By Esther Yu-Hsi Lee. Published 12-10-2015 at ThinkProgress
Muslim girls at Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta posing in front of the camera. Photo by Henrik Hansson – Globaljuggler (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia Commons
Many Americans have a double standard when it comes to judging whether self-identified Christians and Muslims are committing violence in the name of their religion, according to new data released just a week after two Muslims were accused of shooting and killing 14 people in San Bernardino, California.
A Public Religion Research Institute poll released Thursday finds that 75 percent of Americans believe that self-identified Christians “who commit acts of violence in the name of Christianity are not really Christian.” Only about 19 percent of respondents said they believe these types of perpetrators are authentic Christians. Continue reading →
More than 540,000 people sign petition calling for independent investigation of MSF hospital bombing, as new evidence throws Pentagon findings into further doubt
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)delivered over 540,000 signatures on Wednesday to the White House echoing the organization’s call for an independent investigation. (Photo: MSF-USA/ Twitter)
Wearing white lab coats, workers with the international humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders and their supporters on Wednesday delivered boxes and boxes of petitions to the White House gates bearing the signatures of more than half a million people who are reiterating the call: “Even war has rules.”
In the more than two months since the U.S. military bombing of a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, the Obama administration has thus far refused to respond to the medical charity’s demand for an independent investigation. Continue reading →
Republican lawmakers and meat industry lobbyists, now bolstered by the WTO ruling, are working to overturn meat labeling provision that 92 percent of public supports. (Photo: Jason Tester Guerilla Futures/cc/flickr)
In a move that watchdogs say presents a “glaring example of how trade agreements can undermine public interest policies,” the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled on Monday that the U.S. can be forced to pay $1 billion annually by NAFTA partners for its establishment of food safety laws.
In its decision, the WTO authorized $781 million from Canada and $227 million from Mexico in annual retaliation tariffs over the U.S. law requiring Country of Original Labels (COOL) for certain packaged meats, which food safety and consumer groups say is essential for consumer choice and animal welfare, as well as environmental and public health.
The United States’ North American trading partners argued that being forced to label where animals were born, raised, and slaughtered placed an undue burden on livestock producers and processors and, as AgriPulsereports, “ultimately persuaded the WTO that the law accorded unfavorable treatment to Canadian and Mexican livestock.”
Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, said on Monday that the ruling “makes clear that trade agreements can—and do—threaten even the most favored U.S. consumer protections.”
Citing a May 2015 speech during which U.S. President Barack Obama brushed aside warnings that agreements like NAFTA and the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) could undermine important regulations, Wallach continued: “We hope that President Obama stands by his claim that ‘no trade agreement is going to force us to change our laws,’ but in fact rolling back U.S. consumer and environmental safeguards has been exactly what past presidents have done after previous retrograde trade pact rulings.”
The ruling comes just two weeks after the WTO also ruled that U.S. “dolphin-safe” tuna labeling poses a “technical barrier to trade” that must be eliminated or weakened.
Consumer advocates say that rulings provide a stark warning as Obama attempts to rally congressional support for the 12-nation TPP, which critics warn also compromises food safety by, among other things, limiting inspections on imported foods.
The Republican-led House of Representatives last spring already passed a measure repealing the meat label provision—despite the fact that 92 percent of Americans support the policy.
Now, with the WTO ruling bolstering their case, meat industry lobby groups, including the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, are pushing the rest of Congress to follow suit.
According to AgriPulse, “Sources have indicated that a repeal provision may be attached to either the omnibus spending bill expected to be debated this week or a customs enforcement bill also expected to be considered before Congress is scheduled to adjourn for the year next week.”
“Keeping fossil fuels in the ground has quickly become the new standard for climate leadership,” said Jason Kowalski, policy director of 350.org. (Photo: kris krüg/flickr/cc/with overlay)
U.S. climate campaigners are claiming victory for their new and growing “keep it in the ground” campaign on Monday after the Obama administration postponed an auction for fossil fuel leases that was scheduled for later this week.
Given that approximately half the known fossil fuel reserves in the U.S. soil are beneath public lands managed by the federal government, climate activists have made ending exploitation of those deposits a key demand in the global fight to curb global warming. Following an announcement by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management that the auction in Washington, D.C. on Thursday would be “rescheduled” until March of next year, campaigners took it as a sign that their message is getting through.
According to the BLM, there were nine parcels of federal land that would have been made available in the auction, including two 80-acre parcels in Arkansas and seven parcels in Michigan totaling 427 acres.
“Keeping fossil fuels in the ground has quickly become the new standard for climate leadership,” said Jason Kowalski, policy director of 350.org. Referencing the ongoing UN climate summit now entering its second week in France, he added, “The Obama administration clearly recognized that it couldn’t present itself as a climate leader in Paris if it was peddling fossil fuels at home.”
Kowalski continued by saying that since the Obama administration succumbed to movement pressure and rejected the Keystone XL pipeline just weeks ago, the international climate movement is entering a new phase by focusing on keeping untapped oil, gas, and coal reserves untouched and underground. “You’ll see many more protests like this over the year ahead,” he said, “especially that we now have such clear evidence that they work.”
The coalition celebrating Monday’s decision noted that scientists have made it clear that in order to keep global warming under 2°C, a target the United States has supported at the climate talks in Paris, let alone the 1.5°C that many vulnerable nations are calling for, more than 80% of known fossil fuel reserves must stay in the ground.
According to Taylor McKinnon from the Center for Biological Diversity, “If the administration can’t handle the optics of auctioning fossil fuels while negotiating a climate deal in Paris, it shouldn’t be auctioning off fossil fuels at all. It’s time to end the federal fossil fuel leasing program to align public lands management with our climate goals and keep up to 450 billion tons of carbon pollution in the ground.”
Other groups involved in campaigning against the federal leasing program said it was clear that a planned demonstration outside the DC auction site on Thursday was a factor in its postponement.
Speaking from Paris, campaigns director for Oil Change International David Turnbull said, “Selling off public lands to the oil and gas industry amidst the Paris climate talks would have been the height of hypocrisy. We’re delighted to see this lease sale delayed but will be even more so once this fossil fuel leasing program is ended for good. Those of us working hard in Paris for a successful climate agreement need all the support we can get, and this victory for the keep it in the ground movement should put a little more wind in our sails.”
Though many have been impressed with Obama’s various statements and speeches on climate change in recent months, there remains enormous skepticism about whether his commitment to action matches up with the rhetoric.
“After bold statements for urgent climate action in Alaska and Paris,” said Marissa Knodel, climate campaigner for Friends of the Earth, “President Obama cannot claim climate leadership as long as his administration continues to offer our public lands and waters for fossil fuel exploitation. The Obama administration should take note: we will be back in March and at every other lease sale until he recognizes that his climate legacy depends on keeping fossil fuels in the ground.”
Thirteen people were shot dead, and 20 are wounded, after a shooting on October 1 at a community college in Roseburg, Oregon. Image via Common Dreams.
Men commit over 85% of all homicides, 91% of all same-sex homicides and 97% of all same-sex homicides in which the victim and killer aren’t related to each other.
These startling statistics are driven home with each new mass shooting (though the most recent tragedy in San Bernardino, California is a bit unusual in that a married couple were the shooters).
In any event, politicians and the media are trotting out the usual suspects to explain the tragedy, whether it’s the lack of attention paid to mental illness or the easy availability of guns.
But these explanations dance around the big questions: why is there always a man behind these shootings? And why is it almost always a young man?
Evolutionary psychology can provide some clues.
Precarious manhood
Psychologists Joseph Vandello and Jennifer Bosson have coined the term “precarious manhood” to describe a dilemma that only men seem to face.
In a nutshell, they argue that “manhood” – however an individual male’s culture might define it – is a status that must be continually earned. And one’s self-worth is tied to being perceived as a “real man.”
It’s precarious because it can be easily lost – especially if the man fails to measure up to the relentless challenges that life throws at him, be they tests of physical bravery, or competition with other men for respect and status.
When I introduce this concept to my male students, they instantly recognize what I’m talking about. But when I ask the women if there’s a female equivalent, I’m often met with confused looks. (Some do note that the inability to have a child could be a threat to womanhood.) Indeed, it quickly becomes clear in the ensuing discussion that “manhood” is more precarious than “womanhood.”
The roots of this male dilemma reside deep in our prehistoric past. Throughout the animal kingdom, the sex that invests the least in the reproduction of offspring (almost always males) competes among themselves for sexual access to mates.
Historically, powerful men have always enjoyed greater sexual access to women than than men lower in the pecking order, and violence can often be traced to this grim struggle for status. Anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon spent years studying the Yanomamo people of South America. He discovered that men who had killed other men acquired significantly more wives than men who hadn’t killed anyone. And by all indications, a man’s status in the group was often dependent upon how believable his threats of physical violence were.
In different cultures, the male “quest for dominance” may play out in different ways. Regardless, it is clearly a universal motivating principle among males, with the achievement of dominance satisfying and rewarding for those who attain it. As scholar Jonathan Gottschall put it:
To physically dominate another man is intoxicating.
And so, violence committed against the right people at the right time became a ticket to social success.
Competitive drives
For sound evolutionary reasons, younger men find themselves especially concerned with status and dominance.
For this reason, high-risk competition between young males provided an opportunity for “showing off” the abilities needed to acquire resources, exhibit strength and meet any challenges to one’s status. Consequently, heroic or even recklessly daredevil behavior was rewarded with status and respect – assuming, of course, that the young man survived the ordeal.
Today, the widespread promotion of sport in our culture undoubtedly developed as a constructive alternative for dealing with the proclivities of young males that evolved in a very different time. In a legally sanctioned gladiatorial arena, young men are able to exhibit the same skills – throwing, clubbing, running, wrestling, tackling, hand-eye coordination – that would have made them successful fighters or hunters in the ancestral environment.
Young Male Syndrome
It’s no secret that most people fear violent behavior by young men more than violent behavior by older men. There’s a sound basis for this fear.
In fact, the tendency of young men to engage in risky, aggressive behavior prompted the Canadian psychologists Margo Wilson and Martin Daly to give it a name: Young Male Syndrome.
The duo studied the relationship among age, sex and homicide victimization in the United States in 1975. They found that the likelihood of a woman being a murder victim doesn’t change dramatically throughout the course of her life. The pattern for the males, on the other hand, is striking. At age 10, males and females have an equal probability of being murdered. But by the time men are into their 20’s, they become six times more likely to be murdered.
Consistent with Wilson and Daly’s data, 87% of the 598 homicide victims in the city of Chicago in 2003 were males, and 64% of the victims were between the ages of 17 and 30. The likelihood of being the victim of lethal violence peaks for men between the late teens and late 20’s, before steadily declining for the rest of their lives.
Nature fuels the fires of male violence by equipping young men with the high levels of testosterone necessary to get the job done.
Studies on chimpanzees – our closest primate relative – have shown that high-ranking male chimpanzees exhibit the highest levels of aggression and the highest levels of testosterone. Furthermore, all adult male chimpanzees experience their highest testosterone levels when they’re in the presence of females who are ovulating. This is associated only with higher levels of aggression – not significant increases in actual sexual activity.
Researchers such as myself who study the relationship between testosterone and aggression in humans have concluded that testosterone-fueled violence is more likely to occur when males are competing with other males, or when the social status of a male is challenged in some way. The increased testosterone facilitates whatever competitive behaviors are needed to meet the challenge, which could mean physical violence.
Many studies have shown that testosterone levels in males rise and fall according to whether the individual wins or loses in competitive sports, like tennis and wrestling – even chess.
Sports fans experience the same spike watching sports, which helps explain the violence and destructive rioting that can take place after big games (win or lose).
Adding guns to the mix
So how do guns figure into this violent equation?
In 2006 I coauthored a laboratory study on men’s responses to guns in the journal Psychological Science with my colleague Tim Kasser and one of our students. We demonstrated that males who interacted with a handgun showed a greater increase in testosterone levels and more aggressive behavior than males who interacted with the board game Mouse Trap.
In the study, each participant dismantled either a gun or the mousetrap, handled its components and then wrote instructions for how to assemble the objects. Then we gave them the opportunity to put hot sauce into water that was going to be consumed by another person. The participants who handled the gun put in significantly more hot sauce – and were also more likely to express disappointment after learning that no one was going to actually drink the concoction.
Thus, cues tied to threats often won’t result in aggressive responses unless testosterone is involved. Elliot Rodger, the disturbed college student whose violent 2014 rampage through Santa Barbara, California, was foretold in a chilling YouTube video, clearly experienced a testosterone surge upon purchasing his first handgun.
“After I picked up the handgun,” he explained, “I brought it back to my room and felt a new sense of power. Who’s the alpha male now, bitches?”
Mass shooter = low-dominant loser?
Young male violence is most likely to be initiated by young men who don’t command respect from others. They’ll often feel like slighted outcasts, deprived of what they want or feel they deserve.
British clinical psychologist Paul Gilbert has developed something he calls the Social Attention Holding Theory. According to Gilbert, we compete with each other to have other people pay attention to us; when other people take notice, we build status. The increased status that comes from having others attend to us leads to all kinds of positive emotions. But persistently being ignored by others produces much darker emotions – especially envy and anger.
It’s no mystery why the media will often describe mass shooters and terrorists as misfits or loners. In many cases, they are.
Nicolas Henin was a Frenchman who was held hostage by ISIS for ten months. Here’s how he described his young, murderous, Jihadi captors:
They present themselves to the public as superheroes, but away from the camera are a bit pathetic in many ways: street kids drunk on ideology and power. In France we have a saying – stupid and evil. I found them more stupid than evil. That is not to understate the murderous potential of stupidity.
Apparently, a lack of attention from others results in a lack of status, resulting in a lack of access to women. Combined with a young man’s testosterone, it creates a toxic, combustible mix.
There may not be much we can do to change the structure of the young male mind that evolved over the course of millions of years. However, ignoring or denying its existence doesn’t do us any favors.
Before the details of the last mass shooting in San Bernardino were even known, Speaker of the House Raul Ryan spoke about how gun violence in America is a result of mental illness, and stated that the proposed “Murphy’s Law” would make America safer.
Until Congress lifts the ban for doing studies on gun violence in this country, we are only throwing darts at a wall while blindfolded.
The law would take away all privacy safeguards for anyone with mental illness. It then will force incarceration (called “institutionalization” in the bill) and will force this person into a drug regimen that may or may not be the correct course of treatment.
First, the law will serve as a deterrent for anyone thinking of seeking help for mental illness.
Second, the law will focus on disabled people such as returning veterans, violence survivors and others with PTSD and panic disorders.
Thirdly, and worst of all, the law clearly discriminates against a specific segment of the population based on what they might do, completely ignoring any oath of office to protect and uphold the Constitution of this nation.
There is a reason this is dubbed “Murphy’s Law” and we think it is more than coincidental.
“The time is long overdue for a global citizens’ tribunal to put Monsanto on trial for crimes against humanity and the environment.”
Image via Internet (electronzio.com)
On December 4, 2015, at the COP21 conferences in Paris, an announcement was made that has gone largely ignored by the US media. The transnational corporation Monsanto, considered to be the environmentalists’ and activists’ worst enemy in the struggle to save Planet Earth, is to be brought before a Tribunal in The Hague in October, 2016.
According to news reports covering the event, “The time is long overdue for a global citizens’ tribunal to put Monsanto on trial for crimes against humanity and the environment. We are in Paris this month to address the most serious threat that humans have ever faced in our 100-200,000 year evolution—global warming and climate disruption,” the president of the Organic Consumers Association, Ronnie Cummins, said at the press conference.
He also said, “The Tribunal will rely on the ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights’ adopted at the UN in 2011. It will also assess potential criminal liability on the basis of the Rome Statue that created the International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2002, and it will consider whether a reform of international criminal law is warranted to include crimes against the environment, or ecocide, as a prosecutable criminal offense, so that natural persons could incur criminal liability.”
The Tribunal will convene on October 12th through 16th of next year.
Tribunal Monsanto in The Hague –12th -16th of October 2016
For an increasing number of people from around the world, Monsanto today is the symbol of industrial agriculture. This chemical-intensive form of production pollutes the environment, accelerates biodiversity loss, and massively contributes to global warming.
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Monsanto, a US-based company, has developed a number of highly toxic products, which have permanently damaged the environment and caused illness or death for thousands of people. These products include:
PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl), one of the twelve Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP) that affect human and animal fertility;
2,4,5 T (2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid), a dioxin-containing component of the defoliant, Agent Orange, which was used by the US Army during the Vietnam War and continues to cause birth defects and cancer;
Lasso, an herbicide that is now banned in Europe;
and RoundUp, the most widely used herbicide in the world, and the source of the greatest health and environmental scandal in modern history – this toxic herbicide is used in combination with genetically modified (GM) RoundUp Ready seeds in large-scale monocultures, primarily to produce soybeans, maize and rapeseed for animal feed and biofuels.
Monsanto promotes an agroindustrial model that contributes at least one third of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions; it is also largely responsible for the depletion of soil and water resources, species extinction and declining biodiversity, and the displacement of millions of small farmers worldwide. This is a model that threatens peoples’ food sovereignty by patenting seeds and privatizing life.
According to its critics, Monsanto is able to ignore the human and environmental damage caused by its products and maintain its devastating activities through a strategy of systemic concealment: by lobbying regulatory agencies and governments, by resorting to lying and corruption, by financing fraudulent scientific studies, by pressuring independent scientists, by manipulating the press and media, etc. The history of Monsanto would thereby constitute a text-book case of impunity, benefiting transnational corporations and their executives, whose activities contribute to climate and biosphere crises and threaten the safety of the planet.
The Monsanto Tribunal, which will be held in The Hague from 12 to 16 October 2016, aims to assess these allegations made against Monsanto, and to evaluate the damages caused by this transnational company. The Tribunal will rely on the “Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights” adopted at the UN in 2011. It will also assess potential criminal liability on the basis of the Rome Statue that created the International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2002, and it will consider whether a reform of international criminal law is warranted to include crimes against the environment, or ecocide, as a prosecutable criminal offense, so that natural persons could incurr criminal liability.
Recognizing ecocide as a crime is the only way to guarantee the right of humans to a healthy environment and the right of nature to be protected.
Aware of these planetary stakes, the initiators of the Monsanto Tribunal are appealing to civil society and to all citizens of the world to participate in financing this unique operation through the biggest international crowd-funding campaign ever carried out.
Defending the safety of the planet, and the conditions of life itself, concerns us all. Only collective action can stop this machine of destruction!
Disbelief and immediate criticism followed as a bizarre situation unfolded on live television Friday afternoon when numerous journalists, unobstructed by police or other agencies, streamed into the home of the two people who carried out Wednesday’s mass murder of fourteen people in San Bernadino, California.
The apartment of Syed Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik—both of whom were killed in a shootout with police on Wednesday and subsequently identified as the perpetrators of the earlier mass shooting—has been a key focus of the investigation by law enforcement agencies who have been trying to piece together the planning and motivations behind the attack as well as details about the couple’s lives.
However, with the residence apparently left unguarded by law enforcement, a large contingent of journalists, including camera operators sending live footage to major outlets like CNN and MSNBC, entered the apartment and began rifling through personal belongings and rummaging through what many observers assume could be potentially valuable evidence in a high-profile criminal investigation.
Early reports indicated that it was the landlord who gave journalists access to the home, though the man identified as the landlord told the local CBS affiliate that he didn’t let them in, but that they “rushed in.” Footage from the scene shows at least one unidentified individual removing plywood from the front door with a crowbar.
The FBI, which has now taken over the investigation, answered questions about the incident by stating the scene had been fully processed and that authority over the property was, in fact, turned back to the landlord.
The following is a portion of what MSNBC aired lived:
The response on social media to what unfolded was nearly immediate, with many criticizing outlets for showing live shots of personal objects, including photos of children.
Harry Houck, CNN law enforcement analyst, said on air, “Usually in an instance like this, if crime scene goes in and does the work and comes out, you will keep that scene locked up, and with the sign on board saying that you cannot come in until the police release it. The fact is, maybe they did not do that here. I am I will tell you, I’m so shocked I cannot believe it. This is detective 101 for crying out loud. And now we have what looks like dozens of people in there totally destroying a crime scene, which is still vital in this investigation.”
The landlord, Doyle Miller, told CNN, “This is unreal. And I need to assess the damage. It’s a lot worse than what I thought.”
Despite the FBI’s subsequent announcement that the scene had been clear, other agencies seemed gobsmacked that journalists had been able to wander through the house and tamper with personal property as well as possible evidence. When contacted by the online news outlet Grasswire, Deputy Olivia Bozek, a spokesperson for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, said, “I don’t know what’s going on. That is not a cleared crime scene. There’s still an active investigation going on.”
Meanwhile, outside expert observers had a hard time believing that house should have been made available to either the owner, journalists, or the general public. The New York Daily News described how “security consultants on cable news watched the live feed in horror, slamming the moment as the destruction and contamination of a major crime scene. One even said that allowing the media to defile the scene he most ‘shocking screwup in police history’ and could not understand why cops on any level would have allowed such a thing to happen.”
“These attacks on clinics are part of a long history of ideologically-driven violence. They’re perpetrated by an extreme minority that’s committed to ruling through fear and intimidation.”
Reproductive rights groups are formally calling on the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate recent attacks on Planned Parenthood clinics, including last Friday’s shooting in Colorado, as acts of domestic terrorism—sparked by “hateful rhetoric” from Republican leaders and anti-choice organizations.
“These attacks on clinics are part of a long history of ideologically-driven violence. They’re perpetrated by an extreme minority that’s committed to ruling through fear and intimidation,” a coalition of advocacy groups comprising NARAL, UltraViolet, CREDO Action, and the Courage Campaign wrote in a recent petition to Attorney General Loretta Lynch demanding the inquiry. “Let’s call it what this is—domestic terrorism.”
Just 48 hours before a gunman opened fire in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs last Friday, killing three people and wounding nine, the coalition had also asked the DOJ for help protecting patients and staff from death threats. Since the shooting, the petition has garnered over 300,000 signatures and the support of more than 140 reproductive rights groups and abortion providers. Continue reading →
“This is total constitutional terra incognita,” one reporter said of an Article V convention. (Photo: Kim Davies/flickr/cc)
Under the radar of corporate media and general public, a “dangerous proposal” is bubbling up in state legislatures throughout the country—one that could trigger “political chaos that would make past upheavals like the Watergate scandal and the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton seem tame by comparison.”
The threat comes in the form of a constitutional convention, assembled under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, one of several mechanisms that enables future amendments. Article V requires Congress to call such a gathering once 34 state legislatures submit petitions to do so; new constitutional amendments agreed to at the confab would then be sent back to the states for ratification. Continue reading →
‘We’ve often wondered if Exxon actually hates our children because they so consistently stand in the way of safeguarding their future,’ campaigner said, ‘it turns out they apparently hate good journalism as well.’
U.S. Senator and White House hopeful Bernie Sanders on Tuesday slammed Exxon on social media, writing: “It’s absurd that massive corporations can legally intimidate journalists who dare question them.” (Photo: Minale Tattersfield/cc/flickr)
ExxonMobil has launched a full-throttled “bully” campaign against the graduate students who recently unmasked its scandalous climate change cover-up threatening to pull funds from the university that helped bring to light its dangerous and “most consequential” lies.
In a letter (pdf) addressed to Columbia University President Lee Bollinger and obtained by Politico, the oil giant’s vice president of Public and Government Affairs accuses a team of investigative journalism students of violating the school’s research policy by “suppressing” or “manipulating” information to produce “deliberately misleading reports” about ExxonMobil’s climate change research. Continue reading →
![Muslim girls at Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta posing in front of the camera. Photo by Henrik Hansson - Globaljuggler (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia Commons](http://occupyworldwrites.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/512px-Muslim_girls_at_Istiqlal_Mosque_jakarta.png)
