A while back I ran this graphic, found at Norman Finkelstein’s website, at the top of this blog. Since then, more details on it have emerged on Norman’s site and on a Facebook group that’s sprung up.

First Organizational Meeting:
Monday, July 13th, 2009, 7:30 p.m.
Brecht Forum
451 West St.
New York, NY 10014

Contact: NormFinkelstein@gmail.com

Article on the Campaign:
Activists plan march to break Gaza siege, July 1, 2009, Daily Star
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=103669
Also at:
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/onward-to-victory/

More information at: http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/

Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza:
Draft Statement of Purpose and Principles

Human Rights Watch has called the blockade of Gaza a “serious violation of international law.”

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter has said the people of Gaza are being treated “like animals” and has called for “ending of the siege of Gaza—the starving of one and a half million people of the necessities of life.”

The world’s leading authority on Gaza, Sara Roy of Harvard University, has said that the consequence of the siege “is undeniably one of mass suffering, created largely by Israel, but with the active complicity of the international community, especially the U.S. and European Union.”

The law is clear. The conscience of humankind is shocked.

Yet, the siege of Gaza continues.

It is time for the people to act!

The Mile-Long March toward Freedom

The Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza will dispatch thousands of people from around the world to Gaza.

On January 1, 2010 we will march the Long Mile across Erez checkpoint alongside the people of Gaza in a nonviolent demonstration that breaches the illegal blockade.

The march draws inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi.

Gandhi called his movement Satyagraha—Hold on to the truth. We hold on to the truth that Israel’s siege of Gaza is illegal and inhuman.

Gandhi said that nonviolence requires more courage and is more effective than violence. We want to prove the truth of Gandhi’s beliefs with our deeds.

We are not afraid, we won’t turn back, we won’t let Gaza die.

Gandhi said that the purpose of nonviolent action is to “quicken” the conscience of humankind. We want to bring humankind not just to deplore Israeli brutality but actively to stop it.

Those of us residing in the United States also draw inspiration from the Civil Rights Movement.

If Israel devalues Palestinian life then—just as northern whites went down South during Freedom Summer—we must interpose our bodies to shield Palestinians from Israeli brutality.

If Israel defies international law then—just as federal marshals were sent in to enforce the law of the land against racist southern sheriffs—we must send nonviolent marshals from around the world to enforce the law of the international community in Gaza.

We take no sides in internal Palestinian politics. We side only with international law and basic human decency.

We conceive this march as the first step in a protracted nonviolent campaign.

The siege is illegal.

The wall is illegal.

The settlements are illegal.

The closures and curfews are illegal.

The roadblocks and checkpoints are illegal.

The detention and torture are illegal.

The truth is that if international law were enforced the occupation would be unsustainable.

The march can succeed only if we arouse the conscience of humanity.

If we bring thousands to Gaza and millions more around the world watch the march on the internet, we can end the siege without a drop of blood being shed.

If the whole world is watching, Israel can’t shoot.

Please join us.

Post posting viewing: Now having seen it, I’m a bit back and forth on Bill’s methods. I’m pretty much at the place he’s getting to, though without as much of the condescending attitude or inflated ego. I think he kills a lot of his own arguments early on in the flick by going for the cheap laugh too often and too soon.

His plea for people to have “doubt” should really be more about scepticism. And he often leaves some of his own skepticism behind when he gives credit to the likes of Geert Wilders, who is himself a relgious/racist extremist.

Maher’s argument that people who openly express doubts about the afterlife show far more humility than the religious folk he takes issue with is undercut by his own attitude: Bill Maher is not a poster boy for humility. Humorous in parts, the film is more illuminating into how ridiculous the debate over the role of religion has become in the United States – and increasingly, by a creeping degree, in Uk and Europe. Worth the watch, especially for free.

Better done, though perhaps not at funny:

• Jesus Camp (Scary)
• The Evolution of Religions (Not an easy one to slog through)
• The Promised Land? (Not bad for the mainstream)
• George Carlin – Religion is bullshit (Proving some people can say the same stuff better than others)
• George Galloway takes a phone call (George shows how to keep your calm and make your point in the face of lunacy)

Powered by Twitter Tools.

1) Official website for the haymarket production.

2) Sparknotes (one of many online Cliff’s Notes knockoffs) commentary on the play.

3) Act I of the 2001 Beckett on Film production of Waiting for Godot. There are links on this page to clips of Act II as well, of varying degrees of quality. The entire Channel 4 Beckett collection is worth a look, as well, though.

4) Waiting for Godot… this guy’s philosophy. This fellow goes on quite a tangent about what Waiting for Godot really means.

5) The Barbie (or Ken, actually) edition. This looks like it was, at some point, a brilliant idea. Unfortunately, copyright (f)laws have rendered this one kind of useless. YouTube apparently found that some part of the track infringed on someone’s rights to sell something. Next to the clip it reads: “This video contains an audio track that has not been authorized by WMG. The audio has been disabled.”

Because, you know, I get that. Because someone heard three minutes of something on a YouTube video of some people essentially playing with plastic dolls, will decide, “all right then. No need to buy that now, I’ve experienced it to its fullest right here.” Total sense making. Based on all the blatantly stolen stuff you can find on YouTube, I hadn’t previously thought they actually paid attention to copyright. Interesting. If anyone out there knows where a version is with audio still enabled, let me know and I’ll update the link. However, watching it in silent mode is a slightly creepy, surreal way of testing your memory of the lines.

6) Waiting On Godot. Sitting around wondering when your dealer is going to show up is a real drag. Nothing gets done. And when you get your spliff, well, nothing gets done again. Sort of like the play, in which nothing happens twice. Instead of two tramps waiting in the cold, we have Vicki and Estrella, two London club girls waiting on a sofa for their drug dealer, Godot. Spoiler: He doesn’t show up.

7) An attempt (succes? you decide) at animating the first pages of Waiting for Godot.

8) Arrival of Godot. This is a hand drawn animation made by some student at Armwood High School in 2000. I never had a class this cool in high school.

9) Sesame Street – Monsterpiece Theater “Waiting for Elmo.” You sort of hope he never shows up. Freaking Elmo.

10) Animation: Guinea Pig Theatre’s Waiting for Godot.

11) Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen give good talk on Radio 4. Two of the best voices on film and TV yack about taking Godot on the road. Really, you could listen to these guys talk about anything. Stage experience gives their voices a quality that demands attention.

12) Waiting For Godot: The Interactive Adventure. A must see. Somene has finally done the play justice in the Web 2.0 realm.

13) Clicking for Godot. A review of Waiting for Godot performed in an internet chat room. I guess you had to be there. In “Waiting for Godot,” as one critic famously put it, “nothing happens, twice”; in chat rooms, nothing happens over and over again…”

14) Did Waiting for Godot end the Bosnian war? Susan Sontag had a public square named after her in Sarajevo in honor for putting on production of Waiting for Godot in midst of the war.

15) Waiting For Godot In Sarajevo by David Toole. (Related to the link above) From the book jacket: In Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo, David Toole seeks to come to terms with what it means to live a life of dignity in a world of undeniable suffering. Using as his backdrop Susan Sontag’s staging of Act I of Waiting for Godot in war-torn Sarajevo, Toole skillfully weaves together Friedrich Nietzsche’s views on nihilism with Michel Foucault’s analysis of power to produce a politics of tragedy, or what Toole calls a “politics of dying.”

16) The script of Waiting for Godot. Hey kids, act it out with your friends.

17) Candle in the Wind – Diana Macbeth Godot Mash Up video. usually I wouldn’t link to such a tripe song, but this mix which includes a Beckett on Film snip of Godot (watch it before YouTube kills this too) is kind of absorbing.

18) West End Whingers. A review of the play which is mostly about the two guys reviewing it, who couldn’t be more like Christopher Guest characters if they tried. Perfect.

Tangent) Magneto Was Right. Nothing to do with the play, really, but someone put an awful lot of work into making the case for the philosophy of the X-Men character Magneto, and you know, they sold me on it. You go, man. Fight the homo sapien dominated power structure.

This format could be used for a number of other campaigns focusing on the disappeared or massacred.

Hundreds, probably thousands, have been arrested in Iran since the presidential election on 12 June. Human rights and campaign groups such as Human Rights Watch, the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and Reporters Without Borders have been collecting and publishing the names of those dead or detained.

We have brought those lists, and reports from trusted media sources, into a database that we are asking readers and those elsewhere on the internet to contribute too.

DATA: download the full spreadsheet of the dead and detained

• Can you do something with this data?
Flickr: Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on the Flickr group or email it to datastore@guardian.co.uk

— Iran election: faces of the dead and detained  @ guardian.co.uk.

ALL WE WANT IS TO REACH GAZA. WE DO NOT SEEK A CONFRONTATION

Activists aboard Gaza justice boat demand they be allowed to visit their friends & family in besieged Gaza, and deliver their cargo of medical supplies, children’s toys, and reconstruction kits. They invite the world to join them.

(At Sea, 60km off the coast of the Gaza Strip) – Human Rights activists aboard the Free Gaza ship, the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, today demanded that the Israeli Navy immediately stop threatening them.

“This aid is desperately needed by the people of Gaza,” said Mairead Maguire, winner of the Noble Peace Prize and Pacem in Terris Award for her work in Northern Ireland. “President Obama has called upon the Palestinians to abandon violence but Israel is denying them the right to non-violently resist the siege of Gaza.”

The unarmed justice ship departed Larnaca Port in Cyprus at 7:30am Monday with its crew of 21 human rights activists, humanitarian workers and journalists from 11 different countries, including Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. The boat, a converted ferry, hopes to arrive in Gaza Tuesday afternoon, following a grueling 30 hour sea voyage.

At 1:30am, Israeli warships surrounded the small civilian boat and threatened to open fire if they did not turn around. When the activists refused to be intimidated, Israeli Occupation Forces began jamming their instrumentation, blocking their GPS, radar, and navigation systems. This jamming was in direct violation of international maritime law, threatening the welfare and safety of the civilian ship.

Responding to this intimidation, Congresswoman McKinney declared, “I am extremely angry. We demand that the Israeli government call off their attack dogs. We are unarmed civilians aboard an unarmed boat delivering medical and reconstruction aid to other human beings in Gaza. Why in God’s name would Israel want to attack us?”

Huwaida Arraf, Chairperson of the Free Gaza movement and delegation co-coordinator for this voyage, said, “All we want is to reach Gaza. We want to visit our friends and deliver our cargo of medical supplies, children’s toys, and reconstruction materials. Our ship was searched and received security clearance from the Port Authorities in Cyprus before we departed.”

Arraf continued, “We do not seek a confrontation. We have traveled from Cypriot waters to international waters and will enter Gazan waters. We’ve never gone anywhere near Israel. Israel’s closure of Gaza is an act of collective punishment and a blatant violation of international law. We call upon our governments to take action to uphold their obligations under the Fourth Geneva Conventions. If they won’t or until they do, we will act. We will come to Gaza again and again until this brutal siege is broken. We invite the good people of the world to join us.”

Free Gaza boats are the first international ships in 41 years to sail to the Gaza Strip. Since August 2008, the Free Gaza Movement has organized 8 sea missions, successfully arriving to Gaza on 5 separate occasions. One two earlier occasions, Israeli Occupation Forces used violence to stop the ships, physically ramming and almost sinking the DIGNITY boat in December 2008, and threatening to fire on and kill unarmed passengers in January 2008. The fate of this, the eighth mission to Gaza, is still uncertain.
###
For more information, please contact:
Greta Berlin (English/French) or Caoimhe Butterly (English/Arabic/Spanish) at 00357 99 081 767 / friends@freegaza.org
www.FreeGaza.org

WHAT YOU CAN DO!

CALL or FAX Major Liebovitz from the Israeli Navy at:
Tel + 972 5 781 86248 or +972 3737 7777 or +972 3737 6242
Fax +972 3737 6123 or +972 3737 7175

CALL Mark Regev in the Prime Minister’s office at:
Tel +972 2670 5354 or +972 5 0620 3264
mark.regev@it.pmo.gov.il

CALL Shlomo Dror in the Ministry of Defence at:
Tel +972 3697 5339 or +972 50629 8148
mediasar@mod.gov.il
—
Free Gaza Movement
357 99 081 767
www.freegaza.org

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Not to mention, being a fan of the music also helped me get away with having this poster on the wall of my room. His work is now for sale here.

His bio at the site is here. Also here is some of his later work in Cambodia and elsewhere, and a lot of talk about buddhism, which sort of reminded me of my favorite photo how-to book, the Tao of Photography. His new stuff still has a lot of the same look and feel of the former, and I think I’ll add them to my list of 99 reasons the Pixies should get back together for more than a one-off track.

According to TweetPsych, I often use twitter to tweet about my various senses, discuss positive sensations and feelings, talk about various cognitive processes like learning, thinking, knowing, etc., talk a lot about jobs and  work, and often tweet about the future. My Social behavior rating is much higher than my moral imerative rating. Some people who think like me include drapetomaniac, werner, Phil_Adams, nickflare and renn.

Somewhat of an interesting web toy, but it analyzes your last 1,000 tweets, a number I’m no where close to yet. Still, the concept of analizing people based on their public content has potential. I doesn’t include a narcissism rating, which I guess must just be a given considering you have to be using Twitter in the first place in order for it to work, and thus think you can distill your Wisdom Tooth like insights into 140 characters to the eternal delight of your impending masses of followers.

According to it’s new site profiler, drew3000.net spends a lot of time talking in the present tense (case in point here) and often makes “references to physically upward movement, Like upstairs, climb, etc.” Hardly Freud, but it’s interesting that psychological analysis is entering the automated stage. Once the web really analizes what people are thinking about based on what we all put online, I think we’ll see a Skynet style response, which you could hardly consider unjustified.

In this case, it’s regarding the ever changing situation in Iran. The battle ground in question is the comment area at Common Dreams, a usually progressive left news site. It was a wholly satisfying experiment. I learned a lot about a lot about the nature of comment areas, their addicting qualities and how quickly the conversation sort of descends into self-parody. I learned something about myself: According to these people I must work for the Mossad or CIA.

Caveat: I should qualify “my own kind.” I mean other lefties. And if I may pidgeon-hole the entire lot for a moment, I mean the sort of folks likely to read Counterpunch or check in with Democracy Now on occasion, join the incidental protest march now and again, likely own a copy of The People’s History of the United States, sought out a kaffiya not made in a sweat shop and sold on High Street, and so on. I don’t actually know these comment writers. And after the week or so I think I’ve better figured out who my kind is and is not.

So why the instant twitchy paranoia? There is a sordid history involving the U.S. Doing bad things in Iran. It’s now well documented and we need not retell the tale in this post.

Some links that cover it here:

• Interview with Iranian filmmaker Kouross Esmaeli contains a good rundown of western “meddling” in Iran going back 200 years.
• BBC history rundown is mostly complete

But the history has created a certain kind of Orthodoxy among certain lefty circles, left to stew in it’s own juices far too long and resulting in some very strange leaps of logic. It’s essentially that: any protest against the ruling regime in Iran, even for minor change, is automatically pro-western anti-revolutionary and some how always the work of the CIA. I’m not the only one to notice it:

“Virtually identical to those neoconservatives on the right are some on the left who do not celebrate that the Iranian regime teeters. What do they have in common? It is a nostalgia for the Cold War and an inability to break out of its dualist mode of thought: one in which the world is divided between two ideological poles (the dinosaur left and the neocon right disagree only on which pole is “good” and which is “evil” but the rest of their analyses line up seamlessly together).” —  Al Giordano at CounterPunch

“Maybe the biggest shame is that most of those disseminating these theories are not paranoid fringe radicals, but well-meaning individuals harboring legitimate — if misplaced — concerns. The neoconservative years of Bush/Cheney’s ‘democracy promotion’ understandably have turned otherwise sane people skeptical. But to quote my friend Stephen Zunes, ‘the beauty of strategic nonviolent action is that it cannot succeed in threatening any government’s rule unless the regime has lost its legitimacy with the people (i.e., Pinochet in Chile, Marcos in the Philippines, Milosevic in Serbia, etc.) and the opposition has widespread popular support.” — Cynthia Boaz, via Huffington Post

“Conspiranoids and freedom-haters of the left and right alike are rushing to betray the Iranian protest movement. On the supposed “left,” the retro-Stalinist Workers World and its International Action Center as well as (disappointingly) Monthly Review and the World Socialist Website have weighed in for Ahmadinejad and dissed the protesters as dupes or pawns of US imperialism. How interesting to see these supposed “leftists” making common cause with right-wing cheerleaders for authoritarian regimes.” — The WorldWar4Report

“Last night, just before I went to sleep, I saw a Facebook group (with hundreds of supporters) pledging support for Ahmadinajad. It mostly set up and supported by Arabs, some of whom are on my Facebook list of friends. I was naturally annoyed. I mean, supporting Ahmadinajad on sunny days is objectionable but supporting him now is rather most disturbing if not disgusting. When they support Ahmadinajad now, are they not supporting the shooting at demonstrators? I worry that this issue is really going to create a rift between not only Arab left and Iranian left but between Iranians and Arabs generally.” — The Angry Arab News Service

“As outside observers, we have two obligations now. First, we need to keep our own states from using the events in Iran to advance imperialist stratagems. But we also need to show solidarity with the struggle for greater freedom in Iran.” — Jews sans frontieres

There have been other similar statements since. I was glad to see those voices eventually come along as it seemed a little lonely for a while. It was amid the tit-for-tat that happens in comment areas on the website commondreams.org that i sw the phenomenon unfold, of leftists who in every other place espoused fair play, human rights, etc, here were calling the demonstrators CIA dupes or on the payroll of the Mossad, and other associated nonsense.Not bothering to cite a source as they demanded to know where information was coming from in anything else they disparaged. Now, comment areas are messy places and mostly to be ignored. But the problem here, at niche sites such as this, is that the comments often reflect an opinion held by large swaths of the population in general.

On Friday, June 12, I accompanied my wife and our boy of 15 months to the Iranian consulate here in London so she could cast her vote in the Iranian election. Initially she had been inclined to skip it, wondering if it would be of any use. In the end she decided it was worth a shot. On Saturday, as the news of “irregularities” emerged, we were back in Knightsbridge out front the embassy this time as part of the protest. And we’ve been back several days since. Our son has enjoyed the chance to wave his arms around and shout a lot. Demonstrations can offer a healthy outlet for kids.

Obviously during this time we’ve been a little preoccupied with the news. we channel surf for the latest and obsessively check google news and blog feeds as well as the social network pages. Getting reliable news out of Iran during g this situation has not been as difficult as discerning what is happening inside a black hole, but it’s not far off. Over the past few days information has emerged, though, in English and in Farsi. On websites, in video and during the chance phone call when the lines work. And from it we can begin to put a picture together. One of the scads of websites I check in with now and again is Common Dreams, which offers a modest mix of syndicated coverage and original analysis that ranges in degrees of informed comment, but overall good stuff. It was late the Saturday following the voting that I decided to see what was going on in the comments, though, and what a weird experience it was.

I get my information from a few different places. It includes U.S. and UK media, sure, but I’m also hearing the stuff my wife is translating to me from Farsi blogs, Facebook pages, twitter accounts and so forth. But reading the comments at Common Dreams was like jumping into a time warp back to an age before the internet was on home computers yet: Here the CIA was behind it all. The millions of Iranians upset about this were all dupes by a vast western conspiracy and there was no way that Iranian people would have voted to replace the United State’s current most favorite bad guy.

I’m not going rehash them all here. If you want to get a sample of what has been (and currently is) said by people, just head to the site and look at the comments area under any article about Iran. To get a solid idea of where some leftists come in, check out the discussion after these posts: The Iranian Uprising is Home Grown, and Must Stay That Way, Iranians Flex the Power of Nonviolence, Iran’s Power Struggle, Still Marching, Iran Arrests and Rallies, Iran Ups Media Crackdown as Reformers Plan Rally, Iran: Might Meets Right, The Iranian People Speak, Iran Agrees to Partial Recount of Disputed Ballots, Not the Change They Expected, and Dashing Fabricated Hopes: The Meaning of Ahmadinejad’s Victory. There are a few more of these. For my part in these exchanges, I was petty, trite, sarcastic, vindictive, and sometimes displayed even more lax spelling and grammer standardss than even this site even allows for. In other word, I played at level. But my contentions remained these:

• A) There is no credible evidence to indicate that street protests in Iran are being driven by foreign governments.
• B) There is credible evidence that election rigging may have taken place.
• C) There is no contradiction in supporting people demonstrating for greater freedom in Iran and maintaining support for movements in Palestine, Iraq, Burma, and where ever else you think the U.S. or the military-industrial complex are up to bad things.

There is no need to make supportive statements of Ahmadinijad unless or the theocratic regime of the Islamic Republic unless you actually believe that a system in which people can be hanged or stoned to death for essentially being themselves or speaking their mind is something you can really get behind. If you oppose what the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians, what the U.S. is doing to Iraqis, then there is no way you could actually support what the Iranian government does to a good number of people in Iran. One of the quotes that occasionally rotates in this blog’s sidebar was uttered by the journalist Johann Hari: “No more bogus ‘respect’ for fundamentalism within open societies. If you literally follow an ancient Holy Text – whether it’s the Koran, the Bible or the Torah – you will hold disgusting views about women, and you should expect to have them criticized and mocked.” to this we could add gays, other races, ethnic groups, and on and on.

So, for these fairly tepid claims, this site’s two or three visitors plus the  occasional trolls from the anti-ISM group that has me listed on their “rogues gallery” page, this may be sort of humorous; According to a good amount of Common Dreams commenters, based on the above assertions, I am a zionist, on the payroll of either the Mossad or the CIA and possibly writing from within Israel, that I am against arabs or persions (which would really thin out my Facebook friends list if it were the case and would likely make my wife and child a little nervous).

That I cited actual statistical sources proved their case to them. Depending on the so-called progressive credibility of the sources I cited, I was accused of either siding with the establishment or unwitting dupes. If I made the case by citing CounterPunch or Democracy Now, it was ignored. If I cited Norman Finkelstein, someone laughably asked if he was a zionist. The history professor Juan Cole, whose writing helped kick off one of the biggest Gaza relief campaigns of the last year was labeled a neocon stooge for his support of Iran demonstrations.

My favorite was the person who claimed that there was obviously a conspiracy, because all Iranians were organizing on Twitter in English. As evidence, they said Twitter doesn’t allow Farsi. When I responded with a link to Farsi posts on Twitter (there are many), the person responded with a reprimand for not paying enough attention to the current unfolding situation in Peru.

If I asked someone to cite one of their sources for information, they responded, saying there was no need to as I wouldn’t take them seriously anyway. The people who did cite sources, employed ones they’d dub dubious on nearly any other issue. new-right D.C. lobby gorups like Terror Free Tomorrow and former Reagan advisor turned bunker-inhabiting xenophobe made the list.

If all else failed, they’d ask why I didn’t focus on other issues like the massacre in Peru. Why was I not railing against our own election theft in 2000 (”and 2004″ someone else would add) Any images that ran with the articles being commented on were suspect. Any sources mentioned in the articles that didn’t jive with what was “known” were dismissed. The use of English by Iranians was seen as definitive proof. The use of Twitter or Facebook by demonstrators showed western capitalist interests had to be behind it all. That the Mousavi campaign used the color green proved that they were being paid by the CIA. A girl dies on video and it’s immediately suspected that she’s a Mossad-paid actress. Chris Hedges became a dupe for daring to suggest the demonstrators had a point. Robert Fisk became journalist non grata for his reporting.

On it goes.

To people who have ever taken part in supporting the Palestinian cause, a lot of the above tactics should ring familiar. The name calling, deflection, asking why you don’t look into some other thing, it’s all there. It was interesting to see such unoriignal tactics repeated here. The logic was sort along the lines of the “enemy of your enemy…” in which because Ahmhadinijad “challenged” the west, it was natural that the people there loved him and the U.S. was trying to unseat him by running a Shah-style plot. There was no consideration of the internal goings on in Iran or that the people there may not be happy with things, and actually may not be considering U.S. interests at all in their protesting.

All this may not be surprising to many people. This could just be the nature of comment sections. But again, in niche communities, comment sections often represent good-sized swathes of a community. To anti-war and other lefty campaign organizers, I say you should look at this as a warning sign. There are signs here and elsewhere (as cited by the authors quoted above) of a serious lack of critical thinking going on. Rejectionism is reflexive as opposed to thoughtful, which is another symptom of blind, orthodox belief. The problem of orthodox beleif is that it allows for no new information. No new details. Progressive organizers should look out for this, and challenge it. Because should they find any new compelling information that runs counter to the popular orthodoxy, their crowd may well just turn on them.

Being that this was a public proceeding, lacking any sort of national security concerns and having to do with the common good, I thought this should be a fairly simple process. After all, the footage is openly available on a government website. It’s already been filmed, edited and posted. Getting the raw file should be no big deal. As it turns out, however, UK Parliament keeps about as tight a control on its content as the BBC does an episode of Doctor Who.

The response I got back cautioned me that “The situation relating to the use of Proceedings of Parliament on website is very complex.” And while I could freely link to any recording on the Parliament website I wanted to, should I actually choose to host and play a clip anywhere else or combine it with a video project, “this would be possible subject to a number of conditions.”

The Conditions:

1. The recording must be streamed only and not able to be downloaded by visitors to the site in any form.

2. It must not be able to be embedded in third party websites.

3. It must not be shown alongside any form of advertising.

4. It must be used in an informational context and not part of any campaign.

The response also said “Should we be satisfied that these conditions are met, we would be prepared to release the recording, however due to Licensing restrictions we are not able to release the recording until 14 days after the date of (the) hearing.”

If those weren’t enough hurdles, here’s a high jump bar at the end: “The cost for the recording will be £110+VAT for up to 30 Minutes worth of recording and £180+VAT for more than 30 Minutes.” Up to 30 minutes.  My 5-minute request would still come to £126.50 (VAT included). All for a public-record document (video footage).

This is all sort of added insult to the orginal injury: I had wanted to, at the actual hearing in question, video the portion I wanted to use, but the use cameras by attendees was banned.

And don’t get me started on the website’s rubbish accessibility standards, which rules out entire operating systems from showing its footage without jumping through several Microsoft download plugin hoops. Disgraced Labour MP Hazel Blears not so long ago chastised 10 Downing Street for starting to post video content on YouTube, using her now famous, quasi ironic statement: “YouTube if you want to. But it’s no substitute for knocking on doors or setting up a stall in the town centre.” YouTube may still not be the perfect open source, mix and remix medium, but it’s a fair deal more open, accessible and easy to use, reuse and republish than what parliament currently allows, which is another closed door on its constituents.

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Ring in 2010 and get the year off to a good start by celebrating it in Gaza. Post this banner.

– Via Norman G. Finkelstein.

Now, over to Brian:

The demo services that Opera offers are great, but they really are just demonstrations. It’s generating a lot of excitement and “wuh?” in equal measure on the discussions I’ve seen, which is something I recognise from my attempts to proselytize the edge to those already excited by the cloud.

It occurred to me (encouraged by Stef) that a great and timely Opera Unite application, just for the next few days, would be a web proxy  for Iranians. Run it on your Opera service, post your machine’s Unite URL onto twitter with a tag #spartacus, and Iran would be drowning in potential proxies to use.

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Forman’s written attack on the foundation was nearly tick-box typical of most criticism out there, and wouldn’t warrant much thought if he hadn’t been the founder of Rabbis for Human Rights, an organization that I hold in some great esteem. So, when he wrote that every shop in Olympia carried huge posters of Rachel Corrie and that, upon looking at the website, “by pure syllogistic reasoning, the foundation supports genocide in Darfur, brutal Hamas killings and indiscriminate assaults on Israel’s civilian population,” I took some notice. In his piece, he accuses the foundation, through its website, of “propagating bigotry – in the form of pure anti-Semitic propaganda. He says “it is also found on the Web site’s homepage, which features an article, entitled: ‘Who will stop the AIPAC Jews before it is too late?’ ”

I would expect better than syllogistic reasoning from Forman, or at least the correct application of it. According to his logic, because some people don’t mention the genocide in Darfur are in favor of it, the fact that he didn’t find any mention of the Darfur genocide on the Rachel Corrie Foundation website means foundation is in favor of the Darfur genocide. Interesting, that Jen Marlowe would be a regular participant in foundation activities. Jen is the author of Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival (Nation Books) and a documentary filmmaker of Rebuilding Hope, about South Sudan,  and Darfur Diaries: Message from Home. By Forman’s syllogistic reasoning, she would apparently be tarred with the same brush.

As a web developer who has worked with the foundation for some time, as someone who has worked with the Olympia+Rafah Sister City Project’s drive for official status, and as a former Olympia resident, a lot of what Forman wrote hit me a bit personally at first. What were we up to? Why organizations like the International Trauma Treatment Program, which works with war and torture victims in Africa, the Middle East and throughout the world, be so eager to partner with a group that allegedly espoused support for the status quo in Sudan? But wait. Hold the phone just a minute, I’m just now doing a search of the website Rabbis for Human Rights.

The time is now 10:34 am GMT and the date is Thursday, June 11th, 2009. As of this time on this date that website has no entries on Tibet or the repression of Tibetans. I type “Burma” and (just to be safe) “Myanmar” and, and get — worse than nothing — “India and Burma also gained independence from Britain about 60 years ago, yet their people don’t fret over their continued existence.” Tell that to the different ethnic communities living in Burma who routinely face the soldiers’ rifles. Moving on, Chechnya: nothing, Chiapas: zip, “The British National Party”: nada. According to Forman’s logic, Rabbis for Human Rights is in tacit support of the dictatorship in Burma, the shabby treatment of Mexico’s indigenous tribes, the slaughter of Chechen civilians and the UK’s answer to Nazis getting two seats in the European parliament.

Obviously, I don’t think Rabbis for Human Rights carries those positions. Might it be that the group has a focus on a particular issue for a specific reason? Given its lofty goals, the “rabbinic voice of conscience in Israel” seems to have a focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Would you really expect anything else? No. And now I’ll quote Rabbi Brian Walt, Executive Director of Rabbis for Human Rights – North America, who, with much more eloquence than I can muster, makes the point:

“Two of the many totally unfounded claims that Rabbi Forman makes in his article are:

“…..the foundation supports genocide in Darfur, brutal Hamas killings and indiscriminate assaults on Israel’s civilian population.”

How does Rabbi Forman know this?  Because the Foundation focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and on the suffering in Gaza!  How surprising!  Rachel was killed in Gaza.

The foundation propogates  “bigotry – in the form of pure anti-Semitic propaganda”

How does Rabbi Forman know this?

Because there is an article about the AIPAC convention by Medea Benjamin, an American Jewish activist,  on their website.   The article originally appeared on Common Dreams.”

– Brian Walt’s blog

If Forman wants to see so much more content about these other injustices posted online, why does he flog it off as the responsibility of others when he has so many outlets to do so himself? The argument, “why don’t you talk about INSERT TOPIC HERE? wears very thin, and has an easy, instant response: “You seem very concerned about INSERT TOPIC HERE why don’t you do something about it?”

Forman goes on to attack efforts of people in Olympia to establish a sister city with people in Rafah, an entirely successful endeavor among the participants that only lacks official recognition by the city itself, posters of Rachel hung in various shops around town, The Corrie’s visit to Gaza that failed to include a corresponding visit to a South Israel community, and the alleged Palestinian exploitation of Rachel’s story.

Addressing all of this appropriately would take ages, but I’d like to look briefly at the last point. Everyone I know who does and has worked with the foundation has taken great strides to point out that Israelis are a diverse collection of people with an incredibly diverse set of opinions on everything from religion to the occupation to which is the best album by The Pixies. Regularly does the foundation point out the peace- and justice-promoting work carried out by Israeli activists along side with international and Palestinian participants. How readily does Forman suddenly lump Palestinians into a monolithic pile when he states “The Palestinians exploit such stories as Rachel Corrie’s for their own public relations advantage.”

If so, it’s been a disastrous scheme, as I haven’t seen a single shred of evidence that shows that these narratives have closed a single West Bank settlement or have led to the dismantling of a checkpoint around Nablus. I’ve not seen it lead to a recognition of the Palestinian right to exist by the Israeli government. But it’s not really a tactic. Rachel’s story, Tom Hurndall’s story, the story of Ezra Nawi, the story of Bassem Abu Rahme  and the countless experiences faced daily by Palestinians speak for themselves. That he says “The Palestinians” are doing this or that, lumps together a  diverse group of people in an ethnic-wide conspiratorial context that is rightfully challenged whenever anyone attempts the same slander of “the Jews.”

I remember a few years back — 2005 — sitting in the ISM media office in Ramallah late one night, getting a phone call from a hushed voice of a Rabbis for Human Rights participant who, along with some ISM volunteers, had been helping rebuild some demolished Palestinian homes in a village outside Bethlehem. He called our office to say that he and everyone he was with were being taken to a Border Police station for arrest by IDF soldiers. The reason: they had been camping  next to the construction project to ward off the settlers who wanted to destroy it. For whom does this story exist to be exploited? Is it for the Palestinians (and thus the internationals and Israelis were rubes for helping them)? Is it for the Rabbis, to tout about later as they talk about their human rights work? Is it for the IDF? Either way, as these activists were instructed by soldiers to follow the army vehicle to the police station, I didn’t hear peep about anyone suddenly adopting an “us” and “them” attitude. The soldiers later left them in route, told them they had to attend to something else. Some of the group headed back to the village to see out the rest of the night.

I would assert the event exists for no one in particular. It happened. Some people destroyed some other people’s houses because they thought the land had been somehow ordained to them by a higher power. Some other people didn’t think likewise and set about putting them back. We’ve got a couple of groups in this scenario; which one is yours?

There is no parity in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, so there’s no reason to pretend like otherwise. That the Corries didn’t visit a corresponding Israeli town to match their last visit to Rafah should be no shock. How should it have gone otherwise? Should they have compared the percentage of deaths in each place and then they can visit each in proportion? Since they visited Rafah with their whole bodies, should they have stuck a toe in Southern Israel? Or should it be measured in terms of time spent in each place? Should have someone brought a stopwatch?

Or should they have simply gone to where they were obviously called to go? The place where their daughter was killed and found so much to be inspired about and take risks for, as described in her writing? it’s your kid now. Where would you go?

I don’t know what happened to David Forman on his trip to Olympia in May that inspired his hit piece. The old Olympia Brewing Co. used to tout “It’s the Water” back when they were in operation. Maybe there is something in the water, making him see Rachel absolutely everywhere, or as he says, “In virtually every store I entered in this small picturesque town overlooking Puget Sound, there was a portrait of Rachel Corrie.” Really? Every store? you hit all four of them and saw nothing in between? Unless something drastic has happened in the years since I was last there, it’s a circuitous route in downtown Olympia one would have to travel in order to see no other business than the ones that would have her image posted. One that involves keeping a blindfold on a good amount of the way.

Maybe it was the water. He says “The Web site creates the clear impression that there is an official relationship between Olympia and Rafah.” It doesn’t. There’s scant information on ORSCP on the site at all, and nothing to indicate that the city council voted any other way than it did. He questions whether the foundation lives up to its stated goal, to “foster connections between people that build understanding and respect. “The people involved in it do their best to. Maybe it’s not connections with the people that David Forman wants them to build connections with. maybe it’s not in the exact way that he wishes they would do it. he’s entitled to that opinion. I write these words on behalf of no one but myself. I also don’t confuse Rabbi Forman’s views with those of Rabbis for Human Rights. All our opinions are our own. However, fault can be found in what has been passed off as fact, as history, as logical critique. And that is where his Jerusalem Post article fails him most.

And now, let me wrap up by scoring two rabbis in a single pull quote by citing Walt’s blog one more time:

“There are many reasons why the attack on the Corrie Foundation made me so angry.  I have been on the West Bank and I know that one of the realities that enables the Occupation to continue is that there are so few who stand in solidarity with the Palestinians. All the  courageous Israelis and internationals who stand in solidarity with the Palestinians,  are the eyes and ears of the Occupation.  The Israeli government doesn’t want the internationals on the West Bank as they can report on what they see.   In March,  an American activist with the International Solidarity Movement, Tristan Andersen,  was critically injured in the continuing non-violent protest in Bilin.   He is still in hospital.   In May a Palestinian man was killed.

Now the Israeli government is about to imprison a courageous Israeli who like Rachel stood in front of a bulldozer in South Hebron Hills about to demolish the home of an innocent human being.

Rabbi Arik Ascherman, Executive Director of Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel  has written the following  about Ezra:”

“Let me tell you about Ezra. Ezra doesn’t get paid like I do. He volunteers. In fact, he has more or less sacrificed his own livelihood and most of his savings because he just isn’t capable of standing idly by and watch how the power of the State is directed at some of the most defenseless people imaginable. Being exposed to this made him so upset that he overturned his quiet world to dedicate his entire self to extending a helping hand. If Palestinians in the S. Hebron Hills get attacked by settlers or soldiers at 3:00 am they know they can call Ezra and he will be there in a flash.   If there are people who have some need he will dig into his own pocket (and hit up RHR as well, if he can.) Somebody from our legal staff needs to a ride to meet a client on some dusty hilltop off the beaten path? Call Ezra. Need translation or some information about the area? Call Ezra. On many occasions he has watched my back, as I hope that I have watched his. Is Ezra a little uncontrollable sometimes? Yes. I wish all of us would be as filled with anger when we see people with guns bullying people living in caves and bulldozing tin shacks.”

— Brian Walt’s blog

Ezra, Rachel, Tristan, Bassem, et al. who have decided to take the actions they did, didn’t do so out of “naïve intentions,”  or blindly, as the Jerusalem Post piece asserts. They knew what they were getting into, understood it and took the risk.

“The 1950’s was an idealistic time in American History, filled with hope, opportunity, and wonder. It was also, “The Atomic Age” where new technology promised to both save humanity as well as put it in jeopardy. All of these factors gave birth to one of the most prolific genres in film history, 1950’s Science Fiction Cinema.”

— Monsters From The ID

Very interesting piece at Scientific American: Health and life insurance companies in the US and abroad have nearly $4.5 billion invested in tobacco stocks, according to Harvard doctors.” Find the results of the Harvard study here: Health insurers want you to keep smoking, Harvard doctors say : Scientific American Blog.

“The largest tobacco investor on the list, the 160-year old Prudential company with branches in the US and the UK, has more than $1.5 billion invested in tobacco stocks. The runner-up was Toronto-based Sun Life Financial, which apparently holds over $1 billion in Philip Morris (Altria) and other tobacco stocks.  In total, seven companies that sell life, health, disability, or long-term.”

via YouTube

Vist the Palestine Online Store to Get the series or read more about it

]]> http://drew3000.net/2009/06/05/documentary-series-preview-chronicles-of-a-refugee/feed/ 0 http://drew3000.net/2009/06/05/documentary-series-preview-chronicles-of-a-refugee/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Drew3ooo/~3/5yM-skqH7m0/ http://drew3000.net/2009/06/03/do-you-recognize-him/#comments Wed, 03 Jun 2009 08:16:22 +0000 yours truly http://drew3000.net/?p=1509 Please Disseminate widely (mail, lists, facebook etc.)

Bassem Abu Rahme was killed,  according to several witnesses, by this guy during Friday’s weekly anti-separation fence demonstration in Bil’in. Abu-Rakhma was shot in the chest with a tear-gas grenade, launched from a distance of some 30 meters from him by an IDF soldier.

The soldier in the picture had murdered Bassem Abu Rahme by direct shooting of a gas canister in Bilin on April 17.

The Israeli army allows him to avoid responsibility.

Do you know his name or any other details? know anyone else that had commited a crime in Palestine?

palcrimes (at) yahoo.com

Links

Bil’in demonstration commemorates Basem Abu Rahme

The Death of Bassem Abu Rahme

Bassem Abu Rahme killed in Bil’in weekly protest

Memorial ceremony marking 40 days for the murder of Bassem Abu Rahme

Bil’in: Struggling for land and liberty

The killing and funeral of Bassem Ibrahim abu-Rakhma, April 17 and 18

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Powered by Twitter Tools.

This is hilarious and landed in an in box of mine via a circuitous route that was interesting only in how news orgaizations find their source material. I’ve redacted all email addresses, but if this is you, or someone you know, you may want to contact Splash News press agency, and the irony in that name will become apparent upon reading the below email:

—–Original Message—–
From:  [mailto:address@redacted.com]
Sent: 14 May 2009 12:05
To: address@redacted.com
Subject: Request from Natasha Kleanthous, Women’s magazine

If you have relevant information for the media professional concerned please click this link to reply: mailto:ddress@redacted.com

Request deadline: Friday 15 May, 2009, 5:00 pm

Contact me by e-mail at mailto:ddress@redacted.com

My request: Hi, I work for Splash News press agency which writes features for national publications worldwide. I am looking for a woman who successfully got pregnant using a turkey baster. The case study would need to be happy to be identified and photographed. The interview would be conducted in a very sensitive and positive way. I would be aiming to place this article in the features section of a national newspaper or a woman’s magazine.

The deadline has since passed, but it looks like a tough one to track down, so there may still be time. If this is you, then you could be famous.

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Today at tt&ss: TED is working with dotSUB to create a crowd-sourced wiki-style translation project for it’s most popular talks. So, if you’re proficient in, say Dari or Pashto, you can help counter those bible-thumping soldiers bringing Jesus to Afghanistan at the end of an M-16 by translating Richard Dawkins’ “The universe is queerer than we can suppose.”

“TED has already proven itself an invaluable resource in the English-speaking world. Now it’s about to unveil a new project that will catapult its archive of mind-bending talks to a new global public. Through the TED Open Translation Project, volunteers will be able to translate approved transcripts of their favorite talks into their native language. Approved translations will become available to the public – free as always – as subtitles to accompany each talk.”

Coming soon: TED Open Translation Project

A snarky tone of voice is also welcome, and other commentary about science, politics, religion, current events, etc, are not outside the scope of the site’s content. Anyway, let me know by dropping me a line via the contact page, on this site or through the comment area here or at Three triscuits and some spinach. Include links to your other writings online.

The site is new and is still going under some work, but I’d like to turn it into a readable, visit-worthy blog for lefty tech types working for The Cause.

The name, by and by, pulls from a throw-away line from Rachel Corrie’s journals that has always reminded me about the common plight of those who learn a lot of otherwise marketable skills, but use them for the good fight:

“…. I’m steadfastly pursuing a track that guarantees I’ll never get paid more than three Triscuits and some spinach”
— Rachel Corrie

It sort of reminds me of another side, from the film Casablanca, when Captain Renault reminds Rick, “The winning side would have paid you much better.”

So, in summery, if you’re the person who likes this sort of thing, then this may be the sort of thing you like. Drop me a line here or here.

Powered by Twitter Tools.