IT'S TIME: To (Politely) Challenge Congressional Staffers On Their Role In US/Israeli Genocide
Are Congressional Staffers — from pencil pushers on up to senior staff — morally responsible for enabling the daily slaughter their Congressional boss funds, arms and lies for? Absolutely.
Cartoon by Mark Taylor / DeMOCKracy.ink
By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (4/21/24)
I woke this morning to news of yet another daily US/Israeli war crime atrocity: Israeli Strikes On Rafah Kill 13, Mostly Children, As US Advances Aid Package.
The article details the overnight carnage: “Israeli strikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah overnight killed 13 people, including nine children, health officials said Sunday, as the United States was on track to approve billions of dollars of additional military aid to its close ally.”
And it gets grimmer: “The first strike killed a man, his wife and their 3-year-old child, according to the nearby Kuwaiti Hospital, which received the bodies. The woman was pregnant, and the doctors managed to save the baby, the hospital said.”
A baby was born an orphan. Orphaned by an American bomb. A bomb approved and ‘paid’ for by ‘our’ Congress.
But it gets even worse: “The second strike killed eight children and two women, all from the same family, according to hospital records. An airstrike in Rafah the night before killed nine people, including six children.”
This is our government. This is who we are. Through our tax dollars, we paid for the bombs. We killed those children. We slaughter and rip limbs from more children every day. We are all complicit.
Calls to nowhere
I have repeatedly called Congressional offices throughout this US-funded genocide. I call most days. Of course it has made no difference. On the pay of Zionist lobbies to whom we have lost our government, my calls have made no difference. None.
For some time I’ve been thinking we need to be speaking to their staffers; challenging them on their assistance in running the Congressional offices which enables and funds our hourly atrocities and thus the grinding genocide in Gaza.
Without answering the phone, filing paperwork, setting up appointments for their boss to meet with Zionist billionaires to receive the next pay-off for genocide, those offices would stumble to a halt.
Was the office clerk who tallied the daily death count and filed the paperwork for the next shipment of Zyklon B gas at the Auschwitz death camp complicit — and thus sharing in the responsibility for those deaths? Of course.
Are Congressional Staffers — from pencil pushers on up to senior staff — morally responsible for enabling the daily slaughter their Congressional boss funds, arms and lies for? Absolutely. Without a doubt. Through their daily work in Congressional offices, they are complicit in our war crimes. They are the little cogs of the death machine that makes it all possible.
Should they be called out?
Yes.
Politely.
But firmly.
I did that this morning with a call prompted by the above news story with a voicemail message left at Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s (WI-D) Madison district office. I conceded that given the hundreds of thousands in grimy, sticky campaign cash Baldwin rakes in from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the JStreetPAC that she’s owned and will not change her support for our genocide. But I pointed out that by helping to maintain Baldwin’s office operation, whoever was listening to and logging the call was complicit in their boss’s enabling of the genocide.
I summarized the death toll above, especially noting the baby born an orphan. I observed they shared in the responsibility because they help run one of the Congressional offices funding and making such daily slaughter and genocide possible.
Crossing a line
No congressional staffer can be expected to agree with all of a legislator’s policy positions. But when it comes to genocide, a line has been crossed into the greatest of evil and no amount of good work on other issues can scrub away such depravity.
Many young interns work for free in Congressional offices. They consider it a resume builder. They don’t seem to realize a day will soon come where that blood stain on their resume during this time of shame may well derail future career options. I mean, would you want to hire someone with such poor moral judgment and standards?
In late February, about 75 courageous congressional staffers walked out calling for a Gaza ceasefire in protest of the genocidal support their bought-off bosses did for Zionist money. That took courage and I can only imagine the price and harassment many of those brave workers have endured. I’m sure some got fired and threatened. But it is time for more to step up and out. Feel free to forward this to the staff of your congressional ‘reps’.
Again, they are workers and deserve to be treated politely. No harassment. No name calling. But it’s okay to be firm. Call today.
I Got This Powerful Reply To A Comment I Posted To Another Substack
This observation came from a comment I left on commentary thread from another Substack (dianavaneyk.substack). The final paragraph is a concise summary of where we are with the venal, corrupted leadership in this nation. The fact that the observation came from such a location makes it even more powerful and poignant — MT
I live in Italy and am married to an Italian. What he would like the world to know is how fast fascism happens. How normal it seems until it’s not normal anymore.
Today I am writing from a small tiny Italian hill town. As the fascists were in retreat they took a moment to stop here and massacre the people of this village; the elderly, women, babies.
Clearly, these people were lunatics. They slaughtered a village because they could. Because it felt good.
We are now ruled by lunatics, and a good part of the Western world has been contaminated by this lunacy. I don’t think it’s about the money any longer - the money is a side benefit; I think it’s madness. You have a fighting chance against the influence of money, but madness will run its course, and I don’t know what we can do about it. — S.L.
My fear is that these young staffers come to believe that ‘this is the way it is’ and true patriots face that reality. That ‘my country can do no wrong’ becomes part and parcel of their political identity.
My fear must be real because how in the world can so many lifer politicians do what they do and still sleep at night? How can politicians support war and CIA crimes decade after decade?
I spoke with a young man two days ago. A young man who served in the army in Iraq. He thoroughly, utterly and completely believes that America must carry out all the CIA interventions and must be involved in all of these conflicts in order to protect our shores.
I’m sure this veteran perceived me to be an out of touch naive old man. Maybe so. But I don’t want to be part of a country whose behavior is based on violence in an effort to keep us safe. Seems like playing God to me.
Mark your articles and cartoons stimulate thought and critical thinking every day. Thank you for your diligence and your posts. In a fascist state you would be one of the first to be targeted. I think we need to keep that in mind now as our world becomes more tenuous.
"Through our tax dollars, we paid for the bombs. We killed those children. We slaughter and rip limbs from more children every day. We are all complicit."
I agree. I've been saying this since day one that we are ALL complicit if we don't fight back against this genocide. It's our tax dollars and we're giving our consent either implicitly or explicitly on how they're being used if we're not protesting vocally against genocide.
I had an interesting conversation with a fellow protester today as we stood on a busy street corner. How do people just ignore so much injustice in the world? How do they live with themselves? How do they not see what is happening? Do they choose not to "see" because it's too painful? Or because if they acknowledged the carnage, they'd have to admit their complicity, and that's just too much psychologically to endure? Or maybe they just ignore it all because they know if they speak out against the genocide in Gaza they could lose their job, their status, their health care, their popularity and all those things are more important than strangers' lives and well-being? (And this protester said she taught in a Catholic school and they don't ever mention the genocide in Gaza even in their weekly chapel. Whoa.)