Revive Da Live s : Tribute to Roy Ayers featuring The Robert Glasper s Experiment, Pete Rock & Stefon Harris
Durée 02:31:59
6
22
Filmé le 11/09/2010 | En ligne encore pendant 74 jours et 20 heures
Description
Un DJ hip-hop new-yorkais d'exception (Pete Rock), un orfèvre du vibraphone (Stefon Harris), un pianiste jazz'n'soul au groove surpuissant (Robert Glasper) : casting de choc pour célébrer le roi Roy Ayers, figure très emblématique d'une fusion réussie entre jazz et soul, sorte d'intouchable parrain de l'acid jazz qui a traversé les décennies avec classe. Au micro ou derrière son vibraphone, Ayers, aujourd'hui septuagénaire, sait magnifier le groove pluriel. Pour ce concert hommage, ses trois éclectiques aficionados aborderont son répertoire sans jouer la carte du plagiat. On salive déjà à l'idée de voir les doigts de fée de Pete Rock caresser ou malmener ses platines pour louer ce Roy-là. Le Cabaret Sauvage sera vraiment sauvage.
• Artistes : Pete Rock (platines, MC), Stefon Harris (vibraphone), Robert Glasper (piano, clavier), Casey Benjamin (saxophone, vocoder - sous réserve), Derrik Hodge (basse), Chris Dave (batterie) • Réalisateur : Reza Ackbaraly & Stéphane Maurice • Cadreurs : Jérémie Clément, Giuseppe De Vecchi, Patrick Berthou, Ugo Gillino, Raul Fernandez • Son : Pierrick Saillant • Production : Oléo Films (Samuel Thiébaut) - Mezzo - Jazz à la Villette • Direction de production : Mélanie Golin ; Ingénieur vision et direction technique : Benjamin Dewalque
By entering into the Turtle Trails and Tales Writing Contest, you are giving Turtle Trails and Tales permission to use your entry, biography, and photos (if provided) for publicity purposes. Turtle Trails and Tales will NOT send any information to third parties.
Here's how to enter:
1) Please review the submission guidline page for detailed information regarding submissions.1) Read the directions on the left carefully while preparing documents.2) If you are submitting your work by mail (not required), please mail your work, title page, and entry fee to: Writing Contest Turtle Trails and Trails P.O. Box 19623, Reno Nevada, 895113) If submitting online, visit theOnline Submission pageAnd finally, good luck! You will be hearing from us with a confirmation email once all neccesary steps have been completed. We will inform you personally if we need anything else from you regarding the contest.
The Blotter’s Second Annual Long Form Fiction Contest
for Novella and Novel length works
1. The purpose of our contest is to provide a venue for writers to have their work read and commented on by our editors and judges. Additionally, the winner of this contest will have his/her work published here on these pages. And last but not least, the winner will receive a monetary prize! (Award monies are provided by the prize sponsor and the entry fee for the contest helps offset The Blotter’s costs.)
2. Our pre-reader judges are intelligent and highly proud of their educations. Our final judge is smart, well-read and runs the hundred in nine-point-eight. But we told her that she could be the final judge and what can you do?
3. In a world chock-full of scandal, transparency is very important to us, and we make every effort to eliminate any conflict of interest situation from going down in our contest. Blotter volunteers and their family members and/or employees are prohibited from entering our contest.
To enter the contest, please submit your work with a $25 entry fee by check or money order to: The Blotter Magazine, 1010 Hale Street, Durham, NC 27705. Entries must be received between October 1, 2010 and January 31, 2011 (you see, we’re already giving you an extension, so don’t put it off!)
Your entry must contain the following: no less than 10 pages, no more than 20 pages of the opening of your novel or novella, (or subject/character-connected short story chapbook) typed & double-spaced, without your name. On a separate cover page type your name, snail-mail and e-mail address, telephone number , the title of your novel or novella and a one page synopsis of your novel or novella. Remember, you have to have the entire book written, so that if and when you win, you can show us the rest!
BONUS: Enter the writing contest AND get a year’s subscription to The Blotter for only $30! (Regular annual subscription donationss are $25 total and you don’t even get to enter a writing contest with that price!)
Well, now. $650 in cash prizes, plus anything else we can wrangle together that we think has value. All placements, including honorable mentions, will receive an award certificate, proof positive of your success as an author, suitable for mocking your sophomore English teacher, who always wondered how it was that you graduated at all.
Our contest will be run in line with the rules of ethics and mechanics recommended by the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, as outlined in their 2006 monograph on the subject. You can’t view for free, but you may purchase the monograph entitled “Publishing Contests: Ethics and Mechanics” through the CLMP at http://www.clmp.org/about/monographs.html. This is the document we have used in coming up with the rules and conditions of this contest.
So that’s it, then - quit fooling around and get to work!
The charge went that American literature is too insular, that it’s neither concerned with nor does it engage the outside world. The critic was the Secretary of the Swedish Academy that decides the Nobel Prize. You can be sure that Canadian literature was lumped in there as well. We’re afraid that, to a degree, he was right.
Also, of course, in many ways he was wrong. Maybe a certain stripe of North American literature is too insular. Maybe a certain stripe does not engage the outside world. But the rivulets of work that do engage and which are anything but insular—these rivulets run deep.
The ILP hopes to encourage this tradition with its annual contest, which seeks to award the author of the winning entry airfare, accommodations, and tuition to the Disquiet program in Lisbon, Portugal in 2011 AND publication of the winning piece in the magazine of art and politics Guernica. Finalists and other entrants deemed to be of the highest quality will be offered partial tuition scholarships and may be considered for publication.
What to submit: We wish to cast the net wide in our definition of eligible entries. Work of any genre (poetry, fiction, nonfiction) that broadens the landscape of North American literature outside of the borders of North America is eligible. Examples of eligible entries, to give you an idea, might include a poem about a Hungarian grandmother; an essay based on your time in some foreign land--maybe travel writing, maybe more conventional journalism, maybe something in between; a short story featuring a North American abroad a la, perhaps, Paul Bowles... But these should not be read as sign posts. We wish to be surprised. In general, if your work flies in the face of this charge of insularity, submit it.
Eligibility: Entries must be in English. Writers must live or have lived in Canada or the United States but need not necessarily be citizens or permanent residents. Entries may not be previously published.
Length: One entry may include three poems or a single prose piece up to thirty double-spaced pages in length. Multiple entries must be accompanied by multiple reading fees. Poets wishing to submit more than three poems may do so by including additional reading fees. Prose submissions more than thirty pages are ineligible.
Reading fee: $15USD. Reading fee may be applied to ILP tuition in the event entrant does not win.
Deadline: Postmark or electronic mail date stamp of Jan. 31, 2011.
In a hidden alleyway, a half-dozen children gather around. They live in Village de Dieu, a small slum, which is not, in any way, godly. It is surrounded on all sides by canals of garbage. It is cholera-stricken. It is sunny and busy and broken in the ordinary ways.
At the entrance to the neighborhood is a once cheerful metal welcome sign, now rusted. Around the corner, a pack of kids looks at me very seriously. I didn't intend to give a quiz, but after each question, they confer quietly, like a committee.
What color does Santa wear?
"Red and black," offers Daniel, age 10.
Emily Troutman for AOL News
Daniel, 10, insists he didn't wear Christmas colors on purpose. Mostly because he doesn't know what Christmas colors are. He says he's getting a real car for Christmas, but his cousin says that's a lie.
"Red and white!" says Augustema, 8. She shushes Daniel.
Where does Santa live? They're not sure. What does he do? Silence. Is he old or young?
"Old!" says Augustema, smartly, looking to her friends. She's winning.
And so, what is Christmas? Here, they shuffle their feet and look sideways at each other. That's a tough one.
In Haiti this year, Christmas is more than just a holiday. It is also a memorial. The earthquake struck on Jan. 12 and Christmas is the last memory many have of their friends and family. It marks the beginning of two very difficult weeks. Politics has also unsettled people.
On Monday, Haiti's electoral council decided not to announce the final tabulation of the presidential election. International observers intervened at the last minute, urging a fair, supervised recount. For everyone, the way forward is unclear. No one knows who will be president, or when. No one knows if riots will resume.
But by Jan. 12, there will be media attention again. There will be congratulations and reprimands. There will be recounts and recalls and reconstruction news. Today, there is remembrance.
Carl, age 8, lives in the Village of God with his mom, Juentena, and seven other family members.
"On Christmas," says Carl, "We go to church. We pray. There's a party."
Emily Troutman for AOL News
Carl says Christmas is in Haiti is about church, praying and the party. His mom is surprising him with a toy car this year.
Their house has been marked with red spray paint, which means an engineering team determined that January's earthquake made it unsafe to live in. But without the money to repair their house, it's not exactly clear what good that does them.
His grandmother sighs. To her, the red sign means that they might die any minute, and when they do, it will be their own fault, for not moving into the camps. She couldn't do it, she says. They sleep in tents on the roof, most of the time, but don't have the money to start over.
Carl's neighbor, Florencia, is 12 years old. She knows more about Christmas than he does. It's about family, she says.
Emily Troutman for AOL News
Florencia, 12, lost her mom in the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti in January.
"Last year was better. My mom was with me. And now she's not."
Florencia's mom died in the earthquake. On Christmas, she remembers, "She was wearing jeans and a blue t-shirt. I haven't forgotten anything about her. She's still in my mind."
She is almost crying, but not quite. Almost angry, but motionless. Everywhere here is grief like hers, even as the city tries to celebrate. People in Haiti know -- like few others ever will -- how lucky they are. Things have been hard for a long, long time.
But there is no room for nostalgia in the way I know it. No room for self-pity.
In this neighborhood, old women snap peas, orange peels hang from rafters, the worn paint of broken houses is pink and blue. Women visit the market for oil, spices, butter. Elmireet, 55, lost her cousin in the earthquake. She was pregnant. It will be different to celebrate without her this year.
Emily Troutman for AOL News
Elmireet, 55, lost her cousin in the earthquake. She plans to celebrate Christmas modestly this year.
At a barbershop, men shape up for their wives. They're talking politics, but with the holiday, the wind has gone out of it. Patrik wants the foreigners to take over. Wesly wants Michel Martelly. Joel, the barber, stays neutral.
One young man in Village de Dieu, says he went out with the rioters two weeks ago.
"I didn't carry a weapon, just a branch of a tree in my hand. When I heard shooting, I just moved aside," he said.
Castro's doctors and nurses are the backbone of the fight against cholera
By Nina Lakhani
Sunday, 26 December 2010
AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Jacklin Anore, 24, a cholera patient at the Cuban-run Nicolas Armand hospital in Arcahaie, north of Port-au-Prince. Cuba has some 1,200 health workers currently in Haiti
They are the real heroes of the Haitian earthquake disaster, the human catastrophe on America's doorstep which Barack Obama pledged a monumental US humanitarian mission to alleviate. Except these heroes are from America's arch-enemy Cuba, whose doctors and nurses have put US efforts to shame.
A medical brigade of 1,200 Cubans is operating all over earthquake-torn and cholera-infected Haiti, as part of Fidel Castro's international medical mission which has won the socialist state many friends, but little international recognition.
Observers of the Haiti earthquake could be forgiven for thinking international aid agencies were alone in tackling the devastation that killed 250,000 people and left nearly 1.5 million homeless. In fact, Cuban healthcare workers have been in Haiti since 1998, so when the earthquake struck the 350-strong team jumped into action. And amid the fanfare and publicity surrounding the arrival of help from the US and the UK, hundreds more Cuban doctors, nurses and therapists arrived with barely a mention. Most countries were gone within two months, again leaving the Cubans and Médecins Sans Frontières as the principal healthcare providers for the impoverished Caribbean island.
Figures released last week show that Cuban medical personnel, working in 40 centres across Haiti, have treated more than 30,000 cholera patients since October. They are the largest foreign contingent, treating around 40 per cent of all cholerapatients. Another batch of medics from the Cuban Henry Reeve Brigade, a disaster and emergency specialist team, arrived recently as it became clear that Haiti was struggling to cope with the epidemic that has already killed hundreds.
Since 1998, Cuba has trained 550 Haitian doctors for free at the Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina en Cuba (Elam), one of the country's most radical medical ventures. Another 400 are currently being trained at the school, which offers free education – including free books and a little spending money – to anyone sufficiently qualified who cannot afford to studymedicine in their own country.
John Kirk is a professor of Latin American studies at Dalhousie University in Canada who researches Cuba's international medical teams. He said: "Cuba's contribution in Haiti is like the world's greatest secret. They are barely mentioned, even though they are doing much of the heavy lifting."
This tradition can be traced back to 1960, when Cuba sent a handful of doctors to Chile, hit by a powerful earthquake, followed by a team of 50 to Algeria in 1963. This was four years after the revolution, which saw nearly half the country's 7,000 doctors voting with their feet and leaving for the US.
The travelling doctors have served as an extremely useful arm of the government's foreign and economic policy, winning them friends and favours across the globe. The best-known programme is Operation Miracle, which began with ophthalmologists treating cataract sufferers in impoverished Venezuelan villages in exchange for oil. This initiative has restored the eyesight of 1.8 million people in 35 countries, including that of Mario Teran, the Bolivian sergeant who killed Che Guevara in 1967.
The Henry Reeve Brigade, rebuffed by the Americans after Hurricane Katrina, was the first team to arrive in Pakistan after the 2005 earthquake, and the last to leave six months later.
Cuba's constitution lays out an obligation to help the worst-off countries when possible, but international solidarity isn't the only reason, according to Professor Kirk. "It allows Cuban doctors, who are frightfully underpaid, to earn extra money abroad and learn about diseases and conditions they have only read about. It is also an obsession of Fidel's and it wins him votes in the UN."
A third of Cuba's 75,000 doctors, along with 10,000 other health workers, are currently working in 77 poor countries, including El Salvador, Mali and East Timor. This still leaves one doctor for every 220 people at home, one of the highest ratios in the world, compared with one for every 370 in England.
Wherever they are invited, Cubans implement their prevention-focused holistic model, visiting families at home, proactively monitoring maternal and child health. This has produced "stunning results" in parts of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, lowering infant and maternal mortality rates, reducing infectious diseases and leaving behind better trained local health workers, according to Professor Kirk's research.
Medical training in Cuba lasts six years – a year longer than in the UK – after which every graduate works as a family doctor for three years minimum. Working alongside a nurse, the family doctor looks after 150 to 200 families in the community in which they live.
This model has helped Cuba to achieve some of the world's most enviable health improvements, despite spending only $400 (£260) per person last year compared with $3,000 (£1,950) in the UK and $7,500 (£4,900) in the US, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development figures.
Infant mortality rates, one of the most reliable measures of a nation's healthcare, are 4.8 per 1,000 live births – comparable with Britain and lower than the US. Only 5 per cent of babies are born with a low birth weight, a crucial factor in long-term health, and maternal mortality is the lowest in Latin America, World Health Organisation figures show. Cuba's polyclinics, open 24 hours a day for emergencies and specialist care, are a step up from the family doctors. Each provides for 15,000 to 35,000 patients via a group of full-time consultants as well as visiting doctors, ensuring that most medical care is provided in the community.
Imti Choonara, a paediatrician from Derby, leads a delegation of international health professionals at annual workshops in Cuba's third city, Camaguey. "Healthcare in Cuba is phenomenal, and the key is the family doctor, who is much more proactive, and whose focus is on prevention ... The irony is that Cubans came to the UK after the revolution to see how the NHS worked. They took back what they saw, refined it and developed it further; meanwhile we are moving towards the US model," Professor Choonara said.
Politics, inevitably, penetrates many aspects of Cuban healthcare. Every year hospitals produce a list of drugs and equipment they have been unable to access because of the American embargo which prevents many US companies from trading with Cuba, and persuades other countries to follow suit. The 2009/10 report includes drugs for childhood cancers, HIV and arthritis, some anaesthetics, as well as chemicals needed to diagnose infections and store organs. Pharmacies in Cuba are characterised by long queues and sparsely stacked shelves, though in part this is because they stock only generic brands.
Antonio Fernandez, from the Ministry of Public Health, said: "We make 80 per cent of the drugs we use. The rest we import from China, former Soviet countries, Europe – anyone who will sell to us – but this makes it very expensive because of the distances."
On the whole, Cubans are immensely proud and supportive of their contribution in Haiti and other poor countries, delighted to be punching above their weight on the international scene. However, some people complain of longer waits to see their doctor because so many are working abroad. And, like all commodities in Cuba, medicines are available on the black market for those willing to risk large fines if caught buying or selling.
International travel is beyond the reach of most Cubans, but qualified nurses and doctors are among those forbidden from leaving the country for five years after graduation, unless as part of an official medical team.
Like everyone else, health professionals earn paltry salaries of around $20 (£13) a month. So, contrary to official accounts, bribery exists in the hospital system, which means some doctors, and even hospitals, are off-limits unless patients can offer a little something, maybe lunch or a few pesos, for preferential treatment.
Cuba's international ventures in healthcare are becoming increasingly strategic. Last month, officials held talks with Brazil about developing Haiti's public health system, which Brazil and Venezuela have both agreed to help finance.
Medical training is another example. There are currently 8,281 students from more than 30 countries enrolled at Elam, which last month celebrated its 11th anniversary. The government hopes to inculcate a sense of social responsibly into the students in the hope that they will work within their own poor communities for at least five years.
Damien Joel Suarez, 27, a second year from New Jersey, is one of 171 American students; 47 have already graduated. He dismisses allegations that Elam is part of the Cuban propaganda machine. "Of course, Che is a hero here but he isn't forced down your neck."
Another 49,000 students are enrolled in the El Nuevo Programa de Formacion de Medicos Latinoamericanos, the brainchild of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, who pledged in 2005 to train 100,000 doctors for the continent. The course is much more hands-on, and critics question the quality of the training.
Professor Kirk disagrees: "The hi-tech approach to health needed in London and Toronto is irrelevant for millions of people in the Third World who are living in poverty. It is easy to stand on the sidelines and criticise the quality, but if you were living somewhere with no doctors, then you'd be happy to get anyone."
There are nine million Haitians who would probably agree.
New forms of technology are inherently destabilizing to the established order.
This is the whole basis of a materialist understanding of history. But this reality can sometimes be confirmed in a manner that catches everyone by surprise. Dominance that was once unchallenged is suddenly contested on all sides. The struggle for change breaks out in new and unexpected ways.
U.S. imperialism cannot put back into the box or shut down what has been opened by WikiLeaks. Instead, the struggle to contain WikiLeaks has the potential to bring millions of people into political consciousness and conflict with the established order.
The effort to suppress the release of information on WikiLeaks by the arrest of Julian Assange and calls for his assassination or trial on terrorism charges; the imprisonment of Bradley Manning and the threats against WikiLeaks activists; along with the cancelation of its services by Amazon, PayPal, American Express, MasterCard, and U.S. and Swiss banks is radicalizing many highly skilled youth internationally. Hundreds of thousands of cyber attacks were organized on the multinational information corporations and banks that attempted to shut WikiLeaks down.
Every effort to shut it down has only served to spread it further and make it far more widely available. Thousands of mirror sites were set up within days of the effort to close WikiLeaks.
Even if the U.S. government succeeds in temporarily shutting down WikiLeaks, millions of people worldwide know that it is possible to break U.S. government and corporate secrecy. Many new sites are sure to follow.
The denunciations and attacks on the courageous individuals who have helped to provide access to government and corporate secret information will inspire many others who may have access to restricted information on all kinds of criminal and corporate skullduggery to join in leaking it.
All this undercuts the endlessly polished image of U.S. imperialism as an invincible power with all the most advanced technology at its disposal.
So much of cyber warfare is dominated by theft of information for profit or espionage. The impact of many thousands of cyber activists all over the world working simply for the idea that information and communication should be free and available — not kept secret or owned for private profit — has revolutionary implications.
WikiLeaks has exposed government secrets through the cooperation of courageous, highly skilled individuals who are able to communicate and willing to risk everything in the name of freedom of information. But those forces alone would not have had the mass access of the corporate media.
The choice of documents and the steady, well-publicized daily release of hundreds of documents provided by WikiLeaks on the front pages of newspapers in Germany, France, Spain and Britain may reflect that the U.S.’s own imperialist allies are no longer willing to just be pulled in tow by the U.S.-dominated military alliance known as NATO.
In the past these imperialist countries and their corporate media have been willing to ignore clear evidence of U.S. crimes and conspiracies. Previously, these crimes were not even considered newsworthy or relevant.
Now these imperialist countries — long-time thieves and robbers themselves — can see that today U.S. imperialism is in a long period of decline and decay. It is unable to prevail in a long ground war in Central Asia against one of the poorest, least-developed countries in the world: Afghanistan. It is unable to reverse the global capitalist economic crisis or solve the growing unemployment faced by millions of workers. Its industrial capacity is now a mere fraction of global production.
It is hardly a secret that in order to maintain its deteriorating monopoly on power, U.S. imperialism has used invasions, occupations, coups, bribery and military dictatorship. To hold in place an archaic, corrupt system of exploitation, it has openly engaged in the most repressive measures, including mass raids, disappearances, secret detentions, targeted assassinations, preventive prosecutions and frame-ups.
Both the Bush administration and now the Obama administration have politically defended the use of the most brutal forms of torture, including waterboarding, sensory deprivation, solitary confinement and electric torture. And they have used and sold weapons of torture around the world, from stun guns to white phosphorous and anti-personnel grenades.
Much of the information and even some of the pictures, videos and documents now being released were already known both in some specifics and in general outline. But concrete information can have radical consequences.
To understand how futile the U.S. efforts to shut down WikiLeaks are, it is worth looking back to a struggle at the dawn of capitalism against the old feudal order in Europe.
In the 16th century the Roman Catholic Church was the largest landowner in feudal Europe, controlling a third of all land. As an institution, it had a stranglehold on enormous amounts of property, privilege, titles, inheritance and especially ideas. The privileged clergy had a total monopoly on law, politics, science and “salvation.”
But new technology, trade and communication were bubbling beneath the surface. It was the newly invented printing press and its ability to widely disseminate information that broke the authority not only of the Catholic Church but also of feudal class relations.
The printing press & indulgences
In 1440 Johannes Gutenberg built the first wooden press, which used movable metal type. It took another 15 years, until 1455, to develop the rudimentary technology of movable type, metal molds, a special press and oil-based inks that together created mass production of the first printed book: 200 copies of the Bible. By 1499 — less than 50 years later — printing houses had been established in more than 2,500 cities in Europe. An estimated 15 million books had been printed of 30,000 titles, including hundreds of political and religious-political tracts which were distributed far and wide.
This new technology broke the monopoly of information once available only to a select few who had access to handwritten manuscripts that took years to individually copy or produce by laboriously inking carved wooden blocks.
The cost of Gutenberg’s first run of a two-volume printed Bible was the equivalent of approximately three years’ wages for an average clerk. This was far cheaper than a handwritten Bible, which could take a single monk 20 years to transcribe.(ideafinder.com)
As Gutenberg was developing the technology to print an entire book, he sustained himself by mass producing for church officials tens of thousands of printed “indulgences.” These were printed slips of paper sold by the Catholic Church that promised to remit punishments in the afterlife. These aggressively marketed notes could only be sold by agents or commissaries, who bought the rights to sell them from the pope in Rome.
Indulgences quickly became an enormous new source of wealth for Rome — a commodity that could be bought and sold. It was a new form of extracting profits: onerous taxation and mass exploitation for all who wished for salvation. For 50 years it appeared that the wealth and power of Rome was growing based on indulgences, the currency of the age.
All these enormous changes — a new marketable source of wealth, an emerging capitalist class, new technology, new communication, a beleaguered peasantry and growing numbers of poor, urban workers — were brewing when a monk, Martin Luther, challenged Rome’s absolute authority.
Nailing a declaration of 95 theses to the cathedral doors in Wittenberg in 1517, Luther opposed the buying and selling of indulgences and demanded the right to interpret the Bible. This bold challenge to papal authority is credited with unleashing 100 years of revolutionary upheaval known as the Protestant Reformation.
Luther’s translation of the Bible from Church Latin into the vernacular German spoken by common people had an even more revolutionary impact.
The Peasant War
For hundreds of years historians described the resulting wars that convulsed Europe as religious wars. The burning issue that moved millions of people to revolutionary action was the freedom to read the vernacular Bible and the right to interpret it. It was a break with the absolute power of the Catholic Church and its privileged clergy.
In the small book, “The Peasant War in Germany,” Fredrick Engels shed new understanding on this period of upheaval with his explanation of the class forces emerging that challenged the authority of decaying, corrupt Rome. Local princes, lower nobility and landlords could quickly grasp the advantage of breaking with Rome and thereby lessening its enormous taxation and tithes. It was an opportunity to seize the wealth of church lands and be free of the burden of buying indulgences.
By 1524 large sections of the besieged German peasantry, who were being hammered by the tithes and taxations of both the church and the feudal lords, took the right of each person to interpret the Bible to heart, along with the right to seize the lands of the church and free themselves from ownership by lords and abbeys.
A radical challenge to property took root. The idea that all wealth of the church and the local lords should be held in common led to peasant uprisings that convulsed Germany for two years.
Thomas Munzer, the leader of the most radical thinkers, merged his biblical interpretations with the Anabaptist movement, a peasant-based, communist mobilization with the rainbow flag as its symbol. In this struggle millions of peasants and plebeians acted for the first time in their own interests, though following a religious program. They built a revolutionary army and contended for power.
Munzer, the Anabaptists and their movement were militarily defeated within two years. To make an example to other insurrectionary efforts, the leaders were horribly tortured and publicly executed. But revolutionary peasant uprisings continued across Europe.
The upheavals spread to Scandinavia, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands and England. The peasant movements, too disorganized, unskilled and illiterate to prevail, were again and again defeated by a bloc of the newly rising capitalist class and frightened princes and landlords.
The Catholic Church used every form of repression to reclaim its authority and privilege. Inquisitions used secret detention, horrendous forms of torture, mass campaigns of terror and witch-hunts that consumed thousands in flames. Whole countries faced papal excommunication — a punishment similar to sanctions today.
Rome financed military campaigns and invasions, such as the Spanish Armada’s attempt to invade Britain in 1588 in an effort to reverse the British monarchy’s break with Rome. But no form of threats, terror or torture could restore the Church’s uncontested position in feudal Europe.
Technology cannot be turned back. And the new ideas that arise from a society changed by technology cannot be stamped out by threats and repression.
No turning back for U.S. imperialism
U.S. imperialism cannot shut down the flow of information or the drive it ignites for wider access and the end to the impossibly narrow constraints of private property and ownership of information and communication. The U.S. military may have originally developed the Internet for its own emergency military communication in time of war. But the Internet has long since escaped those bounds.
U.S. corporate power cannot shut down the Internet without totally disrupting their own businesses, production and marketing. The contradiction is that the immediate financial interests of the bourgeoisie make the Internet ever more accessible.
The much bigger problem for U.S. imperialism is that today, as consciousness grows and access to communication technology expands to include the whole world, it is not facing an isolated, illiterate and oppressed peasantry.
It is facing the increasingly educated and skilled multinational working class whom they created. This class will come to a consciousness of its own interests in unexpected and uneven ways. But this class is a force that cannot be stopped by feudal or modern repression and threats.
The rising consciousness of millions of the powerless can be more powerful than technology.
Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Throughout this year I've devoted substantial attention to WikiLeaks, particularly in the last four weeks as calls for its destruction intensified. To understand why I've done so, and to see what motivates the increasing devotion of the U.S. Government and those influenced by it to destroying that organization, it's well worth reviewing exactly what WikiLeaks exposed to the world just in the last year: the breadth of the corruption, deceit, brutality and criminality on the part of the world's most powerful factions.
As revealing as the disclosures themselves are, the reactions to them have been equally revealing. The vast bulk of the outrage has been devoted not to the crimes that have been exposed but rather to those who exposed them: WikiLeaks and (allegedly) Bradley Manning. A consensus quickly emerged in the political and media class that they are Evil Villains who must be severely punished, while those responsible for the acts they revealed are guilty of nothing. That reaction has not been weakened at all even by the Pentagon's own admission that, in stark contrast to its own actions, there is no evidence -- zero -- that any of WikiLeaks' actions has caused even a single death. Meanwhile, the American establishment media -- even in the face of all these revelations -- continues to insist on the contradictory, Orwellian platitudes that (a) there is Nothing New™ in anything disclosed by WikiLeaks and (b) WikiLeaks has done Grave Harm to American National Security™ through its disclosures.
It's unsurprising that political leaders would want to convince people that the true criminals are those who expose acts of high-level political corruption and criminality, rather than those who perpetrate them. Every political leader would love for that self-serving piety to take hold. But what's startling is how many citizens and, especially, "journalists" now vehemently believe that as well. In light of what WikiLeaks has revealed to the world about numerous governments, just fathom the authoritarian mindset that would lead a citizen -- and especially a "journalist" -- to react with anger that these things have been revealed; to insist that these facts should have been kept concealed and it'd be better if we didn't know; and, most of all, to demand that those who made us aware of it all be punished (the True Criminals) while those who did these things (The Good Authorities) be shielded:
TRANSLATION: U.S. maneuvered to stop High Court cases: American embassy issued threats over the cases of 'Guantanamo', 'Couso' and 'CIA flights' - Politicians and Spanish prosecutors collaborated on the strategy
Those are just some of the truths that led WikiLeaks -- and whoever the leaker(s) is -- to sacrifice their own interests in order to disclose these secrets to the world.
Selma and another young Hijra head to Dhaka's market to perform for money
Aude Leroux-Lévesque and Sébastien Rist
Aude Leroux-Lévesque and Sébastien Rist didn't expect to fall in love with Bangladesh. Leroux-Lévesque had been sent there as a result of an internship with the social organization Alternatives in 2008. When Rist came to visit, they decided that their first documentary should be set in the South Asian country.
"I spent four months in Bangladesh and I really enjoyed being there. The country is fascinating," said Leroux-Lévesque. "There are tons of stories you could tell."
When they returned to Canada, the two graduates of Concordia's communications program threw themselves into research about a mysterious population in Bangladesh: the Hijras. According to Rist, Hijras are "mainly this group of men who want to live in a certain way as women." They do not only count the transgendered among their ranks; many are transvestites or even just gay men who have no interest in being women.
"In Bengali, there's no word for gay. So if you say you're gay, you're a Hijra," Rist clarified. "We've realized that there are men who are probably just gay or slightly effeminate who are forced into the Hijra culture."
When they returned to Bangladesh, they ended up at one of the three community centres in Dhaka, the nation's capital, teaching English to a group of Hijra. "The best way to know the Hijras is to offer English courses, or just to help them out," said Rist. They fully immersed themselves in the culture of Hijras, and waited six months before starting to film.
Pinky, a group leader at the centre and one of the film's characters, introduced them to Salma, their documentary's main focus. "Salma, being the youngest, really stood out," said Rist. "It was everything we needed. An attitude, she stood out from the others, and she had a crazy story too."
Salma had been raised as a boy, but was born a hermaphrodite. She had arrived at the centre about a year earlier after having run away from her small village, where she was shunned and beaten by her father for wanting to be a girl.
The Hijras have to deal with a strange duality within Bangladeshi culture. They're seen as disgusting and strange. At the same time, people believe they have special powers from God. They make a living by dancing in the market and blessing newborns.
According to Leroux-Lévesque, Bangladeshi culture is very traditional. "You don't talk about sex, you follow those traditions that have been going on for hundreds of years," she said.
Hijras are seen as strange because they represent the complete opposite of that culture. "They wear colourful clothes and they walk down the street and they strut their stuff, they smoke, they swear, they drink. They do everything that you're not really supposed to do in the community," stated Rist. Hijras are seen by many as a third gender. "We are neither men nor women, we are sexless beings," explains Salma in the film.
According to Rist, many people are scared of the Hijras because of their association with "prostitution, stealing, [and] begging," and because most Hijras are from the lower class. "There's a big lack of knowledge in Bangladesh about their situation," said Leroux-Lévesque.
Rist mentioned that every one or two months, a Bangladeshi will add him on Facebook to ask him questions about Hijras. Recently, he had been asked what doctors are doing to cure people of being Hijras. "People are miseducated, there's a lot of gossip and people just want to propagate the wrong message for their own means," he stated.
Despite the society's perception of Hijras, Leroux-Lévesque and Rist see them "as these beautiful females that are super cool, super caring." Rist said that after a few months, he and Leroux-Lévesque forgot that the Hijras were men in women's clothing. "They have this feminine aura, it's crazy…you can't see it, but you feel it."
Through Salma, Rist and Leroux-Lévesque hope people come to understand a little more about the Hijras of Bangladesh. As Rist said, "No matter what your race, colour, gender, orientation, class, whatever, at the end of the day we're all the same people. We all fart, we all laugh, we all joke around with our family. We all love."
Belgian cartoonist GAL turned 70 this year. The relations between Belgium and Congo haven’t been absent in his work. (I provided some context below each cartoon.) Happy birthday, Gal.
January 2001. Belgian foreign minister Louis Michel (he famously said, “King Leopold II was a true visionary for his time, a hero“) criticizes the Austrian government, calling for a boycott of its ski resorts to protest the inclusion of Jörg Haider’s Freedom Party in the coalition. He attends Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s funeral a week later.
February 2002. The Belgian parliamentary commission investigating the death of Patrice Lumumba finds that the Belgian government carried a “moral responsibility”. Louis Michel apologizes to the Congolese people. No further legal action was taken.
October 2004. Belgian foreign minister Karel De Gucht visits Congo where “I have met a lot of people and I wonder if they are the people to transform this country into a democracy and seriously manage it.” Kinshasa is not amused, slamming the “Tintin minister”.
May 2008. Karel De Gucht reiterates his 2004 claims. “If pointing out to the Congolese politicians they have to make bigger efforts meant he was a neo-colonialist,” he says, “then I am a convinced neo-colonialist”.
June 2010. Weeks after the murder of Congolese human rights activist Floribert Chebeya, King Albert II of Belgium attends the ceremonies in Kinshasa to mark the 50th anniversary of Congo’s independence.
Illustrator, graphic artist, visual arts teacher.Was a political cartoonist at the magazine The New (1964), now Knack.Published for The Silent further, Humo, Panorama The Post, The Flemish Marxist journal and De Morgen, works for Amnesty International, Oxfam, UNESCO, Vaka, the publishers Kritak, Epo, Van Halewyck, VUB-press, De Standaard, Elsevier, Atlas, the Press, the magazine Argus environment and the Flemish Bar of Brussels.Has several awards towed to the price Louis Paul Boon (1980), the Arkprijs of Free Speech (1994) and the price Regine Beer (1998).Was three times winner on the Cartoon Festival Knokke-Heist, four times in the Cartoonale Hoeilaart, represented Belgium at the Venice Biennale (1980) and was awarded for the best political drawing in Havana (1991).Books: Galerie: aaa!, Kissinger, Carter and Co. and The Coca-year span. PCB honorable mention in 2001, Grand Prize and PCB BeNe award for best Belgian-Dutch cartoon in 2004.
Statistics and soldiers' testimonies reveal a harrowing epidemic of sexual assault in the US military.
Dahr Jamail Last Modified: 21 Dec 2010 13:22 GMT
Earlier this year a house subcommittee held a hearing focused on sexual assault and violence against women in the military and at the academies [Getty]
Sexual assault within the ranks of the military is not a new problem. It is a systemic problem that has necessitated that the military conduct its own annual reporting on the crisis.
A 2003 Air Force Academy sexual assault scandal prompted the department of defense to include a provision in the 2004 National Defense Authorization Act that required investigations and reports of sexual harassment and assaults within US military academies to be filed. The personal toll is, nevertheless, devastating.
Military sexual trauma (MST) survivor Susan Avila-Smith is director of the veteran’s advocacy group Women Organizing Women. She has been serving female and scores of male clients in various stages of recovery from MST for 15 years and knows of its devastating effects up close.
“People cannot conceive how badly wounded these people are,” she told Al Jazeera, “Of the 3,000 I’ve worked with, only one is employed. Combat trauma is bad enough, but with MST it’s not the enemy, it’s our guys who are doing it. You’re fighting your friends, your peers, people you’ve been told have your back. That betrayal, then the betrayal from the command is, they say, worse than the sexual assault itself.”
On December 13, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other groups filed a federal lawsuit seeking Pentagon records in order to get the real facts about the incidence of sexual assault in the ranks.
The Pentagon has consistently refused to release records that fully document the problem and how it is handled. Sexual assaults on women in the US military have claimed some degree of visibility, but about male victims there is absolute silence.
Pack Parachute, a non-profit in Seattle, assists veterans who are sexual assault survivors. Its founder Kira Mountjoy-Pepka, was raped as a cadet at the Air Force Academy. In July 2003 she was member of a team of female cadets handpicked by Donald Rumsfeld, at the time the secretary of defense, to tell their stories of having been sexually assaulted. The ensuing media coverage and a Pentagon investigation forced the academy to make the aforementioned major policy changes.
Report reveals alarming statistics
Mountjoy-Pepka often works with male survivors of MST. She stated in a telephone interview that four per cent of men in the military experience MST. “Most choose not to talk about it until after their discharge from the military, largely because the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in over 60 percent of MST cases is too overwhelming,” she informed Al Jazeera.
Last week the Pentagon released its “annual report on sexual harassment and violence at the military service academies”. At its three academies, the number of reports of sexual assault and harassment has risen a staggering 64 percent from last year.
The report attributes the huge increase to better reporting of incidents due to increased training and education about sexual assault and harassment. Veteran’s Administration (VA) statistics show that more than 50 percent of the veterans who screen positive for MST are men.
According to the US Census Bureau, there are roughly 22 million male veterans compared to less than two million female vets.
In Congressional testimony in the summer of 2008, Lt. Gen. Rochelle, the army chief of personnel, reported the little known statistic that 12 percent (approximately 260) of the 2,200 reported rapes in the military in 2007 were reported by military male victims.
Due to their sheer numbers in the military, more men (at a rough estimate one in twenty), have experienced MST than women.
Shamed into silence
Billy Capshaw was 17 when he joined the Army in 1977. After being trained as a medic he was transferred to Baumholder, Germany. His roommate, Jeffrey Dahmer, by virtue of his seniority ensured that Capshaw had no formal assignment, no mail, and no pay. Having completely isolated the young medic, Dahmer regularly sexually assaulted, raped, and tortured him.
Dahmer went on to become the infamous serial killer and sex offender who murdered 17 boys and men before being beaten to death by an inmate at Columbia Correction Institution in 1994.
Capshaw reflects back, “At that young age I didn’t know how to deal with it. My commander did not believe me. Nobody helped me, even though I begged and begged and begged.”
The debilitating lifelong struggle Capshaw has had to face is common among survivors of military sexual assault.
Later during therapy he needed to go public. Since then he says, “I’ve talked to a lot of men, many of them soldiers, who are raped but who won’t go public with their story. The shame alone is overwhelming.”
In 1985 Michael Warren enlisted in the navy and for three years worked as a submarine machinist mate on a nuclear submarine. One day he awoke to find another soldier performing fellatio on him.
He recollects with horror, “I was paralyzed with fear. I was in disbelief... shame. When I reported it to the commander he said it was better for me to deal with it after being discharged. Nobody helped me, not even the chaplain. The commander at the processing centre wouldn’t look me in the face. When I filled out my claim later they didn’t believe me. It’s so frustrating.”
Armando Javier was an active duty Marine from 1990 to 1994. He was a Lance Corporal at Camp Lejeune in 1993 when he was raped.
Five Marines jumped Javier and beat him until he was nearly unconscious, before taking turns raping him. His sexual victimization narrative reads, “One of them, a corporal, pulled down my shorts and instructed the others to ‘Get the grease’. Another corporal instructed someone to bring the stick. They began to insert the stick inside my anus. The people present during this sadistic and ritual-like ceremony started to cajole, cheer, and laugh, saying “stick em’ – stick-em’.”
Extreme shame and trauma compelled him not to disclose the crime to anyone except a friend in his unit. He wrote in his account, “My experience left me torn apart physically, mentally, and spiritually. I was dehumanized and treated with ultimate cruelty, by my perpetrators… I was embarrassed and ashamed and didn’t know what to do. I was young at that time. And being part of an elite organization that values brotherhood, integrity and faithfulness made it hard to come forward and reveal what happened.”
The reality of being less equal
Women in America were first allowed into the military during the Revolutionary War in 1775 and their travails are as old. Drill instructors indoctrinate new recruits into it at the outset by routinely referring to them as “girl,” “pussy,” “bitch,” and “dyke.”
A Command Sergeant Major told Catherine Jayne West of the Mississippi National Guard, “There aren’t but two places for women - in the kitchen or in the bedroom. Women have no place in the military.”
She was raped by fellow soldier Private First Class Kevin Lemeiux, at the sprawling Camp Anaconda, north of Baghdad. The defense lawyer in court merely wanted to know why, as a member of the army, she had not fought back.
The morning after the rape, an army doctor gave her a thorough examination. The army’s criminal investigation team concluded her story was true. Moreover, Lemeiux had bragged about the incident to his buddies and they had turned him in. It seemed like a closed case, but in court the defense claimed that the fact that West had not fought back during the rape was what incriminated her. In addition, her commanding officer and 1st Sergeant declared, in court, that she was a “promiscuous female.”
In contrast, Lemeiux, after the third court hearing of the trial, was promoted to a Specialist. Meanwhile his lawyer entered a plea of insanity.
He was later found guilty of kidnapping but not rape, despite his own admission of the crime. He was given three years for kidnapping, half of which was knocked off.
The long term affects of MST
Jasmine Black, a human resources specialist in the Army National Guard from June 2006 to September 2008 was raped by another soldier in her battalion when she was stationed in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. She reported it to her Sexual Assault Response Coordinator (SARC) and the Military Police, but the culprit was not brought to book.
After an early discharge due to MST and treatment at a PTSD Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program (PRRTP) facility, she was raped again by a higher-ranking member of the air force in February 2009.
Administrator for a combat engineering instruction unit in Knoxville, Tennessee, Tracey Harmon has no illusions. “For women in the military, you are either a bitch, a dyke, or a whore. If you sleep with one person in your unit you are a whore. If you are a lesbian you are a dyke, and if you don’t sleep with other soldiers you are a bitch.”
Maricela Guzman served in the navy from 1998 to 2002 as a computer technician on the island of Diego Garcia. She was raped while in boot camp, but fear of consequences kept her from talking about it for the rest of her time in the military. “I survived by becoming a workaholic and was much awarded as a soldier for my work ethic.”
On witnessing the way it treated the native population in Diego Garcia, she chose to dissociate from the military. Post discharge, her life became unmanageable. She underwent a divorce, survived a failed suicide attempt and became homeless before deciding to move in with her parents. A chance encounter with a female veteran at a political event in Los Angeles prompted her to contact the VA for help. Her therapist there diagnosed her with PTSD from her rape.
The VA denied her claim nevertheless, “Because they said I couldn’t prove it … since I had not brought it up when it happened and also because I had not shown any deviant behavior while in the service. I was outraged and felt compelled to talk about what happened.”
While it will go to any length to maintain public silence over the issue, the military machine has no such qualms within its own corridors. Guzman discloses, “Through the gossip mill we would hear of women who had reported being raped. No confidentiality was maintained nor any protection given to victims. The boys’ club culture is strong and the competition exclusive. That forces many not to report rape, because it is a blemish and can ruin your career.”
The department of defence reported that in fiscal year 2009, there were 3,230 reports of sexual assault, an increase of 11 percent over the prior year.
However, as high as the military’s own figures are of rape and sexual assault, victims and advocates Al Jazeera spoke with believe the real figures are sure to be higher.
Veteran April Fitzsimmons, another victim of sexual assault, knows what an uphill battle it is for women to take on the military system. “When victims come forward, they are ostracized and isolated from their communities. Many of the perpetrators are officers who use their ranks to coerce women to sleep with them. It’s a closely interwoven community, so they are safe and move fearlessly amongst their victims.”
Her advice to women considering joining the US military?
“The crisis is so severe that I’m telling women to simply not join the military because it’s completely unsafe and puts them at risk. Until something changes at the top, no woman should join the military.”
This is the first in a two part series on sexual harassment in the US military. The second part in the series will be published in the coming week.
Research support was provided by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.
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Military sexual abuse 'staggering'
In part two of our series, Al Jazeera examines the often hidden world of rape and abuse in the US military.
Dahr Jamail Last Modified: 23 Dec 2010 15:34 GMT
Sexual abuse happens in the US military at rates twice the national average, according to reports [GALLO/GETTY]
Every year, rape increases at an alarming rate within American military institutions – and even males are victims of the cycle.
In fact, due to raw demographics, one can roughly surmise that most victims of sexual abuse in the military are male.
Regardless of gender, reports of victims of military sexual assault have been increasing. In 2007, there were 2,200 reports of rape in the military, whilst in 2009 saw an increase up to 3,230 reports of sexual assault.
Many of the victims suffer from Military Sexual Trauma (MST) and are shamed into silence, with numerous cases not even reported.
A disturbing trend, however, is how military officials seem to be sweeping this damaging issue under the rug and deflecting blame.
Blaming the Victim
Kira Mountjoy-Pepka of Pack Parachute, a non-profit organisation which assists sexually abused veterans, explains that the military system favours the perpetrator. "What we're seeing now, and what we’ve seen for decades, is when someone is assaulted, the military investigators create false or misleading crime reports. Then the case is dismissed, and the command persecutes the victim for false reporting."
Timeline
1995: Archives of Family Medicine revealed that 90 per cent of women veterans from the 1991 US attack on Iraq and from earlier wars had been sexually harassed.
2003: American Journal of Industrial Medicine surveyed women veterans from Vietnam to the 1991 Iraq attack and found that 30 percent of them had been raped.
2004: According to a study published by theJournal of Military Medicine, of veterans from Vietnam and all wars since, 71 per cent of women soldiers have been sexually assaulted or raped while serving.
2007: The Miles Foundation, a private nonprofit organisation that provides support to victims of sexual assault in the military, received 976 reports of sexual assault in the Central Command Area of Responsibility, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan.
Christine Hansen, executive director of the foundation, said at the time that there was a steady upward trend in the number of reported cases of sexual assault, of 10 to 15 per cent each quarter.
2008: The Pentagon reported nearly 3,000 cases of women assaulted sexually in Fiscal Year 2008, an increase of 9 percent from 2007. For women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, the increase was 25 percent.
2009: The annual report on sexual assaults states, “In FY 09, there were a total of 3,230 reports of sexual assault involving military Service members as either victims or subjects, representing an 11% increase from FY 08.”
2009: Admission by the Pentagon that approximately 80 per cent of rapes are never reported - making it the most under-documented crime in the military.
She cites the Feres Doctrine (Feres v. United States, 340 US 135 [1950]) that made it impossible for the survivor to sue the investigators since it, "essentially prohibits people from suing the military and/or petitioning any non-military legal authority for interdiction without the military’s prior and explicit agreement and consent."
"If you're a victim and you report this crime and the military mishandles the investigation, you can't sue them," she explains, "I feel if this were taken up by Congress as an issue it would be exposed that the military is operating against the Constitution by denying victims their first amendment rights. The military always has their own investigators investigate [these cases], and that doesn’t seem like justice to me."
The military goes to great lengths to protect the perpetrators, and that deters survivors from reporting. The incidences of sexual trauma in the military are staggering.
The Department of Defence claims to have a zero-tolerance policy towards sexual assault in the ranks, but figures indicate otherwise.
According to the US Department of Veterans Affairs, the rate of sexual assault on women in the military is twice that in the civilian population. A Government Accountability Office report concluded that most victims stay silent because of "the belief that nothing would be done; fear of ostracism, harassment, or ridicule and concern that peers would gossip."
While a civilian rape victim is ensured confidential advice from his or her doctors, lawyers and advocates, the only access a military rape survivor has is to a chaplain.
Compared with a 40 per cent arrest rate for sex crimes among civilians, only eight per cent of investigated cases in the military lead to prosecution.
After Congress mandated it do so in 2006, the Pentagon started a comprehensive programme to track incidents. That year, there were 2,974 reported cases of rape and sexual assault in the military. Of these, only 292 cases resulted in trials, and those netted only 181 prosecutions of perpetrators.
Nearly half the cases are dismissed for lack of adequate proof or due to the death of the victim. Less than 11 per cent of the cases result in a court martial. Often, those prosecuted merely suffer a reduction in rank or pay, and 80 per cent receive an honourable discharge nonetheless.
The victim, on the other hand, risks ending his or her career when they file charges.
Signed, the commander
Faced with the threat of possible persecution and losing their jobs and professional credibility, most soldiers prefer to remain silent about their traumas. Not that silence helps, because records reveal that less than one-third of the women have been able to maintain their careers in the military after having been assaulted.
When presented with these dismal statistics in an interview with ABC News last year, former Principal Undersecretary of Defence for Personnel and Readiness, Michael Dominguez said, "Yes, we absolutely have to get better. Secretary [Robert] Gates himself is driving this initiative this year to improve our ability to investigate, to prosecute and convict. This is not where we want to be."
Dominguez’s replacement, Clifford Stanley, issued a Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2010-12 on December 30, 2009. It addresses the need to "Establish a culture free of sexual assault", and puts forth goals of 90 per cent "awareness" and 80 per cent "confidence" in the sexual assault prevention and response program by the end of 2015, with no specific mention of the means to accomplish these goals.
Those plans do not fill Susan Avila Smith with confidence. She is director of the advocacy group Women Organising for Women and she projects a dismal picture.
"The people I work with go all the way back to WWII. The stories are almost exactly the same. It has always been covered up. Still the drill sergeants, chaplains, and doctors appear to be the worst perpetrators. So when these guys are convicted, rather than punishing to the fullest extent, they can give them a letter of reprimand which means Tommy was bad, signed The Commander. That letter comes out of his personnel file before he moves on to the next unit, so it’s like nothing happened."
Military 'aware' of the crisis
Pentagon spokesperson Cynthia Smith assured Al Jazeera, "We understand this is very important for everyone to get involved in preventing sexual assault, and are calling on everyone to get involved, step in, and watch each others’ backs. We understand that one sexual assault is too many in the Department of Defence (DOD). We have an office working on prevention and response"
The office she alludes to is the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO), which is responsible for the oversight of the DOD’s sexual assault policy.
In 2008 Kaye Whitley, Director of SAPRO, was subpoenaed to testify at a hearing of the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs but was ordered by the military not to do so.
At a second oversight hearing she did appear and confessed to the members of Congress, "I was given a direct order by my supervisor to get back in the van and go back," she said.
At an MST Congressional hearing on February 3, 2010, highlighted was what many see as the problem – the military investigating itself for criminal acts of sexual assault and rape committed by its personnel, as well as the naming of Task Force members and the work of the Task Force being delayed for three years.
Due largely to Mountjoy-Pepka’s work in the wake of her experiencing MST and taking action, in October 2005 then-Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld authorised the DOD Task Force on Sexual Assault in the military.
However, the DOD took three years to name the Task Force, and the group's initial meeting did not occur until August 2008. During that period, 6,000 service women and men were sexually assaulted or raped.
This same Task Force told Congress’s Military Personnel Subcommittee that, "DOD’s procedures for collecting and documenting data about military sexual assault incidents are lacking in accuracy, reliability, and validity."
Task Force leaders also told Congress that "neither victims nor other military personnel were routinely informed of the results of disciplinary actions relating to sexual assault", and "Commanders generally did not communicate case results to members of their command, and that this lack of information often led to misperceptions, rumours, and assumptions that allegations were unfounded."
Fighting back
Anuradha Bhagwati, the executive director of Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), a group that helps military women who have been victims of sexual violence, contradicts claims by the DOD that their new programs will slow the number of MST victims. "We are seeing a disturbingly steady flow," Bhagwati said .
In addition, she told Al Jazeera, "Contrary to DOD claims that they are making it easier for MST survivors to get help, MST survivors have a much more difficult time than other vets because of the burden of proof being on them. There are concrete legal barriers in place that prevent MST survivors from getting help."
The DOD defends the policy, saying it ensures that soldiers get retained, promoted and their careers aren't destroyed.
SWAN has draft legislation in place to get rid of this policy.
Bhagwati concludes that nothing short of "radical systemic change" will solve the MST crisis in the military today.
Susan Burke is an experienced litigator in Washington, DC who served as lead counsel in five actions brought on behalf of the torture victims at Abu Ghraib prison, as well as a suit against Blackwater for killing 17 Iraqis in Baghdad.
She urges us to think of MST this way: "Think of the victims - it is a double blow - first they're physically assaulted, then the institution that is supposed to care for them does not care for them."
She claims that the DOD has done little more than give lip-service to tackle the problem. "They created different positions, SARC, SAPRO, but the problem is that there is no genuine political will to change things. It's a paper tiger…the will doesn’t exist. When you look at the career paths of perpetrators compared to the victims, the former are rising up the ranks, and the victims are leaving the military."
She is putting together a class action suit against the DOD for failure to protect service-members from MST, aims to file it in February, and hopes the case will bring significant and lasting reform in the DOD’s stance on MST.
They’ve been saying for years that they just need more time, that they’re getting their act together," Burke adds, "You can’t expect to have a properly functioning military without discipline problems being addressed, and if you can’t address rape, you have a real problem."
This is the second part of an Al Jazeera investigation into sexual abuse in the US military.
Monday, December 20, 2010 at 12:00PM
