Progresive Calendar 08.04.10 | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: David Shove (shove001![]() |
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Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2010 16:32:46 -0700 (PDT) |
P R O G R E S S I V E C A L E N D A R 08.04.10 1, Eagan peace vigil 8.05 4:30pm 2. Northtown vigil 8.05 5pm 3. Vs Target-Emmer/AZ 8.05 5:30pm 4. Vs buckthorn 8.05 6pm 5. Defend education 8.05 6:30pm 6. Pakistan/labor 8.05 7pm 7. Hiroshima vigil 8.06 11am 8. Ffunch back 8.06 11:30am 9. Palestine vigil 8.06 4:15pm 10. Pentel for gov 8.06 6pm 11. Conn Hallinan - Behind the Colombia/Venezuela tensions 12. Jonathan Cook - Israeli rabbi preaches "slaughter" of gentile babies 13. Stephen Lendman - The liberal media: rest in peace --------1 of 13-------- From: Greg and Sue Skog <family4peace [at] msn.com> Subject: Eagan peace vigil 8.05 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. --------2 of 13-------- From: EKalamboki [at] aol.com Subject: Northtown vigil 8.05 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. --------3 of 13-------- From: Boycott Arizona - Minnesota <baminnesota [at] gmail.com> Subject: vs Target-Emmer/AZ 8.05 5:30pm Protest Target's Support of Extremist Tom Emmer (RSVP Thursday, August 5th 2010 5:30pm - 6:30pm Target - Lake St. and Hiawatha Minneapolis, MN Target donated $150,000 to Anti-immigrant, anti-gay, and anti-minimum wage Republican candidate for Governor Tom Emmer. Join us to demand Target stop funding this extremist candidate! Anti-Immigrant: Emmer says that AZ law SB1070 is a wonderful first step, and continues to be a vocal supporter of it, even after a court has ruled much of the bill to be unconstitutional and promoting of racial profiling. Anti-LGBTQ: Emmer supports a Christian rock band in Minnesota that travels around the state saying that it's moral and righteous for religious people to kill gays and lesbians. Anti-Minimum Wage: Emmer has said he wants to cut minimum for servers, claiming many make over $100,000 a year. This makes Target one of the very first companies to take advantage of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision allowing unlimited corporate cash in elections. Bring signs and friends! For more info on Target's support of Emmer: http://thinkprogress.org/2010/07/27/target-emmer-donate/<https://sslunblock.com/browse.php?u=Oi8vdGhpbmtwcm9ncmVzcy5vcmcvMjAxMC8wNy8yNy90YXJnZXQtZW1tZXItZG9uYXRlLw%3D%3D&b=3> --------4 of 13-------- From: sue rich <srich [at] fmr.org> Subject: Vs buckthorn 8.05 6pm Hello River Gorge Stewards! As many of you know, a vandal recently cut down 28 newly planted trees in the Mississippi River Gorge. (Details are in next Monday's Mississippi Messages e-newsletter <http://www.fmr.org/news/messages> and also on our Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/pages/Friends-of-the-Mississippi-River/81498431082>page). While there's no great silver lining to this type of senseless violence, the response has been affirming: People clearly love the River Gorge! Because of this, we continue to have a solid volunteer restoration season. In late June, some 35 people helped weed the Crosby interpretive and surrounding prairie in St. Paul! And Thursday, August 5th will be the first Gorge Stewards restoration event in a different section of this riverfront gem: the Crosby shoreline! Volunteers are needed to help with the first step in this exciting project - removing invasive buckthorn. It's a 2-hour event, 6-8 p.m., but as usual we aim to have enough volunteers to see a difference in this short of time. As always, staff will provide all guidance, tools, and gloves needed for a productive and fun event. Children accompanied by a parent or guardian are welcome, but there will be tools around so close supervision is required. And volunteers will be the first to be invited to continue the restoration project (a possible shoreline planting is being considered) in the future. To sign up, please reply to this email! I will reply with details and directions next Thursday. Additional details on this and other upcoming FMR events are available at our calendar, http://www.fmr.org/participate/events. Thanks to you all for actively caring for the treasure that is the Mississippi River Gorge. And thanks to our August 5th event partners (for whom you will also be volunteering), Capitol Region Watershed District, St. Paul Parks & Recreation and the National Park Service. Sincerely, sue rich FMR Volunteer Coordinator / 651.222.2193 x14 / srich [at] fmr.org --------5 of 13-------- From: Eli Meyerhoff <eli.meyerhoff [at] gmail.com> Subject: Defend education 8.05 6:30pm AUG 7: Meeting to Organize for MN Oct 7th Day of Actions in Defense of Public Education Thursday, August 5 · 6:30pm - 8:30pm MCTC, above the library - room L.3000 1501 Hennepin Avenue Minneapolis, MN (childcare available in room L.3100) A meeting to plan and build towards actions in defense of public education across Minnesota on October 7th. At our last meeting, 26 people from many schools participated (MCTC, MSU Mankato, U of M, Hamline, South Central College Mankato, and some high schools). A group from the last meeting is drafting a local version of a call to action, and a big part of this meeting will be devoted to collectively writing that call. For the national call, see http://www.defendeducation.org . The meeting will also include breakout groups to make organizing plans for actions at our different schools. See below for an agenda... AGENDA: - intros (10 mins.) - present the MN-wide call to action (someone from the sub-committee who is drafting this) (5) - break into small groups (4-5 people) to discuss the call to action (20) - assign someone from each group to come back with concerns, questions, and amendments for the drafters to bring to bear on the call - (purpose: everyone at the meeting should feel able to take ownership over the call) - regroup and discuss the call (20) - break into constituency-based groups (e.g., K-12, U of M, other colleges) to discuss organizing plans (20) - (to assist this, we'll have a worksheet with a blank timeframe so each group can map out goals to accomplish each week) - (purpose: to recognize the short timespan and to come up with more clear and concrete organizing plans for our target constituencies -- e.g., in the 1st week of classes, have people out flyering for a big meeting the next week to draw in more people and figure out issues to integrate into local demos) - regroup to reportback and discuss organizing plans (10) - decide on a name of this statewide group (10) - (we came up with a few suggestions -- Education Action Coalition Minnesota, Liberate Education Minnesota, Education Justice Alliance Minnesota, Grassroots Education Movement Minnesota -- but bring your ideas too!) - outreach plans (10) - designing and making publicity materials (posters, buttons, stickers, etc. -- make a subcommittee for this) (5) - making petitions (as a tool for starting dialogue with people and for organizing -- make a subcommittee for this to make a template of a petition that can be customized for each local constituency) (5) The subcommittee for writing the local call is working on it now. We will have a draft of it sent out to everyone by next Tuesday (8/3), and we'll bring copies to the meeting. RSVP at the facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=139803262708737 If you have any questions, email or call Eli - eli.meyerhoff [at] gmail.com / 763-607-7034. We hope you can make it! Invite all your friends! --------6 of 13-------- From: Peter Rachleff <rachleff [at] macalester.edu> From: micvisit <micvisit [at] umn.edu> Subject: Pakistan/labor 8.05 7pm We will meet on Thursday evening, August 5, from 7-8:30PM in the 4th floor lounge of Old Main on the Macalester College campus. You are invited to attend a presentation and conversation with Pakistani authorities who are visiting the U.S. to discuss their problems of bonded labor, labor trafficking, and forced child labor. This conversation is being made possible by the University of Minnesota's International Center and its International Visitors Leadership Program. Given the increasing tensions in U.S./Pakistani relations, the growing significance within the U.S. labor movement of USLAW (U.S. Labor Against War), and continuing concerns within out labor community about sweatshop production, the globalization of manufacturing, and the role of human trafficking in compelling workers across the world, this is a great opportunity to get an on-the-ground report and make some personal contacts with Pakistanis. Please join us! Peter Rachleff Professor of History Macalester College *PAKISTAN** IVLP COUNTER-TRAFFICKING PROGRAM EXPLANATION* In 2008 Pakistan fell to Tier 2 Watchlist in the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, largely due to a lack of progress in addressing the country's largest human trafficking problem of bonded labor and forced child labor. These problems are largely concentrated in Punjab's brick kilns and other industries, and Sindh's agricultural sector, which also happen to be situated in these provinces' areas of extreme poverty that are most vulnerable to militant and extremist recruitment. Local law enforcement and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have first contact with the victims of bonded, forced and trafficked labor and often must collaborate to protect the victims and to encourage prosecutions (two of the critical areas of need in the TIP Report recommendations). We nominated 6 members of police and 2 NGO representatives from Sindh and Punjab provinces whose demonstrated work and dedication to tackling these trafficking practices serve to both help Pakistan move towards improving its TIP report ranking, as well as to combat the potential for extremism and militant recruitment. This program will be for provincial law enforcement officials and members of national and provincial social service organizations. The program will examine the issues surrounding forced labor prosecution, victim services such as trauma counseling, and collaboration with NGOs on service provision and legal representation. (In Pakistan many NGOs provide legal services to bonded labor victims, but there is a need to assist them to more effectively collaborate with police.) Participants will also learn about initiatives to protect, assist and provide social reintegration of victims of forced labor. PROGRAM OBJECTIVES: To introduce the 6 police officers and 2 NGO officials who work on bonded labor issues to: -efforts to combat forced labor and labor trafficking -victim ID and protection services -collaborative NGO-law enforcement efforts --------7 of 13-------- From: Erin Parrish <erin [at] mnwomen.org> Subject: Hiroshima vigil 8.06 11am August 6: Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, MN Metro Branch Hiroshima commemoration and vigil. Women in Black will be taking part in the Hiroshima commemoration at the Peace garden by Lake Harriet. Vigil at Sadako sculpture at 11 AM which will consist of standing with the girls visiting from Japan. RSVP. --------8 of 13-------- From: David Shove <shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu> Subject: Ffunch back 8.06 11:30am Neither rain nor snow nor light of day can keep these self-appointed eater-talkers from their rounds. Join us. Ffunch 8.06 11:30am Meet the FFUNCH BUNCH! 11:30am-1pm First Friday Lunch (FFUNCH) for progressives. Informal political talk and hanging out. Day By Day Cafe 477 W 7th Av St Paul. Meet on the far south side. Day By Day has soups, salads, sandwiches, and dangerous apple pie; is close to downtown St Paul & on major bus lines (begin mumbling:) ffunch ffunch ffunch ffunch ffunch ffunch ffunch ffunch --------9 of 13-------- From: Eric Angell <eric-angell [at] riseup.net> Subject: Palestine vigil 8.06 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. --------10 of 13-------- From: PRO826 [at] aol.com Subject: Pentel for gov 8.06 6pm Ken Pentel for Governor with the Ecology Democracy Party _www.kenpentel.org_ (http://www.kenpentel.org) Campaign Fundraiser August 6th, 6p - 9p Help Us Make the Change Ken Pentel for Governor ~ Silent Auction and Fundraiser Are you tired of politics as usual in Minnesota? Do you believe that we have a responsibility to our Earth and future generations? Let's get together! Ken, Erin and the campaign team will be diligent in espousing the three main mandates of the Ecology Democracy Party through November 2nd which are: Proportional representation for the Minnesota House of Representatives To end big money and corporate interference in the Minnesota political system To transform our state into an ecological economy Now is the time for a third party to stand firm in their conviction of opening up the political system to more voices, concepts and ideas. On August 6th the Ecology Democracy Party will host a Silent Auction and Fundraiser for the Ken Pentel for Governor campaign at the Walker Community Church in Minneapolis from 6 to 9 pm. Meet Ken and hear how together we can bring proportional representation to the Minnesota House so that all viewpoints are represented in our government, how bringing ecologically sane industries to Minnesota will help heal our planet and revive our economy, and how getting corporate sponsorship of our legislature will inevitably lead us into a future where a healthy and educated citizenship will thrive! There will be food, music, and like-minded people. Expect to have some fun and make a difference. Friday August 6th - 6 - 9 pm. Walker Community Church 3104 16th Ave. S. Mpls, MN **If you can volunteer time, donate food or bring items for the silent auction (goods, services, crafts, art, homemade food, etc), your help would be greatly appreciated! Please contact Kristen at _krisrose07 [at] gmail.com_ (mailto:krisrose07 [at] gmail.com) for more information. If you cannot make the event but can donate $5, $10, $50, or any amount to the campaign, please mail to: Ken Pentel for Governor P.O. Box 3872 Minneapolis, MN 55403 Danene Provencher Kelsey Miller KP4G Campaign Managers _www.kenpentel.org_ (http://www.kenpentel.org/) 952-472-7863 --------11 of 13-------- Operation False Positive Behind the Colombia / Venezuela Tensions By CONN HALLINAN August 3, 2010 CounterPunch If you want to understand what's behind the recent tension between Colombia and Venezuela, think "smokescreen," and then go back several months to some sick children in the Department of Meta, just south of Bogota. The children fell ill after drinking from a local stream, a stream contaminated by the bodies of more than 2,000 people, secretly buried by the Colombian military. According to the Colombian high command, the mass grave just outside the army base at La Macarena contains the bodies of guerilla fighters killed between 2002 and 2009 in that country's long-running civil war. But given the army's involvement in the so-called "false positive" scandal, human rights groups are highly skeptical that the dead are members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army, the two insurgent groups fighting the central government. "False positive" is the name given to the Colombian armed forces operation that murdered civilians and then dressed them up in insurgent uniforms in order to demonstrate the success of the army's counterinsurgency strategy, thus winning more aid from the U.S. According to the human rights organizations Comision de Derechos Homanos del Bajo Ariari and Colectivo Orlando Fals Borda, some 2,000 civilians have been murdered under the program. The bodies at La Macarena have not been identified yet, but suspicion is that they represent victims of the "false-positive" program, as well as rural activists and trade unionists. The incoming Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, was defense secretary when the murders were taking place. Santos also oversaw a brief invasion of Ecuador in 2008 that reportedly killed a number of insurgents. The invasion was widely condemned throughout Latin America. Diverting attention is what outgoing Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is all about. While his foreign minister, Luis Alfonso Hoyos, was laying out photos and intelligence claiming that Venezuela was hosting upwards of 1500 Colombian insurgents, a group of Latin American NGOs were uncovering a vast scheme by Uribe's Department of Administrative Security (DAS) to sabotage the activities of journalists, judges, NGOs, international organizations and political opponents. Some of these "dirty tricks" included death threats. Because the U.S. - which has pumped more than $7 billion in military aid to Colombia - supplies the DAS with surveillance technology, Washington may end up implicated in the scandal. The U.S. may also be tarred with the murder of Colombian trade unionists. According to Kelly Nichollas of the U.S. Office on Colombia, testimony at the trial of former DAS director Jorge Noguera indicated that the U.S. trained a special Colombian intelligence unit that tracked trade unionists. Colombia is currently the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists. According to the International Trade Unionist Confederation's (ITUC) Annual Survey of Trade Union Rights, out of the 101 unionists murdered in 2009, 48 were in Colombia. So far, 20 more Colombian trade unionists have been murdered in 2010. In the case of Hernan Abdiel Ordonez, treasurer of the prison worker's union, who had complained about corruption, the government refused to provide him security in spite of receiving numerous death threats. He was gunned down by assassins on a motorcycle. "Colombia was once again the country where standing up for fundamental rights of workers is more likely than anywhere else to mean a death sentence, despite the Colombian government's public relations campaign," said ITCU General Secretary Guy Ryder. "The Colombian authorities must take urgent and effective measures to guarantee the physical integrality of Colombian trade unionists". Uribe certainly has reason to shift the attention away from Colombia and toward Venezuela. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is pressing its investigation of the "false-positives" murders, and Uribe's brother has been accused of working with death squads. Santiago Canton, an Argentinean and former head of the rights commission, said "If you put all this together, the extrajudicial executions, the espionage of human rights defenders, it's all really consistent over the years". And where was the [pro-dictator anti-democracy anti-union -ed] Obama Administration in all this? Firmly supporting Uribe, railing against Venezuela's suspension of diplomacy with Bogota, and, according to an investigation by the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), secretly funneling money to the media operations of Chavez's right-wing opponents. Right-wingers in Bolivia and Nicaragua are also receiving money. "Between 2007 and 2009, the State Department's little known Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor channeled at least $4 million to journalists in Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela through the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF)," says NACLA's Jeremy Bigwood. In doing this, the State Department violated its own rules requiring that "all publications" receiving money "acknowledge that support". According to Bigwood, the U.S. waived that requirement for PADF. Colombia is Washington's closest ally in the region, so it hardly surprising that Uribe's right-wing government and Washington's visceral hatred of Chavez should find common ground. But the attack on Chavez is also a proxy assault on the newly formed, 32-member Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the first regional organization not to include the U.S., Canada, or European countries. [More power to it! -ed] Meeting in Caracas this past July, CELAC selected Chavez and the newly elected conservative president of Chile, Sabastian Pinera, as co-chairs of the forum that will draft statutes for the organization. While it seems like an odd pairing, the U.S. media's cartoonish characterization of Chavez is not shared widely in Latin America. "Chavez...has shown himself adaptable to making major compromises in order to further Latin American and regional integration," says Alexander Main of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. And while Pinera is very conservative, according to Main, "his toned down approach to international relations indicates that he too is prepared to act pragmatically". The Caracas meeting called for "political, economic, social and cultural integration" and affirmed the right of "each state to constitute its own political system free of threats, aggressions and unilateral coercive measures". Tellingly, there was no mention of "free trade" or "open markets," the so-called "Washington consensus" that characterized U.S. economic doctrine in the region over the past several decades. As Latin America grows in economic strength and political independence, U.S. policy seems locked into a previous century when it was the major power in the region. Rather than retooling its diplomatic approach to fit the new reality in Latin America, Washington is expanding its military footprint. It is will soon be operating out of seven military bases in Colombia and has reactivated its 4th Fleet, both highly unpopular moves in Latin America. Rather than taking the advice of countries in the region to demilitarize its war on drugs, the U.S. recently announced it is deploying 46 warships and 7,000 soldiers to Costa Rica to "interdict" drug traffic and money laundering. From 2000 to 2009, less than 40 percent of U.S. aid to the region went to Latin America's militaries and police. The Obama Administration has raised that figure to 47 per cent. Washington and Bogota may try to demonize Venezuela, but they are playing to a very small audience, and one that grows smaller - and more irrelevant - by the day. Conn Hallinan can be reached at: ringoanne [at] sbcglobal.net --------12 of 13-------- Settlers Ramp Up "Price Tag" Policy Israeli Rabbi Preaches "Slaughter" of Gentile Babies By JONATHAN COOK August 2, 2010 CounterPunch Nazareth A rabbi from one of the most violent settlements in the West Bank was questioned on suspicion of incitement last week as Israeli police stepped up their investigation into a book in which he sanctions the killing of non-Jews, including children and babies. Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira is one of the leading ideologues of the most extreme wing of the religious settler movement. He is known to be a champion of the "price-tag" policy of reprisal attacks on Palestinians, including punishing them for attempts by officials to enforce Israeli law against the settlements. So far the policy has chiefly involved violent harassment of Palestinians, with settlers inflicting beatings, attacking homes, throwing stones, burning fields, killing livestock and poisoning wells. It is feared, however, that Shapira's book The King's Torah, published last year, is intended to offer ideological justifications for widening the scope of such attacks to include killing Palestinians, even children. Although Shapira was released a few hours after his questioning last Monday, dozens of rabbis, as well as several members of parliament, rallied to his side, condemning the arrest. Shlomo Aviner, one of the settlement movement's leaders, defended the book's arguments as a "legitimate stance" and one that should be taught in Jewish seminaries. But in a sign of mounting official unease at Shapira's influence on the settlement movement, the Israeli military authorities also threatened last week to enforce a decade-old demolition order on Yitzhar's seminary, which was built without a permit. Dror Etkes, a Tel Aviv-based expert on the settlements, said the order was unlikely to be carried out but was a way to pressure Yitzhar's 500 inhabitants to rein in their more violent attacks. He said the authorities had begun taking a harder line against Yitzhar only since Shapira and several of his students were suspected of torching a mosque in the neighboring village of Yasuf last December. "Shapira is trying to redefine the conflict with the Palestinians, turning it from a national conflict into a religious one. That frightens Israel. It doesn't want to look as though it is fighting the whole Islamic world," Etkes said. He added that the rabbi and his supporters were closely associated with Kach, a movement founded by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane that demands the expulsion of all Palestinians from a "Greater Israel". Despite Kach being banned, officials have largely turned a blind eye as its ideology has flourished in the settlements. "It may be illegal to call oneself Kach but the authorities are more than tolerant of settlers who hold such views and carry out violent attacks. In fact, what Kahane was doing in the 1980s seems like child's play compared with today's settlers". In the 230-page book, Shapira and his co-author, Rabbi Yosef Elitzur, also from Yitzhar, argue that Jewish law permits the killing of non-Jews in a wide variety of circumstances. The terms "gentiles" and "non-Jews" in the book are widely understood as references to Palestinians. They write that Jews have the right to kill gentiles in any situation in which "a non-Jew's presence endangers Jewish lives" even if the gentile is "not at all guilty for the situation that has been created". The book sanctions the killing of non-Jewish children and babies: "There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults". The rabbis suggest that harming the children of non-Jewish leaders is justified if it is likely to bring pressure to bear on them to change policy. The authors also advocate committing "cruel deeds to create the proper balance of terror" and treating all members of an "enemy nation" as targets for retaliation, even if they are not directly participating in hostile activities. The rabbis appear to be offering justifications in Jewish law for collective punishment and other war crimes of the kind committed by the Israeli army in its attack on Gaza in the winter of 2008. Pamphlets similarly calling on soldiers to "show no mercy" were distributed by the army's rabbinate as troops prepared for the Gaza operation, in which 1,400 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, were killed. Religious settlers have come to dominate many combat units. An investigation last year by Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group, found Shapira's seminary had received government funds worth at least $300,000 in recent years. American and British groups have also contributed tens of thousands of dollars in tax-deductible donations. According to the Jerusalem Post newspaper, the Yitzhar settlers have responded to the demolition order against their seminary by threatening to publish documents showing that the housing and transport ministries were closely involved in the project too. The settlers have repeatedly rampaged through nearby Palestinian villages, most notoriously in September 2008, when they were filmed shooting at homes in Assira al-Kabaliya, smashing properties and daubing Stars of David on homes. Ehud Olmert, the prime minister of the time, termed the settlers' actions a "pogrom". The same year a religious student from Yitzhar was arrested for firing home-made rockets at Palestinian villages close by. In April, Yitzhar's settlers marched through the village of Huwara and pelted a Palestinian family's home with stones in "reprisal" for the arrest of 11 of their number. A settler from Yitzhar was questioned last month over the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old Palestinian, Aysar Zaban, in May, reportedly after stones were thrown at the settler's car. The teenager was shot in the back. Last week, the settlers attacked Burin, shooting at villagers and burning fields. In most of these cases, the settlers who were arrested were released a short time later either by the police or the courts. In January, a Jerusalem judge freed Rabbi Shapira for lack of evidence in the arson attack on the mosque. Yitzhak Ginsburg, an authority on Jewish law and a mentor to Shapira, was questioned by police last Thursday over his endorsement of the book. In the past Ginsburg has praised Baruch Goldstein, a settler who opened fire in Hebron's Ibrahimi mosque in 1994, killing 29 Palestinian worshippers. In 2003 Ginsburg was accused of incitement for publishing a book that called for the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel and the occupied territories, but the charges were dropped after he issued a "clarification statement". A group calling itself "Students of Yitzhak Ginsburg" recently distributed a leaflet urging Israeli soldiers to "spare your lives and the lives of your friends and show no concern for a population that surrounds us and harms us". Kach was founded in 1971 by the late Meir Kahane, an American rabbi who immigrated to Israel. He won a seat in the Israeli parliament in 1984 on a platform of expelling all Palestinians from Israel and the occupied territories. As an MP, he drafted legislation to revoke the Israeli citizenship of non-Jews and ban sexual relations between Jews and gentiles. The political party was banned from running for the Israeli parliament in 1988 and the movement was outlawed six years later. Although the group is considered a terrorist organization in the United States and most of Europe, its ideology has been allowed to thrive in the settlements. Today, dozens of rabbis espouse an interpretation of Jewish religious law identical to or worse than Kahane's. Michael Ben Ari, a former Kach leader, was elected as an MP last year for the far-right National Union party, which holds four seats in the 120-member parliament. Avigdor Lieberman, who leads the parliament's third largest party and is foreign minister, briefly joined the party before it was banned. His own party's anti-Arab "No loyalty, no citizenship" program includes echoes of Kahane's ideology. Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair" (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net. [Never turn your back on a baby, is how I see it. Mean little buggars, creeping and pissing and pooping, all on the nice new Alderbalsam carpet, making spots that will never go away. Take it on Antiques Roadshow, and the expert will KNOW just where and when a baby pissed and pooped on the precious carpet, lowering its value from $25,000 to $133 on a good day with a buyer who is distracted by an oncoming heart attack. Babies - who needs 'em? (Unless of course they are Zionist babies, favored by Yahweh, in which case their pissing and pooping is a delightful foreshadowing of their future Zionist actions against the evil Palestinians.) -ed --------13 of 13-------- [Primarily an expose of The Nation Magazine; but also of others - Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Daniel Schorr - toward the end. -ed] The Liberal Media: Rest in Peace by Stephen Lendman August 4th, 2010 Dissident Voice The New York Times never qualified, run exclusively as a voice for power and privilege. The same, of course, holds for virtually all mainstream publications, including The Nation magazine, suppressing, sanitizing, and distorting truths, betraying its readers since 1865. Its founding prospectus said it "will not be the organ of any party, sect, or body. It will, on the contrary, make an earnest effort to bring to the discussion of political and social questions a really critical spirit, and to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration, and misrepresentation by which so much of the political writing of the day is marred". Today it claims, "Nobody owns the Nation". We are a wholly owned subsidiary of our own conscience". Yet, in disservice to its readers, its record since inception has been shameless. It was unapologetic about slavery, then didn't support minority, labor, or women's rights. It championed 19th century laissez faire, attacked the Grangers, Populists, trade unions and socialists. In 1999, it called the US/NATO Serbia/Kosovo aggression "humanitarian intervention". After 9/11, it backed the official explanation despite convincing evidence debunking it. Initially it supported the Iraq war, and until recently the Afghan one. More on that below. It also ignored the blatant 2000 fraud for George Bush, claimed "no evidence" showed the 2004 election was stolen, and in January 2006, ran an offensive full-page anti-Muslim ad titled "Arabian Fables," claiming Palestinians are prone to violence and deception. Two months later, it said Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide was "feared and despised," then blamed Haitians for their own misery. After the January 2010 earthquake, it backed America's intervention, Washington correspondent, John Nichols, praising Obama's "dignity and determination," saying: At a time when there is so much disappointment regarding the unmet promise of a presidency that finished its first year on a bitter note of a lost Senate seat, Obama responded to the crisis in a spirit that has the potential to reassure not just Haitians but Americans. The reality is far different, and Nichols knows it or should. Haiti is occupied and oppressed for the duration. Conditions on the ground are horrific. Essential aid is obstructed and limited. A health emergency continues. Malnutrition is rampant, clean water scarce, sanitation nearly non-existant, and only a small fraction of those needing tents and other essentials have them, leaving hundreds of thousands out of luck and on their own. Yet for Nichols, Obama "has projected a concern and a commitment that meets the moment," when, in fact, he militarized Haiti, blocked essential food, medical, and other supplies, and plans more sweatshops, resource exploitation, and commercial development instead of vital aid, Nichols saying, thanks to Obama, Haitians are in good hands. In June 2007, The Nation ran a slanderous anti-Hugo Chavez diatribe by contributor, Joaquin Villalobos, a neocon Colombian government advisor/assassin of Roque Dalton, the renown leftist Salvadoran poet/journalist. Long a notorious Democrat party flack, it cheerled Obama's candidacy, extolled his election, sees in him a "sea-change of course (for) progressive-driven reform, (the) end of the Reagan era, an end of the occupation of Iraq, and a socially liberal new beginning". Eighteen months later, The Nation writers are still supportive, ignoring Obama's lies, deceptions, contradictions, and crimes - campaign promises made and broken, including permanent occupations; raging imperial wars; others threatened in the Middle East, Horn of Africa, Asia and South America; shameless handouts to Wall Street bandits and other corporate favorites; and hardline homeland repression against Muslims, undocumented immigrants and minorities, while millions of Americans are impoverished, jobless, homeless, hungry and cheated by a president who doesn't give a damn. Neither does The Nation, including its editor, Katrina vanden Heuvel, an establishment figure, a regular on corporate TV, and member of the elitist Council on Foreign Relations (CRF), an organization committed to one-world government based on centralized financial control, historian, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., once calling it a "front organization (for) the heart of the American Establishment". Her maternal grandfather, Jules Stein, founded MCA, the entertainment conglomerate. Her father, William, was executive assistant to William Donovan, former Thailand ambassador involved in the CIA's creation. Father William was also a Farfield Foundation board member, a CIA front group active during the Cold War, and later special assistant to New York Governor, Averill Harriman, and US Attorney General, Robert Kennedy. Vanden Heuvel is a Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute (FERI) Board of Governors member. Others include former Senator Paul Sarbanes, former Democrat vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, and John Brademas, former New York University president and National Endowment for Democracy board member, a US foreign policy instrument funding anti-democracy groups globally. Initially an Afghan war supporter, vanden Heuvel and The Nation writers then backed humanitarian intervention to make the country and region "secure" and "stable". Yet after WikiLeaks revelations, she showed unease in her July 29 editorial (published on July 27 in her weekly Washington Post column) titled, "Could WikiLeaks Offer a Way Out of War," saying: "The war in Afghanistan just got a little foggier - or a little more transparent - depending on how you choose to see" the WikiLeaks dump, quoting a London Guardian editorial "show(ing) a conflict that is brutally messy, confused and immediate," neither she nor the editorial writer exposing the conflict's lawlessness, mindless slaughter, daily war crimes, and shocking atrocities, including torture in America's offshore gulag. Instead, she quotes The New York Times saying: The documents illuminate the extraordinary difficulty of what the United States and its allies have undertaken in a way that other accounts have not," responding only that "Perhaps a new take on an old war is just what we need to extract ourselves from another quagmire. (We've seen) enough to know that (Obama's) strategy cannot work, and enough to understand that the cost of continuing the war far outstrip any conceivable benefits". "Benefits?" Only for imperial pillagers, criminal politicians, media hacks, and war profiteers, none for beleaguered Afghans and cheated Americans, lied to and denied vital services when they most need them - she and the editorial expressing no moral outrage, no sympathy for massive suffering, and no concern for the truth, just support for winnable wars, not ones that "cannot work". In response to Obama's Nobel Peace Prize award, vanden Heuvel was effusive in her October 11, 2009 article titled, "The Burden & The Nobel," calling it "an ingenious leap of faith - the endorsement of the hope and the promise represented by America's new President... I think those who argue that the Prize is cheapened are just plain silly. The Prize doesn't go to only those who succeeded in their efforts, nor is it a lifetime achievement award. Instead, it is often and wisely given to endorse and encourage those who are working to bring about a better and more peaceful world." This writer's October 12, 2009 article titled, "October Surprise - Peace Prize to a War Criminal" expressed another view. In his Nobel acceptance speech, Obama argued for continued war, saying: "the instruments of war do have a role in preserving the peace, (that) all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace," and imperial warlords should be honored "not as makers of war, but as wagers of peace" - "War is peace," Orwellian doublethink, the Nobel Committee legitimizing wars and leaders who wage them, not peacemakers wanting swords turned into plowshares. The Nation writers, however, enthused, John Nichols calling Obama's speech "a glimpse of (him) at his best," vanden Heuvel saying it reflected "humility and grace," endorsing the Obama Doctrine - wars without end, for historians Charles Beard (1874-1948), Harry Elmer Barnes (1889-1968), and Gore Vidal - Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, the title of Barnes' 1953 book and Vidal's in 2002, saying "our rulers for more than half a century have made sure that we are never to be told the truth about anything that our government has done to other people, not to mention our own". A worried Barnes wrote: If trends continue as they have during the last fifteen years, we shall soon reach this point of no return, and can only anticipate interminable wars, disguised as noble gestures for peace. Such an era could only culminate in a third world war which might well, as (historian) Arnold J. Toynbee has suggested, leave only the pygmies in remote jungles, or even the apes and ants, to carry on "the cultural traditions" of mankind. Thanks to the Bush and Obama Doctrines, we've surged closer to the abyss. No matter, the Nation remains rapturously supportive, a voice for power, privilege and imperial wars, mindless of their destructive consequences, its readers betrayed by its anti-populist tradition, its backing wrong over right, and indifference to human suffering - lacking vision, honor and moral courage to report truths. Three Other Faux Liberals The liberal media landscape is strewn with others like vanden Heuvel and The Nation's stable of writers, two notables on MSNBC, betraying their viewers the same way, establishment figures in good standing. Rachael Maddow for one. Calling herself a "national security liberal," she says "I'm undoubtedly a liberal, which means that I'm in almost total agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform". In August 2008, The Nation magazine called her a "ballsy gremlin of the left, (an) explosive star, (a) popular guest analyst on MSNBC (now likely to) get her own show (as) one of the few left-liberal women to bust open the world of TV punditry, (not by) bluster and bravado but with a combination of crisp thinking and 'galumphing' good cheer". The New York Times calls her a "defense policy wonk" reporting embedded in July from Afghanistan, supporting the war, not how bad it's going, yet opposing withdrawal, defending power and privilege like other faux liberals. Some call them liberal fascists, well paid to suppress, sanitize and distort truths, support imperial wars, and why not. Maddow represents upwardly mobile middle class values. She's a Democrat party stalwart, indifferent to working class needs or suffering imperial wars cause, let alone why fought, reasons unrelated to democracy, human rights, and moral principles, notions never considered by her or other fake liberals. At a time of deepening economic crisis, unemployment, poverty, and other needs aren't discussed, nor is Obama's public trust betrayal and permanent war agenda, one Maddow supports. On his nightly Countdown program, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann is another unabashed Democrat party supporter, uncritical of outrageous Obama policies, including: . imperial wars without end; . anti-labor opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), and agenda to destroy, not create, jobs when they.re most needed; . a "Race to the Top" scheme to destroy public education; . stiff-arming budget-strapped states, and freezing out millions trapped by poverty, homelessness, hunger and despair; . militarizing Haiti and backing the Honduran coup, ousting a democratically elected leader; . supporting banker bailouts and bogus financial reform for Wall Street, not main street; . endorsing preventive detention, police state surveillance, and plans to assassinate US citizens named terrorists, with or without proof; and, . bogus health care reform, for many weeks the top Countdown story, Olbermann flacking for Obamacare, now passed - a destructive program to enrich insurers and drug giants, making a dysfunctional system worse. For months, he was unabashedly one-sided, feigning liberalism for a pro-business agenda - shamelessly pro-Obama when not jousting with Fox News or his nightly buffoonery, acting more like Bozo the Clown than a newsman, why critic David Forsmark calls his program "Meltdown," nightly "public ravings," not real news and information, evident by his topics, choice of guests, and discussions, supporting Democrat party politics, not good governance and public needs. Georgetown history Professor Michael Kazin, calls him "O'Reilly on the left - completely predictable, unfunny, and arrogant". University of Chicago Professor, Harold Pollack, said he "can be smart and funny, but I've basically had my fill. My life is full of shticky and rude blowhards already. Why add another?" Harper's editor, Luke Mitchell, described him as "irritating and his obvious sexism is reprehensible," despite some positive attributes. On June 23, 2008, New Yorker writer, Peter Boyer, called him "One Angry Man," saying: At home one night, he penned 'the first draft of a lacerating indictment of Bush, a twelve-minute-long j'accuse, addressed personally to" (him). The denunciation hit the high notes of the most fevered antiwar rhetoric, accusing Bush. his alleged puppet master (Dick Cheney and those around them) of perpetrating a "panoramic and murderous deceit" on America and the world, (saying) "you yoked this nation and your place in history to the wrong war, in the wrong place, against the wrong people," - accusations applying to Obama never aired on Countdown, in reports or commentaries, Democrats exempted from jeremiads, reserved exclusively for Republicans and Teapartyers, bashed separately in a nightly Tea Time segment. In the 1980s, he was a CNN sportscaster, later co-hosting ESPN's Sportscenter from 1992-1997, switching over to Fox Sports amid controversy, Olbermann calling it "the pressure of working in daily long-form television. not the broadcasts. an inability to digest all that led up to those hours (in) a medium so complex it would've made Rube Goldberg blanch". Others said he was fired for being caustic and thinking he was bigger than the network. After Fox, he rejoined MSNBC in 2003 hosting Countdown, a sportscaster turned newsman, impersonating a progressive, calling himself "not a liberal, an American," his specialty - flacking for Democrats, bashing the political right, feuding with Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin, and including nightly buffoonery/junk food news segments. He should have stuck with sportscasting, the right venue for fun and games, pranks, horseplay, and tomfoolery. Consumers of real news and information won't find much on Countdown. Nor from National Public Radio, including from its now departed Daniel Schorr, recounting in his memoir that "being poor, fat, Jewish (and) fatherless" made him feel like an outsider, later "achiev(ing) identity" through journalism, reporting for over 70 years until passing on July 23 at age 93. NPR rhapsodized in numerous tributes, comparing him to Edward R. Murrow, citing his many awards, his analysis "broadened by his firsthand perspective" on history, starting as a journalist at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) and Jewish Daily Bulletin from 1934-1941, followed by the Dutch news agency. In 1946, he was a foreign correspondent, later covering the Cold War, 1953 McCarthy hearings, the Clinton impeachment ones, and Nixon era, a noted member of his enemies list. He observed superpower summits, from Krushchev to Gorbachev, worked for Army intelligence in WW II, later the Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, CBS, and CNN before joining NPR in 1985 as a senior news analyst. Hold the plaudits, Nation magazine's eulogy notwithstanding, lauding him for "making the right enemies, (his) unofficial beat always. the abuse of power, relentless questioning, (then) NPR's resident truth teller" until his death. Others see him differently, notably his quarter century at NPR, recent critics citing his waltzing with Bibi, one-sidedly supporting Israel with comments like: Netanyahu will not accept the Palestinian state with its own defense capability. The Palestinians will not accept a Jewish state that nibbles away with settlements in Occupied Territory. Nibbles? Over 42% of the West Bank has been stolen, total Judaization of East Jerusalem is planned, and some observers expect mass expulsions throughout the Territories for a Greater Israel, besides keeping Gaza besieged, and daily incursions, mass arrests, targeted killings, torture, and intermittent wars, unmentioned in Schorr commentaries, a committed Zionist until death. A man who lied on air about the Mossad's role in assassinating Hamas official, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in Dubai last February. Last December, commenting on Obama's West Point speech announcing a 30,000 Afghanistan force surge, he said: I would characterize it as being a statesmanlike speech, (explaining the) need to send more troops, (and try to placate) many liberals in the Democrat party," saying withdrawal will begin in 18 months. According to Schorr, "not really a very wise thing to do if you want to get the Taliban and Al-Qaeda out of there. You don't say just hang around, we'll be leaving in 18 months". Not a word about an illegal war; imperial agenda, daily slaughter; appalling atrocities; willful targeting of civilians; millions killed, displaced, oppressed, and immiserated; and a shocking betrayal of the public trust to be there or in Iraq in the first place - suggesting only that the war continue and be won. Ignoring the dire economy, he supported Obama's approach, suggesting conditions are headed in the right direction when they're worsening. Production is falling. Housing crashed. Consumer confidence plunged. Leading indicators point down. Jobless benefits have been extended seven times in the past two years. Nearly half the unemployed have been looking for six months or longer. Youth unemployment is 25%. For Black and Latino youths it's far higher, in major US cities topping 80%, according to a report by the Northeastern University Center for Labor Market Studies. Since January, over 100 banks folded. The federal deficit is out of control. Consumer credit and spending are falling, but Schorr sounded like a CNBC pundit. Not to worry. Things are looking up. Earlier he was positive about Obamacare, finance reform, and other pro-business measures, not their harm and betrayal of the public trust. Yet, The Nation's, John Nichols, hailed his "art of making the right enemies". Others said he was aggressive, tenacious, a pioneer. NPR called him a "legend... speaking truth to power". Most often he spoke for it instead. Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. Contact him at: lendmanstephen [at] sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM-1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests. All programs are archived for easy listening. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - David Shove shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu rhymes with clove Progressive Calendar over 2225 subscribers as of 12.19.02 please send all messages in plain text no attachments vote third party for president for congress for governor now and forever Socialism YES Capitalism NO To GO DIRECTLY to an item, eg --------8 of x-------- do a find on --8 Research almost any topic raised here at: CounterPunch http://counterpunch.org Dissident Voice http://dissidentvoice.org Common Dreams http://commondreams.org Once you're there, do a search on your topic, eg obama drones
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