Day: December 30, 2008

The misery continues


at the hands of the Israeli blitzkrieg, but this time on the high seas and in front of people who have a voice and have spoken out against it.  What’s striking is the perception by all too many that a legal action can be met with violent means; the boat clearly known as a relief boat in international waters is justifiably attacked and lives endangered.  This, according to some is an acceptable action, and shows the extent to which the Israeli spin is embraced and given voice.

More from Gaza


palestine_bound_boat Israel has never been interested in peace with its Palestinian neighbors, nor can it even seriously be considered a humane government when it comes to its relations with other countries.  The story of the Dignity, a boat which set sail from Cyprus with relief supplies for Gaza is one more recent example which highlights Israel’s genocidal nature.  Only 66 feet long and packed with supplies the Israelis had denied Gaza’s citizens for the last six months, the boat’s cargo was checked by Cyprian authorities before it set sail for Gaza and no doubt it’s movements were monitored by all concerned since it set sail.  So why have the Israelis attacked the boat and denied it entry to Gaza’s ports?

Israeli crimes on the high seas date back to the 1967 war when its forces attacked the USS Liberty which killed scores of American personnel and parallels can certainly be drawn with this latest attack.  Both attacks occurred at a time when Isarel was fighting a war of aggression and which they wanted no witnesses to their brutality.  Both attacks happened over an extended period of time and drove the vessel from the area it was to another more distant destination, but one interesting feature of this recent attack is the Dignity has a history with Israeli officials of bringing relief aid to Gaza without any problems before.  Why when following “standard operating procedures” to assuage Israeli concerns  would the Israelis deny them entry for a relief mission?  All the talk about concern for civilian lives and minimizing  civilian casualties, in the light of this latest development, can only mean the attacks on Gaza by Israeli forces are meant to terrorize all the inhabitants of Gaza, to frighten and humiliate them  and to make it more internationally acceptable to do so.

Hat tip to DesertPeace for this article.

The stuff of “urban legend” that’s not an urban legend


Sometimes I wonder if people are really this dumb! An employee noted on a receipt the reason why a customer returned a product as being a “dumb nigger”. First of all the employee entered a racially charged and offensive term on a piece of paper and then gave that paper to a customer,which had identifying information of the employee  for all to see.  Is that professional suicide or what!?  Perhaps this was termination by idiocy, the poor clerk no longer wanted a job but couldn’t quit because doing so would mean they couldn’t qualify for  unemployment.  I don’t really know why anyone would be so stupid, but it happened, and the customer has the paper to prove it.

Moving beyond that however, it appears the offended party is handling this better than the general public.  Talk of boycotts are in this observer’s opinion completely unnecessary and inflammatory.  The store has fired the employee and issued an apology, and even the idiotic employee gave the customer what he went there for, albeit more than he wanted, so the Justice Department’s weighing in (just like big government, trolling for an excuse to be intrusive in everyday life) and “community activists” calling for boycotts of the store are more examples of how issues of race are used and exploited sometimes for less than the public good.

I salute the Slater family who seem to be handling themselves well and I salute the store owners who have dealt with the matter at hand judiciously.  Now everyone else should leave them all alone.

Check out the local news’ take on this from Youtube.