UPDATE: US: [Activists] Bill of Rights (1791-2011) R.I.P.?

Keep Watching: David Swanson on warisacrime.org If you've only a minute or two Plz Call your Senators -- including the President -- Capitol Switchboard 202 224-3121
NOW to say NO loud and clear to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). (And even if this passes the Senate today -- CALL EMAIL FAX the White House. Plz, no excuses - don't delay! Find Contact Info for our US folk here See more in post below and here See also the House Vote on Conference Report: H.R. 1540 on Swanson's War is a Crime site where you can find more on on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 Capitol Switchboard 202 224-3121


UPDATE December 15, 2011:

Senate Votes on "Defense" Bill Today

TODAY (Thurday) is the Senate's turn to vote on FY2012 "Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which the House passed yesterday evening by a vote of 283-138. This bill contains $554 billion for the Pentagon base budget and another $115.5 billion for the wars, and includes dangerous provisions for the "indefinite detention" of terrorism suspects. (Roll Call Here)We need to flood the Capitol switchboard with calls to our Senators calling upon them to Vote "No" on this dangerous and wasteful bill. Please add your voice TODAY: Capitol switchboard 202-224-3121.

FROM:David Swanson

WarIsACrime.org

Bill of Rights (1791-2011) R.I.P.?
Well, 220 years is a pretty good run, eh? Just in time for Thursday's Bill of Rights Day, Congress has included in a massive war and weapons funding bill an authorization of presidents and the military to imprison you or anyone else forever without a trial.

Step One: Call your representative and your two senators and demand that they vote No on final passage of the "Defense Authorization Act." 202-224-3121

Get the staffer you speak with to tell you why their boss would even consider voting yes on imprisonment with no trial. Post what they tell you at
http://warisacrime.org/nomohabeas or GO here

Step Two: Tell the president to veto. GOhere or here EMAIL AND CALL 202 456-1111 -- 202 456-1414 (Go to previous click for other numbers. Do them ALL.)

The conference committee made changes to the bill to answer President Obama's concerns, not ours. The bill now leaves the president free to imprison or kill individuals without handing them over even to a military tribunal. The White House calls this "flexibility." The authors of the Bill of Rights called it tyranny.

Read: House And Senate Negotiators Agree On Bill Hoping To Avoid Obama Veto

Watch: Daily Show: Arrested Development

Step Three: Take part in an event on Thursday or gather together your own GO here for Ideas: http://bordc.org/ndaa of GO here

*****
Get Some Sweatshirts, Stay Warm Out There

Stay warm this winter in a black hooded sweatshirt.

Order them by the dozen and donate them to occupations!

*****
Upcoming Events

Until We Win OccupyWashingtonDC.org and OccupyTogether.org

Dec. 14, 2011, Washington, D.C., Teach in on the Defense Authorization Act

Dec. 15, 2011, Protests of Imprisonment Without Trial

Dec. 16-17 Maryland, Vigil and Rally for Bradley Manning

Dec. 26, 2011 - Jan 3, 2012, Occupy Iowa Caucuses

Jan. 7, 2012, 5:00-7:00 p.m. ET David Swanson chat at FireDogLake book salon.

Jan. 11, 2012, Washington, D.C., Witness Against Torture

Jan. 14, 2012, Richmond, Va., Virginia People's Assembly

Jan. 17, 2012, Washington, D.C., Occupy Congress

Jan. 20, 2012, Occupy the Courts

Jan. 23, 2012, Day of Rest and Reflection

Jan. 25, 2012, Washington, D.C., Stand With the Egyptian People.

Feb. 25-26, David Swanson speaking in Hilton Head, SC.

March 23-25, 2012, Stamford, Ct., United National Antiwar Coalition Conference

March 30, 2012 National Occupation of Washington DC (NOW DC) and on FaceBook

April 3, 2012, David Swanson at McNally Jackson Books in New York, NY.

May 18 - 20, 2012, Chicago, Challenge the NATO War Makers

July 4, 2012, Philadelphia, 99% Convention

July 14, 2012, David Swanson at Peacestock 2012 in Wisconsin.

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Tuesday Task Day: NO to Monsanto/YES to REAL Democracy

image found on Visions Green - Pakistan

Ever get perplexed if not frantic about the reams of actions you are asked to do every single day? So do I. And no longer can I as a "returning writer" afford to spend the time needed to sort and prioritize, let alone follow through on most if any of these. So, I've decided once a week is all I can usually afford. Let me do some of your research and homework for you, if you'd like...

Weekly now, I'm pulling together a few easy, select ACTION items to do for family, friends (and others far and wide) interesting in bettering the US and the World to consider. These will be Actions I am also doing -- which concern me deeply. They are Actions which -- after careful consideration -- weigh as both do-able and essential for the well-being of our human/natural society at large.

Say NO to the would-be worldwide corporate empire: MONSANTO

Let's Require Monsanto to Pay the Consequences for their many crimes worldwide (you don't need to go far to find out about their very shady, dishonest history; to see how many natural systems they've wrecked, how many decent and family farmers they've stolen heirloom seed legacies from and how ALL of our health world-wide is in grave dangers. Let's urge our leaders, presidents, whole food stores, local farmers, grocers, aid and food workers and others to say NO to Monsanto! Just sign the simple petition here

I learned from our adoped son born in Uganda that they've been fightin Monsanto for some time as have other African nations. Check out the sneaky way Monsanto has approached poor women and micro-credit in Bangladesh. See what has been going on in Pakistan with Monsanto and how pressure to bear has had an effect on officials. Look at the ONGOING work Haiti is doing to literally and metaphorically burn Monsanto seeds: PAKISTAN here HAITI here In many ways, other nations considered "less developed" or "poorer" could teach the yawning US a lesson or two here as in many other areas.

=================
Re-Establish a REAL Democracy (find more items soon either here or in Comments for today)

The following concerns most directly the US right now - so if you are a US citizen/and or know one anywhere - plz let them know about the following crucial issues. If not, you may look for similar concerns about which to gather petitions or letters where you are.

SOPA
See American Censorship dot org or GO here as there is an URGENT campaign to stop censorship - Act Quickly by call or email oppose the SOPA Stop Online Piracy Act because:

This legislation will kill jobs and stifle innovation.
It will make the Internet less secure.
It will risk censoring the Internet in America
It will give comfort to regimes that censor the Internet to undermine political freedom -- in direct contrast to America's stead foreign policy goals

One More Today: URGE President Obama to VETO the National Defense Authoriaztion Act (NDAA) NOW:(and be suspicious of our national leaders plans even if he does the VETO we wish -- no letting up on the way our gov't has turned back the clock decades if not centuries in terms of the Rule of Law! PETITION here

For a little more information, go to Andy Worthington's site -- here see the the top three posts or sowhere he "Laments the Death of Habeas Corpus for the Guantánamo Prisoners" on 12.12.11 and the others on our Judges: "Judges Kill Off Habeas Corpus for the Guantánamo Prisoners, Will the Supreme Court Act?” (some time back" in which he covered the latest grim news from the US courts regarding the Guantánamo prisoners’ habeas corpus petitions. He reminds us that "Last week, when the Senate voted, by 93 votes to 7, to pass the latest National Defense Authorization Act (PDF), they passed legislation that not only approved a budget of $662 billion in military spending for the next fiscal year, but also demanded mandatory military custody for all terror suspects seized in future." So, WELL worth your time to sign the CCR petition above, to call the WH if you have the chance, and to let at least ONE other person know to do the same.

I like that Andy also reminds us to "WRITE to the Forgotten Prisoners in Guantánamo – -- especially now as we come to the 10th Anniversary of the Prison’s Opening on January 11, 2012" Keep watching as a number of us will be surrounding the White House around that date to say ENOUGH already.
Coming to a neighborhood near you? (found image on TruthDig) For article related to the above, go if you have time to Truth Dig's article: "America the Militarized" here

10 Dec/Human Rights Day: Who Wrote the UDHR?

BEGUM SHAISTA IKRAMULLAH

BY Gita Sahgal on Open Democracy (Author's Note: Sahgal is a founder of the Centre for Secular Space which opposes fundamentalism, amplifies secular voices and promotes universality in human rights. She was formerly Head of the Gender Unit at Amnesty International.)

Dec. 10, the day commemorating U.N. ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is intended to remind us of the critical work that warrants our attention for the (coming) 364.

Many of the assumptions about who wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are wrong. Gita Sahgal tells the less known story of the men and women who wrote this foundational, emancipatory and anti-colonial document

On the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we might consider whether the idea of human rights with their firm assertions, their belief in the ‘rule of law,’ and their globalised vision remain relevant in the world. The idea that there are absolute standards has come under attack from both the left and the right. The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre , author of 'After Virtue', said, Natural rights and self evident truths proclaimed in the American declaration of independence are tantamount to belief in witches and unicorns. While from the left, in ‘Human Rights and Empire’, Costas Douzinas has called human rights the political philosophy of cosmopolitanism and argued that human rights now codify and ‘constitutionalise ‘ the normative sources of Empire.

Those fighting the attempts by the Bush administration to tear up human rights prohibitions on torture, would be surprised to see themselves as empire builders. The only weapons they had were the Constitutions of their countries and the human rights system, with its unequivocal rejection of torture...

...But are these freedoms ones that are derived from ‘the West’ and therefore limited in their application? States affiliated to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) certainly seem to think so. In the 1980s and 90s Islamic states drafted the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, as an alternative declaration.

The idea that different peoples were endowed with separate rights would have seemed absurd in the middle of the twentieth century to those struggling against colonial oppression or trying to build new nations. The barbarity unleashed on the world by a global war, was certainly in the minds of delegates. But so too was the yearning to build a better world within the nation-state, as well as limiting foreign aggression and war.

BEGUM SHAISTA IKRAMULLAH, a member of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan and a delegate of the UN in 1948 said: ‘It was imperative that the peoples of the world should recognize the existence of a code of civilized behavior which would apply not only in international relations but also in domestic affairs'...

Susan Waltz, is one of the scholars who has done much to recover stories such as the role of Begum Ikramullah and others in the forgotten history of the drafting of the UDHR. Her work shows how mistaken many assumptions are about this foundational document.

Eleanor Roosevelt is often seen as the single author of the Declaration, since she chaired the drafting Committee. Civil and political rights are seen as classical ‘Western' concerns, whilst social and economic rights are thought to have been advocated for by the Soviet bloc.

In fact, as Waltz shows, Roosevelt supplied (NOTE) neither the text nor the substantive ideas that shaped the UDHR.

Ricardo Alfaro, former President of Panama, proposed the idea and first draft of such a Declaration, which was taken up by many others including public intellectuals such as HG Wells. While early drafts were worked on by Rene Cassin of France, along with many US lawyers, each clause was voted on by member states, and many suggestions came from drafters from small and newly de-colonised states. The Latin American states promoted social and economic rights, while the Soviet Union concentrated on racial discrimination – a convenient way of bashing the US, as well as colonial states...

...Two of the most important drafters were Hansa Mehta of India, and Charles Malik of Lebanon, who was Committee Rapporteur. Hansa Mehta, an extraordinary activist and brave member of the Constituent Assembly in India, was responsible for the wording of the Article I ‘All human beings are equal in dignity and rights,’ arguing that if the word men was used, it would not be regarded as inclusive but rather taken to exclude women. She was the key figure who ensured gender equality in the document.

Yugoslavia proposed that human rights should apply to the peoples of non-self governing and trust territories. Carlos Romulo of the Philippines argued that full rights should be given to the colonies. Article 2, thereby ensures non-discrimination ( a standard clause that came to be adopted in all treaties) on the grounds of race, class property, social origin and so on; but it also ensures that subject peoples were also endowed with rights...

...The clause on marriage, in short, was fought for by a range of opinion to form an egalitarian and adult basis for marriage which was absent then from most countries whether eastern or western...

...Saudi Arabia objected to Article 16 on the right to choice in marriage.

BEGUM SHAISTA IKRAMULLAH opposed the Saudi view making a speech against child marriage. She accepted equal rights in marriage...

The clause on being able to exercise freedom of religion was supported by a number of Muslim delegates. The Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Zafrallah Khan, quoted the Qur'an ‘Let him who chooses believe, believe and him who chooses to disbelieve, disbelieve.’ He believed that the right to change religion was consistent with Islam. Moahammed Habib from India, supported the statement as consistent with the Constitution of India. However, Saudi Arabia objected to it, and eventually abstained from voting on the Declaration itself. No-one voted against the Declaration, although Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the Soviet bloc abstained, with 50 countries voting for it.

Hernán Santa Cruz of Chile, member of the drafting sub-Committee, wrote: “I perceived clearly that I was participating in a truly significant historic event in which a consensus had been reached as to the supreme value of the human person, a value that did not originate in the decision of a worldly power, but rather in the fact of existing—which gave rise to the inalienable right to live free from want and oppression and to fully develop one’s personality. In the Great Hall…there was an atmosphere of genuine solidarity and brotherhood among men and women from all latitudes, the like of which I have not seen again in any international setting.”

See especially Open Democracy here

Also Story of Pakistan especially on BEGUM SHAISTA IKRAMULLAH
and GO here

To Live Means to Create...Iqbal's Injunction to Us Today

The following is taken from an eye-opening text by preeminent Iqbal biographer-scholar Khurram Ali Shafique for an online class. The text is based on Javid Nama (or book of Eternity) a book styled as a children's book and written by the famous poet/philosopher Allama Iqbal especially for his son (yet for all who might be open to this vision.)

In this small yet rich/dense book of wisdom and beauty for all ages (both meanings) when Iqbal "arrives at the doorstep of God...." (in his dreamlike vision of taking a journey with his mentor, Rumi)..."there, he looks at God in His Infinite Beauty present in ever changing glories. Iqbal is lost in the secrets of creation: all creatures belong to the same family of light and fire; a mirror is placed in front of his soul, and his sense of wonder is mingled with his faith. The past and the future stand together before a present morning. God is there with all His mysteries and looking at Himself through Iqbal’s eyes.

'Iqbal asks why there is so much misery in the world. God answers, “The pen of destiny wrote whatever We chose from the good and the bad. Do you know the meaning of life? To live means to create through Our power. Make your own world if you are alive, for whoever lacks the power to create is indeed an infidel in Our eyes.” "

William James in his article "Great Men And Their Environment" uses the word "energetic" for leaders who use their inner impetus to create good for our world and selves:

Hegel speaks of revolutions or transformations in human societies as dependent upon extra-ordinary persons who serve the World-Spirit yet who often are fighters or rulers and who's lives often don't end well.

As other scholars say it better and more thoroughly, William James' view in contrast with Hegel's is more inclusive and more positive. According to James, a dynamic Hero (or Heroine) might emerge at any time from anywhere. These are individuals who - by transforming societies - along with themselves - become corner stones or turning points in the journey on history's highway.

Some philosophers have asked if such dynamos were just going along with their fate or World-Spirit (as Hegel believed) or did they serve the Divine purpose?

My favorite interpreters of the Quran demonstrate that we are all born with unlimited creative potentials. In order to achieve good creative or co-creative acts in this world we need guidance from our Creator. Yet, the Creator wants us to be a full part of such a partnership in creating within history itself. We are not expected nor required to be just like other examples in history but free to be who we are and free to choose good within the designs of our own personality and culture.

We are not made to be mechanical objects. We are not mass-production..

The Muslim Ummah, as a number of emerging scholars insist, was neither a racial, territorial or even an entity depending on a certain language. This Ummah stood for spiritual brotherhood of mankind.

So IF Allama Iqbal's message was, like this above mentioned Ummah, beyond nationality and non-racial, than, how might we ALL worldwide, learn to incorporate his surprisingly universal and historically far-reaching message today?

Perhaps only a poet well-versed in history, philosophy,theology and law could come up with such a vision for his time and ours.

Iqbal - in my limited grasp of his content and intent - did not want to wage war on other nations or religions. Yet he did want to declare war on despondency, self-destruction and hopelessness.

If, as I understand, every kind of person from students to well-known leaders were invited to talk with him, what kind of conversations might we be holding with him in our day - around the world?

=======

Special credit goes also to Muhammad Munawwar Mirza, a world-noted scholar on Allama Iqbal, for some of his ideas which I tried to capture and re-phrase from my own understanding.

I am grateful beyond speech for the wonderful course I just finished under the direction of Khuram Ali Shafique Sahib and with some of the most creative fellow students you'd ever meet anywhere.

Dancing with my Daughter

My daughter just had her birthday. I remember when we used to dance around the living room together. She was a natural and was a ballerina for a long time. She still takes dancing lessons from time to time.

Now, I still feel that I sometimes am dancing with her "in the spirit" because she teaches me so many things.

For example, she points out that some kinds of dance are beautiful yet perhaps too rigid and formal for her Dad (my husband) and I to learn together. So she suggests another type which may be more free-flowing for us.

The same with what I learn from her about cooking. She knows when to use "rules" and when to break them. When one after another, my cakes flop, she says, Mom, it's because you don't follow the recipe. That works, she says, when you cook most everything else. But not with cakes. So, finally, yesterday I make my first cake by the recipe and it turns out well!

In other words, she's teaching me when I need "rules" and when nurture or nature will do.

She seems to know how to decide which way works best when she makes batiks as well. These days she's having fun learning the tjanting tool and the precision required. She also is learning how to frame. Yet often, she batiks free-form and the result of both the structure and freedom she applies result in glorious colors and designs - each one unique and each one make you pause for a long time.

As far as nature goes, she once had the only porch in town with tomatoes, sunflowers and many other flowers and veggies growing randomly and freely on her porch and front lawn! And yet when you looked closer you see that there was special training, potting going on with upside down planting and just the right amount of water the right time of day.

Same thing with languages - she learns them easily. She couldn't if she didn't know when to apply the disciplines and to continue to practice and when to enjoy reading her favorite authors in French. She works at a French restaurant where customers think she's French!

Someday maybe I'll finally learn from her how to coordinate rules and freeplay...

I'm so happy to have a daughter who still is teaching her mother how to dance!

Happy Birthday Week, Little One.

With more love than I can possibly ever contain,

Your Glad Mom

THIS Morning

Each new moment contains a new shape for light

A medley of lines from very diverse poets fell together almost in this order for me last night and into this morning. I take this composition as a gift and a yes in the deepest attempt yet to become the writer I've always meant to be. I plan to read this often - especially mornings...

Light splashed this morning
on the shell-pink anemones
swaying on their tall stems;
down blue-spiked veronica --
Light flowed into rivulets
over the humps of the honeybees;
this morning I see light kiss
the silk of the roses
in their second flowering -
my late bloomers...
So I have shut the doors of my house,
so I have trudged downstairs to my cell...
I pick my notebook up...
"Light splashed..."
as it does each day,
as it does each day...*

Jars of springwater are not enough anymore.
Take us down to the river.

The face of peace, the sun itself.
No more the slippery, cloudlike moon.

Give us one clear morning after another,
and the one whose work remains unfinished,

who is our work as we diminish,
idle, though occupied, empty, and open.**

Work is its own cure. You have to like it
better than being loved...to sharpen one's vision
into the heart and nature of man.***

The past isn't dead, it isn't even past.****

I thank you God for most this amazing day:
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees/
and a bluetrue dream of sky.*****

Each moment solid and actual, yet numinous,
shot through with divine light and guidance. ******

End

* from Stanley Kunitz' poem "The Round
** Rumi "Jars of Spring Water" interpreted by Coleman Barks
*** this is two phrases made into one using Marge Piercy from "for the young who want to.." and Keats famed line
**** a somewhat well-known line from the poet Keats
*****the beginning of a famous poem by ee cummings
******Coleman Barks definition of ecstasy for Bill Moyers interview

I don't know where I found the image on top but it was in a free area on internet. If anyone knows, I'd be glad to give credit.

Indigenous Peoples' Plight

Dec 2, 2011 (IPS) - In polished versions of U.S. history, the near-extermination of Native Americans in the United States is an unsightly blemish that continues to be glossed over to this day. Yet the struggles of indigenous peoples are not exclusive to the United States and have grown increasingly complex in modern times.Overlooked and marginalised in the vast majority of the 70-plus countries which have indigenous peoples living within their borders, the 370 million indigenous peoples across the globe are considered disproportionately disadvantaged compared to their non-indigenous counterparts.The United Nations has developed various platforms and mechanisms, namely the advisory body the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNFPII) and the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Issues (IASG), to address these noticeable gaps in rights, health, education and more between indigenous and general populations."Many countries do not acknowledge the existence of indigenous peoples," Sonia Heckadon, pro tempore chair of the Inter-agency Support Group (IASG) on Indigenous Issues, told IPS. Nor do many governments take their needs into consideration, she added.

Read the Rest here