Not “US-Israel” as in an alliance, but U.S. Israel, protectorate.

L’audace of the savage Arabs to assassinate the white settlers one by one, or by means of uncivilized cafe bombs, defying France’s brutal measures to wall the terrorists off and impoverish them.

COLO. SPRINGS- Join IMPROMPTU PROTEST OF US-ISRAEL MILITARIZED REPRESSION. Protest Israel’s deadly raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. Called by Coloradans For Peace, Colorado Springs, Acacia Park, NOON. Pro-Palestinian, Free-Gaza, and all anti-imperial voices welcome. This Memorial Day, remember the USS Liberty!

I tell you what, if Bibi actually gets away with this shit, based on the defense he’s mounting, then Death Row inmates across America will be rejoicing. What’s the difference between Armed Robbery and Capital Murder? A twitch of the finger.
Israel and the U.S. have this habit of (AFTER killing usually large numbers of Civilians in “accidents”) insisting that they trained their Soldier/Cops to “minimize the risk” of blowing away civilians. That’s a God-Damn lie. If they were to do “everything we can” to not kill civilians, one of the first and the most important elements of such a policy would be Not Shooting In Their Direction. When IDF blew away KIDS in Gaza they accused the Palestinians of the murders that were committed through bullets coming from Israeli Galil Rifles (a reworked AK-47 that fires U.S. standard .30 caliber rounds) held by Israeli soldiers. In an action where the IDF were actively invading a country they themselves had formally recognized as being Not Israel.
Guess that when you declare a region to be SEMI autonomous it’s like what my cousin used to laugh about in advertising… a Semi-Boneless Steak. Does it have bones in it or not?
But a Semi-Autonomous country is one in which the Ruling Imperial Nation tells the peasants they won’t get any benefits of Citizenship but still have to obey King Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Although it had turned away from the coast, Israeli commandos boarded the Gaza Freedom Flotilla at 4am. Turkish TV is reporting two dead, thirty injured on the 600 passenger ship Mavi Marmara.
 
UPDATE: Israeli media reports 10 deaths, ships to be hauled to Israeli port instead of Egypt where reporters are waiting.

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AT 23:00GMT, two Israeli ships are approaching IHH Mavi Marmara, drones heard overhead, satellite connection becoming interrupted. Passengers have donned life jackets, some prepare gas masks, maybe equipment Israel may prefer not reach Gaza. Descending on Freedom Flotilla: one large destroyer is visible, three total on radar. Challenger I reports being contacted as well. Blinking lights of something hovering above. Abbas Al Lawati writing from Marmara.
UPDATE: Inflatables approaching ship as communications cease.

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Militarism as preached to the recruits is that the Army (navy air force marines same difference) is your new god. And that soldiers have no value as individuals. Throwing their lives and service training away on Corporate Wars like Afghanistan and Iraq, repeatedly telling them outrageous and transparent lies like “You’re Fighting For Freedom” or that retarded Warrior Code that says they’re on a War-path to avenge an assault on their tribe WTF? Written by Karl Rove or some similar NeverCombatant… and demanding that they believe it. That only reinforces the notion that they have no individual human value. They get their ass shot off in some far corner of the Empire, hey, no biggie. Just replace the dead or maimed soldier with another one who, for all the Army cares, exactly the same. Like a broken firing pin in a rifle. Just replace “it”.

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First among the Israeli navy’s expressed strategies to confront the international relief convoy approaching Gaza was to “pick off the participants before they could join the convoy.” Today only five of intended nine ships have made it to the rendezvous. Sailing from Ireland, the MV Rachel Corrie has been impeded by propeller trouble, while both Challenger I and II suffered irregularities with their steering hydraulics. Suspicions of sabotage are not assuaged by fact that the healthier Turkish ships were not as easily accessible to agents. Less expected was the move, with the cooperation of Greek Cyprus, to prevent key passengers of the convoy to join the ships. Most predictable: media silence.

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NATO countries only a tip of that. Russia, China, all of Africa and South America combined, that’s a monstrous amount of money being spent on weapons. Our Really Good Friends on the Right Wing insist that the reason Africa is so impoverished with regards to feeding and providing health care for the peoples thereof is that the nations spend so much money on Weapons and making war on each other. Michael “Savage” Weiner harps on this theme a lot, because to his twisted little Racist mind it shows the native inferiority of The Natives. But nary a word that the Enlightened, Epitome of Civilization America outstrips not only Africa, but the “superior” Western Civilization as a whole, whose spending on war in turn outstrips Africa.

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As in, the first named storm of the season. So far, 12 killed in Guatemala. Oh, and we were duly informed that the Top Kill maneuver failed. If it’s any consolation to us they didn’t wait two weeks to tell us that. A bit of further consolation, such as it is, this poisoning of the ocean has the potential to end America’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. NATO as a whole, too, because the rest of the NATO countries are facing budget crisis and crises, the first shared and the second individual, country by country case by case. The core of it isn’t socialized medicine or public welfare programs. The core of it is NATO itself, with the NATO mission of buying more expensive equipment, hiring more soldiers and not fighting one single God-Damn war that isn’t strictly for the benefit of the Wealthiest individuals on the planet. No wars of Defense, no wars for Freedom, or Nation Building, all that is window dressing, sham, frosting on a cake that’s baked from the mortal remains of the Imperialist Manifesto. A manifesto that’s written in not one document, nor book… but the death records of hundreds of millions of people, civilian, military, or militant, the ones described in 1916 as “The Great Fallen”.

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First the MV Rachel Corrie suffered a breakdown shortly after leaving port. Then the Challenger I lost its steering mechanism and another Greek ship has to return to port. Though derided by Israeli critics as “tin buckets,” the ships had been certified sea-worthy before the convoy set sail. Suspicions about system failures can wait until proper investigations. Cyprus denied the Challenger permission to harbor for repairs, so its passengers were transshipped to the Mavi Marmara, and the convoy delayed its rendezvous. The revised timing will deny the Israeli navy a chance to attack during the night. The relief ships will not be approaching the contested waters off Gaza until after daybreak.

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“FBI Interrogator getting Saddam to give the truth about his WMDs without the use of torture”
!. The PIGS never ask any questions without violence or the threat of violence. It’s their Coward Way.
2.The first wave of troops over the border would have found the WMDs the hard way if they had even existed.
3. The PIGS already knew before throwing the first wave of soldiers over the border that the WMDS were a Fucking Lie. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown already admitted that.
4.The non-existence of those weapons was already established before Saddam Hussein was captured.

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BP of course. “Show me the oil” “Oil? What Oil?” (though the Republican governors of the Gulf states are shitting white about what’s happening, their anointed mouthpieces at Fox still insist on downplaying it). But to the Nonexistent eco-disaster of the poisoning of the ocean (and a third of the waters of the world were turned to blood and all that lived within the sea died) (Did somebody ask for a religious perspective? No? Got one anyway didn’t we.) We get to add the Nonexistent Climate Change that the Fox Propagandists loudly denounced especially this winter) is going to Not Produce twice as many named tropical storms and 75% more hurricanes this year than normal. In Fox-speak, this was Not Announced this morning by NOAA, who were set up and funded through such Liberal institutions as the Military and the Shipping Industry. Oh, and for a big bonus, these non-existent hurricanes won’t be in the Gulf where the Other non-existent hurricanes never were either. This of course won’t affect the non-existent environmental rescue operations that aren’t going on all along the Gulf coast. Did somebody say “Katrina”?

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For Memorial Day we’ve got a Stryker Brigade in Southern Afghanistan caught executing Afghan civilians and beating comrades who objected. They want our backing yet cannot support fellow soldiers who choose not to commit war crimes. Which should we?
 
So long as our murderous GIs aren’t wearing Nazi armbands, Americans stand behind them.

Hey! Let’s seize this opportunity to get around the usual US media blackout on sympathy-for- Palestine activism. American members of Stand With Us, the Israeli outreach group on American college campuses, do YOU stand against the relief convoy defying Israel’s naval blockade to bring humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinians of Gaza? StandWithUs is forming an IDF-booster fleet to protest the Gaza Freedom Flotilla as it seeks passage between the Israeli navy ships.

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President Obama let America know at a press conference today that he OWNS this Katrina. BP’s failure is his failure. BP’s lie is now superseded by a minimalization of his own. More bad news about attempts to halt it, nevermind, the Federal Government’s in charge. What does it mean to say the buck stops here if all you’re really doing is stopping it? We’ve got a president playing the bag man on this environmental catastrophe, just as he’s taking responsibility for Bush’s foreign policy and Wall Street’s theft. Instead of pursuing our interests, he’s taking the fall. Except he’s in the position to say “so sue me.”

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What a news flash! except the reports have an ugly habit of adding another digit to the estimated flow. That multiplies by TEN. And this is today’s report.
Meanwhile, the head of MMS, the “Mineral extraction lease” division of Bureau of Land Management/Department of the Interior was sacked. For whatever it’s worth, the agency is top-heavy with folks who weren’t appointed by Bush. Bottom heavy too. Or by Obama.
We’re talking about a hard core enclave of Reaganite Sucks here. Deregulation and so-called “Free” Market at its lowest possible point, zenith at the highest, nadir at the lowest, well, this is lower than nadir.

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We got our satellite TV today, and on History International there’s “History’s Mysteries”. War Profiteer/Wall Street Weasel (ok, so the European version thereof) financier Lownstein is flying across the English Channel. End of life history is he’s reported to go to the bathroom in his private plane and disappeared Found dead later. My thought, the crew took out the trash and jettisoned it over the Channel. Good riddance to bad rubbish. So why is an 80 year old murder important? The commercials. Borrow money from this start-up upstart bank that I’ve not heard of before. Buy gold. Sell your “unwanted” gold at a smaller price of course.

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A Gaza Flotilla PR mishap, as minor as a participant speaking out of place, was seized upon by one reporter to suggest rivalry between co-sponsors of the relief convoy due to convene Saturday at Gaza’s door. When an interviewee said “Free Palestine Movement” instead of “Free Gaza,” the reporter recalled scenes from Monty Python’s Life of Brian and the mortal rivalry between the “People’s Judean Front” and the “People’s Front of Judea,” often understood to lampoon the PLO and it splinter groups. Haha. But why didn’t the reporter mention Python’s other irreverent terrorist gang also fighting the Roman occupation: the uber-Zionist Nazirene? Because Otto and the Nazirene, that’s right, not Nazarene, were cut from the video when control was wrestled from Monty Python for the rights.

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Oh, but the Westside Pioneer played it up, General Palmers Castle, (built on treaty land that still doesn’t belong to him or his heirs) the site of a Boy Scout Camporee. For those unfamiliar with Scouting, it’s the regional version of the annual Jamboree. The Jamboree will feature scout troops from all over the world. Where Scouts go to learn and teach scout skills. Same with a Camporee. And the skills the Scouts practiced last weekend? Being free labor to clean up the property of one of the richest families in Colorado.

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Two vessels from the Gaza-bound humanitarian aid convoy met up this morning between the Aegean Islands of Amorgos and Astypalaia. The Swedish/Greek cargo Ship To Gaza FREE MEDITERRANEAN (formerly the Sofia) is now cruising along side the SFENDONI, a passenger ship for the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza. More pictures at Xstefanou’s the Press Project and at Equal Society.
(Below are updated photos of the growing fleet.)

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Actually, they miscalculated just how much…

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PICTURES! -Some very expensive yachts sailed from Herziliya Yacht Club in a feint of indignation that an international social justice effort was showing favoritism toward Palestinians. No Gaza yacht club could be reached for a response. Commodore Guy Bechor, an outspoken Zionist, led the ostentatious flotilla in protest of the humanitarian aid convoy attempting to break the siege of Gaza, which he belittled as “rusty tin cans.”

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BP to make decision on ‘top kill’ plan to stem oil leak uhh… Yeah. Like they’re in a position to dictate terms. If they really ARE in a position to dictate terms then we, the people of the world, are well and truly screwed. (I was going to say “fucked” but then that would be potty mouth) I realize that “The Crown” has a large investment in BP as well as the BBC. They also have a large investment in the continuing occupation and attempted subjugation of Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Gaza and coming soon to a War Theatre near you, Iran. The term “calling the shots” almost applies, it’s really an artillery term for the person who looks to see where the shells have hit and tells the cannoneers, essentially firing blind from their perspective (deaf, too) to adjust the angles of the gun-barrels to hit the targets more precisely. The “targets” being “Human Beings” a point that I compel myself to make at every opportunity.
But who gets to “call the shots”?

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Celebrated reporter -and verb- Robert Fisk had harsh words, “danger words” he called them, for host Al-Jazeera where he gave an address about the language of power which has infected newsman and reader alike. Beware your unambiguous acceptance of empty terms into which state propagandists let you infer nuance: power players, activism, non-state actors, key players, geostrategic players, narratives, external players, meaningful solutions, –meaning what?
I’ll not divulge why these stung Al-J, but I’d like to detail the full list, and commit not to condone their false usage at NMT, without ridicule, “quotes” or disclaimer.

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President Obama signed off on the Daniel Pearl Freedom of Press Act, surrounded by friends and colleagues of the former WSJ reporter who was slain in pursuit of al-Qaeda, while infiltrating Pakistan as if working for one of America’s loudest War-on-Islam propaganda drummers wasn’t pushing it. Taking the theme of don’t-kill-journalists at face value however, are there provisions in the act to exclude the US and its allies?

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