Support the Goldstone Report! From Jewish Voices for Peace

www.SupportGoldstone.org


CLICK HERE to tell the Israeli government, the media, US Congress and Richard Goldstone:
I SUPPORT THE GOLDSTONE REPORT

Dear Friend,

Frankly, I've had enough of the lies and distortions surrounding the UN Goldstone Report. I've had enough of the maneuvering by Israel, the US, and other countries in order to dismiss the report and its authors and bury it altogether.

If you are as dismayed as I am, sign at SupportGoldstone.org, and we'll let key Israeli officials, members of Congress, and Goldstone himself know how many of you support the report.

What we need, instead of the smear campaigns, is discussion of the report's substance: the use of phosphorus that literally burned people alive (I saw the terrible impact with my own eyes on a recent trip to Gaza); or the use of metal darts called flechettes that twist when they enter the body; or the long term impacts of contaminated land and water.

Early next week the report heads to the floor of the US Congress and the UN General Assembly, and we're expecting continued pressure to have this important document roundly dismissed.

The continued attacks on the Goldstone Report prevent accountability for the civilian victims before, during and after the attack on Gaza -- both Palestinians and Israelis -- and shred the rule of law.

That's why we are asking you to say: I support the Goldstone Report. Once you sign, we'll tell you how to easily and quickly lobby Congress and your UN Ambassador in the next few days.

The truth is that the Goldstone Report is a well-researched, fair-minded report. It accuses both Israel and Hamas of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the attack on Gaza, and it calls on Israel and Hamas to conduct credible, independent investigations or face the International Criminal Court.

I support the Goldstone Report.

Israel decided not to cooperate with the investigation and now claims that the report and its results are biased. Worse yet, Israel claims that the report negates its right to defend its population, when in reality, all the report does is insist that such a defense take place within the bounds of international law.

The United States and other countries are repeating the same lines, and have exerted great diplomatic pressure to kill the report.

The US Congress is getting ready to pass a resolution next week calling on President Obama to do everything he can to bury the Goldstone Report. The UN General Assembly will vote on it. Israel might launch its own investigation, if it is pressured enough to do so. And if it does, our task will be to ensure that the investigation is comprehensive, impartial, and aimed towards addressing, punishing and preventing future human rights abused - and not at changing the laws of war such that another blatant assault on civilian life and property as the Gaza war will ever become acceptable under international law.

Please join us in supporting the Goldstone Report now.

Thanks,



Cecilie Surasky
Jewish Voice for Peace

NYC No Longer a Sanctuary City

This week The Huffington Post reported:

Last year about 360,000 people were deported from the United States, nearly 100,000 deportations resulting from past criminal convictions, mostly for low-level non-violent convictions. It's a mockery of justice that someone can be punished twice for the same crime.

New York City, which claims to be a "sanctuary city," is supposed to encourage its residents to report crimes and seek social services without fear of deportation.
As the Huff Post put it,

Allowing ICE into its jails is a violation of this policy. Schiro must urgently implement the demands of Immigration Out of Rikers, a city wide coalition pushing to kick ICE out of the facility. A key first step would be to refuse ICE access to the two-thirds of Rikers detainees who are pre-trial. Letting immigration agents into city jails means that many families end up being needlessly ripped apart.

The inadequacy of our immigration system and the perpetual violence against immigrants in our country feels overwhelming to me. I'm excited to see the emergence of a coalition that seems to be asserting itself effectively! I couldn't find a website for them but I found this awesome article on Make the Road's website.

Racewire Reports on Whitening Hollywood

One of the things I love most about Racewire is their pop commentary - they have had hilarious analyses of Harry Potter, Disney princess movies, and other films. Most recently they posted a link to the top five most unintentionally racist films and then yesterday they released that a recent SAG report AG looked at casting reports from 2007-2008 and found that the number of people of color hired for film and television roles has dropped to 27.5% of total roles cast in 2008.

Blacks were the largest nonwhite group cast, according to SAG, but also lost the most roles in 2008, dropping from 14.8% to 13.3%. Latino roles decreased slightly, losing most in the lead role category. A Latino starred in 7.2% of features in 2007. Only 3.4% were the main characters in 2008. American Indians, despite their romance with the silver screen, had the fewest jobs, at 0.3% in both years.

For the full article click here.

I wonder what this says about our society - is Hollywood reflecting the increased tensions surrounding race in the US? Or where is this coming from... I wish I knew more about the process of what films and shows are made and why. It seems to me that this trend has been a long time coming because it takes a while to make a movie. But I'm not sure what it means although it's a disturbing trend and is also going to be increasingly misrepresentative of our society as it exists in reality, since we are quickly headed to a demographically majority-minority population. Any ideas for the implications?

EVENTS! NoCal, Phila, NY

Today is October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. For information about nation-wide events go to their website. For those of you in and around NY:
Calling all New Yorkers!
4:30 p.m. Washington Square Park -- Rally and March (assemble west of fountain)
6:30 p.m. Voices Against Police Brutality -- music and art protesting police brutality
at Gay and Lesbian Community Center, 208 West 13th Street
(7th Avenue and 13th St.)

Also coming up in Philly on Oct. 29: The University Community Collaborative of Philadelphia Presents "Survival and Success": Youth Identity in the Context of Urban Violence



And NYU Law is sponsoring a DO SOMETHING SOCIAL ACTION BOOTCAMP on Saturday, November 7th: Do Something is hosting a Social Action Boot Camp for 100+ amazing young people who are rocking their causes as activists or have started their own community action projects. The goal of the Boot Camp is to offer a platform for young world-changers
(25 and under) to learn, think big and share their passion for social
change with other like-minded peers. During the day, we offer 16
different sessions on topics ranging from "Recruiting and Managing
Volunteers" and "Public Relations" to "Building a Website" and
"Measuring Your Impact".

If you are in Northern California or want an excuse for a visit, consider going to the Engaging The Other conference in San Francisco (San Mateo to be precise) November 12-15. To register click here - to read more about it go to Tikkun's blog post about it!

Fighting the Crack/Coke Disparity

Congress is considering a bill that would close the crack/cocaine disparity (for some good links talking about the disparity read this Racewire article) by reducing penalties for crack cocaine. If passed the bill, dubbed the Fair Sentencing Act, will increase the amount of crack (to 500 grams) that would get you 5 years in prison to the same amount as is required now for selling powder cocaine. Obama has said in the past that he is committed to equalizing prison sentences for crack and coke but has been silent thus far on the Fair Sentencing Act.

It is worth noting that many conservatives want the punishment for cocaine to be increased rather than see a reduction in crack sentencing, but that lawmakers are citing economic reasons for avoiding that route - prisons are now being seen as an economic liability even if they are still considered necessary.

Along those lines -- I'm all about reducing or eliminating the disparity but in the Washington Post article about the bill they also mention that it would "stiffen penalties for large-scale drug traffickers and violent criminals." I'm just curious how this expansion of the prison system managed to finagle its way into the bill. Do the lawmakers who are purportedly about reducing or eliminating racist laws not understand the implications of ANY expansion of the PIC? Do they think that these "stiffened penalties" are going to equally affect all people? I'm just baffled at the lack of basic sense... who are we fighting here? Who are we protecting?

Bottled Water Injustice

I've become one of those weirdos who gets really upset when I see people doing something I consider irresponsible - drinking bottled water. I have so far held back on my ranting, but especially now that I live in NYC where tap water is so clean my tolerance is low and dipping.

The Irish Times reported on Penn Teller's mockumentary about bottled water consumption in the US. In it, a fancy restaurant serves different kinds of water including one called L’eau Du Robinet (French for “tap water”) and another one with a spider in it, purportedly straight from the Amazon - haven't you heard of the healing powers of spiders? The water was all served from the tap and no one knew the difference - in fact they paid a whole lot of money for that water. That also reminds me of the Minnie Driver film where she's a waitress at a dive-y restaurant and this mean woman who is with the man she loves is being bitchy asking for bottled water and Minnie (sassy lady that she is) fills a bottle with tap water and seals it and the woman doesn't even notice, obviously.

Anyway, the politics of bottled water upset me more. The article reports:

Last year, BBC television’s Panorama current affairs programme investigated the high environmental cost of our strange love affair with bottled water. Fiji Water is indeed sourced in Fiji, then shipped more than 10,000 miles to Europe and beyond.

Meanwhile, one in three Fijians doesn’t have access to safe drinking water, and illnesses and deaths from typhus and other waterborne diseases are common on the island. The extraction of huge amounts of water for export is draining the island’s aquifers, putting even more pressure on supplies for the islanders.

Globally, as we ship billions of bottles of water from exotic-sounding locales to assuage our new-found thirst for water as a lifestyle accessory, 3,000 children die each day as a direct result of drinking contaminated water.

Globally, bottled water requires the production of about 300 billion plastic bottles a year, of which maybe one in five is recycled. Transportation, packaging, distribution and dealing with the waste generates tens of millions of tonnes of carbon emissions – and for what exactly? About 40 per cent of all bottled water sold is simply municipal tap water put into plastic bottles by corporations such Pepsi (Aquafina) and Coca-Cola (Dasani) and then sold back to the public in plastic containers.

WE CAN DO BETTER! If you want filtered water, buy a Brita! I get it, tap water sometimes isn't safe. But get a Klean Kanteen or a Sigg or something - is it that hard?? OK I'm realizing this is me ranting -- to all my regular commenters (haha) feel free to share an alternate view.

Immigration Sensations

As it gets colder outside and people everywhere start worrying about making it through the winter, I shudder to think about what this year will bring for many families across the country. We are truly at a frightening time and the latest anti-immigrant hysteria has me feeling really pessimistic.

Despite the fact that many cities across the country are rejecting 287(g) (perhaps in response to the Hispanic Caucus' and around 520 other groups' call for immigration justice) and the UN report detailing how migrant workers give far more to the countries they move to than they take, we can't seem to make substantial changes.

Obama's new immigration plan which has been called "ambitious" primarily addresses the most grievous wrongs like the incredible neglect and abuse immigrants suffer in detention facilities. (For a link to the actual report click here.) What about real change? What about conversations regarding naturalization and legalization of undocumented workers?

I guess I should be happy that Obama is planning on making detention centers gentler and that the administration is aware of how broken the system is. Forgive me for not jumping up and down. I guess I just need to see substantial changes in the fundamental attitudes of Americans to get me going -- report after report and study after study show that the us citizens (especially us middle-class citizens - see here) end up benefiting substantially from immigration, so clearly these fears are not based on fact but rather symbolic definitions of value and humanity. I just don't know how to change those! Thoughts?

14th National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation

Oct. 22, 2009
14th National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation

4:30pm Rally and March at Washington Square Park (gather at west side of the fountain)
Subway: A/B/C/D/E/F/V to West 4th, N/R/W to 8th St, 6 to Astor, 1 to Christopher; Bus: M1/2/3/5/6/8
Voices Against Police Brutality
music * poetry * art * film * resistance
6:30pm at the LGBT Community Center
208 West 13th Street (btw Seventh and Eighth Aves)
Subway: 1/2/3 to 14th St & 7th Ave, A/C/E/L to 14th St & 8th Ave, F/V to 14th St & 6th Ave; Bus: M5/6/7/9/14/20

If you can be a legal observer, please call Susan Howard at (212) 679-6018

WHITOPIA

I just blatantly pulled this from Racewire (original post here) hoping maybe someone would read this that didn't see it there. I promise I'll do a 'real' post soon. I can't make it to this event but if you can, IT SOUNDS AWESOME.

Demos, the Applied Research Center, and The Nation Institute are proud to host the New York City book launch of Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey Into the Heart of White America, featuring author Rich Benjamin and Nation columnist Eric Alterman.

Between 2007 and 2009, Rich Benjamin, a Senior Fellow at Demos, packed his bags and embarked on a 26,909-mile journey throughout the heart of white America—some of the fastest-growing and whitest locales in the nation. Benjamin calls these enclaves “Whitopias.” To learn what makes Whitopias tick, and why and how they are growing, Benjamin lived in three of them for several months apiece.

In his book, Benjamin reveals the qualities that make a Whitopia, and explores the urgent social and political implications of this startling phenomenon. The glow of the historic 2008 election, argues Benjamin, should not obscure the racial and economic segregation still vexing America. Obama’s presidency, moreover, raises the stakes in a struggle between two versions of America: one that is broadly comfortable with diversity yet residentially segregated (“ObamaNation”) and one that does not mind a “little ethnic food, some Asian math whizzes, or a few Mariachi dancers—as long as these trends do not overwhelm the white dominant culture” (“Whitopia”).

The housing, social, lifestyle, and demographic trends Benjamin reveals are here for the long haul. Americans now have the chance to learn about and address these developments. What will we do next?

Please join us for an exciting and timely conversation featuring Rich Benjamin and prominent journalist Eric Alterman. The discussion will be followed by a wine and cheese reception.

Event info:
Date: Thursday, October 8th
Time: 6-8 pm
Place: Demos, 220 Fifth Ave., 5th Floor, New York 10001

RSVP: contact Jinny Khanduja at jkhanduja@demos.org or 212.389.1399.

Tikkun Interview with Richard Goldstone

If any of you have been following the latest UN report on the Gaza war and the outrageous crimes against humanity that Israel committed in Palestine, then I want to hear your thoughts!

For me, the report is not really what is surprising or interesting - the Goldstone element is what really fascinates me. Jewish South African former Supreme Court Judge Richard Goldstone is a self-professed Zionist and a political moderate who has been recently vilified by the Jewish mainstream media and political establishment (both in Israel and in the US) for overseeing and supporting the findings of the report. Goldstone actually refused to oversee the investigation unless Palestinian actions were also scrutinized but he stands by the results of the investigation and good for him! What I find so fascinating is how he is being marginalized because he is questioning the status quo and actually daring to dash the Israel-as-utopia myth (see Uri Avnery's opinions, published by Tikkun here).

If this becomes a trend I see the pro-Israel argument/lobby seriously entrenching itself further and alienating its current powerful base. I can't help but hope that it gets bad so it can get better... Maybe if many current Israel supporters see how extreme Israel's actions are and the extremism of many supporters of Israel can be they more mainstream and moderate folk will mobilize to insist on human rights and some form of justice in the region... Pipe dreams? Let me keep dreaming. Otherwise this entire debacle is just too disgusting and horrifying for words.

Tikkun did a pretty good interview with Goldstone that you can find here.

For the Democracy Now report on the UN Investigation click here.

David Foster Wallace Spitting Truth

David Foster Wallace committed suicide on Sept 12 this year... but Asher sent me this really interesting commencement address he gave in '05 to Kenyon College graduating seniors. One excerpt in particular gave me pause, not just because it talks about suicide but because of how he re-conceptualizes the act of thinking:

Probably the most dangerous thing about college education, at least in my own case, is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract arguments inside my head instead of simply paying attention to what's going on right in front of me. Paying attention to what's going on inside me. As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head. Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal-arts cliché about "teaching you how to think" is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: "Learning how to think" really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about "the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master." This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in the head. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger. And I submit that this is what the real, no-bull- value of your liberal-arts education is supposed to be about: How to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default-setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone, day in and day out.

I don't know about the alone part but this really resonated with me in a way that spoke to the potential for re-conceptualizing activism as well. Wallace talks about how we automatically center ourselves partly as a function of how we look at the world - with ourselves at the center and everything literally going on around us - and partly as the product of how our society places value on the individual. It is important to de-center yourself in a way that is not necessarily how we're socialized. Wallace's point is that we need to be more conscious of others and their needs around us.. I would extend that to say that in an activist model we need to look at the collective as the way both to true unity/solidarity and to power. Can we learn to value the individual and not ignore needs of each member of a group while simultaneously drawing on the energy of a unified group as a vehicle to confront structural oppression/inequity?