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The Irony of ‘World Refugee Day’: ‘Celebrating’, then Blaming the Victims

Fadi, a Syrian teenager, with curly hair and an acne-covered face, has miraculously survived one of the greatest migrant boat disasters in the modern history of the Mediterranean. 

 Only 104 people have been rescued from a boat that carried an estimated 750 refugees after it capsized on June 13 in the open sea near the coastal town of Pylos.

 Scores of lifeless bodies have been pulled out from the water, and many more have washed ashore. Hundreds are still missing, feared dead, many of whom are women and children, as they huddled on the lower deck of the 30-meter boat. 

'The enemy is not a human being'

There’s a crucial, overlooked aspect of Daniel Ellsberg’s legacy that’s very much worth saluting, you might say: his transformation from a believer in the Vietnam war to a horrified opponent of it, ready to risk prison time to bring classified truth about its pointlessness into public awareness.

Ellsberg, who died on June 16 at age 92, had been part of the military-industrial establishment in the 1960s — a smart young man working as a Pentagon consultant at the Rand Corporation think tank. In the mid-’60s. he wound up spending two years in Vietnam, on a mission for the State Department to study counterinsurgency. He traveled through most of the country — witnessing not simply the war up close but Vietnam itself, and the people who lived there.

A Memorial Tribute To Daniel Ellsberg

Dan’s incredible life of brilliance and service has us all in awe.

Beautiful tributes come from NORMAN STOCKWELL (publisher of Progressive.org), DOROTHY REIK (Progressive Democrats of the Santa Monica Mountains), DENNIS BERNSTEIN (KPFA’s “Flashpoints”), DR. RUTH STRAUSS, TATANKA BRICCA, WENDI LEDERMAN, ANNA GYORGY and many many more.

This is a deeply moving program about a truly great historic figure who will be deeply missed and never forgotten.  

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