Today's Stories

January 19, 2009

Kevin Alexander Gray
Time for an New Divestment Campaign

January 16-18, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Hail to the Chief

Caoimhe Butterly
Terribly Bloodied, Still Breathing

Audrey Stewart /
Kathy Kelly
Suddenly Bombs Started Falling: Report from Gaza

Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Geo. W. Bush, a Concise Biography

Ellen Cantarow
I Could Not Save a Single Child

Neve Gordon
How to Sell "Ethical" Warfare

Vijay Prashad
An African-American in Gaza

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Attack Injures 1.5 Million Gazans

Rannie Amiri
The UN in Israel's Crosshairs

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo's Forgotten Child

Joshua Frank
Forecasting Obama

Dave Lindorff
Prosecuting Bush and Cheney

Brian Cloughley
Who Runs America?

Belén Fernández
Changing the Equation

Missy Beattie
Peace and Justice Denied

Fred Gardner
Growing Pot for Research

George Ciccariello-Maher
"Oakland is Closed!"

John V. Whitbeck
Democracy Not Partition

Stephen Fleischman
Card Check

Mischa Gaus
Medicare for All! Tackling Union Opposition to Single-Payer

Saul Landau
The End of the Affair

Norm Kent
Perils of the Grow House

Alejandro López
Give Bush the Shoe! (and Send Us the Photo)

David Yearsley
The Glory That Was Dresden

James McEnteer
Doin' the Time Warp Again

Lorenzo Wolff
An Album That Lives Up to Its Cover

Kim Nicolini
Patti Smith's Dream of Life

Poets' Basement
Three Financial Poems by Brian J. Foley

Website of the Day
Lancet: Medical Conditions in Gaza

January 15, 2009

Pam Martens
Wall Street Powerhouses Invested Alongside Madoff

Karl Grossman
Obama and the Military - Industrial - Scientific Complex

M. Shahid Alam
Gaza's Shattered Mirror

Jules Rabin
Gaza Besieged, Gaza Mauled

Alan Farago
The Nail-Gun Bailout

Ron Jacobs
The State of Black America: From Oscar Grant to Barack Obama

Timothy Seidel
Just Violence in Gaza? The Calculus of Proportionality

George Ochenski
Why No Montana Wilderness?

Todd Chretien
Taking a Stand for Justice in Oakland

Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman
Obama's Marijuana Prohibition Acid Test

Website of the Day
Uranium Watch

January 14, 2009

Henry A. Giroux
Killing Children With Impunity

Kathy Kelly
Cease Fire, Cease Siege

Franklin Lamb
A Second Front? Hezbollah Militants Chafe as Gaza Burns

Mike Whitney
The Big Contraction: Why the Stimulus Alone Won't Work

Paul Craig Roberts
The Humiliation of America

Glen Ford
Sullying Dr. King's Legacy: the Congressional Black Caucus and Israel

Aditya Chakrabortty
The End of Property Porn

Dave Lindorff
Fattening the Rats: Feeding at the Bailout Trough

Jonathan Cook
Israel Bars Arab Parties From Elections

David Swanson
Conyers Explains Why He Didn't Push Impeachment

Martha Rosenberg
Fragile: Handle with Risperdal

Website of the Day
Report of a Red Cross Worker in Gaza

January 13, 2009

Norman Finkelstein
The Facts About Hamas and the War on Gaza

Jonathan Cook
Is Israel Using Experimental Weapons in Gaza?

Michael Neumann
Hamas and Gaza: Slave Revolts and Passionate Evasions

Coleen Rowley /
William John Cox
No Victors in the War on Dissent

Robert Sandels
Cuba and the Obama Administration: Subversion Through Trade?

Saul Landau
The Changeling: an Obama Nightmare

David Swanson
What to Ask Eric Holder

Wajahat Ali
Waltzing with War Crimes

Sam Bahour
No Other Option? A View From the West Bank

Stanley Heller
Why It's Useless to Lobby Congress on Gaza

Robert Jensen
Beyond Grief and Rage

Robin Mittenthal
Eating Away at the Land That Feeds Us

Website of the Day
The 50 Most Loathsome People in America

January 12, 2009

Uri Avnery
The Blood-Stained Monster Enters Gaza

Paul Craig Roberts
Our Collapsing Economy

Mike Whitney
Israel's Moral and Political Insanity

Ewa Jasiewicz
Oh, Quiet Night: Only Six Homes Were Bombed

Bill Quigley
A Day in Gaza

Dave Lindorff
From Vietnam to Gaza

Bill and Kathleen Christison
Blowback From a Tragic Error: a Message to Barack Obama

Jonathan Cook
Israel Ponders the Third Stage

Andy Worthington
Seven Years of Guantánamo

Kara N. Tina
Oakland on Fire

Brenda Norrell
Palestinians and American Indians: Russell Means Breaks the Silence on Obama

Nour Kharma
A Plea From a Teen in Gaza: "Will I Die, Too?"

Website of the Day
The Villages Group: an Antiwar Alliance in Sderot

January 9/11, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Israel's Onslaught on Gaza: Criminal, for Sure; But Also Stupid

Kathy Kelly
Tunnel Vision: Report from Arish, Egypt

Bill Quigley
Report From Rafah: Doctors Stopped at the Border

George Ciccariello-Maher
Oakland's Not for Burning?

Elaine C. Hagopian
Gaza: History Matters

Mike Roselle
Drowning in a Toxic River: What Can be Done to Save Appalachia?

Steve Hendricks
The Torturer-Elect?

Gary Leupp
Revisiting the Tale of Samson

Jonathan Cook
Outcry Over Israel's War Crimes

Karim Makdisi
The Ceasefire Plan: the UN Finally Acts, But Does It Mean Anything?

Rannie Amiri
Livni's Big Lie

Peter Morici
In the Jaws of a Depression

Peter Montague
Can Chemicals be Regulated?

Ralph Nader
Move Fast to Restore the Rule of Law

Andy Worthington
The Dying Days of the Guantánamo Trials

Nadia Hijab
A Music School Silenced in Gaza

Dan Bacher
Unholy Alliance: Nature Conservancy Backs Schwarzenegger's Big Ditch

Catherine Fenton
The American Peace Movement and Israel

David Macaray
Wal-Mart Caught Stealing

Valia Kaimaki
Why Greek Youths Took to the Streets

Richard Morse
Haiti's Gas Gang

David Yearsley
To Gotham City with Dexter Gordon

Charles R. Larson
The Horror, the Horror

Richard Rhames
Gaza and the Goon Squad Meet the Wizard

Stephen Martin
Meltdown Memo to Come?

Lorenzo Wolff
What They Sing About When They Sing About Love

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Beatty and Valentine

Website of the Weekend
Gaza Protest

January 8, 2009

Jean Bricmont /
Diana Johnstone
Gaza Seen From Paris

Franklin Lamb
How Dershowitz Misstates, Misrepresents and Misapplies the Law

Paul Craig Roberts
The Difficulty of Being an Informed American

Kevin Alexander Gray
Give Burris His Seat

Chris Floyd
The Enduring Priorities in Obama's Time of Change

Ewa Jasiewicz
Riding on Fire in Gaza

Steve Conn
Sanjay Gupta and Obama

Harvey Wasserman
Kill the Nuclear Stimulus!

Wayne S. Smith
An Opening to Cuba?

Linda Mamoun
Re-settling Gaza: the Real Goal of the Israeli Invasion?

Adam Turl
Unions and Young Workers

Chris Papaleonardos
Mourning Maria Dimitriadi

Website of the Day
On the Wing

January 7, 2009

Saree Makdisi
What Kind of Security Will This Barbarism Bring Israel?

Franklin Lamb
Bend Over Professor Dershowitz, It's Time for Your Check Up

William Blum
America's Other Glorious War

Belén Fernández
The Trauma Vortex: Israel's Monopoly on Psychological Suffering

Lawrence Davidson
What is New About Gaza?

Allan Nairn
Adm. Dennis Blair and the Church Killings in East Timor

Jonathan Cook
What is Israel's Objective?

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
Watching the War on BBC

Deepak Tripathi
Bush, as He Leaves

Cal Winslow
Now is the Hour to Defend Democracy in the Labor Movement!

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
To Students Planning Careers: Be Mindful

Dr. Hannah Safran
No More Recycled Military Solutions

Website of the Day
CNN: Israel Broke the Ceasefire First

January 6, 2009

Pam Martens
It's All One Big Lie

Victoria Buch
Real Estate War in Gaza: the History and "Morals" of Ethnic Cleansing

Neve Gordon
Israel's New War Ethic

Tami Sarfatti /
Yonatan Mendel
What Silence Says: Gaza is Still Waiting on Obama

Mike Whitney
The Gaza Bloodbath

Alan Farago
After the Fall

Gary Leupp
A Hamas Coup d'Etat in 2007?

Larry Everest
Silent Partner: the US-Backed War on Gaza

Ron Jacobs
The New Iraqi Sovereignty

David Macaray
Union-Busting is Alive and Well

Stephanie Basile
Where's Anna's Money?

Stacey Warde
An Uncle's Unrest

Website of the Day
Israeli Refusenik on Gaza

January 5, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Will There be a Recovery?

Sousan Hammad
Phoning Home to Gaza

Wajahat Ali
Flying While Brown

Mats Svensson
Longing in Gaza

Jen Marlowe
Abeer's Baby

Muhammad Ali Khalidi
Gaza Phone Tag

Brian Cloughley
Israel is Immune From Criticism

Faheem Hussain
Gaza and India: a View From Pakistan

William Cook
Consider the Realities of Gaza

Dr. Trudy Bond
The Madness Among Us

Christopher Ketcham
The Revenge of the Blogger at the National Press Club: a Rotten Washington Interlude

Steve Early
Who Rules SEIU?

Dave Lindorff
When It Comes to Terrorism and POW Cases, Equal Justice Under Law is a Joke

Website of the Day
The Endangered Fish of the Colorado River Basin

January 2 - 4, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Diary of 2008: an Incredible, Hope-Filled Year

Uri Avnery
Molten Lead in Gaza

Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of the Gaza Assault

Paul Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Western Morality?

Brian Eno
Stealing Gaza: an Experiment in Provocation

Ralph Nader
America Must Stop Shirking Its Responsibility on Gaza

Omar Barghouti
UN Complicity in Israel's Massacre in Gaza

Graham Usher
Where Pakistan's Generals and the ISI Draw Their Lines

P. Sainath
The Economy is Worse Than It Appears

Belén Fernández
Pardon Our Dust: Israel's PR Campaign for Gaza

Deb Reich
Shiv'a in Gaza, December 2008

Gary Leupp
Defacing Mr. Jefferson's Wall: Preachers and the Inauguration

Michael Yates
Top Chef or Top Wage Thief? Tom Colicchio and the Economics of Restaurants

Joanne Mariner
How to Close Guantánamo

Seth Sandronsky
Funding the Israeli Military: the US Pipeline

Cynthia McKinney
We Lived to Tell the Story

Sonja Karkar
Israel's Dogs of War

Deepak Tripathi
Gaza in Perspective

Robert Fantina
Obama, Afghanistan and Israel

John Ross
The Year No One Can Remember

Norm Kent
The Heat on Duval Street: Why Head Shop Raids are Unfair and Unjust

Larry Portis
Syria and the Arab Barbie Doll--Before the Deluge

Richard Rhames
Is Conscience Dead?

Dee C. Lubell
We Come From the Sun: Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright

David Yearsley
A Gay German at the Courts of the Medici and Hanover, and of Course the BBC

Lorenzo Wolff
Joe Ely, the Fighting Rooster of Rock

Marc Catone
Looting Lennon's Legacy

Poets' Basement
Five Poems by Grzegorz Wróblewski

Website of the Weekend
Earth in High Rez

January 1, 2008

Jennifer Loewenstein
If Hamas Did Not Exist

Oren Ben-Dor
The Self-Defense of Suicide

Wajahat Ali
The U.S. Response to the Gaza Crisis: Unfair and Unbalanced

Saul Landau
In Cuba No One Man Could Steal $50 Billion From Other People

David Michael Green
What to Expect While We're Expecting

Website of the Day
Morbid Anatomy

December 31, 2008

Pam Martens
Wall Street's Collapse and the Ownership Society

Neve Gordon /
Jeff Halper
Where's the Academic Outrage Over the Bombing of a University in Gaza?

Ted Honderich
The First Casualty of Israel's War

Brian Cloughley
Five Little Girls on a Sofa: Gaza's One-Sided Images

Ron Jacobs
What is Hamas, Really?

Vijay Prashad
Hot Rod and His Sikh Warrior: Blago's Indian Connections

Franklin Lamb
Mr. Mubarak, Tear Down That Wall!

Mike Whitney
My Brilliant Career

David Macaray
What Really Killed the Auto Bailout

Richard Thieme
The Betrayal of the Commons

Mary Lynn Cramer
Who Wins What in Gaza?

Stephen Lendman
The Troubling Case of the Fort Dix Five

Worthy Group of the Day
Western Shoshone Defense Project

December 30, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
May We No Longer Be Silent

Tariq Ali
The Gaza Ghetto and Western Cant

Robert Bryce
The $775,000-a-Year GI

Jonathan Cook
Electioneering with Bombs

Gary Leupp
The Fishbarrel War

Dave Lindorff
Tough Guys Don't Walk: Will Cheney Seek a Pardon?

Brian McKenna
Ted Downing and Troublemaker Anthropology

John Walsh
The End of the Green Party

Ramzy Baroud
Gaza and the World

Bob Sommer
The Education of David Frost

Worthy Activist of the Day
Support Marie Mason

December 29, 2008

Jennifer Loewenstein
Israel's Attempted Endgame in Gaza

Neve Gordon
What, Exactly, is Israel's Mission?

Joshua Frank
Obama and the "Special Relationship"

George Salzman /
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The War Against Palestine: Exception From Humanity

Norman Solomon
A Hundred Eyes for an Eye

Ewa Jasiewicz
Gaza Today: "This is Just the Beginning"

Rob Larson
The Banks Laugh All the Way to the Bank

Kenneth Libby
Arne Duncan's Dark Years in Chicago

Robert Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2008

Elsa Johnson
High Noon at Black Mesa: Bush's Farewell Gift to Peabody Coal

Nicola Nasser
Resolution 1850: Bush's Parting Gift

Belén Fernández
Hanukkah Games

Worthy Group of the Day
Nuclear Information and Resource Service

December 26-28, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The Medusa's Head

Dr Eyad Al Serraj
The Boming of Gaza: "An Earthquake on Top of Your Head"

Jeffrey St. Clair
Cancerous Air

Bradley Simpson
Obama's New Intel Chief, Dennis Blair, Ran Interference for Indonesia's Butchers

Ralph Nader
Government Without Laws

Gary Leupp
Obama and the Graveyard of Empires

Ellen Cantarow
Richard Falk, Israel and the NYT

Matt Landon
The Great Coal Ash Flood: a Report From Swan Pond Road

David Macaray
SAG's Terrible Dilemma

Patrick Bond
End of Neoliberalism? Sorry, Not Yet

Norm Kent
Invoking Bigotry: Obama and Rick Warren

Brian T. Ketcham
Fuel Efficiency is Easy--Just Don't Let Detroit Tell You How to Do It

Rannie Amiri
War Clouds Over Gaza

Larry Portis
Changing the Ethnic Vocabulary

Richard Rhames
Welcome to Soup Kitchen America

Stephen Lendman
29 Red Flags: Early Suspicions About Bernard Madoff

James L. Secor
Unheralded Coup

Ramzy Baroud
Iraq, the Plot Thickens

Harold Pinter
Art, Truth and Politics: the Nobel Lecture

Cpt. Paul Watson
Tracking the Cetacean Death Star

Howard Lisnoff
Nixon's Cambodian Shock Treatment

Michael Dee
The Bill of Rights, Killed in Action by the War on Drugs

Steve Conn
Eight Predictions for 2009

Poets' Basement
Valentine, Kaung, Moser and Graham

Worthy Group of the Weekend
United Mountain Defense

December 25, 2008

Judy Gumbo Albert
What Were Those 1960s Terrorists Thinking, Anyway?

Rev. William E. Alberts
The Sole of Christmas

Hannah Mermelstein
Caution: Settlers Ahead

Worthy Group of the Day
Citizens' Coal Council

December 24, 2008

Bill Quigley
Five Bailout Lessons From Katrina

Saul Landau
Then and Now: Venezuela and Cuba, 1960-2008

Sam Smith
Evangelism and Politics

Brian Cloughley
Torture, Slaughter and Lies

John Ross
Where's al-Zaidi's Pulitzer?

Eric Walberg
Cold War Shivers

Norm Kent
What Will Obama Do About Marijuana?

Stephen Martin
Reasons for Cheerfulness

Worthy Group of the Day
Collateral Repair Project

December 23, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Ponzi Paradigm

Michael Yates
The Tombstone Economy

Chuck Spinney
The New York Times Flames Out in Defense Dogfight

Vijay Prashad
India's Reckless Road to Washington, Through Tel Aviv

Brian Horejsi
Interior Decorating: Obama, Salazar and the Future of America's Public Lands

David Macaray
Obama's Best Pick?

Neil Watkins /
Sarah Anderson
Ecuador's Conscientious Default

David Michael Green
Hey, Reagan Democrats! Now Do You Get It?

Worthy Group of the Day
Focus on the Corporation

MLK Day Edition
January 19, 2009

"Nought But Grief and Pain, for Promis'd Joy"

Robbie Burns, Mackenzie and Gaza

By PETER EWART

Many people in Northern British Columbia have Scottish blood in them, and the same holds true for people across Canada, especially in parts of Ontario and Nova Scotia.  Indeed, at one point in Canada’s history, Scots were the third largest ethnic group, and they have certainly played an important role in the development of the country. 

A good number of these men, women and children are descended from the hardy Scots who were scattered to the wind in the 18th and 19th Centuries, sometimes driven out of their homes and forced off their land, sometimes imprisoned or exiled, other times leaving poverty and hardship, in search of opportunity and a better life. 

Today, the surnames of these pioneers dot the street names, business signs and phone books of northern communities like Mackenzie, Prince George, and Fort St. James, with the town of Mackenzie, of course, being named after the Scottish explorer, who was the first European to travel through these parts to the Pacific Ocean.

For these people of Scottish descent, and, for that matter, people of all nationalities, a special day is once again approaching.  And that is, of course, the birthday of the great Scottish poet and patriot Robert Burns, who lived from January 25th, 1759 until July 21, 1796. 

Whenever, I think of Burns and his immortal work, I can’t help but think of what he would make of events that are going on in Canada and the world today.  For example, what would he say about the dire situation facing people in forestry-based communities across Canada, such as Mackenzie?  Or the situation facing the Palestinian people of Gaza in the Middle East?

But before we get into these current troubles, let’s first talk a bit about this remarkable writer himself, Robbie Burns, the national poet of the Scots.

Burns was, above all, a poet of the common man, his father an impoverished tenant farmer, his mother illiterate.   He did hard physical work for much of his life (which may have contributed to his early death) and was largely self-educated.  Yet he somehow found the time to write some of humanity’s best loved lyrics, including “Auld Lang Syne,” which is sung the world over on New Years Eve, as well as the poems “To A Mouse,” and “A Man’s a Man for a’ That.”

One of the qualities that shines through Burns’ poetry is his natural good cheer and love of life, especially the traditions and habits of the people who worked the land, as in poems like “The Cotter’s Saturday Night.”  But he lived during turbulent and troubled times.  Just before he was born, the battle of Culloden was fought between the Highland Scots and the English army. 

The Highland Scots were renowned for their bravery and fighting spirit, despite the fact that they often were barefoot, carried primitive weapons, and felt lucky to have a couple of handfuls of oatmeal in their pockets for provisions.  But they were up against a powerful, ruthless and well-armed English army led by the Duke of Cumberland (later to be know as the “Butcher” Cumberland), and they lost badly.

What took place in the aftermath was what today we would term the worst kind of “war crimes,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “genocide.”  Highland Scots, whether rebels or not, were hunted down and butchered like animals, some being tortured or burned alive.  Women were raped and livestock slaughtered, and much of the countryside was left in ruin.

The aim of the English ruling class was to extinguish forever the Scottish national struggle (an aim, of course, which was ultimately unsuccessful), to the point that, for many years after, even wearing a kilt or playing bagpipes was prohibited by law and could result in jail or exile.   As well, prejudices were common among English and Scottish aristocrats who considered the Highland Scots, in their fierce desire for freedom and independence, to be “wild-eyed”,  “barbaric,” and even “sub-human,”  similar, as we shall discuss, to how the Palestinians are depicted by some news media and government officials today.

Later in the 18th Century, during Burns’ lifetime and after, Scotland was caught in the throes of the Highland Clearances, which is the name given to the forcible removal of Scottish farmers from their ancient lands.  The main force behind these Clearances were the Scottish and English big landowners, in league with government officials, who wanted more land to raise sheep and engage in leisure pursuits like game hunting, as well as rid the land of a rebellious population. 

Hundreds of thousands of cotters (small tenant farmers) were driven from the land that their families had tilled from time immemorial.  In some cases, Scots were sold by their own clan chiefs into indentured servitude or slavery in the New World.  In other cases, homes were burned to the ground, land was confiscated, and whole families were sent packing down the road, facing starvation, death, or, at best, an uncertain future. 

Some say that Scotland never got over these calamities.  Even today, a visitor to the Highlands of Scotland is struck by how depopulated and barren much of the region remains.

These historical events run through Burns’ poetry like the darker tones of a minor key on a piano.  Indeed, part of Burns’ universal appeal is that he was not afraid to speak out against the exploitation, injustice and oppression of his time, even though the threat of persecution and even imprisonment was very real for someone like him, who, contrary to his government, sympathized with both the French Revolution and American War of Independence. 

Burns was especially sharp in his criticism of the big landowners, both English and Scottish, who with their “tinsel show,” “ribbands,” and “silks,” held their aristocratic noses in the air, while treating the common people like dirt. 
 
For me these days, over two hundred years later, the Burns’ poem that often comes to mind is “To a Mouse.”  In that poem, the narrator / poet is plowing his field in the Fall with a hand plow and accidentally breaks up a wee mouse’s nest.  The mouse, of course, panics and scurries off, while the narrator, in good humour, apologizes to it for disrupting its “plans” and breaking “Nature’s social union.” 

At first, the tone of the poem is playful and humorous.  But it soon takes on a darker pall, when it becomes clear that “winter’s sleety dribble” is fast approaching and the mouse is without food or shelter.  The narrator notes that the mouse is not alone “in proving foresight may be vain.”  And then speaks the famous lines: “The best laid schemes of mice and men / Gang aft agley / An’ lea’e us nought but grief and pain, / for promis’d joy.”

Gripped by these bleaker thoughts, the narrator realizes that he is even worse off than the mouse.  The mouse’s outlook is limited to the present.  While he, on the other hand, can see what terrible things have happened in the past, and what misfortune might come to him, his family, and his country in the future.   Thus he speaks to the mouse:  “Still thou are blest, compared wi’ me! / The present only toucheth thee: / But och! I backward cast my e’e, / On prospects drear! / An’ forward, tho’ I canna see, / I guess an’ fear!”

When I read these lines, I think of the forestry workers and other residents of towns like Mackenzie and Fort St. James in BC, and Smith Falls in Newfoundland.  They, too, like other “mice and men”, have their plans, their hopes, their dreams.  But they, too, are seeing these threatened by the cruel blade of economic necessity. 

Similar to the English and Scottish lords of the 18th Century, the big forest companies, whose head offices and shareholders are often based far away in other countries, do not want to have any commitment or responsibility to the people who live in these communities, and, indeed, care little whether they are, as one “expert” has put it, “marked for exit,” and scattered far and wide as a result of mill closures.  Yet, like the English and Scottish absentee landlords, these modern day barons of industry insist that the rights to the land, in this case the timber rights, stay in their possession.

But in the spirit of the Highland Scots, the communities are fighting back.  Just last Spring, the small town of Mackenzie had the largest rally in its history, with over 1000 people coming together to save their community.  Similar events have been held in Fort St. James, BC, and elsewhere in the country. 

And then there is the situation in Gaza.  The Palestinians who live there are among the most impoverished and oppressed people in the world.   They are refugees in the very land they have lived since ancient times, land which was ripped away from them by force and is now occupied by the state of Israel.  Recently, the few square kilometers they are crowded into in Gaza, has been blockaded, attacked and bombarded by the Israeli army, one of the most powerful and sophisticated in the world, supplied with advanced weaponry and the latest American aircraft. 

Criticizing the actions of the Israeli government against the population of  Gaza, Sir Gerald Kaufmann, who is Jewish and an MP in the British parliament, has labeled its leadership as “war criminals,” while an Italian Roman Catholic Cardinal has described Gaza as resembling “a big concentration camp.”  For his part, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has characterized the Israeli system of discrimination against Palestinians as being similar to the “apartheid” regime of South Africa.

When all is said and done, the main “crime” of the Palestinians today is that they have refused to accept their second class status and fiercely resisted the illegal occupation of their lands, just as the Highland Scots of Burns’ day refused to accept English rule.  But, of course, truth gets turned on its head.  Somehow it gets spun that Israel is the “victim,” just as, in the 18th Century, the English aristocracy, with its gloved hands, crystal wine glasses, and fenced estates, claimed it was the “victim” of the “barbaric” Scots.

If Burns were alive today, I believe that he would still be standing with his beloved Scots.  But my bet is that he would also be standing with the people of Mackenzie and other beleaguered communities throughout Canada.  And he’d be there with the people of Gaza.  May his memory live forever.

Peter Ewart is a writer, instructor and community activist based in Prince George, BC.  He can be reached at: peter.ewart@shaw.ca

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