Humanitarian // Current TV

Divorce Agreement - American liberals, leftists, social progressives... DIVIDE UP AMERICA

Divorce Agreement: Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives,... more

ejasun
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50 Fascinating Lectures for Humanitarians

A humanitarian is a person actively engaged in promoting human welfare and social... more

eva2
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Clint Borgen - Behind the Scenes

Clint Borgen discusses global poverty on KISS 106.1. This video gives a behind the... more

Poverty
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UN Says 8,000 Rapes Reported in East Congo Last Year

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=a9_ImG_9bQdU More than... more

ThomasZD
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Longest Serving Black Political Prisoner: Black History Month

February is black history month and so I will dedicate this piece to the longest serving black political prisoner in the world and to the many others who are prisoners in Cuba's jails....

Institutionalized racism was abolished in Cuba thirty years before Rosa Parks was thrown off that Montgomery bus. The government Castro helped overthrow had included blacks as president of the Senate, minister of agriculture, chief of the army, and Head of state, Fulgencio Batista.

Batista grabbed power in a (bloodless) coup in 1952, but in 1940 he had been elected president in elections considered scrupulously honest by US observers. So whatever racial barriers existed in Cuba at the time did not prevent a country that was 71 percent white from voting in a black president (Batista was mulatto, just like Barack Obama) - and electing him almost twenty years before Eisenhower sent federal troops into Little Rock to enforce legislation and 68 years before the first black man was elected president in the United States.

Today, Cuba's jail population is 85 percent black. The regime Castro founded holds the distinction of having incarcerated the longest serving black political prisoner of the twentieth century, Eusebio Peñalver, who was holed up and tortured in Castro's jails longer than Nelson Mandela languished in South Africa's.

Peñalver was bloodied in his fight with communism but unbowed for thirty years in its dungeons. "Nigger!" taunted his jailers. "Monkey! We pulled you down from the trees and cut off your tail!" snickered Castro's goons as they threw him in solitary confinement.

His communist jailers were always asking Eusebio Peñalver for a "confession," for a signature on some document admitting his "ideological transgressions." This would greatly alleviate his confinement and suffering, they assured him.

They got their answer as swiftly and as clearly from Peñalver as the German commander who surrounded Bastogne got from the 101st Airborne. Eusebio scorned any "re-education" by his Castroite jailers. He knew that it was they who desperately needed it. He refused to wear the uniform of a common criminal. he knew that it was they who should don it. Through thirty years of hell in Castro's dungeons, Eusebio Peñalver stood tall, proud, and defiant.

Ever hear of him? He lived in Miami (died in 2006). Ever see a CNN interview with him? Ever see him on 60 Minutes? Ever read about him in the New York Times? The Boston Globe? Ever hear about him on NPR, or during Black History Month? Ever hear the NAACP or Congressional Black Caucus mention him?

He was a Cuban political prisoner. And as we all know, with the mainstream media and academia, that form of opposition doesn't count. Today. Castro's police bar black Cubans from tourist areas. Cuba's prominent political prisoner, Elias Biscet, is black (I won't bother asking if you've heard of him either). And exactly, 0.8 percent of Cuba's communist rulers are black. In other places they called this "apartheid."February is black history month and so I will dedicate this piece to the longest... more

UrbanGypsy
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3 years ago
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Israeli Reponse To Haiti Crisis

Israel, the tiny country with only 1/1000th of the worlds population, has the most... more

datamined
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Red Cross text donations pass $21 million

A campaign using text messages to raise money for the Red Cross has tallied more than... more

bansheewail
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Has Disaster Profiteering Already Begun in Haiti? | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace |

The Orwellian-named mercenary trade group, the International Peace Operations Association, didn't waste much time in offering the "services" of its member companies to swoop down on Haiti for some old fashioned humanitarian assistance disaster profiteering. Within hours of the massive earthquake in Haiti, the IPOA created a special web page for prospective clients, saying: "In the wake of the tragic events in Haiti, a number of IPOA's member companies are available and prepared to provide a wide variety of critical relief services to the earthquake’s victims."

While some of the companies specialize in rapid housing construction, emergency relief shelters and transportation, others are private security companies that operate in Iraq and Afghanistan like Triple Canopy, the company that took over Blackwater's massive State Department contract in Iraq. For years, Blackwater played a major role in IPOA until it left the group following the 2007 Nisour Square massacre.

In 2005, while still a leading member of IPOA, Blackwater’s owner Erik Prince deployed his forces in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Far from some sort of generous gift to the suffering people of the US gulf, Blackwater raked in some $70 million in Homeland Security contracts that began with a massive no-bid contract to provide protective services for FEMA. Blackwater billed US taxpayers $950 per man per day.

The current US program under which armed security companies work for the State Department in Iraq -- the Worldwide Personal Protection Program -- has its roots in Haiti during the Clinton administration. In 1994, private US forces, such as DynCorp, became a staple of US operations in the country following the overthrow of Jean Bertrand Aristide by CIA-backed death squads. When President Bush invaded Iraq, his administration radically expanded that program and turned it into the privatized paramilitary force it is today. At the time of his overthrow in 2004, Aristide was being protected by a San Francisco-based private security firm, the Steele Foundation.

What is unfolding in Haiti seems to be part of what Naomi Klein has labeled the “Shock Doctrine.” Indeed, on the Heritage Foundation blog, opportunity was being found in the crisis with a post titled: "Amidst the Suffering, Crisis in Haiti Offers Opportunities to the U.S." "In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti's long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region," wrote Heritage fellow Jim Roberts in a post that was subsequently altered to tone down the shock doctrine language. The title was later changed to: "Things to Remember While Helping Haiti."The Orwellian-named mercenary trade group, the International Peace Operations... more

WeAreChangeKy
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3 years ago
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The Militarization of Emergency Aid to Haiti: Is it a Humanitarian Operation or an Invasion?

Haiti has a longstanding history of US military intervention and occupation going back... more

WeAreChangeKy
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Antijournalism: Enough with the Biblical References Already ...

Natural disasters are just that. Natural. Not spiritual. UGH!

derk
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Emmanuel Boyz Center/Kenya

18 rabbits digital media produced this short documentary about The Emmanuel Boyz... more

18rabbits
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O.Y.E./Honduras

18 rabbits digital media produced this short documentary about The Organization for... more

18rabbits
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Aid to Haiti in two days, Katrina in four

;_ylt=AtJzYNWDJB1kvV0A8K2f65Gs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNqaGUzNTBoBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMTE0L2NiX2h... more

bansheewail
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1 Million Somali IDPs are in risk of life threatening Diseases following WFP Food halt

Press release. Ref: yord/nbi/01/10... more

sojra
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CSR Minute: Goodwill + Dell Partner for Reconnect; Miami's Miagreen Conference and Expo

Corporate Social Responsibility News: Goodwill + Dell Partner for Reconnect;... more

3BLMedia
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3 years ago
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Want Good Volunteers? Forget The Altruistic, Find The Self-Interested(Part 1 of 2)

(This is an excerpt from a blog written by Chris Jarvis) Many argue that volunteer... more

3BLMedia
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3 years ago
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Empowering Forgotten Voices in Southern Africa

Helping orphans in Africa's poorest nations.... more

b_reilly
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Colorado Rocky Mountain School students start Random Acts of Kindness club.

Colorado Rocky Mountain School is an independent high school in the heart of the Rocky... more

3BLMedia
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McKesson's Community Investment Work Leverages Power of Employee Engagement

Since 2006, McKesson has partnered with humanitarian organization World Vision to... more

3BLMedia
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3 years ago
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Quite the feat: Students send 500 pairs of used shoes to needy souls around the world

(This article is worthy of posting in it's entirety) Friends and fellow Colorado... more

3BLMedia
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