Rob Prince's Blog

December 20, 2009

Note: This blog and the entire Colorado Progressive Jewish News website has been moved.

The blog can be found at http://robertjprince.wordpress.com/

The Colorardo Progressive Jewish News website is now located at http://cpjn.wordpress.com/

This site will remain up for another month or so and then taken down.

RJP.

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December 5, 2009 Mark Udall Responds to Concern About The Goldstone Report.

Although he is in the US Senate, not in the US House of Representatives, Senator Mark Udall received concerned letters about the House vote `rejecting' the Goldstone Report. Here is his response. What is interesting is how carefully his letter refuses to even use the term `Goldstone Report', although that is precisely to what he is responding..

Read Udall's response.

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November 29, 2009

An Israeli Song...A Father Sings To His Daughter...

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November 27, 2009

Local Response To The Goldstone Report: Juliet Wittman's Letter To US Congresswoman Diana DeGette:

Dear Diana DeGette:

I have read your letter on why you voted for H.Res. 867, and I find it both troubling and evasive. I have been an admirer of yours in the past, but that admiration has dissipated. I absolutely cannot understand why challenging and investigating war crimes should "drive people away from resuming negotiations toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." What people? And what will be the basis of those negotiations? You say the death of innocent civilians must end. How can that happen if those deaths--many of them paid for by our tax dollars--are papered over and ignored by our representatives in Congress?

You say you deplore inflammatory rhetoric. Have you read the Goldstone Report? It is a long, sober, and meticulously-researched document by one of the world's most eminent jurists. It contains no rhetoric of any sort. Truthfully, it seems to me that you know very little about this issue. That being the case you should not, in good conscience, have voted at all.

I live in Boulder and I understand that my opinion need not concern you. (Jared Polis's response to my questions was to e-mail me the Abraham Foxman ADL handout that apparently served as the only research he bothered to do). Still,you must be aware that after the bloody and terrible events of the previous century, the world's most honorable thinkers--with the United States in the forefront--concluded that humanity's last, best hope was international law. To deliberately weaken that law as you all have done is to invite further bloodshed and chaos.

Sincerely, Juliet Wittman, Boulder

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November 26, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving...

I do like Thanksgiving and wish all the readers a happy one. I like it for a number of reasons. There isn't much flag waving or bible thumping - either of which ruins the best of times. Then there is the good food (in this house it is truly wonderful and healthy to boot), drink (there will be a fair amount as soon as I get off this machine). And family. And mine brings me alot of joy. Of course there is all the shopping nonsense tomorrow and this evening a football game which somewhat ruins the mood, but then I won't be heading to the mall at 6 am nor turn on the tv this evening.

It does help not to be reminded - as I am now doing - that this day does mark the beginning of a genocide against North American native peoples by some protestant fanatics, otherwise called our `founding fathers' (the founding mothers were soon condemned as `witches') who, prior to making the great journey across the Atlantic, first tried unsuccessfully to overthrow the British government because it wasn't protestant enough for them. Had they not included the sons and daughters of those in power in Britain, the lot of them would have been hung, beheaded or whatever cruel way people were disposed of in those days. But being sons and daughters of the privileged, they were instead, expelled to Amsterdam where they were given a place to live and worship, but no power to speak of - which is what they were really after. This left them unsatisfied and consequentally they decided to head `across the pond' to Massachusetts. Most of the native peoples in the area that they met were already dead from small pox, probably contracted by some wayward European sailors whose ship had wrecked off the coast a year so before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. The first pilgrim harvest wasn't a harvest at all, or at least not their harvest. Instead the founding fathers - simply gathered to corn and pumpkins from fields outside of native villages where entire populations lay dead from the pox. No real achievement to speak of, was it? One of the better descriptions of all this is an essay called the First Thanksgiving in James Loewen's `Lies My Teacher Told Me' - one of the more fun books undermining some of the myths by which we live.

But as I said, I won't get into all that and ruin the spirit of the day. During the recent presidential campaign my daughters did not permit me to criticize Obama too much, nor now to make cynical and unkind (if accurate) remarks about holidays that they love. So, in the spirit of familial harmony, I will let others do that. I did find a wonderful website by two 84 year old women, Margaret and Helen, whose views on the day parallel my own (although I am not into Texas football) which I encourage you to read and enjoy. My brother-in-law, David Fey, introduced me to these fine women. (For the link click here) And at that site read `Thanksgiving Letter To the Family' - a jewel.

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November 22, 2009

Remarks of Rob Prince, Summit County Unitarian Universalist Church, Copper Mountain, Colorado. Sunday November 22, 2010.

New Directions In US Foreign Policy on Israel and Palestine?

Thank you for inviting me.

I must admit that this is a day, when, 46 years ago, my sense of security about the world was shattered and, for the first time, questions about how the American political system worked arose in my mind that have never since been satisfactorily answered. It was on a Friday afternoon; I was puzzling over my once again - poor results of a Physics lab from the day before at St. Lawrence University when someone from a neighboring dormitory room burst into my room with the news that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. The messenger - had a history of being a practical joker. I got angry and it was only when I saw the tears flowing down from his face that I realized,...as my daughters used to say...`this is for reals’.

(for the complete transcript click here)

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November 20, 2009

US Congresswoman Diana De Gette's Pathetic Letter As To Why She Voted Against The Goldstone Report (click here )

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November 18, 2009

Two links worth reading, both by former Peace Corps friends - we were in Tunisia together more than 40 years ago.

1. The first is by Michael Oudyn about how Beaujolais wine is a rip-off. Michael has drunk enough wine to be qualified as a world class expert. Unlike many of us who cut our wine tasting teeth on Thibar (a decent Tunisian Red - or at least it was 43 years ago), Michael actually knows alot about wines he embibes. Drinking wine helps digesting both food and reading about the Silverado slim balls that I am exploring at present, helping the story go down more smoothly. Highly recommend it especially when I get to the antics of Ken Good, Bill Walters, and the great master of Colorado slimballery, then and now, Larry Mizel and the coterie of legal and political slim balls to whom he has been attached at the hip for decades. (Stay tuned)

(click here for the link)

2. The second is by Jean Athey. If I remember correctly Jean served in Tunisia's far south, in Gabes, not far from the Libyan border. More recently, she has been active in peace movement in the Washington DC area for some time and recently went to Nablus - in the, perhaps, soon to be declared independent Palestinian state - where she participated in the olive harvest. Her writing about that experience is honest and painful, and so, once again, it helps to have Oudyn's wine tips when reading it.

(click here for the link)

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November 17, 2009

Silverado 2 - Kermit Mowbray: From Federal Banking Regulator To New Mexico Bird Watcher..

If Michael Wise’s life ended abruptly by jumping off of the ninth story of a parking lot at Tampa International Airport, the same can not be said for many of `the cast of characters’ who buzzed around him, using Silverado Bank as a cash cow - or protecting those who did. Among those whose fate was entwined with Wise’s so long ago are Kermit Mowbray, Ken Wood, Bill Walters, Larry Mizel and his side kick David Mandarich, and perhaps the biggest fool of them all - Neil Bush, President George Bush Sr.’s son and President George Bush Jr’s brother.

A `where are they now’ piece on them all that includes something of their role in the Silverado collapse is thus in order.

The Mowbrays

Let us start with Kermit Mowbray, with his distinguished sounding name. These past years, Mowbray and his wife, Linda are enjoying retirement in Sante Fe, New Mexico, home, it seems, of many a retired rich dirt ball. It is to New Mexico that John Erlichman, of Watergate fame, had a place, grew a beard and wrote his bitter criticisms of his ex-boss, Richard Nixon.. Until recently neocon warmonger and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld enjoyed life just up the road from Sante Fe, in Taos, where he made generous contributions to the Taos Pueblo. The Mowbrays enjoy bird watching, and support a locally based conservation group and library.

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November 14, 2009

Silverado 1 - The Michael R. Wise Legacy To Colorado Banking

(Note: This is the first episode in a series I hope to produce on this blog essentially about the Silverado Bank Failure of the late 1980s.)

Michael Wise - The Golden Boy From Emporia Kansas - Walks The Plank

On April 8, 2009, just seven months ago, Michael R. Wise paced along the ninth story of a parking garage at Tampa International Airport. As if intending to arrange a coffee date, Wise first sent a text message to a 26 year old former employee, one Chris Copelan who had worked for Wise at CFIC Home Mortgage Co. before that company collapsed. The message said `I am looking forward to catching up with you’. Having delivered the message to cyberspace, then, taking his last long step, Wise `stepped off the side’, plunging to his death below. According to witnesses, he landed in a landscaped area with palm trees and some greenery. At 1:30 in the afternoon at a nearby hospital, Hillsborough Medical Examiner, Henry Pouge pronounced Wise dead. Having viewed a parking lot video that recorded Wise’s last moments, the airport police, ruled out any foul play.

Thus ended the life of the former CEO of Silverado Bank, Colorado's most infamous, at least to date. Wise, hailing from Emporia Kansas, where he had had a short and successful banking career, came to Denver in 1979 to take over the management of a small thrift bank, Mile High Savings and Loan in Littleton Colorado, a Denver suburb just south of the city. Under Wise's leadership, the name of the bank would change to `Silverado’, change the rules for savings and loan banking, make a fortune on an ocean of bad loans, and then unceremoniously collapse to be shut down by federal regulators nine years later in 1988.

(For the full entry, click here)

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November 7, 2009

Arnie Zaler - Former Executive Director of the Colorado Zionist Federation - Sentenced To 15 Years in a Federal Peniteniary for Wire and Mail Fraud

Arnie’s Saga 4

An Unusually Warm and Sunny Day For Early November...

Yesterday, an unusually warm and sunny day for early November, I took a bus from my Northwest Denver home with alot of poor people, most of whom were Black or Brown, myself heading to the new federal court house on 19th and Champa to attend the sentencing of Arnie Zaler to a 15 year prison term on four counts of fraud to be followed by five years of enforced parole. He was also ordered to pay restitution for $2.5 million of the money he swindled.

I had known Zaler some in his/my student activist days at the University of Colorado in Boulder in the fall of 1969 where I once saw him, with great dramatic effect, burn his draft card in protest against the Viet Nam War and declare his intentions to `give up his white skin privilege’ - the latter a bit more difficult than the former to achieve. Zaler's journey - from a genuine 60s radical to a failed version of a Larry Mizel or Norm Brownstein wanna-be took him, like Sisyphus, up the hill and back down again. Not that he ever reached commanding heights. In the 1970s, shifting his political gears abit and with an eye on bigger things - he became, if I recall correctly, the executive director of Colorado Zionist Federation. As such he had `access', regular contact not only with the state’s ruling elite, - or at least that section of it that was Jewish - but also on at least one occasion accompanied a few of the state’s big-wigs to a meeting with President Jimmy Carter to lobby for Soviet Jewry. By the 1990s he was in a federal peniteniary in Arizona. Interesting personal trajectory.

His has been a strange, mostly sad - self-delusional - journey, of someone whom, in the end, was simply too greedy for his own good and `hungry’ to achieve personal power, it seems, by any means necessary. He long ago became a pathological liar and con man; along the way, - he stole tens of millions of dollars, ruined the lives of a fair number of people, embarrassing many who helped him get out of one jam after another, and, until the day he finally surrendered himself to federal authories in Atlanta, he never stopped trying to scam people.

(For the full text click here)

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November 4, 2009

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat At The University of Denver

It was a first class `charm' offensive. Nir Barkat, Jerusalem’s mayor cuts a handsome figure - trim, articulate in English, and generally relaxed in his delivery. His presentation was, in a word, slick. Empty of much content but slick.

Barkat’s talk took place on the same day that the US House of Representatives voted 346 to 36 (with 22 voting `present’ and 22 not voting) for a resolution `to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the “Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict” in multilateral fora’, ie - to oppose any further consideration of the Goldstone Report. Jared Polis, Diana De Gette, John Salazar and Ed Perlmutter, all liberal Dems from Colorado, voted with the majority. (For the breakdown on the vote click here)

It has not yet dawned upon the representatives that it is not only a crime to commit war crimes, but also to cover them up.

There was, predictably, no mention of either the Goldstone Report last night, nor the Gaza military assault last December, nor were the words `occupation’ or `war crimes’ ever used. Indeed, the level of denial was impressive. Nor was there any citing of the fact that as the mayor was speaking Israeli authorities demolished the homes of 30 more Palestinians in E. Jerusalem. Instead, the strategy of the talk was simple and effective: 1. counter the growing international concern and outrage over Gaza by talking about the charms of Jerusalem, real and imagined. 2. Divert attention from the UN vote on the Goldstone Report due to take place tomorrow (Nov 5)

The message was clear enough: despite growing international condemnation of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians including where it concerns Jerusalem, Colorado’s political class, the state’s governor and one of its more prestigious academicians included - both generally liberal - still support the Jewish state virtually unequivocally regardless of its actions.

Barkat spoke in the main auditorium of the Newman Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Denver at an event hosted personally by both the University’s Chancellor, Robert Coombe and none other than the governor of Colorado, Bill Ritter. As if to drive home a point, both took to the stage to personally welcome and introduce Barkat. It was not so much an evening of historical insight as much as it was a show of power.

for the entire entry click here

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October 28, 2009

Uzi Landau's Hard Day In Denver

It was striking at the very least - two high level Israelis coming to Denver in one week.

It was hard to avoid concluding that Israel’s public relations machine was shifting into high gear throughout the United States. As Ehud Olmert, Israel’s former prime minister was having a hard time explaining Israel’s position to audiences in Chicago and San Francisco, two others, the current Israeli Minister of Infrastructure, Uzi Landau and Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat would be visiting our fine city over the course of a week. It was difficult not to wonder...what's the deal?

It re-inforced my speculation that, while trying to play it `cool’, Israel is in fact in a panic over the Goldstone Report, the UN report that charges Israel with war crimes in its military offensive in Gaza. This is probably not far off the mark by the way, reflected in the reports that Congresswoman Ileana Rose Lehtinen, one of AIPAC’s favorites, is spearheading a congressional effort to get a resolution passed that would condemn and `reject’ the Goldstone Report.

But other things are going on here too, probably a little intra-community (Denver's Jewish Community, that is) jockeying.

Little Interest In Landau's Talk

Today Landau spoke on the Auraria Campus, sponsored by a student group at the University of Colorado/Denver called American-Israel Student Action Committee. Perhaps this group has been around for a while but this is the first time they have done a public event and it was quite curious. A lot of money was spent to fly Landau direct from Israel for this talk. Likewise a fair amount was spent on the multi-colored posters that were plastered all over the Auraria campus these last days. By any objective standard, the event was a flop. Concerning Landau himself, a friend described him in the following manner:

“simply put, the man is a thug. the turnout was poor, most of which are security personnel and his staff. The rest, less than 20 people came to challenge Landau, asking sharp questions that he had difficulty answering.”

As mentioned below (October 25 entry), Landau does seem to have impeccable thug credentials. validating my friend's assessment. A former Israeli paratrooper, he was the Minister of Interior in the Ariel Sharon administration of 2001. He was in office when Rachel Corrie was killed and when Jenin was attacked. He is so far to the right that he quit the Sharon cabinet in a huff when Sharon announced the Gaza Disengagement Plan, thinking it too much of a give away. Then, as Sharon and Likud were not hard-line enough for Landau, he joined Yisrael Beiteinu, Avigdor Lieberman’s xenophobic right wing party. The subject of his talk was `The Iranian Nuclear Threat and Regional Developments’..

But the contrast between the build up for Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat could not be greater.

1. Barkat’s talk next week(Tues, November 3) at the University of Denver is being sponsored by none other than the governor of Colorado, Bill Ritter and the chancellor of the University of Denver, Robert Coombe. Such things do not happen without some pretty high powered lobbying from key Jewish Community power brokers. In contrast, the Landau visit seems more of a fly-by-night operation of some people who had a bit of money to throw around, wanting to upstage Barkat and attack him from the right.

2. Barkat’s visit has been much better publicized and supported within the Jewish Community and among circles sympathetic with Israel. There was virtually NO support in Denver’s Jewish Community for Landau, which in some ways gives a bit of hope from my modest perspective. This is a community that usually comes out in rather large numbers for Israeli speakers and although it is true there is currently a snow storm in Denver, snow storms to not generally stop Denver' Jewish Community where Israel is concerned - we're used to them. The near-empty room suggests Landau’s support base in Denver is quite narrow.

It is likely that Landau’s visit was financed by extreme right wing elements who paid the expenses, funneled through the resurrected or newly-created American-Israel Student Action Committee. Landau’s event has all the markings of a rush job, poorly organized, done at the last minute, with money thrown around for sure - I would imagine in the $3000-$5000 range at least just for travel expense, not counting the honorarium which one would expect, for a sitting minister in the Israel government to be quite pricey. It is doubtful the turnout would have been much better even if the sun was shining and it was 70 degrees out.

Then why throw a lot of money for such a sad, poorly organized spectacle? That’s simple - to upstage the Barkat event, which is not far enough to the right for Landau’s (and Lieberman’s) faithful few Denver supporters. And after all, what moves people more emotionally than to be pickled in their own factionalism? As to who - (or is it?) `whom’ - would be behind all this, the bottom line is I don’t know, but... Denver being a small city despite its aspirations to greatness, with the political class on this, the Israeli-Palestinian issue, being even smaller, one can narrow the range of likely suspects to a precious few.

Barkat Will Be Different

That said, the Barkat event next Tuesday will be a rather different affair, the room will be full, but I would expect that outside the hall there will as many protestors as there are supporters inside. After all, there were many Palestinian evicted from their homes in the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem this past summer, man of their Palestinian homes bulldozed. actions criticized even by the US State Department and highlighted in Amnesty International publications.

It’s not just Landau who has a lot to answer for.

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October 26, 2009

Jim Wall on the National J-Street Convention in Washington DC

Jim Wall is covering the national meeting of J-Street in Washington DC in his blog which brings together some twenty liberal and left Jewish Organization into what they hope to be a left (although they don't like to use the word) alternative to AIPAC. This meeting is getting national attention. Wall remarks on how the Obama Administration sent a formal high level delegate to participate in the conference, while the Israeli government has opted out of the meeting. The historical analysis of the birth and evolution of AIPAC here is well done. There are among the 1200 representatives at the meeting, a number from Colorado. I will give my impressions on this meeting later after the dust settled. But briefly, it appears to be a historic meeting. We'll see.

To read Wall's piece - placed here with the author's permission, click here on the link

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October 25, 2009 (1)

Correction: The Israeli Minister of Infrastructure speaking in Denver at St. Cajetan's on the Auraria Campus (Wed, Oct 28, 1:30-3:30) is Uzi Landau, not Yossi Vardi, who formerly held the post.

Gaza: The Cries of the Dead Get Louder

Nine months after the fact, Israel is engaged in an international high profile`charm campaign’ to deflect world public opinion from the Goldstone Report and the unabated criticism of its December 2008-January 2009 Gaza invasion. The campaign has even reached Denver where in short order, two Israeli political personalities will soon be coming our way. They seem to a part of a larger public relations effort to bolster support for Israel and divert attention from the growing criticism over Israel’s recent Gaza incursion by focusing on `the Iranian Threat’.

This coming Wednesday, October 28, Uzi Landau, Israel’s Minister of Infra-structure will speak at Metropolitan State College of Denver. Next week, on Nov 3, Jerusalem’s Mayor Nir Barkat will be the featured speaker at the University of Denver’s Korbel Institute of International Affairs. Landau comes from the far right of the Israeli political spectrum.

Barkat will speak on the city he governs. The university’s advertisement for his talk is a bit heady: `

“Mayor Barkat has inspired thousands of Jerusalemites with his vision to turn Israel’s poorest city into one rich in culture, youth, education, lasting economic development, and tourism, as well as his message of respect and pluralism for all residents of Jerusalem. He has joined together the left and right, the secular and the religious, in order to move Jerusalem forward, allowing him to spend the entirety of his time working on the needs of Jerusalem, rather than the politics.” (for the full text of the blog entry click here)

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October 25, 2009 (2)

Avnery: Israel Struggles Unsuccessfully To Squelch Gaza

Uri Avnery
24.10.09

“Where Have All the Friendships Gone…”

ACCORDING TO a Chinese saying, if someone in the street tells you that you are drunk, you can laugh. If a second person tells you that you are drunk, start to think about it. If a third one tells you the same, go home and sleep it off.

Our political and military leadership has already encountered the third, fourth and fifth person. All of them say that they must investigate what happened in the “Molten Lead” operation.

They have three options:

- to conduct a real investigation.

- to ignore the demand and proceed as if nothing has happened.

- to conduct a sham inquiry.

IT IS easy to dismiss the first option: it has not the slightest chance of being adopted. Except for the usual suspects (including myself) who demanded an investigation long before anyone in Israel had heard of a judge called Goldstone, nobody supports it. (For the full text click here)

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October 20, 2009

New Era of US-Iranian Relations? Maybe, But...

Strange Prelude To Peace Talks..

It was an odd way to prepare for `peace talks’, a strange prelude. `Revelations’, none of them new...or true, of Iran's yet-to-be proven and currently non-exist nuclear weapons program, exploded in the media world wide. These allegations came just before formal talks opened between the five permanent members of the Security Council (US, UK, Russia, China, France) plus Germany (The `Five Plus One’ Group) and Iran in Geneva earlier this month.

It felt more like the prelude to a military strike, an invasion of Iran, than the leadup to peace talks. Weird example of `confidence building measures’ - those over-rated rituals - that usually precede talks between adversaries. For a brief moment, the nuts, temporarily subdued since Obama’s election, came back out of the woodwork, repeating worn and untrue accusations of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, renewed hints or threats of war from America’s neo-cons (John Bolton and Co). Joining the `war chorale' were assorted right wing wackos rooting for the post-Middle-East-triggered nuclear war and its much-anticipated-resulting-second-coming-of-Christ as well as Israeli government officials and the usual assortment of AIPAC types, who put Israel’s interests before those of US foreign policy, now more than ever, were also active.

Claims of a `secret’ nuclear processing plant near the Iranian holy city of Qum provoked the accusation - the much repeated and unverified mantra - that Iran is secretly producing nuclear weapons despite that country’s persistent denial of any such program. The NY Times - whose pages helped wipe up the war atmosphere before the 2003 invasion of Iraq - got into the spirit with a front page `expose’ of the Iranian program.

Israel Chips In...

The Netanyahu government was especially interested in de-railing the Five Plus One process. Netanyahu might have succeeded in freezing Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations by getting Obama not to pressure Israel on settlements, but when it came to undermining Obama’s plans to move towards normalization with Iran, he has had less success. The success - albeit modest at this point - of the talks is a setback in Tel Aviv.

Although the concrete evidence to prove it is non-existent - Ahmadinejad’s bigoted statements about the holocaust to the contrary - Israel continues to claim that Iran represents `an existential’ threat to Israel’s existence. `Existential’? - An interesting word harking back to French leftist philophers like Sartre and Camus. The term’s ambivalence is hard to define but suggests that which it is not - imminent.

Let us remember the balance of military power in Israel’s favor, its substantial nuclear arsenal and delivery systems, US political and military backing. Add to that Iran’s tiny military budget compared to both the US and Israel and the oft overlooked fact, that regardless of its government, that other than a foray by the Shah into neighboring Oman in the 1970s at US encouragement and with Israeli support that Iran has not invaded or threatened anyone for several hundred years and is not about to now.

Rather what is at play here is something quite different: Israel views Iran much as it did Egypt and Iraq in the past, as a challenge to its regional hegemony; likely the Israelis will continue to try to undermine the process. Just as the United States has a policy to neutralize any challenges to its somewhat humbled, yet still hobbling global hegemony, Israel fears potential regional rivals who might challenge it either economically or eventually militarily. Israel’s concerns about Iran as a regional competitor dovetail nicely with the US strategy openly articulated several times since 1992 when it was first proposed by Paul Wolfowitz, not to permit the emergence of a new global or regional hegemonic power to challenge US power, especially in a region so floating on a sea of oil and a cloud of national gas

Certainly, the Israelis - at least the Israeli government and mainstream media - were not happy campers with the outcome at Geneva. The Israelis were so upset that the Jerusalem Post ran a story essentially arguing that Iran should be bombed. Reports circulated - which were later denied by the Saudis - that Riyahd would permit Israel use of its air space to bomb Iran. Israel, whose vilification of Iran long ago reached something approaching hysterical proportions, has spent a good deal of its political energy trying to divert the world’s attention from the Goldstone Report to trying to shore up the flagging `anti-Iran coalition’ (Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the US and the Europeans).

But When The Dust Cleared...

But in the end, the neo-cons and Israel’s leadership - trying to take advantage of the great democratic upsurge in Iran following the presidential elections there - had failed in their efforts to tighten sanctions and undermine the talks. When the dust cleared a week later, for the first time in years, a small step towards `normalization’ of US-Iranian relations seemed to have transpired, in spite of John Bolton, Binjiman Netanyahu et al.

Under the surface were hints that both the United States and Iran want, at least to pull back `from the brink'. The unspoken reasons included

- Iran has been hurt more deeply by sanctions against its energy sector than it would like to admit and is in trouble economically and want some breathing room

- After the massive demonstrations against the May presidential elections results, Iran feared further international isolation and punitive actions - it needed to offer the US and its European allies something concrete to soften the blow. In a strange way, the demonstrations in June and July with the pressure on the regime that followed, probably forced Teheran to be more flexible in its dealings with the United States on its nuclear policy. The demonstrators did not win their goal of new elections, but their militancy did put the leadership of the Islamic Republic on the defensive internationally. One probable result is a more serious and actually `creative' Iranian response to the nuclear issues.

- Although there are still powerful political forces in the United States who would like to see things continue as before (military interests, oil and gas interests who want US security interests in the Middle East tightened, neo-conservatives, AIPAC, Christian fundamentalists),the US policy of labeling Iran as a member of an `axis of evil' has failed. It was a wreckless policy in the first place that could have escalated into regional if not world war and could have reeked havoc on a global economy already reeling from the financial crisis. The US finally concluded, more pressure, concessions can be exacted from Iran through negotiations than saber rattling.

- the US had failed to persuade Russia and China to vote in the UN Security Council for tighter sanctions against Iran. Any effort to do so would have led to an embarrassing political failure for the Obama Administration

- the plans - apparently highly developed if Seymour Hersh is correct - for some kind of major military strike against Iran to overthrow its government by massive bombing and or a major special forces operation - have been shelved. With Afghanistan and Pakistan spiraling out of control, with the situation in Iraq far from satisfactory in the sense that Washington would like it, and with Israel smarting from growing international condemnation as a result of its December 08-Jan 08 Gaza invasion, the United States cannot afford another major military confrontation in the region

- the United States can maintain its goal of `full spectrum dominance' of the Middle East and S. Asia to protect its oil and gas interests in the region by a combination of a regional military build up (all those bases and floating arsenals) and political negotiations. The goal of controlling oil and gas flows hasn't changed, just the means.

And so for different reason, and for others not mentioned - they need each other to `normalize' the situations in Afghanistan and Iraq - both Iran and the United States have begun shift gears, tone down their rhetoric and begin serious talks. It's all at a fragile stage and could be undone, but it seems to be heading in `the right direction' .

Specifically:

1. There was still no new evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program
2. Suggestions that either Russia or China were leaning in the direction of imposing tougher sanctions against Iran - which circulated in the US press - proved, once again, spurious. The Russian leadership found it necessary to publicly deny its support for tighter Iranian sanctions in an embarrassing affront to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she was recently in Moscow
3. Iran announced that it would permit inspections of the Qum site by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and that they had not violated any of the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to which it adheres. The facility was not a `secret’ and Iran had informed the IAEA 18 months before it was required.
4. A proposal is being considered by the Iranians to either export its 5% enriched uranium to France or Russia for further enrichment and then returned to Teheran. An alternative proposal that the Iranians are suggesting would entail Iran suspending its uranium enrichment program, maintaining its 5% enriched stockpiles without further processing and buying 20% enriched uranium on the open market from any country willing to sell them such.

Just how much uranium is enriched essentially determines its use. Uranium enriched to the leves of 4-5% pure is enough to run a nuclear power plant. Iran has a fair amount of that. But what is called `weapons-grade' uranium is enriched and purified to greater than 90% levels. The difference in processing and the technology to get there is significant and often lost to people unfamiliar with nuclear processes. At the same time, uranium enriched to 20% purity is used for medical purposes, especially to fight cancer. Iran wants to increased some of its enriched uranium supply from the 5% to the 20% purity level for that reason. This frightens the `Five Plus One' Group who fear that such a development, while legal under IAEA guidelines, would be a step toward Iranian development of weapons' grade uranium at that 90+ purity level. Iran intends to proceed - one way or another - to develop medically useful enriched uranium. But Teheran is willing to ship out a portion of its enriched uranium to Russia,, perhaps France, for further processing for which the Iranians will pay. Then the 20% enriched uranium would be re-shipped back to Iran, but the Iranians themselves would not be involved in this phase of the enrichment process.

Just how far foreign enrichment should go is being actively debated in Iran and will be taken up again at the next `Five Plus One’ meeting, which has just opened in Vienna. Iran’s tabling this issue (the proposal came from Teheran) represented a possible breakthrough in the stalemate and increasingly hostile relations between the United States and Iran over the latter’s plans to develop its nuclear energy program..

And so, a bit of hope that a turn in US-Iranian relations is possible? There are other issues on the table - Iraq, Afghanistan among them - where cooperation would be helpful.

The talks will reconvene. The process should be encouraged

A Few Points To Keep In Mind

In light of these developments a number of a number of salient points missing from the approach of both the Bush and Obama Administration’s Iran policy need to be underscore:

- First among them is that while there is no evidence to date - despite all the accusations - that Iran has violated any of the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty 9NNPT), the same cannot be said of the United States which continues to modernize its nuclear weapons arsenal in open and flagrant violation of the treaty. US failure to uphold its part of the treaty is often cited as one of the main reasons for global nuclear weapons proliferation. Why should countries `follow the rules’ for which past US administrations have shown something close to open contempt?

- The discussion of Iran possibly - developing nuclear weapons, despite its repeated denials - fails to take into consideration regional nuclear realities. The Middle East and South Asia is already loaded with nukes. India, Israel and Pakistan have nuclear weapons arsenals; all three refuse to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. If we widen the circle a bit, Russia and China, both abutting the region, are Middle East-South Asia nuclear weapons powers as is, unbeknownst to many, the United States, whose navy and air force ply the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean with nuclear-tipped missiles.

It is especially hypocritical of Israel to oppose Iran’s nuclear energy program when it possesses a nuclear weapons arsenal estimated to be of from 200-300 weapons. Not only does it refuse to sign the nuclear non-proliferation, but its position on no first strike use of nuclear weapons remains sufficiently ambivalent to be meaningless. Recent Arab calls that Israel admit its nuclear weapons arsenal and sign the NNPT have been rejected by Israel. Recent news reports are circulating that the Obama Administration has renewed a commitment maintained by every US president since Eisenhower not to raise Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal as an issue for negotiation

- In the same light both Israel and the United States have refused to consider seriously making the Middle East and South Asia a nuclear free zone or to begin a process of multi-lateral regional nuclear weapons disarmament. Such initiatives have been supported by Iran and many Arab countries. Such a proposal would more formerly commit Iran not to develop nuclear weapons and begin a needed process of de-militarizing the region.

Not likely to happen in the region that still, despite other discoveries, contains the bulk of the world’ oil and gas. Effective control of these resources is one of the key elements in US strategic plans to maintain its flagging dominance in the world. What is needed is a new US Middle East policy, not likely to happen, but certainly worth the effort work for.

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October 13, 2009

Bennet-Romanoff - Wesleyan Vs. Yale - Colorado’s US Senate Non-Race Of The Decade.

1.

The Call That Never Came

The race for the Democratic Party nomination for the US Senate seat, to be decided in November 2010, is heating up. It pits Michael Bennet, the current US Senator, against Andrew Romanoff, the former speaker of the Colorado State House. Romanoff, hoping for and probably anticipating `the call’, was disappointed - if not shaken - when Colorado Governor Bill Ritter appointed Michael Bennet in his stead.

Well, as one friend poetically put it, the good news is `at least it’s not the usual contest between two low grade political hacks.’ Both are intelligent and I suppose what can be considered `moderately liberal’. The bad news? Just how far their talent goes remains to be seen and that their skills and credentials - need to be more carefully considered.

There has been much written about both, enough so that in both cases pretty clear pictures emerge. From my own perspective, despite the enthusiasm to the contrary, frankly, neither of them has the makings of US senator. True, Andrew Romanoff is popular with the state’s Democratic Party base - especially different district and county party chairs, movers and shakers. He has a genuine `fan base’ among young liberal Dems. One of my daughters even campaigned for him a few years ago. And he also was able to craft bi-partisan legislation and is generally considered to be liberal on most issues.

Way Down Deep, He’s Shallow....

Hate to say it, but my sense is that `way down deep he’s shallow’. Like Bennet, his knowledge of foreign policy appears poor to nil. One can expect he’ll be reading Democratic Leadership Council scripts on most issues. In the past he has made a bit of a fool of himself by passing on AIPAC-sponsored legislation (praising Israel’s war in Lebanon, leading the charge in the state legislature to get the state - meaning its retirement fund PERA - to divest from Iran’s energy sector). In the State House, he did not come through for the state’s labor movement hoping for legislation that would strengthen union organizing and regardless of what he now might say, led the charge for a special legislative session to undermine what little rights are left for undocumented foreign workers. Very few Blacks or Chicanos support his campaign with much enthusiasm, at least that is the word from an informal sampling.

One senses that Romanoff is trying what might be called `The Mike Miles Road To Political Office’ - trying to woe and mobilize the grass roots against the party’s more `established’ (meaning monied) interests. He is having a certain success in this respect. The problem with Romanoff’s cultivated underdog image is that it is not especially true, or at best is somewhat overstated - that he too has never strayed to far from the Brownstein-Farber political faction. In the end, he is about as much of a political operative (sorry Andrew - but that is how it appears) as is Bennet. And while Romanoff might craft his campaign with Miles' style, he lacks `his soul' - Miles' far more principled and progressive politics. Miles openly opposed the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and was openly critical of Israel's occupation of the 1967 territories. It will be a cold day in hell before Romanoff comes even close to Miles' politics.

Beneath His Surface, There’s Just More Surface, And Beneath That, Nothing More...

Likewise Bennet, although with a different history. Despite the fact that he has come out a half notch left of center on the current health care debate, Bennet’s record is, when closely examined, not that interesting either. He tries to project the image of another self-made type, the story is a little more nuanced.

Bennet's most endearing quality is he comes from and understands power. Bennet comes from a Connecticut family with strong connections to power, connections he has used well to both become quite rich and to climb the ranks politically. Like Denver’s Mayor John Hickenlooper, (for whom Bennet worked) he attended Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where it turns out, his father, Douglas Bennet was president. Douglas Bennet was closely connected with some of the most powerful names in US postwar politics - Hubert Humphrey, Chester Bowles, former US Ambassador to India, Abraham Ribicoff, Michael’s brother, James Bennet, is editor of The Atlantic magazine and a former Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times.

Wesleyan has long attracted the offspring of the country’s most politically and economically connected. Here Michael Bennet went to college, did well and with the help of his father, schmoozed with the sons and daughters of people far more powerful than himself. It paid off and fresh out of college he soon landed a job with Philip Anschutz - probably the richest and politically powerful man in Colorado. Bennet worked for Anschutz as a`corporate turnaround expert’, investing in and then buying out weak companies - consolidating the remains by shutting down some and raising prices on what the others sell. A somewhat irreverent friend of mine, commenting on Bennet's job said, `in the end it did not take an brilliance to do this; any one could have had the same results playing with all Anschutz's money'. In the process, Bennet himself became quite wealthy.

He continued in this somewhat dubious tradition as Superintendent of Schools for Denver, a position for which he was completely unqualified. As with Anschutz, at DPS, his main talent seemed to be applying his business model to public education resulting in the shutting down of a number of the city’s public schools. His other `contribution’ to Denver education is getting teachers to accept a merit pay plan, which in the name of market competition, pits teachers against each other for raises. While the business community praised the program and for some unknown reason the Denver NEA chapter got on board, in the end both shutting schools and the merit pay program were simply examples of applying inapplicable business models to education.

Why Bennet should have been praised for helping to undermine public education in Denver I still do not understand. None of above gives any hint of the kind of background that might contribute to becoming a US Senator, unless in Washington he works on cutting out Pentagon fat by closing US military bases abroad the way he closed Manuel High School...which is highly doubtful.

2.

Tweedle De and Tweedle Dum

Politically, there is not much difference between the candidates who will - unless there are great surprises - follow in the political footsteps of Ken Salazar, the former US Senator, tapped as Secretary of the Interior by Barack Obama. Either one will be a hair left of center on domestic questions, but hardly progressive pioneers; on foreign policy - the Middle East wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the full court press against Iran - expect little. On Israel-Palestine expect nothing. Indeed, nothing would even be progress.

So this is a classic `personality’ contest in which the issues hardly matter because they candidates are so similar both in their lack of experience in foreign affairs and the fact that each one appears to be an `operative’ from a powerful political circle, in Romanoff’s case the `left wing’ of Brownstein-Farber’s stable, in Bennet’s case the connection with Anschutz and powerful national Democratic Party operatives cannot be overlooked.

There is something else going on though a bit more vulgar but common enough: the speed with which Barack Obama came out to endorse Michael Bennet’s candidacy was stunning. Less than 24 hours after Bennet’s formal announcement, Obama let it be known that he favored the Wesleyan graduate over his Yale competitor. The endorsement generated a fair number of protest letters to the editor in the Denver Post from Colorado Obama supporters, although one has to wonder if these were not generated by Romanoff’s campaign.

More than likely there is some political pay-back at work here.

Romanoff Supported Hillary; Bennet Supports Obama Who Supports Bennet

The story goes back to two elections - the latest gubernatorial race in Colorado and the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination contest.

In the gubernatorial race, `consigliere' Steve Farber supported their old friend, Republican Bob Beauprez against Bill Ritter whom they essentially snubbed. But Ritter won. Ritter returned the favor by appointing Bennet - rather than someone closer to Farber and Brownstein - to the US Senate. Romanoff was the obvious fall man here. Nor, despite his talents in the state legislature, did Romanoff land any post in the Obama Administration after coming out publicly during the primary races for Hillary Clinton. Not that Obama could entirely deny Brownstein and Farber. The president's appointment of Ken Salazar as Secretary of the Interior, a close Brownstein-Farber associate suggests that while a bit weakened, the two Denver power brokers retain considerable influence, even on a national level.

The key, nay - decisive - role that Steve Farber had in bringing the Democratic Party Convention to Denver should be recalled. Brownstein-Farber and a fair share of the state’s Democratic Party machine, including people like Wellington Webb, Diana De Gette and others, got on Hillary Clinton’s bandwagon early on, many of them expecting the now-Secretary of State to win. Her supporters would reap the political harvest..

First You Make A Plan For Life And Then Life Makes A Plan For You

The Denver Convention was set up to be Hillary’s crowning victory, one that would have probably propelled a fair number of her Denver supporters to Washington - including possibly Brownstein and/or Farber. Instead, they reaped nothing having jumped on the losing political horse (so to speak). But then, as my mother used to say...`First you make a plan for life and then life makes a plan for you’

Obama’s stunning victory `from below’ shook the Democratic Party apparatus nationwide including in Colorado where, the party’s base is far more radical - and principled - than those who fund it and wield influence from above. Hillary lost, Obama won and the plans of mice, men, Hillary, Bill, Steve and Norm were shaken. Romanoff supported Hillary. Obama remembers and came out in Bennet’s corner. This was not only a case of pay-back but an attempt on Obama’s part to reshape the national Democratic Party structure with `people in his corner’ , in an attempt to break down the more established power relations, which were largely shaped by the Clintons.

Finally, I would hope, regardless of which of these two politicos friends support that they get something in return - a promise to oppose the troop build up in Afghanistan, support for single payer healthcare, strengthening labor’s right to organize and not just be stampeded into endorsing one or the other.

Where Is Kinsey?

As for myself, I am withholding support for either and am waiting to see if and whom the Green Party will put up - if they put up anyone, for the US Senate contest. Their last candidate, Bob Kinsey, would make a better Senator than either Bennet or Romanoff, knew the issues far better and is not tied to power brokers.

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October 4, 2009 (2)

The Goldstone Report

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October 4, 2009 (1)

First Annual Research Journalism Initiative Gourmet Dinner

Memo
To: Friends and Acquaintances Interested in Middle East Peace
From: Ibrahim Kazerooni and Rob Prince
Date: 10/4/2009
Re: First Annual Research Journalism Initiative Dinner – Thursday, October 22 at 6 pm. St. Pauls United Methodist Church (Ogden and 16th Street, Denver, Colorado)

Dear Friends,

We are hosting the First Annual Research Journalism Initiative (RJI) Dinner on Thursday, October 22 at 6 pm at St. Pauls’ United Methodist Church (Ogden and 16th St. Denver Colorado).

As we are not sure you know about the Research Journalism Initiative (RJI) we want to take this opportunity to tell you a little about it and the dinner.

Founded several years ago by a group of young peace activists, including Mark Turner and Jennifer Klein, RJI is an attempt to link young people in different parts of the world with one other through computer links. One of the projects links high school students in Nablus, West Bank, Palestine with high school students in different parts of the United States, including Denver. The students exchange art work, photos, poetry. In so doing, RJI provides a way for young people to meet each other, exchange ideas, hopes, and creative works. In an age where we hear so much about the importance of `dialogue’ and `compassionate listening’, this project provides an excellent opportunity for both.

We urge you to check out RJI's website to get a better idea of the wonderful work that they do. The link is located at http://www.researchjournalisminitiative.net/

Ibrahim and I have supported this project from its beginnings a few years ago, and have been impressed with its progress. We talked about what we might do to familiarize others with the project with the hopes that friends and acquaintances would consider offering it their financial support (tax deductable). We hit upon the idea of what we call `Dinner with the Imam’.

Unbeknownst to many of his friends and associates, Imam Ibrahim Kazerooni, besides his many other talents, happens to be a gourmet cook. He is willing to utilize his skills for the common good and prepare a full Arabic meal, dessert included, the proceeds to go to the Research Journalism Initiative. We hope this to be the first in what will be a series of annual events here in Denver, where the Initiative was first conceived, in order to garner more local support and participation.

Besides the dinner, there will be a short presentation by Jennifer Klein to explain the work of the initiative and there will be materials available that evening.

Because of its relative youth, only two or three years old combined with the global financial crisis, this is a project which is seriously underfunded. It cannot survive and continue to do the wonderful work it has done without your support.

We are asking for a minimum contribution of $30 to attend.

We realize that this is a healthy sum, but it is for a worthy cause and we can promise you that the meal alone will be worth it. We are asking you to RSVP so that we might know beforehand how much food to prepare. We are grateful to St. Paul’s United Methodist Church for providing us with the venue and cooking facilities. RSVP’s can be made to me (robertjprince@comcast.net), Ibrahim Kazerooni (mikazerooni@gmail.com ) or Jennifer Klein ( jdeborahklein@earthlink.net ). We will also be selling tickets prior to the event available from any of us.

Hope to hear from you and see you at St. Paul’s on Oct.22

Rob Prince and Ibrahim Kazerooni

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October 2, 2009

Iraq, The Forgotten War or “La Guerre N’Est Pas Finie”*

Note: this is a bit long.

1.

An Iraqi friend related how he went to an event at the Lutheran Evangelical Church here in Denver where a slide show was shown suggesting that the US Military in Iraq has morphed into something like the Peace Corps, giving out medical supplies and candy, helping to rebuild the country’s infrastructure. The `presenter’, himself a Lutheran minister, trying to put make up on this corpse, conveniently omitted the role of this same US military in utterly destroying the country and its infra-structure in the first place. It will decades, if ever, to rebuild what the US had destroying in `liberating' Iraq.

A few days later, over coffee, another friend, committed pacifist involved in refugee issues, told of the woes of Iraqi refugee families here in Denver permitted to enter the US. These Iraqis represent a minuscule percentage of the 2.5-3 million dislocated by the US invasion of Iraq since 2003. Their six month allowances running out, these families are in trouble, no employment on the horizon and nowhere to turn to. And yet, relatively speaking, they’re the lucky ones.

Most of the rest of the displaced Iraqis are rotting - physically and spiritually - in refugee camps in countries neighboring Iraq - Syria, Jordan and Iran. Much like the 750,000 Palestinians sixty years ago expelled from their homes at Israel’s creation, many of this new generation of Middle East refugees, fleeing as a result of this US-made war, will have no possibility to return to their homes and former world for decades if ever. First the Bush Administration and now Obama have left these people out on a limb, with virtually no financial or political support, leaving their fate and the expenses it will entail to the peoples of the Middle East to tidy up. No, it's not Auschwitz, but it is conscious neglect by the nation who created this refugee crisis in the first place. The human consequences, healthwise and socio-economically, are not difficult to predict. Is there a term `genocide through neglect'? I wonder. Regardless, the consequences will be damaging and far-reaching for the entire region long into the future.

Imagine, people resist being treated like so much garbage!

For the entire article, click here

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September 29, 2009

View from the Heights: Is It Peace Or Is It Prozac? Back to Square One?

Bury the UN Goldstone Report on Gaza; Freeze Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations, Not Settlements; Talk Tough To Iran Once Again.

The title comes in part from a Cheryl Wheeler song.

Admittedly the air is thin here on Colorado’s High Plains and it is true that I probably need stronger glasses. I am just having difficulty believing - once again - what I am seeing.

So perhaps I’m hallucinating..

A few weeks ago, it appeared, from my vantage point in the foothills of the Rockies that the Obama Administration was calling for a conference between Netanyahu, Abbas and our own great leader that would led to a comprehensive settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict along long-recognized `international consensus’ lines - ie - in tandem with UN Resolutions 242, 194. Together these resolutions would call for an end the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza - the longest military occupation in modern history - and the creation of a `viable’ (that is the key word) Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza along side a secure Israel within its 1967 borders.

In order to achieve such a settlement, it has been pretty clear from the outset that Obama would have to pressure Netanyahu - one way or another - to freeze West Bank-Jerusalem settlement building as a prelude to their dismantlement. The talk was tough - some of my relatives complained - quite unnecessarily it appears - that our president was `unfairly’ pressuring Israel. In the end, push never came to shove; George Mitchell's fine words `of progress' aside, Obama simply backed down. There was no meeting, only a pathetic press conference at the UN - at which, it was apparent that for whatever reason, Obama proved unwilling to match his words with deeds - a problem he seems to have in other areas as well (like healthcare).

Netanyahu not only got what he wanted in terms of settlements, but it seems he got something else, perhaps more important: a shift in the US focus away from Israel’s intransigence on the peace process to Iran’s nuclear program. He must be smiling and my relatives can breathe easier. Mahmud Abbas, who, a la Arafat, has bet all of his political marbles on US diplomatic support and leverage, finds himself now hanging by his political tootsies - left in the cold by Obama, his political legitimacy among his own people about as low it can be.

At the same time, there appears to be some connection between the US dropping its (weird) plans to place anti-missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic and the US shift back towards vilifying Iran. Was there a deal, open or just assumed, that in exchange for not placing these missiles near Russian’s western borders, Russia would not oppose US pressure on Iran? Certainly appears that way. Having already encircled Russia with US military bases, drawn much of Eastern Europe into NATO, the addition of this missile system adds little to US military capabilities. True, the US screws its Eastern European, anti-Russian (for good historical reasons) allies abit, but it gains leverage with a far more important strategic ally whose cooperation it needs for many of its projects, including Afghanistan,...Russia.

So...overnight, a shift in focus - a shift in focus that takes the heat off of Israel just as the UN releases the Goldstone Report, a damning report accusing the IDF of what the whole world could see in January: having committed massive war crimes in Gaza. Although the report did not get much play in the United States and was rejected out of hand by Israel, it struck a chord virtually everywhere else in the world and could likely have practical consequences, especially with Israel's relations with Europe. Here in the US of A, Gaza did not go unnoticed either if truth be known and has, among other things, caused fissures in the Jewish Community. But Obama made no mention of the report which could have - along with other options - been used to press Israel on settlements - and accepting a more serious posture on overall negotiations with the Palestinians.

Israeli-Palestinian peace-making is back on the shelf where Netanyahu wants it, and where it has been for the past 15 years - in the rarified diplomatic regions of talking about talking about a peace process. Although it still claims to be open to negotiations, the Obama Administration, bowing to Bush era neo-con blowhards like John Bolton, has gotten back into that great Bush-era tradition of once again bullying Iran. Besides Bolton, the same voices as usual, encouraged by AIPAC, are pressing Obama towards confrontation with Iran, Howard Berman and Joe Lieberman among others.

The most recent media campaign concerns a `secret’ nuclear facility outside of the Iranian holy city of Qom that is supposedly speeding up Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

There are of course, only a few minor problems with this latest US provocation:
1. The Qom plant is not a secret and has not been one for some time. Iranian authorities had informed the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) of its existence and are not opposed to IAEA inspections
2. Once again there is no more evidence, nada, that this plant is producing any weapons grade uranium or that Iran has any intention of so doing.

Although both of these facts are well known, it has not stopped the Obama Administration from racheting up its anti-Iranian rhetoric, threatening tighter sanctions against Iran’s energy sector to further starve its failing economy and suggesting the possibility of a military strike is still on the table.

This is the Obama Administration’s initiative to kick its enemy in the shins - (or a bit higher up politically so to speak) while it is down and weak. Still reeling from the massive demonstrations challenging Iran’s May presidential election results, Iran remains a deeply and disturbingly divided country. Rather than recognizing the validity of many of the reform movement’s demands, Iran’s government, more and more in the hands of Revolutionary Guard hard-liners who control not only the military but more and more most of the country’s institutional machinery has taken a hard line on dissent, which will only deepen the internal divisions in the country that much more, at a moment when national unity is vital.

Dangerous game that both Ahmadinejad and Obama are playing, the one with his own people, the other with the world

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September 21, 2009

The Fire This Time?

Several months after Barack Obama made an historic June 4, 2009 speech in Cairo outlining a new US policy towards the Middle East, the whole package seems to be losing traction. Perhaps it never had that much. A pity. It had promise. No American president in recent memory had - in a speech anyway - suggested re-shaping US policy towards the region so fundamentally.

But less than four months later, his program appears to have already bogged down at every turn. Political forces at home and abroad are working overtime to undermine it, seemingly successfully. So much so that promise of peace has morphed into the growing danger of regional war. Immanuel Wallerstein, usually a careful - if critical - observer of US global policy put it dramatically:

“There is a firestorm ahead in the Middle East for which neither the U.S. government nor the U.S. public is prepared. They seem scarcely aware how close it is on the horizon or how ferocious it will be. The U.S. government (and therefore almost inevitably the U.S. public) is deluding itself massively about its capacity to handle the situation in terms of its stated objectives.”

US tensions with Iran remain pronounced. Obama’s call for dialogue - rather than confrontation - is increasingly weakening.

An alliance of Bush era neo-cons, AIPAC-ADL types and wacko Christian fundamentalists - that bizarre, but well-oiled combination of political forces - still push Obama hard to adopt a military solution towards Iran’s nuclear program - this despite the fact that yet another report by US intelligence agencies have once again insisted that there is no evidence that Iran is building nuclear weapons - or has any intention of so doing.

The situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan continues to unravel.

Other than having an uncanny ability to drone-bomb large wedding parties, the US-led `coalition’ has accomplished little to date. Obama’s decision to send more troops (on which he appears to be hesitating on) has run into a buzz saw of opposition domestically both from Dems and some Republicans. The administration’s attempt to drag NATO into the fray - as a probable prelude to expanding its role far beyond Europe - also appears to be increasingly unstable.

Although General Petraeus was successful in getting Iraq off page 1 of US newspapers, there too, there is trouble brewing under the surface.

A national referendum on the Status of Forces Agreement has Washington nervous. If the agreement is not upheld, US troops - all US troops - could be pressured to withdraw from Iraq as early as next year. What seems to unite the diverse factions still vying for power in Iraq is a bond to end - permanently - the US occupation.’ US attempts to get Iraq to privatize its oil industry - one of the occupation's main strategic goals - has run into strong nationalist resistance

And then there is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Obama’s attempt to pressure Israel to stop settlement building in the Occupied Territories -as a prelude to a US brokered overall settlement - comes from his understanding of broader regional US interests, protecting US control of oil and natural gas interests throughout the region. Recently, Israeli commentator Uri Avnery got to the heart of the matter: “President Obama understands that basic US interests demand an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is poisoning the entire region.”

But the current peace initiative is increasingly in jeopardy.

Netanyahu’s response to Obama has been rather clear cut - not to budge on the broader settlement issues, to maintain the siege of Gaza - a war crime in and of itself in which Egypt too is complicit.

As long as Israel does not show a willingness to freeze settlement building - as a first step to their complete dismantlement - the hands of Mahmoud Abbas are tied. Netanyahu’s approach is simple but effective: stonewall Obama’s special envoy Mitchell and as Washington’s pressure on Israel intensifies, use Israel’s extensive contacts and influence in the US Congress to blunt any serious steps Obama might have in mind to bring Netanyahu to the bargaining table.

Unfortunately, Obama’s `Cairo Speech’ - despite its promise - is fast resembling Bush’s Annapolis Initiative. If Obama’s rhetoric is less inflammatory than Bush’s blather and Condoleeza Rice’s empty promises of `a new Middle East’ - if anything, now, the situation in the region is more unstable today than it was two years past, or even four months ago

Either one prepares for firestorms...or faces the consequences.

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May 17, 2009

Letters to Attorney General Suthers

Dear Mr. Suthers:

I have just read the March 30 letter to Hillary Clinton which you signed along with some other state attorneys jeneral. It is gradually making it around the internet. In it you attempt to give legal cover for what Israel did in Gaza.

Fortunately, other courts of law in this world are less influenced by politics and more willing to look at the facts -- investigating the war crimes which Israel committed both in initiating (yes!) and in pursuing their "action" (a fine euphamism for the slaughter of innocents).

I will not go into argument with you since I assume it would be pointless. I simply note that I am not an anti-Semite nor in the long run anti-Israel. I am a Catholic who, as a longtime professor of religion (and former chair) at Regis University, has been very involved in Christian-Jewish Dialogue over the years. I say "in the long run" not anti-Israel, because I believe in peace for Israel and Palestine and at present the only way to work for real peace is to work against the policies of recent governments in Israel and recent government policy in the US which supports Israeli policies which prefer (yes!) a state of war to peace since it allows the continual land grab from Palestine.

John F. Kane
Professor of Religion
Regis University
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Bob Kinsey's Letter:

9 May 2009
Mr. Sothers:

Your letter along with only 10 members of the National Association of Attorney's General, attempting to provide legal justification for the Israeli atrocities in the Gaza came to my attention.

I am shocked at the distortions and omissions of fact upon which your "legal advise" is predicated. Most lawyers and judges in the United States are ruefully ignorant of international law never having taken a course in such during any of their training. It is regrettable that they therefore exclude any treaty obligations the United States and its citizens have according to Article VI of the US Constitution. In addition, all law is based upon determining the facts of the case and you and the other nine AG's who colluded in this letter seem to have precious little regard for those facts. Too bad you didn't allow the Palestinians to testify in your Star Chamber court you and your AG buddies informally held on my dime. You just took the Zionist tour dressed in the garb of American Israeli Friendship.

Just to mention a few egregious omissions of fact:

Hamas did not carry out a coup d'etat in Gaza but was elected to office by a large majority of its citizens in an election judged to be fair by international observers.

Israel immediately began a blockade on Gaza (An act of war in itself according to international law perhaps more parallel to Pearl Harbor than any rocket attacks)--a blockade that interrupted Gaza's capacity to carry out commerce and essentially turned Gaza into a hungry ghetto.

Israel was ordered to leave Gaza and the West Bank by the United Nation (Res 242) two decades ago and did not. (Acquisition of land by Warfare is against international law). Instead it proceeded to build settlements and to confiscate precious water access from peaceful Palestinian farmers and villagers who resisted the same by non-violent means all that time. It is a distortion of reality to discuss Gaza outside the context of the West Bank and to suggest that Gaza should be grateful Israel abandoned settlements there when it continued building more illegal settlements, a wall, and terrorizing West Bank Palestinians in clear violation of their stated intentions of participating in good faith in a "peace process". Barak's "generous offer" in the early 1990's was in violation of the UN designation of land sovereignty to Palestinians in both the 1948 recognition of Israel and in 1967. Thus it was ludicrous for Israel (Barak) to make what it called a "generous" offer to bargain about land that was illegally occupied in the first place. It was beyond generous of the UN in the first place to grant Israel a right to exist following the terror it carried out to occupy land that had been inhabited by a diversity of religious and ethnic groups for at least 1700 years. For Palestinians to attempt to defend their land, retrieve it or at least hang on to the last vestiges of that land is what could be considered self defense rather than Israel's outrageous actions in Gaza.

It frightens me that Colorado Law is being administered by someone who has so little respect for fact, for international law and thus the rule of law in general. If nothing else it reveals that ten Attorneys General in these United States are gravely ill-informed and willing to spend their time advocating about an issue outside both their jurisdiction and their competence.

Sincerely,

Robert A. Kinsey
Green Party of Colorado
303-949-4073
601 West 11th Avenue #1108
Denver Colorado 80204
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Arnie Voight's Letter

Attorney General John Suthers
State of Colorado

Dear Mr. Suthers:
This is a response to your March 30, 2009 letter sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton which you signed along with nine other Attorneys General supporting Israel in its Operation Cast Lead.
Your letter begins with an appeal to a United Nations charter provision by reminding Secretary Clinton that a member nation of the United Nations has the right to defend itself. Have the Attorneys General addressed Israel concerning other UN charter and resolution issues, such as UN Security Council Resolution 242 which requires the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from the occupied territories? The same international law which protects the rights of Israel and gives it the right to defend itself against hostile attacks, also states that Israel’s presence in East Jerusalem, the West Bank is illegal.

The United Nations charter provides that an occupied people have a right to self-defense and armed resistence [The Palestinians in Gaza basically used home-made rockets against what is described as the fourth strongest army on the planet, an army which the United States backs up with $15,000,000 each day].

International law forbids an occupying power from colonizing an occupied territory [Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 49]. Israel pays Jewish citizens and businesses to move onto Palestinian land, offering tax breaks and financial incentives, paid in part by US dollars. Have the Attorneys General addressed this issue?

About 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners are being held in Israeli prisons – ten percent can be held without charge or trail indefinitely. Have the Attorneys General addressed the rights of prisoners with their Israeli counterparts?

Israel’s Operation Cast Lead killed 1440 Palestinians, 431 children and 114 women. 5380 were injured, among them 1872 children and 800 women, and 100 persons are reported mission. It is estimated that half of the injured Palestinians may suffer life-long impairment because of the inability to provide timely medical procedures (ochaopt.org). [On the Israeli side, three Israelis were killed and 182 injured by rocket fire and mortar fire from Palestinians militants in the Gaza Strip. Eleven Israeli soldiers were killed and 340 wounded.] In Gaza 219 factories were destroyed, 15 hospitals and 41 primary health clinics were partially damaged and two destroyed; 29 ambulances were partially damage or destroyed; 24 mosques were shelled. Although the location of all UN facilities was communicated to the Israeli authorities and known to the Israeli army, UN buildings suffered extensive damage; ten schools were severely damaged; 107 partially damaged. Israel used white phosperous bombs in civilian areas. The only pharmaceutical warehouse in Gaza was bombarded. Israeli jets even bombed the Gaza zoo! Have the Attorneys General addressed this with their Israeli counterparts in light of Geneva Convention Article 53, which states that "Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited ..."?

The letter opines that Palestinians have descended into terrorism instead of "establishing a flourishing independent Palestinian state..." When Israel withdrew 8000 settlers from Gaza in 2005 —while at the same time settling 14,000 more in the Occupied Territories – the Israeli press said "Look what great humanitarians we are!" What is not said is that Gaza requires 600 to 700 truck loads of produce each day to maintain sustainable levels of life, while Israel tightens the borders and allows only 60 to 70 in and out each day. Have the Attorneys General addressed with their Israeli counterparts Article 55 of the Geneva Convention, which states that "To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other article if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate"? The 35,000 Gazan fishermen need to go out 15 to 20 miles to the fishing schools; Israeli patrol boats begin shooting at ten miles; Israel destroyed Gaza’s sewage plant, and now raw sewage is pumped directly into the Mediterranean Sea, polluting and thus destroying additional fishing waters. Have the Attorneys General addressed these issues with their Israeli counterparts?

One could go on. The letter simply suggests that you and the other Attorneys General have crawled into bed with propagandists and closed your eyes. Hopefully Colorado would be better served by an Attorney General with open eyes.

Arnie Voigt
Littleton, Colorado

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May 10, 2009

Colorado’s Attorney General John Suthers - along with Nine Other State Attorney Generals - Defends Israel’s War in Gaza...

It is a curious letter addressed to Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, expressing `strong support’ for `the state of Israel’s actions in Gaza’. The letter, dated March 30, 2009 is signed by ten attorney generals from different states, tries to do the impossible: give legal cover for the recent Israeli military offensive in Gaza. `Israel's actions in Gaza'...now that is a wonderfully sanitized term if ever there was one!

Among the signatories is the Colorado attorney general, John Suthers. Suthers’ signature comes not long after the Colorado State Senate passed a similar non-binding resolution more or less along the same lines. Suther’s letter does not seem to have been widely publicized. I found out about it only today - some six weeks later - from a friend in Washington state who noticed that Colorado’s attorney general had fixed his signature to it along with ag’s from Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Rhode Island, Utah and Washington

Trying to turn the tables on reality, the letter puts the responsibility for Israel’s war on Gaza on Hamas’, claiming that the Palestinian organization and not Israel is `guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of a war crime’. `Israel’s acts were justified’, the letter continues, `and in our view, met international legal standards required of a modern state.

The letter comes at a time when international calls for a war crimes tribunal investigation against Israel grow louder, when Israeli politicians and military leaders have been warned to avoid certain countries for fear of indictment.

Emails and letters of protest can be directed to: attorney.general@state.co.us
If you do decide to contact the attorney general’s office, I would appreciate a copy

The text of the letter is included (click here) as an attachment

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April 10, 2009

Passover...and Cutting US Military Aid To Israel

(note: 10 billboards are going up in Albuquerque New Mexico. They read `Stop US Military Aid To Israel' . I have not figured out how to post the picture yet...will work on it later today. )

1. Passover

A few days ago my family and I celebrated Passover with friends in Denver. I don't celebrate it often anymore - haven't in years. Generally not interested in anything with a non-secular tinge. But it was quite nice, tasteful, the reading of the Hagaddah humane and the company wonderful. While most of the 35 or so people present were Jewish, some were, like myself, not religious. There was also a Palestinian family at the table. As we broke matzoh as a part of the story-telling, my Palestinian friend and I had different memories.

For myself - the memories were warm and profound - of halls rented on Manhattan's Lower East Side - big enough to absorb my extensive extended family in one or two rooms, of my uncles on my mother's side, pushed on by their wives, trying to get through the Hagaddah, and of my cousins - a whole slew of them - and myself, trying not to be too disruptive. I thought back to how as a kid I always liked Passover - the story, the moral lessons - that having suffered, Jews should always remember and relate to the suffering of others and of Hillel's famous dictum about the essence of Judaism...do unto others... And that was mentioned too, two nights ago here in Denver. And I thought of my uncles - all long gone, most struck down by heart attacks in their forties - and what decent human beings they were, and of my cousin Joel who died of a heart attack before he was 30 and my cousin David who is a doctor in Florida and my cousin Joan who now has cancer behind her eye balls and my cousin Jay who died in 9-11 and whose right hand was identified some nine months later. I remembered the sense of warmth and family we felt a half century ago and wondered if it really existed or if I was romanticizing it a bit. That is what came to mind as I bit into a piece of matzoh, on the whole pleasant memories; for that alone I was glad to be at a seder and not just any seder, but this one.

My Palestinian friend sitting along side me, next to his wife and daughter, also had, in his lifetime, tasted matzoh but under somewhat less pleasant circumstances. The site of the unleavened Jewish bread in the home of a warm and liberal Jewish family in Southeast Denver triggered memories for him as well. He had tasted matzoh first in an Israeli prison where he had spent five years along with 11,000 other Palestinians. Apparently around Passover time, Palestinian prisoners were served matzoh instead of bread - year old matzoh much of which was stale and bug-ridden. Several weeks prior, knowing that the holiday was coming, the whole prison would, day by day, save up little scraps of bread so as to avoid the indigniity of eating rotten matzoh. Aware that matzoh could have a different, less oppressive symbolic meaning, he took a nibble, at a piece of matzoh at the appropriate time in the Hagaddah story. Given his history with the stuff, and the memories it provoked, I thought it quite tolerant of him.

Later in the evening I got into a discussion with a family friend, a local doctor. He'd come from New Jersey to Denver some forty years ago...I'd come about the same time from New York City a few months later. We exchanged a few thoughts about the Middle East...were essentially on the same page, but mostly talked about the financial and healthcare crises. He had depth and a great deal of humanity. Overall a fine, emotionally rich evening with people whom, admittedly I don't know very well, but hope to get to know better as time goes by.

2. Cutting US Military Aid To Israel

Below is a press release that came a few days ago in an email from a friend back east. He's been sending emails about the Israeli military's Gaza incursion usually with titles like `this, from the world' most humane military', `more from the world's most humane military'. He uses the expression with no little amount of irony. Each email documents another aspect of the war crimes Israel committed, or how Israel's orthodox rabbis encouraged the military not to `worry about' civilians, etc, etc. The call for investigations, war crimes tribunals to investigate this completely unnecessary war continue to get louder and louder as the reports of the devastation Israel reigned down on Gaza continue to come in, the last one coming from Irish progressive politican Gerry Adams just two days ago.

To my knowledge, Amnesty International has not until now taken a position calling for the US to cut military aid to Israel. That is what makes this press release (below) issued a few days ago of interest. The billboards in Albuquerque (click on the link above) calling for the same suggest the beginning of a campaign along these lines. I join those making this call.

Amnesty International
Press Release
Wednesday, April 1, 2009, for release at 7 p.m. EDT

United States Delivers Massive New Weapons Shipment to Israel, Confirmed by Pentagon, Says Amnesty International
Human Rights Organization Urges President Obama to Halt Further Exports

Contact: Suzanne Trimel, 212-633-4150, strimel@aiusa.org

(New York) -- Amnesty International today revealed that the United States has sent a massive new shipment of arms to Israel -- about 14,000 tons worth -- despite evidence that U.S. weapons were misused against civilians in the Gaza attacks. The unloading of the shipment in Israel was confirmed by the Pentagon. The human rights organization called on President Obama to suspend future arms shipments to Israel until there is no longer substantial risk of human rights violations.

Amnesty International said the Wehr Elbe, a German cargo ship, which was chartered and controlled by the U.S Military Sealift Command, docked and unloaded its cargo on March 22 at the Israeli port of Ashdod, about 25 miles north of Gaza.

The Pentagon confirmed the successful unloading of the ship, which left the United States for Israel last December 20, a week before the start of Israel's attacks on Gaza. Reportedly, the ship carried 989 containers of munitions, each of them 20 feet long with a total estimated net weight of 14,000 tons.

"Legally and morally, this U.S. arms shipment should have been halted by the Obama administration given the evidence of war crimes resulting from military equipment and munitions of this kind used by the Israeli forces," said Brian Wood, arms control campaign manager for Amnesty International. "Arms supplies in these circumstances are contrary to provisions in U.S. law."

Amnesty International has issued documented evidence that white phosphorus and other weapons supplied by the United States were used to carry out serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes in Gaza. The human rights organization provided comprehensive details on munitions used in the fighting in a 37-page briefing paper, Fueling Conflict: Foreign Arms Supplies to Israel/Gaza, in February.

Asked about the Wehr Elbe, a Pentagon spokesperson confirmed to Amnesty International that "the unloading of the entire U.S. munitions shipment was successfully completed at Ashdod [Israel] on March 22." The spokesperson said that the shipment was destined for a U.S. pre-positioned ammunition stockpile in Israel.

Under a U.S.-Israel agreement, munitions from this stockpile may be transferred for Israeli use if necessary. A State Department official told Amnesty International that Israel's use of U.S. weapons during the Gaza conflict are under review to see if Israel complied with U.S. law, but a conclusion has not yet been reached.

"There is a great risk that the new munitions may be used by the Israeli military to commit further violations of international law, like the ones committed during the war in Gaza," said Wood. "We are urging all governments to impose an immediate and comprehensive suspension of arms to Israel, and to all Palestinian armed groups, until there is no longer a substantial risk of serious human rights violations."

"The United States government now has ample evidence from the Gaza attacks indicating that the arms it is sending to Israel have been misused to kill and injure men, women and children and to destroy hundreds of millions of dollars of property. It can no longer send weapons to Israel while ignoring these facts," said Curt Goering, senior deputy executive director, Amnesty International USA, who was in the region during the Gaza crisis.

The United States was by far the largest supplier of weapons to Israel between 2004 and 2008. The U.S. government is also due to provide $30 billion in military aid to Israel, despite the blatant misuse of weaponry and munitions in Gaza and Lebanon by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). President Obama, according to published reports, has no plans to cut the billions of dollars in military aid promised to Israel under a new 10-year contract agreed in 2007 by the Bush administration. This new contract is a 25 percent increase, compared to the last contract agreed by the previous U.S. administration.

Amnesty International has documented suspected war crimes committed by the IDF and by Palestinian armed groups in Gaza. On January 15, Amnesty International called on all governments to immediately suspend arms transfers to all parties to the Gaza conflict to prevent further violations being committed using munitions and other military equipment.

Background:

The Wehr Elbe sailed from North Carolina on December 20, after collecting its large cargo of U.S. munitions and was initially bound for the port of Navipe-Astakos on the west coast of Greece. Its transponder signal disappeared on January 12 when the vessel was sailing near Astakos. The ship was unable to dock due to a protest by the Greek Stop the War Coalition. The vessel was then tracked as it passed through the port of Augusta, on the Italian island of Sicily, and then near Gibraltar in mid-February, before reappearing on March 23 en route from Ashdod to the Black Sea port of Odessa where it docked on March 26 in berth 7. Amnesty International is now aware that the vessel docked in Ashdod on March 22 and reportedly offloaded over 300 containers.

Amnesty International first drew attention to this arms ship's voyage on January 15. The ship's charter, authorized by the Bush administration a week before Israel launched its attack on Gaza, was to carry 989 shipping containers of “containerized ammunition and other containerized ammunition supplies” from Sunny Point Military Ocean Terminal, North Carolina, to Ashdod, as listed in the contract. U.S. Military Sealift Command charters for a further two U.S. munitions shipments from Navipe-Astakos (Greece) to Ashdod, which explicitly included white phosphorus munitions, were announced on December 31 during the Gaza conflict and then cancelled on January 9, but a U.S. military spokesperson subsequently confirmed that the Pentagon was still seeking a way to also deliver those munitions.

Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act stipulates that "no security assistance may be provided to any country, the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." However, security assistance may be provided if the president certifies that "extraordinary circumstances" exist. Section 4 of the Arms Export Control Act authorizes the supply of U.S. military equipment and training only for lawful purposes of internal security, "legitimate self-defense," or participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations or other operations consistent with the U.N. Charter. The Leahy Law prohibits the United States from providing most forms of security assistance to any military or police unit when there is "credible evidence" that members of the unit are committing gross human rights violations.

Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.

Please visit www.amnestyusa.org for more information.

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April 4, 2009

Israel On Trial

Op Ed by George Bisharet in Today's New York Times...

(Note: During Israel's war in Gaza - it wasn't really a war, more of simply a turkey shoot, a slaughter - I wrote an op ed which somehow got published in two Colorado newspapers (Boulder Daily Camera, now-defunct Rocky Mountain News) stating the obvious: that Israel was committing war crimes in Gaza and doing so both with impunity and the full support of the Bush Administration. Then Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was more or less cheering on the effort and as was the little idiot from Texas. Nor was there virtually any attempt to criticize the Gaza operation by then President-elect Barack Obama or his entourage. In the midst of the fighting reports appeared in the European press that the Bush Administration was looking for ways to ship yet more arms to Israel (Reuters - Jan 13, 2009).

Since the end of the war, the war crimes charges have multiplied, Israel's attempt to pain its army as `the most humane military in the world' have fallen flat, Israeli officers have been warned not to travel in certrain countries for fear of indictments on war crimes and Israel's p.r. effort to justify the war - other than here in the US - has generally failed. Of course the Colorado state senate in its usual foreign policy wisdom, following the lead of the US Congress - passed its usual dumb and one-sided resolution supporting Israel.

Rather than `going away' - the global criticism of Israel in Gaza is getting louder, so much so that even the New York Times, in an effort to show it is capable of showing `both sides' of the conflict, felt a need to give space to an op ed in today's paper by George Bisharet accusing Israel of war crimes. Of course it appears in the far less read Saturday edition of the paper and not Sunday's bigger one. Still, it is an indication of the degree to which - now nearly three months later - even public opinion in this country has turned on the issue - rjp)

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Israel on Trial

By GEORGE BISHARAT
San Francisco

CHILLING testimony by Israeli soldiers substantiates charges that Israel’s Gaza Strip assault entailed grave violations of international law. The emergence of a predominantly right-wing, nationalist government in Israel suggests that there may be more violations to come. Hamas’s indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli civilians also constituted war crimes, but do not excuse Israel’s transgressions. While Israel disputes some of the soldiers’ accounts, the evidence suggests that Israel committed the following six offenses:

• Violating its duty to protect the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. Despite Israel’s 2005 “disengagement” from Gaza, the territory remains occupied. Israel unleashed military firepower against a people it is legally bound to protect.

• Imposing collective punishment in the form of a blockade, in violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. In June 2007, after Hamas took power in the Gaza Strip, Israel imposed suffocating restrictions on trade and movement. The blockade — an act of war in customary international law — has helped plunge families into poverty, children into malnutrition, and patients denied access to medical treatment into their graves. People in Gaza thus faced Israel’s winter onslaught in particularly weakened conditions.

• Deliberately attacking civilian targets. The laws of war permit attacking a civilian object only when it is making an effective contribution to military action and a definite military advantage is gained by its destruction. Yet an Israeli general, Dan Harel, said, “We are hitting not only terrorists and launchers, but also the whole Hamas government and all its wings.” An Israeli military spokeswoman, Maj. Avital Leibovich, avowed that “anything affiliated with Hamas is a legitimate target.”

Israeli fire destroyed or damaged mosques, hospitals, factories, schools, a key sewage plant, institutions like the parliament, the main ministries, the central prison and police stations, and thousands of houses.

• Willfully killing civilians without military justification. When civilian institutions are struck, civilians — persons who are not members of the armed forces of a warring party, and are not taking direct part in hostilities — are killed.

International law authorizes killings of civilians if the objective of the attack is military, and the means are proportional to the advantage gained. Yet proportionality is irrelevant if the targets of attack were not military to begin with. Gaza government employees — traffic policemen, court clerks, secretaries and others — are not combatants merely because Israel considers Hamas, the governing party, a terrorist organization. Many countries do not regard violence against foreign military occupation as terrorism.

Of 1,434 Palestinians killed in the Gaza invasion, 960 were civilians, including 121 women and 288 children, according to a United Nations special rapporteur, Richard Falk. Israeli military lawyers instructed army commanders that Palestinians who remained in a targeted building after having been warned to leave were “voluntary human shields,” and thus combatants. Israeli gunners “knocked on roofs” — that is, fired first at corners of buildings, before hitting more vulnerable points — to “warn” Palestinian residents to flee.

With nearly all exits from the densely populated Gaza Strip blocked by Israel, and chaos reigning within it, this was a particularly cruel flaunting of international law. Willful killings of civilians that are not required by military necessity are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and are considered war crimes under the Nuremberg principles.

• Deliberately employing disproportionate force. Last year, Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, head of Israel’s northern command, speaking on possible future conflicts with neighbors, stated, “We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction.” Such a frank admission of illegal intent can constitute evidence in a criminal prosecution.

• Illegal use of weapons, including white phosphorus. Israel was finally forced to admit, after initial denials, that it employed white phosphorous in the Gaza Strip, though Israel defended its use as legal. White phosphorous may be legally used as an obscurant, not as a weapon, as it burns deeply and is extremely difficult to extinguish.

Israeli political and military personnel who planned, ordered or executed these possible offenses should face criminal prosecution. The appointment of Richard Goldstone, the former war crimes prosecutor from South Africa, to head a fact-finding team into possible war crimes by both parties to the Gaza conflict is an important step in the right direction. The stature of international law is diminished when a nation violates it with impunity.

George Bisharat is a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law.

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April 3, 2009 Ron Forthofer Responds To Yesterday's Post

Note - I don't disagree with Ron's comments about the Israeli Labor Party but I do think that the US factor is somewhere involved here. RJP

This from him:

Thanks for sharing.

I guess I disagree with your conclusion that Netanyahu's election was in response to Obama's victory. From my reading of the Israeli press and other analysis of it, I thought Netanyahu had been well ahead in the polls for quite some time, even before Obama was a serious candidate. I think after the Lebanon debacle, it was almost a foregone conclusion that Bibi was going to be the next prime minister. The only blip in this outlook occurred last Fall when Livni had the opportunity to form a government. If she had given in to Shas, she probably could have formed a government. If this had occurred, that may have helped her even more in the election. If my memory is correct though, she actually did receive more votes than Bibi, but Peres realized that she couldn't form a government since the extreme right received such support. Therefore, he turned to Bibi. So I don't think his selection was necessarily a reaction to Obama. In reality, I think that Labor long ago committed suicide, setting the stage for the right to come to power. Labor has been a disaster for so long and has almost no credibililty that Israeli voters really had few choices. I don't recall seeing what the turnout was. I assume that it was pretty low and, if this is correct, it made it easier for the dedicated right wingers to win.
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April 2, 2009

During the years when the little idiot from Texas was president of this great country of ours, when the United States was not particularly interested in pressing Israel to seriously negotiate with the Palestinians, the Israeli strategy - knowing it would go nowhere - was to closely cooperate with Washington, to talk of negociating while continuing to build settlements in the Occupied Territories and tighten the screws on the Palestinians - both in Gaza and the West Bank. In the language of basketball, it was faking to the left while moving to the right. Produced good p.r. in this country where liberals and some sincere folk on the left clung to every little crumb of hope the Israelis or the little idiot threw their way. Annapolis, a few vacuous statements by the little idiot calling for a Palestinian rights, Condoleeza Rice's pathetic Middle East statements of `creating a new Middle East' while Palestinians and Lebanese were being slaughtered - first in Lebanon and more recently in Gaza - all come to mind.

Such ambiguities - of Israel's leadership talking peace while building settlements and preparing for new wars - no longer exist.

We can all see more clearer now, can't we, now that Binjamin is Israel's prime minister? A man with close ties to Colorado - his father taught at theUniversity of Denver - Netanyahu, with something less than the wisdom of Solomon, has chosen a man who began an illustrious political career as a Bucharest nightclub bouncer, as Israel's foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman. Given Israel's political history these past years - it is somewhat difficult to believe that Israel could have surged so much further to the right - how much further is there to go? - but this is the direction their government has taken.

Some of this political orientation is due to the situation on the ground in Israel where military rather than political solutions dominate the thinking of its political (and military) class. But to some degree Israel's shift to the `bonkers' right is a response to the election of Barack Obama, whose allegiance to Israel, despite his AIPAC appearance last year, remains suspect. The cooperation with the United States - while still strong - is somewhat strained. US strategic priorities have shifted away from bombing Iran (at least temporarily) and more for shoring up US strained relations with its Arab allies - especially those that provide the world with oil - . Israel is adjusting to the new US political diplomatic, as limited as it might be, rather reluctantly

The Israelis knew that Bush and Cheney were with them 103% - and encouraging them to play a bellicose military role in the Middle East, be it against Hezbollah or Hamas, threatening Syria and really doing their darndest to push even the US into a war again Iran. Obama supports them a mere 98% ...and this is not enough. It is not as if the partnership has collapsed - far from it - but in this coming period, the junior partner, Israel, understands it will be (gently and modestly for sure) pressured by the senior partner, the US, to do unthinkable things - like stop building walls and settlements, negotiate with Hamas, open the gates to Gaza ending the blockage there and end Israel's jihad against Iran. Or so they fear.

In response Israel has elected a yet more nationalist - and reactionary - government, one that does not feel itself so tightly bound to Washington's dictates. It will pursue - and this is really a troublesome prospect - a somewhat more independent path concerning how to respond to Washington's pressure. Netanyahu and Lieberman recognize that the global financial crisis has somewhat weakened Washington's hold - not only on Israel but on the world as a whole. Thus one of the first announcements of the Netanyahu government claims that while there negotiations with the Palestinians will continue, the prospect of an independent Palestinian state is out of the question. What could be more blatant snub to the Obama Administration?

Clear and sharp differences have emerged between the US and Israel over Obama's softened position on Iran. With the US (finally) looking for Iranian cooperation in both Iraq and Afghanistan, Israel - still very much on the warpath warpath with Teheran (or would like to be) is planely worried. Oh for the good old days when Cheney Rumsfeldt, John Bolton and all openly plotted with Tel Aviv! To the contrary, recently there have been several sharp rebukes of Israel's Iran saber-rattling (Ashkinaze's visit to Washington where the Obama Administration refused to even talk about military action against Iran, Mullen's public warning to Israel on Iran on his visit there).

The Obama Administration is getting edgy - concerned that Israel might take military action on its own - and that Washington's hold on Israel is slipping. And that is exactly the impression the Israeli ruling circles wish to convey. A recent piece in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz suggests that as a result of Lieberman's appointment that Israel will become more isolated. Likely Netanyahu chose Lieberman EXACTLY for this reason, freeing the Jewish state (or so it thinks) from constraints to act in close coordination with the United States. Fearing such a development, on Hillary Clinton’s recent trip to Israel, it was reported that she pressured the (outgoing) Prime Minister Olmert to sign a statement promising not take any kind of unilateral action without first consulting Washington, which suggests they are planning/or considering unilateral actions without consulting Washington.

Is it a short-term tension, ...the onset of a new strained relationship based on emerging global realities and a growing global insecurity in this `period of transition'...more bluntly called the beginning of a global depression? It is far from a divorce, not yet even a separation...but the `marriage counseling' has most definitely begun.

No one exemplifies this new Israeli posture more than its esteemed new foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman. In what follows below, Juan Cole compares Lieberman to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the latter coming off alot better than the former. This from Juan Cole's blog:

"Avigdor Lieberman, the Moldovan night club bouncer, is now foreign minister of Israel. The world has had a lot of fun laughing at the pronouncements of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who stands falsely accused of threatening to wipe Israel off the face of the map. But Ahmadinejad has protested that it would be wrong to kill large numbers of civilians."

"In contrast, Lieberman has threatened to wipe at least two countries, Egypt and Palestine, off the map. Monstrously, he suggested bombing the Aswan Dam, which would have the effect of murdering all 80 million Egyptians and sweeping them into the Mediterranean in a vast continental African tsunami."

"Lieberman promptly announced on assuming office that the Mideast peace process is dead. Well, at least we have an outbreak of frankness."

"Whereas Ahmadinejad was humiliated by Columbia University president Lee Bollinger on his visit to that university, which provoked public protests, Lieberman's acceptance into the Israeli government has been greeted mildly and he was allowed to come to the Brookings Institution and meet with Bill and Hillary Clinton. Lieberman is an Central/Eastern European ultra-nationalist in the mold of Slobodan Milosevic and Jorg Haider, and it is shameful that he was allowed into the government and more shameful that this travesty has passed without a peep in the civilized world."

"The The Electronic Intifada lists "Some of Avigdor Lieberman's infamous statements":

# In 1998, Lieberman called for the flooding of Egypt by bombing the Aswan Dam in retaliation for Egyptian support for Yasser Arafat.

# In 2001, as Minister of National Infrastructure, Lieberman proposed that the West Bank be divided into four cantons, with no central Palestinian government and no possibility for Palestinians to travel between the cantons.

# In 2002, the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth quoted Lieberman in a Cabinet meeting saying that the Palestinians should be given an ultimatum that "At 8am we'll bomb all the commercial centers ... at noon we'll bomb their gas stations ... at two we'll bomb their banks ..."

# In 2003, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that Lieberman called for thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel to be drowned in the Dead Sea and offered to provide the buses to take them there.

# In May 2004, Lieberman proposed a plan that called for the transfer of Israeli territory with Palestinian populations to the Palestinian Authority. Likewise, Israel would annex the major Jewish settlement blocs on the Palestinian West Bank. If applied, his plan would strip roughly one-third of Israel's Palestinian citizens of their citizenship. A "loyalty test" would be applied to those who desired to remain in Israel. This plan to trade territory with the Palestinian Authority is a revision of Lieberman's earlier calls for the forcible transfer of Palestinian citizens of Israel from their land. Lieberman stated in April 2002 that there was "nothing undemocratic about transfer."

# Also in May 2004, he said that 90 percent of Israel's 1.2 million Palestinian citizens would "have to find a new Arab entity" in which to live beyond Israel's borders. "They have no place here. They can take their bundles and get lost," he said.

# In May 2006, Lieberman called for the killing of Arab members of Knesset who meet with members of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority.'

Nice.

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March 31, 2009

The Changing Israel Debate...`Trends' or Crisis (?) in Denver's Jewish Community (3)

note - much of what I write about below comes after discussions with a number of young Jewish friends, social activists in general, but also active in Denver's Jewish Community...

Despite appearances, all is not well in Denver’s Jewish Community.

Yet on the surface things couldn’t be better.

- Its more prominent members continue play a key role in local politics, business and the leadership of the Democratic Party, highlighted by the role of certain of its members, Steve Farber in particular, to bring the Democratic Party Convention which propelled Barack Obama to the presidency, to Denver.

- Its major organizations - AIPAC, ADL, the Jewish Community Relations Board, the Jewish Community Center, the Rose Foundation - remain active if not vibrant in certain ways and are able to raise dramatic amounts of money as a recent $10,000 a plate brunch for AIPAC suggests. As it does annually, the ADL will host a spring brunch, this time honoring the state’s governor. Much of the political class in Colorado will attend.

- Once again, as it has consistently done since the 1967 War, the Jewish Community, for the most part, stood by Israel and defended - against all objective logic - its military operation in Gaza as `defensive’

Under The Surface, Hints of Malaise

Under the surface, however, there are growing hints of malaise...

- Two of the more liberal rabbis have recently come under fire. One has lost the confidence of his congregation and will soon be forced to retire. Another, something of a liberal icon, finds himself, of all things, in a brush fire with the city’s Chicano and Black youth, the latter organizing a movement against police abuse and profiling.

- Just how many in the community were hit by the Madoff ponzi scheme (or like scams) is hard to estimate but if the local media is any indication, it is a fair number.

- And if in its mainstream organizations `stood strong’ for Israel in Gaza, there were significant cracks, voices from deep within the Community, among its old guard (especially women and youth) who were shaken by the level of violence Israel perpetrated on the Palestinians in Gaza, rejecting the claim that Israel’s military is `the most humane military in the world’.

- Groups critical - openly or less so - of Israel’s 42 year occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza are beginning to gain traction, or at least a modest presence. Relatively new organizations with names like B’rit Tzedek, Tikkun, J-Street are becoming more familiar. A Boulder rabbi, Tirzah Firestone, openly, a few from Denver more sedately, while careful to always express their `love for Israel’, have joined the likes of Michael Lerner and broken ranks, making their criticisms of Israel’s occupation more openly than in the past.

A `Trend' Or A `Crisis'?

Just as tv commentators refuse to describe the global economic down-turn for what it is - the onset of a global depression of unknown duration (preferring to describe it as a recession with suggestions that perhaps the worst is over)... many in Denver’s Jewish Community would take issue with describing the current state of affairs within the community as `a crisis’. They prefer to speak of a `trend’ instead.

Actually the `trend-that-is-becoming-a-crisis’ lies elsewhere, beyond what was discussed above

Jews in large numbers are simply dropping out. Some of them become Buddhists or Unitarians. Indeed there are so many Jews that have become Unitarians that there is a term for them - `Jewnitarians’. Several other friends I know have become what they call `Jewfis’ - trying to combine Judaism with Sufism. I’ve sat with small groups in Denver - mostly women - who alternate Jewish prayers with Buddhist chants. Others have simply dropped out for one reason or another and whatever is left of their Judaism, if anything, is done in private.

It is a quiet crisis but one that mainstream Jewish organizations - both nationally and locally - have acknowledged (among themselves anyway) for some time: Jewish youth is straying from the fold and doing so in increasing numbers. This is especially true for youth from the ages of 18-40 who seem to be losing interest in organized Jewish life, but also for others who are older. It is in part a dissaffection with Israel's policies (there are more and more Jews who are openly ashamed) but has other more fundamental aspects as well. This trend is national in scope and in no way limited to Colorado. One book that explores these issues and more is Douglas Rushkoff's Nothing Sacred. Considerable organizational energy and gobs of money have already been thrown into the effort to turn the situation around.

Three Specific Concerns

Concerns focus around three specific essentially unchecked tendencies

1. High levels of intermarriage between Jewish and non-Jewish youth raising fears of assimilation and identity loss
2. Young Jews in rather large numbers nationwide, tend to avoid synagogues and Jewish community organizations, more apparently than ever before
3. The new generation of Jewish youth, while Zionist in the main, do not share the same zeal for Israel as `the older generation’ which tends to be more ideologically committed then their parents. They tend to be more critical of the Occupation (and define it as such).

How to tap into what remains of their Jewish identity, to re-connect to this increasing disaffected younger generation, `to bring them back into the fold’ - this is the crisis and the challenge and it is taken very seriously. In an effort to address the situation, the Rose Foundation, Birthright Israel, even the ADL, are hiring more and more young people - many of them surprisingly left of center - and giving them considerable political and organizing leeway - to organize among `the Jewish unorganized’.

Proselytizing groups like Chabbab (several of whose members were killed in the recent Bombay tragedy) - akin to Jewish sufis - have also become more active on college campuses. The emergence of a somewhat brittle and conservative trend here in Denver - the Jewish Identity movement that attempts to win back those attracted to `Jews For Jesus’ is another manifestation of this crisis. In some ways these groups resemble the Jewish version of `Sister Act’...connect with people where they are at emotionally and politically to `bring them back into the fold’.

Will it work? I don’t know. But it is taking on the aspect of a national mobilization of sorts, a full court press. It suggests - to put it mildly - that mainstream Jewish organizations are increasingly out of touch with their own youth who are looking elsewhere.

Not-So-New Issues

On reflection, I can’t help thinking that some of this, frankly, is not so new.

A. For example, a close study of Jewish history suggests that for centuries there has been a certain `productive tension’ between the more religious and secular elements in the Jewish Community worldwide. I would argue that this tension has pushed many of the more religious elements to be more relevant to worldly (ie - social) issues and the more secular elements to appreciate the more humanistic traditions within the religion. The split between the two - if one can call it that - also forces a redefinition of what is a Jew, extending the term beyond a narrow religious framework. I would call it a `religious-based’ ethnicity.

B. If one looks at the history of Judaism in the United States - and now I am talking more about how it is manifested in the religious institutions - it has been forced to adjust again and again to American realities and the more general processes of social and cultural change one cannot escape in this country. In its search for relavency a century ago, the Conservatives (the group that broke with the Orthodox) added significant segments of the Jewish service in English (among other things). The Reform Wing, hardly uses Hebrew at all, the service is shorter and mixed marriages have long been welcomed . As such, the emergence of both the Conservative and the Reform movements within Judaism were both attempts at certain moments in history to render the religion more relevant to American realities.

One could argue that the Jewish Renewal Movement, while still a minor trend within Judaism, is a more recent attempt to once again rework the religion, retaining the deeper essence of Judaism while adapting its forms to new realities. Like other reform movements, serious reform movements that is, it entails risks and considerable skepticism from the more established elements that see such experiments as both spiritual and organizational challenges. Nor is this `dilemma’ if one can call it that, particularly unique to Judaism in America. Most religions and ethnicities (and I would add political parties and movements) in this country find themselves in a similar situation, searching for relevancy, to find their way spiritually). Again nothing new here from what I can tell

C. As for the distancing from and growing disaffection with Israel, it appears to be growing. I have my own (not particularly original) hypothesis on all this. The parents of the current Jewish youth are far more ideological in their support of Israel than their children who are less enthusiastic, more skeptical, Many Jewish youth are both less committed to it and more critical of its short-comings. It is as if they can be more objective than their parents....and are.

But How Can I Tell My Parents I Don't `Love Israel' As They Do?

A personal example, anecdotal I admit....but one that repeats itself. I have many students - and have had - many in the past - who are Jewish. More often than not we connect - intellectually and emotionally. While I don’t teach much about the Middle East (I teach Global Political Economy for the most part), oftentimes, sooner or later, my Jewish students want to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If possible, I go. It has happened again within the past few months several times actually.

We go for coffee. I don’t lecture them (hard to believe I know), but have developed an approach that usually initiates the discussions by asking them what THEY think.

I am no longer surprised at the responses which form something of a pattern - most of them support a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they are critical of the occupation, of Israel’s settlement policy, understand the crisis cannot be resolved until the Palestinians have an independent state, etc. etc. Put another way, more often than not, we find ourselves in agreement on the main points...and even on some of the more thornier questions (ie - that Hamas should be included in any serious negotiations, that either the US or Israel bombing Iran is nuts, etc)...

Then what is the problem?

The `problem’ is not so much political as personal. They don’t know how to tell their far more ideologically committed parents! I don’t know how to tell their parents either. And more and more, the only way they can keep family peace is by avoiding the subject of Israel and the Palestinians. I simply suggest that when they think it appropriate that they show a little courage on this issue and that without that, progress will be difficult.

more on this subject later...

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March 13, 2009

The Changing Israel Debate...Even in Colorado 2

Note: Perhaps I spoke too soon when I wrote about the changing attitude towards Israel in the US? It's not like AIPAC has quite folded up shop. As Israel's credibility sours after the war against Gaza, in fact, such organizations are redoubling their efforts. It's not just little pipsqueaks (like me) who have run afoul and are in their sights. Look what happened to Charles W. Freeman Jr.,who nominated for a top intelligence post by the director of national intelligence and forced to withdraw under intense pressure? His appointment did not survive an AIPAC-directed campaign to topple him.

Below is an article sent me by Bob Ross - executive director of the double bass repair lobby in Congress - and a good personal friend. If the double bass lobby joins forces with the even more powerful `senior university lecturer' lobby - well, watch out AIPAC! The article appeared in yesterday's New York Times. There is also apparently a piece by Freeman that appeared in the Wall Street Journal being circulated by Bob Kinsey, former Green Party candidate for US Senate here in Colorado.

AIPAC might have brought down Freeman - no doubt they did - but not without receiving collateral damage itself. The tone of the different articles suggests a growing impatience and anger with these little (in this case `not-so-little') jihads against any and all who are critical of Israel. Those who blandly and blindly put Israel's interests before those of the United States are finding that their arguments are wearing thin. Think about it - Stephen Rosen, a former AIPAC higher-up, who started the ball rolling against Freeman with a critical piece in his blog, was indicted for passing US intelligence secrets about Iran to Israel. Even from his disgraced position he still has the influence to bring down a senior US diplomat like Freeman! I wonder how much longer these kind of McCarthyite tactics will work?

I would also point out the method that it is done, essentially working behind the scenes, working old, worn political structures and personal contacts -- but then no folks do it better than AIPAC. And they have the means. By way of example - the Colorado chapter had a brunch not long ago to welcome the organization's national executive director to our fair state. The price for bagels, lox, coffee and orange juice, what must have been `knock out' danish was $10,000 a plate, or at least that what was recorded on AIPAC's website at the time. With several hundred people in attendance, the take for a half hour of AIPAC platitudes could have been in the seven figure realm.

But it's not just the money, AIPAC-ADL et al have these little witch-hunt campaigns down to a `t'.

1. It starts with a letter to the editor, a blog entry, or the comments from an asshole rightwing radio or newspaper commentator. They `light the match' so to speak

2. Then it is followed by `a call' to someone in power from a Senator (in this case Chuck Schumer of New York), or in more local cases - a rabbi, an ADL representative, the wife of a local liquor store millionaire etc, that usually includes `a dossier' - of writings or comments made, that, while informal, has the emotional power of a formal indictment. To add some pa-zazz and a sense of urgency to it all, delegations are marshalled to visit employers, newspaper publishers, politicans'. To add a little spice to it and show they really mean business, when possible, local witch-hunters like to drag along some multi-millionaire developer type (or their power-broker lawyers) in their Hong Kong-tailored suits for emphasis - you know, the kind that avoided indictment during the savings and loan scandals by the skin of their tootsies but now have foundations, university classroom buildings, community centers and museums named after them.

3. A few national heavies - Deshowitz, Foxman, David Horowitz and other such lowlifes - orchestrate a national media campaign.

4. The national media campaign is coordinated with a blitz from the base - phone calls, letters to the editor, the targeting of the individual - be it a former president like Jimmy Carter, a senior diplomat like Freeman or outspoken academics like Norman Finkelstein or Joel Kovel. The academics are usually easy to pick off in most cases, a Jimmy Carter or Freeman slightly more difficult.

5. It is assumed, and rightly so, if the purge is done properly, that the public will soon forget and as the issue fades from view, that no one will care. And, this is usually the case, making AIPAC (and associated groups) more brazen and arrogan

The message is not particularly ambiguous: if you want continued financial support (contributions, advertising, money for political campaigns), dump so-and-so. Nothing new about this, AIPAC has been doing this for years, and rather successfully. And don't think it's just the conservatives that engage in these tactics, if Denver is any example, the liberals among them are just as vicious, if not more, in these mostly `behind-the-scenes' character assassinations .And even where the campaigns do not succeed - the goal is silence critics one way or another (within legal bounds of course), - they are very concerned about legalities as they fear getting sued as the ADL was here in Colorado and in California for going beyond legal bounds.

Of course, AIPAC retains great influence in Congress and in state legislatures (as we saw here in Colorado with the recent lopsided Senate vote essentially blessing Israel's war against Gaza), and will continue to for some time, but, still, the foundation is weakening. . AIPAC's main problem won't go away - that US and Israeli strategic interests - in the first place never as close as Israel's supporters would have us believe - are starting to diverge even further and will continue to do so in the decades ahead. Not all the $10,000 a bagel brunches will change that. As the contradiction between US interests in the Middle East - centered mainly around the long term control of energy interests - clashes more directly with Israeli national interests - as the two seem to be doing at present concerning Iran - AIPAC's well known tendency to put Israel's interests before those of the American people - will be its undoing. But for the moment - AIPAC sails blithely along - purging to left, discrediting to the right as it has for decades. It cannot go on forever. And it won't. Don't expect it to be pretty as it all becomes unglued.

To the NY Times piece:

March 12, 2009
Israel Stance Was Undoing of Nominee for Intelligence Post

By MARK MAZZETTI and HELENE COOPER
WASHINGTON — When Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, announced that he would install Charles W. Freeman Jr. in a top intelligence post, the decision surprised some in the White House who worried that the selection could be controversial and an unnecessary distraction, according to administration officials.

Just how controversial the choice would be became clear on Tuesday, when Mr. Freeman, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia under the first President Bush, angrily withdrew his name from consideration and charged that he had been the victim of a concerted campaign by what he called “the Israel lobby.”

Mr. Freeman had long been critical of Israel, with a bluntness that American officials rarely voice in public about a staunch American ally. In 2006, he warned that, “left to its own devices, the Israeli establishment will make decisions that harm Israelis, threaten all associated with them and enrage those who are not.”

He did not soften his tone even on Wednesday, saying in an interview that “Israel is driving itself toward a cliff, and it is irresponsible not to question Israeli policy and to decide what is best for the American people.”

The critics who led the effort to derail Mr. Freeman argued that such views reflected a bias that could not be tolerated in someone who, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council, would have overseen the production of what are supposed to be policy-neutral intelligence assessments destined for the president’s desk.

Some of Mr. Freeman’s defenders say his views on Israel are extreme only when seen through the lens of American political life, and they asked whether it was possible to question American support for Israel without being either muzzled or marginalized.

“The reality of Washington is that our political landscape finds it difficult to assimilate any criticism of any segment of the Israeli leadership,” said Robert W. Jordan, who was ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 2001 to 2003.

The lobbying campaign against Mr. Freeman included telephone calls to the White House from prominent lawmakers, including Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat. It appears to have been kicked off three weeks ago in a blog post by Steven J. Rosen, a former top official of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group.

On the Middle East, Mr. Rosen wrote, Mr. Freeman’s views are “what you would expect in the Saudi Foreign Ministry,” rather than from someone who would become essentially the government’s top intelligence analyst.

Because President Obama himself has been viewed with suspicion among many pro-Israel groups, the attacks on Mr. Freeman had the potential to touch a nerve. Many of these groups applauded Mr. Obama’s appointments of Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state and Dennis B. Ross as a special adviser for Iran and Persian Gulf issues, but remain suspicious of other members of his administration who will be dealing with Arab-Israeli matters.

After complaints from some pro-Israel groups during his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama distanced himself from Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser under President Jimmy Carter, who has sometimes been critical of Israel.

Five days after Mr. Rosen’s blog item appeared, Senator Schumer telephoned Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, to ensure that the White House was aware of Mr. Freeman’s past comments about Israel. According to Senator Schumer, his staff then sent the White House copies of the statements.

Mr. Schumer said that Mr. Freeman showed an “irrational hatred of Israel” and that his statements were “over the top.”

Mr. Freeman said that nobody in the White House ever pressured him to withdraw. He said that he and Mr. Blair had agreed on Tuesday afternoon that he should step aside to avoid any perception of taint to the intelligence assessments he would have overseen at the National Intelligence Council. Hours earlier, Mr. Blair defended Mr. Freeman for his strong views and quick mind, and said he hoped he would challenge an intelligence community that for years had been criticized for groupthink.

In the days after Senator Schumer’s first phone call, other lawmakers and pro-Israel groups began applying pressure on the White House. Representative Steve Israel, a New York Democrat, also called Mr. Emanuel about the pick, and pushed Mr. Blair’s inspector general to examine possible conflicts of interest surrounding Mr. Freeman’s relationships with the Chinese and Saudi governments.

“I was prepared to present my case to anyone at the White House who would listen to it,” Representative Israel said.

Pro-Israel groups weighed in with lower-ranking White House officials. The Zionist Organization of America sent out an “action alert” urging members to ask Congress for an investigation of Mr. Freeman’s “past and current activities on behalf of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

With opposition to Mr. Freeman mounting, many in the White House were debating the wisdom of the selection, despite Mr. Blair’s public support for him. “In conversations with people associated with this administration, I never detected any enthusiasm for this pick,” said Ira N. Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, declined to comment on Wednesday.

Before his ambassadorship, Mr. Freeman held a variety of State Department posts. Since leaving government, he has worked with nonprofit groups and on the board of the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation, a past position that his critics said could be a conflict of interest in his new job.

As head of the Middle East Policy Council, he was a frequent critic of policy toward Israel. In a speech in 2005 he said that “as long as the United States continues unconditionally to provide the subsidies and political protection that make the Israeli occupation and the high-handed and self-defeating policies it engenders possible, there is little, if any, reason to hope that anything resembling the former peace process can be resurrected.”

Critics also unearthed e-mail messages attributed to Mr. Freeman that seemed to support the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, saying it was not “acceptable for any country to allow the heart of its national capital to be occupied by dissidents intent on disrupting the normal functions of government, however appealing to foreigners their propaganda may be.”

Mr. Freeman said Wednesday that the passage was taken out of context, and that he had been describing the dominant view in China in the years after the crackdown.

Mr. Freeman, who severed his financial and professional ties to several organizations to re-enter government, said he had yet to decide what was next for him.

“I’m in a position to redefine my life and to press the reset button, and you don’t get that very often,” he said.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
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March 10, 2009

The Changing Israel Debate...Even in Colorado

For starters, I would like thank the many people who have offered to come to my assistance in the case that my job at the University of Denver might be in jeapordy for having - most recently - publicly criticized Israel's war in Gaza. These offers came both from within the university and beyond, including friends in the Jewish Community. I told them to `hold their fire' so to speak for now. From what I can tell, the mini-jihad against my dean, Tom Farer and myself at the Korbel School of International Studies, went nowhere. Of course I could be wrong about this but it seems the effort has fizzled, at least temporarily. You should also know that another faculty member, Randall Kuhn, had a fine piece on Gaza published in the Washington Times. Kuhn's piece can be found on the January 14, 2009 entry for this blog, although it means scrolling down abit to get to it. I was told that after it appeared calls that Kuhn too be fired, were also made.

This kind of bullying, which has become so common place, did not seem to have produced any results this time. A sign of the times? That said, there are indications, albeit modest, that the debate over Israel-Palestine is at long last starting to shift somewhat nationally. Glenn Greewald's blog entry printed just below - lifted from Salon.com - gives a good sense of the new environment. Add to this the Hampshire College decision to divest from companies profiting off the Occupation of the Palestinian Territories (W. Bank and Gaza), Britain's decision to open negotiations with Hezbollah, global calls to indict those Israelis responsible for the carnage in Gaza of war crimes, the likely critical posture that the Durban Conference on Racism will take towards Israel and it does seem, at long last, that a shift in thinking - modest to be sure - but still, is taking place. Of course we can expect a full court press - already initiated by Deshowitz, Foxman and the like - to counter the Hampshire divestment with their calls for the US to divest from Iran, etc, etc...

Thanks to Alan Gilbert for having pointed out the Greenwald comments.

Charles Freeman, Roger Cohen and the changing Israel debate

The right-wing, Israel-centric stranglehold over our political debates is clearly eroding.
Glenn Greenwald

Mar. 09, 2009 |

(updated below - Update II)

Anyone who doubts that there has been a substantial -- and very positive -- change in the rules for discussing American policy towards Israel should consider two recent episodes: (1) the last three New York Times columns by Roger Cohen; and (2) the very strong pushback from a diverse range of sources against the neoconservative lynch mob trying, in typical fashion, to smear and destroy Charles Freeman due to his critical (in all senses of the word) views of American policy towards Israel. One positive aspect of the wreckage left by the Bush presidency is that many of the most sacred Beltway pieties stand exposed as intolerable failures, prominently including our self-destructively blind enabling of virtually all Israeli actions.

First, the Cohen columns: Two weeks ago, Cohen -- writing from Iran -- mocked the war-seeking cartoon caricature of that nation as The New Nazi Germany craving a Second Holocaust. To do so, Cohen reported on the relatively free and content Iranian Jewish community (25,000 strong). When that column prompted all sorts of predictable attacks on Cohen from the standard cast of Israel-centric thought enforcers (Jeffrey Goldberg, National Review, right-wing blogs, etc. etc.), Cohen wrote a second column breezily dismissing those smears and then bolstering his arguments further by pointing out that "significant margins of liberty, even democracy, exist" in Iran; that "Iran has not waged an expansionary war in more than two centuries"; and that "hateful, ultranationalist rhetoric is no Iranian preserve" given the ascension of Avigdor Lieberman in Benjamin Netanyahu's new Israeli government.

Today, Cohen returns with his most audacious column yet. Noting the trend in Britain and elsewhere to begin treating Hezbollah and Hamas as what they are -- namely, "organizations [that are] now entrenched political and social movements without whose involvement regional peace is impossible," rather than pure "Terrorist organizations" that must be shunned -- Cohen urges the Obama administration to follow this trend: the U.S. should "should initiate diplomatic contacts with the political wing of Hezbollah" and even "look carefully at how to reach moderate Hamas elements." As for the objection that those two groups have used violence in the past, Cohen offers the obvious response, though does so quite eloquently:

Speaking of violence, it’s worth recalling what Israel did in Gaza in response to sporadic Hamas rockets. It killed upward of 1,300 people, many of them women and children; caused damage estimated at $1.9 billion; and destroyed thousands of Gaza homes. It continues a radicalizing blockade on 1.5 million people squeezed into a narrow strip of land.

At this vast human, material and moral price, Israel achieved almost nothing beyond damage to its image throughout the world. Israel has the right to hit back when attacked, but any response should be proportional and governed by sober political calculation. The Gaza war was a travesty; I have never previously felt so shamed by Israel’s actions.

No wonder Hamas and Hezbollah are seen throughout the Arab world as legitimate resistance movements.

So absolute has the Israel-centric stranglehold on American policy been that the U.S. Government has made it illegal to broadcast Hezbollah television stations and has even devoted its resources to criminally prosecuting and imprisoning satellite providers merely for including Hezbollah's Al Manar channel in their cable package. Not even our Constitution's First Amendment has been a match for the endless exploitation of American policy, law and resources to target and punish Israel's enemies. But this trilogy of Cohen columns reflects the growing awareness of just how self-destructive is that mentality and, more importantly, the growing refusal to refrain from saying so.

* * * * *

The still-expanding battle over the appointment of Charles Freeman by Obama's DNI, Adm. Dennis Blair, provides even more compelling evidence. I'm not going to detail all of the facts surrounding this controversy because so many others have done such an excellent job of arguing the case -- particularly Andrew Sullivan (all week) and Stephen Walt -- and the crux of the matter was summarized perfectly last night by Josh Marshall:

The real rub, the basis of the whole controversy, however, is that [Freeman] has been far more critical of Israeli policy than is generally allowed within acceptable debate in Washington. . .

The whole effort strikes me as little more than a thuggish effort to keep the already too-constricted terms of debate over the Middle East and Israel/Palestine locked down and largely one-sided. . . . But the gist is that campaigns like this are ugly and should be resisted. Not just on general principles, but because the country needs more diversity of viewpoints on this issue right now.

Precisely. The Atlantic's James Fallows and Daniel Larison both compellingly document that the real issue here is whether the suffocating prohibition on government officials' questioning U.S. policy toward Israel will continue, or whether the range of permissive debate on this vital question will finally be expanded. The Freeman appointment is so important precisely because it signals that rejecting the long-standing orthodoxy on Israel is no longer disqualifying when it comes to high level government positions [and, perhaps as importantly, that it's now even permissible to raise the previously verboten point that perhaps one of the reasons why many Muslims want to attack the U.S. is because the U.S. (both on its own and through Israel) has spent decades continuously attacking, bombing, invading, occupying and otherwise interfering in Muslim countries].

Ezra Klein argues, persuasively, that even if Freeman ends up being appointed, the lynch-mob smear campaign will still have achieved its purpose:

But for Freeman's detractors, a loss might still be a win. As Sullivan and others have documented, the controversy over Freeman is fundamentally a question of his views on Israel. Barring a bad report from the inspector general, Chas Freeman will survive and serve. But only because his appointment doesn't require Senate confirmation. Few, however, will want to follow where he led. Freeman's career will likely top out at Director of the NIC. That's not a bad summit by any means. But for ambitious foreign policy thinkers who might one day aspire to serve in a confirmed capacity, the lesson is clear: Israel is off-limits. And so, paradoxically, the freethinking Freeman's appointment might do quite a bit to silence foreign policy dissenters who want to succeed in Washington.

There is, by design, definitely a chilling effect to these smear campaigns. Freeman is being dragged through the mud by the standard cast of accusatory Israel-centric neocons (Marty Peretz, Jon Chait, Jeffrey Goldberg, Commentary, The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb, etc. etc., etc.), subjected to every standard, baseless smear, as a warning to others who think about challenging U.S. policy towards Israel in a similar way. Ultimately, though, I think that each time one of these swarming, hate-campaigns is swatted away, they incrementally lose their efficacy, emboldening others to risk their weakening wrath.

Ultimately, the greatest weapon to defeat these campaigns is to highlight the identity and behavior of their perpetrators. Just consider who is behind the attack on Freeman; how ugly and discredited are their tactics and ideology; and, most importantly, how absurd it is, given their disgraceful history, that they -- of all people -- would parade around as arbiters of "ideological extremism" and, more audaciously still, as credible judges of intelligence assessment. Sullivan compiled a comprehensive time line demonstrating that the attacks on Freeman originated and were amplified by the very same people for whom American devotion to Israel is the overriding if not exclusive priority and who have been so glaringly wrong about so much. Though they have since tried, with characteristic deceit and cowardice, to disguise their agenda by pretending to oppose Freeman on other, non-Israel grounds (such as their oh-so-authentic concern for Chinese human rights), that masquerading effort -- as Matt Yglesias notes here -- is so transparently dishonest as to be laughable.

Indeed, some of them, early on, were perfectly honest about the fact that Freeman's views on Israel is what has motivated their opposition, including the Israel-based "concerns" over the appointment voiced by Sen. Chuck Schumer to Rahm Emanuel. And -- demonstrating that these taboos are still formidible -- Schumer's sentiments have since been echoed by unnamed "Democratic leaders." Chuck Schumer, along with Dianne Feinstein, single-handedly enabled the confirmation of Michael Mukasey as Attorney General despite Mukaseky's refusal to say that waterboarding was torture (and Schumer even voted to confirm Michael Hayden as CIA Director despite his overseeing Bush's illegal NSA program). Yet Obama appoints someone who is critical of Israel and who questions American policy towards Israel, and Schumer springs into action by calling Rahm Emanuel to express "concern" over the appointment.

It's not a mystery what is behind this attack on Freeman. As Spencer Ackerman wrote last week:

Basically, Freeman's major sin is that he doesn't take a simplistic or blinkered view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a number of mostly-right-wing Jewish writers at Commentary, the Weekly Standard, the Atlantic and The New Republic have been arguing that he's not fit to serve.

That's really the crux of the issue here: are we going to continue to allow these actual extremists to define "extremism" and dictate the acceptable range of views when it comes to Middle East policy?

As Ackerman noted the other day, one of the leading anti-Freeman generals is AIPAC's Steve Rosen, who has been indicted for passing American secrets onto the Israeli Government. That's almost satire: an AIPAC official accused of spying for a foreign country purporting to lead the charge against Freeman based on Freeman's "extremism" and excessive ties to another Middle Eastern country.

Or consider the Washington Post Op-Ed by The New Republic's Jonathan Chait railing that Freeman -- who opposed the attack on Iraq -- is an "ideological fanatic." That's the very same Jonathan Chait who spent 2002 and 2003 running around demanding that we invade Iraq and who even went on national television to declare: "I don't think you can argue that a regime change in Iraq won't demonstrably and almost immediately improve the living conditions of the Iraqi people." That's someone who -- after spending years working for Marty Peretz -- thinks he's in a position to demonize others as being "ideological extremists" and unfit to assess intelligence reports and to define the legitimate parameters of the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East. To describe Chait's view of himself is to illustrate its absurdity.

Or review the rank propaganda and/or glaring ignorance spread by anti-Freeman crusade leader Jeffrey Goldberg before the Iraq War. Or just read this painfully deceitful, humiliatingly error-plagued 2003 column from Freeman critic Michael Moynihan of Reason. And that's to say nothing of the rest of the Weekly Standard and National Review propagandists purporting to sit in judgment of what constitutes mainstream views towards Israel. Just looking at the opponents of Freeman and their reckless history powerfully conveys how disastrous it would be to continue to allow this extremist clique, of all people, to continue to dictate the scope of legitimate debate over Israel, the Middle East and our intelligence policies generally. It's like allowing Dick Cheney and John Yoo to dictate what constitutes mainstream legal opinion and to reject prospective judges as being "extremists" on Constitutional questions.

Summing up the attacks on Freeman, Andrew Sullivan wrote that he finds "the hysterical bullying of this man to be repulsive." There's no question about that. Hysterical bullying -- rank character smearing -- is what they've been doing for many years in an attempt to intimidate people out of dissenting from their so-called "pro-Israel" orthodoxies. But last night, Sullivan made the more important observation about this controversy:

The idea that Obama should not have advisers who challenge some of the core assumptions of the Bush years, especially with respect to Israel-Palestine, seems nuts to me. And the impulse to blackball and smear someone as a bigot is reprehensible.

It's destructive enough to artificially limit debate on a matter as consequential as U.S. policy towards Israel. We've been doing that for many years now. But it's so much worse that the people who have been defining and dictating those limits are themselves extremists in every sense of that word when it comes to Israel and U.S. policy towards that country. Their demands that no distinctions be recognized between Israeli and Americans interests have been uniquely destructive for the U.S. Few things are more urgent than an expansion of the debate over U.S. policy in this area, which is exactly why this radical lynch mob is swarming with such intensity to destroy Freeman's reputation and fortify the limitations on our debates which, for so long, they have thuggishly enforced. If someone like Freeman can occupy a position like Chair of the National Intelligence Council -- handpicked by Obama's DNI, an Admiral -- the taboos they are so desperate to maintain will erode just that much further.

UPDATE: Greg Sargent reports that six of the most right-wing GOP Senators have now joined Chuck Schumer and other "Democratic leaders" by objecting to Freeman's appointment, thus forming the perfectly bipartisan attack in the U.S. that always emerges towards any critics of Israel. There are legitimate concerns about Freeman which have been raised -- including whether, as Reason's Matt Welch suggests, his long-standing, elaborate ties to Saudi Arabia impede his objectivity (though all anyone has to do is look at people like Elliot Abrams, Dennis Ross, Richard Perle and Doug Feith (or even Rahm Emanuel) to know that extensive ties to foreign Middle Eastern countries aren't considered disqualifying for high government posts). And long-time China resident James Fallows -- here and here -- demonstrates how pretextual are the objections to Freeman based on his positions towards China.

Credit, at least, to the 6 anti-Freeman GOP Senators who (unlike Jon Chait) are at least honest enough to admit that Freeman's views on Israel are a central cause for their opposition. At least with that sort of candor, it becomes apparent that the real question posed by the Freeman appointment is: "must one pledge allegiance to the right-wing, 'pro-Israel' agenda in order to serve in a high position in the American Government, or may one question and even oppose that agenda?"

UPDATE II: Three related items:

(1) The answer to the question posed by Andrew Sullivan here is "no."

(2) In one short post, former McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb manages to demonstrate that he (a) doesn't understand and/or believe in the First Amendment and (b) doesn't understand and/or recognize the difference between Al Qaeda and Hezbollah. None of those deficiencies is remotely unusual for The Weekly Standard.

(3) Greg Sargent notes and documents the surge in defense of Freeman by a wide range of commentators.

-- Glenn Greenwald

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March 3, 2009

Guadeloupe: Out of Sight But Not Out Of Mind

good background piece on the disturbances/uprising on the French Caribbean Island. The fear - as is mentioned - in numerous articles is `contagion'...ie that the anger and demonstrations will spread elsewhere in the French overseas territories and ultimately to metropolitan France where a general strike is planned for March 19.

These events are symbolic of the times. As the economic crisis deepens its impact on the world's economic periphery will be even more tragic than it is among the core countries. I'm hearing reports from India, of new millions thrown out of work - migrant workers with nowhere to go - much like China.

Concerning this piece on Guadeloupe - like in much of the Caribbean, just beneath the surface...there is too much blood in the soil and on occasion the ghosts of past massacres mix with their living real and spiritual descendants as they seem to be doing now in Guadeloupe. Powerful combination

click here for the full text

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March 1, 2009

1.

British Medical Journal `The Lancelot' To Publish Findings on Human Consequences of Israeli Invasion on Gaza

Thanks to Irving Greenbaum of Boulder for alerting me to this. Doubt such findings would appear in the Intermountain Jewish News. Too bad. I'd be curious to see if they could justify Israel's war in Gaza as `defensive'.

On 5 March 2009, a series on Palestinian health under occupation will be published by the highly-regarded scientific medical and public health journal, The Lancet. Although access to the journal is free, one must register first http://www.thelancet.com/series/ . I'll cover the series in The Lancelot as it unfolds.

Last month, The Lancet released the preliminary findings of two clinicians from the UK, Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah and Dr Swee Ang who had managed to get into Gaza during the Israeli invasion. (click here to read the preliminary findings). Their findings reveal an atrocity greater than any image can possibly convey and are a shocking revelation of just what was used by Israel in those fateful 22 days of precision bombing on Gaza. While there is plenty of evidence that white phosphorous was used, both doctors believe that the massive liver necrosis seen in patients cannot have been caused by white phosphorous alone. Furthermore, there is a real likelihood of toxic fumes from the white phosphorous residues that litter the entire Gaza Strip contaminating the air once it rains. They also found evidence of Tungsten DIME which truncates peoples' limbs without bleeding and the possibility of experimental weapons like the silent bombs that vaporise everything and everyone in the vicinity of where they explode. The use of such weapons would constitute crimes against humanity not seen since Agent Orange was used by the US during its war on Vietnam. These weapons do not just kill and maim people, but their effects are felt in the bodies of survivors and the environment long after the attacks have ceased with no known end time. Israel's targeting of Palestinians with such weapons is certainly contrary to the Geneva Convention, but also contrary to how we would expect a civilised army to behave, let alone the whole moral issue of subjecting any people to such atrocities.

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The findings reveal an atrocity greater than any image can possibly convey and are a shocking revelation of just what was used by Israel in those fateful 22 days of precision bombing on Gaza

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There are calls now, and actions being taken around the world, for prosecuting Israeli officials for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Already lawyers in France, Spain, Belgium, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon as well as international organisations are beginning to file complaints against Israeli officials. Amongst the names submitted to the International Criminal Court in the Hague to stand trial are Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai and IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, former IDF Chiefs of Staff Moshe Yaalon and Dan Halutz, former GOC Southern Command Doron Almog, former National Security Council Head Giora Eiland and Brigadier-General (Res.) Mike Herzog. US international law expert Francis Boyle has called for an Israeli War Crimes Tribunal (ICT) and has asked the UN General Assembly to "immediately establish an (ICTI) as a 'subsidiary organ' under UN Charter Article 22" similar to the Security Council's ICTY for Yugoslavia. Its purpose "would be to investigate and prosecute Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine." Legal proceedings are also being brought against the UK government over a breach of legal obligations in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory. As the evidence mounts, more petitions are likely to be filed.

A fact-finding mission of the League of Arab Nations to investigate war crimes committed by Israel has just concluded. It consisted of 6 international experts, including John Dugard, former UN Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and it has gathered evidence and eyewitnesses' testimonies for a report that will be submitted to the League.

2.

Avigail Abarbanel's Website

A new website by an Israeli ex-pat living in UK. Worth reading. (click here)

I am unfamiliar with her writing but she seems to know what she is talking about. Her insights about Israeli society (and its military) correspond to what other friends have been telling me who have been to Israeli recently. Again - thanks Irving G.

3. Arnie's Saga

I remain fascinated with Arnie Zaler's journey from SDS radical to Colorado's mini-Madoff. True he only scammed somewhere between $20-25 million - a mere pittance compared to the great one - Madoff - but in no ways pocket change either. Have discussed it with several other friends who are also taken by the story. The result is that I've added a few touches here and there to the `Arnie's Saga' below. Has gotten me thinking of those days more than I have for some time. It is not so much that I am thinking of him personally. More specifically, I am remembering - or trying to remember - the evolution of the peace movement (mostly around Vietnam, the development of the Chicano and Native American movements in those days) and Zaler's relationship with the Jewish Community throughout the decades.

What comes through is something like this...

A CU chapter developed in the late sixties under the leadership of John Buttney and Bruce Goldberg. There were others - a good dozen others that I knew and they will excuse me for not mentioning them by name. The SDS chapter split between those who went along with the Weathermen, including Buttney and those who didn't, including Goldberg. But by the fall of 1969 - when I entered graduate school at CU - the organization had lost its way. Zaler splits rather than wear the leadership mantel, too heavy for him to support. There was still an SDS chapter and members, but they never got it together. Into that vacuum came two organizations - the Student Peace Union, in which CU student body president Pat Stimer was a key player, and the Student Mobilization Committee - the SWP (Socialist Workers Party) front organization. There was a certain tension between these two but they were, together, key in the anti war activities that continued and built during the next academic year culminating in the student occupation of the Administration Building (which led to the calling out of the Colorado National Guard) in April and the complete closing of the campus - in response to the massive student mobilization accompanying the US invasion of Cambodia in late April - early May of 1970. An anti-war demonstration on the campus the first days of May - if I remember correctly - brought out 15000 students and faculty, one of the largest political demonstrations in the university's history. There was a similar upsurge at the University of Denver in those days - where students constructed a Tent City - on the site of what is now the library - only to have it dismantled by the Colorado National Guard - which was very busy in those years countering student activism.

After that, the anti-war movement on the campus ebbed some although it remained active until the war's end some five years later. SDS never recovered though. By 1971-1972 - for those of us who didn't have girl friends or boy friends with rich fathers - the discussion had shifted to which left group different activists would join...

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Feb 23, 2009

Arnie's Saga (2)

Note: I've received two emails with more details about Arnie Zaler, which I reprint here in full, both from people who knew him in his SDS days at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Jay Jurie and Paul Roasburry.

I inclued their comments below.

Jay Jurie writes...

When I first arrived at the University of Colorado in the late summer of 1969 to start my first year of college, my only acquaintances were a handful of high school classmates who had likewise just moved to Boulder. Aside from my hometown roommate, the rest of us were scattered across a large campus and only saw each other occasionally.

Though I did make a couple new friends, I felt isolated and lonely. One day when I was seated at the fountain area near the center of campus, a fellow student sidled over and struck up a conversation. In a while, it dawned on me he wasn't seeking to befriend, but was attempting to recruit me into the Campus Crusade for Christ. After telling him to get lost, I felt even more isolated and lonely, and somewhat cynical and distrustful.

A week or two later, I encountered a couple dozen students marching across campus. One of those in the lead waved his arm inclusively and said as he went past, "join us." This turned out to be Arnie Zaler. (For the full text click here)

Paul Roasberry writes...

Holy shit.

About three years ago I located Arnie on a Google search. We talked once or twice on the phone and made vague plans to meet up, but I never followed through. The website for his business, "Zaler's Meats," was filled with references to the fact that his father had been in the Navy in WWII, and the walls of the establishment were decorated with photos and memorabilia of his father's Navy experiences, which seemed to me a bit weird at the time (my own father was at Iwo Jima, but I don't make shrines to him). (For the full text click here)

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Feb 22, 2009

Arnie's Saga

1.
Arnie Zaler sits in a federal prison in Atlanta, waiting extradition back to Colorado sometime in the near future. A number of news agencies reported yesterday how Zaler was `met’ stepping off a plane from Tel Aviv in Atlanta by FBI and State Department representatives. Zaler, referred to as a `fugitive businessman’ was promptly arrested. Two (un-named) sources in Israel informed the Rocky Mountain News in recent weeks that they had been scammed by Zaler, the last in a long line of such victims. Not likely to happen again as I would expect that Arnie Zaler is going to spend a good portion of the rest of his life in prison.

Why am in interested in Zaler enough to write about him?

Simple. I knew him from his days as an SDS organizer on the University of Colorado Boulder Campus in the late 1960s. I watched with wonder as he morphed from a campus radical to co-director, along with his brother, of what was called in those days, the Colorado Zionist Federation, and then once again transformed himself into a `fugitive businessman’ and federally indicted - and convicted - convict. Quite a transition, and one that I do not fully understand, other than he seemed to have developed a pathological addiction to `making it’ big time and couldn’t seem to stop himself from repeating the same mistakes. As one friend apted put it `sounds like an excellent candidate for Israeli Prime Minister'.

My first memory of Arnie is quite vivid as it coincides with the first day I walked the University of Colorado Boulder Campus, sometime in March 1969, at the beginning of what is now my forty year sejour in the state. I was not there to demonstrate against the war in Vietnam but instead to find the Anthropology Department to inquire about its doctoral program. I had come to Boulder from Denver by bus, for the first time scaling the hill overlooking the town and the mountains with the university below. For a kid originally from Brooklyn, it was a memorable sight as was the campus itself, one of the more beautiful I’ve ever seen before or since and I’ve seen a fair number.

While reveling in the physical beauty of the place, and exploring the campus fountain area, not yet looking particularly diligently for the Anthropology Department, I ran into an anti war demonstration and march. The demonstration had started at the fountain area and - several thousand strong - made its way to Macky Auditorium to the north. Curious more than committed at the time, I joined in and followed them to see where it all might lead.

Once inside the auditorium, the `main show’ so to speak was none other than Arnie Zaler himself. There in front of a packed audience, Zaler, a Denver North High School Valedictorian from 1967, in classic vintage radical sixties form, took out his draft card and destroyed it. Not willing to do likewise, I was impressed by the courage of the act which - needless to say - brought an auditorium of cheers from the audience.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Arnie then went on to give a most moving speech - he was quite articulate - about how, not only would he refuse to serve US Imperialism in Vietnam, but that also, he was going to give up his white skin privilege as well. Again, the audience roared with approval. As for myself, I thought this a bit more difficult than burning his draft card and innocently wondered how could he change skin color. Would he become Black, Brown or Red I thought? I asked someone sitting next to me about how this might be accomplished. He didn’t appreciate the question.

Such was my introduction to Arnie Zaler and the University of Colorado at Boulder. Then as often happened with such events, I became completely bored with the proceedings, remembering I was on campus to find the Anthropology Department, got up and left wondering if Zaler could in fact change his skin color and thinking that this would be an interesting place to go to graduate school. I did see a picture of him in the Rocky Mountain News just after his last indictment (the one he skipped out on). Arnie looked fatter than I remember him but just as white; he was a handsome young man in his radical days.

A few months later when I started graduate work in Boulder, Zaler was gone. I don’t know if he graduated, left, was expelled. He seemed to leave CU just at a moment when he could have become a key leader in the student movement. Some of the earlier generation of SDS leaders were gone - John Buttney and Bruce Goldberg come to mind - banned from the university and facing federal indictments. A leadership vacuum followed into which Zaler could have easily stepped. But it seems he couldn't handle it, didn't know what to do or how to proceed because `way down deep' he had just come along for the radical ride, a good time - and when things got serious, Zaler got confused and got a-going. When a job opportunity presented itself - selling toys for a company run by a girl friend's father - he grabbed it, leaving his radical politics in the dust.

A few years later though found us both in Denver. I had lost track of him, but he surfaced as co-director of the Colorado Zionist Federation and as such, defended Israel - as did much of Denver’s Jewish Community - during the 1973 Middle East War. We spared a bit on that subject in the press as I remember and on several occasions he challenged me to debate on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

It didn’t happen although I can’t remember why.

What I do recall was thinking how already we were moving in different directions politically and wondering how it was that he had channeled his radicalism into defending Zionism and to make his peace with the establishment in Denver’s Jewish Community - who funded him - so quickly and thoroughly. As his family hailed from Denver, the city's Jewish Community knew him well too - far more intimately than myself actually - and it is they in large measure in later years whom Zaler milked and scammed rather thoroughly. For a while there, he was - like Rabbi Stephen Foster or Bruce Deboskey today - the main stream Jewish Community’s darling of the early 1970s. Among his projects, he spearheaded an effort to have a park named for Babi Yar - Ukrainian site of one of the Nazi’s crueler murder of several thousand Jews outside of Kiev. I visited that site (Babi Yar) in April of 1989 in association with a conference marking the third anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Denver's Jewish Community has supported Zaler throughout.

I cannot decide if this is a social version of a kind of `battered wife's syndrome' - ie - the more he scams them, the more they seem to love him' of if something else is going on. A vestige of his SDS days remains. In Arizona he spearheaded a campaign to make Martin Luther King's birthday a holiday. He does appear to have been something of an `equal opportunity scammer' - ripping off poor, middle class and some wealthy Jews alike although some of his more famous scams have included some of the more influential personalities in the community. But as one letter writer to the Rocky Mountain News noted (January 22, 2009) `After his conviction on fraud charges in Arizona, Zaler had many influential Denver Jewish leaders and members of the Jewish clergy intervene on his behalf. He used his religion to gain preferential treatment in prison and then early release from prison, falsely claiming he was orthodox when in fact he was not.' Then there is the fact that although he had surrendered his passport to the US District Court before his recent escape to Israel, that he was somehow able both to leave the country (forged papers?) and find solace in Israel. I don't claim to know how that happened, just think it rather curious that he was able to make his getaway so smoothly.

As he would later do in Arizonia, then in 1979 he made an unsuccessful run for the Denver City Council which I do recall. It seems a pattern began here. Losing the opportunity to skim or scam the public through political office, he turned to honing those skills in the private sector. Then he disappeared - at least from my radar screen - for a very long time. On occasion though I would wonder: what happened to Arnie Zaler and what is he up to these days?

About a year ago, I found out.

2.
A year ago, in February 2008, a federal grand jury had indicted Zaler for defrauding investors in Colorado. The 30 count indictment for bank, wire and mail fraud alleges Zaler, from mid-October 2005 through mid-January 2007, made false statements and promises in an attempt to defraud businesses that operated stadiums and arenas.

A Rocky Mountain News article by Sara Burnett published last year said that his kosher hot dogs were a fan favorite at Broncos’ and Rockies games. Riding on the popularity of his good hot dogs, he prepared false purchase orders, according to the indictment, to back up claims that his Zaler’s Kosher Meats had received orders for $2.2 million worth of hot dogs, and was thus a worth investment. The indictment alleges that Zaler falsified orders to sell hot dogs at the Pepsi Center, Invesco Field at Mile High, Coors Field and Super Target grocery stores. He then used the orders as credit to secure at least $2.2 million in loans from two investment companies and an individual investor, the indictment says.

Zaler had run into problems not long after taking over the family hot dog company in 2006. Accused of not following proper religious procedures, the family store, in business since 1913, Zaler’s Kosher Meats, lost its `kosher status’. Zaler protested, and a story about the controversy appeared in a number of issues of the Intermountain Jewish News, a Denver-based Jewish weekly. But Zaler’s problems had only begun and very soon thereafter he was hit by a federal indictment.

The Rocky article details how the scam allegedly worked:

“According to the indictment, Zaler began his scheme in October 2005. That month, he created a fake purchase order stating that Kroenke Sports Entertainment, which operates the Pepsi Center, had ordered more than $700,000 worth of hot dogs. He then told a New Jersey-based investment company that if it loaned him money, he would repay it with payments from Kroenke Sports.

Between 2005 and 2006, the investment company transferred about $469,000 into Zaler's bank account, the indictment says. The same scheme was used on other investors as well, the indictment says.” Pretty good scam as far as scams go. According to a story in the February 22, 2009 Jerusalem Post, one of Zaler's greatest accomplishment was `to rob a disabled woman of $100,000 who had just lost her daughter.' The same article also cites how in 1997, Zaler convinced a judge to delay his fraud trial by saying his father had just died - when the man was still very much alive.

At the time of his arraignment last year, with no apparent objection from prosecutors, federal magistrate Kathleen Tafoya agreed to let Zaler go free on an unsecured $25,000 bond, though he was required to forfeit his passport and temporary travel documents issued by Israel, and was ordered not to leave Colorado, but two months later, he managed to leave the country anyway and escape to Israel.

It was odd that Judge Tafoya would let Zaler off so easily as he already had a criminal record and had served time for similar activities in Arizona where he lived in the 1980s and 90s. While there he made an unsuccessful bid for political office. A web search suggests that in 1992 Zaler ran for the state legislature in Arizona and was able to raise $45,448 for the effort Perhaps some of Zaler’s old connections came into play here?

But his illicit business activities brought him down there too. Indicted on more than 50 counts the first time round, Zaler served prison time in the 1990s for an Arizona fraud conviction. Prosecutors say he ran a computer game business and bilked at least 15 investors out of more than $15 million. He was also charged with selling $35,000 in fake Arizona Cardinals and Phoenix Suns tickets. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison but was he was paroled in 2002, and moved back to Denver.

Arnie? What happened? Is it simply that - as that line in a John Foster song suggests that `way down deep you’re shallow' - as I suspect, or was it something else. Dunno.

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Feb 19, 2009

Guadeloupe... `They (the French) Want Beirut; They’ve Got Beirut’

As of this writing, the French island of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean appears to be in full revolt. Violent protests erupted against high prices and low wages there. Rioting broke out throughout the island several days ago and yesterday, one Jacques Bino, described in the mainstream press as `a union activist’ in his 50s’ became the first casualty. A number of police have been injured too, wounded in the crossfire. Bino was shot to death next to a roadblock set up by protesters, where armed youth and the police had exchanged gunfire. Local political leaders worry that the situation is spiraling out of control.

Negotiations with the French government did take place but then broke down, only increasing the frustrations and tensions. By last week the island, known as yet another one of those idyllic Caribbean retreats, was transformed into something approaching a war zone. There has been a wave of property damage - cars overturned, rock throwing, and dozens of other incidents. Earlier in the week, protesters set buildings and cars on fire, looted shops, smashed storefront windows and clashed with police in Point-a-Pitre and at least two other towns.

Thousands of tourists have also fled the island and neighboring Martinique

In the southern coastal town of Sainte-Anne, youths forced their way into the city hall and occupied it. As often happens in countries so heavily reliant on tourism, the violence has led thousands of tourists to cancel vacations on both Guadeloupe and Martinique, this at the height of the tourist season. Roadblocks have been set up by demonstrators all over the country, including several barring access to the country’s airport, preventing tourists from leaving.

Besides Bino’s death, at least 39 persons have been detained by the island’s police force which has been beefed up by the addition of another 500 French policemen, flown in by helicopter from other French possessions in the region (French Guyana, St. Maarten’s, Martinique). The French government appealed for calm as the protestors on the island open fired on the police and set up road blocks and barrier throughout the island.“They want Beirut”, one protester told Liberation newspaper (one of France’s largest), `they’ve got Beirut’.

The deeper concern is that the crisis will be contagious enough to spark similar upsurges in France itself, where only three weeks ago no less than 2.5 million (yep `million) people took to the streets of France's cities and towns to protest Sarkozy's recovery plan for not taking into consideration the needs and fears of France's working class and poor. The demonstrations were so angry that it pressured the President to add another 1.1 Billion Euros for social projects in addition to the 27 Billion Euros his government had already alloted to address the crisis. Chances are he'll have to address the grievances of the Guadeloupeans in a similar vein or else face dire consequences. So...perhaps the idea that politics can not be made on the streets is not as obsolete as some would have us believe.

Poverty...

The social conflict in Guadaloupe escalated in recent days from peaceful protests against the growing poverty of the islands inhabitants to armed confrontation with the authorities. There are fears that the unrest could spill over into nearby French possessions and to mainland France as well. A similar strike, with similar demands, started more than a week ago on the the neighboring French island of Martinique, which like Guadeloupe is hugely popular with mainland French tourists seeking tropical winter sun. Until now the Martinique protests have not turned violent.

The Guadeloupe events need to be understood in their global context, as a part of a fast escalating level of global poverty. As Immanuel Wallerstein points out in a recent commentary:

"...there is less and less money for daily consumption of all kinds for the bottom 90% of the world's population (and it's not so good for the top 10%). People are getting restless. Just in the last month, we have seen people in the streets protesting economic difficulties in a growing number of countries - Greece, Russia, Latvia, Great Britain, France, Iceland, China, South Korea, Guadeloupe, Reunion, Madagascar, Mexico - and probably a lot more that haven't been noticed by the world press. In fact, it's been relatively mild up to now, but the governments are all on edge.’"

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Just in the last month, we have seen people in the streets protesting economic difficulties in a growing number of countries - Greece, Russia, Latvia, Great Britain, France, Iceland, China, South Korea, Guadeloupe, Reunion, Madagascar, Mexico - and probably a lot more that haven't been noticed by the world press. In fact, it's been relatively mild up to now, but the governments are all on edge

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Protests like those in the Caribbean have also taken place in the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, also a French territory, Haunted by the May 1968 social uprising as well as mass protest movements that brought France to a standstill both in 1995 and 2006, the Sarkozy Government in Paris is on edge. Paris is scrambling to defuse the situation before it spreads and hits home. It is interesting, almost amusing, to watch Sarkozy, whom I would describe as France's version of Bush, a French neo-con, in the end an arrogant little twirp who wanted to crush with force the demonstrations for jobs and better edcuation in Paris' mostly North African suburbs, squirming for his political life now, and transformed by the global crisis into something of a Keynesian, forced to make major concessions to French labor and left sentiment at home, and now shivering in his overpriced Hong Kong tailored suits over rebellions in France's Caribbean `departments'.

The violence in Guadeloupe comes as a culmination of a general strike now five weeks in during, which essentially paralyzed the island. It begun on January 20 against the island’s high living costs, low wages and growing unemployment only now aggravated by the global downturn. Paris has refused to bow to strikers' demands for a $250 monthly pay raise for low-wage workers.

In response to the economic crisis there, a movement led by an umbrella group calling itself the `Collective Against Extreme Exploitation’ , a coalition of unions and leftist groups, came into being, calling for increased state aid from France to improve wages and working conditions. Claiming that their concerns have been ignored by Paris for many years, the protestors want the French government to subsidize wage increases and institute price controls, prices having been kept high by the island’s long-standing monopolies, some dating from the colonial era.

“Legally, Guadeloupe is as French as the Gironde.” a recent on-line article from The Economist recounts. It is to France akin to what Hawaii is to the United States, formally incorporated although geographically separated from Paris. `Fly in from former British colonies like Dominica or St Lucia’ - the piece continues - `and Guadeloupe looks a model of prosperity and, normally, good order. Schools, hospitals and salaries meet French standards.’

But prices are up to 30% higher than in France, says a businessman in Martinique. Even milk, cheese and lettuce are freighted across the Atlantic. Unemployment stands at 22% - against around eight percent on mainland France, while gross domestic product per person here is just 60 percent of the French average. Yet the French West Indies are much richer than their neighbors in the Caribbean, with which they have few economic, political or cultural links. France subsidizes flights to its departments in the Caribbean in the interests of national cohesion, and provides the same public services to residents there.

All indications are that Guadeloupe has rich agricultural potential and could easily produce a wide variety of agricultural products that would make the island self sufficient. But in order to do so it needs some protection from the cheaper agricultural imports from France that flood its market at cheaper prices than Gualeloupean (suppose that would be the correct term) farmers could produce. But forced-fed the produce from French agribusiness has driven many local producers out of business. Similar results have been triggered in other Caribbean islands - Jamaica comes to mind - whose agricultural sectors were forced open by IMF structural adjustment programs, giving a field day to more cheaply produced industrial farmed products, undermining the local farming sectors.

"Unemployment here is the third highest in the European Union. Away from the luxury hotels and resorts there is a severe economic situation that has angered a lot of people." Underlying much of the unrest in Guadeloupe and Martinique is anger within the local Afro-Caribbean community - many of whom are descendants of slaves brought to the island by France - that the vast majority of wealth and land remain in the hands of colonial descendants. Local white businessmen are blamed for the high prices.

A History of Racism

On both Guadeloupe and Martinique, the economy is largely in the hands of the "Bekes," the local name for a tiny white minority who are mostly the descendants of colonial landlords and sugar plantation slave owners of the 17th and 18th centuries. The islands have the same supermarket chains that are found on mainland France, but they charge higher prices for the same goods. "There is a monopoly problem, that of an insular economy which is the heir to colonial trading posts," said the French minister of overseas affairs, Yves Jego.

"A caste holds economic power and abuses it," said Christiane Taubira, a French member of parliament for the overseas department of French Guyana on the south American continent. She warned Sunday that the situation in Guadeloupe was "not far from social apartheid" but added that "the leaders of the LKP are not anti-white racists.

"They are exposing a reality," she told Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper. Rama Yade, the only black minister in President Nicolas Sarkozy's right-wing government, said that over and above the problem of the cost of living, there is "a problem with the distribution of wealth" on the islands.

Guadeloupe: On the Global Periphery...

Guadeloupe is a classic case of a peripheral economy.

The main sources of wealth are tourism, agriculture, light industry and services. The traditional sugar cane is slowly being replaced by other agricultural products including bananas, ,eggplant, guinnep, noni, sapotilla, paroka, pikinga, giraumon squash, yam, gourd, plantain, christophine, monbin, prunecafé, cocoa, jackfruit, pomegranate, and many varieties of flowers. Other vegetables and root crops are cultivated for local consumption, although Guadeloupe is still dependent on imported food, mainly from France.

Guadeloupe remains one of France’s few remaining colonies in the world and is considered an integral part of France, one of 26 departments (French word for state or province) that has this status. The island’s population of less than 500,000 (as of 2006) consists mostly of former African slaves but includes significant French and Indian (from India) elements as well as some others, Lebanese/Syrians and Chinese.

Unfortunately, the island often finds itself in the path of some of the worst hurricanes to hit the Americas, among them the 1989, category 4 hurricane Hugo which caused extensive damage, left more than 35,000 homeless, destroyed 10,000 homes, 100 percent of the banana crops and 60 percent of the sugarcane crops.

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Feb 16, 2009

Tom Bernard: Another Friend Dies...

One of my daughters, Abbie, commented recently that so many of my stories end in death. It's not that I'm a pessimist, just a little sad. But then, that's how it ends, doesn't it? And then we pass the baton. These days friends and companeros of old seem to be exiting the scene in great numbers. We're supposed to live into our late 70s, early 80s, not leaving in our mid or late fifties. Ah but as a great sage frequently said ...`you make a plan for life (or death) and then life (or death) makes a plan for you.

Mostly, like Tom Bernard, I haven't seen them in years. And yet I feel cheated, almost betrayed, that they are leaving me now to face the future without them even though they're no longer a part of my daily life and haven't been for years. Still there was something soothing in knowing simply that they are out there SOMEWHERE, wherever...doing good deeds. And when I read or hear how another one has slipped away, I cannot begin to explain the degree to which it saddens me and makes me feel just a little bit lonelier. And all I can do is write a few insipid words acknowledging their passing, words that do not do justice to the richness and generosity of spirit of their lives.

And here's another one, I guess, Abbie.

I learned about a month ago of the death of Tom Bernard - who spent a fair part of his adult life here in Denver (70s and 80s) before moving on to the great Northwest. For a good part of the time when my family lived in Finland in the late 1980s, Tom managed the affairs of our house, helping our dear lawyer and friend Rudy Schware with the chore.

I knew him pretty well - the left in Denver was never that big and leftists working in the labor movement few and far between. Leftists working effectively in the labor movement were even rarer. Tom's life as an organizer touched two great social movements of our time - the movement against the war in Vietnam and the labor movement. Tom was a key player in both - and in both - he played hard ball so to speak and the work he did was dangerous and required great courage and skill. He had both qualities. Tom organized units of the military intelligence detachment he worked with (flying AWACs) to go on strike against the US invasion of Cambodia. He was lucky to come out of that 1. alive 2. without serving much time in prison. His experiences as anti war activist within the military are touched upon in `Sir, No Sir' , a dvd about anti-war organizing by the soldiers, sailors and air men who fought the war in Vietnam and opposed it. Theirs was a much harder and more dangerous form of activism than that of civilians marching and protesting in this country's streets. It is a pretty powerful dvd. He continued organizing serving military folk here in Denver where, with a group of intrepid ex-military friends he organized both in Denver and in Colorado Springs.

When I knew him, he went from job to job, and in one of those jobs - with UPS - he joined the Teamsters' Union. It was as corrupt a union as this country has ever produced by the time Tom got involved. Reforming it, democratizing it was not the stuff for people with weak stomachs. But he was a part of that movement that actually cleaned up the union from within and cleansed its leadership. One easily lose one's life pursuing such noble goals and how close he came to being offed by union hired goons is a story yet to be told - and I hope one of my friends, closer to the action than myself - will someday tell the tale.

He was some kind of socialist - if I remember right he was with the International Socialists...whatever. `In the struggle' - as we used to refer to our social movements...we were on the same team. It makes me sick to think of all the hair splitting differences - most of them profoundly irrelevant - that separated us.

Of course it's impossible to measure such things, but a few of us old codgers - talking about Bernard's passing - rated him as among the best left organizers - if not THE best - of our era. He was extraordinary, nothing less. He set a very high standard...and his relatives came from Malta and he studied a year at Cornell!

May he rest in peace.

Below are two obituaries written about him, the first from The Oregonian, the second from one of the producers (I believe) of Sir! No Sir

1. Obituary in The Oregonian

Somewhere, maybe in Vietnam, Tom Bernard learned to turn his innate gift for gab into the art of making true connections with people. It served Tom well in all he did, as a spy in Vietnam, as an anti-war activist, as a union reformer and organizer, as a husband, father, grandfather and friend.

Tom's talent for talking came early. He was born into a large, extended, multilingual family in Michigan. Every Sunday was spent with his Maltese grandparents enjoying large dinners such as baked ziti or stuffed artichokes, the adults eating upstairs, the children in the basement. After dinner, the neighbors came over, rugs were rolled up for dancing, and his grandfather Romeo Bernardo served everyone his homemade apricot brandy.

Tom went to Catholic schools, was an altar boy, took 12 years of Latin and attended Cornell University. It was the late 1960s, war was raging in Vietnam and the specter of the draft stalked him. After a little more than a year at Cornell, he decided to enlist in the Air Force before he was drafted into the Army.

His father had served in World War II, and his grandfather had earned his citizenship by serving in World War I.
Tom scored so well on the language tests that he was sent to El Paso, Texas, to learn Vietnamese. For two years, he flew over Vietnam, encapsulated in a C-131, listening in on and translating Viet Cong broadcast conversations. When their planes were detected, the pilots went into an immediate, terrifying nose dive to escape under the radar.

Later, he sometimes jokingly summarized the years as, "There was always plenty of cigarettes and plenty of marijuana." But the truth was uglier. He saw and heard things that changed him. He said the translators got to recognize the voices they were listening to. Knowing firsthand how civilian centers were targeted and hospitals were being bombed, he said, he and others decided to dedicate themselves to ending what they viewed was a criminal war. He helped create WORMS (We Openly Resist Military Stupidity).

The first thing he did back in the States was to make an appointment with his congressman about the war.

Then, he joined a friend in Denver and worked with the Pacific Counseling Service. He became a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He was director of the Colorado Peace Network and of the Draft and Military Counseling Center. He demonstrated, organized and lectured. He was sent to Japan and Thailand to counsel GIs and to help them get out of the military. He could talk to the GIs; he took time to find connections that encouraged people to open their hearts to him.
After the war, he returned to Denver and took a job as a UPS driver. Quickly and inevitably, he became active in the Teamsters Union. He was elected an officer and then became a founding member of Upsurge, a Teamster reform organization. It was a rough-and-tumble era of Teamster politics, and Tom was in the thick of it all. Organized crime had infiltrated the union and didn't want to give up its power. Tom was beaten up, a bomb was planted in the exhaust pipe of his car (it was a botched job and fizzled out), and the FBI knocked on his door to tell him to be careful, that he was on a Teamster hit list.

He lost his job at one point when charges were leveled against him (they were later rescinded), and he spent a year delivering newspapers in the morning and pizzas at night. He was reinstated and rose up the ladder in union work.
At a union conference in Vancouver, B.C., he met Helen Lee, who was then director of Evergreen State College Labor Education Center. They fell in love, and he moved to Olympia with her. They later lived in Oakland, Calif., before moving to Portland in 2005.

Tom and Helen were hired by Local 5017, the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, she as an external organizer, he as an internal organizer.

He came with more than 200 contract negotiations under his belt and a year ago negotiated the contract for registered nurses at Providence Milwaukie Medical Center.

He took to Portland like a born duck. He always loved food and immediately found Esparza's, Pok Pok and Bob's Red Mill. Soon, he knew every good restaurant in Portland and loved surprising the staffs of Vietnamese and Thai restaurants by speaking to them in their native tongues.

He had given up smoking in 1991, and after a heart attack in 1993, he changed his diet and tried to keep his weight down. It was a struggle. He joined Bally and 24-Hour Fitness but wasn't exactly a regular at either.

He was an inveterate sports fan, loyal to the teams of any city he lived in and was soon cheering on the Trail Blazers.
He worked fervently on the Obama campaign and became interested in the plight of the homeless in Portland. He hung out at Sisters of the Road Cafe. In a short time, he amassed a large group of friends from all facets of Portland life. Sometimes, he would tease them, talking to them in a Donald Duck voice or in pretend foreign languages. But always, he listened first, and whether it was sports or food or grandchildren, he always found a common bond.

Tom died suddenly Dec. 27, 2008, in the holiday snow, of another heart attack.

His friends and family gathered at the Clinton Street Theater to honor him. People came from across the country. They were all close to Tom; he had taken the time

2. Tribute to Tom Bernard from Dick Zeigler of Sir! No Sir

I met Tom while filming Sir! No Sir! in what I later learned was a typical “Tom” way. I’ll never forget the email I got out of the blue from this guy I had never heard of, telling me simply that he had been part of an extremely significant group that had to be part of this film. They had never told their story publicly, and in fact had been threatened with prosecution for treason if they ever did. I was certainly intrigued, and soon Tom and I were friends.

Several months and a couple of failed attempts later, I found myself in a house with Tom and three other courageous, exemplary members of the WORMS–We Openly Resist Military Stupidity.

One of the most thrilling aspects of the GI Movement during the Vietnam War was its ubiquitous nature. In every corner of the military, everywhere on the planet, GIs found creative, stunning ways to rebel. Even if no one outside their individual unit knew they existed, they became part of an elegant tapestry of chaos and resistance.

And none were more elegant than the WORMS. Trained in Vietnamese, they were part of an ultra-secret unit that flew over North Vietnam intercepting communications from the “enemy,” and translating them for the Pentagon to use in planning military strategy. As Tom described it to me, they began developing an almost personal relationship with the voices they were hearing, and soon knew that the real “enemy” was not the people they were listening to, but their own bosses. Knowing firsthand how civilian centers were targeted and hospitals were being bombed, they decided to dedicate their lives toward ending that criminal war.

As they told me their story, the depth of their humanity and courage shown through–and I knew Tom had not exaggerated their significance. Finding themselves in a critical position for the war effort, they developed creative, challenging, fun(that was a requirement!), and profoundly effective ways of resisting. Their impact was far greater than they or anyone else knew.

I don’t know much about Tom’s life after Vietnam, but I do know that–as is true for thousands–those years as a GI resister informed all of it. I know that he never gave up his determination to change the world and his sense of purpose that was born with the WORMS.

My heart goes out to his wonderful wife, Helen, and their family. I will never forget Tom, and am very grateful to have known him the brief time I did.

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Feb 15, 2009

Letters to the Intermountain Jewish News: Re - Farer and Prince

Note: I enclose copies of letters sent to the Intermountain Jewish News in response to a letter to the editor by Dick Wisott labeling Dean Tom Farer and myself anti-Israel and `Israel bashers'. (see below). Don't know if the paper will print them. I thank those who took the time to respond. rjp

1.

To the Intermountain Jewish News,

Among Jews, it is an old tradition that some blindly defend the powers that be and denounce others who are said not to be Jews. Thus, Amaziah against Amos or Isaiah. The latter who are also Jews speak the truth – those things which the powerful refuse to acknowledge. Looking back, it is not hard to sympathize with Isaiah and Amos.

Dick Wisott says that two of my colleagues and friends are anti-Israel without giving a single argument that any judgment in the columns is wrong. Is it wrong to say that Gaza is not a state, but a kind of outdoor prison? Or that Israel alone has an army and air power to carry out terrible carnage against the inhabitants? Or that the civilians only crime was the status of being Palestinian as the innocents in the Warsaw ghetto the crime of being Jewish?

Hamas has fired rockets into Israel and killed civilians. In the recent exchange, it murdered 7, including a 7 year old boy. Some large number of Palestinian children, perhaps 300 were murdered by Israeli weaponry, and many more injured. If we see that every child, Jewish and non-Jewish, is of equal value and holy, and pray that they may be spared from slaughter, can we as human beings and as members of a people who suffered pogroms and the holocaust, not speak the truth? When Tom Farer asks whether there was not some alternative to this wanton killing by the occupying power, he offers several options for a decent Israeli government policy. Are these not worthy of consideration? How are any of them “anti-Israel”? If Mr. Wisott offered a single fact or reason against any of these arguments, one might be able to see whether Tom’s particular options are plausible or implausible. He doesn’t. For now, the words of Amaziah are, sadly, his.

Alan Gilbert, John Evans Professor, Josef Korbel School of Intenritonal Studies, University of Denver

2.

I want to thank Dick Wisott for calling my attention to the good work that Rob Prince and Tom Farer are doing to lift up a more accurate picture of Israel's mistaken policy and behavior (that is supported in knee jerk fashion by the United States through political pressure from AIPAC). It is refreshing to know that there are many Jews, perhaps a majority, who do not accept those policies of the Israeli government and the radical imperialist militarists driven by ideology rather than true peace making and truth telling. Thank God for these two scholars, courageous enough not to be cowed by the kind of pressure AIPAC brings and I am sure will continue bring to bear on them. Too many truly wise and informed scholars have lost their jobs and been maligned for bringing the truth to the table.

I have always admired the genius of the Jewish faith in all its sacred literature in preserving a strong self critical aspect in all things, preserving the David and Bathsheba story along with the murder of Uriah, all the debate about whether or not to have a king, and all the prophetic judgment about how Israel fell from the covenant and so gave meaning to the exile. That literature helped to form my own understanding of my Christian faith. But AIPAC doesn't get it. To examine the uncomfortable truth about anything is to be faithful to God and not to be anti-Semitic or self hating. Farer and Prince are faithful Jews as well as honest scholars. Amen

Bob Kinsey (note: Kinsey was the Green Party candidate for the US Senate in the 2008 elections. He got more than 50,000 votes)
303-949-4073

3.

To the Editor:

Thanks to Dick Wisott and the Intermountain Jewish News for presenting some of Tom Farer and Rob Prince's perspectives regarding Israel and Gaza. (letters, February 13 edition) Dick's contribution to a dialog on whether Israeli actions help or hinder the search for peace and security would have been greater if he had engaged with Farer and Prince's views. Instead, he merely denounced them. This adds only heat, not light.

Joel Edelstein, Ph.D.
Professor of Political Science, Emeritus
University of Colorado, Denver

4.

To the editors:

This is in response to Dick Wisott's letter in the Intermountain Jewish News. Mr. Wisott, the time has passed when all criticisms of Israeli policy can be silenced by simply labeling the critics as anti-Israel, as you do in "Beware anti-Israel professors at DU." These days you actually need to address the criticisms. When the International Red Cross is moved to public rebuke over Israel's actions in Gaza, and senior UN officials, as well as such respected human rights groups as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Israel's own B'Tselem have called for an investigation into possible war crimes, Israel's supporters in this country must pay attention. To encourage the violence with which Israel maintains its occupation of Gaza and the West Bank is not to support Israel since these tactics are, in the first place, immoral, and in the second unsustainable.

Juliet Wittman
7241 South Boulder Road
Boulder, Colorado 80303

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Feb 14, 2009

Dean Tom Farer and Rob Prince Attacked as `Israel Bashers' and `anti-Israel' in the Intermountain Jewish News

Note: I've been criticized, attacked before in the media - but never in the same breath as my dean, Tom Farer. The comments came in a letter to the editor in the new issue of the Intermountain Jewish News. A letter to the editor appeared in the paper's most recent edition written by one Dick Wisott, entitled `Beware of Anti-Israel Professors At DU'. Dean Farer and myself are featured. Together! It has not (yet) appeared in the on-line version, but it is there in the printed version of the last issue which some friends received yesterday in the mail. Compared to some, it's pretty mild, old hat kind of criticisms - and to give the writer (don't know him) credit - he got his quotes from our op eds accurately enough.

My first impression is that that criticism was written by someone who attended a panel discussion at the Korbel School held on January 22 in which Dean Farer, Dr. Josef Szyliowicz and myself - all Jewish it turns out - participated. While there were some disagreements about the role of oil in US Middle East Policy and the failure or lack there of the Bush Administration's `War on Terrorism', all three of us showed some level of support for the Saudi Peace Proposal as a basis for moving forward and resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There was one man in the audience, looked to be about my age, dressed informally (blue jeans), longish hair, but seemed uncomfortable and took alot of notes. Don't know if it was Wisott - and if it was, that is fine...glad he was in attendance actually. I wish there were more like him in the audience.

In any case...

But after reading the letter in the IJN I think it is probably more someone who read my op ed `Blind In Gaza' which appeared in both the Rocky Mountain News and the Boulder Daily Camera in early January. Tom Farer's piece appeared at about the same time in the national blog `Huffington Post'. Of course there is no discussion in the criticism of Farer and Prince of the ideas put forth, just the usual cheap and empty character assassination and whines that we are `anti-Israel' and `Israel bashers'.

A brief goggle search was interesting:

Wisott, retired in 2000, was a senior VP of ING Security Life, in charge of Senior Markets at the financial services firm. Don't know where he counseled seniors to invest. Wisott apparently is someone familiar with the University of Denver. He is described as `an avid member of the University of Denver's VIVA! program.' (For $100 a quarter, people age 55 or older can take unlimited classes in topics ranging from economics and philosophy to golf and music.) Wisott also audits DU's regular classes. "You can audit any class but computers and languages for $25," he is quoted as saying on a website.

Interestingly enough his work with seniors continued after retirement. He founded and heads Seniors Inc, a group that lobbies for Colorado - and the nation's senior citizens. In this capacity he felt that AARP sold out seniors in the drug prescription deal. A piece which he apparently co-authored on the subject appeared on Alternet. It was pretty good. (click here) I happen to agree with him on that one and think about it every time I have to buy drugs for my 90 year old mother with Alzheimers - what a rip off the drug plan was/is. I have to wonder if he isn't a part of a circle that does fine work for the elderly centering around a certain former ADL-Colorado director who has similar interests.

My hunch is that other than our differences on Israel and Palestine - that we'd agree on many other issues. That is one of the tragedies of this issue, the way it divides many potential allies and friends. I wouldn't be surprised - I don't know - if he is a liberal democrat in the main. Wisott's portrait is common to me - I find here in Colorado more often not, the most zealous defenders of the Zionist faith are liberal Dems, the true believers - they represent AIPAC's and the ADL's backbone in Colorado and I would imagine to a great extent elsewhere. They don't respond on this issue with responses of substance, ie - counter the arguments presented by Farer or me - but, led by the likes of Abe Foxman and Alan Deshowitz, - intellectual thugs of national prominence - simply resort to cheap personal slander.

So, Mr. Wisott - did Israel commit war crimes or not in Gaza? Is Gaza, as Farer argued in his piece in Huffington Post, an open air prison or not?

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So, Mr. Wisott - did Israel commit war crimes or not in Gaza? Is Gaza, as Farer argued in his piece in Huffington Post, an open air prison or not?

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I received a copy of Wisott's letter from a Jewish friend who gets the paper although she has never subscribed to it and wondered why it was that she receives it at all.

Her email was amusing.

It started by saying `Have you seen the letter from someone named Dick Wisott to the editor of the Intermountain Jewish News this week (Feb. 23)? The letter writer calls you and Dean Farer "anti-Israel" and "Israel bashers" for your writings on Israel's injustices in Gaza.

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The letter writer calls you and Dean Farer "anti-Israel" and "Israel bashers" for your writings on Israel's injustices in Gaza

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It (the email) ends with the note: `keep up the good work'.

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Keep up the good work!

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I enclose as attachments 3 pieces

1. The said letter to the editor in the Intermountain Jewish News. (click here)

2. Dean Tom Farer's piece in Huffington Post. (click here)

3. My piece - which I entitled `Blind In Gaza' which was published in full with title in the Boulder Daily Camera and slightly edited without the title in the Rocky Mountain News (click here)

Here is the note I sent to some friends with copies of the IJN piece:

This is something new… not being attacked…but being attacked in the same breath as my dean, Tom Farer, at the Korbel School of International Studies. The letter appeared in the printed version of the Intermountain Jewish News; it is not, it appears, on the website

If you are so inclined, suggest you respond with an email/fax…to

email@ijn.com

(303) 861-2234 (phone)

(303) 832-6942 (fax)


Cheers

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Feb 13, 2009

Israel's Death Laboratory

The above piece, written by Conn Hallinan, discusses Israel's use of exotic and new deadly weapons in its recent war in Baza. There was some mention of these weapons in the media (Democracy Now at least). This article goes into this morbid subject in more depth

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Feb 12, 2009

Death of Fran Macy, Peace Corps Tunisia Director 1966-8

"Francis Macy , a dedicated environmentalist, energy activist and citizen diplomat, whose ground-breaking work inspired fresh collaborative ventures with the former Soviet Union, died unexpectedly of an apparent heart attack in Berkeley on January 20th at age 81." Thus begins an obituary for Francis Underhill Macy. It ends with the following: "He died hours after watching with great joy the inauguration of President Barack Obama, an event he described as a high point in his life." In between is a sketch of a life of quality and service. (for the full obituary click here).

If I write about Fran Macy it is because our lives and that of his wife, Joanna, crossed in Tunisia 43 years ago where he was the country's Peace Corps director, a position he held most of the time I was there. Years later - in the early 1980s - I had the good fortune to re-connect with his wife Joanna, who had become a Buddhist, and a kind of spiritual leader in the movement known as the `The Freeze' - the movement to freeze the production of both US and Soviet nuclear arsenals. She was a keynote speaker at a peace conference at George Washington High School here in Denver and gave a powerful speech that included asking everyone to hold hands. Then she asked the audience to imagine their friend to the left or to the right vaporized by a nuclear blast. I found the whole thing rather hokey actually, but when I turned to Nancy, she was in tears and deeply shaken as were others in the audience. Other than an old cynic like myself, she had touched a deep chord in the audience.

Joanna's performance that day aside, I saw the Macys only once in the 41 years since leaving Tunisia, that was in Moscow in the late 1980s. I was there for a peace conference and so was Fran. It was during the Gorbachev period and Fan was busy leading delegations of Americans to Moscow - if I recall correctly - to explore joint venture possibilities. We spoke briefly. He didn't remember me at first but then I refreshed his memory and something came back. I remember he was a bit uneasy. It is true that in Tunisia we weren't that close. He was dealing with a rough and irreverent group of volunteers and Joanna, well Joanna was `trying to find herself'. She eventually did and then some but those Tunisia years found her a bit lost and at sea. Ours - I was a part of a very large Peace Corps group of teachers and architects - was a group made up to a very great extent of young men preferring the warm Mediterranean climate of Tunisia to the jungles of Vietnam. I don't know of any of the males in the group who were not - in some way - draft dodgers, although perhaps there were. The women were different - they were a bunch of hardy, indepedent spirited types - extraordinarily so - among the strongest, most fearless women I had run into up until then. Not a draft dodger among them.

It is true that our group made life a bit difficult for Fran Macy. As mentioned below, we greeted a visit to Tunisia by then Vice President Hubert Humphrey with an anti-war petition signed by more than 250 volunteers. Several of us demonstrated for the first time in our lives against the war in Vietnam, not in New York or Washington, but in Tunis! Phil Jones and I went to a reception at the US Embassy with anti-war placards under our sportscoats. When we took them out, Humphrey was quickly hushed away from the scene as was everyone else, leaving Jones and I alone in the Embassy garden. We left our anti-war signs in the branches of an orange tree. Mine said `Napalm Kills Babies' or something brilliant along those lines. I have heard since that it also kills adults. Then Jones and I walked away. As Humphrey left Tunisia from the airport he was greeted by another Peace Corps Volunteer friend - Dan Cetinich - who hollered `Humphrey Murderer' at the good Vice President who was still in a state of shock from the little embassy protest. Dan, who had been `free-lancing' - he hadn't told any of `us' - his friends what he was up to - was arrested and spent a few days in a Tunisian jail and was then released. We thought a number of us would be expelled from the country and the program - Macy was pretty embarrased by these events - but nothing happened. Macy easily could have had us expelled. He didn't. The authorities were especially suspicious of him because he had studied Russian literature. Tunisian students at the University of Tunis also demonstated against Humphrey's visit - and the US war in Vietnam. They paid a much harsher price for their activism though with several being killed in police riots that went on for days. Dozens were convicted and spent years in prison.

That was in February of 1968 just after the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. The Peace Corps demonstrations against the Vietnam War which were spontaneously organized in Tunisia, also broke out in Morocco, and Senegal and were gleefully reported in the French Press. It all looked `coordinated' but the fact of the matter is that we in Tunisia knew no one in Peace Corps in Morocco or Senegal and that there was very little planning, just spontaneous protest about a horrific war the United States was perpetrating against an etire nation...in the name of fighting communism. It was only decades later that I stumbled upon a reference to Humphrey's visit to Tunisia. It was a part of a larger tour the Vice President was making to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. At the same time that Humphrey was on tour, Dean Rusk had been sent out to Asia. The mission of the two was to find out how US allies would respond to the Johnson Administration's use of nuclear weapons agains the Vietnamese. Both Humphrey and Rusk were greeted by large, angry antiwar demonstrations virtually everywhere they went. No US ally supported the US moving to `the nuclear option'. These leaders went further - they insisted that if the United States used nuclear weapons in Vietnam that not even close US allies could insure the stability of US interests in their country, including I was told informally Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba. The negative feedback hamstrung Lyndon Johnson's efforts to escalate the war to the nuclear level. Shortly thereafter unable to either escalate or defuse the US war in Vietnam, Johnson announced that he would not seek another term for the presidency.

Macy was something less than pleased with our anti-war activism which put him in a difficult position. And it is true, I must admit, that by then, frankly, we - those of us who were activists in this campaign - didn't really care. We had lived through the 1967 Middle East War - which triggered riots and intense social unrest in Tunisia' we had come to have a rather cynical view of `our mission'; we could not - or at least many of us could not - reconcile our peace making in Tunisia with Washington's war in Vietnam. By the time our stay was over, whatever innocence we brought with us to Tunisia, had disappeared forever. For many of us, myself included, it was take years to process what it was we had seen, heard, experienced in Tunisia - a country not long independent from French Colonialism, in neighboring Algeria which has suffered one of the most painful wars of the 20th Century, generally not known to Americans. And it was not only the social processes in North Africa that we tried to absorb. Back in the United States Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated while we were in Tunisia. We followed the intense rioting that followed King's death - the angry turn in the Civil Rights Movement at home, the lightening quick evolution of the student anti-war movement, etc etc. For many of us, life back in the United States appeared rather shallow, just one vast and spiritually empty suburb from New York to San Francisco. In my life, it marked a certain and irreversible turn to the Left...

Fran and Joanna Macy were there through most of it. They could have been a great deal harsher - not that we could have easily been disciplined. But they weren't. And for that I am grateful. Fran went on - as the obituary details - to live a full, productive and humane life with great interest in both the environment and nuclear disarmament.

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Feb 10, 2009

Jody Olsen Named Acting Peace Corps Director

"Jody K. Olsen was named Acting Director of the Peace Corps Sunday, January 25, 2009. Dr. Jody K. Olsen was asked this week by President-elect Obama's transition team to serve as acting director of the Peace Corps, effective as of noon on Tuesday, January 20, 2009. Dr. Olsen will assume the role of acting director until President Obama's Administration selects an individual to assume the role of director. "I am honored by the trust the transition team has placed in me, and grateful to be representing the Peace Corps, one of America's finest agencies." said Dr. Olsen. "From the time I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia up until now in my role as acting director, it has truly been a privilege to serve the agency." Dr. Olsen has had a long and distinguished career with the Peace Corps, beginning as a Volunteer in Tunisia from 1966 to 1968, teaching English and developing community health programs."

This news came from an informal national list `Friends of Tunisia' which mostly consists of return Peace Corps Volunteers like myself. Why put it up on the blog? Because Jody and her then hubbie Bob served in the Peace Corps in Tunisia the same years that I did 1966-1968. Ours was a rather large group, as I recall more than 300 all tolled, and I didn't know Jodie (or Bob) that well. We were also a rather wonderfully irreverent group that among other things gave a petition to Vice President Humphrey against the war in Vietnam (written by Bob Stam). Its text said something along the lines that the war in Vietnam complicated our work of trying to `build bridges in Tunisia while the US Air Force was blowing them up' in Vietnam. A number of demonstrated against the Vietnam War with Tunisian students and peace activists. Peace Corps programs continued in Tunisia until a few years ago when they were terminated. But there is a fair number - in the thousands - of Americans who served in the Peace Corps there as well as in Morocco and for a short time in Libya before Khaddafi came to power when the program was terminated there.

What do I remember of Jody Olsen? I seem to recall that Jody was the daughter of a Utah congressman, that both Jody and Bob came from a Utal Mormon background and were, it seems, unique in our Peace Corps group in that respect. What is interesting is that so many of us who have served together and that an informal network remains active and vibrant. We have a tendency to search each other our if we find ourselves in the same town. In a few cases, now more than 40 years after leaving the program I am in regular contact with a hand full of them. Pleasant, intelligent exchanges. Very few arch conservatives among them. Every last one I can think of is either liberal or further left than that. Not much endures in this world, but these ties have seemed to. Jody Olsen is a competent administration. I don't know that Peace Corps can undo all the damage the Bush Administration wreaked on the world...it will take alot more than the Peace Corps to right those wrongs - but I still believe it far better to send in the Peace Corps than `the troops' and hope that the program can survive and flourish...

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Feb 8, 2009 (2)

UN Resolutions on Israel-Palestine (going way back)

Thanks to Tom Moore of Boulder, CO

UN Resolutions on Israel Palestine (Going Way _______________________________________________________________

Feb 8, 2009 (1)

South African Dock Workers Refuse To Unload A Ship Carrying Israeli Goods

note: The Colorado State Senate might have voted 32-2 in favor of a resolution essentially justifying Israel's war in Gaza, but outside the United States Israel is losing much of the international support it had garnered these last decades. Cllck on the link above to see what is happening in South Africa.

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Feb 5, 2009

The Natives Are Restless...The Campaign Against SR09-009

Rob Prince

A resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, introduced by Senator Joyce Foster passed the Colorado State Senate on Monday by a vote of 32-2. Based on a similar measure that passed overwhelmingly in the US Congress in early January for which AIPAC lobbied hard and successfully, the Colorado resolution reaffirmed the Rocky Mountain state's support for Israel, put a great deal of the blame for Israel’s war in Gaza on Hamas which it tries to exclude from any negotiating role.

While it does call for negotiations and regrets the loss of civilian lives on both sides, SR09-009's ultimate effect is to suggest that Israel’s military response in Gaza was appropriate.

"Awful, Awful? Awful Lite?"

Some Coloradoans found that line of reasoning unconvincing. Some thought the resolution `awful, awful'; others, at best, thought it `awful lite.' A movement against it erupted in the week before the vote. It consisted almost entirely of simply `spreading the word' by email. Many of state senators were taken aback by the scope and intensity of the opposition that resulted. Actually, the `organizers’ - if you can call us that - of this mini-campaign were equally surprised. We don’t know how many people contacted their state senators but it was easily in the hundreds, perhaps more.

What explains the opposition? Who was behind all this ?

There were several factors involved, among them...

+ despite claims to the contrary, the resolution was lopsided. The tone and content leave the impression that Israel something of an innocent victim with all the blame for the current wave of violence being placed at Hamas’ door. There was no criticism - none whatsoever - of Israel’s actions in Gaza. The resolution was in open solidarity with the Jewish state.

+ no mention - or criticism - was made of the Bush Administration’s role in supporting and encouraging Israel’s actions.

But even more disturbing was what was left out of the resolution.

+ there was no acknowledgment that the Palestinian lands - The West Bank and Gaza - have been under the longest military occupation in modern history, now 42 years in the making. There was not a peep about the extensive and illegal Jewish settlement building in the Occupied Territories and the demolition of more than 12000 Palestinian homes there.

+ nothing in the resolution suggesting that Gaza is not `free’, but instead the largest open air prison in the world sealed and choked by land, air and sea -by a cruel and debilitating siege. Although it grates some, it has become more and more common place to compare the Palestinians in Gaza with the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto or the Russians besieged in Leningrad during World War II.

+ Bush’s overall war on terrorism - one of the most colossal US foreign policy failures ever - is legitimized

Adding Salt To The Wound

Only adding salt to the wound or oil to the fire is that this resolution came as Palestinian bodies were still being pulled out of the rubble in Gaza in a military confrontation that pitted one of the largest and most sophisticated army in the world against a rag tag group of Hamas volunteers with rifles and home made missiles. The likelihood of indictments against Israeli military and political leaders is pronounced enough that the Israeli government has issued warnings to some of its leaders not to travel for fear of indictment by the International Tribunal in the Hague.

Israel became Goliath, the Palestinians, David.

Finally it was very difficult for people concerned to get their hands on the resolution itself. Introduced on Friday (Jan 30) and then voted on Monday (Feb 2) hardly permitted time to study or comment upon its content. This added to the frustration.

IPAC Not AIPAC

The campaign `against' came together in less than a week. Word of SR09-009 first leaked from Boulder Democratic Party activists. The issue was then quickly picked up via the internet and soon spread statewide and even beyond. Other than Colorado’s Green Party, which did issue a formal statement, there was no organizational mobilization so to speak, Palestinian, Jewish, or otherwise of which I am aware.

We’re just some Coloradoans, Democrats and Greens in the main, `feeling had’ by a cynical resolution claiming to support peace, which doesn’t. We couldn’t let it pass. Worse, now we’re talking about forming our own powerful lobby and calling it IPAC - the Israel-Palestine Action Committee, or something to that effect. It just might happen! That’s about it.

Cheers.

Rob Prince

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Feb 4, 2009

Unofficial Edited Transcript of Debate on Colorado Senate Resolution SR 09-009 Feb 2, 2009 in the Colorado Senate Chamber

(a copy of the resolution itself for those interested)

Thanks to Harvie Branscomb for transcribing this:

Immediately below are excerpts for those who don't want to read it all. For the entire transcript click here.

Note: Below are the comments of the state senators in support of this resolution essentially supporting Israel for its war in Gaza and blaming the entire crisis on Hamas. I will post the resolution itself later today. What stands out in this resolution (and discussion) is what is NOT in the resolution - 42 years of Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, unrestrained settlement building in the West Bank, Gaza the largest open air prison in the world with a seige that commentators have compared to Leningrad (Uri Avnery) or the Warsaw Ghetto (many).

The worst - most rabid, reactionary comments come from Josh Penry, Republican leader of the State Senate and rising star within the state's Republican Party. A former football star from Mesa College in Grand Junction, no one represents (the oil and gas) interests of his district better. His comments are towards the end.

Senate President Groff: Consideration of Resolutions. Mr. McGowne please read SR 9.

McGowne: SENATE RESOLUTION 09-009 CONCERNING THE STRONG EXPRESSION OF SUPPORT FOR THE STATE OF ISRAEL IN ITS BATTLE AGAINST RECENT TERRORIST ATTACKS AND REAFFIRMING THE STRONG SUPPORT OF THE COLORADO SENATE FOR THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN PEACE PROCESS.

President Groff: Senator Foster

Thank you Mr. President. I move for the adoption of Senate Resolution SR 009.

And I’ve invited Senator Brophy up here too because we are co-sponsors of this. This resolution mirrors the resolution that was passed unanimously in the United States Senate just 3 weeks ago. It was resolution 10 and it was introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell passed by unanimous consent on that date and it was also passed in the House of Representatives - it was Resolution 34 by a vote of 390 to 5. Its seldom that Congress actually agrees on such issues but at any rate I would like to read the first few resolutions here.

That we express our deep and sincere regret about the innocent loss of human life on both sides of this conflict, extend our condolences to innocent Israeli and Palestinian victims and their families, and express our strong belief that innocent civilians be protected to the greatest extent possible;

That we hereby express our vigorous support and unwavering commitment to the welfare, security, and survival of the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and recognize and support its right to act in self-defense to protect its citizens against acts of terrorism;

That we encourage the Obama administration to work actively to support a durable, enforceable, and sustainable cease-fire in Gaza, at the earliest possible date, that prevents Hamas from retaining or rebuilding its capacity to launch rockets against Israel and allows the long-term improvement of daily living conditions for the ordinary people of Gaza; and

That we reiterate our strong support for the efforts by the United States government to promote a just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a serious and sustained peace process that leads to the creation of a viable and independent Palestinian state living in peace alongside a secure state of Israel.

Thank you

Groff: Senator Brophy

Thank you Mr President, thank you Senator Foster for bringing this important resolution forward. Members it is wholly appropriate that as a General Assembly we stand up for the democratic state of Israel our lone democratic ally in the Middle East at this time. And I think the second section of this be-it-resolved part- the resolution that expresses our support and unwavering commitment is really the heart of this. Members in 1994 under the Oslo accord the state of Israel gave control of the Gaza strip up to the Palestinian Authority. And then in 2005 ultimately pulled all of their personnel out of that area. Members this isn’t a battle over territory. Israel freely gave that territory up to another peoples. This is actually a battle in the long term war for the very survival -the very right to existence of the state of Israel. A free state that allows both genders to vote. A free state that is a beacon of freedom in the Middle East. Members, we should support this resolution; we should support the State of Israel. And again thank you Senator Foster for allowing me the honor of being a co-sponsor on this important resolution.

Groff: Senator Harvey

Thank you Mr. President and Senator Foster thank you also for bringing this forward.

This is an important resolution I think for the State of Colorado to send to the rest of the country and for the rest of the world. As Senator Brophy said Israel is fighting for its--- Israel is truly fighting for its life and they have practiced the philosophy of non violence. They have practiced the philosophy of non violence since 2005 when they pulled out of the Gaza Strip and they have had to suffer thousands and thousands and thousands of missiles being dropped on them without any reply or any response what-so-ever. As we hold a resolution today honoring those who practice non violence I think we should hold up the country of Israel. Israel has patiently waited for the world to stand up and say enough is enough. And when the world turned their backs on Israel and didn’t lift a finger to tell Hamas to stop the bombing of Israel and innocent people, finally Israel had to stand up for itself and say enough is enough. Hamas wasn’t dropping bombs on military bases.

Hamas wasn’t dropping bombs on missile silos. Hamas was dropping bombs on innocent citizens in small towns in the Negev which is immediately adjacent to Gaza. It’s important for us all to know when evil raises its head, sometimes violence is necessary to put down that evil. And today is that day for Israel. I cannot imagine any country in the world allowing a neighboring country to continually drop thousands of missiles on their cities for three or four years and never respond.
This is an important message for the world that the United States stands firm hand in hand, arm in arm, with the country of Israel and we say enough is enough. Sometimes evil needs to be put back in its place.

Groff: Senator Schwartz

Thank you Mr President. While I will be supporting this resolution I wish to underscore the need for both sides of the Israeli Palestinian conflict to put down their weapons of war and destruction and rededicate themselves in partnership with the new Obama administration to building a just and lasting peace. Far too many innocent lives on both sides have been lost or crushed in this conflict. We must do everything possible as a State of Colorado and as a nation to endorse and support an enduring peace. This too must be a part of the change the Obama administration will bring to this country.

Groff: Senator Cadman

Thank you Mr. President. I support this resolution. I signed on as a co-sponsor when Senator Foster brought this to me and frankly I was a little bit miffed when I pulled into the circle this morning and was confronted by some people that were protesting this resolution asking that this body reconsider its position. And not having looked at it at that point this morning I got up to the floor and got the revised version of it which basically strengthened my resolve to support it. I would hope that those people that were protesting it would read it. As I shared with the woman who called me this morning as I was reviewing it who was expressing her support for peace which I thought was exactly what this resolution did. So with that I would ask for the adoption of this resolution. I would move amendment 01. It’s really just a grammatical issue. There is the word innocent I think that modifies a sentence that’s in the inappropriate place and having corrected so many documents coming from my children’s school these days I couldn’t let this one go by in good conscience. Senator Foster has accepted this as a friendly amendment and I would ask for an aye vote.

Groff: Senator Heath to the resolution.

Thank you Mr President. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the number of emails and correspondence that I have received asking me not to support this resolution. And my reply to all of them has been the same that I have some concerns with some of the whereases but the meat of the resolution and the four resolves I strongly support particularly As it relates back to Senator Newels senate resolution 008 asking for peace and to me that is the overwhelming part to this resolution that we all want peace in this area of the world and that is why I am voting aye on the resolution.

Groff: Birthday boy, Senator Penry

Thank you Mr President, thank you for recognizing me in that way. Mr. President I join with the others in commending Senator Foster for bringing this resolution. Resolutions are sometime of debatable value but this one is important in drawing a bright line and stating clearly where we stand on this very important issue facing not only our country but the world America has no better ally and no more important partner no more valuable friend than the people of Israel and their government.
In a world mired by tyrants, oppression , radical fundamentalism and hate, Israel is a force for good, a force for freedom liberty and human rights. And as those of us who have been to Israel know the people of Israel stand so strongly for these values because perhaps more than anyone else anywhere else in the world perhaps at any other time the people of Israel have seen the consequences of radicalism and hate.

Senator Cadman referenced the protesters today and those individuals and others would question the right of Israel to defend herself in the face of this radicalism. Some have criticized the Israelis fora military incursion targeted at the Iranian stooge known as Hamas. Some again on the Capitol grounds even here today have called on the Israelis to embrace peace. Such statements are one sided, wrong-headed and irrational. They were the arguments of Neville Chamberlain before World War II. They were wrong then and they are wrong now. Israel has a right to defend herself when rockets rain on Israeli homes and schools.

They have right and an obligation to respond. That some would even question that to me seems to be absurd. The individuals out there holding signs are they from Arvada or Littleton? Are they from the western slope or the eastern plains? If Katyusha and Qassam rockets were raining down on their communities I think they would view the issue very differently. We should stand with the people of Israel. I ask for an aye vote on the resolution.

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February 2 , 2009

My Hero Dan Winters...Even If He Is From The Bronx and I Am From Queens..1

My Hero Dan Winters...Even If He Is From The Bronx And I Am From Queens..2

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January 29, 2009 (3)

South Dakota State Legislature Passes a Resolution in Support of Israel's War On Gaza

You can read the text of this resolution either by clicking on the title, or clicking here

More than likely, the bill about to be introduced in the Colorado State Legislature by Senator Joyce Foster will resemble this one. See entries below for this date...

Thanks Ron Forthofer for the tip...

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January 29, 2009 (2)

Two More Responses to the Attempt To Introduce A Resolution in the Colorado State Senater In Support of Israel's War Against Gaza: (2)

1. This one from Cindy Corrie, Rachel Corrie's Mother from Washington State

Rob,

A resolution passed the Washington State Senate last week. I was watching and horrified. Bodies were still being pulled from the rubble in Gaza—and this was purposely, I’m sure, placed on the WA Senate’s agenda on the Wednesday following the M.L.King long week-end and the Obama inauguration. We got word of it during the week-end and launched a call for emails and calls to State Senators’ offices. Though we were told by interns and staff taking the calls that they were getting many calls--all opposed--word did not seem to get through to the Senators—and there was a unanimous voice vote of approval. At least, a good number of the Senators voting had no idea what

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Bodies were still being pulled from the rubble in Gaza...

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they were doing—and some were not on the floor. Craig and I went immediately after the vote to a couple of key offices and explained why the resolution applauding Israel’s democracy and honoring the anniversary of its elections was so problematic. Senate leadership has subsequently sent out statements about how this was a “mistake” and they are changing the rules for resolutions. We are still trying to determine how to respond. I haven’t yet read text for the Colorado resolution—but just wanted to let you know immediately that this is apparently a national effort. The approved resolution was to be forwarded to Obama, Clinton, and Israeli officials.

2. This one from companera Juliet Wittman of Boulder, writing her state senator

Nobody says it better than Juliet...

Dear Congresswoman Hullinghorst

I write to you as a constituent and as a Jewish American concerned about peace in the Middle East. Like many others, I have been shocked and appalled by the recent carnage in Gaza and by the almost-complete media silence on Palestinian death and suffering. President Obama has been reaching out to the Muslim world, and the appointment of Senator George Mitchell as a special envoy to the Middle East is a highly promising development. At the same time, Benjamin Netanyahu--ahead in Israeli polls--speaks freely of building new settlements in violation of international law. It is crucial at this point that the United States be seen as an honest broker. But State Senator Joyce Foster is proposing a bill in the Colorado Senate expressing unqualified support for Israel's recent actions.

These actions include bombing schools, destroying infrastructure, using white phosphorus against civilians, firing on ambulances rushing to help the wounded, bulldozing homes, and setting ablaze tons of food and medicine in a United Nations compound. Many sober legal experts around the world are terming these acts "war crimes." This bill--and actions like it around the country--seems to me a clear attempt to tie Mitchell's hands and pre-empt a fair and genuine settlement.

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Many sober legal experts around the world are terming these acts "war crimes"

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Please look at the coverage of the invasion on such news sites as the BBC and the Guardian, UK--the dead, wounded, and traumatized children, people weeping over the rubble of their homes, the wounded in hospitals where there are no supplies to treat them, the bodies laid out in rows--and then prepare to oppose this bill if it should reach the House.

Foster's bill makes no mention of the settlements in the West Bank, or of the long-term siege of Gaza, which caused widespread hunger and suffering even before the latest attack. Yet Israel could not continue its persecution of the Palestinians without the three to four billion it receives annually from the United States. It is time for the American Jewish community and all Americans who want to see peace to speak out. The best thing the Colorado State Legislature could do is to pass a bill supporting the fragile and hopeful peace process on which our country has finally embarked.

Juliet Wittman

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January 29, 2009 (1)

Another Lop-sided Resolution Supporting Israel's War Against Gaza Likely To Be Introduced in the Colorado State Legislature

I started hearing about a resolution generally supporting Israel's recent war against the Palestinian people in Gaza to be introduced in the Colorado State Senate rather soon. As of this writing, the said resolution has not been put in the hopper, but there is enough concurrence from diverse sources that 1. such a resolution exists 2. that it will soon be introduced...to write about it.

The moving force behind this initiative is newly elected state senator Joyce Foster. Foster is a former Denver city councilwoman and the wife of Rabbi Stephen Foster. A sense of the Foster's political influence can be seen in the fact that on January 7th of this year, Rabbi Foster was the first person to speak (he gave the benediction) in the state's new Senate Chamber. Much of the organizing in support of Israel - both behind the scenes and in the open - happens at Foster's Temple Emmanuel Synagogue near the Cherry Creek area of Southeast Denver. It is no surprise really to anyone that has followed Middle East politics in Denver that Joyce Foster would be spear-heading such an initiative in the State Senate.

Although I haven't checked, I would not be surprised if somewhat similar resolutions are being presented nationwide in other state legislatures, spill overs of the AIPAC-orchestrated defense of Israel's war in Gaza that passed both houses of the US Congress overwhelmingly. Given that recent polls show Americans supporting Israel's unjust (to put it mildly) incursion into Gaza by more than 60%, it is possible that such a resolution here in Colorado would fly through the State Legislature and have the support of Governor Ritter as well.

Gordon, Borodkin, Foster

And of course we've seen this attempt to bless Israeli military aggression before - specifically during the July, 2006 Israeli invasion and mass bombing campaign against Lebanon - when the legislature, not even in session, still managed to issue a statement through a small standing committee condoning Israel's actions. But that attempt backfired somewhat as peace activists held an `alternative press conference' exposing the rather shady process by which the state legislature had come to take this decision.

And that little exchange seemed to have undermined, at least in part, the political careers of some local political aspirants.

His participation in organizing legislative support for Israel was, at least, a factor in Ken Gordon's failed bid to become Colorado's secretary of state. To no avail he spent a fair amount of time trying to mend his fences with some of the state's peace activists (and Green Party members), but the damage was done and at least a portion of his support base slipped away. There is a fair amount of circumstantial evidence to substantiate this hypothesis. Indeed, I just recently once again heard mention of his taking Green Party activists to coffee and breakfast in the early fall of 2006 to try to bring them round to his support base again. All this is interesting beyond the particulars as it suggests the degree to which these liberal dems - some of whom supported going to war with Iraq, and usually `stand up for Israel' actually need the support of the peace movement to a degree not usually acknowledged.

Someone else who might have lost for having failed to convince her constituents she was sufficiently anti-war was Boulder congressional hopeful Joan Fitz-Gerald, who urged the Colorado state legislature (along with Gordon) to support sanctions against Iran (specifically to get the legislature to get the state pension fund PERA to divest from companies doing business with Iran's energy sector). `Fitz' as her friends call her, lost to Jared Polis, gay multi-millionaire yuppy politico who ran a more consistent anti-Iraq war campaign. I don't like him either, mostly because I get a little nauseous watching local dot-com millionaires throw their money around and parley their wealth into political power. I know, I know...that is how things are done these days. Still...

In any case, bringing up Gordon's situation is not entirely irrelevant to Foster. Gordon was forced to vacate his seat because of term limits. A local (and vocal) state representative - Alice Borodkin (like Gordon and Foster) also Jewish, hoped to replace Ken Gordon in the state senate and felt - and I believe with some justification - that she `deserved' or had earned the seat, especially as a result of her work for womens rights in the state house. I doubt that Borodkin's politics on the Middle East differ much from Foster's or Gordons, but that didn't seem to matter.

Borodkin's Downfall - Her Independence

The problem with Borodkin for the Fosters seemed to be that she is too independent-minded, not enough of a herd animal, probably not willing to follow AIPAC's line to the necessary `t'. And so she was unceremoniously dumped. Or so it seemed. Joyce Foster was put up to challenge Borodkin. Gordon (and Andrew Romanoff) dutifully supported Foster. With the support of the local Democratic Party machine in that neighborhood, in which her husband, Rabbi Foster is a key player, Joyce Foster won handily against Borodkin in the Democratic Party primary and also easily won the seat (I forget if she ran unopposed) and is now in the State Senate.

Just before the US invasion of Iraq began in 2003, an initiative to get the Denver City Council to oppose going to war was launched by local peace activists, among them Paula Vandusen and myself. It was surprising to see the outpouring of opposition to going to war among so many fellow Denverites, enough so that a resolution - albeit weaker than I would have wanted - was presented before the City Council. Joyce Foster did not support the anti-war resolution - invoking, although obliquely - the Jewish experience in the Holocaust. Foster failed to explain how her concerns about the holocaust prevented her from opposing the US invasion of Iraq. I still don't get it . She abstained, which in that circumstance was the same as voting for the war.

The Not-Yet Introduced Resolution

True enough, a resolution supporting Israel's war against Gaza has yet to be introduced and therefore it's hard to criticize it. How then do we know it exits? There is some circumstantial evidence

- the first bit came to me second or third hand, admittedly, that another state senator, himself a rather strong Israel supporter I am told, had seen Foster's resolution and even he tried to tone it down but his attempts failed.

- the second piece of evidence comes from state senator responding to an inquiry from one of his constituents. I quote: `Thanks for your input on this critical, but sensitive issue. There will be a resolution introduced by Senator Joyce Foster. I will watch to see if the language accomplishes your goals'.

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`Thanks for your input on this critical, but sensitive issue. There will be a resolution introduced by Senator Joyce Foster. I will watch to see if the language accomplishes your goals'
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As they say, the plot thickens.

By now Senator Foster is well aware of some opposition to her initiative and from what I can tell that opposition is growing and is coming in from all corners of Colorado. Let me quote from a few of the emails that I have seen on the subject

+This from a Democratic Party activist on the Western Slope to her state senator:

`I have become aware of a resolution in support of Israel’s invasion of Gaza that will soon be proposed in the Colorado Legislature. I strongly oppose this resolution. My husband and I have good friends and strong ties to Israel, having been there during the 1967 war. Nonetheless, we recognize Israel’s invasion as a last ditch effort to force the world’s hand before President Obama could take office and approach things in a more diplomatic way (which we have just seen this week). I believe strongly that a huge number of Coloradoans realize that a military solution is not possible in the Middle East. The last 4000 years have proved this. Now, the invasion has further complicated an already challenging diplomatic effort. '

+Another Western Slope Dem wrote her state senator:

. As an active, concerned Colorado voter and United States citizen, I am writing you regarding a proposed Resolution in support of Israel's invasion of Gaza. If such a Resolution is introduced, I request support for the following:

- The Resolution contain language that supports and furthers a peace process through diplomatic channels, excluding that language that would escalate an already highly sensitive and volatile situation;

- The Resolution contain language that supports a two state solution for Israel and Palestine, which is in the best interests of both Israel and Palestine;

- The Resolution contain language that recognizes the humanitarian crisis that has continued to exist in Gaza, and has only been made worse by the invasion.

I do this in memory of my grandparents, who participated in a fact-finding mission after the creation of the State of Israel. I do this in honor of all those who are working diligently to find a peaceful solution to this tragic situation.

+Yet another example from a Denverite, poker buddy of mine to his state senator:

"I don't know if you have formed an opinion regarding the upcoming resolution by Senator Joyce Foster, calling for support for Israel's war in Gaza. I urge you to vote against it.

It is easy to understand the sympathy extended to Israeli victims of Hamas rocket attacks. What is puzzling is the widespread lack of concern in this country, and in this state, for the Palestinians living in Gaza, blockaded and slowly strangled by an Israeli policy of subjugation through humiliation, starvation, and denial of medical supplies.

The answers to the problems of the Middle East will never be simple. The cause of peace is only weakened by unrestrained cheering for one side or the other. The U.S. has been guilty of this for far too long."?

But my favorite response to this comes from Rev. Bob Kinsey, Green Party Candidate for the US Senate in last November's race. While Mark Udall won, it has perhaps gone un-noticed that Kinsey got more than 50,000 votes, suggesting that he has a base at least as big as that of Joyce Foster.

Kinsey wrote:

"How about some resolutions on health care for all Coloradoans."

We Need Someone To Stand Up For the Coyotes!

Actually Joyce Foster has introduced a piece of legislation already into this session. She is co-sponsoring a VERY important bill asking that the Dept of Wildlife offer better protection to rich suburbanites whose properties are `harassed' by coyotes. Now that is truly serving the public interest isn't it. And I don't suppose the fact that her son, a lobbyist in the state legislature for realtors and developers, had anything to do with it! And it's so unfair...afterall who will be lobbying for the coyotes! Who was here first? But then, don't underestimate the power of the coyote lobby as Ian Tyson reminds us:

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The coyote is a survivor.
Reckon he’s got to be.
Lives in the snow at forty below
Or Malibu By The Sea

Well, the cowboy is a conundrum,
A contradiction in this age.
He says he’s doin’ fine on the poverty line
On a working cowboy’s wage.
The whiskey bottle costs thirteen bucks,
The big prairie moon is free.
So who’s the dumber son of a bitch:
The little coyote or me?

- verse from a song `The Cowboy and The Coyote' by Ian Tyson -

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Strange time for a resolution supporting Israel's war in Gaza. The legislature is involved in intense deliberations over which programs to cut and which pork-barrel programs to preserve. Not the best time to throwing a foreign policy issue, with little to no relevance to the affairs of Colorado into the hopper, and one that will be controversial at that. I don't think this will stop Foster's initiative though. Afterall, if I am correct, it was precisely to introduce such legislation that she was promoted and elected in the first place.

Although not much of a betting man - our poker circle plays for pennies and nickels mostly - I would wager that 1. the resolution will soon be introduced 2. that it will be either awful-awful or at best awful - lite. 3. that Foster will find an appropriate neanderthal pro-war Republican to co-sponsor it 4. That it will be dealt with very quickly to avoid giving the opposition - as usual, poorly organized, underpaid, scattered...if noble...to oppose it. 5. That the governor - (who for some reason is about to get a human rights award from the Anti-Defamation League) - will sign it in a public ceremony. 6. That the illusion will be created that the people of the good state of Colorado supported the Israel invasion of Gaza and the unmitigated slaughter and terrorizing of its population, for which no excuse, not even the firing of Hamas' home made fire-cracker like missiles, can justify...

Cheers.

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January 22, 2009 (2)

Wallerstein on Israel

note: there is good history here, very concise. I was surprised with his conclusion that the Israeli- Palestinian crisis might be moving in the direction of a one state solution - I don't know that Wallerstein has ever made such an assertion in the past...but the logic of his argument - the failure of the Israelis to take advantage of peace opportunities in the past (in contrast to the Israel argument that it is the Palestinians that have refused to do so) is both convincing and accurate and the history of Israel's relationship with great (or maybe now not-so-great) powers is well done and accurate

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January 22, 2009

Rethinking US Middle East Policy: A Public Forum at the University of Denver. R. Prince's Remarks

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January 21, 2009

Chomsky On Gaza

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January 20, 2009

A friend from Steamboat Springs responds to January 18 entry on Bennet...

This on Bennet, Romanoff..

This whole scenario about Bennet is very intriguing, what with the shadowy Mr. Anschutz's involvement. Ritter came with Bennet to Steamboat, but I didn't go hear him speak...should have I suppose. Seems he wants an appointment to the ag. committee. That would be interesting but I suppose he could apply the same skills that he applied to Denver schools. Actually, I'm being very facetious there. In truth, Bennet strikes me as just another neo-liberal who socially parades as a liberal dem but would privatize everything in sight...pension funds, social security, schools, etc. There are all sorts of theories about why Ritter chose him: place holder for Ritter to run in two years and Bennet would run for gov; picking a "neutral" Bennet because Ritter wouldn't have to choose among the others he is friends with or beholden to. Of course, the Anschutz money speaks loudest. You don't suppose Anschutz is grooming Bennet to be president someday?

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In truth, Bennet strikes me as just another neo-liberal who socially parades as a liberal dem but would privatize everything in sight...pension funds, social security, schools, etc

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A lot of our people here were pulling for Mike Miles to be appointed...even the Romanoff supporters, which really surprised me. Romanoff support waning?

CPJNews Responds..

Most of what you wrote is right on target…or maybe that is just a way to say that I agree with you..

There are several unknown factors involved

1. the first is the role of Anschutz and the degree to which Bennet is linked to him. Not clear, but other than a few passing references, it was hardly mentioned in the media. Indeed, Anschutz, one of the richest and arguably the most powerful man in Colorado, rarely gets much press. I hope to explore the man, his evolution into a power broker - starting with oil and gas, evolving into railroads and now just about everything else - in future entries...

2. Why was Romanoff snubbed? I put out what is at best a hypothesis. Although popular in Democratic Party circles, we know he didn't get either position he was lobbying for - Secretary of State or US Senate - and that he is associated rather closely (to my mind) with the Brownstein-Farber circle of political power (and behind them a number local developers among others). I think that Ritter snubbed the lattter, but since the fortunes of Ken Salazar, now Secretary of the Interior, are so linked historically to Brownstein and Farber, it would be off base to argue that this power network lost much. Actually their position both in state politics and nationally has never been stronger. An indication of their influence can be seen from the fact that of the $61 million that Colorado had to raise to bring the Democratic Convention to Denver, that Farber alone raised $55 million (for which he was awarded the Colorado Businessman of the Year Award by the Rocky Mountain News.

My impression is that whatever tension might have been triggered by Ritter's choice of Bennet, that Brownstein and Farber, the ultimate sophisticated political players, well schooled in working both sides of the aisle, made their peace with Anschutz (at Romanoff's expense) and will adjust to the new realities with the flexibility - and cunning - that they have in the past. The non-chalance with which Romanoff was abandonned is impressive but as he has, to my knowledge, nowhere else to go politically, he'll have to take the blow and hope his services can be useful in the future. Cold winds blow at the top even for ivy league trained liberal yuppies.

I don’t think Anschutz is grooming Bennet to be president…although it is not out of the realm of possibilities just too early to tell. And as for Romanoff’s support waning – he is still pretty popular among those in the Democratic Party state machinery (the country chairs) and among some grass roots elements (including some of my friends who object to my take of him) but lacks, at least at this moment, sufficient `bipartisan’ support across the aisles and he is too much in a hurry to rocket himself to power. But these are times when things change quickly. Obama `came from nowhere’ (well from Chicago) and made the leap to the presidency – an indication that those in power have to try some new faces and political approaches, so Romanoff reasons…why not me too. In the end politically we got Romanoff’s politics with Bennet’s face. … or so it appears.

There is one other `dangling participle' in all this - where the labor movement comes in on the Bennet appointment. Were they consulted? Did they approve? I don't know and simply wonder if they had an opinion and if it was taken into consideration.

Glad to hear people were pulling for Miles, me too. He’s the best of the lot by far…but his road in this state dominated by finance capital, oil and gas will be a tough one to hoe…

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January 18, 2009

Michael Bennet: Colorado's New US Senator: Just The Change Needed To Maintain The Status Quo

There has been much in the news here in Colorado about Governor Ritter’s choice to replace Ken Salazar in the US Senate, Michael Bennet. Salazar was chosen by Barack Obama to be the Secretary of Interior, leaving one of Colorado’s two Senate seats open. In such a situation, the state’s governor appoints someone to complete Salazar’s term.

Ritter's Surprise

The appointment surprised many and apparently there was much behind-the-scenes maneuvering, lobbying Ritter from different interest groups supporting this or that candidate. Although I thought he never had much of a chance, I did respond to emails about Mike Miles - who ran for the Senate several years ago - and emailed Ritter to consider him. Miles is something of a hero for the state’s liberal Democrats - I certainly respect him - but does not seem to have a political sugar daddy or significant power base from which to work. He burst on the scene suddenly and then, after losing the Democratic nomination for the Senate to Ken Salazar, pretty much receded to the Colorado Springs area from whence he came. But `for one glorious moment' he really got the different power circles within the Democratic Party rather nervous. In the end he turned out to be something of a useful political barometer for a number of aspiring politicans, Jared Polis among them, to weigh the chances of a reform Dem shaking up the party and actually challenging the old guard hierarchy. Oh yes, and the grassroots movement that supported his candidacy `Be The Change' remained active for awhile afterwards, but now seems to have lost a good deal of its former `umphh'.

Getting back to Ritter's present appointment of Bennet, there were, it seems, several others in contention, Andrew Romanoff , former Colorado speaker of the state house and Denver’s Mayor John Hickenlooper, among them. Romanoff - a little too anxious to be appointed to something - it seems anything - first made it clear he was interested in the state Secretary of State position - as was Ken Gordon. That position was vacated as the state's Secretary of State, Mike Coffman who won a Republican US Congressional seat in Colorado's Sixth District. And although popular enough to have been seriously considered for a position in Obama's administration, it's hard to consider Hickenlooper - whose political experience prior to his election was limited to owning a number of bars and restaurants, as someone who knows much - or anything - about foreign policy. It is arguable what he has done for the city of Denver that would not have happened without him.

Although generally liberal - and as they competed and scrambled to position themselves for `the call' - Romanoff, Hickenlooper and Ken Gordon function within what I would call the Brownstein-Farber political orbit with close ties to Rabbi Stephen Foster of Temple Emmanuel. As a result they have some clout, backing, enough one would have thought, to help them in their quest for higher office. None succeeded this time round although they lobbied intensively to their political connections on both sides of the aisle. In Gordon’s case, this included Hank Brown, Colorado’s former Republican US Senator and for a short moment President of the University of Colorado. Brown -- has never been too far away afield from his college cronies, Norm Brownstein and Steve Farber.

But it didn’t work. Hickenlooper and Gordon were passed over, their political influence and Denver base not able to exert enough to pressure Ritter to appoint them with Brownstein and Farber passing on the occasion as well. (or so it appeared)..

A Tear For Andrew....

A similiar fate befell Romanoff not once but twice.

Like Gordon, Romanoff has a genuine and hard earned base of support among the state’s liberal Dems, including a fair number of leftists I know within the party. I’ve never particularly `appreciated’ him that much - to the annoyance of some of my friends, but more on that later. In any case, having been jilted in his efforts to become Colorado’s Secretary of State, shortly thereafter Romanoff made a serious bid for the US Senate appointment. He did so through the party’s county chairs throughout the state with whom he is in close touch and who look upon him as something of a golden boy of Colorado liberalism which he is not. No matter. Romanoff was able to get these Dem county chairs - with very few exceptions - to launch a lobbying campaign in Romanoff’s behalf. The pummeled the governor with emails and telephone calls on Romanoff’s behalf but to no avail.

Romanoff’s supporters were among those who wrote letters to the editor in protest of the way Ritter pushed Romanoff aside. I have to admit that I was surprised that Romanoff did not get the nomination and while I admit that my thinking only amounts to speculation, I can’t help wondering if this was Ritter’s way of snubbing Brownstein and Farber. The latter - always one to play both sides of the aisle politically - supported his right-wing Republican friend, air-head and political retrograde extra ordinaire, Bob Beauprez in the contest against Ritter for the governorship (while Brownstein, as a friend pointed out, Brownstein did not). Snubbing Romanoff was probably a (very minor) jab at Farber and Brownstein.

That Brownstein and Farber did not put much political energy into pushing Romanoff’s candidacy might have been because they thought Romanoff a bit too hasty in climbing up the ladder, and that he like others before him (Mark Udall comes to mind) would simply have to wait his turn. Patience in climbing the political ladder is a hard lesson to learn it appears. That Andrew Romanoff is bright and generally liberal also is plain enough.

Romanoff Would Privatize PERA

On the other hand, he was - along with Gordon - something of a point man for AIPAC initiatives in the State Legislature and also was quite active, if not aggressive in the attempts - backed by the same financial interests that have brought us the current crisis - supporting any and all efforts to privatize PERA. When challenged (by local Arab Americans) for why he had helped push through a legislative statement supporting Israel’s war in Lebanon or another bill for PERA to divest with companies doing business with Iran, Romanoff admitted that he really didn’t now much about the Middle East.

For the moment Romanoff (and Gordon) will have to lick their wounds, regroup and perhaps try to understand why it was that the power interests that they so faithfully served let them down - or to put it more blunted - screwed them this time round.

Michael Bennet: Anschutz's Waterboy

And instead, Michael Bennet got the nod and is now on his way to becoming Colorado’s junior US Senator. Much is made about Bennet - like Romanoff - of how bright he is, how he has made his way on his own. And while he is bright enough, the story is a little more nuanced.

It reminds me of the tales spun about Microsoft’s Bill Gates, how he was a self made man who started his multi-billion dollar company after quitting Harvard after tinkering around with computers in his garage. Gates did start in his garage but what is often left out is that it was a rather well stocked garage, his father worth several million dollars providing seed money for the project. Does that take away from Gate’s entrpreneurial talents, probably not, but he did have something of a head start.

So it is with Bennet whose father was the president of Wesleyan University in Connecticut. One of the nation’s best small schools, just a notch below the Ivy League colleges and by some estimates just as good academically, Wesleyan has long attracted the offspring of the country’s most politically and economically connected. Here Michael Bennet went to college, did well and with the help of his father, schmoozed with the sons and daughters of people far more powerful than himself. It paid off and fresh out of college he soon landed a job in Colorado with what is referred to as the Anschutz Foundation where he served as a `corporate turnaround expert’, investing in and then buying out weak companies - consolidating the remains by shutting down some and raising prices on what the others sell. The Anschutz Chronicles - how he made his money - will be developed later.

Bennet: Consolidating Movie Theaters For Fun and Profit...

A classic example of Bennet’s talents working for Anschutz was to help the billionaire - probably the richest and most powerful man in the state - to buy out movie chains. This he did by making loans to money strapped small movie theater groups until he was able to buy them out, consolidate the movie theater industry by closing many and raising the price of movie tickets on the remaining ones. There is nothing `brilliant’ about this. Frankly any asshole working for Anschutz and having access to his money could have done likewise suggesting that all this talk about Bennet's brilliance is a bit overstated. Bennet basically took the same approach at DPS where he consolidated the more successful schools at the expense of others, mostly in poor and minority neighborhoods which he forced to close down, at the expense of the livelihood of the district's teachers.

Add to this the fact that the man has no experience in national or international affairs, and despite his liberal trappings when it comes to public policy has been something of a neo-con and one has to wonder how it is that a number of progressives (in their on-line discussions) can look upon the Bennet appointment with favor going so far as to suggest insipidly that `It’s possible that when Mr Bennet is a Senator, he’ll have more power and influence to change the system’ as one `Zooey’ did on an on-line discussion group.(1) Please Zooey. What is it about this corporate waterboy that so impressed you?

Politically, actually, there is virtually no difference between Romanoff who didn’t get the position and Bennet who did. On the major issues of the day, they will follow Salazar’s lead - support for the war on terrorism, infintessimally slow progress on withdrawing the US from Iraq, continued belligence including supporting covert war against Iran and of course, towing AIPAC’s line on Israel-Palestine. Given his background as Anschutz’s waterboy, don’t expect him to take the lead on the financial bailout either. That said, I doubt Romanoff would have been much different.

If his public remarks are any indication, Bennet will straddle the line between his old ties with Anschutz and his need to make peace with Brownstein and Farber, who very likely provided the freshman senator with some of his talking points on his trip around the state so that Coloradoans can know him better. Bennet will, like Ken Salazar before him, straddle the middle between powerful Republicans like Anschutz and Hank Brown and fake liberals like Brownstein and Farber. Pueblo trade unionists correctly smelled a rat and gave the golden boy short shrift as a part of Bennet’s whirlwind tour through the state.

What is it all about? I’m not sure. But how it looks is that Ritter threw Anschutz a bone to strengthen the former’s financial base for his next run for the governorship. He gave the appearance of tweaking (no more) Brownstein and Farber, who will make the political adjustment rather smoothly as they always do and find other ways to stick their claws into Bennet. `Progressive’ Colorado Dems - those folks with generally good politics but basically spineless when it comes to standing up to the powers that be - got screwed again without much of a whimper. And all is well in the world as all the change that is necessary to maintain the status quo has taken place once again.

Endnote:

1. http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/02/denver-schools-superintendent-michael-bennet-reported-to-be-salazars-replacement/#comment-5402818

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January 17, 2009

Exchange Between Bill Moyers and Abraham Foxman

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January 14, 2009

Randall Kuhn on Gaza (and San Diego and Tijuana)

Randall Kuhn teaches at the University of Denver's Korbel School of International Studies, where I also teach. This piece appeared in the Washington Times.

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January 13, 2009 (2)

No Place Like New York!

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January 13 , 2009 (1)

Zola In Gaza.

By coincidence, this morning - no it is already yesterday morning, I was talking in a class (Transitions From Communism) about Emile Zola's famous serious of articles entitled `J'Accuse' (I accuse). In them, the 19th Century French novelist accuses the French government of the time of falsely blaming one of its Jewish officers - Alfred Dreyfus (according to my mother and aunt a distant relative of our family) of passing military secrets to the Germans and as a result causing the dramatic French defeat by Germany in the Franco Prussian War of 1870.

The thread I was trying to develop entailed explaining the uprising in Paris - known as `The Paris Commune' `one brief shining moment' in the history of France in which the working class of that great city along with its allies rose up, seized power and ran the place about as well and as democratically as it had been run both before and since. For its brief experiment economic and social equality - the Commune was crushed by the combined efforts of the defeated French Army greatly helped by its German conquerors. Thousands were killed, many of them lined up against a stone wall at Pere LaChaise Cemetery in the east part of the city, an extraordinary place, where many famous people - from Jimmy Hendrix to Richard Write to Chopin are buried. Nancy and I visited to spot a few years back and spent a few moments looking at the graves of the `communards' and at the wall where 135 year old bullet holes remain.

I was steering the lecture towards how carefully Lenin, the Russian Revolutionary and founder of Russian Communism, had studied the Commune experience, that the Commune's failure played large in Lenin's vision of the structure and goals of the Russian Communist movement, when a student, knocking me off track (again) asked a question about Dreyfus: Didn't that case have something to do with the birth of Zionism? And indeed it did. I spent a moment talking about how Theodore Herzl, the Austrian Jewish journalist, had covered the trial for the Vienna based newspaper he worked for. Herzl saw in Dreyfus a certain reflection of himself, a Jewish European trying to assimilate to the mainstream of European life, cut off at the knees in a contrived case. French anti-semitism, Herzl concluded had never died, lay lurking with the bowels of French society (still does at certain levels) and this was more or less the case for the rest of Europe. Apparently the case played large in Herzl's reasoning that Jews would never really be assimilated to European social and political life. Thus began his search for a Jewish homeland. Other Jews drew other conclusions from the Dreyfus case, indeed the opposite conclusion, that Jews could be assimilated and that anti-semitism could be successfully combatted. Zola (and others) efforts did result in publicizing the case, and Dreyfus in prison exile in French Guyana in S. America was freed as a result. Then I returned to the main theme I was trying to address in the lecture - the social and historical conditions in which Russian Communism took hold.

But I was tempted to continue, to go on to make some comment, some link between these historical events, and the current carnage Israel is committing against Gaza, and one could feel - or I could imagine that I could feel the student interest and hope that I would make such a link. I didn't. I try to complete a theme within the lecture time, and while I don't mind wandering a bit, usually come back to the main theme. But my mind wandered most of the day between what the French did to Dreyfus to the war crimes the Israelis are committing in Gaza and I toyed with the eye of developing this theme in some way. Then I noticed this piece by a history professor at the University of North Carolina who made the connection very nicely, better than I could do really, accusing the US Congress for its cowardly resolution in support of the Israeli crazed assault on Gaza, so I thank her for saving me the time and trouble of doing likewise.

The text begins here...for the whole text click at the end of the excerp

Sarah Shields writes in a guest op-ed for IC:

I accuse you, the US Congress, of having voted for US House Resolution 34 by an overwhelming margin, 390-5. In the name of protecting Israel’s security, this Resolution instead protects Israel’s “right” to hold a whole population accountable for the violations of a few. By condoning Israel’s behavior over the past two weeks as self-defense, HR 34 condemns one and a half million Gazans to capital punishment without trial for crimes they have not committed. By publicly acknowledging and approving Israel’s behavior, you now share responsibility for the outcomes.
Cont'd

I accuse you of having the blood of hundreds of innocent children on your hands. I accuse you of the death of Shahd Abu Halemeh, an infant of 18 months, whose corpse was found badly burned in the wreckage of Gaza. I accuse you of the deaths of the four Salha children, Rola (1), Baha (4), Rana (12), and Dyia (14), who died when the Israelis dropped a missile on their house. I accuse you of the deaths of those killed while seeking refuge from constant bombardment, people who sought protection at a school run by the United Nations. Despite the clear UN markings and flags, Israelis attacked the sanctuary, killing 30 and wounding 50. And I hold you responsible for the lives of the 252 other children killed in the first sixteen days of Israel’s attack on Gaza, and the deaths of those who will be killed as a result of your encouragement. (for the entire text click here)

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January 9, 2009

Song For Gaza

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January 8 , 2009

Jimmy Carter On Gaza...

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January 7 , 2009

Pretty good piece by Juan Cole: Neo Conservatism Dies In Gaza

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January 4 , 2009 (2)

Where Were All The Christians? - John Kane's Thoughts on a Denver Vigil against the Israeli Bombing of Gaza

Note: John Kane is Professor of Religious Studies at Regis University here in Denver. We've met and discussed the situation of Jews and Catholics in America several times. He published a progressive Catholic newsletter. I am not sure if it still exists, but the issues I read I found interesting. The vigil he describes took place on Tuesday December 30 at the State Capitol in Denver. He submitted this piece to the Denver Post. They didn't print it. I'm glad to. My op ed, submitted to the local media, follows below. I should add a detail in the spirit of Kane's piece. Before Christmas I was involved in an effort - before the Israeli offensive in Gaza began - to get some local ministers to speak out against the human rights tragedy unfolding in Gaza as a result of the Israeli siege and blockade. I was doing this in conjunction with the wife of a local minister who has gotten involved. But the good ministers were `too busy with Christmas' to participate, or so they said. Then they were too busy with New Years'. Now I guess they are too busy preparing for Valentine's Day or maybe Easter... rjp

Where were all the Christians? That was the question that pained me as I stood in vigil with several hundred persons in the cold wind on the West steps of the Capitol this Tuesday evening.

Not surprisingly, the crowd gathered there to protest Israeli bombing in Gaza was mostly Muslim -- not just Palestinians and other Arabs, but also Muslims from black Africa and South Asia. They stood under a crescent new moon, as if (to my mind) Allah was blessing their cry of protest.

I was told there were a sprinkling of Jews in the crowd, including at least one counter-protester. And there was a larger sprinkling of Anglos. I recognized some Quakers and a few Catholics ; I assume many of the others were probably Christians of some sort. Yet why, in this city of so many Christians who are still celebrating the star of Bethlehem and the Prince of Peace, were there so few willing to stand with Muslims and Jews to protest the way Israel has made Gaza a killing field?

There are, of course, Christians on the apocalyptic fringe whose absolute support of the Israeli Right probably leads them to celebrate the present killing as part of God's plan to cleanse Palestine for Jesus' second coming.

And undoubtedly many other American Christians simply swallow the official Israeli line, supported by the Bush administration and much of the US media, that the present bombings are simply a necessary defense against Palestinian/Hamas terrorism.

Yet most American Christians accept the traditional Christian "just war" teaching -- that a war is moral only when it's cause is just, and that even in a just cause some forms of killing make a war unjustified and immoral.

And surely there are many Christians in this town who see through the veiled hypocrisy of Israeli propaganda. They know that the bombing of mosques, of university classrooms and dorms, and the "collateral killing" of innocent civilians -- they know in their hearts that such killing in Gaza is evil.
They know it will not bring peace. They know it will not bring real security to Israel.

Surely there are many Christians in this town who know that it was not Hamas who broke the latest truce. That truce was broken months ago with the increasing blockade of Gaza -- restricting water and electricity and food and blockading medical supplies in what has become the largest ghetto prison on the globe. That truce was broken regularly over the years with endless violation of human rights througout Gaza and the West Bank -- at checkpoints, in the impunity of growing settlements on stolen land, with unchecked crimes by settlers and by soldiers protecting them, with policies of collective imprisonment and punishment.

Yes, Hamas rockets targeting civilians is terrorism, but such terrorism is the inevitable response of the weak against the state terrorism of the powerful, a terrorism fully funded by our own country.

Surely there are more than a handful of Denver-area Christians who know all this. Yet where were they? Where are their voices during this season of peace. As a Catholic I especially ask where was Denver's Archbishop and his priests? Where is their leadership for protecting innocent life and working for peace now when it is so needed?

One of the most important achievements of our times has been a growing reconciliation between Christians and Jews here and around the world. Yet it would be worse than tragic if that reconciliation made us blind to the crimes perpetrated in the name of Judaism by the militarists and fundamentalists in Israel.

John F. Kane
Professor of Religious Studies, Regis University

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January 4 , 2009 (1)

Happy New Year

Has it really been two months? I guess it has.

The piece below was submitted to the local media here in Colorado

Going Blind In Gaza

Some years ago, I was a part of a circle that believed, because this country’s conservative media was churning out criticisms of Stalin, such claims must be exaggerations if not outright lies. It was not possible, we reasoned, that the Soviet Union was eating its own - repressing millions, wantonly destroying the environment and trampling democracy...in the name of building socialism. But not only was it possible, it happened.

If there was some exaggeration, especially where it concerned the Soviet military threat, much of the critique of the Soviet Union was accurate. Even now there are some old ideological warriors who cannot face the obvious: the Soviet Union was a failure. I think I understand their defensiveness. People who dedicate their lives to an idea, a utopia, find it difficult to believe that the project is flawed, no less bankrupt.

Which brings me to the subject of Israel and its more ardent supporters - Jewish or not - here in the United States. They, too, live in an ideological bubble of their own making that helps them explain away the current assault on Gaza and much else that Israel has done to the Palestinians in the past decades. Naively, they’d like to believe that Israel is a wonderful place. Israel could not possibly be committing war crimes in Gaza, the argument goes. Jews, we are told, don’t commit war crimes against other people. Words like `occupation’, `ethnic cleansing’ to say nothing of `war crimes’ - grate and are considered - despite their accuracy - as `inflammatory’ as I was once told not long ago. The logic continues: the claims of Israeli military brutality, of the oppressive nature of the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza - supported by every US Administration for 42 years - must be blown all out of proportion The fact that people all over the world are critical of Israel is written off as some kind of global `anti-semitism’ - which it isn’t.

A few days ago, a friend sent me an email suggesting that the Palestinians were faking their sufferings in Gaza during the bombardment and that really, the situation wasn’t all that bad!

In the end, the facts are rather straight-forward and contradict the more halcyon scenarios: war crimes are being committed by Israel against the Palestinian people. Nothing can justify this offensive, not Hamas rockets nor its suicide bombers. For its part, the Bush Administration, as it has for the past eight years, is supporting Israel’s inhumane policies if not conspiring with her. Politically unable to attack Iran, as he very much wanted to, or to launch another war against Lebanon, George Bush is putting all his political marbles in the Israeli attack on Gaza. It is Bush’s last ditch effort to leave the Middle East in such a mess that not even Barak Obama with all his charisma will be able to put the region back together again.

What is to be done?

Israel’s military offensive against Gaza should end immediately. Much of the world is demanding a cease-fire, an end to the siege of Gaza and the occupation of both the West Bank and Gaza, the opening of comprehensive international negotiations based upon UN resolutions to resolve the crisis. I join them. Such a political process would do more to insure Israel’s security and future prospects than all the bombs it is dropping on Gaza, yet the thinking in this direction seems remote, both in Israel and in Washington DC

Rob Prince
Lecturer, International Studies
Korbel School of International Studies

http://www.du.edu/korbel/facultyresearch/faculty/Prince_Rob.html

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November 1, 2008

Congo Collapses...Again (2)

note: found this piece on the web. It is written by a Congolese student studying in North Carolina in conjunction of Congo Awareness Week which took place (among several hundred other venues) here at the University of Denver little more than a week ago. I found it as the result of a web search. During Congo Week I was surprised to hear that Colorado's ultra-right wing, anti-immigration (and proud of it) congressman, Tom Tancredo, had sponsored hearings on the war and tragedy unfolding in the Congo in 2001 along with Cynthia McKinney, the outspoken radical former Democratic congresswoman from Atlanta who is currently the Green Party candidate for President. Tancredo and McKinney..interesting combination. Furthermore, despite the scope of the tragedy in the Congo, these 2001 hearings, from what I can tell are the only Congressional hearings in the past ten years that focused on this situation, which is easily, currently, the worst human rights tragedy taking place anywhere in the world. Far worse than Dhafur which has garnered so much attention. Indeed the contrast between all the attention Dhafur has gotten and how little the Congo has received raises rather intereting questions..How can we explain this dicotomy? Why has the Congo been off the radar of the media and political institutions of this country?

In any case, this is a good piece which helps explain the current controversy some.

Congo-Kinshasa: What the World Owes DRC

Posted to the web 24 October 2008
Kambale Musavuli

Following the 'Break the Silence' Congo Week at the end of October, Kambale Musavuli discusses the importance of raising awareness around the crisis in the DR Congo. As a Congolese granted asylum in the USA in 1998, Musavuli urges the global community, and African-Americans in particular, to revitalise international attention on the Congo as a means of shedding light on the ongoing conflict and harnessing the potential for strong advocacy relationships.

Last summer, the national news media announced the deaths of four gorillas killed in a national park in eastern Congo. A United Nations delegation was quickly dispatched to investigate.

As a Congolese living in the United States and hungry for news back home, I was thankful for the coverage. But since my grandparents still live in east Congo, I would have also liked to have heard about some other recent breaking news items: women being raped, children being enslaved, men being killed, and many more horrors. I would like to hear about the nearly six million lives lost, half of them children under age five, that every month, 45,000 people continue to die in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and that the scale of devastation seen in Darfur happens in the Congo every five and a half months.

I was granted asylum in 1998. Every day since then, I have appreciated the privilege of living in a peaceful community and pursuing a college degree at North Carolina A&T State University. But I will never forget that my people are not free, or the responsibility that comes with the privilege of living in the most powerful country in the world.

19-25 October was 'Break the Silence' Congo Week, a global initiative led by students to raise awareness and provide support to the people of Congo. There were participants in more than 30 countries and on 125 college campuses, including key student leaders at North Carolina A&T, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Greensboro, the University of Maryland, Howard University, Bowie State University, Bryn Mawr College and Cornell University. Students showed films, held teach-ins, hosted fundraisers, organised forums, participated in a cell phone boycott on the Wednesday and undertook many more activities to raise awareness about the dire situation in Congo. Communities also organised interfaith prayer vigils to ask for peace in the DRC.

Part of the challenge is educating people about the history of Congo, which has struggled to overcome its Belgian colonial past, and the present scramble for its rich natural resources by multinational corporations.

Joseph Conrad's 1902 novel, Heart of Darkness, covered the period in the country's history when King Leopold II owned Congo as his own private property. The widespread misreading of Conrad's novel cemented an incomplete picture of the continent as a dark, uncivilised place. In reality, the source of the conflict in Congo for most of its history has been the scramble for its enormous wealth, not the internecine, ethnic bloodletting more commonly blamed. In the late 1990s, Congo was invaded twice by Rwanda and Uganda with the backing and support of the United States, as documented in the 2001 congressional hearings held by Representatives Cynthia McKinney and Tom Tancredo. It was these invasions that unleashed the tremendous suffering that exists in Congo today.

But it is not just history that needs to be re-examined. From copper, tin and cobalt to coltan (a mineral found in cell phones, video games and other gadgets we have come to rely on), American corporations stand to make millions at the expense of the people of Congo. Dan Rather's recent report on Phoenix-based FreePort McMoRan's odious contract in acquiring what many say is the world's richest copper deposit is but a window into the systemic exploitation of Congo's wealth.

There are strong advocacy relationships that can be built on. Even before 1974, when Congo (then known as Zaire) gained international attention hosting the Rumble in the Jungle, the historic boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, African-Americans in particular have a long history of championing the country's cause. In 1909, William H. Sheppard, the first African-American to serve as a Presbyterian missionary to Congo, gave a frank account of atrocities he witnessed during King Leopold's barbaric reign. During the same period, the African-American historian George Washington Williams did the same.

Today there is a new imperative for the global community, and African-Americans in particular, to bring light to the story of Congo. 'Break the Silence' week is an apt place to start. In 1961, Congo's first freely elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, said: 'We are not alone. Africa, Asia, and free and liberated people from every corner of the world will always be found at the side of the Congolese.'

We must not be left to stand alone now.

Kambale Musavuli is a Congolese activist and member of Friends of the Congo. He is pursuing a civil engineering degree at North Carolina A&T State University.

November 1, 2008

Congo Collapses...Again (1)

November 1, 2008 Washington Post piece on the Congo

A week ago, students at the University of Denver, most associated with the Korbel School of International Studies (where I teach), both grads and undergrads held a week of activities called `Congo Awareness Week'. The highlight of the week was a talk given by Guy Patrice Lumumba, son of the famous Congolese nationalist leader, first elected president of the Congo who was - with the connivance of Belgium, the United States and the United Nations - turned over to his political enemies in Katanga and then tortured and assassinated. According to Belgian journalist Colette Braeckmann (Le Dinosaur) Lumumba's body was then dissolved in sulphuric acid so that a future grave site would not become a shrine for would be nationalists.

We'll never know if Patrice Lumumba's vision for the Congo and for Africa would have worked. His was `the road not taken'. But we do know that the road taken and directed by one Mobutu Seku Sesu for 35 years was one of economic collapse, olympic gold medal - level national theft (led by Mobutu himself), decades of oppression and ill conceived economic projects which in the 1990s left the Congo prostrate and open to the plague - a politically motivated plague - that would result in 6 million deaths in 10 years, the collapse of the state as a viable institution and untold suffering for the Congolese people. The United States, using Cold War logic, supported Mobutu from beginning to end and in a very real way, Mobutu's failure is also America's failure - perhaps its most dramatic one - in Africa. Yet throughout these recent years, even with the political chaos, the mines of the Eastern Congo and Katanga have continued to produce, the country's wealth extracted often to the benefit of its neighbors (who are doing the extracting).

Guy Patrice Lumumba, Lumumba's fifth child, would only be born six months after his father's death.

We listened to Lumumba and his traveling associate, Maurice Carney, national coordinator of Friends of the Congo, tease out and explain some of the economic and political roots of the current crisis. I'll try to follow and explain these themes and the events in the Congo in the weeks ahead.

At the University of Denver, we are trying to put together an on-going project to address the Congo humanitarian crisis and to look for political solutions that could defuse it. The initiative could not be more timely. More soon

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October 31, 2008

Powerpoint Presentation on the `Pro-Israel' Lobby

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October 5, 2008

A Month Later... The Campaign

With McCain and Palin plunging in the polls which now give Obama-Biden a 6-7 point edge, Sarah Palin has taken the even lower road of her traditionally gutter politics, resorting to red-baiting - the kind of guilt-by-association smears which have long been a part of the American political tradition, especially since the McCarthyite period of the 1950s (although it began much earlier). Both in California and here in Colorado yesterday, Palin began a campaign to associate Obama with Bill Ayres, a former SDS Weatherman from Chicago who, with Bernadine Dorn, remains active in radical fringe politics in Chicago. It turns out that Ayres and Obama served on some community boards together and on occasion found themselves on the same panels. Hardly the stuff to make such noise about but as the purpose of guilt by association charges is to cast credibility shadows over candidates Palin has decided to get as much mileage out of this as possible. She's building on the fact that in his memoirs, Ayres makes not of his distant association with Obama.

Ayres' politics have moderated considerably over forty years. He's written a few book on public education and has remained active - if somewhat obsolete - in Chicago politics. Dorn, who does not seem to have learned much from her 60s-70s political experiences, now a professor, has been able to maintain a bit of a media presence for no good reason I can tell. She often appears with a number of other washed out, burnt out left overs of the sixties and seventies - Kathleen Cleaver, Ward Churchill and Company, and others all of whom didn't organize very much in their day but knew how to play the media well enough. They still do.

Gutter Politics Again

I would be surprised if the Obama-Ayres connection gets much traction and will sway voters much. It is a terribly warn out tactic. Ayres wasn't particularly important or influential in his Weatherman days and thus, to make a case of the connection requires exaggerating his role in the movement at that time (and that of the Weathermen). He's gone on to do some interesting local organizing in Chicago and his writings on the challenges of teaching in the Chicago public school system are worth reading. Anyhow that isn't the point. The point is to link Obama in whatever way possible with Osama Bin Laden and terrorism. The attempts have been ludicrous - the attacks on his former minister, the fact that his middle name is `Hussein', his tangential relationship in Hawaii with an organizer from the Communist Party USA, and now making noise about Ayres.

Just the crudest form of gutter politics now based upon the latest style of American racism: anti-Arab and anti-Islamic racism, which permeates the national political scene. Of course it's quite a stretch to connect Ayres to Osama Bin Laden. But, based upon the logic that all terrorist roads lead to the Saudi construction multi-millionaire, Republican strategists are confident that simply the accusation of such links will take away votes from Obama in swing states. They are banking on historical precedent, with a deep faith in the political stupidity of the American people to believe anything they hear. And even if the American people don't believe every lie Palin tells, it will due to soe confusion among voters who are simply not sure how to separate fact from fiction. That is the main goal. It is not necessary to prove the point, merely to create enough doubt so as to influence voting patterns. ie...Obama might not be a Moslem because his middle name is Hasan..but then again, why would he have such a middle name? (A common middle name in Africa).

Palin's role since her coming out party at the Republican Party Convention has been two fold - first to take the attention off of McCain's sagging image and to create the impression that Obama is running against Palin and not McCain. This approach worked for a while but appears to be losing traction. Secondly it was to launch the kind of racist personalized attack against Obama that McCain would like to do himself but has been advised not to. So Palin becomes, as it has been described, `McCain's pitbull.' She gives up to every rightwing Christian fundamentalist bigot in America that they too have a chance to reach high office in America at a time when the `Blacks' are taking over. The message, even before Palin opens her mouth (for the campaign's sake she's better off not doing that) is: "look what we're losing - people like me - white working class Christians - and look what we're gaining `a black whose middle name is Hussein and who pals around with bomb-throughing radicals. " In other words, in that great Republican tradition, her candidacy plays primarily - no uniquely - on fear.

The Functional Idiot Syndrome

And for a while it looked like the strategy just might stick. After all, look at the warm welcome that the country and the media gave early on to Palin's nomination, energizing the Republican religious conservative base. As for `historical precedent' - the pacer setters in this respect include Ronald Reagan, Dan Quayle, and of course our current disaster, George Bush. If people with such low intellectual thresholds could reach the highest two offices of the United States, why not Palin, who rivals Quayle in coming as close to a functional idiot as any figure in modern American political history?

As she tries to connect with America's working people in order to peel off some of those `Reagan Democrats' for McCain, what I find most striking about Palin is her great sense of pride and confidence in her own ignorance. In her recent debate with Joe Biden she basically showed, once again, that given the opportunity to give `a heavily rehearsed performance', she has what it takes to throw out one-liner, excelling at reading other people's scripts. As the Financial Times aptly put it "With more `darn it' amd `say it ain't so, Joe' quips in 90 minutes than has been heard during the entire campaign, the Alaska governor's folksy showing put an end to the the media's `Palin death watch'.

McCain's `Palin Horse Stumbles'

Perhaps she got a little bump, but all the same, Palin's star is falling and fast and her popularity appears to have been short-lived. As that happens, McCain's chances of riding the Palin horse to victory evaporate before our very eyes and will continue to do so as John McCain has proven himself to be little more than Palin without boobs - a shallow, right wing politican, a militarist of the first order without much knowledge of foreign policy (like Bush), a man with an explosive temper who really doesn't have very many ideas of his own and has proven something of an embarrassment whenever he's been carted out to defend himself. In short - a lightweight who will, like Bush be something of a front man for policy makers behind the scenes, the Cheneys of the future.

A number of factors come into play - among them the weakened position of the Christian fundamentalist right whom she represents combined with the bigger issues - the unknown dimension of the ever-deepening financial crisis (despite the bailout) and although McCain and the Republicans would like to argue otherwise - what continues to be a failed policy in Iraq, the virtual collapse of the US backed government in Afghanistan, the burgeoning crisis in Pakistan and the inability of the Bush Administration to make any progress whatsoever on resolving the Israeli Palestinian crisis.

Will Americans Vote Against Their Class Interests Again?

One of the great successes of the Republicans since Ronald Reagan has been to get the American people to vote against their own class interests. My speculation is this results from the fact that the united States, is/was the most powerful economy in the world where even the situation of the working class and poor has often been much better than that of people in other countries. It is not that the economy did not count, it simply did not count for as much and people could be peeled off to vent their anger on this or that exotic issues (gun control, abortion, Israel, charter schools). Of course some of that continues, but as the economic crisis deepens it appears that more and more it will take center stage in the minds of people.

The fact of the matter is the McCain-Palin campaign is going poorly on every count. Short of funds McCain had to pull campaign resources out of Michigan. Worse states that looked `in the bag' - Florida and Indiana - are no longer in that category. Likewise in North Carolina, Virginia and here in Colorado McCain's support appears to be slipping. The rise in unemployment with 159,000 Americans losing jobs last month didn't help him either. But nothing hurt him more than his completely inept handling of the financial crisis. The realities of American life are wiping the smirks off of McCain and Palin's faces and the fears that many had of a McCain-Palin Administration no longer seem so dire.

Let the McCain-Palin crumbling begin...if only so we can concentrate on how little an Obama-Biden Administration will be able to accomplish (but with a little more elbow room for us to maneuvre in)

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October 4, 2008

A Month Later...

The blog has been down for nearly a month, the result of computer woes which it appears are partly solved (new machine). But as computers mimic life in that going from one machine to another is simply like going from one set of problems to another, there is a whole other set of issues that has arisen with the new machine. Boring, I know.

In the past month the news has been dominated by the financial crisis and the dulling of Sarah Palin's star...(and with it Obama's bounce in the polls). Just a few thoughts on both. I'll try to explore both later in some depth.

Concerning the financial crisis..

As it broke, one of my friends, Jamie Roth, a retired prof from Regis College, suggested in an email that the whole thing was contrived, that the timing was suspicious, that the crisis was not so serious as it seemed. The logic here - others have argued along similar lines - is that the Bush Administration provoked the crisis so as to be able, in the waning days of power, to shape the financial direction of the country in the more and more likely case that Obama wins. A new Democratic administration would essentially have to accept the deal crafted - with some difficulty it is true - between the Bush Administration and Congress, rammed through with bi-partisan support.

The tempting hook of this logic is that it nicely reflects Naomi Klein's thesis put forth in the `Shock Doctrine' - her best selling book. According to Klein's hypothesis - taken seriously enough by Stiglitz that he gave the book a generally positive review - we have been living in a epoch where the `forces of evil' have developed a strategic approach to crises, be they man made (wars, collapses of nations) or natural (hurricanes, tsunamis, the like). A pattern emerges that one can see already from the September 1973 Chilean coup (actually it started before in Indonesia in the late 1960s) to 9-11 to the S. Asian tsunami. Some kind of event takes place which traumatizes a country or region. While the population remains in shock, unable to adequately respond to events, plans, which have been rotting in some neo-con's drawer to radically restructure society both politically and economically quickly emerge, putting in place what amounts to neo-liberal policies (free markets usually free of state intervention or with a modest amount). Thus it was that conservative University of Chicago type economists, trying to tip toe around (and later justify) all the blood running in the streets, hit the ground running in Indonesia and Chile, the public education system of New Orleans was privatized and entire fishing communities on the east coast of India were replaced a chain of multi-national owned and built hotels.

The argument in the case of the financial crisis goes more or less along the same lines...By not buying out Lehman Brothers - that financial institution that saw its birth hoarding slave-produced cotton before the Civil War - and letting it go under an unnecessary panic was created. As the crisis deepened it permitted the Bush Administration to put forth its own kind of financial bail out - one that put very few conditions on the financial sector and gave Paulson extraodinary powers to determine how $700 billion in taxpayers money would be spent. As many have noted, the Administration let home owners facing mortgage foreclosurers hang by their tootsies but came in decisively to bail out the banks and financial institutions that had crafted most of the bad loans in that sector. The key point here is that the Bush Administration understood that some kind of government bail out was necessary but hoped to accomplish it with as little state control of the private sector as possible. They understood that sooner or later a bailout was likely (because the depth of this financial crisic continues to reveal itself every week). Realistic enough to understand that things could not go on like this indefinitely, the Bush Administration engineered what might be called a `pre-emptive financial strike' on the American people (and the world).

It seems to have worked quite well (from their perspective). Yes, in the end, because of the first rejection of the plan by the House of Representative (in response to a national protest in which calls to congressmen were coming in at a rate of 200 to 1 against the proposal), a few crumbs wer thrown to the masses that the Democrats are trying to give the impression are quite significant. They are not. But the precedent has been set: the government has given $700 billion to the market with very few strings. Thus the state will intervene in the markets but very politely and with few strings attached. With mild interest, John Maynard Keynes will turn over a few times in his grave. eorge Bush, Henry Paulson and Bank of America will be content. Of course the financial crisis will also deepen as so little of the fundamentals - a financial sector still out of control - have been addressed.

So...was it planned? Or did `things' just unfold this way?

I don't know that we'll ever know, but then, does it really matter?

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September 9, 2008

The Sarah Palin Chronicles (2)

Well..it happens and it has happened.

I am not yet ready to retract what was written here about Sarah Palin but it seems that

1. A picture of her in a red white and blue bikini holding a sniper’s rifle is one of those digital, easily done frauds. After hearing about it from several friends, I found it on-line, copied it and then sent it out to several dozen people. Several of them wrote that they sent it out to hundreds of others, only to find out later it was some kind of fabrication. Sorry about that one

2. There is also the reports of Palin having pressured a local librarian in Wassila, Alaska to purge books from the local library with threats to have the librarian fired if she refused. I’ve now read a number of different accounts of this incident which vary from (1. It didn’t happen at all 2. It happened but the list (see below) is inaccurate 3. It happened just as described below

So..for starters… I appreciate the warning signals coming from Laurie Sirotkin, Cheryl Kasson, and several old college friends (among others) on all this. It certainly pays to be careful and it will take time to separate fact from fiction, spin and hearsay from truth. So let us, starting with myself, be patient and more careful to weed out fiction from fact. I have a feeling that in the end the truth will be strange enough. In time we’ll find out what is accurate and what is not about Ms. Palin. No need to exaggerate her history or values. And despite some inconsistencies, a picture is emerging.

What are the more salient points here…that can be said with some certainty

1. She is an avowed Christian fundamentalist and certainly of extreme right wing of the Republican Party – that wing that stands for continuing the Bush foreign and domestic policies and keeping the Christian Fundamentalist wing of that party front and center

2. She has given a surprising amount of energy to John McCain’s presidential run. Her youth contrasts with his geriatric posture, while I’ll leave it to others to determine whether she’s a great beauty or not, frankly, the bottom line is she is not as ugly as McCain, suggesting that the Republicans are more than simply a bunch of conservative old men.

3. She has no foreign policy experience whatsoever and her experience in government on all levels is quite limited.

4. Her acceptance speech, to the surprise of many, including myself, changed the nature of the presidential contest and reminded people that the Republicans do have a shot at winning this election which means that she has become a force that has to be dealt with

On hearing Palin’s acceptance speech (I wrote about it below – on issues it is no surprises to none exist, although the delivery was strong) and then seeing McCains numbers improve in the polls a number of friends and acquaintances got very nervous. An old college friend with whom I reconnected after some 40 years, Carole Ashinaze, worried that Palin would energize the Christian fundamentalist wing of the Republican Party and that, if united, the Republicans could possibly beat Obama. A colleague at work – a sincere and humane liberal who has opposed the war in Iraq from the outset and taken an strong stand against the Patriot Act and the erosion of civil liberties here at home was nothing short of distraught this morning. I’ve never seen him so depressed. He was talking as if the election was already lost to Obama and that America’s goose-stepping future was assured. Others with whom I am in contact, mostly through the blog have expressed similar shades of nervousness and pessimism.

Then there is my good friend Imam Ibrahim Kazerooni (Shi’ite Imam here in Denver) from Iraq who doesn’t think – where it concerns the people of Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel and Palestine - that either Obama or McCain will make much of a difference. And he ushers forth (or will in his upcoming entry in the blog world) a convincing set of facts of the candidates positions on the subject to drill his point home. That view varies from some old Middle Eastern (Arab, Iranian) friends who openly support Obama despite his limitations, but I would expect that in the Middle East, there is a sense that regardless of who wins the presidency, not much will change – either in Israeli-Palestine and Iraq with the danger of a looming confrontation with Iran still very much alive.

In any case, despite his limitations from my view point, as mentioned below, I still support Obama and hope he wins. At the least he’ll give the country and the world a little breathing room. The US military juggernaut in the Middle East will be slowed. I don’t expect much of the repressive legislation to be quickly undone but there’s a good chance that Guantanamo will be dismantled and that torture will no longer be the official policy of the US military. The labor movement here will be given a bit of space to organize and perhaps, perhaps, the disgrace which is the healthcare system in this country will be seriously addressed.

Obama can win. He has a lot going for him. And while I’ve never been much of a fan of Joe Biden – Biden is a tough and profoundly knowledgeable Senator. He has already – in a manner admittedly more symbolic than real – challenged AIPAC ( a little anyhow). More important is the fact that neither Biden nor Obama (despite the latter’s fiasco before AIPAC) are particularly in bed with the folks in the Democratic Leadership Council – those masterminds have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory for the Dems in 2000 and 2004.

In 2004 the Republicans did a nasty but clever thing: they went after John Kerry’s military record – and despite the fact that the campaign was fabricated, were able to turn enough of the electorate against him so that Bush could steal a second election, this time in Ohio rather than in Florida. This time¸ the Republicans appear to be doing something similar: attacking Obama for the fact that he was (rather than wasn’t!!) a community organizer. In both cases they target the Democratic candidates strength, try to turn it into a weakness.

In Kerry’s case, the Republicans managed to put John Kerry – who was a bright and capable candidate and far more liberal than his campaign suggested – on the defensive. This is what Sarah Palin is trying to do to Obama, to actually discredit him for having spent time learning about people’s issues as a community organizer. Rather than defend her record (which even with the inconsistencies mentioned above is indefensible because there is NOTHING THERE), she goes on the attack, proving that the adage `the best defense is an offense’ still has some truth to it. McCain gets his female vice presidential candidate to play the race card!

So what is Obama to do …to turn the tide around in his (and our) favor once again?

Frankly there is much he can and should do.

He should continue to present his program for the economy and for ending the war in Iraq to the American people….and he should (in my humble opinion) go blow for blow with the Republicans on the issues, on the failures of the past eight years both domestically and internationally of which we all are keenly aware.

McCain can be beaten. Listening to him speak these last months I am astounded by his superficiality, his absence of depth and his unrepentant militarism. I would have thought he might be stronger on foreign policy. He isn’t. Indeed, there isn’t much there at all. Of course we’ve just (kind of) elected one of the shallowest, politically ignorant, ideologically bigoted people in American history to the presidency twice and it is possible that the great people of this country can and will do it again.

But it need not be.

So…..we’ve got a lot of work to do. What else is new? So let’s do it.

As for the Palin Chronicles, they will continue. And together we’ll get Sarah Palin into sharper focus (that is if there really is anything worth focusing on)…

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September 6, 2008 (2)

The Sarah Palin Chronicles (1)

This is the beginning of a series.

What is true is that most of us - in the USA and beyond - don't know much about the Republican vice presidential candidate and hopeful, Sarah Palin, currently the governor of Alaska. It seems she was chosen to try to win the working class vote away from Barack Obama for John McCain. Although she gave what I thought was a vapid speech (no economic policy, just alot of one-liners) I have to admit it was a strong, assertive delivery, a classic example of what I call the MacDonald Phenomenon: the ability of the American economy to very efficiently package garbage. And here in Palin is the political version of a big mac. Attractive, well packaged but if you taste enough, it's liable to kill you.

I also admit a certain modest degree of contrition. I confess having sent an email with a picture of Palin dressed in a red, white and blue bikini holding a sniper's rifle. Turns out that picture is probably a cut and paste job and the characterization of Palin it suggests, while true, not formally accurate.

With that in mind I've decided do a bit of research, to share what I learn of Palin's wisdom, her contribution to the common good in Alaska. I've already gotten a fair amount of help on this project from a number of friends from Steamboat Springs to Rockland County NY that have started the research project. So, together let's see if we can look into the eyes of Sarah Palin and see her soul.

For starters, I include an email from an old friend, Michael Myerson, writing about Palin's literary tastes, or lack there of.

This from Myerson:

"Let's spend a few moments browsing the list of books Mayor Sarah Palin tried to get town librarian Mary Ellen Baker to ban in the lovely, all-American town of Wasilla, Alaska. When Baker refused to remove the books from the shelves, Palin tried to fire her. The story was reported in Time Magazine and the list comes from the librarian.net website."

"I'm sure you'll find your own personal favorites among the classics Palin wanted to protect the good people of Wasilla from, but the ones that jumped out at me were the four Stephen King novels (way to go Stephen, John Steinbeck only got three titles on the list), that notorious piece of communist pornography "My Friend Flicka," the usual assortment of Harry Potter books, works by Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain (always fun to see those two names together), Arthur Miller, and Aristophanes, as well as "Our Bodies, Ourselves" (insert your own Bristol Palin joke here), and the infamous one-two punch of depravity: "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Little Red Riding Hood." But the cherry on the sundae, the topper, is Sarah Palin's passionate, religious mission to clear the shelves of the Wasilia Public Library of that ultimate evil tome: "Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary." That's the one with "equality," "free speech" and "justice" in it."

"Go over to your book case and take down one of the books you'll find on the list (I know you've got a couple) and give it a read in honor of the founding fathers. Then tell me I'm not the only voter who doesn't want this woman within thirty feet of the United States Constitution."

Sarah Palin's Book Club

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter20and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It’s Okay if You Don’t Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
M y Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women’s Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughte rhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil’s Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John20Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth
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September 6, 2008 (1)

Paul Krugman on the McCain-Palin Attack Strategy

(note: writing in yesterday's NY Times, economist and Bush Administration critique Paul Krugman sketches out the Republican Party strategy for attacking the Obama-Biden ticket. It is essentially a class attack (not racial - or at least not yet) to paint Obama as `an elitist' while McCain and Palin try to paint themselves as `the people's' ticket. Harder for McCain who can't remember how many homes he owns, easier, but not convincing for Palin either. But in a clever way [is Karl Rove at it again] it puts Obama and Biden on the defensive)

The Resentment Strategy
New York Times, The (NY) - September 5, 2008

Author: PAUL KRUGMAN

Abstract: Paul Krugman Op-Ed column contends Republican anger is based on perception that Democrats look down their noses at regular people; holds what Republican Party is selling is pure politics of resentment; argues GOP is still party of Nixon; contends presidential-vice presidential ticket of Sen John McCain and Gov Sarah Palin can very possibly ride Nixonian resentment into upset election victory in what should be overwhelmingly Democratic year. Can the super-rich former governor of Massachusetts -- the son of a Fortune 500 C.E.O. who made a vast fortune in the leveraged-buyout business -- really keep a straight face while denouncing "Eastern elites"?

Can the former mayor of New York City, a man who, as USA Today put it, "marched in gay pride parades, dressed up in drag and lived temporarily with a gay couple and their Shih Tzu" -- that was between his second and third marriages -- really get away with saying that Barack Obama doesn't think small towns are sufficiently "cosmopolitan"?

Can the vice-presidential candidate of a party that has controlled the White House, Congress or both for 26 of the past 28 years, a party that, Borg-like, assimilated much of the D.C. lobbying industry into itself -- until Congress changed hands, high-paying lobbying jobs were reserved for loyal Republicans -- really portray herself as running against the "Washington elite"?

Yes, they can. (for the rest of the piece, click here)

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September 5, 2008

A Taste Of Denver: Thank God It's Over (6)

Some Thoughts On How Obama Beat Hillary Clinton

Lost in the shuffle - and the struggle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party presidential nomination - is the fact that one of the two major American political parties has just nominated the first Black candidate for the presidency in American history. If Obama wins, he, his wife and two children will come to occupy a residence built almost entirely by slave labor, the appropriately named `White House’.

While the United States remains a nation based on a foundation of racial and ethnic discrimination that remains a thorny presence in American life, Obama’s achievement of winning the Democratic nomination is both a statement how far the nation has come and a symbol of the social struggle that remains to be completed. Among the things the United States might offer to the global community some day - is an example of how a nation - all of us, white, black, brown, red and everything in between overcame a powerful heritage of discrimination. We’re not there yet - far from it - but we’re on our way.

Whatever his political limitations - especially where it concerns the degree to which Obama has bought into the Bush Middle East foreign policy - Barack Obama successfully captured the political imagination of the majority of the Democratic Party - and much of the country. It remains to be seen whether he’ll have enough momentum to win the presidency against what is certain to be yet another Republican presidential bid based upon fear and militarism. So much of the country’s progressive energy went into supporting Obama - from the unions, peace groups, minorities that the opposition outside the Democratic Party found itself generally marginalized.
This was especially true after Super Tuesday when it appeared that Obama actually had a chance to successfully challenge Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Slips, Bill Blows His Top

What are the factors that can explain Obama’s dramatic triumph over Hillary Clinton?

The Clintons - both Bill and Hillary - h ad prepared for a Hillary run at the presidency for nearly a decade. They appeared to hold most of the cards in the Democratic deck in their hands. Hillary had won over the support of the Democratic Party machine (there is such a thing) nationwide. She had collected an enormous war chest and of course had the close cooperation of one of the country’s shrewdest political operatives of modern times in her husband. As recently as a year ago she appeared un-stoppable.

There were some key elements to Hillary’s decline and Obama’s `ascent’.

1. The mood of the country - and most particularly of the base of the Democratic Party - had shifted dramatically over the past eight years. It amounted to a nationwide grassroots revolt against the Bush policies (while Democrats in the Congress continued to vote for many Bush initiatives). On the top of the list of issues propelling this revolt was opposition to the war in Iraq, to Bush Administration practices endorsing and extending the use of torture, concern about the consequences of the Patriot Act on Civil Rights, and more and more in the later years of the Bush Presidency, the erosion of the economy.

The Clintons failed to take these shifts enough into account and when they finally did (in the areas that they did) it was too late. The prime example: Hillary Clinton never publicly came out against the Bush Administration led invasion of Iraq. She could not shake her image as a supporter of the war (in part because she is) while Obama - whose record on the war was not exactly stellar either - was able to claim that at the outset he voted against the war.

2. Although the general line of the Democratic Party - defined to a great extent by the Democratic Leadership Council - has remained surprisingly consistent over the past 20 years - there have been - as a result of largely of pressure from below and two failed presidential bids (Gore, Kerry) - some important changes in the leadership of the Democratic Party itself which gave Obama an opening. Specifically, when Howard Dean became party chair and shifted the party’s focus to extending the party’s base in 50 states, it gave Obama a chance to tap into the new elements joining the party, particularly youth. In a like manner, Obama learned from Dean’s 2004 presidential run, and most especially, Dean’s use of the internet for fund-raising. On this front from the very outset, Obama’s campaign left Hillary’s far behind in the dust.

One other `technically related development’ that seems to have hurt Hillary Clinton. There was no `YouTube’ in 2004, or hardly. But in this campaign people with fancy cell phones or digital video cameras could film campaign incidents and minutes later post them on the internet for tens of thousands (or more) people to instantly see. This undermined Bill Clinton’s credibility. Bill Clinton has reputation for a very short fuse behind the scenes and often blows up. In 2004 he could do this - let’s say in Atlanta - and the impact did not go beyond local media sources. But with YouTube the whole nation could see his temper tantrums in Boston, Buffalo, Pittsburg, Cleveland, Chicago, Omaha, Oklahoma City, Steamboat Springs and Elko Nevada in a matter of simultaneously. And the man looked out of control. And he looked out of control because he was out of control.

Clinton's Underestimate Obama

3. As important, the Clintons and the Democratic Party leadership serious under-estimated Obama’s poise and political sophistication. Bill Clinton has met his strategizing match in Barack Obama. Obama was able to maneuver deftly through the Democratic Party minefield of corporate interests, unions, AIPAC, Black and Chicano caucuses. It was this quality as well as his considerable oratory abilities that was key. In the end it was a primary battle between the Democratic Party’s old guard and established politicians and operatives against the party’s rebels and new elements. In such contests, the old guard wins 9 times out of 10, maybe more. Barack Obama had just enough support and political savvy to sneak through and defeat Hillary. It wasn’t by much.

Coming into the Denver convention, Obama had several goals, among the main ones:

1. Neutralize the Clintons and unite the party around his candidacy.
2. Define his agenda to the nation
3. Begin a clear and unambiguous counter offensive against John McCain.

He appears to have achieved all three. Although he gave the Clinton’s a role in the convention, he chose Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate (rather than Hillary or several others the Clinton’s had suggested). This was also something of a blow to the Democratic Leadership Council as well. If Obama wins the election he will replace Bill Clinton as what one might consider to be the primary voice of the Democratic Party in the nation. Clinton’s bitterness at being so sidelined is palpable.

Concerning Obama’s agenda, it is a clear break in both tone and content from the legacy of the Bush Administration, especially on domestic policy. Expect an Obama presidency to move quickly on two domestic issues - health care (his healthcare program more or less) and legislation making it easier for unions to organize. We can also anticipate a change in tone, an administration less willing to be the handmaiden of the financial, military and corporate sectors (these sectors might get taxed a bit more).

It is in the foreign policy arena that his policies have been the most disappointing, and we can expect little progress on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking or a new more tempered policy towards Iran (although it is not clear that Obama would want to bomb Iran the way that the Bush Administration would like to). Still we can expect more cooperation between an Obama Administration and traditional US allies - Europe, Japan etc and perhaps a break on the Bush slide into renewing the Cold War with Russia. There are indications he’ll move in the direction of signing the Kyoto Protocols on the environment.

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September 4, 2008

A Taste Of Denver: Thank God It's Over (5)

Obama and the Left - or, Don't Ask What Obama Can Do For You But What You Can Do For Obama.

Don't Whine, Organize

There is a left in the United States today – social forces and movements organizing and agitating for deep going social change at home and a more peaceful foreign policy abroad - in both cases challenging the basic precepts of the `cowboy' capitalist society in which we find ourselves, tossed by the winds of history. It is vibrant, flexible, dedicated and to use a word I can’t stand `creative’. Its social and political chemistry is also `evolving’ in that it is a far cry today from what it was in the past and continues to evolve and change forms, occasionally actually to learn from its past and to adjust to an ever and quickly changing global political landscape. Often unappreciated is the fact that it exists both beyond and within the Democratic Party.

But mostly it is small in size and weak in overall political influence, currently with its fair share of charlatans and other forms of low life. Why should the left not have the sacred right to its own forms of incompetency and oppurtunism any less than other political trends? Despite these oft overlooked facts, in sickness and in health, in altered states or sober, oftentimes in rage and frustration, until death do I part, I would like to believe that I am, in my own modest way, a part of it - although what that entails practically means less and less by the hour.

But for the past 20-5 years (maybe longer) - in large measure through no fault of their own- the social movements have been rather narrow in their base and modest in influence. While there have been upsurges, especially in the 1980s (Latin American solidarity especially with Nicaragua and El Salvador, the anti-nuclear movement of the same decade), not even these periods of intensified activity compare with the 1960s or the 1930s, the latter being the most profound social movement in the past 100 years. The challenge now as it has been for decades is to broaden and strengthen these movements – and as Martin Luther King Jr. tried to do, to find the ways to unify them into a more coherent force in American life.

Wanted: A Bigger Social Movement

When the social movement has been broad, militant and low stupidity index, it has been able to pressure the Democrats (and some Republicans) in power to implement social change. Such were the series of radical reforms undertaken by Roosevelt – the implementation of Social Security, government jobs programs, limiting the speculation in the finance and banking sector – and in the 1960s (Voting Rights Act, War on Poverty, forcing the government to end its immoral and genocidal war in Vietnam – 3,000,000 Vietnamese killed ). Since the 1960s for a variety of reasons, although the objective conditions of the American people have deteriorated over time, and the international situation has become more unstable and US foreign policy taken on what can only be considered criminal dimensions, the movement has been smaller.

These are not merely academic reflections.

Without a strong social movement `encouraging’ him on, there are rather severe limits as to what an Obama presidency can accomplish once in office. Given that he will have to face a series of obstacles – the power of the military industrial complex, the ravenous ever expanding appetite of the financial sector even as that sector is declining, narrow bigoted lobbies like the NRA and AIPAC and a still ideologically driven, politically experienced and well financed right wing. The majority of the American people might support Obama and his vision for change, but the weight of the political class pickled with corruption and greed will probably gain more access. And now we’re living in a country where the erosion of civil rights – spearheaded by Republicans but strongly backed by most Democrats in Congress - only makes matters worse.

Not Since McGovern in 1972

At present, the weakness of the social movements makes it unlikely to sustain a serious national candidate for the presidency from the left, Obama is, probably as good as it gets (and we’ll see what he can achieve if elected). To find the last openly left – or left liberal Democratic candidate for the presidency – one has to go back to the 1972 George McGovern campaign with its clear and unambiguous anti-Vietnam war message. Much of the Democratic Party did not support McGovern then, actively sabotaged his campaign (as Lieberman is trying to do to Obama today). Indeed since 1972 the Democratic Party leadership has gone out of its way not to let anyone like McGovern get near the presidency if they could help it.

When – responding to the deepening all round crisis in American society, liberal, left of center candidate did sneak through (Gore, Kerry) - they were pressured to `tone down’ their message to such a degree that it was lost on the electorate. This strategy – the main line of thinking of the Democratic Leadership Council – has largely succeeded in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in the last two presidential elections before this one. Obama has had – to a certain degree anyhow – make similar compromises in the name of `party unity’.

Maybe They'll Get Bigger?

Perhaps in the coming period these social movements will grow again. Hard to tell. It seems that after a forty year hiatus, the labor movement is beginning to increase its numbers. Most radicals today don’t think much about labor, but frankly, without a strong and progressive labor movement, social movements are severe hampered in what they can accomplish. When labor (finally!) raises its head (and fist) the ruling class takes note – thus the hysterical reaction of Colorado Republicans and the Denver Post at the success of an organizing campaign that brought 32,000 public employees into the ranks of public sector unions. Likewise, the activities of main civil rights movements have been somewhat dormant on the whole, living on past accomplishments but now there is the beginning of what might be the most profound civil rights movement in half a century – the immigrants rights movement.

The best thing progressives – really any one who cares about the future of this nation – can do is to build these movements into more of a political force than they are currently, so that they will play more of a role in the future.

Some one like Barack Obama – negotiating between powerful and conservative political and economic forces with only weak social movements pushing him to the left – have to pick and chose a couple of issues on which to make their social agenda. Without stronger social movements to nudge Obama’s progressive agenda ahead, his options for changing the current political climate in the USA are limited. It appears that there are three themes that an Obama administration will try to address and implement: legislation to make union organizing both legal and easier (which will not only strengthen the labor movement but also the political clout of the Democratic Party), a comprehensive medical care program (again it does not appear that it will be universal coverage outside the framework of insurance companies – the best solution – but still, more extensive coverage) and ending the war in Iraq. None of these would be easily accomplished.

Great American Presidents: Few and Far Between

Think back on the few great liberal reformers who became presidents. They are few and far between and their `moment in the sun’ precisely short. Two of them, Lincoln and Kennedy, were assassinated in office. Roosevelt survived such a dark fate, but he had the encouragement of one of the most extraordinary first ladies in American history pushing him left, Eleanor Roosevelt, and perhaps more importantly the most powerful, labor-led social movement in modern American history, led in large measure (or at least influenced) by socialists and communists, now largely either forgotten or disparaged for their role. Obama is operating in an entirely different historical atmosphere, one in which the great social movements of today are largely outside of the United States and in large measure in opposition to US economic and political policies, while the social movements at home are weaker.

So we all have a lot of work to do don’t we? And we can’t place all the responsibility on Barack Obama.

(to be continued)

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September 3, 2008

A Taste Of Denver: Thank God It's Over (4)

Obama: As Good As It Gets For A Dem These Days

Watching the Democratic Party Convention one could easily – and wrongly – conclude that not much happened. There was very little debate, most of the talks, presentations were scripted, Barack Obama’s candidacy had been decided, the police and security presence overdone to the extreme…the whole thing essentially contrived, paid for in large measure by behind the scenes (and actually not-so behind the scenes) corporate donations.

I gave this kind of analysis to one of my students, a volunteer at the Pepsi Center who responded `everything you say is true, but, to be honest, I’m having a blast’ – this from one of my more socially committed and class conscious students! Other young people that happen to regularly pass through my life – there are a fair number – simply didn’t want to hear any criticisms I might have of Obama’s foreign policy – this nonsense about taking troops from Iraq to put them in Afghanistan or his `giving away’ of Jerusalem to the Israeli government – his well documented shift to from the liberal left to the center after the primaries.

Of course that doesn’t particularly stop me from speaking my mind – but it is becoming clear that only six months to a year or so into an Obama administration (although it is not carved in stone, I believe he’ll win) will some of Obama’s true believers – there is a whole army of them – come down to earth and come to grips with his limitations.

Besides, I’ll vote for the guy myself. Any temptation to support McKinney (Green Party candidate) evaporated watching her behind the scenes political opportunism here in Denver during the week of the convention and as for Nader – well, I’m glad he’s there and I do support including him in the presidential debate. He probably knows more about the issues than any of the others. He gave a hard hitting and accurate critique of the Dems (and Obama) at the University of Denver on August 27 before 4300, including Nancy, her father Lowell, our friend Ibrahim and myself. But I won’t vote for him.

The Obama Phenomenon

Whatever his political limitations (more on that later), Barack Obama has done something that hasn’t happened in America since assassination cut off the presidential bid of Robert Kennedy in 1968: he’s captured the political imagination of not just the Democratic delegates to Denver, but of much of the country and has thus become a force in American politics that far outweighs some of the positions he holds. He’s been able to mobilize youth in an unprecedented fashion. So much of the progressive energy of this nation this past year went into supporting Obama – from the unions, peace and environmental groups, minorities – especially after Super Tuesday when it appeared that Obama actually had a shot at defeating Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party Nomination.

With so much of the progressive – even left – energy mobilizing behind Obama, organized left opposition outside of the Democratic Party found itself generally marginalized, thus the modest showing of such groups in Denver last week where despite claims to the contrary, social movement participation in the demonstrations (see yesterday’s entry) was small to modest. Indeed, there were no large scale mobilizations to Denver. Most social movements – like the great immigration rights movement out of Los Angeles that mobilized more than a million people to demonstrate two years ago – simply stayed home or sent only symbolic delegations. Pretty modest turnout, all in all.

Nader: Good Politics No Base

And that begs the broader question: although Ralph Nader can articulate the policy limits of the Democratic Party as accurately as anyone, what he has only poorly explained is why so much of the country stands with Barack Obama. If 4300 people came out to see Ralph in Denver, 85,000 went to Invesco Field to `witness history’ and from what I can glean another 40,000 to 50,000 would have attended if they could have gotten in.

And it’s not just the numbers.

The Clintons Blew It

What can explain Obama’s dramatic triumph over Hillary Clinton?

Barak Obama beat one of the most experienced (it’s true!), well-oiled and well financed political teams in American political history – Bill and Hillary Clinton. He knocked the Clintons off center-stage of the Democratic Party. Although the political implications of that shift have yet to be revealed in all their aspects, what can be said is that – particularly if he wins the presidency - Obama achieved one of the greatest political upsets in the nation’s history. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer pair of political scoundrels. Nor could it have happened without a broad based revolt within the Democratic Party against the Clintons, their machine (for that is exactly what they have cultivated, put together and thought they had perfected) and their spiritual base: the Democratic Leadership Council.

The Clintons – both Bill and Hillary – had prepared for a Hillary run at the presidency even before Bill stepped down from the office in 2000 handing the baton to the little idiot who’s been in office since. One has to wonder what deal the Clinton’s made with each other? That Hillary would stay in the marriage with Bill despite the latter’s anatomical intern probing with Cuban cigars in exchange for Bill managing Hillary’s presidential bid? Who knows? But as recently as a year ago, it appeared that Hillary Clinton held most of the cards in the Democratic Party deck and that she would not win but sail to the presidential nomination, only to be defeated by `a nobody’ – some inexperienced kid from Chicago.

Please, this happens in the movies but not in American politics and not to the Clintons who had successfully weathered so many political and personal storms that they thought themselves invincible. Hillary had carefully cultivated and easily won the support of much of the Democratic Party political machine nationwide. She had accumulated an enormous war chest and of course had the close cooperation of one of America’s all time shrewdest (and lewdest?) political operatives of modern times – her husband. With so much political support, a convention in Denver looked to be very much of a pro-Clinton affair with Colorado considered very friendly territory.

Colorado: Mirror of the Nation

This pattern was clear, played out here in Colorado as it was nationwide. There is a funny story about former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, a strong Clinton supporter. Sensing which way the political winds were blowing, the city’s first Black mayor, took down his Clinton sign already in April. Before that time, he and wife Wilma were an integral part of Colorado’s Clinton team, doing what they do best – behind the scenes arm-twisting for Hillary. The Clintons also have very close ties with the political legal operatives, Steve Farber and Norm Brownstein and often stay at one of their homes when in the area. Denver’s US Congresswoman Diana De Gette was on board emerging as national co-chair of Hillary’s healthcare campaign. No doubt most of the above had visions of sugar plums – or more likely positions in a Clinton administration – dancing in their head. And while Federico Pena wouldn’t bite (he’d had a falling out with the Clintons), most of the Chicano leadership within the Democratic Party followed Webb’s lead as well.

(to be continued tomorrow)

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September 2, 2008 (2)

A Taste Of Denver: Thank God It's Over (3): The Arrest and Manhandling of Democracy Now's Amy Goodman and Associates at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 1, 2008

Contact:
Mike Burke: mike@democracynow.org

**UPDATE**

Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar
Released After Illegal Arrest at RNC

Goodman Charged with Obstruction; Felony Riot Charges Pending Against
Kouddous and Salazar

ST. PAUL--Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and producers Sharif Abdel
Kouddous and Nicole Salazar have all been released from police custody
in St. Paul following their illegal arrest by Minneapolis Police on
Monday afternoon.

All three were violently manhandled by law enforcement officers. Abdel
Kouddous was slammed against a wall and the ground, leaving his arms
scraped and bloodied. He sustained other injuries to his chest and back.
Salazar's violent arrest by baton-wielding officers, during which she
was slammed to the ground while yelling, "I'm Press! Press!," resulted
in her nose bleeding, as well as causing facial pain. Goodman's arm was
violently yanked by police as she was arrested.

On Tuesday, Democracy Now! will broadcast video of these arrests, as
well as the broader police action. These will also be available on:
www.democracynow.org

Goodman was arrested while questioning police about the unlawful
detention of Kouddous and Salazar who were arrested while they carried
out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the
Republican National Convention. Goodman's crime appears to have been
defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and
Salazar were arrested on suspicion of rioting, a felony. While the three
have been released, they all still face charges stemming from their
unlawful arrest. Kouddous and Salazar face pending charges of suspicion
of felony riot, while Goodman has been officially charged with
obstruction of a legal process and interference with a "peace officer."

Democracy Now! forcefully rejects all of these charges as false and an
attempt at intimidation of these journalists. We demand that the charges
be immediately and completely dropped.

Democracy Now! stands by Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and condemns this
action by Twin Cities' law enforcement as a clear violation of the
freedom of the press and the First Amendment rights of these journalists.

During the demonstration in which the Democracy Now! team was arrested,
law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion
grenades and excessive force against protesters and journalists. Several
dozen demonstrators were also arrested during this action, including a
photographer for the Associated Press.

Amy Goodman is one of the most well-known and well-respected journalists
in the United States. She has received journalism's top honors for her
reporting and has a distinguished reputation of bravery and courage. The
arrest of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and the subsequent criminal
charges and threat of charges are a transparent attempt to intimidate
journalists.

Democracy Now! is a nationally-syndicated public TV and radio program
that airs on over 700 radio and TV stations across the US and the globe.

Video of Amy Goodman's Arrest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ

_________________________

September 2, 2008

A Taste Of Denver: Thank God It's Over (2)

Although some of the activities and demonstrations in Denver during the Democratic Convention last week did draw people from around the country, the numbers at such events were generally small, and the social base of the activists narrow. Taken in its entirety, the overall organized opposition to the Democratic Convention was modest in size and scope. With few exceptions (see below) it didn't amount to much. Its impact on the convention itself was rather light. Although the opposition might not like to admit it – most of the political energy in Denver last week was not on the streets but at the Pepsi Center itself.

Groups like the recently formed `Alliance for Real Democracy’, a loose coalition of groups and individuals, did a lot of good work in a short time, but overall the both the numbers of people on the streets were smaller than predicted and the political message they hoped to convey was muffled and often lacked clarity. This was especially the case of the group `Recreate 68’ which had predicted on several occasions that more than 20,000 people would attend their march and rally. According to several people in attendance, strip away the sizeable number of press and barely 500 came to hear political has-beens like Ward Churchill, Kathleen Cleaver and Cynthia McKinney deliver shrill and unfocused messages.

Exceptions To the Rule

There were four exceptions to this picture:

1. The march led by anti-Iraq War vets (in uniform) after a `Rage Against The Machine’ concert which took to the streets, 8000-to-10,000 strong, without a permit and marched peacefully and in a disciplined fashion the five miles from Denver’s coliseum on the north of town to the so-called Pepsi Center where the convention was taking place. The concert, organized by a group of youth calling themselves Tent City worked the concert to build the march in a creative way and then with the vets leading the long line which stretched for a mile, marched the entire distance, surrounded by police and other security forces. The vets delivered a letter to a representative of Barak Obama calling for an end to the Iraq War and for better treatment of vets. In marching this way, the `Tent City’ people effective challenged the constitutionality of a whole slew of laws passed to limit the rights of demonstrators and free speech. It was impressive. Efforts to co-opt the march – and there were some – went nowhere.

2. The same day, Wednesday, August 27, Ralph Nader, left presidential candidate for president, spoke to an audience of about 4500 enthusiastic supporters at the University of Denver’s Magnuss Arena. Although there were a number of stoned hippies from the 1960s (for whom I feel a certain affection), most of the audience was the non-bleached hair set, young activists in the main, disaffected not just by Bush Administration policies but also eight years of weak, spineless Democratic Party responses. Nancy Pelosi came under fire for taking the impeachment issue off the table, Hillary Clinton for her consistent and unapologetic support for the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act which undermines domestic civil rights. Besides Nader, actor Sean Penn, peace activist and Congressional candidate Cindy Sheehan (she’s challenging Pelosi’s seat in SF), and local musician Jello Biafra (among others) gave fine speeches. Penn’s was a bit long – but insightful, hitting again and again on the erosion of civil rights in the Bush years. He came short of endorsing Ralph Nader but did call for Nader’s inclusion in the debates – a demand I wholeheartedly support. Although the audience seemed quite familiar with Jello Biafra I had never heard of him. Walking to the podium, he looked (and sounded) like he could have grown up in Wheatridge (a largely white middle class suburb west of Denver). Jello Biafra? Where did that name come fome? Anyhow – whatever reservations I had about his name, he gave a coherent speech, a searing attack against Bush Administration policies. In some ways it was more direct and less self-serving than Nader’s remarks

3. On Thursday several thousand more people – in large measure Chicanos, many from the city’s Westside, with its long and deep radical history – marched for immigrant rights. They ended their march at Lincoln Park where speeches and music followed. Although it was a shadow of a similar march in Denver two years ago which brought out 80,000 – many of whom were mobilized by listening to Spanish-language radio – still, it was a show of force from one of the most – if not the most – oppressed constituencies in the country. Along with the Iraq-vets led demonstration the day before, this was the most politically significant `reminder’ to the delegates at the convention center – and the world at large – of the key issues that the next president will have to face. Although the numbers were respectable enough, the speeches at Lincoln Park were disappointing, lacking a clear focus. It appears that some of the biggest immigration rights groups in the country, who had come by bus from Los Angeles to participate, were denied access to the podium due to the `microphone hogging’ of some of the locally based organizers. Once again, Recreate 68 found itself isolated. Although its members were welcome to participate in the march, the organization was explicitly told by the march organizers they could not carry a banner or be among the sponsoring organizations.

4. Another group which held a series of information lectures that lasted the entire time of the convention was Progressive Democrats of America. In conjunction with The Nation magazine, the Progressive Dems brought an impressive array of activists and experts on many of the key issues of the day – healthcare, civil rights, Bush’s foreign policy. Although a formation within the Democratic Party trying to influence the party platform and candidates to the left, the weight of the Progressive Dems in the overall scheme of things seems rather light. As an indication, their events took place outside, not within the convention’s framework. Still I’m glad they were there and have heard that most of their events were well attended and interesting. On Thursday, the day that along with my father-in-law, Lowell Fey, I attended, I arrived just as Jesse Jackson was walking in the door. Jackson gave a powerful speech (he still can do that), reminding people of the struggles and sacrifices that preceded Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous `I Have A Dream’ speech.

Wexler Throws A Few Crumbs to The Left

Congressman Robert Wexler, who is introducing impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney, was less impressive. The night prior on national tv he had mentioned Israel in a speech 20-30 times. I guess that was his predetermined role. Groveling to AIPAC aside, had Wexler called for impeachment a year ago, it might have made a difference’. To do so now, with just a few months of the Bush Presidency left, seems somewhat cynical, little more than throwing a few crumbs of nothing to the left. Banners calling for impeachment, demanding the US not attack Iran hung among others in the room. Later I read that someone had stolen the banner of the US Campaign Against The Occupation – the national organization opposed to the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (otherwise known as Palestine). Who took it down I wonder? It was consistent with the fact that for nearly a week in Denver the word `Palestine’ appears to have disappeared from the English language. (More on this in a later entry). I also couldn’t help noticing that while the discussions and presentations were interesting enough at the Central Presbyterian Church where the Progressive Dem’s held their meetings that, like in the convention itself, there was no place in their programs for questions from the audience and that while trying to appear flexible and moderate, that moderator John Nichols of the Nation acted a bit too much as a public censor.

Although there were a few confrontations between demonstrators and the police – including several where it appeared the security forces seriously over-reacted, although flexing their muscles every day, the security response was somehow contained. Whether this was the case because Barack Obama purposefully put the breaks on police over-reaction (as I suspect he did) to avoid what could have been negative publicity or whether the city of Denver itself was restrained, is not clear. But already, what didn’t happen in the streets of Denver is sharply contrasted with is happening in Minnesota where there have been `pre-emptive’ police-FBI raids against demonstrators, arrests with charges of conspiracy (conspiracy to do WHAT?) and the arrest of many including Democracy Now announcer Amy Goodman.

Still, what went on inside the Denver convention was in many ways more interesting and in many ways more decisive for the fate of the nation than what went on in the streets. The first Black American had been nominated for the presidency by one of the two major political parties. And this is, by any measure, historic and with potentially profound consequences for the nation and in some ways the fate of the earth. But more on that in the next installment.

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September 1, 2008

A Taste Of Denver: Thank God It's Over (1)

(note: this is the first of a series of articles on the recently completed Democratic Convention that nominated Barack Obama as its candidate for the presidency. Itr all happened so fast that it was a bit diffuclt to process...but i'll try)

It’s over. Finally. The Denver Democratic Convention has receded into history.

The media hype is finally dying down and life in Denver can back to usual – whatever that is. The delegates and press have left, the media barrage slowed to a trickle, Invesco Stadium quickly cleaned up to host yesterday's annual CU-CSU football game. No more overdone security, artificial (and unconstitutional) rules to keep demonstrators at bay. `Recreate 68’ – the bogus protest group – can can mercifully disintegrate to the oblivion it deserves.

If convention demonstrators were kept from the delegates, the lobbyists were bothered with no such restrictions. They had a field day, making a mockery of those insipid laws limiting campaign financing. They have already spent $1.5 billion in total on this presidential election, on their way to top the $2.8 billion spent (or at least officially reported) last year.

Through SEIU, the public employees union, Nancy and I had the possibility of witnessing history – of attending Obama’s acceptance speech at Invesco Field with 85,000 others. We passed on that historic opportunity on hearing that we’d have to gather at 1 pm for an 8 pm speech. But the family was represented as Abbie, our younger daughter was present for the festivities and the speech.

Instead, I wound up seeing it at the Denver Press Club with a couple of good friends, together with whom I had drifted downtown. Beers in hand, we watched with about 50 others. Other than the one woman who commented loudly enough for all to hear `have you ever heard more bullshit?’- the rest of `the crowd’, mostly local journalists, seemed generally pro-Obama. The loudest cheers from that group erupted them came as Obama called for equal pay for equal work for women.

Mulling over just how historic was the historic speech, the three of us then wandered over to the nearby Grand Hyatt Hotel where we had difficulty getting past the security check (but finally did somehow pass muster) Chase Ergen, one of my students at D.U. had invited us to some kind of reception there. Curious, wanting to experience the atmosphere of at least one of those famed convention parties to see lobbying in action and drink free beer, I decided to accept..

Although Chase had frequently mentioned his father, I hadn’t put all the dots – or frankly any of the dots – together until I arrived at the Hyatt's penthouse. Ergen is the son of Charlie Ergen, the 55 year old founder and C.E.O. of Echo Star. Echo Star is one of the nation’s largest satellite telecommunications companies. Charlie Ergen, a former Frito-Lay analyst, gave up a future in potato chips in 1980, to sell satellite dishes, soon thereafter expanding into broadcasting, founded Echo Star.

It appears that is the satellite tv business was more lucrative than selling those chemically scented sour-cream potato chips I can’t get enough of. According the Forbes Magazine 2008 survey, Charlie Ergen is the world’s 87th richest billionaire worth a cool $9.5 billion. Not bad for a company that did not exist a quarter of century ago although there is speculation that Echo Star might pass from the scene as quickly as it made its grand entrance. For all that, in this world of huge companies that come and go with the speed of light, Echo Star appears to currently be in a fight for its life – caught between Rupert Murdock’s media empire and Echo Star’s own financial backers.

Held at the Peak’s Lounge, atop of the Grand Hyatt, the reception was hosted by Echo Star and several other telecommunication companies `in honor of’ the Congressional Black Caucus. Fine panaramic view of Denver and the Rockies. Echo Star had hosted several other parties like it the days before for labor and Chicano legislators, at the price of $10,000 an hour (or so I was told) for the lounge. It was a classic example of the kind of soft money lobbying that pervaded this (and many other) conventions. The food was fine, the drinks free, the jazz music outstanding, the company – except for Chase and two of his fellow D.U. student friends - somewhat dull – a lot of lawyers and accountants. The guests present included US Congressman John Conyers, his son, Congresswoman Eleanor Norton Holmes. It was a bit sad to see two of my favorite politicans gently groveling for financial support, but I suppose that is what politics on the national level is all about and that there is no escapging such degrading scenes.

So this is how it works, I thought: high priced, low keyed schmoozing to gain `access’ to candidates, delegates, etc. Although I enjoyed meeting Charlie Ergen (briefly – I couldn’t think of anything to lobby him for) I found the gathering pretty boring , and would have left after about a half hour, but the friends with whom I came seemed to be enjoying themselves with food, spirits and enjoying the music.

In many ways, despite all this, Echo Star's reception for the Black Congressional Caucus was a rather tame example of such events. `Little’ parties like this were taking place all over Denver this week, some hosted by corporations and their lobbyists, others by the politicans themselves. Nancy Pelosi held a major bash at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Norm Brownstein and Steve Farber, lobbyists and political players extroardinaire rented to modern art museum for a like event. This should come as no surprise. It was corporate lobbyists in large measure that had, despite laws to the contrary, almost entirely funded the Democratic National Convention, a tradition developed by the Clinton's themselves to counter Republican corporate monetary contributions.

`In restaurants and hotels, the Financial Times (August 30, 2008) wrote, law makers mingled with lobbyists and other donors just as they do in Washington’. Among the other parties were JP Morgan’s `salute to women governors’, the Recording Industry Association’s concert featuring Kanye West. The California delegation was invited to a party hosted by ATT on Monday. The delegates were `greeted with goodies’ but the outside of the bags contained disclaimers `We [ATT] have been advised by counsel that we may not offer complimentary gift bags to public officials’ as if that somehow legitimized the gift giving.

Billy Tauzin, chief executive of the pharmaceutical lobby group PhRMA and scroundrel-extraordinaire of American politics, hosted a brunch, Tauzin, a Cajun born former US Congressman from Louisiana , retired from the US House of Representatives in 2005. Ten years prior, at sensing the winds of change, and claiming there was no place in the Democratic Party for `a moderate’ Democrat, he switched and became a Republican. It was reported that upon his retirement, the PhRMA offered Tauzin more than $2.5 million per year for his services, outbidding the Motion Picture Association of America, which had offered Tauzin $1 million to lobby for it.[1]

(to be continued)

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August 18, 2008

No Georgian Kekkonens In Sight (3)

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/wallerstein170808.html

Geopolitical Chess:
Background to a Mini-war in the Caucasus

by Immanuel Wallerstein

The world has been witness this month to a mini-war in the Caucasus, and the
rhetoric has been passionate, if largely irrelevant. Geopolitics is a gigantic
series of two-player chess games, in which the players seek positional
advantage. In these games, it is crucial to know the current rules that govern
the moves. Knights are not allowed to move diagonally.

From 1945 to 1989, the principal chess game was that between the United States
and the Soviet Union. It was called the Cold War, and the basic rules were
called metaphorically "Yalta." The most important rule concerned a line that
divided Europe into two zones of influence. It was called by Winston Churchill
the "Iron Curtain" and ran from Stettin to Trieste. The rule was that, no
matter how much turmoil was instigated in Europe by the pawns, there was to be
no actual warfare between the United States and the Soviet Union. And at the end of each instance of turmoil, the pieces were to be returned to where they were at the outset. This rule was
observed meticulously right up to the collapse of the Communisms in 1989, which
was most notably marked by the destruction of the Berlin wall.

for the full text click here...

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August 14, 2008

No Georgian Kekkonens In Sight (2)

McCain's Dose of Political Viagra: A New Cold War With Russia

The situation between Russia and Georgia has a long complex history, one that exploded once again in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. As in such situations, many questions remain concerning just how and why this mini-war started and what has been the US role in these events.

For example...
• Although the United States has put a considerable amount time and energy into training the Georgian military, the State Dept. had urged Georgian President Mihkeil Saakashvili not to initiate military action against Georgia.
• Although Saakashvili was warned not to attack South Ossetia, he might have concluded that once military operations were initiated that the US would offer military support (which did not happen)
• US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, whom Bush has ordered to go to Tbilisi seemed somewhat confused at her press conference in Washington raising questions as to whether the U.S. State Department even had prior knowledge of the Georgian military actions. It suggests, once again, that the U.S. military takes actions of which the State Department is not always aware. Given the large scale US military missions in Georgia, it is virtually impossible that the Defense Dept, and the Vice President were unaware of Georgia’s military intentions
• While questions remain as to just how deeply involved was the Bush Administration in the planning and execution of the Georgian military foray into South Ossetia, what is much clearer is the political campaign to vilify and isolate Russia in the wake the Russian-Georgian clash in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Most of the Civilian Casualties Killed by Georgian Militias

Today, one of Denver's local papers shows a front page photo of Georgian civilians running from Russian tanks. It will evoke a justified wave of sympathy for the innocent Georgian civilians caught up in the fighting. But no photos or articles about those South Ossetian civilians massacred by the invading Georgian military are there to balance them out. Nor will there be. For the public relations campaign to be successful, all the blame - or the overwhelming amount of it - for crisis must be placed on Russia. Sympathy is being whipped up for the Georgians, the `little nation’ once again oppressed by its big neighbor with its wacky neo-con president president who provoked the crisis in the first place being cast as Georgia's `David' facing the Russian Goliath. Please. John McCain is on the attack, calling the Russian incurision into Georgia as the most significant crisis since the end of the Cold War and CNN shamelessly gives Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili full use of its airwaves to give his spin to events. No Abkhazian, South Ossetian or Russian will get similar access - if any at all. So once again we're been set up, softened up, manipulated by a media that doesn't exactly lie, but only gives a loaded version of the stiatuon. .

Little is made of the fact that it is the Georgians that initiated military actions and that the overwhelming number of the 2000 civilian casualties were not caused by Russian air bombing but by out of control Georgian militias attacking South Ossetia. Nor do we hear anything - or hardly anything from the Abkhazians and South Ossetians who see, not Russia, but Georgia as the aggressor. Already, virtually no comment explanation that Russians give are viewed with any credibility. Sergie Lavrov might as well be Ahmadinejad talking.

It is especially touching to to note how George Bush and John McCain who have trampled and re-invented international law defending the administration's actions in Iraq, are now imploring the Russians to respect it and the UN Security Council in Georgia. It will be interesting to learn - and some day we will perhaps - if these militia’s had US commanders or advisors (either from the U.S. military itself or from private militias like Blackwater) and what, if any role, the many Israeli military advisors played in the Georgian offensive.

US Claims of Military Support Hollow

Concerning the war on the ground - in a few short days, the Russian Army and Air Force made mincemeat of the US-Israeli trained Georgian army. It is not unlike what happened to all those US, Israeli, Saudi, and Egyptian trained militias in Lebanon that Hezbollah wiped out in a matter of hours. Overnight, Georgian military preparedness collapsed as half the army deserted by foot back into Georgia. Not a pretty site. While I have no doubt that Russian aerial bombing has caused civilian casualties, even mainstream American media admits that the main focus of the Russian military offensive was Georgia’s military structures. Not much left of them now.

And the Russian military successes in Georgia showed to all of Eastern and Southern Europe just how hollow were the US claims of military support. The Bush Administration claims of standing behind Georgia have proven laughable. Yes, Bush is standing behind Georgia, some 6,000 miles behind it. Having once again encouraged (in one way or another) a Middle Eastern ally into action and then leave them dangling by their tootsies so to speak (the Kurds in Iraq many times, the Iraqi Shi’ites, more recently US allies - those little half-assed right-wing miliitias in Lebanon expecting US help), now the Bush Administration launches a global propaganda campaign to cover up its own failures.

And it is a loud one.

John McCain's New Leae On Life: Reshaping the fear factor

But all this has given John McCain a new lease on life .

McCain has found himself in a tizzy as the American electorate seems more interested in ending wars that getting into new ones. The old lines, that we are winning the war in Iraq, that Ahmadinejad is someone akin to Genghis Khan, just weren’t striking home. For all the propaganda the American people are fed, they still are against the war in Iraq and opposed to the US taking military action against Iran. The problem is that McCain is getting no traction for his pro-Iraq-war-bomb-Iran stance. He has not been able to play the fear factor - so critical to Bush’s two presidential bids - successfully. For McCain, whose militarist streak matches that of Bush, this is serious indeed.

But now perhaps McCain has found his portion of political viagra by taking the old Soviet threat out of the closet, dusting it off and setting it in motion once again. Certainly, the evolving global campaign against Russia is already reminiscent of Cold War anti-Soviet campaigns of past eras. Unable to whip up support for John McCain’s Iraq or Iran policies - which boil down to Cheney’s interpretation of eternal war in the Middle East - the Republicans, looking for a springboard to get McCain’s flagging presidential bid off the ground, have shifted gears.

The Georgian-Russian crisis over Abkhazia and South Ossetia thus provides McCain with a golden opportunity. Why not resurrect the old anti-Soviet threat - slightly revised and polished up for modern audiences? Behind the overblown - and not credible - US support for Georgia - is the shadow of a US-Russian military confrontation that brings with it the threat of escalation to nuclear war. So once again the United States is willing to play high stakes poker with the fate of the earth and as it has done so often on the past, transform U.S. supported military aggression into `victimhood’.

So let the sabre rattling begin. And it has begun.

News that the Russians brought SS-21 missile launchers with them into S. Ossetia to counter any US conventional air bombings suggest a very serious Russian response. It seems Saakashvili is doing what he can to draw the United States into the military aspect of the confrontation.
Although the Bush Administration denies it, Saakashvili claims that the US military now controls Georgian airspace. Certainly in response to US pressure, Ukraine is talking about limiting Russian naval access to its Black Sea ports.

And now the queen of contemporary diplomatic clowns, our own Secretary of State and Chevron board of directors member, Condoleeza Rice, who has supported every diplomatic twist in Bush’s policies for eight years in her different capacities will see what poisonous magic she can sew. And that is what is happening with a willing media once again, going out of its way to pitch in. A major political campaign, another American jihad, is in the making, this time targeting Russia. The idelogical groundwork for war is once again being laid. But this time , Bush is toying with a more formidable adversary. Russia is not Grenada. Images of Stalin and Hitler have already appeared, talk of sanctions, threats to kick Russia out of the Group of Eight, etc. Pathetic attempts to compare Georgia with Afghanistan will follow. John Hagee and the messianic lobby are are getting really excited, and AIPAC is already upset that all this could prevent the United States from attacking Iran.

McCain's goal is to put pressure on Obama to to join in the frenzy, and in so doing, to compromise the Democrat's presidential bid. It just might work.

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August 12, 2008

No Georgian Kekkonens In Sight

`Poor Georgia, So Far From God, So Close To Russia?’

Finland is far afield from Georgia (the country with Tblisi as capitol, not the state where Atlanta and Savannah reside). But in the sense that it has had to deal with a powerful Russian neighbor, Helsinki - along with all of Russia’s smaller neighbors - shares a common dilemma: how to survive in the shadow of its more powerful and oft overbearing neighbor. Such dilemmas face many nations in different parts of the world. Many Caribbean and Central American countries face a similar predicament visa their neighbor to the north. And thus the wonderful quote by 19th century Mexican president Juarez that goes `Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States’. I wonder if there is a Georgian equivalent concerning Russia? And if not, there should be.

The problem that Georgia (or Finland or Estonia or Poland) face with Russia is not new: how to manage to maintain their independence in the shadow of `the giant’. The way it has often been done is to pit another giant against the Russian one - be it the UK, Germany or since World War II, the USA. During World War II, Finland, while not a fascist country at the time, first bet on Germany - Nazi Germany that is - to counter a genuine Soviet threat to their independence. Although the Finns don’t particularly like talking about it, even 65 years later, they were allied with the Nazis and participated with them in the siege of Leningrad that left a million and a half Russians dead of cold and starvation.
Then two (not so) little events transpired that gave the Finns pause to reconsider: the Soviet victory at Stalingrad and the greatest tank battle of all time at Kursk which the Soviets also won..

Understanding that their fate was in the balance - the Finnish leadership made a hasty but historic shift in policy. A delegation went to Moscow, it ate crow in front of Stalin himself who demanded many things, among them Finnish territory, reparations, post war Soviet military bases and the Finnish commitment to expel the Nazis from Finland north of the Arctic Circle. If you think that Finland got a raw deal, think again. Compare its fate with its neighbors across the Baltic - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania -. Finland came out of World War II an independent country and one that greatly benefitted both politically and economically from its pledge of neutrality in the cold war.

Learning From Finland

The lesson - and the political strategy that ensued - was simple: that while remaining a western capitalist country Finland would not enter into any military or security alliances that could be considered anti-Soviet, that the country would not be used as a launching pad for anti-Soviet economic and political subversion. The architects of this policy were two politically conservative to-centrist Finns, Juho Kusti Paasakivi and Urho Kekkonen and their approach to the Cold War of active neutrality was referred to as the Paasakivi-Kekkonen line.

It worked to an extraordinary degree. From what I can tell, the line - now geared to Russia in the wake of the collapse of the USSR and Soviet communism - more or less continues. It has been nothing short of the political key to Finland’s security and economic success. Although a virtual unknown here in the United States, when Kekkonen died in December of 1986, by then already mentally decimated by Alzheimers’ or something akin to it, there was hardly a Finnish household - left, right or center - where the tears didn’t flow. And for good reason. An original political genius, he and Paasakivi before him had steered his country through some of the roughest political waters imaginable. And the result, with its security situation stabilized, Finland - where my family and I lived for nearly five years in the late 1980s - made impressive progress on the economic, political and human levels.

`A Parasite Country Look for A New Host Country To Bleed'

It seems that Georgia could learn a great deal from Finland’s example, but apparently it has not. In the past decade it has tied its fate economically and militarily to the United States - and its key Middle Eastern partner, Israel. A well connected friend of mine put Georgia's post Soviet dilemma rather tartly referring to Russia's southern neighbor in the Caucuses as `a parasite nation looking for a new host country to bleed'. With yet another one of these Harvard educated neoliberal-pickled presidents in Mikheil Saakashvili there should be no great surprise that Georgia cannot run fast enough into Bush's embrace

Could it have been that Georgia was encouraged in this recent military adventure - there is no question that it is Georgia that started the fighting - by the United States? (for credible reinforcement of this hypothesis, click here) Not clear at this point although the facts are leaning in that direction. It is possible that Bush, and particularly Cheney, unable to attack Iran, were looking to provoke a war elsewhere in the region to strengthen McCain's chances of winning the presidency? But our Vice President, with his stellar record on human rights and peace making wouldn't do such a thing, would he? Keep in mind that the statements from his office as the war started were easily the most bellicose coming out of Washington, as if he wanted to see the war expanded behind its lilmited nature.

What is certain is that strong military ties between Tblisi, Washington and Tel Aviv exist. What would Washington get out of encouraging such a provocation? One thing, the Bush Administration could gauge just how far Russia could be pushed before it responded militarily and if it responded, to what extent. Georgia takes all the risks, the US and Israel gain strategic insights and lose little. (Actually the US did lose political ground as result of this spat).

A slight hint of the US role has already surfaced - Russian criticism of U.S. transport planes moving Georgian troops from Iraq to Tblisi to participate in the fighting. In so doing the U.S. was not exactly playing a neutral role. There is other information for anyone serious enough to check it out. Officially, on the military front, according to the Pentagon there are 127 U.S. military `consultants’ training the Georgian army, among them about 35 who are civilian `Blackwater’ type contractors.

According to Shagra Elam `in addition to the trainers, 1000 (US) soldiers from Vicenza, the Italy-based Southern European Task Force along with US Marine reservists from the 25th Marine Battalion out of Ohio and elements of the Georgia National Guard recently participated in what was called `Immediate Response 2008' near Tblisi. `Operation Immediate Response’ was held from July 15-30 with U.S personnel training about 600 troops at a former Soviet base. The goal of this operation was allegedly teaching combat skills for Georgian missions in Iraq.

Then there are hundreds of Israeli military advisors in the country as well. Again, according to Shraga, an Israeli website known for its publication of conspiracy theories, DebkaFile, believes that over 1000 Israelis were involved in the Georgian military action which provoked the pronounced Russian response. As Shraga notes `this conclusion [that Israel was intimately involved in the Georgian military action] sounds plausible. Other sources point to similar links between the United States and Israel militaries and the current Georgian administration. Furthermore keep in mind that in the age of George Bush II that the US military (and intelligence agencies) often acts without the knowledge or premission of the State Department.

At US Bidding (?) Georgia Jabs, Russia Strikes Back Harder

Although it appears that the fighting between Russian and Georgian troops over South Ossetia and Abkhazia has died down after 4-5 days, it was not before several thousand people lost their lives, and a number of Georgian cities and towns were bombed from the air by Russian jets, causing a national and human panic.

An email from a former Georgian student to friends at the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Studies where I teach, gives a glimpse of the horror of war of a small country like Georgia having to stand up to its more powerful neighbor and often colonizer.

"They are putting bases mainly at Georgian military and police stations. Streets of captured towns (especially in conflict zones) are full with Russian tanks. At this moment they are not attacking population directly. Though the clashes and air bombing of previous days caused significant civilian and well as military casualties. The numbers are difficult to verify so far. "

"What can I say… it is terrible! No one would imagine Russia going so far in its aggressive politics on Caucasus. International community’s incapability to stop Russian aggression is just astonishing and frustrating. It is just blatant invasion in sovereign country far from any logic and morale. We’ve suffered the same from Russians already in 1921 and after collapse of USSR in 90ies. This has been a second war in my country affecting me personally as some of you know (I'm an international displaced person from from Abkhazia A/R). I’m just feeling frustration and anger and can’t help it.”

Washington and Tel Aviv Should Have Known Better...

While there is some truth to the picture painted above, unfortunately, there is much left out as well.

The biggest gap in the scenario is - once again - the U.S. media’s failure to point out that Russian troops entered Southern Ossetia in response to a major Georgian military invasion of the region. Hoping to use the Peking Olympics as a diversion of the world’s attention, Georgian President Saakashvili ordered a major offensive to reclaim Southern Ossetia, which has been since 1992 in a special situation in which formal Georgian sovereignty is acknowledged but with Russian military forces in place as peace keepers.

Saakashvili ordered nothing short of a full scale invasion of the region and Georgian military marched on the S. Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali. There were reports of outright massacres of Ossetians by the Georgian forces with the number of civilian dead exceeding 2000 by some reports. The impression the media gives is that these are mostly Russians living in S. Ossetia. In fact there are very few Russians living in this area, most of the victims being of Ossetian (it is a separate ethnic group with its own history) ethnic origin. The Russians intervened - certainly for strategic reasons - but also to stop this bloodbath. Even the Financial Times (8/12, 8/13, 2008) admits that this description of the evolution of events is accurate (although the number of civilian victims remains unclear). So it wasn’t the Russians slaughtering Georgians that precipitated the crisis but the US-Israeli trained Georgian military that provoked the violence and engaged in what amounts to wholesale massacres.

Not that any of what follows can justify the Russian military offensive given Russian history as a colonial power in the region, but it is simply not accurate that Georgia was an innocent victim in all this. At the time of the Russian offensive, Georgian troops had initiated series of military forays into South Ossetia and Abkhazia - both formally a part of Georgia, but both with sizable Russian populations with secessionist movements.

Further, given the sizeable US (and Israeli) military missions in Georgia, it is highly unlikely that the attempted Georgian military offensive to which the Russians responded (even the Financial Times admits the Russians were provoked) which such force and brutality undertook these actions without the knowledge and approval of both Washington and Tel Aviv.

It is not only unlikely but virtually impossible that the United States and Israel were not involved in the Georgian military offensive against Russian positions in South Ossetia. Such things - taking military action against Russia - simply do not happen `by themselves’. It does not ring true that a country as small and fragile as Georgia would take such dramatic military action without first `consulting’ and `getting permission'.

What Bush and Olmert did not anticipate was the powerful Russian military response.

But they should have.

It has been quite clear for some time now that the Georgian government of Mikheil Saakashvili has been moving as far away from Russia and as close to the United States as possible. Georgia has opened itself up to a significant US military and economic penetration that sooner or later was bound to provoke a strong Russian reaction. In a way, Georgia finds itself in the same situation as many other Russian neighbors - fearing Russian territorial desires and looking for some kind of international lever that might be used to counter Russian influence.

The tensions between Russia and Georgia are also geo-political in nature involving the United States which has set up a ring of military bases around Russia, not unlike that which existed during the Cold War, except now the bases are even closer to the Russian heartland than during the Soviet era. To no avail, Russia has been warning Europe and the United States for some time, that the Western military perimeter surrounding Russia had been pushed to the limit.

NATO Goes Over The Edge

The turning point for the Russians appears to have been the April, 2008 NATO meeting where it was decided that sooner or later, Georgia would be let into the US dominated Cold War dinosaur.
Many question why it is that in the post Cold War era, such an alliance - which obviously targets Russia despite claims to the contrary - is necessary. With the disappearance of the Warsaw Pact alliance in Eastern Europe, the rationale for NATO’s existence - other than to enhance US political leverage in Central Europe - has evaporated. And from the outset of the post Cold War era, Russia has repeated asked, `why NATO’ and has hardly gotten satisfactory responses. The dismantling of Yugoslavia and the more recent recognition of Kosovo independence - which Russian concerns were simply brushed aside - only strengthened Russian suspicions And so Moscow `drew the line’ in Southern Ossetia.

To heap on the insults, now the United States is planning to put anti-ballistic missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic, arguing unconvincingly that it is to defend those countries from a possible Iranian attack. Imagine! The Russians do not feel any safer having US missiles closer to their borders. The U.S. insists - but no one in the region believes - that the missiles are not targeting Russia. The US efforts to build an oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Turkey, though Georgia bypassing Russian territory only added to Russia suspicions.

As a number of commentators suggest, the Russian military offensive was essentially a warning shot not only to Georgia but also to the Ukraine who would also like to join the alliance. The promise of Georgian NATO member comes late in the game as many other Eastern European countries have joined the alliance. Russia has looked nervously on as a slew of its former allies or - or member nations of the now defunct USSR - have joined NATO, among them Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Russian Claims, Russian Gains

Russian claims that its show of force in Georgia was necessary to restore order and defend Ossetian locals are hard to take serious as are the assertions that the military offensive was essentially a humanitarian mission aimed at preventing ethnic cleansing (of ethnic Russians) and even `genocide’. Please. It rings as hollow as Bush talking about invading Iraq to install democracy.

What is at play instead is the battle of the two doctrines pushing against each other like tectonic plates - the Brezhnev Doctrine as it was called, in which