Well, Uncle, this is as good a follow-up to yr. post as any I know of. …
Did you hear about the Fla. guy who is banned from the town in which he lives – except his house – for exercising his constitutional rights…
Grapski has sued the city over its recent elections, alleging that misconduct occurred and that a new election must be held.
As he was examining public records at city hall in researching his lawsuit, Grapski was arrested in the city commission chambers, charged with illegally recording City Manager Clovis Watson Jr. a few days prior.
Grapski was brought to jail but was released on his own recognizance — meaning he realized that he was charged with a crime and that he must show up at court hearings. As part of the release, he was told not to initiate contact with city officials.
But after his release, he appeared at a city commission meeting and asked for the minutes of the election’s Canvassing Board to be taken off the consent agenda so the public could discuss the minutes before a vote was taken.And So Forth

Posted by: jj | Jul 19 2006 5:28 utc | 3

Uncle Scam,
Thanks for your link “Bush to Impose Psyciatric Drug Regime”
How can the U.S. people be so stupid? And all this crap coming from “conservatives”. And you know both Dems & Repub will probably support this.
Worse than Corporatism. So many kids now are already ruining their lives with all this prescribed medication.

Posted by: Rick Happ | Jul 19 2006 5:32 utc | 5

@jj,
I saw the whacked out guy on you-tube, however, frantic he sounded he was articulate for the most part… angry and frantic but as our r’giap has sd (paraphrasing), rage is not hysteria.
I do not judge him or anyone in the mad times…
Madness need not be all breakdown. It is also breakthrough ~ RD Laing

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 19 2006 5:46 utc | 7

Alachua council meeting
off to the gulag ?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 19 2006 6:01 utc | 9

What is the source of outrage.
Here’s a non-rhetorical question. I read this blog and see a great deal of bitter invective about this ME war mostly directed at the Israelis. I can’t and don’t want to argue with most of it. But it seems a little odd to me that for so many Europeans and Anti-podians and Americans, Israel is the focus of so much outrage. I don’t get it and I wonder if someone here can explain it. Why Lebanon and why not Grozny or Darfour or Liberia or Falujah or WTO or Rwanda? I’m not asking for some method of calculating horror – all of these are terrible things. But for me, personally, of all the horrors of the last few years including the WTC bombings which nearly killed some relatives and took place in my old home, it was the drowning of New Orleans that filled me with the most rage (which is scarcely diminished now and barely contained) and the beating to death of that Taxi driver in the US jail in Afghanistan that filled me with the most shame. Both of these made me feel as if I had personally been touched with complicity in evil.
But what is it about the Israelis run of the mill shooting down of innocent refugees, smarmy lies, and casual destruction that brings it above the normal for you people? If you were lebanese or palestinian, I could understand immediately. But as it is, I’m honestly puzzled.

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 19 2006 6:12 utc | 11

Vote news: It’s happening AGAIN!
McKinney Votes Getting Robbed

DIEBOLD ELECTRONIC MACHINES MALFUNCTION, VOTE FOR OTHER CANDIDATE

Interestingly enough, I saw this over at dkos, but was so disgusted by the foever petty jabs, flames and comments about McKinney that had nothing to do with the content of the post, that I temporarily disabled/ blocked it from my wetware/thoughts. What a cesspool of an echo chamber dkos has become;perhaps, due to the same trollishness that seems to have beset us here at the bar…
@jj, I was thinking more along the lines of the elite aristocrats whom hold power not who wants power. e.g.,like 38 Senators Hold 13.4 Million in Drug Stock

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 19 2006 7:44 utc | 13

One of the drugs listed in Uncle’s link is Seraqual (sic), whose actions I have witnessed.
It robs the individual of motivation, perfect for keeping people quiet in a care facility, where I have seen it used.
Among the others I see listed is Paxil, known to be so addictive that many people can never stop using it. The drug I believe is a “happy drug” antidepressant that works as an SSRI — selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor — which keeps the naturally-generated serotonin in the brain from being reabsorbed.
So the addiction is that when people stop taking it, they feel so horrible that nothing corrects it, not even other SSRIs, and they must go back on the drug.
From Dangers of Paxil

Once Paxil is stopped, the levels of the drug in the cells drops quickly, say medical experts, triggering the kinds of problems that prompted the lawsuit against Glaxo.

Posted by: jonku | Jul 19 2006 8:53 utc | 15

At Uncle (16) what’s “atruism”?

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jul 19 2006 11:20 utc | 17

@ Uncle
Thanks; that explanation completes the thought logically.
I might mention that as frequently happens the anarchist and traditional right continues to state the obvious in a way that the so-called U.S. left
can not. For example today’s posts at antiwar.com by
Justin Raimondo
and Pat Buchanan .
The salient quote from Raimondo

The real core of Bolton’s argument, however, is unstated: it is the premise that state-sponsored terrorism is morally superior to the “privatized” Hezbollah brand, but this is unsupportable, in logic and by any rational ethical standard. It is, of course, the conceit of nations – that is, of their governments – that their terror is excusable, even liberating, while the same behavior engaged in by individuals or private groups is defined as a criminal act.

and from Buchanan

When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert unleashed his navy and air force on Lebanon, accusing that tiny nation of an “act of war,” the last pillar of Bush’s Middle East policy collapsed.
First came capitulation on the Bush Doctrine, as Pyongyang and Tehran defied Bush’s dictum: The world’s worst regimes will not be allowed to acquire the world’s worst weapons. Then came suspension of the democracy crusade as Islamic militants exploited free elections to advance to power and office in Egypt, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, Iraq, and Iran.
Now Israel’s rampage against a defenseless Lebanon – smashing airport runways, fuel tanks, power plants, gas stations, lighthouses, bridges, roads, and the occasional refugee convoy – has exposed Bush’s folly in subcontracting U.S. policy out to Tel Aviv, thus making Israel the custodian of our reputation and interests in the Middle East.
The Lebanon that Israel, with Bush’s blessing, is smashing up has a pro-American government, heretofore considered a shining example of his democracy crusade. Yet, asked in St. Petersburg if he would urge Israel to use restraint in its air strikes, Bush sounded less like the leader of the Free World than some bellicose city councilman from Brooklyn Heights.
…
Who is whispering in his ear? The same people who told him Iraq was maybe months away from an atom bomb, that an invasion would be a “cakewalk,” that he would be Churchill, that U.S. troops would be greeted with candy and flowers, that democracy would break out across the region, that Palestinians and Israelis would then sit down and make peace?
How much must America pay for the education of this man?

The last excerpt from Buchanan’s polemic will very likely be labeled anti-semitic as well as elitist, showing once more that the neo-cons continue to induce reluctant partners to become strange bedfellows. As the “extreme left” and “extreme right” bare themselves of atavistic enmities in preparation for a politico-carnal embrace, they can take added pleasure in noting that the emperor too is nude.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jul 19 2006 11:56 utc | 19

Why do I keep thinking of the Lusitania?

Posted by: beq | Jul 19 2006 13:21 utc | 21

citizen k, as a US citizen, why Israel’s crimes bother me a great deal more than the crimes of other countries (besides my own) is that I’m forced to subsidize the murderous assholes and their illegal, immoral occupation.

Posted by: ran | Jul 19 2006 13:44 utc | 23

Also, we constantly coddle Israel and shield them from the consequences of their crimes. So, to paraphrase Chomsky, when we do it or Israel does it it’s ok. When anyone else does it, it’s not. It’s the hypocrisy that infuriates me.

Posted by: ran | Jul 19 2006 14:22 utc | 25

The rapture folks are happy

Posted by: b | Jul 19 2006 14:49 utc | 27

Imad Khadduri provides some photos of a heartwarming old American custom transferred to Northern Israel. If one follows links to the original site the resolution is sharp enough to detect some misspellings, but what can one expect from youngsters whose first language isn’t English.
I suppose one can’t expect anything else when the youngsters are themselves targets of similar ordnance, yet the photos leave a bitter taste.
Khadduri’s link to Pepe Escobar’s ATOL article is also worth a read, and suggests a solution to the question of what “wider objectives” Israel might be seeking.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jul 19 2006 16:03 utc | 29

secrecynews: U.S. Army Issues Manual On Police Intelligence Operations

A new U.S. Army Field Manual introduces the concept of “police
intelligence operations,” an emerging hybrid of military
intelligence and law enforcement.
“Police intelligence operations are a military police function that
supports, enhances, and contributes to a commander’s situational
understanding and battlefield visualization and FP [force
protection] programs by portraying the relevant criminal threat and
friendly information, which may affect his operational and tactical
environment.”
The new manual presents doctrine that is broadly applicable to
support military operations abroad as well as domestic military
facility protection.
A copy of the new manual was obtained by Secrecy News.
See “Police Intelligence Operations,” Field Manual 3-19.50, 21 July
2006 (3.8 MB PDF)

Posted by: b real | Jul 19 2006 16:26 utc | 31

The opposition on the right, or by the real ‘liberals’ in the original sense of that term, in the US, I call paleo-conservatives. They hold the straight out isolationist ground.
Who cares about weird people far away fighting it out; and why on earth should the US tailor its foreign policy to that of a minuscule, racist, belligerent, clapped-out country that doesn’t even have proper borders? (To put it briefly.)
That stance is very appealing. (e.g. Raimondo.) For many reasons: 1) the long tradition of isolationist discourse; 2) the ‘failure’ of several foreign adventures; 3) the endless complications and costs of foreign entanglements; 4) the desperate harm done to others – though that is not mentioned much, bit of a sub-text, or only evoked when sentimentality may play; 5) the errors of the Baby Bush administration; 6) the total madness of it all.
That stance completely ignores US economic hegemony, and all the advantages the US gets out of ‘globalisation’.
Those paleo-cons are low-grade foreign-policy wonks, wankers, concentratin’ on one level only, as if the US could survive with its present level of consumption and confort without its control of foreign places.
They are flat-earthers, and pretend to think that if the US stopped its agressions, domination, sent Israel to the limbo, and internal politics could somehow be shaped up (how is never said, some problems with health care, well we will see…), everything would be fine, life would just trundle along, Joe and Alicia could just stop worrying and have BBQ, etc.
I’d looove to see Raimondo dealing with electricity cuts and growing cabbages on his terrace and paying mafia types for dodgy medication for his old Mom. (No idea about his personal life, just an invention.)
In short, they never bring their arguments to any kind of conclusion. They could but don’t – pathetic.
—
Hannah, they want that river so bad their fingernails are bleeding.
Still I agree that cogent opposition is coming more from the right than the left..in a way… but what is left of the left?

Posted by: Noirette | Jul 19 2006 19:07 utc | 33

Noirette: so you’re saying our standard of living is dependent on the Pentagon circling the globe with bases and dominating and menacing the world militarily (with a budget larger than the the next 10 largest militaries) or else we’ll be living in squalor like those pacifists in Switzerland?

Posted by: ran | Jul 19 2006 20:07 utc | 35

Meanwhile, back in the States…
Katrina audit shows fraud, abuse
The Homeland Security Department wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars last year on iPods, dog booties, beer-making equipment and designer jackets, congressional investigators have concluded.
More than 100 laptop computers and a dozen boats also bought by Homeland Security employees are missing, the investigators found.
Homeland Security Department Is Accused of Credit Card Misuse
Flat-bottomed rescue boats at double the retail price, $68,500 worth of unused dog booties, hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of computers that somehow disappeared and a $227 beer brewing kit.
Dog booties???????????????????
Further South:
Heavy fighting in Colombia forces thousands of civilians to flee
Intense fighting between the army and leftist guerrillas in western Colombia has forced thousands of civilians from their homes and trapped several Indian communities who are unable to reach safety, the United Nations said Tuesday.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 19 2006 21:32 utc | 37

It is impossible to separate Iraq policy from Israel policy. The neocons who came up with the Iraq plan did so first while consulting for Likud (“A Clean Break”). We are in Iraq in order to support a far conservative pro-Israel plan. Only Ariel Sharon was the enthusiastic leader exhorting us on to that war among all the countries in the world.
I think it’s disengenuous not to observe that this war in Iraq (to bring democracy) has often been touted as a way to make the Middle East safe for Israel. It certainly is outlined that way in the Clean Break plan.
Citizen k – you ask, why all the concern over Israel? Why not all the other things to be concerned about in the world, like Darfour, for example (where it is an Arab country that is committing outrageous violations of human rights)? I’ve done a lot of thinking about your question. It’s has already been answered to some extent by me in another thread, and my response here might not matter (dialogue – listening – is the aim of the question), but, citizen k, I see no mystery in the fact that it outrages me that my country has a universally touted “special relationship” with one that is simply escalating conflict that puts me in danger, and I’m paying for it. And I don’t like reading lies like “Israel is only attacking Hezbollah targets” today in newspapers. This is the grossest type of spin as we watch all kinds of Lebanese infrastructure and civilians and military barracks being hit.
You are of course right about heinous crime and violations of international law and human rights in Darfour. But I do not pay for the slaughter and slavery in Darfour and my lunatic president isn’t acting like Darfour must be supported at any and all costs no matter what violence it wishes to perpetuate or peace treaties and international law it wishes to violate. The democratic system in my country has powerful PACs at work in it that move to escalate conflict for the conservatives like Sharon, not the ones that run Darfour. We are entrenched in Iraq not for the benefit of the government of Darfour, it was not the government of Darfour that was the one and only great enthusiastic fan & exhorter to war in Iraq and apparently now expanding that to Syria and Iran (nor did a thinktank working for the rightwing party in Darfour come up with the Clean Break plan whose authors are now making policy in my country). In short, my democracy is the one funding this lunacy, this touted special relationship that seems to have lost all sense of human values of peace in favor of the lunacy of expanding war and violence, and has turned its back on 30 years of diplomacy policy. Even if I accepted your assertion that we give similar levels of aid to Egypt (which I don’t – see the articles I cited in the other thread), it’s not Egypt that bombing its neighbors’ infrastructure, whose government we supposedly support, destroying a peaceful democratic slowly painstaking building process we supposedly support!! And I wonder who’s paying for that? And who will pay for reconstruction!
It shames *me*. What is happening in Lebanon to innocent people now makes me ashamed of our citizens turning a blind eye to it. I am ashamed of us. Moreover, I feel we are threatening our own interests, on many levels both financial, political and in terms of national security, by following these policies. I don’t feel such a personal threat or shame when it comes to Darfour policies.
I do not say that PACs like AIPAC engage in illegal activity (unless we want to talk about a recent high profile corruption case of one individual lobbyist, or the rather strangely low-key case of espionage connected to this administration and its most highly “inside” neocon policy makers). However, it seems to me that campaign finance reform is direly necessary, and this insane policy that frankly threatens the safety and financial resources and young men & women in service to my country is the result of a sort of legalized corruption built into the system… if it were on behalf of some other interest or country I’d feel the same way. But it’s not on behalf of Darfour and the pro-Darfour lobby is not the powerful one that the pro-Israel lobby is (and that includes self-proclaimed Christian “leaders” like Falwell, Reed, et al)
I do not hear that we have to support the Saudis no matter what, that we are just conspiracy theorists or bigots if we criticize policies of the Saudi government, nor that God will punish me if I do. But we hear it loud and clear and frequently in this country when it comes to the relationship with Israel. Any rational person should be upset about such things. I hear plenty about what the horrible government in Darfour is doing to its citizens, and rightfully so. I have to be shocked when I come across facts reported (like the story from the World Council of Churches about the little girls routinely targeted on their way to school in the West Bank) from out of the way but reliable sources (like the WCC) that never make it into our mainstream newspapers or media about what policies we’re supporting unconditionally (and financially). No, what I hear endlessly is about what a great democracy we are supporting in the Middle East and what victims its citizens are in the West Bank & Gaza – and then I get shocked by the obvious racism and unremitting violence of the settlers and outrageous occupation practices of all kinds that go unchecked. I think I’d have to have lost my mind not to care about such things. Indeed, the entire world, led by my country supposedly, passed all kinds of legislation regarding the rights of civilians under occupation and in times of war that is being violated left and right by this great oft-proclaimed beacon of civilized values in the Middle East with whom we must have a special protective relationship that does not question such practices.
You’re right – there are plenty of other things to be upset about, and they do upset me and trouble me and worry and outrage me. Our relationship with China is a case in point for me, personally. This totalitarian regime, which seems to care nothing for human life, imposes death penalty for all kinds of crimes (and the family of the executed has to pay for the bullet afterward!), seemingly has no checks on it whatsoever in terms of human rights when it comes to economic cooperation and building up its wealth and power. It has no checks on its own regional ambitions regarding Taiwan, and the people of Hong Kong really weren’t allowed even a semblance of self-determination when it came to handing it over to China’s rule. We could talk about the occupation of Tibet and the violation of rights there as well. And it still outrages me to think about Bush Sr.’s complete lack of response to the poor people protesting for democracy in Tien An Men Square, even as they had so much faith in *us* they were carrying around pictures of the Statue of Liberty! He not only did nothing to help them, he gave China its economic stamp of approval in relationship to us.
When it comes to Turkey there are vastly similar problems – our administration determinedly not only turns a blind eye to its extreme nationalism and violations of minority ethnic and religious rights, and population of political prisoners, but also suppresses dissent and public criticism (and Congressional inquiry and involvement) of its policies – including genocide denial (in which the government of Israel officially also colludes as an outrageous form of hypocrisy for similar political reasons to the consternation of Israel’s academic community of genocide scholarship) – because of Turkey’s strategic involvement as a partner in its policies. (And some pro-Israel lobbying groups in this country also promote turning a blind eye to its violations and genocide denial here.) Activities of the US government on Turkey’s behalf include pressure on the EC to admit Turkey with less than usual concern about economic and political criteria for membership, as well as pressure on Cyprus to accept unjust and unworkable settlements for, yes indeed, yet another illegal occupation which violates the norms of democracy, property rights, etc. in Northern Cyprus as well as UN resolutions.
So yes, you are indeed correct when you say there are other things to be concerned about. And I do voice my concerns when the topic is relevant – it’s just that the current gross and obvious destabilization of an already overly polarized and violent and important region involves Israel and our special relationship with it at its center. Do you wish to pretend that Israel does not owe its military might (and its hubris) to this special relationship? Perhaps you do, but I feel that would be foolish and it is patently obvious to most of the world that these policies work against its security in the long run, and are only pursued out of a false sense of protection because of its support in the US and by the US government. Who else enjoys this level of special protection? Is there another country in the world we’re going to send our young men to other countries to fight and die and risk their lives for in order to protect their interests? Is there another country that threatens to expand our already disastrous involvement in Iraq into Syria and Iran? Do you really think the lives of our young people (including those related to me) and a threatened military draft to support such violent and wrong-headed policies I feel will only deepen crisis is none of my *immediate* concern? I am not a pacifist in principle, I have many ancestors who have fought and some died in battle for my country, but to send yet more of them to die unnecessary deaths pursuing wrong-headed policies, that IMO are against the true concerns and interest of my country is *not* okay!
On another level (which I think you probably don’t care a fig for and maybe feel contempt for), the policies that are pursued to build up its territories are in my opinion violations of historical scriptural and religious law while its supporters in this country speak of the “Holy Land” and its need for our support. To paraphrase Jewish scripture and the words of the Hebrew prophets, “to build up Zion with blood and injustice” is an abomination of historical Jewish spiritual and religious teaching. As for the “Christian Zionism” proponents like Reed, Falwell, etc. and their “Left Behind” roadmap, their championing of some form of supremacist religious or ethnic values in the Holy Land is also an abomination to the teachings of Jesus, who taught the parable of the Good Samaritan when he was asked the question, “Who is my neighbor?” That story teaches that a neighbor is not one of one’s own ethnic or religious group, but the person who is a neighbor in their heart, who acts and thinks like a neighbor, be he or she a member of a despised minority (like the Samaritans). This teaching was not just a “Christian innovation” but an extension of Jewish law, easily understandable to his Jewish audience of 2000 years ago. And yet in “Judea and Samaria” we are supporting policies that are in violent opposition to this simple and understandable teaching which is now fairly universal in its humanitarian understanding of secular behavior regarding prejudice and injustice and intolerance of minority rights, values enacted into law in all of the West and in international law. Again, that’s against a background of daily touting of this beacon of Western values in the Middle East which needs our absolute support. So, given the climate of this “special relationship”, there are lots of reasons to be “specially concerned,” and to voice concern in the face of silence in the media and endless propaganda from political interests of all stripes that wish to ignore a dire and urgent and IMO threatening reality.
On another level, the concern is not really about Israel proper but our government and its lack of leadership, its foolhardy and destabilizing and security threatening policies, which are bankrupting our country. My Israeli friends tell me that the situation is simply a mess – obviously both sides are too polarized to work out a deal on their own. A third party that can come in and broker a deal, a peace, is necessary. I need hardly say who that Third Party might be and how totally, sadly, horribly bereft of any leadership in this direction it currently is, as it is that loudest champion on the bandwagon striking up that war drum, because internally it is all too politically expedient, due to insider machinations and the activities of special interest groups, to do so if one wishes to have a future in politics. And that indeed is my concern, even if you wish to tell me it isn’t.
Beyond all of that, the level of unnecessary human suffering in all of these related policies of violence is offensive to me. And it gets more offensive when it seems that because it is only Arabs it doesn’t matter, as if there’s one race or another whose lives are less valuable, that makes the suffering of innocents more ignorable, more palatable. And there’s just too much of that suffusing all of these issues.
When we helped the IRA to integrate into the politics of Northern Ireland through peace talks, through eventual disarmament of its military wing, England did not come and bomb Boston because of all the supporters there of the IRA. England did not bomb the Republic of Ireland because of supporters of the IRA. England did not expand warfare to sabotage negotiations in order to make the IRA another political party and disarm its military wing. How come we’d be outraged at the treatment of Irish people in this manner but we’re supposed to accept that the Lebanese deserve this? I think there’s one answer to that question, and it’s part and parcel of the hubris of some sort of tinge of supremacy suffusing all of these policies and popular attitudes toward the Middle East. And I find that deeply offensive and inherently unjust and evil. So would have Martin Luther King, every bit as much as he fought for the civil rights of people in this country. And I do take that legacy seriously. It is very important to me, even if perhaps you can’t understand it and why it should concern me.
Much of what we in the West understand about racism and minority rights we owe to the historical struggle of Jews and in particular to lessons from the Holocaust of WW II. But when those lessons seem to be perverted into an idea that we are only supposed to care about the Jews, rather than minority rights or racism in principle, this is a real perversion of the point. In fact, it is a violation of those lessons altogether, if the spirit of what we learn is that there is just one special case, just one special group of people that get a pass, and for whom our concern should be magnified beyond that of all other groups of people who suffer in the world. Arabs count just as much. Asians count just as much. All human beings count just as much. It is a principle, not a “special” interest, not something “special” or exclusive at all. And if all that concern about human rights and minority rights was motivated by virtue of some concern over a unique or exclusive or special group of people, then I find that to be highly disappointing and hypocritical. This tinge of some form of supremacy is offensive no matter who does it or on whose behalf it is engaged.

Posted by: 2nd anonymous poster | Jul 19 2006 23:05 utc | 39

U$ – Bush’s Teen Sweep (boy, if that isn’t a non sequiter) was intended to institute routine and in-school screening examinations, allegedly to prevent another Columbine tragedy, although 1,000 times more people die driving to work than to student violence, or lack thereof, and 100,000 times more innocent civilians die due to presidential actions than to student violence, as long as we’re speaking truth to power.
Students would be asked if they ever felt troubled or angry at school. Grading would, of course, be hot-buttoned. Anyone answering ‘troubled’ or ‘angry’ would be flagged on student’s medical record as a potential watch-list, then be **forced** to begin psy-counseling. Those the (out-sourced, of course) counselors felt needed more help, would be **forced** to take a psychiatric drug regimen. Parents would have no rights of refusal, whatsoever. Spell: Child-and-Protective-Services.
Now, I didn’t really believe they could do this, until I saw the questionaire kids are given for juvenile delinquency. See, they have to do community service, then they have to take and pass guidance counseling, a book, CD and an exam.
But in the packet, there’s a little something else. Marked “confidential”, the examination asks repetitive questions, generated to coax the answerer up to acquiescence, like, “Do I sometimes feel troubled? or “How often have I felt like committing a crime?” “Do I sometimes want to hurt somebody?”
If you don’t send it in, you don’t pass the counseling. The test paper and envelope, of course, are bar-coded, so the tell-all claim “confidential” is, natch, a blatant fraud.
First, a TOTAL violation of a kid’s constitutional rights at so many, many levels. Second, it immediately throws them into the prison system at the entry level, lock and load, right there in their own handwriting. Third, it immediately throws them into the psy-pharm system at the entry level, for the rest of their short, miserable and probably military lives.
So why when Israeli’s apply for US citizenship, they get to keep their Israeli passport, but when Arabs apply for US citizenship, they have to go through years of bullshit? And why is US citizenship for sale for $100,000, even a lottery?
Right there on the State Department website, a lottery for
Asian citizens, they’ll even fly your family over if you win.
SoS probably took it down now, but the WayBack Machine knows.
Why is our country an open door to Israeli’s and Asian’s, but we are psy-ops’ing and warehousing our own natural-born kids?
Why are Israeli’s allowed to hold top Defense and State jobs?
These Neo-Con fascists are one sick mind-fuck after another.

Posted by: opp sic | Jul 19 2006 23:49 utc | 41

Maybe it’s because Israelis hide in shelters while the rest of the world hides in bunkers.

Posted by: biklett | Jul 20 2006 1:59 utc | 43

i suppose never being an afficiando of the news as reported on television – the alternate television(s) & the other more credible sources have revealed the media of the empire for what it is – propoganda – worse than that – it is caricatured & poorly crafted propaganda – again a coupling hezbollahs al amara/cnn
i know this is not a revelation but in inflicting such sordid (cnnbbcsky)scenes upon myself
the ss went to ar in defence of christian civilisation – the people on cnnbbcsky follow a similar course

Posted by: r’giap | Jul 20 2006 2:54 utc | 45

We need to ask fellow humans, particularly those who think Israel is doing the job of the righteous, what will have changed in a week other than a lot more dead people.. We can already see that Israel, trapped within it’s own murderous rage has increased the speed of the blades on it’s Arab mincer 100+ dead and counting so far today.
Once any ‘credible’ witnesses have gone, ie white people, the foot will push the pedal to the metal and the blood will really flow.
There will be no method to the madness.
By the Israeli slaughter machine’s own admission they have gotten to the end of the list of ‘potential hezbollah targets’.
These targets ranged from the site of a shopping centre where Hezbollah wives bought jilbab (outer garments) to the rumored favourite Beruit cafe of Hassan Nasrallah’s student days.
Current score 5 dead hezbollah members. Collateral damage 200+ dead Lebanese civilians and rising.
Why?
The Lebanon presented an obvious counter to the apartheid state of Israel’s claim that Arabs were inefficient, bickering, and superstitious enemies of democracy.
The Lebanon had overcome the constant disruptions by Israeli agent provocateurs and were in the process of putting together a state that was forward looking, integrated the secular and the religious elements of both Islam and xtianity in an increasingly co-operative way.
Everyone prattled on about the Hariri assassination and claimed it must have been Syria and yet the similar murder by bombing of xtian lebanese leader Elie Hobeika committed by Mossad murder teams, passed un-commented by amerika or the rest of the west.
Interesting if only because Elie Hobeika’s crime was to be a potential witness at the war crimes trial of Ariel Sharon. To testify to the role Sharon played in the massacre of more than 2000 Palestinian women and children at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps the last time Israel attacked lebanon under the pretext of catching Palestinian terrorists.
Ask your fiends why it is that dubya, Bliar, and the rest of the man’s handmaidens have agreed to give these Israeli psychopaths a further week of bloodletting before an international force is then put into lebanon to police Israel’s edicts.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 20 2006 4:18 utc | 47

2cd anonymous poster:
You write “But I do not pay for the slaughter and slavery in Darfour and my lunatic president isn’t acting like Darfour must be supported at any and all costs no matter what violence it wishes to perpetuate or peace treaties and international law it wishes to violate. That is certainly true. But you pay for dissidents to be boiled in Uzbekistan and nuns to be raped and murdered in Salvador and you paid for the dog collars and the chemical lights up the ass in Abu Graib. And you paid for the helicopters to fly over people drowning in New Orleans. I can’t really disagree with much of what you say, but I think it’s creepy to hear arguments to the effect that without the terrible AIPAC leading it by the nose, good old America would be a paragon of morals in foreign policy. Or when Americans who don’t care about the Narco-terrorists we subsidize in Columbia or the extraordinary renditions or the white phosphorous in Falujah speak so strongly about their moral repugnance when it comes to Israel. Or when Europeans, who drove the battered remant of the Jews out into land that the British and French had stolen from the Arabs and then have spent 50 years watching captives fight each other, wax indignant about international law as if they hadn’t been looting the planet of 500 years. Or when our settler friend from New Zealand, has the gall to complain about broken agreements as if there would be white settlement on New Zealand without guns and lies. There’s plenty of fodder for outrage, but something about the outrage seems off in many cases. I’m not questioning your sincerity or attempting to defend the Israelis – God knows they act like Isaiah was a fucking script that they had to follow. But can you see the source of my unease here?
Look at Lebanon itself – a creation of the French civilizing mission that 150 years ago was subsidizing Maronite christians to massacre Druze (who were being used by the English). Part of the ethnic violence in Lebanon is caused by the French ripping the Beka valley from Syria and putting it in Lebanon only 80 years ago and then imposing a constitution that assured Christian power and Muslim poverty. Hezbolla is a reaction to the oppression of Shiites within Lebanon, not to any action of the perfidious Jews. You’d think our French correspondents would be horrified that France was not stepping up to do something to save the citizens of a nation it created from a catastrophe the French helped create. What would Israel do if instead of wringing their hands and weeping crocodile tears the French put military force into Beiruit to protect civilians? Oh, but the French army is busy shooting unarmed civilians in Ivory Coast and doesn’t have time to enforce the precious rule of law. All they can do is take the white people out.
By the way, fellas. There is this thing called “google”. If you google “dual citizenship US” you can find out quickly that your deep worries about how the Zionists have gamed the system are not correct. Oh, but wait, probably only Jewish Mossadniks from Australia and Ireland and Canada get dual citizenship. See, the welter of bullshit, and barely disguised ethnic anxiety gives me an unpleasant feeling about the whole thing.

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 20 2006 5:47 utc | 49

I don’t make that argument. Undoubtedly many people who are opposed to Israels war on Lebanon are totally sincere. But look how quickly people veer off into utter bullshit about how only the Jews get dual citizenship, or to my mind the much worse crap claims that the Israelis are violating the norms of international law as if the norms of international law were not a transparent fraud by which the powerful excuse their crimes and vilify their victims.
Your statement about Ireland, by the way, was wrong. The British did not bomb Boston because the US is too powerful not because of their delicate sensibilities – obviously they had no problem shooting civilians in Belffast. On the other side, the Irish lobby in the US was strong enough to allow open solicitation of funds for terror to be protected in the USA for years. Whitey Bulger used to run guns and heroin with apparent impunity for years. But one never heard about the conspiratorial powers of the Irish except on the nutball fringes.

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 20 2006 6:51 utc | 51

citizen k,
Your statement about Ireland, by the way, was wrong. The British did not bomb Boston because the US is too powerful not because of their delicate sensibilities – obviously they had no problem shooting civilians in Belffast.
You are misunderstanding my point. My point was that people in this country wouldn’t stand for it (and I’m not just talking about those of Irish descent). Why’s it okay when it happens to Lebanese? The answer is obvious.
And once again, I repeat, the Israelis are touted as the beacon of democracy and Western values. Not just touted, supported to the nth degree. We wouldn’t be in Iraq if it wasn’t for AIPAC – their influence the tipping point in a Congress that didn’t want to go that far because the majority of the population was against it. You can’t possibly separate the neocons from conservative pro-Israel/Likud interests (that’s where they got their start). We don’t hear that kind of endless propaganda about Uzbekistan. Today the politicians from both sides of the aisle lined up to talk about how righteous the bombing of Lebanon is, that it’s only Israel’s right to defend itself. You wonder why people here want to speak up about it? Should we all just shut up then?

Posted by: 2nd anonymous poster | Jul 20 2006 7:22 utc | 53

We wouldn’t be in Iraq if it wasn’t for AIPAC – their influence the tipping point in a Congress that didn’t want to go that far because the majority of the population was against it.
You really believe that? AIPAC made the entire big powerful united states go to war in Iraq, despite our desire not to go to war?

The study also drew criticism from the left, notably from Noam Chomsky. While Mearsheimer and Walt “deserve credit” for taking a position “that is sure to elicit tantrums and fanatical lies,” he wrote, their thesis was “not very” convincing, for it ignored the influence that oil companies have had on US policy in the Persian Gulf, and it overlooked the extent to which the US-Israeli alliance performed “a huge service” for “US-Saudis-Energy corporations” by “smashing secular Arab nationalism, which threatened to divert resources to domestic needs.” US policy in the Middle East, Chomsky argued, is no different from that in other parts of the world, and the Israeli government had helped implement it, by, for instance, enabling the Reagan administration to “evade congressional barriers to carrying out massive terror in Central America.” Many would find the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis appealing, he wrote, because it leaves the US government “untouched on its high pinnacle of nobility,” its Wilsonian impulses distorted by “an all-powerful force [i.e., the lobby] that it cannot escape.”

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 20 2006 8:00 utc | 55

Fox News – 911 The Israeli Connection
It was a four part Fox news special done after 911 that detailed the monitoring of all phone calls by an Israeli company.
Amdocs has contracts with the 25 biggest phone companies in America, and more worldwide. The White House and other secure government phone lines are
protected, but it is virtually impossible to make a call on normal phones without generating an Amdocs record of it.
Israel Is Spying In And On The U.S.?
USS Liberty
The USS Liberty Veterans Association has filed a formal
Report with the Department of Defense
of War Crimes Committed Against U.S. Military Personnel on June 8, 1967,
by elements of the Israeli military forces.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 20 2006 8:22 utc | 57

oh for fucks sake citizen-k come to terms with your conflict or move on. Accept that no-one is going to break down and confess “I’m sorry I got it all wrong. Israel isn’t a morally deficient plague on the world It’s me I’m an anti-semite!”. No-one’s gonna say it because it isn’t true. So go and play your stupid guilt trip with yourself somewhere else cause your boring, old and bring nothing constructive to a foul crime caused by too much self indulgence.

Posted by: Debs is deader than a mullet | Jul 20 2006 9:41 utc | 59

Between the half-hearted attempts at anonymity and the games of musical sobriquets, I’m starting to feel like I’m crashing a masquerade ball every time I swing by this watering hole.
At any rate, citizen k, I’m going to have to side with the Malooga-esque AP2,here. Your observations that Israel does not represent a special or more monstrous case are arguable at best, and somewhat irrelevant to the specific accusations being levelled. Many’s the Freeper who tries to deflect criticisms levelled at Bush by pointing out instances in which Clinton (or Johnson… or Kennedy) committed an abuse, as if that kind of tit-for-tat absolves or redresses anything.
I don’t give a good gorram if you can give me a billion citations of people who have incinerated children in the past. It is still a perversion even if you want to argue that it is business-as-usual… and it does NOT mean that my critism of the behaviour is invalid just because “someone else has done it, too”. That line of reasoning is more than just fallacious… it’s Rovian, and it has no place in honest dialogue.

Posted by: Monolycus | Jul 20 2006 11:47 utc | 61

Ensley – There are plenty of Irish-American dual citizens, Canadian-American, Australian-American and so on. That you think otherwise is interesting.
here
or
here .

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 20 2006 12:43 utc | 63

I didn’t know who Malooga was, so I googled the name, and read an interesting thread on this site from April about something called a “Euston agreement”, with a poster named “Pooter”. And the arguments deconstructed in that thread sound very similar.
As to the power of AIPAC, you have to be living with your head in the sand to dispute what has been so well-documented, by conservative sources like Forbes Magazine, years ago, and remains true today when anyone does a survey and ranking on the relative power of PACs.
Leaving aside the question of Iraq policy specifically, there is no doubt as to the undisputed power of AIPAC and its hardball politics within the Beltway (nor the capacity of politicians to be out of touch with anything beyond the Beltway and swayed by powerful interest groups). And you don’t have to find sources for this outside of Jewish publications like “Forward” which regularly reports on such things… nothing anti-Semitic about it. As to AIPAC’s power to harm a politician’s career, see the cases of Charles Percy or Earl Hilliard.
Senator Hollings and General Zinni spoke openly about the push to war in Iraq, the neocon agenda, and AIPAC specifically in its instrumental role of arm-twisting when Israel policy and interests were seen by AIPAC as aligned with an interventionist policy in Iraq, and how that effectively tipped the scales for reluctant politicians with regard to Iraq policy. And of course Hollings and Zinni were labelled anti-Semites for doing so.
As to torture at Abu Ghraib and your outrage at it, does it not strike you as ironic that the great proponent of the value and admissibility torture in this country is Alan Dershowitz? Does the war on terror, its instruments and workings such as the practices in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, really have nothing to do with pro-Israel interests in the US or Likud-leaning neocons? Are these mutually advocated interests just coincidental, or are we to pretend there are no overlapping advocated and policy proposals with the same players like Perle, Feith, Bolton et al acting for years in these capacities? Does their history of consultation for Likud really have absolutely nothing to do with the policies they shaped on Iraq and for the wider war on terror and all that goes together with it? Did Ariel Sharon’s lone enthusiastic advocacy for such a war, among all the leaders of the countries of the world, just constitute some pure coincidence? (Do politicians not make alliances for mutual interest anymore???)
The real question is, why am I asked to be that blind? why am I asked to stop asking the obvious questions?
Here’s a pretty decent article from The Forward on the Hollings/Zinni statements: Ex-Mideast Envoy Zinni Charges Neocons Pushed Iraq War To Benefit Israel. What’s really important to note, and sad, is the story about Nita Lowey’s attempt to express a “pro-Israel” position that says that the neocon agenda is only hurting Israel and Jews around the world, and the response of the lobbying groups the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress.
At any rate, like so many others before me, I’m afraid this conversation isn’t really much of a dialogue at this point, but I thank you nevertheless for what of dialogue did happen here.

Posted by: 2nd anonymous poster | Jul 20 2006 14:15 utc | 65

on the subject of darfour, which has been used as an illustration of an ongoing conflict/genocide(?) that does not necessarily implicate the taxpayers of the united states, here are some links that may be of interest:
workers world: What’s behind the Darfur campaign

A well-attended forum entitled “Darfur, An Open Discussion on Intervention, Regime Change & the Politics of Genocide” was held July 6 at Smith College in Northampton, Mass.
The goal of the event organizers was to answer those clamoring for U.S. intervention in Darfur.
…
Panelist Sara Flounders, co-director of the International Action Center … brought up that it is the U.S. that is militarizing the area by funding and arming rebel groups in Chad and Darfur. She went on to say that, in fact, the U.S. caused more than half of the deaths in Sudan—when under President Bill Clinton, the U.S. military bombed the El Shifah pharmaceutical plant in 1998, which supplied 60 percent of Sudan’s medicines.
…
…Keith Harmon Snow, emphasized: “People need to know they are being lied to [in regard to Darfur]. … Sudan and the Darfur region have a lot of oil, and it has two-thirds of the world’s supply of high-quality gum arabic. Corporations such as Coke, Pepsi, and Pfizer rely on cheap supplies of gum arabic.” He went on to say that “The mass media and Hollywood are fooling the public about what’s really happening in Sudan. … The CIA and USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development] are the real forces who want to overthrow the government of Sudan.”

audio of this recent panel avail at traprockpeace.
here’s a june article by flouders, The U.S. Role in Darfur, Sudan
and snow was on guns & butter yesterday. audio is here: Behind the Numbers: Plunder in Central Africa

Interview with journalist, Keith Harmon Snow. “Genocide” in the Darfur region of Sudan is analyzed in the context of global investment capital, natural resource exploitation, “intervention” media war propaganda masquerading as humanitarian effort. The militarization of the region by the U.S. and other nations.

Posted by: b real | Jul 20 2006 15:55 utc | 67

Sorry, Cit K, the US govt is very clear that people who are American citizens by birth cannot apply for citizenship in any other country. Period. That’s very unequivocally stated at your earlier link. So Australians may able to come to the US and have duals. Irish-born may be able to come to the US and have duals. But NO Americans born in America can be naturalized in any other country (with one exception) without giving up their American citizenship. Read, dude.
I have personally run up against this in Central America when considering the citizenship offered to me there and finding out from the State Dept that I would have to give up my American citizenship to do so. The only people who started out as Americans and got dual citizenships are those who applied to Israel.

Posted by: Ensley | Jul 20 2006 16:11 utc | 69

Cordesman on Iraq Losing the War in Iraq?

The Iraq War has increasingly become a race between the effort to create a new political compromise that can persuade Arab Shi’ite, Arab Sunni, and Kurd to cooperate in some new approach to governance and escalating civil violence. Bad weeks or months do not mean that the Iraqi government and the United States have yet lost that race, but the last few weeks are anything but reassuring.
…
[long, long list of mess]
…
These trends strongly argue that the Iraqi government and United States are now losing, not winning. They are scarcely based on firm data, however, and they scarcely mean the struggle is lost. What they do mean is that the Maliki government must act far more quickly and decisively, that Iraq’s factions have no time to bargain by attrition if they seriously want to avoid civil war or dividing the country, and that the United States must be prepared to rush in aid if this can move political compromises forward. No one knows the odds of failure or success at this point, but they are notably worse in July than in early June, and they have been slowly deteriorating for months.

Posted by: b | Jul 20 2006 18:00 utc | 71

Peter Galbraith has a new bk out: “The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End”. I hrd. interview w/him this wk. For those who thght. all this “democracy” crap was just propaganda for the masses, he said that he spoke to Am. govt. guys – didn’t name names – & they thght. ME would just be another Eastern Europe. Send in some troops & bring down “the wall”, things would start to crumble!! (& they could waltz off w/the loot – me)

Posted by: jj | Jul 20 2006 19:04 utc | 73

Richard Perle has lobbied for the Turkish government.
As I stated previously, this is directly linked to his pro-Israel activities. Israeli politicians even claim that the Armenian genocide is “not a real genocide” (quoting Shimon Peres there) in order to support ultra-Nationalist Turkey. This is simply geopolitical strategy for Israel, and hence Perle’s rather shameful involvement against efforts here to formally recognize the 1915 genocide against the Armenians in Turkey. As I wrote before, the academic community within Israel on genocide scholarship is appalled at the official Israeli position on this issue. But it’s all because of strategic alliance with Turkey. You cannot separate ME policy (“the war on terror”) from Israel, because the neocons are running this show.

Posted by: 2nd anonymous poster | Jul 20 2006 19:57 utc | 75

@ Noirette
Because…Israel is where the Temple of Jerusalem has to be rebuilt before the Messiah comes back and triggers the Rapture.

Posted by: catlady | Jul 20 2006 20:21 utc | 77

What catlady said. Word.

Posted by: citizen | Jul 20 2006 21:19 utc | 79

Let me try again
here

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 20 2006 21:36 utc | 81

ATTENTION NOIRETTE
If they’re going to turn xAm. into a Police State, can’t let Europe stay democratic now can they…
In Neutral Switzerland, A Rising Radicalism
Islamic Extremists Newly Seen as Threat
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, July 20, 2006; A14
BERN, Switzerland — For centuries, this Alpine nation has successfully relied on a strict policy of political neutrality to insulate it from the wars, invasions and revolutions that have raged outside its borders. These days, a new threat has emerged: one from within.
As they have elsewhere in Europe, Islamic radicals are making inroads in Switzerland. Last month, Swiss officials announced the arrests of a dozen suspects who allegedly conspired to shoot down an Israeli airliner flying from Geneva to Tel Aviv. In a related case, a North African man has been charged with organizing a plot from Swiss soil to blow up the Spanish supreme court in Madrid.
For years, even after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Swiss officials assumed that their country was one of the last places Islamic radicals would look to attack. Long considered a slice of neutral territory in a world full of conflicts, Switzerland trades on its status as home to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other diplomatic institutions.
As the global jihad movement becomes more decentralized and fragmented, however, Swiss security officials are warning that their country could become a target.

Posted by: jj | Jul 21 2006 2:52 utc | 83

b real
take care
hot as hell here

Posted by: r’giap | Jul 21 2006 3:32 utc | 85