My very best sound bites from the Beirut conference on Palestine

      At a recent conference in Beirut on "What to Do about Palestine," I got interviewed by a local TV station regarding my views on the subject -- whereupon I immediately went off into some really long, rambling rant about injustice, fascism and neo-colonialism in the Middle East.  "Keep it simple, just use sound bites," someone there advised me.  Okay.  I could do that.

     So here's a list of some of the key sound bites that I came up with (hours too late however -- I'm not really good at thinking on my feet):

     1.  Israeli neo-colonialists have spent the last 67 years (as well as almost a trillion dollars) on waging their sleazy War on Human Rights, both inside and outside of Palestine -- and yet they are still losing that war.  "Losers!"  They can't even manage to defeat a bunch of rag-tag Palestinian kids seeking freedom while armed only with rocks and knives.  (Then I made the universal "L-for-loser" sign on my forehead at this point).

     1.a.  Palestine has become the Israeli neo-colonialists' Vietnam.

     1.b.  In these morally medieval times, thank God that a few of us human beings still have ideals and still strive for justice.

     2.  Just think how beneficial it would be for the citizenry of both Israel and Palestine if they just got rid of their Zionist neo-colonialist gestapo leadership and concentrated on, wait for it, TOURISM instead.  Some of the most holy sites in the world are in this area.  I'd go there in a minute if I didn't have to wade through all those scary-looking SS guys, miles of checkpoints and fascist-like concentration camps first. 

     2.a.  Israeli neo-colonialists have blatantly and illegally seized numerous Christian, Jewish and Muslim holy places and have totally screwed up the spirituality of all three religions.  This shameless and deliberate dissing of Yahweh, Allah and Jesus totally sucks eggs.

     3.  Palestinians now have their very own Joan of Arc -- or is their very own version of the Disney princess Merida?  Or both.  Ahed Tamimi, a brave 14-year-old Palestinian girl from the Occupied West Bank, spoke to us at the conference.  She was electric and determined to end the brutal Occupation of her country.  "I can no longer stand by and watch Israelis continue to steal our land -- sitting, swimming and playing on our land and yet treating us like we have no right to be there."  Here's a video of her:  https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/613344042140440/?theater

     4.  If the Israeli neo-colonialists plan to keep up their current rate of oppression in the Occupied Territories (let alone realize their fondest hope of expanding Greater Israel from the Euphrates to the Nile), then they are going to have to bulk up their army bigtime really soon.  And so they have two choices:  Either hire Blackwater mercenaries like the Americans and Saudis do, or else draft up more homeboys. 

     4.a.  I'm thinking that they'll choose the latter option -- in a effort to keep their storm troopers Aryan.  And if that happens, then it's the ultra-orthodox youth who will be forced to start serving as the gene pool.  This is gonna cause a big mess that will split Israeli citizens right down the middle.  http://news.yahoo.com/israel-law-renews-hot-debate-army-ultra-orthodox-041045115.html

     4.b.  "Divide, conquer and colonize" has long been an Israeli Zionist technique in Sunni-Shia-land.  http://original.antiwar.com/Dan_Sanchez/2015/12/21/war-is-realizing-the-israelizing-of-the-world/  But will this technique work as well for them when it is Israel itself that is also being split into pieces by its endless War on Human Rights?

     5.  Israeli Zionist neo-cons got their asses whupped bigtime back in 2006 after they attacked Lebanon.  It was a total rout.  But now the Israeli neo-colonialists are at it again -- attacking Syria via their proxies Saudi Arabia, Turkey, America and ISIS.  And they're still getting their asses whupped.  Yes, the current Israeli high commanders appear to be "Losers" abroad as well as at home.  Remember how badly they lost their proxy wars on Iran and Iraq?  I rest my case.  http://blackagendareport.com/palestinians_resist_zionist_terror

     5.a.  War is the Number-One cause of climate change pollution in the world today -- and because of all these endless wars in the Middle East, we'll all probably be dead from planetary pollution by 2028 anyway and then who is occupying what won't even matter any more.

     5.b.  One of the main reasons that Israeli thugs arm and support ISIS thugs is that all those creepy psychopaths in ISIS, by claiming to be Muslims, give real Muslims a bad name, including the poor abused Palestinians who are only trying to protect their children and homes.  But this Zionist plot is backfiring because rabid Israeli neo-colonialists have ended up giving real Jews a bad name too.  http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/34286-conference-of-the-herds

     6.  I loved the hotel where the conference was held.  I loved Beirut.

     7.  We delegates also toured two television stations (Al Manar and Al Mayadeen) that have recently been banned in France because of their accurate reporting on various actions of the Israeli Occupation forces.  So much for free speech in neo-Vichy France.  But, hey, I got to be on TV!

     Link to more info on Al Manar:  http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/after-bombing-al-manar-tv-keeps-on-broadcasting-sign-of-hezbollah-resolve/

     Link to more info on Al Mayadeen:  http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/8056

     8.  On the street in Beirut, you can usually spot members of Hezbollah by their fashion choice:  Levi's 501s.  However, Palestine's Joan of Arc chose to wear skinny jeans.

     9.  The food on Alitalia airlines is not so good.  But they do have great in-flight movies.  When we flew over Turkey, however, I just kept hoping that President Erdoğan wouldn't shoot my plane down too.

     10.  Israeli neo-colonialist Occupation forces are no more Jewish than ISIS members are Muslim or those blood-thirsty Bush-Obama military-industrial-complex creeps in Washington are Christian.  Blasphemers, the whole lot.  Just ask Jesus, Mohammad (PBUH) and Abraham!

     11.  Israelis can visit California without a visa any time that they want.  But can I visit Gaza without a visa too?  Never gonna happen.  But then California is not a concentration camp.  http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2015/12/uk-activists-clarion-call-civil-societies-around-world-expel-israel-united-nations/

     12.  Israeli neo-cons disguised as the American Israel Education Foundation, a tax-exempt AIPAC clone, just treated 57 American congressmen to a free tour of Israel.  However, when these same 57 congressmen were also offered a free tour of Palestine by the Free Palestine Movement, not one of them accepted it. http://freepalestinemovement.org/2015/12/12/57-congress-reps-taken-to-israel-who-do-they-really-represent/

     12.a.  AIPAC:  Giving Jews a bad name since 1951.

Are these hot soundbites or what!  Bam!

PS:  All the sound bites expressed here are my own.  However, unlike most American mainstream media sound bites, my sound bites are actually based on real, on-the-ground, provable eye-witness facts.  Eat your heart out, MSM!

PPS:  Why am I being so freaking hard on Israeli neo-colonialists?  That's easy.  It's because I love justice -- and always have, even when I was a kid.  And there is nothing more unjust than what is happening to Palestinians right now.  Just imagine how you would feel if, like them, you had your land, your safety, your peace of mind, your freedom and your children stolen from you and then were accused of being a "terrorist" for simply wanting it back.

PPPS:  Not even one of the Israeli and American empire-seeking neo-colonialists and neo-fascists who might read this report from Beirut are going to agree with me on any one of these soundbites.  But then what does their measly opinion matter when Jesus, Mohammad (PBUH) and Abraham all agree with me.  Humph.

The most deadly terrorist in America today? Surprise, it's sugar!

      Recently, GOP candidates used up over three hours of prime-time TV arguing about how to protect Americans from terrorism.  "Blow everybody up east of Atlantic City!" seemed to be the general consensus that the Repubs came up with.  However, during that entire program, not one of the candidates even mentioned the fact that millions of innocent Americans have already been savagely murdered in their beds by a vicious terrorist set lose in the very heart of our homeland -- and that would be sugar!  http://dailymuslims.com/2015/12/09/terrorism-the-indefinable-word/

     Even as we speak, thousands of helpless and unprotected Americans are being mercilessly picked off one by one by plain old common everyday sugar and its substitutes -- and yet no one is holding any TV debates about that.

     In the last year alone, 75,578 Americans have been bumped off by sugar-induced diabetes -- while in the past few decades only approximately 182 Americans have been killed by actual human terrorists with weapons (including Oklahoma City and San Bernardino).

      "But Jane," you might ask, "what about 9-11?"  Nah.  19 Saudis with box-cutters and seven dancing Israeli "art students" in Jersey don't count as terrorists -- because, as everyone in America has learned the hard way, if Saudi Arabia and Israel are involved, nobody is allowed to call it terrorism.  But I digress.

     My main point here is that terrorists are few and far between in America these days -- but sugar is lurking everywhere, behind every corner, ready and extremely willing to kill us dead at the drop of a hat.  And not only are sugar "sleeper-cells" hiding out in our junk food and desserts and sodas and Halloween candy, but also in our cereal, low-fat yogurt, soup, fruit juice and even our baby food.  Yikes!

     And sugar is far, far more likely to kill you than Saudis with box-cutters or Israelis dancing the Hora to celebrate the Twin Towers getting blown up.  http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/israeli_spies_911.htm

     Apparently sugar does all the things that are bad for us that fats have always been accused of -- such as clogging our arteries and making us "fluffy".  Fats have been unjustly taking the rap for sugar's current heartless and indiscriminate reign of terror.  Humph.

     But next you might ask, "How do you know all this information about sugar and why are you bringing it up now?"  Because of in-flight movies of course!  I just watched "That Sugar Film" while flying to Paris on Delta.  http://thatsugarfilm.com/film/watch-now/  And what I learned about terrorism from that movie was far more scary than what I learned from watching the Republican debate on the subject (if you don't count the fact that every presidential candidate there wanted to basically blow up the world).  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/18/republicans-are-so-bullish-on-war-that-30-percent-would-bomb-a-fictional-country 

PS:  Have a happy holiday, everyone -- and please watch out for all those sugar plum terrorists wielding cake-cutters!  And make it your New Year's resolution to give up sugar and sugar substitutes before it's too late.

Straight Outta Beirut: My visit to an ISIS bombsite

     "Why on earth are you going to Beirut?" asked my neighbor.

     "I've been invited to attend The Global Campaign to Return to Palestine's annual conference being held there," I replied.  This is going to be a really big deal -- but only if I find a replacement babysitter for my ten-month-old granddaughter Sofia while I'm gone.  Done!

     On the plane flight over, I watched "Straight Outta Compton" -- and all that police brutality onscreen got me right into the mood to talk about all that police brutality in real life that Israeli neo-colonialists inflict on poor Palestinians daily as they too are thrown to the ground, humiliated and jailed for no reason, just like Dr. Dre and Easy E.  But I digress.

     "How do I get to that bombsite where a market was blown up by ISIS a few weeks ago?" I asked various conference delegates from Nigeria, America, Tunis, Sweden, India and Argentina.  They all shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads.  Er, "Taxi!"  Every taxi driver in Beirut should know where the bombsite is, right?  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/13/world/middleeast/lebanon-explosions-southern-beirut-hezbollah.html?_r=0

     So the taxi guy drives me around south Beirut for at least 15 minutes.  Searching for the bombsite?  Nah.  Searching for a gas station.  The gauge was on empty.  "There is the market," he finally says.  Where?  I can see nothing, but still get out and start walking around -- through a busy working-class neighborhood all alive with ordinary people coming and going.  Why would ISIS ever want to throw a bomb here?  It would be like killing people in Paris or San Bernardino.  The people here are salt of the earth.

     Suddenly some guy on a Vespa pulls up beside me and shouts, "What you want!  What you want!"  I try to ignore him.  "Police!" he cries next.  Yeah sure.  But then it turns out that he actually is the police.  I stammer and stutter and try to make sense about what I am doing there but I am shaking as well as being my usual dazed and confused self.

      "I'm looking for the bombsite," I finally manage to spit out.  "And souvenir T-shirts."

      The cop scrutinizes me closely like a bug on a pin for a few minutes then says, "Follow me."  And he takes me straight to the bombsite.  But there was nothing left to see in terms of damage to buildings.  But rows of photos of victims had been set out.  And flowers.  Lots of flowers.  Tears came to my eyes.

     Then the policeman kindly parked his Vespa and walked me back to my hotel -- which turned out to be only four blocks away.  And he also took me to a T-shirt shop, but the T-shirts there were all used, ragged and piled up in huge ugly bins.  "Sorry," I said, "but they have to be new.  Gifts for my family.  That sort of thing."  And then I went back to my hotel.  Never did find any souvenir T-shirts in Beirut. 

PS:  If Americans are really serious about stopping terrorism and ISIS, all we have to do is stop Wall Street and War Street from supplying all these bad guys with weapons, food and Toyotas.  It's as simple as that.  https://consortiumnews.com/2015/12/16/a-blind-eye-toward-turkeys-crimes/

PPS:  After the conference was over, the delegate from Nigeria returned home and was immediately shot and killed by Nigerian army thugs, obviously for daring to support Palestine.  "Straight Outta Nigeria!"  Hey, that's what you get for supporting peace and justice these days.

     None of us must ever forget that whenever and wherever it comes to standing up for human rights against powerful neo-colonialist bullies, we all can be thrown to the ground like Ice Cube -- or like Palestinians.  But still we must do it, no matter what the risk, if we ever expect to be able to live with ourselves.  In these troubled times of out-of-control bullying by the military-industrial complex, each and every one of us is now being forced to become the next Dr. Dre -- or Patrick Henry.  "Give me liberty or give me death".  http://www.globalresearch.ca/illegal-slaughter-camerons-bombings-of-syria-equals-blairs-iraq-war-crimes/5495268

PPPS:  "Kill another human being, end up in Hell."  It's the law.  Even if you are a neo-colonialist or in the army or a cop.  Especially if you are a neo-colonialist or in the army or a cop.

  

Diversity in Paris: It's not like what you've been told

     I just read somewhere that human bodies cannot detect dangerous levels of radiation at this time because, in our evolutionary past, there was never a need for detecting dangerous levels of radiation around us.  Thus none of us are human Geiger counters today -- even though, after Los Alamos, Dimona, Chernobyl and Fukushima, I sort of wish that I was one.

     And the same principle can be applied to the detection of lies told to us constantly by mainstream media.  Our very lives never used to depend on whether or not we could detect lies on TV.  We are not human lie detectors either.

     For us human beings, the mainstream media these days seems to have become like some kind of pervert who promises to give us candy if only we step into his white van.

     Take our elections for instance.  We are constantly lied to and told that corporate trolls, if elected, will serve our interests in Washington and not those of Wall Street and War Street.  And then our economy goes bust and our sons and daughters die in endless wars for greed.  And we've been lured into that white van once again.  http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/15/putin-gives-kerry-a-chance-to-pull-back-from-the-brink/

    Another lie we are constantly being fed is that racial and cultural diversity is dangerous and we must always hate and fear "The Other".  Also not true.  Take Paris for instance.  All we hear about Paris recently is that there are gangs of terrorists loose in the City of Enlightenment -- but when I got hopelessly lost in the Metro on my way to Montmartre recently, the racial and cultural diversity in the subway was intense.  And yet we all just got along.

     At the gigantic labyrinthine Chaletet transfer point, there were over a thousand people making thousands of choices between at least 20 different train platforms and approximately 50 different trains going to over 200 destinations in Paris.  I was lost, desperate and aghast!

     "Just get on a damn train, any damn train," I told myself, but finally decided to ask someone instead.  But who?

     A thousand people were all rushing by me -- and they all appeared to know exactly where they were going.  I was the only eye in this hurricane of humans.  And there were people from all over the freaking world rushing by me.  Caucasians, Asians, Arabs, Black people, tourists.

     Yet nobody was carrying a Glock, Kalashnikov or Uzi -- or even fighting with their fists.

     Nobody was even angry.

     Nobody was not getting along.

     These people all had places to go and reasons for getting there -- and none of them had the time or the inclination to not get along.  Eventually I found my way to my correct Metro platform and train, and eventually I even arrived in Montmartre.  But the impression stayed with me -- that we're all being lied to.  People of all races, religions and cultures actually really can get along. 

     And if we don't finally start ignoring the mainstream media's barrage of lies (the main intent of which seems to be selling more and more weapons -- from Sandy Hook to Saudi Arabia -- no matter who gets killed), then we can all come to expect reports of constant violent deaths in the Paris Metro instead of just hurried commuters trying to get along. 

     The choice is not up to the mainstream media.  The choice is up to us.  To step into the white van or not. 

I'm currently down & out in Paris: Right place, write time 

      To paraphrase that current Geico ad on TV, "If you are a writer, you write.  It's what you do."  And I certainly live in an age where there is a hecka lot of stuff to write about.  In this day and age of lies, greed, bluster, neo-fascism, economic collapse, ecological disaster, radiation danger, war-mongers and brinksmanship, words can practically write themselves.  For a writer, "It is the worst of times, it is the best of times." 

     I just may be lucky enough to be in a position to chronicle the end of the world.

     But enough about me.  Let's talk about Paris.  

     I'm here on a 24-hour layover between Berkeley and Beirut.  But 24 hours in Paris is always far, far better than no hours in Paris at all.  Paris in the winter is lovely.  There's not a big flood of tourists and I only got lost on the Metro twice.  But I had such great plans for my 24 hours here.  Wanted to go to see Montmartre where so many Impressionist and Cubist painters lived and worked -- and to the Musee D'Orsey where their masterpieces are on display.

     Wanted to go to the Paris conference on climate change and to the Batachan concert hall where one of the most recent mass shootings took place.

      Wanted to eat in a fancy French restaurant.  

     Wanted to follow the Lonely Planet's advice and take a literary stroll past the garrets of Orwell, Hemingway, Stein, Miller, Nin, Joyce, etc.  Wanted to visit Shakespeare & Company and 27 rue de Fleurus.  

     But the the sad remnants of a particularly virulent stomach flu kept me from wanting to eat anything, jet lag kept my brain on hold and the obvious time limitations held me down.  But still and all, Paris really is a movable feast and I did arrive at the COP21 climate change conference just in time to barely miss California governor Jerry Brown give a talk on "Big ideas to connect landscapes, climate and development".  Brown certainly knows all about development!  I didn't need to go all the way to Paris to learn that.  I could have just toured West Oakland.

      But mostly I just walked around the Arc de Triumph neighborhood, soaked in the ambiance, ate croissants and listened to people speak French (and also a whole lot of other languages too as a result of the insane brutality of the then-and-now French empires having shaken so many residents of the world loose from their homes).

      There is certainly a lot to write about in Paris.  I am so glad that I'm here.