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camwynI realise that a lot of y'all reading this are of different religious persuasion from myself, or consider yourselves to be of no religious persuasion whatsoever. That's fine, but that's you. By my lights it's Advent, the liturgical season in which the faithful are supposed to be joyfully anticipating the birth of Jesus and obeying the exhortation of John the Baptist to 'prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths'. That takes a lot of forms, depending on where you are and who you talk to. After some consideration, most particularly of the stuff I posted on Friday, 4 December, I think I'd like to try something: once per day until Christmas I'm going to write up a spiel on some group of people doing what I consider to be Good Things, and where you can find information on them. Not soliciting, mind you. Just talking about organizations of people doing good, for information's sake. (Look, if the Lubavitchers can prepare for the coming of Moshiach with acts of goodness and kindness, the least I can do is blither about people doing things I like.)
I'm going to have to go retroactive on this one to cover a few days of the month thus far, so bear with me.
In honour of the part of Biblical tradition saying that the Messiah will liberate captives and end oppression, we'll start with one of my old-time faves, Amnesty International. Right now they're in the news mostly because of their report on tasers, but what they do best is bring public opinion to bear as a weapon. What distinguishes them from other pressure groups is that they use it on people who never thought their deeds would be brought to light: dictators, torturers, and other people who abuse the power of government. Amnesty doesn't just make noise in the news media to expose people. They call on their members to write letters and send emails and faxes to the officials in question, and to officials in their own governments, stating politely, civilly, and plainly exactly what's come to light and why it should be stopped. And it works, too, even with dictators who you'd think wouldn't be particularly interested in what the world knows about them. Not all the time, but often enough that people get freed who would otherwise have ended their days as desaparecidos, or been tortured to death.
It should be noted that Amnesty opposes the death penalty. This may not sit well with some of you, and I can understand that. I feel that their other work, such as exposing the bloody, inhuman nature of much of the diamond trade in Africa, their campaign to bring Dow Chemical to justice for what happened in Bhopal, and their current campaign on violence against women (and gender violence in general), is vitally important. The death penalty issue is one I'm a bit up in the air about myself. I don't like it being used, especially since there's such a massive chance of it being used unjustly, but I also don't like the fact that some people commit truly heinous crimes repeatedly. If they can't be rehabilitated, then what's the point of locking them up forever? Punishing them that way only makes them worse. . . anyway, as I said I’m up in the air about that, and I consider the rest of what Amnesty does to be vitally important. Decide for yourself, of course. They'll be happy to explain.
NB: I am aware that the diamond industry went to self-regulation in 2003 with the Kimberly Process in an effort to show that their stones weren't being used to fuel civil war, or being mined by people forced into the trade on pain of death and dismemberment. It's not helping. The public needs to get involved in this if the blood of the innocent is ever to be cleansed from the world's diamond supply.
I'm going to have to go retroactive on this one to cover a few days of the month thus far, so bear with me.
In honour of the part of Biblical tradition saying that the Messiah will liberate captives and end oppression, we'll start with one of my old-time faves, Amnesty International. Right now they're in the news mostly because of their report on tasers, but what they do best is bring public opinion to bear as a weapon. What distinguishes them from other pressure groups is that they use it on people who never thought their deeds would be brought to light: dictators, torturers, and other people who abuse the power of government. Amnesty doesn't just make noise in the news media to expose people. They call on their members to write letters and send emails and faxes to the officials in question, and to officials in their own governments, stating politely, civilly, and plainly exactly what's come to light and why it should be stopped. And it works, too, even with dictators who you'd think wouldn't be particularly interested in what the world knows about them. Not all the time, but often enough that people get freed who would otherwise have ended their days as desaparecidos, or been tortured to death.
It should be noted that Amnesty opposes the death penalty. This may not sit well with some of you, and I can understand that. I feel that their other work, such as exposing the bloody, inhuman nature of much of the diamond trade in Africa, their campaign to bring Dow Chemical to justice for what happened in Bhopal, and their current campaign on violence against women (and gender violence in general), is vitally important. The death penalty issue is one I'm a bit up in the air about myself. I don't like it being used, especially since there's such a massive chance of it being used unjustly, but I also don't like the fact that some people commit truly heinous crimes repeatedly. If they can't be rehabilitated, then what's the point of locking them up forever? Punishing them that way only makes them worse. . . anyway, as I said I’m up in the air about that, and I consider the rest of what Amnesty does to be vitally important. Decide for yourself, of course. They'll be happy to explain.
NB: I am aware that the diamond industry went to self-regulation in 2003 with the Kimberly Process in an effort to show that their stones weren't being used to fuel civil war, or being mined by people forced into the trade on pain of death and dismemberment. It's not helping. The public needs to get involved in this if the blood of the innocent is ever to be cleansed from the world's diamond supply.
