By Charles Mostoller

Despite assassinations, community radio is spreading throughout southern Mexico

“Some people think that we are too young to be informed, but what they should know is that we are too young to die.”

These were the fateful words of Felicitas Martinez Sanchez and Teresa Bautista Merino, two indigenous Triqui radio broadcasters who were assassinated in southern Oaxaca on April 7th.

The two girls, aged 20 and 24, had worked for the recently inaugurated Radio Triqui, “The Voice that Breaks the Silence”, in the autonomous Triqui municipality of San Juan Copala.

San Juan Copala declared autonomy from the state government in January of 2007, unifying more than half of the 24,000 Triqui indigenous peoples into a single municipality, and has faced many obstacles—often violent—in its quest for self-determination.

[Read more →]

Many think America is waning: Are they right?

The mainstream opinion about America, Iraq, and Israel, is that the Iraq war is a disaster, and Israel is overly influential of U.S. policy. This article posits a completely different reality, where all is as the U.S. desires, and Israel is an utter servant of U.S. intention.

The recent American power expansion started with the Gulf War, as a demonstration of hegemony following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and a consolidation of energy dominion. Then came 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, and perhaps now Iran and the entire Middle-East.

Step by step America has tightened its control of the Mid-East, with hardly a word from the presumably very interested PRC (People’s Republic of China). Yet for all our efforts to draw them and any others into war, there are still no takers. More than that, the significant states of the world vote yes in the U.N for all our military actions and initiatives.

[Read more →]

The sudden interest in Tibet by the global main stream media (MSM), with the Olympic protests as a backdrop, has brought on a full-blown debate that has swept from Parliaments to the Blogosphere with this long-ignored issue. The geopolitical focus of the debate, however, leads nowhere if it doesn’t factor in what is arguably the most important variable of them all: the spiritual relevance of Tibet for millions of non-Tibetan Buddhists worldwide. The global reach of the Olympic Torch protests cannot be explained geopolitically, which is why pundits, bloggers and Chinese bureaucrats just don’t get it –it’s the Buddha, stupid!

By Jordi Barrett

May 2008

Special to The East Coast Ledger

As the Torch sputters doggedly through its international “Olympic Spirit” shit parade (as invented by J. Goebbels) shielded by armies of police and sequestered for its own safety— Japan’s foremost Buddhist temple has politely refused to allow the Torch to visit its premises in solidarity with their brothers and sisters of Tibet.

“We are Buddhists, just like them,” explained a temple insider.

[Read more →]

On it’s 20th birthday as a key EU member state, Spain celebrates the European identity and looks ahead with confidence in the Peninsula’s potential to be “Everything Under The Sun”

By John Dough

In 1986, the Kingdom of Spain lived a historic moment, becoming a full member of what was then known as the European Community. The formal incorporation of the Iberian Peninsula into the larger European context was seen as the beginning an era, and now, twenty years down the line, the transformation of the country’s economy into one of the EU’s strongest is an undeniable reality.

[Read more →]