Palestinian Nonviolence

Here is an excellent blog from Amnesty International about the Palestinian nonviolence movement. It is a side of the Palestinian struggle that we in America never see. The only images we see in the media of Palestinians are of violent people blowing themselves up or hijacking airplanes. There is never any media coverage of Palestinians who are nonviolent.
Here's the first couple of paragraphs of the article, along with the link for the rest of it:

"Remarks made by Bono , New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof and President Barack Obama stating they hoped Palestinians would find their Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) or Gandhi completely ignore Palestinian nonviolent resistance to brutal oppression.

The presumption that the Palestinian struggle is mainly violent is disturbing. And the dismissal of the people who have sacrificed time, money and even their lives to fight injustice with nonviolence is callous.

Although Palestinian nonviolent resistance dates back to the early 1900’s, the image of armed and violent Palestinians still prevails.   In the 1970’s and 80’s, Palestinian refugees from camps in foreign countries, seeing no resolution after decades of displacement, chose armed struggle and  more recent suicide bombings in Israel  reinforced the perception.

Several factors have hindered a single, iconic figure from emerging or a cohesive civil disobedience movement from blooming despite its continued use by different sectors of Palestinian society......"

http://blog.amnestyusa.org/middle-east/palestinian-nonviolent-resistance-has-strong-roots/

Congressmen Named King

Image via Wikipedia

I'm not quite sure what's up with congressmen named King this week. First, there was NY Rep Peter King & his verbal attack on Michael Jackson. Now, IA Rep Steve King has decided to enter his name in the Dumbest Guy of the Week contest.
Rep. Steve King was the only vote against putting a plaque in the Capital Visitor Center recognizing the fact that the U.S. Capital was built with slave labor. The vote, by the way, was 399 - 1 for placement of the plaque. Rep King's reason for voting against it? It's....well, I'll let his official press release explain it to you:

"In the Capitol Visitor's Center, we agreed to change the name of the Great Hall - which honored the immigrants that came legally to America - to Emancipation Hall to honor the 645,000 slaves and their descendants who were brought to the United States more than two centuries ago."Last night I opposed yet another bill to erect another monument to slavery because it was used as a bargaining chip to allow for the actual depiction of 'In God We Trust' in the CVC. The Architect of the Capitol and liberal activists opposed every reference to America's Christian heritage, even to the extent of scrubbing 'In God We Trust' from the depiction of the actual Speaker's chair in the U.S. House of Representatives.
"This is just the latest example of a several year effort by liberals in Congress to scrub references to America's Christian heritage from our nation's Capitol. Liberals want to amend our country's history to eradicate the role of Christianity in America and chisel references to God or faith from our historical buildings."Our Judeo-Christian heritage is an essential foundation stone of our great nation and should not be held hostage to yet another effort to place guilt on future Americans for the sins of some of their ancestors. Christian abolitionists gave their lives by the hundreds of thousands to end slavery. Great American leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. worshipped God just as our Founding Fathers did. We must never forget this important aspect of our heritage or use it as a political bargaining chip."

Yet another bill about slavery? Apparently, Steve's not feeling the love. I'm going to assume that he's in a pretty safe district & that his re-election is assured. Otherwise, he just gave some serious ammo to his opponents. Pretty stupid, Steve. Pretty stupid.