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Call for Anti-Capitalist Action Against Sharon and RacismA war is currently being waged against the Palestinian people by the state of Israel and by the United States. Their prime motivation is not to protect Israel, but to protect the elite and their agenda of corporate globalization. The Israeli military is forcing people from their homes and killing innocent civilians in cold blood, while the people of Palestine are fighting to keep their homeland. This war is funded by US tax dollars, and directed by the war criminal Ariel Sharon, who fully supports the atrocities committed by the Israeli military.
We refuse to support this racist brutality which has led to thousands of deaths, and left many more people homeless. We intend to show our resistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestine territories, and to the capitalist system which perpetuates this kind of violence, through whatever means are necessary.
On April 22, Ariel Sharon will be arriving in Washington, DC, to speak at the annual conference of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The A22 Collective is calling for militant, anti-capitalist action on that day to show our opposition to the war criminal Sharon and our solidarity with the people of Palestine. We cannot support the racist policies of Sharon, the state of Israel, and its chief supporters in the United States, AIPAC.
We invite those who are interested to join us in direct action, or to create their own affinity groups to perform autonomous actions. We also call for an anti-capitalist bloc to be formed at the protest outside the AIPAC conference, as we join with many other groups to denounce the policies of war criminal Ariel Sharon.
We can no longer remain silent. The situation in the occupied territories worsens every day, and no end is in sight. We demand that this state-led terrorism be stopped.
While we plan to use militant direct action to demonstrate our own opposition, we support a diversity of tactics, and ask that everyone who opposes the war against Palestine show their opposition on April 22 through whatever means they feel are effective.
Although we condemn the policies of Ariel Sharon and the Israeli military, we stress that we are not against Judaism or the Jewish people. Indeed, we seek a world where all religions and cultures are given an opportunity to flourish, free of oppression from governments and institutions that promote fear, hate, and war.
The A22 Collective will be holding a spokes council meeting the night of Saturday, April 20 to plan our actions. The location for this meeting will be announced at a later date. Affinity groups should send a spoke to that meeting to discuss several preplanned scenarios. Updates and more information at http://www.mashriq.org/A22. Contact phone number will be posted soon.
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Some of us are and some of us aren't.
Capitalism and Democracy don't pay attention to race. Dogmatic, Theocratic, Totalitarian regimes do.
As for the hot tubber, you make a good point in saying that, "Capitalism and Democracy don't pay attention to race." If that is true though, why does racism exist in the United States? The logical conclusion would be that we either are not really capitalist or we are not really democratic....would you like to venture a guess as to which of these is the case? Racism and capitalism are not antonyms; the opposite of both is equality.
http://prisonactivist.org/cws/betita.html
Here's one way capitalism and racism are related: the primitive capital accumulation of US capitalism was created by enslaving blacks and stealing American Indians' land.
Bit of a stretch, Bubba.
On racism: I'm white. I don't hate myself for being white. I do, however, acknowledge that being white in this society is a definite advantage, and correspondingly not being white is a disadvantage. Now, if someone says "The White Man" is to blame for such and such, well, I take that with a grain of salt. Certainly doesn't mean "all white men". Think of it as "the elite", which until recently in the US was entirely white and male, and still is predominantly white and male. They make decisions that screw us all over. Ordinary white folks as well.
Now, while some cries of "racism" may be unfounded, many are not, but can be hard to discern from one's usual viewpoint in society - especially if one is white.
One more thing - I'm not against democracy. I'm for direct, participatory democracy - not this silly game where we get to pick between two lapdogs of the corporate elite.
> You got that right! The Democraps wouldn't be diddly squat if it wasn't for the suggestive morons they manage to play like Steinways. [JoJo Gunn]
Correspondingly, the right can appeal to racism to get poor and middle-class whites to vote for them. "We'll save your jobs from those immigrants/blacks/foreign sweatshops" they say while allowing the corporate elites to wage vicious class war upon those same voters.
To learn more about logic, see:
http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/toc.htm
--JoJo Gunn, 2002
"Leibowitz is right, we are Judeo-Nazis, and why not?"
--Ariel Sharon, 1982
"soiled panties" ... "bullshit BerKKKley bed wetting"
Gee, the sheer *eloquence* of your prose is dazzling.
You equate Palestinian women and children being burnt and raped and tortured as you write your putrid little essays to those Muslims who blew up the WTC or the Saudi "religious police" who murdered those female students.
Oh, but I forgot.
In your "mind," all "filthy ragheads" are the same, right? Even the hundreds who are being maimed, burnt, raped, and shot directly as you scribble your complicit little apologies for Sharon.
Nazi, indeed.
It is now standard practice to handcuff, blindfold, insult and beat, and often further torture Palestinian prisoners, including small children, many of whom are psychologically shattered by their experience in the hands of security police (Shin Bet, also called Shabak) interrogators. An April 1992 report by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem estimated that 5,000 Palestinians had been tortured in the prior year, or some 420 per month. Every few months there is a small back page article about another Palestinian prisoner who died in jail during or after "interrogation." In one case in 1992, a young man named Al-Akawi, brought to court after "moderate physical pressure," looked so badly beaten and unwell that the judge took the "unusual step" of giving the Shin Bet only eight more days for interrogation. But by 5 PM the next day the authorities summoned Al-Akawi's father to come and remove his son's body.
Israeli analysts Haim and Rivca Gordon, who did a study of Israeli interrogation and torture, claim that "the Shabak interrogators of the Palestinians are legalized sadists [many of whom] attain much personal and physical gratification from brutally beating the Palestinians [as it] is part of the interrogators vocation. How could it be otherwise?"
It should be noted that Israelis in general do not disapprove of these practices. Of a random 100 Israelis queried by the Gordons who were willing to give their opinions on the activities of Shabak, 90 were fully satisfied with its performance, 9 expressed some doubts on the adequacy of oversight and information, and only 1 person clearly condemned Shabak operations on grounds of human rights and democracy.
Is that your "justifcation" for torture, even the torture of children, Invertebrate?
You have not offered even one reasonable defense of Israel, because what Israel is doing right now is indefensible.
The world knows it. The world acknowledges it. The world can see the truth.
Yet you lack even the modicum of decency to admit that torture is wrong.
Haj Amin of Jerusalem was a Nazi who spent the war with Berlin, cajoling and even insisting on the continued slaughter of Jews of Hungary in 1944 when the Germans started to consider letting some go in the Horthy Offer.
Arab pogroms against the Jews occured in 1921, 1929, 1936 -- bloodletting that preceded the existence of a Jewish state. 700,000 Jews were driven out of Arab nations after 1948 and the founding of Israel, with many killed in publicly orchestrated pogroms and many more having their property expropriated or being placed in prison on trumped up charges after show trials.
Now Arab immigrants and residents in France and across Europe are unleashing a pogrom against Jews -- Not Israelis. Fundamentalist clerics are saying to Muslims to kill Jews wherever they spot them. This instruction means that technically Muslims are being ordered to even kill Jews that are working to end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Not constructive to your cause and the interests of human rights, I would think.
Hamas talks gleefully about forcing all Jews to relocate to the US or have to live under strict Islamic rule. Do these extremist demands help their cause? No.
Arab countries and even various ralies in the West are spreading the ancient blood libels and recirculating the fraudulent and vitriolic protocols of the Elders of Zion. These ideas of hate and glorification of suicide bombing are being extolled in Saudi Martyrthons, and on PA TV and textbooks which practice Holocaust denial, libel Jewish people generallyy and extoll the virtues of becoming a martyr and taking the lives of innocents.
There is a real problem here and Israel is not flawless or blameless, but your one dimensional morality and look the other way at the "victim" du jour's faults is sadly hypocritical.
To quote from your front page "If you aren't a crusty punk that is into squatting like most of us, check the a20stopthewar.org Housing Board or International Answer Housing Info. There are many campgrounds in the DC area as well as creative sleeping spaces."
Well - i'm an extremely militant anarchist who is definately not in on the punk seen, i'm clean shaven and well showered and not crusty. Now that's not to say that there is anything wrong with being a crusty, punk anarchist: many of my closest political allies are just that :) But I know a whole lot of people who are turned off from anarchism simply because of the lifestyle clique we currently have going on in our movement...
Almost everyone in the so called anti-globalist movement is interested in anarchist theory at this point, but likewise almost everyone in our movement has a story to tell about feeling alienated from the anarchist "clique."
by A22 Collective
Contact A22 Liason at druidarab [at] yahoo.com or telephone: 202-390-6949 website: http://www.mashriq.org/a22
BACKGROUND
Amid the reports of mass graves and massive human rights violations in the latest attempt of the IDF to re-occupy Palestinian areas we note that the underlying problem is not ethnic or religious strife, nor Israel's right to defense, rather it is the inherent racism of the elites in American Society and Israelis society that are comprised of the Capitalist class. We are all familiar with the victims of this system. Palestine is just the latest example of it. We see the same thing in Columbia as well.
ACTION GUIDELINES
We have called on people to engage in direct action to oppose this racist killing across the globe, and specifically in Palestine. We will continue to support a diversity of tactics. There are limits of what we will support and engage in as the A22 Collective. We do not support the harming of life. We also ask that we do not put those unprepared to engage in our level of direct action at risk through any actions of our own, no actions are to take place in the permitted protest pit zone, referred to as the Green Zone, at the Washington Hilton. We trust all will act with due care and show solidarity with others no matter what our personal beliefs about actions within these broad guidelines.[ Note: some Palestinian refugees living in America have voiced concerns of imagery of burning U.S. flags at this place and time. Please consider how your actions may negatively affect those without the same legal rights as you. There are always other state flags to burn :-)] We are asking people to dress in black as an expression of defiance and mourning and to use all black banners with white lettering and if you need to mask up use a khafiyah (arab headress). Some black coffins would also be good. We are asking individuals not to engage in militant tactics during the A20 march upon request of other organizing groups, this is more of a concern than a block of such tactics.
CALENDAR
Over the period of April 20th-22nd we will be participating in several actions, marches and fun. Here is a brief schedule.
Saturday, April 20th, Gather at the Washington Hilton (Connecticut and T St. NW), 10:30am and march with the ACC in solidarity with Palestinian and allied groups (see http://www.sustaincampaign.org). This is a permitted March. There are going to be march facilitators from the CISPP. 4:00pm Anti-Capitalist Spokes Council, see A22 Collective during march, look for leaflet announcing location or call the liason phone number. That night a social and entertainment event is planned with a screening of the film "Paint-it-Black" at the IMC at 9:00pm (about anarchists at the DNC in LA).
Sunday, April 21st: Anarchist Soccer, Sylvan Theatre Area on the Mall near the Columbia Mobilization, opportunity to meet and talk and show solidarity with the Columbia Mobilization (please respect the Columbia Mobilizations Action Guidelines, they are not the same as our's but we want to show solidarity with other activists we work with from time to time). 12:00pm (noon). This is also an oppurtunity for folks to get to know each other and talk about organizing as anti-Capitalist and working with other groups.
Monday, April 22nd: Converge on Washington Hilton at 5:30pm. Engage in autonomous actions or unified actions. May the force be with you.
April 20th-22nd: various autonomous actions against capitalism, it's wars, and for true people's democracy. Post reports about completed actions to DC IMC (http://dc.indymedia.org) mention you are an anti-capitalist direct action affinity group.
SCENARIO
There will be three types of actions people can participate in at the Hilton on Aprill 22nd. The only public action we are revealing at this time is a cross between a Green type of action and a Yellow action this action will involve symbolic low-risk of arrest civil disobedience or direct action, there will be other direct actions beside the call to Mass Action. (See Mass Action below)
Types of Actions:
Green: permitted protest pit near Hilton
Yellow: non-violent civil disobedience, more than symbolic civil disobedience, near or around the Hilton.
Red: confrontational tactics, more than symbolic or yellow types of civil disobedience.
Yellow and Red actions should not occur near or around the Green zone (South of T St on the West Side of Connecticut Ave). Red actions should not interfere or jeapordize yellow actions. All to be worked out at the spokes council. We are not planning any Red types of actions we encourage Red types of Affinity Groups to attend the Spokes Council to work out what Yellow types of Action are planning to avoid any unecessary conflicts. We will have several scenarios for discussion at the Spokes Council, we will also be taking new scenario proposals and getting updates as information on police tactics become more available.
PLANNED MASS ACTION ON A22:
We are only prepared to publicly discuss the following Mass Action which is aimed at being inclusive as possible. It is not all that is being planned in terms of Direct Action but is the one action that can include the most types of people. It should not be viewed as pre-empting any other actions.
We are calling for a mass symbolic civil disobedience by inviting all people to sit down in the streets and raise their hands in a peace sign to say enough to all the war and human rights violations in a soft blockade of the Hilton and Sharon. At 6:30pm everyone should sit down and maintain their positions. If the police move in we anticipate that they will warn people first, there is no gaurantee though. If you do not want to get arrested get up and move to the green zone, the permitted protest pit. Otherwise link up with someone and remain seated. We would like to blockade all streets in the area via symbolic civil disobedience. Again, if you do not want to get arrested upon police warning get up immediately and proceed to the permitted protest area. (see map for areas to focus on). We encourage everyone to form a group of friends (affinity group) and before hand plan on what part of the area you will sit down in.
The sitting down will also be applicable for if at anytime things begin to get out of control. There will be an audio S-O-S signal when you hear that signal please drop to the ground sitting raising your hands in the air with a peace sign. This will allow the police to differentiate you from any trouble that may be in your area.
see map: http://www.mashriq.org/a22/massive.jpg
SECURITY
We want to remind you that the Mall where the march will pass on A20 and the Capitol where the rally will take place is now under surveillance by the advanced face recognition system deployed by the MPDC. Basically, they can be filming you from a mile away. We are trying our best to make things work without the necessity of over-centralization, hence the emphasis on autonomous actions and a public mass action. If you need Legal call the Legal Collective at (202) 462-7475.
Is there any indication that this will in any way save you from having the snot kicked out of you by the police?
As for the posts by people on the "right" made in defense of Israel which were actually intelligible, I'd like to respond with these points:
Palestinian "terrorism" is done by individuals, sometimes by extremist groups to the best of our knowledge. Its causes can be found in half a century of history beginning with 1948. Terror attacks of this sort are very hard to stop "at the root" as Israel claims to be doing, because at the root is the occupation and a history which cannot be rolled back so easily. Military campaigns by the IDF into Palestine are futile in dismantling any "network" of terror, since any individual feeling the desperation that Palestinians generally feel is in theory capable of carrying out such an attack.
Israeli "state terrorism" is on the other hand very easy to stop at the root. It is done by a State working through the usual top-down mechanisms of any State. The systematic assasinations of Palestinian moderates 30 years ago, the occupation, the massacres carried out under the command of Sharon were all planned by the Israeli authorities and carried out by an army. The systematic murder of unarmed children by the Israeli military is thus less excusable than any individual act of terrorism done by a Palestinian suicide bomber, because it is done by a State, a concentration of Power which is supposedly responsible for its actions.
As for the argument that Israeli forces are DELIBERATELY AVOIDING CIVILIAN CASUALTIES... what? What is your argument for this? How do you explain the hundreds dead in Jenin? Denying medical aid to civilians? The shootings of children caught on camera in broad daylight? I'm confused...
JUSTICE FOR NATIVE AMERICANS- GIVE THEM BACK THEIR LAND, HONOR THE TREATIES.
STOP RACISM.
STOP THE OCCUPATION. STOP THE SUICIDE BOMBINGS. STOP MALE DOMINATION. STOP MILITARIZATION.
FREE PALESTINE!
FREE ISRAEL!
FROM MILITARY MADNESS
facism can never be justified, no matter how true some people believe it and arguee for it,
peace and solidarity from the south pacific
and good luck in fucking it up
facism can never be justified, no matter how true some people believe it and arguee for it,
peace and solidarity from the south pacific
and good luck in fucking it up