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Hello,

Blogs are a familiar feature on the internet - where users post content in an accumulating manner, with comments, and search options, etc. They facilitate expression and exploration, and via attached comments, also debate and synthesis.


Reading and
Navigating Blogs

Our blogs are quite powerful. Each writer can post, as is typically the case. Sustainers who have the option can also post, however. All Blogs appear in the blog system, and sometimes also in content boxes the top page of ZNet - and always via the left menu of the top page - and can be found via searches, etc.

Commenting on blogs follows the blogs, attached at the bottom, and blog comments, like all others, are also visible in many places that show comments including in the forum system. In addition, the entire blog system gathers content for everyone - but one can look at the accumulating content in many ways.

  • For example one can look at one writer's efforts - so one is seeing what is effectively a blog system for that one writer, or Sustainer.
  • One can also look at the content by topic, seeing blogs that are tagged as being about a certain topic - or place, as well. Thus, when doing that, it is a blog system about a topic, or a place, with many contributors.
  • One can look at only writer blogs, or only sustainer blogs, as well.
  • One can look at blogs for particular Groups, too.

All this is easily done using the left menu. Searches allow even more variables and refinements.


Creating Blog Posts

If you are a Sustainer with permission, and are logged in, you will see a link in the left menu for you to post a blog - and you can use that to post one, and then tag it various ways (such as with a topic or place, or a group tag), and once you do, it is in the system with you as the author.

You can also use the console button to the left to post a blog - anytime and from anywhere in the site, as long as you are logged in.

Meanwhile, enjoy the blogs - and, by the way, if you are a Free Member or a Sustainer with a ZSpace page, of course you can put one or more content boxes on it, pulling blog links of any sort you may want to filter for, for example, by you or by your friends or by others - and by topic, about places, for groups, etc.

Blogs

Mr Pesident, Why are you Silent?

By Jacqueline O'Rourke at Nov 14, 2012


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Mr. President, Why are you silent? - An open letter to President Barack Obama

Dear President Obama,

I write to you on behalf of my sons, as a mother of Palestinian children, who are in turn the sons of the son of a Palestinian refugee from El Bass and Rashadiyeh camps in South Lebanon. I write to you as an author who has written about and studied postcolonial relations, culture, and the politics of belonging.  I write to you as a teacher and a social activist who believes that a man who wins the Nobel Peace Prize should do something to deserve it.

I just finished watching your first press conference since you were re-elected for a second term as President.  I was waiting to hear what you would have to say about the illegal Israeli assassination of Ahmed Al Jabaari and the facts released by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights’ (PCHR) report on Sunday November 11, 2012.  This report indicates that five Palestinian civilians including three children have been killed in the Gaza strip in the previous 72 hours, in addition to two Palestinian security personnel. Four of the deaths occurred as a result of Israeli military firing artillery shells on youngsters playing soccer. Moreover, 52 civilians had been wounded, of which six are women and 12 were children.[i]As the death toll climbs, Mr. President, why are you silent?
 
President Shimon Peres has already told the media that he briefed you fully on these events, [ii]thus confirming your implicit agreement and making you an accessory to more Israeli war crimes. It is evident that we are now in the midst of Israel’s follow-up to Operation Cast Lead, this time endearingly named “Pillar of defense”.  Where will you stand this time, as a Nobel Peace prize winner, President Obama? Why are you silent?
 
The recent visit of the Emir of Qatar with $250 million for Gaza promised that Hamas would be loosening its ties with Syria and Iran and could be brought into the group of Islamists arising from the Arab revolutions which are acceptable to your government. With the Palestinians finding new partners with your allies such as Qatar, you, too, have gained another ally, against your arch-nemesis Iran.  Surely, you can see that Israel’s actions will destroy any trust you have built in the region and break the alliances you are trying to forge.  Why are you silent?
 
One of your country’s most respected intellectuals Noam Chomsky recently visited Gaza and noted that the Israeli political leadership has warned that they will “go crazy” if Palestinian rights are given limited recognition at the UN. [iii]You, of course, have threatened to veto any resolution that would even edge toward limited recognition for Palestinians. Is that why you are silent today? Have you agreed to sit quietly and twiddle your thumbs as Israel goes “crazy” ?  For how long will my sons and their children have to accept being the victims of a lunatic infant?
 
Today the Israeli government released a video of the assassination of Ahmed al Jabbari, followed by warning tweets such as “We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead.”[iv]. Has Israel now entered the universe of cyber bullying?  Not even you, President Obama, allowed the release of the video of the assassination of bin Laden, though you certainly did use this illegal act to your advantage in drumming up the support of the weary, terrified and hopeless. Do you plan to rein in the cyber bully? Do you agree with the signs on the NYC subway that describe the Palestinians as “savages” or do you feel embarrassed that world leaders who converged on NYC for the 2012 General Assembly were greeted with such a flagrant display of hatred and bigotry?  Do you, Mr. President consider the Palestinians savages? Is that why you are silent?
 
Shortly you are off to Asia to travel to countries such as Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia and to attend the East Asia summit and meet with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).This tour reminds me of your trip to Cairo early in his first term where you assured the Arab world that you would seriously pursue a Palestinian-Israeli settlement. It’s now your second term and the whole world is waiting. Do you not feel brave enough yet? Are you waiting until January 23rd to see if Netanyahu returns to power?  Will you feel braver if the bully is safely out of your corner? Why are you silent?
 
A few days ago I saw the tweet of you hugging your wife Michelle, and putting my postmodern cynicism aside at the convenience of such a humane photo-op, for a few minutes you looked like a real person. You looked like my father, my brother, my son, my husband - a man - not merely the President of the world’s most powerful nation.  You looked like a man who had the capacity for love and gratitude, a man who just might have the guts to alter his nation’s role in a narrative of racism, oppression and torture which is the story of America’s friendship with the state of Israel. Your silence over the last few days events in Gaza is not becoming for a man of distinction. It is not becoming for a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.  Will you stay silent, Mr. President, or will you do something to deserve the Prize which was so generously bestowed upon you as a MAN of Peace?

Sincerely,
Jacqueline O’Rourke
Jacqueline O’Rourke


[i]http://www.alresalah.ps/en/index.php?act=post&id=1358
[ii]http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-rt-palestinians-israelviolence-obamal5e8medfj-20121114,0,4040224.story
[iii]http://www.alresalah.ps/en/index.php?act=post&id=1344
[iv]http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/11/14/idf_announces_gaza_assault_death_of_ahmed_al_jabari_via_twitter.html
 
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