culture of destruction
-
-
“Here we have incontrovertible evidence of happy young people not only hurting and humiliating others, but taking pleasure in it, posing with their victims. The Abu Ghraib torture pictures were trophies. The Steubenville rape photos are trophies. They’re mementoes of what must have felt, at the time, like everyone was having the sort of fun they’d want to remember, the sort of fun they’d want to prove to themselves and others later. The Steubenville rapists had fun, and they broadcast that fun to the world. They were confident that nothing could touch them, so baffled by the idea of punishment that they wept like children in court… Pictures don’t just record reality. They change it. They change us as we take them and consume them. It matters not just that we have photographic evidence of a girl being raped, but that someone took pictures of the assault happening to send to their friends as memories of a jolly night gone a bit hairy. The Ohio teenager who is now receiving death threats for reporting her rape is far from the only young woman to have her assault recorded for posterity. In the past five years, rapes and sexual assaults involving one or more attacker or involved bystander stepping back to pull out a smartphone have proliferated. What makes these men so sure of their inviolable right to stick their fingers and cocks into any part of any female they can hold down that they actually make and distribute images of each other doing so? Rape culture. That’s what rape culture is. The cultural acceptance of rape.” -
[TW: Violence] Kids do whatever they please in Hebron
[Breaking Silence] Israeli Soldiers Talk About Occupied Territories
testimony catalog number: 75697
rank: Staff Sergeant
unit: Nahal Brigade
area: HebronMy main difficulty in Hebron was the settlers, the Jewish community there. The feeling was that we were protecting the Arabs from the Jews, and neither side liked us, but it felt as though the Jews really did whatever they pleased and no one would care. We were stuck in the middle. I’ll give you an example of something that happened right next to me: I was standing guard duty and one of the outposts summoned a medic on radio. Someone replaced me at the guard post and I ran down, and I see a six-year Palestinian girl —
-
In in 1946, the United States conducted a series of nuclear weapon tests at Bikini Atoll in what’s known as Operation Crossroads. A total of two bombs were detonated to test the effects nuclear blasts had on naval warships. The second, named Baker, was the world’s first nuke to be detonated underwater. Due to the unique properties of underwater explosions, the Baker test produced a number of unique photographs that the world had never seen before.
There were many issues with cleaning up after the test, the life expectancy of people involved was reduced by an average of three months, and the test was later referred to as, “the world’s first nuclear disaster.” You can read up on the whole operation in detail on its Wikipedia article
(via rockinajar)
-
The Costs of War Iraq 10 Years After the Invasion: the total cost (including that of human casualties, economic costs, and civil liberties) of American wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan compiled and analyzed by more than 30 economists, anthropologists, lawyers, humanitarian personnel, and political scientists. The project is based in Brown University
-
ancer sufferer Mr. Wang is one of many cancer victims from his village near Wuxi city in Jiangsu Province. While the exact causes are unknown, he believes his illness was caused by using water polluted by local industries. In February 2013, the Chinese government acknowledged for the first time the existence of “cancer villages” linked to pollution from hazardous chemicals.
(via dom72)
-
“We realize that indigenous people in industrial society have always been and will always be in a relationship of war, because industrial society has declared war on indigenous peoples, on land based peoples.” — An Indigenous Perspective on Feminism, Militarism and the Environment (via ninjabikeslut)(via bedangeroustogether)
-
“That’s the funny thing,” she said. “Men always want to die for something. For someone. I can see the appeal. You do it once and it’s done. No more worrying, not knowing, about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I know you all think it sounds brave, but I’ll tell you something even braver. To struggle and fight for the ones you love today. And then do it all over again the next day. Every day. For your whole life. It’s not as romantic, I admit. But it takes a lot of courage to live for someone, too.” -
Thousands of gallons of pollution recovered from oil & gas spill in Colorado
March 23, 2013Cleanup continues at the site of an underground spill of thousands of gallons of pollution related to the oil and gas industry in the heart of Colorado’s fracking country.
The underground leak is located near the town of Parachute and has threatened to contaminate Parachute Creek, which flows into the Colorado River. State officials continue to report that buffers have kept the creek safe, so far.
Colorado regulators reported that nearly 6,000 gallons of “hydrocarbons” had been recovered from the site. At least 102,564 gallons of contaminated water have been recovered, as well.
The spill site is near a natural gas plant operated by Williams Energy, and another company, WPX Energy, operates underground oil and gas pipelines in the area. Both companies are working to contain the spill but neither company has taken responsibility, publicly revealed the source of the pollution or identified the type of hydrocarbons contaminating the area.
Spokespeople for Williams did not respond to several inquiries from Truthout.
Todd Hartman, a spokesman for the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, said that work had begun on Wednesday to excavate a large pipe in the spill area, where workers are “proceeding with care and deliberation.”
Earlier this week, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission issued notices of “alleged violation” to Williams and WPX. The commission ordered both companies to continue working to contain the spill and submit a cleanup plan to regulators.
Williams Energy workers first identified the spill on March 8, but the company did not alert the nearby town of Parachute until five days later, which frustrated local officials who visited the site this week. It’s unclear how long the underground plume of pollution was growing before Williams discovered the contamination in an area adjacent to its gas plant.
A local cattleman told The Denver Post that such spills are common in the area and often remain secret, and state records show that the oil and gas industry is responsible for hundreds of spills each year, the newspaper reports.
Advancements in drilling technology, such as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” have facilitated an oil and gas rush in Colorado and several other states. The environmental group Earthjustice reports that at least eight fracking-related accidents, mostly involving contaminated wells, have occurred across the state.
In a statement, the Colorado Wildlife Federation said the spill might have been detected earlier with better monitoring.
“This is one more strong argument for keeping oil and gas wells and related infrastructure a safe distance from waterways,” said Suzanne O’Neill, the organization’s executive director. “Regulators pledged to form a stakeholders’ group to develop standards for riparian setbacks a while ago. We’re still waiting.”
In 2008, Colorado regulators failed to include protections and buffer zones for waterways as they overhauled regulations for the oil and gas industry, the group noted.
-
“Globalization, shaped by a very patriarchal mindset, a capitalist, patriarchal mindset, has actually aggravated the violence against women, that we are living in a very violent economic order to which war has become essential—war against the earth, war against women’s bodies, war against local economies and war against democracy. And I think we need to see the connections between all these forms of violence, which impact women most. Whether it’s climate change or biodiversity erosion or seed monopolies, all of it is connected. It’s one piece.
This violent economic order can only function as a war against people and against the earth, and in that war, the rape against women is a very, very large instrument of war. We see that everywhere. And therefore, we have to have an end to the violence against women. If we have to have the dignity of women protected, then the multiple wars against the earth, through the economy, through greed, through capitalist, patriarchal domination, must end, and we have to recognize we are part of the earth. The liberation of the earth, the liberation of women, the liberation of all humanity is the next step of freedom we need to work for, and it’s the next step of peace that we need to create.”
