Daily Ghion Water ~ The Ghion Journal

A quick point of reflection before we get to the daily doses Ghion Water. The more I observe, the more I realize that ideologies are really the enemy of all ideas. I say this in light of a debate I was having with someone about the article I wrote yesterday on the history of Zionism. Issues of identity can be thorny, to thread the needle and argue against an ideology is to risk offending people who identify with that ideology as an identity. To go into the deep waters and argue against sectarianism invites yet more sectarianism in order to prove points. I’m going to write in more depth about this later on today because I’ve been reflecting about this for the past hour. How can one argue that we are all one as a human—that we are all one big family—and concurrently debate history and identity without resorting to the “us/them” paradigm that is fracturing humanity. Stay tuned for that new article that will be posted later on. But for now…on to the Daily Ghion Water.

The Poison that is Corporate “Journalism”

Journalist James Risen sent shockwaves through the media earlier this week with his lengthy account on The Intercept detailing how the United States government influenced The New York Times to suppress his reporting. The piece, “The Biggest Secret: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror,” outlines how the Times prevented Risen from publishing crucial stories in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, citing national security concerns that began with the George W. Bush White House and continued into the Obama administration. [from Truthdig]

About the (Un)Stable Genius

OK, so maybe Donald Trump is too busy and too important to be sued. Maybe he needs to be available to be president 24/7. And maybe we should even cut him some slack on the golf outings and other escapes from the White House on the assumption that they are “working vacations.” But inquiring minds want to know: If he’s too busy and important to be sued, how can it be that he has the free time, the undiverted attention span, and the scratchable itch to to go around threatening to sue others? [from Free Thought Project]

This Mega-Bytes

The press has greatly under-reported the two security holes, called Meltdown and Spectre, that can without exaggeration be characterized as affecting just about every computing device in use today (with very rare exceptions, like the Apple Watch). And because the media has so badly dropped the ball, your humble blogger will start with a high-level introductory piece, in the hopes that the IT and security experts in our readership will chime in, ideally in comments, with more information and ideas. Lambert has more posts planned, and they will be more technical in nature. [from Naked Capitalism]

On the Net-Apartheid Front

Passage of the CRA will ultimately require at least two Republican votes in the Senate and around 20 in the House. But before net neutrality defenders can worry about winning over Republicans, they first have to ensure that every Democrat is on board. As part of the effort to pressure lawmakers into defending the open internet, Fight for the Future has launched a website that lists every senator who has yet to support Markey’s CRA push, and provides tools and sample scripts for Americans to easily contact their representatives. [from Common Dreams]

Neocon and Neoliberal Watch (they are the same thing)

The question of whether Iran also smuggled a small number of relatively crude missiles to the Houthis should hardly weigh too heavily on anyone’s moral scales when Saudi Arabia and its allies have been pounding Yemen since March 2015 with high-explosive bombs, mostly supplied by the United States and Great Britain. As former CIA analyst and presidential adviser Bruce Riedel said of Riyadh’s vocal outrage over the ineffectual Houthi missile attack, “They desperately want to change the conversation away from starving children to Iranian bad guys. [from Consortium News]

Watching the Hawks

The US’ violent intervention in Libya stands out in particular. In the wake of Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s 2011 demise, Libya has descended into chaos, with slave markets of Nigerian migrants now a horrifically common occurrence. Newsweek reports: “Stories of black slavery in Libya have emerged frequently over the last two years after a NATO-backed intervention in the North African nation toppled 40-year leader Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2011. The bloody civil war that followed years later has led to an explosion in people-trafficking in the country and a clandestine slave trade.” [from Disobedient Media]

From the YouTubes

This Day in History

On this day in 1877, Crazy Horse and his warriors–outnumbered, low on ammunition and forced to use outdated weapons to defend themselves–fight their final losing battle against the U.S. Cavalry in Montana.

Quote of the Day

Reading from teleprompters makes one a great actor not a great leader. Pitch, tone and pausing for effect has nothing to do with wisdom, heart and courage::

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Teodrose Fikre

Founder at Ghion Journal

Teodrose Fikre is the co-founder and editor of the Ghion Journal. A published author and prolific writer, a once defense consultant was profoundly changed by a two year journey of hardship and struggle. Going from a life of upper-middle class privilege to a time spent with the huddled masses taught Teodrose a valuable lesson in the essence of togetherness and the need to speak against injustice.

Originally from Ethiopia with roots to Atse Tewodros II, Teodrose is a former community organizer whose writing was incorporated into Barack Obama's South Carolina primary victory speech in 2008. He pivoted away from politics and decided to stand for collective justice after experiencing the reality of the forgotten masses. His writing defies conventional wisdom and challenges readers to look outside the constraints of labels and ideologies that serve to splinter the people. Teodrose uses his pen to give a voice to the voiceless and to speak truth to power.