"Ten years ago this August, a white police officer killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. What happened on Canfield Drive that day sparked a nationwide movement to save Black lives, end police brutality, and make safety a reality for all people. As a registered nurse, pastor, and local activist, I spent over 400 days protesting alongside thousands of my fellow community members.

I will never forget the brutality we faced in response to our calls for humanity. Police used tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, noise munitions, batons, shields, fists, and boots against us. The Missouri National Guard called us “enemy forces.” Our government labeled us “Black identity extremists.” Many politicians condemned us. Those of us on the front lines were traumatized, but we knew that time would prove we were on the right side of history — and it did. Time will prove the same for the students currently protesting across the country.

....

None of what protesters in Ferguson and at Columbia University have experienced is new — it’s happened hundreds of times throughout our history. It happened in Boston in 1770, when protesters supported independence from British rule. It happened in Pennsylvania in 1897, when mine workers demanded labor rights. It happened in Virginia in 1917, when protesters demanded equal rights for women. It happened in Selma in 1965, when protesters demanded civil rights for Black people. It happened in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and elsewhere in 1968, when protesters demanded an end to the Vietnam War. And it happened in Washington, DC, and in communities all across our country in 2020, when protesters demanded an end to police brutality.

Behind every attempt to silence a protester is an idea that those in power don’t want people to hear, yet protest movements have been remarkably successful throughout our history. The women’s suffrage movement led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment despite opposition from those in power. The same is true of the Civil Rights movement, which culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the youth-led nationwide protests that led to the end of the Vietnam War, and South African apartheid.

...During the Ferguson protests, a group of Palestinians visited us and taught us how to protect ourselves against tear gas. That moment opened my eyes to the connection between state-sanctioned violence at home and abroad.

..It’s time our government responded to popular social movements with an ear, instead of a boot.

disturbed by the number of times i've seen the idea that calling gaza an open-air prison is not okay because "that implies that gazans have done something wrong", the subtext being unlike those criminals who deserve to be in prison. i'm sorry but we HAVE to understand criminalization and incarceration as an intrinsic part of settler colonialism and racial capitalism, because settler states make laws that actively are designed to suppress indigenous and racialized resistance, and then enforce those laws in even more racist and discriminatory ways so that who is considered "criminal" is indelibly tied up with who is considered a "threat" to the settler state. that's how law, policing, and incarceration function worlwide, and how they have always functioned in israel as part of the zionist project.

talking about prison abolition in this context is not a distraction from what's happening to palestinians; it's a key tool of israel's apartheid and genocide. why do you think a major hamas demand has been for israel to release the palestinians in israeli prisons? why do you think israel nearly doubled the number of palestinians incarcerated in their prison in just the first two weeks after october 7? why do they systematically racially profile palestinians (particularly afro-palestinians, since anti-blackness is baked into israel's carceral system as well, like it is in much of the world) and arrest and charge 20% of palestinians, an astonishingly high rate that goes up even higher to 40% for palestinian men? why are there two different systems of law for palestinians and israelis, where palestinians are charged and tried under military law, leading to a conviction rate of almost 100%? why do they torture children and incarcerate them for up to 20 years just for throwing rocks? why can palestinians be imprisoned by israel without even being charged or tried? why do they keep the bodies of palestinians who have died in prison (often due to torture, execution, or medical neglect) for the rest of their sentences instead of returning them to their families?

this is not to say that no palestinians imprisoned by israel have ever done harm. but incarceration worldwide has never been about accountability for those who have done harm, nor about real justice for those have experienced harm, nor about deterring future harm. incarceration is about controlling, suppressing, and exterminating oppressed people. sometimes people from privileged classes get caught up in carceral systems as well, but it is a side effect, because the settler colonialist state will happily sacrifice some of its settlers for its larger goal.

so yes, gaza is an open-air prison. that doesn't means gazans deserve to be there. it means that no one deserves to be in prison, because prisons themselves are inherently oppressive.

Palestinians have endured a never ending barrage of injustice since 1948, 75 years before Operation Al Aqsa Flood

X X X

All eyes on Al-Aqsa mosque

if your "military operation" results in civilian deaths over three times the number of "militants" killed, including children, your military is a fucking immoral failure. no wonder the palestinians aren't "peacefully protesting". you're fucking slaughtering their kids.

Thinking about parallels between Israel and the US and how our cops are trained by their military programs. How the police violence is learned from their disgusting military policies. How we gave them so much money and they are now known as one of the most technologically advanced militaries in the whole world. With one of the most technologically sophisticated defense systems in the world.

Also thinking about the parallels between US veterans and Israeli holocaust survivors.

Israel talks some big shit about how they HAVE to exist because look how Jews were treated and they need a place all their own, just look at these poor holocaust survivors they need us!!! Except when you actually look, you find that most of the holocaust survivors in Israel are living in poverty, homeless, unable to afford food so they’re picking up literal scraps off the ground after markets end for the day. Israel wants you to think they’re doing this for the holocaust victims, but they’re not actually helping those survivors at all.

Like how in the US we have tons of programming about needing new soldiers, about thanking service members for our freedom, about celebrating holidays that uplift veterans and wars and political leaders. But the actual veteran population is largely neglected. They’re homeless, living in poverty, living with crippling medical debt because of injuries received in the field, or any number of other things. Programs set up to supposedly help them (like Wounded Warrior) are total scams that don’t help anyone.

Our governments use these people as scapegoats and toss them to the side like trash once no one is looking. It’s easy to say “how can you hate the military? look at what our veterans won for us!” while pushing a veteran out onto the street and using that money to pay more cops. It’s easy to say “we need a place for holocaust victims to feel safe!” while refusing to pay for the healthcare these people desperately need and instead funneling money into paying people to come live in Israel so you can grow your population and continue colonizing.

Colonialist governments will never adequately care for the people they supposedly represent. It is an ideal built entirely on greed, and a government built on greed will never fork over the money to actually make positive change in the world. All they care about is power and money and land, more and more and more. They don’t give a shit about us.

Whitewashing History 101: The police “cleaned up” those “sleazy” whiskey traders :)

The RCMP Was Created To Control Indigenous People

Although the North-West Mounted Police didn’t become the RCMP proper until it absorbed the Dominion Police in 1920, its paramilitary origins are still highly visible in everything from its training depot to how it organizes its officers into troops, right down to the horse and the uniform, Hewitt says.

And while Canadians may like to position ourselves in opposition to the United States, citing their “even worse record in terms of treatment of Indigenous people,” Hewitt says that’s just a myth we tell ourselves to feel better.

The job of the Mounties “effectively, was to clear the plains, the Prairies, of Indigenous people,” he says. “Ultimately, they were there to displace Indigenous people, to move them onto reserves whether they were willing to go or not.”

History books, commissions, inquiries and public apologies reveal what happened next: Indigenous people who resisted were starved onto reserves. The federal government brought in the Indian Act and used Mounties to forcibly remove Indigenous children from their homes, placing them in residential schools rife with abuse.

(continue reading)

“Not another nickel. Not another dime. No more money for Israel’s crimes.”

London's hidden hand

"CNN spoke to three Israeli whistleblowers who worked at the Sde Teiman desert camp, which holds Palestinians detained during Israel’s invasion of Gaza. All spoke out at risk of legal repercussions and reprisals from groups supportive of Israel’s hardline policies in Gaza. They paint a picture of a facility where doctors sometimes amputated prisoners’ limbs due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing; of medical procedures sometimes performed by underqualified medics earning it a reputation for being “a paradise for interns”; and where the air is filled with the smell of neglected wounds left to rot. ... That whistleblower and al-Ran also described a routine search when the guards would unleash large dogs on sleeping detainees, lobbing a sound grenade at the enclosure as troops barged in. Al-Ran called this “the nightly torture.” “While we were cabled, they unleashed the dogs that would move between us, and trample over us,” said al-Ran. “You’d be lying on your belly, your face pressed against the ground. You can’t move, and they’re moving above you.” The same whistleblower recounted the search in the same harrowing detail. “It was a special unit of the military police that did the so-called search,” said the source. “But really it was an excuse to hit them. It was a terrifying situation.” “There was a lot of screaming and dogs barking.” .. Another whistleblower said he was ordered to perform medical procedures on the Palestinian detainees for which he was not qualified. “I was asked to learn how to do things on the patients, performing minor medical procedures that are totally outside my expertise,” he said, adding that this was frequently done without anesthesia. ....The same whistleblower also said he witnessed an amputation performed on a man who had sustained injuries caused by the constant zip-tying of his wrists."

On 7th June 2022, Afro-Palestinians of the Old City of Jerusalem rejoiced; their brother Mohammad Firawi was finally coming home.  It had been five long years since Firawi – then a twelfth grader in the middle of school exams – was accused of throwing stones at Israeli police, taken away from his home and shuttled around nine Israeli prisons. Now aged 25, he was ready to be back in the African Quarter, and they were ready to welcome him.  The community’s joy was interrupted, however, when two days later, Israeli intelligence re-arrested and expelled Firawi from Jerusalem for a week. Their reason? That he “defied Israeli orders to refrain from celebrating [his release].” Re-arrest is common practice after prisoners’ release, for reasons as impossible to justify as they are to fight. When one’s existence is made a crime, even moments of joy are closely monitored and policed.   “[The] Israeli occupation wants to prohibit any expression of happiness in the community,” Firawi tells Skin Deep, “even adopting the policy of prohibiting any symbols resembling Palestinian identity, including the Palestinian flag. They fight anything they believe negates their alleged sovereignty in Jerusalem.”

[video of streams of US arms exports globally]

The problem is the US. It’s its founding as a settler-colonial enterprise. The US is war and mass slaughter. The US majorly funds war abroad and police war at home.

Imperialism must be opposed. Colonialism must be opposed. White nationalists must be removed from all power and the US itself must be overturned. Nothing else is a solution.

[ISRAEL IS AFRAID OF FIREWORKS] PART I : BLACK POWDER IN FIREWORKS IS NOT AN EXPLOSIVE

Often we ask ourselves, how does the lawless comprehend the law?

We will not forget the shooting of the young child directly at his heart, 12-year-old Rami who was playing fireworks in celebration of the holy month Ramadhan and the coming of Eid on the 12th of March 2024. 

Why are fireworks suddenly a threat to those equipped with rifles? In this posting, we will observe the contents of fireworks and the status of fireworks in Israel’s own legislation. 

Fireworks primarily consists of black powder, paper, starch and glitter, with black powder as the main ingredient.

We refer to Israel’s beloved legislation in oppressing Palestinians, the Defence (Emergency) Regulations 1945 which clearly stipulates that “black powder” is not an explosive.

Based on this, how does Israel sees a child playing fireworks as a threat?

What was the basis to shoot a child?

Why were other measures not taken ie oral warning or warning shots?

Why was the extreme method adopted? ie shoot at a vital part not other parts of the body

Israel cannot provide any valid justification for adopting the most extreme method at a vital body part - the heart, on a child. In what way does the act of playing fireworks endangers officers, who does not even have jurisdiction to be there in the first place?

What more with Israel’s own legislation that does not provide any basis for punishment or military order/act to be carried out. We note that International Law on children is not complied with, but it is equally unsurprising for the lawless to not even follow their own “laws"

This page specifically analyses Israel’s own laws to highlight the clear abuse of laws and the intentional exploitation of it to oppress Palestinians. We hope that this effort is able to open the public’s eyes to see the continuous breach of justice.