Leila Roberts

Impatient with this social and economic status quo. If you're doing something radically beautiful to change it, then yes: Retweets = Endorsement

[Leila Roberts @LeilaRoberts]

#LocalBizLeila likes: Case for worker #coops is STRONG. Fail less, better at crisis resilience, community democracy https://t.co/IIMKe3gsuV

[Leila Roberts @LeilaRoberts]

@oneforisrael 5

[Leila Roberts @LeilaRoberts]

@oneforisrael Z ads fxxx

[Leila Roberts @LeilaRoberts]

Join me and @innocence in urging @POTUS to #CommuteTheRow by Jan. 20. Keeping the federal death penalty puts innocent lives at risk and worsens existing injustices in our criminal legal system: https://t.co/m7vWYH8b7t

[Mouin Rabbani @MouinRabbani]

I have consistently stated that the International Criminal Court would never issue an arrest warrant for an Israeli official. I am delighted to have been proven wrong. Almost as delighted as I am by watching Western leaders and politicians take a break from preaching human rights, the rule of law, etc. to the rest of us, to experience a collective thermonuclear meltdown about these developments.
I am particularly amused by the attacks on Karim Khan. I fully agree he should never have been elected ICC Prosecutor. The catch: the only reason he was elected to this office was because of incessant lobbying on his behalf by not only his government, Great Britain, but particularly by two states that are not ICC members: the United States and Israel. They promoted him to protect their interests, he did his very best, but Israel's conduct and an effective campaign to pressure him to fulfil the duties of his office ultimately left him with no alternative.

[Leila Roberts @LeilaRoberts]

@majedbamya Masterful. This will live in the record and be replayed when the occupation's impunity finally ends.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

The problem with liberalism is that it rests on a fundamental contradiction that cannot be resolved. It will always fail, it will always collapse, and this explains everything about our current moment.

Liberals try to hold two commitments at once: on the one hand, they are firmly committed to capitalism; on the other, they express support for principles like human rights, democracy, equality, freedom of speech, environment and the rule of law.  This duality is the core of liberalism.

But there's a problem. Capital accumulation requires cheapening labour and nature. This eventually comes into direct conflict with principles like rights and equality. And whenever this conflict appears, the liberal ruling class sides with capital, abandons their lofty principles, and throws workers and nature under the bus.  Every. Single. Time.

This results in flagrant displays of hypocrisy. They run on nice-sounding platforms but end up either betraying their promises or actively working against their stated values. They'll slash public services, bail out banks, imprison journalists, beat up students, expand fracking, coup democratically elected leaders in the global South, bomb liberation movements, fund a genocide - they'll even trash international law itself - anything that's needed to maintain the conditions for capital accumulation.

At most, they may try to negotiate mediocre compromises, a few social policies here and there - some abortion rights, a tiny increase in the minimum wage - but nothing that might pose any serious threat to capital accumulation. Thus the soul-crushing slowness of liberal incrementalism.  Ultimately they are unwilling to take any of the obvious steps that would actually resolve our urgent social and ecological crises.

This is why nobody trusts liberal politicians.  This is why they come across as so fantastically insincere, and even sneering.  This is why they feel so spineless and *empty*.

The center cannot hold.  Liberalism will always collapse, inevitably handing power to fascists, and this is not acceptable.  There is only one way to overcome this deadly impasse, and that is to mobilize a socialist alternative. A political movement that can unite the working-classes, overcome capitalism, deliver real economic democracy, and enable us to achieve rapid progress toward social and ecological goals.

[Michael Tracey @mtracey]

Liz Cheney was one of the biggest proponents of Trump's Middle East policy. Whether it was Israel or Iran, Liz was always right there, loyally cheering on Trump. This entire phony Trump/Cheney conflict is taking place in a parallel universe, bereft of any actual policy

[Khartoum Aid Kitchen @KhartoumKitchen]

This is the queue for one of the 5 kitchens we support in Al Fitehab District of Omdurman.

Hunger is a very real threat and in some areas of Omdurman children continue to die from malnutrition. The work of grassroots community kitchens like ours are critical to preventing a widescale famine.

We are completely dependent on your donations to continue our work, so if you are able to help, please click on the link: https://t.co/i09cHruiDk

[gha*da 𓋹 @ghayo0da]

Do you ever wonder why the UAE is one of the only countries in the Middle East with strong ties with America and Israel?
It’s because they line their pockets with the same blood money that they do.
A thread on how the UAE damages some places in Africa and the Middle East (🧵)

[Hümeyra Pamuk @humeyra_pamuk]

SCOOP: I reviewed three sets of internal email exchanges between senior Biden administration officials who were warned just DAYS after Oct. 7 that Israel was risking committing war crimes by ordering more than a million Palestinians in northern Gaza to evacuate. There’s more: 1/X

[Hümeyra Pamuk @humeyra_pamuk]

By the way, a shoutout to @BrettMmurphy who published a great story today on how the State Department's pipeline of weapons to Israel worked, overruling concerns of civilian harm. Read here https://t.co/Rpd07oyz19

[Ralph Nader @RalphNader]

Over 200,000 Palestinians—not 35,000—have already died since October. This is based on nearly 100,000 bombs and missiles directly on civilians, without food, water, medicine, electricity, healthcare and World Health casualty projections starting last October. The 35,000 official fatality count is absurd. No human beings could endure those massacres and related untreated diseases since October 7th. -R

[Leila Roberts @LeilaRoberts]

@RalphNader @threadreaderapp unroll

[Alon Mizrahi @alon_mizrahi]

The current wave of criminalization of thought and expression on behalf of a genocide made me recollect the greatest WTF moment I had in all these months.

It was last November in Oakland. I was visiting a friend of a friend who lived in one the poshest in Alameda, which is separate from Oakland municipally, but connected in any other way.

I was craving Mexican food so I looked on Google Maps for a nearby recommended spot. I found one about 2.5 kilometers (or so) from the address I was visiting, so I decided to walk there (walking is my absolute favorite activity in new places: this is the way to be immersed in a place).

The friend of a friend was visibly surprised when I told him where I was going to get Mexican food; I asked why and he said it was a very non-white part of Oakland.

Being not very white in appearance myself, I didn't particularly mind. If you grew up almost anywhere else than the US, you have no idea how racialized and segregated the landscape is.

So I started walking, and after about 10 minutes the surroundings began to change dramatically. Posh expensive homes, nice paved roads and sidewalks, and expensive cars quickly gave way to graffiti, broken asphalt, and old pickup trucks.

But I persisted, though the scene became visibly less and less friendly and welcoming.

When I was some hundred meters from the Mexican food spot, things looked so broken and alien, with abandoned cars and barred-down stores I started feeling a little uneasy. But I had to see that place, and I was so hungry.

I couldn't find the entrance to the restaurant at first: it was almost hidden. You had to go to the next plot, a carwash if I remember correctly, and then go in from the side.

Walking in, it was really it was like stepping into Mexico. No one spoke English. I was addressed in Spanish, and as far as I could tell, I was the only non-Mexican customer present.

I kind of liked that. I was clearly in the midst of simple people, poor working class (workers from the nearby carwash were having lunch), and just poor.
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As I had been a couple of weeks in Oakland already, and met some lovely people there but also saw some of its homelessness, substance abuse, and poverty, it was a moment of me trying to make sense of what I was seeing and experiencing.

The segregation in class and race divisions in America took me by surprise. I had never seen such wealth and such destitution brushing against each other but never mingling, as I have seen in Oakland (and San Francisco).

I was a war refugee, basically, getting to grips with the unthinkable gap between what the US was spending on war in the Middle East and the way the poor people and poor neighborhoods and streets in America look like. I had never seen such gaps, or such extreme poverty in Israel. I had never seen people living under bridges in tents and abandoned caravans that smelled so terrible of burning substances I could feel the taste of it in my throat. I walked under there, too, and it was sadder than I can describe.

And as I was sitting in that Mexican restaurant, I raised my head from my food and saw this sign right across from me.
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I was among people who could hardly afford living at all, many of whom didn't speak English. Their streets and neighborhoods were broken and downright scary (how abandoned they must feel, in that country of unimaginable wealth).

And right there, in front of their faces, someone had enough money and delusion to plant that sign, warning them of Hamas.

At that moment, after overcoming the initial daze and disbelief, so many things connected for me, it felt like a personal epiphany.

[Conor O'Neill @conoraon]

Going way under the radar - last night the Irish Govt allowed a motion to pass in Parliament calling for (among other things) sanctions on Israel, a ban on settlement trade, recognition of Palestinian statehood and to "dismantle the system of apartheid."
https://t.co/hiM6zaGYGj

[Leila Roberts @LeilaRoberts]

@CraigMurrayOrg I said exactly the same thing, and found comfort in the surge of friends agreeing. Bless the ethical, compassionate global majority.

[Craig Murray @CraigMurrayOrg]

The world need to rediscover its moral footing. Let me start.
Should I ever be taken hostage, please let me die rather than have one single child killed in securing my release.
Let alone dozens.
It isn't even a discussion to any moral person.

[CIJ_ICJ @CIJ_ICJ]

NEWS: on 12 February 2024, South Africa submitted an “urgent request for additional measures under Article 75 (1)” of the Rules of Court in connection with the “developing circumstances in Rafah” in the case #SouthAfrica v. #Israel before the #ICJ https://t.co/PttnjpfA9t

[Younis Tirawi | يونس @ytirawi]

Gaza | Burning & destroying food warehouses

Israeli soldiers post a video on social media showing the destruction & burning of food warehouses in western Gaza City 3 days ago. This comes after a severe famine affecting North Gaza, where people are struggling for survival 1/2