I don’t ask this to be cynical, but rather to expand the reach of what should be a global day of connection and collective inner reflection. International Human Rights Day is Dec. 10. It’s an annual honoring of the day in 1948 when the newly formed United Nations, in the wake of World War II, adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which publicly recognizes “the inherent dignity and . . . equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.”
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Yet a lot of organizations, brands, and politicians put out discussion guides and talking points to help their supporters “win the debate” at holiday gatherings, or change the minds of their family and friends who hold “opposing” views.
A scenario eerily similar to that one is happening right now in Fort Lauderdale. Sistrunk is an area known for Black culture. The Westside Gazette, a local Black-Owned Newspaper and a recent transformation of an old grocery store into a restaurant (Smitty’s Wings Sistrunk) are in jeopardy of falling victim to gentrification.
The question is, “How could democracy’s Achilles’ Heel reside within its creator, Humankind?” The answer lies in history, and we must learn from it. Are politicians, professors, social scientists, and citizens oblivious to the lessons from the fall of great empires? We must not be naïve!
When lies become the truth we all suffer. I know it’s difficult to change beliefs and opinions, but I will always try to.
Lined up along 17th Street, in full view of the crowd heading toward the Ellipse to hear Biden’s speech and performances by James Taylor and Tricia Yearwood, Christians4Ceasefire, a Pax Christi-affiliated ecumenical organization formed right after the Hamas attacks of 2023, highlighted Christ in the Rubble.
Whether you believe in the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, or are an atheist, we can all agree there is a moral imperative to address the climate crisis. After all, it kills people and destroys lives. The cause of the climate crisis – the burning of fossil fuels – is also responsible for plenty of death and destruction.
It was my last year as national president of the NAACP, at the end of 2013 Image Awards. I was with my dear friend Louis Gossett, Jr., the actor and activist who won an Oscar for his role in the film “An Officer and a Gentleman.” Lou said to me, “You know, Ben, I’ve been in this racial justice movement my whole life, but you know, sometimes, brother, I feel like we’re fighting over who’s in first class. What we should be doing is looking out the window, because the plane has fallen like 20,000 feet in the last two minutes.”
This inadequacy applies in spades to the 21st COP which resulted in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement that aimed to keep climate change from wreaking calamitous effects on our way of life and the environment. The system as crafted simply cannot deliver on its promises.
The rebellion against the regime originated in Syria’s civil war that began in 2011. That challenge to his rule, a chapter in the Arab Spring that also convulsed Tunisia and Egypt, led Assad to turn his regime into a police state, with tens of thousands of people jailed and many of them tortured. But the regime never fully secured the northwest of the country. In a matter of weeks, the rebel offensive captured the country’s largest city, Aleppo and the rest of the northwest. Now it controls Damascus. At least three forces appear to comprise the rebellion, with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), whose name means Organization for the Liberation of the Levant, the most important.