Avaaz.org Presents The New Face Of Power In The Movement For Change

 

 

Avaaz means 'voice' in a number of different languages and what it means in every language is hope. The brilliant organizers of this powerful, relatively new international web have reached a level that few could have hoped for just a year ago. They are now flush with 13 million members and 2.5 million of whom have joined in just the last 30 days. No other activist human rights organization and instrument for change can boost such figures.

Avaaz.org has 194 countries with members. The nations with the biggest participants are Germany, France and Brazil - all having over a million.

Even more reason to celebrate Avaaz.org's existence is that they are having great success in mobilizing people and winning victories for good. In their recent email they present to their participants a "snapshot of the last few weeks."

-five million of us stood up to the ACTA and SOPA Internet censorship bills, helping to put SOPA on ice, and putting ACTA under threat, with the President of the European Parliament and Germany, Poland and many other countries reconsidering their positions.

-smuggled $1.8 million worth of medical supplies into Syria when no one else could, and raised $1.5 million more in donations, while our citizen journalists provided much of the world media's information and images.

-generated thousands of news articles on 20 different campaigns.

-our sex trafficking hotline generated information that will result in a major set of arrests this week (can't say which country yet).

-raised over 4 million dollars/euros/yen online to supercharge our work, and are growing our staff team like mad to keep up with the need.

-ran over 40 campaigns, took over 10 million actions and told 25 million friends about campaigns we care about, on everything from deforestation in Brazil to the Murdoch scandal in the UK -- and made a serious impact on many of these.

That is all in a month's work! They refuse to accept funds from any governments nor corporations and they rely on the people for their resources. They have a dedicated team of extraordinary and passionate people working on our behalf. Their reach, success and abilities are simply amazing.

Click here to join Avaaz.org and become a part of the millions of people from around the world coming together to be create change.

Marriage Equality: A Very Special Day In Washington State

 

 

Today, if all goes well, Governor Chris Gregoire (D) will sign into law full marriage equality for Washington State LGBT citizens. The state becomes the seventh state plus the District of Columbia to pass marriage equality.

One only has to think back to the year 2004 when the Massachusetts Supreme Court ordered marriage equality. At first it was viewed as a "Massachusetts anomaly" and most likely would not be duplicated elsewhere. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Today we officially have "The Magnificent Seven" plus for the first time ever a majority of Americans wanting full marriage equality for their LGBT neighbors.

In May it will be eight years since that Massachusetts decision, not even a decade, and look how far we have come. Just imagine what life will be like for us in 2020! Congratulations to the LGBT community in Washington. They did a spectacular job of getting this passed and signed. This is a very special day indeed.

Enjoy this remarkable video of Washington Republican Representative Maureen Walsh who voted for marriage equality. It is a lovely moment from that debate.

History on Film: The Massacre Of South Carolina Students(1968)

 

 

For three days in February, 1968, students at South Carolina State located in Orangeburg confronted the police in an effort to end the 'whites only' policy at The All Star Bowling Lanes. Over the three nights there was an escalation in tension between about 200 protesters and the police.

February 8, 1968 was the third night and the night of the Orangeburg Massacre. State Police opened fire on the demonstrators, shooting 30 of them. Almost all who were shot had wounds in the back as they fled the police. Three people were killed in the melee: Samuel Hammond and Henry Smith were students at South Carolina State and Delano Middleton was a Wilkinson High School student.

The dead and wounded were taken to the South Carolina State infirmary which looked like a war zone. Nine policeman were charged and all were acquitted for killings.

Below are two videos. The first is background of the situation at the time. The second is a moving oral history by some of the survivors of that horrible night.

Syria: Help Smuggle Medical Supplies and Food To Syrian People

 

 

Please join me in working with Avaaz.org which is right now the only effective organization smuggling medical supplies, food and journalists into Syria. They are also bringing out of that devastated nation images so the truth can be told about the brutal dictatorship. There is an urgent need for assistance. The highly respected international organization Avaaz has been working around the clock to help the people of Syria. This is one of those moments we all should send whatever we can afford and stand up and be counted. Just because the major powers won't act doesn't mean in the technological age we can't do everything possible to help.

This message is from Danny from within Syria.

Photojournalism: The Syrian Civil War

 

 

For near 50 years the people of Syria have lived under brutal military rule. For 40 of those years, the al-Assad family has made the nation their personal fiefdom. The family has used their power to supress any dissent, torture political prisoners and crush brutally any attempt of the people to seek freedom.

In 1982, the dictatorship crushed a rebellion against its rule in the city Hama. They, without a thought, killed well over 15,000 of the city residents in order to regain control of the city. Today, at least 5,000 and most likely more, have died in the Arab Spring uprising in Syria. Right now a major battle is taking place in the city of Homs and hundreds have been killed by the bombing of the city and indiscriminate fire on civilians by the army.

Boston.com's Big Picture has been able to obtain some photographs from brave photojournalists in the war zone. Please see all two dozens photographs on the site and the all important photographer credits.

World's Children Working In Coal Mines In Horrendous Conditions

 

 

There is an increasingly sickening scandal taking place in the production of coal in many nations. Mines around the world are using children as laborers. Many of those mines are owned by global corporations and receive loans from international agencies. Some of the children being forced at age 7 to work in the mines have been trafficked or sold into slavery by hopelessly destitute parents.

In Afghanistan, reports are that children as young as 10 are working in the mines for $2 a day for up to ten to twelve hours. In India, according to Impulse (a children rights organization), up to 70,000 children are mining the coal. The youngest found by the organization was 7 years old! Most are Nepalese and Bangladeshis who are in the nation illegally and have no recourse. Others are indentured laborers and have either been sold by their parents or are orphans and homeless. Countries in Asia and Africa especially have a large number of children working in the mines.

Take a look at these pictures from Boston.com's Big Picture and you will realize what a disgrace this is to human kind.

The Top Ten Best NGO's In The World

 

 

 

In a first ever effort, Global Journal has listed the Top 100 NGO's (non-governmental organizations) in the world. This was an ambitious undertaking for the Journal and sure to generate debate and maybe even some controversy. The methodology that they used to judge some of the world's most prominent organizations consisted of:

-Innovation
-Effectiveness
-Impact
-Efficiency/Value for Money
-Transparency and Accountability
-Sustainability
-Strategic and Financial Management -Peer Review

You see more on the methodology and the entire list of 100 organizations by clicking here but the top ten are:

1. The Wikimedia Foundation

2. Partner in Health

3. Oxfam

4. BRAC

5. International Rescue Committee

6. PATH

7. CARE International

8. Medecins San Frontieres

9. Danish Refugee Council

10. Ushahidi

Occupy Oakland: Journalists Are Put In Jail As 400 Arrested In Protests

 

 

Once again Oakland became the battleground for the Occupy Movement. Apparently the mayor or no one else in city government can control the police or maybe even care to control them. As protesters were gathering police lobbed tear gas and fired rubber bullets. After creating total chaos, the police then boxed in the demonstrators and proceeded with the mass arrests.

Recently, the international agency that protects journalists moved the United States down to number forty-seven in 'press freedoms.' The main reason given by the organization was that journalist were by large numbers being beaten and arrested during the Occupy demonstrations despite clearly identifying themselves to law enforcement officials. Not since 1968 have we seen so many journalists being rounded up by the police and arrested.

The only reason to arrest reporters who show identification is to intimidate them from covering the news. Either by making them reluctant to get close to the event or making it almost impossible for them to cover the news.

Here is an excerpt from Mother Jones magazine by journalist Gavin Aronsen about the arrests of six reporters:

On Saturday, Occupy Oakland re-entered the national spotlight during a day-long effort to take over an empty building and transform it into a social center. Oakland police thwarted the efforts, arresting more than 400 people in the process, primarily during a mass nighttime arrest outside a downtown YMCA. That number included at least six journalists, myself included, in direct violation of OPD media relations policy that states "media shall never be targeted for dispersal or enforcement action because of their status."

After an unsuccessful afternoon effort to occupy a former convention center, the more than 1,000 protesters elected to return to the site of their former encampment outside city hall. On the way, they clashed with officers, advancing down a street with makeshift shields of corrogated metal and throwing objects at a police line. Officers responded with smoke grenades, tear gas, and bean bag projectiles. After protesters regrouped, they marched through downtown as police pursued and eventually contained a few hundred of them in an enclosed space outside a YMCA. Some entered the gym and were arrested inside.

As soon as it became clear that I would be kettled with the protesters, I displayed my press credentials to a line of officers and asked where to stand to avoid arrest. In past protests, the technique always proved successful. But this time, no officer said a word. One pointed back in the direction of the protesters, refusing to let me leave. Another issued a notice that everyone in the area was under arrest.

I wound up in a back corner of the space between the YMCA and a neighboring building, where I met Vivian Ho of the San Francisco Chronicle and Kristin Hanes of KGO Radio. After it became clear that we would probably have to wait for hours there as police arrested hundreds of people packed tightly in front of us, we maneuvered our way to the front of the kettle to display our press credentials once more.

When Hanes displayed hers, an officer shook his head. "That's not an Oakland pass," he told her. "You're getting arrested." (She had a press pass issued by San Francisco, but not Oakland, police.) Another officer rejected my credentials, and I began interviewing soon-to-be-arrested protesters standing nearby. About five minutes later, an officer grabbed my arm and ziptied me. Around the same time, Ho—who did have official OPD credentials—was also apprehended.

As I waited in line to be processed and transported to jail, Ho approached me with an officer who had released her from custody. The two explained to my arresting officer that I was with the media. "Oh, he's with the media?" the officer replied, although I had already repeatedly told him as much and my credentials had been plainly visible all night. He appeared ready to release me, until a nearby officer piped in, without explanation: "He's getting arrested."

Shame on Governor Chris Christie....

 

New Jersey's Governor Chris Christie loves to give the appearance that he is tough and often swaggers around loudly proclaiming his views. As he campaigns for the Vice Presidency on a Romney ticket he tells those that disagree how "things are done in Jersey." Wonder if the governor shares with those voters that the way a governor acts these days in Jersey is cowardly? Wonder if tells about a governor of the Garden State distorts history and advances division in order to advance his creeds with the right wing religious extremists who have taken over his party?

Bigotry is exactly what the cowardly Governor Chris Christie is currently practicing "Jersey style."

The New Jersey legislature is set to pass marriage equality and the governor promises to veto the civil rights bill. He wants a referendum on the issue and to allow the voters of New Jersey to vote on the rights of its neighbors. In pressing his case, he said that African-Americans would have loved the right to have the public vote on their rights in the 1960's.

What planet is he living on? Does he really believe African-Americans in Mississippi wanted the public to vote on their rights in the 1960's? Are you kidding me, Governor? African American leaders in New Jersey were the first to respond to this insanity. Mayor Cory Booker of Newark said,

"I shudder to think what would have happened if the civil rights gains, heroically established by courageous lawmakers in the 1960's, were instead conveniently left up to popular votes in our 50 states,"

The first African-American Speaker of the New Jersey Assembly, Shelia Oliver, was shocked and offended at the governor's suggestion and said,

“Governor, people were fighting and dying in the streets of the South because the majority refused to grant minorities equal rights by any method. It took legislative action to bring justice to all Americans, just as legislative action is the right way to bring marriage equality to all New Jerseyans.”

Even President Eisenhower and Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen opposed a referendum on civil rights for African Americans.  Republican Minority Leader Dirksen said in 1959:

“Do we have legislative responsibility or don’t we?” he said during the debate on the Senate floor. “I’m ready to accept my responsibility. I’m not going to pass the buck to the people back home and say, ‘I’m thinking about the next election.' And they would say, ‘Haven’t you got any guts to stand up under the Constitution of the United States?’”

The governor pointed out that individual rights had been voted on before in New Jersey. In 1915, male voters in the states voted overwhelmingly to deny women the right to vote. Does Governor Christie really think this was a bright spot in New Jersey's history? That this vote was the right action to be taken in the suffrage movement?

Even The New Jersey Star-Ledger, a conservative paper, took on the governor's lack of courage in an amazing and powerful endorsement of marriage equality that must be read in its entirety but here is a powerful excerpt:

Imagine how different American history would be if this rule by referendums had carried the day from the start.

Take race relations. If Southern states could have held a referendum on free speech rights for Martin Luther King Jr., can anyone doubt how it would have turned out? How long would it have taken for voters in Mississippi to integrate its public schools?

Gallup has traced attitudes toward interracial marriage for decades. Note that when the Supreme Court struck down Virginia’s ban in 1967, fewer than 1 in 5 Americans supported the court’s position. If Christie’s philosophy had carried the day, the ban would have remained in place until the late 1990s.

The point is that minority rights should not be subjected to majority vote. That misses the gist of constitutional rights.

As James Madison put it in Federalist Paper 51: “It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. If a majority can be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.”

Christie is not bothered by such niceties. He is a politician who sees this kind of restraint as an obstacle to be overcome, not a principle to be respected. He has even threatened to ignore Supreme Court rulings that he doesn’t like.

He is, in other words, exactly the type of politician that Madison had in mind when he drafted the Constitution’s restraints on majority power.

Americans must remember in this time of historic struggle for civil rights that Governor Chris Christie was nothing more than a coward, bully and horrible historian.

International LGBT Activists Praise Secretary Clinton's Speech

 

 

International Activists with Secretary Clinton in Geneva

At the historic speech in Geneva on International LGBT rights were fourteen LGBT activists from around the world. They were flown to Geneva by the Council for Global Equality. The very fortunate activists got to hear in person the historic speech. Here are the reactions from those activists - all who much go home and fight extremely tough battles. If anyone doubts the impact of the speech, these words should help answer the skeptics.

Arvind Narrain from the Lawyers Collective in India: "The Secretary made a passionate case for LGBT rights as gay rights while being very culturally sensitive. The generosity of mentioning the gains in South Africa, Brazil, India, and Nepal conveyed a wider sense of ownership of these issues."

Sass Rogando Sasot from Society of Transsexual Women of the Philiipines: "The sincerity and courage of Secretary Clinton is an invitation for us to make the dignity of our common humanity the center and goal of our politics. Her speech is another step towards a world that's more inclusive, fair, and compassionate."

Polina Savchenko from the Russian LGBT Network: "Secretary Clinton's point about 'honest discussion' is particularly important for Russia because we suffer from extreme ignorance. Discussion is shut down in our country. Her message about decriminalization was also very important in our country right now."

Santiago Eder from Colombia Diversa: "It was extremely important that the Secretary of State of the United States of America introduced the concept that 'gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights.' It was a very symbolic and historic moment for the gay liberation movement."

Pauline Kimani of the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya: "I really appreciated the speech. I loved the introspective parts and believe that the consultative process with these activists on the ground that was started today will continue for a lifetime!"

Adrian Jjuuko, Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law, Uganda: "It was a very powerful speech - which very relevant in the context of Uganda. Coming from the stature of HC, it amplifies our voices for equality much much further. I'm sure its impact will be felt for years to come.

Rev. MacDonald Sembereka of the Malawi Network of Religious Leaders Living with HIV/AIDS: "First and foremost, thank you Hillary Clinton and the U.S. government for starting a global discussion like never was done before. To me this has been a speech that touched all aspects of a discussion that we need to have globally. She covered all the pros and cons - and now the global discussion begins. I hope that the rest of the world takes it up."

Anastasia Danilova of Gender DOC-Moldova: "It was very important speech for Moldova because we have no political will or support in our country for the human rights of LGBT people. That is why it is so important to have the high level of Hillary Clinton's support for LGBT rights and freedoms. Personally, it was very empowering for her to talk about the importance of us - the LGBT activists."

Alice N'kom of ADEFHO, Cameroon: "I am so honored and privileged to be a part of this historical message. As a defender of women's human rights, it felt like it did after the Beijing conference on women -- the Secretary had the same impact on LGBT human rights today as she did with women's rights in Beijing. This makes our struggle a success. We will win, as we won in Beijing. And I hope my country and I will be a part of this side of history."

Sanja Juras of Kontra, Croatia: "It was certainly a very important speech and crucial that such a high official sent the message that LGBT rights are human rights. This makes a difference for people all over the world. For us in Croatia, the mention of freedom of assembly was very important, since these rights are violated, as during gay pride demonstrations this year."

Zoryan Kis of Fulcrum, Ukraine: "It was very exciting to really witness the history that Secretary Clinton said we are on the right side of. For the Ukrainian LGBT community the message that 'we are not alone' was so important to hear. The other message about the evolution of opinions and how Clinton's own understanding has developed was really helpful to our work. We cannot persuade people through accusations, but we have to work to help our society understand and accept LGBT rights."

J-FLAG Representative, Jamaica: "I was so honored to be a part of this moment in history. The central thing that stuck out for me is that progress begins with honest conversation. That is key for us at home in Jamaica to begin more rational, honest conversations about the rights of our people, including LGBT."

Vladimir Simenko of the Lithuanian Gay League: "Personally, as a human rights watchdog for two decades, I sometimes feel frustrated. But when I heard Hillary Clinton say that we have friends and partners abroad, I really felt that we are not alone. I truly feel motivated and inspired. We will use this message for our struggle - and hope that our government does too."