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Finding Peace at the Heart of Grief

 

A young, much-beloved woman was gang-raped three years ago on a bus in Delhi and a culture exploded.

The documentary India’s Daughter, which addresses the horrific rape-murder and its aftermath, is part of that explosion of awareness, aimed straight at the heart of India’s cultural dismissal of women as full-fledged members of society and full-fledged human beings. It opens up a world where people can still say: “A decent girl won’t roam around at 9 o’clock. A girl is far more responsible for a rape than a boy.”

Remarkably, it also does more than that. It envisions the sort of peace that looks squarely at the worst of who we are . . . and calls, not for more scapegoating, but for collective responsibility. The stories of the six young men convicted of the crime are also part of Leslee Udwin’s documentary. Their lives, just as the victim’s life, are embraced with compassion and openness.

An Open Letter to the People of West Papua

Wa wa wa wa.

We have recently been discussing your ongoing courageous struggle to liberate yourselves from more than 100 years of occupation, first by the Netherlands, briefly and brutally by Japan during World War II, and now by Indonesia. In that regard, we would each like to share a brief message with you, our friends from West Papua.

From James: I have been very impressed with the information gleaned from my son Robert Burrowes after his recent meeting in Brisbane with your leaders Octovianus Mote, Benny Wenda, Jacob Rumbiak and Rex Rumakiek of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua.

The work and dedication you have been devoting to the cause of freedom for West Papua has inspired me to recall my own experience with some of your ancestors during my 4 years with the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) during World War II, which included 2½ years as a coastwatcher. Ten months of this time was spent in enemy-held territory as a signaller.

Amy Goodman with Harvey Wasserman at Otterbein College, February 23

Amy gesturing with both hands at a podium
In a conversation with former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner, Amy brought Harvey in to talk about an article written with David Swanson and Bob Fitrakis on the need to cut military spending. After this, she talked with Harvey about the possible “strip and flip” theft of the 2016 “selection." Here are some photos of Amy's public talk by Bob Studzinski, one with local activist Pat Marida. Read the transcript of Amy's talk with Harvey here.

Writing a Constitution to Control an Election

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand's coup-installed military regime is
writing a new constitution which appears to extend its dominating
policies by ensuring an unelected prime minister can rule, boosted by
a Senate stacked with pro-junta appointees.

Only then, after popular anti-coup politicians and parties are
rendered weaker, will nationwide Parliamentary elections be allowed in
2017 or 2018 -- or perhaps later.

Not everyone is thrilled.
 

"The draft charter has already been branded by opponents of the
military government as a 'dictator's charter' or the constitution that
'cheats and steals the power of the people'," the Bangkok Post said in
a February 12 editorial.

The finalized constitution may allow a National Strategic Reform and
Reconciliation Committee --nicknamed "a crisis panel" -- to seize all
executive and legislative power from the government and Parliament.

"The committee will get involved only after the country is at a dead
end," Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwon warned last year.

Four Out of Four Pollsters Lack a Clue


Thursday evening at the University of Virginia four expert pollsters performed a dramatic act of self-experimentation in which they demonstrated that, using a map and two hands, they would still be incapable of finding their ass.

The brave participants included Glenn Bolger who promotes and does polling for Republican senators, Congress members, and governors at Public Opinion Strategies; Courtney Kennedy who is director of survey research at Pew Research Center; Mark Mellman who promotes and does polling for Democratic senators, Congress members, and governors; and Doug Usher who works for Purple Insights and supports the two political parties the name suggests.

The event was put on by the Center for Politics which was trying to hand out stickers that said "Politics is a good thing." I didn't see anyone accept one. The event had been titled "How Polls Influence Public Opinion," which was why I went. But the moderator, Kyle Kondik, and the four panelists never mentioned that topic. During Q&A someone in the audience asked about it, and was given the answer: Oh, no, polls don't influence the public.

Feeling the Bern Across America

Bernie Sanders can absolutely win the Democratic Party’s nomination. He’s still way behind Hillary Clinton in a number of Super Tuesday states. But you have to have worked on or followed presidential campaign politics to understand the power of momentum. If you ask any campaign leader which they’d rather have, the lead or momentum, they will usually choose momentum.

Leads can dissolve quickly in the face of momentum. Nationally, Hillary Clinton used to lead Sanders by an average of about 20 percentage points. But in the wake of Sanders’s surprising performance in Iowa and his 22-point margin of victory in New Hampshire, the latest Quinnipiac poll shows he and Hillary are statistically tied across the country.

 

How did this happen? Did people suddenly remember they didn’t like Hillary Clinton? No. Many are suddenly finding out that they actually like Bernie Sanders — a lot.

Hillary Clinton & the Dogs of War

Stop Bombing Non-Hospitals

The United States has launched over 100,000 air strikes during its war on (or is it of) terror. It's blown up houses, apartments, weddings, dinners, town hall meetings, religious gatherings. It's killed senior citizens, children, men, women. It's tapped them, double tapped them, bugsplatted them, targeted them, kill-sported them, and collateral damaged them by the hundreds of thousands. It's killed civilians, journalists, mercenaries, opportunists, those trying to get by through support of the dominant force in their village, and those opposing the foreign occupation of their countries. It's killed kind people, smart people, dumb people, and nasty sadistic people who -- purely because of where they were born and raised -- had no opportunity to become U.S. presidential candidates.

Of course I would like all militaries to refrain from bombing hospitals, but I want to say a word in support of the not-yet-injured. Don't people of sound body have rights too? If there is a problem with bombing hospitals, why is there not a problem with bombing everywhere else? If there's not a problem with bombing everywhere else, why isn't it OK to bomb hospitals too?

Is This An Uprising?

By David Swanson

The new book This Is An Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century by Mark Engler and Paul Engler is a terrific survey of direct action strategies, bringing out many of the strengths and weaknesses of activist efforts to effect major change in the United States and around the world since well before the twenty-first century. It should be taught in every level of our schools.

This book makes the case that disruptive mass movements are responsible for more positive social change than is the ordinary legislative "endgame" that follows. The authors examine the problem of well-meaning activist institutions becoming too well established and shying away from the most effective tools available. Picking apart an ideological dispute between institution-building campaigns of slow progress and unpredictable, immeasurable mass protest, the Englers find value in both and advocate for a hybrid approach exemplified by Otpor, the movement that overthrew Milosevic.

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