The conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel is the cancer at the heart of international affairs, and I know from long personal experience how costly and even dangerous it can be to tell the truth about the making and sustaining of it when powerful vested interests do not want the truth to be told. As I think some of you know, I have been committed for the past 30 years to telling this truth.
Matt Damon, a lifelong friend of Howard Zinn and his family, read excerpts from a speech Howard Zinn gave in 1970 as part of a debate on civil disobedience
Former US Marine Ken O’Keefe, who renounced his US citizenship in disgust at his country’s crimes against humanity, is today an outspoken activist for Truth and Justice, supporting America’s victims in the Middle East and elsewhere.
There are Democrats and there are Republicans. Report honestly what they’re saying—balance and so on—and then you’re objective. If you go beyond that and you ask a question about the bounds, then you’re biased, subjective, emotional, maybe anti-American, whatever the usual curse words are. So that’s a task and, you know, you can understand it from the point of view of established power. It’s a distorting prism with enormous impact.
Nothing must interfere with the depressive psychosis of modern Britain, which has become a most violent and melancholic country, with no space for measured debate. Like Russell, I believe that the most powerful vote you can give is No Vote; for the days of Prime Ministers have gone, and it’s time for a form of change that is far more meaningful than simply switching blue to red.
“The hypocrisy of ‘law and order’ and the injustices caused by capitalism cannot be cured by institutional reform but through civil disobedience and direct action,” Hammond told the court. “Yes, I broke the law, but I believe that sometimes laws must be broken in order to make room for change.”
The myth of human progress, the unexamined belief in the ability of our industrial and technological society to save us from collapse, is a form of magical thinking. These forces, in fact, will ensure that the descent will be swifter and more brutal.
In April 2009, more than a year before becoming prime minister, Cameron had declared that any government led by him would usher in an “age of austerity”. The media are well aware that this is the real agenda of the coalition—one that is shared by the Labour Party. If they are shocked it is only because Cameron has let the dirty secret of Britain’s ruling elite out of the bag.
Ah yes, the medical industry: the complex that generates enough unpaid debt for its “clientele” that fully 60% of all bankruptcies can be attributed, in large part, to unpaid medical services. One in seven Americans is presently being pursued by bill collectors – and the bulk of their work is that of chasing after medical debt.
Corporations now call all the key shots, with the political class acting as gun-toting bodyguards. Despite the fig-leaf of parliamentary appearances, corporations have a malleable political elite in their boardroom-suited pockets. Political ‘participation’ is a wholesale pretence, the cartel of political parties just more corporate-type brands, And, while a corporate media helps keep the whole charade ideologically intact, corporate surveillance maintains a beady panoptic over the entire social and cultural landscape.
“I saw what Chelsea Manning did,” Hammond said when we spoke last Wednesday, seated at a metal table. “Through her hacking she became a contender, a world changer. She took tremendous risks to show the ugly truth about war. I asked myself, if she could make that risk shouldn’t I make that risk? Wasn’t it wrong to sit comfortably by, working on the websites of Food Not Bombs, while I had the skills to do something similar? I too could make a difference. It was her courage that prompted me to act.”
A national demonstration in defence of the NHS has been called on 29 September at the Tory Party Conference. This was confirmed by Unite- GMB-Unison! UNITED WE STAND TO SAVE OUR NHS!
