What got me about this video is what Mr. Wigan says about how he was treated as a child. It is remarkable to see how he has overcome his negative childhood feelings. And I believe we can all rise to such occasions of hardship.
Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog
Willard Wigan, Micro-Sculptor
Source / Biertijd.com
Thanks to Mariann Wizard / The Rag Blog
‘The Maryland State Police surveillance of advocacy groups was far more extensive than previously acknowledged, with records showing that troopers monitored — and labeled as terrorists — activists devoted to such wide-ranging causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes.’
By Steve Benen / January 4, 2009
SURVEILLANCE STATE RUN AMOK….
In July, the Washington Post reported on undercover Maryland State Police officers conducting surveillance on war protesters and death penalty opponents. Today, we learn that the monitoring was worse, and more pervasive, than first believed.
The Maryland State Police surveillance of advocacy groups was far more extensive than previously acknowledged, with records showing that troopers monitored — and labeled as terrorists — activists devoted to such wide-ranging causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes.
Intelligence officers created a voluminous file on Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, calling the group a “security threat” because of concerns that members would disrupt the circus. Angry consumers fighting a 72 percent electricity rate increase in 2006 were targeted. The DC Anti-War Network, which opposes the Iraq war, was designated a white supremacist group, without explanation.
One of the possible “crimes” in the file police opened on Amnesty International, a world-renowned human rights group: “civil rights.”
And people wonder why “civil-liberties types” worry about government abuse when it comes to surveillance of Americans.
Under the administration of then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), Maryland law enforcement infiltrated law-abiding protest groups and labeled 53 Americans, who had done nothing wrong, as “terrorists” in a state database shared with federal authorities. (It turns out, their law enforcement database didn’t have categories for anti-war activists.
Police created “terrorism” categories to make filing easier. How reassuring.)
How many Maryland State Police officials have been punished as a result of this project? To date, none. An undercover trooper who infiltrated peace groups has instead been promoted twice.
The Maryland State Police is “preparing to purge files and say they are expecting lawsuits.” It seems like a safe bet.
Source / Political Animal / Washington Monthly
See More Groups Than Thought Monitored in Police Spying by Lisa Rein and Josh White / Washington Post / January 4, 2008
Coulter: ‘Liberals’ hysterical obsession with the “Republican Attack Machine” turns Democratic primaries into a contest of: “Who’s the Biggest Pussy?”‘
By Greg Lewis / January 4, 2009
As Media Matters for America has noted, author and syndicated columnist Ann Coulter recently announced that she is scheduled to appear on the January 6 broadcast of NBC’s Today to promote the release of her new book, Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America, which Media Matters obtained in advance of its January 6 release. Media Matters has documented that NBC has repeatedly provided Coulter a platform to spew her inflammatory rhetoric even as NBC-affiliated hosts and anchors have expressed disapproval of her statements or criticized the media for promoting her. Coulter’s latest book is rife with such inflammatory and offensive comments.
Examples of such comments from Guilty include the following:
Liberals’ hysterical obsession with the “Republican Attack Machine” turns Democratic primaries into a contest of: “Who’s the Biggest Pussy?” Although I would have voted for “All of Them,” inasmuch as none of the Democrats could face questions from Fox News’s Brit Hume, the winner turned out to be [Barack] Obama. Hillary [Clinton] claimed to be a victim of Republicans, while Obama claimed to be a victim of Republicans, Hillary, and racists. [Page 79]
Coulter later suggests that Sen. John McCain should also be nominated for this contest:
Alas, despite liberals’ terrific fear of John McCain and the Republican Attack Machine, evidently McCain was more afraid of the real attack machine: the mainstream media. He wasted no time in denouncing the North Carolina ad. Obeying the media’s command that Republicans not mention any facts unfavorable to Obama, McCain said, “There’s no place for that kind of campaigning, and the American people don’t want it.” He promptly fired off a letter to the North Carolina Republican Party presuming to tell them not to run the ad.
Say, is it too late to nominate someone else for that “Who’s the Biggest Pussy” contest? [Page 88]
In any event, divorced mothers should be called “divorced mothers,” not “single mothers.” We also have a term for the youngsters involved: “the children of divorce,” or as I call them, “future strippers.” It is a mark of how attractive it is to be a phony victim that divorcées will often claim to belong to the more disreputable category of “single mothers.” [Page 36]
Later in the chapter, Coulter writes: “Single motherhood is like a farm team for future criminals and social outcasts.” [Page 38]
On the bright side, look at how low the mainstream media have had to stoop lately to find their Republican heretics. The most famous “former Republican” is Kevin Phillips, who attended Bronx High School of Science, Colgate University, the University of Edinburgh, and Harvard Law School. Even John Dean was at least a practicing lawyer. The 2008 version is Kathleen Parker, who went to Converse College and the University of San Francisco. The educational attainments of Republican turncoats may change, but curiously, their gender always remains the same. They are women, not limited to the biological sense. [Page 114]
Even grifters know that to be embraced by the cool people in America, you must claim to be a victim, preferably abused by religious fundamentalists.
In a related phenomenon, various half-black celebrities insist on representing themselves simply as “black” — the better to race-bait their way to success.
Actress Halle Berry, singer Alicia Keys, and matinee idol Barack Obama were all abandoned by their black fathers and raised by their white mothers. But instead of seeing themselves as half-white, they prefer to see the glass as half-black. They all choose to identify with the fathers who ditched them, while insulting the women who struggled to raise them.
In 2002, Berry engaged in wild race-baiting to win her Oscar and then ate up most of the awards show with an interminable acceptance speech claiming that her award was “so much bigger than me.” People who say “it’s bigger than me” always mean it’s just about them. During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama repeatedly said the exact same thing: “This election is bigger than me.” Would they be able to pawn off their personal victories as transformative events for the nation if they were not claiming to be doing it for the blacks? [Page 7]
The media accuse Republicans of playing dirty pool, but they turn to the retarded press secretary for an attack on his former boss. [Page 118]
Rich, who became qualified to comment on U.S. foreign policy, national security, and presidential politics after spending a childhood dancing his favorite numbers from Oklahoma! in his mother’s panties and then spending twelve years reviewing theater for the New York Times, attacked [former Talon News “Washington Bureau Chief” Jeff] Gannon for not being a “real newsman.” Not only that, but, Rich breathlessly reported, there were “embarrassing blogosphere revelations linking [Gannon] to sites like hotmilitarystud.com and to an apparently promising career as an X-rated $200-per-hour ‘escort.’ ” In Rich’s estimation, $200 an hour was way too much to pay a male escort who wasn’t Latino. Now, if there’s anybody in this world who knows what a real man is, it’s Frank Rich. But as for knowing what a real newsman is, that’s another story. [Page 198]
Coulter later wrote: “The entire scandal that Frank Rich complained was not getting enough attention was that Gannon was a gay Republican. (Because if there’s one thing Frank Rich can’t abide, it’s a gay man who’s too scared to come out of the closet).” [Page 200]
But according to [New York Times columnist Paul] Krugman the “pretty honest” Clinton administration was victimized by unfair news coverage. The only living human who might agree with that assessment is Bill Clinton, who derisively referred to Newsweek magazine as “the house organ of Paula Jones” — an unfortunate use of “Paula Jones” and “organ” in the same sentence.
Yes, he was referring to the magazine that refused to report Paula Jones’s accusations against Clinton for months, described Jones as a “dogpatch Madonna,” killed Michael Isikoff’s exclusive on the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and unaccountably employs braying left-wing slattern Eleanor Clift, who named Clinton the “Biggest Winner of the Year” for being “a colossus on the world stage” in 1999 — the very year Clinton was impeached and the entire Supreme Court boycotted his State of the Union Address. [Page 193]
Coulter describes Code Pink co-founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans as “storm troopers” and “satanic dervishes”:
Why do Republicans never learn? They will never get credit for apologizing to the endless stream of fake liberal victims. Instead, everyone sees that Republicans are milquetoast sops. Republicans have turned themselves into such doormats that a major Obama fundraiser felt free to sneak into the Republican National Convention to disrupt Sarah Palin’s speech — and then portray herself as a victim of the Republicans for being asked to leave.
The storm troopers at the Republican National Convention were Jodie Evans, a major Obama fundraiser, and her fellow outside agitator, Medea Benjamin.
[…]
And Republicans fall for fake victims every time. Blake Hall, one of the Republican delegates who removed the screaming banshees, sent an e-mail to the Idaho Falls Post Register contritely explaining that the protesters had “violated convention rules by being in a place not permitted by their guest passes.” He continued defensively, “They were asked to cease and they refused.” And — as Palin continued to try to speak over the disrupters — they “continued their disorderly behavior at which point I was requested by the Sergeant at Arms and other deputies to assist in their removal.” Not exactly Ronald Reagan saying, “I’m paying for this microphone!” Republicans are apologetic about not supinely turning over their convention to satanic dervishes. [Pages 177-178, 179]
At one of his campaign speeches, Allen jokingly introduced a “tracker” from the campaign of his Democratic opponent, Jim Webb, to the audience. Trackers are little Nazi block-watchers, who follow a candidate around, recording everything he says — and everything his audience says — so the selectively edited videos can be posted online for ridicule. [Page 165]
Coulter makes several other references to the Nazis and the Holocaust in the book, including the following:
Not surprisingly, Hollywood has taken a leading role in portraying single mothers as victims, while relentlessly promoting promiscuity, single motherhood, prostitution, and divorce to the detriment of the most vulnerable members of society. But if anyone makes a peep of criticism, suddenly it’s 1939 Germany and overpaid writers from Murphy Brown are the Jews. [Page 45]
The most amazing thing liberals have done is create the myth of a compliant right-wing media with Republicans badgering baffled reporters into attacking Democrats. It’s so mad, it’s brilliant. It’s one kind of a lie to say the Holocaust was when the Swedes killed the Jews. But it’s another kind of lie entirely to say the Holocaust was when the Jews killed the Nazis. Liberals have actually neutralized the incredible press orchestration of left-wing propaganda by acting as if they are the victims of the all-powerful Republican National Committee. [Page 110]
Even stupid people — come to think of it, especially stupid people — will always take the path of least resistance. The young, the stupid, and the weak are invariably impressed with authority figures. College students in Weimar Germany emulated their Nazi-sympathizing professors just as college students in modern America emulate their America-hating professors and the stupid and weak in society at large emulate the liberal establishment. [Page 112]
Source / Media Matters
Find Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America on Amazon.com.
The dominant media are in high gear over Gaza. They vilify Hamas, stay silent about Gazan suffering, are mute on the crippling blockade, its devastating human toll, and practically champion Israel’s call for “all-out war” and the slaughter of defenseless men, women, children and infants.
By Stephen Lendman / January 2, 2009
The blame game — no one plays it better than the dominant media, and they’re at it again over Gaza. Expect no comments below in their spaces, yet honest journalism would headline them.
After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt addressed Congress – with an appropriating updating for Gaza:
December 27 “will live in infamy.” The people of Gaza were “suddenly and deliberately attacked by….air forces of the” State of Israel. The “attack was deliberately planned many (months) ago. During the intervening time (Israel) deliberately sought to deceive (Palestinians) by false statements and expressions of hope for” the peace process.
“The (weekend and continued) attack(s) caused severe damage to” property throughout Gaza. In addition, “many (Palestinian) lives have been lost. The facts (on the ground) speak for themselves… this “unprovoked and dastardly attack” must not go unanswered.
Note the contrast. Japan in the 1940s sought accord, not conflict. Not America. FDR goaded them to attack through numerous harassments and provocations – selling arms to Tokyo’s enemies, denying Japan strategic resources and port access, as well as imposing a damaging embargo.
For its part, Hamas has been conciliatory and sought peace. It’s willing to recognize Israel in return for a sovereign Palestinian state inside pre-1967 borders – just 22% of it original homeland. In 2008 and earlier, it agreed to unilateral ceasefires in spite of repeated Israeli violations and Gaza in duress under siege. It responds only in self-defense when attacked as international law allows, yet Washington, Israel, and the West call it “terrorism.”
The dominant media also in their customary role – guarding the powerful and suppressing uncomfortable truths in lieu of full and accurate reporting. They’re in high gear over Gaza. They vilify Hamas, stay silent about Gazan suffering, are mute on the crippling blockade, its devastating human toll, and practically champion Israel’s call for “all-out war” and the slaughter of defenseless men, women, children and infants.
“The more damage to Hamas, the better the chances for peace” says the Wall Street Journal in a lead December 28 editorial headlined “Israel’s Gaza Defense.” The Journal rewrites history this way:
“The chronology of this latest violence is important to understand. Israel withdrew both its soldiers and all of its settlers from Gaza in August 2005. Hamas won its internal power struggle with Mr. Abbas’ Fatah organization to control Gaza in 2006. Since 2005 Hamas has fired some 6300 rockets at Israeli civilians from Gaza, killing 10 and wounding 780.”
“Hamas did agree to a six-month ceasefire earlier this year, during which the rocket attacks declined in number but never stopped. But Hamas refused to extend the truce past December 19, and the group has since resumed attacks…” Israelis in the south “live under constant threat, often in bomb shelters, and the economy has suffered. Yet the world’s media (only pays) attention when Israel responds to that Hamas barrage.”
The Journal’s op-ed page standard fare twists facts into a fabric of misinformation and agitprop, and when vilifying Hamas it’s vicious. A few corrections:
Instead the Journal supports the Gaza siege, and says “If Hamas wants its people to have freer movement, it can stop sponsoring terror killings.” Even Arab leaders were “urged to demand that Hamas maintain the truce… so we could have avoided what happened.”
In the aftermath, Journal editors hold Hamas responsible as does Washington. Arab leaders “understand that (Hamas’ leaders), like Hezbollah, (are) increasingly allied with Iran and its goals for fomenting regional instability.”
In fact, despite pro-forma criticism and anger on Arab streets, leaders in the region’s capitals offered little support for Gazans for fear of antagonizing Washington and their powerful Israeli neighbor.
The Arab League won’t discuss a common response until a January 2 Doha summit, and when it does expect little more than from the UN. As for Arab foreign ministers, they postponed an “emergency” meeting until December 31, so the killing continues while they attend to more pressing business.
Journal editors have a message for Obama. He’s “about to discover that the terrorists of the Middle East (won’t) change their radical ambitions merely because America has a new president.” For their part, Palestinians will learn that the new one is no friendlier than the incumbent and may turn out even worse. White House occupants, key congressional members, and the entire Senate pledge unswerving support for Israel. At the same time, blaming their victims (and ours) is one of Washington’s favorite spectator sports.
On December 28, the Journal gave two noted Israeli flacks prominent space – Michael Oren of Jerusalem’s Shalem Center and Yossi Klein Halevi of the Shalem Center’s Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies for their op-ed headlined: “Palestinians Need Israel to Win.”
They claim that while Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni “implore(d) Egyptian leaders (on December 19) to urge restraint on Hamas… prime minister Ehud Olmert told viewers of Al-Arabiyah Television that Israel had no interest in a military confrontation” at the very time it was long-planned and about to be unleashed.
“If Israel was guilty of acting disproportionately, it was in its willingness to seek any means, even at the risk of its citizens’ lives, to resolve the (brewing) crisis diplomatically.” The writers blame the UN for not condemning Hamas and for “growing media criticism of Israel.”
Israeli security comes first, and “Gaza is the test case. Much more is at stake than merely the military outcome.” It’s about Israel’s “deterrence power and uphold(ing) the principle that its citizens cannot be targeted with impunity.” They’re not unless Palestinians are attacked first and even then have little to fear beyond their government’s own rhetoric.
Syria is an issue as well… “triggering the Gaza conflict only deepens Israeli mistrust. The Damascus office of Hamas, which operates under the aegis of the regime of Bashar al Assad, vetoed the efforts of Hamas leaders to extend the ceasefire and insisted on escalated rocket attacks.”
The Gaza conflict may “intensify with a possible incursion of Israeli ground forces. Israel must be allowed to conclude this operation with a decisive victory over Hamas…. This is an opportunity to redress Israel’s failure to humble Hezbollah (in 2006), and to deal a substantial setback to another jihadist proxy of Iran… without Hamas’ defeat, there can be no serious progress toward a treaty that both satisfies Palestinian aspirations and allays Israel’s fears. At stake in Gaza is nothing less than the future of the peace process.”
Their rhetoric defies comment. It’s breathtaking, mirror opposite of the truth, and credible only to the truest of true believers of the most dubious analysis the two writers lay out.
New York Times Press Handout-Style Journalism
The Times‘ 1997 proxy statement calls itself “an independent newspaper, entirely fearless, free of ulterior influence and unselfishly devoted to the public welfare” in reporting “all the news fit to print.” No media source anywhere has more clout. None more effectively influences world opinion, and none show more one-sided support for Israel, disdain for Palestinian rights, and justifying the unjustifiable when they’re so grievously harmed.
It’s December 29 Ethan Bronner/Taghreed El-Khodary “No Early End Seen to ‘All-Out-War on Hamas in Gaza” article is typical. It highlights Israel’s aim “to cripple Hamas’ ability to fire rockets into Israel,” never mentioning they’re for legitimate self-defense and never preemptively fired. It calls Hamas a “terrorist organization” when, in fact, it’s Palestine’s legitimate government. It respects the rule of law, and it fearlessly defends the rights of its people. It reports nothing about its democratic election, its seeking peace and rapprochement, its unilateral ceasefires, its support by the great majority of Gazans, and the efforts it makes for them in spite of overwhelming challenges under siege.
Instead it states that “Hamas killed four Israelis on (December 28) after firing more than 70 rockets, including a long-range one into the booming city of Ashdod some 18 miles from Gaza, where it hit a bus stop, killing a woman and injuring two other people. Earlier a rocket hit nearby Ashkelon, killing an Israeli-Arab construction worker and wounding three others. The other dead Israelis… were a civilian in the Negev desert and a soldier.”
“Thousands of Israelis huddled in shelters as the long-range rockets hit streets or open areas in… the most serious display of Hamas’ arsenal since the Israeli assault began.” It referred to “Hamas gunmen,” reported that “Israel would widen and deepen the attack if necessary… until Hamas no longer had the ability to fire rockets into Israel.” It said that Israel has “nothing against the citizens of Gaza and that it had more than once offered its hand in peace to the Palestinian nation.”
“Israel sent in some 40 trucks of humanitarian relief, including blood from Jordan and medicine. Egypt opened its border with Gaza to some similar aid and to allow some of the wounded through.” No mention of the Gaza siege, the devastating pre-conflict humanitarian crisis, or that Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak initially ordered his soldiers to shoot Gazans breaching border barriers, then only reluctantly allowed in some of the seriously wounded for medical treatment.
“Meanwhile in Israel, sirens wailed over mostly empty streets in the seaside city of Ashkelon. Storefronts were battered shut. Families clustered inside the city’s stretches of towering white apartment blocks and single-family houses. Weary of venturing too far outside, they scurried into protected rooms when sirens sounded, listening for the sound of another rocket crashing somewhere in their city. ‘It’s frightening, but what can we do?’ asked a high school senior.”
Plenty the Times won’t report. Ask your government to stop attacking Gazans so they won’t respond in self-defense. Demand that Palestinian rights be respected, the illegal siege ended, the IDF aggression stopped, and the occupation of the West Bank. Insist Israeli laws apply equally to Arab citizens, that Palestinians no longer will be persecuted, that peace will take precedence of war, that Israel will engage its neighbors, not attack them, and that real democracy will replace the sham kind now practiced.
Make it impossible for the (outrageous December 29) New York Times‘ “War Over Gaza” editorial to be written. It begins:
Israel must defend itself. And Hamas must bear responsibility for ending a six-month cease-fire this month with a barrage of rocket attacks into Israeli territory. Still we fear that Israel’s response… is unlikely to weaken the militant Palestinian group substantially or move things any closer to what all Israelis and Palestinians need: a durable peace agreement and a two-state solution.
Hamas’ leaders, especially those safely ensconced in Damascus, are unconcerned about their people’s suffering – and (are) masters at capitalizing on it.” The writer urges other Arab leaders “to cajole or more likely threaten Hamas (or its patrons in Syria and Iran) to accept a new cease-fire (read “surrender”).
The editorial claims most casualties were “Hamas security forces” when, in fact, the great majority are civilian men, women and children, including police with no military connection. It stresses Ehud Barak’s promised “war to the bitter end.”
It says there’s “no justification for Hamas’ attacks or its virulent rejectionism,” but turns a blind eye to Israel’s culpability. It refers to the failure of the never was and never will be “peace process” but won’t report that Washington and Tel Aviv won’t tolerate one. That they choose dominance over peace, violence over reconciliation, and conquest above the rule of law.
It claims Condoleezza Rice sought Middle East peace, and it’s up to Barack Obama to accomplish it himself – when, in fact, Democrats and Republicans one-sidedly support Israel, seek dominance over Middle East states, want a subservient Hamas like Fatah, back the Gaza conflict to weaken its effective rule, and are for the illegal occupation of Palestine to continue.
Times‘ articles reveal more about what they don’t report than what they do. They:
The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reports that “its field workers have faced extreme difficulties in documenting crimes due to the dangers of getting close to” bombed areas and the chaos throughout the Territory as war rages round the clock. Yet they do what they can throughout Gaza and in horrific pictures they take and publish – images suppressed in America.
It urgently asked the UN Human Rights Council to act under its (”Uniting for Peace”) UN Resolution 377 authority. It permits the General Assembly to address peace and security matters when the Security Council doesn’t do it. General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto said: “the time has come to take firm action if the UN does not want to be rightly accused of complicity by omission.”
As of New Year’s day, Ma’an News reported 428 known killed (other reports are higher) and over 2000 injured, many too seriously to survive.
On December 28, the US vetoed a Security Council draft resolution to end Israel’s “disproportionate use of force” on Gazans. The vote was 11 ayes, three abstentions (Britain, Germany and Bulgaria), and one nay – America. John Negroponte did the dishonor following a long-standing practice of blocking any UN condemnation of Israel, regardless of how justified.
The Security Council held an emergency meeting on New Year’s eve at which Negroponte again rejected a legally binding resolution condemning Israel and demanding its attacks stop. At the same time, Israel rejected pressures for a 48-hour ceasefire to allow in humanitarian aid. According to the New York Times, “The government said it would push ahead with its air, sea, and ultimately ground operation, which one senior military official described as ‘making Hamas lose their will or lose their weapons.’ ”
Earlier on December 30 at 5:00AM, Israeli gunboats (without warning) attacked the humanitarian boat Dignity (in international waters 90 miles from Gaza) bringing three tons of medical supplies. It was rammed three times, heavily damaged, and took on water. Israelis also threatened to shoot its occupants and fired machine guns overhead and around it attempting to head it off. It managed to get to the Lebanese port of Tyre in the afternoon. Luckily no one was injured. The Free Gaza Movement founder, Paul Laurdee, said 11 Israeli vessels surrounded Dignity, ordered it to stop, but it refused.
The New York Times was silent on the incident. However, on December 29, it gave pro-genocide historian Benny Morris space for his “Why Israel Feels Threatened” op-ed – a disturbing justification of Israel’s attacks and warning of much more to come. This by an advocate of attacking Iran with nuclear weapons and a believer in ethnic cleansing who once described Palestinians as “wild animal(s who have) to be locked up in one way or another…. When the choice is between destroying or being destroyed, it’s better to destroy.”
He paints a totally disingenuous picture of isolated Israel surrounded by hostile neighbors and losing support from the West. “To the east, Iran… to the north, the Lebanese fundamentalist Hezbollah… to the south… the Islamist Hamas movement (controlling) the Gaza Strip.”
These “dire threats” make Israel “feel that the walls – and history – are closing in on their 60-year-old state.”
Israel threatened? Syria, Lebanon and Iran should worry based on past and current provocations. No country attacked Israel since the 1973 Yom Kippur war, and none today would dare – given its military strength, nuclear arsenal, and close ties to America and the West.
Morris cites another threat – demography. The 1.3 million Israeli Arabs “offer the recipe (for the) dissolution of the Jewish state.” They’ve become “radicalized, embrac(e) Palestinian national aims,” Jews see them as a “potential fifth column,” and, with their higher birthrate, will outnumber Israeli Jews by 2040. Within five years, Arabs may become the majority in pre-1948 Palestine.
According to Morris, Israel is endangered because of its commitment to “Western democratic and liberal norms.” Violence in Gaza resulted, and “it would not be surprising if more powerful explosions were to follow” – a clear assessment that slaughter is OK in the name of “self-defense” and an indication that the Times agrees.
The Los Angeles Times‘ Misinformation “primer on Gaza, Israel, and some key factors behind the current violence.”
On December 30, Michael Muskal wrote it asking:
– “Why is Israel attacking Hamas? To curb rocket attacks he maintains, when, in fact, neutralizing the government is the real aim, destroying its ability to rule effectively, weakening its support on the ground, and, in the end, co-opt it like Fatah and the PLO under Arafat; rocket attacks are just pretext.
– “What is Hamas?” An Islamist group founded to destroy Israel and refuses to accept its right to exist, he claims. In fact, after its establishment during the First Intifada (in 1987), Israel supported it against the PLO (as it now backs Fatah against Hamas). Ever since, it’s been an effective resistance movement. Its goal – ending Israel’s illegal occupation through negotiation and international consensus, not terrorism, war, or denying Israel’s right to exist. However, its charter states that it wants peace, equity and justice for all Palestinians; supports the weak; defends the oppressed; and will fight for its rights if Israel won’t grant them peacefully. Hamas is clear on its willingness to recognize Israel in return for a Palestinian state inside pre-1967 borders – a nonstarter for Israel.
– “Does Hamas speak for all Palestinians? No. Hamas gunmen took full control of Gaza in the summer of 2007. The West would prefer to deal with (Fatah’s) Abbas, who has shown a willingness to negotiate with Israel, and it tried to topple Hamas with economic and political sanctions.” No is right as well as the West going along with Washington and Israel trying to topple Hamas, but unmentioned is the crippling siege. Hamas is a legitimate political group with a military wing for defense, not offense. They’re not “gunmen” or militants. Abbas’ subservience endears him to America and Tel Aviv. Hamas is independent. It champions Palestinians’ rights, and therein lies the conflict.
– “If Hamas is so opposed to Israel, why did it agree to a truce? Hamas had hoped to end the blockade, but the cease-fire collapsed in November and expired Dec. 19. Abbas blamed Hamas for prompting the Israeli attack by refusing to extend the cease-fire.” True on the first point. False or misleading on the rest. Hamas declared a ceasefire unilaterally. Israel never respected it and killed over two dozen Gazans while it was in force. Abbas blamed the victims and absolved the aggressor in deference to Tel Aviv and Washington – in betrayal of his people for his own political aims.
– “What has been the response to the Israeli attacks in the Arab world?” Saying that anti-Israeli demonstrations have been held in several countries greatly understates how many, their size and where. They’re large and growing and are being held across America, throughout the Middle East, and in many other countries worldwide.
“What about Egypt? (It) opposes Islamic radical groups, including its own Muslim Brotherhood, which helped give birth to Hamas. Egypt has a difficult relationship because they share a border (and) clashes have been reported between Palestinians and Egyptian security forces at border crossings?” Half truths and misleading. Egypt is allied to Washington and Israel. It opposes the Muslim Brotherhood and all independent opposition to president Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship. Egyptian forces initiated border clashes by firing on Gazans trying to escape the violence.
– “What about the US?” A “power vacuum” suggests Muskal until Obama takes office. Unexplained is a continuity of policy that unswervingly supports Israel, its right to wage aggressive war, violate international law, slaughter Gazan civilians, maintain its illegal occupation, and deny Palestinians their right to self-determination.
– “What has the Bush administration done?” Saying it blamed Hamas and asked Israel publicly to avoid civilian casualties is right but misleading. For eight years, George Bush disdained Palestinian rights, supplies Israel with billions of dollars in aid, the latest weapons and technology, and full support for its occupation, oppression and aggressive wars.
– “What about the Obama administration?” Repeating his saying the US has only one president at a time is right. So is affirming his strong support for Israel. Unmentioned is his indifference to Palestinian issues and that chances for regional peace will be no greater than under George Bush so expect little hopeful change.
– “How do Israeli politics figure in the equation? Muskal is right in relating the current conflict to Israel’s February 10 elections. A new prime minister and Knesset will be chosen and polls show a large majority of Israelis back its government’s attacks. Acting tough could prove a winning strategy even at the expense of human lives and less security than without conflict.
Misinformation like the above is de rigueur throughout the dominant media, especially when it comes to Israel. Tel Aviv can do no wrong even when it inflicts vast amounts of destruction, massacres hundreds of civilians, and injures tens of hundreds more, defenseless against its onslaught.
Profiting from Human Slaughter
On December 27, the London Guardian reported that the “Israeli far right gains ground as Gaza rockets fuel tension.” Jerusalem-based Toni O’Loughlin wrote that pre-conflict polls showed “the Israeli public calling for harsher military strikes in Gaza.” It’s been a boon for former Likud member Avigdor Lieberman’s extremist Yisrael Beiteinu. It advocates ethnic cleansing by revoking Israeli Arabs’ citizenship and transferring Palestinian towns in Israel to PA control.
Likud leader, Binyamin Netanyahu also stands to gain because he states: “In the long run, we have no choice but to topple Hamas rule… we have to go from passive response to active assault.” That got Kadima’s foreign minister Tzipi Livni saying: “Israel must topple the Hamas rule in Gaza and a government under my command will do just that.” Campaigning is in high gear for the upcoming February elections with all sides vying to look toughest.
War rages as a result, and according to Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem founder Michael Warschawski: “all Israeli leaders are competing over who is the toughest and who is ready to kill more.” Mass slaughter makes good campaign politics, and whoever looks the meanest may become Israel’s next prime minister. Follow the body count for clues. Watch TV clips of Tzipi Livni disheveled with no makeup to show machismo, and as Tariq Ali puts it: “dead Palestinians are little more than election fodder” and may help Kadima retain power.
Justifying the Unjustifiable
On December 28, O’Loughlin in the Guardian headlined: “Israel mounts PR campaign to blame Hamas for Gaza destruction” as Kadima put positive spin on mass murder and destruction.
Israeli media suggested the following preceded the attack:
Ahead of the attack, Britain, the EU, Egypt and Saudi Arabia were briefed, and Israel coordinated everything with Washington the way it’s always done at least since the 1967 war. According to the Jerusalem Post, the Bush administration also supplied the Israeli Air Force with “a new bunker-buster missile” called GBU-39 – a small-diameter bomb for low-cost, high-precision, minimal collateral damage strikes.
Congress authorized 1000 of them in September, and defense officials said the first shipment arrived in early December for use in penetrating underground Gaza Kassam launcher sites and bombing Egyptian border tunnels in Rafah through which emergency supplies were funneled.
Israel’s PR spin began before the assault. According to the Guardian, “the foreign ministry honed its message and amassed its staff… Israeli diplomats were recalled from holidays and ordered back to work, and in” Sderot, a multilingual media center was opened to brief foreign journalists.
Everything was orchestrated. At the right moment, Tzipi Livni called foreign ministers in Washington, London, Russia, China, France and Germany as well as EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. She also briefed around 80 international representatives and dignitaries in the Sderot media center. World leaders spread her message, blamed Hamas for “breaking” the ceasefire, and claimed Israel had to respond.
Israeli envoys around the world did the same, and Livni vowed to end Hamas rule if elected. She told Kadima party members and the media that “The State of Israel, and a government under me, will make it a strategic objective to topple the Hamas regime. The means… should be military, economic and diplomatic.”
As war rages, Israel is in full spin mode. According to Haaretz, even Fatah loyalists say Gaza is “Allah’s revenge” – referring to the 2007 clashes that secured Gaza for Hamas and left Fatah, under Abbas, in control of the West Bank. For his part, prime minister Ehud Olmert said the bombardment is “the first of several stages approved by the security cabinet” – a clear signal of more to follow and Israel’s intent to destroy Hamas’ effectiveness and render it as weak as possible.
Livni also released a document to the Israeli and world press spreading deceit, disinformation, exaggeration, and agitprop. Examples included:
These and other statements blame Hamas for the violence; accuse it of being a terrorist organization backed by Iran; has a radical Islamic agenda; is the enemy of all Palestinians seeking peace; is criminal under international law, and seeks Israel’s destruction.
These comments are from Israel’s foreign minister and a leading candidate for prime minister; someone representing a state founded on terrorism by massacring and ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their land; that disdains international law; illegally occupies Palestine; collectively punishes its people; denies them self-determination; their right of return; seizes their land; demolishes their homes; imprisons and tortures their people, impoverishes them; denies them free movement, essential services, employment and enough food and clean water; destroys their crops and factories; and grants them no judicial redress because they’re Arabs in a Jewish state or under occupation.
On December 31, Livni was in Paris meeting with president Nicolas Sarkozy, foreign minister Bernard Kouchner and other officials. In response to a French two-day truce proposal, she rejected the idea saying: “there is no humanitarian crisis in the Strip, and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce.”
Protests Worldwide Over Gaza
Carnage and destruction trump spin, and it shows worldwide on city streets – across the Arab world, in America, the EU, London, and even parts of Asia, Latin America and Africa.
The New York Times reported that “After four days of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, an outpouring of popular anger is putting pressure on American allies in the Arab world and appears to be worsening divisions in the region.” Egypt has been especially pressured because it’s a close US and Israeli ally. But “demonstrations continued… from North Africa to Yemen.”
Al Jazeera reports that protests spread across the Middle East, and in the West Bank Israeli troops opened fire, killed one Palestinian, and critically injured two others. One was declared brain damaged from a bullet to his head. In Yemen, “tens of thousands of people gathered in and around a stadium in the capital, Sanaa, chanting anti-Israeli slogans and criticizing Arab leaders for failing to act.”
It’s been much the same in Cairo, Beirut, Baghdad, and dozens of other world capitals. In Tehran, students broke into the British Embassy’s residential compound, vandalized buildings, and replaced the British flag with a Palestinian one.
Al Jazeera added that several members of Jordan’s parliament burned the Israeli flag in protest and called for the expulsion of Kadima’s ambassador. In Lebanon, hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian refugees staged a sit-in near the Beirut UN office. Hezbollah condemned the attacks as a “war crime and a genocide that requires immediate action from the international community and its institutions.”
Its statement called on Arab countries to “take a firm stand and exert its utmost efforts against the Israeli barbarism – which is (endorsed) by the US – and the international community (must) stop this ongoing massacre.”
In Damascus, thousands were in Yusif al-Azmeh square shouting slogans and displaying flags of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Hezbollah, Syria, Iraq and Palestine. From loudspeakers, calls were for “jihad” against Israel and for continuing the “struggle in the name of God.”
Protests across Iraq took place – in Baghdad with messages supporting Gaza, anti-Israeli slogans, and the Palestinian ambassador, Dalil al-Qasoos, saying: “Gaza will remain steadfast in the face of Americans and Zionists whatever the plots and conspiracies hatched by tyrants and arrogant enemies.”
Across Britain as well in Belfast and London where hundreds demonstrated in front of the Israeli embassy and outside the BBC.
In Washington, 5000 gathered at the State Department and marched to the White House. In San Francisco, over 10,000 protested in front of the Israeli consulate. In Los Angeles, around 5000 did the same, and in New York thousands more were at the Israeli consulate waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Free Palestine.” Similar demonstrations were held in dozens more US cities, including Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Portland, Houston, Dallas, Seattle and in Hawaii in front of Obama’s vacation compound where he remains indifferent.
On January 2, the ANSWER Coalition, Muslim American Society Freedom, and National Council of Arab Americans plan a major protest at the Israeli embassy in Washington and at the Egyptian embassy as well.
Expressions of World Outrage
On December 29, a National Lawyer’s Guild (NLG) press release condemned the Israeli massacre, called for a ceasefire and urged participation in New York protests. NLG president and Thomas Jefferson School of Law professor Marjorie Cohn stated:
“The Human Rights and Security Assistance Act mandates that the United States cease all military aid to Israel, which has engaged in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” America, like Israel, disdains international law and has supplied Tel Aviv governments with tens of billions of aid, weapons and technology for decades, and as explained above, with special bunker-buster bombs to attack Gaza. It also partners in Israeli aggression, assists all aspects of it, and provides cover through vocal support and UN resolution vetoes for it to continue.
On December 29, the Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA) condemned Israel’s Gaza attack, its slaughter of civilians and “violation of all international laws and treaties,” and its crippling siege as “another crime and collective punishment against (over 1.5 million Gazans) living in an atmosphere of continued terror and intimidation.”
HRA also denounced world leaders for failing to speak out or act and thus effectively give “a green light for Israel to escalate its siege, topped with the barbaric bombardment” of Gaza and its people. “The Security Council’s non-binding statement (calling for “an immediate halt to all violence” and for both sides “to stop immediately all military activities”) is evidence of (the UN’s) incompetence (and impotence) in implementing its primary duty in maintaining world peace and security.”
In his “Dachau to Gaza” article, law professor, international law expert, and former PLO legal advisor Francis Boyle compared Washington and Israel’s aims to Hitler’s Munich Pact for Germany to occupy and annex the Sudetenland. Today it’s to seize Palestinians’ land and deny them “self-determination and a real independent state of their own.” As a result, he fears a “high probability that history will repeat itself” in more conflict.
In 1986, he visited the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, complained about “criminal Israeli occupation practices,” its violations of international law, and that America “has an absolute obligation to use its enormous political, military and economic leverage over Israel to terminate (these) practices immediately.”
Yet since Israel’s establishment in 1948 and its post-1967 occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, Washington has one-sidedly supported Israel and denied Palestinians their “freedom, justice, dignity, respect and independence.” One day, America must end this policy and “order Israel out of Palestine.” Until then, no Middle East peace is possible and the possibility of greater conflict exists.
Like others wanting war crimes to be punished, Boyle also advocates “An International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) as “the Only (possible) Deterrent to a Global War.” He urges the General Assembly to establish one as a “subsidiary organ” under Article 22 of the UN Charter. It would be similar to those for Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR) to:
“investigate and prosecute Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the People of Lebanon and Palestine.” It would “provide some small degree of justice to the victims” of decades of Israeli crimes, thus far committed with impunity. “It would also have a deterrent effect” on current Israeli leaders and generals and force future ones to obey international laws or face similar prosecution.
Without legal restraints, Boyle, like others, fears possible new Middle East conflict that could “degenerate into World War III,” not by intent but by accident, much like WW I developed. He urges General Assembly action to prevent it at a time attacks on Gaza persist, the Arab street is enraged, and the longer fighting continues, the greater the risk of something far greater.
Israel is a serial aggressor. Its lawlessness can no longer be tolerated. Mass outrage and world pressure must build for a global campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions until its human rights abuses stop, its war crimes are punished, its occupation and colonization end, Palestinian refugees have the right to return, and the people of Gaza and the West Bank achieve their long-denied self-determination rights in an internationally recognized sovereign state, free from Israeli oppression. For people of conscience, that’s Resolution One for the new year.
Source / Dissident Voice
Thanks to Devra Morice / The Rag Blog
Ratatöska feat. Ströbele – Goodbye George
Source / Goodbye George
Thanks to David MacBryde / The Rag Blog
‘The NSA’s colossal Cray supercomputer, code-named the ‘Black Widow,’ scans millions of domestic and international phone calls and e-mails every hour. . . . The Black Widow, performing hundreds of trillions of calculations per second, searches through and reassembles key words and patterns, across many languages.’
By Nat Hentoff
Barack Obama will be in charge of the biggest domestic and international spying operation in history. Its prime engine is the National Security Agency (NSA)—located and guarded at Fort Meade, Maryland, about 10 miles northeast of Washington, D.C. A brief glimpse of its ever-expanding capacity was provided on October 26 by The Baltimore Sun’s national security correspondent, David Wood: “The NSA’s colossal Cray supercomputer, code-named the ‘Black Widow,’ scans millions of domestic and international phone calls and e-mails every hour. . . . The Black Widow, performing hundreds of trillions of calculations per second, searches through and reassembles key words and patterns, across many languages.”
In July, George W. Bush signed into law the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which gives the NSA even more power to look for patterns that suggest terrorism links in Americans’ telephone and Internet communications.
The ACLU immediately filed a lawsuit on free speech and privacy grounds. The new Bush law provides farcical judicial supervision over the NSA and other government trackers and databasers. Although Senator Barack Obama voted for this law, dig this from the ACLU: “The government [is now permitted] to conduct intrusive surveillance without ever telling a court who it intends to spy on, what phone lines and e-mail addresses it intends to monitor, where its surveillance targets are located, why it’s conducting the surveillance or whether it suspects any party to the communication of wrongdoing.”
This gives the word “dragnet” an especially chilling new meaning.
The ACLU’s Jameel Jaffer, director of its National Security Project, adds that the new statute, warming the cold hearts of the NSA, “implicates all kinds of communications that have nothing to do with terrorism or criminal activity of any kind.”
Why did Obama vote for this eye-that-never-blinks? He’s a bright, informed guy, but he wasn’t yet the President-Elect. The cool pragmatist wanted to indicate he wasn’t radically unmindful of national security—and that his previous vow to filibuster such a bill may have been a lapse in judgment. It was.
What particularly outraged civil libertarians across the political divide was that the FISA Amendments Act gave immunity to the telecommunications corporations—which, for seven years, have been a vital part of the Bush administration’s secret wiretapping program—thereby dismissing the many court cases brought by citizens suing those companies for violating their individual constitutional liberties. This gives AT&T, Verizon, and the rest a hearty signal to go on pimping for the government.
That’s OK with the Obama administration? Please tell us, Mr. President.
Some of us began to see how deeply and intricately the telecoms were involved in the NSA’s spying when—as part of an Electronic Frontier Foundation lawsuit—it was revealed by a former AT&T technician, Mark Klein, that he had found a secret AT&T room in which the NSA was tapping into the telecom giant’s fiber-optic cables. On National Public Radio on November 7, 2007, he disclosed: “It’s not just AT&T’s traffic going through these cables, because these cables connected AT&T’s network with other networks like Sprint, Qwest [the one firm that refused to play ball with the government], Global Crossing, UUNet, etc.”
What you should know is that these fruitful cables go through “a splitter” that, as Klein describes, “just copies the entire data without any selection going on. So it’s a complete copy of the data stream.”
Under the new FISA Amendments Act, there are no limits on where this stream of data can be disseminated. As in the past, but now with “legal” protection under the 2008 statute, your suspicious “patterns” can go to the FBI, Homeland Security, the CIA, and state and local police that are also involved in “fusion centers” with the FBI.
Consider the enormous and bottomless databases that the government—and its NSA—can have a ball with. In James Bamford’s The Shadow Factory (Doubleday)—a new book that leads you as far as anyone has gone into the bowels of the NSA—he notes: “For decades, AT&T and much of the rest of the telecommunications industry have had a very secret, very cozy relationship with the NSA.” In AT&T’s case, he points out, “its international voice service carried more than 18 billion minutes per year, reaching 240 countries, linking 400 carriers, and offering remote access via 19,500 points of presence in 149 countries around the globe.”
Voilá! Also, he notes: “Much of those communications passed through that secret AT&T room that Klein found on Folsom Street in downtown San Francisco.”
There’s a lot more to come that we don’t know about. Yet. In The Shadow Factory, James Bamford quotes Bush’s Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell as saying that this wiretapping program was and is “only one program of many highly secret programs approved by Bush following the attacks on 9/11” (emphasis added). McConnell also said of the NSA’s nonstop wiretapping: “This is the only aspect of those various activities whose existence has officially been acknowledged.”
Come on, Mike. Bush acknowledged the NSA’s flagrant contempt of the First and Fourth amendments only after The New York Times broke the story in December 2005. When the Times executive editor, Bill Keller, first decided to hold the explosive story for a year, General Michael Hayden—the former head of the NSA who is currently running the CIA—was relieved because he didn’t want the news to get out that “most international communications pass through [these telecommunications] ‘switching,’ ” Bamford reports. It would blow the cover off those corporate communicators. Now, AT&T, Verizon, et al., don’t have to worry, thanks to the new law.
There are increasing calls, inside and outside of Congress, for President Obama to urge investigations by an independently bipartisan commission—akin to the 9/11 Commission—to get deeply into the many American and international laws so regally broken by Bush and his strutting team.
But there is so much still to find out about the NSA’s “many highly secret programs” that a separate commission is sorely needed to probe exclusively into the past and ongoing actions of the Black Widow and other NSA lawless intrusions into our privacy and ideas.
President Obama could atone for his vote that supported the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 by appointing such a bipartisan commission composed of technology experts who are also familiar with the Constitution.
Bamford says that the insatiable NSA is “developing an artificial intelligence system designed to know what people are thinking.” Here come the thought police!
Source / The Village Voice / Posted Dec. 23, 2009
10 Reasons to be Hopeful about 2009, and 3 Reasons to be Terrified
By Sarah van Gelder / December 31, 2008
We’re entering a new year at a time unlike any other in recent memory. Here are 10 reasons I’m filled with hope as I look ahead at 2009—and three reasons I’m terrified.
1. Young people are stepping up. They know that they formed the backbone of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and that their work infused the country with the “Yes, we can” spirit. Now that these young people know what success feels like, many will be in it for the long haul.
2. Election protection is working. Grassroots vigilance, successful lawsuits, and media exposure are making voter suppression efforts less successful. More remains to be done, but the trends are in the right direction. (One terrifying note, though, is the death in a December 19 plane crash of GOP IT expert Michael Connell, who many believe was poised to reveal secrets related to vote stealing.)
3. There is now overwhelming support for universal health care. This grassroots commitment coupled with Obama’s leadership could make this the year when we finally overcome the roadblocks big insurance and drug corporations have placed in the way of progress. A majority of Americans favor a tax-supported single-payer system like Canada’s. The Obama plan, while it’s not single-payer, is nonetheless a good plan—as long as it retains the option for all Americans to join a public health insurance plan.
4. Corporate power is on the wane. Barack Obama ran for office without relying on corporate donations in a campaign that saw candidates competing to establish their tough-on-corporate-power bonafides. Even before the Wall Street meltdown, a majority of Americans thought corporations had too much power. The economic collapse is further eroding goodwill towards corporations and big finance, showing instead how both were instrumental in concentrating wealth, creating unsustainable bubbles, and putting our way of life at risk. After the trillions of taxpayer money paid out in corporate bailouts, the American people are looking for more fair and sustainable alternatives.
5. The failing economy is giving us lots of reasons to be terrified (see below) but also reasons to be hopeful. That rip-roaring economy we’re all supposed to be trying to bring back was tearing through the world’s rainforests, mountaintops, aquifers, fisheries, soils, and other resources, driving thousands of species toward extinction, changing the climate, and leaving billions behind in the rush for “economic growth.” So, painful as it might be, this downturn represents a chance to build a different sort of economy—one that offers dignity, livelihoods, and a future for our children.
6. We’re finally getting real about the urgency and scope of the climate challenge. The incoming Obama administration takes science seriously, which means taking climate change seriously, too. The nay-sayers have quit denying the existence of global warming, and have resorted to random delay tactics. Many now see the conversion to a climate-friendly economy as a major opportunity, with new jobs and investment needed to weatherize buildings, re-tool factories, develop renewal sources of energy, and rebuild transportation infrastructure (see below for the terrifying flip side).
7. Social movements are building people power. Nonviolent civil disobedience is back. Climate organizers conduct “die-ins” and climate camps to shut down coal plants. Workers at Republic Windows & Doors occupied their factory when they were abruptly dismissed without severance and vacation pay. President-Elect Obama backed the Republic workers, implicitly inviting others to stand up for their rights. He also continues to organize people at the grassroots—right now through health care discussion groups. Thousands of these meetings being held across the country could build a health care reform movement with enough clout to overcome entrenched interests and move forward. (We may wind up calling Obama, Organizer-in-Chief.)
8. DIY (do it yourself) communities are piloting the shift to a people-centered society. These folks understand that real security during tough times is found in the “social capital” of community. At the same time, they are creating experiments in green and just ways of life. They aren’t waiting for policy changes or bailouts, instead, they are helping each other now and getting on with the most extraordinary project of our time: building a better world.
9. International cooperation is now possible, and it’s none too soon. The day of the lone wolf is over. Likewise, the day of the sole superpower that could bend the rest of the world to its will. Climate change, nuclear proliferation, failed states, the Israel-Palestine conflict, the collapse of ocean fisheries, outbreaks of genocide, environmental and human rights refugee crises, HIV/AIDS and other pandemics—all require international cooperation. That means everyone has a seat at the table, no one gets bullied, and the solutions have to be real ones.
10. Obama! It’s true, he hasn’t lived up to all our hopes with his cabinet picks. On the left-right scale, he’s been pretty centrist, and especially his choices for foreign policy and agriculture posts suggest he may repeat the mistakes of the Clinton and Bush appointees he is surrounding himself with. But on the people-versus-big-money scale, he leans towards people and the common good, as the examples above illustrate. And he has elevated the national dialogue, setting a new standard for intelligent, inclusive, nuanced leadership.
Not bad to be coming into the new year with 10 reasons to be hopeful. That’s as good as it’s been for awhile. But there are also some good reasons to be terrified:
1. Runaway climate change. The biggest question of the 21st century may be whether policies can catch up to the dangerous realities of a rapidly changing climate in time to avoid disaster. Will we come together to stabilize the climate? Or are we to be the last generation to live on a planet that can support complex civilization?
2. Loose nukes. We are all in danger from loose nukes, the spread of nuclear materials around the world, and nuclear warfare between India and Pakistan or other nuclear-armed adversaries. Ridding the world of nuclear weapons may be the only way of avoiding a nuclear catastrophe; figures across the political spectrum support such proposals, including former Secretary of State George Shultz. Will we have the political will to rid ourselves of this danger?
3. Mad Max world. Disruption of life-as-usual could come from economic collapse, runaway climate change, war, peak oil, pandemics, or some unforeseen combination of these and other factors. What makes these prospects especially terrifying are potential human responses to them. We could see either societal breakdown—in which each person turns on others in a battle for dominance or survival—or fascism, in which people allow all-powerful leaders to run things out of fear of chaos.
So which will it be? Are you hopeful or terrified by the coming year and by what we face in the coming decades? What I keep coming back to is this: we humans have the free will to make choices that assure our collective survival, or to do otherwise. We do have the creativity, compassion, and intelligence to build on the best possibilities while averting the worst. This historic moment will test everything we have built and everything our ancestors have passed down to us. The answers are readily available, embedded in all the world’s spiritual traditions, in all the mothers and fathers who have sacrificed to make a good life for their children, and in all the peacemakers who have worked to build a better world for everyone. Will we make the choices for a just and sustainable world? We know, as Obama says, that, indeed, Yes! we can. But will we?
[Sarah van Gelder is the Executive Editor of YES! Magazine.]
Source / YES! Magazine
The United States once again leads the world in exporting weapons
A $7 billion missile-defense system for the United Arab Emirates. An estimated $15 billion potential sale of Lockheed Martin’s brand-new fighter plane to Israel. Billions of dollars in weaponry for Taiwan and Turkey. These and other recent deals helped make the United States the world’s leading arms-exporting nation.
In 2007, U.S. foreign military sales agreements totaled more than $32 billion — nearly triple the amount during President Bush’s first full year in office.
The Pentagon routinely justifies weapons sales as “promoting regional stability,” but many of these arms end up in the world’s war zones. In 2006 and 2007, the five biggest recipients of U.S. weapons were Pakistan ($3.5 billion), Iraq ($2.2 billion), Israel ($2.2 billion), Afghanistan ($1.9 billion) and Colombia ($580 million) — all countries where conflict rages.
In Pakistan, the fighting ranges from communal violence and state repression, to attacks against India, to deadly battles between Pakistani military and al Qaeda forces in the northwest provinces. Israel has used U.S.-supplied weapons in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as in the 2006 invasion of Lebanon. Colombia uses U.S. weaponry to fight the drug war. Of the 27 major conflicts during 2006 and 2007, 19 of them involved U.S-supplied weapons.
While full data is not yet available for 2008, the United States continues to flood warzones with more destabilizing weapons. In 2008, the Pentagon brokered more than $12.5 billion in possible foreign military sales to Iraq, including guns, ammunition, tanks and attack helicopters.
Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi analyst with American Friends Service Committee, notes the chance that this weaponry will promote peace and democracy in Iraq is slim.
“The current Iraqi armed forces are the same forces and militias that have been committing ethnic and sectarian cleansing during the last years and they have a violent record full of human rights violations, torture and assassinations,” says Jarrar.
What’s more, the United States cannot successfully track its weapons. Hundreds of thousands of U.S.-supplied pistols and automatic weapons destined for Iraqi security forces between 2004 and 2005 remain lost, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The Pentagon has “no idea where they are,” Rachel Stohl, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information, a national-security think tank, told the Washington Post in 2007. “It likely means that the United States is unintentionally providing weapons to bad actors.”
U.S. law curbs weapons sales to countries engaged in a “gross and consistent” pattern of human rights abuses or to countries using U.S. weapons for aggressive purposes. But these requirements are often set aside in favor of short-term objectives.
Michael Klare, director of the Amherst, Mass.-based Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies, has followed the arms trade for decades. He discounts official claims that the delivery of arms can help promote stability.
“The more we help one side, the more that regime’s opponents are driven to seek arms from another supplier, leading to an inevitable spiral of arms buying, provocation and conflict,” Klare says.
According to Stohl, “The Bush administration has demonstrated a willingness to provide weapons and military training to weak and failing states and countries that have been repeatedly criticized by the U.S. State Department for human rights violations, lack of democracy and even support of terrorism.”
The Obama administration could mark a new era in arms trade. On the campaign trail, Obama expressed openness to signing the global cluster munitions ban, but he has yet to speak about a global Arms Trade Treaty — which would establish more rigorous conditions for weapons exports — or about curbing weapons sales, in general.
“The arms trade is never a panacea for instability,” Klare says. “It can only enflame regional tensions and heighten the risk of war.”
[Frida Berrigan is a senior program associate with the New America Foundation’s Arms and Security Initiative and a member of the Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World.]
Source / In These Times
Modesty was the tone of Cuba´s celebration of its first half-century of official revolution.
Prior to the devastating hurricanes last fall, the government had planned a major celebration with visiting foreign presidents and military parades. Because of this natural setback and other economic setbacks—the global economic crisis which has reduced the price of export resources such as nickel and sugar and the number of tourists—the government toned down its plans limiting its celebration to meet austere realities. No foreign leaders were present.
The national act was held in Cespedes Park, in Santiago de Cuba, where Fidel spoke on January 1, 1959 after taking over the city. The area is small and seats only 3000 people. Almost all the invited guests were Cubans. The streets around the park were nearly deserted with the exception of a few civilian block guards and security personnel. There were no cheering crowds.
In the rest of Cuba, celebrations were limited to outdoor musical shows.
The act in Santiago de Cuba was covered by about 120-150 foreign journalists transported by aircraft to the city and then in four buses from the airport. I did not see any organized international solidarity brigades or delegations as previously expected.
A documentary was shown on a dozen outdoor screens during the first hour of the one hour and forty-five minute act. There were two dances, a few songs and poems honoring martyrs of the revolutionary struggle. Then President Raul Castro spoke for half-an-hour. He was briefly interrupted six times by modest applauses.
This is a brief summary of the essence of his speech, and not necessarily transcribed in sequence.
“We have transformed dreams into realities…Our revolution is a permanent struggle, which continues today and will for the next 50 years… Today the revolution is stronger than ever.”
In regards the last citation, Raul referred immediately afterwards to the famous speech that Fidel made to students on November 17, 2005. Fidel said, in essence, that the enemy cannot destroy the revolution but that Cubans can—because of lack of revolutionary morality and poor production—and it would be their fault.
This seems, to my way of thinking, to be a contradiction to the thought expressed that the revolution is stronger than ever. Some delegates told me afterwards that they thought Raul was right because Cuba always lands on its feet and resists the worst of what the enemy launches at them. However, many Cubans are fleeing the land in order to improve their economic possibilities and many Cubans with whom I have worked during the eight years I lived here do not share these delegates opinion. The double economy is a divisive factor yet Raul chose not to delve into this theme.
The only time in which Raul spoke of internal problems was in reference to persons who chose not to work but to hustle as parasites, seeking the easy life. He quickly mentioned that criticism was useful but warned against division, which leads to defeat.
Raul sketched the history of US subversion, direct and indirect, violent and economic against Cuba during the entire history. The US, and its Cuban exile terrorists, have murdered 3,478 Cubans and handicapped 2099. “Liberty has a high price,” Raul concluded.
In three occasions, Raul referred to Fidel and his historic role. These were the points of greatest applause.
For a veteran following the Cuban revolution for half-a-century, I was disappointed at the austerity of its official celebration.
See video of Norwegian doctor describing conditions in Gaza below.
Is the UN Complicit in Israel’s Massacre in Gaza?
By Omar Barghouti / January 02, 2009
A friend forwarded to me the most original greeting for the New Year: “I wish in 2009 a horrible year for all war criminals and their accomplices.” I could not but think of whether some UN officials can be counted among such “accomplices.”
Over the last two days, various UN officials stated that the percentage of civilians among those Palestinians killed in the current Israeli war of aggression on Gaza is about “25%” and is “likely to increase.” Assuming the best of intentions, stating such a painfully low figure reflects shabby research or scandalous incompetence. At worst, it reveals intentional deception and misinformation that can only benefit the already massive and well-oiled Israeli PR machine.
The United Nations’ complicity in Israel’s propaganda war is the latest, albeit hardly ever mentioned, dimension of the international organization’s utter failure in defending its principles, foremost among which are the prevention of war and the promotion of peace, when performing such a duty is expected to stir the wrath of the US master and the uniquely influential Israel lobby. Not only has the UN General Secretary betrayed the very Charter of the UN and all relevant international law principles by failing to even condemn Israel’s massacre of civilians and targeting of civilian institutions and residential neighborhoods; the entire UN system has so far dealt with it as a “war” between two relatively symmetric forces, where the mightier side has sufficient justification to “defend itself,” but should do so more proportionately, while the weaker side is chiefly responsible for triggering the “armed conflict.”
Now, senior UN officials, excluding the particularly courageous and principled UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Richard Falk, and a few others, are only focusing on “women and children” victims of the massacre, implying, even if unintentionally, that all Palestinian men in Gaza are fair game for the Israeli killing machine. The tens of Palestinian civilian policemen that were butchered in the opening hours of the massive Israeli attack by dozens of fighter jets were, thus, conveniently dismissed by such irresponsible UN figures of casualties as Hamas “fighters,” more or less, that may be targeted with impunity. This is not to mention the scores of male teachers, doctors, workers, farmers and unemployed who were killed by Israel’s indiscriminate bombing in their workplaces, public offices, homes or streets and were not accounted for as civilian victims of Israel’s belligerent murder spree.
Above everything else, this UN discourse not only reduces close to half a million Palestinian men in that wretched, tormented and occupied coastal strip to “militants,” radical “fighters,” or whatever other nouns in currency nowadays in the astoundingly, but characteristically, biased western media coverage of the Israel “war crimes and crimes against humanity” in Gaza, as some international law experts have described them; it also treats them as already condemned criminals that deserve the capital punishment Israel has meted out on them. I am not an expert on the history of the UN, but I suspect this sets a new low, a precedent in dehumanizing an entire adult male population in a region of “conflict,” thereby justifying their fatal targeting or, at least, silently condoning it. But this should surprise no one as the same UN leaders have for 18 months watched in eerie silence or even indirectly justified, one way or another, Israel’s siege of Gaza which was described by Falk as a “prelude to genocide” and compared by him to Nazi crimes.
If one wants to be truly magnanimous and give those UN officials the benefit of the doubt — not something I would recommend at all, given the scale of the massacre and their verifiable complicity — one has to assume that they are quite confused as to how best to categorize the thousands of Palestinian victims of Israel’s war on Gaza, whether those injured or killed. A casual overview of Israeli army press statements and human rights organizations’ reports, however, will immediately dismiss the possibility that the UN figure of 25% was the product of clinical incompetence or technical ineptness, widely recognized trademarks of the organization.
A recent article published in the Washington Post, for instance, quoted a senior Israeli military official saying: “There are many aspects to Hamas, and we are trying to hit the whole spectrum, because everything is connected and everything supports terrorism against Israel.” An Israeli army spokeswoman went further stating. “Anything affiliated with Hamas is a legitimate target.” Given that, in the ghetto of Gaza, Hamas is effectively the “ruling” party — it was democratically elected, after all — and its network of social and charitable organizations are the largest provider of social services to the impoverished and besieged population, all of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, public schools, hospitals, universities, law and order organs, traffic police, sewage treatment and water purification stations, ministries providing vital services to the public, mosques, public theatres and many non-governmental institutions can technically be considered “affiliated” with Hamas.
Lest the reader feels that this is an exaggeration, today, in the first hours of the first day of the new year, the Israeli air force already bombed the following “targets” in Gaza: the Palestinian Legislative Council, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Justice. Earlier, several mosques were pulverised to the ground. So were main buildings in the Islamic University of Gaza, which serves 20,000 students. Ambulances and private homes were not spared either.
Even B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights organization that often issues sanitized, “balanced” or selective reports focusing on Israel’s less criminal behaviour in the OPT, was compelled to conclude that the Israeli army was intentionally targeting “what appear to be clear civilian objects” that are not “engaged in military action against Israel,” without making the distinction between male and female civilians. A statement from the organization on December 31st said:
For example, the military bombed the main police building in Gaza and killed, according to reports, forty-two Palestinians who were in a training course and were standing in formation at the time of the bombing. Participants in the course study first-aid, handling of public disturbances, human rights, public-safety exercises, and so forth. Following the course, the police officers are assigned to various arms of the police force in Gaza responsible for maintaining public order.
Another example is yesterday’s bombing of the government offices. These offices included the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Labor, Construction and Housing. An announcement made by the IDF Spokesperson’s Office regarding this attack stated that, ‘the attack was carried out in response to the ongoing rocket and mortar-shell fire carried out by Hamas over Israeli territory, and in the framework of IDF operations to strike at Hamas governmental infrastructure and members active in the organization.’
Just to drive the point closer to home for an average western reader who may have internalized over the years a perception of Israelis — inaccurately and quite deliberately depicted by Israeli and western propaganda as part of the “west” — as full humans and Palestinians, along with almost all global southerners, as relative humans, perhaps the following mirroring exercise is necessary.
Imagine if the Palestinian resistance, in exercising its otherwise perfectly legitimate, UN-sanctioned right to fight Israel’s occupation and apartheid, were to regard all institutions “affiliated” with the Israeli government as legitimate targets, justifying the bombing of universities, hospitals, civilian ministries, publicly-run synagogues, neighborhoods where government or army officials live or work, and other civilian “targets,” killing in 5 days only 1,600 Israelis and wounding 8,000 (four times the current toll in Gaza, given that Israel’s population is four times as large). What would the UN do? Would UN officials only count Israeli women and children victims? Would they call on both parties to “exercise restraint” or to end “the violence”? Morally, and even legally, this is not even a fair reversal of roles, for Israel, no matter what, remains the occupier and settler-colonial oppressor, while the indigenous Palestinians remain the colonized and oppressed.
The truth is the UN leadership, in the unipolar world that we are still living in and is perhaps on its way to be transformed to more multipolar space, has effectively turned into a rubber stamp bureau for US dictates. Ban Ki-Moon will go down in history as the most subservient and morally unqualified general secretary to ever lead the international organization. The only question remaining is whether one day he and his senior staff will stand trial for being accomplices in Israel’s war crimes, together with leaders of the US, the EU and many Arab regimes. In a more just world, governed by the rule of law, not the US-dominated rule of the jungle, they should.
* A Palestinian human rights activist and commentator.
Source / Z-Net
The Reality In Gaza
When I had a mild stroke two years ago, some assistance was needed at home to clean, prepare dinner, and help me with my exercises. I called a Bay Area organization, Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA, United and Active Women) and someone from their program Manos Cariñosos (Caring Hands) was there the next day. Let’s call her Lorelia.
Lorelia is a Mexicana without documents. She has one son who was born in the U.S., and an older son born in Mexico. She works hard for her rights by carefully paying her income tax and doing other tasks with legal help. She is persistent, a good cook (even of broccoli), and laughs at my jokes. Above all, she believes in MUA. When MUA went to New York to fight for the rights of domestic workers, Lorelia was there.
Employed mostly in private homes, domestic workers experience levels of exploitation and physical abuse rarely seen elsewhere. Mostly women and of color, they face those conditions without the protection of collective bargaining or other union tactics. As nannies, caregivers for the elderly, and housekeepers, they have remained almost invisible, their lives often akin to modern-day slavery. An estimated 1.5 million (U.S. Census Bureau) face these conditions.
Breaking A Long Silence
Four days in June 2008 marked an unforgettable challenge to those conditions: the first National Domestic Workers Congress, held in New York City. Over 100 workers representing 17 organizations from 11 cities shared stories of abuse and struggle in various meetings and workshops. The women spoke 6 different languages and had emigrated from more than 15 different countries—primarily Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, the Philippines, and India.
Staggeringly difficult to organize? It must have seemed so, at first, in the face of such a splintered workforce with no legal protection. To work a 14-hour day for less than minimum wage and be slapped or thrown against a wall for not wanting to work another 2 hours—as more than a few women recounted. No benefits and very low wages. They are hardly ever allowed to go out and if they do, someone is always “vigilando” (watching).
Domestic workers had first come together in numbers across the U.S at the 2007 U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta, forming the National Domestic Workers Alliance. It included Domestic Workers United in New York, Casa de Maryland, Damayan in Washington state, Filipino Workers Center and CHIRLA from Los Angeles, Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA), POWER (People Organizing to Win Employment Rights), the Women’s Collective of the Day Labor Program at La Raza Centro Legal, and others in the Bay Area. Its goal: to build power as a workforce nationally. A work plan was adopted and a committee selected.
The June Congress demonstrated a new strength. Ai-jen Poo described the gathering: “It was great to have workers from new places—Houston, Miami, San Antonio, Seattle, Denver. Some groups were just getting started. The first day was a lot of learning from each other and two tracks of political education: one on history, including slavery, and the second on gender and sexuality. The next day in a plenary we discussed different types of domestic worker organizing around the U.S. and then met with allies who want to organize around basic issues like war, global warming, the elections—it was important to connect our issues with larger issues.
“We had a march with 500 people to press for passage of the New York Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. In November 2008 a Democratic majority was elected to Congress in New York for the first time in 40 years, which changed the landscape of the campaign, observers said, and hopefully promised change in that state. This summer, workers from Casa Maryland scored an important victory in Montgomery County with the passage of the Household Workers Bill of Rights. It requires written contracts that spell out wages and benefits for nannies, housekeepers, and cooks working at least 20 hours a week, standards for living quarters for live-in employees, and fines for employers who violate the law.”
Maria, an older Mexican woman I interviewed, added a comment about the significance of that victory. “Because Casa Maryland is near Washington, DC, they have dealt with many women who work for diplomats in their homes. These women can be terribly abused, locked up like slaves. The diplomats have special legal status, outside the law—no one will investigate these cases.”
Other problems may also arise from legal barriers. Maria told the story of a worker who obtained an attorney from the Alliance’s legal “Centro,” but the local court refused to hear the case. “The woman worked in a two-story mansion with a huge amount of cleaning to do for so little money and under such bad conditions. The lawyers for her employer said she ‘was exaggerating,’ her work was not so hard, not so much.” Her lawyer wanted to videotape the inside of the house to show more clearly how much she had to do and how hard it was. The employer’s lawyers fought to prevent this, but finally the judge ruled that the video could be made. This was an important victory because “getting heard in court is a very long process,” Maria concluded.
With the Obama administration, there will be a new Secretary of Labor and the National Alliance hopes it may get some positive changes made. Ai-jen Poo explained, “We plan to work with international allies to help shape the first International Labor Organization convention on domestic workers in 2010. That still needs to be discussed with members.
“We hope to strengthen diversity of language and culture. It is still a challenge when people walk into a space and have to put on a translation headset to participate. But there was a lot of respect for people’s languages ….. At the Congreso, there were at least five languages spoken—probably more.”
“There was a lot of translation,” added Emma, a young woman from El Salvador. “Of course, when we can all talk together in the same language, there is a special warm feeling and it is easier to band together. During the breaks when we had a little snack or coffee together, it was very warm. We could be together like sisters, we could laugh and hug together.”
“But we are all fighting for the same thing. No importa la idioma/the language doesn’t matter. We have the same problems,” said Maria. The goal of the Congress was to communicate, to figure out how to continue building the broadest possible unity and what are the next steps.
“One of the most exciting pieces of all this,” Ai-jen continued, “is the idea that we can create a whole layer of working women of color that goes back to slavery and the exclusion of farmworkers. We are part of the labor movement, of the women’s movement, of the immigrant rights movement. We can be a bridge across those different sectors and strengthen them. And especially, we can revive the labor movement.”
Filipina Georgia Danani, who has 17 grandchildren, is owed $22,000 in back wages and is still fighting for her rights. She said, “We are different from most of the collective, who are cleaners. We are caregivers and focus more on the nature of our work. But we are all so marginalized and it’s important to form a collective voice to advocate for change…. We are planning more meetings and will have a Congress every other year. It is a good feeling to be all women, all mothers, all people of color, all oppressed, suffering isolation and loneliness. We are working for respect, we know we are not alone.”
Back in San Francisco, telling me about the Congress, Lorelia sounded proud beneath her Mexican-style working-class modesty. She summed it all up with two words: “buen trabajo” (“good job”). That’s all. And a little smile.
[Elizabeth (Betita) Martínez is a longtime activist, teacher, and writer whose most recent book is 500 Years of Chicana Women’s History (bilingual). With thanks to Andrea Cristina Mercado at MUA for her help with this article.]
Source / Z-Net Magazine
The blogosphere is now thick with foreign policy discussions about the impending new administration, and on the Left side, sharply divided between those with substantial hope (that is, evidence through appointments), especially Tom Hayden; and those with less than no hope–and a great deal of anticipatory hostility. Among the most hopeful and precise, but without any location that I know of on the political scale is, interestingly, Deepak Chopra.
Let me make a small contribution without presuming that I am doing much but providing food for thought, and to harsh critics, a moving target. We might informally call this orientation: “Demobilize the Empire.”
What I propose is an “Obama Force,” that is a much scaled-down military or peace-converted military with an entirely different purpose than the military-intelligence establishment of the present. I call it the Obama Force because in carrying out peaceful, reconstruction-related activities, it would transform the views of the majority of the world toward the US, realizing a hope that is identified practically everywhere, even in nations like Colombia with popular but severely repressive rightwing rulers, with the three words “Barack Hussein Obama.”
What would the Obama Force look like? Nearly all the bases for US military occupation abroad would be closed or phased into other tasks, done in such a fashion that no future president could easily reverse the direction and restore the occupations constant since, at least, 1945. Most clearly, the signal to be sent to the world is that the reorientation of the military from Western Europe toward the oil lines of the Third World would not continue. It would be made clear that the US presence, if it continued, would not be related to US corporate interests, and would not halt the repatriation of resources from US (or any other) foreign so-called investors.
The military forces would also be democratized, through the formation of an American Servicemen’s Union or some such successor to older unionization efforts. Officers would be forbidden to stop these activities. Also, retiring and retired officers would be forbidden to join the boards of corporations building equipment or offering supplies to tax-funded purchases. This would close down the most bloated sector of the US population apart from crooked investors, and with the same purpose.
As part of the same policy, CIA stations would be mainly closed, or converted in such a way as to signal to each host country that any spying or interference (of the kind now carried on in Bolivia, with the US seeking to overthrown an elected government by support of the traditionally rich and powerful) would be met with expulsion and/or arrest and prosecution by the host country, without protest from the United States.
The purposes of US involvement would be to defend the ecological integrity of societies by aiding those working toward sustainability and recovery; and second, toward aiding real democracy, i.e., the redivision of wealth and power. As Chopra among others has proposed, those in the military, top brass to bottom grunt, would re-engage themselves usefully in rebuilding infrastructure, for starters. (In that context, of course, unions among military rank-and-file will make more obvious sense.) Destroyers and submarines would be abandoned, all future weapons technology research would be abandoned, and brutally destructive technologies now in use, including Depleted Uranium weapons (the battlefield reintroduction of the nuclear weaponry, first used by senior George Bush, then by Bill Clinton and junior Bush, with horrific results), cluster bombs, etc., would be immediately taken out of arsenals and destroyed. Now-unused military bases would be converted into housing for the world’s poor, including the American poor.
Are these proposals utopian? In one sense, yes. Since 1945, militarization of the peacetime economy and society has been accepted by Democrats and Republicans alike, as Military Keynesianism. Before 1940, the abuse of Latin American populations by US military forces were a regular feature of hemispheric life, and plenty of other examples can be found including the Philippines, the rehearsal for the Vietnam War.
Yet the size and presence of the military within US domestic life was small, and most Americans shared the view that it should remain small.as it logically would have returned in 1945 (when broken Russia was no real threat) or 1990 (when the Russian supposed threat disappeared). We can look to an older society not dependent upon military spending as something historically rooted in the disillusionment with the First World War, and now revived through disillusionment with every war, Korea or Vietnam onward.
I have gone on long enough now, but it should be clear that even if Obama were to agree with these general premises and seek to walk back the global full-court-press that has been bipartisan politics for a half century, opposition against him would gather on all sides. Among the most vehement, we may note in closing, are the “Humanitarian Hawks” of the Samantha Power stripe. Even more than their neoconservative counterparts now busy licking wounds, with large salaries, in the think tanks, the liberal hawks urgently need successful wars on any terms so as to restore them and their reputations, their book deals and six figure college salaries, within the changing context of liberalism.
[Paul Buhle is an educator and a historian. He published the New Left journal Radical America during the 1960s and has written or edited many books on radicalism and culture. He now organizes leftwing comic books.]
Also see 9 Steps to Peace for Obama in the New Year / by Deepak Chopra / AlterNet / January 1, 2009
Thorne Webb Dreyer, Editor
