United Nations Declaration (Articles 1 - 30):

Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Incoming UN chief names three women to top posts

Incoming UN chief names three women to top posts
Nigerian Minister of the Environment Amina Mohammed, seen in 2015, will be the UN's number two official (AFP Photo/Mireya ACIERTO)

Sustainable Development
"A Summary" – Apr 2, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Religion, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Intelligent/Benevolent Design, EU, South America, 5 Currencies, Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Middle East, Internet, Israel, Dictators, Palestine, US, Japan (Quake/Tsunami Disasters , People, Society ...), Nuclear Power Revealed, Hydro Power, Geothermal Power, Moon, Financial Institutes (Recession, Realign integrity values ..) , China, North Korea, Global Unity,..... etc.) -
"The Timing of the Great Shift" – Mar 21, 2009 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“ … Here is another one. A change in what Human nature will allow for government. "Careful, Kryon, don't talk about politics. You'll get in trouble." I won't get in trouble. I'm going to tell you to watch for leadership that cares about you. "You mean politics is going to change?" It already has. It's beginning. Watch for it. You're going to see a total phase-out of old energy dictatorships eventually. The potential is that you're going to see that before 2013. They're going to fall over, you know, because the energy of the population will not sustain an old energy leader ..."
"Update on Current Events" – Jul 23, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: The Humanization of God, Gaia, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Benevolent Design, Financial Institutes (Recession, System to Change ...), Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Nuclear Power Revealed, Geothermal Power, Hydro Power, Drinking Water from Seawater, No need for Oil as Much, Middle East in Peace, Persia/Iran Uprising, Muhammad, Israel, DNA, Two Dictators to fall soon, Africa, China, (Old) Souls, Species to go, Whales to Humans, Global Unity,..... etc.)
(Subjects: Who/What is Kryon ?, Egypt Uprising, Iran/Persia Uprising, Peace in Middle East without Israel actively involved, Muhammad, "Conceptual" Youth Revolution, "Conceptual" Managed Business, Internet, Social Media, News Media, Google, Bankers, Global Unity,..... etc.)


The Declaration of Human Freedom

Archangel Michael (Via Steve Beckow), Feb. 19, 2011

Every being is a divine and eternal soul living in a temporal body. Every being was alive before birth and will live after death.

Every soul enters into physical life for the purpose of experience and education, that it may, in the course of many lifetimes, learn its true identity as a fragment of the Divine.

Life itself is a constant process of spiritual evolution and unfoldment, based on free choice, that continues until such time as we realize our true nature and return to the Divine from which we came.

No soul enters life to serve another, except by choice, but to serve its own purpose and that of the Divine from which it came.

All life is governed by natural and universal laws which precede and outweigh the laws of humanity. These laws, such as the law of karma, the law of attraction, and the law of free will, are decreed by God to order existence and assist each person to achieve life’s purpose.

No government can or should survive that derives its existence from the enforced submission of its people or that denies its people their basic rights and freedoms.

Life is a movement from one existence to another, in varied venues throughout the universe and in other universes and dimensions of existence. We are not alone in the universe but share it with other civilizations, most of them peace-loving, many of whom are more advanced than we are, some of whom can be seen with our eyes and some of whom cannot.

The evidence of our five senses is not the final arbiter of existence. Humans are spiritual as well as physical entities and the spiritual side of life transcends the physical. God is a Spirit and the final touchstone of God’s Truth is not physical but spiritual. The Truth is to be found within.

God is one and, because of this, souls are one. They form a unity. They are meant to live in peace and harmony together in a “common unity” or community. The use of force to settle affairs runs contrary to natural law. Every person should have the right to conduct his or her own affairs without force, as long as his or her choices do not harm another.

No person shall be forced into marriage against his or her will. No woman shall be forced to bear or not bear children, against her will. No person shall be forced to hold or not hold views or worship in a manner contrary to his or her choice. Nothing vital to existence shall be withheld from another if it is within the community’s power to give.

Every person shall retain the ability to think, speak, and act as they choose, as long as they not harm another. Every person has the right to choose, study and practice the education and career of their choice without interference, provided they not harm another.

No one has the right to kill another. No one has the right to steal from another. No one has the right to force himself or herself upon another in any way.

Any government that harms its citizens, deprives them of their property or rights without their consent, or makes offensive war upon its neighbors, no matter how it misrepresents the situation, has lost its legitimacy. No government may govern without the consent of its people. All governments are tasked with seeing to the wellbeing of their citizens. Any government which forces its citizens to see to its own wellbeing without attending to theirs has lost its legitimacy.

Men and women are meant to live fulfilling lives, free of want, wherever they wish and under the conditions they desire, providing their choices do not harm another and are humanly attainable.

Children are meant to live lives under the beneficent protection of all, free of exploitation, with unhindered access to the necessities of life, education, and health care.

All forms of exploitation, oppression, and persecution run counter to universal and natural law. All disagreements are meant to be resolved amicably.

Any human law that runs counter to natural and universal law is invalid and should not survive. The enactment or enforcement of human law that runs counter to natural and universal law brings consequences that cannot be escaped, in this life or another. While one may escape temporal justice, one does not escape divine justice.

All outcomes are to the greater glory of God and to God do we look for the fulfillment of our needs and for love, peace, and wisdom. So let it be. Aum/Amen.


Pope Francis arrives for historic first US visit

Pope Francis arrives for historic first US visit
Pope Francis laughs alongside US President Barack Obama upon arrival at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, on September 22, 2015, on the start of a 3-day trip to Washington (AFP Photo/Saul Loeb)


Today's doodle in the U.S. celebrates Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech on its 50th anniversary (28 Aug 2013)

'Love is love': Obama lauds gay marriage activists in hailing 'a victory for America'

'Love is love': Obama lauds gay marriage activists in hailing 'a victory for America'
The White House released this image, of the building colored like the rainbow flag, on Facebook following the supreme court’s ruling. Photograph: Facebook

Same-sex marriage around the world

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. …

Merkel says Turkey media crackdown 'highly alarming'

Merkel says Turkey media crackdown 'highly alarming'
Reporters Without Borders labels Erdogan as 'enemy of press freedom'

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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Slovakia Defies the Kochs and Cato

Consortiumnews.comMarch 12, 2012

Exclusive: For the past decade, the people of the small central European nation of Slovakia have suffered under a harsh and corrupt “privatization” scheme devised by the Koch Brothers’ Cato Institute. However, in weekend elections, they defied their oligarchs by voting for a left-of-center “populist” party, reports Mark Ames. 

By Mark Ames

On Saturday, the tiny EU nation Slovakia held parliamentary elections, and the results surprised the “experts”: The center-left party Smer, derisively described as “populist” in the American media, won in a record landslide, the first time a single party will control the majority in parliament in Slovakia’s post-Communist history.

The “populist” Smer won on an unexpectedly large turnout of 60 percent –the so-called experts had been assuring readers there’d be a low turnout of 40percent. 

Billionaires Charles and David Koch,
who helped found the libertarian
Cato Institute
 
The high turnout reflects real suffering for the people of Slovakia that goes well beyond mere cynicism — they’re suffering from real, mass impoverishment, brought on by a decade of brutal free-market reforms, which hit the privatized pensions especially hard. That’s where we Americans come in, specifically the Cato Institute — but I’ll get to that in a moment.

Although there’s been almost no coverage of Slovakia’s mass protest movement, the country has seen the largest demonstrations since the Velvet Revolution. The protests were sparked in part by the “Gorilla” scandal, leaked recordings of Slovakia’s free-market politicians negotiating their bribes with bankers from a top hedge fund, Penta, in exchange for Penta’s lucrative privatization deals.

But what’s sustained the protests, and what brought people out to vote in droves for the “populists,” is the mass impoverishment that’s worsened life for most of Slovakia’s citizens — and first to suffer have been Slovakia’s pensioners, who are forced to subsist on roughly $400 per month.

Here’s where the Cato Institute, the libertarian think-tank founded by the Koch brothers, comes in — and where Slovakia’s problems become our problems.

In the early 2000’s, the co-chairman of the Cato Institute’s Project on Social Security Privatization, José Piñera, played a key role advising and overseeing Slovakia’s mass pension privatization, which passed in 2003 under the free-market government of Mikulas Dzurinda. Today, Slovakia’s retirees are groaning under the austerity pain administered to them by the Cato Institute.

José Piñera, who has led Cato’s Social Security Privatization Project since the 1990s, has a dark history of administering pain on a nationwide scale: Piñera served in the military junta under Chile’s Generalissimo Augusto Pinochet, first as Pinochet’s Minister for Labor, helping suppress unions in one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world; later, Piñera oversaw Pinochet’s radical privatization of Chile’s pension program.

Today, Chile suffers one of the worst wealth inequality problems in the developed world. And for the past two decades, José Piñera, working at the Cato Institute, has been trying to impose the same pension austerity on Americans.

It’s a match made in Hell: Cato and the Koch brothers have been pushing to dismantle Social Security since the Kochs up the Cato Institute in the late 1970s. Thanks to the Cato Institute’s tireless efforts, today dismantling Social Security is practically gospel in the Republican Party — and not far off the top of the “To Do” list for some “centrist” Democrats either.

Sacking Slovakia

Cato’s José Piñera was brought in to oversee Slovakia’s pension privatization only after the 2002 elections put in power the free-market rightwing Democratic and Christian Union Party, led by Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda. The pensions were privatized in 2003, along with a free-market program that lowered the top tax rate to a flat 19 percent, eliminated inheritance taxes, and generally shifted the burden down the economic scale.

The reforms were wildly unpopular with Slovaks, to the same degree that they were popular with Western bankers and banking institutions like the World Bank, which named Slovakia the world’s top economic reformer in 2004, and one of the top 20 business-friendly nations in the world.

In 2005, Bush’s ambassador to Slovakia co-authored a glowing article with Cato’s Marian Tupy, praising Dzurinda’s pension privatization, and noting Cato’s José Piñera’s role in making Slovakia’s pension reforms happen. In their article, they ominously compared Slovakia’s pre-reform pension “crisis” to America’s “crisis” in Social Security.

The timing of the joint Cato-Bush praise for Slovakia’s pension privatization was interesting for a couple of reasons:

First, because the same free-market government that Cato advised and Cato-Bush praised has now been implicated in cutting secret kickback deals with leading hedge fund to sell off Slovakia’s state assets in exchange for millions in bribes; and secondly, that year, 2005, was the year President Bush made his big push to privatize America’s Social Security program, with the Cato Institute as both the lead adviser and promoter.

The Bush-Cato plan to privatize Social Security began over dinner in 1997, when Bush was still governor of Texas. Ed Crane, the president of Cato, and José Piñera, Cato’s co-chair of the Social Security Privatization Project, flew to Austin to sell the future president on their plan to privatize Social Security.

According to the Washington Post: “Crane said that after Pinera’s presentation, Bush declared, ‘This is the most important policy issue facing the United States today.’”

As soon as Bush was elected President, he set up a commission to privatize Social Security, and staffed it with the Cato Institute’s free-market zealots. Unfortunately for them, the 9/11 attacks distracted the Administration. But in 2005, Bush made Social Security privatization his top priority for his second term — and once again, he put the Cato Institute in charge.

By the end of 2005, however, Bush’s presidency was practically in tatters as the country turned against his wars, and Hurricane Katrina made privatizing Social Security politically impossible. The project to do to America what Cato did to Slovakia was essentially abandoned, and the Cato Institute turned critic of Bush’s war on terror policies.

A Family Project

Lately, Cato’s José Piñera has seen his younger brother, billionaire Sebastian Piñera, making international news as Chile’s most unpopular president since democracy replaced the free-market military junta of Generalissimo Augusto Pinochet in 1990.

Thanks to younger brother Sebastian’s free-market privatization of Chile’s education system, the country has erupted in nationwide protests and violence on a level not seen since, well, Generalissimo Pinochet overthrew Chile’s democratically elected government in 1973, and installed a brutal regime that crushed dissent and murdered and tortured thousands — handing the economy over to free-market fanatics including Friedrich von Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Sebastian’s brother, José Piñera.

Neither age, nor time, nor working at the American-based Cato Institute, dining with future presidents and convincing them to gut the population’s Social Security, has mellowed this former Pinochet sidekick’s distaste for democracy. As Piñera wrote in 2003,

“To hand over a blank check to inherently unstable majorities concerning virtually all the major economic, social, and political issues of a society is to institutionalize instability, open the way to more serious abuses, and condemn a country to underdevelopment. How is anyone to make rational decisions about work, savings, and investment if key variables — such as taxes, labor legislation, and regulations — can be altered by 50.01 percent of the citizens through a vote that, in countries with low levels of education, can almost never be said to show the characteristics of an ‘informed vote’?”

On Saturday, the Slovaks voted overwhelmingly to reject the damage and plunder that the Cato Institute’s advisers wreaked on that tiny country’s citizens. Naturally, to free-market zealots like the Piñeras, the Kochs, the Cato Institute and the rest of the oligarchy’s minions, this only proves their point about why democracy must be “limited.”

The people can’t be relied on to vote the way oligarchs want them to — they can’t be relied on to react with cynicism and defeatism to all the news of political and corporate corruption.

The hope among the elites in Slovakia and elsewhere was that the voters’ mass impoverishment and anger would lead to a withdrawal from politics — but the high voter turnout turned out to be perhaps the greatest victory for the people of Slovakia. The politicians are to be expected to sell out and disappoint — but the more engaged in their democracy the people are, the more power they’ll have to eventually change their politics for the better, and finally bring an end to the rotten politics of oligarchy and plunder that mark our age.


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