WAWA/WeAreWideAwake is my Public Service to America as a muckracker who has journeyed seven times to Israel Palestine since June 2005.
WAWA is dedicated to confronting media and governments that shield the whole
truth.
We who Are Wide
Awake are compelled by the "fierce urgency of Now" [Rev MLK, Jr.] to raise
awareness and promote the human dialogue about many of the crucial issues of our
day: the state of our Union and in protection of democracy, what life is like
under military occupation in Palestine, the Christian EXODUS from the Holy Land,
and spirituality-from a Theologically Liberated Christian Anarchist
POV.
"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils." George Washington's Farewell Address - 1796
"My aim is to agitate & disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast." Unamuno
"Imagine All the People Sharing All the World." John Lennon
"If enough Christians followed the gospel, they could bring any state to its knees." Father Philip Francis Berrigan
"You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down." Tom Petty
"If I can't dance, it's not my revolution." Emma Goldman
"We have yet to begin to IMAGINE the power and potential of the Internet." Charlie Rose, 2005
Only in Solidarity do "We have it in our power to begin the world again" Tom Paine
"Never doubt that a few, thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
"You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free." John 8:32
DO SOMETHING!
Photo of George shown here and in web site banner courtesy of Debbie Hill, 2000.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that, among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. -July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence
June 2, 2010: The Irish are on their way to break the Gaza blockade and Rachel Corrie
Ireland to Israel: Let new aid ship
break Gaza blockade
More than 100 of the activists who were aboard six-ship flotilla
brought Jordan border for deportation; MV Rachel Corrie set sail Monday
despite Israel Navy raid.
By Barak Ravid, Liel Kyzer and News Agencies
International activists vowed on
Tuesday to try to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip with another
ship carrying humanitarian aid, a day after an Israel Navy blockade on the
first six-ship convoy left nine people dead and several more wounded.
The Irish-owned MV Rachel Corrie, a
converted merchant ship bought by pro-Palestinian activists and named after an
American woman killed in the Gaza Strip in 2003, set off on Monday from Malta,
organizers said.
Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen urged
Israel to let the vessel to finish its mission. The ship was carrying 15
activists including a northern Irish Nobel Peace laureate.
"The government has formally
requested the Israeli government to allow the Irish-owned ship ... to be
allowed to complete its journey unimpeded and discharge its humanitarian cargo
in Gaza," Cowen told parliament in Dublin.
An Israel Defense Forces officer
pledged that the newest ship would also be halted, setting the stage for a
fresh confrontation after Monday's deadly clash.
"We as a unit are studying, and we
will carry out professional investigations to reach conclusions," the
lieutenant said, referring to Monday's confrontation in which his unit shot
nine activists aboard a Turkish ferry.
"And we will also be ready for the
Rachel Corrie," he added
But activists said they were determined
to follow through with their plan. "We are an initiative to break Israel's
blockade of 1.5 million people in Gaza. Our mission has not changed and this is
not going to be the last flotilla," Free Gaza Movement activist Greta
Berlin, based in Cyprus, told Reuters.
Israel decided late Tuesday to deport
all of the the activists who were aboard the six-ship flotilla. One hundred and
twenty of the nearly 700 passengers were transferred Tuesday evening to the
border crossing with Jordan, from where they will be returned to their home
countries.
Passengers on the MV Rachel Corrie
include Northern Irish Nobel peace laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire and Denis
Halliday, an Irish former senior UN diplomat, and several other Irish citizens.
Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin
told parliament he had spoken with Halliday on Tuesday afternoon.
"We will be watching this
situation very closely -- as indeed will the world -- and it is imperative that
Israel avoid any action which leads to further bloodshed," Martin said.
Israel's Army Radio reported that the
ship would reach Gazan waters by Wednesday, but activist Berlin said it might
not attempt to reach Gaza until early next week.
"We will probably not send her
till (next) Monday or Tuesday," she said of the 1,200 ton cargo ship. The
Israeli navy stormed aboard a Turkish ferry leading a six-ship convoy on
Monday, killing nine people in what authorities said was self-defense but
sparking a world outcry, a crisis in diplomatic relations with Turkey and
condemnation from the United Nations Security Council.
The Rachel Corrie was carrying medical
equipment, wheelchairs, school supplies and cement, a material Israel has
banned in Hamas-ruled Gaza, organizers said.
Mark Daly, a member of Ireland's upper
house of parliament who had been due to join the convoy but was refused
permission to leave Cyprus, told Reuters in Dublin that the ship had fallen
behind the rest of the convoy because it was slower.
Passengers aboard it had heard about
the attacks but decided not to turn back, he said.
"After having a discussion among
themselves about what to do, they decided to keep going," Daly said.
Rachel Corrie, The
New Fourth Estate and Israeli Justice
Read more...
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"HOPE has two children.The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine
"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." - Aquinas
Everyone has the right to freedom of
opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
" In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa
“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life.”- Lewis Mumford, 1946
The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright
“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK
Establishment of Israel
"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel