February 21, 2017 by IdealisticRebel

Blood of Emmett Till

How The Blood of Emmett Till Still Stains America Today

A new history of the most famous lynching in the country provides context on how racism continues to work in the present.

Emmett Till is shown lying on his bed.Bettmann / Getty

What does American tyranny look like? In the past few months, fears about the collapse or degradation of the American democratic system have led many to engage in the grim exercise of game-planning the endgame of tyranny. For some, dystopian novels ground that exercise. Some take stock of the rise of authoritarian powers in the past. Others rely on expert realpolitik analysis from political minds like my colleague David Frum. Regardless of the source, we have arrived at Belshazzar’s feast. The writing is on the wall: It could happen here.

Or, it could happen here again. After all, it wasn’t too long ago in American history that millions of Americans were trampled under the heel of a repressive, anti-democratic kleptocracy and faced economic reprisals, violence, or death for any dissent. And nowhere was the iron grip of that system—known as Jim Crow to some of us—stronger than in Mississippi. That grip manifested itself most notoriously in the murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy, in 1955. That year, Till was tortured and lynched by white men after allegedly making lewd comments toward a white woman. His mutilated corpse became one of the first mass-media images of the violence of Jim Crow, and the trial of his killers became a pageant illuminating the tyranny of white supremacy. And through protests across the country, Till’s broken body became a powerful symbol of the civil-rights movement.

In his new book, The Blood of Emmett Till, the historian Timothy B. Tyson revisits the circumstances of Till’s death, and brings to bear a wide scope of reporting, historical research, and cultural analysis. It’s not a definitive history of the Till case; other works have synthesized more primary sources and firsthand accounts. Rather, The Blood of Emmett Till is focused on the historicity of race in America: It posits that Till’s death is an emblem of the ways in which American tyranny works. To that end, the climax of his book comes not in the death of Till, in the ensuing sweltering court proceedings, or in the backwoods thriller of the black Mississippi Underground that investigated the case, but in the present.Tyson tells the story of how a young Chicago boy’s summer sojourn in Mississippi ended with him kidnapped, beaten, shot, and tossed into a river by Roy Bryant, J.W. Milam, and a group of others. The historical context Tyson provides often dwarfs the actual tick-tock of the case: An account of Mamie Till-Mobley’s childhood and her close bond with her son is wrapped in a narrative about the Great Migration of black people from the South to the West and North in the mid-20th century. Till’s lynching is backgrounded by an instructive history of the genteel and intellectually racist Citizens’ Councils and how they fueled the raw violence of a white proletariat. The surfeit of contextualization verges on digression at times, but serves the ultimate purpose of giving Till’s life weight six decades after his death.

The effect of Tyson’s wide-angled framing is especially pronounced in the bombshell revelation that Carolyn Bryant—the white woman who originally claimed Till grabbed and sexually harassed her in her husband’s store—lied about those claims. Media coverage has focused on that explosive admission and the conversation around redemption that it seems to spark, but Tyson’s book, in the end, is largely unconcerned with that line of inquiry. Bryant’s testimony on the stand and her later admission have little to do, in this narrative, with her own battle with guilt; rather, they serve to advance Tyson’s thesis that culpability for Till’s death rests on millions of shoulders. The unlikely thing, he argues, was not that Emmett Till was lynched, but that his lynching actually stirred a national response.

Tyson takes great pains to illustrate how the mechanisms working in Jim Crow Mississippi in 1955 still animate life today, and how America has never really found justice for Till. He details the rise of the civil-rights movement and how Till’s death helped to forge a common purpose for the wide-ranging and often contentious factions of black activism. He describes how white supremacist organizing arose in direct response to that mobilization. And he examines how school desegregation and black suffrage undergirded the social tensions of the Jim Crow era.

Perhaps most importantly, Tyson considers all the ways in which an American populace was complicit in its acceptance of violence against black people—and then considers all the ways in which it is still complicit in the deaths of people of color today. For instance, in his examination of the Citizens’ Councils’ literature, which fomented mass fears of black criminality and fantasies of rampant black sexual deviancy, Tyson also shows how poor white “peckerwoods” were loathed by wealthier white people, and manipulated into doing the bloody business of physical violence. In this, he provides a thinly veiled parable for today’s politics in how the rhetoric of white supremacy—even in its subtlest dog-whistle form—is used to radicalize people, and how the uneasy detente between classes of white people is often maintained by propaganda built around the threat of the other, even as the culpability is passed to the lowest rungs. “We blame them,” Tyson writes about those radicalized perpetrators of physical violence, “to avoid seeing that the lynching of Emmett Till was caused by the nature and history of America itself and by a social system that has changed over the decades, but not as much as we pretend.”In service of his analysis of the present, Tyson also compares the “Emmett Till generation” of civil-rights leaders that developed after Till’s death to the Black Lives Matter movement that gathered force after the killings of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. In The Blood of Emmett Till, that comparison is not just a coincidence, but, rather, the end result of a social system that continues to perpetuate injustice today. “America is still killing Emmett Till,” Tyson writes, “often for the same reasons that drove the violent segregationists of the 1950s and 1960s.”The Blood of Emmett Till is a critical book not just because it provides a good reason to revisit a foundational moment in American history—though it manages that feat in spades—but also because it manages to turn the past into prophecy and demands that we do the one vital thing we aren’t often enough asked to do with history: learn from it. In firmly tying Till’s legacy to protests over black bodies, re-segregation, voting-rights struggles, hate crimes, and the creeping reemergence of bigotry today, Tyson implores readers to learn that American tyranny already has a face, has already left millions of victims in its wake, and doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination to fathom. Perhaps the dystopia we envision isn’t some far-off future, but simply a return to the past.

bjwordpressdivider-1

People have begun to trash the concept of “being politically correct” and there are many reasons to be politically correct. If you look back perhaps three decades or more, you hear words being used that are hurtful and fuel buried feelings of inadequacy and fear. You used to hear: wop, spic, mick, jungle bunny and an assortment of others. White people who tend to enjoy using labels that are not politically correct are afraid of others. They are not afraid in the sense of physical fear but if this black man or that Asian, or those Muslims can come to America and accomplish that great job, the huge home and the brand new Lincoln Town Car, why am I in this dead end job? Why do I drive a used Ford? Why do I live in a nice middle class neighborhood but wish that I lived in an exclusive area?

When a racist type of person compares themselves to other people of color, they feel anger if the others have accomplished more in life than they have. The average white middle class male goes to work, comes home and lets the dog out. He eats the dinner his wife has prepared, sprawls out on the couch to drink beer and watch TV. Mindless TV that does not challenge him mentally or morally. Beer is the perfect anesthesthetic to forget he saw a guy he went to high school with today and he is black. Not a bad guy but he now has the job he always wanted. It makes him feel very bad about his own life.

His job could be done by anyone, though he would never admit it to another living soul. He is comfortable in his middle class life because it asks nothing further of him. He never talks about the future or plans anything. To do that he would have to look at his life and admit that there had to be something more. Perhaps he should go back to school. What is he good at now? Could he get an online college? No, he’d have to give up Thursday bowling with the guys and Sundays at the Sports Bar to watch the game with his buds and drink beer. These are his social activities. He thinks maybe he should get a motorcycle. That would be cool and he’d be the envy of all his friends.

Does he do any of this? No because it would take effort and he probably couldn’t get the grades if he went back to school. People would laugh at a guy almost fifty going back to school. It could be very embarrassing and he sure doesn’t need that. Maybe the wife should go back work full-time. Yeah, that’s a good idea. She is putting on weight anyways. She could take some of the burden off of his shoulders of supporting this family. Then he would feel better. He is just overwhelmed with too much responsibility. He could get the motorcycle with the money she earns. Yep this is a good plan. He’ll tell her tomorrow. Right now, he needs another beer. Survivor is coming on…

The successful person of color who accomplishes all that the American dream promises, is a threat to this man. A serious threat to his sense of entitlement. His Dad had a good life and he didn’t have to go to school. The president is the problem. They are shipping too many jobs overseas. The president isn’t doing enough for the real Americans. Guys like him. America is for guys like him. The people of color are taking the really good jobs. Next election, he plans to vote for a no nonsense candidate. Someone who will shake up Washington and get things back where they used to be. And get rid of that Affirmative Action stuff, those jobs belong to the real Americans.

Well, he’s done that: voted for the “outsider”, the guy who promised to get rid of political correctness, promised to keep out all the “others” and talked about watching “certain areas” for voter issues.

And now, that white man on his couch is watching, and waiting, with a growing sense of dread, most likely, as he looks around and sees that things aren’t getting better, that the swamp isn’t being drained, and that the rights of his wife, his friends, and neighbors are being slowly eroded.

Perhaps by the next election — in 2018, not 2020 — he’ll realize being politically correct wasn’t the problem.

The problem is, he got conned.

December 27, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

Our Girls Come Home

Freed Chibok girls return home for joyful Christmas

By Isha Sesay and Stephanie Busari, CNN

Chibok, Nigeria (CNN)

It was a journey they had waited nearly three long years to take.

Ten weeks after being released by Boko Haram, 21 freed Chibok schoolgirls and a baby returned home this month to celebrate Christmas with their families for the first time since they were snatched by the terror group.

The April 2014 kidnapping of nearly 300 girls from a boarding school in Chibok sparked global outrage a #BringBackOurGirls campaign on social media.

CNN accompanied the 21 girls as they made the journey from the capital Abuja, where they have been undergoing medical and psychological assessments since they were released by Boko Haram nearly two months ago in a deal brokered by an unnamed Swiss contingent and the Nigerian authorities.

On Thursday, CNN’s Isha Sesay boarded a flight with the girls from Abuja to Yola in eastern Nigeria, where the girls would make a six-hour road trip north to Chibok.

The change in the Chibok girls from 10 weeks earlier was remarkable. Their tattered clothes were gone and they were clearly better fed after surviving for two and a half years on meager or non-existent meals.

After their release in October, one of them, Glory Dama, told the assembled media that they once went without food for 40 days in the bush.

“I did not know that a day like this will come, that we will be dancing and giving thanks to God among people,” she said. “For one month and 10 days we stayed without food. I narrowly escaped a bomb blast in the forest.”

‘Beautiful and grateful’

Kidnapped as teenagers, the girls were now returning home as young women.

They have been taking English classes and playing outdoors, their caretakers told CNN. One girl, Agnes, added that they have been learning how to knit. Several have had surgery to remove shrapnel.

One of the girls, Rebecca Mallam, said they felt “beautiful and grateful.”

The girls, Christians who were forcibly converted to Islam by their captors, prayed together before leaving Abuja Friday morning on the first leg of their journey home.

The girls’ names

The Nigerian government also released the names of the 21 freed girls:

1. Mary Usman Bulama

2. Jummai John

3. Blessing Abana

4. Luggwa Sanda

5. Comfort Habila

6. Maryam Basheer

7. Comfort Amos

8. Glory Mainta

9. Saratu Emmanuel

10. Deborah Ja’afaru

11. Rahab Ibrahim

12. Helin Musa

13. Mayamu Lawan

14. Rebecca Ibrahim

15. Asabe Goni

16. Deborah Andrawus

17. Agnes Gapani

18. Saratu Markus

19. Glory Dama

20. Pindah Nuhu

21. Rebecca Mallam

Source: Nigeria federal government

As they waited to board the flight to Yola they appeared tense. Their colorful clothes and bright smiles did little to mask the pain and anxiety behind their eyes. Some of the girls had confided in their Abuja caretakers that they were worried about how they would be received by the wider community due to the stigma of being held by Boko Haram.

Memories of that fateful April night were surely not far from their minds and one could only imagine the trauma they endured at the hands of their Boko Haram captors — one of the world’s deadliest terrorist groups.

However, there was a palpable sense of growing excitement Friday once they were on the move. They smiled more readily, giggling and chattering freely among themselves.

When asked how they were feeling about reuniting with family and friends in their hometown, they answered in unison: “We are happy!”

After landing in Yola, they were welcomed by the governor and local community leaders. But the second half of their reunion journey was delayed as the road to Chibok was deemed too dangerous to travel at night.

So the girls gathered Friday night in their Yola hotel — surrounded by military guards — to pray and sing Christian hymns and songs. Their captors would have certainly not approved.

frequently

Watching them during these solemn acts of worship, it was not hard to see how they kept going through the worst moments of their ordeal with Boko Haram.

Home at last

At the crack of dawn Friday, the girls hit the road, accompanied by a military convoy that escorted them to Chibok. As we entered the town six hours later, we were greeted by a crowd of locals, many waving excitedly.

161226161329-01-chibok-girls-return-exlarge-169

161226161341-02-chibok-girls-return-exlarge-169

161226161350-03-chibok-girls-return-exlarge-169

161226161401-04-chibok-girls-return-exlarge-169

161226161410-05-chibok-girls-return-exlarge-169

161226161421-06-chibok-girls-return-exlarge-169

161226161431-07-chibok-girls-return-exlarge-169

161226161439-08-chibok-girls-return-exlarge-169

161226161449-09-chibok-girls-return-exlarge-169

161226161458-10-chibok-girls-return-exlarge-169

161226161518-12-chibok-girls-return-exlarge-169

Parents and other family members were waiting anxiously to see their daughters again.

The moment of reunion finally arrived amid scenes of unbridled joy. Parents and daughters embraced, the pain and relief of the past two and a half years etched on their faces.

But then, suddenly we could hear wailing and heart-rending screams. Some mothers had come expecting to see their daughters, only to learn they were still being held by Boko Haram.

These women had thought their girls would be among the group coming home for Christmas. Their moment of hope gone, they remained inconsolable.

There are 197 Chibok girls still in captivity, and talks are ongoing to free them. Sources tell CNN that negotiations only involve 83 of the girls.

More joyful reunions like the ones we witnessed here may soon follow. But they may also be tempered by the grief of parents whose daughters are never coming home.

I am happy to tell you that after a great deal of time and much suffering on the part of the girls, 21 of the kidnapped girls came home. These girls stolen by Boko Haram have been returned to their parents and other family members. What an amazing outcome to the terrible tale of families robbed of their daughters. The fear and grief had to have been almost paralyzing. With prayer and hope they faced each day with hope that they would see their beloved girls again.

Prayers will still be needed as the girls attempt to fit back into their families, and for those still remaining with Boko Haram. After all that they have been put through, including being “married” to soldiers, raped, and forced into slavery, they are not the same young women who were carried away. The fear and violence will have taken its toll. For those who were impregnated, this will stress the girls, families and for the children themselves. In my opinion, this qualifies as a real Christmas miracle.

Namaste

Barbara

October 24, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

The Evil That Men Do

This is October and it is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. For those who do not know, I have 26 years of experience working in Domestic Violence. I have worked in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and now in North Carolina. Domestic Violence is everywhere here in America. It is also found across the globe. It stems from cultures being based on patriarchal patterns. In a patriarchy, the males must have the power and control. In Domestic Violence, power and control is what the abuser is really after.

I ask you to look around you at your life and at the lives of the men and women in your life. Any of them could be being abused. Abuse can start while dating in high school, in college, on the wedding night, when you announce you are pregnant. It can begin because the abuser’s boss denied him a promotion, he did not make his sales goals. He cannot control himself/herself and you carry the bruises and fractures from this lack of control.

In 2003, the cost of DV in terms of medical care, mental health services, and lost productivity at work total up to $48.3 billion. Add to this the lives destroyed, the children who grow up with battering as their role model and will continue the stereotypes and battering spirals out of control.

Some people think that DV only effects the poor or marginalized in society. They are very wrong. Because we keep confidential records on batterers, we know that batterers can be middle class, they can be your state senator, your minister, the kid who bagged up your groceries, or you sat next to in church or mosque. While shopping, you may share the mirror with a battered woman in the ladies room, you may sit next to one at the theatre. Statistics show that 30-50% of homes have battering in them. That is a lot of people living in fear and violence.

After the first time you are abused, the abuser will tell you it is your own fault. You should have done what you were told to do. You made the attack happen. No, you didn’t. Don’t listen to the lies coming out of that mouth. No one has the right to hit another human being. You are not owned, you can’t be told what to do or what to say. You are not crazy as many victims have been told. You are being abused if you are being pushed, slapped, pinched, punched, having your hair pulled, being stepped on, deprived of sleep, called filthy names, kept locked in the house, not allowed access to finances, raped (even if you are married), having food thrown at you, or bones broken.

Going to church, temple or mosque will not stop abuse. Nor will it heal your abuser. God does not want you to stay in a Domestic Violent situation. Not in the Middle Ages, not today, not ever. God does not want you to live in fear and violence.

Where to go? Ask a police officer or taxi driver where your community’s DV shelter is located. They will know and probably take you there. Once you go to shelter you will be safe with a roof over your head and your children’s if you have them. You will have a bed and food. There will be counselors who will listen to your story, listen to you as you decide what you are going to do next. You may want to get your own apartment, go back to school, move out of town or get a restraining order from the court. The shelter will provide you with counselors to help you achieve the goals you have set for yourself.

The battered women’s shelter movement started in the 1970’s and I helped to start one of the country’s first shelters. It was a grassroots by-product of the Women’s Movement that I am very proud to have been part of. Mostly, I am proud to have been able to help women and children out of a living hell and into a life where they could grow and thrive.

Domestic Violence is not going away. The statistics are increasing each year in each American community and in cities and villages around the world. Batters often start by hitting where bruising will be covered by clothing. The victim will often be kept in isolation away from friends and family. The abuser has more control this way and outsiders have less influence.

In today’s world full of social media, teens are often battered physically and emotionally with texts and on Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, or Twitter. This can be extremely frightening to a teen so it is important to keep communication open with them so they will not be afraid to talk to you. In 2008, the Centers for Disease Control published statistics that showed that 2 million injuries have resulted from intimate partner violence every year.

You don’t have to be a statistic. Get help, get out.

Namaste

Barbara

bjwordpressdivider

50512208-domestic-violence-word-cloud-on-white-background

Family battering

purple-ribbon-campaign-made-from-word-illustrations-isolated-on-white

WE MUST STOP THE VIOLENCE. NO ONE DESERVES TO BE ABUSED OR TO HAVE TO LIVE IN FEAR.

black-eye-bruised-and-injured-from-domest

September 8, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

Domestic Violence Can End in Death

WOMEN

He Kidnapped, Beat And Tortured His Wife. Free On Bond, He Killed Her.

We know the risk factors for domestic homicide. So why are we failing to protect those in the gravest danger?

Melissa Jeltsen Senior Reporter, The Huffington Post

The risk factors for domestic homicide are well-established.

For 11 days this summer, Tierne Ewing was tortured by her husband.

Kevin Ewing kidnapped her, beat her, locked her in a closet, hit her in the head with a pistol, strangled her, burned her with a hot stick and made her sleep with a rope around her neck, according to Pennsylvania law enforcement. More than once, he put her in the bathtub and pointed a gun at her, threatening to kill them both.

On July 8, she managed to escape when Kevin allowed her to enter a bank. She was hysterical, and begged the bank tellers to call the police. After law enforcement arrived, she was too frightened to leave the building, telling them, “I don’t want to die.”

Kevin was arrested the same day and charged with kidnapping, aggravated assault, terroristic threats, unlawful possession of a firearm and other crimes. Less than two months later, while released on a $100,000 bond, he kidnapped his estranged wife again.

This time, he followed through on his threats.

On Aug. 30, Tierne was found shot to death in a barn. Her husband also shot himself in the head. Her death is now raising questions about what authorities in Washington County could have done differently.

District Attorney Eugene Vittone, who called Tierne’s murder a possibly“preventable tragedy,” told The Huffington Post that he has begun an investigation into what went wrong.

“We are trying to get all the facts and see where the system may be improved,” he said. “We probably need to take a look at how we address bail in these types of cases.”

While it’s impossible to predict every domestic violence case that turns lethal, experts believe that there are critical warning signs that can indicate when a case is especially dangerous and needs special monitoring.

Decades of research by Jacquelyn Campbell, a leading expert in domestic homicide, has helped to identify important risk factors for lethality, which include abusers’ access to firearms, previous strangulation attempts and death threats.

Her work has been distilled into an 11-question screening tool that a growing number of police departments across the country are now using to identify domestic violence victims who are at the greatest risk of being killed.

Tierne had almost all the signs of a woman in extreme danger.

She had been previously strangled, which made her seven times more likely to be killed by her abuser. Her husband owned guns, making her five times more likely to end up dead. He had threatened to kill her and himself. And she believed that he was capable of murder.

“I totally agree that it was preventable, because it was so predictable,” said Ellen Kramer, deputy director of program services at Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence. “When you read down the list, this screams out for some kind of heightened safety measures for this victim.”

The case brought her to tears, she said.

Some police departments in Pennsylvania currently screen victims for risk of lethality, but the practice is not yet widespread.

PCADV has also created a fact sheet for judges on lethality factors, Kramer said, with the hope that courts will use it when assessing the danger that domestic violence offenders pose to their victims.

“If we are going to do something to prevent domestic violence homicides, communities have to come together in a much more meaningful way and understand lethality, and do a much better job at making sure that abusers like this guy don’t fall through the cracks,” she said. “My greatest hope is that Washington County can take a look at this, and learn something from it, make the changes that may be in order, and then share what they learned.”

Kevin posted bond after spending three days behind bars.

When the prosecutor handling the case, assistant district attorney Kristen Clingerman, found out he had been released from jail, she immediately asked the judge to increase his bail because of his history of domestic violence.

Tierne told Clingerman that if her husband was free, she was going to die.

“I had a really bad feeling,” Clingerman said. “In my heart, I knew that there was not going to be a good result. All the signs were there that this could be a fatality.”

While a judge denied her request for a bail increase, he agreed to some modifications that she asked for, including that the defendant have no contact with his wife, relinquish all weapons and wear an ankle bracelet that would alert authorities if he left the home. On the day he killed his wife, he cut it off.

Clingerman said that she did everything she could to keep Tierne safe.

“I wish that other people, whether they are lay people, family, law enforcement, would understand that domestic violence is so serious and so lethal,” she said. “If the defendant would have kidnapped a stranger off the street, and burned her and beat her and strangled her, I wonder what his bond would have been then.”

Between 2005 and 2015, at least 1,676 people in Pennsylvania were killed as a result of domestic violence, according to PCADV. (The Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence)

Most of the victims were female domestic violence victims, but that number also includes children, law enforcement, friends, coworkers, passersby, and perpetrators who killed themselves or were killed by law enforcement.

Tierne’s death was not the first high profile domestic violence shooting in Pennsylvania this summer. Just last month, a man killed his wife and three kids on the day she had planned to move out.

BJSquiggel

Battered women often don’t leave because it is the most dangerous time in the cycle of violence. A tremendous number of men say “If I can’t have you, no one will have you.” However, it is a rare case that ends as this one did, when he had been through the system after she left and she still was murdered by her abuser.

A DV shelter will help you begin a new life under a new name with your children if that is necessary. If you do stay, sooner or later you will die. At your funeral, he will give you flowers for the first time in years, and people will console him because now he is alone without you. He will be the object of such considerate consolation.

No matter what material goods you have to leave behind, get out and stay out. If he threatens to kill you and you believe him, take the children again and go to the shelter and ask for help getting to another city or even state. Some day your children will thank you.

Domestic Violence effects the entire entire family

Stop Abuse because it is wwrong and a crime

Stop Abuse because it is wrong and a crime

Even a slap, push or a shove is Domestic Violence

August 9, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

We have used the Earth’s Resources for a Year

Humans Have Used All the Earth’s Resources for the Year

Written by

SARAH EMERSON

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

August 9, 2016 // 01:19 PM EST

This year, “Earth Overshoot Day” fell on August 8, based on measurements of each nation’s withdrawal of natural capital. From carbon sinks to fisheries, humanity has taken more from nature than it’s been able to reproduce. Quite simply, we’re in environmental debt.

Since the 1970s, our global “ecological footprint,” or impact on Earth’s ability to generate renewable resources, has widened. Without fail, the Global Footprint Network says, Earth Overshoot Day has fallen earlier every year—between one to three days, on average, over the last four decades. Last year, it coincided with August 15.

Renewable resources such as crops, forests, and fishing grounds, as infinite as they might seem, are only as productive as we allow them to be. An ecosystem’s usefulness, also known as its “biocapacity,” is fatally interconnected with our ability to curb greenhouse gas emissions. If these environments can’t absorb our carbon and waste, they’ll take longer to regenerate.

According to national footprint measurements for 2016, if the entire world behaved like Australia, it would take 5.4 Earths to meet its annual natural resource needs. Here in the United States, we’d need 4.8 planets to meet our requirements. And Brazil, which recently came under fire for its poor environmental policies, would need 1.8 Earths to fulfill its consumption demands.

Two years ago, the World Wildlife Fund calculated that humanity’s ecological footprint in 2010 topped out at 18.1 billion global hectares, which is a common unit of measurement for comparing the productivity of one ecosystem to another. That year, however, Earth’s biocapacity was only 12 billion global hectares, meaning people used nearly 50 percent more natural resources than were able to be produced.

In that same report, climate scientists estimated that by 2030, more than two planets will be needed to support all of humanity if countries don’t become more sustainable.

An ecological footprint is, at its core, a supply and demand equation, and can theoretically be solved for a person, industry, community, and country. Yet, some researchers question whether this can, and should, be quantified at all.

One critic said the equation makes arbitrary assumptions about carbon emissions, national boundaries, and production levels, and “fails to satisfy simple economic principles.” Another author argued that a calculating a country’s ecological footprintdoesn’t offer meaningful information for shaping environmental policies. It’s even been suggested that placing such a high value on an ecosystem’s biocapacityultimately encourages agricultural monoculture, or the cultivation of a single resource in a given area.

The method’s most compelling criticism, however, is that it portrays smaller, rural populations as parasitic, consuming the resources of larger communities instead of producing their own. There’s a theory that if aliens were to visit our planet, they’d characterize our species as a lowly parasite, and not its most dominant lifeform. As perspective-bending as this may seem, even David Attenborough once referred to humans as “a plague on the Earth.”

Hopefully, instead of draining Earth of its life-giving sustenance, we’ll find a way to live sustainably. New climate policies, such as those outlined in the Paris Agreement, aim to make the fight against environmental demise a global one. Because if one thing’s for sure, it’s that soon, no one will be spared the effects of global warming.

“The good news is that it is possible with current technology, and financially advantageous with overall benefits exceeding costs,” said Mathis Wackernagel, co-founder and CEO of Global Footprint Network.

“The Paris climate agreement is the strongest statement yet about the need to reduce the carbon footprint drastically. Ultimately, collapse or stability is a choice.”

January 20, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

Are You Being Battered in Your Relationship?

Everyone who is in a healthy relationship knows it will have its ups and downs. But not all relationships are healthy. How do you know whether or not your intimate partner is a potential batterer? Let’s look at some truths. Was your partner ever abused as a child? These children can grow up to be abusers or victims because they watched it while they were growing up.

Was their father violent? Violence breeds batters. The batterer will grow up thinking that abuse is a norm in a relationship.

Have they ever show violence against other people?

Did they physically abuse you or an ex in a past relationship? Physical abuse during dating is a guarantee of abuse in the relationship. There is overwhelming evidence that after one beating there will be more to follow. As time passes, the beatings will become more severe and more frequent. The abuser may begin to also beat the children. In truth, you can’t change them, so don’t marry them or continue in the relationship.

Does the batterer play with guns or use them to protect themselves?

Does the abuser lose his temper frequently and more easily than seems normal? An inability to handle frustration is a warning buzzer indicating future physical violence. If relatively small frustrations set them off, such as someone pulling ahead of them in traffic, the abuser probably will not be able to handle many of the frustration of a normal marriage or relationship. The abuser will lose their temper and scream or blow their top. Abusers are people who cannot handle frustration and they will turn to violence as a solution to what they perceive as problems. If someone punches walls, breaks objects including ones with great sentimental value to you, or throw items in a rage, they will likely turn on their intimate partner one day.

Does the batterer commit acts of violence against objects and things rather than people?

Are they cruel to animals including the family pets? If pets often die or run away, this is a warning to you. Anyone who savegely beats a pet or kills one is a potential abuser.

Does your intimate partner drink or use drugs to excess?

Does the partner demonstrate an unusual amount of jealousy when you are not with them? Is your partner jealous of family and friends who are in your life?

Are you required to spend all of your time with them or do they require to be notified of every place you go during the course of your day? It may feel flattering at first and you will be told it is because your partner just loves you so much and misses you intensely, but it is signal and a way to control.

If your partner gives you advice, do they become outraged if you make your own decision?

Does your partner seem to have a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality? Is you partner charming and gracious and the fun person at the party when you are out and a screaming yelling monster at home? Is your partner someone you just can’t please? You never do the laundry right or cook what they like to eat, or you are a bad cook or housekeeper, you don’t make enough money or look good enough. An inability to be pleased, and tendency to always blame someone else for unhappiness indicates that they are a potential abuser.

Is there a sense of overkill in his beatings and in his kindness? Are their actions — good or bad — bigger than life?

Do you feel fear when your partner becomes angry with you or someone else? Do you adjust your behavior to calm them down or to prevent them from becoming upset?

Do they cling to rigid stereotypes of what men and women should look like or act like? Do they demean you if you fall short of the standards?

Do they have a poor self-image? Beatings often occur when they feel that their stereotypical role is being undermined.

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you may be in an abusive relationship. It will not improve and you and any children should get out. No matter where you live, here in America or in another country, find out what options you have. Make a go bag. Pack clothes, money, passport, medical information, medications for you and children, don’t hesitate to flee. Your life may depend on it. Find out what support you can receive from the legal system and use it. Show your children that no one ever has a right to hit, slap, kick, or punch you or them. Many places have domestic violence shelters that will house you, give you options, talk with the children, give you ideas about a job or an apartment. The volunteers and staff in these shelters are often victims themselves.. Even if they are not themselves survivors, these people are trained to know how to help ou save yourself and your children. They will help you through the entire process.

Namaste

Barbara

bjwordpressdivider

DV used to be called the “silent scream”
Speak up now for your life and your children’s lives..

Freedom from fear and violence

January 9, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

Protests against Cologne Sex Attacks

Violence and fear are the way some people try to control others. Woman are often the victims of male hatred. Rape has no connection to sex. It is a political weapon in times of war. In the everyday, it is all about power and control. It is also part of the global war against women. Middle Eastern countries often want complete control of women and that is what they are trying to accomplish.

When a woman is raped she feels violated, humiliated and shamed. Some are angry and some feel that they are dirty. Some will report a rape and some are too ashamed. Some don’t want to be near even a husband or a boyfriend.

All are victims and not to be blamed. None of them should have to hear “you shouldn’t have been there” or “your skirt was too short” or “a group of women out like that, in the night, are just asking for it”. She shouldn’t be shamed, must not be blamed for the power hungry cowardly acts of the men who treat women like possessions and do not recognize that women are people to be treated with respect. The women raped in this story will need time and support to heal from this trauma.

bjwordpressdivider

Police clash with protesters angry about Cologne sex attacks

By Don Melvin and Greg Botelho, CNN

Updated 6:55 PM ET, Sat January 9, 2016

Berlin (CNN)German protesters angry about the New Year’s Eve mob sex attacks and muggings in Cologne, Germany, clashed with police on Saturday.

Cologne police responded with tear gas and water cannons after right-wing groups threw beer bottles, firecrackers and stones at officers in riot gear. Several officers and a freelance journalist were injured, police said, though the extent of their injuries were not known.

About 500 of the approximately 1,700 demonstrators supported Pegida, an organization that opposes immigration of Muslims from the Middle East, police said. A counter protest against Pegida was also held.

Fifteen people were arrested but that number may grow as videos are viewed, police said.

Many of the protesters were angry at police response to the attacks as well as the influx of migrants and refugees into Europe.

“Where were you on New Year’s Eve?” one protester yelled at police “Why didn’t you protect those women?”

Thirty-one people, most of them North African or Middle Eastern countries, have been charged in the attacks. Of those, 18 have been identified as asylum-seekers.

Cologne police said they received a total of 379 complaints about New Year’s Eve in Cologne, with about 40% being investigated as sex crimes. Other European cities reported similar rashes of sex crime reports.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has condemned the attacks in Germany as “disgusting, criminal acts” deserving of a decisive response. But she did not back down on her commitment to welcome refugees who obey German laws and pledge to integrate into German society.

In Cologne, where many of the attacks took place, a police spokesman confirmed that Chief Wolfgang Albers was fired Friday. Albers’ dismissal came amid criticism of his department’s handling of the violence.

One victim of the Cologne violence told CNN there were too few police on the streets to prevent attacks.

“We ran to the police. But we saw the police were so understaffed,” the victim said. “They couldn’t take care of us and we as women suffered the price.”

Spiegel Online reported that groups of men prevented officers from reaching those crying out for help.

“The events of New Year’s Eve like a spotlight once more highlighted the challenge we face in a new aspect that we had not really looked at before,” Merkel said Saturday in Mainz, at a meeting of her conservative CDU Party.

Merkel garnered international acclaim for her decision to welcome many of the hundreds of thousands of Middle Easterners who have made the journey to Europe this year in search of safety, food, work and a better life.

But Merkel stressed Saturday that Germany’s welcome was not unconditional.

“We, of course, expect from the refugees who come to us, those seeking protection, that they have the will to integrate, that they strive for integration,” she said.

Her response showed a determination to avoid repeating what are broadly viewed within Germany as the mistakes officials made with regard to Turkish “guest workers” after World War II. Because it was assumed that arrangement was temporary, virtually no attempt was made to learn (or teach) the language, customs and mores of the new home country.

The mistakes of that era echo through Germany to this day. Generations later, some families of Turkish origin living in Germany do not speak German, and forests of satellite dishes are all aligned to receive Turkish TV broadcasts. Many young third- or fourth-generation Turks lack a sense of belonging, a sense of being German, even though their grandparents were born in the country.

Cologne mayor criticized for advice to avoid men

And Merkel continued to say the newcomers were welcome.

Tough prosecution of wrongdoing, she said, “is in the interest of citizens of Germany, but it is just as much in the interest of the large majority of refugees who are here with us and, therefore, it is absolutely right.”

Those who break German laws may forfeit their right to residency and to asylum, she said.

Germany is going through experiencing recriminations over who should have prevented the attacks and whether someone was asleep at the wheel.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has criticized the response of Cologne police, and German Justice Minister Heiko Maas was among many who expressed disapproval of Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker for advising women to keep “more than an arm’s length” away from unknown men.

Reker later said the comments had been taken out of context.

Cologne police spokeswoman Christoph Gilles told reporters Friday that 170 criminal complaints had been filed related to the apparently coordinated attacks, “at least 120 of which have a sexual angle.”

An 80-person investigative team is looking at 250 videos with about 350 hours of footage, Gilles said.

The 31 suspects charged include nine Algerian nationals, eight people from Morocco, five from Iran and four from Syria, German interior ministry spokesman Tobias Plate said. Two are German citizens, while one each comes from Iraq, Serbia and the United States.

Other German cities experienced similar attacks the same night, including the northern city of Hamburg, where more than 50 incidents were reported.

January 5, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

Even a Gorilla Understands we are Killing Mother Earth

bjwordpressdivider

We hear you fellow creatures. We know we are wrecking the world and we are afraid.What we have unleashed has such a momentum now, we don’t know how to turn it around. Don’t leave us alone, we need your help.You need us too for your own survival. Are there powers there you can share with us?

“I lichen, work slowly,very slowly. Time is my friend. This is what I give you: patience for the long haul and perseverance.”

“It is a dark time. As deep diving trout I offer you my fearless of the dark.”

“I lion, give your my roar, the voice to speak out and be heard.”

I am caterpillar. The leaves I eat taste better now. But dimly I sense a great change coming. What I offer you, humans, is my willingness to dissolve and transform. I do that without knowing what the end result will be; so I share with you my courage too.

—Joanna Macy

“The foundations of morality was rising above the merely personal. The most important endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance can give beauty and dignity to life.”

Albert Einstein

bjwordpressdivider

Portrait of Albert Einstein.

October 15, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Domestic Violence Must End

You Can Help End Domestic Violence

According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development domestic violence is the third leading cause of homelessness among families. If a couple has a violent argument in the home, it is usually the woman and children who flee. They flee with little but what is on their backs. This is another reason why Domestic Violence Shelters are so important. They can place the women and children into temporary housing. Most can then also help them to find housing for her and the children. In my long experience I have never known a man to leave unless he is the victim.
Survivors of domestic violence face higher rates of depression, sleep disturbances, anxiety, flashbacks (PTSD) and other mental disturbances. Many are too ashamed of being beaten to go to a doctor or mental health worker and ask for help.

Stop Family Violence

Domestic Violence contributes to poor health in survivors. Chronic conditions such as heart disease, gastrointestinal disorders can become more serious due to repeated battering. Fear and anger build up in the victim and the stress can lead to other health issues.

Among women brought to an Emergency Room after being beaten, were socially isolated, and had fewer social and financial resources than women who were not abused. Part of the emotional abuse is social isolation. The victim is cut off from friends, family, therapists, neighbors because the abuser needs to have total control over the victim. Abusers don’t want women to hear there is a place to go and get help. i often would put the hotline number on a piece of paper and pass it to the victim without being seen. Each city has a hotline number and you can help save a life by getting the number and gently putting it into a woman’s hand.

Without help, girls who witness domestic violence are more vulnerable to abuse when they are teens and young adults. Without help, boys who witness domestic violence, are far more likely to become abusers of their partners and/or children as adults. This continues the cycle of violence into later generations.