What will it take for Diaspora Jews to realise that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, and the extremist Jews who populate the territory, is threatening their beloved homeland?
One of Australia’s “leading” conservative commentators:
It’s true that some of the Left are genuinely nice people motivated by a sense of justice and compassion, however mistakenly applied. But it’s also true that the Left is the natural home of the barbarian.
Let me see now. How many Jews can I slaughter this Sabbath?
A US$12 computer for the developing world?
Computer gaming as a legitimate sport at the Olympic Games?
I’d like to see that.
Through all the difficulties in Iraq, people look now to Iran, not the U.S., for a better life. Why?
The average house in Baquba, capital of Diyala province north of Baghdad, has less than 12 hours of electricity a day. “I cannot exclude electricity from my thinking; when I think of making any plans, I have to factor the lack of electricity,” says local shopkeeper Abdullah Salim.
With temperatures soaring to 55C, lack of fans and air coolers can put people’s health, and businesses, at risk.
“We cannot work without electricity, because generators are not dependable,” Salman Taha, who owns a mechanics workshop, told IPS.
“When I decided to purchase an updated model of my bakery, I did not think of electricity,” says Mahmood al-Mujamaee. “I could not operate it at all because of the inconsistency of electricity; the bakery needs stable power. It cost around 45,000 dollars. Now, I’m ready to sell for 20,000 dollars.”
But bad as it is, the situation has been improving over the past four months – with Iran’s assistance. The Bush administration and western companies like Bechtel have failed to deliver on promises to improve infrastructure.
“Now, the province gets power from Iran under a contract signed about two years ago between the Iraqi government and Iran,” Naseer Milmy, an employee with the directorate-general of electricity told IPS.
Is the New York Times scared of losing its ever-dwindling print readers?
Leading Chinese blogger Isaac Mao:
China has a long tradition of people trying to fit into the group, moderating their behaviour to avoid standing out conspicuously - a culture reinforced by the man-made collectivism of the past half-century.
Blogs have leapfrogged this tradition, acting as a catalyst to encourage young people to become more individual. So this and other grassroots media are now emerging strongly to challenge China’s social legacy.
John Pilger, The Guardian, August 6:
There is only one rampant nuclear power in the Middle East and that is Israel. The heroic Mordechai Vanunu tried to warn the world in 1986 when he smuggled out evidence that Israel was building as many as 200 nuclear warheads. In defiance of UN resolutions, Israel is today clearly itching to attack Iran, fearful that a new American administration might, just might, conduct genuine negotiations with a nation the west has defiled since Britain and America overthrew Iranian democracy in 1953.
In the New York Times on July 18, the Israeli historian Benny Morris, once considered a liberal and now a consultant to his country’s political and military establishment, threatened “an Iran turned into a nuclear wasteland”. This would be mass murder. For a Jew, the irony cries out.
The question begs: are the rest of us to be mere bystanders, claiming, as good Germans did, that “we did not know”? Do we hide ever more behind what Richard Falk has called “a self-righteous, one-way, legal/moral screen [with] positive images of western values and innocence portrayed as threatened, validating a campaign of unrestricted violence”? Catching war criminals is fashionable again. Radovan Karadzic stands in the dock, but Sharon and Olmert, Bush and Blair do not. Why not? The memory of Hiroshima requires an answer.
You can almost hear the anticipation of some in the US government just waiting for another 9/11. The ultimate goal? Massive censorship of the internet:
Amazing revelations have emerged concerning already existing government plans to overhaul the way the internet functions in order to apply much greater restrictions and control over the web.
Lawrence Lessig, a respected Law Professor from Stanford University told an audience at this years Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Half Moon Bay, California, that “There’s going to be an i-9/11 event” which will act as a catalyst for a radical reworking of the law pertaining to the internet.
Lessig also revealed that he had learned, during a dinner with former government Counter Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke, that there is already in existence a cyber equivalent of the Patriot Act, an “i-Patriot Act” if you will, and that the Justice Department is waiting for a cyber terrorism event in order to implement its provisions.
So, the Iraq war was launched by the Bush administration thanks to a forged letter (according to a new book in the US.) And now, due to Wikileaks, more essential background:
- “The legal basis for the war itself was, and still is, controversial. There is a military need, at least, at the outset of operations to reinforce the legal base for deployment by clear, unequivocal and timely direction and explanation.”
So states a leaked UK military report into the Iraq war released to the public by Wikileaks. The sensitive 108 page report, written in late 2006, damns UK and US war planning, which “ran counter to potential Geneva Convention obligations” — and lead directly to the post invasion collapse of Iraqi society:
- “leaders should not start an operation without thinking…it is not enough just to identify the desired end-state”.
The report reveals that Whitehall had been secretly planning the war during 2002. In fact, the Blair government was so paranoid about leaks that it kept the pending invasion (”TELIC”) secret from all but an inner circle of officers and officials until three months before the start of hostilities:
- “In Whitehall, the internal OPSEC (operational security) regime, in which only very small numbers of officers and officials were allowed to become involved in TELIC business, constrained broader planning for combat operations and subsequent phases effectively until 23 December 2002.”
Although the UK wanted UN security council approval, the UK found itself roped to a US ideological agenda and timetable:
- “the UK had to work to a timetable and strong ideological views set in the United States. As one Senior Officer put it: ‘the train was in Grand Central Station, and was leaving at a time which we did not control’”
A clip from the 2005 Israeli documentary, Land of of the Settlers. Wikipedia describes this devastating documentary thus:
The Land of the Settlers is a five part documentary series created by Chaim Yavin, who was described by the Arab News as “the Israeli version of America’s Walter Cronkite“. With a handheld camera, Yavin traveled throughout his homeland of Israel and interviewed a range of Palestinians and Israelis in order to document the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Released in 2005, his series was too controversial to air on Israel’s public TV station, Channel 1, despite the fact that he had helped to create the station and served as its lead anchorman. It ran instead on Channel 2, creating a stir for its sympathy towards Palestinians:
This is what the Jewish state has become. An occupying pariah that seemingly enjoys humiliating another people. This is not a Judaism of which I can be proud.
Can we trust the Chinese during the Games?
My following article appears in the Amnesty International Australia’s Uncensor campaign about human rights in China:
The future of human rights in China after the Games will require constant negotiation and patience, writes Antony Loewenstein
The Olympics are nearly upon us (and dog is allegedly banned from sale during the event.)
Beijing residents are reporting a draconian crackdown on anything deemed “subversive.” “The dichotomy between what Olympics visitors will see and what residents experience”, writes Jen Lin-Liu, “may be most visible in the stadiums once the Games begin.”
There is no doubt that the departing New York Times correspondent Howard W. French is correct when he writes: “…Political change, however gradual and inconsistent, has made China a significantly more open place for average people than it was a generation ago.”
But the behaviour of authorities, both Chinese and the IOC, in the lead-up to the Games – insecure and petty - reveals a mindset that all-too-easily resents freedom of expression. Though it was amusing to read about Yahoo, one of the leading Western multinationals who has assisted the regime’s filtering system, caught out by promoting a picture gallery of the, “Tiananmen Square Massacre Remembered”, some commentators are comparing the Beijing Games to the 1980 Moscow event. Technology may have changed, but the nature of oppression is eerily similar. The Guardian explains:
“The similarities between these two coming-out parties are eye-popping: dissidents jailed; ‘social undesirables’ - mainly poor migrant workers - kicked out of town; three rings of police checkpoints surrounding the city; old buildings bulldozed; security so overwhelming as to squeeze all the fun out of the party.”
The China Model, furious economic development with general political impotence, is continuing (especially in the hi-tech sector). But it has its limits, not least the benefits brought by satellite television and the internet.
He Weifang, a professor of law at Peking University, says that China is slowly democratising, but at a vastly different rate to what the West thinks it deserves.
“Today, even the farmers in remote areas have satellite TVs,” Mr. He said. “So whenever they see an election, such as the one held in Pakistan recently, they may wonder why, even though we have approximately the same economic conditions, they can elect their top leaders, and we can’t even vote for the leader of a small county. I think a consciousness of political rights has increased more than anything.”
As a visitor to China in 2000 and again in 2007, it is patently clear that the country has become far more confident in its identity. Though a craving for global acceptance is key to understanding the recent nationalist surge, the Olympics are the ultimate opportunity for the regime to showcase its modernisation. It won’t totally succeed, and nor should it, because there is simply too much known about Beijing’s authoritarianism (and its denial of past revolutionary violence).
But human rights activists should not only damn the rising power. Nuance is the key, as is engagement. It’s hard to disagree with the conclusion of George Walden, a British diplomat in China during the Cultural Revolution, who says that the Games must be allowed to succeed:
“We need perspective on this. I was there during the Cultural Revolution, and I watched people being carted away in the streets to be shot in the back of the neck. About 3 million people died. I’ve been back often since, and each time there is a sort of incremental freedom, though sometimes it moves backward.”
I argue in my forthcoming book, The Blogging Revolution, that China’s internet may be the key to advancing the interests of its citizens. A regime can’t hide all the “subversive” material all of the time, no matter how hard they try. What was impossible only a few years ago – such as local citizens complaining online about corrupt, local officials – should give us hope that Chinese netizens are not the mindless drones often imagined by the Western media.
Technology and capitalism certainly don’t automatically guarantee democracy (something far too many neo-cons fail to understand) Until Western, IT multinationals are convinced that colluding with repressive regimes is not in their best interests, it will be close to impossible to change this current vicious cycle.
China’s entry into the world club will be a tortuous process, but respect is a two-way street.
This doesn’t sound like blatant Jewish racism at all:
Israeli produce marketing company Otzar Ha’aretz (treasure of the earth) announced on Monday that it will not market produce grown by Arab farmers, and will from now on only sell only Jewish-grown products.
The company, which has been marketing fruits and vegetables to the ultra-Orthodox community during the shmita (sabbatical) year, announced that it will continue to operate once the year is over in effort to “support Jewish agriculture in Israel.”
Just who is the real Columbian President Álvaro Uribe Vélez?
Editor and Publisher explains a media story that really requires no context:
The grisly incident last week where a man attacked a fellow bus passenger and then apparently started eating him provoked all sorts of slightly off-kilter headlines but the current one up at the Associated Press’ Google site takes high honors.
It reads: SUSPECT IN BUS BEHEADING DESCRIBED AS HARD WORKING.
Did China fake its Olympic Everest summit?
Would the real (neo-con) wet dream, former far-right Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali, please stand up?
