Perhaps the primary value of war – from the point of view of national leaders and their loyal followers – is that it places 100 percent of the blame for whatever’s wrong on the other guy: the enemy. And thus there’s no alternative but to kill “him,” which nowadays amounts to slaughtering and dismembering anybody and everybody who lives in his sector of the planet, including children . . . though that part isn’t said out loud.

Man signing petition

Wednesday, January 3, 2024, 12:00 PM
Learn the ins and outs of collecting signatures for the Citizens Not Politicians ballot initiative.  Register here.

It would have been outlandish to suggest that a small region like Gaza, seemingly bereft of significant natural resources, political will of its own, and let alone sovereignty, would become the world’s most significant geopolitical spot on earth. 

 The ongoing Israeli war on Gaza and the legendary resistance of the Palestinian people, however, have changed our calculation - or perhaps miscalculation - regarding what a besieged nation can achieve, in terms of collective resistance, in fact changing the rules of the game altogether. 

 However, it is still early to fully fathom the surely significant possible outcomes of the current upheaval resulting from the Gaza war and Resistance.

 While Israel and the United States are desperate to return to the status quo model, which existed in the Middle East prior to October 7, the newly emerging Palestinian leadership is keen on introducing a new era of international relations, namely new geopolitical players, who could, in turn, rope in new allies, with their own political ambitions and economic interests. 

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Love and Happiness 

Sheila ordered a gin and juice from David, the bartender, and laid a dollar on the counter. She glanced at her watch and saw she had about two hours before her girls would get out of school. David made her drink, set a napkin on the counter in front of her and sat the drink down.

“How you been doing, Sister?”

“I’m cool, Dave. How you?”

“Doing all right, hanging in there, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Lupe Gonzalo
The Packer: “Drawing on her experience with the Fair Food Program, Gonzalo has helped to train, mentor and educate workers from other regions and industries on the Worker-Driven Social Responsibility model.”“Gonzalo also was a member of the CIW team working with Futures Without Violence, which collaborated with CIW and other Fair Food Program partners on the first sexual harassment training curriculum for the agricultural sector in the U.S.”

As 2023 draws to a close, farmworkers with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers are celebrating the organization’s 30th anniversary. In the last 30 years, the CIW — which began as a loose gathering of farmworkers meeting weekly in a borrowed church hall in the small, crossroads town of Immokalee — has grown in size and success to become the founder of the Presidential Medal-winning Fair Food Program, the leading social responsibility program in the US agricultural industry today, and of the Worker-driven Social Responsibility model, the new paradigm for human rights protection in global supply chains to which the FFP gave rise.

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