A Wall is Just a Wall: Anti-Blackness and the Politics of Black and Prison Abolitionist Solidarity with Palestinian Struggle

Thank you for sharing this. I had not really noted the intimate connection between institutional racism, colonization and the current ever growing expansion of surveillance and bizarre “security state” measures.
It is amazing to me that the people most concerned about the security state are often ideologically identical in many ways to those creating it. While those most targeted are often unaware of the structures history and context that endangers them disproportionately (compared to those most prepared to resist).

Decolonization

“It is possible for prison walls
to disappear,
For the cell to become a distant land
Without frontiers” – Mahmoud Darwish

 

“A wall is just a wall and nothing more at all. It can be broken down”
–Assata Shakur

 

“One might have hoped that, by this hour, the very sight of chains on Black flesh, or the very sight of chains, would be so intolerable a sight for the American people, and so unbearable a memory, that they would themselves spontaneously rise up and strike off the manacles. But, no, they appear to glory in their chains; now, more than ever, they appear to measure their safety in chains and corpses.”
James Baldwin, “Open Letter to Angela Davis”

As a Black trans/gender queer femme who works with/in trans studies I am hyper aware of the ways in which Blackness complicates trans studies. There is a…

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Earth’s Shift is as Unique as Yours

Thank you Brenda! It’s often hard to remember that the Universe is perfectly capable of allowing us each a totally unique path, fully interwoven with all the other unique paths in our Earth collective. And that change xan happen on many invisible levels long before the physical world “looks different”. Thank you for reminding us, as always, in such an uplifting and beautiful way!

Welcome to Brenda's Blog

Channeled by Brenda Hoffman for http://www.LifeTapestryCreations.com

Summary of Brenda’s June 14, 2014 free, 15-minute, channeled “Creation Energies” show at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/brenda-hoffman: Many of you are ready to exit your cocoon – from an earth being moving along the ground to a butterfly traveling where you wish. Most likely, those of you ready to emerge from your cocoon are bored or without direction. That will change in the next few days. Those of you not yet emerging may be entering your cocoon or clearing the piece that ties you to 3D earth. Allow the energies of the next few days to push you to the place of the new you your inner-being wishes to be. 

The title of last week’s “Brenda’s Blog” – her free, weekly, channeled blog for http://www.lifetapestrycreations.com is: “You’re Shapeshifting into You”

Brenda’s “Creation Energies” BlogTalkRadio.com show and “Brenda’s Blog” contain different channeled information.

Dear Ones,

You have…

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Free the Kidnapped Israeli Teens By Rabbi Michael Lerner

This is heartbreaking.

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”.

I pray these children are returned safely and that this situation does not escalate the hostilities between Israel and Palestine.

It is time for all Israeli and Palestinian parents to sleep peacefully knowing all their children are safe. And all parents everywhere from Syria and Ukraine to Florida and Mexico.

Let’s all pray together for an immediate end to all wars, all oppression and injustice.
ohnwentsya

*Free the Kidnapped Israeli Teens *

By Rabbi Michael Lerner

Kidnapping anyone, anytime is always a violation of a basic human right. But is even more outrageous when done to children or teens who are particularly vulnerable.

So it is with shock and outrage that we at Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives respond to the kidnapping of 3 Israeli teens who were returning from their study at a yeshiva in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

We demand the immediate release and safe return of those teens to their families!

We were shocked and outraged at the kidnapping of hundreds of Christian girls by Muslim fundamentalists in Africa, with the implied story that these girls would be raped (the functional equivalent of “forced marriages” along with forced conversions to Islam).

We are shocked and outraged when girls are kidnapped (or sold or persuaded by starving parents who see no other way to get money for their remaining starving children) into sexual slavery or forced marriages.

We are shocked and outraged when children or teenagers are forced into armies (whether through a supposedly “legitimate” draft process or through outright kidnapping) where they are forced to kill or be killed.

We reject any attempt to imply that somehow these acts are understandable given the oppressive conditions faced by the perpetrators. In the case of the Israeli teens some commentators have rushed in to remind us that there are thousands of young Palestinians, some of them younger than the teens who were teenagers, who sit in Israeli prisons or “detention camps,” without trials and sometimes for many months. Yes, this is also a human rights violation. But so what? It doesn’t justify or legitimate the crime committed against these Israeli teens.

There are those who have pointed out that the teens were attending a Yeshiva in a right-wing settlement and that that Yeshiva doesn’t teach about the humanity or the suffering of the Palestinian people, but instead justifies and defacto increases that suffering by participating in discriminatory practices that are part of the daily reality of the Occupation. Again, so what? No matter how reactionary the teachings, it is never appropriate to kidnap or inflict pain on others, except possibly in circumstances of immediate self-defense.

And these teens were not the perpetrators or the creators of the Occupation. They were children doing what their parents had brought them up to do and to be.

I’ve recently heard another such ridiculous attempt to “contextualize” this kidnapping. Just as, when Palestinian children have been shot or killed by Israeli forces enforcing the Occupation, some Israelis and American Jews have said (publicly and in a variety of Jewish newspapers) “these Palestinians don’t really care about their children, else they wouldn’t let them participate in activities that are known to be at risk,” so now some are saying that “Israelis don’t really care about their children, else they wouldn’t be sending them to study in a war zone in which violence against Palestinians is sometimes met by violence against Israelis-so anyone raising their children in the settlements or sending them to study in the Occupied West Bank really have only themselves to blame for whatever happens to them.” This reasoning is as obnoxious when applied to Israelis as it was when applied to Palestinians (or for that matter, when applied to parents who let their children get drafted into an army). The reality is that most parents whatever their religious, national, ethnic or racial backgrounds care equally and intensely about the well-being of their children, and the reasons that they get convinced to put their kids into situations of danger have little to do with how much they love their kids. When I signed permission for my own son to serve in the Israeli paratroopers, I was terrified and remained so throughout the time he was jumping from airplanes and serving in the Israeli army. I cared deeply for my son’s welfare and loved him intensely, spent all week waiting for him to return to our Jerusalem apartment just before Shabbat so I could wash his clothes and feed him home made Shabbat food. I’m not going to go into all the factors that led me to allow him to serve (“allow” because the Israeli military won’t allow an only child to serve in a combat unit without the signed agreement of their parent), but it certainly wasn’t lack of love. And I’ve spoken to many Palestinians whose children have been wounded or killed and they too care just as much about their children as any Israeli or American or any other parents on the planet.

For those of us who want to see an end to all this kind of suffering, it is appropriate for us to demand an end to all wars and all violence, and to an end of conditions that create this violence, including ending global poverty, ending the xenophobia and racism and homophobia and demeaning of “the other” (whether that other be Jewish Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, or whatever), and to urgently seek to end the environmental destructiveness that will soon become the source of more violence between “the haves” and “the have nots.” And it is appropriate to demand an end to the Occupation of the West Bank, to the occupation of Tibet by China and Chechnya by Russia and an end to every other unjust denial of rights to people who want their freedom.

Yet none of this should replace our outrage at the acts of kidnapping that go on “in the meantime.” And that is why we start and finish this note with a demand that whoever has those Israeli teens must return them immediately and safely to their families. And as a rabbi, I add to that demand a prayer for their wellbeing and the wellbeing of their families.

Rabbi Michael Lerner

Editor, Tikkun magazine and Chair, the (Interfaith and Secular-Humanist-Welcoming) Network of Spiritual Progressiveswww.spiritualprogressives.org [ http://www.spiritualprogressives.org ] , rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in Berkeley, Ca. and author of eleven books, most recently “Embracing Israel/Palestine.”

RabbiLerner.tikkun [ mailto:RabbiLerner.tikkun ]

P.S. None of our outrage should be taken as legitimation of blaming the entire Palestinian people for this kidnapping or for assaulting the people of Gaza or a renewed military assault by the IDF beyond a narrowly pin-pointed search for the kidnapped teens. Punishing an entire population for the sins of a few was developed by Roman imperialists two thousand years ago and remains a disgusting and God-denying act of brutality that should never be tolerated by any humane society.

New Earth Shamans create Fifth-Dimensional ‘Doorways’ | D L Zeta

New Earth Shamans create Fifth-Dimensional ‘Doorways’

Many lightworkers are stepping into roles as New Earth shamans capable of traveling in consciousness to past, parallel and future timelines to facilitate healing and awakening for themselves and others. Having spent early years deeply enmeshed in denser, third-dimensional realities, some find it hard believing in their visions and perceptions. As we move further into the energies of the New Time, fifth-dimensional awareness and spiritual telepathy deepens, helping new teachers and channels build a belief in their perceptions. This is already happening for many lightworkers who are now stepping more fully into their role as New Earth shamans. Stepping Free of Virus-Engineered Time Loops One of the first things these shamans learn is how to step free of time loops that ensnare consciousness. Time loops are, in a sense, realities engineered by thought viruses. In earlier stages of development, time loops keep souls retrograding through old segments of consciousness. Whenever a crossroads arrives that offers the opportunity to step free, emotional triggers are evoked that keep one from stepping free of the time loop. As we enter deepening steps of awakening we are able to see through thought viruses which magnify and feed the fear-based emotions that keep us moving through time loops. It is possible to be held into a repeating loop for long periods of time and even for indefinite periods. In the past we spoke of thought viruses, now we will go a step further to trace the source of some thought viruses. There are those on Planet Earth who are adept at projecting thought forms into mass consciousness. Not all of these adepts have the highest and best intentions. It is possible to cultivate inner technologies without fully clearing fear and fear-based intentions from the energy field. Advanced capabilities are able to operate in the midst of fear and lower intentions. Time loops can be a destructive force. Even this is part of divine order. When we collectively and as individuals enter higher realms of seeing, we’re able to perceive virus-engineered realities and step free of time loops. Each Timeline has a Higher and Lower Octave Anytime we feel ourselves under attack or mired into thought viruses and other snares, we can go within and merge with the ocean of higher consciousness. This allows us to shift to a higher octave of the timeline we’re in. Every timeline has higher and lower octaves along its spectrum of potentials. As we shift into the higher version of our present life track, we are able to glimpse other life tracks of even higher resonance and potentials. We can then set our intention to shift to one of these life tracks. We can shift to any life track we can perceive. Traveling Life Track Meridians to Unify Consciousness It may happen at times our focus self shifts to a new life track yet other aspects of our consciousness remain attached to our previous timeline. When this happens, we can travel back along life track meridians to work with these aspects. Rather than try and convince these aspects to abandon the life track to which they are emotionally tethered, it’s best to offer them visions of new possibilities along new life tracks. If aspects of your consciousness are deeply rooted in a past timeline, you may undertake multiple journeys back to visit them. You won’t want to spend too much time traveling back in time, however. Often, when you have first entered a new timeline, it’s important to begin developing this new outpost, cultivating potentials and gaining a firm footing here. This may mean allowing other aspects to remain in the old timeline until your new outpost is firmly in place. When you are strongly focused in the new life track, you will find it easier to bring reluctant aspects into resonance with the new timeline. There can be feelings of less focus and a sense of ungroundedness when your energies are divided between timelines. This is not uncommon as major shifts sometimes result in such short term divisions. This condition is often short-lived, especially when you approach such transitions with awareness. Tracking your Multitude of Selves through Time We’re all multifaceted, comprised of many aspects or selves. You may be familiar with the concept of the inner child. We are each comprised of numerous inner children, inner teenagers, inner 20-year-olds and so on. If you keep a journal, you can look back over past years and months to find many different facets of your own consciousness. You are not the “you” of a year ago, two years ago etc. The acceleration of energies is shifting us through life tracks at warp speed these days. At times we have hardly centered ourselves in a new time frame when new potentials appear. At any given time we have a focus self in charge of navigating the segment of the energetic field through which we are presently moving. This self coordinates aspects of self, researches potentials and makes decisions designed to move us along our life path. In the past, focus selves were heavily weighted in managing third-dimensional realities. Those who are further along their spiritual path now find this is changing. As we move further into the new time our focus self becomes shamanic in nature, traveling time and dimensions as needed. Our focus self knows how to shift at will between third and fifth dimensions and is able to incorporate the higher frequencies of the new earth as they are encountered. Many focus selves are now exploring beyond the fifth dimension. Creating ‘Doorways’ of Access to the New Time The timelines of the new earth have always existed. Time is just a human construct created to measure and quantify segments of life experience. Time does not exist in the higher dimensions. We began collectively tuning into the timelines of the new earth years ago and used this beacon as a homing frequency. Many lightworkers are already transitioned to these timelines and are energizing these new life tracks, creating user-friendly “doorways” to make these timelines more accessible to increasing numbers of people. Steps to Activating New Earth Timelines If you are reading this you are here to help shift human consciousness to timelines of the New Earth. It is time now to bring yourself into a state of inner unity and physical alkalinity so you can carry out this mission of activating collective timelines of love, peace, and harmony. Some steps to facilitate this activation are: 1)Meditate. Meditation is more important than ever now. It helps harmonize all aspects of your being with New Earth timelines and brings you into direct communion with your higher self. As a shaman of the new time your first task is to bring about unity among your differing aspects so you can function as one unified being instead of a loose consortium of warring entities. When we are at war within ourselves, we project this state of disharmony into the outer world. Meditation is essential now to entrain all your ‘selves’ to frequencies of love, peace, and harmony. 2)Engage in regular creative “play”. Creative play helps to harmonize your inner selves. It also helps keep your imagination active and alive. Your imagination is the tool you use to envision and create the future. 3)Alkalinize your physical system. It’s important to bring your body into a highly alkaline condition to be able to adapt more quickly to timeline shifts. When we fine-tune our physical system, we are able to access and hold higher frequencies of light and make these accessible for others. Maintaining a light, alkaline diet of green smoothies, green soups and green juices greatly accelerates your movement along an accelerated path. You will find there are numerous non-animal sources of protein so there is no need to consume animals to live a healthy life. Consuming meat keeps you shackled to the dense, lower vibrational energies of the slaughterhouse. ©2010-2014 DL Zeta, Celestial Vision, All Rights Reservedwww.celestialvision.org These messages are intended to be shared. You are welcome to share and distribute this message with others as you feel guided to do so. Please be sure to include the author & source website link. For more on timeline and identity shifts, see Timeline and Identity Shifts: the New Science of Reality Creation For more on accessing the fifth dimension, see The Future is Here Now: Steps to Accessing Fifth-Dimensional Consciousness By DL Zeta For more on working with your future self, see Messages from the Future: Adopting Your Future Self as Guide and Mentor by DL Zeta

Five Strategies to Stop the Northern Gateway Pipeline from Being Built | Common Dreams

Five Strategies to Stop the Northern Gateway Pipeline from Being Built

by Brent Patterson(Credit: travis blanston/cc/flickr)The Harper government must announce its decision on the 525,000 barrels per day Northern Gateway tar sands export pipeline by midnight tomorrow.

On CTV’s Question Period yesterday, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, said, “We fully expected the Harper government to make every effort to ram this project through. But…there’s enormous solidarity here in British Columbia between First Nations people, British Columbians, Canadians, and we’ll do what’s necessary and whatever it takes to stop this project.”

Even if the Harper government approves the pipeline today or tomorrow, a range of strategies are being proposed to ensure the pipeline is never built:

BLOCKADE
The Unist’ot’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en people have set up a resistance camp on their traditional and unceded territory on the pathway of the pipeline. With the support of allies they are building and living in homes and structures to block the pipeline. Given the mountainous terrain of the area south of Houston in northern British Columbia, the pipeline cannot be rerouted to avoid the Unist’ot’en camp.

COURT CHALLENGES
Five challenges against the pipeline have already been filed in federal courts, and it’s expected that number could increase to about a dozen. The primary arguments are that the review panel failed to meet its legal obligation by consulting sufficiently with First Nations whose territories are on the pipeline route, and that by not considering the evidence of the impacts of an oil spill the panel erred in its finding that the pipeline would not have a ‘significant adverse environmental effect’.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association is holding workshops to instruct people on their rights in protests against the pipeline. At the request of local groups, workshops have already been offered in the northern communities of Kitimat, Prince Rupert, Smithers, Skedigate, Masset and Hazelton. Grand Chief Phillip has said that, “There is no question [that protesters would block bulldozers].”

REFERENDUM
The Dogwood Initiative is preparing to use provincial legislation that would allow a bill prohibiting the pipeline to be proposed if they can collect signatures from 10 per cent of the registered voters in each of the province’s 85 ridings. If approved to go to a public vote, and more than half of the voters cast ballots in support, the government must then introduce the bill in the legislature. This is how the harmonized sales tax measure was defeated in the province.

DEFEAT CONSERVATIVE MPs
Forest Ethics Advocacy and Leadnow have launched their ‘Enbridge 21’ campaign urging people to contact the 21 Conservative Members of Parliament in British Columbia to tell them they will “pay a political price” if their government approves the pipeline.

There undoubtedly be countless other ways the people will mobilize to ensure that this pipeline does not happen.

It is expected that the pipeline would take three years to build, meaning it could be operational by June 2017. But given the strategies noted above could delay construction of the pipeline for many years, Northern Gateway has been described as likely the first pipeline to be approved, but the last that would be built.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Brent Patterson is the Political Director at the Council of Canadians. He works with the Council’s chairperson Maude Barlow, its campaigners, organizers and chapters across the country on trade, energy, water, and health care issues. The Council has political staff in Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Halifax, Delhi, Durban and Mexico City.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/06/16-7

Truthout Daily Digest Monday, 16 June 2014

There are so many good, important articles in today’s Truthout digest. I hope this one will be shared widely.

I grew very weary (and wary) of the so called “insider” reports that seem to be a perpetual rehash of “some huge wonderful change is about to happen next week…no next week….no really next week…” that consistently raised hopes to dash them over and over like Charlie Brown, Lucy and that football he never did get to kick.

Unlike the bait and switch nonsense purveyors, Truthout doesn’t tell us what to think, or lead us on with false empty promises of easy street delivered free by invisible forces of good.

Truthout gives us the real background and insider truths about the really real world we actually live in, so that WE can do something about them.

The “wait for your handout” shtick and meme has ONE purpose which it is quite effective at accomplishing; getting YOU to sit back and quietly accept the creep of fascism.

Much like the boiled frogs who could have jumped out while the water was lukewarm; we are responsible for our apathy and gullibility. Like them we can choose to jump or to pay the incredibly high cost of waiting.

ohnwentsya

Dahr Jamail | Atmospheric CO2 Crosses “Ominous Threshold”

Dahr Jamail, Truthout: Despite the widespread governmental denial of anthropogenic climate disruption, many signs indicate we are already past the point of no return, headed toward a “dead planet.”

Read the Article

LA Judge Objects to School Police Getting Millions Reserved for Struggling Students

Susan Ferriss, The Center for Public Integrity: Los Angeles’ top juvenile court judge, Michael Nash, objects to a plan to divert $13 million – originally intended to go to disadvantaged kids – to school police.

Read the Article

Dean Baker | Doing for the Poor and Doing to the Poor

Dean Baker, Truthout: The government continues to pursue policies that continue high levels of unemployment. Instead of making policies that create more jobs, it has focused on reducing the deficit on the backs of the poor.

Read the Article

Recipe for Ripoffs

Emily Schwartz Greco and William A. Collins, OtherWords: Deals that amount to NAFTA on steroids benefit corporations and hurt the rest of us. With people taking a back seat to profits, it’s no wonder our leaders are negotiating pacts like the Trans-Pacific Partnership behind closed doors.

Read the Article

The Kauai Cocktail

Paul Koberstein, Cascadia Times: An analysis of new data reveals that highly toxic pesticides are being applied to GMO test fields on the Hawaiian island of Kauai at a much higher rate than on most US farms.

Read the Article

Bill Moyers | Wall Street’s Secret Weapon: Congress

Bill Moyers, Moyers & Company: Why haven’t any big bankers been prosecuted for their role in the housing crisis that led to the Great Recession? Wall Street’s secret weapon is a handful of Congressional lapdogs at the beck and call of the banks, eager to do their bidding.

Watch the Video

The White Family: A Case for National Action

Sikivu Hutchinson, The Feminist Wire: Although many white people have been negatively affected by the recession, the intense criminal policing of communities of color has buttressed white upward mobility.

Read the Article

Anti-Apartheid Archbishop Tutu Calls Presbyterians to Back Divestment From Israeli Occupation

Robert Naiman, Truthout: Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu urged Presbyterians, meeting in Detroit, to name Israel as an apartheid state and divest monies from certain companies that contribute to the occupation of the Palestinian people.

Read the Article

Health Care: Let’s Have People Over Profits Once and for All

The Daily Take Team, The Thom Hartmann Program: If we truly want to have a health care system that works for all, than we need to go back to the days before Reagan, when the medical industry wasn’t a cash cow for Wall Street bankers.

Read the Article

What We’ve Lost Since 9/11: Taking Down the First Amendment in the Post-Constitutional US

Peter Van Buren, TomDispatch: “Law” made in secret, including pretzeled legal interpretations by the Justice Department for the White House, opened the way to the use of torture on prisoners, and, in the Obama years, to the drone assassination of Americans.

Read the Article

How the NSA Criminally Aids Criminal Cases

Ray McGovern, Consortium News: Though the NSA says its mass surveillance of Americans targets only “terrorists,” the spying may turn up evidence of other illegal acts that can get passed on to law enforcement, which hides the secret source through a ruse called “parallel construction.”

Read the Article

Hawks Push for Iraq War; the Rule of Law Prevents It

Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance: It is evident to all, except those who want to go to war and refuse to follow domestic and international law, that no military intervention should be permitted without the approval of Congress and the United Nations.

Read the Article

BuzzFlash

Menacing Signs for Democracy: Pentagon Researches Nonviolent Protesters as Potential Terrorists

Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: Peaceful protest becomes regarded as a potential prelude to terrorism, perhaps because terrorism in the eyes of the government and military often is any (violent or nonviolent) threat to the economic status quo of empire.

Read the BuzzFlash Commentary

Real Goal of Iraq War in 2003: Oil and Inciting Terrorism to Create Permanent Conflict

Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Fomenting a Revolution: Extreme Acts of Greed Against the American People

Read the Article at BuzzFlash

An OB/GYN’s Open Letter to George Will About His Rape Column

Read the Article at Talking Points Memo

VA Punished Critics on Staff, Doctors Assert

Read the Article at The New York Times

Dispatches From Brazil’s World Cup: “No One Lives Here Anymore”

Read the Article at The Nation

Puerto Rico Unions Threaten Strike Against Austerity Budget

Read the Article at In These Times

Seven Talking Points You Need for Discussing the Iraq Crisis

Read the Article at Mother Jones