Fantagraphics has released a series of graphic commentaries and reflections by Joe Sacco, author of "Palestine" and "Footnotes in Gaza," called "The War on Gaza." With the permission of Fantagrapahics and Joe Sacco, we are reprinting them on my Substack.
Thank you Chris, I love Joe's work. Picture worth 1000 words. But, if you can get Chris Hedges' words and Joe's pictures it's a feast. I have your 'Days of ......', and Joe's Palestine essays: and those conditions in Gaza prevailed even before the genocide. Best regards Dr Jo East Anglia.
Me, too. I hate that my taxes are going to killing little kids, poets, and journatlists in Gaza. And I walk downtown here in San Diego and there are so many people sleeping on the street. Once I was in my car, idling near a freeway onramp, and a homeless camp was being dismantled, tents and even their food being thrown away, into a waiting dump truck. People treated like garbage. It sickens the heart. Maybe the people in Washington have their hearts removed befoe they can move in. I'm grateful for Joe Sacco for illustrating what we feel so accurately. Thank you.
I'm waiting for Americans to start a movement that refuses to pay the portion of their tax that goes to warmongering.....it would be a great wake up call. Though they'd likely have you arrested and waiting execution before it got off the ground.
Fascist America is now being seen naked as it continues to pretend to work for a Cease Fire (how about that pathetic 9 hours so we can vaccinate kids doomed to die within weeks anyway?) while sending billions in weapons of mass destruction.
But I do have a question: WHY DIDN'T WE NOTICE WHO ACTUALLY HAD ALL THOSE WEAPONS BACK WHEN WE WERE GETTING READY TO CARPET BOMB IRAQ????
I met someone who did just that--refused to pay the portion of her taxes that goes to the MIC. She told me that, yes, you have to be prepared to go to jail. AaacK! I'm too much of sissy! I'm sorry!
Well, I wasn't suggesting we do it in isolation. It would take a movement...thousands of people with holding the militaries portion. And it would take a different kind of courage, I think...........since if our society keeps us fear based, then we need military personnel and big guns to protect us yes??
But if a hundred thousand Americans....and many of them people with reputations greater than you or me....stood up and said "I'm sorry. I believe I risk my immortal soul if, without a murmur, I let my tax dollars kill children, starve children, maim children........I just can't do it."
The religious right hypocrites in your country would have real trouble on their hands. Because, according to how I've read the new testaments, Jesus would be with the tax with holders. When he said "Suffer the little children to come onto me, and forbid them not, for of such if the Kingdom of Heaven"...he wasn't advocating for their early death and dismemberment in genocidal conflicts.
How you serve "The Prince of Peace" and shill for war is a question beyond my capacity to decipher. Withholding tax dollars would be a real movement of Christian soldiers....with enough of us, we might even shame the government into something like action.
"Your country"? From which country are you writing? Just curious. There are many countries better than ours, and a number of acquaintances are searching, searching.
Nobody seems to care about hypocrisy. Those fake Christians have been exposed time and again. They don't care what had been spoken by Jesus. And there's always the rationalization. One of my faves is, "It' is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God." Here's the rationalization: the West Gate of Jerusalem looks just like the eye of a needle. Piece of cake for a camel loaded with goods and treasure to get through. So that's what Jesus meant--easy peasy. You can go through the Bible and make up all sorts of rationalizaitons and twist them your way. That's our wonderful human brains in action!
I'm Canadian....and still reeling from what I've recently learned about Canada's foreign policy. We're your silent partner....go along with almost every fool idea your warmongers have........a notable exception was the Iraq war, when our liberal leader of the time Jean Chretien, refused to sign on.
But even there....once the mess settled into a long occupation, we were involved. The American Empire scares a lot of countries into compliance...when she doesn't convince their right wing elites its in their best interest to invade someone elses land...or tinker with someone elses elections.
As to your Christian right......everybody talkin bout heaven ain't goin there. I think that's an American spiritual is it not???
Personally, I think earth is the paradise we've been looking for....what I'm reading about fungus' lately....and the invisible world of the very small in general...has almost convinced me that returning to the Mother will be an epiphany of sorts..........that is, if the earth destroyers leave any part of her intact.
So lovely to meet a kindred spirit. Have you seen "Fantastic Fungi"? It's a documentary, mostly about Paul Stametz and how wonderful the fungus world is. I think you'd like it.
You may also like the book Plant Intelligence, and the Imaginal Realm, by Stephen Harrod Buhner.
I understand about other countries falling in line behind the US. It's because we're bullies! I'd capitalize "we're bullies" but I don't have the balls. Yet. We threaten other countries unless they do as we say. They all see what we've done in 80 other countries and they're fearful. (Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine.) If they're not fearful then they are smitten with the Stockholm Syndrome. I am so sorry for this. If you haven't seen Coup '53, the documentary of our overthrowing the democratically elected Mosaddegh of Iran, then you must watch it. That was the ground-breaking venture of the US and BP (England) in 1953, our first, and finally successful, attempt at changing the outcome of the voters' wishes. Now, thanks to us, Iran is our enemy.
I’ve realized the US Empire is an apartheid state. Israel is an extension. It’s no coincidence that the citizens of the US have lost all power over “their” government at the same moment our empire has become its most dangerous and abusive.
Brilliant, I've heard over that 40% of Americans dept has been accomplished within the last year. It's crazy that so many seem to line up behind Harris or Trump to think it will be different enough to not stop tge decline of Anerica
Thanks Joe The first panel mirrors my own thinking. Everything I see or what people say brings visions of the plight of Palestinian's in Gaza & the West Bank. Not born until the 50's I always wondered how people "Didn't Know" Nazi's were committing a Genocide and the resulting Holocaust. Documentaries of the starving skeletons behind barbed wire, with piles of dead naked Jews in Rags, lined up before pits they were forced to dig then shot, the sorting rooms of hair, shoes, fur coats etc. I will admit many people know now about Gaza, but hardly enough and too many who actually support it because of sophisticated hasbara propaganda and weaponized anti Semitism. Now I am seeing the Genocide in Gaza in Living Colour! Starving children holding empty pots and hungry eyes. Never ending buzzing drones, Journalists murdered, Ambulances Rocketed, Buildings Flattened, Safety Zones WITHOUT SAFETY bombed in tents, 5,6,7,8 years old's shot in the forehead, heart and spine. headless babies and children, bodies turned to mush in plastic bags. Israel's complete immunity has led to it all, now the West bank is taking its turn! The lessons of the Holocaust lost in translation. Perception Shaping has made Ethnic Cleansers into Victims. Goebbels and German propaganda couldn't even do this! When the Gaza Death Camp Doors are opened will the same Horrors in WW2 wake the rest of the world up? Germans and Poles were forced to view the horrors and smells of death. Loading the dead on trucks. Will Zionist Israeli's?
Although Gaza still is the most urgent issue, and we cannot turn our eyes from them, there is another grevious situation in the increasing settler violence and land confiscation in the West Bank, aka illegally Occupied Territory. There are some, too few, organizations trying to help, at least up until this most grevious situation in the West Bank, this week, where there is an actual military invasion by Israel, with public officials threatening the same death and destruction as in Gaza.
There are those inside Israel who stand for justice and humanity, made up of committed Israelis and Palestinians working together to protect the Palestinians.
Work on the Ground: Transforming Lives in Israel-Palestine — American Friends of Combatants for Peace
There must be an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Pope Francis has said what is needed, now he must do what is needed by going to Gaza and standing for peace, justice and freedom.
Let us make our donations to honor Aaron Bushnell, in memory of Hind Rajab, or Dr Jumann Afra, the mother of newborn twins killed by Israel using US bombs.
We mail checks for billions of borrowed dollars to a rich country thousands of miles away from us to finance war against its neighbors, while ignoring our homeless americans who are sleeping on the streets, and condemning our desperately poor neighbors who we also ignored for decades, who out of desperation are risking their lives for a chance in our country. Had we done the right thing to help them, I'm sure they would not be risking their lives to look at our Gringo faces. Talk about how not to conduct foreign policy.
Thank you Chris, I love Joe's work. Picture worth 1000 words. But, if you can get Chris Hedges' words and Joe's pictures it's a feast. I have your 'Days of ......', and Joe's Palestine essays: and those conditions in Gaza prevailed even before the genocide. Best regards Dr Jo East Anglia.
Thanks to Joe Sacco for his amazing and story telling artwork, and my hero, Chris Hedges!
Me, too. I hate that my taxes are going to killing little kids, poets, and journatlists in Gaza. And I walk downtown here in San Diego and there are so many people sleeping on the street. Once I was in my car, idling near a freeway onramp, and a homeless camp was being dismantled, tents and even their food being thrown away, into a waiting dump truck. People treated like garbage. It sickens the heart. Maybe the people in Washington have their hearts removed befoe they can move in. I'm grateful for Joe Sacco for illustrating what we feel so accurately. Thank you.
I'm waiting for Americans to start a movement that refuses to pay the portion of their tax that goes to warmongering.....it would be a great wake up call. Though they'd likely have you arrested and waiting execution before it got off the ground.
Fascist America is now being seen naked as it continues to pretend to work for a Cease Fire (how about that pathetic 9 hours so we can vaccinate kids doomed to die within weeks anyway?) while sending billions in weapons of mass destruction.
But I do have a question: WHY DIDN'T WE NOTICE WHO ACTUALLY HAD ALL THOSE WEAPONS BACK WHEN WE WERE GETTING READY TO CARPET BOMB IRAQ????
Slow learners?
I met someone who did just that--refused to pay the portion of her taxes that goes to the MIC. She told me that, yes, you have to be prepared to go to jail. AaacK! I'm too much of sissy! I'm sorry!
Well, I wasn't suggesting we do it in isolation. It would take a movement...thousands of people with holding the militaries portion. And it would take a different kind of courage, I think...........since if our society keeps us fear based, then we need military personnel and big guns to protect us yes??
But if a hundred thousand Americans....and many of them people with reputations greater than you or me....stood up and said "I'm sorry. I believe I risk my immortal soul if, without a murmur, I let my tax dollars kill children, starve children, maim children........I just can't do it."
The religious right hypocrites in your country would have real trouble on their hands. Because, according to how I've read the new testaments, Jesus would be with the tax with holders. When he said "Suffer the little children to come onto me, and forbid them not, for of such if the Kingdom of Heaven"...he wasn't advocating for their early death and dismemberment in genocidal conflicts.
How you serve "The Prince of Peace" and shill for war is a question beyond my capacity to decipher. Withholding tax dollars would be a real movement of Christian soldiers....with enough of us, we might even shame the government into something like action.
"Your country"? From which country are you writing? Just curious. There are many countries better than ours, and a number of acquaintances are searching, searching.
Nobody seems to care about hypocrisy. Those fake Christians have been exposed time and again. They don't care what had been spoken by Jesus. And there's always the rationalization. One of my faves is, "It' is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God." Here's the rationalization: the West Gate of Jerusalem looks just like the eye of a needle. Piece of cake for a camel loaded with goods and treasure to get through. So that's what Jesus meant--easy peasy. You can go through the Bible and make up all sorts of rationalizaitons and twist them your way. That's our wonderful human brains in action!
I'm Canadian....and still reeling from what I've recently learned about Canada's foreign policy. We're your silent partner....go along with almost every fool idea your warmongers have........a notable exception was the Iraq war, when our liberal leader of the time Jean Chretien, refused to sign on.
But even there....once the mess settled into a long occupation, we were involved. The American Empire scares a lot of countries into compliance...when she doesn't convince their right wing elites its in their best interest to invade someone elses land...or tinker with someone elses elections.
As to your Christian right......everybody talkin bout heaven ain't goin there. I think that's an American spiritual is it not???
Personally, I think earth is the paradise we've been looking for....what I'm reading about fungus' lately....and the invisible world of the very small in general...has almost convinced me that returning to the Mother will be an epiphany of sorts..........that is, if the earth destroyers leave any part of her intact.
So lovely to meet a kindred spirit. Have you seen "Fantastic Fungi"? It's a documentary, mostly about Paul Stametz and how wonderful the fungus world is. I think you'd like it.
You may also like the book Plant Intelligence, and the Imaginal Realm, by Stephen Harrod Buhner.
I understand about other countries falling in line behind the US. It's because we're bullies! I'd capitalize "we're bullies" but I don't have the balls. Yet. We threaten other countries unless they do as we say. They all see what we've done in 80 other countries and they're fearful. (Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine.) If they're not fearful then they are smitten with the Stockholm Syndrome. I am so sorry for this. If you haven't seen Coup '53, the documentary of our overthrowing the democratically elected Mosaddegh of Iran, then you must watch it. That was the ground-breaking venture of the US and BP (England) in 1953, our first, and finally successful, attempt at changing the outcome of the voters' wishes. Now, thanks to us, Iran is our enemy.
Wish it weren't so.
I’ve realized the US Empire is an apartheid state. Israel is an extension. It’s no coincidence that the citizens of the US have lost all power over “their” government at the same moment our empire has become its most dangerous and abusive.
Brilliant, I've heard over that 40% of Americans dept has been accomplished within the last year. It's crazy that so many seem to line up behind Harris or Trump to think it will be different enough to not stop tge decline of Anerica
Very powerful depiction of how millions of us feel about the scourge of the DoD. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks Joe The first panel mirrors my own thinking. Everything I see or what people say brings visions of the plight of Palestinian's in Gaza & the West Bank. Not born until the 50's I always wondered how people "Didn't Know" Nazi's were committing a Genocide and the resulting Holocaust. Documentaries of the starving skeletons behind barbed wire, with piles of dead naked Jews in Rags, lined up before pits they were forced to dig then shot, the sorting rooms of hair, shoes, fur coats etc. I will admit many people know now about Gaza, but hardly enough and too many who actually support it because of sophisticated hasbara propaganda and weaponized anti Semitism. Now I am seeing the Genocide in Gaza in Living Colour! Starving children holding empty pots and hungry eyes. Never ending buzzing drones, Journalists murdered, Ambulances Rocketed, Buildings Flattened, Safety Zones WITHOUT SAFETY bombed in tents, 5,6,7,8 years old's shot in the forehead, heart and spine. headless babies and children, bodies turned to mush in plastic bags. Israel's complete immunity has led to it all, now the West bank is taking its turn! The lessons of the Holocaust lost in translation. Perception Shaping has made Ethnic Cleansers into Victims. Goebbels and German propaganda couldn't even do this! When the Gaza Death Camp Doors are opened will the same Horrors in WW2 wake the rest of the world up? Germans and Poles were forced to view the horrors and smells of death. Loading the dead on trucks. Will Zionist Israeli's?
Right on target🎯, Mr. Sacco! Mission accomplished ☠️
Although Gaza still is the most urgent issue, and we cannot turn our eyes from them, there is another grevious situation in the increasing settler violence and land confiscation in the West Bank, aka illegally Occupied Territory. There are some, too few, organizations trying to help, at least up until this most grevious situation in the West Bank, this week, where there is an actual military invasion by Israel, with public officials threatening the same death and destruction as in Gaza.
There are those inside Israel who stand for justice and humanity, made up of committed Israelis and Palestinians working together to protect the Palestinians.
Work on the Ground: Transforming Lives in Israel-Palestine — American Friends of Combatants for Peace
https://www.afcfp.org
For factual information:
https://www.btselem.org
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/index_en.html
And there are more.
Please feel free to add them in the reply.
Masterful 🐬
Cuttingly true.
Our tax dollars at work, directly against us and our interests.
A very sick and twisted system of unaccountable power only accountable to a select few.
Shows so well the co-opted, stolen, perverted, corruption of true people power for the billionaire elite class.
Luv the teddy and elephant in bed. Luv the clear glasses even in bed. Thanks
There must be an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Pope Francis has said what is needed, now he must do what is needed by going to Gaza and standing for peace, justice and freedom.
Please sign the petition and share widely.
https://chng.it/CRQ7qw4Gzn
Let us also support UNRWA. If our governments won’t act in accordance with humanity, then we will. https://www.unrwausa.org/donate
Also we can all support the brave doctors who have gone to Gaza: https://palestinian-ama.networkforgood.com/projects/206145-gaza-medical-supplies-oct-2023
Or
Surgeons to Gaza
https://fajr.org/donate/
Let us make our donations to honor Aaron Bushnell, in memory of Hind Rajab, or Dr Jumann Afra, the mother of newborn twins killed by Israel using US bombs.
Here’s a petition to excommunicate Joe Biden: https://www.change.org/p/excommunicate-president-joe-biden-bf979783-ac08-4576-a53f-c786ea23dc9c
These are a few small things we can do. If we can do more, let us do more.
We mail checks for billions of borrowed dollars to a rich country thousands of miles away from us to finance war against its neighbors, while ignoring our homeless americans who are sleeping on the streets, and condemning our desperately poor neighbors who we also ignored for decades, who out of desperation are risking their lives for a chance in our country. Had we done the right thing to help them, I'm sure they would not be risking their lives to look at our Gringo faces. Talk about how not to conduct foreign policy.
Sacco is so negative! Maybe I’ll take up art and see if I can do better!