Blogswarm: Take Back the Blog

Earlier, I linked to Take Back the Blog! March, a My Left Wing essay by Bruce Godfrey of Crablaw's Maryland Weekly. He has now crossposted at Booman Tribune as well. An excerpt... As noted above, April is a traditional month for the Take Back the Night marches. The four TBTN marches I attended at Princeton over 15 years ago were very important events in my life and who I became as a person. In a previous diary I blogged about the impact of those marches on my personal and professional life. I learned more from those experiences than from all except perhaps two of the 30 courses I took while I was there. So I am announcing the first annual Take Back The Blog March, a blogswarm in defense of women's right to be left alone in peace at night, including in the night of cyberspace, to be published on April 28, 2007. If you care about women's dignity as people and as FULL participants in this community - not the Daily Kos community but rather the community of all liberal and progressive bloggers - I hope you will consider contributing. I will maintain the swarm list of links for Take Back the Blog March at my own site, Crablaw Maryland Weekly, and will prepare a link logo in the next few days for that purpose (or if you have a good logo, please contribute.) Contributions will be welcomed that stand up for the dignity, privacy, sovereignty, self-determination and freedom of women against all forms of predation - in the blogosphere, in cyberspace generally, and in regular life. I mentioned the need for a link logo to Demetrius, and he created the following. People are more than welcome to download and use them to promote this blog event. For my part, I plan to keep adding posts here as I find them (and as the feeds become available.)

Blood Money

Cross-posted at Diatribune and BlueSunbelt Ever wonder just how much money the U.S. Military pays out for its “collateral damage” -- civilian injuries and deaths in the war zones? For me, it’s not the money paid out that drives my curiosity. I’m sure it’s just some arbitrary amount; just enough to temporarily appease the locals, and not drive them to join the insurgency. Rather, I’m interested in how far coalition forces will go in admitting how many Iraqi civilians are killed during military operations. One thing you can be sure of, the FOIA requests in no way covered the true depth and scope of the collateral damage that the U.S. Military has wrought upon the war zones. After all, the records don’t even cover civilian injuries and fatalities incurred during “battle activity.” Of course, coalition led investigations get to categorize the situation – and we all know how well most of the regular U.S military investigations have worked out for civilians caught in war zones. Here’s one clue: "We don't do body counts," Gen. Tommy Franks, who directed the Iraq invasion, has said. -- San Francisco Chronicle – May 3, 2003 Well, at least the ACLU is still trying to bring some sunshine to the fog of war. BTW, we really need to acknowledge the good work that the ACLU is doing both stateside and abroad lately. To be honest, I have mixed feelings about the ACLU. They’ve taken on some dubious cases in the past, IMHO. But, they seem to have found their way defending the U.S. Constitution in the Bush era. We’ll especially need their services here at home in the near future, working with the Dem Majority in Congress, to keep the pressure on the Bush administration by way of court filings, amicus curiae briefs, and perhaps, even a class-action suit or two. In case you missed the other links, you can join or donate to the ACLU here. But, I digress… The American Civil Liberties Union recently obtained files from the U.S. Military on compensation claims to Iraqi and Afghan civilians killed and hurt by coalition forces over the past five-plus-years. The records were turned over to the civil liberties group in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. From Friday’s BBC News: Of the 496 claims, 164 resulted in cash payments to families, the ACLU says. Many files relate to civilian deaths at checkpoints or near US convoys. If it does not accept responsibility for the civilian's death, the military can make a discretionary "condolence" payment, which is offered without admission of fault and is capped at $2,500. In the 164 claims resulting in payments, about half were for compensation and the remainder condolence payments. The New York-based ACLU believes the files it has received are a very small proportion of those held by the defence department, and is pressing it to disclose them all. Yeah, right, maybe when I’m 80. An attorney for the ACLU, Jameel Jaffer told BBC that it was the first time the U.S. government released to the public any records of this kind. "For the first time they give the public access to very detailed information about the human costs of war," he said. "They allow the public to understand the burden that has been borne by civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan." The ACLU published summaries of claims that were submitted to the U.S. Foreign Claims Commission by relatives of civilians said to have been killed as a result of actions taken by coalition forces. • Some 479 of the claims relate to incidents in Iraq, dating from May 2003 to late 2006 with the majority in 2005, and 17 to Afghanistan, most dating from 2006. • One-file records a payment of $35,000 made to a family in Hib Hib, Iraq, after US forces "accidentally discharged 155 mm rounds", killing three children aged five, 16 and 18 and damaging their home. • Another, dating from February 2006, describes how a fisherman in Tikrit was shot as he reached down to switch off the engine of his boat. He had been shouting "fish, fish" and pointing to his catch. The US Army refused to compensate his family for his death, ruling that it was the result of combat activity, but paid $3,500 for the loss of his boat - which drifted off - net and mobile phone. • In a fourth file, a civilian states that US forces opened fire with more than 100 rounds on his sleeping family, killing his mother, father and brother. He was also hurt and 32 of the family's sheep killed. The US Army paid $11,200 compensation and made a $2,500 condolence payment. It had been responding to an attack from the direction of the village. About a fifth of the claims relate to deaths at checkpoints or near U.S. convoys. In one case, a condolence payment of $7,500 was suggested for the deaths of a civilian’s mother and sister along with the injury of his 4-year old brother in an incident involving all four of them riding in a taxicab that traveled through a checkpoint in the town of Baquba without stopping. An Army memo states: "There is evidence to suggest that the warning cones and printed checkpoint signs had not yet been displayed in front of the checkpoint, which may be the reason why the driver of the taxi did not believe he was required to stop." As a rule, the U.S. Military denies compensation for “significant acts” for lack of evidence, despite eyewitness accounts, and instead, in certain cases, issues minimum “condolence payments.” Some of the claimants told BBC that official denied claims usually conclude with the phrase: "I wish you well in a Free Iraq.” And, if you think that’s ironic. Mr. Jaffer pointed out that he fears such platitudes, and the many instances denying compensation continue to enrage civilians, damaging U.S. efforts to win hearts & minds. "It's extremely important from a policy point of view that the US compensates people in these kinds of claims and that the system is fair and not arbitrary," he said. The US defence department has said it regrets any civilian deaths and strives to prevent them. "Any loss of life is tragic and our forces, as well as the forces we serve with, take every available means to limit the effects of combat on civilians," defence department spokesman Todd Wician told the BBC. I reiterate: "We don't do body counts," Gen. Tommy Franks, who directed the Iraq invasion, has said. -- San Francisco Chronicle – May 3, 2003 Yeah, not even the children. This war must end.

Blogging while female

I first learned about the crass, insensitive remarks of Markos Moulitsas in this post by skippy, and later found a post by Steven D at Booman Tribune. In a later diary, Steven included what Markos actually said: Look, if you blog, and blog about controversial shit, you'll get idiotic emails. Most of the time, said "death threats" don't even exist -- evidenced by the fact that the crying bloggers and journalists always fail to produce said "death threats". [...] But so what? It's not as if those cowards will actually act on their threats. For better or for worse, this isn't a country in which media figures -- even hugely controversial ones -- are routinely attacked by anything more dangerous than a cream pie. Since last night, I saw that skippy had updated his post with the following: addendum: feminazi, commenting over at echidne's blog, asks this question: i sent a email to http://www.mothertalkers.com/contactus asking them why they support misogynists through advertising. why don't you do the same? good idea! Except, I don't know how much choice they have, given that you see *this* at the bottom of the home page on that blog: © 2005, Kos Media, LLC I may be only a C-rate blogger (on a good day), but what do we *usually* do when we want to hold a public figure accountable for something they've said? Isn't it usually *their* advertisers that we write to? Or how about writing to some of the politicians and public figures who post diaries at Daily Kos. This Wikipedia article has a list. I wouldn't recommend this if Markos' remarks were a one time thing, but as shirlstars' comment here indicates, this is part of a pattern of behavior. See also: How not to be an asshole: a guide for men Why the lack of concern for Kathy Sierra ? Take Back the Blog! March, a My Left Wing essay by Bruce Godfrey of Crablaw's Maryland Weekly. Finally, as I noted here, I really haven't had it in me to do much blogging lately, and I'm still not feeling all that verbose at this point. But I do consider this to be an important issue, and, even if I don't manage to blog more about it, I'm going to make a point of adding relevant entries to my page of Google shared items, which you can find here.

America’s Wailing Wall

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Late night adorable-ness

New site for your dose of cuteness--when my brother was here for Easter, he told me about www.icanhascheezburger.com. The pics you see below are from that site. 'Night, everybody.