Political leanings

[Jake_Sully]

Interesting, the far left tries to enact the DREAM Act but I am hoping it gets shot down.

[strocube]

Exactly,Torurot. The media is a pathetic travesty and a WHORE that does the bidding of the powerful. They have not been doing their job for years. They merely parrot the party line of whomever is in power. This was perhaps most obvious during the run up to the invasion and on occupation of Iraq.
Now that Mr. Assange and Wikileaks have come out with their releases of "sensitive" information it is clear that fabrications, lies distortions and cover-ups are standard operating procedure, not only for the U.S. government, but for the Fourth Estate as well, which, with a few exceptions, has become nothing but a puppet, zombie, whore--what a fucking joke.
These Wikileaks releases also confirm what most people with more than a quarter inch of forehead have been saying for years, which is basically--YOU ARE BEING LIED TO, YOU DUMBSHITS!

[pacman]

Why do you think Rupert Murdoch allows his Fox News to run as a continuous advertisement for the Republican Party? Where did the billions come from for him to buy the Wall Street Journal when he was allegedly broke?

It's all part of the internecine plot that allows the Neo-cons to pull the wool over the American public's eyes. Wealthy right-wing supporters use the power of Murdoch's media empire for their own ends. Though, they still could do nothing about the public's abhorrence for the Bush administration.

As for Julian Assange, it is apparent that he has enormous support from around the globe. Many politicians must be feeling torn between their need not to offend America & their support of his actions. And journalists around the world love him for showing how they have been deceived.

I believe history is going to be very kind to Assange, in fact, if he doesn't get killed first, his future as the bravest commentator of his time is assured. Everywhere other than America. And America know that the enormous publicity he has attracted will make him a continuing pain in their side as long as he makes himself available for interviews, rallies, anything remotely anti-American.

Having Assange charged over these rape allegations has many people considering what role the CIA played in this. And those freedom-loving Swedes, hard to imagine they will want to lock him up, no matter how guilty he is.

This is the best show in the world right now & will alter the way governments around the world deal with the USA. And will also impact on America's future influence. Especially places like the UN Security Council, they will hardly be falling over themselves to go along with US recommendations.

[strocube]

(Jake_Sully @ Dec. 09 2010,22:21) Interesting, the far left tries to enact the DREAM Act but I am hoping it gets shot down.

Dude, I work with the Mexican immigrant community every day. It's so fucked up, most of these people are so ignorant that it is a miracle that they can even function half as well as they do. It is not unusual for me to encounter the following: I will get people who in their own language, Spanish, will point to their knee, thigh or shin and say "foot." The same goes for hand. They will point to their shoulder, elbow or wrist and say "hand." For many of these people their upper appendages are all "hand" and their lower appendages are all "foot." They do not know the words, in their own language, for shoulder, arm, elbow, etc.
This is no joke, I encounter this kind of thing daily.
These are people who for the most part have about a third grade education, if they're lucky. A lot of them cannot read or write.
That said, I think the dream act should be approved immediately. We're talking about CHILDREN who were brought to this country by their parents. It is not their fault that they were brought here illegally. If they are able to go to college WE should support this, if nothing else, at least out of fairness. Also, it is much better to have these people as educated productive members of society instead of fodder for the prison industrial complex.

[Torurot]

More about the DREAM

Greg Moses
http://counterpunch.org/moses12082010.html
Calling From a Migrant Lockup in Arizona

[Jake_Sully]

(strocube @ Dec. 09 2010,23:15) That said, I think the dream act should be approved immediately. We're talking about CHILDREN who were brought to this country by their parents. It is not their fault that they were brought here illegally. If they are able to go to college WE should support this, if nothing else, at least out of fairness. Also, it is much better to have these people as educated productive members of society instead of fodder for the prison industrial complex.

Fairness? Where's the fairness for us American Citizens when we lost our jobs and become a burden on the government because of cheaper illegal labor?

Don't get me wrong I'm not some racist red neck, far from it actually but I know all too well about getting laid off because someone from another country is willing to do the job for way less than I am.

That means I have to adapt and work for less, which I do but this is an epidemic that neither the right, nor the left realizes. The right wants cheaper labor, the left wants the labor to get rights and benefits. They want to give them free education and healthcare from my taxes. But I and other US citizens like me get nothing. Zilch. Nada. And I'm a minority saying that. I'm still bitter I didn't get any financial aid during college even though I applied for it and qualified for it.

stro, while I respect your opinion, your stance is not fair for me and people like me and that's why I think the far left is every bit as evil as the far right is.

[strocube]

What you fail to understand is that passing the dream act will not affect you or people like you. Yes, people unemployed and suffering from economic distress need help from the government. Unfortunately, since the our government is owned and operated by big money, they get all the goodies and the rest of us are forced to fight over crumbs. Your argument is a perfect example of that.
Also, it is BUSINESS that is the main driver of illegal immigration into this country. NAFTA effectively tanked the Mexican corn market, forcing wave after wave of illegal immigration into the U.S. as people were then unable to feed themselves and their families. It is also business who exploits these people as source of cheap labor.
American citizens have lost their jobs because of so called "free trade" agreements that gave free reign to businesses to find the cheapest labor where ever they could. In "far-left" parlance that is known as the race to the bottom, this is what is causing your problems. The waves of illegal immigrants are merely a symptom--NOT THE CAUSE, get it?

[Jake_Sully]

No I don't agree with your logic here strocube because, currently we have how many millions unemployed and underemployed and you want to add millions more as their domestic competition so underemployment jumps from 17% to 35%?

And these kids are no different than anchor babies which play on sympathy of those that are weak hearted and generous like you and me. Its the 1 instance that I favor a repeal of the 14th amendment for the removal of the anchor baby purposes.

The only way I would favor these illegal immigrants being legalized is if they each gave $50,000 for a green card - which isn't that unreasonable a figure, considering people spend $40,000 by mortgaging their homes just to get smuggled here. Instead of the smugglers getting the money, we can use it to pay off our debt from the 2 stupid wars and maybe actually pass some good bills like federal funding for people who wish to change careers and need money for school to get the skills.

And I do agree, free trade is the worst idea anyone could think of. I wish they would tax imports heavily so we could get American jobs and manufacturing rolling again.

[Torurot]

Strocube You nailed it. "Freetrade" is neither free nor fair trade. Just look at the current round of TPP, just like ACTA a closed and secret shop. "free" trade means unrestrained (NOT TAXED) movement of CAPITAL $$$$ nothing else.

Jake_Sully you just don't get it. USA, a nation of immigrants. TODAY if you took every talented foreigner out of the USA it would close up shop in a "New York" minute. If you have money immigration doesn't bother you at all, especially if you have one of those "special" important jobs on Wall street or an essential science/military position.

[Jake_Sully]

Are there things wrong that you're suggesting? Yes. But am I willing to go as far on the fix as you? No!

[manarak]

I'm a right wing liberal lunatic...

I would advocate free flow of people (i.e. anyone can come and work and buy houses etc.), but strictly no welfare for migrants, except they pay themselves for some kind of non-subsidized "insurance" (i.e. health insurance, retirement plans, etc.).
Pennyless and criminal migrants get expelled.
Migrants can apply for citizenship after living for 20 years in the country, with proven cultural intergration.

Regarding "free trade":
the free trade agreements are a joke and are heavily biaised towards making the rich even richer.

I'd be happy to see real free trade, i.e. get rid of all import restrictions and tariffs.

In return, I'd tax corporations/companies on their size.
Small companies of 1 or 2 persons wouldn't pay any tax.
The larger the corporation (on a consolidated basis), the more tax it should pay.
Companies should pay tax on either:
- profit
- number of employees
- turnover
- assets
(progressive by figure, whatever causes a higher tax)

[PigDogg]

(Jake_Sully @ Dec. 10 2010,09:58) That means I have to adapt and work for less, which I do but this is an epidemic that neither the right, nor the left realizes.

I don't think it matters too much if the left and right realize it as it is largely out of their control.

The best bet is for the government to create jobs.

Right wing says tax breaks for the rich will create jobs. This is a dubious proposition.

Left wants unemployment benefits extended for an additional year year beyond the already extended benefits.

Better would be the creation of temporay jobs for those who will be losing their extended benefits. Though to administer a jobs program though.

[Jake_Sully]

Hehe federal judge rules healthcare law unconstitutional.

Appeals expected.

-- Personally I saw it coming, and it won't be overturned by the SC if it gets there because nowhere in the constitution does it say, citizens have to buy a healthcare plan or pay a penalty.

I hated that and I hope they strike it down. I've seriously paid enough bullshit fines to finance politicians and donut eating cops so here's to 1 less.

[Torurot]

Israeli Soldiers Break the Silence
"The Darkness to Expel!"
http://counterpunch.org/avnery12272010.html
By URI AVNERY December 27, 2010

It is easy to despair before the filthy wave of racism that is engulfing us.

The remedy for this despair: the growing number of young people, sons and daughters of the new Israeli generation, who are joining the fight against racism and occupation.

This week, several hundred of them gathered in a hall in Tel Aviv (belonging, ironically, to the Zionist Federation of America) to launch a book published by the group €œBreaking the Silence€.

In the hall there were some veterans of the peace camp, but the great majority of those present were youngsters in their twenties, male and female, who have completed their military service.

€œThe Occupation of the Territories€ is a book of 344 pages, consisting of almost 200 testimonies by soldiers about the daily and nightly life of the occupation. The soldiers supplied the eyewitness accounts, and the organization, which is composed of ex-soldiers, verified, compared and sifted them. In the end, 183 of some 700 testimonies were selected for publication.

Not even one of these testimonies was denied by the army spokesman, who generally hastens to contradict honest accounts of what is happening in the occupied territories. Since the editors of the book have themselves served as soldiers in these places, it was easy for them to distinguish between truth and falsehood.

The book makes very depressing reading, and not because it details gruesome atrocities. On the contrary, the editors made it a point not to include incidents of exceptional brutality committed by sadists, which can be found in every army unit in Israel and throughout the world. Rather, they wanted to throw light on the grey routine of the occupation.

There are accounts of nocturnal incursions into quiet Palestinian villages as exercises €“ breaking into random houses where there were no €œsuspects€, terrorizing children, women and men, creating mayhem in the village €“ all this to €œtrain€ the soldiers. There are stories about the humiliation of passers-by at the checkpoints (€œClean up the checkpoint and you will get your keys back!€), casual harassment (€œHe started to complain, so I hit him in the face with the butt of my weapon!€). Every testimony is meticulously documented: time, place, unit.

At the launch of the book, some of the testimonies were shown on film, with the witnesses daring to show their faces and identify themselves by their full name. These were no exceptional people, no fanatics or bleeding hearts. No weepers of the €œwe shoot and we weep€ school. Just ordinary young people, who had time to come to grips with their personal experiences.

There are even occasional flashes of humor. Like the tale of the soldier who had for a long time been manning a roadblock between two Palestinian villages, without understanding its purpose or its security value. One day, a bulldozer suddenly appeared from nowhere, uprooted the concrete blocks and drove off with them, again without any explanation. €œThey have stolen my roadblock!€ the soldier complains, having got used to the place.

The titles of the testimonies speak for themselves: €œTo produce sleeplessness in the village€, €œWe used to send neighbors to disarm explosive charges€, €œThe battalion commander ordered us to shoot anyone trying to remove the bodies€, €œThe commander of the navy commandos put the muzzle of the rifle into the man€™s mouth€, €œThey told us to shoot at anybody moving in the street€, €œYou can do whatever you feel like, nobody is going to question it€, €œYou shoot at the TV set for fun€, €œI did not know that there were roads for Jews only€, €œA kind of total arbitrariness€, €œThe [Hebron settler] boys beat up the old woman€, €œArrest the settlers? The army cannot do that€. And so on. Just routine.

The intention of the book is not to uncover atrocities and show the soldiers as monsters. It aims to present a situation: the ruling over another people, with all the high-handed arbitrariness that this necessarily entails, humiliation of the occupied, corruption of the occupier. According to the editors, it is quite impossible for the individual soldier to make a difference. He is just a cog in a machine that is inhuman by its very nature.

* * *

GROUPS OF young people who are simply fed up are springing to life in the country. They are signs of an awakening that finds its expression in the daily fight of hundreds of groups devoted to different causes. Only seemingly different €“ because these causes are essentially bound up with each other. The fight against the occupation, for the refugees who seek shelter in this country, against the demolition of the houses of the Bedouin in the Negev, against the invasion of Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem by settlers, for equal rights for the Arab citizens in Israel, against social injustices, for the preservation of the environment, against government corruption, against religious coercion, etc etc. They have a common denominator: the fight for a different Israel.

Young volunteers for each of these fights - and for all of them together - are needed today more than ever, in face of the racism that is raising its ugly head all over Israel €“ an open racism, shameless and indeed proud of itself.

The phenomenon by itself is not new. What is new is the loss of any vestige of shame. The racists shout their message on every street corner and earn applause from politicians and rabbis.

It started with the flood of racist bills designed to delegitimize the Arab citizens. €œAdmission committees€, €œloyalty oaths€, and much more. Then came the religious edict of the chief rabbi of Safed, forbidding Jews to let apartments to Arabs. This still caused shock and embarrassment. Since then, however, all the dams have broken. A gang of 14-year old boys ambushed Arabs in the center of Jerusalem, using a 14- year old girl as bait, and beat them unconscious. Hundreds of rabbis all over the country signed a manifesto forbidding the letting of apartments to €œforeigners€ (meaning Arabs who have lived in the country for centuries). In Bat Yam, a city bordering Tel Aviv, a stormy demonstration called for the expulsion of all Arabs from the town. Next day, a demonstration in Tel Aviv€™s squalid Hatikva quarter demanded the expulsion of refugees and foreign workers from the neighborhood.

Ostensibly, the demonstrations in Bat Yam and Hatikva were aimed at different targets: the first against Arabs, the second against foreign workers. But the same well-known fascist activists appeared and spoke at both, carrying the same placards and shouting the same slogans. The most conspicuous of these was the assertion that the Arabs and the foreigners are endangering Jewish women €“ the Arabs marry them and take them to their villages, the foreign workers flirt with them. €œJewish Women for the Jewish People!€ cried the posters €“ as if women were property.

The connection between racism and sex has always intrigued researchers. White racists in the US spread the rumor that €œniggers€ have bigger penises. Among German Nazi newspapers, the most sensationalist was Der Stürmer, a pornographic sheet filled with stories about innocent blond girls seduced by the money of crooked-nosed ugly Jews. Its editor, Julius Streicher, was condemned and hanged in Nuremberg.

Some believe that one of the roots of racism is a feeling of sexual inadequacy, the lack of self-confidence of men afraid of sexual impotence and/or competition €“ the very opposite of the picture of the macho racist he-man. It is enough to look at the racist protesters to draw conclusions.

* * *

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE famously said that every person is a racist €“ the difference being between those who admit it to themselves and try to combat it and those who do not.

That is undoubtedly true. I have a simple test for the power of racism: you are driving and somebody cuts your path. If it is a black driver, you say: €œDamn nigger!€ If it is a woman, you shout: €œGo home to your kitchen!€ If he wears a kippah, you cry: €œBloody Dos!€ (€œDos€ is a derogatory Hebrew term for a religious Jew.) If it is a driver without special features, you just shout: €œIdiot! Who gave you a driving license?€

The hatred of strangers, the aversion to everyone who is unlike you, are €“ so it seems €“ biological traits, remnants from the time of ancient man, when every stranger was a threat to the limited resources the tribe had to depend on. It exists in many other animal species, too. Nothing to be proud of.

The civilized human being, and even more so the civilized human society, has a duty to fight these traits - not only because they are ugly in themselves, but also because they hinder the modernization of the globalized world, In which cooperation between peoples and between people is imperative. It takes us back to the stone age.

The situation here is now moving in the opposite direction: the country is embracing the racist demon. After millennia as the victims of racism, it seems as if Jews here are happy to be able to do unto others what has been done to them.

* * *

IT IS impossible to ignore the central role played by rabbis in this filthy mess. They ride the wave and assert that this is the spirit of Judaism. They quote the holy texts at length.

The truth is that Judaism, like almost every religion, includes racist and anti-racist, humanist and barbarian elements. The Crusaders, who massacred the Jews on their way to the Holy Land and who slaughtered the inhabitants of Jerusalem €“ Muslims and Jews alike €“ when they conquered the city, shouted: €œGod Wills It!€ One can find in the New Testament magnificent passages preaching love, side by side with quite different sections. So, too, in the Koran there are Surahs full of love for humankind and calls for justice and equality, as well as others full of intolerance and hatred.

So, too, the Hebrew Bible. The racists quote Rabbi Maimonides, who interpreted two biblical words as a commandment not to let non-Jews reside in the country. The whole Book of Joshua is a call to genocide. The Bible commands the Israelites to murder the entire tribe of Amalek (€œboth man and woman, infant and suckling€) and the Prophet Samuel dethroned King Saul because he spared the lives of Amalekite prisoners (1 Samuel 15).

But the Hebrew Bible is also a book of unequalled humanity. It starts with the description of the creation of man and woman, stressing that all human beings are created in the image of God - and therefore equal. €œSo God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he him.€ The Bible repeatedly demands the treatment of €œGerim€ (foreigners living among the Israelites) as Israelites, €œbecause you were foreigners in the land of Egypt€.

As Gershom Schocken, the owner and long-time editor in chief of Haaretz, pointed out in an article republished this week on the 20th anniversary of his death: Ezra did indeed expel the non-Jewish wives from the community, but before that, foreign women played a central role in the Biblical story. Bathsheba was the wife of a Hittite, before she married King David and became the mother of the house from which the Messiah will come in due course (or from which, as Christians believe, Jesus €“ who was born 2010 years ago today €“ already came.) David himself was the descendant of Ruth, a Moabite woman. King Ahab, the greatest of Israelite kings, married a Phoenician woman.

When our racists present the ugliest face of Judaism, ignoring its universalist message, they do great damage to the religion of millions of Jews around the world. The most important Jewish rabbis were silent this week in face of the racist fire that was ignited by rabbis, or murmured something about €œways of peace€ €“ referring to the rule forbidding the provocation of Goyim, because they might treat the Jews in their countries as the Jews treat the minorities in their own state. Up to now, no Christian priest has yet called upon his flock not to let apartments to Jews €“ but it could happen.

The silence of the €œTorah sages€ is thunderous. Even more so the silence of the country€™s political leaders: Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres did not roar his outrage, and Binyamin Netanyahu has contented himself with calling upon the racists €œnot to take the law into their own hands€. Not a single word against racism, not a single word about morality and justice.

* * *

WHEN I listened to the ex-soldiers at the €œBreaking the Silence€ meeting, I was filled with hope. This generation understands its duty to heal the state in which they will spend their lives.

In the words of the Hanukkah song, which is rapidly becoming the anthem of the anti-racist demonstrations: €œWe come the darkness to expel!€

Uri Avnery is a contributor to The Politics of Anti-Semitism.
http://www.easycartsecure.com/Counte...nch_Books.html

[Torurot]

Especially for our US friends.

"An Organized Hypocrisy"
The National Image and Its Contradictions
http://counterpunch.org/davidson12272010.html
By LAWRENCE DAVIDSON December 27, 2010

Benjamin Disraeli once labeled Britain's government "an organized hypocrisy." That was in circa 1845. Things have not changed much and by now hypocrisy might well be seen as a common sin of democratic government. This is because in democracies straight forward honesty about behavior that runs counter to the idealized national image is usually bad politics. Among today's democracies none proves this point more than the United States. The United States, like Great Britain in the 19th century, simultaneously acts like an imperial power and cultivates a national image as the world's prime purveyor of good government, stability and progress. However, history has taught us that a nation cannot be both of these things at once. So the folks in Washington have created for themselves an environment wherein principle and consistency are impossible. Take, for instance, the following:

1. A stolen election in the Ivory Coast has resulted in active disapproval on the part of the U.S. government. After all, this is not good government. President Obama slapped sanctions on the fellows who stole the vote and urged the United Nations to send more troops (some 9,000 are already in the country) to set things right. On the other hand, the November parliamentary elections in Egypt (presently a U.S. ally) were an outright farce. The opposition was banned, jailed and otherwise intimidated. Not at all good government. And Washington's response? Nada (nothing). If you claim to be the prime purveyor of democracy in the world, are you not suppose to be consistent?

2. Then there is the yet unproven Iranian nuclear weapons program. According to studies done by U.S. intelligence this program is a myth. Nonetheless, Israeli paranoia has stirred up U.S. Congressional passions. Iran is now proclaimed a destabilizing rogue nation. The United States has proceeded to apply one package of sanctions after another on Teheran. There are actually men and women among our elected officials (obviously more swayed by the whisperings of Zionist lobbyists than by U.S. intelligence reports) who are quite willing to go to war over this unsubstantiated threat. Considering the cost and horror of such action, I think that they, regardless of age or sex, should be in the front combat lines of any conflict resulting from their misplaced enthusiasm. Not to be undone in this effort, European Union countries also seek to put pressure on Iran to stop something that is not happening..

On the other hand there is Israel (America's "strategic"ally), the source of much of this mania. That country is in violation of international law in ways that Tehran could never match. Its expansionist policies are the main destabilizing force in the entire Middle East. It is religiously devoted to the ethnic cleansing of an entire people while claiming that it is civilized and "Western." And, Israel has 200 or more nuclear warheads, the missile systems to deliver them, and a leadership whose reckless disregard for world peace makes Amadinejad look like a model of sanity. If the United States seeks stability in the Middle East so that region may be a reliable source of oil, should it not be concerned with Israel as well as Iran? So, what does Washington have to say about the loaded warheads in Israel? Nada. And the EU, well, they plan to admit Israel into the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

3. Latin America has always been an arena wherein the U.S. preaches good government and development. But on the ground hypocrisy rules. Cuba, Venezuela, Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador are or were hounded by one American administration after another because their leftist governments were, by definition, bad governments. Simultaneously, the same administrations backed the murderers and torturers who once passed for political leaders in places like Argentina and Chile. Washington also backed the Contras and called these violators of human rights, "freedom fighters." It has gotten to the point where the number of people living south of the Rio Grande who now trust the U.S. government is dwindling fast. And some of those who still do so also cheer the South and Central American death squads funded by various American corporations and trained by the U.S. military's infamous School of the Americans in Georgia. What does Washington have to say about this skewed situation? Nada.

These are just a few examples of the contradictions that beset the idealized U.S. national image. As the skepticism that can be found in Latin America, and now the Middle East too suggests, belief in this America really stops at the its borders. Beyond that point the ideal image is increasingly seen as masking a form of aggressive narcissism. Yet inside the borders, most are still true believers. Our national self-image dominates to the point that we can apply Andre Gide's adage, "the true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity." I think many of our politicians fall into this category.

Why are things this way? Well, as mentioned above, believing in a national image that is unhinged from reality has something to do with it. American politicians know that identifying yourself with the idealized U.S. (democracy, stability and progress, etc.) is a winning political formula. But how do you bury the contradictions? You either hide your hypocrisy behind a thick cloud of secrecy (a la the Wikileaks affair) or you obscure your double standards with mass propaganda. Washington uses both strategies. If you pursue these strategies long enough and consistently enough you build yourself a "thought collective"€“groupthink on a national level. Within the thought collective self-deception and rationalization become high arts and soon both the leaders and the followers no longer notice the underlying hypocrisy. It also helps that most of the public is indifferent toward the world beyond their local sphere. Indifference results in ignorance and the void left by ignorance is readily filled with manipulative misinformation. Nor do the indifferent care about government secrecy on subjects that appear to have no relevance to their daily lives.

To make all this a bit clearer think about your own experience. When you act in the world things usually work out if the ideas and beliefs in your head match well with the reality outside you. However, when those ideas and beliefs do not match up with outside reality, things almost never go well. Indeed, at such times you can walk right off a cliff. America's idealized national image, along with all the spin coming from its powerful political and media elites, constitute a good part of the notions floating around the collective "U.S. head."

Over the last fifty years or more those notions have become ever more detached from reality. Viet Nam, Iraq, the September 11th attacks, were all symptoms of this growing fact. Much of the rest of the world can see this, but rather than face the grim truth, most Americans are determined to maintain their collective self-image through stubborn self-deception and hypocrisy. And, there is no telling how much longer this can go on.

Lawrence Davidson is a Professor of History at West Chester University in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He can be reached at [email protected]