NOTICE:
From any post click the photo across the page top to see the entire blog.
JAMES' PERSONAL WRITINGS: SLOVING
JAMES' MOST STRATEGIC POSTS: *****
MUCH OF MY POSTING WAS ON FACEBOOK: STARTLOVING1

5.07.2015

SPDF: Israeli-trained police invade Baltimore in crackdown on Black Lives Matter

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israeli-trained-police-invade-baltimore-crackdown-black-lives-matter

***** Justice is love expressing itself. Dominic Crossan paraphrase. 15 years ago or so a....

Justice is love expressing itself. Dominic Crossan paraphrase.  15 years ago or so a Methodist pastor, an African American woman in an upper class white church that I attended, told me at a conference one time, James, you love justice more than anyone I've ever seen. I replied strongly, and respectfully, that I strongly disagreed. I said, it is not justice that I love, but people. 12 years later now I realize that we were both correct. I learned in a Dominic Crossan book on the man Jesus, the historical Jesus, that I read about a year ago. In the book, one of his later ones, possibly on the Lord's Prayer, he said something like justice is love expressing itself. I think that's exactly right. Brilliant. Monumentally important understanding.

***** From my most revered activist sister in Texas: Are you autistic by any chance?......

[ dear reader, if you have any expertise, or insights you feel highly worth sharing with me, please do. ]

From my most revered activist sister in Texas: Are you autistic by any chance?   ( she was responding to a really wonderful, really extraordinary, really insightful article I shared with some of you yesterday and posted on this site, and article if she really liked. 
http://jesusgodgoodetcnjay.blogspot.com/2015/05/wow-wow-wow-so-thats-it-about-me-huh.html )
My reply: Never diagnosed, but I have a long-held suspicion that I am somewhere on the spectrum.

What we consider social skills in this society, mine are absolute zero. I prize, I treasure, my interpersonal skills as it comes to problem solving, diagnosing, healing and helping, and when it comes to being self serving they are 0. The self-serving social skills we prize in this society are morally abhorrent to me and have been since my earliest memory. I was a straight C student all the way through the end of high school. I could not study the stuff they put in front of us. I could not. I could not. I could not pay attention to homework. I could not pay attention in class. Could not. Could not. Could not.....

But put me out in the woods? Put me in front of great art of any genre?.... and my peers are clueless, my peers are totally uninterested when I was young, or now, & I was totally absorbed, totally got it. 

As a young person, put me in a room full of low feeling, self absorbed, socially adept people, and I want to curl up and die from the agony of alienation and embarrassment from feelings of inadequacy. Now, I'm just totally disinterested and unwilling to waste one nanosecond on such things. Lol.  
Ask a young person, put me where someone is suffering, someone is unhappy, and I feel it, I empathize with it, I share it, I respond.  Put me in the presence of someone who is being persecuted, someone who is suffering injustice, and the agony is mine. Oh, I was pathologically selfish, but I could not not feel, the suffering of others, & I could not not respond.
And on questions of right and wrong, figures like Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt, Gandhi, King... my young peers were beyond yawning, beyond disinterested, and I was totally absorbed, totally feeling like I was paying attention to my real kin.

Put me out in the virgin forest, all by myself, hour after hour after hour, after day, after week... and I am happy as a pig in x.....

So, I don't know. Was I on the spectrum? Am I?

her reply, she has extensive knowledge on the subject:

you sound like you have a whole lot in common with my  late teen nephew.. Another thing he cannot do? He can't lie. If his life depended on a lie, he couldn't do it. Isn't in his nature. I always considered nephew a little Budda. And he never had a friend. zero social skills. ha

my reply:   that is really, really, really helpful to hear. I can and do tell small lies when I think it can be constructive in a situation. When I think it is destructive it is impossible for me, it does not matter the price I have to pay personally. Not possible. autism or not, the article I shared makes me think a lot of you. No?

by the way, never a friend. I never had a friend. well, sort of my dad. He was 1 trillion percent devoted to me, and I to him. Come to think of it, we probably had the same diagnosis, exactly. But up through high school, never a friend, and then my friend, he was the most socially skilled guy in school. I loved him dearly, and he and his family had some weird, deep, affection for me. But we were opposites, and have had no relationship since. And then I married the most brilliantly, highly, socially skilled person I have ever witnessed besides Bill Clinton. And that unleashed 27 years of solitary hell for us both. Lol.

another friend, trained in psychology, with extensive personal experience concerning autism replied:   
After reading about you and your experience as a child, I would have to say that you are not on the autism spectrum... You are however a truly compassionate person who was sensitive to his surroundings and not sparked by the teachers or family members to engage in social interaction or given the proper sensory input to maintain intrest. Environmental deprivation. You are amazing just as you are. I do wish things had been different for you as a young person!

my reply:   You are so wonderful to have read and reply. I pray that you read both those articles. The article on highly sensitive people, I don't recall ever reading anything where I felt so spoken to, so recognized. I say that in the context of your compassionate statement that you wish I had had a different childhood. That article on highly sensitive people speaks to the fact that those of acute aesthetic sensitivity, which is what I believe describes me young med and old, such people experience higher levels of pain than others, including isolation and solitude and loneliness, but they also experience substantially higher levels of joy, and that has always been my life. So, no, although I didn't understand it at the time, I feel so undeservingly blest with every aspect of my life situation. I never have envied anyone for quality of life ever




.






vid. 4 min. Gorillaz, released to the wild years earlier, reunite with their humans

http://www.godvine.com/family-reunites-with-gorillas-they-saved-12-years-ago-fb-gv--7113.html

SPDF: When the police start acting like a gang A journalist learns that if you photograph Border Policemen committing a felony, you’ll probably end up paying for it.

http://972mag.com/when-the-police-start-acting-like-a-gang/106515/

**** CRUCIAL.PLS READ. 'if Israel dropped its guns, not a single resident would be alive within days....... more

****  CRUCIAL.PLS READ. 'if Israel dropped its guns, not a single resident would be alive within days. If Syria, Hamas, the PLO, and Hezbollah droped their guns, there would be peace in the middle east.'  ( this comment from a high school classmate from the white, criminally elitist, Wall Street banker suburb in northern New Jersey, Short Hills, in which I was raised and indoctrinated to my life of sociopathic white overprivilege, exploitation, subjugation...  ).

MY REPLY.  'You are right.  I stand corrected. You make a good point.

That's why the white plantation owners in the south needed to oppress, enslave, subjugate the n******. That's why the white European colonists needed to exterminate upwards to 100 million native Americans. That's why the white Europeans in South Africa needed to so savagely oppressed the blacks, stealing their resources, stealing their land, from those non white savages. That's why the white Australians have needed to exterminate and opress the Aborigines. That is why you white supremacists needed to exterminate upwards of 100 million blacks in the Congo. It is why you needed Jim Crow in the south, and your oppressive, white racist police forces across the United States today.

And yes, as you correctly assert, that is exactly why Israel today needs to imprison the rightful owners of the land between the river and the sea, those by nature, genetically, inferior, savage, godless Arab Muslims who demonstrated their subhuman, savage, evil, warlike, terrorist... nature by having the audacity to live peacefully with the 3% minority Jews for thousands of years in the land of Palestine, in their 500 villages, and their relatively advanced, civililized, peaceful, Godly, culture. It is why Israel needed to preemptively mount a massive terror campaign, Plan Dalet, in November of 1947, mount 30 to 50 atrocities including the rape of women, the summary execution of old men, pregnant women, children, such as in Deir Yassin, in November of 1947, expelling through terror and force 250 thousand of the native inhabitants against all international law, against the UN Charter that allowed for the creation of Israel, and against their explicit promises to the United Nations . It is why, among the population that unlike Europe had welcomed them as protection from the Nazis, it is why they needed to carefully and aggressively build military units in anticipation of the ethnic cleansing, incremental genocide, campaign that Ben Gurion engineered and preemptively launched in November 1947, and it is why every day since with ever increasing savagery, the white Israelis have needed to persecute, torment, terrorize, and terminate the Palestinians.

Unless you sociopathic white state terrorists oppress, exploit, rape, colonize, ethnically cleanse, mass murder , exterminate... the non-whites, they will kill you, you a assert, over, and over, and over, and over.... .

The only slight problem with what you say is that your argument is based on three things that are just ever so slightly questionable:

1. Ignoring that you white supremacists are the ones that actually do the mass murder, state terrorism, consummate deceit, consummate lives, unending exploitation, unending terrorism ,

2. It is not their behavior, the non-whites, but you're pathological rhetoric, insane, savage lies and propaganda about what the non-whites will do, that suggests that they would kill someone. Not their behavior. But hey, who's going to value their behavior over your lies, deceit, and propaganda. Of course what you whites say matters, and what they don't do, as inconvenient for us that may be, doesn't matter.

3. The non-whites ( any and every oppressed, occupied, population ) by international law have the right to resist by any and every means available the war criminality of you white, racist, bigoted, sociopathic, state terrorist colonizers, oppressors, exploiters,, robbers, subhumans... .

Have a nice day

SPDF Day 52-14: Israel Will Now Be Ruled by the Most Extreme Right-Wing Government in Its History

http://www.alternet.org/world/israel-will-now-be-ruled-most-extreme-right-wing-government-its-history

SPDF Day 52-14: Supreme Court allows state to replace Bedouin village with Jewish one

http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/1.655145

Video. 3 minutes. Stop. Parkour. Just watch.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BgsrxU2lV0c&feature=youtu.be

SPDF Day 52-14: Thu 050715 Medical update. Surgery?

My awe only increases by the hour with the competence kindness and compassion of this extraordinary hospital.

The surgical team concurs that this is my 7th episode.

I emphasized with them this morning two factors that I was not sure I had clearly enough registered before: 1. The first blockage event was about 4 months ago, an 18 hour event that finally resolved itself, but the exact same pattern of all these more current events. 2. I made sure that they were understanding that 2 weeks ago today I ended a 52 day water only hunger strike(SPDF Stop Palestines Death Fast ).

It is clear to me that they have all of this in mind now.
It remains their near certainty, and mine, that these problems are a result of the unavoidable scarring that has occurred with my cancer surgeries.

I have just returned from another series of x-rays that they ordered.
I'm sure that I will hear from the team later on today.

I do not think any of us have yet decided what is in store now by way of treatment, how long I am in the hospital, the likelihood or timing of any surgery, etc. What the doctor did decide was to take me off of solids and put me back on a diet of nothing by mouth. The ivy has just been restarted with saline and glucose 
This is just conjecture on my part, but now that I think of it, nothing by mouth suggest to me that they may be thinking that surgery is something they have moved to a higher likelihood.

 We had been expecting that I would be released from the hospital this morning. Clearly that is no longer the plan. 

12 p.m. update:  The surgical team just came in and evaluated me.  The head surgeon wants me to go back on regular diet immediately. IV removed. It is not that they are doubting any of my symptoms. it is simply their judgment that we should give it more time and see if my system can learn to cope with the incoming food. I should receive lunch momentarily. I'll have dinner. a meal tomorrow morning. If all of that goes well then they will discharge me tomorrow and we will see what happens.  If and when there is the onset of another event then they have decided to administer a test that in time lapse watches the food go through my intestines so that they can better spot what is going on, where, more exactly.



SPDF: Israeli defense minister promises to kill more civilians and threatens to nuke Iran

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/israeli-defense-minister-promises-kill-more-civilians-and-threatens-nuke-iran

***** SPDF: Why right-wing Christians are actively promoting genocide A leading Evangelical magazine is calling for the destruction of Islam. It's not the outlier we might like to think

http://www.salon.com/2014/10/07/why_right_wing_christians_are_actively_promoting_genocide_partner/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Reports: Israeli Air Force attacked in Sudan

http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/politics-and-military/military/reports-israeli-air-force-attacked-in-sudan-13288

5.06.2015

***** SPDF. Med Update. Houston, we have a problem.

At about 10:30 today they started me on normal solid foods. A normal, tasty breakfast. A normal, tasty lunch. A normal, tasty dinner. Since ending the hunger strike 2 weeks ago tomorrow I was extremely careful to be wise and informed regarding the process of gently enabling my body to switch from consuming itself to being able to consume food. In addition to the years of experience that I have with this, I did additional reading, and was sure that I was heading the advice quite well. And yet, as some of you know, whether related to the hunger strike or not, my body has been quite a disaster as it relates to my stomach and gastrointestinal tract since Saturday morning about 10 days ago. Friday night when the medical team inserted an NG tube in my nose was 8 days of four bouts of ever-increasing intense abdominal pain clearly a consequence of partial and then finally total bowel obstruction. Since Friday night, 6 days ago now the medical team has had me on IV fluids until about 2 days ago, then 2 days of clear liquids, and beginning this morning solid food. Their intention was to give my bowel the opportunity to totally totally totally decompress and our hope, our expectation, was that upon eating food as I begin this morning the problem would not reappear.
Well, it has totally reappeared. Despite being three times more careful than ever, eating extremely slowly, one meal over 2 hours, chewing extremely carefully and slowly, consuming plenty of liquids, avoiding high roughage food, taking great care to never reach the point of feeling full ... I have the same distension, the same early low level of pain, as has been characteristic of the prior four bouts beginning about 10 days ago.
My wonderful young nurse that has been with me most of the days called the medical team to inform them about 45 minutes ago and they are due to come examine me soon.
This is distressing, I admit it. And it is totally nothing in the scheme of things, Palestine, environmental Armageddon, the end of democracy.....
Yes, it is a great blessing that it is happening here at the hospital, and the medical team, surely they are due credit for keeping me this additional night in the event that there was something to see. Well, show number 5 has begun.

***** SPDF: WOW WOW WOW. SO THAT'S IT ABOUT CREATURES LIKE ME! HUH.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2015/05/04/shades-of-sensitivity/

Israel's just elected justice minister, 1 year ago called for the extermination of Palestinians. democracy my effing ass. White supremacy, if not received, fundamentalist extremism, Naziesque....

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-lawmakers-call-genocide-palestinians-gets-thousands-facebook-likes

DN! vid. "Kill Anything": Israeli Soldiers Say Gaza Atrocities Came from Orders for Indiscriminate Fire

http://m.democracynow.org/stories/15193

The Israel Project for Disinformation, Subjugation, and Occupation, So-Called TIP, Targets Amnesty International

http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20Editorials/2015/May/5%20o/The%20Israel%20Project%20for%20Disinformation,%20Subjugation,%20and%20Occupation,%20So-Called%20TIP,%20Targets%20Amnesty%20International%20By%20Stuart%20Littlewood.htm

SPDF: Malevolence can be the only possible motive for creating sonic booms over Gaza at the very time aid agencies, medics and other humanitarian aid workers are engaged in the monumental attempt to alleviate suffering in the blockaded territory.

http://chat2gaza.com/2015/05/01/gaza-a-living-nightmare-for-its-children/

By punching downward, by attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority with crude, vulgar drawings closer to graffiti than cartoons,” Trudeau contended, “Charlie wandered into the realm of hate speech, which in France is only illegal if it directly incites violence. Well, voila—the 7 million copies that were published following the killings did exactly that.”

http://www.alternet.org/culture/hebdos-dubious-pen-pals-privileged-conservative-pundits

SPDF: Israel's explanation for killing two journalists in Gaza? Palestinians aren't journalists, they're 'targets'

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/11/israels-explanation-for-killing-two-journalists-in-gaza-palestinians-arent-journalists-theyre-targets

Wikileaks Sony Hack Reveals Hollywood’s Hand In Repairing Israel’s Broken Image

http://www.mintpressnews.com/wikileaks-sony-hack-reveals-hollywoods-hand-in-repairing-israels-broken-image/205176/

SPDF Day 52-12: 'Indiscriminate' Killing in Gaza Was Top-Down War Plan, say Israeli Veterans | Common Dreams

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/05/04/indiscriminate-killing-gaza-was-top-down-war-plan-say-israeli-veterans

5.05.2015

***** Paul Krugman: Tens of millions of lives poisoned by grotesque inequalities

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/paul-krugman-tens-of-millions-of-lives-poisoned-by-grotesque-inequalities-1.2199625

China orders Muslim shopkeepers to sell alcohol, cigarettes, to ‘weaken’ Islam

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/05/05/china-orders-muslim-shopkeepers-to-sell-alcohol-cigarettes-to-weaken-islam/?tid=sm_fb

SPDF: Robert Reich: The Trans Pacific Partnership is a corporate hijacking

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/05/robert_reich_the_trans_pacific_partnership_is_trickle_down_economics_by_another_name_partner/

***** SPDF: Godly Jewish High schoolers riding Jerusalem's light rail speak only Arabic to focus attention on incidents in which people were attacked because of the language they spoke.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4653796,00.html?preview=true

French companies have withdrawn from the Jerusalem cable-car Judaization project, which is largely located over Jerusalem’s Old City

http://falastinews.com/2015/04/29/boycott-french-companies-quit-jerusalem-cable-car-project/

South African universities join academic boycott of Israel

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/18429-south-african-universities-join-academic-boycott-of-israel

***** SPDF: Max Blumenthal. As the Palestinians do today, Spanish Jews resisted oppression in tunnels and, exiled, clutched their keys

http://mondoweiss.net/2015/05/resisted-oppression-clutched

***** Report about Israeli soldiers in 2014 war: 'If you shoot someone in Gaza, it's cool' CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/04/middleeast/israeli-soldiers-gaza-war-breaking-the-silence/

***** SPDF Download and open a report called "This is How We Fought in Gaza: Soldiers' testimonies and photographs from Operation 'Protective Edge' (2014)."

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/.premium-1.655059

***** SPDF: HA'ARETZ Whatever your politics, you should know this: These soldiers and the people of Breaking the Silence are Israeli patriots. They are advocating for Israel.

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/.premium-1.655059

***** SPDF Washington Post: New report details how Israeli soldiers killed civilians in Gaza: “There were no rules”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/05/04/israeli-soldiers-reveal-this-is-how-we-fought-in-gaza/

5.04.2015

SPDF: chris Hedges, the liberal elite, Clinton led, betrayal of the American workers. video. 4 minutes.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Whah4cPYaLo

SPPDF: Israeli Army Drills Continue to Set Fire to Jordan Valley Agricultural Lands

http://www.imemc.org/article/71460

Tufts students to begin hunger strike over job cuts

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/05/03/tufts-students-begin-hunger-strike-support-university-janitors-targeted-for-layoffs/O30YeVmPxq6cJz8PPOmkVL/story.html

Report: Netanyahu rejected Kerry visit after election win

http://thehill.com/policy/international/240898-report-netanyahu-rejected-kerry-trip-after-election-win

SPDF: Israeli Soldiers: “Army Deliberately Targeted Civilians In Gaza” “I think, deep inside, it bothered me a little. But after three weeks in Gaza, when you’re firing at everything that moves, and even things that don’t move, at a psychotic pace, you don’t really … good and bad get a little mixed up and your morality starts to get lost and you lose your compass. And it becomes like a computer game. Really, really cool and real.”

http://www.mintpressnews.com/israeli-soldiers-army-deliberately-targeted-civilians-in-gaza/205287/

SPDF: Israeli Soldiers Admit to Shooting Palestinians for ‘Fun’ in Gaza War

http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20150505/1021711335.html#ixzz3ZDKIbB6o

SPDF: 'Indiscriminate' Killing in Gaza Was Top-Down War Plan, say Israeli Veterans

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/05/04/indiscriminate-killing-gaza-was-top-down-war-plan-say-israeli-veterans

Paul Krugman: “The poor don’t need lectures on morality, they need more resources…and better economic opportunities.”

https://touch.facebook.com/home.php#!/story.php?story_fbid=10152859613181519&id=120680396518

vid. Will Smith. Greatness is simple, I Know Who I am, I know what I believe in, and I am willing to die for it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q5nVqeVhgQE&feature=youtu.be

SPDF Day 52-11: Israeli soldiers describe 'losing their sense of morality' during the Gaza conflict Soldiers who took part in last year's Gaza conflict tell Breaking the Silence, an NGO run by former Israeli soldiers, that they were told "If you shoot someone in Gaza, it's cool, no big deal"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/gaza/11580539/Israeli-soldiers-describe-losing-their-sense-of-morality-during-the-Gaza-conflict.html

WATCH: Africans in Israel experience different forms of oppression depending on their religion. Journalist David Sheen provides essential background for understanding the ‪#‎BlackLivesMatter‬ protests unfolding in Israel.

https://touch.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10153808128374992&id=186525784991&refid=28&_ft_=qid.6145153325713021500%3Amf_story_key.6848258570296547696&__tn__=%2As

The high Israeli court on Monday approved a request of the Israeli civil administration to demolish the tents and homes of Khirbet Susiya village near Hebron, leaving 450 people homeless.

http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=765225

vid 2 min. Tami Forbes is a hardworking manager at Key West Key Lime Pie Company in Florida but is only paid $300 a week.

http://www.upworthy.com/a-mom-of-2-plus-1-on-the-way-bursts-into-tears-when-shes-finally-paid-what-she-deserves?c=ufb1

***** and if this had been American Muslims organizing an art event to offend Jews? The inaugural “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest” was organized by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and billed as a celebration of free speech, at a time when images of Muhammad have sparked outrage among Muslims, who consider representations of the Prophet blasphemous.

http://time.com/3845346/pamela-geller-afdi-american-freedom-defense-initiative/

Lauryn Hill cancels Israel show after Palestinian boycott call

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/lauryn-hill-cancels-israel-show-after-palestinian-boycott-call

SPDF Day 52-11: Gunning for destruction in Gaza: ‘You want to see people in pieces’ 36,000 artillery shells, tank shells, mortars, anti-tank missiles and munitions, alongside an ubiquitous use of armored bulldozers, razed streets and districts to the ground during last summer’s Gaza war. According to a newly published Breaking the Silence report, this is exactly what the Israeli army wanted.

http://972mag.com/gunning-for-destruction-in-gaza-you-want-to-see-people-in-pieces/106293/

***** SDF Day 52-11: 'COMMITMENT IS NOT THE MAJOR THING IN CREATING JUSTICE. IT'S THE ONLY THING.'

[[[Quote above inspired by my favorite earlier quote, "Example is not the major thing in influencing people. It is the only thing." Albert Schweitzer]]]

The following was inspired by an email exchange with the Godsend activist from Texas, Diane Wilson. First the non bracketed sections Day -10 May 2, , and then the [[ ]] bracket sections Day -11 May 3, in most cases were further inspired by my dialogue with her.... and now a few key updates Day -12 May 4 [[[ ]]].

 [[ I have never known anything more important than what I am sharing in this post with you. Therefore I have never shared with you anything more important than this post. Of course, you are not therefore obligated to me to read this at all. But humbly, I think you are obligated to anyone you know and care about to read it, as long, and rambling, and arduous  as it is.]]
[[ COMMITMENT...Total, unreserved, unhesitating, eager, passionate, aggressive, full hearted, bountiful, unlimited, joyous  COMMITMENT  is the essential and central truth of the life of everyone throughout history that we revere as the Activists who have changed the world for the good. Is this not profoundly true?

Is this not true?

Is this not true of the one, or two, or three people in our personal life that have profoundly improved our individual life for the better?

Which is the mother that we consider heroic, good, or even merely healthy : is it the mother who would do 'almost' anything for the well being of her child, or is it the mother who obviously does anything and everything, without hesitation, with the fullest and most joyful heart, no matter the pain, no matter the sacrifice, no matter the unpleasantness, no matter the indignity, no matter the cost, no matter the price...?

Maybe in our own life personally, if we are among the few lucky ones, or at least in history or literature, can we not think of the parent, the friend, the life partner, the son, the daughter, the spouse, the activist... that is truly the epitome of those sacred words just mentioned here, those sacred roles, truly the epitome exactly and precisely because of the infinite, unconditional, unending, unstoppable COMMITMENT  that was their essential nature?
Can't we please, please, find it within ourselves in 2015 to face the obvious, horrible, ultimately consequential truth, that we have spent decades, at least since the sixties, (and today's ultimate intellectual, Chris Hedges, argues authoritatively, since the early 1900's, in his book and YouTube lectures,  the Death of the Liberal Class), that we have year upon year for decades gained mastery in using our near infinite capacity for denial against our duty to humanity for radical commitment to all of humanity... precisely for the purpose of more and more aggressively and completely running into the embrace of an all-consuming selfishness, self-centeredness, self protectiveness, self aggrandizement, self medicating, self survival, self-pleasuring affloholism  at all costs, consumption centric... way of being? 

Please, can't we for just a moment, in private, as you are reading this, admit and face this ? Is there no one we love enough to face this most central, most important, future destroying truth of our pathological avoidance of True commitment , in time, even for a moment ?

Please note: in recent weeks, mercifully, for me, the word 'commitment' has rocketed to the center all that I understand to be important to humankind, to all of humanity, in this year 2015.  For the last decade of my life, the central manifestation of this all important aspect of human potentiality, 'commitment,'  took for me the form of the words, 'family emergency response,' and if one were to search my writings on the term, 'family emergency response,' they would find my earlier, & I think valuable, thoughts and writings on that. Among the things they might find is a separate blog that I created of excerpts from a book entitled, Courage and Conscience, by Eva Fogelman, stories of non Jewish rescuers during the Holocaust. I highly recommend that for further reading, the blog, the book. I think that my blog profile that can be found on the right side of this blog probably points to that other blog as well.

If you have not read the rest of this post I hope you do so. If you have, then also in double brackets you will find other important updates below. ]]

[[ note: a reminder to my activist sister who I treasure and Revere, who was the original target of the beginnings of this post, of all the people I know you are least the target of any concerns I express in our individual or collective deficiencies in this post. this is neither a credit to you nor a discredit to any of the rest of us, but please keep it in mind.]]

'Hey, dear sister. The 'Dire straits' I am in and out of, the pain,  the hospital,  these last 8 days or so, the 52 day fast... you were referring to? The only dire straits I have are the Palestinian Holocaust by USrael, ecocide,  the final destruction of American democracy, and the long ago Soul-death of any living Americans, with the exception of you and the tiniest tiniest tiniest handful of others, which is the sum total cause of the first three Armageddons . The rest regarding me physically is just of minor interest, and major distraction.

Are there friends looking after me?  This most recent hunger strike was the final straw for the few who had remained at all close. Only one exception that I see, a high school classmate that I'm not sure I would recognize if and when I saw her, but she has remained faithful and kind.  

[[ No, there is no one looking after me, and to some degree those few who had remained close to me realize more clearly than ever that I neither want nor need anyone looking after me. I am not 'the least of these' our family. 'The least of these our family' according to near all of the moral Giants left on earth is objectively our family in Palestine that for 68 years now has been subject to the most brilliant, relentless, excruciating, malevolent, intellectually and technically advanced, near infinitely funded, Infinitely corrupt, malignant terrorization that cruelty, science, evolved Nazism, evolved fascism, evolved colonialism, evolved white Euro American supremacy, evolved white Elite colonialism,1 infinite greed ... can bring to bear. The purpose of my life is to focus my energy, and the energy of anyone I can influence, not on me, possibly through me, to our family in Palestine.]]

I know a tremendous amount about the path that I travel. and I am acutely aware that there is desperately  more to know and I strive with nearly every breath to learn it. 

I have learned a monumentally important lesson from this most recent fast that I did not anticipate learning, and that in another sphere of my life I had mastered early in my adulthood, but only now am i realizing its broader and central application to every aspect of my life now, and always, but I was not aware until now .

In my almost three decades business life I was acutely and centrally aware regarding any prospective relationship whether the nature of the person that I was considering engaging with was a person of profound commitment, or not. Throughout my career I would be in positions where funds were available to hire people for critical assignments and I never made the mistake of filling those desperately needed vacancies unless and until that rare individual with the capacity and yearning to profoundly commit was available. I would almost literally kill myself to take up the slack myself, or to avoid otherwise attractive and lucrative projects, never fooling myself that a less than radically committed individual could be other than at best a dead weight in the 'life and death' missions that were always what I did.

But in my personal life, from the beginning, and to a profound degree in my life as an activist, I have not held the commitment of prospective fellows as a central issue, at least not with the life and death clarity that I had done in my business life, and that I utterly needed to be applying in my personal and activist life .

I suspect I may never make that mistake again, and at the same time, as I said, the few folks that had been hanging at all close to me, too, in their own way, are understanding what has now become clear to me - it is a mistake for me, it is a mistake for others, to be in relationship with me, except with those rare individuals, maybe one in a million, like you, that by their nature understands that True Living, True Life is radical commitment, and anything less, anything else, is simply walking death, living in the matrix.  [['The person is not truly living who is not dying for something larger than themselves,' is a paraphrase, with liberties, of Dr King Jr. I know this to be true from my own life. 'We may not have the money to achieve what humanity needs from us; we may not have enough education,..., but we have the ability to die for it,' is another MLK Jr. quote, with liberties, he spoke to a large gathering of folks in a church during the civil rights movement . 

I know of the centrality  of unconditional, unbridled, commitment, to be true from so much of the literature throughout history that is great. I know this from the lives of those throughout history that I admire. I know this from what has been central to those who have positively impacted my life. Do you not know this as well? 

Am I, are you, leading those we love to True Life, or to the living Death of The Matrix?  For all but one in a million of us the truth, is the latter.   Is there no one we love enough to face this?]]

[[This penultimate centrality of unconditional, unlimited commitment to humanity and creation]] is a joyful, liberating, freeing, clarifying, empowering revelation for me. The total centrality of commitment was so central to any success I had in my business career, and so much misery for me and others has resulted lifelong through my personal life, and to the associations that I otherwise wanted to have in my activist life, through my selective myopia .  I didn't know. But I do now. So much makes sense now that near drove me crazy for so many decades because I couldn't see what was going on. What I was missing. What I was overlooking. Now I get it.

Maybe you are familiar with this old saying: the chicken is involved, the pig is committed. Even in this most vicious, excrutating, malignant, evil Israeli Holocaust of our Palestinians, even the relatively heroic activists involved with this cause, except those in the International Solidarity Movement in Palestine itself, and the Palestinians fighting valiantly in Palestine itself, except for those, even the magnificent American based activists like Jewish Voice for Peace, they are Iinvolved,' but they are only  'committed' with every fiber of their being to not getting sucked in to life changing Radical commitment to freeing Palestine that is the only thing that can ever possibly win. [['No,' you say? Tell me who in the United States is acting as though it is their immediate child, their immediate son, their immediate daughter, that will be the next one tortured terrorized terminated by the Israeli death forces and we American benefactors? Tell me!]]  There are thousands of magnificent people in the United States involved with free Palestine and none that will other than fight to the death to avoid becoming personally committed in a way that is historically worthy of the term .

I am not very bright it sometimes seems . I could not come to see this except by diving in to what I had expected and prayed was an opportunity to pay the full price of my life with the thought of saving even one Palestinian life. 

[[But with not one committed soul that I can see in the united states unconditionally  'committed ' to free Palestine,  I am unable to pay the full price of my life to save even one Palestinian... If a tree dies and falls in the woods but everyone is in willful, sociopathic, impenetrable denial to that act ... It has died in vain . If someone shows up with the ultimate price for what they want above all else but there is no one there to witness, to receive, the payment, they have wasted their life, they have thrown away their ultimate value to no purpose .]]   

[[ You think I am being judgmental? Really? With an adulthood devoted to life and death, high-stakes leadership change, I should not be thinking such thoughts, sharing my thinking? I have not devoted my life to authoritatively understanding such things?]]

[[ Should we not all be devoted to understanding what has been discussed in this post? Should focusing on our selves, on our own behavior and those with whom we associate, those in whom we retain any hope,  should this be off limits, or should this be central to what we are concerned with?

No, I spend almost no time focusing on, analyzing, criticizing many groups... not the Republicans, not the Conservatives, not the politicians, not the evil people, the government, not the corporations, not the fundamentalists and fanatics in any religion .... 

My criticism, my critique, my harshness... Is devoted at those who are most in line with myself, the Liberals, the Democrats, the educated, the 'activists'.... 

Yes, this is against all of the rules of the groups I just mentioned. Among those groups the primary rule is to never criticize those with whom you are associated. This is insanity. This insanity is totally expressed in the following quote from Albert Einstein, the world will not be destroyed by the evil people, but by the good people that do not stop them.' The good people is you who are reading this post , and those like you. You and those like you are the only hope, 100 percent of the only hope. And you are not, by any and every measure stopping the evil people, not in the next one thousand years, and at most you have 1000 days? Where else am I going to constructively focus my attention besides first myself, and secondarily, you, and those like you?]]

Every 1 of the 52 days on this death fast simply showed me that I would be throwing my life away if I want more than the 52 days I took it.

So, if I cannot save  even one Palestinian life, then I can work to slightly improve even one Palestinian life, and this  I shall do.

[[Sun]]
If and when I get out of this hospital, and based on a consultation with the surgeons several hours ago, although no decisions have been made regarding imminent surgery or not, I'll guess that I will be out this week, I'll then have my computer back at my fingertips and I expect to finalize the Free Palestine Death Fast book that I have in revision number 5. I will send it to you, pdf, and try and highlight the sections that I dearly hope that you spend time reviewing and sharing with me your comments. Again, this Death Fast has taught me some desperately important lessons that I have not been able to learn from others, even from you, & I would really like for you to be exposed to what I have learned whether or not you find it of benefit once you have seen what I mean.

[[ Monday, 3 p.m. 32 pounds lighter from the fast , and still dropping. The hospital has me on liquids only....

Major medical update:
I say again, there is no hospital in the world where I could be receiving more competent, more Loving, assistance then in this Georgetown University Hospital. I am a homeless 'bum,' like Jesus before me... tattoos on my face, no one could be receiving more compassionate, more competent, or thorough care then I. I'm deeply admiring, deeply grateful, because it seems that yet again I am to remain in this horrible wreckage of a world our neoliberal greed and  neglect is creating and the care I am receiving is giving me the ability to continue to attempt to do with every single breath my pitiful little part of trying to make it better for at least one other, unknown, creature.
Today there have been three major consultations, two with the surgical team that has been watching, and could operate on, my abdomen, and with a third doctor, a resident I think, about what is the next step, a probe of my colon.

From the surgical team regarding their diagnosis and outlook as to the bowel obstructions from which I have been suffering since last Saturday morning:

Whereas it may be that over the last 9 days I have had four major occurrences of bowel obstruction that have each resolved themselves except for the fourth one that was resolved with the NG tube, their leading theory, and mine as well, is that it was not four separate occurrences but one occurrence that never resolved.

They really are being very thorough in their explanations now which I need and appreciate.

They very very very very much want to avoid doing any more surgery because experience shows clearly that any surgery definitely increases the likelihood of future bowel obstructions over and above even what current surgeries have resulted in. And any time there is surgery around the intestines it can result in wounds to the intestine itself which can be extremely dangerous and problematic.

They have been clear for several days that they hoped I would stabilize enough that they could do a probe and look as far as they could within my colon to see if they could see what was causing the obstructions. Among their major concerns is more cancer, more tumors, as this was the site, my colon, of the original tumors.  Further, they have checked with my oncologist here at Georgetown, understand that I was due for a colonoscopy anyway to screen for further cancer, so all of this should occur tomorrow after a night for me of me drinking a gallon of stuff to cleanse my bowel, ugh.

Final scheduling is not yet set so it could be delayed until Wednesday.

They, we, simply don't know what will happen afterwards. That is, we don't know if I will go hours, days, weeks, or longer... before the next bowel obstruction.

As to diet they say that the research is clear, or the lack of research is clear, or both, there is just nothing that says what diet is best for someone after the abdominal surgeries that I have had, to best avoid obstructions, adhesions.... There are no known restrictions that offers any improvement over no restriction at all.  Yes, there is much to the contrary on the internet, which they acknowledge, but this team has my total confidence. Goodness, have they earned it. ]]

[[[Tue:

Colonoscopy and general colon exam completed.

No new cancer or tumors found.  Several small polyps removed.

No hints as to the source of the four major obstruction bouts this last week.

This leaves the leading theory that it is scarring from prior surgeries that are causing the obstructions.  But it will be Wed, this morning, that I expect to learn from the docs what they propose.]]]

5.03.2015

15 neighborhoods in Baltimore have a lower life expectancy than North Korea

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/03/1381214/-The-most-racist-areas-in-the-United-States?detail=facebook_sf

Student Hillel chief at Pennsylvania college resigns over censorship of civil rights veterans

http://electronicintifada.net/content/hillel-chief-pennsylvania-college-resigns-over-censorship-civil-rights-veterans/14391

***** Ethiopian-Israelis' protest against police violence is met with police violence Police use stun grenades, violence against protest in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, sparked by video of two officers beating a black Israeli soldier.

http://972mag.com/ethiopian-israelis-protest-against-police-violence-is-met-with-police-violence/106280/

Israeli forces wound 4 Palestinian journalists

http://www.daysofpalestine.com/news/israeli-forces-wound-4-palestinian-journalists/

Palestinian resistance faction ‪#‎Hamas‬ on Sunday said it is ready to compete in the parliamentary and presidential elections and accused President Mahmoud ‪#‎Abbas‬ of hampering its conduct

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/18412-hamas-fires-back-at-abbas-says-ready-for-elections

Israel and the coalition of oppressors

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/coalition-oppressors-1378786532

Eyewitness debunks claim of “attack” on Paris Jews by BDS activists

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/eyewitness-debunks-claim-attack-paris-jews-bds-activists

SPDF Day 52-10: Full effort is full success, said Gandhi. The difference between the current outlook, future as hell, & a future worth living, is whether or not .......

Full effort is full success, said Gandhi. The difference between the current outlook, future as hell, & a future worth living, is whether or not 1, 2, 4, 8... people like you begin to truly live that out as did Gandhi, as did Martin Luther King jr., as did hundreds or thousands of '60's civil rights activists, as does Malala.... Currently, the epitaph on the human species will read millions paid lip service to full commitment and devotion, and virtually no one actually lived it. I judge no person. But I judge behavior, starting with my own, and unless and until we hold ourselves to the standard of the likes of Gandhi, King, Malala... There is no hope. When some of us do, & I would have no way of knowing whether you are, or are not, then we begin to create the possibility of some hope. Be well friend

***** SPDF. Day 52-10: Jimmy Carter calls situation in Gaza 'intolerable' eight months after warFormer US president, in Jerusalem with former Norwegian prime minister, says residents ‘cannot live with the respect and dignity they deserve’jimmy carter

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/02/jimmy-carter-gaza-israel-jerusalem

***** SPDF Day 52 minus 10: URGENT - FIGHT OBAMA'S PROPOSED TPP LEGISLATION.VID 2MIN. ROBERT REICH.


SPDF Day 52 minus 10: Hunger strike is most dangerous once food intake is attempted.As I have experienced and......

SPDF Day 52 minus 10: Hunger strike is most dangerous once food intake is attempted.

As I have experienced and said for almost a decade now, the long hunger strike is most dangerous once food intake begins. This is always the case, and in my personal experience, by far the most clear, in this 52 day fast.

Part of the reason that returning to the world of food is so particularly dangerous for me at this time is that it comes after 3 years of surgeries and chemo fighting cancer. But, never the less even on my hunger strikes before the cancer, that the time of reentry is the most dangerous time, was true.

Since the beginning of this Stop Palestines Death Fast I have gone from 175 pounds down to now 145 pounds. Four of those pounds lost since I began attempting to consume food 1 week ago Thursday afternoon, 10 days ago now. 

Remember this when you gain the courage and sanity, the humanity, to realize that you value the well being of others more than you value your own life... to be yearning to use this Death Fast weapon yourself, for the future of every one that you care about. The body, when switching from consuming itself for food to consuming external calories, is the most dangerous, the most tiring, and in some ways the most difficult part of the hunger strike.

This Sunday morning is my second day here at Georgetown University Hospital. They are keeping me here with this NG tube sucking what little body fluids enter my stomach for several reasons: 1, watching to see if emergency surgery is required, 2, hoping that by taking several days using this tube to fully decompress' my intestines that what was a full bowel obstruction may completely resolve without the need for surgery. 3, they prefer to not do surgery on weekends.

Friday evening is when they inserted the tube; within one hundred and twenty seconds almost 2 liters of fluid gushed out, and for the first time in, well, the first of now four obstruction episodes, that lasted for 2 hours beginning the prior Saturday morning, my stomach began to stop aching, and to be without the large distention, and to feel fairly normal.
My stomach continues to feel normal and to be without the distention. Unfortunately, now the pain is in my throat because of this NG tube. The pain meds that occasionally I accept from them barely touch the pain of swallowing which otherwise is an 8 or a 9.

Of the four extreme pain episodes that began last Saturday morning at 1:30 a.m., it is unclear to me and to the surgical team here whether they were four distinct obstruction episodes, or whether they were one episode of partial blockage that never fully resolved and finally became a 13 hour complete blockage. The reason that matters is because if we knew, it would inform whether surgery early next week is the best option. 

In my view, & I think that they concur, if it was four distinct episodes that each began within 18 hours of me attempting to take food, each time, then that would suggest that surgery now to remove the causal scar tissue is in order. If, however, it was one long episode that never fully resolved, then this 2 or 3 day reset, taking all pressure off of the intestines through the use of this NG tube, then that would suggest to forego surgery at this moment and see if I can return to a normal eating pattern without surgery. I suspect that that decision will be made by us today or tomorrow.

There may be hospitals in the country or the world that are as good as Georgetown (GUH), but I seriously question whether there are any that are superior. This Is an extremely competent kind, professional staff from the people in housekeeping, the technicians that continually take my vital signs and blood, the people that wheel me around the hospital for tests, of course the nurses, and the doctors, although at least one of the surgeons has the bedside manner of a stone. GUH is a testament to how entirely possible it is for a large group of people to live and maintain extreme humanity and caring. It is a miraculous blessing to my attempts to live the life we are all created to live, 1 completely committed to serving the neediest of humanity, as pitiful, and totally impotent, as my attempts obviously are. With whatever time I have left I expect to continue to miserably fail in my attempts, and to never ever fail to make the attempt. Full effort is full success, the only full success, there is none other, as Gandhi rightly said.

Thank goodness I had the presence of mind to grab my 7 inch tablet and a charger as I hobbled to the health care clinic after the first seven hours of this fourth episode on Friday, where they kindly called an ambulance for me and sent me off to the hospital. as a consequence, when I am NOT sleeping, or too distracted by pain, I can at least be fighting for my tormented, terrorized, tortured family in Palestine, online.

***** SPPDF Day. 52-10: Carter says Hamas leader committed to peace, Netanyahu notEx-president doesn’t meet PM, says it would be a ‘waste of time'; claims Mashaal is ‘not a terrorist’ and ‘strongly in favor of peace process’

http://www.timesofisrael.com/carter-says-hamas-leader-committed-to-peace-netanyahu-not/

5.02.2015

The Silencing of Dorothy Thompson by the Zionist Crime Mob

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tIKJhs8IWyk

Seven-year-old boy is arrested in East Jerusalem, interrogated for hours, released at 3 AM

http://mondoweiss.net/2015/05/jerusalem-interrogated-released?utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_content=55450a1f04d3013e22000001&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

***** "Journalists have more freedom to report, but in general, the readership and audiences do not want to know what their governments are doing and what their peers are causing," she said.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1505/S00021/haaretz-journalist-warns-of-growing-dangers-for-news-media.htm

SPDF Day 52-9: chris hedges: is reals assault on casa is about ethniccleansing, and nothing else

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOZXK6pf0Q

***** Finkelstein, Gandhi: Violence Against Disproportionate Aggression Is Not Violence

http://www.countercurrents.org/barsocchini300415B.htm

5.01.2015

SPDIF day 52 - 8: awaiting words from the surgeons .....

SPDIF day 52 - 8: awaiting words from the surgeons in the emergency room. the cat scan shows a full bowel obstruction. after 13 hours of extreme pain they have inserted an NG tube to drain my stomach. 'That is the fastest I have ever seen a stomach empty,' the emergency room nurse said. This large container is what came out in the first 90 seconds. 20 percent more has come out so far.
I am in the Washington Hospital Center, run by the same MedStar that runs Georgetown that has done most of my surgery. The surgeon here recommends, & I concur, that if they have a bed it makes sense to transfer me to Georgetown so that the surgeon that did my original work can do this work as well. Otherwise if they do surgery it will happen here. 


It seems that they will watch to see if the bowel obstruction, a kink, resolves itself. There is a preference to avoid surgery because more surgery creates more opportunity for scar tissue to create this problem again. But they share my view that this is the fifth occurrence in the last 7 days, and I had several episodes before the hunger strike but not as acute as these more recent episodes.
The thought of having this the sword of Damocles hanging over my life is pretty unpleasant. So I lean toward surgery, but I will rely on the advice, any strong advice, of the surgeons.
My Dr, a very competent young man shares my suspicion that 52 days without food created the conditions for my pre existing scar tissue from earlier operations to expand. I have no regrets. None. I was preferring to be able to pay the full price of my life to save even one Palestinian. To my horror I discovered that no one cares. Yes, no one cares. The price of this incident now, the last 13 hours of pain, and many such incidents in the future, I have no regrets. I am aware of no personal price I would not pay to save even one Palestinian....
  10 p.m. update: will be transferred tonight to Georgetown University Hospital, the site of most of my cancer surgery. No final word on whether a will watch me or perform surgery.



Back in the emergency room. Extreme pain since 7 this morning. 12 hours now. My hunch.....

Back in the emergency room. Extreme pain since 7 this morning. 12 hours now. My hunch is that 52 days without food allowed the scar tissue from my cancer operations to lay traps around my intestines causing obstruction. Awaiting results from the CT scan an hour ago.

***** must read. Must read. Must read. In Baltimore violent protests are correct.

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/28/baltimores_violent_protesters_are_right_smashing_police_cars_is_a_legitimate_political_strategy/