Tag: 1948

Hedy Epstein, Fascism and Prison America

hedy.epstein.memo

Hedy Epstein (née Wachenheimer) was born in the city of Freiburg in the year 1924, a nine-year old kid when Hitler took over. She was one of the fortunate few who left Germany for the United States in 1939 (Kindertransport).

Hedy reported on Israel’s behavior during the 1982 Lebanon War. That behavior brought familiar the memories of childhood in a Freiburg in the 1930’s.

Hedy ist eine Menschln presently living in St. Louis, Missouri. In 2014 she was arrested at a protest in a suburb of Ferguson on a charge of “Failure to Disperse,” a charge similar to “Failure to Communicate.” Both “failures” are euphemisms. A “communication failure” took the life of Mr. Michael Brown.

failure.to.communicate

Fascism is never a good idea, but many fervently long for it every day.

Fascism is never subtle, it’s better at blurting and wallowing.

Fascism is filed in billziegler1947 under jailers or nice people.

Fascism proclaims that ethnic cleanliness is next to godliness. 

Fascism is proud and nasty, upfront and in your face foul.

Fascism believes that “the others” are impurities and impediments.

Fascism winks, nods and smiles at efficient and early dispatch of undesirables.

dylanroof

Be aware of how well Hedy Epstein is accepted in Israeli society. Beware.

“This diminutive 91-year-old icon of freedom and justice is loved and adored by everyone whose lives she has inspired or touched. As far as many Israelis are concerned, though, she can burn in hell. Some of them have actually said much, much worse about this frail, gentle, loving little Jewish lady who has put her life on the line continually for Palestine.”

A Great Friend of Palestine

Prison America is alive and well. It promises profit for idle capital and is certainly a growth industry. Good ROI.

“You are fettered,” said Scrooge, trembling. “Tell me why?” “I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost.

“I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”

Shutting down prisons is a force for peace. Jesus the Jew of Nazareth knew that. 

Jesus was a true-blue Jew. He would not strew white phosphorous upon unsuspecting children.

https://islampeace1.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/israel-using-white-phosphorus-during-thier-operation-at-gaza/
White Phosphorous over Gaza

Just for the record: Jesus of Nazareth was not of European descent.

Fascism always festers fulsomely under the surface of polite society.

Question the plea “We must return to our commonly shared Judeo-Christian values as established by our Christian founding fathers.” What about the other third of the triad of a monotheism rooted in the Levant?

The monotheist religions are in number three:

  • Islam
  • Judaism
  • Christianity.

Abraham is patriarch to each.

Translations lie. Oft repeated lies lie big-time. Repeat a lie enough and it becomes the stuff of conventional wisdom. Watch out for the fallacy of affirming the consequent when presenting a logical argument.

Joseph Goebbels knew how to lie at world-class levels.

Ignore news cycles, soundbites, repeated headlines, rehashed dead horses.

Politics is warfare.

we.too.are.trying.to.stay.afloat

Ramallah Mix

Source: Ramallah Mix

I keep current with Palestine. I witness to counter the countless billions of dollars extinguished every day for the united status of quo. In a large enough way I am personally complicit: The State Department issued a passport that verifies my identity.

stone.cold.justice
This is abject primal fear, the kind that arrive when you are out of your mind frightened. It is not a simple detention. 

Palestinians on their own soil live everyday life in a police state every day. It’s just ironic that Israel is a front-runner in the race for fascism.

Video from December, 2015: holiday season.

Did you know that children throwing stones, reported throwing stones, thought to throw stones or not throwing stones are housed in Israeli prisons? The military uses GPS systems to locate a child’s bedroom for 2:00 A.M. visits.

Many Israelis enjoy the occasional guffaw. Who could even think of being offended by humor on a theme of Rachel Corrie pancakes. No one is suggesting that the society might be depraved, decadent or disgusting. Just wondering why I am so thin-skinned and sensitive. Why does that denim have a dark stain?

Thanks Thlwn for posting this video today on Twitter, and for being who you are. Grateful for the thankless task you serve, for your ability to garner humor in the face of evil most banal. It’s not an easy job.

I don’t read about this stuff in the New York Times. I don’t hear about this stuff on NPR. I don’t see this stuff on PBS.  So here I am reporting for duty.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

Stanley Cohen in THE SHADOW

In America principles are goods placed on sale to the highest bidder. Career paths are paved with bricks forged by selling yourself out at every opportunity.

Cash in your chips at the next square and move on to another chance for a sell-out.

stanley-cohen-islamicconfer

Guardians of integrity are rare beasts on our fruited plain. Experience has taught me that wealth management is incompatible with free and open society. But weapons of wealth management are the coin of our realm.

A kind and gentle hint: the system is gamed.

Marking my 50th post on this blog, I leverage what goes for my political capital (49 previous articles) by suggesting that

STANLEY COHEN UN-CAGED AND STILL UN-DAUNTED

become essential reading for billziegler1947 readers.

THE SHADOW is the sole remaining underground newspaper in New York, the home of Stanley Cohen and the only living boy in New York. Mr. Cohen is following the same principled path he began in 1969 and his principles are not for sale.

Imagine that you are looking for a source for truth on Palestine. It’s right here on @StanleyCohenLaw all day long.

But if you need an additional source for truth on that occupied land, consider the words of anthropologist Jeff Halper. He graduated from Hebrew Union College in 1969, the same year I graduated from another Cincinnati institution on Clifton Avenue. I am presently reading and recommending his

War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification

Jerry Rubin is best known as one of the Chicago 7 of ’68, he was also a fellow University of Cincinnati alumnus who decided that selling stock portfolios was the new revolutionary act.  Rubin gave an address in Cincinnati the late 60’s. That was before joining the “revolution” on Wall Street as the Reagan era began.

I was still at U.C. during Naksa (’67 War) learning  geography from Laurence G. Wolf.

naksa

Today, speaking truth to power is the best way I know to find yourself in a Gulag.

Israel is a state recognized completely and thoroughly by the United States and a few South-Pacific island territory/nations. The prisons in Israel are legally available for detaining pre-teen Palestinians, indefinitely. Not the vision evoked by Leon Uris’ Exodus, more like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

But if you are looking for an investment opportunity for idle dollars, prisons are wise investments. Billions of dollars accrete to a single individual. It’s where the smart money goes.

Good luck on your career path.

Alea jacta est.

 

 

International Israeli-Apartheid Week

2016 marks the 12th anniversary for International Israeli-Apartheid Week.

Cincinnati is joining at this pivotal moment for realization of the deferred dream in the ancient land of Palestine. Your guide for this week: The Cincinnati Palestine Solidarity Coalition.

cpsc.israeli.apartheid.week

Appropriately enough it started in South Africa where the word Apartheid finds its origin. A literal translation from the Afrikaans is “Aparthood.”

That term turned into a rallying cry that awoke the planet. Unfortunately for the Native Peoples South Africa possesses natural beauty, rare resources and the indomitable spirit that deep roots bring a culture: easy low-fruit harvest for the voraciously hungry inheritors of southernmost Africa.

The parallels between the Palestinians and the Blacks under imperial rule are quite clear. Whereas the White settlers immediately took command in Africa, the representatives of an ethnocracy took command in the British Imperial presence in what the British named a Mandate for Palestine.

oren-yiftachel-smaller
Israeli scholar Oren Yitachel calls Israel a Colonial Ethnocracy

Guess who controlled that Mandate? Just as the Blacks were held in their place by the White colonialists, the Palestinians had the land pulled out from under them when the British left. A miracle of rare craft grafted to the roots. The people who left with their house keys in hand did not simply decide to leave this lovely land.

Unfortunately it was beautiful, as splendidly Mediterranean in climate as Southern California.

Unfortunately it was Paradise.

Today this beach has the very un-Arabic name "Gordon Beach" located at the very un-Arabic name Tel-Aviv. Turning the ancient city of Jaffa.
Today this beach has the very un-Arabic name “Gordon Beach” located at the very un-Arabic name Tel-Aviv. Turning the ancient city of Jaffa.

The British had just given up their Raj puppets in India one year earlier in 1947. You can recognize the charismatic leaders of these three exploited mandates for India, South Africa and now Palestine. One small hint: Mahmoud Abbas is not a charismatic leader but an enormously convenient Puppet for Israel. Arafat’s leadership? Cut short in 2004.

The Iran deal fell short for Netanyahu.

Teleprompter logic did the thinking for AIPAC: the Annual Conference for 2016. Mandate for Washington D.C.

Netanyahu’s academic garb for Israeli security studies are as thin as any emperor dare wear.

Next imagined existential threat to Israel? BDS.

One existential imagination after another.
One existential imagination after another and another.