Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 01.28.10

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R   01.28.10

1. Foreclosures       1.28 10:30am
2. Juvenile detention 1.28 3pm
3. Eagan peace vigil  1.28 4:30pm
4. Northtown vigil    1.28 5pm
5. Palestine          1.28 5pm
6. AntiWarMN          1.28 tpm
7. Haiti teach-in     1.28 7pm

8. 2010 session prev  1.29 9:30am
9. Nuke power/KFAI    1.29 11am
10. Palestine vigil   1.29 4:15pm
11. Poetry/jazz       1.29 8pm

12. Daniel Kovalik     - Obama's war for oil in Colombia
13. PC Roberts         - Rule by the rich
14. Fitrakis/Wasserman - Et tu, ACLU? Defending the money machines
15. Gilad Atzmon       - The Holocaust backfires
16. ed                 - Product recall  (haiku)

--------1 of 16--------

From: Meredith Aby <awcmere [at] gmail.com>
Subject: Foreclosures 1.28 10:30am

Stop Foreclosures and Evictions!
Thursday, Jan. 28th @ 10:30 a.m. - In room 10 of the State Office
Building. House hearing of the Labor and Consumer Protection Division and
the Housing Finance and Policy and Public Health Finance Division.

The Minnesota Coalition for People's Bailout will have a bill to put a
Moratorium on Foreclosures this year. Already, there has been one success
- we have secured two "pre-session" hearings. Because of the way the 2010
legislative session is shaping up, pre-session hearings are more important
than ever. Please come to these hearings and show your support, for our
bill, but of course for all the homeowners who are fighting their
foreclosures!  Check out our bill! It has a number in the house (HF-2604),
but the Senate is not numbering bills yet. http://tinyurl.com/ylh386m

Why this bill is needed:
HF2604 puts a two-year moratorium on foreclosures. Homeowners are required
to pay up to 40% of their income during the moratorium. HF2604 also makes
it so that renters in foreclosed properties can keep their leases when a
property is foreclosed on. Here are some basic arguments for this
important piece of legislation.

Save our homes.
The banks are stonewalling as people try to make adjustments to their
mortgages. The programs we hear about that are supposed to help people
help only a small fraction; these programs need major reform. We NEED a
moratorium so people and banks have time to get together to work out a
deal. It just makes SENSE.

Save our Neighborhoods.
When houses (or apartments) go empty, everyone suffers. Housing values go
down and there are health and safety issues. Empty houses turn into
trashed houses. Lower property values mean less money for local
governments. Trashed houses mean less money when the banks try to re-sell
the house. Keep people housed, keep properties maintained, and even keep
some money going to the lender. A moratorium just makes SENSE.

Protect innocent renters.
Renters need the option of keeping their existing leases. Many renters
don't even know their landlords are getting foreclosed on; they have been
paying rent, assuming it was going to the mortgage. There are also cases
where "landlords" take the security deposit and disappear! Let renters
keep the leases. It just makes SENSE. For More Information: Minnesota
Coalition for a People's Bailout - 612-822-8020 -
www.mn-peoples-bailout.org


--------2 of 16--------

From: Peggy Katch <peggy [at] jillclarkpa.com>
From: Jill Clark
From: Brian Smith [mailto:bk-smith [at] hotmail.com]
From: Kedem [at] mncounties.org
Subject: Juvenile detention 1.28 3pm

Please Attend!
HEARING ON JUVENILE DETENTION REFORM
Education Session on Juvenile Detention Reform to Minnesota Senate
Judiciary
Thursday, January 28, 2010
State Capitol, Rm 107
3:00pm - 4:30pm


--------3 of 16--------

From: Greg and Sue Skog <family4peace [at] msn.com>
Subject: Eagan peace vigil 1.28 4:30pm

PEACE VIGIL EVERY THURSDAY from 4:30-5:30pm on the Northwest corner of
Pilot Knob Road and Yankee Doodle Road in Eagan. We have signs and
candles. Say "NO to war!" The weekly vigil is sponsored by: Friends south
of the river speaking out against war.


--------4 of 16--------

From: EKalamboki [at] aol.com
Subject: Northtown vigil 1.28 5pm

NORTHTOWN Peace Vigil every Thursday 5-6pm, at the intersection of Co. Hwy
10 and University Ave NE (SE corner across from Denny's), in Blaine.

Communities situated near the Northtown Mall include: Blaine, Mounds View,
New Brighton, Roseville, Shoreview, Arden Hills, Spring Lake Park,
Fridley, and Coon Rapids.  We'll have extra signs.

For more information people can contact Evangelos Kalambokidis by phone or
email: (763)574-9615, ekalamboki [at] aol.com.


--------5 of 16--------

From: Women Against Military Madness <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Palestine 1.28 5pm

Palestine to Minnesota: Gaza On Our Minds
Break the Bonds and Al-Madinah Cultural Center bring to you Gaza Week
at the University of Minnesota to mark the first-year anniversary of
the invasion of Gaza by Israel. Break the Bonds is the university-
chapter of the Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign, a group put forth
to raise awareness about the effects of US support of the ongoing
Israeli occupation and to encourage Minnesotans, whose taxes support
the occupation, to work together towards justice for Palestinians. Al-
Madinah Cultural Center helps educate the University of Minnesota
student body by creating a better understanding and appreciation for
the diverse culture of Islam and Muslims. Together, we bring you Gaza
Week, a week-long series of events dedicated to Gaza, a just peace,
and an end to the occupation of Palestine. All events are open and
free to the pubic with snacks/dinner provided.

Talk by Dr. Hatem Bazian: "The Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the
Palestinian Diaspora:"
Thursday, January 28, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Carlson School of Management,
Room L-110 (Honeywell Auditorium), 321 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis.

Sponsored by: Break the Bonds and Al-Madinah Cultural Center. FFI:
Visit http://mn.breakthebonds.org/ or email palestine.to.minnesota [at] 
gmail.com


--------6 of 16--------

From: Meredith Aby <awcmere [at] gmail.com>
Subject: AntiWarMN 1.28 tpm

New Members Meeting
Thursday, January 28th @ 7pm @ Anti War Committee Office, 1313 5th St. SE,
Mpls, room 112c*
Come help organize against the war on Afghanistan and against US
intervention across the globe.  Come to an Anti-War Committee meeting
designed for new people!  Organized by the Anti-War Committee (612 379 3899)


--------7 of 16--------

From: Women Against Military Madness <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Haiti teach-in 1.28 7pm

Haiti Teach-In: "An Un-Natural Disaster"
Thursday, January 28, 7:00 p.m. University of Minnesota, Willey Hall,
Auditorium, 225 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis.

Join others at a teach-in on Haiti to discuss the history of
neocolonialism and U.S. intervention. Speakers include: Daniel Jean Marie
who grew up in a Haitian orphanage and is now student in Minnesota active
with "Houses for Haiti;"

 Ruben Joanem, a Haitian immigrant and graduate student at the U of M;
 April Knutson, Professor of French at the U of M and an expert on Haitian
history;
 August Nimtz, Professor of Political Science at the U of M;
 Teddy Shibabaw, an activist with Socialist Alternative and contributor to
Justice Newspaper.
 Sponsored by: the Haiti Justice Committee, Minnesota Cuba Committee,
Socialist Alternative, Workers International League, and Hands off
Venezuela. WAMM is a member of the Haiti Justice Committee.

Recommended places to donate to Haiti Releif:

The Haitian Alliance is a local group in Atlanta with years of experience
of doing relief work for their people. Project South will work with
organizational partners here locally to support their relief efforts. For
the next 24-48 hours we are asking all members to donate to the Haitian
Alliance website at www.transformhaiti.org. 100% of your donations today
and tomorrow will be used to cover shipping cost for medical and other
supplies to Haiti.

Doctors Without Borders http://doctorswithoutborders.org/

Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti www.ijdh.org


--------8 of 16--------

From: Julie Johnson <jjohnson [at] mhponline.org>
Subject: 2010 session prev 1.29 9:30am

2010 Session Preview
9:30 am - Noon, January 29
Housing Policy Showcase for Advocates & Supporters

SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKERS INCLUDE:
Senator Mee Moua
Representative Alice Hausman
Representative Jeff Hayden

For the Agenda,:
http://www.mhponline.org/files/2010%20Session%20Preview%20Short%20Agenda.pdf

To register:
http://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/325/mtglistproc.asp?formid=meet&caleventid=15906


--------9 of 16--------

From: Lydia Howell <lydiahowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Nuke power/KFAI 1.29 11am

FRI.JAN. 29,11am on KFAI's "Catalyst"

Two guests talk about the push to END Minnesota's Moratorium on new
nuclear power plants: LISA LEDWIDGE of Institute for Energy and
Environmental Research's (IEER) working on their plan to be Carbon-Free
and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for Minnesota's Energy Policy (by 2050) and
KEN PENTEL, longtime environmental activist, founder of the new
organization ECOLOGY DEMOCRACY NETWORK (best known for running for MN
Governor on the GREEN PARTY ticket).

As KFAI listener/activist-poet SUSU JEFFERY explains: Prairie Island
nuclear power plant, already has 150,000 used fuel rods (each one contains
plutonium) and just got the okay for 35 more casks, each cask holds many
used "hot" rods.  Prairie Island/Xcel is requesting a 15-percent hike in
power output. The plant was only licensed for 20 years, now asking for
another 20 years (beyond design specifications). AND Xcel is pushing for a
MN legislative vote against the moratorium on new nuke plants.

CATALSYT:POLITICS AND CULTURE, hosted/produced by Lydia Howell Got a show
idea? an announcment? EMAIL: lydiahowell [at] visi.com KFAI 90.3fm/106.7 fm
Live-streaming & archived for 2 weeks after broadcast at:
http://www.kfai.org


--------10 of 16--------

From: Eric Angell <eric-angell [at] riseup.net>
Subject: Palestine vigil 1.29 4:15pm

The weekly vigil for the liberation of Palestine continues at the
intersection of Snelling and Summit Aves in St. Paul. The Friday demo
starts at 4:15 and ends around 5:30. There are usually extra signs
available.


--------11 of 16--------

From: Richard Broderick <richb [at] lakecast.com>
Subject: Poetry/jazz 1.29 8pm

"Hardly Paradise," a collaboration featuring the poetry of Rich Broderick
and the jazz of The Fantastic Merlins, on the eve of the European release
of their new CD, "How the Light Gets In," a collection of original songs
and Leonard Cohen-covers featuring vocalist Kid Dakota.

Friday, January 29, 8 p.m., the Black Dog Café in Saint Paul. The Black
Dog is located at 308 Prince St., in Lowertown, just across from the Saint
Paul Farmers Market. Parking available on the street and in the lot behind
the Black Dog ($1 after 5 p.m.). For more information, click on
http://blackdogstpaul.com or call 651.228.9274


--------12 of 16--------

A War Against Human Rights and the Environment
Obama's War for Oil in Colombia
By DANIEL KOVALIK
CounterPunch
January 27, 2010

This past summer, President Obama announced that he had signed an
agreement with Colombia to grant the U.S. military access to 7 military
bases in Colombia. As the UK's Guardian newspaper announced at the time,
"[t]he proposed 10-year lease will give the US access to at least seven
Colombian bases - three air force, two naval and two army - stretching
from the Pacific to the Caribbean". And, these bases would accommodate up
to 800 military and 600 civilian contractors of the United States. As the
Guardian explained, this announcement caused outrage in neighboring Latin
American nations and "damaged Barack Obama's attempt to mend relations
with the region".

This announcement also angered human and labor rights advocates in both
the U.S. and Colombia as the U.S. was now solidifying a cozier military
alliance with by far the worst labor and human rights abuser in the
Western Hemisphere. The human rights nightmare in Colombia, fueled by
billions of dollars of U.S. military assistance, includes the forced
internal displacement of nearly 4 million civilians - the second largest
internally displaced population in the world (Sudan holding the number one
position); the extraordinary killing of over 2700 union members since 1986
(by far the greatest number in the world), with 35 being killed in 2009
alone; and the extrajudicial killing of around 2,000 civilians by the
Colombian military since President Uribe took office in 2002.

As for the extra-judicial killings by the Colombian military, these were
carried out as part of the "false positive" scandal - a controversy
involving the military murdering civilians and then dressing them up to
look like guerillas in order to increase their body count numbers, thereby
guaranteeing further U.S. aid. That scandal deepened earlier this month
when 31 Colombian soldiers awaiting trial for their role in the killings
were released from prison because of the Colombian government's failure to
indict them in a timely fashion.

While the U.S. has claimed for years that it is fighting a drug war in
Colombia, though having to sheepishly admit year after year that its
ostensible efforts have not yielded any decrease whatsoever in the amount
of coca grown in Colombia or cocaine exported to the U.S., the real reason
for the war has always been the control of Colombia's rich oil resources.
Indeed, at a Congressional hearing in 2000, entitled "Drugs and Social
Policy in Colombia" - a hearing to debate the relative merits of Clinton's
new Plan Colombia, pursuant to which the U.S. has sent billions of dollars
of military assistance to Colombia - one of the key witnesses invited to
testify in support of this policy was none other than Lawrence Meriage,
the Vice-President of Occidental Petroleum. Not surprisingly, Mr. Meriage
had nothing to say about drugs or social policy in Colombia, but a lot to
say about the need for military assistance to protect his oil pipelines.

Now, according to a January 19, 2010 Bloomberg article, "The Export-Import
Bank of the United States [a U.S. government agency] announced Jan. 19 its
approval of a $1 billion preliminary commitment to help finance the sale
of goods and services from various U.S. exporters to Ecopetrol S.A.,
Colombia's national oil company". It should be noted that Ecopetrol is a
business partner with L.A.-based Occidental Petroleum.

Citing an industry expert, the Bloomberg article goes on to explain that
"Ecopetrol is being aggressive in exploration and production," and that,
with the help of the financing from the Export-Import Bank, "Ecopetrol
will almost double to 1 million barrels daily by 2015 as the company
drills more wells in Colombia and neighboring South American nations".

As a November 12, 2009 press release from the human rights group Amazon
Watch explained, Ecopetrol is currently engaged in oil exploration on the
sacred land of the U'wa indigenous peoples and against their wishes. A
spokesperson for the U'Wa explained that, as is invariably the case, with
Ecopetrol's exploration and drilling comes the Colombian military, as well
as paramilitaries, to protect Ecopetrol's operations.

As Ecopetrol's own website indicates, it is also involved in oil
exploration in Peru and Brazil. As for Peru, Survival International, a
UK-based human rights group advocating for the rights of threatened
indigenous tribes, warned last year that Ecopetrol's exploration of the
Peruvian Amazon jungle threatens hitherto uncontacted indigenous tribes
whose very existence will be jeopardized by these operations. As Survival
International explained, these uncontacted tribes are "exceedingly
vulnerable to any contact with outsiders because of their lack of immunity
to disease". Prior contacts between companies and uncontacted tribes have
resulted in the mortality of 50% of the tribe.

While the current U.S. Administration seems bent on deepening its fatal
ties to Colombia in the interest of oil, there is still an opportunity to
derail this policy. Pursuant to the statute which created and regulates
the U.S. Export-Import Bank, the President of the U.S. (who, by a 1979
Executive Order, delegated such authority to the Secretary of State) may,
after consultation with the House and Senate Committees on Banking,
determine that an application for credit should be denied by the Bank if
the extension of credit "clearly and importantly" impacts U.S. "policy in
such areas as international terrorism, nuclear proliferation,
environmental protection and human rights." 12 U.S.C. Sec.
635(2)(b)(1)(B).

Clearly, the prelimimary decision to extend credit to Ecopetrol adversely
impacts human rights and the environment and should be overturned as a
result. A movement to halt this extension of credit on these grounds would
be a worthy effort for the U.S. peace and solidarity groups. Similarly,
there is still a chance to impede the U.S.'s decision to access 7 new
military bases in Colombia. With the Administration reeling from the
election results in Massachusetts last week, now is the time to try to
shame it into reversing course on its predictably devastating policy in
Colombia and the rest of Latin America.

Daniel Kovalik is a labor and human rights lawyer working in Pittsburgh,
Pa.


--------13 of 16--------

Don't Look to Washington for Help
Rule by the Rich
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
January 27, 2010
CounterPunch

The election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate by Democratic
voters in Massachusetts sends President Obama a message. Voters perceive
that Obama's administration has morphed into a Bush-Cheney government.
Obama has reneged on every promise he made, from ending wars, to closing
Gitmo, to providing health care for Americans, to curtailing the domestic
police state, to putting the interests of dispossessed Americans ahead of
the interests of the rich banksters who robbed Americans of their homes
and pensions.

But what can Obama do other then spout more rhetoric?

The Democrats were destroyed as an independent party by jobs offshoring
and so-called free trade agreements such as NAFTA. The effect of
"globalism" has been to destroy the industrial and manufacturing unions,
thus leaving the Democrats without a power base and source of funding.

Obama and the Democrats cannot be an opposition party, because Democrats
are as dependent as Republicans on corporate interest groups for campaign
funding.

The Democrats have to support war and the police state if they want
funding from the military/security complex. They have to make the health
care bill into a subsidy for private insurance if they want funding from
the insurance companies. They have to abandon the American people for the
rich banksters if they want funding from the financial lobby.

Now that the five Republicans on the Supreme Court have overturned decades
of U.S. law and given corporations the ability to buy every American
election, Democrats and Republicans can be nothing but pawns for a
plutocracy.

Most Americans are hard pressed, but the corporations have only begun to
milk them.

Wars are too profitable for the armaments industry to ever end. High
unemployment is now a permanent state in the U.S., thus coercing job
seekers into military service.

The security industry profits from the police state and regards civil
liberties as a hindrance to profits. By announcing that he intends to
continue the Bush policy of indefinite detention, a violation of the
Constitution and U.S. legal procedures, Obama has granted the Democratic
Party's consent to the Republicans' destruction of habeas corpus, the main
bastion of individual liberty.

Jobs offshoring is too profitable for U.S. corporations for Obama to be
able to save American jobs and restart the broken economy.

Americans are being squeezed out of health care not only by the loss of
job benefits, but also by corporate takeover of medical practice from
physicians. Today medical doctors are wage slaves of corporate health
providers that leverage doctors by turning them into supervisors of
physician assistants, lower paid people without medical degrees who
perform the services that doctors once provided. As neither doctor nor
physician assistant has any independence, there is no one to represent the
patient's care against the profits of the corporation.

Even environmental concerns are being used to create "cap and trade"
rights to buy and sell the ability to pollute. Wall Street is licking its
lips over a new source of leveraged derivative instruments.

The American public cannot even get reliable information about their
plight as the "mainstream media" has been concentrated into a few
corporate hands that do not permit independent reporting. The media is as
dependent on corporate money as are politicians.

How can President Obama restart an economy that has been moved offshore?
Millions of manufacturing jobs are gone, as are millions of jobs for
college graduates, such as software engineering, Information
Technology - indeed, any intellectual skill the product of which can be
conveyed via the Internet. Even those intellectual skill jobs that do
remain in the U.S. are filled increasingly by foreigners brought in on
work visas.

The wipeout of blue collar and middle class job growth has stopped the
growth of American incomes except, of course, those of the super rich. For
a decade American consumers substituted increased personal indebtedness
for income growth. In order to maintain and to increase their consumption,
Americans consumed their assets, such as their home equity. Americans
reached their maximum debt load just as the real estate bubble burst and
just as the banksters highly-leveraged, toxic financial instruments
brought down the stock market and the values of Americans' pensions.

The enormous damage done to the U.S. economy by jobs offshoring, work
visas, and financial deregulation cannot be offset by government stimulus
plans, which expand the debt burdens that are crushing Americans. The
federal government's massive budget deficits and the Federal Reserve's
easy monetary policy are setting the stage for an inflationary depression
to follow a deflationary depression.

The Federal Reserve chairman says not to worry about inflation, because
the Fed can take the money back out of the economy. But can the Fed take
the money out without contracting the economy?

The Federal Reserve says not to worry about financing the federal budget
deficit. Banksters are buying the Treasury bonds with the proceeds from
their sales of their toxic derivatives to the Fed.

So what is happening to the Federal Reserve's balance sheet? And when will
the Fed have no recourse but to print new money in order to finance the
federal deficit?

How long can the dollar retain its reserve currency role in such
circumstances, and how does the U.S. pay for its imports when this role is
lost?

Don't look to Washington for answers to these questions.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan
administration. He is the author of How the Economy was Lost, just
published by CounterPunch / AK Press.He can be reached at:
PaulCraigRoberts [at] yahoo.com


--------14 of 16--------

Defending the Money Machines
Et Tu, ACLU?
By BOB FITRAKIS and HARVEY WASSERMAN
CounterPunch
January 27, 2010

The Supreme Court's atrocious Citizens United green light for unlimited
corporate campaign spending had a willing accomplice---the American Civil
Liberties Union.

Why?

As long-time supporters, we are horrified by the ACLU's betrayal of
political reality and plain common sense.

Standing proudly with the victorious corporate hacks on the steps of the
SCOTUS was none other than the legendary First Amendment crusader Floyd
Abrams.

Keith Olberman has called him a "Quisling" for aiding and abetting this
catastrophic confirmation of corporate "personhood".

The ACLU has long been the go-to stalwart of First Amendment rights. Its
list of accomplishments is long, impressive and essential.

The ACLU has bravely faced divisive, expensive controversy. Long ago it
defended the right of American neo-nazis to march through Skokie, a
heavily Jewish suburb of Chicago.

The ACLU has also defended the right of such loathsome haters as the Ku
Klux Klan to gather and speak.

In these and other such cases, the ACLU has been right, and has
courageously paid a price.

But perhaps the organization has confused those valid First Amendment
cases with a Citizens United decision perpetrated by the most virulent
judicial opponents of individual speech in the history of the Court. In
reference to this case the ACLU says it "has consistently taken the
position that section 203 is facially unconstitutional under the First
Amendment because it permits the suppression of core political speech, and
our amicus brief takes that position again".

We respectfully---but vehemently---disagree. Simply put: money is not
speech, corporations are not people.

Given the immense sums of cash these corporations have to spend, the
Citizen's United decision is the equivalent not of guaranteeing individual
Nazis the freedom to march, but instead of granting the Party itself the
right to drive tanks down the street, guns ablazing.

It's not the same as giving individual Klan members the right to hold a
rally, but rather for the organization to do public lynchings as part of a
terror campaign aimed at taking tangible power.

Nowhere in the Constitution do the Founders mention the word corporation.
There were six of them at the time of ratification, all strictly limited
by state charter to where and what kind of business they could do. They
bear scant resemblance to the multi-national behemoths we confront today.
Those who wrote and ratified the First Amendment would be horrified by
their very existence.

The moneyed power of these corporations and their access to the First
Amendment through the myth of "personhood" has been the ultimate pox on
American politics since the 1880s.

It has been reported that the ACLU Board is now considering endorsing
limits on campaign spending. Abrams has been reported as arguing that "The
worst thing you could do - the absolutely worst thing you could do - is
transform a civil liberties organization into a liberal political
organization".

But this decision has transformed the ACLU into a conservative political
organization, working to arm the ultimate enemies of democracy with
unlimited monetary and political power.

We are confident the activist community can survive this latest assault on
democracy. It will not be easy, but it can be done.

A good first step would be for the ACLU to face reality and now oppose the
false claims anti-human money machines have made on our sacred Bill of
Rights.

Attorney Bob Fitrakis & Historian Harvey Wasserman have co-authored four
books on election protection. Bob's Fitrakis Files are at
www.freepress.org, where this article first appeared. Harvey's History of
the US is at www.harveywasserman.com.


--------15 of 16--------

The Holocaust Backfires
by Gilad Atzmon
January 27th, 2010
Dikssident Voice

Ynet reports:

Peres in Berlin, Netanyahu in Auschwitz, Lieberman in Budapest and
Edelstein at the UN headquarters in New York all plan to attack the
Goldstone report into the Gaza war on International Holocaust Day this
Wednesday.

Israel's political echelon will once again try to divert attention from
the fact that the Israeli crime is beyond comparison.

Israeli Propaganda Minister Edelstein told Ynet before leaving for New
York. "The connection between the Goldstone Report and the international
Holocaust memorial day is not an easy thing". He is indeed correct. The
true interpretation of the Goldstone report is that Israelis are the Nazis
of our time. "We must learn the lessons from what happened" says
Edelstein, "then too, those who yelled out were told that Hitler is a
clown and that all the gloomy predictions of the 1930s were nonsense".

Someone should advise the Israeli Propaganda man that by now no one
regards mass murderer Barak, Nuclear enthusiast Peres, warmonger Livni or
ultra racist Lieberman as clowns. We respect them for what they are. Yet,
we prefer to see them locked behind bars.

In fact, those world leaders around the world who bowed to Jewish pressure
and made the Holocaust into an international memorial day must have been
convinced that the Holocaust carries a universal message against
oppression and racism. They were actually correct, if the holocaust has
any universal and ethical meaning, stopping the "Jews only state" and
bringing its criminal political and military leaders to justice is the
true interpretation of the lesson of the Holocaust.

Propaganda Minister Edelstein added "on the Holocaust memorial day of all
days, which also marks the battle against global anti-Semitism, we must
discuss this connection, because today the soldiers of the Israel Defense
Forces are accused of harvesting organs and murdering children". The
Israelis better internalise that the truth of Israeli brutality is now
common knowledge. IDF mass murder of children, elders and women is part of
our collective memory. The Israeli institutional involvement in organ
harvesting is also well documented and an accepted fact.

Minister Edelstein is wrong when he argues that "After World War II and
the establishment of the State of Israel, anti-Semitism is not directed at
Jews but at Israel and the Israelis. The Goldstone Report, the
publications in Sweden about organ harvesting and similar reports, are
simply a type of anti-Semitism". Edelstein is wrong because all the
accusations against Israel are well grounded. Furthermore, the opposition
to Israel, its Jewish lobbies and Jewish power in general is politically
oriented rather than racially motivated.

In the wake of the "International Holocaust Memorial Day" I will say it
loudly and openly. To oppose the Jewish state and Jewish nationalism is
the true meaning of the memory of the Holocaust. To say NO to Israel is to
say NO to racism. This is what ethics and universalism are all about.

Gilad Atzmon was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military. He
lives in London and is the author of two novels: A Guide to the Perplexed
and the recently released My One and Only Love. Atzmon is also one of the
most accomplished jazz saxophonists in Europe. He can be reached at:
atz [at] onetel.net.uk. Read other articles by Gilad.


--------16 of 16--------

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