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Sri Lanka: Distant Voices, Desperate Lives – John Pilger

The Sri Lankan government used Israel’s actions in Gaza as their model for slaughter, Pilger writes.

In the early 1960s, it was the Irish of Derry who would phone late at night, speaking in a single breath, spilling out stories of discrimination and injustice. Who listened to their truth until the violence began? Bengalis from what was then East Pakistan did much the same. Their urgent whispers described terrible state crimes that the news ignored, and they implored us reporters to “let the world know”. Palestinians speaking above the din of crowded rooms in Bethlehem and Beirut asked no more. For me, the most tenacious distant voices have been the Tamils of Sri Lanka, to whom we ought to have listened a very long time ago.

Read More »Sri lanka distant voices desperate lives

By Ali Abunimah

(source: Electronic Intifada)

In recent weeks, the US- and Israeli-backed Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) has made a show of calling on Palestinians to boycott goods manufactured in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Despite the rhetoric of defiance and resistance, and exaggerated screams of anguish from Israeli settler groups, the PA effort actually appears designed to co-opt, undermine and abort the much broader Palestinian civil society campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), and to reassure Israel of the continued docility and collaboration of its puppet regime in Ramallah.

As part of his daily routine of publicity stunts, unelected Ramallah-based "Prime Minister" Salam Fayyad has been seen tossing bundles of settler-produced goods onto bonfires. As for PA "President" Mahmoud Abbas, he recently signed the "Karama" (dignity) Pledge — promising not to allow settlement goods into his house and encouraging others to do the same. PA volunteers have been going door-to-door in the occupied West Bank to distribute lists of settler-made consumer goods that should be avoided.

Read More »The pas disingenuous boycott campaign

War is Unsuitable for Children: Another YouTube outrage
by Cindy Sheehan

Last week, after being bombarded with pseudo-patriotic40of graveyards, gravestones and flags, I decided to begin posting40of maimed and killed Iraqis, but especially children and transform the mega-pseudo-patriotic Memorial Day to Remembrance of Victims of US Empire Day.

I got a great response to this and my friend and videographer, Clifford Roddy put together a short film called: finaledit, with the40I posted and with40that he took at a national cemetery in Santa Fe, NM where we were together for my Myth America book tour. I have a Cindy Sheehan You Tube page so we posted it there.

Read More »War is unsuitable for children another youtube outrage

By Alex Lantier

(source:  World Socialist Website)

At a White House briefing last Wednesday, President Obama personally joined the growing chorus of war threats against Iran coming from Washington and its allies.

Recent threats include remarks from US Defense Secretary Gates, who argued against “another war in the Middle East” in 2008, but stated last month that the US does “not accept the idea of Iran having nuclear weapons.” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said it was “still time for sanctions,” but that “at a certain point, we should realize that sanctions cannot work.”

It was against this backdrop that the White House called in selected journalists for a press briefing on Iran. They reportedly discovered only after arriving that the “briefer” at this apparently routine event was none other than the president himself.

Obama’s purpose was to deliver a blunt warning to the Iranian government: it could either surrender to US demands that it abandon its nuclear program, or face US attack.

Read More »Obama threatens Iran