137 Comments

Write my name on my leg, Mama - --Zeina Azzam

“Some parents in Gaza have resorted to writing their children's names on their legs to help identify them should either they or the children be killed.” - CNN, 10/22/2023

Write my name on my leg, Mama

Use the black permanent marker

with the ink that doesn’t bleed

if it gets wet, the one that doesn’t melt

if it’s exposed to heat

Write my name on my leg, Mama

Make the lines thick and clear

Add your special flourishes

so I can take comfort in seeing

my mama’s handwriting when I go to sleep

Write my name on my leg, Mama

and on the legs of my sisters and brothers

This way we will belong together

This way we will be known

as your children

Write my name on my leg, Mama

and please write your name

and Baba’s name on your legs, too

so we will be remembered

as a family

Write my name on my leg, Mama

Don’t add any numbers

like when I was born or the address of our home

I don’t want the world to list me as a number

I have a name and I am not a number

Write my name on my leg, Mama

When the bomb hits our house

When the walls crush our skulls and bones

our legs will tell our story, how

there was nowhere for us to run

—Zeina Azzam

Found here: https://www.commondreams.org/further/this-is-how-we-live-people-come-together-die-together-are-buried-together-in-the-same-shroud

Expand full comment

Hi Bob, thanks for posting this. It gave me somewhere to put all the horror and anger inside - I turned it into a song, adapting the words. https://open.substack.com/pub/crapp/p/write-my-name?r=b9soy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcome=true

Expand full comment

I'm sure they do that. If it were my children: any flood, fire, bombing by the IDF, would do that....absolutely.

I'll bet there is also a lack of permanent magic markers.........you never know what you will need in a holocaust.

Expand full comment

Thanks for sharing this video. Chris is a saint navigating through our current living hell.

Expand full comment

That talk literally brought me to tears, which I didn't think was possible anymore.

Thank you Chris Hedges for elbowing my humanity in the ribs.

Expand full comment

I have known from research a lot of what he was saying but he did say some things I hadn't heard. Crying angry!

Expand full comment

Same!

Expand full comment

the question that has never been answered fully is why? Why is this allowed in a post colonial world? Who are the "true" operators and their reasons. MIC for sure, WEF unlinked, Bank of London, Federal Reserve Bank, Black Rock, Vanguard, all operating in full force in Western nations, rarely mentioned when they fund all of this. Why aren't we directed towards them rather than this shit we already know as poet, Auden already said. This leads to the question not only about the number of Zionists in our government and institutions, but whether their loyaltly to USA is not usurped by their loyalty to Israel. My feeling is that we have traitors to the USA within our institutions and our government. Prove me wrong.

Expand full comment

I've come to believe that your government and the government of Israel are essentially One...and have been so perhaps since 1948. We can't write out the role of fossil fuel's either, since the middle east is full of sweet light crude and America has long intended to control most of it.

Khaddaffi died a terrible death for attempting to stand up to America, but a friend of ours who worked in the oil patch of Libya admits cheerfully that American oil companies were ripping off Libya...and that Khaddaffi did a lot to make things better for his people. Mossadegh in Iran tried to do the same, nationalizing Iran's oil. He didn't last long, and a handsome American puppet, and his American movie star wife, were installed as dictators in his stead. The story is that they 'modernized' Iran. They also oversaw the take over by British and American oil companies...rescuing Iran's wealth from the evils of socialism (nationalizing anything is socialist to uncle sam, yes?)

Israel is America's outpost in the Middle East.......and America has supplied the money, and the weapons, to make Israel virtually impregnable. Imagine how the Islamic countries of the Middle East are feeling watching this genocide in progress..........while knowing that if they do anything America will provide the WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION...to make them regret it.

Traitors in your government???? Heroic defenders of Western Supremacy rather.

When was it they didn't run things.........sacrifice land, people and the entire ecosphere if necessary........to have their way???

It's made America rich.........and stupid. Entitled, and willing to kill to defend their pernicious way of life. Chris Hedges is a hero. But even he knows he's fighting a rear guard action.

Expand full comment

I don't disagree with what you said but my point is who is financing all of this. As Reginald McKnenna in his chairman's address to shareholders of Midland Bank, Jan. 25, 1924. "I am afraid that the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can, and do, create and destroy money. The amount of money is existence varies only with the action of the banks increasing and decreasing deposits and the purchases . . .andthey who control the credit of a nation, direct the policy of the Governments and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people." This is precisely what 5 of our presidents knew who attempted monetary reform and who were assassinated for doing so, as well as US Congressman Louis Thomas McFadden. The majority of shares in the Federal Reserve Bank is still held by the Rothschilds and it seems they are attempting to bankrupt the USA. I suggest we do like the Bank of North Dakota. Also, there are many nations, including Germany who, before WWII, was very prosperous without a central bank. This alerted the Rothschild funding Poland and others to antagonize Germany at their borders and was at least in part a cause of WWII. See A History of Central Banking and the Enslavement of Mankind by Stephen Mitford Goodson, a great read with history you are never taught is school.

Expand full comment

I don't in general disagree with you........though we're just starting to learn what a shell game big finance can be. Have you read THE DEFICIT MYTH? It opened our eyes to why the government not spending money may be the problem, not the solution............but of course, in the end, its the carrying capacity of the earth that we need to pay attention to. No amount of financial tricks will have us eating and living well once we cross those boundaries with our idiotic belief that 'there are no limits' to what we can do or undo.

Expand full comment

I will look it up and review and possibly purchase.

Expand full comment

Let us know if you come across any other books exposing the world of high finance or the way we view money. Up here in Canada, conservatives are trying to convince us if the government just stops spending money, all will be well.........after years of low taxes for the well off....and erosions to our health and education systems.....now they tell us we must cut back in earnest.

Expand full comment

Here's from Propulica. The person who released the info is now serving 5 years in jail where, like Epstein, he may be murdered.

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax

Expand full comment

Gave you one but written by same author, which got him assassinated, was "Inside the South African Reserve Bank: Its Origins and Secrets Exposed" by Stephen Mitford Goodson. In his prior mentioned book he describes how countries, including Russia and France under Napolean, had economies that benefitted the people, were thriving under a monetary system that was more favorable to the people and describes in more than one instance of a nation, "a workers paradise." The usury system of banking keeps our countries and their inhabitants enslaved, according to the history in The History of Central Banks and the Enslavement of Mankind. The fight of those who knew it and died for it, and why when you talked about the Middle Eastern leaders who laid claim to their resources and a monetary system that excluded Central banking's usury system were assassinated or deposed, made much sense to me. True of the US and true all around the world and particularly in the Middle East. Matt Kinnard and Claire Provost's most recent book criticizes the IMF and the World Bank for keeping other underdeveloped countries as an extraction ploy to keep said country poor and indebted to Central Banks. Called Silent Coup. Thank you for hearing and investigating and in the end, finding truth on your own. USA founding fathers have quotes that are never presented in our public schools. One can speculate why.

Expand full comment

These might interest you: Our Country, Then and Now by Richard C. Cook, and The Great Campaign; Against the Great Reset by Jason Jones. Also take a look at a Canadian site at monetaryreform.com

Expand full comment

First all all, the US government does not issue money; the Federal Reserve Bank does. It is a privately owned bank and its name is a misnomer to fool people. Will look further, what was first thing I noticed that was pure lie.

Expand full comment

In fact the last US president who issued government money was JFK. That fact and also that he wanted to withdraw all troops from Vietnam by 1965, and did not want Israel to have nukes for good reason, and was not fond of the CIA, all worked against him to get him assassinated by a triangle of Mossad, CIA, and organized crime, according to a book the ADL fought heavily to have banned. Asked for a library loan of said book and the 7 libraries who had it refused to loan it. Hmmmm.

Expand full comment

A LOT of confused humans.

Expand full comment

That rather lets a lot of us off the hook.......Peace isn't a complex concept.....and looking away from genocide is more an example of fear of reprisals.....than of a mind too confused to draw any conclusions.

I suspect the degree of fear in the west is greater than we imagine....and even for us, this bombing in Gaza sends a pretty brutal message about what the guys we've armed are willing to do with those armaments.

Expand full comment

Insightful....thanks, I will give this some thought. I have done nothing but look at everything to do with this horror, right from Oct 7, luckily Norman Finkelstein came right up on youtube. I want to know everything but I know very few who do...actually, no one. My X says "you can't do anything about it"...yes, but, the politicians who support it are counting on the public to ignore it and believe the lies from Israel (all lies) .

Expand full comment

Everything counts..........and rallying with the people who have parents in Gaza is better than putting your head under a pillow. If there's no rallies near you, a letter to Biden doesn't hurt. We have a Palestinian flag hanging on our balcony. We're not Palestinian, but we've never made alliances with the warmongers.....Peace to you and yours for the holidays.

Expand full comment

We were NOT paying attention to SO many things....all wrapped up in shopping, Netflix or whatever. That war on Iraq...we could have just gifted them ALL, rich to poor, big TV screens and cable.....instantly domesticated.

Expand full comment

Too true. But not always and not for all. Some of us don't vibe with consumerism, but I suppose we are too few to make a difference? If only we knew the multiple and decades long lies our government told us, perhaps with healthy skepticism, we could bring this country closer to what is was meant to be and it does mean free of Federal Reserve Bank and inclusive of a national/state bank, like North Dakota, responsible to the people. But, alas, few even know the Federal Reserve Bank is a private bank and that Rothschilds hold the major interests/stocks.

Expand full comment

Frankly..I am just learning, due to complete obsession with everything I can learn about this horror show. I never paid attention to politics. I thought who can know the truth about any of it and it seemed to me to run fine enough. I was into projects, literature, art and had my own business that did really well during what I have heard was an economic downturn.

Along with this "study", I am learning more about our economic system and the CIA interfering with any administration in other countries that tried to work for the people. I spent time in Guatemala and learned what happened in '54 and knew about Chile and Argentina...but there is so much more. I used to be a proud American. No more.

Expand full comment

Hi, Paula, I've written about what and who is behind this, including the takeover of the US government by a group led by Antony Blinken who are working in hand with the 'revisionist Zionists' of Netanyahu's government to completely decimate Gaza, as Chris discussed. The post is a summary of my personal quest to make sense of what's really going on, based on pulling in information from Chris and many other sources. If it's of interest, you can find it at https://ezprine.substack.com/p/making-deeper-sense-of-the-gaza-war

Expand full comment

I will read this. Thank you.

Expand full comment

good luck on that front page NY Times.......although, we can/have to trust the media over the talking heads in Gov.

Expand full comment

Thank you. Another source of truth. I can't get a print copy because I live in Mexico....safe from being shot in the grocery store and from seeing Trump signs.

Expand full comment

Tho I see why you say what you did, I see a failure in the system that allows you to remove yourself from it, and a failure in supporting our constitution, as damaging as it was and is to indigenous peoples. Run away all you want, but this ugly system provides you the means. I have thought of doing the same myself, when feeling so isolated from family and main stream America because I know so much truth about USA lies and deceits; what most do not know. "There are no alternative facts". There are, however, alternative narratives. Do speak out, do say what you see about America. As Desmet Mattias, clinical psychologist said, a drop in the water, a conversation at a checkout stand. all those count against a world that seems focused on destruction and ignoring the millions in the streets of every nation saying NO, NO to genencide. Do not know what else to share with you. Your assessment of facts are yours alone to make. Choose wisely what you back and choose to believe.

Expand full comment

You have thought of "running away" yourself when feeling so isolated from family and main stream America because you know so much truth about USA lies and deceits; what most do not know. ...I didn't run away. I am just living in another part of the big world. Because I had worked and saved, I sent myself out for 5-6-7 months , solo, very budget to countries I could afford. India, SE Asia, Latin America. I learned a lot. I'm still as connected due to books, internet, as much as I was 60 years ago raising a family and having very little to do with any social scene. My only friends, those I was lucky enough to connect with, were intelligent, artistic independent thinkers. They were all younger than me and they're all dead. The only people near to what they were are on substacks. Living here is the same for me as living in the USA, except that I was in NYC for 40 years. Better everything there. Move out of the USA. Change is good.

Expand full comment

I have contemplated many times but like James Baldwin and the documentary about him, " I Am Not Your Negro" as much as I want to, I cannot abandon my country while I see its wrongs to others beginning with the native populations who lived here before us. We have only one chance left to right so many wrongs and we can't do that if we abandon our nation. Israel and its horror is showing us the way, as horrible as it is to see. I want to live with and through our next revolution, if it happens in a complacent America. I also want to die with MLK, JFK, and all who stood for the people, not the elites, but us "littles" whose little lives never matter to those in power.

Expand full comment

made me cry. thanks for being a voice crying out in the wilderness...it's not your failure that so few want to listen. The children of Gaza, their parents and grandparents, and concerned people around the planet are grateful for your voice.

Expand full comment

Thanks again Chris. The censorship and distortions by the MSM is insane! here in Canada we have "Honest" Reporting Canada". That is merely a wing of Israel's Ministry of Truth. They attack even the most remotest revelation of conditions in Israel/Palestine, with weaponized anti Semitism. The editors are terrified of them. I have sent many many letters to the editors and just one was printed. I have been reduced to making driving protests with small Palestinian car flags and signs that first started with "Cease Fire" and has now turned into "Stop the Genocide in Gaza". Many drivers give thumbs up, waves or supporting honks. Only once did a passenger stick out his middle finger. It shows we are the majority. Trudeau is like Obama all looks and no substance. His father Pierre Elliot must be spinning in his grave, he gave American draft dodgers sanctuary! Most Liberal supporters are mad as He--, he will not survive the next election. Problem is we too have a Trump like Neo Con Christian fascist Pierre Poilievre a renowned Libertarian. He will be a Trump poodle if both he and Trump win. Trudeau is Genocide Joe's poodle now! Why American foreign policy is controlled by Zionist fascist Jews is outrageous and beyond belief, but still they say anti Semitism blocks their way. Killer Kissinger had blood on his hands over Palestine and the ME and the Bloody Torch was passed down to Bloody Blinken! What a hideous Joke!

Expand full comment

You ask: "Why American foreign policy is controlled by Zionist fascist Jews is outrageous and beyond belief, ".....

They snuck in. Into the mainstream America. Or, they were good Americans and attended lectures: "remember the Holocaust, it could happen again...to you.....as a Jew. Give!

Or, persuasion by friends. ......

Expand full comment
Dec 10, 2023·edited Dec 10, 2023

Thank you Reverend and journalist Chris Hedges. You are a voice of sanity in a western world gone mad.

Your experience and clear thinking stands up to the challenge, which ultimately must be defeated.

Expand full comment

Chris. Thanks. That’s the second time that letter’s brought forth tears. Fat lot of good they do.

Helpless to stop the barbarism. Bearing witness and refusing the lies to take hold is all that is left. Thank you for doing it so eloquently.

Expand full comment

Beautifully written, well delivered.

Expand full comment

I love how he connected the dots!!

I went and looked up the Armenian genocide, and Turkey has wiped most of the evidence of it, it's ficked up! They are talking like they are gonna help the Palestinians, but they are not doing much. And here Turkey & the US and many other countries started the same horrible way as Israel, wiping out & and open air enprisoning the indigenous survivors.

Expand full comment

This is just fact to fact to fact. He is an amazing speaker, those people are blessed to have him for a professor. It's so incredibly sad, and yet I feel powerless. I think there is some way to stop it. Protest everything. Everywhere. We live in an oligarchy 💯 his honesty is amazing! He has got to be on a kill list or 2.

Expand full comment

Please consider researching and participating in Boycott Divest Sanctions movement. It’s very easy to do simply by boycotting some

Brands. The website is also great to tell you which ones to boycott, and there is a small list because targeted boycotts are more effective.

Our only power now is in our numbers. We can be heard through the economic impact on large companies when together we refuse to buy from them, and they see the impact on their quarterly reports and investors leave them. That’s when they change. That’s when they stop sending money to Israel and participating in ethnic cleansing themselves .

Bdsmovement.net

Expand full comment

I'm for the BDS movement, there was only a few of those items that I ever supported, marvel, Puma, HP, & Sabra. But cutting those out is easy.

When you have the #'s, you have the power, once you organize.

That UN vote yesterday made it clear where the world stands. Israel and the US are heading for isolation. America did this to themselves, well our government did. Israel same & worse.

DC comics should come up in this movement, it already was better

Expand full comment
Dec 9, 2023·edited Dec 10, 2023

In recent weeks, Chris Hedges has had much, much more to say about the plight of the Palestinians than he has ever said about members of the U.S. working class who have been bullied into a state of fear, poverty and censorship by COVID tyranny ...

Here's one of his more memorable quotes that no longer rings true ... from his book WAGES OF REBELLION: "I do not fight fascists because I think we will win, I fight them because they are fascists" ... if he really practiced this principle, he never would have thrown the working class under the bus with COVID by quietly refusing to stand with us against the illegal and unconstitutional mandates and passports ... on this topic, he has only said: "it's a tough decision" ... when in fact, he never should have had a second thought about standing with us ...

Expand full comment
founding

It's not "Covid tyranny" that has caused the huge wealth disparity and poverty in the U.S. Capitalism requires poverty which has been accelerating since the Reagan presidency with increases in military spending and the many tax cuts for the rich over the decades, most recently by Trump and our new MA Governor. Chris Hedges is an advocate for working people around the world and thankfully has the courage to speak out against the U.S. government using our tax dollars to fund the bombing by Israel of civilians, mostly women and children, and the murder of journalists, UN workers, nurses, doctors, and whole families in apartment buildings and refugee camps in Gaza.

Expand full comment
Dec 10, 2023·edited Dec 18, 2023

You don't know what you're talking about ...

Just 30 days after a court-ordered FOIA release of Phizer's vax trial proved the VAX is not "safe & effective", he did an interview with Krystal Ball and hubby Kyle and told us we all should go out get the jab ... and I never suggested that COVID tyranny was the cause of the huge wealth disparity in the U.S. ... never said anything like it ...

Next time you REPLY, try to be better prepared, can you do that?

Expand full comment

FFS! the video above and the comments below are, or should be, about the situation in Gaza. Nothing whatsoever to do with vaccines, so why don't you take you barrow and push it somewhere else? Preferably into a fkn ditch.

Expand full comment
Dec 10, 2023·edited Dec 10, 2023

" ... should be" ... according to who? ...

I used to love this guy, but I followed him so closely that I could not ignore it when he began to play both sides ... he's done virtually nothing for the working class since the MAR '20 lock-downs ... BTW, I've been posting carefully-researched criticisms of Hedges here on SS for over a year now and people like you are the minority ... I get my fair share of LIKES ... more people are catching on to his act ...

Expand full comment

"Played Both sides"? You mean that Hedges - someone with a University education, went with science, empirical evidence or demonstrable statistics? That's taking one side not both.

Wow! You've been posting carefully-researched ( or otherwise )criticisms of Hedges for over years. Stop it! You'll go blind.

Expand full comment
Dec 10, 2023·edited Dec 10, 2023

Yes, he played both sides ... a pretty hard thing to do given his public statements over the past two decades ... but he did it anyway ...

He'll talk forever about Gaza, Assange and the CIA but he had no problem abandoning the working class on all things COVID ...

Expand full comment

It may be you Pita...who doesn't know what she's talking about. A key bit of evidence is that no matter what the actual topic is you come on here to bash Chris for not joining the anti-vacc hysteria.

There's likely some good reasons why he did not do so. Beware of the fascistic kind of thinking that reduces to 'you're either with us or you're the enemy'. Two ideas or answers, one of them wrong...........is the stupid person's response to the immense diversity of the earth. What's worse, such brute simplifications generally leads to War.

Expand full comment

Thank you IngaMarie ...

Chris Hedges has done much more to divide us than I ever could ...

You don't have a clue ...

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Dec 10, 2023·edited Dec 10, 2023

I do what it takes to enlighten what few open minded people here should know about this man ... he has actually sided with the globalists on the issues of climate change and vax-related bodily autonomy ... the evidence has now proven him wrong on both issues so he will not talk about either anymore ...

Expand full comment

If I feel fuckedup about a journalist I stop following them, I don't spend years in their comments trying to persuade people to share my views

Expand full comment

No, no, no ...

YOU may stop following them, but not me ...

I just cut and paste a few paragraphs and post it to the comments section ...

That's it, I'm done ... you wouldn't do it, but I like it ... Hedges is a real sign of the times, he no longer practices what he preaches ... and he is betting the ranch you won't notice! ...

You are the victim here, not me!

Expand full comment

@PITA Contrarian

You have cut and pasted that comment repeatedly. Are you a paid shill, info warfare sock puppet or just an Israeli/Zionist worried about your own future?

Expand full comment

None of the above ...

I'm an independent progressive just like Hedges ...

So who am I? ... I'm the guy who listens more closely to him than ANYBODY ... and when his words don't match his actions, I call him on it ... this seemingly nice man has said some pretty nasty things ... believe it!

Expand full comment
Dec 11, 2023·edited Dec 13, 2023

What a powerful, evocative essay! Respect for your commitment to the truth and to those whom the powerful would prefer to permanently bury under their bombs and lies.

Expand full comment

There is no "genocide in Gaza". Just stop. There is Israel trying to ensure the safety of its people after Palestinian terrorist brutally murdered, raped and kidnapped innocent Israel citizens.

WTF did the Palestinians THINK would happen?

Expand full comment

Ah, you are aware that Israel is the OCCUPIER, Israel is the AGRESSOR and has been for 70+ years?

Expand full comment

Arabs are the occupiers. Israel Jews occupied that land and much more around it before the Arabs took it by bloody conquest. Catch up you pseudo intellectual.

Expand full comment

An Obvious Lie............you have to go back over 1000 years to find Jews in control of that land. Where exactly do you think the Jewish diaspora came from???

If a people still holds absolute title to land lost in antiquity, we may all be in trouble in North and South America. Unless of course, your double standards don't include the indigenous people of our recently 'new found lands'.

Expand full comment

So you just pull a convenient statute of limitations out of your arse?

Expand full comment

If every ethnic group had absolute title to land they once inhabited, we'd have quite the mess Frank. Positing that one ethnic group has that said eternal right of return (while it denies the right of return to the people now living in Palestine) can only be seen as an argument justifying 'a chosen people' none sense. That old tune from Exodus comes to mind: "God gave this land to me'.

It's a metaphor Frank, not an article of jurisprudence.

Expand full comment

All Arabs in that land occupied it by bloody conquest. Take a look at the map. Israel is but a small sliver surrounded by a sea of Arabs and Muslims.

Your arguments don't hold water and your antisemitism is clear.

Expand full comment

Ad-hominem, the hallmark of any great argument. Congrats.

Expand full comment

You are a member of the dark cult of Israel propaganda! Just stop yourself, what did Israel think would happen?? You steal their land put them in an open air prison, kill one after another for years and years. From Haiti to Nat Turner to any occupied and oppressed people, they eventually revolt.

There are thousands of people that are in Israeli prisons, many that are just kids, that have not been charged with anything. That's kidnapping. To look at Oct 7th, without looking at what led up to it, is ridiculous.

Thanks for showing us who you are.... Again

Expand full comment

"Revolt"? Thanks for showing us your Jew-hating support of terrorism. Disgusting.

Israeli Jews occupied that land before the Arabs stole it by bloody conquest.

No, Israel isn't kidnapping, liar. And they are not committing Genocide, liar. They are only attempting to prevent their people from being butchered by Jew-hating terrorists like you.

I wonder if you would write these things using your full name.

Expand full comment

Frank, I got an email notifying me of your reaponse to my comment, but I can’t seem to find it here. You have accused me of being a Jew hater (as you have many others on this thread) and you’ve expressed your wish that my family were raped and murdered.

My neighbours and good friends are Jews. We support each other with play dates for our kids and bringing each other food and medicine when each other are sick. Their daughter teaches my kids about the haunaka which they have begun to celebrate now, and we share with her the root of our Christian traditions.

I am not a Jew hater, and I don’t see any evidence of Jew haters on this thread. What I see is criticism for what the state of Israel is doing. That is not hating Jews.

Your response to people who have a different opinion to you is to attack them personally, which is tough as you don’t know any of us. So it’s not an ideal tactic.

Better to fight with facts.

If you want to change someone’s mind, find out why they think what they think. Read what they have been reading. And if you find factual error in it, and can provide information (facts, evidence, examples, testimony) to counter it, well then that’s the basis of a good conversation. And along this path, you might learn something yourself.

But randomly calling strangers on the internet Jew Haters because they have different knowledge than you, different opinions than you, because they have had different experiences and learned different things, well, that really just weakens the position you’re trying to convey to others.

And it doesn’t make me want to subscribe to your Social Misfit Newsletter. Because to me, you seem like someone in need, who needs help, maybe love, and certainly healing. I truly hope you find it.

Expand full comment

There is a hierarchy of human value. At the very bottom are terrorists that purposely kill civilians including women, children, seniors... and write home to their families in celebration of their accomplishment. Next up from the gutter of human value are those that defend those terrorists FOR ANY REASON.

Palestine is a terrorist territory. And the majority that are not terrorists are terrorist sympathizers.

Israel does NOT target civilians. Israel is only doing what it needs to protect itself from terrorists and all the sponsors of terrorism that have the primary goal of destroying Israel and killing Israel Jews.

If you don't get this. If you sympathize with the Palestinians whom are terrorists and terrorists supporters, you are also at the bottom of hierarchy for your tacit support of eliminating Israel and Israeli Jews. You are rightly labeled a Jew hater despite your neighbors.

Expand full comment

I see your logic. But you’re making assumptions that I am not making, and you probably don’t have access to information that I do.

You don’t seem to know or acknowledge the attributives created by Israel for decades, and during this war.

You don’t seem to know or acknowledge the growing evidence (from IDF soldier testimony and from Israeli news papers) that a lot of the slaughter on Oct 7th was by the IDF working under their Hanival directive, which was created after the Lebanese war and basically says that you must fire on both enemy and your own civilians to prevent hostage taking.

You don’t seem to be aware of the limits of the firepower and weapons that Hamas have available to them. I’m sure you’ve seen the images that Israel put out of burned cars, burned bodies (burned beyond recognition requiring DNA tests for identification). If you knew about what weapons Israel have and which Hamas have you would have to conclude, as arms experts have attested to (Israeli and American) that this destruction could I l’y have been done by the thermabaric weapons and missiles loaded on Israeli hapache helicopters (American supplied). Hamas don’t have the capability to create that level of damage even if that was their intention. They attacked on Oct7 using hand held weapons. Hand held rocket launchers and automatic rifles. They could not level whole buildings with those. The homes in the kibbutz were leveled by shells from

Israeli tanks. IDF soldiers -many of them- have already attested to this.

You will not know any of this if you watch only mainstream media. It is being suppressed. But the footage is available online through many well established and independent (meaning it doesn’t accept funding from companies or investors) independent media outlets like Democracy Now as one example.

I do watch mainstream as well, so I can u swears s why you would believe what you believe.

I have also listened to ex-Zionist Jews who stopped being Zionists because they realized that they were being indoctrinated and trained to hate and fear Muslims and believe that they are all terrorist. They didn’t stop being Jews. Not all Jews are Zionists. The current government is the state of Israel are Zionists.

There’s so much more to respond to in your message but it would take so long.

I don’t hate Jews and I don’t hate you. And I don’t think you’re in the bottom of the rung of humanity because you support Israel and (although you don’t realize or accept it) a genocide. I just think you’ve been fooled by very powerful and evil forces. They’re very good at fooling. They didn’t start in Oct 7th. They’ve been lying and indoctrinating for decades. It’s from the playbook of the Nazis, ironically.

I hope you will do as I have done...listen to other sources, allow yourself to challenge your own beliefs, assumptions and biases. And don’t be afraid to be wrong. It’s from our own failures that we learn and grow the most.

Lastly I’ll say, I don’t agree with your philosophy of a hierarchy of people and I think that’s quite dangerous. I believe in equality, freedom and human rights for all. We have courts, domestic and international, to deal with people who run afoul of our laws. That’s what keeps us civilized.

Expand full comment

You're a mess!

Terrorist 😆

You sound like Chuck Shumer

Opposing genocide is antisemitism, that approach is old AF at this point.

Expand full comment

Bullshit, was all the band could play

Bullship, they played it night and day.

Expand full comment

Frank LIAR! YOU are pathetic!

Expand full comment

Sure Jimbo. Unfortunately intellectually dishonest people like yourself make a habit of calling other people what you are.

Expand full comment

Frankly you projectionism is Trumpian to say the least! I wasn't name calling I was pointing out the fact that you are a liar!

Expand full comment

Don't ever lie Jimbo. But from people like you denying the truth, every fact probably looks like a lie. I have a relative like that... should probably be institutionalized to protect him from harming himself and others.

Expand full comment

Frankly Franklee I don't give a D-mn. Your delusion is complete.

Expand full comment

Interesting to watch as you become more blatantly obvious in your support of a colonial state Frank. But denying what we're all seeing with our own eyes on nightly television is quite a feat.

Reminds me of an old saw, "There are none so blind as those that will not see".

Partisanship does that to a person.

Expand full comment

You might be interested in listening to this from a young man raised as a Zionist and studied in a national religious seminary in Jerusalem and in this short clip he explains his interactions with a Palestinian man who he considered a terrorist.

https://youtu.be/-fo7lRB-eTI?si=XwEew5FhbjVGHF5L

Expand full comment

Umm...what did Israel think would happen? I can tell you, they thought if they oppressed, humiliated, periodically shelled and murdered, illegally detained men woman and children randomly without charge for years, and used the most brutal and inhuman methods to subjugate the Gazans while they emboldened settlers civilians to steal land and homes and kill Palestinians in the West Bank, while they did all that they thought the Palestinian people would give up home, that they would languish and die. If you don’t understand what has happens in the last 100 years, or even the last 20 years, then I can see why you take the view you do. But the preceding history od occupation and oppression is not only relevant, it literally creates the the resistance: not just figuratively but literally. Israel is the one who funded Hamas to encourage their creation and terrorist activities to undermine the Fatah party and the Palestinian authority. This is well known. You can look it up yourself easily.

There was a time around 1994 when there was motivation for peace both by Palestinian leader (Arafat) and Israeli leader (Rubin). But they were assassinated to undermine the peace effort. Benjamin Netanyahu is at the core of this and his right wing fascist party members who some of them have also been deemed terrorists by their own country prior to them being appointed politicians.

Israel thought they could oppress so brutally that Palestinians would give up hope, languish and die. But that didn’t happen. The Palestinian people won’t give up. They resist the occupation in many ways, most of them peaceful, but no peaceful efforts have had any effect or got any support down the international community for over 20 years. So Hamas took action.

Hamas have used methods ONLY the same as what Israel have used on Palestinians for decades.

You any not realize it, but if you condemn the actions of Hamas on Oct 7th, you also condemn the state is Israel.

If you want to know truth it’s easy to find.

If you can’t learn truth, it’s because you don’t want to.

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Cherry picking facts and events does not amount to truth. You need the whole story. It may take some effort and time on your part. But not to much. For me, I learned it in less than a month.

I was shocked. And I had to face my own bias, and the anti-Islamic rhetoric which had been educated into me that I didn’t even realize was wrong: that Islam is violent, that Muslims are terrorists. I was wrong. I had to face that before I could see and hear clearly.

I hope you will learn the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I hope you will be able to see and hear clearly.

Expand full comment

Too bad they didn't rape, murder and kidnap your family members assuming you have any. Because then maybe your perspective would be made real instead of the anti-Jew cult mythology you subscribe to.

By the way, the Palestinian authority said that they will continue to do the same Oct 7 attacks over and over again. You probably like that... want it to continue because it will result in more dead Jews.

Expand full comment

I have a Palestinian scarf, from Amazon. I wear it here but no one notices. I have sent an email to somewhere in the State dept. but that was months ago and I don't recall....it was being pissed off at Biden's support. And, saying none of MY tax money for $$ or weapons to Israel. ...have not heard back and obviously......

Expand full comment

I’ve felt the same frustration. I’ve moved to the BDS movement. I recommend checking out bds movement.net

It’s a global movement and very powerful and effective when we all target the same companies. It’s a way of cutting off money to Israel that funds their arms purchases and army.

Expand full comment

When I clicked on movement.net, all I got was a blank page...

I'm in Mexico and have no idea what commodities are from Israel. Anyway, I only buy food and use Uber. All the stores I use are Mexican except Costco.. Barcelona, for what's is worth, has cut off trade with Israel. Let's hope more cities or countries do the same. Israel's policies have been disgusting and are now beyond reason : they either crave victimhood or are just plain defying all human standards: Just watch how we can get away with anything.

Expand full comment

https://bdsmovement.net

That’s the correct link. Thanks for following up!

Expand full comment

Thanks...It works....But, as I mentioned, I live in Mexico. I have to do some research to see if that terrorist country in involved in any potential transactions down here. I don't buy anything except food.

...wikipedia: "In 2008, Mexico purchased US$210 million of Israeli military equipment." I have heard that they also provide surveillance technology to probably both the cartels and the government. Israel does business with many of the dictatorships. Mexico is not a dictatorship but corruption has always been a large part of their "economy". From my NYC business experiences many Jews put $ over principles.

Expand full comment

If you go on that website there is a search facility to find local groups in your area who can tell you what products to boycott locally (if there is a BDS group locally).

Other than that, there is a list of items to boycott globally, the o my food company is sodastream (for global boycott) and anything with a « Boycott Israel Goods Sticker » on it, which I have never seen in the stores.

I hope that helps. I think the website may be able to help you find the info you need.

Expand full comment

I will def. keep it in mind....groups here? highly unlikely. this area attracts a lot of really boring expats who are not thinkers, as I am. I basically stay alone which is how I was all my life. I do stuff: got a B.A. while raising 3 kids, had a business where I did something no one was doing in the computer field and made a lot of money...it was easy due to no competition, until others caught on...then I quit it, traveled solo, moved to Mexico...I come up with original ideas and projects when I am left alone...therefore, I do not know many people here anymore. It's not worth my time.

Expand full comment

I am 75 and autistic and just learning to write and I can no longer listen to Chris Hedges. He will not listen to his heart he is too stuck in his head. It is time to listen to John Ralston Saul he is a GIANT and you are chris hedges.

Robbie Burns wrote an Ode to a Louse you deserve your own Ode. Is it an Ode to pride or an Ode to love? Pride goeth before a fall. "There Ain't no cure for love." Leonard Cohen

Expand full comment

@Moe

Stop guinea pigging the product, dude.

Expand full comment

I am a scientist. I live in the the lab. I study guinea pigs and I am autistic. Did you ever watch Charly or read Flowers for Algernon. My Zippo is US Navy not army and I don't know Luke Perry I am 75 but he grew upon the hill I grew up on . How am I supposed to understand guinea pigs if I don't study them I am not Daniel Dennett?

Expand full comment

@Moe

Did your father die in a plane crash ca. 1947?

Expand full comment

I would never call myself brevette even as I love John Milton. This is sounding very nichols and may to me? How is it sounding to you?

There is the Great Wall of America right down mainstreet Rue Principale and I am trying to send you my video of myself talking to my nephew to set up a zoom call I am retarded I can't read instructions and at 75 just learning how to write. I am happy and well taken care of but the going blind part is very difficult adaptation but I grow happier by the day.

Expand full comment

My father lived to,93 and HE WAS MY FATHER. The child is father to the man and your father? My father was four F he was almost deaf. He was a boxer and had a punctured ear drum and he wasn't American. My father in law was Navy he was a brilliant scientist. He wanted to be admiral but his father was a Socialist in 1912. Emile ran for alderman in Chicago on the Socialist ticket those things are hard to hide. My Father in Law lived to 93 as well. He ran for congress as a Democrat in a 100% red congressional district where nobody would fact check his history he was the losing Democrat he contributed money to be the losing democrat. Isn't that the way your system works? We call it corruption in Quebec. It is against our laws. What about your FATHER?

All are made welcome in my laboratory. I share my experiment with my Cavia Porcellus they volunteer for duty.

I wouldn't hurt a fellow cavia harshly.You can call me Algernon as in the Importance of being Ernest. Is that okay with you? Would you prefer I be Charly?

Expand full comment