Global

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Millions of people staged the world's biggest
water fight celebrating a week-long holiday which ended on April 17,
during which traffic accidents killed 442 people and the military
regime warned females wearing wet shirts not to expose themselves in
Thailand's sweltering streets.
   Bangkok "turned into City of Aquatic Mayhem," U.S. Ambassador to
Thailand, Glyn T. Davies, posted on his official Twitter account
@GlynTDavies during the April 11-17 Songkran New Year holiday.
   "Happy Songkran all -- long life, happiness, blessings & fun," the
envoy wrote, celebrating Thailand's traditional new year and several
days of public water splashing during the hottest weather of the year.
   Ambassador Davies also posted a photograph of himself and his wife,
both grinning and wearing sunglasses while gently squirting each other
with plastic sprayers alongside revelers in a busy Bangkok street.
   At least 442 people died in nationwide traffic accidents during
April 11-17 -- annually dubbed the "Seven Days of Death" -- and 3,656

There are two things we all need to know about the upcoming 2016 election:

Millions of likely Democratic voters have already been stripped from the voter rolls in critical states like Ohio.  The key reporting on this has been done by the great Greg Palast (www.gregpalast.com), who has shown a computer program coordinated by the Republican Secretary of State of Kansas is being used in some two dozen states to steal from a substantial percentage of the citizenry their right to vote.  The raw numbers are high enough they could have a significant impact on the presidential, US Senate, House and many other elections this fall.  

“Conflict happens in isolation.”

Wow, that’s it. A sense of awareness ignited as I listened to Kristin Famula, president of the National Peace Academy, make this seldom-acknowledged observation. When we feel wronged, violated, disrespected, suddenly we’re alone with our careening emotions.

Indeed, this is what makes it a “conflict”: the fact that we can’t see beyond the rage, the sense of injury, the wrongness of what has happened. It may last only a moment or two, after which we put the situation in perspective or, at the very least, shrug it off and move on. But perhaps the situation is ongoing, or the wrong was inexcusably offensive — and we can’t let go of it.

No matter how long I debunk and refute and mock and condemn arguments for wars, I continue over and over again to conclude that I'm still giving advocates for war too much credit. How ever little I take seriously as rational ideas the notions that U.S. wars can be defensive or humanitarian or peace-keeping, it's always too much. Wars' supporters, in large part, do not themselves actually hold such beliefs. Rather they have a lust for war that must be examined outside of any question of utilitarian impact.

I'm referring here to the mental processes of both top officials deciding to wage war, and ordinary members of the U.S. public expressing their approval. Of course, the two are not identical. Motives of profit are hushed up, while phony motives such as waging wars in order to "support the troops" are manufactured for public consumption but never ever mentioned in the private emails of war makers. Nonetheless, there is great overlap in the thinking of all members of a culture, including the thinking of cynical politicians in a corrupt regime, and there are points on which virtually all politicians, from best to worst, agree without giving the matter any thought.

This country has made remarkable progress on civil rights over our history. We’ve moved from slavery to segregation to equal rights under the law. African-Americans have gained the right to vote, the right to equal employment opportunity. Open racism has become increasingly unacceptable. Gays and lesbians have progressed toward equal rights. Same-sex marriage is increasingly accepted in law and in practice.

Yet in the past years we’ve been presented with inescapable evidence of continuing systemic discrimination. Ferguson and many other abuses sparked the Black Lives Matter movement that exposed the systemic and too often deadly bias of our criminal justice system.

Liberals and conservatives alike have criticized mass incarceration of nonviolent offenders, disproportionately people of color.

The wealth gap between the races has increased dramatically, as African-Americans and Latinos were disproportionately targeted and victimized by the systemic fraud that led to the financial collapse.

Yesterday, on April 11, 2016, constituents of Minnesota US Congressperson Rick Nolan were informed of a 2015 House Resolution (HR 14) that 41 House Congresspersons signed onto (26 Democrat/15 Republicans). Among the co-sponsors were 3 Minnesotan DFLers Rick Nolan, Collin Peterson and Tim Walz. A nearly identical resolution had been introduced in the US Senate on June 2, 2015. Neither of Minnesota’s Senators, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, signed onto that one.

Nolan’s letter concluded: “The time for secrecy is over.The American people and the families of the victims of 9-11 deserve the truth.”

Here is the essence of the resolution:

House Resolution 14, in the US House of Representatives, January 6, 2015:

Resolved, that

(1) the President should declassify the 28-page section of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 2001; and