Propaganda was Successful: Dallas Police Department Sees Surge in Applications After Mass Shooting
/The Dallas Police Department has seen job applications surge threefold following the mass shooting that killed five officers earlier this month.
The department received 467 job applications in the 12 days after the July 7 shooting, Reuters reported on Friday, citing city officials. That number represents a 344% increase from just 136 applications during 12 days in June.
At a press conference last week, Dallas Police Chief David Brown asked people to “become a part of the solution” and apply for a job. He also spoke out immediately after the shooting about how his officers “don’t feel much support most days.”
Two Latino Men Released From Prison After 23 Years of Wrongful Incarceration Based on "profoundly alarming acts of misconduct" by police
/On Wednesday, Jose Montanez and Armando Serrano were released from prison after 23 years when prosecutors dismissed the murder charges against them.
Montanez and Serrano were convicted of a 1993 murder based on the testimony of an incentivized witness who was allegedly fed information about the crime by Reynaldo Guevara, a former Cook County detective who is now under scrutiny for many similar accusations of misconduct.
The men maintained they had nothing to do with the crime and solicited the help of the Medill Justice Project. In 2004 after a series of interviews, the key witness in the case recanted, saying Guevara coerced his testimony.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel launched an investigation into cases involving Guevara a number of years ago and determined that at least four people, including Montanez and Serrano, were likely wrongfully convicted as a result of Guevara’s misconduct.
Montanez and Serrano were embraced by their families as they left the Leighton Criminal Court Building on Wednesday.
“I knew I was innocent so that made me hopeful that someday I would get justice, and fortunately that day is today,” Serrano told the Chicago Tribune.
Serrano and Montanez were convicted on the testimony of Francisco Vicente, a heroin addict facing four felony charges who allegedly told Guevara that the two men had confessed to fatally shooting Rodrigo Vargas in his van as he left his Humboldt Park apartment for work.
In 2004, after a series of interviews with students from the Medill Innocence Project, Vicente recanted his testimony, saying Guevara had fed him the story.
Dozens of Montanez's and Serrano's family members and supporters packed a courtroom at the Leighton Criminal Court Building on Wednesday, laughing as Judge LeRoy Martin asked attorneys for the men if they had any objection to charges being dismissed.
Outside the courtroom they embraced, some in near-disbelief that a day they had waited two decades for had finally arrived.
The announcement by prosecutors came after a harshly worded appeals court ruling last month found that "profoundly alarming acts of misconduct" had led to the convictions of Montanez and Serrano for a 1993 murder.
Attorneys for the men said they hoped the decision was a signal that Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez was taking a fresh look at all cases involving former Detective Reynaldo Guevara.
Black Man's Murder Conviction Vacated After 17 Years
/An Oklahoma man was released from prison Monday after 17 years in prison. On Wednesday, a judge vacated his 2001 murder conviction.
Salaam Moore was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for a shooting that killed Phillip Gonzales and wounded Doris Wright. According to the Associated Press, Wright initially said she could not identify the shooter. A few weeks following her release from the hospital, however, Wright told police that Moore was the culprit.
In March, Wright recanted her testimony, saying that Moore was not the shooter.
“Mr. Moore did not commit these crimes, and he is innocent and wrongfully incarcerated at this time,” Wright said in an affidavit. “I testified that Mr. Moore committed the crimes … because I was afraid for my life if I told the truth.”
Moore told the Associated Press that he bore no ill will towards Wright for her testimony against him.
“I’m not holding no grudges or nothing like that,” Moore told the AP. “Just let her know that if she thinks I’m going to hold grudges or if she feels like I hold something against her, that’s not the case.”
Read the full story here.
Feds Seize Kickass Torrents Piracy Site Domain Names, Announce Arrest of Alleged Ringleader
/The U.S. Department of Justice has seized seven domain names associated with Kickass Torrents — purportedly the most-visited piracy site in the world — and charged the man they allege is its owner and operator with criminal copyright infringement and and money laundering.
Federal authorities said Artem Vaulin, 30, of Kharkiv, Ukraine, was arrested Wednesday in Poland and that the U.S. will seek to extradite him to the States. Vaulin allegedly owns and operates Kickass Torrents, which since launching in 2008 has provided a directory that lets users illegally download movies, TV shows, video games, music and other media collectively worth an estimated $1 billion.
Kickass Torrents has consistently listed movies still in theaters, according to the charges, which can be downloaded using file-sharing apps that use the BitTorrent-developed protocol. Recent titles include “Captain America: Civil War,” “Now You See Me 2,” “Independence Day: Resurgence,” and “Finding Dory,” officials said.
“Copyright infringement exacts a large toll, a very human one, on the artists and businesses whose livelihood hinges on their creative inventions,” Zachary T. Fardon, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, said in a statement. “Vaulin allegedly used the Internet to cause enormous harm to those artists.”
Law-enforcement officials across the globe have battled pirate sites for years, but the task of shutting down such illegal operations remains challenging as pirates routinely switch up domain names and use anonymizing services that mask their identities and locations. In one of the most notorious cases, the FBI in 2012 shut down Megaupload.com, which allegedly caused more than $500 million in damages to copyright holders — while legally embattled founder Kim Dotcom has claimed he’s going to relaunch the site next January. Meanwhile, the Pirate Bay, despite several raids and arrests of its organizers over the years, remains up and running today.
Kickass Torrents had been attracting more than 50 million unique monthly visitors, according to officials. The U.S. government’s complaint charges Vaulin with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and two counts of criminal copyright infringement. The copyright-infringement charges carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison, and the money-laundering charge is punishable by up to 20 years.
“This criminal case is a major step to reduce illegal theft of creative content by large-scale piracy sites,” MPAA chairman and CEO Chris Dodd said in a statement. “Actions like these help protect the livelihoods of the 1.9 million hard-working Americans whose jobs are supported by the motion picture and television industry – and a legal market that generates $16.3 billion in exports for the U.S. economy.”
In addition to the charges, a federal court in Chicago ordered the seizure of seven domain names associated with Kickass Torrents, which operates servers around the world including in Chicago: kickasstorrents.com, kat.ph, kickass.to, kastatic.com, kickass.so, thekat.tv and kat.cr.
According the DOJ complaint, Kickass Torrents’ net worth is estimated at more than $54 million, with estimated annual advertising revenue of between $12.5 million and $22.3 million. Kickass Torrents, also known as KAT, has moved its domain several times due to prior seizures and copyright lawsuits, and it has been ordered blocked by courts in the U.K., Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Belgium and Malaysia.
Federal agents busted Vaulin after posing as a prospective advertiser on Kickass Torrents. They linked Vaulin to the piracy site after identifying that the IP addresses he allegedly used to make Apple iTunes purchases on two different occasions in 2015 were the same ones used to log in to the KAT Facebook page around the same dates.
The KAT investigation was conducted by the DOJ in partnership with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations division and the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation division. Officials said they also received substantial assistance in the matter from the International Organized Crime Intelligence and Operations Center, the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, the DOJ Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs, and the Polish Border Guard and National Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Nice attack: justice minister demanded the mayor destroy 24 hours of footage
/INFO LE FIGARO – An urgent legal requisition was sent to urban supervision center of Nice Wednesday, July 20. The Paris prosecutor evokes a desire to “avoid the uncontrolled dissemination of these images.”
Panic and incomprehension in the office of mayor of Nice. Wednesday at 11 am, the Anti-Terrorism Sub-Directorate (SDAT) sent two agents who manage video surveillance of the city, with a requisition citing Articles 53 and L706-24 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and Article R642-1 of the Penal Code asking them for a “complete” erasure of 24 hours of images from six cameras named and numbered, but also of all the scenes from the beginning of the attack that took place on the Promenade des Anglais, on the night of July 14 .
“This is the first time we are asked to destroy evidence.”
The state agents of urban supervision center of Nice are stunned. “This is the first time we are asked to destroy evidence, says a source close to the investigation.The center of CCTV and the city of Nice could be prosecuted for this and also the officers in charge of the device don’t have jurisdiction to engage in such operations. “
The request is all the more astonishing that since the last Friday the SDAT sent its servers to recover the 30,000 hours of CCTV related to the events.
A backup operation that will extend even on several days. “We do not know if giving a destruction order while we are in full backup is not going to affect the whole system,” the investigators say with concern.
“This was done in this particular case to prevent the uncontrolled spread of these images.” said The Paris prosecutor.
Contacted by Le Figaro, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed the information and said: “this was done in this case to prevent the uncontrolled and unchecked dissemination of these images.” The national police is reminding us that “out of the thousand cameras in Nice, 140 had elements interesting for the investigation.The police recovered 100% of them.The Judicial Police and prosecutors have asked for the pictures from these 140 cameras to be deleted, to prevent malicious use of them, concern for the dignity of the victims and to prevent the resumption of these images by jihadist websites for the propaganda purposes.”Finally, at the chancery, it is specified that the application of an “complete” erasure is explained by the inability to make partial destruction of such equipment. [MORE]
Amos Wilson: The Creation of the Black Criminal
/The Criminalization of the Black Community
A PARABLE: A man named John once owned a show dog who had won for his master many prizes, helped him to become wealthy, win the envy of his friends, and even helped to save his master's life on a number of occasions. As the vicissitudes of capitalism would have it, there came a time when there was no longer any money in the show dog business. This situation changed Master John's feelings toward his once prized possession. He could be heard often saying — "He is lazy, a good-for-nothing cur. All he wants to do is just lie around and eat-up my food. I wish he'd just go away." Filled with hatred and resentment, Master John, by various cruel and ingenious means, drove his dog rabidly mad.
One day as fate would deign it, the mad dog attempted to attack its master. Master John felled him with a single shot from his elephant gun. Because there was a law against shooting dogs Master John was tried before a jury of his peers. Master John as represented by his lawyer pleaded self-defense — "It is cut and dried," his lawyer exhorted! "The dog was mad and in his madness he sought to attack his master, who in self-defense, shot him. His driving the dog mad and thus allegedly having precipitated the dog's attack as argued by the prosecutor is irrelevant and immaterial! Has not a man the right of self-defense? Besides, he was only a dog prone by dog-nature to go mad. Had he not been a dog he would not have been driven mad in the first place! For, if his master had not shot him the dog would have lived to attack one of us, our wives, our elders, our fair-haired little children. What does it matter how he became mad? What does it matter if one mad dog is no longer disturbing the peace and posing a threat to law and order? Master John did the world a favor. For that we should honor him, not persecute him." The jury of his peers found him not guilty.
Thus began the strange career of Master John whose single-minded purpose in life became that of breeding mad dogs and executing them in self-defense. He thereby gained great reputation and honored status among his neighbors who he protected from mad dogs running loose in the streets. He became an expert at breeding, apprehending, and executing mad dogs. To increase yield and therewith his remuneration — for this was by now a very lucrative business — he penned his trained mad dogs in with the not-so-mad dogs, many of whom themselves became mad and in escaping their confines, threatened the peace. Mad dogs were everywhere. The neighbors in their fear and terror became incapable of distinguishing the mad dogs from the not-so-mad dogs. All dogs, even the ones who were "members of the family" — even Cassie, the model dog, who everyone thought was near-human — aroused their suspicions. Thus as a preventative measure the village was lamentably forced to liquidate all dogs, regardless of their social status or mental state. After all, a dog is a dog, is a dog. They even formed a society for the eradication of all dogs everywhere. That is why on any quiet night of the week you can no longer hear a single dog baying at the full moon in Canineville today.
THE CRIMINAL IS one to whom an opprobrious label has been successfully attached. Labeling not only prescribes the behavior of others toward the one labeled criminal, or only negatively seeks to characterize him. It also tends to transform his self-concept and behavior in such ways that incarnates or substantiates the criminal appellation.
If to be criminalized, especially when the objective basis for such a designation does not exist, is to be dehumanized and to be related to as such by "significant others," then the criminalization of the African American male can be arguably said to have begun with the need of White Americans to justify their enslavement of Africans, and continues concomitant with their need to capitalize on unending African politico-economic subordination.
The cursing (a form of labeling) of another is tantamount to his dehumanization. It is usually a ritualistic prelude and justification for the other's subordination, or assault, or murder of another. The criminalization of Black people, particularly of the Black male, is a prelude for the rationalization of his economic exploitation, and ultimately, a prelude to the Eurocentric murder of the African population.
The Strange Death of José de Jesús - 1 of 160 [Non-White] Immigrants who Have Died in ICE Custody
/On May 13, 2015, José de Jesús Deniz Sahagun celebrated his 31st birthday with family and friends at his home in Jalisco, Mexico—steps away from the Pacific Ocean. They were celebrating, but also saying goodbye. The following day, José traveled to a town on the Mexican border where he would attempt to cross into the United States and later reunite with his three young children in Las Vegas.
But things did not go as planned.
Seven days after his birthday, José died inside the Eloy Immigrant Detention Center in Arizona. His death was ruled a suicide, after the medical examiner found a thick orange prison sock lodged in his throat.
In the last 13 years, 160 immigrants have died in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency that detains and deports people who are in the country without legal status, according to the agency’s own records.
The strange way in which José died, after spending just three days in detention, drew the attention of immigrant rights advocates. Of the at least seven suicides of ICE detainees since 2005, five happened at Eloy, prompting questions from advocates about the detention center’s readiness to provide mental health services to the immigrants detained there. And according to a recently released report from ICE, the detention center failed to meet several agency standards in the events leading up to José’s death.
José entered U.S. custody after he ran up to a Border Patrol checkpoint at the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, saying he feared for his life and needed help. Earlier that evening, he had called his sister Rosario in Las Vegas and told her that something had gone wrong with the smuggler his family hired to bring him across the border, and he took off running.
Once in custody, Border Patrol agents placed José in a holding cell. Agents reported that he was hysterical and that he had tried to hurt himself so badly that they had to take him to a hospital in Tucson, Arizona, according to an internal investigation into José’s death.
After being released from the hospital, José was taken to Eloy, about two hours north in the middle of the Arizona desert, and booked into the Eloy Detention Center, which holds up to 1,600 immigrants on any given day. During intake, there was no documentation of José’s suicide attempt and hospital visit.
Eloy, like many ICE detention centers, is owned and operated by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), one of the nation’s largest private prison companies. In the immigrant community, Eloy has a reputation as one of the worst places to be detained, with “constant complaints about medical care, mental health care,” said Victoria Lopez, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union. It was common, she said, to be “placed in segregation without knowing why or when you’d get out.”
Although ICE facilities look like prisons, the people detained there are held for civil immigration violations, not criminal proceedings. While there are detainees with criminal records, many —like José— have no criminal background and are waiting to be deported or to fight their case in immigration court.
Once inside the Eloy Detention Center, José was able to call his sister, Rosario. She said her brother sounded glad to be in the U.S., but anxious to get out of detention. That was the only time they spoke on the phone. [MORE]
Designed by White Supremacy: Mass Incarceration Is Making Infectious Diseases Worse
/There were no condoms in prison, only plastic bread bags and occasional rubber gloves, in Tela La’Raine Love’s experience. As a transgender woman locked among men in Louisiana’s Orleans Parish Prison, she recalled in an essay last year, “In order to preserve some safety and dignity, I always chose a man before one tried to impose his will on me.”
It was that dynamic—sex “out of fear and necessity”—that left her with HIV.
Some countries do make condoms available to prisoners, while others cite security issues, or blanket prohibitions of sex. Only last year, California became the second state to require that condoms be available to all prisoners. Even in places where condoms are available, guards sometimes limit distribution as a form of control.
In the medical journal The Lancet this week, researchers at Johns Hopkins cite this as one factor in the spread of infectious diseases in prisons. The researchers argue that this spread amounts to a human-rights abuse and a violation of international law—a cruel and inhuman failure to ensure humane prison conditions.
The penal system remains a source of diseases that spread among prisoners at rates far exceeding those in the communities from which they came. Of more than 10 million incarcerated people in the U.S. alone, 4 percent have HIV, 15 percent have hepatitis C, and 3 percent have active tuberculosis. These diseases are part of our criminal justice system, then, metered out and sanctioned implicitly by the state.
The penal system is also a primary reason that these diseases can’t be eliminated globally, and the problem goes well beyond condoms, according to Chris Beyrer, the Desmond Tutu Professor of Public Health and Human Rights at Hopkins, who edited the Lancet research series. He spoke with me by phone from South Africa, where he is co-chairing the International AIDS Conference in Durban. He sounded distraught over the fact that HIV infections stopped declining years ago in the United States, and are now stable around 45,000 every year.
In his findings, the spread of disease within prisons is a small factor compared to the effects of releasing inmates into the community with no access to treatment. Even in prison systems where people have antiviral medications, the primary problem is really the lack of care once they go back into the community. When a person with HIV, for example, has an interruption in their treatment regimen, the virus comes roaring back. Those people are infectious again, and often highly so. That creates a serious risk for their sexual partners, and anyone with whom they may share needles.
The scale of the problem is due to the fact that so many people are incarcerated in the first place, which Beyrer traces to the war on drugs.
“It’s abundantly clear that incarceration is a failure in terms of reducing substance abuse, but it also has these consequences for HIV, hepatitis, and TB,” he said. “We've been promoting this language around an ‘AIDS-free generation,’ but, in fact, failing ourselves.”
A practical approach to all of this is a new idea, but one that is supposed to be guaranteed by a recent international agreement. In 1955, the UN adopted a set of guidelines for the rights of prisoners, known as the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. While they represented a major advance at the time, they were still minimal, lacking an understanding of how infections spread, and of substance abuse, and mental illness among prisoners, among myriad other roads that lead to prison and out of it.
It took 60 years for the world to espouse more comprehensive standards, but the General Assembly finally agreed on an update to the rules in December of 2015. Now known as the Mandela Rules—for the man who was effectively given tuberculosis as part of his sentence—they start from the basic premise that prisons must protect human rights and dignity. People need adequate food, sanitation, ventilation, and to be protected from violence.
Basic as that may sound, former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nigel Rodley called this a “real deontological reorientation of the philosophy of penal institutional management”—a move toward understanding prisons as places of preparation for reintegration into society. With that came a focus on health, which may be the most striking advance in the rules: They guarantee a full range of diagnostic, prevention, and treatment services, including mental health and drug-dependency treatment. They say that prisoners “should enjoy the same standards of health care that are available in the community, and should have access to necessary health-care services” and be organized in a way that ensures continuity of treatment and care after release.
And this is yet, in many places, not happening. Cutting off basic treatments as soon as a person walks out of their cell is a failure to protect the public health and, really, a failure to provide care at all—a violation of the Mandela Rules. And it perpetuates inequality in individual communities. As black men are disproportionately incarcerated, infectious disease spreads disproportionally in black communities. Among transgender women of color in the U.S., the rate of HIV infection is 27 percent, inextricably linked to the incarceration rate, and some 35 percent of transgender prisoners in the U.S. report sexual victimization while incarcerated.
“The unfortunate reality is that when heroin and other injected drug use was largely confined to minority, inner city populations, all the approaches were about law, zero tolerance, mandatory minimum sentencing,” said Beyrer. “Now that heroin is a problem of rural and suburban white communities, suddenly we're talking about compassion and managing overdose and drug treatment, and less about policing.” [MORE]
Vipassana Meditation
/
By Osho
From "The Everyday Meditator"
Twenty-five centuries ago Gautam Buddha gave this method of inner witnessing to his thousands of disciples, many of whom became enlightened. Vipassana is simply a way of witnessing.
It is an invitation to watch yourself- your mind, your emotions, your body, your environment -without reacting to what you observe. It is an invitation to get to know yourself honestly and sincerely, to make friends with yourself, and to realize that the witnessing self is not identified with what is being seeing. Success and failure are not part of meditation, and nothing special is supposed to happen. There is nothing to expect.
Mind is tricky, and is not used to being observed at work and play. Excuses not to meditate, not to sit, not to have time, not to be comfortable will arise at first. It helps to meditate at a regular, pre¬selected time and place. But anytime is better than no-time, and anywhere is better than nowhere.
Sitting with a friend makes things easier. Remember that silence does not mean you can't enjoy, and having a group of friends meditate together is a beautiful experience.
Vipassana is the meditation that has made more people in the world enlightened than any other, because it is the very essence. All other meditations have the same essence, but in different forms; something non-essential is also joined with them. But Vipassana is pure essence. You cannot drop anything out of it and you cannot add anything to improve it.
Vipassana is such a simple thing that even a small child can do it. In fact, the smallest child can do it better than you, because he is not yet filled with the garbage of the mind; he is still clean and innocent. Vipassana can be done in three ways - you can choose which one suits you best.
The first is: awareness of your actions, your body, your mind, your heart. Walking, you should walk with awareness. Moving your hand, you should move with awareness, know¬ing perfectly that you are moving the hand. You can move it without any consciousness, like a mechanical thing... you are on a morning walk; you can go on walking without being aware of your feet.
Be alert of the movements of your body. While eating, be alert to the movements that are needed for eating. Taking a shower, be alert to the coolness that is coming to you, the water falling on you and the tremendous joy of it - just be alert. Any of these activities should not go on happening in an unconsc¬ious state.
And the same about your mind. Whatever thought passes on the screen of your mind, just be a watcher. Whatever emotion passes on the screen of your heart, just remain a witness - don't get involved, don't get identified, don't evaluate what is good, what is bad; that is not part of your meditation.
The second form is breathing, becoming aware of breathing. As the breath goes in, your belly starts rising up, and as the breath goes out, your belly starts settling down again. So the second method is to be aware of the belly: its rising and falling. Just the very aware¬ness of the belly rising and falling... and the belly is very close to the life sources because the child is joined with the mother's life through the navel. Behind the navel is his life's source. So, when the belly rises up, it is really the life energy, the spring of life that is rising up and falling down with each breath. That too is not difficult, and perhaps maybe even easier because it is a single technique.
In the first, you have to be aware of the body, you have to be aware of the mind, you have to be aware of your emotions, moods. So it has three steps. The second approach is a single step: just the belly, moving up and down. And the result is the same. As you become more aware of the belly, the mind becomes silent, the heart becomes silent, the moods disappear.
And the third is to be aware of the breath at the entrance when the breath goes in through your nostrils. Feel it at that extreme - the other polarity from the belly - feel it from the nose. The breath going in gives a certain coolness to your nostrils. Then the breath going out... breath going in, breath going out.
That too is possible. It is easier for men than for women. The woman is more aware of the belly. Most of the men don't even breathe as deep as the belly. Their chest rises up and falls down, because a wrong kind of athletics prevails over the world. Certainly it gives a more beautiful form to the body if your chest is high and your belly is almost non-existent. Man has chosen to breathe only up to the chest, so the chest becomes bigger and bigger and the belly shrinks down. That appears to him to be more athletic.
These are the three forms. Any one will do. And if you want to do two forms together, you can do two forms together; then the effort will become more intense. If you want to do all the three forms together, you can do all three forms together. Then the possibilities will be quicker. But it all depends on you, whatever feels easy. Remember: easy is right.
As meditation becomes settled and mind silent, the ego will disappear. You will be there, but there will be no feeling of "I". Then the doors are open.
Just wait with a loving longing, with . welcome in the heart for that great moment -the greatest moment in anybody's life - I enlightenment.
It comes... it certainly comes. It has neva delayed for a single moment. Once you are i the right tuning, it suddenly explodes in you transforms you. The old man is dead and i new man has arrived.
Sitting meditation
Find a place where you can sit comfortably undisturbed, without sleeping for 40-60 mint Although this is the ideal time you can also ! just 20 minutes - anywhere, anytime. Your and head should be straight. If needed it is fine use a chair. Your eyes are best closed, and your breathing should be as it usually is; easy is right. Stay as still as you can, moving only if it is really necessary. If you move, notice how and why you are moving.
While sitting the primary object of attention is the rise and fall of your belly -just above the navel - caused by breathing in and out. It is not a concentration technique, so when other things come into the field of your awareness, while watching your breath, these too are part of your meditation. Nothing is a distraction in Vipassana. When something takes your attention go with it. Place your whole attention on it, whatever it is. When your attention is free, then go back to your breathing.
It is the process of watching which is the meditation, not what you are watching. Remember not to become identified with, or lost in whatever comes up: thoughts, feelings, judgments, body sensations, impressions from outside, and the whole world which constantly snatches your attention from yourself.
If questions or problems arise which require an answer, let them remain a mystery until your meditation time is over.
Walking meditation
In this technique you bring your whole attention to your feet as they touch the ground. Walk slowly, ordinarily, with your awareness focused on your feet as they touch the earth.
Walk in a circle or a straight line, indoors or outdoors, it doesn't matter. Do whatever you enjoy most. Keep your eyes lowered so that you can only see the ground a few steps ahead. If other things take your attention, notice them, give them all your awareness. When they have lost their attraction return your attention to your feet.
As in sitting, witnessing is the process, but the primary objects are the feet as they walk, not the belly as it breathes. The period for walking should be 20-30 minutes or it can be combined with 45 minutes of sitting followed by 15 minutes of walking.
General awareness meditation
Anything can become your primary object for witnessing. Slowing down, doing one thing at a time you can become aware of what you are doing, while you are doing it. This can include not only actions but intentions too. Everything in your daily routine: eating, washing up, cleaning the house, smoking, telephoning, chatting over a cup a tea, dancing, flirting, reading, everything can become a meditation; all you need is awareness. Meditation can be fun and can enrich the quality of ordinary life.
Zazen
Zazen is deep unoccupiedness, it is not even meditation, because when YOU meditate you are trying to do something: remembering being God or even remembering yourself. These efforts create ripples.
You can sit anywhere, but whatsoever you are looking at should not be too exciting. For example things should not be moving too much. They become a distraction. You can watch the trees - that is not a problem because they are not moving and the scene remains constant. You can watch the sky or just sit in the corner watching the wall.
The second thing is, don't look at anything in particular - just emptiness, because the eyes are there and one has to look at some¬thing, but you are not looking at anything in particular. Don't focus or concentrate on any¬thing -just a diffuse image. That relaxes very much. And the third thing, relax your breath¬ing. Don't do it, let it happen. Let it be natural and that will relax even more.
The fourth thing is, let your body remain as immobile as possible. First find a good pos¬ture - you can sit on a pillow or mattress or whatsoever you feel, but once you settle, re¬main immobile, because if the body does not move, the mind automatically falls silent. In a moving body, the mind also continues to move, because body-mind are not two things. They are one... it is one energy.
In the beginning it will seem a little difficult but after a few days you will enjoy it tremen¬dously. You will see, by and by, layer upon layer of the mind starting to drop. A moment comes when you are simply there with no mind.
Bodhidharma sat for nine years just facing the wall, doing nothing -just sitting for nine years. The tradition has it that his legs withered away. To me that is symbolic. It simply means that all movements withered away be¬cause all motivation withered away. He was not going anywhere. There was no desire to move, no goal to achieve - and he achieved the greatest that is possible. He is one of the rarest souls that have ever walked on earth. And just sitting before a wall he achieved everything; not doing anything, no technique, no method, nothing. This was the only technique. When there is nothing to see, by and by your interest in seeing disappears. By just facing a plain wall, inside you a parallel emptiness and plainness arises. Parallel to the wall another wall arises - of no-thought.
Town near Ferguson, Mo., agrees to pay $4.7 million to settle ‘debtors prison’ case
/A city neighboring Ferguson, Mo., has agreed to pay $4.7 million to an estimated 2,000 mostly poor, black residents it jailed for unpaid court debts, many of them for minor offenses such as traffic tickets.
The agreement comes in a proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit preliminarily approved by a federal judge in Missouri on Wednesday.
The deal with Jennings, Mo., would mark the highest daily rate of compensation reached in a settlement with a U.S. municipality to resolve incarceration practices of this kind, according to civil rights lawyers who brought the case.
Critics of the jailings argued that they criminalize poverty and called the detentions unconstitutional because of a prohibition against jailing people just because they are too poor to pay.
Attorneys for the city reached “a comprehensive settlement that hopefully can be a model for other jurisdictions employing debtors’ prisons and cash bail” pending final approval by the court, said Thomas B. Harvey, executive director of ArchCity Defenders of St. Louis, which represented eight lead plaintiffs with lawyers from the Saint Louis University School of Law and Washington-based Equal Justice Under Law.
However, Harvey added that “there are 90 cities surrounding Jennings and Ferguson. Until all of them change their practices either voluntarily or as the result of legislation or litigation . . . this is still going to be a region that over-polices for revenue and criminalizes black life.”
D. Keith Henson, a lawyer representing the city of about 14,700 residents, said it will have no comment before final approval of the settlement, which includes an additional $1 million to $2 million in debt forgiveness for those detained for nonpayment in the city’s jail between Feb. 8, 2010, and Sept. 16, 2015.
U.S. District Judge Carol E. Jackson of the Eastern District of Missouri set a hearing for Dec. 14.
The legal groups filed lawsuits in February 2015 against Jennings and Ferguson, alleging that the cities increasingly saddled poor and black defendants with a disproportionate share of the costs of the local criminal justice system, fueling the type of frustrations that erupted after the fatal police shooting in 2014 of Michael Brown in Ferguson. [MORE]
Turning poor Black & Latino people into criminals
/Some people just can't seem to fathom why someone would run from a police officer or not treat one with respect.
Attorney KS Bloomfield, writing on her blog, contends it is because we have criminalized innocuous behaviors. "(T)ake a look at the 1001 reasons cops pull people over every day. Tags, lights, tinted windows, loud music, seat belts, turn signals, motor vehicle inspection stickers, etc. Selling CDs and cigarettes. Little free libraries. What great social harm is there? At what cost to society do we want such nonsense criminalized to the point people cannot pay their rent, and, worse, die? ... Are these minor human 'misbehaviors' worth the violence that can ensue?"
This is especially true in Louisiana and Baton Rouge Parish itself, writes Bloomfield, where in 2015 there were more than 90,000 traffic filings. In places such as Gretna, also in Louisiana, and Ferguson, Mo., fines and court fees are a substantial addition to budgets stressed by cuts and lack of revenues.
"Ferguson's law enforcement practices are shaped by the City's focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs," noted the U.S. Department of Justice. "This emphasis on revenue has compromised the institutional character of Ferguson's police department, contributing to a pattern of unconstitutional policing, and has also shaped its municipal court, leading to procedures that raise due process concerns and inflict unnecessary harm on members of the Ferguson community."
"Cops use all these infractions as ruses to shake people down," writes Bloomfield. "Folks working at low paying jobs, sometimes two sometimes more. ... And then you get a parking ticket. A busted tail light. Fines and court costs total $700. Ya can't pay you go to jail."
Often, we fall back on "Let the courts iron it all out." But if you are poor and can't afford an attorney, you might find yourself with a stressed-out, over-worked public defender with a pile of cases over his or her head. If you get a public defender at all, that is. There is a lack of funding for public defense in every state, notes the Pew Charitable Trusts. "(A)nd people charged with low-level misdemeanors, often poor minorities, suffer the most. Without a lawyer to argue against ... exorbitant fees, fines and court costs, defendants are likely to end up in jail when they cannot pay."
Public defender's offices across the country are struggling because state and local funding has been cut while legislatures have simultaneously elevated many infractions from civil to criminal penalties, Colette Tvedt of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, tells Pew.
"You've got a lot more officers who do what officers do — and that is enforce the law and arrest people," Mark Stephens, the head of the public defender's office in Knox County, Tennessee, tells Pew. "But you don't see a corresponding increase in the funding for public defenders."
So it's no wonder some folks avoid police at all costs and don't trust them; because to them, the police are not there to serve and protect them, but to accost and extort them.
As Russel Honoré, a retired Army lieutenant general, tells CNN, the officers are often in the same financial situation. "You know, in Baton Rouge, the starting salary for a police officer, less than $31,000." That's less than $15 an hour. So when you complain about raising the federal minimum wage, it's not just the folks at the local burger joint cooking the stuff you put in your mouth who are affected. So now these men and women who are overworked and stressed-out and are dealing with people who don't treat them with respect or run or don't follow orders. How do we expect these situations to play out?
"We take this underpaid and highly stressed group of officers, with guns and any biases they may harbor, explicit or implicit, and flood disadvantaged communities with them, where uncivil behavior can often take root ..." writes Charles M. Blow for the New York Times. "Now where would this revenue come from if it were not being bled from poor people? That's right, the rest of the population. The tax dollar that your local government refused to exact from you is being exacted from dark flesh. That same city service that your town can't truly afford but refused to forgo is being paid for by gouging poor people who have almost nothing."
So the next time you feel self-righteous after learning about another "criminal" shot down in the streets because he or she failed to raise his or her arms, or ran from police, or talked back, think about what it might be like to realize you can't go to jail because you can't afford to pay the fines and fees or the time away from work. "You may think that you are not a part of this, but you are wrong," writes Blow. "That's just a lie that your willful ignorance and purposeful blindness perpetuates, to protect your conscience. This is absolutely about you, many, many of you. There are more bloody hands than meet the eye."
US Sends More Troops to Iraq as UK Report Shows War Based On Lies
/Today, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced that the Pentagon would be sending 560 more troops to Iraq. The increase brings the total number of US servicemembers in Iraq to 4,600, many of whom are in combat roles. Though there has been no formal declaration or announcement, the US is, once again, at war in Iraq.
The US has even gone so far as to build a new military base in northern Iraq. It was near that base that a US marine was killed by a rocket attack last March. A Navy SEAL died in May, fighting in the same region. So far, there have been at least three US combat deaths since President Obama ordered combat forces back into Iraq to fight ISIS.
But while the Obama Administration is sending troops to Iraq for a new war, the Iraq War of 2003 has been revisited in the United Kingdom by an exhaustive report by Sir John Chilcot. The findings slam both the US and UK government’s actions and claims prior to the invasion. Being a UK report, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is the main focus, though US policymakers are implicated by extension.
The major findings can be summarized as:
- There was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein.
- The strategy of containment against Iraq could have been adapted and continued for some time.
- The UK undermined the UN Security Council’s authority when it sought to push through a second resolution, despite continued support on the council for UN inspections and monitoring.
- Blair made the decision to follow American policy on Iraq as early as December 2001, two years before the war began.
- He overestimated the influence he had on the George W Bush administration.
- He was warned that invasion would increase the risk of a terrorist attack in UK.
Most of this isn’t news. We know the threat was hyped and that Saddam Hussein was actually well-contained. We know those claiming otherwise in government knew those facts. In short, we know positively that Bush lied and people died.
Yet, there were some serious revelations in the Chilcot report, particularly concerning how early the decision was made to go to war in Iraq. In a July 2002 memo, titled, “Note on Iraq,” [PDF] Blair makes it plain that he and President Bush have already agreed to militarily overthrow Saddam Hussein, and are now planning how to best manage the aftermath. The memo actually notes that the UN is merely a prop for a public relations battle and that peace is off the table.
One aspect of the Iraq War, which the Chilcot report appears to leave out, is oil. In 2011, The Independent revealed the existence of UK government memos, which showed that “Five months before the March 2003 invasion, Baroness Symons, then the Trade Minister, told BP that the Government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraq’s enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Tony Blair’s military commitment to US plans for regime change.”
As noted by The Canary, the evidence of oil as a major driver for the US and UK invading Iraq is overwhelming. Both government strategy memos and actions taken by coalition forces themselves clearly demonstrate Iraq’s oil was of key interest to those overthrowing Saddam Hussein. One of the most obvious examples is that after US and coalition forces prevailed against Hussein’s forces, they protected the oil fields, while letting widespread looting sweep the country.
So, there you have it. The catastrophe of the 2003 Iraq War has been cataloged and officially condemned. At least in the UK. Though US veterans would like a similar report, the best they can likely hope for is some small hesitation from America’s imperialist class before calling for regime change. Maybe not even that.
"They Are Here to Kill Us Because We Are Black": Girlfriend of Philando Castile On Police Shootings
/On Thursday in Minnesota, thousands of people attended vigils for Philando Castile. A massive crowd gathered outside the Montessori school where Castile had worked. For the second day in a row, a crowd also gathered outside the governor’s mansion in St. Paul, where Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond "Lavish" Reynolds addressed the crowd. Reynolds livestreamed the aftermath of her boyfriend’s shooting on Facebook, while she was still in the car, with a police officer pointing a gun at her and her young daughter. She narrated as her boyfriend lay dying next to her. Speaking outside the governor’s mansion, Reynolds said she livestreamed the aftermath of the fatal shooting “so the world would know these police are not here to protect and serve us. They are here to assassinate us. They are here to kill us. Because we are Black.”
White America’s ‘undeclared war’ on black people
/“Systemic violence” in the United States’ political system is the root cause of the current situation in the country, says an African American historian as anti- police sentiments over racial profiling of the black community peaks.
In an interview with Press TV on Sunday, Randy Short spoke of “an undeclared war that white America has against black people.”
Three African Americans were recently killed in the hands of US police recently while five cops were shot dead by another one, pushing the nation into a state of shock.
“All that’s happening now is a public manifestation of systemic violence of a corrupt racist judiciary and political system that does not recognize rights of human beings,” Short said.
America's big lie
The Washington-based researcher touched upon racial profiling of the black community in the US and around the world, saying “we’re 12.5 percent of the world’s incarcerated population.”
In the US, many black people are apprehended as part of the so-called war on drugs, which according to Short, is meant to target the black people.
“The war on drugs, which is in reality a war against blacks, is a justification to kill us,” said the African American activist.
With the current human rights situation in the US, Short argued that US claim on support for human rights across the globe is a sham.
“White America is waging war on a defensive population that can’s fight back while it professes that it’s for freedom, fairness, and justice all over the world; This is a big lie.”
Amid massive protests over the killings of two black men in the US, a third one was killed early on Saturday.
According to the latest updates by Newsweek, “the circumstances that led Houston police to shoot and kill Alva Braziel remain murky.”
The 38-year-old was shot by Houston police forces after he allegedly delayed lowering the weapon he was pointing at the sky.
His death followed the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile in the hands of US police officers.
