IMEMC
Local municipal officials in the Palestinian Authority reported Friday morning that overnight, a group of Israeli settlers had ambushed a Palestinian olive grove in the town of Qaryut, uprooting and completely destroying 40 trees.

These olive trees are, in most cases, the only source of income for the Palestinian villagers who own them. Over one million Palestinian olive trees, including some aged over 1,000 years old, have been destroyed by Israeli troops and settlers in the last ten years. Palestinians say the destruction of the olive trees is a direct assault on their livelihood, meant to force them from their native land. In nearly every case, the trees destroyed have been located on land that the Israeli settlers hope to acquire and absorb into the state of Israel.

In the latest incident, a local mayor told the Palestinian News Agency Ma'an that the trees destroyed Thursday night by the settlers belonged to Muhammad Jaber Abdullah, Ahmad Jaber Abdullah and Yasser Hassan.

The area around Nablus has been subject to numerous violent attacks by Israeli settlers in recent weeks, including the shooting of a young boy by settler security guards, and the smashing of windshields of Palestinian cars.

The Israeli settlers near Nablus have even taken to attacking Israeli military jeeps and convoys recently, apparently in response to threats that they would be forcibly removed by the military from the Palestinian land they have illegally seized and occupied. The military, however, has taken no action whatsoever to remove the settlers...  Full story

Shared by whitehouseprotest
The false dichotomy of the Uniparty System.

Texas’ Board of Education has approved a new social studies curriculum with a conservative seal of approval. After three days of debate the board voted to change the curriculum to explicitly present Republican philosophies and conservative leaders in a more positive light.

The new curriculum was voted in 10 to five, with all the Republicans voting “yes” and all the Democrats voting “no.” The changes include substituting the phrase “Richard M. Nixon’s role” with “Richard M. Nixon’s leadership,” and emphasizing minimal government intrusion and taxation when discussing the birth of American capitalism. —JCL

The New York Times:

After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

The vote was 10 to 5 along party lines, with all the Republicans on the board voting for it.

The board, whose members are elected, has influence beyond Texas because the state is one of the largest buyers of textbooks. In the digital age, however, that influence has diminished as technological advances have made it possible for publishers to tailor books to individual states.

In recent years, board members have been locked in an ideological battle between a bloc of conservatives who question Darwin’s theory of evolution and believe the Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles, and a handful of Democrats and moderate Republicans who have fought to preserve the teaching of Darwinism and the separation of church and state.

Read more

Shared by whitehouseprotest
We on the left of left are always wrecked by factionalism. We hate being told what to do and what to think. Fascists, on the other hand, LOVE to be told what to do and what to think. They work hard, organize, ask no questions, and crush us every time. Until we on the left can cooperate at a level of manufacture and deploy aircraft carriers the fascists will defeat us militarily past present and future. Leftists should bone up on the father of Vietnamese emancipation Ho Chih Minh. How did he drive imperialists from Viet Nam? Read up read up.

Things have been rather hectic around Black Sun Gazette Central lately, so forgive my lack of regular communication. I’ve got a few articles brewing that I’m sure my loyal readership is sure to enjoy. However, I wanted to take a moment to go back to the subject of the International Socialist Organization and their website, SocialistWorker.org. One of the most common arguments by ISO members is that the tendency with which I am in solidarity “does nothing.” I’d like to take some time to seriously examine this claim, in a more reasoned and less emotional way than my prior screed on the ISO.

First, I would urge my readers to take a look around Socialist Worker’s website in a serious and critical manner. The rhetoric which it presents has a radical tenor, to be sure, but only because we live in a country with one of the most conservative political discourses in the world. Original content on the site is the bread. The meat of the site is comprised of articles reprinted from the pro-war Nation magazine, London’s Independent and basically any part of the capitalist press that they can convince their membership is “left” enough to merit publication. Granted this is also the same group that worried about whether or not the World Social Forum (a collection of aging former radical academics, best embodied by the tepid Noam Chomsky) is being co-opted and promotes Amy Goodman at their regional conventions. The paper asks idiotic questions that breed illusions about the capability of the capitalist system to reform itself like “When will the rich start to sacrifice?” getting through the entire article (and another on the recent Greek crisis) without mentioning “capitalism” once. The International Socialist Organization and its organ Socialist Worker are the worst kind of reformism masquerading as revolutionary, best embodied by the absurd formulation “We must continue to organize and keep the pressure on these officials to truly support education–not just with their words, but also with their actions.”

You will find absolutely no articles about the Justice Department’s attempts to persecute Roman Polanski–what could be more outre for a group so deeply enmeshed in identity politics than defending ZOMFG A PROVEN CHILD RAPIST (the only crime that any court recognizes Mr. Polanski as guilty of is “unlawful sex with a minor,” for the record). However, you will find a number of articles about how Tiger Woods is experiencing “chickens coming home to roost” with a rather puerile emphasis on Mr. Woods alleged inability to “resist nookie.” Much as they ignored the O.J. Simpson case and the Clinton impeachment trial in the 1990s, the ISO and Socialist Worker seem to think that when a person in the top 1% is victimized or there is an attempt to overturn a legitimate election, that it is of no consequence to working people. Rather than decrying the sexual witch hunt and moralism surrounding Tiger Woods, Socialist Worker criticizes him in the manner of the capitalist press for being a decadent elitist incapable of keeping his dick in his pants.

Socialist Worker’s understanding of the nascent far right-wing movement in this country is woefully elementary. The article on Andrew Joseph Stack begins with a nod to the International Socialist Organization’s identity politics base and then launches into a series of advertisements for the author of the article’s other works. These works are, predictably, academic journals.

I provide links to these articles because I think that it is important for my readers to see what Socialist Worker has to say in its own words about these matters. The politics of the International Socialist Organization are the politics of reformist parliamentary machinations inside middle class parties with a grotesque record domestically and internationally. The politics of Socialist Worker is that of lowest common denominator radicalism that is ultimately oriented toward middle class layers who wish to reform, and ultimately enter, the Democratic Party. You will find little in the pages of Socialist Worker that wouldn’t come out of the mouth of Dennis Kucinich or other left populist type capitalist politicians in the United States.

Now I would like to return to the original topic: the idea that the grouping around the World Socialist Web Site “does nothing” and the other popular chestnut that they “hate workers.” Coming out of the recent March 4 protests against education budget cuts, the ISO ran one of their usual milquetoast articles about “building a movement” (whatever the hell that means). I’m curious as to what they actually said when they had an audience, but sadly there is no record of it on Socialist Worker. Conversely, here are members of International Students for Social Equality “doing nothing” / “standing outside the struggle” / “being sectarian” / “[insert standard issue critique of people who have an actual political line other than 'hooray for everything that moves']“:

It should be noted that the Socialist Equality Party and the World Socialist Web Site make connections between the profit system and the cuts in education rather than blaming them on “greed” or some other subjective human failing.

In addition to the recent protests against educational budget cuts, which the ISSE and Socialist Equality Party have been deeply involved in, the Socialist Equality Party is leading another fight in Detroit. The Socialist Equality Party, which is oriented directly toward the working class rather than middle class organizations (such as unions, left adjuncts of the Democratic Party, The Nation, the Green Party and other radical and not so radical organs) is organizing an inquiry into one of the many recent house fires in Detroit due to utility shut offs, which are approaching one per week. The rash of house fires has been mentioned only in passing in Socialist Worker in an article that wrings its hands over the inability of religious organizations to provide proper funds for those in need. The “worker haters” of the World Socialist Web Site also took the time to go out and speak to people living in the neighborhoods, in addition to mounting a defense of a working class woman being victimized.

Finally, I submit the following video, which is an interview with UAW workers at the last unionized auto assembly plant in California. While the International Socialist Organization and groups like them seem to think that a strident opposition to sell out unions which no longer operate as fighting working class organizations (and indeed actively attack and intimidate their members to ram boss-friendly concession contracts down the throats of workers) is synonymous with “hating workers,” the actual members of the unions and of the working class seem to disagree:

Clearly it can not be said that the grouping around the World Socialist Web Site “does nothing.” Merely asking the questions that they ask of workers, capturing the answers on tape and reproducing them on the Internet for other workers to see and hear can have a profound effect on the consciousness of workers who may otherwise think that their struggles against bosses and their toadies in the unions are isolated. It certainly seems to me to be a far better investment of time and energy than leftist LARPing at the latest anti-war rally filled with middle class radicals seeking to pressure the Democratic Party to the left by bleating the same tired old catchphrases in a highly atomized manner that does little to help generalize the struggle. In the final analysis, the International Socialist Organization and its newspaper / website Socialist Worker seem far more interested in appearing “radical” to a semi-privileged milieu than they do in generalizing the struggles and tragedies of workers. They may be able to boast of a high membership–though as anyone who has ever been around them knows, their membership has a notoriously high turnover rate and is generally not terribly committed, particularly after graduation–and being “involved” in everything that moves, but with their puddle deep politics, orientation toward professional academic radicals and need to placate every member of the identity politics fruit basket who cares?

For more videos of the Socialist Equality Party doing nothing check out their YouTube account. Anyone reading this in the greater Detroit area is strongly urged to go to their inquiry on the Dexter Avenue fires.

In December, I posted ratings for each Democratic Representative based on how they voted on 10 key agenda items in 2009. The idea was to see how each Democrat voted relative to the partisan slant of his district; a Democrat voting for the cap-and-trade bill in a Republican-leaning district would get quite a bit of credit for that, for instance, while one voting for the same measure in a district with a PVI of D+15 would get almost no credit for the vote since almost every Representative from such a district voted for the bill anyway. The analysis concluded that TN-6's Bart Gordon, who voted with the Democrats on 8 of 10 key agenda items in spite of coming from a R+13 district, had provided the most value to his party on key votes. (Unfortunately for Democrats, Gordon is retiring.) Artur Davis of AL-7, who has voted against several major agenda items because he is running for governor in Alabama, was the least valuable Democrat.

The original version of the ratings built in an exception for what I termed "liberal nos": votes that a Democratic member cast against his party's agenda, but which he justified by stating that the policy under consideration was not liberal enough. We did not count the liberal no votes as yes votes -- we just threw them out, treating them as non-votes instead.

But what if we don't build in an exception for the so-called "liberal no's" -- that is, simply take every vote at face value? It turns out, then, that Davis is no longer the least valuable Democrat. Instead, it is Dennis Kucinich, who voted against health care, the hate crimes bill, the budget, the cap-and-trade bill, and financial regulation -- all ostensibly from the left -- in spite of coming from from the strongly Democratic Ohio 10th district near Cleveland.



(Note: votes with the black outline around them are those that we had originally classified as liberal no's.)

Kucinich's score of -4.22 is not only worse than that of any other Democrat: it is also worse than that of all but 22 Republicans.

Obviously, I think a reasonable case can be made to build in an exception for opposition from the left, which is why I did so in the first place. On the other hand, the fact is that Kucinich isn't taking just the occasional symbolic stand: he's voting against his party on key agenda items about half the time. Perhaps by so doing, he's moving the Overton Window to the left, or perhaps he's just being a pain in the butt. We crunch numbers, you decide!

French voters are turning against the right-wing policies of President Nicolas Sarkozy in what many are calling the “pink tide,” a leftward shift in French politics that is putting Socialists and Greens in many legislative seats around the country.

The term pink tide was initially used to describe the increasing power of leftists in Latin America over the past decade, and is now being applied to France. —JCL

The Guardian:

Nicolas Sarkozy faces an embarrassing setback at the polls over the next week as France votes in elections that look likely to hand a significant victory to the opposition Socialist party.

Although not officially on the ballot for the regional elections, whose first of two rounds will be held on Sunday, the embattled leader is expected to be punished indirectly as voters shun his rightwing UMP party in favour of leftwing and green alternatives.

With opinion polls showing the Socialists – who won control of 20 of the 22 mainland regions at the last vote in 2004 – will consolidate their “pink tide” or even increase it, commentators say the predicted defeat will reflect voters’ dissatisfaction with Sarkozy.

Read more

Rhetorical Militancy for a Rhetorical Mass Movement? If Only We Could
Make Them Like Us…

By John Garvey

The main purpose of this article is to address the questions of strategy
and tactics in the anarchist movement with specific reference to the roles
the Black Block tactic, and militant direct action play in our movement.

Addressing these questions now is particularly important due to the debate
that has re-erupted after the “Heart Attack” protest on Feb. 13 in
Vancouver and the upcoming G8/G20 protests in Toronto.

I take it for granted that militant direct action and revolutionary
violence are a necessary part of any movement that aims to be
revolutionary in practice, as well as in theory and rhetoric. I reject the
idea and practice of “revolutionary non-violence” as both theoretically
misleading and historically inaccurate.

This isn’t to say that non-violent political action doesn’t have a large
role to play in social movements. It is to say that social movements
should be both theoretically and practically prepared to accomplish their
goals through revolutionary violence if that is what will be most effective. That said,
we need to clarify what “diversity of tactics” means, and to continually
examine both the tactics we are using and our strategy in protests and in
movement building .

Let’s Keep Pushing: Physically and Analytically

At the peaceful protest in Vancouver on Feb. 12, after the black block had
been asked to take the front lines against the police by the elders who
were leading the march and to push through the police line in order to
reach the Olympic Stadium, there was a young woman who kept insisting that
we push through the police line. If everyone there had been willing to
push forward, if there had been greater unity, tactically speaking, we
probably could have done it and then we would have crashed the opening
ceremonies…Imagine that! Sadly, there simply wasn’t enough people who
were committed to pushing through the police lines to accomplish this.

All the attention that is currently focused on the issue of tactics and
strategy and violence and non-violence has created an opportunity for
those of us who want to see a militant movement to push back against the
idea that social movements are merely a leftish “loyal opposition.” It
is an opportunity to argue for a greater diversity of tactics than
currently exists as well and to continue subverting the hegemony of the
pacified, “non-violent” social activism that has pervaded the “radical
left” in Canada for the past 4 decades.

In the last 10 years the radical left in Canada has been able to push the
discussion called “diversity of tactics” far enough that it is a constant
theme in mass mobilizations here. At the least it is a discussion that
political activists of all stripes are familiar with, and many feel that
they have to engage with, either for or against.

In addition to all of this, the discussion around the “Heart Attack”
demonstration has created an opportunity for the anarchist movement to
engage in much needed discussion about strategy and tactics. Articles
like those by Mick Sweetman , David Rovics and others, while I strongly
disagree with many points they made, both involve anarchists thinking
strategically about anarchist movement.

Push? Burn? Build? Strategy in the anarchist movement?

It’s outside of the scope of this article (and of my ability) to address
all of the possible strategies for anarchist movement in Canada. Instead
I will only point out some of what seems to me to be particularly
important at this time.

Real discussion and debate about strategy is pretty limited in the
anarchist movement (and the radical left) in Canada. Given the need for us
to think before we act , this should be a significant concern to everyone
in the movement. There is more debate around tactics, but it is often
stilted due the offhand acceptance of ideas and concepts (such as
“diversity of tactics”) rather than critical interaction with them. A
fair bit of the discussion that does exist conflates strategies with
different anarchist tendencies: anarchist-communists argue for building
class power through worker and community assemblies; green anarchists
denounce workerism and industrial capitalism and argue for sustainability.

The anarchist movement (and the radical left) needs to reprioritize
theorizing and strategizing. This is a point that INCITE!, among others,
have made. They also emphasize the resources that the Right has put into
their theorizing, and they assert that this has played and important role
in the right wing resurgence of the last 30 years . To be clear, this
theorizing needs to be tightly connected to movement practices, should be
informed by them, and should inform them.

I believe that the politics that are delineated by the combination of
anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism and anti-oppression are a good starting
place for the anarchist movement. I would also argue that an essential
part of anti-oppressive practice is a commitment to anti-authoritarianism.
The first three principles are all part of the politics outlined by the
journal Upping the Anti in their first editorial. In that editorial they
also flag the fact that this starting place is purely oppositional, and
the need for the radical left to find “conceptual and practical
alternatives to the system [and] strategies for getting there. ”

In addition to this we need to be clear about what we mean when we use the
terms anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism and anti-oppression. Like the
phrase “diversity of tactics” any and all of these terms can become devoid
of meaning if we are simply repeating them. All three of these politics, as
well as the connections and contradictions between them, need to be
clarified.

One of the reasons that the theoretical framework of anti-capitalism,
anti-imperialism and anti-oppression seems useful to me is the possibility
this framework has for building common ground on the radical left in
Canada.
In his excellent article , Joel Olson states that the anarchist movement
needs to move beyond Infoshops and Insurrection to movement building, and
to prioritize struggles against certain forms of oppression as more
relevant or strategic than others. Regrettably, he doesn’t define the
exactly what is involved in movement building.

It seems to me that we want, at the least, to be part of an anarchist
movement, as well as of autonomous social movements, that address the
triple oppressions of race, class and gender. Building this kind of
movement means that anarchists need to focus on issues that address these
oppressions, such as, for example, organizing against anti-police violence
and the prison-industrial complex.

Focusing on these three oppressions would involve updating anarchist
theory and practice to take into account the most vibrant movement of the
past 5 decades: anti-racist and anti-colonial movements, the feminist,
anti-nuclear, queer and environmental movements. The anarchist movement
needs to take this into account. The classical anarchist tradition with
its relatively exclusive focus on class does not adequately address the
issues of these movements and the theory and practice that has come out of
them.

Finally, on the subject of insurrection, mass anarchism and revolutionary
violence, it is mistake to separate building a mass movement with building
a movement that also engages in militant direct action and has the
capacity to engage in revolutionary violence. That is to say, a mass
anarchist movement, if it is to be more than rhetorically revolutionary
will need to be capable of defending itself from state and corporate
repression, and will need the capacity to engage in offensive strikes
against state and corporate power. Numbers will not be enough, and we
can’t rely exclusively on the General Strike, as important as mass strikes
will be in any confrontations with Canadian capitalism and the Canadian
state.

The long history of the Canadian state using violence, up to and including
murder, to break strikes in the 19th and early 20th centuries provides a
clear example of what the state will do when revolutionary unions and
workers threaten the status quo. Similarly, US state repression of the
Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement provides a more
recent example of the lengths to which the state will go to protect itself
from threats, as well as offering up another revolutionary model than
revolutionary unionism. In both cases revolutionary movements at the time
were required to defend themselves, and, for different reasons, they were
incapable of doing so. We need to be conscious of this history and to be
planning how to defend ourselves, our allies and our movements.

Not Now (Not Ever): Diversity of Tactics and the Black Block

The first thing that needs to be said in this debate is that we can’t
simply substitute the phrase “respect for a diversity of tactics” for
actual and critical discussion for any and all tactics used at and outside
of protests . As others have pointed out, honest criticism of certain
tactics can’t focus exclusively on the black block, as opposed to, for
example, signing petitions, and lobbying politicians . That said,
attempting to silence people who engage in respectful criticisms of the
black block and other tactics is wrong both at a moral and a political
level.

This article isn’t going to trace all of the points and counter-points
that have been made for and against a “diversity of tactics.” Instead it
will be quickly and one-sidedly respond to some criticisms of the black
block made by people inside of and outside of the anarchist movement.

Some of the debate around “diversity of tactics” has become somewhat
stylized, so that we already know in advance what people will say on
“both” sides of the issue. This condemnation or support for a diversity
of tactics usually falls along a few binaries: violent/non-violent,
illegitimate/legitimate, illegal/legal and ineffective/effective . The
Black Block is often coded as violent, illegitimate, illegal and
ineffective. These different binaries, and others could be added, are
also often, but not always, considered reinforcing: violent protest =
illegitimate protest = ineffective protest.

People also often make references made to the civil rights movement,
emphasizing that it was non-violent and effective. It’s effectiveness is
usually linked to, they say, it’s perceived legitimacy with large numbers
of people and the use of the tactic of civil disobedience.

To take up the side of the people who support violence and the black block
tactic (which I do) I offer this quote:

“while the American civil rights movement is often credited with the use
of non-violent means, the abolition of legalised segregation in the
United States was in fact accomplished through a series of what were
clearly violent state interventions, most notably sending in the National
Guard to oversee the desegregation of schools in southern states. ”

The point being that no matter how non-violent the civil rights movement
was and how large, it was it was relying on state violence to enforce
desegregation. So, people who use this example to valorize non-violence
are often being contradictory.

In any case, and for better or for worse (for worse, I think) the civil
rights movement all too often gets used in order to make political points
by different sides in arguments over diversity of tactics.

This is only a very superficially look at how these binaries play out in
two arguments. The larger point that I am trying to make is that in order
to make a militant movement we need to break down these mutually
re-enforcing binaries.

Moving along, it is also common for people to assert that militant actions
dissuade people from joining the movement. The evidence for this is
usually purely anecdotal and/or personal in nature. This lack of
foundation means that, at the exact same time, the opposite argument, that
militant action brings people into the movement, is also made. Given
this, it seems likely that militant actions and militant tactics by
themselves don’t necessarily do either of these things and that the result
of using militant tactics and engaging in militant actions depends on the
“who, what, when, where, and how” of an action, on the context of an
action. So, for example, the fire bombing of three porn stores that
distributed pornography that eroticized violence against women by the
Vancouver 5 didn’t result in the collapse of the feminist movement in
Vancouver, or of the campaign that existed to shut these outlets down. In
fact, these actions were an effective contribution to the campaign, and
were widely supported by large numbers of activists . However, and I
realize this is obvious, but bear with me, if there hadn’t already been a
mass feminist movement and a significant campaign specifically targeting
the chain, then the response likely would have been entirely different.
Which is to restate that the effect of militant tactics and actions
depends on the context in which they are undertaken. Excluding militant
direct action, and demonizing the people who do it is and will continue to
be divisive and if it were accomplished would significantly shrink the
movement, not expand it.

Finally, I want to talk about the issue of police infiltration. Some of
the criticisms about the black block, and of militant tactics are that it
is a tactic that is easily used by the police and the police use it to
discredit the anarchist movement (or whichever movement the person making
the point belongs to). This argument isn’t very convincing. Arguments
about whether an action or tactic discredits or benefits the movement
often has more to do with the personal opinion of the author (ahem) than
anything else. If it discredits the movement, then it does so regardless
of who throws the stones. Personally, I don’t think that it does. It may
be true that a police agent threw the first stone, but this is the sort of
thing that we’ll ever be able to prove. And, in fact, relying for
argument on accusations that are impossible to prove is evidently and
concretely an action that hurts the movement .

Further, I would argue that one of the likely goals of the police is to
discredit a tactic, the black block tactic, as well as to discredit any
and all forms of militant direct action. Truthfully, I believe that they
are content to discredit groups and movements regardless of what tactics
they are using. To the extent they (re)act in a rational manner, the
police and organizations like CSIS will try and discredit any tactic,
movement, group, etc. which they perceive as a threat to the status quo.
In the case of the anarchist movement, this means to the extent that it
threatens to become a mass revolutionary movement. It isn’t helpful to
isolate the Black Block tactic as the only way in which the police can
infiltrate our movement. Any above ground or open organization can be easily infiltrated by the
police. Any strategy and/or tactic that said organization chooses or uses
is open to manipulation by police agents. And, to the extent that we are
going to organize openly there is not much we can do about it except to
ensure that the strategy and tactics that we decide on will be effective
in building the type of anarchist movement that we want.

Sticks and Stones May Break my Bones, but Words Will Never Hurt Me

“For those who came here to peacefully make their point, I welcome them
here because I want them to be integrated into the long-term debate. For
those who came here to break windows and hurt small businesses or stop
people from going to meetings and having their say, I condemn them. And
I’m sorry that the mayor, the governor, and the police officers and others
have had to go through this. We need to make a clear distinction between
that which we condemn and that which we won’t.” - Bill Clinton

This quote illuminates a similarity between Bill Clinton’s politics and
certain statements made by anarchists in the recent debate about strategy
and tactics with regards to property destruction. It is also helpful in
highlighting the fact that “the establishment” actually doesn’t like
property destruction, contrary to the point being made by people who
accuse the Black Block of doing the will of the police.

Granted, the reasons that Bill Clinton, and Democrats who support him, and
anarchists oppose property destruction are different. Still, I feel like
it says something when you’ve got Bill Clinton on your side.

Tactics that are easily reconciled with establishment views of political
legitimacy risk being relatively easily appropriated and co-opted. If,
however, the argument isn’t against property destruction, per se, but
against property destruction at this time, this means that the question of
when property destruction will be acceptable needs to be answered: if not
now, when? The argument goes that at some point in the future the
anarchist movement will begin to engage in mass militant direct action
that will destabilize Canadian capitalism and its state. I think that
this is an impractical argument:

“You have to build the consciousness, you have to build the psychology,
you have to build the experiential base, and you have to build the
theoretical base… ”

A movement that has refrained from engaging in revolutionary violence and
militant direct action won’t have done any of these things and will
necessarily have to start from scratch. That puts us behind the game, not
in front of it. This is particularly so in the Canadian context given the
extent to which pacifism has and continues to influence movements for
social justice.

This isn’t to leave the Black Block off of the theoretical hook:

“…If you are going to go up against [the repressive apparatus of the
state,] of if you’re going to do serious damage to the structure of
things, it isn’t going to happen in some sort of frontal confrontation
with whatever deployment of force the state makes. So it is symbolic [in
a sense.]….[The Black Block] might want to ditch the uniforms…put on a
phony beard….And it is just this level of tactical evolution they’ve
refused. ”

The Black Block tactic is one tactic, no more and no less. To me there
shouldn’t really be any controversy about using it. If blocking up and
breaking windows at a demonstration accomplishes something, people should
do it. And if the Black Block is used by rote, if the tactic is used in
an entirely ritualized fashion so that it becomes the anti-capitalist
version of “family-friendly” liberal demonstrations with politicians like
Iggy and Jack Layton as the main attraction, this needs to be criticized.

That said, the Black Block should also not become the limit of our
militancy. Taking the Black Block, or any one tactic as the limit of the
meaning “diversity of tactics” is a contradiction in terms. Our tactics
should only be dictated by what will be most effective in reaching our
goals.

What if, for example, one of the affinity groups at the “Heart Attack”
Demo had chosen instead to torch a Hudson’s Bay Company outlet on the
outskirts of Vancouver, or in another city? This would have resulted in
significantly more financial damage to the HBC. It could also move the
debate around tactics further forward and reduce the criticism of the
Black Block, as people who want to condemn militancy would probably focus
on arson rather than window breaking.

In Conclusion: Militancy and Mass Movement

Sometimes it seems like critics of the Black Block are drawing a
comparison between it and insurrectionary anarchism’s “propaganda by the
deed”. For the most part I think that this comparison is not accurate.
While some members of the Black Block may draw inspiration from this
history, the tactic itself is incompatible with it in a number of ways,
the clearest being that it depends on and is designed for mass action. It
is a tactic that is used at relatively large demonstrations, and that is
more effective the larger the size of the demonstration and of the Block
itself. And it is important to remember that a large number of people who
use the tactic and/or who support the tactic are not insurrectionary
anarchists. It is a mistake to make generalizations about the politics of
people who use the Black Block tactic, and it is a mistake to make a
division between the Black Block and a mass movement.

The anarchist movement needs to be a militant mass movement. The
militancy shouldn’t begin at some hypothetical point in the future, but
needs to be, for very practical reasons, part of our current practice.
The idea that the Black Block and militant tactics, in themselves, ruin
the potential for a mass movement is an assertion is simply not true.
Instead, tactics need to be seen in context. Out tactics need to be
dictated by well thought out strategies. I’m not making an argument
against militant direct action right now, however, quite the contrary.
Our movement needs to become increasingly militant as of yesterday or even
two weeks ago. What I am suggesting is that people who have the courage,
the desire and the ability to take more militant actions think carefully
about all of the possible consequences of their actions. The rule of
thumb seems to be that militant actions shouldn’t be taking in isolation
but need to be part of a larger campaign and movement.

The lack of discussion around strategy in the anarchist movement creates
is one of our weaknesses. It results in divisive arguments around
militancy and the Black Block. It also results in a lack of much needed
clarity about what actions we need to take in order to build a mass
movement.

For example, is the theoretical position of opposing all forms of
oppression really a disadvantage when it comes to movement building? Does
it prevent us from organizing effectively due to the fact that the
movement is going in so many directions at the same time? If so, what
should we be focusing on? What does this mean for organizing around
issues that are deprioritized? What is to be done?

original post
Sanctuary cities bill brings protestors to Arizona Capitol
by Stephanie Snyder
Dolan Media Newswires

PHOENIX, AZ — Nearly 100 people demonstrated in front of the Executive Tower today to advocate both for and against a bill that would alter laws related to illegal immigration.

Bill S1070, which has passed the Senate and is ready for debate in the House, would prohibit state and local governments from enacting policies that would conflict with federal immigration laws. It also would mandate that all government employees make a “reasonable attempt” to determine a person’s immigration status if there is suspicion that he or she is an illegal immigrant.

Liz Hourican, 40, of Phoenix, said she opposes the bill because it would put a lot of added pressure on local law enforcement, and it would fail to accomplish the real issue of dealing with comprehensive immigration reform.

“There’s a human way to deal with this and it’s through leadership and good governance and making hard decisions,” she said.

Hourican said she has protested at the Capitol several times because Sen. Russell Pearce, a Mesa Republican and sponsor of S1070, has been trying to pass laws that will cost taxpayers money without accomplishing anything.

“Russell Pearce is making a lot of bad laws, and he works in tandem with Joe Arpaio and Andrew Thomas,” she said while holding a sign that said “Stop Racist Russell. It’s a waste of money.”

The bill also would permit illegal immigrants to be charged with trespassing, make it illegal for people to enter a vehicle that is stopped in the street while seeking work and punish drivers that disrupt traffic to hire a day worker.

Martha Payan, 57, of Phoenix, said she supports the bill because the laws in place now don’t go far enough to restrict illegal immigration.

“It’s reached a point where our legislators need to start doing their jobs,” she said. “They need to start voting these bills in. These bills are nothing but the straight-out truth of what needs to be done. It’s been going on too long.”

Payan said she is not an advocate for amnesty or immigration reform because she said the state’s problems with kidnapping, home invasions and drug trafficking can all be attributed to illegal immigrants.

“We need to send ‘em all back and start with a clean slate,” she said.

This article appeared in the March 29, 2010 edition of The Nation.

Haiti

Reed Lindsay: How the earthquake aid regime sidelines those it intends to help.

Globalization

Reed Lindsay: Protesters decry high food prices–and the savage cost of “free trade” agreements.

Ruth Derilus had seen her share of tragedy. A 33-year-old iron-willed social worker trained by Haiti’s Papay Peasant Movement, she twice helped organize relief efforts when massive floods devastated the city of Gonaïves and the surrounding countryside. In September 2004 she worked with women’s and youth groups after Tropical Storm Jeanne killed more than 3,000 people. Four years later, she lost her home when a second deluge, unleashed by Tropical Storm Hanna and augmented by Hurricane Ike, once again brought the city to its knees. Ruth kept on going, working to organize rice farmers whose crops had been destroyed. But nothing would prepare her for the tribulations she would face after the earthquake that struck Port-au-Prince on January 12 of this year. Ruth was in Gonaïves, and she got a phone call within minutes. Her 20-month-old son, Chevano, who was living with her husband in the capital, had suffered a blow to his head when their family’s house collapsed. The line went dead. The next morning, Ruth took a bus to Port-au-Prince and went straight to the hospital. She could not find her son. She returned home and found her mother in tears. The nearby hospital had stopped operating after the earthquake, and by the time Chevano was taken to a United Nations military hospital on the morning of January 13, it was too late. Ruth recovered her son’s body ten days later. Her husband was never found.

“We are shocked and stunned at the Administration’s tone and public dressing down of Israel on the issue of future building in Jerusalem,” Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, said in a statement.

Israel had been publicly reprimanded in recent days by several US officials, in wake of the announcement that 1,600 new housing units will be built in east Jerusalem. The Americans were especially upset as the announcement coincided with Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel.

However, ADL said the unprecedented criticism leveled by the US was aimed at placating the Palestinians.

Source

Filed under: ADL Hatemongering, Illegal Settlements, Israel, Palestine, zionist harassment

Palestinian Dispossession in East Jerusalem
By Stephen Lendman

For Jews, Jerusalem is its historic capital. Muslims also claim it for the third holiest site in Islam, containing the 35 acre Noble Sanctuary (al-Haram al-Sharif), including the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock.

The 1947 UN Partition Plan designated Jerusalem an international city under a UN Trusteeship Council. After Israel's 1947-48 War of Independence, it was divided between Israel and Jordan, and during Israel's 1967 Six-Day War, East Jerusalem was captured and occupied, its current status today.

In March 2009, a confidential EU report (now public) accused Israel of using settlement expansions, house demolitions, discriminatory housing policies, restrictive permits, closing Palestinian institutions, the West Bank Separation Wall, and various other ways to "actively pursu(e) the illegal annexation" of East Jerusalem and "increase Jewish presence" in the city.

In a December 2009 report, the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel affirmed the EU report's concerns. Titled "Dispossession and Eviction in Jerusalem," it provides historical context, a legal overview, and case study examples in Sheikh Jarrah, an East Jerusalem neighborhood between the Old City and Mount Scopus.

The community "has become the site of a protracted legal battle whose implications range from the evictions of more than 25 families to the visibility of a future Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement and the" ultimate status of Jerusalem.

Four families have already been evicted from homes they've lived in for over 50 years. The others are awaiting court appearances and rulings to decide their fate, nearly certain given Israel's history of judicial unfairness toward Arabs, including its own citizens having no rights in a nation affording them solely to Jews.

( click title for more )

Crunch Time
By Missy Comley Beattie

Why do I laugh when a major newspaper’s headline is about Eric Massa’s “groping” history? That his staff was uncomfortable with his tickling routines? I guess because I’m reminded of all those Saturday Night Live noogies. Of course, those were skits. But, then, so are these, some among many in today’s political theatre. The Massa example, though, reeks of immaturity—the overly friendly behavior, touching in all the wrong places, is conduct that makes people skittish. And sickish.

Yes, I laugh but, then, so soon, I feel like crying.

Because the salacious is considered headline material or breaking news in our country, today.

Why no large type about the growing numbers of military suicides? Or that more and more troops who’ve had multiple deployments are unfit for service? Post-traumatic stress disorder is, well, very seldom stressed in our disordered world.

Why no photographs of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan’s parentless, limbless children whose lives have been forever shattered by our smart bombs?

Why no mention of antiwar actions, beginning this month in Washington, DC and lasting until the troops start returning home?

We’re past crunch time here in the USA.

( click title for more )

Kimber Heinz of the War Resisters League wrote:

Join us as we lead up to WRL actions at the NPT Review Conference this May!

Join the War Resisters League in NYC April 30-May 3 for four days of creative nonviolent protest and support a call for unilateral U.S. disarmament at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference at the UN Headquarters.

In 1982, the War Resisters League initiated "Blockade the Bombmakers," organizing mass actions at the Missions to the United Nations of each of the five nuclear powers on the first day of the United Nations Special Session on Disarmament. In total, nearly 1,700 people were arrested in the blockades, which followed a march involving an estimated one million people.

Today, there are nine nuclear powers and the dangers of nuclear proliferation are even more acute than 28 years ago. Despite the White House's pledge to seek a world without nuclear weapons, the 2011 federal budget for nuclear weapons research and development is likely to be more than $7 billion and could (if the Obama administration has its way) reach $8 billion per year by the end of this decade. This steady and growing investment stands in stark contrast to the promising U.S. rhetoric of disarmament.

The 2010 NPT Review Conference represents a key juncture in the work for nuclear disarmament and a vital opportunity to put pressure on the U.S. government and kick-start the anti-nuclear movement. The War Resisters League is organizing a Monday, May 3rd action to deliver a strong message to the United Nations delegates. We are also organizing a WRL contingent and panel discussion for the Disarm Now! international march and alternative conference happening that weekend as WRL joins with thousands of anti-nuclear activists from around the world in resistance to nuclear build-up and global militarism.

Join us to demand complete and unilateral nuclear disarmament and to insist that action for disarmament, not more talking, is needed. We will be meeting in-person and by phone to shape and finalize the action over the next month and will offer nonviolence training on Sunday, May 2nd. To find out more and to sign up or get involved, please email WRL Organizing Coordinator Kimber Heinz at kimber@warresisters.org.

( click title for more )

An appeal to anti-war organizations & activists to oppose the increasing threats against Iran | CASMII Press Release

Around the world, anti-war activists are preparing for major protests this spring to oppose the continuing U.S.-led occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, a storm of developments is dramatically increasing tensions between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. In response, the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) is issuing this appeal to the anti-war movements in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries to raise the demands of “No war, no sanctions, no internal interference in Iran!”

Iran is a country that hasn’t attacked a neighbor in more than 200 years. Even when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran after the 1979 Revolution and, with support from the West, used chemical weapons against both civilians and combatants, the Islamic Republic did not retaliate in kind. And yet the U.S. government claims that Iran represents a serious threat to the Middle East region and the entire world. Without a shred of evidence, the U.S. charges that Iran's program to develop nuclear power for peaceful energy purposes is just a cover to develop nuclear weapons. Never mentioned is the fact that, as a signatory to the U.N.'s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran's right to develop nuclear energy is enshrined in international law. Just a few months ago, the U.N's International Atomic Energy Chief, Mohammed ElBardai, the person responsible for monitoring compliance with that treaty, stated that “Nobody is sitting in Iran today developing nuclear weapons. Tehran doesn’t have an ongoing nuclear weapons program. But somehow, everyone in the West is talking about how Iran’s nuclear program is the greatest threat to the world.” (Interview with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Sept. 2009) Instead, warning of world disaster if Iran should succeed in its imaginary goal of obtaining nuclear arms, Washington argues that Iran must be forcefully brought to its knees, through a combination of increasingly crippling sanctions, taking advantage of Iran's internal divisions and preparing for a possible military attack.

Consider these recent developments:

• The U.S has been pressuring the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to impose a fourth and more severe round of sanctions against Iran. The only real holdout has been the People's Republic of China, which in January held the council's revolving presidency. On Feb. 1, however, the president's seat passed to France, which is nearly as hostile to Iran's nuclear program as is the U.S. (France itself, by the way, relies on nuclear power for 80 percent of its own energy needs.) The Security Council’s permanent members, including China and Russia, have never been a real barrier for the US. Not only has the council already approved three rounds of sanctions against Iran, but the Obama Administration is now talking of “bypassing” the U.N. in its latest push for sanctions. While sanctions are often promoted as an alternative to war, the world now knows that the sanctions imposed by the U.N. against Iraq during the first Persian Gulf War resulted in the deaths of up to 1.5 million Iraqis, a third of them children.

( click title for more )

As the anti-Goldstone, human rights-bashing Lawfare Project’s opening event on March 11 wrapped up, I asked its chairman, Columbia University Law School Dean David Schizer, for an interview. Schizer, who had just attacked the Goldstone Report from the podium, pointedly refused to speak to me and looked for the exit. As Schizer was leaving, he was politely confronted by Columbia Law School Professor Katherine Franke, who heads the school’s Program in Gender and Sexuality Law.

"Why didn’t you invite any speakers with an alternative perspective?" Franke asked Schizer.

His reply was curt. "We invited one or two but they couldn’t make it," Schizer claimed before hurrying away.

Schizer was understandably nervous about his exposure. After all, he had just presided over a day-long conference during which Israeli human rights workers were labeled as traitors while Judge Richard Goldstone and human rights groups were compared to "anti-Semitic street gangs." After several speakers had harshly condemned legal efforts against the construction of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Schizer appeared beside them to lend his credibility to their views.

Schizer attacks Goldstone

Held in the ornate NY County Lawyers Association meeting room in downtown Manhattan, where the walls were adorned with portraits of the pioneers of international jurisprudence, the Lawfare Project’s conference had the look of a non-partisan academic conference. However, the event was organized by a network of American Zionist groups and conservative operatives with apparent encouragement from the Israeli government.

As Scott Horton noticed at Harper’s, the Lawfare Project’s rollout event followed a remarkably similar conference in Jerusalem two weeks earlier. Both conferences followed legislation in the Knesset designed to force NGO’s to disclose their foreign donors so they can be more easily branded as a fifth column and to strangle human rights groups in Israel and occupied Palestine.

The presence of high-level Israeli officials like UN Ambassador Gabriela Shalev at the Lawfare Project conference suggested that the Netanyahu administration was the hidden hand behind the event. If so, the Israeli government has deployed its American Jewish allies to take the fight across the Atlantic to groups like Human Rights Watch and the Center for Constitutional Rights. Both groups were attacked at the event as anti-Israeli and anti-American.

I arrived late in the day but just in time for a panel moderated by Pat Robertson’s longtime legal counsel, Jay Sekulow. Sekulow, a convert from Judaism to evangelical Christianity who has spent his career representing anti-gay and anti-abortion clients, appears to be playing a key role in the Lawfare Project.

Through his American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), Sekulow reaps millions of dollars each year from Christian conservative donors. He uses that money to pay himself upwards of $600,000, provide a lavish lifestyle for his family, and procure the services of the PR firm, 5WPR, which represents other upstanding clients like Girls Gone Wild and the pro-settler Hebron Fund.

5WPR was handling the press list for the Lawfare Project and shuttling its speakers to and from media appearances. 5W Senior Account Executive Maggie Davis told me that through the firm’s relationship with Sekulow, she was arranging media appearances for Brooke Goldstein, founder of the Children’s Rights Institute, which happens to share a domain address with the Lawfare Project. Both websites were registered by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which played a direct role in planning the conference. Gladstone is now the lead spokesperson for the Lawfare Project, according to 5W’s Davis. 

NGO Monitor legal advisor Anne Herzberg was featured prominently at the conference. During a panel discussion, she accused the European Union of "pouring hundreds of millions into these NGO’s…that are actually in favor of a one-state solution." Without naming those NGO’s or explaining why accepting foreign money was such a crime, Herzberg boasted of suing human rights groups to force them disclose their donors. She accused Israeli NGO’s like B’tselem of causing "a breach of sovereignty" against Israel by contributing data to the Goldstone Report — an insinuation that Israeli human rights workers were traitors.

An NGO Monitor report was distributed to conference attendees identifying groups supposedly promoting "post-colonial ideology" as "anti-state," "anti-democracy" and "anti-American." The report identified NGO Monitor’s top targets: the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and Al-Haq. Al-Haq was singled out because, along with a staffer from the Israeli group B’Tselem, it filed an expert opinion in the case to move a section of the separation wall annexing thousands of acres of farmland from the Palestinian town of Bil’in to a nearby Jewish settlement.

The attack on Al Haq highlights part of NGO’s Monitor’s not-so-hidden agenda: to allow the settler movement to usurp land in the West Bank without limitations. As Didi Remez reported, NGO Monitor has partnered with the Institute for Zionist Strategies, led by Yisrael Harel, who helped to found the Gush Emunim settler movement and lives in the religious nationalist settlement of Ofra. Remez also pointed out that NGO Monitor has made no demand for financial transparency from pro-settler organizations which are also engaged in what it would call "lawfare." 

NGO Monitor has also targeted US-based human rights group. It has gone after Human Rights Watch on the basis of the group’s contribution of reporting to the Goldstone Report and because Goldstone was at one point a HRW board member. The Center for Constitutional Rights was singled out because its founder, Michael Ratner, went on the recent Gaza Freedom March with Code Pink. None of the factual documentation these groups released was challenged by the NGO Monitor report or in Herzberg’s presentation. Instead, the groups and their leadership are being targeted with a scattershot of accusations that recall McCarthyism in its crudest form.

As a consequence of his zeal, NGO Monitor director Gerald Steinberg was hauled into an Israeli court this month and forced to apologize for claiming a Palestinian human rights group "justified violence." Yossi Alpher, a former advisor to Ehud Barak, has condemned Steinberg’s activities, writing that NGO Monitor "seems dead set on eliminating human rights monitoring of Israel entirely and smearing anyone who supports this vital activity." 

The NGO Monitor report and the speakers at the Lawfare Project event expressed alarm about the effectiveness of the global BDS movement and its success in exposing apartheid practices in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Speaker Richard Heidemann, the Honorary Chairman of B’nai Brith, said that the fight against BDS was essential to the Lawfare Project. "We have to stand up against slander, we have to stand up against boycott," he proclaimed. "If you were accused of apartheid, wouldn’t you consider taking action?" However, he proposed no specific measures or tactics other than making vehement statements. 

Francois-Henri Briard, a conservative French attorney, voiced his outrage that the BDS movement had successfully pressured the French company Veolia to pull out of an Israeli light rail project that would have connected illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank to Jerusalem. He called the initiative against the rail line "an attack on Israeli sovereignty" even though it specifically targeted the settlement enterprise across the Green Line.

Jeremy Rabkin, an outspoken neoconservative law professor, echoed Herzberg’s smearing of human rights groups as treasonous. "These human rights groups we keep hearing about are not loyal to their country or to democracy, but to some strange world order," he declared.

Not to be outdone, David Matas, the senior legal counsel to B’nai Brith Canada, maintained that because the International Criminal Court represented the legacy of the Holocaust, it should always side with Israel. He went on to compare the Goldstone Report and efforts to invoke international law to prosecute Israeli officials to "anti-Semitism by gangs in the street." 

Matas’s invective against international law was ironic in light of the fact that his most notable court case called upon international legal bodies to prosecute China for supposedly harvesting the organs of Falun Gong practitioners. In September 2009, Matas hailed a Spanish court (the concept of "forum shopping" in Spanish courts was attacked repeatedly during the conference) for indicting former Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Chinese officials for what he called "genocide and torture." 

Matas has defined genocide as merely stating "the intent to kill" a group of people. What’s more, he has justified prosecuting Zemin by invoking International Criminal Court statutes governing the prosecution of high government officials who did not directly commit crimes against humanity but may have allowed them to occur through specific administrative measures. Couldn’t these statutes also be applied against the Israeli government officials who oversaw the assault on Gaza?

Matas’s invocation of international law to prosecute Chinese officials while attacking it to protect Israeli officials highlighted the underlying cynicism of the Lawfare Project. Indeed, the project has nothing to do with combatting the abuse of international law per se; it is an ideologically-driven effort to intimidate anyone who stands in the way of Israel’s human rights abuses.

According to 5W’s Davis, the Lawfare Project’s opening event was a strategy session designed to "raise awareness." Though it is still unclear what actions the project will take, the demonization that human rights groups and other democratic elements in Israel have weathered foreshadows the attacks their American allies may soon face.

Related posts:

One of my themes is that while Israel is experiencing a dark night of the soul due to the racism pervading that society, Americans are in the dark about this reality because our media refuse to do the (obvious) story. And so while Haaretz covers the story every other day, sometimes desperately, and Andrew Sullivan is waking up to it here, establishment institutions like the New York Times and the New Yorker (and the Columbia Journalism School, junketing to Yad Vashem) turn a blind eye. 

In the Times case, the problem surely reflects the fact that its two Jerusalem reporters are Jews who are deeply invested in Israeli society. One of them, Ethan Bronner, has a son in the Israeli military. The other, Isabel Kershner, is an Israeli who’s married to an Israeli.  Not a lot of bandwidth!

Let’s look closely at a recent piece by Kershner that demonstrates this blindness.

Three days ago Kershner wrote a story on ground zero of the new racism, the eviction of Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem to make way for Jews. Kershner played up an international real-estate angle (which Ethan Bronner has also harped on): Watch out, Israel, if Jews exercise a "right of return" to Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem that were owned by Jews before 1948 (when Jordan took over governance, for 19 years), then Palestinians are going to exercise a similar "right of return" to West Jerusalem, to houses that they were forced out of in 1948 during the Nakba, when Israel was created. Kershner quoted two or three Israelis who are worried about what the Sheikh Jarrah evictions mean to the right of Palestinians moving back into Israel. 

Saying that the issue touches "mainstream" Israelis, Kershner quoted Yossi Klein Halevi, a neoconservative and contributor to the New Republic: 

Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, a research institution in West Jerusalem, said he opposed a Jewish “right of return” to properties lost in the 1948 war. But he noted that more and more Arabs were buying apartments in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood where he lives.

“It cannot go one way in Jerusalem,” Mr. Klein Halevi said. “I am deeply torn.”

Kershner says that Halevi works in West Jerusalem, implying that Halevi’s talking about a neighborhood in West Jerusalem. I.e., we’re evicting Palestinians from East Jerusalem under old renationalized title; that gives them a reason to move into West Jerusalem under similar title, and I’m anguished about that…

But wait a second: Yossi Klein Halevi lives in East Jerusalem, the future capital of the alleged Palestinian state. Here he is on NPR two days ago:

"I live in French Hill, which is a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem. It’s very heavily university populated. It’s a liberal neighborhood…"

So the whole international-title issue has nothing to do with it. Halevi wasn’t talking to Kershner about the Palestinian right of return to West Jerusalem, he was actually just objecting to having Arabs as neighbors.

A view that most Americans would say is: purely racist.

I bet that Kershner knows that Halevi lives in East Jerusalem. I’d ask her if she knew that, but she didn’t respond to my last email.

So let’s be clear: the real underlying bogeyman here–for Halevi, and maybe for Kershner too– is not some interpretation of international law as it embraces the Jewish state and the Palestinian territories, but the threat of open housing, a pretty much universally acknowledged civil right.

Shut your eyes and go back 40 years to a story of my childhood in Maryland. Imagine for one second the New York Times covering segregationist Democrat George Mahoney in 1966 when he ran for governor with the slogan, "Your Home Is Your Castle," to stop black people from moving into white neighborhoods.

Imagine the Times seeking to dignify Mahoney’s attitude as one of anguish over a principle of law.

Well, you can’t. Mahoney was a racist dufus, and everyone I knew said as much, and he was defeated. Look up the Times index; it called Mahoney a "white supremacist."

In Israel and Palestine today, with Jewish supremacy running rampant, the Times is incapable of such frankness.

Related posts:

The Obama Administration finally realized its credibility was in tatters after the shenanigans of this week in Israel. With the President apparently sedated and the Vice President hoarse from crooning love songs to Israel, it was decided to have the top wimps step aside and let the only one in the Administration with any guts crack the whip.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not only called Prime Minister Netanyahu today, she also had her spokesman P. J. Crowley inform reporters that for forty minutes she delivered "a stinging rebuke" to Netanyahu "to make clear that the United States considered the announcement [this week of new Jewish housing in East Jerusalem] to be a deeply negative signal about Israel’s approach to the bilateral relationship and counter to the spirit of the Vice President’s trip."

"The secretary said she could not understand how this happened, particularly in light of the United States’ strong commitment to Israel’s security and she made clear that the Israeli government needed to demonstrate not just through words but through specific actions that they are committed to this relationship and to the peace process."

Significantly, spokesman Crowley "stressed that the United States objected to both the content and timing of the announcement" and said Clinton had "reinforced that this action had undermined trust and confidence in the peace process and in America’s interests."

Considering Obama’s current political problems, it is hard to believe that this week’s events could be a tipping point in U.S. – Israeli relations. But considering the hole that the administration has dug for itself in the Mideast, it is not impossible that the Israeli slap in the face served as a wake-up call. The Quartet – which denounced the Israeli settlement announcement shortly after Clinton’s phone call was made known – is scheduled to meet next Friday in Moscow. What actions the Quartet takes will give a better indication whether this is a one week flap or an actual change in U.S. policy.

Related posts:

The boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement is turning up the heat on Swedish clothing store H&M. A new H&M store opened in Tel Aviv March 11 to hundreds of Israeli shoppers, Haaretz reported.

H&M plans to open seven stores in total in Israel, with the next store opening on March 16 in Jerusalem. Protests in Sweden, Denmark, and England occurred on March 11.

Dozens of BDS and Palestine solidarity groups from countries around the world have endorsed the call to boycott H&M.

The “management of H&M was deeply disturbed” by the boycott activities, according to a Facebook message to supporters written by Johanna Wallin, a Palestine solidarity activist. “Among others, the former CEO and current Chairman of the H&M Board of Directors, Mr. Stefan Persson and H&M’s Head of Communications contacted us and expressed their concern.”

BDS organizers are calling for another day of action targeting H&M next Tuesday, when the store will open in Jerusalem.

Here’s a statement from the organizers:

On the 11th of March the Swedish clothes and fashion store H&M is opening its first out of seven planned stores in Israel.

The familiar red H&M sign will be visible in the Azriel Mall in Tel Aviv and, a few days later, in the Malcha shopping centre in Jerusalem, a city gradually cleansed of its Palestinian population to be replaced by Jewish-Israeli settlements.
 

H&M is thus investing in Israel at the same time as the UN Goldstone commission and international organizations that H&M is cooperating with, such as UNICEF and the UN, report about Israel’s crimes against international law and human rights.

About a year ago several Swedish organizations gave attention to H&M’s plans to establish in Israel and demanded an announcement from H&M. The management denounced the rumors but refused to give a written statement. Today the establishment has been made public. “We believe that our business idea will work well in Israel. Through our franchise partner we will have access to many years of experience and networks in Israel,” says Rolf Eriksen, CEO at H&M.

Dror Feiler, chairperson of European Jews for a Just Peace says that H&M’s choice of time for its establishment in Israel is particularly distasteful, coming at a time when Israel’s crimes are raised in the Goldstone report and are being condemned by other international organizations. “H&M contributes to a shift of focus from Israel’s war crimes to that of fashion, investments and commerce,” says Dror Feiler. 

Related posts:

Huffpo reports on Texas Education Board approving far-right curriculum changes:

Conservative Republican Terri Leo, a member of the powerful Christian conservative voting bloc, called the standards "world class" and "exceptional."

Board members argued about the classification of historic periods (still B.C. and A.D., rather than B.C.E. and C.E.); whether students should be required to explain the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its impact on global politics (they will); and whether former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir should be required learning (she will)…

Conservatives beat back multiple attempts to include hip-hop as an example of a significant cultural movement.

Numerous attempts to add the names or references to important Hispanics throughout history also were denied, inducing one amendment that would specify that Tejanos died at the Alamo alongside Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie. Another amendment deleted a requirement that sociology students "explain how institutional racism is evident in American society."

Thanks to Saleema Gul.

Related posts:

Rep. Dennis Kucinich's proposal to withdraw from Afghanistan was debated, heatedly, for hours in the House of Representatives on Wednesday. After the debate, dozens of Representatives cast their vote to end the war immediately. This was an unprecedented event in the history of the conflict, now in its ninth year.

Think about that for a moment: an unprecedented event, on the floor of the House, going on for hours, involving a question of supreme national importance. Regardless of one's position on the issue, is this not the very definition of "news"? But on Thursday morning, you could search high and low on the front pages (print and web) of both the New York Times and the Washington Post -- our national arbiters of serious newsworthiness -- yet find no mention whatsoever of this event. This, even though the web fronts -- unlike the paper versions -- contain headlines for dozens of stories, including sections devoted entirely to Washington politics.

You would have had to know about the debate already -- or else trawl diligently through piles of pixels or print -- to reach the small stories that our papers of record deigned to release on the subject. No ordinary newspaper reader -- someone who has a more than passing interest in current events but also has a life to live -- would even know that such a debate took place, much less learn anything about the powerful arguments against the war delivered on the floor of the national legislature. That is to say, it is entirely possible that a reasonably informed and engaged citizen of the Republic would not even be aware that dozens of elected officials at the highest level of government voiced their support for the most radical position on the war: immediate withdrawal.

But such is the way of our imperial system. Our ruling class does not want the citizenry to know there are any alternatives to the grand bipartisan consensus on the true aims of government: servicing the needs of Militarism and Money. And so what cannot be ignored entirely is buried "certain fathoms in the earth ... deeper than did ever plummet sound."

And as we noted yesterday, our rulers are greatly assisted in these efforts by "savvy" progressives who constantly belittle anyone who actually challenges this stifling and disastrous status quo. Anything that goes beyond a bit of mild tinkering and "tweaking" at the margins of the system is rejected by our savvy progs as "unrealistic." The modern "progressive" ethos seems to boil down to this: You must take whatever little thrice-chewed tidbit of cud the elite is willing to dribble out onto your plate -- and be happy about it. That clump of green viscous slime known as the health care reform bill? Why, that's a "great progressive victory!" Didn't you know?

The sad, degraded, destructive state of the "left" in modern America is clearly shown by this vignette from Seth Ackerman, writing of how a previous generation confronted health care reform:

The last big, ambitious measure [in social legislation], Medicare, was a government-run single payer program that displaced or preempted private health insurance coverage for about one in ten Americans. That’s why the AMA, Ronald Reagan, and the nascent conservative movement spared no effort to decry it as socialism.

Yet none of that prevented Medicare from passing in 1965 with 13 out of 32 Senate Republicans voting in favor. Nor did it stop the bill from winning the support of half the senators from the Deep South (5 out of 10, or 7 out of 14, depending on whether you count Texas and Florida). And what about the Mark Pryors, Blanche Lincolns, Ben Nelsons, Mary Landrieus of the world? In 2009, we were told they fought the Senate bill’s mildly progressive elements because they represented states that are “obviously” too conservative to support even such tepid liberalism. But in 1965, three of the six senators from Arkansas, Louisiana, and Nebraska voted for or pledged support for single-payer Medicare, a.k.a socialism.

Today? Dennis Kucinich opposes the corporate-coddling health care boondoggle pushed by the White House -- and he is called an accomplice in mass death by progressive paladin Markos Moulitsas. Kos even levelled the most dread epithet in the entire progressive canon at Kucinich's opposition: "It's definitely a very Ralph Nader-esque approach .. a very unrealistic and self-defeating approach."

So this is where we've come to. Ralph Nader, who has spent decades fighting corporate power, often successfully (which is more than Kos can say), is now a figure of scorn and derision -- his very name a perjorative term -- among our leading "progressives."

And why? Because Nader dared to offer an alternative to the bipartisan consensus of Militarism and Money in the 2000 election. And this, according to the unrealistic and self-defeating mythology of serious progressives, is what threw the Florida vote -- and thus the election -- to George W. Bush. This fairy tale persists despite the fact that the recounts carried out by the media consortium after the election clearly showed that Al Gore received more votes than Bush in Florida, regardless of Nader's total. It was Al Gore and his fellow establishment Democrats who "threw" the election to George W. Bush by refusing to challenge the result in Congress, by refusing to confront the transparent fraud and corruption at the very heart of the political process, and to use the tools provided them by the Constitution to uphold the will of the electorate.

What they did uphold with their timidity, however, was the true governing system of the country: not the Constitution but the empire of military domination and unrestrained money power.  And this system is precisely what the timidity of our progressive paladins is upholding today. Or as that evil old devil Ralph Nader put it just last week:

The twin swelling heads of Empire and Oligarchy are driving our country into an ever-deepening corporate state, wholly incompatible with democracy and the rule of law.

Oh come on, Ralph! Democracy and the rule of law? Don't be so unserious! Don't be so unrealistic! Don't you like the taste of cud? Here, try a little spoonful, just a taste ... You'll soon get used to it --  just like the rest of us. 

Want to see what happens to you if you honestly oppose imperial war? Want to see what happens to you if you honestly oppose a horrendous corporate boondoggle that will effectively kill genuine health care reform for years, if not generations? This is what happens to you: The Liberal Case Against Dennis Kucinich.

Yes, if you stand up against endless, pointless, profiteering slaughter in foreign lands, if you stand up against an astonishingly brazen, deeply dirty deal cut in the White House itself to enrich some of the most brutal, rapacious corporate sharks ever to feast, quite literally, on the bodies of nation's working people and the poor, then those Fightin' Progressives at Salon.com will come around and slap you with the cold, wet fish of their withering scorn.

They will join with the very model of a modern major general of the "Progressive Forces," Commander Kos his own self, to belittle you and denounce you -- no, not just denounce you, but accuse you, on national television, of being directly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans.

That's right; according to the Commander, if Dennis Kucinich dares to vote against whatever corporate blank check the bought-and-sold bagmen in Congress and the White House come up with to deliver millions of the poorest and most vulnerable Americans into the clutches of the health care and insurance conglomerates (which, as our Progressives themselves rightly remind us, are the ones with the real "death panels"), then Kucinich will be a mass murderer of Americans on a scale far outstripping the petty efforts of Al Qaeda and the Taliban during the long twilight struggle of our noble global Terror War.

And isn't it odd that these discrediting blasts from "the left" undermining Kucinich come just as his resolution for a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan is about to come up for debate on the House floor? Well, no, it's actually not odd at all; it is entirely predictable. The empire simply could not exist in its current form without the diligent self-policing of the "serious," "respectable" "left." They take great pains -- and inflict great pains -- in their efforts to mock and marginalize anyone who steps outside the narrow, suffocating boundaries of "savvy" Beltway gamesmanship. You cannot seriously oppose our empire of military dominion; you can only debate on the best, most "efficient" way to perpetuate it. You cannot seriously oppose the overwhelming sway of Big Money; you can only propose the mildest of mitigations of its depredations -- but only if Big Money agrees, of course.

The main thing you must be is savvy. You cannot be a real live Fightin' Progressive unless you know how to play the game. Look how the Commander's amen chorister at Salon, Alex Koppleman, drips sniffling scorn on Kucinich's legislative record: "of the 97 bills Kucinich has sponsored since taking office in 1997, only three have become law. Ninety-three didn't even make it out of committee." And even those three, Koppleman notes, were just silly little proclamations, of interest only to the hicks back in Kucinich's district somewhere out there in flyover land.

But just think what a howling pig circus the United States Congress has been during Kucinich's 13-year tenure in the House. Look around at the vast wreckage these poltroons have helped perpetrate, from the deregulation of the Bankster gangs to the imposition of draconian bankruptcy laws (championed by our super-progressive vice president) to the panicky, pants-wetting trashing of the constitution in the Patriot Acts and Military Commission Acts and Retroactive Immunity for Telecom Lawbreakers Act (supported by our super-progressive president) to support for the Hitlerian war crime of military aggression in Iraq (supported by our super-progressive secretary of state) to the redistribution of the nation's wealth (for generations) from working people and the poor to those same Banksters whose Congressionally-deregulated scams have plunged millions around the world into ruin.

This is only a fraction of an overall record of towering cupidity, stupidity and evil that almost beggars description. Why would anyone with even the slightest speck of honor or decency want to be considered a major, "savvy" contributor to such a legacy? And considering the conglomeration of political whores, bribe-takers, liars, warmongers, lackeys and outright lunatics that constitutes the bipartisan bulk of Congress, isn't it actually a badge of honor -- rather than a mark of shame -- for your legislation to be rejected by them?

Not for our "progressives." Koppelman's scorn for Kucinich's lack of "savvy" is palatable. His agreement with Kos's libel -- "holding people like Dennis Kucinich responsible for the 40,000 Americans that die each year from a lack of health care" -- is evident. The president who literally sold out genuine health care reform is not responsible. The Congress that concocted a series of hideous, confusing, corporate-crafted boondoggles that utterly reject the highly popular notion of a public option is not responsible. And evidently the dark, satanic mills of the health care, pharmaceutical and insurance industries are not responsible either.

No; Dennis Kucinich -- and "people like him" -- are responsible. Why? Because they cannot find it in their conscience to support what they fervently believe to be a harmful bill. This is their crime; to act according to their conscience on a piece of bad legislation that has somehow been elevated into a sacred totem, a holy grail by our respectable Fightin' Progressives. It doesn't matter what the Grail actually contains (or doesn't contain); all that matters is its symbolic significance as a great "victory" for our "progressive" president, and indeed, for all the progressive forces of our higher progressivism.

But what this "symbolic" victory will really do, of course, is lock into place -- for decades probably -- a rancid, corrupt and ill-serving system that will leave millions of the most vulnerable Americans at the untender mercy of corporate predators. However, if the bill were defeated, one could simply start all over -- with genuine reform this time.

But who wants that? It's too much like hard work. Symbolism is a lot easier than substance -- especially if you're a rootin', tootin', savvy, serious Fightin' Progressive. Anyway, symbolism is all you're gonna get from our imperial overlords. So you better just be happy with that little crumb. After all, as Commander Kos says, it's "a foot in the door." Who knows? If we all stay real serious and respectable, they just might throw us another little crumb somewhere down the line!

This, then, is what now passes for "the left" in America: snippy derision -- and thundering condemnation -- for anyone who dares suggest, even mildly, that a goddamn crumb is not good enough.
 

I'm working on another piece right now, but this excerpt from wise man William Blum is too good to pass up. This is from his latest "Anti-Empire Report," which you should sign up for today, if you don't already get it.

About half the states in the US require that a woman seeking an abortion be told certain things before she can obtain the medical procedure. In South Dakota, for example, until a few months ago, staff was required to tell women: "The abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being"; the pregnant woman has "an existing relationship with that unborn human being," a relationship protected by the U.S. Constitution and the laws of South Dakota; and a "known medical risk" of abortion is an "increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide." A federal judge has now eliminated the second and third required assertions, calling them "untruthful and misleading."

I personally would question even the first assertion about a fetus or an embryo being a human being, but that's not the point I wish to make here. I'd like to suggest that before a young American man or woman can enlist in the armed forces s/he must be told the following by the staff of the military recruitment office:

"The United States is at war [this statement is always factually correct]. You will likely be sent to a battlefield where you will be expected to do your best to terminate the lives of whole, separate, unique, living human beings you know nothing about and who have never done you or your country any harm. You may in the process lose an arm or a leg. Or your life. If you come home alive and with all your body parts intact there's a good chance you will be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Do not expect the government to provide you particularly good care for that, or any care at all. In any case, you may wind up physically abusing your spouse and children and/or others, killing various individuals, abusing drugs and/or alcohol, and having an increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide. No matter how bad a condition you may be in, the Pentagon may send you back to the battlefield for another tour of duty. They call this 'stop-loss'. Your only alternative may be to go AWOL. Do you have any friends in Canada? And don't ever ask any of your officers what we're fighting for. Even the generals don't know. In fact, the generals especially don't know. They would never have reached their high position if they had been able to go beyond the propaganda we're all fed, the same propaganda that has influenced you to come to this office."

Since for so many young people in recent years one of the determining factors in their enlistment has been the economy, this additional thought should be pointed out to them — "You are enlisting to fight, and perhaps die, for a country that can't even provide you with a decent job, or any job at all."