Society's Child

A letter to the boys & young men of America.

J. Ishiro Finney
jishirofinney.com
Sat, 17 Feb 2018 08:49 UTC

A response to the mass shooting in Florida.

The bodies aren't even cold yet and already you are being blamed.

Yes you.

All of you.

The boys and young men who will grow up to become one half of America's future.

Once again, due to society's failure to raise you, to teach you, to properly guide you on your path to manhood, your mere existence is being held responsible for seventeen more deaths—this time in Florida, and once again, at a school. The headlines of the last few days say it all:

"Guns don't kill people; men and boys kill people, experts say"
-USA TODAY

"Michael Ian Black reacts to Florida shooting: Boys are broken"
-New York Daily News

"How Gun Violence And Toxic Masculinity Are Linked, In 8 Tweets"
-The Huffington Post

"Toxic white masculinity: The killer that haunts American life"
-Salon

"Toxic Masculinity Is Killing Us"
-The Boston Globe

"Toxic Masculinity Is Killing Us"
-Harpers Bazaar

"Don't Blame Mental Illness for Mass Shootings; Blame Men"
-Politico

Six arrested in Paragonah, Utah child sex crime sting

John W. Yelland
KUTV
Mon, 19 Feb 2018 19:59 UTC

Six men were arrested in Paragonah as a result of a child sex crime sting. The suspects had made arrangements to have sex with 13-year-old girls.

The joint criminal operation was conducted by Parowan authorities alongside authorities from Iron, Garfield and Beaver counties, and others.

The joint operation used a confidential informant to place an ad on websites known to produce child trafficking activities and child predators. The ad used in the sting had a picture of two young girls, with a phone number and a link to other sites.

The suspects all traveled to Paragonah, where they met with a confidential informant and agreed to have sex with one or more 13-year-old girls.

Comment: Army recruiter among 6 arrested in soliciting a minor sting

At least 20 students told police about receiving death threats from Nikolas Cruz - police did nothing

Rachel Blevins
The Free Thought Project
Mon, 19 Feb 2018 02:03 UTC

As new information surfaces surrounding the mass shooting that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last week, it is becoming even more apparent that law enforcement blatantly ignored a number of warning signs about the suspected gunman, which included 20 calls to police detailing death threats and violent behavior.

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel admitted that there were at least "20 calls for services in the last few years" regarding Nikolas Cruz, who is now accused of entering the school he was expelled from and opening fire on his former classmates and teachers. Israel said that given the latest allegations against Cruz, the department now plans to review the reports they have received in the past.

Comment:

Israel's right wing has never told the truth: Without lies the country could not exist

Gideon Levy
KBnews
Tue, 20 Feb 2018 01:43 UTC

Jerusalem is united, there's no occupation, the settlements are legal - all lies. That's why the right finds nothing wrong with Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a loyal representative of the latest on Israel's right wing. The right never eschewed lying and so it doesn't understand what all the fuss is about. Even when Education Minister Naftali Bennett dared preach to Netanyahu, he was sanctimonious about it; he too knows that lying is the language of his camp. It's in its DNA, part of its life cycle. Without it, it wouldn't exist.

After all, for the sake of the Land of Israel one is permitted to lie - and steal, too. And for the sake of other matters. And so the Israeli right never stopped lying; that's why it finds nothing wrong with Netanyahu.

The Israeli right has someone to learn from; there's nothing like the American right wing when it comes to lies. Guns everywhere are portrayed as the protection of individual rights, health insurance for everyone is considered a violation of rights, and neoliberal economic policies are said to be an example for the entire society.

Interview: Avner Gvaryahu, director of Breaking the Silence - 'I helped entrench the occupation'

Middle East Monitor
Sat, 17 Feb 2018 00:02 UTC

A former Israeli soldier has said that it is the responsibility of Israeli citizens to call for an end to the occupation in order to put an end to the suffering of the Palestinians.

During an interview with BBC HARDtalk last week, Avner Gvaryahu, executive director of Breaking the Silence, spoke about the organisation's mission to collect testimonies from Israeli soldiers who witnessed the crimes of the military against the Palestinian people.

A former paratrooper in the army, he spoke of his personal experience as a soldier and the operations he was made to carry out.

"I was the sergeant of a snipers team and one of the routine missions we carried out in Nablus, in Jenin or the surrounding areas of those two cities, was a mission that we call a Straw Widow; you would take over a Palestinian home. Every house in the West Bank actually has a number, each and every house has a number, so we would open up the maps and look at the specific house that looked into the right place that we had to enter, and after we would verify that the house has the best parameters, windows and geographical area, we made sure that the people in the house were innocent. So we would enter a house of an innocent Palestinian home in the middle of the night," he explained.

Avner Gvaryahu, Breaking the Silence's executive director interviews to BBC HARDtalk with Stephen Sackur.

Comment:

Iraqi court sentences German teen 'jihadi bride' to six years in jail

RT
Sun, 18 Feb 2018 21:28 UTC

An Iraqi court has sentenced German teenager Linda Wenzel, dubbed a "jihadi bride", to six years in prison for her affiliation with Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), German media has reported.

Wenzel was given a five-year sentence for being a member of IS and another year for crossing into Iraq illegally, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported on Sunday, citing judicial sources. Her hearing at the Palace of Justice in Baghdad was closed off to the public due to her age, but representatives from the German embassy were present at the trial.

Originally from Pulsnitz, a town near Dresden in eastern Germany, Wenzel converted to Islam in 2016. After meeting extremists online at the age of 15, Wenzel ran away from home and made her way into Iraq through Turkey and Syria. There, she reportedly married a Chechen fighter, who was later killed.

After being captured in Mosul last year, Wenzel made headlines across the world when footage emerged that showed her terrified and in tears as she was dragged along by Iraqi troops. But the teenager was just one of many women from Europe and elsewhere who traveled to the Middle East to become jihadi brides.

Since her capture, Wenzel has expressed regret for her actions. "I want to go home to my family," she told reporters. "I want to get out of the war, away from the weapons, the noise. I don't know how I came up with such a dumb idea. I've completely ruined my life."

Man found not guilty in killing a police officer, acted in self defense

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Sun, 18 Feb 2018 00:00 UTC

In an extremely rare move, a jury has returned a verdict of not guilty in the trial of a man who killed a St. Clair Township police officer as he responded to a domestic violence call in November of 2015.

After six days of testimony and more than 20 hours of jury deliberations, Ray Shetler Jr. was found not guilty of murder Friday in the fatal shooting of St. Clair Township Police Officer Lloyd Reed, according to Trib Live. Shelter was facing the death penalty for killing the officer before he was found not guilty of first and third-degree murder.

As Trib Live reports:

Shetler, 33, of New Florence, jumped up and hugged his defense attorney as the verdict was announced. His family members, seated just one row in front of Reed's family, let out an audible gasp.

"You were in the courtroom, you saw him hugging me, thanking me for saving his life," said defense attorney Marc Daffner.

The jury found Shetler guilty of two lesser charges in connection with stealing a truck as he attempted to flee the scene of the shooting in New Florence and swam across the Conemaugh River.

Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio ordered Shetler remain in jail until he is able to post $100,000 bail that continues keeps him in custody for the theft and receiving stolen property convictions.

The judge said Shetler could be sentenced up to seven years in prison.

While there have been a few cases of people being found not guilty of killing police officers, this case stands out for several reasons.

Over 100 examples of US meddling in foreign nations' affairs listed by Russian senators

RT
Mon, 19 Feb 2018 20:28 UTC

A Russian parliamentary commission has prepared a report that lists over 100 cases of US interference in other nations' internal affairs since the end of World War Two.

"We have counted approximately 100, about 101 or 102 absolutely verified and recorded facts of American involvement in the sovereign affairs of over 60 UN member-nations since the approval of this organizations' charter that bans any such involvement - since 1946 till this day," the head of the upper house Commission for Protection of State Sovereignty, Senator Andrey Klimov, was quoted as saying on Monday by TASS.

Comment:

Whistleblower retaliation: U.S. Intelligence shuts down damning report

Kevin Poulsen
The Daily Beast
Mon, 19 Feb 2018 17:23 UTC

A top watchdog investigated 190 cases of alleged retaliation against whistleblowers-and found that intelligence bureaucrats only once ruled in favor of the whistleblower.

The nation's top intelligence watchdog put the brakes on a report last year that uncovered whistleblower reprisal issues within America's spy agencies, The Daily Beast has learned. The move concealed a finding that the agencies-including the CIA and the NSA-were failing to protect intelligence workers who report waste, fraud, abuse, or criminality up the chain of command.

The investigators looked into 190 cases of alleged reprisal in six agencies, and uncovered a shocking pattern. In only one case out of the 190 did the agencies find in favor of the whistleblower-and that case took 742 days to complete. Other cases remained open longer. One complaint from 2010 was still waiting for a ruling. But the framework was remarkably consistent: Over and over and over again, intelligence inspectors ruled that the agency was in the right, and the whistleblowers were almost always wrong.

The report was near completion following a six-month-long inspection run out of the Intelligence Community Inspector General office. It was aborted in April by the new acting head of the office, Wayne Stone, following the discovery that one of the inspectors was himself a whistleblower in the middle of a federal lawsuit against the CIA, according to former IC IG officials.

Comment: The problem is not just within the CIA. Those trying to do the right thing by calling attention to malfeasance in other organizations are equally persecuted:

Palestinian village calls for international help following decision by Israeli court to proceed with demolitions

Mondoweiss
Fri, 16 Feb 2018 00:00 UTC

On the top of the hill, at the edge of the village, Najah Moukhanam is looking with melancholy at her almond trees and blooming flowers that she planted. Her garden and tent can be destroyed at any time by the Israeli army. "I am tired. My body, my heart and my mind are tired," Moukhanam told Mondoweiss. "It's impossible that they demolish and I leave my homeland, because if I left they will take it. [So] they demolish and I build again, I will put in all my effort and stay in this land."

The inhabitants of Susiya are farmers, or so called fellahin in Arabic. In 1986, they were expelled from their village in the south Hebron Hills of the West Bank when it was declared an archaeological site by Israel. They were forced to settle a hundred meters away in tents on their farmland. Considered illegal by the Israeli state, the village of 350 residents and 107 structures including 32 houses has been dismantled several times and is constantly under demolition threat, though this has made the village a symbol of steadfastness.

Comment: The Israeli government has been destroying the homes and livelihoods of Palestinians for decades with complete impunity - and those are only the least of their crimes: Israel's never-ending crimes: It's not just settlements

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Society's Child

A letter to the boys & young men of America.

Six arrested in Paragonah, Utah child sex crime sting

At least 20 students told police about receiving death threats from Nikolas Cruz - police did nothing

Israel's right wing has never told the truth: Without lies the country could not exist

Interview: Avner Gvaryahu, director of Breaking the Silence - 'I helped entrench the occupation'

Iraqi court sentences German teen 'jihadi bride' to six years in jail

Man found not guilty in killing a police officer, acted in self defense

Over 100 examples of US meddling in foreign nations' affairs listed by Russian senators

Whistleblower retaliation: U.S. Intelligence shuts down damning report

Palestinian village calls for international help following decision by Israeli court to proceed with demolitions

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