Surprise, Israel committed war crimes in their May attacks, using US-made weapons

Happy 4th of July. While we celebrate how the US fought against tyrants to achieve our own liberty, for over 70 years the US has been helping a foreign nation commit an ethnic cleansing to take liberty away from others. While we cheerfully listen to fireworks and gossip about Florida apartments collapsing into sinkholes, spend at least a moment to think of all the Palestinians who live in constant fear of US-made bombs bursting in air and all the Palestinians who've had their apartments collapse from US-made bombs. Somewhere along the road, our government lost the Spirit of '76.

On June 24th, investigative journalists from the New York Times published a 14-minute video with new information about the Israeli airstrikes on May 16 that murdered 44 Palestinians:

https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/100000007787471/israel-airstrikes-gaza.html

One of their main findings involved mapping the exact locations where Israelis used precision-guided bombs to target the densely-populated Rimal neighborhood in Gaza. Israel claimed they attacked a "Hamas command center" and tunnels underneath the residential apartment buildings, but provided no evidence that the alleged Hamas infrastructure existed. Israel claimed that the (presumably non-existent) Hamas infrastructure beneath civilian buildings would constitute a violation of international law, but by not warning civilians before bombing, Israel itself committed a war crime.

Not that "international laws" mean anything, since Israel will face no punishment. In fact, they admitted they hadn't bothered to warn civilians before, because no one punished them for it and therefore no one thought it was a big deal. This is just another of the countless crimes Israel has committed since its creation in 1948.

The bombs used by Israel were 2000 pounds, and the New York Times video says they are the heaviest type of bomb most militaries use on a regular basis. And Israel launched them not at heavily-fortified military targets, but at civilian apartment buildings. At least 4 of them were dropped near the apartment buildings which were completely destroyed. The bombs used US-made guidance systems. The video shows a serial number recovered from the debris, indicating at least one of the bombs had equipment manufactured by Boeing. (Boycott, divest, sanction, and arrest the apartheid profiteers at Boeing!)

Victims who were interviewed said they went to Rimal because they viewed it as safer than elsewhere in Gaza, as it was not attacked by Israel in their 2014 bombing campaign.

The Israeli Air Force launched over 100 guided bombs on May 16th, with over 30 of them landing in Rimal. Plotting the strikes on a map, Palestinian government buildings and a hospital were targeted, in addition to residential apartments. 3 days after the attacks, professional war criminal Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed a map which listed the destroyed apartment buildings as "not attacked".

The Israeli military said it hit all of their "intended targets", which we may assume were the apartment buildings, hospital, and civil government buildings.

In the 2-week-long campaign of carnage, Israel destroyed hospitals, a building serving as the headquarters for a few international media outlets, and over 2000 homes.

"The skyline of the metropolis – home to almost 600,000 people – has been significantly altered since May 10 when hostilities escalated.

Along with at least 2,000 housing units destroyed and more than 15,000 other units damaged, Gaza’s already run-down infrastructure was also badly hit.

The United Nations reported that six hospitals, nine healthcare centres and a water desalination plant were damaged during the fighting."

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/3/will-israel-be-held-accountable-for-war-crimes

Amnesty International and others have said it was likely that the Israeli attack constituted a war crime, but good luck ever holding Israel accountable when the US gives it over $3.8 billion in military funding each year so it can carry out its ethnic cleansing. Good luck ever holding Israel accountable when the US vetoes every UN resolution which attempts to condemn Israeli crimes. Good luck ever holding Israel accountable when President Joe Biden gave Israel an additional $735 million in funding as a reward for their attacks in May. (Yes, you read that correctly, he gave an apartheid state MORE MONEY after they committed war crimes against civilians.)

A small handful of politicians, led by Rashida Tlaib, courageously called Israel an apartheid state after these attacks. For the first time in US history, mainstream politicians have begun correctly labeling Israel as an apartheid state which must be boycotted and sanctioned immediately. The discourse has forever changed. See my previous article for more information on this:

https://authenticamericandream.blogspot.com/2021/05/mainstream-media-and-politicians-calling-out-israeli-apartheid.html

Right-wing propaganda heavily targeted Ilhan Omar after she joined in calling Israel an apartheid state (likely due to her courageously pointing out that US politicians on the Foreign Affairs Committee should not be expected to be obedient to Israel a few years ago). Republicans have recently attempted to censure Omar, Tlaib, Pressley, and AOC for their comments on Israel.

Not only did politicians call Israel out for its apartheid system, but mainstream journalists have been as well. During the attacks in May, Israel destroyed a building which housed the headquarters for Associated Press and Al-Jazeera, in order to obscure coverage of its war crimes. Considering that the US media has for decades been so silent on the plight of the Palestinians, would US-based investigative journalists, such as those at the New York Times, have bothered to investigate the attacks in more depth and write this story if Israel had not attacked the press? Or if heroic people like Rashida Tlaib had not demonstrated true leadership by taking a stand against apartheid? Maybe, maybe not. But what is certain is that the discourse on Israeli crimes is forever changing in the US, and we have a duty to ensure that passively ignoring and supporting apartheid never again becomes an acceptable position.

 

***
***

New York Times journalist Evan Hill summarized the video on his Twitter (which also contains some additional details not stated in the video).

https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1408051858816520195

If you're too lazy to watch the full 14 minute video, at the very least, I would recommend watching the excerpts where they interviewed the victims of the attack:

Interview with the Qawlaq family. At least 2 bombs landed directly outside the apartment building they were in, causing it to collapse. They had gone there because they believed the neighborhood would be safer than elsewhere in Gaza. Shoukry Al Qawlaq was trapped in the rubble for 11 hours.

https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1408057468987580416

 

 

Interview with Riad Ishkontana. The bombing murdered his wife and four of his children. He and his daughter Suzy were trapped in the rubble for over 6 hours.

https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1408056377956782083

https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1408064221766578185

https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1408058001366290446

Of course, these interviews from the New York Times are far from the only accounts from Palestinian victims of apartheid. Just like the rest of us, thousands of Palestinians use websites like Twitter and directly share their deepest fears with the rest of the world, while most of us choose not to look.

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1393618761454952454

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1393162154535231488

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1393731483601448960

***

So, what can we do to stop Israeli crimes? Boycott, divest, and sanction Israel and any companies which profit from Israeli apartheid. In addition, we must boycott major donors of apartheid-supporting US politicians. Support from the American public, universities, and politicians caused America to become a leader of the anti-South-African-apartheid BDS movement in the 1980s. Now it has come time to do the same for the anti-Israeli-apartheid BDS movement.

Refer to the previous article for more a more detailed analysis:
https://authenticamericandream.blogspot.com/2021/05/mainstream-media-and-politicians-calling-out-israeli-apartheid.html

Mainstream media calls out Democrats for refusing to uphold the law

Finally. Months too late, but we have reached another milestone. The past few months have been so jam-packed with news of Republicans becoming more criminal and Democrats continuing to enable them, that I have a number of posts I haven't finished writing yet. However, this new milestone is something to pay very close attention to and deserves immediate coverage, especially as the floodgates open and more mainstream reporters start using the same rhetoric.

"The Biden administration is enabling a Trump comeback

Democrats think enforcing the law on their opponents is somehow unfair

Democrats have had what any sane political party would consider a remarkable stroke of luck: Donald Trump, the leader of their opposition has (allegedly) committed many, many crimes, both while serving as president and before, and Democrats now control the federal law enforcement apparatus. As Barbara McQuade and Joyce White Vance write in The Washington Post, Trump is almost certainly guilty of obstruction of justice during the Mueller investigation, of attempting to solicit bribes from Ukraine, and of multiple campaign finance violations (and likely much, much more).

But so far, Attorney General Merrick Garland is resisting a full-scale investigation of Trump. For instance, he declined to open a criminal investigation of the recent revelation that the Trump Department of Justice spied on journalists and his political enemies (instead handing the issue over to the comparatively toothless inspector general). On the contrary, Garland's DOJ is continuing to spend public money defending Trump from a defamation suit filed by writer E. Jean Carroll (who accused Trump of rape). At the same time they are arguing that suits against Trump and his attorney general Bill Barr over the brutal attack on Lafayette Square protesters should be thrown out, and as Greg Sargent writes at the Post, actively concealing multiple documents related to Trump's abuses of power and alleged crimes. So far, Garland is effectively conspiring with Trump to help him escape accountability.

[...]

Republicans look for any way to camouflage their ruthless will-to-power with a tiny fig leaf of neutrality — just look at Mitch McConnell's ever-evolving "rules" for Supreme Court confirmations — and if they can't find one, they proceed anyway. Meanwhile Democrats shrink from action if they imagine Chuck Todd scolding them, even if they are remedying some historic injustice in the process.

By the same token, conducting an investigation that even appears to be politically motivated gives most establishment liberals the vapors. "One of Trump's most flagrant and dangerous norm breaches was his repeated, publicly stated desire that the Justice Department prosecute his real and perceived political enemies," wrote law professor Andrew Kent at the liberal establishment website Lawfare in December. He then developed an explicit argument to allow Trump to get away with breaking the law:

    Avoiding any hint of perpetuating this kind of awfulness, so reminiscent of tyrannies and banana republics, is an entirely plausible reason why Biden could want to avert criminal enforcement action against Trump and his circle. [Lawfare]

For some reason Kent does not discuss the fact that powerful people being able to break the law with impunity is also highly characteristic of "tyrannies and banana republics" — indeed arguably more so than politically motivated prosecutions, because those could still be directed at actual legal violations, even if motivations were not completely pure (such as, to pick an example at random, if the previous president committed a bunch of clumsily obvious crimes). By definition, the rule of law means that nobody, not even presidents or former presidents, should be able to break the law without consequence.

Any nine-year-old could instantly understand this point, but jingoist chauvinism runs so deep in the liberal legal establishment that it is basically impossible for them to imagine American politicians being really corrupt and deserving of jail time.

[...]

But it seems fecklessness runs so deep in the Democratic Party that not even basic self-preservation can motivate them to enforce the law against the rich and powerful. Garland should discover some principles or he should resign."

https://theweek.com/donald-trump/1001705/why-is-attorney-general-garland-covering-for-trump

Although Garland is in control of the Department of Justice, he is not the only one who could have enforced basic consequences on Republicans who committed the highest crimes possible against the state.

Back in December, Representative Bill Pascrell correctly declared that Republicans who tried to throw out legal electoral votes in order to change the outcome of the election were not qualified to be seated in Congress on the basis of the 14th Amendment.

"Pascrell wrote a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, explaining his reasoning by citing the 14th Amendment, which states no person should hold any civil or military office who has “engaged insurrection or rebellion” against the US.

“Men and women who would act to tear the United States government apart cannot serve as members of Congress,” Pascrell wrote. “These lawsuits seeking to obliterate public confidence in our democratic system by invalidating the clear results of the 2020 presidential election attack the text and spirit of the Constitution, which each member swears to support and defend.”"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/calls-for-gop-not-to-be-seated-in-congress-a-look-at-the-fallout-from-texass-brazen-election-lawsuit/ar-BB1bRYj8

"14th Amendment. Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."

Ever since the insurrection and Coup Vote which took place on January 6th, and Trump's impeachment for INCITEMENT OF INSURRECTION, it has become undeniable that the Republicans who organized, engaged in, and aided an insurrection are illegally serving in our government. Democratic party leadership was well aware of this Amendment, but nevertheless allowed them to be sworn in, making Democrats complicit in the whole affair by ILLEGALLY ALLOWING TERRORISTS TO BE SWORN IN TO CONGRESS.

"On January 10, 2021, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, formally requested Representatives' input as to whether to pursue Section 3 disqualification of former US president Donald Trump because of his role in the storming of the United States Capitol on January 6.[188][186] Unlike impeachment, which requires a supermajority to convict, disqualification under Section 3 would only require a simple majority of each house of Congress.[187][189]

The Section 3 disqualification could be imposed by Congress passing a law or a nonbinding resolution stating that the January 6 riot was an insurrection, and that anyone who swore to uphold the Constitution and who incited or participated in the riot is disqualified under Section 3.[186]

[...]

On January 11, 2021, Representative Cori Bush (Democrat from Missouri) and 47 cosponsors introduced a resolution calling for expulsion, under Section 3, of members of Congress who voted against certifying the results of the 2020 US presidential election or incited the January 6 riot. Those named in the resolution included Republican Representatives Mo Brooks of Alabama and Louie Gohmert of Texas, who took part in the rally that preceded the riot, and Republican Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, who objected to counting electoral votes to certify the 2020 presidential election result.[188][186]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Storming_of_United_States_Capitol

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was removed from her House committee positions in early February 2020 (just a few weeks after Democrats took back control of Congress) due to advocating for an insurrection and murder of political opponents long before January 6th. Why can't Congress do the same for all the other Republicans who did the same thing with respect to the January 6th insurrection??? While we need Garland to pursue criminal charges against all these treasonous politicians, the Democrat party, by controlling Congress, has many things they could do to reduce the power of the politicians who tried to overthrow our government.

Ffs, back in August 2020, Representative Eric Swalwell advocated for Congress to set up a Crimes Commission to investigate all of the criminal behavior that took place during the Trump administration. That was almost a year ago. He said that around the same time Republicans began attempting their massive campaign to steal the 2020 election by sabotaging mail-in voting. I think a lot of us have forgotten about that since the insurrection has taken center stage...

Since August 2020, Democrats should have been planning and organizing the legislation to enact the Crimes Commission and implemented it immediately after taking back control of the government. Instead, Democratic politicians are ACTIVELY ALLOWING TERRORISTS TO REMAIN IN GOVERNMENT AND MAKE OUR LAWS. We have terrorists making our laws because the Democratic party wants them there.

***

Over the past year, the media has been slow, but left-leaning and non-treasonous writers have independently come to many of the same conclusions and reiterated nearly every major talking point I've posted on this blog. Millions and millions of everyday Americans have come to the same conclusions as well.

The media is always a few steps behind when it comes to saying things that the most strongly-opinionated bloggers and everyday people are already saying. It doesn't look like Democrats are going to change their course and do their duty. So, what are the next rhetorical milestones the media will escalate to?

Currently, the media is just now beginning to grapple with the fact that not only did we not have a functional government under Trump, but we still don't have one under the Democrat party. A few weeks ago, the media already reached the milestone of acknowledging that Republicans are going to try a coup again in the future. (One of the many topics I haven't had a chance to cover yet).

What's next? Concerningly, I think the only new talking points the media could escalate to next are that non-treasonous Americans, left-wing Americans, and "non-white" Americans need to utilize their 2nd Amendment duties to defend themselves and their communities from the impending far-right tyranny.

The mainstream media has already told us to stay calm and that multiple "blue waves" would fix our government and hold all the criminals accountable. But voting did nothing. The Democratic party is helping the Republicans cover up their crimes by refusing to hold them accountable for literally trying to overthrow the government via a terrorist attack. Republicans have purged their party of leaders who dare to say Trump fairly lost the election. (Another topic I haven't had a chance to cover yet.) Republicans openly declare again and again that their followers need to become more violent and that the party itself has no remorse for the tactics they employed to steal the 2020 election (from sabotaging mail-in voting, to nullifying electoral results at the local level, and even launching a bloody insurrection to kidnap and kill anyone who refused to illegally reinstate Trump). State-level Republican politicians in numerous states have passed laws making it more difficult to vote and stripped power from the types of election officials who helped thwart their coup attempt in 2020.

Ideally, in the 2022 election, non-treasonous Democratic politicians would be able to win primaries and take control of the party away from the current "leadership" who are enabling Republican terrorism. But the fact that the Democrats have had two "blue waves" and literally did less than the bare minimum legal duty isn't going to inspire voters to show up to the polls. Hell, Trump would have won the 2020 election if he wasn't a moron and didn't intentionally make the pandemic worse. Trump could have won if he wasn't a complete moron and didn't publicly announce his plan to sabotage mail-in voting multiple times and instead did it all silently. Despite Biden's record-breaking numbers in the overall vote totals, the margin of victory in "swing states" was closer in 2020 than in 2016--in what should have been the largest landslide in US history, Biden almost lost. He won by only 44,000 votes in the "swing states" determining the electoral vote outcome. In 2016, the margin was 80,000. Despite technically controlling the Senate, Democrats de facto have given up control of it to the Republicans (another topic I haven't had a chance to cover), and Democrats only have the slimmest majority in the House at the moment.

Even if, against all odds, Democrats maintain a majority after the 2022 election, bureaucracy probably won't save us. Since people are sick of placing their hope in the bureaucracy, the media is running out of talking points to escalate to.

Currently, Republican politicians like Cawthorn and Gaetz are advocating that their followers utilize the 2nd Amendment to fight the supposedly-tyrannical government that they are currently part of. Rightists have been utilizing rhetoric like this non-stop for decades. So it really isn't that crazy to think that left-leaning mainstream news outlets and politicians might soon start saying the same things.

"Republican Congressman Madison Cawthorn Casually Suggests Armed Citizens Should Overthrow the Government.

The GOP lawmaker insisted assault weapons should be legal so people can stop “tyrannical government[s],” like the one he’s employed by.

The modern Republican Party talks a big game about being the party of “law and order,” yet strangely it’s they—and not Democrats—who’ve been involved in all the coups and insurrections of late. [...] Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Republican representative Madison Cawthorn suggested that assault rifles must stay legal so that civilians can overthrow the U.S. government, i.e. his current employer.

Appearing on Newsmax to discuss AR-15s and military weapons, the North Carolina lawmaker told host Chris Salcedo that “The Second Amendment is not written for sporting. The Second Amendment is so that if a tyrannical government ever wants to rise up, we can stop them.” Then he made a…rather strange historical reference! “If anybody ever wants to say, ‘Oh, well you know what? Citizens with a few small firearms would never be able to stop the federal government,’ I absolutely disagree, he said. “Ask the Viet Cong how they handled the Marines and the Army in Vietnam.”"

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/madison-cawthorn-viet-cong

Cawthorn is correct regarding the importance of the 2nd Amendment. But non-treasonous Americans aren't going to be able to stop Cawthorn and the Republicans once they overthrow the US government, because left-wing Americans barely own any guns compared to far-rightists or the leftist Viet Cong. Left-wing and "non-white" Americans won't even be able to defend themselves when the far-right militias come hunting for them.

If you think that's insane, that's literally what the QAnon cult had been prophesizing and waiting for--Trump's call to action to begin the purge of all left-wing Americans in "The Storm". In 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, far-right militias literally went "hunting" for "blacks". Over a year ago Ahmaud Arbery was lynched in broad daylight. ...And let's not even get started on what the KKK and other groups did during the Civil Rights era and Jim Crow era. Far-right psychopaths are heavily-armed and lying in wait all across the country, training, and ready to rise up when the time comes.

If I haven't convinced you of the intentions of rightists, last month Representative Matt Gaetz told rightists they have an "obligation" to use the 2nd Amendment against tech companies who don't want far-rightists on their platforms. They aren't even trying to talk with dog-whistles or euphemisms anymore. They simply state their criminal intentions directly and plainly. Republican politicians are openly telling their followers to murder people who disagree with them.

"Cawthorn’s comments follow remarks from Rep. Matt Gaetz wherein the Florida lawmaker lashed out at tech companies for harboring alleged conservative biases, telling supporters: “The internet’s hall monitors out in Silicon Valley, they think they can suppress us, discourage us. Maybe if you’re just a little less patriotic, maybe if you just conform to their way of thinking a little more, then you’ll be allowed to participate in the digital world. Well, you know what? Silicon Valley can’t cancel this movement, or this rally, or this congressman. We have a Second Amendment in this country, and I think we have an obligation to use it.”"

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/madison-cawthorn-viet-cong

The Republican party is openly encouraging terrorism and feels no remorse for their coup attempt. General Flynn and other members of the Trump administration keep advocating for another coup. This is going to keep getting worse in the following years. They will keep getting bolder and bolder, because they have faced zero consequences and the Democratic party doesn't even seem like they want to stop them.

***

The media has always been too little too late when it came to their analysis of the Republican coup attempt and all other political developments. What I predict will happen next is that (Republican-instigated) far-right terrorist attacks will continue to kill us, and once enough of us have been "sacrificed", the media will pose the disingenuous rhetorical question that maybe left-wing Americans should consider owning guns to defend ourselves. Once the violence against us becomes too regular to ignore, the left-leaning media will then start to encourage gun ownership. However, by then it will be too late. Rightists will have such an extreme advantage in terms of training, organization, and rates of gun ownership that the odds will continue to be stacked dramatically in their favor. This is not even considering the fact that countless police forces throughout the nation are filled with far-rightists who have defended far-right militias while left-wing protestors are routinely mutilated by police firing "non-lethal" weapons directly into their faces. Nor is this considering that, by the time things get this chaotic, Republicans will likely be in the position to carry out another coup.

Once that happens, the tyranny that will be unleashed might even make us nostalgic for the do-nothing Democrats. Once that happens, left-wing Americans won't even be able to get a gun and we will probably be shipped off to concentration camps. Once that happens, and QAnon cultists are able to carry out their purge of all liberal-leaning news reporters, there won't even be a mainstream media left to belatedly tell us what we already knew.

If you remember back to the Bush and Obama presidencies, conspiracy theorists complained non-stop that the government would send all non-compliant people to "FEMA concentration camps". Obviously that was never going to happen. But, today, we literally have QAnon followers in Congress and countless more politicians and other government officials who have been so brainwashed by "alternative facts" that they would likely have no problem implementing such things against their perceived enemies. They are literally living in a different reality than us and think we are just NPCs and not real humans. The Trump administration already put immigrant children in concentration camps. Why would Republicans stop there? (All of this, of course, assumes they won't just launch a full-on civil war with Bosnia-style mass killings.)

If you don't think things will actually get "that bad"...you were alive during the bloody coup attempt a few months ago, yeah? I never thought we'd be living in this reality either, but here we are. Right-wing politicians and militias are telling us the future is only going to continue to get much worse, and Democratic party politicians are perfectly fine with allowing that. Welcome to the New Normal. We criticized Trump for his "magical thinking" that simply wishing bad things would go away would actually make it into a reality, yet the False Left is doing the exact same thing when they believe things will just get better spontaneously, rather than continuing to get much worse.

Every non-treasonous American has a duty to arm themselves, train, and organize with community members so we can protect ourselves from whatever tyranny and terror will be inflicted on us in the near future. For a glimpse at how chaotic things can get in "developed" nations within recent memory, go look up what happened during The Troubles in Ireland or the Yugoslav Civil War. Or you can go look up what happened in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, or in Michigan in 2020 for what's already happening in the US...

The world doesn't have to be like this. But we need to take our present reality seriously if we are going to have any hope of changing the future. The world would have been better off if guns were never invented, but anti-2nd Amendment Democrat politicians are leading sheep to the slaughter. Every left-wing American, every "non-white" American, and every non-treasonous American needs to get armed with whatever means are legally available to you. Being armed is not enough--you also need to train. Training is not enough, you also need to organize with your community so you can defend one another when the time comes.

I sincerely hope that the Democratic party begins following the law, but we are not safe until they do. We are not safe when Republican politicians and far-right militias constantly warn us that even more violence is coming. We can ignore their warnings at our own peril.

...And when this nightmare is over, we will still have to approach the difficult question of reframing our government on a new system that isn't fundamentally prone to tyranny of the majority. Democracy gave us slavery, Jim Crow, and Trumpism. Voters who were upset about the end of slavery gave us Jim Crow. Voters who were upset about the end of Jim Crow gave us Trumpism. As long as people like that can vote, this shit isn't ever going to go away.

This is why we need to lock up the Red Coup supporters - Flynn calls for coup again

Retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn is back at it saying we should have a Myanmar-style military coup.

On May 30th, Flynn was one of the key speakers at a QAnon conference.

"QAnon’s biggest celebrities threw a three-day conference in Dallas over the weekend—and it didn’t disappoint.

Whether you wanted to hear a former U.S. Army general calling for a military coup or Roger Stone’s social media adviser calling for Hillary Clinton’s execution, there was something for everyone.

[...]

A sitting Congressman appeared on stage and literally embraced QAnon influencers. Dozens of members of a shadowy militia provided protection—some with their own pugs in tow. And then there was Kraken-lawyer Sidney Powell trying to sing the national anthem.

[...]

The “For God & Country: Patriot Roundup” event took place over Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in downtown Dallas with thousands of QAnon supporters each paying at least $500 for a ticket to the event.

[...]

The organizer of the event, John Sabal (known online as QAnon John), claimed prior to the event that it wasn’t a QAnon conference, despite multiple high-profile QAnon figures speaking there.

[...]

The event was a coming-out party for many well-known figures in the QAnon world, but it also highlighted just how far the conspiracy movement is bleeding into mainstream Republican politics, with one sitting Congressman, Rep. Louie Gohmert, speaking on stage, along with the chairman of the Texas GOP, Allen West.

The event continues on Monday morning with more speakers addressing the crowd, but here are the wildest moments so far from the Dallas event:

Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn called for a coup

[...]

For his part, Flynn has attempted to distance himself from QAnon, but that’s hard when you post a video of yourself and your whole family reciting the QAnon oath or, you know, headlining a QAnon conference.

[...]

While speaking on stage, Flynn was asked by an audience member who said he’d been in the military: “I want to know why what happened in Myanmar can’t happen here?”

After cheers from the crowd died down, Flynn responded: “No reason. I mean, it should happen here.”"

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7bebg/qanon-conference-wildest-moments-from-patriot-roundup-dallas

Here's the video of him saying it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76kuhlTQOIg

To see his advocacy for a military coup back in December, see here:

https://authenticamericandream.blogspot.com/2020/11/mainstream-media-finally-calling-out-trump-coup-attempt.html#FlynnMartialLaw

To read about how Trump actually considered the feasibility of his plan, see here:

https://authenticamericandream.blogspot.com/2020/12/trump-considered-military-coup.html

***

Unfortunately, just as before, most people aren't taking his comments seriously enough. Last time, the comments of Flynn and others resulted in an actual coup attempt where people died and the Vice President and members of Congress came within literal minutes of being murdered. Why aren't we taking this more seriously now that we know words have consequences and that the Republican party is genuinely fine with bloody coups if it allows them to keep power?

"Retired four-star Gen. Barry McCaffrey on Monday slammed retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn for calling for a Myanmar-like coup in America during a QAnon conference last weekend.

“This is harmful. This is putting the country at risk,” McCaffrey said on MSNBC. “I have never heard anything like this, probably in the last hundred years. This kind of, just completely irresponsible, provocative language.”

[...]

McCaffrey predicted the Department of Justice was going to be “hard-pressed not to consider whether this language is criminal in nature.”

[...]

Last year, Flynn retweeted a call for Trump to keep the White House by force, and reportedly urged Trump to use the Insurrection Act to declare martial law to stay in power.

[...]

Flynn resigned after just 22 days as Trump’s national security adviser following reports that he had lied about his contact with a Russian official. He pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about his secret dealings with Russian ambassador to the U.S. and suspected spy Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition, then battled to withdraw his plea.

Trump pardoned Flynn in November after he lost the election. Flynn maintains his military title and collects a full pension."

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/barry-mccaffrey-michael-flynn-coup_n_60b58e6fe4b0ead2796c1d5c

(Was McCaffrey even alive in 2020, when Flynn previously advocated for a military coup and the Pentagon leadership and all former living Secretaries of Defense had to make public declarations reassuring the public that they wouldn't support a military coup??? We were within minutes of Trump being able to carry out his plan to declare martial law).

Meanwhile, the Lieutenant Colonel punished by Trump because his brother spoke out against corruption is stating the plain facts:

"A colonel fired by Trump offered to prosecute Michael Flynn by court-martial for calling for a military coup in the US

[...]

Army Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman offered to court-martial Michael Flynn, Donald Trump's former national security advisor, after Flynn appeared to call for a military coup in the United States.

"With these seditious remarks Comrade Flynn may have crossed the line for recall to active duty and court-martial," Vindman said on Twitter on Monday.

Vindman, who's part of the Army Judge Advocate General's Corps, the legal arm of the Army that comprises serving officers, added, "As a JAG I'm qualified and also happy to prosecute this case."

Vindman is the twin brother of Alexander Vindman, the retired Army lieutenant colonel who came to prominence in 2019 after testifying before Congress about Trump's dealings with Ukraine. The Trump White House fired Yevgeny Vindman in February 2020."

https://www.businessinsider.com/vindman-trump-prosecute-michael-flynn-for-calling-for-military-coup-2021-6

"A DC Metropolitan Police officer who was brutally assaulted while defending the US Capitol during the January 6 insurrection said Wednesday evening that Michael Flynn's recent comments about a Myanmar-style coup in the US could "absolutely" lead to more violence.

Michael Fanone, who was stun-gunned several times and beaten with a flagpole during the attack, told CNN's Don Lemon on "Don Lemon Tonight" that Flynn's remarks amount to "the exact type of rhetoric which ultimately resulted in the attempted insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6."

[...]

"It's insane to hear that type of rhetoric being used not 6 months out from the insurrection at the Capitol," Fanone said Wednesday.

The officer has been vocal in recent months about the danger of downplaying the Capitol riot and the false claims that fueled it. Fanone told CNN last month that he was "shaking for the better part of the day" after watching House Republicans repeat a number of false claims about the riot during a congressional hearing.

"I was on the phone with dozens of other officers who were just absolutely traumatized by the rhetoric that was being used. And I understand politics. You know, I get that, you know, there's a push to try to, you know, win back the House in the midterm elections. I understand all of those things," he said.

"But some things supersede politics. You know, this isn't about the political future of one party. This is about right and wrong."

Asked Wednesday evening about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's efforts to rally GOP senators in opposition to a bill that would've created an independent bipartisan January 6 commission investigating the circumstances of the attack, Fanone said he was "absolutely sickened."

"Here I am escorting the mother of a dead policeman while she and myself advocate for the formation of a commission to investigate the circumstances which resulted in her son's death -- and you have a leader on Capitol Hill who's making phone calls asking for personal favors and doling out political capital to push for a no vote on that commission," Fanone said.

"It was absolutely disgraceful.""

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/02/politics/dc-police-capitol-insurrection-michael-flynn-cnntv/index.html

Finally, more people willing to state the plain facts:

"Michael Flynn should be sitting in prison awaiting trial for sedition: former White House attorney

Richard Painter says Flynn's recent comments about a military takeover should land him in prison for sedition

[...]

Appearing on CNN on Tuesday afternoon with host Ana Cabrera, former White House ethics attorney Richard Painter expressed his disgust with former Donald Trump official Michael Flynn for his continuing comments about the 2020 election, saying his weekend comments about a military takeover should land him in court and in prison for sedition.

[...]

"Ana, this is a call for a coup and this is not the first time that Michael Flynn has done this," Painter began. "Back in November, after the election, he met with Donald Trump in the White House and they talked about having a military takeover with the United States military, entering Pennsylvania and other states to redo the election -- that was sedition."

"I wrote at the time that that was sedition and should have been criminally charged as sedition by Michael Flynn, and also, perhaps, Donald Trump as an accomplice," he continued. "Michael Flynn has repeatedly called for a military takeover of this sort and this is sedition and it can be prosecuted as sedition; a pattern of conduct, particularly the overt acts in the White House back in November, not just one statement here"

"Second, General Flynn, retired from active duty, is subject to the Uniform Military Code of Justice and he should be court-martialed," he added. "If a former general said this, they would have him in Leavenworth, Kansas right now, ready to face court-martial. This cannot be accepted.""

https://www.salon.com/2021/06/01/michael-flynn-should-be-sitting-in-prison-awaiting-trial-for-sedition-ex-white-house-attorney_partner/

If you're able to read, here's a law Flynn violated. This isn't even a military law that would require him to be brought back into active duty to face punishment, like the article above advocates. It's a regular old law that every person here is subject to. (Well, maybe Republicans and other elites aren't subject to it.) Flynn violated this law long after Trump pardoned him for his previous crimes, so there is absolutely nothing stopping him from being arrested and tried immediately. Every day the Biden administration and Attorney General Garland wait to arrest him is a day that they are aiding and abetting the next Republican coup attempt by giving them all this time to organize and openly declare their intent.

"18 U.S. Code § 2385 - Advocating overthrow of Government

Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government;

[...]

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction."

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2385

Meanwhile, what does Biden do? He gave some pathetic speech on how democracy is in peril. As fundamentally flawed as democracy is, the current peril is because he and his administration are doing nothing to punish those politicians and other individuals within our own government who just attempted a coup. Coup or no coup, it is impossible to have a functional government if that government is unable--or worse--unwilling to enforce its own laws against severe crimes.

"Democracy itself is in peril, here at home and around the world. What we do now -- what we do now, how we honor the memory of the fallen will determine whether or not democracy will long endure," Biden said.

[...]

He spoke of the rising wave of autocratic rule across the world and argued, as he often does, that "liberation, opportunity, justice are far more likely to come to pass in an democracy than an autocracy."

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/31/politics/biden-memorial-day/index.html

(Wtf is wrong with you Biden, democracy just gave us Trump, the Republican party is democratically disenfranchising millions of voters, and you just gave the democratic state of Israel nearly a billion extra dollars in funding to continue its system of apartheid which it democratically keeps voting for. And in case you've forgotten, democracy gave us slavery, Jim Crow, ethnic cleansing of Native Americans, and all kinds of other stuff too. Democracy is a system devoid of empathy which panders to the lowest common denominator and the most selfish of voters and political grifters.)

To drive home the absurdity in the lack of law enforcement regarding all the coup organizers and supporters--George Floyd, a random person, was summarily executed while being arrested for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill. Flynn, a retired General, former National Security Advisor for the President, and member of Trump's inner circle, has called for a military coup multiple times and faced no consequences. Democratic party leaders at least acknowledged Floyd when they strangely thanked him for "sacrificing his life", but Democratic party leaders act like Flynn doesn't exist. Flynn's crimes pose an existential threat to our nation and the evidence is public record, while Floyd's alleged crime wasn't even proven at the time of his arrest and murder at the hands of police.

When our system of government and law enforcement have double standards this extreme, we have to face the unfortunate fact that we may not even have a functional government anymore. All thanks to democracy, if we want to be even clearer about it.

***

Most critically, it is not just Flynn who thinks this way. 147 Republicans voted to overthrow the election to illegally keep Trump in power. And as I keep warning, the Republican party shows no remorse for the insurrection and has fully embraced coups as part of their strategy to hold on to power at all costs.

Flynn was in the military long enough to work his way up to General. He knows very well the gravity of his words and the fact that a military coup is nothing to talk lightly about. He is just as serious about these statements today as he was in 2020.

Back in December 2020, Flynn advocated that Trump declare martial law in order to hold "new elections" to keep him in power (i.e. launch a military coup). Even worse, Michael Flynn's brother, Charles Flynn, is an active duty General and was one of the people who made the decision to delay the National Guard during Trump's coup attempt!

Michael Flynn faced no punishment for advocating the highest crime possible against the state--and so he is back at it. Charles Flynn and countless other individuals in the military and law enforcement chain of command who were either complicit in the coup or who were otherwise totally negligent in their duties are still in the same jobs, ready to be deployed again.

As I keep warning, the far-right danger in the US is not going to go away quietly. This is why all left-wing Americans and all non-traitorous Americans need to (legally) arm ourselves, train, and organize within our communities so we can be prepared when the next far-right disaster takes place. The clock is counting down.

How many more Flynns are out there? On May 10th, 124 retired Generals, Admirals, and other military officers signed a statement repeating the far-right narrative about election fraud and Biden's mental stability. (Holy shit, and they were fine with the stable genius of Trump?) Active duty and former military members made up a disproportionate amount of people participating in the insurrection. A few weeks ago, Major Christopher Warnagiris was the first active duty military member to be charged for his role in the insurrection. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Larry Brock was one of insurrectionists who had zip tie handcuffs to take politicians hostage.

A group of over 130 Republican politicians in the US House and Senate (a majority of their party!) consistently voted to invalidate electoral votes, voted to overthrow the results of the election, voted against impeachment and voted to declare that impeaching Trump was Unconstitutional, voted to defend Marjorie Taylor Greene for her comments supporting overthrowing the government and murdering political opponents, and, most recently, to cover up the January 6th insurrection by killing the commission to investigate it.

Even mainstream propagandists entertainment news hosts like Tucker Carlson are continuously advocating that Republican supporters need to throw "a real insurrection"... Far-right militias keep telling us we are on the brink of a "hot" civil war. The Republican party has purged its leadership of anyone critical of Trump and Trump himself for some reason believes he will be "reinstated" as President in August. We can ignore all these warnings at our own peril.

Despite this grave danger, Biden and the Democrat party have refused to punish those individuals within our government who organized, aided, and abetted the Red Coup. We are not safe when one of our major political parties are literal terrorists who tried to overthrow the government (and are declaring they will try again in the future), and when the other political party is doing nothing at all to punish them for committing the highest crimes possible against the state. The Democratic party is paving the way for the next Republican coup, and their coverup of the coup (by shielding Republican coup participants from legal punishment) makes them complicit in the whole matter.

***

One of the key concepts of the federalist system of government we have in place is that power devolves back to the people when other levels of government become tyrannical or abdicate their duties. For the time being, we must ensure our communities will be safe and can weather the storm of the next far-right assault on America, and do what we can to restore a functional government before the Republican party (with assistance from Democratic party acquiescence) overthrows it.

You know what, I'm starting to wonder if decades of False Left anti-gun advocacy was done intentionally in order to set up the conditions where the far-right could overthrow the government without resistance...

Mainstream media and politicians are finally calling out Israeli apartheid!

Israel is once again ramping up its ethnic cleansing and murder of Palestinians. Not only that--this time Israel has even targeted the headquarters of international media outlets in order to obscure coverage of its crimes.

May 15:

"An Israeli airstrike on Saturday destroyed a high-rise building that housed The Associated Press office in the Gaza Strip, despite repeated urgent calls from the news agency to the military to halt the impending attack. AP called the strike “shocking and horrifying.”

[...]

“We have had no indication Hamas was in the building or active in the building,” AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt said in a statement. “This is something we actively check to the best of our ability. We would never knowingly put our journalists at risk.”

Pruitt described the news agency as “shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza.” He warned: “The world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today.”

[...]

The building housed a number of offices, including those of the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera. Dozens of residents who lived in apartments on the upper floors were displaced.

A video broadcast by Al-Jazeera showed the building’s owner, Jawwad Mahdi, pleading over the phone with an Israeli intelligence officer to wait 10 minutes to allow journalists to go inside the building to retrieve valuable equipment before it is bombed.

“All I’m asking is to let four people ... to go inside and get their cameras,” he said. “We respect your wishes, we will not do it if you don’t allow it, but give us 10 minutes.” When the officer rejected the request, Mahdi said, “You have destroyed our life’s work, memories, life. I will hang up, do what you want. There is a God.”"

https://apnews.com/article/israel-middle-east-business-israel-palestinian-conflict-fe452147166f55ba5a9d32e6ba8b53d7

Some have suggested this escalation of Israeli terrorism is an attempt by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold on to power. Over the past few years, his party has had difficulty forming a parliamentary majority, making it uncertain how much longer he will be able to remain Prime Minister. In addition, he was indicted on corruption charges in 2019 and will presumably face trial once the Covid pandemic is deemed under control. The presumption is that, by creating an artificial crisis by escalating violence with Palestinians, he can use the excuse that it is inadvisable to change leaders during a time of crisis. In addition, ramping up the ethnic cleansing will gain him popularity among fiercely tribalist voters (many of whom have received prime real estate in Jerusalem from Palestinians who were recently ethnically cleansed).

What Netanyahu's motives are for this escalation are irrelevant. Israeli apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and settler-colonialism have been ongoing for an entire lifetime now. There have been ebbs and flows in the intensity of the ethnic cleansing, but it has been continuous and unceasing.

More troubling, US support for this rogue nuclear-armed apartheid state has been ongoing for an entire lifetime.

***

Without giving an exhaustive history of the US's relation with Zionism, it is suffice to say that the Zionist lobbying groups have been one of the most powerful political interest groups in the US since their inception.

Since the 1950s, Presidents and other politicians repeatedly attempted to make political groups whose entire purpose is to support Israel register as foreign agents--to no avail. (Meanwhile, groups as benign as the Japan National Tourism Organization and Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions are required to register).

In 1967, Israel attacked the USS Liberty as part of a false flag operation. Admiral Thomas Moorer (Chief of Naval Operations--the highest-ranking Naval officer, who serves as head of the Navy--from 1967-1970 and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff--the highest-ranking military officer in the US, serving as an advisor to the President--from 1970-1974), US Secretary of State Dean Rusk (1961-1969), and numerous other military and civilian leaders who have investigated the incident over the past 50 years have rejected the US and Israeli governments' official coverup story of the incident. Nevertheless, politicians, historians, and journalists are expected to accept the alternative facts of the coverup--so powerful is the Israel lobby's hold on the discourse in the US.

Since the creation of Israel, the US has given it over $250 billion dollars in aid, largely in funds explicitly earmarked as military aid. Currently, this is over $3.8 billion per year, despite the fact that Israel is a highly-advanced and nuclear-armed state!

In other words, US taxpayer dollars are directly funding Israeli apartheid and ethnic cleansing. For reference, the yearly budget NATO member states pay to NATO is less than $2 billion, of which the US and other members pay only a fraction. Yet Trump successfully spread the Russian talking points that the NATO budget was too high! Why aren't more Americans talking about how we have a literal apartheid budget to fund a foreign nation?

$0 is the correct amount of US taxpayer money to send an apartheid state which is actively carrying out an ethnic cleansing. A single penny more is outrageous and too much.

For the longest time, it has been career suicide for journalists or politicians to criticize Israel in the US. Throughout her career, the highly-respected journalist Helen Thomas had at times asked questions as to why the US administration was supporting Israeli tyranny, but she took the gloves off in 2010 and took and firm stance by openly criticizing Zionism. Her career was ended and Zionist groups attempted to tarnish her journalistic legacy.

Now, just a decade later, we have not only multiple mainstream news reporters, but a number of politicians(!), who are willing to state the plain fact that Israel is an apartheid state. The wind of change is here.

Don't forget the tireless work of everyone who made this change possible.

***

This change was quite sudden. Even at the beginning of May, when politicians began meekly criticizing Israel for their renewed campaign of carnage in Gaza, it was almost unthinkable that they would use the term apartheid. Here is an opinion headline from May 9, 2021:

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/5/9/should-palestinians-be-mad-at-aoc

On April 27, the organization Human Rights Watch declared that Israel was an apartheid state. The following morning, this headline was retweeted by Rashida Tlaib:
https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1387389549752553473

Then, it started happening. Heroically led by Tlaib, a wave of politicians and mainstream news sources began using the term apartheid.

May 5:

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1389992893083947012

May 8:

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1391086428852006915

May 10. Tlaib went on an interview and once again called out apartheid.

https://twitter.com/MehdiHasanShow/status/1391895162666815489

https://twitter.com/People4Bernie/status/1391897106927919106

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1391727202006339589

Ilhan Omar was the next politician to join in. A few years ago, Omar courageously stated the fact that US politicians serving on the Foreign Affairs Committee should not be required to put obedience to Israel above their loyalty and duty to the American people. It almost ended her career--both parties wanted to remove her from the committee. But she has stayed strong and every day more people join her in speaking out against Zionist racism and the grip it has over US politics.

May 11:

https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1392298753852383234

On May 13th, a number of Congress members gave speeches criticizing Israel. Some explicitly called it an apartheid state, while others simply implied it.

The entire legislative session from May 13 can be seen in the following video. At 6:10:19 Representative Mark Pocan begins the one-hour session regarding Palestinian issues.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?511625-1/house-passes-comprehensive-debt-collection-improvement-act-215-207

Pocan said Israel "all too often looks like a former South Africa", without explicitly saying apartheid.
https://twitter.com/_waleedshahid/status/1392997006642237440

Tlaib began her speech at 6:14:09 and called out apartheid multiple times.
https://twitter.com/_waleedshahid/status/1392993406318784515

Omar began her speech at 6:25:12 and mentions the Human Rights Watch report called Israel an apartheid state.
https://twitter.com/OmarSShakir/status/1393094591612547077

Representative Ayanna Pressley began her speech at 6:43:12:

"We cannot stand idly and complicitly by and allow the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people to continue.

We cannot remain silent when our government sends $3.8 billion of military aid to Israel that is used to demolish Palestinian homes, imprison Palestinian children, and displace Palestinian families.

A budget is a reflection of our values.

I am committed to ensuring that our government does not fund state violence in any form, anywhere.

[...]

The question at hand is should our taxpayer dollars create conditions for justice, healing and repair, or should those dollars create conditions for oppression and apartheid?

[...]

If our budgets are a statement of our values, what do we value? Whose lives do we value?"

https://pressley.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-pressley-delivers-floor-speech-israeli-state-violence-and-human-rights

https://twitter.com/_waleedshahid/status/1392985435547254787

Representative Cori Bush began her speech at 6:52:41:

"We are anti-war. We are anti-occupation. And we are anti-apartheid. Period."

https://twitter.com/RepCori/status/1392991612364591107

(Unfortunately, war may be the only thing capable of ending apartheid and stopping Israeli crimes).

A number of others spoke during this session to criticize Israeli tyranny and the fact that US funds it, but they were not courageous enough to call out apartheid. Many were even cowardly enough to say Israel deserves to exist while at the same time attempting to defend Palestinians. Would Abraham Lincoln, MLK, or BLM declare that a Jim Crow Dixieland has a "right" to exist? No, because justice is incompatible with the existence of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and the existence of a state which is founded upon tyranny.

On May 14, Tlaib continued.

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1393162154535231488

***

Thanks to Tlaib's unceasing courage, a new milestone occurred on May 15. Mainstream news reporters began calling out apartheid.

On the morning of May 15th (US time), Israel destroyed a building serving as the headquarters of AP news, Al Jazeera, and others.

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1393548019971284992

Instead of silencing news reporters, Israel's deliberate targeting of the media emboldened people to stand against it.

Soon after Tlaib's tweet, news reporter Ali Velshi on MSNBC says:

“Palestinians are at best third-class citizens in the nation of their birth. The idea that it’s even remotely controversial to call what Israel has imposed on Palestinians a form of apartheid is laughable.”

Of course, the media wouldn't allow this to be published without him prefacing things by wrongly saying Israel has "right" to exist.

https://www.msnbc.com/ali-velshi/watch/velshi-the-right-to-exist-goes-both-ways-112015941899

The day after this aired, the official MSNBC Twitter retweeted Velshi's segment:

https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1394028137445482498

>We may hope that soon, journalists will be able to defend Palestine and speak out against apartheid without pretending like the government implementing the apartheid and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians in the first place has a "right to exist"... (Like, seriously, how does it make any sense to claim to support justice if you say in the same breath that a settler-colonialist apartheid state should be able to exist???)

***

Unfortunately, by the evening of May 15th, the message started getting muddied with poor rhetoric.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted:

"Apartheid states aren’t democracies."

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1393673695433043976

Cori Bush and (unfortunately) Rashida Tlaib soon repeated her statement:

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1393693207792439299

This is such an absurd and counter-productive talking point. Israel IS a democracy. Israel IS an ignoble, tyrannic, and apartheid state. Not in spite of being democratic, but BECAUSE IT IS DEMOCRATIC.

Zionists in Israel vote to continue apartheid and ethnic cleansing, just as tribalists in the US voted to continue slavery, voted to disenfranchise "blacks", and voted to continue the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans. Oh yeah, and US democracy gave us Trump, US democracy has voted to make BDS illegal, and US democracy has voted to give Israel billions of dollars in military funding each year, enabling their crimes...

Moreover, what would happen in a democratic One State Solution? Zionists (including non-Jewish perpetrators of "Zionist privilege" such as "Israeli Arabs") would outvote the Palestinians and we would be right back to where we started from. (I have actually seen many dedicated anti-Zionists who know the One State Solution is the only ethically-justifiable conclusion, yet doubt that it will ever be practical, because they are so Westernized that they are unable to think of the future state of Palestine as anything other than a democracy where millions of Zionists are allowed to vote!)

The Zionist argument that "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East" should only serve to heighten Israel's obvious ignobility and the fact that democracy is a supremely ethically-unsound form of government.

Democracy is tyranny of the majority. Israel is an excellent example of democracy, and if Israel becomes "more democratic" in the future, it will only continue its apartheid system. Democracy prevented re-establishment of apartheid in South Africa only because "non-whites" were the vast majority and much of the world was committed to boycotting and sanctioning South Africa, preventing the wealthy "whites" from trying to re-seize power.

Meanwhile, democracy in the US gave us slavery, a civil war over the continuation of slavery, Jim Crow (i.e. apartheid), and systematic racism in the police force--with minimal ability for the victims of this tyranny to seek any recourse, since they were the electoral minority!!! Democracy in Israel has consistently supported apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and will continue to do so in the future.

***

Tlaib's other tweets on May 15 were much more focused:

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1393618761454952454

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1393731483601448960

On May 16th, MSN news patronized AOC for using the term apartheid, causing AOC to double-down on her wording:
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1393957534663417857

May 16, Omar defends the use of the term apartheid:
https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1394124282645581826

On May 16 the journalist-comedian John Oliver also joined in:

"On Sunday night, John Oliver dedicated the opening portion of his late-night program Last Week Tonight to the ongoing crisis in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

[...]

“One side has suffered over 10 times the casualties, something which speaks to both the severe power imbalance at play here and how that often gets obscured by how we choose to talk about it,” said Oliver on his program.

Oliver said he wasn’t going to “try and recap the history” or “propose a solution,” instead vowing to explain why the incidents of the past week were “just wrong.”

Those on the ground, like Palestinian writer and Sheikh Jarrah resident Mohammed El-Kurd, have called it “forced ethnic displacement” conducted by “heavily armed police.” And then there’s the matter of the Iron Dome, Israel’s air defense system that intercepts missiles—and is largely funded by the U.S.

“Israel has a so-called Iron Dome,” explained Oliver, “so the point is, this isn’t tit-for-tat. There is a massive imbalance when it comes to the two sides’ weaponry and capabilities. While most of the rockets aimed toward Israeli citizens this week were intercepted, Israel’s airstrikes were not. They hit their targets, including a house in a refugee camp, a building housing the Associated Press and Al Jazeera, and [a] 13-story office and apartment building. And while Israel insisted that there were military targets in that building and they destroyed it as humanely as possible, even warning people to evacuate it beforehand, destroying a civilian residence sure seems like a war crime, regardless of whether you send a courtesy heads-up text.”

[...]

“They’ve been living under a suffocating blockade for 14 years, and in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, Palestinians are essentially being governed by a form of apartheid—an assessment echoed by both international and Israeli human rights groups,” said Oliver. “Life in Gaza is hard even when they’re not being bombed, and the U.S. government has implicitly co-signed on the brutally hard line Israel’s been taking.”"

https://www.thedailybeast.com/john-oliver-accuses-israel-of-war-crimes-and-apartheid-against-palestinians

On May 17th, Tlaib called out the hypocrisy of Biden and the US for claiming to want a ceasefire, but blocking a UN resolution demanding a ceasefire!

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1394469408249163776

The US's defense of Israel in the UN has been a major international issue and another example of just how strongly Zionist lobbies influence US policy. Since 1972, the US has vetoed at least 53 resolutions critical of Israel:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/19/a-history-of-the-us-blocking-un-resolutions-against-israel

The US also famously voted against the 1970s UN resolution which accurately stated the fact that Zionism is racism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_3379

---

Due to the courage of Tlaib and others, the discourse on Israel and Zionism has now forever changed in America.

Israel is an apartheid state. Zionism is racism. This is now a mainstream political talking point reiterated by at least a dozen mainstream politicians and journalists. There is no longer any excuse for remaining silent.

---

Those currently speaking out are just the tip of the iceberg.

May 17:

"Rashida Tlaib says Democrats tell her they support Palestine in secret because they’re scared of ‘intimidation’

[...]

US Rep Rashida Tlaib says that some of her Democratic colleagues in Congress express empathy towards the Palestinians in private, but do not in public.

The Michigan Democrat made the observation during an interview on MSNBC’s The Reid Out on Monday evening.

“It is really hard because any of my colleagues that even have some sort of empathy towards Palestinians, they do it quietly with whispering because they continue to be intimidated and bullied by those that want to continue the status quo apartheid in Israel,” Ms Tlaib told host Joy Reid.

[...]

The congresswoman also said there was more criticism of the Netanyahu government within Israel than there was from the Biden administration.

[...]

She joined representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and André Carson of Indiana in signing a joint statement asking president Joe Biden to reconsider the $3bn in annual military aid provided to Israel."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/rashida-tlaib-israel-palestine-democrats-b1849498.html

May 19:

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1395066980676341763

Politicians are afraid of intimidation like this from AIPAC, the strongest pro-Israel lobby in the US (which for some reason isn't required to register as a foreign agent despite literally having Israel in their name).

https://twitter.com/jeremyslevin/status/1394749096020299778

Taking a step back for a moment, if we view people like John Brown and Malcolm X as heroic for fighting back against racist tyranny, why shouldn't we consider Palestinians heroic for fighting back against racist tyranny? If we consider people like Nelson Mandela as heroic for fighting back against South African apartheid, why shouldn't we consider Palestinians heroic for fighting back against Israeli apartheid? (In case you didn't know, Mandela was officially considered a terrorist by the US government until 2008, because beginning in the 1960s he was the leader of the military wing of the African National Congress party, which began a widespread armed guerilla uprising lasting decades against apartheid forces!!!) If American films and novels are filled with portrayals of Native Americans as the heroes for fighting back against US settler-colonialism, why shouldn't we view Palestinians as the heroes for fighting back against Israeli settler-colonialism? The framing of who we think of as the "bad guys" and "good guys" is yet another means by which apartheid supporters control the discourse.

Who are the real terrorists and who are the real anti-terrorists here?

Omar heroically spoke out against the lobby and their grip on US politics in 2019. Not only has she kept her career, but she constantly gains the support of others for being steadfast in her principles and courageous enough to continue speaking out against racism. Other politicians have a duty to join her, instead of remaining silent.

We would not be intimidated by pro-apartheid-South-Africa propaganda, since the position of the apartheid government was utterly evil. MLK, Malcolm X, JFK, and all the other supporters of ending Jim Crow apartheid in the USA were not intimidated by the KKK and other racists. So, why should we be intimidated by Zionists and Israeli apartheid supporters?

We are proudly anti-apartheid and proudly against all forms of racism, which necessitates us being steadfast anti-Zionists. Zionism is a form of racism which is fundamentally no different from the types of White Supremacy which have plagued the US for our entire history.

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How has President Biden responded to the violence in Israel and the morally-upstanding comments from his party members? Has he recognized the shifting tide of public opinion and his moral duty to stop funding an apartheid state? No, Biden instead has just given Israel an additional $735 million in military aid so they can continue murdering Palestinians. The anti-apartheid caucus has introduced a piece of legislation attempting to stop this $735 million.

Have you paid your taxes yet? This is what your money is going to.

For those of us living in the US, Biden's relative sanity compared to Trump makes him seem like a breath of fresh air. For the Palestinians and others who continue to be murdered thanks to US political, economic, and military support, nothing has changed for the past 70+ years.

Not even 12 hours after Israel supposedly agreed to a ceasefire, Israeli police stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque again... And why wouldn't they, when the US shields them from any international criticism and consequences for their actions, and when Biden just gave them nearly a billion extra dollars as a reward for their actions?

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1395790179609288706

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1395507514377134084

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1395450244461211648

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What is to be done about all this?

Apartheid South Africa collapsed because of the global movements to boycott, divest, and sanction (BDS)--which was strongly supported by the US government. For example, in 1986, Congress voted 391-104 to override Reagan's veto on the Comprehensive Apartheid Act, which mandated US sanctions against apartheid South Africa. Less than a decade later, apartheid was dismantled. In contrast, when it comes to Israeli apartheid, US political parties have been passing "anti-BDS" laws, Unconstitutionally making it illegal for businesses to attempt to boycott Israel. Since 2015, 35 states have passed such laws, despite over 70% of Americans opposing them.

(Remember this when Zionist propagandists try to tell you the Israel lobby in the US isn't actually powerful, and in the same breath tell you you're a racist for being against apartheid. LOL.)

The fact that BDS worked to stop apartheid South Africa shows that it can work to bring down Israeli apartheid. The fact that Zionist lobbies in the US and elsewhere have desperately attempted to make BDS "illegal" show that it is already working.

In terms of divestment, the first thing the US needs to do is immediately cease giving Israel billions of dollars in yearly military funding to continue their ethnic cleansing. How do we convince politicians to do this? Public outcry against Republican politicians who supported the Coup Vote was enough to get many businesses to stop donating to their campaign funds. The same needs to happen for businesses who donate to Joe Biden and other apartheid supporters. Strategically, this should be focused on the Democrat party and Democratic party politicians--since the Republican party has a near-zero chance of ever turning against apartheid.

As individuals, we have an ethical duty to boycott businesses which do business with Israel or profit in any manner from the exploitation of Palestinians. Here is a targeted list of a select few businesses which are currently being focused on by the main BDS movement website:

https://bdsmovement.net/get-involved/what-to-boycott

Other groups maintain much more extensive lists, such as this one. We encourage you to follow this list as much as you possibly can. However, in order for boycotts to work, they must have a targeted focus and be upheld with consistency by many people. For this reason, at the very minimum you must boycott the organizations whose names are being amplified by the main BDS movement (above), in addition to boycotting organizations currently targeted by local BDS movements in your school, state, city, and region.

http://bdsguide.com/bds-list/

As individuals, we must also band together to threaten to boycott companies unless they cease donating to Biden and other Democratic party apartheid supporters. For example, here are some of the major donors to the Biden campaign:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2021/02/17/here-are-the-billionaires-who-donated-to-joe-bidens-2020-presidential-campaign/

https://www.investopedia.com/top-donors-to-biden-2020-campaign-5080324

Once this pressure is applied, it may be possible that the political climate begins to change and the US will cease vetoing every UN resolution critical of Israel and derailing international attempts to hold Israel accountable for its crimes. Once this is done, it will be much more difficult for the US to create a pretext to start wars which further Israeli geopolitical goals (see: Iraq, Libya, Syria, and next up: Iran).

But simply hoping that this change will happen spontaneously is not enough. We also need more young and courageous individuals to run for political office and make that change directly! We need others to follow in the footsteps of Americans like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. Tlaib said many Democratic politicians have told her they support Palestine but are too cowardly to come forward. Well, Palestinians cannot wait for these cowards. There is no excuse for elite politicians living a life in wealthy comfort to be "scared" of coming out against apartheid. We will replace you.

And as courageous as Omar and Tlaib are for taking a stand against apartheid, even they come far short of advocating a complete and fundamentally True Left solution to Israel: a heroically autocratic One State of Palestine where Zionists cannot merely vote to re-implement tyranny of the majority, as they most assuredly will in any democratic "solution". Anyone who has studied US history has seen that time and time again, democracy has resulted in nothing but tyranny of the majority.

Any democratic "solution" regarding the future of Israel and Palestine will end up no different than the democratic "solution" the US applied to Native American nations.

One day, Palestine will be free. But this cannot happen without ending US economic, political, and military support for Israel. Nor will it ever happen under a democratic "solution".