Black Thoughts on Jeremiah Wright & the Audacity of Whiteness

One Email Forum Reacts to the Furor Over Pastor Jeremiah Wright

"...there is a tradition in the black church for pastors to use colorful analogy and hyperbole when giving sermons. But that only works when folks are being logical, and we all know logic flys out the window when we think about white people and their perception of us. This can kill him, [Obama] if not against Hillary, in the general election. This is race-baiting, and it's going to work."--KK, member of a black email group reacting to the breaking news of the Pastor Jeremiah Wright video.



It has been over a week now that videos of Pastor Jeremiah Wright began circulating around the internet like a virus, finding its way onto national media outlets and setting off one of the biggest firestorms of what has been billed as an historic presidential campaign season. The grainy images of the popular black minister, one-time mentor topresidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, shows him railing against the racial injustice of America--and pulling no punches.

In assessing the rise of Barack Obama against opponent Hillary Clinton, Wright said his former mentee "knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people — Hillary would never know that, Hillary ain't never been called a n@gger."

In a speech given after 2001, Wright is seen recounting US foreign and domestic policy blunders as a pretext to 9/11. "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

In another sermon that quickly became the most widely quoted, Wright says the US government wants blacks "to sing God Bless America" despite enduring years of continued abuse and oppression. "No, no, no," declares Wright forcefully, "God damn America!"

After a weekend of making the rounds on talk shows to explain and denounce the words of the man who married him and baptised his children, Sen. Barack Obama gave a much anicipated speech to address the issue. As before, Obama stated that he equivocally denounced his pastor for "views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike."

Yet at the same time, he refused to disown his pastor, and seemed to be giving America--white America anyway--a brief history of black existence in this country. Obama pointed out that the Constitution "was stained by... [America's]...original sin of slavery." He went on in stark terms to recount issues of legalized discrimination, Jim Crow, disfranchisement, racial wealth inequality and more that have frustrated and restricted black existence. "For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years," he said. "That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table."

Media reaction to the speech varied. Mainstream outlets generally praised it as a good speech. Political pundits gave it high marks, especially for Obama's bravery to "elevate the discussion" about race. Yet most wondered if it would hit home with much of white America, particularly rural whites in places like Pennsylvania. Conservative talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, in typical fashion, denounced the speech and has since gone on a full on Obama-smear campaign. FOX's Sean Hannity--in similar form--went as far as to call Obama a racist and an anti-Semite, though for reasons not at all clear. Recent polls have shown that the entire racially charged event has diminished Obama's lead over Clinton, but not nearly as bad as many predicted. The question remains, was his speech enough? Did it soothe white fears? Can he recover from the fallout and backlash?

Much like Pastor Wright's commentary was tucked away from whites--who at times seem blissfully unaware of the goings-on in black America--so has much of black reaction to the entire furor been missed. While television news broadcasts tend to feature black news pundits who must choose their words carefully and never stray too far from the accepted narrative, a flurry of activity on the topic in the black virtual community offers a wider insight. On message boards, blogs and within black-created email groups, articles and editorials are passed back and forth as the issue of Wright, Obama and America--particularly white America--are discussed and debated.

The following account follows the writings on one black email forum. Made up of about at most 18 or more members, they hail from careers as varied as computer engineering to public school administration. Some come from higher learning, others from the corporate business world. They are from different regions of the US, with some tracing recent ancestry from across the black Diaspora. They are single or married, in both intra and inter racial relationships, of varied religious perspectives and sharing differing politics. Most do not know each other personally outside the virtual community, and there is usually as much heated debate between them as their is agreement. There is no distinct purpose for the forum, other than to talk, vent, share stories, jokes or news articles. Topics can range from politics to science fiction to Hip Hop to child rearing. Many were notinitial supporters of Sen. Barack Obama, with some previously backing Sen. John Edwards, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Sen. Hillary Clinton or no candidate at all. Most have never voiced any party affiliation, and more than a few might probably call themselves Independents. As an interesting cross-section, they shed insight into some of the discussions in the black community over the past week.

*In disclosure, the architect of this blog space is a member of the email group and his posts are included within

For many blacks who paid attention to politics, such as those on the forum, at first sighting of the Pastor Wright video, there was a sense of brewing trouble.

"This is huge," KK warned the forum as the story broke. "Because if I know anything aboutwhite people, I know they cannot digest the pastor's message without fear...When I watched the Good Morning America show, I felt something in my chest hurting. Not so much because I support Obama , but, because I knew this is the kind of smear, this is an attack on being black and having a conscious black perspective on America. This is the kind of divisive attack that is going to create a greater divide between white people and black people."

Fellow member VJ agreed, expressing a growing sense of frustration over what she saw as censorship of black emotions and political perspectives.

"It's sad that in this day and age, we continue to be the only group that is not ALLOWED to speak of our experiences in the sense that critically analyzes the power dynamics that continue to oppress us," she noted. "We know Obama is running for President but somehow, because he is, we all are not allowed to mention the conditions that leave us disempowered. Wright's message that Obama is not white is true. Obama is not rich is true. And Obama is not privileged is true. Isn't that what drew a lot of folks to him in the first place?"

For many on the forum, the issue itself was not so much about Wright or Obama, but rather what was seen as the hypocritical media news lens through which the story was being viewed. Online articles like that of FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting) showing media bias in the treatment of controversial religious figures aligned with GOP hopeful Sen. John McCain, like the Christian Zionist Rev. JohnHagee , made their way to the forum as evidence. The title of one popular black news blog was noted approvingly for its cynicism about sensationalist race-baiting journalism: "Media’s New Attacks: Focus on Obama Pastor, FAUX News Leads the Charge."

Not all media coverage however was condemned. Articles and news stories that seemed
to show more objective coverage like a Newsweek piece on Pastor Wright's Trinity Church, was given the benefit of the doubt with only a few criticisms. More typical however for the forum were articles and comments fromprogressive news sites and blogs that equally lambasted the negative media coverage. The Nation magazine's Christopher Haye's piece "Obama, Politics and the Pulpit," that decried the hypocritical "media staged collective freakout" over Pastor Wright hit the forum to praises of "Amen!"

Anger was not levelled only at the news media and the white mainstream, but what some saw as inaction on the part of black leaders, activists and the general community, towards the continued smearing campaign of Pastor Wright.

"I’m extremely disappointed that Black Leadership around the country has allowed the media to smear this brother without uttering a word in his defense," lamented SB as he forwarded an article from The New York Times. "Have we become so brainwashed, afraid for our jobs, or comfortable that we have forgotten where we come from? Does hearing the truth bring back too many painful memories because we believe we have risen above all of that? ...if I had been in Brother Wright’s congregation listening to those sermons, I would have been giving him a standing ovation too! We all know that Sen. Obama is being forced to condemn a man that he loves and respects. And if he could do so without torpedoing his campaign, he would tell America the truth. I’m sorry America is shocked by Rev. Wright’s words but if the shoe fits...?"

To that end, there was a great deal of wrestling over what many knew Senator Barack Obama would have to do, and what he should do. While there seemed to be an understanding that some denouncing would have to be made, for political expediency, there seemed to also be a countering notion that Pastor Wright should not be hung out to dry for expressing thoughts to which so much of black America could relate.

"To his credit, the new pastor of Wrights church did not back down nor apologize," AF pointed out in an email. "I also saw this brother on a FOX channel on a Hanna and something program that was also defending Wright... But if you listen carefully,Obama did not really put wright down very much. He was coy about it and said he was not at the church when Rev Wright made the statements..."

Disagreements broke out among forum members over terminology used to describe Wright.

"I think it is inappropriate for us to call wright AN ANGRY BLACK PREACHER," AF stated in response to a comment by KK. "That kind of language only helps to legitimize the obama bashing."

"Just for clarity," KK answered back. "I do not think he is [an] angry black preacher. He didn't say anything that I disagreed with. He was preaching and not giving a political speech which is why the things he says have a theatrical flare and are entertaining to his congregation..."

"Our people just got the universal right to vote a little over 40 years ago," KK recounted further. "The cops were active participants in the drug trade in our communities. That means the govt actively contributed to the destruction of our families and communities. My aunt was a dope fiend whose life and murder can be connected to that proactive destruction, my father grew up in a form of defacto slavery as the oldest son of a sharecropper in North Carolina, my childhood friends did long stretches in prison for the central park jogger rape which they never committed, on someScottsboro boys type stuff. The mere mention of these facts would have white folks calling for my arrest, because it makes me appear angry and that makes them uncomfortable and afraid. But I'm not angry, I'm aware, and I'm not gonna rewrite history, or pretend to not know what happened and is happening just to make white folks comfortable. I believe that is more or less the position that Pastor Wright takes and he was in a position to speak his mind because he was only asking for things from people who saw it the same way."

Obama's pivotal and historic speech on Tuesday was examined by the forum not only for what was stated, but the reaction it received.

"It ain't the speech I'd give," member DG stated, "but I ain't runnin for president. It is however, the most *real* speech (even with my frownin at some parts) on race and such, I've ever heard from a presidential candidate...he even sends a barb at the media. I think the white folks who ate him up before, will eat up this speech... strategically wise. His enemies however, I suspect will do what they always do."

"If whites can't accept that speech well he would not have been president anyway," another forum member CB said.

Member KJ worried over how much compromising Sen. Obama would be forced to do, in order to appease white fears:

"The other day I made a comment, 'How much 'Black' Obama will be left by the time he gets to the White House if he starts compromising more and more?' Distancing himself from Wright, not calling Ferraro a racist, I get. But one always worries about the tipping point from prudent and careful to compromised. But this morning, I was saying, 'He needs to just get defiant, say I disagree with Wright, many other candidates and officials (white) have trucked with worse people than me, and I won't reject him. Let's move on.' And if America can deal with that, fine. If not, then it's not time for a BlackPrez and I'd rather his candidacy die than his character be sold out. You can't be Black in America without having some lingering anger over racism, or speaking bluntly sometimes about the unfairness of this country. And you shouldn't have to squash all that just to get elected."

KJ's initial judgment of Obama's speech included a mixture of approval and criticisms:

"Thought he meandered and danced just a bit when explaining why Blacks feel that way. A bit of an apologist tone when he kept putting Wright and others in "that old generation" that he seemed to want to leave in the past.... I think that characterization was a bit simplistic. Political, perhaps, but too simplistic. It's way more complex than than, as NPRs Michelle Norris noted when she said people need to examine why *so many* Blacks in churches across the country feel that way.... BIG POINTS for him saying he could no more reject and dismiss Wright than he could reject his own Blackness. *That's* more of the speech I would have given, but as you say, I ain'trunnin' for Prez."

"I *hope* this will die," KJ said, "the same way all those white candidates for Prez--in both parties--have gone to Bob Jones University to speak, have belonged to racist golf clubs, etc. But as OJ showed, it's still like a boogey man for them and the thought of Blacks carrying the smallest bit of anger or outrage at four centuries of racism just seems to make them cringe."

That afternoon, member TM forwarded an article by political science Professor Michael Dawson titled, Was It Too Little Too Late: Why Obama's Brilliant Speech May Not Help Him. In it, Dawson applauded Obama's speech, but pointed out that "while addressing race it equated white racial resentment (which scholars know is really just a more polite label for white racism) with the black anger and skepticism that comes out of past and current racial discrimination." Dawson however concluded, "those comments will not satisfy those large segments of white America that harbor racial resentment....even though he strongly and correctly argued that today's racial disadvantage is based on the white supremacy of the past, we know that many, many whites do not connect the black situation today to either the injustices of the past or the present."

This article set off a series of comments on the forum, that would span several days.

"To be frank," member DG said in response to the article, "we all know Obama's speech was meant mostly for white America. He has risen to his position because he has tried to transcend (at times to a fault) the issue of race in the US. For white America, his appeal came because he could be perceived (in their eyes) as "quasi-black"--or, as Chris Matthews of MSNBC put it so bluntly, he didn't carry all the sordid history of America's past that offends tender white sensibilities by telling them truths that make them uncomfortable (slavery,jim crow, etc). It means never taking whites out of their relative "comfort zone" by making them feel any bit of guilt or responsibility. Nothing Rev. Wright said shocked many in black America (except perhaps the *way* it was said), because we are long used to the Duboisian idea of the black double consciousness. Cynicism and patriotism go as hand in hand with us as Tuskegee syphilis's experiments and Tuskegee Airmen. The effectiveness of his speech is going to be gauged on how white America reacted to it...revealing at once the ugly reality of power and race in this country."

As the week wore on, and the Pastor Wright story became the favorite of both conservative and mainstream press, frustration gave way to anger and disgust. This was probably best captured in a lengthy post by KJ late Wednesday night.

"I have spent my whole life around whites, at school and on the job, and I can tell you, I have heard *way* worse stuff out of the mouths of Christians and humanitarians and my "friends" than what Wright said. I've had people make hateful, racist jokes (sexist too) and say "it's all in fun". I've been subjected to tirades of how Blacks are ruining America from people who grew up in homes three times the size of mine, yet who see nothing hypocritical in their whining while simultaneously telling me to quit blaming the world for my problems. I've had white friends say to my face that blacks dating whites was wrong. I've had dear friends literally recoil from me in confused anger if I've dared broach the subjects of racism, my dad's battles back in the day, or how America still ain't quite right. It's as if I were trying to make them drink gasoline or something."

"But if America still can't have that conversation, if they still don't have the ability to shut up and let us really *talk* for a change and *listen* to us, then so be it. If they can't look in the mirror and see that ugly reflection, finally *face* that pain and responsibility and yes, guilt, and take some of this crap off our shoulders, then it's their loss. I don't want to have a President of color who can't have that conversation with the people. And if Barak loses because of this, then America really is, still, sadly, damned. Maybe it ain't "God damn America", maybe it's just "America damn America". They're doing it to themselves."

By the time AF forwarded an article to the forum by Roy Exum called The Angry White Man, recounting the importance of white male resentment in American politics, members were just about fed up. KK posted a lengthy retort to the article and the entire idea of "justifiable white anger."

"That angry white article was the biggest load of crap I've heard in a while. These white men are angry because they are ignorant, they have no comprehension of capitalism and therefore hate mexicans and blacks who 'take' their jobs; and mention nothing of the corporate bosses who closed the factories and moved them to Mexico. They aren't sophisticated, though they may be college educated. They are coddled, spoiled men, who have never been spoken to bluntly before. When they are criticized they become angry. They have no conception of history or US's role in shaping the world of the last 100-200 years, so when they hear anything negative about the country they love, they call it unpatriotic."

"They think and express their political thoughts in platitudes, and they are easily manipulated by the news media. They gather much of their info from Fox news. They were duped by dubya in the last 2 elections, and this is how you know they aren't sharp. Yeah, they're angry, but so is my daughter when i snatch a pair of scissors out of her hand. Their anger is misplaced, and I am disgusted everytime i hear about an angry white male. These are white men who only perceive their anger as legitimate."

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THINK NEGATIVE- Debunking 'The Secret'

So today I get into an argument with someone about the best-selling book, whose success was in great part due to Oprah Winfrey, The Secret. For those not familiar with the work--and the movie--The Secret purports to sell its readers on the power of positive thinking. Seeming to splice together certain aspects of Asian mysticism and bad physics, The Secret bases itself on the "Law of Attraction." Without going into the convulted theories, the basic premise goes like this: think positively and you will attract good things to yourself; think negatively, and you end up attracting bad things.

At first glance, sounds innocent enough--even practical. Think positive. Who can argue with that? Well, at second glance, there's alot to argue with such a notion...



The idea that thinking positive will by some yet unforseen means cause good things to happen to you, without the requisite forsight, planning and hard work, flies in the face of what most of us live as daily reality.

When you take planning for any event--be it your morning commute or the rest of your life--you've got to dwell on the negatives, to make sure you avoid them or have a backup plan for the worst. Furthermore, this whole idea that negative thinking draws negativity at times sounds like some Horatio Alger myth with a spiritual twist of "original sin." Am I to believe that people who live in poverty, hunger or want are suffering simply from negative thinking? Aren't they moreso suffering from the very positive thinking of the rich and wealthy who have used exploitation and brute force to "attract" their power and high status? Maybe many of us in the Western world should be thinking more about the "Law of Consequence"--in order to get our designer kicks, clothes or whatever other luxury item (down to chocolate) at prices we can afford, the "Law of Consequence" says that somewhere else people are being exploited by a global structure of free market capitalism. I won't even ask adherents of the "Law of Attraction" to explain their musings on horrific personal acts like rape or mass atrocities like slavery or genocide. I'm afraid to find out how far down the rabbit hole this "you're responsible for attracting bad things into your life" ideology really goes.

Of course, I'm sure not everyone who reads or adheres to books like The Secret take things to such an extreme. I'm sure pragmaticism deems that they make exceptions to the larger rule, or rationalize out of it with a loophole. In fact, I rather suspect they just try not to think about those larger complex issues...kind of how adherents of the Noah's Ark story would rather not do the logistics and number crunching necessary to get all those insects and animals onto a wooden ship.

At any rate, the article below is dated. But it does put forth some serious challenges to the ideas put forth in books like The Secret. If by chance any adherents of The Secret react negtaively to this blog, might I suggest you just "think postive"...all that negative thinking is bound to get you hit by a car or somethin'.


Think Negative!
Oprah, it's time to come clean about The Secret.
By John Gravois
Posted Wednesday, May 16, 2007

http://www.slate.com/id/2166211/pagenum/all/

Dear Oprah,

Not too long ago, one of your viewers—a woman named Kim—wrote you to announce that she had decided to halt her breast-cancer treatments and heal herself with her mind. Kim had just seen your two shows dedicated to The Secret, the self-help phenomenon that says we shape the world with our thoughts, and she was inspired to bet her life on it.

You're an optimistic lady, Oprah, but this gave even you the willies. So you went on the air to "clarify your thoughts" about the Law of Attraction, The Secret's underlying theory that mind conjures matter. You implored Kim to go back to her treatments. And you told your audience that the Law of Attraction "is not the answer to everything. It is not the answer to atrocities or every tragedy."

You saw the craziness in that logic, and good for you. But frankly, Oprah, I don't think you've done quite enough to make up for turning the Law of Attraction into the biggest thing since TomKat. Since you gave it your endorsement, The Secret has become one of the fastest-selling books and probably the most successful infomercial in history. The gaggle of gurus who peddle The Secret's message all over the world are still out there, arguing that it is the answer to every atrocity and tragedy. One went so far as to blame the suffering in Darfur on stinkin' thinkin'.

That's a lot to answer for. But don't worry, Oprah. You still have the power to turn this entire misguided craze into a "teachable moment." And I know how you can do it. Just have your people pick up the phone right now and invite Karen Cerulo on to your show.

Cerulo, a professor at Rutgers University, wrote a book last year called Never Saw It Coming. In it, she argues that we are individually, institutionally, and societally hellbent on wishful thinking. The Secret tells us to visualize best-case scenarios and banish negative ones from our minds. Never Saw It Coming says that's what we've been doing all along—and we get blindsided by even the most foreseeable disasters because of it.

In her research, Cerulo found that when most of us look out at the world and plan for our future, we fuzz out our vision of any failure, fluke, disease, or disaster on the horizon. Instead, we focus on an ideal future, we burnish our best memories, and, well, we watch a lot of your show. Meanwhile, we're inarticulate about worst-case scenarios. Just thinking about them makes us nervous and uncomfortable.

A glance at a few statistics shows that most of us see just what we want. In a national survey of parents by the Public Agenda organization, a hefty majority said their child never stays out too late, never uses bad language, never wears sloppy or revealing clothes, and never does poorly in school. Only a third of American sunbathers use sunscreen, and Californians are almost twice as likely to play the lottery as they are to buy earthquake insurance. When the American Association of Retired Persons asked a sample of adults what they expected from old age, most said they figured they would always have enough money and good health to do what they wanted. And only 30 percent of Americans have written their wills.

How is this working out for us? Think of all the times you've heard the refrain, "I never thought it would happen to me." The American Academy of Dermatology projects that one in five Americans will contract skin cancer sometime in their lives. According to the author of the AARP study, elderly Americans have a "high probability" of eventually falling into poverty, and the surveyed adults had "unrealistic expectations about their physical abilities as they grow older." (Most said they did not have a plan for old age.) And death—the event that really knocks the wind out of The Secret—still has a 100 percent chance of happening to all of us, no matter what we think.

Your viewers ate up The Secret's advice about their personal lives. But I wonder whether they would be as enthusiastic if someone proposed running the government according to the Law of Attraction. As it happens, Cerulo spends a lot of time in her book documenting how even the public agencies designed to prevent disasters often fall victim to blindly positive thinking.

Take NASA, for example, which ignored repeated warnings from its engineers in advance of the Challenger explosion because it was so busy envisioning a perfect blastoff. Or the FBI, which turned a blind eye to a memo from its Phoenix office in the summer of 2001—a memo suggesting that al-Qaida was using local flight schools to infiltrate the civil aviation system. Or the Bush administration, which has been roundly condemned for planning the Iraq war around a set of best-case scenarios. (What do you think The Secret folks would say about Iraq? "We will be greeted as liberators" was good, but "Mission Accomplished" was even better. Visualize, guys, visualize!) A little negative thinking might have gone a long way in all those situations.

But unfortunately, we go to great lengths to make people who think negatively feel unwelcome—something Cerulo would probably point out if you invited her on to your show.

Just think of all the pejorative and even pathological terms we have for doomsayers. Like, for instance, doomsayer. Also alarmist, naysayer, paranoiac, complainer, defeatist, downer, and killjoy. Rack your brain: It is hard to think of a laudatory term for contemplating the worst-case scenario. So maybe The Secret appeals because its batty metaphysics help to keep us in the positive-thinking fold. In a culture that stigmatizes negative thinking and imbues it with fear and loathing, a rationalized escape from worry is its own reward.

But that's not the liberation we should be after. Instead, Cerulo argues we have a lot to learn from two groups of people who have emancipated themselves from the pressure to think positively. She points out that medical workers and computer technicians—the professional troubleshooters of the world—keep our bodies and mainframes running by being paragons of pessimism. When doctors and IT workers take up a case, they begin by dispassionately assuming the worst and then move up from there. Their protocols demand precise and evolving definitions of the most severe maladies and malfunctions, while they tend to have fuzzy and almost absentminded definitions of health, well-being, and normal function. That's the opposite of The Secret. While this may sometimes make doctors and techies a drag, it also helped them avert worldwide disasters like the SARS outbreak and the Y2K bug.

Everybody respects a good attitude, but no amount of magical thinking will make the universe obey our wishes. Your audience has gotten extremely good at visualizing what it wants. But now it needs your help envisioning the risks, goof-ups, and unintended consequences that accompany life on earth.

We're addicted to positive thinking, Oprah. And The Secret has sent the whole world on a bender. You, and maybe you alone, can rein it in. After all, the Law of Attraction isn't a force of nature—but you are. So how about it: Why not invite Cerulo on to your show? What's the worst that could happen?

Yours truly,
John

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Christian Zionists?- Scarier Than You Think!

And you were scared about Jeremiah Wright? Here's something to really keep you up at night- Pastor John Hagee and CUFI (Christians United for Israel). Unlike Wright, who was preaching a social gospel of defending the poor and defenseless, Hagee and CUFI call for pre-emptive strikes on Iran and global war on Islam that will draw in Israel and bring on Armageddon. And here's the kicker, they have the ear of the powerful, with not only Presidential candidate John McCain but numerous other GOP members (war hawks, neoconservatives, Israel hawks) running to kow-tow to them at every turn. Forget Jeremiah Wright, CUFI and Hagee are the REAL DEAL type of scary, and the ones you ought to be worried about.



Don’t know how many of you watch Bill Moyers, but you should--as it is one of the last bastions of journalistic integrity left in the media. In case you didn’t catch last week’s episode, please stop by and watch the whole expose on Pastor John Hagee, leader of CUFI (Christians United For Israel). A few weeks back, Hagee endorsed GOP Presidential candidate John McCain.

In the midst of media attention on Sen. Barack Obama’s ties (real and nebulous) to figures like Minister Louis Farrakhan or Pastor Jeremiah Wright, the link of much of the GOP to Pastor John Hagee is getting remarkably short thrift. While Hagee was described as an anti-Catholic bigot, whom McCain was later forced to distance himself from (partly), the news media wholly neglected to delve into his beliefs, and that of CUFI, in full. Hagee and his organization are at the forefront of what is known as the Christian Zionist Movement--who preach a mixture of political and spiritual support for Israel that is based on extremism, anti-Arabism, Islamaphobia, neo-conservative ideals of pre-emptive war and unbridled militarism. There is even a strong strain of anti-Semitism in their ideology, as part of their support for Israel is their idea of the role Jews must play in End Times prophecy--which will "allegedly" result in the mass death of most Jews, except for the ones who accept Jesus in the end.

Whoa! And the media is obsessed with a bunch of brothers in suits and bowties slanging bean pies? And of a preacher of a small congregation in Chi-town?

Forget anything you might hear about the "dangers" of Farrakhan for comments he made some 24 years ago, and has since recanted for (in his own way), or the "radical" view points of Jeremiah Wright---Pastor John Hagee and his Christian Zionist crew are the REAL DEAL type of scary, on a level that is beyond disturbing. Hagee and CUFI have the ear of the powerful, with not only John McCain but numerous other GOP members (war hawks, neoconservatives, Israel hawks) running to kow-tow to them at every turn, while their leader continually calls for pre-emptive strikes on Iran and the destruction of the entire Muslim world.

Watching Bill Moyers I half expected Hagee and his congregants to start "worshipping the bomb" like the radiation-disfigured mutants on the Planet of the Apes saga. One of them, a Lebanese Christian, sounded like a self-hating Arabic Ann Coulter--calling the Muslim world barbaric and without souls, words that are dangerously "exterminationist" in their rhetoric. But these guys don’t look like monsters. Instead, like the Cylons, they look just like us (they even got black folks!)--and more important still, they have a plan!

Peep the video and/or transcript in the link below. Or watch part 1 (of 5) from Youtube above. You can find the remaining video at: Hagee: Strike Iran 'for Israel' on Moyers - part 1 of 5

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL reports on the politically powerful group Christians United for Israel, whose leader, Pastor John Hagee recently endorsed John McCain for the presidency.

Bill Moyers: Christians United For Israel

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The High Price of Chocolate

child cocoa worker, Ivory Coast

Chocolate- its one of nature's perfect foods. It delights our senses. Some say it has "curative" properties. Even our bodies crave it once we've tasted it. And this Valentine's day the chocolate industry is expected to net over $400 million in sales for the sweet substance. Yet there's a bitter side to the chocolate trade, one that involves child labor, poverty and the exploitation that seems to be par the course in our new global economy.

West Africa supplies some 70% of the world's cocoa beans. Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) alone accounts for 40%. And although the cocoa industry netted billions in profit just this past year (one company, Cargill, reported $2.7 billion alone), the living conditions for the farmers who work cocoa on plantations or small house hold plots are dismal.

As Christian Parenti writes: "Working and living conditions are brutal. Most villages lack electricity, running water, health clinics or schools. And to make ends meet, underage cocoa workers...spend their days wielding machetes, handling pesticides and carrying heavy loads."

Some have called what is going on in the Ivory Coast forced child labor. Others have equated it to slavery. How do big cocoa companies get away with this? Well for one, as Parenti writes, they can always claim they aren't directly involved:

"The big cocoa exporters - Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM, Fortune 500), Barry Callebaut and Saf-Cacao - do not own plantations and do not directly employ child workers. Instead, they buy beans from Ivorian middlemen called pisteurs and treton. These middlemen own warehouses and fleets of flatbed trucks that travel deep into the jungle to buy cocoa from the small independent farmers who grow most of the crop. But labor and human rights activists charge that Big Chocolate has an obligation to improve working conditions on the farms where so many children toil. They argue that the exporters and manufacturers bear ultimate responsibility for conditions on the farms because they exert considerable control over world cocoa markets, essentially setting what is called the farm gate price."

Secondly, they can claim that they have fixed the problem and are working on it. This isn't a new issue after all. Some seven years back, after the plight of West African cocoa farmers was made more widely known, public outcry resulted in the threat of regulation of the industry. U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) introduced legislation that would have demanded chocolate be labeled, similar to the Kimberly process for conflict diamonds. But, as Parenti writes, "The industry fought back, and a compromise was reached establishing a voluntary protocol by which chocolate companies would wean themselves from child labor, then certify that they had done so."

By getting out in front of the issue the industry managed to scrap the labeling process. Instead there was a promise of "public reporting by African governments, third-party verification and poverty remediation by 2005." Much like the controversial Kimberly process, by 2005 it seems not much was done. Pleading for time, the cocoa industry managed to get the protocol extended for three more years until July 2008. "To turn up the heat," Parenti says,"the U.S. Department of Labor contracted with Tulane University to monitor progress." And it is from this Tulane report that we today realize, near nothing has really changed.

Parenti in his article writes:

"Researchers found that while industry and governments in West Africa have made initial steps, such as establishing task forces on child labor, conditions on the ground remain bad: Children still work in cocoa production, regularly miss school, perform dangerous tasks and suffer injury and sickness. The report criticized the governments of Ivory Coast and Ghana for lack of transparency. And it said the industry's certification process "contains no standards."

What's worse, in 2002 the once "stable" Ivory Coast tumbled into chaos after electoral politics turned into conflict and warfare between factions in a divided country. Like diamonds in Sierra Leone and rich minerals in the Democratic Republic of Congo, cocoa became the means for those with weapons to accrue power, wealth and more arms. According to the London based Global Witness in 2007, government and rebel leaders in Ivory Coast, "both siphoned off millions...from the cocoa industry to finance the 2002-03 civil war." Thus cocoa growing, already an exploitative enterprise, gave way to what some called "Blood Chocolate."

Today that war is over, with both sides accepting a disquieting peace, backed up by the presence of UN troops and former coloniser France. The war however has become a convenient excuse for the chocolate industry, who say the conflict "hampered their efforts to eradicate child labor." In the meantime, business goes on as usual, while the industry claims to either be taking steps (often ineffectual and farcial) or unable to do anything.

So what is the answer to all this? Well there has long been a movement "fair-trade" chocolate, where lovers of the sweet substance can refuse to buy from producers and exporters involved in exploitation and child labor. But the issue extends further than this. Groups like Equal Exchange, who specialize in importing/buying "fair-trade" chocolates, tend to do so from democratically run co-ops, where farmers can grow and sell their products in community agri-groups. However both the cocoa industry, and the Ivory Coast government who are bolstered by the multi-billion dollar trade, engage in acts of intimidation and harrassment to discourage such ventures. Cocoa industry bigs like Cargill even set up exploitative loan-schemes similar to sharecropping, where poor farmers must borrow against the beans they produce--often finding themselves stifled in a cycle of debt they can never manage to break out of.

At the moment, fair-trade chocolate in Ivory Coast has made little headway. It accounts for about 1% of exports. As Parenti writes, "A more effective way to combat child labor would be for the government of Ivory Coast to invest some of the revenue it gets from high taxes on cocoa exporters in education and social services to help poor farmers."

When asked what would improve things, the farmers also know the answer--"better prices." Better prices for cocoa, which we consume so cheaply, would mean more money for them. A little more money paid on our end would would mean less of a dependence by farmers on cocoa corporations like Cargill and the ability to send children back to schools instead of the cocoa farms. More money would mean those same farmers have a greater ability to press their own government to involve itself in fair trade.

In the meantime, back here, on the other side of the trade, the Tulane report is due to come up in Congress. The extension for the big companies and the Ivory Coast to implement policies more beneficial to their farmers and less apt to employ children is up for renewal. Contacting the sponsors of that legislation, Rep. Engel (D-NY) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and other concerned bodies, Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and voicing our concerns seems a fitting bit of political action in this campaign season.

*Much of this post taken from Christian Parenti's article Chocolate's Bittersweet Economy.

Listen to Parenti debate the Cocoa Industry on Democracy Now!

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45,000 Die Each Month in Congo- But What Do We Care?

A UN report released this week says that 45,000 people die each month in the Democratic Republic of Congo due to the lingering effects of a war that was supposed to have ended five years ago. It's the most devastating loss of life due to war since WWII. Most of the dead are non-combatants, civilians caught up in the conflict. Half of these who account for the dead are children. But what do we care...



A UN report released this week says that 45,000 people die each month in the Democratic Republic of Congo due to the lingering effects of a war that was supposed to have ended five years ago. It's the most devastating loss of life due to war since WWII. Most of the dead are non-combatants, civilians caught up in the conflict. Half of these who account for the dead are children.

As one news report states:

"Congo's monthly death rate of 2.2 deaths for each 1,000 people — essentially unchanged from the last survey in 2004 — is nearly 60% higher than the average for sub-Saharan Africa, according to the study by IRC and Australia's Burnet Institute, which researches epidemiological disease."

The causes of death? Mostly disease and malnutrition--the aftershocks of a forgotten war, woefully ignored by both Clinton and Bush White Houses, that claimed some 4 million lives. Altogether, in the near decade long conflict that has now settled into a simmering status quo of sporadic violence in lawless regions, the death toll is thought to stand at 5.4 million lives. There are more UN peacekeepers in the Congo, a massive country in sheer size, than anywhere else in the world. But the resources needed to make them effective, on say a scale as done in Afghanistan or Iraq, is non-existent. So the beaten down giant of a fractured nation lurches from one conflict to the next, with the civilian populace caught in the middle, enduring mass displacement, starvation and disease.

Since before there was such a thing as a "blog," I wrote numerous news articles on the war dating back to at least 1998. I watched as what should have been the victorious overthrow of the Western backed dictator Mobutu Sesse Soku turned into chaos and then an utter nightmare, with its seeds ominously linked to the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. I noticed how the mainstream news media failed to focus on the conflict, even as it thretaened to turn into a full continental power struggle, drawing in several nations, with even Libya and South Africa on the brink of joining the melee. When Ted Koppel's Nightline did decide to cover the story, he actually apologised, for not having done it sooner. Some three years after the war had begun, a major American news agency had finally dedicated a weeklong series to the devastating war in Congo. It was so little, so late, but still many were thankful. Unfortunately, that first episode aired on Sept. 10th, 2001. The events of the following Tuesday made certain the woes of the Congo would be buried and forgotten again, as American lives and the Mideast became all consuming.

The war in Congo in fact would end, ironically enough, when the many countries and factions found their sources of Western weapons drying up with the coming "War on Terror." They negotiated their own peace, but left the country in utter shambles. Imagine if after WWII, there had been no Marshall Plan, and the many Axis fighters had splintered into factions that could rape, pillage and plunder at will. Imagine if all the sides in the Yugoslavian conflict had been armed, and left to their own destructive devices. Imagine a broken and fractured Iraq, where every leader with a gun wants his own fiefdom, but a hundred times worse. That only begins to sum up the modern day problems in Congo.

And yet, I haven't seen anyone declare a "War on Poverty" for the Congo. I haven't seen massive debt relief for the DRC accumulated under Mobutu, in the same way Iraq's debt accrued under Saddam Hussein was forgiven. There's little talk of the DRC on the nightly news, or by pundits of the conservative or so-called "liberal" media. People who march against war in US cities aren't marching much for peace in the Congo. Aren't many actors and actresses wearing END CONGO WAR! buttons. There's no major peace plan launched in Annapolis to solve Congo's crises, which in a decade have taken infinitely more lives than over sixty years of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And I haven't heard a single question put to any presidential candidate in either party regarding what ideas they might have to bring some resolution to the Congo's lengthy and disastrous conflict. It's amazing to think that over 5 million human lives could be snuffed out due to war, and hardly seem to make a ripple or sound in this increasingly connected and globalised world I keep hearing about.

Every once in a while the DRC makes it back into the headlines, when there's something so graphic and horrendous it titilates the Western pornographic gaze--be it tales of cannibalism or mass rape in Eastern Congo--and fulfills our racial fascination with "Darkest Africa." But unlike Darfur, for some reason, the Congo never stays long in the press. And as much as I at times grit my teeth at the "Save Africa" ONE crusaders who cry "poor Africa" without ever seeming to see our own neoliberal, weapons sales, post-colonial role in varied crises, a little attention and focus on the DRC might be a good thing. So every once in a while, when something like this report comes out, I type out a blog as a reminder to myself and others.

Because I figure some of us have to care...

More on the Congo:

Africa Action- DRC

Democracy for Congo

Congo: Plunder and Submission

The War on Women

Do Something!

Friends of the Congo

Congo Global Action Network

Standing With Our Sisters- Benefit for Rape Survivors of Eastern Congo

Panzi Hospital of Bukavu

50 Years is Enough

V-Day

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Debating Barack Obama

As I oft find necessary to say in preface, I do not endorse Barack Obama--nor do I campaign against him. The same goes for his main rival (at least in the way the newsmedia has spun it), Hillary Clinton. Both of them are way too centrist, too tied to corporations and too tied to militarist foreign policy strategies for my taste. Certainly they are different and apart from the Republicans; just not far enough for me to jump on the bandwagon. While I do not openly back any candidate, I'd probably find closer political company among John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich. Sadly, their anti-corporate platforms have naturally won them the ire of the corporate run media, and both candidates (Edwards and Kucinich) are marginalized in journalistic political discourse. In the end of course, the pragmatic side of me will support whomever the Democratic presidential nominee ends up becoming, because all of their imperfections are preferable to the nutter freak show going on at the GOP. But while getting my pragmatic vote, any Democrat to win the White House can expect to catch hell and criticism from me--cuz that's how it's supposed to be.

That being said, on the Jan. 9th edition of Democracy NOW! host Amy Goodman had on two black progressives, scholar/writer Michael Eric Dyson and journalist Glen Ford (Black Agenda Report), to discuss their opposing viewpoints on Barack Obama. It was a refreshing debate that dared to feature two normally like-minded black figures debating the merits of Obama, his strengths and short-comings. The debate itself was not a slam-dunk for either, as they both made valid points. With my personal political leanings, I would probably score it 60% to 40% in favor of Glen Ford--whose criticisms, while not taking away from Dyson's pragmatic observations, still are hard to dispute.

But why not see for yourself and make up your own minds.

Part 1 of the debate above.

Part 2 is below:





A transcript of the broadcast can be read here:

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/9/barack_obama_and_the_african_american

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Eating Their Collective Feet- News Pundits & Obama

DOH!

So Barack Obama narrowly lost the New Hampshire primary. While I endorse neither Hillary Clinton, or Obama for that matter, there was a bit of glee in watching those returns come in Tuesday night. The political punditry of the mainstream corporate news, who had gone into an Obama-gush fest just days earlier, was left sputtering and trying to explain how all their prophetic predictions of Obama's inevitable rise and Hillary's coming doom could have been so WRONG. Their humiliation alone was worth the outcome of the primary. While they have been puzzling for days now what could have gone wrong, here's a suggestion to add to the mix of likely numerous factors.

All that crowing over Obama's Iowa win may have backfired. The media's herd mentality in declaring the end of Hillary Clinton (eagerly writing her obituary while she was still very much alive), and endorsing Obama as the abstract "change" candidate, may have turned numerous New Hampshire voters off. Perhaps the lily white constituents, reaching down to some good ol' fashioned American racism, didn't like that the media made a white woman cry over a black male candidate. Or maybe it's as simple as no one likes to be told for whom they should vote. When the media were glorifying Hillary Clinton it eventually led to declining poll numbers. Their unabashed endorsement of Obama may have done the same for him.

The good news? American voters may have finally grown weary of arrogant media pundits who think it's their right, privilege and duty to annoint candidates and control the dynamics of a political race. Whatever the case, what Obama's narrow loss in Iowa showed was that the race for president is still fluid, still open and won't be decided by the whims of obviously over-paid corporate news media celebrities.

Some articles below on the debacle of the media and New Hampshire primary


The Race is On

The first lesson to take from the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary is to throw the pundits, pollsters and kingmakers out the window. Armed with smug self-certainty and the slippery intelligence of numbers, they tried to declare the race for President over even before it began.

full article:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080128/editors

A Platter of Crow for the Pundits

*added Jan. 11, 2008

As we have an official Election Day, there ought to be a new national holiday called Eating Crow Day, when we the people who had to watch the nation's army of pundits, pollsters, anchormen and cable news opinionators get to digest their predictions and analyze where they went wrong.

Not since Literary Digest predicted Alf Landon would beat FDR in 1936--a coup it managed to pull off by polling only people with phones during the Great Depression--has there been the need for such a day of mourning after Hillary Clinton's surprise victory in New Hampshire.

full article:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080128/kitman

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Obama's Big Score

A day since his big win at the Iowa Caucus, and it seems many people have caught Obama fever. The media, long fascinated with him, have now turned him into their darling--for the time being at least. Pundits gush on about how he represents change, and how his win now has caused an earthquake in politics. On the conservative right and the progressive left, there is glee at seeing the well-oiled Clinton machine sputter and break down in the face of the Obama victory. And of course, the theme of "history in the making" and "race" are endless in their veracity and variety. Many black people I know who were at most lukewarm towards Obama are declaring they just might vote for him--as if the elections are just around the corner. My own two cents on the Obama win, how it happened and what it might mean--or might not mean.

*In full disclosure, I am neither for nor against Barack Obama. While I haven't chosen any candidate as my own, I tend to fall in much more strongly behind John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich, whose anti-corporate, anti-war and anti-poverty stances resonate closer to my own.




How and Why He Won

Barack Obama's victory in Iowa was hard fought. For weeks he had been trailing frontrunner Hillary Clinton in the polls. But a great deal of campaigning by volunteers descending on Iowa did much to help out. So did money. According to CMAG, a firm that tracks political advertising, Obama spent a whopping $8.3 million in Iowa alone--over $2 mil more than Hillary, and three times more than John Edwards. Obama was also helped out by his key supporters, the under 30 crowd. For instance, after much controversy regarding their involvement, Iowa college students (many of whom are not native to the state) showed up in high numbers for Obama. So did many first time caucus-goers, some of them recently graduated from high school. Altogether, they made up a record fifth of the overall vote, and overwhelmingly supported Obama. Besides the youth vote, Obama got a sharp boost from independents who were most likely to be seeking change. Add in Democrats disaffected by Hillary Clinton's anti-Bush but status quo message, and Obama found fertile ground in Iowa. Another strong factor, ignored by much of the media, was the unexpected support Obama received from fellow Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich. A strong symbol of the progressive left, Kucinich told his supporters to pick Obama as a second choice if they did not think him viable. While some pundits initially scoffed that this could hurt Obama, it may have helped him.

What Does It Mean?

Hard to say however what much of this means. Listen to the media, who have made Obama over as their new-found prince, and you'd think the election was over. But there are numerous primaries to go, some small, some large. This is still anyone's race to win. Obama is certainly to get a bump, and possibly a surge, from his win in Iowa. And the campaign of his main contender, Hillary Clinton, is no doubt in heavy damage control and revamping mode. The next big battle comes in mere days in the New Hampshire primary, where--so far--Clinton is ahead. Expect however the fight to get plainly more nasty as another Obama win could spell disaster, if not doom, for Hillary. More than a few pundits and Caucus go-ers pointed to the remarkable ability of Obama to get the white vote in Iowa; it remains to be seen if he can do so elsewhere. What the Caucuses have done is caused two presidential hopefuls among the Democrats to drop out--Senators Chris Dodd and Joe Biden. Who they will throw their support behind is, thus far, unclear. As for Dennis Kucinich, he has made it clear that his support for Obama was an "Iowa only thing"--and he intends to compete earnestly in New Hampshire.

Watch South Carolina

An interesting primary to watch will be South Carolina. That's because it will be the first time we'll get some idea of what Obama's standing is in the black community, at least a sampling--half of the South Carolina Democratic primary is black. Iowa on the other hand is a majority-white state, with blacks making up less than 3% of the overall population. His support there came from not just the young, but the often very lily-white. While some pundits seem to take his standing among black voters for granted, that would be a mistake. In South Carolina, before the Iowa Caucus, Obama was trailing far behind Hillary Clinton when it comes to the black vote. The gap had shrunk from earlier estimates, but it still needs quite a boost. Like just about everywhere else, it seems black South Carolinians don't know what to make of Obama. Some naturally rally to him, especially younger black voters, as they see him representing both racial accomplishment and historical change. The more firmly established black political cadre however are much more reluctant, deeming Obama an unknown who they fear will never be able to win the national white votes needed to gain the presidency. In their eyes, a vote for Obama is probably the best way to assure a Republican takes the White House. Then there are the black left, who find Obama's stance on the issues barely different from that of Hillary Clinton--citing his closeness to the military establishment, corporate interests and vague policy definitions--and opt for more progressive white male candidates like John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich. However, after the Iowa win, alot of black doubters may come around for Obama. Watching South Carolina might give us some clue.

The End of Race?

That's the big mantra out of the political pundits, whether they are conservative or moderate or even liberal. Barack Obama, with a deemed "post-Civil Rights" air, is being hailed as the man who can single-handedly end racism. There is a popular idea that if white America can vote for this black man as president, it must mean the last few hundred years of American racism will somehow disappear. Or, better put, it will simply hide American racism where it doesn't have to trouble white eyes and minds. As conservative commentator George Will put it, Barack Obama's win will "bring down the curtain on the long running and intensely boring melodrama 'Forever Selma,' staring Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton." In one stroke, George Will managed to disparage the entire Civil Rights Movement as a boring blip in American history, and give voice to what many white minds seem to be contemplating. Barack Obama has become the black candidate who is simultaneously "post-race." As Chris Matthews of MSNBC's hardball said endearingly in one of his never-ending series of man-crushes, "No history of Jim Crow, no history of anger, no history of slavery. All the bad stuff in our history ain't there with this guy." Obama is thus celebrated for appealing to white people without making them feel guilty--or even responsible--for anything that happened in the past or even our present. Partly its his own doing, positioning himself to win over whites, and at times pushing attitudes towards black disfranchisement more similar to Bill Cosby than to Dr. King. Obama's April 2007 speech to the legislative black caucus in South Carolina for instance, where he joked that "a good economic development plan for our community would be if we make sure folks weren't throwing garbage out of their cars," went over like a lead balloon. Since then, he's refashioned himself to walk a fine tight-rope, where he can lightly appeal to black voters concerns that he can relate to them and still keep his majority white base. Yet there's no doubting that for many white voters, his appeal may be in their idea that his presidency can wash away their sins and those of their forefathers. What that means for the rest of us, I don't know.

Keeping Things in Perspective

Lost in all the media talk about Obama's first place win and Clinton's third place loss, is the 2nd place winner--John Edwards. Disliked by the media for his strong anti-corporate and anti-poverty stances, Edwards has been the marginilized underdog in this race. Though heavily outspent by both candidates, he managed to pull to 2nd place riding a populist message that is starkly different than that of Obama or Clinton. Chances are high, they both realize this and will try to adopt much of Edwards message for their own. Question is, will anyone believe it? For all the talk of this being a message to the other Democratic candidates, unlike the GOP Caucus where the margins of victory where profund, Obama, Clinton and Edward took unequal "thirds" of the vote. That means each one did not get the support of close to or more than 2/3rds of the Democratic voters in Iowa. This election is still anyone's to win, or lose. And we're a long way from the convention. Whatever the case may be, however it turns out, more than likely Democratic voters will vote for whomever wins the primary. Because the GOP alternatives are simply too unpalatable to contemplate.

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Ron Paul Doesn't Like Black People ?

"Indeed, it is shocking to consider the uniformity of opinion among blacks in this country. Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty, and the end of welfare and affirmative action.... Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the "criminal justice system," I think we can safely assume that 95% of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."

And who made that wonderful comment? Was it (a) David Duke (b) Dick Cheney or (c) Bull Connor? Nope. Those statements were made--or endorsed depending on who you believe--by none other than Presidential hopeful and Republican Congressman (D-TX) Ron Paul. Yes, the same Ron Paul that comes off so sensible and good-natured on television. The one the media has told you to "watch out for" as a dark-horse candidate. The Ron Paul who seems like a good guy cuz, gosh, he's anti-war and doesn't want to bomb Iran. Problem is, Ron Paul may agree with alot of things many on the Progressive Left do, but for entirely different reasons. He's a self-declared Libertarian, which has so many sub-sets its hard to define the term. In Ron Paul's case, he sees most things that deal with big government as infringing on natural liberty. So naturally, he's anti-military spending and would not have invaded Iraq. Yet in his view of libertarianism, he'd probably also not lift a finger to stop genocide in Darfur--no foreign involvement means no involvement. Sure he's anti-NAFTA, but not because like activist Ralph Nader he is concerned about the plight of the global worker, but because he's an "America First" type who wants to free the American worker (usually white) from corporate slavery. He'd do away with the Patriot Act, certainly...right after he does away with Affirmative Action, Social Security and a host of other "government" enforced items.

That his notions on black people is so dismal should not be surprising, as libertarians tend to enforce their views on limited government by denying things like racism or sexism exist--and therefore do not need to be regulated by government with pesky notions like Civil Rights or Equal Opportunity laws--which again may infringe on the natural liberty of others. Of course, Ron Paul's campaign denies he ever made these statements. Rather they were taken out of context or attributed to him in a newsletter that he sanctioned. While Paul says he takes "moral responsibility" for the publication, he thus far has not condemned or repudiated the statements "attributed" to him. Go figure. But hey, why take my word for it? Thanks to the nice people at the Daily KOS, let Ron Paul--or his doppelganger--speak for himself. Quite illuminating...



from a 1992 peice titled: "LOS ANGELES RACIAL TERRORISM," following the Rodney King riots in 1991:

Regardless of what the media tell us, most white Americans are not going to believe that they are at fault for what blacks have done to cities across America. The professional blacks may have cowed the elites, but good sense survives at the grass roots. Many more are going to have difficultly avoiding the belief that our country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists -- and they can be identified by the color of their skin. This conclusion may not be entirely fair, but it is, for many, entirely unavoidable.

Indeed, it is shocking to consider the uniformity of opinion among blacks in this country. Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty, and the end of welfare and affirmative action.... Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the "criminal justice system," I think we can safely assume that 95% of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.
If similar in-depth studies were conducted in other major cities, who doubts that similar results would be produced? We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, but it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings, and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.

Perhaps the L.A. experience should not be surprising. The riots, burning, looting, and murders are only a continuation of 30 years of racial politics.The looting in L.A. was the welfare state without the voting booth. The elite have sent one message to black America for 30 years: you are entitled to something for nothing. That's what blacks got on the streets of L.A. for three days in April. Only they didn't ask their Congressmen to arrange the transfer.


from a Houston Chronicle report from 1996:


Texas congressional candidate Ron Paul's 1992 political newsletter highlighted portrayals of blacks as inclined toward crime and lacking sense about top political issues.

Under the headline of "Terrorist Update," for instance, Paul reported on gang crime in Los Angeles and commented, "If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."

Paul, a Republican obstetrician from Surfside, said Wednesday he opposes racism and that his written commentaries about blacks came in the context of "current events and statistical reports of the time."

... [I]n the same 1992 edition ... [Paul wrote], "We don't think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such."

Paul also asserted that "complex embezzling" is conducted exclusively by non-blacks.

"What else do we need to know about the political establishment than that it refuses to discuss the crimes that terrify Americans on grounds that doing so is racist? Why isn't that true of complex embezzling, which is 100 percent white and Asian?" he wrote.


Ron Paul on Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, D-TX:

"University of Texas affirmative action law professor Barbara Jordan is a fraud. Everything from her imitation British accent, to her supposed expertise in law, to her distinguished career in public service, is made up. If there were ever a modern case of the empress without clothes, this is it. She is the archetypical half-educated victimologist, yet her race and sex protect her from criticism."


Excerpts: Daily Kos, May 15th, 2007

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H.R. 1955 = Orwell's 1984 ?

H.R. 1955. Heard of it? Chances are, with our mainstream corporate media engaged in every bit of news except what is most important, you haven't. As Robert Weitzel writing for TRUTHOUT notes, "H.R 1955: the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007...is barely one sentence old before its Orwellian moment: It begins, 'AN ACT - To prevent homegrown terrorism, and for other purposes.'" The document itself reads as so vague--with its concern for "ideologically based violence" and its desire to "disrupt" radical groups--that it leaves open a wide net. Some have likened it to COINTELPRO, the Counter Intelligence Program of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI that ended up spying on peace activists, infiltrating the Black Panthers and wiretapping Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.--all in the name of securing the homeland. Others are calling it, the "Thought Crime" bill, as seemingly simply having an ideology like anarchism or the like could be deemed potentially dangerous and akin to terrorism. Most appalling is that H.R. 1955--that resembles a refined stepchild of the troubling Patriot Act--was proposed by a Democrat (Rep. Jane Harman [D-CA]) and won overwhelming support in the Democratic controlled Congress when it was passed on Oct. 23 by a vote of 404-6. It's companion now rests in the Senate. And despite calls for a reexamination of the bill by civil liberties lawyers, Constitutional scholars, activists and more, it seems to be going full steam ahead.



As noted by Jessica Lee on Indypendent Media, who has confirmed that presidential candidate Barak Obama will also endorse the bill, H.R. 1955 is troubling in its appeal to fear and the never-ending, always-expanding "war on terrorism." She quotes Alejandro Queral, executive director of the Northwest Constitutional Rights Center, who has expressed concern over the bill’s vague definitions of “violent radicalization,” “homegrown terrorism,” and the terms within the definitions including “extremist belief system,” “violence” and “force.”

“This bill fits the pattern we are seeing coming out of Congress – both Republican and Democratic –," Queral said, "of a continued campaign of fear, which gets into heads of Americans that we now need to start criminalizing ideology.”

Since the corporate media has been negligent on this story now for well over a month, some stories relating to H.R. 1955 are posted below.

Bringing the War on Terrorism Home: Congress Considers How to ‘Disrupt’ Radical Movements in the United States

From the November 16, 2007 issue | Posted in National |

By Jessica Lee

Under the guise of a bill that calls for the study of “homegrown terrorism,” Congress is apparently trying to broaden the definition of terrorism to encompass both First Amendment political activity and traditional forms of protest such as nonviolent civil disobedience, according to civil liberties advocates, scholars and historians.

The proposed law, The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (H.R. 1955), was passed by the House of Representative in a 404-6 vote Oct. 23. (The Senate is currently considering a companion bill, S. 1959.) The act would establish a “National Commission on the prevention of violent radicalization and ideologically based violence” and a university-based “Center for Excellence” to “examine and report upon the facts and causes of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism and ideologically based violence in the United States” in order to develop policy for “prevention, disruption and mitigation.”

full article:

http://www.indypendent.org/2007/11/19/homegrown-terrorism/


The House of Reps Vote 404 to 6 to Pass the Bill that Legalizes COINTELPRO?

by Justin Ponkow and Troy Nkrumah

November 28, 2007

One month ago a bill passed almost unanimously in the House. This bill has received no mainstream news coverage. So it must not be that big of a deal, right? It's just a bill that will soon to go to Capitol Hill and since the Democrats are in control we are all safe from further infringements up on our civil rights, right? Well, maybe that is not totally correct since this bill is a lot more than meets the eye. But indicator number one should be the title, and indicator number two should be how fast it is moving through Congress.

On October 23rd of this year, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 passed 404 to 6 in the House. This bill is proposing an expansion of Homeland Security with the objective of spying on citizens whose political or religious beliefs might lead them to commit violent acts. And we are not referring to the attack of Megan Williams or the numerous police murders of non threatening civilians. No this is solely about spying on political dissidents whose politics were shaped through a critical analysis of US Foreign or Domestic policies.

full article:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=14396


Obama Supports Homegrown Terrorism Bill

December 10, 2007 | Posted in IndyBlog |

By Jessica Lee, The Indypendent

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama says that he will support the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act (S. 1959). According to the automatic email responses constituents are receiving from his office, Obama appears to be straddling the fence between preserving civil liberties and being tough on terrorism.

“The American people understand that new threats require flexible responses to keep them safe. They also insist that our responses to threats respect the constitution and do not violate the basic tenets of our democracy,” Obama’s email said. Several people who have written to Obama have posted his response on various blogs, including “Justin” who’s personal blog was picked up on diggs.com.

full article:

http://www.indypendent.org/2007/12/10/obama-supports-homegrown-terrorism-bill/

Read Copy of Bill (several versions) yourself:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.01955:

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Why Chavez Won by Losing

This week in Venezuela President Hugo Chavez's referendum, which had received international attention in the past weeks, failed to pass by a slim margin of 51% (against) to 49% in favor. Newspaper headlines by the opposition, and their global allies in places like the US, have trumpeted this defeat as a grand loss for Chavez. His detractors have seized on it as evidence that the socialist revolution in Venezuela is now in decline. However, contrary to such gleeful wishes, Chavez may emerge from this setback more popular than ever. And here's why...


Term Limits

Read any newspaper or listen to a news story in the US, and all you learned about the referendum put forth by Hugo Chavez was that it would do away with term-limits. The opposition in Caracas--wealthy white elites who despise Chavez's appeal to the poor classes, mostly of color--howled this would mean the man they so villified, and once overthrew in a briefly aborted 2002 coup, would be able to retain power forever. While the issue of doing away with term limits is no doubt problematic, and worthy of debate by the citizens of Venezuela, it was greatly over-blown both by the opposition and their foreign allies. First off, the referendum did not mean Chavez would be president for life. What it would have done is allow him to run more than the current two term limit provides. He would therefore have the option to seek the presidency again, but could lose to a worthy candidate. Thus it was doing away with term limits without doing away with democratic principles. Now the whole issue of how long any politician should be allowed to run for office is certainly up to debate. But before anyone engages in it, let's keep some things in perspective. There are many stable democracies in the world that do not have strict term limits like Venezuela. Margaret Thatcher of Great Britian served three terms (one more than Chavez will ever be able) as Prime Minister; John Howard of Australia served four terms as Australia's president. Last I checked, though I abhor boh Thatcher and Howard's politics, neither were the authoritarian dictators that Chavez, in his bid to expand his terms, has been demonised as. In the greatest irony, the most vocal international critics of Chavez have been none other than the current occupants of the White House--whose own electoral authenticity remains deeply convuluted and controversial. Yet it was not until the 22nd amendment in 1944 that the idea of a two-term limit presidency came into existence. Before that, a U.S. presidential candidate could run for the office as many times as he could get elected. Franklin D. Roosevelt would serve a total of four times between 1932 and 1944. Many have even questioned whether Roosevelt's New Deal policies, that so drastically altered America for the better, would have been possible were he limited to only two terms.

Beyond Term Limits- the Rest of the Referendum

Contrary to media reports, there was much more to the referendum posed by Chavez than simply term limits. In fact, the referendum in full dealt with over sixty changes to the nation's constitutions. Some of these included everything from creating forms of communal ownership to allow landless farmers to acquire property, to cutting the workday from eight hours to six. There was a bid at universal social security coverage for much of the informal sector (street vendors, domestic servants, etc.) who make up at least 40% of the labor force. There were even civl rights guarantees for homosexuals and Venezuelans of color, especially those of African descent. Other reforms hoped to stem the long-standing institutional corruption and obstructionism which Chavez has blamed for stalling his reforms. All of these important matters took a back seat to talk of term limits, which Chavez's detractors at home and abroad seized upon in a well-funded propaganda campaign.

The Opposition- Democratic Idealists or Elitists

While news media reports often speak of Chavez's opposition as mere college students or concerned citizens, the truth is a bit more complex. Those opposing the referendum were an amalgam of everyone from Trotskyites to extreme rightists. The main thrust behind the opposition, that has long villified Hugo Chavez, remains the upper and middle-class Venezuelan elite. Owning most of the media and many businesses, Chavez's appeals to the poor and his socialist principles threaten their power. And they constantly paint him in newspapers and other outlets as a mad dictator. With American backing, these forces managed to carry out a coup in 2002 that pushed Chavez from power--until his supporters (the poor majority of color) took to the streets to defy the coup leaders and place their elected president back in power. Contrary to their cries of dictatorship, Chavez did the unthinkable and never rounded up or arrested many of the leaders of the coup. And except for refusing to renew the license of a TV station that participated in the coup and regularly calls for overthrowing the government, for the most part Chavez has allowed his critics to voice their opinions--which they have done quite often, and at times violently. Thus far, there are no Guantanamo prisons for the opposition in Venezuela. And what of those much touted college students who the NY Times portrayed as fighting for their liberties? Most are upper class and elite, and receive direct money from groups tied to the Bush administration in the U.S.---hardly a grassroots wellspring of democracy. There is also an element of racism in the opposition which many observers within and without Venezuela have noted, including Chavez himself. On more than one occassion, they have portrayed Chavez as a caricature of a primate--and made derogatory remarks to his multi-racial African and indigenous heritage.

Chavez the "Dictator" Accepted Democracy

Though the opposition in Caracas is putting on a face of joy, beneath they must be seething. Their entire premise, as that of the US, has been that Chavez is a dictator and strongman. Yet after only narrowly losing the referendum, Chavez accepted defeat, congratulated his opponents and said that even had he won, with such a narrow margin, it would have been a pyrrhic victory. Hardly the words and actions of a dictator. The many t-shirts the opposition had printed to begin a mass propaganda campaign against the Venezuelan "dictator" had to be shelved, when Chavez showed them how a democracy actually works. Perhaps those lovers of democracy among the opposition will once again show their respect for the rule of law with another coup attempt.

Beyond Chavez: Mistakes, Lessons and the Future

The hard reality here is that in many ways, even taking into account the propaganda of the opposition, Chavez overreached. The term limit issue was easy fodder for his opponents to grab onto. And placing over sixty sweeping changes on one referendum was probably too much for his base to comfortably engage with. By accepting defeat, this does not mean Chavez socialist revolution has come to an end. Rather the lesson here is to play the political game more carefully. What's more, all such revolutions, even when they mean well, can easily fall into the trap of a cult-of-personality. Chavez, no matter his desire to create change, did not rise to power by himself and cannot complete the changes he'd like to see come about by himself. Rather than attempting to retain the seat of power, new institutions that can create new leadership for the future is needed. As noted by Mark Weisbrot in Alternatives International:

"The popular presentation of this contest as between pro-Chavez and anti-Chavez forces is misleading. It is a struggle of left versus right, with the two sides divided and polarized along the lines of class, democracy, national sovereignty, and race."

And long after Chavez has exited the political stage, that battle will need to be fought.

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Joe Klein, TIME & GOP Lies

Reason #8975 why I STOPPED reading TIME, Newseek and other so-called popular political mags several years back. Enter the Joe Klein fiasco, which started about two weeks ago, as it goes to the heart of how these printed materials can cause more confusion, and disinformation, rather than enhance the public good. First Joe Klein (so-called "liberal" writer) prints a lie in TIME about the Democrats and the FISA bill. When Glen Greenwald of Salon takes him to task, Klein refuses to backdown. When the pressure (and the accompanying truth that can't be dismissed) gets too heavy, Klein then begins to backtrack without ever really taking responsibility. When it gets too hot to handle, Klein simply walks away from the matter and tells his readers its too hard to figure out. Meanwhile it comes out, that Peter Hokstra (right wing Republican wack-job, the one who crazily claimed to find WMDs in Iraq long AFTER it was apparent there were none) was the person who gave Klein his information. So what we have is a well known journalist who took the words of an obviously partisan political figure as fact without bothering to do his own checking, and then had it printed in his magazine. Finally, after so much criticism, TIME finally issued a retraction. However, it was about as half-a*sed, as Klein's, giving its 4 million readers no real clear cut information. So you have a so-called liberal writer, TIME and a right-wing Republican in bed together, all protecting each other. And this is supposed to be our source of "objective" news....




A timeline of articles detailing the Klein, FISA, TIME, Fiasco.

Nov. 21 2007
Joe Klein: Both factually false and stuck in the 1980s The Time pundit spouts pro-capitulation advice to Democrats that is as obsolete as it is grounded in falsehoods.

Nov. 25 2007
Time magazine's FISA fiasco shows how Beltway reporters mislead the country Joe Klein passed on outright GOP lies about the House Democratic FISA bill to 4 million Time readers and now obscures what happened.

Nov. 26 2007
Joe Klein digs Time's hole deeper still The still-uncorrected errors in the Time article are made far worse by Klein's ongoing deceit.

Nov. 27 2007
Demand answers from Time magazine The Time editors responsible for Joe Klein's "Shameful Journalism" arrogantly refuse to account for what they did.

Nov. 27 2007
Everything that is rancid and corrupt with modern journalism: The Nutshell Time's "correction" reads like satire.

Nov. 29 2007
The Chicago Tribune vs. Time magazine The newspaper clearly and unequivocally states that Joe Klein's statements were false. UPDATE: GOP Rep. Pete Hoekstra outs himself as Klein's source.

Dec. 4 2007
Time magazine refused to publish responses to Klein's false smears Both Sen. Feingold and Rep. Holt asked to respond to Joe Klein's falsehoods. Both were blocked from doing so. UPDATE: Chairmen Conyers and Reyes, and Sen. Dodd, add their protests.

Dec. 7 2007
Rep. John Conyers: Setting the Record Straight on FISA Contrary to GOP and media spin, the RESTORE Act does not grant "terrorists the same rights as Americans," as Klein alleged. The bill explicitly provides that warrants are not needed to intercept overseas communications.

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Look Ma', No Nukes- The NIE Report on Iran

So in the midst of saber-rattling about the threat posed by Iran's "alleged" nuclear weapons program (President Bush has warned Iranian nukes could ignite World War III), the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was released this week. And what do 16 different U.S. intelligence agencies conclude? That Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program back in 2003, and has not restarted it since. The news has sent the neocon war hawks, the White House and their allies into a frenzy. President Bush, in a series of bizarre speeches, has claimed the report doesn't change anything and that Iran is still dangerous. Neocons and warhawks have spent a great deal of print and air time attempting to spin the report to their liking, or questioning its validity. We've seen this story before, during the lead up to the Iraq war. Only that time, it was behind the scenes, and the intelligence community was pressured to cherry-pick information to come out with bogus claims. After getting blamed for that fiasco in the end (as the hawks and the White House sought to cover their role in pushing for war), the intelligence community has decided they aren't getting burned twice. An awkward looking National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, released the NIE this past Monday in full spin mode--probably only because he knew leaks were inevitable if they tried to bury it. In fact, looks as if President Bush knew the direction the NIE was going since at least August, but STILL continued its saber-rattling. And this guy still isn't impeachable?



So here we are, at an interesting place, where the main drumbeating for war has been interrupted by intelligence reports that come (ironically enough) from the very country that has been doing the most saber-rattling. What do with this pause? The hawks and neo-cons have been busily shoring up support from the Europeans and others. Iran has declared the NIE a victory. World bodies like the UN are moving cautiously. And the White House is still into spin, spin, spin. Three articles below that attempt to shed some light on the meaning of the NIE and where things can, and should, go from here, from three of my favorite writers: an earlier Nov piece by author Trita Parsi, Robert Scheer at the Nation and Juan Cole at Salon.com.

The Iranian Challenge
by Trita Parsi

Iran will be the top foreign policy challenge for the United States in the coming years. The Bush Administration's policy (insistence on zero enrichment of uranium, regime change and isolation of Iran) and the policy of the radicals around President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (unlimited civilian nuclear capability, selective inspections and replacing the United States as the region's dominant power) have set the two countries on a collision course. Yet the mere retirement of George W. Bush's neocons or Ahmadinejad's radicals may not be sufficient to avoid the disaster of war.

The ill-informed foreign policy debate on Iran contributes to a paradigm of enmity between the United States and Iran, which limits the foreign policy options of future US administrations to various forms of confrontation while excluding more constructive approaches. These policies of collision are in no small part born of the erroneous assumptions we adopted about Iran back in the days when we could afford to ignore that country. But as America sinks deeper into the Iraqi quicksand, remaining in the dark about the realities of Iran and the actual policies of its decision-makers is no longer an option.

full article:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071119/parsi

Bush on Iran: Fool Me Twice
by Robert Scheer

Bush is such a liar. Or is he just out to lunch on the most important issue that he faces? In October, he charged that Iran's nuclear weapons program was bringing the world to the precipice of World War III, even though the White House had been informed at least a month earlier that Iran had no such program and had stopped efforts to develop one back in 2003

full article:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071217/truthdig


The GOP's Iran Option is Off the Table

Rudy Giuliani was counting on Iran as a weapon of mass distraction in the '08 race. But the flailing Republican right has just been disarmed.

By Juan Cole

Dec. 11, 2007 | The conclusions of the latest National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iran's lack of a nuclear weapons program will have a profound impact on the 2008 presidential campaign. The report may well prove a key element in throwing the election to the Democrats. Republicans have used the alleged nuclear threat posed by Iran to scare the American public and to turn attention away from Iraq, economic troubles and Republican scandals. But the NIE findings have pulled the rug out from under the Grand Old Party.

full article: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/12/11/iran_08/

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Peace in the Mideast...via Annapolis?

So President Bush--after butchering the name of Palestinian authority president Mahmoud Abbas--inaugurated his bid for a Mid East peace plan in Annapolis, Maryland this week. For the record, I'm all for peace--the world could certainly use more of it. But the notion that this administration, which has engaged in a pre-emptive unjust war in Iraq, supported repression at home and abroad, backed violent military take-overs to sow renewed chaos in Somalia and is now saber-rattling daily at Iran, is now trying to promote peace seems beyond bizarre. Is this some bid for Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to recapture her tarnished image, when just little over a year ago she allowed Israel to bomb Lebanon with near impunity--actually blocking any chance for an early end to the conflict? Does the Bush Junta think the world will suddenly have a change of heart and nominate them for a Nobel Peace Prize?



Sorry, call me a cynic, but I see little in the way of "peace" that will come out of this--not when major regional players like Iran and Hamas (you know, the entire *other half* of the Palestinians!) are completely shut out and ignored. And if this summit goes as most others, the Palestinians I'm sure will be asked to give up everything but the clothes on their backs, while the Israelis offer feeble gestures (we'll stop occupying your land, but retain the right to invade whenever we see fit) and hide behind their need for security--because goodness knows the most powerful military in the mid-East, equipped with several hundred nuclear bombs, can't protect itself. Again, call me a cynic. But I don't appear to be alone.

The following story by Eric Margolis in the Toronto Star I thought summed it up nicely.


THE DREARY CHARADE AT ANNAPOLIS

November 26, 2007

http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2007/11/the_dreary_char.php

After the disasters in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia, the misery and bloodshed in Palestine, looming war against Iran, the mess in Pakistan, and worldwide anger against America, President George Bush desperately needs a foreign policy success in the final year of his ill-starred term.

So a group of US Mideast Arab allies and Israel have been dragooned into reluctantly appearing at a hastily-arranged meeting at Annapolis, Maryland this week that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice actually claims will lead to a final Palestinian-Israeli settlement over the next year.

The attendees includes Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian semi-leader Mahmoud Abbas, and delegations from US Arab allies. Syria, which fears a joint US-Israeli invasion, finally decided to send a junior minister. To no surprise, Great Satan Iran was not invited to Bush’s Maryland clambake.

Israel’s strategy has long been to talk about talks about peace while steadily continuing to expand by building settlements on the West Bank and the former Syrian Golan Heights. According to Israeli human rights groups, Israeli settlements and military bases now occupy over half the entire West Bank and its best farmland and water resources –in violation of international law and numerous UN resolutions.

To make sure nothing substantial is achieved at Annapolis, Israel’s rightwing parties in parliament rammed through a resolution that any change in the status of Jerusalem would require a two-thirds vote instead of a simple majority, an impossibility under the Knesset’s fragmented party system. Next, Olmert issued a new demand that the Palestinian leadership and other Arab nations recognize Israel not just as a state but as `a Jewish state.’ This means the 20% of Israeli’s who are Muslim or Christian would become non-people. Olmert knew perfectly well that this insertion would make it extremely difficult for the Arab states to recognize Israel. That, of course, was his objective: a diplomatic poison pill.

West Bank Palestinians have been squeezed into arid land and squalid towns forming a giant outdoor gulag, reminiscent of the science fiction film `Escape from New York,’ filled with misery, crime, 50% unemployment and malnutrition, all surrounded by Israeli `security walls,’ checkpoints and hilltop settlements.

Mahmoud Abbas can’t even control his own extreme factions within Fatah who launch attacks on Israelis, never mind militant Hamas Islamists who stupidly lob rockets at Israel from that other open air prison, Gaza. Israel responds to each pinprick attack with massive force, killing ten Arabs for every dead Israeli. Palestinian infighting and bitter divisions provide Israel’s government with a perfect excuse not to deal with them.

Meanwhile, Washington and Israel are trying to starve Hamas and Gaza into submission while building up the ineffectual but obedient Abbas, whom they engineered into power after PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s mysterious death. The US and Israel have been arming Abbas’ Fatah faction in hopes they will go after Hamas – which, however unloved in the west, remains a legitimate government that won power through a democratic vote.

The Bush Administration’s goal is to get Israeli PM Olmert to agree to a feeble Palestinian mini-state made up of tiny cantons – call them Arabistans - isolated by Israeli-only roads, led by US and Israeli appointed yes-men who will keep their more volatile compatriots in line. This was also the goal of former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, who is now in deep coma. Had his health held up, Sharon might have pulled it off.

But even this political Potemkin Village faces fierce opposition in Israel. Olmert, still reeling from the bloody disaster he created last year in Lebanon, is under heavy fire from Israel’s powerful right wingers and their US neoconservative supporters not to cede an inch of Biblical Greater Israel.

Equally important, as election year nears, US Republicans and Democrats are vying to support the ultra-hardline positions of Israel’s expansionist right, ignoring the 50% of Israeli voters who support a real land for peace deal. They are doing Israel a grave disservice by pandering to its most extreme parties while ignoring its mainstream.

As one of Israel’s finest thinkers, Uri Avnery notes about US elections, `the Jewish and Evangelistic lobbies, together with the neo-cons, will not allow one critical word about Israel to be uttered unpunished.’

In North America, anything that is not fulsome praise of Israel is deemed criticism. Failure to fully support Israel means political or professional suicide . Every politician remembers Democrat Howard Dean. His campaign for the presidency was quickly destroyed by the US media after Dean called for an `evenhanded’ approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

This means Bush and whoever succeeds him, whether Republican or Democrat, will be most unlikely to put any pressure on Israel to create a viable Palestinian state.

The only peace plan that would work is being ignored: the 2002 Saudi proposal calling for a return to Israel’s pre-1967 borders with some rectifications; sharing Jerusalem; dealing with millions of homeless Palestinian refugees; and normalized relations between the Muslim World and Israel.

Nothing will happen without US pressure. But Bush won’t seize the last chance to do some good for the world though, as a lame duck president, he could at least try without jeopardizing his political future. Israel is happy with the status quo. The Palestinians and other Arab states are too weak and divided to achieve a solution to the world’s biggest international headache.

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What's Hardcore? Cry Somalia

So the news is reporting that the UN has named Somalia the most pressing humanitarian disaster in the world at the moment, overshadowing both more popular places of discussion like Iraq or Darfur. To date, some 1 million Somalis have been displaced as their country goes through another round of upheavals. What's most tragic about this, is that just a little over a year ago, Somalia was showing promise. An Islamist group calling itself the Islamic Courts had routed the dreaded warlords and brought peace and stability. While there were differences and controversies amongst the Islamists in their rule (some factions wanted to introduce Sharia law), for the most part they were welcomed by Somalis who had seen decades of chaos and were thankful for peace. Enter however the Bush administration. Deciding that anything with the word "Islam" in it must inherently be dangerous, the US declared the Islamic Courts "terrorists" in league with al-Qaeda. The Bush administration in fact backed the warlords--the very ones they had fought a decade ago--with money and weapons against the Islamist fighters. That gamble failed, as the Somali people chose the Islamic Courts who routed the warlords. Unable to deal with the reality on the ground, the Bush regime decided to change it.



They found a willing and eager ally in the despotic Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who when not oppressing his own citizens always has time to be a US lackey. In short time, American trained, American supplied and American backed Ethiopian troops, supported by US military gunships and intelligence, overran Somalia, pushed out the Islamic Courts and helped install the UN picked transitional government--made up, naturally enough, of former warlords. Since then, Somalia has deteriorated to a state of anarchy and war unseen in decades. The death toll mounts, a million refugees have been created, Islamic insurgents fight against America's proxy Ethiopian occupiers, and a weak propped up government sits in Mogadishu with no popular support. All we're missing to make this Iraq II are the car bombs. Somehow all of this--including the US machinations that have led to this latest set of tragedies--glided beneath the radar of the mainstream press.

Below are several articles or discussions on the issue, some dating back a year to give perspective. The song above is by Somali artist K'naan, who is trying as best he can to talk about the plight of his country. Question is, who's listening?

Destabilizing the Horn Jan. 07 The Nation

Somalia Victimized by U.S., Ethiopia and Their Warlord Allies - Jan. 07 Black Agenda Report

Bush's Somalia Strategy Enables an Ethiopian Despot - Feb. 07 The Nation

U.S. Made Mess in Somalia - Apr. 07 The Independent Institute

The Bush Doctrine in Somalia: Yet Another Success - Uruknet.info Nov. 07

Former UN Spokesperson Salim Lone: International Community Turning Blind Eye to Worsening Somalia Crisis - Nov. 07 DemocracyNow

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Water Torture and Slaves

Since we still seem to be having a debate on whether waterboarding is actually "torture," the following excerpt of the water torture of a female slave in antebellum Georgia deserves mentioning. Notice that this act was not done to gain information (so-called "enhanced interrogation"), but merely to punish. This was the intended effect of waterboarding and other forms of water torture--whether it was used during the Spanish Inquisition on "heretic" Jews, by American troops on insurgent Philippinos, on dissenters in Pinochet controlled Chile and elsewhere. It does not extract confessions; it induces terror, plain and simple. Perhaps some of this should have been read to those Senators, Republican *and* Democrat, who voted to confirm the new Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who has yet to define waterboarding as torture.


Narrative of Charles Ball, an American slave, on water torture used on a female slave by a Georgian slave owner.

Excerpt taken from:

Charles Ball. Fifty Years in Chains, or, The Life of an American Slave. (New York: H. Dayton, 1859), 409-412.

http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/ball/ball.html

--begin--

When I had been here about a week, my master came into the field one day, and, in passing near me, stopped and told me, that I had now fallen into good hands, as it was his practice not to whip his people much. That he, in truth, never whipped them, nor suffered his overseer to whip them, except in flagrant cases. That he had discovered a mode of punishment much more mild, and, at the same time, much more effectual, than flogging; and that he governed his negroes exclusively under this mode of discipline. He then told me, that when I came home in the evening, I must come to the house; and that he would then make me acquainted with the principles upon which he chastised his slaves.

Going to the house in the evening, according to orders, my master showed me a pump, set in a well in which the water rose within ten feet of the surface of the ground. The spout of this pump, was elevated at least thirteen feet above the earth, and when the water was to be drawn from it, the person who worked the handle ascended by a ladder to the proper station. The water in this well, although so near the surface, was very cold; and the pump discharged it in a large stream. One of the women employed in the house, had committed some offence for which she was to be punished; and the opportunity was embraced of exhibiting to me, the effect of this novel mode of torture upon the human frame. The woman was stripped quite naked, and tied to a post that stood just under the stream of water, as it fell from the spout of the pump. A lad was then ordered to ascend the ladder, and pump water upon the head and shoulders of the victim; who had not been under the waterfall more than a minute, before she began to cry and scream in a most lamentable manner. In a short time, she exerted her strength, in the most convulsive throes, in trying to escape from the post; but as the cords were strong, this was impossible. After another minute or a little more, her cries became weaker, and soon afterwards her head fell forward upon her breast; and then the boy was ordered to cease pumping the water. The woman was removed in a state of insensibility; but recovered her faculties in about an hour. The next morning she complained of lightness of head; but was able to go to work.

This punishment of the pump, as it is called, was never inflicted on me; and I am only able to describe it, as it has been described to me, by those who have endured it. When the water first strikes the head and arm, it is not at all painful; but in a very short time, it produces the sensation that is felt when heavy blows are inflicted with large rods, of the size of a man’s finger. This perception becomes more and more painful, until the skull bone and shoulder blades appear to be broken in pieces. Finally, all the faculties become oppressed; breathing becomes more and more difficult; until the eye-sight becomes dim, and animation ceases. This punishment is in fact a temporary murder; as all the pains are endured, that can be felt by a person who is deprived of life by being beaten with bludgeons;–but after the punishment of the pump, the sufferer is restored to existence by being laid in a bed, and covered with warm clothes. A giddiness of the head, and oppression of the breast, follows this operation, for a day or two, and sometimes longer. The object of calling me to be a witness of this new mode of torture, doubtlessly, was was to intimidate me from running away; but like medicines administered by empirics, the spectacle had precisely the opposite effect, from that which it was expected to produce.

After my arrival on this estate, my intention had been to defer my elopement until the next year, before I had seen the torture inflicted on this unfortunate woman; but from that moment my resolution was unalterably fixed, to escape as quickly as possible. Such was my desperation of feeling, at this time, that I deliberated seriously upon the project of endeavouring to make my way southward, for the purpose of joining the Indians in Florida. Fortune reserved a more agreeable fate for me.

--end--

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