My elegy has brought many of you to tears, and I honestly do not know how to thank Allah enough for surrounding me with such beautiful, sensitive souls. I am especially proud of this piece because I did not write it simply as a poem; I wrote it because I could not bear the thought of those little lives disappearing into statistics and headlines.
Every baby and every child had a name, a face, a mother who loved them, and a future that should have unfolded before them. I wanted, in my small way, to sit with their grief, to mourn them as human beings, and to give them a few words of love when the world had failed to protect them.
Perhaps that is why this piece means so much to me. I wrote it with a broken heart, for children whose hearts should never have been broken. May Allah receive them with infinite mercy, grant patience to their families, and never allow us to forget them. 💔🤲
PLEASE READ AND SHARE.😭😭😭
A free verse elegy—written without rhyme to let natural breath and cadence carry the weight of witness.
How Did You I̶ Die?
A reflection on witness, loss, and the kites above Gaza.
Was Gaza still shaking when you closed your eyes?
Was your mother beside you, calling your name through the dust?
Did you still have your schoolbag, your pencil, and the little kite you flew above Gaza, its bright tail trembling in the Mediterranean wind?
When the walls came down, did you understand? Or were you still only a child, wondering why the sky had become so loud?
And when the earth covered you, did you call: Yā Allāh?
I wonder what happened then. Did the darkness become light? Did the angels come? Did you hear: Salāmun ʿalaykum— and lift your little head?
Perhaps you asked: Yā Rabb, where is my mother? Where is my home? Where is my kite?
And perhaps Allah showed you a place where nothing burns. Perhaps the wind was waiting. Perhaps your kite was waiting too.
Perhaps you took its string in your little hand and ran— higher, little one, higher than the smoke, higher than the walls. For in the kingdom of your Lord, no one would dare cut the string of your kite.
You died once. I lived on.
Tomorrow morning I will wake. I will make tea. I will teach my lessons. I will answer my messages.
Children will pass me with schoolbags on their backs. The sea will still touch the shore. The sun will still rise.
And somewhere in Gaza, your schoolbag will still be there. Your pencil lying where it fell. Your mother waking without you.
Shakespeare wrote: 'Cowards die many times before their deaths.'
Not the child beneath the rubble, but the man who sees and carries on. Who hears and carries on eating. Who says your name and returns to his ordinary life.
You were not a number. You were someone's child. Someone's joy, someone's whole universe. Someone's amānah.
And Allah knew you before the world knew your name.
So when I see a kite rising against our English sky, I will stop. I will watch until it disappears into the clouds. And I will imagine your little hands still holding the string.
Fly, little one. Spread your green wings where the sky does not fall.
Because tomorrow I will wake. Your mother will wake. The sun will rise.
And somewhere in the dust, a teddy bear will still be waiting for his little chum.
How am I supposed to live after knowing how you died?
Thank you, both of you, for being you. I started following your Twitter account when I still hadn't come fully awake politically. The DNC destruction of Bernie's candidacy started my radicalization and the destruction of Gaza gave it teeth. I'm far too ill to handle being a public figure, even online, but I do have the privilege of time to watch long-form videos and read down rabbit holes to further educate myself. I distill these ideas into something digestible for spheres in which I have access, to share in a way that allows people to radicalize themselves in turn.
What I enjoy most about your work is your ability as a team to strip down speaking truth to power to its bare essence, charging it with the emotion it naturally evokes if you possess even a shred of empathy, and then shouting it directly into the gaping maw of the void, knowing that even if the void stares back, it's the necessary cost for keeping your soul. That's real effort; over days, months, and years, for which I'm grateful. In sharing your voice, you've helped me find my own. So thank you for being you.
You put in words my feelings and thoughts and hopes. More than anyone else. I subscribe because I want you to continue. Keep teling the truth about what is happenning. It helps.
My father, [who's now passed away], and I had been following Tim's work on Information Clearing House for many years, until it gradually came to an end due to Tim's health issues at the time. I had begun following your work, Caitlin, with great interest since before that time.
I am immensely pleased to hear that Tim is still alive and healthy, now that your once long distance relationship is now much closer and fulfilling for the benefit of anyone who takes the time to learn from your collective wisdom.
That you are now both collaborating in such a wonderfully important way, makes my heart feel maybe there still is hope for humanity.
Many thanks for these, I had seen the first one a few years ago, good to revisit, the one with Avi Shlaim new to me. Which brings to mind: explanation behind why the sun never sets on the British Empire? Because you can't trust them in the dark.
That didn't even include the USA, which only separated from the "Rule of Law" and not actually separated from the ideologies that maintain the empire together.
Yours is a great joke, but that phrase was about the fact that empire spanned the entire globe. It was always daytime in some part of that empire.
That empire didn't fold so much as rebrand, as it is an empire maintained by ideology and not a specific human emperor located in a specific geographical region (IE: The Empire is no longer headquartered in London, Air Strip One).
Some Historians believe that the end of the 99 year lease that extended the British occupation of Hong Kong was the time when timezones weren't sufficiently covered for that phrase to apply any more. New Zealand is located in a time zone that would easily cover that gap, so I don't think it qualifies as this is essentially the same ideological-headquartered empire.
Where I seem to differ from other commentators is that I don't look at specific extractive industries, or a specific part of the Western linear left-right Overton window, as the source of the problems I are observing. I believe that a true non-metaphorical decolonization movement (and not merely forking an empire as the USA did, something not remotely decolonial) is the only way to actually move away from the Empire. I find the "left wing" of the Western Empire to be as long-term problematic as the "right wing" variation, even the left appears more polite in the short-term.
The East India Company was the first Private Transnational Corporation that got bigger (in terms of Capital) than the original country it came from.
This Corporation was in fact the early prototype of Global Fascism (Imperialism), formed by the merger of State (Queen) and Corporate (Private wealthiest merchants) power and capital.
By 1750 it had 200,000 soldiers, twice the size of Britain's military, its own courts, its own tax collectors, and it was issuing currency across India. A corporation conquered a subcontinent because the British government let it happen. The company was buying Parliament's debt. They could not shut it down because they were dependent on it. That took 150 years.
The first so-called "too big to fail" Corp that was bailed out by the State back in the 18th century..
These settler-colonial entities share ideological as well as religious doctrinal origin stories.
The earliest group that supported the recolonization of Palestine by Jewish peoples to come to the continent that is now governed by the USA and Canadian institutions are celebrated each year with the USA's Thanksgiving: the Pilgrims. The religious project to recolonize Palestine has been an Anglosphere project since the 16th century.
Just as history didn't start on October 7, 2023, it didn't start in 1948, 1926 or 1897. The project predates the formation of all of the 5 "other" UN member states within WEOG.
I agree. I've never believed in a "Two-State Solution". Any and all claims that this would work is plain propaganda, as evidenced by the attitudes, beliefs and statements of the leaders of the Zionist State - along with the vast majority of the Israeli/Zionist population.
This is precisely why the only solution is to coalesce global power to impose a "One -State Solution" to revert it's name to its original name of Palestine under a Treaty; whereby the Palestinians become the principal land holders allowing a small percentage of Treaty -friendly Jewish land owners to stay as citizens. This number could be worked out in keeping with the numbers when Palestine was declared the Jewish State of Israel in 1948.
Since the rest of the world watched and supported this horrific genocide take place, they can absorb the criminal Zionists back into into their societies as they see fit.
Interesting. I had previously written elsewhere, perhaps here as well, that the only solution that has some semblance of justice is for the political and geographic entities of Israel be erased; all the land, all (illegitimate) "state" assets and 75% of present Israeli personal assets to revert to the Palestinians; that the equivalent 5%-7% of the Palestinian population that was historically Jewish pre-Zionist arrival be allowed to remain as fully citizens of the newly renamed country of Palestine, all others required to apply for citizenship; those denied are to leave within the year, returning from whence they or their ancestors came.
At least fifty years ago I attended a small Christian Spiritualist Church, that very fortunately had an enlightened soul leading us.
Back then she warned that a new group was forming that believed it was fine to steal spiritually from others and would follow on to become the "born again" cult that used wealth as its measure for how enlightened one was. We saw it happen just as she said, and all these so-called mega churches/huge halls began popping up all over, but the only ones that became wealthy were the leaders, and boy, did they become wealthy, and along with it they sure got into persuading the young ladies into becoming, their playthings.
Which proved they had not reached even the lowest level of enlightenment, with money and sex as their measure.
She did say there was a hard time coming, though she would not be here to witness it, before it changed for the better. And here we are in such hard times, yet there is some light ahead once we get through this yuk phase, and the shock of all the corruption becoming known by people we trusted to care for our countries but who took care of themselves only.
So, yes, thank you Caitlin and Tim, because we always need someone to hold up the torch to get us through the tough, darker times.
The "yuk phase" is only beginning. It will last a few decades at least. Perhaps few of us will see its end--but it matters what we do now, so that those who come after t will have a livable Earth to stand on, and a culture that values cooperation and rejects violence.
You guys are doing a great Job with such valuable hard to come by Truth and information about this Sick corrupt System masquerading as the world leaders in freedom and Democracy while Genociding and Destroying and Decimating a large part of our Human brothers and sisters across the globe while Bombing and reducing their land to Rubble Dust and steel, and really consider themselves as Civilized? Ha ha
I think there are millions of us around the world thinking pretty much along these same lines, Caitlin - Tim. Keep up the good work. You are the real Voice...
Caitlin. No words. If only we could clone you & Tim. ❤️❤️❤️💔
Amen. Life well lived so no need for do-overs, and unattractive to tools of ego.
My elegy has brought many of you to tears, and I honestly do not know how to thank Allah enough for surrounding me with such beautiful, sensitive souls. I am especially proud of this piece because I did not write it simply as a poem; I wrote it because I could not bear the thought of those little lives disappearing into statistics and headlines.
Every baby and every child had a name, a face, a mother who loved them, and a future that should have unfolded before them. I wanted, in my small way, to sit with their grief, to mourn them as human beings, and to give them a few words of love when the world had failed to protect them.
Perhaps that is why this piece means so much to me. I wrote it with a broken heart, for children whose hearts should never have been broken. May Allah receive them with infinite mercy, grant patience to their families, and never allow us to forget them. 💔🤲
PLEASE READ AND SHARE.😭😭😭
A free verse elegy—written without rhyme to let natural breath and cadence carry the weight of witness.
How Did You I̶ Die?
A reflection on witness, loss, and the kites above Gaza.
Was Gaza still shaking when you closed your eyes?
Was your mother beside you, calling your name through the dust?
Did you still have your schoolbag, your pencil, and the little kite you flew above Gaza, its bright tail trembling in the Mediterranean wind?
When the walls came down, did you understand? Or were you still only a child, wondering why the sky had become so loud?
And when the earth covered you, did you call: Yā Allāh?
I wonder what happened then. Did the darkness become light? Did the angels come? Did you hear: Salāmun ʿalaykum— and lift your little head?
Perhaps you asked: Yā Rabb, where is my mother? Where is my home? Where is my kite?
And perhaps Allah showed you a place where nothing burns. Perhaps the wind was waiting. Perhaps your kite was waiting too.
Perhaps you took its string in your little hand and ran— higher, little one, higher than the smoke, higher than the walls. For in the kingdom of your Lord, no one would dare cut the string of your kite.
You died once. I lived on.
Tomorrow morning I will wake. I will make tea. I will teach my lessons. I will answer my messages.
Children will pass me with schoolbags on their backs. The sea will still touch the shore. The sun will still rise.
And somewhere in Gaza, your schoolbag will still be there. Your pencil lying where it fell. Your mother waking without you.
Shakespeare wrote: 'Cowards die many times before their deaths.'
Not the child beneath the rubble, but the man who sees and carries on. Who hears and carries on eating. Who says your name and returns to his ordinary life.
You were not a number. You were someone's child. Someone's joy, someone's whole universe. Someone's amānah.
And Allah knew you before the world knew your name.
So when I see a kite rising against our English sky, I will stop. I will watch until it disappears into the clouds. And I will imagine your little hands still holding the string.
Fly, little one. Spread your green wings where the sky does not fall.
Because tomorrow I will wake. Your mother will wake. The sun will rise.
And somewhere in the dust, a teddy bear will still be waiting for his little chum.
How am I supposed to live after knowing how you died?
Ibn-e-Khushnood
Beautiful description of who you and husband are. You both are a treasure and great example of expanded humanity. Much gratitude. 💕☮️🦋
I'm with you and Tim all the way.
From South Australia: well done to you both.
Thank you, both of you, for being you. I started following your Twitter account when I still hadn't come fully awake politically. The DNC destruction of Bernie's candidacy started my radicalization and the destruction of Gaza gave it teeth. I'm far too ill to handle being a public figure, even online, but I do have the privilege of time to watch long-form videos and read down rabbit holes to further educate myself. I distill these ideas into something digestible for spheres in which I have access, to share in a way that allows people to radicalize themselves in turn.
What I enjoy most about your work is your ability as a team to strip down speaking truth to power to its bare essence, charging it with the emotion it naturally evokes if you possess even a shred of empathy, and then shouting it directly into the gaping maw of the void, knowing that even if the void stares back, it's the necessary cost for keeping your soul. That's real effort; over days, months, and years, for which I'm grateful. In sharing your voice, you've helped me find my own. So thank you for being you.
You put in words my feelings and thoughts and hopes. More than anyone else. I subscribe because I want you to continue. Keep teling the truth about what is happenning. It helps.
Excellent Caitlin & Tim! Thank you. This is why we follow you, why we find you inspiring.
🙏 🤗
Dear Caitlin and Tim,
My father, [who's now passed away], and I had been following Tim's work on Information Clearing House for many years, until it gradually came to an end due to Tim's health issues at the time. I had begun following your work, Caitlin, with great interest since before that time.
I am immensely pleased to hear that Tim is still alive and healthy, now that your once long distance relationship is now much closer and fulfilling for the benefit of anyone who takes the time to learn from your collective wisdom.
That you are now both collaborating in such a wonderfully important way, makes my heart feel maybe there still is hope for humanity.
I would like to ad this interesting link to a speech at the UN to my above comment:
https://youtu.be/tGkwgv077OQ?si=7RHwMmQ5O4V7hJog
Israel and Zionism are the infinitely absolute antithesis of everything you stand for.
Too many ppl still prefer to remain willfully ignorant of the fact that Zionism/Israel has always been an Anglo-American Imperialist colonial project
youtube.com/watch?v=IZjSVkkAjVk
youtube.com/watch?v=vEGVSvL6yQU
Many thanks for these, I had seen the first one a few years ago, good to revisit, the one with Avi Shlaim new to me. Which brings to mind: explanation behind why the sun never sets on the British Empire? Because you can't trust them in the dark.
Explanation is very simple:
Iraq Petroleum:
British Petroleum: 23.75%; Shell: 23.75%; Compagnie Francaise des Petroles: 23.75%; Exxon: 11.875%; Mobil: 11.875%
***
Iran Petroleum Consortium 1954-1979 (under the western puppet Shah 1.0):
British Petroleum: 40%; Shell: 14%; Gulf: 7%; Exxon: 7%; Mobil: 7%; Chevron: 7%; Texaco: 7%; Compagnie Francaise des Petroles: 6%
youtube.com/shorts/Cn1JTw_z-Qw
***
Abu Dhabi Petroleum Co.:
British Petroleum: 23.75%; Shell: 23.75%; Compagnie Francaise des Petroles: 23.75%; Exxon: 11.875%; Mobil: 11.875%
***
Bahrain Petroleum Co.
Chevron: 50%; Texaco: 50%
***
Aramco Saudi Arabia:
Exxon: 30%; Mobil: 10%; Chevron: 30%; Texaco: 30%
***
Dedollarization: How Iran challenges US dollar dominance and the petrodollar system:
youtube.com/watch?v=_ziGNmvOh6k&t=215s
(I suspect you already know, but just want to share for any other readers).
The British Empire is the largest empire humanity has experienced.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires
That didn't even include the USA, which only separated from the "Rule of Law" and not actually separated from the ideologies that maintain the empire together.
Yours is a great joke, but that phrase was about the fact that empire spanned the entire globe. It was always daytime in some part of that empire.
That empire didn't fold so much as rebrand, as it is an empire maintained by ideology and not a specific human emperor located in a specific geographical region (IE: The Empire is no longer headquartered in London, Air Strip One).
Some Historians believe that the end of the 99 year lease that extended the British occupation of Hong Kong was the time when timezones weren't sufficiently covered for that phrase to apply any more. New Zealand is located in a time zone that would easily cover that gap, so I don't think it qualifies as this is essentially the same ideological-headquartered empire.
Where I seem to differ from other commentators is that I don't look at specific extractive industries, or a specific part of the Western linear left-right Overton window, as the source of the problems I are observing. I believe that a true non-metaphorical decolonization movement (and not merely forking an empire as the USA did, something not remotely decolonial) is the only way to actually move away from the Empire. I find the "left wing" of the Western Empire to be as long-term problematic as the "right wing" variation, even the left appears more polite in the short-term.
The East India Company was the first Private Transnational Corporation that got bigger (in terms of Capital) than the original country it came from.
This Corporation was in fact the early prototype of Global Fascism (Imperialism), formed by the merger of State (Queen) and Corporate (Private wealthiest merchants) power and capital.
By 1750 it had 200,000 soldiers, twice the size of Britain's military, its own courts, its own tax collectors, and it was issuing currency across India. A corporation conquered a subcontinent because the British government let it happen. The company was buying Parliament's debt. They could not shut it down because they were dependent on it. That took 150 years.
The first so-called "too big to fail" Corp that was bailed out by the State back in the 18th century..
youtu.be/NW8-Hv2wF-U?t=307
youtu.be/UHG9fA5YMVw?t=497
youtu.be/iI8KmWVGOYw?t=2761
***
BTW Boston Tea Party was in fact a protest against the monopoly of the East India Company
***
Only 22 countries have never been invaded by Britain:
statista.com/chart/3441/countries-never-invaded-by-britain/
I regularly reference the 5 "other" members of the Western Europe and "Other" group (WEOG), which are all projects of the Anglosphere
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United States, Israel.
https://www.un.org/dgacm/en/content/regional-groups
These settler-colonial entities share ideological as well as religious doctrinal origin stories.
The earliest group that supported the recolonization of Palestine by Jewish peoples to come to the continent that is now governed by the USA and Canadian institutions are celebrated each year with the USA's Thanksgiving: the Pilgrims. The religious project to recolonize Palestine has been an Anglosphere project since the 16th century.
Just as history didn't start on October 7, 2023, it didn't start in 1948, 1926 or 1897. The project predates the formation of all of the 5 "other" UN member states within WEOG.
https://r.flora.ca/p/zionism
I agree. I've never believed in a "Two-State Solution". Any and all claims that this would work is plain propaganda, as evidenced by the attitudes, beliefs and statements of the leaders of the Zionist State - along with the vast majority of the Israeli/Zionist population.
This is precisely why the only solution is to coalesce global power to impose a "One -State Solution" to revert it's name to its original name of Palestine under a Treaty; whereby the Palestinians become the principal land holders allowing a small percentage of Treaty -friendly Jewish land owners to stay as citizens. This number could be worked out in keeping with the numbers when Palestine was declared the Jewish State of Israel in 1948.
Since the rest of the world watched and supported this horrific genocide take place, they can absorb the criminal Zionists back into into their societies as they see fit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah
Interesting. I had previously written elsewhere, perhaps here as well, that the only solution that has some semblance of justice is for the political and geographic entities of Israel be erased; all the land, all (illegitimate) "state" assets and 75% of present Israeli personal assets to revert to the Palestinians; that the equivalent 5%-7% of the Palestinian population that was historically Jewish pre-Zionist arrival be allowed to remain as fully citizens of the newly renamed country of Palestine, all others required to apply for citizenship; those denied are to leave within the year, returning from whence they or their ancestors came.
At least fifty years ago I attended a small Christian Spiritualist Church, that very fortunately had an enlightened soul leading us.
Back then she warned that a new group was forming that believed it was fine to steal spiritually from others and would follow on to become the "born again" cult that used wealth as its measure for how enlightened one was. We saw it happen just as she said, and all these so-called mega churches/huge halls began popping up all over, but the only ones that became wealthy were the leaders, and boy, did they become wealthy, and along with it they sure got into persuading the young ladies into becoming, their playthings.
Which proved they had not reached even the lowest level of enlightenment, with money and sex as their measure.
She did say there was a hard time coming, though she would not be here to witness it, before it changed for the better. And here we are in such hard times, yet there is some light ahead once we get through this yuk phase, and the shock of all the corruption becoming known by people we trusted to care for our countries but who took care of themselves only.
So, yes, thank you Caitlin and Tim, because we always need someone to hold up the torch to get us through the tough, darker times.
The "yuk phase" is only beginning. It will last a few decades at least. Perhaps few of us will see its end--but it matters what we do now, so that those who come after t will have a livable Earth to stand on, and a culture that values cooperation and rejects violence.
You guys are doing a great Job with such valuable hard to come by Truth and information about this Sick corrupt System masquerading as the world leaders in freedom and Democracy while Genociding and Destroying and Decimating a large part of our Human brothers and sisters across the globe while Bombing and reducing their land to Rubble Dust and steel, and really consider themselves as Civilized? Ha ha
Thank you both for what you do. I've been on this train since 2016 - a former Bernie Bro turned actual lefty. Keep up the fight comrades. ✊
Thanks so much for this, Caitlin.
I, and so many others, share these values.
Here's wishing you and Tim long healthy lives, and thanks so much for your wonderful writing.
Thank you, Caitlin and Tim, for always speaking the truth. I’m not sure anyone does it better.
You two are certainly inspiring. Thanks and keep it up 🙂🤟
I think there are millions of us around the world thinking pretty much along these same lines, Caitlin - Tim. Keep up the good work. You are the real Voice...