Thoughts on the Death of Rachel Corrie
Today is the sixth anniversary of the death of Rachel Corrie. On March 16, 2003, in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip, she was run over by an armor-plated Caterpillar bulldozer, a machine sold by the U.S. to Israel, the armor put in place for the purpose of knocking down homes without damage to the machine. Rachel Corrie was 23 years old, from Olympia; a sane, articulate, and dedicated American who had studied with care the methods of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. At the time that she was run over, and then backed over again, she was wearing a fluorescent orange jacket and holding a megaphone. There is a photograph of her talking to the soldier of the Israel Defense Forces, in the cabin of his bulldozer, not long before he did it. None of the eyewitnesses believed that the killing was accidental. Perhaps the soldier was tired of the peace workers; it was that kind of day. Perhaps, in some part of himself, he guessed that he was living at the beginning of a period of impunity.
The Israeli government never produced the investigation it promised into the death of Rachel Corrie
(as her parents indicate in a statement published today). The inquiry urged by her congressional representative, Adam Smith,
brought no result from the American state department under Condoleezza Rice.
Her story was lost for a while in the grand narrative of the American launching
of the war against Iraq. Thoroughly lost, and for a reason. The rules of engagement
America employed in Iraq were taught to our soldiers, as Dexter Filkins revealed,
by officers of the IDF; the U.S. owed a debt to Israel for knowledge
of the methods of destruction; and we were using the same Caterpillar
machines against Iraqi homes. An inquiry into the killing of Rachel
Corrie was hardly likely, given the burden of that debt and that association.
Less than a month later, on April 5, 2003, the American peace worker Brian Avery was shot in the face and seriously disfigured by IDF soldiers in Jenin. The group he was with were wearing red reflector vests with the word "doctor" written in English and Arabic. As Avery later described it, they "weren't two blocks from our apartment when an Israeli convoy of two vehicles, a tank and an armored personnel carrier, drove up the street from the direction that we were walking from. And so as we heard them coming closer, we stepped off to the side of the road to let them pass by....We stood to the side of the road, we put our hands out to show we didn't have any weapons and weren't, you know, threatening them in any way....And once they drove within about 30 meters of where we were standing, they opened fire with their machine guns and continued shooting for a very long time, probably shooting about, you know, 30 rounds of ammunition, which is quite a lot when you see them in action. And I was struck in the face with one of the bullets."
Three days ago another American peace worker, Tristan Anderson, who was protesting the new security fence in the West Bank town of Ni'lin, was shot by another Israeli soldier. It now appears that Tristan Anderson will live; if so, it will be the life that follows having a portion of his right frontal lobe cut out, and a major trauma to the bone surrounding his right eye. The hole in his face was blasted by a tear-gas canister that struck him face-on. The canister was fired into the crowd by an IDF soldier from an emplacement high above. There had been sporadic rock-throwing earlier, but at the time of the incident, as more than one witness attests, the crowd was doing nothing; the canister could not have been fired in self-defense. But whether by reckless whim or premeditation, it came from a soldier in the knowledge that it does not greatly matter now if you kill a Palestinian or the occasional European or American who was working to defend the Palestinians. IDF soldiers who commit arbitrary acts of violence enjoy a presumption of innocence that approaches official immunity granted by the state. Where all of the violence performed by the state is justified by self-defense, everything is permitted.
What drives these Americans to risk their lives against Israeli soldiers on behalf of a subject people half the world away? The answer is a passion for justice, and a commitment to civil rights. Why should any of this be of interest to Americans? For a general reason and a particular one. The general: this is a passion and a commitment that we Americans at our best have been supposed to share; it is the largest single reason we have received the admiration of other people around the world. The particular reason is as obvious but more immediate. Barack Obama, our first black president, and a man who has identified himself as a beneficiary and successor of the tradition of Martin Luther King, has promised $30 billion of military aid to Israel over the next ten years -- with no conditions, no budget-items specified, no limitations spoken of. Barack Obama is known to be a moderate politician, and so we may deduce that the moderate plan, with Israel, is to keep increasing the leviathan-bulk of the American subsidy and not to ask questions.
We ought to know a good deal about a country to which we give such large continuous donations. But Americans who care for public discussion of this subject are obliged to conduct it ourselves, since, if recent history is a guide, we will get no help from the leading American newspapers. Even the appointment today of Avigdor Lieberman, an avowed racist and a believer in the feasibility of the expulsion of all Palestinians, as foreign minister in the new Israeli government under Binyamin Netanyahu -- even this predicted and extraordinary news is not likely to provoke the New York Times or the Washington Post to report with honesty who this Lieberman is, and what he signifies. Nor will the Obama administration do it. They will be as hesitant and mixed and occasionally contradictory in their signals on Israel as they have been on many other subjects; more so, because in this case an organized body of censors and guardians attends to the reputation and support of Israel in the U.S. Let us nonetheless open the discussion by admitting that the Israel we think we know is the Israel of books written sixty and forty years ago, and of movies made from those books.
It is a different Israel one comes to know in a recent book, Lords of the Land, by Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar.
The authors of Lords of the Land are both Israelis, a scrupulous historian and a respected journalist, and the book, scarcely noticed in the U.S., was the center of a controversy when it first appeared in Israel in 2005. It deals with the settlements, or colonies, in the West Bank. One discovers in Lords of the Land that the IDF, which assists in the illegal administration of those occupied lands, has in fact changed enormously in recent years. Its new moral complexion, witnessed with astonishment by the world in the recent assault on Gaza, is a consequence of the presence of settlers in the army and of political allies of the settlers in the army's high command. The restraint for which the IDF was once admired has dissipated under a regime in which orthodox rabbis, hungry for the re-possession of a land they believe was theirs from eternity, are able to override officers and to tell individual soldiers by no means to miss a chance to kill anyone who blocks the way to an expanded Israel.So enthralled are some minds in the grip of this religious state discipline that they refer to the 1967 borders of Israel -- the boundaries to which a secular government must largely return if there is to be a two-state settlement -- as the "Auschwitz borders." This mad slogan has been taken up by American admirers of the settlements, keen to be known as victims even when they serve as executioners. Stripped of the savage hyperbole, the sense of that statement is merely that these people want to hold onto the Israeli colonies on the West Bank at all costs. They are defending the confiscation of Palestinian lands and the gradual expulsion and transfer of the Palestinian people.
No person fearful of being a victim can be rewarded with special rights or special powers. If we -- Americans, Israelis, everyone -- want to deserve our freedom, we must agree to live in a moral world where people are responsible for themselves. And just as we cannot be punished for the things that our parents did, so the crimes we commit can never be justified by the things our parents suffered.
This is a moment to study the life and death of Rachel Corrie. She left letters of great interest which show her to have been a kind of young American that many of us have known and admired. Thoughtless protectors of the status quo will say that this is Israel's cause after all; that we have no right to ask questions, as Rachel Corrie did; that Israel, like the U.S., is a democracy under siege. This will not do. The U.S. and Israel are not helpless "survivor" countries, trying to work off the trauma of recent victimhood. We are vastly powerful modern states, both of which dominate our regions, and one of which could dream of dominating the world in the year 2000. Both have recently engaged, under the eyes of the world, in exorbitant, brutal, and unjustifiable wars that have tarnished our fame. In both countries, there is no sign of the militarism ending.
Yet in both countries -- though the U.S. lacks a newspaper even close to being as serious and candid as Haaretz -- there is a citizenry capable of being educated and roused to punctual action in its own long-term interest. The truth about this has never altered. The commandment governing the long-term good of a country is the same as that for an individual -- in the dry and accurate words of Thomas Hobbes, "Seek peace." And in memory of Rachel Corrie, let us say also: the addiction to war and indefinite expansion is no longer an Israeli problem. How did we ever dare to suppose that it was? When Americans are shot by a gun or mauled by a bulldozer, it is as much an American problem as when James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were beaten, shot, and burned, and their bodies left in a swamp, in Neshoba County, Mississippi, on June 21, 1964.
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Parents of critically injured US peace activist demand justice from Israel
http://www
Professor Bromwich posits Israel's guilt and the one sided justice inherent in the Palestinians' plight.
The facts are we in Israel have suffered years of terror against civilians with little outcry from the western academic community. You have never voiced any compassion or understanding for the victims in Israel of wanton terror. You also seem to gloss over Israel's efforts over the years to reach agreements with our neighbors, including our passionate investment in the return of our abducted soldier Gilad Shalit.
I have ony encountered curious silence on your part for these and many other victims of Islamic fundamentalism here.
Might it be, Professor Bromwich that you are distorting and deviating from the true implications of the Arab Moslem states' commitment to the destruction of Israel, of western secularism, of democratic ideals.
Come meet the enemy. I do believe you will be surpised by how many of us in Israel sincerely want a just and secure peace for both sides.
We do not wantony kill. We do not relish occupation.
We would sacrifice much of our lands for the promise, the whiff of secure peace and the promise that we will no longer send our sons to war.
Please, Professor Bromwich, give both sides equal play and only then can you help bridge the vast and seemingly impenetrable abyss that lies between the two peoples.
Precisely how is it possible to suggest that violently inserting CIVILIANS into an area you consider to be filled with dangerous people makes either them or any other Israeli Civilian safer?
The ONLY reason the occupation exists is to safeguard the settlers and ensure their expansion.
This is nothing more than violently enforced apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and Israel has been at it non stop for the last 40 plus years.
Palestinians die at a rate of 3 to 1 historically, and hundreds to one over the last 3 years.
Most Israelis live lives much like Americans do, in complete security. Palestinians are some of the poorest people on the planet, with no national sovereignty, Limited Human rights, and living under an occupation that is only necessitated by the settlements and their expansion. ie, The worlds only violently enforced colonial settler movement.
Hell, (Ironically) FAR MORE many people died in 9/11 than Israel has lost in decades. It's ironic because the actions of the settlers has inspired so much of the funding, backing and recruiting that made 9/11 possible.
The blood-thirsty immoral state of israel no longer deserves to be accorded the '67 borders - they should be forced back to the '48 borders with Palestinian settlements sprinkled within their "territory" and be grateful for that.
chaos4700: "Really? How often do the pro-Israeli crowd throw the number 5.6 million into their arguments whenever it suits you? I think your own ancestors would disagree that the raw statistics are irrelevant. Or would, if they were still in a position to."
I wonder how many other people posting to this thread support this sort of remark.
This thread is supposed to be about Rachel Corrie and her memory, and you are constantly leading posters away from the topic, proving that nothing is sacred when it exposes the suffering of Palestinians at the hands of Israelis. Don't however turn around and blame it on chaos, because I see how you took over this thread and ran everyone out, and in doing so have lost all your credibility.
Jackson Jones,
You are certainly a persistent little fellow. The Hasbarra Brigade ought to award you a gold star for your untiring efforts in the face of overwhelming odds.
LPC
Just because a number of flks posting here are Arabists does not make them right. In fact, it guarantees that they are wrong.
Rachel Corrie is hardly the only American killed.
There are so many others that have died as the result of the settlers actions.
You can very credibly assert that the actions of the settlers contributed in a not insignificant manor to the deaths of EVERY person that has died in a terrorist action here in the states, In Israel, I Palestine, and in the rest of the world. It is one of the longest lived and strongest cases for terrorist recruitment and funding, as it has enraged the entire middle east for more than 4 decades.
That is why, Bill Clinton, on a Charlie Rose interview AFTER 9/11 said that the Israeli Palestinian conflict is the "philosophical underpinning of middle eastern terrorist recruitment".
The head of the CIAs bin laden unit concurs, as do the members of the Iraq Study Group, and members of the 9/11 commission.
Quite a few American have died in Palestinian terrorist attacks, as well. Leon Klinghoffer is one that springs to mind immediately, and there are many more. Moreover, many Israeli have died in Palestinian terrorist attacks, which are undisbutably crimes against humanity, and which occassion the IDF attacks about which you complain.
As for credible assertions, you can credibly assert that the Palestinian's rejecitionist stance regarding the very existence of the state of Israel is directly related to the terrorist attacks in the US, Israel and the territories in precisely the same way that you sugest above, the big difference being that quite often its actually a Palestinian that commited the actual attack.
You put all of this on the shoulders of settlers, and surely they bear some of the blame for some things, but make no mistake about the fact that the Arab/Palestinian war against Israel pre-dates the settlements and, by their very own words, is about the existence of the state of Israel, not merely the settlements.
Because you appear unwilling to account for any such things in your rhetoric, you can be sure that anyone that has a passing familiarity with the facts of the matter and does not so casually disregard the human rights of Israelis will remain unpersuaded by your remarks.
If you're content to preach to your own choir, you can rest comfortably. If you want to make a meaningful contribution to the debate, you'll need to open your mind up a bit.
That still pales in comparison to the numbers of both Americans, Arab Americans and Palestinians killed by Israel. But thanks for playing.
I am continually amazed at the extent to which seemingly well meaning people can heap the most strident invective upon Israel without once stopping to mention, even in passing, the violence that has been visited upon her, by both armies and terrorists, or the irrebuttably unjust aims of such violence, which include the targeting and killing of civilians and the destruction of Israel as a whole.
Surely, people who care enough about the plight of Palestinian people can see that at least some of the current situation is the result of the rejectionist stance of the terrorist organization regarding Israel's existence (meaning that ideologically at least they will not find accomodation with Israel based on a two-state solution) and their practice of targeting Israeli civilians.
A party cannot be supported in its quest for liberation when it insists that the achievement of such ends necessarily implicates the destruction of others.
When Zionist extremists say such things, i.e., that Israel must never cede the territories for a Palestinian state, as some do, Israelis and their organizations speak up to insist that that is an unjust position.
But I can't recall the last time I read anyone on these fora critiquing Israel while acknowledging the unjust aims and means of the Palestinian armed factions or the responsibility they bear for the state of affairs.
Israel is not always the perpetual victim, no matter how much you'd like to believe that Jackson Jones!
Article thick with half-truths and full lies. There was a full investigation and autopsy. She stood in front or a moving bulldozer where she couldn't be seen and was run over, in an event that took less than 10 seconds. Horrible accident, but not an action blessed by the Israeli Army, Government or intended by the driver. It is always the same people trying to push the same buttons.
By what right was the IDF trying to crush that house? The driver wasn't acting on his own, nor did he provide his own bulldozer. The Israeli government sent them in and killed Rachel Corrie while the IDF was committing a war crime in Gaza.
As this article makes clear:
http://www
The house itself was not used by "terrorists" at all, but was set to be destroyed as part of a pogrom to expel Palestinians from the area closest to the border with Egypt. As the Gaza Massacre showed, Israel's goal is to use Gaza as a concentration camp, and that won't work if supplies can be smuggled in from Egypt.
That is a lie. They didn't investigate it. There were pictures.v
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The driver lost sight of her. Standing in front of a dozer is just asking to get hurt. That has nothing to do with her intent, its a simple statement of fact.
Ever seen IDF shooting journalists in the occupied territory? there are some really horrifying videos
One, was so egregious and horrible that it brought the Israeli minister in charge of media to tears when he saw it. Camera men there now have a pact to continue recording each other when these attacks occur so as to document their plight.
How about the current death by tear gas cannister? Many other peace activists have been killed or gravely wounded as well.
IN a live fire situation it is not always possible to pick and choose targets. This is complicated by the number of terrorists who film the attacks on the IDF, it is impossible at times to know which are journalists and which are the enemy.
Thank you David for stating the obvious too. Even President Obama said on March 12, 2008: "Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people." But now? What has changed and who is really running this country? With so much injustice and suffering around the world and now here in US too; who is really responsible.
The future is hanging in the balance. Educate yourself and others of the truth. Get our country back!
PBS: Bill Moyers reflects on Middle East violence
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CBS: Is Peace Out Of Reach? | 13:09, January 25, 2009, Comments: 1683
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The Daily Show Jan. 5, 2009. Israel starts bombing before the hope and change deadline.
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Reuters: Gaza girl's grief (01:45) Report Jan. 22, 2009
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Israel Lobby, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt
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http://www
Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Jimmy Carter
http://boo
Right, "nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people", nobody but maybe the Zimbabweans, North Koreans, Darfurians, Bahai, Afghanis, Iraqis. Maybe people in the countries where a large percentages of the population make less than $1 a day have similar suffering? The Congolese, Botsowanans, Bangladeshis, Borundians, Gambians, Haitians, Rwandans, Zambians etc, etc,etc...
Palestinians = Suffering Inc.
Seriously. You're trying to justify what Israel does by trying to put a crowd of people in front who are suffering as bad or worse? That's your defense?
The Pals are the only people who have thier own UN agency UNRWA operating since 1948. Yet there are still refugee camps.
Israel's actions in the occupied territories, as epitomized in the murder of Rachel, are so abhorrent and inhuman. It explains why many Jews, mostly in the west but also in Israel, are turning their backs on the state.
Two young socialists who recently left Israel have written an excellent piece in the Socialist Worker newspaper in the UK.
Natalie Adler and Ron Oppenheim explain the weakness of the Israeli left in its collusion with the oppression of Palestinians and how advocating a 'two-states' solution ties them to the core Zionist idea of a 'Jewish-only state'.
Natalie and Ron, lay bare the racism at the heart of Israeli society, how this racism is used as an excuse for being oppressive. They show how anger at growing inequality in Israeli society is more than matched by hatred of 'the backward Arabs', so workers and the left always have this fatal weakness - a settler mentality.
The hounded tiny minority that stand up for Palestinians face being ostracised The writers argue the left in Israel will have to break form Zionism and argue for a one-state democratic solution that accepts the right of Palestinians to return to historic Palestine.
http://gaz
And in another article Dan Mayer explores the roots and bankruptcy of Zionism and how it supplanted socialism as the main political tradition among Jewish people.
http://gaz
"Israel's actions in the occupied territories, as epitomized in the murder of Rachel, are so abhorrent and inhuman."
Well, they would be, except for the fact that they are made necessary by the incessant attacks on Israel and her citizenry. If you lock someone in a prison for life, you could call that "abhorrent and inhuman", too, but if there's a real reason for it, then we don't.
"the core Zionist idea of a 'Jewish-only state'."
Lying about Zionism seems to be a core idea of the bash-Israel movement. Zionism has *NEVER* called for a Jewish-only state, and the founders of the state of Israel made it clear that it would welcome Arab citizens and extend them full citizenship rights like everyone else. Today, in Israel, Arabs (like their Jewish co-nationals) enjoy more rights than any citizens in any other Middle Eastern state with full Western-style civil liberties.
If you can't be honest about siomple facts like that, what else are you not being honest about?
Really? Then why does Israel reject any sort of Palestinian right of return?
For anyone thinking about the above claims about a "Jewish-only" Israel, it should be noted that over 20% of the current Israeli population is Arab, and there has *NEVER* been any policy or any attempt by any Israel government to make Israel "Jewish-only".
The statement above claiming otherwise is simply a lie.
Nonsense.
Very fewJews who have been to visit and sutdied the history of Israel are turning their backs.
It is increasingly difficult to see Arab Moslems as pure victims of their plight.
Possibly starting from a common world view can be the foundation for peace talks.
but in its absence, we must keep defending ourselves in Israel against extreme religious nations openly committed to our destruction.
R,I,P. Rachel. Your sacrifice was not in vain. Gaza will be free one day.
Here is a video of the circumstances leading to the murder of Rachel. The footage was shot by American and British peace protestors accompanying Rachel into Gaza. The footage is unpleasant, but it depicts the reality, the barbarism and the cruelty of living under Israeli occupation in Gaza:
http://vid
Israel does not occupy Gaza, it left some time ago. If Hamas would stop firing rockets into Israel we would forget about them. It is wise to keep the border with Gaza closed in order to keep out illegal weapons and to force suicide bombers to stay in Gaza.
Israel pulled 8,000 settlers out of Gaza. At the same time, 14,000 were shuttled into the West Bank. Don't pretend like it was some sort of "land for peace," the settlers still ended up with more territory as a result.
Rachel Corrie is a lady of honor, a true American; she is a real hero for ages.
Those who were and are still perpetrating the crime are our common enemy.
For those of you that requested a link for the following quote:
Azzam Pasha, the Arab League Secretary, declared on Cairo radio: 'This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.' --Arab League Secretary General Azzam Pasha, May 15, 1948, the day
five Arab armies invaded the new state of Israel, one day after the
nation declared its
independence.
Here are a few, Google will provide as many as you like.
http://en.
http://www
http://www
http://tec
So what! What does this have to do with Rachel Corrie's murder??? You always go off topic as bait for moving away from a subject that seriously calls into question Israel's actions.
It has to do with the topic of the Arab intentionsin the war of 1948, which was reached in a discussion on this thread, with, among others, your pal, chaos.
Naomi Klein wrote an interesting article (scroll down on site) about how some lives are worth more than others, and about how some heroism gets buried with the body and other heroism (Private Lynch) is all hype and the truth is distorted.
http://www
Let's honor the truth once and for all! It's about time we honor a true heroine, Rachel Corrie!
A great article if you need an example of how one-sided distortion will prolong the israel-palestine conflict indefinitely. Eye witnesses say the bulldozer ran over the activist intentionally? Name one eye witness that wasn't part of the activist group that was there to create an incident. I bet it is pretty hard to see someone in the middle of a partially demolished house from inside an armored bulldozer. It is probably pretty hard to hear people shouting at you as well. Israel has been taken over by religious extremists? So what? Hamas has taken over the other side. Why have more palestinians been killed? Because the Israelis are better armed, not because Palestinians don't want to kill more Israelis.
You completely ignore the fact that the bulldozer was destroying an innocent man's home and leaving his family homeless. Funny, that. At least you concede that the Israelis are better armed AND trying to kill Palestinians outright.
I also concede that the palestinians are trying to kill the Israelis. I also concede that palestinians have commited war crimes. And I concede that palestinian homes that are used as cover for attacks are at risk.
The bulldozer was NOT razing an innocent man's home.
No one concedes that the Israelis are kiling Palestinians outright, outright as you say meaning forno reason.
We are killing thembecause since we left Gaza there have been thousands of rockets fired upon citizens living within the state o Israel?
We wish to live quietly and safely within our borders. |Unofrtuantely the reality is we live among neighbors who are pledged to our destruction.
Have you nothing to say about Israeli and victims the world over- of Moslem terror?
If you are committing a crime and in doing so, cause a person's death (directly or indirectly) then you are responsible and guilty of manslaughter at least and murder at worst. Demolishing homes in occupied territory is a war crime. The driver who ran over Rachel Corrie while attempting to bulldoze the home of a Palestinian doctor killed her while committing a crime. He's just as guilty of murder as he would be if he drove a getaway car after robbing a bank and killed a pedestrian. Whether he meant to run the person over only matters in determining the degree of homicide.
I think it's a disgrace that an American citizen was killed while trying to stop a war crime in progress, and fellow Americans plead on behalf of her killers and gloat over her corpse.
The "felony murder statute" that you describe above is not part of international law.
If you are going to call something or other illegal, at least have some idea of what the law says.
I see this topic is moving down the front page of Huffpo and I'm sure will be swept into the ' Freeman area ' soon.
sad
What really bothers me is that American bulldozers are being used to demolish Palestinians' homes, American phosphorou
I'm sure Rachel Corrie felt like I do that this government of the birthplace of Lincoln and Martin Luther King is complicit in crimes against humanity.
I am sure that Lincoln and Martin Luther King would feel like I do, that the targeting of civilians and trying to annihilate your neighbors are bad things to do.
Yes your're absolutely right Israel targeting children, foreign activists, medics, U.N. workers, and tens of thousands of Palestinians civilians over the years and trying to oppress and then annihilate its neighbors is shameful and criminal.
I think the two of them would also object to bombing campaigns from F-16's that kill hundreds of children. Something you would disagree with them about, apparently.
They would also feel the unrelenting oppression and violence against palestinian civilians by one of the most power armies in the world are bad things to do.
You mean targeting civilians like the IDF and Israeli government and their settler proxies do EVERY DAMN DAY?
Ever hear the term "Proportionality" or "Proportional Response"? Didn't think so...
whoprofits
Thanks for the link, valuable info
Which is why I had a good chuckle when Caterpillar announced massive layoffs:
http://www
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