Calvin College Speaks Out. (by Jim Wallis)

Jim Wallis is one of my heroes. In my book, he goes into the same category as folks like Bono, Thomas Merton, Detrich Bonhoeffer and the like. (Hmmm...why aren't there any women on that list I just made. That is bothersome. I will work on that.) Anyway, Mr. Wallis is the dude in charge of Sojourner's which is an organization that is comprised of evangelical Christians that are into social justice. Like myself. Think that's an oxymoron? Read on...

As I've traveled the country this spring - 82 events, 48 cities, and hundreds of media interviews since January - I've witnessed a new movement of moderate and progressive religious voices challenging the monologue of the Religious Right.


An extremely narrow and aggressively partisan expression of right-wing Republican religion has controlled the debate on faith and politics in the public square for years. But that is no longer true.


At packed book events around the country these days, I often make an announcement that elicits a tumultuous response: "The monologue of the Religious Right is finally over, and a new dialogue has begun!" Smiles light up the faces of thousands of people as they break out in thunderous applause.



That new dialogue was visible recently at Calvin College. Karl Rove, seeking a friendly venue for a commencement speech in Michigan, approached Calvin and offered President Bush as the speaker. The college, which had already invited Nicholas Wolterstorff of Yale to deliver the speech, hastily disinvited him and welcomed the president. But the White House apparently was not counting on the reaction of students and faculty. Rove expected the evangelical Christian college in the dependable "red" area of western Michigan to be a safe place. He was wrong.


The day the president was to speak, an ad featuring a letter signed by one-third of Calvin's faculty and staff ran in The Grand Rapids Press. Noting that "we seek open and honest dialogue about the Christian faith and how it is best expressed in the political sphere," the letter said that "we see conflicts between our understanding of what Christians are called to do and many of the policies of your administration."


The letter asserted that administration policies have "launched an unjust and unjustified war in Iraq," "taken actions that favor the wealthy of our society and burden the poor, " "harmed creation and have not promoted long-term stewardship of our natural environment," and "fostered intolerance and divisiveness and has often failed to listen to those with whom it disagrees." It concluded: "Our passion for these matters arises out of the Christian faith that we share with you. We ask you, Mr. President, to re-examine your policies in light of our God-given duty to pursue justice with mercy...." One faculty member told a reporter, "We are not Lynchburg. We are not right wing; we're not left wing. We think our faith trumps political ideology."


On commencement day, according to news reports, about a quarter of the 900 graduates wore "God is not a Republican or a Democrat" buttons pinned to their gowns.


The events at Calvin, along with the growing crowds at our events around the country, are visible signs that the Religious Right does not speak for all Christians, even all evangelical Christians. What I hear, from one end of this country to the other, is how tired we are of ideological religion and how hungry we are for prophetic faith. The students and faculty at Calvin College are the most recent sign of that hunger.

Amnesty International Points Out U.S. Human RIghts Violations

This article is straight from Cnn.com

I find Amnesty International, which I am a dues paying member of, to be an objective organization. I would point out that they are taking a significant risk in offending the U.S. considering a lot of their funding comes from Americans. I would also encourage you to find out more info about Amnesty and consider becoming a member. Read on.

LONDON, May 25 (Reuters) -- Four years after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, human rights are in retreat worldwide and the United States bears most responsibility, rights watchdog Amnesty International said on Wednesday.

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe the picture is bleak. Governments are increasingly rolling back the rule of law, taking their cue from the U.S.-led war on terror, it said.

"The USA as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power sets the tone for governmental behavior worldwide," Secretary General Irene Khan said in the foreword to Amnesty International's 2005 annual report.

"When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity," she said.

London-based Amnesty cited the pictures last year of abuse of detainees at Iraq's U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison, which it said were never adequately investigated, and the detention without trial of "enemy combatants" at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

"The detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has become the gulag of our times, entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law," Khan said.

She also noted Washington's attempts to circumvent its own ban on the use of torture.

"The U.S. government has gone to great lengths to restrict the application of the Geneva Convention and to 're-define' torture," she said, citing the secret detention of suspects and the practice of handing some over to countries where torture was not outlawed.

U.S. President George W. Bush often said his country was founded on and dedicated to the cause of human dignity -- but there was a gulf between rhetoric and reality, Amnesty found.

"During his first term in office, the USA proved to be far from the global human rights champion it proclaimed itself to be," the report said, citing Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

'Blurred distinction'
But the United States was by no means the sole or even the worst offender as murder, mayhem and abuse of women and children spread to the four corners of the globe, Amnesty said.

"The human rights abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan were far from being the only negative repercussions of the response to the terrible events of Sept. 11, 2001.

"Since that day, the framework of international human rights standards has been attacked and undermined by both governments and armed groups," Amnesty said.

The increasingly blurred distinction between the war on terror and the war on drugs prompted governments across Latin America to use troops to tackle crimes traditionally handled by police, the report said.

In Asia too, the war on terror was blamed for increasing state repression, adding to the woes of societies already worn down by poverty, discrimination against minorities, a string of low-intensity conflicts and politicization of aid, it added.

Africa too remained riven by regional wars and political repression, and the abject failure of the international community to take concerted action to end the slaughter in Sudan's vast Darfur region was a cause of shame.

Khan also condemned the United Nations Commission on Human Rights for failing to stand up for those supposedly in its care.

"The U.N. Commission of Human Rights has become a forum for horse-trading on human rights," she said. "Last year the Commission dropped Iraq from scrutiny, could not agree on action on Chechnya, Nepal or Zimbabwe and was silent on Guantanamo Bay."

Human Trafficking

International law language might be dense, but it is also accurate. The word "Trafficking" as defined by the U.N. in 2000 is as follows:

The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coersion, of abduction or fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payment or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.

Here's an interesting tidbit from www.godspy.com

"The CIA believes that fifty thousand women and children are being trafficked into the United States annually."

Yeah. Right here. In America. How about that? People are being ABDUCTED from other countries and brought HERE as SLAVES. Sex slaves, domestic slaves, pornography slaves, labor slaves. Children are brought in by pedophilia rings. Outside of the U.S. the number of people trafficked annually is in the millions. MILLIONS.

Also according to www.godspy.com:

"The first case of trafficking prosecuted in the United States involved women as young as fourteen years old who were trafficked from Mexico into Florida in 1999. The victims were forced to prostitute themselves with as many as 130 men per week in a trailer park. Of the $25 charged to the "Johns," the women received $3. Threatened by rape and other physical abuse, the women were kept hostage by members of a trafficking ring known as "Cadena." One woman who tried to escape was kept in a closet for fifteen days. Others were forced to have abortions, the cost of which was added to their debt of $2,000 to $3,000 each."

Here is a testimony of a young girl trafficked into the United States:

Testimony of Rosa

"When I was fourteen, a man came to my parents' house in Veracruz, Mexico and asked me if I was interested in making money in the United States. He said I could make many times as much money doing the same things that I was doing in Mexico. At the time, I was working in a hotel cleaning rooms and I also helped around my house by watching my brothers and sisters. He said I would be in good hands, and would meet many other Mexican girls who had taken advantage of this great opportunity. My parents didn't want me to go, but I persuaded them.

A week later, I was smuggled into the United States through Texas to Orlando, Florida. It was then the men told me that my employment would consist of having sex with men for money. I had never had sex before, and I had never imagined selling my body.

And so my nightmare began. Because I was a virgin, the men decided to initiate me by raping me again and again, to teach me how to have sex. Over the next three months, I was taken to a different trailer every 15 days. Every night I had to sleep in the same bed in which I had been forced to service customers all day.

I couldn't do anything to stop it. I wasn't allowed to go outside without a guard. Many of the bosses had guns. I was constantly afraid. One of the bosses carried me off to a hotel one night, where he raped me. I could do nothing to stop him.

Because I was so young, I was always in demand with the customers. It was awful. Although the men were supposed to wear condoms, some didn't, so eventually I became pregnant and was forced to have an abortion. They sent me back to the brothel almost immediately.

I cannot forget what has happened. I can't put it behind me. I find it nearly impossible to trust people. I still feel shame. I was a decent girl in Mexico. I used to go to church with my family. I only wish none of this had ever happened."

- Rosa, Age 14, trafficked in Florida, originally from Mexico;
Testimony before US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 2000


According to www.stophumantrafficking.org:

"Trafficking is a profitable business, the UN estimates that trafficking in "human cargo" generates around US$7 billion per year."

Can you believe this? I mean, of course it's all about money...it almost always is. But can you really stomach the fact that someone is eating dinner right now, and paying for it with money obtained from abducting a human being and forcing them into some type of illegal work, most likely involving sex. What is the situation that makes it possible for people to descend so deeply into decay of coinscience? Poverty, for sure. And the lure of easy money. Unstable economic conditions tend to breed willingness to do just about anything to stay on top economically. A man may have kidnapped some women and children the day before and sold them to a traffic ring leader. But in his mind, he is doing it to feed HIS family, so HIS wife and children are not forced into sex labor. Economic instability provides an environment for desperation and greed to overcome sensibility and value of humanity. Political instability allows it to go undetected, because there are "bigger fish to fry" so to speak. Let's not rule out the possibility of Iraq becoming (if it is not already) a breeding ground for this sort of "commerce."

Human traffickers are taking advantage of the Tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia, according to this article:

http://www.georgiabulletin.org/local/2005/02/24/trafficking/


Are you outraged too?

You can sign up to become a part of the solution here: http://www.stophumantraffic.org/lists/?p=subscribe

You can donate or become a member of Project Hope, an organization committed to helping victims of Trafficking: http://www.phi-ngo.org/USA/Invovled.htm

Here are other ways to help, as suggested by www.breakthechaincampaign.org :

Be vigilant.

The best defense against modern-day slavery is a vigilant public. Be a nosey neighbor. We usually find out about these situations because a member of the public sees something odd and speaks up. If you know of a situation that doesn’t seem right, please call us at 1-202-234-9382 x244.

Lend Your Skills.

If you have a talent or skill that you can impart, please talk to local organizations that work with trafficked individuals. People are interested in all sorts of skill sets from literacy, English , or acting classes to computer skills and basic banking 101. Lend your expertise.

Interpreter/Translator.

If you have a language skill, help other organizations or the Campaign translate materials so that we can reach a greater number of people in this situation. Volunteers can also act as interpreters for intake interviews with the staff attorney or legal director.

Lawyers/Law Firms.

If you are a lawyer or work for a law firm with a pro bono part, please offer your legal services. Low-cost or no-cost mental health providers are also desperately needed.

Housing.

Unfortunately, housing remains one of the most difficult aspects of assisting enslaved or exploited individuals.

Donate Business Clothes and Equipment.

Folks need clothes for job interviews and, at times, need clothes, in general. Most organizations accept clean clothes in good condition. We are also particularly looking for old computers, old cell phones, etc.

Donate Money to a Women's Economic Initiative in a Developing Country.

Donating to a project and program in a Third World nation which is promoting economic self-sufficiency for women to help curb some of the root causes that cause individuals to take great risks to find a job. We would be happy to help you to identify organizations abroad.

Donate to help someone work towards self-sufficiency here in the US or return to his or her home country.

Once individuals escape from their harrowing experiences, they usually does not have any money. Many need assistance while they wait out the trial against their abusers. Others need help purchasing an airplane ticket home.

Help with publicity. Spread the word. Let your friends know.