The Drug War's Invisible Victims
There are also war tolls beyond the body counts. The homicide number
misses the disappeared, the thousands whose bodies – dead or alive – are never found, never counted. And it hides the mutilation of lives caused by “collateral damage”: the loss of loved ones, families forced from their homes, permanent injury, orphans and widows, sexual abuse, lives lived in fear.
These costs fall primarily on the shoulders of women–the mothers, daughters, and sisters who are left with the nearly impossible task of seeking answers and redress in a justice system outpaced by violence and overrun by corruption. They are often re-victimized by government agencies that ignore, reject, or stifle their pleas for justice.
Read the full article at:
CIP Americas
North America
Pot-based Prescription Drugs Are On Their Way
A British company, GW Pharma, is in advanced clinical trials for the world's first pharmaceutical developed from raw marijuana instead of synthetic equivalents — a mouth spray it hopes to market in the U.S. as a treatment for cancer pain. It hopes to see FDA approval by the end of 2013.
Sativex contains marijuana's two best known components — delta 9-THC and cannabidiol — and already has been approved in Canada, New Zealand and eight European countries for relieving muscle spasms associated with multiple sclerosis.
Read the full article at:
Seattle Times
Welfare Drug-testing Bill Passes Indiana House
Rep. McMillin
withdrew his bill on Friday, saying
Dvorak's amendment likely violated the Constitution. On Monday, he came back with a new version of the legislation that softened the lawmaker drug testing provision. Instead of blanket testing for every member of the General Assembly, the new version of the bill lets lawmakers opt in to a system of random screening similar to the one for families seeking cash assistance. (If they don't consent, they lose their parking spaces and other perks.)
Read the full article at:
Huffington Post
Critics Counter County's Claim of Ecstasy Epidemic
If anything, Sibley says, it’s the drugs that aren’t MDMA or ecstasy that can do the most damage. MDMA, colloquially referred to as Molly, often comes in through black-market shipments of pills or capsules containing powder, Sibley says, which can lead to the drugs being cut with methamphetamine, ketamine, benzopiprozene (BZP), or dextromethorphan (DXM).
According to county figures, five people have died from taking drugs they thought were ecstasy since 2009.
“The frightening thing, when you look at it, is that so few of them actually contain [MDMA],” Sibley says. Of the tablets seized by law enforcement, Sibley estimates that as few as one in four may actually contain MDMA.
Read the full article at:
SanJose.com
Europe/UK
Is Banning Legal Highs Effective? Learning From the Hungarian Experience
This current epidemic of legal highs was partly caused by the collapse of the European Ecstasy (MDMA) market in 2008. That is, the (at least temporarily) successful efforts of our politicians to prevent the large scale production of MDMA led to the rise of new legal substitutes to fill the gap in the recreational stimulant market. So now, instead of one relatively less harmful substance (MDMA) dominating the night life we have many new substances with unknown risks and harms. Governments try to respond the crisis of prohibition with more prohibition: restrict drug legislation and prohibit new substances as fast as they can.
Read the full editorial at:
European Drug Policy Initiative
Fixerum: The Mobile Injection Room in Copenhagen
Most injecting drug users has been using drugs in dark alleys where there is no access to sterile injection equipment and nobody helps if they overdose - but this situation is changing now. Harm reduction activists were tired of many years of debate so they went ahead and set up a new mobile injection room, Fixerum. This van aims to reach out people who use drugs on the streets and let them use drugs under medial supervision.
Read the full article accompanying the video at:
International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC)
Drugs Mule Terms Cut in New Sentencing Guidelines
Under the new guideline, which comes into force on 27 February, the starting point for sentencing drug mules guilty of carrying crack, heroin and cocaine will be six years, before judges take into account aggravating and mitigating factors.
Those found guilty of a much higher level of involvement in the drugs trade will face longer sentences.
Read the full article at:
BBC News
Latin America
The State of Mexico's Major Cartels
Global intelligence organization STRATFOR released its annual analysis of the state of the Mexican drug cartels, and forecasts their activities in 2012. It's a comprehensive primer for anyone interested in the narco-war and its social and political implications for the violence-plagued country.
Read the full report at:
The Cutting Edge News
Organized Crime Sets Its Sights on Peaceful Uruguay
While the scale of drug trafficking in Uruguay is nowhere near that which exists in Mexico, its remote borders with Argentina and Brazil and its 600 kilometer-long coast make the country a significant transshipment point for foreign drug smugglers. A comparison could be drawn with
Ecuador, which is used by criminal groups of various nationalities
, drawn by its convenient location bordering Colombia and Peru.
Read the full article at:
InSight
Other News
The Neuroscience of Pot: Why Marijuana May Bring Serenity or Psychosis
In the
new study
, the researchers had 15 men who were relatively unseasoned pot users take capsules containing THC, CBD, and flour (placebo) on each of three occasions. The participants then took simple computer tests in which arrows, pointing either left or right, flashed on the screen; the men had to respond based on their direction. Occasionally, an “oddball” arrow was thrown in to the sequence, which was at a 23-degree angle. This setup allowed the researchers to compare the men’s reactions to usual vs. oddball stimuli, and to see how the various chemicals affected it.
Read the full article at:
Forbes
Jean Marlowe is known as the Godmother of Medical Cannabis in the State of North Carolina. In this wildly entertaining interview, the feisty Marlowe gives her irreverent take on the hypocrisy of cannabis prohibition, and gives moving testimony about the damage done to medical patients caught up in the criminal justice system.
The Exile Nation Project - Interview with Jean Marlowe from
Charles B Shaw on
Vimeo.
Newsletters and Weekly Features
Clubs Australia, the gambling industry and those who oppose poker machine reform, are creating a compelling argument to legalise drugs in Australia.
The argument against pre-commitment technology and/or limiting the amount of money put through a pokie in one spin is equally a reasoned case for changing drug policy in Australia.
If it makes sense to fight for the right of adult Australians to lose money - or at the very least, not face any restrictions as they lose their money - on the pokies then surely this argument can be (cynically) applied to other potentially harmful products, like smack, dope and ecstasy.
The clubs argument for opposing changes to poker machines usage is essentially this:
- We need a common sense and proven approach to assisting problem gamblers. We're not a nanny state and responsible adults shouldn't be restricted if they want to enjoy recreational gambling.
- We give money back to the community through the many millions of dollars Australians lose on poker machines each year.
- About 5 million people play the pokies annually but there are only about 60,000 problem gamblers in Australia. Most people who gamble do not have a problem and we shouldn't penalise the majority because of the problems of a few.
- We want safe gambling environments and effective harm minimisation practices. It doesn't make sense to have our members become problem gamblers.
- There's no point in restricting gambling in pubs and clubs if people are able to gamble unrestricted on the internet or at the casino.
- We advocate more education, including in schools, and the development of policies which reduce problem gambling.
Now, let's apply these same arguments to illicit drugs.
Sure they're illegal, but as with SP bookies and the days before casinos popped up in every capital city, people who want to take drugs will find a way. So we need a common sense and proven approach to illicit drug use. We're not a nanny state and responsible adults shouldn't be restricted if they want to have a beer, a flutter or a joint.
Millions of Australians have tried drugs but statistically few develop problems or become addicts. According to the
National Drug Strategy Household Survey, one-third of all Australians aged 14 or older (33.5 per cent or about 5.8 million) have tried cannabis. So almost 6 million of us have inhaled, and as reported by the Mental Health Council of Australia (
Where There's Smoke) about 10 per cent of users will develop a dependence at some point in their lives. Compare this to gambling where experts say up to 500,000 Australians are at risk of becoming, or are, problem gamblers, and that one in six Australians who play the pokies regularly will develop a serious addiction.
It's arguable then that the number of people who have 'problems' with pokies is roughly the same as those who might have 'problems' with dope. It is also arguable that these 'problems' are similar: mental health issues, poverty, substance abuse, loss of family and friends, homelessness and a spiralling cycle of destruction and dysfunction unless ongoing treatment and support are available.
Statistics show that many people try drugs but do not have a problem or addiction. For example, 1.4 per cent of the Australian population aged 14 years and older had used heroin and 10.3 per cent used ecstasy at some stage in their lifetime but only 0.2 per cent used heroin and 3.0 per cent dropped an ecstasy tablet in the previous 12 months. Using the clubs' argument, there are many Australians - millions in fact - who have tried these drugs or use them recreationally or intermittently but don't develop a 'problem'. We know some people 'dabble' in cocaine, party drugs and even heroin and never develop long-term problems so why should these people be penalised because of the few who need help?
Like the pubs and clubs, drug dealers no doubt want a safe environment and harm minimisation for their clientele. Having your source of income die or go to jail is obviously not in the drug dealer's interest, so the drugs 'industry' would likely support measures that keep a steady flow of income with little risk to their income base.
And as for pre-commitment, well surely it wouldn't be bad thing to trial a scheme where people with drug problems could stipulate how many grams or bongs they would consume each night?
The clubs say the solution to those few in society who have a 'problem' is education and policies which reduce the 'problem'. If this is so, surely we just need to identify those with drug problems and give them counselling and education and maybe exclude them from the drug dealer's home for a period of time while they get help? But it's important we all understand something here - if we try to ban drugs in society then those people with a 'problem' will go elsewhere for them; they'll buy them online or from dodgy dealers and this will create worse problems.
Pokies are, in many ways, just as dangerous and harmful as some drugs. Many people - the vast majority in fact - will try a pokie or a drug (maybe even use them quite often) with no ill effects, no mental health problems and no destruction of work and family life. However for those who are affected, the consequences for them and their families are catastrophic, even life ending.
If education, harm minimisation and policies which help 'problem' gamblers are the best ways to address this health and social issue, then why not apply the same solutions to drugs and stop penalising the millions of Australians who enjoy getting high?
Obviously I write this with sarcasm and scorn for an industry that boasts of a war chest with millions of dollars to protect their source of income and the right of adult Australians, including those with mental health problems, addictions and dangerous levels of debt, to lose money on poker machines.
Simon Tatz is the Director of Communications for the Mental Health Council of Australia. View his full profile
here.
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Nassau, The Bahamas – The Bahamas National Drug Council and the U. S. Embassy have launched a competition, which they hope will attract the attention of all students in The Bahamas aged 12-14. The Bahamian Youth Expression Against Drugs Competition will focus on ‘positive’ messages and students can express themselves through essays, raps and poetry. The competition was officially launched during a press conference held on Wednesday, February 1.
Administrator at the Bahamas National Drug Council, Dr. Bridgitte Rolle, said the purpose of the contest is ‘to encourage students throughout The Bahamas to consider the harmful impact of illegal drugs and to reflect on how...
GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK), which is paying $3 billion to resolve government claims that it illegally marketed drugs such as the Avandia diabetes medication, agreed to settle more lawsuits over the pills, a lawyer said.
Glaxo, the U.K.’s biggest drugmaker, agreed last month to resolve more than
20,000 cases alleging Avandia causes heart attacks, said
Paul Kiesel, a lawyer for former users. The accord, reached in court-ordered mediation, included a case that was set for trial in state court in Los Angeles, he said.
“We are pleased the mediation has successfully resulted in the settlement of a significant number of the remaining cases,” Kiesel, one of the lead lawyers for plaintiffs in the Avandia litigation, said yesterday in a telephone interview.
The settlements are part of London-based Glaxo’s efforts to resolve legal issues stretching back more than a decade. Executives announced in November that the drugmaker will pay $3 billion to settle U.S. criminal and civil probes into whether Glaxo illegally marketed Avandia and other medications.
The company already has agreed to pay at least $700 million to settle more than 15,000 patients’ claims that Avandia caused heart attacks and strokes, people familiar with the accords said last year.
The most-recent settlements of Avandia patients’ suits “are covered by existing provisions and those payments will be funded through existing cash resources,”
Bernadette King, a U.S.-based Glaxo spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
Russia’s growing nationalist movement has alarmed many liberal commentators, who wonder how the country that defeated Adolf Hitler could have given birth to so many young men overtly sympathetic to his ideas. Journalist Olesya Gerasimenko, who has covered several neo-Nazi trials, wondered where the defendants came from: how Russian boys could go out and kill foreigners in cold blood. She persuaded three of the convicted murderers’ parents to talk to her. I often observe them in court. They sigh and observe how their son – accused of 15 murders – has lost weight. They wink at him furtively. They beg the guard to loosen his handcuffs, oblivious to the voice of the prosecutor: ‘…demonstrating their own superiority over people of non-Slavic origin, they attacked the victim K., whose external appearance indicated Asian ethnicity, and struck him with a knife no less than 26 times in the head and other parts of the body, causing wounds to the chest, which penetrated the right and left pleural and abdominal cavities with damage to the right and left lungs, the left part of the diaphragm, the spleen, the third and ninth ribs on the left, and the chest, as a result of which the victim died from severe loss of blood’.
I want to ask: did you know, did you guess, did you support this? What were you thinking when they were arrested? Do you believe the judges? Have you come to terms with this? Are you proud, or are you ashamed?
Neo-nationalism in Russia is growing and becoming
more overt. Photo
Yury Goldenshteyn/Demotix.
All rights reserved.
But the parents of those nationalists convicted of violent crimes are rarely asked about these things, and they themselves are not keen to talk. Only a few agreed to meet me, and even they didn’t agree immediately. ‘And what views do you yourself hold?’ ‘You’re not interested in the documents.’ ‘You’re not going to actually print any of this!’ But after 15 minutes of face-to-face conversation it becomes clear that they do have something to say.
One has adopted the views of their only child and says that violence is necessary. One blames the politicians that have incited adolescents to street fighting. One cries, convinced of the innocence of his son. They are all different, but they have all asked themselves one and the same question: ‘am I to blame for what happened?’
Elena Krivets, academic, mother of Vasily Krivets
Vasily Krivets is a 23-year-old nationalist. He was sentenced in 2010 to life imprisonment for 15 murders. The victims were citizens of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Russia. He was arrested, but escaped police custody when taken to one of the crime scenes for a reconstruction and hid for almost a year. He did not confess to a single one of the crimes and refused to give evidence.
‘Vasya is a warrior. And everything follows from this. When he was a child all his little fingers were pistols, all of them shooting. Then he formed his toy soldiers into armies. Then we played together, conquering Constantinople.
Gradually he gained an education. He’s not the kind of warrior who just lashes out with his fists and feet, but a warrior who understands history and tradition. I myself have a degree in philosophy, and my husband was a political scientist.
Our family line is an old one, we’re Cossacks. So his love of history appeared by itself. He started with the American Indians and the Civil War. Straight away he wanted to go and save the American Indians. He investigated the Civil War himself, and the White Army immediately interested him. He’s now completely debunked the myth of some great victory by the Red Army. He came to venerate the Tsar, Nicholas II.
I had an aunt, a noblewoman, an aristocrat, she gave me a different understanding of history, which differed from what the communists taught about the Tsar, the Tsarina. She laid in me the foundations of religion. Vasily read children’s books about the Tsar. Somehow or other we were in St. Petersburg; we were called into the University and he, 12 years old, asked us to buy him Tikhomirov’s academic volume on Russian history. We, laughing, bought it. At home he leafed through it a bit and said – when I grow up, I’ll read it. He was already studying it in his first year of higher education.
There was a period when my husband and I were travelling in Egypt on business, and the whole time there Vasya kept saying it was ‘lost time’. I didn’t understand at all. I thought it would be interesting for a teenager to see another country, to travel. I understood only later that he felt a deep sense of his motherland, and he was homesick. Even in his young heart he felt that he had been cut off from the life of the country.
When he was studying in years nine and ten he went to a Cossack Sunday school. This was a club at his school. There were field expeditions, reconnaissance. I myself taught Orthodox catechism there, Cossack history. I went there specially. You should never let a child out of your sight, without knowing what and how he will be taught. Never. A mother must always know exactly what a teacher is telling her child. It is the parents, you see, not the teachers, who will answer before God for that child.
‘And it was then that I understood that there have always been individuals who went to battle like this; rather than cautiously, correctly, with their eye on the final outcome. Sometimes the outcome isn’t important. In order to raise the masses, you need a loud cry and a summons.’
When he finished school he said: ‘I’m a soldier, I need to enter a military institute of higher education’. But his intellectual inclination was more towards the humanities. And in a military college you need to pass algebra. I said to him: ‘well, into what sort of military institute?’ And he answered ‘for officers’. Well, he got in, and studied for about seven months. Then he ran away because, as he said himself, the uniform was 1944-style, and he got into the political science faculty instead. Our local church had a club for free style wrestling, hand-to-hand fighting and such like. Vasya carried on going on expeditions with them. They completed reconnaissance tasks there, you know, like we used to play ‘Summer Lightening’ (a ‘military-patriotic’ game played in the Soviet Union’s pioneer camps – editor).
With time he began to notice what was going on. In particular that Moscow was filling up with foreigners. And when he was around 16 years old he started to fight them. He of course didn’t say anything about it, but it was clear from the jeans he wore, and from his requests that we buy a certain type of boots. Once he mentioned that he had fought with black people over the drugs they were distributing in the metro. I didn’t see any fighting, but at home there was always discussion over whether violence was necessary or not. I was always against it. But he argued that it is right: that the Lord helps those who help themselves; that we need action as well as prayers. And action for him, as for a soldier, was to use his hands. It is only now that I agree with him. The court case has been and gone, the sentence too, so you see how long it took me to reach this position. And lots of people asked me why our lads went so openly, nakedly, unarmed, to battle. And it was then that I understood that there have always been individuals who went to battle like this; rather than cautiously, correctly, with their eye on the final outcome. Sometimes the outcome isn’t important. In order to raise the masses, you need a loud cry and a challenge.
Russian nationalism often has an extremely violent
side. In Moscow alone, there are hundreds of
racially-motivated murders each year. Photo CC:
Iliya Varlamov
The arrest wasn’t unexpected: we’d already had a similar experience with him. We have Cossack ancestry, and Don Cossacks always fought with Turks – and the first case we had was precisely with a Turk. That struck me. Then he had to be bought out of trouble – well, not exactly bought out, but this case had to be covered up by any means possible. It was a murder: there were three of them, two survived, one died. From that moment on Vasily’s views became clear. I understood that I wouldn’t change him. We didn’t row, no, that would have driven my son away from me. You must always protect your relationship with your child. I needed not to lose him. After the incident with the Turk I said: ‘Vas, first pay off the debt – we are in debt – I can’t do this myself, you help me. Study and work for now’. I thought I’d found a brilliant solution. For some time at least I could hold on to him.
Later he came to me himself and said: ‘Mum, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s time to take action’. I looked sadly at him and remained silent. And what could I say?
Confrontation has increased: the town is full of foreigners from other races with completely different mentalities, with whom we do not want to live. As a result white parents will now go anywhere, even to the outskirts of Moscow, just so to make sure there are only children like theirs in the classroom. Well, this is now happening all over the world. And genetic research has shown that when a person encounters someone of a different race, you see, he expends a huge amount of inner energy in order to suppress his inner opposition to them. Even these gay parades have started here. He also went to them, bashed the queers – well, these people’s mentalities are so alien… He asked: ‘where will be the place for my children?’ And it’s true, it’s already impossible to raise children in purity.
The government has a system in place to destroy our nation. Some people are imprisoned for drugs, others for drunkenness, others again for screwing around. Some people are stuffed full of money; this younger generation earns a good wage. And only a few remain who can understand what is happening. And how does the government find them? They need to provoke them, for example, to attack foreigners. There were an awful lot of provocateurs in the movement. Parents wrote to Putin saying that their children were being zombified, were being got at through the Internet. If someone is by nature a nationalist, simply loves his motherland, and he sees everything that is going on, then they stir him up.
‘The political system is built like that: they blame lads for not liking non-Russians.’
He understands now that he went against these blacks for nothing, that this process is being controlled by the government and bureaucrats. And what’s the point of fighting these ordinary people? There’s another million on their way here. Confronting them has helped a little bit though. Everything counts.
We held out hope until the very last moment during the court case. We prayed to St. Nicholas in the corridors, because they wouldn’t let us into the courtroom. But Judge Olikhver (chief justice in the case of Vasilii Krivets Natalia Olikhver - editor) is possessed by demons, she felt the spirit. In the recesses she would run out into the corridor and throw us out the door.
Despite the fact that they jail our children, we parents are united and think about what is wrong in our lives, and where the truth lies. The government has done us a favour by introducing us to each other. There are parents who take the side of their children. And there are also parents who refuse to accept their children’s views, who won’t accept the struggle. Some manage to deflect their children. Some don’t manage to. To begin with I didn’t agree with Vasily, but I could hardly do nothing: freedom must take priority.
I work in the Academy of Sciences, researching a doctorate in history; I write academic articles and teach. Vasily has been good for me, he’s given me a lot. He’s cleverer than me. He digs something up and shares it with me. And I with him.
What would I say to him, if he were to come out now and say that he was going to carry on killing, fighting the system? Well, what can one say to a person whose soul aches for the motherland and who is ready to give up his life for it? A mother can only bless. And know, that she blesses unto death.’
Andrei Appolonov, engineer, father of Victor Appolonov
Victor Appolonov is a 22-year-old member of the National-Socialist Society North (NSO-Sever) and was sentenced to life imprisonment for five murders. On the day the sentence was announced he entered the courtroom shouting ‘Yids, prepare to die!’ and ‘Baburova croaked, and you’ll croak too!’ (for further detail see ‘
The case of the thirteen’ in issue no. 29, 25 July).
‘We immediately refused a lawyer, because they are useless. I think that’s it’s useless to go to the Supreme Court too. This is a case that’s been politically ordered, so it’s difficult to contest. The investigator told me himself that he sits there like the Tsarist secret police: whoever needs to be sent down, he sends down.
I’ve worked all my life as an engineer in a factory, politics never interested me and I never subscribed to any party. But now, if you don’t get interested in politics, then sooner or later, politics will take an interest in you. I started to look at what was happening only when they took my son, arrested him. And I understood that power is simply being divided up between the clans on high, and up there our children are expendable material. So there is politics here, which came about because Putin is in office. Because of him, hundreds of lads are sitting in prison. If it were only my son accused of murder or something else. But it’s impacting on so many people! In our group almost everyone is unacquainted; they even lived in different towns – Sergiev Posad, Mytishchi, Novgorod. And who’s guilty here? Did their parents give them knives and say: ‘go out and kill’?
"Let's give Russia back to the Russians" - a troubling
slogan given the large number of ethinicities and
nationalities that form the Russian state.
The political system is built like that: they blame lads for not liking non-Russians – because of the colour of their skin or the slant of their eyes, and there are articles in the newspapers that Russia’s economy will rot without immigrant labour. So it happens that someone is using their political power in order to bring a cheap labour force over here. It’s profitable for someone. That same Tel’man, who built Cherkizon (a huge market in Moscow - editor), he needed cheap labour. All this is robbing Russia of money.
Basically the territory of Russia is like a welcome mat. A representative of another nationality can get Russian citizenship, but when he goes to Armenia then he’s an Armenian. All these people have their own countries, and Russians don’t. Putin, when he met with the youth after the protest on Manezh Square, said that in the Caucasus – which is a part of the Russian Federation – they have their own traditions, and he doesn’t care who infringes them there. So the former guarantor of the Constitution doesn’t care about someone who is on the territory of the Russian Federation. This is double standards.
We need to resolve the nationality question in Russia; to declare that Russia is a Russian country; to write people’s ethnicity in their passports again. You cannot tell a Tajik or an Uzbek to serve Russia. But a Russian will understand if you tell him he has to serve his country. In our country, Jews are holding top positions, but I would never claim high office in someone else’s country.
‘We need to resolve the nationality question in Russia; to declare that Russia is a Russian country; to write people’s ethnicity in their passports again. You cannot tell a Tajik or an Uzbek to serve Russia.’
Victor’s views weren’t unexpected, but what he was accused of was. He wasn’t a difficult child: he worked as a consultant in a bookshop, was at home in the evenings, was interested in history. He wanted to go to an institute to study history. He wasn’t particularly sociable. He lived a fairly solitary life, read loads of books, that’s why he liked the bookshop too. The following year he was due to be conscripted into the army. I didn’t take any interest in whether or not he wanted to go. Everyone goes usually.
Friends of the family were amazed when they found out about his arrest. They all asked what on earth was going on. He didn’t drink, didn’t smoke. Of course he was withdrawn sometimes, thinking about something or other. Not long before his arrest he mentioned a sports club, but I thought, sport – that’s a good thing.
I don’t know where he got interested in all that, I don’t know whether he came to these opinions himself or not, because at 18 years old – as far as I remember – interests change quickly. He is not an experienced person, naturally, and politicians exploit the young.
I didn’t read the case notes. Could he kill? I wanted to investigate this independently, but the judges and investigators took this mission upon themselves. This didn’t suit me at all. And if only this was an isolated example! But as I attended the court sittings I understood that this is a whole system: one little group passing through after another, you see. And what, am I supposed to say to my own son that he’s guilty, when there’s a whole system?
I honestly didn’t expect a life sentence. I think this is revenge for the fact that he openly says what he thinks. He sat in a pre-trial detention centre for three years, then went to court, and I could see immediately that he’d become more vicious. Moreover he was in a cell with all different ethnicities, people arrested for drugs, robbery, theft. He got some experience there, began to answer back to the judges and prosecutors in court. So because he began to answer them like that, they used their authority and gave him a life sentence.
During a visit I asked him what he did with his time in the cell. He said he played chess. ‘With whom?’ I asked. ‘With an Uzbek’.’
Pavel Golubev, Retired Colonel, father of Sergei Golubev
Sergei Golubev was the youngest convicted murderer in the case of NSO-Sever. He was 16 when he was arrested in 2007. He pleaded guilty to the murder of one person and attempted murder motivated by racial hatred. He was sentenced to ten years in a penal colony.
‘Basically Sergei had nothing to do with this. Well, he went to a demonstration against illegal immigration. And is there anyone who does support breaking the law? On 1 May 2008 he was at that demonstration at VDNKh. ‘Peace, Labour, May! Guest-workers away!’ And after the demonstration participants beat up some Tajik or other – right in front of the local police station. Sergei was also there. He said that he wanted to stop them, that they were starting a fight five metres from the window of the police. He got detained, and they checked whether he belonged to a youth organisation. And in the report they wrote that: ‘he is not a member of a gang, but shares the view that the Russian people and the Russian Orthodox faith must flourish on the territory of the Russian Federation’. And this was recorded as a nationalist viewpoint. No one told President Medvedev it was a nationalist viewpoint when he said the same thing at a meeting of the State Council in February 2011. And Sergei, of course, wasn’t a member of the NSO. He had some knowledge about that organisation, but even I’ve heard of it.
Nationalists at the oppostion protest on Bolotnaya Square on 11 December 2011, which took place one year after the infamous
Manezhnaya Square race riots.
Maria Pleshkova/Demotix. All rights reserved.
He is a very capable boy generally. He got into an economics grammar school sponsored by the Academy of Finance. But he didn’t have the self-regard to become a top pupil. It is an elite school with elite children, who are driven there by their chauffeurs. Basically they try to force out any children who don’t give the teachers money. He had a high temperature one day, and for some reason the class teacher kept him at school and wouldn’t let him go home. He ran away, jumped over the fence, ran across Prospect Mira in winter with no coat on. Something snapped in him then. He lost interest in school completely. He sat in lessons, looking out of the window, thinking his own thoughts. We took him out of that school after that, and sent him to be examined at the psychiatric hospital. The doctor said to me’ ‘you know, I see so many like him, the most important thing is that he doesn’t get sent to prison before he reaches 18. After that everything will pass, he’ll get distracted by work and love. But many don’t make it that far’.
Sergei rarely went out. He sat at his computer. I used to tell him to go out and have a wander. He would take me to the window and ask if I really wanted him to go out there. ‘Do you see them sitting there, already pouring out drinks on the bench? What’s more, when evening comes, the darkies will bring weed. Do you want me to join them?’ I said that of course I didn’t.
It scared me that he was going off into a virtual world. That’s why I was even glad when he decided to go out to a girl’s birthday celebrations. (On 6 May 2008 at the Butyrka cafe on Dmitrovsky highway Vasilisa Kovaleva celebrated her 21st with her then-boyfriend Mikhailov, with Appolionov and with Golubev. That same evening the group killed two Uzbeks - editor.) He got to know Kovaleva via the Iyupnternet. He liked older girls. She was a student in the faculty of journalism, and he could talk to her about all sorts of things. I couldn’t have imagined how it would all end. He went out to her birthday.
He was a witness at that murder incident, the one they prosecuted him for. He saw the struggle, the cries. He said that he felt sick. When they hit the woman in the neck and she started bleeding, he didn’t even see what happened to her, he was pulled away. The investigators asked whether he tried to help the victim. No? Well then, that means you’re an accomplice.
Sergei said: ‘as far as I’m concerned, be they blacks, Chinese, Tatars – it makes no difference to me. I respect them all. They’re all human beings’. When he went to prison he was a Christian. He’s now lost his faith. He said that if God existed, He would not have allowed this to happen to him.
‘I used to tell him to go out and have a wander. He would take me to the window and ask if I really wanted him to go out there. ‘Do you see them sitting there, already pouring out drinks on the bench? What’s more, when evening comes, the darkies will bring weed. Do you want me to join them?’
They didn’t let us meet for a year and a half. They tortured him twice. They told him to write what they wanted him to write about the other lads, but he refused. ‘I don’t know them, or what sort of people they are. If you know that they are murderers, then you write that.’ They promised to make life difficult in the cells for him for that. They put some sort of lads in with him. They burnt him with matches, beat him up, his shoulders, stomach, the small of his back were all covered in bruises. I saw all of this at the court hearing about the extension of his arrest. Sergei looked at me from behind the bars and asked’ ‘what should I do? I can’t last much longer’. Do you understand – he looked me in the eye and asked: ‘what should I do? You’re stronger than me, but they string you up by the hands to see how long you last. Should I cut my own throat? Either way, the judge has guaranteed that I won’t get more than ten years. Maybe I should stab one of them at night? Tell me what would be better?’ And he looked me in the eye. I said: ‘better to cut them than yourself’. It ended with him taking a sharpened implement and preparing to drive it into the eye or neck of this lad, who noticed and left. The lawyer and I complained to whoever we could, and they held an investigation in the pre-trial detention centre, and they stopped bothering him.
And after a year his cellmates were ordered to beat him up again so badly that they wouldn’t even let us go to court. I asked him later whether he had managed to get them back a bit, so it didn’t feel quite so bad.
Even the detectives passed on their approval to me. Everyone thought that since he was the youngest, he’d sign everything, but he wouldn’t budge and said that no one would persuade him to. His steadfastness amazed them. ‘What a good lad we have here’. Well, thanks, I thought, I’m glad.
How did he end up there? As the investigators said to me after his first year in pre-trial detention centre: ‘if we’d known from the start what evidence there would be, we wouldn’t even have arrested him. But now, you understand, how can we let him out? He’s underage, and responsibility would have to be taken for this. So, you see, we’ll treat him like the others, and he might get around five years’. And then they explained further that I’d angered them by complaining to the Moscow City Court that they hadn’t allowed us to meet. Why, they asked, did you behave like that? In a fit of anger they included five unnecessary years in the indictment.
Then I gave further evidence in court. I told them about the torture, about the false documents in the criminal case, about how no one had interrogated him for a year. And that made the prosecutor angry with me. But of course I didn’t expect them to give him ten years. I thought that even a military court, a troika, is not allowed to settle personal scores; all the more so that this was based on the admission that they should have basically let him go. I was a professional soldier myself, a colonel. I worked for a long time at a research institute. Of course, when I became Sergei’s legal representative I couldn’t work anywhere.
It has, of course, made him angrier. He’s continually in the punishment block. He says they have sworn an oath. ‘Don’t they know what to do with me? Haven’t they read the case notes?’ After the sentence he said that he would never go and fight for this country, like his grandfather who held a machine gun in his hands and shouted that he was fighting for this motherland. He was patriotic before. ‘If I get a call up for the army I’m not going to evade it. If they send me to Chechnya – I’ll go, I won’t hide behind anyone’s back’. And now he says that it was the Russian Federation that passed this sentence on him. It found me guilty, he says, of being a fascist, a murderer. That makes Russia my stepmother, not my real motherland, and I’m not going to fight for her. ‘Let the prosecutor’s children go and serve her.’ That’s what he says.’
A version of this article was first published in Russian on Kommersant. Vlast’
here
AdvaMed's Ubl calls MDUFMA III a "game-changer," AngioDynamics' CEO says the Navilyst deal hits the reset button and a clutch of former reps of a Symmetry Medical subsidiary consent to judgement in a lawsuit accusing them of cooking the books.
Say hello to MassDevice +3, a bite-sized view of the top three med-tech stories of the day. This feature of MassDevice.com's coverage highlights our 3 biggest and most influential stories from the day's news to make sure you're up to date on the headlines that continue to shape the medical device industry.
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Concerned with chemists changing the formula of illegal synthetic marijuana to get around Alabama law, two state senators have crafted bills to thwart rogue producers of those designer drugs.
Products with names like "Spice" and "K2" are marketed as potpourri or incense, but produce a marijuana-like high when consumed. Though they're illegal in Alabama, some states have seen producers change their chemical formula to avoid laws banning specific substances.
Legislation from Sens. Arthur Orr, a Republican, and Marc Keahey, a Democrat, would outlaw any substance that has psychoactive effects similar to marijuana.
Orr says his bill goes above an executive order issued by Gov. Robert Bentley last fall to remove the products from shelves. He says it would prevent companies from coming up with any new types of synthetic marijuana.
Utah cancer docs: Use of small 'practice' pharmacy in question
The Salt Lake Tribune
Published Feb 3, 2012 10:59AM MDT
Copyright 2011 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
What should the Occupy movement do, after the occupations? The author and activist joined us for a live webchat
In her column earlier this week, author and activist Naomi Wolf wrote about her hopes and fears for the Occupy movement, now that it has been evicted from most of its visible manifestations:
"Occupy – a movement I love and respect, and which represents our last best hope – also fills me with distress because of how difficult it is for a movement committed to "no spokespeople" to get their message out."
She suggests that there are valuable lessons to be learned from a series of powerful documentaries, recently screened at the Sundance Film Festival, about protest movements of the recent past. Her conclusion is that for Occupy to keep its momentum now, it can no longer afford to be such an amorphous, anarchic movement. In effect, it needs to get organised, in more conventional campaigning ways.
Media exposure, a clear message, smart soundbites, clearly stated demands, and, most importantly, tasked, empowered negotiators working on the inside in concert with mass disrupters applying pressure from without – this equals political life.
Do you agree this is the way forward for Occupy? Has its moment already passed – if so, what has it achieved? How do you see its future?
The webchat is now at an end, but commenting will remain open to discuss issues raised. Thanks for your interest and participation.
What do you think about the lack of cooperation between the American centred Occupy movement and the European/global Take The Square and Democracia Real Ya networks? (As exemplified by the recent OWS plan for a 'global strike' on the 1st May despite TTS' plan for the same action on the 15th May). Do you think the message of "real democracy now" of the DRY/Indignados movement has been lost in the Americocentric Occupy movement?
Naomi Wolf responds:
I think that this was probably due to people working two jobs, being overscheduled etc rather than any strategy.But it certainly goes to the need for a good strong global Occupy communications hub. We are also really in a media bubble here and miss a lot of globali nformation. I have heard a rumor of new global Occupy communications hubs being created and promise to report as they emerge.
Why do you want to turn Occupy into a same-same safe liberal professionalized and institutional political movement?
Naomi Wolf responds:
Well, if this is the impression you have of what I am saying either I was not clear enough or you may be misreading me. Act Up was NOT SAFE.They were highly confrontaional, they did things like lie down in churches and shout 'murderer' -- they threw the ASHES of their loved ones over the White House fence and brought a DEAD leader in his COFFIN to the republican campaign headquarters. They were radical and cnfrontational but they were also highly organized and on message and did not see a problem with talking to the media to get their message across. Gandhi too was radical, MLK too -- same thing.
Also: if I urgently (to the point of being annoying) keep pleading with Occupy (and ding what I can in postingmedia training, going to ZuccottiPark to give media training etc) to addmessaging, any number of spokespeople (it can be zillions!) and agenda items (they can change!) to their practice, it is because I do not believe we have the luxury of time for the movement to'find its feet'or even maybe behave in ways that might be most comfortable for it. I believe the powers that be will start cracking down in ways we cannot even imagine even in advanced democracies -- they will use baton rounds on Occupy London they have PROMISED, and those killed people in Northern Ireland -- and that in ourlimited time to act to stabilize democracy and get the people's voices heard, we have to take drastic action that may not be comfortable for everyone but that history shows WORKS. I aldso disagree that clear messaging is 'liberal', MLK is the most lucid writer and speaker in US history.
The top 1% pay just under 40% of all federal taxes, and the top 10% pay 70% of them. In Britain, the top 1% pays 25% (with a higher tax rate) and the top 10% pays 50%. Why does Occupy think that the rich do not pay their fair share when the tax and spend system of government is almost exclusively reliant on the rich to fund social welfare programmes? I know it's pointless to have cake and not eat it, but aren't you guilty of trying to?
Naomi Wolf responds:
Well you are leavig out an im[ortant part of the math, which is the amount of wealth the one per cent own -- in the US thetop ten per cent own the MAJORITY of the wealth. So the issues is proportionate taxation. Also cporporations in the US and I believe increasingly the UK are as I wrote cycling their profits offshore, perfectly legally, so that corporations like GE and FedEx that make vast profits pay often zero or less than one per cent.
Naomi, thinking especially of the States, Canada, and Europe, are there any organizations (e.g., faith-based organizations or NGOs) that you believe might serve as powerful allies for the various "Occupy" movements; in particular, for helping to communicate key messages?
Naomi Wolf responds:
Great question. I think radical Christians and Catholics are naturals -- liberationn theology is right up there with this message -- but many Tea Partiers and Libertarians are also worried about liberty issues and crackdowns on constututional rights -- the beauty of liberty and economic justice movement is that it can have alliances across -political segments if only we learn the power of coalition-building --ie tea patrtietrs and Occupy can unite today to push backagainst the NDAA (whic gives the US the right to detain people forever) but don't have to agree down the line on other issues....
Does Ms. Wolf think that it'd be a good idea for one of the key questions that the Occupy Movement to ask more focefully is whether, on a finite planet, the goal of society (both left and right) should be continued economic growth?
Naomi Wolf responds:
I think they (like any citizen) should ask whatever they wish but THAT is a radical and crucial question in my opinion. And even MORE than most needs good explainers.
Seems that OWS is embracing some rather no-traditional and novel foundations. This is a great departure from more traditional Youth Movements, yet retains the same fervor and purpose. I find it very unique. Are the traditional (nee Victorian) ideas of Social Change Through the Guidance of Leadership no longer relevant?
Naomi Wolf responds:
great question again, but ;et me be super clear because I think this is ahard paradigm to wrap our brains around collectively. The top-down 'leader and strategy' is DEAD. But the new world requires that EVERYONE be a leader, ready to speak and write and lobby, and you can have a movement with a million leaders but a voting process that lets everyone have input into then ADOPT a clear agenda that changes over time according to new input. You can get there through majority voting not consensus. That is not top-down strategy it is democracy.
I think the occupy movement should support candidates from parties other than the two headed corporate duopoly of Dems/Repubs. Just by getting them more coverage, wouldn't that create more options going forward for real change? For example: I'd like to see the Justice Party's Rocky Anderson and the Green Party's Dr. Jill Stein included in the Presidential debates. How could we make that happen, and how can occupy help gain positive attention for new parties/candidates that aren't bought and sold by the one percent?
Naomi Wolf responds:
So here we see that as we discuss this, GREAT agenda items get brought forward. Great thinnking: so they might say 'you start it'. If you wanted to push a third party candidate the best way is tofollow the steps in the last section of Give Me Liberty (my publishers released it for free on PDF): you would register voters, build support and write op eds for the media. Re press attention the best thing is to BE the media -- write press releases, write op eds and blogs, post your own campaign commercials -- social media (till it is outlawed very soon, judging from recentlegislation like Acta) make that easy. Or run yourself! GML shows you how.
A more general question: you mention wealth, and the fact it is poorly distributed. The distribution bit is hard to argue but at a high level how do you tax wealth? It really isn't a simple question to answer.
Naomi Wolf responds:
Hm. well wealthy people earn lots of their income on capital gains, which are taxed less than the wages that most working people earn. That seems unfair to me. Romney paid I think ten per cent on his millions cause of this, but i as a self-employed person with way less money am taxed at a much higher rate. Some people in the US call for a flat tax for this reason. These are all worth discussing but a movement like occupy ideally can make real space for real discussio -- these options are off the tanble now because of corporate influence on most media and politicians.
One of the main problems Occupy faces is public perception. On forums, discussion threads, even radio shows, the main image of Occupy appears to be that they're a bunch of unwashed, lazy benefit scroungers and trustafarians.
This image, of course, is not correct and slightly unfair, but so long as the general public believe this to be the truth, it's easy to not take the movement seriously.
With that in mind, should one of the first steps forward be to show the public that Occupiers come from all different backgrounds, cultures, ages, and different levels of education and employment?
Naomi Wolf responds:
Hooray for this great question too! In an electronic world appearance affects reality and yes this 'image'is not ideal. That is why if you have hundreds or thousands of trained spokepeople we will see -- the housewife, the military guy, the retiredperson etc etc and the scruffy hippie...the face of everyone. But also the civil rights movement told marchers to wear suits and the ladies dresses, gloves and hats for a reason -- it is important to communicate respect for the chance to protest and respect for the chance to speak to one's fellow citizens. People can be "themselves"while still presentig themselves in a way that does not let their opponents write them off. Act Up often wore suits when they disrupted FDA hearings and it was a better visual than torn jeans.
I totally agree that Occupy needs clearer messaging to win over non-protesters. I read on wikipedia that the founders wanted it to be the Tobin tax. I don't think that goes very far... what do you think this message might be? Higher taxation? How do you get around the political challenges of this?
Naomi Wolf responds:
I would not want to dictate -- but again let's look at Act Up. They constantly changed their messaging and agenda to address what was nbeeded -- more drug trials, better care for people with AIDS, cheaper drugs in Africa, etc etc etc. But AIDS was theeir umbrella. Occupy's "Umbrella" seems to be inequality and corporate overweening influence society -- I would hope adding freedom is a natural. So week by week they should be --at a local and also a national and international level -- chossing ONE item to address with ONE concrete goal and creating actions to demand it and raise its profile.
Naomi, for those Americans who grasp the magnitude of danger to freedom our current path holds but feel powerless to stop it, please advise. What action steps can we take, especially those with no physical Occupation to seek out, or finding the movement too slow to respond with the necessary outcry?
Also, some have argued that extreme stances taken by Occupy alienate would-be members. The city of Oakland has called for other Occupy groups to denounce Oakland Occupy as inappropriately violent after clashes with police. Is this an appropriate request or would this push the movement in the wrong direction?
Naomi Wolf responds:
Yet another imortant question. It is CRUCIAL for any citizen movement to renounce violence and you can be sure that violence is used against movements. Violence is always counterprodiuctive. The best thing you can do is ORGANIZE -- become a 'democracy team' -- register voters and put pressure on your representatives'district rep (ask for a meeting) to push back on liberty issues and you will get out the vote (in congressional elections which everyone ignores) or promise to take your list elsewhere (politely) ifnot. These have to be registered vioters who vote in congresisonal elections -- they know. This way you become a democracy 'power user'and my campaign mentor Curtis Ellis says that this gives any citizen the power of a lobbyist. THEN you have to make it fun -- have amonthly pot luck for your registered voters to plan the next meeting and what you will demand -- because movements burn out without community and fun -- i love the slogan give me bread but give me roses.
Final word from Naomi:
Thank you all so much for this great discussion! I have heard on
my FB page, while we were talking, from Occupies reporting that they are well-attended and well-organized in various cities around the world – so I will ask them to send me op eds about their agendas and their actions and I will shine the light I can on them periodically! Thank you again.
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The first novel from Newsnight's economics editor is an enjoyable romp through China
It's a conspiracy theorist's dream. One nation holds most of the planet's supply of "rare earths", the metals and alloys key to building many of the developed world's must-have items, including mobile phones, computers, cameras and precision missiles. And that country happens to be China: the world's last great bastion of communism (if you don't count its basket-case dependent, North Korea) and for centuries the focus of western fear, loathing and grudging admiration. This is the dramatic factual premise behind this febrile but enjoyable first novel by
Paul Mason,
Newsnight
's economics editor.
A paunchy middle-aged reporter called Brough – "a has-been hack with a Yorkshire accent" reeking of whisky – washes up in deep northwest China in May 2009, to make a documentary about the state of the Chinese environment. He is accompanied by his producer, Georgina, a ruthless blonde alumna of Cheltenham Ladies College desperate to swing a Chinese television distribution deal; by an even more washed-up cameraman called Carstairs; and by Chun-Li, their enigmatic Chinese interpreter. After an afternoon filming townspeople sick from factory pollution, the crew is arrested and barely escapes an assassination attempt by a crazed underling from the local propaganda office.
While Brough fakes his own death and flees into the Gobi Desert, Chun-Li (a freelance spy, we learn) promptly dopes a psychotic Mongolian sex maniac with Russian truth-drug, and discovers the area is ruled by a cartel – half-gangster, half-government – that has enriched itself on illegal mining of rare earths.
Brough, meanwhile, is kidnapped by a motorbike gang of paramilitary fashionistas called the Steel Fuchsias, all of whom are both fervent believers in the full operation of market forces and staunch supporters of the Communist party. He eventually escapes to a forced-labour camp inhabited by political prisoners riddled with mining-related cancers, and learns for himself about the rare earth racket. Throughout, Chun-Li and Brough are pursued across the Gobi by a thuggish police superintendant, while Brough's efforts to get the story down on film are frustrated by business-conscious Georgina's desire for a whitewash documentary to keep her official Chinese media contacts sweet.
All of this is imagined, of course. "I wrote
Rare Earth
," Mason says, "because I got tired of trying to tell the China story as fact – with so much of the political reality hidden from view, it would be easier to tell it as fiction." For sure, there's a good deal of silliness amid the invention. Reading the passages rich in masochistic sex, you easily imagine Mason joyfully kicking free of BBC fact-checkers. Challenged about some of the book's fruitier scenes, Mason has
shrugged his shoulders: his characters "just became real and started mating with each other". But as a warning to anyone questioning his authenticity, he has also threatened to make public "the academic source literature for Mongolian horseback sex. It exists." This reviewer is willing to take that episode on trust.
But given that the book was apparently written on the back of one
Newsnight
research trip to China in 2009, Mason's thriller-parody also manages a respectable sprinkling of insights into the country. The Steel Fuchsias are a burlesque of the fervent party loyalty observed in some of China's most privileged, internationalised youth today. Contemporary China, one of Mason's protagonists remarks acutely, has recreated the late Qing dynasty, which toppled a century ago: "Whole swaths of China are ungoverned: ruled by mobsters and corrupt officials … At the centre is a walled palace, only it's not the Forbidden City, it's the Communist party HQ."
There are entertaining jokes and smart, no-nonsense descriptions: air "baked by blast furnaces and hung heavy with the odour of coal and gasoline; the odour of 9.9% GDP growth". It's hard to decide who comes off worst in the book: the greedy party apparatchiks wallowing in small-town massage parlours, or the opportunistic western TV executives ensconced in their five-star Beijing hotels. Although Mason has clearly relished his liberating foray into fiction, the discipline of years observing the BBC charter's stipulation on balanced reporting has left its mark on
Rare Earth
.
• Julia Lovell's
The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China
is published by Picador. To order
Rare Earth
go to
www.orbooks.com
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Salt Lake City police are concerned after hackers who attacked the department's web site accessed the personal information of confidential informants and tipsters.
Police say hackers affiliated with the group "Anonymous" attacked the department's website on Tuesday because of their opposition to an anti-graffiti paraphernalia bill that eventually failed in the Utah Senate. The website remained down Friday as the investigation continued.
Police say the hackers gained access to sensitive information, including citizen complaints about drug crimes, including phone numbers, addresses and other personal information.
Salt Lake City Det. Dennis McGowan says criminal charges in the hacking case are being considered.
The Senate defeated the bill Thursday that aimed to make it illegal to possess any instrument, tool or device with the intent of vandalizing an area with graffiti.
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Last month, the Coca-Cola Company notified the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that imported orange juice it uses in some of its drink products was found to be tainted with carbendazim, an illegal crop fungicide linked to infertility and testicular damage. Less... |
Via
Think Progress, here's Alabama State Sen. Shadrack McGill (a Republican, of course) talking about why raising pay for schoolteachers would not just be a bad idea, it would be
against the Bible:
"It's a Biblical principle. If you double a teacher's pay scale, you'll attract people who aren't called to teach.
"To go in and raise someone's child for eight hours a day, or many people's children for eight hours a day, requires a calling. It better be a calling in your life. I know I wouldn't want to do it, OK?
"And these teachers that are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It's just in them to do. It's the ability that God give 'em. And there are also some teachers, it wouldn't matter how much you would pay them, they would still perform to the same capacity.
"If you don't keep that in balance, you're going to attract people who are not called, who don't need to be teaching our children. So, everything has a balance."
Now that's an impressive level of Bible-thumping bullshit, right there. Among all professions everywhere, somehow teaching children is the one that always gets singled out as deserving rotten pay because that's how Jesus would have wanted it. Teaching is a
calling
, you see, and you wouldn't want to taint that with filthy, filthy money so that teachers could pay their rent or buy gas for their cars or something. So why do we pay doctors, then—isn't that a calling? What about lawyers? Heaven knows defending people's freedom ought to be a
calling
, not a
job
. And don't even get me started on politicians.
What's that? You're going to get me started on politicians? Oh, Lord. Here's Bible-citer Shadrack McGill defending his support for raising legislator salaries from about $30k a year to nearly $50k—in the very same damn meeting:
"That [previous salary] played into the corruption, guys, big time," he said. "You had your higher-ranking legislators that were connected with the lobbyists making up in the millions of dollars. They weren't worried about that $30,000 paid salary they were getting," McGill said, adding that lawmakers have to pay for their expenses out of pocket.
McGill said that by paying legislators more, they're less susceptible to taking bribes.
Got that? Teachers should be paid as little as possible so that we can be sure they're doing it for the children. Politicians, on the other hand, should be paid substantially
more
because otherwise they'll turn corrupt and take bribes and stuff. Hey, you know politicians: They do that sort of thing
all the freaking time.
There's a level of cognitive dissonance here that can't be explained by mere ideology. If teaching children is a calling, then so is serving citizens as one of their leaders. If paying legislators like crap would result in shoddy, corrupt legislators, then it does not follow how paying teachers
more
would result in them turning shoddy and corrupt. I suppose if you base your premise on politicians being naturally shitty people, sure, but it still doesn't explain why all the other non-shitty people out there should have to suffer.
Then we've got the whole push among Mitt Romney and the One Percenters (Worst. Band. Ever.) telling us that we can't possibly tax hedge fund managers or other captains of finance at the same percentage rates as the little people, otherwise the hedge fund managers and other captains of finance will Go Galt and not bless us with their vast, sometimes-apocalyptic wisdom. You see, if these people have to pay a few thousand dollars more on each million dollars they make, they won't
want
to make any more millions of dollars! Think of the chaos! At the same time, the same candidates and pundits tell us that we need to make sure even the poorest of the poor pay
some
tax, so they have a little skin in the game.
The common theme is that the rich and powerful need to be rewarded more greatly, less they instead turn to corrupt or apathetic behaviors, and that the poor need to be squeezed more tightly in order to prevent those same moral hazards of corruption or laziness. Apparently, the rich and poor no longer even share the same brain structure, given that the social prescriptions for the two groups are entirely contradictory.
Yes, the
only
common theme, from powerful conservatives, is that whatever they happen to propose in any given moment will be entirely self-serving. Conservative legislators need to pay themselves more money, because they deserve to be rewarded. Conservative rich people need to pay less taxes, because they goddamn feel like paying less taxes. Conservative corporations (I'm not sure I know of a liberal one—something about dedicating your existence to raw profit seems to fit right in with conservatism) need fewer regulations, because regulations are hard to deal with. Conservatives want everyone else to get paid less, have fewer rights, have fewer legal protections, and so on and so forth because those other people are (1) immoral, (2) benefiting too much from the tax dollars of good conservatives, or (3) because suck it, that's why.
A lack of empathy explains a lot of it. A nearly sociopathic lack of empathy or concern for others would explain a great deal of it indeed, especially among many conservative leaders. As supposed ideology, however, I have no patience for it anymore. I used to at least respect the notion of
conservatism
as philosophy, and at least recognize some raw pragmatic value behind the premise, but this version of conservatism is overtly regressive, not conservative. It lacks any coherent point other than the self-centeredness of the practitioner.
But then I hear people like Alabama State Sen. Shadrack McGill talking about how paying teachers a living wage would be violating a "Biblical principle," while paying legislators a living wage is a damn fine idea, and the far simpler explanation rears its head. Most of these people aren't
ideological
about anything. They're just profoundly stupid people. They're not conservative, they're just self-indulgent scolds or self-interested collectors of public power. They're only "conservative" because that's the ideology that will best support stringing together random words to accomplish those goals.
Could we use their own arguments against them, and would those arguments gain leverage? Let's tell Mr. McGill that if we do not raise the pay of our teachers, our teachers will be reduced to selling drugs to our children. Or will be more prone to passing children in exchange for cash bribes from parents. Or, what the hell, will be more likely to sell our children into slavery during the lunch break. If we don't pay teachers the same wages we pay our legislators, our teachers might act as corrupt as legislators do!
Would it work? Of course not. It would make their little heads explode with outrage, as they contemplated all these new conspiracy theories, but
of course
they would not embrace the same basic economic principles for schoolteachers as they do for politicians, or hedge fund managers, or the entire oil industry. Again, there is nothing close to consistency in the minds of people like Sen. McGill. Doesn't enter his foggy head. Do what you want, cite the Bible a few times, and call it done, but large swaths of America has attempted to win arguments with conservatism by citing
facts
or
science
or
logical conclusions
, and it never does a damn thing. Climate change can't be happening because (insert Jesus reason here), or last decade's Bush and Republican policies didn't balloon the deficit because (magical timespace distortion putting Obama in charge eight years before he was elected president). There's no winning when your opponents pride themselves on
not
being consistent from one issue to the next, or on
not
listening to knowledgeable opinions of people who might have studied the matter more than they have.
Sometimes I get people scolding me for being mean to conservatives. Frankly, I just don't care anymore. I'm just too tired of it. Many of us were called traitors for not believing that yellowcake uranium meant we had to go to war with Iraq because also al Qaeda and/or freedom fries and/or strategery or whatever the hell the eventual argument was. Not a day seems to go by now where some prominent, high-level Republican isn't accusing Obama of wanting to "destroy America" or "hurt the economy" or whatever else the scary black man is supposedly doing
now
that was all perfectly reasonable, banal stuff back
then
. There's no ideological core there. Perhaps there once was, but at present, among the power brokers of policy, of punditry, and of the wider base, it doesn't exist. The calls for smaller government end up with a larger government, the calls for reducing the deficit get replaced with
massive
deficits, the calls for individual freedoms or states' rights or whatever other crap is being peddled one moment gets just as easily discarded the next.
The one remaining consistent principle—tax cuts for rich people, and screw everything else—is not an ideology. At least, it's not one that deserves to be taken seriously.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2009:
In the wake of this week's House vote on the Obama economic recovery package, we learn that our brave new post-partisan world, as mcjoan wrote this afternoon, sure looks awfully similar to the old bitterly partisan world we've always lived in. And, as ever, we have the Republican Party to thank for this.
Let’s not pretend that the House bill, which passed 244-188 with precisely zero Republican votes, was exactly a shining moment for the party (although the fact that it has passed at all is certainly something of a victory for the administration). House Republicans see this as their own victory, and for the short term, they may be right.
They've managed to exact major concessions from the administration and House leadership on the $819 billion stimulus package, including the excision of family planning, of funding for public works projects on the National Mall, and the addition of major tax cuts for businesses...and proceeded to vote unanimously against the package anyway. Furthermore, they managed to turn the stimulus into a political wedge issue, even after winning on the oh-so-sacred tax cuts for big business (apparently the only issue of any consequence to today's Republican Party). It's an impressive, if cynical, example of political gamesmanship. It does not, however, have to be yet another case of the Democratic Charlie Brown trying once again to kick Lucy’s football. In fact, there’s no reason the administration and party leadership can’t use the stimulus vote as an opportunity.
High Impact Posts are
here. Top Comments are
here.
Writing in the
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the CDC said it is working with the Pennsylvania State Health Department to investigate an 18-state outbreak of illnesses associated with handling small turtles.
From Aug. 5, 2010 to Sept. 26, 2011, 132 cases of infection from Salmonella Paratyphi B var. L (+) tartrate + were reported, according to the CDC. (If that serotype doesn't sound very scary, consider what the infection is called -- paratyphoid fever)
Many of those stricken were kids, who don't pay much mind to safe-turtle handling practices. Median age of the outbreak cases was 6 years old.
"Although many reptiles carry Salmonella, small turtles pose a greater risk to young children because they are perceived as safe pets, are small enough to be placed in the mouth, and can be handled as toys," the CDC wrote.
Health authorities keep reminding people that
pets can be pathogen carriers, and emphasize the importance of hand washing after touching them. Last year, the CDC reported at least 214 people sickened by their Salmonella-laden
African dwarf frogs, and at least 71 individuals (more than half of them younger than 5) infected with Salmonella from
backyard chicks and ducklings.
Salmonella can make people sick with diarrhea, vomiting, fever and severe abdominal cramps. Young children are especially at risk for illness because their immune systems are still developing.
In the epidemiologic investigation of this latest turtle outbreak, 56 ill individuals were interviewed to determine their possible exposure to Salmonella, and 36 (64 percent) of them reported handling turtles. Fourteen people identified turtles too small to be legally traded, according to the CDC.
Five samples of turtle tank water collected from patients' homes tested positive for the outbreak Salmonella strain.
The sale of turtles with shells smaller than 4 inches has been
banned by the Food and Drug Administration since 1975, after thousands of infants and small children were diagnosed with turtle-associated salmonellosis. Before the ban, epidemiologic studies indicated that 14 percent of reported salmonellosis in the United States was attributable to pet turtles.
Despite the ban, transient vendors on the street, at flea markets and at fairs continue to peddle the turtles as pets, the report notes.
The CDC observed that in 2007, the Independent Turtle Farmers of Louisiana
sought to overturn the prohibition on the sale of tiny turtles, but a federal district court upheld the FDA's authority to enforce the ban.
Given this latest outbreak, the CDC says the ban is being ignored, and
efforts to educate the public about the risks of small turtles aren't working. It suggests examining those efforts.
Merlin
Democratic Republic of the Congo (the)
16 Feb 2012
Programme: Democratic Republic of Congo, N Kivu Responsible To: Provincial Director (PD) Responsible For: All Provincial Finance Team Works With: Country Support Director in Goma, Financial Advisor in London, Operations Manager (N Kivu) Location: Goma, DRC with extensive travel to field sites in N Kivu Start Date: ASAP Duration: 24 months Salary and Benefits: ?33,480 - ?34,230 per annum per annum (dependant on relevant experience), inclusive of annual Cost of Living Allowance Benefits: Insurance cover, accommodation, annual leave entitlement of 24 days per annum rising to 30 days at the completion of 12 months of continuous employment with Merlin.
Only short-listed applicants will be contacted. Due to the urgency of this position, applications will be short-listed on a regular basis and we may offer this post before the closing date.
Please note that an assessment will need to be carried out to confirm if this position can be accompanied.
Merlin Undaunted and determined, Merlin saves lives. We deliver medical expertise to the toughest places. And we stay to help build lasting health care.
Our mission is to end the needless loss of life in the poorest countries caused by a lack of effective health care. We help communities set up medical services for the long term including hospitals, clinics, surgeries and training for nurses and other health workers.
We do whatever it takes and we stay for as long as it takes.
Context and Background The Democratic Republic of Congo is the second largest country in Africa and one of the poorest. Decades of dictatorship and civil war have left much of the national infrastructure destroyed.
Merlin has been operational in DRC since 1997. Merlin teams have provided emergency medical care to the most vulnerable populations in Maniema, Kasai Oriental , North Kivu and Orientale Provinces. Activities have included emergency response, support to primary and secondary health care facilities (including supervision, supply of drugs, and the payment of incentives), reproductive health, institutional capacity building, immunisation campaigns, nutrition, WASH, and the rehabilitation of health facilities.
From 1 January 2012 Maniema and North Kivu will operate as autonomous programmes, each reporting direct to head office in London; they will be supported by country offices in Goma and Kinshasa.
In North Kivu Merlin currently works in Rutshuru/Binza, Kayna, and Birambizu health zones, providing essential health care services to DPs and host populations; and will provide the health component of the rapid response to movements of population (RRMP) mechanism throughout the province.
Main purpose of the role As a Provincial Finance Director, you will provide leadership and financial management to the multi-programme and multi-site operation in N Kivu province.
Overall Objectives (scope) • Directly manage the Provincial Finance Team to ensure effective and proactive financial leadership, support and guidance is provided to managers in the province
• Ensure that mechanisms are in place to prepare and report field finances to head office • Ensure that budget preparation, financial reporting and amendment planning for donors is implemented in a timely manner and approved by head office before submission
• Ensure appropriate systems and procedures, support and guidance for country programmes • Be a member of the Province Management Team and take the lead role on financial planning, forecasting, budgeting and developing financial management capacity throughout the country
Responsibilities
Leadership Responsibilities • Responsible for all the Province programmes financial matters; ensuring that sound financial practices, rigorous budgetary and financial management controls are implemented and imbedded. • Ensure that Merlin's minimum standards of financial procedures, policies and guidelines are understood and adhered to throughout the Province programme, briefing and training all relevant staff as required. • As part of the Province Management Team (CMT) you will influence the strategic financial direction of the whole programme. Assisting the programmes teams in developing the financial elements of their project/programme plans. • Develop and implement the annual financial strategy and support cost budgets. Monitoring and reviewing its progress on a regular basis. • Work in close collaboration with members of the CMT; sharing information on the assessments and proposed interventions, providing overviews of financial requirements for the development of project proposals and subsequent projects. • Manage staff effectively, including appropriate and systematic delegation
Financial Management • Assist project staff in developing proposals (including budgets and activity plans) and subsequent revisions in accordance with external donor requirements. • Monitor, supervise and assist in preparing all interim financial and final reports to donors, in a timely manner, to ensure compliance with contractual and legal requirements. • Ensure the timely preparation and communication of monthly financial reports for the Province Director, Project Coordinators and Head Office, providing them with meaningful and accurate financial information to enable them to manage project and core budgets effectively. This should include advising on significant variances against budget, and making recommendations for corrective actions to ensure expenditure is in line with budgets. • Conduct regular field trips to project sites to monitor compliance with financial procedures, review activity progress and assist managers in identifying the financial implications of changes in proposed activities and revising budget lines as required. • Ensure a set of complete and accurate financial records is maintained, including all relevant supporting documentation for each project. • Facilitate visits by, and meet the requirements of, external auditors. • Ensure compliance with local regulations in respect of financial and other matters (e.g. Registration, Foreign Exchange, taxation, Province audits and labour laws). • Overall responsibility for managing and maintaining the Province balance sheets including salary advance accounts • Overall responsibility of treasury management for the entire Province programme. • Induct and regularly advise/capacity build on finance systems and controls for finance and non finance staff. • Develop the financial aspects of the programme emergency preparedness plan, in co-ordination with the CMT, and train finance staff in managing the financial aspects of in emergencies. • Work with the Finance Department in London to support head office initiatives and specific requirements.
Human Resource Management • Undertake expatriate staff appraisals for provincial finance team in accordance with Merlin’s Human Resources procedures • Maintain good team communication, engender positive team dynamics and take remedial action as soon as problems occur as advised by the Provincial HR/Admin Manager • Support team members professionally and monitor and support stress management • Provide support to in the recruitment process for provincial finance staff
Person Specification Essential Qualifications, experience and competences
• Accounting qualification (Degree or professional equivalent). • Strong communication skills with written and spoken French & English. • Experience of donor reporting requirements. • Experience of implementing financial control systems. • In depth knowledge of financial systems, financial/administrative management and reporting. • Strong communication skills including strong EXCEL skills (worksheet functions, data functions, pivot tables). • Good decision making skills on financial aspects of information management. • Good training/capacity building and management skills. • Focussed individual with capacity to plan and manage in a multiple deadline-working environment. • Pro-active financial manager with risk assessment aptitude. • Willingness to work in an insecure environment. • Understanding of security issues and guidelines. • Ability to work on own initiative. • Experience of establishing strong working relationships with colleagues from different functions and cultures • Experience of a flexible approach to managing and prioritising a high workload and multiple tasks in a fast paced environment with tight deadlines • Experience of proactively identifying and addressing issues • An understanding of and commitment to Merlin’s mission and values
Desirable Qualifications, experience and competences
• Previous experience of working in field financial management. • Experience of working in NGO sector organizations. • Experience of field administrative/HR management. • Previous experience of working in Central/West Africa
To apply for this position To apply for this job, please go to
www.merlin.org.uk/jobs and apply using our online recruitment system. In order to apply for a job with Merlin online you will need to complete a short registration process and create an account – the online recruitment system explains how to do this. Once your account has been created, you will be able to save the information that you have entered in your application and re-visit it at any time before you submit it.
If you are unable to apply online for any technical reason, please contact
applications@merlin.org.uk.
Please note that we do not accept CVs. Unfortunately due to the number of applications we receive, only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.
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