All Life is Connected - We Are Part of a Whole - We Choose Freedom for All

Jewish Voice for Peace
A diverse group of celebrities, artists, and activists including American Jews and Palestinians are speaking out for Palestinian human rights in a video released online today. The video is a first of its kind expression of support for Palestinian freedom, equality and justice and features celebrities holding signs with the names and ages of Palestinian civilians recently killed by the Israeli military in Gaza.

Central to the Achievement of the "Zionist Dream" is the Notion That Jewish Lives Matter More Than Arab Lives

Donna Nevel Alternet
In some circles, particularly among "progressive" Zionists, the terrible injustice done to the Palestinians is acknowledged, but as awful as the Nakba was, they say, it was what had to be done to create and ensure the security of the Jewish state. To be clear, the price was paid by the Palestinians-that is, the killing and expulsion of Palestinians for the sake of Jewish safety. The only way you can think that - is to believe that Jewish lives matter more . . .

Israel’s Incremental Genocide in the Gaza Ghetto

Ilan Pappe Electronic Intifada
The Zionist strategy of branding its brutal policies as an ad hoc response to this or that Palestinian action is as old as the Zionist presence in Palestine itself. It was used repeatedly as a justification for implementing the Zionist vision of a future Palestine that has in it very few, if any, native Palestinians. And nowadays the vision is of an Israel stretching over almost the whole of historic Palestine where millions of Palestinians still live.

No Water For Motown: Why Detroit Is Denying Its Citizens This Basic Human Right

Katrina vanden Heuvel The Nation
In March, when the winter freeze finally began to thaw, Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD), the city’s public utility, announced that it would resume shutting off water to delinquent customers, at a rate of 1,500 to 3,000 per week. As a result, some 40 percent of DWSD customers will lose their water supply by the end of the summer

labor

Workers at N.Y.U.’s Abu Dhabi Site Faced Harsh Conditions

ARIEL KAMINER and SEAN O’DRISCOLL The New York Times
Inside squalid quarters, bedrooms are so crowded that men must sleep three to a stack — one on the upper bunk, one on the lower bunk and one below the lower bunk, separated from the floor by only a thin pad for a mattress. In the space between the beds, the men pile cauliflower, onions and sacks of Basmati rice to cook after working all day and washing the construction dirt from their clothes. Exposed wiring hangs from the ceiling, and cockroaches climb the walls.

Tidbits - April 17, 2014

Portside
Cecily McMillan Trial Update; Reader Comments - Palestinian-Israeli Talks; Walmat, Living Wage, Minimum Wage of $15; Syria; Turkey; Pulitzer and Snowden; Paul Robeson; Russia, Ukraine, Crimea; Immune Systems; New book - What Did You Learn at Work Today? Announcements - Howard Zinn Symposium - Apr 24 - New York; 78th Celebration Abraham Lincoln Brigade & ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism - Apr. 27 - New York; 45th Contingent of the Venceremos Brigade

Don't Expect a Safe, Humane Orleans Parish Prison Any Time Soon; Here's Why

Michael Avery, Contributing opinion writer The Lens
The prison is too large; it's understaffed, and it's filthy. In 2013 federal Judge Lance Africk found conditions in Orleans Parish Prison unconstitutional. Federal law does not permit the judge to close the jail, or even transfer prisoners out of it. And yet conditions are so bad it's likely to be years before reforms can be completed. In the meantime, the prisoners must try to survive in conditions that the federal court has already declared unconstitutional.
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