I can't believe I lost to this guy.

As you know I was turned down in my attempt to land a community columnist spot with the Journal. Ever since I have turned on the idiots that were chosen over me. This happened again when I read this moron's column about evolution and atheism. At first I was pissed and began to fire off a nasty email but then realized that he would never read a nasty email so I rewrote it.
Here is the original article.

And my response.
Dear Philip, I read your piece in the Journal on Saturday and felt obliged to reply. At first I was upset, due to the fact that I am an atheist, but later I calmed down. I have no desire to argue evolution, religion, creationism or any other theological topic. I only would like to counter your points about evolution. I think much of the debate between the Religious and Secular is based mostly on a lack of understanding of each other’s beliefs, mostly because neither side wants to take time to understand the other person’s. I am going to attempt to explain, in better detail, what we believe and how simplified your take on it is, much like many Secularists who simplify the creation belief. I will try to quote you so that I am not putting words into your mouth.
Early on you state, “If we humans are animals like any other - only more evolved - there is no basis for us to act any differently from other animals.” The only problem is that all animals act differently then the others. There is no universal animal behavior because the animals differ so greatly. For instance, an ant, with its social structure is going to act differently then, say, a tiger. We, as human, if also animals, would act differently then other animals based on our numerous differences. Also could we not have evolved morality?
Later you go on to mention how the kookaburra’s commonly kill the weakest siblings. One could easily argue that we too as humans kill, through our inaction, the weakest people on the planet. With just a couple dollars a day, each first world citizen could save countless of the world’s poor. If my memory serves me right, Christ talked much about helping the poor with Jesus saying, to paraphrase, “what you did for the least off of your brethren you did for me.”
“If atheistic evolution is true, what basis do we have for prosecuting murderers as criminals? They're acting just as naturally as any other animal that kills.” Humans are social beings, they would not survive without the help of others around. Now, according to an evolutionist, murdering is wrong in a social animal because of what it does to the society. Social cohesion is the most important thing for the survival of the species because we are not the fittest, in the traditional sense, instead we band together to tip the balances in our favor.
“If evolution is true, and we are just more highly developed animals, then violence and rape cannot be condemned on moral grounds. There is no such thing as right and wrong in the animal world, so why should there be in the human world if we are just another animal?”
This is odd because just on the fact alone that we are more developed leads that we could set up laws unlike the animals. And to claim that there is no right or wrong in the animal world is silly because there are countless examples of members being kicked out of the herd and as a human, how could you possibly know what is going on in the minds of all the animals on the planet.
I think that your description of animal behavior is simple at best. We have no idea whether animals hold that some behavior is right and others wrong. Just because they have no ability to build courthouses and jails does not mean that they lack “right and wrong” even if that goes against what we see as moral. For instance, when a pack of dogs wants to invade another pack’s territory they scare them off. Whereas humans, and Exodus is a prime example, kill every man, women, the elderly and the children.
Does one really believe that if the Kookaburra could evolve farther that they too would build atom bombs and drop them on Japanese fishing villages? OR does that same Kookaburra, if it evolved to the point of speaking, justify the killing of the weaker sibling much like we justify dropping two atomic bombs on Hiroshima. When it comes to the latter we are told that we had to do it, therefore stripping it of its obvious immorality, whereas the Kookaburra could argue the same point, “I killed my weaker sibling for the good of the flock.” It was still immoral to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent fishermen even if the ends justify the means.
As a person who is both an atheist and someone who believes in evolution, I hold that human beings had inbred instincts that made us behave in all sorts of ways that are beneficial to our society as a whole. I just believe that the morality came before the Bible was written whereas you believe that the Bible came first. Of course, neither of us can come up with any proof either way, nor should we waste our time trying to.
If one looks at human history, and much of religious history, it may be possible to argue that animals are more moral not less. I doubt that animals are pedophiles, I doubt that animals horde more than they need while allowing the others to die, and I can’t fathom animals partaking in genocide.
So maybe the big difference is the same as the chicken and the egg. I say that morals came first and you say the holy text came first. Luckily though for you, this conundrum is easily solved. “God did it.”

Chomsky on 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

In case you missed it.

Islamofascism Awareness Week

Just when you thought that October had its full with Breast Cancer awareness here comes David Horowitz with his Islamo-fascism awareness week. He had many things planned like attacking feminists in America for not standing with their Saudi/Afghan women which is kind of fitting considering it is Breast Cancer Awareness month. I guess he figures that the numbers of breast cancer deaths, predicted to reach 40,000, are less important than the 3000 killed on Sept. 11th or the thousand Israelis killed in the five years since the Palestinian’s latest uprising. Or maybe like his Islamofascist enemies he too views women as lesser beings.
Here are the fourteen points of Fascism and why the term is wrong.
1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism: How can it be that the Islamic Jihadi movement can be called nationalist when they have no nation is beyond me.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights: Well it can be easily demonstrated that these Jihadists have no regard for human rights but that does not make them unique. If one looks, from Abu Ghraib to the West Bank to the French in Algeria to China to India, it is obvious that most powerful people have a disdain for human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause: This, I believe, can be applied to the Jihadists for sure. The Jews, the West and modernity are the scapegoats no doubts. Just like the Arabs, the Islamofascists and communists were to the US.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism: Even though the Jihadists don’t have a formal military, one can interchange the words military with violence if they like. In the US though, it is off limits to question anything the military does or spends it money on. It must be remembered that the lack of a formal military was the excuse given as to why we didn't need to apply the Geneva Conventions to our P.O.W.s. and why it was admissible to shove things in their rectums, make them stand for days at end, keep them in cold cramped cells without clothing, sexually humiliating them and on and on...... Though I am sure Rumsfeld would argue that their is a percentage of Americans who actually like to have things inserted into their rectums.
5. Rampant Sexism: No need to comment, obviously.
6. A controlled mass media: Even though many freaks will argue that AL Jazeera is the Jihadi television network, which is complete nonsense. Unless of course, you subscribe to the racist mentality of “fight THEM over there” in other words, you view all Muslims as terrorist.
7. Obsession with national security: Again considering they have no nation this is kinda moot. Though if one wanted to they could argue that the Jihadists want to create a Pan-Arabic state and they view that as under assault but it is a stretch.
8. Religion and the ruling elite tied together: Just on the simple basis that it is a Jihad makes this one very logical even though there is no ruling elite unless you really think Bin Laden is the chair of an organization named Al Qaida. “One nation under God”, “the attack on Christmas…..”
9. Power of corporations protected: That one is simple since they have no corporations.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated: There is no transcript of Bin Laden or his ilk talking about Labor rights.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts: By their rejection of modernity they reject intellectuals and the arts. Though if one looks around, the “Right” in America feels the same about intellectuals.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment: Their fascination with Sharia law shows that they are obsessed with punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption: Typicallly the more pious the religious muslims are the less corrupt, as we in the west understand it, they are.
14. Fraudulent Elections: This one is too easy since there would be no elections in Bin Laden’s world.
Now compare these fourteen points with the society we live in. Are they more apt to describe our country? If one tallies the vote it would seem that the US is more closely aligned with fascism then the radical muslims.
Maybe what we need, in place of Islamofascism awareness week, is plain Fascism Awareness week.

Thank You Democrats!

Well the Democrats proved that they too can destroy the Constitution just as well as the quasi-fascist Republican Party. Today the Senate Intelligence Committee reached an agreement with the Bush administration granting immunity to the telecom companies that allowed the Bush Administration to illegally wiretap us. Again this proves that, when it really comes down to it, the Democrats will sell us all down the fucking river just as quickly as the authoritarian Republican regime. So in 2008 when everyone tells me how “this is the most important election in our lifetime”(ever notice how every election is so much more important then the last most important election ever?) and that there is a huge difference between Hillary and Rudy I will laugh in their face and vote for whatever third party is allowed on the Wisconsin ballot.
This illegal wiretapping, or “terrorist surveillance program”, depending on whom you ask, became a big deal when the New York Times first reported about it after the election. The Democrats said that had the American public known about the program it may have been enough to tip the election to John “I voted to give Bush the Authority to invade and occupy Iraq” Kerry in 2004. Then it came out that some Democrats had been briefed about it but had said nothing. So these asshole Democrats, Jay Rockefeller and the rest, were telling us that this election was the most important in our history yet refused to leak the information they claim could have changed, the most important, election. Instead they kept quiet.
That the Democrats would capitulate to every whim of Bush should have been obvious, had it not been for the faux outrage spouted by the Democratic Congress members. The minute we all should have foreseen this happening was when our brave Senator Feingold suggested censuring the President for his illegal behavior. The proposal, from Russ, was toothless and symbolic. He wanted the record to show that Congress voted that the Bush Administration had overstepped their authority and then move on from there. Democratic colleagues ran away from reporters, some leaving out the backdoor, for fear of having to make a statement and when they finally did they said things like “I haven’t read it.” This incident should have told us all that the Democrats weren’t really concerned about the violations of the Constitution, no matter how outraged they pretended to be.
The most obvious reason the Democrats don’t protest the repeated violations of the Constitution is because they only care about their careers. Instead they, after repeated faux protest on the airwaves, have quietly passed legislation giving Bush the powers they claim to abhor. It is more important that they continue to suck our tax dollars in the form of income, an income they voted to automatically increase because average Joes were getting upset when the press would report on Congress giving themselves a raise, while Joe’s income stays stagnant at best.
So when my Democratic friends begin attacking me in 2008, over my plan to vote for any left-wing third party candidate, I will laugh in their faces. When they tell me that this is the most important election in the history of humankind, I will laugh in their faces. Then when they attempt to prove the differences between the two parties, I will laugh in their faces and remind them that the Democrats voted for nearly everything they are upset with. Last election, in an attempt to sway my vote away from a candidate I agreed with, many of my Democratic friends would tell me about how abortion would be outlawed, more wars would be started, gay rights were going to get rolled back and numerous other horror stories. So what are they going to say when the Republicans nominate a pro-gay rights, pro-choice, pro-immigrant candidate? What, he might start a war with Iran that Hillary will vote for?

Chomsky debates the late Foucault

I love this debate not only for the discourse but also because both speak their native tongues without translators.



Foucault was the only Parisian Post-Modernists that Chomsky thought was of any value. He at least, according to Chomsky, was attempting to say something even though is wasn't profound.

Music Videos

Here are some of the things that inspired me as a child. I know they are corny but their messages resonated with me when I was a kid.


I know it's Michael Jackson.

Snoop gets it right.

Hilarious.

I just read this most hilarious of jokes. It turns out this is a joke that the Israeli Defense Forces like to tell.

"Two soldiers, infantry-men in the Golani Brigade, were on patrol in Hebron, getting ready to enforce the six p.m. curfew. The streets were mostly empty already, but one of the soldiers saw an old Arab man hobbling down the lane in the distance. The soldier dropped to one knee, took aim, and fired, taking off the old man's head. The other soldier watched this in shock. "What are you doing?" he cried. "It's not six yet."
"I know," said the first soldier. "But I knew where that guy lived. He never would have made it home in time."

Ah yes, the poor Israeli victim. The fact that this joke is even acceptable and popular tells you something about the people who live in that state. Whenever I come across things like this I have the hardest time reminding myself that it is the Palestinians who are the violent ones, the aggressors. I wonder where one can get some of that Israeli 'kool-aid".

Resource

I just spent the last two hours enjoying Bertrand Russell essays and thought you might too.
Here is a link to a site with many of his writings.
Here is a great quote from his Praise of Idleness.
"First of all: what is work? Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid."

A Quick Thought.

Today, as usual, I was engaged in my mindless job listening to a Chomsky lecture from a few years ago and a thought entered my mind. Noam was talking about what may happen if the Iraqis are ever really allowed to control their own country in the democratic form so highly touted by the US administration. He lists off a few things that could be possible, this was before any elections in Iraq had occurred, and he mentions, the obvious, that they would seek better relations with Shia Iran. It is an obvious outcome considering many of the most important Iraqis lived there in exile, during Saddam's reign, and the most powerful man in Iraq, Al-Sistani, was born there. At that moment I realized why we are going to attack Iran and it is an exact replica of the Iraq bullshit.
Notice how again we are told that some evil brown skinned man is producing nuclear weapons just like Saddam was.(Our own CIA now claims that there were no WMD let alone nukes in Iraq) Then comes the threat to Israel with the now proven incorrect translation where the Iranian President says that he wants to "wipe Israel off the face of the map".(Israel being the fifth strongest military in the World and the first Middle Eastern nation to introduce nuclear weapons into the region) I think the final sign of imminent attack is the comparison to Hitler.(Remember that Hitler killed millions and the Iranian President has 40,000 Jews living in his country) So that is the pretext but what is the real reason.
The real reason again will be regime change which will be the second time we have overthrown a democratically elected Iranian leader in 60 years. Why must the regime change? Because if we allow Iraq to be free they would align themselves with the Clerics who run Iran, since the President is merely a figurehead, something the press and the intellectuals seem to be unable to remember. So we must eliminate the Clerics and the President, I guess for symbolic value since he is the newest Hitler. ( With amazing amounts of "New Hitlers" arriving on the international scene it makes one wonder about reincarnation.) That way when we are forced out of Iraq, which will happen, the Iraqis will have no Iran Shia Clerics to align themselves with. The only regime in Iran will be a secular regime that respects minority rights, just like the Iraqis who greeted us with flowers.
The most cynical part of me has another scenario that may be possible.
Okay say the US attacks Iran and the SHia in Saudi Arabia rise up, with the help of Iran, and overthrow the "government" of Saudi Arabia. We all know that the US and it population believes that the oil over there is really our property so a overwhelming percentage of AMericans would argue for the invasion and takeover of the Saudi state and its oil fields.

In Case You Missed It.

As of now this is about all of the footage that has gotten out of Burma since the massacres started. It is impossible to know exactly what has transpired because the government has cut off the internet. One thing that is known, as of now, is that a Japanese journalist was shot dead at point blank. I mean c'mon, I expect that kind of behavior from the Israelis but the Burmese.








Here is the footage of the Journalist being shot.


It is okay when our buddies do it in Israel. Notice how the other Israeli peace activists have to tell the Israeli Defense Forces that the wounded journalist is an Israeli. Why is that? Is it because their entire society is completely racist through and through. If only the Burmese people had a strong lobby in this country then they coould shoot civilians at will and our government would fall all over themselves to praise them.

You've Got To Be Kidding Me

Whoa, I am to believe the architects overlooked this design element.

I thought this was funny.

And then I found this too. THis is EXTREMELY GRAPHIC footage of where our meat comes from. Not for the faint of heart or pseudo-animal lovers.

In case you were interested

I watched the speech and found it interesting. There were two major reactions from the crowd to what Ahmadinejad had to say. One was when he claimed that Iran had no homosexuals to which the audience laughed at him. The other was when he was describing the plight of the Palestinians and he drew applause. Columbia has been a major focal point in the Israel/Palestinian conflict with students secretly recording lectures and such. Other than that it was what one would expect. Here was a world leader being criticized for his nuclear policy (by a nation who dropped two bombs on Japan), capital punishment (by a country that still kills people who committed crimes as a minor) and his sponsoring of terrorism (by a nation that supports terrorists in his country). So he basically called us the hypocrites that we are.

Disinformation Nation

Sorry I don’t have much time to write this but I want to at least get a little bit out because it is very time sensitive.

The President of Iran never said, “Israel should be wiped off the face of the map.” He never said it. They have purposely misquoted him and all the leading intellectuals know it. In the quote, where he supposedly uttered these words, he never says “Israel”, “wipe” or “map” but that is what he is quoted as saying. All the intellectuals know it and refuse to refute it. It is exactly like when Clinton or Bush would talk about the evils of Saddam and say “he even gassed his own people” and no intellectual would say, what everyone knew, that he did so with our support and we increased the support after.
Also, in case the media forgot to tell us, the President of Iran is a figurehead. The media had no problem telling us that when a reform President was impotent due to his figurehead status. In that case then it was necessary for every news article to include it just like every news article today must include that quote about “wiping Israel off the face of the map.”
Tomorrow: The Newest Hitler and The Holocaust as a myth?

Quick Iraq Rant

Here is a quick thought I threw down on electronic paper today. I had been meaning to write about this for a while so I just spit it out. It may not be the most pleasurable read and I bet there are typos and grammatical mistakes but what's new, eh?

I can’t take it anymore. It has become too much. Why are liberals arguing with me telling me that we have to stay in Iraq? They are telling me that since we went in and smashed it up we “owe” it to the Iraq people to stay and fix the mess we made. It is a new “white man’s burden” or so it seems.
Then you have the conservatives who are just talking complete nonsense, and the sooner they realize it the more likely they won’t get trounced at the polls. Their line of argument, which is very similar to the liberal’s, is that we can’t leave because there would be chaos and Al-Qaida, which experts argue doesn’t even exist, will set up camp in order to plan new attacks against America.
So both sides are arguing that we must stay in Iraq, for very similar reasons, and both talk of only two options. Our options, so it goes, are either we pull every troop out or we stay indefinitely. Either way at the end of the day we will still be in Iraq and we will still be doing everything in our power to exercise control over their oil resources. The Democrats and the Republicans may differ slightly over the reasons why we must continue our occupation of Iraq but none are telling us the truth. That truth being that Iraq will be and must be a part of the American Empire.
We are told, almost ad nasuem that we have only two options, immediate withdraw, which is impossible, and staying forever which will be impossible. Really? There are only two options, which seems odd to me. I may not know a whole hell of a lot about the human nature but it seems that there must be more than two ways to look at a problem.
One plan never talked about is going to the UN and asking for help. Do Americans really believe that we are the only ones who can fix this mess, when our mere presence makes matters worse? Whenever an American intellectual talks about leaving Iraq they talk about a power vacuum that, they claim, would be created and how dangerous it would be to America, the only people who matter. Yet if we asked the UN to help us with Iraq, my guess is that many other countries would step up, only of course, if it was mandated through the UN.
So why don’t we go to the UN and ask for help? How come no major Presidential candidate has even suggested it? Is it because they know already what the answer would be, it does seem like these assholes all own crystal balls or at least that is what they want us all to believe. Though in reality one would have to guess that they actually have the Magic Eight Ball instead. Or could it be that if we truly internationalized the conflict then American companies wouldn’t get first dibs on all of Iraq’s wealth, infrastructure, reconstruction contracts, oil and on. Would it be possible that the UN would take over the granting of contracts in Iraq? I don’t know but one must admit that it seems conspicuously absent from all debate on the topic.
We were told, after the weapons weren’t found, that the reason we went to Iraq was to destroy the country so that the naturally occurring Democracy could finally flourish. There are some sticky points about that democracy. For instance, an unelected body gets to decide who is allowed to run for office and there were a few other laws put in place as Viceroy Bremer was departing. Either way we went to war in order to bring Democracy to Iraq. I believe the quote was, “freedom is on the march” which if one has ever read Orwell they would gather that actually the complete opposite is occurring but I digress.
Now when it comes to whether our troops continue to occupy Iraq or whether they leave it seems completely obvious that only one group of people should be allowed to make that choice, the Iraqis themselves. Still I have not heard a single “respectable” politician argue that we ask the Iraqis what they want us to do since it is their country, at least in the minds of non-imperialists. The question of what happens to Iraq should be in the hands of the Iraqis not us. We claim it is our duty, or what I prefer to call the “new white man’s burden”, to take care of them. They no not of what they do we are to believe. They somehow are lesser people unable to decide what is best for them? Only Hillary and Rudy know what is best for the people of Iraq. Am I the only person who thinks that this is fucked up? It isn’t even part of the acceptable mainstream discourse to even suggest we allow the Iraqis to decide their future. Why is that?
In the end it must come down to Empire. We have an occupation that is hugely unpopular yet no politicians are arguing to get the hell out. Instead they all have plans of keeping tens of thousands of troops “in the area” to fight the terrorists, which I thought meant anyone fighting the occupation of their country. Instead the main priority for them is to push Iraq to change their oil laws, the reasoning of which should be transparent. Our mainstream moderate politicians all want us to stay with massive troop levels in the Middle East until the oil runs out. This should be painfully obvious. It isn’t just George who thinks that oil under their feet is ours, but I think so do all the rest.

Videos of the Day

I realize that Bush is stupid but you would think he would know that Nelson Mandela is still alive not too mention Mandela's disgust for this war.
Video Link

Is it coming?


THis song was originally meant for Reagan but it is applicable to today.
The Minutemen "Little Man With a Gun In His Hand.

Here comes the police state ptII

Notice how the liberals clap when he is being tased. This is how the police state is brought upon us with the clapping hands of the liberals.

Short Film

Here is a short film made by the guy who did Children of Men. It is based on the book by Naomi Klein.

9/11 I already forgot.

And also on this date -- on Sept 11 1973, US-backed Pinochet forces rose to power in Chile to overthrow the democratically-elected Salvador Allende. Allende died in the presidential palace. On Sept 11 1990, American anthrologist Myrna Mack was murdered by US-backed Guateleman security forces. On September 11, 1977 in South Africa oSteve Biko founder of the black consciosness movement was being beaten in the back of a van by apartheid forces. He died in the early morning hours of Sept. 12, 1977. On 9/11 1993, in the midst of the US-backed coup in Haiti, Antoine Azenery was dragged out of a church by coup forces and murdered in broad-daylight. He had been commemorating a massacre of parashiners at the Saint John Boscoe church that had occured five years earlier on September 11, 1988. Father Jean Bertrand Aristide had narrowly escaped death in that attack. He later became president of Haiti.

It is becoming obvious that the government, not solely the Bush Administration but the Democratic hacks, is getting worried. They are so scared that they had to gang tackle a Minister and break his leg because they didn't like the pin he was wearing. Free speech my ass. On the plus side, this is proof that they are becoming terrified of their subjects.


This is humorous.

I have a Pre-Sept. 11th mindset

One of our official enemies has released a tape talking to the American public. Of course, Americans are not allowed to know exactly what Bin Laden says, so I have provided a link. Why we are not allowed to know what our greatest enemy is saying is bizarre.
One of the most interesting lines in the Bin Laden speech is this."And among the most capable of those from your own side who speak to you on this topic and on the manufacturing of public opinion is Noam Chomsky, who spoke sober words of advice prior to the war, but the leader of Texas doesn't like those who give advice."
This reminds me of when Hugo Chavez went before the UN General Assembly, held up a Chomsky book and told people they needed to read it.
What is weird is how two of America's official enemies cite an American intellectual and the press doesn't even mention it. Why is that? WHy won't the press ask, "Who is this Noam Chomsky and why do our official enemies cite him?" This says a lot about the American press. They refuse to look into a man who was referenced by our enemies.
The press is scared of what Chomsky says. THis is the reason they refuse to mention him in their reports. You can bet that had Chavez and Bin Laden talked about Angelina Jolie every news organization would talk about it. What is it about Chomsky or his ideas that threaten them?
Their silence speaks volumes. What a bunch of sell outs.

Finkelstein

It begins.

Today, two scholars, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, from University of Chicago and Harvard, released a book on what they term the "Israel lobby" and how it effects our foreign policy. Let it be known that Mearsheimer and Walt are no screwballs by any stretch of the imagination. Both are/were widely respected for their knowledge of foreign policy and were considered "realists".
It all started when the Atlantic Monthly asked them to do a study on the influence of Jewish lobbying groups and how they may or may not effect our foreign policy. After the Atlantic Monthly read it they decided that they couldn't print it. Of course this is America and we are not allowed to talk about Israel's human rights violations. So since American journals are total sell out fucks they had to take it to England where their people are at least allowed a little more truthful information from their press. It received condemnation immediately from all sides, of course mostly American Jews which in a sense supports their thesis. From Alan "Lets torture people" Dershowitz to Abe "Grand Wizard" Foxman of the ADL. They spewed nonsense about how these professors are anti-semites and aren't qualified scholars. (This coming from a man who plagerized a fraud, for Christ's sake and is still the chair of Harvard Law School.) It is worth noting that two of the world's leading experts on Israel also had reservations about the book but no one wanted their opinions because they are "self-hating" Jews or as some have called them "Hamas Jews". It is an unwritten rule that Noam CHomsky will not be given air time in the U.S. so his opinion on the piece, which was very valuable, was not relevant because the press knows what Chomsky will go on to say about the history of Israel and we don't to open debate.
The book has been out one day so far and it is already raising an uproar. So far they have had an invite rescinded from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. It turns out that criticism of Israel is not acceptable in America home of a supposed free press. Abe Foxman wrote a book countering the points made in the book even though the book had not been released and Foxman could have no knowledge of what is in the book. My guess is that he falls back on the old canards of Antisemitism, shoddy scholarship(which makes you wonder about the quality of teachers at Harvard, if they can't write a research paper) and how the whole issue is "very complicated".
My thought is, if the authors are anti-semites and have a faulty arguement then why the need to attack them? Could it be that they are hitting it right on the head. THis of course, is just the latest in American Jewish reaction to criticism in the last year. Remember the rabid anti-semite Jimmy Carter who dared called Israel's actions in the West Bank as apartheid. As it turns out so do many Israelis. It should be said that no one attacked Carters thesis or facts instead it was typical ad hominem bullshit. Though that time it didn't work and it is proof that the "Lobby" is losing strength. I mean it is one thing when the world's leading intellectual condemns Israel but for people from Harvard and the University of Chicago(birthplace of Neo-Conservative thinking) to do so is too much. They must be stopped by whatever means possible and the more outrageous the better. Maybe next week Dershowitz will accuse of them as offspring of a Nazi or something, which of course, it is okay for a Jew to call a Gentile a Nazi but never the other way around.

The New Yorker Attacks
So does the NY Sun
National Review
At last some sanity from CounterPunch

Mike Gravel

Hillary Is Dangerous

Then there is this.

chomsky

Chomsky on Iran/American relations.

Moyers on Rove

We are lucky to have a journalist like Bill Moyers.

Some Readings

Here's some doom and gloom about our economy.
THe Gloom
and
The Doom
Then here are some hopeful words from Albert Einstein
Einstein On Socialism

What a difference seven years makes.

Don't you just love how the educated intellectuals say nothing about this. Instead they toss it down the memory hole. It is amazing how well the media followed the official line from the White House. The people who led the Soviet Union would be amazed at the discipline of the American media.

Ron Paul

I don't agree with him on about 95% of his views but on the War he is dead on.

Time to Resign

This petition has been brought to my attention and I figured I had to act. I have been looking for an excuse to resign and this killed two birds with one stone. I didn't mean to use a pun when I referred to throwing stones.

To Whom It May Concern:

It has come to my horrified attention that my Union, and therefore me by extension, has signed onto a petition denouncing the courageous stand taken by British Unions to boycott the State of Israel. That there is a basic level of Human Rights seems self-evident and it is painfully obvious to anyone, who reads non-American newspapers, that Israel violates even the most basic Human Rights of the Palestinians continuously. I could go into detail but that seems unnecessary since it is has been well documented and from the looks of it, irrelevant to you. So if the UFCW is against a boycott of the State of Israel it is easy, even if incorrect, to follow a logical path to the point where one says, “British Unions are using one of the only effective incentives for change, economics. The UFCW doesn’t think that boycotting Israel is right, therefore the UFCW does not think that Israel should change and grant even the most basic Human Rights, like freedom of movement, control of one’s borders, what roads one can travel on, even whom one can marry, etc., to the Palestinians.” Well I do, and I strongly disagree with the Unions stance on basic Human Rights, as does nearly the entire world.
Israel is a First World nation and should have to play by its rules not those of the Third World. Israel’s Human Rights record is, at the moment, the worst in the First World with its legal torture, detention without charges, use of F-16 fighter jets to shoot missiles into densely populated neighborhoods, kidnapping family member to use as “bargaining chips”, complete control of movement with a series of hundreds of checkpoints, extra-judicial targeted assassinations, illegal settlements, and many other violations of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Human Rights record of Israel is so well documented it is amazing that it is even mentioned in the same breath, as Palestinian Human Rights violations, which, of course, do exist.
The statement signed onto argues not enough attention is given to other Arab Governments, but that is a red herring. This conflict is between the Israelis and the Palestinians and, no matter what the government of Yemen does, it is irrelevant to Israel’s Human Rights record. The statement also questions the motives of singling out one country when there are so many other conflicts and repressive regimes around the world. Here the writers are using the logical fallacy To Quoque where one argues that since the Unions are not actively trying to stop all the world’s conflicts then therefore the idea of stopping the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is flawed or of questionable motives which is a sly way to imply Anti-Semitism as its root. Anyone with even a minor understanding of the conflict has heard these all ad nauseam.
Many people over thirty years of age remember the name Checkpoint Charlie, the famous checkpoint separating East Berlin and West Berlin. Most also remember Ronald Reagan’s famous speech in which he called on Russian Premier Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” Eventually Walls always come down and repression comes to an end, history has proven this true time and time again. People were on the wrong side of Jim Crow laws, the Vietnam War, abolition, Universal Suffrage, and one could go on. By signing this statement it seems as if the leaders of the UFCW haven’t read history and will end up on the wrong side of history like so many before them.
People have to be able to look themselves in the mirror each day, and as much as my deep-seated political and economic views make it hard to terminate my position as an advocate for my fellow workers, I must. Otherwise looking at myself in that mirror would be impossible. So therefore I must hereby resign my post as Union Steward.



Sincerely,



Justin Loper

"Higher Taxes" is a Red Herring.

Our country is a Democracy in name only. Our leaders do not follow the public’s wishes or opinions. One prime example is our health care. Virtually every poll taken, asking if people think their government should provide health care, shows that at the least 60% believe that it should. It seems self-evident that it is the job of our government to protect our citizens from harm but many powerful interests would prefer that not to be the case. So they attempt to frighten people with talk of higher taxes. It is true that taxes would have to increase but in the end you wouldn’t notice the difference on your paycheck because your insurance premiums would disappear.
On pay day I open my check to see that the amount of money I am paid is different then the amount I receive. Damn those evil taxes, which go to fix potholes, educate our youth and launch cluster bombs, have been removed but wait that isn’t all I’m missing. Nearly 30% of my money is gone. Of that, 23% went to my government and almost 7% went to an insurance agency. So would it be correct to say I’m taxed at a rate of 23%, or is it 30%? All I am concerned about is that 30% of my money is being taken.
The insurance industry, the Pharma industry and the Doctor industry have used their proxies for years to convince the people of the fact that their taxes would increase if a national health care system was implemented. Factually correct their statement is but it is also deceiving. So for instance, continuing to use me as the example, it is true that my tax rate of 23% would increase. Whether it would reach 30% is doubtful.
This is a world of pluses and minuses but not blacks and whites. The perceived negative part of the equation is that your taxes may increase, though it is doubtful your paycheck will decrease. The truly positive aspect is living in a society that takes care of its most vulnerable especially its children. It should be shameful for all Americans, and a negative, that 30 million children have been punished with a lack of health care because of their parents, and it would be a positive for that to change.
In order for our country to do what is right and protect its citizens, especially the ones in the most dire straits, we need a national health care system. To achieve the health care system this country deserves our taxes will invariably increase, yes. Will your paycheck be affected, no. Removing the outrageous health care premiums and moving that money into the Medicare tax makes it a wash. As a result we, as Americans, can have one less aspect, of our great country, to be ashamed of.

More Crap

This is the other piece I submitted the the local paper. Unfortunately when I opened the file I realized that the spacing between paragraphs was all fucked up. That can be my excuse when I get denied because the "white man" excuse is a tad bit weak.

There is a huge problem with our elections, we are told, so rampant that it may destroy the whole process. What is this emergency? Voter fraud, yes, there is widespread voter fraud being committed, they say. Though when one actually looks at the numbers there doesn’t really seem to be much fraud at all. The real crisis, which these people ignore, is not that one guy, here, tried to vote twice or one woman, there, didn’t realize she was disenfranchised and tried to vote. The crisis with our democracy is that the people don’t vote.
The last time that over 60 percent of voters turned out to the polls in a Presidential Election was 1968. Of the nine Presidential elections held since then, 2004 had the highest turnout with a little over 55 percent voting. Contrast that with the latest elections, for heads of state, in France where nearly 74 percent went to the polls, Bolivia where 84 percent voted and Finland which had 74 percent show up to the polls.
It becomes worse in off year Congressional Elections. In our most recent Congressional Election, which switched control from one party to the other, just under 37 percent bothered voting. If we take a look around the world we find similar differences as we did before. We can look across the pond to Austria where 78 percent came out and if we gander southward to Peru we should be ashamed since they turned out 88 percent of their voters.
Ralph Nader sold tens of thousands of tickets, at 7 bucks a piece, in 2000, to people who wanted to hear his message. His main thesis, right or wrong, was that the Democrats and the Republicans have become too much alike and control all political debate.
Ross Perot’s message of how terribly irresponsible our national debt was, got airtime because people were looking for another voice. Before Ross Perot no one talked about our National Debt but now it is commonplace in political speak.
I offer up two suggestions that, though they won’t fix the problem, could help move us in a direction that brings out more voters to the polls. It is true that we may never reach the levels of countries like Peru but we should and could get at least 2/3 or 3/4 of the population to care enough about elections to vote in them.
We should allow more voices into the debates, Presidential and Congressional. There are two common arguments for why this should not be the case and both are very flimsy. The most common is that it is just too hard to have debates with a stage full of candidates even though we do it for the Presidential Primary debates and it seems to work.
The other argument is that anyone could become a Presidential candidate even if they couldn’t feasibly win and this would allow anyone and everyone to be in the debates. Right now there is a threshold of 15 percent in the polls that must be crossed to gain entry into the debates. What could be done is to make it so that if a candidate is on the ballot in enough states, in which it is theoretically possible to get enough Electoral College votes, to win, they get entry into the debates.
The one thing the countries listed above and their elections have in common with each other but differ with America is that they are all held on Sunday when a larger percentage of the general public is off from work. The reasoning behind the 1845 law making our elections fall on the second Tuesday in November is gone. America is no longer an agricultural society who can’t vote while the crops are in the field and need time to travel into the city.
We, as Americans, need to find ways to fix our elections and democracy. We have so many intelligent citizens in this country with a myriad of ideas. We need to stop fearing change and see that there is a crisis in American democracy. If this is the Democracy we are trying to sell to the world, I fear we won’t be finding too many takers.

Save What?! Revised

Here is one of my two pieces I wrote for the local paper in an attempt to land a job as a community columnist.


There is a new wave of protest sweeping the nation and all the usual suspects are out calling for action. We have stars like George Clooney urging us to take action and most recently music artists from Aerosmith to Green Day have contributed songs for an album to raise funds to supply relief to the people in a war zone. Where is this war torn area they are so concerned about? It is the Darfur region of Sudan. My question is, why not Iraq instead?

The crimes against humanity going on in Sudan are horrendous, no doubt. The figures of dead in Darfur range from 200,000 to 400,000. Of those it is estimated that ten percent died from actual violent conflict with the remainder a result of the war going on around them. If a person dies due to starvation, disease or other factors related to the conflict then they are counted with the war dead.

A study conducted last year by Johns Hopkins University showed that around 650,000 people have died as a direct result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Many critics argue the study was flawed. They argue that the method used, referred to as “cluster sampling”, can’t be an accurate measure of deaths. This “cluster sampling” is the same technique used, by the U.S., to find out how many people had been killed in Kosovo and Afghanistan. And the U.S. continues to spend millions to train UN workers and non-governmental agencies to employ this exact same technique in other parts of the globe.

Since the end of the last Gulf War to the beginning of this latest, estimates show that at least 1/2 a million people died from the sanctions we placed on Iraq. If you add that to the 650,000 dead that Johns Hopkins University figured then you are looking at over a million citizens. Really, a million citizens died as a result of our government’s actions. America, the nation that we think is the greatest, is responsible for that many deaths?


A major obstacle preventing anything from being done in Darfur is China’s support for the Sudanese Govenrment. How is it that these activists plan to pressure the government in Beijing? Typically the best method for changing people’s behavior is through economic incentives or punishments, like boycotts. Though boycotting Chinese products would be virtually impossible since their products are ubiquitous in our society and it would hurt the Chinese workers the most.

In a perfect world the Chinese citizenry would rise up in support of the people of Darfur and demand their government take action. It is an unfortunate fact that the Chinese are not free to assemble and protest because they live under totalitarian rule. We, on the other hand, live in, most likely, the freest nation on the planet and we have shown, throughout history, the ability to change what it is doing.

That leaves us with the only option of pressuring our government to call out China or attempt to lean on them to change their backing of Sudan. There is a minor problem and that is we have no moral high ground for which to stand on. As we speak our government is engaged in a war against an enemy that never attacked us or could, for that matter.


So it seems quite obvious that the best way to stop the terrible atrocities happening in Darfur is to stop the actions of our government in Iraq. It has been said that it is almost cowardly to call out the crimes of someone else’s government while your own is committing massive crimes. We as citizens of a Democracy are responsible for the actions of our country and the predictable outcomes of those actions. That is not to argue that the people in Darfur don’t deserve hope or help, they truly do, yet so do the people in Iraq. We can and must force our government to do what is right because I doubt the centers of power in China are paying much attention to what happens on U.S. campuses.

Michael Moore FIghts Back

The Facts From Moore's Website

I've been so fucking uninspired as of late.

Finkelstein on Al Jazeera

Punk Rock Friday

NoMeansNo

Dead Kennedys

The Clash

The Sex Pistols

Save What!?

There is a wave sweeping across college campuses. Kids are starting to organize. There are teach ins, posters, rallies, marches, fliers, T-Shirts and they all are saying the same thing, "Save Darfur."
"Save Darfur" is now the hip thing to be a part of on college campuses while Iraq burns, badly. To them the real tragedy is in Darfur where it is estimated that around 200,000 have been killed, 20% violently. Iraq's violence, being caused by our own government, is far greater than anything going on in Darfur yet that is not worth a T-Shirt.
Yes there is tragedy in Darfur, there is no doubt, but what is the conflict's history? What will it take to stop it? WHo really knows, maybe the college kids could go to China and lobby that government.
Why is it that Darfur is to be saved but not Iraq. By some estimates three times as many people have been killed in Iraq.
The only government one can exert any control over is there own. Yet that is not happening? Why?
If someone wanted to protest against human rights violations going on in Africa they should look into the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Coltan.

Some Live Music Videos

They Might Be Giants


Stereolab


Arctic Monkeys


REM

Israel Week was sidetracked in such an ironic way.

Dr. Norman Finkelstein was denied tenure this weekend from DePaul. It wasn't surprising but absurd. Finkelstein is one of the pre-eminent scholars on the Jewish Holocaust and the Israel/Palestinian conflict. Raul Hillberg, the world's leading scholar on the history of Jews in Europe, had this to say about the tenure.

"It takes an enormous amount of academic courage to speak the truth when no one else is out there to support him. And so, I think that given this acuity of vision and analytical power, demonstrating that the Swiss banks did not owe the money, that even though survivors were beneficiaries of the funds that were distributed, they came, when all is said and done, from places that were not obligated to pay that money. That takes a great amount of courage in and of itself. So I would say that his place in the whole history of writing history is assured, and that those who in the end are proven right triumph, and he will be among those who will have triumphed, albeit, it so seems, at great cost." It must be mentioned that

Hillberg is no lefty, he is a right winger through and through.


Avi Shlaim, Professor of international relations at Oxford University, who is regarded as one of the world's leading authorities on the Israeli-Arab conflict, said this about Finkelstein.

"His last book, Beyond Chutzpah, is based on an amazing amount of research. He seems to have read everything. He has gone through the reports of Israeli groups, of human rights groups, Human Rights Watch and Peace Now and B'Tselem, all of the reports of Amnesty International. And he deploys all this evidence from Israeli and other sources in order to sustain his critique of Israeli practices, Israeli violations of human rights of the Palestinians, Israeli house demolitions, the targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants, the cutting down of trees, the building of the wall -- the security barrier on the West Bank, which is illegal -- the restrictions imposed on the Palestinians in the West Bank, and so on and so forth. I find his critique extremely detailed, well-documented and accurate.

Then there is Noam Chomsky. ptI

pt. II


How it all started. pt.I
If you watch this you will understand, outside of it being about Israel/Palestine, why I admire Finkelstein’s debating skills. He is like a pit bull constantly holding back. Remember too that he is debating Harvard’s head law professor, one of the men who got O.J. off. Notice how much Dershowitz tries to change the subject from his plagiarism. Finklestein’s research is meticulous and impeccable.

pt.II

Dershowitz wasn’t able to take down Chomsky, due to work in linguistics, so Finkelstein is his proxy.

More Myths

Okay a few more myths about the Israel/Palestinian conflict
“Palestinians are anti-Semitic by nature.”
People like to claim that the real reason that Palestinians attack Israel and its citizens is because of a deep-rooted hatred for Jews. People will point to this fact over and over. “In 1937 the Grand Mufti expressed his solidarity with Germany, asking the Nazi Third Reich to oppose establishment of a Jewish state, stop Jewish immigration to Palestine, and provide arms to the Arab population.” Of course, there is truth to that but how does that tell us anything about the Palestinians today? To me it is irrelevant.
As Prof. Finkelstein likes to point out, Did the Native Americans fight the European settlers because of deep rooted anti-Europeanism? It would be laughable to claim that was the reason.

“These people have been fighting for thousands of years or this is a religious war”
At first the obvious truth is that the Jews weren’t in Palestine for the last couple thousand years. The Romans had kicked them out, in the first century and they didn’t start returning, in any real numbers, until the early 1900’s. These early Zionists had actually hoped to live in peace with their Arab neighbors and share the land and did.
Religion does play a role in the conflict but it isn’t a main factor. Suicide bombing mostly occurs in places on the globe were people feel that their religion is being attacked by another or when people are being ruled by another religious group. The fact is that the majority of all suicide bombing have occurred in Sri Lanka by the more secular Tamil Tigers. This group is not a highly religious organization but they are the minority religion in their land and have no rule.
In addition all one needs to do is go back and reread the latest Bertrand Russell quotes.

“The Palestinians left, in 1948, either as a result of their Arabs leaders telling them to or under their volition.”
There was no Arab leader to tell the Palestinians to leave.
Right-wing Israel Historian Benny Morris has shown that the Israelis ethnically cleansed the Palestinians from the West Bank. His only complaint is that it was done well enough.
Not to mention, I would have gotten the hell out too after this.

“The Arabs are/were going to ‘Push the Jews into the Sea’”
Israel has always had military superiority to all its adversaries combined.

“There is a lot of controversy about the conflict.”
Actually pretty much the entire world in is agreement about the conflict, the solutions, the history, what is happening, what is legal under international law and who are the victims. The only controversy is coming from Israel and the U.S. In fact there doesn’t seem to be any controversy in Israel if one reads the Israeli papers.

That is all I can think of off the top of my head.
Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to tackle one of the biggest myths of all; “At Camp David in 2000, Ehud Barack, Israel’s Prime Minister at the time, made a generous offer, with huge concessions, to Arafat but Arafat just rejected it and started the Second Intifada (uprising in Arabic).”

Ah yes, Gore Vidal

The History of the Six Day War

I think it would be best for Norman Finkelstein to explain the history.
It is 50 minutes long.
Six Day War

Recognition of the Right of Israel to Exist.

Ever since the Palestinians exercised their right to vote and voted in Hamas there have been demands placed on them in order for the Palestinians to get assistance from the world community. One of the main demands is that “Hamas must recognize the Right of Israel to exist as a Jewish State.” There are a few problems with this demand, which has been made numerous times against numerous Palestinian leaders. These problems are so obvious and elementary that they seem to show us that it is the Israeli Government, not the Palestinians, who never want peace and are willing to sacrifice their citizens for the expansion of their State.

What exactly does “recognize the right to exist” mean? Does the state of Mexico recognize the right of America to exist in parts stolen from them? Should they? To many onlookers the state of Israel exists and it seems very silly to deny its existence. To others it means that Hamas should not call for the destruction of the State of Israel, a country with nuclear weapons being threatened by crude rockets. As usual though these things are not as plain and simple.

What constitutes a state? One of the main parts of any state is their border. If a state has ever-evolving borders then what is to be recognized? Israel has ever changing borders. For instance the borders today are not the same as they were in 2000, 1982, 1966 or 1948. With the addition of the euphemistically called “security fence” more and more land is being confiscated by Israel.

The next question is, “Does Hamas need to recognize the State of Israel even though its borders are always in a state of flux?” By recognizing Israel’s right to exist as a state with ever encroaching borders, will this then recognize the right for Palestinians to be forcibly removed from their land the next time Israel wants some aquifer? It would lead that yes, Hamas agreed to recognize and ever expanding state of Israel and has no right crying when Israel continues to expand.

Most people who even remotely know anything about the conflict are aware of what is called the “two state solution”; the most famously negotiated settlement became the Geneva Accords. Both sides have basically agreed in theory to this plan. If Israel, the most powerful state in the region, agrees that there should be a Palestinian state then why don’t they recognize Palestine’s right to exist as a state? I beg any of you to find any Israeli politician who has ever called for a Palestinian state inside the Internationally recognized borders, with its capital in East Jerusalem. It just has never been said.

In March of 2002 the Arab League came up with a detailed peace plan for the region. The participants agreed to full recognition of a secure Israel and diplomatic relations if Israel would do three things. They must pull back to the pre-June ’67 borders, agree to a just solution to the refugee problem and recognize a sovereign Palestine in all the West Bank and Gaza. Israel refused to accept those conditions, all of which are required of Israel under international law, and the conflict rages today.

It is very true that Hamas's charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state and replacing it with an Islamic State but this document is old and so much has changed. Hamas has called for a Hudna, or truce in Arabic, to last for 10 years while issues are negotiated. A Hudna is a Koranic idea and Hamas is strongly religious so it leads that they would follow their religion. Yet Israel refused. The current Prime Minister told Ha’aretz, the most influential paper in Israel, "If Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, peace will prevail and we will implement a cease-fire [hudna] for many years." To no avail.

So what does this tell us? It tells us that Israel is making demands of the Palestinians that they refuse to do themselves. On top of that it tells us that Hamas cannot, as the representative of the Palestinians, accept a neighboring state whose borders are always creeping in stealing land for the state you recognized. No country would accept that. Which means in the end that the Israeli Government has no desire for peace with its neighbors and will continue to steal more and more land from the native population with the hopes that things will become so desperate for the Palestinians that they will just leave. It is a sort of “soft” ethnic cleansing.

Israel Week

This Sunday, June 10th, marks the 40th anniversary of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories. In case you have noticed, I haven't been posting much of my own writing. I had absolutely no inspiration, but now there is an anniversary that deserves attention.
I will be writing a series of essays about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict this week. Mostly I will be writing about the myths and red herrings. I have spent a few years arguing with Liberal Jews who support Israel, in varying degrees, and have come up with some fake roadblocks, propaganda and some intelligent debate. So in the next days I will deal with these issues that Israeli policy supporters use to end debate. The first installment will be on the line that "Hamas/PA/Palestinians must recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state."
SInce I have yet to write my first essay I will post my piece I did for my writing class. It deals with the conflict also.

On March 26th 1979 U.S. President Jimmy Carter brought together the leaders of two countries, which had been in a perpetual state of war for twenty-nine years, for a historic moment. After nearly three decades of on again off again war, the two countries, Israel and Egypt, came together to sign a peace treaty, Israel’s only peace treaty until the 1996 treaty with Jordan, which has lasted to this day. So how could it be that 28 years later Carter, a man who helped Israel create some peace in its neighborhood, would be branded an anti-Semite?

Menachem Begin, a former guerilla fighter who fought to free his country from British Occupation, was Prime Minister of Israel at the time. Begin’s legacy is controversial, some say he was a war criminal for his attacks against the British and the killing, terrorizing and displacement of the Arab natives while others view him as a champion of their dream for a Greater Israel, without the original Arab inhabitants. Begin went into the diplomatic dialogue knowing that it would be in his country’s best interest to attempt to negotiate in a one on one setting as opposed to Israel negotiating with the entire Arab world.

Anwar Al-Sadat, the third President of Egypt, also fought against British domination of his country, much like his Israeli counterpart. In 1977 Sadat made a bold and, amongst his fellow Arabs, unpopular move and became the first Arab leader to travel and speak to the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset. Sadat had hoped that this gesture, of essentially recognizing the state of Israel, would please America with the hopes that maybe the US could help the beleaguered Egyptian economy.

In September of 1978 President Carter invited both leaders and their respective negotiating teams to Camp David for secret talks that lasted 13 days. At numerous times, during those 13 days, both sides had wanted to end the peace process each time President Carter brought them back to the table. Carter would shuttle back and forth between the cabins of the two sides and then relay the information to a third party, whom would then inform either side of what has transpired.

Out of these 13 days of tense and trying negotiations came, what is now known as, the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty signed in Washington by Sadat and Begin, a peace treaty that has lasted for almost 28 years without incident. Sadat would later be assassinated for creating peace with Israel by many of the same people who would later fight the Russians in Afghanistan and finance the attacks perpetrated against the U.S. on September 11th 2001.

Since leaving office Former President Carter has become one of the world’s leading champions of human rights and democracy. His Carter Center has monitored 67 elections in over twenty-five countries and he personally won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his humanitarian work around the globe.

Four years after winning the Nobel Prize, President Carter released a book entitled “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid” in which he is critical of the Israeli’s treatment of the Palestinians. The book was condemned even before it was published by future Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi who said, “It is wrong to suggest that the Jewish people would support a government in Israel or anywhere else that institutionalizes ethnically based oppression and Democrats reject that allegation vigorously.” Another fellow Democrat, John Conyers, now chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has said he called the Former President “to express my concerns about the title of the book, and to request that the title be changed. President Carter does not build upon his career as a proponent of peace in the Middle East with this comparison and I hope he and his publisher will reconsider this decision.”

The Anti Defamation League wrote a letter to Carter telling him, “using the incendiary word "Apartheid" to refer to Israel and its policies is unacceptable and shameful” and “Apartheid, that abhorrent and racist system in South Africa, has no bearing on Israeli policies.” But Carter said: "Apartheid is the forced separation of two peoples in the same area and the forced subjugation of one to the other. No one can argue that that is not the situation in the Palestinian territories right now." Later the ADL went on to claim “[Carter has] been feeding into conspiracy theories about excessive Jewish power and control. Considering the history of anti-Semitism, even in our great country, this is very dangerous stuff.”

Some of Carter’s supporters point out that the word “apartheid” is a regular part of Israeli discourse. DePaul Professor Norman Finkelstein, son of Holocaust survivors, reminds us to “take the case of Ha’aretz, Israel's leading newspaper….in their editorials, they routinely refer to the apartheid-like regime in the Occupied Territories.” He then goes on to ask, “so why is it illegitimate for a former American president to use a term which is a commonplace? Why are you in the United States disqualified from participating in what in Israel is part of the mainstream discourse?”

The few book reviews that were published also attacked Carter. Martin Peretz of the New Republic claimed, “Now, I have read this book. Or as much of it as I could stand. It is a tendentious, dishonest and stupid book.” Deborah Lipstadt of the Washington Post said of the book, “It trivializes the murder of Israelis.” She went on to say that by “almost ignoring the Holocaust, Carter gives inadvertent comfort to those who deny its importance or even its historical reality” and that “Carter has repeatedly fallen back … on traditional anti-Semitic canards” Jeffrey Goldberg, also writing in the Washington Post says that “One gets the impression that Carter believes that Israelis -- in their deviousness -- somehow mean to keep Jesus from fulfilling the demands of His ministry.”

Though leading the charge in the criticism of the former President is Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. Professor Dershowitz has written several articles attacking Carter and his book for “His use of the loaded word ‘apartheid,’ suggesting an analogy to the hated policies of South Africa”.

UCLA English Professor, Saree Makdisi, thinks differently. “Israel maintains two sets of rules and regulations in the West Bank,” he tells us, “one for Jews, one for non-Jews. The only thing wrong with using the word ‘apartheid’ to describe such a repugnant system is that the South African version of institutionalized discrimination was never as elaborate as its Israeli counterpart -- nor did it have such a vocal chorus of defenders among otherwise liberal Americans.”

Professor Dershowitz has compared Carter to Nazi sympathizers. “In reading Carter’s statements, I was reminded of the bad old Harvard of the nineteen thirties, which continued to honor Nazi academics after the anti-Semitic policies of Hitler’s government became clear. Harvard of the nineteen thirties was complicit in evil. I sadly concluded that Jimmy Carter of the twenty-first century has become complicit in evil.”

In the early part of 2007 Carter was invited to speak at Brandies University, a university founded by American Jews but is secular in nature. Though there has been debate surrounding the various invitations, according to The Brandies Hoot, the college’s paper, Carter had been invited three times. According to the Hoot, “The first invitation, extended by Faculty Senate Chair Harry Mairson, was declined by Carter after Carter advisor and Brandeis trustee Stuart Eizenstat told Carter he was uncertain if the professor had an agenda behind his invitation.”

Then the university suggested the former president, the first to visit since the 1957 commencement speech by the late Harry Truman, debate Alan Dershowitz. Many saw this as puzzling. “I don’t think you ask a President of the United States to come and debate anyone. It’s just not dignified,” said Brandeis Professor Gordon Fellman. Carter turned down the invitation saying “I don't want to have a conversation even indirectly with Dershowitz… there is no need to for me to debate somebody who, in my opinion, knows nothing about the situation in Palestine.” Dershowitz fired back arguing, "President Carter said he wrote the book because he wanted to encourage more debate. Then why won’t he debate?”

Carter responding to a caller on CSPAN, who called him a racist, bigot and anti-semite, said, “The pre-eminent goal that I have had in my mind is to bring peace to the people of Israel.”
In the end all of these attacks against the former President have taken a toll on him. "I've been hurt and so has my family by some of the reaction," Carter said. "This is the first time that I've ever been called a liar and a bigot and an anti-Semite and a coward and a plagiarist. This has hurt me."

Mark Twain's War Prayer Animated

I just found this on the web and had to pass it on.



It is amazing, considering his opinions, that Twain is as celebrated today as he is. Maybe someday America will look back at people like Chomsky in a more positive light as they do with Twain.
Twain was a genius!

Ant-War Movement R.I.P. 2004-2007

On May 28th 2007, Memorial Day in America, the anti-war movement was pronounced dead. With Congressional Democrats falling all over themselves, to provide the President with whatever he wants, in order to keep this fucking war going after a very brief moment of opposition. And now, Cindy SHeehan, one of the two people who made up the anti-war movement, has called it quits. So thats that. The war will continue on....
The Democrats in Congress deserve condemnation. So many voted initially to go to war when there was so much evidence that contradicted the Bush/Cheney line. Democrats aren't thinking about the troops in war, they don't care about those people, the only thing politicians care about is re-election. Many Democrats remember how after ending the Vietnam War, like the public demanded of Congress, they were seen as defeatists, even though they did what the public wanted. Our Democrats today are thinking back and are afraid of their job security because, again, that is all they care about. They don't care about morals, international law, human beings, or anything that doesn't involve them. Hey David Obey, remember when you told those stupid liberals that they didn't understand anything, that your bill was going to end the war and if they couldn't see that then they must be smoking something illegal, go fuck yourself.
CIndy SHeehan has not only disavowed herself from the Democratic Party but she has gone all the way and just given up on the anti-war movement. This isn't good for a movement made up of only two people. Somehow I doubt that Medea Benjamin, trust fund kid, will be getting that much air play. Don't get me wrong, Medea and her CodePink are great but they were not enough. The mother of a dead soldier(SIde note: Casey was killed during an uprising in Sadr City. The uprising was caused because then Viceroy Paul L. Bremer decided that, in his position of supporting freedom, he would shut down a newspaper from the Shia Cleric Al-Sadr.) is always a great figure to protest a war.
Well now she is gone and the war can continue without a peep from the public. If the Democrats are lucky this War will cost the Republicans the Whitehouse. One must remember that we are losing nearly four soldiers a day and Jan. '09 is quite a few days away. So, in 2009, we may be talking about our Democratic President or we may be talking about the 1500 kids who died since CIndy SHeehan gave up.

What's politics?

The other day at work I ran into a former co-worker of mine, a hip vegan kid who is attending college. He was a political science major at the University of Milwaukee so of course we talked quite a bit. He was young so he didn’t know much political history but he was passionate about the issues. So when I saw him recently I had to ask how his major was going. It turned out that he was now going to get a degree in I.T.. I gave him a strange look and he told me that he couldn’t do politics anymore. “Politics is great to discuss over a beer (most people polled said they would prefer to have a beer with Bush vs. Kerry) but to participate (at this moment he gave me one of those “you wouldn’t understand” looks) is not cool at all. It totally turned me off.” This made me realize something. Politics is not what the politicians do. Politics is not about elections or even what those politicians do in Washington. Politics is injustice, politics is economic tyranny, politics is black power, politics is equality, politics is direct action, politics is ACTUP, politics is the World Social Forum it isn’t about the bills on Capitol Hill like the cartoon used to tell us. If people think that what happens in the capitol is politics it is no wonder only half of Americans vote. Maybe, just maybe, if people understand what politics really is, change could actually happen.

Two Great Quotes

I was listening to a book on tape today and heard two awesome quotes. Both are by Bertrand Russell, in my opinion, one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th Century. If you haven't read anything by him, you are doing yourself a big disservice.

The book I am listening to is "Religion and Science."
I just thought these quotes are totally relevent to today.

"The harm that theology has done, is not to create cruel impulses, but to give them the sanction of what professes to be a lofty ethic and to confer an apparently sacred character upon the practices which have come down from more ignorant and barbarous ages."

"It is difficult to resist the conclusion that to many men there is something enjoyable in the sufferings of women, and that therefore there is a propensity in men to cling to any theological or ehtical code which makes it a woman's duty to suffer."

See You In Hell

We lost another bad one today. Poor Jerry Falwell has passed on to the eternal damnation and hell-fire that he believed in. If each person had a personal hell I think Jerry's arrival might look something like this.

After his last heart beat, Jerry Falwell leaves the natural world.
He looks up and sees a bright light and a voice telling him to come into the light. "This is it," he tells himself, "This is what I have been preparing myself for all these years." 'Finally I can meet Jesus, Moses and the rest."
He walks into the light and comes out on the other side. Looking around he realizes that it isn't quite how he pictured it. "Where are the Pearly Gates" he thinks to himself. "Where is St. Peter?"
He begins to walk around to see what his environs are. He notices a lot of men, actually it is all men. "I knew it. Women are evil. They got us kicked out of Eden." The men around are all nicely dressed, many of them in suits and ties. "Not bad." He thinks to himself.
It isn't long until he decides to approach one of the men in a suit. Jerry Falwell walks up and introduces himself, "Hi, I'm Jerry Falwell." The man responds, "I know who you are. We've actually all been waiting for you. My name is Ron, I was a business man when I was alive." "Ooh, a capitalist, this place is right on." Falwell thinks to himself.
"A business man, what kind of business man?" Jerry probes. "Oh, I worked in the energy sector, you know, the extraction of resources from the ground." Ron informs him. At this point Falwell is almost beside himself.
Jerry decides to do a little more digging. "Were you into politics when you were alive?" Jerry asks. "You had to be when you were in my business." Ron answers. Falwell puts two and two together and asks the kicker, "You were a Republican weren't you?"
"Of course, we are all Republicans here." Ron tells him. "Sweet Hosannas, I knew it. Heaven is full of Republican men. All those Liberals, gays, feminists, the ACLU, pagans and abortionists are in hell just like I knew they would be."
Now Falwell is being moved to tears. He just can't believe that this place could be so perfect. All of a sudden he begins to hear the sound of rain and thunder. Next comes some sort of music, a beat and some backround music. It is getting louder. He begins to notice that all the men had stopped and have begun to look up. Just then he hears a women's voice, the voice of Martha Walsh. "This doesn't seem right." Falwell quietly and nervously thinks to himself.
Suddenly the voice becomes clear, "Hi - Hi! We're your Weather Girls, Ah-huh, And have we got news for you. You better listen! Get ready, all you lonely girls and leave those umbrellas at home." "Omigod no" Falwell says to himself in despair.
THe voice continues "Humidity is rising, Barometer's getting low." "No, no, no. This isn't happening." Falwell pleads. The voice comes back, "According to all sources, the street's the place to go." "But I prayed and followed so closely your teachings." Falwells thinks he says to Christ.
Martha's voice gets louder, "Cause tonight for the first time. Just about half-past ten"
He looks over at Ron but Ron no longer is wearing his suit. Instead he shed it for some pink hot pants, mesh shirt and a feather boa. "Ron, I thought you said you all were Republicans?" Jerry begs. "But we are Jerry, were Log Cabin Republicans." Jerry falls to the ground in tears, assumes the fetal position and begins to rock back and forth as the voice now booms, "For the first time in history It's gonna start raining men."
See you in Hell Falwell
Of course, this is Falwell's own personal hell.

Founding of Mother's Day

Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870

by Julia Ward Howe
Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Maybe this guy should be President.

God damn popular artists.

Here is a song by the artist P!nk. I was never really a fan of hers but this song is probably the most biting mainstream song so far.


Here is James Blunt, who's music I can not stand. THough this song, which I bet is about his time as a PeaceKeeper, is quite timely.


SO why the hell are these some of the only mainstream music artists producing music like this? Is that the music industry is so money hungry that they don't care about humans or art for that matter. I have no forum but I try. I write to the local newspaper and get my stuff read by thousands. Pop music artists have millions that they could reach but are either to fucking scared, of some percieved Dixie Chicks treatment, or don't give a rat's ass about anyone other than themselves. My guess is that it is the latter.

Poor Former Director of the C.I.A.

In the last few days a lot has been said about the new "tell all" book from former C.I.A. Director George Tenet. What I find the most interesting about this is the "slam dunk" comment. According to Cheney and his evil minions, Tenet told them that Saddam's possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction, was a "slam dunk."
According to Tenet his "slam dunk" comment was about how easy it would be to sell "WMD" to the US public. No shit. He is saying that he never said Saddam's holding of "WMDs" was a "slam dunk" but instead said lying to Americans is a "slam dunk."
What bullshit.

I Don't Get It.

Why the hell do these shows keep bringing this Bozo on? He hasn't gotten a single thing right in years. This kind of asshole gets invited on a news show, even though he got everything wrong, but where is Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Amy Goodman, and on and on......


Sometimes I really wish I believed in Hell or Karma or some sort of mythical justice.