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Fox News Goes Too Far For It’s Own Chris Wallace…
Fox’s Chris Wallace takes Fox and Friends ‘to task’ for ‘two hours of Obama Bashing’
On Fox and Friends Friday morning, March 21, hosts Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade, and Gretchen Carlson spent multiple segments sensationalizing a comment Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) made the day before, in which he referred to his grandmother as “a typical white person” in some of her racial reactions. Obama made the comment while discussing his recent speech on race relations in America on a Philadelphia radio show.
When the trio welcomed Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace onto the show, instead of previewing his show this weekend, Wallace announced that he was going to take his fellow Fox hosts “to task” for their “excessive” and “somewhat distorting” coverage of what Obama said:
Hey listen, I love you guys but I want to take you to task if I may, respectfully, for a moment. I have been watching the show since 6:00 this morning when I got up, and it seems to me that two hours of Obama bashing on this typical white person remark is somewhat excessive and frankly I think you’re somewhat distorting what Obama had to say.
Wallace — who said that the issue “was a little more complicated than we’ve been portraying” — went on to chastise his very uncomfortable-looking colleagues for the next five minutes. Watch it:
Trying to defend their coverage, Carlson said they played up Obama’s comment because she “felt that maybe the attention was being taken away from what people really wanted to hear Barack Obama speak about, which was his association and what he thought about the comments by his minister Jeremiah Wright.”
Noting Obama’s speeches this week on the economy and the war in Iraq, Wallace replied that “maybe it’s the media doing” the deflecting:
Far be it for me to be a spokesman for the Obama campaign, and I will tell you that they would laugh at that characterization, but you know, the fact is that after giving a speech on race earlier this week, on Tuesday, he gave a major speech on Iraq on Wednesday and a major speech on the economy yesterday.
And so, I think they would say that in terms of deflecting attention away from the issues people really want to hear about, maybe it’s the media doing it, not Barack Obama.
“I appreciate you respecting us enough to say it on camera as opposed to writing an email,” said Kilmeade sarcastically after hearing Wallace’s criticism.
Update:
Kilmeade storms off Fox and Friends set over co-hosts’ Obama-bashing.
Earlier today, ThinkProgress noted how Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace chastised his colleagues on the Fox and Friends morning show for their “excessive” and “somewhat distorting” coverage of Sen. Barack Obama’s comments about his grandmother. Earlier in the show, according to the Huffington Post, Fox and Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade “argued that the remark needed to be taken in context and eventually got so fed up with his co-hosts that he walked off set.” Watch it:
From Think Progress / The Rag Blog
Media Matters has a transcript from the show.
Don’t Let the Bedbugs Bite
Kelly, The Onion / March 17, 2008
BushCo Lies and Dirty Tricks That Took Us to War
The woman who nearly stopped the war
By Martin Bright
21/03/08 “The Nation” — – Of all the stories told on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, there is one important episode that took place during the build-up to the conflict that has gone largely unreported. It concerns a young woman who was a witness to something so outrageous, something so contrary to the principles of diplomacy and international law, that in revealing it she believed war could be averted. That woman was Katharine Gun, a 29-year-old Mandarin translator at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham.
On Friday 31 January 2003 she and many of her colleagues were forwarded a request from the US government for an intelligence “surge” at the United Nations (with hindsight, an interesting choice of words). In essence, the US was ordering the intensification of espionage at the UN headquarters in New York to help persuade the Security Council to authorise war in Iraq. The aim, according to the email, was to give the United States “the edge” in negotiations for a crucial resolution to give international authorisation for the war. Many believed that, without it, the war would be illegal.
The email was sent by a man with a name straight out of a Hollywood thriller, Frank Koza, who headed up the “regional targets” section of the National Security Agency, the US equivalent of GCHQ. It named six nations to be targeted in the operation: Chile, Pakistan, Guinea, Angola, Cameroon and Bulgaria. These six so-called “swing nations” were non-permanent members of the Security Council whose votes were crucial to getting the resolution through. It later emerged that Mexico was also targeted because of its influence with Chile and other countries in Latin America, though it was not mentioned in the memo. But the operation went far wider – in fact, only Britain was specifically named as a country to be exempt from the “surge”.
Koza insisted that he was looking for “insights” into how individual countries were reacting to the ongoing debate, “plans to vote on any related resolutions, what related policies/negotiating positions they may be considering, alliances/ dependencies etc”. In summary, he added: “The whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers the edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises.” The scope of the operation was vast: “Make sure they pay attention to existing non-UNSC member UN-related and domestic comms for anything useful related to the UNSC deliberations/debates/votes,” wrote Koza.
Gun was appalled by the email in two ways. First by the seediness of the operation: she believed the clear message was that GCHQ was being asked to find personal information that would allow Britain and America to blackmail diplomats in New York. But second and more importantly, she believed GCHQ was being asked to undermine the democratic pro cesses of the United Nations.
Secret email
Over the weekend after receiving the email, Gun decided to act. On returning to work on 3 February she printed out the document and took it home with her. She knew people involved with the anti-war movement and passed the email to a friend who was in contact with the media. This individual in turn passed it to the former Fleet Street journalist Yvonne Ridley, who had become famous as the reporter captured by the Taliban in 2001. By this time Ridley was a prominent opponent of the war. After first approaching the Mirror, which failed to verify the email, Ridley called me at the Observer, where I was working at the time, to ask if I would look at it.
The Koza memo presented me and my colleagues at the newspaper with a number of problems. For a start, the Observer supported the war in Iraq. Then there was the problem of verification. The Koza memo consisted of simply the body of the text, with all identifying information from the email header ripped from the top. In theory, anyone could have typed it. Koza’s name was written on the back along with other clues to its veracity, but it could easily have been a hoax. We were also hamstrung by the fact that Gun had not come directly to the newspaper, so there was no way of going back to the source of the leak to check the information.
Peter Beaumont, the Observer’s defence correspondent at the time, got his sources to confirm that the language used in the memo was consistent with the NSA and GCHQ.
But still there were doubts. One intelligence contact suggested it could be a sophisticated Russian forgery and another raised the possibility that British spy chiefs had written it to flush out anti-war elements at GCHQ. In the end, the paper’s then US correspondent, Ed Vulliamy, struck lucky. After a string of “no comment” responses from the NSA, a phone call to the organisation’s headquarters in Maryland was by chance put through to the office of Koza himself. This proved that he existed and we now felt confident that the email was genuine. Despite the paper’s pro-war stance, the then editor, Roger Alton, would not have rejected a good story and on 2 March 2003 the Observer splashed on the tale of US dirty tricks at the United Nations.
The story was followed up around the world and caused fury in Chile, which had known its fair share of US dirty tricks during the 1970s. Mexico was equally unhappy and both countries distanced themselves from a second resolution as a result of the revelations. Other countries were less bold in the face of cajoling and bullying from the US, but it became clear in the weeks that followed the leak that a fresh UN resolution was never going to happen.
This was precisely what Katharine Gun had hoped for when she walked out of GCHQ with the document a month earlier. What she could not have known, however, was that George W Bush was determined to go to war, with or without the support of the UN.
Within days of the Observer article, Gun was arrested under the Official Secrets Act and almost a year later she finally appeared at the Old Bailey to stand trial for leaking the NSA document. But, in a dramatic retreat, the then attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, dropped the case at the last minute and despite her prima facie breach of the secrecy laws, Gun walked free.
What did she gain? She failed to stop a war that has now cost thousands of lives. She gave up a secure career as an expert translator. But she was one of the first to reveal the truth about the lies and dirty tricks that took us to war in 2003.
Britain’s role
Questions still remain about Britain’s involvement in the spying operation, which was the ultimate responsibility of the then prime minister, Tony Blair. A full inquiry into the Iraq War has now been promised by the present Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and, among other things, this should force the government to disclose the full extent of its knowledge of the 2003 intelligence “surge”.
Those who doubt whether Gun’s actions had lasting his torical significance should refer to the statement issued by the Crown Prosecution Service when the case was dropped on 26 February 2004. There was speculation that Lord Goldsmith backed down because Gun’s defence requested disclosure of his legal opinion on the legitimacy of the war. As was later revealed, his legal opinion shifted as the prospects of a second UN resolution faded.
On this the CPS statement is clear: “This determination by the prosecution had nothing to do with advice given by the Attorney General to the government in connection with the legality of the Iraq War.”
Instead, the prosecution stated that “there was no longer a realistic prospect of convicting Katharine Gun”. The reasons for this remain a mystery, especially considering that Gun had admitted to the crime of leaking the document. Her only defence was the untried “defence of necessity”, under which her lawyers would have argued that her actions were designed to stop the imminent loss of human life.
The CPS statement contains the following intriguing paragraph: “The evidential deficiency related to the prosecution’s inability, with in the current statutory framework, to disprove the defence of necessity to be raised on the particular facts of this case.”
Read through the legalese, this is an astonishing admission from the government that Katharine Gun’s actions were entirely honourable. She really had tried to stop a war.
Manzanillo, And Memories of the Merry Prankster
In Mexico, on the Lam With Ken Kesey
By Lawrence Downes / New York Times / March 23, 2008
I am in the ocean, doing nothing, just bobbing.
I am facing a golden-sugar beach, a low pink hotel, a thatched palapa baking in the heat. To my left, a long crescent stretch of bay, a cradling arm around a basket of blue. To my right, a stone jetty. Beyond it, a port full of oceangoing tankers and the cliff-hugging city of Manzanillo. Behind me, the limitless Pacific. All around, pelicans loitering in the swells, which lift and gently drop me, my arms out, toes brushing velvet sand.
I said I was doing nothing, but I’m actually trying to summon somebody: Ken Kesey, novelist, psychedelic prophet, leader of the Merry Pranksters, hero of “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.”
It was here, on this beach, that he took to the waves as I did, back in 1966. He was a hunted man then, on the run from the F.B.I. and Mexican federales, but even he, a man of great aplomb, found time for thoughtful bobbing.
“He’s working on his wave theory. This morning for breakfast he brewed and drank enough weed to put a horse in orbit. He’s been out there for three hours with his eyes closed … imagining that he’s a piece of kelp or a jellyfish.”
The observer is Mountain Girl, one of several Merry Pranksters who followed Kesey to Manzanillo. She watches from the beach while pondering his oracular musings.
“It isn’t by getting out of the world that we become enlightened, but by getting into the world … by getting so tuned in that we can ride the waves of our existence and never get tossed because we become the waves.”
Manzanillo now is not nearly as metaphysical as that account, from a trippy Kesey volume called “Over the Border,” would suggest. It’s a tourist town, a cruise destination, one gem in the resort strand of Mexico’s Pacific coast, cousin to Acapulco, Ixtapa, Puerto Vallarta. It’s a city of strip malls and cineplexes, dive shops and all-inclusive resorts where the help wears uniforms.
But Manzanillo then was jungle outpost, a nowhere port town on a two-lane road from Guadalajara. It was a place where a gringo — even a famous novelist gringo accompanied by family and friends, an abundant supply of drugs and an International Harvester school bus covered in Day-Glo paint and blaring music from a sophisticated loudspeaker system — could reasonably expect to hide out for a while.
You probably know most of the back story. Kesey is a promising writer at Stanford, publishes “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” his first novel, in 1962, and a huge deal is made of it. A circle forms in Palo Alto, bound by Kesey’s charisma and brightened by psychoactive chemicals and Day-Glo paint. It moves to the woods of La Honda, Calif., and roams the country in an old school bus. Kesey and the Merry Pranksters stage a journey into life, art, rock-and-roll and experimental drug use that attracts hangers-on, Hell’s Angels, Tom Wolfe and, inevitably, cops.
Kesey is busted for marijuana possession once, twice. Now he faces real time: a bad trip he does not want to take. He parks a truck on a coastal bluff, writes a fake suicide note — Ocean, Ocean, I’ll beat you in the end — then slips into Mexico in a car trunk.
The headline: “LSD GURU SUICIDE!”
He hides in Puerto Vallarta, then Mazatlán, has B-movie escapes from undercover agents, and ends up in dead-end Manzanillo.
There the circle reconnects. Kesey is joined by his wife, Faye, their young children and a squad of Pranksters, including Mountain Girl, a k a Carolyn Adams; Ken Babbs; Mike Hagen; Gretchen Fetchin the Slime Queen; and the Beat legend Neal Cassady, with his parrot, Rubiaco.
Kesey and family and Mountain Girl take a little rented house on the beach. The others hang their hammocks across the road, in an abandoned pet-food factory they called La Casa Purina.
The sun pours off the mountains. The Pranksters soak in it, melting in heat so thick they call it Manzanillo mucus. They swim, they fish, they do laundry, they get stoned. They wait for family and lawyers to wire money. Mountain Girl gives birth to Sunshine, her daughter with Kesey, in the charity ward at the Hospital Civil.
The idyll lasted only into the fall. Kesey went home, did his five months in jail, and got right back to being an author and counterculture icon. His was a well-lived, well-loved, well-documented life, and it ended in rural Oregon in 2001.
I flew into Mexico at the end of August, a late arrival to the Kesey fan club, looking to unearth whatever traces remained of the Manzanillo episode.
I brought my 20-year-old stepson, Zak, who came well qualified because of his skill with a camera and fondness for the Grateful Dead, the Pranksters’ house band. I brought my battered undergraduate copy of “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” and “Mexico on 5 Dollars a Day,” the 1963-64 edition, which reported that Manzanillo’s “prettiest senorita” could be found, along with aspirin and diarrhea treatments, behind the counter of the Farmacia America on Avenida Mexico. I also brought a Hermes 3000 portable typewriter, at which I planned to sit and write in the heat and moonlight, with cold, sweaty beers.
I’m sorry, reader. I did not become a wave and did not find many physical traces of the Kesey interlude, though I came close, much closer than I thought I would.
You can, too, if you go as the Pranksters did, poor and open-minded, and look in the right places. Spend as little money as possible and stick to the far, far southern end of Manzanillo Bay, away from the high-end resorts and close to the jetty and pelicans.
Before I left New York, I had lucked upon Bart Varelmann, who had owned the little Hotel La Posada, one of Manzanillo’s only hotels back then. It’s still there, steps from the beach and that jetty, which borders a channel leading into Mexico’s biggest Pacific port.
Mr. Varelmann told me that the Pranksters had spent the summer next to his hotel, parking their bus beside a huge rock. Mr. Varelmann is now retired to Florida. He said he couldn’t remember Kesey very well, but he remembered the Pranksters and their kids, and the bus.
“The interior of Ken’s bus was a grab-bag cornucopia of strange pills, exotic herbs, magic mushrooms, peyote buttons, LSD, uppers, downers, poppers and of course marijuana,” Mr. Varelmann writes in his self-published memoir, “Innkeeper.” “On a windless day one could get stoned just strolling past the bus. A battery-powered tape machine enhanced the scene with a dreamy, pre-rock music by the likes of Mile Davis, Stan Kenton and the Modern Jazz Quartet.
We hung a lot at Ken’s magical bus that summer.”
There’s a problem with Mr. Varelmann’s tantalizing story. He insists that it all happened in 1963, which is impossible. Still, factoring in the memory-glazing effects of time and heavy drug use, it was the best lead I had, so I booked a room at La Posada for a week.
The first night, Zak and I walked through downtown Manzanillo, still bustling near midnight. Sidewalk food stands glowed under bare bulbs; it was a carnival of grease, of chorizo and chilies, roasted corn ears and ice pops. Looking up in the narrow streets, I saw thousands of swallows nestled for the night on telephone lines, evenly spaced, like zipper teeth. We had a late dinner, bistek tacos and pulpo gallego, octopus in olive oil and garlic, soft like butter.
The next morning, Zak sleeping, I slipped onto the beach to await the sunrise. The windy tumult of the day before was gone; it was still but not dark. Klieg lights from hotels cast a prison-camp glare, and development all along the bay cast a pallid wash of light into the sky. The most distant lights shimmered in the heat. The stifling, hushed air, the sand and thumping waves all seemed to be waiting for the sun to rise to ignite the conflagration of another stifling Manzanillo day.
MY other source of Kesey memories was Robert Stone, the novelist, who had been there.
Although he listened kindly when I called, he could not answer all my questions about addresses and landmarks. He confessed that it had been 40 years ago, and he too had been stoned a lot of the time. The buildings were already ruins in ’66, he said. “We weren’t much into infrastructure.”
Read all of it here.
Slideshow, narrated by author, with Kesey photos and audio.
From Harry Edwards / The Rag Blog
US Presidential Candidates: Warmongers All
Barack Obama as Jim Jones: The Kool-Aid that Kills
by Joshua Frank / March 19th, 2008
It could have been the defining moment of the campaign season. But last weekend’s Iraq Winter Solider Hearings were not only ignored by the corporate press, they were also snubbed by the mainstream candidates including alleged antiwar Democrat, Barack Obama.
None of this should come as much of a surprise if you’ve been watching Obama backpedal over the last few months. Somehow the Democratic frontrunner seems to believe Hillary’s defeat will only come about if he steers clear of a legitimate peace platform, merely paying lip-service to the conflicts in the Middle East instead.
While John McCain pronounces the US will be in Iraq for ten more bloody decades, Hillary and Obama aren’t raising any qualms in their policy papers. In fact, as author Jeremy Scahill has pointed out, Obama’s plan for Iraq not only includes continued funding for the gargantuan US Embassy in Baghdad, the senator also wants to leave at least 40,000 troops to roam about the country and allow mercenary forces like Blackwater to operate above the law indefinitely. Hillary Clinton, of course, seconds Obama’s thirst for more occupation and both senators aren’t the least bit hesitant to leave “all options on the table” in regard to Iran.
Warmongers all of them.
Read the rest of it here.
To Prevent Totalitarianism, We Must Act Fast
An Election Without Meaning
by Peter Phillips / March 22nd, 2008
Will November 2008 bring a meaningful change to America? Will getting rid of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney without impeachment or indictment really make a difference? Will a 600 billion dollar war/defense budget be cut in half and used for desperately needed domestic spending? Will the ninety-three billion dollars profits in the private health insurance companies—those parasitic intermediates between you and your doctor—be used instead for full health care coverage for all? Will Habeas Corpus and Posse Comitatus be restored to the people? Will torture stop and the US withdraw from Iraq immediately? Will all students in public universities be able to enroll for free? Will the US national security agencies stop mass spying on our personal communications? Will the neo-conservative agenda of total military domination of the world be reversed?
The answer to these questions in the context of the current billion dollar presidential campaign is an absolute no. Instead we have a campaign of personalities and platitudes. There is a race candidate, a gender candidate and a tortured veteran candidate, each talking about change in America, national security, freedom, and the American way. The candidates are running with support of political parties so deeply embedded with the military industrial complex, the health insurance companies, Wall Street, and corporate media that it is undeterminable where the board rooms separate from the state rooms.
The 2008 presidential race is a media entertainment spectacle with props, gossip, accusations, and public relations. It is impression management from a candidates’ perspective. How can we fool the most people into believing that we stand for something? It is billions of dollars of gravy for the media folks and continued profit maximunization for the war machine, Wall Street, and insurance companies no matter who is determined the winner in November.
We must face the fact that the US government’s primary mission is to protect the wealthy and insure capital expansion worldwide. The US military—spending more than the rest of the militaries of the world combined—is the muscle behind this protect-capital-at-all-costs agenda, and will be used against the American people if deemed necessary to support the mission.
Homeland Security, the North American Command, mass arrest practices with the FALCON raids, new detentions centers, and broadened “terrorism” laws to included interference with business profits are all now in place to insure domestic tranquility through extra judicial means if needed.
The two party corporate political system is having a HOMELAND presidential campaign—Hillary, Obama, McCain, Election, Lacking, Actual, National, Debate. It is time for real change, but it will only come with a social movement of reform in the tradition of the progressive, labor, civil rights, anti-war movements of the last century. We need to use all of our activist, legal, and political resources to reverse these threats to freedom. Naomi Wolf says it is not too late to prevent totalitarianism, but we have to act fast.
Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University, and Director of Project Censored, a media research organization.
The Dicks Still Hate the Police : SXSW
The Dicks : Time has not dimmed their power.
By Danny Eccleston / Mojo / The Rag Blog
It is hard to overstate the importance of this Texan outfit. Covered by Mudhoney, worshipped by David Yow and lauded by The Butthole Surfers (hear their homage to Dicks singer Gary Floyd on their 1985 debut album), The Dicks are part of US punk lore.
Their return over the years has been intermittent but tonight they prove that time has not dimmed their remarkable power. Tonight, the wonderfully rotund Floyd – whose post-Dicks’ outfits have included Sister Double Happiness – is his typically engaging self, sporting a minuscule pointed party hat which, cocked to one side, gives the impression of a single devil-horn. His fetching blue skirt is offset by a black T-shirt provocatively emblazoned with the slogan ‘Tell Your Wife’, while his southern-styled roar remains the defining element of a band unafraid to match classic rock sensibilities with their overtly politicised brand of hardcore thrash.
The Dicks’ unrelenting attitude is exemplified by bassist Buxf Parrot’s pronouncement following the rapacious No Fuckin’ War. “You like that one?” he sneers. “Fuck you! You don’t like that one? Fuck you!” The band’s closing salvo is the seminal Dicks Hate The Police – their very first single back in 1980. It solicits an outbreak of furious slam-dancing that leaves at least one ageing punk injured and several more clutching their noses. Away from the eye-of-the-stomp, it leaves MOJO grinning inanely before joining the rush at the T-shirt stall.
We leave the Elysium safe in the knowledge that we have just enjoyed a truly momentous performance. The time is 2.15am. Whether it’s the jetlag, the alcohol or The Dicks that have made our head spin with giddy glee, it’s hard to tell, although the Hyatt beckons invitingly. We will however be back tomorrow.
From Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog
The Dicks : The Backstory
The Dicks, a Commie Faggot Band, emerged during the halcyon days of Austin, Texas punk. The scene centered around the local dive bar Raul’s frequented by local freaks, artists, and soon-to-be punk rockers. The band was the creation of Gary Floyd, a 26 year old from Palestine, Texas who had been a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War and was openly, flamboyantly gay. Although he was advertising the Dicks before they were even an actual band, Floyd soon joined forces with three “terrorist thugs” to complete the group: guitarist Glen Taylor, bassist Buxf Parrot, and drummer Pat Deason.
They started writing burly, blues-drenched punk anthems and began playing raucous, shows with local heroes the Big Boys. Unlike that band’s funk-infused, high-production value drag show, the Dicks opted for a cruder but still spectacular approach. Gary Floyd would assault the audience with chocolate frosting pulled from his panties, inviting any rowdy audience members to suck his dick.
The band’s first single, the masterful Dicks Hate the Police was dropped onto the world in 1980 on MDC’s R Radical label. The title track to this EP is unlike anything else before or after – a total powerhouse of a song. The B-side found the band playing faster and harder than most other U.S. punk bands at the time.
Like most of their Texas peers, the Dicks had a sound that didn’t fit any one mold or genre. Sometimes punk, hardcore, blues, or free-form ranting, they were always playing music on the edge of insanity. Their next record is one of the ultimate documents of Texas punk – a split live LP with the Big Boys recorded at Raul’s. While the Big Boys don’t sound as great as their studio material, the Dicks really explode off the vinyl with a ripping live set that captures both the great songwriting and amazing energy they brought to the table.
Having caught the attention of punk producer Spot, the Dicks recorded their first full length for SST. Kill from the Heart finds the Dicks’ blues punk attacking conservatism and especially racism with unbridled fury. In 1982, before the album came out, Gary and the Dicks moved to San Francisco, followed by MDC and DRI who took up with them at a squatted beer plant known as the Vats.
Along with their new neighbors Crucifix and Michigan’s the Crucifucks, they embarked on the 1983 Rock Against Reagan tour: an exhausting 3 month extravaganza organized by the Yippies. The tour took a lot out of the band, and after its completion only Gary returned to the city by the bay. There he reformed the band with three new musicians: drummer Lynn Perko, guitarist Tim Carroll, and bassist Sebastian Fuchs.
This line-up recorded the PEACE? EP, a concept single attacking the injustices of war. While the record is powerful, especially the scorching “I Hope you Get Drafted,” it also demonstrated the cleaner, more rocking direction that the new band was taking. 1985’s These People LP, released on Alternative Tentacles, showcased a Dicks who were severing ties with “punk” sounds to play more straightforward, longer bluesy rock songs.
Nonplused by the reaction from punk audiences (“play faster!”), Gary decided to end the Dicks in 1986. He and Lynn Perko started Sister Double Happiness, who recorded for SST. Gary later went solo and has a new project called Black Kali Ma on A.T. Glen Taylor, unfortunately, passed away. Alternative Tentacles has reissued a collection CD of Dicks material that is a good starting point, and bootlegs of the LP (good quality) and first 7″ (bad quality) aren’t too hard to come by. Go get them now.
Here’s the sample referred to in the comment to this post. rdj
Junior and His Lying Lies, Again
Once again, George W. Bush is trying to lie us into an illegal, immoral war against a nation that has no belligerent ambitions. Iran has never “declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people” and, in fact, “[t]he Iranian leaders have consistently condemned nuclear weapons as inhumane and denounced them and said that they don’t want them and it would be illegal in Islamic law to use them.” (from Informed Comment, which I highly recommend you read for its depth and incisive analysis of the Iranian position).
We’d better start asking ourselves what is wrong with a man who will repeatedly, nay chronically lie in order to take the US to war for highly questionable reasons. There appears to be something pathological about our Emperor.
Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog
Bush Vows to Prevent Iran From Acquiring Nuclear Arms
By William Branigin, Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 20, 2008; 12:46 PM
President Says Tehran Wants to ‘Destroy People;’ Cannot Be Trusted to Enrich Uranium
President Bush said the Iranian government has “declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people” and vowed that the United States would be “firm” in preventing Tehran’s acquisition of such arms.
In interviews yesterday to mark the Iranian new year, Bush said Iran has a right to build civilian nuclear power plants but that the government cannot be trusted to enrich uranium, according to White House transcripts released today. Different types of enriched uranium can be used as fuel for nuclear reactors or as fissile material for atomic bombs.
“The Iranians should have a civilian nuclear power program. It’s in their right to have it,” Bush told Radio Farda, a U.S.-funded radio station that broadcasts to Iran in Farsi, the Iranian language.
“The problem is the government cannot be trusted to enrich uranium because one, they’ve hidden programs in the past and they may be hiding one now, who knows; and secondly, they’ve declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people — some in the Middle East,” Bush said. “And that’s unacceptable to the United States, and it’s unacceptable to the world.”
Washington has long suspected that Iran wants to use its civilian nuclear power program as cover for an effort to build nuclear weapons. But the Iranian government has not publicly declared a desire to obtain such weapons. In fact, Iranian leaders have said the opposite, repeatedly insisting that they do not want nuclear arms and asserting that their nuclear program is intended only to generate electricity.
Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation specializing in nuclear policy, called Bush’s statement “uninformed” and “troubling.”
“Iran has never said it wanted a nuclear weapon for any reason,” he said. “It’s just not true.”
Read all of it here.
Austin Student Reports on Direct Action in Washington
Students Serve Congress With “Stop-loss” Order
by Nora Hansel / The Rag Blog /March 21, 2008
Over spring break, I traveled to Washington, D.C., to join the protests against the War in Iraq scheduled for March 19 at the Capitol. I worked with Our Spring Break, a group created by students Ashley Casale of Wesleyan and Robby Diesu of D.C.’s Catholic University. Our protest was called a “Stop-loss” action.This is a report from Austin’s Nora Hansel, a student at Wesleyan University who was arrested during direct action demonstrations at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. on March 19, 2008. Nora is the daughter of Lori Jo Hansel,Austin attorney, MDS/Austin activist and former staffer at the underground newspaper, The Rag. The Rag Blog ran a story titled “Austin teen joins Iraq war protests in Washington” on the day of the demonstration. The post included a video of the activity in which she was involved. — The Rag Blog
Over the span of two weeks, more than 100 of us were trained in non-violent direct action by members of CodePink and were given legal counseling by activist lawyer Ann Wilcox. On Monday and Tuesday, joined by members of CodePink and Iraq Veterans Against the War, we delivered “Stop-loss Order” documents to the offices of all members of the Senate and Congress.
A “Stop-loss Order” is an order that involuntarily and illegally extends the soldiers’ service beyond the terms of their contracts. Soldiers have been “Stop-lossed” as many as five times during this war. These extensions have serious effects on the soldiers and their families and have resulted in a sky-rocketing rate of military divorce.
So, as a way of marking the fifth anniversary of the occupation of Iraq, we decided that the members of Congress — who were about to go into a long Easter break — needed to be “Stop- lossed.” We ordered the members of Congress to remain at their posts until all soldiers and military contractors have been removed from Iraq and Afghanistan. Our action was designed to block them from leaving their posts.
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Code Pink created a diversion for the police while one group of students blocked the intersection of First and Independence, an intersection that representatives must travel through to get home. Meanwhile the other group of students (my group) blockaded the exit driveway to the senators’ parking garage.
We used banners, enlarged “Stop-loss order” posters, coffins and human knots for the blockade. While over a hundred participated in the overall action, about 30 of us were arrested, mostly students (for some of us, what may be the first of many arrests).
They arrested our group first, but we still managed to disrupt traffic. The others, who were at the intersection, blocked traffic for an hour.
I thought the action went very well though I was concerned by the lack of media coverage. We did create a lot of mayhem for those present, but, to put it in perspective, it was a very small action. A symbolic action. But I think it’s always important to make some noise, to call attention to the atrocities happening far away.
As Molly Ivins would have said, to “raise hell.”
I hope that, with the recent Winter Soldier Testimonies and the nonviolent direct actions and other protests surrounding the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, that we raised a little hell. And that the anti-war movement is finally gaining some momentum.
For previous article on The Rag Blog, go here.
Israel, Zionism, Anti-Semitism and Palestine : A Discussion
A thread for peace in the Middle East
The following discussion has been put together from an ongoing thread of posts on the MDS/Austin listserv from March 19-21, 2008. The posts have created both noise and reason, dissonance and unity. The selection below, we believe, is, at the very least, thoughtful. Nothing is resolved. Not when it comes to the question of Zionism, the role of Israel, and the struggle for peace in the Middle East. This discussion is ever a continuing one. Hopefully this can be a usefull contribution to the dialogue. Feel free to chip in.
Thorne Dreyer, The Rag Blog.
The Zionists have won the war with words if there is no difference between Zionism and being Jewish. Kind of like being American/Republican, being Christian/Evangelical. And we have already been informed that a Jew who denies being Zionist is a Jew hating him/her self. There are only Zionists (True Semites) and anti-Semites by this definition. And Muslims are all terrorists, of course, Islam-o-terrorists.
Alan Pogue
There is a lot of generalizing going on here about Zionism, what it is, what it means and who believes in it.
I am Jewish. I believe in the existence and promotion of Israel as the homeland for the Jewish people. I have been there twice and as most who have been there agree, since Israel became a state, this thin slice of undeveloped desert wasteland, in the hands of the Zionist Jews, has been turned into an amazingly rich and productive oasis in the desert. I’m sure most of you know that it was the British, through the British Mandate of 1920, who gave a section of what is now Israel the name of Palestine. The land we now call Israel came to be after it’s own War of Independence of 1948.
With the help of Jews around the world Israel has built the Hadassah Hospitals which accept ALL patients of ALL religions and national origins. I have been there and have met Arab patients, extremely rich and ultra poor, whose lives have been saved at these hospitals often without having to pay anything. A great majority of the medical miracles that happen in the world today are attributable to Israeli research.
Same with computer technology, satellite technology and cell phone technology. The Israelis have built universities and trade schools which have educated and trained thousands of immigrants who other countries would not accept. The people of Israel have created so many miracles in a land which used to be desert occupied by a very poor people who could not or would not make any progress on their own. None of the Arab countries have ever been willing to take in their Arab brethren or help them financially. What’s up with that?????
Most of the Jewish people I know, and that’s saying a LOT, have no desire to move their lives to Israel. Most Jews I know who care about Israel financially and ideologically support it.
Maybe half of these Jewish people would consider themselves Zionist-minded, but do not want to live their lives there. Its a challenging life there for Jewish and non-Jewish Israelis alike, living in a constant war zone, and not knowing if the bus one takes will be blown up on the way home. This is reality for all who live in this area of the Middle East.
I am quite optimistic in general but sincerely believe that the conflict between Israel and its neighbors will never end. There are way too many in the region who live to see the day that all Jews are destroyed.
I do not deny that many Palestinian people are suffering, are lacking freedoms and rights, can’t get to the doctor or to their jobs due to roadblocks which must exist due to the high incidence of Arab terrorism. I believe it’s an unsolvable quandary because the Arab folks who really have the power really do want to rid Israel and the world of the Jews. I believe that although the Israeli folks who really have the power have not made Palestinians’ rights their first priority, that they have a tough nut to crack daily trying to protect their people and keeping Jewish Israel from being destroyed.
I’ve gone on way too long but needed to give another perspective. I am no good at debate and shy away from argument and conflict. I am just a Zionist-minded Jew who wants everyone in the world to live in peace. Toward this end I toil. Peace to you all and to all people.
Jamie Josephs
I have a problem with a number of assumptions expressed in Jamie’s statement and previously put forth by others, most notably Michael Eisenstadt. One central assumption is especially troubling.
As stated in Jamie’s post:
”… the Arab folks who really have the power really do want to rid Israel and the world of the Jews.”
I cannot take this assumption at face value. I stated my reasons two years ago in a ”remembrance” after the passing of a remarkable internationalist Israel-loving Jewish revolutionary comrade and friend, Stew Albert (“Remembering Stew Albert,” Counterpunch, Feb. 1, 2006).
Stew and other Jewish leftists in NYC in the late Sixties were conflicted—as are Jews today—over, on the one hand, the forced dispossession of Palestinian Arabs and Jews in the decades leading up to the partition in 1948 and, on the other hand, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s avowed aim to “push Israel into the sea.”
A number of us, Jews and non-Jews, decided to take our questions directly to the PLO Observer Delegation office at the United Nations. A meeting was set up, and a small contingent of NYC leftist crazies descended upon the U.N sometime (I think) in 1969. Quoting my narrative:
”We met with a passionate young Palestinian (late 20s) and had an extraordinarily candid discussion about the Palestinian ‘question.’ At one point Stew announced that he was Jewish and was very concerned about the public perception that the PLO hated Jews.
”Our host replied: ‘Hate Jews! I cannot hate Jews. I am Jewish!!!’
He explained, ‘My mother is Jewish, my father Arab. By Jewish law, I am therefore Jewish.’”
“’That would be like hating myself.’
“’In my village in Palestine,’ he continued, ’Jews and Arabs, for many many generations, lived together peacefully as one people. We laughed and played and sang songs and ate at the same table for supper. Many, like my parents, intermarried. This ended when the Zionists came and drove us from our homes at gunpoint. Our Jewish neighbors were driven away also.
“’We do not hate Jews. We hate the Zionists who took away our land.’”
I should note that our host emphasized that his story of mixed heritage was not unique among the PLO leadership. As for assumptions, let’s start by questioning all of them, including the one about how the Arab states have turned their back on their Palestinian brethren—an assumption BTW that deftly deflects responsibility away from the armed Zionist gangs who spearheaded the removal of the dark-skinned population and later became Israel’s top leadership.
Then let’s look for solutions which address the real causes of the despair and anger. Methinks the road to peace and justice lies therein.
Jim Retherford
Very brave of you, Jamie, to out yourself as a Zionist on this list, where it is definitely a dirty word. You will no doubt get flamed for the admission. As one who runs in generally liberal to leftist circles, have had this discussion more than once. Though I don’t know exactly where I am going with this, here’s my ramble.
First, a disclosure: I too am Jewish – the garden-variety, secular, non-believer type Jew. I don’t define myself as a Zionist but, throughout my life have worried about Israel. As a kid I, along with other kids in the neighborhood, raised money to plant trees in Israel. We heard the stories about how the kibutzniks made a paradise by bringing life to the desert. And we were proud of our people who created that lush land. I actually dreamed about being a kibutznik. Later in life that dream led to dreams of living communally, which I did for a while.
As a child of World War II, I learned to hate and fear the Nazis and their anti-Semitic brethren around the world. And we heard the stories about Jews being turned away by many countries that they tried to escape to, including this one. We always hung on to the warm knowledge that there was a safe haven – Israel – the one place in the world where all Jews were welcome. That is still an important element of security in Jewish culture.
Now I have other worries about Israel. I worry that the government there, like the government here, is giving the country a bad name, and, by not totally illogical extension, giving Jews a bad name in the process. I, of course, am aware that the Israeli government, like many others, does not necessarily represent the desires of the population. I am also aware that living under constant threat of annihilation and the very real threat of some crazy bomber getting onto your bus or coming into the restaurant you are eating in can make people a little nervous, and hateful. So some support for aggressive policies can, in my opinion, be justified.
Perhaps partially because of Israel’s aggressive policies, I have been hearing a resurgence of what sounds to me like anti-Semitism expressed by all sorts of people. I don’t think anti-Semitism is new. It has existed for probably thousands of years. It had been suppressed though, along with racism of various other stripes, by most people’s desire to appear politically correct. But now it seems that some feel license to let those expressions come to the surface.
It’s not just ignorant rednecks either. I’ve heard radical anarchist friends make all too common slips and, when meaning to say “the Israelis”, instead say “the Jews.” And when referring to the Perle-Wolfowitz-Libby-etc. radical asshole right, I’ve heard people use the word “Jew” in hateful ways. There has even been a return to the “Jewish banking conspiracy” rhetoric.
It’s no wonder that Jews may be a little sensitive. I’ve heard anti-Semitic shit since I was a young kid on the streets of Brooklyn, too young to even understand what the hell they were talking about when the Italian and Irish kids called me “Christ-killer”. In high school, we wimpy Jewish kids suffered through a reign of terror, when the Italian kids declared war on the Jews and we couldn’t get on the school busses without getting punched, shoved and threatened with worse by the much tougher bullies. In college, I became active in CORE and got arrested in civil disobedience actions alongside my black friends.
Then, by my senior year, the black kids in CORE decided that the Jewish kids were part of the problem. There was even a period of time when I flat denied being Jewish. Hell, I didn’t believe any of the religious stuff so why should I have to suffer the persecution just because of the small remnants of culture that my family held on to (oh yeah, and because of my nose, which I absolutely hated then).
And all that was on the east coast, where there were enough Jews so that most people, no matter what they felt, knew enough to keep their mouths shut and not express their ignorant ideas about Jews. But then, in 1976, I moved to Texas, where nobody seemed to see anything wrong with expressions like “I Jewed him down.”
After all that ranting, I guess where I’m going is here: While I do not condone imperialistic action on the part of any nation or entity, and while I abhor war, aggression and violence, no matter who the perpetrators, I believe that Israel is not the lone villain in the Middle East. A good deal of the region seems to be influenced by hatred and hateful people, who blame each other for the horrors of their lives. I can’t pray but I hope for peace.
In the meantime, I wish that those here who have the same hope would not solely blame the Israelis and, by extension, the worldwide Jewish community. The danger is that many people do not get subtlety and too many fall into ancient and deep-seated prejudices.
Ric Sternberg
Ric, I really appreciate what you say! Although I was brought up as a Ft. Worth Methodist child, I know that a lot of the things you say about the late 40s and 50s were definitely true in the South, where there were as many misconceptions about Jewish people as there were about “the colored.”
The big difference to me was that I was also learning that Jesus had been a Jew, and he had been a good guy, so how could they all be so bad now? As soon as possible, this led me to meet Jewish people, to find out for myself, which is how I apparently learn things, if at all.
The number of secular Jewish friends (the norm, as with most religions in the U.S. by the early 60s!) had ballooned after I got involved with peace and civil rights activities in Austin — I cannot even begin to credit especially the enormous number of amazing Jewish women who influenced me then and who continue, many of them, to influence me today in positive and life-affirming ways; some of them despite far distance and long silence.
Some of these women didn’t even think of themselves as very political, but their sense of entitlement to involvement made them highly political role models to me! Judaism is certainly a patriarchal religion, but it retains some respect for women, the likes of which Christianity long ago eschewed! The Rag was full of Jewish mothers; our now-famous 1966 all-woman sit-in at Austin’s Selective Service Headquarters was close to half conducted by educated, intellectual, fearless Jewish women.
I learned about Judaism by eating at their tables, schmoozing in their living rooms, sharing their holidays, and hearing an occasional chorus of the Hora or the dreidel song. Among the Jewish menfolk who were also part of the scene — philosophers, scientists, lawyers and businessmen all; what would you expect, a Jewish plumber???– I learned a lot about argument, logic, and verbal sparring; all in the rabbinic tradition of open discourse, disguised as radical gab sessions.
Later on I thought enough of all of those people to raise my son, whose father is a secular Jew, to become a Jewish man, and did my best to create a secularly Jewish home, complete with noodle kugel and the best damn hamentaschen in town! We practiced humanistic Judaism, a system of ethics, in which freedom and self-determination for all peoples are linked with responsibility and self-respect for oneself. On Passover, my son and I like to sing Bob Marley’s “Freedom Song” last.
I didn’t formally convert to Judaism — if I have any religious belief system any more, it’s more Buddhist — but it bothers me as much to hear the kind of “slips” you mention as it does when I hear someone make a racist remark about illegal immigrants, which I also hear a good bit of these days.
Racism and anti-Semitism are neither one of them dead — and let’s please not forget for a minute that anti-Semitism includes anti-Arab sentiments and dehumanizing characterizations such as “raghead”, “sand n—-r”, “camel jockey”, and so forth, sentiments which fundamentally underwrite our continuing ability to wage war in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and, as is so often pointed out on this list, threaten war with Iran. (Those Persians may see a difference between themselves and the rest of the large-nosed peoples, but to us rednecks, y’all all look alike!)
Just as each of us can promote peace by practicing peaceful solutions in our own lives, we need to be mindful that we eradicate racism and anti-Semitism by removing them from our own hearts and minds. They are enemies of the international working class; they divide us so that the capitalists may conquer.
We get a circus or two to distract us, but electing a bourgeois black man or a bourgeois white woman to a figurehead position, EVEN IF IT HAPPENS, which I consider to be, astoundingly, NOT A GIVEN, wouldn’t change a thing in the arenas where the real shit goes down.
Ric also mentions that Israel’s government is no more responsive to its people than ours is, which made me wonder, just in passing, how many Jews of our generation or later have been barred from traveling to or living in Israel (despite the Law of Return) because they were once arrested there, perhaps while working on a kibbutz, with a little hash or marijuana.
I know a couple of such personally, both among the very best human beings I know, who might have been good influences in one way or another, through recent years, on Israel. (The number of “our people” at any given time who cannot, or don’t realize that they can, participate in elections here in the U.S. because of pot-related convictions is staggering.) Here as in so many arenas, the drug war wasn’t Israel’s idea — but vulnerability noodged them to become part of it. FEAR IS THE KILLER.
I personally think that when criticizing Israel’s policies, we should ROUTINELY criticize the U.S. influence which all too often shapes and defines them. The real criticism of Israel is that is is going to wind up about as much of a “Jewish homeland” as the U.S. is the “home of the brave and the land of the free!” We are all tools of multinational capital, which will fly any flag to blind us to its true allegiance: itself and itself only.
Mariann Wizard
You might want to go to the West Bank and see those fine upstanding “settlers” and IDF soldiers. Just don’t get friendly with the Palestinians or you may be shot in the head. Rubber bullet? I have a couple I picked up in Bethlehem if anyone wishes to see/feel how deadly they are.
Is it anti-Semitic to shoot a Jew who is not a Zionist?
Shanbo Heinemann, humanitarian activist from San Francisco, California, sits on the ground after being shot in the head with a rubber bullet fired by Israeli troops during a protest against Israel’s security fence in the West Bank village of Bilin, February 22, 2008. (REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis)
Alan, who has been there.
(Alan Pogue)
The day in which I can fail to engage the seemingly willfully ignorant U.S. Zionists has passed. My silence will no longer serve as complicity; I can hold my tongue no longer.
Progressive Jews in the U.S. who support Zionist expansionism have no idea (I hope) what they are behind. For a good understanding of the IDF’s undemocratic influence in all Israeli cabinets since 1948, I recommend The Iron Wall by Avi Shlaim. Shlaim’s book demonstrates that, in confluence with those Right Wing religious zealots who control Likud and most recent cabinets, the Israeli military repeatedly makes a mockery of democracy in Israel.
The other “must-read” is Israel Shahak. Fundamentalist Jews do not believe that Palestinians or, for that matter, anyone on this list is a human being—that would likely include Ms. Josephs, Steve Russell, Mr. Eisenstadt, as well as my Jewish daughter and daughter-in-law and her family and more than nine out of the ten US Jews who fund their expansionist behavior.
Eighty seven per cent of the land (inside what so many refer to as Israel) from which Zionist thugs and terrorists drove Palestinian families in 1948 is still vacant. The Palestinians must be permitted to come home from the camps, if Jews are to live in peace on this stolen land.
A One state solution is the only answer. The true “self-hating Jew” is someone who believes (then acts to make real) the Zionist notion that Jews will never live at peace with their neighbors. It is a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Ya Basta!
Doug Zachary
Veterans For Peace
Israel enjoys democratic government: every faction of the population is represented in the Knesset. The Israel government like few others represents the desires of the Israelis.
The problem is that criticism of Israel is not necessarily anti-Semitism. It could be, but not necessarily. To say that criticism of Israel invariably masks anti-Semitism is clearly not true, especially given the great number of Jews who do so. Need I mention Noam Chomsky in this regard?
Mike Eisenstadt
The problem is that criticism of Israel is not necessarily anti-Semitism. It could be, but not necessarily. To say that criticism of Israel invariably masks anti-Semitism is clearly not true, especially given the great number of Jews who do so. Need I mention Noam Chomsky in this regard?
My general position is that there are legitimate grievances, saints and sinners, etc, on both sides. However, Israel is the chief beneficiary of the status quo in that they continue to integrate West Bank land (and water) outside the “green line” (the pre-1967 border), into Israel. I also believe several other things about the conflict.
1.) Israel does not want a peace settlement except on completely favorable terms that require them to give up almost nothing and they have consistently undermined efforts to move toward peace. (Ex.- The Arab League peace plan of 2002, reiterated in 2007, which acknowledges the existence of Israel, has been consistently ignored by Israel although it has been accepted by Hamas.)
2.) Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is brutal (to say the least) and unwarranted. Organized terrorist attacks within Israel have been practically non-existent for many years. Punishing whole populations for the acts of individuals is a clear and egregious violation of all standards of human rights. Regardless, thousands of Palestinians are held indefinitely in Israeli prisons with no legal rights.
3.) Israel is in gross violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which it refuses to sign, and acts as an agent for US imperialism in the Middle East in return for billions annually in US military “aid”. Mordechai Vanunu remains in an Israel jail for life for having exposed Israel’s nuclear weapons program.
4.) The principal stimulus to anti-Semitism in the world today are the actions of the Israeli government.
Those are some of the issues and my beliefs about them. No one on this list would condone crimes committed against Jews, past or present. Most of us have benefited enormously from our associations with Jews, who, if my own experience is any guide, have had seminal positive impacts on our lives out of all proportion to their numbers. Therefore, regrettable though it may be, how you were treated in grade school or how bad the Holocaust was, is not really relevant to the issue at hand.
David Hamilton
I’m sorry, but settlements have not been frozen for years.
The number of settlements may have been frozen, but the size of pre-existing ones is constantly expanding. These expanding settlements do “continue to integrate West Bank land (and water) outside the ‘green line’…into Israel.”That Israel wanted to relinquish 88% of the West Bank is not anything to brag about. The West Bank is illegally occupied territory.
If during the Vietnam War, the U.S. conquered Vietnam and then offered to relinquish 8 per cent of the territory, would you have then stopped protesting and joined Young Conservatives for Freedom or whatever they were called? [Young Americans for Freedom — Ed.] That the Hamas charter calls for the destruction of Israel doesn’t mean anything. Israel is a powerful army, Hamas has rinky-dink rockets. Further, Hamas has been calling for a cease-fire and Israel has refused this offer. I’m sure you know about this. Any Palestinian calls for the destruction of Israel are academic. The real issue is Israel’s actual destruction of Palestine.
Surely you care about that, right?In terms of terrorism, Palestinian terrorism is just as deplorable as Israeli terrorism. But we as Americans aren’t funding or supporting Palestinian terrorism, so what can we possibly have to say about it? On the other hand we send billions of dollars to fund Israeli terrorism. Further, Israeli terrorism kills far more people and destroys far more lives than Palestinian terrorism.
Finally, you say that Israel acts in defense of its interests like any other state. So that the U.S. is acting in defense of its interests is a good reason for the Iraq War? I don’t think so. Israel should abide by the same standards imposed upon every other state. No more. No less. That means they should follow international law which calls for the dismantling of the wall, the release of all prisoners from occupied territory, the end to the occupation, the dismantling of settlements, and they should relinquish 100% of the West Bank. And then, if they want to be decent human beings, they can give Palestinians massive reparations.
David Bradley
Posted by The Rag Blog / March 21, 2008
Colbert on the Water Shortage : Laugh in the Face of Despair…
Stephen puts inventor Dean Kamen’s vapor compression distiller to the test.
Thirst locally and drink globally with Stephen’s new line of bottled water.
Source.
Thanks to Sarito Neiman / The Rag Blog
