The Largest Minority

April 24th, 2009 by Manila Ryce

Imagine if the president refused to call the Holocaust by its name and opted instead to call it a “great atrocity” or “massacre” so as not to hurt US-German relations. That’s what previous presidents have done with the Armenian Genocide, and despite campaign pledges to the Armenian community, Obama has also refused to acknowledge the event by name since he’s been in office.

The president released a statement today on the 94th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, while managing not to actually say the word genocide once. Impressive. In response to criticism from human rights groups for this ommission, Obama stated that he still stands by what he said as a presidential candidate and a US senator. “I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view of that history has not changed.” Unfortunately, that’s not true. Consistency would mean that since Obama referred to the systematic killing of 1.5 million Armenians as “genocide” while on the campaign trail then he ought to be able to continue to do so while in office.

Just yesterday, during Holocaust Remembrance Day, the president spoke about those who trivialize or deny genocide: “To this day, there are those who insist the Holocaust never happened, who perpetrate every form of intolerance, racism and Antisemitism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, and more, hatred that degrades its victim and diminishes us all.” Perhaps the president ought to have listened to what he actually said and apply it to his own failure to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

April 8th, 2009 by Manila Ryce

Some of my favorite musicians prove why they’re my favorite musicians. Serj Tankian, Tom Morello, and Boots Riley talk about Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide and urge President Obama to stand by his pledge for recognition. Lets hope he does. His language since winning the presidency has been less promising than it was on the campaign trail.

February 20th, 2009 by Manila Ryce

Bid now at this link. There are only a few days left:
http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/valentines4palestine

Matt Gonzalez has agreed to allow the winning bidder for his piece to receive the original framed and signed work in the hopes of generating more money for the auction. That particular piece is listed as “All Now” on the merchant page. Please bid generously.

February 18th, 2009 by Manila Ryce

Produced by Democracy Now!, Noam Chomsky addresses the international press at the United Nations on June 5th, 2006 while taking the liberty to slap the shit out of a few of the dolts.

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January 28th, 2009 by Manila Ryce

To: European Union

January 26, 2009

Touring some of Gaza’s worst-hit areas of Israel’s 22-day assault which killed about 1,300 Palestinians, including 400 children, Louis Michel, a senior EU official and former Belgian foreign minister, described the situation as “abominable, indescribable”. He then added:

“At this time we have to also recall the overwhelming responsibility of Hamas. I intentionally say this here - Hamas is a terrorist movement and it has to be denounced as such.”

He then went on to state that there would be no dialogue with Hamas, saying its use of terrorism against Israeli civilians, including the use of “human shields” in Gaza meant it was not a legitimate resistance movement. He called on Hamas to recognize Israel’s right to exist and to renounce violence.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7851545.stm

We the signators of this petition are shocked, appalled and outraged by these comments.

They are the moral equivalent of rubbing salt into the wounds of the people of Gaza.

We demand the immediate ouster of Louis Michel from his position as EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid. We also demand a public apology be immediately given to the people of Gaza, especially to those who have lost members of their family in Israel’s 22-day attack on Gaza.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned
visit the link above to sign the petition

January 24th, 2009 by Manila Ryce

An open letter to President Obama from an Israeli woman.

January 21st, 2009 by Manila Ryce

Gotta love the irony in that title. This article is long but, like everything from Noam, it’s definitely worth your time. If you’re at work and your boss gets angry at you for reading this blog instead of filling out those TPS reports just yell, “Bitch, there’s a black man in the White House!” and throw up a peace sign with the obligatory “yes we can” as you recline to put your feet on the desk. I did that once at my old job and I imagine it would’ve worked if, at the time, there had been an actual black man in the White House. I was ahead of my time. Let me know how it goes now that change is in the air (sans US policy in the Middle East).

On Saturday December 27, the latest US-Israeli attack on helpless Palestinians was launched. The attack had been meticulously planned, for over 6 months according to the Israeli press. The planning had two components: military and propaganda. It was based on the lessons of Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon, which was considered to be poorly planned and badly advertised. We may, therefore, be fairly confident that most of what has been done and said was pre-planned and intended.

That surely includes the timing of the assault: shortly before noon, when children were returning from school and crowds were milling in the streets of densely populated Gaza City. It took only a few minutes to kill over 225 people and wound 700, an auspicious opening to the mass slaughter of defenseless civilians trapped in a tiny cage with nowhere to flee.

In his retrospective “Parsing Gains of Gaza War,” New York Times correspondent Ethan Bronner cited this achievement as one of the most significant of the gains. Israel calculated that it would be advantageous to appear to “go crazy,” causing vastly disproportionate terror, a doctrine that traces back to the 1950s. “The Palestinians in Gaza got the message on the first day,” Bronner wrote, “when Israeli warplanes struck numerous targets simultaneously in the middle of a Saturday morning. Some 200 were killed instantly, shocking Hamas and indeed all of Gaza.” The tactic of “going crazy” appears to have been successful, Bronner concluded: there are “limited indications that the people of Gaza felt such pain from this war that they will seek to rein in Hamas,” the elected government. That is another long-standing doctrine of state terror. I don’t, incidentally, recall the Times retrospective “Parsing Gains of Chechnya War,” though the gains were great.

The meticulous planning also presumably included the termination of the assault, carefully timed to be just before the inauguration, so as to minimize the (remote) threat that Obama might have to say some words critical of these vicious US-supported crimes.

Two weeks after the Sabbath opening of the assault, with much of Gaza already pounded to rubble and the death toll approaching 1000, the UN Agency UNRWA, on which most Gazans depend for survival, announced that the Israeli military refused to allow aid shipments to Gaza, saying that the crossings were closed for the Sabbath. To honor the holy day, Palestinians at the edge of survival must be denied food and medicine, while hundreds can be slaughtered by US jet bombers and helicopters.

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January 19th, 2009 by Manila Ryce

Under growing pressure from the world to do something, America/Israel decided that rather than ease the humanitarian crisis by opening up occupied Gaza and engaging in diplomacy with it’s legitimate government that they would instead try once more to force their Fatah puppet upon Palestine and restrict even more movement into the territory. In this clip, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was actually challenged in Washington by a few journalists familiar enough with international law, human rights, and history to call bullshit.

Livni’s position is that Israel is actually doing the Palestinians a favor with this aggression, much like Bush did the Iraqis and Afghans a favor. Hoisting up the claim that Israel cares about civilian casualties because they’ve given notice to victims of their impending death with 90,000 phone calls (a figure which should give Americans some pause about how many civilians are actually in danger), Livni fails to mention that despite the warnings there are no safe places for Gazans to hide - as is evident by the bombing of a UN school which housed civilians fleeing previous attacks. When journalists question the long-held assumption that Israel is always right they are bullied and their mics are simply cut off.