Hillary the Hawk

Posted on April 23, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer


Clinton Threatens to ‘Obliterate’ Iran
By Robert Scheer / April 22, 2008

How proud the Clintonistas must be. They have learned how to rival what Hillary once termed the “vast right-wing conspiracy” in the effort to destroy a viable Democratic leader who dares to stand in the way of their ambitions. The tactics used to kneecap Barack Obama are the same as had been turned on Bill Clinton in earlier times, from radical-baiting associates to challenging his resolve in protecting the nation from foreign enemies. Sen. Clinton’s eminently sensible and centrist—to a fault—opponent is now viewed as weak and even vaguely unpatriotic because he is thoughtful. Neither Karl Rove nor Dick Morris could have done a better job.

On primary election day in Pennsylvania, even with polls showing her well ahead in that state, Hillary went lower in her grab for votes. Seizing upon a question as to how she would respond to a nuclear attack by Iran, which doesn’t have nuclear weapons, on Israel, which does, Hillary mocked reasoned discourse by promising to “totally obliterate them,” in an apparent reference to the population of Iran. That is not a word gaffe; it is an assertion of the right of our nation to commit genocide on an unprecedented scale.

Shouldn’t the potential leader of a nation that used nuclear bombs to obliterate hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese employ extreme caution before making such a threat? Neither the Japanese then nor the Iranian people now were in a position to hold their leaders accountable, and to approve such collective punishment of innocents is to endorse terrorism. This from a candidate who attacked her opponent for suggesting targeted strikes against militants in Pakistan and derided his openness to negotiations with other national leaders as an irresponsible commitment on the part of a contender for the presidency.

Clearly the heat of a campaign is not the proper setting for consideration of a response to a threat from a nation that is a long way from developing nuclear weapons. Obviously the danger of Iran’s developing such weapons can be met with a range of alternatives, from the diplomatic to the military, that do not involve genocide and at any rate must be considered in moral and not solely political terms. Or is it base political ambition that would guide Clinton if she received that middle-of-the-night phone call?

If so, it cannot be assumed that Hillary Clinton as president would be less irrationally hawkish and more restrained in the unleashing of military force than John McCain. The latter, at least, has personal experience with the true, on-the-ground costs of militarism gone wild. Yes, I know that McCain still holds out the hope of winning the Iraq war that both he and Hillary originally endorsed, but for Clinton to raise the rhetoric against Iran in the midst of a campaign is hardly the path to Mideast peace, whether it concerns Israel or Iraq. It is bizarre that a politician who bought into the phony threat about Iraq’s nonexistent WMD arsenal now plays political games with the alleged threat posed by Iran.

The war has accomplished only one major change in the configuration of Mideast power: Iran now holds uncontested supremacy as the region’s key player. Whatever chance there is for stability in Iraq now depends on the blessings of the ayatollahs of Iran, whose surrogates were put in power in Baghdad as a consequence of the American invasion. It is totally hypocritical for Clinton or McCain to now talk about getting tough with Iran over the nuclear weapons issue, when both contributed so mightily to squandering U.S. leverage over Tehran.

To meet that potential nuclear weapons threat from Iran requires a serious, non-rhetorical, multinational response that makes clear that no nation has the right to obliterate the population of another, and that nations, even our own, that claim that right should be challenged as unacceptably barbaric. Instead, Clinton played into the thoughts of fanatics throughout the world who believe that might makes right and who take the United States—which spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined (including many billions on new sophisticated and “usable” nuclear weapons)—as both their enemy and an example to emulate.

What better argument do the ayatollahs need to justify their obtaining a nuclear “deterrent” than that the possible leader of the first nation to develop nuclear weapons, and the only one to ever use them to kill people, now threatens the people of Iran with obliteration?

Source. / TruthDig
Thanks to David Hamilton / The Rag Blog

Clinton warns Iran of U.S. nuclear response

April 21: Hillary Clinton talks with Countdown’s Keith Olbermann on the eve of the crucial Pennsylvania primary.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton confirmed Monday that as president she would be willing to use nuclear weapons against Iran if it were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel.

Clinton’s remarks, made in an interview on MSNBC’s “Countdown With Keith Olbermann,” clarified a statement she made last week in a Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia. In that debate, Clinton, D-N.Y., said an Iranian attack on Israel would bring “massive retaliation,” without defining what the phrase meant.

In the interview Monday, Clinton affirmed that she would warn Iran’s leaders that “their use of nuclear weapons against Israel would provoke a nuclear response from the United States.”

Read the rest here here. / MSNBC / The Rag Blog

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High Price of Oil and the Global Economy

Posted on April 23, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Paris sez: No prob!

Smooth Sailing Ahead

Its easy to disprove the pessimism below. When we had the great depression, all we had to do was to go discover enough new US oil to keep the economy expanding and then things eventually bounced back, right?

Likewise, as soon as we win our wars against terrorism in the main oil producing regions of the world, the Saudis will want to sell us lots of cheap oil out of gratitude. And also the US government can then shift its spending to buying a bunch of cheap Chinese solar energy and wind stuff so we won’t have to burn coal. And also Detroit can shift to building millions of cheap hybrid cars next year made with cheap Chinese steel so we can junk our SUVs and we won’t have to burn ethanol made from corn, so therefore food prices will stop going up so fast, etc. Goodbye stagflation.

And then its smooth sailing into the sunrise, complete with violins playing.

Roger Baker / April 23, 2008 / The Rag Blog

Surge in oil prices prompts warnings of global recession
By Danny Fortson / April 23, 2008

The price of oil has surged to a new record above $119 per barrel. Given the spate of “Record Oil Price!” stories that have filled newspapers in recent months, investors might be inclined to dismiss the latest threshold crossed – if it weren’t for the increasingly dire warnings being issued about the havoc that expensive oil may wreak on the global economy.

The latest came yesterday, courtesy of the head of the International Energy Agency, Nobuo Tanaka. The soaring price of oil, he warned, may be what tips the global economy into recession. “I have some concern” about an oil-induced recession, said Mr Tanaka, speaking at the International Energy Forum in Rome. The unprecedented territory into which the price has travelled is having a “negative impact on economic growth”, he added.

The inexorable rise of the cost of the black stuff – it closed yesterday at $119.37 in New York – has become a source of growing concern for politicians and economists already worried about the slowing economies of Western Europe and America. In the past five years, it has nearly quintupled; in the past two months, it has surged by nearly a third.

Mr Tanaka’s comments came on the heels of a speech in which he delivered a stark message to the world’s assembled oil barons.

“The world’s energy economy is on an unsustainable pathway. In the short-to-medium term, there is an urgent need for investment to restore an adequate cushion between oil supply and demand,” he said. “As shown by the World Energy Outlook [report], unless government policies change, world energy demand will grow by 55 per cent by 2030.”

With the credit crunch reverberating further into the real economy, the worry is that the oil price (along with the rocketing prices of other commodities) could push major economies into “stagflation” – no growth coupled with inflation.

Opec, the cartel of oil producing nations that pumps about a third of the world’s oil, has tried to deflect calls from big consuming nations such as America and in Western Europe by saying the price run-up can be blamed on traders and speculators. This is partly true. The falling value of the dollar has led investors to look for a hedge against the falling greenback. Commodities in high demand and valued in dollars, have proved an enticing investment. It is this argument that Opec has relied on to keep production steady. Abdullah al-Badri, the cartel’s secretary-general, confirmed this week that it has no intention of ramping up production. The most recent run of rising prices was in fact set off by Saudi Arabia cutting its production. It is now the only country that can realistically boost production, as the rest of Opec members are operating at capacity.

“What they are worried about is that demand is going to decline in the coming months and they don’t want to flood the market and see the price go south,” said Muhammad-Ali Zainy, a senior energy economist at the Centre for Global Energy Studies. According to its research, Saudi Arabia has no incentive to provide relief as the government needs the oil price to remain at at least $70 per barrel in order to meet its own budget requirements. Mr Zainy predicted that the oil price will average about $99 per barrel this year.

The major oil companies, meanwhile, are having to do everything in their power just to replace fields that are running dry, let alone make new discoveries to boost production. Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s biggest oil company, is ploughing $25bn (£12.5bn) into exploration and production annually but expects output to fall over the next several years. An oil-induced recession would of course lead to a relaxation of its price. Given the rising pressure it is putting on consumers, a slowdown could very well happen.

In the UK, for example, the top six energy suppliers all pushed through major increases – about 15 per cent – to gas and electricity prices this year due largely to the rising price of wholesale gas, which is linked to the price of oil. Since nPower kicked off the rate rises in January, wholesale gas prices have jumped by another 45 per cent, while electricity prices have leapt by a quarter.

Source. / The Independent, UK / The Rag Blog

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Hayden and Ayers on Fact and Fantasy

Posted on April 22, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer


Why Hillary Makes My Wife Scream
By Tom Hayden / April 22, 2008

[Tom Hayden is a highly-respected state senator in California and was one of the founders of Progressives for Obama. In the early 1960’s Hayden was a prime mover behind the major organizational force in the New Left, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and was the primary author of that group’s founding document, The Port Huron Statement.]

My wife Barbara has begun yelling at the television set every time she hears Hillary Clinton. This is abnormal behavior since Barbara is a meditative practitioner of everything peaceful and organic, and is inspired by Barack’s transformational appeal.

For Barbara, Hillary has become the screech on the blackboard. From First Lady to Lady Macbeth.

It’s getting to me as well. Last year, I was somewhat reconciled to the prospect of supporting and pressuring Hillary as the nominee amidst the rising tide of my friends who already hated her, irrationally I thought. I was one of those people Barack accuses of being willing to settle. I even had framed a flattering autographed message from Hillary. But as the campaign has gone on and on, her signed portrait still leans against the wall in my study. I don’t know where she belongs anymore.

At least Hillary was a known quantity in my life. I knew of the danger of her becoming more and more hawkish as she tried to break the ultimate glass ceiling. I also knew that she could be forced to change course if public opinion was fiercely opposed to the war. And I knew she was familiar with radical social causes from her own life experience in the Sixties. So my progressive task seemed clear: help build an anti-war force powerful enough to make it politically necessary to end the war. Been there, done that. And in the process, finally put a woman in the White House. A soothing bonus. But as the Obama campaign gained momentum, Hillary began morphing into the persona that has my pacifist wife screaming at the television set.

Going negative doesn’t begin to describe what has happened. Hillary is going over the edge. Even worse are the flacks she sends before the cameras on her behalf, like that Kiki person who smirks and shakes her head at the camera every time she fields a question. Or the real carnivores, like Howard Wolfson, Lanny Davis and James Carville whose sneering smugness prevents countless women like my wife from considering Hillary at all.

To use the current terminology, Hillary people are bitter people, even more bitter than the white working class voters Barack has talked about. Because they circle the wagons so tightly, they don’t recognize how identical, self-reinforcing and out-of-touch they are.

To take just one example, the imagined association between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers will suffice. Hillary is blind to her own roots in the Sixties. In one college speech she spoke of ecstatic transcendence; in another, she said, “our social indictment has broadened. Where once we exposed the quality of life in the world of the South and the ghettos, now we condemn the quality of work in factories and corporations. Where once we assaulted the exploitation of man, now we decry the destruction of nature as well. How much long can we let corporations run us?” She was in Chicago for three nights during the 1968 street confrontations. She chaired the 1970 Yale law school meeting where students voted to join a national student strike again an “unconscionable expansion of a war that should never have been waged.” She was involved in the New Haven defense of Bobby Seale during his murder trial in 1970, as the lead scheduler of student monitors. She surely agreed with Yale president Kingman Brewster that a black revolutionary couldn’t get a fair trial in America. She wrote that abused children were citizens with the same rights as their parents. [75] Most significantly in terms of her recent attacks on Barack, after Yale law school, Hillary went to work for the left-wing Bay Area law firm of Truehaft, Walker and Burnstein, which specialized in Black Panthers and West Coast labor leaders prosecuted for being communists. Two of the firm’s partners, according to Treuhaft, were communists and the two others “tolerated communists”. Then she went on to Washington to help impeach Richard Nixon, whose career was built on smearing and destroying the careers of people through vague insinuations about their backgrounds and associates. [all citations from Carl Bernstein’s sympathetic biography, A Woman in Charge, 2007, pp. 67,69,70,75, 83]

All these were honorable words and associations in my mind, but doesn’t she see how the Hillary of today would accuse the Hillary of the Sixties of associating with black revolutionaries who fought gun battles with police officers, and defending pro-communist lawyers who backed communists? Doesn’t the Rev. Jeremiah Wright whom Hillary attacks today represent the very essence of the black radicals Hillary was associating with in those days? And isn’t the Hillary of today becoming the same kind of guilt-by-association insinuator as the Richard Nixon she worked to impeach?

It is as if Hillary Clinton is engaged in a toxic transmission onto Barack Obama of every outrageous insult and accusation ever inflicted on her by the American Right over the decades. She is running against what she might have become. Too much politics dries the soul of the idealist.

It is abundantly clear that the Clintons, working with FOX News and manipulating old Clinton staffers like George Stephanopoulos, are trying, at least unconsciously, to so damage Barack Obama that he will be perceived as “unelectable” to Democratic super-delegates. It is also clear that the campaign of defamation against Obama has resulted in higher negative ratings for Hillary Clinton. She therefore is threatening the Democratic Party’s chances for the White House whether or not she is the nominee.

Since no one in the party leadership seems able or willing to intervene against this self-destructive downward spiral, perhaps progressives need to consider responding in the only way politicians sometimes understand. If they can’t hear us screaming at the television sets, we can send a message that the Clintons are acting as if they prefer John McCain to Barack Obama. And follow it up with another message: if Clinton doesn’t immediately cease her path of destruction, millions of young voters and black voters may not send checks, may not knock on doors, and may not even vote for her if she becomes the nominee. That’s not a threat, that’s the reality she is creating.

Source. / Progressives For Obama / The Rag Blog

My Episodic Notoriety: Fact and Fantasy
By Bill Ayers

[Hillary Clinton and the media are engaged in a ‘terrorist’ smear campaign against Obama that involves telling lies against Bill Ayers and others as well. Clinton apparantly has no shame, since plenty could be said about her activities in the 1960s, taking place when Obama was eight years old. We let Ayers speak for himself.]

Day in and day out I go about my business, I hang out with my kids and my grandchildren, take care of the elders, I go to work, I teach and I write, I organize and I participate in the never-ending effort to build a powerful movement for peace and social justice; now and then (and unpredictably) I appear in the newspapers or on TV with a reference to my book Fugitive Days, a memoir of the revolutionary action and militant resistance to the Viet Nam War—the years of miracle and wonder—and some fantastic assertions about what I did, what I said, and what I believe. The other night, for example, I heard Sean Hannity tell Senator John McCain that I was an unrepentant terrorist who had written an article on September 11, 2001 extolling bombings against the U.S., and even advocating more terrorist bombs. Senator McCain couldn’t believe it, and neither could I.

My e-mail and my voice-mail filled up with hate, as happens, mostly men with too much time on their hands I imagined, all of them venting and sweating and breathing heavily, a few threats—”Watch out!”; “You deserve to be shot”; and from satan@hell.com, “I’m coming to get you and when I do, I’ll waterboard you”—all of it wildly uninformed. I’ve written a lot about the Viet Nam period, about politics, about schools and social justice, and I read and speak about all of it. I encourage people to argue, to agree or disagree, to discuss and struggle, to engage in conversation. I believe deeply in the pedagogical possibilities of dialogue—of listening with the possibility of being changed, and of speaking with the possibility of being heard—and I believe in revitalizing the public square, resisting the eclipse of the public and expanding the public space, searching for a more robust and participatory democracy. Talking to one another can help.

So in that spirit here is another attempt at clarity:

1. Regrets. I’m often quoted saying that I have “no regrets.” This is not true. For anyone paying attention—and I try to stay wide-awake to the world around me all/ways—life brings misgivings, doubts, uncertainty, loss, regret. I’m sometimes asked if I regret anything I did to oppose the war in Viet Nam, and I say “no, I don’t regret anything I did to try to stop the slaughter of millions of human beings by my own government.” Sometimes I add, “I don’t think I did enough.” This is then elided: he has no regrets for setting bombs and thinks there should be more bombings.

The illegal, murderous, imperial war against Viet Nam was a catastrophe for the Vietnamese, a disaster for Americans, and a world tragedy. Many of us understood this, and many tried to stop the war. Those of us who tried recognize that our efforts were inadequate: the war dragged on for a decade, thousands were slaughtered every week, and we couldn’t stop it. In the end the U.S. military was defeated and the war ended, but we surely didn’t do enough.

2. Terror. Terrorism—according to both official U.S. policy and the U.N.—is the use or threat of random violence to intimidate, frighten, or coerce a population toward some political end. This means, of course, that terrorism is not the exclusive province of a cult, a religious sect, or a group of fanatics. It can be any of these, but it can also be—and often is—executed by governments and states. A bombing in a café in Israel is terrorism, and an Israeli assault on a neighborhood in Gaza is terrorism; the September 11 attacks were acts of terrorism, and the U.S. bombings in Viet Nam for a decade were acts of terrorism. Terrorism is never justifiable, even in a just cause—the Union fight in the 1860’s was just, for example, but Shernan’s March to the Sea was indefensible terror. I’ve never advocated terrorism, never participated in it, never defended it. The U.S. government, by contrast, does it routinely and defends the use of it in its own cause consistently.

3. Imperialism. I’m against it, and if Sean Hannity and others were honest, this is the ground they would fight me on. Capitalism played its role historically and is exhausted as a force for progress: built on exploitation, theft, conquest, war, and racism, capitalism and imperialism must be defeated and a world revolution—a revolution against war and racism and materialism, a revolution based on human solidarity and love, cooperation and the common good—must win. We begin by releasing our most hopeful dreams and our most radical imaginations: a better world is both possible and necessary. We need to bring our imaginations together and forge an unbreakable human alliance. We need to unite to transform and save ourselves as we fight to change the world.

Source. / Bill Ayers blog / The Rag Blog

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Paul Hipp : Far Too Many True Stories

Posted on April 22, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Pennsylvania Stars

As my home state of Pennsylvania heads to the polls I thought I would post this song. It is based on far too many true stories.

Paul Hipp / April 22, 2008

Source.

Blogger of War

Musician/Actor/Filmmaker Paul Hipp’s debut CD, “Blog Of War” features new tunes along with fleshed out versions of some of his Huffington Post blogs. The official release date in April 8 but the cd can be purchased right now! For more info please go to PaulHipp.com

Paul recently wrote and produced several songs for Hilary Duff, which she performs in the upcoming feature film “War, Inc.” starring John Cusack and Ben Kingsley.

Paul came up playing music on the streets of Greenwhich Village for tips to pay for acting class with the legendary Mira Rostova and William Hickey. It was during this time that Paul met and started writing songs with the great Carole King. Also during this time Paul met famed indie filmmaker Abel Ferarra. Paul would go on to collaborate on several film and music projects with Ferarra including “Bad Lieutenant” in which Paul plays Jesus Christ and provides the end credit theme along with Ferarra.

Paul has appeared in over over 30 feature films. Upcoming films include “Dirt Nap”, which Paul stars in along with DB Sweeney, John C. McGinley and Ed Harris and director Ernst Gossner’s award winning feature “South Of Pico.”

On the small screen Paul has appeared in approximately one billion TV shows.

Paul made his feature film directorial debut with “Death Of A Dog” in 2001. Executive produced by Abel Ferrara the film stars Julie Kessler and Edie Falco.

Paul’s next film as writer/director “Burn Out” will be completed next spring.

On stage Paul has appeared in many off-Broadway shows and was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award in London and a Tony for his work on Broadway.

Source. / Huffington Post / The Rag Blog

Also see more of Paul’s biting musical videos at MySpace/Paul Hipp.

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Renters Getting Kicked by Housing Crisis, Too

Posted on April 22, 2008 by RagBlog

Let’s recall what this really means: we are bailing the banks out while average Americans suffer the consequences of a corrupt financial system. We get kicked out of our homes, lose deposits, have to find new places to live, but also must pay the bill to cover banking losses. It stinks, but is a natural result of capitalism.

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog

Renters can’t escape housing foreclosure crisis
By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY

On a chilly night after work last November, Christopher and Jenell Chow relaxed, watching the evening news while their children scampered around their rented two-story stucco home. Someone knocked at the door.

An officer was standing on the doorstep, eviction papers in hand. That’s when the Chows learned that the North Las Vegas home they’d rented for two years was in default. They had 30 days to move out and find a new home for their five children, Jenell’s live-in mother, their two black Labs and a cat. The stress was severe: Jenell says she suffered a miscarriage the day before they moved out.

“We felt dumbfounded,” says Jenell, a stay-at-home mom. She and her husband, an electrician, lost their $5,000 rental deposit. “We would have been homeless if someone from our church hadn’t loaned us money for a deposit on another place. I believe the stress caused my miscarriage.”

The most brutal real estate slump in decades is reverberating through the rental market. Renters in properties that are being foreclosed on are being evicted. Homeowners forced into foreclosure are becoming tenants again and driving up rents. And renters not yet ready to buy a home — shut out by stricter lending rules or hoping to buy after prices fall still further — are creating a dynamic shift: Even as real estate is sputtering, the rental market is surging.

Rents, in fact, are accelerating in many markets across the USA. Vacancy rates are down from last year, and average rent is projected to rise 5.3% in 2008, up from a 3.1% increase in 2007, according to the National Association of Realtors. In some cities, rents are climbing at a double-digit clip.

In San Francisco, the median rent rose 14.6%, to $1,810 a month in the first quarter this year compared with a year earlier, according to an analysis by Newton, Mass.-based Investment Instruments. The median rent in Seattle rose 10.3%, to $1,211, in the same period. In Washington, D.C., the median rent rose nearly 5%, to $1,687.

Read the rest here. / USA Today

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Yo, America… Yes, We Can !!!

Posted on April 22, 2008 by RagBlog

Baracky: The Movie

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Edward Herman on the Imperial New World Order

Posted on April 22, 2008 by RagBlog

Principles of the Imperial New World Order
By Edward S. Herman and David Peterson / April 21, 2008

We have to recognize that in the Imperial New World Order (INWO), with the Soviet Union gone, and an aggressive and highly militarized United States projecting its great power across the globe, destabilizing and devastating in all its major areas of operation in the alleged interest of liberation and stability, a revised set of principles should be discernible. Most of these are hardly new, but even more audaciously than in the past they translate power relationships into affirmations of rights or the denial of these very same rights, with the ensuing double standards applicable pretty much across the board. The real-world significance of these INWO principles thus depends on three factors: (a) whether Washington affirms them for itself (and directly or by implication for its close allies, clients and hangers-on); (b) whether Washington denies them to its enemies; and (c) whether Washington doesn’t care one way or the other. As we show below, these power-based affirmations or denials of rights are accepted among the powerful, from the leaders of the Western states, political candidates, and top UN officials, to the establishment media and the intellectuals whose voices can be heard. They represent the institutionalization of a system of power in which justice is inoperative and its perversion hidden in clouds of rhetoric and obfuscation.

1. Aggression rights: The United States enjoys first-class aggression rights and has long been able to violate the UN Charter prohibition against the “supreme international crime” as a matter of course and without the slightest penalty (Vietnam and the whole of Indochina, Panama, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq). Its most important client, Israel, has been able to do the same (Lebanon in 1982 and 2006, along with Syria, Algeria, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories), also without penalty. Among the intellectual and political classes of both countries, the objections raised to these aggressions have been almost entirely pragmatic and concerned with their effectiveness, costs (to the aggressor), and possible mismanagement. But the aggression rights have not been challenged, either within the aggressing states or internationally. The rule of law implicitly applies only to others.

In sharp contrast, in the cases of cross-border invasions by countries on the U.S. and Western enemies-list, such as Vietnam invading Cambodia in 1979 or Iraq occupying Kuwait in 1990, indignation by Western leaders and pundits is intense, and both invaders were severely punished (a retaliatory Chinese invasion of Vietnam, U.S. sanctions against Vietnam, and the Khmer Rouge awarded Cambodia’s seat at the UN; Iraq forced out of Kuwait by a massive Security Council-approved U.S.-led war that devastated Iraq and laid the basis for 13 years of sanctions and, ultimately, the March 2003 U.S. invasion). One key difference between 1979 and 1990, however, is that whereas in 1979, the Soviet Union vetoed a draft Security Council resolution calling on Vietnam to withdraw its forces from Cambodia, despite the Australian ambassador’s remark that “We cannot accept that the internal policies of any government [Cambodia], no matter how reprehensible, could justify a military attack on it by another government [Vietnam],”[1] during no Council debate following Iraq’s August 2, 1990 invasion of Kuwait did a member of the Permanent Five veto a resolution calling for Iraq to withdraw its forces or imposing sanctions on the aggressor. The relevant difference was the existence of the Soviet Union as a world-power in 1979 versus 1990 and beyond.

2. Terrorism rights (and the right to kill large numbers without being labeled terrorist): This parallels aggression rights, as the borderline between terrorism and aggression is fuzzy and is commonly simply a matter of scale; in either case, U.S. actions in bombing and killing are not designated with the invidious words.

The U.S.’s initial “shock and awe” attack on Iraq was openly planned to terrorize Iraqi military personnel and civilians, and the U.S. assaults on Fallujah[2] and elsewhere have had an open terrorist design. The same is true of Israeli military attacks. It is a matter of political form in the West that Israel only “responds” to and “retaliates” against terrorists, but never terrorizes. The introduction to House Resolution 951, adopted on March 5 by the overwhelming margin of 404 to 1 even as Israel’s Defense Force was savagely attacking Palestinian refugee camps in the Gaza,[3] proclaims that “the Government of Israel’s military operations in Gaza only target Hamas and other terrorist organizations,” and adds that “the inadvertent inflicting of civilian casualties as a result of defensive military operations aimed at military targets, while deeply regrettable, is not at all morally equivalent to the deliberate targeting of civilian populations as practiced by Hamas and other Gaza-based terrorist groups.”[4] This is straightforward apologetics for Israeli state terror. For one thing, Israeli leaders from Abba Eban to Ariel Sharon and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert today have openly admitted to the aim of terrorizing the Palestinian civilian population. Second, it glosses over the fact that the allegedly “inadvertent” killings of Palestinians by Israelis have exceeded that of the allegedly deliberate Hamas and Palestinian killings of Israelis by a huge ratio (before the second intifada, 25 to 1; since the beginning of the second intifada in 2000, 4.6 to 1).[5] Third, the allegedly “inadvertent” killings by Israel are in actual fact quite deliberate, given that the Israeli forces don’t hesitate to use their powerful weapons in crowded civilian areas of Gaza and in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, where the civilian deaths are predictable and numerous.[6]

3. Rights to ethnically cleanse: The West finds ethnic cleansing reprehensible, and sheds a sea of tears over its victims—but only when carried out by, or when it can be imputed to, target entities such as the Bosnian Serbs and Milosevic’s Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and the Sudan’s Muslim government today. In fact, the ethnic cleansing by the Bosnian Serbs was carried out in a largely tit-for-tat process of a civil conflict in which the competing groups (Bosnian Muslims and Croats) did their own share of cleansing. Milosevic in Kosovo did not ethnically cleanse to replace Kosovo Albanians with Serb settlers; the population flights were features of a civil war and then, with the NATO bombing, a much wider war.[7]

Following in this misleading frame, the New Republic finds “Plenty of parallels between Darfur today and Kosovo in 1999….When rebellions came to Kosovo and Darfur, both Belgrade and Khartoum decided to fight the guerrillas by targeting the civilian populations from which they sprang.”[8] But TNR’s facts are as wrong with respect to Darfur as they are for Kosovo; the only real parallel here lies in the selectivity and ideological uses to which Western powers put the two theaters of conflict. In 2007, an assessment by the UN Environment Program found that “Environmental degradation, as well as regional climate instability and change, are major underlying causes of food insecurity and conflict in Darfur….[T]he region is beset with a problematic combination of population growth, over-exploitation of resources and an apparent major long-term reduction in rainfall. As a result, much of northern and central Darfur is degraded to the extent that it cannot sustainably support its rural population.”[9]

On the other hand, the truly genuine case of ethnic cleansing, and one that has had global implications because of the Arab and Muslim resentment that it inspires, has been the steady Israeli expulsion of Palestinians from their lands in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in order to allow Jewish settlements. The phrase “ethnic cleansing” is almost never applied to this case in the West. This despite the fact that it has been openly acknowledged by Israeli leaders for many years that the aim of these settlements is to displace Palestinians with Jews, and that in the process they have killed many thousands, demolished over 18,000 Palestinian homes since the occupation began in 1967,[10] and pushed out scores-of-thousands of non-Jews. John Dugard, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, has repeatedly warned of Israel’ efforts “to make the city more Jewish,” and thereby deprive any future Palestinian state of a capital. “The clear purpose of these changes is to remove any suggestion that East Jerusalem is a Palestinian entity capable of becoming the capital of a Palestinian State,” Dugard explains. “The construction of the wall, the expansion of settlements and the de-Palestinization of Jerusalem threaten the viability of a Palestinian State.”[11] Yet, in a marvel of Western double standards and hypocrisy, this decades-old systematic ethnic cleansing process has been given positive support by Western leaders and media, and Israel has been honored while its target victims are villainized.[12] Despite the clear Israeli intent to ethnically cleanse, and to steal land belonging to the Palestinians, the process is rationalized in the West on the grounds of Israel’s “security needs”—in the racist double standard of the West, Palestinians have no “security needs,” and the fact that the latter are mainly responding to Israel’s wholesale terror and the dispossession process is ignored. This is the true Israeli “miracle.”

Read all of it here, with notes. / Z-Net

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SDS Olympia Fights Back Against the Police State

Posted on April 22, 2008 by RagBlog


SDS Group Banned After Ruckus at Dead Prez Concert: Clampdown at Evergreen
By Ron Jacobs / April 21, 2008

A police car was overturned during a ruckus with local and campus police following a hiphop concert by the group Dead Prez at Evergreen Sate College in Olympia WA. The Evergreen branch of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was suspended by the college administration from the campus. The suspension of SDS was a reaction to the organization’s refusal to go along with an edict from the administration banning public events at the college.

Evergreen College, commonly referred to as Evergreen, is a progressive college founded by a Republican governor of Washington in the early 1970s. It already has a legacy of activism that runs deeper and stronger than many other US colleges with much longer histories.

Filemón Bohmer-Tapia and Courtney Franz are students at Evergreen and members of SDS. Filemon is also involved in MEChA de Evergreen.and is a community organizer in the immigrant rights and anti-war movements. Courtney is a sophomore at Evergreen State College, where she is studying Political Economy, Social Sciences, and writing. I recently contacted them and asked a few questions regarding the situation at the college. They emphasized that they spoke as members of SDS, not for SDS.

Can you explain the series of events that led up to the suspension of Olympia SDS by the Evergreen State College administration? More to the point, what is your take on the so-called riot by some people that attended the concert by Dead Prez?

Filemon: First, I want to thank Dead Prez and Umi for coming out to Olympia and giving a great concert that promoted social justice and revolutionary change. They are welcome in Olympia anytime. There has been a lot of negative press surrounding the events at the Dead Prez concert. I think it’s important to clear up some of the distortions that have been promoted in the media.

In actuality, members of an unofficial security team, which had no visible identifiable labels, abused their power and started a fight in the crowd. Some fought back in self-defense and an African- American man, Kaylen Williams, attempted to break up the fight. After the scuffle was over members of the security team, uninjured and primarily white, ran to the police (and a couple of them) pointed out Mr. Williams, who was then immediately and unjustly arrested by an Evergreen State College police officer. As the officer was arresting him, members of the crowd and even other members of the security team told the officer that she had the wrong person and that he was only trying to break up the fight. The officer refused to listen and took Mr. Williams out of the concert in handcuffs. Many people began to question the officer’s decision and demanded that she release him. The officer refused and placed Mr. Williams in the back of the police car directly outside of the concert exit. As the concert ended, people began leaving the concert venue and saw that there was a black man under arrest and a growing number of people demanding his release. The police car was surrounded by this time and the crowd of about 300 was chanting “Let Him Go!”

The Olympia police then barged in swinging their clubs indiscriminately and dowsing the crowd with pepper spray. One Evergreen student landed in the Emergency room with internal bleeding. The crowd then began protecting themselves with any material available, throwing bottles, rocks, and sticks at the police. There was already a lot of bad blood between (much of) the Olympia community and the Olympia Police Department as a result of police brutality during the Port of Olympia protests when protesters tried to prevent military weapons and materials from being shipped to Iraq. The crowd was now very unified in the mission of freeing the prisoner and kicking the police off of our campus. The police were forced to release Kaylen Williams and had to retreat as the crowd grew in numbers and intensity. As the police escaped, they left one of their patrol cars behind, and the people took out their frustration on it.

Whether or not people agree with the destruction of the police car, it is important to realize the context in which it happened. There was an unjust and what many would call a racist arrest, and police violence against a peaceful crowd before any there was any property damage. That night, the Olympia community stood in solidarity against the abuse of power that is synonymous with police behavior.

Courtney: Shortly after the “riot,” Evergreen President Les Purce and Vice President of Student Affairs Art Constantino met with representatives from the four jurisdictions of police who were directly involved (Evergreen State College Police, Thurston County Sherriff’s Department, Olympia Police Department, and Washington State Patrol). We learned from a reliable source that when the police asked them to point to likely suspects, the administrators told them to investigate students involved in the port protests, especially members of SDS.

Opinions within SDS vary on the specific tactics protesters used, but everyone understands their motivation; antiracism is in our mission statement. It is vital to remember that a group of students started a spontaneous uprising in response to police actions. It is ludicrous to imply, as the administration has, that SDS or any other student group planned or instigated these actions.

After the melee and subsequent sensationalist coverage of the event in the local media, the Evergreen College administration banned public events. What was their reasoning for this somewhat drastic reaction? What was the general opinion of students and staff to the ban?

Courtney: The Evergreen State College administration did not ban public events per se – they issued a (so-called) “moratorium on student-sponsored concerts and other events that involve substantial safety and security considerations until processes are improved” through a review committee. Students and the public found out about this through this press release and subsequent articles in (the local daily)The Olympian, the Cooper Point Journal (the campus newspaper), and other media. It was never an official written policy. There was substantial confusion about this among students. The administration either reserved the right to review events on a case-by-case basis, simply ignored other musical events following the concert (including one with over 300 attendees), or selectively applied these different standards.

The administration claimed, then, that the problem was safety procedures. From what I understand, some people on the safety review committee have tried to bring up the fundamentally unsafe police violence and racism that instigated the events. It appears that the committee has not yet come to a conclusion; a separate campus police review committee found no racism in the arrest. The attached report details their inadequate response.

Radical views have long been a target for the administration, but SDS knew that the situation would worsen after the concert. We had been planning the San Francisco 8 event and the subsequent performance for months. After the moratorium was announced, members of SDS approached the administration and were told that the event could continue. Shortly before the events were scheduled, the administration went back on its word and cancelled them. It claimed that because one of these two events involved music and both were advertised on the same flier, neither could continue. After much deliberation within our group and with the panelists and guests, we decided to hold the events anyway.

Filemon: The Evergreen administration’s reason for the ban on concerts, called the concert moratorium, was to prevent any future ‘violence’ at future events. Many students, staff, and faculty were outraged with this decision, made solely by the President, Vice President, and the Dean of Student Services. The Evergreen administration has been aggressively cooperative with local police in the investigation that has five people facing felony charges as a result of the events after the Dead Prez concert. Olympia SDS officially criticized both the police actions on the night of the Dead Prez event and the concert moratorium. The concert ban was never actually put into effect though, because the week after it was announced, a musical performance was held at Evergreen with the administration’s knowledge and without any interference.

When the members of the San Francisco 8 came to speak and were told about the ban, what was their response? I know that you all went ahead with the program and it was well attended. Can you give a summary of how the administration and campus police reacted that evening and in the immediate aftermath? Also, how many people are in Olympia SDS?

Courtney: Olympia Students for Democratic Society (SDS) meetings are usually attended by up to twenty-five people, and about fifty people total come attend some meetings. Hundreds of people have come to our events, cosponsored them, or helped us with our activism.

The San Francisco 8 panelists told us they were proud of us as young activists and expressed support for our resistance against police actions and racism as well as our work in defense of free speech. They largely agreed that the police were a fundamentally and systematically oppressive force.

Campus police monitored the events from outside the building and talked to a few people, but there was little direct interaction at the event itself; things appeared to be going fine. Shortly after the panel and performance, the administration sent us a letter notifying us of our suspension. We held an initial appeal, which was well attended by other students and student groups, and were informed that our suspension was shortened. We have filed a letter of intent to appeal a second and final time.

Filemon: (Regarding the banned event) SDS went ahead with promoting a panel discussion that had been planned for months with the San Francisco 8, former Black Panthers who had been tortured by U.S. Government agencies and were victims of the COINTELPRO campaign (now on trial for charges related to the murder of a police officer in 1971-charges that were thrown out in 1975 in part because confessions were extracted under police torture-Ron). We were also promoting an acoustic performance by David Rovics, Danny Kelly and Mark Eckert that would serve as a benefit for anti-war activist Carlos Arredondo, whose son was killed in Iraq. Two days before both separate events were to occur; the administration abruptly informed SDS that the two events were canceled, because “they were advertised as a concert.” The panel discussion was in no way a concert, and the second, separate event was an acoustic performance, hardly a concert. The decision was obviously politically motivated because there had already been another musical performance (as noted above) since the so-called concert moratorium had began. SDS and many other student groups deemed the cancellation illegitimate, and we decided to proceed with both events. Both the panel discussion with the San Francisco 8 and the later acoustic benefit performance by David Rovics ran smoothly and were very well attended. Both the San Francisco 8 and David Rovics have been very supportive of SDS and were appreciative that we went ahead with the scheduled events. The next week, the Evergreen Administration informed SDS that we were temporarily suspended until they could come to a decision. Eventually they decided to suspend SDS’s group status for an entire year.

Read all of it here. CounterPunch / The Rag Blog

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Another Leftist Government for Latin America

Posted on April 21, 2008 by RagBlog

Lugo Rally

Paraguay Changes: Elections End 60 Years of Right Wing Rule
By Michael Fox / April 21, 2008

Paraguay VotesAsuncion, Paraguay – Even before last night’s official results were announced, Lugo supporters were in the streets celebrating what many called a dream come true.

“I came here to vote for Lugo, and now I’m here for him. I came here to vote, and I voted, and now I’m here, present for my president. President Lugo, President Lugo!” chanted an elderly Graciela Bogadin in both Spanish and Guarani. The people around her cheered. Bogadin is a Paraguayan who has lived in Argentina for many years. She is one of the thousands who came back to vote in yesterday’s historic elections and who descended on Asuncion’s Heroe’s Pantheon last night for the victory celebration.

“I want to pray that the good god bless our Paraguay, that deserves better horizons, better times, for absolutely all of her children, those who are in Buenos Aires, or New York, or Spain or Brazil, in whatever part of the geography of the planet, here is a country that recognizes them, appreciates them, and we also count on them,” said a powerful President-elect Fernando Lugo only an hour earlier at a nearby press conference, as if talking directly to Bogadin.

“We are convinced that this country has the right to better horizons,” said Lugo. “We’ve felt it in the pain and tears of so many mothers, and the hopelessness of so many youth, and the suffering of so many children, and a special invitation to all of the Paraguayan political class, to join together for this country, which was great, and together we believe will once again be great in the concert of Nations.”

Read all of it here. / Upside Down World / The Rag Blog

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We Think the BushCo Lie Is Bigger Than That

Posted on April 21, 2008 by RagBlog


Pentagon Propaganda & Antiwar Analysts
April 21, 2008

The Sunday Times’ article detailing the massive, secret coordinated campaign by the Pentagon and all the leading television news channels to sell and defend the administration’s Iraq policy is a critical piece of investigative journalism. David Barstow provided meticulous and aggressive reporting, even referencing how The Times’ amplified Pentagon “surrogates” without sufficient disclosure for readers. The Times also deserves credit, both for running the lengthy piece and suing the government to obtain related documents. (Read the whole thing here, or try this YouTube excerpt.)

The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel is urging Congress to investigate the program exposed by the article: In its rigorous documentation of the relationship between the government, the networks and retired military analysts, the lineaments of the corrosive structure and impact of a new military-media-industrial complex are exposed. This corrupt complex demands investigation by all relevant Congressional committees…

Glenn Greenwald, who has written extensively about the media’s pro-war bias and undisclosed conflicts of interest, flags the galling (non)-response of several news organizations, near the end of the article:

The most incredible aspect of the NYT story is that most of the news organizations which deceived their readers and viewers by using these “objective” analysts — CBS, NBC, Fox — simply refused to comment on what they knew about any of this or what their procedures are for safeguarding against it. Just ponder what that says about these organizations — there is a major expose in the NYT documenting that these news outlets misleadingly shoveled government propaganda down the throats of their viewers on matters of war and terrorism and they don’t feel the least bit obliged to answer for what they did or knew about any of it…. The single most significant factor in American political culture is the incestuous, extensive overlap between our media institutions and government officials.

The article reports that most of the news organizations either didn’t know or didn’t care about their paid analysts taking direction from the administration while claiming to neutrally assess its policies; or taking expensive trips paid by the administration; or meeting secretly with senior administration officials and plotting military or political strategy; or competing for military contracts.

So what does it take to disqualify a former general from on-air analysis?

Criticizing President Bush.

While the article does not cover this incident, CBS did fire Maj. Gen. John Batiste (Ret.) for criticizing President Bush’s Iraq policy in a television ad. As the former commander of the Army’s First Infantry Division, which was deployed to Iraq in 2003, Batiste had unassailable credentials, but his views were too much for CBS. This larger context is key, because while the Times exposed a sophisticated, deceptive domestic propaganda campaign for the administration, the flip-side is harder to document. But antiwar perspectives are routinely marginalized or scrubbed from televised debate, even when offered by our nation’s brave military leaders.

As ABC News was reminded last week, the public expects more integrity and substance from these news organizations. They are egregiously late in even commenting on these new reports, let alone reforming their policies, which demonstrates why Congress must investigate this propaganda program — and the marginalization of experts who are critical of the war or the government.

Source / Information Clearing House / The Nation / The Rag Blog

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Michael Moore for Obama : Debate Was Final Straw

Posted on April 21, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

My Vote’s for Obama (if I could vote) …
By Michael Moore / April 21, 2008

Friends,

I don’t get to vote for President this primary season. I live in Michigan. The party leaders (both here and in D.C.) couldn’t get their act together, and thus our votes will not be counted.

So, if you live in Pennsylvania, can you do me a favor? Will you please cast my vote — and yours — on Tuesday for Senator Barack Obama?

I haven’t spoken publicly ’til now as to who I would vote for, primarily for two reasons: 1) Who cares?; and 2) I (and most people I know) don’t give a rat’s ass whose name is on the ballot in November, as long as there’s a picture of JFK and FDR riding a donkey at the top of the ballot, and the word “Democratic” next to the candidate’s name.

Seriously, I know so many people who don’t care if the name under the Big “D” is Dancer, Prancer, Clinton or Blitzen. It can be Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Barry Obama or the Dalai Lama.

Well, that sounded good last year, but over the past two months, the actions and words of Hillary Clinton have gone from being merely disappointing to downright disgusting. I guess the debate last week was the final straw. I’ve watched Senator Clinton and her husband play this game of appealing to the worst side of white people, but last Wednesday, when she hurled the name “Farrakhan” out of nowhere, well that’s when the silly season came to an early end for me. She said the “F” word to scare white people, pure and simple. Of course, Obama has no connection to Farrakhan. But, according to Senator Clinton, Obama’s pastor does — AND the “church bulletin” once included a Los Angeles Times op-ed from some guy with Hamas! No, not the church bulletin!

This sleazy attempt to smear Obama was brilliantly explained the following night by Stephen Colbert. He pointed out that if Obama is supported by Ted Kennedy, who is Catholic, and the Catholic Church is led by a Pope who was in the Hitler Youth, that can mean only one thing: OBAMA LOVES HITLER!

Yes, Senator Clinton, that’s how you sounded. Like you were nuts. Like you were a bigot stoking the fires of stupidity. How sad that I would ever have to write those words about you. You have devoted your life to good causes and good deeds. And now to throw it all away for an office you can’t win unless you smear the black man so much that the superdelegates cry “Uncle (Tom)” and give it all to you.

But that can’t happen. You cast your die when you voted to start this bloody war. When you did that you were like Moses who lost it for a moment and, because of that, was prohibited from entering the Promised Land.

How sad for a country that wanted to see the first woman elected to the White House. That day will come — but it won’t be you. We’ll have to wait for the current Democratic governor of Kansas to run in 2016 (you read it here first!).

There are those who say Obama isn’t ready, or he’s voted wrong on this or that. But that’s looking at the trees and not the forest. What we are witnessing is not just a candidate but a profound, massive public movement for change. My endorsement is more for Obama The Movement than it is for Obama the candidate.

That is not to take anything away from this exceptional man. But what’s going on is bigger than him at this point, and that’s a good thing for the country. Because, when he wins in November, that Obama Movement is going to have to stay alert and active. Corporate America is not going to give up their hold on our government just because we say so. President Obama is going to need a nation of millions to stand behind him.

I know some of you will say, ‘Mike, what have the Democrats done to deserve our vote?’ That’s a damn good question. In November of ’06, the country loudly sent a message that we wanted the war to end. Yet the Democrats have done nothing. So why should we be so eager to line up happily behind them?

I’ll tell you why. Because I can’t stand one more friggin’ minute of this administration and the permanent, irreversible damage it has done to our people and to this world. I’m almost at the point where I don’t care if the Democrats don’t have a backbone or a kneebone or a thought in their dizzy little heads. Just as long as their name ain’t “Bush” and the word “Republican” is not beside theirs on the ballot, then that’s good enough for me.

I, like the majority of Americans, have been pummeled senseless for 8 long years. That’s why I will join millions of citizens and stagger into the voting booth come November, like a boxer in the 12th round, all bloodied and bruised with one eye swollen shut, looking for the only thing that matters — that big “D” on the ballot.

Don’t get me wrong. I lost my rose-colored glasses a long time ago.

It’s foolish to see the Democrats as anything but a nicer version of a party that exists to do the bidding of the corporate elite in this country. Any endorsement of a Democrat must be done with this acknowledgement and a hope that one day we will have a party that’ll represent the people first, and laws that allow that party an equal voice.

Finally, I want to say a word about the basic decency I have seen in Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton continues to throw the Rev. Wright up in his face as part of her mission to keep stoking the fears of White America. Every time she does this I shout at the TV, “Say it, Obama! Say that when she and her husband were having marital difficulties regarding Monica Lewinsky, who did she and Bill bring to the White House for ‘spiritual counseling?’ THE REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT!”

But no, Obama won’t throw that at her. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be decent. She’s been through enough hurt. And so he remains silent and takes the mud she throws in his face.

That’s why the crowds who come to see him are so large. That’s why he’ll take us down a more decent path. That’s why I would vote for him if Michigan were allowed to have an election.

But the question I keep hearing is… ‘can he win? Can he win in November?’ In the distance we hear the siren of the death train called the Straight Talk Express. We know it’s possible to hear the words “President McCain” on January 20th. We know there are still many Americans who will never vote for a black man. Hillary knows it, too. She’s counting on it.

Pennsylvania, the state that gave birth to this great country, has a chance to set things right. It has not had a moment to shine like this since 1787 when our Constitution was written there. In that Constitution, they wrote that a black man or woman was only “three fifths” human. On Tuesday, the good people of Pennsylvania have a chance for redemption.

Yours,
Michael Moore

Source. / MichaelMoore.com / The Rag Blog

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Heavenly Summons…

Posted on April 21, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

The Onion. / The Rag Blog

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