October 10, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

But he only…

It’s hard when sheltered little girls start to grow up and get interested in boys, and boys return the interest. You only want to really talk about positive things with your daughter, because she’s your little girl and you cannot imagine adult types of things happening to her.

Then it’s time for the first date, and she’s excited and going on and on about how good looking he is, and how sweet he was when he asked her out, and you’re thinking “Good. Because that’s what my daughter deserves.” Not that you’ve told her that. She should know that.

She goes out on the date and he’s a perfect gentleman, and everything is storybook. She’s so happy she’s giggling as she goes about the house, talking on her cell phone to her girlfriends.

After about a month of dating, he asks her to go with him to a dance. She’s very excited and “I can have a new dress, right? Can I have a new dress? Can we go shopping, Mom, please?” And of course, the answer is Yes.

You go shopping with her, and you find the perfect dress: it covers in all the right places; it’s something your own mother would have approved of for you, and she looks beautiful in it. So, you figure, that everything is fine.

The night of the dance, he picks her up wearing a tux, has a corsage for her and promises you and your husband that he will have her home promptly at midnight.

You’re confident in him, because he’s never broken a curfew in the month that they’ve been dating.

He returns her home at 12:05, but that’s hardly worth mentioning. She comes in and she’s happy, she says she’s happy and says she’s tired and wants to go to bed. You wish her a good night’s sleep and off she goes.

In the morning, when she awakens, she calls her girlfriends, and tells them that he pushed her last night. He got upset because, while he was getting punch for her, a boy from her Chemistry class came over and was talking to her about the last lab they’d had, and how crazy their teacher is. She was laughing with the boy, because she agreed. Her boyfriend, as he was walking back to her with the punch in hand, saw her laughing and talking with this other boy. The lab partner excused himself and walked away when her boyfriend returned.

Her boyfriend asked: “Who was that? What did he want?”

She replied: “Oh, nothing we were just talking about Chemistry.”

He accused: “You were laughing. Looked like you were having a good time.”

She told him it was no big deal, and then his face darkened and he pushed her.

She didn’t fall to the floor or anything, but she felt scared. He had never been anything but gentle with her, until last night.

Another phone call comes in to her cell phone; it’s her boyfriend, she has to talk to him.

He’s sorry. He shouldn’t have pushed her. He wants to make it up to her by taking her to the movies tonight.

She says, yes, and gets ready.

You notice that she’s all bubbly and happy again, and wonder what the dark cloud had been that you’d noticed earlier, while your daughter was on the phone to her friends. Maybe it was just those teenage hormones.

You don’t ask.

She goes to the movies and they have a wonderful time.

About a week goes by, and she’s walking down the hall in school, with a bunch of her classmates — boys and girls. One of the boys is her Chemistry lab partner. Her boyfriend is looking for her, and he sees her having fun with all of these people, and with that one boy from the dance, laughing and talking with her.

He can’t see anything else but the just the two of them. Laughing. Together. Very together.

He walks up and grabs her and drags her away from everyone else. He’s holding her arm so tightly, as he pulls her to her locker to talk, that he leaves bruises.

“You’re hurting me! Stop!”

He begins to rant. He accuses her of cheating on him with her lab partner.

She’s confused; her lab partner is just a friend, she doesn’t know why he’s upset. And he’s hurting her. She tries to pull away.

His hand reaches back and slaps her face, and calls her a whore.

Nothing like this has ever happened to her before. She doesn’t know what to think or what to do.

She tells him to leave her alone, and she stalks off to class with her arm hurting and her face red, still feeling the handprint.

During class, she’s distracted, thinking about what happened. How could this have happened to her? Why would he do this? He’s always been so gentle, so charming.

And she thinks, she must have done something wrong. He said she had, she shouldn’t have been talking to those kids, that boy. She didn’t mean to be doing anything wrong. But that’s what upset him, so she must have been doing something wrong. Right?

Over the next few weeks, she pulls away from her friends, gradually and steadily. Her grades go down a little bit, but not enough for her teachers to worry, to call her parents.

You don’t know.

Then, it’s spring. She comes down for breakfast with a turtleneck on. It’s a beautiful, warm spring day. You ask her why the turtleneck? It’s a beautiful morning!

“I’m cold,” you’re told, tersely.

She’s running late, she doesn’t want to talk, and she hurries out the door before you can ask anything more.

She’s running from herself, but you don’t know that. She’s running from a situation that she just can’t understand. She’s afraid, and you can almost see that, but you can’t understand why.

What you don’t know is, the night before, on their last date, her loving boyfriend tried to choke her. The turtleneck is covering the bruises on her neck. She knows you would never allow her go see him again if you knew.

But he loves her. He told her he did; well, after he choked her.

And she loves him. Well, usually.

She wants to ask one of her old girlfriends if this had ever happened to them. But it was embarrassing. What if it hadn’t happened to them? What if they thought it was her fault, if they knew she did something wrong?

She can’t talk to you. You’ve never talked about anything like this. You’d never understand.

She decides to just keep the information to herself.

Six more months go by. He asks her to go steady. She eagerly says yes, but there’s a little voice inside that’s saying, “Run. Run.”

He tells her that now, she will be His. And no one can every interfere with them. He’ll take care of her, she won’t need anyone else, because she has him.

Several more months pass. They have a horrific argument and your little girl comes home.

Her face looks like pulp. He punched her this time, and she cannot hide this from you.

He had the right to do it, he said, because she belongs to him. They were going steady, after all.

You see her. “What happened?” you ask, and for the first time in months, she tells the truth.

But she still thinks it’s her fault. He always says she’s stupid and ungrateful and a burden to him, and she’s lucky he loves her at all.

But he does love her. He says. Between the punches.

“Do you love him, this boy?” you ask.

“I..I think so,” she says, and she starts to cry. “I don’t know,” she admits and you hold her.

“Mom, I’m scared.”

And your heart breaks.

This young girl has found herself in a spot many young girls find themselves in. They think that abuse is only broken bones or going to the hospital. That’s never happened to her. He only pushes. Only shoves. Only yells. He’s only REALLY hit her once.

What these girls don’t understand is that a slap, a push, a shove, twisting her arm, punching her face; belittling and calling her names; separating her from her friends — isolating, it’s called — it’s all abuse, battering.

They don’t understand that they are in danger, and this one person is the person they should be terrified of, and should get away from.

Hopefully, after talking to a counselor with or without her parents, and dating some other young men who treat her with the respect to which all young women are entitled, she will learn that she did not deserve the violence her now ex-boyfriend introduced to her life.

Hopefully, in the future, the men that she picks will not be abusers, and she will not spend years of her life living in violence in fear.

But you could have helped, long before it started. You could have talked to your daughter, let her know with words and actions that she IS special, and worthy of love. You could have told her that no one ever has the right to push her, or shove her or call her names, and if they do, she should always come to you. That you will always be there, and you will always listen, and that you would never think…

She deserved it.

Because she never could.

Because NO ONE ever deserves to abused.

Artists4Peace

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October 4, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Power and Voice

The newest stats for Domestic Violence are that 1 in every 4 women will be physically abused at sometime in her life. So if you have 3 friends, and you yourself have not experienced physical abuse, then one of your 3 friends likely has. This can happen in any relationship you are in. A friendship, dating, even being married. An estimated 1.3 million women have been victims of Domestic Violence by an intimate partner.

Emotional and physical abuse are choices that the abuser makes for him/herself. There is a cycle of violence and this cycle includes a honeymoon period when the abuser is sorry; even to the point of tears, presents are given, and loving words cross the lips. These behaviors hold the victim in the relationship very often. Not always. It depends on the victim.

Power is something the abuser wants. This is borne out statistically. He/she wants the victim to always be somewhere he knows about. A sense of fear is created for the victim but also it is confusing and mind-boggling because the person you see is not the same personality that others see. They get the charming, thoughtful side. They see the tender, loving person. They do not see the person who sent you to the ER.

Voice is the ability of a human being to set boundaries and to choose to spend time with friends, neighbors and family. Isolation is the act of removing a victim from communication and association people from their support system. Terror and fear often close a victim’s mouth. S/he often feel alone, helpless and hopeless. If any of this sounds like your life, you are in danger. You need to get to a safe place. Most cities these days have shelters for victims and their children. There is legal help and counseling.

Don’t stay.

You are not alone.

You are not guilty of anything.

No matter what the abuser says…

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Unlearning to not Speak

Blizzards of paper

in slow motion

sift through her.

In nightmares she suddenly recalls

a class she signed up for

but forgot to attend.

Now it is too late.

Now it is time for finals:

losers will be shot.

Phrases of men who lectured her

drift and rustle in piles.

Why don’t you speak up?

Why are you shouting?

You have the wrong answer,

wrong line, wrong face.

They tell her she is womb-man,

babymachine, mirror image, toy,

earth mother and penis-poor,

a dish of synthetic strawberry ice cream

rapidly melting.

She grunts to a halt.

She must learn again to speak

starting with I

Starting with We

starting as the infant does

with her own true hunger

and pleasure

and rage. —Marge Piercy, feminist author and poet

Namaste

Barbara

September 10, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Human Trafficking Continues

Former Sex Slave Says Kayla Mueller Was Killed By ISIS, Not An Airstrike

Yazidi girls share insight about the American aid worker’s time in captivity.

Willa Frej Reporter, The Huffington Post

Posted: 09/10/2015 04:44 PM EDT

Several Yazidi girls who were imprisoned by Islamic State militants spoke to the BBC recently about American aid worker Kayla Mueller’s time in captivity.

One of the girls, who gave her name only as Amshe, claims that the Islamic State was responsible for Mueller’s death, based on a conversation she had with Haji Mutazz, the group’s second-in-command. Mutazz was holding Amshe as a sex slave.

The Islamic State, also known as ISIS had previously claimed that Mueller was killed in an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition against the militant group.

Mueller was an American aid worker who began working on the Syria-Turkey border in 2012. ISIS captured her in Syria in August 2013.

The BBC interview, published Thursday, focuses on accounts by Dalal and Susan, two young Yazidi girls who escaped from Islamic State captivity and have since returned to northern Iraq. The girls say they met Mueller when all three shared a prison cell. Their recollections reveal previously unknown details about Mueller’s time as an ISIS prisoner.

U.S. officials told Mueller’s parents in June that the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, raped Mueller “repeatedly” while she was in captivity. Dalal and Susan confirmed this to the BBC.

The two girls said Mueller told them that after she was kidnapped, her fingernails were pulled out in an effort to torture her into confessing that she was a spy.

Mueller used notebooks to write of her travels in India and France, and kept busy by reading books. She had learned some Arabic from Islamic State members, according to Susan.

The girls also recounted how caring Mueller was. “When IS brought food for us, Kayla ate very little,” Susan said. “She didn’t want us to be hungry.”

Mueller shared stories about her life in the U.S., while the other two told her of their own lives back home.

When Baghdadi would call for Mueller to pay him a visit, Dalal said she would come back “shaken,” according to the BBC. He allegedly told Mueller that he would behead her unless she married him. Baghdadi subsequently married her and raped her, Dalal explained, though he never referred to her as his slave, the way he did with a Yazidi girl he also raped.

Baghdadi paid extra attention to Kayla, the girls said, and gave her a Quran and a wristwatch as gifts. He dressed her in all black and banned other men in the house from looking at her.

But other men took interest in Kayla, too, Amshe said. Mutazz made Mueller his sex slave as well, viewing her as a trophy because of her American nationality.

That’s also the reason Islamic State leadership ultimately killed Mueller: Amshe says Mutazz told her it was an effort to seek revenge on thee West.

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Human trafficking continues to spread its own brand of evil across the planet. ISIS is not taking responsibility for girls being forced into prostitution or being forced to marry ISIS soldiers. There is so much going on in the world right now. There are natural disasters, mass murders, kids dying from heroin. Millions of people live in violence and fear.

There are so many people running for President that it looks like the Indie 500. The items we use for every day life such as food are escalating in price. There are even pockets of Leprosy in our world. There are actually hundreds of thousands of infected people world wide.

There is terrorism, mass murders, Mental health problems are on the rise. So it is easy to allow a problem such as human trafficking to go by the wayside. It is easy to forget the women and children stolen and sold like cattle. Slavery on our globe is alive and well and we need to be alert for people who look like they are terrified or might be trying to send you a look which cries HELP.

There are many things we can do. We can notify the police when a situation looks suspicious. We can listen to women who are being abused at home and advise them to call a Domestic Violence hotline for help. We can be compassionate and look out for others. We can spend our money feeding the poor. We can all do a little volunteer work every week or month. We can let these difficult problems continue or we can all help fight them each in our own way.

All I ask, is for everyone not to turn away from human trafficking, realize that our citizens don’t need guns, and keeping kids in school is vital for their futures. Domestic Violence needs to be eliminated and every human being needs to know that they are important and it is their right to live in freedom.

One day at a time, let us all do one thing to create a world where slavery and violence are defeated.

Let us make a world for ourselves in which all people thrive and flourish in.

Namaste,

Barbara

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Slavery – Human Trafficking

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human slavery

September 1, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Gun Control Facts

After the many fatal shootings that have happened recently, I began looking for more information on Guns in America — looking for real facts, not just supposition.

I found a website, justfacts.com, which contained an entire webpage on Gun Control. I’ve excerpted some of the information, and several of the provided graphs, below, for your information. There is a great deal more information on the actual page, https://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp, for those who are as interested as I am in separating gun fact from gun fiction.

I’ll be interested to see what you think of this, and if it falls in line with your beliefs — pro or con — regarding gun control

Namaste,

Barbara

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This research is based upon the most recent available data in 2010. Facts from earlier years are cited based upon availability and relevance, not to slant results by singling out specific years that are different from others. Likewise, data associated with the effects of gun control laws in various geographical areas represent random, demographically diverse places in which such data is available.

Many aspects of the gun control issue are best measured and sometimes can only be measured through surveys,[1]but the accuracy of such surveys depends upon respondents providing truthful answers to questions that are sometimes controversial and potentially incriminating.[2] Thus, Just Facts uses such data critically, citing the best-designed surveys we find, detailing their inner workings in our footnotes, and using the most cautious plausible interpretations of the results.

Particularly, when statistics are involved, the determination of what constitutes a credible fact (and what does not) can contain elements of personal subjectivity. It is our mission to minimize subjective information and to provide highly factual content. Therefore, we are taking the additional step of providing readers with four examples to illustrate the type of material that was excluded because it did not meet Just Facts’ Standards of Credibility.

General Facts

* Firearms are generally classified into three broad types: (1) handguns, (2) rifles, and (3) shotguns.[3] Rifles and shotguns are both considered “long guns.”

* A semi-automatic firearm fires one bullet each time the trigger is pulled, ejects the shell of the fired bullet, and automatically loads another bullet for the next pull of the trigger. A fully automatic firearm (sometimes called a “machine gun”) fires multiple bullets with the single pull of the trigger.[4]

Ownership

* As of 2009, the United States has a population of 307 million people.[5]

* Based on production data from firearm manufacturers,[6] there are roughly 300 million firearms owned by civilians in the United States as of 2010. Of these, about 100 million are handguns.[7]

* Based upon surveys, the following are estimates of private firearm ownership in the U.S. as of 2010:

	Households With a Gun	Adults Owning a Gun	Adults Owning a Handgun
Percentage	40-45%	30-34%	17-19%
Number	47-53 million	70-80 million	40-45 million

[8]

* A 2005 nationwide Gallup poll of 1,012 adults found the following levels of firearm ownership:

Category	Percentage Owning a Firearm
Households	42%
Individuals	30%
Male	47%
Female	13%
White	33%
Nonwhite	18%
Republican	41%
Independent	27%
Democrat	23%

[9]

* In the same poll, gun owners stated they own firearms for the following reasons:

Protection Against Crime	67%
Target Shooting	66%
Hunting	58%

[10]

Crime and Self-Defense

* Roughly 16,272 murders were committed in the United States during 2008. Of these, about 10,886 or 67% were committed with firearms.[11]

* A 1993 nationwide survey of 4,977 households found that over the previous five years, at least 0.5% of households had members who had used a gun for defense during a situation in which they thought someone “almost certainly would have been killed” if they “had not used a gun for protection.” Applied to the U.S. population, this amounts to 162,000 such incidents per year. This figure excludes all “military service, police work, or work as a security guard.”[12]

* Based on survey data from the U.S. Department of Justice, roughly 5,340,000 violent crimes were committed in the United States during 2008. These include simple/aggravated assaults, robberies, sexual assaults, rapes, and murders.[13] [14] [15] Of these, about 436,000 or 8% were committed by offenders visibly armed with a gun.[16]

* Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology,[17] U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year.[18]

* A 1993 nationwide survey of 4,977 households found that over the previous five years, at least 3.5% of households had members who had used a gun “for self-protection or for the protection of property at home, work, or elsewhere.” Applied to the U.S. population, this amounts to 1,029,615 such incidents per year. This figure excludes all “military service, police work, or work as a security guard.”[19]

* A 1994 survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Americans use guns to frighten away intruders who are breaking into their homes about 498,000 times per year.[20]

* A 1982 survey of male felons in 11 state prisons dispersed across the U.S. found:[21]

34% had been “scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim”
40% had decided not to commit a crime because they “knew or believed that the victim was carrying a gun”
69% personally knew other criminals who had been “scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim”[22]

* Click here to see why the following commonly cited statistic does not meet Just Facts’ Standards of Credibility: “In homes with guns, the homicide of a household member is almost 3 times more likely to occur than in homes without guns.”

└ Vulnerability to Violent Crime

* At the 2013 homicide rate, roughly one in every 285 Americans will be murdered in the course of their lives.[23]

* A U.S. Justice Department study based on crime data from 1974-1985 found:

42% of Americans will be the victim of a completed violent crime (assault, robbery, rape) in the course of their lives.
83% of Americans will be the victim of an attempted or completed violent crime.
52% of Americans will be the victim of an attempted or completed violent crime more than once.[24]

* A 1997 survey of more than 18,000 prison inmates found that among those serving time for a violent crime, “30% of State offenders and 35% of Federal offenders carried a firearm when committing the crime.”[25]

accidents_fatal accidents_nonfatal chicago chicago_handguns england florida michigan texas

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August 18, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Just What is a Feminist?

I chose my subject this evening because I read a social media comment which described a feminist as a woman somewhere between an angry alien and a rabid wild animal. Now, I did not respond to the individual because I continue to work for peace and compassion in the world and in my personal world.

In case you are not aware, I am proud to be a feminist. A feminist is a woman. Just like any other woman. There are some differences. Feminists are men and women who believe females are people just like any man is a person.

Feminists also believe in equality. They believe that both sexes are born equal. Not every man can drive a race car at 100 mph, and not every woman can turn out a perfect Beef Wellington. Feminists do look at the world and see what is wrong and unjust. Some people look and turn away because what they see is horrific. For all of the wonderful people in this world of ours, there are many who are evil.

A feminist looks at what is wrong in the world and sees it and then begins to look at how it can be changed. Whether a feminist man or woman, they will not turn away from the ugliness but will work, speak out, write, protest to change the wrong.

We, as women, have the vote because of women like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and hundreds of Suffragettes (feminists) worked to make Congress to give us the vote. They even went to the dire length of handcuffing themselves to the White House fence. They were arrested, and once in jail they went on a hunger strike and the media told the world and we got the vote. This is of course, a simplified version of the tale.

WeCon

I became a feminist in the seventies. Abuse was the issue that ignited my heart and passion. I do not believe that one person has the right to hit another. Women and children have the right to live without violence and fear. If a woman is the abuser, she needs to face the same consequences as any man who batters.

Women have the right to make their own decisions. To marry or not to. To pick her friends. Men have control over their bodies and the government would never think to tell them what to do with them. Even the man who hires the prostitute is usually protected from prosecution, while the woman is charged and will be in jail at least overnight. The government has repeatedly tried to control women’s bodies and how we choose to use them.

A feminist is a person who feels that women should receive equal pay for equal work. We have never had this in the USA. My sister found out she was making less than the men in her department. She was, justifiably, upset. She was doing more work than literally anyone in the company (when she left, her duties had to be spread over 5 people), yet she still made less than men with less education. Was that right? No.

Some feminists are wonderful wives and mothers, both stay-at-home mothers and working mothers. It is what they choose to be and that is great. I, myself, have nine grandchildren. I have also marched for Hard Hatted Women. Women who wanted the right to work in construction. It is their right to choose how to support themselves and /or their families.

So, like black lives matter, so do women’s lives. And for those who disagree, perhaps a long look in a mirror would be a good thing to try. Hugs, Barbara

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April 28, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Everyone Needs To Be Heard

I have been monitoring the murder of Freddie Gray and I was glad to see that the protests were peaceful, until yesterday.

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said: “Violence is the language of the unheard.”

I want to share that I have personally marched and picketed up to 1995, when my husband died. It was a very difficult time for me, after his loss, and I could no longer use my energy as I once did. While protesting in Harrisburg, PA; Washington, DC; Cleveland, OH; and Erie, PA, as it happened, the marches and protests I participated in were peaceful.

Black Lives Matter

As my readers know, I am a pacifist. I believe in Peace, not war. What does war get us? Nothing.

I had a conversation last night with a very dear friend, and we were discussing Freddie Gray’s murder, and the protests that were beginning, at that time, to turn violent. He made me realize that what Martin Luther King, Jr. said back in the 60’s, continues to be true: If people are not heard; if their words and peaceful protests are not met with understanding and action, with changes for the betterment of all peoples, then there will be violence, there will be bloodshed.

This has been a very difficult time for me, because I do not believe in violence; and yet, I know that if people continue to go unheard, unheeded and undervalued by their city governments, state governments, federal government, there will be repercussions.

My friend is starting a list — he has found, so far, at least 1 young man has been killed by police everyday in the past year. Not just black men, but hispanic men, asian men, white men; muslim men, Christian men, Jewish men. Men from all races, religions and creeds. It surprised and shocked me that so many young men are dying at the hands of our own police, here in the United States.

Black Lives are Important to America

It is difficult to comprehend that the police have gotten to a place where they feel they have the right to take a life because they run away, or because they mouth off. It has been a while since the police have been seen in such a bad light, but the time is here again, when police departments across the nation are losing the confidence of the citizens whom they are supposed to “serve and protect”.

My concept of “serve and protect” is to be able to maturely come to a valid assessment of a situation and to react to that situation with the best of your ability for what is within the law and what is in the best interests of the community.

I live in a suburb of Cleveland, OH, as many of you know, and a short time ago, we had a 12-year-old boy, Tamir Rice, who was playing in a park. Someone called in a 911 call to say that there was someone acting suspiciously in the park. A police cruiser was sent to the scene and the two officers killed this child because he was playing with a toy gun.

My heart breaks for this child and his family. His death is something that they will never recover from, completely.

The arrival of the police and the fatal shots were videoed by a by-stander, and so much was found wrong with the behavior of the police officers, that even in my idealism, I can find no excuse for such terrible behavior. They shot Tamir within 12 seconds of arriving on the scene. There was no discussion, no evaluation, no attempt to diffuse the situation. There was only immediate, permanent death.

Peaceful protests show that people want to be heard.

In Baltimore, the protests have become violent and unfortunately no one listened to the people during the peaceful protests which occurred first. I read a quote once that it takes war to bring about change.

I understand why this was said, but I have to believe that if we just listen to what people are saying, to their honest, peaceful words for peace and change, we can solve this together with all Americans equally voicing their opinions.

UnnecessaryViolence1 Unheard people will resort to violence

If the unheard voices do not become heard, we could end up in a revolution within our shores, or another civil war; not state against state, not north against south, but the poor against the privileged, and the disenfranchised against those with power.

I have 9 grandchildren. I do not want them to have to live through a civil war, or a revolution.

Right now, the majority of the protesters are black and they are protesting the unnecessary death of Freddie Gray.

Anger erupts as people feel they have no other options for their anger.

If police tactics and brutality do not end, there will be protests among every racial, religious and other disenfranchised group in America. This is never going to go away without Justice; police officers must be held accountable and responsible for their bad choices, and for the murder of people they are supposed to protect.

I want to say how badly I feel for all the young lives which have been taken for no good reason. I want to say the police are brutalizing American citizens and should be punished for their crimes against the citizens of the United States.

In general, I believe that the police will be given the amount of respect that they give to the people they are attempting to arrest, but even if they are not, it is not right to kill those people.

My message, therefore, to community leaders across this country — to police commissioners and their officers — is to Stop Killing Young People.

If we forget the importance and sacredness of life, then we will become the barbarians that human beings once were.

Black Lives Matter.

Hispanic Lives Matter.

Asian Lives Matter.

Native American Lives Matter.

European Lives Matter.

Middle-Eastern Lives Matter.

Muslim Lives Matter.

Christian Lives Matter.

Jewish Lives Matter.

LGBT Lives Matter.

Straight Lives Matter.

Criminal’s Lives Matter.

Police’s Lives Matter.

ALL LIVES MATTER.

We need to start acting like it.

March 5, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

An Artist and A Feminist

This Young Woman Walked Through Kabul Wearing Metal Armor To Protest Street Harassment

Artist-activist Kubra Khademi took to Kabul’s streets in a metal jacket in a defiant protest against sexual harassment.

posted on Feb. 27, 2015, at 11:02 a.m.

Tasneem Nashrulla

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Kubra Khademi, a 25-year-old Afghan artist, took to the streets of Kabul in a metal armor to protest street harassment on Thursday.

Photo by Abbas Changezi

In a Facebook post, Khademi, who is a multi-disciplinary artist in Kabul, called her performance “Armor.”

KubraKhademiPerformance

Khademi’s performance went viral in Afghanistan, a country where women struggle against assault, violence and misogynistic traditions on a daily basis.

Street harassment is rampant in cities such as Kabul where women are frequently subjected to verbal insults, physical assault and even acid throwing.

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“Harassment on the street is a daily experience for women and girls, and women who have sought help from the police in response to harassment and even threats have typically received no assistance,” according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

While there has been progress in girls’ access to education and increased participation in The Afghan parliament, “unchecked sexual harassment has been a significant obstacle to women’s employment and participation in public life,” HRW said.

BuzzFeed News has reached out to Khademi for comment.

Tasneem Nashrulla is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

Contact Tasneem Nashrulla at tasneem.nashrulla@buzzfeed.com

January 21, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Gun violence in America

5-year-old boy finds gun, shoots baby brother in head

By Holly Yan, CNN

Updated 10:59 AM ET, Tue January 20, 2015

(CNN)The mother called 911 to say her 5-year-old boy shot his baby brother with a paintball gun.

But it wasn’t a paintball gun. It was a .22-caliber Magnum revolver. And the 9-month-old boy didn’t survive.

Authorities are trying to figure out what led to Monday’s shooting in Elmo, in the northwest corner of Missouri.

“At this point foul play is not suspected, and it appears at this time that the shooting was accidental,” the Nodaway County Sheriff’s Office said.

Sheriff Darren White told CNN affiliate KCTV that the baby was in a playpen when his brother found the gun lying around a bed.

When emergency crews arrived, they found the infant had been shot in the head. The child was flown to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, where he was pronounced dead, the station reported.

Authorities say the gun belongs to a relative, but not the mother. Police are investigating the gun’s ownership, KCTV reported.

The mother’s other three children are with relatives, according to the station.

The sheriff said guns are rampant in the rural community.

“We are big supporters of firearms around here,” White told CNN affiliate KETV. “We have a lot of people that own weapons. They hunt. They target shoot. … Most people are very safe with them, and this is one of those cases where everything went together in the wrong way.”

He added, “We got some guys that work here that have little kids of their own. … This kind of hits home with them, too. They take it personally.”

Though they say the shooting was accidental, authorities have not determined whether charges will be filed against any adult in the case.

At least one nearby resident told KCTV she believes the shooting could have been easily prevented.

“You know, just some gun safety could have come into play, and would have maybe, you know prevented the situation, but it’s just really sad, altogether,” neighbor Jessica Hutchison said.

According to Project ChildSafe, gun owners should lock unloaded weapons in a safe, vault or cabinet inaccessible to children. Gun locks should be used in addition to safe storage, and ammunition should be locked away separately from any firearm.

Parents should also teach their children that if they find a gun in a house, they should leave it where it is and tell an adult, even if the weapon resembles a toy, the advocacy group says.

Monday’s incident is the latest in a series of high-profile shootings involving children. Among them, a 4-year-old girl killed her cousin, also 4, in Detroit while playing with a gun found under a bed last January, a 9-year-old accidentally killed a shooting instructor in August while firing a submachine gun at an Arizona range and last month a 2-year-old fatally shot his mother in an Idaho Walmart after finding a gun in her purse.

CNN’s Eliott C. McLaughlin contributed to this report.

December 2, 2014 by IdealisticRebel

The Long Term Effects of Violence

We are now living in a coarse society filled with violence, intolerance and hatred. Can we live with these influences without harm to our psyche? I think not. Must we always agree? No. Can we speak our truth? Yes.

It is important that we as individuals talk about our issues and points of disagreement. Is there damage from a violent society? Yes. I know this because there is damage left from violence in families and homes. I worked in Domestic Violence for over two score years, and counseled at Rape Crisis. I worked as a psych nurse for years. I am going to share a story of how long the effects can last.

One night, I was passing meds on my forty-two-bed lock down unit. I was in the hallway when I heard crying and indistinct words. I went into the room and both patients were in their beds and no one else was there. One woman was crying and screaming. Sobbing is more accurate. I was surprised because this woman had been in a catatonic state for many years. She never spoke.

I walked to her bed and said her name softly. She was in the middle of a dream. She was crying and saying, ” No, stop. I won’t do it.” “Don’t let them do it.” I lowered her bed rail and climbed up into her bed. I held her in my arms and crooned that she was safe and no one would hurt her now. I gently rocked as I held her and let her cry out her pain and fear. I listened carefully and was shocked at what I heard.

Slowly, she stopped crying and talking. I gently placed her back on her mattress. I was the one crying now. I wiped my tears quickly away, while putting the side rail back up. She appeared to be sleeping normally now. I could still feel the warmth of her body on my arms. Her tears were on my arms also.

I breathed deeply and finished passing meds. I was quiet and replaying her words over and over in my head. When I was done, I locked up the med cart in the med room and went back to her room where I found her sound asleep and quiet.

I returned to the nurse’s desk and pulled her chart to document the incident but first I read her social history. She had been married, not a surprise. Her husband was a long distance truck driver. According to the social workers’ notes, he had physically abused her and he had made her have sex with other men while he watched.

I felt sick. She had had a life full of violence, humiliation and sexual abuse. I was glad that I had been outside of her room when she was having the nightmare. I am glad that I had held her and comforted her because it seemed she hadn’t had much comfort in her life. Catatonic. She was at a better place than this world had been to her.

Checking dates and doing the math, these horrible experiences had happened about thirty years prior. I was sure this wasn’t the first nightmare she had had. It was just the first one I had witnessed.

Thirty years later, there was still enough painful damage to give her nightmares. To make her cry and talk. To beg not to let the men hurt her. This is an example of the damage done to a human psyche. Damage that destroyed this woman and left her very scarred.

I am sharing this story because we harm each other. We cause pain and suffering. There are long lasting effects for all of us. This is why we need to think of others. We need to create love, kindness, and acceptance in this world. We need compassion, forgiveness and understanding. We need to change us and our worlds. We need to put the positive energy into the world.

We need to expect the positive to come to our lives. We need to accept the positive and to be grateful for it. We need to breathe, open our hearts and let all the positive goodness flow out from us into the world. It will change our lives for the better and we will not be victim to the pain.

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We are all part of one human family.

May Peace Prevail

The parts of a happy life.

Focus on the positive

December 1, 2014 by IdealisticRebel

We Are Going Into the Future – With Positive Energy

I have been listening to people, what they write and what they say. I have looked around me at the people in my life and the acquaintances. When people talk, there is a flow of negativity. If one person does not make themselves clear, the other assumes the worst.

Now, it occurs to me that these threads of negative thought and speech are influencing more and more of the energy of our communities. People hurt others’ feelings, there is a lack of respect of others, of the elderly. Everyone seems to be on a hair-trigger. This trigger seems ready to go off and escalation is the result. My confusion comes from the fact that many of the angriest people have everything they could want. Yet it isn’t enough. Then I began thinking about how if friends and neighbors can’t have conversations without hurt feelings, there is something going on.

Times are changing. There is a lot of negativity in our cities, our country and all the countries of the world. There is an outcry across the world by the people who have been living under dictators, who live amidst bombs and fear. We human beings are committing terrible crimes against each other. Racism, sexism, greed and power are bringing out the worst in humanity. Not that we historically have had any difficulty torturing or causing pain to our fellow sentient beings.

Genocide is happening yet again. We have made it a purpose in life to try to wipe out races of people who are different. Their skin color, religion, education, natural abilities all have worked together to sound the battle cry to kill…the “others”. Some countries are keeping women and girls from receiving an education. This leaves them in perpetual poverty and controlled by the males in their families. They are owned by fathers, brothers, and husbands. They never even have a chance to figure out who they are. They never get to experience themselves as a child of the Universe. They are stuck having to always do what they are told. They don’t know how to protect their daughters because no one protected them.

Girls are being married off at as young as 10 years old. Their bodies are not even completely formed yet. In my mind, only a pedophile could or would do something like this. IN some cultures, if a man wants a woman and she doesn’t want him, he has the right to throw acid in her face. This is done to save his family shame. Also no one will ever want her. I have seen such horrible pictures of young beautiful women who are scarred so much their families are shocked. Little girls disappear. Mothers cry and pray, but the girls are gone and have been sold into sexual slavery. Their life is essentially over. Very few governments will search for them, so they are used until they commit suicide or are thrown away like garbage. In many countries, when girls reach puberty and their menses begin, the mother takes her to the midwife for genital mutilation. This practice is what will make them marriageable. It is done to decrease sexual pleasure and to ensure virginity. Some men have their wives sewn closed while they are away on business so their labia is sewn together to prevent sexual intercourse. A small opening is left so they can pee.

All of this adds to the negativity which is swirling around our world. Every time a girl or woman is saved and educated, we decrease the negative energy. It takes getting involved and understanding that every woman who is injured, is a sister.

Here in America, Domestic Violence is not stopping but increasing according to the FBI statistics. A woman who is married is not owned. She is not required to obey. She is not the reason he hits her. We started building Domestic Violence shelters and giving hope to abused women and their children in the 1970’s. We taught them to do the Activities of Daily Living so they could escape and survive in the world. Legal advice and assistance was provided. We saved lives. In those days, we were grass-roots organizations. Hard work, prayers and tenacity is what we lived on while we counseled, loved, fed and sheltered millions of women and their children. We just saw a need and began to do something to change lives.

This is exactly what we need to do to go forward into the future. We need to form grass-roots groups of dedicated men and women to stop the violence and negativity, of all kinds. Righting wrongs is an important aspect of our journey here on our World. Stopping negative energy and gut reactions is necessary to take us forward into the future. Caring is good, it is important. Volunteering a few hours a month would do much to create positive energy. People need to just think and act positively. Get out and give the Universe a few of the hours of your life and we will feel the energy brighten and we will feel joy within us. This must be a present and the future and we all can participate.

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