Finally, some good news in the struggle against Zionists who have killed one child a day since 47’s bogus “ceasefire” went into effect, and are ravaging the West Bank and Lebanon as I write this.

In the U.S., the AIPAC-supported Rep. Haley Stevens, running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Michigan, lost to the Muslim anti-Zionist candidate despite outspending him by 11 to 1.

As reported by Drop Site on twitter:

In a Drop Site and Zeteo sponsored Michigan poll, more than 60% of moderate voters agreed: “If a candidate won’t stand up to AIPAC, they won’t fight for me.”

Another voter gave a different reason:

So AIPAC affiliation is now kryptonite in U.S. elections? Awesome!

Winner of the nomination, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, said on camera:

In the UK, the Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled that anti-Zionism is a form of free speech that is legally protected — a victory that David Miller, the professor fired by by Bristol University, described as “decisive.”

Universities are besieged by Zionists insisting that academic freedom must give way due to bogus claims that criticizing Israel is antisemitic and that some Jewish students feel afraid when they see keffiyehs or other visible support for Palestine. I would not wish to be a university administrator in these times.

Internally, Zionists are in disarray over their failed war on Iran.

Apparently the guys in charge of getting Iranians to overthrow their government are taking the fall for the ill-conceived and poorly executed war. The decapitation strike on ayatollah Khamenei and his family and the bombing of an elementary school kicked off the present phase of the war, which the U.S. and Israel are losing badly.

Explosive Media creator of Lego videos explained to Max Blumenthal that the martyring of Khamenei made him feel patriotic and motivated to help in the war effort. And veteran Mike Prysner, Executive Director of the Center for Conscience and War, reports that U.S. troops are scrambling to get out of the military after seeing it slaughter scores of schoolchildren in Minab.

Good for them. Here’s the ’s phone number if they need it:

Nuclear warfare is again in vogue after decades where the people who actually lived through atomic bombings aged out of public discourse. Yes, there are still a few hibakusha alive but they’re extremely old.

Cold War kids like myself spent our childhoods cowering under desks in case the USSR nuked us. The mushroom shaped cloud turned up in satirical songs and featured in our nightmares. I flinched every time a plane flew over my elementary school playground.

Who will tell young people that nuclear weapons are not a cool technology that taxpayers should invest in? Maybe Mayor Mamdani will ask the NYC Emergency Management Department to release a new PSA debunking claims that you can survive a 21st century nuclear attack by doing the same b.s. that we were told to do in the 1960’s.

Survivors know that it isn’t the initial attack vaporizing bodies that is the worst part. It’s the radiation sickness that follows with lots of suffering and eventual slow death. Also damage to the DNA meant to give life to a new generation.

Why are we seeing the minimizing and trivializing of nuclear war?

I think the U.S.-Israel war on Iran demonstrates that, without the “big one” in their arsenal, Zionists are unable to vanquish a well-prepared target.

Israel reportedly has 300+ nukes. The U.S. has ramped up spending on nukes, hiding much of it in the Energy Department budget. Headlines normalizing this abound:

Hey isn’t August 6 the anniversary of the first atomic bombing of civilians which took place in Hiroshima, Japan in 1945?

Follow the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space to keep tabs on the nuclear militarization of outer space, and what to do about it. Follow the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament to chart the course of madness and for tools to speak out before “someone will set the spark off, and we will all be blown away.”

Teach your children well.

Note: I’ve written about Hiroshima, Nagasaki, nuclear war, and my own family’s connection to it on many past August 6th’s. Here is a sampling:

Slouching Toward Nuclear War, Let Us Pause To Consider Hiroshima (August 6, 2017)

Biggest Lie Ever Told By The U.S. Government: The “Necessity” of Hiroshima (August 6, 2016)

Is Caitlin Johnstone’s post title today an overstatement?

The BBC recently interviewed an Israeli settler who said that all the Palestinians in four surrounding villages should be exterminated to avenge an Israeli who was killed while terrorizing a Palestinian village last month, adding that just a single Jewish life is worth ten million Palestinian lives.

“I think now after they kill one Israeli people, we need to kill all the people in Tal and Sarra, even Jit and Farata,” lawyer[emphasis mine] Yehuda Shimon told the BBC.

“It sounds like you’re saying one Jewish life is worth hundreds or thousands of Palestinian lives,” replied the BBC’s Lucy Williamson in the interview.

“Million,” Shimon corrected her. “One Jewish life, it’s ten million, okay?”

“That just sounds racist,” Williamson responded, to which Shimon replied, “Yes, I know, I know. But this is the truth.”

It’s the underlying lie that stalwart protester Clif Brown examines by asking Zionists who approach him, “What about liberty and justice for all?”

It’s the shameful lie that a group of Jewish religious leaders in Maine are pushing in the wake of certainty that Israel’s genocide in Gaza will continue to be a pivotal issue for Democrats in the upcoming mid-term elections. According to these Zionists, there is no genocide in Gaza. A quarter of a million people dead, injured, or missing under rubble — including tens of thousands of children — forced starvation, incessant bombing of civilians in tents, deliberate destruction of hospitals and schools, targeted assassinations of journalists and doctors? That’s just Israel “defending itself from Hamas.”

Pogroms in the West Bank killing Palestinians daily who have nothing to do with Hama? Those are ok because Jewish lives are worth so much more than Muslim lives. Right?

The Portland Press Herald proves Caitlin Johnstone’s point by publishing this ridiculous statement: “Israel’s war in Gaza — a response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that killed about 1,200 people in Israel.” Actually the Israeli military killed hundreds of people of October 7, deliberately, to prevent their being taken hostage. Most of those killed were Israelis.

This is a well-documented fact, but the Zionist owners of corporate media have deemed that truth unacceptable. And the Zionists of the Israeli government continue to hide the video evidence of what really happened on that fateful day.

Does hiding the evidence of something make it not true?

I was especially interested in one of the eleven rabbis who signed the genocide denial statement in Maine, because I remember my son’s childhood friend Erin Axelman saying that’s where their Jewish education happened and that they did not remember any teachings about the state of Israel. Signatory Rabbi Rachel Isaacs of Beth Israel Congregation, a Conservative synagogue in Waterville, must represent the new generation of uber Zionist American Jews. Axelman explored this issue in his documentary ISRAELISM which explores the theory that American Jews replaced their religious faith with new faith in a colonial outpost in Palestine.

And note that religious Jews have been saying this all along: “Zionism took a religion and remade it as a nationalism.”

As for the rise in antisemitism, I need to see that alleged 8.5% rise in NYC differentiate between criticizing Israel and biased behavior toward Jews for being Jews. Calling criticism of a nation “antisemitic” because it is a Jewish supremacist nation is really poor logic. It is the logic of subterfuge, intended to sow confusion.

I could not be more happy that voters are letting Democrats know that Zionism is a deal-breaker. And I hold out no hope that corporate media will do anything other than what they have ever done, which is follow the money.

Thankfully, we have social media and our own distribution networks — at least for now.

One of the benefits of traveling long distances to protest with local activists around Maine is the time spent on the road with fellow travelers. It’s helpful to be able to discuss current events and share resources and analysis with people who don’t view you as the turd in the punchbowl for even bringing it up. (Mutual support for people struggling with families that do not welcome their input is also an offering.)

We had just been discussing the activation of tens of thousands of young men from Morocco who were told that Spain was opening its borders to them, causing them to embark for Ceuta, a Spanish territory on the northern shore of Africa. Reports are that nearly 100 migrants have died in the cruel game played by Zionists to destabilize Spain. It’s Spain’s punishment for refusing use of its air space for the war on Iran, and for its longstanding refusal to cooperate in genociding Gaza.

Woke up this morning to a new Lego video about this. From creator PersiaBoi:

Our hostess in Lubec, Lynn, produced a slew of new signs for yesterday’s protest on busy coastal Route 1. It’s the height of tourist season and one of us counted about a dozen out of state license plates; tourists in particular waved, honked, and thanked us for being there. (I always wonder if they think that excuses them for not being there.)

We estimated more than half acknowledged our presence in a positive way.

We weren’t numerous but as Lubec is pretty remote we weren’t surprised. We’ve seen that interest in preventing the Gaza genocide has fallen off sharply in the U.S. as many younger activists have turned their attention to fascism at home i.e. ICE kidnappings and executions. Older activists in Maine tend to be drawn to orange man bad demos like No Kings — they are Democrats, wishfully thinking that if only 47 wasn’t in the White House things would be so much better.

So it was a stalwart band of “Q-tips” i.e. white-haired protesters that gathered yesterday. Some came from as far as Brunswick or Bass Harbor on Mt. Desert Island. My husband and I traveled for a bit longer than three hours to get there, and we gratefully accepted Lynn’s invitation to spend the night.

The on again off again Zionist war the U.S. is losing badly to Iran was also a topic on our minds. I think Pepe Escobar summed that situation up best when he tweeted:

TACO, as you may recall, is an acronym for the phrase Trump always chickens out.

Or, if you prefer it in visual terms, this bloodied eagle and his little rodent friend were shared by MoNasarRawdhan with Arabic that translated to, Trump: We’ve destroyed Iran.

Two local residents stopped by yesterday to object to another one of Lynn’s new signs:

One of us engaged the young person, a recent high school graduate, and their mom about their feelings in response to the phrase “Jewish supremacy.” Mom was much more Zionist than son and said some predictable things like: Gaza deserves genocide because, They voted for Hamas.

The fact that so many children dying at Israel’s hands did not and could not have voted for anything didn’t seem to matter to her. Our sign was antisemitic, end of discussion. The son expressed agreement with most of our messages but didn’t like that one.

One of the mom’s objections that I’m still trying to understand was: If white supremacists saw your sign they would cheer you on for pointing out Jewish supremacy. It would feed their hatred of Jews.

I didn’t wade into the argument because I don’t like piling on people offering respectful criticism of our messaging. But a question I would have liked to ask: Isn’t Zionism itself a form of white supremacy?

We awoke to news that General Dynamics held a surprise christening[sic] of a warship at Bath Iron Works yesterday, by invitation only. These events used to be well-publicized and open to the public but in recent years they are held in stealth mode. They don’t want to see our messages and they really don’t want us blocking the road they use to bus in their supporters.

Iran has now damaged so many U.S. warships that BIW is expecting big contracts to build more. The problem: it takes years, they are insanely expensive, and aquatic drones are changing the way naval wars are fought in the 21st century anyway.

Here’s top brass explaining that the U.S. can either defend itself or defend Israel, but not both. This comes amid reports that most U.S. air power in West Asia has now been moved to Israel, relocated from Iranian frequent targets like U.S. bases in Jordan and Kuwait.

Meanwhile, plans to formally merge the U.S. and Israeli militaries via the National Defense[sic] Authorization Act are on hold as the Senate went into recess before approving the House version of the bill. It also contains the SAVE act, ironically intended to sharply reduce voting access in advance of the midterm elections in November.

I can no longer believe that elections will save us from the mess we’re in, barreling toward WW3 with outstandingly poor leaders at the helm.

See you on the streets!

Our next monthly statewide coalition protest will be in much more accessible Wiscasset on Saturday, September 12 at 1:30am. Use “Red’s Eats” for GPS to find us on the Route 1 bridge.

Because his voting record over years in the Maine legislature aligns with my values.

And I think he has a shot at beating Susan Collins because he’s also a hell of a storyteller.

From NPR:

In a speech during a run for Congress in 2014, Jackson recalled how his son would hold tightly to his hand on Sunday nights because he didn't want his father to leave. “As if all the strength that he had in that little hand could counter generations of corporate greed that was keeping other young children in the St. John Valley from their parents. It was during those long Sunday nights that would turn into early Monday mornings that I stopped accepting things for the way that they were and started thinking about the way that they should be," he said.

Troy also tweeted on July 9:

Anybody with eyes and a heart knows the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza. It has to end, and we as Americans have the power to end it.

When I'm in the U.S. Senate, I’ll never vote in favor of US taxpayer-funded military aid to Israel.

https://x.com/TroyJackson207/status/2075328351175152014

I don’t care about his thick Maine accent , or how he mispronounces Palantir while calling them “a scumbag outfit.”

I love what he says about holding rogue “law enforcement” ICE agents accountable for violating the constitution. About making sure our state remains a welcoming place for all regardless of the color of their skin.

Anecdotally I’m supporting him because a young staffer I’ve known since they were a kid told me recently, “Troy’s the only candidate besides you, Lisa, who’s the same off camera as he is on camera.”

If elected, can he withstand pressure from AIPAC to fall in line with the Zionists who rule over us? Time will tell but I’m willing to be he can.

Someone told me last weekend that the only place they see the Iranian Lego-style videos is on my substack. So, here’s the latest from Explosive Media.

(EDIT: My bad, it was actually from AI Iran.) All together now: “Epstein, Epstein, Epstein!”

I did not have adult diapers made from Legos on my bingo card. Did you?

In case you thought that Ukraine’s bombing of an Iranian commercial ship in the Caspian Sea was a rogue action, guess who’s meeting today with 47 and Netanyahu at the White House?

It’s been a while since the President of Ukraine canceled elections to stay in office, and since he was invited to the U.S. to meet with the president who has now publicly announced he’ll seek a 3rd term, unconstitutional since FDR did it. People didn’t like it then and I doubt they will like it now. (Zionist cash cow Miriam Adelson excepted.)

It struck me that all three men in suits — or in Zelensky’s case, a sweatshirt — are underwater in approval ratings domestically. That led me to wonder who is the biggest L.O.S.E.R.

Here’s what I found after searching for recent polls:

Of course we know that statistics can lie, but all three of these warmongers have maintained pretty low approval ratings over time.

Here’s an interesting statistic I stumbled on while searching for polls:

So today’s summit appears to be an attempt to marry an unpopular war — against Iran — with a much more popular war, the one against Russia. Not that most people in the U.S. want to send Ukraine more money. But after decades (centuries?) of Russiaphobia, they are operating with very little reality-based information when it comes to the proxy war currently morphing into WW3.

How is pro-Ukraine narrative discipline enforced? Recently I stood for Palestine in Bangor with a Green party member who I’d met at the annual meeting. Michael told me of a recent conversation he had with Democrat Karen Heck, former mayor of Waterville, and Betsy Sweet, former Democratic primary contender in the 2020 electoral challenge to Senator Susan Collins. (As many of you know, I ran in that election as a Green until Maine’s rules forced me to unenroll and run independent if I wanted my name to appear on the ballot.)

Heck and Sweet were grousing about the Dem establishment turning on progressive darling Graham Platner once he was nominated and then credibly accused of date rape. Michael reports he pointed out that there are other parties, like the Green Party. Heck responded by naming me as a well-known Green in our state and added, Lisa Savage is just a mouthpiece for Putin. Michael felt Sweet was in agreement with this assessment.

After laughing I realize that it was oddly satisfying to know that I live rent-free in the heads of these so-called progressive Democrats. It’s been six years, ladies. Or maybe they read my substack? *

Honestly, I’d prefer to be called a Xi Jinping mouthpiece but I’ll settle for Putin.

These are the kind of Democrats that have given us 47 as president twice, because they engage in fantasy and narrative control rather than looking at reality and devising strategies to actually win over the electorate. The fantasy that the deeply unpopular VP Kamala Harris could win ignored her stunning lack of support among voters — even before the Gaza genocide, support for which reportedly sank her. Especially with younger voters.

In an oligarchy, public support doesn’t count for much. It’s a vestige of our belief that the U.S. is a functioning democracy to think that it does matter. When it will really start to matter is not at the ballot box, but when the angry crowds with pitchforks descend on Washington DC because they’ve paid for so many bombs that they can no longer afford groceries.

*REVISED JULY 31: The strikeout portion of this blog post reflects new information about the credibility of Mike Hein. Reached directly, Karen Heck denies having said it.

Alarming news from a reliable source in Crimea: Yalta has been under constant assault from drones, presumably NATO/Ukranian drones, that have plunged that historic city into darkness. Until recently it had been spared, but now residents are enduring long nights of bombing and at least one residential apartment building was hit with an unspecificed number of injuries and deaths.

We were attacked on Saturday morning around 2am. Several loud explosions and some fires in the foothills. Attacked again Sunday morning at 2am.

Then from midnight on Tuesday to 5:30am on Wednesday, hundreds of drones swarming over Yalta and several huge explosions. The entire area of greater Yalta lost power, probably because the drones must have hit the power grid. Nobody could sleep through it!

There were no air raid sirens going at all here in Yalta and people are questioning that. And we have no official reports about deaths, injuries, or damage — the authorities don’t tell us much. We are even being warned about British Storm Shadow missiles.

We were without water for a while, and also had no internet or phone service. Had to go to the doctor for some exams but the doctors are working with no electricity or computers.

NATO and the United States are achieving their goal of turning the people against Putin.

Now that search engines are propaganda engines here in the U.S., any search for the term “Crimea” will turn up numerous articles asserting that Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014. What they won’t tell you:

• 2014 was also the year of the Maidan color revolution to topple Ukraine’s elected government

• In 2014 Crimeans voted on whether they wanted to join Russia or remain part of Ukraine, with 96.7% prefering to join Russia in a high turnout referendum.

• The U.S. Navy planned to install a new naval base in Crimea following the Maidan revolution.

About that last point: Russia pushed back and it never happened, but if it had would Sevastopol now look like Bahrain i.e. targeted repeatedly for hosting a U.S. imperial navy base?

Here’s where the U.S./NATO/Ukraine war for regime change in Russia bleeds into the U.S./Israel war for regime change in Iran.

As reported yesterday by CNBC:

Iran summoned a Ukrainian diplomat in Tehran on Sunday to protest an attack on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea, as the war in the Middle East threatened to overlap with the Ukraine conflict.

Iran said the attack left one sailor dead and injured several others. The country’s foreign ministry complained to Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires in Tehran early on Sunday and “conveyed Iran’s strong protest over the ‘hostile and criminal act,” Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Iran weighed in on the attack:

Iran’s High Council for Human Rights has condemned Ukraine’s military attack on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea, calling it an unjustifiable act that violated international law and states’ obligations to protect human life and security.

In a statement released on Sunday, the council said targeting a commercial ship and endangering the lives of civilians has serious humanitarian consequences and demonstrates a clear disregard for the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law and the international obligations of states to protect the lives and security of individuals.

Is it WW3 yet?

Because it is so difficult to get reliable truth about the proxy war on Russia — and now Iran — using Ukraine as a cat’s paw, you might consider joining me in pre-ordering Their Blood, Our Bullets from OR books. Aaron Maté of The Grayzone took his title from Oliver North’s comment, as reported here by Sputnik:

“[Reagan] believed in supporting freedom fighters. He did it in Latin America, he did it in Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique. He did it in Afghanistan.

Those people were willing, as the Ukrainian people are, to use their blood and our bullets.”

Note: that’s not what I’m hearing from actual people.

Ambitious types like Zelensky are only too willing to press gang citizens into providing the blood, but that doesn’t mean the people are willing.

“Our bullets” is code for massive military contracting profits, subsidized by taxpayers. “Their blood” is code for military conscription. Let’s not kid ourselves that that is what the war profiteers have planned for us in the U.S. and EU, too.

Our monthly statewide coalition protest today coincided with the Maine Democrats holding their nominating conference also in Bangor about 10 blocks away. So, after a half hour in West Market Square downtown,

we hiked up to the convention center, arriving just in time for the delegates heading out from having chosen Troy Jackson as their candidate to beat Susan Collins.

I estimate every tenth person of the hundreds who passed me said Thank you or otherwise appreciated our messages. There were a lot of honks and waves while we were marching along, too.

I had thought the day might be a bust when the driver of the first big pickup truck that passed us yelled “Bomb Eye-ran” as Mark and I parked in front of our odious congressman’s Bangor office.

Jared Golden has accepted over $1 million from the Israel lobby while “representing” Maine’s 2nd District; he is now a lame duck to who will go on to some cushy job serving Zionists in another fashion. Democrats do be like that sometimes, in fact most of the time. May Jackson prove to be the exception.

Some of us gathered for lunch and by chance met up with mental chiropractor Daniel Maté, a surprising coincidence since we had just been discussing his brother Aaron’s new book Their Blood, Our Bullets: The Hidden Story of the US–Russia War for Ukraine. Mary Beth, a social worker, noted that their father Dr. Gabor Maté has been a big influence for her due to his seminal work on trauma. Daniel: “Oh, yeah, he’s the gateway drug.”

I was already an admirer of Daniel’s work on a satirical video with Katie Halper early in the Gaza genocide, Biden & Netanyahu React To ICJ: 'Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now (Genocide Remix).’ Now I’m following his Bad Hasbara: Most Moral Podcast show, and it was an unexpected treat to meet him. Even if he did describe us as “stalwart” which I’m guessing is code for “old” LOL.

You meet the nicest people doing this kind of work.

Join us in Lubec next weekend if you can!

Link to Instagram post with more details

What’s been stuck in my craw this week? The Iranian filmmaker from Explosive Media (EM, creator of many Lego videos I’ve shared) who challenged interviewer Max Blumenthal of The Grayzone: But what are you doing? i.e. to push back on the current regime.

Blumenthal was just back from Tehran where he covered the massive state funeral for assassinated (martyred) leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei only to have his devices confiscated at the airport re-entering the U.S. Many of us would argue that journalism in the service of truth is doing something important. But as an inheritor of the Iranian revolution that drove the Shah from power, this newly patriotic filmmaker (by his own account, radicalized by Khamenei’s murder) was sending a clear signal that information sharing alone is not enough.

As I continued to think about his message, I found EM promoting this video by another group fighting the propaganda wars on the Iran side. I believe it is what Blumenthal refers to as “reverse-engineered” to appeal to a U.S. audience.

Instead of Legos Gandocraft uses Minecraft, a digital game enduringly popular in the U.S., as a universal visual language to reach Western audiences. “Empire of Dirt” obviously builds on imagery from U.S. history of settling western North America but its theme is for a 21st century dominated by the Epstein class: raise your sons to be freedom fighters.

Then I saw this documentary-style video shared in the comments to Gandocraft’s post on twitter. It makes a similar argument for freedom fighting, but does so couched in more Islamic terms that may be off-putting to U.S. audiences. That is ok. It’s always interesting to learn more about other cultures, isn’t it?

A resource to consider if you, too, are interested in a deeper understanding of Iranian thought: “What the Western Left gets wrong about Political Islam.” Here’s the creators’ description:

Mujamma Haraket, whose expertise spans the history, theology, and praxis of political Islamic movements, brings both scholarly precision and lived experience to a discussion that challenges Western leftists to confront their own epistemological limitations. The episode opens with a foundational clarification: “political Islam” is not a term birthed by the movements themselves but a scholarly category—one that broadly seeks to instrumentalize Islamic teachings to shape political systems. This distinction matters: it prevents the projection of Western frameworks onto movements that understand themselves through entirely different conceptual vocabularies.

I’m off to protest this morning so that’s all for now. I look forward to hearing what you think in the comments section.

One of the distinguishing differences between resistance movements — think Hamas, Hezbollah, IRCG — and the U.S.-Israel-Gulf monarchies is whose kids fight on the front lines. (Hint: it is not Netanyahu’s son Yair, currently dodging the draft in Miami.) Palestinians, Lebanese, and Iranians defending their homelands proudly send their sons to the front. The Muslims among them view death in battle against oppressors as a form of martyrdom not to be feared. It’s right there in the Quran.

It’s clear the U.S. has been lying mightily about the number of troops that have died in the unpopular war on Iran. But the casualties are mounting fast, so a bit of truth is leaking out. Newsweek just published “The faces of US service members killed in Iran war” including the two pictured above: 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, age 25 and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, at 19 the youngest casualty thus far acknowledged

Even the Lego videos disparaged by Marco Rubio speaking in Manila (where he claims he’s supposedly never seen one) have taken up the issue of where all the dead soldiers are. I have no way of evaluating whether this is true or not, but the allegation is that they’re being dumped in the ocean! And the discussion where the short video below was posted on the creator’s Telegram channel has some interesting comments.

KaizokuHime wrote:

I'm wondering what they have been telling the families. Like surely parents are asking where their sons are after the base they were stationed at gets blown up, right?

NewswithSteph replied:

So if you look at a lot of my posts, you’ll see family members saying, I haven’t been able to get a hold of my cousin, my nephew, my brother etc , i don’t think anyone wants to assume that their family member has been killed. I believe that they first assume that they had communications damage. They’re on a mission etc etc

This Scottish comedian shares a trope that we in the empire have become only too familiar with: sympathy for veterans but almost none for their victims:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/s/WffFYx8LAi

What to do?

Get out in the streets with us this week! I was planning to go with a huge STOP ARMING GENOCIDE message, but maybe I can find one of my old signs with the headline of this post. Because my back porch an archaeological dig of bad U.S. foreign policy, and also because the poverty draft is practically a hurricane here in Maine.

Join us on Saturday July 25 at **11am** in Bangor, Maine at West Market Square (intersection of Main, Hammond, Broad, & Central Streets).

**UPDATE: At 11:30 we will march with our signs & banners to the Cross Convention center, about a 30 minute walk. Or drive if you prefer. Maine Democrats meeting inside deserve to know what issues we expect them to prioritize in the mid term elections and by coincidence they are meeting in Bangor on the same day we are.

Raise your voice to say: no more billions for war!! Stand in solidarity with Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Bolivia, Cuba, Venezuela, and Somalia being bombed, blockaded and starved on behalf of U.S. corporate interests.

Say no to endless wars! Bring your own sign or use one of ours.

Our demands:
o End U.S. aid to racist apartheid Israel
o Stop US-Israeli wars for ‘Greater Israel’ on Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, & Syria
o U.S. hands off Latin America & Caribbean (Cuba, Venezuela, Columbia, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Haiti)
o Peace in Ukraine - No weapons, no money for the Ukraine War
o Abolish NATO / no expansion into Asia Pacific
o Fund people’s needs, not the war machine
o Stop Pentagon climate crimes
o Fight racism & bigotry not war — defund ICE
o End AFRICOM
o No new arms race in outer space

Co-sponsors: Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, Maine Natural Guard, PeaceWorks of Greater Brunswick, Communist Party of Maine, Maine Green Independent Party, Citizens Opposing Active Sonar Threats (COAST), Party for Socialism & Liberation Maine, Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine, Veterans for Peace - National, United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights (MVPR), and Diaspora Pa’lante Collective.

Big thanks to all who shared their best sources with me in response to yesterday’s post about my woeful ignorance around the genocide in Sudan. I’m going to share some here because not all are visible as comments on “Too Many Genocides.” I’ll protect the identity of those who contacted me directly or via listserv, but you can identify yourselves if you like.

This one was not from a reader, just something I stumbled across on twitter that made the RSF sound really a lot like Israeli occupation forces who also ghoulishly harvest and traffic the organs of Palestinians.

One interesting response to my request for good sources on Sudan:

Doctors Against Genocide has a Zoom meeting every Sunday at noon and people in Sudan and Congo, as well as in Gaza, give descriptive updates. It’s usually 3+ hours because they try to be aware and pay attention to all genocides and to support people working with victims (ex: team who supports poor Sudanese girls with babies due to being raped by the UAE-backed RSF). It’s a lot to take in but DAG are steadfast people. (It is recorded, also, on YouTube) .

The genocide of Palestinians is so clearly due to (Zionism being empowered in) the U.S. , it’s so clearly our responsibility to try to stop it in whatever ways we can.

The genocide in Sudan I see as partly due to Zionism empowered as well, because the UAE “normalized” with IsHell via the Abraham Accords. (If they hadn’t, would they have all the weapons and connections to back the genocide in Sudan? Then there’s the connection between corrupt U.S. Zionists , like Nepotism Kushy Kushner, raking in billions from gulf monarchs..)

So disempowering Zionism seems critical to me, as I think the “wars” (attacks to destabilize, sanctions and genocides) in West Asia and North Africa are ZioCon (that’s my term for neocons).

Thanks for being determined to find out more about genocides that are happening now. I look forward to hearing what you’re learning and always want to understand how and why and what is the U.S. role so we can confront it.

And this is from April, 2025 but still relevant and shared by a friend of the author:

United Arab Emirates’ Cancer Spreads in Africa

The UAE, the United Arab Emirates, is a cancer spreading in Africa. This cancer has infected much of east Africa and is spreading into northern, central and western parts of the continent.

The worst outbreak of this disease, the UAE disease, has been in Sudan where the ruling Emirates family instigated an attempted coup detat 3 years ago, backing a warlord and his army, Gen. Hemeti and the Rapid Support Forces, also known as the Janjaweed since the war in Dafur/west Sudan from 2003-2005.

When he launched the attempted coup Hemeti’s fighters quickly scored major victories against the Sudanese Army lead by a coterie of corrupt, sycophant, officers. This was helped by a generous outpouring of UAE cash and weapons shipments to keep the coup attempt running smoothly. The capital Khartoum was quickly over run eventually forcing the head of the Sudanese Army, Gen. Burhan, de facto president of Sudan, to retreat to Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast.

As he watched his army being bruised and battered, in retreat across much of the country, Gen. Burhan turned to his neighbor in the south, Eritrea, and its battle hardened military to step in and help his army regroup and regain some fighting spirit.

Eventually, with the Eritrean involvement, supplying training and logistics and even leading the fight alongside the Sudanese army Gen. Burhan military began to effectively fight back and turned the tide of war against the UAE backed attempted coup by Hemeti and his RSF/Janjaweed.

In response the UAE stepped up its weapons supply, with plane loads being delivered to the RSF via Chadian airports under the watchful eye of the Chadian army. The UAE sent several hundred drones to support the attempted coup and when that didnt work, plane loads of mercenaries began to put boots on the ground in Dafur, much like what was done when the UAE intervened in Yemen against the Houthis from 2015-2017. Mercenaries from Libya, CAR, Somalia, Ethiopia and last but not least, Columbia.

Of course the UAE has denied this but the Sudanese Army destroying a plane load of Columbian mercenaries in Dafur put paid to any cries of innocence by the Emirati Royal Family.

As the Sudanese Army under Gen. Burhan began to drive the UAE backed RSF fighters out of the urban areas captured at the beginning of the attempted coup the Sudanese Army warned the Chadian military that they would be targeted for supporting the RSF and this resulted in the Chadian Army withdrawing most of their support for the RSF and the partial closure of the Chad airports to UAE arms shipments.

To counter this the UAE turned to their henchman in Libya, long time CIA asset “General” Haftar ensconced in eastern Libya who gave them a military base on the Sudanese border to transship weapons and supplies to the RSF/Janjaweed.

In the course of the fighting in western Sudan, where the RSF fighters had retreated to after being driven out of the capital Khartoum, some horrendous crimes have been committed by the UAE backed RSF and the mercenaries supplied to Hemeti by the UAE. The Sudanese government controlled town of Al Fashir was surrounded by the RSF and completely cut off from food and medical supplies now going on for many months. Starvation, cholera without any access to medical treatment and steady shelling and drone attacks from the RSF have seen thousands killed and thousands more dead from starvation, as bad if not worse than in Gaza.

Due to battlefield set backs the UAE cancer in Sudan is steadily shrinking but murder and mayhem by the RSF continues. Eventually the Hemeti lead RSF will be driven from Sudan into Chad, Libya and other countries with their tales between their legs but not before doing incalculable damage in the mean time.

The UAE cancer has also been eating at the Somali people for many years now, long before it infected Sudan. Al Shabab, “the youth” in Arabic, are an approximately 15,000 man army of terror being paid $300 a month which along with food, fuel and military supplies must run up to $7mill a month, $80+million a year going back over 15 years means the UAE has spent almost $1billion trying to buy with blood money a foothold in Somalia in the form a port.

We know this because a former head of Somali Puntland regional National Intelligence spoke out on this, the UAE’s involvement in supporting terrorism in Somalia in particular, Al Shabab. As I write Al Shabab is waging a brutal war against the slowly collapsing Somali government lead by a US anointed “President”. Remember when this new Somali President had not even been inaugurated when the AFRICOM, the US military in Africa, had already begun reoccupying their bases from which they had been expelled across Somalia.

Having control of ports seems to be an obsession with the British installed royal family, the Emir and his spawn, and the UAE cancer is trying to spread wherever it can find a hold, from Somalia to Socotra island in the Gulf of Aden, to the Persian Gulf and back to north and central Africa in Libya, Chad and especially South Sudan.

For years Libyan weapons left over from US/NATO overthrow of Col. Gaddafi have poured into Africa’s Sahel region fueling murder and mayhem by religious fanatics, with the role of the UAE in Libya linking the Emir and his lackeys to this blood soaked trade.

So far the alliance of Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Sudan have prevented the UAE cancer from infecting the Red Sea coast though one of the main reasons for the UAE supporting Hemeti’s RSF is getting a port in Sudan on the Red Sea.

The mafia family ruling the UAE is separate from the government of the country, the day to day professionals, who are not happy with what the Royal Family is dragging the UAE into.

The dream of the Emirates royalty is to create, or re-create in their distorted version of history, a new “empire”, marine based in ports in strategic parts of the region and even includes the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, whom the Emirates consider little more than buffoons, and whose rightful rulers are their Emirate cousins.

You should ask, really, from where did this information come from?

Some may remember when early in 2025 when the Trumpists came to power hearings were held which exposed, for a very brief period, how the US CIA was funding terrorists groups in Africa, including Boko Haram in west Africa and Al Shabab in east Africa.

Recently the Eritrean President Issias Aferwerki, noted for his reticence, gave an interview where he went in depth into, amongst other problems, the role of the UAE in Africa. He exposed a whole range of crimes including in Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and other countries. As someone who has followed Pres. Issias speeches for decades now this presentation was exceptional in its detail and breadth, disclosing an intricate web of crimes being committed by the UAE in their attempt to buy an “empire”. Of course one must not forget the Big Brother of the UAE, the US Central Intelligence Agency, by statute in charge of dirty dealings by the US internationally. The US has always preferred to leave their crimes to be committed by their compradores in the region, keeping their “deniability” and to be able claim their hands are clean.

Today the UAE cancer is shrinking, facing defeats on at least two fronts, Sudan and Ethiopia. In both cases Eritrea has played an important, if not decisive role, behind the scenes. In Somalia all the hard work the Eritreans put into training over 15,000 professional security forces has gone to naught and matters only seem to be getting worse for the Somali people.

But in Sudan and Ethiopia the UAE cancer is receeding and hopefully, with the continued leadership of Africa’s most successful Pan Africanist government and its President Issias Aferwerki it seems a cure for the UAE disease is possible, Inshallah?

Thomas C. Mountain is an historian and educator who lived and reported from Eritrea from 2006-2021. At one time he was the most widely distributed independent journalist in Africa. He can be reached at thomascmountain at g mail dot com or view his work on X or on Facebook at thomascmountain

What to do? Make a new sign and, if you’re in Maine, join us in Bangor on Saturday!

Link to Instagram post with more information

Why don’t people pay enough attention to genocides while they’re happening in real time? Information flow is key. Resistance movements like Hamas and resisting nations like Iran have leveraged digital technology including ubiquitous phone videos to get the word out to those of us living in cocoons of imperial media.

I can tell you who died in Gaza yesterday when Israel bombed people living in concentration camp tents. Here’s one of them. Watch it if you dare. Trigger warning: very cute infant, no longer among the living.

But I can’t tell you who died in Sudan, though reporting from the Sudan Tribune gave some details.

“A drone belonging to the RSF militia targeted the Bir Andour area in the Tina locality [on July 21], killing 21 civilians and injuring 30 others,” the North Darfur Popular Resistance said in a statement.

I also can’t tell you who died in Somalia which the U.S. just bombed for the 76th time since January. Per Dave DeCamp at Antiwar.com:

AFRICOM is on pace to break the record for annual US airstrikes in the country, which it set at 124 in 2025 as President Trump oversaw a massive escalation in the air war after he loosened the rules of engagement.

According to New America, an organization that tracks the air war, the 124 airstrikes launched in 2025 were more than were conducted during the administrations of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush combined. Besides the bombing campaign against al-Shabaab, the US has also been launching airstrikes against an ISIS affiliate in Somalia’s northeast Puntland region.

Are the deaths of black Africans invisible because of their skin color? Probably. But while the deaths of Palestinians are invisible in U.S. corporate media most of the time, too, I have subscriptions plus social media to fill that gap.

Am I unable to know about these wars for empire in Africa because I lack good sources of information? Sort of, but I do know about the Black Agenda Report website which can be searched by country. For example:

Their July 15 article by Sondos Ansem shared details on “Senior UAE and regional officials referred to ICC over role in Sudan atrocities.” We all knew about that, right? We’re all clear on the dimensions of what international experts are calling “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.” Aren’t we?

I suspect the lack of awareness is part racism and part geographic ignorance.

Mark Twain famously said that God created wars so that Americans would learn geography. But in an era of nonstop wars with very, very limited coverage in the mainstream press, that plan has fallen through.

I think the bottom line is that I am going to have to work harder to know about events in Sudan, or Somalia, or Eritrea. I already view news gathering as my unpaid job but it’s striking how few in my generation see it that way. They actually believe that if they read the New York Times or listen to NPR on a regular basis, they will be well-informed. Or maybe some of them don’t actually believe it but they are too lazy to change their media consumption patterns?

Ok, I’ve given you links to the Black Agenda Report which I, full disclosure, support with a modest monthly donation to the Black Alliance for Peace. What links do you suggest for me? Paste them into the comments, and thank you in advance.

Some of us find that the U.S. fixation on toxic masculinity suggests imperial war managers are overcompensating. In the same week the Pentagon chief announced mandatory testosterone testing for military personnel over age 30 — including women — and supplements if levels are too low, he also said:

Stiffens? Really?

My guess is that the test-and-supplement scheme is a veiled attempt to drive out military personnel who may not be loyal to the regime. Firing generals of color or admirals who identify as female was just the beginning. If active duty personnel were already queasy about the moral dimensions of wars for empire, this could be a final straw that breaks a commitment to a career in the U.S. military.

As the U.S. rushes toward WW3, many will be leaving our sinking ship of state.

Lots of people who avoided the poverty draft but not the poverty are expressing themselves these days.

One of the main things driving class consciousness appears to be inflation, especially the price of food:

Also the price of housing:

It’s easy to understand why oligarchs are worried about analysis like this:

The regime claims leftists are the violent ones we should fear. Even if they have to remove their own study indicating right wing extremists are the source of most U.S. domestic violence of a political nature.

But most of us actually fear right wing violence — like the ICE brownshirts actively in the streets kidnapping and killing people.

Why does the regime fear real, actual leftists? Independent thought, mostly. Here’s something to chew on:

Let’s start with some good news. A gofundme to support ICE murderer David Michael Brouilette — shared on Facebook by a MAGA dude named Adam Stade — has zero contributions after 13 hours online. Embedded in this good news is the fact that we’ve identified the gunman who killed Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine on Monday.

How did Brouilette get exposed as the killer? Reportedly he phoned both his ex-wife and his 18 year old daughter to seek their support for the murder he confessed to committing. His significant mental health issues led the ex-wife to suspect him of making up a grandiose “accomplishment” but he also asked her, a survivor of his violent behavior, to lie for him as a character reference. Instead, she contacted the press.

A wife and child beater, veteran of the U.S. Army, and nearly unemployable elsewhere due to poor behavior consistent with his mental health diagnosis, found himself armed by ICE and authorized to hunt immigrants. ICE spokesman: Oops, he shot the wrong immigrant. As an old Mainer friend of mine commented, “If I was hunting and shot a man and said I thought it was a deer, that excuse would not fly in court.”

There’s no evidence emerging to support the gross canard told by Senator Angus King on behalf of ICE, that Guerrero “weaponized” the car he was driving. With his beloved 3 year old daughter in it. Uh huh, sure he did.

This is the context in which I viewed pronouncements by two of the fascisti now governing us.

In case it’s confusing, “the strong and the good” is meant to refer to ICE agents and administration officials who are obviously neither strong nor good. Just creepy.

The especially creepy White House weasel Stephen Miller said:

Here in the United States, we have taken the necessary and essential action of formally recognizing left-wing violence as a form of political terrorism that is a direct threat to our national security and survival of our republican form of government.

All the while supporting militias that gun down people in the streets with no accountability, and building underground bunkers supposed to save creepy men and their families from the wrath of the masses. Kidnapping citizens and migrants alike and holding them in for-profit concentration camps. Bombing children’s schools and cancer hospitals in Iran. Genociding Palestine and Lebanon.

Who’s the real threat to humanity? Officials pointing their fingers at you and me, their every accusation a confession of evil intent.

What does it say about a culture that they deliberate target doctors, either killing them outright or slowly torturing them to death? Does such a culture deserve to live?

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is only the most famous of those martyred by Zionist medicide. The iconic image of him approaching the Israeli tanks besieging his hospital in December, 2024 makes us wonder how much courage it takes to surrender to a force that will go to excruciating lengths to harm you. He’d already lost a son, 15 year old Ibrahim, who was killed standing at the entrance of the hospital in October. The hospital was barely functioning amid rubble and carnage of the most hellish proportions.

Why was the doctor who directed Kamal Adwan Hospital arrested? His specialty is keeping Palestinian children and newborns from dying. Held without charges for over a year now, he has been starved and beaten to the point where he is predicting his own death in custody.

The silence of U.S. new media is part and parcel of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. An analysis of the problem by Mondoweiss editor James North concluded:

What explains the cowardice at the New York Times and at CNN? Even those of us who have spent years monitoring the distorted and dishonest U.S. coverage are stupefied.

I can answer that one: Zionist influence at the top of news media that may have once functioned as sources of reliable information but now are largely propaganda organs on behalf of Israel and other bad U.S. foreign policy.

Today marks an international effort to raise awareness of Dr. Safiya’s failing health amid “administrative detention.” Supposedly on the basis of his support for Hamas, a claim that Israeli courts are reluctant to examine in a real trial. The rule of law supposedly revered by Western culture is at its most hypocritical when it’s ignored in favor of a land grab in Gaza’s prime location. If a hard-working doctor can be imprisoned and tortured for just doing his job, no one is safe.

This month Physicians for Human Rights Israel announced that the Israeli state had rejected a petition to the Supreme Court to release Dr. Safiya and 14 other doctors from Gaza. His son Elias told Middle East Eye:

Regrettably the time for appeals has passed — the moment has arrived for a final opportunity, a last call addressed to every person to intervene urgently and speak out about my father’s situation.

The world clearly doesn’t see us as human beings or deserving of equal rights. There is far more support for Israeli causes than Palestinian ones.

We have been abandoned, and Palestinians like my father are being abandoned in Israeli prison cells and left to die.

Raise your voices and demand that your own government intervene to rescue Dr. Safiya from Israel’s torture prisons where daily beatings, solitary confinement, and denial of medical treatment are among the tactics of the genocidal state. U.S. support continues to shield Israel from the wrath of the people. The blood is on our hands, too.

His family’s website has action items including:

Share his story to keep Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya alive.

Upload Your Video to join the hour of Global Solidarity from wherever you are.

Hundreds marched spontaneously in Biddeford, Maine yesterday expressing outrage that ICE gunned down a young man on his way to work.

Here’s someone from the neighborhood where the murder took place. I think she speaks for many of us.

Reports are that he was not even the person they were looking for.

As per the usual modus operandi of today’s fascist stormtroopers, ICE claimed through a soul-dead mouthpiece — in this case, Senator Angus King — that the victim had “weaponized the vehicle.” King got the scoop from Homeland Security director Markwayne Mullin whose Associate Degree in construction management didn’t prepare him to do his job any better than his predecessor, ICE Barbie.

Competence when you’re terrorizing and murdering immigrants isn’t really that important. It’s a shame is that these thugs are allowed to call themselves federal law enforcement — with no body cams or dash cams to hold them accountable for their behavior. On your dime.

There will be ongoing demonstrations of the people’s rage. We are still reeling from news that ICE shot and killed another father on his way to work. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was reportedly also not the man that ICE agents were seeking in Houston. But hey, he was brown and driving to work, so in their sick minds he was fair game.

47 and his donors want us to have a civil war in the U.S. so that we do not have the revolution we so desperately need. Lobbying your elected officials will, based on past experience, yield exactly nothing in the way of results. If it makes you feel better, go ahead.

A more appropriate response would be to shut down the cities where state-sanctioned murders occur, like Minneapolis did. Might you end up in federal custody or dead? Unfortunately, yes. (The second thing a family member said to me after alerting me to Guerrero’s death was: Be careful protesting.) I don’t feel like cowering at home is keeping us safe either but unfortunately my husband is unwell at the moment so I’m temporarily limited in scope.

Maybe I’ll just keep reposting the “make him famous” photo of the ICE dude (some described him as a gravy SEAL for the tough guy cosplay combined with chubbiness). The Portland, Maine subreddit moderators took my post down yesterday after it had received thousands of views and scores of comments. Who knows why? All social media platforms are infested with right wing ideologues to manage the narrative. I’ll keep trying.

I refuse to live in a country like this. And I’m not going anywhere.

One of the speakers at our military airshow protest yesterday commented that Gaza has dropped out of the news (possibly because a carful of adults had taunted me with, What genocide? in response to my sign). This phenomenon — the Gaza news blackout in the West — is a bit invisible to me because I don’t consume much corporate media. In my inbox and social media feeds, Gaza is front and center even amid the off again, on again Zionist war on Iran that is destroying U.S. outposts in the region.

A consistent ongoing source of information about conditions in Gaza is the substack Palestine Will Be Free. Yesterday’s post was epic and tragic on a scale that reminded me of Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables, in which Jean Valjean’s poverty leads him to steal a loaf of bread, for which “crime” he is punished and pursued for years. The ability to leap over metaphorical walls and suddenly find oneself in a secure, nurturing location fascinates me. If only I could bestow this blessing on the people starving, dehydrating, and dying of preventable diseases in Gaza! But I am not God, just a writer nowhere near as skillful as Hugo (believe me, I’ve tried). So I offer this repost of the true story shared by Hamada al-Banna of his suffering at the hands of the Zionist evildoers.

How a search for flour in Gaza became a journey through coma, abduction and solitary confinement

He could not remember his name, his family, or even the details of his life.

Palestine Will Be Free

Jul 11, 2026

Hamada al-Banna, 23, and his brother, Adham, went in search of a sack of flour for their starving family at a humanitarian aid distribution site in the summer of 2025. As was common at such “aid” sites at the peak of the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip, the brothers became separated amid the sheer mass of starving people, at whom the Israelis and American mercenaries would shoot and fire tank shells with total impunity. Among the lucky ones that day, Hamada secured the flour, hoisted onto his shoulders and prepared for the return journey.

However, before he could start, Hamada received a phone call informing him that his brother, Adham, had been killed. He had lost another brother, Amjad, just a couple of months earlier. His father was injured, unable to move. Distressed, Hamada dropped the hard-won sack of flour and went in search of his brother’s remains. Before he could find Adham, another explosion hurled Hamada in the air. He fell unconscious.

He regained consciousness six months later, having lost his memory and with his body ravaged by injuries, including shrapnel lodged in his heart. He woke up in a hospital he could not recognise, amid faces he had never seen. A doctor told Hamada in Arabic that he had been in a coma for six months and that he was in Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, Israel.

He could not remember his name, his family, or even the details of his life. When he asked the doctor when he would be able to stand on his feet again, the answer was devastating: he could not even move his hand.

Hamada believed that the hospital stay would be the end of his suffering. He was mistaken. As soon as his hospital stay ended, his hands and feet were shackled and he was transferred to a solitary confinement cell that he described as “smaller than a bathroom.” There, he spent four months completely isolated from the outside world.

Hamada still wonders why he was abducted. He says he belonged to no organisation and carried no weapon. He had gone out only to secure food for his family, leaving behind a fiancée he was preparing to marry and a life that came to an abrupt halt without warning.

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Inside the cell, Hamada’s despair became so overwhelming that he attempted to end his life more than once. He says the guards responded to these attempts by spraying pepper spray into his eyes and speaking to him in a language he did not understand, while he endured complete isolation, knowing nothing about his own fate or that of his family.

That would not be the end of Hamada’s suffering.

He was next transferred to the notorious Sde Teiman dungeon, where he spent nearly a year in conditions he describes as the harshest he experienced since his abduction. He speaks of daily abuse, repeated raids on the cells, severe beatings, and projectiles thrown into the rooms during the night while detainees were asleep, to the point that he found himself wishing for death rather than the continuation of such suffering.

Just as the start of the ordeal had been, the end was equally swift and without warning or explanation.

One day, an Israeli came to the prison, called out seven names, including Hamada’s, and ordered the seven detainees to accompany him without offering any explanation. He did not know whether he was being taken for another interrogation or to another torture dungeon until someone suddenly informed him that he was going to be released.

This Monday, he was one of the 17 Palestinian detainees released by the Israelis into the Gaza Strip. He walked out into the street in disbelief, wandering in a daze and asking everyone he met for a phone so he could call his family. Eventually, members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) saw him and helped him get in touch with his relatives.

When he called his parents, they asked who he was.

“I’m Hamada,” he said.

The response was heartbreaking. His parents believed someone was cruelly playing with their emotions. They had believed that both Hamada and his brother, Adham, had been killed that fateful summer day at the aid site. They told him that Hamada had been killed long ago and that they had held a three-day mourning gathering for him.

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The only way he could prove that he was alive was to return to the neighbourhood where he had grown up. From a distance, he caught sight of his mother, Widad. He ran toward her with every bit of strength he had left, while she ran toward him, unable to believe what she was seeing.

They embraced for a long time, tears mingling with astonishment after more than a year and a half of loss and waiting, in scene that felt as though someone had returned from the dead.

Hamada’s ordeal is not unique. Since the start of the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, numerous people like Hamada have disappeared, leaving their families in limbo about their status. While Hamada was finally reunited with his mother, many men like him will never return.

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Thirty of us turned out to protest the Blue Angels Navy airshow today in Brunswick at the former naval air station. 47’s supporters seemed more riled up than usual even though none of our signs made any mention of their dear leader.

War planes doing stunts is a big draw every time they come to town even though many locals — especially vets with PTSD — object to the loud jet noises that go on for days.

We always get out there with our signs because it’s an audience in the thousands. And today the passing vehicles had so many kids in their back seats, my very favorite audience.

This year I actually abandoned my car and set off on foot convinced I could make better time than GPS was predicting for driving. As they inched along burning fuel to reach an air show which would burn fuel (and sometimes even napalm) for entertainment, big pickup truck guys and gals seemed riled by my sign.

One side referred to the RTX (formerly Raytheon) subsidiary in South Berwick that makes parts for warplanes. Pratt & Whitney is a sponsor of the air show.

The other side had a message I’d created for a previous airshow appearance by the Thunderbirds stunt team, and that was what Mr. MAGA wanted to criticize.

MAGA dude (dripping with sarcasm): You know the Blue Angels are Navy, right?

Me: You think the Navy doesn’t bomb civilians, like all those school children they killed in Minab?

MAGA dude: They bombed us first!

Me: That is a big fat lie. Where’d you hear that?

MAGA dude: They strap explosives onto their bodies! They’re animals!

Me: No they don’t. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

MAGA dude: Must be great to be a liberal.

Me: I’m not a liberal!! I’m a revolutionary! What the f are you?

MAGA dude (fading in volume as I pass him): I support Trump!

We were joined at the gate by members of the IDEAL Maine Social Aid & Sanctuary Band which always makes things much more lively, and in between songs we heard from speakers who shared their objections to taxpayer funded climate crimes to recruit and entertain. Especially while people in the U.S. are unhoused and without health care.

One dude in a very rusty truck shouted, “Get a life!” This is a MAGA coded way of saying that protesting is a waste of time. One speaker talked of how protesting outside the gates of his air force base during the Vietnam war changed his life by stimulating debate inside the barracks. He began seeing U.S. imperial war crimes more clearly and no longer wanted to participate.

A passing motorist shouted out: What genocide? in response to messages about Gaza and the West Bank. His friends joined in, too. It was unclear whether they thought they were “owning the libs” or if they actually are genocide deniers. Or maybe they are just ignorant? I asked where they got their news from, but nobody wanted to answer that question.

After 11:30 as the line of cars thinned a bunch of us went for lunch nearby. It was good to catch up with old friends and meet some new ones.

We discussed the next monthly outing for our statewide antiwar coalition which will be two weeks from today (Sat July 25) at 11am in West Market Square, a major intersection in Bangor. Hope you can join us!