This Crumbling Empire

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:58:21 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: I don't agree with the essay in its entirety, but thought it was thought-provoking.

Clip Source: www.consortiumnews.com

Fastened to a Dying Animal

Here in this crumbling empire once known as the American Republic, here in a nation that, at present, for all practical purposes, only produces Cheetos and killer drones, whose architecture is being winnowed down to thriving rural meth houses and foreclosed upon suburban mchouses, whose corrupt corporate culture has bequeathed upon our suffering planet dying oceans and the hyper-caffeinated tsunami of Red Bull Capitalism -- the essential question confronts us -- how does one retain (not retail) one's humanity amid the catastrophic machinery and inane accouterment of our age?

Seemingly, their creed is: Let the ignorant multitudes languish on the low nutrient, junk news we serve them from the drive thru windows of our corporate media outlets, while the political and business elite cannibalize what is left of the republic.

Yet, we, against all evidence, believe we are free actors in a spontaneous, unfolding democratic drama.

A Jew Seeking Justice, Again.

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:27:29 GMT

clipped by: righthand
clipper's remarks: This is the story of Israel - a stolen land taken from the Palestinians. The Zionist movement was founded on the principle that the Jews deserved a land; a land that they could call their State; their home but they would only be able to identify themselves as a wholly Jewish state at the expense of uprooting an existent civilization, the indigenous Arab population.

The Jewish claim to Palestine is based on the existence of a kingdom that reigned for only 414 years. The Jewish kingdoms were only one of many periods of ancient Palestine. There exists the dangerous misconception that opposition to Jewish occupation stems from anti-Semitism. Tensions between Arabs and Jews began after Zionist settlers arrived in the 1880s and had bought land from absentee Arab owners. This led to the dispossession of land that had been cultivated by peasants. In effect, the Zionists were colonizing Arab land.

The Zionists probably could not have been so successful in their acquisitions if it weren't

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

A Jew Seeking Justice

Home

As a Jewish American, I feel it is finally my responsibility to opine on behalf of my Palestinian sisters and brothers:

Imagine if a group of strangers marched into your home and told you that you couldn't live there anymore. This is the home that your parents inhabited; your grandparents bequeathed to them.

These strangers told you that thousands of years ago, their ancestors had populated this area, albeit for a short while

Now they have come to take what's rightfully yours and call it their own. When you don't voluntarily leave, they threaten you with violence.

Fearing imminent danger, you take your children and flee.

These people pay you a pittance of the value of your land without your consent and label you an 'absentee landlord'.

When you return to reclaim your home, your land, the strangers argue that because you separated yourself from your belongings, they are no longer yours.

they have attained the title to your home and land, you no longer have the right of

Tags: zionism, israel, history, palestine

Clipmarks | dmegivern's International politics collection

This Crumbling Empire

A Jew Seeking Justice, Again.