Inside, Outside: Confront The Sock Puppets, Or The Puppetmasters?

If you want to end genocide by Israel in Gaza or other forms of state-sponsored violence, where best to apply pressure? Answers differ from place to place and especially from generation to generation here in the U.S. 

Disrupt the White House correspondents dinner? Met Gala? Halls of Congress? Biden and other genocidal clowns' fundraisers and speaking engagements? Boomers who thought they were living under a representative form of government tend to favor these. They just can't get over the convictions of their youth that the constitution means something.

Pro-Palestine Harvard graduates lead a walkout of the University's commencement ceremonies. By Jina H. Choe  Source: Harvard Crimson

Chevron investors meeting? Universities with money in Israel bonds? Corporate war profiteers at home and at work? Gen Z and millennials tend to favor these types of targets. They believe their government is captured by big money so their conclusion is: follow the money. 

They're probably too young to remember Frank Zappa's pithy summation, but are nonetheless guided by it: Politics is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex.

Without the tongue in cheek of Zappa, the seriously insightful views of Shahid Bolsen on Middle Nation have been stuck in my craw since viewing this video a couple of weeks ago. It's worth listening to his whole 15 minute talk about how the genocide in Gaza is the thread that is being pulled to unravel Western "civilization", but the specific part of his analysis I keep thinking about is this:

[Student] protesters are focusing on the private sector, they're focusing on businesses, on investments, on financial partnerships, on funding. They're not focusing on politicians. You're supposed to direct all of your outrage and all of your anger and all of your grievances and all of your opposition at the decoys, at the effigies, at the fake representatives of power, the expendable puppet politicians dangled in front of you by the real private sector ruling class. 

So it's unforgivable that those protesters have torn down the curtain around real existing power and exposed the fallacy of democracy. Those protesters have started a fire that's going to burn straight through the whole system.

I have lots of friends who think the a good application of their energy is to call their congresspeople and demand a meeting with low ranking functionaries, or to call their offices on the phone to voice concerns. I used to be among this group but I have given up unless I occasionally stumble over my senator out in public and have a chance to charge him with genocide.

Passing ceasefire resolutions at the local level is also attractive to many. Passing divestment resolutions is also a path, as when the Representative Assembly of my state's teachers union directs the MEA to instruct our pension fund to divest from "any corporation, state-owned entity, or financial product identified as being complicit in the violation of the human rights guaranteed to Palestinian civilians under international law.”

Others think working to elect better candidates, especially non-corporate sponsored candidates like Dr. Jill Stein, are the best use of their time and resources. (I am not even going to consider the claim that electing Democrats and then pushing them left is anything more than an elaborate ruse to waste time. Ditto keyboard warriors who think posting and retweeting is meaningful political action.) Electoral politics is incredibly labor intensive because the game is so rigged by corporate parties in power who control things like ballot access to exclude 3rd parties and independent candidates.

Between the barricades at the main gate, looking at Raytheon in the distance [in El Segundo, Calif.] Source: website, crimethinc.com

Folks like those in Palestine Action or locals waging the "Stop Arming Genocide" campaign feel that throwing a spanner in the works of the war machine is the best thing to do. Disrupting their work, costing them money, or screwing up their public relations celebration events as when General Dynamics "christens" war ships to great fanfare.

Of course some of these efforts overlap. If we block the road at a warship celebration, we can be certain that our state's governor and all our congressional delegation will be there, too.

How much of your comfort are you willing to forego to act in the face of ongoing genocide? If I showed you a picture of a 7 month old in Gaza who died of starvation this week, would that change you? 

I have limited time left on this planet. I'm determined to make the most of it. I don't need it to feel good, I need it to be effective. How about you?

The Ovens This Time: Israel Firebombs Rafah Tents In Safe Zone Trap

Martyrs of the Rafah Massacre (Photo shared by Mondoweiss)

Israel responded to the ICC ordering it to stop committing war crimes by fire bombing Gazan refugees in tents in "safe" zones the Israeli government sent them to. Many children were among those burned to death in the bombings. The horror is beyond words, only pictures can really convey it.

Fire rages following an Israeli strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 26, 2024. (Reuters TV / Reuters)

Or maybe videos. Like this one shared on Twitter, compelling evidence that eradicating Hamas is the least credible rationale for Israel's industrial scale slaughter of children.

https://x.com/richimedhurst/status/1795105646435549359

It was with Rafah burning in my brain that I encountered Maine's Zionist cheerleader Senator Angus King at a Memorial Day parade in his hometown of Brunswick. I shouted: "Free free Palestine!" which got his attention and then: "Angus King, you can't hide, I charge you with genocide! Stop arming genocide with my tax dollars, Angus!" He made no reply. There is really no place he can go now without facing protesters, even though the parade had banned Palestinian flags or even keffiyehs.

My granddaughter and I decided to wear watermelon clothing to be in the parade, an expression which some people noticed. In these times amid galloping suppression of dissent we will nevertheless find ways to speak our truth.

Driving home my son shared an analysis that made me feel a little hopeful. He noted that genocide is Biden's legacy for certain, and that ordinary people (he is in his 30's) are not at all sympathetic with war in general or with Israel's treatment of Palestinians. His view was not that the tide is turning, but that it has turned. The war on terror is now totally defunct as a concept anyone can support, and he predicted that slavish loyalty to Israel now will eventually hurt politicians. 

I'm always interested to hear from other generations about their zeitgeist. I just hope humans survive long enough for younger, better people to rise up and do what they need to do. I'm fearful that in the European and East Asian regions the U.S. and its gang are inching us closer to nuclear war with each passing day. For example, U.S./NATO dba Ukraine just bombed three space early warning facilities that are key to Russian missile defense and understood to be a red line. 

I didn't say that in the car, because there was a child present. 

How heart rending for Palestinian parents and grandparents to be unable to protect their little ones from genocide at Israel's hands, while the world looks on and makes a tidy profit. 

Time for this grandma to throw a spanner in the works.

Managing Our Grief Over Gaza

This sounds like the most privileged title ever, doesn’t it? Families in Gaza or elsewhere with loved ones anyplace in Palestine are overwhelmed with grief as they watch little children being torn to shreds, burned beyond recognition, or exhumed from having been buried alive. Buried alive in mass graves at hospitals where they had taken refuge.

Those of us in other places differ markedly in our belief that these truths are self-evident depending on where we get our news. I gave up consuming U.S. corporate news decades ago, peeling off television early on to protect my children from it, and then eventually shedding the liberal print news and opinion sources I’d grown up on. Who wants to subscribe to or even read a publication that signals Donald Trump’s ascendance by putting him on their cover over and over again?

But right now I’m in Australia responding to a family medical crisis and so have been keeping folks company while watching corporate t.v. news in the evenings.

Latest emblem of the resistance? An empty water carboy as was wielded by students at Cal Poly Humboldt to successfully to ward off police rioting.

Last night I was brought to tears several times as the mangled bodies of children in Gaza were rushed to makeshift medical facilities (all the hospitals were long since destroyed by Israeli bombs). The ambulances of Gaza are now the able-bodied men who carry wounded kids while running as fast as their malnourished legs can go. Those horrific scenes – are they shown on corporate t.v. in the U.S.? You tell me.

Next came something sure to appear on “news” throughout the evil empire: Joe Biden claiming that U.S. weapons aren’t killing Palestinians. Did Australian newscasters call him out on this giant lie? Nope. And me yelling, “Liar!” in the privacy of the home where I’m staying is just venting on my part.

So, I turn to social media platforms run by Zionists where a little truth and the scorching eyewitness videos out of Gaza and the West Bank can still be found. Twitter is complicit, Instagram is complicit, and still I continue to guiltily use them. I’ve never really invested time in building up a news feed on TikTok, but I probably need to do that soonish. Telegram overwhelms me but again it’s probably my ineptitude as a user that creates the attempting to drink from a firehose effect.

My email inbox is also a good source for real news. As are certain substacks, MintPress News, Popular Resistance, Black Agenda Report, and many more I’ve named before.

How soon before all my access to authentic information is blocked? Time will tell.

These bullying Zionists (redundant, I know) do NOT represent me. How about you?

To return my original question, how or even why shall we manage our grief over Israel’s genocide of Palestinian people?

Speaking for myself, I can’t dwell on my emotional response or I become incapacitated. Turning angry grief into action feels like the right thing to do. Diverse actions present themselves and not only provide an outlet but they put me in touch with other people I can trust and respect. I met my husband while protesting the impending Shock and “Awe” attacks on Iraq in 2003, and together we’ve met many kind souls who sincerely engage in resisting imperial warmongering -- and not just when the Republican Party controls the White House.

Many people use their creativity to remain sane in a genocidal world. One example: the keffiyeh sticker cropping up in random places.

Another example currently going viral: rapper Macklemore's "Hind Hall." The artist has pledged to donate all proceeds to UNRWA.

A person I respect a lot recently revealed that they had neglected a peripheral task associated with our work and that this might cost them a lot of money. We’re all in this together so others in the group consoled them and offered monetary support while awaiting the outcome of skilled negotiators working on our behalf. One said, “Hope you are all giving yourselves grace.”

And that is as good an answer to my original question as any.

Grab Bag Of News Your Government Does Not Want You To Know About

A reminder that resistance to Israel's war on Gaza did not start on October 7, 2023.

As I prepared to share documented resistance to Israel's genocide in Gaza I paused for Glenn Greenwald's explanation of why banning TikTok is suddenly a burning issue for Congress and the Biden administration. He notes corporate media reporting that October 7 was a game-changer:

The proposal gained momentum partly as a consequence of disquiet over the app’s handling of misinformation[sic] and antisemitic[sic] content following Hamas’s attack on Israel in October (UK capitalism rag The Economist on March 24).

On the other side of the pond, U.S. capitalism rag The Wall Street Journal said an analysis of TikTok data revealed:

far more views for videos with pro-Palestinian hashtags than those with pro-Israel hashtags..at times [the ratio of pro-Palestine to pro-Israel views] ran 69 to 1 (March 12)

 Greenwald humorously added: "Remember when Nikki Haley said..that for every 18 minutes—or whatever it was—that you spend on TikTok, you become 32% more anti-Semitic?"

I did not remember that, but I would love to think that for every 18 minutes you spend reading this blog you become 32% more aware of resistance actions that corporate media has conspired to make invisible. Who knows, maybe you will even become 90% more likely to engage in resistance yourself!

https://twitter.com/OnlinePalEng/status/1768967756060229948

This is the kind of success hard blockers dream of: materially disrupting the operations of a factory where they make the bombs dropped on Gaza. You have to get up early to do this sort of thing. Which makes for beautiful pictures once the sun comes up.

"Nine young supporters of Palestine chain themselves together and block I-95 in Richmond." Photo and caption by Phil Wilayto, Virginia Defender

Above is a close look at a different lockdown in progress, this one to shut down Interstate-95 in Virginia. Ten people were arrested and released after experiencing violence from Virginia State Police. NPR, local t.v. news and a local newspaper covered the action. 

Why block I-95 for Gaza? I wanted to answer this common question by showing you the many war profiteers in Virginia using the interactive map created by Christian Sorensen for The Business of War, but guess what:

Sorenson notes: "There is nothing dangerous or illegal about taking public, official information (from military contracting announcements, corporate press releases, and corporate job postings) and transferring it to a map."

Don't feel up to locking down? Soft blocks using just our bodies probably can't shut down a weapons factory until our numbers are in the thousands, but they can force those ignoring their country's role in funding genocide to pay attention.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/protesters-calling-for-gaza-ceasefire-demonstrate-at-san-francisco-airport/ar-BB1jPQDv

Organizer Joshua Caldwell said about 300 protesters gathered at [San Francisco] airport's International Terminal at 8 a.m. They blocked traffic outside and security lanes inside and held up banners and signs calling for an end to the bombing campaign that the United Nations says has claimed more than 30,000 lives.. nobody was arrested 

Wait, did I read that right -- zero arrests? This is becoming a common tactic for suppressing information about resistance actions. (Throttling social media is another.) This action got a fair amount of mainstream media coverage anyway because SFO is a big international airport. Other protests that involve blocking streets? Not so much.

Even soft blocks take physical stamina and solidarity planning. What if you're just a kid? Or elderly and infirm or can't afford time off or to lose your job? Do what you can, where you can, inspired by these Girl Scouts! From Mondoweiss:

A Girl Scout Troop in Missouri recently broke away from the organization after it made legal threats against the group.

For the Girl Scouts’ “Agents of Change” capstone project, a St. Louis county troop decided to make and sell bracelets to raise money for children in Gaza. The Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri said the move was “political” and instructed them to shut down the fundraiser..

Despite breaking away from the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri, the group is staying together, and their bracelet campaign has continued.

It would take me the rest of the day to share all the resistance actions I'm aware of, and I don't even go on TikTok. Here's one from my inbox, spotted in tiny Blue Hill, Maine this weekend:

Want to protest at an intersection where thousands will see you? Join us in Rockland, Maine next weekend!

And if any of this inspires you to join in, let me hear from you!

Zero Lamestream Media Coverage As Over A Thousand Students, Supporters Take To The Streets

Aerial photo of Monument Square on March 2 "Hands Off Rafah" rally. If you're not a Mainer please understand -- this is a large crowd for us.

I am vibrating with anger this morning after attending the biggest pro-Palestine demonstration to date in Maine's biggest city. Maine Students for Palestine turned out over 1,180 (hand-count from photo above) at a march and rally that temporarily took over Congress Street i.e. Portland's main thoroughfare. The speeches yesterday were electrifying, but no mainstream media outlets including the Portland Press Herald could be bothered to cover the event.

I've sent the PPH a note pointing out that organizing at the rally depicted above gathered 400+ signatures in ten minutes to a pledge to write in "Ceasefire Now!" on ballots next week in the Super Tuesday primary. 

The pledge petition has now reached 1,010 signers in total and is going strong, inspired by the 100k voters in Michigan's primary who wrote in "Uncommitted" rather than vote for Genocide Joe. 

Not news?

Rather than engage in a long rant about corporate media as the handmaidens of our descent into true fascism -- the marriage of state and corporate forces -- I am sharing yesterday's remarks by Dawn Star, co-founder of Healthcare Workers for Palestine. The speakers yesterday were on fire, and this was one of the best:

We have all become witnesses to an unending barrage of war crimes in this genocide armed and funded by our tax dollars. Witnessing such traumatic violence: the murder of infants and children and our fellow humans…surpassing 30,000—30 thousand lives—hellfire missiles with blades designed to amputate limbs, the complete destruction of Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure, the forced starvation of millions of displaced Palestinians, and the massacres of aid seekers, most recently leading to the death and injury of almost 1000 hungry people.

Burned and broken bodies. Blood covered flour. These are the images that are seared into our minds. The war criminals are keeping everyone in a trauma state. A healthy level of empathy is what compels millions around the world to take to the streets and disrupt the flow of capital from our labor and our pockets to the deep pockets of the war profiteers and their political pundits.

The broken American Healthcare system that we health workers bear the weight of, would tell us to turn away and “take care of our mental wellness”. The American Medical Association remains silent while 627 of our colleagues were murdered, and many more kidnapped or missing under rubble. Our Medical Institutions are complicit.

The Mainstream media has become little more than a paid mouthpiece, allowing a foreign military to editorialize content and giving a platform to openly genocidal IDF soldiers. These institutions disregard the safety of their own workers by turning their backs to 130 targeted journalists, The media is complicit.

Yet these are the same institutions that call our mental state into question, as they did to Aaron Bushnell. Aaron was one of us. With his words, he told us that he was fully present and aware of the truth of this so-called war. He told us he would not be complicit in genocide. Soldiers have burnt their uniforms in solidarity with Aaron’s message. Like-minded soldiers are here with us today. Aaron’s choice to self-immolate in front of our eyes while screaming Free Palestine was a result of the mental distress caused by these violent institutions coupled with the proper reasoning to comprehend the scope of suffering they inflict.

Every day that Israel continues its attempted seizure of Gaza, feels more helpless than the last.

I am here to remind you, we are the healthy ones. We allow ourselves to be present so we may truly feel the impact on our comrades in Gaza. In his paper on Psychic numbing and genocide Paul Slovac wrote, “Behind every president who ignored mass murder, were millions of citizens whose indifference allowed them to get away with it.”[2] We will not be like those who numb themselves and dissociate from the violence of these capitalist institutions.

Psychological studies of Palestinians show that the ongoing occupation has caused unconscionable rates of PTSD in the people of Gaza. One such study by Mohamed A. S. Altawil concluded, “Palestinians will suffer for a long time from PTSD, which should be called Chronic Traumatic Stress Disorder (CTSD) rather than PTSD. This PTSD or CTSD cannot be changed unless the root of the problem is solved by ending the 74 years of living under occupation. [1]

Aaron succumbed to his wounds, but we are all still here. I am so glad each of you is here fighting beside me, fighting alongside our Palestinian family. We will not stop fighting until Palestine is free. We will not stop fighting until everyone is free. And we will continue to confront the structures of domination and oppression that cause immense harm in every corner of this beautiful planet we call home. Those powers would have us locked away in prisons and institutions, but we know that what we feel is only due to their abuse. And though Aaron’s final act was one of deep compassion, I ask that each of you stay here with us. We need you here. We keep us safe.

---

[1] Altawil, M.A.S., El-Asam, A. & Khadaroo, A. Impact of chronic war trauma exposure on PTSD Diagnosis from 2006-2021: a longitudinal study in Palestine. Middle East Curr. Psychiatry 30, 14 (2023)

[2] Slovic, P. Judgement and Decision Making vol 2. no. 2 April 2007 pp. 79-95

I'll conclude by saying I'm pretty sure I know what we need to do to get the corporate press to pay attention to our objections to U.S. support for Israel's genocide. 

A Maine Coalition for Palestine rally February 2 in Portland a few blocks away drew 200 participants and a handful of us were arrested and charged with obstructing a public way.

Nearly every news outlet in Maine covered it.

So, let's get organizing.

Grieving Gaza In The Company Of The Ones Who Also See

Fifty people from all over the state converged on Waterville, Maine yesterday to grieve together. We came together to demand the U.S. government stop funding Israel, and stop arming genocide. It was remarkable to me how many of the fifty I did not know. This is a good thing!

A few who joined us were just passing by, saw our signs and banners, and joined in. Many who passed by honked in support.

Some had come from as far away as Calais up near the Canadian border.

Some had heard about the event from the men's coffee circle at their UU Church.

Some had heard about it from email, or social media, or word of mouth.

Some were on their second event of the day, having started at the annual Lenten vigil at General Dynamics' warship factory in Maine, while some had never protested before.

One person I've stood with many times in Bath spoke words like these: When I see a bomb, I rage. When I see a severed limb, I cry.

One told my husband they have lost a host of former friends who turned out to be Zionists. Yet another heartbreak.

Some were Veterans for Peace. Some were professors. Some were teachers. Some were caretakers, artists, carpenters, organizers, and students.

My husband's sign is hard to read here but it says "Resistance against occupation is a human right." Behind him, the banner reads in full, "No war with Russia." Because we are against that imperial project of death-dealing, too.

It nourished us being together and also knowing that some who could not be with us in person were nonetheless with us in spirit.

We will continue our resistance to genocide in our time, with our taxes. We will escalate our resistance this week, again. We will not stop if the U.S. imposes a temporary ceasefire so that Palestinians can be forced across the border at Rafah into a concentration camp in Egypt.

We will not be done until Palestine is free.