The Lawless America Revolution

Lawless America is a project created by William M. Windsor, and GRIP -- Government Reform & Integrity Platform dedicated to exposing dishonesty and corruption in government while presenting ways to battle this epidemic. Mr. Windsor ventured out, by himself, and interviewed thousands of people on a 173 day road trip throughout the United States. These stories are, plain and simple, horror stories of unbelievable accounts of judicial and government corruption. But as unbelievable as they sound, they're true. Most provide evidence, not to mention Mr. Windsor thoroughly checks out each person interviewed.

Ultimately, Mr. Windsor plans to edit the countless hours of the footage he's taken down to a two-hour film and enter it in the Sundance Film Festival. But his most important goal is to deliver the videos of testimony he's already produced to Congress the first weekend in February 2013.

Meet Me in DC. February 5-6, 2013.

"We hope to have at least one constituent for every member of Congress to hand-deliver the 50+ hours of Congressional testimony filmed by Lawless America from over 1,000 people filmed during the Road Trip....This is going to be a truly special event. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of victims of government and judicial corruption will be in Washington DC. There has never been a larger group of whistleblowers to let their voices be heard. We will be presenting over 50 hours of testimony to Congress, part of over 2,000 hours of interviews conducted by Bill Windsor for Lawless America."

Here are a few stories that, in my humble opinion, are so compelling they should be considered required viewing.

Mind-blowing accounts of Child "Protective" Services and Family Court corruption:



Here (below) is the amazing story of Dr. Elizabeth Rohr of Dallas Texas, who, as someone commented: "Elizabeth's story sounds like the book of Job in the Bible" due to her well-connected monster ex-husband and the very corrupt Texas system of "justice."



See also: Another Family Blames Dawson State Jail For Inmate Death Dawson State Jail, where Dr. Rohr was incarcerated, is a low security facility for people convicted of non-violent crimes run by Corrections Corporation of America, a private prison management company that has a contract with the State of Texas. As Dr. Rohr stated in her testimony, inmates are treated like cattle, or worse.

Dawson State Jail Intolerable Conditions - more first hand accounts at the "house of horrors". Remember, these non-violent inmates are extraordinarily profitable for the prison industrial complex.

These are just...heartbreaking.

Read more...

Are We Living in a Post Racial America? Or, Jim Crow Junior America?

After all, as the New York Times claimed, the election of President Obama into the White House, swept "away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive". Really? Then, why are the African Americans suffering more than any other group of people at this time? Remember, many of the white supremacy members said they voted for Obama to send the country into a tailspin...foment a race war.  One former member, Tim Zaal, said, "The faster this country falls, the sooner white revolution will arise." 

"Could it be that the nomination of Obama finally sparks a sense of unity in white voters? I would propose that this threat of black rule may very well be the thing that finally scares some sense back into complacent whites." -- Neo-Nazi, with the pen name, "LastOfMyKind"

For instance, under Mayor Bloomberg, the NYPD’s practice of “stop and frisk” - — practice of officers stopping city residents on the street and searching them- increased to 600,000 stops performed last year. "87% of those stopped last year were black or Hispanic, a number disproportionate to their share of the population. And just 7 percent of the stops resulted in arrests, meaning the vast majority of those stopped committed no crime. The NYPD argues the practice reduces crime, but it has been coming under increasingly intense criticism in recent months".

Read more...

Read more...

4th of July and Hypocrisy Reigns Supreme.

In January of this year, Hospira, the pharmaceutical company that produces sodium thiopental - the anesthetic most states use as the first drug in a three drug cocktail to execute prisoners in the US - ceased production over concerns about its use in executions. Since that time states have been scrambling to get their hands on their next fix on a replacement. After importing sodium thiopental from non-FDA approved sources, the state of Georgia acquired a replacement from Lundbeck, the Nembutol’s Danish manufacturer, who has repeatedly sent letters requesting that it not be used in executions. The manufacturer  “explicitly warned” that “this drug is not safe for use in judicial lethal injections.”

After Georgia's supply of sodium thiopental was seized by the DEA and after acquiring this controversial new sedative,  Roy Willard Blankenship thrashed, and jerked his way to death after its administration.  Mr. Blaankenship was not the first death-row inmate who suffered from a botched lethal injection  involving pentobarbital this year. Eddie Duval Powell also suffered from the administration of this deadly drug.

A death-row prisoner who was executed using a new lethal injection drug 'suffered greatly' during the process, a leading U.S. anaesthesiologist has testified.

Roy Willard Blankenship, who was executed on June 23 using pentobarbital - also known as nembutal - was said to be conscious for approximately the first three minutes of the execution and 'suffered greatly'.

Dr David Waisel, an Associate Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School, also said in the sworn affidavit that 'his eyes were open throughout', according to witness accounts.

He said: 'I can say with certainty that Mr Blankenship was inadequately anaesthetised and was conscious for approximately the first three minutes of the execution.

So, 35-years after the US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment, the US still remains among the top global executioners. 139 nations abolished the death penalty, but China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Yemen continue to execute people, in direct contradiction to international human rights law. Like the other four countries listed, the death penalty in the United States is/was frequently imposed after unfair trials, where the defendant is almost always poor, uneducated, very often black, and totally vulnerable to a process that lacks fairness and integrity.

 138 innocent people have been sent to death row, and who knows how many victims were sent to their death, guilt-free.  The claim that the US is a progressive force for human rights is complete hypocrisy.

Read more...

When Paying to Have Your Children Shot Was Merciful.

"The vicious cycle of political violence in Rwanda is due to a lack of a system for a peaceful competition for and transfers of power between the political elites."

Genocide update:  
2010 October - UN report into 1993-2003 conflict in DR Congo says Rwandan forces took part in attacks on Hutu civilians which - if proven in court - could amount to genocide.

Rwandan Forgives Aggressors, Builds Community Center:
Rwandan native Frederick Ndabaramiye (below) was only 15-years old, when in 1998, four years after the the 100-day genocide in 1994, Hutu rebels dragged him from a bus, killed his 18 fellow passengers, cut off his hands, and left him for dead".

The Hutus who pulled him from the bus were from a paramilitary group called the Interahamwe, armed with machetes and nail-spiked bats. They demanded he kill the other passengers to save his own life, and he refused. “Kill me first,” he said.

Frederick watched as the rebels slaughtered the 18 passengers before his eyes. “They killed them one by one by machete,” he said.

The rebels told him they were going to give him a message. He thought they would give him a letter or something, he said, but they pinned his arms to a log and cut off his hands.

He pleaded for just two fingers, he said. The rebels ignored his wish. They left him there to die.

But Frederick, blood gushing from his arms, managed to stumble from the scene. He was discovered by two girls who, despite their fear, bandaged him and helped him to a hospital, he said. His recovery took a full year.

Most of Frederick’s family had been killed in the genocide. It was in an orphanage that Frederick befriended a young teacher, Zachary Dusingizimana. Together, the two shed themselves of their hate, embraced forgiveness, and wanted to help other survivors do the same.

In 2005, the two founded the Ubumwe Community Center for maimed and disabled survivors. The center takes in orphans off the streets, provides wheelchairs for the crippled, offers personal counseling to coping survivors, and teaches job skills, like craft-making.

From original post 12/2008:

(Left)human remains at Nyamata, scene of many massacres that occurred in 1994, leaving between 800,000 and 1,071,00 Tutsis, including some Hutus,  slaughtered to death, and many more, mutilated, maimed or physically scarred for life,  

Incomprehensible as it may seem, in 1994 -  at a time when gutters along side the only functioning hospital in Kigali, Rwanda, literally ran red with blood, and ravaged bodies and body parts littered the streets -  paying to have your children shot in open pit latrines was considered merciful. Why? In order to spare them the horror and torture of being hacked to death by machete, and or watching your family hacked to death.

Sparing no one, Hutu killing squads went on a rampage - the Interahamwe (those who attack together) and the Impuzamugambi (those with a single purpose) - butchering as many civilians as they could find, leaving a massacred humanity in their wake. Babies and children were literally snatched from their mother's arms, and ripped to shreds for all to see. The reverse was also true.

*A nine-year old Tutsi girl, through an interpreter, told Dr. James Orbinski - former President of Doctors Without Borders and author of An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-first Century.

"My mother hid me in the latrine. I saw through the hole. I watched them hit her with machetes. I watched my mother's arm fall into my father's blood on the floor and I cried without noise in the toilet". -- 9-year old Tutsi girl explaining how she stayed alive, as her family was massacred at the hands of the killing squads.

Rwandan genocide was not the result of ancient tribal hatreds, or as Ed Koch, explained at the time, “tribal warfare involving those without the veneer of Western civilization” further justifying the apathy of developed nations by confirming the stereotype of African savages. Rather it was the confluence of many factors, including the silence and inaction of the international community, in particular, France, (the main culprit), Belgium and America, who paralyzed the United Nations, who ended up abandoning the U.N. peacekeeping force already on the ground. The aforementioned nations knowingly pursued their foreign policies through genocide. The U.S. (on record), deliberately chose not to use the word “genocide” because that would have obliged us to intervene.

"Perhaps there is no better case than Rwanda of state killing in which colonial history and global economic integration combined to produce genocide. It is also a case where the causes of the killing were carefully obscured by Western governmental and journalistic sources, blamed instead on the victims and ancient tribal hatreds.

A country the size of Belgium, with a population of 7 million people (overpopulated according to most reports but Belgium supports over 10 million people), Rwanda experienced in 1994 one of the worst genocides of the twentieth century. Some 800,000 people, mostly but not exclusively Tutsis, were slaughtered by the Hutu-run state. Contrary to media and many government reports, the genocide was the result of Rwanda’s political and economic position in the capitalist world system. It involved such monetary factors as its colonial history, the price of coffee, World Bank and International Monetary Fund policies, the global interests of Western nations, particularly France, the interests of international aid agencies, and Western attitudes towards Africa" — Richard H. Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, p.269

Statements such as "Genocide is irrelevant in such places" spoken by President Mitterrand of France at the time of Rwandan genocide, is symbolic of western civilization's attitude toward more than half of the world's population, who live on less than $2 per day (3.8 billion). As long as those of us who are "more equal" continue to think and feel this way about those who are "less equal", genocide will occur now, and in the future.

Humanitarian efforts and charity, while extremely important, as they directly and immediately relieve suffering, are not enough to attain true equity. We need to change the mindset and the policies that clearly oppress and seize opportunity and possibility from those who we are content to let live in conditions we would not allow for our pets. In other words, cutting a check for less than 1% of our GDP and uttering platitudes about the "plight" of the poor does very little but clear our collective conscience about the people who live without the basics necessities central to any notion of human dignity.

*True equity requires that people in comparable situations be treated equally with no distinctions made based on race, religion, gender, ethnicity, or class. The lack of equity we see today is a result of learned stereotypical thinking, and subtle, nuanced policy decisions made centuries ago that we continue to "improve" upon as our technology advances that conspires to keep half the world without. In other words, lack of equity is a politically determined choice.

"We are not born equal. Equality and equity are the result of choice and of human organization." -- Hannah Arendt

This year, the World Food Programme asked for additional money to accommodate an additional 100 million people who are being pushed into hunger by rising food prices, adding to the 840 million people worldwide who went to bed hungry every single night last year. They have collect only $2 billion of the $22 billion it needs to feed 967 million people.

Concurrently, at the G 20 summit, over $8 trillion taxpayer dollars, globally, has been activated to bankroll the fundamental underlying design of an international economy that is not working, mostly due to the corruption embedded throughout its structure...this same structure that contributes to keeping half the world living in relatively inhumane conditions.

Not only that, through no fault of their own, the "less equal", excluded from financial "boom" times, end up suffering the most profound of consequences as a result of this current global financial crisis.

For those who fail to see the injustice of the way the world is divided, perhaps the instability, violence, terrorism, disease, etc that such dire circumstances tend to produce, which when placed in a continuously shrinking world, threatens the "more equal" part of the population, evermore, will provide the impetus to change the way we currently accept half the world

Three days ago marked the 60th anniversary of the 1948 Convention on Prevention of Genocide. The Genocide Prevention Task Force, co-chaired by Madeline Albright, urged president-elect Barack Obama to make the prevention of genocide a national priority, pressuring him to create, in particular, the "Inter-Agency Atrocities Prevention Committee" based on the 34 recommendations put forward in the paper presented to the United Nations entitled: "Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for US Policy-makers".

The genocide alarm is ringing loud and clear, right now. It's warning us that the mass murder of civilians is occurring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where 5.4 million people have already lost their lives since 1998...and that the level of violence could possibly escalate to what we saw in 1994.
Evidence is strong that Rwandan and Congolese governments, including many who played a role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, are supporting and provoking Tutsi and Hutu ethnic militias fighting in eastern Congo. The battle has driven 250,000 civilians from their homes in the past three months. Meanwhile the 17,000 "strong" United Nations peacekeeping missions are doing very little to alleviate the suffering and plunder in Congo.
* If any of this sounds familiar, it may be because I was inspired to blog this topic by the speech - marking World Aids Day - given by Dr. James Orbinski at the City Club of Cleveland 

Read more...

Privatizing Life and Death Matters Commodifies Human Life.

Marcus Crassus, of the late Roman Republic, profited handsomely as a real estate developer and entrepreneur, only his tactics were a bit questionable. You see, Crassus' private fire brigade would rush to burning homes and places of business, however refuse to refused to douse the flames until the  the building's owner and threatened neighbors sold the property to him for less than one-fifth the market value.  It worked like a dream...that is, until several years later when Rome crashed and burned.

Fast forward 2,010 years and  firefighters watch a home burn to the ground in Tennessee over a $75 fee. Either not much has changed, or we've come full circle, and like Ancient Rome, we've lost the moral foundation upon which our society relies:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

So how is watching a house burn down over a $75 fee, or letting people suffer and/or die due to lack of health insurance, or allowing children (America's future) to go hungry or suffer the consequences of neglect and a system that puts their needs dead last, synchronize with the belief, that all men are endowed with "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" that is interwoven throughout our Constitution and Bill of Rights?

The Republican agenda to privatize everything under the sun, including essential matters of life and death, while at the same time, supporting corporate welfare and the military industrial complex, contributes greatly to the greed and arrogance that corrupt  the atmosphere and culture of  today's society.  This "atmosphere" is eerily similar to the greedy and power hungry faction of wealthy capitalists and nobles that began to use the Roman mob to promote their own selfish interests and expand the Roman Republic for gain and the acquisition of even more power.

If we can't trust firefighters to put out fires, then the breakdown of all trust - essential to a capitalist society - is sure to follow, hence, the collapse of the American empire.

Read more...

Who is the Hero to the Moral Relativist?.

I know I rant and rave about the lack of critical thinking skills and the over abundance of moral judgment in our culture, thus, it may seem
my condemnation of moral relativism might seem contradictory. However, it's equally destructive to assume there are no absolutes, because the act of critical thinking requires the existence of an objective reality, otherwise there isn't any foundation to base our thinking, and without the existence of universal moral truth, there is no foundation to base the value of our life.

Assuming you believe we are here, that life is... some type of objective reality must exist, right? Taking that one-step further, assuming life has inherent value, some type of object morality must also exist, right?

Well, ask people the first question and most will agree, that based on observable phenomena, an objective reality does indeed exist. Ask people the second question, and a good percentage of those who admit to an objective reality, will deny the existence of an objective morality. Why is that?

It could be because we can't see morality as clearly. We walk out our front door and we can see trees, grass, sky, animals, other human beings, etc., so, unless we're waxing philosophical, we don't question objective reality and in order to survive we must establish certain absolutes. For example, from an early age, we learn that fire is hot, that certain animals will devour us if given the chance, that ocean water will not quench our thirst, etc.

What happens if we don't believe that those truths exist? What happens if we decide fire is not hot and walk into a burning building? If we decide all animals are friendly and jump in the lion cage? If we insist on drinking only ocean water? The answers are obvious, however, truth does not always present itself so clearly, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Nevertheless, in the absence of concrete observable phenomenon, many presume there is no moral reality.

Let's take a look at what we can observe about developing a system of right and wrong independent of relativity. One of the things we can observe is the function of law in society and what is law based on? Morality.

Some people say you can’t legislate morality, however if we're not legislating morality, what are we legislating? Law must be based on some concept of the common good or else it is based on an individual's personal preference, and exists only to enforce the will and desire of that person, in other words despotism. In a free society, morality is the only thing we can legislate.

"Law stands upon the necessary foundation of morality" – Aristotle

What about if the law is based on morality but that morality turns out to be tolerance of everything? Eventually, chaos will ensue and it's almost certain that those whose "morality" is limited to survival of the fittest, will grab the power and enforce the law based on what's good for them only thus morality becomes irrelevant and power, the only thing that matters.

Heroes of moral realism can function as another way to observe moral principles in action. Jesus Christ, Gandhi, Martin Luther King etc., are all perfect examples of people who came the closest to living out their lives adhering to moral truth. Just as most of us will fail to consistently meet the requirements necessary (nutrients, exercise etc) to get the most we can from physical reality, even more of us will fail to meet the requirements necessary to get the most from moral reality. Nevertheless, just because we don't live up to those standards, doesn't mean those truths do not exist. Just as we know we must eat, drink and move our bodies even though we may not come close to getting it exactly right, we do it anyway or die. In the same way, just because we understand there is a moral reality does not mean we all will have the integrity or the intelligence to interpret that reality, but we try anyway or face the consequences.

We define a moral relativist as one who claims there are no absolute truths regarding morality, and that a system of right and wrong can only be based on individual preference, and the tolerance of those preferences and most importantly that everyone’s moral beliefs are equally legitimate. "Morality should never be imposed" is their sacred utterance. However, unless they state their belief by prefacing it with "my personal preference is not to impose...", they clearly believe in an objective morality. Tolerance is a form of morality, not imposing your own morality on others is a form of reality, in the same way a tree is a form of life. Declaring the absence of absolute truths, is an absolute truth in itself.

Most moral relativists defend moral relativism with the same intensity that moral realists defend their belief in an objective morality. The very act of defending your belief system implies moral truth, otherwise you would only state your preference, right?

Well, I didn't like what Hitler did but he had every right to do it...I would never participate or look at child pornography but who am I to tell others what to do. How many of us can utter those words without wincing?

A moral relativist can't say murder is wrong because the word wrong is a moral term. They can declare their dislike of murder or that they themselves would not murder anyone, but they cannot impose that preference on others, otherwise they are admitting to an absolute moral truth, that murder for the sake of murder is wrong. While it's true, not all moral truths are so transparent, it shouldn't be that difficult to comprehend, that whatever it takes to keep you alive, it takes to keep others alive as well. Just as easily as we learn fire is hot, most of us seem to learn killing for the sake of killing is wrong.

So, what can we observe about moral relativism? Who is the hero to the moral relativist? The lack of outward directives and guidelines and the fact that it is based only on the "truth" of the individual makes it very hard to observe much of anything. Moral relativity by its definition is immoral as it rejects morality. Morality is not doing what's right for the individual, it's taking the time to figure out what's right, whether it's best for you, or not, and you cannot do that without some type of moral truth to base your decision. A good night's sleep might be what's best for mother, but when her newborn is starving or crying out for help, the moral decision for mother is to get up and help her child.

Oddly enough, many of those who claim to reject moral relativism are in truth, moral relativists since moral relativism distinguishes between what's right and wrong based on personal preference, instead of let's say the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The only true moral relativist or hero of the moral relativist is the sociopath. A sociopath has no concern for another's idea of right and wrong, only follows his own view of right and wrong and consistently lives his life according to his own desires. Pretty simple if you ask me. Jesus Christ or Ted Bundy? Oxygen or carbon monoxide?

Read more...

Parents of Most Severely Wounded Soldier Go Broke Taking Care of Him

TAMPA, Florida: He lies flat, unseeing eyes fixed on the ceiling, tubes and machines feeding him, breathing for him, keeping him alive. He cannot walk or talk, but he can grimace and cry. And he is fully aware of what has happened to him.

Four years ago almost to this day, Joseph Briseno Jr. was shot in the back of the head at point-blank range in a Baghdad marketplace. His spinal cord was shattered, and cardiac arrests stole his vision and damaged his brain.

The 24-year-old is one of the most severely injured soldiers — some think the most injured soldier — to survive.

"Three things you would not want to be: blind, head injury, and paralyzed from the neck down. That's tough," said Dr. Steven Scott, head of the Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center at the Tampa VA Medical Center, where Briseno has twice been hospitalized for extensive care. In recent days, Briseno was hospitalized yet again, this time at the Washington, D.C., VA Medical Center.

As a high schooler, Briseno liked the Discovery Channel and CSI, and wanted to be a forensic scientist or investigator. He was 20, attending George Mason University, when he was called up from the reserves and sent to war.

After he was shot, he was flown to Kuwait and then to a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. His parents and two sisters rushed to his side.

"They told us, 'Prepare for his service.' That's how bad he was," said his father, Joseph Briseno Sr., a retired career Army man.

But he survived. From Germany, he went to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, then to McGuire VA Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia. In December 2003, he went home, to Manassas Park, Virginia, where his parents, Joseph Sr. and Eva, quit their jobs to care for him.

"All our savings, all our money, was just emptied ... the 401(k)s, everything," said Joseph Briseno, who took a new job a year and a half ago to make ends meet.

Various charities, especially Rebuilding Together, raised money to renovate their basement, supply a backup generator for the medical equipment, and install a lift so they can hoist "Jay," as they call him, into a chair and bathe him in a handicapped accessible bathroom.

"If you asked me this from the very beginning, if we can handle it, I wouldn't lie to you. I would say no, that there is no way. There's no way that we're going to learn all these things. But my wife and I, we learned everything. We are the respiratory technician, we are the physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists ... his wound care nurse," Joseph Briseno said.

"It's a lot of work and it's hard, and some days are harder than the other days. But we don't take this as a burden for us because he's our son. We will do everything for him."

The family has help from VA-provided nurses, but not around the clock. Jay's mother and father often do overnight duty, making sure their son is turned every four hours so he does not develop bedsores, which can become infected and threaten his life. If they do not turn him and keep him on schedule, he does not sleep well and becomes agitated.

At the Tampa VA, a nurse taught Jay Briseno to swallow his saliva — a big step that allowed him to have some pureed foods instead of just tube-feeding. He has not been able to handle any solid food, though — his injuries are too profound.

More recently, the Tampa staff tried to wean him from the respirator. This involved painstaking therapy to strengthen his diaphragm by placing weights on his belly and gradually increasing the air pressure on the machine to try to create resistance and muscle strength. So far, it hasn't worked.

He has had other trials: surgeries, procedures and medications for bladder problems, high blood pressure, the opening for his breathing tube, dead tissue on his tongue — even an ingrown toenail. The latest is the bone disease, osteoporosis.

He can respond to questions by grunting or grimacing, and occasionally can say "mom" or "go," but not consistently. He often opens his mouth.

"We believe he is very frustrated because he wants to say something. Those are the hardest times for us, especially when he's sick or not feeling well. He just lays there. We don't know what's wrong with him," Joseph Briseno said.

They pray that he will continue to improve, not get worse. And they hope to move to Tampa, where they believe their son can get the best care.

"We always have hope. One day at a time — that's the way we live our lives," the elder Briseno said. "We're so lucky to have him. He was a very good son from the very beginning. God gave Jay to us and he's a blessing to us."

Read more...

U.S. Slammed for Backing off 'Genocide' Charge

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 15 (OneWorld) - Human rights groups spoke out this week, condemning the United States Special Envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, for claiming the crisis in Darfur no longer constitutes genocide.

"The term genocide is counter to the facts of what is really occurring in Darfur," Natsios told a gathering at Georgetown University February 7th.

The statement shocked many observers since both President Bush and the State Department have used the term "genocide" to describe the situation in western Sudan.

Since 2003, the Sudanese military and its allied militias have killed at least 400,000 people, while more than 2 million innocent civilians have been forced to flee their homes and now live in camps in Sudan and neighboring Chad. More than 3.5 million men, women, and children are now completely reliant on international aid for survival.

Not since the Rwandan genocide of 1994, campaigners argue, has the world seen such a calculated campaign of displacement, starvation, rape, and mass slaughter.

"Activists across the country are outraged by Natsios' denial of genocide in Darfur," Marie Clarke Brill of the group Africa Action said in a statement. "The death toll is mounting, and the U.S. must act now to stop the escalating violence by the Sudanese government and to provide protection to civilians and humanitarian operations in Darfur."

Brill's group is concerned that Natsios' statement marks a shift in U.S. policy and is an attempt to provide cover for his government's failure to convince Sudan to allow a stronger international peacekeeping force into the country. Africa Action has said the U.S. government holds the most sway with Sudanese officials and therefore is uniquely obligated to pressure Khartoum on peacekeeping.

Activists point out the killing continues unabated despite ongoing negotiations with the Sudanese government in Khartoum. On Wednesday, the United Nations Mission in Sudan reported that fresh violence has displaced at least 110,000 people in southern Darfur since December.

"Up to this week there is [still] bombing of civilians, so the lack of security still prevails," Dr. Ali Ali-Dinar told OneWorld. The native of Darfur is Outreach Director for the University of Pennsylvania's Africa Studies Center and runs the Web

"Civilians still face continuous harassment," he said. "They're still in their camps. It's still not safe to go back. So the ingredients are still there. Just because [U.S. envoy Natsios] mutters that there is not a genocide doesn't mean that one isn't going on."

Recently, an African Union military mission in Darfur was bolstered by United Nations blue berets, but Ali-Dinar said that hasn't done anything to improve the situation.

"They are there but with a very flimsy mandate and under its presence nothing is changing," he said. "The government is still bombing civilians. All this is going on even with the UN Mission. Nothing is new."

On Monday, the European Union Council released a statement from Brussels protesting what they called "an unsustainable level of insecurity" for humanitarian workers attempting to help refugees seeking relief from the killing.

Attacks on relief workers and their property have become common, the aid groups said. There have been at least five car-jackings this month.

Those actions prompted a fresh reaction from the U.S. Envoy, Andrew Natsios, on Wednesday. The same man who said "genocide is counter to what's occurring" told Reuters "the government has lost control. There is anarchy in large parts of Darfur. The risk is that if the NGOs (non-governmental organizations) leave, the UN humanitarian agencies leave...there will be no one to care for these people in the camps who can be trusted."

But those statements drew criticisms from campaigners as well. Far from losing control, they argued, the Sudanese government is itself behind much of the violence and displacement.

Increasingly, activists are trying to use their power as private citizens to press the government of Sudan to change its ways. Modeling their work on successful solidarity work that brought down the apartheid regime in South Africa, they're urging states, pension funds, and college campuses to restrict or eliminate their Sudan-related investments.

In 2005, the state of Oregon sold $35 million in holdings it had invested in four oil companies that work in Sudan. In January 2006, Maine followed suit, selling its holdings in Schlumberger Ltd., an oil company stock held by Maine's $24 million State Held Trusts.

Last September, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill directing the massive California Public Employees Retirement System and California State Teachers Retirement System, which together hold more than $350 billion in assets, to divest from companies doing business in Sudan.

According to the non-profit Genocide Intervention Network, there are active campaigns in an additional two-dozen colleges, 15 states, and numerous other countries.

"This is only the beginning," said Sam Bell, the group's advocacy director. Divestment campaigns are currently underway in Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and Virginia, Bell said.

Read more...