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.

Gaza Casts A Shadow As State Colleges Are Yoked To War Profiteers

Members of the Statewide Coalition for Palestine protested outside the unveiling of the Maine Defense Industry Alliance at the York County Community College’s Instructional Site in Sanford on March 1, 2024. (Maine Morning Star)

The U.S. sees a problem: our economy is not on a war footing. Not only can the U.S. not recruit even close to the number of soldiers and sailors they say the Pentagon needs, their wealthy contractors like General Dynamics also report they cannot recruit enough skilled workers to fulfill their Pentagon contracts. 

And despite accepting hefty tax breaks from my state, ostensibly for the purpose of funding job training, GD and others have now maneuvered the state's public post-secondary education establishment to train students in the needed skills.

By accepting funding from the Pentagon to train workers in jobs like welding that are necessary for building war ships and other weapon systems, Maine's community colleges and universities will be pushed to abandon liberal arts or mathematics education and instead fund job training programs. That's what the MDIA is all about.

Founding partners include the State of Maine, General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, the Maine Community College System, the University of Maine System, Maine Maritime Academy, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Pratt & Whitney

To add insult to injury, the companies getting this deal -- GD/Bath Iron Works and also Pratt & Whitney -- are directly profiting from Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza. (Details on that in my previous post here.)

link to video here

So on very short notice a group organized by the Maine Coalition for Palestine showed up at York County Community College to let Sen. Angus King, Sen. Susan Collins (invited but only zoomed in), and Rep. Chellie Pingree know: "USA your hands are red! Thirty thousand people dead!"

The event was swarming with journalists eager to interview Maine's congressional delegation, and many of them also wanted to interview and film our protest. Especially after two of us snuck in to the event and raised a ruckus about profiting by participating in the massacre of 13,000 children in Gaza.

Maine Morning Star's Evan Popp and Lauren Macauley published, "At unveiling of defense workforce initiative Maine's top officials fail to escape shadow of war in Gaza"

And WGME local tv news had this piece: "Maine coalition for Palestine protests before Maine defense industry alliance reveal"

A quote from our press release that resonated with an unnamed WGME journalist:

This MDIA effort to make war a core component of the Maine economy is dystopian in the extreme. We should never find ourselves in a position where peace is bad for the Maine economy. War should not be a jobs program.

But warmongering for profit has always been justified in terms of allegedly many good jobs it generates. This enormous lie deliberately sidesteps the fact that a similar investment in several other sectors of the economy would actually generate as many as double the number of full-time jobs with benefits. 

Source: Costs of War presentation of research, Robert Pollin & Heidi Peletier, June 13, 2011

Rep. Chellie Pingree once lectured me on presenting this research to her. In the supercilious way of liberal Democrats she pointed out that her previous gig with Common Cause had her presenting the very same research around the country. Doesn't sound like she learned much.

Or maybe the status and wealth that accrues to a long run in the U.S. Congress proved too seductive.

Whatever the reason, she claims she's proud of selling Maine post-secondary students' futures to General Dynamics.

To quote one of many chants yesterday outside the venue where our elected officials were being glad handed by corporate lobbyists: "How do you sleep at night?"