All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

+972’s Person of the Year: The women standing up to sexual harassment | +972 Magazine

Every womanizing culture is sleazy in its own special way. In America it’s frat-boy sniggering. There’s the Mediterranean suffocating pseudo-romantic come-ons, or the conservative Middle Eastern trick of punishing women for men’s sexuality.In Israel too, sexual aggression expresses a dark underside of national and cultural flaws: swaggering ego-driven entitlement, the unquestioned certainty that specific people and positions are above both law and morality. If they break it, their buddies will cover up for them — that is the sensual intoxication of sheer physical military power.In a bygone era, these traits were romanticized and marketed to Israel’s people and outside admirers alike. Israelis prided themselves on being brash and direct; they disregarded rules to release creative problem-solving genius that is the secret of the Jews’ mythologized, centuries-old resilience. Israel views itself as the triumph of the gun over the ghetto. For heroic, nation-saving military men, helping themselves to women’s bodies seemed like a natural extension of that.When values are so deeply rooted in society, they become transparent and unquestioned. But when so many women (one high-profile man was accused by no less than 14 people) are able to step outside and see what was previously invisible, it means the silent rules that define women’s natural role in society are no longer functioning. The more visible these values become, the more flimsy their force.The women of 2016 may not have realized it, but their actions conveyed that entitlement, impunity, and brash invasiveness — at least as manifested in sexual aggression — are now anathema. No longer do military, religious, or political causes justify the sacrifice of their physical and spiritual integrity. Manipulate these causes for self-satisfying urges, and it won’t end well.

Source: +972’s Person of the Year: The women standing up to sexual harassment | +972 Magazine

Mormon choir member quits over Trump inauguration performance | US news | The Guardian

The member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Jan Chamberlin, posted her resignation letter to leaders of the 360-member choir on her Facebook page on Thursday.“It is with a sad and heavy heart that I submit my resignation to you and to Choir,” she began. “I am praying that Jesus will help me get through this email before I totally break down.”Writing that she had spent “several sleepless nights and days in turmoil and agony”, she added: “I love you all, and I know the goodness of your hearts, and your desire to go out there and show that we are politically neutral and share good will. That is the image Choir wishes to present and the message they desperately want to send.“I also know, looking from the outside in, it will appear that Choir is endorsing tyranny and facism by singing for this man.”She continued: “Tyranny is now on our doorstep; it has been sneaking its way into our lives through stealth. Now it will burst into our homes through storm.”

Source: Mormon choir member quits over Trump inauguration performance | US news | The Guardian

Lazy Nationalist Populism: Globalisation and Inequality on the Transatlantic Axis | DQ-en

Policy-makers in the advanced nations need to speak truth to their populations. Can America accept that it will need to share world leadership, that it might “no longer be the only military political economic superpower in the world” (as Bill Clinton said at Yale in 2003, reported in Kishore Mahbubani’s The Great Convergence)? Or will the promise to make America great again prove overly appealing at the same time that it will be revealed to be hollow?

Source: Lazy Nationalist Populism: Globalisation and Inequality on the Transatlantic Axis | DQ-en

Keep Talking You Dumbass

In Saner Thought

Since the abstention by the US on a settlement resolution at the UN every right wing dullard has been having a stroke….of course there is always the religious overtones but that has nothing to do with this resolution….it is what is right and wrong and the stealing of land and the destruction of crops to make room for more illegal settlements is just flat out WRONG!

And of course BiBi is butt hurt and doing what most authoritarians do….he is slashing out at the countries that voted against Israel.  To the point of threatening the United States…..

PM Binyamin Netanyahu of Israel and his cabinet ministers are trying to punch above their weight. He wants to punish the UN, and apparently even the United States.

He threatens the one country that made the state of Israel possible….

He also threatens 10 other countries……These countries were Britain, France, Russia, China, Japan…

View original post 532 more words

176 settlers break into the yards of Al-Aqsa mosque – PNN “What do you call it when people break into your place of worship to hold their rites, not yours?”

176 Israeli settlers on Wednesday morning broke into the yards of the Al-Aqsa mosque in consecutive small groups, heavily protected by Israeli special forces.Local sources in Jerusalem said that extremist settlers have entered the mosque from the Mughrabi gate by Israeli police, and carried out Talmudic rituals in it.

Source: 176 settlers break into the yards of Al-Aqsa mosque – PNN

Sweden hits back at anti-Semitism accusations – The Local

A spokesperson for the Swedish foreign minister hit back at the centre on Wednesday.“The list is clearly not serious,” wrote Erik Wirkensjö in an e-mail to public broadcaster SVT. “It mixes up anti-Semitism and criticism of the State of Israel’s politics and puts President Barack Obama at number one.”“To superficially and casually, as this list does, accuse political leaders of anti-Semitism risks undermining the important fight against anti-Semitism. Sweden’s government is active in the fight against anti-Semitism and is for sustainable peace and a two-state solution.”

Source: Sweden hits back at anti-Semitism accusations – The Local

Wednesday Open Thread | In Case You Thought That I Was Being Overdramatic… | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Two camps: those who actually took Donald Trump at his word, and those who believe he was play-acting to get elected. His true believers seem to be shocked that he really doesn’t plan on building that big wall or that he really doesn’t plan on putting Hillary Clinton in jail. Those who believed he was playing a part to get elected are terrified that he might be the caricature he presented on the campaign trail after all as continues to send out horrifying tweets and brings the world on the brink of a nuclear winter.Incidentally, one may note that these two camps make up almost the entire universe of Trump voters aside from the economic elite who are already making plans on what island to stash their Trump tax cuts into. Both camps believed, however, that Trump would dismantle what they saw as the political and economic elite power structure, and that ain’t happening.…………………………..

Some panic is starting to set in as Trump voters are beginning to realize they have voted to cut their own social security, Medicare, and even Obamacare. With the top enrollment numbers for Healthcare.gov enrollment this cycle all going to Trump states, Medicare and Medicaid in House Speaker Paul Ryan’s crosshairs and Trump’s team promising to open back up all the gambling doors for banks that helped cause the Great Recession, there seem to be Trump voters who now see their candidate’s promise to take a wrecking ball to the elite of America slipping away.

Source: Wednesday Open Thread | In Case You Thought That I Was Being Overdramatic… | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Wish You Would Listen: A Very Short Playlist Because You Missed the Whole Point of Feminism – The Ladies Finger – why are people so afraid?

Obviously, this never happened. The part where Princess Nokia showed up, I mean. But I wish it did, because the other stuff – being asked to leave spaces, or prove my gender, happens all the time.In bathrooms, at airport security checks, at the movie theatre, on our local buses. Everywhere. Friends and family (often self-titled feminists), tell me to “Dress more like a girl. Or at least grow your hair out.” They point to my jeans, my short hair and my beat-up sneakers, and say, “What more do you expect?” This is a playlist for all the people who have offered me snatches of discordant wisdom and jarring insights, and to anyone who relies on gender binaries to question the validity of an individual’s rights and way of life.

Source: Wish You Would Listen: A Very Short Playlist Because You Missed the Whole Point of Feminism – The Ladies FingerThe Ladies Finger

Israel punishes the world after UN vote | The Electronic Intifada

Netanyahu is defending his measures as “a wise, aggressive and responsible reaction, a natural response that makes it clear to the nations of the world that what took place at the UN is unacceptable to us.”But his reaction is causing disquiet even among hardline supporters of Israel’s anti-Palestinian policies. Dov Weisglass, a former senior advisor to the late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is notorious for saying a decade ago that Israel would restrict food to Gaza “to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger. ”Now Weisglass is calling Netanyahu’s reaction to the UN resolution “ridiculous.”“The attempt to create symmetry between us and the rest of the world and to punish the 14 countries that voted against us is actually making the Palestinian dream of isolating Israel internationally into reality,” Weisglass said.Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, also expressed misgivings. She argued that rather than canceling diplomatic visits, Israel would be better off trying to explain its position to the world.“We need to get rid of this false term, the phrase ‘occupied territory.’ This is Israel’s territory — the Land of Israel,” Hotovely said in reference to the West Bank. Hotovely may not have noticed that Israel has been trying to do that for decades, with elaborate marketing and propaganda schemes. The vote in the UN showed that all Israel’s efforts to convince the world that it has the right to steal as much Palestinian land as it pleases have come to nought.Experience shows, however, that it is Palestinians who will feel the real brunt of Israel’s revenge: Israel is already vowing to build thousands more settler homes on Palestinian land in direct defiance of international law.The question is whether world governments, having provoked Israel’s rage, will have the courage at last to hold it accountable.

Source: Israel punishes the world after UN vote | The Electronic Intifada

Democrats advance Palestine censorship ahead of Trump | The Electronic Intifada

With Democrats and Republicans standing virtually unanimous in their willingness to run roughshod over the fundamental rights of Americans to advocate for Palestinian freedom, there can be little doubt Republicans will be able to push through even wider abuses of the rights of Muslims, Latinos, women and the LGBTQ community. If Democrats are not willing to stand up for the First Amendment when it comes to Palestinian rights, we can expect it will be all too easy for Republicans to peel away Democrats on other issues.

Source: Democrats advance Palestine censorship ahead of Trump | The Electronic Intifada