Hussein Al-Alak: It's Chilling

2008-07-23 | What is more chilling, then reading a weekend newspaper and viewing a selection of pictures that were taken during World War Two, from the perspective of NAZI officers which depicted them during leisure time in a European concentration camp.

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Israel's PM to step down

Which nutbag do we get next? The vicious shrew Livni or the pure psychopath Netanyahu? - Ed.

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Scandal-hit Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced Wednesday that he will not be his party's leader going into the next election.

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Stike in Iran still possible, US tells Israel

This is unbelievable. Look at the way the Israelis must be gingerly handled because we might not, on second thought, launch WW III on their behalf. If people had any comprehension of the true consequences of striking Iran, they'd be duly horrified how we coddle the Israelis instead of telling them to pound sand. - Ed.

Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense chief, is visiting as Washington is perceived to be softening its stance toward Tehran.

By Paul Richter and Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
July 30, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Bush administration officials reassured Israel's defense minister this week that the United States has not abandoned all possibility of a military attack on Iran, despite widespread Israeli concern that Washington has begun softening its position toward Tehran.

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Stranger Than Fiction

The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates taught his students that the pursuit of truth can only begin once they start to question and analyze every belief that they ever held dear. If a certain belief passes the tests of evidence, deduction, and logic, it should be kept. If it doesn't, the belief should not only be discarded, but the thinker must also then question why he was led to believe the erroneous information in the first place.

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Aide to US Sen. Jim Webb found dead from apparent gunshot wound

Authorities in Botetourt County this morning discovered the body of a well-known Democratic operative and U.S. Senate aide along U.S. 220, dead from an apparent gunshot wound.

The body of Frederick W. Hutchins Jr., 26, of Roanoke was found shortly after 7 a.m. along southbound U.S. 220 by a Botetourt County deputy who had stopped to check on a vehicle parked on the highway's shoulder, according to the sheriff's office.

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USAF General, Thomas L Tinsley, dead from gunshot wound to the chest

Interesting Coincidence: Tinsley’s previous boss, Michael “Buzz” Mosely, resigned in the wake of the Minot Nukes incident.

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$1000 to ask Pelosi a question

We'll gladly pay you $1,000 to ask Nancy Pelosi a question.

Pelosi told "The View" today that she'd impeach Bush if anybody knew of a crime he'd committed, just as she told Ed Schultz a year ago. Here's a list of crimes (PDF) drawn up by Conyers 2.5 years ago. And here's a list of crimes (PDF) from Kucinich's articles of impeachment drawn up by Elizabeth de la Vega.

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Scoop: The people, the press, and the case for impeachment

The July 25, 2008 House Committee on the Judiciary hearings focused on the Kucinich resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush. In his resolution, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) argues that Bush knew that the Iraqis had no weapons of mass destruction, yet claimed that they did in order to justify the March 2003 invasion. The "fraudulent misrepresentations," as they're referred to in the resolution, cost lives, compromised national security, and represented a clear abuse of constitutional power. The evidence supporting these claims is highly persuasive.

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Glenn Greenwald Interview with Daniel Ellsberg

GG: Welcome to Salon Radio With Glenn Greenwald. …

My guest today is Daniel Ellsberg who was the key figure in the Pentagon Papers controversy in the early1970s and who was one of the key figures in government in the 1960s and early1970s and today is really one of the most incisive commentators on a whole variety of current political issues.

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Scott Ritter: Acts of War: The war between the US and Iran is on

American taxpayer dollars are being used, with the permission of Congress, to fund activities that result in Iranians being killed and wounded, and Iranian property destroyed. This wanton violation of a nation’s sovereignty would not be tolerated if the tables were turned and Americans were being subjected to Iranian-funded covert actions that took the lives of Americans, on American soil, and destroyed American property and livelihood. Many Americans remain unaware of what is transpiring abroad in their name. Many of those who are cognizant of these activities are supportive of them, an outgrowth of misguided sentiment which holds Iran accountable for a list of grievances used by the U.S. government to justify the ongoing global war on terror. Iran, we are told, is not just a nation pursuing nuclear weapons, but is the largest state sponsor of terror in the world today.

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US is on brink of survival crisis, according to Moscow

MOSCOW. July 29 (Interfax) - Moscow thinks that the United States could face a serious domestic crisis in the near future.

"The U.S. is on the brink of a mass crisis of surviving," a source with the Russian Foreign Ministry told journalists on Tuesday.

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Russia takes control of Turkmen (world?) gas

From the details coming out of Ashgabat in Turkmenistan and Moscow over the weekend, it is apparent that the great game over Caspian energy has taken a dramatic turn. In the geopolitics of energy security, nothing like this has happened before. The United States has suffered a huge defeat in the race for Caspian gas. The question now is how much longer Washington could afford to keep Iran out of the energy market.

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Capitalism Under Assault

The system is busted. That much is clear. Now many people are experimenting with alternatives. Roberto Mangabeira Unger has long been one of those on the cutting edge of fundamental reform. Finally he has the chance to change the course of history.

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Khudari: The anti-siege ship will sail to Gaza regardless of Israel's fears

GAZA, (PIC)-- MP Jamal Al-Khudari, the head of the popular committee against the siege, stated Tuesday that the ship which is scheduled to leave Cyprus for Gaza to break the Israeli siege will sail despite the fears voiced by Israel towards this anti-siege voyage.

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Neuroscience, National Security, and the "war on terror"

Operating with little ethical oversight, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been tapping cutting-edge advances in neuroscience, computers and robotics in a quest to build the "perfect warfighter."

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Paul: US would back Israeli strike on Iran

Former US presidential candidate Ron Paul says should there be an Israeli strike on Iran over its nuclear work, it would not be unilateral.

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Gates omits Israel from 'close' US allies

!!????!!!! - Ed.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has signed an official defense strategy document which fails to mention Israel in a list of close allies.

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Bush will issue a mass pardon

Seriously, I would be totally thrilled if we got to this point without some horrors intervening first. - Ed.

Before leaving office George W. Bush will issue a mass pardon, the largest collection of presidential pardons in American history. Bush will pardon himself, Vice President Cheney, and a long list of officials involved in torture, eavesdropping, destruction of evidence, the CIA leak case and a range of potential crimes.

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Thar She Blows: The Last Hurrah for the Banking System

by Mike Whitney

The Bush administration will be mailing out another batch of "stimulus" checks in the very near future. There's no way around it. The Fed is in a pickle and can't lower interest rates for fear that food and energy prices will shoot to stratosphere. At the same time, the economy is shrinking faster than anyone thought possible with no sign of a rebound. That leaves stimulus checks as the only way to "prime the pump" and keep consumer spending chugging along. Otherwise business activity will slow to a crawl and the economy will tank. There's no other choice.

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Q&A: Hamas curbing groups firing rockets

Interview with Mohamed Bassyouni, head of the Egyptian Shura Council's Foreign Relations Committee

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Chertoff comes from long line of Talmudic Rabbis

America's new "Homeland Security Czar" Michael Chertoff doesn't like to talk about his childhood very much, probably because much of it was spent in Israel. Given the fact that his mother was an Israeli citizen, and that Michael is also an Israeli citizen (probably a dual-national), it is hard to imagine that given the intense Zionist and Talmudic character of his family that he would not have visited Israel on several occasions as a child.

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Still at Code Yellow, DHS 'fears' 11 months of 'heightened alert'

With 99 days until the presidential election, the Department of Homeland Security is raising vague concerns about possible terrorist attacks in the US or abroad.

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Humans are 'infovores' whose minds hunger for new information to assimilate

Crackberry. Only a metaphor for our addiction-like urge to check e-mail? Or does the term shed light on a deep biological truth about our hunger for information?

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Censored Iraq: 5 years, millions dead including 4,000 troops, but almost no images

Baghdad - The case of a freelance photographer in Iraq who was barred from covering the Marines after he posted photos on the Internet of several of them dead has underscored what some journalists say is a growing effort by the American military to control graphic images from the war.

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Cryptogon: America's Army: Free video game, social engineering platform, and surveillance tool

This video game is nothing less than an automaton that shapes and then harvests teenage minds so that the U.S. Army can repurpose their bodies years later.

I’ve looked at a lot of evil in my days, but this is palpable, murmuring, inky black evil; complete with automated meme delivery and driving, metrics, surveillance. Out the other end drops some number of carbon based lifeforms, with brains at one end, assholes at the other, and trigger fingers usually attached to their right hands. The Army must lick its chops when these kids sign on the dotted line. Not only are the recruits already brainwashed, but they did it to themselves, on their own time.

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US warns Israel - there will be no 'USS Liberty Pt II'

This recalled to my mind the interesting tidbit that Fallon and McConnell were both on the USS Saratoga in the Mediterranean Sea during July 1967, when the Liberty was attacked. - Ed.


For the last 41 years, Israel’s attack on the USS Liberty has been a taboo topic about which neither the Jewish state nor the US has allowed free and open discussion. Like a paid-off judge in the service of organized crime interests who pounds his gavel on the bench, for the last 4 decades Israel and her supporters in the US government have bellowed ‘case closed’ and have raked over the coals anyone–including the survivors of the attack themselves–from arguing otherwise. Realizing the tidal wave of outrage that would occur if the American people were to come of age and lose their innocence in realizing what Israel did in murdering 34 American servicemen 4 decades ago in a premeditated attack, (to say nothing of the cover-up perpetrated by the US government) it has been on the list of forbidden topics……until recently.

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If Iran is attacking, it might really be Israel

by Phillip Giraldi

The Benny Morris op-ed in the NYT last Friday should provide convincing evidence that Israel really really really wants an attack against Iran sooner rather than later. Morris is close to the Israeli government and his case that Iran must be bombed soon and with maximum conventional weaponry to avoid using nukes later was clearly intended to push the United States to do the attacking. The likelihood that Dick Cheney is almost certainly supportive of a US pre-emptive strike and might well be pulling strings behind the scenes, possibly without the knowledge of the Great Decider, makes the next several months particularly significant if a war is to be avoided.

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The Venezuelan-Russian Alliance?

by Richard Skaff

In this epoch of globalization where authoritarianism has prospered, elitism has conquered, false flag operations have ascended, liberty has shriveled, war has prevailed, and true democracies have vanished [2], a handful of sovereign nations are trying to survive the whirlpool of the new world order by arming themselves and by making unholy alliances that will prolong their sovereignty and survival.

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PressTV branded terrorist, is the alternative media next?

US House Resolution 1308, introduced June 26, seeks to blacklist several TV channels as 'Specially Designated Global Terrorist' (SDGT) organizations. These would include Iran's TV stations, including PressTV.com

This attack on the First Amendment is VERY worrying. Where will this end ? What about the Alternative Media web sites, and search engines, which might highlight reports issued by PRESSTV, and other news outlets which aren't controlled by neo-cons ?

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Scott Ritter: Why is America so crazy?

More Scott Ritter and his crystal clear vision.

s o s: Conference to discuss, and lay plans for obtaining, prosecutions of high level US war criminals

A two-day conference on obtaining prosecutions of high level American war criminals will open September 13th, in Andover, Mass. The conference will explore the legal grounds for, and plan for, obtaining prosecutions of President Bush and top officials of his Administration for war crimes.

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Les Vis: The strange moments of these remarkable times

If someone were to ask me to define God, I would say, "Imagine the highest and deepest, most piercing and enveloping love. Then imagine you are on a highway out in the Midwest. On some of those highways you will sometimes see signs for a Las Vegas casino called Harrah's. Well, you might see one in Bangor, Maine that says the distance is thousands of miles. Further on you see a sign which says 'God; one million light years.' That is how that feeling describes God in terms of definition and I am a million light years from there as I sit here now." That's the best I can do but that is probably wrong too because I am a million light years from my best as well. I hope I have satisfied your curiosity... it is that close.

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Crystal Ball Gazing: Visualize the Dow at 6,000

by Mike Whitney

Last Wednesday, at an improvised press conference, George Bush gave what may have been the most comical performance of his eight year presidency. Looking like the skipper on the flight-deck of the Hindenburg, Bush tried his best to reassure the public that "all's well" with the economy and that everyone's deposits were perfectly safe in the rapidly disintegrating US banking system. Leaning lazily on the presidential podium, Bush shrugged his shoulders and said,

“My hope is that people take a deep breath and realize that their deposits are protected by our government. We're not seeing the growth we’d like to see, but the financial system is basically sound."

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McKinney blazes NC trail with incendiary speech

Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney has moved from blue to green, and similarly, she demonstrated her move to the left side of the political spectrum in a speech she gave in Durham: "It's time to move from protest to resistance."

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The Pentagon and Oil

by Sarah Meyer

Nick Turse wrote, on Tom Dispatch (17.07.08): “For years, "oil" and "Iraq" couldn't make it into the same sentence in mainstream coverage of the invasion and occupation of that country. Recently, that's begun to change, but "oil" and "the Pentagon" still seldom make the news together. “

SOHBET KARBUZ has been following “Oil” and “the Pentagon” since 1999. Karbuz’ most complete article, US Military Energy Consumption- Facts and Figures, with extensive footnotes, was published in May 2007 on Energy Bulletin.

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Life in the post political age

by Joe Bageant

Every now and then I am fortunate enough to communicate with someone who has near complete insight into our political process, why things happen and where it seems likely to be headed. Recently I received this brilliant analysis from a high powered political consultant whose name is withheld for obvious reasons. He/she has to live and work in the political world and for either party. In any case, I found it breathtaking in its fundamental analysis and its clarity — clarity being no easy thing to accomplish is the swamp of media-consumerism-politics.
– Joe Bageant

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We Don't Know How Close to Victory We Are

How to Solve America's Wage Crisis

When labor rights are protected, wages go up. It's time to make union-membership a civil right.

By David Sirota, Creators Syndicate.

History books teem with six-word phrases, from the comforting ("Nothing to fear but fear itself") to the inspiring ("Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall") to the embarrassing ("Read my lips, no new taxes"). But the six words, "on the basis of union membership" could be more momentous than any of those. Though hardly Roosevelt's rhetoric, Reagan's bluster or Bush's clumsiness, the clause could solve America's wage crisis.

Of course, when Tom Geoghegan told me this in a Chicago park two weeks ago, I almost snarfed my coffee through my nose. Solving major social problems typically demands more than six words. But as the longtime labor lawyer and author explained his idea to me on a muggy afternoon, it started making sense.

Geoghegan reminded me that data show the more union members in an economy, the better workers' pay. The problem, he said, is that weakened labor laws are allowing companies to bully and fire union-sympathetic workers, thus driving down union membership and wages.

Enter Geoghegan's six words. If the Civil Rights Act was amended to prevent discrimination "on the basis of union membership," it would curtail corporations' anti-labor assault by making the right to join a union an official civil right.

"Hang on," I interrupted. "Joining a union isn't a civil right?"

Correct.

Under current law, if you are fired for union activity, you can only take your grievance to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) -- a byzantine agency deliberately made more Kafkaesque by right-wing appointees and budget cuts. Today, the NLRB takes years to rule on labor law violations, often granting victims only their back pay -- a tiny cost of doing business.

Union leaders are now focused on reforming the NLRB -- an admirable goal -- but Geoghegan's plan implies that workers are harmed by being legally leashed to Washington in the first place. His proposal says rather than being forced to rely on an unreliable bureaucracy for protection, workers should be empowered to defend themselves.

The six words would do just that. Regardless of whether the NLRB is strengthened or further weakened, persecuted workers would be able to haul union-busting thugs into court. There -- unlike at the NLRB -- plaintiffs can subpoena company records and win costly punitive damages.

Bolstering his argument, Geoghegan told me to consider variations in corporate behavior.

For example, because the Civil Rights Act bars racial discrimination, businesses are motivated to try to prevent bigotry: They want to avoid being sued. This is why no company brags about being racist.

But when it comes to unions, there is no such deterrent. The lack of civil rights protection effectively encourages businesses to punish pro-union employees -- and publicize the abuse to intimidate their workforce. By making the six words law, the dynamic would shift. Companies would have a reason -- fear of litigation -- to respect workers' rights.

When Geoghegan and I finished chatting, I remembered why I believe he is America's most talented writer and thinker on labor issues. His relative anonymity is a tragicomic commentary on the media and the American Left. The Milton Friedmans are celebrated by pundits and cast in bronze by conservative think tanks, while the Geoghegans are dismissed by the chattering class and ignored by a progressive movement that regularly venerates Hollywood celebrities as its heroes.

Perhaps, though, this proposal will change things. In developing a way to shift incentives, Geoghegan has discovered a solution that both unionists and economists can love. It cribs the best from liberals' pro-union sympathies and conservatives' distrust of Big Government, and should make him famous (or at least a Cabinet secretary). After all, anyone who can bring such disparate ideologies and adversaries together is worthy of serious consideration -- as is his six-word stroke of genius.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

ISP's confirm '2012: The Year The Internet Ends'

Don't let the Internet evolve to this:



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G8 to Poor Women: Let Them Eat Dirt

By Yifat Susskind

Last week, leaders of the world’s richest countries, the Group of Eight (G8), met to chart the course of the global economy at the luxurious Windsor Hotel Toya Resort and Spa in Toyako, Japan. While President Bush and his colleagues discussed world hunger over a six-course lunch, women in Haiti were preparing cakes of dirt for their children’s dinner.

Eating dirt, mixed with salt and vegetable shortening, is the latest coping strategy of Haitian mothers trying to quiet hungry children in a year when the cost of rice (Haiti’s staple food) has risen nearly 150 percent.

Ironically, many of these women were once rice farmers themselves. But in the 1980s, U.S.-grown rice began pouring into Haiti. Thanks to federal subsidies, the imported rice was sold for less than what it cost to grow it. Haitian farmers just couldn’t compete.

Neither could millions of other farmers around the world, who have been bankrupted by the influx of rice, corn, and wheat from the U.S., Europe and Japan. These farmers have gone from growing their own food and feeding their countries to having to buy food that’s priced on a global market. Now that these commodity markets have spiked, millions of more families cannot afford to eat.

Even here in the U.S., still the world’s richest country, more and more families are struggling to afford food these days. Thankfully, we are not forced to feed our children mud cakes. But ultimately, all working families and small farmers, whether in Haiti or Iowa, are hurt by farm policies that are designed for the benefit of giant food corporations.

Consider the U.S. grain subsidies that have pushed so many Haitian families to the brink of survival. They have also hurt family farmers here at home. That’s because the lion’s share of this $307 billion goes to the largest factory farms, leaving small-holder farmers to fend for themselves.

As we saw last month, when floods wiped out hundreds of acres of crops in the Midwest, farming is a risky business. It’s the family farmers who don’t have much of a financial cushion that we should be protecting with subsidies.

The same goes for small-holder farmers in Haiti and other developing countries. Most of these farmers are women, are mothers, who like most moms in the U.S., are responsible for putting dinner on the table every day. In developing countries, these mothers often grow their family’s food from scratch.

The small-holder, women farmers had no say in the decisions that the G8 leaders’ made about the global food crisis. Yet, it turns out that they have a lot to say when it comes to finding solutions to the crisis they are facing.

Just before the G8 meeting, a network of women’s groups from Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Colombia issued an open letter to the G8. Brought together by the international women’s human rights organization, MADRE, the women called on the G8 to support real solutions to the food crisis. They proposed concrete changes in the global economy, like international mechanisms to stabilize the cost of food and protect the livelihoods of farmers. They called for billion-dollar-a-day agricultural subsidies to be converted from support for big agribusiness to incentives for sustainable, small-scale and organic farms.

These are solid proposals backed up by research and years of first-hand experience in communities that are on the frontlines of today’s food crisis.

But instead of taking steps that could remedy the problem, the G8 plugged more of the same corporate-friendly trade and agriculture policies that brought on the food crisis in the first place.

G8 leaders called for more “open markets” in food trade. Openness sounds good, but in practice this means that poor countries can’t use tariffs to protect farmers from unfair competition.

The G8 also pushed for stricter patent laws. These rules take ownership of seeds — the very basis of all agriculture — away from small farmers and enable giant biotech companies like Monsanto to control our food supply.

The G8 did call for more aid to countries like Haiti that have been hard hit by the spike in food prices. That’s an important step when lives are at stake. But the money is to be administered through the International Monetary Fund, famous for making offers with strings attached. In this case, governments will be required to implement more of the kind of trade liberalization that hurts poor people and small farmers and has created record profits for big food corporations this year.

But as the women’s letter to the G8 clearly shows, it’s not corporate profits, but human rights –including the basic right to food — that will underpin real solutions to the food crisis.

Susskind is the communications director of MADRE: Rights, Resources and Results for Women Worldwide.

Copyright © 2008 by the American Forum.

Original article

The Despotism of the Image

by Dmitry Orlov

The ostensible goal of this Web site, and the small but enthusiastic community that surrounds it, is to change the culture. We all recognize that the contemporary mainstream culture of over-consumption and unbridled growth is toxic on every level -- physical, emotional, and cultural -- and is accelerating on a collision course with resource depletion, climate disruption, and environmental devastation. We all want to jump off in time, or, perhaps lacking the necessary courage, to find ourselves lucky enough to be thrown clear.

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Army court-martials resister for blowing whistle on 'bait-and-kill'

Private First Class James Burmeister faces a Special Court Martial at Fort Knox on July 16. The charges are AWOL and desertion. He returned to Fort Knox voluntarily in March, after living 10 months in Canada with his spouse and infant child. He refused redeployment to Iraq while on leave in May 2007.

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Death of free internet is imminent: Canada to become test case

by Kevin Parkinson

In the last 15 years or so, as a society we have had access to more information than ever before inmodern history because of the Internet. There are approximately 1 billion Internet users in the world B and any one of these users can theoretically communicate in real time with any other on the planet. The Internet has been the greatest technological achievement of the 20th century by far, and has been recognized as such by the global community.

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Inflation and the Spectre of World Revolution

by James Petras

Inflation and all of its repercussions for wage and salaried workers, fixed income middle classes, as well as manufacturers and transport industries is splashed all over the financial pages of the major newspapers throughout the world.

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Debka File: Senior Israeli official: If nuclear talks fail, Bush will order Iran attack between Nov and Jan

Well, he might order it, but does that mean it will happen? - Ed.

This assessment was reported by Israeli national radio Saturday overnight quoting a high-placed “security-political” official.

The source predicted that President George W. Bush would order Iran attacked between the November 4 presidential election and his exit from the White House in January.

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Cryptogon: Why are tens of thousands of plastic "burial vaults" stacked in a field near Madison, GA?

I have no idea what to make of this one. All of the sites I was able to find that reference this stockpile assume that it has something to do with an upcoming American holocaust and martial law, etc. Again, I have no idea.

Let’s try to work trough this one a bit…

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Are we Americans now barbarians and savages?

I am still reading Military Journal of the American Revolution by James Thacher MD , and came across the following passage on page 67 regarding military engagements between the colonists (our American forefathers) and the British during the Revolutionary War. These battles/skirmishes occurred around White Plains and the River Brunx- Thacher writes about some prisoners taken by the Americans:

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Israel's Collective Psychosis: The Denial Syndrome

by Khalid Amayreh

This week, Israel sank in an avalanche of national lethargy, hypocrisy and self-righteousness. Seeking to cope with Hezbullah’s success in getting Israel to release all Lebanese prisoners, dead and living, in exchange for the remains of two Israeli soldiers, Israeli leaders, media and shapers of public opinion have been indulging in sanctimonious self-glorification while denouncing the other side as “hateful, uncivilized and representing an inferior culture.”

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Scott Ritter: Take off those yellow ribbons

Watch video.

Rendering Public Opinion Irrelevant

by Glenn Greenwald

One of the most striking aspects of our political discourse, particularly during election time, is how efficiently certain views that deviate from the elite consensus are banished from sight -- simply prohibited -- even when those views are held by the vast majority of citizens.

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A united front to oppose militarism

by Bob Finch

The ziocons have been behind most of the critical political changes in American foreign policy since the early 1970s and yet, politically, they remained completely invisible for almost thirty years. For instance, the Jewish lobby in America and Israel, were responsible for pushing America and Britain into the first Gulf war. With the exception of Patrick Buchanan’s remarks about the zionist amen corner, no commentator discussed the ziocons’ role in triggering this war or the subsequent sanctions against Iraq. However, America’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 has brought about a significant political change. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of commentators criticizing the Likudnik traitors at the heart of the Bush administration who initiated America’s invasion of Iraq.

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Lawrence of Cyberia: Is Anti-Zionism Anti-Semitism?

I wrote the following as a comment on a post of the same name at My Left Wing. I'm reproducing it here because it is also a suitable response to readers who email from time to time with questions along the lines of "How can criticizing a Jewish state not be anti-semitic?"*:

I think this post misses the point entirely about why people can be anti-Zionist but not anti-semitic. And it misses the point because you start off from a strawman argument. Specifically this misrepresentation of why people might be opposed to Zionism:

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Ray McGovern: Israel planning a Sept/Oct surprise?

You say you expected more rhetoric than reality from Senators Obama and McCain yesterday in their speeches on Iraq and Afghanistan? Well, that’s certainly what you got.

What I find nonetheless amazing is how they, and the pundits, have taken such little notice of the dramatic change in the political landscape occasioned by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s bombshell on July 7 — his insistence on a “timetable” for withdrawal of US troops before any accord is reached on their staying past the turn of the year.

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Gilad Atzmon: Caught between sobbing and war chants

Scathing commentary on the tough, tough Israelis. - Ed.

Monitoring the current Israeli collective pornographic lament in the Hebrew press, I found, to my amazement, a critical editorial written by Dr Mordechai Keidar, an Israeli rightwing academic.

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Americans being electrocuted in Iraq on 'almost a daily basis'

Among the seemingly innumerable scandal-worthy stories which have so marked the war in Iraq is one growing tragedy which has been largely ignored: shoddy electrical work by U.S. contractors at military bases leading to numerous electrical fires, troops receiving painful shocks, and even death by electrocution.

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Biological Warfare against US troops...Courtesy of Halliburton

via SOTT, Brasscheck TV

This is how George Bush and Dick Cheney support the troops. And you can thank Congress for it too while you're at it.

Simple biological warfare - poisoning the troops' water supply - is the most cost effective way of neutralizing the effectiveness of an armed force.

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Stuart Taylor on Bush and Torture

This is unbelievable. He suggests we just let them all off the hook. Yes. That way we'll get to the bottom of everything. WTF would you expect from Newsweek? - Ed.

To get a full accounting of how U.S. interrogation methods were used, the president should give those accused of 'war crimes' a pass.

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Anti-fascist calling: Simulating urban warfare

In Planet of Slums, socialist historian Mike Davis mapped the brutal urban realities shared by more than one billion of the earth's inhabitants, unmoored by neoliberal globalization from the "formal" world economy. From Baghdad to Karachi and from Lagos to Los Angeles and beyond, as ever-broader segments of the world's population are transformed into "a surplus humanity," the master class presents "no scenario" for ameliorating the immiseration it has itself designed through the "normal" functioning of a grotesque system of exploitation and injustice.

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ACLU calls for probe of Chertoff's use of terrorist watch list

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, when Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff testifies before the House Homeland Security Committee, the American Civil Liberties Union calls on the committee to exercise vigorous oversight of the many DHS programs that endanger U.S. citizens’ privacy and civil liberties without increasing security. DHS’s unchecked detention and deportation powers have resulted in abusive interrogations of families with children at checkpoints, creation of militarized zones within the U.S. and widespread fear in immigrant communities facing natural disasters. Collectively, these practices illustrate how DHS has mismanaged its authority and wasted resources.

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GM's pain hits retirees

Look how our corporations break their promises to older Americans. Nice. - Ed.

by Andrea K. Walker, Baltimore Sun

When Charles Miller went to work at General Motors' Broening Highway plant in 1954, he was attracted to the company by its reputation for good salaries and stellar benefits.

He stayed for 31 years. Since he retired from his job as a data processor in 1985, he has gotten health coverage from the automaker, which helped pay for his heart surgery last year.

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Non-violent struggle means No Violence

This is a fighting website,

but the enemy we are fighting

is not one of flesh and blood, but of spirit – a spiritual enemy,

who is waging war against the spirit of all mankind.

It is not just Americans who are under extreme duress from the ceaseless assault,

crushing the spirit of all the people in the entire world

is the objective of this spiritual parasite.

We fight the lies of the enemies of humanity,

the men who would use the power of the “Big Lie”

to decimate the human spirit

and destroy our will to resist them.

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'Because killing people is what we do'

by Joe Bageant

Hi Joe,

I want to share a chance encounter I had last weekend while visiting my brother in southern Ohio. My trips there invariably involve our stopping at various pubs in several surrounding communities. Late Saturday night we visited the pub whose owner my brother considers to be a good friend -- except for his politics. But the guy has a good heart. And he tells funny stories. And he is a good guitar player. He even supplied and “ran” the fireworks display at our parents’ 50th anniversary party a number of years ago. But this particular evening, I don'’t even remember how my brother and I “got started” with him regarding politics,– the military, the war, blah, blah.

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Ron Paul: Something big is happening

Madam Speaker, I have, for the past 35 years, expressed my grave concern for the future of America . The course we have taken over the past century has threatened our liberties, security and prosperity. In spite of these long-held concerns, I have days--growing more frequent all the time--when I'm convinced the time is now upon us that some Big Events are about to occur. These fast-approaching events will not go unnoticed. They will affect all of us. They will not be limited to just some areas of our country. The world economy and political system will share in the chaos about to be unleashed.

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Little war criminals get punished, big ones don't

by Paul Craig Roberts

National Public Radio has been spending much news time on Darfur in Western Sudan where a great deal of human suffering and death are occurring. The military conflict has been brought on in part by climate change, according to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Drought is forcing nomads in search of water into areas occupied by other claimants. No doubt the conflict is tribal and racial as well. The entire catastrophe is overseen by a government with few resources other than bullets.

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AT&T Whistleblower: Spy bill creates infrastructure for a police state

Mark Klein, the retired AT&T engineer who stepped forward with the technical documents at the heart of the anti-wiretapping case against AT&T, is furious at the Senate's vote on Wednesday night to hold a vote on a bill intended to put an end to that lawsuit and more than 30 others.

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Winter Patriot: Why are we celebrating?

Did you ever wonder why we've been drinking beer, dancing in the parking lots, watching fireworks, and chanting "USA! USA! USA!"? Well here's your answer, or at least part of it, from Dennis Kucinich:

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Will Israeli settlers' terrorism finally be prosecuted?

by Mustafa Qadri

Susia, a little known village in the West Bank, has made international headlines after an old Palestinian couple and their nephew were filmed being lynched by four youths.

The video was captured thanks to an advocacy project sponsored by the Israeli human rights organization B'tselem.

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Turning the tables on the Israeli firsters

by Michael Scheuer

Now that the dust has settled in the spat between journalist Joe Klein and the ideologues at Commentary, it is time to regret the ink spilled over the non-issue of "dual loyalties." The idea that there are U.S. citizens who have equal loyalties to the United States and Israel is passé. American Israel-firsters have long since dropped any pretense of loyalty to the United States and its genuine national interests.

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The trouble with Naalin is the will to live

by les vis

Do you ever think about the point inside the point inside the point inside the point? What I mean is how connections that seem to be one issue can be gathered together to be the same issue but with an entirely different perspective? I guess I’m talking about intentional enigmas; convolutions, shell games, ironies, conundrums and more things than I can recall at the moment.

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We are at the edge of the abyss

by Karl Schwartz

The Rense website has posted an article out of Russia that everyone needs to read, comprehend and heed.

No sooner than this article was announced out of Russia and Iran than Bush calls a press conference and lifts the executive ban on offshore drilling. There is also a very good possibility that such an act by George W Bush was an "unofficial announcement of defeat". I think the US just lost the entire debate regarding the oil and gas out of the entire Caspian Basin region. If you do not know what that means, see the other article I have on Rense titled "The Pyrrhic Victory of The Great Decider".

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Elections, Capitalism, and Democracy

Because so many of the people on the political left fear that John McCain will become the next president, they have allowed themselves to see the very moderate democratic candidate, Barach Obama, as a desirable alternative to the decidedly ghoulish McCain, rather than supporting a genuine progressive like Dennis Kucinich, Cynthia McKinney, or Ralph Nader. They thus perceive Obama to be far more progressive than he really is. Such comparisons lead us down a dichotomous pathway that assures a continuous drift to the right.

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s o s: 2 Billion to Die (within the next 12 months)

I was quite shocked at this man's understanding of Revelation and his careful analysis. Anyone who has studied Revelation, Daniel, and Matthew 24 knows it has to have a perfect fit...

A must see for anyone who follows the prophetic line of information and for atheists too.

Detente or hidden agendas? A sign of the times

by Gilad Atzmon

Back in 2003 I wrote, “If ‘world peace’ is our main concern, we must achieve a balance of power, we must let the oppressed people of this world have access to the most advanced weaponry…. Balance of power is the only key to peace.” Nowadays, when Israel and its supportive lobbies are doing everything within their powers to drag us all into a third world war, I find it necessary to say it again. The only way to spare the Middle East and the entire world from another devastating cycle of bloodshed is to let the Iranians have their nuclear toy. But it goes even further, seemingly, the only way to save the Jewish state from its merciless parade of belligerent omnipotence is to let Iran join the nuclear club ASAP. The only thing that may cool down the Zionist militant genocidal enthusiasm is an overwhelming Iranian might of deterrence.

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Kicking sand in Russia's face

by Eric Margolis

Last week’s utterly useless and hugely expensive G8 summit in Japan was at least a welcome comic relief after all the bombast and threats flying back and forth between the US, Israel and Iran.

The world leaders dined on caviar as they earnestly discussed hunger and the global food crisis. They agreed to do something about global warming by 2058. That’s real courage and leadership.

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President Bush is a murderer?

Check out the arrogance of your MSM. They are guilty as sin. - Ed.

Status report on the collapse of the economy

by Richard C. Cook

With the economic news of the week of July 14—the continuing crisis among mortgage lenders, the onset of bank failures, the announced downsizing of General Motors, the slide of the Dow-Jones below 11,000—we are seeing the ongoing collapse of the U.S. economy.

Even the super-rich are becoming nervous as cries for an emergency suspension of short selling ring out.

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The terrorist watch list reaches +1Million and growing

Are you an activist, an author, a journalist, a patriot, or maybe a scholar who speaks out his or her mind in the defense of democracy? If you are, then, the chance of having your boarding pass stamped with the ominous symbol of “SSSS” on your next flight from the United States is very high.

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Rick Steves: Understand Iran

A friend from the Washington State chapter of the United Nations Association called me six months ago and asked what I could do to help them build understanding between Iran and the US, and to defuse the tension that could be leading to war. I answered, “The only powerful thing I could do would be to produce a TV show on Iran.”

I remember when the bombs first fell on Baghdad, thinking I'd missed an opportunity to make a travel show that could humanize Baghdad and give “collateral damage” a face. I didn’t want to miss an opportunity to do this for Iran. My government would let me go. The Islamic Republic of Iran actually wanted the publicity. I threw together a proposal for a TV show — no politics, just travel. The working title: Iran: Its People and Culture, Yesterday and Today.

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Decision Time

I promised my long time readers and my friends who knew me even before the Internet to issue warnings before World War III starts and the Next Great Depression begins. I am now saying it is nearly certain there will be a Hyperinflationary worldwide Great Depression in the first 6 months of 2009 that will be far worse than 1929-1939. World War III will also start next year at about the same time.

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Karen Selick looks on the bright side of hate speech

There’s been plenty of discussion lately about the harmful consequences of censorship — the extra publicity that hate speech gets when prosecuted, the chilling of legitimate debate and the dangers of slippery slopes.

However, I think a case can be made that allowing the publication of repugnant remarks about minority groups might actually have positive benefits for society.

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Patriotism: Wait one damn minute

By Fahim A. Knight-EL

This writer grew up in an era and attended public schools where between 8:15am and 8:30am every morning the principal of the various schools I attended would come on the public address (PA) system and recite “The Pledge of Allegiance” over the intercom and it was mandated that each student had to stand and place their right hand on their heart and turn towards the U.S. Flag which hung in every classroom and recite The Pledge of Allegiance.

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Money, Honey...and face tiime in your dreams

by les vis

For those of us still capable of independent thought, there is a question that arises in the mind. It is a perplexing question. Why is it that when people gain some measure of power, through money, influence or by association… why is it that so many of them choose to embrace corruption over principles and reputation? Why would so many potentially good people go bad and not care about the loss of their ideals and good name?

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We Are Winning

by Hari Heath

Against incredible odds, with very little that can be called an organization, WE—the people—are winning. There is still a long way to go, but the battle is ours. The enemies within humanity, the psychopaths in the shadows of power, are losing their quest for dominion over humanity and the world. They are starting to run scared.

If we look to the cycles of human history the challenge has always been for the common people to live decent and prosperous lives despite the psychopathic elite’s relentless obsession with institutionalizing various forms of slavery, subjugation, murder and dominance to live in idle luxury at the commoners’ expense.

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A CIA Lawyer's Smoking Gun

by Nat Hentoff

In October 2002, 10 Defense Department lawyers and officials met at Guantánamo to figure out which interrogation techniques would finally extract information from the hard-shelled terrorism suspects there. Also in attendance was a CIA counterterrorism lawyer, Jonathan Fredman, who revealed a way that exceptionally aggressive methods could be used that would not amount to the U.S. being charged with torture.

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Amber Alert!

Another take on the meaning of GWB's and Israel's 'Amber Alert' status. - Ed.

by Justin Raimondo

In spite of reassurances from the Washington talking heads and policy wonks that the U.S. is not about to launch an attack on Iran, or countenance an Israeli strike, the Sunday Times has the real scoop:

"President George W. Bush has told the Israeli government that he may be prepared to approve a future military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations with Tehran break down, according to a senior Pentagon official.

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Iran Shows its Cards

by Scott Ritter

There can no longer be any doubt about the consequences of any U.S. and/or Israeli military action against Iran. Armchair warriors, pundits and blustering politicians alike have been advocating a pre-emptive military strike against Iran for the purpose of neutralizing its nuclear-related infrastructure, as well as retarding Iran’s ability to train and equip “terrorist” forces on Iranian soil before dispatching them to Iraq or parts unknown. Some, including me, have warned of the folly of such action, and now Iran itself has demonstrated why an attack would be insane.

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Afghanistan opposes US use of country to stage Iran attack

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai said in an interview Monday he opposes any U.S. use of his country as a staging point for an attack against neighboring Iran.

The Islamic republic has threatened to lash out against Israel and U.S. interests in the region if it comes under attack over its continued development of a suspected nuclear weapons program.

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Man Arrested for 'Unlawful Photography'

Um....no such thing, officer.
Don't miss the 7/14 @ 2:51 comment. Outstanding. - Ed.

By Darius Radzius
Reporter / WJHL
Published: July 11, 2008

Nearly everyone carries a cell phone and it’s hard to find one without that camera feature. It’s convenient when you want to take that impromptu photo, but a Tri-Cities area man ended up behind bars after snapping a shot of a Johnson County sheriff’s deputy during a traffic stop.

The cell phone photographer says the arrest was intimidation, but the deputy says he feared for his life.

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Accountability Now and strange bedfellows: The strategy and rationale

by Glenn Greenwald

In the 2006 mid-term elections, Americans handed The Democratic Party a sweeping, staggering, and historic victory -- as the GOP was removed from power and Democrats given control over both the House and Senate. It marked only the third time in the last 60 years that there was a change in control of the Congress. The Democrats defeated six GOP Senators, and picked up 31 House seats. Six Governorships switched from the GOP to the Democrats. Not one single Democratic incumbent in Congress and not one Democratic Governor lost -- only the second time in U.S. history in which one of the major parties failed to defeat even a single Congressional incumbent from the other party.

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Murdering God: Of Shotguns, American Capitalism, and Moral Expediency

by Jason Miller

Experiencing decreasing levels of the comfort that ensures our loyalty to the criminal enterprise of American Capitalism, we “average” US Americans comprising the poor, working class, and rapidly shrinking middle class still revel in our relatively meaningless social freedoms (we can say “fuck you” to George Bush but can’t even get our “elected representatives” to impeach him for his Nuremberg class war crimes) as the economic manacles and shackles of wage slavery clamp ever tighter about our wrists and ankles.

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Greenwald: The Al-Haramain ruling: The President broke the law for years

via SOTT

A Bush-41-appointed Federal District Judge yesterday became the third judge -- out of three who have ruled on the issue -- to reject the Bush administration's claim that Article II entitles the President to override or ignore the provisions of FISA. Yesterday's decision by Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of California also guts the central claims for telecom immunity and gives the lie to the excuses coming from Congress as to why the new FISA bill is some sort of important "concession." More than anything else, this decision is but the most recent demonstration that, with this new FISA bill, our political establishment is doing what it now habitually does: namely, ensuring that the political and corporate elite who break our laws on purpose are immune from consequences.

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Marine's graphic interview describes killing of prisoners in Iraq

by Tony Perry, LA Times Staff Writer, via ICH

CAMP PENDLETON -- A graphic, vulgarity-laced interview in which a Marine described how he and two other Marines killed four unarmed prisoners in Iraq was played today during a preliminary hearing in the case.

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Pentagon "Calmatives": Biochemical substances as incapacitating weapons of war and social control

by Tom Burghardt, Global Research

Ours is a social system spinning wildly out of control. Wherever one glances, the political-economic-ecological crises engulfing late capitalism are insolvable in terms of structural reforms that might mitigate the system's approaching zero hour. Call it the proverbial band-aid over gangrene syndrome; a plethora of terminal "fixes" that fix nothing.

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Let the Lawsuits Begin: Banks Brace for a Storm of Litigation

Very interesting. - Ed.

by Ellen Brown, Global Research

In an article in The San Francisco Chronicle in December 2007, attorney Sean Olender suggested that the real reason for the subprime bailout schemes being proposed by the U.S. Treasury Department was not to keep strapped borrowers in their homes so much as to stave off a spate of lawsuits against the banks. The plan then on the table was an interest rate freeze on a limited number of subprime loans. Olender wrote:

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Call to Action July 19-21: No War With Iran

Responding to the renewed threats of a U.S./Israeli attack on Iran before President Bush leaves office, United for Peace and Justice calls for coordinated Days of Action across the United States on July 19-21. Now is the time to speak out against any U.S./Israeli military attack on Iran.

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The Bipartisan Surveillance State

by Anthony Gregory, San Diego Union-Tribune

The Democratic Congress passed and Bush signed the "FISA Amendments Act of 2008," legalizing the president's longstanding illegal wiretapping program. The law allows broad warrantless surveillance of Americans in the United States, so long as the call or e-mail is thought to be international. Eavesdropping on domestic communications is legal for a week before court papers even have to be filed. The telecom companies that cooperated with Bush are immune from civil lawsuits. Most important, the administration's illegal conduct has been retroactively approved and future administrations have wider powers than ever to spy on Americans.

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Beware Bush's preemptive strike on torture

by James Ross, Salon

July 10, 2008 | New revelations of the U.S. government's systematic use of torture in the "global war on terror," including communist Chinese "brainwashing" methods from the 1950s, have brought renewed calls from lawmakers and human rights advocates for the prosecution of senior Bush administration officials. While the legal and political obstacles to such prosecutions are steep, those implicated will not want to leave the enjoyment of their retirement years to the mercy of the federal judiciary.

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Scott Ritter: What an attack on Iran will look like

Watch 2 minute video.

Putting a name to Gaza's injured

Bedridden but painfully conscious, nearly paralyzed with no feeling from the waist down, 16-year-old Abdul Rahman (nicknamed Abed) is one of the hundreds who were injured by intense Israeli shelling and firing on Gaza between 27 February - 3 March 2008, during an operation dubbed "Hot Winter" by Israel. According to a World Health Organization report, during this period the Israeli army killed at least 116 Palestinians, nearly half of them civilians and more than a quarter children, including a six-month-old and a 20-day-old baby, and injured 350. Later counts put the number killed as high as 150, with more than 55 killed in one day alone. Over half of the week's fatalities and injuries occurred in and around Jabaliya, the refugee camp where Abed was born and has called home all of his life.

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Game Over: 36 surefire signs that your empire is crumbling

by David Michael Green

So. You've built yourself an empire, eh?

Well, bully for you!

What's next, you ask? Well, now you've got to do what everybody does when they have an empire, of course. You've got to worry about it falling apart, mate!

But how to tell for sure? Let me see if I can be helpful. Here are some rules of thumb to keep in mind, thirty-six sure-fire indicators that your empire is falling apart:

You know your empire's crumbling when the folks who are gearing up their empire to replace yours start blowing up satellites in space. And then they don't bother to return your phone calls when you ring up to ask why.

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