Category Archives: violence

Onondaga Men march against violence and abuse

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Warrior Publications has this up on the Onondaga men marching against domestic violence and child abuse.  A great way to publicly show support…but then the hard work comes to put it into action.  Honoring women, respecting women, and treating them as equals all takes a conscious effort to go against a culture of violence and rape.  It means going against other men, when men are taught to stick together no matter what.  It means courage and compassion.

 

Marking the 20th Anniversary of Rwanda

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Samantha Power is set to mark the 20th Anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. 

It doesn’t seem as though there has been a healing solution–that it could happen again if the conditions were right.

Hotel Rwanda is a graphic film about the genocide…that was ignored by Bill Clinton, even though he knew of the “final solution”.  It’s sad to read the Catholic Church’s connection to the advancement of Tutsi…at the expense of the Hutu. Glad that they changed their thinking later, however, to help the Hutu.

Note how the Eugenics ideas are behind the Tutsi being put into power.  And the acts of privatization caused poverty and slave labor.

They used identity cards to identify Hutu and Tutsi….the purpose can only be to keep Hutu in their “place”.  Gah, it is so much like Nazi Germany…a holocaust not for religion, but for ancestry!

The use of rape as a war tool is highlighted in the piece.  It’s often ignored as part of the war casualties numbers, as a woman’s issue, so its inclusion is hopefully a sign of measuring the true numbers of casualties of war.  As I read this, I think about the resulting pregnancies…and it just seems so contradictory to their goals of eliminating the other–they ironically reproduce, mixing blood and genes and all they claim to find disgusting.

 

 

 

Mi’kmaq Warrior Trial

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Warrior Publications has this up on the Mi’kmaq Warrior Trial.  This is the first I have read of someone on the First Nations side having  a gun.  In the reports that I read, no one mentioned this…so this destroys some of the credibility of the reporting.

Because I am not down with bringing guns….you may not have the intention of using it, but bringing it makes it easier for someone to get hurt.  You may only intend on using it in self-defense, but the other side does not know your intentions.  If you live by the sword, you die by the sword, as they say.

If you are doing this for your children, be an example to them.  Show them how to stand up for your rights without violence.

And the other side?  Only an unethical coward would shoot someone whom is unarmed.

People have a right to protest, especially when their rights to their land are being pushed aside for dirty fracking, but I will not support violence on either side.

 

 

Real Everyday Sexism

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The New Yorker also has this up on a brief film on switched roles in sexism.  Warning:  There is an assault scene that may trigger.

I agree with the writer that it doesn’t present any sympathetic women, and that is problematic because then it diminishes the powerful message as being real.  It does not take into account that men have been assaulted, too.  They missed a teachable moment on that.  The assaults are targeted towards those that are vulnerable.  And the thing is–any of us can be vulnerable at any point in our lives….and society has yet to recognize that and be proactive with bullies.

The video here:

The Last Independent TV Channel in Russia

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…needs your help.

Be sure to click on the link to Julia Ioffe’s piece.  In it, she has a link to this:

Note the armed forces at the Crimea voting places–more evidence that this vote was not what the people of Crimea truly want.

And the link to Joshua Yaffe’s report has this:

In Russia, the will of the state is expressed with signals of varying subtlety; the invocation of “national traitors” is among the less oblique examples of the genre. A new Web site called predatel.net—the word means “traitor”—has recently launched, featuring a list of public figures that the site’s anonymous creators deem to have betrayed Russia, whether by criticizing the annexation of Crimea or by supporting Western sanctions. As the site’s short manifesto puts it, “We believe that Russian citizens who insult our soldiers and who cast doubt on the need to fight neo-Nazis are traitors, no matter whether they are talented journalists, writers, and directors.” The site has a form for users to “suggest a traitor.”

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Holy crap.  The Salem Witch Hunt on steroids.  Label someone  a “witch” on the internet, where the accused has little access to protest their innocence…or put forth a differing point of view without being labeled a “traitor”…pfft. Cowards.

Weak arguments attack the person (Ad Hominem).  Strong arguments attack the idea.

I found a news piece on Alexi Navalny’s sentencing hearing:

 

Finally, the link to Irina Kalinina has this:

Dmitry Kiselyov, probably the single most influential person in the Russian mass media, considered by many as the Kremlin’s chief propagandist, provides another distinctive voice on Russian television. He is best known in the West for his idea that the internal organs of gays were not fit for donation and, more recently, for his reminder that Russia could turn America into “radioactive ash.”

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…and he calls the Ukraine people’s fight to keep their independence, a “mass psychosis”.  Seriously.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Awesome Flash Mob in Ukraine

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(hat tip Diane Ravitch)  The Dish posted this awesome video of a musical flash mob in Ukraine–the equivalent of our First Amendment (Freedom of Assembly) in action.

There’s just something about the defiance with music from the soul…brought tears to my eyes.  If you recall, “Ode to Joy” was the only classical song my poor mother could get me to play, and until just recently, I could not play it, due to the mercury.

 

 

Turkey, Syria, and Armenians

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It’s really depressing that Turkey has apparently supported the violence in Syria.  More detailed report here.  (hat tip to Jared Leto).  I pretty much ignore the WSJ piece, given the bias of Rupert Murdoch.  It starts off with the Canadian Ambassador for Religious Freedom protesting Turkey…and yet my blogs on the Canadian gov’t treatment of First Nations people smacks in the face of that.

For those who don’t know, the Armenians suffered through a massacre a hundred years ago.  A survivor of the massacre tells her story.

Another tragic story of survival here. 

French mayor pushes for Turkey to recognize the genocide.   Others join in.

My past blog on Syria here and here. Bishop Desmond Tutu on Syria here.

Fred Klonsky’s blog on helping in Syria.

 

 

 

Dear White People… **edited

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DN! has a piece up today on a documentary entitled “Dear White People…”

We need the conversation to begin, so I’m glad that they are taking it on…but as I viewed the excerpts, I started to get that feeling of dread.  Because a young African American woman states that we (black folks) are all different and another clip one states that because she is the person of color in the room, suddenly she becomes the “voice” of the African American community.  But it seems lost on the black community that perhaps whites feel the same way?  We don’t all think alike and because one treats you badly or is prejudiced does not mean that we all agree with that person’s actions.  Most white folks have good hearts but don’t realize some of the stuff that is said and done is hurtful (as the producer of the documentary states.)

During the interview with “Reggie” –he talks about his personal life and how he lived on an all-black floor in college.  He said it helped to be with his “people’ after having people touch his hair and professors say “stuff” to him….my thought was:  doesn’t he think some white people could understand that?  Again, it is a block put up to sharing a common bond.  White people whom have been bullied, put down, ostracized can all understand how being singled out feels.  They may not understand how it is to be black, but they can understand pain.

And the tipping thing?  Hello! Women are also stereotyped for being bad tippers.  A long time ago, when I had a life, I sat in a restaurant and waited while the white waitresses were gossiping for twenty minutes until one finally came over to take my order.  And it was cold when she brought it out.  And yeah, I left a penny tip.  Screw that.

In other instances, I would leave 15% tips when the going rate was 10%.  Sometimes the service warranted that, but most times it was just okay, but I left the bigger tip because of the prejudice against women.

As far as his admission that black folk use their blackness as a tool sometimes to navigate the world…but it creates barriers. As I experienced in Ft. Wayne, an African American guy had created a serious problem for the entire building that could have meant injury or death for the residents.  When one of the white fire fighters said something to him because he was yelling at them to shut the alarm off (they could not do that–it was a door alarm and they had the door open to let all the smoke out)** edited, he immediately blamed it on racism.  He went on and on about it instead of taking a step back and realizing HE was the problem, not his skin color.  And this is not a condemnation of the guy–he wasn’t a bad person, but had a screwed up view of the world.

It’s funny that this came up today, because when I was getting dressed this morning, I thought about seeing the Light in others.

Buddhists popped into my head –the Buddhists don’t believe in a God as one Supreme Being, but that God resides in each of us.  Their greeting “Namaste” means that they recognize God within you and within themselves.

Even if one doesn’t believe in the Buddhist religion, if we could stop looking at each other’s skin color…or anything physical…and recognize the Light within the other, we could move past the prejudice.  Our hearts involved in decision making instead of just our heads…

**edited for link to DN and further explanation above.