New Hope to End Genocide

From Huffington Post, by Andrew Slack

Andrew Slack is Executive Director of the the Harry Potter Alliance, which takes a creative approach to activism by mobilizing thousands of kids to spread love and fight for justice in the spirit of the Harry Potter novels. The HP Alliance has been featured in over 200 US publications including Time Magazine, the LA Times, and the front covers of both the Chicago Tribune Business Section and Politico Newspaper.

In the 1977 classic Star Wars: A New Hope, Obi Wan Kenobi shudders just moments after Darth Vader destroys the planet of Alderaan. When Luke asks his mentor what's wrong, Obi Wan replies, "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened."

A real world disturbance happened in the 1994 Rwandan genocide that claimed the lives of over 800,000 innocent people. In the last week we have reached the fifteenth anniversary of this horror when Bill Clinton and his administration did hear those "millions of voices crying out in terror" and allowed them to be silenced.

These calculated decisions by our leaders in Washington coupled by a media obsessed with OJ Simpson led to the perverse reality that a good friend of mine from Rwanda lived through. At the time, her one source of news for what was happening in her country was phone calls from family members saying goodbye and asking why the international community had abandoned them. Some of them were murdered while they were on the phone with her.

While 1994 was the summer after Schindler's List won best movie, the Clinton administration and our allies showed great disregard to the memory of those killed in the Holocaust by failing to protect the millions at dire risk and the more than 800,000 that were killed in Rwanda.

On this fifteenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, will the Obama administration show similar disregard to those killed in Rwanda by failing to protect the millions at imminent risk in Darfur? In short, does the Obama administration plan to commemorate the Rwandan genocide by letting another innocent 1,000,000 Africans die?

When I read the testimony of Rwandan survivorsat this site, such as the story of a young Rwandan woman who was infected with HIV after being gang raped at the age of five, of young men who as children laid next to their parents' corpses pretending to be dead, I am reminded that none of these people are mere statistics. Their tales of horror and their ongoing courage to rebuild their nation is a humbling reminder to prevent these stories of brutality from continuing in Darfur while honoring these brave survivors of genocide in Rwanda.

In order to show Rwandans the world over that the international community of young people will not forget what happened while sharing their hope for their nations future,
the Harry Potter Alliance partnered with a pretty interesting group called the Nerdfighters, and in one week our members made over 300 videos in which they lit a "candle of hope" for Rwanda. Through Candles For Rwanda, these videos will be shown alongside a video of celebrities, world leaders, and leading activists (their video can be seen here) lighting candles of hope as well. Rwandans the world over will see these videos and the best of them will be shown on July 16, during the closing ceremony of the fifteenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide in Rwanda's capital of Kigali.

Through these videos and thousands of book donations meant for a youth village in Rwanda I have seen first hand young people across our world taking the small steps within their power to commemorate the genocide in Rwanda and support the survivors. President Obama can do much more. Putting forward a comprehensive plan to work with our allies to apprehend the killers from the genocide who are hiding in the US, UK, France, and who continue their killing spree in Congo with plans to return to Rwanda to 'finish what they started' is an essential step. But another essential step is that the President authenticate his April 7 statement on the fifteen year anniversary of the Rwandan genocide where he says "the memory of these events also deepens our commitment to act when faced with genocide and to work with partners around the world to prevent future atrocities." As of now, John Prendergast and Jim Wallis have noted that the US policy towards Darfur leaves a great deal to be desired:

What has been missing is America's leadership in forging a coalition that can both negotiate with and pressure Sudan to seek peace in Darfur as well as implement the existing peace agreement for the South. Building this coalition for peace should be Mr. Obama's objective.

In the last month, the genocide in Darfur has shifted to a new phase of horror for the Darfuri people. Over 13 aid groups have been evacuated and over 1,000,0000 lives hang in the balance. Further, as Sudan's President, Omar al-Bashir continues his current attempt at mass murder, he is once more rallying the support of radical terrorists, meaning that Sudan could easily become a hotbed of terrorist recruitment as it housed Osama bin Laden in the nineties. So to those isolationists who can stomach watching innocent children die under the pretense that we need to care about our own country first, acting now on Darfur is not only a moral imperative, it is a strategic one as well.

But as we look to the fifteenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, there is also a historical imperative. To his credit, President Obama has acknowledged activists for their work on Darfur, finally appointed a special envoy to Sudan, and now Senator John Kerry has arrived in Darfur. But with the exception of Kerry, these were all steps that George Bush took for years. An occasional statement here and there about how "Darfur is in a crisis" is not going to get them out of this new stage of genocide with 1,000,000 lives in imminent danger. The people of Darfur need the US to not forget them as they had Rwandans. In the face of this fifteenth anniversary, the US needs to show what we have learned by leading a coalition of allies to do whatever it takes to get the aid workers back into Darfur and find a point of leverage for peace in all of Sudan. As Prendergast and Wallis note, while this is a moment of potential horror, it is also a moment of great opportunity should the President decide to show that he cares enough, not just to talk, but to act.

The Harry Potter Alliance is working to wake up the President to ending the genocide in Darfur the way Dumbledore's Army woke the world up to Voldemort's return in the Harry Potter novels. Thankfully we are part of a growing worldwide movement. You can join this movement by signing up with us, with the Genocide Intervention Network, and the Save Darfur Coalition. Hopefully the actions of these groups will influence action from advocacy organizations like MoveOn.org as well as attention from the blogosphere -- it's time that some of this country's most politically engaged public health activists and intellectuals start prodding our President to take leadership on a public health crisis of over one 1,000,000 innocent people.

Here are some more simple steps that you can take toward showing our president that he has the political capital to take necessary leadership on this matter of great urgency:

1- Call 1-800-GENOCIDE

2- Text 90822 to send a message about Darfur to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton! Create your own message or text "Take immediate action to restore aid to Darfur!" Send a text every day.

Further, each of us today can help Rwandan survivors with their homes and medical expenses by donating at candlesforrwanda.org where you can also upload a video of yourself lighting a candle of hope.

In order to honor these heroic individuals who survived the Rwandan genocide and that part of humanity itself that was lost as we watched yet another genocide and did nothing to counter it, it is time for us to find appropriate ways to commemorate the fifteen year anniversary of the Rwandan genocide by allowing "the millions of voices [that had] suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced" to finally be heard.

I imagine that if we continued to listen to the whispers of those voices that were silenced in 1994, we may be reminded that people's spirit and love cannot be done away with by machete or starvation -- and that we will allow their spirits to guide us in love toward working towards a world where each of us is revered, not forgotten and left to die needlessly.

As Prendergast and Wallis say:

"When the dust clears and the bodies are buried, burned or left to rot in forsaken camps, the world will mourn for what it did not do. What Darfur needs is not a future apology, but steps today that offer hope."

Hope, a New Hope, is what Obama promised our country and our world. He has until July 16 to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide by showing the world that there will no longer be millions of voices suddenly crying out in terror and then suddenly silenced. The "force" of our world must be restored by listening deeply and acting for the millions of voices crying out in Darfuri refugee camps.

While "Change We Can Believe" includes Obama's wish to change humanity's twentieth century style relationship with the environment and nuclear weapons, it must include changing the twentieth century's pattern of inaction toward the mass murder of civilians and toward a reverence of life and love that speaks to all of our most deeply held values.

Time is of the essence Mr. President. Despite all the problems at home and abroad that you and the leaders of both parties are grappling with, now is the time to look to the people of Rwanda and the people of Darfur and say, Yes We Can. Yes We Can Honor the memory and rebuilding of Rwanda. Yes We Can End Genocide in Darfur.

Fighting Sexism, part 2

DN! Video: Decades of Disparity: New Study Underscores Severity of Racial Bias in Drug-Related Law Enforcement

DN! Video: New York Legislature to Vote on Overhauling Draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws

It's the End of the World as We Know It & I Feel Fine- "Ohhhhhhhh bama"

It's the End of the World As We Know It & I Feel Fine- "Greece os the Word"

BBC acts over light-skinned doll

The doll (right) differs from how Upsy Daisy appears in the show (left).

The BBC is to replace a doll based on the Upsy Daisy character from CBeebies TV show In the Night Garden following complaints it is too light-skinned.

Full article here.

Typical white-washing of culture and aiming it at children. Because, they're just kids, yaknow? They're not gonna notice.

Watch A Girl Like Me if you think young girls don't internalize the messages society send them every day. It's only 7 minutes long, but a big damn eye opener if you've never though of it before.

The video can be seen for free here.

"More Queer People Murdered. Lesbian and Gay Organizations Seem to Care Less"

By Beau Vyne of BB! News/ BB! Chicago
Bash Back Blog

New Orleans Police discovered the bodies of three young, Black, Queer people in a 7th ward house Saturday. The three people, one of whom was gender variant, were all shot to death in the house sometime around 3 or 4am Thursday. Mainstream media and the Police are as of now ignoring the fact that the three people were queer and possibly trans. However, Facebook groups devoted to the three and comments on news sites, are raising interesting questions by Queer people of color as to why large Lesbian and Gay organizations are ignoring this. Many people have wondered as to whether there would be an LGBT organizational black out on such violence had the three been wealthy and white Gay businessmen.

The Lesbian and Gay movement is currently so focused on begging the state for a marriage license that they seem to have forgotten everyone who is not well off and white. On Wednesday Morning Jennifer Gale, a homeless TransWoman, froze to death because no shelters would take her in. On Thursday 3 Queer People in New Orleans were shot and killed. And on Friday, Join The Impact held silent candlelight vigils for their “Right” to Marry.

Needless to say that in this latest “struggle” for gay marriage, white people have consistently demonized communities of color for their role in passing Prop 8. To many in the marriage movement, Queer People of Color and Trans people do not even exist. It is typical for White people in the marriage movement to claim that Trans people should wait until Gays and Lesbians get their rights. When violence is perpetuated against Queers of Color, HRC and other marriage oriented organizations are typically silent.

(See Duanna Johnson, The New Jersey Four, The 4 people just killed in New Orleans, Jennifer Gale and virtually every other trans person or queer/trans person or color.)

If we put all of the energy and money that is being wasted on the marriage movement into other projects, think of what we could do. We could easily open queer/trans friendly spaces for the homeless throughout the country. We could successfully demand, or better yet, provide free and quality healthcare to all people. Instead of collecting food and giving it to institutions that are notoriously corrupt, and yes, homophobic; we could collect food and distribute it ourselves. We could actively confront classism, racism, sexism, and transphobia amongst LGBTQ people. All the while militantly raising hell in the streets and disrupting business as usual, as every generation of Queers has since 1968. If we did all of these things and more, we would see more change than Barrack Obama has ever offered us.

What’s more important: a marriage certificate or housing for people who are freezing on the street? A slip of paper or the guarantee that when multiple people in our community are shot at point blank range we stand up and bash the fuck back?! Why are we not focusing on the plague that is HIV/AIDS? Shouldn’t we be making a big fucking deal seeing that in the last week alone 4 queer/trans people that we know of have been murdered?

It is long passed the time that queer and trans people got their shit together. We have been fighting since birth, by now you’d think we would now how to do it in an inclusive and effective manner.

Katrina's Hidden Race War, part 2

Katrina's Hidden Race War, part 1

Noam Chomsky on Anarchism (interview quote)

Sonali Kolhatkar, host and producer of Uprising Radio, interviewing Noam Chomsky.

SK: Professor Chomsky, you have identified with anarchist politics throughout your political career. How have your views on anarchism evolved over the years- do you see it as a viable worldview on a mass scale in terms of achieving social justice to solve the problems of the type we were just discussing [nuclear war and environmental destruction, specifically- ed.]?

NC: Well I’ve, since childhood, when I was haunting anarchist bookstores and anarchist offices in New York since- from then until today. I’ve essentially understood anarchism to be not a specific recipe for how the world should work, although it has principles. But rather, as a kind of tendency in human affairs towards trying to identify structures of hierarchy, oppression, domination- where ever they may be from the family, to international affairs. Identifying them, insisting they justify themselves- they are not self-justifying- and if they can’t make that burden of justification, moving to dismantle them. Hence, move towards a more free world. Exactly where it’ll lead, I don’t know. I’m certainly not smart enough to say and I don’t think anyone is. Political activism, I think, is a little bit like mountain climbing. You work hard, you climb a peak and you discover to your surprise that there’s another peak, back there, that’s even higher that you hadn’t even known about and you start to work on that one. Well, yeah, that’s what things are like. There’s lots of peaks around there that have not entered into our consciousness and I hope we get to them, but there’s a lot of work to get to until we do. As this proceeds, we get closer to a kind of anarchist vision.

Ground Noise and Static, part 3: a video about protests at the DNC & RNC

Ground Noise and Static, part 2: a video about protests at the DNC & RNC

Ground Noise and Static, part 1: a video about protests at the DNC & RNC

Naomi Klein's speech at the National Conference for Media Reform

Who was Jon Burge?

Check out the page for him on Chicago Cop Watch.

Against Backdrop of Sexual Violence, Ads, Too, Exploit Young Teens

From RH Reality.

The latest face of fashion in Jamaica is that of an innocent looking thirteen year old girl. Heavily made up and suggestively sporting a bikini, this pubescent girl was recently featured in local newspapers, touting her as the latest winner in the Pulse Jamaican fashion model contest. While it holds true that the fashion industry has long been centered on the bodies of under-aged girls, what is startling about this latest face of the Jamaican fashion industry is its'obvious youth. This youth, when combined with the not-so-subtle sexualization of the girl, paints a frightening picture of our society. No matter the justification, how does it become okay to feature a child, not even fully physically developed, in a bikini and wearing make-up?

As should be expected, the image of the girl has been met by some degree of public outrage. Interestingly enough, the moderate level of outrage seems to me to be in sharp contrast with the wide-scale public reaction, some months ago, to the proposed introduction of a school textbook that made passing mention of homosexual families. At that time, the collective national sentiment towards the text, which in defining family types made mention of those with same-sex parents, can be summed up as "Not in Jamaica!" The thinking and feeling seems to have been that condoning, even if implicitly, the normalcy of homosexuality would be a very un-Jamaican thing to do. Yet, this same level of nationalism does not surface when we see the body of a young girl being portrayed in such a manner.

The lack of collective outrage is an indictment on our society.

Against a wider backdrop of sexual violence being committed against, and perpetrated by, children and adolescents, the sexualization of an under-aged teenager is extremely problematic and potentially dangerous.

We live in a sexualized world. Companies use sex to sell the most random of products, from jump drives to cars. Rapid advancements in the media have made images and information accessible to almost everyone, easily bringing music and home videos, photos and advertisements directly into our homes, our phones, and our computers. The music we listen to; the movies we watch; the advertisements which inundate us; and the newspapers that we read are typically filled with references to, or explicit mention of sex.

Sex is not a bad thing; but by fostering societies in which it is encouraged to become a driving force, almost an entity of its own, we are engaging in a dangerous game of Russian roulette. We are paving the way for misplaced desire, in which desire becomes the be-all and end-all, and humanity in general, and the protection of our children in particular become secondary issues.

Calls have been made for local authorities to band together to tackle the growing wave of sexual violence that is threatening the lives of our children. While it cannot be stated that images such as that of the 13-year old model automatically trigger sexual violence against children, with burgeoning evidence of such abuse, it just seems like a risk we can no longer afford to take. As the saying goes, if we are not choosing to be a part of the solution, we must therefore be a part of the problem.

Any move, subtle or otherwise, which not only encourages us to look at under-aged girls as sexual objects; but by extension creates misplaced ideas amongst young girls of what it means to be sexy, is dangerous, and ultimately, our children are paying the price.

The Military Industrial Complex- clips from "Why We Fight"

Sunday's C-Span Opportunity: 3rd-Party Candidates Debate

From Common Dreams.

WASHINGTON - Third-party presidential candidates finally will have their own debate: at 8 p.m. Sunday at Columbia University in New York.

The debate, which will be announced Wednesday, will include at least three of the four third-party candidates - independent Ralph Nader, the Green Party's Cynthia McKinney and the Constitution Party's Chuck Baldwin. Libertarian Party nominee Bob Barr said he has a scheduling conflict, but debate organizers say he wanted to appear only with Nader. (Democratic nominee Barack Obama and Republican nominee John McCain are also invited.)

Nader and Barr are on the ballot in 45 states, while the Green Party is on 31 state ballots and the Constitution Party is on the ballot in 37 states. Nader and McKinney also are on the District of Columbia ballot.

Organizers say the debate is an important exercise in democracy, especially because the debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates (the last of which is Wednesday night) exclude candidates scoring below 15 percent in national polls. Nader, the best known of the candidates, has an average of 2.5 percent in recent national polls, according to realclearpolitics.com, while Barr averages 1.5 percent.

Nader maintains that if he could get into the debates run by the Commission on Presidential Debates, his numbers would immediately climb because "two-thirds of the people don't know we're running."

"It's a Catch-22."

Nader describes the debate commission as "a two-party dictatorial company that doesn't want anybody else on the stage." The commission, created in 1987, is a corporation headed by two former chairs of the Democratic and Republican parties.

But third-party critics of the system recently got some traction: the second of the presidential debates prompted a chorus of criticism of the "boring" format and the lack of follow-up questions.

Nader also will give the issue more visibility at a rally to open the debates Wednesday night at New York's historic Cooper Union Great Hall, where presidential candidates back to Abraham Lincoln have spoken.

The format for Sunday's third-party debate is still being finalized. It will be moderated by Pacifica radio host Amy Goodman. The issues promoted by the candidates strike a different chord from the major party standard-bearers - all four are against the $700 billion economic bailout and all oppose the Iraq war.

In addition, each has his or her own agenda: Nader rails against corporate greed while McKinney promotes environmental causes. The Libertarian Party is a critic of monetary policy and likes to invoke a return to the gold standard. Baldwin of the Constitution Party represents a conservative, small government, anti-abortion party that wants to "restore the government to its biblical foundations."

The third-party debate will be streamed at www.thirdpartyticket.com and will be shown on C-Span.

Terrorists and Terrorism.

Everything today is from Green Is The New Red. Thanks, Will.



Follow up articles:

Nuns put on "Domestic Terrorist" list

Homeland Security Says Timothy McVeigh Isn’t a Terrorist, But Peace Activists Are