Rape is increasingly being used as a tool of war in ethnic conflicts in Darfur and Myanmar, wrecking families and communities, two women Nobel peace laureates [Jody Williams and Wangari Maathai] warned Tuesday. ... The duo, accompanied by actress-activist Mia Farrow and other rights campaigners, visited clinics and refugee camps to hear first-hand the plight of women affected by the violence in the two areas. ...
"It is very, very painful and for the women, it is pain you live with all your life ..." Maathai said. Agence France Press, 8-12-08
Darfur Crisis Update: Georgia, Off-Shore Drilling & the Darfur Olympics -- Glimpses into the Psyche of a Nation Lost in Its Own Mind
By Richard Power
We live in a world in which women and children have become worse than the victims of war, they have been the primary targets. And yet, somehow, normal broadcasting is not being interrupted or even adjusted.
Incredibly, you are being led to believe that there are more important stories.
There aren't.
But nothing should surprise us.
We live in a nation that has lost touch with reality.
We have been told by the world's leading scientists, economists, and military and intelligence analysts that runaway climate change is the greatest threat we face and that radically and urgently reducing our dependence on fossil fuels is a do or die imperative.
And yet, what has come to dominate the national debate in the run-up to the presidential election?
Off-shore drilling.
And although that should be sufficient evidence of a nation which has lost its way, consider also the air play on the carnage in Georgia. Pundits, network anchors, politicians, one after another, shamelessly denouncing Russia's unilateral aggression -- as if the invasion and occupation of Iraq was somehow of a different moral order.
Well, the reality is that the situation in Georgia is very complex, and if you scratch below the surface you will find the fingerprints of the mischief-maker in chief and his minions.
We are rapidly hurtling toward another Cuban Missile Crisis; unfortunately, the likelihood that someone of JKF's caliber will be in the Oval Office when it comes is increasingly iffy.
Keep two simple truths in mind, and you will see your way clearly: 1) whatever position the "Neo-Cons" stake out is as far from the reality of the situation as the twisting of facts will allow; and 2) if you turn their position inside out you will find the right course of action.
No, nothing should surprise us.
Certainly not the sad fact that the US mainstream news media and the US political establishment are ignoring Mia Farrow's extraordinary "Darfur Olympics."
What would it have cost the networks to run these powerful digital videos delivered direct from the threshing floor of 21st Century genocide?
Nothing, absolutely nothing.
They would not need to interrupt their coverage. It could run it as a sub-text, they could even hide as they do behind positing talking heads with opposite points of view, as if there was moral equivalency.
But they have all done either nothing or next to nothing.
As I said, this should not surprise us.
For those of you who are not comfortable being swept away in the hype over just how many gold medals Phelps will win, here are two of Mia's "Darfur Olympics" episodes, with a link to the full series.
Darfur Olympics: Women of Darfur
Day 7: The Women of Darfur
Darfur Olympics: Childhood in Darfur
Day 6: Darfur's Children
For more information on the Darfur Olympics, click here.
I encourage you to follow events in Darfur on Mia Farrow's site, it is the real-time journal of a humanitarian at work; the content is compelling, insightful and fiercely independent.
Click here to sign the TURN OFF/TUNE IN Pledge.
For a Words of Power Archive of posts on the Crisis in Darfur, click here.
Here are other sites of importance:
Dream for Darfur
Enough: The Project to End Genocide and Mass Atrocities
Genocide Intervention Network
Divest for Darfur.
Save Darfur!
Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.
Darfur, Georgia, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Olympics, Divestment, G8, UN, Genocide, Eric Reeves, Mia Farrow, Dream for Darfur, China, Sudan, Investors Against Genocide, Richard Power, Words of Power
