Obama urged to investigate US sponsored torture

From The Lead

The Rev. Ed Bacon, Rector of All Saints Episcopal Church, Pasadena, CA, met with members of the Obama administration at the White House yesterday along with a number of other religious leaders. They were taking part in the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) at the White House, and asked Obama consider sponsoring a fact-finding commission dedicated to investigating U.S.-sanctioned torture incidents that have happened since September 11, 2001.

Here is the text of the letter:

June 11, 2009

The President
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

As senior religious leaders in the United States , we write to give voice to the compelling need for a comprehensive investigation into U.S.-sponsored torture since 9/11. We believe the most credible way to conduct such an investigation is by establishing an independent, non-partisan Commission of Inquiry. Such a Commission is necessary to: (1) uncover the whole truth about U.S. torture policies and practices; (2) mobilize a national consensus, and (3) build support for the requisite safeguards to ensure that U.S.-sponsored torture never happens again.

We know that you share with us the understanding that torture is wrong – without exception, that it is illegal and immoral. You have stated this unequivocally. You matched your words with action on the second full day of your Administration when you signed the executive order banning torture. With that order, you signaled to our nation, as well as to the world, your determination to return the United States to the rule of law and to begin the process of restoring our nation’s moral stature in the global community. We are profoundly grateful for your swift and decisive action in signing this executive order.

But an executive order is not enough. It can be superseded by laws, and, as we’ve seen, even laws are in jeopardy of being superseded by national emergencies. Our nation can guarantee the abolition of torture only if and when we put in place safeguards to prevent once and for all the future twisting and abrogation of the existing laws that prohibit torture.

You have publicly announced your opposition to a Commission of Inquiry, stating that our existing institutions are adequate for investigating what went wrong. You have expressed your desire to look forward, not backward. We agree we must look forward — forward to a future where torture will never happen again. But we believe that the only avenue to, and guarantee of, such a future is a Commission of Inquiry. An investigation of U.S.-sponsored torture will only be credible and thorough if conducted by a Commission comprised of citizens who are well-respected, non-partisan, and independent-minded.

The reality is that our nation is now shackled to a shameful history of torture. As people of faith we know that only the truth can set us free. We must therefore, as a nation, be mature and honest enough to examine fully and disclose completely the wrong doing that has been committed. The transparency and openness of a Commission of Inquiry will help to hold us all accountable for the policies and acts of torture carried out in our name. Accountability is essential in a nation of laws.

Recent polls show that many people of faith have been persuaded that the use of torture can be justified in some situations. These findings weigh heavily on us, as religious leaders. We have more work to do to educate our people. We accept our responsibility to bear bold and compelling witness to the sanctity of the divine image in all people and to the fact that torture in every instance defiles and desecrates this divine image. We commit ourselves anew to great faithfulness in preaching to and teaching our members.

We beseech you, in furtherance of your responsibility to restore, protect, and preserve the sanctity and rule of law in this nation, to commit yourself to the creation of a Commission of Inquiry that will uncover the truth, identify and establish legal safeguards, and guarantee for our children and grand-children a future in this country free of torture, without exceptions.

We pray for you “the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of God” (Isaiah 11:2). And we look to you to lead our nation back to the path of truth and justice.

The letter was signed by at least 33 leaders representing many denominations and religious organizations representing a variety of religions and traditions, including Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.

The NRCAT press release says:

“We were pleased to have the opportunity today to meet with Obama administration officials to discuss our strong support for the establishment of an independent, non-partisan Commission of Inquiry to investigate the development and implementation of a program of torture by the United States in the years after 9/11,” Kilmer said. “Unfortunately, as is known publicly, President Obama does not currently support the establishment of an investigative Commission. However, the officials with whom we met heard our concerns and welcomed our input. This is not the end of this process; it is merely the beginning. As events continue to unfold, we will advocate for a Commission of Inquiry that can uncover all of the facts. We cannot simply bury our past for as the Bible says, ‘the truth shall make us free.’”

Read the rest here.

Well, we can certainly say Finland ain't Telletubbyland....

Celebrating diversity: one in a series of posters for the Green Party of Finland:

Anne Frank centre stage on 80th 'birthday'

Had she survived, Anne Frank would have celebrated her 80th birthday today.

From DutchNews.nl

Friday 12 June 2009

The diaries and other writing by Jewish teenager Anne Frank, who hid in a secret attic in Amsterdam for two years during World War II are to go on permanent display, the government announced on Thursday.

'Her diaries and writing will come home,' to the museum now housed in her former home, the statement said.

Three diaries, a note book of short stories and a collection of her favourite quotes will go on show from November 1.

The documents have been donated to the museum by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, which was given them by Anne's father Otto. He was the only one of the family to survive the concentration camps and died in 1980.

Short life

Anne would have turned 80 on Friday if she had survived the war and a number of events have been planned to mark the occasion. On Friday evening there will be a live tv broadcast from the Prinsengracht museum with guests from the Netherlands and abroad.

At Madame Tussauds waxworks museum, artist Silvester Peperkamp is painting a portrait of how Anne may have looked if she was alive today.

Meanwhile, the shed at Westerbork transit camp, where Anne was put to work dismantling batteries after her capture in 1944, is to be rebuilt on its original location.

The shed has been used for agricultural storage in Veendam since 1957.

For a list of international events click here

[Cross posted at Andemedius and The Peace Tree.]

A Native American thanksgiving

This is lovely - from Speaking to the Soul.

Daily Reading for June 12 • Enmegahbowh, Priest and Missionary, 1902

Leader: For our ancestors who built nations and cultures; who thrived and prospered long before the coming of strangers; for the forfeit of their lives, their homes, their lands, and their freedoms sacrificed to the rise of new nations and new worlds.
All: We offer a song of honor and thanks.

Leader: For the wealth of our lands; for minerals in the earth; for the plants and waters and animals on the earth; for the birds, the clouds and rain; for the sun and moon in the sky and the gifts they gave to our people that enabled the rise of new world economics. All: We offer a song of honor and thanks.

Leader: For oceans, streams, rivers, lakes, and other waters of our lands that provide bountifully for us; for clams, lobsters, salmon, trout, shrimp, and abalone; for the pathways the waters have provided.
All: We offer a song of honor and thanks.

Leader: For the friendship that first welcomed all to our shores; for the courage of those who watched their worlds change and disappear and for those who led in the search for new lives; for our leaders today who fight with courage and great heart for us.
All: We offer a song of honor and thanks.

Leader: For the strength and beauty of our diverse Native cultures; for the traditions that give structure to our lives, that define who we are; for the skills of our artists and craftspeople and the gifts of their hands.
All: We offer a song of honor and thanks.

Leader: For the spirituality and vision that gave our people the courage and faith to endure; that brought many to an understanding and acceptance of the love of Christ, our Brother and Savior.
All: We offer a song of honor and thanks.

Leader: Accept, O God, Creator, our honor song, and make our hearts thankful for what we have been given. Make us humble for what we have taken. Make us glad as we return some measure of what we have been given. Strengthen our faith and make us strong in the service of our people, in the name of our Brother and Savior, Jesus Christ, your Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

From “A Native American Thanksgiving for the Americas and Their People” offered at the National Cathedral in 1992 and quoted in The Wideness of God’s Mercy: Litanies to Enlarge Our Prayer, revised and updated edition, compiled and adapted by Jeffery Rowthorn with W. Alfred Tisdale. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Behind the screen

By Katie Sherrod in Desert's Child

During the 1890’s Dr. M. Carey Thomas, later president of Bryn Mawr College, asked to attend a class at Johns Hopkins University school of medicine in Baltimore. No woman had ever before been permitted to attend the lectures, and Dr. Thomas was granted her request only on condition that she sit behind a screen so as not to offend and distract the male students.

In 1893, Florence Bascom was the first woman to to receive a PhD from Johns Hopkins. However, she too had to sit behind a screen so the male students would not know she was there and be offended or distracted.

British-born Charlotte Angas Scott (1858-1931) was pivotal in the development of mathematics education in the United States. She was among the first faculty members at Bryn Mawr College and the school's first head mathematics teacher. Scott was awarded a scholarship to Hitchin College (now Girton College, the women's division of Cambridge University). She and the other women in her class were all required to sit behind a screen that separated them from the male students and obscured their view of the blackboard. Women also were not permitted to be at the commencement exercises.

But that was all so long ago. Right? Well, requiring women students to sit behind a screen or even out in a hallway at schools, universities and seminaries continued in some schools in the U.S. right up until the early to mid part of the last century. The people in charge did not want the male students to be offended or distracted.

African Americans endured even worse indignities as white America enacted laws designed to keep them "in their place" so they could not offend the sensibilities of white people. That's what segregation and then the Jim Crow laws were all about.

Even recognized heroes were not immune to the insults. In 1971, after a 40-year career in baseball, Leroy “Satchel” Paige became the first Negro League Player voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

But Baseball Commissioner, Bowie Kuhn announced that Paige would be the first member of a Negro wing of the Hall of Fame. Sports writers exploded, saying that having a "Negro wing" was perpetuating the bad old separate-and-NOT-equal days of segregation. Outrage grew, and Kuhn finally convinced the board of the Hall of Fame that putting Paige in a separate corridor was a really bad idea. So Paige's plaque and those of other "Negro" players were put with all the rest.

It seems that any time those on the margins seek to be included, those in charge have moved to include them only after making sure the sensibilities of people like themselves [historically straight white men] are not offended.

That is what is happening in the Episcopal Church right now with our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender brothers and sisters in Christ. After years of steady pressure, the church is slowly making moves to include them, but only if they will in essence sit behind a screen so as not to offend any of the people already inside the room.

That's why Gene Robinson was not invited to Lambeth, although the Archbishop of Canterbury did offer to let him speak in an exhibit hall of the Marketplace . . .

That is what B033 was and is all about -- making sure that the presence of LGBT Episcopalians in our church won't offend anyone anywhere who is made the slightest bit uncomfortable by their presence.

And that is why the closeted panel that is studying same sex relationships wants to keep itself secret "for a season." We apparently even have to study LGBT folk from behind a screen.

Someday our children will read of this time in our history and be just as amazed and outraged as you were when you read the first paragraph of this blog.

I hope some of those children will still be in the Episcopal Church.

The Golden Girls on Marriage Equality

Eyewitnesses to the wreckage of Gaza

Two video reports--

Via Media Lens Message Board

Phil Weiss was part of a recent CodePink delegaton to Gaza. He filmed this video of a tour through the industrial zone east of Gaza. The extent of the destruction is incredible, and Israel continues to refuse to permit materials needed for reconstruction to enter the Strip.

Via Guardian Films

Nearly six months since the devastating war in Gaza, Palestinians are still living amid the rubble. Despite stirring talk of reconstruction efforts, little has changed. Inigo Gilmore visits the devastated neighbourhoods to see how families are coping.

Midweek: Dance!

Eyewitness to the wreckage of Iraq

With all the media outlets talking about US domestic concerns (health care, the economy, the war on drugs, the SCOTUS nomination), let's not forget there is still the tragedy of Iraq:

Eyewitness to the wreckage of Iraq

By Sabah Jawad Socialist Worker, June 9, 2009

When you step out on the streets of Baghdad you notice immediately that all is not right in Iraq.

Thousands of concrete barricades divide city neighbourhoods into small cantons.

Everywhere are reminders that this is a country under occupation. It is a bleak vision of this ancient city.

This pattern repeats itself at a smaller scale too. Even in local areas roads are blocked by concrete barriers.

Everywhere there are checkpoints manned by the Iraqi security forces.

They are set up at will and prevent people from moving around freely. There are constant traffic jams and no traffic lights.

After six years of occupation there is still a huge shortage of drinking water.

Electricity is often off for more than 12 hours a day—which is unbearable in the heat of the summer.

Baghdad is in a worse state than during my last visit in October 2003.

The dust that covers the city is an indication of a huge environmental disaster taking place.

Contamination and falling levels of water in Iraq’s two major rivers are turning huge swathes of agricultural land into a desert.

The country was once capable of feeding its people. But now Iraqi fruit and vegetables have disappeared from the markets.

The situation is even worse in southern cities like Basra, which was once a beautiful place.

Its famous network of streams and small rivers are now open sewers. The stench hits you as soon as you enter this great city.

This not the image that the US paints of Iraq.

The occupiers claim that reconstruction is taking place, and that they have created a democratic state with a system based on consensus and power-sharing.

But the US has created a weak and fragmented state, and they want it to stay that way so it is easy to control.

The political process is based on religious sectarianism and division. The constitution is a minefield that is turning region against region.

Ministries are divided on sectarian lines and there is massive nepotism and embezzlement of public funds.

The occupiers have squandered huge amounts of public funds.

The only “achievement” of the occupation is the widespread corruption that is eating away at the Iraqi state.

The former electricity minister Ayham al-Samarrai was accused of embezzling $100 million in a scam involving the import of electricity generators.

He was sentenced by an Iraqi court, but was spirited away from the security of the occupiers’ Green Zone in Baghdad to a new life in the US.

Another notable scandal involved Hazim Shalan, a former defence minister. He was accused of importing non-existent or faulty weapons.

The most recent case involves trade minister Falah al‑Sudani, who resigned last week after being accused of corruption involving hundreds of millions of dollars.

His two brothers are also implicated. They stand accused of fiddling import licences for the rationing system which millions of Iraqis depend on for food.

Occupation forces and Iraqi political parties took control of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces. They divided up the spoils like thieves, and took buildings that belong to the people.

The Al-Fadhila Party took over the huge unfinished Al‑Rahman mosque in Baghdad. It sold off materials bought for the Mosque’s construction to fill its own pockets.

Many people believe that these corrupt and sectarian institutions were created by the US with the aim of keeping Iraq fragmented and weak.

Sabah Jawad is an officer of the Stop the War Coalition and Iraqi Democrats Against the Occupation

Cross posted at Antemedius.

Royal Dutch/Shell settles on $15.5 millon on Saro Wiwa case

From Democracy Now!

The case was brought on behalf of ten plaintiffs who accused Shell of complicity in the 1995 executions of Nigerian writer and environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others.

Of course, Royal Dutch/Shell didn't admit guilt, but the case against them was pretty strong, so they offer a settlement rather than go along with a trial. Anyway, the settlement is simply the cost of doing business for Shell. Does it mean that it will make Shell change any future policies? Even with their PR concerns for the Ogoni people, I seriously doubt it. Shell is a business that puts profits before people, no matter what their PR departments will do to "sell" us. The settlement is the beginning of the process of reconciliation, not the end, as the DN! interviews point out.

Radio Netherlands reports also that Shell faces another court battle.

Another lawsuit was filed last year on behalf of Nigerian plaintiffs by Friends of the Earth Netherlands. The case concerns three specific oil spills that cost several families their livelihoods.

Millions of people in the Niger Delta live in poverty despite the region’s oil riches. Anne van Schaik of Friends of the Earth said the settlement is a sign that large oil companies will start to take responsibility for the actions of their subsidiaries.

“One of the most important things is that people can have a normal way of living. The traditional way of living in the Niger Delta is one of farmers and fishermen, and I think it’s very important that nature is restored back to the original state. Then you have a way of income and from that you can build your life.

“If everything is polluted because of the oil spill and you don’t even have access to clean drinking water, then your whole means of living is destroyed. And that of course is grounds for terrorism and all kinds of other attacks.”

In a statement to Reuters, Shell’s executive director for exploration and production said Shell maintains the allegations are false.

Oprah's Medicine Show: Bringing Charlatans to your TV Screen

I've always been skeptical how Ms Winfrey relentlessly pursues and promotes pseudoscientific bullshit.

Live Your Best Life Ever!

Wish Away Cancer! Get A Lunchtime Face-Lift! Eradicate Autism! Turn Back The Clock! Thin Your Thighs! Cure Menopause! Harness Positive Energy! Erase Wrinkles! Banish Obesity! Live Your Best Life Ever!

From Newsweek

Oprah takes these things very seriously. They are, after all, the answers she hopes to find for herself. If Oprah has an exquisite ear for the cravings and anxieties of her audience, it is because she shares them. Her own lifelong quest for love, meaning and fulfillment plays out on her stage each day. In an age of information overload, she offers herself as a guide through the confusion.

Her audience cannot get enough. After more than two decades on the air, the Oprah franchise continues to expand. Forty million people tune in to watch her television show each week. O magazine, which features her picture on every cover, sells more than 2 million copies each month. She has her own satellite radio channel and a very popular Web site. Forbes puts Oprah's personal fortune at $2.7 billion. Her empire is about to get bigger. Oprah has made a deal to launch her own cable television channel that will reach 70 million homes. It will be called, of course, the Oprah Winfrey Network and will include Oprah-approved programming on health and living well. In announcing the deal, Oprah said, "I will now have the opportunity to do this 24 hours a day on a platform that goes on forever."[...]

This is where things get tricky. Because the truth is, some of what Oprah promotes isn't good, and a lot of the advice her guests dispense on the show is just bad. The Suzanne Somers episode wasn't an oddball occurrence. This kind of thing happens again and again on Oprah. Some of the many experts who cross her stage offer interesting and useful information (props to you, Dr. Oz). Others gush nonsense. Oprah, who holds up her guests as prophets, can't seem to tell the difference. She has the power to summon the most learned authorities on any subject; who would refuse her? Instead, all too often Oprah winds up putting herself and her trusting audience in the hands of celebrity authors and pop-science artists pitching wonder cures and miracle treatments that are questionable or flat-out wrong, and sometimes dangerous.

Oprah would probably not agree with this assessment. She declined to be interviewed for this article, but in a statement she said, "The guests we feature often share their first-person stories in an effort to inform the audience and put a human face on topics relevant to them. I've been saying for years that people are responsible for their actions and their own well-being. I believe my viewers understand the medical information presented on the show is just that—information—not an endorsement or prescription. Rather, my intention is for our viewers to take the information and engage in a dialogue with their medical practitioners about what may be right for them."

New England: Portland, Maine plans anti-fluoridation drive

Portland Press Herald

Fluoride Leave Our Water will gather signatures to force a vote in Portland Water District towns.
By DENNIS HOEY, Staff Writer June 8, 2009

PORTLAND — The debate over whether adding fluoride to drinking water provides a health benefit is about to begin again, just 13 years after a majority of Cumberland County voters agreed that fluoridation was medically beneficial.

A citizens' group based in Portland will announce today its plans to start a petition drive aimed at forcing the Portland Water District to stop adding fluoride to the drinking water it extracts from Sebago Lake.

That water, which contains 1 part per million of fluoride, flows through the taps of 11 Cumberland County communities. The district serves about 200,000 people.

"Our feeling is that adding fluoride to your drinking water is a decision that should be made by an individual. It should not be left up to the government to self-medicate the people," said Oliver Outerbridge, who is leading the effort.

The Portland resident and restaurant owner heads a group called Fluoride Leave Our Water. FLOW will hold a press conference today at 12:30 p.m. at the GRO Cafe, 437 Congress St., before its volunteers begin canvassing polling places during Tuesday's election.

Outerbridge said the Secretary of State's Office has told him the group must gather at least 8,954 signatures.

If FLOW can get that many signatures, a November referendum question would be presented to voters in the affected communities of Cape Elizabeth, Cumberland, Falmouth, Gorham, Portland, Raymond, Scarborough, South Portland, Standish, Westbrook and Windham.

The group contends that while fluoride may have some value in preventing cavities, the substance is potentially dangerous when ingested in large amounts.

In a press release, Outerbridge said fluoride is "a universally recognized neurotoxin."

FLOW also says that fluoride is used in so many products that adding it to drinking water is excessive.

The Portland Water District began adding fluoride to the drinking water on Aug. 18, 1997, nearly one year after residents in Cumberland County voted 57,136 to 30,075 to add fluoride. In four other votes from 1963 to 1976, the proposal failed.

James Ortengren, a South Portland dentist, led the successful 1996 campaign to add fluoride.

Contacted Sunday night, he said he was surprised it had become an issue again.

Fluoride has been shown to prevent cavities and tooth decay, he said.

"All the science (that it's safe) is there. And there is no question about the science," he said.

Michelle Clements, spokeswoman for the Portland Water District, said the district plans to remain neutral.

"We'd be happy to stop using fluoride if our customers want that," she said.

However, Clements said, the district believes that adding such a small amount of fluoride to the water is safe. The American Dental Association, the U.S. Public Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control state on their Web sites that they also hold this view.

Massacre in Peru

It's happening right in our southern hemisphere. Democracy Now! this morning had an updated report with interviews of leaders of the indigenous people and eyewitness accounts.

Not suprisingly, the IoS headlined yesterday's story with the number of police killed. (It's an Associated Press story, so it's all about the police, natch!)

But it's Peru's indigenous people who are being massacred. From IndyMedia/Ireland on Saturday:

An ongoing, many month old peaceful protest in the Bagua region of the north western area of Peru was brutally attacked yesterday by state forces, resulting in the deaths of, at least, 25 native Indigenous Amazonian Peruvians. A motorway in the "curve of the devil" region had been blocked by local communities of the area who feel their land, health, livlihood and community is threathened by the governments giveaway of the area, and its precious resources, to multinational oil and gas exploration. They are perhaps right to feel sad, threathened and terrified, knowing how things have faired in neighbouring areas with a similar story, Sion, Equador and beyond...

The Indymedia/Ireland report has many background links.

Listen Up, Traditionalists: A Bible-based Marriage

(H/T to Five Before Chaos.)

D-Day Anniversary

Martin Wisse wrote five years ago about the Dutch contribution to D-Day:

At D-Day, Dutch B-25's bombarded targets in Normandy, including the headquarters of a German armoured division; eight of them were lost on operations in June 1944. The Dutch gunboats Hr. Ms. Soemba and Hr. Ms. Flores supported the invasion, targeting German positions on the landing beaches; they were valued so much by the British they gave them the nick name "The Terrible Twins". To counter the threat of German torpedo boats, the dreaded "Schnellbote", Dutch motor torpedo boats were active, while Dutch minesweepers were making the Normandy coast safe, one of which, the Hr.Ms. Marken was destroyed while doing so on 20th May 1944, sinking with only one survivor. A Dutch cruiser, the Hr. Ms.Sumatra was deliberately sank as a wave breaker for the two artificial harbours the Allies constructed at the Normandy coast. (Some of the caissons built for the construction of those harbours and not needed for them were later used to mend Dutch dykes damaged by Allied bombardement later in the year, as well as after the 1953 flood.) Finally, a large number of Navy and merchant marine people and ships were of course used to transport Allied soldiers and supplies to the beaches.

Today, he writes

Most of the attention today has justifiably been on the English, Canadian, American and French contributions to the invasion, but the other countries that took part in it should not be forgotten: there were Dutch, Belgian, Polish, Czech, Commonwealth soldiers who died that day as well.

And as we remember the Holocaust and D-Day and the victims of 65 years ago let's also remember today's victims of wars of aggression.

Censored by Huffington Post

By Max Blumenthal

On Wednesday, I walked around central Jerusalem with my friend, Joseph Dana, an Israel peace activist who has lived in the country for three years. We interviewed young people on camera about the speech President Barack Obama planned to deliver to the Muslim world the following day in Cairo. Though our questions were not provocative at all – we simply asked, “What do you think of Obama’s speech” – the responses our interview subjects offered comprised some of the most shocking comments I have ever recorded on camera. They were racist, hateful, and incredibly ignorant, and were mostly couched within a Zionist context – “this is our land, Obama!” The following day, we edited an hour of interviews into a 3:30 minute video package and released it on Mondoweiss and on the Huffington Post.

Within a few hours, I received an email from a Huffington Post administrator informing me he had scrubbed my video from the site. “I don't see that it has any real news value,” the administrator told me. “For me it only proves that one can find drunk people willing to say just about anything. Especially drunk, moronic people.” For the first time, the premier clearinghouse for online news and opinions had suppressed one of my posts.[...]

Despite the Huffington Post’s rejection of my video report, it has exploded across the blogosphere. Even the rapper 50 Cent posted it prominently on his official website. It two days it has garnered 100,000 views. I hope those who have watched it, especially those predisposed to dismiss it as anti-Israel propaganda or shock video with “no news value,” will at least ask how vitriolic levels of racism are able to flow through the streets of Jerusalem like sewage, why the grandsons of Holocaust survivors feel compelled to offer the Shoah as justification to behave like fascist street thugs, and how the sons and daughters of successful Jewish American families casually merged Zionist cant with crude white supremacism. The willful avoidance of these painful questions by self-proclaimed supporters of Israel is setting the stage for the complete delegitimization of the country they claim to love. As Obama said, “any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners of it.”

Local: Oh, Guano!

Burlington is one of a few cities in this country that promotes farming within its borders. (The city-endorsed Intervale farms are recognised nationally.) The Us vs. Them, turf battle mentality that seems to hold sway - and get sensational press - in City Council and commission meetings just didn't escalate to that level at last night's special Board of Health (I'm a member) hearing. "Oink," you say? Well, indeed, it was about pigs, sea gulls and complaints made by residents in the new north end of town, whose houses are adjacent to Mike Petit's farm at the end of Ethan Allen Parkway. Mr Petit raises pigs and chickens on the 88 acres he leases, and his feeding of them has attracted sea gulls which lie in wait on the rooves of the houses before descending on the farm to feast on food scrap left overs after the pigs have been fed. The board heard testimony from the residents, Code Enforcement staff health officers and Mr Petit. Residents were angered by the gatherings of gulls on roofs and the the crap they left - and said that the value of their homes were effected by it. Code Enforcement stated in their request that there was evidence for issuing a health order, which would have put the onus on Mr Petit to get rid of the gulls. Mr Petit, sympathetic to the residents' complaints, said he didn't want the gulls around either and had met the Vermont Dept of Agriculture guidelines to keep the gulls away from his farm. The Board decided not to issue the health order and asked the residents, the farmer and the city to work collaboratively, instead of spending city money in court, to solve the problem.

An Open Appeal to the House of Bishops

From Louie Crew

"Please end the extraordinary insult of lbgt Christians being done in
your name by the Theology Committtee of the House of Bishops.
See their creation of a panel reported on page 51 of the BLUE BOOK 2009.
Many have asked Bishop Parsley to identify the members of the panel, but he
he has steadfastly refused.

"You would not want a secret panel studying your relationships, nor should
you countenance one studying ours.

"The secret star panel is, of course, a smokescreen. The real agenda is to
persuade GC in Anaheim not to pass any resolutions on same-sex unions at
least until this secret study is made public in 2011.

"Susan Russell and Katie Sherrod document how TEC has been using 'study' as a stalling tactic for years. See http://tinyurl.com/p8m2v4.

"Perhaps I should picket Bishop Parsley's office. At 72, I have much less
risk of rape in a Birmingham jail than I do at General Convention.

"Lgbt Christians have been baptized. Our committed relationships are holy.
End this insult."

Dutch Press Review on EU Elections

From Radio Netherlands Worldwide Daily Press Review

No prizes for guessing that the Freedom Party was the biggest winner in Thursday’s European election in the Netherlands. Nrc.next announces the result as if it were a TV show; shining yellow stars surround a blue background like a sign outside a theatre with the party’s initials PVV in big yellow letters in the middle. The inside pages feature a gold cup inscribed with a quote from party leader Geert Wilders: “We are going to get much, much bigger.”

The populist rightwing Freedom Party won four seats in the European Parliament with its clear campaign message on Europe: no. The other winners in the European election were the centre-left D66 party, whose message was equally simple: “Yes to Europe”.

The Christian Democrats were the only party to remain ahead of the anti-Islam Freedom Party. The conservative VVD managed to hold onto 3 seats in spite of predictions of a disastrous result. The big losers were surprisingly the Labour Party, who had difficulty explaining their complicated message to the electorate during the campaign. In Trouw Development Minister Bert Koenders says “‘It is not about whether you are for or against Europe, it is a about what your party wants to do in Europe.” The Socialist Party, Green Left and smaller Christian parties all held on to their two seats. The Animal Rights Party appears to have just missed gaining one seat in the European Parliament.

Elderly voters turn out in vain

AD reports that voters were well informed about the requirement to produce proof of identity in 350 municipalities. Only the elderly had problems as many of them no longer have valid identity papers. Seventy-two-year-old Maria Verbeek tore up her ballot paper when it turned out that she would not be able to vote using her over-65s pass. She questions the wisdom of the new measure, especially as so few people do actually turn out to vote, asking “Have the government gone mad?”

Many elderly people tried to vote using veteran passes, expired passports, or tattered driving licences. One woman submitted an official complaint at her local polling station.

Around 300 people in the town of Nieuwegein were unable to vote early in the morning, as the ballot boxes had not been delivered to the polling stations. A red-faced mayor apologised to voters, saying, “This just shouldn’t happen, we have done everything we can to rectify the situation.” The error was only discovered 15 minutes before polling stations were due to open.

A Democrat's idea of democratic elections

Jeremy Scahill in Rebel Reports reports on election tampering and bribery in the 2004 presidential election.

As chair of the Democratic National Committee during the 2004 election, Terry McAuliffe engaged in actions that reveal exactly how the Democratic Party establishment views the “democratic electoral process.”

According to a new book by Theresa Amato, independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader’s campaign manager in 2000 and 2004, McAuliffe attempted to essentially bribe the Nader campaign to stand down in key states. In Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny, Amato charges “the DNC and its state party affiliates embarked on an effort, unprecedented in U.S. history, to force Nader out of the 2004 presidential election...”

Read the whole article here, and you'll find the McAuliffe is not denying it, either.

No real accountability in US investigation of Afghan massacre

At the start of May there was a bombing of Afghan civilians by Americans that killed over 100 people. The Independent writes that it was "the single deadliest for Afghan civilians since the campaign to topple the Taliban in 2001." Now, as Jeremy Scahill writes in another great report, 'The US military says errors were made, but insists the “targets” “posed legitimate threats to Afghan or American forces.”'

At the end of Scahill's article: "... there must be accountability for those responsible." Fat chance, for what the US military is saying is neither an apology nor a real admission ("errors") because it still insists the targets were legitimate!

Episcopal Chicanery

An uproar has ensued after the announcement that a House of Bishops secret committee will examine LBGTs and the theology of same-sex relationships. In response, the committee chair, Bp Parsley of Alabama, gives top-down, heterosexist and paternalistic excuses.

A secret (closeted) committee is studying LBGT Episcopalians

Louie Crew, founder of Integrity, has a few choice words:

> The report of the Theology Committee of the House of Bishops (p.51)
> states they have been asked by the HOB to undertake a theological
> study of same-sex relationships in the life of the church. It further
> states that "a diverse and balanced panel of theologians has been
> appointed by the Committee and is presently beginning this work."

Miguel in the Office of the Presiding Bishop explained to me that it is
the decision of the House of Bishops Theology Committee not to reveal the
names of those on the sub-committee at this time.

I find that decision an abomination. LGBT in life commitments face huge
hostility in this church, and yet those who "study" us need to be secret?!

Perhaps we should also appoint a special committee to study heterosexual
marriage but keep the names of the committee a secret.

I grew up in Alabama with such shenanigans about every aspect of my life
as a gay person, and whenever our judges met in secret, no lgbt person was
safe. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose


[See also The Lead.]

COMMENT Reflecting on the Baptismal service in the BCP: we are called to "seek and serve Christ in all persons" and ". . . strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being” as covenantal behaviours, but, after reading about all this conniving in secret, I'm wondering where the dignity and respect for faithful LBGT people lies in TEC.

GM Bailout: A supersized scam for taxpayers and workers

Robert Weissman in CounterPunch

While there is probably a need to reduce GM's capacity, there is no need to cut worker wages and benefits. Auto worker wages contribute less than 10 percent of the cost of a car, so even the most draconian cuts will do little to increase profits. Yet the Obama administration's auto task force helped push the United Auto Workers into further acceptance of a two-tier wage structure that will make new auto jobs paid just a notch above Home Depot jobs. This will drag down pay across the auto industry, with ripple effects throughout the entire manufacturing sector. Stunningly, the Obama administration brags that "the concessions that the UAW agreed to are more aggressive than what the Bush Administration originally demanded in its loan agreement with GM."

The ultimate evidence of the task force's disconnect from its public mission is its approval of GM plans to increase outsourcing production of cars for sale in the United States. GM has now disclosed its intent to begin production in China for sale in the United States. What is the possible rationale of permitting a company propped up with U.S. taxpayer funds to increase production overseas for sale in the U.S. market? The point of the bailout is not to make GM profitable at any cost, but to protect the communities that rely on the automaker, as well as U.S. manufacturing capacity.

At this rate, GM workers won't even be able to purchase a Tata Nano.

The great carbon credit con: Why are we paying the Third World to poison its environment?

We can't irrigate our land with it - it's the water of death. It kills the crops we put it on.

Via Fluoride Action Network.

Photo on left: In Gujarat shanty houses stand next to 21st century factories, many of which have been given carbon credits. [Credit Ash Sweeting/Daily Mail article.]

Gujarat Fluorochemicals [JV edit: fluorochemical-manufacturing plant]. The great carbon credit con.

By Nadene Ghouri

(Original article in Daily Mail)

Extracts:

In the fields around this giant chemicals factory in Gujarat, the barren soil smells of paint stripper and the water from the well makes you gag. So why has it been given tens of millions of pounds of taxpayer-funded UN ‘green reward points’, which are traded hungrily on the financial markets at huge profit? [...]

‘We have plenty of water – but water is the problem,’ she says.

As the bucket returns to the top, we can make out a white, almost oily-looking film on the surface of the liquid, which has formed little snowflake shapes.

She scoops up some water and asks us to smell it. It has an odour so acrid it catches in the back of our throats, making us cough.

‘We can’t irrigate our crops with it,’ she says. ‘It’s the water of death. It kills most crops we put it on.’

‘Gone bad,’ says the man who brought up the pail.

Radha makes a derisive gesture across the fields. Her calloused, cracked fingers bear testimony to a lifetime of weeding, planting and hoeing. She is 40 but looks closer to 60. Since her husband died eight years ago, she’s had to feed herself and her six children. Perhaps it’s necessity that’s made her more outspoken than her male counterparts.

‘A few years ago, I grew spinach, potatoes, lots of different crops. Now… look at my plants. Weak, useless.’ [...]

A mustachioed man called Vijay comes forward. He explains that scores of villagers are sick with joint aches, bone pains, unexplained swellings, throat and nerve problems and temporary paralysis. The farmers can’t put any names to their illnesses and, as low-caste dalits (or untouchables), most of them are too poor to access proper medical services. [...]

Pandya was asked by the court to sit on an expert witness panel, which discovered fluoride poisoning in people, land and animals caused by air and water pollution.

It discovered toxic effluent in the water stream and evidence of toxic waste not being properly disposed of by GFL. The documents presented to the court have been seen by Live. They recommended that GFL pay compensation and that villagers be diagnosed and monitored regularly. None of the recommendations have been carried out. The villagers have become so frustrated that they have now made a formal submission to India’s Human Rights Commission requesting an investigation.

For the sake of objectivity, Live took its own samples of water from Radha’s well, Vijay’s village pumps and two other locations, as well as soil samples. We had them tested at an independent government-registered laboratory in India. The results were shocking.

They revealed dangerously high levels of fluoride and chloride – fluoride in the water was more than twice the international acceptable limit. All the water fell well below any safe drinking standards and the soil had worryingly high levels of these chemicals.

As a commenter on the Daily Mail article notes, "The questionable morality of trading the 'right' to pollute - when what's really needed is the re-engineering of industrial processes. Are we short of expertise, or of determination? If this was happening in Europe, rather than some remote location in India, it'd be dealt with pretty quickly." The environment in India also remind me of the same conditions that caused Factory Farm Flu.

LOCAL: Burlington is painting the town yellow & white

This morning I received this notice from Burlington PD (emphasis mine):

Burlington Department of Public works will paint lines on the following streets starting at midnight Thursday June 04, 2009. Vehicles parked in the path of the painters will be towed and left at another location and receive a $100.00 ticket.

Park St - east side, Manhattan to Sherman
N Champlain St - east side, Pearl St to Manhattan Dr
East Ave - East side, Carrigan Dr to Colchester Ave
Mansfield Ave - West side, North St to Colchester Ave
N Willard St - west side, North St to Pearl St
S Willard St - west side, Pearl St to Main St
St Paul St - west side, Howard St to Shelburne Rd
S Willard St - west side, Cliff St to Shelburne Rd
S Winooski Ave - west side, Maple St to Howard St
N Winooski Ave - west side, Decatur St to North St
N Winooski Ave - west side North St to Grant St, meter spaces from Grant to Pearl St

COMMENT: Sarcasm alert - I am glad the city has let us know that the ticket charge has risen from $70 to $100. Although property taxes are due to rise again, DPW has found a way to pay for that paint!

(Photo attribution, with thanks to zen [Flickr]. Some rights reserved.)

Harry in New York

Photos of the visiting Prince on HuffPost, no less. Hmmm, why? Americans do like to fawn over British Royalty. Anyway, LOL@some of the comments. Like, erm, most New Yawkers could really give a damn. True. My fave: "And yes, that's Hewitt's son." Haha, poor Harry.

Saturday Musical Offering: Astor Piazzola

Astor Piazzolla - Libertango

Those damned... Holy Homosexuals

Sure, this is a brilliant send-up the conservative Anglican archbishop of Sydney. Not all Anglicans are like him, may God be thanked. Notice in the video how he very conveniently pulls out his bible to find the the Word of God. (At the risk of being rude, that's a lot of baggage to carry around.) But, as Adrian Thatcher so eloquently writes, The Word was made of flesh and blood, not ink.

Hundreds of theologians have convinced themselves that when they read the Bible, it speaks to them. They “listen” and, of course, “obey”. But the Bible does not “say” any­thing. That is a locutionary meta­phor. It is not a person. It lets itself be read. And to discern it, readers need the Spirit, who guides them into all the truth (John 16.13).

Disaster Capitalism (Health Care Privacy Division)

It's spun as improving the efficiency in health care delivery. But this is trouble with a capital 'T.' Lawmakers in Washington have abrogated their responsibility to protect patients' privacy.

The stimulus package contains provisions on health information security that will expand HIPAA regulations to include consultants from outside the health care industry, such as lawyers and accountants. Speaking at a conference in Wisconsin, attorney Mark Garsombke explained that the provisions could force care providers to revise agreements with such professionals to address concerns regarding their exposure to personal health data.

Equally problematic is using the economic incentives to threaten cuts in Medicare services:

The stimulus package also includes Medicare incentive funding aimed at aiding adoption and use of EHRs. Beginning in 2011, health care providers may start to receive incentives for the use of EHR. This use, however, must meet the definition of “meaningful use” to qualify for payment. The final definition of “meaningful use” has yet to be worked out.

“Once a provider gets to 2015, its reimbursement will decline if electronic health records are not implemented and being used,” said Dan Miller, a Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek lawyer who participated the panel.

Disaster Capitalism (Hunger Division)

A 21st Century a scramble for Africa:

Poor countries in Africa (e.g. Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Mali and Sudan) are leasing their land to Western corporations and semi-governmental agencies to provide food to countries outside that Continent.

Today, there's a news item in nrc/international about a pilot project fighting
the 'hidden hunger' in Africa. What's surprising is the companies involved don't even try to spin it as a solely magnanimous gesture. It's a well-crafted scheme to win hearts and minds - and future markets - in some of the same countries that are leasing their lands.
[Emphasis mine.]

A collaboration between the Dutch ministry of development aid, the agricultural university in Wageningen and a couple of multinationals aims to add vitamins and minerals to the diet of those who need it most. Their aim is not entirely philanthropic, the companies also hope to secure their future markets.

According to the World Health Organisation, 963 million people do not have enough to eat and an estimated 2 billion people are affected by iron deficiency, the most prevalent form of malnutrition worldwide. [...]

DSM, a Delft-based food company; Unilever, the multinational consumer product maker, and paint and chemical producer Akzo Nobel want to combine the knowledge and networks of industry, science and government to improve the nutrition of African children. [...]

Are the multinationals simply trying to polish up their image? "This is not charity," says Unilever's Global Health Partnerships director Paulus Verschuren. "It is about the added value to both society and our company. You need a functioning society if you want to set up a healthy business. By fighting malnutrition now we hope to secure our future markets."

DSM too sees business opportunities in fighting malnutrition. The company is developing so-called NutriRice, nutritionally enriched rice. It uses broken grains of rice - usually residuary - which it then crushes and mixes with vitamins and minerals. The pulp is then manufactured into rice grains again and blended back in with the normal rice.

NutriRice has been tested among high school students in China and was "a great success" according to Adade.

(Cross-posted at Antemedius.)

Blurt: The Nation on USAID, Plan Colombia and Burlington-based ARD

Here's Ken Picard's latest on the SevenDays staff blog, Blurt, about a "local" connection to a "global" war.

About six months ago, I got a phone call from a reporter who claimed he was calling from Colombia. I automatically assumed he meant the institution of higher learning in upper Manhattan.

"Columbia University?" I asked.

"No, Colombia the country," he replied, without a hint of condescension.

The man was looking for some background info on ARD, an international development firm headquartered on Bank Street in downtown Burlington. (Former Mayor Peter Clavelle took a job there after his unsuccessful bid for governor.) Why call Seven Days? In 2007, I'd written a short piece about ARD after it was bought out by a much larger firm, Tetra Tech, of Pasadena, California, which has close ties to the U.S. military.

The reporter, whom I can only assume now was Teo Ballvé, said he was working on an investigative piece for the Nation about Plan Colombia and ARD's work in that country. He asked me about a half-dozen questions about ARD and its Burlington offices — none of which seemed particularly relevant to international narco-trafficking — then thanked me for my time and said he'd email me the story when it came out.

I never heard back from him and assumed he'd lost my email address, the story had been killed or he'd been. (Hey,drug traffickers don't waste their time sending nasty emails to your editors when you piss them off.)

This morning, Ballvé forwarded me a link to this week's story in the Nation, "The Dark Side of Plan Colombia". In it, he alleges that USAID grant money, channeled through firms such as ARD, "appears to have put drug war dollars in the hands of a confessed narco-paramilitary and two accused paramilitary-linked drug traffickers," a possible violation of federal law.

Clearly, a lot of time and research went into this story. Give it a read, and let us know what you think.

(Cross-posted at Antemedius.)

Trafalgar Square's reinvigorated fountain

Now, if they could only get rid of the dirty pigeons! When I lived in London, I'd pass through the square en route to Embankment tube station to catch a Circle Line train for the ride home, stopping occasionally to watch one of the many demonstrations taking place.

Guardian

... As Joel Schobs, the engineer in a chlorine-scented lair deep beneath the square's flagstones, cranked up the pressure and eased open valves that had been closed for a lifetime, the plume in the western fountain gradually and almost imperceptibly rose.

Within a minute it was visibly taller than its twin. Within two it was high enough to splash the bronze cloak of General Charles Napier. Within five it was a spurting glory, 35 feet high – higher than anyone has seen it in at least 30 years and probably twice as long as that. The ducks that arrive every summer from nearby St James's Park quacked ecstatically.

"Not bad, is it?" said Richard Genn, who is in charge of the square for the Greater London Authority and has supervised a year-long £190,000 project to restore the fountains to their intended glory. ...

The original Victorian fountains had nothing to do with beauty and everything to do with reducing the amount of open space and the risk of riotous assembly. The police post concealed inside a granite column in the corner, often wrongly called the smallest police station in London, was added in the great depression of the 1930s: it was linked directly to Scotland Yard and has slots through which the solitary occupant could fire on any rioters.

[Photograph: Zak Hussein/PA]

Marrow program steps up efforts to gain more minority donors

This is good news! The National Marrow Donor Program has changed the name of its bone-marrow donor registry to Be the Match and is using such social-media Web sites as Facebook and MySpace to reach younger potential donors and encourage them to sign up. The agency also has developed an online search tool to make it easier to identify possible matches in the registry.

When I worked for a blood donor center at a hospital in the Texas Medical Center, we'd co-sponsor bone marrow registry drives, targeting African-American groups to assist patients with Sickle Cell Disease. (Sickle cell disease results from an abnormality in hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen. Because the disorder involves cells produced in the bone marrow, replacement of the defective bone marrow with normal marrow will cure it.)

The Real News Network: Everything is on the table except what's not

From The Real News Network: 'Sen. Max Baucus, Chair of the Finance Committee announced last week: "single-payer option is not on the table because it cannot pass". A week earlier, a rally, co-sponsored by one of the main advocates of single-payer system, CNA/NNOC took place on Capitol Hill. Hundreds of nurses, doctors and health care reform advocates gathered to express their opinion on the health care issues.'

As a person on the clip below says,

"Politicians have to stop taking money from the insurance companies and right now they're saying it's not politically feasible because they're still taking money from that big industrial medical complex, from pharmaceuticals..."

Related: People from Toronto respond to a US advertising campaign about the Canadian health-care system



More at SinglePayerAction.org

The occupiers are women battering rapists (UPDATED)

UPDATE: From Jeremy Scahill/Rebel Reports:

In a major story today, London’s Daily Telegraph quoted Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba describing photos (that the Obama administration is fighting to keep secret), which allegedly depict US personnel raping prisoners, other sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube. “These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency,” Taguba said. Put that statement against this one from the president: In defending his decision to fight the ACLU in its efforts to have the photos publicly released, Obama said on May 13, “I want to emphasize that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational.”

Scahill goes on to report that the White House is attempting to diss the messenger: Maj Gen Taguba.

________________________


Recently, you've been reading about the guilty verdict - and life sentence - of Steven Green for rape and murder. He's just one of many - not just the proverbial 'bad apple.' Rape, murder and pillage are endemic in Iraq and part of the US military culture; from Ten Percent:

We know they murdered, we know they pillaged, we know they raped, we know they took pictures. We know the Whitehouse under any administration protects the criminals, not least because they ordered it. Does Obama look so noble when he is covering this up. They have studiously avoided the pictures of the women who were raped, much harder to maintain the heroic troop myth necessary for continual imperial aggression when they are women battering rapists.

Photos: Abu Ghraib prison, 2004 (AFP)

A crazy idea, you say?

Yes, it is crazy.

"Whew! And, it’s a really good thing Bush is no longer in power or else the US would come up with some crazy idea like building a colonial fortress in Pakistan to defend “US interests” in the region."

Yes, indeed, it's already happening, an accessory to Obama's AfPak central Asia strategy.

Pieter van Vollenhoven visits parents of attacker (30 April)

The parents of Karst T., the man who attempted to attack the RF on April 30 and died as a result, still have emotional stress ever since it happened. (The general public have shown empathy to the family.) According to Volksrant [Dutch] on May 21, Ascension Day, Pieter van Vollenhoven, the spouse of Princess Margriet - on behalf of the RF - visited the parents of Karst T. Not only a thoughtful gesture, but a way for the family to come to terms with their tragedy.

Photo: Pieter van Vollenhoven (ANP)

State Rep. Paul Poirer (I)

From Broadsides

A Central Vermont state representative, Paul Poirier, announced yesterday that he was leaving the Democratic Party to become an independent. Why? Because he felt that the Democratic Party wasn’t taking the issues affecting working people seriously enough.
Bravo to Poirier.

But his very thoughtful and open decision sent the local Democratic Party faithful – you know, the ones who hate war unless it’s a Democratic war, or injustice unless it’s Democratic injustice (read: Obama and gay marriage), etc. – into an all-too-familiar political tantrum.

One particular Dem blogger who is known for having a near-constant brain wedgie from his ill-fitting corporate-issued Dem cheerleader outfit wondered what Poirier could possibly mean by middleclass people being disillusioned by the Democratic Party. Hmm, let’s see, how about these three issues: The war(s), health care, and economic injustice (as in: bailouts for billionaires, flagger-jobs for the rest of us).

The power of the Obama haze never ceases to amaze me. Worse, the continued – and even worsening – manner in which worshipers of the two parties defend their churches – err, I mean, parties – to the detriment of the issues they claim to “fight for” remains simply bizarre.

Remember, for example, that Obama was an “anti-war” candidate. But once his “team” won, out went the issues of the day and in came a most disingenuous form of reasoning that goes something like: Just wait. And wait. And wait.

Do these folks envision little smiley faces on the bombs of Obama? Oh look, honey, he makes them happy before they die from his tyranny and our inaction….

Again, congrats to Poirier. The parties don’t matter – unless you’re looking for easy friends and a job – but the issues do.

The work is never over

Paul Fromberg, the rector of St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco and whom I knew briefly when he was rector of a parish in Houston, writes about yesterday's California Supreme Court decision on marriage equality:

"In terms of political organizing, the fight for gay marriage can’t be separated from California’s budget crisis: from our struggles for immigrant rights, education reform, and tax reform that will allow us to provide humane health care and educate all our children. The fight for gay marriage can’t simply involve gays throwing a bit of money at a campaign so we can all have fabulous weddings. It means, as we say in my business, doing the hard work of becoming a community."

De Menezes Murder: More insult to injury

Via Martin Wisse:

Police officer who altered evidence in the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes has been cleared of "deliberate deception":

The Special Branch officer deleted text from his computer note before speaking to the inquest in October last year.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission said he was not guilty of "deliberate deception".

Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot dead by police at Stockwell Tube station in south London in July 2005.

The IPCC said the officer, known as "Owen", had acted naively, but found no evidence of deliberate deception.

Last October, the officer told the inquest he deleted a line from computer notes which quoted Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick.

The note had originally claimed Dick had initially said the electrician could "run onto Tube as not carrying anything".

But at the inquest he said: "On reflection, I looked at that and thought 'I cannot actually say that.'"

The officer, a supervisor in the operations room at Scotland Yard, told the court he had removed the line because he believed it was "wrong and gave a totally false impression."

The IPCC found Owen "acted alone" in failing to disclose the note and then deleting it.

Its report concluded the officer had shown a "lack of understanding" of how he should behave, but had not committed an offence.

Unbelievable, but not surprising. The socalled "Independent" Police Complaints Commission has shown time and again in the de Menezes case to be toothless or unwilling to actually prosecute the police. The IPCC is too much a part of the police establishment to do its job, either unwilling or unable to handle these sort of cases. As with parliament we once again see that self regulation does not work.

Despicable ruling in Holland

nrc/international

Impunity for Dutch massacre in Indonesia was given 60 years ago

The Dutch state does not want to pay compensation to the victims of a 1947 massacre in an Indonesian village, but it also stopped the prosecution of the army officer who was held responsible right after the attrocity, the Dutch current affairs television programme Netwerk revealed on Monday.
The story of the Rawagede village was back in the limelight last year when relatives and survivors of the massacre demanded an apology and compensation from the Dutch state.

On the TV show on Monday, Jeffrey Pondaag of the Committee for Dutch Honours of Debt showed an exchange of letters from 1948 that reveals the decision not to prosecute major Alphons Wijnen for the atrocity was taken straight after the tragedy, in spite of a recommendation by the Dutch chief of staff Simon Spoor to the procurator general to institute proceedings.

On 9 December 1947, Dutch troops attacked the village of Rawagede and, according to the villagers, killed all the men - 431 in total. A 1969 investigation by the Dutch government into war crimes in Indonesia says 150 were killed in Rawagede (since renamed Balongsari).

Indonesia was granted sovereignty from the Netherlands in 1949 after five years of armed struggle against the Dutch army.

Pondaag and his committee are now seeking compensation and apologies for nine widows and one man who survived the bloodbath as a boy. Pondaag said he found the exchange of letters in the files given to him by the lawyer representing the government in the case.

The Dutch attorney general has rejected the civil claim put forward last September because the case is too old.
_________________
For background: look here and here.

Madeleine Albright: a woman of justice and peace?

In 1996, this famous exchange occured on 60 Minutes:

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.

Today in nrc/international

Former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright is to take up a job in The Hague. De Volkskrant newspaper reports that Albright will sit on the supervisory board of a new research and academic institute, provisionally named the Institute for Global Justice.

Working closely with Leiden University, the institute is to offer a prestigious degree course in the field of peace, justice and international security.

The Venerable Bede, Priest, and Monk of Jarrow, 735

A reading for May 25.

TimesOnline

Roderick Strange - Credo: More than a brief flight through warmth and light

Bede once compared human life without faith to a sparrow flying through a banqueting hall in winter

An old monk lay dying but still he had work to complete. He dictated to a scribe the last lines of a book he had been writing on St John’s Gospel and distributed what few small treasures he possessed to his fellow monks. He gave glory to God, singing, “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit”, and then he died. It was the morning of Ascension Day.

These events are not recent. Far from it. They took place in 735. The monk was Bede, known as the Venerable. He is the only English Doctor of the Church and his feast is celebrated in the coming week.

We may respect him, but we may also wonder what to make of him. He lived so long ago.

Bede was born in Sunderland in 673 and brought up in a monastery at Wearmouth from the age of 7, before becoming a monk himself at Jarrow and living there for the rest of his life. It seems probable he never left northeast England. How could so isolated a life be significant for us? Yet that very isolation may itself be the clue.

Most of us too have times when we feel fairly isolated and we wonder what difference our lives make or what value they have. However long we may live, in fact our time is short. Bede once compared human life without faith to a sparrow flying through a banqueting hall in winter, where, as he wrote, “the fire is burning on the hearth in the middle of the hall and all inside is warm, while outside the wintry storms of rain and snow are raging”. Then “a sparrow flies swiftly though the hall. It enters in at one door and quickly flies out through the other . . . So this life of man appears but for a moment; what follows or indeed what went before, we know not at all.”

The image may chill us. It may seem all too likely. However, Bede was using the image to suggest that there is more to life than that brief flight through warmth and light from darkness to darkness. And his own life was devoted to exploring that deeper possibility.

In his monastery he gave himself up to scholarship. He has declared that he loved to learn, to teach, and to write. And he was fortunate that at that very time great monastic libraries were being assembled, placing at his disposal the resources he needed. So among his many writings there were commentaries on Scripture, lives of the saints, and in particular that Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which many regard as his greatest work because of the new standards it set: its sense of time, its instinct for a good story, its mastery of readable Latin, and the start it even made in using sources critically. And those three strands of writing can be seen as linked. What is brought out by contemplating and studying Scripture is made real in the lives of holy men and women, the people who come to be recognised as saints. And the saints themselves are not to be viewed simply as individuals; their lives are a part of the Church’s life, its complex, sometimes blemished, history.

Contemplation can shape who we are, and who we are has its influence on others. Prayer and study, identity and action are not separate. They need to be integrated and made coherent.

Although he lived a hidden, scholarly life long ago, Bede is not forgotten. He is, for example, patron of this college where I am rector, where men are prepared for ordained ministry in the English-speaking world, and where the integration of prayer and study, identity and action, is fundamental. It gives meaning to a sparrow’s flight beyond the banqueting hall.

Next month men from here who later will be ordained as priests, will become deacons, for Malaysia, Zimbabwe and America, for Australia and for England. All five continents will be represented. Bede’s imagination, if he could ever have imagined it, would have reeled at the prospect of his influence spreading in such a way. And how can we calculate the impact of our own lives and actions?

Monsignor Roderick Strange is Rector of the Pontifical Beda College, Rome

Palestinian rights deserve Anglican action

P U L S E has a post up (by David Thomson) commenting on an opinion column from Thursday, May 21, by Ben White, a regular contributor to the Guardian's Cif/belief. (Ben White has also written for the Anglican website, Fulcrum.) I had to chuckle at the comments on Mr White's Guardian piece. Ben White takes on "even handedness" of Anglicans [that typically Anglican - and sometimes maddeningly frustrating - "via media" approach to any theological, political or cultural controversy] regarding resolutions on Israel-Palestine at the recent Anglican Consultative Council meeting. Mr Thomson sees the heavy-handed influence of a pro-Zionist right-wing organisation in the Anglican Communion which has campaigned vigorously against Anglican efforts to promote divestment and sanctions against the State of Israel.

Ben White writes that “a obsession with even-handedness is stopping Anglicans taking a firm stand on Israel’s disregard for Palestinian rights.”

However I’d argue that the obsession with even-handedness is not a cause but an effect — an effect of paranoia induced by the Israel lobby, strongly represented in the Anglican community by Anglican Friends of Israel.

This group spread the fear that criticising Israel will damage relations with the Jewish community, even if this were so, should it stop the church’s quest for justice? They also use ‘anti-Semitism’ (or Judeophobia) and therefore the Holocaust, to create an atmosphere of intimidation saying Anglican peace activists are “singling out” Israel (thus implying there is no good reason to criticise Israel and the reason must be anti-Jewish racism). No individual or organisation wants to be threatened with anti-Semitism and have themselves compared to some of the worst criminals in history.

It’s sad that these tired old tricks are still accepted and work as a distraction from the real issues of colonialism, occupation, international law, basic morality and justice.

At the 14th Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meeting, held in Jamaica earlier this month, a resolution on the Middle East was passed, criticising the Israeli occupation. An original version of the resolution was originally submitted by the Anglican Peace and Justice Network (APJN)[JayV: APJN website], but as the language was felt by some to be too “strong”, a new resolution was put forward and adopted.

The resolution staked out a position based on international law, a rejection of violence as a means of conflict resolution, and opposition to Israel’s occupation and colonisation of the Palestinian territories.

It also called for a “two state solution”, and “lamented” the fact that Israeli policies in the West Bank “have created severe hardship for many Palestinians” and are “experienced as a physical form of apartheid”. There was an affirmation that a “just peace must guarantee the security and territorial integrity of both Israel and the future state of Palestine so that all the people of the area can live in peace and prosperity.”

For some, however, this call for two states living side by side – a state of affairs that would necessarily require one party to stop its domination of the other – was a cause for “dismay”. Anglican Friends of Israel released a statement (faithfully reproduced by The Times’s religion correspondent) which regretted how “once again”, Anglicans had “singled out Israel for criticism” without any “context” or taking into account “the Palestinian contribution to the conflict”.

Where the resolution condemned illegal policies like settlement building, the ICJ-condemned separation wall, and house demolitions, Anglican Friends for Israel saw a call for Israel to “lay down all measures which protect her citizens from Arab terrorism”. Apparently, not even Palestinian “interests” are served by such a “ghastly pronouncement”, which, the statement warned, “threatens to completely sabotage Anglican-Jewish relations”.

The resolution, passed “overwhelmingly”, was publicly backed by a number of those present, including the Anglican Church of Southern Africa Archbishop Thabo Makogba, who told the council how he had “lived under apartheid” and knew its “pain”. He went on to describe seeing the “‘the brutality’ in the West Bank and Gaza that ’segregates God’s people’.”

The original wording submitted by APJN had been specifically criticised by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who took particular issue with “a section that ‘condemns the judaisation of the city (of Jerusalem) by the government of Israel”. The Archbishop was reported as saying that “judaisation is a word that I cannot, in conscience, accept”, since “it equates ‘the political machinations of the Israeli government’ with the people of faith in Jewish society”.

That there is a deliberate policy of judaisation in Jerusalem is not a secret in Israel; politicians and policy-makers routinely talk of strengthening the “Jewish character” of the city (and other areas too for that matter).

So in fact then, while Williams is right to critique the conflation of the Israeli state’s policies with “people of faith in Jewish society”, his target should be that very same Israeli state which in the name of Jews worldwide maintains a regime of racial exclusion.

The archbishop’s other concern, according to the same report, was to avoid saying anything in such as a way as to “jeopardise the Anglican Communion’s dialogue with the Rabbinate”. This was a worry also taken up by others, including the coordinator of the Anglican Communion Office’s Network for Interfaith Concerns, who helped produce the alternative resolution that was eventually passed.

The Anglican Church has trodden an uneasy path in recent years when it comes to words and actions on Israel/Palestine. Despite recommendations by the APJN to pursue divestment as means of opposing Israel’s occupation, this has never been followed through.

While many individual church members and ministers across the worldwide communion are active in working for a just peace in the Middle East, the senior leadership is typically shy of going much beyond hand-wringing statements of sorrow and “even-handed” reproach.

It is unfortunate that the division, such as in the case of this recent ACC resolution, is often expressed in terms of those seeking stronger expressions of protest over the Israeli occupation against those seeking to avoid tension in Jewish-Christian relations.

The two shouldn’t be mutually exclusive, of course. But even when these worries about interfaith dialogue are sincere (rather than a disingenuous smokescreen), how long can they hamstring serious action by the Anglican Communion in the face of Israel’s entrenched – and worsening – disregard for basic Palestinian political and human rights?

Cross-posted at Antemedius.

Friday Music Groove: Lhasa

Montréal-based singer songwriter Lhasa, whose songs reflect her Mexican and American roots.