Human Rights

Responses to recent police killings of Black men show just how deep the racial divide is in this country. There is an “us” versus “them” mentality at play. The “enemy,” according to some, are the Black Lives Matter protestors who are challenging the continued assault on the lives of Black people by the police. The police are being undermined by criticisms of their behavior and unable to do their job of protecting the public. If we accept what Donald Trump is shouting and tweeting at us, we live in a country overwhelmed by crime and violence, and we need to return to the good old days when America was great and safe. Well, Donald Trump and I share a common birth year and skin color but very little else – even the America that we both grew up in.

As I watched “unity” take hold of the Democratic Party this week, the believer in me wanted to be imbibe it — bottoms up.

Michelle Obama ignited the crowd. “That is the story of this country,” she said. “The story that has brought me to the stage tonight. The story of generations of people who felt the lash of bondage, the shame of servitude, the sting of segregation, who kept on striving, and hoping, and doing what needed to be done.”

And the Big Party opened its arms.

“So that today, I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves.”

Slaves?

The man who murdered police officers in Dallas, Texas, this week had earlier been employed in a massive operation, now in its 15th year, that has killed many thousands of people in Afghanistan. He was trained to kill by the U.S. military using U.S. tax dollars. He was conditioned to believe violence an appropriate response to violence by the examples everywhere to be found in U.S. public policy, history, entertainment, and language.

Murdering police officers because some other police officers committed murder is unfair, unjust, immoral, and certainly counterproductive on its own terms. The Dallas killer managed to get himself killed by means of a bomb delivered by a robot. The police could have waited him out but chose not to, and no one indoctrinated to accept violent revenge will blame them. But that technology will spread among police and non-police killers. The airwaves are reverberating with cries for a race war. Greater militarization of the police, not greater restraint, will follow this incident. More lives will be lost. More screams of agony will be heard over loved ones lost.

The man who murdered police officers in Dallas, Texas, this week had earlier been employed in a massive operation, now in its 15th year, that has killed many thousands of people in Afghanistan. He was trained to kill by the U.S. military using U.S. tax dollars. He was conditioned to believe violence an appropriate response to violence by the examples everywhere to be found in U.S. public policy, history, entertainment, and language.

Murdering police officers because some other police officers committed murder is unfair, unjust, immoral, and certainly counterproductive on its own terms. The Dallas killer managed to get himself killed by means of a bomb delivered by a robot. The police could have waited him out but chose not to, and no one indoctrinated to accept violent revenge will blame them. But that technology will spread among police and non-police killers. The airwaves are reverberating with cries for a race war. Greater militarization of the police, not greater restraint, will follow this incident. More lives will be lost. More screams of agony will be heard over loved ones lost.

The Chilcot report's "findings" have virtually all been part of the public record for a decade, and it avoids key pieces of evidence. Its recommendations are essentially to continue using war as a threat and a tool of foreign policy, but to please try not to lie so much, make sure to win over a bit more of the public, and don't promise any positive outcomes given the likelihood of catastrophe.

The report is a confused jumble, given that it records evidence of the supreme crime but tries to excuse it. The closer you get to the beginning of the executive summary, the more the report reads as if written by the very criminals it's reporting on. Yet the report makes clear, as we always knew, that even in 2001-2003 there were honest people working in the British, as also in the U.S., government -- some of whom became whistleblowers, others of whom accurately identified the planned war as a crime that would endanger rather than protect, but stayed in their jobs when the war was launched.

“Please be gentle.”

The story is too easy to believe. At the Memphis airport, a confused, nervous teenager sets off the metal detector — possibly because she has sequins on her shirt — and is told she needs to come to a “sterile area.” Armed guards show up to escort her. She’s terrified.

This happened a year ago. The girl, then 18, is Hannah Cohen. She was flying — at least that was the idea — back to Chattanooga with her mother, Shirley Cohen, who had just passed through the checkpoint and was waiting for Hannah when, according to a lawsuit the family recently filed, a TSA horror story began.

There is a long history of social critics and progressive thinkers offering critiques of human society.

Among those who are better known, Karl Marx offered a critique of capitalism, anarchists have critiqued the state, Mohandas K. Gandhi offered a critique of industrial society, Sigmund Freud and Herbert Marcuse offered critiques of civilization, and feminists have critiqued patriarchy. In addition, critiques of colonial/industrial society by indigenous people, critiques of white society by people of color, critiques of modern industrial society by environmentalists and cultural historians as well as critiques of technocratic society by a succession of scholars have been presented.

While these and other critiques have much to offer, if we want to trace the origin of the dysfunctional and violent human behaviours that now threaten human extinction, I believe it is necessary to examine what has been happening since the Neolithic (agricultural) revolution some 12,000 years ago.

Come on, they aren’t tanks, they’re armored rescue vehicles. And the, uh, grenade launchers would only be used to launch teargas canisters. When necessary. And the M-16s? Standard police issue.

What a journey these Los Angeles teenagers, and the civil rights group Fight for the Soul of the Cities, had, to get from there — the ho-hum justification by (good Lord) the city’s school district police force, for the accumulation of surplus Defense Department weaponry — to here:

“Our recent meeting and dialogue has led me to review my actions as Board President during this difficult period. Upon reflection, I failed to understand the amount of pain and frustration our participation in the 1033 program could cause in the community and especially with our partners from the Dignity in Schools Campaign and the Fight for the Soul of the Cities. . . .”

Islamophobia has become a significant factor driving politics in many western countries.

Islamophobia – fear of Muslims – is now highly visible among European populations concerned about terrorist responses from Islamic groups claiming Jihadi links. However, it is also evident among those same populations in relation to the refugee flow from the Middle East. In addition, Islamophobia is highly evident among sectors of the US population during the presidential race. It is a significant issue in Australia. Outside the West, even the (Muslim) Rohingya in Burma are feared by Buddhist monks and others.

Given that this widespread western fear of Muslims was not the case prior to the US-instigated 'War on Terror', do Muslims around the world now pose a greater threat to western interests than previously? Or is something else going on here?

In short, why are so many westerners (and others) now frightened of Muslims? Let me start at the beginning.

I have been hoisted on my own petard. For decades now, I have assiduously ignored ninety-nine percent of all the rap music–an oxymoron if ever there was one–out there. And then came the publication of Notorious RBG. I immediately knew it was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the late rapper, Notorious B.I.G., but what I didn’t know was if he and Biggie Smalls were the same person. For those readers uninitiated in rap music, they were.