Gay couple granted adoption of foster son after 14 years in Israel

By Vered Luvitch, March 10, 2009, YNet

The Ramat Gan Family Court set a precedent Tuesday after allowing a gay couple to finally adopt their foster son after 14 years.


Prof. Uzi Even and Dr. Amit Kama have been serving as foster parents to Yossi Even-Kama, 30, since 1995.


"The court finds that all of the stipulations noted in the adoption laws and pertaining to the foster child in question have been duly met," Justice Alisa Miller noted in her ruling. "I hereby grant the adoption decree and state that Yossi Even-Kama is now Uzi Even and Amit Kama's son."


Yossi first arrived at the Even-Kama home in 1995, after being disowned by his family for being a homosexual. Even and Kama soon petitioned the Israeli Social Services to become his foster parents, and when their request was granted they also became Israel's first-ever gay couple to be recognized as a foster family.

In 2004, Even and Kama were married in Toronto, Canada.

The decision to make the adoption official came after we applied for reduced tuition for Yossi with the (Tel Aviv) University, where Uzi serves as a professor," Kama told Ynet. "The request was denied since he was not officially recognized as our son, so we decided to begin adoption proceedings two years ago."

An official family now

The court ordered Social Services to review the case – as it does in any adoption case – "but Social Services thought the proceeding may be illegal and eventually we had to petition for Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to rule on the matter," added Kama.

"The Attorney General's Office found that there was no problem with the proceeding and the review was put together. The judge found that in our case, since we have had a parent-child relationship for so long, we were already a de facto family, but we only became an official family now," he said.

Emotions ran high in the courtroom after Judge Miller read her ruling. "I'm very excited. We started off thinking we had no chance of getting here and now, two year later, we got it (the decree of adoption)," said the newly-adopted son.

Yossi's biological father had to sign away his parental rights in order to allow for the adoption to come through, which he did. "I'm grateful to him for that," he said.

"This may be only a formal authorization, but formalities do count for something and I'm very happy," he added.

Knesset Member Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz) welcomed the court's decision, saying that "the right to adopt is a fundamental right. This is an immensely important step towards state-recognition of gay families."

Horowitz offered the Even-Kama family his heartfelt congratulations and wished them "a very happy life together."

Free Leonard Peltier

From: freepeltiernow@mail-list.com

* Call to Action *

As you know, the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians passed a
resolution late last year requesting Peltier's transfer into their
custody to serve the remainder of his sentence. Family members
are supportive of such a transfer. Alternatively, family members
want Peltier transferred closer to home, either to FCI Sandstone
(MN) or FCI Oxford (WI). Peltier's security rating has been greatly
reduced by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in recognition of his model
behavior for the past 30 years.

Keep up the pressure on the BOP to transfer Leonard to one of the
three above locations. Send a letter by e-mail or fax by * Friday,
March 20 *.

For details and guidance, see:
< http://www.FreePeltierNow.org/transfer.htm>.

Don't be dissuaded by the BOP's canned response to your letter on
Leonard's behalf. Write back. Reiterate that Mr. Peltier followed
BOP procedures in submitting his request for a transfer. Make note
of the fact that Mr. Peltier has never been in an institution
within 500 miles of his home and tell them this is unacceptable and
doesn't comply with the BOP's guidelines. An appropriate transfer
would take his home reservation into account, as well as his current
security rating. All the way around, Peltier should be transferred
to Turtle Mountain, Sandstone, or Oxford.

Next, write to or call the director of the BOP:

Harley G. Lappin, Director
Bureau of Prisons
320 First St., NW, Room 654
Washington, DC 20534
(202) 307-3250 (office)
(202) 514-6878 (fax)
hlappin@bop.gov

Then, forward all your communications with BOP staff to Attorney
General Eric Holder. Raise all of the same issues with the Attorney
General:

U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
AskDOJ@usdoj.gov (If you use e-mail,
be certain to address your message to the Attorney General)

Last, follow up with a phone call to the Office of the Attorney
General:

(202) 353-1555.

Raise all the same points but also talk about things like
government accountability and ask why the BOP's guidelines don't
appear to apply (and never have applied) to Leonard Peltier. Why in
over 33 years has Leonard Peltier not been held within 500 miles
of home? Why does BOP falsely claim that Peltier hasn't followed
procedure as regards his request for a transfer? Why does BOP
continue to hold Peltier in a maximum security facility when his
current security rating qualifies him for a transfer to a lower
security facility?

We know we're asking a lot. Your active support is greatly
appreciated.

Thank you for all you do on behalf of Mr. Peltier.

Webb Bill

Here's an article from the Huffington Post that Noah sent me about the initiatives Webb is starting up!

Jim Webb stepped firmly on a political third rail last week when he introduced a bill to examine sweeping reforms to the criminal justice system. Yet he emerged unscathed, a sign to a political world frightened by crime and drug issues that the bar might not be electrified any more.

"After two [Joint Economic Committee] hearings and my symposium at George Mason Law Center, people from across the political and philosophical spectrum began to contact my staff," says Webb in a statement to the Huffington Post. "I heard from Justice Kennedy of the Supreme Court, from prosecutors, judges, defense lawyers, former offenders, people in prison, and police on the street. All of them have told me that our system needs to be fixed, and that we need a holistic plan of how to solve it."

Webb's reform is backed by a coalition of liberals, conservatives and libertarians that couldn't have existed even a few years ago.

Webb's bill calls for the creation of a bipartisan commission to study the issue for 18 months and come back with concrete legislative recommendations.

[...]

Webb couches the effort in fairly straightforward terms. "Let's start with a premise that I don't think a lot of Americans are aware of. We have five percent of the world's population; we have 25 percent of the world's known prison population," Webb said on the Senate floor when introducing the bill.

"There are only two possibilities here: either we have the most evil people on earth living in the United States; or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice."

For the full article click here

This brings up a lot of questions for me, mostly about reform v abolition. What I do find incredibly encouraging is how many people (and politicians!) from all different backgrounds and places in the political spectrum are acknowledging the extent of the flaws in the prison industrial complex. Thoughts?

Paradigm Shifts: Are they possible?

From Bobby Byrd's "The Border as a Looking Glass"

"'The drug war,' he announced, 'began the minute the Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock. Same thing with Columbus. The English and the Spaniards believed that God sits on a throne somewhere in the sky. In their worldview, God is an abstract and rational being. He goerns from on high. Like a king. Not so with Indians. They believed that the people came up out fo the earth and the gods came along with them, showing them the way. They believed that the rocks and the river and the sky are holy. They believe this because they are pagans and pagans take drugs. Christians read about God. Christians are told about God and talk about God. Christians don't take drugs... The War on Drugs is really about two different world views. It's a war between those world views. That's why the government will never legalize drugs. It's impossible."
(135)

So Eudellian. And so right on. But I believe we can bring about a paradigm shift and abolish these hierarchical systems of knowledge that hold the power...

Israeli Resistance to the Occupation

"Ready to be Traitors": The Israeli Resistance
By Hannah Safran, from CounterPunch, March 26, 2009.

On January 8, 2009, 13 days into the war on Gaza, 45 people, Jews and Arabs, came together in Haifa to discuss how to proceed with our anti-war activities. Each one of those present in the room had already participated in more than one action against this war in Gaza.

In Haifa itself, the third largest city in Israel, there have been at least two demonstrations each day – one at lunchtime at the university and the other later in the evening in downtown Haifa, where many Palestinian citizens of Israel live. At both demonstrations both Palestinians and Jews have been present.

Five days earlier, on the first Saturday after the start of the war, most of us went either to Sachnin, a Palestinian town in northern Israel, to join some 25,000 people for a demonstration, or to Tel Aviv – the largest city – were there were another 10,000 people. All of the protesters were citizens of Israel, but the Israeli-Jewish press hardly mentioned the Sachnin demonstration, because it was mainly Palestinians who demonstrated. The press also hardly mentioned the Tel Aviv demonstration, because it routinely ignores the Jewish left.

We all felt these protests were not enough. We wanted to bring the message home to Israelis who refuse to see that their government has engaged the country in yet another unnecessary and cruel war.
Most of those in the Haifa meeting knew each other from years of protest against Israeli occupation of the occupied territories and especially from the anti-war protests during the second Lebanon war, when Haifa itself was bombarded. However, there were also new faces – young men and women who added to the sense that we are increasing in number and there is still hope.

We belong to a growing public that does not buy into the Israeli propaganda of ‘there is nobody to talk with’ – the idea that we, Israelis, are eager to make peace but they, the Palestinians, are not interested. We have come of age during the past eight years of activism against all odds.

Many of us are long-time, dedicated peace activists. We come from organizations such as Women in Black (a 21-year-old vigil against the occupation), the Hadash party (a coalition of left-wing groups and the Communist Party), Ta’ayush (an Arab-Jewish activist group), the Haifa University Forum Smol (left wing lecturers and students), Isha L’Isha feminist centre and many other groups, all of them working in their own way for politics of social justice and peace.

We are Jewish and Palestinian Haifa residents, all citizens of Israel. But nobody in mainstream Israeli politics or even academia is ready to recognize that these alliances are the nucleus of the new left in Israel today. Even the (only) liberal daily newspaper Ha’aretz, which has claimed since the year 2000 that there is no left in Israel, refuses to recognise that something else has developed on the ruins of the old Zionist left.

Haifa is not unique in its grass-roots peace activism and its ability to bring people together beyond political differences. Many groups have been active for years and their numbers have increased a hundredfold since the beginning of the second intifada in 2000. Breaking the Silence (a group of ex-servicemen who are exposing what is happening in the occupied territories), the Anarchists Against the Wall (a group of dedicated brave, mainly young people, who are at the forefront of demonstrations against the wall), the Women’s Coalition for Peace (a coalition of nine women’s organizations), New Profile (which advocates de-militarisation of Israeli society) – these are only a few of the many different groups active around the country.

In addition, there are the human rights organisations that are doing an extremely important job despite the belligerent Israeli establishment. Organisations such as Physicians for Human Rights and B’Tselem have dedicated staff and volunteers who are part of the movement for peace. I should also mention the many groups of Palestinians in Israel, such as Mossawa (‘Equality’), Adalla (‘Justice’) and Women Against Violence, who campaign against war and racism and for the cultural and civil freedoms of their oppressed community. These organisations are mobilising growing numbers of young women and men who are dedicated to the struggle for civil rights, human and women’s rights for the Palestinians of Israel.

One remarkable phenomenon was the declaration against the war, circulated within five days of it beginning, by 24 women’s organizations. The declaration called for an end to the bombing and demanded that war should stop being an option. The organisations signing this statement went beyond women’s peace organisations such as the Women’s Coalition for Peace. This time, for the first time, it included a mixture of organizations promoting social, legal and financial rights for women.

The Haifa-based feminist organization Isha L’Isha went even further and issued a statement calling ‘upon the government of Israel to bring about the end of the cruel siege on Gaza, to stop immediately its attacks, to free the residents of the south from their role as hostages in the hands of politics without future, and to fulfil the role for which it was elected – to bring about prosperity and economic security, peace and security, today and for generations to come, for all women and men in Israeli society, while creating true alliances with all the residents of the area’.

We should recognise this change, and hope for joint action by these organizations and other civil society groups such as the environmental movement. The process that dismantled the old party system in Israel brought many people to take part in local community groups, dissatisfied with their social and political oppression. These groups have not yet been able to formulate a common platform for change, and they are facing the resistance of the hegemonic Ashkenazi (Jews of European descent) establishment, which refuses to recognize their existence and importance. But in spite of their orchestrated attempt to make the entire left-peace-resistance movement invisible, these social forces, together with the new left, might one day group together to effect change.

The refusal to recognize our existence has served the propaganda machine of Israel well, especially in times of war. The Israeli media work in unison with the government to present a unified voice of the Jewish population, supporting military action small and large. This seemingly unified voice is presented in opposition to the Palestinians in Israel who are naturally opposing the war and the occupation.

Any demonstration, articles or public statements against the war are discarded as representing Arabs and not Jews. The ‘only democracy in the Middle East’, as Israel portrays itself, does not allow dissent. If you are against its military offensive you are immediately branded a traitor. From this, the idea follows that all Palestinian citizens of Israel who oppose the war should be stripped of their citizenship. Such racism is what all of us, Jews and Arabs, have to suffer when we decide to publicly oppose the war.

There are a growing number of people ready to be considered ‘traitors’. When Israel conquered the rest of Mandate Palestine in 1967 (most of it had already been taken in 1948 to create the state of Israel) there were only a handful of Jewish people who publicly opposed that occupation.

The first group to do so was called Matzpen (‘Compass’), a group of perhaps fewer than 100 people altogether. They launched a brave struggle against the Israeli policies of expansion and oppression. Forty years later, their insight and courage is now manifested in about 60 peace groups of different kinds and a thousand people marching in the streets of Tel Aviv on the first evening of the war.

It is not even just the left who oppose Israel’s policies. Even the Council for Peace and Security, a group of ex-generals and high ranking officers, had called on the government – just a month before the war on Gaza – to accept the Saudi peace plan and to go ahead with a two-state solution.

And the amount of protest is growing daily. Around the world, Jews are speaking up against the myth of ‘one people, one voice’. They are fed up of supporting Israel, with its obvious refusal to follow a peaceful solution to the conflict. As I write, eight Canadian-Jewish women are invading the Israeli consulate in Toronto, chanting anti-Israel slogans. A group of Israelis who live in Holland issued a statement against the Israeli attack on Gaza. A week ago a branch of Women in Black in Melbourne, headed by an Australian Israeli woman, organized a demonstration in front of Government House and managed to get on the main news channel. The Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, based in the US, organised a petition against the bombing of the Islamic University in Gaza.

We, the resistance movement in Israel, will continue our struggle against the war in Gaza and the racism that prevails within Israeli society. We will continue to grow, we will connect to other social and environmental protest groups, and we will hopefully help change our society for the better.

Dr Hannah Safran is a feminist peace activist and a co-founder of Women in Black, Haifa.

More Deaths of Children Linked to Child-Welfare System

The NYTimes reports that

A new report shows that more children in families said to be known to the New York City child-welfare system died in 2008 than in any of the previous 20 years. There were 49 fatalities, according to Child Welfare Watch, a policy journal, including 14 homicides; the other children died in accidents or of natural causes, and, in some cases, the cause was not determined.

From the Sentencing Project

Dear Friend:

Yesterday, U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-VA), took a bold step toward a more fair and effective criminal justice system. He introduced a bi-partisan bill with Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) that would create a blue-ribbon commission to conduct an 18-month review of the nation's criminal justice system and offer concrete recommendations for reform.

"America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace," said Senator Webb. "With five percent of the world's population, our country houses twenty-five percent of the world's prison population. Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980. And four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals."

We agree with Senator Webb's assessment of the criminal justice system. Since his election in 2006, The Sentencing Project has been working with Senator Webb to provide information and analysis on sentencing and drug policy, along with recommendations for reform.

We commend Senator Webb for his leadership on this issue, and look forward to working with his office, and other leaders in the House and Senate to advance sentencing reform, examine racial disparity and improve the juvenile justice system.

You can help The Sentencing Project continue to advocate for a more fair and effective criminal justice system by making a contribution to our work today.

Every day, support from individuals like you is making a difference in The Sentencing Project's work to change the way Americans think about crime and punishment.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Marc Mauer
Executive Director

Increasing Dependence on Immigrant Detention Fees

The LATimes reported last week that:

Washington paid nearly $55.2 million to house detainees at 13 local jails in California in fiscal year 2008, up from $52.6 million the previous year. The U.S. is on track to spend $57 million this year.

The largest federal contract in the state is with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, whose 1,400-bed detention center in Lancaster is dedicated to housing immigrants either awaiting deportation or fighting their cases in court. The department received $34.7 million in 2008, up from $32.3 million the previous year.

Some smaller cities have seen their income rise much faster. Glendale received nearly $260,000 in 2008, triple what it got the previous year. In Alhambra, last year's $247,000 was more than double the previous year's payments.

For some cash-strapped cities, the federal money has become a critical source of revenue, covering budget shortfalls and saving positions.

Santa Ana's Police Department, for example, expects as much as a 15% budget cut and has had a hiring freeze since October that has resulted in more than 60 sworn and civilian positions remaining vacant, Police Chief Paul Walters said. To offset reductions, Walters plans to convert two multipurpose rooms at the 480-bed jail into dormitory rooms this spring. That will accommodate an additional 32 immigrant detainees, which he expects will bring in $1 million more in revenue each year. He also hopes to get approval to raise the nightly price per detainee from $82 to $87.

"We treat [the jail] as a business," Walters said. "The cuts could have been much deeper if it weren't for the ability to raise money there."

The implications of this are overwhelming - creating a business out of people's bodies and their lives. Just thinking about the incentives a community would have to detain more and more individuals in order to benefit economically is mind boggling.

A Call for Sensible Drug Policy from SSDP

What's the most dangerous consequence of using marijuana?

Under our current laws, it can be a bullet in the chest.

Earlier this month, Derek Copp, a Michigan college student, heard a noise at the back door of his apartment. As he went to investigate, his eyes were blinded by a flashlight and a gunshot rang out. The next think he knew, he was in a hospital fighting for his life.

The intruders were police. They had a warrant for drugs, but all they found was "a few tablespoons" of marijuana. Derek had no weapons.

Thankfully, the bullet that tore through Derek's lungs and liver didn't take his life. And every day since that incident, local Students for Sensible Drug Policy members have been standing up for Derek and opposing the polices that made this shooting possible.

It's during moments like these that I'm as inspired as I am outraged. I'm outraged for the same reason that you probably are: peaceful people like Derek are constantly being put in the line of fire as our government blindly pursues a mythical "drug free" society. But to see why I'm also inspired, you'll need to check out this two minute video of SSDP members taking a stand for Derek: http://www.ssdp.org/derek

In a world without SSDP, this could have simply been a sad news story about police making a terrible mistake. But because a strong network of student drug policy advocates had already been established in Michigan, the media couldn't ignore the fact that Derek is one of many casualties in the destructive War on Drugs.

Please join us in continuing to spread this message by making a contribution today. The first $500 we raise will go straight to Derek for his medical and legal expenses. Anything beyond that will help SSDP expand our outreach staff so we can continue to build the movement to end the War on Drugs. http://www.ssdp.org/derek

Looking forward to the day when good people no longer need to fear the police,

Micah Daigle
Associate Director
Students for Sensible Drug Policy

The Weight of War

From Racewire

The Americans putting their lives on the line in combat are dying by their own hands at an alarming rate.

The Army recently reported 133 confirmed suicides last year; 18 soldiers killed themselves in February alone. The public knows little else about who they were and where they came from.

Though military officials have acknowledged unmet mental health needs in the armed forces, the suicide rate exposes persistent barriers to treatment. The consequences could be especially acute for soldiers of color, a major but often overlooked subgroup.

A study by the RAND Corporation last year estimated that 31 percent of returning troops from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars suffered from a mental health condition, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and depression, or traumatic brain injury. Researchers also found that “women, and Hispanics are more likely than their counterparts to meet screening criteria for PTSD and major depression”--both risk factors in military suicide.

Research on veterans from the Vietnam Era (when the military was less racially diverse) have linked ethnicity to PTSD prevalence: Blacks, Latinos and American Indians suffered from especially high risk, and experiences of racial discrimination could amplify the trauma of combat.

An untold number of troops suffer in silence. Only about half of those surveyed by RAND sought professional mental health care in the past year. Many troops fear stigma and career repercussions, on top of a paucity of quality treatment services.

For people of color, the scope of the problem remains largely undefined. As with the mental health system generally, a lack of culturally competent services could deter many veterans of color from seeking help through military health facilities.

And little is known about how race may influence the effectiveness of mainstream therapies. In a 2007 report on PTSD treatment, the Institutes of Medicine of the National Academies noted that medical research has been “mostly silent on the acceptability, efficacy, or generalizability of treatment in ethnic and cultural minorities... The committee expects that the psychotherapies in particular might pose special challenges in different cultural groups but was unable to comment because none of the studies addressed it.”

Outside the combat theater, military suicide folds into a host of other stressors, including family and economic problems in soldiers' communities. Today, the country, and its troops, face the perfect storm of social and military trauma. If the Pentagon is serious about focusing on the psychological fallout of war, it will need to look deeper into the military communities historically rendered invisible.

Dean Spade Tells it Like it Is

Thank you, Lex, for sending this to me!

War Crimes in Sri Lanka

Finally reported.

Both government forces and Tamil rebels may be committing war crimes against civilians trapped in a conflict zone and should suspend their fighting to allow them to escape, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said Friday.

In what it says is a final assault in a 25-year separatist war, the military has cornered the remnants of the insurgency on a sliver of land that is packed with civilians — as many as 180,000, according to Ms. Pillay.

Along the same lines as the common riddle "if a tree falls in a forest but no one is there to hear it, does it still make a noise?" my question is: If atrocities are occuring but they're not reported by "reputable news sources" or American news sources, what does that mean? How do we deal with an inefficient media? I am overwhelmed by the implications, especially if the media reports to the people, who supposedly hold the government responsible.. but then the government also has this relationship with/control over the media so is it just the government deciding when we get what information?! Thoughts?

Why is Israel the Obama Administration's Litmus Test?

The NYT reports that Charles Freeman Jr. was not appointed to a top intelligence post specifically because of his critical stance on Israel:

"Mr. Freeman had long been critical of Israel, with a bluntness that American officials rarely voice in public about a staunch American ally. In 2006, he warned that, “left to its own devices, the Israeli establishment will make decisions that harm Israelis, threaten all associated with them and enrage those who are not.”

I find the trend of Israel determining major decisions fascinating and disheartening - first the 2nd Conference on Racism, now this. Would Freeman's views on Israel really affect his ability to do his job? What does this mean in terms of the larger atmosphere of the administration and the country? It seems to me that the U.S. government feels that it can not criticize Israel at all, when I believe that criticism and guidance is exactly what Israel needs... Thoughts?

Kid Cudi Tasered for Sneaker Choice

Again, you can't make this shit up.

At a music event last month, the commercial rapper Kid Cudi was stunned with a Taser by police officers, following a scuffle with employees of the clothing-company Reeboks. The news accounts detail an altercation between the rapper and the employees, but more troubling are the explanations offered by sources as to the cause of the scuffle. Kid Cudi, who was booked at the event by the apparel company, reportedly “physically and verbally confronted a pair of Reebok employees,” after they refused to let him wear a pair of Nike shoes on stage during his performance. He wanted to wear Michael Jordan sneakers (Nike) on stage, but the Reebok representatives apparently preferred to have him humiliated and stunned with a Taser than give potential promotion to a fellow enterprise.
For the full article see Racelines

Racelines writes:
The Kid Cudi incident reveals a troubling secret. It confirms the theories of those who perceive hip-hop as the new wrestling ring for corporate America. It shows that both Reebok and Nike, known for their indulgence in slave labor, are so blinded in the raging turf war over hip-hop that they fail to recognize commonality on the grounds of worker exploitation. Kid Cudi later dismissed claims that his altercation was the result of the alleged conflict of interest, but keen observers know better than to lend credence to a rapper with corporate ties.

This brings up a whole host of questions for me and I'm not sure pointing fingers at hip hop is the road I'd like to go down. It just doesn't seem useful and becomes a scary trend... Instead, as Racelines brings up, how can we look at this incident as a part of a capitalist and racist system - how is this incident NOT surprising and how can we combat that system or the conditions that make this event possible?

Illegal Mines in the West Bank

The BBC reported yesterday that a human rights group in Israel,
Yesh Din (translatable as "There is a judge" or "there is justice" is calling for Israel
to stop mining in the occupied territories.
From the BBC:

Yesh Din cites military documents which show nine million of the 12 million tonnes of rock and gravel mined in the West Bank each year are sold in Israel - and says Israel is "addicted to the exploitation".

It says its High Court petition addresses "the illegal practice of brutal economic exploitation of a conquered territory to serve the exclusive economic needs of the occupying power".

"According to international law, this kind of activity is a violation of occupation laws as well as of human rights laws and, in certain cases, might be defined as pillage," says the petition.

Obama Not Attending Second World Conference on Racism

How did I miss this?

The United States will not attend the second World Conference Against Racism in Geneva unless the conference’s main document improves, according to a State Department official, though the Obama administration sent a delegation to preparatory talks in Geneva. The long, unwieldy document seeks to ban criticism of religion, calls for slave reparations and attacks Israel as racist. Israel and some American Jewish groups urged a boycott of the April conference, and several close American allies, including Canada, said they would not go. The United States walked out of the first Conference Against Racism, in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, as a protest against an effort to compare Zionism to racism. (From NYT)

Robert Lovato (from Of América) says it better than I can:

And with its very dangerous boycott of Durban II in response to pressure from the very powerful Israel Lobby , the Obama Admnistration may be giving the green light to governments and other groups practicing their own brand of racial discrimination, promoting hatred and other forms of discrimination. While much of the media is discussing the U.S. boycott, most of these reports neglect to the mention the near universal condemnation of the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians, which United Nations General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto likened to apartheid last November:

“More than twenty years ago we in the United Nations took the lead from civil society when we agreed that sanctions were required to provide a non-violent means of pressuring South Africa. Today, perhaps we in the United Nations should consider following the lead of a new generation of civil society, who are calling for a similar non-violent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel.”

Rather than join the rest of the world in Durban and in condemning the killing and discrimination on the part of the Israeli and other governments-including our own-, Obama’s boycott reflects his choice to pursue the more dangerous path to dealing with race, racism and discrimination: symbolism at the expense of real changes to very devastating policies. Such are the perils of our increasingly post-racial presidency in a racially-troubled world.

Political choices like the Durban decision or the blind eye turned to the indiscriminate killing of and discrimination against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank make one wonder if the Obama Administration has also chosen to become the black face of empire.

NYT: Appeal of the Dollar Adds to the Pain of Ailing Nations

Shocking, I know.

NYT reports:

American investors are ditching foreign ventures and bringing their dollars home, entrusting them to the supposed bedrock safety of United States government bonds. And China continues to buy staggering quantities of American debt.

These actions are lifting the value of the dollar and providing the Obama administration with a crucial infusion of financing as it directs trillions of dollars toward rescuing banks and stimulating the economy, enabling the government to pay for these efforts without lifting interest rates.

And yet in a global economy beset by a crippling lack of confidence and capital, with lending and investment mechanisms dysfunctional from Milan to Manila, the tilt of money toward the United States appears to be exacerbating the crisis elsewhere.

Eastern Europe is being hit particularly hard, but the repercussions are being felt around the world. Also, as countries watch their currencies decline they are hit with the double whammy of a major recession in which the demand for their goods is falling fast. I'm no economist but this sounds TERRIBLE to me. Any insights?

Florida Gunman Opens Fire on Chilean Exchange Students

Dannie Baker, age 60, walked up to a townhouse meeting room full of Chilean college students and opened fire on them. Apparently he had warned neighbors earlier not to have any immigrants in their homes, and asking one of them if they wanted to join him in his "revolution."

For more information (and even some video footage) click here. '

Baker has a history of mental illness. The author of the Crooks and Liars article, David Nelwert, linked on this page connects this event to a number of violent attacks in line with right-wing ideologies made by mentally ill individuals.

I'm uncomfortable with that connection but mostly I just wish I knew more about it. I guess it makes sense that someone who is experiencing paranoia and fear would be likely to act out on individuals that they have heard referred to as a threat by the media, religious leaders, community leaders, whatever/whoever. But my psychiatrist father says that mentally ill folks can be susceptible to any kind of manipulation whether it comes from the left or the right or whatever part of that spectrum you want to point at... I guess Nelwert's main point is that these right-wing groups and organizations prey on mentally ill individuals or at least take advantage of them. I suppose it is the generalizations he makes in trying to connect the dots and present a trend that make me concerned. Can't we also look at what drives so many white men to random, isolated, devastating and overwhelmingly violent attacks on people they often don't know and identify nonetheless as 'the enemy'? There is clearly so much work to be done here. Enough rambling from me... please post if you have insights!

Action alert from MomsRising

At MomsRising we're always looking out to make sure that mothers and families are treated fairly in our nation. The other day I saw a video that shocked me: Two young children crying, alone in a car, reaching out for their mother who'd been taken away by deputies wearing ski masks after being stopped for a minor traffic violation.[1] The images haven't left me. A nightmare, right? Never in America? Wrong.

A local NBC news report described the incident through the eyes of a witness, "…the deputies were wearing ski masks and detained the children's mother for about an hour while her children watched, crying."[2]

Who's in charge of these deputies!?

It turns out that the person in charge knew exactly what was going on. Sheriff Arpaio has been cited repeatedly for gross civil rights violations and racial profiling of both citizens and non-citizens in the name of immigration enforcement, and when questioned about his tactics, he said that under his jurisdiction, "it was not unusual for law enforcement officers to wear ski masks while on duty."[2,3]

In the video the young girl is asked, "What did the sheriff tell you?" The little girl said, "To be quiet, but I couldn't 'cause I wanted to go with my mommy." [2] And here's what Mary, a MomsRising team member said after seeing the video, "We may not all be on the same page about immigration policy, but we do all agree that children and mothers shouldn't be treated this way."

Regardless of where immigration policy stands, no one should be treated that way. We've all got to stand up against this inhumane treatment of families. This type of treatment of women and families simply isn't acceptable.


*Watch the video and join us in urging the Department of Justice to investigate Sheriff Arpaio's tactics at: http://www.momsrisingaction.org/o/1768/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26817

-Please forward this email to friends and family now so they too can take action too. We need to put a spotlight on this inhumane treatment with as many people paying attention as possible in order to get an investigation.

Together we can do something about this. Sheriff Arpaio is out of control in Maricopa County, Arizona, and it's going to take all of us, and then some, standing up to say that this type of treatment has got to stop.

With over 2,700 lawsuits against him, a history of virulently anti-Latino and anti-immigrant tactics, and 40,000 felony warrants outstanding in his jurisdiction, Sheriff Arpaio has fostered a climate in which real criminals roam free while his deputies cross the line by using tactics that violate civil rights in the name of immigration enforcement.[4]

The voices of mothers are needed right now to say clearly that all mothers and children need to be treated with respect and fairness.

*Don't forget to watch the video and sign on now to urge the U.S. Department of Justice investigate Sheriff Arpaio at: http://www.momsrisingaction.org/o/1768/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26817

Mothers taken away from young children by men in ski masks, and people being marched in shackles through town to electric fenced "tent cities" in the desert [5] crosses the line of humane treatment. Let's help put a stop to this.

Thank you - Kristin, Joan, Katie, Dionna, Mary, Ariana, Anita, Ashley, Donna, Roz, Julia, and the MomsRising Team

[1] See the video and take action: http://www.momsrisingaction.org/o/1768/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26817

[2] February 5th, 2009: http://www.azcentral.com/12news/news/articles/2009/02/05/20090205motherarrested02052009-CR.html

[3] From "Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America's Children": Approximately five million children have an undocumented parent; however, the vast majority of these children are U.S. citizens and under the age of ten. Despite efforts to mitigate harm to children by changing the manner in which raids and other immigration enforcement actions are conducted, children continue to be placed in harm's way.

[4] http://www.americasvoiceonline.org/page/content/sheriff

[5] February 5th, 2009: http://www.azcentral.com/12news/news/articles/2009/02/05/20090205motherarrested02052009-CR.html, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/opinion/04wed2.html , http://vivirlatino.com/2009/03/04/thousands-protest-racist-sheriff-joe-arpaio-in-arizona.php

p.s. MomsRising joins the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (http://www.ndlon.org), National Council of La Raza (http://www.nclr.org), America's Voice (http://americasvoiceonline.org/page/content/sheriff), and many others in calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to begin a federal investigation into Sheriff Arpaio's tactics.

Update from CR

One in 31

Explosive growth in the number of people on probation or parole has propelled the population of the American corrections system to more than 7.3 million, or 1 in every 31 U.S. adults, according to a report released by the Pew Center on the States. The vast majority of these offenders live in the community, yet new data in the report finds that nearly 90 percent of state corrections dollars are spent on prisons. One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections examines the scale and cost of prison, jail, probation and parole in each of the 50 states, and provides a blueprint for states to cut both crime and spending by reallocating prison expenses to fund stronger supervision of the large number of offenders in the community.

All State Fact Sheets

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas
California Colorado Connecticut Delaware
District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii
Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa
Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine
Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota
Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska
Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico
New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio
Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island
South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas
Utah Vermont Virginia Washington
West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Visit the “Policy Framework to Strengthen Community Corrections” for a menu of five model policy provisions that can help corrections agencies reduce recidivism and cut costs.

View Full Report:

March 02, 2009 -
One in 31 (report) (Adobe PDF)

Corporal Punishment in Schools and its Impact

In a HRW and ACLU report, officials in 21 states have affirmed the beating of children as a sound educational practice

The report says:

Certain minority groups—particularly African-American students—receive corporal punishment at disproportionate rates. African Americans constitute 17.1 percent of the nationwide student population, but 35.6 percent of those paddled. Even while overall corporal punishment rates have declined during the last 30 years, disparate rates of physical punishment of African-American students have persisted.

Racewire wrote a great article about this - click here for it.

Also, the Children's Defense Fund's Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign has really important information and steps toward action. They write:

Nationally, 1 in 3 Black and 1 in 6 Latino boys born in 2001 are at risk of imprisonment during their lifetime. While boys are five times as likely to be incarcerated as girls, there also is a significant number of girls in the juvenile justice system. This rate of incarceration is endangering children at younger and younger ages.

This is America's pipeline to prison — a trajectory that leads to marginalized lives, imprisonment and often premature death. Although the majority of fourth graders cannot read at grade level, states spend about three times as much money per prisoner as per public school pupil.

I know that in a lot of ways the incarceration of children makes sense if you look at the larger function of the prison industrial complex - because of course none of it MAKES SENSE how rational people think about what makes sense, rather it is all about maintaining the hierarchy of power that currently exists and above all, supporting the status quo - but reading this just hurts so much. The prison system is painful and harmful and I hurt when I read about anyone locked up and everyone who is locked up or loves someone who is locked up but it hurts that much more to read about children being beaten in schools and locked up. It makes the world seem hopeless.

Sorry for rambling. In light of all this I need some Shel Silverstein:

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

From my enthusiast(ic) father

California Legislator Sees Benefit in Legalizing Pot

By STU WOO

February 25, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO -- A state legislator proposed legalizing the sale of marijuana in California, saying the plan would generate more than $1 billion annually for the cash-strapped state.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano introduced a bill Monday that would legalize possession and sales of the drug for people aged 21 and older. The legislation would impose regulations and taxation similar to those for alcohol sales. Federal law makes it a crime to possess or sell marijuana, so the measure, if passed, would likely face an immediate legal challenge.

Mr. Ammiano, a San Francisco Democrat who is well known in the state as a champion of liberal causes, proposes a tax of $50 on an ounce of marijuana, which sells for a few hundred dollars on the street.

California's dire financial situation was the impetus for proposing the bill, said Quintin Mecke, a spokesman for Mr. Ammiano. The state, which last week closed a $42 billion budget deficit through steep spending cuts and tax increases, should be making money on pot sales, Mr. Mecke said. He estimated that marijuana is a $14 billion-a-year crop in California.

The pot-legalization bill will be up against significant opposition. "It's one of these [proposals] that is based on fallacious assumption that if we could only legalize marijuana, that we will have fiscal and social Shangri-La," said John Lovell, a lobbyist who represents three California police groups.

California has been drifting toward more-permissive approaches to pot. Various ways of decriminalizing marijuana have been considered for years in the state. In 1996, state voters passed a ballot initiative legalizing medical-marijuana use. Medical-pot regulation has been left largely to local jurisdictions, rather than statewide agencies.

But last summer, California Attorney General Jerry Brown created controversy by issuing restrictive new guidelines on how medical-marijuana operations should do business. He said that they should be small nonprofits and indicated that larger operations may be operating illegally.

A Zogby poll commissioned by a group that backs legalization found last week that 58% of West Coast respondents approved of selling and taxing marijuana like alcohol or cigarettes. A Rasmussen poll last week found that 40% of people nationwide support legalizing marijuana, with 46% against.

A spokeswoman at NORML, a group that backs legalization, said about a dozen states have decriminalized the use or possession of pot in some way. Alaska has one of the nation's most-relaxed rules, with no penalty for possessing one ounce or less in a residence.