being released.

W5 caught up to Minister of Revenue Gail Shea in her riding in Summerside, Prince Edward Island. We asked her about the decision not to charge any of the 106 Canadians with tax evasion.

“I can’t speak to specifics but I can tell you that since our government came into office we have uncovered $4.6 billion in taxes owed,” Shea said.

In an e-mail to W5, after broadcast of our story, the minister's director of communications added clarification: "Over the last six years, 7,761 Aggressive International Tax Planning cases have been completed with approximately $4.58 billion in additional taxes identified."

Asked to provide a specific figure of how much tax had been collected of the amount "identified" and from those individuals, the CRA claimed it is unable to do so. "Our audit and collection systems are standalone systems that do not interface in a manner that would allow the CRA to track the answer being sought."

Fighting on the home front

Although secrecy surrounds the Liechtenstein cases, we know what happened to Al Fulcher and Wally Erickson in British Columbia.

Erickson got the CRA to knock down the amount owing from $200,000 to just over $51,000. But he still thought that was too high. He went to tax court in 2012. The tax court reduced Erickson’s tax bill another $15,000 to $36,000 including interest and penalties.

Al Fulcher hired a tax expert to prove to the CRA that its own regulations allowed him to use his money from the expropriation and not pay a capital gain. But by the time the CRA withdrew its claim in 2012, Fulcher was left almost bankrupt.

His house is for sale and he is still trying to save the business he bought. Fulcher said he’s trapped.

“I now have to fight the CRA for some kind of compensation…I can’t give up and walk away from this thing, this is just ludicrous.”

It’s worth recalling another famous line about paying taxes. This one is from Leona Helmsley, a billionaire New York property owner.

During her trial for tax evasion in 1983, she was quoted as saying: "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."


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Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/w5/are-all-canadian-taxpayers-treated-equally-by-the-taxman-1.1225858#ixzz2Q5cHGZDJ