Out of sensitivity, some friends have messaged me against posting photos of the Iraqi babies born disfigured as a result of US chemical warfare in Iraq. Since the nuclear bomb at Hiroshima & Nagasaki & Agent Orange in Vietnam, the US has a history of using chemical agents on civilian populations. The advocacy group ‘Birth defects in Fallujah’ & others are not posting the photos to promote pity nor certainly as a freak show. When I was a nun we worked with children with learning disabilities & severe physical disfigurement. They’re as human & loving as the rest of us & as the disability rights movement has taught us, as humans they are perfect just as they are. But suffering is involved for them & their families, especially if the harm was done through malpractice or violence like carpet bombing a civilian population with nuclear & toxic agents. We post the photos not to display their suffering but to expose the character of US chemical warfare & militarism.
Monthly Archives: November 2018
Silence the birds till our souls are free,
Silence the waves till they feel what I feel,
Play melancholy on a flute,
My soul will listen to you,
Paint the sky with blood,
So you cannot avoid what is true,
Your silence is consent, it amounts to a sin,
Open your heart to the pain that I am drowning in.
Cry till the rivers cannot carry much more,
When you speak, I pray that they hear your call,
The sea won’t run dry nor will mountains fall,
If you try to understand that my blood is yours,
Anger pumps through my veins as we search for a cure, the pain that I carry is also yours.
Shout so that the wind quivers before you,
Light the candle within your soul with love,
Demand truth from all those who stand before you,
Personify your flame, don’t let it go out,
Let it glimmer through the darkest of nights,
Draw a vision and vow that you will always fight.
Silence the birds till our people breathe free,
Silence the waves till you feel as I feel,
Play tunes of hope on a flute,
My soul will smile with you,
Paint the sky with love,
The greatest canvas for a dove,
Your light will be me, we are fighting to win,
Light your flame to the pain that I am drowning in.
—Sanaah Sultan via Teresa Gill
And still we wonder why the grotesque disproportion between mourning US & European victims of terrorism & those sustaining war, occupation, & genocide? Is it only white supremacy? Or is it also because the former are so few & so rare & the latter so constant & so many? Never a day goes by without grieving & funerals in Palestine, Kashmir, Syria, Iraq, Burma, Yemen, Afghanistan. It is overwhelming to witness, as it must be hell on earth to endure. We should never ever forget the contribution the deceased have made to human freedom from oppression. May they Rest In Peace.
Again, on the first snow in Kashmir:
“#Snow_Of_Resistance
I still wana choose a dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery .#Kashmir
#FreedomToBe #Azadi #Snow”
–Dar Ishtiyaq
How do we tell the difference between a propagandist & a journalist? Propagandists are embedded with repressive armies, as in Syria. Journalists are disappeared & executed, as in Arakan state, Burma; harassed & arrested, as in Kashmir; beaten & shot at, as in Palestine; disappeared, tortured, executed, as in Syria & other war zones.
These are Palestinian journalists covering land expropriations in the West Bank & the Great Return March in Gaza.
https://www.facebook.com/basem.naim.980/posts/186684675591949
On the first snow in Kashmir:
“White snowy carpet is more like a Shroud on the naked mutilated bodies of innocent Martyrs of this unfortunate land.”
–Kashmiri Farhan Rashid Gandroo
US refugee policy: a militarized wall, jailing & deporting refugees, kidnapping children from their parents, concentration camps for unaccompanied children, shooting at rock throwers.
Not to be intrusive, but since so many of my FB friends like Dr. Bronner’s products, I am reposting this edited entry on the politics behind the brand which is compromised with Israeli apartheid.
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The labels on Dr. Bronner’s products are covered with spiritual & New Age slogans about world peace but their political savvy is nothing to sniff at. In 2007, a few years after BDS was launched by Palestinians, the company announced they were sourcing 90% of their olive oil (150 metric tons per year) from Palestinian producers in the West Bank through the trading firm Canaan Fair Trade (CFT) working with the Palestine Fair Trade Association (PFTA)–both organizations founded by an American-Palestinian entrepreneur.
According to Dr. Bronner’s, the other ten percent of their olive oil comes from Israel, including an unspecified amount through Sindyanna, a fair trade business in Israel run by Jewish & Palestinian women. A closer look at Sindyanna suggests they are not so much New Age or apolitical entrepreneurs as compromised with Israeli apartheid. Another unspecified portion of that ten percent from Israel is from what Dr. Bronner’s calls the “Jewish Israeli Strauss family farm.” Here’s where things get real dicey.
The Strauss firm is hardly a family farm. It’s Israel’s foremost food & beverage company; in 2004 the Israeli Antitrust Authority labeled it a monopoly–an enterprise engaged in all sorts of felonies. The Strauss family has deep connections to the Israeli military (IDF). From 1975 till 2001, the company was run by Michael Strauss, a former elite IDF scout. It’s now run by his daughter, Ofra, who posted not just support for but “adoption” of the Golani & Givati Brigades of the IDF on the Strauss website. The Golani & Givati Brigades are elite units of the Israeli military in operation since the 1948 war to dispossess Palestinians. Both have been involved repeatedly in Israeli wars against Palestinians, including every murderous siege on Gaza.
Dr. Bronner’s can’t have it both ways. You can’t be all New Age on your labels & continue doing business with ethnic cleansers in your board room. It isn’t splitting hairs to say Dr. Bronner’s should be boycotted until they get rid of that 10% from Israel & sever business (& probably political) relations with Strauss. That 90%-10% split between sources for olive oil may well not be reliable–any more than their designation of Strauss as a family farm.
Some may say, well that’s a lot of business for olive producers in the West Bank to lose if Dr. Bronner’s dumps them as a supplier. The first response is “what is the price we place on human lives in Gaza?” Less than 150 metric tons of olive oil? And the second response is, trust in the power of BDS to bring Dr. Bronner’s to its business senses.
(Photo is of Dr. Bronner’s soap bottle)
Trump’s threat to shoot any stone pelters among the Central American caravan is not to be taken lightly. Soon after I moved to the Rio Grande Valley, a teenager on the Mexican side of the border from El Paso was shot & killed by a US border patrol agent who claimed the boy was throwing rocks. I still have my placard from protesting that incident. This LA Times article from 2015 points out that out of 67 such shooting incidents with a fatality rate of 19 Mexicans dead, all US agents were absolved of criminal misconduct with three cases then pending.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-border-patrol-shootings-20150615-story.html?
A reliable source informs me that he watched Black Hawk combat helicopters landing here in Border Patrol facilities on the Texas-Mexico border. In a vicious irony, these special operation aircraft were named after Black Hawk, a Native American warrior fighting the incursion of European settlers in the early 19th century.
Are these what Trump intends to use against any adolescent stone pelters among those in the caravan who reach the US border?
(Photo from DoD by Gertrud Zach/US Army)