Tuesday, February 20, 2018
Will America Choose Its Children Over Guns?
As surely as there are camels’ backs and straws to break them, moments arrive when citizens say they’ve had enough, when they rise up against political leaders who do not speak for them and whose moral fecklessness imperils lives. We may be witness to such a moment now with the protests by American teenagers sickened — and terrified — by the latest mass murder at the hands of someone with easy access to a weapon fit for a battlefield, not a school.
These kids have had enough. They’ve had enough of empty expressions of sympathy in the wake of the sort of atrocities they’ve grown up with, like last week’s mass shooting that took 17 lives at a high school in Parkland, Fla. Enough of the ritualistic mouthing of thoughts and prayers for the victims. Enough of living in fear that they could be next in the cross hairs of a well-armed deranged killer, even with all the active shooter drills and lockdowns they’ve gone through. Enough of craven politicians who kneel before the National Rifle Association and its cynically fundamentalist approach to the Second Amendment.
They are asking in what kind of country are children sent off to school with bulletproof book bags strapped to their backs — capable, one manufacturer, Bullet Blocker, says, of “stopping a .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum, 9mm, .45 caliber hollow point ammunition and more.”
“I was born 13 months after Columbine,” a 12th grader named Faith Ward said on Monday, referring to the school massacre in Littleton, Colo., in 1999, the dawn of the modern wave of school shootings. Ms. Ward spoke to a television reporter at an anti-gun demonstration outside her school in Plantation, Fla. “This is all I have ever known,” she said, “this culture of being gunned down for no reason, and this culture of people saying, ‘Oh, let’s send thoughts and prayers’ for three days, and then moving on. And I’m tired of it.”
So are we all.
It is too soon to tell if this righteous anger augurs a sustained youth movement for gun sanity, going beyond the occasional protest. We hope it does. It’s time, once again, for America to listen to its children. Who among us have more at stake than they?
Sensible young people have it in their power to make their senseless elders take heed — and act. We saw it happen during the Vietnam War half a century ago. Young people, initially reviled by establishment forces as unwashed, longhaired traitors, energized an antiwar movement that swept the country and, even if it took years, ultimately ended America’s misguided adventure in Southeast Asia. To be effective, any movement needs a realistic program, not mere emotion. Otherwise, it risks coming and going in a flash with little to show for itself. A tighter federal system of background checks is a start, to better monitor would-be gun buyers with mental illness, for example, or histories of gun violence. Such a program should also include reinstating a nationwide ban on assault weapons — a state measure died in the Florida Legislature Tuesday — and ending an absurd prohibition against using federal public health funds to study gun violence.
Even President Trump, who told an N.R.A. convention last April that “you have a true friend and champion in the White House,” has signaled he might be willing to improve the system. The Washington Post reported that after Mr. Trump saw the coverage of the student protesters, he asked Mar-a-Lago guests whether he should do more about gun control. On Tuesday, he ordered that regulations be written to ban bump stocks, devices that can make an automatic weapon out of a semiautomatic. Beyond that, though, it’s hard to tell if he means business when he says he’s open to more thorough background checks. Steadfastness is not a Trump hallmark.
However, if young people channeling this angry moment remain steadfast, they might not only force his hand but also stiffen the resolve of other elected officials and candidates. Horrific school shootings aside, they are vulnerable every day to gun mayhem at a stomach-churning rate. The journal Pediatrics reported last June that gunfire, each week, kills an average of 25 children ages 17 and under. A 2016 study in The American Journal of Medicine calculated that among two dozen of the world’s wealthiest nations, this country alone accounted for 91 percent of firearms deaths among children 14 and under. What the young protesters are saying now is: Put down the guns. We’re your children.
How can anyone not heed their pained voices?
Some Conservatives Are Trying To Discredit Outspoken Florida Shooting Survivors
By Igor Bobic
After what seems like a never-ending stream of deadly mass shootings, many gun reform proponents fear that Americans have become too desensitized to bloodshed to demand action to end gun violence. This time may be different, in part because of the unusual visibility of some school shooting survivors from Parkland, Florida.
A number of teenagers who survived last week’s massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in which 17 people died, have been outspoken in their calls for stricter gun legislation. They’ve appeared on cable news shows to plead with lawmakers to take action to address gun violence. They’ve used social media platforms like Twitter to rebut lawmakers’ arguments on gun control in real time. And one group is organizing a nationwide march next month to demand that politicians make ending gun violence a priority.
But their outspokenness has drawn criticism from some conservatives, who have sought to discredit arguments in favor of gun control by targeting the students themselves.
Student survivors are really tools of a left-wing conspiracy
Former Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) suggested on Tuesday that left-wing organizations ― like the one run by billionaire and liberal activist George Soros, a favorite boogeyman of the right ― were using the students who survived the Parkland shooting to advance their gun reform cause.
“Their sorrow can very easily be hijacked by left-wing groups who have an agenda,” Kingston said on CNN’s “New Day.”
“Do we really think 17-year-olds on their own are going to plan a nationwide rally?” added the conservative activist, who is also the CNN contributor.
Angry student survivors quickly responded to Kingston’s remarks, rejecting the notion they aren’t able to speak and think on their own.
“I think it’s very despicable that he would even have the audacity to say that,” student survivor Brandon Abzug said. “Especially in the wake of a tragedy, we really show who we truly are. Just because we’re young we can’t make a difference is not right.”
An aide to Florida state Rep. Shawn Harrison (R) on Tuesday dismissed a pair of outspoken Parkland students as attention-seeking “actors.”
“Both kids in the picture are not students here but actors that travel to various crisis when they happen,” the unnamed aide told Tampa Bay Times reporter Alex Leary.
Survivors are biased because some are related to FBI agents
Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday “liked” two posts on Twitter pushing conspiracy theories about one student survivor and his father, a former FBI agent.
“Could it be that this student is running cover for his dad who Works as an FBI agent at the Miami field office Which botched tracking down the Man behind the Valentine day massacre? Just wondering. Just connecting some dots,” read one of the tweets by Graham Ledger, the host of a talk show on far-right cable news channel OANN.
Ledger’s tweet linked to a Gateway Pundit article alleging that 17-year-old David Hogg, a Parkland student who has advocated for gun control in the wake of the shooting, was coached on what to say by his father, a retired FBI agent. Gateway Pundit is known for pushing unhinged conspiracy theories and hoaxes about just about everything.
Another tweet Trump Jr. “liked” included a link titled, “VIDEO: Outspoken Trump-Hating School Shooting Survivor is Son of FBI Agent; MSM Helps Prop Up Incompetent Bureau.” The purported connection is that Hogg was a tool of the FBI, which President Donald Trump and his supporters have been waging a war against amid the ongoing Russia investigation.
Student survivors can’t credibly opine on shootings
Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly pondered whether the media ought to be interviewing Parkland students because they are in an “emotional state.”
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, meanwhile, questioned whether the survivors of a mass shooting had any special insight on the issue of gun violence, and that they were merely being used by the left.
“What, pray tell, did these students do to earn their claim to expertise?” Shapiro wrote in National Review. “They were present during a mass shooting, and they have the right point of view, according to the Left. There’s a reason that producers at CNN are eager to put junior Cameron Kasky in front of the cameras: He says things like ‘You’re either with us or against us.’ It seems a stretch to think that if Kasky were instead advocating for more armed school security, CNN would be breaking into its primetime lineup to air his views.”
#AsmaJehangir - Continuing the legacy of an indomitable rights crusader
Shinjini Ghosh
“Asma’s death is not only a loss to Pakistan but to all those who love democracy, who love peace, human rights and inclusion,” said feminist activist Kamla Bhasin at a gathering organised by several organisations and individuals in memory of Pakistani lawyer, feminist and human rights activist Asma Jehangir.
At the memorial service organised at the India Habitat Centre on Thursday, Ms. Jehangir’s friends and colleagues came together and spoke about the “vocal critic” who consistently raised her voice against the “ruling elite”.
Dare establishments
“We are here not just to pay our condolences but to carry forward her legacy. She taught us the meaning of bonding between different nations despite the differences. She has often said that no dictator can survive for long. I think there is a lot to learn from that statement of hers. If we have to carry forward her legacy we have to challenge our own ruling establishments in India” said human rights lawyer Indira Jaising.
Ms. Jehangir, who passed away on February 11 after suffering a cardiac arrest, had been co-founders of multiple South Asia-level people’s platforms and was formerly the UN Special Rapporteur on extra judicial killings and freedom of religion.
Tapan Bose, co-chairperson of Pakistan India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy, said, “She was a tremendous vocal critic and always stood in the front row to protest against the oppression of the military and the ruling elite. Two days before her death, on a chilly wintry night in Islamabad, she stood with the Pashtun agitators and said I know how the military has been usurping your rights. We must continue the legacy of this courageous indomitable crusader of human rights.”
Fought patriarchy
Speaking about the funeral service at Lahore’s Gaddafi stadium, lawyer Mariam Farooqui said that Ms. Jehangir fought patriarchy even through her death as the funeral service saw a large number of men, women and children coming together to offer their prayers.
Amid couplet recitals by Urdu poet Gauhar Raza and others, the packed amphitheatre also resolved, in unison, to carry forward Ms. Jehangir’s legacy by continuing the struggle for human rights across borders and the battle against the divisive patriarchal communal forces.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/continuing-the-legacy-of-an-indomitable-rights-crusader/article22769709.ece
UNICEF says Pakistan is riskiest country for newborns
The U.N. children's agency in a report released Tuesday singled out Pakistan as the riskiest country for newborns, saying that out of every 1,000 children born in Pakistan, 46 die at birth.
"It's abysmal," said Dr. Ghazna Khalid, a leading obstetrician in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pukhtunkhwa Province. "We don't need front-line medical doctors. We have plenty of them. We need skilled midwives."
The report, with its dismal figures that show South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa as the worst places for a child to be born, is part of UNICEF's new campaign, launched to raise awareness to bring down neonatal mortality rates. Henrietta H. Fore, UNICEF's executive director, said after the report's release that though the world has "more than halved the number of deaths among children under the age of five in the last quarter century, we have not made similar progress in ending deaths among children less than one month old."
"Given that the majority of these deaths are preventable, clearly, we are failing the world's poorest babies," she said.
UNICEF's report said that after Pakistan, the Central African Republic is the next riskiest country for newborns, and Afghanistan is the third.
"Babies born in Japan, Iceland and Singapore have the best chance at survival, while newborns in Pakistan, the Central African Republic and Afghanistan face the worst odds," it said, noting that "more than 80 percent of all newborn deaths are caused by three preventable and treatable conditions." The three are premature births, complications such as lack of oxygen at birth and neonatal infections, including sepsis and pneumonia. UNICEF says as many as 3 million children could be saved each year with an investment in quality care at delivery. In Pakistan, Dr. Khalid said 80 percent of newborn deaths could be prevented with skilled birth attendants. "I feel that no matter what tools we send, or how much money you spend, unless you improve the quality and the skill of midwives," babies in Pakistan will continue to die, she said.
"We have midwives in government hospitals who cannot deliver a baby," she added. "We don't need more doctors we need more skilled midwives."
UNICEF also appealed on properly training midwives and allowing better "access to well-trained midwives, along with proven solutions like clean water, disinfectants, breastfeeding within the first hour, skin-to-skin contact and good nutrition." Khalid, who has conducted extensive research into mother and child health and has written international papers on the subject, said that lack of funding, corruption and misplaced government priorities all contribute to insufficient investments in the training of midwives.
"Every year, 2.6 million newborns around the world do not survive their first month of life," said Fore. "One million of them die the day they are born."
#Pakistan - Sharif brothers want to dictate judgements again: Bilawal
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Tuesday said the Sharif brothers want to "dictate judgements to the judiciary again."
The PPP chairman, in his statement, said the Sharif family is not aware that Pakistan has changed. "We will not tolerate such attacks on or blackmailing the judiciary."
He alleged that Sharif brothers had also been dictating verdicts against former premier Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari.
Bilawal said that judges were blackmailed during the Panama case and that the Sharif brothers kept pressuring judges by describing the international corruption scandal as a 'conspiracy' against them.
They have mastered in lying and hypocrisy, he added.
https://www.geo.tv/latest/182879-sharif-brothers-want-to-dictate-judgements-again-bilawal
#Pakistan - Former President Zardari takes notice of murder of Ahmed Shah
Former President of Pakistan and President Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians Asif Ali Zardari has taken notice of murder of a youth Ahmed Shah from Bajor in Karachi and has instructed the Chief Minister Sindh to submit a report after completion of inquiry into the murder.
PPP Leader Akhundzada Chattan called on the former President and apprised him of the tragic incident. Asif Ali Zardari instructed Sindh Government to apprehend the killers of Ahmed Shah. These kinds of incidents will not be tolerated, former President concluded.
https://mediacellppp.wordpress.com/2018/02/20/former-president-zardari-takes-notice-of-murder-of-ahmed-shah/