CARTOON: Satan Claws -- Bringing Our Special Brand Of Corporate Christmas To Refugee Camps
Behind our empty platitudes of Peace and Good Will, we shred limbs from children and vaporize desperate families who have taken refuge in hospitals and schools.
SPECIAL!!! Note Of Well-Earned Dedication
Today’s cartoon and post is dedicated to Sen Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), who — as a good Democratic ‘progressive liberal’ — sucks up donations from Zionist lobby groups like JStreet and individuals affiliated with AIPAC. In fact, in 2018 she was one of the top recipients of loot from pro-Israel groups. Due to that, she has been a reliable supporter of the US/Israel genocide. Her staff has ignored my repeated calls to request a call back from a staffer and when she has sent written replies on a couple occasions, she ignores issues and questions I raised in letters and just poops out standard ‘Genocide’ Joe/Bibi Netanyahu lies, dodges and distractions.
In 2012 Baldwin was the first openly gay female to be elected to the Senate, winning her first term and 2018 reelection by comfortable margins. Not true last month, when she squeaked through 49.4 to 48.5 percent … less than 1 percent. Since her re-election, it is now impossible to speak to a human in her district office. I have never gotten a human to pick up the 150 or so calls I have made to her DC office since the beginning of her enthusiastic support of the genocide.
As an active pro-genocide-Biden-lefty-liberal Democrat, Sen. Baldwin — a true Satan Claws if there ever was one — deserves to have this cartoon and column dedicated to her this Merry Mass Murder Holiday Season!
Senator, if you see this and would like the original cartoon to hang in your office, give me a call! I’ll even sign it with an appropriate two-word personal dedication!
If you would like to congratulate Sen. Baldwin, call her DC office at (202) 224-5653.
— M. Taylor
Cartoon by Mark Taylor / DeMOCKracy.ink
Baby Jesus was lucky he and his refugee parents weren’t in today’s Middle East manufactured by Isr#el and the US.
By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (12/24/24)
Given genocide outweighs any good a government may do, the only gift the United States and it’s Isr*eli managers offer the world this holiday season is industrial scale murder, mayhem and depravity. Behind empty platitudes of holiday cheer and ‘Peace on Earth’, we shred limbs from starving children and vaporize desperate families seeking refuge in hospitals and schools.
‘Genocide” Joe Biden’s social media holiday message called out “Wishing your home peace and light this holiday season.”
Or if you live in Gaza — or the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria — that would be “light up your home.”
Today’s American Christmas carols are sniper drones imitating the wailing of wounded children and desperate women to lure more victims into range.
Peace on Earth? Nah, we’re only interested in pieces of families scattered across the ground. Baby Jesus was lucky he and his refugee parents weren’t in today’s Middle East manufactured by Isr*el and the US.
As a nation, we and our Z^onist minders are the diabolical embodiment of evil spouting holiday cheer.
We are Satan Claws coming to your town.
Or defenseless refugee camp.
SATAN CLAWS DEPRAVITY: The Misery We ‘Gift’ The Children Of Gaza
And the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan
[Editor’s Note: This video went up on YouTube nine months ago and has had only 414 views. Nine months, the time for a baby to be born. — Mark Taylor]
Right now, children in Gaza are living their worst nightmare. Forced into a shrinking space of land, they are denied their fundamental right to safety, education, food and clean water as well as their right to mental health. Coordinated by journalist Nour Swirki, here they put their experiences into their own words.
2-minute video
Meditations On A Six Year Old Amputee Crawling Through Gaza With The Help Of A Roller Skate
Caitlin’s Newsletter
By Caitlin Johnstone (12/24/24)
It's funny the things that get to you when witnessing the nightmare in Gaza, out of all the horrors you'll see there from day to day. Today I saw a video of a six year-old Palestinian boy whose legs had been amputated dragging himself through his tent camp with the help of a roller skate worn on one of his hand, and it just about destroyed me.
5-minute video
SPONSORED BY US: Israeli Troops Recount Massive, Indiscriminate Murder Of Civilians In Gaza 'Kill Zone'
Israeli invaders patrol in Khan Younis, Gaza, Palestine on January 27, 2024. (Photo: Nicolas Garcia/AFP via Getty Images)
"We're killing civilians there who are then counted as terrorists," said one Israeli veteran, who added that random slayings have become "a competition between units" to see who can kill more people.
By Brett Wilkins
Common Dreams (12/20/24)
Israel Defense Forces commanders, soldiers, and veterans described a "kill zone" in the heart of the Gaza Strip where troops are ordered to shoot "anyone who enters," adding to the copious body of evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by IDF troops during their 441-day obliteration of the Palestinian enclave.
Haaretz, Israel's oldest newspaper, this week published the accounts of anonymous IDF troops who received orders to kill unarmed men, women, children, and elders in the Netzarim Corridor, a strip of land several miles wide that bisects Gaza from the Israeli border to the Mediterranean Sea just south of Gaza City.
"The forces in the field call it 'the line of dead bodies,'" a commander in Division 252 told Haaretz. "After shootings, bodies are not collected, attracting packs of dogs who come to eat them. In Gaza, people know that wherever you see these dogs, that's where you must not go."
Another senior officer in that unit told the paper that "the division commander designated this area as a 'kill zone.' Anyone who enters is shot."
One Division 252 veteran said: "For the division, the kill zone extends as far as a sniper can see. We're killing civilians there who are then counted as terrorists. The IDF spokesperson's announcements about casualty numbers have turned this into a competition between units. If Division 99 kills 150, the next unit aims for 200."
A commander in Division 252 said that out of 200 "militants" the IDF said one unit had killed, "only 10 were confirmed as known Hamas operatives. Yet no one questioned the public announcement about killing hundreds of militants."
A senior reserve commander asserted, "Calling ourselves the world's most moral army absolves soldiers who know exactly what we're doing."
"It means ignoring that for over a year, we've operated in a lawless space where human life holds no value," he added. "Yes, we commanders and combatants are participating in the atrocity unfolding in Gaza. Now everyone must face this reality."
"Calling ourselves the world's most moral army absolves soldiers who know exactly what we're doing."
Another Division 252 veteran recounted the time when "guards spotted someone approaching" and "we responded as if it was a large militant raid."
"We took positions and just opened fire. I'm talking about dozens of bullets, maybe more," he continued. "For about a minute or two, we just kept shooting at the body. People around me were shooting and laughing."
The soldier continued:
We approached the blood-covered body, photographed it, and took the phone. He was just a boy, maybe 16. That evening, our battalion commander congratulated us for killing a terrorist, saying he hoped we'd kill 10 more tomorrow. When someone pointed out he was unarmed and looked like a civilian, everyone shouted him down. The commander said: 'Anyone crossing the line is a terrorist, no exceptions, no civilians. Everyone's a terrorist.' This deeply troubled me—did I leave my home to sleep in a mouse-infested building for this? To shoot unarmed people?
One Division 99 reservist recalled watching a video feed from a drone showing "an adult with two children crossing the forbidden line."
"We had them under complete surveillance with the drone and weapons aimed at them—they couldn't do anything," he said. "Suddenly we heard a massive explosion. A combat helicopter had fired a missile at them. Who thinks it's legitimate to fire a missile at children? And with a helicopter? This is pure evil."
Soldiers who served in Division 252 described the first speech delivered by Brig. Gen. Yehuda Vach, who took command of the unit last summer and, according to one veteran in attendance, told its troops that "there are no innocents in Gaza."
"In the Middle East, victory comes through conquering territory," Vach said, according to the witness. "We must keep conquering until we win."
"Who thinks it's legitimate to fire a missile at children? And with a helicopter? This is pure evil."
One officer said Vach obsessed over carrying out the so-called Generals' Plan—a blueprint for the starvation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from northern Gaza—and sought to forcibly expel 250,000 people from the area.
The IDF responded to the Haaretz story in a statement claiming "strikes are targeted solely at military objectives, and before the strikes are carried out, many steps are taken to minimize harm to noncombatants."
However, the testimonies published by Haaretz are consistent with numerous other accounts provided by IDF soldiers and veterans, as well as Palestinian survivors and witnesses, and international medical personnel who worked in Gaza.
'Zones of extermination'
Earlier this year, South Africa—which is leading a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice—filed an emergency request with the tribunal citing "testimony from Israeli soldiers who have served in Gaza that Israeli soldiers treat evacuation zones as 'zones of extermination' in which all remaining Palestinians are considered to be legitimate targets."
American trauma surgeons who volunteered at the European Hosptial in Khan Younis described "horrifying violence deliberately directed at civilians," including "a 3-year-old boy shot in the head, a 12-year-old girl shot through the chest, an ICU nurse shot through the abdomen, all by some of the best-trained marksmen in the world."
Palestinian survivors have recounted IDF troops or drones killing young children and people holding white flags. Rescue workers and journalists attempting to document the incidents have also been killed.
These are some of the more than 45,000 Palestinians* who, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, have been killed, and over 107,000 others who've been wounded, since Israel launched the war on Gaza in retaliation for the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack.
On Thursday, the international medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières and Human Rights Watch joined United Nations experts, rights groups including Amnesty International, more than a dozen national governments, and thousands of academics, jurists, and others who accuse Israel of genocidal acts or outright genocide in Gaza.
*Editor’s Note: Clearly, no one knows the actual body count, which grows by the hour, but the Lancet Medical Journal estimated the number to be 186,000 in early July. Ralph Nader crunched the numbers of tonnage of bombs dropped and projected fatality ratio shortly after and estimated the number to be over 200,000. Even alternative media neglects the journalistic duty to put the ‘official’ death toll in proper context. — M. Taylor
Common Dreams work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
DRONES: The Gift That Keeps On Taking, And Taking, And…
2-minute, 30-second video
Drones armed with sniper rifles fly over Gaza at night playing the sounds of crying babies to lure civilians out of hiding.
By Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter (12/22/24)
Drones fill the air and block out the natural sky.
Drones armed with sniper rifles fly over Gaza at night playing the sounds of crying babies to lure civilians out of hiding.
Drones surveil protest movements and give nightmares to grandmothers in New Jersey.
Drones with facial recognition technology keep a lifeless eye on us to make sure we are all in our proper places at all times.
Drones for kids as Christmas presents. Free drone in this box of Lucky Charms.
Your daughter is so intelligent, maybe someday she will girlboss her way into a job at Lockheed Martin designing military drones to help kill impoverished foreigners.
Drones hover over crooked towers flashing bright signs for Products, Products, Products.
Drones hover over suburban houses ruled by fathers with horrible hands.
Drones hover over armies of mechanical dogs pouring out into the streets in the moonlight.
A murder of drones in the dead tree at sunset. Flocks of drones migrating to the global south for winter. The sky used to be ruled by living beings. Now it is ruled by drones.
Our birds are being replaced by machines.
Our stars are being replaced by Elon Musk satellites.
Our minds are being replaced by algorithms.
Our hearts are being replaced by social media trends.
Our world is being replaced by screens.
Our creative genius is being replaced by AI slop. That sacred green thing within us is being paved over with microchips.
Our roots into our mother planet are dying. At night we pray to false old gods and false new gods while we strangle our creator with plastic, and then we count the passing drones to fall asleep.
Merry Xmas (War is Raging)
“Now nothing gives the holiday it's festive feel like the American tradition of a big arms deal so let's see what Uncle Sammy Claus has in his sling slay tonight.”
Jesse Welles (12/25/23)
1-minute, 34-second video
" Hell is empty and the devils are all here."
— Shakespeare
HISTORY TO KNOW: How The Watermelon Became The Palestinian Symbol Of Resistance
AJ+/Al Jazeera (6/9/21)
Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour explained to AJ+ how the watermelon became a symbol of resistance for Palestinians.
3-minute video
I think you should send a copy of your Satan Claws cartoon with a "two word" dedication to ALL members of Congress--plus everyone serving in Biden's administration. If you don't have enough space on the cartoon for the dedication, simply put "F U" in a corner. I'm sure they'll get the message.
It’s the Amerikkkan way