Soy Palestino

I love Cuba and I love Palestine, in this great documentary from Aljazeera they bring both together in an unlikely but beautiful way.

 

The Last Shall be First and the First Shall be Last

In decolonization, there is therefore the need of a complete calling in question of the colonial situation. If we wish to describe it precisely, we might find it in the well known words: “The last shall be first and the first last.” Decolonization is the putting into practice of this sentence. That is why, if we try to describe it, all decolonization is successful. – F. Fanon

Metaphysics

Humankind has edged closer to “the precipice” our lances and swords haven’t been beaten into plowshares they’ve been transformed into D.I.M.E. bombs

 

For a Non-Violent Global Resistance Movement

An Appeal: For A Non-Violent Global Resistance Movement Against the Violent, Extremist Policy of the State of Israel

The crisis in Gaza today underlines once more the horror—and the impasse—that the Palestinians face. We cannot simply wish a plague on both their houses; cannot hope for a negotiated settlement in the absence of direct, forceful outside involvement and intervention. To adopt a stance of false neutrality, to pretend to be powerless onlookers means letting events take their course; it means concluding, after every massacre, after every crisis, that the “peace process” has lead nowhere, that the situation grows more desperate with every passing day. A significant number of organizations around the world, and particularly in the West support the Palestinian cause. But these organizations are seemingly unable to agree on a common vision and strategies.

 

The Israeli Colonial State Targets the Wretched of the Earth

“And we shall surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give good tidings to the patient, Who, when disaster strikes them, say, ‘indeed we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we will return’” (The Glorious Quran, 2:155-56)

We see the complicity of our own American empire in every aspect of this massacre and disproportionate and excessive use of power by the Israeli state. The F-16′s are produced here in the US and Condoleeza Rice has stated, “We strongly condemn the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and hold Hamas responsible for breaking the ceasefire and for the renewal of violence there.” The collusion between power and the shamelessness with which they lie and distort is politics as usual for the Imperial Empire.  The Gazans are mere fodder for their thousand pound bombs. The values of the Western states complicit in this Israeli state terror are Machivellian cynics whose morality is only to hold to power at all costs.

 

Democracy Matters – Cornel West

I’ve been having a discussion on Islam, democracy, and some other subjects on sister Gess‘s website, at the same time I picked up a book by Professor Cornel West, “Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism” that I borrowed from a good friend. 

Professor Cornel West is one of the very visible liberal popular public intellectuals who appears on many forums discussing various subjects mostly in regards to race, theology, philosophy and history.  I have watched a few of his lectures and I find much that is compelling and engaging but also some ideas that give me pause and seem to contradict his own methodologies and principles.  So I viewed this opportunity to read his book as a way to get a better knowledge of where he is coming from, what he has to say and what solutions he is advocating.

The book is about the importance of Democracy “matters” (used as both a noun and a verb), threats to Democracy matters both in America and around the world, the need to reinvigorate Democratic forces interlaced with historical background and shared experiences.  West declares that there are three nihilisms at work in American Democracy that need to be overcome: Evangelical nihilism, paternalistic nihilism, and sentimental nihilism.

 

STOP WAR FOR EMPIRE! 2 PM, SATURDAY, OCT. 11 AT DEVON & LEAVITT

Peace to my fellow Chicagoans. There will be an Ad Hoc Mobilization for peace and a call to end invasion, as well as sending a message that we do not want any more death & destruction-bring troops home, legalize the undocumented/stop the raids and deportations, fund human needs, not wars abroad and Wall Street bailouts at home.

Where and When: Indo-Pakistani American neighborhood: 2 PM, OCT 11, DEVON AND LEAVITT STREETS, 2200 W. DEVON AVE.

Sponsored by many organizations: 8th day center for justice; albany park, north park, mayfair neighbors for peace and justice, answer Chicago,; chicago Area CodePink; Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism; Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights; Chicago Labor Against the War; Coalition of Pakistani Organizations – chicago; Cook County Green Party; Freedom Road Socialist Organization; gay liberation network; international socialist organization; international solidarity movement – Chicago chapter; Mayan Calendar News; Nicaragua Solidarity Network; North Shore Coalition for Peace & Justice; Pakistani Democratic Forum; Palestine Solidarity Group – Chicago; Peace Pledge Chicago; World Cant Wait – Chicago Chapter.

 

“Obsession” the Hate Movie Gets Blasted

A nice website called Obsessionwithhate that rebuts the arguments of the propaganda film “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West” has come out in which both the pundits, their associations, racisms, xenophobia, and agenda are exposed clearly. 

The rebuttal section is excellent:

Introduction

Propaganda is a tool of influence, a mechanism of subliminal coercion where the emotions and fears of a people or nation are manipulated for personal political gain. The movie Obsession: Radical Islam’s War against the West is a classic example of such propaganda that presents a Western audience with a vision of an unreal Manichean world in which horror is being visited upon us and every second that passes is one that is lost to the forces of a fictional “Islamo-fascism”: an ideology which seeks nothing more then to annihilate our very existence.

 

Kahanist Kaufman Slimes Muslim youth

By M. T. Akbar

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/54559 

Kaufman’s escapades and antics are less impressive than the comic book character, Dick Tracy, whom he seeks to emulate.

“Onion Award for Joe Kaufman for his consistent record of trashing everything Muslim with a broad brush of innuendo, association and excessive rhetoric,”-Americans United for Separation of Church and State at the occasion of their annual meeting.

Joe Kaufman, the virulent Islamophobe and follower of the late extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, is at it again in his endless crusade to slime CAIR and demonize Muslims. In this most recent episode, the “gumshoe detective” wrote a piece for the universally-rejected Right-wing mouthpiece FrontPageMag absurdly titled “Chicago’s Hamas Youth.”

In his hit piece, Kaufman attempts to link Chicago area Muslim high school students who participated in an event to educate themselves on how to become better citizens with Hamas, a Palestinian militant group.

We read such gems from the article as:

“In the Spring of 2007, CAIR-Chicago sponsored its first Muslim Youth Leadership Symposium (MYLS)… At the venue, kids wore shirts with the MYLS slogan: “Constructive Citizenship for a better America.” But for CAIR, “better America” means a United States run by Hamas.”(emphasis added)

Obviously, CAIR has never stated such an absurd thing, yet facts do not matter a thing to anti-Muslim bigots like Kaufman who are all too content with forcing into Muslim mouths the words they wish to hear in order to stay in business. 

Nowhere does Kaufman provide any evidence, statements, pamphlets, etc. supporting his absurd claim that for CAIR constructive citizenship equals an America run by Hamas.

Instead of focusing on the content of the event and the fact that esteemed individuals such as U.S. Congressman Keith Ellison (does he believe the congressman is a Hamas member?) has participated, he weaves ludicrous hard-to-follow guilt-by-association conspiracy theories, projecting his own paranoia onto the meaning of the event.

 

McCarthyist Michelle “Asian Uncle Tom” Malkin Equates Chef Rachael Ray with Terrorism

By Ahmed Rehab

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-donuts-terror-perspective,0,265018.story

How could a chirpy TV host with such edible title credits as “30 Minute Meals” and “Tasty Travels” one day awaken to find herself in the middle of a terrorism-related media blitz — all because of a Dunkin’ Donuts ad, no less?

It’s a tough recipe to cook up, but here are the ingredients:

One paisley scarf that somewhat resembles the checkered pattern of a Palestinian national garment called the “keffiyeh,” –a scarf that could be bought at Macy’s
One right-wing blogger who lacks any sense of cultural nuance
A public opinion climate ripe with paranoia
A slow news day for the media

 

Walid Shoebat: Exposed by JPost

Well we all know that these fraud “ex-terrorists” are continuing to make the big bucks from the Islamophobic cash cow but this world must be crazy when I start citing JPost for exposing Islamophobes.

The Palestinian “terrorist” turned Zionist 

by Jorg Luyken

When he was 16, says Walid Shoebat, he was recruited by a PLO operative by the name of Mahmoud al-Mughrabi to carry out an attack on a branch of Bank Leumi in Bethlehem.

At six in the evening he was supposed to detonate a bomb in the doorway of the bank. But when he saw a group of Arab children playing nearby, he says, his conscience was pricked and he threw the bomb onto the roof of the bank instead, where it exploded causing no fatalities.

This is the story that Shoebat, who converted from Islam to Christianity in 1993 and has lived in the United States since the late 1970s, has told on tours around the US and Europe since 9/11 opened the West’s public consciousness to the dangers of Islamic extremism.

Shoebat’s Web site says his is an assumed name, used to protect him from reprisal attacks by his former terror chiefs, whom he says have put a $10 million price on his head.

Shoebat is sometimes paid for his appearances, and he also solicits donations to a Walid Shoebat Foundation to help fund this work and to “fight for the Jewish people.”

The BBC, Fox News and CNN have all presented Shoebat as a terrorist turned peacemaker, interviewing him as someone uniquely capable of providing insight into the terrorist mindset.

Now he and two other former extremists are set to appear along with US Senator Joe Lieberman, Ambassador to the US Sallai Meridor and other notables at an annual “Christians United For Israel” conference in Washington in July.