Michael Riordon

the view from where I live

Author Archives: Michael Riordon


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A desperate plea from an Israeli Jew

Via Jewish Voice for Peace:

“My name is Eran Efrati, I am Jewish, a veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces, and a 7th generation Jerusalemite.

What I’ve seen in Israel over the last few weeks is beyond anything I have witnessed in my life.

Gaza under attack, July 2104                                Gaza under Israeli attack, July 2014.  Photo: The Times, UK.

I’ve seen terrified Palestinian children in Hebron and Halhul, sitting on the ruins of their homes.

I’ve seen Israeli mobs in the street chanting “death to Arabs” and pulling out Palestinian men from their stores to beat them as other Israelis stood idly by. I’ve seen Israeli soldiers lined up at the Gaza border, ready at a moment’s notice to invade.

And now, like you, I’ve seen the climbing death toll in Gaza, over 100 dead and some 500 injured – all by Israeli missiles, with no end in sight.

As much as it pains me to say it, I don’t think I can do a lot about it. But I believe you can.

North American voices – especially Jewish North American voices – are probably the most critical voices right now.  [MR: I would add that in the face of crimes on this scale, all voices of reason and compassion need to be heard wherever and however they can.]

We need you to tell Israeli politicians, the Israeli media, Israeli society, that you can’t support this attack. That you can’t support human rights violations. That you can’t support racism. That you won’t support the idea that Jewish lives matter more than Palestinian lives.

Join me and sign this Open Letter now—if they get another 10,000 signatures, Jewish Voice for Peace will take out ads in Haaretz and the Jewish Forward with our message.

We know the roots of this are long and deep. But the truth behind this latest assault is finally coming out: as J.J. Goldberg wrote in The Forward, the Israeli government lied, and created this situation.

For weeks, the government knew that the three kidnapped teenagers were dead.  But they instituted a gag order on the media, lied to Israelis and the world, and falsely claimed the mass arrests and collective punishment of Palestinians was all in the hopes of finding the teenagers alive.

In other words, their chosen response was to kidnap the mind of an entire country.

From the very beginning, this has been about punishing Palestinians. From the beginning, the government has been willing to manipulate and use its own people for that goal.

Overhead, I hear airplanes headed to Gaza all day long, and I know there’s nothing I can do to stop them. And now we all know the lengths they’ve gone to justify this attack, and how fully Israeli society has bought into it.  And I don’t think we can stop it from within.

But I think you can.

Please join me and sign this statement: We oppose the occupation, the bloodshed, the privileging of Jewish lives over others lives.“

Reliable updates on the current Israeli assault on Gaza and the West Bank, here, and here.

For an inside look at how Palestinians and Israelis are resisting the occupation, check out Our Way to Fight.


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Mayday, Mayday!

DSCF2066Peony at first light, my garden, June 2014

Where I live in eastern Ontario, Canada, an unusually cool, wet spring has generated sumptuous gardens, planting problems for farmers, hordes of hungry mosquitoes, and complaints from people bound for the beach.

But in the big picture, on the only planet we have, yesterday the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its latest global climate report:

  • May 2014 was the warmest May on record.
  • Four of the five warmest Mays on record have occurred in the past five years.
  • May 2014 marked the 351st consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th-century average.

When will we ever learn?

Scientists wrestle with urgent conundrums in Bold Scientists: dispatches from the battle for honest science, due September 20, 2014 from Between the Lines.

 

 


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A turning point: The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) votes to divest

Friday, June 20, the 221st General Assembly of the US Presbyterian Church voted 310 to 303 to withdraw its $21 million holdings from three major US corporations that profit from Israel’s military occupation of Palestine: Caterpillar (heavy equipment to destroy homes and build prisons), Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions (surveillance technology to control the Palestinian population).

Home demolition, PalestineAl-Arakib village, demolished by Israel 63 times since 2010.

The historic vote followed a decade of intense study, debate and soul-searching throughout the church.

Major US Jewish organizations that claim to represent all Jews, and their conservative Christian allies, lobbied aggressively to derail the initiative.  As usual, their weapon of choice is to label supporters of boycott, divestment and sanctions as anti-semitic. Two years ago it worked, resulting in a divestment vote that fell short by a similarly narrow margin.

To counter this deluge of propaganda, the American grassroots organization Jewish Voice for Peace brought to the Assembly a panorama of supportive voices from Jews of conscience across the United States.

Commenting on Friday’s vote, Cecilie Surasky of Jewish Voice for Peace said, “This is a turning point. The Presbyterians’ decision is a major development in the longstanding work to bring the US into alignment with the rest of the world. This vote also shows how attempts to cynically use accusations of anti-semitism to forestall principled actions are losing power.”

They are indeed.  Also this month:

  • the Central Atlantic Conference of the United Church of Christ voted to divest from companies that profit from the occupation.
  • the pension fund of the United Methodist Church divested from G4S, a British-Danish transnational security corporation operating in Israeli prisons to detain and abuse thousands of Palestinians.
  • the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also divested its entire $184 million holdings in G4S.

Turning points.

More detail on the international BDS movement in Our Way to Fight.


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Weather report: no climate change.

extreme weatherPhoto: National Geographic

This week in Canada, the Harper regime decreed:

Henceforth, there will be no talk of climate change from any meteorologist employed by the Canadian Meteorological Service (a division of Environment Canada).

Investigative reporter Mike De Souza revealed the new ban here.

A government official who is permitted to talk to the media – but not to say anything of substance – told De Souza that meteorologists are qualified to talk about extreme weather, but not climate.

The ban – officially known as a “communications protocol” – extends the Harper regime’s aggressive silencing of scientists whose research might provoke questions about the regime’s pro-corporate, anti-environment agenda.  True to the most insidious forms of censorship, the boundaries of what’s forbidden are not specified.

Apparently this ongoing reign of terror works.  De Souza reports that, since the government’s 2007 decree that all federal scientists must obtain management approval before giving any interviews on their research, an internal Environment Canada analysis noted an 80 per cent drop in media coverage of climate change issues.

Fortunately, scientists are resisting.  Follow their stories in Bold Scientists: dispatches from the battle for honest science, autumn 2014 from Between the Lines.


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Friending Big Brother: Facebook & Drones

Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone to friend Facebook.  And the billionaire CEO of Facebook does mean everyone.

Recently he announced a grand new plan : internet.org, a consortium of corporations and government agencies that will harness an array of drones, satellites and other technologies to wrap the entire world in a vast global WiFi.

NSA & FacebookThe primary government partner? None other than the US National Security Agency.

This is beyond sinister, says writer/internet activist/organizer Alfredo Lopez.  “The NSA spies on everyone it can.  It collects all the data it can.  It has shown no respect for people’s rights or for constitutional restrictions.  It is a criminal organization and, under this plan, it would control Internet access for large parts of the world.”

So much easier than the cumbersome business of Facebook handing over our data to the NSA. Via internet.org they can both vacuum it up at the same time.

And note that drones, which already serve as Big Brother’s remote-control weapon of mass destruction, will be among the primary vehicles.

More depth and scary details here.

Follow the ever-deepening surveillance story in Bold Scientists: dispatches from the battle for honest science, coming from Between the Lines, autumn 2014.