We will light candles and pray for peace and freedom to the people of Tibet.
st anniversary of the monks’ uprising, in which thousands of Buddhist monks protested against Burma’s military dictatorship, and the twentieth anniversary of the 1988 pro-democracy protests by millions of ordinary civilians. PEN, the Burma Project of the Open Society Institute, and the New York Review of Books will join together to honor Burmese writers whose work has been suppressed by the military regime and to support the victims of the recent cyclone. The event will also pay tribute to the thousands of monks who are missing or have lost their lives last year, and to those who have continued to speak out against injustice for the past twenty years.
ew of Books, and Cooper Union.
Women are being used in this ideological battle over who controls your body, especially your reproductive organs. Anyone under the age of 50 can remember that time, that world, those days long ago, before we could take contraception for granted. I’m not tal
king about abortion but the right for a woman to decide she would deliberately engage in a sexual experience for pleasure and not for the purpose of bearing a child. Even with one's own husband, mind you! That was the sexual revolution and not too many men complained about it, as I recall. But the Priests and moral hot heads were outraged that women might take it upon themselves to prevent conception. Today's young women can’t begin to imagine how hellish that world was, because it forced every single person to be a liar and/or hypocrite. I’m especially driven crazy with fundamentalists who turn instinctual body awareness into distortions like fantasies of “purity” or something dirty or contemptible that is “ugly”. Well, I’ll tell you what’s ugly: totalitarian rule, and we've got to do something about it. NOW!
Whose Conscience Is It, Anyway?
The Bush Administration has now published the rewritten rules on "conscience" and those of us in good conscience must register our outrage.[All comments in bold and/or color are mine]
Action Needed:
Send your comments to Secretary Mike Leavitt at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Tell him: "This Administration has lost its moral compass when the personal and private beliefs of a pharmacist or bookkeeper are more important than a woman's bodily integrity, her health, her future, and her right to family planning options. Birth Control is NOT Abortion."
There are less than 30 days before this restrictive and destructive regulation goes into effect. Act NOW!
Or post a comment on Secretary Leavitt's blog!
Background:
In July, advocates learned of a draft administrative regulation which redefined abortion and threatened to withhold family planning funds from clinics and medical providers if they did not follow a set of punitive and often redundant rules.
On Tuesday, August 26 - Women's Equality Day no less - the proposed regulations were rewritten, finalized and published in the Federal Register. Despite the elimination of the most controversial language in the leaked draft (which defined many common forms of contraception as abortion), the new version of the rule expands the universe of providers that can refuse contraception and other health care services, including abortion.
Even with some editing, the rule continues to allow doctors, nurses, and nearly anyone else employed in a health care setting to deny women access to birth control, based on their own personal belief that birth control is immoral. [or how about, "It's okay for me but you're not ready"]
The regulation puts other federal and state laws and policies that protect women's access to birth control in serious jeopardy, including state laws that require hospitals to provide sexual-assault survivors with access to emergency contraception. Currently, there are "crisis pregnancy centers" in communities across the country that look like health care centers, but deliver woefully incomplete care and only provide the reproductive healthcare options that fit their agenda: NO birth control, NO abortion -- and NO choice for women and families who need it!
If Bush's proposed regulation takes effect, these "crisis pregnancy centers" are likely to receive a massive influx of our tax dollars.
At a time when 17 million women are in need of publicly-supported reproductive health care services, this regulation disparately impacts the low-income, uninsured and under-insured women who rely on these programs for their health information and services! 
Women's rights and health advocates have already sent almost a half million protest messages, but we must continue to demand that this lame duck Administration CEASE this effort.
Talking Points (add these and your own thoughts to the email when you "take action")
This will leave the door open for community health centers, hospitals and individuals to refuse to provide mainstream family planning counseling and contraception because they fear losing federal funds -- and it will expand the power of individuals to refuse to provide even the most basic information, counseling on contraception, and referral for important health care services.
Federal law has for years carefully balanced protections for an individual's religious liberty (conscience) and a patient's right to the full range of reproductive health care. The new, unnecessary regulations give major weight to the rights of the providers and the patients lose out.
Now you might think a blog called DisabilityNation would be biased toward two old ladies who are blind and need a cane. So ok, for a less, er, subjective report, the New York Times makes this story sound almost cute and normal. Note the lack of the words "freedom, liberty, dissent." Note the presence of the words "demonstrate, protest, disturbing public order". Maybe the NY Times doesn't see things so differently?
Too Old and Frail to Re-educate? Not in China
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: August 20, 2008
BEIJING — In the annals of people who have struggled against Communist Party rule, Wu Dianyuan and Wang Xiuying are unlikely to merit even a footnote.
The two women, both in their late 70s, have never spoken out against China’s authoritarian government. Both walk with the help of a cane, and Ms. Wang is blind in one eye. Their grievance, receiving insufficient compensation when their homes were seized for redevelopment, [are you listening, Lower East Side?] is perhaps the most common complaint among Chinese displaced during the country’s long streak of fast economic growth.
But the Beijing police still sentenced the two women to an extrajudicial term of “re-education through labor” this week for applying [my bold] to hold a legal protest in a designated area in Beijing, where officials promised that Chinese could hold demonstrations during the Olympic Games.
They became the most recent examples of people punished for submitting applications to protest. A few would-be demonstrators have simply disappeared, [my bold] [yikes!] at least for the duration of the Games, squelching already diminished hopes that the influx of foreigners and the prestige of holding the Games would push China’s leaders to relax their tight grip on political expression.
“Can you imagine two old ladies in their 70s being re-educated through labor?” asked Li Xuehui, Ms. Wu’s son, who said the police told the two women that their sentence might remain in suspension if they stayed at home and stopped asking for permission to protest.
“I feel very sad and angry because we’re only asking for the basic right of living and it’s been six years, but nobody will do anything to help,” Mr. Li said.
[...] When the International Olympic Committee awarded the Games to Beijing in 2001, ignoring critics who said China should not be rewarded for repression, its president, Jacques Rogge, offered assurances that the Games would invariably spur China toward greater openness.
But prospects dimmed even before the opening ceremony, when overseas journalists arrived to discover that China’s promise to provide uncensored Internet access [my bold] was riddled with caveats. The ensuing uproar did persuade the government to unblock some politically sensitive Web sites, but many others, including those that discuss Tibet and the banned spiritual group Falun Gong, remain inaccessible at the Olympic press center.
[...] “In order to ensure smooth traffic flow, a nice environment and good social order, we will invite these participants to hold their demonstrations in designated places,” Liu Shaowu, the security director for Beijing’s Olympic organizing committee, said at a news conference. He described the creation of three so-called protest zones and suggested that a simple application process would provide Chinese citizens an avenue for free expression, a right that has long been enshrined in China’s Constitution but in reality is rarely granted.
But with four days left before the closing ceremony, the authorities acknowledge that they have yet to allow a single protest. They claim that most of the people who filed applications had their grievances addressed, obviating the need for a public expression of discontent.
Chinese activists say they are not surprised that the promise proved illusory. Li Fangping, a lawyer who has been arrested and beaten for his dogged representation of rights advocates, said there was no way the government would allow protesters to expose some of China’s most vexing problems, among them systemic corruption, environmental degradation and the forced relocation of hundreds of thousands of residents for projects related to the Olympics.
“For Chinese petitioners, if their protest applications were approved, it would lead to a chain reaction of others seeking to voice their problems as well,” Mr. Li said.
During the past two decades, China has embraced a market economy [my bold] and shed some of the more onerous restrictions that dictated where people could live, whom they could marry and whether they could leave the country. But with political dissent and religious freedom, the government has been unrelenting.
[...] In recent months, the pressure has only intensified: scores of rights lawyers and political dissenters have been detained, and even the armies of migrant workers who built the Olympic stadiums have been encouraged to leave town, lest their disheveled appearances detract from the image of a clean, modern nation. [my bold] [oh, please, I can’t S T A N D it!]
“When you have guests coming over for dinner, you clean up the house and tell the children not to argue,” Mr. Bell said.
While the demands of Ms. Wu, 79, and Ms. Wang, 77, the protest applicants, might be seen as harmless, they threatened to expose the systemic problems that bedevil the lives of millions of Chinese. Like many disenchanted citizens, the two women, former neighbors, were seeking to draw attention to a government-backed real estate deal that promised to give them apartments in the new development that replaced their homes not far from Tiananmen Square. Six years later, [9/11 First Responder Alert!] they are living in ramshackle apartments on the outskirts of the city, and their demands for compensation have gone unanswered.
On Monday, when they returned to the police station to follow up on their protest applications, the women were told they had been sentenced to one year at a labor camp for “disturbing public order.” For the moment, t
he women have been allowed to return to their homes, but they have been warned that they could be sent to a detention center at any moment, relatives said.
[...] At a news conference on Wednesday, Wang Wei, the vice president of Beijing’s Olympic organizing committee, was asked about the lack of protests. He said it showed the system was working. “I’m glad to hear that over 70 protest issues have been solved through consultation, dialogue,” he said. “This is a part of Chinese culture.”
But human rights advocates say that instead of pointing the way toward a more open society, the Olympics have put China’s political controls on display.
“Given this moment when the international spotlight is shining on China, when so much of the international media are in Beijing, it’s unfathomable why the authorities are intensifying social control,” said Sharon Hom, the executive director of Human Rights in China. “The truth is they’re sending a clear and disturbing message, one they’re not even trying to hide, which is we’re not even interested in hearing dissenting voices.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/sports/olympics/21protest.html?ex=1219896000&en=bbbd73a1742fcf00&ei=5070&emc=eta1
China can’t block the music! If the bureaucrats think people won't buy this CD because THEY tell them not to, then they're going to be disappointed. Remember: use your freedom to help others without it. Peace can only exist when we are all free to express ourselves.
Over 40 Olympic athletes in Beijing download Tibet solidarity album 'Songs for Tibet'
International Campaign for Tibet and the Art of Peace Foundation
August 18th, 2008
Washington DC, (August 18, 2008) - The album 'Songs for Tibet: The Art of Peace,' a top-selling rock download in the US, Canada, several European countries and Japan - which reached #4 on the Billboard album download charts in its first week of sales - has been downloaded by more than 40 Olympic athletes competing at the Beijing Games. China's official media published a provocative online article that reported many "angry" Chinese 'netizens' are "denouncing" the project and that some have called for a boycott on companies that make the pro-peace album available for sale on the web, and a ban on those involved in making the album from entering China. Over a hundred download sites and on-line retailers sell the album worldwide. Twenty musicians contributed tracks, including Sting, Dave Matthews, Alanis Morissette, John Mayer and Moby. [my bold]
Michael Wohl, Executive Director of the Art of Peace Foundation which initiated the project, said today: "We are delighted that Olympics athletes took the opportunity to download this unique album, which conveys a message of hope and solidarity with the Tibetan people, as well as a commitment to freedom of expression that cannot be suppressed."
Over 40 Olympic athletes in North America, Europe and even Beijing contacted The Art of Peace Foundation by email and through the Foundation's website. Athletes downloaded the album as an act of solidarity with Tibet. International organizations including the International Campaign for Tibet, Students for a Free Tibet, and Team Darfur helped contact the athletes. Several of the athletes, who were assured anonymity, thanked the Art of Peace Foundation. In one case, an Olympian commended the Foundation's "efforts, music and passion for peace."
Following international media coverage of the album and its success, an article about the album - which referred to "angry netizens" who "are rallying together to denounce internet retailers that offer 'Songs for Tibet' for purchase" was published on two Chinese websites, china.org.cn - the authorized government portal site to China, managed by the Information Office of the State Council (http://www.china.org.cn/china/national/2008-08/08/content_16161481.htm) - and http://www.chinanews.com, a semi-official internet news portal which operates under close scrutiny and control of the Communist Party. This follows demonstrations by overseas Chinese against some companies (such as the French supermarket chain Carrefour) and broadcasters (CNN and the BBC) that have occurred since the international community has criticized China for its crackdown in Tibet, and in the buildup to the Olympics. The demonstrations and outpouring of Chinese nationalism, particularly linked to protests against Chinese government policies at the time of the Olympic torch relay, have been fueled by misinformation and propaganda from the Chinese authorities.
"The predictably hostile response to the album from Chinese internet users and an official website at this time reflects continued attempts to suppress any support for Tibet
at a time of crisis for the Tibetan people, as well as the level of entrenched misinformation about Tibet propagated by the Beijing government among the Chinese public," said Kate Saunders from the International Campaign for Tibet, which is supporting the project.
The double album, 'Songs for Tibet' celebrates peace, the Dalai Lama and Tibet. Twenty artists, including Sting, Alanis Morissette, Dave Matthews, John Mayer and Moby contributed songs for the release.
Proceeds that the foundation receives will support initiatives for promoting peace and Tibetan cultural preservation projects. Details at http://www.artofpeacefoundation.org. The video for the album, 'Songs for Tibet - Freedom is Expression,' is available on YouTube.
I do not want to paraphrase his holiness, and therefore only include his closing remarks. This is a very serious and important statement. Please read his statement at your leisure but with mindfulness:
The Dalai Lama 10 March 2008
