Articles [54]

Transgender man fired from New Jersey workplace makes case against employer
Posted: 15 April 2011
Source: New Jersey News Room
Tags: transgender, US, employment discrimination, gender

Syria accused of torturing protestors
Posted: 15 April
Source: KPLC (NBC)
Tags: Syria, torture, Middle East, protests,

Born in a death camp: A miracle baby and her mother
Posted: 16 April 2011
Source: BBC News
Tags: children, nazi, concentration camps, ww2, good news,

Articles [47]

OAS Human Rights Group Weighs in on Brazil’s Amazon Dam
Posted: 5 April 2011
Source: Forbes
Tags: Brazil, South America, indigenous rights, economic rights, environmental rights, industrial growth, investment

Kenyans sue UK for alleged colonial human rights abuses
Posted: 5 April 2011
Source: The Guardian (UK)
Tags: Kenya, Africa, colonialism, detention camps, wrongful imprisonment, monetary compensation, UK, justice, abuse, torture

"Among those detained and abused was Barack Obama's grandfather."
Wow...

Articles [19]

BP to Gulf victims: Sorry we ruined your life. Now go away.
Posted: 17 Feb 2011
Source:NRDC Switchboard
Tags: environmental rights, compensation, US,

BP: Gulf oil spill payments are too generous
Posted: 17 Feb 2011
Source: CNN
Tags: ^"^

Ethiopia: Double Discrimination - Gender Violations of Minority Women
Posted: 16 February 2011
Source: Africa Rights Monitor
Tags; Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, gender, refugees, children, women, gender, rape, torture, children

Articles [18]

Case of police torture 60 years ago begins
Posted: 16 Feb 2011
Source: United Press International
Tags: torture, police abuse, Chicago, US,


South Dakota Moves To Legalize Killing Abortion Providers
Posted: 15 Feb 2011
Source: Mother Jones
Tags: abortion, murder, newsjournal, South Dakota, US

Articles [14]

Transgendered-rights bill headed for defeat in Tory-held Senate
Posted: 10 Feb 2011
Source: The Globe & Mail
Tags: Canada, transgender, work discrimination, gender expression

Sky News Uncovers Egypt Torture Claims
Posted: 9 Feb 2011
Source: Sky News
Tags: Egypt, torture

Articles [13]

Rights groups vow to hunt Bush over torture
Posted: 8 February 2011
Source: Daily Nation (Kenya)
Tags: Africa, Kenya


Put Mubarak on trial for human rights violations'
Posted: 8 Feb 2011
Source: SiFy Indian News
Tags: Amnesty International, Mubarak, Egypt, Germany, medical rights, torture


Suu Kyi party calls for talks with West
Posted: 8 Feb 2011
Source: News.com.au (News Limited - Australia)
Tags: Australia, Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi, house arrest, wrongful imprisonment, Asia,

Film: Romero

WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
[post is unfinished]

"The Church is a whore. She spreads her legs to the highest bidder."
The power and corruption of faith.
"We're human beings."
"let my blood be a seed fo freedom"
the Church of God is the people


what is eucharist on the ground?
flashing photos of victims
1980-89 - 60,000 Salvadorians killed


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098219/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romero_%28film%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93scar_Romero

Economic injustice is the root of our problems

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu



[Prayer for Social Justice, by Sister Helen Prejean]

God of Compassion

You let your rain fall on the just and the unjust.
Expand and deepen our hearts
so that we may love as You love,
even those among us
who have caused the greatest pain by taking life.
For there is in our land a great cry for vengeance
as we fill up death row and kill the killers
in the name of justice, in the name of peace.
Jesus, our brother,
you suffered execution at the hands of the state
but you did not let hatred overcome you
Help us to reach out to victims of violence
so that our enduring love may help them heal.
Holy Spirit of God,
You strengthen us in the struggle for justice,
Help us to work tirelessly
for the abolition of state-sanctioned death
and to renew our society in its very heart
so that violence will be no more.

Amen.

Film: Closet Land

WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

I picked up this film simply because it was the first one the library aid pulled off the shelf.
My first response is just to say that I really hate indie films and seeing this one has done nothing to change that view. Call me old fashioned and narrow minded but I like my films to have a plot of some kind, and generally end in sort of resolution or conclusion. I get it, I just don't like it.

I also found the film to be incredibly predictable. I don't know, somehow I just knew that Alan Rickman's character was going to do this good cop-bad cop thing the whole time. Somehow I knew there was going to be a "medical torture" style scene. And it was glaringly obvious that, even though the core of the film (arguably) was about torture and coersion, there would be an element of repressed trauma from sexual abuse. The second the "Close Land" was animated, I knew, ah, the little girl is the author, the closet has to do with sexuality, and since this is clearly a film about abuses she was obviously sexually abused, probably raped, almost certainly as a child. The only thing I wasn't certain of was whether the closet was a literal or figurative place - turned out to be both.

Granted the ending was surprising, I didn't think she would make it out (I suppose we could debate whether or not she really did).

Also, Rickman's character is deliberately left inconclusive. I would like to extrapolate on the symbolism there, because there are a number of positions you can put him in. Does he represent government? Is he really a single person pretending to be in different roles, or is Rickman actually meant to be portraying different characters? Was he her assailant when she was a child, or is he just preying on that memory as part of her torture? What is his goal/are his goals?

I think that Rickman's "character" is a single entity with all the conflicting facets he portrays carried within; as such, I think he represents not simply government, but entire nations. The fact that he is both his own torturer and victim, that he both takes sadistic enjoyment in torturing his victim and is harrowed about what he does, all go to show how complicated the relationship between the dominated and the dominating is. If, for example, a government turns to exploitation, torture and intimidation, the governing body itself suffers from the paranoia of surveillance and the guilt of the perpetrator. When people allow their governing bodies power over their very selves, they become complicit in their own suffering.


sex, drugs, nakedness, faking it, frigid whore, psychological torture, interrogation, unwarranted arrest, propoganda, children, sexual abuse


When you abuse people enough they won't scream anymore.
When you subject a person to too much pain they become unable to see the pain of others.
Children are powerless. The powerless become children. Easy victims.

What power do lies have? What power is there to be found in lieing or misrepresentation? In refusing to lie? Can we lie to ourselves about what's happening to us? Can we lie to ourselves about what we are doign to others?

What is your closet? What are you escaping from? Who is the friendly rooster? Who is Mother? Who is the cat with green wings? What is your lie?