The Therese Defarge school of Social evo

History for those engaged in creating it. Comprehensive activism and applied memetics.

25% increase in U.S. Army suicides  connected to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

A total of 64 soldiers deployed in Iraq have taken thier lives since the war began in 2003. In 2005 a total of 83 US soldiers died by thier own hand, compared to 67 in 2004 and 60 in 2003. Of those who took thier lives in 2005, 25, or one in three, were soldiers deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Army spokesmen Col. Joseph Curtin expressed concern but not alarm over this "slight" increase. The army has responded to this increase with more mental health professionals in the war zones, but without dealing with the reality that soldiers are being redeployed several times into war zones with growing a insurgency while the army faces a drop in recruitment rates to replace them. Veterans have predicted that as many as 1 in 3 Iraq war vets will return with sever Post-truamatic stress disorder, a diagnosis whose validity the Bush administration has already tried to undermined.
      Domestically Post Traumatic stress disorder has been on the increase as veterans from Vietnam become triggered as the war in Iraq becomes more and more like Vietnam. Vet Hospitals have been taxed to handle the increase in former soldiers seeking support that the Bush administration has not at all been willing to give. Instead key Bush appointtee with a long record of undermining patients rights, Dr Sally Satel has questioned the validity of PTSD in an effort to getting out of paying the mental health bill for a policy of war promoted by the administration.

Elizabeth Parenti Soba

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 20:06 | link | comments |

Adams Smith invisible (and fractured) hand 

     Do to some of the suffles of my recent relocation I am currently without internet access at home, thus the low activity that this blog has recently suffered. I should be picking up over the next week or two. In order to provide content I am including the copy of a letter I reciently drafted in reply to an opt-ed by University of Virginia economics professor Edwin T. Burton written in the Cavaler daily. 17 Uva students where reciently arrested during a sit-in demanding a living wage for university employees. The sit in lasted 4 days, the first day of which thier was a number of counter protestors supporting market wages ideologically insprired and centered around Professor Burton. Professor Burton used the old argument (it goes back to the original opposition to a minimum wage presented furing the depression) that setting a minimum wage will destroy jobs beefed up with psuodo-smithian market based concept of the neo-con. I hope the content will be useful. While i don't particular recommend the Prof original article and can be read at

http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle.asp?ID=26878&pid=1438   

For those interested in the sit in I recommend the following aritcles

http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2906

http://loper.org/~george/trends/2006/Apr/958.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401562.html

My letter

  I would like to point out some fact that conflict with the guest view point “Campaign to Lose Jobs” put forth by Edwin Burton, visiting professor of economics. First and very importantly is the assertion that the living wage is endorsed only by individuals capable of making far more than a living wage. I write as member of the core group of CAGE (Citizens against global exploitation) and as a primary organizer of the Marriot action in which 20 individuals marched into and protest in the lobby of the Marriot hotel, 3 of whom where arrested. Earlier Cage had organized the Omni action in which 4 individuals were arrested for chaining themselves to the glass elevators in the hotel lobby. Prior to the arrest of the 17 students at hall CAGE had sustained the lion share of arrests for the Living wage movement in Charlottesville . CAGE demography is largely working class, for many including myself, two of those arrested at the Marriot and two at the Omni, the Living wage has been the most we have earn, while often making less. Underlying the misconception promoted by Prof. Burton is a major fallacy of those who invoke Adam Smiths invisible hand guiding the market, Prof. Burton is turning a blind eye to the intimidation factor that prevent vulnerable individuals from speaking out or taking action. I was personally thrilled at the broadening of demographic participation in meaningful civil disobedience that the sit in represents.

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 22:59 | link | comments |

US pride within the shadow of shame

     Next week will be adbusters TV turnoff week (April 24th to the 30th). As a few of you may know I have had to relocate, moving out of the group house that has been my home for almost 6 years, were the single rule was "no TV", I still live with no TV but for a few interim weeks saw a great deal of programing. One of the things that struck me was the massive amount of police re-enactment programing that showed shot after shot of large white males wrestling Black after black man to the ground until finally a heavy set woman was arrested in the same forceful manor. Even in the history channel a film focused on "Captain Crunch" former marine and CIA opprative in Beirut seemed to promote sympathy for the use of torture in US foriegn policy by focusing on this beefy bully whose name came from his brutal use of a big night stick while working as a motorcycle cop. Crunch was cashered from the CIA after the death, shortly after interrogation and confession of Elias Nimr for involvement in the Beirut embassy bombing. Even with the growth of channels and options that seem available to US citizens today TV provides a great deal of control in limiting what the average American knows. This week the UN committee on Torture has demanded the US provide more information about it's treatment of prisoners at home and foreign suspects held in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanomo. The committee also sought information about secret detention facilities, specificly asking the US if it takes responcibility for the acts of torture ever more apparrently taking place within them.
      What history is not made clear is the historical place of torture within authoritarian governments. Despite the common perception otherwise Torture has very little history as an effective means of finding accurrate information. People being tortured say not what they know but what those with power over them want to or at least expect to hear. Truth cannot exist within a power imbalance where those with power remain aboce being wrong and must be right. Torture may produce evidence supporting a position without ever shedding light on the reality of a topic. Torture is not about bringing things to light but is about darkness. Torture is about destroying human dignity and smashing the human spirit, it is about the degradation of humanity until neither the tortured nor the torturer can fully be seen as human within thier own eyes. Americans need to start searching for thier humanity, need to begin nurturing the dignity of humanity and shunning the false pride that does not allow them to question the contradictions our nation contenues to ignore.

Elizabeth Parenti Soba

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 19:45 | link | comments |

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