Randomly Relevant

nixonplumbingco:

1nf1n1t1:

nixonplumbingco:

letterstomycountry:

jasencomstock:

letterstomycountry:

Woops.

h/t Rocky Anderson

remember that time President Obama ordered the military to fire indiscriminate missile attacks on populated areas?

LTMC: Frankly it would be better if it was indiscriminate, given that Obama has ordered the military, quite discriminately, to “double tap” drone targets by shooting missiles at civilian rescue workers attempting to tend to the wounded from drone attacks in Pakistan.  I suppose this could somehow be justified in a Machiavellian paradigm if we were killing lots of terrorists.  But America currently kills 49 people with drones for every known terrorist in Pakistan.  And that too, quite discriminately, it would seem.  

The whole thing is made even more grand by the fact that Pakistani political leaders have asked Washington to stop doing this.  But they haven’t, despite the fact that the Pakistani government publicly opposes the program, which the State Department’s top lawyer says may make U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan an act of war under international law.  

Oh, I forgot to mention that a 2007 report by the Homeland Security Institute called the “double tap” a “favorite tactic of Hamas,” and the FBI considers it to be a tactic chiefly employed by terrorist organizations.  I suppose it takes one to know one, in the War on Terror.

Quality post right here. For all the interest that drone strikes draw in the current political climate, rarely do I see such a concise critique of not only the bloodshed itself but the immorality of the specific tactic, and the double speak that comes out of Washington during the rare times that it is discussed in public. 

Damn.  Props to NixonPlumbingCo for the research.  Click the link that he/she posted saying: “Obama has ordered the military, quite discriminately, to “double tap” drone targets by shooting missiles at civilian rescue workers attempting to tend to the wounded from drone attacks in Pakistan.”  

Oh no, don’t thank me for the research, that was Letterstomycountry. I don’t do shout outs very often, but I feel it’s necessary to thank them for their great research and fantastic blog in general. If you’re not following them, you’re missing out. 

(via politicalnighties)

mohandasgandhi:

humanrightswatch:

The US must stop sexual violence against immigrant farmworkers.

Hundreds of thousands of immigrant farmworker women and girls in the United States face a high risk of sexual violence and sexual harassment in their workplaces because US authorities and employers fail to protect them adequately.

In a new 95-page report, Human Rights Watch documents rape, stalking, unwanted touching, exhibitionism, or vulgar and obscene language by supervisors, employers, and others in positions of power. Most farmworkers interviewed said they had experienced such treatment or knew others who had. And most said they had not reported these or other workplace abuses, fearing reprisals. Those who had filed sexual harassment claims or reported sexual assault to the police had done so with the encouragement and assistance of survivor advocates or attorneys in the face of difficult challenges.

Farmworkers described experiences such as the following:

• A woman in California reported that a supervisor at a lettuce company raped her and later told her that she “should remember it’s because of him that [she has] this job.”
• A woman in New York said that a supervisor, when she picked potatoes and onions, would touch women’s breasts and buttocks. If they tried to resist, he would threaten to call immigration or fire them.
• Four women who had worked together packing cauliflower in California said a supervisor would regularly expose himself and make comments like, “[That woman] needs to be fucked!” When they tried to defend one young woman whom he singled out for particular abuse, he fired all of them.

© 2011 AP Photo

This is important.

(via le-kif-kif)