This article byJosh Eidelson is re-posted from Common Dreams.
HANOVER and SEVERN, MD—For about twenty-four hours, Walmart workers, union members and a slew of other activists pulled off the largest-ever US strike against the largest employer in the world. According to organizers, strikes hit a hundred US cities, with hundreds of retail workers walking off the job (last month‘s strikes drew 160). Organizers say they also hit their goal of a thousand total protests, with all but four states holding at least one. In the process, they notched a further escalation against the corporation that’s done more than any other to frustrate the ambitions and undermine the achievements of organized labor in the United States.
“I’m so happy that this is history, that my grandkids can learn from this to stand up for themselves,” Miami striker Elaine Rozier told The Nation Thursday night. Before, “I always used to sit back and not say anything…. I’m proud of myself tonight.”
Rozier and her co-workers kicked off the Black Friday strike around 7:30 EST Thursday night; it rolled from Miami through big cities like Chicago and smaller ones like Tulsa, where overnight stocker Christopher Bentley Owen, agitated by an intimidating “captive audience” meeting, decided at the last minute to join the organization and became his store’s sole striker. After holding back because he didn’t plan to stay in his job for long, said Owen, he recognized that millions of other low-wage workers offer the same reason not to get involved. “Meanwhile,” he said, “there are millions of people in those jobs…at some point, people have to get together.”
By 9 am Friday, Walmart had already sent out a statement announcing its “best ever Black Friday events,” claiming that only fifty workers were on strike, and dismissing the action as a failure. Organizers accused Walmart of making up numbers, and noted that the company’s aggressive efforts to discourage participation undermined its supposed indifference.
The Black Friday strike came a year and a half after retail workers announced the founding of the new employee group OUR Walmart, five months after guest workers struck a Walmart seafood supplier and seven weeks after the country’s first-ever coordinated Walmart store strikes. Walmart striker Cindy Murray, a veteran of the last decade’s unsuccessful union-backed campaign against Walmart, said that after the 2008 election, “I was like, we have to do something different.” (Strikes at Walmart certainly qualify.) Murray said OUR Walmart has had greater success because workers saw it “as our organization,” as so they “finally said, maybe we can be saved. Maybe we can speak out.”
Murray helped lead a Friday morning march of four-hundred some workers and activists to Hanover, Maryland’s Capital Plaza Walmart. Chants included “Whose Walmart? Our Walmart!,” and “Stand up! Live better!” At the edge of the Walmart-controlled portion of the shopping center’s parking lot, leaders from Jobs with Justice asked a manager to commit not to punish the workers striking today; they say he replied that Walmart won’t retaliate, said it never does, and denied that a corporate vice president’s warning of potential “consequences” constituted a threat.
Asked whether the retaliation would get worse before it gets better, United Food & Commercial Workers union Organizing Director Pat O’Neill called it “a real possibility” and said it “would be a mistake.” “I think the workers are showing,” added O’Neill, “that they’re not going to be silenced.”
Retaliation was an ever-present theme of the day: an outrage that drove some workers to strike, a threat that led many more to stay at work, a focus of workers’ demands, and a question hanging over next week. Allegations of illegal retaliation provided workers greater potential legal protection to strike; puncturing any sense of safety about striking may have been the motivation for Walmart’s Labor Board charge alleging that the strikes were themselves illegal. And Walmart’s tactics over the past week may have taken a toll: organizers said that 100 DC-area Walmart store workers struck this week, but maybe no more than a dozen on Black Friday itself (they chalked this up to workers’ desire to cause more disruption earlier in the week while products were still being unloaded). Paramount, California, striker Maria Elena Jefferson said that some of her co-workers wouldn’t strike because “they think we’ll never win” and “they didn’t want to lose their jobs.” She said she hoped today’s actions–including a rally of well over 1,000 supporters in Paramount–would change their minds.
The Paramount rally included the day’s only planned civil disobedience, with three Walmart retail workers and six other supporters taking arrest for blocking Lakewood Boulevard. Other tactics were more common across the country, including subversive light shows and mic-checking flash mobs.
The Maryland protesters split up after their rally into two groups: a larger one which leafleted and caroled at a store in Laurel (“I saw Walmart fire Santa Claus”, “Deck the aisles with living wages”) and a smaller group of community activists that headed to nearby Severn. There, about fifty people walked quickly through the garden section, to the front of the store, and launched a mic check, the crowd echoing an organizer from Jobs with Justice as she read from a prepared script: “We call on Walmart to change. We call on Walmart to stop bullying.” After being warned by police, the group turned and left, chanting “We’ll be back.”
The Maryland rally, like the overall campaign, had close ties to the UFCW; most of the Hanover marchers arrived on a half dozen buses that departed from UFCW Local 400’s nearby union hall. Felicia Miller, a UFCW member working at Safeway as a deli clerk, told The Nation that Walmart is driving down standards for new workers at her unionized store. “The young people coming in, pay stinks now because of Walmart…” said Miller. “Because our companies are saying, If Walmart can get away with it, why can’t we?” She said the sight of Walmart workers on strike was “awesome. I’m here to support them all the way.”
While some observers are already deriding the strike for failing to bring Walmart to its knees, worker activists and staff organizers have long been talking about it as an escalation, not a climax. While on the picket line Thursday and Friday, workers were already talking about striking again, and hoping that their courage this time would embolden more workers to join in the next. “There’s going to be more days that we’re going to strike,” Rozier said last night, “and it’s not going to stop. I’m not going to stop until they respect us and give us what we want.” That’s in line with what the UFCW’s Dan Schlademan promised earlier this month: “This is a new permanent reality for Walmart…. Two thousand and twelve is the beginning of the season where retail workers are going to start to stand up.”
As he marched towards the Hanover Walmart this morning, former SEIU organizer Stephen Lerner credited the campaign with showing that workers, through strategic use of strikes, “can engage in actions that both make them feel powerful and that impact the company, and they don’t need to just spend their life waiting for some [National Labor Relations Board] process to demonstrate they want a union.” Lerner, the architect of the Justice for Janitors campaign, added, “What they’re really showing is, they’re acting like a union.”
By 9 pm EST Friday, the day’s last major action, a picket in San Leandro, California, with a dragon puppet and a “brass liberation band,” had come to a close. The three workers who’d been arrested in the afternoon had made it safely home. Tomorrow, the Walmart strikers are headed back to work, with at least one exception: a San Leandro worker who wanted to strike but was scheduled for days off on Thursday and Friday. She’ll be striking tomorrow.
Many of us remember that awful we are the world music video from the 80s, along with all the tear-jerking images of suffering African people.
Much of that campaign and most “aid” projects are just another manifestation of the White Savior Complex. It is easy for us to engage in well-intentioned charity, since it allows us to ignore the root causes of injustice and suffering.
This paternalistic view of the world, and particularly of Africa, has not been overlooked by people who are often the objects of American paternalism. A new project designed to challenge Western paternalism, Africa for Norway, is an excellent resource that uses satire and sound analysis.
Here is what they have to say:
Imagine if every person in Africa saw the “Africa for Norway” video and this was the only information they ever got about Norway. What would they think about Norway?
If we say Africa, what do you think about? Hunger, poverty, crime or AIDS? No wonder, because in fundraising campaigns and media that’s mainly what you hear about.
The pictures we usually see in fundraisers are of poor African children. Hunger and poverty is ugly, and it calls for action. But while these images can engage people in the short term, we are concerned that many people simply give up because it seems like nothing is getting better. Africa should not just be something that people either give to, or give up on.
The truth is that there are many positive developments in African countries, and we want these to become known. We need to change the simplistic explanations of problems in Africa. We need to educate ourselves on the complex issues and get more focus on how western countries have a negative impact on Africa’s development. If we want to address the problems the world is facing we need to do it based on knowledge and respect.
WHAT DO WE WANT?
- Fundraising should not be based on exploiting stereotypes. Most of us just get tired if all we see is sad pictures of what is happening in the world, instead of real changes.
- We want better information about what is going on in the world, in schools, in TV and media. We want to see more nuances. We want to know about positive developments in Africa and developing countries, not only about crises, poverty and AIDS. We need more attention on how western countries have a negative impact on developing countries.
- Media: Show respect. Media should become more ethical in their reporting. Would you print a photo of a starving white baby without permission? The same rules must apply when journalists are covering the rest of the world as it does when they are in their home country.
- Aid must be based on real needs, not “good” intentions. Aid is just one part of a bigger picture; we must have cooperation and investments, and change other structures that hold back development in poorer countries. Aid is not the only answer.
New Media We Recommend
Below is a list of new materials that we have read/watched in recent weeks. The comments are not a “review” of the material, instead sort of an endorsement of ideas and investigations that can provide solid analysis and even inspiration in the struggle for change. All these items are available at The Bloom Collective, so check them out and stimulate your mind.
Philosophy for Militants, by Alain Badiou – This short little book is really a collection of three essays by French philosopher Alain Badiou, who was part of the French uprising in 1968. The commentary by Badiou is interesting and engaging, but does require some knowledge of other philosophical icons such as Plato, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Satre. Badiou explores the relationship between philosophy and politics and contemporary democratic movements. The author also looks at the iconic image of the soldier/warrior, which is where the idea of militant comes into play in the title of the book. The book ends with sort interview with Badiou talking about the student uprising in Quebec. While some might think the book is too vague on politics, the ideas shared within prompt more questions and greater exploration of the relationship between politics and philosophy.
White Supremacy, by Joel Olsen – This zine is one in a series of zines called the Lexicon Series and can be downloaded from AK Press. Olsen’s zine rightly reframes what is usually presented as racism to White Supremacy. The author provides important historical background on this theme in order to make the point that the classification of race was a creation of the early colonial power structure in North America, primarily as a means of pitting working people against each other. Olsen also acknowledges that multiculturalism and colorblindness are not adequate solutions racial injustice, since they fail to acknowledge White Supremacy as an integral part of all US institutions. In addition, the author makes the point that the abolitionist movement, which was the first major movement in the US, was really a movement to challenge White Supremacy. This early movement also had tremendous influence on the early labor and women’s movements, which is why the author points out the centrality of having an analysis of White Supremacy in doing radical social justice work. An important contribution for those doing the work on the ground and those wanting to do the work.
Sexual Decoys: Gender, Race and war in Imperial Democracy, by Zillah Eisenstein – Written during the later half of the George W. Bush administration, this book takes on the military industrial complex through a feminist lens. Like in her previous works such as Global Obscenities, Eisenstein takes on large policy issues from an intersection perspective of race, gender and violence. This analysis isn’t about just any form policy, but the policies of the US government, which Eisenstein identifies as imperialist. The author applies her analysis to the US War on Terror, the use of torture, military occupations and the push to privatize the military. Eisenstein also takes on the function of race, gender and sexual orientation in the US military, with an analysis that would apply equally today in the Obama administration. A well written and passionate exploration of the true nature of US militarism. Highly recommended.
ReGeneration: The Politics of Apathy and Activism (DVD) – Ryan Gosling narrates this engrossing film about social activism, the forces that galvanized the Occupy movement, and how a new generation of young people is coming to terms with a rapidly changing world. The film skillfully weaves commentary from some of the country’s leading political and social analysts with personal observations from a collective of young musicians, a tight-knit group of suburban high-school students, and a young conservative family, providing a nuanced look at the myriad challenges facing the next generation of Americans. The result is as personal as it is political, as much a portrait of the contemporary political scene as of a generation of young people finding their way in uncertain times. Features Noam Chomsky, the late Howard Zinn, Adbusters‘ Kalle Lasn, Andrew Bacevich, Amy Goodman, Talib Kweli, Sut Jhally, and music from STS9.
American Guilt in Gaza
This article by Margaret Kimberley is re-posted from Black Agenda Report.
Ever since Israel was founded in 1947, Americans have been fed a steady diet of propaganda which tells us that we have no better friend in the world than the zionist state. As always in foreign policy issues, it isn’t clear how “we,” that is to say the average citizen, is ever better off because of machinations emanating from Washington. The truth is exactly the opposite. The average American is worse off, much worse off because of Israel’s role as the undeclared 51st American state.
In every presidential election Americans who can’t support the two major party candidates are advised to get with the program and choose “the lesser of two evils.” There is no lesser evil in American politics, not when this country has doomed itself and its people by supporting nations like Israel which use state sponsored terror against millions of human beings in order to get what they want.
Israel is once again killing people in Gaza, a reported 139 so far and most of these victims are women and children. Of course this carnage is carried out with impunity, because Israel knows that the United States will support whatever actions it takes, no matter how awful they are. While the world community may rail at Israel when it kills people in Gaza, or Lebanon or wherever else it may choose, the U.S. uses its United Nations security council veto power to keep that body from taking even the most cosmetic and useless action. In the eyes of the rest of the world, the American people become complicit in Israel’s crimes.
The reward for the countless humiliations is more disrespect. America’s “friend” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quite openly supported the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney. There was not even a pretense of diplomatic niceties or respect for the country without whom Israel wouldn’t exist. Romney traveled to Israel with one of his chief fund raisers, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, to recieve Netanyahu‘s blessing. Adelson spent nearly $50 million in support of Republican candidates across the country and Romney was only the most visible. As always, rich Americans use their influence to insure that no one gets any ideas about straying outside the sanctioned lines of discourse.
The openly evil Netanyahu does not suffer subtlety gladly. Despite Obama’s constant support of Israel, he cannot get any love back from the Israelis. So Netanyahu used the aftermath of an American election to make his point that he will do whatever he wants. He wins even if he seems to lose.
Israel also has an upcoming election to be held in January 2013. Israeli elections are very dangerous for neighboring people, who bear the brunt of that nation’s viciousness whenever it is time for the Israeli public to be appeased and comforted by the sight of dead Arabs.
Barack Obama has a different problem. He must appear at least somewhat diffident about slaughtering people and give the impression of being a peace maker reluctant to do battle. Of course Israel makes his efforts all the more difficult by killing people in earnest when the president traveled to Myanmar. Despite his peace prize laureate photo ops, he was forced to back Israel in its terror directed at Gaza. “There is no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders,“ said the man who routinely sends drones to Somalia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to carry out his kill list orders.
It isn’t clear at all how Obama or any other American president can be thought of as the lesser of two evils when he publicly gives the go ahead for slaughter. No matter how reluctant American presidents seem to be in endorsing periodic Israeli killing sprees, Israel would not be able to act without American arms and money.
The carnage, the broken bodies, and the dead children can all be laid at America’s door. The United States is the world’s only super power and the perpetrator of this crime is America’s friend. Perhaps there will be no more silly questions about why “they” hate us. It isn’t because they don’t want democracy or hate our way of life. They hate us because we keep killing their people. “They” don’t see anything lesser about our evil.
Support Walmart workers this Friday
Walmart workers, both store and warehouse, have been organizing and defying management of the largest company in the world.
They are asking for people to not shop at Walmart on Friday and to support their walkout to pressure the company to improve working conditions and wages.
This video from Brave New Films provides both stunning visual images of this worker struggle and it gives voice to those workers with testimony from numerous Walmart employees.
“Most” killed in Gaza “deserved it” even though they were children and civilians, says Israel’s Danny Ayalon
This article by Ali Abunimah is re-posted from Electronic Intifada.
In a clear indication of Israel’s shocking callousness and disregard for civilian lives, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon today told PRI’s The Takeaway today that most of those killed and injured in Israel’s eight day long bombardment of the Gaza Strip “deserved it.”
“If you compare the situation in Gaza to the situation in Syria today,” Ayalon said, “where the Assad regime just mercilessly butchers people and children there is a big difference and I would say that most of the people that were hit in Gaza deserved it as they were just armed terrorists.”
Vast majority killed and injured are civilians and children
But in fact, the vast majority of those killed and injured were unarmed civilians. Up to 20 November, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 91 of the 136 Palestinians killed were civilians, including 28 children and 13 women, and 922 of the 941 wounded were civilians, including 258 children.
So 66 percent of those killed, and 97 percent of those injured were civilians. Almost one third of the dead are children.
PRI, notably, did not challenge Ayalon on his false assertions.
News reports say that at least 22 more Palestinians were killed on 21 November, including at least two more children.
Earlier today, BBC correspondent Wyre Davies told World Service radio, “It’s quite alarming how many young children have been killed in this conflict.”
A video by Egyptian citizen journalists taken at Gaza City’s main hospital vividly shows the extent of the deaths and injuries to civilians.
In addition to the dead and injured, large numbers of civilians have been displaced. UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, today said that:
Many families are gathering in overcrowded apartments located in areas that they hope are less likely to be targeted. However, as shelling of residential building persists, the population grows weary and evermore fearful.
The remaining 34 percent of the dead presumably include members of Palestinian resistance factions, some of whom will have been killed by Israel in what amount to extrajudicial executions while they were in their homes or other places.
Israel compares itself with Syria
It is only by comparison with the dire situation in Syria that Ayalon hopes he can prettify Israel’s horrifying crimes. But it is clear that Israel’s crimes, and the responsibility of leaders like Ayalon for directly ordering them or complicity in them, stands on its own.
Since Israel began its attack on Gaza on 14 November, breaking a tenuous ceasefire, four Israeli civilians and one soldier have been killed in fire from Gaza and 21 Israelis were injured this morning in a bomb explosion on a bus near Israel’s “defense ministry” in the heart of Tel Aviv.
New ceasefire announced
Ayalon’s comments came as Israel and Palestinian resistance factions agreed to a ceasefire, to take effect this evening. Under the terms of the deal brokered by Egypt, Israel will cease all attacks, incursions and extrajudicial executions in Gaza and ease the blockade, while Palestinian factions will refrain from firing toward Israel.
What remains to be seen is if the ceasefire will take hold and if Israel will implement its terms, given its history of violating such truces.
Red Dawn movie re-make: remaking US imperialism once again
It was nearly 30 years ago, during the first term of President Ronald Reagan’s regime of global terror, when the US was brutally assaulting civilians through proxy wars in Central America and several African nations.
The Reagan administration continued the US practice of imperialism with the US military interventions in Lebanon, Angola, Grenada and Libya. During the 1980s, the US also provided billions of dollars in military support to the Afghan Mujahedeen, who Reagan referred to as “freedom fighters.” The Mujahedeen were made up of some of the most brutal and misogynistic characters of that decade.
The US was also expanding its production of nuclear weapons and it was during the early 80s that the Reagan administration developed the Star Wars initiative. US militarism was growing, and like today, would not tolerate any threat to its global hegemony.
It is in this context that the 1984 film Red Dawn came to the big screen all across the US. I remember going to see at the old Studio 28 and was disgusted with the plot, where the US was invaded by the Soviet Union, Cuba and Nicaragua. The very notion that Cuba and Nicaragua would invade the US was and is patently absurd. The Soviet Union in theory could have, but with a large number of Soviet troops involved in the occupation of Afghanistan at the time and the US outspending the Soviets in an arms race, the possibility of a Russian invasion of the US was nearly impossible. However, this did not matter to the director of the film, who was a political conservative and avid gun collector. In fact, the text of the movie posted wonderfully summed up his political beliefs, In Our Time no foreign army has ever occupied American soil….Until now.
In the 1984 version of Red Dawn, not only do foreign armies invade the US, they take over most of the country and put US citizens in concentration camps. The film takes place in a small town in Colorado, where the heroes of the film lived. Several high school aged youth escape the initial invasion and head to the Rocky Mountains, where they begin an armed guerrilla campaign to drive out the foreign invaders. Not only are these youngsters bad asses, they are young heart throbs. Headlining the group was Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen and Jennifer Grey.
Audiences saw these young characters not only become heroes, but they saw them transform into adults. There is one scene early on where they kill a deer, gut it and eat the heart, as a right of passage that turns them into warriors. The absurdity of the plot was only outdone by the awful acting.
So, what has compelled the next generation of filmmakers to do a remake of Red Dawn? It certainly isn’t because we live in a political climate, where the US is any more vulnerable to invasion than we were in 1984. The invading army this time around is North Korea, which makes sense only in that it is near the top of the “enemy nation” list, but in practical terms the North Korean military just doesn’t have the capacity.
Maybe, it just made sense to have a new generation of heart throbs to play these roles, since youthful movie goers will not be moved by the political message, but will be star struck by the new lineup of Red Dawn, which opens in theaters today around the country.
The remake of Red Dawn stars Nickelodeon star Josh Peck, Thor’s Chris Hemsworth, and The Hunger Games’ Josh Hutcherson. However, the latter two were not big stars when they were cast in the film. Red Dawn was originally filmed in 2009, but then was shelved by the production company. By mid-2011, the cast was not even sure the film would be released at all.
Beyond the opportunity to use the current generation of eye-candy in Red Dawn, it does provide Hollywood with another opportunity to work with the US military, something that has increased since September 11. 2001. It has been reported that the US Navy Seals assisted in the training of the cast of Red Dawn and it doesn’t hurt that the film can be used in the propaganda war to convince those who will see the film, that the US is always at risk of attack from those who “hate democracy.”
More importantly, the real benefit of such a film is that it will distract us from thinking about the numerous wars and military interventions the US is currently involved in, from Afghanistan to Libya, Syria, Yemen and Iraq. The remake of Red Dawn will also not require us to think about US military spending in general or the roughly 180 US military bases around the world that are used primarily to control global resources and protect geopolitical interests abroad. All of this is of course not as interesting as Chris Mensworth’s bangin body.
Senator Levin continues to defend Israeli war crimes and the murder of Palestinian children
As the State of Israel is engaged in yet another brutal assault on the Palestinians living in Gaza, Michigan Senator Carl Levin does what he has been doing for more than two decades………he’s defending and justifying Israeli war crimes.
On Sunday, Levin appeared on ABC This Week with Rep. Peter King to justify and defend the Israeli assault on Gaza. Levin begins by blaming Hamas for the violence. Levin said that Hamas attacked Israel and Israel is just defending themselves.
Levin continues the lies by stating that President Obama is doing everything he can to prevent further violence. Levin then adds that we shouldn’t forget the importance of the Iron Dome Air Defense Missile System, which the Israelis developed, along with US financial support. Levin says that, “the President and the US Congress are entitled to a lot of credit,” when is comes to helping the Israelis develop this weapons defense system.
For those who have been following Senator Levin’s career, this should come as no surprise. Levin has been one of the more staunch apologists for the State of Israel. Senator Levin’s commitment to Israel, has resulted in him being one of the top recipients of Pro-Israel PAC money over the past 20 years.
According to Open Secrets, Levin has received $1,656,735 from Pro-Israel groups in the US, with AIPAC being the largest contributor to the Michigan Senator. Levin has also consistently voted in for legislation that defends Israel, even when Israel commits war crimes, as they did in the 2006 assault on Lebanon and the 2009 assault on Gaza.
Senator Levin is as Hawkish as they come, especially when it has to do with Israel. With his appearance on ABC This Week, Levin demonstrates once again how much he defends Israel and supports war crimes. Levin said nothing about the Israeli assault on Gaza, which is disproportionately more brutal than the rockets being fired at Israel.
Levin also has said nothing about the Palestinian civilians who have died as a result of Israeli bombs. Apparently Carl Levin doesn’t have a problem with the murder of 11 members of the Al-Dalou family, including 1 year old Ibrahim, 5 year old Ranin, 7 year old Jamal and 10 year old Yousef.
The New Obama Doctrine: From Gaza to Goma
This article by Vijay Prashad is re-posted from CounterPunch.
The Israeli assault on Gaza continues. The death toll rises over 100, infrastructure is destroyed, and the UN relief agencies are at wit’s end. A desperate tone has entered the dispatches from the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which has operated in occupied Palestine since 1950. On November 19, the agency noted:
“Israeli Air Force (IAF) strikes were supported by the Israeli navy during the night. The ongoing airstrikes have again targeted leaders of militant groups, infrastructure, the security apparatus, but increasingly residential buildings as well. One hit destroyed a four-storey building belonging to the Al Dalou family in a highly-populated area in Gaza city. The families present in the house were buried under the rubble. At least 11 people died in the strike and over 20 were injured – all of them civilians, including women, an infant, and children. This is an extremely worrying development. There has been a significant increase in civilian casualties during the past 24 hours.”
Israeli air strikes not only hit the UNRWA compounds in Gaza, but they killed a Grade 4 female student from the UNRWA Beach Preparatory Girls’ School.
The UN mission in Goma, a major city in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), removed all non-essential staff from the area. The peacekeepers, with a threadbare Congolese army force, remain to defend the city. On its outskirts sit the M23 (March 23) Movement rebels, backed by the Rwandan armed forces. They moved rapidly to get to this crucial city, the capital of North Kivu. There are already 2.4 million internally displaced people in the DRC, with 4.5 million suffering from food insecurity, and a million children under five suffering from severe acute malnutrition. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on November 19, “This new escalation in fighting in and around Goma, and elsewhere in the Kivus, adds to what are already monumental humanitarian needs in the DRC.” The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), warned, “The renewed conflict is putting children and their families at risk, leaving them exposed to physical harm and mental distress.”
Over the weekend, the UN Security Council met for an emergency session, listening to the UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hervé Ladsous. The Council considered a French resolution on Goma, which condemned “the resumption of attacks by the M23 and demand their immediate cessation.” There was a tepid finger raised toward Rwanda, whose armies have not only armed the M23, but they seem to be directing them. In 2010, the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights published a comprehensive report, DRC: Mapping Human Rights Violations, 1993-2003. which showed the complicity of Rwanda’s government in war crimes, crimes against humanity and even genocide in the Congo. This damning report, solicited by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, was barely given any consideration. It should have been at the center of a UNSC discussion on eastern Congo. But it has not.
Neither Rwanda nor Israel will ever be hauled over the UN coals. The United States will prevent any serious discussion of the military adventures of its allies: Israel and Rwanda. For the former, Israel, there is a formal doctrine (Negroponte Doctrine) that enjoins US ambassadors to the UN to block any criticism of Israel. There is no such formal statement for Rwanda, but there might as well be. Criticism of the M23 movement is allowed, but there will be no allowance to criticise its sponsor, the Rwandan government of Paul Kagame. During the Clinton administration, three heads of government were chosen as the new generation of African Renaissance leaders – Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, Eritrea’s Isaias Afwerki and Rwanda’s Kagame. All three have atrocious records in their own countries, and as far as Kagame and Museveni go, in the Congo. The DRC’s Lambert Mende said that M23 is a “fictitious force,” and that the “real aggressor” is Kagame’s Rwanda. But there is silence on this, as both Israel and Rwanda are immunized from any serious criticism by the UN, and therefore the “international community.”
Dossiers filled with appaling behavior and genocidal language flood the UN missions. Paul Kagame is on record as having called the Congolese, in his native Kinyarwanda, Ibicucu, nobodies or good for nothings (by Colette Braeckman in Les Nouveaux Predateurs, 2003). He speaks cavalierly about their “removal.” Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s son, Gilad, whose his a member of the Kadima Party, wrote an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post (November 18), with genocide on his mind, “Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too.” Such comments should raise the eyebrows of the UN Human Rights Council, whose silence on both Goma and Gaza is as stark as its loud noises during the lead-up to the NATO intervention in Libya. Navi Pillay, who called for the 2010 report on Rwanda’s behavior in the Congo and who tried her best (along with her legal advisor Mona Rishmawi) to implement the Goldstone Report, was allowed to fulminate about Libya and Syria but is subdued on Goma and Gaza. When atrocities are useful for US foreign policy, morality and outrage are muted.
By November 19, the UN Security Council had not acted on Gaza despite the Moroccan draft that has been before them since November 14. Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN Vitaly Churkin made it clear to anyone without hearing range when he left the Council that he was frustrated with US obduracy. Palestine’s Permanent Observer Riyad Mansour indicated that absent US resistance there would be a UN resolution, and therefore an official indication to Tel Aviv of its isolation in its pummeling of Gaza. Meanwhile, the UNSC sanctioned the M23, but did not put any pressure on Kagame. That UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called Kagame and DRC’s Joseph Kabila to come to some kind of accomodation, shows that there is open acknowledgment that the M23 acts with Rwandan backing. Yet, no sanctions on Rwanda.
Obama’s second term opens with the worst kind of display of US power – backing two clients who are hell-bent on creating mayhem against their neighbors. Coming to the defense of Israel in Bangkok, Obama made himself the laughing stock of the world. He said, “There is no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders,” forgetting, of course, that US drones rain hellfire on Droneland – from Yemen to Pakistan, in violation of the UN’s own position on such extra-judicial assassinations, and it was Israel that began this particular episode with its own extra-judicial killing of Ahmad Jabari. There is no “reset,” no new liberalism. Drone strikes and other exaggerations of US aerial power, fanatical defense of its allies, and refusal to come to terms with the emergent multipolarity – this is the Obama Doctrine, now at work in Gaza and Goma.
Buy Nothing Day Really Really Free Market – November 23
This Friday, as a counter to the frenzied spending of what the Capitalist marketers call Black Friday, there will be a free sharing of items with a Really Really Free Market being held at the Division Avenue Arts Collective.
According to the Facebook event page:
In opposition to the negligent consumer driven atrocity Known as Black Friday; we will be holding the November Really Really Free Market on Friday the 23rd. We encourage everyone to participate in buying nothing on this day. Please bring useful items that are no longer needed and take whatever you like. A meal will be provided by Food Not Bombs. Please refrain from drop offs after 4pm. Hope to see you there.
Really Really Free Market
Friday, November 23
1 – 4:30PM
The DAAC
115 S. Division, Grand Rapids
