Anti-racism and anti-bigotry rally in NYC

THIS IS MORE LIKE IT!! 

This happened on 09-11-10, and it was sent to me in an email from Cindy Sheehan.  We need more of this.

And Friends Committee on National Legislation has a petition to say that you stand with American Muslims.  Freedom of religion applies to all or else it is void and dead. Of course, large parts of the US Constitution have been violated in the last decade.  But we have to take action against racism and bigotry, no matter what happens to the US Constitution.

That's life in America!

Photo:  Entrance to Ft. Benning, Georgia, during the protest against the School of the Americas

Got an email at work from NC Dept of Health.  They linked to the “EPI Notes” which covers preparation for public health emergency.  Although they went on and on about the Anthrax attacks, they failed to mention that the anthrax came from the US government’s biological weapons of mass destruction program.  They failed to even mention that the US government might have been a possible source for these weapons.  I wrote this email in response to the person who sent out the email that linked to the EPI Notes:

I just read through the section on Anthrax in the EPI-notes.  There was no mention of the fact that the anthrax came from Fort Detrick, and was made by a US government employee (more likely, more than one, but the FBI does not admit that).  I think that is an important element of the story, since folks are unlikely to see the “government” as protecting and providing for us in a medical emergency when no one is honest about the fact that the “government” actually created the “emergency” that killed five Americans.  Another point that should be noted is that “sources” at Fort Detrick claimed there was Bentonite in the anthrax and put the blame for that on a country called Iraq.  That helped lead to the Iraq war, which was a public health nightmare in that country of massive proportions.  It also killed over 4,000 Americans, and that death toll will rise.

Next email I sent:

I am no expert on public health, but it seems to me the first thing that should be done regarding anthrax is to shut down (safely) all US production of this biological WMD.  Having a back up plan to deal with a public health emergency like this is good, but it seems to me that prevention would be a whole lot safer, smarter and cheaper for the US taxpayer.

Response:

I thank you for reading EPI Notes and I appreciate your concerns, but the NC PH Preparedness program cannot affect any of the changes you are suggesting and the point of our article was to show a brief historical review of the response to both man-made and natural issues/disasters.

  

My response:

Well, I guess you can do nothing for prevention then.  Too bad for the dead people.  That’s life in America, I guess.

In honor of Steve Biko

Who was murdered on this date in 1977. And Amnesty International is a great organization.

Afghan protester from last week

Afghan protester:  An Afghan protester holds a poster at a demonstration against the United States and the Dove Outreach Center's pastor Terry Jones in Mazar-e-Sharif, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010. Afghans railed against the U.S. to denounce the American church's plans to burn copies of Islam's holiest text to mark the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

(AP Photo/Mustafa Najafizada)

Of course, we have burned a lot of Qu'rans in probably all the homes we bombed in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.   We also burned up the people living there.

Petition from Code Pink

We have been distressed by the overtly violent expressions against Islam from some corners of America. Witnessing the extreme racism has left our hearts heavy. And at this time of deep reverence for many of you we want to send our wishes to you for a joyful Eid. We know you carry the burden of too much violence already. We appreciate the courageous and difficult work you do to improve the lives of Afghan women and their families. We want you to know that we are working in our communities to foster respect for all religions and peaceful coexistence.

Join us in wishing the women in Afghanistan a happy Eid to mark the end of Ramadan by signing this petition.

Reflection on the roots of terrorism

Stephen Harper has said — as had George W. Bush and as does Barack Obama — that we are in Afghanistan to ensure that the terrorists don’t come here. The counter-argument has been that they might come here precisely because we are there.

It has turned out worse. Terrorists don’t have to come here to attack us. Their sympathizers here will. They may act for Al Qaeda and the Taliban or act on their own. Some may go to Pakistan for military training but many may assemble a bomb from a manual downloaded from the Internet.

Some may be religious, many not. Some may invoke Islam but many act out of solidarity with Muslims. They may be immigrants or, more likely, second-generation Canadians, as Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said Thursday.

They may be “the most unlikely individuals” — engineers, doctors, hospital technicians, seemingly well integrated, such as the pathologist Khurram Sher, a product of and participant in the popular culture of NHL hockey and Canadian Idol. Or they may be uneducated, unemployed, troubled, disaffected.

All this refutes the clichés we have been fed for the last nine years about terrorists:

They are all “Islamic radicals” nurtured in madrassas or mosques, brainwashed into jihad by antediluvian imams. If only the madrassas could be shut down, the imams made to shut up, and “moderate” Muslims rise up against “radical Islam,” the danger would disappear.

This fantasy had a purpose.

If Islam could be made the issue, writes Ron Paul, a Republican congressman, then “radical religious Islamic views were the only reasons for 9/11,” and not “a desire to retaliate against what many Muslims saw as American aggression and occupation.”

Not only do these wars and occupation make us broke, they are going to backfire big time.  They are highly immoral.  The information in this article applies to the USA even more.

The full article is here.

Best wishes....to my Jewish and Muslim friends

L'Shana tova u'metukah and Eid saeed.  Best wishes for a sweet New Year and a joyous Eid al-Fitr.

Let us work for a new year of hope, respect, and peace.

At least one church gets it......

Photo:  Horia Adya (left), her daughter, Lena, 12, and the Rev. Christy Ramsey pose for photo outside Goodyear Heights Presbyterian Church, where Ramsey has posted a Ramadan greeting. The widowed Muslim mother and her daughter live near the church. (Michael Chritton/Akron Beacon Journal)

This Reverend realizes that freedom of religion has to apply to all, or we all might lose it. He also knows how to follow the example of Jesus Christ. 

Born in the USA - by Bruce Springsteen

At the recent Teabagger convention at the Lincoln Memorial, they had this song blaring from the speakers (I was told - I was not there). This song is an anti-war and anti-US policies song. It records how young men got sent to Vietnam and killed for nothing, and how there was nothing for our veterans when they came home. It is weird that this song was played at the Teabagger convention - but even more weird, I heard this at Gage Park in Hamilton Ontario once on Canada Day. That is the day they celebrate their founding as a country. Of course, there was a sizable group of ex-pat Americans living there, due to the Vietnam war. So maybe they played it for them.

"Yes You Do"

An Iraqi man tells Americans that burning the Holy Qu'ran is nothing new.  US troops have been doing it in Iraq for some time.

"Americans Don’t Burn Books" they cry. Oh yes they do. Americans most assuredly do burn books. They burn them with malice and with forethought as an expression of their hatred and contempt for the peoples’ of the lands they have invaded, for the peoples of those lands and for our religion.

I know for a fact that Americans burn books, in particular The Holy Qur’an because like other Gorilla’s Guides team members I have gone into Mosques to clean them after your soldiers have desecrated them. 

Your soldiers’ SOP for doing this is to shit on the prayer mats, to scrawl crude graffiti (mostly penises) on the walls, to spray paint hate slogans against Irakis, against Muslims, and against Islam on the walls, they also scrawl Christian and Jewish religious symbols on the walls, and they gather together copies of The Holy Qur’an, together with any other books they can find and set them on fire.

Don’t you dare try pretend that "Americans Don’t Burn Books" because I, other Gorilla’s Guides team members and plenty of other people in Irak can tell you from direct personal experience that yes you Americans damned well do burn books. They are Your American troops, from your American culture, imbued with your American culture’s values and yes they do burn books. 

And they burn people too.

Quote from Jeff Huber

Our quest for the lesser evil has arrived at an impasse. On one hand we have a world-class Doublethinker who expects us to thank him for keeping promises he has vigorously broken and to accept the cynical notion that war is peace. On the other we have a mob of flesh-eating galoots who promise to give us Orwell’s Hate Week 52 weeks a year for as long as it takes them to bring about Armageddon. 

The rest of the article he wrote. 

Some more:

“The combat mission in Iraq has ended,” Obama told us, but there’s lots of fighting ahead. Our troops “defeated a regime that had terrorized” Iraq’s people, then they “shifted tactics to protect the Iraqi people” from, uh, each other. Because of “the resilience of the Iraqi people,” they’re still a threat to themselves. “All U.S. troops will leave by the end of next year” unless our generals and other military advisers say leaving is a bad idea, which they’ve already said, time and time and time and time and time and time again. And oh yeah, all this is Bush’s fault, but you can’t doubt the schmuck’s “support for our troops or his love of country and commitment to our security.” Or can you? 

Bush could give a speech like that with a straight face because he lacked sufficient moral and cognitive subtlety to understand how full of crap he was. Obama doesn’t have that excuse.

Afghan peacemakers and Jane Goodall Institute

Mission Rebranded

Obama changed the name, but not the game.  He has reduced the number of US troops in Iraq, while the number of contractors (read:  mercenaries) has gone way up.  And combat operations have not ended:

US troops called in as Iraqi army base attacked

A US military spokesman said US forces had provide fired as Iraqis located two of the assailants inside the base.

A journey of crime and terror

			Caption: Diana Ballesteros, a shop assistant, fills a display with copies of a book titled 'A Journey' by Tony Blair the former U.K. prime minister at a book store in London, U.K., on Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010. Blair said it was right to invade Iraq, even taking into account 'the nightmare that unfolded' there, and recounted that he wept on meeting one British soldier's widow. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images Date created: 01 Sep 2010  Blair has written a book about his journey of crime and mass murder.  He was protested in Dublin, and then canceled his book signing tour.  Blair, apparently, has no shame or ability to see how his actions and decisions have destroyed countless lives.  The funny part is - just having flip-flops thrown at him totally freaked him out - imagine what a whole day of a real war would do.  He would be wearing diapers for the rest of his life.  Around the world, activists are moving Blair's books to the "crime" section of bookstores as a means of non-violent protest.  There is a facebook group for that, and I joined.  Not sure if I will find time to move books around though.

An Awesome Poem!!

This poem was written by Sunni Patterson.  She read it aloud on August 30, 2010 on Democracy Now!


We have not always found comfort in killers.
We have not always found solace being rocked
in the bosoms of those who silently pray
and openly destroy.
No, not always have we mistaken mimicry for mastery
or pretending for knowing
or enslavement for freedom.
But across my memory—
across my memory marches millions—
bold, regal, resilient, confident—
unshackled feet stumping up spirits
to guide us through this fickle material world.
We like sun and moon folk,
universal souls praying our prayers,
singing our songs.
Eshu, Ogoun, Shango, Yemaja, Oshun, Obatala, Oya,
Damballah, Ayida Wedo, Loa, Nkongo, Olodumare and Yami.
We know all of you by name.
We are people of beginnings, of culture, of strength.
Not always have we given into the empty threats
and scare tactics of the powerless ones.
Not always have we allowed the blood of our sons and daughters
to color the streets while we’re walking asleep,
marching to the beat of that siren song.
They’re still wearing their sheets,
with nooses in reach,
showing their teeth and smiling, it seems.
But I hear in the breeze
in the rustle of the trees
and the dangling of the feet,
they say, please, don’t let them ever forget.
You see, not always have we suffered from amnesia.
Not always have we forgotten how to conjure up spirits,
ancestor wisdom,
fix up a mixture,
spiritual elixir,
ancient traditions.
We, like magicians,
god-like vision, we—
we are people of sight.
So, no, not always have we fallen
for this okie doke
or inhaled the hazardous smoke of the manipulators
or been satisfied with crumbs for meals
our hands have prepared.
Hughes said life for us ain’t been no crystal stair,
but at least the steps are there
to push us up higher,
teach us how to go beyond the destroyer’s disguises,
look them in the eyes and be able to see.
Because what’s surprising when you know the nature of a beast
and especially when they’ve shown the same face for centuries?
So you tell me,
what’s the difference between two sisters in New Orleans
shot point-blank in the back of the head,
and two women bound in their car in Baghdad?
Or government-sanctioned killings in Kenya,
and a sister held hostage in a house in Virginia?
Or poverty in Haiti, poverty in Jamaica,
rape in Rwanda or rape in Somalia?
A sweatshop in China or one in Guatemala?
Or small pox and blankets, syphilis and Tuskegee,
formaldehyde and FEMA, ethnic cleansing and Katrina?
I recall within a speech Dr. King made us aware,
he said injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.
So they can spare us their drama, huh?
We got the heart of them field working mamas.
We carry the torch of that ancestor fire.
So with every fiber that flutters in our being,
with every find that comes from our seeking,
with every hearing that comes from our listening,
and every sight that comes from our seeing,
we must be faithful, strategic, victorious and free.

 Photo is of the setting sun one August 2010 evening in Asheville.
 

Out walking one day, ran into this huge bush (vine?)

and snapped these photos.  I thought the berries (which were sorta hard) were very cool looking. They were pink, red, purple, green, blue, turquoise, and maroon.   I have no idea what plant this is, or if it is edible.

Israel bulldozes ancient Muslim cemetary

This is totally disgusting.  It happened in August 2010.

This year - tomatoes, next year - strawberry jam

A couple of pictures from my first experience in canning:

Iraq war is not ending

This came in an email a couple of weeks ago from Voters for Peace:

President Obama is claiming an end to the war in Iraq. His end will mean 50,000 troops remaining and at least that many private troops, mercenaries. While the troops are no longer engaged in "combat" they will be "fighting terrorism." And, there is more and more talk of U.S. troops remaining much longer. As you can see the end of the war seems to mean the continuation of it.

The peace movement is coming together to point out the incomplete truth of the end of the Iraq War. The U.S. media is reporting on the claims by the White House without any criticism or commentary that it is not really an end to the war, but the continuation of it under new rhetoric.

You can see a list of events occurring around the country on the website of our colleagues at CODE PINK.

Click here to see list.

Nir Rosen talks about Iraq