Category Archives: human rights

Buffy Sainte Marie – “I’m Going Home” – YouTube

Buffy Sainte Marie’s ”I’m Going Home” Lyrics

Heaven isn’t so far away as people say

I got a home high in my heart

Heaven is right where I come from; I never throw it away

I know the place and I’m going home

I’m going home

I’m going home

See up there, it’s not the same

They know your name

And I’m not ashamed to need it

I’m going home

I’m going home

I’m going home

You keep on knocking but I’m not coming out of this state I’m in

I’m travellin’ right, I’m gonna get there soon

I’m standing up praying, I’m singing

Saying Heyo ha ha heyo ha hey ya

I know the way and I’m going home.

I’m going home

I’m going home

That’s where the heart can rest

The best is there

And only a fool would leave it. I’m going home

I’m going homeI’m going home

I’m going home

I been around, I been to town

Hey, where you think I learned right from wrong

And I’m going home

I’m going home

Chilean court imposes heavier sentences on German cult leaders | News | DW.COM | 31.12.2016 “Wonder, how many more have not been identified? And who frequents them?”

A court in the Chilean capital, Santiago, has lengthened by one year sentences already imposed on three Germans found guilty of forming a criminal organization at “Colonia Dignidad,” a German colony located in the Andean foothills.The three men – Kurt Schnellenkamp, Gerhard Mücke and Karl van den Berg – were among the leaders of the commune, now called “Villa Baviera,” where systematic child abuse took place between 1961 and 1997. They have now been sentenced to five years and one day in prison.The 15,000-hectare (37,066-acre) settlement, sealed off from the rest of the world, was also used as a secret detention and torture center for political prisoners during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet from 1973-1990. Several opponents of the Pinochet regime were murdered there. Paul Schäfer was arrested in Argentina in 2005The court also handed down similar sentences to former Chilean intelligence agents Fernando Gomez and Pedro Espinoza. Four other defendants were released.”Colonia Dignidad” was founded in 1961 by cult leader Paul Schäfer, an ex-Nazi corporal, who fled Germany for Chile with 250 followers after authorities in his home country began to investigate him for sexual abuse of children.Schäfer was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2006 for his role at the “Colonia Dignidad,” and died in prison in 2010, aged 88.

Source: Chilean court imposes heavier sentences on German cult leaders | News | DW.COM | 31.12.2016

Chile: torturers and murderers are compared with the apostles of Jesus – Red Harvest

Last week Manuel Guerrero Antequera, son of one of the slain, said the former agents “committed the worst crimes, not helped justice, they lowered penalties. They have special jail. Serving sentences and leave us alone. ” On Thursday, hearing parole granted to “Pegasus”, charged that Chile breached international human rights law and again criticized the famous mass. “Some say that such gestures are disinterested, gratuitous, deep and genuine repentance. False, they are pure instrumental rationality. With this action, all terrorist conspiracy that operated from the State in the case Degollados is free. ” The year that the five officers committed this crime, ’85, Manuel was 14. The school from which kidnapped his father, who worked there, it was also his high school: he witnessed the arrest of Manuel father to three meters away and ran after the helicopter monitored the entire operating until the school door. Just the Supreme Court issued the “comply”, the murderer of his father will released.TAGS: CHILE , AGAINST HUMANITY , PAROLES , APOLOGYANTONIA ORELLANA GUARELLOJOURNALIST.-

Source: Chile: torturers and murderers are compared with the apostles of Jesus – Red Harvest

+972’s Person of the Year: The women standing up to sexual harassment | +972 Magazine

Every womanizing culture is sleazy in its own special way. In America it’s frat-boy sniggering. There’s the Mediterranean suffocating pseudo-romantic come-ons, or the conservative Middle Eastern trick of punishing women for men’s sexuality.In Israel too, sexual aggression expresses a dark underside of national and cultural flaws: swaggering ego-driven entitlement, the unquestioned certainty that specific people and positions are above both law and morality. If they break it, their buddies will cover up for them — that is the sensual intoxication of sheer physical military power.In a bygone era, these traits were romanticized and marketed to Israel’s people and outside admirers alike. Israelis prided themselves on being brash and direct; they disregarded rules to release creative problem-solving genius that is the secret of the Jews’ mythologized, centuries-old resilience. Israel views itself as the triumph of the gun over the ghetto. For heroic, nation-saving military men, helping themselves to women’s bodies seemed like a natural extension of that.When values are so deeply rooted in society, they become transparent and unquestioned. But when so many women (one high-profile man was accused by no less than 14 people) are able to step outside and see what was previously invisible, it means the silent rules that define women’s natural role in society are no longer functioning. The more visible these values become, the more flimsy their force.The women of 2016 may not have realized it, but their actions conveyed that entitlement, impunity, and brash invasiveness — at least as manifested in sexual aggression — are now anathema. No longer do military, religious, or political causes justify the sacrifice of their physical and spiritual integrity. Manipulate these causes for self-satisfying urges, and it won’t end well.

Source: +972’s Person of the Year: The women standing up to sexual harassment | +972 Magazine

Wish You Would Listen: A Very Short Playlist Because You Missed the Whole Point of Feminism – The Ladies Finger – why are people so afraid?

Obviously, this never happened. The part where Princess Nokia showed up, I mean. But I wish it did, because the other stuff – being asked to leave spaces, or prove my gender, happens all the time.In bathrooms, at airport security checks, at the movie theatre, on our local buses. Everywhere. Friends and family (often self-titled feminists), tell me to “Dress more like a girl. Or at least grow your hair out.” They point to my jeans, my short hair and my beat-up sneakers, and say, “What more do you expect?” This is a playlist for all the people who have offered me snatches of discordant wisdom and jarring insights, and to anyone who relies on gender binaries to question the validity of an individual’s rights and way of life.

Source: Wish You Would Listen: A Very Short Playlist Because You Missed the Whole Point of Feminism – The Ladies FingerThe Ladies Finger

Democrats advance Palestine censorship ahead of Trump | The Electronic Intifada

With Democrats and Republicans standing virtually unanimous in their willingness to run roughshod over the fundamental rights of Americans to advocate for Palestinian freedom, there can be little doubt Republicans will be able to push through even wider abuses of the rights of Muslims, Latinos, women and the LGBTQ community. If Democrats are not willing to stand up for the First Amendment when it comes to Palestinian rights, we can expect it will be all too easy for Republicans to peel away Democrats on other issues.

Source: Democrats advance Palestine censorship ahead of Trump | The Electronic Intifada

President Obama & Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Pearl Harbor | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Barack Obama participate in a wreath-laying ceremony aboard the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on Dec. 27, 2016. Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Source: President Obama & Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Pearl Harbor | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Former US ambassador to Israel criticizes Netanyahu′s ′nasty′ UN reaction | News | DW.COM | 26.12.2016

Israel has also vowed to reassess its relationship with the United Nations.Kurtzer maintained that the past eight years, the relationship between Israel and the United States “is on very strong ground” despite a number of disagreements between the two countries.”But none of these differences accounts for the nasty language that’s being used,” Kurtzer said. “I think we have to find a way to get beyond this and try and deal with some of these differing views more privately.”

Source: Former US ambassador to Israel criticizes Netanyahu′s ′nasty′ UN reaction | News | DW.COM | 26.12.2016

Mavis Staples on Her Kennedy Center Honor and Fist-Bumping James Taylor – The New York Times “I am really disheartened. I’m about to relive the ’60s. I’ve seen some of it already. I can turn on the news and I can swear I’m back in the ’60s. The way things are going, every day it’s something. I feel like all of this is happening because of the way Mr. Trump is. He’s bringing it on. I’m going to have to start writing songs again. I’m so sorry that we, as black people, don’t have a leader like Dr. Martin Luther King — someone to take charge. We have to do it through our songs and our actions. And try to stay nonviolent.

 

I am really disheartened. I’m about to relive the ’60s. I’ve seen some of it already. I can turn on the news and I can swear I’m back in the ’60s. The way things are going, every day it’s something. I feel like all of this is happening because of the way Mr. Trump is. He’s bringing it on. I’m going to have to start writing songs again. I’m so sorry that we, as black people, don’t have a leader like Dr. Martin Luther King — someone to take charge. We have to do it through our songs and our actions. And try to stay nonviolent.

The world is trying to save Israel from itself. Will we listen? | +972 Magazine

On this issue one must repeat today what was true yesterday, the day before, and every day since 1967: the idea of settling for the purpose of marking territory — based on a worldview based on belligerence and supremacy — while placing a civilian population under military rule, is ugly and unsustainable. This worldview has been held by decent, realistic Israelis for 50 years. There is no chance for the apartheid model as embodied by the settlements, which grant their Jewish residents excessive privileges over the Palestinians.The greatest harm caused by the settlements is vis-a-vis Israelis and Judaism: they force the state to constantly deepen its hatred and fear of Arabs. Anger and fear, after all, are what raise a generation of soldiers and settlers who will maintain the mechanisms of settlement and occupation. Without anger and fear, there is nothing.Beyond the issue itself, there is the story of the settlements and the coalition of Prime Minister Netanyahu and Education Minister Naftali Bennett, which decided in the past few years to break the rules of the game when it comes to the occupied territories. No longer does Israel tread lightly and form alliances to ensure a facade of the status quo. This approach, one of the defining characteristics of the Zionist movement since its inception, has been replaced with arrogant ranting and biblical quotes, all while showing the world exactly how powerful we are.

Source: The world is trying to save Israel from itself. Will we listen? | +972 Magazine