Israeli politician Ofair Kasif has publicly condemned the situation in Gaza as an “absolute apocalypse, a holocaust.” Kasif’s brave statement, the starvation of Palestinians, and the ongoing destruction in Gaza is why this lone voice from within the Israeli establishment is so vital, and how his blunt assessment of “no war, only a holocaust” challenges conventional narratives.
Category: Death
A school shooting.
Dispatch From Gaza’s Nasser Hospital | Dr. Tarek Loubani | TMR
How American Aid Sites in Gaza are Killing Palestinians
For me this was the hardest to watch. I have had to go without food while others ate. I was hospitalized and suffered clinical death due to malnutrition. At the table if I was allowed the meals could turn quickly for me from possible danger to happening harm. I spent a lot of time diving under the table to doge something thrown at me or in dodging the blows aimed at me. Being kicked under the table was common and if I yelped or complained I was the one punished. I learned to eat without looking at my food always looking around out the sides of my eyes because to look scared brought more violence. I was told I ruined their meals. I often could only choke a few bites out of fear and anxiety. I basically ate one meal a day which was at school and mostly was two hot dogs and a serving of french fries, and when school was out I would take a sandwich and stay away from the house. The only place I could eat freely and in peace was my grandparent’s home I went to on the weekends. What these people are going through is a war crime and a crime against humanity that the government of Israel and the military people must answer for. Never again applies to more than Jewish people. Hugs
‘Gates of Hell’: Chris Smalls Describes Israeli Military’s Brutal, Racist Treatment
Israel’s Latest War Crime Caught On Camera
Women’s Equality Day, Samantha Smith, & So Very Much More, in Peace & Justice History for 8/26
| August 26, 1789 The French National Assembly agreed to document known as the “Declaration of the Rights of Man.” It was a set of principles for gauging the legitimacy of any governing system, and included (in summary): • “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights” “ Those rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression” “ Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else” • “The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man”  Declaration des Droits de L’Homme et du Citoyen (Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen) • Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society and law is the expression of the general will. “ Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation.” • No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except when in violation of a public law, all persons are held “innocent until they shall have been declared guilty,” and receive punishments “only as are strictly and obviously necessary” • The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces, and a “common contribution” is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration, and that public servants are obliged to account for use of those funds • Property is an “inviolable and sacred right,” and no one shall be deprived thereof The complete text: |
| August 26, 1839 The Amistad (“Friendship”), a Spanish slave ship seized by the 54 Africans who had been carried as cargo on board, landed on Long Island, New York. The leader of the mutiny was Joseph Cinque, a Mende, from the part of Africa that is now Sierra Leone.  Cinque-one of the revolt leaders   The Amistad More on the story of the Amistad |
August 26, 1920 The 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote, officially became part of the U.S. Constitution: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” This day has been known since 1971 as Women’s Equality Day. More on Women’s Equality Day The document itself, from the National Archives (And it is still there.) |
| August 26-29, 1968 Police and anti-war demonstrators clashed in the streets of Chicago as the Democratic National Convention nominated Vice President Hubert Humphrey for president inside the Amphitheater. Club-swinging Chicago police indiscriminately tear-gassed, kicked and beat anti-war demonstrators, delegates, reporters and innocent bystanders outside, arresting 500. 11,900 Chicago police, 7500 Army troops, 7500 Illinois National Guardsmen and 1000 Secret Service agents were ultimately involved. Protesting what was later officially designated a police riot, members of the Democrats’ Wisconsin delegation attempted to march to the convention hall, but police turned them back. When Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-Connecticut) delivered his nominating speech, he infuriated Mayor Richard Daley by saying, “with George McGovern as President of the United States, we wouldn’t have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago.”   Julian Bond, the first black member of the previously all-white Georgia state legislature, seconded the nomination of anti-war presidential candidate Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy. Bond added that he had seen such police behavior before, but only in segregationist Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. a narrative account Arthur Miller on the Convention |
| August 26, 1970 Betty Friedan leads a nationwide protest called the Women’s Strike for Equality in New York City on the fiftieth anniversary of women’s suffrage. |
| August 26, 1971 Six thousand turned out for a National Organization for Women-organized Women March for Equality in New York City. They were calling for equal rights, including the demand “51 percent of everything,” reflecting women’s proportion of the U.S. population. This first “Women’s Equality Day,” instituted by Bella Abzug, was established by Presidential Proclamation and reaffirmed annually. |
| August 26, 1985 Samantha Smith, a 10-year-old from Manchester, Maine, was invited to visit the Soviet Union by its Premier, Yuri Andropov.  Statue of Samantha Smith at the Maine State Library, Augusta, Maine She had written him a letter asking if the Soviet Union intended to attack the United States. She visited him in the U.S.S.R. and became a young ambassador for peace. She died in an airplane crash at age 13 on this day returning home with her father from a peace mission.  Grade school student, peace activist 1972-1985 |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august26
The Fangataufa Test, & UFW Leaders Cesar Chaves, Dolores Huerta in Peace & Justice History for 8/24
| August 24, 1968 France became the world’s fifth thermonuclear power when it exploded a hydrogen bomb at the Fangataufa Atoll in the South Pacific. It had a yield of 2.6 megatons (the equivalent of more than two-and-a-half million tons of TNT) and heavily contaminated the atoll, leaving it off-limits to humans for six years.  Fangataufa test Atmospheric and underwater nuclear weapons testing continued there for nearly thirty more years. |
| August 24, 1970 United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) leaders Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta called for a consumer boycott of lettuce to support the strike against lettuce growers who would not negotiate contracts with the farm workers for decent wages and working conditions.  United Farm Workers show their support for the lettuce strike and boycott at a rally in Salinas, California. U.F.W. history  Farm Labor leader Cesar Chavez, pictured at a rally in Salinas, California The United Farm Workers today Farmworker Movement Documentation Project  Susan Due Pearcy    Boycott Posters and buttons |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august24
Let’s talk about Trump, tripwire troops, talks about Ukraine, and air power….
Sorry for the lack of posting and no cartoon meme post tomorrow morning. I have been very sick all day with vomiting and diarrhea. From the morphines and muscle relaxers I was impacted, which was a harder constipation. I had taken fiber and it did not help, so I took 2 laxatives. They did not work so the next day I took 2 more. I have been diagnosed with a sensitive stomach meaning it can’t take pressure so it was refusing to let me eat / swallow anything and the bile and acids needed to be vomited up. By noon the dam broke and I have spent most of the day near or on the toilet or in bed. At 1 pm Ron made me some chicken noodle soup. It helped calm my stomach but did not help the other end. I am trying to eat something now due to my blood sugar but I can only do a chicken strip and a few french fries. Tomorrow we go out for our big shopping day, glad it was not today which we had planned. By the way I was stationed in West Berlin in the 1980s. Hugs.
Women Have Had The Right To Vote For 105 Out Of 249 Years & More, in Peace & Justice History for 8/18
| August 18, 1914 In another step in the ethnic intimidation that led ultimately to the Armenian genocide in Turkey, looting was reported in Sivas, Diyarbekir, and other provinces. Under the guise of collecting war contributions (WWI had just begun), stores owned by Armenian and Greek merchants were vandalized. 1,080 shops and stalls owned by Armenians were burned at the Diyarbekir bazaar. Chronology of the Armenian Genocide |
| August 18, 1920 Women throughout the U.S. won the right to vote when the Tennessee legislature approved the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the last of 36 states then required to approve it). An amendment for universal suffrage was first introduced in Congress in 1878, and Wyoming had granted suffrage in state law by 1890.  This amendment to enfranchise all American women had been introduced annually for 41 years without passage; it had gotten two-thirds of both houses of Congress to approve it just the year before. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” In the Tennessee House, 24-year-old Representative Harry Burn surprised observers by casting the deciding vote for ratification. At the time of his vote, Burns had in his pocket a letter he had received from his mother urging him, “Don’t forget to be a good boy” and “vote for suffrage.”  Teaching With Documents: Woman Suffrage and the 19th Amendment (National Archives) (It is still there; I checked.) |
August 18, 1963 James Meredith James Meredith, the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi, became the first to graduate. His enrollment at “Ole Miss” a year earlier had been met with deadly riots, forcing him to attend class escorted by heavily armed guards.  James Meredith being escorted to his classes by U.S. marshals and the military. Who was James Meredith |
| August 18, 1964 South Africa was banned from taking part in the 18th Olympic Games in Tokyo due to the country’s refusal to reform its racially separatist apartheid system. Read more |
| August 18, 1977 Steve Biko, the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement resisting apartheid, was arrested at a roadblock outside King William’s Town. He died while in custody from abuse during the weeks of interrogation that followed.  Steve Biko “So as a prelude whites must be made to realise that they are only human, not superior. Same with Blacks. They must be made to realise that they are also human, not inferior.” “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” – Biko speech in Cape Town, 1971 More about Biko |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august18
Scottie's Playtime 