After the recent SCOTUS decision to grant the right to marry to all GLBT members, in all U.S. States, here's how the community can repurpose its passionate activism to benefit all causes, in all nations, with 3 clicks of a mouse.

Ladies and Ladies. Gentlemen and Gentlemen... Maybe President Obama could have been inspired by the same opening statement when SCOTUS granted marriage equality to all U.S. states in June of this year.

With this opening statement former president of the Swiss Confederation Moritz Leuenberger welcomed a large crowd of cheering GLBT members on Christopher Street day in Zurich in 2001, when he promised to finally get action on equality and provide equal rights to the unmet grievances of equal rights under the law.

That was his way to recognize that the right to love is inalienable and had to be extended also to the GLBT community. Since 5 June 2005, Swiss GLBT couples have most of the same rights and protections as opposite-sex couples.

'It is time for the U.S. to be generous with our friends in Greece'

Published on Sunday, July 12, 2015 by Common Dreams’ Staff

Prominent economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz accused Germany on Sunday of displaying a "lack of solidarity" with debt-laden Greece that has badly undermined the vision of Europe.

"What has been demonstrated is a lack of solidarity by Germany. You cannot run a eurozone without a basic modicum of solidarity. It is really undermining the common sense of vision, the sense of common solidarity in Europe," the Columbia University professor and former World Bank chief economist told Agence France Presse.

"I think it's been a disaster. Clearly Germany has done a serious blow, undermining Europe," he said. "Asking even more from Greece would be unconscionable. If the ECB allows Greek banks to open up and they renegotiate whatever agreement, then wounds can heal. But if they succeed in using this as a trick to get Greece out, I think the damage is going to be very very deep."

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Paul Krugman wrote Sunday in the New York Times:

Substantive surrender isn’t enough for Germany, which wants regime change and total humiliation — and there’s a substantial faction that just wants to push Greece out, and would more or less welcome a failed state as a caution for the rest...There are only terrible alternatives at this point, thanks to the fecklessness of the Greek government and, far more important, the utterly irresponsible campaign of financial intimidation waged by Germany and its allies.

We hold this to be self-evident: When Debt is Fraud, Debt Forgiveness is the Last and Only Remedy.

This article appeared in Of two Minds by Charles Hugh Smith on September 1st 2011

In the wake of recent events in Greece, this article is as relevant as ever. (Please share and educate)

"On a grand scale the only way to erase counterfeit money and (counterfeit) assets of hundreds of trillions of dollars is to erase the debts associated with those fake assets. (Let me underscore again, these are not “toxic” assets, they are fake assets.)… Forgiveness in general, and forgiveness of debt in particular, stand as virtues if they free us up to acknowledge, address, and learn from our culpability, start anew, and create forward.”

Endgame: When Debt is Fraud, Debt Forgiveness is the Last and Only Remedy,

by Zeus Yiamouyiannis, Ph.D., copyright 2011

Introduction:

Finally serious economists are considering a position I have been maintaining and writing about since the 2008 financial meltdown. Whatever its name— erasure, repudiation, abolishment, cancellation, jubilee—debt forgiveness, will have to eventually emerge forefront in global efforts to solve an ongoing systemic financial crisis.

Emboldened by anti-austerity referendum, Tsipras to address European Parliament on Wednesday

Published on Tuesday, July 07, 2015 byCommon Dreams byLauren McCauley, staff writer

In the wake of Greece's historic 'No' vote this weekend, European leaders are scrambling to cement a new deal after the resounding rejection of the austerity program that has heretofore dominated fiscal policy and conversation.

European Parliament President Martin Schulz confirmed that Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will address parliament plenary on Wednesday morning. Tsipras is expected to put forth a new written proposal for financial aid, one that reflects the wishes of the people—who on Sunday voted overwhelmingly against the latest bailout offer, which would have imposed further austerity and economic hardship.

On Tuesday, European heads of state are meeting in Brussels to discuss the pending economic crisis. According to reports, Tsipras will meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande ahead of the evening's leaders' summit to discuss his plan. Tsipras is expected to call for the country's €323bn ($356bn) debt to be reduced by up to 30 percent, with a 20-year grace period, BBC reports.

"From Maine to California," said Sen. Bernie Sanders to great applause, "the American people understand that establishment politics and establishment economics is not working." (Photo: Common Dreams / CC BY 3.0)

If you're wondering why the campaign continues to build momentum and attract big crowds, one person among the many thousands in Portland shouted his answer.

Published on Tuesday, July 07, 2015 byCommon Dreams byJon Queally, staff writer

Continuing to draw large and enthusiastic crowds wherever he goes, Sen. Bernie Sanders attracted approximately 9,000 people to a downtown sports arena in Portland, Maine on Monday evening as throngs of people—with a noticeable presence of students and young adults—waited for more than an hour in a line that stretched around the building in order to hear the presidential candidate's populist message.

Though the campaign only put the number at 7,500 in the crowd, those familiar with building—which was filled to capacity—placed the number well over 9,000. Though not quite so many as the record crowd of 10,000 that turned out in Madison, Wisconsin the week before, many noted that the coastal New England city of Portland has less than half the population. And with other big turnouts recently in Iowa, Colorado, and elsewhere—this is becoming the new normal for the campaign.

The line stretched around a full city block in downtown Portland, Maine on Monday evening. (Photo: Common Dreams / CC BY 3.0)

Irish observer says vote is 'potentially the most important political event since the collapse of the Berlin Wall'

Published on Monday, July 06, 2015 byCommon Dreams by Deirdre Fulton, staff writer

While many in the mainstream media focus on the nitty-gritty economic implications of Sunday's landslide anti-austerity vote in Greece, leaders of Europe's left are hopeful that the outcome, a repudiation of harsh Troika-imposed policies, will start a long-awaited domino effect of democracy across the continent.

"Our deeply unequal global economy relies on ordinary people having no real voice over economic decisions, so this 'no' vote  strengthens the battle for a fairer, more humane, people-centred Europe," Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden said on Sunday.

In a column for Ireland's Journal Media, anti-austerity activist Paul Murphy described Sunday's vote as "potentially the most important political event since the collapse of the Berlin Wall."

Noting that the win relied on an "overwhelming mobilization" of both the working class and young people, Murphy—who works with the Irish Anti-Austerity Alliance but was in Athens for the vote—said that "[d]epending on what happens next, it can represent a turning point towards a challenge to the rule of the 1% in Europe and the dominance of Thatcherite neo-liberalism."

Flickr/taesos greq. Some rights reserved.

JOHN WEEKS 10 June 2015

The negotiations between the Troika and Greece are a sham. Greek submission to the neoliberal EU project or forced exit was the Troika game plan from the moment Syriza formed a government.

Appearance and reality

For five months we have watched the attempt by the government of Greece to renegotiate its debt with the notorious Troika (the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, with the German government very much the 500 pound cliché in the room).

Or, so it appeared. We can now know that the reality was and is quite different from appearances. The Syriza government and its creditors are not and were not in conflict over debt servicing, but something much more fundamental in which there could be no compromise. Greece has the only EU government that opposes the alarmingly successful project to solidify a neoliberal Europe.

Because of that opposition there will be no "agreement" between the Greek government and the Troika. Indeed, from the moment Syriza formed a government only two outcomes were possible: 1) the replacement of the Syriza government with one again obedient to the neoliberal project, or 2) or expulsion from the euro zone and the European Union.  With the Greek government enjoying overwhelming support, expulsion becomes the only possibility.

The question for the Troika is, how? The absence of any formal mechanism for expulsion of a member country from either the euro zone or the EU quickly became the central problem of the Troika. This problem would be and will be solved by creating conditions such that it appears that the Syriza government chooses the outcome the Troika desires.

Birgitta Jonsdottir. Flickr/Steve Rhodes. Some rights reserved.

In the first of a series of interviews by Phil England examining the situation in Iceland and the possible relevance of developments there to the UK, Phil talks to Pirate Party MP Birgitta Jonsdottir.

Published by PHIL ENGLAND 29 June 2015 in Open Democracy

Birgitta Jonsdottir is a co-founder of the Icelandic Pirate Party and one of three Pirate Party MPs in the Icelandic government. Since March the Pirates have been polling as the most popular party in Iceland. Their core policies focus on direct democracy, civil rights and access to information. A former Wikileaks volunteer, Jonsdottir describes herself as an anarchist and a poetician. She is also founder and Chair of the International Modern Media Inititative (IMMI) which aims to strengthen democracy through transparency of information.

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Could the right to information clauses in the draft constitution along with the IMMI (International Modern Media Initiative) proposals to protect journalists, their sources and whistleblowers help prevent a second crash from happening?

Absolutely. It’s not enough to have a big [Wikileaks-style] data dump. You have to have people interested in it that can analyse it and simplify it for the general public to understand. So if we had this type of legislation before the banking crisis it might not have prevented it completely but it would have been a lot less severe.

We have legislation that is not very clear in Iceland about when public workers, the bureaucrats in the system, have a duty to report or a duty to be silent. It’s not clear right now because there are so many different regulations about it. Many people have been waiting for a clarification in law. So now the trend is for whistleblowers to stay silent.