Norman Finkelstein Interview about the Goldstone Report

Here is a great interview with Norman Finkelstein on Democracy Now regarding the Goldstone report, which was conducted under the direction of the United Nations and found that Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes during the Israeli Assault on Gaza last year. View the video here.

US Steel Workers learn from Worker-owned Model

A great resource for Mormon Cooperativists in general, this recent article shows how one of the major labor unions in the US, the US Steel Workers, is teaming up with the famous Mongragon Worker-Owned Cooperative to implement the Worker-Owned model in the US.

http://www.solidarityeconomy.net/2009/11/03/steelworkers-aim-at-job-creation-with-worker-owned-factories/

The Mondragon Cooperative is also featured in Warner Woodworths book on Mormon Cooperativism Praxis “Working Toward Zion.”

Mustafa Barghouti on Daily Show

Very good and rare interview on American TV with Doctor Mustafa Barghouti.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-28-2009/exclusive—anna-baltzer—mustafa-barghouti-extended-interview-pt–1

Update:

I think the interview of Goldstone by Moyers is an important as well (h/t Daily Dish):

BILL MOYERS: Give me some more examples of what you see as a pattern in the destruction of the infrastructure.
RICHARD GOLDSTONE: Right. Well, I’d start with the bulldozing of agricultural fields, apparently pretty random. It wasn’t as though these farms were owned by Hamas militants. That’s, I haven’t seen that allegation made. The bombing of some 200 industrial factories. As I mentioned, the only flour-producing factory, the water supply facilities of Gaza, the sanitation facilities, which caused an overflow of filth and muck into well over a square kilometer of land.
BILL MOYERS: Do you know if these were targeted, or were they the consequence of actions aimed at militants?
RICHARD GOLDSTONE: Well clearly, there can be no question of militants running 200 factories. There can be no, we know, from our investigation, that the owner of the flour factory, in fact, had one of the rare documents the Israelis give which allowed the owner to go into Israel, he dealt with Israeli counterparts. He received, and it’s an interesting case, he received a warning to evacuate. He evacuated his staff. Nothing happened. They went back, and he made inquiries through a friend in Israel, who contacted the Israel Defense Force and said, “Don’t worry. They’re not going to bomb your factory.” They went back. A few days later, he gets another telephone call saying, “Evacuate.” Doesn’t come to him, it comes to their switchboard. He again makes inquiries. “Don’t worry. We’re not going to bomb.” So they go back. Nothing happens. Third warning to evacuate. They evacuate and they bomb the factory. Now if there was any militants involved, firstly, the Israelis know who they’re dealing with, they’d given him a document allowing him to go into Israel. It’s that sort of conduct which indicates to us an intent to punish civilians in Gaza for what their leaders were complicit in doing.
BILL MOYERS: It’s difficult for us, in this country, to understand this intimacy of self-destruction, you know, that you just described. A Gazan factory owner calls a friend in Israel, who calls the military, and then he calls back to the factory. I mean, that, just right across an invisible border, right?
RICHARD GOLDSTONE: It’s the sort of evidence which has some credibility to it. It’s not the sort of evidence that this man is going to concoct.

Bartolome Casa Day

Tomorrow we should celebrate “Bartolome de las Casa Day.”    Bartolome was a young Catholic Priest who made a copy of Columbus’ journal in which Columbus tells us of his  lust for gold and slaves and barbaric cruelty to the native indians.   Columbus’ first journal entry upon meeting the Arawak indians:  ”They brought us parrots and cotton and spears and many others things.  They willingly traded everything they owned.  They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.  They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance.  They had no iron.  They would make fine servants.  With fifty men we could subjugate them and make them to whatever we want.”  Through murder and torture he conscripted indians to search for gold.  Not finding the promised gold on his second voyage he had to fill up his ships with something, so he went on a great slave raid, picked up five hundred captives to take to Spain.  Two hundred died on the voyage.  The rest arrived alive in Spain and put up for sale by the local church official.  Said Columbus:

“Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.”

Bartolome preserved these records and added with fear and trembling the atrocities he observed in his book “The History of the Indies.”  The conscripted indians were treated as follows:

“As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and famished (starving) had no milk to nurse, them and for this reason while I was in Cuba 7,000 children died n the mines, wives died at work, and the children died in three months.  Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation.  In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk.  My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and how I tremble as I write..”

So tomorrow I will call it “Bartolome de Las Casa Day.”

1 Nephi 13:12 tells us of a “man among the Gentiles, ..and I beheld that the Spirit of God that it came down and wrought upon the man” and that man we have identified as Saint Christopher Columbus.  So what does that go to show us?  Well for me it shows me that the Lord can use an man as his instrument that can do mighty works but still have gold and power on his brain and afterwards  commit atrocities.  Go figure.

The day we collectively become Christians in deed and not word, I believe history will be rewritten accordingly.  Until then…”it is the way of the world.”

Reminder about Palestine Freedom March

On Saturday October 10th in Salt Lake City there will be a march to show solidarity with Gaza (in a previous post I mistakenly wrote that the march is on Sunday. It is this Saturday).

The march will begin at Pioneer Park near downtown Salt Lake and end at Sugar House Park, about 5 miles away. The march will take place in various cities throughout the country.

Start: 1pm SE Corner Pioneer Park 400 S 300 W
(Come early and enjoy the Farmers Market- 9am to 1pm)
Mid-pt. stop/start 2 pm Liberty Park-1300 S 700 E
End: 3 pm Sugar House Park, 2100 S 1300 E

UVU Revolutionary Students Union

There is a new student club at Utah Valley University in Orem called the Revolutionary Students Union. They host discussion groups about once a week, where a guest presents on a particular topic followed by some discussion. There is a discussion night tomorrow (thursday Oct. 8th) at the UVU student center room #206 (g/h) at 8:00 pm. For more details check about the group and future activities see this blog

Soldier for peace: Logan man wins Gandhi Peace Award

From the local newspaper in Logan, Utah.

A Logan man who garnered widespread notoriety for protesting the Iraq War will receive the Gandhi Peace Award.

Upon returning from a year in the war zone in 2006, Marshall Thompson, then 29, walked 500 miles from Cache Valley to the Arizona border to publicize his opposition to the war.

“I felt an urgency to … show Americans that soldiers can dissent and that supporting the troops is not in conflict with opposing the war,” said Thompson, who served as a journalist in the U.S. Army.

Read the full article here.

Thank God they are good example[s] of humanitarian behavior

These are the words of Fouad al-Rabiah, a “42-year old father of four children who had no history of any involvement with militancy or terrorism, and had, instead, spent 20 years at a management desk job at Kuwait Airways, and had an ownership interest in some health clubs. Moreover, he had a history of legitimate refugee relief work, having taken a six month approved leave of absence from work in 1994-95 to do relief work in Bosnia, having visited Kosovo with the Kuwaiti Red Crescent in 1998, and having made a trip to Bangladesh in 2000 to delivery kidney dialysis fluid to a hospital in the capital, Dhaka.”

These are the words he uttered when trying to flee Afghanistan he was captured by US soldiers. It is heartbreaking to read those words no in light of what al-Rabiah endured in the ensuing years.

Last Week, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered al-Rabiah’s release.

In the ruling, to put it bluntly, it was revealed that the U.S. government tortured an innocent man to extract false confessions and then threatened him until he obligingly repeated those lies as though they were the truth.

Gaza solidarity events

On Saturday October 10th in Salt Lake City there will be a march to show solidarity with Gaza, which as most know is still suffering from an Israeli embargo that has largely been in place since Hamas won the Palestinian elections in 2006. The embargo is causing a humanitarian disaster.

The march will begin at Pioneer Park near downtown Salt Lake and end at Sugar House Park, about 5 miles away. The march will take place in various cities throughout the country. For those that want to, you can register here, pay twenty bucks, and get a T-shirt for the event. If you don’t want to pay, simply show up.

Start: 1pm SE Corner Pioneer Park 400 S 300 W
(Come early and enjoy the Farmers Market- 9am to 1pm)
Mid-pt. stop/start 2 pm Liberty Park-1300 S 700 E
End: 3 pm Sugar House Park, 2100 S 1300 E

Also, if anyone wants to visit Gaza this winter, the anti-war women’s organization CODE PINK is organizing a March in Gaza on New Years day to protest the embargo. They are asking for as many people as possible to come from all over the world and will be arranging entry into the Gaza strip with the Egyptian authorities. For details see here. Gaza is a really special place and I feel very lucky to have been there. I think this would be a great experience for anyone who has the chance.

Single Payer Health Care

On saturday I heard a lecture by Joseph Jarvis, an LDS doctor here in Utah that is lobbying for single payer health care, but on the state rather than national level. He did a great job of explaining why the health care industry doesn’t operate according to the classic market principles, and why a single payer system would be a big improvement over the current system. He is part of an organization called the Utah Healthcare Initiative. Check out their website here. The site has alot of great information, a blog and some videos.