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December 23, 2023
Sex Pistols - Submission (Alternate Mix) August 1977
Best version out of many, IMHO
December 23, 2023
Label: Stiff Records – BUY 6
Format: Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM
Country: UK
Released: 22 Oct 1976
Genre: Rock
Style: Punk
The Damned - New Rose (Official HD video) 1976
Label: Stiff Records – BUY 6
Format: Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM
Country: UK
Released: 22 Oct 1976
Genre: Rock
Style: Punk
December 23, 2023
Label: United Artists Records – UP 36248
Format: Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, Blackmail Sleeve
Country: UK
Released: 1977
Genre: Rock
Style: New Wave, Punk
The Stranglers - Peaches (1977)
Label: United Artists Records – UP 36248
Format: Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, Blackmail Sleeve
Country: UK
Released: 1977
Genre: Rock
Style: New Wave, Punk
December 22, 2023
So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us—Listen!!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!
By Susan Cooper
Happy Winter Solstice To All
So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us—Listen!!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!
By Susan Cooper
December 21, 2023
https://prospect.org/justice/2023-12-20-american-judiciary-failing-trump-test/
Donald Trump got yet another delay in the trial for some of his 91 felony charges recently when the Supreme Court, on the request of both his lawyers and special counsel Jack Smith, agreed to hear his argument that he should be totally immune from prosecution. The judge overseeing that case, Tanya Chutkan, duly paused proceedings in the case until the matter is resolved, which will likely be a few weeks at least. Given that every day where Trump is not moving toward conviction is a day he avoids that hit to his presidential candidacy, a pause is a win. Separately, Trump is also appealing the gag order placed on him by Chutkan. When the charges were filed and the judge selected, Trump flagrantly violated the integrity of the proceedings by posting vicious personal attacks against Smith, Chutkan, and several potential witnesses like Mark Meadows, directly causing a deluge of violent threats.
That led Chutkan to impose a gag order in mid-October forbidding him from targeting participants in the case personally. Trump appealed that order to the D.C. Circuit, a panel of which recently upheld the gag order but only in part, holding that Trump could still attack Smith, as well as the Biden administration and the Department of Justice. Now, Trump is appealing that decision again, asking for the whole D.C. Circuit to hear it. If that doesn’t work, he’ll appeal it to the Supreme Court. Thus does the glacial pace of the American legal system, and the helpless timidity shown by most liberal judges in the face of wealthy elites, enable Trump’s attack on democracy.
No other American defendant would get this kind of kid-glove treatment. Ordinary schlubs get railroaded into plea bargains with outrageous charge-stacking, routine pretrial detention, and the most brutal sentences in the rich world. In the rare case that they can appeal a conviction, the Supreme Court almost never hears their case, and even when they do, the appeal is almost always a failure. Donald Trump, by contrast, gets to threaten the lives of actual judges, prosecutors, and their staff, with the only punishment being that some, but not all, of his unsubtle incitements to violence are a no-no. Or rather, maybe they are, pending appeal. In this context, a theoretically laudable fixation on conducting Trump’s prosecution “by the book” becomes another manifestation of the egregious injustice built into every level of the legal system.
There is a particular political obscenity here, over and above the unbelievable deference the judiciary grants to rich people as a matter of course. The most important charges against Trump are for attempting to overthrow the government and install himself as dictator. If he had succeeded in doing so, the judiciary would have become his personal plaything—an instrument of his will to dominate and punish anyone who crosses him. Now, after having attempted to destroy the very idea of law itself, and facing quite mild potential penalties relative to what traditionally happens to failed would-be dictators, Trump furiously whines and complains at every point in the proceeding, demanding privileges so outrageous that no one else would even think to ask for them, as part of a comically blatant strategy to string the process along until hopefully winning the election and declaring himself innocent. It could not be more obvious that, once again, Trump is trying to undermine the legal process by procedural abuses.
snip
The American Judiciary Is Failing Its Trump Test: No other American defendant would get this kind of kid-glove treatment
https://prospect.org/justice/2023-12-20-american-judiciary-failing-trump-test/
Donald Trump got yet another delay in the trial for some of his 91 felony charges recently when the Supreme Court, on the request of both his lawyers and special counsel Jack Smith, agreed to hear his argument that he should be totally immune from prosecution. The judge overseeing that case, Tanya Chutkan, duly paused proceedings in the case until the matter is resolved, which will likely be a few weeks at least. Given that every day where Trump is not moving toward conviction is a day he avoids that hit to his presidential candidacy, a pause is a win. Separately, Trump is also appealing the gag order placed on him by Chutkan. When the charges were filed and the judge selected, Trump flagrantly violated the integrity of the proceedings by posting vicious personal attacks against Smith, Chutkan, and several potential witnesses like Mark Meadows, directly causing a deluge of violent threats.
That led Chutkan to impose a gag order in mid-October forbidding him from targeting participants in the case personally. Trump appealed that order to the D.C. Circuit, a panel of which recently upheld the gag order but only in part, holding that Trump could still attack Smith, as well as the Biden administration and the Department of Justice. Now, Trump is appealing that decision again, asking for the whole D.C. Circuit to hear it. If that doesn’t work, he’ll appeal it to the Supreme Court. Thus does the glacial pace of the American legal system, and the helpless timidity shown by most liberal judges in the face of wealthy elites, enable Trump’s attack on democracy.
No other American defendant would get this kind of kid-glove treatment. Ordinary schlubs get railroaded into plea bargains with outrageous charge-stacking, routine pretrial detention, and the most brutal sentences in the rich world. In the rare case that they can appeal a conviction, the Supreme Court almost never hears their case, and even when they do, the appeal is almost always a failure. Donald Trump, by contrast, gets to threaten the lives of actual judges, prosecutors, and their staff, with the only punishment being that some, but not all, of his unsubtle incitements to violence are a no-no. Or rather, maybe they are, pending appeal. In this context, a theoretically laudable fixation on conducting Trump’s prosecution “by the book” becomes another manifestation of the egregious injustice built into every level of the legal system.
There is a particular political obscenity here, over and above the unbelievable deference the judiciary grants to rich people as a matter of course. The most important charges against Trump are for attempting to overthrow the government and install himself as dictator. If he had succeeded in doing so, the judiciary would have become his personal plaything—an instrument of his will to dominate and punish anyone who crosses him. Now, after having attempted to destroy the very idea of law itself, and facing quite mild potential penalties relative to what traditionally happens to failed would-be dictators, Trump furiously whines and complains at every point in the proceeding, demanding privileges so outrageous that no one else would even think to ask for them, as part of a comically blatant strategy to string the process along until hopefully winning the election and declaring himself innocent. It could not be more obvious that, once again, Trump is trying to undermine the legal process by procedural abuses.
snip
December 21, 2023
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-12-20-fake-generational-warfare-social-security/
The effort to promote generational warfare against Social Security is on one of its periodic upswings. The granddaddy of this campaign was the late Peter G. Peterson. He spent decades and at least a billion dollars of his own fortune trying to persuade younger Americans that Social Security would not be there when they needed it, and that they’d be better off with personal accounts run by Wall Street. (Peterson had headed Lehman Brothers and later co-founded the Blackstone Group.) The latest entries in this never-ending propaganda campaign are an op-ed piece by former Sen. Phil Gramm and Mike Solon. Their title is a cheeky “Social Security Was Doomed From the Start.” For a doomed program, Social Security has done pretty well over its nearly 90 years, keeping hundreds of millions of elderly Americans out of poverty in old age. Gramm’s story is that FDR’s mistake was setting up Social Security as pay-as-you-go, in which one generation’s payroll taxes pay for the previous generation’s retirement. He’s right that the program would be even stronger if it banked a large surplus, the income on which could partly pay the cost of Social Security checks. But the right way to fund that is by raising taxes on the rich. How about it, Phil?
Another recent contribution to this crusade is a December 18 piece in Newsweek, headlined “Young Americans Turn Against Boomers Over Social Security.” Newsweek cites a poll that it commissioned. But the actual poll shows nothing of the sort. I quote: “According to the poll, 56 percent of Gen Zers, 76 percent of millennials and 69 percent of Gen Xers believed the system should be reformed, against 50 percent of boomers.” But “the system should be reformed” could mean almost anything, from the kind of privatization long advocated by Peterson, Wall Street, and ideological opponents, to the kind of shoring up advocated by the likes of me. What gives the issue new resonance is that the trust funds will not be able to pay all of the benefits owed within a decade or two. We need to act soon, either by increasing the revenues to Social Security or reducing benefits. That’s the real debate we should be having. Donald Trump, who is a psychopath but no fool, has avoided weighing in.
What is true is that Americans of my generation got a much better economic deal than generations who came after. We had affordable homeownership, whose increase in equity over a lifetime gave us nest eggs for retirement. Half of us had real pension plans, as opposed to inadequate 401(k)s and the like. We were able to get college degrees without the burden of debt. Those of us without college had good unionized blue-collar jobs that provided a middle-class lifestyle, often on one income.
Younger generations have every right to feel cheated. But contrary to the generational warfare fable, that rip-off was not the fault of boomers. It was the work of conservatives of all ages who denied younger Americans the secure social contract that my generation enjoyed. And contrary to the attacks on social insurance, Social Security is a relatively small part of that larger story. If we want to keep it strong for future generations, the path is to strengthen its finances, not to weaken its coverage. Social Security is more essential than ever, given the collapse of decent pension plans engineered by corporations and Wall Street, to transfer all the risk to workers and retirees. The real generational warfare is class warfare.
snip
Fake Generational Warfare
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-12-20-fake-generational-warfare-social-security/
The effort to promote generational warfare against Social Security is on one of its periodic upswings. The granddaddy of this campaign was the late Peter G. Peterson. He spent decades and at least a billion dollars of his own fortune trying to persuade younger Americans that Social Security would not be there when they needed it, and that they’d be better off with personal accounts run by Wall Street. (Peterson had headed Lehman Brothers and later co-founded the Blackstone Group.) The latest entries in this never-ending propaganda campaign are an op-ed piece by former Sen. Phil Gramm and Mike Solon. Their title is a cheeky “Social Security Was Doomed From the Start.” For a doomed program, Social Security has done pretty well over its nearly 90 years, keeping hundreds of millions of elderly Americans out of poverty in old age. Gramm’s story is that FDR’s mistake was setting up Social Security as pay-as-you-go, in which one generation’s payroll taxes pay for the previous generation’s retirement. He’s right that the program would be even stronger if it banked a large surplus, the income on which could partly pay the cost of Social Security checks. But the right way to fund that is by raising taxes on the rich. How about it, Phil?
Another recent contribution to this crusade is a December 18 piece in Newsweek, headlined “Young Americans Turn Against Boomers Over Social Security.” Newsweek cites a poll that it commissioned. But the actual poll shows nothing of the sort. I quote: “According to the poll, 56 percent of Gen Zers, 76 percent of millennials and 69 percent of Gen Xers believed the system should be reformed, against 50 percent of boomers.” But “the system should be reformed” could mean almost anything, from the kind of privatization long advocated by Peterson, Wall Street, and ideological opponents, to the kind of shoring up advocated by the likes of me. What gives the issue new resonance is that the trust funds will not be able to pay all of the benefits owed within a decade or two. We need to act soon, either by increasing the revenues to Social Security or reducing benefits. That’s the real debate we should be having. Donald Trump, who is a psychopath but no fool, has avoided weighing in.
What is true is that Americans of my generation got a much better economic deal than generations who came after. We had affordable homeownership, whose increase in equity over a lifetime gave us nest eggs for retirement. Half of us had real pension plans, as opposed to inadequate 401(k)s and the like. We were able to get college degrees without the burden of debt. Those of us without college had good unionized blue-collar jobs that provided a middle-class lifestyle, often on one income.
Younger generations have every right to feel cheated. But contrary to the generational warfare fable, that rip-off was not the fault of boomers. It was the work of conservatives of all ages who denied younger Americans the secure social contract that my generation enjoyed. And contrary to the attacks on social insurance, Social Security is a relatively small part of that larger story. If we want to keep it strong for future generations, the path is to strengthen its finances, not to weaken its coverage. Social Security is more essential than ever, given the collapse of decent pension plans engineered by corporations and Wall Street, to transfer all the risk to workers and retirees. The real generational warfare is class warfare.
snip
December 19, 2023
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-entry-rules-for-britons-going-to-eu-prompt-border-queue-fears-jf6l5f2rl
https://archive.is/KXdmM
Strict new entry requirements for Britons travelling to the European Union will come into force next autumn, prompting fears of huge queues at borders. Passengers will be required to have their fingerprints registered and their picture taken once the new entry/exit system (EES) is launched on October 6. Bosses at the Channel Tunnel estimate the average time for processing a car through the French border will rise from less than one minute to between five and seven minutes. There are also concerns about bottlenecks at the Port of Dover and Eurostar terminal in London.
The new system, which will apply to all non-EU passport holders, had been due to launch in May, but was delayed because of IT problems. It was also the subject of intense lobbying by French officials who did not want the bureaucratic scheme in place during next year’s summer Olympics. Holidaymakers have been warned to expect long delays, especially at British ports and Eurostar, where border controls are juxtaposed with French immigration formalities carried out on UK land and space is restricted. The finger and picture biometrics will be captured on a passenger’s first visit to the bloc after October 6 and then one of each verified on each subsequent entry.
Getlink, which operates the Channel Tunnel, said it was building a new processing area at its site in Kent to process non-EU passport holders. Passengers will have to get out of their cars and use new computer terminals to register their biometrics. Only once complete will they be able to proceed to the French border control booths. Getlink bosses said the new facilities would cost £67 million to install and would be able to process 500 cars an hour. The tunnel has a peak hourly capacity of 840 cars. Christian Wigand, a European Commission spokesman, said member states were working “to ensure that everything will be ready for the successful launch of the EES”.
The Times understands member states have been told to ensure the systems are ready to go by the end of July. It will be in force in all EU nations — bar Cyprus and Ireland — as well as Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Transport bosses fear the impact of the EES will be even greater at Dover, the UK’s busiest port, where space is considerably constrained. Doug Bannister, chief executive of the Port of Dover, previously told The Times the scheme could cause “significant and continued disruption for a very long time”. He warned of the risk of passengers getting out of their cars in “live lanes” at the French border.
snip
Strict new entry requirements for Britons travelling to the EU will come into force next autumn, prompting fears of huge
queues at bordershttps://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-entry-rules-for-britons-going-to-eu-prompt-border-queue-fears-jf6l5f2rl
https://archive.is/KXdmM
Strict new entry requirements for Britons travelling to the European Union will come into force next autumn, prompting fears of huge queues at borders. Passengers will be required to have their fingerprints registered and their picture taken once the new entry/exit system (EES) is launched on October 6. Bosses at the Channel Tunnel estimate the average time for processing a car through the French border will rise from less than one minute to between five and seven minutes. There are also concerns about bottlenecks at the Port of Dover and Eurostar terminal in London.
The new system, which will apply to all non-EU passport holders, had been due to launch in May, but was delayed because of IT problems. It was also the subject of intense lobbying by French officials who did not want the bureaucratic scheme in place during next year’s summer Olympics. Holidaymakers have been warned to expect long delays, especially at British ports and Eurostar, where border controls are juxtaposed with French immigration formalities carried out on UK land and space is restricted. The finger and picture biometrics will be captured on a passenger’s first visit to the bloc after October 6 and then one of each verified on each subsequent entry.
Getlink, which operates the Channel Tunnel, said it was building a new processing area at its site in Kent to process non-EU passport holders. Passengers will have to get out of their cars and use new computer terminals to register their biometrics. Only once complete will they be able to proceed to the French border control booths. Getlink bosses said the new facilities would cost £67 million to install and would be able to process 500 cars an hour. The tunnel has a peak hourly capacity of 840 cars. Christian Wigand, a European Commission spokesman, said member states were working “to ensure that everything will be ready for the successful launch of the EES”.
The Times understands member states have been told to ensure the systems are ready to go by the end of July. It will be in force in all EU nations — bar Cyprus and Ireland — as well as Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Transport bosses fear the impact of the EES will be even greater at Dover, the UK’s busiest port, where space is considerably constrained. Doug Bannister, chief executive of the Port of Dover, previously told The Times the scheme could cause “significant and continued disruption for a very long time”. He warned of the risk of passengers getting out of their cars in “live lanes” at the French border.
snip
December 18, 2023
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-12-18-far-left-possible-left/
Why do onetime progressives, such as Matt Taibbi, Naomi Wolf, Robert Kennedy Jr., Glenn Greenwald, and the comedian Russell Brand, among others, sometimes gravitate to the right? New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg recently offered some musings on that question, which was in turn inspired by a longer essay in the magazine In These Times. For Goldberg, one reason is a reaction to a public humiliation or cancellation. Many of these defectors are wrestling with personal demons. Settling scores gets muddled with wild ideological swings.
The authors of the excellent In These Times piece, Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet, tell a longer and more complex story, adding the fact that the right has far more money than the left to lure defectors and offer them fortune as well as fame. The far right is also welcoming of former lefties licking their wounds and looking for new friends. Another reason, Goldberg argues, is “a crisis of faith in the possibility of progress.” I am a huge Goldberg fan, but she is uncharacteristically wrong when she contends that “liberals and leftists have lots of excellent policy ideas but rarely articulate a plausible vision of the future.” This claim is doubly off the mark. It falls into the trap of conflating the possible left with the far left—and the possible left has been doing well lately.
Our magazine, for instance, is all about articulating a plausible vision of the future, one that is plausible both as policy and as majority politics. We have influenced the policies of the Biden administration in several areas, including a Day One Agenda of executive orders, as well as on trade policy, labor policy, constraints on Big Tech and Big Pharma, and general revision of the mistaken conceits of neoliberalism. “The possibility of progress” is the whole point. Mainstream progressives who are clear about first principles are not among the defectors to the right. Could you imagine, say, Elizabeth Warren switching sides just because the battles she fights are hard? Or anti-monopoly crusaders like Lina Khan or Matt Stoller? Or our friends at the Economic Policy Institute? David Horowitz, one of the earliest defectors, migrated from far left to hard right. The conspiratorial mentality is similar.
But the so-called horseshoe theory—the idea that the left and right almost meet at the extremes—is true only of the very far left. One piece of mischief that both opportunistic centrists and careless commentators indulge is false symmetry. A fundraising piece from No Labels contends that young people need “someone to restore their faith in the promise of America, after so many years of partisan fighting that’s left them pessimistic about their futures.” You’d never know that all the partisan blockage is on one side. One way to be clear about first principles is to keep political economy paramount and never forget the role of raw power in denying democratic preferences. Most Americans, if given the choice, would support the kind of social democracy that this magazine has always stood for—decent wages and job prospects, affordable housing, reliable health coverage, college without crushing debt, taxation of billionaires to give everyone else a shot.
snip
The Far Left and the Possible Left
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-12-18-far-left-possible-left/
Why do onetime progressives, such as Matt Taibbi, Naomi Wolf, Robert Kennedy Jr., Glenn Greenwald, and the comedian Russell Brand, among others, sometimes gravitate to the right? New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg recently offered some musings on that question, which was in turn inspired by a longer essay in the magazine In These Times. For Goldberg, one reason is a reaction to a public humiliation or cancellation. Many of these defectors are wrestling with personal demons. Settling scores gets muddled with wild ideological swings.
The authors of the excellent In These Times piece, Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet, tell a longer and more complex story, adding the fact that the right has far more money than the left to lure defectors and offer them fortune as well as fame. The far right is also welcoming of former lefties licking their wounds and looking for new friends. Another reason, Goldberg argues, is “a crisis of faith in the possibility of progress.” I am a huge Goldberg fan, but she is uncharacteristically wrong when she contends that “liberals and leftists have lots of excellent policy ideas but rarely articulate a plausible vision of the future.” This claim is doubly off the mark. It falls into the trap of conflating the possible left with the far left—and the possible left has been doing well lately.
Our magazine, for instance, is all about articulating a plausible vision of the future, one that is plausible both as policy and as majority politics. We have influenced the policies of the Biden administration in several areas, including a Day One Agenda of executive orders, as well as on trade policy, labor policy, constraints on Big Tech and Big Pharma, and general revision of the mistaken conceits of neoliberalism. “The possibility of progress” is the whole point. Mainstream progressives who are clear about first principles are not among the defectors to the right. Could you imagine, say, Elizabeth Warren switching sides just because the battles she fights are hard? Or anti-monopoly crusaders like Lina Khan or Matt Stoller? Or our friends at the Economic Policy Institute? David Horowitz, one of the earliest defectors, migrated from far left to hard right. The conspiratorial mentality is similar.
But the so-called horseshoe theory—the idea that the left and right almost meet at the extremes—is true only of the very far left. One piece of mischief that both opportunistic centrists and careless commentators indulge is false symmetry. A fundraising piece from No Labels contends that young people need “someone to restore their faith in the promise of America, after so many years of partisan fighting that’s left them pessimistic about their futures.” You’d never know that all the partisan blockage is on one side. One way to be clear about first principles is to keep political economy paramount and never forget the role of raw power in denying democratic preferences. Most Americans, if given the choice, would support the kind of social democracy that this magazine has always stood for—decent wages and job prospects, affordable housing, reliable health coverage, college without crushing debt, taxation of billionaires to give everyone else a shot.
snip
December 18, 2023
https://www.svd.se/a/wAqEdo/frihetsteatern-i-jenin-till-stora-delar-forstord
translated:
On Wednesday, the Swedish Friends Association received the news that the Freedom Theatre in Jenin's refugee camp has been largely destroyed and that its management has been taken by Israeli military forces. Three young members of the theatre have been killed in recent weeks, according to information on the theatre's social media (X and Facebook) accounts. Parts of the premises will now instead be used by the Israeli military as a communications center.
Since its inception in 2006, the Freedom Theatre has been supported by leading Swedish theatre artists and financed by Swedish governmental aid. The Freedom Theatre has been an important gathering place, especially for children and young people from the refugee camp and also has been an important part of the Palestinian cultural resistance to the occupation. Friends of the Freedom Theatre is a Swedish association with the aim of supporting the theatre financially, informing about its activities and arranging exchanges and collaborations. Now the alarm is being raised that there is an extensive Israeli military operation in the Jenin refugee camp, one that has been described as worse than the year 2002, when nearly 50 Palestinians were killed and large parts of the refugee camp were left in ruins.
Abed Zbeidi, who sits on the theatre's board, tells Friends of the Freedom Theatre that it is not possible to get in or out of the refugee camp. Ranin Odeh, who is a theatre educator and usually works with children and women in the theatre, describes how the military entered her apartment and smashed furnishings and used their windows to shoot at people outside.
Odeh says that she and her family were accused of being Hamas sympathizers and when they denied this they were told that "you are all Hamas and you will all meet the same fate". According to the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, who writes for Haaretz newspaper, roads, sewers and many buildings are now demolished in the Jenin refugee camp. Levy says the devastation in Jenin's refugee camp increasingly resembles that in Gaza.
snip
Svenska Dagbladet (The Swedish Daily News), abbreviated SvD, is a major (one of our 4 national daily newspapers) newspaper published here in Stockholm.
Today (December 18th) is its 139th anniversary.
The Swedish-funded Freedom Theatre in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank largely destroyed by Israel, staff taken
https://www.svd.se/a/wAqEdo/frihetsteatern-i-jenin-till-stora-delar-forstord
translated:
On Wednesday, the Swedish Friends Association received the news that the Freedom Theatre in Jenin's refugee camp has been largely destroyed and that its management has been taken by Israeli military forces. Three young members of the theatre have been killed in recent weeks, according to information on the theatre's social media (X and Facebook) accounts. Parts of the premises will now instead be used by the Israeli military as a communications center.
Since its inception in 2006, the Freedom Theatre has been supported by leading Swedish theatre artists and financed by Swedish governmental aid. The Freedom Theatre has been an important gathering place, especially for children and young people from the refugee camp and also has been an important part of the Palestinian cultural resistance to the occupation. Friends of the Freedom Theatre is a Swedish association with the aim of supporting the theatre financially, informing about its activities and arranging exchanges and collaborations. Now the alarm is being raised that there is an extensive Israeli military operation in the Jenin refugee camp, one that has been described as worse than the year 2002, when nearly 50 Palestinians were killed and large parts of the refugee camp were left in ruins.
Abed Zbeidi, who sits on the theatre's board, tells Friends of the Freedom Theatre that it is not possible to get in or out of the refugee camp. Ranin Odeh, who is a theatre educator and usually works with children and women in the theatre, describes how the military entered her apartment and smashed furnishings and used their windows to shoot at people outside.
Odeh says that she and her family were accused of being Hamas sympathizers and when they denied this they were told that "you are all Hamas and you will all meet the same fate". According to the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, who writes for Haaretz newspaper, roads, sewers and many buildings are now demolished in the Jenin refugee camp. Levy says the devastation in Jenin's refugee camp increasingly resembles that in Gaza.
snip
Svenska Dagbladet (The Swedish Daily News), abbreviated SvD, is a major (one of our 4 national daily newspapers) newspaper published here in Stockholm.
Today (December 18th) is its 139th anniversary.
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleHometown: London
Home country: US/UK/Sweden
Current location: Stockholm, Sweden
Member since: Sun Jul 1, 2018, 07:25 PM
Number of posts: 43,339
