Miko Peled, in Seattle 7 p.m. 1415 NE 43rd Street, UTU Methodist Church

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What Bibi Left Out at His U.N. Speech (from Occupied Palestine Blog)

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Carlos Latuff on Bibi's UN Act

For more on what Bibi was hiding, read Occupied Palestine's blog:  http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2012/09/27/what-bibileftout-when-he-drew-his-bomb/

Black Tie Activists Crash HMRC Boss' Retirement Do :)

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http://youtu.be/3w4tcIsaInE

Sez It All, Really ...

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Bibi at the U.N.

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/09/in-front-of-global-audience-netanyahu-draws-his-red-line-on-his-ridiculous-looking-bomb-cartoon.html

From Occupied Palestine blog: A “Leaflet” to the World about it’s Own “Forgotten” Extermination Camp called Gaza

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EXCERPT:

Gaza has become an extermination camp.

With no place to run to the warmongering zionist entity commits annihilation not with gaschambers but managed to be more lethal with more advanced killing substances.

Not like Jewish people were shaved, undressed and gassed in special designed murderous showerrooms. In Gaza, no need to undress nor to shave no remains will be left after Israel is finished with you.

One difference with the Holocaust is Palestinians in Gaza do not get looted before they get killed like in Auschwitz. But this, is merely because there is nothing left to rob but lives. Lives, taken every day in targeted killings, extrajudicial executions by F16′s, navy ships, tanks and even with remote control like it would be some kind of a game. No eye to eye contact like in the Holocaust, the last blink in the eye of the lined up soldiers, ready to shoot the Jews lined up in a row. Shortly before they had to turn their face to the wall.  Yet there is no time left anymore to turn your face in Gaza where even walls are made to fall down to kill. On your child in it’s bed.

Children, which are called human shields by Israeli occupation. As an excuse to justify there were slained civilians and children, babies and even the unborn. With the excuse “We did send you a leaflet…” , “We told you to go…“  Where do you go when you are sealed in the chains, suffocated by a siege, limited by the bullets of snipers if you even get close. There is no safe place in Gaza.

Not even the cradle of your baby is safe. For if the occupier decides to invade, it targets the “human shields” even if aged under one year in their beds. Shoot them, point blank and at short range in their hearts and their heads. (1)

When they rounded up children in the Stalags of Death. Some managed to escape. Mothers, hiding their children in the toilets of the baracks. Drenched in their own waste. In fear hiding to be discovered. How world did you forget. How world can you be blind, not even a waste tank in Gaza would protect your child. Worse than the Warsaw ghetto has been ever before. (2)

Warsaw Ghetto, commemorated every year. As well as it’s 83,000 Jewish victims who died of starvation and disease. Where widespread smuggling of food and medicines into the ghetto supplemented the miserable official allotments and kept the death rate from increasing still further. And even little weapons where smuggled in. For self-defense. But Gaza not seems to have the rights for it’s defense in it’s annihilation camp.  Silenced and bombed even smugglers and their goods are targets like never before.

Not only bullets, bombs or shells do kill. “Israel” learned from it’s experience with nazi extermination tactics and only improved those to a level which would make any nazy shine of pride.  The new weapon of mass destruction for which the seeds were planted by Nazi Germany: Deprivation have even been lifted up to a level on which Nazis would not only be proud by they would have been jealous. Deprivation. The same deliberate deprivation which caused 1 in 6 Jewish people to die during World War II is now silently agreed by this world on imposed on the people of Gaza.   “Israel”, became exactly that and worse than those it feared and hated once themselves.

Call-in Day Today, Exactly 2 Years After the FBI Raids - Call Barry Jonas!

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http://www.stopfbi.net/

Two years after September 24 raids on anti-war and international solidarity activists

We demand the Chicago U.S. Attorney’s office “End the investigation!”

National call-in day, Today, September 24, 2012

Call Assistant U.S. Attorney Barry Jonas at 312-353-5300 x 68027
Tell him to "End the investigation of anti-war and international solidarity activists."

Please let us know how your calls went, by emailing us at info@stopfbi.net

Also, thanks to all who were or are a part of the National Week of Actions, Sept. 20-26!

Background:
Two years after the September 24, 2010 FBI raids and grand jury repression that targeted 23 Midwest anti-war, Palestinian and international solidarity activists, the Committee to Stop FBI Repression is urging activists around the country to take action. Two years is enough! It is time for the Chicago U.S. Attorney’s office to say, once and for all, that this investigation is over.

After two long years, the activists who faced raids and subpoenaed are still being threatened. This needs to be taken seriously. In late July 2012, Northern Illinois Assistant U.S. Attorney Barry Jonas refused to return much of the material seized in the FBI raid on the home of Hatem Abudayyeh, citing the ongoing “material support for terrorism” investigation.

Barry Jonas is well known for participating in one of the worst violations of civil liberties in the past decade. He played a leading role in prosecuting the leaders of the Holy Land Foundation while he was trial attorney for the Department of Justice Counter-terrorism Section.

The Chicago U.S. Attorney’s Office has told lawyers representing the anti-war and international solidarity activists that they are preparing “multiple indictments of multiple people.” Barry Jonas’ refusal to return Abudayyeh’s papers is the latest confirmation that the investigation has not ended and that the Justice Department is continuing its vendetta against those who are working for peace with justice. In a number of “material support of terrorism” cases, there has been a gap of one to three or more years between the FBI raids and indictments.

Most of the activists targeted in this case, including Abudayyeh, helped organize the massive protest at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota. At that time, an undercover law enforcement officer, going by the name of “Karen Sullivan,” infiltrated the protest efforts and stuck around to spy and lie about many of the 23 activists.

That Barry Jonas is now the lead prosecutor for the international solidarity activists is troubling. Jonas is a pro-Israel ideologue whose work in prosecuting the Holy Land case exposed his politically motivated willingness to trample on the rights of accused Palestinians. As the lead prosecutor in the Holy Land case, Jonas used secret witnesses (the defense never got to find out who the witnesses were), hearsay evidence and the introduction of evidence that had nothing to do with the defendants in the case - such as showing a video from Palestine of protesters burning an American flag - as a means to prejudice the jury. The result was that five men, who did nothing wrong, are sitting in prison with sentences that range between 15 and 65 years.

The U.S. is becoming a more repressive place. Hundreds of Arabs and Muslims have and are facing unjust prosecutions, or have already been put behind bars. Also, a grand jury is threatening political activists in the Northwest; criminal proceedings are taking place against NATO protesters in Chicago; and the Occupy movement has faced a wave of police violence.

Through our collective action, we were able to win a victory against the FBI frame up of veteran Chicano activist Carlos Montes.

We need to continue the fight to against all political repression. Together we will win!

Very Important Press Conference Threatening Impeachment if Obama Starts War w/o Congressional Vote

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http://youtu.be/QUl_N66HRI4

Ghosts of Deir Yassin -- Phil Monsour featuring Rafeef Ziadah

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http://youtu.be/_vJR3yss04M

Marikana: The Politics of Law & Order in Post-apartheid South Africa -- Suren Pillay

Tweet http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/09/2012916121852144587.html

EXCERPT:

In the city of Cape Town where I live, where the Democratic Alliance is in power, the administration is drawing more and more on the discredited policy of zero tolerance policing which emerges from the United States. It is an approach widely associated with the criminalisation of racial minorities like African-Americans and Latinos, who make up the bulk of the offenders in US jails. 

Rather than criminalise a minority, when that kind of thinking is transferred to South Africa, we end up criminalising the majority. Mostly alarmingly, the Premier of the Western Cape renewed a call last heeded under the State of Emergency of the 1980s, for military troops to be sent into townships, this time to deal with gangsterism. 

We have to be concerned with the proliferation of punitive actions to transform social behaviour. Should these be the guiding ethos of a new form of citizenship we want to cultivate? Up to now, there has been great cynicism about the lack of capacity to implement the growing plethora of regulatory laws and administer them efficiently, which tended to ensure that their bark could never really become their bite, beyond certain geographical spaces in the city. Then came Marikana.

Whilst law is celebrated as the highest form of civilisation in some circles, we should also recall that the history of law is entwined with colonial conquest and rule, and complicates the legitimacy of certain legal traditions in most of the formerly colonised world. 

Law was not only an expression of the codification of order, but also the expression of the imposition of liberal conduct and of liberal paternalism. The rule of law and constitutionalism, scholar James Tully tell us, drawing on the Australian experience, is not a culturally neutral set of ideas, but is rather the hegemonic imposition of a set of norms which originate in colonial conquest and are imposed on subject populations in order to transform their behaviour to produce what we might call good modern subjects. 

We should recall that the early justifications of colonial rule were based on doing good for the native by, for example outlawing "barbaric practices" in India and Africa in order to civilise them. 

My point is not to celebrate these outlawed practices, but to point out that liberalism has historically relied on law to enact its paternalism on populations in order to transform their conduct into what is seen as the good subject and good citizen, who acts and thinks in a particular way. From the liberal vantage point, this is celebrated. 

In our present context, this liberal paternalism now seems to be running rampant as the only way in which political authority can transform our conduct. This leads to the proliferation of rules, not the proliferation of debate and dialogue or of engagements designed to transform through alternative modes of self-regulation.

NYU to TIAA-CREF: Divest from the Occupation!

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http://youtu.be/6yLoTqI6ruc

Et tu, Canada? Seattle Consulate Refuses to Accept Letter Re: Kimberly Rivera Deportation

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Two vigilers keep faith with war resister Kimberly Rivera.

Outside the Canadian Consulate in downtown Seattle.

Long story short, Kimberly and her husband fled to Canada in 2007 when she realized what the U.S. Army was doing in Iraq.  She applied for refugee status but now faces deportation on Sept 20 due to the intransigence of Jason Kenney, Immigration Minister, who is an ambitious suck-up in the empire mob.

The somewhat haughty receptionist (or she could have been the head diplomat for all I know) in the Consulate told me they had "nothing set up for this specific issue" and could not accept my letter.  Guess they're scared it might have been critical of any move they make to deport Kimberly.  Well, nyah nyah.  I'll just blog about it instead. 

For info on Kimberly's situation, go to the Courage to resist website here:  http://www.couragetoresist.org/kimberly-rivera/964-dear-canada-stop-the-deportation-of-kimberly-rivera,-iraq-war-veteran-turned-resister.html

If Kimberly is deported she will be separated from her family and may jailed for up to five years.  In that case, we will need to do some jail support down here!

Gaza: Hamas Court Convicts 4 in Murder of Vittorio Arrigoni, Friend of Palestine [NYTimes]

Tweet  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/world/middleeast/gaza-hamas-court-convicts-4-in-murder-of-activist.html

 A Hamas military court on Monday convicted four Palestinians of taking part in the 2011 kidnapping and killing of a pro-Palestinian Italian activist in the Gaza Strip. Two of the defendants received life sentences for kidnapping and killing the activist, Vittorio Arrigoni, in April 2011. A third man was sentenced to 10 years for taking part in the kidnapping, and a fourth defendant was sentenced to a year for sheltering the kidnappers, said Khalil Shahin of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. At the time, an extremist Salafist group claimed responsibility for kidnapping Mr. Arrigoni, 36, and demanded that Hamas release all Salafists from its prisons. Mr. Arrigoni was found dead before the kidnappers’ deadline had expired. The suspects were later captured by Hamas’s security force. Mr. Arrigoni was a member of the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian activist organization with foreign volunteers in the West Bank and Gaza.

After NATO Strike Kills 8 Afghan Women, Pundits Still Wonder: Why Do They Hate Us? -- FAIR Media

Tweet http://www.fair.org/blog/2012/09/17/after-nato-strike-kills-8-afghan-women-pundits-still-wonder-why-do-they-hate-us/

The protests and violence in Egypt, Libya and Yemen have caused a notable uptick in media discussions about, as Newsweek's cover puts it, "Muslim Rage."

A Washington Post headline illustrates which lives are more valuable.

Part of the corporate media's job is to make sure real political grievances are mostly kept out of the discussion. It's a lot easier to talk about angry mobs and their peculiar religion than it is to acknowledge that maybe some of the anger has little to do with religion at all.

Take the news out of Afghanistan yesterday: A NATO airstrike killed eight women in the eastern province of Laghman who were out collecting firewood. This has happened before. And attacks that kill a lot of Afghans–whether accidental or not–tend to be covered the same way–quietly, and with a focus not on the killing but on the ramifications.

So yesterday if you logged into CommonDreams, you may have seen this headline:

NATO Airstrike in Afghanistan Kills 8 Women

Now look for the same news in the New York Times today (9/17/12). It's there–but the headline is this:

Karzai Denounces Coalition Over Airstrikes

The Times gave a clear sense of what was important: "Mr. Karzai’s condemnation was likely to rankle some Western officials…" the paper's Matthew Rosenberg explained, who went on to explain that

the confrontational tone of the statement was a sharp reminder of the acrimony that has often characterized relations between Mr. Karzai and his American benefactors.

In the Washington Post, the NATO airstrikes made the front page–sort of. Readers saw this headline at the website:

4 troops killed in southern Afghanistan insider attack

As you might have already guessed, the killings of Afghan women are a secondary news event:

Four U.S. troops were killed Sunday at a remote checkpoint in southern Afghanistan when a member of the Afghan security forces opened fire on them, military officials said. The attack brought to 51 the number of international troops shot dead by their Afghan partners this year. The insider attack came on the same day that NATO warplanes killed nine women gathering firewood in the mountains outside their village in an eastern province, according to local officials.

One has to wonder whether, absent the deaths of U.S. troops, the airstrike would have made the news at all.

News Regarding Sussiya Village and the Struggle in Palestine

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http://blip.tv/aicvision/sussiya-the-latest-on-settler-attacks-and-colonial-strategies-6339064

Great News from the Students of California Regarding Free Speech & BDS

Tweet EXCERPT:

"The University of California Student Association, which represents hundreds of thousands of students at all 10 UC campuses, passed a resolution today condemning recent attempts to censure boycott and divestment efforts by Palestinian human rights activists on campus, and demanding that the UC stop profiting from Israel’s human rights violations. The motion passed without opposition by a vote of 12 to 0 (2 abstensions).

The resolution follows a recent motion passed by the California Assembly, HR-35. While ostensibly aimed at protecting Jewish students from experiencing anti-Semitism on campus, HR-35 conflates legitimate, principled criticism of Israeli policy with anti-Semitism, raising concerns about free speech rights and academic freedom for students and faculty.

“HR35’s supporters wish to draw a protective circle around certain nations and say you are exempt from the same criticism that we apply to other state actors,” said Shahryar Abbasi, a voting member of UCSA representing the UC Berkeley campus. “Today’s vote is a statement that UC students believe in free speech and universal human rights. We hope UC Regents will hear and respect our decision.”

For more, go to Angry Arab Newservice blog:

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2012/09/students-of-california-speak.html 

September 17, 1982 -- Sabra & Shatila Massacre (Short Video)

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAF9cr7Smsg&feature=share&list=UU6ukakpypgPdDlaDwq6v0_Q

Israel's Barbarous Ethnic Cleansing in Palestinian Village

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http://youtu.be/5JwqEKAJgDA

Seattle Support Rally for Special Grand Jury Targets 9-13-12

Tweet Link to Seattle group formed in 2010 to support 23 targets of Midwest Grand Jury:  http://www.stopfbi.net/seattle

Support notwithstanding, Matt has been jailed for contempt of the grand jury.   Leah has a new court date.  See link to update below.












Update: http://nopoliticalrepression.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/updates-as-of-400-pm/

Write to Matt in solidarity:  http://nopoliticalrepression.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/write-to-matt-in-jail/

Pepe Escobar Asks Why No Fatwas Against Apartheid Israel???

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http://youtu.be/bxb6eFHqpD0

U.S. Deploys Warships, Marines To Libya -- Rick Rozoff, Stop Nato

Tweet http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/u-s-deploys-warships-marines-to-libya/

Following the deaths of American ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and three members of his staff in a coordinated attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi on September 11, Washington is deploying two Aegis class destroyers off the coast of Libya as well as having already dispatched Marines to Benghazi and elsewhere in the nation.

The guided missile warship USS Laboon is already positioned in the Mediterranean Sea near Libya and USS McFaul is heading to the same destination from the Strait of Gibraltar. Both are equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles, used in a massive barrage against Libya in the opening hours of so-called Operation Odyssey Dawn on March 19, 2011.

In the words of a Pentagon official cited by CNN, "These ships will give the administration flexibility" in the event Washington orders new attacks inside Libya.

According to the same American news source, "The US Navy typically keeps up to four Aegis-equipped missile warships ships in the eastern Mediterranean to aid in defending Israel and missile defense for southern Europe."

The latter is a reference to the Obama administration' s European Phased Adaptive Approach interceptor missile system which the North Atlantic Treaty Organization announced to have achieved initial operational capability at its summit in Chicago in May. U.S. guided missile destroyers and cruisers carrying Standard Missile-3 interceptors have been active in the Mediterranean since USS Monterey was deployed there in March of 2011, the month the U.S. and NATO began over six-months of missile and air attacks against Libya.

According to a Reuters report, eight American Marines were flown into Benghazi by helicopter the day after the attack on the U.S. mission, with two of them being killed and two wounded in a fierce mortar attack on the building.

The Associated Press claimed that the U.S. has deployed 50 members of the elite U.S. Marine Corps Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team to Libya.

U.S. Africa Command's first war and NATO's first war in Africa officially ended on October 31 of last year, after the U.S. and Britain launched well over 100 Tomahawk missiles into Libya and NATO followed with over 26,000 air missions, among them almost 9,000 strike sorties, in Operation Unified Protector and the nation's leader, Muammar Gaddafi, was brutally murdered outside his hometown of Sirte.

But as with NATO's military operations from the Balkans to Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa, one armed conflict inevitable gives way to another and the Western military bloc continues to execute plans to expand into a global military strike force.

What Does 9/11 Mean to People in Afghanistan?

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http://youtu.be/SimIS_cQ6ko

Russell Tribunal on Palestine- NYC - Oct. 6-7, 2012

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCYpFv_FljE&feature=share&list=UUeQK4F_9degvOIiWb7fpIVA

Why Our Politicians Are More Zionist Than Our Jews By Lenni Brenner 9-9-12

Tweet UPDATE:  A thoughtful reader provided the link to the whole article.  Thanks, Anon.  

Here is the link you are looking for:
http://windowintopalestine.blogspot.fr/2012/09/why-our-politicians-are-more-zionist.html 

*************

This article is very interesting and much longer, but I haven't been able to find a link.  I'll keep looking so you can see the rest.  Linda

EXCERPT:

It doesn’t take divine inspiration to predict two topics that will be discussed in American media until election day. Mike Lupica told it like it is in the June 15 New York Daily News, “More money will be spent” in this election “than on any political campaign in world history.” The New York Times editorially rages against the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. It details corporate funding of “super PACs.” And virtually every issue of the Wall Street Journal deals with U.S. and Israeli opposition to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

On December 13, 2011, Times columnist Thomas Friedman told Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu that “the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.” Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson’s announcement that he is prepared to spend $100 million to beat Barack Obama was universally reported, as was his accompanying Mitt Romney to Israel. But the national media has yet to merge campaign contributions and Washington’s Middle Eastern policies in full depth. Gary Rosenblatt, publisher of New York’s The Jewish Week, a ‘community journal,’ noted this in its August 3 issue:

“But a major, if little publicized reason for all this attention is that Jews are major financial contributors to the parties - and that’s not even counting Sheldon Adelson.”

Little is said re Zionist contributions to Obama. An August 14 Times editorial declared that “There is… persistent speculation in Israel that Mr. Netanyahu wants to attack in the coming weeks in the belief that President Obama will be forced to support the decision because of his political needs in his re-election campaign. Such a move would be outrageously cynical.” But the Times didn’t put $2 and $2 together and get $4.

There are several reasons why our major media doesn’t fully integrate these themes. Some fear that in-depth discussion of Zionist election money would fuel anti-Semitism. Others more correctly understand that Israel, which they support, not the Jews per se, would be discredited by factual discussion. And while the Times editorially complains when Obama moves to the right, responding to Republican attacks on his foreign policy, it intends to endorse him.

Times editors report endless crimes of the “bought and paid for” hacks. But they don’t think the bi-partisan capitalist establishment can be replaced by anything better. They are ‘lesser evil Democrats.’ They know that full discussion re Zionist money would discredit their party as much as the GOP.

They also know that Obama arranged the biggest weapons deal in American history with an absolute monarchy, Saudi Arabia,  the planet’s only government that doesn’t allow women to drive cars. They fear critically focusing on Israel and Saudi Arabia might lead some hitherto Democrats into not voting or voting for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. They worry that Obama losing votes via either decision might give the election to Romney, who they see as stupid and evil.

They are correct re Romney. But they are “crackpot realists.” They wrote a July 30 editorial “Republicans vs. Women.” But are they genuine pro-feminists when they don’t denounce Obama’s Saudi deal?

David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s 1st Prime Minister, was an atheist. But, to win over the Orthodox Agudat Yisrael party, the state he founded was officially Orthodox Jewish and remains so. No Israeli Jewish wife can initiate a divorce. Can we find a Times editorial denouncing the Zionist state’s male chauvinism or complaining about our bipartisan hacks support for these officially ‘kosher’ male chauvinist pigs?

When Did Dissent Become a Crime? America's Police State on Steroids at the Conventions -- Arun Gupta

Tweet http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/arun-gupta/45396/when-did-dissent-become-a-crime-americas-police-state-on-steroids-at-the-conventions

EXCERPT:

In the security state, democracy has withered. In Tampa during the Republican National Convention, what was known as the “free speech zone” was a portable stage on a crumbling road slicing through barren brownfields. The Westboro Baptist Church – the “God hates fags” gang that pickets the funerals of dead U.S. soldiers based on the logic that they were killed as divine retribution for believing “it’s OK to be gay” – entered the zone one afternoon. As a handful toted flamboyant posters of hate, more than 100 police took up position.

A minute after I chanced upon them, a hundred or so anarchists marched on the scene chanting, “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re anarchists, we’re going to fuck you up!” Dozens of reporters and cameraman stalked the edges like lions hunting antelopes. As the protesters encircled the Westboro crew, mixing insults with pleas for tolerance, 100 riot police pounded the street as they rounded the corner. More police poured in from every direction and a helicopter swooped in.

Despite the tension, no violence occurred. Vermin Supreme, the performance activist who sports an upside-down boot affixed to his head, gently dissuaded the police from breaking heads by pointing out over a bullhorn that there was no need for aggression against peaceful protests. The anarchists had made their point and went on their way. But the city of Tampa had also made its point. In the militarized convention space, the only groups exercising the right to dissent are left-wing militants and right-wing fanatics.

There is a strategy to this. Vitale says, “We are producing urban spaces in many cities that are hostile to dissent. The summits accentuate that by adding in a layer of barricades and intensive policing.” The purpose of the intensive policing, he argues, is to insulate the rich and powerful who attend the conventions “from the rabble.” He adds: “Dictators have been doing this sort of thing for generations.”

I asked Vitale if these conventions are pop-up police states. He countered, “I’ve been to police states, and you get shot if you demonstrate, not spend a night in jail.”

That’s true -- for most Americans. But at a rally against voter suppression in Tampa, Life Malcolm, a member of the Black People’s Advancement and Defense Organization, described his hometown.

“Tampa is a police state," Malcolm said. "Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week we are under constant surveillance. We see the police on every street corner, in their cars, on their bicycles, or on foot patrol in our communities. All night long their helicopters are whirling overhead when we are trying to read with our children, put them bed or be romantic with our mates. The police beat us up, scare us, lock us up, harass us. You can’t even walk down the street being black, drive down the street being black.”

As a consequence, said Malcolm, “In our neighborhoods nobody comes outside. Everybody is boarded up in the house because they are afraid to come outside the house and be caught by the police like some kind of animal. In the state of Florida, they used to make their money off oranges, now they make their money off people in orange jumpsuits.”

Long after the media and politicians are gone, dozens of local and state police agencies will be back at work, showered with new weapons, technology and laws to contain troublemakers and undesirables. No matter who wins in November, the march toward a police state will continue unabated.

Black Agenda Report Editor: "Obama Is Not the Lesser Evil"

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http://youtu.be/1vpBi8FP_ZY

"Brief Thoughts on International Solidarity with Our Struggle in Palestine" -- Maath Musleh

Tweet http://internationalsocialist.org.uk/index.php/blog/brief-thoughts-on-international-solidarity-with-our-struggle-in-palestine/

Amidst the growing solidarity movement with the Palestinian cause, a lot of aspects of the struggle are lost. Many people get caught up in the present events and forget about the core of the struggle. A lot do not have a clear idea of the essence of this cause. To explain the history of the cause, I will need hours of writing. But for now, I would like to share some brief thoughts that I believe are essential. It is great to see all the solidarity around the world, but for any of it to be meaningful, it is important that you know what the cause is all about.

It is important to keep in mind that we are not a charity case.

We are people with a just cause and a long struggle.

To start with, our fight is not for a state in the West Bank and Gaza called Palestine, because simply this is not Palestine. The West Bank and Gaza Strip were occupied by the Zionists in 1967. Our struggle against the Zionists has started long before that.

The essence of our struggle is the right of the return for the refugees (+70% of the Palestinian people). They demand their right to return to their homes and they do have the right to do so. If you think that it is not possible then you are really not in solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

It is also important to keep in mind that you cannot be selective about your solidarity or make concessions on behalf of the Palestinians. You are either with us or you are not. You cannot stand mid-way between the victims and the perpetrators. If you do, it means you decided not to stand for justice. You are already taking a position and you are not being neutral as you assume.

There is no shame in recognizing wrong-doings within a struggle. No struggle in the world is perfect. Someone who discusses those wrong-doings in efforts to improve the struggle is a noble person. And any wrong-doings does not change the facts of the struggle. The perpetrators who caused all the sufferings – for both sides – are the Zionists.

Some people try to delegitimize the Palestinian cause by referencing the use of “violence”. Let me start by stating what I have previously and constantly stated: the use of armed resistance is our legitimate right. And I have made it clear in many of my writings that the armed resistance refers strictly to targeting military targets.

Some Palestinians are shy or apologetic when they discuss our history of armed resistance. I am not. They think that “peaceful” resistance makes them more acceptable by the West. Let me tell you something, we are not in the public relations business. We are in the business of liberating our land and our people.

We do not have a just cause because the world stands with us. The world stands with us because we have a just cause.

But let us cut the discussion of the use of armed resistance short. If you believe it is legitimate but you have trouble making an argument for it, simply, refer them to UN resolution 3070: “The General Assembly also reaffirms the legitimacy of the people’s struggle for liberation from colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation by all available means, including armed struggle.” If they do not like it, they can take it up with the UN.

If they say they support justice for the Palestinians but they do not like our ways of resistance, then – if they are that passionate about opposing our way of struggle – they can make it stop by ending the injustice in their own way.

No one is tying up their hands.

American Democracy — The Funeral

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http://youtu.be/SKkMiiEfbJo

Leonard Peltier -- Native American Political Prisoner

Tweet http://lrc7815.hubpages.com/hub/Leonard-Peltier-Native-American-Political-Prisoner-of-the-US-Gorvernment

EXERPT:

Unanswered Questions

• For some, there are many unanswered questions in the case of Leonard Peltier but some things just don't add up.

• Three charged. Two acquitted. One convicted.

• No proven identity of the shooter. No confirming ballistics.

• Witnesses flip-flop.

Clearly the evidence did not prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Leonard Peltier was the shooter. If it could happen to Leonard Peltier, it could happen to you, or someone you love.
One must ask, what caused the wrongful conviction of Leonard Peltier?

• Was it racism? We can't forget that a predominantly white jury convicted Peltier in a state where racism against Native Americans was the norm.

• Was it personal vengeance for the death of two agents. Was it more important to convict someone than it was to convict the right one?

• Was it an attempt by the government to cause dissension and disrupt the American Indian Movement, an organization that was gathering momentum in the fight for Native American rights?

• Why was no one ever held accountable for the death of young Joe Stuntz? This is a question that still haunts.

Public Opinion
Leonard Peltier has had the support of many individuals and organizations over the years. The activity surrounding his case waxes and wanes as attorneys come and go, appeals are filed and denied, supporters burn out, funds dry up, and personalities conflict.
Leonard Peltier has been recognized as a political prisoner of the U.S. government by individuals and organizations around the world. An example of the varied support for Leonard Peltier is seen in this partial list. :

• Amnesty international

• Archbishop Demond Tutu

• The Dalai Lama

• Dr. Helen Caldicott

• Ramsey Clark (former US Attorney General)

• National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers

• The European Parliment

• Kris Kristopherson

• Jane Fonda

• Robert Redford

• Jessie Jackson

• The late Coretta Scott King

The full list of supporers can be found by clicking here.

NOTE:  Leonard's Birthday is September 12.  Please send him a card to let him know he is remembered.  LEONARD PELTIER, Prisoner #89637-132 USP COLEMAN I U.S. PENITENTIARY P.O. BOX 1033 COLEMAN, FL 33521

 

CODEPINK Disrupts Nancy Pelosi During Politico Breakfast at DNC 2012

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Quotable Quotes from the Chosen Ones [Palestine -- What Really Happened]

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Arthur J. Miller: "Why I Actively Support Leonard Peltier"

Tweet WHY I  ACTIVELY SUPPORT LEONARD PELTIER
  I was asked by a small group to write a short piece on why I actively support Leonard Peltier.  In all my years as a social activist I have believed in supporting our political prisoners and have done so since the 1960s. I believe in solidarity as a way of life. I also believe in the diversity of the struggles of humanity and that the struggles, like everything else, are all connected.
  First, I support Leonard as a person. He has stood strong for so many years for his people and all struggling people while at the same time has stayed very down to earth.
  I support Leonard as a resister, an activist, he has always done what the struggle needed at any given time. Leonard's case clearly shows how far the government is willing to go to suppress and frame-up an activist who stands in their way. Leonard's case should be supported by every social activist because what the government has done to Leonard is a direct threat to all who speak out or take actions against the abuse of power.
  The foundation of the system of the ruling elite of the U.S.A. is built upon policies of genocide of the original people of this land. After that it was built upon slavery, oppression of people of color, women and the exploitation of working folks. The exploitation for great wealth of a few has also included great abuse to our Mother Earth. One of the main reasons for the policies of genocide was to get Native land to exploit to create that great wealth for the few. That has continued from the time of Columbus to this day.
  Those polices have been resisted from the beginning and that resistance continues and AIM and Leonard has been an important part of that resistance. I believe that if we are to change the way things are, all struggling people must stand in solidarity with the Native resistance. We cannot really change anything without changing the foundation that the system has been built upon and also we must leave no one behind, for as long as oppression and exploitation continues for some, the system based upon oppression and exploitation continues for us all. No Separate Peace in the struggle for the Well-Being of All!
  Behind Leonard's case is the government's policy of stealing any Native land that has something that they and the corporations want. In this case it was Uranium found in the northwest part of the Pine Ridge Reservation. The government was willing to do anything to get what they wanted including the oppression and out right murder of the Traditional Oglala Lakota People and their supporters, including AIM.
  AIM and other Native activist organizations were viewed as a major threat to the Native policies of the government because they were putting a spotlight upon the continuing theft of Native land. There was and still is much wealth to be gained by those policies. Most people in America and around the world thought that what had been done to the Native People of this land had ended long ago and thus the continuing theft of land and genocidal policies had become almost invisible to most people. AIM and other Native activists changed that and as a reaction to that the government sought to suppress them and they did not let their own laws and constitution stand in their way.
  Corporate interests of gaining more and more wealth at the expense of the many and Mother Earth connects the struggles of all oppressed and exploited people. And thus I believe that we all should be actively supporting Leonard Peltier.
  These are the reasons why I support Leonard Peltier. I started as a Leonard Peltier solidarity activist and organizer in 1979 and I am committed to continue until either Leonard is freed or life leaves my body. I am just one of many who have made the committed to work for Leonard's freedom and I am honored to be among them. Please join us.
In Solidarity
Arthur J. Miller
just an old shipyard worker
  Join Tacoma Chapter LPDOC on facebook at: http://facebook.com/tacoma.lpdoc
Subscribe to: Northwest Peltier Support at: nwpeltiersupport-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

From Jews Sans Frontieres: "Tutu Boycotts Blair"

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According to The Observer Archbishop Desmond Tutu has refused to attend a conference in South Africa on leadership because Tony Blair was going to be there and, because of the war in Iraq, Tutu didn't want to be anywhere near the lying toad:

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for Tony Blair and George Bush to be hauled before the international criminal court in The Hague and delivered a damning critique of the physical and moral devastation caused by the Iraq war.

Tutu, a Nobel peace prizewinner and hero of the anti-apartheid movement, accuses the former British and US leaders of lying about weapons of mass destruction and says the invasion left the world more destabilised and divided "than any other conflict in history". 

Writing in the Observer, Tutu also suggests the controversial US and UK-led action to oust Saddam Hussein in 2003 created the backdrop for the civil war in Syria and a possible wider Middle East conflict involving Iran..

Look how much Blair got for attending the conference:

A longtime critic of the Iraq war, the archbishop pulled out of a South African conference on leadership last week because Blair, who was paid 2m rand (£150,000) for his time, was attending. It is understood that Tutu had agreed to speak without a fee.

It would have killed Blair to agree to speak without a fee.

Let's see how Blair responds to Tutu's criticism:

In a statement, Blair strongly contested Tutu's views and said Iraq was now a more prosperous country than it had been under Saddam Hussein. "I have a great respect for Archbishop Tutu's fight against apartheid – where we were on the same side of the argument – but to repeat the old canard that we lied about the intelligence is completely wrong as every single independent analysis of the evidence has shown.

"And to say that the fact that Saddam massacred hundreds of thousands of his citizens is irrelevant to the morality of removing him is bizarre. We have just had the memorials both of the Halabja massacre, where thousands of people were murdered in one day by Saddam's use of chemical weapons, and that of the Iran-Iraq war where casualties numbered up to a million including many killed by chemical weapons.

"In addition, his slaughter of his political opponents, the treatment of the Marsh Arabs and the systematic torture of his people make the case for removing him morally strong. But the basis of action was as stated at the time.

"In short, this is the same argument we have had many times with nothing new to say. But surely in a healthy democracy people can agree to disagree.

"I would also point out that despite the problems, Iraq today has an economy three times or more in size, with the child mortality rate cut by a third of what it was. And with investment hugely increased in places like Basra."

Priceless! The poor state of the economy and the numbers of children that died had nothing to do with "genocide by sanctions" then. And didn't the west side with Iraq in the war against Iran? And who supplied those chemical weapons together with the delivery capabilities? It would be wonderful to believe that the ICC will one day be able to put these questions to Tony Blair but I don't think that day will come.