[antiwar-van] Open Message from a Bethlehemite Palestinian to The American people

[hanna]

Please distribute and post freely.

October 28, 2004

Open Message from a Bethlehemite Palestinian* to the American people
including our Arab American community members


You are in the midst of a massive brain-washing campaign conducted by the
institutions of the US government, the mainstream media and the
multinational corporations. The objective of this campaign is to divert your
attention from the real issues facing your day to day life to the abstract
notion of WAR ON TERROR that creates a new boogeyman (after the fall of the
first boogeyman the Soviet "evil" empire). So please allow me to suggest to
you what are the real issues at stake during this election and what are some
of the consequences of your vote.

- If you believe that the US empire should control (by all means and using
any pretext) the world's natural resources, including oil reserves,

Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.

- If you believe that the International Monetary Fund should dictate (under
the name of democracy)the policies of the poor nations worldwide and decide
which government should rule over them in service of the empire and not for
the welfare of the indigenous people of that country,

Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.

- If you are a racist and believe that an American life is the only life
that is worth weeping over and that any other life is not worth to be
mentioned let alone valued,

Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.

- If you support the immediate massive profits of multinationals over the
future of the environment, the planet and the future of your children,

Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.

- If you think that your government should determine the fate of the people
of Chile, Colombia, Vietnam, Iran, El-Salvador, North Korea, Grenada,
Panama, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Eastern Europe, Philippines, Iraq,
Argentina, Sudan, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Haiti and Palestine (to mention
just a few), and if you think that the people of these countries do NOT
deserve to determine their destiny (which is by the way against US president
Wilson's declared principles of January 18, 1918),

Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.

If you are a masochist who can take the pain of unemployment, no universal
medical care, no decent welfare programmes and no decent pension plan, and
at the same time support the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars on
wars that kill your fellow human beings,

Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.

- If you think that the Iraqi people are savages and do not deserve to be
treated as human beings, and that the two wars and the murderous sanctions
in between them that killed one and a half million Iraqi people were
justified,

Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.

- If you want the US empire to continue its military, economic and political
support for Israeli occupation, oppression and war crimes against the
Palestinian people,

Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.

- If you want to be hated even more around the world, and jeopardize the
future of your country, your children and grandchildren,

Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.

- If you want to be party to the war mongering of the Empire which uses and
distorts Christianity and all other human principles, and if you want to
oppose all the humanitarian teachings that promote love, equality and
respect for human life,

Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.

- And if you want your country to become the new supremacist empire in which
the government institutionalizes racial profiling, enslaves people and
discriminates against people of colour,

Then vote for the traditional parties who have been leading your country
down the road of neo-fascism.

If you decide to vote for one of the two evils just because that one is
allegedly the lesser evil, don't expect any decent person to value a soul
that chose evil. The lesser of two evils is EVIL nonetheless.


Who should you be voting for?

If you value and love  Justice, Peace, Freedom, Democracy, Humanity,
Decency, the environment and our planet before profits and self interest,
you will be voting for the messenger of the people, Ralph Nader, who
dedicated all his life to promoting the interests of ALL humans and OUR
environment.

Even if Nader will not win the election this time, you will be voting your
conscience and you will empower yourself and give hope for a real change in
the near future. Also you will be reclaiming your humanity in the eyes of
the people of the world.

For the sake of our future as human race, I hope you choose not to shoot
yourself in the foot and not to shoot us (the people of the third world) in
the heart.

And finally if you vote to continue the US aggression, occupation and
globalization, be sure that the people of the world will escalate and
globalize their Intifada, resistance and struggles for freedom and self
dignity.  In that case, please, please do NOT ever ask why the world hates
AMERICA.

Yours truly
Hanna Kawas

A citizen of this Empire-traumatized World

* The author was born in Bethlehem, Palestine in 1948, the year of the
Palestinian Nakba. He is the chairperson of Canada Palestine Association
www.cpavancouver.org and the host of Voice of Palestine, Vancouver, Canada
www.voiceofpalestine.ca
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