Elpidio Valdes

June 23, 2011

The US Embargo Against Cuba – A Detailed Analysis

“The embargo on Cuba is the most comprehensive set of US sanctions on any country, including the other countries designated by the US government to be state sponsors of terrorism”. [United States Government Accountability Office] For nearly half a century, the USA has unilaterally imposed an economic, commercial, and financial embargo against Cuba. The severity […]

June 14, 2011

War is Not About Truth, Justice and the American Way – Lawrence Wilkerson

Lawrence Wilkerson is a retired United States Army soldier and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. Wilkerson is an adjunct professor at the College of William & Mary where he teaches courses on US national security. He also instructs a senior seminar in the Honors Department at the George […]

May 14, 2011

Cuba in the Cross-Hairs: A Near Half-Century of Terror

The Batista dictatorship was overthrown in January 1959 by Castro’s guerrilla forces. In March, the National Security Council (NSC) considered means to institute regime change. In May, the CIA began to arm guerrillas inside Cuba. “During the Winter of 1959-1960, there was a significant increase in CIA-supervised bombing and incendiary raids piloted by exiled Cubans” […]

May 3, 2011

A Response to the Death of Osama bin Laden

This has to be said: On May 1, 2011 Pres. Barack Obama appeared on national television with the spontaneous announcement that Osama bin Laden, the purported organizer of the tragic events of September 11th 2001, was killed by military forces in Pakistan. Within moments, a media blitz ran across virtually all television networks in what could only be […]

April 30, 2011

Jesus Outside the Bible: Part 3 – Pliny, Tacitus and Suetonius

There are three Greco-Roman pagan passages extremely important to the defenders of the Christian myth. They are the works of three major non-Christian writers of the late 1st and early 2nd centuries – Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny the Younger. Let’s closely examine these passages and see why they cannot serve us as justification for reliable […]

April 25, 2011

Jesus Outside the Bible: Part 2 – Flavius Josephus

When addressing the historical nature of Jesus Christ, one issue repeatedly raised is the purported “evidence” of his existence to be found in the writings of Flavius Josephus, the famed Jewish general and historian who lived from about 37 to 100 CE. In Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews appears the notorious passage regarding Christ called […]

April 23, 2011

Jesus Outside the Bible: Part 1 – Historical Silence

“Apart from the New Testament writings and later writings dependent on these, our sources of information about the life and teaching of Jesus are scanty and problematic” – F.F. Bruce, New Testament History. “The only definite account of his life and teachings is contained in the four Gospels for the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke […]

April 19, 2011

Easter and the Dying Man-God Motif

Let me break down most celebrated of Christian holidays: Easter The name “Easter” originated with the names of an ancient Goddess and Gods. The Venerable Bede, (672-735 CE.) a Christian scholar, first asserted in his book De Ratione Temporum that Easter was named after a Germanic fertility goddess, Eostra. [1] She was the Great Mother […]

April 11, 2011

Map of Colonial Powers in Africa

Map on the left was produced in 1889 by George Cawston titled “Africa South of the Equator” showing the existence of boundary treaties. For the first time in African maps, you begin to see straight lines; however they are not drawn by Africans nor for Africans. The map is also colored coded: Orange = Belgium […]

April 5, 2011

The Parallel Sayings of Four Mystical Traditions

Let’s compare religious teachings for a quick second, shall we? Specifically, let’s compare the teachings of four of our greatest and most influential mystical teachers. Now, there isn’t much evidence for the historical existence of any of these individuals and even worse, none of them ever wrote a word on their philosophy. Nonetheless, I feel […]