America is spending billions on a war in Iraq, a war in Afghanistan, creating Fusion Centers in the US, searching every airline passenger, scanning the irises of every foreign visitor and more… all of which are part of the ‘war on terror.’
Meanwhile, the most effective defense against terrorism is under our nose, already exists, and is free. That is, according to Michael German, ACLU National Security Policy Counsel and former undercover FBI agent who infiltrated neo-Nazi Terrorist groups in the United States. Mike was on the radio show and talked about Fusion Centers - centers of data gathering that are raising serious privacy issues at a time when new technology, government powers and zeal in the “war on terrorism” are combining to threaten Americans’ privacy at an unprecedented level. We talked about his book “Thinking Like A Terrorist” which provides unique insights into why terrorism is such a persistent and difficult problem, how neo-nazi and Al Qaeda terrorists are similar, and why the U.S. approach to counterterrorism isn’t working.
So what’s the most effective defense?
The United States Constitution. Applied to everyone.
You know what they say… use it or lose it.
Click here to listen.
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The children of Tibetans are dedicated to the cause, as we learned during our interview with Dr. Lobsong Sangay last Saturday on the radio show. Think about it. Your parents escaped their country in 1959. You were born in another country; perhaps India. Your family ended up here in America. And now you are actively working in support of a country you have never lived in. The young man I spoke with in setting up the interview with Dr. Sangay, Dhondup Phunkhang, has a half-brother in Tibet he’s never met - his father had to leave his wife and children when he escaped.
Today, March 31st the Olympic torch is scheduled to arrive in Beijing. The children of Tibet (now adults) are hoping you’ll stop your daily routine for just a bit to help out:
TIBETANS AND SUPPORTERS DEMAND “NO TORCH IN TIBET”
Boston – Protests, daily vigils (5:00p.m. to 8:00p.m., Harvard Sq.), and prayer ceremonies for Tibet will take place around the world on 31 March, when the Olympic Torch will arrive in Beijing, to highlight the suffering of the Tibetan people during China’s current crackdown.
Tibetans in exile and Tibet supporters are calling for all Tibetan areas to be withdrawn from the Torch Relay, stating that celebrating China’s Olympic Torch and its so-called “Journey of Harmony” in Tibet whilst the Tibetan people have been crushed by China’s military forces is an abomination that must be stopped.
Tibetans in exile and Tibet supporters in the U.S. and all around the world will participate in the Global Day of Action for Tibet as follows:
Date: 31 March 2008
Time: 1:00p.m. to 3:00p.m.
Place: In front of the State House, Boston
More than 150 Tibet support organizations called on the International Olympic Committee President in a letter two weeks ago to cancel the planned visits of the Olympic torch to all Tibetan areas. The organizations also sent letters to the Torch Relay sponsors – Coca Cola, Lenovo, and Samsung – calling on them to withdraw their sponsorship unless Tibet is dropped from the route, and will now be appealing to National Olympic Committees to support their demands.
In view of the present crisis in Tibet, we urgently appeal to the UN and the International community to:
- Immediately dispatch independent fact finding delegations to Tibet
- Immediately allow free press to cover the whole of Tibet, not just guided tours
- Immediately end the brutal killings in the whole of Tibet
- Immediately release all arrested and imprisoned Tibetans
- Extend immediate medical assistance to the injured Tibetans
- Allow free movement of people and provide access to daily needs
Nearly three weeks have passed since Tibetan monks from Drepung Monastery carried out peaceful protests demanding their freedom. Their action spread to Sera Monastery and then to the streets of Lhasa and into the hearts of Tibetans across Tibet and around the world, igniting a nationwide uprising. Despite massive military presence, widespread incarceration, and torture, Tibetans continue to rise up.
Day before yesterday, a group of monks disrupted a tightly controlled Chinese government media tour of Lhasa - the only foreign media allowed into Tibet since the national uprising started on March 10th. As dozens of journalists and their government handlers toured the Jokhang temple, thirty monks burst out of a room to tell the journalists that “Tibet is not free” and not to believe China’s lies.
*With roughly 470 Tibetans in Massachusetts. Tibetan Association of Boston (TAB) is a non-profit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization.
Go to www.bostontibet.org for more information. For pictures of events in tibet, go here and here.
Dhondup Phunkhang sent a letter to fellow Tibetans who had apparently expressed the desire to last out against Chinese authorities here in this country. Dhondup urged restraint, as follows:
Hi Duggy and friends,
A group of us younger Tibetans in Boston started a candle light vigil in Harvard Square 12 days a go. The Tibetan community here has been very responsive we get a 100 to 150 people mainly Tibetans coming ever night. The younger school kids hand out flyers, get the public to sign petitions and help with making banners and lighting candles. To date we have sent out 2500 letters to local congressmen, senators and the governor.
We make a circle, say prayers, hold flags, banners, sing protest songs, the national anthem and give updates to the public on daily events inside and outside Tibet. It feels like there is a real need for Tibetans and friend to get together to morn so many deaths and the on going suffering of our people in Tibet. A peaceful candle light vigil shows solidarity with Tibetans. It’s also a very empowering experience for our younger Tibetans to get involved in any small manner and find some personal connection with our cause. We also emphasis daily at the vigil that we are not against the Chinese people, for they too suffer at the hands of Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
It’s important not to play in to the hands of the CCP’s propaganda and ploy to discredit HH the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people world over as aggressive violent people. Tibetans everywhere are very angry at the crack down by the Chinese government and want to retaliate. In Tibet people have no choice and out of desperation have started to protest risking not only their lives but also the lives of their families. But outside Tibet breaking criminal laws by throwing stones, charging the police and Chinese embassies etc.. may not be the wisest thing to do. Aside from bad publicity and individuals getting arrested I’m not sure we can
achieve anything positive. More over China is using these images as a propaganda tool to show Chinese citizens that Tibetans are a threat and hate China, hence promoting Chinese nationalism and justifying its suppression in Tibet. Now Tibetan monks have to disrobe in Mainland China in fear of being attacked by Han Chinese. There are numerous reports that Chinese paid informants and spies are instigating violence in Nepal, India and else where by getting amongst peaceful protesters and throwing stones at the police. Inside Tibet, China has been doing the same thing and also staging images of sword wielding Tibetans who are actually under cover Chinese police.
This is nothing new; they have been using these methods for a long time i.e.. Tiananmen Square dressing dead students as soldiers, Falun Gong etc. We need to be aware of this and let people know. CCP is also conducting cyber warfare against Tibet support groups, and organizations critical of China. Please beware of e-mails disguised as Tibet support groups from unknown senders they may have viruses.
Please choose to participate in any way or form.
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the
side of the oppressor”-Archbishop Desmond Tutu
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A while ago, I visited a friend in Alaska, and was introduced to everyone as “she’s from Massachusetts.” And, it wasn’t really a compliment, and my friends seemed embarrassed by it. See, my childhood friend married an instructor for the NRA, so we were at the gun shop, or at the shooting range (yes, I shot pistols), when these conversations were taking place.
So, it seems odd to me that a state vilified by conservatives as an enclave of liberalism does not have a progressive talk radio station. Sure, there’s a liberal or two on the air, but they’re relegated to mid-days or a couple of hours on the weekend, or on overnights.
There were two stations with progressive talk, but Clear Channel flipped the format a little over a year ago.
Some folks are actively trying to get a station on the air - you can read all about it here: www.bostonprogressivetalk.net and you can listen to the interview here.
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Have you ever been stalked or harassed by a stranger? Did you know that unless you can prove you have a substantive relationship with the abuser, you have no way to keep the person away from you under current law? So, if you are being stalked by a neighbor or a stranger, there is nothing you can do except take self-defense classes, and good luck if they bring a bomb to your workplace.
Did you also know that if you have been attacked in your home, raped, sexually assaulted or stalked, your landlord can evict you??
And there’s more…. did you know that if you have to take time off from work to deal with these issues, you currently have no protection from being penalized in the workplace???
Some facts:
- One million women and 371,000 men are stalked annually in the United States.
- 81% of women who are stalked by an intimate partner are also physically assaulted by that partner, and 76% of women who are killed by an intimate partner are also stalked by that partner.
- 74.2% of stalking victims report that being stalked interfered with their employment, 26% of stalking victims lose time from work as a result of the crime, and 7% of stalking victims never return to work.
Saturday, March 8, State Senator Pamela Resor (D - Middlesex/Worcestor County) and Isa Woldeguiorguis of Jane Doe Inc. were on the show to talk about legislation they are sponsoring to address these issues: why the legislation is needed, what happened at a hearing that took place on March 4, what happens next, and why they have taken the time to devote themselves to these issues.
Below is a letter from Senator Resor’s Office and Jane Doe Inc. to Massachusetts legislators:
Dear Legislator,
Many of you may recall the passage of Sandy’s Law in 2000 which stiffened the penalties for stalking in Massachusetts. This bill was named in memory of Sandra Berfield, a waitress from Everett, who was continually stalked by a restaurant patron and then killed by a home-made package bomb delivered by her stalker. In Sandy’s case, she sought protection but did not qualify for the Ch. 209A domestic protective order because she had no prior relationship with her stalker.
As we recognize January as Stalking Awareness Month, we are reminded that while the passage of Sandy’s law brought some increase in legal protections to victims of stalking, there are still serious gaps in the law and a need for increased public awareness and action about this issue.
This packet has been put together as a collaborative effort between Senator Pamela Resor, Feel Safe Again and Jane Doe Inc, in order to provide you with facts about stalking, resources to assist you in responding to your constituents and information about three important pieces of pending legislation.
Senator Pam Resor is the chief sponsor of Senate Bill 1002: Harassment Prevention Bill which will greatly increase safety for all victims of crime, particularly stalking. Under current law, to obtain a criminally enforceable protective order (209A), a victim needs to prove that they have a substantive relationship with the abuser. This means that a neighbor being stalked by another neighbor or a rape victim being stalked by the perpetrator is not protected currently. The Harassment Prevention Bill would address this discrepancy in the law. This legislation is currently in the Judiciary Committee awaiting a public hearing.
Senator Cynthia Creem is the chief sponsor of Senate Bill 755: An Act Relative to Housing Discrimination against Victims of Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Stalking. This bill prohibits discrimination and promotes safety for victims. Currently victims of domestic violence, rape, sexual assault and stalking have little legal protection from landlords who attempt to evict them because she/he was a victim of one of these crimes.
Senator Cynthia Creem is also the chief sponsor of Senate Bill 1057: An Act to Establish Employment Leave and Safety Remedies to Victims of Domestic Violence, which would protect employees who are victims of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking from being penalized in the workplace for taking time off to address issues related to being a victim of such crimes and creates important model workplace safety and policy procedures for employers.
Click here to listen to the interview (right-click to download file).
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Gag, gag, gag….
And, he’s got teenage daughters!! aaarrrgggg!!!!
Ick, ick, ick.
Another woman standing by her man as Spitzer has his little public statement. Is anyone else sick of this?
Does anyone else wish that Silda Spitzer had wacked Eliot on the head and then held her own public appearance to announce that she was off to parts unknown to ‘get her groove back’ since her husband had obviously not been meeting her needs lately?
Don’t you think Silda and Hillary ought to go on a tear - whooping it up, having some fun. I mean, I bet you could get some fine-looking booty for USD 5,000 an hour, with abs to boot, who would make them feel wonderful, after the way they’ve been treated.
Damn, I can’t stand this.
Plus, I can’t stand that we’re talking about this instead of NSA wiretapping. Iran. Venezuela. The economy. Stop the insanity.
Hey, I just thought of something. It certainly seems like all the guys are doing it. Well, many. Let’s just legalize it and tax it. Tax the hell out of it. Maybe that will cure the budget deficit. That’s one tax the Republicans might actually get on board with.
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I knew Ben Stein was an actor and comedian. I did not know he was an economist, pro-lifer, and anti-darwinist. Go figure.
So, I must confess to cherry-picking. I agree with what he says about taxes and feel compelled to note it here:
“…the Republican Party (my party and yours) has for the last 30 years or so been operating under a demonstrably false and misleading premise: that tax cuts pay for themselves by generating so much economic growth that they replace the sums lost by tax cutting.
This would be a lovely thing if true, and the best of all ideas, the “something for nothing” idea. In fact, tax cuts lower federal revenue and generate federal deficits. It is also true that they do stimulate the economy and after a long period of years, federal tax receipts go back to where they were before the tax cuts.”
Wow! A grown up says what needs to be said. And then he goes on to say:
“[tax cuts] shift the tax burden from us to our progeny and add immense amounts of interest expense to the federal budget.”
“…immense federal deficits in modern life are financed largely by foreign buyers of our debt. This means that the American taxpayer must work a good chunk of the year to send money to China, Japan, the petro-states and other buyers of United States debt. In effect, we become their peons.”
We have to spend money in the interest, and the value of our currence declines which makes imports (oil) more expensive which causes inflation.
In other words, there is no free lunch.
Stein’s challenge to McCain is whether he will:
“…keep up the (latter-day) Republican game of make-believe. You can propose still more tax cuts, create still more deficits and add to the debt, and say to yourself, like Louis XV, ‘Après moi, le déluge.’
or do what is necessary: tax the rich. Why the rich? Because they have the money. Again, Stein:
“To put it even more starkly, the government — which is us — needs the money to keep old people alive, to pay for their dialysis, to build fighter jets and to pay our troops and pay interest on the debt. We can get it by indenturing our children, selling ourselves into peonage to foreigners, making ourselves a colony again, generating inflation — or we can have some integrity and levy taxes equal to what we spend. “
No surprise that a Republican wants to balance the budget. The surprise is that he doesn’t think spending is going to decline. And, he acknowledges that we have to pay for some social programs. Nary a mention of ’starve the beast.’ Nothing about how the old people should have saved for the dialysis machine. Huh. Now, I don’t know how far he’s willing to go on this social program thing. But, this was a bit of a surprise.
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Well, she pulled it off! Hillary got Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island, proving once again that she does not back down in the fight. Well, good for her. All those comments about whether she should quit. Why should she? This race is making both Obama and Clinton better candidates.
And now, it’s time for the media to get off the ‘man-crush’ and start to go after Obama. Why? Well, I don’t enjoy watching the spectacle, but we must go through it because we need to know the warts and shortcomings of Obama before he is the nominee. I don’t want the Republicans to get any momentum from landing the first blows.
Seems to me that the media wants Obama to win so much that they are going easy on him and in doing so, they are making him more vulnerable. When the shit hits the fan… and it will… it will seem like the Republicans are stronger, when it’s just because we’re not used to it.
So, do your job guys! Go after him! That way we’ll know who is the better candidate, which will serve Democrats well in the fall.
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Posted by Sam on Mar 05 2008 under Politics
I attended the Tufts University Jebsen Center’s Countering Terrorism in Africa Through Human Security Solutions Conference, which took place February 28-29, 2008.
What a trip. Do-gooder development folks cheek by jowl with military planners, private sector consultants to the military, academic Africanists, and the occasional radio talk show person who was soaking it all in.
The focus of the conference was on issues like:
- what does security in Africa have to do with development?
- what does development in Africa have to do with security in the US?
- what effective action can be taken to prevent the spread of Al Quaeda in Africa?
- should the military be engaging in development work? what about schools, water supplies, and hospitals? what about electricity?
- can development agencies truly be neutral? should they have the luxury of neutrality?
- what actually works?
Some themes that came out of the conference:
- Rule of law - countries that do not abide by the ‘rule of law’ will not succeed, so establishing the rule of law is the priority
- military action is rarely what is needed, and represents a failure in the efficacy in other actions
- State department needs more funding, better planning
- we need someone in charge of development efforts on the part of the US government
- the US needs to ramp up on knowledge on Africa, and fast
They’ve started a blog to collect information about the continent here: http://shareafricainformation.com/twiki/bin/view/
The blog is run by a private firm who consults to governments and private firms, and presumably they are collecting this information so they can more effectively serve their clients who have interests in Africa. Investment banking firms, mineral extraction firms, you name it.
So, do we help or not? Do we share our knowledge and expertise, in the hopes that it will lessen the likelihood of more Iraqs? Or do we not facilitate policies that are likely to not be in alignment with our values?
I had some ideas that I passed along at the conference and that I will write more on here, but in the meantime, what do we do with this?
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Boy, did that resonate with me when I read those words in the New York Times op-ed by Morris Davis, an Air Force colonel and the chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, from 2005 to 2007.
“We don’t do stuff like that.”
Morris Davis was writing about Tom Ahern, an American held hostage by Iran twenty-seven years ago. The last time that Ahern faced the principal interrogator for the last time, the interrogator said:
“…the abuse Mr. Ahern had suffered was inconsistent with his own personal values and with the values of Islam and, as if to wipe the slate clean, he offered Mr. Ahern a chance to abuse him just as he had abused the hostages. Mr. Ahern looked the interrogator in the eyes and said, ‘We don’t do stuff like that.’”
YES. That’s MY country. WE are the good guys! We DONT’T do that. Which is what gives us the moral authority and relative safety when WE travel around the world - people know that we’re the good guys.
Until recently. Yuck.
Davis goes to say that now that we’d have to say,
“‘We don’t do stuff like that very often.’ Or, ‘We generally don’t do stuff like that.’ That is a shame. Virtues requiring caveats are not virtues. Saying a man is honest is a compliment. Saying a man is ‘generally’ honest or honest ‘quite often’ means he lies. The mistreatment of detainees, like honesty, is all or nothing: We either do stuff like that or we do not.”
And then he makes the point that,
“It is in our national interest to restore our reputation for the latter.“
What a relief to see that it’s a military guy who is saying these words! Note - it’s not one of the Blackwater mercenaries, which I believe is one of the big differences between the military and the mercenaries - principles vs pay.
So, morally speaking, the use of torture, in-person or out-sourced, was the wrong way to go.
But even practically speaking, the torture they’ve been practicing in Abu Graib or outsourced to Egypt and other locations, has not been worth it. Even if they got some actionable information, they’ve put so many other people at risk by losing the high ground, it’s been a harmful strategy.
Plus the humiliation strategy is just short-sighted. How long will it take for those people and their families to get over it? How long would it take for you?
So here’s a military guy, former chief prosecutor, saying that any evidence obtained using torture should be inadmissable.
It was disappointing to learn that McCain caved in on the bill which curtailed the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation techniques (uh, would that be torture?). McCain says that he thinks waterboarding should be illegal for all, including the CIA. But he wants to leave open the possibility for the CIA to use other approved techniques that are not enumerated in the Field Service Manual. Why does the CIA use techniques that military personnel can’t? It can’t be a training issue? What is it.
And this brings us back to the election. I heard on conservative talk radio that they think Democrats are fired-up about this election because of the woman/black thing. They are missing the point. Sure, democrats are glad about it.
But what’s got us all fired up is that we sense the possiblility that this shameful period in our history, which happened on our watch, will finally be over. The redemption of America will begin with this election.
This is not to say that we stop being vigilant. There are people in the world who want to harm us and yes, of course, we have to defend ourselves, just as we do against our own home-grown criminals.
But the world doesn’t end, and the constitution isn’t suspended, because of crime.
We don’t do stuff like that.
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A while back I stumbled upon a game Chevron had put out to get people to start thinking about how you’d actually power your city if you want to get off of oil… http://www.willyoujoinus.com/
Had George Mokray, solar guy, look at it, and here’s what he said:
First thing I discovered is that you can’t put solar electric on the roofs of the houses. Bogus right there. Also looks like the only solar is PV. Bogus again.
Try these instead:
EfficienCity - flash animation of renewably powered town - http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/efficiencity/index.html
Stop Disaster simulation game - http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007409.html
New version of SimCity - http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1050/
Simulation game of rural life in Haiti (Ayiti) - http://ayiti.newzcrew.org/ayitiunicef/, http://www.myspace.com/thecostoflife
Sustainable House Game - http://www.mysusthouse.org/game.html
Have fun!
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