This video was recorded weeks ago. Yet at this point Israel had destroyed 98,000 buildings, and most if not all would have had people in them or near them. At this time the Palestinian death toll is over 20,000 and 1/3 of them are children. Hugs. Scottie
Ari Tolany, research consultant for Women for Weapons Trade Transparency, to discuss her recent piece that she co-authored in In These Times entitled “How Israel Got an Endless Supply of U.S.-Made Smart Bombs.”
Tolany walks Sam through the particular proliferation of Precision Guided Missiles in these overseas stockpiles, and the contradictory nature of why these missiles are manufactured (reducing collateral damage) and how they have been used by US allies – namely Saudi Arabia and Israel – before wrapping up with a brief conversation on the importance of international investigation in actually holding the US accountable for their bombs.
Same sex relationships and male gay brothels were normal until Christianity took hold. Then the bigotry started. Sexual activity was an accepted part of everyday life, until regressive repressive Christians ruined it for everyone. And they are still at it today. Hugs
Welcome back to 🤪Crazy Histories🤪 As long as humanity has existed, there have been physical and romantic relationships between people of the same gender. And like straight people, those of varying sexualities have also looked for release in more promiscuous places. They say the oldest job in the world is prostitution, and these gay brothels that date from antiquity to modern day certainly prove that… #ancienthistory#historydocumentary#homosexual
There is an ongoing lawsuit in Texas in which 20+ women are challenging the legality of the state’s restrictive abortion law under the state’s constitution. Thank you, Dani, for sharing your story and sending me this article. Each plaintiff – including a personal friend of mine who is also a fellow obgyn – had medically complex pregnancies, including cases where the fetuses could not survive outside of the womb. These women deserve our attention and acknowledgement for their bravery in coming forward – especially when doing so could lead to extreme backlash from their communities, friends, and even family.
The Center for Reproductive Rights brought the case and Texas Attorney General/cartoon villain Ken Paxton is opposing it as usual. Let’s talk about it.
Please notice the date of the article. I am desperately trying to clear older tabs, so I can clean this computer up. Thanks again to Ten Bears for the link, how he finds time to read all this stuff and make lists of the links is beyond my understanding. But while the data on the number of people including kids killed is out of date, massively wrong now, the feeling of the post is important. I hope you will read it. The US must stop supporting Israel in its genocide of the Palestinian people. Hugs. Scottie
*** Edited to add the link to Ten Bears’ website. I would hope by now that people would already be following his blog but if not here is the link. https://homelessonthehighdesert.com/ ***
Here are quotes from the article which are clearly true.
The goal of the Netanyahu government and his right-wing extremists is not just the destruction of Hamas (which is unlikely to occur as the pulverizing of Gaza leads to new recruits for the terrorist organization and Hamas’s 30,000 man fighting force remains resilient, its leaders alive and negotiating with Israel through Qatar), it is the removal of all presence of the Palestinian people to allow for an expanded “Eretz Yisrael,” including the children.
The Holocaust does not bestow impunity for reckless, brutal and merciless acts by the State of Israel (the massive killing of children and their civilian families), even if these acts are conducted in response to execrable and monstrous acts against its citizens.
Can one excuse the relentless murder of children within Gaza as justified retaliation for the horrifying massacre of the Israelis near the Gazan border on October 7, or are they both equally heinous acts?
The children of Gaza do bleed, die of disease or are crushed to death, their body parts scattered amidst the debris of 2000 pound bombs?
(Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Is there a scale that can measure the value of 7,000 dead Palestinian children vs. 1200 dead Israelis?
What is to be measured, the weight of their souls? Can such a scale ascribe the worth of one group of the dead as being of greater value than the other group, one soul to a person or child?
One can, ironically, turn back to the plaintive speech of a benighted Shylock, a Jew trapped in an anti-Semitic stereotype, in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice for some guidance to answer this question, replacing the names of religions to reflect the current catastrophe in Gaza:
I am a Palestinian. Hath not a Palestinian eyes? Hath not a Palestinian hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Jew is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
In the original version of Shakespeare’s timeless monologue for Shylock, the word replaced by “Palestinian” above was originally “Jew,” and the word “Jew” was originally “Christian.”
The goal of the Netanyahu government and his right-wing extremists is not just the destruction of Hamas (which is unlikely to occur as the pulverizing of Gaza leads to new recruits for the terrorist organization and Hamas’s 30,000 man fighting force remains resilient, its leaders alive and negotiating with Israel through Qatar), it is the removal of all presence of the Palestinian people to allow for an expanded “Eretz Yisrael,” including the children.
The Holocaust does not bestow impunity for reckless, brutal and merciless acts by the State of Israel (the massive killing of children and their civilian families), even if these acts are conducted in response to execrable and monstrous acts against its citizens.
Can one excuse the relentless murder of children within Gaza as justified retaliation for the horrifying massacre of the Israelis near the Gazan border on October 7, or are they both equally heinous acts?
“If you prick us, do we not bleed?”
The children of Gaza do bleed, die of disease or are crushed to death, their body parts scattered amidst the debris of 2000 pound bombs?
Recently, an Informed Comment article by Charles Hirschkind, was entitled “The Invisible Slaughter of Gazan Children.” Hirschkind wrote:
of Gaza are being slaughtered at a horrific rate. No, you will not find the terms “slaughter” or “horrific” in Western media accounts of Israel’s current assault on the Palestinians residents of Gaza (these terms are reserved for Israeli deaths), but nonetheless, there is little disagreement among media professionals that nearly half of the deaths resulting from Israel’s current assault on Gaza are children.
According to the charity Save the Children, “More children have been killed in the Gaza Strip over the last three weeks than in every other armed conflict annually since 2019.”
Yes, we know that the current figure of the dead children in Gaza is probably far more than 7,000 (adding the innumerable more buried in the rubble.) We know that the death toll of these innocents is growing by the day as the Israeli war machine of vengeance continues to pulverize Gaza.
There are no posters with photos plastered on lampposts of the children killed in Gaza. No marches bearing the likenesses of the mangled children. They remain largely invisible and faceless, denied the basic recognition of their individual humanity. This is intentional.
“There was no such thing as Palestinians,” former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir once falsely proclaimed.
It’s no surprise then that a December 18thWashington Post article indicated that a clearly identified journalist in Gaza was shot in the leg, likely by an Israeli sniper, after reporting the discovery of decomposing bodies of Palestinian babies, victims of the Israeli pummeling:
The Israel Defense Forces did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Israel-Gaza war has been devastating for journalists, with at least 64 killed and 13 wounded, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The risks are gravest for Palestinian reporters based in Gaza, who must keep themselves safe while also dealing with the loss of their homes, families and colleagues.
The Israeli government and IDF “press liaisons” don’t want journalists to disseminate photographs that would turn Palestinians into sympathetic people, or to allow the West to develop empathy for the dying children.
Horrifyingly, parents of Palestinian children in Gaza, and the children themselves, are writing their names on their arms and legs, so that when a limb is found the child can be identified.
As American poet devorah major (initial lower caps, her preference) haunted by this macabre image was inspired to write,
“remember?
not wanting to be one of the missing or one of the unable to be identified killed the little girl wrote on the inside of her heart shaped palm between heart and lifelines in neat Arabic script “if my hand survived this is my name” before she was slain.
these children do not have numbers burned into their arms but many have written their own names statements and identification numbers”
Many of these children were too young to formulate their aspirations. Who knows what wonders they could have experienced? They are snuffed out without the chance for their futures to blossom like ripe olive trees, olive trees that are now violently being cut down and destroyed by Israeli West Bank zealots and thugs who want, like most of Netanyahu’s cabinet, a Greater Israel from “the river to the sea.”
Yes, who can weigh the value of a soul? The children in Gaza and the Israeli dead are equalized in their irreversible deaths. Their futures have been cut short by the madness of a vile and intractable hatred from Hamas and Netanyahu’s Israel.
“Manifest Destiny,” “annexation,” and “settlements” represent different terms with similar meanings: unethical and immoral robbery of other people’s land.
Green Line concrete wall separating Israel and Palestine. Security wall also known as West Bank Barrier.Photo: Shutterstock
On December 23, 2016, the 15-member United Nations Security Council took a highly controversial step by voting 14-0 (Resolution 2334) to condemn Israel’s construction of so-called “settlements” on the occupied West Bank taken after the 1967 War with its Arab neighbors.
The UN Resolution stated that Israeli settlements constitute “a flagrant violation under international law” and said that all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, must “immediately and completely cease.”
We must not use the past to justify surrendering to the supposed impossibilities posed by seemingly irreconcilable and intractable differences.
The United States chose to abstain, but throughout his presidency, Barack Obama had voiced the long-standing official policy of his country by designating Israeli settlements as a major impediment in any hoped-for two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then President-elect Donald Trump, on the other hand, blasted the United Nations’ vote. Trump’s proposed U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, a far-right-wing lawyer, did not support a “two-state solution,” but did support Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the “settlement” program, and Israel’s annexation of the occupied West Bank.
When in office, Trump unilaterally declared that the Golan Heights is a literal part of Israel. Trump’s unilateral movement of the U.S. embassy to the contested city of Jerusalem increased already inflamed tensions. He unilaterally pulled out of the Iranian nuclear deal, and Trump’s obvious support for and collusion with Netanyahu was intended to sway the Israeli election in Netanyahu’s favor.
Though declared illegal under international law, approximately 570,000 Israelis live in the more than 130 so-called “settlements” (a.k.a. stolen land) since the 1967 War. Approximately 475,000 Palestinians live in the West Bank and 230,000 in East Jerusalem.
Many see Israel’s “settlement” policy on the occupied West Bank in the same light as Russia’s illegal incursion into Eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, which likewise threaten political and military stability in the area and further endanger world peace.
Historian Joel Spring refers to this “cultural genocide,” as “the attempt to destroy other cultures” through forced acquiescence and assimilation to majority rule and standards. This cultural genocide works through the process of “deculturalization,” which Spring describes as “the educational process of destroying a people’s culture and replacing it with a new culture.”
An example of “cultural genocide” and “deculturalization” is evident in the case of Christian European American domination over Native Americans, whom European Americans viewed as “uncivilized,” “godless heathens,” “barbarians,” and “devil worshipers.”
White Christian European Americans deculturalized indigenous peoples through many means: confiscation of land, forced relocation, undermining of their languages, cultures, and identities, forced conversion to Christianity, and the establishment of Christian day schools and off-reservation boarding schools far away from their people.
The expansion of the republic and movement west was, in part, justified by overriding philosophical underpinnings since the American Revolution. Called “Manifest Destiny,” it was based on the belief that God intended the United States to extend its holdings and its power across the wide continent of North America over indigenous peoples from East Coast to West. The doctrine of “manifest destiny” embraced a belief in American Anglo-Saxon superiority.
“This continent,” a congressman declared, “was intended by Providence as a vast theatre on which to work out the grand experiment of Republican government, under the auspices of the Anglo-Saxon race.”
A mid-19th century missionary wrote: “As tribes and nationals the Indians must perish and live only as men, [and should] fall in with Christian civilization that is destined to cover the earth.”
Throughout the Alaska territory, Christian missionaries, including Presbyterians, Catholics, and Moravians, vied to win converts. Simultaneously, the United States government issued laws barring Alaskan Indian ceremonies regarded as “pagan” and contrary to the spread of Christianity.
During the early years of the new republic, with its increasing population and desire for land, political leaders like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson advocated that Native American lands should be obtained through treaties and purchases.
President Jefferson, in 1803, wrote a letter to then-Tennessee political leader Andrew Jackson advising him to convince Native Americans to sell their “useless” forests to the U.S. government and become farmers. Jefferson and other government leaders overlooked the fact that this style of individualized farming was contrary to Native American communitarian spiritual and cultural traditions.
Later, however, when he inhabited the White House, Jackson argued that white settlers (a pleasant term for “land thieves”) had a “right” to confiscate Native American land. Though he proposed a combination of treaties and an exchange or trade of land, he maintained that white people had a right to claim any Native American lands that were not under cultivation. Jackson recognized as the only legitimate claims for Native American lands those on which they grew crops or made other “improvements.”
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized President Jackson to confiscate Native American land east of the Mississippi River, “relocate” its former inhabitants, and exchange their former land with territory west of the River. The infamous “Trail of Tears” during Jackson’s presidency attests to the forced evacuation and redeployment of entire Native American nations during which many died of cholera, exposure to the elements, contaminated food, and other environmental hazards.
The Naturalization Act of 1790 excluded Native Americans from citizenship, considering them, paradoxically, as “domestic foreigners.” They were not accorded rights of citizenship until 1924, when Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act, though Asians continued to be denied naturalized citizenship status.
In addition, though Jackson founded the Democratic Party and brought greater popular control to government, as a farmer his wealth increased enormously through his enslavement of Africans, and he gave the lash to any who attempted escape.
I found a definition of “settler” as “a person who settles in an area, typically one with no or few previous inhabitants.” I would add an essential condition that for this person to settle, the area must not have prior claim by others who call it their home.
How could Columbus have discovered what would later be called “the Americas” when people lived on this land for an estimated 12,000 years after coming over the Bering Isthmus during a glacial age when sea levels dropped? How can one “discover” people who have been here so long? Actually, First Nation people discovered Columbus on their land!
We must interrogate (analyze) the concept of “settler,” of “discovery,” of “the New World” as distinguished from “the Old World.”
Say, for example, I own a house, and someone knocks on the door, walks in, pushes me outside, and claims: “I like your house, and I am now settling here. You get going on your way. Goodbye!” And he slammed the door in my face.
“Manifest Destiny,” “annexation,” and “settlements” represent different terms with similar meanings: unethical and immoral muggings and robbery of other people’s land. I fully support the United Nation’s courageous resolution.
I read on a different post that Christian nationalist feel entitled to force everyone to view their religious material. And only their religious matter. See they know that this country is a Christian nation and atheist have stolen it from them. Just like the 2020 election was stolen, and just like they know it is their country which to them means the maga right wing conservative minority. You just can not argue with these people, they are so convinced of their belief in a formerly religious country just as they are sure their god exists, and only their god. But it is not good enough to force their church doctrines on the public in our country. They need to force their god all over the world. Hugs. Scottie
Rep. Tim Walberg, a former Bible salesman, encouraged Ugandan leaders to resist U.S. efforts to roll back the vicious law.
Every once in a while, the right in the U.S. can’t help but look longingly at countries where repression of LGBTQ is a matter of law. But Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican, went one step further. He actually took a trip to Uganda to meet with leaders there andurge them to “stand firm”in support of their draconian anti-LGBTQ law,which includes the death penalty for gay people.
Walberg took the trip last October, but it escaped notice until Salon revealed it this week. Walberg was the keynote speaker at the Uganda’s National Prayer Breakfast. Uganda President Yoweri Museveni, who signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act into law in May, was among those present for Walberg’s speech. Museveni said that Walberg’s presence proved that there were Museveni later said that Walberg’s speech showed that some Americans “think like us.”
“Though the rest of the world is pushing back on you, though there are other major countries that are trying to get into you and ultimately change you, stand firm. Stand firm,” Walberg counseled the attendees.
Walberg cited the Bible as justification for a law to kill people. “Worthless is the thought of the world,” Walberg said. “[W]orthless, for instance, is the thought of the World Bank, or the World Health Organization, or the United Nations, or, sadly, some in our administration in America who say, ‘You are wrong for standing for values that God created,’ for saying there are male and female and God created them.’”
“Whose side do we want to be on?” Walberg continued. “God’s side. Not the World Bank, not the United States of America, necessarily, not the U.N. God’s side.”
Walberg explicitly aligned himself with Museveni and the Ugandan legislators who overwhelmingly passed the “Kill the Gays” bill. Referring to the Ugandan president, Walberg said, “He knows that he has a Parliament, and … even congressmen like me who will say, ‘We stand with you.’”
A former Bible salesman, Walberg has always been a standard issue religious conservative in Congress. HRC designated him a member of its Hall of Shame in 2014. This year he was the author of a provision he called the Parental Rights Over the Education and Care of Their (PROTECT) Kids Act, part of a larger GOP bill that went nowhere.Under Walberg’s provision, schools would be required to get parental consent before changing a student’s pronounsor preferred names.
His trip to Uganda was sponsored by the U.S. National Prayer Breakfast, a formerly bipartisan group that has recently taken a hard-right turn. The new head of the groupis Caroline Aderholt,a former leader Concerned Women of America, a long-time anti-LGBTQ group. Aderholt’s husband is Rep. Robert Aderholt, a Republican from Alabama who once tried to stop adoption agencies from allowing gay people to adopt.
While Walberg has gotten blowback for his comments, don’t expect his fellow Republicans to condemn him. If anything, Walberg is saying what at least a few other Christian nationalist types in the ranks are thinking as well. He’s just another reminder that when it comes to today’s Republican party, nothing is considered entirely beyond the pale, even killing LGBTQ people.
As conservatives become more radicalized and grow more detached from reality, their perception of the world is changing as well. In this video we’ll look at several delusional claims made by conservatives.
Scottie's Playtime 