topernic

thepeoplesrecord: muslim-latina: Dear Alicia Keys, I have...

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 19:40:32 -0400

muslim-latina:

Dear Alicia Keys,

I have learned today that you are due to perform in Israel very soon. We have never met, though I believe we are mutually respectful of each other’s path and work. It would grieve me to know you are putting yourself in danger (soul danger) by performing in an apartheid country that is being boycotted by many global conscious artists. You were not born when we, your elders who love you, boycotted institutions in the US South to end an American apartheid less lethal than Israel’s against the Palestinian people. Google ‘Montgomery Bus Boycott’ if you don’t know about this civil rights history already. We changed our country fundamentally and the various boycotts of Israeli institutions and products will do the same there. It is our only nonviolent option and, as we learned from our own struggle in America, nonviolence is the only path to a peaceful future.

If you go to my website and blog alicewalkersgarden.com you can quickly find many articles I have written over the years that explain why a cultural boycott of Israel and Israeli institutions (not individuals) is the only option left to artists who cannot bear the unconscionable harm Israel inflicts every day on the people of Palestine, whose major “crime” is that they exist in their own land, land that Israel wants to control as its own. Under a campaign named ‘Brand Israel’, Israeli officials have stated specifically their intent to downplay the Palestinian conflict by using culture and arts to showcase Israel as a modern, welcoming place.

This is actually a wonderful opportunity for you to learn about something sorrowful, and amazing: that our government (Obama in particular) supports a system that is cruel, unjust, and unbelievably evil. You can spend months, and years, as I have, pondering this situation. Layer upon layer of lies, misinformation, fear, cowardice and complicity. Greed. It is a vast eye-opener into the causes of much of the affliction in our suffering world.

I have kept you in my awareness as someone of conscience and caring, especially about the children of the world. Please, if you can manage it, go to visit the children in Gaza, and sing to them of our mutual love of all children, and of their right not to be harmed simply because they exist.

With love, younger sister, beloved daughter and friend,

Alice Walker

Source: Rolling Out

Watch: Alice Walker visits Gaza
Related: Stephen Hawking joins academic boycott of Israel

Yes!

Also Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters added his name to Walker’s:

Dear Alicia Keys,

I read today Alice Walker’s eloquent and moving entreaty to you in her open letter.

It is hard to add anything except to implore you to follow all the links she has directed you to.

To introduce myself to you, I am a fellow musician, my name is Roger Waters, I used to be in a band called Pink Floyd, and, believe it or not, I still work.

I had reason last December to write a letter to Stevie Wonder to encourage him to withdraw from an engagement in LA. It was a Gala to raise funds for the Israeli Defense Force. I wasn’t the only one to write, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the great advocate of peace and reconciliation, was among many, many others who wrote as well. To Stevie’s great credit he withdrew.

We are all part of the same old story, nothing has changed since the bad old days of apartheid South Africa and Segregated America. We must stand united with all our brothers and sisters against racism, colonialism, segregation and apartheid.

With love and respect,

Roger Waters (Waters’s letter is also posted at PACBI)

thepalestineyoudontknow: Israeli occupation forces demolished...

Thu, 30 May 2013 07:25:22 -0400

thepalestineyoudontknow:

Israeli occupation forces demolished two Palestinian homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina . ( wafa images )

The homes were built 13 years ago and housed 10 people.
The houses were built without municipal permission because Israel kept refusing to issue permits for construction, al-Salameh (the owner) said.

At the time , The cost of obtaining permits can be as much as the cost of construction of the actual building. And even the permits are hardly obtained !

Why does Israel demolish Palestinian homes? The policy of house demolitions has two goals: first, to make life so miserable for the Palestinians that they leave the country. It is estimated that up to 300,000 Palestinians have left the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the past ten years, most of them middle-class, young, educated, and economically active. This is what we refer to as “selective transfer,” and it is intended to weaken Palestinian society and make it more malleable to Israeli rule. Second, to drive Palestinians off their land in Area C and into Areas A and B. This has largely succeeded. Area C is 62% of the West Bank, yet today contains only about 5% of the (West Bank) Palestinian population.

"Question: Which country alone in the Middle East has nuclear weapons? Answer: Israel, Question:..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 08:01:45 -0400

“

Question: Which country alone in the Middle East has nuclear weapons?
Answer: Israel,

Question: Which country in the Middle East has just recently used a weapon of mass destruction, a one-ton smart bomb, dropping it in the center of a highly populated area killing civilians including children?
Answer: Israel.

Question: What country in the Middle East was cited by Amnesty International for demolishing more than 4000 innocent Palestinian homes as a means of ethnic cleansing?
Answer: Israel.

Question: What country on Planet Earth has the second most powerful lobby in the United States , according to a recent Fortune magazine survey of Washington insiders?
Answer: Israel.

Question: Which country in the Middle East receives U.S. weapons for free and then sells the technology to the Republic of China even at the objections of the U.S.?
Answer: Israel.

Question: Which country in the Middle East regularly violates the Geneva Convention by imposing collective punishment on entire towns, villages, and camps, for the acts of a few, and even goes as far as demolishing entire villages while people are still in their homes?
Answer: Israel.

Question: Which country in the Middle East routinely kills young Palestinian children for no reason other than throwing stones at armored vehicles, bulldozers, or tanks?
Answer: Israel.

Question: Which country in the Middle East refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections?
Answer: Israel.

Question: Which country in the Middle East seized the sovereign territory of other nations by military force and continues to occupy it in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions?
Answer: Israel.

Question: Which country in the Middle East routinely violates the international borders of another sovereign state with warplanes and artillery and naval gunfire?
Answer: Israel.

Question: What American ally in the Middle East has for years sent assassins into other countries to kill its political enemies (a practice sometimes called exporting terrorism)?
Answer: Israel.

Question: In which country in the Middle East have high-ranking military officers admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war were executed?
Answer: Israel.

Question: What country in the Middle East refuses to prosecute its soldiers who have acknowledged executing prisoners of war?
Answer: Israel.

Question: What country in the Middle East created millions of refugees and refuses to allow them to return to their homes, farms and businesses?
Answer: Israel.

Question: What country in the Middle East refuses to pay compensation to people whose land, bank accounts and businesses it confiscated?
Answer: Israel.

Question: In what country in the Middle East was a high-ranking United Nations diplomat assassinated?
Answer: Israel.

Question: In what country in the Middle East did the man who ordered the assassination of a high-ranking U.N. diplomat become prime minister?
Answer: Israel.

Question: What country in the Middle East blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt and attacked a U.S. ship, the USS Liberty, in international waters, killing 34 and wounding 171 American sailors?
Answer: Israel.

Question: What country in the Middle East employed a spy, Jonathan Pollard, to steal classified documents from USA and then gave some of them to the Soviet Union?
Answer: Israel.

Question: What country at first denied any official connection to Pollard, then voted to make him a citizen and has continuously demanded that the American president grant Pollard a full pardon?
Answer: Israel.

Question: What Middle East country allows American Jewish murderers to flee to its country to escape punishment in the United States and refuses to extradite them once in their custody?
Answer: Israel.

Question: What Middle East country preaches against hate yet builds a shrine and a memorial for a murderer who killed 29 Palestinians while they prayed in their Mosque?
Answer: Israel.

Question: Which country in the Middle East deliberately targeted a civilian U.N. Refugee Camp in Qana , Lebanon and killed 103 innocent men, women, and especially children?
Answer: Israel.

Question: Which country in the Middle East is in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council resolutions and has been protected from 29 more by U.S. vetoes?
Answer: Israel.

Question: Which country in the Middle East receives more than one-third of all U.S. aid to the world yet is the 16th richest country in the world?
Answer: Israel.

Question: Which country in the Middle East had its Prime Minister announce to his staff not to worry about what the United States says because “We control America ?”
Answer: Israel.

Question: Which country in the Middle East signed the Oslo Accords promising to halt any new Jewish Settlement construction, but instead, has built more than 270 new settlements since the signing?
Answer: Israel.

Question: Which country in the Middle East has assassinated more than 100 political officials of its opponent in the last 2 years while killing hundreds of civilians in the process, including dozens of children?
Answer: Israel.

”

- Dr. Norman Finkelstein (via spiritfall-commune)

Got a mean rooster?

Sun, 19 May 2013 19:48:36 -0400

Pop an umbrella open in front of his face. It will scare the crap out of him.

"Because higher wages mean more expensive goods and customers don’t want to pay higher prices. While..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 06:53:01 -0400

“Because higher wages mean more expensive goods and customers don’t want to pay higher prices. While it would make for a simpler narrative, companies like Walmart, Gap, and H&M that have operations in Bangladesh outsource the making of their clothing lines overseas not simply because they want to exploit people on the other side of the world, but because we their customers all but force them to do it. While most of us would be appalled if we saw the working conditions and knew the wages of the people that make the clothes we wear and would no doubt shout our anger from the roof tops, our wallets tell a different story. Our wallets, or more specifically our spending habits reveal the cold hard reality that most of us just don’t give a shit about where we get our clothes, so long as we get them for cheap. Worse yet, as Tony Campolo would say, most of us in the church care more about fact that I just said “shit” than the fact that countless men, women, and children suffer and die everyday as a direct result of our lust for low, low prices. Which is why the problem of evil is hanging in our closets.”

- The Problem Of Evil Is Hanging In Your Closet (via azspot)

reuters: Gun crime plunges, though most Americans think it has...

Wed, 08 May 2013 08:07:46 -0400

reuters:

Gun crime plunges, though most Americans think it has risen

Some 11,101 gun-related homicides were reported in the United States in 2011, a figure that is down 39 percent from the 1993 peak, the Justice Department reported. Nonfatal firearm crimes declined by 69 percent to 467,300 in the same period.

Comparison of GMO and non-GMO corn - the real statistics will astound you!

Sun, 05 May 2013 21:08:00 -0400

Comparison of GMO and non-GMO corn - the real statistics will astound you!:

The nutrition statistics for GMO corn are bone chilling. Here is what the report indicates:

• Organic corn has 14 ppm of manganese. GMO corn has only 2 ppm.
• Real corn has 7 times more manganese!
• Organic corn has 6130 ppm of calcium. GMO is stripped down to 14 ppm.
• Real corn has 437 times more calcium!
• Organic corn has 113 ppm of magnesium. GMO corn is vacant, with only 2 ppm.
• Real corn has 56 times more magnesium!

An Open Letter From Assata

Sat, 04 May 2013 16:00:05 -0400

An Open Letter From Assata:

My name is Assata Shakur, and I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence t…

Photo

Sat, 04 May 2013 15:38:47 -0400

"So why did the media choose to cover around the clock a terrorist bombing that killed fewer people..."

Sat, 04 May 2013 15:33:51 -0400

“So why did the media choose to cover around the clock a terrorist bombing that killed fewer people and is extremely rare while all but ignoring an industrial explosion that killed more people, is far more common and is far easier to prevent? Aaron Albright, who worked on failed mine safety legislation in the wake of the Upper Big Branch mine as an aide to Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), joked on Twitter that the media opted to focus almost exclusively on the Boston bombings because the two stories were like “CSI/Mission Impossible vs. [a] PBS documentary.” The story of alleged terrorists with Chechen links seems far more exotic and threatening than does the story of a workplace disaster that would have been preventable if the company followed the rules.”

- Mike Elk: The Texas fertilizer plant explosion cannot be forgotten - The Washington Post (via bthny)

I will give a dollar to anyone who can name the number killed in the explosion off the top of their heads, Billy on the Street style.

(via howto-kissdistinctly-american)

palestinianliberator: By request~

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 18:22:46 -0400

palestinianliberator:

By request~

Anonymous: A list of children killed in Obama authorized drone attacks, apparently it's only terrorism when the victims are white.

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:56:20 -0400

Anonymous: A list of children killed in Obama authorized drone attacks, apparently it's only terrorism when the victims are white.:

anoncentral:

Noor Aziz | 8 | male
Abdul Wasit | 17 | male
Noor Syed | 8 | male
Wajid Noor | 9 | male
Syed Wali Shah | 7 | male
Ayeesha | 3 | female
Qari Alamzeb | 14| male
Shoaib | 8 | male
Hayatullah KhaMohammad | 16 | male
Tariq Aziz | 16 | male
Sanaullah Jan | 17 | male
Maezol Khan | 8 | female
Nasir Khan |…

Photo

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 13:47:13 -0400

headandstomachached: A very passionate message from David Icke...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 23:00:24 -0400

headandstomachached:

A very passionate message from David Icke to the police. There is also some more terrifying footage of police corruption and brutality. The first clip is so scary.

katsallday: upperstories: macpye: aquapunk: rainwood: Indige...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 22:51:21 -0400

katsallday:

upperstories:

macpye:

aquapunk:

rainwood:

Indigenous people of Brazil trying to prevent their eviction from an old indigenous museum which they have been living in for the past 7 years.

On March 22nd all of the inhabitants and their supporters were forcibly removed or arrested.

The building is being destroyed to make a parking lot :(

…for the Olympics

Seriously, why isn’t this all over my dash?

What?

Well, damn. Why does this stuff never get media attention? |:

Video Shows Police In Watertown Rip Family From Their Home & Treat Them Like Terrorists - informationliberation

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 20:09:05 -0400

Video Shows Police In Watertown Rip Family From Their Home & Treat Them Like Terrorists - informationliberation:

Here’s the description from the poster on YouTube:
WATERTOWN, MA — On Friday, April 19, 2013, during a manhunt for a bombing suspect, police and federal agents spent the day storming people’s homes and performing illegal searches. While it was unclear initially if the home searches were voluntary, it is now crystal clear that they were absolutely NOT voluntary. Police were filmed ripping people from their homes at gunpoint, marching the residents out with their hands raised in submission, and then storming the homes to perform their illegal searches.

This was part of a larger operation that involved total lockdown of the suburban neighbor to Boston. Roads were barricaded and vehicle traffic was prohibited. A No-Fly Zone was declared over the town. People were “ordered” to stay indoors. Businesses were told not to open. National Guard soldiers helped with the lockdown, and were photographed checking IDs of pedestrians on the streets. All the while, police were performing these disgusting house-to-house searches.

thepeoplesrecord: These are all pictures that have been posted...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 23:30:00 -0400

thepeoplesrecord:

These are all pictures that have been posted on the Rising Tide North America Facebook page (links: Facebook | Twitter | Website)

On the last image:

15 dead, 150+ injured, dozens still unaccounted for & possibly dead. No Osha inspection since the 80’s, ammonia-smell complaints in the early 2000s that ended with a report from the plant that claimed there was NO risk for fire.

I want to know why all of the force of the American Military Industrial Complex was directed at finding Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, but no one seems to be talking about holding the people & policies accountable for the ending of 15+ real human lives who did not have to die. The thoughts & dreams & possibilities of those real human lives did not have to end.

Can we PLEASE talk about some justice in this society, some logical policy changes that can save lives, and about challenging the system that makes this kind of injustice go unanswered, putting people before profits at the cost of human lives again & again?!!

Nobody wants to talk about that. That doesn’t feed the defense department machine. That kind of fear is unwanted - it might cause change. They want fear to be perceived from outside. And they will create it if there is not enough.

Change that to ‘Most Americans’.

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 23:27:00 -0400

Change that to ‘Most Americans’.

Photo

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 23:19:11 -0400

sustainableprosperity: Full Show: The Toxic Assault on Our...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 12:51:09 -0400

sustainableprosperity:

Full Show: The Toxic Assault on Our Children

MOYERS & COMPANY

Air Date: April 19, 2013

Biologist, mother and activist Sandra Steingraber discusses her fight against fracking and toxins contaminating our air, water and food.