With facial recognition becoming increasingly sophisticated, it will soon be possible to monitor an entire population with minimal effort, discouraging people from participating in political protests and social movements, writes Manal al-Sharif.
Sleepwalkers, wake: Australians must face up to our surveillance state – Michael West
The state also works to prevent the Working Class from organizing itself.
To sustain capitalism, otherwise competitive businesses have to do something unnatural: cooperate with each other. The state plays a crucial role in fostering this class discipline. We, on the other hand, have to build our own power.
Source: The State Organizes the Capitalist Class. The Working Class Will Have to Organize Itself.
Daniel Hale is a man of tremendous conscience, courage, and moral clarity. It is an abomination that this brave whistleblower has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison after being convicted of exposing the horrors of the U.S. drone assassination programs, the killing of civilians, and the Kafkaesque “terror” watchlisting system run by the government.
Source: Daniel Hale Is a Truth-Teller in a Time of Systemic Deceit
There are no “clashes” occurring in Jerusalem between Israelis and Palestinians. What we’re seeing is the brutal reality of an occupying power exercising its military might over a people stripped of their human rights.
Weeks of protests in Jerusalem, where Palestinians are resisting an effort by Israeli settlers to force them from their homes and challenging Israeli police restrictions on their freedom to worship at Al Aqsa Mosque, spiraled into armed conflict on Monday, as Israeli airstrikes on Gaza killed 24 Palestinians, nine of them children, health officials said, after Hamas militants fired a barrage of rockets into Israel.
Source: Unsettling Video of an Ultranationalist Frenzy in Jerusalem
Violence has become a permanent feature of Ramadan for the people of occupied Palestine. The first day of the fasting month this year began with the Israeli army breaking locks and cutting the wires to the loudspeakers at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem to silence the evening calls to prayer. In yet another provocative move, Israel allowed only 10,000 Palestinians to enter Jerusalem from the West Bank. On the first Friday in the month, only 70,000 Muslims were able to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque; on one Friday in 2019, there were 200,000 worshippers in the Noble Sanctuary. That was not unusual.
Source: Israeli Repression and Land Grabs, and the Palestinian Protests in Jerusalem
So much for the Secular society and the separation of powers there goes the constitution
Scott Morrison attended a Pentecostal national convention on the Gold Coast last week, at which he shared with those gathered his belief that he and wife Jenny have been “called to do God’s work”.
Source: Messiah Morrison direct messages God via the social media devil
Ali al-Ashqar had just thrown one stone when he was shot. The 17-year-old immediately fell to the ground.
Nabil Masoud had been standing nearby. Along with two medics, he rushed to try and help Ali.
“But the Israeli sniper started shooting toward anyone who got close to the child,” said Masoud. “For around 17 minutes, no one was able to reach Ali. It was clear that the Israeli soldier wanted the child to bleed until he died. And that is what actually happened.”
Eventually, the medics gained access to Ali. But it was too late.
An autopsy confirmed that he had been struck by a bullet in the chest, which had existed his neck. He had also been hit by fragments of bullets fired in his direction.
Ali was killed during the Great March of Return on 6 September. He was approximately 80 meters from the fence separating Gaza and Israel.
via Israel shoots children, lets them bleed to death | The Electronic Intifada
When Howard describes Pell as of ‘exemplary character’, of ‘strength’, and ‘lacking in hypocrisy and cant’, the back story to those words must include Pell’s extreme and vociferous opposition to any progressive reform within the Catholic Church. It must especially include his stance in relation to gender equality, to contraception, to abortion and women’s rights in general, and including condemnation of homosexuality, gay and lesbian rights and same-sex marriage.
Writing of Pell’s “strength”, Howard would have known of the Ellis case — of Pell’s attempts to shield paedophile clergy from being accountable and treating victims with arrogant dismissal and scorn.
Abbott has likened what Pell has been convicted of as a “mistake”, saying:
“If I look back on my own life … I’ve made many mistakes, we all do.”
It is amazing to consider that we have a recent Prime Minister who regards paedophilia as insignificant rather than a serious crime.
Prominent Likud Party member of the Israeli parliament Oren Hazan, a former casino manager in Bulgaria, said,
“[She is] a Jewish Israeli, who on the one hand cynically uses her birthplace to advance her career and on the other is proud of the fact that she managed to avoid enlisting in the IDF [euphemism for the Israeli Army]. She’s an actress, but she is unworthy of any honor in the State of Israel . . . Sweetness can come from strength: I call on Interior Minister Aryeh Deri (Shas) to rescind Portman’s Israeli citizenship. She left Israel at age four, and has no real connection to the State.”
Hazan denies that there are any Palestinians, and is notorious for harassing families of Palestinians going to see imprisoned relatives (some Palestinians have been imprisoned for writing poetry or for Facebook posts, while several hundred children are being held for acts of protest against the Israeli military). He told one bus full of relatives, that the garbage they called loved ones would never see the light of day:
Let’s stop calling those who have bombed, shot, or burned Palestinians ‘Jewish.’ Let’s call them what they really are: Israeli. By Yonatan Englender Israel is a country that is quick to appropriate every phenomenon or activity that takes place within it, from the success of its tech entrepreneurs (in whom the state did not invest even a single shekel) to the successes of its athletes (for whom the state did not provide even the most basic conditions for adequate practice). Even environmental disasters and car crashes are quickly turned into national events. [tmwinpost] Therefore, it is a bit strange that we refrain from referring…
The occupation allows us to demand Palestinians show their identification cards at a whim. It allows us to slap, shove, or shoot them if necessary — even if they are the same age as our fathers or young enough to be our children. By Alon Mizrahi Only last night, once I sat down after a long day, did the memories come flooding back. It was probably a video of a police officer beating a middle-aged Palestinian truck driver in East Jerusalem, which had gone viral, that triggered it. A reminder of just one story — one out of millions that reflect the absurdity of the occupation. [tmwinpost]…
Source: As an Israeli soldier, I played God with Palestinians | +972 Magazine
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