Massive rally at White House condemns Israel

Ashley Wells, Sheldon S., Wisdom Quarterly; CODEPINKla.org

Hey, White House, Buddhist monks agree: We need the change we were promised! (phayul)

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Massive Rally at White House condemning Israeli massacre in Gaza

Cool it in Gaza? - Hell no, we're killing 'em!

Washington, DC - CODEPINK (Women for Peace) joined the White House rally on Saturday, August 2, calling on the U.S. government to pressure Israel [and or the CIA and U.S. military-industrial complex] to stop the ongoing massacre and lift its illegal siege of Gaza in Palestine, Israel.

Gaza Strip ghetto, Palestine

CODEPINK activists carried large banners and conducted a mock cemetery with bloodied dolls and toys commemorating the loss of so many innocent Palestinian lives, especially children.

CODEPINK activists have engaged in actions across the country almost daily since the Israeli attack on Gaza began. They have protested at Israeli consulates across the country, been arrested for blocking the entrance of the Israeli Embassy in DC, rallied at U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s house, and more.

 

The U.S. gov't pushes for Israel's crimes.

With the toll in Gaza [now far] surpassing 1,400 deaths, 8,200 wounded, and 180,300 civilians displaced, activists are determined to keep pressure on the U.S. to end its arming, funding, and unconditional support for Israel and its war crimes.
 

In the past few days alone, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks by U.S.-owned F-16s, Apache helicopters, weaponized drones, tank shelling, and naval bombardment.

 

Actually controlling the media

The tiny Gaza Strip (home of 1.8 million civilian)’s only power plant was targeted by Israel's state-sponsored militants -- the fourth most powerful army in the world -- and blown up, schools were destroyed, U.N. shelters were illegally bombed and hospitals targeted after threat-warning that they would be shelled, and over 4,000 homes knocked to the ground, explains retired Colonel Ann Wright (with paraphrasing and augmenting by WQ). “We must take action to stop this!”

“As a Jew, a mother, a U.S. taxpayer, and a compassionate human being, I weep as I watch the massacre of so many innocent people, including hundreds of children in Gaza”

- CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin

“We must take our heartbreak and outrage directly to the White House,” Benjamin adds. The press contact for this action is Ali McCracken (860) 575-5692. More

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Control of the U.S. Media

Israel keeps killing kids with impunity (video)

Ashley Wells, Sheldon S., Pfc. Sandoval, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; Amy Goodman, Mo Omer, Aaron Mate, Nermeen Shaikh (DemocracyNow.org, Aug. 4, 2014)

As Israel's kill toll in Gaza tops 1,800, Dr. Mona El-Farra mourns loss of 9 innocent relatives in Israeli strike

• Thousands of Americans protest U.S. support for Israel's assault on Gaza in Washington, D.C.

Israel kills dozens more in Rafah

The United States [minus our shadow government reveling in profits for the military-industrial complex] and the United Nations have condemned Israel after an airstrike killed 10 people near the entrance of a U.N. school sheltering Palestinian civilians.

The school was reportedly being used as a shelter for about 3,000 people, most of them terrified children. It was the second illegal targeting of a U.N. school by Israel in less than a week. It tried to pin its first attack on Hamas to deflect international criticism but was conclusively shown to be the culprit, making Israel a "terrorist state" once again. And it was the seventh such crime against humanity over the course of Israel’s offensive war on Gaza.

Music for Judeo-Christian soldiers

Jewish American youth aspire to go to Israel to kill Palestinians, fly safe missions as glorious, state-sponsored Air Force terrorists, defend their other country from the unruly natives. It has in just 50 years packed the indigenous population into two teeming camps in which they are concentrated, open air prisons, non-Jewish neighborhoods, ghettos called the West Bank and the Gaza Strip where they are fish in a barrel to be shot at. Wonder what they listen to on their iPads as they kill, Florida's Cannibal Corpse maybe? "They think they know who I am/ All they know is I love to kill/ Face down, dead on the ground/ Find me before another is found/ I come alive in the darkness [night raids]/ Left murdered and nameless/ Dead, unburied, and rotten/ Half eaten by insects.../ They're all dead, they're all dead/ They're all dead, by [our invasion]... It felt so good to kill/ I took their lives away/ Seven dead, lying rotten/ Unburied victims their naked bodies putrefy [and get eaten by animals]/... They're all dead, they're all dead/ They're all dead, by [our invasion]/ I come alive in the darkness/ Left murdered and nameless/ Dead, unburied, and rotten/ Half eaten by insects..."

US, we deserve protection not US bombs

The coordinates of the school were reportedly communicated to the Israel "Defense" Force no fewer than 33 times, the last time just an hour before the shelling. That is, there is no way Israel did not know exactly what they were targeting and shelling in violation of international law and Geneva Conventions. 

 

Shortly after Israel’s attack on Sunday, the U.S. State Department issued a statement saying: "The United States is appalled by today’s disgraceful shelling outside an UNRWA school." U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon characterized the attack as "a moral outrage and a criminal act." [Will PM Netanyahu be dragged to the Hague? Not if U.S. politicians and CIA officials can help it.] 

DN! gets an update from Christopher Gunness, spokesperson for UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency) for Palestine Refugees. More

Israel's new policy: Kill Everything That Moves: "Everything that moves in Rafah is a target": Israel continues shelling civilians in Gaza during short "pause" [that serves mostly to draw out more human targets as relative try to gather corpses and body parts for dignified burials] 

 

The number of Palestinians murdered by Israel in Gaza has topped 1,800 as the Israeli offensive enters its 28th day. On yesterday [Sunday, Aug. 3, 2014], at least 10 people were killed when Israel illegally shelled another U.N. school shelter for Palestinian civilians.

 

Why kill Gazans when you can kill Gaia?

The U.S. has officially called the attack "disgraceful," while U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned it as a "moral outrage and a criminal act." It was the seventh U.N. school hit since Israel’s offensive began. The U.N., meanwhile, is warning of a "rapidly unfolding" health crisis in Gaza as large parts of the territory had their power and running water taken out by targeted Israeli strikes, and around 400,000 are now displaced by Israel's war of aggression on its segregated indigenous population.

More than 200 Palestinians have been killed since a 72-hour ceasefire collapsed on Friday [Aug. 1, 2014]. Over the weekend, the Israeli government admitted that a soldier it had used as war propaganda by reporting him [Hadar Goldin] as "captured and taken hostage by Hamas" was actually killed in a battle as he attacked badly outgunned Hamas resisters.

Earlier today, Israel announced a unilateral seven-hour truce ("pause") in most of the Gaza Strip, except for Rafah, where Israel has concentrated its bombardment. Palestinians have already accused Israel of breaking its own ceasefire by launching deadly attacks on the Shati refugee camp, another crime against humanity. DN! goes live to Gaza City to speak with its correspondent Mohammed Omer, an award-winning Palestinian journalist who has family in Rafah. More

 

"Disgraceful," "criminal act [aka war crime]": Israel is condemned as 10 die in another of its strikes on U.N. shelters in Gaza

 

Likely solution for a lasting ceasefire was on the table before Israeli assault & over 1,800 dead

CIA's other spy scandal: Agency spied on emails between Congress & whistleblowing officials

Part 2: Weapons expert Theodore Postol asks, Is Israel’s Iron Dome really an Iron Sieve?

Part two of  interview with acclaimed MIT physicist Theodore Postol, who says there is no evidence Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system is actually working. Prof. Postol estimates that the Iron Dome, which is partially built by U.S. corporate war-profiteers Raytheon, intercepts just 5 percent of rockets fired at Israel.

• Part I: Iron Dome or Iron Sieve? Evidence says...

• Palestinian death toll tops 1,800; UN condemns "criminal" Israeli shelling of another school for displaced
• U.N. warns of "rapidly unfolding" Gaza health crisis [Communicable diseased will spike due to Israel's war crimes targeting water, power, sanitation -- killing more civilians than its thousands of tons dropped on their homes, streets, and U.N. shelters.] 
• Israel breaks unilateral "pause" with new illegal airstrike
• Obama floats executive action after Congress fails to pass immigration bills
• Pres. Obama backs extreme right-wing CIA Director after Senate spying prompts resignation calls [over felonies he committed by perjury]
• U.S. Pres. Obama admits "We tortured some folks" — and that not all Bush-era methods are banned
• Ebola death in West Africa toll tops 820
• Over 400,000 under water ban in Ohio; toxic [chemtrails and/or] algae bloom linked to Climate Chaos, industrial-scale Big Agra farming
• Suspicious [HAARP?] earthquake kills around 400 in Chinese province
• Report: USAID staged civic programs to destabilize Cuban gov’t
• Choking-killing of civilian Eric Garner by NYPD brutality ruled a "homicide"
• Israel kills over 200 after another phony ceasefire collapses; claim of captured soldier [which was a lie] retracted
• Hundreds protest record number of deportations outside White House
• 2 Americans return to U.S. for Ebola treatment

Balinese Buddhism in Bali, Indonesia

Ven. S. Dhammika (DM/BuddhaNet); Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The spirituality and unique character of religions in Indonesia (destination-asia.com)

Pura Tanah Temple, Bali, Indonesia  (Jos Dielis/dielis/flickr.com)

 

Buddha, Bali (Robert Scales/flickr)

Much attention has been given to how far west Buddhism extended in ancient times. 

 

The most westerly Buddhist monument [not that that marks how far it got, only how far it made such an impression that monuments were erected to it] that can be is the foundations of a large stupa [Buddhist burial mound and sacred reliquary] in the south east corner of the ancient citadel of Khiva in Turkmenistan [Central Asia, formerly Russia].

Small communities of Buddhists may have existed beyond this. But if they did, they would have been insignificant [too insignificant to erect permanent stone religious structures], isolated, and exceptional. We can say therefore that the outer edge of [early] Buddhism in the west was what is now eastern Iran [the seat of the Solar Dynasty mentioned in Rhys Davids' translation in "The Story of the Lineage" from Buddhist Birth-Stories: Jataka].

Undersea Bali, Buddha statues in the coral reef, Indonesia (Robert Scales/flickr.com)

 
But how far to the east did Buddhism spread its gentle and civilizing influence? [Did it get] to the outer islands of Indonesia, to Australia, or perhaps beyond? 

 

The Buddhist hero Satusoma (buddhanet.net)

In the 1920's a superb bronze bust of the Buddha was found on Sulawesi, one of the larger islands that make up Indonesia [a massive stretch of islands between India and Australia]. This is the eastern most point that any Buddhist antiquity has ever been found. 

 

There is, though, no evidence of an enduring Buddhist presence either on Sulawesi or beyond it -- no ruined temples or monasteries [hidden in the dense jungles as keep being discovered in Cambodia], no inscriptions, or references to it in the historical records. 

 

However, only a few hundred miles southwest of Sulawesi is the small island of Bali, where archeological, epigraphical, and literary evidence shows that Buddhism existed alongside Hinduism for about 700 years.

 

Buddha under the sea, Bali, Indonesia (Robert Scales)

Indian merchants first arrived in Bali in about 200 BCE, and it was probably these people who introduced Buddhism and Hinduism.
 
A Balinese work of uncertain date called the Naga-rakrtagama by a Buddhist monk lists all of the Buddhist temples in Bali, 26 altogether, and mentions that in 1275 King Kretanagara underwent a Tantric Buddhist initiation to protect his kingdom from an expected invasion by Kublai Khan.

Kublai Khan conquers Asia and goes overseas to keep going (pic2fly.com)

 

Trade routes to Indonesia and back

The island's history is scant until 1343, when it was conquered by and absorbed into the Majapahit Empire of Java-Sumatra. Hinduism and Buddhism both received state patronage, although the type of Buddhism that prevailed gradually became indistinguishable from Hinduism [such is the case around the world for Mahayana Buddhism].

A Javanese Buddhist work from about the 12th century contains this telling verse: "The one substance is called two, that is, the Buddha and Shiva. [Tantra is a merging of Shakti and Shiva, conflating Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism, particularly esoteric Vajrayana] They say they are different, but how can they be divided? Despite differences there is oneness."

Sanur, Bali (MickJim/flickr)

Clearly at the time these words were being composed, some Buddhists were struggling to maintain the uniqueness of the Dharma, while others were stressing its similarity with Hinduism [which metamorphosed to be much more similar to Buddhism under the Buddha's radical influence bringing the Vedas back to life and on the Brahmins of his day].

Eventually in both Java and Bali the integrators prevailed. Incidentally, the phrase "Despite differences there is oneness" (Bhineka tunggal ika) has been taken as the motto for the Republic of Indonesia. With the collapse of Mahapahit [Hindu empire] in 1515 and the ascendancy of Islam, Java's old intellectual and religious elite, including the last surviving Buddhist monastics and scholars, sought refuge in Bali.

My Trip to Bali

Traveling round the world (destination360.com)

In January 2004 I fulfilled a long-standing wish to visit the island that Nehru eulogized as "The Morning of the World." I planned to visit all the sights that other tourists like to see, but my main intention was to search out the traces of Buddhism and find out something about Bali's small [surviving] Buddhist community. My first stop was the Bali Museum in Dempasar, the capital of the island. More

• Destination Asia: Buddhism in Indonesia
• Suvarnadvipa: Persian sea trade, Indonesia, Kalki kings (W)
• Deep Anthropology: Notes on a Balinese cockfight
• Buddha at the Crossroads: Indonesian Buddhism
• Dhammacakratra: Theravada Buddhism, USA
• Dhammacakratra, Ontario, California (facebook) 

Posing nearly naked in Islamic IRAN (video)

I. Rony, Ashley Wells, Seven, Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Saeed Kamali Dehghan, The Guardian; FEMEN.org; Stealthy Freedoms of Iranian Women (facebook)

Iranian harlots with totally exposed heads and faces and not a male relative in sight.

Sexism in a matter of point of view. We worship capitalist exploitation, they worship patriarchal Islam. In either case, women suffer just the same (Evans)

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US/Israel aching for war on Republic of Iran

TEHRANGELES, California - Western imperial capitalist corruption has arrived in beautiful Islamic Iran with, of course, a Facebook page. Thank you, FBI. Sure, we like it and think it's "beautiful" and "liberating." But we're raised on imperial corruption. We would likely feel this was a tragedy if we were living in a happily modest country on the verge of being attacked by Israel and its Western allies, most notably the warlords of the CIA and Pentagon. (We already half-ruined the country along with England when we deposed one leader and installed another favorable to our exploits). There are more Iranians than Jews in America, most of them in L.A., but one would never know it by exposure to the mainstream media.
 
("Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi) about The Richest City Under the Sun in the form of a cartoon/graphic novel about a precocious young girl during Iran's Islamic Revolution following British(MI5)  and American (CIA) subterfuge

Topless in New York City

• Don't forget to be afraid of Boko Haram today! :) And be terrified of "Kony" enough to support sending US troops into Africa. Heck, why not be afraid of all dark skinned people while you're at it? Terror is the mantra in our US/MIC "War on Fear"
• Topless FEMEN protesters say no to Islamic sexist
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• Glenn Greenwald: the explosive day we revealed Edward Snowden's identity to the world
• North Korea's Kim Jong-un is worth how much?!
• Oakland company on verge of revolutionizing solar

• 

  Vatican oppresses nuns, who also wear hijabs
  Catholic Pope Francis, Vatican CEO (not to be confused with the Eastern orthodox pope), is throwing nuns under the bus for sharing his beliefs

Spread of Buddhism: from its origins in Afghanistan (Gandhara) and India (Magadha) to Iran

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Women posting hijab-free selfies

Jezebel, wanton woman, an Eve, a Lilith!

Saeed Kamali Dehghan (Guardian.co.uk)
"Stealthy Freedoms of Iranian Women" was set up 10 days ago and has since attracted thousands of photos. 

 

Thousands of Iranian [Persian, Ariyan] women are taking off their veils and publishing pictures of themselves online, igniting a debate about the freedom to wear or not wear the hijab [the mandatory headscarf demanded by ultraconservative, puritanical Wahabbi Islam, a fundamentalist and extremist faction sponsored by the U.S. and its tentacles].

• Western Globalists created Wahhabi-terrorism to destroy Islam and justify global war 

A Facebook page set up by London-based Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad 10 days ago has attracted more than 130,000 likes, with women across Iran sending unveiled pictures taken in parks, at the seaside and in the streets.

 

"My stealthy freedom while driving in the streets of Tehran," wrote Maryam alongside an image showing her behind the wheel. "I like to feel the wind blowing on my face."

• Alinejad is not opposed to the hijab -- her mother is veiled -- but she believes we should have the freedom to choose.
  

Iranian beauties in L.A. (kcet.org)

Another post showed a mother with her daughter. "The beautiful seaside in Kish [Island]," the younger woman wrote. "We strolled on the rocks and experienced the cool breeze flowing through our hair. Is this a big request?"

 

A young woman from the city of Fuman, in the northern province of Gilan, sent a picture of her in the woods. "I took this picture stealthily in the spring," she wrote. "It makes me feel happy." Another young woman was pictured unveiled just next to a big billboard in Tehran' Yas sports complex asking women to respect the Islamic hijab.

 

Alinejad told The Guardian she had been bombarded with messages and pictures since launching Stealthy Freedoms of Iranian Women. "I've hardly slept in the past three days because of the number of pictures and messages I've received." More

The N.W.O. wants a new world order, which means invading Iran. It's amazing. Look at a map: Iran is squeezed between Iraq and Afghanistan and therefore of strategic importance.

Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day (video)

CC Liu, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; Larry Mantle, Steven Cook, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (AirTalk/SCPR.org); SOAD; PBS.org

Hollywood Armenian Genocide Commemoration March (youngarmenians.com)

Armenian waves national flag along with Syrian national flag during a march north of the Lebanese capital of Beirut, commemorating the 98th anniversary of the Ottoman Turkish genocide against the Armenian people on April 24, 2013 (AFP/Getty Images).

  

(BBZ/SOAD) System of a Down "Holy Mountains." Hitler once said, "No one remembers the Armenian Genocide" thereby offering a rationale for another mass killing that the world would tolerate by looking the other way.

Little Armenia, L.A. protest (latimes.com/KTLA)

Thousands commemorated the 99th anniversary (2014) of the Armenian genocide on Thursday, with several high-profile events scheduled across Southern California. The observances come just days after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered condolences to Armenian descendants of the massacre -- an atrocity that Turkey still refuses to describe as a "genocide." 

(youngarmenians.com)

Roughly 1.5 million Armenians were killed starting in 1915 amid the chaotic collapse of the Ottoman Empire. With among the largest Armenian diasporas in the world, Glendale and East Hollywood will host a number of events Thursday, including a rally expected to draws thousands to Hollywood Blvd. in Little Armenia. A separate demonstration is planned for outside the Turkish consulate on Wilshire Blvd. in L.A., where the prime minister’s recent comment will likely be a hot topic. “We do not see this as being something that is an adequate and appropriate acceptance of responsibility for the international crime that had been committed,” Berdj Karapetian, chairman of the Glendale chapter of the Armenian National Committee of America, told the Glendale News-Press in response to Erdogan’s comments. More

That Armenian Genocide Thingy

WQ interviewee at NUU

Today, Wednesday April 24th, marks the annual remembrance day for the estimated 1.5 million Armenians who died in the former Ottoman Empire, present day Turkey.

 

President Obama's official statement for Armenian Remembrance Day did not include the word "genocide" despite his 2008 campaign promise to recognize the deaths of Armenians as such. 

"America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian Genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides," Obama said in 2008. "I intend to be that president."

 

Several California legislators including Rep. Brad Sherman and Rep. Adam Schiff called on Obama to use the word "genocide," but so far the White House has resisted.

 

Why is using the term genocide still a politically touchy subject?

 

Is the US concerned about preserving its strategic relationship with Turkey? What would be the political fallout if the president did use it? How is this omission seen by the local Armenian and Turkish communities? LISTEN (17:44)

The first genocide of the 20th century

(PBS) This 2006 television documentary exploring the Ottoman Empire killings of more than 1,000,000 Armenians during World War I was broadcast by most of the 348 PBS affiliate stations on April 17, 2006. Because of the controversial nature of the subject in Turkey, PBS attempted to give both sides a voice and produced a four expert panel discussion to be aired immediately afterwards. However, due to intense lobbying efforts by Armenian groups and some members of Congress, the follow-up panel discussion was cancelled on a third of the stations broadcasting the documentary over concerns of offending human rights groups and the descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors.

Killing on an industrial scale, it occurred in 1915 within the now collapsed Ottoman Empire. More than 1,000,000 innocent people were massacred in the event.

Ottoman-Turk soldiers marched people through the Syria desert, depriving them of food and water with the intention killing them (like U.S. soldiers did to Native Americans). The same soldiers sexually assaulted and raped young Armenian girls. And although the Allied powers of WW I knew what was going on, no substantive help was provided to victims.
 

Where does Israel, busy working on the Palestinians, stand? With Turkey

Today the Republic of Turkey denies that a "genocide" took place. Only 20 countries officially recognize the event for what it was -- including Italy, France, Canada, and Russia. It is noteworthy that the United States and Israel are not listed among them, even though official documents called it a genocide, and then-U.S. Pres. Ronald Reagan mentioned it in a public address.

"Like the genocide of the [Christian] Armenians before it, and the genocide of the [Buddhist] Cambodians which followed it -- and like too many other such persecutions of too many other peoples -- the lessons of the [Jewish] Holocaust must never be forgotten..." Pres. R. Reagan

 

Nowadays a massively popular California Armenian-American rock band does more to spread the word than practically any other source. System of a Down is widely known for songs expressing their views on the Armenian Genocide and the criminal U.S. "war" on terror. 

Who cares about truth when business with Turkey is at stake?

In a statement, lead vocalist Serj Tankian has said:

Filipino gun culture has deep roots

"The constant, ridiculous denial of the Armenian Genocide, by not only Turkey but by consecutive U.S. administrations, made me aware of the world of disinformation and injustices around the globe. The Armenian Genocide was the first major genocide of the 20th century, and many people believe that had the Ottoman Turkish been punished for their crime of genocide after WWI, that Hitler would not have ventured his own."

• VIDEO: Turkish Prof. Ugor Ungor talks about the genocide The Genocide Education Project hosted Prof. Ungor's lecture based on his two recent books, The Making of Modern Turkey, which addresses how Western Armenia became part of the Turkish state, and Confiscation and Destruction, about Turkey's seizure of Armenian Property. There was not a single "genocide" but a series of policies from 1913-1950 as successive Turkish governments subjected the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire to violent policies of ethnic "homogenization" and forced assimilation.
  
• So Cal accents: L.A. Armenian holds place in regional lingo
• VIDEO: Serj Tankian and activists protest Obama fundraiser in L.A. shouting, "Obama, keep your promise!"
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• Pres. Putin pays visit to the Armenian Genocide Monument 
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