It does sound silly coming from a politician elected to oppose complicity. And what does it say to citizens tirelessly circulating petitions and urging their neighbors to vote? It says this: EVEN US senators are powerless to work within the system! Let’s thank Jeff Flake for that kernel of truth. If your resistance to Trump and corruption and capitalism does not seek to tear it down YOU ARE COMPLICIT.
Everybody has something to say about Prince, RIP, the artist formerly known by a pseudo-hieroglyph. Of his own design, it was pseudo-silent and un-typeable so he became “Formerly Known as Prince.” Before that he was the single-named Madonna-esque “Prince”.
The media’s gushing last chance push of the Prince back catalog reminds me how completely the “independent” maverick was integrated in the pop crap industry.
I’m addressing Prince’s pioneer branding because up until today his musical legacy was illusory. An earlier hit gave Prince a comeback when “1999” became relevant to the turn of the millennium. The musician’s second act was to impersonate a Hendrix tribute icon. Tormented, gifted, undead.
WHAT PRINCE REALLY TAUGHT US was that you can forbid the media to speak your name and they will obey.
What a crock! You try it! I have a friend who goes by just “Lotus”. He has a hell of a time getting local journalists to report his name as only that. They usually write “Lotus, he doesn’t use his last name, etc.” Often they don’t quote him because one name is too weird. By royal purple edict apparently, Prince was even let to declare his hieroglyph was unpronouncible.
The real lesson was about everyone’s complicity in the manufacture of marketing campaigns.
You’d think that the music business or our corporate celebrity culture might be reported like news. It appears to be. It certainly makes up most of mainstream news. Its happenings are not irrelevant to a consumer economy. But no.
Instead, publicists dictate how their brands are sold, just as lawyers insure trademarks aren’t violated, and the media divisions of the same entertainment corporations comply. If the news tellers don’t play along, products like Prince wear no clothes.
HEY! Where are the Parisian masses supposed to have been marching behind the World Leaders?! Media images were cropped to suggest the Euro cabal headed the populist march, but a long shot establishes the illusion to have been a lie. It turns out the forty figureheads held their own parade for Charlie Hebdo in a vast no man’s land of high security. Video footage shows the leaders surrounded by only media, beckened to move hither and forth to simulate an advance, marching in place more or less like a chorus line of marionettes.
The photo-op is disgracefully contrived, the subjects looking cluelessly right and left at imaginary onlookers, waving occasionally at what are probably only government snipers on the rooftop. An audio track records applause generated by a small number of determined clappers, while stage managers bark cadences to prompt the line forward, repeating “Vite, vite, vite” and “Ein, Zwei, Drei.”
The complicity of the international press recalls the iconic toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue by US marines, flanked by an entourage of Iraqi collaborators made to look like jubulant masses by means of judiciously cropped camera angles, unmasked in the alternative press by under-populated far shots. Even if the leaders’ isolation is dismissed as pragmatic, what does a complicit media tell you about whose agenda is rolling out the JE SUIS CHARLIE offensive?
The impromptu summit had media waxing that Paris at that moment was the “Capitol of the World.” An Anglo-Capitalist Putsch, yes. The march in Paris was a self-congratulatory televised re-declaration of the War On Islam. President Obama’s non-attendance is a red herring, and points to another missed opportunity. Had Obama been any kind of people’s hero he could have sent a drone in his stead to dispatch this Islamophobic assembly like just another Afgan wedding party.
AT BEST “KILL THE MESSENGER” portrays suspiciously deceased journalist Gary Webb as a heroic sleuth who refused to compromise his principles. At best, the film re-reports the enormous crime which Webb exposed in his series DARK ALLIANCE, that the CIA’s support of the Nicaraguan CONTRAs in the 1980s involved facilitating the smuggling of drugs into the US, in such large quantities as to precipitate the crack cocaine epidemic, delivered to our major inner cities by the CIA. UNFORTUNATELY the film muddies the crack connection, as Webb’s detractors did back then. Two deliberate plot omissions suggest this is probably not a coincidence.
Conveniently the screenplay ends before the years when Gary Webb was able to elaborate on those links. By then he’d lost his audience. Unfortunately the film that might have given his life’s work a main stage reprise chose not to go that far. Does it matter anymore? These days the CIA and its covert cohorts are understood to have authored a litany of unimaginable evils. So it’s not too early to demonize the CIA. Evidently someone thinks the American public is not ready to be shown the racist stratagems of corportate class war.
Exposing the genesis of the crack attack on African American ghettos is clearly a missed opportunity for a film in 2014. Given Ferguson. Given the rising awareness of our government’s coordinated and premeditated containment and criminalization of dark-skinned populations. Let’s remember that while the US was fighting Nicaraguan rebels, it was also at war with the Black Liberation Army. Funding and arming drug warlords was the same strategy Brazil used to administrate the favelas, via proxy gangs. One might say that LA’s Bloods and Crips played domestic Contras set loose to destabilize community building efforts by militant Black Power.
UNPARDONABLE however are the film’s departures from the truth, which paint a curious fiction as if to indemnify the national press from its complicity with the intelligence community. Two lies will stand out to anyone who was there. (Did the filmmakers think their audience would be only millennials?)
First, the San Jose Mercury News was hardly a “local news outlet” unfamiliar with handling national stories and unknown to the average reader. The Mercury News was an award winning paper which competed with metropolitan mastheads. I can’t imagine its employees aren’t indignant by the film’s yokel characterization. The Los Angeles Times’ vindictive campaign to defame Gary Webb was hardly driven by professional embarassment over a missed scoop.
Second, the Contra-CIA drug smuggling link was suspected well before Gary Webb brought it to the mainstream. I remember during the Iran-Contra Hearings a decade earlier, the alternative media often lamented that the official investigation had been narrowed to exclude mention of the cocaine connection.
These amendments might be excused for simplifying the plot except that they minimize the breadth of the corporate identity of Webb’s censors. How very 90s of this narrative to pretend that Capitalist media outlets compete for news scoops like highschoolers at a science olympics. Newspapers and networks have always only ever peddled the themes their owners dictate. Media consolidation has only meant the manufacturing of public consent has become more uniform, perfectly illustrated by the collusion of the tag-team that hit Gary Webb.
AND AFTER HOLLYWOOD FAILED GARY WEBB, the film critics were waiting with daggers.
David Denby begins his New Yorker review by associating KTM with other crusading journalist thrillers, “some depicting real events, some not”, then pointing to director Michael Cuesta’s “paranoid” TV work, finally contriving that the film botches “many contraditory assertions.” Um, sorry, neither. But I do worry that giving all thumbs down will succeed in scaring away viewers. Denby finishes by making it all about actor Jeremy Renner, un-ironically aping the campaign waged on Gary Webb, overtly described in the film, shifting the focus from the story to all about the messenger.
The Washington Post dispatched one-time Webb adversary Jeff Leen to reprise the hatchet job begun when Gary Webb broke the story. Labeling Webb as “no journalism hero”, Leen’s rebuttal hangs on the technicality that no CIA “employees” were implicated, ignoring what everyone knows post-Blackwater, post-Wikileaks, that the US has long outsourced its crimes, from torture to food service. Dimwit.
While we’re praising Wikileaks and its impact on our revolutionary times, let’s call out those who betrayed the cause, they’re already erasing their tracks on Wikipedia. First there’s hackster-confidant Adrian Lamo who turned in Bradley Manning; there’s fired Wikileaks volunteer Daniel Domscheit-Berg who permanently dismantled the anonymous leak submission mechanism; there’s jilted neoliberal faketivist Anna Ardin who schemed to bring Julian Assange to an ultra-right prosecutor’s attention in Sweden; there’s de facto honeypot Sofia Wilen whose complicity is still a mystery; and there’s President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder who persist in persecuting whistleblowers, who’ve empaneled a grand jury against Assange and who consider Wikileaks a terrorist enterprise.
Humanitarian rights activists aboard the Canadian Flotilla II aid ship bravely try to block the pilot’s view as Greek forces commandeer the TAHRIR before it reached international waters. While Greece is denounced for its complicity with Israel, the international press offered no live coverage, so few Americans knew it was happening. Meanwhile predominantly Christian-Zionist Colorado Springs urged Team USrael to #sinktheflotilla! Sorry local Judeo-Christo-holes, no dialog.
While the maritime aid convoy looks sunk, to the degree it received attention, the Flotilla II did raise awareness about the besieged Gazans. But more, the blocking of the aid ships, by USA, Greece, Turkey, litigious NGOs and unknown intelligence operatives, suggests that Israel is not a rogue state after all. The Flotilla II revealed the illusion of democracy, the farce of sovereignty, and the inhumanity of our global governors. By international humanitarian aid being denied Gaza by state power we see: this is what a police state looks like, globalized.
Arrest of those who blocked the wheel house.
A sweet photo of the Canadian activists looking forlorn, for a brief moment. However unceremoniously, by this weekend’s blocking of the Freedom Flotilla II, the cause of freedom for Palestine and for Greece is well advanced.
And best news, precious activists didn’t have to die by the hand of Israeli commandos, and live to repeat their promise, Gaza We Are Coming!
BODØ-LOFOTEN FERRY, NORWAY- The sun rises in the East and sets in the West, except above the Arctic Circle, where the midnight sun rises in the North, and where home TV satellite dishes point downward. Bodø is the airbase from which the CIA flew U-2 spy-plane missions over the USSR. This complicity was forever denied by the Norwegian government, and when in 1979, investigative journalists were able to surmise the airfield’s function by deducing an intelligence community who’s-who from local phone book listings, the journalists were jailed, did I mention they were Socialists? There followed a notorious trail which finally reaffirmed a Norwegian freedom of the press. A WWII event on the island chain of Lofoten had a significant impact on the German occupation of Europe. Norway fell quickly to the Nazis in 1940, but an immediate counterattack by British paratroopers, which held a beachhead for only six hours, now known as the “Lofoten Raid” but appearing then as a counter-invasion, compelled the German strategists to station considerable reserves of soldiers in Norway to deter Allied ambitions to retake the valuable northern seaports.
Does this need repeating every Martin Luther King Day? It’s all I can do to resist meeting my compatriots at the MLK breakfast this morning with signs to decry their tomfoolery. MLK was a man of action not sleep walking. He wanted to march against war, not with it, holding wind chimes. To host remembrances of MLK in the context of peaceably enabling military imperialism, you’d have King remembered as a Army chaplain. MLK knew complicity when he saw it.
Amazon booted Wikileaks from its cloud server service, at the behest of Zionist warmonger Joe Lieberman. Twittered Wikileaks in response:
“If Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment, they should get out of the business of selling books.” The corporate media is already censoring “Cablegate” with misdirection, describing the leaked diplomatic cables as indelicate embarrassments, as opposed to incriminating revelations of America’s imperialist anti-democratic outrages. The Interpol has declared an international manhunt of the Wikileaks founder based on scurrilous accusations of sexual misconduct, Canada is calling for Julian Assange’s execution via US drone, our politicians want to prosecute the Australian Assange under the draconian 1917 US Espionage Act. Amazon’s cowardly deed today is a reminder of the private sector’s omniscient control over everyone’s access to information. Imagine a world where whistleblowers are denied whistles. Shopping bags only please. On Amazon’s internet no one can hear you scream.
While the US media is scolding Wikileaks spokespeople for shaming US diplomacy, the free presses are reporting about the cables which detail the US abuse of diplomatic cover to supply intelligence data, some of it intended to direct US/Israeli drone strikes. The collusion of foreign governments to help the US circumvent international law, US complicity in the Honduran coup, among many other crimes.
Bradley Manning allegedly confessed leaking Cablegate to FBI informer Adrian Lamo, describing the trove of damning revelations thus:
“Hilary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available in a searchable format to the public. Everywhere there is a U.S. post there is a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed. It is open diplomacy, worldwide anarchy in CSV format. It’s Climategate with a global scope and breathtaking depth. It is beautiful and horrifying.”
Although an estimated half million US government operatives had access to these cables, only 20-year-old intelligence analyst Manning had the conscience to recognize the immorality being kept from public view. That’s a military culture of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, of which discrimination against sexual preference is the smallest consequence.
Have you read any of the objective coverage of the damning cables? What’s been released is only a fraction, so as not to overwhelm a media which can only focus on a single soundbite at a time. Is the absence of cables critical of Israel evidence that Julian Assange is actually MOSSAD? Rather, and I’m not alone in pointing this out, the dearth of diplomatic cables to and from Israel indicates the streamlined collusion with the US. Only in Tarantino movies do hired killers have dialog. Old comrades don’t regale each other with revelations about Quarter Pounder versus Le Royale. Israeli and US diplomats have nothing to have to keep abreast about.
Is Assange really CIA/MOSSAD/AIPAC? I’d say the smears against him more likely are. When the same voices disparaging Assange ALSO find themselves horrified by the revelations of the US diplomatic cables, is when I’ll start giving them some credibility. Nobody’s so cynical that they cannot be shocked about US indifference to its inhumanty. Noam Chomsky calls it the US’ hate of Democracy.
SEPTEMBER 20 — Let he who is without complicity in the war crimes committed for Western Imperialism cast the first huzzah. It will be a small party. It is not the custom for murderers to attend the wake.
A thousand times NO you ignorant dupes! The ACLU wants me to support the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, so that more gays can join the military. Otherwise-progressives are lobbying for the Dream Act, so that the children of undocumented immigrants can join the US military. Let me also warn you I oppose Affirmative Action for the School of the Americas torture curriculum. And equal pay for female armed-drone specialists. DADT is the homosexual’s exclusive escape clause for war crimes complicity. Is this an LGBT rights campaign to assert that gay soldiers are dumb enough for the military?
As the US continues to subsidize the Israeli occupation, including the recent commitment to fund an anti-missile system, plus failure to demand a halt to Jewish settlements, termed “impediments to peace” and not “illegal,” it’s time the BDS movement against Israel recognized the US for its integral part in upholding Apartheid. It may be too much for nascent BDS efforts in the US, but international organizers should certainly add American products, businesses and institutions to the list of BDS targets. As our politicians reaffirm that US-Israeli interests are indivisible, so should we expect to hang together.
As if the world didn’t have enough excuse to sanction the US, for Iraq, for Afghanistan, for Pakistan, for the IMF, World Bank and United Nations. For its warmongering and provocations, for its covert crimes meant to destabilize populist resurgence against its imperial grasp. Israel and Apartheid, should be just the start.
Israel is not a tough sell in the growing international BDS movement. Adding the US is no great stretch, the two already regarded as partners in crime, I can’t think that proponents of BDS in the United States would be averse to calling out our own nation as accomplice. The same principles of social justice drive solidarity for Palestine as those against war and imperialism.
Maybe an international shift to group the US with Isreal will find more support because it is more intellectually honest. The effort will still be attacked as anti-Semitic, but perhaps the argument can be deflected by the enlarged focus. Israeli Apartheid, American racism, drive the same globalist anti-everybody-else policy.
VIVA PALESTINA made it to Gaza! See the crush of media awaiting their arrival? None of them from the US or UK.
Though it took all night, the 200 vehicle convoy made the last leg from Al-Arish to Rafah safely. A compromise was reached with Egypt to redirect 59 vehicles to serve refugees in Lebanon, sooner than concede them to Israel. This is the third convoy of what organizers promise will be more until the illegal siege of Gaza is lifted.
Reflecting on the delays and difficulties posed by the Egyptians, George Galloway expressed his regret that attention was diverted from the anniversary of Israel’s criminal acts which began December 27, 2008. Instead Egypt drew the focus on its own complicity in the continued deprivation of the people of Palestine. Asked why the convoy didn’t ask to be let through Israel, if it wanted to confront what’s thought to be the principle villain behind the siege of Gaza. Galloway responded:
We will never set foot in Israel. We will never ask permission from Israel for anything. We will never recognize Israel as long as there is no Palestine. As long as the Palestinian people are scattered to the four corners of the earth as refugees; as long as Jerusalem is being monstrously, ethnically cleansed with settlements surrounding it, choking the very life and greatness out of it; as long as Gaza is under siege, as long a Palestinians are being assassinated and bombed from the air, as they have been over the last week or so –by the way from both of the main political factions within Palestine, so it’s not just Hamas people who are being murdered in front of their wives and children. We will never recognize Israel as long as such a situation exists for the Palestinians.
See the interview on this clip from Al Jazeera:
Galloway added his usual fighting words:
The Palestinians here will never be starved into surrender. Anyone who’s counting on that, whether Israel or anybody else, and I mean anybody else, who’s counting on that, is making a big mistake. They don’t know these people if they think they can starve them into surrender.
The clip below features brief interviews of several convoyers as they arrive. The briefest was a passenger on a Derry to Gaza ambulance. The Press TV correspondent greeted him with: “Hello. Welcome to Gaza. How do you feel?” To which he replied, as the vehicle kept moving:
Great. Great to be in Gaza.
But another from that crew, whom Irish4Palestine identifies as JJ, doubled back on foot to deliver a wonderfully cheerful message:
Just like to say hello to all the people of Derry.
Um, we’ve travelled 5,000 miles from Derry in Irelanda. And it’s great to finally be here and meet the people.
And we’ve come this far for a reason. Because they deserve it. And more people should do this definitely, because we have to break the siege.
And I’d like to thank all the people of Derry. Alright thanks. Good man.
All this and more on this clip from Press TV:
If the corporation from which you get your news is NOT TELLING YOU that the US could give its citizens Universal Health Care for less than the cost of today’s system, and could do so tomorrow by expanding Medicare offering free medical care to all like every other developed nation, then they are lying to you. How can you expect any reform if the status quo defends itself with the complicity of the corporate media. That includes the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, all the more duplicitous for pretending to serve the “public.” The CPB’s underwriters are big oil, big agra, big pharma, the banks and the insurance villains. Listen closely and you can still hear NPR News pronounce the question mark after “Global Warming.”
NPR’s corporate clients, whose PR firms dictate the news show content, represent a near complete lineup of the opponents of the public interest. How then do NPR member radio stations have the nerve to solicit listener contributions? Our local NPR member KRCC is scheduled to begin its fund drive next weekend. Perhaps this is a fine time to question why they subscribe to a news outlet which stands between you and health care reform.
Now is no time to quibble whether NPR is lesser evil than Fox. If they distort the mandates which brought President Obama to office, if they cite polls which misrepresent the public, if they hedge their bets by protecting the insurance industry, they serve you not the least. We are better off with no NPR, than a program which poses as a progressive-leaning perspective, informed by educated commentators, only supply a fraudulent left which places the bipartisan “center” fully on the side of the conservative right.
Do you want health care, or any reforms at all? You’ll need an honest media.
I’m sure you’ve seen the Sweet Surprise commercials. There are several to target different consumer groups, but all involve a person #1 expressing hesitation at the offer of a high fructose corn syrup-laden “treat” and a smug HFCS-pusher asking sneeringly, “Oh yeah? Well, what’s so bad about HFCS?”
In the ads, person #1 hems and haws and has trouble articulating a satisfactory reply. HFCS person pats person #1 on the head condescendingly and says, “I thought so. Don’t worry, high fructose corn syrup is just like sugar. In moderation, it’s part of a healthy diet.” Person #1 quietly accepts the offered Frankenfood while DDB Chicago, the creator of the ads, and the Corn Refiners Association, creator of the poison, high five at their clever game, played to the grave detriment of the confused end-consumer.
I’m going to enlist my fledgling filmmaker son to help me produce a commercial of my own. The script will look something like this:
———-
Corporate Shill Cornelia: High fructose corn syrup is just like sugar. In moderation, it’s perfectly peachy for you.
Vigilant Consumer Veronica: Oh, no, Cornelia. Fortunately for you, I have a PhD in molecular biology and can help you understand how terribly you’ve been duped.
When an individual consumes sugar, the pancreas responds by increasing the production of insulin which enables the glucose in the bloodstream to be transported into cells and used as energy. The body also increases the production of leptin, a hormone that helps regulate the appetite and send a satiety signal to the body. This tells us that we’ve had enough to eat, a crucial component in the pursuit of “moderation.”
HFCS, in contrast, doesn’t cause insulin or leptin production nor increased cellular energy. You see, every cell in the body can metabolize glucose, but HFCS is only processed in the liver, like fats and alcohol, where it’s converted into triglycerides. The “energy” locked in HFCS stays largely inaccessible to the body, and most people know that elevated triglycerides — which we commonly refer to as high cholesterol — can lead to a whole host of health problems, including hardened arteries and heart attack. With HFCS, the moderation mechanism is never triggered; we never feel satisfied. Maybe this explains why 30% of American children are obese and sluggish, and why Lipitor, which is used to treat high cholesterol, is the best-selling drug in the country today. With approval by the American Academy of Pediatrics, doctors are now prescribing it to children as young as 8.
Cornelia, I know this is a lot to digest and, believe me, I’ve only begun to scratch the surface. The dangerous way HFCS is made, the genetically-modifed corn and enzymes that are used in its production, the fatty deposits and liver cirrhosis that may result from its over-consumption, the criminal complicity of the FDA, even the tale of interference with free-market mechanisms that led to its prevalence in the food supply, are all feature-length films in themselves.
Please, Cornelia, take my advice. Get educated about HFCS. Read labels. Protect yourself and your family from high fructose corn syrup. It truly is deadly, and there’s no smug satisfaction in that for me.
[hugs weepy Cornelia, hands her a tissue. children run into scene, grab offered apples, run off laughing and playing. pan to crushed box of Fudgsicles on picnic table, melting, chalk outline, puddle of congealed goo, like blood, surrounding] CUT.
Wouldn’t you think it bad form for Israeli militants to behave like Nazis, while immunizing themselves with the self-righteous indignation that any criticism of their actions can simply be dismissed as “anti-Semitic?” Photographs and confessions emerging from the IDF’s atrocities in Gaza just beg comparison the German Einsatzgruppen in Poland. Earlier this year UC Santa Barbara professor William Robinson forwarded an email photo essay to a UCSB listserv, the already much-circulated side by side comparison to the WWII atrocities. Two students complained, plagiarizing stock IDF lingo. Now the Anti-Defamation League wants Robinson to recant. With IDF propagandists pouring on the bullshit, let’s revisit the documents.
As has already been noted, Professor Robinson is a harsh critic of US foreign policy, and already a likely target for the goon squad enforcers of Western Capitalism. Not many of America’s actions are defensible, so Robinson has to be attacked by desperate means. Lucky for the lackey-jackals, Robinson chose to criticize Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians of Gaza. Bingo!
The Israeli propaganda machine has armed aspiring Israel-defenders with a blanket rebuttal: just yell “ANTI-SEMITISM!” And what a load of crap that is. Much turns on the definition of “anti-Semitism.” It packs the punch of meaning someone who hates Jews, but the advocates of Zionism have expanded the definition into 3-D! Zionist apologist Nathan Sharansky has coined the 3D definition of ant-Semitism: demonization of Israel, double standards, and delegitimization. You don’t have to look closely to note that those points outline all the rebuttals of criticisms of Israel and any question of the legitimacy of the Zionist usurpation of Palestine.
The criticisms posed by those concerned for the fate of Gaza are the same expressed by a large portion of the Israeli Jewish population as well. But the US Israeli lobby, militantly Zionist, has the complicity of the US war-mongering corporate media, thus the IDF Megaphone protestations get traction. These are the same cheap shots leveled against Ward Churchill. By flooding the internet to create the sensation that the indignation was shared, the IDF spammers have been successful in slandering these dissenting academics.
Since we’re seeing this technique being slopped unto our comment forums, let’s examine the statement for which Robinson is being attacked. First we’ll present Robinson’s email. The next post will feature the ensuing letters of complaint, two from UCSB students, and third from the ADL.
Original Email
Here is Professor Robinson’s original email, including his attachment of the Judith Stone article. This accompanied the aforementioned photo essay he forwarded.
Subject: [socforum] parallel images of Nazis and Israelis
From: “William I. Robinson” …
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:00:05
…If Martin Luther King were alive on this day of January 19, 2009, there is no doubt that he would be condemning the Israeli aggression against Gaza along with U.S. military and political support for Israeli war crimes, or that he would be standing shoulder to shoulder with the Palestinians. I am forwarding some horrific, parallel images of Nazi atrocities against the Jews and Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians. Perhaps the most frightening are not those providing a graphic depiction of the carnage but that which shows Israeli children writing “with love” on a bomb that will tear apart Palestinian children.
Gaza is Israel’s Warsaw – a vast concentration camp that confined and blockaded Palestinians, subjecting them to the slow death of malnutrition, disease and despair, nearly two years before their subjection to the quick death of Israeli bombs. We are witness to a slow-motion process of genocide (Websters: “the systematic killing of, or a program of action intended to destroy, a whole national or ethnic group”), a process whose objective is not so much to physically eliminate each and every Palestinian than to eliminate the Palestinians as a people in any meaningful sense of the notion of people-hood.
The Israeli army is the fifth most potent military machine in the world and one that is backed by a propaganda machine that rivals and may well surpass that of the U.S., a machine that dares to make the ludicrous and obnoxious claim that opposition to the policies and practices of the Israeli state is anti-Semitism. It should be no surprise that a state founded on the negation of a people was one of the principal backers of the apartheid South African state not to mention of the Latin American military dictatorships until those regimes collapsed under mass protest, and today arms, trains, and advises military and paramilitary forces in Colombia, one of the world’s worst human rights violators.
Below is an article written by a U.S. Jew and sent to a Jewish newspaper. The editor of the paper was fired for publishing it.
Quest for Justice
By Judith Stone
I am a Jew. I was a participant in the Rally for the Right of Return to Palestine. It was the right thing to do.
I’ve heard about the European holocaust against the Jews since I was a small child. I’ve visited the memorials in Washington, DC and Jerusalem dedicated to Jewish lives lost and I’ve cried at the recognition to what level of atrocity mankind is capable of sinking.
Where are the Jews of conscience? No righteous malice can be held against the survivors of Hitler’s holocaust. These fragments of humanity were in no position to make choices beyond that of personal survival. We must not forget that being a survivor or a co-religionist of the victims of the European Holocaust does not grant dispensation from abiding by the rules of humanity.
“Never again” as a motto, rings hollow when it means “never again to us alone.” My generation was raised being led to believe that the biblical land was a vast desert inhabited by a handful of impoverished Palestinians living with their camels and eking out a living in the sand. The arrival of the Jews was touted as a tremendous benefit to these desert dwellers. Golda Mier even assured us that there “is no Palestinian problem.”
We know now this picture wasn’t as it was painted. Palestine was a land filled with people who called it home. There were thriving towns and villages, schools and hospitals. There were Jews, Christians and Muslims. In fact, prior to the occupation, Jews represented a mere 7 percent of the population and owned 3 percent of the land.
Taking the blinders off for a moment, I see a second atrocity perpetuated by the very people who should be exquisitely sensitive to the suffering of others. These people knew what it felt like to be ordered out of your home at gun point and forced to march into the night to unknown destinations or face execution on the spot. The people who displaced the Palestinians knew first hand what it means to watch your home in flames, to surrender everything dear to your heart at a moment’s notice. Bulldozers leveled hundreds of villages, along with the remains of the village inhabitants, the old and the young. This was nothing new to the world.
Poland is a vast graveyard of the Jews of Europe. Israel is the final resting place of the massacred Palestinian people. A short distance from the memorial to the Jewish children lost to the holocaust in Europe there is a leveled parking lot. Under this parking lot is what’s left of a once flourishing village and the bodies of men, women and children whose only crime was taking up needed space and not leaving graciously. This particular burial marker reads: “Public Parking”.
I’ve talked with Palestinians. I have yet to meet a Palestinian who hasn’t lost a member of their family to the Israeli Shoah, nor a Palestinian who cannot name a relative or friend languishing under inhumane conditions in an Israeli prison. Time and time again, Israel is cited for human rights violations to no avail. On a recent trip to Israel, I visited the refugee camps inhabited by a people who have waited 52 years in these ‘temporary’ camps to go home. Every Palestinian grandparent can tell you the name of their village, their street, and where the olive trees were planted. Their grandchildren may never have been home, but they can tell you where their great-grandfather lies buried and where the village well stood. The press has fostered the portrait of the Palestinian terrorist. But, the victims who rose up against human indignity in the Warsaw Ghetto are called heroes. Those who lost their lives are called martyrs. The Palestinian who tosses a rock in desperation is a terrorist.
Two years ago I drove through Palestine and watched intricate sprinkler systems watering lush green lawns of Zionist settlers in their new condominium complexes, surrounded by armed guards and barbed wire in the midst of a Palestinian community where there was not adequate water to drink and the surrounding fields were sandy and dry. University professor Moshe Zimmerman reported in the Jerusalem Post (April 30, 1995), “The Jewish children of Hebron are just like Hitler’s youth.”
We Jews are suing for restitution, lost wages, compensation for homes, land, slave labor and back wages in Europe. Am I a traitor of a Jew for supporting the right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their birthplace and compensation for what was taken that cannot be returned?
The Jewish dead cannot be brought back to life and neither can the Palestinian massacred be resurrected. David Ben Gurion said, “Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves…politically, we are the aggressors and they defend themselves…The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country…”
Palestine is a land that has been occupied and emptied of its people. It’s cultural and physical landmarks have been obliterated and replaced by tidy Hebrew signs. The history of a people was the first thing eradicated by the occupiers. The history of the indigenous people has been all but eradicated as though they never existed. And all this has been hailed by the world as a miraculous act of G-d. We must recognize that Israel’s existence is not even a question of legality so much as it is an illegal fait accompli realized through the use of force while supported by the Western powers. The UN missions directed at Israel in attempting to correct its violations of have thus far been futile.
In Hertzl’s “The Jewish State,” the father of Zionism said, “…We must investigate and take possession of the new Jewish country by means of every modern expedient.” I guess I agree with Ehud Barak (3 June 1998) when he said, “If I were a Palestinian, I’d also join a terror group.” I’d go a step further perhaps. Rather than throwing little stones in desperation, I’d hurtle a boulder.
Hopefully, somewhere deep inside, every Jew of conscience knows that this was no war; that this was not G-d’s restitution of the holy land to it’s rightful owners. We know that a human atrocity was and continues to be perpetuated against an innocent people who couldn’t come up with the arms and money to defend themselves against the western powers bent upon their demise as a people.
We cannot continue to say, “But what were we to do?” Zionism is not synonymous with Judaism. I wholly support the rally of the right of return of the Palestinian people.
At last we have a copy of the full text of the Iranian President’s speech at the Durban Review Conference on racism and now we can examine just how it has been misrepresented as vile, ugly, and racist by vile ugly racists. The fact is that the main point of the speech actually has next to nothing to do directly with Israel or Jewish people at all, but rather is an attack on the war-like and imperialist United Nation Security Council and the undemocratic nature of this US controlled organization.
He essentially calls for its abolishment in the summary of his remarks and it is this Call that actually is the cause of the Made-In-US boycott and subsequent walkout from the anti-racism conference, and not anything else Ahmadinejad said.
President Ahmadinejad….
‘Secondly, mindful of the inefficiency of the current international political, economic and security systems, it is necessary to focus on divine and humanitarian values by referring to the true definition of human beings based upon justice and respect for the rights of all people in all parts of the world and by acknowledging the past wrong doings in the past dominant management of the world, and to undertake collective measures to reform the existing structures.
In this respect, it is crucially important to rapidly reform the structure of the Security Council, including the elimination of the discriminatory veto right and to change the current world financial and monetary systems.
It is evident that lack of understanding of the urgency for change is equivalent to the much heavier costs of delay.’
There is absolutely nothing anti-Jewish in any of his remarks, and the world has had enough of the United Nation Security Council and its constant war making. Many will also champion Ahmadinejad’s call for its abolishment.
FULL TEXT:
(Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech at the Durban Review Conference on racism in Geneva on April 20, 2009.)
Mr. Chairman, honorable secretary general of the United Nations, honorable United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Ladies and gentleman:
We have gathered in the follow-up to the Durban conference against racism and racial discrimination to work out practical mechanisms for our holy and humanitarian campaigns.
Over the last centuries, humanity has gone through great sufferings and pains. In the Medieval Ages, thinkers and scientists were sentenced to death. It was then followed by a period of slavery and slave trade. Innocent people were taken captive in their millions and separated from their families and loved ones to be taken to Europe and America under the worst conditions. A dark period that also experienced occupation, lootings and massacres of innocent people.
Many years passed by before nations rose up and fought for their liberty and freedom and they paid a high price for it. They lost millions of lives to expel the occupiers and establish independent and national governments. However, it did not take long before power grabbers imposed two wars in Europe which also plagued a part of Asia and Africa. Those horrific wars claimed about a hundred million lives and left behind massive devastation. Had lessons been learnt from the occupations, horrors and crimes of those wars, there would have been a ray of hope for the future.
The victorious powers called themselves the conquerors of the world while ignoring or down treading upon rights of other nations by the imposition of oppressive laws and international arrangements.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us take a look at the UN Security Council which is one of the legacies of World War I and World War II. What was the logic behind their granting themselves the veto right? How can such logic comply with humanitarian or spiritual values? Would it not be inconformity with the recognized principles of justice, equality before the law, love and human dignity? Would it not be discrimination, injustice, violations of human rights or humiliation of the majority of nations and countries?
The council is the highest decision-making world body for safeguarding international peace and security. How can we expect the realization of justice and peace when discrimination is legalized and the origin of the law is dominated by coercion and force rather than by justice and the rights?
Coercion and arrogance is the origin of oppression and wars. Although today many proponents of racism condemn racial discrimination in their words and their slogans, a number of powerful countries have been authorized to decide for other nations based on their own interests and at their own discretion and they can easily violate all laws and humanitarian values as they have done so.
Following World War II, they resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering and they sent migrants from Europe, the United States and other parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in occupied Palestine. And, in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine.
The Security Council helped stabilize the occupying regime and supported it in the past 60 years giving them a free hand to commit all sorts of atrocities. It is all the more regrettable that a number of Western governments and the United States have committed themselves to defending those racist perpetrators of genocide while the awakened-conscience and free-minded people of the world condemn aggression, brutalities and the bombardment of civilians in Gaza. The supporters of Israel have always been either supportive or silent against the crimes.
Dear friends, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen. What are the root causes of the US attacks against Iraq or the invasion of Afghanistan?
Was the motive behind the invasion of Iraq anything other than the arrogance of the then US administration and the mounting pressures on the part of the possessors of wealth and power to expand their sphere of influence seeking the interests of giant arms manufacturing companies affecting a noble culture with thousands of years of historical background, eliminating the potential and practical threats of Muslim countries against the Zionist regime or to control and plunder the energy resources of the Iraqi people?
Why, indeed, almost a million people were killed and injured and a few more millions were displaced? Why, indeed, the Iraqi people have suffered enormous losses amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars? And why was billions of dollars imposed on the American people as the result of these military actions? Was not the military action against Iraq planned by the Zionists and their allies in the then US administration in complicity with the arms manufacturing countries and the possessors of wealth? Did the invasion of Afghanistan restore peace, security and economic wellbeing in the country?
The United States and its allies not only have failed to contain the production of drugs in Afghanistan, but the cultivation of narcotics has multiplied in the course of their presence. The basic question is that what was the responsibility and the job of the then US administration and its allies?
Did they represent the countries of the world? Have they been mandated by them? Have they been authorized by the people of the world to interfere in all parts of the globe, of course mostly in our region? Are not these measures a clear example of egocentrism, racism, discrimination or infringement upon the dignity and independence of nations?
Ladies and gentlemen, who is responsible for the current global economic crisis? Where did the crisis start from? From Africa, Asia or from the United States in the first place then spreading across Europe and their allies?
For a long time, they imposed inequitable economic regulations by their political power on the international economy. They imposed a financial and monetary system without a proper international oversight mechanism on nations and governments that played no role in repressive trends or policies. They have not even allowed their people to oversea or monitor their financial policies. They introduced all laws and regulations in defiance of all moral values only to protect the interests of the possessors of wealth and power.
They further presented a definition for market economy and competition that denied many of the economic opportunities that could be available to other countries of the world. They even transferred their problems to others while the waves of crisis lashed back plaguing their economies with thousands of billions of dollars in budget deficit. And today, they are injecting hundreds of billions of dollars of cash from the pockets of their own people and other nations into the failing banks, companies and financial institutions making the situation more and more complicated for their economy and their people. They are simply thinking about maintaining power and wealth. They could not care any less about the people of the world and even their own people.
Mr. President, Ladies and gentlemen, Racism is rooted in the lack of knowledge concerning the root of human existence as the selected creature of God. It is also the product of his deviation from the true path of human life and the obligations of mankind in the world of creation, failing to consciously worship God, not being able to think about the philosophy of life or the path to perfection that are the main ingredients of divine and humanitarian values which have restricted the horizon of human outlook making transient and limited interests, the yardstick for his action. That is why evil’s power took shape and expanded its realm of power while depriving others from enjoying equitable and just opportunities of development.
The result has been the making of an unbridled racism that is posing the most serious threats against international peace and has hindered the way for building peaceful coexistence in the entire world. Undoubtedly, racism is the symbol of ignorance which has deep roots in history and it is, indeed, the sign of frustration in the development of human society.
It is, therefore, crucially important to trace the manifestations of racism in situations or in societies where ignorance or lack of knowledge prevails. This increasing general awareness and understanding towards the philosophy of human existence is the principle struggle against such manifestations, and reveals the truth that human kind centers on the creation of the universe and the key to solving the problem of racism is a return to spiritual and moral values and finally the inclination to worship God Almighty.
The international community must initiate collective moves to raise awareness in afflicted societies where ignorance of racism still prevails so as to bring to a halt the spread of these malicious manifestations.
Dear Friends, today, the human community is facing a kind of racism which has tarnished the image of humanity in the beginning of the third millennium.
World Zionism personifies racism that falsely resorts to religions and abuses religious sentiments to hide its hatred and ugly face. However, it is of great importance to bring into focus the political goals of some of the world powers and those who control huge economic resources and interests in the world. They mobilize all the resources including their economic and political influence and world media to render support in vain to the Zionist regime and to maliciously diminish the indignity and disgrace of this regime.
This is not simply a question of ignorance and one cannot conclude these ugly phenomena through consular campaigns. Efforts must be made to put an end to the abuse by Zionists and their political and international supporters and in respect with the will and aspirations of nations. Governments must be encouraged and supported in their fights aimed at eradicating this barbaric racism and to move towards reform in current international mechanisms.
There is no doubt that you are all aware of the conspiracies of some powers and Zionist circles against the goals and objectives of this conference. Unfortunately, there have been literatures and statements in support of Zionists and their crimes. And it is the responsibility of honorable representatives of nations to disclose these campaigns which run counter to humanitarian values and principles.
It should be recognized that boycotting such a session as an outstanding international capacity is a true indication of supporting the blatant example of racism. In defending human rights, it is primarily important to defend the rights of all nations to participate equally in all important international decision making processes without the influence of certain world powers.
And secondly, it is necessary to restructure the existing international organizations and their respective arrangements. Therefore this conference is a testing ground and the world public opinion today and tomorrow will judge our decisions and our actions.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, the world is going through rapid fundamental changes. Power relations have become weak and fragile. The sound of cracks in the pillars of world systems can now be heard. Major political and economic structures are on the brink of collapse. Political and security crises are on the rise. The worsening crisis in the world economy for which there can be seen no bright prospect, demonstrates the rising tide of far-reaching global changes. I have repeatedly emphasized the need to change the wrong direction through which the world is being managed today and I have also warned of the dire consequences of any delay in this crucial responsibility.
Now in this valuable event, I would like to announce to all leaders, thinkers and to all nations of the world present in this meeting and those who have a hunger for peace and economic well-being that the unjust economic management of the world is now at the end of the road. This deadlock was inevitable since the logic of this imposed management was oppressive.
The logic of collective management of world affairs is based on noble aspirations which centers on human beings and the supremacy of the almighty God. Therefore it defies any policy or plan which goes against the influence of nations. The victory of right over wrong and the establishment of a just world system has been promised by the Almighty God and his messengers and it has been a shared goal of all human beings from different societies and generations in the course of history. Realization of such a future depends on the knowledge of creation and the belief of the faithful.
The making of a global society is in fact the accomplishment of a noble goal held in the establishment of a common global system that will be run with the participation of all nations of the world in all major decision making processes and the definite root to this sublime goal.
Scientific and technical capacities as well as communication technology have created a common and widespread understanding of the world society and has provided the necessary ground for a common system. Now it is upon all intellectuals, thinkers and policy makers in the world to carry out their historical responsibility with a firm belief in this definite root.
I also want to lay emphasis on the fact that Western liberalism and capitalism has reached its end since it has failed to perceive the truth of the world and humans as they are.
It has imposed its own goals and directions on human beings. There is no regard for human and divine values, justice, freedom, love and brotherhood and it has based living on intense competition, securing individual and cooperative material interest.
Now we must learn from the past by initiating collective efforts in dealing with present challenges and in this connection, and as a closing remark, I wish to draw your kind attention to two important issues:
Firstly, it is absolutely possible to improve the existing situation in the world. However it must be noted that this could be only achieved through the cooperation of all countries in order to get the best out of the existing capacities and resources in the world. My participation in this conference is because of my conviction to these important issues as well as to our common responsibility of defending the rights of nations vis-à-vis the sinister phenomena of racism and being with you, the thinkers of the world.
Secondly, mindful of the inefficiency of the current international political, economic and security systems, it is necessary to focus on divine and humanitarian values by referring to the true definition of human beings based upon justice and respect for the rights of all people in all parts of the world and by acknowledging the past wrong doings in the past dominant management of the world, and to undertake collective measures to reform the existing structures.
In this respect, it is crucially important to rapidly reform the structure of the Security Council, including the elimination of the discriminatory veto right and to change the current world financial and monetary systems.
It is evident that lack of understanding of the urgency for change is equivalent to the much heavier costs of delay.
Dear Friends, beware that to move in the direction of justice and human dignity is like a rapid flow in the current of a river. Let us not forget the essence of love and affection. The promised future of human beings is a great asset that may serve our purposes in keeping together to build a new world.
In order to make the world a better place full of love and blessings, a world devoid of poverty and hatred, merging the increasing blessings of God Almighty and the righteous managing of the perfect human being, let us all join hands in friendship in the fulfillment of such a new world.
I thank you Mr. President, Secretary General and all distinguished participants for having the patience to listen to me. Thank you very much.
For years now, the majority of Americans have allowed their country’s leaders to murder, torture, and lie in their name, with hardly a protest against it. They allowed their Constitution to be defiled by remaining silent as their government held innocents in solitary confinement without charges and tortured them for years, all the while many of them obtusely said that no torture was involved at all as for as they were concerned.
These lies and this complicity, by politicians of both parties, with US Federal government torture and mayhem now lie open and exposed, but does the common American want to correct and apologize for their support of crimes against humanity? Do all these ‘little Eichmanns’ feel any guilt and wish to atone for it now that it has been thoroughly exposed? Read 75% Oppose Release of Guantanamo Inmates in the United States and you decide.
And remember… these are our flag-waving dumb-cluck neighbors here. Instead of facing their acts done with flag in hand, they run! That’s our society’s Red, White, and Blue cowardice on display to the world once again! This poll shows that Americans are a nation of bullies and cowards.
The Obama Administration talks it up for Peace, but readies itself to attack Iran. It also arms Israel to the teeth for whatever further destruction the Jewish State might be prepared to deliver to its neighbors.
And now Obama has the nerve to demand that the United Nations stop Iran and Syria from taking actions to defend themselves from a coming Israeli-US planned war! What incredible hypocrisy! See UN action urged (by US) over Iran arms ship …What a charade of international world government! What an dishonest con artist is Barack Obama! He does one thing and then demands that others do differently than the US itself. Obama wants a UN built on a double standard with US president as God!
In effect there are 2 United Nations; one democratic and representative of the world’s numerous and various nations and governments, and the other a coalition of the leading imperialist countries, all allied with the United States. The US simply ignores the United Nations that is the democratic one, and organizes the separate body of imperialist nations to do its bidding.
The United Nations ‘Security’ Council of imperialist countries is a puppet grouping of the US government and its allies, and always does US bidding 100% of the time. It’s time for the real United Nations of the world’s nations to expel the imperialist bloc altogether. It’s time for the real United Nations of expel the United States itself, because of its continual violation of World Peace. The US acts like a group of Nazis and the real United Nations needs to act accordingly because of that.
The world needs an international body that treats all countries equally with the same rules, laws, and instructions and which does not ‘sanction’ one country for doing one thing while then allowing all other countries allied with the US to do the exact same things of the sanctioned nation. Equal treatment under international law is the only real foundation for building World Peace and a world international government not based on continual lies, corruption, and injustice. The United Nations Security Council needs to be abolished by the Untied Nations itself, otherwise it is time to abolish the United Nations entirely. In fact, it should have been done long time ago.
‘US strike’ kills 27 in Pakistan There is absolutely no reason for this report to put US Strike in parentheses since it was a US Pentagon slaughter of the usual type, and it did occur under Barack Obama’s direction. In this, the Pentagon has the total complicity of the Pakistani government, which allows US slaughter of refugees living inside its borders. The Uzbek victims are the latest scapegoats and human sacrifices for D.C.’s ‘Global War on Terrorism’, and are just 27 dead numbers as far as Barack Obama is concerned. Sacrifices to the God GWOT.
But what are these Uzbeks doing in Pakistan? Are they ‘jihadists’, or is there another story behind their presence so far from Uzbekistan? Yes there is! That’s’ where the Germans come into the picture, too. See ABSOLUTISM IN UZBEKISTAN
Germany’s Favorite Despot and Prison conditions worsen further in Uzbekistan 18 january, 2009 for some background info.
So what is Germany doing in Uzbekistan? German military ponders plans to build Afghan railway route You might not know about any of these matters but you can bet your bottom dollar that Vladimir Putin and the Russians do! Their country is being encircled by the Germans and the US and the God GWOT is the justification being used by people like… YES… like Barack Obama!
Well, the Russians, Germans, and the US are all jostling over the region right now, Russia allows transit of US military supplies By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV -Feb 6, 2009 and human sacrifice is necessary say the 3 powers. What value do the latest 27 dead Uzbek refugees have other than propaganda in the US press to curry more support for the fight against ‘Muslim jihadists’? The military-industrial complex needs more US government contracts and more US wars ad infinitum! Bombs away Pakistan! (the children in the picture are Uzbek refugees in Pakistan)
“Suppose that the U.S. weapon makers had to use a tunnel to deliver weapons to Israel. The U.S. would have to build a mighty big tunnel to accommodate the weapons that Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Caterpillar have supplied to Israel. The size of such a tunnel would be an eighth wonder of the world, a Grand Canyon of a tunnel, an engineering feat of the ages.
“Think of what would have to come through.
“Imagine Boeing’s shipments to Israel traveling through an enormous underground tunnel, large enough to accommodate the wingspans of planes, sturdy enough to allow passage of trucks laden with missiles. According to UK’s Indymedia Corporate Watch, 2009, Boeing has sent Israel 18 AH-64D Apache Longbow fighter helicopters, 63 Boeing F15 Eagle fighter planes, 102 Boeing F16 Eagle fighter planes, 42 Boeing AH-64 Apache fighter helicopters, F-16 Peace Marble II & III Aircraft, 4 Boeing 777s, and Arrow II interceptors, plus IAI-developed arrow missiles, and Boeing AGM-114 D Longbow Hellfire missiles,
“In September of last year, the U.S. government approved the sale of 1,000 Boeing GBU-9 small diameter bombs to Israel, in a deal valued at up to 77 million.
“Now that Israel has dropped so many of those bombs on Gaza, Boeing shareholders can count on more sales, more profits, if Israel buys new bombs from them from them. Perhaps there are more massacres in store. It would be important to maintain the tunnel carefully.
“Raytheon, one of the largest U.S. arms manufacturers, with annual revenues of around $20 billion, is one of Israel’s main suppliers of weapons. In September last year, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency approved the sale of Raytheon kits to upgrade Israel’s Patriot missile system at a cost of $164 million. Raytheon would also use the tunnel to bring in Bunker Buster bombs as well as Tomahawk and Patriot missiles.
“Lockheed Martin is the world’s largest defense contractor by revenue, with reported sales, in 2008, of $42.7 billion. Lockheed Martin’s products include the Hellfire precision-guided missile system, which has reportedly been used in the recent Gaza attacks. Israel also possesses 350 F-16 jets, some purchased from Lockheed Martin.
“Think of them coming through the largest tunnel in the world.
“Maybe Caterpillar Inc. could help build such a tunnel. Caterpillar Inc., the world’s largest manufacturer of construction (and destruction) equipment, with more than $30 billion in assets, holds Israel’s sole contract for the production of the D9 military bulldozer, specifically designed for use in invasions of built-up areas. The U.S. government buys Caterpillar bulldozers and sends them to the Israeli army as part of its annual foreign military assistance package. Such sales are governed by the US Arms Export Control Act, which limits the use of U.S. military aid to “internal security” and “legitimate self defense” and prohibits its use against civilians.
“Israel topples family houses with these bulldozers to make room for settlements. All too often, they topple them on the families inside. American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death standing between one of these bulldozers and a Palestinian doctor’s house.
“In truth, there’s no actual tunnel bringing U.S. made weapons to Israel. But the transfers of weapons and the U.S. complicity in Israel’s war crimes are completely invisible to many U.S. people.”
Taken from Kathy Kelly’s What Americans Can’t See About Gaza
The Pentagon has been suppressing the press. ‘Mr Davis said a High Court ruling, which pointed to complicity by the UK and US authorities in his torture, was prevented from being published after the US put pressure on the UK.’ Tory MP demands torture statement be made against the British Labor government’s support of US torture, and thus against the US government’s use of torture, also.
This is a welcome development as the Obama government has decided to continue rendition flights to have Pentagon held POWs tortured in other countries for the US government. MP David Davis is throwing a thorn in the side of the cover-up underway to help try to save the Bush Klan from prosecution.
Obama wants to renounce the use of torture and continue to use it more clandestinely. We should not allow him to get away with this maneuvering. That is a photo of Binyam Mohamed, the man who was tortured at Guantanamo by the US.
Yesterday we only managed to get out about 25 of us here in Colorado Springs to protest US-Israeli State Terrorism, but around the country there were many more who demonstrated with us. Here next are a few videos of the action in San Francisco where somewhere between 5,000 to 10,000 spontaneously took to marching through downtown in that city, after early completing a rally in protest at the Israeli consulate.
Reports have it that Jewish protesters were more numerous against the Israeli government violence than for it, but the local San Francisco news didn’t give that information out. Many of the marchers were Jewish Americans and sick of what the bloodshed being spilled by the so-called ‘Jewish State’ of Israel and the active complicity of our own US government. Below are the links to some videos coverage of these marches…
SF Demonstration- video shot by participant
local SF TV coverage (CBS and ABC)
Philadelphia rally and march
Silence. Or worse yet even, efforts to blame Hamas instead of Israel for the new slaughter in Gaza. That’s what the US allied Arab dictatorships imposed on the Arab world offer their people. Complicity. Many of these Sunni Arab elites (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, et cetera) are eager for the US to hammer the Shiite led Iranians, and have no solidarity at all with their own poor let alone the Palestinian poor of Gaza…. or Palestinians elsewhere for that matter. This is the opening battle of the war to bring about regime change in Iran for the Washington, D.C. rat class, and the Arab dictatorships controlled by the US government are fully behind the effort.
Meanwhile the corporate media in the US and Britain keep a tight lid on the spin of the actual news, all in support of their own imperialist ruling cabals. At least, the European Union and the United Nations have had the decency to tokenly oppose this slaughter by this Jewish/ Christian Corporate Alliance centered in the US, Great Britain, and Israel. Everybody around the globe pretty much knows who holds the big guns, and it is the US government and its immediate side kicks that do. Everybody realizes that there is always the big price to pay if one gets too out of line with what these gangsters want from them.
The US antiwar community, dominated by phony ‘Peace’crat types, are immobilized. It seems that the script promised by the ‘Peace’crats with an Obama victory were as false as they come. They all voted for Obama and now don’t know what exactly to do? Really going out and protesting against their rulers is something that might make them embarrassed and scares them no end. Locally, not a word from the office clowns of the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace De-Commission, with them only wanting to turn the other cheek from reality, though reality just keeps on beating them about their public face.
So now we know why the Arab World hates us so? It has to do with their own gang of thugs kept in power by the US government. The US and Israel have even turned the Arabs into hating the PLO, now that the leader of the PLO, Abbas, is totally controlled by our sorry leaders in Washington, D.C. What a mess! And the world keeps on just getting more and more dangerous, more and more messed up, day after day. Nobody has any ‘national security’ these days, thinks to the Democratic and Republican gangsters that almost all voting Americans backed in the last election.
This Israeli bombing of mainly children Arab youngsters living in the most horrible poverty and isolation in Gaza, is their work. Aren’t you proud you voted for this, if in fact you did? Haven’t heard a word from Obama, have you? What does he care if a community of overwhelmingly young children is shut off, starved to death, and then bombed? He’s not for change at all. He’s simply for allowing the Jewish community of Israel to be allowed to steal yet more land from the Arabs that owned it.
Joseph Biden is a long time proponent of creating 3 separate ethnic enclaves in Iraq so that the Pentagon can better dictate Iraq’s future. Essentially, Joe Biden is the actual architect of current Bush Administration strategy in Iraq, which is based on ethnic cleansing and separation. See the report US Senate votes to divide Iraq for a peek into the background information about this.
The Democratic Party controlled US Antiwar Movement has been in a long hibernation away from doing any sort of mass protests against the US-Iraq War and Occupation by Pentagon troops, simply because the Democratic Party has been directing the strategy of the US troops for some time now and there is no plan by their Big Shots to basically change anything that was previously worked out with the Republican Party in this strategy currently being used. The strategy has bipartisan accord going for it and the Iraqi people themselves working against it. In short, it’s doomed to failure.
The problem facing US antiwar activists today is how to break the grip the Democratic Party has on this movement? The American public itself does not see the connection between their own bleak economic fate from the pending economic collapse, and the continued US occupation of Iraq, and has opted out to do just about basically nothing as it puts its faith almost entirely into accepting the empty sloganeering that the Obama Campaign used to get the Democratic Party Establishment back into the White House. It has not registered on most American’s minds that military deficit spending is the foundation of corruption that the entire US economy is structured on.
The long term prognosis for the Biden strategy of maintaining US government control over the fates of the people of Iraq is bound to produce a horrible collapse into total chaos and disintegration for the entire region, not that either the Democratic Party Big Shots nor their more local ‘PEACE’ underlings really care much at all about any of this. They will merely wring their hands and absolve themselves of all responsibility for the final meltdown when it eventually occurs, even as they will cast blame onto the supposed ‘violence’ of the Iraqi people themselves.
One can already begin to imagine the recriminations of the US religious Left, pacifist DP voters as they will lament about the lack of Gandhian methodology used by ‘the others’, the Iraqi people. They will pray on the matter and then will continue to go on about their business of getting more Democrats into office. The Iraqis will be left inside a totally decimated country left in shambles. Those of us outside this mind frame owe the people of the world to do the best we can in opposing the complicity of our own US liberals in the destruction of Planet Earth, the US economy, and the Middle East. We will have to work against these people even as we will try to find ways to work alongside them, if they will do anything very constructive at all? One thing is for sure, right now they have entirely dropped the ball on concretely opposing the bipartisan US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, they have helped put Joseph Biden into a higher office within the US government.
For more information about the Biden Plan for continued US control over Iraq see Mother Jones in its August, 2008 issue
Partition in Iraq: A Serious Problem With Biden as VP?