Black soot covers the two-story house like a dark shadow. The roof has collapsed, and a bright red sign proclaims the home has been condemned.
Until a few weeks ago, when the riots roiled Baltimore, this house at Hilton Street and Piedmont Avenue was home for Laporsha Lawson and her severely disabled son, Khai'Lee Sampson.
There are so many videos on YouTube of speeches by the great Chris Hedges. You can have a field day watching them. I feel honored that I've met Hedges and broken bread with him several times. He is one of the most upstanding, virtuous people I have ever met. He is a poet, a philosopher, a visionary, a historian, a Cassandra for our age. His books are as infuriating as they are inspiring. And if you don't read his weekly column at Truthdig or Nation of Change or Truthout -- well, put the frigging New York Times and Washington Post aside once in a while and read somebody with integrity, somebody who doesn't suck up to power, who is unafraid to tell the unvarnished truth. If you have time to read a mainstream newspaper or watch network TV, you have time to read Hedges. The following quote comes about 3:30 into the clip:
"How do you revolt? ". . . I want people to understand when you seriously revolt what the state does to you. ". . . revolt itself is a moral imperative. That asking the question as to whether it can succeed is the wrong question. Revolt is not finally about what we achieve . . . revolt is about what we become. ". . . I don't fight fascists because finally I believe that I will win. I fight fascists because they are fascists."
Our great poet and national conscience, Chris Hedges: . . . The unanimous U.S. Senate vote in support of the Israeli attacks on Gaza, the media’s slavish parroting of Israeli propaganda, and the Obama administration’s mindless repetition of pro-Israeli clichés have turned us into cheerleaders for Israeli war crimes. We fund and abet these crimes with $3.1 billion a year in military aid to Israel. We are responsible for the slaughter.No one in the establishment, including our most liberal senator, Bernie Sanders, dares defy the Israel lobby. And since we refuse to act to make peace and justice possible we should not wonder why the Palestinians carry out armed resistance. The Palestinians will reject, as long as possible, any cease-fire that does not include a lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza. They have lost hope that foreign governments will save them. They know their fate rests in their own hands. The revolt in Gaza is an act of solidarity with the world outside its walls. It is an attempt to assert in the face of overwhelming odds and barbaric conditions the humanity and agency of the Palestinian people. There is little in life that Palestinians can choose, but they can choose how to die. And many Palestinians, especially young men trapped in overcrowded hovels where they have no work and little dignity, will risk immediate death to defy the slow, humiliating death of occupation. I cannot blame them. -Chris Hedges
A couple of updates to the case of the injustice carried out against Cecily McMillan, which I wrote about earlier today. The updates are from the UK paper the Guardian, which has given this story comprehensive coverage throughout, unlike the American mainstream press, which, if it covers it at all, usually buries it -- in the case of the New York Times, in the NY Region section, even though it's a case with national implications. (Oh, and I'm still looking for it at NPR, whose website shows nothing about the case. Surprise, surprise.)
In the continuing cavalcade of innocent people put in prison in this country -- the vast majority of whom are poor and/or people of color -- we now add Cecily McMillan, an Occupy activist who was assaulted by a New York City cop and who is now in jail for it.
You read that right. She was assaulted by him. Yet she is in jail. And he -- with a history of committing abuse -- is walking free.
The U.S. is a fucking police state. I don't care how many people don't get it, I don't care how many of them have their heads up their asses, the U.S. is a police state. Thank god my activist friends get it; at least I have a few people I can talk to. The latest from the Supreme Rubber Stampers of the land, via the Rutherford Institute:
Join Cornel West and Chris Hedges in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, August 4th, from 3 to 5:30pm, for a panel discussion on the Bradley Manning verdict and what it means for freedom of speech -- or lack thereof -- in this country. The event will be at the Friends Meeting House, 2111 Florida Avenue, Washington, DC. Free and open to everyone.
