Ali Abunimah was in Olympia last night

September 1, 2010 by mike.

Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada spoke to a capacity crowd at the Olympia Center about why the Olympia Food Co-op decision to join the Palestinian Boycott Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement was a big deal. And up the road a piece in Seattle, a guy walked into a convenience store and assaulted the store employee who was wearing a turban.

I caught that story on Slate, who say they got it from Talking Points Memo, but the Slate link jumps to Gawker.

I think that assault story is part of the larger wave of Islamophobia that is being stoked by the right-wing as an election tactic and it’s a big story.  But the possibility of pressing Israel to deal fairly with the Palestinians through the BDS movement, the tactic that has been used in the past against South African apartheid, against grapes to support the UFW and Cesar Chavez and more is also a big story.

Ali Abunimah was persuasive, rational, collected and engaging.  He’s an articulate spokesman for Palestine.

Speaking of elections, Feingold seems to be in a tight race in Wisconsin, Murkowski got bumped by a tea partier who found some room to Murkowski’s right, and the prospects for the dems holding on to any congressional majorities continue to dim.

We progressives may feel it makes no difference when the dems are as hapless as they have been since the 2006 election when they were given a chance by the electorate, but then there is always the opportunity to look back and wonder if a President Gore would have used the 9-11 events to attack Iraq.  Even though Obama again declared the mission complete in Iraq yesterday, we will continue to reap the dubious benefits of that military adventure for many years and we are facing deficit hawks who want to cut Medicare and Social Security, but have no reservations about deficits if we are putting boots on the ground, drones in the air, or bailing out the bankers.

Oh, weather report - there’s a hurricane approaching the east coast.  Not just the political storm of tea parties in sequins, Hurricane Earl is currently pointed at North Carolina.    Category 4, that’s a big storm.  Earl also.

Cheers!

clipped from gawker.com A Washington man was charged with a hate crime today for assaulting a 7-11 clerk wearing a turban last week. His words to the convenience store employee? “You’re not even American, you’re Al-Qaeda. Go back to your country.” A 35-year-old Seattle man has been charged with a hate crime for allegedly punching a 7-11 clerk in the head. Police say Brock Stainbrook walked into the 7-11 just after midnight Aug. 24, approached a clerk wearing a turban, threw change on the floor and then punched the clerk in the side of the head. “You’re not even American, you’re Al-Qaeda. Go back to your country,” he then said, according to police. Another clerk then forced the man, kicking and screaming, to leave the store. Police picked him up a few blocks away after witnesses described a man in a white shirt, black pants and carrying one shoe. The Post-Intelligencer notes that the victim’s last name “is common within the Sikh community.” (Sikhs are, notably, not Muslim.)

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