Collective Punishment....

"Israel envisages shutting down one of its power lines to Gaza for 15 minutes after a rocket attack, with the cut-off period gradually increasing to a two-hour limit if barrages continue."

Israel is now cutting power off to the 1.3 million people, living, in the Gaza Strip due to continuous rocket attacks from HAMAS. The idea of collective punishment is idiotic and horrible.

"Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EU commissioner for external relations, said on a visit to Jerusalem she was 'very concerned' about the Israeli move though she understood Israel's 'distress' over rocket attacks.

'I think collective punishment is never a solution,' she said."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7068239.stm

Only if he wasn't running on foreign policy...

Republican Representative, from Texas, Ron Paul has been the underdog for the Republican presidential candidacy for the last few months. As a liberal, Ron Paul has nearly won my vote only except for the fact that he is running just on foreign policy. Ron Paul's stances on most issues are, really, conservative and most people do not understand that. The issue of foreign policy is to bring our troops home from Iraq, and Ron Paul, sort of, exploits that issue. Ron Paul uses the issue of foreign policy to win the votes of democrats and/or liberals. Here are some clips from the debates (notice how they're repeative and some how tie to Foreign Policy):



Here's Ron Paul's view on media (more specifically fox news):

HAMAS vs. FATAH, The Liberation of Gaza Strip

From previous posts, you may know that I'm pro-HAMAS resistance. As the news developes, I'm going to say that HAMAS's actions were not the smartest but the most riskiest. HAMAS has got rid of all FATAH secruity forces/towers in the Gaza Strip, which leads to HAMAS controlling the whole Gaza Strip including it's border with Egypt. HAMAS's move was escalated when FATAH, finally, recieved funding from the United States. FATAH recieved 40 million dollars from the United States to fight HAMAS in both political and 'military' grounds. HAMAS took the fight to FATAH as if they were fighting a United States backed force. The real question, after this is all over, is will HAMAS and The People of Gaza survive with no help from the West?


edit: I just (June 22nd, 2007) read this amazing article. I can't even summarize the article because I recommend reading the whole thing.

"How Hamas turned on Palestine's 'traitors'"

this explains what's going on in the region better than I could ever, and I think this, pretty much, answers my question for now.

Political Philosophy and The School System

Political Philosophy and The School System


My older cousin and I got into an interesting discussion about rap music and how our favorite rappers of all time, Tupac Shakur changed the rap industry and the view of the ghetto. My cousin mentioned a speech that Tupac made in 1992, the speech was shown in the documentary Tupac Resurrection. I had forgotten about it, so I used my trusty source of YouTube and watched it again. Tupac had a similar stance with the Political philosphy of Anarchy, in which I mean, he was for direct action. I believe in the similar views, I think the only way to change the world is through direct action! Fuck donating to the Red Cross, go to the country/location and give the locals money. The idea of direct action brings me to the school system, the school system and the idea of direct action come hand in hand.

The United States School System is useless, I know in many math classes, science classes, and other classes, the students ask the teacher "Why are we learning this?" and the teachers respond with "To help you get better at problem solving". So, I ask, how does "advance" math, "advance" science, and whatever the hell else help the ghetto get rid of crack? How do all those classes help poverty? How do all those classes make the world a safer place?

I believe real RAP music represents the Jacob Riis of the new generation.

just wanted to get this off my chest,

-Peace

"...we'd be fooling our self's if we had an audience...and didn't realize that there were some enemies present..."

"A United Nations committee has called on Israel to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their property and land in Israel and to ensure that the bodies responsible for distributing property, such as the Jewish National Fund, not discriminate against the Arab population." (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/835430.html)

"Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank have pushed on with their search for militants, trading gunfire with Palestinians in the town of Nablus."

"The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is home to about 2.5 million Palestinians, land occupied by Israel during the 1967 war.

There are also more than 100 Israeli settlements housing about 400,000 Jews."
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6415365.stm AND http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6407295.stm)


Reportered on July 25th, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5212870.stm

"The Israeli army has been accused of using Palestinian civilians as human shields in an operation in northern Gaza."

Reportered on March 8th, 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6432133.stm

"An Israeli human rights group has accused Israel's army of using two young Palestinians as human shields during a recent raid in the West Bank."

I was just letting everyone catch up to the news, and I know some of it's couple of weeks old, but the news is still important. Starting off with the UN calling Israel to allow the Palestinians to return to their homes, I think Israel is just going to ignore their request because they've been doing that for about 40 years now, so I see no change. As for Israel's aggressive actions in Nablus, I think they're just trying to add fuel to the fire between HAMAS and Fatah. The situtation is a win-win for the United States and Israel because for one, what's better than the Palestinian government having problems internally and then adding Israel to that equation (not saying that they've haven't been in it) and two, Israel moved it's spotlight from Gaza, in which they've been threatening Gazan Fishermen (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36556), to West Bank in the last week, which is an interesting move because the United States has been funding Fatah, and the West Bank is a well-known Fatah Stronghold.

To get off topic, a bit, I ran into this interesting website a couple of days ago. World Mapper shows a map of the world and depending on the subject, for example weapons exporting, the countries on the map will become more "fat/obese" depending on how much they contribute to it.

That is all for now,

Peace!

"...stronger then the revolution/that you wear on your sleeve..."

My blog posts are similar to Manifest Destiny except for the fact that we're moving East. The West Bank, as some of you might know, has a barrier that is within the West Bank (also known as the Green Line). The wall, according to the great source wikipedia, is on average 60 meters wide exclusion area (90%) and up to 8 meters high concrete walls (10%). Many Palestinians refer to this wall as the "racist wall", many activists call it the Apartheid Wall, I call it the Apartheid Wall, so sue me! I wanted to bring this topic up because of the latest article on the news site Ha'aretz. Israel's Prime Minister just approved the eastward continuation of the barrier that will leave 20,000 Palestinians enclaved and 1,500 Israelies in a new home. I encourage you to check this news site out, and yes, I know it is Israel/Israeli bias, but I believe more truth comes out of this news source than any American source. As for the title of this post, I believe, the rapper Talib Kweli was dissing me (not directly) in the song "Waitin' for the DJ (feat. Bilal)" because I wear a Palestinian wristband from time-to-time to show my support for the Palestinian Intifada.

I Put my Fist to The East Where My People Seek Peace....

Yep, the title is quoting Palestinian rapper Ragtop. I decided to write on my blog when I read an article on the BBC website dealing with the continuous, never ending, clashes between HAMAS and Fatah. King Abdullah has invited the two factions to talk about ending the clashes. I believe this is somewhat unprecedented since the Israeli government doesn't want to see this end, which is similar to the United States not stopping the Shia-Sunni civil war in Iraq. Later in the article, the BBC reporter talks about how third, fourth, political organizations got involved in the recent months with abducting Fatah staff in retaliation to a senior HAMAS member being abducted in the city of Nablus. In my preceptive, I don't think this will stop until the United States intervenes for the sake of Palestinians or until the U.N. overrides the veteos imposed by the United States. As Ragtop says towards the end of the song "Free the P", "....death count goin' up/signs of U.S. interventions just ain't showin up..."