Menticide As Gaza Atrocities Are Ignored

Jabalia concentration camp, October 21, 2024

Yesterday I had lunch with a friend who had just finished teaching writing to a class of elders.  A student asked how she was doing and my friend replied, I am distraught about Gaza. Student: Why? What's going on in Gaza? 

Today I encountered a new word, "menticide," defined as "a systematic and intentional undermining of a person's conscious mind; synonym: brainwashing."

Yesterday Gazan journalist Motasem Dalloul posted on Twitter:

A mother from #Jabalia says: “They took all the children from their mothers and put them inside what resembled a pit or a hole. The tank came to circle around them repeatedly until their bones cracked under the pressure of dust and sand, amidst the screams of children and the wailing of mothers. “After that, the soldiers came and started throwing the children towards the mothers, and whoever caught a child was ordered to carry him and move away quickly, with no guarantee that the child would be their own. “Many mothers carried children who were not their own, and were forced to leave with them, leaving their own children in the hands of other mothers. This marked the beginning of a new chapter of suffering, with mothers searching for their children in the arms of other women, trying to calm the children they held until they found their real mothers.“

I have no words adequate to describe how I felt when I learned what new horrors my tax dollars are funding in Gaza. 

Also yesterday, the sadists in charge of the Zionist entity Israel accused six of the few journalists still alive and able to report from Gaza as "terrorists." 

Here's Dalloul's post about that:

Day before yesterday, U.S. imperial media outlet CNN committed what turned out to be a blunder when they published a sympathetic piece on the late Eliran Mizrahi, an Israeli occupier who committed suicide after being deployed in Gaza. 

A blunder because here is what Guy Zaken, who drove a bulldozer with Mizrahi, had to say about his genocide-induced trauma:

Zaken said that on many occasions, soldiers had to “run over terrorists, dead and alive, in the hundreds.”

“Everything squirts out,” he added.

Zaken says he can no longer eat meat, as it reminds him of the gruesome scenes he witnessed from his bulldozer in Gaza, and struggles to sleep at night, the sound of explosions ringing in his head.

“When you see a lot of meat outside, and blood… both ours and theirs (Hamas), then it really affects you when you eat,” he told CNN, referring to bodies as “meat.”

I think the phrase "had to" belongs in air quotes, don't you?

Nobody "has to" treat other human beings like this. 

Forced march of Palestinians being expelled from northern Gaza October 2024

Or this (trigger warning: video from September of an Israeli bulldozer running over a child).

Why don't Palestinians just give up and allow Israel to sell off Gaza's gas and oil rights and create settler colonies on top of the blood-stained rubble? An explanatory excerpt from the last will of Yayha Sinwar, who my friend's student has probably never heard of here in the menticide bubble of the U.S. 

"They fear your steadfastness more than they fear your weapons."

Show your steadfastness by standing with us at the General Dynamics bomb factory that makes these:

Take a stand in your community. That is, if menticide hasn't gotten to you yet.

National Disgrace #NoBabyJails #CloseTheCamps

Federal Building, Bangor, July 3, 2019. Both Maine's senators have offices there and received visits from angry constituents who want concentration camps for kids closed NOW.

About 20 people gathered in Bangor today in solidarity with hundreds of other places where people are heading into the Independence Day holiday thinking about a national disgrace: concentration camps for children. Camps where the children are mistreated, starved, deprived of medical care, clothing, soap and beds. 

Most in the U.S. are waking up to the fact that their government is cruel, deliberately evil, and not responsive to humanitarian appeals.

Native Americans and Black people understandably are not expressing the same levels of shock at forced family separations, forced relocation, and being kept in horrible detention facilities without access to due process.

Neither Facebook nor Instagram could post photos from the protests today.

TV news reporters were on hand in Bangor, but a station whose reporter tried to film office visitors to Senator Susan Collins was denied.

Constituents were giving statements to office staff there in a completely nonviolent way, while some of us continued holding signs outside.

A 2 year old in a tutu wandered onto the lawn and an alarm went off. An armed security guard hurried over to kick the child off the federal building lawn. It was about 87 degrees, and the pavement was hot.

That didn't stop another family from making chalk drawings on the sidewalk.

The youngest child looked about 3 and said spontaneously at one point, "I wuv you, dad."

"I love you, too," his dad said. I'm sure we were both thinking about all the little boys and girls separated deliberately from the people who love and hug them.

We used the bullhorn for some chants:

NATIONAL DISGRACE! NATIONAL DISGRACE!

and

WHAT DO WE WANT? CLOSE THE CAMPS! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? NOW!

Lots of people honked and waved, except one lady in a big pickup truck from Arizona parked across the street and shook her head in apparent dismay at our messages. At one point she even flipped my husband the bird. As we departed, she was blasting a patriotic country western song about how glad she was to live in the USA and be free.

"Too bad the children in the concentration camps aren't free," I commented as I passed her open window. She made no reply. 

Pollsters are reporting that on the eve of this 4th of July, pride in the U.S. government is at an all time low.

No shit.

Testimony gathered by attorneys allowed in to child concentration camps in El Paso, Texas

Will these camps be the issue that finally brings the empire down?

We can only hope.

U.S. Concentration Camps Housing Children In Conditions Of Torture Where Some Die #nobabyprisons

Copley Plaza, Boston, June 26, 2019  Photo credit: Faith Ninivaggi, Reuters

While I've been busy organizing resistance to climate-killing weapons of mass destruction, the news has been full of horrifying accounts of migrant children jailed, kept from their families, and neglected to the point of death. My husband has been calling our congressional delegation from Maine every day demanding that they visit the centers, close them down, and reunite the children with their families.

It terrifies me that by paying federal income taxes (deducted from my salary as a school teacher) I am complicit in these racist,  for-profit schemes of death dealing.

Soon I will retire, and I will have more opportunity to resist paying those taxes. And more time to organize and participate in resistance.

Copley Plaza, Boston, June 26, 2019  Photo credit: Charles Krupa, Associated Press

Yesterday employees at Wayfair furniture walked off the job protesting the fact that the corporation profits from child detention. They were supported by hundreds in the streets in Boston.

As reported by Joey Garrison in USA Today:

"We don't want our company to profit off of children being in concentration camps," said Madeline Howard, 29, a project manager at Wayfair, who has worked there six years and emceed the event. 

"We want them to have a code of ethics that blocks orders like this from happening again."

Wayfare's owners have said they donated a large sum to the Red Cross, but they won't cancel the contract to supply beds to yet another concentration camp under construction in Texas. Wayfare's employees say another walkout could be in the works. (Maybe a trip to Boston is in my summer plans.) 

"We do care" is a reference to the First Lady touring the Mexico-U.S. border last year wearing a jacket that read, "I really don't care, do U?"

Last year a few times I donated to support activist Patricia Okoumou of Staten Island. She made several famous climbs -- one up the Statue of Liberty's base, two up the Eiffel Tower, and one up Southwest Key which operates several detention center in Texas -- to call attention to the horrors of children in concentration camps.

Okoumou marching before her Statue of Liberty climb, NYC, August 6, 2018     Photo credit: Alex Hollings

She is now being harassed by GoFundMe threatening to withhold $20k donated by her supporters to help her continue her work. Allegedly, because she posted an update that she is pregnant. 

Last year, U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gornstein sentenced her to harsh conditions of release saying that she was supporting herself by profiting from her activism.

Okay if General Dynamics profits off the detention centers, war ships and other death dealing though, right? Because that's the American Way. (General Dynamics could well be the poster child for the ugly, ugly mess we're in.)



These are the values of our government: ok to profit from jailing toddlers in squalid conditions, not ok to "profit" from objecting to those jails in a way designed to attract publicity.

Okoumou has opened a new account at Patreon.

Meanwhile there is the brouhaha in the corporate press because Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted on Instagram, "The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border."

Some have objected to the use of Holocaust language to describe these detention centers but others, notably Japanese-Americans who were sent as families to camps during WWII, have agreed. 

Interviewed by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on Democracy Now!, psychotherapist Satsuki Ina, who was born in an internment camp in California, had this to say:

the reality that this is happening again is causing many of us to recognize that this is an injustice that is discussed in the same way...that we were a threat to national security, that we were an unassimilable race of people, that we were a threat to the economy of the United State... 

Captivity trauma is known to have lifelong effects on children growing up, and results in depression, and anxiety, and post-traumatic stress (PTSD).

Some of Patricia Okoumou's posts sound like she has PTSD, too. She can't sleep for worrying about children in cages. A lot of us are feeling that way, and we can't figure out what to do about the evils perpetrated by our government, with our money, allegedly in our name.

So we'll go to the streets. Here are events coming up in Maine, one organized by a young mom who was arrested with me protesting the Pentagon's climate crimes at contractor General Dynamics last week. 

Hi lovely family, friends, community members and hopefully beyond.

I've been feeling a mix of emotions especially sadness as I learn each day about the escalation of horrific and dehumanizing treatment of people, notably children in "detention" aka torture camps. I feel powerless, relying on my elected officials to take my calls seriously and do something as quickly as needs to be done. What more can I do way up here in Maine to make this stop fast!

I think about the pain I would feel if my two-year-old was taken from me. Who will comfort him when he cries? Who will change his diapers and keep him clean? Who will protect him from those who harm? I'm crying again now thinking about what the answer is for these detained kids. I am feeling a strong need to take the time to process this tragedy of dehumanization.

WHAT IF WE ALL JUST STOPPED TOGETHER and put our collective energy towards these children and their families?

Here is what I propose: at 11:00am, JUNE 28 we all just STOP. Maybe for an hour, maybe for half and hour, maybe for 10 minutes if you would otherwise get fired. Maybe we can join in common spaces (Congress Square Park, our places of work, our parks) or maybe just be alone. Can we all just stop together and feel this? Can we cry together? Can we say, "yes this is really happening" and feel it? Maybe we can collectively hold the a banner above our heads (the original hashtag) that reads, "REUNIFY DETAINED KIDS NOW". We will be in Monument Square if anyone wants to join us there.

Then I propose we all COLLECTIVELY GIVE. Get out an actual piece of paper and pen/pencil, and write something for these kids (or parents). Maybe a poem, short story, prayer, hope for them, etc. You can share it or not but whatever it is, put some loving energy into it. I'm not sure what we can do with all these papers. Any ideas? Maybe we burn them and send all of that love into the sky?

And finally, do a BRAINSTORM about what you/your community can do. Maybe it's calling elected officials (again). Maybe you work for a newspaper and you can print this story front and center everyday? Maybe you have sweet art skills and can make something cool that would generate attention. I honestly don't know but would feel better thinking about it with more people. How can we keep our attention locked on reuniting these children as quickly as possible and ensuring their and their families' safety?

Thanks to all who join me this Friday, June 28 at 11:00a.
Love,
Ashley and Dan

PS this picture is of me and my sister swinging my two-year-old who is laughing and having the childhood EVERY kid should have.

https://www.facebook.com/events/2298006317117115/


Finally, here's a link to events all over North America being coordinated for Friday, July 12. There are currently three listed for Maine: Lewiston, Westbrook (next to Portland) and Presque Isle. And a fourth, in Augusta, has an event listed on Facebook.

And here's a link to a Facebook event for a weekly vigil in Waterville, Maine. Thanks Mary Dunn for organizing this. https://www.facebook.com/events/349937269025576/349938469025456

Indigenous Children Gassed At The Border, Mocked At Football Games

I woke this morning intending to update readers on progress in pressuring Skowhegan Area High School to retire its racist team name/mascot, which some call Pretendians.

Yesterday I was contacted by three women: a news director at Maine Public Radio, an attorney from the Maine ACLU, and a leader of Suit Up Maine (formed to "promote equity and equality in civil rights, social justice, health care, the environment, education, the economy, and other areas that affect the lives of all people"). All three expressed interest in the school board meeting coming up on December 6. The facebook event to organize support for Native people in Maine calling for change has 161 people interested and 31 saying they plan to attend as of this morning.

Mockery of indigenous culture and history is commonplace in the U.S. right down to the present moment. Dehumanizing people is foundational to genocide as students of the Holocaust or ethnic cleansing in Rwanda know. Jewish people were compared with rats and referred to as vermin; Tutsi people were referred to as cockroaches. Then, they were slaughtered.

All hate crimes are preceded by hate language is what I told the school board at their November meeting. 

Which brings us to the gassing of asylum seekers -- many of whom are indigenous children -- at the U.S. border with Mexico.

A migrant family, part of a caravan of thousands traveling from Central America en route to the United States, runs away from tear gas in front of the U.S.-Mexico border wall in Tijuana, Mexico.

(📷: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters) pic.twitter.com/pz7hkxsN9g

— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 25, 2018

The demagogue with bad hair in the White House tweeted yesterday that many of those being gassed are "stone cold criminals." To say that he offered no evidence to support his claim would just be describing government by tweet as we have come to know it.

When the point is to demonize the Other who allegedly threatens our collective safety, empty threats are far more effective than facts.

The white supremacist culture of the U.S. has built an entire industry characterizing itself as the anti-Nazis. Most of that culture is war porn where beaches are stormed, buddies are glorified, and concentration camps are liberated by the "good guys" (that would be us). A zillion books and movies enshrine the national myth of violent "Christian" saviors. My friend Bruce Gagnon examined this myth yesterday in a blog post: "Was there an ideological contamination from the Nazis?"

Who now has the courage to speak up and say:

The U.S. imprisons thousands of children in concentration camps in Texas right now. 

The militarized U.S. Border Patrol is attacking children and their families fleeing violence in Central America that the U.S. creates and funds.

Brown citizens are being stripped of their passports even if they earned citizenship via enlistment in the U.S. military.

White militias are massing on the border with Mexico threatening refugees with further violence if they dare to apply for asylum in the U.S.

White supremacy is a disease. Mocking Native people and harming their children are symptoms of moral sickness. Claiming you do so in the name of Christ is ludicrous.

Silence is complicity in these crimes from here on out. 

There's a lot of historical precedent for that, too.

(Special thanks to Hope Savage for all the good meme shares.)