Some background is in order. As I understand it, Israel was founded by people who were not religious in any god-important sense — they were Jews, yes, but, generally, socialists, even (gasp!) communists.
They would have founded their new country anywhere, but, because of the Western guilty conscience, it was fated to be Palestine.
After the country became a fact, the religious azzholes came in and gave Ye God credit for it all — plus, they unfolded the “Deed to the Holy Land Which Ye God Gave to the Jews”.
That is when the fate was sealed. With the “Deed” as justification, the creeping colonization of the occupied territories began, creating an impossible situation.
The final fuse was lit when a moon-bat shithead (with the connivance of Israeli intelligence?) took out PM Rabin.
Don’t worry folks, the pooch has been screwed and we are just waiting for the drums to roll.
But, as b says, life goes on. My grandson smiles at me, there are two more “in the oven” and life just gets better with each breath I take.

Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Jan 2 2009 14:21 utc | 3

It is the complete, solipsistic blindness of the Israelis– leaders and a vast majority of the people– that continually astonishes me. These people are supposed to be a “smart, well-educated” public??? I think what we’re seeing is the limits on the meaningfulness of such terms when a capacity for basic human empathy is so completely absent from their skill mix.
Collective narcissism. Read the DSM-IV about narcissistic personality and see if you agree. It is psychopathology on a collective scale. The problem is that the US has gotten deeply, completely sucked into this and I personally believe that none of this would be happening today if we had not first sanctioned the use of massive military force against civilians with our horrific war on Iraq. I hold our government MORE responsible even than the Israelis, because NONE of this had to happen, NONE of it, had our policies not been serving what Israel perceived to be its own interests rather than American national interests. It is failure of foreign policy on a massive, tragic scale.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jan 2 2009 16:41 utc | 5

They are paid to be ethnically close and belligerent.
Thank you for reminding us about the pliability of the jews. I often forget that the jews would probably have gotten along well with those Austrians were it not for this jewish thing to be such a beligerent jew, for money. You can always pay a jew to be a beligerent jew. They’ll do anything for the filthy lucre.

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 2 2009 17:37 utc | 7

Chuck wrote: They would have founded their new country anywhere, but, because of the Western guilty conscience, it was fated to be Palestine.
So should one claim a new country for Ruandans, (sp), Armenians, or for that matter American Indians, the Irish, or give Yugoslavia back in its original form to the Yugoslavs?
Morally, it can be debated. Pragmatically – Not.
Israel became Israel not because of Western guilty conscience, though that is what they like to pretend, but because of geo-political calculations and a long term project to take over the ME.
Helena posted: They will not and cannot “win” anything with this war except for deepened rage and anger from Palestinians, Arabs, and everyone around the world who sees their cruelty and is once again shocked by it.
True enough. But they are fighting for their survival, not against Palestinians, who in any case are ‘dreck’ and sitting ducks, but for continuing support from their patrons, without whom they cannot survive. Both the Isarelis and the Palestinians are about 100% supported by the USuk/West, the Palestinians now openly, and not quite at survival level, the Israelis invisibly so by expats and the circuits of world finance. If international law was applied to either entity some huge changes would be seen. Even the Arab nations prefer to let this conflict fester, as it polarizes and deflects attention from them; it contains the upcoming and ongoing conflicts. Or so they like to think.

Posted by: Tangerine | Jan 2 2009 18:33 utc | 9

I am horrified and I have written this:
the desert is yellow.
There are congealing red blotches.
People used to be there,
now emptyness.
Will there be children again, will the Sun warm those cold lives?
Yet the sky is still blue
and the cranes still fly North
in this cold and deadly Spring.
Let go my friend, let our tears flow.
let them sprinkle life over the rocks.
Sorry I weep,
if I were a man I would rejoice over the alien’s pain.

Posted by: jlcg | Jan 2 2009 18:39 utc | 11

Note about the poem I just posted:
Fallujah is the name of the village near Gaza in what is now Israel, from which Raya’s family was expelled in 1948. [It is separate from Fallujah, Iraq.]

Posted by: bea | Jan 2 2009 19:11 utc | 13

israel’s acts, its criminal acts are unconscionable

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 2 2009 20:11 utc | 15

bea
you asked on another thread about my comparison between the settlements of the old Pale & the besieging of gaza
the parallels are easy to make & must rest in jewish memory enough to shame it. these settlements were beseiged with great violence under the tsars & always the local population suppoorted actively the pogroms. which were mass murders on a scale comparable both in method & in numbers to what is happening in gaza? the same brutality. the same barbarism
during the 2nd world war all of the towns & villages of the pale were beseiged & terrorised in exactly the same way as what is happening to gaza in particular & to the palestinian people in general. the endgame exactly the same.
extinction

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 2 2009 20:25 utc | 17

Frankly, I haven’t commented up til now simply because I am too angry, hurt and betrayed to stutter anything of meaning.
I’d like to thank everyone for their work on the previous thread, especially r’giap for his moving requiem, and bea for her timely posts.
Again, I hate to be contrary, but I think enough has been written to prove that the rockets have nothing to do with the attacks — which were planned six months ago — but are merely an excuse. The same can be said for the ridiculous deflecting comment that this is about Israel’s upcoming election. Again, it was planned six months ago. Surely, you, b, can recognize the historical continuity of Israel’s policies over time?
Or has everyone given up on structural analysis in preference for decontextualizing individual events, hence treating them as incidents of “stupidity” or “momentary opportunism” or whatever other excuse can be drummed up to deflect the 100 year reality of Zionist treatment of the Palestinians. Where does this type of thinking lead one? Why comment on, or try to change the future, when it is all the effect of isolated pool balls randomly banging against each other, without rhyme or reason? To assume everyone is stupid simply renders analysis equally stupid.

O.K. Bush was stupid, Obama doesn’t grasp the situation, the Israelis are just jockeying for position in an election, planners can’t identify foreign states. I think I’d better watch pro-football then, because it is very clear that Bill Belichick KNOWS what he is doing.

Jonathan Cook and James Petras believe they understand what the Zionists are hoping to achieve, but what do they know? They’re probably both stupid. And structural analysis is probably just conspiracy theory in disguise.
Speaking of stupid, there is this doozy from our resident troll, slothrop:

I’m just mindful that support of Israel means the historical necessity of accepting its experiment in a democracy defending jews. I have always felt this is an important project. I just think people forget this.

Yeah, I do tend to forget this when I look at pictures of innocent Palestinian babies slaughtered while sleeping in their beds. But then, I guess I’m just stupid!
The tortured syntax leaves me a little puzzled at just where to dig in, but I ask you, slothrop, can you explain to me just what the oxymoronic phrase “democracy defending jews” means, and what its implications are, and why such a project is needed since the United States seems to already fit your bill to a tee?

Posted by: Malooga | Jan 2 2009 20:35 utc | 19

More poppies, more Helmand addicts
Helmand Surgar: A number of women in the troubled southern province of Helmand have shown their concerns
over an increase in poppy growth, as they urge the government to stop cultivation of the hazardous plants.
Helmand leads other Afghan provinces in poppy cultivation and opium production, according to a UN survey.
About 300 women of the southern province of Helmand have come together in the provincial office asking
the Afghan government to eradicate the poppy cultivation, which are harming families and women addicts.
The women said opium is the leading problem in their society, both in their domestic lives and in social.
Poppy growth not only seriously affects families, but it is also a leading factor in destroying addicted
youth with the drug trade, Fawzia Ulami, the women’s department head of Helmand province said.
Ms. Ulomi alleges drug addicts are abusing their wives and families, and has urged the government and
international communities to help them set up centers to treat the addicts. As the women’s representative,
Ulmoi said Helmand women are ready to participate in the fight against the drug-producing plants.
Governor Abdul Satar Merzakwal accepted that there is an increased cultivation of poppy in the province, while
claiming the government’s fight against poppies and the opium trade has accelerated in comparison to before.
However, when even prisoners in jails can get opium, drug abuse has reached epidemic proportions in Helmand.
Last year Helmand was the top poppy growing province in the country.
—
Afghan refugees in Pakistan – (continuing special coverage)
Written by: Abdul Haq; Peshawar
Afghans suffer immense brutality in Pakistan these days. Some are bothered by Pakistani police; some are
the targets of human kidnappers, while others complain about the cruel landlords. Afghan refugees live
lives of orphans. There is no organization or individuals working to advocate for Afghans in Pakistan.
‘The society’s servicemen’ Pakistani police are exacerbating the situation by being so cruel to Afghans.
An eyewitness who refused to give out his identity, told Surgar weekly about his own encounter with the
Pakistani police. “After getting a Pakistani visa, I emigrated on a long, tiring trip from Saudi Arabia.
When I reached my destination at the airport in Peshawar, Pakistan, and anxious to see my family, I was
detained by the Pakistani police.
‘Let us see your passport’, one asked. After flipping over the pages of the passport, he said, ‘You are
an Afghan, what are you doing in Pakistan?’
‘I am here to see my family’, I answered.
‘Pay us or we will take you to prison as a member of AlQaeda.’
‘But I entered Pakistan officially’, I protested in a rush, flipping over my visa page of the passport.
‘What is my fault?’ I asked curiously.
‘You are an Afghan!’ the police answer came, like a bullet grazing my forehead.
I couldn’t bear their abusive language anymore, so I paid them and spared myself! Even if you go to Israel
on an official visa, you will not suffer so much brutality! Not only from emigrating abroad, when Afghans
cross the ‘Friendship Gate’ on the Pakistan-Afghan border, they are searched like dogs by Pakistani police.
After passing the border check, they arrive at another police check-post near the (Faiz 3) avenue. The
police ask for an ID, but after showing one, the police claim it’s a fake, ask many questions and curse.
Human kidnapping is another issue concerning those Afghan living in Pakistan. Many Afghans have been
kidnapped by unknown men and held for hostage. Some of the famous ones include Abdul Khaliq Farahi, Arya
University dean; Abdul Haq Danishmal and Afghanistan’s Finance Minister Anwar Ulhaq Ahadi’s brother.
The real butchers who cut Afghans lives to pieces are the landlord house owners in Pakistan. Most Afghan
refugees in Pakistan live in rented houses on a commission basis. Commissioners go to a real estate office
and rent houses for Afghans. The broker takes his share of the deal as in a whole month’s worth of rent.
But when the real estate office finds the house is being rented by an Afghan, they take benefit of the
opportunity by extorting an increase in rent or threatening to evict the Afghan tenants.
If an Afghan refuses to pay the higher rent and is obliged to leave the rental house, the landlord accuses
them of damaging the property and extorts more money under a threat of filing police charges.
—
Women Party leader: Coalition forces should cease independent military operations
Kabul Surgar: Niaz Mili, a Women Party of Afghanistan leader, has accused the US:UN coalition forces of
breaking the UN charter, and condemned their independent military operations and civilians’ home-searches.
This is the first time a women’s party in Afghanistan has condemned the occupation forces for random violent
house searches and autonomous military missions. Her claim is that the UN charter requires coalition forces
to work together with the Afghan National Army, and to conduct house searches only with legal search warrants.
The party demands an immediate end to the coalition forces reconnaissance missions and house searches.
Civilian deaths and casualties are turning celebrations into sorrows, military police dogs biting children and
women with dogs are an everyday occurrence, and house broken into are damaged and looted, leaving them open to
robbers and thieves until repairs can be afforded, the Women Party leader, Famtima Nazari told a news conference
on Saturday December 27th. Ms. Nazari holds the coalition forces responsible for not obeying the UN laws and
alleges they have carelessly slaughtered countless civilians in air raids, turning wedding and public celebrations
into deadly occasions.
The decisive declaration letter by the Women Party urged the capture and registration with Interior Affairs of
those traitors who work in the shadows within the Afghan government. The announcement was made after US:UN coalition
forces launched damaging air raids against civilians’ houses in Khost and their military dogs bit children and women.
The military actions were seriously condemned by president Karzai as well, however there is little likelihood of that
happening, as US:UN troops levels are rapidly being increased by some 30,000 combatants, and these redeployed coalition
forces were trained in military action in Iraq, where continuous patrols, detentions, house searches and violent military
skirmishes are an every day norm.
Afghans must learn to expect more violent assaults and more house searches, but then insist on their rights under the
UN charter, and demand immediate repayment for any damages, injuries or loss of life from the coalition force actions,
since the coalition forces are authorized to make reparation repayments directly to the aggrieved parties.
—
Children literature branch Opening urged
Kabulk surgar: Musawer Publishing Society has urged the informational and cultural ministry to open a children’s
literature branch, after organizing a seminar in order to decrease the ongoing level of violence towards children.
The seminar opened on Friday December 26th in the capital Kabul under the theme of children’s literature, urging the
decrease of abusive behavior towards children.
The speakers of the seminar demanded humane behavior towards children, saying it has a positive impact on their health
and well-being. Declaring assaults on children a great fault in Afghan society, Mohammad Shafiq Haqpal, a psychiatrist,
gave a speech about children’s psychological status, saying children should not be told scary stories which affects their
developing minds and fill them with fears for the rest of their life.
The seminar also honored the Pajhwok press agency for their journalistic services, in appreciation for organizing such vital
seminars for children. Many afghan children are deliberately treated poorly in their families. They are physically beaten
and made to perform heavy labor.
—
Finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai: Afghan government corrupt
Kabul Surgar: The Afghan government is one of the fifth most corrupt governments in the world, the ex Afghan finance minister
Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai has stated. The government rewards guilty officials instead of punishing them, he claims.
Ashraf Ghani, currently an opposition leader against the Afghan government as the ex finance minister, was one of the original
establishers of the Karzai government and a vital member of Karzai’s administration. Although Ahmadzai has not officially
announced himself as an opposition candidate for the upcoming presidential election, whose exact date is yet to be announced,
rumors are that he will run against Karzai.
Ahmadzai spoke to a conference in the capital Kabul, telling reporters that the Afghan government is untenable due to the incredible
high level of corruption within the government. Instead of high governmental official being removed from office due to corruption,
they are elevated to even higher posts.
Even though supporters have urged Ashraf Ghani to officially announce himself as candidate, he says he won’t until the exact date
is appointed for the elections.
The Karzai national government reacted to Ahmadzai’s speeches and claimed they are baseless. Hamayoon Hamidzada, Karzai’s
spokesman told the BBC, Ashraf Ghani’z accusations were irresponsible, since Ahmadzai was one of the establishers of Karzai’s
government.
As Karzai’s current administrative nears its end, many experts believe Karzia’s chance of re-election in the upcoming presidential
elections is lessening with every passing day.

Posted by: Shah Loam | Jan 2 2009 20:37 utc | 21

They say that history repeats itself. What proves it more than the current Israeli repeat of the Nazi liquidation of the the Warsaw Ghetto in Gaza? Ironically, because of pro-Israel positions in the media, we are not reminded for how long Gaza Palestinians had suffered surrounding and blockade by Israeli forces as punishment for DEMOCRATICALLY electing HAMAS as their government in elections that the US insisted upon. And now after two years of economic, food and travel strangulation, as when a Jewish Brigade decided to fight back against the Nazi encirclement and starvation during the Nazi occupation of Poland, the IDF is using minor rocket attacks as an excuse to LIQUIDATE the Gaza Palestinians through vicious air strikes followed by an infantry and armor invasion. History repeats itself indeed. But in WWII, it was condemned by the US; now it is fully funded and media info about Gaza is as controlled as German info about the Warsaw Ghetto Liquidation was by the German Nazi Regime– except that the US Govt. in no way controls the media. This is private interests and pressure groups deciding what we “dumb goyim” should and should not be told and then lambasting hysterically any critics or questioners of Israeli policies as “anti-Semites.” We in America need meaningful dialogue– just as goes on in Israel– for we lost far more because of Israel in our Middle East relations. As the sole and total financial supporters of Israel, we should have some say in how our assets are used to turn Gaza into the Warsaw Ghetto with Israel behaving as the Germans did with weapons and ammo “made in the USA.” Daniel E. Teodoru

Posted by: de teodoru | Jan 2 2009 21:26 utc | 23

Obama shows the shallow facade we all in our deeper thoughts did not want to expect, such is the new emporer of rome

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 2 2009 22:11 utc | 25

Gaza are attacked with modern weapons and have the courage to fire back with flying stove pipes. They are attacked again and send more stovepipes back. etc..Their courage is incredible. The attacking jewish state is murdering tiny children , women and innocent men.
It is ok to be anti-nazi, anti muslim, anti serb, anti russian, anti hindu, anti israel. If anti israel foreign policy is anti semite that is their definition . Why are you all so frightened of it if they so define it. Is it against US law???.

Posted by: boindub | Jan 2 2009 23:38 utc | 27

It isn’t about religion.
Israel was created by British planning for future dominance of Middle East oil trading. Britain and America had some control over other nations in the neighborhood at the time, so they gave Israel a ridiculous little rump state that would forever need aid and assistance from the West.
Naturally, the displaced Palestinians wanted their land back. Naturally, the Jewish immigrants wanted more land.
Over these sixty years past, Britain and America have lost some of their control over other nations in the neighborhood, which makes them place even more importance on Israel’s survival.
It is not a religious struggle. It is economic, and will always be economic.
The bottom line? Israel — even in its greatly expanded territory — is not large enough, resource-rich enough to survive long term.
Israel needs the southern half of Lebanon, and access to the Litani River, to make northern Israel bloom. Israel needs Jerusalem, and all of the West Bank. Israel needs a good slice of Jordan, a good slice of Syria, and a slice of Egypt. Israel needs more than twice the territory and resources — especially water — that it has today.
Then it will be economically viable, long term.
Since this needs to be accomplished discreetly, without actually announcing it, the methods chosen are obfuscation and attrition.

Posted by: Antifa | Jan 3 2009 0:12 utc | 29

A picture of the situation.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 3 2009 0:35 utc | 31

the abominated elitist will use any evil as a tool,one of the favorites is over a period of time twisting a peoples religion so they think love is hate and hate is love, it doesnt matter what religion who they are or where they come from they will design and manipulate the situation to get what they want if they want that land they will use any trick available to take it,to catch them, we follow the money we find out where the trail ends ,its time for all the good people to unite doesnt matter who you are it doesnt matter where your from there is a menace at our doorstep who must be stopped

Posted by: neil | Jan 3 2009 1:52 utc | 33

DEC 31, 2008-
US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad is challenged at the UN media staekout about whose interests he represents and why the American taxpayer should continue to fund a foreign nation’s wars to the US’s own detriment -http://www.un.org/webcast/2008.html

Posted by: Dig the details | Jan 3 2009 4:35 utc | 35

” I find it difficult to write about the slaughter in Gaza. I am full of rage, disgusted and at the same time feel unable to do something about it.”- b
Absolutely, that’s how many of us are feeling exactly. The US which is the backer of Israel (its economic, military, political, ideological and diplomatic ‘muscle’) could do something but as it is run by the ‘Lobby, for the Lobby, that is never gonna happen.
However, the world has awakened and most people have had enough of this Lobby and of Israel. Most people now recognise that these two are the root cause of almost all of the troubles around the world today.

Posted by: Olive | Jan 3 2009 5:58 utc | 37

NPR (National Public Propaganda Radio)Presents:
Obama’s Speech at AIPAC Full speech here…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 3 2009 7:13 utc | 39

DT23) Israel is there to remind Amerika (and EU for that matter) that there are no limits to colonialism, brutally and genocide. Ask any Central American dispossessed by Chiquita Banana and their death squads. Everytime you buy a banana at your fancy supermercados, you’re shoving a banana up the ass of some poor campesino. Everytime you let your Congress grift illegal agricultural subsidies to US sugar growers, in defiance of fair trade, or give illegal agricultural subsidies to US maize growers while blocking Brazilian maize ethanol, you are shoving a sugar lolly up the ass of some poor campesino’s child. Everytime you buy MacDonald’s white meat spicy chicken McNuggets, you are destroying the very fabric of the campesino’s maize and pollo farm co-ops, as Bio-Agra dumps the dark meat that you won’t eat on Central America and Asia at below the cost of production. Your whole Xartian white anti-aboriginal profit-for-blood dispossessing death culture is a disease, an abomination, a curse on the whole of the world, a pandemic that brings millions of disenfranchised and homeless to death’s door every day, while you sip your soy milk lattes and write your shave ice blogs, Malooga’ing like contented koe, in sandals and sunglasses, painting your big red ‘A’ on not quite white enough for you ‘Chosen of God’s door, while child rapers wait along your Southern borders for the next wave of victims you have made bereft, wandering the burning earth so you can pound your peduncle. “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” you traitors of your own faith in Pan-Jesus.

Posted by: Molly Montata | Jan 3 2009 8:18 utc | 41

“National Propaganda Radio” indeed U$.
nowadays I find myself in my car screaming at NPR on my commutes.
context free NPR piece from yesterday and I quote: “Israel left Gaza in 2005, now they’re back”; “let’s talk to some Israeli official who so regrets it’s turned out this way”.
can only take their horseshit in tiny doses anymore.

Posted by: ran | Jan 3 2009 13:30 utc | 43

Ran, Uncle $cam,
Here, here! NPR is insidious in that it has such great “liberal” credentials that it makes the Gaza Palestinians seem like the empire of evil. Right now I’m listening to a holocaust story that I guess will be followed by another story of Gazans being bombed. Sad.
Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.
~ Allen Ginsberg
dave

Posted by: David | Jan 3 2009 13:55 utc | 45

slothrop@7 & 8,
can you stop trying to intimidate people here. Instead, AIPAC has a job for you filling in the blanks & the blacklists too.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Jan 3 2009 14:32 utc | 47

I apologize for Typepad, which now it seems to be double-posting while I’m sleeping.
@Chuck Cliff #3:
Mideastweb has a pretty good history of Zionism — with the caveat that the history has been thoroughly cleansed of great power/elite machinations, as referred to by Antifa at #29, above.
I find it tragically ironic that the Great Powers literally drew the map of the Middle East after WWI, and now that the balance of Great Powers has changed, the map is being re-drawn again. Even the World System Theorists betray their implicit Empiricism by terming the less industrialized countries “the periphery.” Peripheral to what? The question begs asking.
Ther amazing Gertrude Bell, who single-handedly created Iraq ex cathedra, records her trip to Palestine, I believe around 1920, in her diaries. Already, British/Jewish banking interests were involved and laws were being changed to make it far easier for Jews to borrow money to buy up Arab land. That is to say, the map didn’t change because “Jews are better businessmen,” but because the elite had engineered a decisive structural advantage. The “Great Game” has never been played fairly.
I do take issue with Antifa when he states, “Israel — even in its greatly expanded territory — is not large enough, resource-rich enough to survive long term.”
Little Denmark, at about the same size, seems to be doing just fine. So does Rhode Island, at 1/7 the size.
What Antifa means, I believe, is that Israel is not large enough to DOMINATE the Middle East, and support a lifestyle far in excess of its neighbors. Israel is also pushing the environmental limits of a very fragile area.
Petras, in the article I linked to above, provides an extensive list of protest actions to be taken. What he is missing, is for all NPR subscribers to call up and cancel their subscriptions because of their slanted coverage.
I can only listen to NPR in very small doses, mainly to hear what the liberal propaganda talking points of the day is. My inability to live with “Big Brother” babbling on all day in the background has already cost me a relationship. And, as I’ve noted before, Chomsky used to tell the story of getting angry listening to NPR on his way to work, unconsciously pressing harder on the gas pedal, getting pulled over by the police for speeding, and blaming NPR for the infraction!
Here is a painful, but important, link for all to view from the Palestinian Mothers Web Ring: “The Other Side of the Story”
By the way, for the more conspiratorial minded, just think what Rahm Emmanuel could be up to: Circling the President with undercover American/Israeli Mossad agents working as White House staff, perhaps even insuring that the “correct” Secret Service agents are assigned to guard POTUS. Nah, couldn’t happen here….

Posted by: Malooga | Jan 3 2009 14:44 utc | 49

But, at least last on the list of those reasons is: they do it for the money.
Isn’t that an odd statement? It seems to me to be so far disconnected from reality as to be satire or irony yet I get the feeling that the writer was sincere. perhaps slothrop really does believe what he wrote, he does fancy himself to be an intellectual of sorts. I know I am wasting my time and everyone else’s trying to analyze the resident troll but it is just too much to flatly assert that any group of people does not allow monetary gain to guide their decisions.
slothrop has his price and my bet is that it is not even very high.

Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 3 2009 15:31 utc | 51

tangerine–you would like to exaggerate to make your points about the abstraction you refer to as “Isreal” viz. a recent post in another thread in which you flatly state that the only target of a boycott in Switzerland is israeli avocados. Nevermind Swiss arms manufacturers do their part to export the means to crush palestinians. It’s not just “USuk” who are suppliers of pain. And too often you are careless with your “facts.” I share your outrage, but not your disingenuousness.
Dan–I don’t think you read my post right. Also, I’m not a troll, unless by troll you mean I’m not a lock-step suckass in your idea of leftwing politics, whatever that is.

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 3 2009 17:28 utc | 53

My post in response to various matters had 5 – 7 links and was blocked.
All the links were to US Gvmt. sources or mainstream news.
I give up!

Posted by: Tangerine | Jan 3 2009 18:29 utc | 55

Theres also the matter of the totally unfounded presumption that he is for some reason inclined to betray his boss &/or his country (the USA).

Perhaps it is only ironic that you felt the need to clarify which country Emmanuel felt primary allegiance to.
Clearly, the reason you and I are at loggerheads is that we have completely different conceptions of power.
Your statement implies that you see the USA as a more or less coherent expression of the will of its citizens, which can then be betrayed.
By that reasoning, all Presidents have betrayed their country:
Bush: The lies leading up to endless war. 9-11 LIHOP/MIHOP
Clinton: NAFTA, Yugoslavia, Iraq sanctions
Bush 1: Irangate, Banking scandal, Panama
Reagan: Rolling back workers protections, Bombing the carribean
Carter: Beginning de-regulation, Operation Gladio
Johnson: lied us into war by falsely declaring we were attacked by N.Korea at the Gulf of Tonkin
etc.
Roosevelt II: suckering the Japanese into Pearl Harbor, WWII
Wilson: WWI
Rosevelt I: Lied us into war with the sinking of the Maine
etc.
All of the above, by refusing to provide its citizens with healthcare.
All of the above actions went against the will of the majority of its people.
The actions of Roosevelt I & II, Bush, Johnson, and many others, were clearly treasonous. Others were just illegal.
I, following my mentor, Howard Zinn, view the country as a collection of competing (primarily class) interests. Sectarian interests are stoked by the rich to deflect energy away from class demands. The President, by dint of the money needed to run and the media coverage necessary to win, is put in power by the wealthy to implement elite policy and manage class discontent.
(In this respect, Sharon is completely correct, we will get much lighter media coverage about Obama. Americans are suffering. God forbid we should anger them and they should organize. Instead we will distract them. )
In the case of Obama, he received 74% of his money from elite and corporate interests. Corporate media portrayed Obama in a highly favorable light. In a “democracy” like the US, the candidate with more money wins 99% of the time. The candidate with more money AND better media coverage wins 99.99% of the time.
Now, let’s say that I am wrong and you are right, and the President’s job is to do “the will of the people. (Of course, in this simple mind game we must also assume the Karl Marx, Weber, Veblen, Gramsci, Debs, Mills, Chomsky, Zinn, Blum, Churchill, Alinsky, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and ever other thinker I admire is just stupid, stupid, stupid. But maybe they are.)
Assuming that, can you please define for me precisely what you mean by “betray his country.”
Without this, I don’t believe that we can carry on a meaningful dialogue, because until you draw a firm line in the sand that you are willing to uphold more than you support Obama, you can retreat endlessly into the “lesser evil” argument.
I hear it already:
“Well, we can’t expect anything of him, because he is not President yet”
“It is good tactics to not protest the genocidal slaughter of Palestinians because it will give him greater room to maneuver.”
“We have to let him get on his feet.”
For heavens sake! We didn’t elect a toddler; we elected the second most powerful Imperial Manager in the history of the planet (W. had the position downgraded).
So, I want to know, what is your criteria for “betraying the country”, and (equally important) what would Obama have to do for you to stop making excuses for him and stop supporting him.
I hope you spend some time on this, because it is of vital importance to productive dialogue here on this blog.
Let me make it a little easier for you: Obama ran on a platform that the Zionists can do “anything” to protect their homes, and that he would do “anything” to stop Iran from getting nuclear technology (which is legal under international law). People elected him knowing (or most probably, not knowing) this.
So I don’t consider Obama’s silence on the Nazi-like atrocities in Gaza to be “betraying his country.” But it is not something I can support, in any way, or for any justification, even as a tactical maneuver. (Nor do I appreciate him picking up Bush’s habits of being on vacation when anti-democratic events just happen to occur.)
Where do you stand? If you, and Sharon, and annie, and all the others who celebrated Obama’s victory, and publicly support the new Imperial Manager, would publicly tell us just how far you would go in supporting him, and what would constitute a betrayal of your and the countries interests, I think it would end some of the fruitless nattering. I understand that people have different viewpoints, and I can respect this. I have been accussed (without evidence) of having inconsistent or incoherent views. I feel it is only fair that I expect consistency from others.
Especially when the lives of those who have manged to slip beyond the greasy grip of Empire are at stake.

Posted by: Malooga | Jan 3 2009 19:25 utc | 57

this is without question now almost a carbon copy of the nazi’s, beseiging, terrorbombing & destruction of the cities of riga & vilnius
i hope the murderous fuckers who lead the state of israel are well aware of the history of massacre they inherit
& again the media including al jazeera give time to the monsters from the public relations dept of the occupation – to speak their fucking lies & we watch the extinguishing of a people – family by family

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 3 2009 19:53 utc | 59

mark regev made a very telling remark at the end of an’ interview’ on aljazeera
regev sd ; “hamas is the palestinians misfortune”
which is
sttraight connection with
the nazis ; “the jews are our misfortune”
not completely surprised that fascists use exacly the same language
next they will start speaking of vermin

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 3 2009 20:53 utc | 61

uri averny – as usual – he’s sharp as a tack – quick but thorough

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 3 2009 21:35 utc | 63

As you all are probably well aware, Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza has begun.

Posted by: bea | Jan 3 2009 21:48 utc | 65

For r’giap
Gaza and the Ghetto
Excerpt:

The right of the Palestinian people to resist is as indubitable as the right of the Jews of Warsaw to resist the Nazis, or of the Polish or French people to fight against their occupation by the Nazis. Israel is not the West’s proxy in the so-called global war against terrorism. It is a state that itself inflicts terror, and does so with a force and brutality far exceeding anything available to the most violent of terrorist organizations. It is a state whose colonial aim, to occupy and to settle land historically occupied by another people in order to provide unlimited Lebensraum for its own ethnic group, is evidenced every day in the continuing expansion of the illegal settlements on the West Bank. It is an apartheid state, whose self-declared constitution as a “Jewish State for a Jewish People” should have no more international legitimacy than South Africa’s “white state for a white people” or Northern Ireland’s “Protestant State for a Protestant people”, both of which finally fell to a combination of military and civil resistance and international opprobrium.
It is long beyond time for Israel, now the exception in every respect among nations, to be held accountable to the norms of international law. It is time for Israel to be subjected to the same scrutiny as any other state that bases its polity on sectarianism and racism, that has established one set of laws for one ethnic group and another for the rest. It is time for Israel to by judged by the international law that everywhere condemns extended occupation, condemns collective punishment, war against civilians, population transfers or ethnic cleansing, dispossession of the occupied people and the settlement of their lands. It is time for us to name Israel what it is so long as it continues to pursue the most extreme of Zionist visions: a colonial, apartheid state with neither legitimacy nor a deserved place among the community of democratic nations.
It is time for us to cease the appeasement of Israel. Even the most ardent of appeasers of Nazi Germany never supplied Germany with arms or foreign aid, with fighter planes with which to bomb civilians, never labeled the resistance to Nazism “terrorism”, never actively participated in the German stranglehold on the ghettoes where it confined its subject populations. “Constructive engagement” did not work with South Africa; numerous U.N. General Assembly resolutions that have expressed the virtually unanimous international condemnation of Israel’s occupation of Palestine and its wars against its neighbors have not worked. It is time for the truth about Israel to be disseminated, even against the most effective control of the western media by Israel’s lobbyists. It is time for all who care about justice and peace, for human rights, for the fate of the innocent and the oppressed, the stateless and the dispossessed, make our voices heard. Let it not be said that in their most extreme hour of need, the Palestinian people were abandoned by the world, as the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto were abandoned in 1943.

Posted by: bea | Jan 3 2009 21:56 utc | 67

@Alex
Demonstrations took place all over the world* today, including over 100,000 Arab citizens of Israel, who demonstrated in Sakhnin in the Galilee.
*Photos are being added and uploaded throughout the Day of Solidarity.

Posted by: bea | Jan 3 2009 22:04 utc | 69

American-Arab Discrimination Committee has Gaza Invasion Resource Center here.
Continuous live coverage here.

Posted by: bea | Jan 3 2009 22:10 utc | 71

Even the most ardent of appeasers of Nazi Germany never supplied Germany with arms or foreign aid, with fighter planes with which to bomb civilians, never labeled the resistance to Nazism “terrorism”, never actively participated in the German stranglehold on the ghettoes where it confined its subject populations.
Sweden continued to supply the Nazi war machine with steel AND saved the lives of 5500 Danish Jews. History is not always black and white.

Posted by: Malooga | Jan 3 2009 22:21 utc | 73

bea
aljazeera english & aljazeera are qualitatively different as averny points out. they have been quite terrible in the last 12 months & even in their terrain they bend over backwards with spokespeople from this or that israeli ministry in the same way as they always have guest from central command. they are the only cable working in gaza so here i try to jump between the normal aljazeera & its english
i’m glad there is someone on the ground reporting this but it seems as if it telling more of the truth to the aran audience
thanks for the link to the gaza/warsaw ghetto link

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 3 2009 22:32 utc | 75

Leila al-Haddad (Raising Yousuf and Noor Unplugged) with continuous updates from her family in Gaza via Twitter here. Click on “Update” to refresh.
Latest updates:
– 30 Palestinians already killed since invasion started
– Huge explosions in Gaza, Rafah
– Gaza is burning

Posted by: bea | Jan 3 2009 22:33 utc | 77

Call it Guernica or Warsaw or Stalingrad, I think the Israeli state has transformed itself into one big suicide bomber.

Posted by: biklett | Jan 3 2009 22:43 utc | 79

More stories on protests

Posted by: bea | Jan 3 2009 22:55 utc | 81

the heroic defenders of gaza are showing incredible courage in the face of unparalleled brutality on the part of the israeli defence forces
sadly their heroic resistance will be like that of the young activists in the warsaw ghetto – the einsatzgruppen of the idf will eliminate this resistance by any means necessary knowing the world will do nothing

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 3 2009 23:08 utc | 83

Remember, we never saw images coming out of Fallujah.
This action will cleave the entire planet in two, betweeen those who will support any atrocity for Israel to exist, and those who will never forgive it or accord it any legitimacy whatsoever.
I imagine that sooner or later someone will get a hold of a nuke and simply erase the whole “worthy project,” a slothrop might say, in the blink of an eye.
The odds of the entire world destroying itself in nuclear war go up exponentially today.

Posted by: Malooga | Jan 3 2009 23:15 utc | 85

Circling the President with undercover American/Israeli Mossad agents working as White House staff, perhaps even insuring that the “correct” Secret Service agents are assigned to guard POTUS. Nah, couldn’t happen here….
jeez, i can’t believe you said that! (not that it hasn’t occurred to me, but you didn’t hear it from me shhh.)

Posted by: annie | Jan 3 2009 23:35 utc | 87

malooga
i suppose that public violence is what has worried me & darkened my life. it is relatively recent. either their desire to do it in the open or their inability to hide their crimes
once-upon-a-time they would have tried to hide their action – cloaked them under other act or another name. the infamous phoenic programme used against the vietnamese – an operation that functioned exactly like the einsatzgruppen (perhaps even darker, more cynical) – was well hidden. so too the death sqauds of latin america – or the antidemocratic formations in europe – these were all politely hidden
today, it is in full view. not only in gaza but throughout the world – it is as if they don’t car that the world knows & the financial crisis has only exacerbated that ‘transparency’

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 4 2009 0:20 utc | 89

Does stooge sound better than puppet?

Posted by: biklett | Jan 4 2009 2:12 utc | 91

Israel is persecuting the Palestinians, because they will not come to heel politically. To subdue them, Israel has kept up a stranglehold on the necessities of life, choking off crucial supplies, which is an act of war. When the Palestinians let fly with missiles they’ve cobbled together in machine shops, the full wrath of some of the most sophistcated weapons is unleashed on the subject peoples.
Who can tell that the Israelis respect the Palestinians? They neither respect their culture nor bother to respect them as individuals. The Palestinians in Gaza are being killed today becuse they will not be forced to renounce the Hamas government they elected.
Nir Rosen has best described the colonial aspect of the present aggression:

Terrorism is a normative term and not a descriptive concept. An empty word that means everything and nothing, it is used to describe what the Other does, not what we do. The powerful – whether Israel, America, Russia or China – will always describe their victims’ struggle as terrorism, but the destruction of Chechnya, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the slow slaughter of the remaining Palestinians, the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan – with the tens of thousands of civilians it has killed … these will never earn the title of terrorism, though civilians were the target and terrorising them was the purpose.
Counterinsurgency, now popular again among in the Pentagon, is another way of saying the suppression of national liberation struggles. Terror and intimidation are as essential to it as is winning hearts and minds.
Normative rules are determined by power relations. Those with power determine what is legal and illegal. They besiege the weak in legal prohibitions to prevent the weak from resisting. For the weak to resist is illegal by definition. Concepts like terrorism are invented and used normatively as if a neutral court had produced them, instead of the oppressors. The danger in this excessive use of legality actually undermines legality, diminishing the credibility of international institutions such as the United Nations. It becomes apparent that the powerful, those who make the rules, insist on legality merely to preserve the power relations that serve them or to maintain their occupation and colonialism.

The cruelty of Israeli attack, and the cynical cunning of its timing, will not bring any advantage to Israel. The recent war on Lebanon backfired and threw the political class in Israel into disarray and bitter accusations, and sent Olmert into a tailspin and he lost all public confidence.
This new horror in Gaza will have a more toxic result for Israel’s domestic politics if the former destruction in Lebanon is any indication at all.
America and Israel are perceived as being joined at the hip; and in the empire’s aggression in Iraq we see mirrors reflecting mirrors. This tragic symbiosis between the USA and Israel has become a danger to those who are less powerful, but also is a danger to these two nations themselves.
I find it very frightful that the Israeli planners picked the Christmas/New Year holiday, when its client/patron, the USA,
is at a vulnerable position politically, awaiting a new president, but still in the hands of a volitile and irresponsible clique.
Because of the extreme isolation of Israel, as a result of this war on the people of Gaza, the horror will end soon I hope. Only public pressure from all over the world can stop this. Nothing from the offices in the White House will be in the offing until after January 20th. And this was the horrid and cunning calculation of the Israeli leaders.

Posted by: Copeland | Jan 4 2009 2:44 utc | 93

Copeland-
If your children were being killed, and the one man on the planet who could stop it remained mute, you would not take too kindly to being called hysterical, would you? Well, tonight I feel as if all the children of Gaza are my children.
I know, I should go have a “shave-ice” and make a few “shaka” signs and calm down.
Then there is this, courtesy of from LeftI:

“President-elect Obama roared like a mighty lion onto the political scene, but now he is as silent as a lamb in the face of the death and destruction that is happening in Gaza. As we approach the birthday celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. let us remember what Dr. King said:”
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
– Cynthia McKinney, in a very important article about the Israeli ramming of the Dignity on its way to Gaza with emergency medical supplies.”

“Our democracy certainly is threatened, and it behooves the President-Elect not to tip his hand”
This isn’t a card game where we seek the right time to play our cards. This is reality. By the time he chooses (if?) to speak out against Zionist genocide in three weeks it will be a fait accompli, and even Obama! cannot raise the dead.
As the JFK assasination clearly proved, there are men behind the curtains. (As James Petras details — linked to in a former post — the head of every single major network or media organization in the US is a Zionist or Zionist-sympathizer. Many, if not most, of the top banksters who are stealing your money and your retirement, and have the power to destroy this country in an instant, are Zionists. A number of major weapon manufacturers are run by Zionists. His very gatekeeper is a Zionist. If he is afraid to speak out now, he will be just as afraid in three weeks.
Obviously, I don’t know who you are in real life, but in real life I was raised among fanatical Zionists. They are nutcakes, just like the worst conservative American Exceptionalists, for whom the US, no matter what it does, can do no wrong. Israel, for them, can do no wrong because they have the power of God behind them, they are God’s chosen people after all, and they will not be content until they kill or enslave every single Arab person in the world — all of whom they see as potential existentialist threats, rather than human souls. You can deny what I say, but I heard the conversations throughout my entire childhood. I have never detailed the story here (perhaps I will sometime), but it was very hard for me to overcome the propaganda I was raised to believe, and it probably only happened because of some serendipitous circumstances. Almost every single Jew who attends Hebrew School in the US is taught a fictitious, sanitized, version of history. Golda Meir really did say, “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.” That is what we were taught. We looked up to her with the same reverence we had for our own Grandmothers. But beneath that reverence there boiled a rightgeous fury.
Ilan Pappé writes about this rightgeous fury in ElectronicIntifada (hat tip to Xymphora):

This appalling self-justification for the inhumanity and impunity is not just annoying, it is a subject worth dwelling on, if one wants to understand the international immunity for the massacre that rages on in Gaza.
It is based first and foremost on sheer lies transmitted with a newspeak reminiscent of darker days in 1930s Europe….
This righteous fury is a constant phenomenon in the Israeli, and before that Zionist, dispossession of Palestine. Every act whether it was ethnic cleansing, occupation, massacre or destruction was always portrayed as morally just and as a pure act of self-defense reluctantly perpetrated by Israel in its war against the worst kind of human beings. In his excellent volume The Returns of Zionism: Myths, Politics and Scholarship in Israel, Gabi Piterberg explores the ideological origins and historical progression of this righteous fury. Today in Israel, from Left to Right, from Likud to Kadima, from the academia to the media, one can hear this righteous fury of a state that is more busy than any other state in the world in destroying and dispossessing an indigenous population.

It is well worth reading.
As far as the CIA accusation, there have been numerous reports over the years. I know everyone here still wants to believe the American myth — the Horatio Alger rags-to-riches story — that Obama’s historically unprecedented rise to the acme of world power was simply because his talents were just sooooo “shaka, dude” amazing; and this despite the fact that data shows that Americans have the least social mobility of any major industrialized country in the world.
Here is the latest report from former State Department employee, William Blum’s Anti-Empire Report:

The question that may never go away: Who really is Barack Obama?
In his autobiography, “Dreams From My Fathers”, Barack Obama writes of taking a job at some point after graduating from Columbia University in 1983. He describes his employer as “a consulting house to multinational corporations” in New York City, and his functions as a “research assistant” and “financial writer”.
The odd part of Obama’s story is that he doesn’t mention the name of his employer. However, a New York Times story of 2007 identifies the company as Business International Corporation.[10] Equally odd is that the Times did not remind its readers that the newspaper itself had disclosed in 1977 that Business International had provided cover for four CIA employees in various countries between 1955 and 1960.[11]
The British journal, Lobster Magazine — which, despite its incongruous name, is a venerable international publication on intelligence matters — has reported that Business International was active in the 1980s promoting the candidacy of Washington-favored candidates in Australia and Fiji.[12] In 1987, the CIA overthrew the Fiji government after but one month in office because of its policy of maintaining the island as a nuclear-free zone, meaning that American nuclear-powered or nuclear-weapons-carrying ships could not make port calls.[13] After the Fiji coup, the candidate supported by Business International, who was much more amenable to Washington’s nuclear desires, was reinstated to power — R.S.K. Mara was Prime Minister or President of Fiji from 1970 to 2000, except for the one-month break in 1987.
In his book, not only doesn’t Obama mention his employer’s name; he fails to say when he worked there, or why he left the job. There may well be no significance to these omissions, but inasmuch as Business International has a long association with the world of intelligence, covert actions, and attempts to penetrate the radical left — including Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)[14] — it’s valid to wonder if the inscrutable Mr. Obama is concealing something about his own association with this world.

Blum is soft-pedlling what he knows here. Read John Perkins’ book, “Economic Hitmen,” and you will quickly realize exactly what Obama was doing. The CIA is like the mob: you don’t just decide to get up and leave one day and become a “community activist,” a detail, which unlike Business International, we are never allowed to forget.
What kind of “community activist” was Obama? He worked as a housing advocate. Then he leaves and becomes an advocate of Friedmanite economics at Milton Friedman’s own school, the University of Chicago. Gee, another flip! Next, we hear he is entering politics, and getting donations from the vey people he was fighting as a “housing advocate,” sleazy real-estate developers like Rezko.
Now, even if you refuse to believe that Business International was a CIA front, ya gotta admit it is pretty unusual for someone to go from consulting for multinationals (never pretty), to being an activist, then back to compiling the right-conservative voting record (follow Uncle $cam’s last link) that Obama had in government.
The very best one can say about the whole improbable story is that Obama is the consummate opportunist, with no real core to his being whatsoever, doing whatever he had to, in order to climb the miraculous ladder to power.
In any event, Copeland, being in the CIA is not so shocking. Our intelligence bureaus control our major media (you can look up the relevant Hoover quotes), and much much else throughout the world. One of my best friends growing up is in the CIA. I didn’t know, and he certainly never revealed it, but I eventually figured it out because he was always working for these really strange firms like Business International, that you could never quite figure out what they did, and traveling all over the world, buying a sweet house, and it was all one big mystery. He also inexplicably changed his views from left to right depending on the latest assignment, and unlike any successful businessman I ever knew, would not brag, or even talk, about his business.
But what do I know, I’m stupid. Remember? And hysterical too.
By the way, you might enjoy The Anti-Empire Report, and learn something at the same time.
Here is Blum on Obama’s publicly declared plan to increase American forces in Afghanistan:

Back in April Maj. Gen. David Rodriguez, commander of the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, when asked how long it would take to create “lasting stability” in Afghanistan, replied: “In some
way, shape or form … I think it’s a generation.”[2] “Stability”, it should be noted, is a code word used regularly by the United States since at least the 1950s to mean that the regime in power is willing and able to behave the way Washington would like it to behave. It is remarkable, and scary, to read the US military writing about how it goes around the world bringing “stability” to (often ungrateful) people. This past October the Army published a manual called “Stability Operations”.[3] It discusses numerous American interventions all over the world since the 1890s, one example after another of bringing “stability” to benighted peoples. One can picture the young American service members reading it, or having it fed to them in lectures, full of pride to be a member of such an altruistic fighting force.
For those members of the US military in Afghanistan the most enlightening lesson they could receive is that their government’s plans for that land of sadness have little or nothing to do with the welfare of the Afghan people. In the late 1970s through much of the 1980s, the country had a government that was relatively progressive, with full rights for women; even a Pentagon report of the time testified to the actuality of women’s rights in the country.[4] And what happened to that government? The United States was instrumental in overthrowing it. It was replaced by the Taliban.

And so it goes…..

Posted by: Malooga | Jan 4 2009 3:20 utc | 95

It exhausts me to construct worst case scenarios for the future; but for some here at MoA it seems to work like a tonic.
I recognize that I may be wrong. Malooga doesn’t.
I’m assaulted and feel debilitated by the certainty of some here that nothing of much consequence happened back in November. I don’t think Malooga believes, for instance, that the United States is still some kind of polity, where there are some political reations to crimes in high places; and that after a demonstation of crime lasting as long as 8 years, which has had incalculable moral, domestic, international consequences, and economic catastrophe, that people will continue to stand for the same production of crap after they have changed the political landscape.
There are consequences. I don’t believe there is much room for backsliding. I don’t believe there is political leeway for Obama to crap out on the fundamental promises he made in the campaign. If he does nothing else but restore the rule of law, this country can be saved, our country can be saved; and it will be possible to have a democracy.

Posted by: Copeland | Jan 4 2009 3:29 utc | 97

Oh, and what kind of housing activist was he?
Why, a “faith-based” activist, to slide a little deeper down the rabbit hole.
Look, Copeland, what you wrote #94 was very moving. I don’t mean to berate you.
Unfortunately, consequences are meant for the wretched of the earth, the Palestinians, the Iraqis, etc. People who have problems understanding ultimatums. Every President involved in war crimes and mass murder that I detailed earlier got off scot-free. Kissenger is still tootling around, happy as a clam. Same with Bush one, and Schwartzkopf: Remember that turkey-shoot of retreating kids the media spoke glowingly of as “The Highway of Death?” Contrary to popular belief, the rich and powerful do have hearts: you see, they like to take care of each other, so there are no consequences.
In any event, there would be much, much, much to be done to even restore the very managed type of democracy we once had besides the list I wrote several days ago concerning roling back the powers of the President and restoring our civil rights. Our media diversity is gone, our industry is gone. We are a nation of scamming financiers and makers of weapons of mass destruction. Oh, and powerful/powerless (take yr. pick) Dunkin Donut managers. I hope to write a post one day about the economy in my county; it is pathetic.
And, in another item I’ve been holding for the future, the single biggest long-term threat mankind faces is corporate ownership of the world’s food supply, especially through genetic manipulation. No less than Paul Erlich, among others, believes this. And who does Obama appoint to head Agriculture: the single most pro-GMO politician in the country.
Oh, the rot goes deep, deep, deep. All the way to the mirror at the bottom of the rabbit hole.
Enough about Obama for today, after all, he apparently has no more power than the manager of my local Dunkin Donuts. What does the opinion of Cynthia McKinney count for? After all, she’s probably just stupid and angry about getting kicked out of office by Zionist money.
I’ve written too much already.
Go read Angry Arab. He has been very plucky through all of this. He’s looking at the long-term, and he gives me hope.

Posted by: Malooga | Jan 4 2009 4:08 utc | 99