[LAAMN] Community Anti-Racism Workshop with Rev. James Lawson ~ Sunday , August 14th, 6:00 to 9:00 PM ~ At The Church in Ocean Park - 235 Hill Street, Santa Monica ~ This is a Free Event!

2011-08-13 Thread Frank Dorrel 
Community Anti-Racism Workshop

 

Sunday, August 14th 

6:00 PM to 9:00 PM

At

Church In Ocean Park

235 Hill Street, Santa Monica 90405

 

Keynote Speaker 

Rev. James Lawson 

Civil Rights Leader

Workshop Leader

James Williams III

Conciliation Specialist, US D.O.J., 

Refreshments will be served. Child Care is available on site. 

Please RSVP to: churc...@aol.com  or 310-399-1631

 

This is a Free Event! 


Jim Lawson


The Rev. James M. Lawson, Jr. was the Director of Nonviolent Education for
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of which Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. was President.  As one who talked and walked with Dr. King, he has
been acclaimed as a leading theoretician and tactician of nonviolence --a
follower of Jesus and one of the most important civil rights leaders of the
world.

Rev. Lawson, Jr, is the Pastor-Emeritus of Holman United Methodist Church,

Los Angeles, where he served for 25 years. Pastor, prophet, and priest, Rev.
Lawson continues to preach, teach, and conduct nonviolent workshops
nationally and internationally.

 

Rev. Janet G McKeithen
Minister, Church in Ocean Park

 

 

 

 



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[LAAMN] Fw: Don't let anti-women theocrats roll back the biggest advancement for women's health in a decade

2011-08-13 Thread Romi Elnagar 








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Protect a victory for women's health: Submit a
comment in support of contraceptives as preventive care










Don't let anti-women theocrats roll back the biggest advancement for women's 
health in a decade.










 Show the Department of Health and Human Services
that support for contraceptives at no cost far outweighs any opposition from 
the right. Submit a comment to the HHS in support
of making birth control free to women.











































Dear Friend,




During the Obama administration, we've seen many attacks on women's rights — 
and activists have been busy pushing back
against threats to women's health like the Stupak amendment. 





 
But thanks to pressure from activists like you, Secretary of Health and Human 
Services Kathleen Sebelius is poised to make
the biggest advancement for women's health in over a decade.





 
Secretary Sebelius has announced preliminary plans to designate birth control 
for women as "preventive care," which under
the new health care law will make birth control available at no additional cost 
to all women in the United States with insurance.





 
Now the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is holding a public 
comment period on this decision and we need to
show support for these vital new rules. 





 
Click here to submit a comment to the HHS in support
of their decision to make birth control free to women.





 
We know that the anti-woman forces including the influential United States 
Conference of Catholic Bishops will be organizing
anti-choice activists to submit as many comments as they can in an attempt to 
roll back this historic advancement for women's
health.






Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, a representative of the Conference of Catholic 
Bishops, responded with fierce resistance to the
HHS announcement, saying, "Pregnancy is not a disease, and fertility is not a 
pathological condition to be suppressed by
any means technically possible."1





 
We have to show our overwhelming support for these
new rules so HHS knows that support for their decision far outweighs the 
extreme anti-woman forces. Click here to submit
a comment to the HHS in support of their decision to make birth control free to 
women.





 
Over 70,000 CREDO Action members took action on this fight and petitioned HHS 
to designate contraceptives as preventive care
— and HHS listened.  But the fight isn't over yet.





 
Even on issues as benign and medically accepted as the new HHS rules, 
anti-women theocrats on the right are up in arms because
they literally oppose birth control.  And they will not stop their crusade 
against women's right to reproductive health.





 
This public comment period is a critical time to take another stand against the 
anti-choice forces and to ensure that the
Obama administration will continue to take the side of women's health.





 
Show the Obama administration that women's rights
are more important than any opposition from the right wing. Let HHS know that 
protecting women's health was the right decision.
 Click here to submit a comment to the HHS in support of their decision to make 
birth control free to women.





 
Thank you for standing up for women's health.






Ali Rozell, Campaign Manager


CREDO Action from Working Assets







1. "HHS OKs birth control with
no co-pay," Sabriya Rice,CNN, 08-01-2011.




























Share on Facebook


Post to your wall













Tweet this


Post to Twitter







































This is a message from CREDO / Working Assets. © 2011 CREDO. All rights 
reserved. Questions? Send us an email or write us at: 101 Market Street, Suite 
700, San Francisco, CA 94105.










 

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[LAAMN] Please join us at 4 pm SAT. Aug. 13 for a Public Conversation with Carlos Montes and artist Activist Amitis Motevalli

2011-08-13 Thread Carlos Montes 


Today part of the North ELA Art Walk:




Saturday, August 13 · 4:00pm - 6:00pm





Location

Outpost for Contemporary Art 
1268 N. Ave 50 
Highland Park, CA






Created By

Outpost for Contemporary Art





More Info

Please join us at 4pm on Saturday, August 13 for a Public Conversation with 
political activist Carlos Montes & artist/activist Amitis Motevalli as they 
talk about being raided by the FBI, activism, art and how we can be activists 
as well. This event is in-conjunction with Andrea Bowers and Olga 
Koumoundouros' project "Transformer Display for Community Fundraising: Version 
2."







 

Carlos Montes 
www.stopfbila.net
www.stopfbi.net
 



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[LAAMN] Cynthia McKinney: NATO: A Feast of Blood

2011-08-13 Thread Romi Elnagar 
NATO: A Feast of Blood

 


  
  
Wed, 05/25/2011 - 01:59 — Cynthia McKinney
  







 

by Cynthia McKinney, in Tripoli

“Inside the hotel, one 
Libyan woman carrying a baby came to me and asked me why are they doing 
this to us?” writes Cynthia McKinney as bombs rain down on Tripoli, 
capital of Libya.

“It is transparently 
clear now that NATO has exceeded its mandate, lied about its intentions,
 is guilty of extra-judicial killings--all in the name of "humanitarian 
intervention." If the humanitarian ruse is allowed against Libya, why 
not…anywhere? “People around the world need us to stand up and speak out
 for ourselves and them because Iran and Venezuela are also in the 
cross-hairs.”

 

NATO: A Feast of Blood

by Cynthia McKinney, in Tripoli

“The sky flashed red with explosions and more rockets from NATO jets 
cut through low cloud before exploding.”

While serving on the 
House International Relations Committee from 1993 to 2003, it became 
clear to me that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was an 
anachronism.  Founded in 1945 at the end of World War II, NATO was 
created by the United States in response to the Soviet Union's survival 
as a Communist state. NATO was the U.S. insurance policy that capitalist
 ownership and domination of European, Asian, and African economies 
would continue.  This also would ensure the survival of the then-extant 
global apartheid.

NATO is a collective 
security pact wherein member states pledge that an attack upon one is an
 attack against all. Therefore, should the Soviet Union have attacked 
any European Member State, the United States military shield would be 
activated. The Soviet Response was the Warsaw Pact that maintained a 
"cordon sanitaire" around the Russian Heartland should NATO ever attack.
 Thus, the world was broken into blocs which gave rise to the "Cold 
War."

Avowed "Cold Warriors" of
 today still view the world in these terms and, unfortunately, cannot 
move past Communist China and an amputated Soviet Empire as enemy states
 of the U.S. whose moves anywhere on the planet are to be contested. The
 collapse of the Soviet Union provided an accelerated opportunity to 
exert U.S. hegemony in an area of previous Russian influence.  Africa 
and the Eurasian landmass containing former Soviet satellite states and 
Afghanistan and Pakistan along with the many other "stans" of the 
region, have always factored prominently in the theories of 
"containment" or "rollback" guiding U.S. policy up to today. 

“I immediately thought about the depleted uranium munitions reportedly 
being used here--along with white phosphorus.“

With that as background, 
last night's NATO rocket attack on Tripoli is inexplicable. A civilian 
metropolitan area of around 2 million people, Tripoli sustained 22 to 25
 bombings last night (Monday), rattling and breaking windows and glass 
and shaking the foundation of my hotel. 

I left my room at the 
Rexis Al Nasr Hotel and walked outside the hotel and I could smell the 
exploded bombs. There were local people everywhere milling with foreign 
journalists from around the world. As we stood there more bombs struck 
around the city. The sky flashed red with explosions and more rockets 
from NATO jets cut through low cloud before exploding.

I could taste the thick 
dust stirred up by the exploded bombs. I immediately thought about the 
depleted uranium munitions reportedly being used here--along with white 
phosphorus. If depleted uranium weapons were being used what affect on 
the local civilians?

Women carrying young 
children ran out of the hotel. Others ran to wash the dust from their 
eyes.  With sirens blaring, emergency vehicles made their way to the 
scene of the attack. Car alarms, set off by the repeated blasts, could 
be heard underneath the defiant chants of the people. 

Sporadic gunfire broke 
out and it seemed everywhere around me.  Euronews showed video of nurses
 and doctors chanting even at the hospitals as they treated those 
injured from NATO's latest installation of shock and awe.  Suddenly, the
 streets around my hotel became full of chanting people, car horns 
blowing, I could not tell how many were walking, how many were driving. Inside 
the hotel, one Libyan woman carrying a baby came to me and asked me why are 
they doing this to us?

Whatever the military 
objectives of the attack (and I and many others question the military 
value of these attacks) the fact remains the air attack was launched a 
major city packed with hundreds of thousands of civilians.

“Car alarms, set off by the repeated blasts, could be heard underneath 
the defiant chants of the people.”

I did wonder too if the 
any of the pol

[LAAMN] Congress

2011-08-13 Thread Scott Peden 

/The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain 
the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the 
government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.*
- Patrick Henry -*/


*I have totally cleaned this e-mail from all  other names, sending it to 
you in hopes you will keep it going and keep it clean.  This is 
something I will fight for and  I hope you all read it all the way 
through.  You will be glad you did. *
*
The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took 
only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified!  Why?  Simple!  The people 
  demanded it.  That was in 1971...before computers, before e-mail, 
before cell phones, etc.

Of  the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less 
to become the law of the  land...all because of public pressure. *
*
I'm asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty 
people on their address list;  in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the 
message.  This is one idea that really should be passed around.

Congressional Reform Act of  2011

1.   No Tenure / No  Pension.
   A  Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay 
when they are out of office.

2.   Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social 
Security system immediately.  All  future funds flow into the Social 
Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.  It 
may not be used for any other purpose.*
*
3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all 
Americans do. *
*
4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.  Congressional 
pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%. *
*
5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in 
the same health care system as the American people. *
*
6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American 
people. *
*
7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 
1/1/12.
   The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. 
  Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.   Serving in 
Congress is an honor, not a career.  The  Founding Fathers envisioned 
citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home 
and back to work. *
*
If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people, it will only take 
three days for most people (in the U.S.) to receive the message.  Maybe 
it is time. *
*
THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!*


*If  you agree with the above, pass it on.   If not, just delete.  You 
are one of my 20+.  Please keep it going.*



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[LAAMN] UK riots: Bosses' justice?

2011-08-13 Thread Cort Greene 
http://www.socialist.net/uk-riots-bosses-justice.htm

  UK riots: Bosses' justice? [image:
Print]
[image:
E-mail]
  By
Steve Jones Friday, 12 August 2011

*As Britain prepares for the possibility of new outbreaks of rioting this
weekend, the courts have been hard at work dispensing bosses' justice to
those unfortunates picked up by the police in the wake of the disturbances
over the last few days.*

Magistrates have been passing sentences all day and all night as part of
David Cameron's call for a "fightback" by the mass ranks of the bourgoisie.
Indeed he has used this fightback word so often in the last few days that it
cannot be considered as accidental. The impression he is trying to give is
of the forces of Torydom arriving back from their villas and beaches to take
control and dish out some revenge - like Charles Bronson in Death Wish. The
sickening sight of those MPs in their pin-stripped suits and expensive
haircuts standing up to shout forth demands for action and comdemnations for
all involved was indeed in the tradition of that class. Since the dawn of
time the ruling elite have justified their actions by generalising the
working masses as lazy/workshy/vice-ridden/prone to criminality/unable to
take responsibilty/ etc (delete as applicable). On this basis they morally
legalised their position as rulers of one class over another. Although they
pretend otherwise, such attitudes still exist in their ranks today. They
explain the actions of the rioters through the logic that they are all part,
in their eyes, of one criminal class that must be controlled with force.
Needless to say, they are quite happy to link the riots first to the student
protests and then to the strikes and picket lines of workers in struggle.
For them it is all one outrage against their rule and privledges. Any
attempt to tie the riots to the crushing grip of poverty, social despair and
the cuts has been met by howls of contempt both by Tories and even some
Labour representatives. Sadly Labour has decided to just concentrate on the
issue of Police numbers and the proposals to cut them as part of the
austerity measures.

This issue - which has developed into a full-sized row inside the Tory party
- is worthy of comment. Cameron has attempted to deflect concerns over the
handling by suggesting, in effect, that things were only sorted when the
politicians arrived back from holiday to take command. Police chiefs have
replied that, in their opinion, this is rubbish. This division reflects the
anger in police ranks over the cuts in staffing as well as the same
'reforms' to pensions now being faced by other public sector workers.

*Marxists have long explained that, in the final analysis, the state can be
reduced to armed bodies of men in defence of private property*. The ruling
class know this to be true too. However, this only works if you have the
armed bodies of men available in the first place. Thatcher, in the 1980s,
understood this and ensured that police numbers were not cut and saleries
were always raised.  No wonder sections of the Tories are criticising the
cuts both to the armed forces and the police. Some of them remember how
usefull the police were during the miners strike and the Wapping dispute and
fear that they may not have a same resouces available to use now.

Cameron is now in a quandry. If he reverses the cuts in the police force on
the grounds that the service they provide is "necessary" to maintain control
then people will ask why is the same not being done for other public
services under attack which are equally "necessary?"  If he takes no action
then anger will continue to grow, both inside the police and without,  as
the reality of these cuts takes effect. Many of the cuts, across all parts
of the public sector, have been explained away by the arguement that
frontline services will not be hit - just pen-pushers with gold-plated
pensions sitting around on huge salaries doing nothing but attending
seminars on health and safety. Away from Daily-Telegraph-fantasy-land
nothing can be further from the truth. In reality, the police already knew
that before last weekend their numbers had already  been dangerously
depleted - many forces have not recruited for nearly a year - and would
struggle in the face of widespread disturbances across a large geographical
area. Hence the decision to hold back in some areas and not others. For the
ruling class, things are now a bit tricky. We, however, should understand
that in the end the police will not provide any useful help or support to
local communities in pain because that is not their job - they are there to
enforces bosses' law and people know it.

Westminster is starting to believe that the worst may be behind them now. In
the short-term they may be right - we shall see. But the probl

[LAAMN] Libya/Syria-Comments on a Samir Amin interview

2011-08-13 Thread Cort Greene 
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/comments-on-a-samir-amin-interview/
 Comments on a Samir Amin
interview
Filed under: Libya
,Syria—
louisproyect @ 3:30 pm

Check out the interview with Samir Amin on MRZine (
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/amin110811.html). He has some things to
say that I agree with, and some not. No big surprise there.

The interview conducted by Hassane Zerrouky originally appeared in
L’Humanité, the one-time CP newspaper.

I was of course pleased to hear Amin say “there is deep, spontaneous
sympathy between young people and the parties of the radical Marxist Left,
that is to say the parties that come from the socialist and communist
tradition.” Now if there was only some way to unite these parties…

Amin describes Syria this way:

*The Ba’ath regime, which enjoyed legitimacy for a long time, is no longer
what it was at all: it has become more and more autocratic, increasingly a
police state, and, at the same time, in substance, it has made a gigantic
concession to economic liberalism. I don’t believe that this regime can
transform itself into a democratic regime.*

I have no way of knowing whether he reads MRZine (but am relatively
confident that he reads Monthly Review), but I wonder what he would make of
the fact that it circulates pro-Baathist propaganda on practically a daily
basis.

I of course was very interested to hear what he has to say about Libya,
another country that is seen alongside Syria as part of the “axis of good”
by certain elements of the left. Amin would deny membership to Qaddafi in
this axis, it would seem:

*Neither side in Libya is better than the other. The president of the
Transitional National Council (TNC) — Mustafa Abdel-Jalil — is a very
curious democrat: he was the judge who sentenced Bulgarian nurses to death
before being promoted to the Minister of Justice by Gaddafi. The TNC is a
bloc of ultra-reactionary forces.*

One wonders why someone as benign as Qaddafi would have promoted such an
individual to run the Ministry of Justice. Maybe he was having an off day.

Amin also shoots down the idea that this was a war over oil: “As for the
United States, it’s not oil that they are after — they already have that.”
Exactly.

But in presenting an alternative analysis, Amin disappoints:

Their goal is to put Libya under their tutelage in order to establish
Africom (US military command for Africa) — which is now based in Stuttgart
in Germany, since the African countries, no matter what you think about
them, have rejected their establishment in Africa — in the country.

Now I would be the first person to admit that I was wrong, especially if the
person contradicting me was as esteemed as Samir Amin, but I can’t abide by
this AFRICOM business. Among the 57 varieties of ex post facto attempts to
explain imperialist intervention in Libya, this one struck me as the most
improbable. To be more exact, fictitious.

In a June 18th post titled “Was Libya attacked because of its attitude
toward AFRICOM?” (
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/was-libya-attacked-because-of-its-attitude-toward-africom/),
I found no evidence for this. I alluded to an article from the AFRICOM
website that stated:

STUTTGART, Germany,

Sep 28, 2009 — A delegation of three senior Libyan military officers visited
U.S. Africa Command headquarters as part of an orientation program to
explain the command’s mission, Sept. 21-24, 2009, as the two countries
continue to build their military relationship.

The officers held meetings with senior staff members to discuss the
command’s programs and activities, met General William E. ward and his two
deputies, and traveled to Ramstein Air Base to meet Major General Ron
Ladnier, the U.S. Air Force Africa commander, and his staff.

The command hosts African military delegations frequently, but “certainly
with regard to Libya, it is quite historic,” said Kenneth Fidler, Africa
Command Public Affairs Office, which hosted the Libyan team.

Two of the officers in the delegation write for the official magazine of the
Libyan armed forces, called Al-Musallh. Colonel Mohamed Algale is the chief
editor, and Colonel Abdelgane Mohamed is the space and aviation editor. The
third member of the party, Colonel Mustafa Washahi, represented the Libyan
Ministry of Defense.

The officers also toured AFN-Europe studios in Mannheim, Germany, and met
with editors of the European Stars and Stripes in Kaiserslautern, Germany.

“They (Africa Command officials) clarified everything,” Abdelgane said in an
interview with AFN-Europe. “And they are making our mission easier … to rise
up the level of understanding between the militaries … and to move for
further cooperation to the benefit of both countries.”

In January 2009, Libya and the United States signed a defense cooperation
memorandum of understanding, which

[LAAMN] 100,000 demonstrate across Israel as J14 leaves Tel Aviv

2011-08-13 Thread Cort Greene 
http://972mag.com/10-demonstrate-across-israel-as-j14-leaves-tel-aviv/

Saturday, August 13 2011|Dimi Reider 
 100,000 demonstrate across Israel as J14 leaves Tel
Aviv

*Some 100,000 people, Arabs and Jews, demonstrated across Israel tonight,
after the J14 movement decided to break with tradition and hold rallies in a
dozen different locations instead of one central rally in Tel Aviv. The
decision resulted in several protests breaking local records, with over
15,000 demonstrating in Beer Sheva, over 30,000 in Haifa, over 15,000 in
Afula (population 40,000). Other locations included the Arab city of
Nazareth, the blue-collar town of Or Yehouda, the commuter city of Modi’in,
Beit Shemesh, Netanya, Rishon Letzion and many others.*

While the protest in Jaffa, which has seen many clashes between  police and
protesters over the years, ended peacefully, in Or Yehouda some 500 people
blocked the road and burned tires. One of the speakers at the Beer Sheva
rally, a Negev Bedouin, said the J14 struggle was for everyone, and called
on Arabs and Bedouin to join the protest.

While this week’s protest numbers fall far below last week’s 300,000, this
is the first time a major political movement or campaign decides not to hold
a rally in Tel Aviv at all and calls on everyone to demonstrate in their
home towns. The organisers are still calling for a million-strong march in
early September. They appear to be in no rush to begin talks with the
government, preferring instead to set up mixed experts and protesters
committees fleshing out various demands, including a committee on changing
the system of election and governance in Israel.

Feminist Arab-Jewish blogger Lihi Yona posted on Facebook after attending
one of the protests: “I’m just back form the Haifa demo… if I may, this was
the most exciting experience I had in my life. The number of Arab women and
men speaking to huge applause from the crowd made me believe there will be a
just, equitable state here some day. [Author] Sami Michael, who chose to
speak in both Arabic and Hebrew, and the Arab singer – and more importantly,
the masses that rocked to that singer’s music – made this night the most
amazing experience I ever had.”

“For years, I would feel the need to correct people when they’d say Haifa
was a mixed city,” Yona told +972. “I would feel the need to point out that
it’s not mixed, that it’s segregated. And tonight it really was an
integrated city… there were more Arab speakers than Jews and each time
someone would say, in Arabic, “Arabs and Jews,” the crowd understood and
cheered them on.”

--



Saturday, August 13 2011|Joseph Dana 
 J14 Tent Protests: What about the
occupation?

*Tent protesters have demanded time to address the issue of occupation as
they push a social revolution for the full citizens of Israel. Hours before
a series of major demonstrations throughout the country, I am re-posting a
piece which I wrote earlier this week in the London Review of Books which
raises the fundamental question; what about the occupation? *
[image: Protesters in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh attempt to erect a
tent on Friday 12 August 2011. Photo by Oren Ziv/activestills.org]

Protesters in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh attempt to erect a tent on
Friday 12 August 2011. Photo by Oren Ziv/activestills.org

Largely shielded from the European and American financial crises, the
Israeli economy has been growing at an astonishing rate over the past five
years: 4.7 per cent in 2010 alone. But the wealth isn’t evenly distributed:
most Israelis living inside the 1967 borders struggle to make ends meet
because of the high cost of living and relatively high taxes, which are
largely spent on security and the
occupationof
the West Bank and Gaza.

Last month, a group of Tel Aviv residents in their twenties set up camp in
the centre of Rothschild Boulevard to protest against housing costs in the
city. They didn’t have a serious plan for political change, but the protest
tapped into nationwide discontent. Within a few days, hundreds more people
had joined them. The momentum spread quickly through the country, with camps
appearing everywhere from Eilat on the Red Sea to Kiryat Shmona on the
Lebanese border.

On Saturday, 250,000 Israelis marched in Tel Aviv and 10,000 marched to the
prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem, demanding ‘social justice’.
Netanyahu, the main target of the demonstrators’ placards, was quick to
paint the protests as a misdirected reincarnation of the ‘radical left’. But
this stale tactic didn’t stop an overwhelming majority of Israelis
supporting the protests. According to recent opinion
polls

[LAAMN] This is an orange! WATCH IT AND WEEP FOR YOUR COUNTRY!!!!

2011-08-13 Thread Scott Peden 


http://tinyurl. com/3cnraf 


Watch this. Ask yourselfwould YOU deny it? Would you consider it a 
wise thing to QUESTION it? Would you DEMAND SOMEONE EXPLAIN THIS WHOLE 
THING TO YOU IN TERMS YOU WOULD UNDERSTAND?

and would you ever think WE DO NOT NEED TO KNOW ANYTHING BUT THE 
OFFICIAL STORY ABOUT THIS?

because I ask this: if this was the intentional work of American 
organizations, corporations, companies, Government agencies or any of 
the above, and they got away with it in perfect safety, WHAT WILL THEY 
DO NEXT?

Folks, it started in Nov. 1964, and got worse from there.

http://tinyurl. com/3cnraf 





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





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[LAAMN] J14 and the Occupation

2011-08-13 Thread Ed Pearl 
From: Cort Greene
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 12:47 PM



http://972mag.com/tents14/



Independent Reporting and Commentary

>From Israel & the Palestinian Territories

|Dimi Reider 

972 Magazine: Sunday, August 7, 2011


J14 may   challenge something even deeper than
the occupation


The social justice demonstrations have been accused of ignoring the key
issue of the occupation. But their tremendous groundswell of solidarity and
cooperation is slowly gnawing at something even more significant than that -
the principle of separation, of which the occupation is just one exercise.



Placard citing the Tahrir slogan of "Go!" and reading "Egypt is Here" at the
J14 rally. Photo: Oren Ziv, Activestills.org

One of the most impressive aspects of the J14 movement is how quickly it is
snowballing, drawing more and more groups and communities into a torrent of
discontent. Pouring out into the streets is everything that Israelis, of all
national identities, creeds and most classes complained about for years: The
climbing rents, the rising prices on fuel, the parenting costs, the
free-fall in the quality of public education, the overworked, unsustainable
healthcare  system, the complete and utter detachment of most politicians,
on most levels, from most of the nation.

All this has been obfuscated for decades by the conflict, by a perpetual
state of emergency; one of the benefits from leaving the occupation outside
the protests, for now, was to neutralise the entire discourse of militarist
fear-mongering. Contrary to what Dahlia and Joseph wrote last week, the
government so far utterly failed to convince the people military needs must
come before social justice; Iran has largely vanished from the news pages,
and attempts to scare Israelis with references to a possible escalation with
Lebanon or the Palestinian are relegated to third, fourth and fifth places
in the headlines, with the texts often written in a sarcastic tone rarely
employed in Israeli media on “serious” military matters.

Over the past week, though, the Palestinians themselves have begun gaining
presence in the protests; not as an external threat or exclusively as
monolithic victims of a monolithic Israel, but as a part and parcel of the
protest movement, with their demands to rectify injustices unique to the
Palestinians organically integrating with demands made by the protests on
behalf of all Israelis.

First, a tent titled “1948″ was pitched on Rothschild boulevard, housing
Palestinian and Jewish activists determined to discuss Palestinian
collective rights and Palestinian grievances as a legitimate part of the
protests. They activists tell me the arguments are exhaustive, wild and
sometimes downright strange; but unlike the ultra-right activists who tried
pitching a tent calling for a Jewish Tel Aviv and hoisting homophobic signs,
the 1948 tenters were not pushed out, and are fast becoming part of the
fabric of this “apolitical” protest.

A few days after the 1948 tent was pitched, the council of the protests -
democratically elected delegates from 40 protest camps across the country -
published their list of demands, including, startlingly, two of the key
social justice issues unique to the Palestinians within Israel: Sweeping
recognition of unrecognised Bedouin villages in the Negev; and expanding the
municipal borders of Palestinian towns and villages to allow for natural
development. The demands chimed in perfectly with the initial drive of the
protest - lack of affordable housing.

The demands chimed in perfectly with the initial drive of the protest - lack
of affordable housing. Neither issue has ever been included in the list of
demands of a national, non-sectarian movement capable of bringing 300,000
people out into the streets.

And, finally, on Wednesday, residents of the Jewish poverty-stricken
neighbourhood of Hatikva, many of them dyed-in-the-wool Likud activists,
signed a covenant of cooperation with the Palestinian and Jewish Jaffa
protesters, many of them activists with Jewish-Palestinian Hadash and
nationalist-Palestinian Balad. They agreed they had more in common with each
other than with the middle class national leadership of the protest, and
that while not wishing to break apart from the J14 movement, they thought
their unique demands would be better heard if they act together. At the
rally, they marched together, arguing bitterly at times but sticking to each
other, eventually even chanting mixed Hebrew and Arabic renditions of
slogans from Tahrir.

Yesteday’s mega-rally was also where Palestinian partnership in the
protests came to a head, when writer Odeh Bisharat spoke to nearly 300,000
people - overwhelmingly, centrist Israelis Jews - of the grievances of
Palestinians in Israel and was met with raucous applause. I’ll return to
that moment a little further below, but before that, perhaps I should
explain why I think the participation of Palestinian citizen