International Law Is Meaningless

The two major wars being fought in the world make it clear that no matter what kind of rules governing warfare are in place, there is no way to enforce them. Russia, Ukraine, Israel and Hamas are running roughshod over civilian populations, defying basic humanitarian principles while the rest of the world can only use words to slow them down.


Genocidal Bombing Gaza Cities Into Rubble Indicts Israel’s U.S. Patron’s Corporate World Hegemony

Global corporate capitalism led by the hegemonic state, the United States, is a fundamentally immoral and irrational system. In capitalism, both states and corporations are designed to maximize short-term power and profits for the super-wealthy corporate elite. [1]

For two and a half months, Israeli military forces, with the full backing of the US government, have dropped more than 40,000 tons of explosives—the equivalent of more than two nuclear bombs—on Gaza destroying residential buildings, hospitals, schools and refugee camps and deliberately targeting hundreds of medical workers, journalists, teachers and other civilians for assassination. [2]


Does Calling For The Genocide Of Jews Violate Penn’s Code Of Conduct?

Questioned at a Congressional hearing, the President of the University of Pennsylvania will not say that calling for the genocide of Jews violates the University’s anti-bullying or harassment Code of Conduct. She says it is “context-dependent,” and only violates University’s rules “if the speech turns into conduct.”

The presidents of Harvard and MIT gave similar testimony.


Brattleboro Petitions for March Elections Now Available – List of Vacancies, 2024 Election Schedule

Petitions for Brattleboro Town Officers, Windham Southeast School District (WSESD) Board Members, and Town Meeting Members are now available at the Town Clerk’s office.  Town elections will be Tuesday, March 5 at the American Legion, located at 32 Linden St., Brattleboro, VT 05301.

Annual Representative Town Meeting will begin on Saturday, March 23, 2024 at 8:30 a.m. in the BUHS Gymnasium.

Petitions for Town Officers and WSESD Board Members must contain at least 30 valid signatures of registered Brattleboro voters and be filed in the clerk’s office no later than Monday, January 29 at 5 p.m. to have their name placed on the ballot.


The ONE and ONLY Brattleboro

The ONE and ONLY Brattleboro

First, let me emphasize that I would not change anything growing up in Brattleboro!

According to the U.S. Census Reports, Brattleboro’s population in 1950 was 11,522; in 1960, it was 11,734 (when I went into the Army); in 1970, it was 12,239 (highest); in 2010, it was 12,046; and in 2022, it was 12,106. So, our population has been pretty unwavering for the last fifty years with no growth.


“Freedom! Justice!” Demand Of Generations Of Palestinians Will Not Be Denied All That Much Longer

“Freedom! Justice!” Demand of Generations of Palestinians

Will Not Be Denied All That Much Longer

Israelis are very proud of their Biblical God given cry and order, ‘Let My People Go,’ but never seem to accept, nor hear, nor acknowledge, that ‘Let Us Have Our Freedom’ be the imagined cry of generations of captive Palestinians suffering Israel’s merciless, and very often deadly, illegal military occupation.


Our House of Representatives

House

435 members

Base pay = $174,000 + benefits

Let’s call it $200,000 each including benefits;  Speaker, majority and minority leaders make more.

435 x $200,000 = 87 million


US OK’s Bombing Children as Hamas Fights for Their Freedom from Illegal Israeli Military Occupation

Israel maintains an illegal air, sea and land blockade on Gaza, not allowing anyone, including children, to escape being bombed to death.

The US government, providing Israel with warplanes, missiles, weapons, ammunition and political and diplomatic backing, is complicit in this ongoing genocide of bombing to death thousands of militarily confined civilians, mostly women and children .


UN Told Israelis Give The Land & Homes Back and Compensate Palestinians! Resolution #194 12/11/1948!

UN Told Israelis Give The Land & Homes Back and Compensate Palestinians! Resolution #194 12/11/1948!

On May 14, 1948, the Provisional Government of Israel had proclaimed a new State of Israel comprising 77% of the land in Palestine.

On December 11, 1948, exactly one week after Albert Einstein condemned the macabre Israeli massacre at the Arab village of Deir Yassin and warned against supporting Fascism in Israel in a letter to the New York Times signed by other prominent Jews, [1] the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution #194, resolving that:


The Dictator Is Emboldened

When Trump ran for President the first time it seemed like a bad joke when he was elected. Then the nightmare began. America became a country with a mentally ill fool for a leader. He trashed the economy and ruined any semblance of good relations we had with other countries around the world.

Despite the fact that he is facing 91 legal charges against him he is more emboldened than ever to assume the presidency and transform it into a military dictatorship. Snubbing all of the Republican debates is a very bad signal. It means that he is convinced he is the only one who can win the election and it also makes it clear that he will make up his own rules as the election season moves ahead.

Trump and his team of maniacs are already mapping out plans for when he wins the election. He is talking about clamping down on immigration and turning anyone who wants to enter this country into a criminal.


On Veterans Day US Veterans of WWII Should Know Hitler Was Empowered by US Corporations

Years ago, Noam Chomsky suggested such a book be written.. Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who would have written a foreword, expected it to be sent to key historians to knock America off it’s false pedestal of having protected the world from Hitler, who America”s greatest corporations had empowered with massive investments in, and joint venturing with his poor and disarmed Nazi Germany bringing it up to world’s #1 military in only six years.


Serious Word Play

With so much trouble in the world, in so many realms, I can’t help but ask myself, what is my responsibility? Where to begin? Problems seem innumerable. Where is the onus? 

Yet today, for some reason, I looked at that word, onus, and couldn’t stop seeing it as comprised of its parts; on us. The burden is… on us. Is that etymology on purpose? An answer to the elusive question hidden in plain sight?


Now It’s Personal

For most of my life I have tried to keep an open mind about the perpetual conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. When there is a near-constant state of war both sides do things that oppress innocent people and make life difficult.

As a full-of-myself 20 year old I thought I had all the answers. It seemed black and white to me when I was in Israel in 1970. The Israelis had all the power and they were suppressing the Arab population. When I met my father’s cousins who had walked from Russia to Palestine in 1920 to escape the brutality of the Czar’s pogroms against Jews I told them I thought Israel was treating Arabs the same way that the Jews had been treated by the Nazis. They were outraged and didn’t speak to me for a few days. They decided to chalk up my remarks to youthful arrogance and innocence.

Over the past 54 years I have come to understand that this conflict is always in the grey area and I have tried to be sympathetic to both sides. But everything changed last week when Hamas attacked Israel.


What I Heard About The EMS Process in Brattleboro

What they said:

We’ll have an open and transparent public process. We want to have a great public process. We need to hear from the public. I’m not hearing enough from the public.  We’ll give the public a chance to weigh in. This will be an open and transparent public process. Your comments are really important.

Then they said:

The website comments are self-selecting and biased. You’ve already spoken for three minutes! You need to wrap it up. So emotional. Those news articles don’t apply to us. No looking back. Look to the future, now!  We know the majority of the public says they want Rescue but we’re voting against it. We have information the public doesn’t have. 


“It’s Not Over ‘Til It’s Over; It’s Not Over ‘Til We Get It Right.”

Remember the quote attributed to Yogi Berra: “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” Now, consider the Starship’s lyrics, “It’s not over ’til it’s over; It’s not over ’til we get it right.”

Please review the following articles in September 27, 2023 edition of the Commons:

A squandered opportunity by William E. Kraham
Use of ARPA funds can only be seen as evidence of its bad faith by F. David Levenbach
Brattleboro town department heads ‘blindsided’ by Barbara Mellish


Is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trustworthy?

Below is a brief Forbes piece discrediting Robert Kennedy, Jr. The key sentence is the following:

“This week he posted to his Instagram account a photo of Gates with the wild words ‘The digitalized economy? We get rid of cash and coins. We give you a chip. We put all your money in your chip. If you refuse a vaccine, we turn off the chip and you starve!’”

I knew Kennedy is untrustworthy when I fact-checked his video, “The Real Anthony Fauci” and discovered that at the very beginning of the video: Kennedy, setting the stage for what the video will prove, makes a serious, factually untrue statement, which he has never subsequently corrected. If you are going to expose the mainstream media and medical establishment for propagating false narratives; then you yourself, Kennedy, better be impeccably truthful.


Brattleboro EMS, RTM and ARPA

At its 2023 meeting, RTM approved a motion calling on “the Selectboard to develop and implement a dedicated community engagement process for allocating [ARPA} funds before any further funds are spent.” Before that meeting and since, and during Selectboard meetings, members of the public have asked—really, begged—the board not to obligate ARPA funds until there was a systematic effort to ascertain public preferences for the spending of those monies, and we were given assurances that such a public process would occur before drawing on ARPA funds. The Selectboard’s vote last night to draw on 51% of the ARPA balance, without promised public deliberation, can only be seen as evidence of its bad faith.