Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.
Sabby Sabs
Resize text-+=
Supreme Court Decision: HOMELESSNESS Now A CRIME?
Sabby Sabs Streamed on July 1, 2024
An in-depth examination of the rapidly exploding problem of homelessness in the US, a disturbing sign of its social, economic, and political disintegration, and the fact that the state, more than ever in the hands of the super rich, from the Supreme Court to municipal and state governments, is making homelessness a crime, and triggering divisions in the working class, instead of seeking perfectly viable solutions to this iconic problem of capitalist societies. Homelessness has clear causes, notes Sabby, ridiculously low incomes for many workers, for example, and the solution is in building more shelters and adequate housing for the working class, as well as health support systems, not unleashing more police harassment and jail on such people. Many of the homeless are now elderly people, says Sabby, as well as minors. If Finland and other more enlightened nations have found solutions to this problem, and even Mississippi has implemented the free and affordable housing approach, why can't the rest of the United States? Now that the "Trump court", packed with right-wingers and reactionaries, has certified that cities have the right to treat homelessness as a crime, the problem has reached a new level of callousness in terms of existing policies.
News 12131
and Hamas is the only party rejecting it reminds me of that time they kept insisting that the real president of Venezuela was some random guy—Juan Guaido—they chose for the position.
They’re just trying to impose a narrative which has no factual basis whatsoever by rote repetition and sheer media power.—Caitlin Johnstone.
There’s nothing the miniature corporate ghouls on the CNN stage tonight will say of any consequence. Our morality drained away to an endless pool of blood and our throats cut by our arrogant national
On this night of a “debate” between two of the most vacuous, vapid, morally devoid and intellectually empty sock puppets in the country, the only voices Americans need to hear tonight are of the screams and sobs of the children we and our NeoNazi Israeli owners are systematically shredding, dismembering and killing in Gaza.
We need to contemplate the shrieks of their grieving parents and devastated grandparents and the stunned silence of their traumatized siblings.
We need to hear the horror of our murderous foreign and military policy and endless echo of our 2,000-pound and illegal fragmentation bombs ripping through tent camps of innocent homeless, starving refugee families … our 21st Century National Anthem.
There’s nothing the miniature corporate ghouls on the CNN stage tonight will say of any consequence. Our morality has drained away to an endless pool of blood and our throats cut by our arrogant national cruelty.
"Mass street protests and prolonged civil disobedience are our only hope. A failure to rise up — which is what the corporate state is counting on — will see us enslaved and the earth’s ecosystem become inhospitable to human habitation. Let us take a lesson from the courageous men and women who took to the streets for 14 years to save Julian. They showed us how it is done."
— Chris Hedges, "You Saved Julian Assange”
Share
Recommend DeMOCKracy.Ink to the readers of Patrice’s Newsletter
We hear endless platitudes about ‘American Democracy’, but whether it’s voter suppression, gerrymandering, corruption of corporate money or a supine press, the US is a bipartisan mockery of democracy.
Lili News 029
In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.
Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.
the resistance group hamas did not invade a peace-loving country. To israelis, it may have felt tranquil and carefree – they were dancing, raising families on tree-lined streets, planning vacations abroad. Palestinians are pretty much invisible, locked as they are behind high concrete walls and electrified, fortified, barbed wire barriers.
Israelis have never experienced the kind of invasion they got that day. The roles are usually reversed. This time some Palestinians were killing, kidnapping, and causing panic, trauma, and unconscionable violence. Usually it is some Israeli soldiers and settlers that perpetrate such acts.
The Israelis’ experience – and that of their loved ones – is real and significant.
But many of us are dismissing Gazans’ experience out of hand.
If we believe in equality, in the presence of the imago dei in everyone, we ought to be troubled by this. Are Israeli sins forgivable, but Palestinian sins somehow unforgivable?
We ought to make sure we have true and accurate information, and are responding to it responsibly. If we detect any bigotry in our perspective, we must work diligently to weed it out.
What you didn’t know you didn’t know
History did not begin on October 7, 2023. If it had, Hamas militants would have no pertinent reason for the rage they displayed. Their only excuse would be hatred for Jews.
We must acknowledge that each of the young Gazan fighters has experienced a lifetime under a brutal Israeli blockade and multiple major Israeli operations – it’s a stretch to call them “wars,” as the weaponry and the casualty figures were so lopsided.
Amira Hass and Gideon Levy recognize the significance of this fact).
Each fighter in Gaza likely grew up not just fearful and angry, but hungry, malnourished, growth-stunted, and anxious. He has likely seen dead bodies, amputated limbs, and blood. He has likely lost loved ones and played in the shells of bombed-out houses.
The violence against him has not stopped long enough for him to get PTSD. There has been no “post” to his trauma.
Hamas fighters, like all young people in Gaza, struggle to hold onto hope for the future. Israel’s brutal blockade, plus its destruction of factories, shops, and other businesses, has left an unemployment rate hovering around 45%.
How to restore hope? Not by committing murder, but by winning freedom. That is what every Palestinian wants. Not revenge, not the eradication of Jews. Freedom and hope.
How to achieve freedom?
Obviously, killing hundreds of Israelis is not moral or productive, and will not lead to freedom – at least, not directly.
Similarly, bombing Gaza to rubble is not the way for Israel to gain security. That has been proven again and again, at great cost to Palestinians.
These are irrational actions on both sides, horrible acts.
(The UN Security Council voted on a resolution Wednesday, October 18, merely calling for Israel to pause its bombing to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza – the United States vetoed it. That is not contributing to anything but carnage.)
That is to say that while each individual member of Hamas is responsible for his own actions – and some or many may have committed atrocities – Israel’s policies of brutal starvation, suffocation, and airstrikes, pushed them into a corner. Israel must own up to that. American foreign policy allowed it, and we must own up to that. The current situation is by no stretch of the imagination all Hamas’ fault.
In every war, individuals commit atrocities that are inexcusable. The members of Hamas had just broken out of the world’s largest prison, where they had been brutalized every day by Israel. Violent retribution on the part of some should not surprise us.
It is also worth noting that at least some of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas were treated well and with respect – so well that some Israelis wished the truth hadn’t been made public. It is understood that they were not captured to be killed, but to be bargaining chips for the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners wrongly held by Israel.
One possible culpability loophole for us everyday folks: if you are one of the millions who know nothing about Palestinians except the October 7 massacre, realize this: our mainstream media has for years been working to keep you in the dark (see this, this, this, and this exposé on PBS for example).
Zionism
So. Why did they do it? Do Hamas militants have a deep, inbred hatred of Jews?
The one thing most Palestinians know for sure about Jews is that they come in two types: those who embrace Zionism and those who don’t.
Palestinians are highly intelligent, highly educated – and their education did not include being “taught to hate Jews.” They didn’t need to be taught to hate their occupier – each boy and girl from Gaza to the West Bank, from East Jerusalem to Israel, figured out all by themselves that the ones shooting their family members and withholding blankets and baby food are despicable.
Nor is the distinction between “Jew” and “Zionist” too hard for Palestinians to comprehend.
(For some Israel apologists, including but not limited to Jonathan Greenblatt, the distinction between Jew and Zionist is lost. Wait…does that mean Palestinians are smarterthan Zionists?)
October Seventh
The whole world is aware of Hamas’ October 7th attack – its brutality is already legendary. People who should know better are publicly calling them “animals” and “barbarians.” “These are not human beings! They killed babies, raped women.”
Look, about a thousand Gazans entered Israel that day. If they were all animals, killing babies and raping women, there would have been a lot more victims (I have yet to see actual evidence of a rapes of Israeli women that day – if you have, please share it with me). Governments lie during wars, and this appears to be one of those times (that said, there is documentation of Israeli soldiers raping Palestinian women (and men, and children) that stretch from Israel’s founding to the present).
Some members of Hamas and other resistance groups in Gaza absolutely have a cruel streak. Would anyone expect them not to?
Israel and its self-proclaimed “most moral army in the world” reinforce their cruel streak with one of the most powerful militaries in the world and (apparently) complete exemption from international law.
Key questions
Palestinians really have two choices: resist and be labeled “terrorist/subhuman,” or sit quietly and let Israel starve and shoot and humiliate them. There are no good options. (Most can not afford to emigrate, nor do they want to leave their homeland.)
Here are the questions we must grapple with.
Do Palestinians have the right to be free of Israeli occupation?
Do they have the right to self-determination?
Do they have the right to a dignified life?
These are yes/no questions. They are unrelated to Hamas. Do Palestinians have these rights?
If you are grieved by the loss of Israeli life – in spite of Israel’s many sins – but Palestinian casualties still do not move you, what you are feeling is probably not righteous anger, but prejudice.
Cleanse your palette of judgmentalism toward two million people for the faults of a few, for being born Palestinian, for desiring a better life.
Understand that legitimate grievances, left to fester, will beget hostility and violence.
Discern the difference between recognizing these grievances and approving the violence.
Acknowledge that America has been complicit in the carnage we’ve witnessed in the past weeks (largely thanks to Israel-centric news reports and the influence of the pro-Israel lobby).
As long as we cheer for Israel – or stay silent about the slaughter of Palestinians – we are part of the problem.
Palestinians are people, and that’s the bottom line.
Kathryn Shihadah is an editor and staff writer for If Americans Knew. This is reposted from Patheos – Grace Colored Glasses – Kathy’s blog on Patheos, an online destination to engage in the global dialogue about religion and spirituality. She also occasionally blogs at Palestine Home. The article has been periodically updated.
Jun 28, 2024 The US House of Representatives voted Thursday to pass an amendment barring the US State Department from citing the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry’s death toll statistics for the Israel-Hamas war. A bipartisan group of lawmakers voted 269-144, passing the amendment to the State Department’s annual appropriation bill. The Gaza Health Ministry’s death toll during the current conflict has served as a primary source for understanding the impact the war has had on Palestinians in the territory. This is the only official entity tracking death data in Gaza. The Israeli government has repeatedly criticized the ministry’s death toll, claiming the agency is inflating the figure for political reasons. Alex Traiman, the CEO of the Jewish News Syndicate joined LiveNOW from FOX's Josh Breslow to discuss the latest developments in the Middle East.
AND remember, this the bought political class that also continually passes laws to RESTRICT and NULLIFY American Constitutional guarantees relating to free speech, assembly, illegal searches and so on, as seen in a long list of measures quietly incorporated in the Homeland Security acts, NDAA and so on.
News 12131
and Hamas is the only party rejecting it reminds me of that time they kept insisting that the real president of Venezuela was some random guy—Juan Guaido—they chose for the position.
They’re just trying to impose a narrative which has no factual basis whatsoever by rote repetition and sheer media power.—Caitlin Johnstone.
Glenn dissects the Biden debate disaster and the many political implications of this revelation, exposing the huge lie behind the Democrat media flunkies version, who kept telling the American people Biden was alright, and that he could be entrusted with the top job for another four years. The manipulating hacks even chose to deny the truth in so many images of Biden showing his age, dementia and frailty (as during his trip to Europe), claiming that such images were "cheapfakes". The Biden courtiers—politicos and media flunkies—are shown first following the official script before the debate, assuring the public that Biden was still sharp as a tack and ready to assume any task, and then, after the debate and panic set in, changing course 180 degrees, like a herd of stampeding buffalos. This crowd, these Blue Cult personalities, they are incapable of ever opposing the consensus, once adopted. No matter what the truth may be, dissent is not allowed.
BELOW, Glenn's FULL version of the episode feartured above.
Debate Forces Corporate Media to Admit Biden Impairment After Months of Lies; SCOTUS, Including Justice Jackson, Overturns Excessive Jan. 6 Prosecutions | SYSTEM UPDATE #291
News 12131
and Hamas is the only party rejecting it reminds me of that time they kept insisting that the real president of Venezuela was some random guy—Juan Guaido—they chose for the position.
They’re just trying to impose a narrative which has no factual basis whatsoever by rote repetition and sheer media power.—Caitlin Johnstone.
Max Blumenthal : US sailors Defending Israeli Genocide
Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.
Judge Napolitano
with MAX BLUMENTHAL
Resize text-+=
Max Blumenthal : US sailors Defending Israeli Genocide
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom Streamed live on Jun 20, 2024
Max discusses all the major flashpoints created by the out-of-control Neocons in the Biden White House, and how the Ukraine War and Gaza conflicts have been wantonly prolonged and amplified through the usual false narratives, bringing the world recklessly close to an unjustifiable nuclear Armageddon. Biden could have stopped this insane situation with one phone call, but the US political class is too heavily infiltrated if not outright bought out by Israeli special interest organizations such as AIPAC.
Lili News 029
In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.
Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.