Kamala's Home Town Demands: "Not Another Bomb"

Photos: Leon Kunstenaar

(Oakland - August 18) The people from Vice President and candidate for President Kamala Harris's home town, held a large demonstration demanding that she break with Biden's policy of supplying the weapons for US proxy Israel's ongoing genocide of Palestine.

With the motif "not another bomb" on many signs, over a thousand people gathered, rallied and marched to tell the candidate that the slaughter in Gaza, enabled by US bombs, must cease.

The event, including kayaks on the lake, was held at Lake Merritt's amphitheater. Speakers excoriated Kamala Harris for refusing, so far, to break with Biden's complicity in the genocide. One speaker went as far as accusing Harris of being "a white supremacist with a black face."

Dancers and the crowd then engaged in a joyful Palestinian dance. The dance, along with almost everybody wearing keffiyehs and ubiquitous Palestinian flags stood as an affirmation of a Palestinian identity that has become yet stronger in the face of Israel's attempted genocide.

The crowd, with children in carriages, then marched along a section of Lake Merritt.

The presidential election has presented Americans with a ethical dilemma: one candidate is an adjudicated abuser, fraudster and would be dictator, and is determined to end what there is of democracy in the US.

The other is a candidate tied to a president who considers Israel an unshakeable ally in spite of no such treaty and arms one of the worst war crimes of the century so far. His devotion to Israel might be explained by the over $5 million dollars he has received from Israeli lobby AIPAC throughout his career.

In subtle and not so subtle ways his complicity is also supported by the country's supposed newspaper of record, the New York Times. For example, the number civilian deaths from Israel's attacks is always reported as a Hamas claim (40,000 and counting) while the number of deaths resulting from the October 7 Hamas attack is always reported a simple fact (1200).

As Democrats meet for their nominating convention in Chicago, thousands of anti war protester are gathering. It looks like a replay of the 1968 convention, when, with the Viet Nam war raging, protests and violent police suppression made for a chaotic start to Vice President Huber Humphrey's campaign. His inability to promptly repudiate President Johnson's war is widely viewed as responsible for his defeat by Richard Nixon.

While, in many ways, Nixon embodied attributes of a gangster, he never attempted a coup and ultimately respected the Constitution. Our choice in 2024 is between a candidate tied to a President complicit in genocide and a candidate who, by comparison, makes Nixon look like Thomas Jefferson.

Perhaps Kamala Harris feels that support for Israel is so strong in the US that forcing Israel to end the slaughter with a arms embargo would be viewed as "antisemitic" and cause her defeat.

It isn't and it won't.

See all high resolution photos here.