Matt Batcheldor has an article in today's paper about Port officials desire to see renewed military shipments. Rhenda Strub and Steve Hall were also quoted in the article. I appreciated City Manager Hall's opinion that the real cost of the fall 2007 shipment went beyond financial, and includes damaged relationships, and all sorts of hurt feelings of people, on all sides of this issue.

http://olypmr.blogspot.com/2010/08/port-wants-military-shipments.html

Berd

This is for stories, articles, blogs, and other posts related to the Thursday 15 July 2010 decision by the Olympia Food Co-op Board of Directors to boycott products from Israel due to aggression against Palestinians by the state of Israel.

Israeli parliament shows fear of boycott:

Israel and Economic "Warfare"

Who Benefits from Israeli Occupation?

The Troops are Waking Up

5% of the World's Population Consumes a Third of Its Resources and Makes Nearly Half of It's Waste. That 5% is US.

I saw this at the library, last February.

It's also important to note that if the rest of the world's people consumed at the same rate as people in the USA, then it would require the resources equivalent to 5 or 6 planet Earths.

Please make sure to watch this Annie Leonard video: The Story of Stuff, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM

Friday 30 July 2010
I went to the protest at the co-op. I was really impressed by the community. It was obvious to me how much people, on both sides of the boycott issue, care about each other, and care about the co-op.

There were some great conversations. And while tensions certainly run high, I am hopeful that differences amongst the co-op community can be reconciled and that a mutually beneficial solution can be found.

I witnessed people listening to each other, really listening to each other. And I think a lot of people gained some ground in understanding each other—which is amazing, because it was a protest.

People who are opposed to the boycott decision expressed some concerns that make a lot of sense to me. For example, the fact that the statement indicates a need to return "all occupied Arab lands." That's a very vague statement. And it could be interpreted as the destruction of the state of Israel.

Fortunately, that is not what is intended. Given the persecution that Jews have faced (and continue to face,) I, personally, support the right of Israel to exist. And I think most people who support the boycott are not trying to deny the fact that there is Anti-Jewish oppression in the world. And I also think that most people who are working in solidarity with Palestinians do not deny the right of Israel to exist.

So, perhaps the statement could be amended to acknowledge the right of the state of Israel to exist. I think there is a middle ground that everyone can agree to.

More information from Olympia BDS: Rabbi Lynn & The Olympia Food Co-op boycott. Olympia, Washington

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb is planning to visit Olympia, and is scheduled to appear at First Christian Church on Sunday the 8th of August, 7pm. Stay tuned for more information.

So my Intercity Transit Ballot Measure Fact Sheet just came in the mail, along with my ballot. I decided to read over it, to give the measure proper consideration instead of just automatically voting one way or another. I came up with some interesting questions based on the graphs and figures on the Fact Sheet.

First, the figures in the fact sheet are for 2010. The figures I have found for other transit agencies are from 2009, so they are not nearly as directly comparable. I actually ended up using figures from the spring 2010 performance report here: IT Spring 2010 Report

That pegs the cost per fixed route service hour at $107.40. Page 20 of the King County 2009 Annual Report here puts the median at $110.38, so I think our transit system is relatively efficient: KC 2009 Annual Report But the bottom half includes cities with similar cost-of-living that have per-hour costs as low as $90.83. How are they doing it? Do we have something to learn?

Originally I looked into this suspecting that our transit system was inefficient compared to others. I now see it is not, but still feel we can do better. Any ideas on this would be welcome.

[update, 29 July '10: I saw the flyer in the stairwell of The Martin apartment building, in the early evening hours of Saturday 24 July. original photo of the flyer posted in comments below]

I was recently disturbed when I saw an anti-BDS (boycott divestment sanctions) flyer in an apartment building in downtown Olympia.

The statements and accusations on this flyer were very hurtful to me, and I am not even Palestinian or Arab. But I am someone who supports BDS. The flyer was produced by Stand With Us, an organization with a questionable reputation.

For example, members and associates of Stand With Us have been observed engaging in hateful behavior. See this video on Jewish Voice for Peace blog, Muzzlewatch, here.

This flyer was disturbing to me in a number of ways, for a number of reasons. Among those reasons: it called BDS "biased, dishonest and self-defeating." Then listed a bunch of statements, for example to paraphrase some of the highlights:

The foreign policy of USA is intimately connected with Israel. Following World War Two, the keepers of political and economic power in the USA designed to further efforts toward dominance of global economics and politics.

There is a lot of support for divestment, and in that environment I think it is critical for people to keep in mind the bigger picture, which is of a long and calculated strategy of geo-political dominance led by keepers of political power.