Human Rights
There's a pattern here. Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi were inspiring when they were trying to free their people. But when they took power, they didn't just disappoint. They failed. Now to be fair, 'The Lady' did not fully take power. Her nation is in turmoil and under military rule. But still, she has failed. This is sad. The lesson here is don't have heroes. Especially people who win Nobel Peace Prizes. They will break your heart.
In 2014, President Obama announced that the US war in Afghanistan would wind down in 2015. But announcing it did not make it so. It is nearly 2017, and historians still consider the war to be ongoing. And just over a year ago, the US committed one of its biggest atrocities, the deliberate, 60 minute airstrike on the Kunduz hospital in northern Afghanistan.
The story has disappeared from the news, but history will not forget. And it will be a major mark on Obama's record. President Obama issued a very rare apology to Doctor's Without Borders (MSF) for killing its providers and patients. But a war crime is a war crime. Hospitals cannot be attacked for treating wounded enemies. Demands for an independent investigation were ignored.
There was no advance warning of the airstrike. When it was time to report on the incident, as the Pentagon does, there was simply a whitewashing of all responsibility and accountability. Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept correctly called out major US news outlets in avoiding acknowledging which military attacked the hospital for the first 48 hours of coverage.
The US is still in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The US is a country that can't fix the problems in Detroit, or Cleveland, or guarantee the descendants of slaves their right to vote, but it has the temerity to imagine we can reshape the Middle East to our liking.
More to the point, our political class, led by Trump, and soon Mike Pence and Donald Trump, is a pack of craven cowards, and their policies have made virtually everything they touch worse.
It's really as simple as this. Black people are to be POLICED, while the rest of us (white people) are to be "protected". Furthermore, the justice system that we have built and maintain is designed to put blacks into prisons and go easier on whites. It's just a fact.
For black men, the risks of living in this country are simply appalling. One wonders how, with an apparently straight face, politicians and pundits can continue to insist that, not only is the United States a democracy, but quite simply the greatest country on earth. The major news stories we have seen over the last two years are not aberrations, and speak volumes about the hypocrisy of our system. The disconnection between our stated constitutional rights, and the actual practice in hell holes like the New York City "correctional system" would be jaw dropping if not for the fact that there's nothing new about this story. Poor people, especially poor people of color, are, and always have been, treated as disposable problems, not equal citizens with unquestionable rights.
And the long history of our justice system treating black Americans differently has huge consequences. Some have taken decades to acknowledge, such as the phenomenon of missing black men. These are men who are off the streets of their last resident town because of imprisonment, or because they relocated to avoid arrest (for anything from traffic tickets, to unpaid child support, to more serious charges).
New York City has 118,000 missing black men.
Philadelphia has over 30,000 missing black men.
And of course it isn't just black men who are ruined by our justice system . It's black women and minors, too. And even in 2015, a celebrity or two can become entangled, however briefly.
And then there's the lost sleep, depression, and the suicides. Kalief Browder was a teenager kept mainly n solitary confinement in Rikers for 3 years, over a petty robbery charge that was ultimately dismissed. After two previous suicide attempts, and a downward spiral into paranoia and post-traumatic stress, he took his own live last year.
No doubt this kid's years in solitary confinement was the cause of his extreme distress. I find it hard to even think of what must have been pure hell on earth. I cannot imagine the pain of his parents. What must it be like to be beaten up, over and over again? How can we Americans continue to bear what is being done to our children?
How much longer must Rikers prison remain open, processing injustice after injustice?
And another topic for another day: what about extrajudicial sites like Homan Square in Chicago? Do other US cities have black sites? It's like something out of the Dirty War in Argentina, except it is not reported, and designed to make black Americans disappear.
And while it will not be Chris Christie (who might be named as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal), it does appear that Christie's ideas on immigration will make it into the Trump policy on immigration. Trump doesn't have a mainstream, elected Republican to choose to be his VP. More likely, it will be someone in law enforcement or the Islamophobia industry. Let's see if this proves to be the case. We have less than 6 weeks to go before the traditional deadline for a VP pick.
The Catholic Church, which had its own way in Ireland for centuries, has seen an incredibly rapid collapse of its power and influence. Of course, it had it coming! Good on the Irish!
Now on to the next human rights issue in the republic, abortion.
Satellite photo by USGS
The United States has an ongoing human rights crisis. It has been going on for decades, especially since the 1970s. Almost no one talks about it. Almost no one even questions it. It is the nation's largest jail. It is Rikers Island.
I wish Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch would draw more attention to Rikers. To it's credit, Amnesty has published reports about Rikers before. In 2000, they called out Rikers for the abuse of female prisoners at the hands of male guards. And in this latest round of reports about Rikers, Amnesty has shed light on the torture of teenagers and the high rate of solitary confinement of teen prisoners.
The most recent revelations about Rikers are shocking even for those familiar with how bad it has been over the last 40 years. There have been inmate deaths. Then there were the families who were not told that their relatives had been allowed to die on the city's watch. And then there was the incredible case of Kalief Browder, a high school student who was arrested for allegedly stealing a backpack, and was held at Rikers in a cycle of torture, court appearances, and trial delays for three years.
The mayor has called for a task force. But either he is not serious, or is unable to change RIkers. Very few politicians care, and neither do many New Yorkers. They should. This is a true human rights catastrophe. Rikers is the not only the largest jail in the US, but in terms of human rights abuses, it is easily the worst. The abuse there is done in the names of New York's citizens, and fully funded by the citizens and tourists of this city. And when there is accountability - when prisoners are able to get legal representation and fight for their rights - the city pays in punitive damages, over and over.
The major roadblocks to reform are Albany (as always) and the Department of Corrections, which is a city agency, and touts itself as "New York's Boldest." Their tough guy union leader Norman Seabrook, has been unapologetic, has tried to block investigations of the facility, and has even demanded that his guards and officers receive a new contract with pay raises if they are to cooperate with implementing any reforms.
UPDATE, June 8, 2015: Kalief Browder, the boy who was held for 3 years without charges, committed suicide on June 6, 2015.