Commenter Profile

Total number of comments: 17 (since 2010-01-18 20:45:35)

unverified__2208f73g

Showing comments 17 - 1
Page:

  • The problem with 'occupation' in the occupy movement
    • emi November 22, 2011 at 11:11 am

      writing from my phone--that posted too soon.

      i can't help but feel that there's a little deliberate misunderstanding in your response--you suggest that i'm limiting colonialism to the specific race(s) of indigenous peoples of the americas, but why would that be what i'm saying, when i'm pointing out the parallels between colonialism here and in palestine? and if so many in occupy hare this analysis, then why are folks dismissive of what jo is saying here, or when these issues are raised in occupy spaces? it's not enough to say the official movement's wishy-washy but the folks in the crowd are alright. if we do believe that colonialism and capitalism and racism are disgusting, we make space for the people who are at the heart of those struggles, instead of oversimplifying and dismissing what they're saying, deciding for them that it's a lost cause, and moving right along.

    • emi November 22, 2011 at 11:05 am

      hmm. i think this is a problem of my phrasing. perhaps "the root problem, which is colonialism" would have been clearer language. my intention there was to affirm what potsherd had said--that the us and israel share this same root problem. race and racism have been tools of colonialism.

      i

      i don't think folks like jo are simply asking for people to say "free leonard peltier." i think that was an example of ways in which occupy movements can create space for indigenous people--hopefully such an engagement would not involve merely adopting a few words, but instead a broader program of learning from one another and honing our broader analyses.

      as for the crowds, yes--i think there's a lot of reason to be hopeful and excited. there's also a lot of reasons to push ourselves to expand our analyses to include indigenous peoples who are struggling for self-determination around the world. we're all learning all the time, and i expect that at just about every occupy across the country folks would really benefit from deepening their understanding of our colonial history, how it continues to shape the world we live in, and how we as movements can work to undo some of that damage.

    • emi November 22, 2011 at 3:37 am

      i don't think these responses are being particularly fair to what jo and so many others are saying about the "occupy" language of occupy. and it's unfortunate that this piece hasn't generated more dialogue in the comments section. asking that movements in the u.s. consider and reflect our own history of injustice is, as potsherd says, part of the process of addressing the root problem of colonialism, which cannot be conveniently limited to a specific geographic area or period of decades. while we can all take refuge in the fact that we didn't exist (and perhaps our families weren't yet here) during the initial colonization of this continent or during slavery, white americans continue to benefit from those past injustices--how else can we explain how disproportionately crime, disease, poverty, etc affect people of color? for many of us, it might be easy to make the same argument about israel: i don't personally live in israel and had nothing to do with the creation of that state, so why is it my problem? for those of us who feel compelled toward palestine solidarity work because of the role our country and/or religious community plays in supporting occupation and apartheid, the parallel to the perpetuation of injustice against communities of color in this country is pretty strong.

      and we must specifically name the peoples we are fighting with and for: when we say simply that we want justice for all people, how are people who have been historically excluded from this country's definition of "all people" (or even "people") supposed to know that we are including them? how else can they know that we want to learn of the injustices that affect them, and struggle alongside them?

      there's also plenty of evidence that we are *not* including them or concerned with their demands. indigenous people, immigrants, and other people of color have written numerous online accounts of how their concerns have been marginalized in occupy spaces. while many great folks are working to create space for people of color and to center their struggles, we can't deny that we've got a long way to go before occupy spaces are truly welcoming of and accountable to them. most of the responses to this posting further illustrate that either occupy, mondo, or dialogues about occupy on mondo are *not* welcoming to indigenous people (how can we be welcoming to indigenous people if we refuse to acknowledge the validity of their own demands for justice, or at the very least to engage with their specific demands on the merits?).

      and as for the idea that bringing up our own history of colonialism is simply a hasbara tactic--potsherd's right. that's hypocritical, and we lose credibility when we claim that israelis must address their own occupation and apartheid practices, while we in the us have nothing left to learn or address along the same lines. and why wouldn't we want to address these injustices as they manifest here? isn't ending all forms of oppression against all peoples a part of our vision for the future? furthermore, when we reduce the demands of a deeply oppressed people to pr work for a foreign government, we yet again invizibilize a people who, much like palestinians, have suffered cultural erasure and silencing in order to build and preserve the mythology of a colonial project.

      a similar logic to this "hasbara tactic" argument is currently being used against many frequenters of this blog: we are told that a dialogue about palestine has no place in the occupy movement, which is focused on domestic issues that are more pressing than something happening in the middle east. we are told that to "push" a dialogue about palestine can only serve to divide the occupy movement and distract from the "real" issues. but many on this blog have defended dialogues about palestine in occupy spaces, and i don't understand why those same arguments don't apply to dialogues about indigenous peoples here in the u.s.

  • Welcome to the new Mondoweiss
  • Dueling messages on Iran
    • emi November 15, 2011 at 7:58 pm

      haha, wow--you're right, john h! that sums up our discussion pretty perfectly!

    • emi November 12, 2011 at 11:24 pm

      haha, thanks friend! ^_^*

    • emi November 12, 2011 at 11:21 pm

      i don't think eee, hophni, etc are wittys at all. i don't think a witty is defined by having opinions that fall outside of those of other commentors. i'd define a witty as one who comments non-the-duck-stop, and usually near the beginning of the chain, throwing off the whole comments section on a very consistent basis. yes, dialogue with the folks you're talking about can highlight truths, but they can also lead to endless comment feedback loops that get further and further from the original content, or much content at all. i have no issue with those loops in general when they occur with the commentors you've mentioned, or with comment conversations shifting to new themes, but it's frustrating that so much power over this dialogue is willingly ceded to this one guy, again and again, after he makes a cursory dismissal of the substance above the comment chain. by this point i think most of us know just where witty will weigh in on any given topic, and yet each time he pokes so many of us roar back at him. and simply exercising my own option of not responding to that kind of use of comment space doesn't really solve the specific problem i'm talking about--seeking out comments relevant to the post can be pretty difficult when they're drowning in a sea of witty.

    • emi November 12, 2011 at 6:03 pm

      mrw, i get why phil tolerates witty's incessant posting to the blog, and i'm not suggesting witty shouldn't be permitted to post here. what i'm asking is why so many mondo readers bother to respond to him. why not just ignore? it's sad to me when i read a thought-provoking, heavily commented-on article here that i love, but then the bulk of the comments go down some witty-dug rabbit hole. there are so many fora on palestine where folks can go to battle the wittys of the world--why can't this space be for something else?

    • emi November 12, 2011 at 3:30 pm with 9 replies

      i'm unclear on why folks still respond to comments by this guy. he manages to hijack so many comment sections on this blog, and i bet he's been the focus of more comments than most of the other writers and subjects who have appeared on mondo. can't we just all kind of agree not to respond to this dude until he recognizes that the blog ain't wittyweiss?? or can we start wittyweiss as like an act of kindness, and then he can offer himself advice on what protest/dialogue/activism/blog articles should look like, and the rest of us can just enjoy uninterrupted the amazing collection of writings that mondoweiss has to offer?

  • The story of one young person's decision to quit his job in the Jewish community over Israel
    • emi November 12, 2011 at 3:25 pm

      thank you for this powerful piece, michael. i'm a big fan of avodah, and appreciate the thoughtful dialogue so many avodahniks are engaged in around palestine. y'all are an inspiration to those of us who are seeking ways to square our commitment to social justice with contemporary jewish identity, tradition, and community.

  • Our demands (designing placards for a demonstration)
    • emi June 11, 2011 at 5:34 pm

      @ guilty, I don't know what experiences have led you to that conclusion, but my own experience living/working/organizing in New Orleans (where our Pal solidarity organizing is actually pretty racially diverse, incidentally) as well as collaborating with people/organizations of color in US cities in the North, South, East and West would not support your idea.

      Perhaps by doing the work of building organizing community across racial lines, we can better address questions about how to identify various groups.

    • emi June 11, 2011 at 3:18 pm with 3 replies

      I'm with you, Donald. Mo, I think your idea is quite clever, but the Palestine solidarity movement here in the US has not done the best job of building relationships with communities of color, and especially Black folks. Black folks doing political work are natural allies in this struggle and there are many many phenom Black organizers doing powerful Pal solidarity work, but we (and by we I mean mostly white activists) have not done our own work of creating spaces that are comfortable or accessible to Black activists and other people of color, or of prioritizing their insights, experience, or leadership in most of the organizing happening here. This campaign could be seen to use the symbol of African Americans' oppression while actually silencing them yet again.

  • 'Wikileaks' cable drop is a giant power move for the left
    • emi December 3, 2010 at 7:40 pm with 3 replies

      "All the stuff about the sexual assault charges against Assange and his cult/theater/dropout background may be true (and let him be tried); but these matters are actually trivial next to his political motivation and action."

      ok, this is a little alarming. phil, i love your analysis, as always, but sexual assault is never, ever trivial. hopefully the charges are unfounded, and assange shouldn't be treated as guilty until he's proven so, and yes, that has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the tremendous service provided by the wikileaks drop, but for real: sexual assault is always serious.

      this actually points to a trend i noticed on another thread, where folks were defending the us' discrimination against black folks, indigenous folks, japanese victims of internment, etc, in order to argue that israel is less of a democracy than the us.

      israel is obv not a democracy. it's an apartheid state. but in order to defend that arg, there's ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to minimize the apartheid practices we see here in the us, and have seen here historically. when a defender of israel cites us examples in their arg, what's wrong with acknowledging the truth in those arguments?? when we don't acknowledge the painfully obvious flaws within our own governing system, we're being hypocritical.

      hopefully folks who work toward/support justice in palestine are working toward/supporting justice for all oppressed people, right?

  • David Brooks seeks to reframe Zionism
    • emi January 18, 2010 at 9:33 pm

      thanks very much for this, scott!! brooks' column was embarrassing as well as deeply misleading--i'm glad to see him being called out here!!

  • The Gaza Freedom March
    • emi January 24, 2010 at 5:34 pm with 1 replies

      "understanding the complexities of the Middle East requires more than a chaperoned visit to Gaza. It requires a pragmatic scrutiny that some here have demonstrated they hopelessly lack."

      couldn't agree more, barnabe. hope you can take your own lesson there. this article would benefit from quite a lot of scrutiny in its next draft. you may want to consider talking with some of the civil society and pflp leaders, as some of these commentors have, to get their perspectives before claiming to "give all points of view" and offer an analysis that is sorely lacking.

    • emi January 19, 2010 at 11:25 am

      thanks for commenting, annie and laura. it really does seem like this writer misunderstood the context in gaza and is completely unaware of the herculean efforts of civil society members and leaders there. i learned so much on our may/june trip to gaza, and one piece of that knowledge that's really ringing true for me now is that we have to be certain of all of the facts before we publish or speak publicly about our experiences--gaza's situation is complicated, and it's far too easy to misrepresent the reality there in very damaging ways.

      for me, one of the most amazing stories to emerge from the gaza freedom march is that almost all of the gfmers refused mubarak's sell-out deal of the buses. despite the pleading of some of codepink's leadership, many of the original 100 refused their seats on the buses, and many more refused to take their place. when the buses left, only 84 were on board! 1,400 people came to cairo with their hearts set on going to gaza, but we watched the buses pull away with 16 empty seats because we had come to cairo to act in solidarity with the people of gaza, not to join another token aid effort.

      I do think the gaza freedom march offers a lot of lessons for our movement, beginning with finkelstein's refusal to give up ownership of the march (so well put, laura!!), climaxing with the decision around the buses, and now being teased out by writings like this one and walden bello's ridiculous rant in foreign policy in focus. we had so many successes in cairo, including of course the cairo declaration to end israeli apartheid (it's still absurd to me that that document is not even mentioned in this piece), but we must also examine our weaker moments, as well. as you mention, laura, we have a lot to learn about solidarity work.

    • unverified__2208f73g January 18, 2010 at 4:10 pm with 2 replies

      thanks, annie, for illustrating some key points and also for providing an important context: in my time in cairo, and also in gaza (i was in gaza a few months back, not during the gaza freedom march), i NEVER saw police or military behave in the ways i've seen american police behave toward demonstrators and other citizens on a regular basis.

      barnabe, i definitely appreciate the challenge of pulling all of the events of the gaza freedom march into a single article while simultaneously providing context--a herculean task, to be sure. but i'm curious: why no mention of the cairo declaration to end israeli apartheid? many gfm participants, including internationals and palestinians in gaza, would point to this document as the biggest success of the gfm. yes, marchers were never permitted to leave cairo, and yes, the march in gaza was complicated by some of hamas' decisions, but the overarching success of the march is that while our bodies could not break the siege, our minds and spirits went to work on a clear plan to end not only the siege, but the occupation, as well.

      i'm also disappointed to not see more information about the south african, french, and scottish delegations, who provided such tremendous leadership in cairo. for me, one of the major lessons of the gfm is that the american solidarity movement must recognize that it's years behind our allies in europe and south africa, and we ought to take a backseat as we learn from them. furthermore, like annie, i also watched the back-and-forth between codepink and civil society voices in gaza around the statement of context for the gfm several months ago. this division was an early sign that the american solidarity movement, and especially the american solidarity movement as represented by codepink (of course there's a great argument to be made that codepink doesn't at all represent that movement), needed to change their focus from one of "bringing nonviolence to civil society in gaza," to one of "acting in solidarity with civil society in gaza," particularly when it comes to honoring the long history of palestinian non-violence, and the bds call that so many voices in palestine have clearly called on the solidarity movement to actively support. i know finkelstein and others have complained that this dialogue and the resulting decision to adopt the new statement was unfair to activists who had poured months of work into the march prior to the decision, but i would love for them to explain why they spent months planning a march without inviting civil society in gaza to the table.

Showing comments 17 - 1
Page:

Comments are closed.