As events this week have proven, SCOTUS is too highly venerated. Their latest outrage is the decree that 'corporations are people' and may spend as much money as they like in order to get their stooges into public office.
It is the worst decision since Bush v Gore which was, at the time, compared to Dred-Scott, a decision which in 1857, seven out of nine Supreme Court Justices declared that no slave or descendant of a slave could be a U.S. citizen. As a non-citizen, the court stated, Dred Scott had no rights whatsoever and could not sue in a Federal Court! The court ruled that he must remain a slave.
The court was wrong then. It was wrong again with Bush v Gore! The court is wrong now, dead wrong! Corporations are not people and should, by right, have... (continue)
by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
As events this week have proven, SCOTUS is too highly venerated. Their latest outrage is the decree that 'corporations are people' and may spend as much money as they like in order to get their stooges into public office.
It is the worst decision since Bush v Gore which was, at the time, compared to Dred-Scott, a decision which in 1857, seven out of nine Supreme Court Justices declared that no slave or descendant of a slave could be a U.S. citizen. As a non-citizen, the court stated, Dred Scott had no rights whatsoever and could not sue in a Federal Court! The court ruled that he must remain a slave.
The court was wrong then. It was wrong again with Bush v Gore! The court is wrong now, dead wrong! Corporations are not people and should, by right, have no rights whatsoever and should, by right, exist as long as the people may find them useful or tolerable. Of late, their venal behavior and the wars of naked aggression that are fought on their behalf alone have become intolerable. It is time to reassess the status that is given both the Supreme Court and to the corporations. Perhaps both institutions should be not so gently reminded that 'we the people' are sovereign. 'We the people' are the boss'. 'We the people' have financed this farce with our moneys! 'We the people' demand a change NOW! Perhaps a real revolution will consider extensive reforms in the one case or abolition in another. Revolution now! Even Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes blew it when he failed to defend Eugene Debs' rights of free speech. He compared Debs' statements in opposition to US entry into WWI to 'yelling fire in a crowded theatre'. But if there really is a fire, yelling fire seems to me to be the prudent thing to do! Seems to me that the venerable Justice Holmes made a cute but glaringly invalid analogy! Seems to me that true patriots have not only a right but a moral responsibility to oppose their nation's entry into foolhardly, vainglorious wars of naked aggression. It seems to me prudent that we demand an open, free and fair debate.
Otherwise, wars will continue to be fought by the poor for the benefit of the rich and the military-industrial complex which divides the spoils of war among Dick Cheney's oil buddies and the other 'paid thugs' like Blackwater who hide behind the monicker --'defense contrctors'.
For eons wars have been fought for booty! That's why the US fights them today. The booty du jour is oil! To deny one the right to oppose those wars --as Holmes denied Eugene Debs --is a recipe for military dictatorship.
St. Thomas More would have called the Military-Industrial complex and their shills on K-street a "conspiracy of rich men to procure their commodities in the name and title of the commonwealth!" [See: Thomas More, Utopia] This is why wars have been waged throughout the ages! If Holmes were alive, I will tell him that it is wrong NOT to yell fire in a crowded theater if the theater is, indeed, on fire! At this moment in our history, the American republic is threatened, and among those threatening it is the US Supreme Court itself!
I am yelling FIRE, FIRE, FIRE!
In his remarkably undistinguished 20-year stint as a Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas has rarely called attention to himself for original jurisprudential thinking. But if Thomas had had his way with Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, in which the court decided this week to remove critically important limits on campaign financing, an already horrible decision would have been made far, far worse. Crazy worse.Thomas went along with the majority in agreeing that corporations and unions can once more be permitted to spend freely on political issues, thus driving a stake through the heart of the democratic process in the United States. But he dissented in part, because he didn't think the ruling went far enough. Specifically, he argued that the court was wrong to continue requiring that the sponsors of political advertising disclose who paid for them.That's right. Thomas came out against the principle of transparency, and for the right of corporations to spend millions of dollars to influence public policy without having to tell anyone what they were up to. It's hard to imagine a less democratic stance.Thomas did have his reasons, however. He blamed the gays. In the heated war over Proposition 8 in California, he wrote, any individual who contributed as little as $100 in favor of the ban on same-sex marriage was required to disclose his or her name and address to the public, and thus opened themselves up to harassment.--This Week in Crazy: Clarence Thomas
Why I moderate commentsSPAM: 'comments' that link to junk, 'get rich' schemes, scams, and nonsense! These are the worst offenders. Ad hominem attacks: 'name calling' and 'labeling'. That includes the ad hominem: 'truther' or variations!
Also see: A Spiritual Mind MovieAbolish Corporate Personhood How the US Became a Vassal State of China Terrorism is Worse Under GOP Regimes The US Army Document That Proves the US is the World's Number One Sponsor of World TerrorismDissecting the Scrambled Brains of the GOP Why the CIA is the World's Number One Terrorist Organization [w/LINKS]Why the CIA is the World's Number One Terrorist Organization [PDF]How the GOP Pays Off its 'Base' of Elites Published Articles on Buzzflash.netSubscribeAdd to GoogleAdd Cowboy Videos to GoogleSpread the word HOME(show less)
A highly unusual ruling by Lord Hutton, who chaired the inquiry into Dr Kelly’s death, means medical records including the post-mortem report will remain classified until after all those with a direct interest in the case are dead, the Mail on Sunday reported.
And a 30-year secrecy order has been placed on written records provided to Lord Hutton’s inquiry which were not produced in evidence.
The Ministry of Justice said decisions on the evidence were a matter for Lord Hutton. But Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, who has conducted his own investigations into Dr Kelly’s death, described the order as “astonishing”.
[snip]
One of the doctors seeking a full inquest, former assistant coroner Michael Powers, told the Mail on Sunday he had seen a letter ... (continue)
Jeebus. Larisa just pointed me to this.
A highly unusual ruling by Lord Hutton, who chaired the inquiry into Dr Kelly’s death, means medical records including the post-mortem report will remain classified until after all those with a direct interest in the case are dead, the Mail on Sunday reported.
And a 30-year secrecy order has been placed on written records provided to Lord Hutton’s inquiry which were not produced in evidence.
The Ministry of Justice said decisions on the evidence were a matter for Lord Hutton. But Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, who has conducted his own investigations into Dr Kelly’s death, described the order as “astonishing”.
[snip]
One of the doctors seeking a full inquest, former assistant coroner Michael Powers, told the Mail on Sunday he had seen a letter from the legal team of Oxfordshire County Council explaining the unusual restrictions placed by Lord Hutton on material relating to his inquiry.
The letter states: “Lord Hutton made a request for the records provided to the inquiry, not produced in evidence, to be closed for 30 years, and that medical (including post-mortem) reports and photographs be closed for 70 years.”
This is just ridiculous. David Kelly has an email exchange in which Judy Miller–fresh off having been leaked Valerie Plame’s identity by the Vice President’s right hand man–saying:
Judy: I heard from another member of your fan club that things went well for you today [with the inquiry]
Kelly: I will wait until the end of the week before judging–many dark actors playing games.
He then dies in what is pretty thinly disguised as a suicide. And now we find out that the guy who certified that bogus suicide claim ordered that all the documentation pertaining to it be sealed until we’re all dead? Really?!?!?
I’ll add one more thing to Larisa’s timeline. One of the things that happened in one of Ari Fleischer’s last briefings (trying to look for it now) is that he was informed by reporters that Tony Blair would be coming for a visit–Fleischer, apparently, had not been told about what was apparently a last minute trip. Which had the effect of–just days after Plame’s identity was leaked and on the day Kelly was suicided–having Blair and Bush having a last minute visit together.
Just in case he needed to be out of town, you know.
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NATO's international Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed on Friday that explosions have claimed the lives of five US soldiers in war-torn Afghanistan over the past 24 hours.
INTERNATIONAL POLITICS: HAITI AND AID: While it is hardly a major subject of conversation on the television news, being as it can't be reduced to a ten second sound bite, the idea that the aid that is being provided to the Haitian people by the international community is chaotic and very much ineffective is beginning to become more and more obvious. The fact that the death toll has been so high and the aid efforts have been so hampered very much because of previous "aid" is also beginning to show up more and more, even in the mainstream press. Haiti hardly needs the sort of "aid" that created the preconditions for the recent tragedy.
Here are four articles, each of them exploring a different aspect of this question. First of all, from the most recent edition of the medical journa... (continue)
INTERNATIONAL POLITICS: HAITI AND AID: While it is hardly a major subject of conversation on the television news, being as it can't be reduced to a ten second sound bite, the idea that the aid that is being provided to the Haitian people by the international community is chaotic and very much ineffective is beginning to become more and more obvious. The fact that the death toll has been so high and the aid efforts have been so hampered very much because of previous "aid" is also beginning to show up more and more, even in the mainstream press. Haiti hardly needs the sort of "aid" that created the preconditions for the recent tragedy.
Here are four articles, each of them exploring a different aspect of this question. First of all, from the most recent edition of the medical journal The Lancet, a source hardly noted for being salivating radicals. HHHHHHHHHHHHHH Growth of aid and the decline of humanitarianism: Original TextThe Lancet Picture the situation in Haiti: families living on top of sewage-contaminated rubbish dumps, with no reliable sources of food and water and virtually no access to health care. This scenario depicts the situation in Haiti before the earthquake that catapulted this impoverished and conflict-ridden country into the international headlines. Now the latest target of humanitarian relief, international organisations, national governments, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are rightly mobilising, but also jostling for position, each claiming that they are doing the most for earthquake survivors. Some agencies even claim that they are “spearheading” the relief effort. In fact, as we only too clearly see, the situation in Haiti is chaotic, devastating, and anything but coordinated.
Much is being said elsewhere about the performance and progress of relief efforts in Haiti. It is crucial that the immediate needs of the Haitian people are urgently met. But it is scandalous that it took a seismic shift in tectonic plates for Haiti to earn its place in the international spotlight. Political rhetoric is familiar: domestic and international point-scoring during times of crisis and disaster is a common game played by many governments and politicians. But this dangerous and immoral play has many losers, especially since the rules include judging the needs of desperate people according to subjective perceptions of worth.
For example, just think back 5 years to the dismal international response to the catastrophic earthquake in Pakistan. Additionally, over the past 2 weeks alone, flooding has displaced 30 000 people in Kenya and 4000 people in Albania, and in Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Somalia hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by further fighting. All international agencies, including the World Food Programme, have recently withdrawn from Somalia—one of the most violent countries in the world with a population size similar to Haiti. It is unimaginable that international agencies and national governments might one day compete for attention in leading a Somali humanitarian relief effort. The reasons for their current inaction are most un-humanitarian.
We have repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that when viewed through the distorted lens of politics, economics, religion, and history, some lives are judged more important than others—a situation not helped by the influence of news media, including ourselves. This regrettable situation has resulted in an implicit hierarchy of crisis situations further influenced by artificial criteria, such as whether disasters are natural or man-made. As this week's special issue on violent conflict and health shows,* the health needs of people affected by conflict are repeatedly neglected.
Politicians and the media make easy targets for criticism. But there is another group involved in disaster relief, which has largely escaped public scrutiny—the aid sector, now undoubtedly an industry in its own right. Aid agencies and humanitarian organisations do exceptional work in difficult circumstances. But some large charities could make their good work even better. The Lancet has been observing aid agencies and NGOs for several years and has also spoken with staff members working for major charities. Several themes have emerged from these conversations. Large aid agencies and humanitarian organisations are often highly competitive with each other. Polluted by the internal power politics and the unsavoury characteristics seen in many big corporations, large aid agencies can be obsessed with raising money through their own appeal efforts. Media coverage as an end in itself is too often an aim of their activities. Marketing and branding have too high a profile. Perhaps worst of all, relief efforts in the field are sometimes competitive with little collaboration between agencies, including smaller, grass-roots charities that may have have better networks in affected counties and so are well placed to immediately implement emergency relief.
Given the ongoing crisis in Haiti, it may seem unpalatable to scrutinise and criticise the motives and activities of humanitarian organisations. But just like any other industry, the aid industry must be examined, not just financially as is current practice, but also in how it operates from headquarter level to field level. It seems increasingly obvious that many aid agencies sometimes act according to their own best interests rather than in the interests of individuals whom they claim to help. Although many aid agencies do important work, humanitarianism is no longer the ethos for many organisations within the aid industry. For the people of Haiti and those living in parallel situations of destruction, humanitarianism remains the most crucial motivation and means for intervention. HHHHHHHHHHHHHH Here is a view from Haiti itself of what has to be done in the short and medium term. Once more perception is important. One can read articles in the mainstream press about the urgent need to "rebuild the government of Haiti". Other articles will point out that "this is the last thing that Haitians need", given the fact that government in Haiti has usually, at best, been an inefficient kleptocracy and at worst positively murderous in the service of foreign interests. Aside from the brief reign of Aristide, overthrown with US connivance, there hasn't been a reform minded government in that country for over a century.
Perception ! What is greatly reported are outbreaks of violence. What is greatly underreported were the great efforts of ordinary Haitians in the hours and days after the quake to self-organize and provide shelter and what few provisions that could be found to each other, a job that the international forces weren't doing. What was truly horrifying was to see and hear of the remains of the Haitian police (probably working under private contracts) protecting property from so-called "looters" ie those scavenging in the ruins for anything that might be of use to the traumatized citizenry. Food and water were not being dropped from the skies. The only source of such was the ruins that these so-called "looters" were searching in. It is horrifying enough to thing that someone might be killed by the mercenaries for a case of bottled water. It is even more horrifying to see the media glorify the murderers and slander the scavengers.
The following is originally from the Grassroots International Network. The following version comes from the Anarkismo website. HHHHHHHHHHHHHH Relief and Solidarity -views from the progressive sector in Haiti: by Camille Chalmers - PAPDA Note- The following views expressed by Camille Chalmers of the Plateforme Haïtienne de Plaidoyer pour un Développement Alternatif (PAPDA) in our opinion represent a good starting point to think of a comprehensive strategy of solidarity with the Haitian people, now suffering terribly by the earthquake and the completely inefficient relief thus provided, that has translated more than anything in a deeper occupation and militarization of Haiti.
Translation of correspondence from Camille Chambers of the Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development (PAPDA) - courtesy Grassroots International.
[PAPDA is a coalition of nine Haitian popular and non-governmental organizations which work with the Haitian popular movement to develop alternatives to the neo-liberal model of economic globalization]
January 15, 2010 Communication has been very difficult.
I inform you that my partner, children, and I are alive. My house and everything we had were totally destroyed, and personally the most serious [loss] is that my wife’s mother died in the catastrophe.
The situation is dramatic. Three million homeless. An entire country crying. Over 100,000 dead. Hundreds of thousands injured and dead bodies everywhere. The entire population is sleeping in the streets and waiting for replies to their pleas and more blows…
The response from the State is very weak, almost absent. The 9,000 UN troops are not doing anything to help people. The majority of people have been without medical assistance for 48 hours because the largest hospitals in the capital were also damaged and are not functional. Firefighters are also completely powerless because their station is buried and they are overwhelmed by the scale of the catastrophe.
In such extreme cases there are three important elements: -Coordinated emergency assistance -Rehabilitation -Structural solidarity 1) Drinking water, food, clothing, temporary shelter, basic medical supplies. Treat the wounded in make-shift hospitals that would hopefully be established in all the neighborhoods. Get people out from underneath the remains of buildings. Fight epidemics and the risk of epidemics and disease due to the presence of piles of corpses. 2) Credible mechanisms for coordination, a crisis committee for scientific assessment and monitoring of the situation, and coordination of aid and its distribution with intelligence and transparency to ensure that victims receive help as quickly as possible. Be in permanent communication with the population about instructions as to what to do. 3) Rehabilitation: recover and repair communications and all infra-structure, especially transportation within and between cities. 4) Structural solidarity: activities and investments that will allow people to rebuild their lives in better conditions. It is time for a great wave of solidarity brigades with the people of Haiti other than the misery and characteristic aggression represented by MINUSTAH (the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti). Instead, we need a broad movement of solidarity between peoples that makes it possible to: a) Overcome illiteracy (45% of the population) b) Build an effective public school system that is free and that respects the history, culture, and ecosystem of our country c) Overcome the environmental crisis and rebuild Haiti’s 30 watersheds with the massive participation of young people and international volunteers d) Construct a new public health system which brings together modern and traditional medicine and offers quality, affordable primary services to 100% of the population to overcome child mortality, malnutrition, and maternal mortality (currently 630 women per 100,000 live births)e) Reconstruct a new city based on different logic: humane and balanced urbanization, respect for workers and the real wealth creators, privileging public transportation, parks that maximize our biodiversity, scientific research, urban agriculture, handicrafts and the popular arts. f) Construct food sovereignty based on comprehensive agrarian reform, prioritizing agricultural investments that respect ecosystems, biodiversity, and the needs and culture of the majority. g) Destroy the dependency ties with Washington, the European Union, and other forms of imperialism. Abandon policies issued by different versions of the Washington Consensus. Cut ties with the International Financial Institutions and their plans: structural adjustment, the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, and Post-Conflict Countries. h) Expel MINUSTAH and build solidarity people to people brigades. HHHHHHHHHHHHHH As was said above the roots of why the disaster was so overwhelming go deep into the history of Haiti. Here's an article from the Grassroots International that explores some of this question. HHHHHHHHHHHHHH Haiti: Roots of Liberty -- Roots of Disaster: By Nikhil Aziz January 21st, 2010 Grassroots International ally Food First's executive director Eric Holt-Jimenez wrote recently -- on HuffPost -- on the long roots of the disaster in Haiti. His point about the "historic bleeding of Haiti's economy and the systematic undermining of its political institutions" being at the root of the disaster as much as the "tectonics that leveled Port-au-Prince" is right on the mark. Grassroots' partners and allies in Haiti have long struggled against that bleeding and undermining, and fought for better Haitian and international policies on agriculture, trade, and food that would sustain their people, and their land. Their current and long-term efforts for relief and rebuilding continue to be infused by that vision and those strategies.
"In overthrowing me, you have cut down in Saint-Domingue only the tree of liberty. It will spring up again by the roots for they are numerous and deep." Toussaint L'Ouverture
The leader of Haiti's historic slave rebellion probably had a good idea of just how vicious the colonial powers could be. He knew they would use all of their political and military muscle to kill the roots of the modern world's first black republic. But L'Ouverture could never have imagined the chain of human tragedies that would follow these vengeful acts of political and economic terrorism. He would never have imagined the national disaster following last week's devastating earthquake.
This is an important point: the disaster, in which hundreds of thousands of Haitians may eventually perish, was unleashed by the 7.0 earthquake. An earthquake is simply a natural hazard that in and of itself may or may not result in disaster. A disaster is a phenomenon in waiting that explodes on the scene when a hazard overwhelms people's ability to anticipate, cope, resist, and recover from a natural hazard because of their high level of vulnerability. When vulnerability is low, a hazard has little or no effect. When it is high, disasters are severe. The mounting death toll in Haiti--due to the exceptionally high level of vulnerability of its people--is a tragic testament to the historic bleeding of Haiti's economy and the systematic undermining of its political institutions, These factors--just as much as the tectonics that leveled Port-au-Prince--are the roots of the disaster.
At a time when governments and international relief organizations are desperately attempting to provide rescue, medical care, water, food and shelter to earthquake victims it would seem inappropriate to ask how the country ever became so vulnerable. However, for relief and recovery efforts to be truly effective and sustainable, they must be sure not to reproduce the same vulnerable conditions that contributed to the horrific magnitude of the disaster in the first place.
This week's media reports were interspersed with references to the devastating and interminable reparations imposed on Haiti by France for the loss of "property" following the successful rebellion that drove French slave-owners from the island in 1804. Some stories go so far as to follow Haiti's chronic debt straight through the U.S. military occupation of 1915-1934 into the 30-year Duvalier kleptocracy. A few even trace the debt trail right up to the Structural Adjustment Programs imposed by the International Monetary Fund in the mid-1980s and continuing through the 1990s, implemented by the Haitian government of Preval until the time of the earthquake.
This is where the telling tends to diffuse into the blogosphere... Because while it is safe to assume that no more economic reparations will be extorted from Haiti for having become the second republic in the hemisphere (they finally paid the French off in 1947 to the tune of $2.7 billion in current dollars), it is not safe to say that Haitian reconstruction will be free from the current machinations of the IMF, the World Bank and northern corporations that may see in the Haitian earthquake an investment opportunity.
Remember the global food riots of 2008? They started in Haiti when people were surviving on mud cookies while abundant (but expensive) food stocked the shelves. They angrily rebelled against an unjust food system and threw the prime minister out of office. This food rebellion was a direct result of the IMF's programs--implemented under U.S. tutelage--that slashed tariffs, closed state-owned industries, opened the agricultural market to U.S. producers and cut spending on agriculture by 30% in Haiti's fertile, rice-producing Artibonite Valley. Rice and other imports, particularly highly subsidized U.S. agricultural products, immediately flooded the Haitian market. In 1987, Haiti met 75% of its rice needs through domestic production. Today, of the 400,000 tons of rice consumed in Haiti each year, three-quarters consists of "Miami Rice"--the Haitian nickname for the cheap U.S. taxper subsidized rice sold at half the price of local grain.
In 1991 Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was removed in a military coup. As a condition for supporting his return, the U.S., IMF and World Bank required that he further open up the Haitian economy to foreign trade. Haitian tariffs on rice were reduced from 35% to 3%, the lowest in the Caribbean region, and government funding was diverted away from agricultural development to servicing the nation's foreign debt. Without government support or protection, Haitian farmers were in no position to compete with their highly subsidized U.S. counterparts. Subsidies for rice producers in the U.S. totaled approximately $1.3 billion in 2003 alone, amounting to more than double Haiti's entire budget for that year.¹
Haiti's economy was to be predicated on a shift from agriculture to manufacturing. Since the 1980s, the economic strategy pursued by USAID and the international financial institutions has been to capitalize on Haiti's cheap labor to increase exports in manufactured goods and agricultural "dessert" products like mangoes and coffee. The idea was to generate revenue to service Haiti's unpayable debt. This strategy flopped. Instead, Haiti experienced massive rural to urban migration, blinding poverty, unemployment and an explosion of urban slums. It is precisely the people living in these slums that have borne the brunt of the disaster. This is the man-made result of massive, unplanned and reckless urbanization.
Reports are that droves of people are leaving Port-au-Prince for the countryside in search of food and shelter. Though damage was not as extensive in Haiti's rural communities, many houses have fallen and some roads are un-passable. Little or no aid is reaching people outside Port-au Prince, so Haiti's local organizations and networks, like the Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development (PAPDA) , the National Congress of Papaye Peasant Movement (MPNKP), the Kordinasyon Rejyonal Oganysasyon Sides (KROS),Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen (TK), and the Peasant Movement of Papaye (MPP) have stepped forward providing first aid, water, food and shelter. These are the same grassroots development organizations that came together to support reconstruction after Haiti's disastrous 2008 hurricane season.
With a shift in development strategies, Haiti's farmers could feed and provide employment to scores of displaced people. Mobilizing and organizing even in the midst of their own shock and suffering, the energy, compassion and creativity of the Haitians themselves shows us what it will take to successfully implement relief and reduce Haiti's grinding vulnerability. The history of foreign intervention in Haiti has created a dangerous dependence on the global market. The success of relief and reconstruction efforts in Haiti will depend in the short and long term on rebuilding its food system as an engine for local economic development. This task requires a commitment to food sovereignty, the democratization of the food system in favor of the poor. Aid can nourish the roots of disaster or the roots of liberty. The future of Haiti's brave but beleaguered people depends on making sure it does the latter. HHHHHHHHHHHHHH Finally, here's an even more extensive exploration of the roots of Haiti's present crisis, once more from the Anarkismo website, including more on the tasks ahead of how to rebuild the country-the right way this time. HHHHHHHHHHHHHH The reconstruction of Haiti: The missionaries of the rifle and the chequebook: “The geography In Chicago, there is nobody that is not black. In midwinter, in New York the sun fries even the stones. In Brooklyn, the people who are alive at the age of 30 deserve a statue. The best houses in Miami are made of rubbish. Pursued by rats, Mickey flees Hollywood. Chicago, New York, Brooklyn, Miami and Hollywood are the names of some of the neighbourhoods in Cité Soleil , the most miserable shantytown of Haiti’s capital.”( Eduardo Galeano ) The “Civilizing Mission” of the U.S in Haiti “The gangs are in control now” say the sensationalist headlines of some newspapers on the desperate situation in Haiti, the country that completely collapsed last week. [1] While the mass media feeds us a diet of hysterical news about a country supposedly at the mercy of criminal gangs who are terrorising the poor citizens and threatening the humanitarian aid efforts of the West, the reality appears to be quite different. It is true that some 3,000 prisoners have escaped from prison in Port-au-Prince after its collapse, many of whom are quite dangerous, having been trained in the school of gangs in the US suburbs. It is also true that there have been some clashes with elements of the security forces and the UN due to the natural exasperation of the people who see the help blocked by a network of inefficiency and indolence [2]. These clashes, however, appear to have been rather bounded and restricted, and aside from being perfectly understandable in the context of absolute abandonment in which the population have found themselves, they have been magnified by the media: the feeling that seems to prevail in the population is Solidarity [3].
I do not think, personally, that this media frenzy is so innocent or a case of mere sensationalism. Precisely at a time when these articles occupy the front pages of American and European press, hordes of U.S troops were beginning to arrive, as part of a contingent of 10,000 personnel from the U.S military Southern Command that Obama has decided to deploy to Haiti, allegedly as part of the humanitarian efforts of the “international community”. However, after stepping on Haitian soil on Saturday 16th January, they have come to realise that their role will go beyond purely humanitarian work and that, after heeding the call of Haitians, the can take charge of security. The U.S role in “security” has been openly accepted and it has assumed control of the airport in Port-au-Prince, released by the puppet government of Préval. It would not be surprising if this was the first step in the occupation of ports and other strategic centres of communication.
Obviously, all of this seems to be done as part of an international humanitarian effort and that a measure of force is necessary in order to discipline the savages who kill each other for a packet of rice. The truth is that all imperialist interventions have always shown a humanitarian garb. Never has an imperialist government occupied, looted or bombed a country arguing merely the rights of the strong. Haiti is on the threshold of Florida and the heart of Uncle Sam was moved to see so much barbarism on his own back door. This is not something new: In 1915 Haiti was also gripped in chaos and the “Northern benefactor” had to intervene to spread a bit of civilization to the enraged people. That other "humanitarian" intervention occurred because during one of the frequent rebellions, Haitian dictator Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam had to take refuge at the French consulate. But he was taken by a crazed mob that lynched and dismembered him, carrying the remains of his body in a macabre procession across the capital. Faced with the horror, the United States were called upon to fulfil its "civilizing" mission, after which they proceeded to occupy the country from the day after the lynching until ... 1934!
Digging a little at the surface of this “official” story there are many elements that do not match up with the official version of this “humanitarian” occupation. It is rarely mentioned that the lynched dictator was a close ally of the U.S, where in the context of the First World War he sought to reinforce U.S interests against Germany, since the latter had opened itself and important space in Haiti to control much of Haiti’s wealth (trade and financial transactions etc.). Neither did it mention the geo-strategic interest of the U.S to consolidate its "backyard" after achieving absolute hegemony after the Spanish - American war of 1898. Much less is mentioned of the fact that the dictator had ordered, the day before he was killed, the slaughter of 167 political prisoners. Neither did it mention that among the measures taken in this “civilising” process (ie. occupation), was the control over the Haitian banking system and customs, the imposition of the 1919 Constitution, which allowed foreigners to acquire land in Haiti and other measures favourable to the interests of big business –thus paving the way for the US agribusiness. We don’t hear either that in other to build infrastructure to favour these big businesses the US introduced a form of slavery in the form of corvée, or forced labour. We don’t hear either of the effects of this occupation: the birth of an army that since the US left formally the island until 1995, when it was dissolved, they didn’t do anything but slaughter civilians and promote dictatorial governments; an extremely atrophied economic structure, modelled upon the narrowest interests of imperialist capitalism; the creation of a centralist autocratic State that paved the way for the later Duvalier dictatorship [7].
All this, of course, was done in the name of restoring "peace and order." Now, once again, the U.S feels called upon to carry out their "civilising mission". U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, reminds us that their work is not intended to supplant the Haitian government but to support it. However, arbitrary decisions taken by the U.S. occupation forces in command of the airport, are delaying the humanitarian aid rather than speeding up distribution, which has already caused more than one protest from other international aid agencies [8]. Incidentally, while the planes carrying medical aid are delayed, no military flights have been delayed, which gives an approximation to the idea of "help" managed by the U.S.. Either way, this crisis allows the U.S. to strengthen its military presence in the Caribbean region precisely at a moment when they have reactivated the Fourth Fleet and turned Colombia into a hemispheric military platform.
Moreover it is not only the U.S who feels called upon to civilise Haiti. For some time now, many nations have seen it as their right to carry out this task. Some people tell military occupations in a somewhat Manichaean way, between “good” occupations like that of the U.N and “bad” occupations like that of the U.S. We can not forget that Haiti is a country that is under military occupation since 2004, under a mission of blue helmets known as MINUSTAH, whose supposed goal was to stabilize Haiti after the coup against President Jean Bertrand Aristide [9]. The UN mission has failed to "stabilize" Haiti, but has been quite successful in consolidating the absolute predominance of a tiny neo-Duvalierist oligarchy [10], established itself as the de facto army of the dictatorship post-coup, to murder opponents of the regime, terrorise any form of protest and engage in all sorts of abuses against the local population, including many cases of sexual abuse [11]. Also this mission has proven to be quite inefficient when carrying out humanitarian tasks, as demonstrated by the last hurricane season [12]. It is unknown to us then how it could be of any “help” to Haitian people when Ban Ki Moon announces that he is sending a further 3,500 new troops (2000 soldiers and 1500 police officers) of MINUSTAH to Haiti [13]. With a hunger for bread, it seems a diet of lead would be good. The “international community” keeps treating the Haitian people like a rabid dog to be kept at bay. The "humanitarian mission" of international financial organizations in Haiti Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said it would supply U.S. $ 100,000,000 to Haiti [14], with words we are led to believe that they also feel to be in sort of “mission” to Haiti. But (and with these things there's always a but) these funds would be added to the debt that has already accumulated in Haiti and the IMF are not yet clear on the conditions to be imposed on Haiti in exchange for this loan, which in the past have included freezing public sector wages, austerity programs as a means of controlling inflation and price increases of services like electricity, among others [15]. It is absolutely unacceptable to use this tragedy in one of the poorest countries in the world to force anti-popular policies or to further increase its foreign debt, which is a lucrative business which for centuries has extorted the Haitian people: Remember that between 1825-1947 Haiti was forced through the imposing of an embargo and diplomatic blockade lead by France , Britain and the U.S , to pay indemnities of 90 million francs to France, which at the end of the 19th century was a slice of no less than 80% of Haiti’s national budget. This indemnity would cover the cost of the French military campaign and the losses of the slave owners who were deprived not only of their property ( ie. their slaves), but also the possibility of profit at their expense [16]. When in April 2003 Aristide demanded that France return the money stolen shamelessly, he faced hostility and ridicule by the French government then led by Chirac. It is time to take this claim seriously.
These world powers do have a huge debt with Haiti, after three centuries of colonialism and post-colonialism the have left the country bankrupt. Considering this history, France's call to cancel Haiti's debt with the Paris Club, is clearly insufficient [17]. Not only is it not enough to simply cancel this extortionists’ debt, it is also important to make an act of historical justice and demand that France return the money fraudulently obtained by this indemnification. We must, for our part, demand absolute and unconditional cancellation of Haiti's external debt in all its forms, be it from the IMF, the Inter-American Development bank (IDB) or any other international financial institution (totalling about $ 1,000,000,000). This cancellation must be done without imposing any kind of economic or political conditions on Haiti: remember that this country has already qualified for the HIPC Initiative to reduce external debt of highly indebted developing countries, but this has not been effective because it calls for a series of neo-liberal measures which they already have not been able to meet [18]. A minimal sense of justice also demands that the powers and organisations that have caused the ruin of Haiti should be committed to effective assistance, without ulterior motives, transparent and based on grants, not new loans. We are not so deluded as to think that this will be achieved simply by appeals to the goodwill of the powerful. Therefore it is of paramount importance that we mobilise effective solidarity with Haiti, which lend a hand to Haitian grassroots organisations in the field, fighting for a new order as they remain vigilant so that this tragedy does not become a new mechanism to further deepen dependency and neo-colonialism. What kind of Haiti do we build? For an Ayiti built from below and suitable for living with dignity Haiti is in ruins. But it has been in ruins long before the earthquake. Already the "international community" had advanced this process of impoverishment through a deadly combination of economic sanctions, political blackmail in the form of loans and open looting, coupled with the MINUSTAH occupation. Haiti is nothing but the most dramatic result of a criminal model which has been implemented globally.
Already there are voices warning that Haiti should openly become a protectorate [19]. We refuse to believe that this should necessarily be the fate of Haiti. We refuse to believe that the fate of a brave, intelligent and fully able people should be that of charity, neo-colonialism or subhuman misery.
Haiti must be reconstructed from the rubble-and that requires not only mechanical shovels or financial assistance but political vision. It is on the latter that a dispute is being waged between two ideological projects in Haiti, two which have been living in a situation of declared combat for almost 50 years now: it is between those who want a Haiti built for the people, and those who want a Haiti built for rapacious capitalism, represented by their national and trans-national agents.The Haitian people and those who stand in solidarity with them, have to confront those who want who use this tragedy to rebuild the Haiti of the military occupation, the Haiti of the sweatshops and desolate fields, a Haiti where people starve and eat mud-cookies or a Haiti where makoutes[20] are still masters of the streets in the major cities. We do not want to rebuild the Haiti of the sex tourism industry, or the Haiti of the neo-Duvalierist oligarchy, or a Haiti of chronic illiteracy. Nor are we interested in re-building a Haiti where children die before they are men or women from all sorts of preventable diseases. That is the Haiti which the missionaries of the rifle and the chequebook want to build. That Haiti, the Haiti described by Eduardo Galeano through his insane “geography” will hopefully remain buried forever. The Haiti that we want to build with the people of Haiti should meet the conditions laid out by comrade Camille Chalmers of the Plateforme Haïtienne de Plaidoyer pour un Développement Alternatif ( The Haitian Platform for the Defence of an Alternative Development , PAPDA): "a) Overcome illiteracy (45% of the population) b) Build an effective public school system that is free and that respects the history, culture, and ecosystem of our country c) Overcome the environmental crisis and rebuild Haiti’s 30 watersheds with the massive participation of young people and international volunteers d) Construct a new public health system which brings together modern and traditional medicine and offers quality, affordable primary services to 100% of the population to overcome child mortality, malnutrition, and maternal mortality (currently 630 women per 100,000 live births)e) Reconstruct a new city based on different logic: humane and balanced urbanization, respect for workers and the real wealth creators, privileging public transportation, parks that maximize our biodiversity, scientific research, urban agriculture, handicrafts and the popular arts. f) Construct food sovereignty based on comprehensive agrarian reform, prioritizing agricultural investments that respect ecosystems, biodiversity, and the needs and culture of the majority. g) Destroy the dependency ties with Washington, the European Union, and other forms of imperialism. Abandon policies issued by different versions of the Washington Consensus. Cut ties with the International Financial Institutions and their plans: structural adjustment, the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, and Post-Conflict Countries. h) Expel MINUSTAH and build solidarity people to people brigades." [21]
This is not too much to ask, and Haitians deserve this and much more. In order to obtain this, the Haitian popular movement must decide openly and without sectarianism on a platform for a common and inclusive struggle. The liberation of the Haitian people will be conquered by the Haitian people themselves, thus building a better future, a new Ayiti* from below and for the people, not for capitalists. And we in the international solidarity movement, we are always willing to support them with our own solidarity. José Antonio Gutiérrez D. 18th January 2010 Translation C. Fitzpatrick * Ayiti is the name of Haiti in the language of the Haitians, kreyole. [1] See for instance, http://www.infobae.com/mundo/495896-101275-0-La-violenc...ayuda There are thousands of articles as this. [2] http://www.anarkismo.net/article/15538 [3] http://www.anarkismo.net/article/15546 [4] http://www.cjad.com/news/56/1052027 [5] “US Troops to Help Haiti’s Security, Aid Flows in” Andrew Cawthorne & Catherine Bremen, Reuters, 18 de Enero, 2010. [6] http://www.anarkismo.net/article/15539 [7] See Renda, Mary, "Taking Haiti", University of North Carolina Press, 2001, p.10; See also Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, "Haiti: State Against Nation", MR Press, 1990, pp.100-101 y Dupuy, Alex "Haiti in the World Economics", Westview Press, 1989, pp.131-133. [8] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralameric....html [9] For further information pleace check http://www.anarkismo.net/article/1063 and http://www.anarkismo.net/article/4651 [10] The Duvaliers where a dynasty of dictators that ruled Haiti from 1957-1986. [11] http://www.anarkismo.net/article/7616 [12] http://www.anarkismo.net/article/9797 [13] “Haiti Aid Security Boosted as Looters Swarm”, Andrew Cawthorne & Catherine Bremer, Reuters, 18 de Enero, 2010. [14] http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1420120920100114 [15] http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/517494/ [16] Ver Dupuy, op.cit., p.94 [17] http://www.rfi.fr/actuen/articles/121/article_6531.asp [18] http://www.jubileeusa.org/haiti/food/statement.html [19] http://www.anarkismo.net/article/15557 [20] Makoutes were the secret agents of the Duvaliers. [21] http://www.anarkismo.net/article/15559(show less)
AmericaBLOG's John Aravosis seems to have discovered a disturbing pattern. I really, really hope he's wrong -- but I wonder:
A day after former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe is elevated to a more senior adviser status at the White House and the DNC, Plouffe pens an op ed in the Washington Post in which he seems to suggest that much of President Obama's promise to ban pre-existing conditions is now being jettisoned. Plouffe wrote in the op ed, which was certainly cleared with the White House, if not written by them:
Parents won't have to worry their children will be denied coverage just because they have a preexisting condition.
Their children? The original promise - even the bad Senate bill - protects everyone, of any age, from being denied coverage because of pre-existing condi... (continue)
AmericaBLOG's John Aravosis seems to have discovered a disturbing pattern. I really, really hope he's wrong -- but I wonder:
A day after former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe is elevated to a more senior adviser status at the White House and the DNC, Plouffe pens an op ed in the Washington Post in which he seems to suggest that much of President Obama's promise to ban pre-existing conditions is now being jettisoned. Plouffe wrote in the op ed, which was certainly cleared with the White House, if not written by them:
Parents won't have to worry their children will be denied coverage just because they have a preexisting condition.
Their children? The original promise - even the bad Senate bill - protects everyone, of any age, from being denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Now it's just children?
And before anyone argues that Plouffe was simply using children as an example - that the legislation could still cover everyone - look at what else happened in the last two days. CBS News reported that the pre-existing conditions promise was now looking unlikely. But even worse, the NYT talked to folks on the Hill and health policy experts, and they were told the compromise package might just protect kids under the age of 19 from being denied for pre-existing conditions. No one else.
It would sure be one hell of a coincidence if Plouffe, on behalf of the White House, is now talking about kids being protected from pre-existing conditions when the growing chatter in town is that only kids may now be protected from pre-existing conditions - that the rest of us are about to get tossed under the Martha Coakley bus.
As Joe noted the other day, the pre-existing conditions promise, for "all Americans," was the top item on the Obama transition's health care reform page. So, in an effort to appease the masses, they're now considering gutting the one provision that everyone likes, the one provision that defines the legislation.
To turn to Bill Clinton and George Bush for help in Haiti is to ignore the harm that both of these leaders inflicted on this suffering country. It also constitutes one of President Barack Obama's most cynical acts. It was precisely in 1991 when the government of George H. Bush, the elder, supported the coup d'état against the legitimate populist president, Jean Bertrand Aristide. Aristide was intending to return dignity to his people through mild socioeconomic reforms, which Washington perceived as an uprising against global neo-liberalism.
However, Haitian resistance required the U.S. government, by then under Bill Clinton's control, to order its Marines to reinstall Aristide to power in 1994. But in order to chastise Haiti's disobedience to the neo-liberal economic plan imposed by th... (continue)
To turn to Bill Clinton and George Bush for help in Haiti is to ignore the harm that both of these leaders inflicted on this suffering country. It also constitutes one of President Barack Obama's most cynical acts. It was precisely in 1991 when the government of George H. Bush, the elder, supported the coup d'état against the legitimate populist president, Jean Bertrand Aristide. Aristide was intending to return dignity to his people through mild socioeconomic reforms, which Washington perceived as an uprising against global neo-liberalism.
However, Haitian resistance required the U.S. government, by then under Bill Clinton's control, to order its Marines to reinstall Aristide to power in 1994. But in order to chastise Haiti's disobedience to the neo-liberal economic plan imposed by the United States - which Haitians called the "plan of death" - Clinton declared an economic embargo to strangle the country, where more than 80 percent of the population lives in poverty and 54 percent survive on less than one dollar a day.
George W. Bush went even further when Aristide, who was re-elected in 2004, tried to create popular committees and form civil defense systems to prevent human tragedies during national disasters like the earthquake that devastated the country last week. Bush's hawks perceived this initiative as a "Communist threat that would endanger American national interests."(show less)
Latinoamérica - El mandatario criticó la manera como la nación norteamericana trata de vender una imagen humanitaria al mundo cuando lo que está es emprendiendo es una estrategia intervencionista. Ver más
In the weeks since the November election, the English language press has gone silent about the Honduran resistance. But that does not mean the Honduran resistance has disappeared. During a march in Tegucigalpa at the beginning of this month, Tiempo reported, some speakers called for the Frente to form a political movement or alternate political party. But this is not the main goal of the Resistance movement.
Inside Costa Rica reports that the National Resistance Front has called for marches on January 27 to protest the inauguration of Porfirio Lobo Sosa, whose projected administration is characterized as "the continuation of the dictatorship of the oligarchy." Anyone who was hoping that the inauguration of Lobo Sosa would end Honduran dissent will obviously find themselves disa... (continue)
In the weeks since the November election, the English language press has gone silent about the Honduran resistance. But that does not mean the Honduran resistance has disappeared. During a march in Tegucigalpa at the beginning of this month, Tiempo reported, some speakers called for the Frente to form a political movement or alternate political party. But this is not the main goal of the Resistance movement.
Inside Costa Rica reports that the National Resistance Front has called for marches on January 27 to protest the inauguration of Porfirio Lobo Sosa, whose projected administration is characterized as "the continuation of the dictatorship of the oligarchy." Anyone who was hoping that the inauguration of Lobo Sosa would end Honduran dissent will obviously find themselves disappointed.
The Frente stated that the goal of demonstrations is to "insist on the demand of a national constituent assembly, popular and democratic, to restore Honduras." This demand will not go away.
As in previous demonstrations in Tegucigalpa, the beginning point for the planned march there January 27 will be the Universidad Nacional Pedagogica. Marchers will apparently face increased security according to reports in pro-coup El Heraldo:
Álvarez affirmed that there will be strong security measures, with police and military agents, in ten cities of Honduras.
This presumably includes San Pedro Sula, the second-largest city in Honduras, site of a second march called for by the Resistance. Another report published by Heraldo, after describing security at the stadium where the inauguration will take place, commented that
It is planned to develop operations in the barrios and colonias of the capital, as well as in all the cities of the country. The Armed Forces have placed at the disposal more than 2700 members just for the capital. An equal number is that of the police. Special operations will be developed beginning in the next hours on all the frontiers of the country. In respect to the demonstrations, such as that programmed by the zelayists for the 27th of January, the police authorities reminded that, based on the Law of Co-existence, they should be notified with 24 hours of advance notice of the realization of the same and their trajectory.
(The Law referred to, for those who do not remember, was passed by the de facto regime in late October to restrict freedom of assembly that is guaranteed in the Honduran Constitution.)
What kinds of operations are planned for the barrios and colonias of Tegucigalpa-- far from the site of the ceremonial transfer of power, but the heart of the resistance that continued after the de facto regime imposed repeated curfews? what makes it necessary to deploy soldiers and anti-riot police in ten Honduran cities? If the new government were really so universally appreciated, what would be the need for continued repressive militarization?
Needless to say, confrontations with peaceful protestors by military and riot police would mar the attempt to portray the government of Lobo Sosa as the solution to the destruction of civil liberties by the de facto regime.
The decision on continued strategy, starting with the planned marches, was taken by the leaders of the Resistance last weekend. While El Heraldo would like to dismiss the Resistance marches as the work of "zelayistas", the National Resistance Front cannot be reduced to the supporters of any current political party or faction within one.
As reported by Prensa Latina, more than 80 leaders of the resistance, including Juan Barahona, Carlos H. Reyes, Rafael Alegría, Bertha Cáceres, and Carlos Eduardo Reina, conferred in Siguatepeque, a small city located on the main highway between Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. They reaffirmed the need to resist division along traditional lines of party loyalty, which have dominated Honduran politics.
While much of the English-language press has remained focused on the drama of negotiating a dignified exit for President Zelaya, and on the attempts to distance Lobo Sosa from Micheletti, it is arguable that what will ultimately be most significant for the possibility of effective political transformation in Honduras will be what happens with the Resistance.
On January 27, we will see whether the Resistance mobilizes a sufficiently visible presence to ensure that international media have to take note. (show less)
Yesterday Phillip Crowley said in the daily press briefing:
"In Honduras, we welcome de facto leader Micheletti’s decision to step down and see that as a positive step that will advance the process of national reconciliation in Honduras. And we look forward to working with the government of President-elect Lobo and note that important work remains to be done to reestablish democratic and constitutional order in Honduras, and we continue to – we will work with the new government in Honduras on full implementation of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accords."
First some context. This was part of a prepared statement Crowley read at the start of the press briefing, not an ad-libbed response to a question.
As the gentle reader will already know from our previous post on what Micheletti said in his an... (continue)
Yesterday Phillip Crowley said in the daily press briefing:
"In Honduras, we welcome de facto leader Micheletti’s decision to step down and see that as a positive step that will advance the process of national reconciliation in Honduras. And we look forward to working with the government of President-elect Lobo and note that important work remains to be done to reestablish democratic and constitutional order in Honduras, and we continue to – we will work with the new government in Honduras on full implementation of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accords."
First some context. This was part of a prepared statement Crowley read at the start of the press briefing, not an ad-libbed response to a question.
As the gentle reader will already know from our previous post on what Micheletti said in his announcement the other day, he did not step down or otherwise remove himself from power; he merely has removed himself from the public eye.
As if on cue, Micheletti popped up yesterday after the State Department statement hit the Honduran papers to reiterate he was still in control of the de facto government.
So why would the State Department make a statement perpetuating the inaccurate portrayal of Micheletti's actions? After all, major US newspapers quickly corrected their language to ensure readers knew Micheletti had not resigned. Are they just using sloppy language to describe what Micheletti's position is?
I think we can rule out the use of sloppy language. This was a written statement, not an answer to a question made in passing. Professional diplomats need to use language which conveys all the nuances of their position. The speaker, Phillip Crowley, who is Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, is a professional. As the public voice of the State Department, he would use precise language in formal statements to the press.
Likewise I believe we can rule out shoddy translation. In November, the State Department used a less misleading translation of the same words. Robert Wood, deputy department spokesman, in speaking about Micheletti's last "leave of absence" (his words) before the November election, was clear that the State Department understood the nature of Micheletti's statement. At the time the State Department made positive noises about it.
Wood said of that November action by Micheletti:
"Well, as I think many of you are aware, there was a statement made last night by Mr. Micheletti about taking a leave of absence. And we welcome that he is going to take a leave of absence and expect its prompt implementation."
Micheletti used the same language to describe the present "leave of absence" as the last one, so presumably the State Department fully comprehends what it entails, especially since they asked him to do it the first time, in November.
So why say that Micheletti "stepped down" when he did not? This advances the spin the State Department is trying to create to make it more acceptable for them to carry out their recognition of Porfirio Lobo Sosa as legitimate president of Honduras and return to the status quo, resuming US AID aid, and encouraging other governments and international lending institutions to resume aid and lending to Honduras.
In essence, the State Department is putting the best face on a bad situation. And Micheletti is not playing along.
The majority of world governments have made it a condition of recognition that Lobo Sosa not receive power from the illegitimate and unrecognized government of Roberto Micheletti.
With the statement that began this post, the State Department is creating confusion about whether that condition has been met. Crowley, by describing Micheletti's move as "stepping down", suggests that a condition the international community has insisted on for recognizing the new government in Honduras has been met, when it has not.(show less)
[Been meaning to translate this for several days- this is a newspaper correction from the same golpista anthropologists happily affiliated with the current incarnation of the illegally usurped Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History who want the AAA to carry out an ethics investigation on me for calling them golpistas. jeje.]
Originally (re-)posted at http://voselsoberano.com/
What are the IHAH golpistas afraid of? Why are they inaugurating the Museum of Morazán behind closed doors?
Tuesday January 19th, 2010 18:07
In relation to the article published in the "Connections" section of the El Heraldo newspaper on February 16th of the current year, in which it was announced that the Interinstitutional Directorate for the Establishment and Maintenance of the Casa Morazán has the honor... (continue)
[Been meaning to translate this for several days- this is a newspaper correction from the same golpista anthropologists happily affiliated with the current incarnation of the illegally usurped Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History who want the AAA to carry out an ethics investigation on me for calling them golpistas. jeje.]
Originally (re-)posted at http://voselsoberano.com/
What are the IHAH golpistas afraid of? Why are they inaugurating the Museum of Morazán behind closed doors?
Tuesday January 19th, 2010 18:07
In relation to the article published in the "Connections" section of the El Heraldo newspaper on February 16th of the current year, in which it was announced that the Interinstitutional Directorate for the Establishment and Maintenance of the Casa Morazán has the honor of inviting you to the inauguration of the Museum of the Casa de Morazán this January 20th at 7pm, the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History (IHAH) would like to clarify to the Honduran society that in effect the above-mentioned inauguration of the museum on January 20th will take place among the appropriate authorities, and will be open to the public beginning of February 15th of the current year.
Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History
Tegucigalpa M.D.C, January 18, 2010
¿A qué le temen los golpistas del IHAH? Por qué inagurarán el Museo de Morazán a puerta cerrada?
voselsoberano.com | Martes 19 de Enero de 2010 18:07
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En consideración a la publicación del diario El Heraldo, en el segmento CONEXIÓN con fecha 16 de enero del año en curso, en donde se publica que el Directorio Interinstitucional para el Establecimiento y Funcionamiento de la Casa Morazán, tiene el honor de invitarle a la inauguración del Museo, Casa de Morazán, este 20 de enero a las 7:00 p.m. El Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia (IHAH), aclara a la sociedad hondureña que en efecto la inauguración del museo antes mencionado será el 20 de enero con las autoridades competentes, y estará disponible al público a partir del 15 de febrero del presente año.
Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia
Tegucigalpa M.D.C, 18 de enero de 2010(show less)
Enviamos médicos y no soldados 23 Jan 2010Cubadebate En medio de la tragedia haitiana, sin que nadie sepa cómo y por qué, miles de soldados de las unidades de infantería de marina de Estados Unidos, tropas aerotransportadas de la 82 División y otras fuerzas militares han ocupado el territorio de Haití. Peor aún, ni la Organización de Naciones Unidas, ni el Gobierno de Estados Unidos han ofrecido una explicación a la opinión pública mundial de estos movimientos de fuerzas.
Nuestro país cumple una tarea estrictamente humanitaria. En la medida de sus posibilidades contribuirá con los recursos humanos y materiales que estén a su alcance. La voluntad de nuestro pueblo, orgulloso de sus médicos y cooperantes en actividades vitales, es grande y estará a la altura de las circunstancias.
Morocco: Bloggers Mourn Freedom of Expression 24 Jan 2010Hisham Nebrash Eshabab [Ar] is a Moroccan collective blogging platform. It published a call for Moroccan bloggers to “mourn freedom of expression in Morocco during a week, from 25 to 31 January,” in order to raise awareness about the deteriorating situation of free speech in the country.
Several sources are reporting Israeli troop concentrations at the border with Lebanon. That, combined with very bellicose statements of at least one Israeli minister are resulting in rumors about an imminent Israeli attack on Lebanon (Netanyahu already denied any such intentions).
I do not believe that the Israelis are about to attack Lebanon, and most definitely not with a ground operation.
The only circumstance in which I think that could happen is as part of a greater US-Israeli attack on Iran. From the Israeli point of view, striking at Hezbollah in Lebanon preemptively as part of a "active defense" of the Jews in Palestine would make sense.
So the real question is: are the USA and Israel about to strike at Iran?
I still believe that such an attack will happen sooner or later. Everyt... (continue)
Several sources are reporting Israeli troop concentrations at the border with Lebanon. That, combined with very bellicose statements of at least one Israeli minister are resulting in rumors about an imminent Israeli attack on Lebanon (Netanyahu already denied any such intentions).
I do not believe that the Israelis are about to attack Lebanon, and most definitely not with a ground operation.
The only circumstance in which I think that could happen is as part of a greater US-Israeli attack on Iran. From the Israeli point of view, striking at Hezbollah in Lebanon preemptively as part of a "active defense" of the Jews in Palestine would make sense.
So the real question is: are the USA and Israel about to strike at Iran?
I still believe that such an attack will happen sooner or later. Everything is pretty much in place for it and I am not aware of any indicators and warning which would indicate any further preparatory steps for such an attack. Unless, of course, we consider the current Israeli troop movements as exactly such an indicator.
I sure hope that the folks in Tehran are monitoring this very, very, carefully.
Continuing on the subject of Eli’s last post, it might be worthwhile to examine in more depth the burgeoning alliance between right-wing supporters of Israel and the European far right. The importance of this topic was driven home by the publication of a new Gallup poll on Americans’ attitudes towards various religions. The poll, which found that over half of Americans view Islam unfavorably, also found that “the strongest predictor of prejudice against Muslims is whether a person holds similar feelings about Jews.”
While the poll deals with the American rather than the European context, it is a reminder that Islamophobia and anti-Semitism have typically gone hand in hand. This is worth remembering when looking at the rise of European far-right leaders like Jean-Marie Le Pen of France a... (continue)
Continuing on the subject of Eli’s last post, it might be worthwhile to examine in more depth the burgeoning alliance between right-wing supporters of Israel and the European far right. The importance of this topic was driven home by the publication of a new Gallup poll on Americans’ attitudes towards various religions. The poll, which found that over half of Americans view Islam unfavorably, also found that “the strongest predictor of prejudice against Muslims is whether a person holds similar feelings about Jews.”
While the poll deals with the American rather than the European context, it is a reminder that Islamophobia and anti-Semitism have typically gone hand in hand. This is worth remembering when looking at the rise of European far-right leaders like Jean-Marie Le Pen of France and the late Jorg Haider of Austria. Hostility to Muslim immigrants forms the centerpiece of their political stance, but their parties have also tended to espouse anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial — a reminder of their neo-fascist roots.
But this anti-Semitism has quite naturally prevented them from making common cause with neoconservatives and other right-wing Zionists in America, whose militant stance towards “Islamism” (very broadly defined) would otherwise make them natural allies of the European far right. Hence we have seen in recent years that the savvier of the European far right leaders — such as Filip Dewinter of the Flemish separatist party Vlaams Belang (VB) — have dropped the explicitly anti-Semitic elements of their platforms and doubled down on Islamophobia. They realize that by portraying themselves as staunch supporters of Israel and allies in the war against Islamofascism, they can acquire a new set of influential and well-connected supporters in America — the likes of Daniel Pipes, Mark Steyn, Frank Gaffney, etc. (Eli, Ali and I wrote about the connections between Wilders, his U.S. supporters, and the VB this past February.)
While focusing on Islamophobia rather than anti-Semitism is certainly a savvy move, whether it is sincere is another question. The VB, for example, is a successor to the Vlaams Blok, which disbanded in 2004 after being convicted of “repeated incitement to discrimination”; its fall was precipated by top VB official Roeland Raes’s widely-publicized Holocaust denial on Dutch television. Despite the VB’s claims to have cleaned up its act since the Raes scandal, the Belgian Jewish community isn’t buying it. They maintain that, regardless of whatever philo-Semitic noises the top leadership makes in public, the group has a clear pattern of associating with anti-Semitic and neo-fascist elements. (Right-wing apostate Charles Johnson has in recent years provided the most thorough coverage of the devil’s bargain that the American Islamophobic right has made with the European far right.) Similarly, although Wilders himself does not come from the neo-fascist milieu, there can be little doubt that his base of popular support contains many of the same elements as Le Pen’s and Haider’s.
All this is to say that Daniel Pipes and his compatriots are playing with fire when they embrace Wilders and other European Islamophobes. While the European far right has proven increasingly willing to say the right things about Jews for tactical reasons, all indications are that hatred of Muslims frequently goes hand-in-hand with hatred of Jews.(show less)
Seumas Milne: "Haiti's poverty is treated as some baffling quirk of history...when in reality it is the direct consequence of a uniquely brutal relationship with the outside world — notably the US, France and Britain — stretching back centuries." (h/t reddit.com).
One of the many ways in which Aljazeera is superior to American news programs is that it has a frequent 5-minute History spot, in which reporters review some key historical turning point. In all the wall-to-wall coverage of Haiti's earthquake that I have seen on US news channels, I cannot remember Toussaint L'Ouverture being mentioned even once. I cannot remember any extended consideration of the decades when the US Marines ruled the country or why FDR stopped that. I can't remember a report on recent US history with Ar... (continue)
Seumas Milne: "Haiti's poverty is treated as some baffling quirk of history...when in reality it is the direct consequence of a uniquely brutal relationship with the outside world — notably the US, France and Britain — stretching back centuries." (h/t reddit.com).
One of the many ways in which Aljazeera is superior to American news programs is that it has a frequent 5-minute History spot, in which reporters review some key historical turning point. In all the wall-to-wall coverage of Haiti's earthquake that I have seen on US news channels, I cannot remember Toussaint L'Ouverture being mentioned even once. I cannot remember any extended consideration of the decades when the US Marines ruled the country or why FDR stopped that. I can't remember a report on recent US history with Aristide.
It is as though a top executive actively ordered the reporters to avoid any context, any background, any history. The so-called "History Channel" has nothing about Haiti. The shows are "Sniper," "Extreme Marksmen," "Seven Signs of the Apocalypse," and the "Nostradamus Effect."
There have been a couple of good essays at the History News Network, but they are more impassioned op-eds than explanations of the history (see "Too Hard for the White Folks? Americans and the Haitian Revolution," and Haiti's troubled history with the US and France.
To paraphrase Jack Nicholson: "You can't handle the History!"
Since MSNBC is positioning itself as a 'progressive' news network, couldn't it do up some inexpensive short spots on historical background?
Milne continues:
"When the liberation theologist Aristide was elected on a platform of development and social justice, his challenge to Haiti's oligarchy and its international sponsors led to two foreign-backed coups and US invasions, a suspension of aid and loans, and eventual exile in 2004. Since then, thousands of UN troops have provided security for a discredited political system, while global financial institutions have imposed a relentlessly neoliberal diet, pauperising Haitians still further.
Thirty years ago, for example, Haiti was self-sufficient in its staple of rice. In the mid-90s the IMF forced it to slash tariffs, the US dumped its subsidised surplus on the country, and Haiti now imports the bulk of its rice. Tens of thousands of rice farmers were forced to move to the jerry-built slums of Port-au-Prince. Many died as a result last week."
Barack Obama has come out swinging following his party's rout in Massachusetts, vowing to "fight Wall Street" with a "populist" proposal whose main thrust seems to be the reinstatement of some of the common-sense regulations imposed almost 80 years ago to separate banks and investment firms. (I say "seems to be," because one can only guess what, if anything, Obama really intends to do about the matter. For despite the usual elevated rhetoric, he is, as usual, "leaving crucial details to be hashed out by Congress," as the NY Times reports. And we know how populist those paladins can be when they get down to hashing out crucial details.)
Of course, those old regulations were repealed by the bipartisan free-market extremists of the Clinton Era -- many of whom are now once more in charge o... (continue)
Barack Obama has come out swinging following his party's rout in Massachusetts, vowing to "fight Wall Street" with a "populist" proposal whose main thrust seems to be the reinstatement of some of the common-sense regulations imposed almost 80 years ago to separate banks and investment firms. (I say "seems to be," because one can only guess what, if anything, Obama really intends to do about the matter. For despite the usual elevated rhetoric, he is, as usual, "leaving crucial details to be hashed out by Congress," as the NY Times reports. And we know how populist those paladins can be when they get down to hashing out crucial details.)
Of course, those old regulations were repealed by the bipartisan free-market extremists of the Clinton Era -- many of whom are now once more in charge of national economic policy, such as Obama's main economic adviser, Larry Summers. And the fact that Obama is just now vaguely proposing such a move, a year after taking office -- and after engineering the transfer to trillions of dollars in cash, credit guarantees, bailouts and other forms of baksheesh to Wall Street -- cannot but evoke three little words that nonetheless speak volumes: horse, barn, door.
And even in the highly hypothetical likelihood that Obama was actually serious about "reining in the banks" -- that is, serious enough to actually have his staff draw up the crucial details themselves before handing the "fight" over to the banks' own bagmen in Congress -- it would be a moot point anyway, given the Supreme Court's promulgation of its Corporate Enabling Act this week. Although their ruling to remove the few existing -- and pathetic -- restraints on Big Money's domination of the electoral process is indeed bad news, one must also admire the Court's frankness in allowing this domination to step forth and stand out boldly, nakedly, no longer having to hide itself in dirty dodges and furtive tricks. (For more on the ramifications of the ruling, see this piece from Christopher Ketcham at Counterpunch.)
But even as the highways and byways and blogways of the Potomac power grid are all engrossed in the usual partisan navel-gazing, the hard, dirty work of empire goes on.* This week there was yet another killing of civilians in Afghanistan by the ever-surging NATO-led forces, including two boys, aged 11 and 15. As Reuters reports:
Over 100 people took to the streets of a small bazaar in Qarabagh district in Ghazni province, southwest of Kabul, to demonstrate, locals told Reuters by telephone.
Villagers who brought the bodies of four people to the hospital in the provincial capital of Ghazni city said three of the victims belonged to one family. Two were boys 11 and 15, villagers said.
Naturally, the American-led occupation forces said that no civilians were killed in what they called a raid "designed to capture a 'high-level Taliban commander known to direct attacks'. Unfortunately for the spinmeisters, an actual journalist, Nir Rosen, has been on the case. He provided this report to Professor As'ad AbuKhalil:
Nir Rosen sent me this from Kabul (I cite with his permission): "I met today with the parliament member from qara bagh district. He's not anti-occupation and even wants more operations but he confirmed that all the dead were innocent and were not fighters and two were quite young".
"All the dead were innocent." And two of them were children.
This is the reality when we should keep in mind as we wade through the endlessly chewed cud of petty partisan in-fighting among the court factions of our militarist empire. Every day, every night, someone's blood is being offered up on the imperial altars. That's what empire is. That's what empire does.
***
See Rome
While you were dreaming
While you wrapped your mind in silks
Bronze Steel Stone
Did their work
While you breathed the fumes
Of the oracle's fissure
Deranged the senses
Settled in soft beds
Rome
Sent agents into the streets
Hard men pinched men
Bronze Steel Stone
To eliminate execute
Discredit and destroy
See Rome
While you stood in the forum
Declaimed high words
Filled temples with fragrant smoke
Scrawled millions of learned disquisitions
Rome marched
Somewhere, in your name
Fired the village
In your name
Put steel to the belly
While you were wrapped in silks
While you grubbed
While you drank degraded waters
Drank dark, brilliant wine
While you sang, while you dreamed
National Whistleblowers Center - Take Action capwiz.com Since 1988, the Center has used whistleblowers’ disclosures to improve environmental protection, nuclear safety, and government and corporate accountability.
Newsletter January 2010 20 Jan 2010niklas@marxist.com (Hands Off Venezuela, London)
The January edition of the Hands Off Venezuela newsletter is now available for download. To receive all future editions make sure you join or renew your Hands Off Venezuela membership. This can be done online, by post or at any local meeting.
January 2010 Newsletter includes;
- U.S violations of Venezuelan airspace
- News in brief
- Chavez in Copenhagen
- The Venezuelan Hip Hop community gets organised
- 2010 London Day School/AGM
Stand with the people of
Haiti! What the U.S. government isn't telling
you
We at the ANSWER Coalition extend our heartfelt solidarity to
all of our Haitian sisters and brothers, as well as to all those who have friends and
family there, as Haiti copes with the destruction and grief of the massive 7.0 magnitude
earthquake that struck yesterday.
All of us are joining in the
outpouring of solidarity from people all over the hemisphere and world who are sending
humanitarian aid and assistance to the people of Haiti.
At such a
moment, it is also important to put this catastrophe into a political and social
context. Without this context, it is... (continue)
Stand with the people of
Haiti! What the U.S. government isn't telling
you
We at the ANSWER Coalition extend our heartfelt solidarity to
all of our Haitian sisters and brothers, as well as to all those who have friends and
family there, as Haiti copes with the destruction and grief of the massive 7.0 magnitude
earthquake that struck yesterday.
All of us are joining in the
outpouring of solidarity from people all over the hemisphere and world who are sending
humanitarian aid and assistance to the people of Haiti.
At such a
moment, it is also important to put this catastrophe into a political and social
context. Without this context, it is impossible to understand both the monumental
problems facing Haiti and, most importantly, the solutions that can allow Haiti to
survive and thrive. Hillary Clinton said today, "It is biblical, the tragedy
that continues to daunt Haiti and the Haitian people." This hypocritical
statement that blames Haiti's suffering exclusively on an "act of
God" masks the role of U.S. and French imperialism in the
region.
In this statement, we have included some background
information about Haiti that helps establish the real
context:
Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive stated today that
as many as 100,000 Haitians may be dead. International media is reporting bodies being
piled along streets surrounded by the rubble from thousands of collapsed buildings.
Estimates of the economic damage are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Haiti’s
large shantytown population was particularly hard hit by the tragedy.
As CNN, ABC and every other major corporate media outlet will be
quick to point out, Haiti is the poorest country in the entire Western hemisphere. But
not a single word is uttered as to why Haiti is poor. Poverty, unlike earthquakes, is no
natural disaster.
The answer lies in more than two centuries of U.S.
hostility to the island nation, whose hard-won independence from the French was only the
beginning of its struggle for liberation.
In 1804, what had begun as
a slave uprising more than a decade earlier culminated in freedom from the grips of
French colonialism, making Haiti the first Latin American colony to win its independence
and the world's first Black republic. Prior to the victory of the Haitian
people, George Washington and then-Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson had supported
France out of fear that Haiti would inspire uprisings among the U.S. slave population.
The U.S. slave-owning aristocracy was horrified at Haiti’s newly earned freedom.
U.S. interference became an integral part of Haitian history,
culminating in a direct military occupation from 1915 to 1934. Through economic and
military intervention, Haiti was subjugated as U.S. capital developed a railroad and
acquired plantations. In a gesture of colonial arrogance, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was
the assistant secretary of the Navy at the time, drafted a constitution for Haiti which,
among other things, allowed foreigners to own land. U.S. officials would later find an
accommodation with the dictator François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, and then his son
Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, as Haiti suffered under their brutal repressive
policies.
In the 1980s and 1990s, U.S. policy toward Haiti sought
the reorganization of the Haitian economy to better serve the interests of foreign
capital. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was instrumental in
shifting Haitian agriculture away from grain production, paving the way for dependence
on food imports. Ruined Haitian farmers flocked to the cities in search of a livelihood,
resulting in the swelling of the precarious shantytowns found in Port-au-Prince and
other urban centers.
Who has benefited from these policies? U.S.
food producers profited from increased exports to Haitian markets. Foreign corporations
that had set up shop in Haitian cities benefitted from the super-exploitation of cheap
labor flowing from the countryside. But for the people of Haiti, there was only greater
misery and destitution.
Washington orchestrated the overthrow of the
democratically elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide—not once, but twice, in
1991 and 2004. Haiti has been under a U.S.-backed U.N. occupation for nearly six years.
Aristide did not earn the animosity of U.S. leaders for his moderate reforms; he earned
it when he garnered support among Haiti's poor, which crystallized into a mass
popular movement. Two hundred years on, U.S. officials are still horrified by the
prospect of a truly independent Haiti.
The unstable, makeshift
dwellings imposed upon Haitians by Washington’s neoliberal policies have now, for many,
been turned into graves. Those same policies are to blame for the lack of hospitals,
ambulances, fire trucks, rescue equipment, food and medicine. The blow dealt by such a
natural disaster to an economy made so fragile from decades of plundering will greatly
magnify the suffering of the Haitian people.
Natural disasters are
inevitable, but resource allocation and planning can play a decisive role in mitigating
their impact and dealing with the aftermath. Haiti and neighboring Cuba, who are no
strangers to violent tropical storms, were both hit hard in 2008 by a series of
hurricanes—which, unlike earthquakes, are predictable. While more than 800 lives were
lost in Haiti, less than 10 people died in Cuba. Unlike Haiti, Cuba had a coordinated
evacuation plan and post-hurricane rescue efforts that were centrally planned by the
Cuban government. This was only possible because Cuban society is not organized
according to the needs of foreign capital, but rather according to the needs of the
Cuban people.
In a televised speech earlier today, President Obama
has announced that USAID and the Departments of State and Defense will be working to
support the rescue and relief efforts in Haiti in the coming days. Ironically, these are
the same government entities responsible for the implementation of the economic and
military policies that reduced Haiti to ruins even before the earthquake
hit.
The ANSWER Coalition has called for a mass
national march and rally in Washington, D.C., on March 20 to oppose the wars and
occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. We will also demand an end the foreign
occupation of Haiti and reparations to Haiti for the vast wealth that has been looted
from the country by foreign imperialist
countries.
Help build the March 20
March on Washington!
Endorse March
20
Organize
Transportation
Volunteer
Download
literature
Find out about transportation from around the
country
Naomi Klein Issues Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert: Stop Them Before They
Shock Again 14 Jan 2010mail@democracynow.org (Democracy Now!) Journalist and author Naomi
Klein spoke in New York last night and addressed the crisis in Haiti: “We have to be
absolutely clear that this tragedy—which is part natural, part unnatural—must, under no
circumstances, be used to, one, further indebt Haiti and, two, to push through unpopular
corporatist policies in the interest of our corporations. This is not conspiracy theory.
They have done it again and again.” [includes rush transcript]
US Policy in Haiti Over Decades "Lays the Foundation for Why Impact of
Natural Disaster Is So Severe" 14 Jan 2010mail@democracynow.org (Democracy Now!) We discuss the situation in
Haiti following Tuesday’s massive earthquake, as well as the history of Haiti, with two
guests who have spent a lot of time there: Bill Quigley, the legal director at the
Center for Constitutional Rights, and Brian Concannon, director of the Institute for
Justice & Democracy in Haiti. [includes rush transcript]
AfterDowningStreet.org
After Downing Street is a nonpartisan coalition working to expose the lies that create and sustain wars and occupations and to hold accountable those responsible. We have speakers available. If you register on this site, you will have the option to receive occasional Email updates from us. Please read our policy regarding posting comments on this site. Would you like to see ADS news every time you go to Google.com? Use this widget or this widget to put ADS news on any website. We're on Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter, and have an RSS feed.
Winograd Urges Democratic Leadership to Come Back Strong as the Voice of Working America | Press Release
Congressional Candidate says loss of Senate seat proves Party must reverse course, with progressive congressional challengers offering the greatest promise for re-energizing the base
Following Republican Scott Brown’s senate victory in Massachusetts, Democratic Party Congressional Candidate (CA-36) Marcy Winograd urges Democrats in Congress to reaffirm their commitment to the Party's core values and fight for working America, not surrender the populist mantle to far-right Republicans intent on privatizing government.
Says Winograd, “Washington faces the danger of drawing the wrong conclusions from yesterday's loss of what had been America's true-blue Senate seat. This upset reflec... (continue)
Winograd Urges Democratic Leadership to Come Back Strong as the Voice of Working America | Press Release
Congressional Candidate says loss of Senate seat proves Party must reverse course, with progressive congressional challengers offering the greatest promise for re-energizing the base
Following Republican Scott Brown’s senate victory in Massachusetts, Democratic Party Congressional Candidate (CA-36) Marcy Winograd urges Democrats in Congress to reaffirm their commitment to the Party's core values and fight for working America, not surrender the populist mantle to far-right Republicans intent on privatizing government.
Says Winograd, “Washington faces the danger of drawing the wrong conclusions from yesterday's loss of what had been America's true-blue Senate seat. This upset reflects less the zeal of a million conservative voters than the fact that two million Massachusetts Democrats stayed home, rejecting the politics of Democratic Party appeasement."
read more(show less)
Israel Crushes Local Dissent, Attacks Global Criticism
By Mel Frykberg | IPS
"The United States handles the settlements unfairly? We'll point an unloaded gun at the American ambassador's head and pull the trigger, just to scare him. We're not murderers. We're just trying to frighten, which, as is well known, creates respect. Just ask the Godfather," was Barel’s scathing comment.
RAMALLAH, Jan 20 (IPS) - Israel is lashing out at international criticism and attempting to crush local dissent in what appears to be growing sensitivity to reproach of its policies.
Several recent incidents have dominated media headlines, including the arrest of a Jewish-American journalist on the grounds of security, threats by an Israeli minister against international diplomats and the arrest of Israeli and P... (continue)
Israel Crushes Local Dissent, Attacks Global Criticism
By Mel Frykberg | IPS
"The United States handles the settlements unfairly? We'll point an unloaded gun at the American ambassador's head and pull the trigger, just to scare him. We're not murderers. We're just trying to frighten, which, as is well known, creates respect. Just ask the Godfather," was Barel’s scathing comment.
RAMALLAH, Jan 20 (IPS) - Israel is lashing out at international criticism and attempting to crush local dissent in what appears to be growing sensitivity to reproach of its policies.
Several recent incidents have dominated media headlines, including the arrest of a Jewish-American journalist on the grounds of security, threats by an Israeli minister against international diplomats and the arrest of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists.
The raid on a foreign activist’s home in Ramallah, supposedly under full Palestinian control, by a large Israel Defence Forces (IDF) contingent allegedly for a visa infringement, and her subsequent arrest at gunpoint and deportation has also raised eyebrows.
"We will not allow a situation where every country will kick us. If there will be an attack on Israel, we will leave all options open, including the expulsion of ambassadors," Israel’s deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon said on Saturday.
"We do not want to argue with anyone, but we will not sit idly by," he added. Ayalon’s outburst followed, amongst other incidents, a much publicised political confrontation with Turkey over a Turkish TV programme critical of Israel.
This outburst led Israeli analyst and journalist Zvi Barel to comment acerbically in the Israeli daily Haaretz, "Britain wants to boycott Israeli goods? We'll summon the British ambassador and have him sit on a bed of nails’’. Read more.
read more(show less)
Dateline: Critical Conditon 24 Jan 2010Chip You have health insurance coverage through your employer, so the health care debate isn't much of an issue for you, aside from the fact that you don't want to "pay for someone else's health insurance." Watch this program to see how health insurance companies determine your care.
read more
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Whistleblower reveals how insurers can game healthcare bill
By Brad Jacobson | Raw Story
“What worries me,” he said, “is people who are forced to buy coverage and all they can afford to buy is a high deductible. And if they get really sick then they have to pay so much out of their own pockets that they’re going to be filing for bankruptcy and losing their homes.”
Though Senate bill cuts 'pre-existing conditions,' it still allows insurance companies to create 'pre-existing' categories to raise rates
The Democrats' healthcare overhaul, billed as a monumental game-changer for Americans' health insurance coverage, provides numerous loopholes for health insurance companies which will allow them to raise rates to ... (continue)
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Whistleblower reveals how insurers can game healthcare bill
By Brad Jacobson | Raw Story
“What worries me,” he said, “is people who are forced to buy coverage and all they can afford to buy is a high deductible. And if they get really sick then they have to pay so much out of their own pockets that they’re going to be filing for bankruptcy and losing their homes.”
Though Senate bill cuts 'pre-existing conditions,' it still allows insurance companies to create 'pre-existing' categories to raise rates
The Democrats' healthcare overhaul, billed as a monumental game-changer for Americans' health insurance coverage, provides numerous loopholes for health insurance companies which will allow them to raise rates to protect profit margins, a health insurance whistleblower says.
Wendell Potter, a twenty-year veteran of the insurance industry and former vice president of communications for Cigna, warns that current healthcare legislation does nothing to prevent the insurance industry from continuing its ongoing practice of increasingly shifting healthcare costs to consumers.
A form of bait-and-switch, such practices often set up individuals, families and small businesses for inadequate or unaffordable access and a continued looming threat of financial ruin. The overlooked element, Potter says, is that insurance companies will be able to claim they are reducing premiums by forcing more Americans to pay higher deductibles and offering less coverage. Read more.
read more(show less)
Judge dumps suit over Bush-era wiretapping
By Bob Egelko | San Francisco Chronicle
To establish the right to sue, a private citizen must demonstrate a "direct, personal stake in the outcome" and cannot merely claim "a right to have the government follow the law," Walker said.
A federal judge has dismissed AT&T customers' lawsuit over wiretapping conducted under former President George W. Bush, a challenge the judge had allowed to proceed before Congress intervened.
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco ruled in 2006 that the AT&T customers could sue the company for allegedly allowing federal agents to intercept their calls and e-mails and seize their records without a warrant.
Bush acknowledged in December 2005 that he had ordered interception of communications betwe... (continue)
Judge dumps suit over Bush-era wiretapping
By Bob Egelko | San Francisco Chronicle
To establish the right to sue, a private citizen must demonstrate a "direct, personal stake in the outcome" and cannot merely claim "a right to have the government follow the law," Walker said.
A federal judge has dismissed AT&T customers' lawsuit over wiretapping conducted under former President George W. Bush, a challenge the judge had allowed to proceed before Congress intervened.
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco ruled in 2006 that the AT&T customers could sue the company for allegedly allowing federal agents to intercept their calls and e-mails and seize their records without a warrant.
Bush acknowledged in December 2005 that he had ordered interception of communications between Americans and alleged foreign terrorists four years earlier without seeking court approval, as required by federal law. Read more.
read more(show less)
SAVE THE DATE! Thursday, January 28
Hold on to your collective hats, folks. The latest Supreme Court ruling is giving Blackwater/Monsanto/Halliburton/ExxonMobile et. al. permission to openly spend their way into the hearts and minds of both the elected and the electorate.
Hey, are you gonna stand for that? We didn't think so. Let's put our mouths where our hearts are: it is time to demand the immediate end to these endless wars, bring our brave kids home from harms way, start rebuilding our economy, and mending our tattered social and economic safety nets.
Join us for the Granny Peace Brigade's first action of 2010
CUT THE CRAP, CUT THE FUNDING phone-a-thon
Thursday, January 28
Noon - 1:30PM
42nd Street Port Authority Bus Terminal
(Look for precise location details on Tuesday, Januar... (continue)
SAVE THE DATE! Thursday, January 28
Hold on to your collective hats, folks. The latest Supreme Court ruling is giving Blackwater/Monsanto/Halliburton/ExxonMobile et. al. permission to openly spend their way into the hearts and minds of both the elected and the electorate.
Hey, are you gonna stand for that? We didn't think so. Let's put our mouths where our hearts are: it is time to demand the immediate end to these endless wars, bring our brave kids home from harms way, start rebuilding our economy, and mending our tattered social and economic safety nets.
Join us for the Granny Peace Brigade's first action of 2010
CUT THE CRAP, CUT THE FUNDING phone-a-thon
Thursday, January 28
Noon - 1:30PM
42nd Street Port Authority Bus Terminal
(Look for precise location details on Tuesday, January 26.)
Put Congress on notice: we, the people, are holding them accountable. Once upon a time, Congress stepped in and put finite and final restrictions on military spending. If this current crop of legislators are unfamiliar with these important precedents, maybe its time they got a history lesson.
Are you in?
Fran with Caroline, Edith, Eva-Lee, Joan P, Molly and Phyllis
Granny Peace Brigade
read more(show less)
Center for Constitutional Rights Condemns Unconstitutional Indefinite Detention Scheme 24 Jan 2010Chip
CCR Condemns Unconstitutional Indefinite Detention Scheme
On Eve of Missed Guantánamo Deadline President Announces He Will Hold 50 Without Trial
January 22, 2010, New York – In response to the announcement that President Obama has decided he will detain 50 of the approximately 200 remaining men at Guantánamo without trial indefinitely, the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following statement:
read more
McCain: Campaign Finance Reform Is Dead
Sen. Who Co-Wrote Finance Laws Not Surprised by Court Ruling Given "Skeptical, Sarcastic Comments" by Justices
By Michelle Levi | CBS
Watch CBS News Videos Online
Senator John McCain, who helped rewrite the nation's campaign finance laws, said Sunday that this week's Supreme Court ruling removing limits from corporate spending on political advertising means that campaign finance reform is dead.
"I don't think there's much that can be done," he told "Face the Nation" moderator Bob Schieffer.
McCain said he was not surprised by Court's decision: "I went over to observe the oral arguments," he said. "It was clear that Justice Roberts, Alito and Scalia, by their very skeptical and even sarcastic comments, were very much opposed to it.
"I think that i... (continue)
McCain: Campaign Finance Reform Is Dead
Sen. Who Co-Wrote Finance Laws Not Surprised by Court Ruling Given "Skeptical, Sarcastic Comments" by Justices
By Michelle Levi | CBS
Watch CBS News Videos Online
Senator John McCain, who helped rewrite the nation's campaign finance laws, said Sunday that this week's Supreme Court ruling removing limits from corporate spending on political advertising means that campaign finance reform is dead.
"I don't think there's much that can be done," he told "Face the Nation" moderator Bob Schieffer.
McCain said he was not surprised by Court's decision: "I went over to observe the oral arguments," he said. "It was clear that Justice Roberts, Alito and Scalia, by their very skeptical and even sarcastic comments, were very much opposed to it.
"I think that it was interesting that they have had no experience in the political arena," McCain said. "I was reminded of the story of Lyndon Johnson, when he was vice president, was told about President Kennedy's appointments of all these brilliant people, and he said, 'You know, I wish one of them had run for county sheriff.'"
The Republican senator noted that in prior Court hearing on the issue of campaign financing, Justices Rehnquist and O'Connor had taken a different position. "Both had significant political experience; Justices Roberts, Alito and Scalia have none," he said.
"We are going to see now an inundation of special-interest money into political campaigns," McCain warned. "I think that diminishes the influence of average citizens."
Schieffer asked McCain if he thought the issue of campaign finance reform was "dead."
"Oh, I think so." He predicted a backlash would occur when people see the amounts of unfettered money, from corporations and unions, that will go into political campaigns. Read more.
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Protest in Beirut against Egypt’s "Wall of Shame" on the border with Gaza.
I want to focus attention on an issue that hasn’t gotten enough press. The Mubarak regime is building a subterranean steel wall on the border with Gaza. Conservative estimates put the depth of the wall at 18 meters (nearly 60 feet). The BBC reports that American engineers designed the wall panels, which were constructed in America.
30-meter-deep holes are being bored into the ground on the Palestinian side of the wall. Egypt will pump salt water from the Mediterranean Sea into the earth to destroy the tunnels – the lifeblood of the besieged Gazan Palestinians. Soil quality will be degraded and the Coastal aquifer, Gaza’s source of potable water, may well be destroyed.
The deranged Obama-Netanyahu-Mubarak ca... (continue)
Protest in Beirut against Egypt’s "Wall of Shame" on the border with Gaza.
I want to focus attention on an issue that hasn’t gotten enough press. The Mubarak regime is building a subterranean steel wall on the border with Gaza. Conservative estimates put the depth of the wall at 18 meters (nearly 60 feet). The BBC reports that American engineers designed the wall panels, which were constructed in America.
30-meter-deep holes are being bored into the ground on the Palestinian side of the wall. Egypt will pump salt water from the Mediterranean Sea into the earth to destroy the tunnels – the lifeblood of the besieged Gazan Palestinians. Soil quality will be degraded and the Coastal aquifer, Gaza’s source of potable water, may well be destroyed.
The deranged Obama-Netanyahu-Mubarak cabal seems to be possessed of a biblical rage. Dare to defy the divine edict? We will crush your men, women and children underfoot. Refuse to starve? We will raze your cities, poison your wells, and salt the earth. Their grandiosity – think of it, they’re building an 18-meter-deep steel wall(!) for 11 kilometers – beggars belief, and beggars Gazans.
Protests have erupted across the Arab world and Europe targeting Egyptian embassies and consulates; I attended one yesterday in Beirut. But the Egyptian regime isn’t responsive to popular pressure, so a group of activists here in Lebanon have begun a movement to draw attention to the Egyptian company assembling the wall – Arab Contractors. Our hope is that details emerge, other companies can be targeted. I reported on our first press conference for Electronic Intifada.
We spend so much time on the Zionists in Israel, Egypt and America and their actions today that the big picture sometimes loses focus. The most powerful state in the world – and its regional lackeys – are targeting the people in Gaza for… what? For starvation? For extermination? What is Mr. Obama’s endgame here? Once the tunnels are gone, the land degraded and the water undrinkable… well, then what? I cannot express how I feel. There is no solace in this tragedy.
Ahmed Moor is a Gaza-born Palestinian-American freelance journalist living in Beirut.
Related posts:Freedom Marching in Circles While Winding Our Way to GazaHorowitz: Is Israel writing another ‘Exodus’ for Gaza?Egyptian opposition to Gaza Freedom March has ‘hardened’
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This website and others have come under criticism for discussing how Israel’s supporters are using the disaster in Haiti for propaganda purposes. Both the websites Hybrid States and War in Context have already rebutted this criticism head on, and it seems that the article below provides amazing confirmation of this disturbing trend in Israeli hasbara.
The following article appeared in Maariv, Israel’s second most popular newspaper, and was written by Tamir Haas who identifies himself as a "publicist" and "media consultant." It was translated into English by Shmuel Sermoneta-Gertel.
The Painful Truth: The Haiti Disaster is Good for the Jews
As sorry as we are about the horror in Haiti, the current positive attitude to Israel – thanks to the IDF delegation – shows that the country must... (continue)
This website and others have come under criticism for discussing how Israel’s supporters are using the disaster in Haiti for propaganda purposes. Both the websites Hybrid States and War in Context have already rebutted this criticism head on, and it seems that the article below provides amazing confirmation of this disturbing trend in Israeli hasbara.
The following article appeared in Maariv, Israel’s second most popular newspaper, and was written by Tamir Haas who identifies himself as a "publicist" and "media consultant." It was translated into English by Shmuel Sermoneta-Gertel.
The Painful Truth: The Haiti Disaster is Good for the Jews
As sorry as we are about the horror in Haiti, the current positive attitude to Israel – thanks to the IDF delegation – shows that the country must engage in proactive as well as reactive hasbara.
Tamir Haas 21/1/2010, Maariv-NRG
At a time when our country is under media attack on the basis of harsh and anti-Semitic reports, and we are forced to contend with terrorists who have assumed the winning image of victims of war, one could say that the Haiti disaster is the best thing that could have happened to us. So why are blood, destruction, poverty, hunger and orphans good for the Jewish State? First of all because global attention has been drawn elsewhere and the international media have a more interesting story to cover. Second, because every disaster-area needs a hero, and right now we are it. I must admit that I would not be surprised if the image aspect of setting up a hospital in Haiti, as well as the IDF rescue efforts, was given greater weight than humanitarian considerations. If I am right, then finally, someone in the Knesset has done the right thing, deciding to take advantage of the opportunity to prove to the world how kindhearted and capable we are. And if the Foreign Ministry manages to make further use of the Israeli success stories in Haiti and market them to the world, all the better. We can only hope that none of our talented politicians is caught in front of a camera saying “We showed the world. We were really awesome in Haiti,” or something like that – a distinct possibility considering the recent mess with the Turks. Better to be modest.
Those in Charge Don’t see Hasbara as Warfare
The tough question raised by our success in Haiti is why we do well in the media only when we have the opportunity to star in another country’s disaster, and not on a regular basis? After all, you can’t have a natural disaster every day. The answer to the question is a lack of concerted effort to garner sympathy from the countries of the world, alongside behaviour that actually creates antagonism, such as humiliating ambassadors on camera. Before criticizing current hasbara practice however, we must realize that our biggest problem lies in the way we approach the entire issue of image. First of all, our elected representatives see themselves as politicians rather than statesmen, and so prefer to focus on their own personal interests, rather than on those of the country. Every Israeli citizen is knows this, to the point that we can’t stand our own leaders, so why does it come as surprise that the rest of the world isn’t too crazy about us either? Second, those in charge of the country’s PR don’t see hasbara as warfare, just like any military operation, intended to safeguard and promote our national and security interests. If hasbara were to receive the attention it deserves, with the kind of funding that security gets, our media performance would be better, Foreign Ministry officials would be more professional, foreign ministers would not act like rookies, and most importantly, we would have long-term plans and strategies.
Proof of Amateurishness and Lack of Professionalism
You want proof of the amateurishness and lack of professionalism I’m talking about? Here: “Hasbara is the responsibility of the IDF, not the Foreign Ministry”. This is what Danny Ayalon told participants at a recent conference of the Israel Public Relations Association. Does this mean that there is no hasbara coordination between the IDF and the Foreign Ministry? Is this how Ayalon washes his hands of Israel’s image problem? If so, is it any wonder that he behaves so recklessly, setting the Turkish Prime Minister up for a slam dunk? After all, he seems to think that the consequences, in terms of Israel’s image, are not his responsibility. In the above statement, Ayalon doesn’t even bother to hand some of the responsibility to Information Minister Yuli Edelstein. If the Foreign Ministry doesn’t give a damn about the Information Ministry, why should anyone else?
We have to stop concentrating all of our efforts on reaction and start taking the initiative. There are a lot of things we can do to facilitate hasbara: subsidizing tourism from countries in which Israel suffers from a relatively poor image, or a hasbara unit that would focus on marketing the stories of victims of terrorism (like they do in Gaza), or hasbara designed specifically to appeal to countries with strategic importance, etc. But before we do anything, we must first understand that hasbara is war and should be treated like any other aspect of homeland security. After that, we can move forward.
Note that Richard Silverstein is on this story too.
Related posts:Haiti GazaPort-au-HasbaraAnother sign that Israeli and US gov’ts are on collision course
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Steve Walt has a post saying George Mitchell should resign because there is nothing for him to do in the Obama administration, and that the U.S. will be judged harshly for our role in sustaining the Israeli occupation that has destroyed the two-state-solution.
How harshly will we be judged? One fears more violence. From Glenn Greenwald on Osama’s latest tape:
Bin Laden also warns the US there will be more attacks if it continues to support Israel. . . . Directly addressing Americans, [bin Laden] says: "It is unfair you enjoy a safe life while our brothers in Gaza suffer greatly . . . . Our attacks will continue as long as you support Israel. . . . America will never dream of security unless we will have it in reality in Palestine."
Greenwald goes on to argue that Al Qaeda has never re... (continue)
Steve Walt has a post saying George Mitchell should resign because there is nothing for him to do in the Obama administration, and that the U.S. will be judged harshly for our role in sustaining the Israeli occupation that has destroyed the two-state-solution.
How harshly will we be judged? One fears more violence. From Glenn Greenwald on Osama’s latest tape:
Bin Laden also warns the US there will be more attacks if it continues to support Israel. . . . Directly addressing Americans, [bin Laden] says: "It is unfair you enjoy a safe life while our brothers in Gaza suffer greatly . . . . Our attacks will continue as long as you support Israel. . . . America will never dream of security unless we will have it in reality in Palestine."
Greenwald goes on to argue that Al Qaeda has never really cared about the Palestinians, just repeatedly given them lip service. I think this is a misleading argument. As Mike Kinsley once wrote, If something is a factor– in this case in Osama’s twisted mind– then who’s to say it’s not the determinative factor? I wonder if Greenwald is fearful of backlash. But some of this backlash is strictly political: aimed at the lobby. A little while ago I came up with a provocative Daisy ad: It killed Bobby Kennedy… it blew up the World Trade Center… it got us into the Iraq War… It killed 13 people at Fort Hood… It just blew up a CIA station, killing 7 agents… It’s our special relationship with Israel. When will you say, Enough?
Is it really so outrageous to make such an argument, when the special relationship continues to dominate our policy and when it denies grievances that are so obvious to the rest of the world?
Related posts:Chelsea Clinton’s Lack of Accomplishment (and Mom’s Lack of Success) Signals the End of the Elite That Gave Us IraqWhy Aren’t American Alpinists Looking for Osama bin Laden?Former Undersec’y of State Says Israel Bears Prime Responsibility for Lack of Justice for Palestinians
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Missing Gaza Freedom marcher is safe 24 Jan 2010Philip Weiss We just received this wonderful news from a relative of Gaza Freedom Marcher Shannon Hughes, who yesterday was reported missing in Egypt: "SHE IS ON HER WAY HOME…more to follow. No details yet but she is safe and on her way home." For more details, please read comment below from Hughes’s aunt Kristen Carr.
Related posts:Gaza Freedom marcher is missing in EgyptA Brief Thought on the Gaza Freedom MarchTwo chances in NYC to hear reports from the Gaza Freedom March
Here is a story by New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner in yesterday’s paper, anticipating the Israeli defense forces’ official response to the Goldstone Report. Bronner’s story is 99-44/100ths hasbara. He quotes an Israeli general, he quotes Moshe Halbertal. He even gets B’tselem to chime in against the Goldstone report. There is no effort, in the New York Times no less, to have anyone stand up for the Goldstone report, one of the most astonishing moral documents of human rights atrocities that has ever been compiled.
[Close your eyes. Imagine the Times submarining Seymour Hersh by quoting lots of people defending the My Lai massacre.]
Let me give you one example of the bias in this piece. Bronner writes:
The rebuttal will be given to United Nations officials in the com... (continue)
Here is a story by New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner in yesterday’s paper, anticipating the Israeli defense forces’ official response to the Goldstone Report. Bronner’s story is 99-44/100ths hasbara. He quotes an Israeli general, he quotes Moshe Halbertal. He even gets B’tselem to chime in against the Goldstone report. There is no effort, in the New York Times no less, to have anyone stand up for the Goldstone report, one of the most astonishing moral documents of human rights atrocities that has ever been compiled.
[Close your eyes. Imagine the Times submarining Seymour Hersh by quoting lots of people defending the My Lai massacre.]
Let me give you one example of the bias in this piece. Bronner writes:
The rebuttal will be given to United Nations officials in the coming weeks and its contents will remain under wraps until then. But officers involved in writing the report [i.e., I am serving as a conduit for hasbara] gave some details.
One concerned the destruction of Gaza’s sole flour mill. The Goldstone report asserts that the Bader flour mill “was hit by an airstrike, possibly by an F-16.” The Israeli investigators say they have photographic proof that this is false, that the mill was accidentally hit by artillery in the course of a firefight with Hamas militiamen.
The dispute is significant since the United Nations report asserts that “the destruction of the mill was carried out for the purpose of denying sustenance to the civilian population,” an explicit war crime.
Now let’s go over a few facts. First, I did a search; and it appears that this is the first reference to the el-Bader flour mill destruction in the New York Times. That is to say, despite the fact that Goldstone devoted a whole chapter to the flour mill’s destruction last September, this is the first time Bronner has thought to lift his pen to tell American readers about it. To repeat: the only source of flour inside Gaza is destroyed by the Israeli military, it is cited by an unimpeachable judge who investigated Bosnia and Rwanda as a war crime, and the New York Times correspondent only sees fit to mention it when Israeli officials confidentially tell him the real story.
Second, read Goldstone’s own narrative on the el-Bader flour mill, beginning on paragraph 913 of the report. Goldstone says that after two warnings (12/30/2008 and 1/4/2009) caused the flour mill’s 45 employees to have to evacuate, the mill was struck on Jan. 9 at 3 in the morning by an F-16. And that Apaches then struck it several more times with "missiles" that rendered it inoperative. Then for the next four days, Israeli soldiers occupied the plant–which is in the northwest of Gaza–and evidently used it as a base/machine gun nest. They left "100s" of spent 40 mm shells on the roof.
Goldstone got his information from the Hamada brothers, who own the plant and were interviewed four times, and from visits to the plant. "The Hamada brothers rejected any suggestion that the building was at any time used for any purpose by Palestinian armed groups," Goldstone wrote. There was a high wall around the plant, and it was guarded 24/7. The brothers were issued "Businessman" cards by the Israeli gov’t so as to be able to travel to and fro from Israel, and were in touch with Israeli business associates during the war in an effort to protect their plant. They would never have gotten such cards, the Hamadas said adamantly, if the Israeli gov’t regarded them as a security risk.
Why doesn’t the Times print the Hamada brothers’ story? Why does it believe unnamed gov’t officials? Shouldn’t American readers be given both sides?
Related posts:AJC dismisses white phosphorus attacks and destruction of flour mill as ‘Oliver Stone’ fantasyGoldstone commission sees evidence of ‘persecution’I passed along a false report re Ethan Bronner
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One reason I started this site is that I go hiking with a group of friends from N.Y. City and about 10 years ago one of those friends, who had been to Palestine and was angered by what he saw, said I had a responsibility to speak out/show some leadership, because I’m Jewish and he’s not. I accepted the challenge.
Yesterday our group went hiking in the Hudson Valley and my friend said, "I don’t read your site religiously, but I go there, and my one criticism is that I see you have this kind of longing that a two-state solution might work out."
I said, "I was freaked out by my trip to Israel, how so many of them believe in the Jewish state."
He said, "I think it puts you a little out of touch. You’re just going to be going against the tide. The tide is changing. You can feel it. And the ... (continue)
One reason I started this site is that I go hiking with a group of friends from N.Y. City and about 10 years ago one of those friends, who had been to Palestine and was angered by what he saw, said I had a responsibility to speak out/show some leadership, because I’m Jewish and he’s not. I accepted the challenge.
Yesterday our group went hiking in the Hudson Valley and my friend said, "I don’t read your site religiously, but I go there, and my one criticism is that I see you have this kind of longing that a two-state solution might work out."
I said, "I was freaked out by my trip to Israel, how so many of them believe in the Jewish state."
He said, "I think it puts you a little out of touch. You’re just going to be going against the tide. The tide is changing. You can feel it. And the only reason to stick by the two-state solution is because you think that Jews are somehow a better people than other people."
I said, "My main feeling is that I don’t want my country connected with Israel any more. It’s been bad for my country, the confusion of interest helped drag us into the Iraq war, and I just want separation."
He said, "But there are historic connections between the two countries. For a whole lot of reasons. And so Americans have a real reason to be involved in offering a better way out of this than religious supremacy."
I said, "There are a lot of screwed-up countries in the world. If we were separated from Israel, it would stop being my business what they do."
He shrugged and said, "There’s a connection. And it’s out of step with the times to insist on a state where Jews are on top. Of course I understand how it came about."
"Partition came out of the Holocaust," I said. "That’s why the world voted to create a Jewish state."
"Yes well that was based on ideas of victimization and colonization that in today’s reality are inappropriate. So there were other people there, and the west thought, they’re just like Indians, they’re sand-you-know-what’s, but the Jews are like us, and they can push them out of the way and who cares. Well, that is what is completely out of step."
Then something happened on the hike–two guys had gotten separated from our pack and we woke up to it and went off to find them. And that’s when the conversation ended.
Later I got home and at dinner I saw a portion of "Haifa Hoops for Kids," a dreadful piece of hasbara showing on an American sports network to promote Israel to Americans. I was agog that this s— is on my television. Then I went on this site and saw this video Adam posted, of Israeli soldiers brutalizing old women who are protesting the confiscation of their land and thought, this is how the Jewish state has worked out?
I was tired and went to bed. When I got up I reflected that the tide began to change last fall. It changed specifically when Hillary Clinton said that Netanyahu’s measures re the settlements were "unprecedented." Last fall, smart people who held out hope in the two-state solution recognized its failure.
The tide changed; and my friend’s question is more pressing than ever. Who will lead?
Related posts:Clinton to Palestinians: Settlement policy has changed. Get over it‘Nothing Has Changed.’ A Dialogue With Saif Ammous Over the ‘Peace Process’18 rabbis for 58 hours fight the tide of illegitimacy
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‘This is our village!’ – a report from Nabi Saleh 23 Jan 2010Adam Horowitz The following is a shocking video from Nabi Saleh, a Palestinian village of 500 residents located north of Ramallah. The village has been engaged in growing demonstrations during the past few weeks to protest the illegal seizure of valuable agricultural land by the Hallamish (Neve Tzuf) settlement. Settlers have also recently uprooted of hundreds of the village’s olive trees.You can find more on the recent protests in Nabi Saleh at Ibn Ezra.
Related posts:Israeli settler violence against Palestinians is routine, and unreportedIsraeli occupation, not Islam, forcing Palestinian Christians out of the West BankGathering Storm on West Bank: Italian Judge Struck, Yeshiva Settlers Fire Rocket at Palestinian Village
We are excited to share an excerpt from A Wall in Palestine, a new book by French journalist Rene Backmann (published by Picador). Backmann is a foreign affairs columnist for Le Nouvel Observateur.
The book tells the story of the Separation Wall in the West Bank, its history and devastating impact. The book puts a human face on this massive project, and shows what it has meant for people’s day to day lives. The excerpt below tells one of those stories. Terry Boullata is the principal of an elementary school in Abu Dis, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem that has been bisected by the Wall. The excerpt discusses how the Wall has impacted the school Boullata runs, and how it divides and disrupts the Palestinian families that end up in its path.
The Wall in Abu Dis (Photo: Rachel Naparste... (continue)
In my last installment, my friend Milfort Bruno and I were in the Haitian countryside near Cap Rouge, listening to the Marcelin family explain why they no longer grow coffee for export. High-quality coffee had once been a significant source of the foreign exchange that a poor country like Haiti would need to develop.
The Marcelins had told me that the forced destruction of their Creole black pigs in the early 1980s had deprived them of a key source of organic fertilizer. But they had much more to say.
Pierre, their spokesman, explained that they used to sell their coffee to “rich” merchants in Jacmel, the nearby port (which was especially hard hit by the earthquake). “The merchants gave us a low price, and then got a much higher price when they exported,” he said. “But when we asked th... (continue)
In my last installment, my friend Milfort Bruno and I were in the Haitian countryside near Cap Rouge, listening to the Marcelin family explain why they no longer grow coffee for export. High-quality coffee had once been a significant source of the foreign exchange that a poor country like Haiti would need to develop.
The Marcelins had told me that the forced destruction of their Creole black pigs in the early 1980s had deprived them of a key source of organic fertilizer. But they had much more to say.
Pierre, their spokesman, explained that they used to sell their coffee to “rich” merchants in Jacmel, the nearby port (which was especially hard hit by the earthquake). “The merchants gave us a low price, and then got a much higher price when they exported,” he said. “But when we asked the merchants for loans to help buy our inputs, they turned us away.”
The Marcelins said they started to cut down the coffee bushes – Pierre gestured to the machete hanging from his belt – and instead planted bananas, sweet potatoes, and fresh vegetables (“things we can eat”).
There was more. Coffee bushes need shade, but they said they are felling their taller trees, to make and sell charcoal. Pierre said, with some shame, that they know they are contributing to their country’s deforestation crisis, but they have no choice. “It’s the only way we can earn a little money to buy cooking oil, or rice."
The Marcelin family’s experience is confirmed by more formal analysis. Michel-Rolph Trouillot is a brilliant Haitian anthropologist who teaches at the University of Chicago. In Haiti: State Against Nation (1990), he explained that the slave revolution of the early 1800s eliminated the colonial elite that had been based on large landholdings. The new local upper class that gradually emerged set themselves up as merchants in Jacmel, Port-au-Prince and other ports, and taxed the coffee exports of the independent small farmers like our friends, the Marcelins. (This elite was mostly, although not totally, of mixed racial background.)
It took time, but Haitian small farmers cut back on their coffee production, until by now exports have practically disappeared.
But the Haitian poor majority did more than just sit back and let the elite rule them unchallenged. In 1986, they ousted Jean-Claude (Baby Doc), the second of the two Duvalier dictators. And in 1990, two-thirds of the Haitian people voted for Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a slum priest who was – then – an honest, courageous man, who was committed to transforming their country.
Related posts:Why Haiti is Poor (II)Why Haiti Is Poor (I)An Antisemitic Joke From My Youth, and What It Says About the Elite
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The other day Joe Sacco, author of Footnotes in Gaza, which centers on a 1956 massacre in Gaza and is featured on this site, was on the Leonard Lopate show on NY’s public radio station. The opportunity surely came about because Sacco got a great review in the New York Times, and Lopate is better about the Israel/Palestine issue than his colleague Brian Lehrer (Lehrer is more communitarian, which works out to be Jewish-communitarian). Still it was a weird interview, formal, stiff, and indicative of the mainstream media’s complete discomfort with any alternative to the pro-Israel narrative.
Lopate felt the need to ask Sacco some tough questions: Well the Palestinians have also killed people, haven’t they? Sacco: Yes of course they have. And then: Well why didn’t you focus on Israeli deat... (continue)
The other day Joe Sacco, author of Footnotes in Gaza, which centers on a 1956 massacre in Gaza and is featured on this site, was on the Leonard Lopate show on NY’s public radio station. The opportunity surely came about because Sacco got a great review in the New York Times, and Lopate is better about the Israel/Palestine issue than his colleague Brian Lehrer (Lehrer is more communitarian, which works out to be Jewish-communitarian). Still it was a weird interview, formal, stiff, and indicative of the mainstream media’s complete discomfort with any alternative to the pro-Israel narrative.
Lopate felt the need to ask Sacco some tough questions: Well the Palestinians have also killed people, haven’t they? Sacco: Yes of course they have. And then: Well why didn’t you focus on Israeli deaths. Sacco: Well I thought there has been far less attention to this part of the story, and that’s why I wanted to tell it. Lopate also expressed some ignorance about the status of the refugees in Gaza. Happily, I forget most of the rest of the interview, but the general feeling was: This whole situation is a big complicated mess and who would want to go near it. To his credit, Sacco was completely unflappable and calm. But at the same time he didn’t take Lopate on, didn’t say: Well there has been a pattern of this kind of violence and ethnic cleansing, directed at civilians and refugees, from 1948 to 1956 to last year’s Gaza war.
Later I found a far better interview of Joe Sacco, here, with Laila El-Haddad at Al Jazeera. This interview reveals the poverty of our discourse. Note that Sacco is able to talk about his passion for the issue, and to speak directly about the media’s failure to cover Palestinians fairly:
Why 1956 in particular?
Mainly because it seems like a very large event. This is not to downplay anything [else] that happened. But we’re talking about hundreds of people. We’re talking about taking people out of their homes, or shooting them in their homes, or lining them up against the wall or in the streets and shooting them.
I just wondered why this wasn’t a story I’ve been able to read about.
And in the end, you just become attached to getting the story; you go from sort of justifying in your own head why you’re doing it to feeling like you are after something come hell or high water….
[Referring to his introduction to the matter years ago:] Every time the word ‘Palestinian’ came up on the news it was in relationship to a bombing or a hijacking or something else like that. And that is objective journalism: just reporting what’s going on. ‘This is a fact’ and leave it there. What it meant was that I had no education from the American mainstream media about what was going on there.
I knew nothing about the Palestinians. I didn’t know why they were fighting at all or what they were striving for. It never seemed to come up in the American media.
Related posts:Exclusive excerpt from Joe Sacco’s groundbreaking new book: Footnotes in GazaThe liberating effect of Obama’s inauguration will inevitably resonate to the Middle East‘Encountering Jews Who Are Progressive about All Issues but Palestine Is an Awful and Uncomfortable Situation for Non-Jewish People’ –Anne Silver
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Dissident Voice
a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice
Just Walk Away From the Democrats 23 Jan 2010Ron Jacobs The left needs to organize the unorganized. The working people, the unemployed, the young, and the restless. The right wing has their core group of supporters who organize around fear of the other. The liberals have those who believe in the myth of American equality because they have no class analysis. The [...]
The Voices of Participatory Democracy in Venezuela 23 Jan 2010Hans Bennett There are many different ways that the corporate media continues to misrepresent the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. Many critics of this biased media coverage have directly challenged the demonization of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but very few critics, if any, have exposed the media’s virtual erasure of the vibrant and growing participatory democracy in Venezuela. [...]
Now Fire Geithner and Summers 23 Jan 2010Richard C. Cook The new restraints on bank lending for speculation proposed yesterday by President Barack Obama follow the advice of former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker but will be much more credible if the president now fires Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council director Lawrence Summers.
What President Obama is calling the “Volcker Rule” would [...]
Mediocre Thinking 23 Jan 2010John Jensen The basic point is this. Results come from our quality of thinking. Poor quality means poor results. Less obvious is that our quality stays low if we’re pained when others try to help us improve it. If change to you means pain, you let friends and family know what you don’t want to talk [...]
Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Commander of the Groin" 24 Jan 2010Common Ills Isaiah's latest The World Today Just Nuts "Commander of the Groin." Barack holds a basketball, wears a Laker's shirt with a zero and declares, "I didn't end the Iraq War. I didn't close Guantanamo. I'm skipping Jury Duty just like Bush too! Only I was never arrested. As far as the press knows anyway." Watching fro mthe distance, Barry blogger Little Dicky moans, "He's still the commander of
And the war drags on . . . . 24 Jan 2010Common Ills Friday, January 29th, one time prime minister and all time poodle Tony Blair will appear before the Iraq Inquiry in London. A major protest is expected to take place outside as War Criminal Tony testifies. From Stop The War Coalition's "Protest on Tony Blair's Judgement Day: 29 January from 8am:" New Stop the War pamphlet Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre, BroadSanctuary, Westminster, London
Biden in Iraq, common sense out the door? 23 Jan 2010Common Ills U.S. officials said Biden's visit, his third to the country as vice president, had been planned weeks in advance as a routine engagement with Iraqi leaders as the U.S. prepares to draw down troops this year. But the controversial decision by an Iraqi government commission to ban at least 511 candidates from the March balloting because of suspected ties to the outlawed Baath Party of the former
Those bomb detecting machines . . . 23 Jan 2010Common Ills From yesterday's snapshot:Whether they can trust Barack or not, it appears they can't trust 'bomb detectors.' Caroline Hawley (BBC Newsnight -- link has text and video) reports that England has placed an export ban on the ADE-651 'bomb detector' -- a device that's cleaned Iraq's coffers of $85 million so far. Steven Morris (Guardian) follows up noting that, "The managing director [Jim
Iraq snapshot 22 Jan 2010Common Ills Friday, January 22, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, drama at the Iraq Inquiry, Joe Biden is in Iraq, and more. The Iraq Inquiry continued today in London. And the opening moments recalled a film scence. Specifically, Robert Zemeckis' Death Becomes Her, the scene where Helen (Goldie Hawn), obsessed with anger and rage towards Madeline (Meryl Streep), is now institutionalized and in
A Nation Cheated in the Name of Profit Must Now Rebuild 24 Jan 2010by Barbara RhineWe were eating dinner in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Jan. 12 when the earthquake struck. As Californians we knew the meaning of the distorted room with plates sliding from the table and pictures tumbling from the wall. We grabbed hands and ran outside. The building held, unlike countless others nearby, and we were uninjured.read more
The Woman Democrats Need 24 Jan 2010by Ethan PorterOn the day after Tuesday's electoral loss, the Obama administration
brought an unfamiliar face to the White House -- Elizabeth Warren, the
Harvard Law professor noted for her staunch advocacy on behalf the
middle class and fierce criticism of the bank bailouts. Perhaps the
administration will take a more aggressive approach to Wall Street,
along the lines of what Warren wants. But for Democrats to truly take
ownership of the economic crisis, Warren will need to play a more
prominent role. Not just her ideas, but the force of her personality is
needed.read more
Americans Fear Losing Affluence After Decades of Dole 24 Jan 2010by Pierre TristamPolls don't lie. If anything, they tell too many truths. But news editors present front-page results in fragments, usually picking the most sensational numbers at the expense of more telling ones. It's not malice. It's not journalism, either. It's a form of narrative herding that feeds assumptions instead of challenging them. The distortions can be fatal to good policy.read more
After the Massachusetts Massacre 24 Jan 2010by Frank RichIt was not a referendum on Barack Obama, who in every poll remains one of the most popular politicians in America. It was not a rejection of universal health care, which Massachusetts mandated (with Scott Brown’s State Senate vote) in 2006.read more
The Excesses of the Monied Interests: What Can We Do After Citizens United? 24 Jan 2010by Chris KrommThe Supreme Court decision on Citizens United
Thursday -- which greatly expanded the ability of corporations to
spend money to influence elections -- sent a collective gasp across the
public interest community.read more
Barack Obama has come out swinging following his party's rout in Massachusetts, vowing to "fight Wall Street" with a "populist" proposal whose main thrust seems to be the reinstatement of some of the common-sense regulations imposed almost 80 years ago to separate banks and investment firms. (I say "seems to be," because one can only guess what, if anything, Obama really intends to do about the matter. For despite the usual elevated rhetoric, he is, as usual, "leaving crucial details to be hashed out by Congress," as the NY Times reports. And we know how populist those paladins can be when they get down to hashing out crucial details.)
Of course, those old regulations were repealed by the bipartisan free-market extremists of the Clinton Era -- many of whom are now once more in charge ... (continue)
Barack Obama has come out swinging following his party's rout in Massachusetts, vowing to "fight Wall Street" with a "populist" proposal whose main thrust seems to be the reinstatement of some of the common-sense regulations imposed almost 80 years ago to separate banks and investment firms. (I say "seems to be," because one can only guess what, if anything, Obama really intends to do about the matter. For despite the usual elevated rhetoric, he is, as usual, "leaving crucial details to be hashed out by Congress," as the NY Times reports. And we know how populist those paladins can be when they get down to hashing out crucial details.)
Of course, those old regulations were repealed by the bipartisan free-market extremists of the Clinton Era -- many of whom are now once more in charge of national economic policy, such as Obama's main economic adviser, Larry Summers. And the fact that Obama is just now vaguely proposing such a move, a year after taking office -- and after engineering the transfer to trillions of dollars in cash, credit guarantees, bailouts and other forms of baksheesh to Wall Street -- cannot but evoke three little words that nonetheless speak volumes: horse, barn, door.
And even in the highly hypothetical likelihood that Obama was actually serious about "reining in the banks" -- that is, serious enough to actually have his staff draw up the crucial details themselves before handing the "fight" over to the banks' own bagmen in Congress -- it would be a moot point anyway, given the Supreme Court's promulgation of its Corporate Enabling Act this week. Although their ruling to remove the few existing -- and pathetic -- restraints on Big Money's domination of the electoral process is indeed bad news, one must also admire the Court's frankness in allowing this domination to step forth and stand out boldly, nakedly, no longer having to hide itself in dirty dodges and furtive tricks. (For more on the ramifications of the ruling, see this piece from Christopher Ketcham at Counterpunch.)
But even as the highways and byways and blogways of the Potomac power grid are all engrossed in the usual partisan navel-gazing, the hard, dirty work of empire goes on.* This week there was yet another killing of civilians in Afghanistan by the ever-surging NATO-led forces, including two boys, aged 11 and 15. As Reuters reports:
Over 100 people took to the streets of a small bazaar in Qarabagh district in Ghazni province, southwest of Kabul, to demonstrate, locals told Reuters by telephone.
Villagers who brought the bodies of four people to the hospital in the provincial capital of Ghazni city said three of the victims belonged to one family. Two were boys 11 and 15, villagers said.
Naturally, the American-led occupation forces said that no civilians were killed in what they called a raid "designed to capture a 'high-level Taliban commander known to direct attacks'. Unfortunately for the spinmeisters, an actual journalist, Nir Rosen, has been on the case. He provided this report to Professor As'ad AbuKhalil:
Nir Rosen sent me this from Kabul (I cite with his permission): "I met today with the parliament member from qara bagh district. He's not anti-occupation and even wants more operations but he confirmed that all the dead were innocent and were not fighters and two were quite young".
"All the dead were innocent." And two of them were children.
This is the reality when we should keep in mind as we wade through the endlessly chewed cud of petty partisan in-fighting among the court factions of our militarist empire. Every day, every night, someone's blood is being offered up on the imperial altars. That's what empire is. That's what empire does.
***
See Rome
While you were dreaming
While you wrapped your mind in silks
Bronze Steel Stone
Did their work
While you breathed the fumes
Of the oracle's fissure
Deranged the senses
Settled in soft beds
Rome
Sent agents into the streets
Hard men pinched men
Bronze Steel Stone
To eliminate execute
Discredit and destroy
See Rome
While you stood in the forum
Declaimed high words
Filled temples with fragrant smoke
Scrawled millions of learned disquisitions
Rome marched
Somewhere, in your name
Fired the village
In your name
Put steel to the belly
While you were wrapped in silks
While you grubbed
While you drank degraded waters
Drank dark, brilliant wine
While you sang, while you dreamed
For years, the all-consuming international struggle against the scourge of terrorism has been hampered at times by the fact that no one has been able to provide us with a rock-solid, comprehensive definition of the term. What, exactly, is "terrorism?" Great minds have grappled with this question in learned journals, academic symposia, think-tank fora, government entmoots, and across the commanding heights of the media. The matter is of some moment, as any person or organization to whom this ill-defined label is applied automatically becomes a target for "the path of action," to borrow the stirring phraseology of former U.S. president George W. Bush.
Indeed, some cynics have advanced the notion that the definition of terrorism has been left vague deliberately, in order to retain the deg... (continue)
For years, the all-consuming international struggle against the scourge of terrorism has been hampered at times by the fact that no one has been able to provide us with a rock-solid, comprehensive definition of the term. What, exactly, is "terrorism?" Great minds have grappled with this question in learned journals, academic symposia, think-tank fora, government entmoots, and across the commanding heights of the media. The matter is of some moment, as any person or organization to whom this ill-defined label is applied automatically becomes a target for "the path of action," to borrow the stirring phraseology of former U.S. president George W. Bush.
Indeed, some cynics have advanced the notion that the definition of terrorism has been left vague deliberately, in order to retain the degree of elasticity necessary for the term's application where and when as needed to advance one's particular political or ideological agenda. Of course, those who lack the phrenological bump of cynicism would ascribe this confusion to the artless, inherent difficulties of semantic expression all too common to our human kind. In any case, there has been, as the saying goes, much throwing about of brains on the subject, and to little effect.
But now this intractable problem has been resolved at last. And as you might expect, the man who cut this Gordian knot is one of the towering and tireless intellects of our age: Bill Clinton. To my shame, I have only recently become acquainted with his breakthrough, which was published in the December 2009 issue of Foreign Policy magazine. The chagrin I feel at my ignorance is mitigated somewhat by the fact that Mr. Clinton's brilliant formulation seems to have been largely ignored. This is no doubt because it was embedded in the vast sea of verbal gems and dazzling aperçus that the former president poured forth in his charmingly voluble fashion.
(For instance, who could fail to be dazzled by this Clintonian insight: "Tom Friedman is our most gifted journalist at actually looking at what is happening in the world and figuring out its relevance to tomorrow and figuring out a clever way to say it that sticks in your mind -- like "real men raise the gas tax." You know what I mean?" For more on this gifted journalist and his remarkable turns of phrase, see here. Mr. Clinton also lauded "big thinkers on the question of identity" like "Samuel Huntingdon, who wrote the famous book, The Clash of Civilizations." Huntingdon's book has indeed been influential, perhaps decisive, in shaping the worldview of our leading statesmen and opinion-shapers – despite the petty quibbling from second-raters, like Nobelist Amartya Sen (author of Identity and Violence), who claim that Huntingdon's magisterial wisdom is in reality somewhat lacking in intellectual heft and moral substance; some go so far as to claim his work is actually shallow, reductive, highly toxic racist tripe. But of course Mr. Clinton and our great and good know better.)
Thus primed with these sprays and sprigs of genius from the emeritus statesman, it is no surprise when we stumble onto his definitive definition of terrorism, tossed off almost casually in the midst of a disquisition on just how long the clash of civilizations known as the War on Terror might last. Cutting to the chase, as is ever his wont, Clinton nails the truth about terrorism:
Terror mean[s] killing and robbery and coercion by people who do not have state authority and go beyond national borders.
Like a bolt of sunlight breaking through a lowering cloud, Clinton's formulation floods one's brain with sudden illumination. "Killing and robbery and coercion by people who do not have state authority" – that's terrorism. Killing and robbery and coercion by people who do have state authority is, obviously, something else altogether: humanitarian intervention, perhaps, or liberation, or preservation of national security, or maintaining great-power credibility, or restoring hope, or a pre-dawn vertical insertion.
In any case, and every case, if this border-transcending activity is done by people who have state authority, then it is legitimate, it is good, it is necessary, it is noble. And even if, sometimes, on rare occasions, mistakes are made during the killing, robbing and coercing done by people who have state authority, these mistakes are only ever the result of good intentions gone awry.
So there you have it: what terrorism is depends on who does it. Naturally, there are nuances and complexities that Mr. Clinton did not go into here; it was an interview, after all, not a scholarly monograph. Obviously, the legitimacy of killing, robbing and coercing by people who have state authority is entirely dependent on the state from which that authority derives. Only those states which by their cheerful acceptance of America's benevolent guidance and abiding friendship have proven themselves worthy can legitimately exercise their authority to kill, rob and coerce. All others must forbear – or else be branded "rogue states," purveyors of "state terror," which in turn makes them eligible for "the path of action."
We are all deeply indebted to former President Clinton for bringing his legendary acumen to bear on this perplexing problem. Not for the first time do we lament the passage of the 22nd Amendment, which has prevented this acolyte of Huntingdon and Friedman from continuing to guide the ship of state. We can, however, rejoice that his own acolytes, associates, aides and advisors – and even his marriage partner! – now gird the current administration with their wise counsel. (show less)
Democrats and progressives are crying doom over the party's defeat in Massachusetts. The loss, we're told, is a blow to Barack Obama's political agenda, and so it is. They say it's a shame that yet another rightwing zealot who advocates torture is now in the Senate, and so it is. But it is precisely that agenda that led to the loss, and the shame. It is that agenda which has resurrected a rightwing party that was dead in the water, and empowered its most extreme elements.
And what is Barack Obama's agenda? What is his political program? It breaks down into three main elements: unwinnable wars, unconscionable bailouts, and unworkable, unwanted health care "reform" that forces people to further enrich some of the most despised conglomerates in the land. It is, in every way, a recipe for... (continue)
Democrats and progressives are crying doom over the party's defeat in Massachusetts. The loss, we're told, is a blow to Barack Obama's political agenda, and so it is. They say it's a shame that yet another rightwing zealot who advocates torture is now in the Senate, and so it is. But it is precisely that agenda that led to the loss, and the shame. It is that agenda which has resurrected a rightwing party that was dead in the water, and empowered its most extreme elements.
And what is Barack Obama's agenda? What is his political program? It breaks down into three main elements: unwinnable wars, unconscionable bailouts, and unworkable, unwanted health care "reform" that forces people to further enrich some of the most despised conglomerates in the land. It is, in every way, a recipe for moral, economic and political disaster. It is a gigantic anchor tied around the neck of the Democratic Party, and it will drag the whole lumbering wreck back to the bottom in short order.
It also provides a fertile breeding ground for the willful, belligerent ignorance of the Right to thrive. With such an egregiously stupid and destructive agenda at work in the White House, opponents need only say that they are against it, and they are guaranteed a wide following. Who would not be against unwinnable war, unconscionable bailouts and unworkable boondoggles serving rapacious elites? The actual positions held by these opponents – the actual policies they will pursue once in power – are given little scrutiny in such circumstances. The opponent represents change from a hated status quo – and that's enough. Later, when their odious positions come to light, it is too late.
Where have we seen this dynamic at work before? Oh yes, it was way back in November 2008. Barack Obama represented change from the hated status quo, from the agenda of the ruling Republican party. And what was that agenda? Why, unwinnable wars, unconscionable bailouts and the assiduous service of rapacious elites. The actual positions held by Obama – the actual policies that he would pursue once in power – were given little scrutiny. Except by a precious few – such as Arthur Silber, who long ago warned that Obama's election would be ruinous for genuine progressive change, that he would merely put a new gloss on the old corruption while disarming dissent from 'progressives,' who would feel bound to support the president against his rightwing enemies – even if it meant "holding their noses" and supporting bad policies like the health care reform bill or the Afghan surge.
Now it is obvious to all that Obama's core agenda is the same as Bush's: maintaining the elitist, militarist, corporatist system in all its essential elements. The "War on Terror" goes on, expanding into new lands. Torture and murder are still countenanced and concealed, in concentration camps and secret sites that are still in operation. All of Bush's most egregious assertions of authoritarian power are embraced and defended in court. Wall Street is rewarded, not regulated for its vast crimes. The legislative architect and champion of one of the most regressive, punitive, draconian acts of class war in our time – the Bankruptcy Bill, that atom bomb dropped on working people, the sick, the old and the young – has been plucked from deserved obscurity and made Vice President of the United States. A grotesquely expensive, unjust and dysfunctional health care system is not only left intact by "reform," it is given millions of new, captive customers, and more public money to guarantee its profits.
Once again, the question arises: Is this a winning agenda?
It is not just Obama's agenda, of course. It is the agenda of the Democratic Party: war, empire, and corporate profit über alles. Is this really worth defending, even with a held nose? Yet progressives and liberals will continue to insist that, bad as it is, we've got to keep supporting the Democratic Party – because there is no alternative, because otherwise, Tea Party torture mavens like Scott Brown or Sarah Palin will get elected.
But as we've already noted above, it is the Democratic agenda itself that is opening the door for extremist opponents, who then exploit the genuine dissatisfaction and genuine suffering caused by that agenda. The fact that these opponents also support the same core agenda means that the nation will keep ping-ponging back and forth, with an electorate hungry for change desperately chasing anyone who promises it – only to rush back in the other direction when the 'change agent' proves to be just another stooge of the status quo.
This destructive, corrosive dynamic – this ever-worsening death spiral – is what progressives are actually supporting and enabling when they "hold their noses" to support Democrats. The Republicans and Democrats are now simply two factions of the same party – the party of war and greed. To support one faction, no matter what, with held noses or open arms, in such a locked system only perpetuates and exacerbates its worst elements.
Oh, but there's no choice, we are told, with earnest handwringing, by our leading progressives. Third parties are not viable in our system, we are informed by our savvy progressive realists; there can be no effective political movement outside the two main parties. Indeed, no less than Digby herself has declared that the only alternative to working with this closed system (which means, in practice, supporting the Democratic Party) is violent revolution: "Pick up your muskets, kids, or STFU."
And so this is what we've come to. This is the "progressive" answer to any genuine, non-violent rejection of the Democratic faction's agenda of war and greed: "Shut the fuck up." My, wouldn't Martin Luther King Jr. be delighted with that? Wouldn't Thomas Jefferson revel in such delicious eloquence, such deep thought?
Look, I know it's not easy. I was born and raised a Yellow Dawg Democrat myself, and remained one for most of my life. I know what it's like to be hardwired for supporting Democrats, come hell or high water, giving them every benefit of the doubt, turning a blind eye here, making a furious rationalization there. These tribal loyalties are very difficult to lay down; it really can feel like turning your back on your family. And of course the belligerent, bellicose, willfully ignorant Republicans are loathsome and dangerous.
But there comes a time when you must face the truth – or be lost to truth forever. There comes a time to recognize that the Democratic Party and Republican Party are part of the same corrupted entity. There comes a time to recognize that the Democratic Party's agenda is not only ruinous in itself, unworthy of the support of anyone who cares about justice, peace, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – it is also empowering those very same loathsome and dangerous Republicans. There comes a time for even the most partisan tribalist (and I have been one) to accept the hard judgment of reality: that the Democratic Party is part of the problem, not the solution.
To say that there is no alternative to supporting this locked-in, closed-off, two-faction system of war and greed is an act of craven surrender to that system. To dismiss all hope for forging genuine alternatives to this system -- whether these be other political parties or more general movements aiming not for political power but for broader changes in social consciousness -- is a counsel of despair. It condemns us, and the world, to yet another generation of violence, chaos and corruption, another long, long journey away from the light. It is, as noted above, a recipe for disaster in every way.
But if you want more Scott Browns in power, then by all means, keep pushing that Democratic agenda. You'll soon have Scott Browns and Sarah Palins running out of your ears. (show less)
With international turf battles and diplomatic spats slowing the distribution of food, water, medicine and security in Haiti, the stricken people are now fleeing to the countryside. This may actually help the situation in one sense, as it might be easier to get aid to more people in unruined areas; however, it will also put a great strain on regions which are themselves mired in poverty and deprivation, and lacking in infrastructure.
Meanwhile, in Port-au-Prince, as aid begins to trickle in, anguished medical professionals are lamenting the multitude of unnecessary deaths that the bureaucratic bottlenecks have caused. As the Guardian reports:
Médecins sans Frontières says confusion over who is running the relief effort – the US which controls the main airport, or the UN which says ... (continue)
With international turf battles and diplomatic spats slowing the distribution of food, water, medicine and security in Haiti, the stricken people are now fleeing to the countryside. This may actually help the situation in one sense, as it might be easier to get aid to more people in unruined areas; however, it will also put a great strain on regions which are themselves mired in poverty and deprivation, and lacking in infrastructure.
Meanwhile, in Port-au-Prince, as aid begins to trickle in, anguished medical professionals are lamenting the multitude of unnecessary deaths that the bureaucratic bottlenecks have caused. As the Guardian reports:
Médecins sans Frontières says confusion over who is running the relief effort – the US which controls the main airport, or the UN which says it is overseeing distribution – may have led to hundreds of avoidable deaths because it has not been able to get essential supplies in to the country. "The co-ordination ... is not existing or not functioning at this stage," said Benoit Leduc, MSF's operations manager in Port-au-Prince. "I don't really know who is in charge. Between the two systems (the US and the UN) I don't think there is smooth liaison [over] who decides what."
...There has been criticism from some aid agencies of the Americans for giving priority to military flights at the airport while planes carrying relief supplies are unable to land. MSF has had five planes turned back from the airport in recent days, three carrying essential medical supplies and two with expert surgical personnel.
"We lost 48 hours because of these access problems," said Leduc. "Of course it is a small airport, but this is clearly a matter of defining priorities."
Asked how many avoidable deaths had been caused by the delays, he said that hundreds of critical lifesaving operations had been delayed by two days.
"We are talking about septicaemia. The morgues in the hospitals are full," he said.
... John O'Shea, the head of the Irish medical charity, Goal, [said], "there is only one thing stopping a massive and prodigious aid effort being rolled out and that is leadership and co-ordination. You have neither in Haiti at the moment."
The American government response has largely been a militarized one. But the celebrated American war machine -- whose annual budgets could lift millions out of poverty, deprivation and lack of infrastructure every year -- seems too musclebound to respond with the precision and flexibility that the situation requires. No doubt most of the individuals involved in the effort are working tirelessly; but a system designed for war, for death, destruction and domination, will never be a fit instrument for humanitarian relief.
The chief face of the United States in Haiti right now are highly-armed veterans of imperial wars, trained for conquest and occupation -- and many of them strained by multiple tours. And while many Haitians will greet the sight of any organized force coming to help them, America's long and ugly history with Haiti is not forgotten either, as Ed Pilkington notes:
The Haitian in whose house in Port-au-Prince we are staying – a prominent businessman and generally very pro-America – keeps a cherished machete on his wall. It was used, he explained to me one night, by his grandfather to attack US soldiers during the 1915-1934 American occupation of his country.
Writing on Monday, Pilkington also detailed the fatal slowness of the musclebound relief effort:
Day seven of the catastrophe, yet wherever we go we are still surrounded by crowds of people living on the streets pleading with us for water. A few miles away at the airport huge quantities of supplies are stacked high in the sun. Under a deal finalised between the heads of relevant parties on Sunday night, US troops will be responsible for securing the incoming supplies at the airport, and then moving them to four central distribution hubs. One of those hubs is at the national football stadium in downtown Port-au-Prince and another at a golf course near the US embassy.
That will free up troops from the UN peacekeeping force in Haiti, so the official line goes, to take charge of the next stage of the process – getting the aid out of the central hubs and to the neighbourhoods. For that purpose the UN has pinpointed 14 distribution locations where it, together with aid groups, will hand out the goods.
The plan sounds neat, thoroughly thought-out, fool-proof. There is only one problem: it is several days late.
A vast, permanent, completely mobile, well-trained, civilian rescue and restoration corps could easily be maintained by the United States, at the merest fraction of what it now pays out for its regular "war supplements" -- never mind the obscenely bloated 'regular' Pentagon budget. (And yes, such a corps would have a security component, made up of officers who have been trained to deal with suffering people in extremity -- not those trained to inflict suffering and extremity on people.)
This seems like a somewhat better use of public money than, say, waging endless wars to "project dominance" to the four corners of the earth, or bailing out a kleptoplutocracy that has wrecked the global economy and ruined the lives of millions around the world -- or even enriching pharmaceutical and med-biz conglomerates beyond the dreams of avarice just to claim you have passed health care "reform" without actually reforming an insanely expensive and unjust system. But like Dennis Kuchinich's idea of a "Department of Peace," any notion of a full-scale rescue corps would be hooted off the national stage by the super-savvy serious "realists" who rule our discourse, and our lives.
So we will go on as we are now. When natural disasters strike -- and they will be striking more often, and with deadlier effect, on our crowded, corroded planet in the years to come -- we will simply follow the same old pattern: launching ad hoc, inept attempts to retool a few bits and pieces of the lumbering War Machine for temporary humanitarian service. And once again, hundreds, if not thousands, of stricken people will die needless deaths.
NOTE: As noted here the other day, two good venues for giving aid to Haiti are Partners in Health and the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund, both of whom have been working in Haiti for many years. (show less)
If you really want to know the truth about the sickening wretches who run our country, if you want to know exactly what they will commit, what they will command, what they will countenance and conceal, all the way to the very top of the blood-greased pole of the Oval Office, then read every word of this astounding piece by Scott Horton in the new edition of Harper's: "The Guantanomo 'Suicides.'"
This is a full-length article which the magazine is making available for free on its website. In it, Horton unfolds the story of three men, almost certainly innocent, who were almost certainly murdered by American "interrogators" at a secret site in the American concentration camp in Guantanomo Bay, Cuba, on the night of June 9, 2006 -- an atrocity that set off a long, complex chain of deceit t... (continue)
If you really want to know the truth about the sickening wretches who run our country, if you want to know exactly what they will commit, what they will command, what they will countenance and conceal, all the way to the very top of the blood-greased pole of the Oval Office, then read every word of this astounding piece by Scott Horton in the new edition of Harper's: "The Guantanomo 'Suicides.'"
This is a full-length article which the magazine is making available for free on its website. In it, Horton unfolds the story of three men, almost certainly innocent, who were almost certainly murdered by American "interrogators" at a secret site in the American concentration camp in Guantanomo Bay, Cuba, on the night of June 9, 2006 -- an atrocity that set off a long, complex chain of deceit that continues to this day.
These killings were not only declared "suicides" by Washington; it was even claimed that the deaths were deliberate acts of "asymmetrical warfare" carried out by hardened terrorists -- "fanatics like the Nazis, Hitlerites, or the Ku Klux Klan, the people they tried at Nuremberg," as a Pentagon mouthpiece told the press. Yet as Horton notes, all three men had been put on "a list of prisoners to be sent home." One of them was only a few weeks away from his formal release. There was no credible evidence of terrorist connections against any of the men, two of whom had been sold into captivity by bounty hunters.
Yet these prisoners did have one black mark against them. They had been taking part in hunger strikes to protest conditions in the concentration camp. They were troublemakers, loudmouths. They wouldn't break. They had lawyers.
And so, according to a mass of credible evidence -- from heavily redacted official reports pieced together by the students and faculty at the law school of Seton Hall University, and from the courageous testimony of soldiers who had been on duty that night -- these three men, Salah Ahmed Al-Salami, Mani Shaman Al-Utaybi and Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani, were taken to a "black site" at Gitmo known as "Camp No." All regular military personnel were forbidden to enter the site, or even acknowledge its existence -- although some soldiers later testified to hearing screams from behind Camp No's concertina wire. Eyewitnesses say that three prisoners were taken, one by one, in a white van to Camp No on the night of June 9; and later, just before the alarm went up about the "suicides," the van returned and unloaded a mysterious cargo.
As Horton notes, the official accounts of the "suicides" are risible:
According to the NCIS, each prisoner had fashioned a noose from torn sheets and T-shirts and tied it to the top of his cell’s eight-foot-high steel-mesh wall. Each prisoner was able somehow to bind his own hands, and, in at least one case, his own feet, then stuff more rags deep down into his own throat. We are then asked to believe that each prisoner, even as he was choking on those rags, climbed up on his washbasin, slipped his head through the noose, tightened it, and leapt from the washbasin to hang until he asphyxiated.
[Yes, that's the same NCIS that has its noble adventures in the pursuit of truth and justice celebrated each week in a top-rated TV show.]
What really happened to the men? One clue comes from yet another hunger striker, Shaker Aamer, who was "interrogated" that same night, but managed to survive:
He described the events in detail to his lawyer, Zachary Katznelson, who was permitted to speak to him several weeks later. Katznelson recorded every detail of Aamer’s account and filed an affidavit with the federal district court in Washington, setting it out:
On June 9th, 2006, [Aamer] was beaten for two and a half hours straight. Seven naval military police participated in his beating. Mr. Aamer stated he had refused to provide a retina scan and fingerprints. He reported to me that he was strapped to a chair, fully restrained at the head, arms and legs. The MPs inflicted so much pain, Mr. Aamer said he thought he was going to die. The MPs pressed on pressure points all over his body: his temples, just under his jawline, in the hollow beneath his ears. They choked him. They bent his nose repeatedly so hard to the side he thought it would break. They pinched his thighs and feet constantly. They gouged his eyes. They held his eyes open and shined a mag-lite in them for minutes on end, generating intense heat. They bent his fingers until he screamed. When he screamed, they cut off his airway, then put a mask on him so he could not cry out.
The treatment Aamer describes is noteworthy because it produces excruciating pain without leaving lasting marks. Still, the fact that Aamer had his airway cut off and a mask put over his face “so he could not cry out” is alarming. This is the same technique that appears to have been used on the three deceased prisoners.
Aamer, who wife is British, continues to be held in the concentration camp, despite the UK government's request for his release, and despite the fact that there is "no suggestion that the Americans intend to charge him before a military commission, or in a federal criminal court, [or] indeed, [that] they have [any] meaningful evidence linking him to any crime." The only dangerous thing about Aamer is what he knows, and what he can tell.
Horton examines the official cover-up of these deaths in great detail. The deliberate and systematic deceptions began in the first hours after the killings -- and are still going on, carried forward with great guile by the Obama Administration. All along the way, evidence was destroyed, records were falsified, eyewitnesses were ignored -- or threatened. When the whistleblowers took the case to the new Administration in early 2009, hoping for a fairer hearing from the progressive young president, they were fobbed off with earnest promises of a thorough investigation by a team which included a close crony and former law partner of new Attorney General Eric Holder. But after months of inaction, the probe was suddenly closed, with government officials refusing to explain the decision.
Perhaps the most gruesome act in this bipartisan cover-up was the mutilation of the dead men's bodies. All three of them had their neck organs removed by military pathologists in the earliest stages of the investigation. As Horton notes:
An odd admission, given that these are the very body parts—the larynx, the hyoid bone, and the thyroid cartilage—that would have been essential to determining whether death occurred from hanging, from strangulation, or from choking. These parts remained missing when the men’s families finally received their bodies.
This mutilation -- "the removal of the structure that would have been the natural focus of the autopsy" -- prevented the families from carrying out proper forensic examinations of their own. Their request for the return of their children's body parts went unanswered.
All they are left with -- all we are left with -- are mutilated corpses and lies.
There is much more in Horton's piece, and again, I urge you to read it in full. Hold it in your mind the next time some sanctimonious official begins extolling the exceptional virtues of our shining city on the hill. And remember -- always remember -- that this militarist system of lawless violence and brutal domination is what our greasy pole-climbers, of whatever political stripe, want to have; it is what they want to wield. It is precisely this kind of power -- of life and death, of sway and command -- that they yearn for, fight for, cheat for and lie for in the bizarre and hollow rituals that our empire stages every four years. (show less)
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The January edition of the Hands Off Venezuela newsletter is now available for download. To receive all future editions make sure you join or renew your Hands Off Venezuela membership. This can be done online, by post or at any local meeting.
We at the ANSWER Coalition extend our heartfelt solidarity to
all of our Haitian sisters and brothers, as well as to all those who have friends and
family there, as Haiti copes with the destruction and grief of the massive 7.0 magnitude
earthquake that struck yesterday.
Journalist and author Naomi
Klein spoke in New York last night and addressed the crisis in Haiti: “We have to be
absolutely clear that this tragedy—which is part natural, part unnatural—must, under no
circumstances, be used to, one, further indebt Haiti and, two, to push through unpopular
corporatist policies in the interest of our corporations. This is not conspiracy theory.
They have done it again and again.” [includes rush transcript]
We discuss the situation in
Haiti following Tuesday’s massive earthquake, as well as the history of Haiti, with two
guests who have spent a lot of time there: Bill Quigley, the legal director at the
Center for Constitutional Rights, and Brian Concannon, director of the Institute for
Justice & Democracy in Haiti. [includes rush transcript]
Winograd Urges Democratic Leadership to Come Back Strong as the Voice of Working America | Press Release
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SAVE THE DATE! Thursday, January 28
Hold on to your collective hats, folks. The latest Supreme Court ruling is giving Blackwater/Monsanto/Halliburton/ExxonMobile et. al. permission to openly spend their way into the hearts and minds of both the elected and the electorate.
Hey, are you gonna stand for that? We didn't think so. Let's put our mouths where our hearts are: it is time to demand the immediate end to these endless wars, bring our brave kids home from harms way, start rebuilding our economy, and mending our tattered social and economic safety nets.
Join us for the Granny Peace Brigade's first action of 2010
CUT THE CRAP, CUT THE FUNDING phone-a-thon
CCR Condemns Unconstitutional Indefinite Detention Scheme
We are excited to share an excerpt from A Wall in Palestine
An opening in the Wall in Abu Dis (Photo: Neta Efroni)
“Like many of my pupils and teachers who lived within Jerusalem city limits, I continued to take the same route to the school, despite the wall that appeared in 2002. There were openings in this wall where Border Police soldiers let children and people they recognized pass, when they didn’t have orders to the contrary. Their tolerance worked well for us, but I will never forget how humiliating it was to crawl through those holes, and especially to see old women in traditional embroidered dress or grandfathers in keffiyehs struggle to pass through while these young people looked on. And in spite of it seeming temporary, this wall was, for the first time, a concrete separation between East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and an additional physical obstacle to what was already heavy regulation.”
Indeed, since March 1993, six months before the signing of the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn, the Israeli army had put into place a system of cordons and controls in the West Bank and Gaza Strip designed to regulate—in fact, reduce—Palestinian movement within the Occupied Territories and at crossings into Israel. Any travel was laden with a multitude of checkpoints and military roadblocks. Entry into Jerusalem was forbidden, except to those who had authorization from the Civil Administration—that is, the army. This authorization was difficult to obtain, and the smallest incident could nullify it. With the onset of the Second Intifada in September 2000, the military and police tightened security; ditches were dug, clay roadblocks were put up, and cement blocks were laid across the roads, paths, and alleyways that had previously allowed people to avoid checkpoints.
For those who lived in the neighborhoods or Palestinian villages on the outskirts of East Jerusalem, such as Ras al- Amud and Abu Dis, these measures were a nightmare. They had been casually breaking the rules of the occupation for years and now faced a clampdown. The Israeli authorities forbade Palestinians, whether they had an orange or a green identity card, to remain in Jerusalem between 7:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. under penalty of prison and a fine. And Palestinians living in East Jerusalem holding blue “permanent resident” cards were now forbidden to live outside of the city for more than seven years. Those who exceed this time limit and are caught by the police lose their right to residency and visiting privileges, authorization to work in Israel, the where no one knew exactly where Ras al-Amud ended and Abu Dis began—and borders were established communally—the circumstances of day- to-day life determined the geographic boundaries. It was like a big village stretching along the road to Jericho where everyone knew his neighbor and where families and clans had lived for generations. At the beginning of 2005, close to 55,000 Palestinians from East Jerusalem—out of 215,000—lived, in reality, outside of the city limits, and 75 percent of the residents of Az Zayyem, a town of about 3,000 people to the north of El- Azariyeh, held identity cards from East Jerusalem. In other words, putting up a wall here, between Abu Dis and Ras al- Amud, would tear families apart and sever the human, social, and economic ties established over the course of decades.
The Wall being built in Abu Dis in 2004. The photo was taken by a member of the Israeli organization Machsomwatch.
Which is exactly what happened. One morning in January 2004, the neighborhood found itself under siege, living in a “closed military zone.” Bulldozers and cranes, hired from the private sector and escorted by Israeli soldiers, took over the area. No vehicles, not even school buses, were authorized to enter or leave. The site was guarded day and night by a private armed militia, which, according to the residents, was made up of Druze and Bedouin. In place of the short temporary barrier, a cement wall almost thirty feet high, made up of slabs of concrete about four feet wide and sixteen inches thick, had suddenly been raised between neighbors. There was no longer any possibility of slipping through a gap between two cement slabs to go to work, or of climbing on a stepladder to pass a tray of knafeh or a basket of Jericho strawberries over to friends. In the blink of an eye, the other side of the road had disappeared, along with the neighbors, the storekeepers, the horizon, the rising sun—erased overnight by the wall.
For a few months, one passageway under the watch of the Border Police remained half- open. It was essentially a gap between a section of the wall and a fenced enclosure around a Christian monastery. Like everyone else, Terry Boullata crawled on all fours through the fencing to make the shuttle between Ras al-Amud and Abu Dis, until that hole also was closed up. Now she has to drive to her school. She heads toward the center of Jerusalem through the tunnel under Mount Scopus, follows the road of the Ma’ale Adumim settlement, turns toward benefits of social security and the Israeli school system, their yellow license plates (like the Israelis’) for their cars, and the freedom to travel in Israel or to use the Tel Aviv airport. At the same time, the cost of living in Jerusalem, the exorbitant price of housing and its scarcity on the Palestinian side, has forced many beneficiaries of the “permanent resident” status to live in the villages or neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city, while keeping a fictitious address in Jerusalem. In those parts of East Jerusalem where, until the erection of the wall, nothing (except occasionally the checkpoints) marked a border, the entrance to Abu Dis, and winds through traffic jams for a total of about nine miles, with at least one checkpoint—in other words, she must drive thirty to forty minutes in order to reach a point some nine hundred feet from where she started, on the other side of the wall.
Terry Boullata (Photo: 60voices.org)
“The problem today is deciding whether or not I should keep my school open. The majority of my students and teachers living in East Jerusalem can no longer come, for lack of transportation. I still owe the bank twenty-five thousand dollars. How am I going to pay them back if I lose a good part of my students? In a single year, seventy-seven out of two hundred have left. I had thirty- four students in sixth grade before the wall. Now I have six. And I have to pay my teachers, who are working even if they have only a handful of students. How will I manage?”
The worst part for Terry is that the wall has divided her own family. Her husband, Salah, who has an orange ID card from the West Bank, is not authorized to live in Jerusalem. In order to travel between Abu Dis, where he works, and Ras al- Amud, he is forced to play a game of hide and-seek with the police and the Israeli army. Like most Palestinians, he used to cross the invisible line between the West Bank and East Jerusalem by sneaking through gardens and alleyways, in order to stay out of sight from the Israeli patrols—risky before the construction of the wall, but now impossible, since there is only one heavily guarded point of passage. “Well before the construction of the first wall,” Terry says, “we had asked the Israeli authorities three times for a permanent resident permit for family reunification reasons. It was refused three times for ‘security reasons,’ because Salah, like me, was imprisoned during the First Intifada. My husband ended up obtaining a permit that allows him to stay in Jerusalem from five a.m. to seven p.m., but for professional reasons only. His company sells stones for construction, and they have some big Israeli clients.
“If he sleeps here, in our apartment, he’s breaking the law. All it takes is for the Border Police to enter in the middle of the night, which they have no problem doing, and he will be arrested, imprisoned for at least three months, and fined. As for me, I would have harbored a West Bank resident who does not have the right to be in Jerusalem past seven p.m.—even if he is my husband—so I risk prison and a fine, too. I will also be punished if I give Salah a ride in my car.” Regulations forbid anyone holding a blue ID card from East Jerusalem to transport a Palestinian from the West Bank in his or her vehicle, even if they are husband and wife. The police could confiscate her car and revoke her license, and she could face six months in prison and a thousand-dollar fine.
There was one solution for Terry and her children: they could surrender their ID cards for East Jerusalem and go live in Abu Dis.
“Out of the question,” Terry says. “That would be falling into the Israelis’ trap. They make our daily lives more and more difficult so that we will leave. My daughters, who are thirteen and eighteen years old, go to school in Beit Hanina, on the north side of Jerusalem. They would have to change schools, and I don’t want to add more trauma to their lives. And I also want to continue using the Tel Aviv airport for trips abroad. Even if every time I use it I run into endless problems with security because of my former political activities, it’s still quicker and less expensive than passing over the Allenby Bridge at the Jordanian border and using the Amman airport. So we chose to live on different sides of the wall: me here, on the East Jerusalem side, and Salah in the family home in Abu Dis. Our daughters, Zeina and Jasmine, spend three nights with me and three nights with their father. That’s the life the wall has condemned us to!”
Excerpted from A Wall in Palestine