The Silent Majority is Accomplice to the death of the 7 Year old girl from Guatemala...

This is Jakelin Ameí Rosmery Caal Maquin, the 7 year old girl who died in Border Patrol custody... at the Mexico-U.S. border...

A seven year old and her father had crossed the Mexico-U.S. border... but she never realized her dream of a better life... She was terrorized by the U.S. patrol and died from dehydration... Just 90 minutes after crossing the border... 

    Migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border say they are fleeing persecution, poverty     and violence in their countries...
   But the U.S. executive of the 1% does not want them...A seven-year-old girl who US officials say tried to cross the Mexico-US border illegally with her family has died hours after being taken into custody. The Guatemalan girl, who authorities there have named as Jackeline Caal, died of dehydration and shock, the Washington Post reports.

It is our collective shame that these things are happening at the Mexico-US border... Children ripped off their parents... people tear gassed... those who escape the tear gas are taken into custody... and a 7 year old died of dehydration...

It is our collective shame... and the silent majority should wake up...
Human compassion is essential for survival... not only for them... but without that basic compassion we cannot survive as human beings...

Stand up and speak out... keeping your silence makes you an accomplice to the brutality of the U.S. executive of the 1%...

Do not be a part of the problem... by keeping silence...
Maybe in this holiday season... you can stand up and be counted...
Speak up... 
Big business... has penetrated all Central American countries... the banana plantations and coffee and the rest... exploit the people of central America...
The U.S. government for decades has helped the brutal military dictatorships in Central America...  They U.S. government has supported death squads...
And now some people are asking for refuge...
Speak up... and let people come in...
Human beings help each other... 
... A 7 year old died in U.S. custody... from dehydration...

Speak out... keeping silence is to be an accomplice to brutality...

Arms kill... Be it American...Russian or Chinese... Arms indeed kill...

Arms are manufactured to kill... and arms do kill...
Arms do not have nationality... American arms kill and so does Russian... Chinese arms kill and so does Indian or Pakistani...
Turkey intends to invade Syria and destroy Kurdish fighters, peshmergas..., allied with the U.S.  In essence, the government in Syria has Russian arms... and the opposition has U.S., American and European arms...Russian and American arms have killed thousands in Syria... maimed thousands more... and created thousands of refugees...

• The U.S. and European and Russian arms have created a refugee crisis in the Middle East and Africa... 

But now,

• Americans and many European countries refuse to accept refugees... going against international conventions and norms...

Saudi Arabia, armed by the U.S., is in war in Yemen...

Saudi Arabia is fighting in Yemen... with U.S. supplied arms... The ruling 1% in America and Europe proclaims that if they do not sell arms to the Saudi dictatorship, then Russia or may be China will sell them arms... So why not Americans benefit from the Saudi petrodollars...
American arms for Saudi petrodollars... and Yemeni war... and Yemeni victims... 
Essentially the Americans, and the Europeans and also  Russians... benefit from the Saudi oil and Saudi dollars and Yemeni war...
They are the merchants of death... and blood...

 39,773... 

That’s how many people were killed by guns last year in the U.S. according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — raising the rate of gun deaths to its highest level in more than 20 years amid an increase in suicides...
Guns kill all nationalities... American guns kill Americans too... Putin's regime kills the Russian opposition with Russian arms... and the Chinese suppress the Uighurs, its Muslim minority, by Chinese arms...

The bullet does not recognize the nationality of the victims... 
Arms and ammunition are manufactured to kill... everyone... anyone... regardless of nationality or wealth or...

The Yemeni war... conducted by U.S. arms and Saudi butchers and assassins... assisted by their allies... This young girl is starving to death... because Saudis have blockaded the ports  of Yemen and humanitarian aid cannot be delivered...

... and this girl is maimed by U.S. arms by Saudi actors..., "soldiers..."

The rest of her life she is going to carry the memories of the U.S. arms...

The global 1%  manufactures arms for profit... and arms kill and the 1% becomes the assassins of  the world...
They are the traders in blood... for blood...

Russian and American weapons create globalized misery... killing fields... just like global warming...just like the opioids... 

Drugs kill...

and 

So do arms....

As a result of the Saudi-led war in the country, millions of Yemenis are at the risk of starvation... U.S. arms in the hands of the Saudis are starving thousands of Yemenis and massacring thousands...

They have no where to go... they have nothing to do... A nation of homeless... That's what the U.S. arms in the hands of the Saudis is doing... and all of us are complicit in it... 

We the people should demand a halt to arms sales to all... We should not be the global merchants of death...

***

The West once flooded China with opium. China is returning the favour... and China’s pledge to curb fentanyl production may not change much

Fentanyl Is Now America's Deadliest Drug

The powerful pain medication causes more overdoses than heroin, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Deaths involving the synthetic opioid, which can be 100 times stronger than morphine, doubled each year between 2013 and 2016. Fentanyl was connected to 1,600 deaths in 2012, but that number had jumped to 18,000 by 2016. Last year it was involved in nearly 30,000 of the estimated 70,000 U.S. overdoses. Another report earlier this year suggested opioid-related deaths have been underreported by as much as 35 percent.

Will "the wall" stop the drugs...?

      
Bethlehem's Christmas Tree... and the   menorah which stands today in Jerusalem's old city Jewish Quarter, overlooking the Temple Mount...

Yesterday was a day of candles and light for people of faith around the globe... and it was candles and lights for a week now for the businesses...
Christians light the first of four Advent candles, representing prayer, penance, rejoicing and sacrifice in preparation for Christmas... but will prayers and penance cover up the sex scandals of the priests and the bishops... and will prayer and penance be enough for the Evangelicals who have steadfastly supported the executive of the 1%... even when that executive was grabbing the kids from their parents... even when that executive is bombing the hell out of the Yemeni people - men,  women and children alike...   
At sunset, Jewish people turn to the menorah to mark the start of Hanukkah. The eight-day festival commemorates an ancient miracle, when one day’s-worth of consecrated oil lasted for eight during the rededication of the Second Temple of Jerusalem... maybe the Jewish people will contemplate about the Palestinians while the first light is turned on... maybe the Jewish people will think about the Palestinian men, women and children... during the eight days of Hanukkah...

... and maybe all of us will think about the verse “For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:”                                                     Matthew 25:25 in King James Version of the Bible... 

I am not a believer and I do not appreciate the fanatic dogmatism of some preachers... but there is good philosophy in the Bible... and I read it often... not for salvation, but rather to embrace global values and ALL of humanity... and of course I will celebrate Christmas... in fact three times...
On the December 25... with everyone... and on January 6 with my Armenian friends... and on January 7 with my Ukrainian friends...
I love to celebrate... and during the eight days of Hanukkah I love to meet my Jewish friends... they are fun... and they are good people to hang around...

                                                                         *** 
...of Chameleons and the rest...

Will "The Wall" stop the drugs and will political chameleons succeed to camouflage the arrogance and greed of the 1%...? Will the executive of the 1% succeed to lull the people again...?
The "wall" will have no effect on smugglers but will harass people.

Check the news...

Drug overdoses killed more than 70,000 Americans in 2017, a record. The deaths contributed to a reduction in American life expectancy over the last three years, a pattern unprecedented since World War II.

The new numbers from health officials depict an addiction crisis more deadly than car crashes or gun violence... and non of them are good...  Cars kill and pollute... guns massacre and create wars... and drugs make us sick and helpless... These are the gifts of the 1% to the "WE THE PEOPLE..." ...and the U.N. report on climate... What will be our legacy to the next generation... coal and dust... ashes and fires... maybe flooded streets and Miami under water...  I always joked while teaching that eventually people will start roaming around with bottled water on their one hand and bottled air on the other... Maybe that's for next Christmas and Hanukkah...! Maybe... the Hanukkah lights will come from coal mines... or maybe from oil wells...  and Maybe Christmas trees will miraculously survive the wild fires... Maybe... after all the executives of the 1% gathered in Buenos Aires... over the weekend and acted as chameleons laughing at the people and deciding how to divide the globe... ... and till when "WE THE PEOPLE..." will tolerate...? Today is the second day of Advent... the glitter of gifts weighs heavy on the Christmas tree... Today light the second candle... and maybe people will see the starving people in Yemen... and notice the refugees in Syria... and maybe the tear-gassed children in Tijuana... Maybe... after all it is the season of miracles...

"We the people..." must decide...!

Why they are running... ?

My friend told me... Two people looked at me and asked; "Why you are here...?" and I answered smiling; "... because YOU were there..."
My friend is dark skinned... from South Asia and the people bugging him were white Anglos... in London, England...
My friend added; "I just wanted to remind them that South Asia was the crown jewel of the British vast colonial empire... where once the sun never set...
They colonized for economic exploitation and never imagined that the colonial population will migrate to the metropolis...
They just wanted the riches without the population... they wanted the capital without the labour...

*** 

Why they are running... ? 

Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the United States, return to Mexico after being hit by tear gas by U.S. Customs and Border Protection after attempting to illegally cross the border wall into the United States in Tijuana, Mexico, earlier this week. Adrees Latif/Reuters

Indeed,
Why they are running... ? 
Because, like my friend reiterated... North Americans wanted the riches of Central America... without the people...
They wanted the cheap labour to stay in their countries... and provide cheap labour...

At the Mexican-American border... a family of migrants from Central America... attempts to scale the wall at the border...
But,
U.S. border patrols rain tear gas on them... and mother and children run back...

The tear gas initiates the violent repudiation of HUMAN RIGHTS... migrants do have rights... at the border... refugees have rights at the border... It is the international law... and the tear gas violates the international law...

The migrants run... and the tear gas follows them...

... and migrant families run away...
Some are blaming the current executives of the 1%... but the truth is that both parties have identical policies when it comes to the foreign policy of the 1% in North America!
The 1% wants the profit that they make from Central America... coffee and banana plantations are proof of their greed... But North Americans and the executive of the 1%, whether red or blue or orange, wants the profits and not the people...

Check their policies... from liberal Carter to conservative Reagan and "nationalist" Trump...!

Indeed... Why are they running... ? 

 

And to paraphrase my friend when the two guys attempted to bully him... THE MIGRANTS ARE COMING TO THE U.S. BECAUSE THE U.S. WAS AND IS IN CENTRAL AMERICA...!

Check the policies... of both parties...

What’s Driving That Refugee Caravan...?

Human Rights Watch, in a disturbing new report on life in El Salvador communities under gang rule, finds that the small country had 20,000 murders from 2014 to 2017.

Adjusted for population size, it would be equivalent to the United States having over one million murders in the same period.

The report also estimates that over one-third of municipalities in El Salvador are controlled by gangs, which rule through extortion and the ever-present threat of violence.

This is important context for the refugee caravan arriving at the southern United States border, where the Trump administration has deployed tear gas to prevent arrivals from requesting asylum. As we wrote when President Trump first threatened to prevent the refugees’ arrival, this is almost certainly almost certainly a violation of international law, though in practice there’s no real enforcement mechanism The Salvadoran Civil War was a conflict between the military-led government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition or "umbrella organization" of several left-wing groups. A coup on October 15, 1979, led to the killings of anti-coup protesters by the government as well as anti-disorder protesters by the guerrillas, and is widely seen as the tipping point toward civil war. The full-fledged civil war lasted for more than 12 years and saw extreme violence. It also included the deliberate terrorizing and targeting of civilians by the death squads death squads, the recruitment of child soldiers children and other violations of human rights, mostly done by the military. An unknown number of people disappeared disappeared during the conflict, and the UN reports that the war killed more than 75,000 people between 1980 and 1992. In 2016, the El Salvador Supreme Court ruled that the amnesty law was unconstitutional and that the El Salvador government could prosecute war criminals. The United States contributed to the conflict by providing large amounts of military aid of $1–2 million per day to the government of El Salvador during both the Carter and Reagan administrations. The Salvadoran government was considered "friendly" and allies by the U.S. in the context of the Cold War. By May 1983, US officers took over positions in the top levels of the Salvadoran military, were making critical decisions and running the war. And,  The Nicaraguan Civil War is more commonly known as the Nicaraguan Revolution.  There were encompasses these events that made up the revolution: the rising opposition to the Somoza dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s and the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) attempting to oust it, then the FSLN attempting to govern in Nicaragua from 1979-1990, and the Contra War between the FSLN and the Contras from 1981-1990. In 1982, Somoza loyalists and people opposing the Sandinista, known as the Contra (for counter-revolution), or Nicaraguan Democratic Force, waged war against the Sandinista government.   The Contra were backed by the United States and its allies, while the FLSN was supported by the Soviet Union and its allies. Also, The Guatemalan Civil War ran from 1960 to 1996. It was fought between the government of Guatemala government and various leftist rebel groups supported chiefly by ethnic Maya Maya indigenous people and Ladino Ladino peasants, who together make up the rural poor. The government forces of Guatemala have been condemned for committing genocide against the Maya population of Guatemala  during the civil war and for widespread human rights violations human rights violations against civilians. Democratic elections during the Guatemalan Revolution in 1944 and 1951 had brought popular leftist governments to power, but a United States-backed coup d'état in 1954 installed the military regime of Carlos Castillo Armas, who was followed by a series of conservative military dictators. In 1970, Colonel Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio became the first of a series of military dictators representing the Institutional Democratic Party or PID. The PID dominated Guatemalan politics for twelve years through electoral frauds favoring two of Col. Carlos Arana's proteges (Gen. Kjell Eugenio Laugerud Garcia in 1974 and Gen. Romeo Lucas Garcia in 1978). The PID lost its grip on Guatemalan politics when General Efraín Ríos Montt, together with a group of junior army officers, seized power in a military coup on 23 March 1982. In the 1970s continuing social discontent gave rise to an insurgency among the large populations of indigenous people and peasants, who traditionally bore the brunt of unequal land tenure. During the 1980s, the Guatemalan military assumed almost absolute government power for five years; it had successfully infiltrated and eliminated enemies in every socio-political institution of the nation, including the political, social, and intellectual classes. In the final stage of the civil war, the military developed a parallel, semi-visible, low profile but high-effect, control of Guatemala's national life. It is estimated that 200,000 people were killed or "disappeared" during the conflict. As well as fighting between government forces and rebel groups, the conflict included, much more significantly, a large-scale, coordinated campaign of one-sided violence by the Guatemalan state against the civilian population from the mid-1960s onward... ... and of course the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero was one of the most notoriously infamous crime in El Salvador... and the U.S. intelligence played a central part in the assassination...  See the report below...

Tom Gibb in The Guardian...

Tom Gibb

Wed 22 Mar 2000 21.11 ESTFirst published on Wed 22 Mar 2000 21.11 EST

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San Salvador. 
In the bright morning sunlight of March 24 1980, a car stopped outside the Church of the Divine Providence. A lone gunman stepped out, unhurried. Resting his rifle on the car door, he aimed carefully down the long aisle to where El Salvador's archbishop, Oscar Arnulfo Romero, was saying mass. A single shot rang out. Romero staggered and fell. The blood pumped from his heart, soaking the little white disks of scattered host.

Romero's murder was to become one of the most notorious unsolved crimes of the cold war. The motive was clear. He was the most outspoken voice against the death squad slaughter gathering steam in the US backyard. The ranks of El Salvador's leftwing rebels were being swelled by priests who preached that the poor should seek justice in this world, not wait for the next. Romero was the "voice of those without voice", telling soldiers not to kill.

The US vowed to make punishment of the archbishop's killers a priority. It could hardly do otherwise as President Reagan launched the largest US war effort since Vietnam to defeat the rebels. He needed support in Washington, which meant showing that crimes like shooting archbishops and nuns would not be tolerated.

The ordering of the murder was blamed on the bogeyman of the story, a military intelligence officer called Major Roberto D'Aubuisson who had, conveniently for Washington, recently left the army. In the weeks before the murder, he was repeatedly on television using military intelligence files to denounce "guerrillas". Those he accused were often murdered. Romero was near the top of the list.

But US promises to bring justice came to nothing. With no trigger-man, gun or witnesses, officials claimed lack of evidence. D'Aubuisson went on to become one of El Salvador's most successful politicians before throat cancer killed him at the end of the civil war 12 years later - the revenge of God, many concluded.

However, new evidence suggests that Washington not only knew far more about the killing than it admitted - but also did nothing to investigate for fear of jeopardising its war effort. Vital evidence was ignored. Key witnesses, including the most likely gunman, were killed by those supposed to be investigating.

Indeed, Why they are running... ? 

From the tear gas or from the poverty and violence supported and promoted by the executive of the 1% in North America...?

Of Wealth and Global Warming... and the contradiction s of the 1%...

People speculate that Putin is the wealthiest man in the world... 
Trump speculates that he has 10 billion...
The Saudi prince, Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud is wealthy beyond imagination... People estimate the wealth of the Saudi family at 1.4 trillion dollars... U.S. $1 400 000 000 000...

...and I wonder...
Why people need that much money...? 
I reminded my students that money is coloured paper... green or whatever... sitting in the bank... but the moment it is taken out and spread around... it will bring happiness and joy to the owner and also to the community that the person is a part of...

...and I wonder...
Why people desire that much money...? 
"After all," I tell myself, "they cannot consume... waste that much money in their temporal life... and of course they cannot take the money to their grave and beyond..."

...and I wonder...
Why people desire so much money...? 
They fight for it... they cheat for it... they go to war for it... they massacre for it... genocides and holocausts are committed for it... and some panhandle and beg for it... some drug people, paddle in drugs for it... some rape for it... some murder for it... some marry for it and others divorce for it...

...and I wonder... 
Why so many atrocities are committed in the name of MONEY... when indeed it is hoarded in banks... not to see the light of day...?

... and I think; "Of course millions and billions and trillions are excessive, but maybe they want to leave their wealth to their kids... and propagate the 1%... "

Indeed... maybe... !

But then I tell myself; "If they want to leave that much wealth and money to their kids... If they love their children so much... If they care about their next generation so much... then why do they not care about the environment... and global warming and the destruction and the floods and the blizzards and the snow and the hurricanes and the wildfires... ?"

But then I ask to myself; "Why they poison the rivers and the lakes and the seas...? Why they generate so much plastic to suffocate life under the oceans...? Why they produce so much arms and ammunition to kill and maim people...   and produce chemical waste... and chemical weapons... ?"

... and I cannot solve the conundrum created... I cannot come up with a satisfactory answer... and get depressed...

The legacy of the 1%... wealth for their kids and a globe of waste and disaster... uninhabitable world...

How the kids will live in a polluted world...? How the kids will survive in a toxic environment...? 
The kids will inherit the wealth- millions and billions and trillions... but then they will inherit a poisoned world... 

13 federal agencies in the U.S. published a dire warning on Black Friday...
But some leaders, and the executive of the 1% declared... "I don't believe it..."

See below...

It's not snow from the blizzards in the Midwest... It is ash from the wildfires in Paradise...  and the Warning... Without major action to curb global warming, the American economy could lose 10 percent of G.D.P. by 2100, according to a report from 13 federal agencies, although the Trump administration is expected to ignore it. Meanwhile, coal shows no going away as a worldwide energy source...  The Growing Threats of Climate Change The National Climate Assessment has an innocuous-sounding name and was released on the Friday after Thanksgiving, but the report from 13 federal agencies has a dire message: Climate change is taking a toll on our health, economy and environment, and unless we cut greenhouse gas emissions, it’s going to get worse. Much worse. As in rising sea levels, worsening wildfires, more intense storms, an increase in disease and death, and large economic losses. ...and,     The Incredible Shrinking Earth

California continues to be ravaged by its deadliest wildfires in history, reflecting a monumental shift taking place in the world. “[T]he earth, for humans, has begun to shrink, under our feet,” writes Bill McKibben in The New Yorker. “Until now, human beings have been spreading, from our beginnings in Africa, out across the globe,” McKibben points out. “But a period of contraction is setting in as we lose parts of the habitable earth.” Some places are being wiped off the map as sea levels rise, while other areas are becoming unbearably hot. “By 2070, tropical regions that now get one day of truly oppressive humid heat a year can expect between 100 and 250 days, if the current levels of greenhouse-gas emissions continue.”  And don’t expect global warming to turn “the Arctic into the new Midwest” anytime soon. The soil is poor and the melting permafrost layer “cracks roads, tilts houses, and uproots trees.” Why the World Needs to Worry About Global Cooling The number of small air conditioning units worldwide is projected to nearly quadruple by 2050, according to a new report by the Rocky Mountain Institute. The result of all this cooling: more global warming. “To put this in perspective; if we turned the entire global population vegetarian overnight, replanted two-thirds of our degraded tropical forests, and doubled the world’s bicycle commuting it would just barely neutralize the negative impact from this one piece of technology,” write Iain Campbell, an author of the report, and William Sisson in Greentech Media. There is hope. The report claims that it is feasible to develop “a technology solution that has one-fifth of the climate impact” of current air conditioners. To that end, the Institute has partnered with Mission Innovation and the government of India on the Global Cooling Prize, which will provide $3 million for innovators to solve this burning issue.

... and I wonder...
Why they want to pile up so much money... and then, they do not care about the world where they live in... ?

I cannot solve the contradiction... and I wonder...!