When will the U.S. quit ignoring the 800-pound gorilla in the room? When will we – to use a currently over-used phrase – connect the dots and publicly acknowledge that our unconditional support of Israel is a major component to the war being waged against us by Al-Qaeda and other extremists who have hijacked Islam as their excuse for crimes against humanity?
And Israel keeps working to undermine that which would help the U.S. in the battle for the hearts and minds of those in the countries in which our young men and women sacrifice so much to secure a victory in this war.
Cases in point are two related actions by the Israeli government. First, Israel is deporting American church volunteers who are working to assist the Palestinians in establishing a peaceful, prosperous and stable society. One, whom I’ve met, Faith Rowald, 27, from Polson, Montana, worked with the Lutheran International Center of Bethlehem (ICB). The ICB, through empowering the local community, developing human resources, cultivating artistic talents, and facilitating intercultural encounters, actively promotes the building of Palestinian civil society. The seeds of discontent will not germinate and grow where people enjoy such a society.
But Israel needs to keep the conditions that foment violence and hatred. By continuing the Kristallnacht treatment of the Palestinians – building more settlements, settlers attacking the Palestinians, harassing at checkpoints, and illegally confiscating Palestinians lands and home -- and feeding the foment, Israel continues to short-circuit whatever hopes there are for a lasting peace in the area. And the lack of peace fits into the goal of exterminating the Palestinians from Palestine. This treatment and these actions feed the propaganda of Al-Qaeda and others who have hijacked Islam in an attempt to justify their crimes against humanity.
The second is Israel’s arresting of a growing number of prominent opponents to its policies toward the Palestinians as reported int eh Washington Post on 19 January.
As reported, since the summer, dozens of Palestinian and Israeli activists have been picked up, including those organizing weekly protests against Israel's West Bank separation barrier as well as others advocating international boycotts of Israeli goods. These activists are working to make the Israeli public, and the world community, aware of Israel’s denying the Palestinians basic human rights and to try to change Israel’s destructive policies.
How do Israel’s policies affect us? As we are all aware, the U.S. is under attack by Al-Qaeda and other radicals who have hijacked Islam as their excuse. Impressionable young people are recruited to be suicide bombers against ours and other Western targets. The selling point is that attacks against the U.S. is revenge against the U.S. attacks against Islam (i.e. – the Palestinians, who, by the way, include Christians). This is the misconceived notion of jihad.
Look at the attack of September 11. The terrorists attacked the World Trade Center because it was the financial epicenter of the U.S. economy, an economy that the terrorists stereotyped as being under the influence of the American Jewish community.
It is time to tell the truth. It is time to acknowledge reality. For 61 years, the U.S. has supported Israel. It is time Israel supports the United States.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Thursday, January 07, 2010
What happened??!!
The Democrats are managing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Not so much as their policies (they mean well) but their approach. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger nailed it when he said that the health care reform bill was not reform at all but just deals and pork.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Tear the U.S. down
They sing the National Anthem but just like everything else the right wing does, it's dishonest. Faux News and the Dittoheads are protesting the huge amounts of money being spent to right the wrong of the Bush administration. Don't try to help; just try to tear the country apart. If not your way; no way. Perhaps the Mayan calendar is correct!
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Israel remains a hostage
On this Passover, the Israeli people remain hostage as they were in Egypt so many millenia ago. They are hostage to the inculcation and rhetoric of their leadership over the years that all Palestinians are terrorists and desire to destroy Israel. O Israel, only the truth will set you free!
Sunday, March 22, 2009
When people are treatred like vermin
Israeli army personnel express their shame at the acitons they carried out against Palestinian civilians in Gaza as reported by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Please see
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072475.html
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072475.html
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Help, Help, Help!!!
U.S. auto executives warned Congress on Tuesday , 18 November 2008, that their industry was teetering on the brink of disaster as they pleaded for a $25 billion aid package despite political opposition to another multibillion-dollar government bailout. This editorial cartoon, by Steve Benson of the Arizona Republic, warned the auto industry on 22 March 1981!
Friday, August 29, 2008
Truer words not spoken
Speaking about his recent participation in defying the Israeli blockade of Gaza, peace activitist and Jewish Israeli Jeff Halper said of Gaza: "It's the opposite of what the Israeli public thinks. They think that Gaza is all Hamas and they hate Israelis. But if they knew the truth, they'd have to say there is a basis for peacemaking here." Why doen't the Israeli public know the truth? because the Israeli government ensures no contact between Palestinians and Israeli citizens. It is against the law. And the Israeli government's propaganda is aimed at demonizing all Palestinians.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Couldn't say it any better....
Par for Mr. Corsi
An expert at misrepresentation takes on Barack Obama.
The Washington Post, Friday, August 15, 2008; Page A20
There's a cottage industry in books about Barack Obama; by one count, more than 20 are just out or are in the works. But few debut in the No. 1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list, as Jerome R. Corsi's "The Obama Nation" will do among nonfiction hardcover titles this week. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, given his earlier hit job on the last Democratic nominee, Mr. Corsi's latest is rife with inaccuracies and innuendo. If the fundamental smear of "Unfit for Command" was that John F. Kerry was no war hero, the insinuation of Mr. Corsi's latest is that "The Obama Nation" -- the ungainly play on words (abomination, get it?) is "fully intended," the author tells us -- reprises the Corsi method. Mr. Corsi boasts that "I fully document all arguments and contentions I make, extensively footnoting all references" and asserts that "my fundamental opposition to Obama's presidential candidacy involves public policy differences." But footnoting to a discredited blog item does not constitute careful scholarship, and the bulk of Mr. Corsi's book has nothing to do with issues.
He gets facts wrong, from the date of Mr. Obama's marriage to whether he dedicated his autobiography to his family (he did) to whether he revealed that he took his future wife on his second trip to Kenya (he did.) He makes offensive statements: "The sexual attraction of his mother to her African husband jumps out from the page."
When facts are lacking, Mr. Corsi makes his point by suggestive questions. Noting that Life magazine could find no record of an article that Mr. Obama remembered reading as a child about a black man who tried to lighten his skin, Mr. Corsi asks, "How much more imagining, hypothetical lying, or just plain lying is Obama capable of doing?" When facts are present, he twists them to make Mr. Obama bad.
Mr. Corsi's discussion of Mr. Obama's drug use -- disclosed by Mr. Obama in his autobiography -- manages to combine a few of these techniques. "Still, Obama has yet to answer questions whether he ever dealt drugs, or if he stopped using marijuana and cocaine completely in college, or whether his drug usage extended into his law school days or beyond. Did Obama ever use drugs in his days as a community organizer in Chicago, or when he was a state senator from Illinois? How about in the U.S. Senate?" In fact, Mr. Obama has said that he stopped using drugs when he was 20. Mr. Corsi is similarly misleading about Mr. Obama's religious background, questioning his claim to be Christian. "Obama had to know that running for political office, even state office, would be much more difficult to do if voters suspected he was a Muslim," Corsi writes. "Yet once Obama became a member of Trinity, he had proof he was a Christian, as he professed to be."
Mr. Corsi has dismissed criticisms of his book as "nit-picking," an odd defense coming from an author happy to inflate any possible omission into a full-blown evasion. Mary Matalin, the Republican political strategist who heads Threshold Editions, the Simon & Schuster division that published "The Obama Nation," described the book to the New York Times as "a piece of scholarship, and a good one at that." That would not be our description.
From The Washington Post
An expert at misrepresentation takes on Barack Obama.
The Washington Post, Friday, August 15, 2008; Page A20
There's a cottage industry in books about Barack Obama; by one count, more than 20 are just out or are in the works. But few debut in the No. 1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list, as Jerome R. Corsi's "The Obama Nation" will do among nonfiction hardcover titles this week. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, given his earlier hit job on the last Democratic nominee, Mr. Corsi's latest is rife with inaccuracies and innuendo. If the fundamental smear of "Unfit for Command" was that John F. Kerry was no war hero, the insinuation of Mr. Corsi's latest is that "The Obama Nation" -- the ungainly play on words (abomination, get it?) is "fully intended," the author tells us -- reprises the Corsi method. Mr. Corsi boasts that "I fully document all arguments and contentions I make, extensively footnoting all references" and asserts that "my fundamental opposition to Obama's presidential candidacy involves public policy differences." But footnoting to a discredited blog item does not constitute careful scholarship, and the bulk of Mr. Corsi's book has nothing to do with issues.
He gets facts wrong, from the date of Mr. Obama's marriage to whether he dedicated his autobiography to his family (he did) to whether he revealed that he took his future wife on his second trip to Kenya (he did.) He makes offensive statements: "The sexual attraction of his mother to her African husband jumps out from the page."
When facts are lacking, Mr. Corsi makes his point by suggestive questions. Noting that Life magazine could find no record of an article that Mr. Obama remembered reading as a child about a black man who tried to lighten his skin, Mr. Corsi asks, "How much more imagining, hypothetical lying, or just plain lying is Obama capable of doing?" When facts are present, he twists them to make Mr. Obama bad.
Mr. Corsi's discussion of Mr. Obama's drug use -- disclosed by Mr. Obama in his autobiography -- manages to combine a few of these techniques. "Still, Obama has yet to answer questions whether he ever dealt drugs, or if he stopped using marijuana and cocaine completely in college, or whether his drug usage extended into his law school days or beyond. Did Obama ever use drugs in his days as a community organizer in Chicago, or when he was a state senator from Illinois? How about in the U.S. Senate?" In fact, Mr. Obama has said that he stopped using drugs when he was 20. Mr. Corsi is similarly misleading about Mr. Obama's religious background, questioning his claim to be Christian. "Obama had to know that running for political office, even state office, would be much more difficult to do if voters suspected he was a Muslim," Corsi writes. "Yet once Obama became a member of Trinity, he had proof he was a Christian, as he professed to be."
Mr. Corsi has dismissed criticisms of his book as "nit-picking," an odd defense coming from an author happy to inflate any possible omission into a full-blown evasion. Mary Matalin, the Republican political strategist who heads Threshold Editions, the Simon & Schuster division that published "The Obama Nation," described the book to the New York Times as "a piece of scholarship, and a good one at that." That would not be our description.
From The Washington Post
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Whose side are you on?
If one criticizes the Israeli government's actions, one is called an anti-Semite or if one is Jewish and does so, one is labeled a "self-hater." But let us be crystal clear. Let me quote Dr. Alice Rothchild, who in turn is quoting Jeff Halper, coordinator of the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions, "I am on the 'side' of Israelis and Palestinians who seek a just peace that addresses Palestinian rights of self-determination as well as Israeli concerns of security and regional integration. I am on the 'side' that stands for equality, human rights, democracy, peaceful co-existence and regional development." [Halper, Israeli Violations of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, paper presented to the European paliament, Brussels, June 2001.]
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Faux Christians
Heard on a "Christian" radio station today some commentator speaking about how "Christians" must support Israel and not allow the Israeli government to make any agreements with the Palestinians. Why? Because it was the "Christians" responsibility to ensure that Israel remained a viable nation to facilitate the Second Coming. I call them faux Christians because they believe they must help God achieve the Second Coming. Since when does God need their help? Are they not taking on the role of God? No body knows when the Christ will return. "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." [Mark 13:32]
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
Three things have come together which have cause me great anger. I have recently returned from Israel and the Occupied Territories, I have read Jimmy Carter's book, the title of which is the headline for this entry, and I have watched CNN's "God's Warriors." Posts from this point on will deal with that which I saw and that which I read and hear about concerning the Israeli mistreatment of the Palestinians. First, I am here to tell you that every word in Carter's book is true. Not because someone told me; not because he was once the President. No. It is because what he has written about, I saw with my own eyes.
You may doubt, and you may have swallowed the Kool-Aid dispensed by AIPAC, the Christian Zionists, and even your instructor in Hebrew school, but know that the ancient Jewish tradition has that if two people report the same thing, it must be true.
As I said, I will write more at another time. My life right now is very hectic and demanding. I write when I can. If anybody cares to read, great. If anybody dares to discuss, greater still. But the posts will not be daily. Today's take-away is: Carter tells the truth; read the book!
You may doubt, and you may have swallowed the Kool-Aid dispensed by AIPAC, the Christian Zionists, and even your instructor in Hebrew school, but know that the ancient Jewish tradition has that if two people report the same thing, it must be true.
As I said, I will write more at another time. My life right now is very hectic and demanding. I write when I can. If anybody cares to read, great. If anybody dares to discuss, greater still. But the posts will not be daily. Today's take-away is: Carter tells the truth; read the book!
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Memorial Day 2008
I weep for the Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen
Who have died in service of their country.
I weep for the lives cut short by another man’s bullet or bomb.
I weep for those who have been killed because of another man's folly.
While I weep for those who rescued the world
Those who fought in World War II and did survive to very old age,
I also celebrate their courage and sacrifice and the lives they led in the
years that followed.
I weep also because Patriotsm seems to be dying.
People no longer place their hand over their heart upon hearing the
National Anthem.
It's just a perfunctory item to get out of the way before the ball game.
I especially weep for all my fellow Navy men and women.
There are no little U.S. flags nor perfectly aligned white headstones
to mark at sea the final resting place of those who gave all
for their nation's freedom.
Who have died in service of their country.
I weep for the lives cut short by another man’s bullet or bomb.
I weep for those who have been killed because of another man's folly.
While I weep for those who rescued the world
Those who fought in World War II and did survive to very old age,
I also celebrate their courage and sacrifice and the lives they led in the
years that followed.
I weep also because Patriotsm seems to be dying.
People no longer place their hand over their heart upon hearing the
National Anthem.
It's just a perfunctory item to get out of the way before the ball game.
I especially weep for all my fellow Navy men and women.
There are no little U.S. flags nor perfectly aligned white headstones
to mark at sea the final resting place of those who gave all
for their nation's freedom.
Friday, April 20, 2007
It is truly sad
It's been a while since the last posting. I've tried to make these comments a little humorous if I could. As of late I cannot.
On the tragedy at Virginia Tech: The Korean community in this country or anywhere in the world does not share in any of the blame. Period! To suggest so is as stupid as saying that the Anglo-Saxon community was responsible for Columbine. The blame lies squarely with one individual, who from this day forward, should never be identified by name.
ABC News last night, in response to the backlash against NBC for airing the shooter's "multimedia manifesto" (isn't the media's alliteration wonderful?), ended the newscast with a tribute to the 32 young men and women who were killed. The phoniness was so transparent! But I guess no more so that the somber prnouncements by the CNN crew. I'll bet that in the control room it was: "This is such great television!!."
Messed-up Media: I'm no fan of John McCain (who stood up to the North Vietnamese but has caved to the Bushies). Yet, I'm irritated by folks wanting McCain to apologize for remarks in South Carolina last night. In response to a question, he was asking if the questioner was suggesting that we bomb Iran, which led him to remember the parody of the Beach Boys' song Barbara Ann. The parody --- being continually misidentified --- is the 1981 Bomb Iran by Vince Vance and the Valiants, sung in response to the Iran Hostage incident.
Today we have the tape of Alec Baldwin getting angry with his daughter. Folks, this is none of anyone else's business. The problem is that the media and this society are now in the Gotcha mode.
On the tragedy at Virginia Tech: The Korean community in this country or anywhere in the world does not share in any of the blame. Period! To suggest so is as stupid as saying that the Anglo-Saxon community was responsible for Columbine. The blame lies squarely with one individual, who from this day forward, should never be identified by name.
ABC News last night, in response to the backlash against NBC for airing the shooter's "multimedia manifesto" (isn't the media's alliteration wonderful?), ended the newscast with a tribute to the 32 young men and women who were killed. The phoniness was so transparent! But I guess no more so that the somber prnouncements by the CNN crew. I'll bet that in the control room it was: "This is such great television!!."
Messed-up Media: I'm no fan of John McCain (who stood up to the North Vietnamese but has caved to the Bushies). Yet, I'm irritated by folks wanting McCain to apologize for remarks in South Carolina last night. In response to a question, he was asking if the questioner was suggesting that we bomb Iran, which led him to remember the parody of the Beach Boys' song Barbara Ann. The parody --- being continually misidentified --- is the 1981 Bomb Iran by Vince Vance and the Valiants, sung in response to the Iran Hostage incident.
Today we have the tape of Alec Baldwin getting angry with his daughter. Folks, this is none of anyone else's business. The problem is that the media and this society are now in the Gotcha mode.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Best Congress Money Can Buy
The Dems are now trying to bride their membership and GOP members to pass the resolution on Iraq by offering them pork for various projects. Once again they prove that we have the best congress that money can buy!
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Right wing; wrong brain
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday did the typical Right Wing attempt to criticize Sen. Barbara Boxer's statement that because the Dragon Lady doesn't have a family member in a position to be killed in Iraq, she won't pay a personal price in the Iraq war. Twisting the clear intent of Sen. Boxer's words, Rice said "In retrospect, gee, I thought single women had come further than that, that the only question is are you making good decisions because you have kids." Rice made this remark in an interview on Fox "News." Now we all know the intent of Sen. Boxer's statement, and that was that folks who have no personal investment in a situation may be less likely to do due deligence in making decisions. Rice's attempted retort is so far off the mark you wonder how she can successfully negotiate for the U.S. as Secretary of State. Oh wait, perhaps that's why our international image is so screwed up!!!
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
There is a God!!
When the President announced the resignation of the Secretary of Defense this morning, the biggest cheers came from the Pentagon!!!
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Deja Vu All over again
This morning, White House shill and Fox pretty face Tony Snow stood on the White House lawn and declared flatly that we are winning in Iraq. Kinda reminds me of Bagdad Bob!!
Thursday, September 28, 2006
No Global Warming
Sen. James M. Inhofe (Republican, Oklahoma) has stated flatly that global warming is a sham perpeturated on the American public. This in the face of solid scientific and visual proof. I guess he's the Bagdad Bob of the environmental issues facing this country (and the world). The problem is that if you act like an ostrich and put your head in the sand, just remember what part of your anatomy is sticking up! But this is not the first time Inhofe has said something stupid. See www.counterpunch.org Another Oklahoman, Will Rogers, once said that he got his material as a humorist from reading the newspaper and seeing the actions of Congress. He'd be hilarious today!!
Friday, September 15, 2006
Tit for Tat
Gasoline prices at the pump are falling. In some cases it's 20 cents a week. Ain't it grand?! But there's a cloud behind every silver lining. The oil companies are dropping prices to buy the mid-term election for the Republicans (Bush/Cheney = oil men). But, mark my words... you'll pay in the spring if not before. Boy, will you pay!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)