Holding the US
Government to Account for Its Role in Keeping Gaza a
Prison
Marches across the globe, mostly buoyed by young
Palestinians, are responding to the ground war begun by Israel last week in
Gaza. FULL international list of protests.
San Francisco July 20: Sunday’s March for Palestine in San Francisco
drew an estimated 4000 people into the streets. This powerful and diverse
response to the human rights crisis in Gaza needs to grow in proportion to the
magnitude of the crimes being committed against humanity.
World Can't
Wait activists made a paper ribbon hundreds of feet long with names & ages
of some of the 600+ people killed in Gaza since July 7 by
the U.S.-backed Israeli assault. They reported:
The ribbon was simplicity of form; a real
community-builder. People could quickly see what to do with it, and were
reaching up to help hold it, winding it back thru the marchers and trees and
other people's heads carefully. People of many different kinds and political
trends were reaching to each other to unroll (it takes a lot of people to
completely unroll it even with only about 50 names on each of two rolls).
Muslims, 60's generation peace activists, Occupy, a woman in Che shirt, women in
hejab, a homeless teenager, all kind of marchers. Parents with toddlers in arms
were helping them to put a hand on it and "help hold it." Teenage guys in
kaffiyeh pointing, taking pix, some coming over to help carry it. Many others
were photographing or filming it as it streamed past them.
We found it
was a way to influence how people think. To the "audience": stop thinking like
Americans, start thinking about humanity." And the participants were acting to
express that challenge to the "audience" whether shoppers or thru media -- and
also to the people in Palestine and elsewhere who may see pictures.
One
woman afterwards thanked us for bringing it. "It was an HONOR to help carry
these names today, I can barely think about what Israel is doing without shaking
with anger..." [And about the responsibility of the United States in supporting
it all?] "To think about America being behind Israel I am even angrier...THESE
PEOPLE (pointing at the ribbon) ARE DEAD and that is who killed them." A young
woman in tears told me seeing the names and ages of the babies on the
ribbon.
► Watch Brett Wilkins' video of the march &
ribbon.
 Chicago
July 20: Friends in Chicago report:
Many Palestinian-Americans thanked us for being at the march today. One young
Palestinian woman with her small daughter and a woman from Bosnia with her
teen-ager beside her both gave me hugs along with their thanks. We responded
that this is OUR responsibility, everyone in this country with a conscience, to
#ActForGaza, and we should apologize to *them* for not mobilizing more people
who are not Muslims or Arab Americans to be in the streets.
We have so
much more to do to change the thinking of millions in this country so they
understand that these war crimes are committed with the backing of the US (not
just the $$) for the interests of U.S. imperialism and to ACT to stop
them!
Above, right: brilliant edit of
World Can't Wait's "Crimes are Crimes" banner by Chicago activists, replacing
Bush with Netanyahu.
Alan Goodman writes in Revolution,
Challenging Israel's Crimes on Campus: A Breath
of Fresh Air in a Stifling Academic Environment:
Throughout society in the last few days, figures in
sports, science, and entertainment who have spoken out against Israel’s attacks
on the Palestinian people or even simply expressed a desire for an end to
violence have come under intense attack. (Unfortunately—in the face of vicious
attacks on these postings via celebrity gossip networks that are essentially
ruling class ideological propaganda—some of these tweets and postings have been
taken down.)
But these attacks have failed to silence a growing tide of
exposure, outrage, and protest worldwide, and in the U.S. World-renowned
scientist Steven Hawking has refused to back off his pledge to boycott
scientific conferences in Israel. When such prominent figures stick to their
principles and do the right thing, they must be backed up, supported, and
defended!
Continue reading...
 Stop Patriarchy: Emergency in Texas
Stop Forced
Motherhood
Abortion on Demand and Without Apology
In the
last few days, Mark Ruffalo, Gloria Steinem, Cindy Sheehan, and Dr. Cornel
West, first wave feminists, and members of the punk band War on Women have
signed, with hundreds of others.
Our aim in circulating and publishing
it is to "recast the moral and political terms and the thinking of millions."
The impact of this statement will be even more amplified because the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride 2014 will be
on the ground in Texas - with weekly People's Hearings webcast around the
country, determined acts of resistance and work to change people's thinking
about abortion.
We plan to publish on August 4, as the final court
proceedings in Austin determine whether almost all women in Texas will lose
access to abortion by September 1. With your involvement, this statement
can reach a critical mass of signers & funds. Donate here.
Please share this message with others.
Save the Date! Join Contingent at the People’s Climate March Sunday,
September 21, 2014 in NYC
Stop the Crimes Against Our
Planet
Humanity and the Planet Must Come First!
The World Can't
Wait!
World leaders have called for yet another International
Conference at the UN in September. Their meeting will, however, do nothing to
stop the global environment's escalating destruction. Using the justifications
of “national security” and "business necessities," the US government itself has
consistently sabotaged climate talks, supported dangerous drilling, fracking,
plunder and exploitation of non-renewable energy resources here and around the
world. It has also ruthlessly prosecuted and jailed environmental and animal
rights activists explicitly as “terrorists.”
Only the direct action of
thousands and eventually millions of people can create a movement that will stem
nature's systemic abuse and its dire consequences for the planet. Politics as
usual has not and will not reverse this disastrous direction. As World Can't
Wait's Mission Statement warns: "That which we do not resist and mobilize to
stop, we will learn - or be forced - to accept."
We must act to protect
and preserve the world's fast-vanishing natural ecosystems and stem climate
change catastrophe. If not, this planet could very well become uninhabitable for
billions of people, and possibly all of humanity, as well as for much of the
world's flora and fauna.
The United States government leads in crimes
against the planet:
-
The Obama administration opposes any serious curbing of fossil fuel use in
this country. The new rules on power plant emissions will reduce greenhouse gas
emissions by only four percent below the levels measured in 1990, although
scientists and climate studies have shown that massive cuts of 25 to 40 percent
are needed by 2020 if there is to be any hope of preventing the very worst
impacts of climate change.
-
In fact, the Pentagon is the world's biggest single user of fossil fuel,
fueling illegitimate wars to maintain and expand the US empire. Oil is a
strategic resource and the US government acts to control it at all costs,
including the planet's very viability. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for
example, has been a cheerleader for US oil companies exploiting melting polar
ice caps to drill in the Arctic Sea to pre-empt Russia.
- Fossil fuels are only part of the engine of destruction. US government
policy subsidizes large factory “farming” to produce meat, eggs and dairy
resulting in 18 percent of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. Animal
waste leaches antibiotics and hormones into ground and water; pesticides and
fertilizers find their way into streams, rivers and coastal water thereby adding
to ocean acidification.
Truly, the WORLD CAN'T WAIT!
March with the Stop the Crimes on Our
Planet Contingent on September 21, 2014 in NYC for the People's Climate March.
We bring a vision of a society built on sustainable resources and justice for
all the world's peoples from right here in the heart of one of the main
countries responsible for climate catastrophe.
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Scroll down for updates on the abortion
rights emergency in Texas...
Join the World Can't Wait
Conversation
Thursday, July 24
10pm Eastern / 7pm
Pacific
We will discuss the role
of the US in the horrific deaths in Gaza. Also. organizers of the Abortion
Rights Freedom Ride will join the
conversation.
Download
here: posters & flyer in
English & Spanish.
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