Tristan Anderson Critically wounded by IDF

Posted on March 13, 2009

I just got forwarded a message that a friend of mine has been critically wounded by the Israeli military while protesting for Palestinian rights. Apparently he was shot in the head with a tear gas canister and is currently in the hospital. He’s hardly the first American to be wounded by the IDF – just a few years ago Rachel Corrie was run over by a bulldozer that was destroying Palestinian homes in the West Bank to make room for yet another illegal Israeli Settlement in the tiny strip of land that is all the Palestinian people have left of their country.

Just imagine what the American response would have been if a Palestinian soldier had willfully run down and killed an American citizen or shot an American citizen in the head, and then compare it with the complete indifference from Bush and Obama both in response to these assaults. That right there should tell you everything you need to know about the stranglehold that the Zionist lobby (as opposed to the mythical “Jewish” lobby – plenty of Jewish folks oppose Zionism and most hard-core supporters of Israel in America are fundamentalist Christians) has on American politics.

Here’s the full article on what happened to Tristan.

13th Friday 2009, Ni’lin Village: An American citizen has been critically injured in the village of Ni’lin after Israeli forces shot him in the head with a tear-gas canister.

Tristan Anderson from California USA, 37 years old, is currently being taken to Israeli hospital Tel Hashomer, near Tel Aviv. Anderson is unconscious and has been bleeding heavily from the nose and mouth. He sustained a large hole in his forehead where he was struck by the canister.

“The Israeli soldiers were standing on the hill looking over us firing tear-gas canisters straight into the crowd. Tristan was hit and fell to the ground. He had a large hole in the front of his head and his brain was visible. I tried to stop the bleeding, but he was bleeding heavily from the head, nose and mouth.” Ulrika Jenson (Sweden) – International Solidarity Movement

“Tristan was shot by the new tear-gas canisters that can be shot up to 500m. I ran over as I saw someone had been shot, while the Israeli forces continued to fire tear-gas at us. When an ambulance came, the Israeli soldiers refused to allow the ambulance through the checkpoint
just outside the village. After 5 minutes of arguing with the soldiers, the ambulance passed.” Teah Lunqvist (Sweden) – International Solidarity Movement

Contact:
Ulrika Jenson (English and Swedish) – +972 598 521 158
Teah Lunqvist (English and Swedish) – +972 598 531 036
ISM Media Office – 02-297 1824 or +972 598 503 948

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) http://palsolidarity.org/ is a Palestinian-led non-violent resistance movement committed to ending Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land. We call for full compliance with all relevant UN resolutions and international law.

For specific media inquires such as interview requests, photo usage, etc. please email the ISM Media Office at media [at] palsolidarity.org

Other sources are now reporting the following related details: Ulrika Jenson, an International Solidarity Movement activist, said troops fired tear gas canisters into the crowd from a hill above.

“Tristan was hit and fell to the ground,” Jenson was quoted as saying in an ISM statement. “He had a large hole in the front of his head, and his brain was visible.”

Why the protests?
“Ni’lin was 57,000 dunums in 1948, reduced to 33,000 dunums in 1967, currently the town’s land is 10,000 dunums and will be 7,500 dunums after the construction of the Wall.”

“Ahmed Mousa (10) was shot in the forehead with live ammunition on 29th July 2008. The following day, Yousef Amira (17) was shot twice with rubber-coated steel bullets, leaving him brain dead. He died a week later on 4 August 2008. Arafat Rateb Khawaje (22), was the third Ni’lin resident to be killed by Israeli forces. He was shot in the back with live ammunition on 28 December 2008. That same day, Mohammed Khawaje (20), was shot in the head with live ammunition, leaving him brain dead. He died three days in a Ramallah hospital.”

Tristan’s Reporting:

Tristan’s 2004 Posts From Iraq | Tristan Speaking in 2004 About His Trip to Iraq During First Year of War | Tristan’s 2006 Report Back From Oaxaca

Recent Coverage By Tristan: Berkeley Oaks Tree Sit | 2008 Reclaim The Streets Protest | 2008 Iraq War Protest | 2008 Chevron Protest |Fossil Fools Bike Ride | Anti-War Bike Ride | More Of Tristan’s Indybay Reports Over the Years

Patriotism: A Menace To Liberty

Posted on February 18, 2009

One of my favorite essays from the inimical Emma Goldman.  This one is from Emma Goldman’s Anarchism and Other Essays. Second Revised Edition. New York & London: Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1911. pp. 133-150.

WHAT is patriotism? Is it love of one’s birthplace, the place of childhood’s recollections and hopes, dreams and aspirations? Is it the place where, in childlike naivete, we would watch the fleeting clouds, and wonder why we, too, could not run so swiftly? The place where we would count the milliard glittering stars, terror-stricken lest each one “an eye should be,” piercing the very depths of our little souls? Is it the place where we would listen to the music of the birds, and long to have wings to fly, even as they, to distant lands? Or the place where we would sit at mother’s knee, enraptured by wonderful tales of great deeds and conquests? In short, is it love for the spot, every inch representing dear and precious recollections of a happy, joyous, and playful childhood?

If that were patriotism, few American men of today could be called upon to be patriotic, since the place of play has been turned into factory, mill, and mine, while deafening sounds of machinery have replaced the music of the birds. Nor can we longer hear the tales of great deeds, for the stories our mothers tell today are but those of sorrow, tears, and grief.

What, then, is patriotism? “Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels,” said Dr. Johnson. Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our times, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment for the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities of life as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the average workingman.

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Howard Zinn on Anarchism and life after Nation-States

Posted on February 12, 2009

By ZIGA VODOVNIK
Via Counterpunch

Howard Zinn, 85, is a Professor Emeritus of political science at Boston University. He was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1922 to a poor immigrant family. He realized early in his youth that the promise of the “American Dream“, that will come true to all hard-working and diligent people, is just that – a promise and a dream. During World War II he joined US Air Force and served as a bombardier in the “European Theatre“. This proved to be a formative experience that only strengthened his convictions that there is no such thing as a just war. It also revealed, once again, the real face of the socio-economic order, where the suffering and sacrifice of the ordinary people is always used only to higher the profits of the privileged few.

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