Thomas McKelvey Cleaver : It's 'How You Play the Game'

Vince Lombardi was famous for saying, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." Image from Great American Things.
Did winning become everything
for Penn State's Joe Paterno?

By Thomas McKelvey Cleaver / The Rag Blog / November 16, 2011

Forty-eight years ago, Vince Lombardi was quoted as saying, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing" (words that were first uttered by UCLA coach Red Sanders). That -- to me and a lot of other people at the time -- was in complete opposition to what we had learned as members of sports teams: that how you win, how you play the game, is equally as important as what you win.

In the years since, Lombardi's bastardization of morality has become the guiding philosophy of the entire society, not just in sports, and the result is the moral catastrophe of Wall Street we all now live with.

One of the things Joe Paterno was famous for saying was that he didn't think winning was everything, if his teams didn't learn to be better people as part of the process. And then, when it came down to the most important decision of his life, he chose to do the minimum, to not follow up, to not care what the outcome was, to not rock the boat. And everyone above him at Penn State put money and power and prestige above doing the right thing, also.

And then when it came out, Paterno's arrogant response was to offer to resign when his contract expired. The man had no clue. His indifference, his complicity in Jerry Sandusky's crimes, is going to overshadow everything else in his life. The fact that Paterno has now hired a criminal defense attorney demonstrates he has some idea of what he faces.

I don't know why I am really surprised, sports hasn't been about building better people for a long time. Robert Redford got it right in his 1969 movie, Downhill Racer, where his character was the precedent for the kind of worthless "sports heroes" we have today, guys with no understanding of "it's how you play the game that counts." (The movie is available on DVD and I highly recommend it; it has only gotten more timely in the passing years)

Professor Henry Giroux, whose books include the recently-released Youth in a Suspect Society: Democracy or Disposability? and The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex, has what I think is the best commentary, as published in Truthout:

There is a lot of talk about the culture of silence as if it is simply an offshoot of the need to protect the wealth and power of those in control of Penn State’s football empire, but the fact of the matter is the real issue is that higher education has been corrupted by big money, big sports, corporate power, and the search for profits for some time, except that in the age of unabashed free market fundamentalism, it has gotten worse.

The issue here is not simply about a morally depraved culture of silence, it is about a university surrendering its mission as a democratic public sphere where students learn to think critically, hold power accountable, and connect knowledge and social relations to the social costs they enact.

A university needs real leadership for this type of task, not managerial clones who confuse education with training and engaged research with Pentagon and corporate handouts. Penn State is now a managerial model of corporate influence and power and the arrogance and bad faith this model breeds is evident in the ways in which everyone acted in the face of this crisis, from Paterno to its ethically challenged president, Graham Spanier.

What the public should be asking about this crisis is not what has happened to Penn State but how have so many universities arrived at a similar place in time and history when they are just like any other mega factory and slick shopping mall, divorced from any viable notion of learning and, as we see with Penn State University, any viable sense of ethical and moral responsibility.

[Thomas McKelvey Cleaver is an accidental native Texan, a journalist, and a produced screenwriter. He has written successful horror movies and articles about Second World War aviation, was a major fundraiser for Obama in 2008, and has been an activist on anti-war, political reform, and environmental issues for almost 50 years. Read more articles by Thomas Cleaver on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

SPORT / Dave Zirin : The World Joe Paterno Made

Penn State fans. Image from The Big Lead.
Fan culture, rape culture,
and the world Joe Paterno made

The pain might run deeply in Happy Valley but the cancer runs deeper.

By Dave Zirin / The Rag Blog / November 14, 2011

Meet John Matko. John Matko is a 34-year-old Penn State class of 2000 alumnus, distraught by the recent revelations that legendary Coach Joe Paterno and those in charge allegedly shielded a serial child rapist, assistant Jerry Sandusky.

He was livid that students chose to riot on campus this week, more upset about Paterno's dismissal than anything else. He was disgusted that the Board of Trustees decided to go ahead as planned with Saturday's Nebraska game just days after the revelations became public. John Matko felt angry and was compelled to act.

He stood outside Saturday’s Penn State-Nebraska game in Happy Valley and held up two signs. One read, “Put abused kids first.” The other said, “Don’t be fooled, they all knew. Tom Bradley, everyone must go.” [Tom Bradley is the interim head coach.]

The response to Matko gives lie to the media portrayal of last Saturday's game. We were told the atmosphere was “somber," “sad,” and “heart-rending," as "the focus returned to the children." The crowd was swathed in blue, because, we were told, that is the color to awareness of child abuse (also the Penn State colors)

The team linked arms emerging from the tunnel. They dropped to a knee with their Nebraska opponents at midfield before the game. Once again, broadcasters told us, “the players were paying tribute to the victims of child abuse.” We were told all of this, and I wish to God it was true.

I don’t doubt the emotions in Happy Valley are genuine. I don’t doubt the searing shock and pain that must be coursing through campus. But this is the pain of self-pity, not reflection. It's the pain of the exposed not the penitent.

Let’s go back to John Matko. Matko stood with his signs behind a pair of sunglasses. He wasn’t soapboxing, or preaching: just bearing silent witness. It was an admirable act but no one bought him a beer. Instead, beer was poured on his head. His midsection was slapped with an open hand. Expletives were rained upon him. His signs were also kicked to the ground and stomped.

As The Washington Times wrote, "Abuse flew at Matko from young and old, students and alumni, men and women. No one intervened. No one spoke out against the abuse."

One disapproving student said, “Not now, man. This is about the football players.”

And with those nine words, we see the truth about Saturday’s enterprise. It was about the football program, not the children. It was morbid theater where people were mourning the death of a jock culture that somewhere along the line mutated into malignancy. It’s a malignancy that deprioritized rape victims in the name of big-time football.

The signs of this malignancy did not emerge overnight. Looking backward, there are moments that speak of the scandals to come. In 2003, less than one year after Paterno was told that Sandusky was raping children, he allowed a player accused of rape to suit up and play in a bowl game. Widespread criticism of this move was ignored.

In 2006, Penn State's Orange Bowl opponent Florida State sent home linebacker A.J. Nicholson, after accusations of sexual assault. Paterno’s response, in light of recent events, is jaw-dropping. He said,

There's so many people gravitating to these kids. He may not have even known what he was getting into, Nicholson. They knock on the door; somebody may knock on the door; a cute girl knocks on the door. What do you do? Geez. I hope -- thank God they don't knock on my door because I'd refer them to a couple of other rooms.

Joanne Tosti-Vasey, president of Pennsylvania's National Organization for Women in Pennsylvania, was not amused. With chilling unintentional prescience, Tosti-Vasey responded, "Allegations of sexual assault should never be taken lightly. Making light of sexual assault sends the message that rape is something to be expected and accepted."

They called for Paterno’s resignation and short of that, asked to dialogue with Paterno and the team. Neither Paterno nor anyone in the power at Penn State accepted the invitation.

This is the world Joe Pa made. It’s a world where libraries, buildings, and statues bear his name It’s a world where the school endowment now stands at over $1 billion dollars. It’s a company town where moral posturing acted as a substitute for actual morality. In such an atmosphere, seeing the players and fans gather to bow their heads and mourn Saturday wasn’t “touching” or “somber” or anything of the sort. It was just sad. It was sad because they still don’t get it.

One PSU student named Emily wrote the following to si.com’s Peter King,

Truth is, if not for Paterno's philanthropy and moral code (until his fatal lapse of judgment), I and thousands of others wouldn't be here right now. If not for Paterno… Pennsylvania State might still be an agriculture school and State College might be lucky if there were a Wal-Mart within a 30-mile radius. Paterno made a huge mistake, but that doesn't mean he's not a good man.

Bullshit. Emily’s words ring as false as the apologists for the Vatican, Wall Street, the military command at Abu Ghraib, and any industry deemed "too big to fail." The same moral code that Emily praises just can’t be the same moral code that covers up child rape. To do so is to make the very notion of morality meaningless.

Emily's gratitiude that her school isn't "30 miles from the nearest Wal-Mart" can't justify defending Paterno. To do so, makes you complicit in the crimes and the cover-up. It also ensures that such a thing could happen again.

On Saturday, while Matko endured the physical and verbal rage of the PSU faithful, hundreds gathered around the Paterno statue outside the stadium, laying down flowers and gifts. To really move forward, the malignancy must be removed. Fire everyone. Shut down Happy Valley football for a year. Do whatever you have to do to make sure that the world Joe Paterno made has seen its last day.

[Dave Zirin is the author of The John Carlos Story (Haymarket) and just made the new documentary Not Just a Game. Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com. Read more articles by Dave Zirin on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Leonardo Boff : The Church, Celibacy, and the Criminal Sinners

Why the Church neither can nor wants
To abolish the law of celibacy

By Leonardo Boff / The Rag Blog / April 13, 2010

The surge of cases of pedophile priests in almost every Catholic country persists, revealing the magnitude of this crime that causes so much damage to its victims. It is not enough to say that pedophilia shames the Church, or to ask for forgiveness and to pray. It is worse than that. It is impossible to pay the debt to the children who were abused in the shadows of the credibility and trust that the priestly function embodies.

The central thesis of the Pope Ratzinger, which I have become tired of hearing in his conferences and classes, is completely invalid. To him, the size of the Church is not what matters. It is enough that the Church be a "small flock," comprised of highly spiritual persons. It is a small "reconciled world" that represents the others and the whole of humanity.

But within this small flock there are criminal sinners, and it is anything but a "reconciled world." One must humbly accept what tradition used to say: The Church is saint and sinner, a "chaste harlot," as some ancient Fathers put it. It is not enough that it be the Church; it has to go through, as everyone else, the path of good, and integrate the pangs of sexuality -- that have a thousand million years of biologic memory, into expressions of tenderness and love, and not of obsession and violence against minors.

The pedophilia scandal is a sign of the present times. We learn from Vatican II (1962-1965) that we must glean from such signs the interpellation that God is transmitting to us. It appears to me that the interpellation goes along this line: it is time the Roman Catholic Church does what every other Church has already done: abolish celibacy imposed by ecclesiastic law, and free it for those who see meaning in it and can live it without obsession and with a profound sense of spirituality. But this lesson is not being accepted by the Roman authorities. To the contrary, in spite of the scandals, they reaffirm celibacy with greater insistence.

We know how insufficient in integrating sexuality is the education of priests. It is conducted away from normal contact with women, which produces a certain atrophy in the construction of identity. Psychological sciences have made it clear that the male only matures under the gaze of the female, and the female only under the gaze of the male. Man and woman are reciprocal and complimentary.

The cellular-genetics of sex has shown that the difference between a man and a woman, in terms of chromosomes, is reduced to just one chromosome. A woman possesses two X chromosomes and a man has one X and one Y chromosome. It follows that the sex-base is the feminine (XX), the masculine (XY) being a differentiation from it. There is not, then, an absolute sex, only a dominant one. In every human being, man or woman, there exists "a second sex." In the integration of the “animus” and “anima," that is, of the two dimensions of the feminine and the masculine present in every human being, sexual maturity gestates.

This integration is hindered by the absence of one of the parts, the woman, for which is substituted imagination and phantoms, which, if they are not disciplined, can create distortions. The teaching in the seminaries was not devoid of wisdom: who controls the imagination, controls sexuality. To a large degree, this is true.

But sexuality possesses a volcanic vigor. Paul Ricoeur, who reflected a great deal philosophically about Freud's psychoanalytic theory, recognizes that sexuality is not controlled by reason, moral norms, or the law. Sexuality lives between the law of the day, where rules and established behavior prevail, and the law of the night, the realm of impulses, the force of spontaneous vitality. Only an ethical and humanistic project of life (what we want to be) can give direction to sexuality and transform it into a force of humanization and fertile relations.

Celibacy is not excluded from this process. It is one of the possible options, which I defend. But celibacy cannot be born of an absence of love. To the contrary, it must derive from an over abundance of love for God, that overflows towards everyone around.

Why does the Roman Catholic Church not take a step forward, and abolish the law of celibacy? Because it is contradictory to her structure. It is a complete institution, authoritarian, patriarchal, highly hierarchical, and one of the last bastions of conservatism in the world. It takes the person from birth to death.

To one with a minimum of civic consciousness, the power given to the Pope is simply despotic. Canon 331 is clear: it is about a power “ordinary, supreme, plain, immediate and universal." If we replace the word “Pope” with “God,” it functions equally. For that reason it was said: ”the Pope is the minor god on earth," as many canonists have affirmed.

A Church that puts power at its core, closes its doors and windows to love, tenderness and compassion. The celibate person is functional to this type of Church, because that Church denies the celibate priest that which would make him more profoundly human: love, tenderness, the effective encounter with other persons, which could be more propitious if the priests could be married. They become totally disposable to the institution, that can send them to Paris or to South Korea.

Celibacy implies total cooptation of the priest, not into the service of humanity, but to the Church. That priest must love only the Church. When he discovers that she is not only "the holy mother Church" but that she can also be a stepmother who uses her ministers for the logic of power, the priest is disappointed, leaves the ministry with its forced celibacy; and gets married.

As long as this logic of absolutist and centralizing power prevails, we will not see the law of celibacy abolished, no matter how many scandals occur. Celibacy is too comfortable and useful to the ecclesiastic institution.

What then becomes of Jesus' dream of a fraternal and egalitarian community? That is another problem, perhaps the primary one. There, the question of celibacy, and of the style of Church, would be put differently, in a manner that would better befit His liberating message.

Original in Portuguese; translated into Spanish by Servicios Koinonia; translated into English by Refugio del Rio Grande, Texas.

[A Brazilian theologian, philosopher, educator, and author of more than 60 books, Leonardo Bofff lives in Jardim Araras, an ecological wilderness area in the municipality of Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro. Boff is Professor Emeritus of Ethics, Philosophy of Religion, and Ecology at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. A former Franciscan priest with a doctorate from the University of Munich, Boff was an early advocate of liberation theology. In 1991, after a series of clashes with the Vatican, Boff renounced his activities as a priest and "promoted himself to the state of laity."]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

The Shroud of Vatican

Political cartoon by Ralph Solonitz / The Rag Blog / April 13, 2010
[Ralph Solonitz' cartoons also appear at MadasHellClub.net]
The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Tom Keough : The Unionization of Starbucks and the Rape of Kati Moore

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

California teen girl sues Starbucks over sexual abuse

Seattle-based Starbucks is feeling the heat over an ex-worker's accusations of sex abuse on the job. And an ABC News investigation has uncovered evidence that it's part of a nationwide trend of young women being taken advantage of by older managers.

Beyond its strong coffee and steamed milk, Starbucks presents itself as a trusted corporate citizen. "It's not the bricks and mortar that make Starbucks, it's the human relations of our people and the experience," says Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.

That family feeling is one of the reasons Katie Moore [in other sources her name is spelled "Kati"] says she applied to work at Starbucks when she turned 16... But within months, she says, her job as a barista at a Starbucks store in an Orange County, Calif., shopping center turned into something quite different...

In the case of Katie Moore at Starbucks, the supervisor, Tim Horton, pleaded guilty to having sex with a minor and spent four months in prison. But Katie Moore's mother says Starbucks and places with high school employees need to do more. "You know, they have a responsibility to these teenagers," says Joanna Moore...

Moore is now suing Starbucks, alleging [the] 24-year old supervisor essentially turned her into his sex toy, in a court case that has turned ugly as she claims Starbucks did little to protect her from him, and Starbucks claims it's her own fault...

seattle pi / January 24, 2010

Organizing the baristas:
The IWW and the Starbucks Workers Union

By Tom Keough / The Rag Blog / March 16, 2010

I do cartoons for the Starbucks workers who are trying to unionize and get better working conditions. The Kati Moore rape case exemplifies the company's total lack of care for an employee and automatic support for anything a manager does.

When I first heard that the majority at a New York City Starbucks announced that they wanted a union contract I was amazed. When I was growing up, almost everyone I knew had either worked at McDonalds at some time or had family working there. My father had tried organizing McDonalds workers in Connecticut when he worked there. The biggest problem seemed to be that no union wanted fast food workers.

I'll never forget seeing the mothers of two of my friends, almost in tears, talking about how unfair it was that the men at Pratt and Whitney or Colts could have unions, but not them. McDonalds work is hot, greasy, hard, fast, exhausting work.

So I try to help the Starbucks Workers Union, which was organized by the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) in the U.S. and Canada. There is a union organizing campaign well under way in Chile and efforts have started in Europe. In New Zealand all the fast food chain restaurants are owned by one man and the employees are all union.

The Starbucks workers face a number of unique problems. The company has a nationwide policy of no full time employment for non-management workers. This way they avoid having to pay benefits. Their U.S. employees also have no set schedules. A lawyer for Starbucks once said that this is to prevent part-time staffers from getting second jobs. If you work there you won’t know the next week's schedule until two or three days before the week starts.

Starbucks boasts that they offer health insurance for their employees but they make it almost impossible to get or to keep. To have the option of buying this insurance you need to work an average of 20 hours per week for the three-month quarter. The employees have no say in how many hours they work. Some weeks they may work 45 hours and the next week only seven. So the health insurance is really only a public relations stunt to impress customers.

In the shops where the baristas have announced their desire to unionize, Starbucks has refused to recognize the union. BUT in those shops, improvements have suddenly occurred. The first shop to go union soon became the first Starbucks to give all employees a December holiday cash bonus. In other locations safety and other improvements were made. In the U.S. the union has taken the company to court and won every time, despite the company's highly paid lawyers.

• Go here to learn more about the IWW Starbucks Workers Union.
• Go here to read the Starbucks Union's Statement of Solidarity with barista Kati Moore who was sexually assaulted by her supervisor.

Cartoons by Tom Keough / The Rag Blog.
The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Forced Prostitution in Mexico : Lost Women of the Narcoguerra

"Sex Slave" by Vangobot / Pop Art Machine.
Organized crime in Mexico:
Massive transnational sex trade

The networks of traffickers in women use Mexico as a bridge to move teens to the U.S. and Canada where they are sold and sexually exploited.

By Michael Reynolds / The Rag Blog / December 3, 2009

Evangelina Hernandez continues to open windows on the under-reported consequences of the narcoguerra. This time with her chilling investigative piece on Mexican organized crime’s lucrative transnational sex trade and forced prostitution in this morning’s El Universal, "Prostitución forzada, otra cara del yugo a migrantes."

Hernandez leads with the harrowing account of “Nancy," a young woman snatched up by traffickers in Chiapas while riding a train carrying migrants north from Guatemala. Her abductors were Los Zetitias, a franchise of the Zetas’ diversified global criminal enterprises.

Hernandez’ telephone interview with Nancy’s brother “Rafael," details the circumstances of his sister’s brutal saga that began in the Las Anonas Chiapas-Mayab railway station where Nancy was forced into a van and driven north to a safe house where she was beaten and threatened with death unless she participated in a pornographic video in which she was raped by several men.

Rafael told Hernandez that his sister’s kidnappers promised that she would be let go after this “little job." Instead, said Rafael “the first video was followed by another and another.” Days later the 20 year-old Nancy was taken to a Tijuana brothel and forced into prostitution until she completed a “quota” set by her abductors. Two and half months later she was ordered to call relatives in the U.S. to fork over a ransom for her release. Rafael got the call and agreed to pay.

Without giving details, [Rafael] said that he paid a designated smuggler to move his sister to America, [and] also deposited a large sum of dollars as a “ransom” for her to surrender, but not before being warned that talking would be his death sentence.

Nancy’s sordid ordeal is just one of thousands of such stories. Hernandez provides the alarming facts:

More than 20,000 Central American women are currently prostituted in brothels and bars in south-southeast Mexico, according to End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT).

Women and girls are trafficked under false pretenses to Mexico from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. They sell them in bars for not more than $40 where they are held against their will in a situation of slavery and forced to cover their costs of accommodations, food and drugs, says the Global Report of Actions Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents (ECPAT).

The owners of many of these bars are local politicians, bankers and people with economic power operating from the shadows and earning revenues. The report warns that traffickers are recruiting younger and younger women, mostly girls.

The networks of traffickers in women use Mexico as a bridge to move teens to the U.S. and Canada where they are sold and sexually exploited, according to the World Report on Trafficking in Persons 2009, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

A 2009 American Bar Association report cites 47 organized criminal groups in Mexico that are engaged in sexual and labor exploitation in the Federal District and 17 states including Baja California, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Quintana Roo, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Tlaxcala, Tamaulipas and Jalisco -- the first four of these are regarded as “sex tourism” destinations. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission estimates these sex trafficking networks bring in about $50 million per year.

Hernandez closes her report with Rafael’s disheartening but understandable takeaway from his and his sister’s nightmare.

Doomed to remember

Nancy is not crying, but spends many hours without a word. She paid a high cost to reach her destination.

Her brother Rafael thinks that if one day they go to Guatemala, they will not return on a plane that stops in Mexico.

He fears that criminals will keep their word and kill them. They are never going to complain, because they doubt that the authorities will do anything to stop the rape, kidnappings and murders of women in Central America.

For more of Evangelia Hernandez’ excellent reporting, see her October reports from the US/Mexico border on corruption here, here, and here. They are in Spanish, but are well worth utilizing Google’s translation feature.

[Michael Reynolds, an investigative journalist and author, is a former correspondent for Reuters who has written for Playboy, The Nation, Mother Jones, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Rolling Stone, High Times, Alternet and other publications. He was senior intelligence analyst with the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center and has served as a consultant on domestic terrorism and transnational security. His blog is NarcoGuerra Times where this article also appears.]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Rape Not Just South Africa's Problem

Women place white flowers outside parliament during a demonstration in Cape Town. Photo from AFP.

While the South African numbers may be particularly high, this is a worldwide problem. Men... have been brought up to believe that women are second-class citizens -- sometimes little more than property to be used as a man sees fit.

By Ted McLaughlin / The Rag Blog / June 20, 2009

The South African Medical Research Council has just conducted an anonymous survey in that country concering rape, and the results were quite shocking. The survey was conducted in both rural and urban areas and crossed all racial lines. Here is what they found:

• One out of every four men admitted to committing at least one rape.
• Of that 25%, nearly half admitted to committing multiple rapes.
• 73% of those admitting rape committed their first one before age 20.
• One in 20 men has committed a rape in the last year.
• Gang rape was common and considered a form of male bonding.

Obviously, that country has a serious problem. Professor Rachel Jewkes, who carried out the research, says, "The absolute imperative is we have to change the underlying social attitudes that in a way have created a norm that coercing women into sex is on some level acceptable... it's partly rooted in our incredibly disturbed past and the way that South African men over the centuries have been socialised into forms of masculinity that are predicated on the idea of being strong and tough and the use of force to assert dominance and control over women, as well as other men."

Mbuyiselo Botha, from the South African Men's Forum, which campaigns for women's rights, agreed, saying, "I think that yes, the figures are that high and for us, for me in particular, that is a very sad state of affairs. It means that we continue in South Africa to be one of the highest capitals of rape in the world. I don't think it's cultural per se; I think it has to do with how a lot of us men worldwide were raised. The issues of dominance against women, issues of inequality, are pervasive and you find them throughout the world."

Botha is right. While the South African numbers may be particularly high, this is a worldwide problem. Men all over the world have been brought up to believe that women are second-class citizens -- sometimes little more than property to be used as a man sees fit.

And we in the United States should not be feeling superior to any other country. Although things are slowly beginning to change here, we have a history of relegating women to an inferior status. It was not until well into the twentieth century that most women in America even gained the right to vote.

In fact, the idea of second-class status for women is so pervasive that it has even been codified by many of America's religious institutions. And this is true in all religions (with the possible exception of some modern pagan sects), including christianity. It is not uncommon to hear ministers and priests telling women to be obedient to their husbands, and denying them leadership positions in the church.

As long as this type of thinking occurs, as long as women are relegated to an inferior status in our institutions and in our society, rape will continue to be a problem. And America does have a serious rape problem. Consider some of our own statistics:

• Nearly 15% of American women have been raped.
• About 15% of rape victims are under age 12.
• Every two minutes someone in the U.S. is raped.
• In the last thirteen years, there were 4.2 million rape victims.
• About 73% of rape victims knew their rapist (acquaintance, family, boyfriend, husband, etc.)
• And perhaps the worst statistic of all -- ONLY 6% OF RAPISTS WILL EVER GO TO JAIL!

Those statistics may not be as high as South Africa's, but they are just as unacceptable. We preach gender equality in this country, but seldom is it practiced. Far too often, women are relegated to second-class status. And if a man believes women are inferior, it is just one more small step to commit and/or justify a rape. That is the true root of the problem.

Too often our society wants to blame rape on things like movies, magazines, music, books, television or the internet. But these things aren't the cause or the problem. They are merely symptoms of the real problem -- the societal treatment of women as being inferior to men.

The only way to stop rape is to start treating and respecting women as equals to men. Of course, those who commit the rapes must be punished, but this alone will not solve the problem. We must stop mouthing the word equality and make it a reality.

[Rag Blog contributor Ted McLaughlin also posts at jobsanger, an excellent Texas political blog.]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

New Abu Ghraib Photos Said to Depict Graphic Rape Scenes

Previously released photo from Abu Ghraib prison. The new photos, many reportedly depicting sexual abuse, are said to be much worse. Photo from Telegraph, U.K.
Photographs which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged.

The graphic nature of some of the images may explain the US President’s attempts to block the release of an estimated 2,000 photographs from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan despite an earlier promise to allow them to be published.

By Duncan Gardham and Paul Cruickshank / May 28, 2009

At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.

Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He has now confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.

The graphic nature of some of the images may explain the US President’s attempts to block the release of an estimated 2,000 photographs from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan despite an earlier promise to allow them to be published.

Maj Gen Taguba, who retired in January 2007, said he supported the President’s decision, adding: “These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency.

“I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one and the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them, and British troops who are trying to build security in Afghanistan.

“The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it.”

In April, Mr Obama’s administration said the photographs would be released and it would be “pointless to appeal” against a court judgment in favour of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

But after lobbying from senior military figures, Mr Obama changed his mind saying they could put the safety of troops at risk.

Earlier this month, he said: “The most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to inflame anti-American public opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.”

It was thought the images were similar to those leaked five years ago, which showed naked and bloody prisoners being intimidated by dogs, dragged around on a leash, piled into a human pyramid and hooded and attached to wires.

Mr Obama seemed to reinforce that view by adding: “I want to emphasise that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib.”

The latest photographs relate to 400 cases of alleged abuse between 2001 and 2005 in Abu Ghraib and six other prisons. Mr Obama said the individuals involved had been “identified, and appropriate actions” taken.

Maj Gen Taguba’s internal inquiry into the abuse at Abu Ghraib, included sworn statements by 13 detainees, which, he said in the report, he found “credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses.”

Among the graphic statements, which were later released under US freedom of information laws, is that of Kasim Mehaddi Hilas in which he says: “I saw [name of a translator] ******* a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn’t covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his **** in the little kid’s ***…. and the female soldier was taking pictures.”

The translator was an American Egyptian who is now the subject of a civil court case in the US.

Three detainees, including the alleged victim, refer to the use of a phosphorescent tube in the sexual abuse and another to the use of wire, while the victim also refers to part of a policeman’s “stick” all of which were apparently photographed.

Source / Telegraph, U.K.

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Iranian Women : Fighting Back

Iranian women. Image: public domain.

See Iranian women: A force to be reckoned with, by Talajeh Livani, below.

'Death by stoning': Save Kobra Najjar
By Catherine Price / July 30, 2008

Her name makes her sound like a bit like a supervillain; Iranian authorities are treating her like one. Equality Now has issued an urgent call for action on behalf of Kobra Najjar, 44, found guilty of "adultery" and sentenced to death by stoning. Iranian advocates working on her case say that she has "exhausted all domestic legal remedies" and could be executed at any moment.

Najjar's "adultery" was not exactly a furtive affair with the postman. According to Equality Now, she was forced into prostitution by an abusive husband in order to support his heroin addiction, and he was murdered by a client of Najjar's who sympathized with her plight. They both served eight years in prison, but the murderer was released after paying a fine and receiving 100 lashes. She, meanwhile, faces death for forced prostitution -- that is, "adultery."

Equality Now notes that seven other women and one man are currently facing similar sentences. Adultery is the only crime punishable by stoning in Iran. (At least there's always hanging.)

Stoning, it should be noted, violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) -- to which Iran is a party -- which prohibits cruel and inhuman punishment and limits application of the death penalty to "the most serious crimes." The U.N. Human Rights Committee has found that consensual sexual activity (and, we're guessing, being the victim of sexual coercion) is, well, not that.

There is hope, it is said, for saving Najjar without some sort of superhero strike force. As the Press Trust of India notes: "The head of the Iranian judiciary, Ayatollah Shahroudi, passed a [not all that binding] moratorium on stoning in 2002. In March 2008, a woman named Mokarrameh Ebrahimi ... was released from prison and her stoning sentence was reversed by Iranian authorities." (She and her husband, Jafar Kiani -- whose marriage had for some reason gone unregistered -- had been sentenced to be stoned together. Despite international outrage about both sentences, he was stoned separately in 2007, possibly at the order of a judge who also defied local civilian and governmental opposition.)

"Mokarrameh's release from prison must not be an isolated case. The example has already been set," said Taina Bien-Aim, executive director of Equality Now. "We urge Ayatollah Shahroudi to extend the progress made through Mokarrameh's case by irrevocably reversing all current sentences of death by stoning for so-called 'immoral acts.' What is immoral is the act of stoning, and all other forms of violent and inhumane punishment."

There's also hope in the bigger picture, considering -- for one thing -- that Iranian women's rights groups are (though subject to serious censorship) among the loudest in opposition to stoning of both men and women. The Middle East Times reports that while national political representation of women is "lagging" (see the piece for further explanation), "Iran performs much better than other Middle Eastern countries on female education, health, and labor force participation. Iranian women comprise around two-thirds of university entrants ... And, while lower than the world average of 58 percent, Iran's female labor force participation -- 42 percent -- is the highest in the Middle East."

Plus: "Today, Iranian women are present in every educational and employment field that is traditionally male-dominated. And they are active politically, especially at the local level. In the 2006 municipal elections, 44 seats out of the 264 on provincial capital councils went to women. In addition, Iranian women represent such a large share of voters in local and national elections that they are able to significantly influence national politics. For instance, the 2008 parliamentary candidates had to adjust their election campaigns to attract women voters by vowing to change family and labor laws to ensure more equal treatment of women."

And! "There is strong public support for greater gender equality in Iran. A recent poll ... [found] that 78 percent of Iranians think that it is somewhat or very important for women to have full equal rights with men and 70 percent think that the government should make an effort to prevent discrimination against women."

Back to Kobra Najjar: Equality Now has the 411 for the officials you can contact to urge both her release, and the commutation of all other stoning sentences, in accordance with Iran's obligations under the ICCPR.

Source / salon.com

Iranian Women a Force to be Reckoned With
By Talajeh Livani / July 16, 2008

Iran's parliament convened last month for the first time since the April 2008 elections. The results of the parliamentary elections are in and all the votes have been counted. Surprisingly, or perhaps alarmingly, women now account for a mere 2.8 percent of this new conservative-dominated parliament. This is a decline from the already low 4.1 percent representation in the previous Iranian parliament.

Those familiar with Iranian society may find this shocking. Iran performs much better than other Middle Eastern countries on female education, health, and labor force participation. Iranian women comprise around two-thirds of university entrants, which has led to government-imposed quotas on university admittance, where women were dominating fields such as medicine, dentistry, and pharmacy. And, while lower than the world average of 58 percent, Iran's female labor force participation – 42 percent – is the highest in the Middle East.

How is it then possible that the political representation of Iranian women is lagging, even when compared to other countries in the region; the average for the Middle East and North Africa is approximately 9 percent with Iraq having the highest female representation in parliament – 26 percent.

The answer to this question is complex. First, Iran does not use gender quotas for female political participation like some other Middle Eastern and North African countries; it is not certain how the other countries would have performed without the use of quotas and appointments.

Second, to qualify as a candidate in the parliamentary elections, the conservative Guardian Council – a powerful political body that has the power to veto candidates – has to be convinced of the prospective candidate's belief in Islam and the Islamic Republic. Women in Iran have played a crucial role in shifting the conservative-liberal balance in the government. Many believe that women were an integral part in bringing to power former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. Therefore, it may simply be that females who register to run are likely to be less conservative than their male counterparts leading to a lower qualification rate.

Third, some of Iran's laws discourage women from rising to positions of leadership and decision-making. Women are not allowed to serve as judges or to run for the presidency. And the current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, encourages women to stay at home and focus on the institution of family. Only two women hold secondary cabinet positions, the Center for Women's Participation has been renamed the Center for Women and Family Affairs and Ahmadinejad has publicly announced support for larger families with women staying at home to take care of children.

Finally, in light of external pressure with regards to its nuclear program, the Iranian government has come to view domestic women's groups as a threat to national security. There have been crackdowns on the One Million Signatures Campaign, a campaign aimed at collecting 1 million signatures in support of gender equality in Iran, peaceful women's rights demonstrations, and over the dress code. And the premier women's magazine, Zanan, was shut down in January 2008 allegedly because it offered a dark picture of the Islamic Republic and compromised the psyche and the mental health of its readers by providing them with "morally questionable information."

Despite these challenges, Iranian women's determination to break stereotypes cannot be underestimated. Today, Iranian women are present in every educational and employment field that is traditionally male-dominated. And they are active politically, especially at the local level. In the 2006 municipal elections, 44 seats out of the 264 on provincial capital councils went to women.

In addition, Iranian women represent such a large share of voters in local and national elections that they are able to significantly influence national politics. For instance, the 2008 parliamentary candidates had to adjust their election campaigns to attract women voters by vowing to change family and labor laws to ensure more equal treatment of women.

The government is slowly amending laws that are discriminatory toward women. The most recently passed laws by parliament allow some Iranian women married to foreigners to pass on their Iranian nationality to their children, which was previously not possible. And women suffering injury or death in a car accident are now entitled to the same insurance company compensation as men, whereas previously women received only half of the compensation given to men.

There is strong public support for greater gender equality in Iran. A recent poll conducted by World Public Opinion and Search for Common Ground finds that 78 percent of Iranians think that it is somewhat or very important for women to have full equal rights with men and 70 percent think that the government should make an effort to prevent discrimination against women.

As the world is watching developments in Iran, the women's movement is likely to be on the forefront. And perhaps it will not be too long before Iranian women become as politically empowered as they are in other spheres of society.

[Talajeh Livani is an Iranian who was raised in Sweden and is currently working as a consultant for the World Bank's Middle East and North Africa division. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).]

Source. / Middle East Times

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Pvt. LaVena Johnson 'Committed Suicide' and 'Was Not Brutally Raped and Murdered'

Pvt. LaVena Johnson.
Another cover-up in a war full of cover-ups and lies
by Meg White / July 29, 2008

They don't care. They put on a uniform and they say honor and integrity and they have no morals, no honor and no integrity, and I don't even know how to sleep at night.

Linda Johnson, mother of Pvt. LaVena Johnson

Pvt. LaVena Johnson, 19, was so excited to tell her mother that she was definitely going to be home from Iraq for Christmas, her favorite time of year. The next day, she was dead.

The military's casualty liaison told the Johnson family she committed suicide, found dead in her barracks with a gunshot wound to the head. However, two separate contacts told LaVena's father, Dr. John Johnson, that she was found dead in a contractor's tent. Allegedly, a trail of blood led from the contractor's tent into her tent, suggesting she was dragged there. Her tent was lit on fire, according to the witness who found her body.

This was back in July 2005. Over the years, more information has slowly come to light. Some of the evidence that contradicted the Army's version of events was obvious.

"She's right handed, and the bullet hole was on the left side of her head," Dr. Johnson said in an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. When he brought up the bullet wound, a military investigator told him it was actually an exit wound from an M-16 rifle.

In addition to being a doctor, Johnson is also a veteran. He knows an M-16 is 40 inches long and that a woman his daughter's size (she was 5'1") would have trouble getting such a weapon into her mouth. Even if she did, the force of an M-16 would do much more damage than the small bullet wound on her left temple.

Moreover, the military's own residue tests indicate she may not have even handled the weapon that supposedly killed her, and the bullet was never found.

He said that once he was able to examine his daughter's body, he saw that plastic surgery had been done to disguise wounds to her face, including a broken nose, loose teeth, and a busted lip. Her gloves had been glued to her hands to hide burns on her skin.

At first, Dr. Johnson received only airbrushed, black-and-white photos of the scene of his daughter's death when he requested information from the Army. There was also a mysterious photocopy of a CD. Dr. Johnson went through a letter-writing war with the Army to get more information from the investigation, eventually having to file a Freedom of Information Act request to get a copy of the CD.

"It was a horrible sight," Johnson said of the uncensored, color photos of his daughter's body on the CD. The photos showed bruises, scratches and teeth marks on her body. Her elbow was distended. He said the pictures showed what looked like lye or some other caustic substance had been poured on his daughter's vaginal area, ostensibly to eliminate DNA evidence of rape.

Dr. Johnson said some of LaVena's colleagues in Iraq told him she had been murdered. One friend told Johnson the Army was actively covering up for his daughter's murderer. Two others said she had a great deal of money on her person at the time of her murder, but her family was given only three pennies. Also, her military debit card was never found, though she had used it hours earlier. When Johnson's father mentioned the money, military investigators did not respond.

Despite all the evidence, the Army says the Johnson case is closed. The Johnsons say they received a letter from the House Armed Services Subcommittee concluding an investigation into the matter that stated satisfaction with the military's version of events.

According to Col. Ann Wright, a retired 29-year veteran of the U.S. military who is working with the Johnson family, 98 military women have died in the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of those deaths, 40 have been non-combat related. Of those, 19 have been considered suspicious. After investigation, 13 of those suspicious deaths were ruled suicides.

In an article for CommonDreams.org, Wright tells the stories of 15 suspicious deaths of military women deployed overseas since 2003 that still require investigation; eight are classified as suicides.

One case showed striking similarities to Johnson's. Pvt. Tina Priest was raped and later found dead in her room. The military said she died from a self-inflicted bullet wound from an M-16. When Priest's mother questioned how that would be physically possible (Priest was about the same height as Johnson), the Army said Priest must have fired the weapon with her toe.

There is an online petition from the group ColorOfChange.org calling Congress to push for further investigation of Johnson's death. The group explains that this effort is about more than just Johnson's case:

"LaVena's death is part of a disturbing pattern of cases where female soldiers have been raped and killed, and where the military has hidden the truth and labeled the deaths suicides. In virtually all cases, Congress has been slow to investigate or hold the military accountable in any way. Unfortunately, most families simply don't have the resources, time, and psychological strength to push back."

Andre Banks, deputy director at ColorOfChange.org said that the petition, which already has 25,000 signatures, hasn't been delivered to Congress yet. He said the House Oversight Committee hasn't agreed to have a hearing specifically about Johnson's death, but that a hearing on sexual assault in the military scheduled to occur this Thursday in the committee's National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee may yield news:

"We're hoping LaVena's case will come up then."

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), Oversight Committee chair, held a hearing last year on the military lying to the public in the cases of Cpl. Pat Tillman's death and Pvt. Jessica Lynch's rescue. Those infamous cases had already received a great deal of media coverage by the time Waxman held the hearing. Before the hearing, Pat Tillman's mother Mary was quoted by The New York Times as dismayed by the treatment her son's case received, but also worried about what other military families could be going through.

"This is how they treat a family of a high-profile individual," she said. "How are they treating others?"

The fact that Pat Tillman was a well-known figure helped the truth emerge about the events surrounding his death. The fact that Pvt. Johnson's father was a doctor with the courage to examine his own daughter's broken corpse might be the only reason the truth may eventually come out about her death.

Pushing for the truth from the U.S. military takes more resources than some people can sacrifice. How many families without famous faces or special expertise have been lied to?

Military culture encourages lying about the instances of rape in the military, while the chances of being sexually assaulted by military personnel are on the rise. The military has gone from covering up suicides to using them to cover up for murder. The culture of deception that has flourished in this administration clearly knows no bounds, not even the tearful anguish of military families that just want to know the truth.

Source / BuzzFlash

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Military Women Ready to Rock the Boat

Sgt. Jennifer Hogg speaks out against sexual harassment and assault in the military. She calls attention to the importance of the upcoming election for military women. Photo by Jackie Scalone.
'For the military this election has heavy stakes'
By Jennifer Hogg

For women in the military, this election season has the potential either to focus a spotlight on long-neglected needs or to continue rendering us invisible. Due to our military training, we often struggle to exercise our right to speak out, but now we need systemic and systematic change both to do justice to service members and to create healthier communities for everyone.

I was still in high school in 2000 when I joined up, looking for a fuller life than I saw available to me in blue-collar Buffalo, New York. But would I have ever joined the military if higher education was not so hard to fund? Would the young, the poor, the single mothers feel their only option was to enlist if adequate housing, jobs and healthcare were available?

These are fundamental social inequalities that funnel people into the military. We hope to escape the injustice of racism, sexism and homophobia by proving ourselves—being able to say, “I served. I earned my place here.” And service does earn us praise, but only as long as we don’t rock that boat.

For the military, this election has heavy stakes, with two occupations taking place simultaneously, Iraq and Afghanistan, and a third waiting in the wings. Such high stakes tend to push aside other issues, and we risk being forced into silence for fear that the boat may capsize. But if it’s that close to going under, isn’t it time for a better boat?

Female veterans know this feeling all too well. All service members are taught to never question your own or your mission. For women service members this silence can have particularly dangerous consequences. When I began basic training, I never expected the culture of fear that service women take pride in living through. From a young woman ready to stand for what was right, I was being turned into a person who shrugged off injustice. When I helped another female recruit report a physical assault, I saw her become the target of widespread verbal harassment. The lesson? Bearing indignity silently in private is far better than risking public ridicule from those who choose to make you a target.

Imagine if those flashy recruiting commercials showed the real dangers a woman can face while serving in the military, living her formative years in a hazardous work environment where racism and homophobia are tolerated for the sake of “getting by” and sexual harassment goes unreported so you don’t “ruin his career.” All this while women work twice as hard to prove themselves as soldiers—more than just a “bitch,” “dyke,” “whore.”

I recently read a news story that highlighted service women who spoke of working twice as hard as the men in order to be seen as equal. That only made them appreciate the military, they said. These stories make me cringe because I remember very keenly boasting about unnecessary hardship—we thought it made us tough. But now such pride seems more like a coping method, one that allows negligent and sometimes criminal behavior to go unpunished. It pits women against one another, with those who are sexually assaulted seen as weak—as if strength alone and not luck allows one to avoid rape or assault.

Buried within this news story was an unfortunate example, a soldier named Spc. Kamisha Block reported dead in Iraq of a “non-combat related injury.” This injury turned out to be gunshot wounds inflicted by a male soldier who had a record of three previous assaults against her. It is obvious Spc. Block was not silent, yet her reports only resulted in her harasser being moved five minutes away from her in Iraq, allowing him the access to murder her before turning the gun on himself. When political candidates this season talk of foreign aggressors, they miss the largest threat military women face. By May of 2004 there were already 112 reports of sexual assault and rape in Iraq and Afghanistan. New Department of Defense policies make reporting easier, but what does it matter if complaints fall on deaf ears?

Sadly these are only secondary concerns in politics, at the VA and the Pentagon, or even in the antiwar movement—if they are issues at all. The current occupation of Iraq has left 97 women dead, the most so far of any American military intervention. Forty percent (39) of those are attributed to non-combat related injuries. Still uncounted in these numbers are suicides and murders that happen in the United States or on military bases post deployment. Spc. Block was reported to have died of friendly fire, so it is hard to extrapolate how many such deaths were actually murders. We need to know more about Pfc. Tina Priest, whose apparent suicide followed a rape allegation that was dropped after her death, and about Pfc. Lavena Johnson, who was brutally beaten, set on fire, doused with acid and somehow ruled a suicide. Their families are still trying to find answers.

One begins to understand why some women in Iraq—marked as targets by both their uniform and their womanhood—carry weapons for protection against fellow service members. We need to make these stories public, so that female service members find communities to amplify their voices when they speak out against these injustices. The Pentagon must be convinced that cover-ups will be uncovered with due haste. We need to ask other women, those who may feel like just one unworthy case, if they have stories to tell.

And we must look at the way post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects men if we really want to address the role of women in the military both as service members and partners of male soldiers. It’s easy to vilify men who turn on women with violence to escape their own powerlessness. Yet once again we don’t have a flashy military recruitment video that shows the real effects of war, seeing your friends blown up, being forced to kill. A whole generation of young service men is becoming emotionally shut off—for fear of seeming “weak” if they show signs of cracking under the enormous pressure of bloody combat.

The PTSD women experience in association with military sexual assault (MSA) must also be treated seriously. The title itself, post-traumatic stress disorder, suggests an abnormal reaction to combat or sexual assault. We continue to reinforce the idea that one is a broken person when experiencing PTSD—something wrong with the individual rather than with what happened to them. Women also lose out because current combat PTSD care is often geared towards men since women are officially barred from the combat zone, as though the military could sustain the occupation without women playing combat roles. If a woman is experiencing both combat and MST-related PTSD, she may be directed to male-filled PTSD groups or MST groups with no combat support. She has nowhere within the VA to find the care she needs.

If we are going to create any meaningful change for service women, it will require that as a country we begin to truthfully recognize our military. As it stands, the occupation of Iraq has become more of a far away sound bite than a tangible situation that real people face every day. Our media must do its job. Senator Barack Obama's upcoming trip to Iraq, rather than becoming a media circus, could afford a valuable glimpse into the reality of the occupation for our female service members. Listen to their first hand accounts. It’s a real opportunity to highlight the dangers they face.

This is no time to relegate these concerns to the status of “women’s issues” in election campaigns. When any candidate is questioned on the gaps in VA health care, they cannot be allowed a free pass to render MST and female service members invisible. The candidates vying for commander in chief must be held accountable by the media for a full understanding of that job in the 21st Century when women in the military are a reality.

Women veterans and service members are bravely bringing these issues to light, breaking the codes of silence. Their acts of courage mean there is no longer an excuse for inaction at any level of our media or government. I have found a voice in SWAN, the Service Women's Action Network, which allows me to share my story and help other women share theirs. The healing and subsequent strength gained from this regained visibility needs to happen for our country as well. Too often I am asked if my military battle dress is a boyfriend's, as if it were not possible that the uniform was once my work clothing. Instead of asking such questions, it’s time to listen.

[With this commentary by SWAN activist Jennifer Hogg, WMC Media Track 2008 continues a series of dispatches on perspectives of issues that the press and the candidates must address in order to win women voters this November. The series began with economist Heidi Hartmann's commentary, "Shaky Economic Times are Shakier for Women]

Source / Women's Media Center / Posted July 18, 2008

Thanks to Alice Embree / The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Sex Crimes in the White House

Fernando Botero / Abu Ghraib 57, 2005. Image © Fernando Botero, courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York.
Abu Ghraib and the Sexualization of Torture
By Naomi Wolf / July 7, 2008

Naomi Wolf is a best-selling author and essayist.

NEW YORK - Sex crime has a telltale signature, even when those directing the outrages are some of the most powerful men and women in the United States. How extraordinary, then, to learn that one of the perpetrators of these crimes, Condoleezza Rice, has just led the debate in a special session of the United Nations Security Council on the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.

I had a sense of déjà vu when I saw the photos that emerged in 2004 from Abu Ghraib prison. Even as the Bush administration was spinning the notion that the torture of prisoners was the work of "a few bad apples" low in the military hierarchy, I knew that we were seeing evidence of a systemic policy set at the top. It's not that I am a genius. It's simply that, having worked at a rape crisis center and been trained in the basics of sex crime, I have learned that all sex predators go about things in certain recognizable ways.

We now know that the torture of prisoners was the result of a policy set in the White House by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Rice -- who actually chaired the torture meetings. The Pentagon has also acknowledged that it had authorized sexualized abuse of detainees as part of interrogation practices to be performed by female operatives. And documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union have Rumsfeld, in his own words, checking in on the sexualized humiliation of prisoners.

The sexualization of torture from the top basically turned Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay into an organized sex-crime ring in which the trafficked sex slaves were US-held prisoners. Looking at the classic S and M nature of some of this torture, it is hard not to speculate that someone setting policy was aroused by all of this. And Phillipe Sands' impeccably documented Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values, now proves that sex crime was authorized and, at least one source reports, eroticized: Diane Beaver, the Staff Judge Advocate at Guantanamo who signed off on many torture techniques, told Sands about brainstorming sessions that included the use of "sexual tension," which was "culturally taboo, disrespectful, humiliating and potentially unexpected."

"These brainstorming meetings at Guantanamo produced animated discussion," writes Sands. "'Who has the glassy eyes?" Beaver asked herself as she surveyed the men around the room, thirty or more of them. She was invariably the only woman in the room, keeping control of the boys. The younger men would get excited, agitated, even: "You could almost see their dicks getting hard as they got new ideas" [reported Beaver]. A wan smile crossed Beaver's face: "And I said to myself, you know what, I don't have a dick to get hard, I can stay detached."' [Sands, p 63]

The nonsexual torture that was committed ranged from beatings and suffocation, electrodes attached to sensitive areas, and forced sleep deprivation, to prisoners being hung by the wrists from the ceiling and placed in solitary confinement until psychosis was induced. These abuses violate both US and international law. Three former military attorneys, recognizing this blunt truth, refused to participate in the "military tribunals" -- rather, "show trials" -- aimed at condemning men whose confessions were elicited through torture.

Though we can now debate what the penalty for waterboarding should be, America as a nation, maintaining an odd silence, still cannot seem to discuss the sex crimes involved.

Why? It's not as if the sex crimes that US leaders either authorized or tolerated are not staring Americans in the face: the images of male prisoners with their heads hooded with women's underwear; the documented reports of female US soldiers deployed to smear menstrual blood on the faces of male prisoners, and of military interrogators or contractors forcing prisoners to simulate sex with each other, to penetrate themselves with objects, or to submit to being penetrated by objects. Indeed, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was written deliberately with loopholes that gave immunity to perpetrators of many kinds of sexual humiliation and abuse.

There is also the testimony by female soldiers such as Lynndie England about compelling male prisoners to masturbate, as well as an FBI memo objecting to a policy of "highly aggressive interrogation techniques." The memo cites a female interrogator rubbing lotion on a shackled detainee and whispering in his ear -- during Ramadan when sexual contact with a strange woman would be most offensive -- then suddenly bending back his thumbs until he grimaced in pain, and violently grabbing his genitals. Sexual abuse in US-operated prisons got worse and worse over time, ultimately including, according to doctors who examined detainees, anal sodomy.

All this may sound bizarre if you are a normal person, but it is standard operating procedure for sex offenders. Those who work in the field know that once sex abusers control a powerless victim, they will invariably push the boundaries with ever more extreme behavior. Abusers start by undressing their victims, but once that line has been breached, you are likely to hear from the victim about oral and anal penetration, greater and greater pain and fear being inflicted, and more and more carelessness about exposing the crimes as the perpetrator's inhibitions fall away.

The perpetrator is also likely to engage in ever-escalating rationalizations, often arguing that the offenses serve a greater good. Finally, the victim is blamed for the abuse: in the case of the detainees, if they would only "behave," and confess, they wouldn't bring all this on themselves.

Silence, and even collusion, is also typical of sex crimes within a family. Americans are behaving like a dysfunctional family by shielding sex criminals in their midst through silence.

Just as sex criminals -- and the leaders who directed the use of rape and sexual abuse as a military strategy -- were tried and sentenced after the wars in Bosnia and Sierra Leone, so Americans must hold accountable those who committed, or authorized, sex crimes in US-operated prisons. Throughout the world, this perverse and graphic criminality has added fuel to anxiety about US cultural and military power. These acts need to be called by their true names -- war crimes and sex crimes -- and people in America need to demand justice for the perpetrators and their victims. As in a family, only when people start to speak out and tell the truth about rape and sexual assault can the healing begin.

Source. / The Huffington Post

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Sex Slavery Crackdown in Houston

Jose Benitez, a Houston labor organizer, talks with two women who were victims of sex trafficking outside El Corralon del Chele Paco, a Houston bar targeted in the past for such trafficking. Photo by Sharon Steinmann / Houston Chronicle.
120 women rescued from grim conditions
By Lise Olsen / June 29, 2008

The farewell party was in full swing at midnight when police came for Maximino "El Chimino" Mondragon, his accomplices and his victims — scantily dressed women and girls he forced to sell beers and sexual favors under the flashing lights of a revolving crystalline disco ball inside his strip mall bar off Hempstead Highway.

Mondragon was celebrating his retirement at El Potrero de Chimino bar, also known as the Wagon Wheel. He had a one-way ticket back to his native El Salvador and blueprints in the bar for a brand-new hotel back home.

Then uninvited guests arrived.

Pickups packed the parking lots at five related bars and restaurants in northwest Houston, as more than 100 officers from federal, state and local agencies rushed in the night of Nov. 13, 2005.

Interviews with the arresting agents and documents recently obtained by the Houston Chronicle provide the first detailed account on how one of the nation's largest sex trafficking rings was dismantled in Houston — considered both a center of operations and transit point for international sex and labor traffickers.

Task force members — including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI, the Harris County Sheriff's Office and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission — had expected to find 50 or 60 women. Eventually, they rescued about 120 victims.

In interviews, victims told agents they had been forced to work six or seven nights a week and to allow men to buy them overpriced drinks in exchange for their company or for sexual favors.

The main targets were the lead cantina owner, Mondragon; head smuggler, Walter Corea; as well as their relatives and wives. Corea was sentenced in May to 15 years; Mondragon's sentencing, the last, is set for Sept. 22. Faced with reams of evidence, seven have pleaded guilty.

To the members of the then-nearly new Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance, the mass arrests and rescues represented a significant enforcement victory.

The size of the Mondragon ring, as well as others dismantled elsewhere, convinced law enforcement authorities that the problem of forced labor in the U.S. is likely much larger than anyone anticipated and continues to proliferate in Houston.

For years, the ring preyed on women and girls from Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala, illegally bringing them to Houston with false promises of legitimate work and then forcing them to work in cantinas to pay off smuggling fees from $8,000 to $15,000 — as well as all living expenses, according to court records and interviews with investigators.

The FBI named the case for them: "Bar Belles."

Mondragon had run businesses in Houston for at least a decade, according to records and interviews with police and a labor activist who helped rescue cantina workers.

In his bars, agents from the TABC found detailed ledgers and notebooks showing how victims had been billed for everything they ate and drank, for their rent, for their clothes, for their transport to the U.S. and for shipping money back home.

'Thought he was the devil'

To control them, Mondragon kept "intelligence" on each one — the names of their mothers, brothers and children and locations of their homes and schools. Records show victims said he threatened to kill relatives or burn down family homes if they did not cooperate.

"They were scared to death of him. ... They thought he was the devil," said Sgt. Michael Barnett of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission's enforcement division in Houston.

In that strictly monitored world, male traffickers and their female "handlers" controlled victims' clothing, their bodies, their money and nearly their every move, according to interviews and court records.

"I had to do everything that they said — they had a camera outside my apartment that recorded everything," one victim told the Chronicle.

Another former bar belle, working when the raid began at Mondragon's party, fled through a back door, only to be illuminated by a helicopter spotlight and grabbed by a federal agent. She felt terrified yet relieved to have escaped.

"I said, 'Thank you God!' "

Over the years, Mondragon ran at least three seemingly normal looking bars and restaurants in northwest Houston. Mondragon and two of his brothers, both convicted as co-conspirators, lived legally in the U.S. Mondragon and his brother Oscar were both legal permanent residents. Their half brother, Victor Omar Lopez, was a naturalized U.S. citizen.

But Mondragon worked closely with lead smuggler Corea, a convicted felon and illegal immigrant who conspired to bring women to Houston from Central America and then used them as slaves.

Both Corea and Mondragon were self-made Salvadoran ricos, rich guys, who owned hotels and restaurants back home in San Miguel, the nation's third-largest city, federal investigators said.

Corea used his Salvadoran businesses as recruiting sites for victims, agents and victims said. He also oversaw an unusually large network of smugglers and safe houses in Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico, according to an interview with Tom Annello, an ICE unit chief and smuggling expert whose work was key to the case.

Patrons often saw Mondragon dance with the girls he kept as virtual prisoners in his clubs, according to Jose Benitez, a Houston labor organizer who tried to help the women after he met them and realized that they were being abused.

Beatings, forced abortions and prostitution took place behind closed doors or in adjacent buildings, houses and apartments, court records show. Aborted fetuses were buried or thrown down a drainage hole into the city sewer system, women told police.

Victims got little money

Several of the ring's cantinas had long been under suspicion by agents from the FBI and the TABC. TABC investigators repeatedly had investigated the businesses for allegations of prostitution, underage drinking and phony ownership, records show. TABC and other investigators believed the group used presta nombres — borrowed names from others — to run their places and to hide their assets or launder money.

In one undercover operation, agents used a snitch to buy two female victims that they wanted to rescue. They paid $11,000, according to a police report. Victor Omar Lopez, Mondragon's half-brother who is now in federal prison, even offered a guarantee: He promised that if the girls escaped, he would have one of his associates hunt them down — or give them new girls.

Unbeknownst to the other agencies, ICE had simultaneously been investigating the smuggling ring run by Corea.

"Once we determined we were investigating the same targets, we proceeded working a joint investigation," Annello said. After that, it took about a year to collect the evidence needed for mass arrests.

The operation was set for early 2006.

Then on Nov. 12, 2005, the lead ICE agent learned that Mondragon and his brother Oscar had obtained one-way tickets to San Salvador, a police report shows. The raid had to happen within hours or the targets would be gone. She called Assistant U.S. Attorney Ruben Perez and other task force agents, most of whom were off duty or out of town.

That weekend, they got the necessary arrest and search warrants for the raids on three cantinas, two restaurants and two houses.

On Sunday near midnight, the traffickers were taken down. Corea, a convicted felon and illegal immigrant, was thrown down to the floor, handcuffed and taken away, a witness said. Watching was his 19-year-old son — a U.S. citizen — who was later convicted for his part in the smuggling operation.

A special ICE tactical team went in after Mondragon. His brothers, sister-in-law and girlfriend were arrested, too.

Inside their bars, agents found more than $29,000 in cash and 98 women, some as young as 16, who had been forced to repeatedly sell their time — and allow men to touch them inside the bar — for about $15 per drink, records show.

Some victims were forced to consume as many as 20 so-called "pony beers" a night to fulfill the traffickers' quotas, according to case documents and interviews. Traffickers also sold a few women for prostitution that took place at nearby houses and apartments, court documents said. The women got almost none of the money.

Later, agents found an additional 20 victims.

Rounded up with them was the ring's abortionist, Lorenza Nunez-Reyes, known as "La Comadre." One of her "patients" had dressed and taken photos of a nearly fully developed 5-month-old fetus apparently delivered dead during one of her illicit operations. Nunez-Reyes eventually pleaded to lesser charges and was deported to Honduras.

Corea's son has been released on probation.

The rest of the ring members, however, got jail time.

The night's results, as well as arrests of other exploitive employers and pimps before and since, catapulted members of the Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance — formed in August 2004 — into minor celebrities.

In a few hours, competitive agents working together for the first time as an experimental anti-human trafficking task force took down a powerful multinational ring that labored to dominate its victims and leave a scant paper trail.

Propelled by federal grants and pushed by President Bush, other task forces have sprung up in 29 places nationwide.

Still trying to recover

Houston's task force is considered a national leader, in large part because of the partnerships forged between victim advocates and investigators.

"What's unique ... is the bridge we have built," said Edward F. Gallagher, the senior assistant U.S. attorney in Houston who serves as task force coordinator.

Today, most of the women rescued in the Mondragon case apparently still live in Houston, though only a few dozen appear to have obtained special visas that were created for victims under new federal anti-trafficking laws.

Three interviewed for this story said they feel safer but still struggle to recover. None remains eligible for federal assistance initially available to trafficking victims. Some depend on support from boyfriends or husbands; others eke out a living cleaning houses or doing other odd jobs.

"We don't know even where to go," one said.

Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Source. / Houston Chronicle

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Texas Rebuked Over Seizure of Mormon Children

Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints leave the Tom Green County Courthouse in San Angelo, Texas, on Friday, April 18, 2008. Photo by Tony Gutierrez / AP.

Appeals court: state had no right to seize sect kids
By Lisa Sandberg and Terri Langford / May 22, 2008

SAN ANGELO -- A Texas appeals court ruled today that a San Angelo judge exceeded her discretion when she ordered the state to take custody of children from a polygamist sect.

The order by a panel of the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin gave State District Judge Barbara Walther 10 days to vacate her order, which applied to more than 460 children.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the decision means the children will be returned right away to the custody of their parents, followers of a breakaway Mormon sect called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

A spokesman for Texas’ Child Protective Services said attorneys were reviewing the order. "Any decision regarding an appeal will be made later," Patrick Crimmins said.

Two FLDS mothers whose children were placed in foster care learned of the decision from reporters on their way to the courthouse in San Angelo, unaware of the 3rd Court ruling or that child custody status hearings that started here this week had been canceled in its wake.

"Hurray. Praise the Lord," said Sarah Barlow, 45, who has two children in foster care. "We’re grateful for this."

Ilene Jeffs, 45, who has three children in foster care, said, "We’re grateful for anything that’s positive."

FLDS spokesman Rod Parker said families not involved in the lawsuit ruled on today will be filing paperwork to ensure they "get the benefits of this ruling."

Cynthia Martinez, a spokeswoman for Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, which represented 48 mothers in the custody suit against the state, said, "We’re extremely happy with the ruling."

Martinez said she wasn’t certain how soon the children might be returned to the 1,700-acre Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado

"The way that the courts have ignored the legal rights of these mothers is ridiculous," said Texas Rural Legal Aid attorney Julie Balovich, who also represents FLDS mothers. "It was about time a court stood up and said that was has been happening to these families is wrong."

"It is a great day for families in the state of Texas," Balovich added later. "It’s a great day for justice in Texas. It was the right decision."

In the decision, the 3rd Court ruled that CPS failed to provide any evidence that the children were in imminent danger and acted hastily in removing them from their families.

The agency had argued that the children on the ranch near Eldorado were either abused or at risk of abuse. The Texas Family Code allows a judge to consider whether the "household" to which a child would be returned includes a person who has sexually abused another child. Child welfare officials alleged that the polygamist sect's practice of marrying underage girls to older men places all its children at risk of sexual abuse.

According to the court, "The existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the Department’s witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger."

It stated, "Removing children from their homes on an emergency basis before fully litigating the issue of whether the parents should continue to have custody of the children is an extreme measure."

"The danger must be to the physical health or safety to the child," the appeals court wrote. "The Department (CPS) did not present any evidence of danger to the physical health or safety of any male children or any female children who had not reached puberty."

The state can either ask the Texas Supreme Court to stay the order or comply by returning the children to their parents, said Scott McCown, a former judge and executive director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities.

McCown said the appeals court is not saying the children could not be removed from their families, only that Walther had overstepped her authority by issuing an emergency order. He said protective services could still remove the children after a full trial.

But McCown said there is a very real risk that if the children are returned to their parents they will be moved to another state, Canada or Mexico and be outside the jurisdiction of Texas’ protective custody.

"One of the real dangers is flight, and the court doesn’t address that at all," McCown said.

Dallas attorney Susan Hays, an ad litem attorney representing a 3-year-old girl, said also said the state’s options were to ask for a stay or comply. She said the stay could be sought either from the 3rd Court or the Texas Supreme Court.

In today’s order, she said, "What they’ve been told to do is start over, and do it right."

Parker said, "All of the families want to express their thanks to Texas Rural Legal Aid for achieving this wonderful result. They’re ecstatic. They’re looking forward to being reunited with their children."

Source. / Houston Chronicle

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...