Anne Frank on YouTube

A first...A 13 year old Anne Frank is filmed, seen leaning over her balcony in Merwedeplein in July, 1941 to get a good look of the bride-to-be next door.



Many thanks to RickB, who writes

[I]t’s very effective, ties her into the here and now which will hopefully help keep the message alive, the lesson of the Holocaust is that this must never happen again to anyone.

The Anne Frank House has also established a YouTube channel.

[It} shows existing and new images about Anne Frank, including excerpts from interviews with Otto Frank and witnesses like Miep Gies, as well as previews of the virtual museum of the Anne Frank House, soon to be opened to the public. With this Anne Frank Channel, people around the world will be able to explore the life and significance of Anne Frank through unique images. Would you like to stay up to date? Subscribe to this channel.

Don't blink...

Assennara [Arab Israeli journal] learned from reliable sources that the Israeli government in the late 50s and early 60s prepared a plan to limit the "birth rate" of the Arabs who remained in the country [after the 1948 war] in an effort to solve the demographic problems resulting from the increasing growth ratio among Arabs; which the Israeli government though of as a security danger that threatened the demographic balance in the country.

There will be a day that all that is left is one Palestinian woman holding her baby at gun point on the beach and the paper will read... Palestinian woman swears to drive Israel off the map...__TnHilltopper

Genocide - Free Palestine (Saturday Sonata)

...2009...
Imagine life under these conditions: Living in limbo under a foreign occupier. Having no self-determination, no right of return, and no power over your daily life. Being in constant fear, economically strangled, and collectively punished.

Having your free movement denied by enclosed population centers, closed borders, regular curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, electric fences, and separation walls. Having your homes regularly demolished and land systematically stolen to build settlements for encroachers in violation of international law prohibiting an occupier from settling its population on conquered land.

Having your right to essential services denied - to emergency health care, education, employment, and enough food and clean water.

Being forced into extreme poverty, having your crops destroyed, and being victimized by punitive taxes. Having no right for redress in the occupier's courts under laws only protecting the occupier. Being regularly targeted by incursions and attacks on the ground and from the air.

Being willfully harassed, ethnically cleansed, arrested, incarcerated, tortured, and slaughtered on any pretext, including for your right of self-defense. Having no rights on your own land in your own country for over six decades and counting. Vilified for being Muslims and called terrorists, Jihadists, crazed Arabs, and fundamentalist extremists. Victimized by a slow-motion genocide to destroy you.

According to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, Israel has conducted state-sponsored genocide against the Palestinians for decades and intensively in Gaza. In a September 2006 Electronic Intifada article titled "Genocide in Gaza" he wrote: "A genocide is taking place in Gaza....An average of eight Palestinians die daily in the Israeli attacks on the Strip. Most of them are children. Hundreds are maimed, wounded and paralyzed. (It's become) a daily business, now reported (only) in the internal pages of the local press, quite often in microscopic fonts. The chief culprits are the Israeli pilots who have a field day," like shooting fish in a barrel. Why not, they're only Muslims, so who'll notice or care.

Pro-Anti or Anti-Pro (a discussion with my muse.)

My muse has been banging the gong in my head for about two hours now. Before you ask… Yes. There is a gong in my head. It was put there years ago by men in white coats who said it would be used to keep my wits from colliding up against my colossal ignorance. To this day I do not know who those men were. One of them looked suspiciously like my Uncle Chester.

(Long pause.)

Yes. My muse must be banging on it hard, because I’m sure she isn’t just getting my attention for attention’s sake... It’s not her Modus operandi.

(Pause.)

So I’m just waiting for her to rear her beautiful head…

(Looks at watch. Silence.)

I am rather sure that she’ll begin shortly.

(Looks at watch. Silence. Looks at watch again. Silence.)

I’m serious… I am. ...She’s banging the gong so friggin’ loud she must be in one hell of a lather over something.

(Pause.)

Something has her furious! Some injustice or war or genocide or fool or politician or thief- but there I go repeating myself.

(Pause.)

When this happens, and it happens more times than I’ve the pills for, she will, rather quickly, begin to do her thing…

(Looks at watch. Silence. Knocks on forehead.) 

Hello? You can stop banging and get to work, muse. ...Hello?

(Silence. Begins to pace about the room grunting and in general making the headache worse.) 

Say something! Move my fingers already would ya? I don’t have all night and the faithful readers will tire of this idiotic monologue soon and hit the back button, or some link... anything to rid themselves of what isn’t theirs! Namely, my headache!

(Looks about the room desperately to draw attention from the bombardment. Nothing. Begins to pace wildly and grit teeth.)

Stop banging the damn gong and speak! I demand that you say something or take my wrist and begin to type something worthy! Now!

(Silence.)

Come on, muse! I’ve been very patient and you know it! Please? Please? Please?

(You’re groveling.)

Of course I’m groveling! It’s your gonging that is driving me to it! Your incessant clanging is causing me to do things that I would otherwise never do!

(Ha! You always grovel. I’ve told you so many times how unbecoming it is on you. Remember?)

For God’s sake! Must you be such a pigheaded mule?

(That’s better. Still, it is rather evident that you need me to write. I mean you mix metaphors like Michael Steele mixes his definition of conservatism.)

Oh god! That was pathetic, muse!

(Was it?)

Hell yes it was! Just ask the readers here if your metaphor was any better than any of mine. Go ahead. Ask them. I dare you.

(You’ve done it for me, dear. But mine was not a metaphor.)

Huh? …Oh. Yes.

(Silence. Puts fingers to temples. Muse is again banging the gong.)

For the love of all things! This has not been the best of weeks for me, muse! You of all people should know this!

(Sudden stop.)

Oh. No. That didn’t come out the way I intended it. I didn’t mean to imply that this weeks writing has not been your best, muse. I meant, outside of the writing, I’ve had a bad week. Understand? Don’t take it the wrong way. I didn’t-

(You’re groveling again!)

Sorry.

(You need to lighten up, Mark. You need to stop taking things so seriously, because they’re not.)

They’re not?

(No.)

But what about Madoff and torture and war and Sudan and the economy and joblessness and homelessness and hunger and-

(I was talking about your personal life, you schmuck. You’re too serious about yourself.) 

I am?

(Yes. The other things, those outside of you, are serious. You see?) 

Yes. (Beat.) No. I don’t think I get it…

(That’s because you’re not supposed to “get it”.)

I’m not?

(No.)

But… Wait? But… Wait a second… What am I supposed to not get? Myself? But I do get myself. I do! I get myself!

(Really?)

Yes.

(Okay. In what way do you “get yourself”?)

I… Well I… I know what I stand for. Yes! I do! I understand that little missy!

(Then by all means do tell…)

Okay. (Resolutely.) Do you mind? I know I’m resolute about the forthcoming list!

(Sorry. I couldn’t help myself.)

Of course you couldn’t. (Rowwrrr...) Stop it.

(Okay. Sorry. Please, Mark, tell us what you stand for. I’m sure the good readers are just dying to know.)

...Sarcasm noted... Okay. Ummm… I’m against unjust and non-defensive war. I’m against needless starvation. I’m against genocide and theocracy. I’m against tyranny. Against corruption and homelessness. I’m against torture and the death penalty. I’m against Prop 8. Against child abuse and sex slavery. And I'm certainly against racism.

(Muse clears her throat, which causes Mark to think faster, which, in turn, causes his headache to near migraine speed.)

I’m anti-war. Anti-anti-choice. Against slavery of any kind. I'm against pedophilia and against those that would force their religion down the throats of an unwilling populace. I’m anti-empire. Against preemptive strike. Against-

(Muse relentlessly and ferociously bangs the gong!)

Holy crap! Give a guy a heads-up, no pun intended, (none taken) before you bang the goddamn gong! I’m telling you what I’m against! What the hell else do you want from me?

(Muse bangs the gong!)

WHAT? WHAT? TELL ME!

(I thought you were going to tell us what you were for not what you're against.)

Stand for, stand against- like there’s a difference?

(Muse bangs the gong much harder than before and Mark storms out of the room holding his head and screaming...)

© 2008 mrp/thepoetryman

We Will Not Go Down by Michael Heart

Be prepared to cry...

Native American Genocide

LT's XVII Sonata inspired this grim look at the ugliest chapter in our country's relatively short history
(Sadly in this span, we, the people of The United States of America, have learned little...)

Where Will Our Children Live...

A lonesome warrior stands in fear of what the future brings,
he will never hear the beating drums or the songs his brothers sing.

Our many nations once stood tall and ranged from shore to shore
but most are gone and few remain and the buffalo roam no more.

We shared our food and our land and gave with open hearts,
We wanted peace and love and hope, but all were torn apart.

All this was taken because we did not know what the white man had in store,
They killed our people and raped our lands and the buffalo roam no more.

But those of us who still remain hold our heads up high, and the spirits of
the elders flow through us as if they never died.

Our dreams will live on forever and our nations will be reborn, our bone and
beads and feathers all will be proudly worn.

If you listen close you will hear the drums and songs upon the winds, and in
the distance you will see....the buffalo roam again.

Submitted by Tommy Flamewalker Manasco

NATIVE AMERICANS.COM 

 

~

"By conservative estimates, the population of the United states prior to European contact was greater than 12 million. Four centuries later, the count was reduced by 95% to 237 thousand." (More...)

 ~

TRAIL OF DEATH: after years of researching the Wicocomico Nation, it has led me to various other sources of study concerning the brutality that Native Americans suffered at the hands of the English and later the United States.These stories will not be found in our history books and if by some chance one is found in the history books, it will be written so that it would be difficult to realize it was the same story. Our children were brought up on the story of Pocohantas and how understanding the English were.

When stories of this nature are read, many people try to make excuses for the brutality that was imposed on the Native Americans. Many readers will mention the atrocities the Native Americans imposed on the English and citizens of the United States.KEEP IN MIND THIS LAND BELONGED TO THE NATIVE AMERICANS; they reacted just as any citizen would in defense of their land and family.

When Indians came in contact with the Europeans ( Spanish,French,English) it was a disaster for the Indians in the form of out right slaughter, or through diseases which the Indians were not immune to. I believe that is sufficient enough to make the Indians wary of the Europeans.

When the English arrived to settle Jamestown, Chief Powhatan fed and kept the English alive, however after a short time it was evident the intent of the English was to steal the land in any manner possible. (Read more...)

  

(Map depicting concentration of various tribes throughout the United States)