King’s health & financial panic-Reuters

ANALYSIS-Why the Thai king’s health can panic markets

Andrew Marshall

Reuters: October 16, 2009

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP406158.htm

SINGAPORE, Oct 16 (Reuters) – It is taboo for Thais to publicly voice their fears about what might happen when the reign of their ailing 81-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej ends. But the reaction of Thai markets this week spoke louder than words.

Thailand’s bourse <.SETI> tumbled on Wednesday and Thursday and the baht <THB=> slid on concerns about the king’s health. There was a recovery on Friday, but the fact that even vague rumours could spark a sharp sell-off showed just how worried Thais are about a change of monarch, and how badly Thailand’s markets will be hit.

“Don’t believe the market rumours. Only believe the palace’s statements,” said a Royal Household Bureau spokesman.

It is clear, though, that even if this health scare passes, investors are deeply concerned about what might lie ahead.

The dangers are never discussed in public because Thailand has strict lese majeste laws that forbid talk of the monarchy’s role and possible problems on the horizon. Frank analysis of the political outlook is a rarity, and so many foreign investors have only a hazy idea of the risks they face.

But analysts say privately that there could be a prolonged period of turmoil and even significant civil unrest, and this is why markets are so vulnerable to rumours about his health.

For a factbox on political risks to watch in Thailand click on [ID:nSP373016]

DIVISIONS AND DEADLOCK

What makes the succession issue so dangerous now is that Thailand has been locked for years in a political and social conflict between supporters and opponents of populist former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a military coup three years ago and now lives in self-imposed exile.

Thaksin swept to power in 2001, promising a raft of policies aimed at the poor, and won a second term with an even stronger majority in 2005. Thaksin’s huge support from the rural poor meant he had a big enough majority to govern without the usual backroom deals and concessions to the bureaucracy and military.

Thaksin’s growing power and impregnable electoral base, plus accusations of corruption, alarmed the elite groups who have traditionally run Thailand, and the military launched a coup.

Thailand is now divided into two bitterly opposed camps: the pro-Thaksin “red shirts” who are furious that successive governments they voted for were toppled by the military or judiciary; and the “yellow shirts” — royalists, the military and urban Thais, who back Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

The conflict has sparked several bouts of unrest that have damaged Thailand’s economy and investment attractiveness. Last year, anti-Thaksin protesters blockaded Bangkok’s two main airports, and in April “red shirt” protesters stormed an Asian summit in Pattaya, forcing its cancellation.

A country once regarded as a haven of regional stability is increasingly viewed as a basket case. In 2002, the World Bank’s World Governance Indicators rated Thai political stability at 59.1 out of 100. By 2008, that rating had dived to 12.9.

THE MONARCHY’S ROLE

In theory, Thailand’s monarchy is above the country’s political divisions. Bhumibol is a constitutional monarch, with no formal political powers, and he is widely respected by Thais who regard him as a unifying force in a fractured country.

Yet during his six decades on the throne, Bhumibol expanded his influence on politics, and explicitly intervened three times during periods of conflict between the military and elected officials. Furthermore, the palace is seen by many Thais as having taken sides against Thaksin over the past three years.

The king’s chief adviser, Privy Councillor Prem Tinsulanonda, was very close to many of the coup plotters, and is regarded as a key ally of the “yellow shirts”. Bhumibol’s wife, Queen Sirikit, also signalled support for the anti-Thaksin movement last year by attending the funeral of a female “yellow shirt” protester.

So the palace has been drawn into the conflict, and in turn the conflict has become partly about the appropriate role of the monarchy. Thaksin’s supporters want the ballot box to prevail, so governments they elect can rule without meddling by the elites.

Many monarchists argue that the rural population are not well enough educated for democracy to work, so the military, bureaucracy and elites should have wide control over policy.

Because Bhumibol is so widely respected in Thailand, most Thais are comfortable with the influence he wields, and all sides in the conflict stress their loyalty to the crown. But Bhumibol’s son and presumed heir, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, is regarded far less favourably by most Thais.

The result will be a huge shift in the balance of power — the “red shirts” are likely to be bolder in their rejection of the monarchy’s political influence, which could in turn provoke a crackdown by elites worried the monarchy is losing influence.

The conflict that has already done so much damage would escalate. And the long-term stability that investors want to see would be further away than ever.

(Editing by John Chalmers)

Our over-protected progeny-Lyndon Atcliff

[FACT comments: Hey, so what exactly is going on with our kids these days? Simplify, simplify, simplify!]

How the hell did we survive such dangerous times?

Lyndon Antcliff: June 5, 2007

http://www.lyndonantcliff.com/humor/how-the-hell-did-we-survive-such-dangerous-times/

Those Born 1930-1979!

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930’s 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s !!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking. As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank Kool Aid made with sugar, but we weren’t overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING !

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day.

And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD’s, no surround-sound or CD’s, no cell phones, no personal computer! s, no Internet or chat rooms…….WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no
lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

If YOU are one of them . . . CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good. And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave (and lucky) their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?!

USA: Human rights abuses of military COs-Truthout

Human Rights Abuses of GI Resisters

Attorney Reports

Dahr Jamail

Truthout: October 13, 2009

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15668

Attorneys and veteran’s groups are alarmed by recent reports that two US Army soldiers imprisoned at the Fort Lewis Regional Correctional Facility (RCF) have been subjected to human rights abuses and violations of their constitutional rights. Travis Bishop, who has served a tour of duty in Iraq and is now recognized by Amnesty International as a “Prisoner of Conscience,” resisted deployment to Afghanistan. The other soldier, Leo Church, recently went absent without leave (AWOL) from his unit in order to prevent his family from going homeless. The civilian defense attorney for both soldiers, James M. Branum, told Truthout that both soldiers have been strip-searched while possibly being filmed. Bishop and Church have also been watched by female guards during strip-searches, while using the restroom as well as while in the showers. Both soldiers have been denied one in-person visit by their attorneys and all phone calls with their attorneys have been illegally monitored by guards. Branum reported, “The Fort Lewis Brig is violating the constitutional rights of my clients, namely their protections under the Eighth Amendment (the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment) and the Sixth Amendment (the right to counsel). This mistreatment must end.” Seth Manzel, a Fort Lewis Stryker Brigade veteran and executive director of the veteran support group G.I. Voice, said of the matter, “These techniques of sexual humiliation are far too similar to those practiced on foreign prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Bagram in Afghanistan. Is the Army at Fort Lewis using enhanced interrogation techniques to break down American soldiers here at home?” Manzel, speaking with Truthout via telephone, said his group wants people to know that these abuses are occurring against soldiers “who signed up to defend the country” and “the idea that we do this to our own soldiers demonstrates how amazingly barbaric this system is.” Other attorneys and military veteran bloggers have long commented on reports of human rights abuses in the RCF, including the use of female guards to sexually humiliate prisoners. The reports include the 2005 case of Michael Levitt, who plugged up his cell toilet in response to reported sexual humiliation by guards, and was then chained to a “stress-chair” (with metal frames, but no seat) for 109 hours. Other war resisters, such as Sgt. Kevin Benderman and Spc. Suzanne Swift have been held at the Fort Lewis RCF. Manzel, who also helps run the GI resistance coffee house near Fort Lewis, Coffee Strong, added, “We’re trying to raise awareness and give direct support to these two men. Ideally, we hope to pressure the leadership at Fort Lewis to respect their basic human rights, so that the leadership, courts, and other soldiers on base know that there is support out there for other soldiers who resist.” On September 28, Truthout reported that both soldiers had been held incommunicado, which violated their Sixth Amendment rights. The Sixth Amendment is the part of the Bill of Rights that sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions in federal courts, and reads, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.” According to Branum, guards are monitoring his conversations with the soldiers, in addition to the fact that the room at Fort Lewis where they meet is not soundproof. “The guards say we don’t have the room set up yet, but the problem is they had the new brig as a grand opening in August,” he explained. “But the attorney room is not set up. So they need to be transferred to another building where we can have private conversations.” “The last time I talked to Travis on the phone, he was telling me there was more issues of abuse, but he couldn’t go into detail with me since our conversation was not private,” Branum added. Attorney LeGrande Jones, who practices in Olympia and was designated by Branum as the local counsel for Bishop, was also denied access to Bishop. Branum said that the soldiers’ Eighth Amendment rights had been violated as well. “The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment,” Branum explained to Truthout, “You can’t use sexual humiliation as punishment. In the civilian world, it would not fly to have female guards watching over men using the shower. There’s just no reason to use guards of a different gender to do this, particularly when the military is so male dominated. It’s really weird that they are doing this at Fort Lewis.” Branum said that Leo Church had been strip-searched in a room while told that cameras were running. Bishop is in the brig for having gone AWOL from Fort Hood, Texas, on the day of his deployment to Afghanistan to give himself “time to prepare for my application process.” He was away from his unit for about a week, during which he drafted his CO application and sought legal advice. He returned voluntarily and on his return to the unit he submitted his application, but was court-martialed even as the Army was still reviewing it. Church was imprisoned for having gone AWOL, which he did in order to prevent his wife and children from becoming homeless. He tried to get help from his unit, but was denied, and received eight months prison time. Church was eventually forced by this ordeal to give his newborn son up for adoption. According to Church, “With everything that was going on, from me leaving, even though it was to care for my family, because I could find no support from the Army, Amanda and I had to place our son, Austin in a loving home through adoption. We did not want him enduring the strife that we had endured and for him to end up being fatherless, because I would be living in prison.” Andrew VanDenBergh, a Marine veteran of the Iraq war and a G.I. Voice staff member, said of Leo Church in a press release, “He joined the Army, found out his family was homeless, wasn’t allowed to keep his children from living on the streets, went to take care of his family, had to give a child up for adoption and is now locked in prison and being abused. Being abused for what? For taking care of his children?” Fort Lewis continues to be a center of controversy with the recent revelation that a civilian security employee has been spying on groups opposing the shipment of Stryker combat vehicles through local ports. Dahr Jamail is the winner of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Award for Journalism and one of the first and few unembedded Western journalists to report the truth about how the United States has destroyed, not liberated, Iraqi society in his book Beyond the Green Zone, Jamail now investigates the under-reported but growing antiwar resistance of American GIs. Gathering the stories of these courageous men and women, Jamail shows us that far from “supporting our troops,” politicians have betrayed them at every turn. Finally, Jamail shows us that the true heroes of the criminal tragedy of the Iraq War are those brave enough to say no. Visit his website http://dahrjamailiraq.com. You can also order his books Beyond the Green Zone and The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan

Cyber-resistance in US military-Truthout

[FACT comments: This is precisely the kind of democracy made possible by the Internet. Resistance of society’s most oppressed.]

Cyber Resistance

Dahr Jamail

Truthout: October 23, 2009

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15819

If technology has transformed warfare into a spectacle of shock and awe, its contribution to the cause of dissent has been no less remarkable. It has enabled solidarities across borders and facilitated networks and forums dedicated to impartial communication of ground realities beyond the sanitized projection of mainstream news. True, technological advances have not brought an end to either occupation, but it has certainly helped alternative voices and views to be heard.

During the Vietnam War, over 100 underground newspapers, run by soldiers themselves, sprouted across the United States. The modern version of this has taken root within the Internet, largely in the form of blogs.

Many American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have been confounded by the wall of censorship they confront, jointly constructed by the military and the corporate media. The Internet offered them a convenient and powerful channel through which to get their stories out to the public. Constrained by slow military mail service from Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention overt attempts by superiors to curtail their interaction with journalists, soldiers have long since taken to blogging, posting photographs and uploading videos online, all related to their experience of the occupations.

“Fight to Survive,” one of the first soldier blogs from Iraq, had its origin before the bloggers were deployed to the country. The site’s mission statement declares, “The E-4 Mafia was a group of soldiers deployed in Iraq between January of 2004 and March of 2005. The posts from this period are an expression of our raw emotions and thoughts while serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom II. Since being honorably discharged in the summer of 2005, we’ve continued to post additional journal entries, poetry, and reflections from our time served and our current lives as veterans as we continue our fight to survive.”

Garett Reppenhagen, Jeff Englehart, Ben Schrader and Joe Hatcher were stationed in Germany, where they happened to attend a concert by a band called Bouncing Souls and befriended its members. Post-deployment they were desperate to process the grief, violence and frustration that they were experiencing in Iraq, so they started pouring their emotions into e-mails to the band members. The Bouncing Souls, impressed with the e-mails – which included powerful poetry – began posting them on their own website. In 2004, Hatcher created “Fight to Survive.“

Englehart later told a reporter, “We were opposed to the war before we went. And we got together and said, ‘You know what we should do? We should write about this shit.’”

Reppenhagen, the first active-duty soldier to have joined Iraq Veterans Against the War, was pulling a shift at Tower Guard in Fort Collins, Colorado, when Truthout phoned him. Tower Guard is an action designed to spread awareness about the occupation of Iraq. Veterans pull together scaffolding, cover it with camouflage and, donning their desert gear, take shifts atop the tower – this one twelve feet high – to maintain a presence where people can ask them questions, and in response they can provide information.

For him, the motivation for the blog had come from having to participate in an occupation he didn’t believe in. “We were already against the war before going, and didn’t know why we were going, and it didn’t look good. There was no resistance to speak of within the military. But I found a purpose with the writing. I didn’t want to let my friends down there by not serving, and nobody knew what would happen if you refused to go out, because nobody had done it yet. So the blogging began. As a high-school dropout I wasn’t a strong writer,” he explains, but I had all these ideas I just couldn’t stop, and writing them down was a huge release…. Having people read them was therapeutic. This then became my mission, to have people read about what we were doing. After a while, Joe Hatcher, whom we met in basic training, created the blog website.

This was summer of 2004, and I’d never heard of a blog earlier. The idea caught on and sparked something, and as far as I know, ours was the only antiwar blog from soldiers in Iraq at the time. We used aliases; mine was “heretic” or “soldier X,” Jeff Englehart was “hEkLe,” Joe was “Joe Public.” We used these because we were unsure of the consequences of revealing our identities.”

Postings from Iraq on “Fight to Survive” ranged in content from asking people to sign petitions against stop-loss, to expressing disbelief at how persistent the military was in trying to get soldiers to renew their contracts, to posting graffiti and commenting on it. An entry posted in September 2004 by heretic titled “My Struggle For Reason” reads:

“Souls, Friends, and Conspirators,

“The temperature dropped to sixty degrees last night while I huddled in a ditch near Diyala Bridge. The breeze off the river crawled into my heart and the sudden chill reflects my current mood. I found out earlier that night that I had been extended an additional two months on top of my previous stretch. It now appears that I will be in the service until July, while my original date of release is supposed to be next month. All this, and my recent two-week taste of the civilian world on leave, is leaving me empty and detached. It is so much easier to live in slavery if you had willingly accepted your fate. I am not sure if my mental fortitude is prepared for a whole extra year in oppression. And, I still don’t have a certain time when I will be finished with this war.

“Three soldiers in our unit have been hurt in the last four days and the true number of Army-wide casualties leaving Iraq is unknown. The figures are much higher than what is reported. We get awards and medals that are supposed to make us feel proud about our wicked assignment. We feel privileged when we are given the smallest perk. Like a dog that is beaten everyday and then thankfully adores it’s owner when he skips a day of punishment. I have more trust with some of the Iraqi locals than my own command sometimes. I know that my higher chain of command hates me for my political opinions and my moral views.

“I am called a “faggot pink-o” or a “bleeding heart traitor.” It doesn’t take a liberal to realize the moral wrongs involved with this or any war. Why should I feel ashamed of caring about all of humanity, even the people that ignorantly hate me? Is wanting a better standard of living for all the world so negative? In a way, deeper than sexuality, I love my friends and brothers and for that I am labeled a deviant of some kind. Does everyone buy into this Arnold ideal of fear that they are not strong enough, so they have to over-compensate and become an asshole? I believe that all weapons should be laid down [by] choice of the individual. It is the same fear I have of my bigot neighbor that causes Americans to support a war against a possible US threat. If we are all responsible enough to handle firearms, is it not sensible to allow countries like Iran and N. Korea nuclear weapons? If we think these countries are less responsible than the drunk-driving redneck or the crack-dealing gangster, I think we need to take a longer look at American society. Sure, a nuke can destroy the world, but an automatic weapon can kill my daughter and she is the world to me. I don’t believe that taking away people’s rights is the proper step to world peace. However, we overspend on national defense and cut education when we need to be more concerned about raising a generation of problem solvers, instead of mindless warriors.

“So I finally find the drive to get out and try to make a difference in the world, and I am stuck freezing in a Middle Eastern desert. What state will the earth be in if I ever escape this combat zone? What little changes I can make, I do through the networks I have built up with my close friends. The Bouncing Souls have given us soldiers a voice and forum to express the hardships and our feelings on the Iraq occupation. All my friends, some new and some old, listen and support our efforts and they have my deepest respect and thanks. I could not survive this in any sane manner without the backing of all of you. I cannot promise that I will have a positive effect on current issues that plague our planet, but I can promise I will never give up, if you never give up on me.”

Another moving entry from August 22, 2005, titled “Finding Closure,” posted by Jeff Englehardt (hEkLe) after exiting Iraq, reads in part:

“There is nothing that I feel can alleviate the guilt for being directly involved with our illegal and immoral occupation of Iraq. I ask myself from time to time, “Why was I so afraid to resist the order to go to war? Why didn’t I object to the whole damned thing?” I have been told many times not to be ashamed for my service to this country, but I can’t help a genuine intuition that this war is not designed to promote freedom and our beautiful American way of life, but instead only carried out to proliferate Western imperialism and corporate profits every time a bullet is fired. My guilt is synonymous with the sentiment that I was indeed on the wrong side of the wire.”

* * *

As the blogging continued, the audience expanded. Radio personality Randi Rhodes, who at the time brought Air America Radio its largest audience to date, began reading their dispatches on air.

As was to be expected, the military began to crack down on the writers. “It was not difficult for them to track what base and unit the writing was coming from and they were able to narrow it down to me,” says Reppenhagen. “My sniper section leader walked into my room and asked if

I was writing something stupid on the Internet. I admitted I was posting writings, but whether it was stupid depended on the readers’ views, and he told me to report to the colonel who wanted to ask me questions about this shit I was writing.”

All along, Reppenhagen felt he was leading a dual existence:

“I was living two lives, going outside the wire, but still writing on the blog, all the time looking over my shoulder. I was afraid of our e-mails being monitored, and there was a lot of isolation.” He rarely crossed paths with the other members of the E-4 Mafia, and knew that he would have to deal with the colonel alone. From his perch on the tower, he recounted, “I did the whole thing, saluting him, doing the full pivot, and coming to at-ease, and he has a stack of everything we had written, and copies of personal e-mails I had written. He asked me if I had written it and I said yes. He told me I should stop writing, that I was going to be investigated by Military Intelligence and if found to have violated operational security, I would be tried for treason. I was scared.”

Undeterred, he kept blogging and was soon summoned by the colonel once again.

“I told him I had a right to continue. They pulled my computers, tried to limit my access, took me off sniper duty, and put me on guard duty of Iraqis on base. The last two months were lonely and difficult for me. I was afraid I would be court-martialed. In the end, it was determined that nothing I wrote had violated operational security and that I had committed no treason and, since there were no rules prohibiting blogging, I had broken no rules either. But I was continually hazed by my superiors as long as I was there…. They were constantly looking for ways to trap me. I was made to fill sandbags and do other menial jobs. However, I was finally awarded an honorable discharge in May 2005, and gained a lot of respect from most of my fellow soldiers. Many would give me the peace sign as they passed me by.”

Reppenhagen dove headlong into activism after being discharged. He took a job with Veterans for America, in Washington, DC, and volunteered at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Coming full circle, Reppenhagen had one of his poems set to music by the Bouncing Souls. They called it “Letter from Iraq.”

In 2007, he moved to Green Mountain Falls, Colorado, and enrolled in a community college to study to become a history teacher.

He shares his plans: “I continue now to work at helping veterans get the mental and physical health care they deserve. And I want to teach history in high school…. One of my dreams is to teach on a Native American reservation. After coming back from Iraq, I traveled around a lot, and saw many reservations, and saw this grinding poverty there similar to what I saw in Iraq, and decided that that is where I can help the most.”

On being discharged, the other E-4 Mafia members also moved to Colorado: Schrader to Fort Collins, Hatcher to Cascade and Englehart to Denver. They continue blogging, alongside antiwar activism.

* * *

Casey J. Porter, a specialist from Austin, Texas, served one year in Iraq and in fall 2008 was on his second deployment after having been stop-lossed. His contract ended January 21, 2008, but he was redeployed on March 9, although diagnosed with PTSD by a civilian doctor. As he says on a YouTube video, “I am making the best of it by making short films about what really goes on over here.”

A post from him on a blog called “Soldier Voices” reads: “Some of you might already know me through my films. I am a Stop-Lossed Soldier currently in Iraq.” There is a website for his work: http://www.youtube.com/caseyjporter.”

Porter’s films feature raw footage coupled with a compelling background score. Scenes include mortar attacks against bases, military personnel running for cover during mortar attacks as explosions echo in the background, gun battles, destroyed Humvees and soldiers talking about their low morale. One film, “Area of Operations,” reveals a new weapon of the Iraqi resistance, Lob-Bombs, which are created by cutting open an oxygen tank and packing it with ball bearings, screws and bolts as shrapnel before welding it back together and pressurizing. The film also shows a Lob-Bomb attack that killed two soldiers, which the Associated Press reported as having been caused by small-arms fire. Truthout spoke with Porter by telephone when he was at Forward Operating Base Rustamiyah. He said there were two versions in the military and corporate media reportage of the deaths: “One reported it as small-arms fire and the other as indirect fire. Indirect fire is obviously a very general term, so the Army can say, ‘Oh, it is indirect fire, it’s not an accurate weapon.’ But when the public hears of indirect fire, they think some guy is shooting at you with a machine gun.”

There is a clip in the film that has audio recordings from military radios after the attack. It presents a soldier saying, “The K.I.A. [killed in action], I can’t tell you who they are, they’re in pieces, break …”

Later in the film, a soldier in Iraq says to the camera, “Would this country be the way it is right now had we done anything close to what we promised before we came over? The Humvees we drive, they are not doing the drive over here as protection … not even the slightest.

The MRAP [mine resistant, ambush protected] still won’t stop an EFP [explosively formed penetrator]. But it’s a big vehicle and makes a lot of noise and that’s what the American people want, apparently.” The camera goes on to show Humvees destroyed by roadside bombs, then returns to the soldier who says, “I won’t be surprised if they turn this place into a duty station. I mean look at all the nations that we’ve liberated. Look at Germany, Korea. I’m pretty sure at one time somebody thought, ‘Hey, we’re only going to be here for a couple of months.’”

Another of Porter’s films, “What War Looks Like,” shows scenes of destroyed military hardware.

Pictures of blown-up tanks and Humvees crushed by roadside bombs are seen flashing across the screen. Other scenes show burnt-out Bradley fighting vehicles atop transport trucks, decomposed bodies of fighters, and then the names and photos of “friends we lost,” US soldiers killed in Iraq. After photos of a body being loaded for shipment back to the United States, the screen goes black as the text reads, “It’s not politics, it is saving soldiers’ lives, bring us home now.”

Truthout asked Porter what had made him decide to make the films.

He said, “After coming back from my first tour, I was so against the war that I started speaking out and showing videos I’d made from footage

I’d shot during my first deployment. Then when I got stop-lossed, I decided I’m not going to be another American who complains about the situation and then does nothing. Going AWOL wasn’t a realistic option for me, so instead of being complacent about something I feel is wrong, I decided to make films to show people what they’re not seeing on television, and to show people that I’m not the only soldier that feels this way. Along with very realistic combat footage, I showed real threats facing soldiers, some of the financial traps, and other issues they must deal with during deployment.”

Porter talks of the morale in Iraq being poor and more soldiers than ever beginning to question the mission. However, he added, “One thing that disappoints me about American soldiers is the apathy, the ‘what can you do?’ mentality. But they are more or less speaking their minds by not reenlisting though they are afraid of the consequences of actively speaking up. More of them are doing it, but still not as many as should. The Army seems like such a big giant, and the threat of, well, if you do this we’re going to punish you, and we own you, and all this and that. Then this gets into soldiers’ heads.”

* * *

Iraq war veteran and former Marine Adam Kokesh also maintains a blog, “Revolutionary Patriot” where he has written about being assaulted by undercover FBI agents in Washington, DC, about his thoughts on the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in 2008, and about dealing with PTSD.

Not a shy man, Kokesh did not hesitate to upload onto his blog a video of his speech during a march in DC, where he is seen exhorting a boisterous crowd, “The time is now. The threat is clear. The bands of tyranny are tightening around America. It is our duty to resist!”

Kokesh was part of a team of vets who met with Representative John Conyers in July 2008 to push Conyers to file Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush. In a video of the meeting posted on his blog, Kokesh used his time at the microphone to tell Conyers, who was undecided about filing the articles:

“And I get the feeling that what you’re doing and what the Democratic Party is doing is telling this country, as we are being bled dry by tyrants, that we’re just going to be OK. That the only promises we get from Democrats are Band-Aids over these far deeper wounds that anyone is willing to admit to publicly. I hear one of the arguments against impeachment, that it would harm the Democrats in the upcoming elections.

And I hope that you realize, because you didn’t communicate this when I asked you the question, that there are real consequences to not impeaching that are far, far worse than not having Democrats in the Congress or Senate, or a Democrat in the White House. You said you’ve made thousands of decisions, many of them very respectable, many of them very courageous. But by your own admission, it seems that what is holding you back from this one is your own indecision. You said that I might be surprised by your plans. You haven’t put forth any. And frankly, I’m not surprised.”

Aside from blogging, testifying to representatives, leading marches and getting arrested, Kokesh has participated in Operation First Casualty (OFC), a tactic of street theater in which vets don their camouflage and take to the streets of US cities to carry out public patrols, realistic mock arrests, home raids and tower watches to raise awareness of the occupation.

After an OFC action on March 19, 2007, the fourth anniversary of the invasion, he received an e-mail from the Marine Corps Mobilization Command that oversees the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) to which Kokesh reported.

The e-mail accused him of violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) by wearing his uniform during a political event. “I was like, wait a second, I’m in the IRR, the UCMJ doesn’t apply. This is bullshit.” The scathing response that Kokesh sent back is posted on his blog. It concludes:

“I fail to see how reminding me of my ‘obligations and responsibilities’ helps you achieve either of these. It seems that while accomplishing our mission in Iraq, every corner we turn sends us further down the spiral, but there is still much that you can do to bring our fellow Marines home alive.

“So no, I am not replying to your email in order to acknowledge my understanding of my obligations and responsibilities, but rather to ask you to please, kindly, go fuck yourself.”

In the chain of events that followed, the military threatened to give him a less than honorable discharge, which would affect his education benefits, but so far the military has not followed through. His case was helped by appearing on several major media programs, including “Good Morning America.”

Kokesh thinks the future of GI resistance holds great possibility for social change. He told Truthout, “It’s kind of a battle for the hearts and minds of the troops between resistance and obedience. And if the military power structure keeps fucking up and putting people off, then resistance is going to start winning a lot more hearts and minds, you know, and we’re doing what we can to further that.” Yet he is realistic.

“The forces at play here are far greater than any organization, bigger even than the military itself.

It’s social, it’s cultural … and I think it is great in terms of what we can do to foster a broader civilian resistance, and develop a culture of questioning authority…. Whether the GI resistance movement is actually going to be enough to end the war, I don’t think you can consider it in those absolute terms. We’re building pressure. And there are a lot of forces maintaining pressure to keep the war going. If nothing else, we need to be a countervailing force to those and, who knows, maybe that’s going to stop the next war.”

Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist, is the author of “The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan,” (Haymarket Books, 2009), and “Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq,” (Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from occupied Iraq for nine months as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey over the last five years.

Dahr Jamail is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global Research Articles by Dahr Jamail

Canada censors seminal statesman-CP

Ottawa sued over censorship of Tommy Douglas dossier

Hundreds of pages still sealed in RCMP’s file on legendary politician

Steve Rennie

Canadian Press: October 13, 2009

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/709147–ottawa-sued-over-censorship-of-tommy-douglas-dossier

The federal government is being taken to court over its decision to withhold hundreds of pages, some decades old, in the Mounties’ secret file on Tommy Douglas.

The Canadian Press has filed a motion in Federal Court seeking the release of sealed documents in the RCMP’s security file on the storied Prairie politician.

The former federal NDP leader, a trail-blazing socialist committed to social reform, is widely hailed as the father of medicare for championing universal health services.

Douglas, who also served as premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 to 1961, caught the attention of RCMP security officers through his long-standing links with left-wing causes, the burgeoning peace movement and assorted Communist party members. His file was still open in the late 1970s.

Canadian Press reporter Jim Bronskill filed an access-to-information request in November 2005 for the RCMP’s file on Douglas.

Personal files compiled by the RCMP’s security and intelligence branch can be released 20 years after a subject’s death. Douglas died of cancer at age 81 in February 1986.

Library and Archives Canada took more than a year to prepare a 1,142-page dossier in nine volumes. The declassified file shows the Mounties surreptitiously attended Douglas’s speeches, dissected his published articles and, during one Parliament Hill demonstration, eavesdropped on a private conversation.

But portions of Douglas’s file were withheld from release because they concern security matters still deemed sensitive – or personal information, such as confidential sources or the names of others who came under RCMP scrutiny. Hundreds of pages, though decades old, remain completely sealed.

Bronskill complained to the federal information commissioner in January 2007 over the government’s decision to withhold parts of Douglas’s dossier. A document filed recently in Federal Court says the complaint emphasized Douglas has been dead for more than 20 years and some of the documents go back as many as 70 years.

The information commissioner finally replied this August that Library and Archives was right to black out so much, and the news agency headed to court. The government has yet to file its response.

Paul Champ, an Ottawa human rights lawyer representing The Canadian Press, is donating his time to the case. “Tommy Douglas was a political icon and an important figure in Canada’s history. … I think it’s important for the full historical record to come out.”

Scott White, editor-in-chief of The Canadian Press, said Canadians have a right to know what’s in Douglas’s file.

Heritage Minister James Moore, who oversees Library and Archives Canada, declined to comment.

USA: Discredited theories, banned books-NBC News

Libraries Should Include Ex-Gay Books, Group Says

What other discredited theories should libraries include?

Matt Bartosik

NBC News: October 24, 2009

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local-beat/Libraries-Should-Include-Ex-Gay-Books-Group-Says-65722427.html

A Chicago-based group called Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays is urging libraries to carry literature about reformed homosexuals.

The national non-profit organization is arguing that the alleged successes of their “gay reversal” movement are not being heard because libraries refuse to carry their books, such as You Don’t Have to Be Gay and A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality.

One has to wonder just what genre those books would fall under, exactly.

“According to Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the [American Library Association's] Office for Intellectual Freedom, ALA policy recommends diversity in book collection development by libraries, regardless of partisan or doctrinal disapproval. However, Caldwell-Stone refuses to state whether that diversity policy includes ex-gay books,” PFOX executive director Regina Griggs said in a press release.

“Books about leaving homosexuality are censored in most high school libraries, although gay-affirming books for youth are readily available,” she continued.

However, the American Psychological Association, along with most mainstream medical groups, has said that mental health professionals and parents should avoid telling young people that they can change their sexual orientation.

In 2008, the American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, and National Association of Social Workers stated in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of California:

“Sexual orientation has proved to be generally impervious to interventions intended to change it, which are sometimes referred to as ‘reparative therapy.’ No scientifically adequate research has shown that such interventions are effective or safe.” (PDF)

Libraries may have limited shelf space, but they should still carry a well-rounded collection of books that represent various points of view. Just because books are inaccurate or provide insufficient evidence for their claim, that doesn’t mean they don’t provide anything of value to potential readers, right?

Along with ex-gay books, libraries should start carrying science books that argue that the earth is flat, and tabloid magazines that interview women who claim to be impregnated by Martians.

Why don’t more libraries have shelves labeled ‘Pseudoscience’ or ‘Discredited Theories’?

If people are truly seeking these titles, we can’t expect them to just visit Amazon or Borders or Barnes & Noble or one of the hundreds of bookstores online. No, libraries should be required to carry all documents, accredited or not.

After all, how else will our youth learn self-loathing?

Matt Bartosik, a “between blogs” blogger and Chicago native, attends group therapy in hopes of changing his hair color.

Italy: Leaked 2009 Internet blocklist-WikiLeaks

Italian secret internet censorship list, 287 site subset, 21 Jun 2009

Wikileaks: June 21, 2009

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Italian_secret_internet_censorship_list,_287_site_subset,_21_Jun_2009

Unless otherwise specified the document described here:

• Was first publicly revealed by Wikileaks working with our source.
• At that time was classified, confidential, censored or otherwise withheld from the public.
• Is of political, diplomatic, ethical or historical significance.
• Any questions about this document’s veracity are noted.
• The summary is approved by the editorial board.

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Released June 20, 2009

Summary

This list presents 287 internet sites currently censored by Italy. This quasi-voluntary system, which was introduced under the banner of fighting “child pornography” relies on a secret, unaccountable list of site names. Because of this lack of transparency, and the power of the censorship system, the blacklist is of intense interest.

Secret “child pornography” censorship blacklists in other countries, such as China, Thailand, Australia, Finland and Denmark have all been shown by WikiLeaks to have been corrupted into censoring non-child pornographic content, including political content (all but Denmark). It seems to be a law of human affairs that when such powerful, unaccountable, systems are introduced, they soon stray from their stated purpose.

The majority of sites on the Italian list seem to be unrelated to child pornography. While some do appear to relate to the images of teenagers, the vast majority of sites are related to what appears to be legal young-adult pornography. Some sites are unrelated to any type of pornography.

These include businesses or institutes outside of Italy, and discussion forums, used by tens of thousands for all purposes. While it is possible these sites had an unauthorized user briefly upload an underage image or link to such an image, the continued presence of the sites on this list likely reflects the lack of any censorship notification or appeal mechanism.

The Australian government admitted during a Senate estimates hearing that fewer than one third of its May 2009 blacklist was related to images of those under the age of 18.

During 2008, the government of Thailand added over 1100 pages to its censorship blacklist for “lese majeste” (criticizing the royal family).

Both the Australian and Thai blacklists have been going for a longer than the Italian system and are possibly substantially more corrupt as a result.

We checked the Italian censorship system against the top 1,000,000 most popular Internet domains (as measured by Alexa.com in November, 2008), together with selected blacklists from other countries to discover a portion of those sites censored by Italy. Botique sites and sites only recently popular do not appear in our list due to limitations in our methodology. That said, our list represents an accurate, current subset of the full list.

In Italy, blocking of content is done through DNS servers – when request for blocked site is made, user is redirected to IP 212.48.170.80 instead of original address. Two nameservers involved in the blocking are 212.48.160.5 and 212.48.160.6.

The list can be reproduced by using the Unix “dig” utility, using a command such as “dig @212.48.160.6 -f list +noall +answer” where “list” is a file containing list of domains to be checked (one per line). We then search for results which lead to IP 212.48.170.80, the site which displays the “censorship page”. This is a universal method, which can be applied to all DNS based blocking systems.

A hyperlinked version of the list follows for easy assessment.

DOWNLOAD/VIEW FULL FILE FROM

fastest (Sweden), current site, slow (US), Finland, Netherlands, Poland, Tonga, Europe, SSL, Tor

Context

Italy

Primary language

English

File size in bytes

4816

File type information

ASCII text, with CRLF, LF line terminators

Cryptographic identity

SHA256 89636b09f65122f4e573eb0659bf4bacd8b685ada35ea5ee08028f658a78f7a9

Italian secret internet censorship list, 287 site subset

• http://10gay.com
• http://18shame.com
• http://1sexin18.com
• http://24x7pornmovies.com
• http://4chan.nu
• http://69xxxmovies.com
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• http://boyfucksboys.com
• http://boywiki.org
• http://boyxpic.com
• http://brightgirls.net
• http://by.ru
• http://byethost7.com
• http://canalblog.com
• http://candycoatedteens.com
• http://chueca.com
• http://chutneysboys.blogspot.com
• http://clsite.in
• http://cpfansclub.com
• http://dads-fuck-babe.com
• http://desiredyoungass.com
• http://dianalove.com
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• http://digiteens.net
• http://doctorslick.com
• http://domoteens.com
• http://dreamwiz.com
• http://drocha.ru
• http://easysextv.com
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• http://extreme-mpeg.com
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• http://family-porn-album.com
• http://familyincesttree.com
• http://familysuper.com
• http://fc2.com
• http://fierybabes.com
• http://filthybrats.com
• http://firstsextube.com
• http://flowerfucker.com
• http://fpc.li
• http://fpixx.com
• http://frank-teens.com
• http://free-adult-zone.com
• http://freeforum.tw
• http://freegayspic.com
• http://freehostpage.com
• http://freepimphost.com
• http://freepublicvoyeur.com
• http://freeteenboy.com
• http://freshsextv.com
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• http://freshteenz.net
• http://freshxxxclips.com
• http://fruityboys.net
• http://fullporn.tv
• http://fuzztime.com
• http://gaybdsmworld.com
• http://gayboysfun.com
• http://gayporntown.com
• http://gayteensex.net
• http://girlstested.com
• http://glenda-model.com
• http://gold-file.com
• http://gossip-city.com
• http://gracefulgirls.net
• http://grimsex.com
• http://hardporncontent.com
• http://home-xxx-videos.com
• http://homegirl-sex.com
• http://homeprivatevids.com
• http://hotbox.ru
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• http://hotpapai.com
• http://iamgay.us
• http://icesexpix.com
• http://ilust.org
• http://incest2006.com
• http://incestholidays.com
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• http://incesttrailers.com
• http://ipicture.ru
• http://japaipak.freehostpage.com
• http://jizzhut.com
• http://johnyjournal.com
• http://juicypornhost.com
• http://just-vids.com
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• http://keep4u.ru
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• http://legal-models.info
• http://little-lupe.net
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• http://mpgfunclub.com
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• http://mrbigcock.net
• http://myboyssite.com
• http://myeroticdiary.net
• http://myexbaby.com
• http://mypornozone.com
• http://nabokov-lola.cn
• http://narod.ru
• http://nastyyoungass.com
• http://new-teen-video.com
• http://newincest.com
• http://newsfilter.org
• http://newthumbs.net
• http://nfsx.com
• http://niceyoungteens.com
• http://nm.ru
• http://no-nude.biz
• http://nonku.com
• http://nude-teens.ws
• http://nutsmpegs.com
• http://obscenethumbs.com
• http://ohmygirl.biz
• http://okvids.com
• http://olateens.com
• http://orbita.starmedia.com
• http://origintv.com
• http://oteenz.info
• http://parentalxxxsecrets.net
• http://perversionxxx.com
• http://petiteinnocence.com
• http://petitetighties.com
• http://pixpictures.com
• http://popeyemovies.com
• http://popupgirls.net
• http://porkyhost.com
• http://pornenjoy.net
• http://pornhome.com
• http://pornoxmania.org
• http://pornparade.net
• http://pornru.net
• http://pornspaces.com
• http://porntours.com
• http://potahka.com
• http://pridesites.com
• http://privatehomearea.com
• http://privatepornfilms.com
• http://pussycute.com
• http://putfile.com
• http://qualityporn.biz
• http://racydaddy.com
• http://radikal.ru
• http://realitympegs.com
• http://reducki.cn
• http://russ-girl.biz
• http://sakura.ne.jp
• http://schoolgirlsecrets.com
• http://secretxxxvideo.com
• http://sexdruid.com
• http://sexplanet.name
• http://sexpornhost.com
• http://sexprof.net
• http://sexshit.net
• http://sexualteenplanet.com
• http://special-movies.com
• http://spicysexvideo.com
• http://splifyxxxclips.com
• http://spunkyyounggirls.com
• http://spy-clips.com
• http://starmedia.com
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• http://svetamodel.net
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• http://sweetschoolgirls.net
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• http://sxplanet.com
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• http://tabooarchive.net
• http://tailteens.com
• http://teen-mov.net
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• http://teenboyspics.net
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• http://uncensored-sex.org
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• http://watchsexonline.net
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• http://worldsexa.com
• http://www.adultshare.com
• http://www.blogforadults.com
• http://www.fashionbimbo.com
• http://www.fpixx.com
• http://www.frank-teens.com
• http://www.fullporn.tv
• http://www.gayporntown.com
• http://www.gossip-city.com
• http://www.ilust.org
• http://www.incest2006.com
• http://www.jizzhut.com
• http://www.modelmania4u.com
• http://www.pornhome.com
• http://www.pridesites.com
• http://www.tabooarchive.net
• http://www.teencasting.com
• http://www.teensfingering.net
• http://www.virginbeach.com
• http://www.xlovelygirls.com
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UK parliamentary censorship-The Guardian

The ultimate assault on free speech

John Kamfner

The Guardian: October 19, 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/2009/oct/19/trafigura-freedom-of-expression

Law firm Carter-Ruck’s super-injunction to attempt to stop the reporting of a question on the Trafigura affair in Parliament has galvanised MPs and other bodies to take up the fight for freedom of expression.

The unremitting assault on free speech in the UK finally hit the heart of the establishment last week. The story of the Guardian, the oil trader Trafigura, the law firm Carter-Ruck and its super-injunction threatened to override centuries of parliamentary sovereignty.

The story could be seen as an aberration, an example of hubristic lawyers tying themselves in knots. At an emergency meeting on Thursday, a cross-party group of MPs, journalists and campaigners debated whether Carter-Ruck had simply made a mistake – parliament’s rights are supreme and nobody would have the temerity to challenge that in a court. If only it were that simple.

Possibly because their interests are at stake, MPs have woken from their slumber. That meeting is due to be followed by one today with Carter-Ruck, and by a debate on Wednesday. The Conservative MP, Peter Bottomley, has promised to report Carter-Ruck to the Law Society. The new speaker, John Bercow, declared that “there is no question of our own proceedings being in any way inhibited”.

However, a closer look suggests a more complicated picture. Paul Farrelly, the Labour MP and former Observer journalist, ensured that his question was tabled only by carefully not drawing the attention of the Commons authorities to the actual case in question. The irony is that Carter-Ruck’s insistence on secrecy through the super-injunction worked to his advantage. The Commons authorities apparently had no idea what case Farrelly was referring to when they let his question through.

Jack Straw, the justice secretary, is now being lobbied to clarify the situation and to restate the right of the media to report whatever is said or written in the Commons or Lords, no matter what the circumstances.

Even though the super-injunction was lifted late on Friday, the episode should galvanise MPs to see the bigger picture – the seemingly inexorable march towards greater censorship and self-censorship in the UK. A combination of zealous law firms, pliant and sometimes ignorant judges, cash-strapped news organisations and a public that is encouraged to think the worst of the media has produced a situation where strong, investigative journalism is in jeopardy.

The list of infringements is long. The most egregious example is so-called “libel tourism”. Britain is seen as a pariah by the US Congress, which has followed several states in indemnifying Americans from the excesses of English courts.

The chilling effect is hard to quantify, because beyond the prosecutions and the injunctions lie stories that are never written for fear of an angry legal fax.

Many well-intentioned legal changes introduced in recent years have been manipulated, resulting in the opposite effect of the one envisaged. Conditional Fee Agreements –”no win, no fee” – were designed to help the impecunious to mount a claim when wronged. Instead they allow lawyers representing the wealthy to string cases along for as much as possible, knowing the other side cannot afford the fight. One editor told me recently he had been advised by his bosses to “lay off the oligarchs” for purely financial reasons.

The so-called Reynolds Defence, in which a journalist can claim to have acted professionally even where errors are made in publication, is used to stop publication. As soon as the other side is contacted for a comment, the threats begin, and publication can be inhibited.

The biggest challenge is the rise of super-injunctions and the misinterpretation by judges of the right to privacy as enshrined in the Human Rights Act. This part of the legislation was supposed to allow people to protect themselves and their families from unwarranted intrusion. Now “reputation” is being opened to corporations, who, through their lawyers, have been able to persuade judges to agree pre-emptive injunctions to protect their brands. The use of gagging orders appears widespread.

The current libel case that is attracting most attention is that of the science writer Simon Singh. In one of the few positive developments of recent days, he was given leave to appeal against the action brought by the British Chiropractic Association.

Set against this atmosphere of fear is a mood of defiance on the blogosphere and social networking sites. Carter-Ruck’s actions were undone in large part by the extraordinary response on Twitter to the Guardian’s predicament. Many stories that cannot be commented on in a UK domain can be read on foreign-hosted websites. This has produced the crazy situation of people in other countries being better informed about our country than we are.

Index on Censorship and English PEN have jointly conducted an inquiry into libel and curbs on free expression. A number of round-table discussions with editors, broadcasters and senior lawyers produced a heartening show of unity and a determination to lobby for change. Our recommendations will be published on 10 November.

A few weeks later, the culture, media and sports select committee will publish the long-awaited results of its own inquiry into libel, privacy and press standards. There are signs that recent developments may have put some steel into its spine.

The battle is not about allowing journalists to pry with long-lens cameras; it is not about abolishing libel or the right to redress when maliciously wronged. It is about redressing the balance, about removing the stigma from a judicial process that has rendered English law the laughing stock of the western world and the enemy of free expression.

John Kampfner is chief executive of Index on Censorship and author of Freedom For Sale

USA: Moral bankruptcy of academia-Never Yet Melted

Moral Bankruptcy of Academia

Academia, Academic freedom, Cartoon Jihad, Duke rape case, Harvard, Larry Summers, Yale

Never Yet Melted: October 18, 2009

http://neveryetmelted.com/2009/10/18/moral-bankruptcy-of-academia/

Peter Berkowitz discusses prominent cases in recent years of the response to controversy at Duke, Yale, and Harvard, in each of which instances faculty and administrators failed to defend freedom of thought and expression or members of their own community against the excesses of political correctness.

Professors have a professional interest in—indeed a professional duty to uphold—liberty of thought and discussion. But in recent years, precisely where they should be most engaged and outspoken they have been apathetic and inarticulate.

Consider Yale. On Oct. 1, the university hosted Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard. His drawing of Muhammad with a bomb in his turban became the best known of 12 cartoons published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005. That led to deadly protests throughout the Muslim world. On the same day, at an unrelated event, Yale hosted Brandeis Prof. Jytte Klausen. Her new book, “The Cartoons that Shook the World,” was subject in August to a last minute prepublication decision by Yale President Richard Levin and Yale University Press to remove not only the 12 cartoons but also all representations of Muhammad, including respected works of art. …

To be sure, Yale’s censorship—the right word because Yale suppressed content on moral and political grounds—raised difficult questions. Can’t rights, including freedom of speech and press, be limited to accommodate other rights and goods? What if reprinting the cartoons and other depictions gave thugs and extremists a new opportunity to inflame passions and unleash violence? Can’t the consequences of the cartoons’ original publication be understood without reproducing them? Weren’t the cartoons really akin, as Yale Senior Lecturer Charles Hill pointed out in a letter to the Yale Alumni magazine, to the depictions of Jews as grotesque monsters that successive American administrations have sought to persuade Arab newspapers to cease publishing? And isn’t it true, as Mr. Hill also observed, that Yale’s obligation to defend free speech does not oblige it to subsidize gratuitously offensive or intellectually worthless speech?

These are good questions—to which there are good answers.

Rights are subject to limits, but a right as fundamental to the university and the nation as freedom of speech and press should only be limited in cases of imminent danger and not in deference to speculation about possible violence at an indeterminate future date. One can’t properly evaluate Ms. Klausen’s contention that the cartoons were cynically manipulated without assessing with one’s own eyes whether the images passed beyond mockery and ridicule to the direct incitement of violence.

Even if the cartoons exhibited a kinship to anti-Semitic caricatures, it would cut in favor of publication: a scholar would be derelict in his duties if he published a work on anti-Semitic images without including examples. And finally, if Yale chooses to publish a rigorous analysis of the Danish cartoon controversy, which affected the national interest and roiled world affairs, then the university does incur a scholarly obligation to include all the relevant information and evidence including the cartoons at the center, regardless of whether they are in themselves gratuitously offensive and intellectually worthless.

The wonder is that Yale’s censorship has excited so little debate at Yale. The American Association of University Professors condemned Yale for caving in to terrorists’ “anticipated demands.” And a group of distinguished alumni formed the Yale Committee for a Free Press and published a letter protesting Yale’s “surrender to potential unknown billigerents” and calling on the university to correct its error by reprinting Ms. Klausen’s book with the cartoons and other images intact. But the Yale faculty has mostly yawned. Even the famously activist Yale Law School has, according to its director of public affairs, sponsored no programs on censorship and the university.

Alas, there is good reason to suppose that in its complacency about threats to freedom on campus the Yale faculty is typical of faculties at our leading universities. In 2006, even as the police had barely begun their investigation, Duke University President Richard Brodhead lent the prestige of his office to faculty members’ prosecution and conviction in the court of public opinion of three members of the Duke lacrosse team falsely accused of gang raping an African-American exotic dancer. It turned out they were being pursued by a rogue prosecutor. To be sure, it was only a vocal minority at Duke who led the public rush to judgment. But the vast majority of the faculty stood idly by, never rising to defend the presumption of innocence and the requirements of fair process.

Perhaps Duke faculty members did not realize or perhaps they did not care that these formal and fundamental protections against the abuse of power belong among the conditions essential to the lively exchange of ideas at the heart of liberal education.

Similarly, in 2005, Harvard President Lawrence Summers sparked a faculty revolt that ultimately led to his ouster by floating at a closed-door, off-the-record meeting the hypothesis—which he gave reasons for rejecting only a few breaths after posing it—that women were poorly represented among natural science faculties because significantly fewer women than men are born with the extraordinary theoretical intelligence necessary to succeed at the highest scientific levels.

Before he was forced to resign, Mr. Summers did his part to set back the cause of unfettered intellectual inquiry by taking the side of his accusers and apologizing repeatedly for having dared to expose an unpopular idea to rational analysis. Apart from a few honorable exceptions, the Harvard faculty could not find a principle worth defending in the controversy over Mr. Summer’s remarks.

As the controversies at Yale, Duke and Harvard captured national attention, professors from other universities haven’t had much to say in defense of liberty of thought and discussion either. This silence represents a collective failure of America’s professors of colossal proportions. What could be a clearer sign of our professors’ loss of understanding of the requirements of liberal education than their failure to defend liberty of thought and discussion where it touches them most directly?

What indeed?

Pregnant prisoners: Women’s health & rights-Global Voices

[CJ Hinke of FACT comments: I used this article as a base for exploring the issues of women in prisons and prisons in general. Prisons are one of mankind’s sterling examples of inhumanity and disrespect for other human beings. This realisation has made me a prison abolitionist. I found it most moving to explore the work of American expatriate photographer Jane Evelyn Atwood at the following sites: http://prisonphotography.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/women-behind-bars-jane-evelyn-atwoods-too-much-time/, http://www.amnestyusa.org/women/custody/toomuchtime/, http://prisonphotography.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/women-behind-bars-vikki-law/, http://prisonphotography.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/women-behind-bars-silja-j-a-talvi/, http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/2000/07/20/prison_photos/. The links at Prison Photography are especially valuable.]

Pregnancy and Prisons: Women’s Health and Rights Behind Bars

Juliana Rincón Parra

Global Voices: October 24, 2009

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/10/24/pregnancy-and-prisons-womens-health-and-rights-behind-bars/

This post is part of a series developed by Global Voices for the UNFPA blog Conversations for a Better World

Do all pregnant women deserve equal human rights, or do pregnant women in prison forfeit those rights?

There are a few questions that come to mind regarding a pregnant woman’s right to live and to raise her child when she has been convicted for some sort of crime:

• What is it like for them to be pregnant and have their child behind bars?
• Should they be a priority when there are other women outside of correctional facilities without medical assistance?
• Should maternity overrule any other legal conditions to ensure a pregnant woman’s human rights?

USA: women in labor no longer to be shackled.

Could you imagine a woman giving childbirth with her hands in handcuffs and her feet shackled to the bedposts? Malika Saada Saar, founder and executive director of the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, tells us about this practice which still happens in the United States of America, where pregnant women serving time have been routinely shackled during labor and childbirth as a common practice in some correctional facilities, even though it is dangerous for the health of both mother and child. Following is a video interview included in the same article written for RH Reality Check, an online community on sexual and reproductive health and rights which does information and analysis for reproductive health:

What happens to an inmate’s baby after childbirth?

Different countries have different regulations regarding children in prisons. For example, in Argentina, according to Ajintem, an information portal for migration information, a law was passed last year specifying that pregnant women, women with children younger than 5 and those with handicapped children would benefit from spending their prison term at home under house arrest. This law would benefit not only the mother, who in prison wouldn’t receive suitable health care during her pregnancy, but also the child, who would either be raised in an unsafe environment deprived of freedom with deficient health controls and food, or be raised away from the mother, causing another series of problems. However, the message is for magistrates to follow the spirit of the law and grant this permission to those women not involved in violent crimes, to ensure that the rest of the civilian population doesn’t see pregnancy as a get out of jail free card.

In the Canary Islands, according to the Prisiones y Penas blog, which writes about the issues surrounding jails and prisons, women are allowed to keep their children of up to 3 years of age with them in their cells, but in the company of other inmates, which isn’t the best environment. Thus, pregnant women or women with children under 3 are told upon entry to the prison that it isn’t good for the child to grow up behind bars, and options are given for them to send the child off to family members. This is also the case in Peru and Russia. In the US, there are only two correctional facilities which allow for this, in New York and in Nebraska, as told by renowned photographer Jane Evelyn Atwood in her 3 part photo documentary for Amnesty International, called Too Much Time, where she visited dozens of prisons all over the world to record and document the lives of inmates.

Why does the US correctional system not generally allow women with babies to keep them? Atwood explains that due to the hostage situation, it is not allowed. In the Prison Photography Blog they address this claim:

Children are excluded from all but a couple of US prisons. The security threat is cited as the reason: a child inside a prison is a constant vulnerable life and constant hostage target. The claim seems a little bogus when penal systems of other countries are brought into consideration.

The Atwood documentary in the Amnesty International site features both a section on the process of giving birth in shackless as told in Vanessa’s Baby and another on prison systems and motherhood, with fotographs of the women while the photographer reads an essay on her experiences visiting the prisons and taking the pictures.

Pregnancy as a bargaining tool?

Why are rights for pregnant women in prison so controversial? In Russia Today, a Russian broadcasting channel, the subject is mentioned when discussing children born and raised in the Russian correctional system:

Skeptics think some mothers deliberately get pregnant simply to ease life in prison. Hospital leave, then lots of scheduled time with your child – it is all better than sitting in a stone cell, they claim.

And there are women for whom it seems that pregnancy is the only way to escape a sentence, as was the case back in June, when a British woman incarcerated and sentenced to death in Laos due to drug smuggling got pregnant in prison and escaped being executed, since the Laos government would not execute a pregnant woman. The claims made according to the Daily Express, a British newspaper, are that she got artificially inseminated “to secure a more lenient term”.

In their words: Women tell of their children and prison life

Geraldin Rodríguez, an Argentinean spending time in an Ecuadorian jail due to drug trafficking tells Marcos Brugiati, a writer who contributes with the art related online publication Plastica-Argentina, the story about acting and performing in jail, getting pregnant in prison and having her child. She was allowed to keep her baby with her, but decided that the child needed to grow up free:

“Decidí que salga para vivir, tenía miedo que sufra de grande los traumas que hoy tengo. Se lo llevó al año mi hermano quien se hice cargo con su esposa”.

I decided he should leave to live, I was afraid he would suffer the same traumas I have today. After a year my brother took him away and is caring for him along with his wife.

Juvinete is in a Spanish prison, and was pregnant when she was incarcerated for drug trafficking. She tells her story to regional Spanish newspaper NorteCastilla. Three years after giving birth to her baby in prison, her child had to leave her side, and was sent to a foster family. Juvinete sees her daughter every 15 days and every two months she gets a 2 week leave to spend time with her. However, things don’t seem to be looking up: there is a chance Juvinete will be deported to her natal Brazil, and she fears for the consequences this change would have on her child. She does have advice for any woman who decide to get pregnant while in jail:

-Intento convencerlas para que no se queden en estado dentro porque ver a un niño privado de libertad es muy duro, es irresponsable. Ellos no tienen que pagar nuestros errores.

I try to convince them not to get pregnant while inside because seeing a child deprived of their freedom is very hard, it’s irresponsible. They don’t have to pay for our mistakes.

In Woman and Prison, a website dedicated to visibilizing women’s experiences in the correctional system, inmate Kebby Warner speaks of her own pregnancy while doing time in a US prison, and how she was treated during her pregnancy, labor and afterwards, when her child was taken away from her. Here is an excerpt where she writes about the birthing process:

During the labor, no one is allowed in the delivery room. My family didn’t even know I was in labor or had her until after I left the hospital. During the three days some of the guards stayed in the room, but most of the time, when the nurses asked them to sit outside the door, they complied. I have heard horror stories of women being chained to the delivery bed. I am so grateful as to have not experienced this. Most of the nurses treated me as a human instead of a prisoner.

You can read more testimonies about growing up with a parent in prison and the different effects incarcerating women may have on their children in Women and Prison.

So what do you think? With pregnant women around the world not receiving health care of any sort, should additional efforts be made to benefit women who are in prison? Is there a difference between mothers serving terms in correctional facilities and those outside? Should they be treated differently?