This Thanksgiving, No Place for Refugees at the American Table
Posted on Nov 18, 2015 By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
In the wake of the horrific attacks in Paris on Nov. 13, there has been a crushing backlash against refugees from the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. As Americans prepare for one of the most popular national holidays, Thanksgiving, which commemorates the support and nourishment provided by the indigenous people to English refugees seeking a better life free from religious persecution, a wave of xenophobia is sweeping the country.
In the U.S. Congress, no less than six separate bills have been put forward to block any federal funding to resettle refugees from Syria or Iraq and to empower states to deny entry into their “territory.”
Imagine if all of a sudden we had 50 “statelets” creating their own border checkpoints, stopping all travelers, looking for anyone suspicious, i.e., any and all Syrians.
So far, 31 state governors have essentially demanded this.
Republican Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback issued an executive order forbidding any agency of state government from cooperating in any way with Syrian refugee support efforts. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have called for a pause in the Syrian refugee program, with the support of Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer.
(all so called Chrstians)
It has been almost 400 years since that first, fateful Thanksgiving feast in Massachusetts.
Xenophobic policies like those threatening to shut out refugees from these wars, if allowed to stand, should serve as a shameful centerpiece at every Thanksgiving table this year.
Freedom fries is a political euphemism for French fries in the United States. The term came to prominence in 2003 when the then Republican Chairman of the Committee on House Administration, Bob Ney, renamed the menu item in three Congressional cafeterias in response to France’s opposition to the proposed invasion of Iraq.
Although originally supported with several restaurants changing their menus as well, the term fell out of use due to declining support for the Iraq War.
Following Ney’s resignation as Chairman, it was quietly reverted.
Little girl, trying to sleep in your bed
don’t listen to the sound of the bombs nearby
just close your eyes and try not to cry
and let your brother sing you a lullaby.
And don’t listen to the noise of the guns
as the bullets flash by your door, don’t cry
just think of the peace found in sleep
while your brother sings you a lullaby.
Little girl, as you sleep in your bed
when you dream, try not to dream of the day
when soldiers came with their guns
and took your father away.
And when you wake up to a new day
looking for the sun, through the dust and smoke
try to find some hope in that terrible place
as you and your brother strive to cope.
Little girl, war is the world of grown ups
and there is nothing you can do
even if you tell them of your fear and sorrow
no one will listen to you.
But when the war is over and done
and you no longer hear an exploding shell
maybe your young life will be a better place
more like Heaven and less like Hell.
How can you stand by, though, when someone you love is self-destructing? How can you not at least try to make them see that they’re hurting themselves?
Unfortunately, I don’t think it works that way. The missing piece is that the other person has to want help. You can’t force them to believe anything is wrong — wrong enough to warrant some major changes in their life.
“Change is scary
Admitting you have huge innate flaws is scary”
People like to think they have a handle on themselves until they really, really don’t. And even then sometimes, they will fight you, kicking and screaming, and still not realize they are in trouble. They’re so used to being on a boat with a hole in the bottom, retaining water, that they don’t even believe in boats without that.
You can not help someone who doesn’t want help. I know it’s frustrating. It’s like a terrifying Ferris wheel, where they keep going ’round and ’round, making the same mistakes over and over while you stand on the ground and watch, sucking in breath through your teeth and holding your tongue.
Torture Report Details Long List Of America’s Brutal Crimes
“The CIA’s harsh interrogations of terrorist detainees during the Bush era didn’t work, were more brutal than previously revealed and delivered no “ticking time bomb” information that prevented an attack, according to an explosive Senate report released Tuesday.
To read a full post, written by an awesome blogger, who lives across the oceans and has an outsider’s view, click the following link
“Shameful, debased, inhumane …. and condoned by the past administration and refused to be pursued by the current one. A shame then …. a deep scar on the country. A country with no moral right AT ALL to judge, condemn, persecute any other country! The proverbial “pot calling the kettle black”. A shameful day …. another day to live in infamy! Another thing/issue not to be proud about at all!”
My Facebook status post early this morning:
I was raised to believe that the USA was the greatest country in the world. I lived with American influence throughout my life. It always was my goal to live in”the mainland”.
December is the month when “a day in infamy” is remembered. Another such day will be included as it’s been confirmed that the country’s “rulers” secretly approved and conducted the lowest of the low methods of torture (with the less prepared agents – if anyone can be prepared to torture another human being),
The “program” was approved during the Bush administration and will be kept “under the rug” during the Obama administration. A huge mark on this country, leaving a big scar. There is no moral stand to judge, condemn or persecute other so called “barbaric” countries – which decapitate, rape, plunder, steal, profit, oppress, – when the USA is no different. The proverbial “pot calling the kettle black”! Pun intended …. shame, shame. How low can anyone go? A day in infamy indeed!! Feeling more than disappointed and terribly disgusted ….. it’s been a while that I knew “that there was no Santa”.
~~Torture Report Details Long List Of America’s Brutal Crimes~~
~~Published on Dec 9, 2014~~
The majority report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee is a damning condemnation of the tactics — branded by critics as torture — the George W. Bush administration deployed in the fear-laden days after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The techniques, according to the report, were “deeply flawed,” poorly managed and often resulted in “fabricated” information.
The long-delayed study, distilled from more than six million CIA documents, also says the agency consistently misled Congress and the Bush White House about the harsh methods it used and the results it obtained from interrogating al Qaeda suspects.”* The Young Turks Cenk Uygur breaks it down.
“Prior to player introductions before Sunday’s game, five players — Stedman Bailey, Tavon Austin, Jared Cook, Chris Givens, and Kenny Britt — came out onto the field first with their hands in the air prior to being joined by their teammates.
Responding to the display, the statement reads, ‘The St. Louis Police Officers Association is profoundly disappointed with the members of the St. Louis Rams football team who chose to ignore the mountains of evidence released from the St. Louis County Grand Jury this week and engage in a display that police officers around the nation found tasteless, offensive and inflammatory.’…
While the gesture was first attributed to the shooting death of Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, the display has grown as a symbolic gesture used in protests over multiple shootings of young black men by police officers.”
This issue has been all over social media and the blogosphere. The results show the power of people when joined in a common effort. The lady stated her opinion, not expecting the backlash. She issued an apology which wasn’t accepted. She resigned her post.
Words do have consequences!
“During the annual presidential pardoning of a turkey on Thanksgiving, Sasha and Malia Obama acted like typical teenagers during the ceremony in a way that suggested they were indifferent to the occasion. Among the signs were arm folding and eye rolling, and the media had fun playing and commenting on the footage. Again, most sane people had no problem with the girls’ behavior, because we all know what’s like to be a teenager who is embarrassed around their parents, even if it is for no particular reason.”
Directly from “The Fifth Column”.
I’ve always held fast to the belief that if your house is made out of glass …. you better think twice about throwing stones!
The power of social media
WE ARE CALLING FOR THE IMMEDIATE TERMINATION OF EMPLOYMENT FOR THIS SICK EVIL WOMEN’S DISGUSTING & INEXCUSABLE COMMENTS ABOUT THE FIRST DAUGHTERS!!!
Infrastructure is the basic physical and organizational structure needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function. It can be generally defined as the set of interconnected structural elements that provide a framework supporting an entire structure of development. It is an important term for judging a country or region’s development.
The term typically refers to the technical structures that support a society, such as roads, bridges, tunnels, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, telecommunications, and so forth, and can be defined as “the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions.”
Viewed functionally, infrastructure facilitates the production of goods and services, and also the distribution of finished products to markets, as well as basic social services such as schools and hospitals; for example, roads enable the transport of raw materials to a factory.[4] In military parlance, the term refers to the buildings and permanent installations necessary for the support, redeployment, and operation of military forces. Research by anthropologists and geographers shows the social importance and multiple ways that infrastructures shape human society and vice versa.
Born in 1941 in Brooklyn, Bernie was the younger of two sons in a modest-income family. After graduation from the University of Chicago in 1964, he moved to Vermont. Early in his career, Sanders was director of the American People’s Historical Society. Elected Mayor of Burlington by 10 votes in 1981, he served four terms.
Before his 1990 election as Vermont’s at-large member in Congress, Sanders lectured at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and at Hamilton College in upstate New York.
Some may say “let it go”, “enough already”, “I’ve had enough”. Yet … I can’t let it go. There is something wrong here … this doesn’t seem “kosher” … this is plain “not right”.
If I let it go, this senseless loss of life would have been in vain.
According to the autopsy of Michael Brown, 18, and a shocking new reenactment video, the Ferguson teen was essentially executed by Officer Darren Wilson.
This video has begun making the rounds on social media just days after the announcement by the Missouri grand jury not to indict the killer cop in the shooting death of the unarmed teen.
Much of the entire nation knows that the city of Ferguson and entire nation is filled with racism, particularly concentrated in institutionalized police discrimination of so-called minorities. But now a reenactment of what went down between Officer Darren Wilson and Michael Brown seems to make that case in a very strong, visual manner.
In the above link you will find another YouTube video showing the first televised interview by the police in question. I will not dignify that interview by showing it here.
The reason that I’m posting this is because I saw this graph/meme on the Facebook page of a “friend” … and the comments written blew my mind away.
Ferguson protesters released an open letter Monday night after a St. Louis grand jury handed down its decision not to indict Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown.
~THE RESULTS ARE IN~
An Open Letter from Protestors On The Grand Jury Decision
November 24, 2014
In Ferguson, a wound bleeds. For 108 days, we have been in a state of prolonged and protracted grief. In that time, we have found community with one another, bonding together as family around the simple notion that our love for our community compels us to fight for our community. We have had no choice but to cling together in hope, faith, love, and indomitable determination to capture that ever-escaping reality of justice. After 108 days, that bleeding wound has been reopened, salt poured in, insult added to the deepest of injury.
On August 9th, we found ourselves pushed into unknown territory, learning day by day, minute by minute, to lead and support a movement bigger than ourselves, the most important of our lifetime. We were indeed unprepared to begin with, and even in our maturation through these 108 days, we find ourselves re-injured, continually heartbroken, and robbed of even the remote possibility of judicial resolution.
A life has been violently taken before it could barely begin. In this moment, we know, beyond any doubt, that no one will be held accountable within the confines of a system to which we were taught to pledge allegiance. The very hands with which we pledged that allegiance were not enough to save Mike in surrender.
Once again, in our community, in our country, that pledge has returned to us void.
For 108 days, we have continuously been admonished that we should “let the system work,” and wait to see what the results are. The results are in. And we still don’t have justice. This fight for the dignity of our people, for the importance of our lives, for the protection of our children, is one that did not begin Michael’s murder and will not end with this announcement.
The ‘system’ you have told us to rely on has kept us on the margins of society. This system has housed us in her worst homes, educated our children in her worst schools, locked up our men at disproportionate rates and shamed our women for receiving the support they need to be our mothers. This system you have admonished us to believe in has consistently, unfailingly, and unabashedly let us down and kicked us out, time and time again.
This same system in which you’ve told us to trust.
This same system meant to serve and protect citizens — has once again killed two more of our unarmed brothers: Walking up a staircase and shot down in cold blood, we fight for Akai Gurley; Playing with a toy after police had been warned that he held a bb gun and not a real gun at only twelve years old, we fight for Tamir Rice.
For questions regarding this Open Letter, please contact @deray.
So you will likely ask yourself, now that the announcement has been made, why we will still take to the streets? Why we will still raise our voices to protect our community? Why will still cry tears of heartbreak and sing songs of determination? We will continue to struggle because without struggle, there is no progress. We will continue to disrupt life, because without disruption we fear for our lives.
We will continue because Assata reminds us daily that “it is our duty to fight for freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love and suppor t one another. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
Those chains have bound us -all of us- up for too long. And do not be mistaken – if one of us is bound, we all are. We are, altogether, bound up in a system that continues to treat some men better than others. A system that preserves some and disregards others. A system that protects the rights of some and does not guard the rights of all.
And until this system is dismantled, until the status quo that deems us less valuable than others is no longer acceptable or profitable, we will struggle. We will fight. We will protest. Grief, even in its most righteous state, cannot last forever. No community can sustain itself this way. So we still continue to stand for progress, and stand alongside anyone who will make a personal investment in ending our grief and will take a personal stake in achieving justice. We march on with purpose. The work continues. This is not a moment but a movement.
The movement lives.
~~GALLERY~~
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This letter was written and signed by numerous protestors and supporters, too many to list. Permission is granted in advance for reproduction by all outlets.
On August 9th, Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson shot a black teenager named Mike Brown. Since then, the city has been protesting. The police did not react well.
It Is What It Is 