General Dynamics Execs' Neighbors Are Angry

Seven of us waging a STOP ARMING GENOCIDE campaign turned out bright and early in Yarmouth, Maine this morning to deliver a wake up call to General Dynamics executives Christopher Waaler and Brent West. 

We learned that their neighbors are angry -- not about genocide or the fact that these men profit from killing children in Gaza. They are mad because we woke them and their families up.

One woman told us if she had a gun she would shoot us. One man grabbed the face of a masked activist and tried to unmask her -- an assault under Maine law. Luckily the group gathered around and ran him off.

Another woman screamed at us that her mother had just died and we were a bunch of assholes for making noise about the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Note that this is a genteel neighborhood where people put out water bowls for other people's dogs and display signs like BE NICE. They become un-nice rather quickly when they realize that we are occupying public spaces and getting loud within the limits of Yarmouth's noise ordinance which allows loudness beginning at 6am. Probably the fact that it was a Saturday contributed to their fury?

Police were called and responded, two officers in two cruisers. One said he didn't know much about General Dynamics (well he does now). Both did nothing more than ask who our leader was (we don't have one) and then park around the corner. I can only imagine how infuriating that must have been to the war tax paying residents of Yarmouth!

Non-toxic watercolor "blood" was poured in the street at the end of both men's driveways.

Some may wonder, why are we punishing the neighbors of these war criminals? Because we want to make clear what the soccer moms and dog dads are ignoring at their peril: the guy next door is undesirable. He gets a bonus when children are bombed, dismembered, or burned to a crisp. Drive him out! Otherwise, we will be back.

Julian Assange: Collateral Damage & Poster Boy For Empire In Decline

Who among us is not happy for the Assange family as they welcome back their dad, husband, brother, and son? For the crime of doing 21st century-style journalism and building a worldwide publishing platform for information that corporate media would never reveal, Julian Assange was tortured by the U.S. and UK governments for years.

Kevin Gosztola, who wrote the great book Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange, commented:

The U.S. national security state would have been comforted if Assange had died at Belmarsh, but the opposite happened. He walked out of Belmarsh. The world saw a refreshing image of someone boarding a plane, who was once one of the best known political prisoners.

Many of us recognize that the end of the biggest press freedom case in the 21st century does not represent an end to this important struggle for freedom of the press. The U.S. government will continue to try and define "responsible journalism" in a manner that protects the military and national security agencies.

 

Assange's most famous publication in my mind is the war crime documentation "Collateral Murder," a video of U.S. soldiers firing down on Reuters journalists and civilians including children in Baghdad. Their schoolboy glee at killing with impunity is ably captured on the video that whistleblower Chelsea Manning saw while on active duty, shared with wikileaks, and did seven years in prison for herself. This event changed the life of soldier Ethan McCord who was on the ground attempting to rescue the children whose father had been shot going to the rescue of the wounded journalists.

Many other publications by wikileaks have changed the course of history in our lifetime: in 2021, the Pandora Papers exposed how the very wealthy hide their wealth from taxation in the nations where they use public services; in 2016,  the "Podesta emails" from the Democratic National Committee revealed how corrupt the electoral system of the U.S. really is; and in 2017 "Vault 7" shared CIA technical documents revealing a multitude of spying practices. Subsequently, we learned that Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo made plans for the CIA to assassinate Assange and that they had been spying on his communications with his legal counsel while taking refuge in Ecuador's embassy in London.

Aside from the torture in Belmarsh Prison, the U.S. government has extracted a guilty plea to a felony violation of the Espionage Act -- from a citizen of Australia. Also a fine structured as a £520,000 fee for the charter flight from London to a U.S. imperial outpost in the Northern Mariana Islands to enter his plea. (You can donate to a fundraiser for that here.)

Why not let Assange take a commercial flight from London to the U.S. to enter his plea there? Let me answer that question with a question: why is the Democratic National Convention nominating process going to be virtual this year rather than being held as is customary in person? A: Because the peasants are revolting and it's in the empire's interest to keep evidence of this out of the public eye.

Of the many truths about an empire in decline revealed by Assange's work, these stand out in my mind:

• War crimes are not crimes, but reporting them is. (Cf. John Kiriakou)

• The 1st amendment of the U.S. constitution guaranteeing freedom of the press is defunct. Branches of the press which our corporate overlords cannot control, they will seek to destroy

• No one is safe from the vindictive fury of a national security state embarrassed in public. Your country of citizenship is irrelevant.

• Fabricated sex crimes will be used against critics of the U.S. government (cf. Scott Ritter). You may remember Sweden tried to prosecute Assange for "rape" based on allegations that he deliberately damaged a condom used in consensual sex.

• There is no meaningful difference between Republican and Democratic administrations on any of these matters. Obama, Trump, and Biden all had a hand in punishing Assange for publishing nothing but the truth.

Centering Palestinian Voices

Let us not speak for the Palestinians. Because we can hear them directly via technology.

It's not literally true that the child in the photo hiding from Zionist forces grew up to be the young man in the video linked below. But in their thousands, in their millions, this is life for Palestinians.

Watch the video here: https://x.com/i/status/1803496839112491347

I apologize that I do not have the tech skills to download this iconic video from Twitter (yes, I tried it on my phone, too). If someone knows the source of the video and can put a link in the comments I would be grateful.

Debate is raging in my circles about what is effective support for Palestinian resistance fighters, and how tone policing and condemning Hamas are extremely inappropriate at this time. If we amplify Palestinian messages it is being faithful to their cause, but many times they contain references or assume background knowledge that our audience just won't get.

So, I've been workshopping messages that might resonate with the average Maine summer tourist who is 50-something, female, white, and college educated. Her fealty to the Democratic Party may be blinding her to the genocide unfolding with their funding and support. Her education and media consumption habits are likely blinding her to the inescapable truth that the only thing that will end the genocide is the end of the Zionist regime. 

Here's my current favorite:

The red triangle is being used extensively by freedom fighters to indicate targets, and the colors are those of the Palestinian flag. It's a version of "Death to Israel" that I think my target audience will be less resistant to, because it urges the reader to work toward the downfall of the settler colonial experiment that has killed, maimed, and tortured so many since 1948.

And don't at me with the antisemitic accusations. Zionism is the worst thing that has happened to Jewish people since the Nazi regime fell and its concentration camps were liberated. Jewish people were safe among their neighbors in Palestine before the European Zionists arrived. One truly democratic state rather than the current genocidal ethnocracy is the only workable solution.

Gazans Are Now Accustomed...

"I talked to a friend who has family in Gaza. He said that they are now accustomed to walking down the streets, hearing voices of people who are still under rubble, and continuing to walk knowing there are no ways to rescue them."

https://x.com/abierkhatib/status/1803004287393398831

"I talked to a friend who has family in Gaza. He said that they are now accustomed to walking down the streets, hearing voices of people who are still under rubble, and continuing to walk knowing there are now ways to rescue them."

"I talked to a friend who has family in Gaza. He said that they are now accustomed to walking down the streets, hearing voices of people who are still under rubble, and continuing to walk knowing there are now ways to rescue them."

🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻

"I talked to a friend who has family in Gaza. He said that they are now accustomed to walking down the streets, hearing voices of people who are still under rubble, and continuing to walk knowing there are now ways to rescue them.

Where to go from here, idk."

🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻

Join me in confronting genocide profiteers wherever you find them this summer. Disrupt them, shame them. Bath Iron Works is owned by General Dynamics in Maine; its warships support Israel, and it sells them the bombs that bury people under rubble. They will "christen" a warship with great fanfare on the morning of July 27. Your tax dollars at work.

Join me in supporting the resistance fighters this summer. Encourage them! Confront people who say Hamas have no right to resist by any means possible. 

Join a campaign to do this all over your neighborhood this summer.

How To Use Corporate Media In The Struggle To End Genocide In Gaza

Wissam Nassar, photojournalist, being a dad in Gaza

I dedicate this post to the fathers of Palestine who have shown the world a stellar example of male parenting in a time of genocide. May their suffering and that of their loved ones cease!

Debate rages in my circles over whether or when to use the corporate media to get the word out. My letter to the editor in the Maine Sunday Telegram today is a case study of the issues involved.

First, the Telegram published an op-ed by Nicholas Fuller Googins, "We are not powerless in the face of Gaza horror." In it he explained why he and other teachers passed a divestment resolution at their union's Representative Assembly. Like nearly any truly democratic body these days, Maine teachers by and large don't want to help fund Israel's genocide which has killed more than 16,000 children so far in Gaza. 

So, they instructed their pension fund MainePERS to divest from any entities causing harm to Palestinians or violating their human rights. (My blog post about the union president's response to this outbreak of the people's will can be seen here.)

Next I noticed a letter bashing Googins and insisting that Jewish parents pull their children out of schools in the district where he teaches in Saco. Here is that letter in its entirety:

Jewish parents should pull their children out of Saco schools if Nick Fuller Googins is the representative of teachers in that district. Mr. Googins, a fourth grade teacher at CK Burns School, penned an opinion piece in the June 2 Press Herald calling for a boycott and divestment of Israel. But nowhere in Mr. Googins’ shallow repetition of today’s liberal cause celebré does he mention the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks by Hamas.

How can anyone entrusted to teach our children fail to acknowledge the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust when terrorists slaughtered 1,200 innocent civilians? Where is Mr. Googins’ outrage over the use of rape and sexual torture on innocent young girls? Where is Mr. Googins’ outrage over the beheading of babies and the taking of children, younger than those he teaches, as hostages?

A supposed educator should not be repeating debunked propaganda from a heinous terrorist organization. Look no further than the stats Mr. Googins cites for the Gaza death toll, which now even the U.N. has acknowledged was inflated twofold because it relied on faulty Hamas numbers.

Nobody wants more innocent civilians to die. But if a teacher cannot put the current conflict into proper context and cannot even acknowledge the atrocities committed by Palestinians against Jews, then that teacher should not be allowed anywhere near our children.

Steven Silver

South Portland

Finally, the letter I wrote responding to Silver's letter was published this morning. Great, right? Actually, not so great.

First of all they chose a catchy phrase from my letter for the headline, which served to eliminate any reference to genocide, Gaza, or Palestine, Israel, or Zionism. 

Letter: Teaching children how to think, not what to think 

I’m writing in response to a letter from Steven Silver, of South Portland, bashing the teacher who wrote the op-ed “We are not powerless in the face of Gaza horror.” As a retired teacher, I can assure Mr. Silver that our goal as educators is to teach children how to think, not what to think.

Since Mr. Silver suggests that Jewish parents should pull their children out of Saco schools if other teachers share Nick Fuller Googins’ views on divesting from Israel over their genocide of Palestinians, I can see that he’s not a very clear thinker himself.

Jewish does not equal Zionist; I have scores of Jewish friends and acquaintances who are opposed to Israel’s violent occupation and land theft in Palestine.

Also, in what school district would teachers all hold the same political views? It is absurd to suggest this might be the case.

Lisa Savage
Solon

 But what was far worse was that they cut my final paragraph:

Finally, Mr. Silver repeats lies about the use of sexual violence by Hamas, lies that were spread early on but have now been debunked due to a total lack of evidence. The New York Times, BBC, and other mainstream media have affirmed this and a little reading will confirm it.

And this is precisely how corporate media work to spread vicious lies and deadly propaganda about the struggle for liberation in Palestine. They repeat lies and then suppress the refutation of those lies, allowing the mass of fairly ignorant corporate media consumers to continue believing the original propaganda trope.

I'm not going to go into the details of the debunking of this particularly malicious lie because you can read the research and reporting others have done on this topic here and here.

My subject today is earned media. In other words, media you don't pay for. I could have taken out an ad or rented a digital billboard truck or hired an airplane to fly over the beach today with messages. But as a retired teacher with limited financial means I instead used the platform of letters to the editor to reach tens of thousands of readers who will likely never see this blog post.

Those who oppose using corporate media make the very good argument that it inevitably distorts our messages. Whether they're covering the shutdown of a bomb factory helping arm Israel, or the disruption of a state level convention of the party currently waging genocide in Palestine, corporate media will tend to omit key information or distort it beyond recognition. Reporters challenged on these points will often blame their editors. As someone who has worked as a journalist, I get this e.g. I did not choose the headline for my published letter.

So why do I still write for them for free, or compose and distribute press releases inviting their coverage of events? In media parlance, I do it for the eyeballs.

If we have really legible, clear messaging at our events this will come through to the audience irrespective of how corporate media workers distort or omit our words and ideas.

Should we also use alternative media to get accurate messaging out? Of course! I mainly write this blog to keep my head from exploding, but a second purpose is to create messaging that  I can control. I follow amazing media workers on social media (another corporate evil that suppresses but also amplifies our messages). I subscribe to multiple publications not on the corporate payroll, and I read or watch and share their content via email and social media. Many of my readers here do the same.

Autonomous as we are, we all make our own choices. If a reporter shows up at an event I'm part of, I'm not going to scold or lecture them. I'm going to thank them for showing up, I'm going to make sure they have a copy of our press release and supporting material, and I'm going to read and share their content unless it is really heinous. 

If there are errors or omissions, I'm going to write them a polite email pointing this out. I have often gotten a correction made to the online version of articles by this method.

Reporters are mostly working class kids trying to make a living. So are many teachers. I'm on their side in the critically important struggle for narrative control.

Biden's Trojan Pier & A Fake Aid Truck Reveal U.S. Boots On The Ground In Gaza

Control of the narrative being a signature of the Zionist project, last week's use of a fake aid truck full of soldiers has been lauded by pro-Israel press as a grand success, even as the raid killed hundreds of bystanders in order to snatch back four hostages.

At least some of the hostages were Israeli soldiers who would be more accurately described as prisoners of war.

Eyewitness testimony from some who survived in Nuseirat.

Among the hundreds killed were three other hostages, including one American. 

A salient feature of the Oct 7 breakout from Gaza was that the Israeli military killed many Israelis. (Zionists continue to claim that Hamas fighters killed all 1,200 victims, but that was always a lie.) Now, it appears that U.S. Special Forces are helping kill U.S. citizens to "liberate" them. Got it.

As the world watched U.S. taxpayers bleed money to build a pier off Gaza ostensibly to deliver humanitarian aid, almost no one believed that story. What the pier would eventually be used for was uncertain, but delivering food to a population being deliberately starved by Israel with U.S. backing wasn't likely. Now we see that the Trojan Pier is useful for delivering Trojan food trucks.

Most of the deaths in Nuseirat refugee camp occurred when a market was bombed to clear a path for Israeli vehicles.

Much has been made of the condition of the hostages who returned. All Israelis appear to have been fed adequately -- unlike the skeletons who emerge from months or years of captivity in Israel's archipelago of gulags for Palestinians. The Zionist press is accusing the 20-something hostages of having Stockholm Syndrome, a fake psychiatric condition where captives identify with their captors who, for example, "cynically" baked them a birthday cake. In fact, the reason Israeli children are prevented from ever meeting Palestinians is to conceal the fact that the indigenous culture has so many admirable qualities e.g. hospitality, also compassion.

One of the original Zionist crimes of the Nakba, besides outright murder, was the burning of ancient olive groves. A food source for an entire region, and one that takes years to come to maturity. Settlers in the West Bank continue this practice today although sometimes they use bulldozers to uproot the trees instead of setting fire to them. 

Weaponizing food has been a key feature of the genocide in Gaza: the Flour Massacres where aid trucks lure starving Palestinians out where snipers finish them off, the rioting Israeli civilians who block aid trucks and loot them so that no starving Palestinian children are fed.

Weaponizing the Gaza pier surprises no one. Well, possibly it surprised President Biden, who appears to be losing several marbles a day recently. One wonders if he can remember why, or even if, it was built by his administration. Does he care if the Pentagon has used it to put boots on the ground in Gaza? 

Ansar Allah (aka the Houthis) are about to get hypersonic weapons to continue their blockade of shipping that supports Israel. U.S. warships have already been hit by conventional missiles launched from Yemen. Yet another example of pulling down the curtain that conceals U.S. direct involvement in the Gaza genocide.

One hundred thousand protesters gathered outside the White House last weekend with a "red line" for Biden that contained the names of tens of thousands of Palestinians killed in Gaza since October. Chants included "Hey hey ho ho, Genocide Joe has got to go." But if Trump is elected -- and I predict, based on the corporate press keeping him constantly in the news, that he will be -- the genocide will likely continue much as it has. 

Voting will not fix our rapid descent into the hell created by our own evil actions.

The song "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now (parody)" by Katie Halper and Daniel Maté has been stuck in my head for days now. Lyrics are in the description on YouTube.

Only a general strike will bring the U.S. war machine to a halt. May I live to see it.

Ignore Genocide To Make A Living, Or Block Weapons Before They're Used To Kill Palestinians?

I should be feeling good about a Stop Arming Genocide campaign action that blocked General Dynamics' bomb factory in Saco, Maine yesterday. It was technically successful -- below is a photo I took of workers walking in after a long delay because they could not access the facility's parking. Numerous delivery trucks were turned away throughout the day, and no deliveries of the weapons Israel uses to bomb civilians were delivered on Friday, June 7.

I'm not feeling good, though, because almost immediately we learned that U.S. soldiers using a fake humanitarian aid truck from the Pentagon's Trojan pier helped massacre hundreds of civilians in Nuseirat refugee camp. Ostensibly to get Israeli hostages out, but this could have been accomplished months ago by releasing Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Four Israeli hostages were taken back in the operation and appeared well-fed and in good health, unlike Palestinian prisoners who are being tortured to death. The latest sadistic detail involves sodomy with a red hot iron post; if that doesn't remind you of South Africa and what it took to bring that apartheid regime down, I don't know what will.

I should be feeling good because none of our group were injured or arrested yesterday, though two did receive tickets for minor violations. The Saco Police Force, previously described as "timid" by a protester who's been there before, declined to even attempt breaking into the lock down devices we were using. Possibly because each device presented unique challenges? Incredibly, the police allowed all the devices to be retained by our group and, except for one that met with a minor accident on the way home, they are ready for action next time we decide to throw a spanner in the works of the war machine.

I should also be feeling good because of the solidarity, tight information security, and generally cooperative nature of the work of so many autonomous individuals waging this campaign. A recorded livestream from Healthcare Workers for Palestine conveys the authentic flavor and scope of yesterday's action. 

Sure, I can rent equipment, but it takes a couple of people with special skills to back a large truck and trailer safely into a driveway. I am blessed to know these people and to know that they respond when there is a need.

How I feel doesn't matter much anyway. When the police called the rental company and told them a lie about how I was using their equipment in Saco, the rental desk clerk scolded me and said I was not allowed to protest. I refrained from saying something snarky about his grasp of the 1st amendment -- he had one of those sovereign citizen type beards, so I'm not sure he believed in the constitution anyway. But another employee privately said, "Good girl!" as I departed after returning all the equipment unharmed.

How to keep a job AND your conscience is increasingly hard. InkStick Media's Taylor Barnes talked to employees at other bomb factories to find how some of them are negotiating this. Teacher Nick Fuller Googins wrote about his successful effort to pass a divestment resolution at his union's representative assembly, "We are not powerless in the face of Gaza horror."  A college professor who joined us yesterday wrote about how the need to throw himself onto the gears of the war machine was more compelling with each passing day. (His op-ed should be in the paper soon and I'll share it when it is.)

We did get some corporate news coverage of our action.

Protesters block entrances to General Dynamics in Saco, impact nearby school WMTW

Pro-Palestine protesters gather outside General Dynamics in Saco WGME

Just don't believe everything you read. For example: duck tape, really? Also, who is actually impacting the K-2 Young School across the street -- the occasional non-violent protester, or the genocide profiteers who work there every single day?

We developed a flyer for the school community pointing out that in order to keep their children safe they should run General Dynamics out of town. 

I'll guarantee you there are adults working in Saco who don't want to help arm genocide. As for the teenagers, during their drive time to a nearby high school we heard far more whoops, hollers, and honks of support than we had heard during early morning. Bruce Gagnon did the math and estimated we reached 7,000+ people in 6 hours.

The kids are all right, but some of their parents think you have to ignore genocide staring you  in the face in order to make a living. How'd that work out for the German people under the Nazi regime?

Democrats Applaud War As Jared Golden Ducks The Public At Maine Convention

Outside the Democratic Party Convention May 31, 2024 in Bangor, Maine  Photo credit: Shane Leonard

Maine's 2nd District representative to Congress used to be Bruce Poliquin, a Republican who became infamous for avoiding reporters by ducking into the women's bathroom. Our current rep, Democrat Jared Golden, is just as determined to avoid the public. Perhaps tipped off that there were plans to disrupt his speech at the Maine Democratic Party convention last Thursday, he mailed it in. (This is consistent with plans to make the DNC's national convention virtual as the politicians who speak for our corporate overlords rightly fear disruptions as Israel's genocide in Gaza grinds on with full support of the Biden administration.)

Photo outside the convention venue, credit: Shane Leonard

Here's an eyewitness account of how it went down in Maine:

Last night at the Democratic Convention, which really was a complete waste of time and just left me feeling even more outraged . . . I'm not sure that's possible.   You may already have heard, there was a great "outside" presence, I imagine perhaps 100 folks wouldn't be exaggerating, but I was "inside" looking out the windows.  It's hard to tell from the chaos at the end how many "insiders" there were. 

What's significant especially to your column this morning was the nauseating, self-congratulatory, "patriotic" . . . Matt Dunlop actually asked God to "Bless our Troops" . . . politic/speech we had to sit through waiting for the moment Golden would speak . . . next to last so, it was a heck of a long wait.  Oh, don't let me forget, the biggest cheers came when Emily Cain announced that "Dems don't need a pep talk . . . Trump was convicted on all 32 counts" . . . Rousing cheers, whoops, claps, etc.  Yuk!  As if it flippin matters.  Instead of Trump (temporarily), they've got a war criminal as president with a cabinet of war criminals that the Dems are all going to work very, very hard to re-elect, like good little Puppetpeople!

Back to Golden.  When it was time to announce him . . . and all of us who had been waiting with great anticipation with our snuck-in props . . . we were told, "Unfortunately, Congressman Golden has a family emergency and so won't be with us tonight,  but we have a video".  Baloney!!!  Actually, as I found out later, Golden had been there all evening . . . he was actually probably spitting distance from me but I didn't know it.  Unbelievably, he snuck out just before his speech.  There are many things "monumental" about him . . . I won't list them, you know them . . . but at the top of the list is COWARDICE.  And you know the Dems were all in on this because they had the flippin video. 

I don't know what was on the video, because following the "announcement"  all hell broke loose.  We made lots of noise, people had whistles, strips of paper were being thrown.  Nobody was arrested inside, just escorted out . . . and here I had brought my bail money!  I was/am so angry.  You know Lisa, I am committed to nonviolence and have been for a long, long time.  But I am so angry I feel like exploding . . . not a good place for nonviolent resistance.  A minor annoyance is that I can't unregister as a Dem for 3 months since I only registered as one a couple of weeks ago, and that's a pretty hefty sacrifice.

Here's video of the disruption inside the convention. Because we have to be our own media! The screengrab below shows multiple people walking out and the sound track records them shouting "Free free Palestine" as the chair calls repeatedly for order and tries to start the video.

https://youtu.be/M7TZ9OrZQ88

Ponder this: not a single corporate media source that I saw reporting on the convention made any mention of this walkout by Maine Democrats appalled by Golden's support for Israel's genocide.

Photo credit: Dawn Starr

It's almost like U.S. corporate media are in on the project of stifling dissent, with their role of ignoring it when it occurs.

Outside sentiment toward the Democratic Party nominee for president, photo credit Tim Paradis

I am again reminded that a college professor here told me the reason her students cared about Palestine is that they mostly get their news from watching Russell Brand and Lee Camp.

Meanwhile an elderly narrative manager reposts New York Times articles to a local peace listserv which, if disputed, are backed up with articles from wikipedia -- both outlets under firm corporate control for the last several decades.

Expect even more disruptions, and creative dissent -- and even less reporting from those complicit in the destruction of Palestine.

Photo credit: Tim Paradis