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Solo Gaza relief ship Dignite Al Karama presses on for the dignity of Palestine
Not only have nation states refused to sanction humanitarian relief missions to illegally besieged Gaza, events this week prove they are unanimous in prohibiting even citizens doing it themselves. Yet, one brave vessel has eluded sabotage, lawsuit, bureaucracy, and Greece’s Coast Guard paramilitaries. French Freedom Flotilla II participant DIGNITE AL KARAMA presses on alone to break the siege of Gaza. Without media escort, television cameras or witnesses, the crew of eleven, joined by print reporter Quentin Girard, will have only their cellphones to apprise the world audience of their progress against the bellicose reception which Israel has promised awaits any transgressors of its 63 year occupation and subjugation of Palestine, including its open-air prison called Gaza.
UPDATES: Dignite incercepted by Greek Coast Guard while refueling in Ormos Kouremenos, Crete. Taken under escort to Xinthya, where it’s promised they will be able to leave in the morning. Translation of French article below.
Flotilla for Gaza: The “Dignity” intercepted by Greek coast guard.
For two hours, late Wednesday afternoon, the “Dignity” is moored at Ormos Kouremenos, a small port in the far east of Crete. It needs to replenish fuel one last time before sailing to Gaza.
Suddenly, as it has already replentished 1,000 liters and is awaiting a second delivery, a gunboat of the Greek coast guard emerges. The passengers immediately understand. In this small bay where there are only fishing boats made of wood, they know it is there for them. The gunboat approaches, also an unmarked car.
The Coast Guard ask politely for our papers. Thus began a two-hour discussion and document control board where everything is carefully checked. Activists trample board.
“It’s too bad”, everyone is thinking. This was the last step before the big crossing. A dozen men in uniform, very polite, surround the Dignity. The phone calls multiply, presumably to refer to a distant authority. The Coast Guard require passports, they carefully register the names.
They don’t find much wrong with the boat. The captain didn’t have a logbook and the marina’s entry fee, 30 euros, hadn’t yet been tendered. Except that in this small fishing harbor, there was no place to declare one’s arrival. We must wait. Passengers prepare to eat, the menu that night, chicken pasta, coppa and lentils.
“We’re Very Sorry”
Eventually the Coast Guard announced that we must follow them to another port to sign authorizations and that the “Dignity” will be able to leave the next morning. It’s 10PM.
In the meantime they keep the boat’s papers to make photocopies. They ensure that there is no problem. One of them apologized repeatedly: “Sorry.” Omeyya Seddik, one of the passengers replied, “You’re doing your jobs, that’s normal.”
The “Dignity” is off again into the night toward the port of Xinthya, escorted by the Coast Guard boat which heads off without delay. Too fast. Many times it seems to disappear into the night as if really she doesn’t want to be followed.
The passengers do not know how to react. What to do? Keep a slim hope? Or immediately broadcast our circumstances and risk making it certain we will not be able to leave as promised. They doubt, they got the impression there were only Greeks among the Coast Guard and the people who were roaming around taking pictures.
Three days they are at sea, three days playing cat and mouse without knowing really if there was a cat. The dignity might perhaps not get to Gaza. It was the only ship of the “Freedom Flotilla” that managed to sail and keep up the hope of getting to Gaza. It went a little further than others, probably not enough. “We remain committed” they declare. “Tomorrow if we can go, we will continue to Gaza.”
RADIO INTERVIEW: Quentin Gerard explains: “This boat has become a strong political symbol.”
AWAITING CONFIRMATION: Swedish aid ship JULIANO still hopes to make a convoy. (Broadcasting live at http://ustre.am/zQHM)
As it stands, authorities have blocked or sabotaged 9 of the 10 vessels known to be sailing in the aid convoy. They are: The Audacity of Hope, Tahrir, Saorise, Juliano, Guernica, Louise Michel, Dignite Al Karama, Stefano Chiarini, Freedom for All, and the Methimus II.
Aboard the DIGNITE: Activists: Olivier Besancenot, Annick Coupé, Nabil Ennasr, Jacqueline Le Corre, Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, Osama Mouftah, Julien Rivoire, Omeyya Seddik; crew: Hilaire, Vincent and Yannick; not pictured: photographer/reporter Quentin Girard.
See their pictures at Liberte.fr.
Updated Facebook page statement of DIGNITY delegation:
La déclaration des camarades à bord du bateau
Message of the French delegation on board the Dignité Al Karama: The Freedom Flotilla is not dead!
Our presence at sea, on the Dignity-Al Karama, permits us to carry on the message of the international campaign of the Freedom Flotilla II and of the French Un Bateau Pour Gaza campaign. The statements by the Israeli authorities proclaiming the end of the Freedom Flotilla II, praising the Greek government acts as freedom of expression and actions of a civil society are now dead words.
We are at sea, and the collected national coalitions are not giving up.
States should no longer be complicit in this criminal blockade, and cannot silence the urge of civil society that simply demands, through this nonviolent action, the enforcement of law by permanent lifting of the blockade of Gaza.
We call on all justice-loving citizens to strengthen the effort, to allow the Dignity-Al Karama and all boats of the flotilla to go to Gaza.
Girard latest Tweets:
July 6, 3:36
Besancenot at the helm, small salad, sea of oil. Nickel.July 6, 3:37
On the boat we wonder about the latest of the mercato and of the Tour de France. Any news?July 6, 5:29
@JAntiwilders Dignity Is still heading to Gaza.July 6, 5:29
@yanouz FT1 will not be on the boat evidently.July 6, 6:19
@GirardTh Not too much wind, calm sea, it’s a change from the Atlantic.July 6, 6:33
@JpKphotographer Yes, will you follow me? We need press agency photos.July 6, 11:09
Did the Greek-Swedish ship manage to leave the port of Athens? Really?
In the original French:
3:36 – 06.07
Besancenot à la barre, petite salade, mer d’huile. Nickel.3:37 – 06.07
Sur le bateau on s’inquiète des dernières nouvelles du mercato et du tour de France. Des news?5:29 – 06.07
@JAntiwilders dignity is still heading to Gaza.5:29 – 06.07
@yanouz F1 ne viendra pas sur le bateau apparemment.6:19 – 06.07
@GirardTh pas trop de vent, mer calme, ça change de l’Atlantique.6:33 – 06.07
@JpKphotographer oui, tu me rejoins? Ils ont besoin de photographes dagence de presse.11:09 – 06.07
Le bateau greco suédois aurait réussi à sortir du port d Athènes? Vrai?
French craft DIGNITY breaks for Gaza, leads Flotilla II until rest allowed to go
UPDATED– In a flurry of conflicting tweets, French Flotilla II member DIGNITE AL KARAMA made for the open sea, beyond the reach of Greek authorities currently detaining the AUDACITY OF HOPE, TAHRIR, LOUISE MICHEL, GUERNICA, JULIANO and others. Reporter Quentin Girard has been communicating the DIGNITY’s progress, its eight activists electing last night to complete their run all the way to Gaza.
The French vessel escaped Greece on a technicality, as a pleasure craft, the Dignity is not confined by the regulations being used to block the larger Flotilla participants. Aboard the Dignity with Girard, are Olivier Besancenot, Julien Rivoire, Omeyyaa Sedic, Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, Annick Coupé, Nabil Ennasr. (Both Coupé and Besancenot are registered on Twitter, but neither has communicated yet.)
Girard’s most recent tweets, translated:
July 5, 3:02
All is well thank you 🙂 but we were in an area where reception was bad.July 5, 3:15
Despite what we can read, the Dignity is still in international waters. It will be there in one hour.July 5, 7:41
The passengers of the Dignity have finally come to the decision (only now really) to go to Gaza.July 5, 8:19
TF1 should attempt to rejoin Dignity and embark.July 5, 8:43
We’re moving again after a “media” pause on the high seas. 15 hours of sea left before I might go silent. Kisses!July 5, 12:19
Into the night the DIGNITY continues its advance. In the distance, small lights.July 5, 13:38
Not really enough beds for everyone, so I sleep under the stars on the upper deck. beautiful sky.
In their original French:
05.07 3:02
tout va bien merci 🙂 mais on était dans un endroit où ça captait mal.05.07 3:15
Malgré ce qu’on peut lire le Dignité n’est pas encore dans les eaux internationales. Il y sera dans une heure.05.07 7:41
Les passagers du Dignité viennent de prendre enfin (seulement maintenant vraiment) la décision d’aller jusqu’à Gaza05.07 8:19
TF1 devrait tenter de rejoindre le Dignité et embarquer dessus05.07 8:43
On bouge à nouveau après une pause “média” en haute mer. C’est parti pour 15h de mer, où je risque d’être silencieux. Des bises.05.07 12:19
Dans la nuit le dignité avance toujours. Au loin, des petites lumières.05.07 13:38
Pas vraiment de couchettes pour tout le monde, donc je dors à la belle étoile, sur le pont supérieur. Beau ciel
Below is the Girard’s July 5 article in the LIBERTE.FR (auto-translated, sorry, until I can review it)
En route to Gaza, “Dignity” is appealing to the media
The French ship of the “freedom flotilla” sailing in international waters off the coast of Greece. The crew decided to go to Gaza.
By QUENTIN GIRARD special envoy on the “Dignity”
16 hours in Greece, somewhere in international waters, on Tuesday afternoon. After much discussion, the Dignity passengers finally made their decision. They will go to Gaza. A bit surreal moment where the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, they set up banners and make an official statement.
When they left the industrial port of Salamina, Monday morning, they did not really know how far they try to go. There, as they finally arrived in international waters a little to 15 hours – after wet night in a small cove – they say they are determined. “We’re going to Gaza. The French and international community officially announced that they supported us regardless of our decision, “enthuses Julien Rivoire, one of the spokesmen of the campaign. “But to get there, we also need the media, as TV join us to show our work and safety issues,” he continues.
In the distance we see no island, not even a few freighters, these little black spots that usually reassuring scattered throughout the year. “We wanted to show that we could block the Greek blockade, says Julien Rivoire. It once was that we wondered what we were doing then. ”
Return to France? Impossible
That same morning, the discussion was intense as ever on the Dignity. What to do? Return to France? Impossible for them. Go to another country such as Tunisia symbolic to wait, to show that it is a stopover? Why not, it’s better, they say. But no. The only viable solution they think is necessary. Go to Gaza. “You have the dignity to the end represents French and international committees,” argues Olivier Besancenot.
“The important thing that determines the political feasibility, technical feasibility, must be as representative as possible and supported,” Nabil Esnari continues, President of the Association of Muslims in France. “We do not want to be seen as Islamic-leftist Khmer-green-act in our corner,” says the MP-Europe Ecology Nicole Kiil-Nielsen.
“My preference would be to go to Gaza without delay,” takes on Olivier Besancenot position as others. “Our protection is proof that we exist, we continue to move forward. We can not afford to become a ghost ship. ”
There remains the question of technical means. The Dignity is a small yacht of 15 meters long, categorized craft. It was originally one of the smaller boats in the fleet. He has no self to go off the ridge to Gaza. It would necessarily need to be refueled and water en route. Hence the difficulty that there will in the coming hours to coordinate the political ambitions and technical means.
A small creek, goats, and … Sea
But they want confident. The twelve passengers (1) are refreshed by their two days at sea after a week of pitfalls in Athens. Although the coup, the Greek landscapes provide a particular coloration to the adventure. In the capital locked up in meeting rooms to multiply the points and plan protests, the mood was serious and solemn. Not even have time to visit the Acropolis.
There hard to escape the Greek islands. On the night of Monday and Tuesday, the Dignity was anchored in a cove of a small island. In the morning, passengers were woken up by goats with bells tinkle merrily. A shepherd ran along the cliff, the whoop, some small white houses with blue shutters, of steep cliffs, the water so beautiful … “In the morning, you go through three stages,” said Olivier Besancenot. “First you wake up, you do not know where you are, then you look around you and you say,” oh yes, it’s beautiful. ” And just after you wonder what’s next meeting, what is the plan that will be put in place. ”The Plan: Gaza, having embarked with TVs. Maybe he will change in the coming hours. Meanwhile, the Dignity vogue. Engine noise makes deaf. The smell of fuel oil a little drunk. In front, nothing. The sea, just the sea.
(1) On board were three crew members, eight activists – Olivier Besancenot addition there are Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, MP, Europe-ecology, Annick Coupe, spokesman for the union Solidarity trade union, or Nabil Ennasr, President the Collective of Muslims in France – and a journalist, the author of these lines.
The earlier July 4 Liberte.fr article:
On board the “Dignity”, en route to Gaza
A French ship with a few activists on board, including Olivier Besancenot and Annick Coupé, eventually left Athens and headed to Gaza despite the obstacles. The “flotilla to Gaza” is reduced to its simplest expression. The story of our special correspondent on the deck of “Dignity.”
By QUENTIN GIRARD special envoy on the “Dignity”
“The pins in the plastic, it will not be possible,” said Olivier Besancenot, in full session yourself. 11 hours on Monday, in a small Greek port. The Dignity Al Kamara, one of two ships of the French committee for Gaza, left at dawn the creek near the industrial town of Salamina, where he had hidden for three days. In another cove where he made a first step, the passengers – including Besancenot, so – try to install the satellite antenna to communicate with the outside world.
3 o’clock this morning, Julien Rivoire, a member of the NPA and a spokesman for the campaign called “Wake the captain, we’re back.” Between them and the small annex that links with the boat, watchdogs of the port or adjacent businesses. They bark violently at night. They fail to wake the whole neighborhood. Tunisian Omeyyaa Sedic and Julien Rivoire, equipped with the latest load required, can not pass. Latest in a series of tragicomic events that marked the week of the fleet. “We’re not James Bond, it is OSS 117” is trying to be amused Julien Rivoire finally climbing on Dignity.
Plaisance
Sunday evening, the decision was made. It was long in coming, interspersed with calls to Iniohos Hotel where the rest of the delegation. A consensus is emerging: the Dignity attempt to leave no matter what. This small yacht 13 meters long, having left France ten days ago, has a status of “craft” and is theoretically not subject to the same prohibition to start than other boats of the delegation.
On Friday, an American ship tried starting one. Saturday, the captain was imprisoned. It could several years in prison for having left without permission. After several announcements bullies, to show their determination and their will as strong as ever to go to Gaza to bring humanitarian assistance, the committees have defected last one after the other. Masters of Spanish ships and Canada have announced that they did not want to take as many risks as they were sure they could not be more than thirty meters. The former president of Greenpeace France, Alain Connan, captain of the main French ship Louise Michel, after long hesitation, agreed with this position, some attracted by the Greek jails.
He went to ask permission to start at the harbor. Refused of course. The passengers were then organized a demonstration on the deck of Louise Michel. They simulated a departure. They should all file a complaint for obstruction of freedom of movement in the afternoon.
Parano
5 o’clock this morning, the Dignity springs. The sun is not up yet. Some cargo ships moving in the distance. Around him, two or three carcasses that rust for too many years, the ferry may be ready to leave but which seem, at dawn, desperate still. Twelve boats, twenty-two different nationalities and several hundred passengers announced, the fleet is now reduced to three crew members, eight militants – Olivier Besancenot addition there are Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, MP europe-ecology, Annick Coupe, spokesman for the union Solidarity trade union, or Nabil Ennasr, president of the Collective of Muslims in France – and a journalist, the author of these lines.
The Dignity enters the channel. In the distance, lights, shadows indistinct, but no coastguard. Surprise among the passengers. They believed they were identified and a small star suddenly arise between two cargo ships to stop them. For two days, each gull, each fishing boat, each jet-ski with the big guys who spend every man piss in the night under the white lights of the port is an opportunity when paranoid.
To starboard there. A port, nothing. In the distance behind, already, the lights of Athens. The sun appears between two hills. After a week of failure or disruption, and the blows of fate have joined forces to keep them in port, for the first time the French committee actually managed something in Greece. They feel like defeat stress, even if they are tired, even if the tension is palpable at times between them, although discussions and waiting endlessly sometimes not.
Determination
Of course, they know that this little boat is not much. That Israel, obviously, has won the game this time and that the only issue that remains is to show that they have tried everything, it’s not a “fucking failure”, as stated Besancenot. Certainly they know that it is unlikely to go to Gaza, especially alone. Unless a Greek ship to join them. The committee led by Vengelis Pissias announced that they had a new, third, a “surprise” that the authorities do not know. But they have promised so many things since the beginning of last week …
The Dignity vogue. It will reach international waters in a few hours if not arrested by the Coast Guard before. There, passengers will make official statements. They expressed their determination against the blockade of Gaza and denounced the attitude of the international community against them. They then announce the next steps. If there is a sequel.
June 25 Le Monde article:
Gaza flotilla II imminent departure
A year after the arrest of a murderer off the first convoy of Israel, a new international fleet prepares to sail to Gaza to try to break the blockade imposed on the Palestinian enclave. Unlike last year, two French ships involved in the operation.
The first of these ships, the “Louise Michel”, is currently in Greece. The second, “Dignity-Al Karama” sailed this morning from the Ile-Rousse in Corsica. I get on one of them and try to deliver on this blog Monde.fr the story of the expedition.
A campaign launched in October 2010
This project, called “A French boat to Gaza” would not be possible without the 600,000 euros of the money raised during the campaign launched in October under the leadership of the combined platform of French NGOs for Palestine and the National Collective for a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Nearly 70 organizations (associations, political parties and unions) were involved in mobilization. From Lille to Marseille via Strasbourg, Toulouse or Alencon, speakers and activists around the country. Three-week tour in February. “It was a real success,” testifies Julien Rivoire, a member of the New Anti-Capitalist Party and the coordinating committee of the campaign. “It happened in the markets with a sound truck, banners, leaflets and a bank. In Toulouse, the Mirail, 600 euros were collected in two hours. It was during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. There was a particular climate, people were saying ‘it is possible to make a difference “.
SNOWBALL EFFECT
Driven by this momentum, mobilizing snowballed, quickly exceeding traditional activist circles. Events, exhibitions, film screenings or symbolic release of paper boats … In the end, more than 1,500 events are held across France. Donations tributary. “We never imagined that the movement would take on such a scale,” comments Maxim Guimberteau, communications officer of “A French boat to Gaza.”
“I feel that this campaign has awakened people. A real fervor has replaced the fatalism that had won many former activists involved in the pro-Palestinian,” observes Alain Bosc, and member of the Cimade Coordinating Committee of “A boat to Gaza”. Very relayed in associations, the initiative has been enthusiastically received in poor neighborhoods and in particular “to the French families of Arab origin, sensitive to the Palestinian question and the fate of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip.”
90% of individual donations
Many structures such as the Christian Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development (CCFD-Terre Solidarity) or the Christians of the Mediterranean have also mobilized their networks. An appeal, launched at the initiative of the Archbishop of Sens-Auxerre and bishops of Troyes and La Rochelle, was sent to all dioceses to encourage the faithful “to a special place in their personal prayer and a community for the second flotilla of freedom to achieve its objectives in the service of peace. ”
The result of all collected 600 000 euros, 90% of donations come from individuals. According to organizers, “most people participated at 5, 10 or 50 euros.” Added to the contributions of the signatory organizations, grants from several local and payment of the foundation “A world for all.” All support checks were made payable to the Movement against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples (MRAP), which opened a special account to centralize. “Everything was done in a transparent, ensures the collective. We have not accepted money from foreign countries or associations.”
46 PEOPLE IN FRENCH VESSELS
The funds raised were allocated to the purchase of two vessels, the formation of crews, and communications expenses. “Chartering vessels is what has been the most difficult in the end, recognizes Alain Bosc. We’re not owners, there have been some setbacks.”
Finally, 46 people are expected on board. Alongside the militants of the various associations involved in the campaign, carrying several personalities from the political or voluntary, as Olivier Besancenot (NPA), the Communist deputy in Le Havre, Jean-Paul Lecoq, MEP Nicole Kiil-Nielsen (EELV) the Breton sailor Jo Le Guen, or Julien Bayou, the collective “Out of colonialism.”
From June 25 FRANCE3
The “Dignity-Al Karama”, a 19-meter boat flying the French flag, left the waters of the Ile-Rousse to 11:15. It must join in the next ten to twelve days boats that make up the flotilla to Gaza.
“The entire fleet will sail next week from various Mediterranean ports,” Julien Rivoire told AFP a committee member coordinating the French countryside. Ships, including two freighters carrying medical supplies, “should reach the port of Gaza at the end of next week,” he added. Among them, a cargo bought a quarter of France and the rest of Sweden, Norway and France, making the “Dignity” the only boat in the fleet entirely French.
“We hope we can do it so as to breach the blockade,” said Omeyya Seddik, a passenger on the “Dignity”, reached by telephone by the AFP, for whom “joy is the feeling that dominates the time of departure. “This fleet is part of “the natural continuation of the revolution for freedom and democracy,” in Arab countries, said Seddik, of Tunisian origin.
Before taking off, a passenger on the boat at the stern hoisted a Palestinian flag and made the “V” for victory.
Help this Settler-Zombie video go viral before totalitarian zombiehood spreads
OMGoodness, finally a settler video to go viral. There’s no bashing of Palestinian heads, no brandishing of guns, no drunken West Bank Settler mob on the rampage, nothing Youtube can censor, it’s pure comic theater! Here is a proverbial fat bully lurching as best he can, goading, coaxing, even screaming primordially, itching to pummel the young Palestinian cameraman who stays nimbly out of reach.
The scenario is spelled out in the Youtube comments, the cameraman is trying to document his friends’ efforts to tend their West Bank land, while Israeli Settlers repeatedly force police confrontations which result in the area being declared “militarized” and thence, theirs. While the cameraman observes, an angry settler who is already trying to allocate the land for his vineyard decides to run him off with brute force.
The ZOMBIE characterization describes Deutch’s particular Lurch-like lack of agility, but the relentless advance is a disturbing body language of Israeli Settler aggression. The hopped-up settlers move upon Palestinians with the confidence that their victims are unarmed and dare not strike back, that the Palestinian can presume that their attackers might have guns, and that sympathetic policemen have the the Israelis’ back. So yes, when it’s an able-bodied young settler advancing at a clip, clapping his fist, looking to draw blood, the effect is less comic.
Obviously, most settler videos are violence porn. Not this one — if you ignore what would have happened had Moshe Deutch got his mitts on him. That footage of course would not have survived.
Be sure to watch the follow-up, where a younger settler arrives at a gallup to reinforce Moshe Deutch’s stalled advance. The cameraman is forced to run, then looks on as the settlers slash all four tires of his car. It’s the high price he pays, but he’s got the West Bank’s Funniest Home Video.
Solidarity rally for Gaza Aid Flotilla II called off in Christian-Zionist Springs
Humanitarian rights activists aboard the Canadian Flotilla II aid ship bravely try to block the pilot’s view as Greek forces commandeer the TAHRIR before it reached international waters. While Greece is denounced for its complicity with Israel, the international press offered no live coverage, so few Americans knew it was happening. Meanwhile predominantly Christian-Zionist Colorado Springs urged Team USrael to #sinktheflotilla! Sorry local Judeo-Christo-holes, no dialog.
While the maritime aid convoy looks sunk, to the degree it received attention, the Flotilla II did raise awareness about the besieged Gazans. But more, the blocking of the aid ships, by USA, Greece, Turkey, litigious NGOs and unknown intelligence operatives, suggests that Israel is not a rogue state after all. The Flotilla II revealed the illusion of democracy, the farce of sovereignty, and the inhumanity of our global governors. By international humanitarian aid being denied Gaza by state power we see: this is what a police state looks like, globalized.
Arrest of those who blocked the wheel house.
A sweet photo of the Canadian activists looking forlorn, for a brief moment. However unceremoniously, by this weekend’s blocking of the Freedom Flotilla II, the cause of freedom for Palestine and for Greece is well advanced.
And best news, precious activists didn’t have to die by the hand of Israeli commandos, and live to repeat their promise, Gaza We Are Coming!
Banner day for IMF: enslaves Greece, blocks Flotilla II to free Gaza & rapes Strauss-Kahn accuser for second time
JULY 1, 2011- US Boat THE AUDACITY OF HOPE defies Greek Authorities, immediately blocked. Shortly after this photo was taken, the Audacity of Hope was surrounded by Greek coast guard ships, blocked by the same government that just voted twice against the will of its own people.
Irish MV Saoirse becomes 2nd victim of sabotage, cannot sail with Gaza Flotilla
So how do nonviolent, unarmed humanitarian activists protect themselves from weapons-wielding attackers? Not very well.
But they don’t have to. Afterward, they don’t even point a finger. And it’s working.
Via too many flat screens to stop, the world audience sees that Israel will stop at nothing to starve off its remaining Palestinians, neither violence, lawsuits, attempted murder, or slander, is too much to keep humanitarians from hindering Israel’s designs on Judea and Samaria.
Now I admit I favor just a little finger pointing, particularly when it’s too early to say, concrete evidence-wise, because that brings out something even less attractive. Accuse Israel immediately and guess what, they’ll indignantly try to put the blame on others. That’s ugly.
And they accuse you of antisemitism, even if you love Jews, but don’t favor the Zionist, mass-murdering variety.
Getting aid to the beleaguered Gazans may prove more difficult than a beeline Mediterranean cruise, but this mountain of a greater Palestinian cause is coming to Mohammed.
Delegitimizing Apartheid Israel is becoming as easy as taking candy from a baby-candy-taker. While the internet hasbarapocalypse foams at the mouth applauding what may or may not have been IDF divers who rigged the MV Saoirse to sink in mid voyage, or what may or may not have been Mossad undercover agents who relieved flotilla participants of their cellphones, the eagerness of Stand-With-Israel fans to stand with such tactics is compounding with self-antisemitism.
It’s becoming more and more clear, with obstacles like the corporate media stacked against critics of Israel, that a nonviolent strategy is tantamount to success against a lawless foe. Remember our TSA considers nail-clippers to be a weapon. your average ocean-going cabin cruiser arms itself with at least a speargun or two if there becomes a need to fend off would-be petty pirates. God forbid the Gaza Flotilla be caught with tools like that.
So how do flotilla activists keep a 24-hour watch against underwater demolition teams? How do elderly activists protect themselves from paid-hoodlums holding them up? The next flotilla will need an entourage of protectors I suppose, if this what happens to this flotilla doesn’t break the blockade of Gaza for good.
Press intimidation, frivolous lawfare, and sabotage, it’s hasbarapocalypse
You’re looking at an underwater photo of the starboard propeller of the passenger ship “Juliano” berthed in Piraeus, Greece, waiting to sail with the “Stay Human” Freedom Flotilla II departing soon to break the siege of Gaza. Reports of sabotage babelfished, even as some flotilla participants quickly issued a retraction. As diver video documented, someone assailed the propeller shaft casing, luckily repairable, but Greek authorities could seize on the incident to delay the activists with an investigation, or insist on further inspections, using anticipation of sabotage to delay or forbid the voyage.
Whodunnit? Sooner than point the finger at whoever took the intelligence contract, better to focus on the flotilla’s irrepressible forward momentum. Notice how the Hasbara themes want to presage the relief effort’s dwindling relevance? Sabotage would grant Israel too easy success. You can’t kill activism but in the shadows.
Fortunately the flotilla vessels are arrayed at various Mediterranean ports, and the identities are being kept secret, much as the internet chorus would like to track them by satellite. So far the flotilla organizer strategies have been impeccable.
Media reports of nonviolence classes counter Israeli anticipation of violence.
The American boat’s decision to bring only a cargo of letters appears to have been a savvy maneuver around the US DOJ’s predictable enforcement of its anti-terrorism statutes. Yes, Hamas was democratically elected, but on the books it’s a terrorist entity and supporting it materially will result in charges. It seems inconceivable, but surprise seems to be a recurring judicial theme. The US delegation comprises the antiwar movements most luminary, I have to credit them now for not being too reckless. Where would the rest of us be, if they are behind bars?
Next I expect we will see the wit behind naming their boat after President Obama’s bestseller Audacity of Hope. What’s that going to do for his Google-metrics? Obama won’t be able to mention it again, without drawing reference to the Gaza relief mission he didn’t support.
The flotilla2 organizers don’t hope to provoke Israel, nor shame the IDF to “Stay Human,” they want to sail the the people of Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israel asserts its right to besiege Gaza, to starve, harass and demoralize the Palestinians in hope that eventually they’ll just want to leave. And that’s why the flotilla must not pass.
If misrepresentative Michele Bachmann can run for president, SO CAN YOU!
How fortunate that the corporate media is pretending a Michele Bachmann presidential candidacy has legitimacy. Who’s going to dispute your prospects? Yes, YOU, I don’t care who you are. Or what about …ANY third party contender? A truly unelectable Republican will not be bogeyman enough to circle the wagons around Obama. An idiot on the one hand and a bullshitter on the other, both certifiable — literally, leaves an opening between them for someone rational.
French boat Dignite Al Karama first of Gaza Freedom Flotilla 2 to leave port as Greeks try to dash US Audacity of Hope
French humanitarian activists aboard LE DIGNITÉ-EL KARAMEH left Corisca today, bound for Greece, where they will join compatriots in sloop LOUISE MICHEL and the Freedom Flotilla II codenamed “Stay Human” which includes two cargo ships carrying aid to besieged Gaza. The departures of the US AUDACITY OF HOPE and the Canadian TAHRIR are threatened by private complaints of unknown origin, flagging the vessels as unseaworthy, causing Nation reporter Joseph Dana to declare Israeli assault on the Flotilla is well underway.
Aboard the DIGNITY headed for Gaza: Olivier Besancenot, Julien Rivoire, Omeyyaa Sedic, Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, Annick Coupe, Nabil Ennasr, and AFP reporter Quentin Girard.
The second French vessel, the LOUISE MICHEL, named for the famed leader of the Paris Commune.
Tweeting from the already sailing DIGNITY is Thomas Sommer.
Irish activists pose before embarking on “Staying Human” Flotilla 2.
Team Ireland’s MV SAOIRSE whose departure point is being kept secret to circumvent pressure being brought to bear on local port officials, as is happening with the US and Canadian vessels.
USBoatToGaza participants rehearse nonviolent training in anticipation of IDF commando intervention.
Both the Canadian and US organizers are insisting on a media moratorium on images of the TAHRIR and AUDACITY OF HOPE respectively, in hopes of limiting opportunities for sabotage efforts. There is of course the conflicting motive of circulating images as early as possible to have visuals with which to better promote and nurture media interest in the international aid effort.
The Canadian boat TAHRIR will be covered by Toronto journalist Jesse Rosenfeld and Haaretz reporter Amira Haas.
Freedom Flotilla II faces Shayetet13 in showdown at the naval siege of Gaza
It promises to be quite a showdown. Israel has repeated that it will let no ship through to Gaza, the IDF has promised “surprises” for the would-be blockade-runners, while this relief convoy is upping the ante with luminaries political and literary. The US boat is carrying novelist Alice Walker and a who’s who of peace activists, no less than Medea Benjamin, Kathy Kelly, Ray McGovern, and Ann Wright. There will be journalists from CBS, CNN and NPR, so you’d think Israel wouldn’t dare jam their signal and superimpose its own news package like it did with the Mavi Marmara, but maybe it won’t have to.
We’ve seen water hose on Freedom Riders before, only this time the blastees will be activist-squires. You might wonder what kind of sympathy they’ll garner, that is if an audience will see it at all. Will there be an independent media vessel cruising alongside the flotilla, with footage and equipment outside the jurisdiction of an Isreali commando raid? In the past the IDF was able to confiscate every scrap of evidence which could be used against them, at least until their doctored video could shape the official narrative.
Then too, with the absence of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Palestine-champions like Ken O’Keefe, the IDF’s interdiction may meet no resistance at all. Remember the MV Rachel Corrie, surrendering themselves with nary a ripple of media coverage?
Another less provocative strategy adopted by the US boat was not to carry any aid cargo, simply letters of support from American donors. I’m not sure why, except that the IDF cannot accuse them of smuggling anything past the blockade. But what does that make the Audacity of Hope exactly? The Freedom Flotilla is what, if it’s not a relief convoy?
There’s time before the flotilla leaves from Greece, please please please put something aboard to take to Gaza. Break the siege with SOMETHING. You can’t very well assert that Israel wouldn’t otherwise grant entry to all these American activists, many of the Jewish, through the formal border crossings, with or without stacks of correspondence.
I’ll spare further critique for now and wish Team Nonviolence the best success. NotMyTribe has complied a Twitter list of who to follow on the Freedom Flotilla II. Here is an incomplete listing of the passengers on three ships, Ireland’s MV Saoirse, Canada’s Tahrir, and USA’s The Audacity of Hope.
Ireland – MV Saoirse
National Coordinator Fintan Lane, Skipper Shane Dillon, John Hearne, Pat Fitzgerald, Paul Murphy, Hugh Lewis, Rik Walton, Mags O’Brien, Gerard Barron, Jim Roche, Zoe Lawlor, John Mallon, Charlie McMenamin, Philip McCullough, Hussein Hamed, Aine Joyce, Former Fianna Fáil TD Chris Andrews, Senator Mark Daly, Sinn Féin TD Aengus Ó’ Snodaigh, Sinn Féin councilor Gerry MacLochlainn, artist Felim Egan, rugby international Trevor Hogan. Representing the Irish Ship to Gaza campaign, the Free Gaza Movement, Irish Anti-War Movement, and Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
Canada – Tahrir
Rifat Audeh, Stéphan Corriveau, Karen DeVito, Bachar Elsolh, David Heap, Miles Howe, Soha Kneen, Irene MacInnes, David Milne, Marie-Eve Rancourt, Jase Tanner, Kevin Neish, Dylan Penner (Independent Jewish Voices Canada), Vivienne Porzsolt (Jews Against Occupation in Australia), Harmeet Singh Sooden, Muhammed Hamou (the London Muslim Mosque), Robert Lovelace (Former Chief of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation and professor of Indigenous Studies at Queen’s University), Lyn Adamson (Canadian Voice of Women for Peace Co-Chair), Manon Massé (Quebec Solidaire representative), Sue Breeze, Kate Wilson, filmmaker John Greyson, Mary Hughes-Thompson, co-founder of the Free Gaza Movement), Sofia Smith, Amira Haas
US Boat – The Audacity of Hope
Medea Benjamin, Hedy Epstein, Ray McGovern, Kathy Kelly, Ken Mayers, Richard Levy, Henry Norr, Gail Miller, Ridgely Fuller, Robert Naiman, Linda Durham, Brad Taylor, Nic Abramson, Alice Walker, ?Libor Kožnar?, Hagit Borer, Kit Kittredge, G. Kaleo Larson
French
Two boats: Louise Michel & Le Dignité-El Karameh
Julien Bayou (co-founder, Black Thursday), Olivier Besancenot (NPA), Alain Bosc (Cimade), Annick Coupé (porte-parole et déléguée générale de l’Union Syndicale Solidaires), Ismahane Chouder (Participation et Spiritualité Musulmane), Jean-François Courbe (département international de la CGT), Nabil Ennasri (président du Collectif des Musulmans de France), Raymond Fabrègues (Coalition contre Agrexco et Confédération paysanne), Patrice Finel (Parti de Gauche), Georges Gumpel (membre du bureau national de l’UJFP et représentant de l’EJJP), Nicole Kill Nielsen (députée européenne EE-LV), Claude Léostic (vice présidente de l’AFPS), Jean-Paul Lecoq (député du PCF), Catherine Lecoq (Mouvement de la Paix et le Collectif 13 Un bateau pour Gaza), Jo le Guen (navigateur), Yamin Makri (Collectif 69 de soutien au peuple palestinien), Oussama Mouftah (Collectif 59 Palestine), Marie Jo Parbot (auteur de BD), Eugène Riguidel (navigateur), Thomas Sommer (CCIPPP), Henri Stoll (Collectif Palestine 68), Omeyya Seddik
Norway
Torstein Dahle, Stine Renate Haheim, Aksel Hagen, Mina Boldermo Eriksen, Bjørn O. Bjørnsen, Tove Henny Lehre, Bard Vegar Solhjell
Denmark
Gitte Seeberg
John Ekebjaerg-Jakobsen
Adam Qvist
(NOTE: This post will be updated an appended as more information becomes available.)
A face to launch a thousand protests. Leak your trophy footage you cowards
This is a still from John Pilger’s THE WAR YOU DON’T SEE, recently blocked from its US debut in Santa Fe. Why? Because such images will stop war. In particular this shows a terrified Iraqi girl held at gunpoint as her home is searched. I wonder how many such scenes have been captured by embed cameras or GI cellphones. Western eyes are being inoculated to violence and gore, our victims dehumanized, foreign civilians reduced to collateral, but it appears our media managers worry Americans cannot yet resist the ordinary tears of children. Imagine such scenes of heartbreak gone viral across the web. Never mind atrocity or war crime, show us emotional responses with which we can identify. The mass of digital records could doubtless overwhelm Wikileaks. These are not top secret, yet nearly any have been leaked. My appeal to the cowardly US soldier, or the damnable media embed, leak the footage which haunts you already, your PTSD may be the contagion to end public support for our state sponsored terrorism.
$5 chance to win dinner with Obama could be available for price it’s worth
Democratic fundraisers are hawking the chance to win a dinner with President Obama for the donation of $5 or more to the 2012 election campaign. Rather than sit across the table from the smug insincere technocrat, can I opt for the immediate cash value of the prize?
Were I a corporation, that value would be precisely calculable, but as an ordinary citizen, we all know the real value is, excuse the pun, O. In which case I’d hope they offer a better investment option, that entries be permitted with no purchase necessary, as required by law for any other sweepstake scheme.
Straight blogger confesses he’s lesbian
So a retired Air Force man has to fess up that he was “Paula Brooks,” editor of the blog LEZ GET REAL. More critically, Bill Graber, 58, of Ohio, was a shill for fellow hoaxer Thomas MacMaster aka the Gay Girl In Demascus, whose wife Britta Froelicher has yet to be implicated directly, though she’s a Syria scholar at a Neocon leaning institution, and as supposed activists, their talking points are concern trollishly generic. With Graber unmasked, LezGetReal is being handed off to alternating erstwhile shill “Linda Carbonell”, who says she doesn’t use her married name La Victoire lest she jeopardize her husband‘s job with the government. “Victory?” Hello? Commenters are all LOL because LezGetReal still won’t get a real lesbian for an editor, and tittering because Graber and MacMaster flirted online, unknowingly middle-aged-man-on-man. Heehee, yeah, I don’t think so. MSM interviewers ponder that no one appeared to intend harm, but aren’t they missing a wooded Virginia campus for the trees? If psy ops programs were indeed coordinating trolls, what do you think the motley crew would look like? No doubt you’ve encountered your share already, a drearily uncreative bunch, frequently on the fringe of the military, with their fingers in many pies, the gay issue being not so distantly DoD-related.
“Paula Brooks” was one of the smelly loose ends of the Tom MacMaster Amina Arraf hoax, so I’m glad that someone smoked Graber out. But on the other hand I’m not.
I intended, with the title of this post, to lampoon the now repeated twist of lesbian bloggers turning out to be straight men. To get attention now, you’d have to be a straight blogger who is discovered to really be a lesbian. But then no one meant to bring this kind of attention to themselves, you’d think.
Maybe you’d be wrong. The worst element of this fraudulent blogger meme, is the seed of mistrust which increasingly poisons the internet. The only edge the established media had on the blogosphere was an inherent credibility, the indoctrination that if something is in print, it must be true. Though MSM journalism has been losing ground to the superior investigative output of the internet, hoaxes such as this work in their favor.
Although it’s been fun to unmask these frauds, and seek credit for the collar, the more attention paid to the story, the more eroded becomes the public trust. Yes, we’ve proven that the net will find you out, or more precisely CAN find you out. But what’s our success rate? It feels like 100%, but that counts only the identities we question. There’s no telling how many frauds remain undetected.
And worse, internet sleuths are slashing away at the very anonymity they cherish. To be a credible voice now, you have to be completely out, you have to show your papers basically. Who celebrates that?
We may think we’ve embarrassed MacMaster and Graber and Froelicher and La Victoire, but if they are indeed intelligence spoilers, they can go right back underground and on to the next alias.
Should we discount a Hasbara hand in this? Critics seem to be condemning MacMaster and Froelicher as anti-Israel, bolstering their Palestinian advocacy identities, but really without ground. In a video interview available online, Froelicher speaks about her gig with the AFSC and outlines her strategy for helping the Palestinians: make it so they have something to lose, she explains, so they’ll be less prone to violence and radicalism. Yeah. And MacMaster writing as Gay Girl Amina once posted her dream to learn Hebrew and live in the superior democracy Israel, just like your typical Syrian girl.
And if they are spoilers, then to be unmasked, to be the embodiment of fraudsters, fleshes out exactly what their handlers want, voices to distrust, to destabilize our common supply of information.
Between Norway’s Bodø and Lofoten, the no man’s land of the midnight sun
BODØ-LOFOTEN FERRY, NORWAY- The sun rises in the East and sets in the West, except above the Arctic Circle, where the midnight sun rises in the North, and where home TV satellite dishes point downward. Bodø is the airbase from which the CIA flew U-2 spy-plane missions over the USSR. This complicity was forever denied by the Norwegian government, and when in 1979, investigative journalists were able to surmise the airfield’s function by deducing an intelligence community who’s-who from local phone book listings, the journalists were jailed, did I mention they were Socialists? There followed a notorious trail which finally reaffirmed a Norwegian freedom of the press. A WWII event on the island chain of Lofoten had a significant impact on the German occupation of Europe. Norway fell quickly to the Nazis in 1940, but an immediate counterattack by British paratroopers, which held a beachhead for only six hours, now known as the “Lofoten Raid” but appearing then as a counter-invasion, compelled the German strategists to station considerable reserves of soldiers in Norway to deter Allied ambitions to retake the valuable northern seaports.
Lannan liberals ensure John Pilger’s THE WAR YOU DON’T SEE remains a documentary Americans won’t see
John Pilger’s documentary THE WAR YOU DON’T SEE was due to make its US debut this week, before its Santa Fe venue, the Lannan Foundation, abruptly cancelled the event. Given less than two days notice, plane tickets cancelled on the personal direction of the foundation’s funder Patrick Lannan, with no explanation offered. Pilger details on Zcom his concern for what just days ago had been an enthusiastic venue. The Lannan organization still boasts it will be hosting Tariq Ali and Norman Finkelstein among others, so it’s hard to deduce where Pilger’s film crossed the line. My guess? Not just the role the US media plays in promoting war, but its bias toward you know who.
Here’s the trailer, available on johnpilger.com.
The lynching of Preston John Porter Jr. by a mob from Limon and Colo. Springs
A propos of, let’s
say, LYNCHING.
Colorado
state history records 175+ lynchings, of mostly cattle rustlers and horse thieves. Boosters laud our state’s few (5) racially-motivated lynchings, but in relation to Colorado’s small portion of African- Americans, the incident rate is not insignificant. What’s more, Colorado can tie any state for the worst race lynching ever, when in 1900, along the railroad tracks near Lake Station, black 16-year-old, 130 lb. Preston Porter Jr, innocent and probably mentally feeble, was burned at the stake by a cheering mob numbering over 300.
Lynching describes the physical act of hanging, stringing someone up without inexpedient formalities. In principal lynching means a death sentence without recourse to due justice. And of course, in practice the summary execution is often motivated by racial prejudice. I explain the obvious because today no one appears to acknowledge that US drones over Pakistan, Yemen, et al, are terminating lives based on mere suspicions of being enemies of the state, these are darker skinned lives, with the full enthusiasm of the American TV mob.
Out West, lynchings were rough justice. Everywhere else they were and are hate crimes. Colorado sidesteps having to include the killing of Native Americans as lynchings because those were massacres. One western memoir recounts that “lynch law” was as necessary to keeping peace in the Wild West as were Indian Massacres and shooting wolves.
Preston Porter was a young railroad worker accused of the rape and murder of 12-year-old Louise Frost. After having accused another African-American, three “Mexicans” and a Native American, enraged parties in Limon and Denver settled on Porter. After a week of interrogation, enhanced by trying hypnosis and reading his palm, they coerced a confession.
Next they let the victim’s father decide the manner of death. “Burnt at the stake” was his choice. The mob marched poor Preston to the site of the crime, near what was then Lake Station, and they used a rail for the stake. Preston had no coat but was made to wait for hours in the cold because crowds were delayed getting to the affair by rail from Colorado Springs.
The etching below is reprinted from the Denver Times newspaper article of November 17, 1900. It portrays Porter crying out for the Lord to forgive his tormentors. Don’t think the reporter reflected Porter’s act with sympathy. He wrote: “The great crowd shook with pure enjoyment of the situation.”
Here’s what happened next, as reported by the New York Times:
For an instant the body stood erect, the arms were raised in supplication while burning pieces of clothing dropped from them. The body then fell away from the fire, the head lower than the feet still fastened to the rail.
This was not expected, and for a few minutes those stolid men were disconcerted; they feared that the only remaining chain would give way. If this had occurred the partly burned human being would have dashed among them in his blazing garments. And not many would have cared to capture him again. But the chain held fast.
The body was then in such a position that only the legs were in the fire. The cries of the wretch were redoubled, and he again begged to be shot. Some wanted to throw him over into the fire, others tried to dash oil upon him. Boards were carried, and a large pile made over the prostrate body. They soon were ignited, and the terrible heat and lack of air quickly rendered the victim unconscious, bringing death a few moments later.
All told, the fire took 20 minutes to kill the young black victim.
How was Preston Porter’s ordeal unlike the targets of American aerial assassinations? Americans just heap on the fuel as they burn alive.
EPILOG:
Preston’s executioners left the rail at the site to serve as a warning to other coloreds. Fortunately there wasn’t any trace of it when I made a recent visit. But a docent at the nearby railroad museum knew exactly the incident I was asking about and dismissed me curtly, disgusted with my interest in the matter and refusing to offer any directions to the location. It hadn’t occured to me that Limon’s “native” residents would be related to Preston’s killers. Fortunately another local, not born-and-bred, overherd my inquiry and gave me a lift to a probable starting point.
It wasn’t hard to find. Lake Station was the train stop before the bend at Limon. Before trains, “Lake” was a stage for stagecoaches, providing water to the Butterfield Overland Dispatch heading to Denver. Later it became a “siding” where steam locomotives could take water. After water stops became unnecessary. Lake Station was demolished. Building foundations remain. Its namesake lake dried to wetland long ago.
Victim Louise Frost was returning to her home in Hugo when she was accosted as she drove her surrey across the Big Sandy River where the dry river bed was forded by the old wagon trail. The old trail refers to the famous Smokey Hill Trail which led aspiring prospectors to Colorado gold. Erosion has altered the topography of the dry river but Preston Porter was executed on a rise between the crossing and the railroad tracks.
There is no memorial for the black martyred teen. Nothing marks or commemorates the atrocity. There should and could be. The site of Preston Porter’s death lies adjacent to a protected wetands along the Big Sandy. There’s a nature walk which could easily incorporate a monument. If Limon would own up to the deed.
The Union Pacific Railroad track at Lake Station, looking Southwest toward Pikes Peak.
I just got an email from Pres. Obama
I just got an email from President Obama. He wants me to lead. He says the politicians in Washington won’t do their job unless I do their job for them. At face value, that’s just weird. Are constituents to imagine that stump speeches fall by the wayside when the polls close and representatives develop amnesia from which only lobbyists can deliver them? Does anyone really believe that the public has to jump hoops for good governance? Who drinks crap-flavored Kool-Aid?
Pardon my disrespect. Yeah, Obama writes to me directly, and would you believe, often. He’s practically asking my advice on a daily basis, or that’s the impression he gives with his personable tone. Actually it’s strictly a one-way conversation, telling me what to do, offering gentle encouragement, and asking for money. It’s gotten so I can’t differentiate fund-raising from tax-collecting. I confess I’ve tired of inferring that if Obama is running low on fairy dust, it’s because I’m not clapping hard enough.
The problem is I think Obama is wearing thin with all this intra-constituent communication, and he’s delegating too much of the multi-tasks to Dumbama. In today’s letter, Obama wants me to solve an “Immigration Crisis,” his contribution? Boots on the ground.
Did Abraham Lincoln write the Gettysburg Address? That’s always the impression my teachers gave. No Civil Warmongering William Safire of his day laid claim to coining four score nattering nabobs. When did Americans decide their leaders needed ghostwriters? Why do we accept that an Ersatzbama can come across with the same winning sparkle? Because you know the president is not even reviewing these compositions either. He’s got ghost-readers on staff for that.
Alright, so we like our speeches peppered with wit, and we know not even the most luminous television hosts can tread water without a staff of gag-writers. Fine, if celebrities need personal assistants to hold their phones, we can’t begrudge a busy president his showbiz consultants.
But oh my goodness, why would we countenance forged personal emails?! Who wants a Notobama pretending to give us the inside scoop on the President’s daily thoughts? What kind of charade is that for a presidential parade?
And I ask you, have you yet heard Obama answer a simple question, and you’re left wanting to hear more? If I got an email that confided he didn’t believe the crap vetted for the corporate media, that would be a believable email. Instead we all get Minimebama email numbing us with what we know is the web’s potential for a ceaseless stream of digital drivel.
But I’m making quite an ignorant assumption, that we’re all getting the same stupid email. We assume the White House is spamming a consistent message, but maybe it’s highly customized, and for some reason, and I’d better take it to heart, they’ve pegged me as a big idiot.
Cartographic traces of Lake, Colorado
Maybe like me you’re wondering how a landmark falls off the face of the earth, in particular Google Earth, assuming as we do that web crowdsourcing is archival, not perishable. A stagecoach watering hole in Kansas Territory, formerly Arapaho, was Hedinger’s Lake, between present day Limon and Hugo. Like the history of Colorado’s water, Lake became Lake Station, later a railway siding, today a creek.
First some back-story: 1750. When gold looked to become the carrot to drive white man’s Manifest Destiny, the Indian Territories of what would become Colorado were labeled simply the Gold Region.
Back in 1815, the West was still La Louisiane, and place names were native, French and Spanish. Taos was one of the oldest Spanish settlements, site of the First American Revolution, against the Spaniards, and another revolt when the US invaded. Camp de Baroney sits on the Arkansas River, eventually resettled as El Pueblo. And there’s La Fourche Republicaine, a fork of la Rivoire Missouri, soon to lead a prominent migration trail west.
By 1848, St. Vrain’s Fort and Grante Ft., Bent’s Fort, were already protecting Anglo trading interests. (Note by the way, Old Park and New Park, eventually to be become the “North” to South Park.)
By 1864, the Cheyenne and Arapaho found themselves bordered on the west by the “Military Department of Utah” and ceding their lands to the Kansas Territory. (On this map we can see Montana City, the original Denver City. Denver eventually overtook Auroria and the metropolis. Mineral Springs became Manitou and Colorado Springs at the foot of Pikes Peak.)
Note the curiously singular representation of a “Kansas Lake” depicted at the tip of the south fork of the Republican River, whose waters will originate in the later to be named Lincoln County, at whose heart will lie Lake, Colorado.
The Rocky Mountain region lost many lakes by the mid 1800s when beaver were hunted to near extinction and with them the beaver dams. Note just West of “Kansas Lake” lies Beaver Creek.
With the gold rush, settler trails crisscrossed the West, for wagon trains, stagecoach and mail carriers. Lake was a stage at the convergence of the Butterfield Overland Dispatch and Republican Fork Trails, where they crossed the Big Sandy Creek to join the Smoky Hill South and North Roads (after similarly named rivers which were starting points in Kansas) or the spartan Starvation Trail to Denver. Today’s I-70 follows Smoky Hill North.
Was Hedinger’s Lake the water which travelers sought at the end of the South Republican Fork Trail?
This 1868 Union Pacific map predicted the stops heading eastward from Denver to be Parkhurst, Beaver, which later became Deer Trail, and Coon Creek, which became Kit Carson, opposite Sand Creek.
By 1870, Kansas was a state and the Kansas Union Pacific RR reached Denver. (Beyond the mountains: North Park, Middle Park and South Park.)
By 1873, leaving for Denver from Fort Wallace, there were stops at Kit Carson, Aroyo, Lake, Agate (pronounced “A-Gate”) and Deer Trail. (Note: still no Colorado Springs.)
A map circa 1880s, shows Hugo, Lake, River Bend, Godfrey, Agate, Deer Trail, and Byers, named for the founder of the Rocky Mountain News, formerly Bijou.
When the Chicago Kansas and Nebraska Railroad sought a direct route to Colorado Springs, it decided to intersect the Kansas Pacific at a new stop called Limon and that was the end of Lake. At Limon the westbound trains performed what was called the “Limon Shuffle” where passenger and freight cars were separated depending on which were going to Denver and which to Colorado Springs.
Lake Station remained a stop for the Union Pacific, and on this map which accompanied the 1910 census, it’s gone, in favor of a late addition, Bagdad.
As trains no longer needed to take on water, and could reach their destinations more quickly, many stops were eliminated. This 1925 train Union Pacific train schedule lists only Cheyenne Wells, Kit Carson, Hugo and Limon before reaching Denver.
Lake is still marked on railroad maps, though there’s not even an access road to reach it.
On other maps it’s just Lake Creek, spanned by an impassable decaying bridge. It’s now a wetlands area that provides a bird sanctuary.
For the USGS, Lake still serves as namesake for the topographical map of the Lake Quadrangle.
To be continued…
Bin Laden was right, but you knew this already, America is a Godless nation
Lawless and Godless. My stomach has been in a knot all day. I remember feeling this way when we executed Saddam Hussein, by all accounts a brutal despot. We tried him in a kangaroo court, without even the courage to make the audio or transcript public, because he would have ratted us out. Then we had him summarily hung. Now I’ve no great objection to regicide, I favor it actually when imposed by public coup. At the hands of foreign invaders it’s victor’s justice, and probably deliberately criminal to humiliate the conquered. Last night a US special forces hunt and kill team shot the unarmed Osama bin Laden and others, in a fire-fight whose casualty ratio was that of a firing squad. Bin Laden’s body was immediately disposed the way we taught Argentine and Chilean death squads to do it, disappeared out over the sea. Gone, just like those famous shoes that offended George the Wretched Bush, vaporized in post-incident explosives tests it was said, not kept by any Princeton grad as talisman keepsakes, like for example the bones of Chief Geronimo, the famed Native American resistance leader whose grave was robbed by elder alum Prescott Bush to provide the skull and crossbones for which the secretive society was named. Oddly, the operation to assassinate bin Laden was called “GERONIMO.”
That, or we named the mission after an expression that means, as far as I remember, “here goes nothing!” Usually shouted as you were leaping somewhere. Regardless it’s an incredibly insensitive subject to invoke as you’re intending to assassinate a later era’s most significant resistance leader. When we decide to take out Subcommandante Marcos, are we going to name it Operation Bin Laden? And don’t pretend someone doesn’t want dibs on his pipe.
We’re told we disposed of bin Laden’s body to prevent the forces of evil, aka Islam, from creating a shrine. But are Muslims the only people who worship at a shrine? I’m inclined to believe a whole other denomination of people attribute something mythic to a hero’s remains, more perhaps even than his mere followers.
Now I wouldn’t put it past America’s spooks to wring those shoes of the sweat of the wearer who summoned the courage to have a go at Bush, which no one before or since, neither prizefighter nor pope, has dared to do. Likewise, I’d think even your average incurious scientist could get a grant to scan the heart and brain of a man worth half a billion dollars yet renounced a life of luxury to dedicate his life to fight the godless Soviet invaders, and later, the most sinister, most profane dragon which has so far destroyed or enslaved everything in its fiery wake. What distinguishes this fluke DNA and how can we eradicate its traces so that Capitalism isn’t jeopardized by a recurrence?
But that’s looking at this from the scientific side.
That’s right, less than the extra-judicial lynching, I am most disturbed by President Obama’s decision to officially dispose of bin Laden’s body. To make it disappear, to thwart followers, as if it bore some malignant power, attributable to a kind of person like Adolf Hitler. Terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden killed but a fraction, compared to whoever it might be said was the mastermind of the War On Terror. And what of those behind the War on the Third World, the War on Debtor Nations, the War on the Not yet Enslaved, which has become the War On Islam? They were also his declared enemies. And so bin Laden was but an adversary, who held an opposing economic view. His means were violent, but peanuts compared to the poverty, death and destruction wreaked by Western imperialism and war. I subscribe to neither his methods nor his ideology, but Bin Laden was no demon. He was the champion of billions of our victims, and to call him a worthy opponent is to flatter ourselves.
And that’s why I suspect somebody right now is worshiping what remains of bin Laden’s essence, in the same manner that Sunday, the very day Operation Geronimo was deployed, the rest of the Western world was staring at television screens, in songful prayer, focused on a bible atop the coffin of a recently disinterred Pope John Paul.
No America, justice has not been done
This didn’t always need explaining– lynching and body snatching are INJUSTICES. There used to be an understanding of what “taking the law into your own hands” meant. Killing someone outright doesn’t bring them to justice, and I’m not alone to assert that killing someone -even after a trial- is premeditated murder. We’re not hearing any such voices on the media unfortunately. Even in the days of mob lynching, the crowd once drained of its blood-lust would sober to the crime it committed, often masked. That said, the press has always responded with statements of pitiable glee. In Colorado, even the most gruesome lynchings, race-related and otherwise, prompted congratulatory editorials from the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Rocky Mountain News and the rest. However, political leaders were usually more careful not to be celebrating extra-judicial revenge killing.
Today even world leaders seem to be piling on with attaboys. Dispiriting really.
The facts emerging from bin Laden’s killing just get worse and worse. If Osama was indeed in a military-secured compound, a whole secured zone apparently, what reason could possibly be given for why every usual method would not be used to bring him into custody? Where was he going to go? Did we need to kill his entourage like we did Saddam Hussein’s sons? The fact that this raid is purported to have been planned for months makes the assassination all the more purposeful.
And then we learn his body was buried at sea, which the media uncritically recite is “in accordance to Islamic tradition” even as Muslims refute it. Besides of course suggesting that today’s raid was only Kabuki theater for disposing of OBL’s ten-year-dead corpse, conveniently making the body disappear makes dark humor of mocking Habeas Corpus. Where already America disregards the fundamental right of a trial of your peers.
Bin Laden’s colleagues are denied the jury of peers and instead judged through kangaroo military tribunals, patently illegal by international law. Lynching of course dispenses of even that formality.
But lynching victims of the earlier times were not deprived of their bodies. How dare the US declare itself judge, executioner AND God over Osama bin Laden’s remains?!
The pretext is that they don’t want a shrine made of wherever his family would have chosen to bury him. But of course, that will not be ours to decide. At the very least the site of bin Laden’s murder will already be a shrine for those in Islamabad. It will certainly be ironic if the WTC in New York City will be the most significant memory of Osama bin Laden’s deeds and become ground zero for his enormous fame worldwide.
With Gaddafi’s TV villain star rising, bin Laden should have seen this coming
I’m sure they would rather have pulled Osama bin Laden from a hole for a 2012 October Surprise, but the US media narrative makers must have figured out that Mumbledore Gaddafi is not proving telegenic enough to upstage the king of Islamic villainy. Now US airstrikes are killing the Libyan dictator’s children and grandchildren, we can’t let a bogeyman win audience sympathy.
The good news for Pakistanis and Afghans is that US drones now have no reason to stalk their skies and Guantanamo can now release the foot-soldiers who’ve lost their leader. If “justice has been done” and the perpetrator of 9-11 has been neutralized, then it’s over, isn’t it? No apparently. Now we’re reminded al-Qaeda is much bigger than OBL, and yet we’ve executed him as if he bore responsibility, AND we’re told that the act may prompt retaliatory violence. So it’s solved what then? Targeted assassination brings no one to justice, it asserts vengeance and perpetuates the cycle. Which of course was OBL’s role all along.
Is it too much to hope that the special forces who found bin Laden’s compound were there to arrest him, to put him under US custody? Killing a person outright has never been considered bringing them to justice, as much as the media and political celebrities seem to be pretending. This was a murder, an extra-judicial targeted assassination, a revenge killing.
Because if Osama had indeed been living in the thick of a Pakistani military controlled zone, and US forces coordinated the operation with Pakistan, it would seem that he could have been apprehended. Our soldiers could have laid siege and at the very worse bin Laden might have killed himself. In such a case there would have been no need to kill the people who lived with him, also not convicted of any offenses.
Apparently an unnamed woman was killed as someone tried to use her as a “human shield.” The principle involved in such a maneuver is that you prevent someone shooting at you because they don’t want to kill an innocent. Apparently American culture’s willingness to sanction “collateral damage” has trumped the usual precaution of avoiding the killing of a person who is not targeted for assassination.
As I watch Americans gather in Lafayette Park near the White House to celebrate the news like some kind of sports victory, I wonder what masses across the seas would gather to celebrate. Would a targeted assassination of our president be received with similar jubilation?
Obviously an American leader would have more blood on his hands. An American Commander In Chief would be culpable by dint of his chain of command, by his public announcements and his stated objectives. Osama Bin Laden’s responsibility hasn’t even been demonstrated, except as a forgone conclusion by media pundits who question nothing of the narrative they’re fed.
Sunday Afternoon sur Lac du Prospect
I don’t know if this scene strikes me because it’s George Seurat’s idyllic park, or because I’m nostalgic for Colorado circa prosperity. Circa 2011, the privatization cronies are after our city’s public gem, Prospect Lake. Colorado Springs local John Moore made a video, which features this and other vintage memories. (See video below)
Moore’s video show a webpage on which City Councilman Tim Leigh outlines his proposal for Prospect Lake, a recurring theme among his “fresh ideas” for Colorado Springs, in which he targets now public resources for lease or sale to private for-profit enterprises.
Leigh’s text below:
RE-IMAGINE NEIGHBORHOODS AND REESTABLISH A SENSE OF COMMUNITY
Imagine that, instead of continuously developing the open prairie to Kansas, we took a 2nd look at existing neighborhoods, utilized existing utilities & roadway infrastructure and created a culture where existing, stable neighborhoods were prized and could be reasonably redeveloped and modernized.RE-IMAGINE PROSPECT LAKE
Imagine that Prospect Lake is fully utilized as the prized asset that it is; where a private entrepreneur promoted the water venue with exciting events throughout the summer. Imagine the boat house being re-deployed as a high-end restaurant or some similar use all acting as a catalyst for redevelopment of the entire neighborhood. Imagine immediate benefits to the city – funding the operation of Memorial park, not from general collections, but from leasing fees and new found sales and property tax generated specifically from that venue. Imagine playing to our vision as recreational Mecca and imagine a public/private partnership creating a community asset where we all win.
Debunked, the birthers are still right
Documents can be faked, witnesses coached, others disappeared, if it really is all important that a president prove he’s home-born enough to rule the land of immigrants. It’s trivial isn’t it? An old law, fashioned to exclude one particular 18th century foreign-born candidate; a mere technicality, but just the kind of rules-are-rules mechanism sacrosanct to courts, banks, insurers and creditors. What the birthers smell in Barack Obama is a phony president, elected on extraordinarily false, felonious pretenses. And what a pejorative term the corporate media is using to trivialize the may-be-unconstitutional-foreign-birth accusers: birthers. Yes the scent they’ve picked up is irrelevant, and likely false. It’s also incredibly racist. But most fundamentally, it’s true. They are tracking a fugitive of justice, a charlatan and fraud, and for certain, a murdering, torturing, technocrat. Let’s press the White House to conjure a Long Form to disprove that.
For people who hate opera
The trouble with introductory collections like “Opera for People Who Hate Opera” is of course that it’s still OPERA. I’m inclined to believe the gateway acquired-taste for American pop music ears is –why not– American Musical Theater. But before I get to the particular show I have in mind THE MOST HAPPY FELLA, for a teaser, get thee to Tevye’s dream of Fiddler On The Roof. Find the original Broadway stage recording (These girls found it: The Dream) where Zero Mostel pretends to be visited by two ghosts, blending three melodies –with dances– to a whirlwind intensity. Discordant, shrill, phenomenal, pure opera.
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF: THE DREAM
Really, you cannot but love the energy and drama of that piece. And it meets the lower brow halfway: it’s in English, mostly, it’s sung in the registers to which we are more accustomed today, and the cacophony is corralled at a driving dervish pace, also most contemporary.
A Broadway convention of the golden age of musicals was the Dream Ballet scene. In Fiddler it was an opera and a ballet, but instead of a dream or a character’s hallucination, this was Tevye’s pretense of a nightmare, conjured to convince his wife to assent to let their oldest daughter marry the boy she loved, instead of the old man to whom she was promised.
The Dream features three motifs: Grandma Tzeitel represented by the Mazel Tov refrain, with the rejoinder of Tevye and his wife Golde, overtaken by the crescendo of the butcher’s deceased wife Fruma-Sarah, clearly borrowing the menace of the Wicked Witch of Oz.
That’s it — you can like opera! Don’t think yourself less sophisticated because lyrics in a foreign language bore you, or because sopranos or tenors strain your ears. You probably wouldn’t favor centuries-ago gruel either.
THE MOST HAPPY FELLA
Just as maturing musical taste builds inevitably toward Jazz, I have a theory that Broadway fans eventually seek for melodies a little less pat. After not so long, the tunes you can easily whistle up the aisle begin to sound the same. Fresh ones don’t solve anything. Trust me, the unsung Broadway shows which didn’t recoup their production costs don’t sound any better now. Great as were all the Rogers & Hammerstein hits, you have heard only half their shows and yet you’ve heard them all. Ironically, R&H tried their hand at an opera-like show, called ALLEGRO, I don’t favor it, and neither did anyone else.
What I do know is that I love THE MOST HAPPY FELLA, a comparatively obscure musical which had the misfortune of opening in the shadow of MY FAIR LADY, you remember that one in your sleep. TMHF is the acknowledged masterpiece of Frank Loesser, who had no need to prove himself after composing GUYS AND DOLLS. Great as it is, how many times can you listen to Luck Be a Lady?
Being labeled an opera has meant ruin for Broadway musicals which stray from the basic musical review format. Musical Theater traditionally meant catchy tunes strung together with comedy. Wartime brought OKLAHOMA and CAROUSEL which introduced more complicated drama, but librettos entirely sung, weaving the collected songs together, didn’t catch on until the pop operas of the seventies, commercial formulas like PHANTOM OF THE– that were neither operatic, nor terribly musical either.
Out-and-out American operas such as PORGY AND BESS have always lost money in production. Like the argument I make here, to entice American audiences, you have to pretend opera is not opera. Even liner notes written today about 1956’s THE MOST HAPPY FELLA have to avoid coming down one way or another on whether it’s an opera. Yes much of the dialog is sung, but critics reassure us that parts are spoken too. There are numbers too popular to be highbrow, you know one of them, Standing on the Corner [Watching All the Girls Go By].
A 1957 episode of I LOVE LUCY featured a visit to a Broadway performance, in probably an early example of the entertainment industry giving itself a lift. Lucy and company are shown watching from a box seat, but we hear only the more palatable popular ballads Don’t Cry and the Texas dance number Big “D”.
To settle the opera matter, I look at a couple obvious giveaways. One, the leading character Tony was sung by the opera star Robert Weebe, a colleague of Maria Callas. And two, the matinee show traditional of Broadway, was sung by Weebe’s understudy, because two shows a day is neither traditional nor possible for opera.
There’s also the comfortable coincidence that the plot centers around an Italian immigrant, thus much of the dialog is Italian-accented. And he runs a farm in Napa Valley manned by other Italians, who sing in outright Italian, the lingua franca of opera. So the Happy Fella Broadway disguise was never very earnest.
What marks Happy Fella most distinctly are the depth and height of emotional expression. Plenty of musicals have plumbed despair, but in contrast I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a happier fella than Tony Esposito. Witness tenors trumpet Abbondanza! (Abundance), then Benvenuta! (Welcome), and then Spozalizio! (Wedding), which are actually in English, punctuated with self-translatable Italian. Another high-spirited refrain is about “Coming Home” with the proceeds of the strawberry harvest, titled Fresno Beauties.
And then where honestly have you heard a love song more overwhelmed with feeling than My Heart is So Full of You? It begins with exclamation, answers as duet, then envelopes the inner reflections of two peripheral characters.
There’s also the deliriously contented duet which begins “Lunedi, Martedi” (How Beautiful the Days).
The peerless Soliloquy from Carousel gets a run for its money in Mamma, Mamma [Up in Heav’n, How you lika my sweet girl?], as near an operatic aria as you can get.
And while I’m inventorying the happy overload, I don’t want to leave out the beautiful Somebody, Somewhere and Warm all over. The charmer Happy to Make Your Acquaintance is also a standard Broadway showstopper with reprise.
While I’m digressing, I’d like to credit the Big “D” number, where two Texans supposedly recognize each other by their drawl, while neither in actuality has a drawl. The drawl is sung, the notes slurred to create a most beguiling familiarity. It’s a duet to prick your ears at just the phrasing, my own introduction to the incomparable Susan Johnson.
If I’ve touched on any clarity here, it’s what you already know: The amplified modulation of opera is not about librettos all sung, or voices in full shriek. Singing out expresses emotional intensity, and in Happy Fella you’ll never meet happier.