This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
Saturday, August 02, 2014
The Latest From The Rag Blog-A Voice Of The Old New Left
Click below to link to The Rag Blog
http://www.theragblog.com/
Peter Paul Markin comment:
When we were young, meaning those of us who were militant leftist baby-boomers from what I now call the “Generation Of ‘68”, we would chuckle/gasp/shriek in horror when some Old Leftists tried to tell us a few of the ABCs of radical politics. Those scorned old leftists, mainly old Stalinist Communist Party hangers-on or moribund Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party members who had come of political age in the 1930s and 1940s had nothing to tell us young stalwart in-your-face- rebels who were going to re-invent the world, re-invent it without the hurts and sorrows accumulated from millennia of previous struggles to push the rock up the hill of human progress.
Well, we fell significantly short of that aim, had that Promethean rock come speeding down over our heads. Today I am still not sure whether in retrospect those scorned Old Leftists of old had anything going but all I know is we are now cast in somewhat the same light. We are now the Old New Leftists. Problem is that unlike our 1960s generation, warts and all, there is no sizable younger crowd of young stalwart in-your-face-rebels to thumb their noses up at us. And there should be. That has not stopped many old radicals, many who have not succumbed to old age and hubris, from trying to be heard. And the place they have congregated, for better or worse, at least from what I can see is at this site.
So I find this The Rag Blog website very useful to monitor for the latest in what is happening with past tense radical activists and activities. Anybody, with some kind of name, and who is still around from the 1960s has found a home here. The remembrances and recollections are helpful for today’s activists. Strangely the politics are almost non-existent, as least any that would help today, except to kind of retroactively “bless” those old-time New Left politics that did nothing (well, almost nothing) but get us on the losing end of the class (and cultural) wars of the last forty plus years. Still this is a must read blog for today’s left-wing militants.
A Markin disclaimer:
I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Sometimes I will comment on my disagreements and sometimes I will just let the author/writer shoot him or herself in the foot without note. Off hand, as I have mentioned before in other contexts, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in the entries on this website. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts. Read on.
I knew that what I would write would never be published by the ‘Bar Journal.’ So I happily write it for ‘The Rag Blog.’ Here I stand, though the road was not exactly what I expected.
Lawyer Jim Simons at his Austin law office. Image from the Feb. 25, 1977 Texas Observer special issue on Texas lawyers. Jim wrote an article entitled, “Memoirs of a Movement Lawyer.”
AUSTIN — In 1964 I was sworn in to practice law in the old Supreme Court Building just northwest of the Capitol. I had many notions of what I was in for. Some were just the stuff of bad dreams, some absurdly romantic or idealistic.
There was a still small voice that told me I did not want to do this. Lawyers were said to be stuffy and conservative. I knew I was not the latter and hoped I was not the former. I had deep-seated doubts about how I might fit in. I knew I was very much an outsider in law school. I had rebelled against the phony solemnity of the institution. Continue reading →
As
The 100th Anniversary Of The Beginning of World War I (Remember The War To End
All Wars) Starts ... Some Remembrances-Bertolt Brecht's To Those Born After
Although Brecht's To Those Born After is not directly related to the debacle of World War I one cannot understand the poem without that debacle in mind.
To Those Born After
I
To the cities I came in a time of disorder That was ruled by hunger. I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar And then I joined in their rebellion. That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
I ate my dinners between the battles, I lay down to sleep among the murderers, I didn't care for much for love And for nature's beauties I had little patience. That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
The city streets all led to foul swamps in my time, My speech betrayed me to the butchers. I could do only little But without me those that ruled could not sleep so easily: That's what I hoped. That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
Our forces were slight and small, Our goal lay in the far distance Clearly in our sights, If for me myself beyond my reaching. That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
II
You who will come to the surface From the flood that's overwhelmed us and drowned us all Must think, when you speak of our weakness in times of darkness That you've not had to face:
Days when we were used to changing countries More often than shoes, Through the war of the classes despairing That there was only injustice and no outrage.
Even so we realised Hatred of oppression still distorts the features, Anger at injustice still makes voices raised and ugly. Oh we, who wished to lay for the foundations for peace and friendliness, Could never be friendly ourselves.
And in the future when no longer Do human beings still treat themselves as animals, Look back on us with indulgence.
The Latest From The Cindy Sheehan Blog
http://www.cindysheehanssoapbox.com/
A link to Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox blog for the latest from her site.
Markin comment: I find Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox rather a mishmash of eclectic politics and basic old time left-liberal/radical thinking. Not enough, not nearly enough, in our troubled times but enough to take the time to read about and get a sense of the pulse (if any) of that segment of the left to which she is appealing. One though should always remember, despite our political differences, her heroic action in going down to hell-hole Texas to confront one President George W. Bush in 2005 when many others were resigned to accepting the lies of that administration or who “folded” their tents when the expected end to the Iraq War did not materialize. Hats off on that one, Cindy Sheehan. *************
Additional Markin comment: I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts. ********
**The Roots Is The Toots- The Music That Got Them Through The Great Depression And World War II…The Inkspots If I Didn't Care
For Prentice John Markin and Delores Maude Markin (nee Riley) who lived through it all, survived it all, and never drew a blessed break…
He spied her or she spied him they never did quite agree on who did the first peeking but both agreed that their earliest encounter proved both fruitless and frustrating. Fruitless and frustrating but would turn out not to be quite the "that was that" and never more of the first meeting. Let's pick up their story from there...
…Well not quite that was that. The very next Friday night, a night she had for some reason not volunteered to do refreshment service, she Agnes, Dorothy, and a couple of other young women from the office pool found their way to that weekly USO dance. And guess who was there in his dress blues doing a double-take when she came into the ballroom lobby (she had not been sure at first that it was a double-take but when he looked her way again a second later she knew). Of course that look did not make him stop his world, his pretty young thing he was talking to world. And did not stop him from taking that pretty young thing out onto the dance floor when that week’s cover band, Dick Glover and The Rovers, played the upbeat Andrews Sister’s tune Rum and Coca-Cola whilethey danced. She was glad, mostly glad, that she had not succumbed to his charms the previous week.
Then the “not quite that was that ” started as a few dances later he swayed his wiry frame over to her and her crowd to say “hi” and to ask her for a dance (as “their song, ” or what would become their song, If I Didn’t Care, came on). She said yes, and so they danced, danced a couple of dances in a row. Then the rules of the USO dance for hostesses to mix closed in on them and another soldier requested a dance. Later at intermission he again spoke to her, asked her once again if he could wait for her at the end of the dance. Again she said no. Same thing when he asked her for a date. No. He couldn’t figure her out, couldn’t figure why she seemed to reject him out of hand when he sensed she liked him. What he did not know, could not know then was that besides her feeling that he was strictly a love them and leave them guy, that Sheik designation whatever his story to the contrary told it all, and that she should not succumb to his charms there was another reason. After mentioning him to her mother, mentioning that he was from the south, her mother warned her off. Reason: Tyrant father, tyrant Irish Catholic father (although barely observant) would raise holy hell, would go crazy if she brought some redneck Protestant around. And so whatever she felt, they would be doomed before they started. Still he…
…Yes, still he disturbed her sleep that week, made her a little cuckoo at work and around the house if you asked anyone within fifty feet of her. Was made more cuckoo when she talked to that non- observant Irish Catholic tyrant father about his opinion (theoretically, of course) of southerners, American southerners, Protestants, Anglo-Saxon Protestants, the British kind, and Marines (she did not add the love them and leave them kind). His response was horrific. Yes, he had opinions of all three categories, none good, and not just none good. He sensed what she was getting at (her mother had vaguely posed the question to him earlier in the week) and said in no uncertain terms that he would not, his word, abide, an ignorant, uneducated (this before she even knew her Marine’s lack of formal education), whiskey-drinking (despite his rages her father was a tee-totaller having survived a drunken besotted father), redneck southern Protestant (or northern Protestant for that matter) ne’er –do-well Marine, or any other military man from that part of the country in his house. End of conversation, forever.
Still she thought of him, wondered whether he would be at the dance that week. Maybe he had shipped out, maybe he was off with some pretty young thing (although those fierce brown eyes when he spoke to her should have told her otherwise). In any case she was going to make her case, despite her father (or who knows maybe because of the old tyrant) and despite her qualms about his intentions. So come that Friday she prepared herself, put on her best party dress (which had first served as her graduation dress but with the war efforts eating up textiles at a prodigious rate serious dresses were not be had), make herself up special with a little rouge and some ruby red lipstick and, and, put on nylons, nylons, even more than special dresses not to be had then. Her best come hither soldier boy look.
And you know that he was there, the Sheik was there that night all in dress blues, as she walked while Jimmy Mack and the Pack back again warmed up on Til The End Of Time.She did not know where it would all lead but when he asked her after they had danced a couple of numbers if maybe they could go down to Hullsville Beach and talk instead of staying for the dance she said yes…
On The 70th Anniversary Of The Warsaw Uprising-Honor The Heroic Anti-Fascist Fighters Markin comment: Whatever one's political differences with the Polish government in exile in 1944 one can always admire courage against great odd in the anti-fascist struggle. A witness to the uprising on the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p023fdwh
Defend The Palestinian People! No U.S. Aid To Israel -Rally In Boston August 2nd In Solidarity With Gaza And Rally In Washington D.C.
***Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-The Doors
Peter Paul Markin comment December 2013:
A while back, maybe a few years ago, I started a series presented under the headline Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By where I posted some songs that I thought would get us through the “dog days” of the struggle for our socialist future. Posted at a time, 2009, when it was touch and go whether there would be some kind of uprising against the economic royalists (chastised under the popular sobriquet “the one-percent”) who had just dealt the world a blow to the head through their economic machinations. Subsequently, while there were momentary uprisings, the response from the American and world working classes has if anything entrenched those interests. So as the dog days continue I have resumed the series. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs selected; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this kind of formation would mean political death for any serious revolutionary upheaval and would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.
**********
WE WANT THE WORLD AND WE WANT IT NOW!
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin
My old friend from the summer of love 1967 days, Peter Paul Markin, always used to make a point of answering, or rather arguing with anybody who tried to tell him back in the day that “music was the revolution.” Meaning, of course that contrary to the proponents (including many mutual friends who acted out on that idea and got burned by the flame) that eight or ten Give Peace A Chance, Kumbaya, Woodstock songs would not do the trick, would not change this nasty, brutish, old short-life world into the garden, into some pre-lapsian Eden. Meaning that the gathering of youth nation unto itself out in places like Woodstock, Golden Gate Park, Monterrey, hell, the Boston Common, or even once word trickled down, Olde Saco Park, would not feed on itself and grow to such a critical mass that the enemies of good, kindness, and leave us alone would sulk off somewhere, defeated or at least defanged.
Many a night, many a dope-blistered night before some seawall ocean front Pacific Coast campfire I would listen to Markin blast forth against that stuff, against that silliness. As for me, I was too into the moment, too into finding weed, hemp, mary jane and some fetching women to share it with to get caught up in some nebulous ideological struggle. It was only later, after the music died, after rock and roll turned in on itself, turned into some exotic fad of the exiles on Main Street that I began to think through the implications of what Markin, and the guys on the other side, were arguing about.
Now it makes perfect sense that music or any mere cultural expression would be unable to carry enough weight to turn us back to the garden. Although I guess that I would err on the side of the angels and at least wish they could have carried the day against the monsters of the American imperium we confronted back in the day.
Thinking about what a big deal was made of such arguments recently (arguments carried deep into the night, deep in smoke dream nights, and sometimes as the blue–pink dawn came rising to smite our dreams) I thought back to my own musical appreciations. In my jaded youth I developed an ear for roots music, whether I was conscious of that fact or not. Perhaps it initially started as a reaction to my parents’ music, the music that got them through the Great Depression of the 1930s and later waiting for other shoe to drop (either in Normandy or at home waiting in Olde Saco), and that became a habit, a wafting through the radio of my childhood home habit. You know who I mean Frank (Sinatra for the heathens), Harry James, the Andrews Sisters, Peggy Lee, Doris Day and the like. Or, maybe, and this is something that I have come closer to believing was the catalyst, my father’s very real roots in the Saturday night mountain barn dance, fiddles blazing, music of his growing up poor down in Appalachia.
The origin of my emergence into roots music first centered on the blues, country and city with the likes of Son House , Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Elmore James, then early rock and roll, you know the rockabillies and R&B crowd, Elvis, Jerry Lee, Chuck, Roy, Big Joe and Ike, and later, with the folk revival of the early 1960’s, folk music, especially the protest to high heaven sort, Bob Dylan, Dave Von Ronk, Joan Baez, etc. As I said I have often wondered about the source of this interest.
I am, and have always been a city boy, and an Eastern city boy at that. Meaning rootless or not meaningfully or consciously rooted in any of the niches mentioned above. Nevertheless, over time I have come to appreciate many more forms of roots music than in my youth. Cajun, Tex-Mex, old time dust bowl ballads a la Woody Guthrie, cowboy stuff with the likes of Bob Wills and Milton Brown, Carter Family-etched mountain music (paying final conscious tribute to the mountain DNA in my bone) and so on.
And all those genres are easily classified as roots music but I recall one time driving Markin crazy, driving him to closet me with the “music is the revolution” heads when I mentioned in passing that The Doors, then in their high holy mantra shamanic phase epitomized roots music. That hurt, a momentary hurt then, but thinking about it more recently Markin was totally off base in his remarks.
The Doors are roots music? Well, yes, in the sense that one of the branches of rock and roll derived from early rhythm and blues and in the special case of Jim Morrison, leader of The Doors, the attempt to musically explore the shamanic elements in the Western American Native- American culture that drove the beat of many of his trance-like songs like The End. More than one rock critic, professional rock critic, has argued that on their good nights when the dope and booze were flowing, Morrison was in high trance, and they were fired up The Doors were the best rock and roll band ever created. Those critics will get no argument here, and it is not a far stretch to classify their efforts as in the great American roots tradition. I argued then and will argue here almost fifty years later when that original statement of mine was more prophetic the Doors put together all the stuff rock critics in one hundred years will be dusting off when they want to examine what it was like when men (and women, think Bonnie Raitt, Wanda Jackson, et. al) played rock and roll for keeps.
So where does Jim Morrison fit in an icon of the 1960s if he was not some new age latter day cultural Lenin/Trotsky. Jim was part of the trinity – Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix who lived fast, lived way too fast, and died young. The slogan of the day (or hour) - Drugs, sex, and rock and roll. And we liked that idea however you wanted to mix it up. Then.
Their deaths were part of the price we felt we had to pay if we were going to be free. And be creative. Even the most political among us, including Markin in his higher moments, felt those cultural winds blowing across the continent and counted those who espoused this alternative vision as part of the chosen. The righteous headed to the “promise land.” Unfortunately those who believed that we could have a far-reaching positive cultural change via music or “dropping out” without a huge societal political change proved to be wrong long ago. But, these were still our people.
The atrocities committed by the Israeli regime keep piling up in Gaza. Over 70 people were murdered by relentless Israeli artillery fire in just one neighborhood alone, al-Shujayeh, and bombings of hospitals and schools take place on a daily basis.
In response to this ongoing massacre, a broad coalition of anti-war, Muslim and Arab-American groups have joined together to organize a national march on the White House on August 2. Co-sponsors: - ANSWER Coalition - American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) - Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) - American Muslim Alliance (AMA) - Al-Awda: Palestine Right to Return Coalition - Al-Awda: Palestine Right to Return Coalition - New York - CODEPINK - Muslim Legal Fund of America- Palestinian American Women's Association (PAWA) - World Can't Wait - Partership for Civil Justice - MAS Immigrant Justice Center - UNAC - United National Antiwar Coalition - Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)- House of Latin America (HOLA)- SI Solidarity Iran- Labor Fightback Network - Al-Awda, Palestine Right to Return Coalition, Cleveland Chapter - Al Quds Committee - Washington D.C. al-Quds Committee - Veterans For Peace- AF3IRM - Methodist Federation for Social Action - The National Muslim Council for Justice (NMCJ) - Islamic Shura Council of Southern California - Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel - Free Palestine Movement International Solidarity Movement - Northern California - Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality - Virginia - The Phil Berrigan Institute for Nonviolence and Occupy the Dream, Reading, PA - LA Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild - The Green Party of New Jersey- International Action Center - Jews for Palestinian Right of Return - Labor for Palestine - New York City Labor Against the War- Socialist Action - Damayan Migrant Workers Association - Palestinian American Council-Chicago (PAC) - Malcolm X Center for Self Determination - San Diego Coalition for Peace & Justice - National Black United Front - National Committee to Free the Cuban Five - Existence is Resistance- US Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI)- KmB Pro-People Youth - Defence for Children International - Palestine
Every day, people across the United States are pouring into the streets to show their outrage at the ongoing Israeli massacre in Gaza. In many cities, these demonstrations are taking place on a near-daily basis – and are growing. Just last weekend, protests attended by many thousands took place in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and San Francisco. While the U.S. government continues to shamefully offer unqualified support for the brutal Israeli regime, the people of the United States are making it clear that public opinion is sharply turning against this long-standing policy.
The emerging movement that has brought so many people into the streets in local actions will now converge to illustrate the massive opposition among the American public to Israel’s new war and U.S. support for their atrocities. Join us!
Please make an urgently needed donation to help us cover the many expenses associated with a national mass mobilization. We can do this only with your support.
Download and circulate flyers for the demonstration (local versions in Transportation Center section)
Transportation Centers New Haven, Conn. Contact: ct@answercoalition.org or 203-903-4480 Details: Buses depart 6:00 a.m. on Aug 2 from downtown New Haven and return the same night. The cost is $40 per person. Download the poster here Tampa, Fla. Contact: sueylmm@hotmail.com Details: Depart Tampa Friday, August 1 at 6:00 p.m.; Arrive in D.C. Saturday, August 2 at 11:00 a.m. Depart D.C. on Saturday, August 2 at 6:00 p.m.; arrive in Tampa on Sunday, August 3 at 1:00 p.m. Tickets are $100. Chicago, Ill. Contact: ANSWER Chicago at 773-463-0311 Details: Buses depart Friday, Aug. 1 at 6 pm from the ANSWER Office at 4802 N. Broadway (You can also meet the buses at 87th and Harlem in Bridgeview, IL at 8 pm). The bus will return to Chicago Sunday morning. Tickets are $100, plus a $5 processing fee. PURCHASE YOUR TICKET HERE Bridgeview, Ill. Contact: Dr. Ghassan Barakat, Humanitarian Relief Foundation - yazzoun@aol.com or 312-671-4787 Or contact Nesreen Ballut, Palestinian American Council-Chicago - nesreen.ballut@gmail.com or 708-802-1129 Bus registration will close Wednesday at 5:00 pm. Buses will leave August 1st at 9:00 pm from 87th and Harlem (Plaza). ATTENDEES ARE REQUIRED TO ARRIVE NO LATER THAN 8:00 PM. We will be back in Chicago on Sunday (early afternoon). Registration prices: Regular: $100; (Discounted fee for students) Baltimore, Md. Contact: baltimore@answercoalition.org or 443-759-9968
Philadelphia, Penn. Contact: philly@answercoalition.org or 267-281-3859 Details: The bus departs from Philadelphia at 9:00 a.m. from 1755 N. 13th Street (outside the student center at Temple University). We will return to the same location at approximately 9:00 p.m. Tickets cost $30. Download the poster here PURCHASE YOUR TICKET HERE
Defend The Palestinian People! No U.S. Aid To Israel
END the MASSACRE in GAZA!
National March in Washington
#FreePalestine
#2DC4Gaza Sat. Aug. 2, 1pmat the White HouseBUSES LEAVING FROM BOSTON!ANSWERcoalition.org H boston@ANSWERcoalition.org H 857-334-5084
Sponsors: ANSWER Coalition, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), American Muslim Alliance (AMA), Al-Awda: Palestine Right to Return Coalition, CODEPINK, Muslim Legal Fund of America, World Can’t Wait, Partership for Civil Justice, MAS Immigrant Justice Center, UNAC - United National Antiwar Coalition, Islamic Circle of North America
Defend The Palestinian People! No U.S. Aid To Israel
Defend The Palestinian People! No U.S. Aid To Israel
Defend The
Palestinian People! No U.S. Aid To Israel
Firsthand report from Jerusalem and analysis of Iraq and Syria
The US and turmoil in the Middle
East An update on the latest crises
When: Thursday, August 7, 2014, 7:00 pm
Where: Cambridge • 5 Longfellow Park • off Brattle St -
Harvard T • Cambridge
Firsthand report from Jerusalem and analysis of Iraq and
Syria
Raed Jarrar, policy impact coordinator for
AFSC, was in Jerusalem July 10-17 as Israel launched the attack on Gaza. Raed
will report on his experiences and also focus on analysis of the current
situation in Iraq. The presentation will describe overarching US policy in the
Middle East including Syria and Egypt, and how the peace movement can take
action.
Jarrar was born and educated in Baghdad and currently lives in
Washington D.C. He has been a leading commentator on the US in Iraq since the
invasion of 2003.
Sponsored by United for Justice with Peace
Defend The
Palestinian People! No U.S. Aid To Israel
The US and turmoil in the
Middle East: Update on Palestine, Iraq, Syria
Thursday, August 7, 7:00 pm Cambridge Friends
Meeting, 5 Longfellow Park, off Brattle St
Raed Jarrar, policy impact
coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee, was in Jerusalem July
10-17 as Israel launched the attack on Gaza. Raed will report on his experiences
and also analyze the current situation in Iraq. The presentation will describe
overarching US policy in the Middle East including Syria and Egypt, and how the
peace movement can take action.
Jarrar
was born and educated in Baghdad and currently lives in Washington D.C. He has
been a leading commentator on the US in Iraq since the invasion of
2003.
Congress, Stop Arming Israel! Israel has created a massive humanitarian
disaster in Gaza. 1380 Palestinians have been killed and thousands more injured.
According to the UN, three-quarters of the dead are civilians, including
hundreds of children and women. Hundreds of thousands have been made homeless.
Israel has destroyed Gaza’s only power plant, potable water is largely
unavailable and food is scarce. The US provides over 20% of Israel's military budget, and is
resupplying Israel even as these atrocities go on. Call your member
of Congress today (202) 224-3121 and ask that the U.S. stop supplying
Israel with weapons! Our Congress has unanimously passed resolutions blaming only the victims and calling the firing of
comparatively crude mortars and rockets from Gaza “an unprovoked attack” on
Israel. This ignores decades of Israeli Occupation and a brutal 8-year Israeli
siege of Gaza that has left 1.8 million Palestinians penned up and blockaded in
an area smaller than Greater Boston, with no place to run, no place to hide from
high-tech Israeli bombs. Call your
Representative - and Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren - to say that
this is unacceptable! Israel must be held accountable and our government should
stop supplying the $ billions, the planes and the bombs it is using to destroy
Gaza. Congressional Switchboard: (202) 224-3121 (Find your Representative here) Tell Senators Markey and Warren you are angry
at their support for the "US-Israel Strategic Partnership Act", which they
announced this week.
An Israeli sniper has admitted to killing 13 children in the Gaza
Strip in one day, as Tel Aviv continues its aerial and ground attacks in the
besieged enclave.
Posting on an Instagram account, David Ovadia released a photo of himself
holding a sniper rifle.
The image with his post, however, was deleted entirely by hackers from an
anonymous group. The group has launched hundreds of attacks on Israeli websites
over the past two years.
The move was reportedly followed by the group’s cyber attacks on Israel's
Mossad and Ministry of Military Affairs.
The development comes as Tel Aviv claims that its military has been targeting
Palestinian fighters from resistance group Hamas and described the growing death
toll in the enclave as collateral damage.
Israel has been pounding the Gaza Strip since July 8. Israeli forces also
began a ground offensive against the impoverished Palestinian land on July 17.
More than 300 children have so far been killed.
More than 1,370 Palestinians have been killed and thousands of others injured
by Israel’s offensive.
Defend The
Palestinian People! No U.S. Aid To Israel
So, I am seeing an awful lot of hopeful signs that maybe finally the
international community is going to do something about the genocide that
Israel is conducting with the US backing - at US direction most
likely"
"War crimes. Three weeks of
Israeli war crimes, with more on the way. A nation of killers, that is what
Israel has become."
American peace activist Don DeBar says people all over the world are
finally standing up for the oppressed people of Palestine, and are opposing the
US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza.
“Around the world people, not necessarily governments but the people, have
been standing up against the Israeli genocide that’s being conducted against the
Palestinians in Gaza -- and in the West Bank, by the way,” DeBar, an anti-war
activist and radio host in New York, said in a phone interview with Press TV on
Thursday.
“But in Latin America particularly over the past few days we have seen some
huge developments,” he said.
“On Wednesday, the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, termed/listed the
Israeli government as terrorists based on their occupation, on their operation,
rather. Brazil, Ecuador, Chile, Peru and El Salvador recalled their ambassadors,
and Costa Ricca is studying that measure also. Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay,
Venezuela and Paraguay issued a statement Wednesday during the Mercosur
conference: they called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and they extended
their support for the Palestinians,” DeBar stated.
“All this has been developing very quickly. And it’s an interesting mixture
of Latin American countries because they are not all socialist or left-leaning
governments. We are seeing, for example, Peru - and Paraguay, which actually is
a rightwing government - taking that position,” the senior journalist noted.
“The United States suspects, of course, that Venezuela is at the heart of
this, and yesterday decided that they were going to suspend several members of
the Venezuelan delegation and they were taking other measures against Venezuela
yesterday... the US took a preemptive action against Venezuela over this,” DeBar
said.
“Meanwhile, while all this happened, it comes finally with a presentation at
the UN yesterday of the fact that Israel has been targeting UN facilities in
Gaza,” he stated.
“So, I am seeing an awful lot of hopeful signs that maybe finally the
international community is going to do something about the genocide that Israel
is conducting with the US backing - at US direction most likely - and
hopefully that will bring some pressure on it to stop,” the activist concluded.
Israeli warplanes have been carrying out incessant airstrikes against the
blockaded coastal territory since July 8. On July 17, thousands of Israeli
soldiers launched a ground invasion into the densely-populated strip.
The US provides over 20% of Israel's military budget, and is
resupplying Israel even as these atrocities go on.
