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Category: Human Rights

Calling Armchair Activists for Progressive Actions

Calling Armchair Activists for Progressive Actions

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Here are some more actions that you can take online. Pick a couple, or do them all!

Once again, it’s time for “JWs in the News”

Once again, it’s time for “JWs in the News”

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Some recent media items on Jehovah’s Witnesses:

Surviving a JW Sadist

Alloma Gilbert has published an article – an excerpt from her upcoming book Deliver Me From Evil (March 2008) – on how she survived being starved, beaten and tortured by her Jehovah’s Witness foster mother Eunice Spry (see also the post Sadistic Foster Mom a Devout Jehovah’s Witness).

Ten years later, in court, I would hold one of the sticks she routinely used to thrust down our throats and show the world the two inches of dried blood still staining the end. It was shortly after this appalling incident that something inside me finally snapped. I was 11 by now and had been enduring Eunice’s terrible physical and psychological cruelty for nearly five years.

… But this time I’d had enough. I don’t know whether it was my outrage at all the previous punishments, or just growing older and more defiant, but I utterly refused to admit to something I hadn’t done. “It wasn’t me,” I said. Eunice stared hard at me and came and bent over me. “Answering back, are we?” she said. “Well, you can starve.”

This was the first moment I had ever really stood up to her and although it was only a small thing, and I knew I was going to be hungry afterwards, I felt a tiny edge of triumph. And so I starved. For a week she gave me nothing – not a single scrap to eat. It was a real battle of wills, and I became so weak and sick that I was hallucinating. In my desperation, I resorted to the pig bin and feasted greedily on mouldy boiled potatoes, vegetable peelings and pig nuts. It was revolting, but I just hoped it would give me the energy to survive.

I’m glad to see that Alloma reclaimed her name. To Eunice, who made her answer to the name “Harriet,” it was a magic “demonized” name.


JW’s “Not Exactly Interfaith,” Child Abuse, Sexual Assault, Medical Alarmists

The Independent has a scathing article in health news: The Big Question: Why are the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Why Do They Refuse Blood Transfusions?

Why don’t other religions stick up for them?

Because they have gone out of their way to be rude about them. They have their own, rather eccentric, translation of the Bible and rubbish everyone else’s beliefs as “mere human speculations or religious creeds”. They have routinely described the Roman Catholic Church as a “semiclad harlot reeling drunkenly into fire and brimstone”. Then there are “the so-called Protestants” and the “Yiddish” clergy “like foolish simpletons” participating in “the world empire of false religion”. I could go on. They do. They are not exactly big on inter-faith.

What’s the situation with child abuse?

Not good. They take Deuteronomy 19:15 literally, which demands two witnesses to a crime (not easy in cases of abuse). And they cite 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 – “Does anyone of you that has a case against the other dare to go to court before unrighteous men, and not before the holy ones?” – to justify trying to deal with criminals with courts of elders rather than courts of law. A Panorama investigation reported they have an internal list of 23,720 reported abusers which they keep private. Studies in the US suggest they have proportionally four times more sexual assaults on children than the Catholic Church.

But didn’t they change their policy a few years back?

No. In 2000 the church council announced that it would no longer expel members who had willingly had a blood transfusion. But only because by doing so they had excommunicated themselves. Many JWs still carry a signed and witnessed advance directive card absolutely refusing blood in the event of an accident. And the church’s website still carries alarmist material about the dangers of transfusions in transmitting Aids, Lyme Disease and other conditions. It also exaggerates the effectiveness of alternative non-blood medical therapies.

To verdener / Worlds Apart

In Denmark, a trailer is available for To verdener / Worlds Apart, an upcoming movie based on the life of a young Jehovah’s Witness woman. The situation of a Jehovah’s Witness that falls in love with a non-JW is a very, very common one. Even with the language barrier, you can see the makings of tragedy unfold. My stomach roiled as I watched it.

Watch the Preview

New Resources

Divorce, Blood Transfusions, and other Legal Issues Affecting Children of Jehovah’s Witnesses – The purpose of this website is to bring together in one website summaries of as many custody and other miscellaneous legal disputes involving children of Jehovah’s Witnesses as can be located in published news reports and court decisions. Currently, there are approximately 485 case summaries posted. Approximately 365 summaries are posted in the blood transfusions section; approximately 100 more lengthy summaries are posted in the divorces section; and approximately 20 other summaries are posted in other sections. An additional 50 historical case summaries are linked from the JW History page.

Employment Issues Unique to Jehovah’s Witnesses – A collection of lawsuits in which Jehovah’s Witness employees have sued their employer, as well as related employer issues. The website summarizes, discusses, or identifies approximately 380 Jehovah’s Witnesses cases and incidents, including civil court cases, criminal court cases, threatened lawsuits, complaints filed with various government agencies, media reports, other miscellaneous information about employment-related controversies.

An Answer to the Pseudo-Christians

An Answer to the Pseudo-Christians

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I was listening to some old comedy by the late Bill Hicks last night, and one thing he said had me on the floor laughing.

He was approached by some big, hulky guys after an engagement.

“Hey buddy. We’re Christians, and we didn’t like what you said.”

His response?

So forgive me.

Keep this in mind.

I have engraved it inside, and will call it out at every opportunity from now on. It will be a default, standard response to people who lack any curiosity, compassion or capacity for humility and humor, the ones who call themselves Christians, but have missed most of the major points of Jesus’ message.

I found one video that has a version of the delivery, but it’s not the one I heard last night.

Warning! Bill Hicks is pretty raunchy. Not for children or the sensitive.


[youtube width=”350″ height=”289″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHey5g56CIs[/youtube]

Protecting Our Common Dreams

Protecting Our Common Dreams

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These are just a few of the stories I got in one email from Common Dreams. Here’s the newswire, but email subscription is recommended.

“If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Can you imagine a trillion? How about the almost 9 trillion of our national debt? How could the $2,000,000,000,000 (2 trillion) that the Iraq War has cost us so far been spent instead? At a cost of less than 200 billion a year – about a tenth of the total war budget – we could eliminate extreme poverty everywhere! What does this say about America’s priorities?

Israel has blocked all fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip, a move that Amnesty International calls deliberate collective punishment. As electricity and fuel supplies run out, and humanitarian assistance is cut off, this may well escalate to a full-blown humanitarian emergency for the entire Gaza Strip.

The organization called for an immediate lifting of the fuel blockade and of other restrictions which have effectively prevented entry or exit of people and goods from the Gaza Strip since Hamas seized control in the territory, in which 1.5 million Palestinians live, in June 2007. … Amnesty International acknowledged Israel’s right to take measures to protect its population from rocket and other attacks by Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, but condemned the Israeli authorities’ decision to cut off the already tightly restricted supplies of fuel, electricity and humanitarian assistance to Gaza’s inhabitants.

“This action appears calculated to make an already dire humanitarian situation worse, one in which the most vulnerable – the sick, the elderly, women and children – will bear the brunt, not the men of violence who carry out attacks against Israel,” said Malcolm Smart. “The rocket attacks should cease, and immediately, but the entire population of Gaza should not be put at risk to bring this about. …“Now, even crucial aid is not allowed to reach those that need it most in Gaza. These measures must be stopped and the passage of aid, fuel and electricity and other basic necessities must be allowed to resume immediately”, said Malcolm Smart.

Corporate sponsored energy programs have taken root in American Universities. So what’s the problem with that?

How about – get this – corporate representatives sitting on governing boards? How about corporate sponsors influencing the direction of research before the funding decisions are made? How about giving away the exclusive rights for commercialization, effectively subcontracting research rather than promoting independent research? How about delaying the publication of research while they scurry for the patents?

“It’s a cheap subterfuge for carbon-emitting companies,” said Merrill Goozner, director of the CSPI’s Integrity in Science Project. “They get the prestige of associating themselves with major respected universities, yet can control the direction of research and get first rights to intellectual property while delaying any finding that doesn’t help the bottom line. Meanwhile, the p.r. blitz surrounding these programs masks the fact that the carbon-emitting industries actually are spending much less on research and development than they did 10 or 15 years ago.”

Between 1998 and 2005, Exxon gave more than $19 million to groups that promoted the idea that global warming was a hoax. Yet beginning in 2006, ExxonMobil ads proudly touted the company’s funding of the Stanford program: “Today an energy company and a leading university share a common goal. The common good.” Another ExxonMobil ad bore the Stanford University seal.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has done a pretty damning study, and they recommend that universities accepting corporate funding adopt policies to protect the autonomy of themselves and their researchers.

There’s a proposal in the works to turn Union Square – the famous Washington Mall site of the Capitol reflecting pool and the Grant Memorial – into a designated protest place. Oh, swell. You can imagine the debate going on.

“This is a sugar-coating effort to conceal the real plan, which is to reorganize the Mall from its traditional venue as the heart and soul of this country’s free-speech protest movement,” said Brian Becker, national coordinator of Answer, an antiwar coalition.

C’mon, you millions! Off to the protest area! You are not allowed around here!

Other noteworthy articles collected at Common Dreams:

The MLK Test for Presidential Candidates

The MLK Test for Presidential Candidates

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Happy Memorial MLK Birthday Day. Have you wondered what Dr. King would think of the presidential candidates if he were alive?

Barack Obama gave a speech took the pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta – the same church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. helped rev up the civil rights movement.

“If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community. “The divisions, the stereotypes, the scapegoating, the ease with which we blame the plight of ourselves on others, all of that distracts us from the common challenges we face: war and poverty; inequality and injustice,” Obama said.

But he added that “we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean,” citing homophobia, anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant bias in the black community

“I wasn’t born into money or great wealth, but I had hope!” he declared, bringing the congregation to its feet, cheering and clapping. “I needed some hope to get here. My daddy left me when I was little, but I had hope! I was raised by a single mother, but I had hope! I was given love, an education, and some hope!”

Very inspiring, but some are still wary of the rhetoric if it doesn’t deliver on substance.

blackagendareport.com – Give the Candidates the MLK Test

Dr. King said the “triple evils” of his day were militarism, racism, and economic exploitation. … In addition, Dr. King said he was “compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor” in the U.S. … Senators Obama and Clinton fail the Martin Luther King Test, miserably. Obama wants to add 100,000 troops to the U.S. Armed Forces, at a cost of over $100 billion – even as he proposes partial withdrawals from Iraq. Clinton seeks 80,000 new soldiers and Marines. As sure as the sun rises, a bigger U.S. military means more wars, and no money for domestic “change.”

The only candidate who would pass the Martin Luther King Test is Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, whose platform for peace, truly universal health care, a living wage, and an end to corporate domination of American life harkens back to that “shining moment” in the Sixties that King mentioned, when there were “hopes” and “new beginnings.”

While I agree that Obama and Clinton are not as good as Kucinich on some of the transcendent issues that concerned MLK, I see no mention here of John Edwards. Comments?

Thor Hesla Killed By the Taliban

Thor Hesla Killed By the Taliban

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Thor Hesla was killed on January 14th, 2008 in an attack by the Taliban in Kabul, Afghanistan. I may have met Thor once or twice, but I didn’t know him.

My perspective on this tragedy is that I know his father, Professor Emeritus David Hesla. David Hesla is a beloved and somewhat eccentric professor, one of the original members of my home department of the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory University. Among other things, he wrote the best book on Samuel Beckett that I’ve ever read (Art of Chaos). Not too long ago, he and my original dissertation adviser were granted Heilbrun Awards to support their current research. Prof. Hesla looked as happy as I have ever seen him, waxing enthusiastic about three projects that he was working on.

This is truly horrible news. Those of us who know David Hesla have been in contact, and everyone is stunned and heartbroken for David.

We weep for ourselves as well. By all accounts, we lost one of the very, very good guys in Thor Hesla. It has taken me several days to be able to write this blog post.

Thor Hesla, 45, of Atlanta, worked for BearingPoint Management & Technology Consultants, which had a contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development to help war-ravaged Afghanistan rebuild, a company spokesman said. He was one of the eight people killed in the bombing and shooting attack Monday on the Serena Hotel in Kabul. Authorities in Kabul said an American, a Norwegian journalist and a Filipina who died of her wounds Tuesday were among those killed. A longtime family friend, Margaret Hylton Jones, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Hesla was aware of the danger of Afghanistan, his most recent assignment after stints in Kosovo, South Africa and Kazakhstan. Hesla “put his affairs in order” before leaving for the assignment, which began Nov. 1, Jones said, including updating his will. He took his father, a retired Emory University professor, on a trip to New York and spent time with his 12-year-old niece and 10-year-old nephew.

The Memorial Site for Thor Hesla is http://www.rememberthor.com. There you will find a lot more information about Thor and what he was doing in Kabul, planned memorial services, reminiscences, 100 things Thor didn’t want you to know, official recognition letters, a sTHORy about how Thor was strangled by a dwarf in Pristina, Kosovo, and much more. A book will be made from the site to benefit Doctors Without Borders.

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