Bono For President

Blue movement

2008-04-17T06:17:00.000-07:00

I really like this idea of the "Blue" movement. It is a step up from the Green movement which only takes into account the environment. Blue adds people and animals - social justice plus personal health plus animal rights plus envirnomental responsibility. A guy named Adam Werbach is calling for this movement. Here, below is a snippet from a speech he made recently. (The link to the full text is above.)

In all of those places, I've seen people seeking something broader than a green or environmentalist solution to the myriad problems they face in their lives. Yes, they believe climate change is happening, but they also want to feel good about the way they look in the mirror and the way their kids look at them at the dinner table. They want to be part of something larger than themselves without having to sacrifice their identity. They want joy, not guilt, and a little money in their pocket so that they don't have to trade down on yet one more thing in their life.

Half the world's tropical and temperate forests are gone.
90 percent of the large predator fish are gone[3].
75 percent of marine fisheries are overfished or fished to capacity[4].
Species are disappearing at rate about a thousand times faster than normal[5].
A recently study found that there are 287 chemicals in the cord blood from babies in the U.S.[6].
America now has 2 million people in prison and about 960,000 farmers[7].
An estimated 35 percent of cancer deaths are directly attributable to diet[8].
CDC estimates that 50 percent of today's health care costs are attributable to health risks that can be modified by lifestyle behaviors[9].
The U.N. says 826 million people are hungry; however, a much larger number, roughly 1.6 billion, are overnourished and overweight[10].
Consider that fact for a moment. Twice as many people on the planet are dealing with the problems of too much food as are dealing with the problems of too little.

We can't diminish the need to make sure that everyone has enough to eat, but today's world requires that we have a solution for people who have too much as well.

Action Items from the speech:

Start by setting your own PSP (Personal sustainability plan) if you don't have one already. The process of personal improvement is never-ending, and if you already have a practice, recommit to it or begin another. Once you have your PSP, share it with a friend. The possibilities for PSPs are endless.

Start placing plants next to light switches, since people conserve more when they see nature. If you travel a lot, get your company to declare a no-fly week once a year. Start buying concentrated detergent and washing your laundry in cold water. Eat one less meat meal a week. Write a thank you letter to someone you haven't spoken to in a while. Each individual personal sustainability practice does matter.

President Bush just sent out a $150 billion stimulus package to boost the American economy. How are you going to spend your $600?

food

2008-03-12T20:49:00.000-07:00

While the topic of food may not be considered a traditionally "social justice" topic, I have been thinking a lot about it and I think, certainly, justice can be applied to animals, at least in some ways. See post on lemonscarlet.diaryland.com title "animal friendly" (early March 08) for the general idea.

All I want to do here is pose a few questions for you to consider.

Where is your food coming from? Down the road? Across the state? Country? China?

How much fuel and storage is involved in what you eat? How much of what you are paying goes to those costs?

If you are eating meat, what was that animals life like before it died? How did it die? If you've already decided you don't care - that fine. But have you considered that you don't care just because you are so far removed from that living animal? What if you had to watch it die? Or kill it yourself? Would you feel differently?

Are there hormones in those meat and dairy products? What about antibiotics? Are you ok with that? Have you thought about how that affects your body?

If the food is a plant, what was sprayed on it? Who picked it? From where? Would you recognise it if you saw it growing in nature?

What about the place you bought it from? Do they treat their employees well? Do they support local nonprofits? What is their role in your community?

Just some umm, food for thought. I like to think that I am living thoughtfully and responsibly. I realize this is an area that needs some more thought and probably some real changes for me. Are you willing to consider these questions and allow yourself to consider that you might need to make some changes to live with a truly clear conscience?

Discuss.

Sicko, etc.

2007-07-07T09:46:00.000-07:00

I saw Michael Moore's latest movie, Sicko recently. I'm sure you've heard about it but an extremely brief synopsis is this: Michael Moore sets out to show what a crappy, unethical and even tragic healthcare system we have in the U.S. by showing a lot of emotional stories of people who have been screwed over by it, and also by showing an enviable portrayal of the systems that other nations such as the UK, Canada, France and even Cuba have. I have to admit, I pretty much swooned over the services offered and was really moved by how different of an experience sick people in those countries have. At least in the movie, the service providers are kind, helpful and most concerned with the patients' well being, not their HMO group number or their copay. Doctors get incentives for making their patients healthier instead of medical directors of insurance companies getting incentives for denying them treatment. The patients, in turn, seem able to concentrate on their health and avoid the stress of tallying up the costs they are incurring vs their deductible and the max out dollar number of their coverage, instead of their health issues alone.

I am not naive enough to think there is a simple, easy answer to this. We've dug a hole here, for starters, and switching to a totally different system would be a massive, expensive undertaking. Additionally, there are several concerns that Moore's film does not fully address, one being this: Currently, the U.S. is pretty much the only country that pays full price for the drugs that the drug companies develop. We essntially subsidize the rest of the market. Yes, you can get the same drug in Cuba for five cents that you pay 100 bucks for in the U.S. But at some point, someone is going to have to pay if it's not us, driving those costs up everywhere. Or, the worse alternative, which is if countries won't pay for the drugs, and the drug companies can't make a profit, the drug companies will stop their expensive research which is what drives the development of these drugs. You know that cervical cancer vaccine they recently developed? Imagine how much research, testing, etc. went into that. All of those anti-retro-viral drugs for HIV patients, the newest cancer treatments...all products of research driven by a market where big money can be made. Clearly this is an issue that needs addressed.

There are two ways to look at this mess. 1. Consider this question: Do you think health care is a basic human right or a privilege of the rich? 2. if it is a basic human right, then what is the most effective, efficient way to get the highest number of people the best services possible? In my opinion, as Presidential wannabes draft their plans, this is what they are considering. Republicans and Democrats prbably fall along obvious party lines on the first question. Maybe not, but probably. The second question is trickier and incredibly complex.

Right now, we have this system that already provides govenment regulated services to certain populations of people. We call it Medicare (for old people, federally funded, no income restrictions) and Medicaid (for poor people, but only some, like children, parents of children and people with disabilities; federally mandated and regulated but state or county run, I believe it offers wider coverage than Medicare) I have no idea how many people are served under each of these, what the restrictions are, or how costly it is - But I do wonder why no one is really talking about expanding this program to the middle class, since, obviously, most middle class people can't really afford optimal health coverage anyway. It's not the perfect answer to these problems by any means, but it seems like one option to explore.

I have a lot to learn about this situation and I look forward to the continued public debate and how the presidential candidates address this issue which has finally truly been brought to the forefront. Below is a pretty interesting article from Slate. This guy happens to advise Barack Obama on economic policy and he is kind of in half agreement with Michael Moore's film. I think he makes some good points and sees the situation from an informed and realistic viewpoint.

He's got the indictment of health care right, but not the fix.
By Austan Goolsbee
Posted Sunday, July 1, 2007, at 11:55 PM ET

Michael Moore's shtick cracks me up. As entertainment, most of his movies are great fun. In Sicko, though, he goes beyond his usual ranting. After spending the first half of the movie railing against the American health-care system, he actually puts forward a policy prescription. Moore thinks the United States should adopt a free, single-payer, national health system like Canada, the United Kingdom, France, or Cuba—socialized medicine, in the words of his critics.

So, how does the movie stand up on policy grounds? Moore is right in his indictment of the American health-care system but overhasty in his readiness to blow it up.

Moore begins by blaming the profit motives of health-insurance companies for the main ills of U.S. health care. While it's easy for free-market types (and I consider myself one of them, mind you) to dismiss his critique of a profit motive, in the case of health care he isn't so far out there. He has a bead on one of the classic examples that economists use of market failure.

If you set up a market-based health system, allowing insurance companies to pick and choose who and what they will cover, you give them overwhelming incentives to dump, deny, avoid and neglect the sick people. And when you operate the system mainly through employers (as we do), you impose intense costs on U.S. industry and you ensure that the pool of people without insurance tends to include the unhealthiest, costliest cases around. Economists call this "adverse selection" and when there is too much adverse selection—when the health of the people in the uninsured pool is extremely different from the average person in the country—the market may fail completely. Insurance companies may just deny people coverage entirely.

This is a problem at the core of our health care woes. Moore finds scores of examples—people with tumors, heart problems, lost limbs and digits, you name it. And in each case the insurance company finds a way to deny paying for people's illness even though the people actually have health insurance. He also shows people who simply cannot get insurance because they have pre-existing conditions, are too heavy, are too light, and on and on.

Without any rules against cream-skimming, the insurance companies have every incentive to keep dumping the sick people—often retroactively, after they become sick. Moore shows the insurance companies literally giving bonuses to the reviewing doctors who deny the most claims. If you can pay premiums to your insurance company for 30 years and then they can just drop you when you have a stroke, the system is seriously broken.

So first half, so good. Moore's public policy indictment is pretty much on target. And it's easy to buy his thesis that it persists because of the massive political contributions by insurance and drug companies. His telling evidence: The 14 congressional aides who left to become lobbyists following the recent Medicare changes; the $100 million spent to defeat President Bill Clinton's reform proposal in 1993; former Rep. Billy Tauzin's jump from helping to move the prescription drug bill through Congress to heading a major lobbyist drug company association, at a salary of $2 million a year.

Addressing cream-skimming is at the heart of every responsible program for U.S. health-care reform, in states like Massachusetts and proposals from presidential candidates John Edwards and Barack Obama (to whom I'm an economic adviser). These plans take aim at "pooling," for example, by allowing insurance companies to insure an entire state or region as a whole in exchange for serving everyone in that pool—no dropping, no denials, no shenanigans. The insurance companies get the certainty that the group they insure has the same level of health problems as the general population; they give up the cream-skimming.

For Moore, though, the answer is not reform of the current system. It is having the government run it all. He sets out on a worldwide tour to show us how great a single-payer system is in countries that have it. And here's where his policy prescription goes into overdrive.

At the most simplistic level, giving free health care to everyone costs a lot of money. Especially since people tend to use things more frequently when they are free. Let's say the universal and free coverage part cost an additional $200 billion a year. How do you pay for it? This is the vexing question for single payer. Most advocates counter that health costs in single-payer countries are dramatically lower than in the U.S. private-care system. Switching to a U.K.-like single-payer system would cost a great deal of money initially, but if it would eventually get our costs down to U.K. levels, we could afford it.

But that's a big question mark. The U.S. system differs for a lot of reasons, and the insurance industry is only one of them.

Our doctors are paid substantially more than British docs, for example. To get costs down to a comparable level, a single-payer system in the United States would have to seriously cut doctors' pay. Moore seems to anticipate this critique and thus interviews a doctor in the U.K. who makes $200,000 a year and drives an Audi. But this time the anecdote is at odds with the data.

Nor do these countries have the same costs associated with malpractice lawsuits that we do. A single-payer system here would have to also include some truly major rearrangment of the tort system to bring those costs down.

You would also need to dramatically slash drug prices. Moore takes some neglected 9/11 workers to Cuba, and an inhaler that cost them $100 in the U.S. costs 5 cents there. The price differences are also present, to a less extreme degree, in Canada and the United Kingdom. The problem is that these places get cheap drugs only because they are free-riding off the massive profits made in the American market. If our government required medicine here to be sold at no more than the lowest price charged abroad, the drug companies would drive the costs up in the other markets rather than reduce them here.

Each of these caveats is important. But the main problem with Moore's policy solution is that a national health system wouldn't fix one of our health care system's main flaws—one that people really hate—the denial of service. It just changes who decides, so that the government makes the call.

In one heart-wrenching case in the movie, a woman whose husband has kidney cancer is told by the insurance people that they won't allow an experimental treatment that might save his life. But that scene would likely play out just the same way in a nationalized health system. In those systems, cost-effectiveness decisions get made all the time. Care is rationed. That's what happens if you offer something for free—you have to make rules about who is allowed to get it. So, you forbid smokers from having heart bypasses, or, in a more recent debate in the U.K. about a new hay fever medicine, you just say the medicine is too expensive to be used.

In Sicko, Moore tries to skirt the issue of rationing by going to a Canadian emergency room and finding that people have only had to wait there for 20 minutes. But that's not the relevant comparison, of course. The emergency room is less crowded in places where everyone has health care. The question is what happens for the vast majority of expensive procedures that you don't go to the emergency room for. And for those, patients in single-payer countries tend to wait much longer than in the U.S. and can easily be told that they can't have a particular treatment at all.

So, to do as Moore wants in the United States, you would need to do more than just overcome the insurance industry. You would need to cut the salaries of doctors, reform the legal system, enrage our allies by causing their prescription drug costs to escalate, and accustom patients to a central decision-maker authorized to determine what procedures they are and are not allowed to get. Unless every one of these changes comes together, Moore's new system would end up costing an enormous amount of money.

You can see, then, why many reformers (like Edwards and Obama; Hillary Clinton hasn't gotten as comprehensive yet) argue that we should start by fixing the most glaring problems of our system without junking it and starting over. We could use pooling to move away from the dump-and-deny insurance we have now. We could reward doctors for doing a good job, the way they do in the United Kingdom. We could focus more on preventing sickness, the way they do in Cuba, to reduce the number of illnesses. These step-by-step changes would go a long way to alleviating the most damning problems with the U.S. system.

I used to have an old, old car that my friends called The Beige Bomber. It constantly had problems. Every time something went wrong, I had to decide whether to pay the $300 to fix it or shell out many thousands to get a new car. Eventually, yes, it completely died and I had to buy a new car. But I held out as long as I could.

As the credits rolled on Sicko, and I still sat in Michael Moore land, I couldn't help but think that we've got ourselves a Beige Bomber of a health system. A lot of stuff goes wrong with it, but to replace the whole thing would cost a hell of a lot of money. Moore thinks the car is already broken down beyond repair. The metaphor isn't perfect, though, I realized after I left the theater. All cars have to be replaced; our health-care system, if improved, could live for a very long time. And so we shouldn't forget that Moore is glossing over the huge costs of an overhaul, in his urge to rush.

Finally

2007-05-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

So it looks like President Bush is finally doing something about the grave situation in the Sudan. This situation has been increasingly devastating. If you're not familiar, a quick summary: For over three years, a governent backed militia known as the Janjaweed (translates to "man with a gun on a horse") has been slaughtering, raping, starving and displacing people. A secret Arab/Muslim extremist group began forming in the 80s, attacking non-arab Africans with the intention to achieve Arab supremacy. The government did not become involved until non-arab Africans began to unite and fight against these attacks. Now, the Janjaweed continues to terrorize the people of this western part of Sudan known as Darfur. Over 400,000 have been killed. 3.5 million have been displaced and now are in refugee camps completely dependent on humanitarian aid. While this sutuation has been depicted at times as Muslims against non-Muslims, this is not exactly the case because there are Muslims on both sides of the confict which has spread into neighboring countries, Chad and the Central African Republic. Arguably, there has not been a humanitarian crisis this severe since the situation in Rwanda.

OK, so it's really bad - we're on the same page now.

The Bush administration has finally decided to act. Here is an article from www.savedarfur.org explaining the recent pledge.

....................
President Bush ordered new U.S. economic sanctions Tuesday to pressure Sudan's government to halt the bloodshed in Darfur that the administration has condemned as genocide. ''I promise this to the people of Darfur: the United States will not avert our eyes from a crisis that challenges the conscience of the world,'' the president said. The sanctions target government-run companies involved in Sudan's oil industry, and three individuals, including a rebel leader suspected of being involved in the violence in Darfur. ''For too long the people of Darfur have suffered at the hands of a government that is complicit in the bombing, murder and rape of innocent civilians,'' the president said. ''My administration has called these actions by their rightful name: genocide. ''The world has a responsibility to put an end to it,'' Bush said. Beyond the new U.S. sanctions, Bush directed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to draft a proposed U.N. resolution to strengthen international pressure on the Sudanese government of President Omar al-Bashir. Save Darfur Coalition director David Rubenstein welcomed the sanctions, but said they might be too little, too late. ''President Bush must not give further months to determine whether these outlined measures work -- the Darfuri people don't have that much time,'' he said. ''The president must set a short and firm deadline for fundamental changes in Sudanese behavior, and prepare now to implement immediately further measures should Khartoum continue to stonewall.'' Bush said he delayed imposing sanctions last month to allow more time for diplomacy, but that al-Bashir has continued to make empty promises of cooperation while obstructing international efforts to end the crisis. Over the weekend, however, al-Bashir reiterated his opposition to the deployment of a 22,000-strong joint U.N.-AU force, saying he would only allow a larger African force with technical and logistical support from the United Nations. The new sanctions target 31 companies to be barred from the U.S. banking system. Thirty of the companies are controlled by the government of Sudan; the other one is suspected of shipping arms to Darfur, the officials said. Meanwhile, Liu Guijin, China's new troubleshooter on Africa, defended Chinese investment in Sudan Tuesday as a better way to stop the bloodshed rather than the sanctions advocated by the U.S. and other Western governments. ''I didn't see a desperate scenario of people dying of hunger,'' Liu said at a media briefing. Rather, he said, people in Darfur thanked him for the Chinese government's help in building dams and providing water supply equipment.
...................

www.savedarfur.org has been organizing people toward activism with various online/email campaigns. I have personally sent many emails at the web site's request to the President to urge him to act. Maybe we're actually getting some results. Sign up at www.savedarfur.org to get involved and get regular updates.

ok, here's a question for you

2007-05-17T06:46:00.000-07:00

If you could teach inner city (mostly low income) kids about one concept or issue, what would it be and how would you go about it? I'll give you an example. We started an initiative about three months ago in the after school program that I oversee that combines teaching environmentalism with advocacy - basically teaching the kids about the environment, how to protect it, and how they can be active in getting others to protect it. We had the kids start a recycling program in our agency - they are responsible for putting out the bins, emptying them, reminding people to recycle, etc. We also started a garden project to teach them about growing your own food and how pesticides are bad for the earth, etc. So...what's your idea?

mentoring is where it's at

2007-05-14T06:41:00.000-07:00

Since I last blogged on this site, a lot has happened - I've been maried for 8 months and I have a new job. I work at an agency that provides human services in an neighborhood of Pittsburgh. I am the director of the youth programs and I really like it. Every day, I get to see kids and families who are struggling to make it through. The parents look tired and stressed. Many of them, I've never met because overseeing their children's after school care is simply not on their to-do list. The kids, well, they are as unique and diverse as any group of kids. Some are charming, some are disturbed. Some are smart and polite. Some are so unmotivated they complain if they have to get up out of their chairs. I have been thinking about how Oprah decided to put a great deal of money and publicity into her school for girls in Africa. She has been the target of much criticism because she took her resources overseas instead of directing it toward American children. her reason for this is very interesting. She says that she does not see the drive, passion and motivation in American children that she sees in African children. She wanted to give a chance to kids who would grasp it with fervor and make the most out of it. I completely understand what she means. It is frustrating, the sense of entitlement that even America's poor children have. If you buy them a pair of shoes, you may get a look of distaste if they are not the latest, greatest brand that everyone is wearing. Certainly not all, but many of these kids don't have a drive and desire to make it on their own and become educated and successful - they want to be basketball stars and rappers. Television has convinced them that these things are equal to success. Becoming something like a teacher or a carpenter or a mechanic (things well within their reach if they put effort into it) are not of interest.

I think about this constantly and wonder, with my position of influence, how I can mold my program into a catalyst for change. How can I make the goal of becoming a lawyer or an engineer or a construction worker or a radiologist look sexy and appealing?

My husband is a big brother with Big Brothers, Big Sisters. I mentored a couple of boys a couple fo years ago, focusing on the college testing and application process. I am starting as a volunteer for a new program where I will be mentoring two low-income college freshman, helping to encourage them through the challenges they will likely face in their first year. These kids got where they are through a lot of monitoring and hand holding through a program for high achieving, low income students in their high school. Because they will all be first generation college students and most come from unstable homes, the program directors feel that they still need that support so they don't feel abandoned and give up.

I think this program and other mentoring programs are a crucial piece in all of this. I think it is necessary for kids to have regular contact with adults who are caring, responsible and have simply worked hard to get where they are. I encourage all of you reading this to consider how much you have to offer a child who has not been brought up with skills that include goal setting and attainment. This is the part that is missing for these kids. Instilling the value of a work ethic and persistence is not an easy task - you'd have to be in it for the long haul. I think if everyone we know became a mentor, we could change the world.

Yes, I know, it's been far too long.

2006-09-29T14:10:00.000-07:00

You know, it's interesting. I think that people "like us" you know what I mean by that if you're reading this...we have the best intentions about things like social justice and serving the poor and advocacy, etc. But sometimes things like an engagement and a wedding and a crazy job come into play and pretty much everything else gets put on hold. Plus I was really annoyed with those SPAM "comments." I'd get all excited that someone had something to say and then it's like "Earn your college degree at DeVry!" Grrrrrr!!!

But for all intents and purposes, I'm back on track. We still have the upcoming honeymoon to contend with, but I quit working for that woman who was ruining my life and I'm in a much better place mentally. I may soon have the opportunity to be part of a big project from the ground level. We have a very important meeting in a couple of weeks that will largely determine my fate in some ways. More on that if anything substantial transpires.

Anyway, back to why you're here.

I was reading this fiction book. I actualy gave it to Bethany, and a smal amount of the book was dedicated to describing this fictional character's experience in prison. But it was the kind of description where you could tell the author had done her homework about how prisons work.

I've been inside a hard core prison. I was 18 and I went to Reicher's Island, where NYC's murderers and rapists go to serve time. I went with a pastor and three other people to a ministry church service, where men who were interested in faith and the bible would come to meet and pray and read and worship together. The thing that struck me at that time was how the men seemed rather content and not at all unhappy. I imagine part of this had to do with the fact that only well behaved inmates who were pursuing faith in God were allowed to attend. After that experience, I kind of figured that prison must not be that bad. But I've heard some pretty bad things since then and read some accounts and I've met people who have spent years in prison.

I think that the simple fact that most people who go to jail, end up going back again, is the most important piece of information in considering whether our criminal justice system is effective or not.

One question to ask in considering this issue is: Are we trying to provide a situation where people who commit crimes will come out of the experience changed and equipped to avoid the temptation to steal, engage in violence, etc. OR...are we a society that just seeks to punish. If we just want to punish, from what little I know, we are doing a fine job. But what is the point of simply punishing? If the end result is a continued compulsion to re-offend, then the only thing our system is doing is giving the offender a negative experience.

If you could, with proof, show parents that a spanking would absolutely never ever in any situation deter their child from disobedience (which some studies support) and that the spanking only delivered pain to their child, caused them to distrust the parent and made them fearful and secretive, would most parents continue to spank? I don't know the answer to this question, but I would say that if the parent did continue to spank, it would be only to satiate their own anger at the disobedience. Perhaps this is why we send people to prisons and our prisons operate in the way that they do.

Here is an essay I thought was interesting.

My Alarming Tour Thru
Camp Hill Prison
The Lost Men and Boys Of
Pennsylvania
BY: Sandra Feigley,
Publisher

Along with other members of the venerable Pennsylvania Prison Society (an organizational strongly recommend and endorsed), I took a tour of one of Pennsylvania's most notorious prisons, the State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill. It's in Central Pennsylvania, across the river from Harrisburg, the state capital. The prison is widely known as Camp Hell.
I came away from my experience with a haunting sense of how badly civilized people have failed to deal with imprisonment. I will never forget the look of the men's eyes.

The day I visited was one of those warm, hopeful day which introduce autumn. It was a distressing contrast to the conditions I witnessed behind the banks of concertina wire.

The most distressing part of the tour was my visit to the SMU, or "Special Management Unit," a dirty wall of dark cells. When the Department of Corrections ("DOC") fails, it sends the man to the SMU for months or years of torment. A man can be required to endure ten, even twenty years in this status.

The SMU is a quick walk through the prison infirmary, through a maze of gates and fences into an isolated building. Three guards with nothing to do, watched the totally locked down block from inside a protective glassed-in bubble. A member of the so-called treatment staff conducted us through the block. We were told of the various phases of "treatment" and the "program" the prisoners are suppose to use to "earn" their way out of the unit. Of course, all of this was from the staff. One should always weigh what she's told by the prison staff. Honesty is not one of their virtues.

Construction changes were being made to the doors, so just one back of cells were being used at the current time. We walked the tier to see into the cells, to see the mem clutching the door to see us. Our small group were the only persons on the block -- it is devoid of human contact. The men cannot see the other men who are also locked in. They are alone, alone for many hours, to just sit and waste away and go mad with the isolation. The men were of all ages and some were white, others black and others hispanic. Cruelty seemed to hold no prejudices. I am sure many were quite ill, some were raving.

The prisoners in the SMU were/are considered the DOC's "we don't know what to do with them" men. I was surprised to learn that "antisocial" was the term ascribed to most of these prisoners. Surely, the staff realizes that being "antisocial" may be a reason for crime, but, indeed, being in one of these cells for even a few days would twist any person into being antisocial. We learned that at least one man is facing 10 years under these conditions.

We were walked around the cellblock. The cells were dark, the men almost invisible. Many of the men cried out for attention, voicing a wide verity of complaints. Each one wanted to be noticed, to'have someone, anyone, listen to him, to find someone who would help, someone to understand. I felt so helpless, close to tears ... How can we, a supposedly civilized people, do this to others. How can we treat them so badly while expecting them to treat us well?

When I asked the "white-shirt" the lieutenant) about the complaints, he explained them away as "misbehavior," or "routine pattern of behavior." Working in a job such as this seems to breed insensitivity. There is no regular help for those in need of psychological care. Indeed, one man who pounded on his cell window in a desperate effort to'get the attention of those outside, was punished by having the window covered over so that he got no sunlight or view of anything but his cell; treatment certain to drive a person insane

My heart hurt as I walked away and my tears came to my eyes. These men were left to languish and the system pretends to wonder why they "act-out." There is nothing to stimulate their minds or to motivate them to improve themselves. There is only reaction to torment. It's certainly true that we treat animals better than we treat many prisoners, yet every one of these men treated our tour with respect. The treatment makes the inmates far worse. Most alarming of all, in many cases, these men will "max-out" their sentences from the SMU. They will be released onto society after having endured years of the most cruel tormenting.

Before going into the SMU, we'd toured the RHU or "Restrictive Housing Unit," the prison hole. This is the prison within the prison where men are punished for offenses such as "disobeying" orders or "disrespecting" a guard. Here, as in the SMU, the men were housed singly. In the rest of the prison, two prisoners shared each of the little cells. There were two tiers of cells and my first impression was how it was such a stark contrast to the Indian summer day that I'd enjoyed outside. As I entered, I saw a sign saying that we would be video-taped and audio-taped. The DOC wants to carefully censor what the public learns about the conduct of the prisons. A row of open windows did little to cool down the cellblock which must have been close to 90 degrees. Hot air was being pumped out of the radiators. A white-shirt complained how the guards had to open the windows during the day and close them at night. This task would take perhaps 10 minutes. Personally, I wondered what we pay them for if not to do a little work.

The rule in the RHU as in much of the SMU is that the men receive only an hour of recreation five days a week. Their exercise is in dehumanizing "dog-cages." They are allowed only an hour a month to visit their loved ones and get no "privileges."

While we were there, men were being shaved. A guard went around with a battery operated shaver. He used the same shaver on each of the men who wanted to be shaved.

Some of the cells had Plexiglas bolted over the cell bars further isolating disfavored prisoners. The staff said that the Plexiglas was because that particular man threw things out of his cell. I witnessed none of this. I only realized that the men's air was greatly restricted in cells where the ventilation was already poor.

Most of the men looked out at us to say hello or voice complaints. Two men were verbally abusing one another, causing a terrific racket. One had supposedly snitched on the other. I wondered why the guards had decided to bait them by celling them side by side.

Before leaving this unit, we asked to see the showers. There have been many complaints about the showering procedure. The men are taken in handcuffs to the individual showers which look like a modified cell. After being locked in, the man will put his hands through a hole in the door and the handcuffs will be removed. The showers last 5 to 10 minutes and there is no control the the water temperature, so the first men obviously get hot water and the last will get cold.

We also toured a unit where men are prepared to suffer the indignity and abuse of Pennsylvania's so-called "boot camp," Quehanna. Our escorts fed us the established party line that the program is a rousing success. Of course, the truth is that by enduring the abuse, younger prisoners (18 to 35) hope to obtain early release from prison. They will leave having learned how to be the most vicious of persons; ideal gang and mob members.

The boot camp is supposedly military style "training." The men are harangued, badgered and drilled with marching and similar adolescent nonsense. The whole operation made me feel uncomfortable. I wondered if training men to be a little more gentle might not be a better aim.

The staff claimed that there's a long waiting list for the program and its early release, but the dropout rate is 30%. Cells in the boot camp section are segregated from the general prison population partly because the other prisoners make fun of the "cadets." The inmates are allowed no possessions on their little tables except religious materials. A picture of a family member must be stored in a small box under the bed.

The campus of the prison was different that I had anticipated. I saw very few prisoners outside. The many buildings were widely separated with numerous areas of grass and innumerable walkways. There were fences everywhere dicing the compound into tiny areas where the timid guards wouldn't feel frightened by too many prisoners at once. There are many "newer" buildings constructed at very great expense since the riot in 1989.

The tour left me with haunting images of destroyed lives. I learned that some guards feel that they are making a change and take pride in their employment. I learned also about pompous men who feel it's too burdensome to afford the least comfort to prisoners. Worst of all, I learned about inmates who are unable to improve their lives; man's inhumanity to man.

Bono's latest venture

2006-01-27T11:56:00.000-08:00

BONO AND BOBBY SHRIVER LAUNCH PRODUCT RED TO HARNESS POWER OF THE WORLD’S ICONIC BRANDS TO FIGHT AIDS IN AFRICA

American Express, Converse, Gap and Giorgio Armani announce first RED products
to generate revenue stream for the Global Fund

26 January, 2006 –Today, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Bono and Bobby Shriver announced Product RED, an economic initiative designed to deliver a sustainable flow of private sector money to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. It is the first time that the world’s leading companies have made a commitment to channel a portion of profits from sales of specially–designed products to the Global Fund to support AIDS programmes in Africa with a focus on women and children.

RED presents a new and profitable way of doing business by harnessing the partners’ brand-building expertise while generating a new income stream for the Global Fund. International brands including American Express (founding partner), Converse, Gap and Giorgio Armani are the launch partners. They have designed products that will take on the RED mark and will be available from 1st March 2006.

Bobby Shriver, Chief Executive Officer of Product RED said, “This is a long term initiative designed for sustainability. RED partners expect that they will broaden their own customer base and increase loyalty in a manner that delivers a sustainable revenue stream to both the company and the Global Fund.”

Shriver continued, “It’s incredible to have the marketing brilliance of these companies behind the AIDS emergency.”

Currently, the private sector contributes less than 1% of the Global Fund’s resource needs. RED believes this initiative will start a new income stream into the Fund.

"RED is a 21st century idea. It's an amazing thing that these companies are doing - lending their creativity and financial firepower to the Global Fund's fight against AIDS in Africa, the greatest health crisis in 600 years. I think doing the RED thing, doing good, will turn out to be good business for them," said Bono.

How Funding Works

A portion of profits from the sale of RED products will support Global Fund-financed programmes which positively impact the lives of women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa. These include programmes in countries such as Rwanda, which has a proven track record and ambitious targets. For example, in the past two years, Rwanda has increased the number of people receiving treatments for HIV/AIDS ten-fold.

Each programme highlighted by RED will be selected based on the following Global Fund criteria:

Focus:
• The grant’s activities are related to HIV/AIDS treatment, care and prevention and focus on women and children in Africa

Performance:
• The programme is performing well as evidenced by progress reports and a mid-programme performance review

Reporting:
• The programme’s principal recipient is providing progress reports and making disbursement requests to the Global Fund on time
• The Global Fund Secretariat has been approving disbursement requests, based on Local Fund Agent (professional consultants’) recommendations to the Secretariat

“Product RED is a breakthrough in corporate and consumer engagement for the greatest global crisis of our time – the HIV/AIDS pandemic,” said Professor Richard Feachem, Executive Director, the Global Fund. “RED can make a substantial contribution to financing the massive scale up of prevention, testing, treatment and care that are desperately needed in Africa.”

President Nelson Mandela added, “We must all come together in supporting the Global Fund and the fight against AIDS. RED carries the promise of capturing the world’s attention to do just that and I applaud RED and its partners for their vision and commitment.”

RED Products

American Express has developed a credit card that offers free annual membership and a minimum of 1% on all eligible spend is paid directly to The Global Fund on the Cardmember’s behalf. Spending above £5000 per year will generate an increase of 1.25% on all spending above that amount. An extra £5 will be given to The Global Fund if Cardmembers make their first purchase on the Card within the first month. There will also be a number of added benefits for American Express RED Cardmembers including unique ‘experiences’, hand picked discounts and access to entertainment and retail events. The Card will be available from March 2006.

The inaugural Converse RED Collection is the Chuck Taylor All Star mudcloth shoe designed by UK designer Giles Deacon. Converse was inspired by Nakunte Diarra, a renowned mudcloth artist and storyteller since the 1950’s who originates from Mali, to fully understand the art, symbolism and technique of Bogolanfini, a mud-dyed cloth of the Bamana people of Mali. Bogolanfini is a living art form, constantly changing, reflecting new inspirations, while paying homage to the past. Artists use techniques passed down through generations and motifs, which express the individual style and creativity of the artist, are based on well-known geometric patterns. Bogolanfini is an essential part of the Bamana people’s lives, marking major life transitions, marriage, birth, excision and death. The Converse RED mudcloth shoe is an original work of art created to combine fashion and social consciousness to celebrate and preserve African culture and creativity.
The Chuck Taylor All Star mudcloth shoe is available in one-of-a-kind mudcloth options available March 2006 in select specialty stores in the United Kingdom and the United States and world-wide on converse.com.

Gap is developing a special collection of items to be sold initially in the UK and US. The first piece of the collection to debut is a t-shirt, the most iconic of Gap’s items. The 100% African-made vintage-style t-shirt will come in red, as well as a range of colours for both men and women, and will be available in UK stores in Spring 2006.

An enhanced collection will be launched in Fall 2006 – again rooted in classic Gap items, but featuring special details inspired by RED.

Giorgio Armani's first RED product will be a pair of Emporio Armani Sunglasses (Style EA 9285/s). The striking metal wraparound sunglasses are designed with a single lens available in green, rose, blue, smoke grey, grey and brown, all embossed with the Emporio Armani RED logo. The forked arms, available in shades of ruthenium, gunmetal and light gold, are superimposed on the lens with a futuristic feel. The Emporio Armani RED Sunglasses will be available from April in all Emporio Armani stores and in select specialty eyewear stores and department stores worldwide.

Giorgio Armani will present a complete Emporio Armani RED capsule collection for women and men, including clothing, accessories, fragrances, watches, eyewear and jewellery later in 2006.

For images from today’s press conference visit www.swiss-image.ch/webwef/INDEX.htm
For product images and more information on RED visit www.joinred.com
For more information on the Global Fund visit www.theglobalfund.org

The War

2005-11-30T06:16:00.000-08:00

So, I was not in favor with this war to begin with. I, along with a lot of other sensible people felt it was a situation not worth our $$$ and American lives. Now, I know I don't have access to classified information or anything, but I didn't really see how Iraq was a threat to America. Can they train terrorists there? Sure, but they could train them in Indiana too. And they probably are. The point is that the whole WMD thing has turned out to be a big bunch of B.S. and no now the hot reason we're there is because Iraq, as it was, was a threat to the United States. How ambiguous.

Will a country functioning democratically help stabilize the Middle East? Perhaps. That seems like a good idea. Maybe it will catch on over there...riiiiight. And maybe the women there will go to college and that will be nice. But is it guarenteed? Absolutely not. I'd say it's more likely that no matter what we do now, it's all going to be one big disaster.

HOWEVER.

I do not understand this sudden push from politicians and citizens (for some, granted, not so sudden) that we "Bring the Troops Home!" I'm all for protesting the war. I did, in fact, in a very large march in Seattle before it was really happening...while the plans were being made. But I do not understand what people think is going to happen now. Does anyone really think George is going to go "OK, fine. We quit. Bring everyone back now." And would you want him to?

I'm curious as to what most of these people thought before the war started, and during it's early stages. If you look at the polls, the number of people who "have deep concerns" about the war and the number of people who are dissatisfied with the President's performance as of late are much higher than the number of people who were against going to war in the first place. What does that say about us? We're bored now? We're tired of hearing about it? We're tired of spending the money? We're tired of hearing about 19 year old kids dying in Baghdad? I suppose I point out the obvious when I say "Um, shouldn't you have thought of that in the first place?"

There is only ONE thing that will happen if we do that now and that is that civil war will ensue and the "insurgents" will eventually take over. At least Saddam would speak to us. The folks blowing themselves up now just give on big collective middle finger with a grenade tied around it to the U.S.

We have inflamed a very large number of people who consider themselves to be desperate. I just read this article in Time magazine where a journalist interviewed a man who was waiting for his suicide bombing assignment. It was CHILLING. These mislead souls are absolutely convinced that there is no greater cause, no more glorious way to die, no reason to live when you could be so fortunate to die for Allah and take out a dozen or so Americans on your way out.

Middle Eastern Muslims, if I may generalize, have had issues with America and Western Culture for a long time. Now they have a very specific, very present, very direct and public situation to direct their anger toward. They hate us for this war. Now, that in and of itself is not really a problem. I'm not one to promote a side of an issue simply because it's popular, or shy away from one because it is controversial. However...if the whole point of this war is to somehow protect us, somehow minimize the danger of terror...why on earth would we leave now, inviting them to take total control of an entire country? They wouldn't even have to hide it.

And what about the Iraqis? We have raped their country. Killed their children. Destroyed their homes. Maimed and disfigured thousands. To leave now...it would be shameful. To leave them exposed to people who would like nothing better than to take over and create a far more destructive regime would be totally irresponsible. People who were kind to American soldiers will be hunted down and killed in the streets. Anyone suspected of being sympathetic toward the westerners will be made an example of. We will have "schocked and awed" this country into chaos for absolutely nothing.

I hate this war. It is a poor use of time and money and lives. But to leave now is the worst possible thing we could do.

Cause and Effect

2005-10-24T09:11:00.000-07:00

So, in the last year, we have had a disasterous Tsunami in Asia, a couple of really bad earthquakes in Iran, Indonesia and Pakistan, some monsterous hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, wildfires consumiong America's southwest. It's interesting because for most of my lifetime, as a 27 year old person, I believed that "those things" didn't happen to "us." Granted, there have been hurricanes along the Atlantic coast, occasionally threatening the Outer Banks where my family vacationed, but disasters were something that happened in other places. Same with terrorist attacks, of course.

Things are different now. We have been shown since the turn of the millenium that the U.S. is vulnerable. We know we can be devastated by airplanes crashing into our steel fortresses and by spinning masses of wind and rain flattening all we've built.

I wonder, often, what the long-term reaction to these events will be. Will we, collectively be more inward-turned, more concerned about preserving our own lives, the lives of our own kind, and of our lifestyle? Or will we relate better to global devastations that don't specifically, directly affect us? Will we have sympathy, empathy, even, as we watch people senselessly tear each other apart over religion and land and resources? Will we know we did the same thing? The difference is that we wear suits and smiles while we're doing it, instead of tattered clothes and bloodied faces.

When the winds and rain and fires and floods come...will we accept it as "our turn"? Or will we feel that we should still be exempt?

At a recent U2 concert, Bono wore a bandana that used the symbols of Islam, Judaism and Christianty to form the word: COEXIST.

Why can't we? It all comes down to the decisions of individuals, large and small that create the situations of peace or war. Acceptance or hatred. I know it's complicated, far beyond what my little mind can grasp. But isn't that true? That each person has the power to choose?

Perhaps an important piece is that we don't realize what choices we make that affect the larger community. Such as buying clothes from companies that make their garments in sweatshops, oppressing workers who become so desperate and angst-ridden that they turn to terrorist organizations who promise them not only better conditions, but something to direct their frustration toward. Again, I know it's more complicated than that, and most likely, me and my Gap jeans are not personally responsible for a terrorist attack. However, the choices I make, probably extend further than I realize, or care to think about. Does my shameless use of energy contribute to global warming and therefore the conditions in the Gulf Coast that fuel the hurricanes? Probably. But tell me that when I am dripping with sweat in the summer and have the choice between using the A/C window unit or not.

Example: one story that I've read about here and there (Here, for instance: http://www.navdanya.org/news/04sept19.htm) tells about how Pepsi and Coke are essentially stealing and polluting water in India, a country where water is not especially plentiful, and causing local, impoverished communities to go without. Now, I would not literally steal water from someone who needs it, but if I buy Coke, and they really are doing that over there (how can I know for sure?) then how different is plunking down my 1.49 for a liter, than taking a glass of water out of a thirsty little Indian child's hand?

To stick with this example, supposedly, Coke and organizations like SunTrust, which is Cokes bank are responsible for murders, kidnappings and torture of union leaders and organizers in Columbia, South America. According to http://www.corporatecampaign.org/killer-coke/crimes.htm and other sources, it seems that five union leaders from the same plant in Columbia were killed within a 19 month period. Four others were killed at other plants from 1989-2002. A union leader's young son was kidnapped and tortured in 2003.

Again, I wasn't there, I didn't see it. It's hard to know what to believe. But when there's a side that has a lot of money and a side that doesn't, I think we can reasonably draw at least some conclusions. The point is just that there are all of these things going on around us. All of these decisions to make. Granted, we are susceptible to a form of paralysis if we scrutinize every single decision we make. However, the other side of the spectrum shows us that if we blow through life, glossing over information and ignoring those little tiny tugs on our hearts, in the name of instant gratification, efficiency, ease of acquisition, fast fun, rich taste, cheap thrills....then what? Then what? Well, maybe if nothing else, when the day is done, we'll eventually be forced to look back on all that we bulldozed over without a second thought, and accept responsibility for the literal and figurative graveyards we helped create.

A question of Justice

2005-10-03T10:08:00.000-07:00

Would you deny for others what you demand for yourself? - Bono, Crumbs From Your Table

Katrina

2005-09-09T07:52:00.000-07:00

I have been blogging on my "other" blog about this and so I apologize for not getting to post here earlier. I have already said quite a bit about it at lemonscarlet.diaryland.com and had some discussions in the coment section of Brooke's blog at brookewilliams.blogspot.com so check those out for a variety of opinions on the whole situation. Here, I will try to summarize and say that this situation was tragic and embarrassing.

There is no excuse for leaving those people stranded, helpless, afraid, hungry and desperate. There has been a lot of conservatives focusing on all of the "looting" and my response to that is to say I probably would have done the same thing. I've never been that desperate, so I wouldn't know. I do know it's not fair to direct such harsh judgement to a group of people poorer than you will ever be, in a situation you can't empathize with...each decision you make being one that might aid in your survival or might be your demise. I reserve my right to criticize elected officials who are A. safe and sound and our of harm's way and B. using my tax dollars. I want them to know how and I feel and what I think. And that is this: You are using your power and my money to fund a war that in my opinion didn't need to be fought and is going terribly and expensively. You ignored an EMERGENCY in our HOMELAND for DAYS. You ignored the reasearch conducted in recent years that showed exactly what would happen if Katrina ever came. You are responsible for the death of a lot of citizens. Most of them poor. You took money away from the fund that was supposed to fix the levees and sent it to your friends who are playing War in Iraq. Help is now on the way to the victims of Katrina. But you know who it's from? US. Me and my friends and their friends. Money. Time. Resources. Whatever we have leftover from filling up our gas tanks. 39 bucks this morning, folks. And that's for a Volkswagon Jetta. Yes, I know, you sent the military down there. But I read this morning that the battalions sent from Pittsburgh are sitting around down there doing (and I quote) "busy work" because there either isn't much for them to do or no one is organized enough to tell them. Maybe if they had been sent a week before there would have been people to rescue, kids to feed, supplies to deliver.

Republicans seem to be for the idea of "smaller government." Maybe this whole joke that we can call the Bush Administration is a gigantic conspiracy to make an entire nation of people that have absolutely no trust for the government. If that's the idea...they're doing a hell of a job.

This piece, below, was particularly interesting to me. I touched on some of this stuff in an earlier blog entry on diaryland and I believe it's worth thinking about, particularly if you, like me, are a Christian.

Acts of God or sins of humanity?
by Wes Granberg-Michaelson
From a vacation cottage Karin and I watched on TV as the desolation unfolded in New Orleans and the Gulf coast. Through that agonizing week we sat helpless with millions, while the world's most technologically powerful nation could not provide food, water, and rescue to fellow citizens whose desperate faces filled our screen and haunted our consciences.

Commentators described Hurricane Katrina as a "natural disaster," or at times as an "act of God," like language used in some insurance policies describing events beyond human control. It means no one is liable. Except, of course, God. And that's what troubles me. How can a God of love, Creator of all that is, be responsible for such terrible, destructive disasters?

But as I listened, reflected, and prayed during that week, another question emerged. Just how "natural" was this disaster? Consider this, for instance. When Katrina left the Florida coast, it was classified as a "tropical storm" - not even a hurricane. It picked up tremendous power as it passed through the Gulf of Mexico, in part, experts think, because the waters of the Gulf were two degrees warmer than normal. So by the time it reached New Orleans, it was a category four hurricane.

Years before becoming general secretary of the Reformed Church in America, I led a group studying global warming and the responsibility of the churches for preserving the environment when I served as director of Church and Society for the World Council of Churches. Even then (1990), a clear global scientific consensus warned that global warming due to human causes - especially the accelerated use of fossil fuels - was causing disruptive climate changes. And I clearly remember listening to scientists say that one effect could be that storms such as hurricanes would increase in their intensity and destructive effects because of warmer waters and changing sea levels. So a part of Katrina's fury was not completely "natural."

And there's more. New Orleans was built between the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, with much of the city below sea level. Its vulnerability to flooding from hurricanes was partly protected by the wetlands between the city and the Gulf. These act like a "speed bump," absorbing and lowering some of a hurricane's force. But they've been disappearing, making way for shopping malls, condos, and roads, so 25 square miles are lost each year - an area the size of Manhattan. And the city has kept moving closer to the Gulf.

Moreover, the levees and dams constructed to protect the city and "control" the Mississippi deprive the wetlands from the sediments and nutrients that naturally would replenish its life. There's a lot "unnatural" about this "act of God."

And then, consider the victims. Those who have suffered the most are the poorest, and most of them are black. Twenty-seven percent of New Orleans residents lived below the poverty line, and many of those simply had no cars, or no money, and no way to leave. That also isn't "natural." The poverty rate, and the gap between rich and poor, continues to increase in this nation, and that is a national disgrace. More to our point, that's a sin, condemned by literally hundreds of verses of scripture. Those most vulnerable to Katrina have been kept on society's margins by persistent economic injustice and racism.

I celebrate the tides of compassion flowing in the wake of Katrina. Organizations such as Church World Service and the Salvation Army bear the compassion of Christ to the desolate, homeless, and hopeless. And I still don't fully understand why, in the providence of a loving and all-powerful God of creation, things like hurricanes and earthquakes happen.

But I do know this. When I see the devastating effects of Katrina, I don't simply regard these as an inexplicable "act of God." I also focus on the sins of humanity. We've disobeyed God's clear biblical instructions to preserve the integrity of God's good creation, and to overcome the scourge of poverty. In the aftermath of Katrina, we desperately need not only compassion, but also repentance.

Fight for the right to party...

2005-08-15T08:38:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about Roe v Wade a lot lately....and other hot button issues that continually widen the divide between liberals and conservatives. I have realized lately that (and I don't think these are new thoughts...just one that newly occurred to me and I can be a little behind in these things so forgive me if this is obvious) the whole problem is simply people's choice to prioritize different rights. Or maybe more accurately, it's this weird balance between wanting to protect something (fetuses, the environment, children from guns) verses wanting to sustain certain RIGHTS that are perceived as vitally important (with the helpful and riot-inducing addition of a little slippery slope propaganda...like if we can't have abortions, we won't be allowed to use birth control soon and then they'll tell us we can't have sex...or if I can't own a semi-automatic sub machine gun and take it to the mall with me, I soon won't be allowed to have a snub nosed revolver at the shooting range and next they'll come an dconfiscate all of my kitchen knives...

The right of a woman to make choices about her body. The right to pioneer amazing scientific breakthroughs that could save lives. The right to have a gun in your bedside drawer. For each side, obviously, hence the sides, it's different...what they want to protect and what they want the right to do. Conservatives want to protect unborn children. Liberals want to protect the environment. Conservatives want the right to worship as they choose even if it's offensive to some people and even if it makes people of other faiths feel marginalized. Liberals want the right to pretty much any sexual lifestyle they desire even if it MIGHT be wrong or offensive. Conservatives want to protect people's rights to make money despites its negative effects on a community. Liberals want the right to end a life if it is inconveniencing their body. Liberals want to protect children from weapons. Conservatives want the right to defend themselves and their children with weapons. Liberals want media uncensored. Conservatives want to shield their children and themselves from certain types of nakedness and violence and profanity.

How do these values come about? It can't simply be religion because, biblically speaking, all of these issues are of concern to God. Christians are instructed by the bible to protect children (from everything from disturbing images to gunfire) the environment, our minds.

I don't see God spending a lot of time telling us to defend our own rights though. And that's what we seem to spend so much of our time doing.

"Be a voice for the voiceless," He says. "Show kindness to orphans and widows," He says. "Feed my sheep" He says. "Put others before you," He says. "Honor others above yourself," He says. "Conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel," He says.

And of course, there is always the issue of unity. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis maintains that we, as believers, should never appear divided in front of non-believers. I wonder if he would have maintained his position if he had been around to experience the American Religious Right...oh alright, some of those extreme lefties are way out of line too. In this rare instance, I disagree with the late Mr. Lewis although I certainly do see his point. There are quite a lot of Christians I do not want to be associated with.

Wait, is that me, focusing on my RIGHT to seperate myself from what I perceive as insensitive, self-centered and pious? Am I putting my RIGHT above what might be for the good of the people? It's all so complicated and tiresome, I usually get somewhere around here in my thinking and then just kind of stop and opt to go and eat some yogurt or something.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: a regretful account

2005-08-10T09:47:00.000-07:00

This week is the 60th "anniversary" of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I taught about this in my current events classes to the 4th through 6th graders. They know nothing of this. They know nothing of World War II. Ah, how to explain Hitler, the Nazis, Pearl Harbor and Fat Man and Little Boy all in one fell swoop and keep my opinions to myself while trying to nudge them more toward thinking and less toward unquestioning digestion...I don't know if I did a good job or not, but I've been thinking about the topic a lot lately given the NPR coverage.

My good friend Holly sent me this moving and tragic piece from http://dailydig.bruderhof.org

Father George Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Air Force, served as a priest for the airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and gave them his blessing. Days later he counseled an airman who had flown a low-level reconnaissance flight over the city of Nagasaki shortly after the detonation of “Fat Man.” The man described how thousands of scorched, twisted bodies writhed on the ground in the final throes of death, while those still on their feet wandered aimlessly in shock—flesh seared, melted, and falling off. The crewman’s description raised a stifled cry from the depths of Zabelka’s soul: “My God, what have we done?” Over the next twenty years, he gradually came to believe that he had been terribly wrong, that he had denied the very foundations of his faith by lending moral and religious support to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Zabelka died in 1992, but his message, in this speech given on the 40th anniversary of the bombings, must never be forgotten.

The destruction of civilians in war was always forbidden by the church, and if a soldier came to me and asked if he could put a bullet through a child’s head, I would have told him, absolutely not. That would be mortally sinful. But in 1945 Tinian Island was the largest airfield in the world. Three planes a minute could take off from it around the clock. Many of these planes went to Japan with the express purpose of killing not one child or one civilian but of slaughtering hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of children and civilians—and I said nothing.

I never preached a single sermon against killing civilians to the men who were doing it. I was brainwashed! It never entered my mind to protest publicly the consequences of these massive air raids. I was told it was necessary—told openly by the military and told implicitly by my church’s leadership. (To the best of my knowledge no American cardinals or bishops were opposing these mass air raids. Silence in such matters is a stamp of approval.)

< Tombstones of unknown A-bomb victims crowd a hillside at Mitaki Temple, northwest of Hiroshima.

I worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Civil Rights struggle in Flint, Michigan. His example and his words of nonviolent action, choosing love instead of hate, truth instead of lies, and nonviolence instead of violence stirred me deeply. This brought me face to face with pacifism—active nonviolent resistance to evil. I recall his words after he was jailed in Montgomery, and this blew my mind. He said, “Blood may flow in the streets of Montgomery before we gain our freedom, but it must be our blood that flows, and not that of the white man. We must not harm a single hair on the head of our white brothers.”

I struggled. I argued. But yes, there it was in the Sermon on the Mount, very clear: “Love your enemies. Return good for evil.” I went through a crisis of faith. Either accept what Christ said, as unpassable and silly as it may seem, or deny him completely.

For the last 1700 years the church has not only been making war respectable: it has been inducing people to believe it is an honorable profession, an honorable Christian profession. This is not true. We have been brainwashed. This is a lie.

War is now, always has been, and always will be bad, bad news. I was there. I saw real war. Those who have seen real war will bear me out. I assure you, it is not of Christ. It is not Christ’s way. There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus. There is no way to train people for real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus.

< Stopped when the A-bomb hit Hiroshima on the morning of August 6, 1945, this watch belonged to Kengo Futagawa, a 59-year-old who was crossing a bridge 1600 meters from the hypocenter. Horribly burned, Futagawa jumped into the river for relief, and later made his way home, but died on August 22, 1945.

The morality of the balance of terrorism is a morality that Christ never taught. The ethics of mass butchery cannot be found in the teachings of Jesus. In Just War ethics, Jesus Christ, who is supposed to be all in the Christian life, is irrelevant. He might as well never have existed. In Just War ethics, no appeal is made to him or his teaching, because no appeal can be made to him or his teaching, for neither he nor his teaching gives standards for Christians to follow in order to determine what level of slaughter is acceptable.

So the world is watching today. Ethical hairsplitting over the morality of various types of instruments and structures of mass slaughter is not what the world needs from the church, although it is what the world has come to expect from the followers of Christ. What the world needs is a grouping of Christians that will stand up and pay up with Jesus Christ. What the world needs is Christians who, in language that the simplest soul could understand, will proclaim: the follower of Christ cannot participate in mass slaughter. He or she must love as Christ loved, live as Christ lived and, if necessary, die as Christ died, loving ones enemies.

For the 300 years immediately following Jesus’ resurrection, the church universally saw Christ and his teaching as nonviolent. Remember that the church taught this ethic in the face of at least three serious attempts by the state to liquidate her. It was subject to horrendous and ongoing torture and death. If ever there was an occasion for justified retaliation and defensive slaughter, whether in form of a just war or a just revolution, this was it. The economic and political elite of the Roman state and their military had turned the citizens of the state against Christians and were embarked on a murderous public policy of exterminating the Christian community.

Yet the church, in the face of the heinous crimes committed against her members, insisted without reservation that when Christ disarmed Peter he disarmed all Christians. Christians continued to believe that Christ was, to use the words of an ancient liturgy, their fortress, their refuge, and their strength, and that if Christ was all they needed for security and defense, then Christ was all they should have. Indeed, this was a new security ethic. Christians understood that if they would only follow Christ and his teaching, they couldn’t fail. When opportunities were given for Christians to appease the state by joining the fighting Roman army, these opportunities were rejected, because the early church saw a complete and an obvious incompatibility between loving as Christ loved and killing. It was Christ, not Mars, who gave security and peace.

Today the world is on the brink of ruin because the church refuses to be the church, because we Christians have been deceiving ourselves and the non-Christian world about the truth of Christ. There is no way to follow Christ, to love as Christ loved, and simultaneously to kill other people. It is a lie to say that the spirit that moves the trigger of a flamethrower is the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ. It is a lie to say that learning to kill is learning to be Christ-like. It is a lie to say that learning to drive a bayonet into the heart of another is motivated from having put on the mind of Christ. Militarized Christianity is a lie. It is radically out of conformity with the teaching, life, and spirit of Jesus.

Now, brothers and sisters, on the anniversary of this terrible atrocity carried out by Christians, I must be the first to say that I made a terrible mistake. I was had by the father of lies. I participated in the big ecumenical lie of the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox churches. I wore the uniform. I was part of the system. When I said Mass over there I put on those beautiful vestments over my uniform. (When Father Dave Becker left the Trident submarine base in 1982 and resigned as Catholic chaplain there, he said, “Every time I went to Mass in my uniform and put the vestments on over my uniform, I couldn’t help but think of the words of Christ applying to me: Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.”)

As an Air Force chaplain I painted a machine gun in the loving hands of the nonviolent Jesus, and then handed this perverse picture to the world as truth. I sang “Praise the Lord” and passed the ammunition. As Catholic chaplain for the 509th Composite Group, I was the final channel that communicated this fraudulent image of Christ to the crews of the Enola Gay and the Boxcar.

All I can say today is that I was wrong. Christ would not be the instrument to unleash such horror on his people. Therefore no follower of Christ can legitimately unleash the horror of war on God’s people. Excuses and self-justifying explanations are without merit. All I can say is: I was wrong! But, if this is all I can say, this I must do, feeble as it is. For to do otherwise would be to bypass the first and absolutely essential step in the process of repentance and reconciliation: admission of error, admission of guilt. I was there and I was wrong.

Missing the Point?

2005-07-20T13:08:00.000-07:00

This is an Op-Ed in the New York Times by an African man responding to the Live 8 Concerts. Thanks to Jessica and Bob. My comments follow.

All Rock, No Action

By JEAN-CLAUDE SHANDA TONME
Yaoundé, Cameroon

LIVE 8, that extraordinary media event that some people of good intentions in the West just orchestrated, would have left us Africans indifferent if we hadn’t realized that it was an insult both to us and to common sense.

We have nothing against those who this month, in a stadium, a street, a park, in Berlin, London, Moscow, Philadelphia, gathered crowds and played guitar and talked about global poverty and aid for Africa. But we are troubled to think that they are so misguided about what Africa’s real problem is, and dismayed by their willingness to propose solutions on our behalf.

We Africans know what the problem is, and no one else should speak in our name. Africa has men of letters and science, great thinkers and stifled geniuses who at the risk of torture rise up to declare the truth and demand liberty.

Don’t insult Africa, this continent so rich yet so badly led. Instead, insult its leaders, who have ruined everything. Our anger is all the greater because despite all the presidents for life, despite all the evidence of genocide, we didn’t hear anyone at Live 8 raise a cry for democracy in Africa.

Don’t the organizers of the concerts realize that Africa lives under the oppression of rulers like Yoweri Museveni (who just eliminated term limits in Uganda so he can be president indefinitely) and Omar Bongo (who has become immensely rich in his three decades of running Gabon)? Don’t they know what is happening in Cameroon, Chad, Togo and the Central African Republic? Don’t they understand that fighting poverty is fruitless if dictatorships remain in place?

Even more puzzling is why Youssou N’Dour and other Africans participated in this charade. Like us, they can’t help but know that Africa’s real problem is the lack of freedom of expression, the usurpation of power, the brutal oppression.

Neither debt relief nor huge amounts of food aid nor an invasion of experts will change anything. Those will merely prop up the continent’s dictators. It’s up to each nation to liberate itself and to help itself. When there is a problem in the United States, in Britain, in France, the citizens vote to change their leaders. And those times when it wasn’t possible to freely vote to change those leaders, the people revolted.

In Africa, our leaders have led us into misery, and we need to rid ourselves of these cancers. We would have preferred for the musicians in Philadelphia and London to have marched and sung for political revolution. Instead, they mourned a corpse while forgetting to denounce the murderer.

What is at issue is an Africa where dictators kill, steal and usurp power yet are treated like heroes at meetings of the African Union. What is at issue is rulers like François Bozizé, the coup leader running the Central Africa Republic, and Faure Gnassingbé, who just succeeded his father as president of Togo, free to trample universal suffrage and muzzle their people with no danger that they’ll lose their seats at the United Nations. Who here wants a concert against poverty when an African is born, lives and dies without ever being able to vote freely?

But the truth is that it was not for us, for Africa, that the musicians at Live 8 were singing; it was to amuse the crowds and to clear their own consciences, and whether they realized it or not, to reinforce dictatorships. They still believe us to be like children that they must save, as if we don’t realize ourselves what the source of our problems is.

Jean-Claude Shanda Tonme is a consultant on international law and a columnist for Le Messager, a Cameroonian daily, where a version of this article first appeared. This article was translated by The Times from the French.

.........

It is necessary to point out that this is just one person's voice being heard. Not the whole picture. Granted, this man probably knows a lot more than I do about these situations, however there are always going to be a mix of reactions when one people group tries to do something on the behalf of another people group. Example: Iraq. While some might argue (with good reason) that American is not in Iraq for he Iraqis, you can look at the situation as an example because that is why the U.S. is saying it's there. Some Iraqis when interviewed claim to be grateful for Suddam being out of power. Some say things were better when he was around. Some say they hate the United States.

The fact is, life is more complicated than we ever allow for when we are speaking of someone else, especially someone or many someones whom we've never met. We, for the sake of simplicity, decide that an African is a person who needs food and water and AIDS education. We don't think of them interms of individuals...people with problems large and small...an aching foot that prevents a trip to the water source, poor eye sight, a broken heart from a lost loved one, a torn garment...their last one. What people need can either be decided by them or by outsiders. The same conclusion will never be drawn. Whenever we are outside, looking in, we simplify...it makes us feel like we have done something. It makes us feel we have tidied something up. We make assumptions to solve problems so there are less problems. If someone decided to make assumptions or draw conclusions about problems of American women...they may or may not hit any of the issues that are actually MY problems. What are major issues for women in America? Reproductive rights, better public schools for children, affordable health care...only one of those issues really would affect me as an individual. If the other two were deemed worthy of advocacy and perhaps change was instituted by a particular group championing those causes...it really wouldn't matter THAT much to me and if interviewed I might respond much like Mr. Tonme does in saying they are missing the point and focusing on the wrong issues. His issue is democracy. Well other people from historicaly non-democratic nations accuse "us" of pushing democracy on people and ignoring their culture and way of doing things. I find his comments to be whiny. I am not sure he realizes what hard work it is to get middle America to bat an eyelash at African Poverty and Injustice. I am not sure he realizes how our natural state of being is reclined in front of the television, unplugged from anything ugly or hard or unpleasant. I am not sure he knows how easy it is to not give a shit. If he did, perhaps he would look at the steps Live 8 and related efforts are making as progress.

Speaking out against Human Rights Violations

2005-06-29T12:02:00.000-07:00

I am a member of Amnesty International and I believe they are a great organization. Below is a letter from the President, Bill Schulz, in regard to the various human rights violations that have been committed by the American government throughout the conflict in Iraq. There is overwhelming evidence, confessions and other indications of widespread abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American troops and guards. This administration is ruining the credibility and reputation that the United States once had as a champion of human rights and the value of life and humanity. It is certainly true that in certain specific situations lines may need to be crossed to access information from specific individuals. But the widespread abuse, torture and humiliation that we've been made aware of is quite simply unacceptable. It is WRONG. It stems from hatred and it is uncontrolled. Granted, some of the prisoners may be defiant, guilty of murder, spiteful and hateful toward Americans. Even this should not sentence them to boundary-free mistreatment. And what about the innocent people? Many are ultimately set free because no charges are warrented. This means that people guilty of nothing besides being middle eastern are being imprisoned and treated inhumanely at the hands of power-drunk Americans.

Please read Bill's letter below and consider getting involved. You can give financially or simply be better informed so you can be an intelligent advocate. And everyone should be an advocate, really.

"In its 40-odd years speaking truth to power, Amnesty International has incurred the wrath of many despotic governments -- whose human rights violations, political prisoners and other abuses came to light through Amnesty's painstaking field research.

But few assaults by governments have been more disturbing than Washington's attacks on our recent Annual Report findings about widespread use of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by U.S. troops and federal officers. This reaction is especially troubling considering our nation's long-standing history as a champion of human rights.

Recent revelations of abuse by our own government of detainees in Iraq and Guantanamo are simply shocking.

They violate bedrock American values.

They violate the Geneva Convention.

These actions are destroying U.S. credibility in the world.

When the United States helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the U.S. was a beacon of hope and justice for millions struggling against tyranny. Our leadership - in word and deed - is no less important today.

Amnesty is in the final stages of launching one of the most ambitious mass mobilizations in our history - to demand, as American citizens, an end to torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by our own government.

This mobilization is taxing our already stretched resources. Please consider making a substantial donation right now using our secure Web page.

Make a donation:
https://secure3.ctsg.com/amnestyusa/donation/index.asp?item=1&ms=DF

And this month only, your donation will go twice as far. Thanks to generous anonymous donors, all gifts to this emergency mobilization will be matched dollar-for-dollar.

The facts are ugly. Witnesses to abuse of detainees in Iraq and Guantanamo report hooding, beatings, placement of lit cigarettes into prisoners' ear canals, and sleep deprivation. Amnesty has compiled a list of 60 techniques authorized or used by the U.S. during the "war on terror."

Eyewitness reports from FBI agents read like the stuff of horror films. One agent described coming into an

"unventilated room probably well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night."

And these are not the acts of a few bad apples, as U.S. officials have claimed. Evidence is mounting that officials at the highest level of the U.S. government approved brutal interrogation techniques.

Under the Geneva Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, torture and cruel inhuman and degrading treatment is NEVER permissible. We need to send the Administration an unmistakable message - that Americans did not give the government a mandate last November to violate international law by engaging in acts of barbarism. Nobody voted for that.

Amnesty USA is determined to mobilize a vocal, diverse and massive constituency throughout this country that will stand with our 320,000-strong U.S. membership in demanding an end to the use of torture by all agencies at all levels of government in the United States.

Thanks to years of grassroots activism, Amnesty has a corps of volunteers ready to carry out this urgently needed mobilization And it's the most motivated and inspired citizen force you could hope to find.

But mobilizing people also takes money. And that's why I'm asking you for your help. Please donate now using our secure Web page and have your gift matched dollar-for-dollar through June 30th.

Make a donation:
https://secure3.ctsg.com/amnestyusa/donation/index.asp?item=1&ms=DF

If we're to rescue our country from the taint of being branded a practitioner of torture, then we must confront the Bush Administration head-on with this issue. With your help, I believe justice will prevail."

Thanks for all your help.

Sincerely,

Bill Schulz
Amnesty International USA

Good News for Indebted Countries

2005-06-13T08:01:00.000-07:00

I love good news. Especially this kind. I tip my hat to President Bush for his (at times reluctant) leadership in this issue as well as Tony Blair. This is a phenomenal step in the right direction.

DEBT CANCELLATION FOR THE WORLD'S POOREST COUNTRIES

The world's wealthiest countries agreed today to write off more than $40 billion of African debt. The deal, struck by finance ministers from the Group of Eight industrialized nations, would wipe out the debts owed by 18 of the world's poorest countries immediately and up to 38 in total, most of which are in Africa. The debt cancellation deal covers debts to international lending agencies such as the World Bank, African Development Bank and International Monetary Fund.

REACTION FROM BONO, U2 LEAD SINGER AND CO-FOUNDER OF DATA, A FOUNDING MEMBER OF ONE:

The journey of equality took another step today, and broke free millions of people in some of the poorest countries from the bondage of immoral and unjust debts.

The leadership of the jubilee campaigners is bearing fruit once more, we really owe those people, from church basements to national treasuries who have worked so long and so hard for this day.

There's long nights ahead of us all to build up the speed and accelerating for a comprehensive debt-aid-trade deal for the poorest people in the poorest countries at the G8 Gleneagles.

REACTION FROM SETH AMGOTT, SPOKESPERSON FOR ONE: THE CAMPAIGN TO MAKE POVERTY HISTORY:

Americans asked for leadership in canceling the poorest countries' debts, and we got it from the Bush Administration: this agreement cancels the debts of 18 countries today and up to 38 countries in short order, and it frees up more than $1 billion in the first year and rising -- for more schools, health clinics and farm-to-market roads.

This agreement is a down payment on the historic breakthrough the ONE campaign seeks at the G8 in Gleneagles: more and better development assistance, 100% debt cancellation and trade justice. ONE, with the help of the Live 8 concerts, will keep turning up the volume.

The ONE Campaign

2005-06-02T08:42:00.000-07:00

As you all know, I think Bono is great. I think his organization DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa) is great. The latest project of this social justice powerhouse (bono) and a bunch of great organizations, including DATA is The ONE Campaign. The interesting thing is it's not a fundraiser. It's a MOVEMENT. It's alerting people to the AIDS issue in Sub-Saharan Africa and the extreme poverty there and elsewhere. It's getting people on board. Showing people, ONE step at a time how to be an activist. Here, below is the pledge that people are being asked to sign.

"“WE BELIEVE that in the best American tradition of helping others help themselves, now is the time to join with other countries in a historic pact for compassion and justice to help the poorest people of the world overcome AIDS and extreme poverty. WE RECOGNIZE that a pact including such measures as fair trade, debt relief, fighting corruption and directing additional resources for basic needs – education, health, clean water, food, and care for orphans – would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation in the poorest countries, at a cost equal to just one percent more of the US budget. WE COMMIT ourselves - one person, one voice, one vote at a time - to make a better, safer world for all.”

Please visit www.one.org to sign this pledge and get more info.

Calvin College Speaks Out. (by Jim Wallis)

2005-05-27T10:11:00.000-07:00

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

2005-05-25T09:36:00.000-07:00

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

2005-05-10T08:47:00.000-07:00

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.

More on The Sudan

2005-04-28T06:17:00.000-07:00

This is an excerpt from an article by Samantha Power that appeared in The New Yorker in August of 2004. The piece, in it's entirety can be viewed here:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/index.ssf?040830fa_fact1

It is a very long article, so I have posted only a portion of it, but it is really thorough and well done. The section I chose to post here is particularly interesting to me because of how some of our leaders (church leaders and legislators and business people) and some regular folks really put themselves out there to draw attention to this situation. Read on...

On Capitol Hill, where interest in Sudan’s oppression of Christians had always been high, members of Congress finally shifted their focus to Darfur. “We were late,” Frank Wolf, a Republican congressman from Virginia, told me. “We so wanted to get peace in the South that it was like the Simon and Garfunkel song: ‘A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.’ ” Wolf and Sam Brownback, a Republican senator from Kansas, visited Darfur in June and returned with grim refugee testimonies and video footage of torched villages. In July, Congress passed a resolution, introduced by Donald Payne, a Democratic congressman from New Jersey, to describe the killings in Sudan as “genocide”—the first time that Congress had described an ongoing massacre in such terms.

Bush’s evangelical base offered full backing. That same month, Franklin Graham called the White House and told one of Bush’s aides, “Just because you’ve signed a peace deal with the South doesn’t mean you can wash your hands of Darfur.” Samaritan’s Purse, Graham’s charity, is now transporting food aid by plane from Khartoum to Darfur. “Killing is wrong, whether you’re killing a Jew, a Christian, or a Muslim,” Graham told me. “I’m as concerned about what’s happening in Darfur as I am about what happened in southern Sudan. It’s evil. God made the people there in Darfur. For us to ignore them would be a sin.” In August, fifty-one evangelical Christian leaders, representing forty-five thousand churches, called on the President to consider sending troops to Darfur to stop the “genocide.”

For many African-American leaders, the targeting of Darfurians on the basis of ethnicity has rekindled memories of apartheid. On July 13th, Charles Rangel, the New York City congressman, and fifty protesters sang “We Shall Overcome” and were arrested in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington. “We acted too late to save millions of Jews during World War II,” Rangel said. “We didn’t act at all when hundreds of thousands of innocents were slaughtered in Rwanda. We have the opportunity now to stop a genocide and we must act.” Numerous other protesters were arrested in July, including Bobby Rush, a Democratic congressman from Illinois; Joe Hoeffel, a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania; Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s, the ice-cream company; Rabbi David Saperstein, from New York; and four grandmothers from the Washington area.

AIDS vs Terrorism

2005-04-15T07:51:00.000-07:00

"Sixty-five hundred Africans are dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease. And it is not a priority for the West: two 9/11s a day, 18 jumbo jets of fathers, mothers, families falling out of the sky. No tears, no letters of condolence, no 51-gun salutes. Why? Because we don't put the same value on an African life as we put on a European or an American life. God will not let us get away with this; history certainly won't let us get away with our excuses." -Bono

No WMDs.

2005-03-31T06:13:00.000-08:00

Hello dear readers. I have purposely avoided the situation in Iraq as a topic because it gets enough coverage from both political camps...I've felt the need to highlight less publicized issues that pretty clearly involve the people in power exploiting the people not in power. Unfortunately, I think the situation in Iraq falls distressingly squarely into this category. So, I thought it made sense to post this article from CNN that came out this morning.

Whether they lied or whether they were simply incorrect about the Weapons of Mass Destruction, it really is an abomination that so many people are dead and wounded and displaced and away from their families, when the reason we were told it was all happening wasn't even true. I will never forget hearing Donald Rumsfield on the radio one day, addresing reporters' questions. Someone asked about the possibility that there weren't any WMDs and he waved the question away saying "That's not even a question. We KNOW they have WMDs." and moved on to other questions. The way he said it, with such total confidence and without a shred of doubt....I have to say, I believed him. I still didn't think the war was a great idea, or even a necessary step. But I did believe him. I thought they were wrong about other things, and rash and hasty and overly aggressive in the process. But I really didn't question this big piece of the equation that was never even there. Will there be a trial? Whose fault is this? How many actual lies were there? And how many mistakes? What does justice look like in this situation? The fact is, every society that has ever been powerful has eventually fallen. America probably won't be what it is now, forever. Will we go the way of the Romans? Or the British Empire? Who knows...but we'd be crazy to not acknowledge that there is always a beginning to the end. That sounds a lot more doomsday-ish and weird than I mean for it to. But you feel me, right?

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. intelligence community was "simply wrong" in its assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities before the U.S. invasion, according to a panel created to study those failures and recommend corrections to prevent them in the future.

"We conclude that the Intelligence Community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," said a letter from the commission to President Bush. "This was a major intelligence failure."

The panel -- called the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction -- formally presents its report to President Bush Thursday morning.

A National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq put forth in October 2002 warned that Baghdad was still pursuing weapons of mass destruction, had reconstituted its nuclear weapon program and had biological and chemical weapons. The Bush administration used those conclusions as part of its argument for the eventual invasion of Iraq in March, 2003.

But the Iraq Survey Group -- set up to look for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction or evidence of them -- issued its final report saying it saw no weapons or no evidence that Iraq was trying to reconstitute them. The commission's report says the principal cause of the intelligence failures was the intelligence community's "inability to collect good information about Iraq's WMD programs, serious errors in analyzing what information it could gather, and a failure to make clear just how much of its analysis was based on assumptions, rather than good evidence."
"The single most prominent a recurring theme" of its recommendations is "stronger and more centralized management of the Intelligence Community, and, in general, the creation of a genuinely integrated Community, instead of a loose confederation of independent agencies."
President Bush appointed the nine-member commission led by by former U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Laurence Silberman, a conservative who served in the Nixon and Ford administrations, and former Sen. and Gov. Chuck Robb of Virginia, a Democrat.

Predatory lending

2005-03-29T12:12:00.000-08:00

Predatory lending takes billions of dollars from low-income consumers/communities in the United States annually. Borrowers (consumers) lose an estimated $9.1 billion per year due to predatory mortgages; $3.4 billion from payday loans; and $3.5 billion in other lending abuses, such as overdraft loans, excessive credit card debt, and tax refund loans.

Predatory lending comes in different forms. One example: Money is lent to someone who wants to buy something they can't pay out of pocket for. Let's say, for a car. The lender talks them into getting a loan. But wiat, the borrower says, I have bad credit. No problem says the lender. If you just put the loan against your house, there will be no problem at all. And you, being a responsible person, you won't default on your loan. So everything will be fine and you'll have this car and it will be great. But what this means is that if they default on the loan, the institution lending the money gets the car buyer's HOUSE. The lender advertises that they will lend to ANYONE, regardless of credit history. What the buyer hears is "I can qualify for a loan, therefore i can have this car." What the lender is really saying is "We know you aren't responsible enough to pay us back on time, so we'll not only take back the car, but we'll end up with your house too. " So, basically, the lender expects that they won't be able to make the payments. When the payments aren't met, the borrower (usually a poor person) loses. Big time.

Another type of predatory lending: Those store front "Fast Cash" places. You can go there and get cash before you actually get your paycheck. You write a check to the place. They "hold" it until your check is supposed to be deposited. They give you cash for the amount of the check minus about a 15% "service fee". If someone did this one time and never again, it would be no big deal. But getting a paycheck early and forfeitting 15% of it to do so, to cover some unexpected expense, is going to come back and bite you later. Usually what happens is that people come back again and again, always losing that 15%.

A lot of predatory lending is done simply through advertising, payment plans and spin. Example: Rent-to-own. This is the most ridiculous, expensive way to acquie things like furniture. The ad says "You can have this beautiful couch and entertainment center for only $50 a month." People think "I can afford $75 a month." So they go for it, not realizing that A. they signed a contract to pay for that couch and entertainment center for FIVE YEARS and that equals 4, 500. and B. that if they bought it outright, it would only cost them 1,5oo. It seems clear and logical that if you are willing to have the same couch for at least five years, that if you simply saved $75 a month for a year and a half, you could buy the couch and own it for 1,500. But that instant gratification thing sets in and people make bad decisions.

While some people simply make bad decisions like paying too much for a couch...many people patronize predatory lenders out of desperation and don't have time or resources to understand the dangers of this kind of financial behavior. I don't understand how anyone can sleep at night when they are making a profit off of interfacing with people at their most vulnerable. But they do. When you see those places at strip malls, think about what a crappy business this is. The only thing that can really break the cycle of this type of lending is educating consumers on how much they get SCREWED in these situations and encouraging banks to offer loans to consumers who don't have great credit.

The Center for Responsible Lending is fighting to stop these financial abuses through legislative and policy advocacy, coalition-building, litigation, and industry research. Their web site can be found at www.responsiblelending.org

As an Action Item, support HR 1182 "The Prohibit Predatory Lending Act." Find more info about it here: http://capwiz.com/crl/issues/alert/?alertid=7308121