Category: politics

Thousands of people in northwest Pakistan Saturday started a two-day sit-in against the U.S. drone strikes in the country’s tribal regions, blocking main supply route for NATO troops in the neighboring Afghanistan. The protest forced the authorities to suspend for two days supplies for nearly 150,000 U.S.-led foreign forces. More here.

“What we’re seeing is a clear commitment on the part of NATO and the U.S. for regime change—exactly what the U.N. resolution was not designed to do.” (Phyllis Bennis)

who would have thunk? more here.

thx to corporate tax cuts and loopholes, these companies will not be paying taxes: exxon, bank of america, GE, chevron, boeing, valero energy, goldman sachs, citigroup, conoco phillips, carnival cruise lines. more here.

As their tax rates plummeted, the total income of the richest 400 Americans skyrocketed. In 1995, the combined income of the richest 400 was just over $6 billion. By 2007, the combined income of the richest 400 was almost $23 billion. More here.

protest to expel africans from south tel aviv and all of israel, april 6, 2011 – this is so tied in with what’s going on in europe. it is part of the same racist colonial narrative. it always has been.

The collapse of Obama’s effort to close Guantánamo is the kind of failure that, in our atomized, increasingly dysfunctional political system, has a thousand deadbeat dads. But it has always been within the President’s power to remedy one aspect of the moral morass that Guantánamo symbolizes: the lack of any official accountability for the abuses of the past, especially the embrace of torture. More here.

the most comprehensive, nuanced analysis of what the niqab ban is really all about, by my brilliant friend huma dar. check it out here.

mortenson’s response to some of the allegations. More here.

A charity watchdog group expresses concern that money donors have given to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan is actually being used to promote Mortenson’s books. More here.

too too sad. vittorio arrigoni may u rest in peace.

Bolivia is set to pass the world’s first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country’s rich mineral deposits as “blessings” and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.

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olivia’s Law of Mother Earth will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.

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Full article.

In the staunchly traditional military culture, male-on-male sexual assault is kept hidden by layers of personal shame and official denial. Last year nearly 50,000 male veterans screened positive for “military sexual trauma” at the Department of Veterans Affairs, up from just over 30,000 in 2003. For the victims, the experience is a special kind of hell—a soldier can’t just quit his job to get away from his abusers.

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Like in prisons and other predominantly male environments, male-on-male assault in the military, experts say, is motivated not by homosexuality, but power, intimidation, and domination. Assault victims, both male and female, are typically young and low-ranking; they are targeted for their vulnerability. Often, in male-on-male cases, assailants go after those they assume are gay, even if they are not. “One of the reasons people commit sexual assault is to put people in their place, to drive them out,” says Mic Hunter, author of Honor Betrayed: Sexual Abuse in America’s Military. “Sexual assault isn’t about sex, it’s about violence.”

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Belkin notes that it’s not just the military that avoids the issue: even gay-rights organizations are wary of it. “We don’t like to talk about it because it makes rape look like a gay issue,” Belkin says. “The military doesn’t want to talk about it because, as embarrassing as male-female rape is [from their perspective], this is even worse. The very fact that there’s male-on-male rape in the military means that there are warriors who aren’t strong enough to fight back.”

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?”Many men and women will experience symptoms like PTSD or depression after experiencing sexual assault. But the experience seems even more detrimental for men’s mental health,” says Amy Street, a psychologist with the Boston VA hospital who has worked with both male and female survivors. “The way I make sense of that is that women, for better or worse, live their lives with this idea that they might experience sexual assault at some point. There are public models of how to recover from rape. Men don’t have any expectation that this might happen to them. It’s very difficult to figure out how those experiences fit into your sense of self as a man.”

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Full article.