GazaFriends: Absurdity Is the Norm in the Gaza Strip By Stephanie Westbrook

June 18, 2009Leave a comment

14 June, 2009

Upon returning home from Gaza, a friend commented, “It must have been horrifying seeing all the destruction.” And it was. The 22-day Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip laid waste to an already ravaged territory.

The landscape is dotted with piles of rubble of bombed out buildings, the twisted iron and aluminum of destroyed factories, once green fields reduced to sand and dirt by Israeli tanks, apartments with 2 meter holes in the walls and toppled minarets of mosques turned to ruins.

But as devastating as bearing witness to the destruction was, it was the absurdities of the siege, the total blockade of Gaza imposed by Israel and Egypt, that really affected me. Gaza itself remains frozen in time; for nearly five months after the ceasefire, aside from a few rare cases in which cinder blocks have been used to fill gaping holes in the sides of buildings, no reconstruction whatsoever has begun. The blockade keeps the necessary building materials out of Gaza.

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Obama and Anti-War Democrats By Norman Solomon

June 18, 2009Leave a comment

18 June, 2009

Days ago, a warning shot from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue landed with a thud on Capitol Hill, near some recent arrivals in the House. The political salvo was carefully aimed and expertly fired. But in the long run it could boomerang.

As a close vote neared on a supplemental funding bill for more war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that “the White House has threatened to pull support from Democratic freshmen who vote no.” In effect, it was so important to President Obama to get the war funds that he was willing to paint a political target on the backs of some of the gutsiest new progressives in Congress.

But why would a president choose to single out fellow Democrats in their first congressional term? Because, according to conventional wisdom, they’re the most politically vulnerable and the easiest to intimidate.

Well, a number of House Democrats in their first full terms were not intimidated. Despite the presidential threat, they stuck to principle. Donna Edwards of Maryland voted no on the war funding when it really counted. So did Alan Grayson of Florida, Eric Massa of New York, Chellie Pingree of Maine, Jared Polis of Colorado and Jackie Speier of California.

Now what?

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Video: ‘The End of the Line’ Imagine a world without fish

June 18, 2009Leave a comment

Imagine an ocean without fish. Imagine your meals without seafood. Imagine the global consequences. This is the future if we do not stop, think and act.

The End of the Line, the first major feature documentary film revealing the impact of overfishing on our oceans, had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Documentary Competition. Sundance took place in Park City, Utah, January 15-25, 2009.

In the film we see firsthand the effects of our global love affair with fish as food.

It examines the imminent extinction of bluefin tuna, brought on by increasing western demand for sushi; the impact on marine life resulting in huge overpopulation of jellyfish; and the profound implications of a future world with no fish that would bring certain mass starvation.

For more info on the film and the issues please visit http://endoftheline.com

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more about “Video: The End of the Line“, posted with vodpod

No Light Unto Neighbours (or, “Let My Dena Go!”) BY Zrubavel Plunderovitch

June 18, 2009Leave a comment

17 June, 2009 – Palestine Think Tank

I have learned yesterday from the Daily Telegraph that an Orthodox Jewish couple are suing their neighbours in a block of flats because they say an “automatic security light breaks a religious prohibition.”

This is not a joke. It is a true story about two Jews who fail to ‘love their neighbours’. “Dr Dena Coleman, the head teacher of a Jewish orthodox school, and her husband, Gordon, claim they are kept prisoner in their holiday flat on the Sabbath because when they leave it they trigger the light in the communal hallway.”

As if Jews didn’t suffer enough along their history. As if the Holocaust has never happened, Dena and Gordon are imprisoned in their holiday home by an electronic device. It is a well-established fact that electrons are negative at least symbolically, from now on they are anti-Semitic for real.

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Worker rights: No balls, no gains By Joe Bageant

June 18, 2009Leave a comment

18 June 2009

In looking back on growing up, I always remember 1957 and 1958 at “the two good years,” They were the only years my working class redneck family ever caught a real break in their working lives, and that break came because of organized labor. After working as a farm hand, driving a hicktown taxi part time, and a dozen catch as catch can jobs, my father found himself owning a used semi-truck and hauling produce for a Teamster unionized trucking company called Blue Goose. Continue reading →