Monday, May 31, 2010

Welcome to The Dead Zone



In this clip posted by Dandelion Salad, Audrey Bomse, a legal advisor for the Free Gaza Flotilla, reminds us that a Human Rights report to the UN, The Goldstone Report, has called the blockade a "probable crime against humanity." She was responding to an Israeli minster's explanation that it was necessary to prevent a group of known terrorists from intentionally breaking Israel's legal blockade of Gaza when they could have simply given humanitarian supplies through the Israeli government.

Damn right they were running the three year blockade.

I've got nothing to say about Israel and Palestine because informed and educated people have been argufying passionately on this topic for generations. I refuse to get involved since I don't like it when people start hollering at me on my own blog. But I will say this - my son is Jewish enough for Hitler. He's not Jewish enough for Jews because I'm not Jewish, however, his paternal grandparents were Jewish. Buzz Kill's grandparents came to New York from Russia during the Pogroms - which is Fiddler on the Roof times which makes my son a Jewish Quadroon which is Jewish enough for Hitler.

My son, circa 2006. Such a punim

I mention the boy's heritage because I want to stress that questioning Israel's treatment of Palestine doesn't automatically make a person Anti-Semitic. I'm angry and outraged at Israeli Aggression not Anti-Semitic. In point of fact, I'm what is known in my neighborhood as Jewish by Injection: A Shiksa who has had relations with one or more Jews. After 20 years on the Upper West Side and relations with more than one Jew, I feel like Jon Stewart - a Jew - provides one of the only forums in America where it's socially acceptable to question Israel (Indecision 5769, Wyatt Cenac at 1:40).

Again, I'm no expert. I'm just a preschool teacher floating along in the American Mainstream who is afraid to mention Israel in public because people yell at you.

Sadly, these days the main stream in real American life - the Mississippi River watershed- carries so much fertilizer and pesticide to the Gulf of Mexico that every year, for years and years, there's a 7,700 square mile Dead Zone in the Gulf. It chokes the oxygen out of the water and causes the red tide, dead fish, and other unpleasantness. My mom is wondering a lot about the oil in The Dead Zone this year.


What makes the Dead Zone Dead? Play the game HERE
and that was before the rig exploded

I don't think The Dead Zone can explode even though it will be filled with trapped crude oil, but if it did, I imagine something like the asteroid that hit the Yucatan Peninsula during prehistoric times which is in the same geographical region. Scientists think that asteroid killed off the dinosaurs. I refuse to speculate on what Sarah Palin and them think about that explanation since I've never understood how so many people who make a fortune off fossil fuels can deny the existence of fossils.

Just as pesticides, chemical fertilizers, crude oil and sundry other bullshit have turned America's watershed into a Dead Zone, Imperialists and their bullshit have turned American Mainstream Life into a Dead Zone, too.

One thing we've learned here in the Dead Zone is that governments are often big fat liars. So, even though I'm not Anti-Semitic, I have to wonder just how much bullshit that Israeli minister is spewing from his podium. I can't help but notice the trappings of theocracy behind him, either.

A tempered statement from two UN officials - trained in speaking to the Mainstream American -- is included in The New York Times article, At Least 10 Are Killed as Israel Halts Flotilla With Gaza Aid:

“We wish to make clear that such tragedies are entirely avoidable if Israel heeds the repeated calls of the international community to end its counterproductive and unacceptable blockade of Gaza,” the officials said.

Strong words from pussyfied diplomats. It could be a long, hot summer The Dead Zone.

A Peace of the Action is working on a Sizzling Summer of protests in Washington DC.

They even have a facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=122117434477137&ref=nf

Cindy Sheehan is up to her ass involved in this protesting since the July 10 event is a birthday party for her. As I recall, Cindy Sheehan was Just A Mom until her son was killed in Iraq in 2004. She was so pissed off she camped outside George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford.

Casey Sheehan: another one of the valiant war dead to remember on Memorial Day.


10 Comments:

Blogger Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein said...

If you one criticizes any of the behavior of Israel then you become an anti Semite, that's bullshit. I'm not anti Jewish, I'm anti Zionist and anti anyone who deprives anyone of their basic human rights. What the hard right wing in Israel is doing to the Palestinians has so many parallels to what the Nazi's did to the Jews it's not even funny. They are conducting a Pogrom against the Palestinians in the hope that if they kill enough of them, they'll stop demanding their land back.

May 31, 2010 at 10:29 AM  
Blogger PENolan said...

As it happens, I used to work with a bunch of Israeli Jews who totally rejected the hard-wing, and I know there are organizations like Tikkun whose founder Rabbi Michael Lerner gets death threats from Zionists.

Tikkun is sponsoring an event in DC this summer too. Creating "The Caring Society": A Progressive Alternative to Tea Party Extremism and Corporate Domination of American Politics and Culture
June 11 - 13
http://www.tikkun.org/

They are hoping to convince Obama to become the man we all voted for instead of a beltway bitch.

May 31, 2010 at 11:35 AM  
Blogger Teeluck said...

I look forward to hearing more about Tikkun, sounds like my kind of stuff...

June 1, 2010 at 10:36 PM  
Blogger PENolan said...

Hey Teeluck - you can follow them on twitter. I'm not sure about facebook - and of course, there's the old fashioned way since they have a magazine made from paper. I heard about Tikkun a long time ago from the Rebbe Mohammed McCrory. Good people.

June 1, 2010 at 11:17 PM  
Blogger Commander Zaius said...

Just as pesticides, chemical fertilizers, crude oil and sundry other bullshit have turned America's watershed into a Dead Zone...

Yeah, I did a post on the Gulf Dead zone caused by fertilizers and pestisides several months ago, never in my wildest dreams thought it could worse.

NBC News had some hired brain on tonight saying he did, or knew of, a test seeing if marshes could recover from an oil spill. That guy says it can but I question the scope of his test as compared to the size of the oil spill we are seeing now.

June 1, 2010 at 11:24 PM  
Blogger Jaliya said...

"I've never understood how so many people who make a fortune off fossil fuels can deny the existence of fossils."

You have outdone yourself ... again ;-)

... and in a nutshell, you've made clear just how deep our human capacity for denial can run.

The thought that your sweet Velvet is "Jewish enough for Hitler" makes me want to throw up.

There's so much that makes us want to throw up nowadays, isn't there? ...

Forgive me, anyone who flares up at what I'm about to say ... but sometimes I wonder if the powers that be in Israel aren't doing exactly (in principle) to the Palestinians what was done to them during WWII. The end goal seems to be the extermination of a people, and however the means, the end is the same.

I despair of humanity today ... and then I go make a strong cup of tea, goof around with my kittones, and connect with folks like you.

I've been trying to blog for days ... More thoughts coming than I can hone ... Christ, we've made a mess of the world, heaven't we ...

*Tikkun* -- a great magazine, filled with sane and kindly voices.

June 4, 2010 at 3:07 PM  
Blogger PENolan said...

Girl, How did you get to the blog via facebook? We should be facebook friends if you're on facebook. Or are we already facebook friends and you use another name?

June 4, 2010 at 3:26 PM  
Blogger intelliwench said...

I don't think I've ever read a better explanation for the "intellectual" dead zone before this - wonderful analogy.

I have similar feelings of conflict regarding discussion of the Israel-Palestine thing, too. I know that I can never understand the "why" behind the Israeli gov't position, and none of my Jewish friends or family are rabid zionists but it's still tricky territory.

Ok, that's as coherent as I can be this a.m.

June 5, 2010 at 9:39 AM  
Blogger PENolan said...

Well done, Intelli

June 5, 2010 at 11:22 AM  
Blogger geo said...

I find it treacherous with plenty re: Israel-Palestine, however this doesn't take away from the: "Extremists on Both Sides" excuse is often only an excuse. While there are certainly radical Palestinian "extremists" Israeli and U.S. Policy has consistently made a lasting peace impossible over many years. There is a Ton of Good Stuff online - e.g. www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org is I think among the best. www.juancole.com is another good source. Watch one of the 90+ videos on You Tube- "Sleepless in Gaza and Jerusalem" - to see a Palestinian perspective. The parallels with - South Africa-Apartheid and U.S. Slavery and Racism thereafter are not difficult to see once one can escape the mirage that says that a second Holocaust is likely to happen. I'm Jewish and both proud (of being Jewish) and ashamed of what is done in my name.

June 5, 2010 at 1:42 PM  

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