The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here.
Updated January 19, 2008:
This report covers events of Wednesday, July 26 in the Israel-Lebanon War.
There were at least 95 Israeli casualties Wednesday in the Middle East War, 9 killed and 86 wounded. 9 IDF were killed and 26 were wounded, all in and around Bint Jbail and Maroun al Ras in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border.
At least 60 Israeli civilians were wounded, all but 2 by rocket attacks. The others were a settler who was wounded in a shooting attack on his vehicle in the West Bank and an Israeli who was wounded by a Qassam attack on the Negev.
2 Merkava tanks were either damaged or destroyed, one in between Maroun al Ras and Bint Jbail and another in Bint Jbeil. An IDF unit was hit in Maroun al Ras, a village they said they captured "for reals" on Saturday nite.
Looks like Umm al Qasr syndrome, where US insisted, day by day, during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, that Umm al Qasr had been taken, only to have to retract it the next day when fighting broke out again. Fighting went on there for 1-2 weeks at least.
The Lower City of Haifa was seriously damaged by a 16-rocket barrage on Wednesday. The commercial and port facilities there sustained major damage. Near the Lebanese border, fires are raging across much of the Israeli countryside.
Smoke from fires is pouring out of the Israeli town of Metulla on the border. A fire raged inside the town of Kirstyn Shemona and 17 people were treated for smoke inhalation. Fires are raging out of control over much of the north. An incredible 500,000 trees and much of the brush in northern Israel has been destroyed by fires.
Hezbollah has suffered maybe ~125 killed so far, but Hezbollah casualties are almost impossible to determine. Israel seems to be claiming ~250 Hezbollah killed so far, but Hezbollah has only admitted to ~27 killed. US intelligence says that Israel is seriously exaggerating Hezbollah casualties.
Casualties in Lebanon as of Monday were at least 491 killed - 415 civilians (including 44 foreign nationals and 371 Lebanese) and 76 military - 40 Lebanese military, 31 Hezbollah and 5 Amal militia fighters.
Since then, at least 41 more civilians have been killed, bringing the Lebanese civilian total to 460 killed, and the figures for Hezbollah's fighters are undoubtedly low. Total dead in Lebanon are now at least 526 killed, and surely many more.
In addition, there are at least 150-200 more bodies trapped under the rubble, according to the Lebanese government. It is too dangerous to pull them out.
There were 34 Lebanese civilian casualties on Wednesday. Israel also dropped around ten bombs and missiles on Shia Southern Beirut.
It is useful to note that according to Israeli logic that is being used to target Southern Beirut, Hezbollah has a right to attack Israeli cities in the manner in which it is doing. Shia Southern Beirut is the home of Hezbollah, it is controlled by Hezbollah, and many Hezbollah live there, from high-ranking officers to foot soldiers.
Many of the civilians there are described as working for Hezbollah in some sort of support capacity. Since everyone supporting Hezbollah is said to be a target by Israel, we can apply the same logic back on the Israelis.
By that logic, all Israeli cities and towns are legitimate targets for Hezbollah, since they are all controlled by the IDF, most large centers have IDF bases or recruitment centers of some sort, and almost all have many IDF soldiers amongst the residents. The larger centers also have many IDF officers residing there.
How many Israeli civilians serve as the supporters of the IDF in one way or another? How many Israeli factories and commercial centers serve the IDF in some capacity or other?
The Lebanese town of Yaroun near the Israeli border and close to Bint Jbeil has been devastated by extremely heavy Israeli bombing. 100 foreigners, mostly Americans, were visiting relatives in the town when it was hit. Israel is targeting anything that moves in the area, making evacuation difficult. Many homes are flattened and many civilian bodies are buried under the rubble.
In Marjayoun, a Greek Orthodox town 4 1/2 miles from the border, and in Qlaya, a Maronite Catholic town 3 miles north of border, Lebanese army patrols move through the streets to try to prevent Hezbollah rocket teams from using the towns to launch missiles on Israel.
Apparently, the Lebanese army has a major presence in South Lebanon, which is surprising, since US Zionist media had told me that the entire area had been ceded by Lebanon to Hezbollah.
Hezbollah, far from being down and out, rained down 151 missiles on northern Israel Wednesday, the most ever in a single day. Missiles hit Safad, Carmiel, Hula Valley, Haifa, Maalot, Kiryat Shemona, Tiberias, Rosh Pinna, Nahariyah and Krayot.
8 IDF were killed and 22 more were wounded in Bint Jbeil in a heavy battle when they were ambushed by a large Hezbollah force using mortars, AT-3 Sagger anti-tank missiles, Lau rockets (What is this, anyone?), roadside bombs, RPG's and automatic weapons. Principal targets in the attacks were Israeli tanks and APC's.
IDF troops had only surrounded the village, not taken it, as claimed earlier. A Golani Brigade dismounted force (no vehicles) came down off a hill outside the town and tried to penetrate the town at 5 AM on Wednesday when they were hit by a devastating ambush.
Hezbollah forces had re-entered the town that night from the north with a large force, including reinforcements from surrounding villages. They took up positions in town and waited for the IDF to enter.
When the IDF got to the "deserted" marketplace, they were hit from three sides by the ambush from guerrilla fighters who darted out of homes, fired, and then disappeared. The fighting was very close-quarters and house to house. The IDF force was completely trapped and had to take refuge in the homes in the area. After many troops were hit and downed, a casualty evacuation was ordered.
A Merkava tank and various vehicles were called in to evacuate the troops but were hit by withering fire and set on fire. Casualty evacuation took 6 hours under very heavy fire.
IDF troops, in some cases, had to evacuate the wounded on foot for up to a mile before they could be airlifted out. The soldiers would drop the wounded man, pause to fire their weapons, and then go back to carrying out the wounded.
Arab TV reported 12 or 13 killed long before the Western media reported any KIA's. Later, the Israeli government reported 8 killed. A soldier inside the Golani Brigade that was involved in the fighting said, in a phone call to his mother in Gilo, opposite Bethlehem, that 10 IDF were killed in the battle.
One source says there are some IDF still missing in the town. Until this is cleared up, we are going with 8 IDF killed as per official IDF sources. Later in the day, an IDF tank was hit by an anti-tank missile between Bint Jbeil and Maroun al Ras. The tank was destroyed and 1 IDF soldier was killed and 3 more were wounded, 2 critically.
The IDF is issuing various contradictory claims of Hezbollah casualties, the most recent being 50 Hezbollah killed in Bint Jbeil in recent days. IDF ghouls have confiscated the dead bodies of Hezbollah KIA's and are keeping the stiffs on ice in order to have rigor mortis bargaining chips to use against Hezbollah to try to get the two captured IDF soldiers back.
There was a huge furor over the IDF deliberately targeting a UNIFL (UN Interim Force for Lebanon) observation post in Khiam 3 miles north of the border with the Israeli-occupied Lebanese land known as Shebaa Farms.
The village had been devastated by Israeli bombs all day. The bombs steadily came closer and closer to the observation post as the UN officers desperately called the IDF 8-10 times over a period of hours and told them to call off their fire.
The IDF received the calls and told the UN that the bombs would stop. The post was then hit with a direct hit from an Israeli precision-guided missile, in an obvious deliberate attack. The US Zionist media, even Fox News, if you can believe it (Greta van Sustern could barely contain her outrage) is up in arms over this outrage.
Koffi Annan, the UN Secretary General who replaced independent Boutros Boutros-Ghali in the post when the US government singlehandedly had the disobedient Boutros-Ghali removed, has usually been an obedient US agent. To his eternal shame, Annan has transformed the UN into an appendage and armed accomplice of US imperialism.
From its outrageous collaboration with the US colonial occupation of Iraq (this blog supported the Iraqi guerrillas' devastating attack on the UN building in Baghdad) to the criminal manner in which UN forces serve as goons for the US-French-Canadian imperial armed occupation of Haiti, to the point of repeatedly attacking the Haitian poor rebelling against the wicked imperial occupation regime, Annan has played the satrap role well.
The deliberate attack on the UN post was a bit too much though. Annan was beside himself with rage, sputtering. The "USraeli" (What the Hell, it's all one country now) media and government went nuts because Annan told the truth, and like a good submissive, Koffi backed down and lowered his gaze. He was last seen obediently muttering that he must have been mistaken.
Israel (via Debka - a de facto Mossad-owned website) admitted that the UNIFL force was attacked on purpose, apparently because they thought that the Chinese UN observer was spying on IDF positions, targets, etc.
Debka also admitted, in a shocking admission, that the "accidental" US bombing of the Chinese Embassy during Wesley Clark's NATO bombing of Serbia in the 1990's had also been deliberate, supposedly because the Chinese were gathering intelligence about US bombing targets in Serbia. At the time, the US government had fallen all over itself, tangled up in its apologies.
The line, parroted faithfully by the puppy-dog US media, was that the US maps of Belgrade had been outdated, and the present Chinese embassy was thought to be a strategic target on an outdated map.
The shocking admission that the attack was deliberate all along, and that the "progressive" Clinton Administration lied to the US public about it at the time and never came clean afterwards, serves as a reminder to Americans. A reminder that not only is truth the first casualty of war, but that Americans need to be extremely cynical about the US government's claims about its military operations.
The attack may also have been a payback to the UN, which is despised by Israel and its passionate supporters for allowing the Hezbollah buildup in the South and supposedly sympathizing with and working to help Hezbollah.
The attack may also may have been a warning of what lies in store for any international force that is going to head into the area not to go there. As if on cue, the Australian government said that it was pulling its forces out of UNIFL, since UNIFL is now a "suicide mission".
This attack seems to have shades of the USS Liberty incident, when Israel deliberately attacked a US spy ship in order to be able to commit its war crimes without the US looking on. This is probably the main reason for the attack. UNIFL is the eyes and ears on the ground of Israel's criminal destruction of the nation of Lebanon.
If UNIFL is removed from the scene as a respected witness, the IDF will be much more free to commit the massive war crimes that they are apparently dying to commit.
Hezbollah is now warning that it will hit between Netanya and Tel Aviv with missiles. Israelis cowering in sweltering bomb shelters for two weeks now are starting to run of food and medicine in a parallel with their Lebanese neighbors, who, ducking in their own makeshift shelters in South Lebanon, are also running out of food.
If you turned on CNN Wednesday, you could see excited journalists milling around a destroyed seven story building in the coastal city of Tyre in Lebanon. CNN reported that the building was a residential apartment building.
The IDF said a top Hezbollah officer had his headquarters in the building. Israel said that building was empty when it was attacked but I guess not, as I saw the wounded civilians on my TV screen. In fact, 13 civilians were wounded in this attack.
Very heavy Israeli shelling and aerial bombing continued to pound South Lebanon all throughout the day.
On the second front of the war, Israel attacked Gaza with a huge force, killing 23 Palestinians, 16 guerrillas and 7 civilians. It was the highest single-day casualty figure in Gaza since Israel withdrew its settlements from Gaza last year.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Aim For the Cross
The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here.
In Qana, Lebanon, site of a previous notorious IDF massacre a decade ago, 2 Red Crescent ambulances were recently hit with IDF missiles. Both missiles were direct hits, slamming right into the center of the cross on the top of each ambulance.
Not only did the IDF deliberately target those ambulances, but this is yet another sign of the Jewish anti-Christian race hatred that often comes out in Israeli wars. In the siege of Bethlehem during the IDF's Easter Offensive in 2001, the IDF not only deliberately attacked Jesus' birthplace, and IDF soldiers deliberately shot at crosses and Christian statues in a display of barbaric Jewish bigotry.
You must recall that amongst Orthodox Jews, the cross is an object of contempt. The organization that conducts conversions for the Israeli government has, as part of its conversion ceremony, a ritual whereby the convert is required to spit on the cross. In the 1970's, there was an uproar across Israel because Jewish children were using the + sign in their Math classes.
No nice Jewish boy or girl should be forced to draw this horrid Christian symbol, the drawing of which is a sin under Medieval Jewish Law. The controversy was settled when Jewish kids were allowed to write "t" instead "+". No kidding.
Around the same period, there was another furor in Israel surrounding a postage stamp that had a Christian church on it. Turns that if that was not bad enough, there was that hated cross, visible, but oh so tiny, on the steeple. It was eventually removed and the state of Israel was redeemed.
When Israeli soldiers and police raided Christian homes down through the decades, on many occasions, if a cross was seen on the wall by the raiding security officers, it was instantly ripped down or smashed on sight.
From the date of Israel's birth in sin in 1948 until now, Israel has delighted in destroying Christian cemeteries and archaeological sites, in addition to the hated Muslim sites. Of course, Jewish cemeteries and archaeological sites are usually treated with utmost care.
I bring up the base religious hatred of so many backwards, regressed Jewish primitives in Israel as a case in point to Israel's many strong Christian supporters.
Do these Christians really want to support those who regularly pray that Jesus is suffering in Hell, who preach that Jesus is being boiled in semen and feces in Hell, who say that his mother, Mary, was a whore, and who clearly state that not only did the Jewish Sanhedrin elite kill the Jewish rebel Jesus, but that, as a Jewish heretic, he clearly got what he deserved?
Not only did he get what he deserved, but one gets the impression that if Jesus were to ever return, I am certain that this element in Judaism would just love to kill him one more time.
Over 50% of all Israelis fall into this Medievalist mindset, a group who, in general, harbor major hatred towards Gentiles in general. Israel's Gentile supporters should carefully consider the fact that over half of all Israelis are super-racist bigots who hate us as a group.
For an in-depth analysis of this phenomenon by the late, lamented, Jewish humanist, Israel Shahak, see Jewish History, Jewish Religion, The Weight of 3,000 Years (I have read this book and highly recommend it). The book can be found online here.
Sorry, but sadly, it is only found on anti-Semitic sites, though it is not anti-Semitic. Chalk that up to general fear of being labeled an anti-Semite, a fear that often only anti-Semites will face down. The book may be purchased here.
Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel , by Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky also deals with this subject. The introduction on Ziopedia is here, and the entire book can be found online here.
Both books have had a hard time finding prominent publishers in the US and have received little publicity. Apparently most bookstores do not want to touch them. Of course, anti-Semites drool over these books, but don't let that stop you from dipping into them, because these books are not anti-Semitic at all.
Both of the authors are simply rationalist Jewish critics of religion in general, especially the Jewish religion. They focus on the Jewish religion simply because they are concerned Jews, not out of irrational animus.
For the particular subject of this post, traditional Jewish hostility towards Christianity, see Shahak's little-known work, The Jewish Hatred Towards Christianity (Unfortunately, also on the anti-Semitic Radio Islam site). This short piece is not anti-Semitic either, but is simply a factual analysis of a primitive and barbaric trend within the Jewish religion. This article was used as a reference piece in writing this post.
In writing this, please understand that this post in no way is an attempt to diminish the horrible, Nazi-like, homicidal bigotry and religious hatred that has been present in many Muslims for centuries, especially towards Christians and Hindus, and to a lesser extent towards Jews, despite Muslim BS propaganda about "tolerance". There is nothing tolerant about the supremacist Sharia, jizya and dhimma.
Nor am I overlooking the ancient Christians' tendencies to murder heretics, nor their religious-based pogroms against Jews, nor Catholics' mad mass-murdering bigotry against Protestantism in the Middle Ages.
Nor do I overlook the paranoid racism of ultranationalist Hindus, who deliberately provoke Muslims, wage pogroms against them, idolize Hitler and Nazism and exhibit bizarre paranoia about Christianity and its proselytization.
Nor do I, of course, let the maddest of the mad Christian fundamentalist Reconstructionists off the hook, who exhibit similar mad hatred of non-Christians.
I am just pointing out the very obvious here, despite the fact that these various fundamentalists all despise each other, often to the point of being homicidal towards the Religious Other, that in so many important ways, they are oh so similar.
Describing the similarities of various fundamentalisms goes beyond the scope of this post, but research into the various fundamentalisms should demonstrate to the observant and open-minded reader how they all plow the same field. The real radical differences are not between the various fundamentalist cretins, but between any fundamentalist, or all of them, and radical seculars or atheists. Try to get your mind around that one.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
In Qana, Lebanon, site of a previous notorious IDF massacre a decade ago, 2 Red Crescent ambulances were recently hit with IDF missiles. Both missiles were direct hits, slamming right into the center of the cross on the top of each ambulance.
Not only did the IDF deliberately target those ambulances, but this is yet another sign of the Jewish anti-Christian race hatred that often comes out in Israeli wars. In the siege of Bethlehem during the IDF's Easter Offensive in 2001, the IDF not only deliberately attacked Jesus' birthplace, and IDF soldiers deliberately shot at crosses and Christian statues in a display of barbaric Jewish bigotry.
You must recall that amongst Orthodox Jews, the cross is an object of contempt. The organization that conducts conversions for the Israeli government has, as part of its conversion ceremony, a ritual whereby the convert is required to spit on the cross. In the 1970's, there was an uproar across Israel because Jewish children were using the + sign in their Math classes.
No nice Jewish boy or girl should be forced to draw this horrid Christian symbol, the drawing of which is a sin under Medieval Jewish Law. The controversy was settled when Jewish kids were allowed to write "t" instead "+". No kidding.
Around the same period, there was another furor in Israel surrounding a postage stamp that had a Christian church on it. Turns that if that was not bad enough, there was that hated cross, visible, but oh so tiny, on the steeple. It was eventually removed and the state of Israel was redeemed.
When Israeli soldiers and police raided Christian homes down through the decades, on many occasions, if a cross was seen on the wall by the raiding security officers, it was instantly ripped down or smashed on sight.
From the date of Israel's birth in sin in 1948 until now, Israel has delighted in destroying Christian cemeteries and archaeological sites, in addition to the hated Muslim sites. Of course, Jewish cemeteries and archaeological sites are usually treated with utmost care.
I bring up the base religious hatred of so many backwards, regressed Jewish primitives in Israel as a case in point to Israel's many strong Christian supporters.
Do these Christians really want to support those who regularly pray that Jesus is suffering in Hell, who preach that Jesus is being boiled in semen and feces in Hell, who say that his mother, Mary, was a whore, and who clearly state that not only did the Jewish Sanhedrin elite kill the Jewish rebel Jesus, but that, as a Jewish heretic, he clearly got what he deserved?
Not only did he get what he deserved, but one gets the impression that if Jesus were to ever return, I am certain that this element in Judaism would just love to kill him one more time.
Over 50% of all Israelis fall into this Medievalist mindset, a group who, in general, harbor major hatred towards Gentiles in general. Israel's Gentile supporters should carefully consider the fact that over half of all Israelis are super-racist bigots who hate us as a group.
For an in-depth analysis of this phenomenon by the late, lamented, Jewish humanist, Israel Shahak, see Jewish History, Jewish Religion, The Weight of 3,000 Years (I have read this book and highly recommend it). The book can be found online here.
Sorry, but sadly, it is only found on anti-Semitic sites, though it is not anti-Semitic. Chalk that up to general fear of being labeled an anti-Semite, a fear that often only anti-Semites will face down. The book may be purchased here.
Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel , by Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky also deals with this subject. The introduction on Ziopedia is here, and the entire book can be found online here.
Both books have had a hard time finding prominent publishers in the US and have received little publicity. Apparently most bookstores do not want to touch them. Of course, anti-Semites drool over these books, but don't let that stop you from dipping into them, because these books are not anti-Semitic at all.
Both of the authors are simply rationalist Jewish critics of religion in general, especially the Jewish religion. They focus on the Jewish religion simply because they are concerned Jews, not out of irrational animus.
For the particular subject of this post, traditional Jewish hostility towards Christianity, see Shahak's little-known work, The Jewish Hatred Towards Christianity (Unfortunately, also on the anti-Semitic Radio Islam site). This short piece is not anti-Semitic either, but is simply a factual analysis of a primitive and barbaric trend within the Jewish religion. This article was used as a reference piece in writing this post.
In writing this, please understand that this post in no way is an attempt to diminish the horrible, Nazi-like, homicidal bigotry and religious hatred that has been present in many Muslims for centuries, especially towards Christians and Hindus, and to a lesser extent towards Jews, despite Muslim BS propaganda about "tolerance". There is nothing tolerant about the supremacist Sharia, jizya and dhimma.
Nor am I overlooking the ancient Christians' tendencies to murder heretics, nor their religious-based pogroms against Jews, nor Catholics' mad mass-murdering bigotry against Protestantism in the Middle Ages.
Nor do I overlook the paranoid racism of ultranationalist Hindus, who deliberately provoke Muslims, wage pogroms against them, idolize Hitler and Nazism and exhibit bizarre paranoia about Christianity and its proselytization.
Nor do I, of course, let the maddest of the mad Christian fundamentalist Reconstructionists off the hook, who exhibit similar mad hatred of non-Christians.
I am just pointing out the very obvious here, despite the fact that these various fundamentalists all despise each other, often to the point of being homicidal towards the Religious Other, that in so many important ways, they are oh so similar.
Describing the similarities of various fundamentalisms goes beyond the scope of this post, but research into the various fundamentalisms should demonstrate to the observant and open-minded reader how they all plow the same field. The real radical differences are not between the various fundamentalist cretins, but between any fundamentalist, or all of them, and radical seculars or atheists. Try to get your mind around that one.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Israel Is Not the 51st State of America
It is sad that so many ferocious anti-Zionists (and many anti-Semites, let us be honest, though the two sets, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, have considerable overlap, neither is a subset of the other) have taken to calling Israel the 51st state of America. Many pro-Israeli types have condemned these harsh words that single out the Jewish state for opprobrium and make a grotesque analogy.
The fact is, no matter how many radicals scream that Israel is the 51st state of the US, this is simply not true and we really need to stop saying this as it is making us look bad.
For, in truth, Israel is not the 51st state of America.
It's the capital! Hell with Washington DC, let's just shift the whole government apparatus over to Tel Aviv!
The fact is, no matter how many radicals scream that Israel is the 51st state of the US, this is simply not true and we really need to stop saying this as it is making us look bad.
For, in truth, Israel is not the 51st state of America.
It's the capital! Hell with Washington DC, let's just shift the whole government apparatus over to Tel Aviv!
Saturday, July 22, 2006
"Jews Gone Wild" in Lebanon
The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here.
There is so much to write about the mess in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank these days that I hardly know where to start.
The latest news: 3 more Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon in the past 24 hours. 1 missing Israeli soldier was found dead in southern Lebanon.
Bombs are continuing to rain down on Lebanon, in what is in part an obvious effort to destroy Lebanese civilian infrastructure that has no obvious strategic purpose. See here where a dairy plant, a paper mill, a packaging plant and a pharmaceutical plant were all deliberately deliberately destroyed by Israeli bombs.
Israel seems to be attacking cars and trucks on the roadways at will, especially in Southern Lebanon.
Hospital officials in Tyre, in southern Lebanon, are too afraid to go about and look for the bodies of the scores who are missing in the latest round of air raids. Turns out that Israel is targeting just about any vehicle on the road down there. In particular, ambulances are being hit, in what is a long-time Israeli deliberate strategy.
The Lebanese are getting angrier and angrier about Israel's devastation of their land, and many, despite their anger at Hezbollah for "getting us into this mess", are rallying around the Lebanese resistance and venting most of their rage against the out of control Israeli super-bully monster.
Check out The Daily Star, Lebanon's top paper, a heterodox publication that is often critical of the Palestinian and Iraqi guerrilla movements and sometimes even supports US and even Israeli policy in the region. The pro-US slant in some columns is usually due to the influence of prominent Maronite Christian columnists such as Michael Young.
But a look at the news stories in the paper today shows that it could be renamed The Hezbollah Star. The paper is cover to cover rage and fury at Israel and support for the Lebanese resistance. In particular, Walid Jumblatt's Druze community seems to be throwing in with the Lebanese resistance against Israel.
The change of tenor from just a few days ago is dramatic. Then, prominent Maronite leaders Samir Geagea and Amine Gemayal , associated with the fascist Phalangist Lebanese Forces, issued statements of strong support for Israel's destruction of Lebanon. A close look at their webpage, linked above, shows they have not changed their minds yet, but they seem to be toning down their pro-Israel line.
Interviews with Maronites in the US also showed strong support for Israel's blitzkrieg of their land. Journeys through Maronite communities showed strong Maronite condemnation of Hezbollah for "starting the conflict".
All of that seems to be fading out.
In interviews today and yesterday, Siniora, the Lebanese Prime Minister, and Emile Lahoud, the Lebanese President, both said that the Lebanese military, such as it is, would join the fight if Israel invaded Lebanon. Israel is already invading Lebanon. At the moment, thousands of Israeli soldiers are up to 1/2 to 3 miles inside Lebanon, with thousands more massed on the border waiting to go in.
If Israel goes into Lebanon with a major invasion force, it is not likely to be a pretty picture. Hezbollah has already killed 39 Israelis, 19 soldiers and 20 civilians. Over 600 Israeli civilians and at least 32 Israeli soldiers have been wounded.
Hezbollah casualties are unknown. Israel is claiming 100 Hezbollah fighters have been killed. Around 300-330 civilians inside Lebanon have been killed, including numerous foreign nationals. At least a dozen Lebanese troops have been killed in a number of deliberate Israeli attacks on their forces.
Hezbollah rocket fire has caused serious property damage in various Israeli cities and towns.
Some towns and cities hit:
Haifa, Safad, Carmiel, Tiberias, Kiryat Shemona, Beit Jan, Sasa, Birinit, Ben Ami, Sa'ar, Gesher HaZiv, Birya, Pki'in, Maalot, Rosh Pinna, Avivim, Metulla, Kfar Rosh Haniqra, Accra, Nahariya, mad Al Kurum, Meron, Hazor Ha Gelitit, the Hula Valley, Hulata, Ha Yarden, Kfar Ha Nasi, Nazareth, Nazaret Illit, Afula, Mishmar Ha'Emeq, Gevat, Yizre'el, Qiryat Yam, Bet Lehem Ha Gelitit and Bet Shean.
The furthest locales the missiles have hit so far are the Caesarea Dunes on the coast, 20 miles south of Haifa and 42 miles from Lebanon, and Ma'oz Hayyim, 20 miles south of Tiberias on the border with Jordan and only 8 miles north of the West Bank. Caesarea and Ma'oz Hayyim are both about 42 miles from the Lebanese border.
At the moment, that should be considered the longest range of Hezbollah's rockets. The rockets that hit those two locales are now thought to be what is called in military parlance "range-finders". Hezbollah's Katyusha rockets, based on modified Soviet technology from World War 2, only have a range of about 12 miles.
To hit 42 miles inside Israel, Hezbollah must be using Iranian Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 rockets, which are about 17 feet long. Each has a 200 pound warhead that has been modified by the Syrians and packed with ball bearings and other nasty bits. I believe that there are up to 100 Iranian Revolutionary Guards inside Lebanon helping Hezbollah to launch these missiles.
Hezbollah is deeply dug into tunnels in the South of Lebanon, which took Israelis by surprise when they ventured into the area. As in Iwo Jima and South Vietnam, fighters move from tunnel to tunnel and front tunnels are reinforced from the rear. Some of the tunnels are reinforced down to 120 feet deep. Bunker-buster munitions may have limited utility against such fortifications.
Israel has not been able to penetrate very far into Lebanon so far. They have met ferocious Hezbollah resistance. Hezbollah is not Hamas or Islamic Jihad- it is one of the most powerful guerrilla movements in the world.
At the start of this latest conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, Hezbollah managed to hack into the Israeli military's computer system, no mean feat. So far, Hezbollah has also managed to repeatedly hit the top-secret Israeli AWACS base, the air traffic intelligence base that monitors air traffic all over the Middle East.
Much of this base is underground, but the above-ground buildings have been hit repeatedly. The Israeli government has not admitted to either the hacking of the computer system or the attacks on the top-secret base, and the attacks have not been reported in the US media either.
In a shocking move, Hezbollah fired a Chinese C-802 Silkworm missile (or possibly a C-801, as a C-802 would probably have totally destroyed the ship) at an Israeli Sa'ar-5 class missile boat, the Hanit. The missile badly damaged the ship and killed 4 Israeli sailors. The Silkworm is a top of the line anti-ship missile, on a par with the US Harpoon as the best of its kind in the world.
Iran bought a number of these missiles and gave them to Hezbollah. The world was stunned by this attack, because no one knew that Hezbollah had such an arsenal.
Hezbollah has already destroyed or damaged at least three Israeli Merkava tanks. One tank was destroyed with a 450 pound anti-tank mine. Two others were apparently damaged by anti-tank missiles. The Merkava is said to be virtually indestructible, so taking out three of these tanks was quite a feat. It is not known what anti-tank rockets Hezbollah is using to destroy Merkava tanks, but it would be very interesting to find out.
Possibilities include such anti-tank missiles as the AT-14 Kornet and the AT-3 Sagger. The Iranians have modified a version of the AT-3 called the Raad. Syria has Kornets. Both of these missiles are similar to the British Javelin and the French ERYX and MILAN missiles. All of these are wire-guided missiles.
Israel is dropping leaflets telling all Lebanese civilians south of the Litani River to flee. However, many are refusing to leave, because they assume that after Israel invades and occupies the area, Israel will not let them return, and will annex this part of Southern Lebanon again as a "security corridor" as it did from 1982-2000.
Drawing the line at the Litani River is notable. It is interesting that many Zionists have always claimed that all of Southern Lebanon up to the Litani River is part of the nation of Israel that Israel has a right to conquer and annex.
At the moment, this situation is looking very, very ominous. Some are describing it as World War 3. That is probably overdrawn, but this conflict has the potential to get pretty nasty and metastasize beyond its present limited borders. The Bush Administration, to their profound discredit, has refused to try to stop the conflict and has even egged Israel on. Prior US administrations may have tried to rein in the Israeli gorilla.
Juan Cole notes that, in refusing to try to stop Israel and even encouraging, promoting and supporting its out of control attack, Bush's performance is "contemptible". That is indeed the proper term.
There is still a lot to write about this conflict in terms of antidotes to the lies of the US Zionist media and the statements of the US Zionist Republican Party and the US Zionist Democratic Party, background information on the conflict and some links to proper progressive analyses of this war and recommendations on moves towards ameliorating this extremely dangerous situation in the Middle East.
I hope to make more posts on these matters in coming days.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
There is so much to write about the mess in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank these days that I hardly know where to start.
The latest news: 3 more Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon in the past 24 hours. 1 missing Israeli soldier was found dead in southern Lebanon.
Bombs are continuing to rain down on Lebanon, in what is in part an obvious effort to destroy Lebanese civilian infrastructure that has no obvious strategic purpose. See here where a dairy plant, a paper mill, a packaging plant and a pharmaceutical plant were all deliberately deliberately destroyed by Israeli bombs.
Israel seems to be attacking cars and trucks on the roadways at will, especially in Southern Lebanon.
Hospital officials in Tyre, in southern Lebanon, are too afraid to go about and look for the bodies of the scores who are missing in the latest round of air raids. Turns out that Israel is targeting just about any vehicle on the road down there. In particular, ambulances are being hit, in what is a long-time Israeli deliberate strategy.
The Lebanese are getting angrier and angrier about Israel's devastation of their land, and many, despite their anger at Hezbollah for "getting us into this mess", are rallying around the Lebanese resistance and venting most of their rage against the out of control Israeli super-bully monster.
Check out The Daily Star, Lebanon's top paper, a heterodox publication that is often critical of the Palestinian and Iraqi guerrilla movements and sometimes even supports US and even Israeli policy in the region. The pro-US slant in some columns is usually due to the influence of prominent Maronite Christian columnists such as Michael Young.
But a look at the news stories in the paper today shows that it could be renamed The Hezbollah Star. The paper is cover to cover rage and fury at Israel and support for the Lebanese resistance. In particular, Walid Jumblatt's Druze community seems to be throwing in with the Lebanese resistance against Israel.
The change of tenor from just a few days ago is dramatic. Then, prominent Maronite leaders Samir Geagea and Amine Gemayal , associated with the fascist Phalangist Lebanese Forces, issued statements of strong support for Israel's destruction of Lebanon. A close look at their webpage, linked above, shows they have not changed their minds yet, but they seem to be toning down their pro-Israel line.
Interviews with Maronites in the US also showed strong support for Israel's blitzkrieg of their land. Journeys through Maronite communities showed strong Maronite condemnation of Hezbollah for "starting the conflict".
All of that seems to be fading out.
In interviews today and yesterday, Siniora, the Lebanese Prime Minister, and Emile Lahoud, the Lebanese President, both said that the Lebanese military, such as it is, would join the fight if Israel invaded Lebanon. Israel is already invading Lebanon. At the moment, thousands of Israeli soldiers are up to 1/2 to 3 miles inside Lebanon, with thousands more massed on the border waiting to go in.
If Israel goes into Lebanon with a major invasion force, it is not likely to be a pretty picture. Hezbollah has already killed 39 Israelis, 19 soldiers and 20 civilians. Over 600 Israeli civilians and at least 32 Israeli soldiers have been wounded.
Hezbollah casualties are unknown. Israel is claiming 100 Hezbollah fighters have been killed. Around 300-330 civilians inside Lebanon have been killed, including numerous foreign nationals. At least a dozen Lebanese troops have been killed in a number of deliberate Israeli attacks on their forces.
Hezbollah rocket fire has caused serious property damage in various Israeli cities and towns.
Some towns and cities hit:
Haifa, Safad, Carmiel, Tiberias, Kiryat Shemona, Beit Jan, Sasa, Birinit, Ben Ami, Sa'ar, Gesher HaZiv, Birya, Pki'in, Maalot, Rosh Pinna, Avivim, Metulla, Kfar Rosh Haniqra, Accra, Nahariya, mad Al Kurum, Meron, Hazor Ha Gelitit, the Hula Valley, Hulata, Ha Yarden, Kfar Ha Nasi, Nazareth, Nazaret Illit, Afula, Mishmar Ha'Emeq, Gevat, Yizre'el, Qiryat Yam, Bet Lehem Ha Gelitit and Bet Shean.
The furthest locales the missiles have hit so far are the Caesarea Dunes on the coast, 20 miles south of Haifa and 42 miles from Lebanon, and Ma'oz Hayyim, 20 miles south of Tiberias on the border with Jordan and only 8 miles north of the West Bank. Caesarea and Ma'oz Hayyim are both about 42 miles from the Lebanese border.
At the moment, that should be considered the longest range of Hezbollah's rockets. The rockets that hit those two locales are now thought to be what is called in military parlance "range-finders". Hezbollah's Katyusha rockets, based on modified Soviet technology from World War 2, only have a range of about 12 miles.
To hit 42 miles inside Israel, Hezbollah must be using Iranian Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 rockets, which are about 17 feet long. Each has a 200 pound warhead that has been modified by the Syrians and packed with ball bearings and other nasty bits. I believe that there are up to 100 Iranian Revolutionary Guards inside Lebanon helping Hezbollah to launch these missiles.
Hezbollah is deeply dug into tunnels in the South of Lebanon, which took Israelis by surprise when they ventured into the area. As in Iwo Jima and South Vietnam, fighters move from tunnel to tunnel and front tunnels are reinforced from the rear. Some of the tunnels are reinforced down to 120 feet deep. Bunker-buster munitions may have limited utility against such fortifications.
Israel has not been able to penetrate very far into Lebanon so far. They have met ferocious Hezbollah resistance. Hezbollah is not Hamas or Islamic Jihad- it is one of the most powerful guerrilla movements in the world.
At the start of this latest conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, Hezbollah managed to hack into the Israeli military's computer system, no mean feat. So far, Hezbollah has also managed to repeatedly hit the top-secret Israeli AWACS base, the air traffic intelligence base that monitors air traffic all over the Middle East.
Much of this base is underground, but the above-ground buildings have been hit repeatedly. The Israeli government has not admitted to either the hacking of the computer system or the attacks on the top-secret base, and the attacks have not been reported in the US media either.
In a shocking move, Hezbollah fired a Chinese C-802 Silkworm missile (or possibly a C-801, as a C-802 would probably have totally destroyed the ship) at an Israeli Sa'ar-5 class missile boat, the Hanit. The missile badly damaged the ship and killed 4 Israeli sailors. The Silkworm is a top of the line anti-ship missile, on a par with the US Harpoon as the best of its kind in the world.
Iran bought a number of these missiles and gave them to Hezbollah. The world was stunned by this attack, because no one knew that Hezbollah had such an arsenal.
Hezbollah has already destroyed or damaged at least three Israeli Merkava tanks. One tank was destroyed with a 450 pound anti-tank mine. Two others were apparently damaged by anti-tank missiles. The Merkava is said to be virtually indestructible, so taking out three of these tanks was quite a feat. It is not known what anti-tank rockets Hezbollah is using to destroy Merkava tanks, but it would be very interesting to find out.
Possibilities include such anti-tank missiles as the AT-14 Kornet and the AT-3 Sagger. The Iranians have modified a version of the AT-3 called the Raad. Syria has Kornets. Both of these missiles are similar to the British Javelin and the French ERYX and MILAN missiles. All of these are wire-guided missiles.
Israel is dropping leaflets telling all Lebanese civilians south of the Litani River to flee. However, many are refusing to leave, because they assume that after Israel invades and occupies the area, Israel will not let them return, and will annex this part of Southern Lebanon again as a "security corridor" as it did from 1982-2000.
Drawing the line at the Litani River is notable. It is interesting that many Zionists have always claimed that all of Southern Lebanon up to the Litani River is part of the nation of Israel that Israel has a right to conquer and annex.
At the moment, this situation is looking very, very ominous. Some are describing it as World War 3. That is probably overdrawn, but this conflict has the potential to get pretty nasty and metastasize beyond its present limited borders. The Bush Administration, to their profound discredit, has refused to try to stop the conflict and has even egged Israel on. Prior US administrations may have tried to rein in the Israeli gorilla.
Juan Cole notes that, in refusing to try to stop Israel and even encouraging, promoting and supporting its out of control attack, Bush's performance is "contemptible". That is indeed the proper term.
There is still a lot to write about this conflict in terms of antidotes to the lies of the US Zionist media and the statements of the US Zionist Republican Party and the US Zionist Democratic Party, background information on the conflict and some links to proper progressive analyses of this war and recommendations on moves towards ameliorating this extremely dangerous situation in the Middle East.
I hope to make more posts on these matters in coming days.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
A Short History of Israel
In light of the latest blowup in the Middle East, I thought I would post this little ditty here. A "Short History of Israel", posted in the comments section of cynical, fanatical, anti-everything, but still very interesting Angry Arab News Service blog, run by As'Ad AbuKhalil, a Leftist Lebanese professor at California State University Stanislaus, which is about 100 miles northwest of my home.
On his fanaticism, see this extremist rant against the US leftwing publication The Nation, with a swipe at the generally good Jewish progressive publication Tikkun, for example. On his cynicism and anti-everythingism, see just about any of his ranting, meandering posts. Nevertheless, he is still an excellent resource on the region and a nice example of Arab Leftist thought.
Short History of Israel
Founded by terrorists
75% Of the Founders Were Not Born in Israel
Israel Kill Kill Kill Kill
Israel Destroy Destroy Destroy
Israel Reparations Reparations Reparations
Israel More Aid More Aid More Aid
Israel Holocaust Holocaust Holocaust
Israel Whine Whine Whine
Israel Lie Lie Lie
Run by Terrorists
Israel Kill Kill Kill Kill
Israel Destroy Destroy Destroy
Israel Reparations Reparations Reparations
Israel More Aid More Aid More Aid
Israel Holocaust Holocaust Holocaust
Israel Whine Whine Whine
Israel Lie Lie Lie
Israel Kill Kill Kill Kill
Israel Destroy Destroy Destroy
Israel Reparations Reparations Reparations
Israel More Aid, More Aid More Aid
Israel Holocaust Holocaust Holocaust
Israel Whine Whine Whine
Israel Lie Lie Lie
On his fanaticism, see this extremist rant against the US leftwing publication The Nation, with a swipe at the generally good Jewish progressive publication Tikkun, for example. On his cynicism and anti-everythingism, see just about any of his ranting, meandering posts. Nevertheless, he is still an excellent resource on the region and a nice example of Arab Leftist thought.
Short History of Israel
Part 1
Founded by terrorists
75% Of the Founders Were Not Born in Israel
Israel Kill Kill Kill Kill
Israel Destroy Destroy Destroy
Israel Reparations Reparations Reparations
Israel More Aid More Aid More Aid
Israel Holocaust Holocaust Holocaust
Israel Whine Whine Whine
Israel Lie Lie Lie
Part Two
Run by Terrorists
Israel Kill Kill Kill Kill
Israel Destroy Destroy Destroy
Israel Reparations Reparations Reparations
Israel More Aid More Aid More Aid
Israel Holocaust Holocaust Holocaust
Israel Whine Whine Whine
Israel Lie Lie Lie
Part Three
Israel Destroy Destroy Destroy
Israel Reparations Reparations Reparations
Israel More Aid, More Aid More Aid
Israel Holocaust Holocaust Holocaust
Israel Whine Whine Whine
Israel Lie Lie Lie
Friday, July 21, 2006
On Andrew Winkler, the Rebel Media Group and Ziopedia
Update February 17, 2007: Those coming to the site from searches deriving from the incident in San Fransisco when Eric Hunt accosted Elie Wiesel in a hotel in San Francisco may wish to check out my interview with Winkler here and the latest update on Hunt's attack on Wiesel here.
Eric Hunt's posting on Ziopedia taking credit for the incident is (here). The two posts linked above have considerable information on Eric Hunt, including links to his blog, his other postings on the Internet and a letter to the editor he wrote to the New York Times five years ago.
There seems to be some confusion about this blog's stance towards the Rebel Media Group, the Ziopedia website and Andrew Winkler that I really ought to clear up. First of all, if you Google search on these three proper nouns, you find me accusing Ziopedia of anti-Semitism. In light of some changes at Ziopedia, that needs some clarification.
Winkler is a street-fighting anti-Zionist who does not hold back and spare blows. He is as up-front and uncompromising as any anti-Zionist. He doesn't mince words or even, apparently, watch them very much. He's obviously not running for office or trying to win a popularity contest.
To those of us in the anti-Zionist trenches who are aware, awake and not totally blinded, it is clear that anti-Zionism often clearly bleeds over into anti-Semitism. Sometimes, sadly, the former is a mask for the latter.
After a while, you figure it kind of goes with the territory. A number of my progressive anti-Zionist friends and colleagues drift into anti-Semitism from time to time. I don't necessarily hold it against them. It's not usually personal anti-Semitism, and I don't think that their views hurt Jews much, if at all.
A Google search on this blog and various Jewish subjects will reveal a lot of controversial matter stemming from my own keyboard. That search will also reveal that this blog has been repeatedly accused of anti-Semitism.
In fact, that seems to be a dominant opinion about this blog. Many blogs refuse to link to us as a result, in order to not give us traffic, and we seem to have been the victims of an Jewish or pro-Jewish advertiser boycott recently, apparently as a reaction to a supposedly anti-Semitic article, Wikipedia, Ziopedia or Judeopedia.
Furthermore, some of the guest authors on this blog have also been accused of anti-Semitism, most prominently Wendy Campbell, Simon Jones and Stojgniev O'Donnell. Since I get accused of anti-Semitism so often (I don't agree with the charge), I really ought to be cautious about labeling others with that ugly sticker. Nevertheless, anti-Semitism clearly exists, and a spade should be called a spade.
I assume that in their rage at Israel, Zionism, Jewish chauvinism - supremacy, and Jewish cultural and economic domination of some Western societies, a lot of folks are getting pretty angry. That's a normal reaction. The behavior of militant ethnocentric Jews, not to mention belligerent Jewish colonists in Palestine, is pretty outrageous. It makes a lot of normal, decent, average people mad.
It is a truism that Jewish behaviors, especially belligerent ethnocentrism, a desire to wage ethnic warfare on other ethnic groups and a tendency to dominate non-Jews in various ways, are some of the primary instigators of anti-Semitism.
As a counterexample to Jewish complaints that anti-Semitism is merely the hatred of the "different", let us examine the case of Amish, or Pennsylvania Dutch, in the US. One could hardly find a group more different from mainstream Americans. Yet their behavior is kind, peaceful, law-abiding, honest, and inoffensive. They go out of their way to keep to themselves and bend over backwards to not piss outsiders off.
As a result, racism and bigotry towards the Amish is virtually zero. One could make a similar case about Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, Hmong, Lao, Vietnamese, Koreans, Japanese and Chinese in the US. Some of these groups have formed large communities in US cities. There is little or no serious racism towards any of these groups, in contrast to Jews.
Yet most of the above groups are far more different to US White Gentiles than Jews are. The obvious conclusion, presently and historically, is that Jews piss a lot of people off. That angry reaction is not necessarily totally illogical, or just because they are different, or a symptom of psychological illness and moral decay. Often, it is simply normative human behavior.
Given that Jews have a tendency to piss people off, often for good reason, we need to examine the phenomenon. The upshot of Gentile reaction has been repeated instances of brutal Gentile racism, in which the counter-reactions of the Gentiles far exceeded the provocations of the Jews.
The tally at the end showed large numbers of Jews suffering repeated brutal persecutions, attacks, thefts, deaths, pogroms, and finally, at least one serious attempt at extermination.
Given the horrible crimes that anti-Semites have committed against essentially innocent Jews over the centuries and the continuous association of anti-Semitism with conservatism and reaction, I think progressives ought to watch the anti-Semitism. Toying with anti-Semitism is like playing with matches. Innocent Jews tend to get burned, so to speak.
The Soviet Union did not outlaw anti-Semitism for no reason. That was a staunch, brave, progressive law.
Let us examine for a moment one of the most appalling results of anti-Semitism - Zionism! Yes, Zionism is a product of anti-Semitism. Jews decided to leave their European homes and colonize Palestine, in part to escape the heat of anti-Semitism, and later genocide, in their lands. Anti-Semitism continues to be the heat the lights the fire of Zionism.
After all, Zionists and anti-Semites agree - Gentiles hate Jews, persecute them and can't live in peace with them. This anti-Semitism is eternal and immutable. The only solution, both agree, is a separation of some sort. The two opposing camps only disagree on why Jews are hated and whether or not they deserve it.
The mass movement of 800,000 Jews out of the Arab World to Israel soon after the creation of the Jewish state was a reaction to events in the Arab states that they lived in. After the birth of the Jewish state, the Arab states engaged in both deadly racist anti-Semitic pogroms and passed outrageous, ultra-racist, Nazi-like, anti-Semitic laws.
But in back of those obvious temporal causes was the memory of centuries of grueling dhimmitude under the boot of Islamic supremacism.
To this day, a visit to the home pages of the groups that represent the Arab Jews shows a very angry group of people - furious at what they see as centuries of Arab Muslim abuse and super-racism against them. In response to centuries of Muslim brutality, the Mizrachi/Sephardics feel that they are fully within their rights to help steal and occupy a slice of Arab Muslim land - Palestine - to get their pound of flesh.
Look at the equation. European anti-Semitism and/or Arab Muslim Islamic supremacism, anti-Semitism and dhimmitude = Zionism! Anti-Semitism caused Zionism and feeds it to this very day. Every time you utter an anti-Semitic thought or write an anti-Semitic sentence, you feed Zionism and the Zionist state. My advice is, don't do it!
Now, onto Andrew's sites. Andrew, I think, is a Leftist. He is certainly a product of years of Left activism. Whether or not he is falling into a trap called "confused Leftism", so prominent nowadays, is debatable. When his site, Ziopedia (Love the name!) first went up, it had some very good stuff on it. He even posted one of my articles.
However, it was also heavy on the Holocaust revisionism - Holocaust denial. Holocaust revisionism and Holocaust denial have been creeping into the anti-Zionist movement for years now. They have long been an articles of faith in the Arab and Muslim Worlds.
I cannot say, strongly enough, how much I disagree with Holocaust revisionism, not to mention Holocaust Denial. I think that both are just Nazism, no two ways about it. I advise anyone thinking of spelunking these fetid caves to keep that in mind.
Anyway, based on the heavy doses of Holocaust revisionism, I referred to Ziopedia on my comments page as an anti-Semitic (Not an adjective I like to toss around!) site.
These days, Ziopedia seems to have undergone a change of focus. Andrew is producing a nice compendium of articles on the latest Gaza - Israel - Lebanon Wars. Every day, he is running a collection of the best articles on this crisis in the Levant.
A few of the articles drift towards anti-Semitism, and there are some outright anti-Semitic pieces, but 80-90% of the articles stay away from these unnecessary obsessions, which is pretty good in these hot-headed times.
The focus seems to have moved away, in the most part, from such dangerous diversions as Holocaust denial - revisionism, often written by suspicious folks with German names (yuck) and anti-Semitism written by White racists.
At the moment, most of the articles on Ziopedia are not a anti-Semitic at all. Instead, commendably, it is one of the best compendiums of anti-Zionist and Israel-critical literature, updated daily, on the web.
I hope that clears things up a bit.
Eric Hunt's posting on Ziopedia taking credit for the incident is (here). The two posts linked above have considerable information on Eric Hunt, including links to his blog, his other postings on the Internet and a letter to the editor he wrote to the New York Times five years ago.
There seems to be some confusion about this blog's stance towards the Rebel Media Group, the Ziopedia website and Andrew Winkler that I really ought to clear up. First of all, if you Google search on these three proper nouns, you find me accusing Ziopedia of anti-Semitism. In light of some changes at Ziopedia, that needs some clarification.
Winkler is a street-fighting anti-Zionist who does not hold back and spare blows. He is as up-front and uncompromising as any anti-Zionist. He doesn't mince words or even, apparently, watch them very much. He's obviously not running for office or trying to win a popularity contest.
To those of us in the anti-Zionist trenches who are aware, awake and not totally blinded, it is clear that anti-Zionism often clearly bleeds over into anti-Semitism. Sometimes, sadly, the former is a mask for the latter.
After a while, you figure it kind of goes with the territory. A number of my progressive anti-Zionist friends and colleagues drift into anti-Semitism from time to time. I don't necessarily hold it against them. It's not usually personal anti-Semitism, and I don't think that their views hurt Jews much, if at all.
A Google search on this blog and various Jewish subjects will reveal a lot of controversial matter stemming from my own keyboard. That search will also reveal that this blog has been repeatedly accused of anti-Semitism.
In fact, that seems to be a dominant opinion about this blog. Many blogs refuse to link to us as a result, in order to not give us traffic, and we seem to have been the victims of an Jewish or pro-Jewish advertiser boycott recently, apparently as a reaction to a supposedly anti-Semitic article, Wikipedia, Ziopedia or Judeopedia.
Furthermore, some of the guest authors on this blog have also been accused of anti-Semitism, most prominently Wendy Campbell, Simon Jones and Stojgniev O'Donnell. Since I get accused of anti-Semitism so often (I don't agree with the charge), I really ought to be cautious about labeling others with that ugly sticker. Nevertheless, anti-Semitism clearly exists, and a spade should be called a spade.
I assume that in their rage at Israel, Zionism, Jewish chauvinism - supremacy, and Jewish cultural and economic domination of some Western societies, a lot of folks are getting pretty angry. That's a normal reaction. The behavior of militant ethnocentric Jews, not to mention belligerent Jewish colonists in Palestine, is pretty outrageous. It makes a lot of normal, decent, average people mad.
It is a truism that Jewish behaviors, especially belligerent ethnocentrism, a desire to wage ethnic warfare on other ethnic groups and a tendency to dominate non-Jews in various ways, are some of the primary instigators of anti-Semitism.
As a counterexample to Jewish complaints that anti-Semitism is merely the hatred of the "different", let us examine the case of Amish, or Pennsylvania Dutch, in the US. One could hardly find a group more different from mainstream Americans. Yet their behavior is kind, peaceful, law-abiding, honest, and inoffensive. They go out of their way to keep to themselves and bend over backwards to not piss outsiders off.
As a result, racism and bigotry towards the Amish is virtually zero. One could make a similar case about Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, Hmong, Lao, Vietnamese, Koreans, Japanese and Chinese in the US. Some of these groups have formed large communities in US cities. There is little or no serious racism towards any of these groups, in contrast to Jews.
Yet most of the above groups are far more different to US White Gentiles than Jews are. The obvious conclusion, presently and historically, is that Jews piss a lot of people off. That angry reaction is not necessarily totally illogical, or just because they are different, or a symptom of psychological illness and moral decay. Often, it is simply normative human behavior.
Given that Jews have a tendency to piss people off, often for good reason, we need to examine the phenomenon. The upshot of Gentile reaction has been repeated instances of brutal Gentile racism, in which the counter-reactions of the Gentiles far exceeded the provocations of the Jews.
The tally at the end showed large numbers of Jews suffering repeated brutal persecutions, attacks, thefts, deaths, pogroms, and finally, at least one serious attempt at extermination.
Given the horrible crimes that anti-Semites have committed against essentially innocent Jews over the centuries and the continuous association of anti-Semitism with conservatism and reaction, I think progressives ought to watch the anti-Semitism. Toying with anti-Semitism is like playing with matches. Innocent Jews tend to get burned, so to speak.
The Soviet Union did not outlaw anti-Semitism for no reason. That was a staunch, brave, progressive law.
Let us examine for a moment one of the most appalling results of anti-Semitism - Zionism! Yes, Zionism is a product of anti-Semitism. Jews decided to leave their European homes and colonize Palestine, in part to escape the heat of anti-Semitism, and later genocide, in their lands. Anti-Semitism continues to be the heat the lights the fire of Zionism.
After all, Zionists and anti-Semites agree - Gentiles hate Jews, persecute them and can't live in peace with them. This anti-Semitism is eternal and immutable. The only solution, both agree, is a separation of some sort. The two opposing camps only disagree on why Jews are hated and whether or not they deserve it.
The mass movement of 800,000 Jews out of the Arab World to Israel soon after the creation of the Jewish state was a reaction to events in the Arab states that they lived in. After the birth of the Jewish state, the Arab states engaged in both deadly racist anti-Semitic pogroms and passed outrageous, ultra-racist, Nazi-like, anti-Semitic laws.
But in back of those obvious temporal causes was the memory of centuries of grueling dhimmitude under the boot of Islamic supremacism.
To this day, a visit to the home pages of the groups that represent the Arab Jews shows a very angry group of people - furious at what they see as centuries of Arab Muslim abuse and super-racism against them. In response to centuries of Muslim brutality, the Mizrachi/Sephardics feel that they are fully within their rights to help steal and occupy a slice of Arab Muslim land - Palestine - to get their pound of flesh.
Look at the equation. European anti-Semitism and/or Arab Muslim Islamic supremacism, anti-Semitism and dhimmitude = Zionism! Anti-Semitism caused Zionism and feeds it to this very day. Every time you utter an anti-Semitic thought or write an anti-Semitic sentence, you feed Zionism and the Zionist state. My advice is, don't do it!
Now, onto Andrew's sites. Andrew, I think, is a Leftist. He is certainly a product of years of Left activism. Whether or not he is falling into a trap called "confused Leftism", so prominent nowadays, is debatable. When his site, Ziopedia (Love the name!) first went up, it had some very good stuff on it. He even posted one of my articles.
However, it was also heavy on the Holocaust revisionism - Holocaust denial. Holocaust revisionism and Holocaust denial have been creeping into the anti-Zionist movement for years now. They have long been an articles of faith in the Arab and Muslim Worlds.
I cannot say, strongly enough, how much I disagree with Holocaust revisionism, not to mention Holocaust Denial. I think that both are just Nazism, no two ways about it. I advise anyone thinking of spelunking these fetid caves to keep that in mind.
Anyway, based on the heavy doses of Holocaust revisionism, I referred to Ziopedia on my comments page as an anti-Semitic (Not an adjective I like to toss around!) site.
These days, Ziopedia seems to have undergone a change of focus. Andrew is producing a nice compendium of articles on the latest Gaza - Israel - Lebanon Wars. Every day, he is running a collection of the best articles on this crisis in the Levant.
A few of the articles drift towards anti-Semitism, and there are some outright anti-Semitic pieces, but 80-90% of the articles stay away from these unnecessary obsessions, which is pretty good in these hot-headed times.
The focus seems to have moved away, in the most part, from such dangerous diversions as Holocaust denial - revisionism, often written by suspicious folks with German names (yuck) and anti-Semitism written by White racists.
At the moment, most of the articles on Ziopedia are not a anti-Semitic at all. Instead, commendably, it is one of the best compendiums of anti-Zionist and Israel-critical literature, updated daily, on the web.
I hope that clears things up a bit.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Statement on Wendy Campbell
Unfortunately, this blog will no longer be running Wendy Campbell's (her shrill website is here) posts.
I don't usually refer to human beings with the adjective "anti-Semite". Like calling a person a "racist", this PC notion, a favorite of militant Jews, Zionists, and politically correct liberals and Leftists, not to mention hypocritical conservatives, plays on a falsehood. Namely, that racism is a pathological, abnormal, diseased condition of the human soul or psyche.
Unfortunately for anti-racists, racism is no such thing. Instead, racism is a norm of human behavior. It is only with the progress of the Left in the past in the 20th Century that we have seriously challenged people to leave this primitive barbarism behind.
The most perceptive attitude towards racism can be found in a quote by Kaveh Farrokh, a superb, but little-known, progressive Persian historian, in his great essay on the insane anti-Iranian racism that has tainted Arab nationalism (web page of English writings here):
When we call people "racists" or "anti-Semites" on an individual level, we imply that they have been permanently tainted in some evil way, or that the norm of human behavior is "Kumbayaa" love-everyone-ism, and that racism is some malign evil that afflicts wicked folks, and, sadly, that there is a permanence about it.
Instead, racism is simply a behavior, as opposed to a permanent essence of one's soul or a dye that blackens one's heart forever. It is no more "permanent" than any other human behavior. We can choose to either do it or not. As Farrokh brilliantly notes, it's simply a human trait, like jealousy or envy, that probably every one of us, even the most exalted politically correct angels, is prone to.
Periodically, many of us will display racist attitudes and behaviors in our lives. Instead of condemning those who do so as evil people, we should treat them with kindness but firmness, as we treat one who throws a childish tantrum or has fallen into an insecure, self-hating muddle - just encourage them to cut it out of snap out of it.
Let me ask you: when our friends are bitten by the green-eyed monster, or are bashing themselves verbally, or so depressed they won't get out of bed, do we treat them as if they are evil and permanently tainted? No. Then why do we do the same with those splashing around in the mud puddle called racism?
Most behaviors, even bad behaviors, can be arrested or modified with a bit of willfulness. Those who are are lost in the Racist Wilderness need to be kindly taken under our wings, shown the trail home, and helped along the journey.
Bashing them will only get their back up and cement their errant ways, while feeding our egos with false, "anti-racist", holier-than-thou pride. The "racist" or "anti-Semite" is just like you or me. When we look in their faces, we should see a potential reflection, not a devil with horns.
The subject of this essay is Wendy Campbell. Wendy has written many essays on this blog, but she will not be writing anymore until she stops careening recklessly on the Roads of Anti-Semitism. It's a bit of a phony road anyway. It claims to lead to all sorts of neat places, but the truth is it just winds and winds and you think you are going to some really great places, but in the end, you don't really end up anywhere but lost (at best).
Wendy's essays on this blog, along with my numerous comments, are numerous and can be found here, here, here and here.
I would also like to note that, much to her discredit, Wendy continues to hobnob with Holocaust deniers, Holocaust revisionists, neo-Nazis and other complete and total idiots. I have no idea why a supposedly progressive person wishes to do such a thing.
I feel that it is reasonable for Leftists to make alliance with all sorts of folks, including just about anyone on the Right. However, I do not think we should make any alliance at all with Nazis and fascists. As far as I am concerned, Nazis and to a lesser extent fascists should feel fortunate that we even allow them to remain alive.
I would like to point out that the only rational response to racism (such as the Israeli racism that Wendy nobly opposes) is anti-racism. One does not fight racism with more racism. That's about as reasonable as fighting a fire with a flamethrower.
The problem with the racist Israeli state is a matter of a poisonous ideology called Zionism, which has unfortunately become quite popular with Jewish people and their hundreds of millions of Gentile supporters.
Zionism is a political ideology.
It is not an example of the presumed evils of the Jews, nor is it yet another act in their centuries-old resume of supposedly evil behaviors. It does not necessarily have nothing necessarily to do with the Jewish religion, since the Jewish religion is split on the Zionist question, with anti-Zionist Jews making a strong case that Zionism is heretical.
Discourse that conflates the Jewish people and their religion with the political philosophy of Zionism is often irrational and in many cases, should be condemned. At best, it is frequently a case of sloppy thinking. At worst, it dances a grim tango with one of the deadliest forms of racism in the history of mankind.
I don't usually refer to human beings with the adjective "anti-Semite". Like calling a person a "racist", this PC notion, a favorite of militant Jews, Zionists, and politically correct liberals and Leftists, not to mention hypocritical conservatives, plays on a falsehood. Namely, that racism is a pathological, abnormal, diseased condition of the human soul or psyche.
Unfortunately for anti-racists, racism is no such thing. Instead, racism is a norm of human behavior. It is only with the progress of the Left in the past in the 20th Century that we have seriously challenged people to leave this primitive barbarism behind.
The most perceptive attitude towards racism can be found in a quote by Kaveh Farrokh, a superb, but little-known, progressive Persian historian, in his great essay on the insane anti-Iranian racism that has tainted Arab nationalism (web page of English writings here):
Bigotry is a human trait and has the potential to unfold within any human being (myself included) and must be vigorously crushed.The PC crowd, the hypocritical Zionists, the militant Jews, and the ultranationalist hypocrites of all stripes have racism all wrong.
When we call people "racists" or "anti-Semites" on an individual level, we imply that they have been permanently tainted in some evil way, or that the norm of human behavior is "Kumbayaa" love-everyone-ism, and that racism is some malign evil that afflicts wicked folks, and, sadly, that there is a permanence about it.
Instead, racism is simply a behavior, as opposed to a permanent essence of one's soul or a dye that blackens one's heart forever. It is no more "permanent" than any other human behavior. We can choose to either do it or not. As Farrokh brilliantly notes, it's simply a human trait, like jealousy or envy, that probably every one of us, even the most exalted politically correct angels, is prone to.
Periodically, many of us will display racist attitudes and behaviors in our lives. Instead of condemning those who do so as evil people, we should treat them with kindness but firmness, as we treat one who throws a childish tantrum or has fallen into an insecure, self-hating muddle - just encourage them to cut it out of snap out of it.
Let me ask you: when our friends are bitten by the green-eyed monster, or are bashing themselves verbally, or so depressed they won't get out of bed, do we treat them as if they are evil and permanently tainted? No. Then why do we do the same with those splashing around in the mud puddle called racism?
Most behaviors, even bad behaviors, can be arrested or modified with a bit of willfulness. Those who are are lost in the Racist Wilderness need to be kindly taken under our wings, shown the trail home, and helped along the journey.
Bashing them will only get their back up and cement their errant ways, while feeding our egos with false, "anti-racist", holier-than-thou pride. The "racist" or "anti-Semite" is just like you or me. When we look in their faces, we should see a potential reflection, not a devil with horns.
The subject of this essay is Wendy Campbell. Wendy has written many essays on this blog, but she will not be writing anymore until she stops careening recklessly on the Roads of Anti-Semitism. It's a bit of a phony road anyway. It claims to lead to all sorts of neat places, but the truth is it just winds and winds and you think you are going to some really great places, but in the end, you don't really end up anywhere but lost (at best).
Wendy's essays on this blog, along with my numerous comments, are numerous and can be found here, here, here and here.
I would also like to note that, much to her discredit, Wendy continues to hobnob with Holocaust deniers, Holocaust revisionists, neo-Nazis and other complete and total idiots. I have no idea why a supposedly progressive person wishes to do such a thing.
I feel that it is reasonable for Leftists to make alliance with all sorts of folks, including just about anyone on the Right. However, I do not think we should make any alliance at all with Nazis and fascists. As far as I am concerned, Nazis and to a lesser extent fascists should feel fortunate that we even allow them to remain alive.
I would like to point out that the only rational response to racism (such as the Israeli racism that Wendy nobly opposes) is anti-racism. One does not fight racism with more racism. That's about as reasonable as fighting a fire with a flamethrower.
The problem with the racist Israeli state is a matter of a poisonous ideology called Zionism, which has unfortunately become quite popular with Jewish people and their hundreds of millions of Gentile supporters.
Zionism is a political ideology.
It is not an example of the presumed evils of the Jews, nor is it yet another act in their centuries-old resume of supposedly evil behaviors. It does not necessarily have nothing necessarily to do with the Jewish religion, since the Jewish religion is split on the Zionist question, with anti-Zionist Jews making a strong case that Zionism is heretical.
Discourse that conflates the Jewish people and their religion with the political philosophy of Zionism is often irrational and in many cases, should be condemned. At best, it is frequently a case of sloppy thinking. At worst, it dances a grim tango with one of the deadliest forms of racism in the history of mankind.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
"The Dawn of Grace" by Vijendra Rao
This is an excerpt of an article by an Indian colleague of mine, Vijendra Rao. Rao is a journalist working in the city of Mysore, a large city in the Indian state of Karnataka. Mysore is a famous and very old city in the far south of India that is known as the City of Palaces. Even before India became independent, Karnataka was hailed as the most progressive state in India.
It made huge strides in various fields - women's education, electricity, drainage, arts, literature, etc., thanks to the imaginative rulers of those years.
Rao's prose tends to be inflected with Indian English, a distinct dialect of English. The discourse style of Indian English is often markedly different, at best, from US English. This can make Indian English seem peculiar or awkward to many US English readers. Also, Rao's prose is deeply rooted in Indian culture, which can make it difficult for non-Indians to understand the references in the prose.
I really liked this little essay, though, and I am hard to please as far as writing goes.
A few explanations are in order. A Mysorean is one from the city of Mysore in far southern India. A Brahmin is a member of the highest caste in India - the ruling class. This ruling class has ruled India for centuries. Aryan Brahmin invaders from the steppes of Asia poured into India 3,500 years ago and pushed the indigenous Indians (now known as South Indians) south.
The darker Indians of South India were originally spread over the entire continent. Brahmins tend to be lighter-skinned than other Indians, but it is interesting to note that despite great efforts to keep their line pure, Brahmins have been getting steadily darker through the centuries.
For those who are interested in the toxic subject of IQ and race, it is interesting to note that Brahmins also score higher on IQ tests than even European Whites. An exception to the typical rule of the lighter the skin, the higher the IQ, and vice-versa, can be found in Southern India, where the Brahmins are darker-skinned, and have higher IQ's, than the lighter-skinned commoners of Southern India.
Brahmins, like Ashkenazi Jews, probably developed their high IQ's through some sort of selective inbreeding. Not that either group deliberately engaged in a eugenics program to produce high IQ offspring, but that is the way it worked out.
In this essay, Rao also refers to Naxalites. Naxalites are armed Indian Maoists and this blog supports them totally.
Indian democracy has completely failed; the system has killed an average of almost 2 million people every year just since independence, for a total of 100 million dead in the period (documentation of that astounding figure is here, via Chomsky).
Starvation and malnutrition rates are the same in India, year in and year out, as they were in North Korea at the height of its famine in the 1990's. Note that the capitalist media turned somersaults to report the North Korean famine as an "evils of Communism" meme, while ignoring, for decades, the exact same situation in capitalist India.
The Indian caste system is a horrible system of cruel ingrained racism that seeps into every pore of Indian society. The proponents of caste have even injected caste into Hinduism, but Hinduism existed before the caste system brought by Aryan invaders, and it can be argued that caste is a foreign and unnecessary accretion to Hinduism. The marriage of Hinduism to caste makes it caste more difficult to uproot.
Combine the above with a royal family that, as usual, claimed to rule in the name of Gods, or be reincarnations of Gods (in this case Hindu Gods) and you have a society shot through with feudalism through and through.
Indian democracy has totally failed to eradicate caste and is probably incapable of doing so. Unfortunately, such a deeply ingrained reactionary feudal system can only be destroyed through total revolution.
Making matters worse is the systematic oppression of women. I conducted some research on women's rights around the world. The disastrous treatment of women in Hindu Nepal and India combines with the equally disastrous treatment of women in Muslim India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, to make South Asia the most backward place on Earth for women.
Sexism, more than being tied to religion in this part of the world, is actually a regionalism that has grafted itself onto the major religions in the area.
An unbelievable 350 million Indians are still illiterate. You would think that any decent independent India would have taught them to read by now.
The numbers of young children permanently dropped out school are in the tens of millions. Many of these kids, as young as 9 or 10, are working up to 18 hours a day on jobs, suffering under Medieval working conditions. Many of them are virtual slaves.
India has one of the worst child labor problems in the world, and Indian democracy has totally failed to deal with this Dark Ages institution. The whole Indian system, as in many developing capitalist societies, is corrupt to the core. The rule of law is a joke and the courts are sloth-like and barely function.
Armed gangs working for the higher castes run amok across society. Monetary disputes are often handled by hiring Mafioso-type thugs to go out and convince reluctant creditors. Even major Indian banks hire these freelance criminals. Construction of buildings and roads is often shoddy, leading to the inevitable injuries and deaths.
It is estimated that there are - get this - over 200 million homeless Indians who are actually living on the sidewalks of the big cities. You will step over them as you walk in the big cities. Some of the people you step over will no longer be alive - they died the previous night.
If the rich and big corporations in India want some land, they just up and take it. They drive bulldozers to a village, clear out the people, and wipe the settlement off the face of the Earth. Then they steal the land, which may have been communal land for centuries. It's all legal with a corrupt judge's signature, or if it not, there is no recourse anyway.
If you anger a rich or upper caste person, they will often threaten you with their private armies. All of this reminds one of various Third World capitalist terror states that US imperialism is so enamored of, where the armies of the rich keep the aristocracy in power by sheer terror, never mind voting, never mind "democracy".
The state of Bihar is an example of the catastrophe of Indian democracy. The per capita income is an unbelievable $94 per year. Only six nations, all Fourth World failed capitalist states in Africa, have worse development indexes than Bihar. Over half of all adults are illiterate, and only 1/3 of women can read and write.
Bihar has gone from the least corrupt to the most corrupt state in India since independence. Out of control coal mining has devastated huge tracts of forest and farmland.
The tentacles of crime and caste tangle themselves into the morass of Bihari politics to the point where Bihari politics can be said to be castecized and criminalized. For hundreds of years, caste and crime went together in Bihar like bacon and eggs. The entire edifice of Bihari politics, along with most other Bihari institutions, have been taken over by the caste-crime networks, to the point where they now control the state.
Violent crime, as in so many Third World capitalist states, is out of control. Bihar is starting to look like Iraq, albeit on a much-reduced scale. The kidnapping industry has exploded. While kidnapping has been common in smaller towns in Bihar for decades, the fact is that now, on any given day, a wealthy Bihari professional can be nabbed by kidnappers.
Upper-caste gangs called Senas roam the countryside at will, looting property, extorting money and fighting wars with other Sena gangs. The Senas are best seen as analogues to the death squads run by the oligarchs in various Death Squad Democracies like El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Haiti, Philippines and Nepal.
This is basically the age-old means of staying in power that aristocrats have always used - terror. "Democracy", electoral fraud and "demonstration elections" as a means of maintaining aristocratic power are an invention of the new field of Public Relations a century ago as maintaining aristocratic rule through terror became less tenable in parts of the world.
A criminal Mafia, largely an upper caste nexus of landlords, politicians, government administrators, contractors and sectors of the business community, holds sway over much of the countryside.
The Bihari Mafia differs from, say, the Italian Mafia in that many of the Bihari mobsters actually hold seats in the Indian Parliament. The Mafia attacks the peasants, any landlord who does not pay their protection money, and anyone else who gets in their way. An overview of the Indian Mafia is here.
A criminal oligarch named Laloo Prasad Yadav has run Bihar into the ground for the past 15 years. Yadav has done absolutely nothing while kidnappers, Sena gangs, and the Mafia wreak havoc across the state. The cynical conclusion is that Yadav was allied with the Mafioso, Senas and kidnapper gangs.
Bihar is now seen as the "Basket Case of India". Seminars are held across India about the "Bihari problem". Thus far, these seminars have not accomplished anything.
This is the capitalist success story called India that the MSM swoons over!
What the depressing picture above adds up to is a society that simply does not function for the vast majority of its citizens.
For all of the reasons, this blog supports the armed Indian Maoists, or Naxalites, a movement that is exploding across Eastern India, especially in Bihar, West Bengal, Chattisargh, Orissa, Andra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Jharkand, in some of India's most backwards and feudal areas.
Some of the groups this blog supports are the Maoist Communist Center (MCC), Communist Party India - Marxist-Leninist (Janashakti) or CPI-ML, the People's War Group (formerly made up of such groups as CPI-ML (Party Unity), the armed factions of CPI-ML (Liberation), the People's Guerrilla Army and the CPI-Maoist. See the People's March link on this site for more on the armed Maoists of India.
The Naxalites are a particularly large and growing problem in Bihar, and apparently they are networking extensively with the huge Nepalese Maoist guerrilla movement, which this blog also supports.
The author and I had some discussions about Brahmins and Maoists. Here are some of his interesting comments on the matter.
He touches on the relationship between Maoists and Brahmins (Not necessarily as simple as you think!) and show how one can manage to be both, to show that Brahmins have been and continue to be progressive, and to note that India is now dealing with reverse discrimination, the common lot of many societies that undertake a systematic, government-decreed, anti-racist initiative:
The face may well be not only the index of the mind but of the soul itself. Just as the turbulence in the mind gets manifested in the show-window of the human figure, that is face, tranquility gets similarly reflected. Man, even the best of actors, cannot for any great length of time bury his feelings and mask his emotions behind the visage. What a man looks is therefore the product of what his inner self is.
Isn't that why Abraham Lincoln said that if a man does not attain grace by the time he is forty, well, he probably has not led a life of fulfillment.
Some faces have struck me instantly and like lightning. These faces have readily and eloquently advertised for the soul underneath. They are not bound by space, religion, nationality, ideology, profession or avocation. They constitute a motley group.
Let me name them: Bhandarakeri Swami, a religious leader whom I have seen only once as a schoolboy and only for a few fleeting moments and that too from a long range. There was radiance in his face. The halo around him was as bright as the sun. I have not forgotten how he looked a full quarter of a century ago.
It was as if the radiation emitted from his soldering-rod-like countenance etched his persona on the metal sheet of my mind. It has permanently remained there. I was to learn later that the seer was indeed pious and godly.
Not to pick out chronologically, but randomly, Gaddar, the revolutionary ballad singer, has left as deep an impression on me. At his only public performance I have attended he was a man possessed. Singing ballads and dancing to their tunes, he held the audience in a thrall.
I could not help complimenting his spellbinding performance in the only manner that I could have done: I hugged his sweat-soaked body tight. I was speechless. Sometime earlier, it was Arundhati Nag, the famous theatre artiste and the widow of Shankar Nag, the brilliant director-actor and winner of national award.
She had just recovered from the shock of losing her husband in a car crash and recuperated from the injuries she herself had suffered in the mishap.
Oh! It was amazing. She was glowing like a million suns and I could not stare straight into her eyes, just as one cannot look into the burning sun for more than a moment or two, although she was at a distance, on the dais at a function.
Then it was, of all persons, Arjunan, the younger brother of Veerappan, the most savage of all criminals of our time. There was an unmistakable spark in his eyes. He was no less a criminal than his more notorious and bloodthirsty brother, but the glint had obscured his dark deeds.
How can I not include the divinity-personified M.S. Subbulakshmi in this list?
One might be perplexed, even intrigued, at the odd bunch of names I have mentioned. They are not my choice; the very magnetism of their personalities selected them for me and attracted them to my soul. I have tried to find a convincing, if rational, explanation for this queer combination.
There is a religious leader (I myself am not slightly religious, indeed I am irreligious); there is a singer of ballads advocating violence to overturn the state (although I am not a Leftist, leave alone being an Ultra-Leftist); there is a widowed actress; and then there is a criminal who is no more, but his picture in my mind is not; there is an angelic musician.
I must tell you, I have succeeded in piecing together the essential human beings in these persons.
What is fundamental to them is the steadfast commitment to their chosen cause, be it the revolutionary Gaddar or the ferocious schemer-killer Arjunan. The two are at the two extreme ends of where a human being can be driven to by his own emotion. One was noble, the other was most ignoble.
Compassion, at least empathy, is at the root of one man's mission, while the other committed the most heinous of crimes and died as a sacrificial animal. The grace on the beatific face of Gaddar is inescapable for one who has led a selfless life. What gave Arjunan the spark in his otherwise cold eyes was also the result of his love, his love of freedom.
He looked more like Socrates before the Greek philosopher laid down his life. He looked determined. He looked as if he knew he had done no wrong out of his own volition. Once he had paid the wages of his sin, in the form of a murder, he wanted to reform. But the system did not allow him. He was forced to get back to Veerappan.
He thought he would be safer and his life more secure with his brother, whom he had deserted long before. The expression he had was one of disdain against a society that did not allow him freedom. The freedom to lead a respectable life. His eyes emitted fire. The fire, if had spread, enough to engulf the system.
Flame was also found in the eyes of Gaddar, just as aura oozed out of that Goddess of Music called Subbulakshmi. He has striven to bring about equality. He may be an advocate of violence, but it is not violence for its own sake. It is violence for the sake of uprooting cruelty that has for centuries found expression amid us in the form of inhuman discrimination of a whole segment of society.
The love for the have-nots, who form a sizeable segment of the milieu he emerges from, rivals his hatred of the discriminators who are found in a minority. However, it is not a question of majoritism versus minoritism for him. His mission is to secure a just society by overthrowing the existing unjust order.
Where does Arundhati Nag fit into the scheme of things of this article? What was (perhaps, it still is) the source of her radiance? Having lost her husband, she was exuding grief when I saw her. Her face depicted a confluence of lost love and a suffusion of sorrow.
More importantly, her dignity – quiet dignity that many women are capable of under similar circumstances (unlike the distinct absence of it in many men on being rendered widowers) – that almost made her an effervescent statue.
The face, washed with torrents of tears, had the aura of a ripened mango after the first monsoon showers. If Arjunan appeared to me to be "the statue of liberty", Arundhati symbolized the greatest monument of love. I am trying not to glorify the criminality of the former or the widowhood of the actress.
All these people I have met or seen only once. But the effect upon encountering them all has been the same. They have held out a strong appeal. And with their eyes and eyes alone.
Except perhaps Arundhati, all the others were above forty years of age when I saw them. And all of them had qualified Lincoln's test. What is so magical about the age forty? Why did he set that benchmark? Curiously, don't they say, "Life begins at forty?"
Youth fades away by the time one is forty. In most cases one would have by then satiated the most basic of one's desires and fulfilled one's creature comforts. The kind of grace Lincoln talks of accrues the same way a hungry man exudes a sense of gratification after a wholesome meal.
Life would have assumed a definite direction, acquired a great deal of purposefulness. Desires of the basic variety would have either been taken care of or sublimated. It is time for grace to dawn on the human face or even don it.
Just when I am all set to send these essays to the printer comes the news of death of Saketh, the Naxal leader from Mysore gunned down in (what we are told) an encounter. I never met this man, but his photograph that I saw in the press on his death guarantees me that his would have been the most impressive face in my list of faces if only had I got to see him.
His face is singularly remarkable for the reason that his heart, full of goodness, has no more place for it that it gently overflows from his face. That he is shy about it if not simply unaware of it is also evident in his delicately sculpted visage. It is not easy to find faces that bear out intelligence and kindness in equal measure. Saketh's does.
I know I am not going overboard about my adulation for a man that I never met. I am only being led by my hunch that Saketh must have attempted to reform the Naxals. (I would remain firm in this belief even if I hadn't read all those glowing obituaries that the Kannada press honoured him with or hadn't heard the rich encomiums a journalist-colleague posthumously spared him).
There is no way, I am inclined to believe, that he would have raised his little finger against anybody. On the contrary, if Saketh did kill in fulfillment of the Mao credo, he should have looked a killer. Like the cops, maybe.
(Incidentally, Saketh is the name of God Rama. Some coincidence that Saketh spent the prime of his youth in the wild. Yes, with his young wife. It was voluntary privation for him. Talk of Rama, Krishna can't be far behind, though in terms of time, he was. My mind tosses up an intriguing question: Krishna advocated war, righteous war.
Since I have sung the praise of the Gita elsewhere in this book, would terror unleashed by the Naxals acceptable to me? No, just not. Violence, neither by the Naxal nor by the State, can ever be condoned. Unfortunately, State terror is vastly unfettered. Gandhi's guiding spirit was the Gita, but he was the apostle of peace and non-violence).
This colleague, who said he shed tears for two whole days for this unlikely Naxal, tells me that Saketh was only the second Brahmin after Basava through whom compassion chose to manifest itself. That, I would say, succinctly sums up all that Saketh stood for. I must however say that, if my borrowed understanding of Saketh is right, he lived the way a Brahmin ought to live.
A life characterized by simple living, high thinking, selflessness and self-abnegation. A report says that he was Spartan in his habits and had only one pair of clothes (the Vedas ordain that the Brahmin must be found only in rags and have no flab). If only more of today's Brahmins could emulate Saketh, Naxalism would be outdated within no time.
Saketh, in fact, gives me a complex when I glare at him. Despite being born in the same year what segregates the two of us, for instance, is grace. He has so much of it.
The quality that leaves me with the wish that I should have had an encounter with him. Especially as a Mysorean. More so as a journalist. Only after his death did I come to know that there were quite a few known to me, including his relatives, that had seen Saketh from close quarters.
Finally, why is it that babies and the aged look alike and appealing? It is all right that they both suffer from the same kind of disabilities and infirmities and they both find themselves helpless and utterly dependent. More importantly, they are free from desires.
They are either unaware of them or have fulfilled them. It is this freedom from desire (like the Buddha's or Vivekananada's) which imparts them grace and amiability. You know they won't use you, and they are therefore approachable.
The same kind of tranquil look is to be found on those who have had a deep and undisturbed sleep. To be graceful is to be free from selfish desires. If you have not dreamt (what are dreams but manifestation of unfulfilled desires), you have acquired grace, however momentarily. The grace wears out as one becomes fully awake, as the state of being awake brings back desires to the fore.
Excerpted from Rao's collection of essays, Run of the Mind. The book is available for purchase in both paper and e-book versions here. Dr. Ramash N. Rao, professor and Department Chair of the Department of Communication Studies and Theater of Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, has called Rao "the new voice of India". Rao's blog is here.
It made huge strides in various fields - women's education, electricity, drainage, arts, literature, etc., thanks to the imaginative rulers of those years.
Rao's prose tends to be inflected with Indian English, a distinct dialect of English. The discourse style of Indian English is often markedly different, at best, from US English. This can make Indian English seem peculiar or awkward to many US English readers. Also, Rao's prose is deeply rooted in Indian culture, which can make it difficult for non-Indians to understand the references in the prose.
I really liked this little essay, though, and I am hard to please as far as writing goes.
A few explanations are in order. A Mysorean is one from the city of Mysore in far southern India. A Brahmin is a member of the highest caste in India - the ruling class. This ruling class has ruled India for centuries. Aryan Brahmin invaders from the steppes of Asia poured into India 3,500 years ago and pushed the indigenous Indians (now known as South Indians) south.
The darker Indians of South India were originally spread over the entire continent. Brahmins tend to be lighter-skinned than other Indians, but it is interesting to note that despite great efforts to keep their line pure, Brahmins have been getting steadily darker through the centuries.
For those who are interested in the toxic subject of IQ and race, it is interesting to note that Brahmins also score higher on IQ tests than even European Whites. An exception to the typical rule of the lighter the skin, the higher the IQ, and vice-versa, can be found in Southern India, where the Brahmins are darker-skinned, and have higher IQ's, than the lighter-skinned commoners of Southern India.
Brahmins, like Ashkenazi Jews, probably developed their high IQ's through some sort of selective inbreeding. Not that either group deliberately engaged in a eugenics program to produce high IQ offspring, but that is the way it worked out.
In this essay, Rao also refers to Naxalites. Naxalites are armed Indian Maoists and this blog supports them totally.
Indian democracy has completely failed; the system has killed an average of almost 2 million people every year just since independence, for a total of 100 million dead in the period (documentation of that astounding figure is here, via Chomsky).
Starvation and malnutrition rates are the same in India, year in and year out, as they were in North Korea at the height of its famine in the 1990's. Note that the capitalist media turned somersaults to report the North Korean famine as an "evils of Communism" meme, while ignoring, for decades, the exact same situation in capitalist India.
The Indian caste system is a horrible system of cruel ingrained racism that seeps into every pore of Indian society. The proponents of caste have even injected caste into Hinduism, but Hinduism existed before the caste system brought by Aryan invaders, and it can be argued that caste is a foreign and unnecessary accretion to Hinduism. The marriage of Hinduism to caste makes it caste more difficult to uproot.
Combine the above with a royal family that, as usual, claimed to rule in the name of Gods, or be reincarnations of Gods (in this case Hindu Gods) and you have a society shot through with feudalism through and through.
Indian democracy has totally failed to eradicate caste and is probably incapable of doing so. Unfortunately, such a deeply ingrained reactionary feudal system can only be destroyed through total revolution.
Making matters worse is the systematic oppression of women. I conducted some research on women's rights around the world. The disastrous treatment of women in Hindu Nepal and India combines with the equally disastrous treatment of women in Muslim India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, to make South Asia the most backward place on Earth for women.
Sexism, more than being tied to religion in this part of the world, is actually a regionalism that has grafted itself onto the major religions in the area.
An unbelievable 350 million Indians are still illiterate. You would think that any decent independent India would have taught them to read by now.
The numbers of young children permanently dropped out school are in the tens of millions. Many of these kids, as young as 9 or 10, are working up to 18 hours a day on jobs, suffering under Medieval working conditions. Many of them are virtual slaves.
India has one of the worst child labor problems in the world, and Indian democracy has totally failed to deal with this Dark Ages institution. The whole Indian system, as in many developing capitalist societies, is corrupt to the core. The rule of law is a joke and the courts are sloth-like and barely function.
Armed gangs working for the higher castes run amok across society. Monetary disputes are often handled by hiring Mafioso-type thugs to go out and convince reluctant creditors. Even major Indian banks hire these freelance criminals. Construction of buildings and roads is often shoddy, leading to the inevitable injuries and deaths.
It is estimated that there are - get this - over 200 million homeless Indians who are actually living on the sidewalks of the big cities. You will step over them as you walk in the big cities. Some of the people you step over will no longer be alive - they died the previous night.
If the rich and big corporations in India want some land, they just up and take it. They drive bulldozers to a village, clear out the people, and wipe the settlement off the face of the Earth. Then they steal the land, which may have been communal land for centuries. It's all legal with a corrupt judge's signature, or if it not, there is no recourse anyway.
If you anger a rich or upper caste person, they will often threaten you with their private armies. All of this reminds one of various Third World capitalist terror states that US imperialism is so enamored of, where the armies of the rich keep the aristocracy in power by sheer terror, never mind voting, never mind "democracy".
The state of Bihar is an example of the catastrophe of Indian democracy. The per capita income is an unbelievable $94 per year. Only six nations, all Fourth World failed capitalist states in Africa, have worse development indexes than Bihar. Over half of all adults are illiterate, and only 1/3 of women can read and write.
Bihar has gone from the least corrupt to the most corrupt state in India since independence. Out of control coal mining has devastated huge tracts of forest and farmland.
The tentacles of crime and caste tangle themselves into the morass of Bihari politics to the point where Bihari politics can be said to be castecized and criminalized. For hundreds of years, caste and crime went together in Bihar like bacon and eggs. The entire edifice of Bihari politics, along with most other Bihari institutions, have been taken over by the caste-crime networks, to the point where they now control the state.
Violent crime, as in so many Third World capitalist states, is out of control. Bihar is starting to look like Iraq, albeit on a much-reduced scale. The kidnapping industry has exploded. While kidnapping has been common in smaller towns in Bihar for decades, the fact is that now, on any given day, a wealthy Bihari professional can be nabbed by kidnappers.
Upper-caste gangs called Senas roam the countryside at will, looting property, extorting money and fighting wars with other Sena gangs. The Senas are best seen as analogues to the death squads run by the oligarchs in various Death Squad Democracies like El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Haiti, Philippines and Nepal.
This is basically the age-old means of staying in power that aristocrats have always used - terror. "Democracy", electoral fraud and "demonstration elections" as a means of maintaining aristocratic power are an invention of the new field of Public Relations a century ago as maintaining aristocratic rule through terror became less tenable in parts of the world.
A criminal Mafia, largely an upper caste nexus of landlords, politicians, government administrators, contractors and sectors of the business community, holds sway over much of the countryside.
The Bihari Mafia differs from, say, the Italian Mafia in that many of the Bihari mobsters actually hold seats in the Indian Parliament. The Mafia attacks the peasants, any landlord who does not pay their protection money, and anyone else who gets in their way. An overview of the Indian Mafia is here.
A criminal oligarch named Laloo Prasad Yadav has run Bihar into the ground for the past 15 years. Yadav has done absolutely nothing while kidnappers, Sena gangs, and the Mafia wreak havoc across the state. The cynical conclusion is that Yadav was allied with the Mafioso, Senas and kidnapper gangs.
Bihar is now seen as the "Basket Case of India". Seminars are held across India about the "Bihari problem". Thus far, these seminars have not accomplished anything.
This is the capitalist success story called India that the MSM swoons over!
What the depressing picture above adds up to is a society that simply does not function for the vast majority of its citizens.
For all of the reasons, this blog supports the armed Indian Maoists, or Naxalites, a movement that is exploding across Eastern India, especially in Bihar, West Bengal, Chattisargh, Orissa, Andra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Jharkand, in some of India's most backwards and feudal areas.
Some of the groups this blog supports are the Maoist Communist Center (MCC), Communist Party India - Marxist-Leninist (Janashakti) or CPI-ML, the People's War Group (formerly made up of such groups as CPI-ML (Party Unity), the armed factions of CPI-ML (Liberation), the People's Guerrilla Army and the CPI-Maoist. See the People's March link on this site for more on the armed Maoists of India.
The Naxalites are a particularly large and growing problem in Bihar, and apparently they are networking extensively with the huge Nepalese Maoist guerrilla movement, which this blog also supports.
The author and I had some discussions about Brahmins and Maoists. Here are some of his interesting comments on the matter.
He touches on the relationship between Maoists and Brahmins (Not necessarily as simple as you think!) and show how one can manage to be both, to show that Brahmins have been and continue to be progressive, and to note that India is now dealing with reverse discrimination, the common lot of many societies that undertake a systematic, government-decreed, anti-racist initiative:
Basava, the great eighth century reformer from Karnataka, was a Brahmin, too. There are many others. I think only a Brahmin can turn into a Maoist. I don't know how much you are aware that Brahmins are a much-maligned lot. Well, Brahmins cannot be condoned for what they did, but I know of more Brahmins who are reform-minded and who don't discriminate. Unfortunately, reverse discrimination has started and is rampant now. It is there everywhere. The reason that I quit my job with one newspaper was because I had become a Jew in my office.
The Dawn of Grace
The face may well be not only the index of the mind but of the soul itself. Just as the turbulence in the mind gets manifested in the show-window of the human figure, that is face, tranquility gets similarly reflected. Man, even the best of actors, cannot for any great length of time bury his feelings and mask his emotions behind the visage. What a man looks is therefore the product of what his inner self is.
Isn't that why Abraham Lincoln said that if a man does not attain grace by the time he is forty, well, he probably has not led a life of fulfillment.
Some faces have struck me instantly and like lightning. These faces have readily and eloquently advertised for the soul underneath. They are not bound by space, religion, nationality, ideology, profession or avocation. They constitute a motley group.
Let me name them: Bhandarakeri Swami, a religious leader whom I have seen only once as a schoolboy and only for a few fleeting moments and that too from a long range. There was radiance in his face. The halo around him was as bright as the sun. I have not forgotten how he looked a full quarter of a century ago.
It was as if the radiation emitted from his soldering-rod-like countenance etched his persona on the metal sheet of my mind. It has permanently remained there. I was to learn later that the seer was indeed pious and godly.
Not to pick out chronologically, but randomly, Gaddar, the revolutionary ballad singer, has left as deep an impression on me. At his only public performance I have attended he was a man possessed. Singing ballads and dancing to their tunes, he held the audience in a thrall.
I could not help complimenting his spellbinding performance in the only manner that I could have done: I hugged his sweat-soaked body tight. I was speechless. Sometime earlier, it was Arundhati Nag, the famous theatre artiste and the widow of Shankar Nag, the brilliant director-actor and winner of national award.
She had just recovered from the shock of losing her husband in a car crash and recuperated from the injuries she herself had suffered in the mishap.
Oh! It was amazing. She was glowing like a million suns and I could not stare straight into her eyes, just as one cannot look into the burning sun for more than a moment or two, although she was at a distance, on the dais at a function.
Then it was, of all persons, Arjunan, the younger brother of Veerappan, the most savage of all criminals of our time. There was an unmistakable spark in his eyes. He was no less a criminal than his more notorious and bloodthirsty brother, but the glint had obscured his dark deeds.
How can I not include the divinity-personified M.S. Subbulakshmi in this list?
One might be perplexed, even intrigued, at the odd bunch of names I have mentioned. They are not my choice; the very magnetism of their personalities selected them for me and attracted them to my soul. I have tried to find a convincing, if rational, explanation for this queer combination.
There is a religious leader (I myself am not slightly religious, indeed I am irreligious); there is a singer of ballads advocating violence to overturn the state (although I am not a Leftist, leave alone being an Ultra-Leftist); there is a widowed actress; and then there is a criminal who is no more, but his picture in my mind is not; there is an angelic musician.
I must tell you, I have succeeded in piecing together the essential human beings in these persons.
What is fundamental to them is the steadfast commitment to their chosen cause, be it the revolutionary Gaddar or the ferocious schemer-killer Arjunan. The two are at the two extreme ends of where a human being can be driven to by his own emotion. One was noble, the other was most ignoble.
Compassion, at least empathy, is at the root of one man's mission, while the other committed the most heinous of crimes and died as a sacrificial animal. The grace on the beatific face of Gaddar is inescapable for one who has led a selfless life. What gave Arjunan the spark in his otherwise cold eyes was also the result of his love, his love of freedom.
He looked more like Socrates before the Greek philosopher laid down his life. He looked determined. He looked as if he knew he had done no wrong out of his own volition. Once he had paid the wages of his sin, in the form of a murder, he wanted to reform. But the system did not allow him. He was forced to get back to Veerappan.
He thought he would be safer and his life more secure with his brother, whom he had deserted long before. The expression he had was one of disdain against a society that did not allow him freedom. The freedom to lead a respectable life. His eyes emitted fire. The fire, if had spread, enough to engulf the system.
Flame was also found in the eyes of Gaddar, just as aura oozed out of that Goddess of Music called Subbulakshmi. He has striven to bring about equality. He may be an advocate of violence, but it is not violence for its own sake. It is violence for the sake of uprooting cruelty that has for centuries found expression amid us in the form of inhuman discrimination of a whole segment of society.
The love for the have-nots, who form a sizeable segment of the milieu he emerges from, rivals his hatred of the discriminators who are found in a minority. However, it is not a question of majoritism versus minoritism for him. His mission is to secure a just society by overthrowing the existing unjust order.
Where does Arundhati Nag fit into the scheme of things of this article? What was (perhaps, it still is) the source of her radiance? Having lost her husband, she was exuding grief when I saw her. Her face depicted a confluence of lost love and a suffusion of sorrow.
More importantly, her dignity – quiet dignity that many women are capable of under similar circumstances (unlike the distinct absence of it in many men on being rendered widowers) – that almost made her an effervescent statue.
The face, washed with torrents of tears, had the aura of a ripened mango after the first monsoon showers. If Arjunan appeared to me to be "the statue of liberty", Arundhati symbolized the greatest monument of love. I am trying not to glorify the criminality of the former or the widowhood of the actress.
All these people I have met or seen only once. But the effect upon encountering them all has been the same. They have held out a strong appeal. And with their eyes and eyes alone.
Except perhaps Arundhati, all the others were above forty years of age when I saw them. And all of them had qualified Lincoln's test. What is so magical about the age forty? Why did he set that benchmark? Curiously, don't they say, "Life begins at forty?"
Youth fades away by the time one is forty. In most cases one would have by then satiated the most basic of one's desires and fulfilled one's creature comforts. The kind of grace Lincoln talks of accrues the same way a hungry man exudes a sense of gratification after a wholesome meal.
Life would have assumed a definite direction, acquired a great deal of purposefulness. Desires of the basic variety would have either been taken care of or sublimated. It is time for grace to dawn on the human face or even don it.
Just when I am all set to send these essays to the printer comes the news of death of Saketh, the Naxal leader from Mysore gunned down in (what we are told) an encounter. I never met this man, but his photograph that I saw in the press on his death guarantees me that his would have been the most impressive face in my list of faces if only had I got to see him.
His face is singularly remarkable for the reason that his heart, full of goodness, has no more place for it that it gently overflows from his face. That he is shy about it if not simply unaware of it is also evident in his delicately sculpted visage. It is not easy to find faces that bear out intelligence and kindness in equal measure. Saketh's does.
I know I am not going overboard about my adulation for a man that I never met. I am only being led by my hunch that Saketh must have attempted to reform the Naxals. (I would remain firm in this belief even if I hadn't read all those glowing obituaries that the Kannada press honoured him with or hadn't heard the rich encomiums a journalist-colleague posthumously spared him).
There is no way, I am inclined to believe, that he would have raised his little finger against anybody. On the contrary, if Saketh did kill in fulfillment of the Mao credo, he should have looked a killer. Like the cops, maybe.
(Incidentally, Saketh is the name of God Rama. Some coincidence that Saketh spent the prime of his youth in the wild. Yes, with his young wife. It was voluntary privation for him. Talk of Rama, Krishna can't be far behind, though in terms of time, he was. My mind tosses up an intriguing question: Krishna advocated war, righteous war.
Since I have sung the praise of the Gita elsewhere in this book, would terror unleashed by the Naxals acceptable to me? No, just not. Violence, neither by the Naxal nor by the State, can ever be condoned. Unfortunately, State terror is vastly unfettered. Gandhi's guiding spirit was the Gita, but he was the apostle of peace and non-violence).
This colleague, who said he shed tears for two whole days for this unlikely Naxal, tells me that Saketh was only the second Brahmin after Basava through whom compassion chose to manifest itself. That, I would say, succinctly sums up all that Saketh stood for. I must however say that, if my borrowed understanding of Saketh is right, he lived the way a Brahmin ought to live.
A life characterized by simple living, high thinking, selflessness and self-abnegation. A report says that he was Spartan in his habits and had only one pair of clothes (the Vedas ordain that the Brahmin must be found only in rags and have no flab). If only more of today's Brahmins could emulate Saketh, Naxalism would be outdated within no time.
Saketh, in fact, gives me a complex when I glare at him. Despite being born in the same year what segregates the two of us, for instance, is grace. He has so much of it.
The quality that leaves me with the wish that I should have had an encounter with him. Especially as a Mysorean. More so as a journalist. Only after his death did I come to know that there were quite a few known to me, including his relatives, that had seen Saketh from close quarters.
Finally, why is it that babies and the aged look alike and appealing? It is all right that they both suffer from the same kind of disabilities and infirmities and they both find themselves helpless and utterly dependent. More importantly, they are free from desires.
They are either unaware of them or have fulfilled them. It is this freedom from desire (like the Buddha's or Vivekananada's) which imparts them grace and amiability. You know they won't use you, and they are therefore approachable.
The same kind of tranquil look is to be found on those who have had a deep and undisturbed sleep. To be graceful is to be free from selfish desires. If you have not dreamt (what are dreams but manifestation of unfulfilled desires), you have acquired grace, however momentarily. The grace wears out as one becomes fully awake, as the state of being awake brings back desires to the fore.
Excerpted from Rao's collection of essays, Run of the Mind. The book is available for purchase in both paper and e-book versions here. Dr. Ramash N. Rao, professor and Department Chair of the Department of Communication Studies and Theater of Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, has called Rao "the new voice of India". Rao's blog is here.
Wendy Campbell Deconstructs Michael Moore: "Finding the Fault Lines in 'Fahrenheit 9/11'"
The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here.
The following article is another in a series of articles written by one of my colleagues, Wendy Campbell. It was originally written on July 1, 2004 under the nom de plume "concerned American". It was rewritten on March 26, 2006. I am really pleased with this article. Like many angry anti-Zionists, Wendy has gotten caught up in the heat of her rhetoric in the past and has caught quite a bit of heat for that.
Just Google her name to see more. Even the Jerusalem Post called her a neo-Nazi and the British anti-Zionist activist Sue Blackwell went to the extreme of publically distancing herself from Wendy. The Wikipedia entry on Wendy refers to her as an anti-Semitic bigot. It also lists her among Wikipedia's BS List of Anti-Semitic People.
At best, Wendy has often been a lukewarm anti-Semite, one who has been manipulated into this cage by devious rhetors with more ignoble aims. At worst, I really do not think she knows what she is getting into. At least I hope she doesn't know what she is doing. If she does know what she is doing, then she is heading down a black path indeed.
At any rate, I am not aware that she has advocated harming Jews in general in any way, which is a reasonable definition of a dangerous anti-Semite. Nevertheless, she has in the past and continues in the present to make statements about World War 2 and the Holocaust that are nothing more than rehashes of the worst German pro-Nazi propaganda. Shame, shame, shame, shame.
It is an excellent truism that in human affairs we should not attribute to evil what is instead a product of incompetence (or, I would add, ignorance).
Almost all critical-Semites and anti-Zionists (myself included) are going to drift into anti-Semitism at times. Big deal.
Considering that our opponents, militant Zionist Jews, are almost all advocates of an openly racist philosophy, the occasional anti-Semitic utterance on our part hardly seems much of a sin. Despite their ultra-racism, our opponents are rewarded by full inclusion in our society, including access to the pinnacles of our economy and the deepest bowels of our government.
For us critics of militant Jewish behavior, on the other hand, it's often hard to make a living. In many workplaces, private, nonprofit or public sector, there is often a militant Jew somewhere in the background who has something to do with signing the checks. There is also the threat of the Jewish advertiser boycott.
After all, Jews, 1.8% of the US population, reportedly control 25% of the wealth in the country. If you are going to criticize militant Jews in the US, you may be relegated to working at Burger King.
I lost a number of advertisers soon after the publication of Wikipedia, Ziopedia or Judeopedia? The reason given was that "my site does not comply with the standards that the advertisers require". I assume these advertisers took exception to the critical-Semitism of that piece.
No matter what we say, our opponents will call us anti-Semites, bigots, haters, racists, Ku Klux Klansmen, Nazis, neo-Nazis, Jew-haters, terrorists, etc. Even the mild Xymphora is now coming in for attack.
Poor Juan Cole just had his most recent academic appointment to an Ivy League university torpedoed by corrupt Zionist Jewish furies, who play for keeps if they play at all. I am also acquainted with Juan Cole. Juan, to his credit, hasn't an anti-Semitic or even racist bone in his body. The corrupt and dishonest campaign against this man is a crime.
Nevertheless, I think we still need to watch the anti-Semitism, for our own consciences if for no other reason. Let the corrupt militant Zionists and those gullible enough to take their bait wallow in the mud puddles. There is a dignity to the high road.
It is never too late to rehabilitate a reputation, although many militant Jews would like to put a stake through your heart upon the first misstep in criticizing their special tribe and bury you for life, only releasing you if you crawl on the floor and abjectly kiss their feet in humiliation.
In this article, I feel that Wendy shows signs of maturing as an activist and an author. Here, she watches her words more carefully, and her rhetoric is calmer and more reasoned. She does a better job of avoiding the easy anti-Semitic cheap shots and instead chooses to row into the difficult waters of critical-Semitism.
It's hard to row your boat is such choppy waters, but I wish her luck on your journey nevertheless, should she choose to turn the wheel and drive on the high road, where the scenery is better anyway and there are fewer belligerent pedestrians and other drivers to get in your way.
On to the article!
I decided to re-visit this article that I had originally written immediately after I saw Michael Moore’s “daring” documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 when it first came out in July 2004. I have decided to update it because the issues are still timely and as of yet unresolved.
And on top of that, whenever I tell people I have made some political documentaries, they often ask me “Oh, like Michael Moore?”. I usually say, “Something like that, but much more daring. It’s actually much more politically hot. Much more relevant. Check out my website www.marwenmedia.com.”
Please note how many people are still under the impression that Michael Moore is somehow daring. It makes me laugh to think that people think that. Then again it also makes me angry. And it makes me sad. Finally, though, I do think that more people are starting to get the real picture Moore. And that makes me feel cautiously optimistic.
Michael Moore’s cowardice (and avarice) reveals itself in many ways, although he pretends to be your average person, and a good Christian on top of that. For example, Michael Moore himself, and many others, seem to be impressed with his “courage” to chase down and harass the aging Charlton Heston in his documentary Bowling for Columbine, because Heston was the figurehead for the National Rifle Association.
Hey, I’m not into guns myself. In fact, if any guy I have dated in the past has ever told me he has bought a gun, my first reaction was first to be alarmed and then to run the other direction. But the fact is, that in some situations, I feel that it is a citizen’s right to have a gun, especially in certain situations, such as, as one example, if you live out in the middle of the Wyoming wilderness.
Interesting side-notes: Do you realize that the massacre at Columbine would probably have been called a “hate-crime” if the criminals were Arab or Muslim, or even Christian Fundamentalists?
But if you do a Google-search, you will discover that the criminals who committed that massacre were of a certain ethnicity/religion that rarely, if ever, seems to be mentioned in connection with “hate-crimes”. Hint: it starts with a “J”. Ever wonder why some kinds of “hate-crimes” are worse than other “hate-crimes”?
[RL: Is it true that the Columbine killers were both Jewish?]
Ever wonder why magazines such as Vanity Fair will write a huge article about the alleged rape scandal at Duke and emphasize that the accused men were Christian, even to the point of printing a photo of the chapel at Duke in the article?
Yet they have chosen not to do a huge story of the young Jewish men who were guilty of burning many churches in the South earlier this year, and it is certain that they would NEVER include a photo of a synagogue?
[RL: Is it true that these arsonists were Jewish?]
In the same issue of Vanity Fair (June 2006) notice how they feature an in-depth article, The War They Wanted, by Craig Unger, who is obviously a Zionist and probably a Jew...
[RL: Unger is definitely a Jewish surname.]
...never once mentions the Israeli connection to the war “they wanted”? Certainly Vanity Fair has put its voluntary and obligatory blindfolds on with regards to that one, as is typical of the rest of Zionized US media.
Certainly Vanity Fair seems intent on countering the courageous and important paper about the Israel Lobby and its push for the war on Iraq, The Israel Lobby, written by Ivy League professors Mearshimer and Walt, which has been predictably uniformly ignored by Vanity Fair and the rest of the Zionized US media.
“They” are doing their best to make sure that the Israeli connection goes down into the Memory Hole. Typical, so typical.
What would have been a really courageous act is for Michael Moore to have chased down and harassed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (before he went to the hospital, of course) and asked him a few questions, or perhaps Elie Wiesel, whom many people accuse of complete and utter hypocrisy and even lying, since he does not have any tolerance for the human rights of Palestinians in their own ancestral homeland of Palestine.
No, rarely does anyone do that. Why? Do you really need you really ask? Have you not noticed that is not kosher to even legitimately question and verbally challenge some people of a certain religion/ethnicity? That to do so invites typical name-calling such as “anti-Semite”, “Nazi”, “Klan member” and such.
This is an intentional, systematized attempt to censor those who disagree with Zionists with regards to Palestinian human rights. Apparently it works with a lot of people, especially now that there is a Department of Anti-Semitism here in the US trying to make it a crime to criticize Israel and Zionism.
[RL: There is not really a Department of Anti-Semitism in the US. Condoleezza Rice has appointed a Special Envoy for Anti-Semitism, a Jewish man. He is to produce a report on worldwide anti-Semitism every year, for what purpose I do not know. Why the emphasis on this particular group, who, compared to other ethnic groups, suffers far less?
On the other hand, there is no evidence at all that this Department exists to criminalize criticism of Jews, though the fact that it was created in the first place is at best a waste of money and at worst downright spooky.]
They want to make the entire world a criticism-free zone with regards to Israel and Zionism, yet the rest of the world is a fair target, especially Muslims and Arabs. But note how it is even more than tolerable to criticize Bush, Christian Fundamentalism, the concept of God, Jesus, Islam, and corporations than Jews.
Let’s face it! Caterpillar bulldozers do not have minds of their own! Zionist Jews are the ones who are bulldozing Palestinian homes in order to chase them off their land so that the Zionist Jews get to take over the land for a “Greater Israel”.
Our politicians are giving Israel the money to terrorize the Palestinian people, billions of our tax dollars every single year, without conditions, and in fact, tacitly approving of Israel’s crimes against humanity.
Let’s get back to Moore’s film about 9/11.
Moore's film is misleading, smug and cowardly. He picks on the easy usual suspects (Arabs) and ignores the driving forces behind the so-called "War on Terror": Jewish Zionism (with the support of the Christian Zionists), Zionist Israel (the Jewish state of Israel) and the neoconservatives, who are largely Jewish Americans, or you could refer to them as Israeli-Americans.
[RL: I happen to think of the Sunni Takfiri Salafists of Al Qaeda and its many related groups, and its tens of millions of Muslim civilian sympathizers, as co-participants with the Neocon-Zionist Axis in this war.
I also think that Salafist-Takfiri Sunni Islam needs to be wiped off the face of the Earth, and I am not too worried about how to do it or how many of the enemy get killed in the process.]
Moore is like a politician who speaks out of both sides of his mouth. And he knows whom to please in order to get rich.
As a side note, Madonna apparently knows how to brown-nose too, with her gushing on about the Jewish cult of Kabbalah for example, on the Larry King Show and any show that will have her. As if she doesn’t have enough money already.
Sharon Stone also follows suit with similar politically correct gushing about certain people of a certain ethnicity/religion. It’s a great career move! No doubt about it! Especially in Hollywood! Especially for aging celebrities. Oh yeah!
Michael Moore’s documentary raises many interesting issues with regards to 9-11 and the Bush Administration, as well as the war on Iraq and Afghanistan.
Note: And now Iran and Syria are in the neocons' crosshairs. Syria exports no oil. Hello. By the way, the Democrats are just as bad these days. Note their silence when they should be pushing for the impeachment of Bush. They are almost all enablers, and should be forced to resign for allowing this war to happen as well as the continual erosion of our freedoms.
However, Fahrenheit 9/11 avoids many more important but politically hot questions.
Why does Moore focus only on the Saudis, yet never mentions the well-known role of Zionist Israel, Israeli spies and the Neoconservatives, who are mostly Zionist Jewish Americans (make that Israeli-Americans) as well as Zionist Christian Americans, in the war on Iraq?
Check out the most notorious of the neoconservatives' websites.
See how they called for an attack on Iraq even back in 1996, and how they “needed” a Pearl Harbor-style event “to happen” to “motivate” Americans to allow such a war, where Iraq would only be the beginning of endless war (the so-called “War on Terror”, when it really should be called the “War of Terror”), to achieve a Zionist-American empire.
This website is also known as “Project for New America” or PNAC (Pee-Nack) for short. I hope you have heard of it by now! By the way, the Neocons may have cleaned up their website by now...
[RL: I do not think so. These brazen fellows have always delighted in conspiring in plain sight for some reason, probably because Americans have been brainwashed into believing that all conspiracy theory is either racism or a symptom of mental illness.]
...but there is plenty of information about it on the Internet if you do a Google-search. I highly recommend it. If you want to preserve your constitutional rights, you owe it to yourself and this country.
Here are some more questions for you to ponder…
Why does Moore omit facts such as that bin Laden and Al Qaeda never even publicly claimed credit for 9-11?
[RL: I believe that bin Laden took credit for it in a controversial video. Also, a number of other top Al Qaeda members like Khalid Sheik Mohammad have confessed that they did it.]
Yes, apparently bin Laden stated publicly he was happy about 9-11, but so did former Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Netanyahu stated that he was happy about 9-11, since then Israel’s “war on terror” or more accurately, Israel’s racist ethnic cleansing campaign against indigenous non-Jewish Palestinians and neighboring Arab countries outside of Israel, would now be fought by Americans against Israel’s self-made enemies.
[RL: Netanyahu did not exactly say he was happy about 9-11, but he made some telling remarks that could be read that way by a careful reader. For that matter, Condi Rice admitted right away that 9-11 was "very useful" for the US. For US imperialism, that is.]
By the way, Israel’s enemies are not necessarily America’s enemies, especially if it weren’t for America’s unconditional support of Zionist Israel.
According to many sources on the Internet and elsewhere, 9-11 very well could have been an “inside job” in collusion with the Mossad, and for all we know, it could be true. It could have been what is known as a “false flag” operation.
[RL: Just for the record, I would like to say that I feel that 9-11 was 100% done by Al Qaeda. There is controversy whether the Mossad or Israeli elements had inside knowledge of the attack, but did not try to stop it. There is evidence for and against this theory, and I regard it as inconclusive.
But apparently unnamed Israelis in Ontario and Hamburg made millions of dollars via suspicious stock market trades based on apparent inside knowledge of the 9-11 plot. Why these Israelis have not yet been brought to justice is beyond me. I've lost the link about this insider-trading stuff, and if anyone who can find it, would you please email it to me?]
Why is it taboo to explore this possibility? Why is it that an Arab conspiracy nicknamed “Al Qaeda” is the only conspiracy that we Americans are allowed to consider? Don’t we live in a democratic country?
Ask yourself: Who has benefited most from the war on Iraq?
[RL: The qui bono game is a favorite of Arabs, Muslims and liberal and Leftist conspiracy theorists, but I am not impressed by it. First of all, it implies that armed groups never do stupid, self-destructive things. In fact, they do all the time.]
Certainly not the Saudis, who even had to back out of the Halliburton war profits as Moore’s film shows. Even the American corporations aren’t getting too much out of the deal. And Bush is getting bashed everywhere. The fact is that Israel has pushed for this war, and has to most to gain from it.
[RL: Although Israeli support was crucial for this war, I do not think that this war was all about Israel. In particular, I find it ridiculous the George Bush attacked Iraq solely to benefit Israel.
There were all sorts of reasons for this war, and while the Zionist aspect was very important, it is just more reductionism to say that it was the only factor. Complex political and military decisions by large states are rarely done for only one reason anyway.]
They even expect to get free oil from this war, with a pipeline from Iraq to Haifa, Israel out of the deal. Do a Google search on “pipe-line from Iraq to Haifa, Israel”. The Israel-firster Neo-Conservatives are pushing for this as a “bonus” for Israel’s “support for the US war on Iraq!”
[RL: It is correct that while these head-in-the-clouds neocon clowns did indeed expect to be able to get an oil pipeline to Israel out of this war, that plan presently lies in the dust, or sand as it were, blown to bits along with 250,000 Iraqis. In the foreseeable future, that plan is about as likely to come back to life as those Iraqis are.]
Yet, not only is Moore too afraid to “bash” Israel for its covert, but hugely influential role in this imperial war, he’s afraid to even mention Zionist Israel’s and the neoconservatives’ roles in the Bush administration. Note that the Democrats these days are just as bad.
The furthest Moore goes out on this limb is to show a couple of cameos in the film of the top dog Neoconservative deputy of defense Paul Wolfowitz, without even naming him, or explaining who he is and who he represents (the Neoconservatives, and mostly Israel).
Please keep in mind that this war is all being financed with our tax dollars, without giving us a chance to vote on it, and the Zionized US media are deliberately keeping Americans in the dark about all this.
Why does Moore not mention that at least five of the so-called Saudi hijackers were cases of stolen identity? (Do a Google-search on “mistaken identity of 9-11 hijackers”.) While the American media under-reported this fact at the time, it was widely reported in foreign media, including BBC). Therefore it is a fact that we really do not know where all the hijackers came from or who they were.
[RL: That is right, but that does not mean that Al Qaeda did not do it.]
Why does Michael Moore never even mention the “dancing Israeli spies” and their suspicious behavior while videotaping the 9-11 WTC attacks and whooping it up? They were detained for a couple months by the FBI and then released on “visa violations”. (Do a Google-search on “dancing Israeli spies 9-11”).
There are many reports of Israeli spies who lived on the same block as the 9-11 terrorists and were engaged in suspicious activities during that time as well as recently, as a general Google search on “Israeli spies” will reveal.
Note how Michael Moore didn’t include any footage in his film from the now famous Fox News four-part series on Israeli spying in the US with Brit Hume and Carl Cameron, which was amazingly broadcast shortly after 9-11 happened, although it was deleted from their archives shortly after. Here is a link to a website that now allows you access to it.
Why does Michael Moore never mention in his film the fact that employees of Odigo, an Israeli-owned company that had offices in the WTC, were forewarned to leave the WTC offices a couple hours before the attacks
[RL: The problem with this analysis, which is the obvious source of the insane Arab, Muslim and anti-Semitic rumors of "6,000 Jews stayed home from work that day", is that it implies that Israel had foreknowledge of the attacks.
If that is so, why did they not warn the huge number of Jews who were working in the World Trade Center not to come to work that day? US Jews got absolutely devastated by 9-11; they were hammered far worse, proportionatetly, than any other ethnic group by that attack.
The number of Jews who were killed by 9-11 has not been tallied, but it is surely in the hundreds. Looking through the list of victims, I tried to count the Jewish surnames, but kept losing count - there were so many.
Why would Zionist Israel, nasty as it is, sacrifice hundreds of innocent US Jews in the carnage of the WTC, and only bother to warn a tiny handful of Israelis? The more I think about this supposed Israeli 9-11 plot, the more nuts it seems.]
(a fact confirmed in the esteemed Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, and even, believe it or not, the Washington Post!)? Here's the story as printed in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz:
[RL: This interesting article has become fodder for anti-Zionists and anti-Semites who are intent on showing and proving that Israel had foreknowledge of the 9-11 plot. Unfortunately, not only does it do no such thing, but also this is not the only warning of the 9-11 plot before it occurred.
If you check out Michael Ruppert's 9-11 Timeline on his From the Wilderness webpage, you will see that there were actually many warnings of this plot before it occurred, from all over the world. I don't have time to list them all right now, but feel free to go to the website and check them out.
As far as why they were not acted on, note my comment below on how intelligence agencies get bucket loads of such reports all the time. Almost all of them turn out to be false alarms. Since the Odigo revelation was neither unusual nor unique, I feel it is improper and suspicious to emphasize it to the exclusion of all the other reports.]
Don’t you think someone in their offices might have at least called the building security? Isn’t that standard procedure when you get an anonymous e-mail like that? You know, if there is ever a bomb threat or similar threat made anywhere, you notify whoever is in charge and the police come and evacuate everyone from the building.
But no, this did not happen in the WTC on 9/11. Why not?
[RL: The threat was only received two hours prior, and intelligence agencies themselves, not to mention third parties, receive mountains of threats of attacks, including threats specific to time and place, just about every day in this country. Separating the wheat from the chaff is not so easy!]
This question goes unexplored in our Zionized US media. Somehow investigative journalism has gone the way of the dinosaur when it comes to anything having to do with 9-11 and Israel. I wonder why?
The fact is that the Zionized US media has been covering for Israel for decades, censoring at worst and downplaying at best anything negative about Israel and, in order to keep Americans blindly supporting the Jewish state, especially financially, and to stop all dissent against Israel. They apparently figure that ignorance is bliss.
Why does Michael Moore fail to explain how bin Laden was excommunicated from his own family and that the government of Saudi Arabia also not only permanently expelled bin Laden for his militant activities against the Saudi government, but also froze his bank accounts?
[RL: I would argue that blood runs deep, and many of bin Laden's family continue to have contacts with him despite this "excommunication", and some of them even support him. Furthermore, I feel that a number of prominent Saudi princes also support bin Laden, and he has deep support in the Saudi security forces.]
Why does Michael Moore not mention the reasons that bin Laden gave when answering the famous question, “Why do they hate us?”
[RL: Hope springs eternal, and liberal and Leftist optimists, including Andrew Cockburn of Counterpunch, continue to naively believe that Mr. bin Laden can be bought off at some point.
Whereas, if you study the Takfiri philosophy of Al Qaeda, to me it becomes clear that this war between us and AQ will end only with the defeat or marginalization of one side or the other, as their goals are non-negotiable from our point of view.]
By the way, it’s not “because they hate our freedom”? Helllloooo!
Bin Laden has many times stated that he and his colleagues consider the United States as the enemy of the Arab world because of the unconditional US support (financial, political and military) gives to the apartheid, ethnic-cleansing Jewish state of Israel, as well as the continuing stationing of US troops on Saudi Arabia’s soil. The Arab world wants its freedom - from the Zio-American imperialists!
Do you really think the Arab world in Iraq or anywhere else wanted the new American crusade dubbed “The War on Terror”?
[RL: Yes, I am certain that Mr. bin Laden et al wanted it. After all, they deliberately provoked us into this conflict in order to "wake the sleeping Muslim masses", or to "deepen the contradictions", to use a Marxist revolutionary phrase.]
If anything, this has won Islamic militants even more supporters in the Arab world.
Have you noticed how it seems more and more like it’s the current US government that hates our freedoms? As in the Orwellian-named (like everything else these days with regards to whatever “our” government and media says) “Patriot Act”?
As in “our” government spying on American citizens? As in allowing certain kinds of crimes to be called “hate crimes” and others not (depending on your race, ethnicity or “religion”)? There are many more examples of complete and utter hypocrisy, but let’s move on…
Why does Michael Moore mention the bombing of the USS Cole by Al Qaeda but does not mention the massive bombing of the USS Liberty by the Israeli Air Force in 1967, which killed 34 US soldiers
[RL: Sailors?]
and wounded 120 more? This was also completely suppressed by our own government and media until recently. For the details, go to this website.
Why does Michael Moore focus only on the money that our government receives from Saudi Arabia?
Why does he fail to mention the billions of dollars that our US government gives to Israel every year in exchange for the financial political contributions from organized Zionist Jewish political committees and individuals, as well as the largely Zionist Jewish-owned and dominated US media, which, combined, can make or break any politician who fails to constantly pledge 120% allegiance to the “security” of Israel?
The US media completely dropped presidential candidate Howard Dean for even just suggesting that the US government should have a more “balanced” approach towards the Palestine-Israel conflict.
Why does Moore not mention that the Saudi Arabian government has pleaded with the American government to publicly release ALL of the pages of its findings on 9-11 that supposedly have “something to do with Saudi Arabia”?
[RL: I have no idea why the Saudis would do that. My information is that those missing pages implicate Saudis heavily in the 9-11 plot, and were redacted by corrupt US politicians who are on the Saudi oil payroll in one way or another.]
Certain people for their own reasons do not want this to come to light. Could it be because certain people want Americans to imagine the worst about Saudi Arabia and to then thereby serve as a convenient scapegoat for 9-11?
[RL: For the record, my opinion is that 9-11 was all about Saudi Arabia, and was designed that way by bin Laden himself. Bin Laden deliberately chose mostly Saudis to participate in the attacks, especially those from under-served regions like Asir.
He did this to shame and humiliate the Kingdom by putting a Saudi face on the attack. I do not have recent statistics, but a few years ago, Saudi dissidents estimated that 80% of Al Qaeda's cadres were Saudis. Al Qaeda is, for all practical purposes, a Saudi organization.]
Why does Michael Moore fail to show footage or photos of the many occasions that President Bush has stood in front of the Israeli flag with his hand over his heart in allegiance,
[RL: Excuse me? Exactly how many times has George Bush stood in front of an Israeli flag with his hand over his heart pledging allegiance? "Many" times?! Can anyone tell me?]
including at the 2004 AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) Conference where he got 22 standing ovations from Zionist Jews and their non-Jewish sycophants in the audience?
By the way, since then, AIPAC has been exposed and embarrassed by the arrest of two of its top brass for illegal spying on the US for Israel. Yet another story that has been downplayed in the complicit US media.
Why did Michael Moore fail to show President Bush calling Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a “man of peace”, while the Israeli army continued to demolish entire sections of Palestinian cities as he spoke the words, killing scores of Palestinian civilians, as in the case of Jenin?
This gave Israel the green light to continue its massive campaign of ethnic cleansing against the indigenous non-Jewish Palestinian people. And it’s still happening today, despite the Gaza pull-out, which was mostly a publicity stunt to fool the American public in particular, but in truth, was designed to turn the Gaza Strip into one big open air prison, where the inmates are continually harassed, even killed, while being starved.
When it comes to the Israelis, it’s all a deceptive shell game. Meanwhile, they are continuing to aggressively steal more Palestinian land in the West Bank, unilaterally making new “borders” with their massive Apartheid Wall. Again, the Zionized US media puts a veil on this to deceive the American public.
Why does Michael Moore gratuitously show a rapid clip of someone being beheaded in Saudi Arabia, while ignoring scenes of Israeli depravity?
Why does he fail to show scenes such as the aftermath of an Israeli Air Force helicopter (courtesy of American taxpayers) dropping a one-ton bomb (again, courtesy of American taxpayers)...
[RL: I am almost certain that this bomb was dropped by a jet, and anyway, helicopters don't drop bombs.]
...in the middle of the night onto a crowded Palestinian apartment building, killing hundreds of innocent Palestinian civilians, including women and children, in order to kill one Palestinian militant?
[RL: Actually, I believe that 13 civilians were killed in this attack, mostly relatives of the top militant. On the other hand, he was cynically surrounding himself with civilians everywhere he went at the time.]
Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon said publicly that he was pleased with the results of this murder spree.
Why does every Hollywood filmmaker, in addition to the US media, fail to address the unjust way in which Israel was created in the first place?
After WWI, Britain took over Palestine and made contradictory promises, promising a Jewish state to Eastern European Zionist Jews, and at the same time promising the native, indigenous Palestinians their own sovereign state of Palestine.
After WWII, Britain “gave” Palestine, which was Arab land, over to the United Nations.
The UN was made up of White European Christian countries, with influential Jewish politicians and bankers...
[RL: This is not true at all, though those were surely the most powerful nations in the organization. Even at this early date, probably the majority of UN states were in the Third World non-aligned block. The threats and bribes that the US and Britain engaged in to cajole and buy off non-Western opponents to the creation of Israel are legendary.]
...who then unilaterally decided that because of the Holocaust (which happened in Europe and the Palestinians had nothing to do with it), it was somehow “moral” and “necessary” to give away the Palestinians’ lands to Eastern European Zionist Jews for an ethnocentric Jewish state.
[RL: Though Ashkenazi were the majority of the Jews in Mandate territory, there were definitely many Sephardic and Mizrachi Jews in Palestine at this time.]
They never even talked about compensation to the displaced Palestinians,
[RL: Well, according to the UN plan, there were not supposed to be any displaced Palestinians. But the Israelis had other ideas.]
not that anyone should have to give up their land because they are not the “right” religion or ethnicity.
[RL: They never discussed compensation, because according to the UN resolution, which in my opinion was illegal anyway and violated the UN's own charter, no Palestinians were supposed to be displaced in the creation of this Jewish state.
Another resolution a year later demanded the return of all refugees to the places they fled from. Note that Israel has always thumbed its nose at this resolution.]
The war that Zionists began back in 1948 when Israel was created, by stealing Palestinian lands for a Jewish state, continues today due to unconditional support of the US government and with US taxpayers’ money.
Could it be that Michael Moore ignored the major role that Israel, Zionists, the US government, and specifically the neoconservatives, play in the War on “Terror” (As if “war” is not “terror”!?) because he would have a hard time getting it distributed by the Weinstein brothers of Miramax, or anyone else in Hollywood for that matter (like Mel Gibson with his The Passion)?
Could it be because Michael Moore’s agent is Ari Emmanuel, whose brother is none other than Rahm Emmanuel, a former Clinton advisor and current congressman from Illinois, who is reported to be a rabidly hyper supporter of Israel? Other rumors swirl around Rahm Emmanuel on the Internet as well. We’ll leave it for you to do your own Internet research on that. Just Google him and see what you come up with.
[RL: Rahm Emmanuel is one of the most powerful men in the Democratic Party. He is the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. By the way, I have never heard of any sordid rumors about this master political manipulator. Can someone clue me in please?
I realize that such persons as Mr. Emmanuel are necessarily sleazeballs in order to survive in the 8th grade playground of US corrupt, hardball politics. However, Emmanuel is trying very hard to win back Congress as much as possible for the Democratic Party, so I'm not really interested in bashing him right now.]
Could it be that Michael Moore prefers to get rich rather than tell the whole truth? Why is it that he still continues to fail to address the more daring politically hot questions that have been left unasked and unanswered?
Could it be that Michael Moore is a useful and willing pawn for the Zionists, as well as a glutton for money and guilty of moral cowardice?
We must deal truthfully with all the issues involved in order to achieve justice and peace in this world. There must be equal rights for all people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or gender in any country that our government supports, and that includes Israel. If segregation and apartheid were bad in the U.S. and in South Africa, then they are also bad in Israel.
Let’s remember The Golden Rule, rather than “The Gold Rules”.
By the way, I have a few movie recommendations for you that you may not have heard of (Gee, I wonder why?):
Please note: There are Zionist Jewish activists in the US trying to make laws that forbid any criticism of Israel and Zionist politics.
[RL: I am sorry. Can someone please show me an example of how Jewish interests are trying to pass laws criminalizing criticism of Israel and Zionism? Am I missing something here?]
Please do your part to make sure that the Zionists do not succeed in infringing on our freedom of speech. Call your representatives today and demand that all funding for the development of the Department of Anti-Semitism be rescinded.
There must be no double standards and no infringements on our freedom of speech. We must not tolerate apartheid, land-stealing and ethnic-cleansing in the Jewish state of Israel. Palestinians deserve completely equal rights too. Demand that our government stop funding Israel’s war of terror on the Palestinian people!
Here is the toll-free number to Congress: 1-877-762-8762. Make the call today!
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
The following article is another in a series of articles written by one of my colleagues, Wendy Campbell. It was originally written on July 1, 2004 under the nom de plume "concerned American". It was rewritten on March 26, 2006. I am really pleased with this article. Like many angry anti-Zionists, Wendy has gotten caught up in the heat of her rhetoric in the past and has caught quite a bit of heat for that.
Just Google her name to see more. Even the Jerusalem Post called her a neo-Nazi and the British anti-Zionist activist Sue Blackwell went to the extreme of publically distancing herself from Wendy. The Wikipedia entry on Wendy refers to her as an anti-Semitic bigot. It also lists her among Wikipedia's BS List of Anti-Semitic People.
At best, Wendy has often been a lukewarm anti-Semite, one who has been manipulated into this cage by devious rhetors with more ignoble aims. At worst, I really do not think she knows what she is getting into. At least I hope she doesn't know what she is doing. If she does know what she is doing, then she is heading down a black path indeed.
At any rate, I am not aware that she has advocated harming Jews in general in any way, which is a reasonable definition of a dangerous anti-Semite. Nevertheless, she has in the past and continues in the present to make statements about World War 2 and the Holocaust that are nothing more than rehashes of the worst German pro-Nazi propaganda. Shame, shame, shame, shame.
It is an excellent truism that in human affairs we should not attribute to evil what is instead a product of incompetence (or, I would add, ignorance).
Almost all critical-Semites and anti-Zionists (myself included) are going to drift into anti-Semitism at times. Big deal.
Considering that our opponents, militant Zionist Jews, are almost all advocates of an openly racist philosophy, the occasional anti-Semitic utterance on our part hardly seems much of a sin. Despite their ultra-racism, our opponents are rewarded by full inclusion in our society, including access to the pinnacles of our economy and the deepest bowels of our government.
For us critics of militant Jewish behavior, on the other hand, it's often hard to make a living. In many workplaces, private, nonprofit or public sector, there is often a militant Jew somewhere in the background who has something to do with signing the checks. There is also the threat of the Jewish advertiser boycott.
After all, Jews, 1.8% of the US population, reportedly control 25% of the wealth in the country. If you are going to criticize militant Jews in the US, you may be relegated to working at Burger King.
I lost a number of advertisers soon after the publication of Wikipedia, Ziopedia or Judeopedia? The reason given was that "my site does not comply with the standards that the advertisers require". I assume these advertisers took exception to the critical-Semitism of that piece.
No matter what we say, our opponents will call us anti-Semites, bigots, haters, racists, Ku Klux Klansmen, Nazis, neo-Nazis, Jew-haters, terrorists, etc. Even the mild Xymphora is now coming in for attack.
Poor Juan Cole just had his most recent academic appointment to an Ivy League university torpedoed by corrupt Zionist Jewish furies, who play for keeps if they play at all. I am also acquainted with Juan Cole. Juan, to his credit, hasn't an anti-Semitic or even racist bone in his body. The corrupt and dishonest campaign against this man is a crime.
Nevertheless, I think we still need to watch the anti-Semitism, for our own consciences if for no other reason. Let the corrupt militant Zionists and those gullible enough to take their bait wallow in the mud puddles. There is a dignity to the high road.
It is never too late to rehabilitate a reputation, although many militant Jews would like to put a stake through your heart upon the first misstep in criticizing their special tribe and bury you for life, only releasing you if you crawl on the floor and abjectly kiss their feet in humiliation.
In this article, I feel that Wendy shows signs of maturing as an activist and an author. Here, she watches her words more carefully, and her rhetoric is calmer and more reasoned. She does a better job of avoiding the easy anti-Semitic cheap shots and instead chooses to row into the difficult waters of critical-Semitism.
It's hard to row your boat is such choppy waters, but I wish her luck on your journey nevertheless, should she choose to turn the wheel and drive on the high road, where the scenery is better anyway and there are fewer belligerent pedestrians and other drivers to get in your way.
On to the article!
I decided to re-visit this article that I had originally written immediately after I saw Michael Moore’s “daring” documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 when it first came out in July 2004. I have decided to update it because the issues are still timely and as of yet unresolved.
And on top of that, whenever I tell people I have made some political documentaries, they often ask me “Oh, like Michael Moore?”. I usually say, “Something like that, but much more daring. It’s actually much more politically hot. Much more relevant. Check out my website www.marwenmedia.com.”
Please note how many people are still under the impression that Michael Moore is somehow daring. It makes me laugh to think that people think that. Then again it also makes me angry. And it makes me sad. Finally, though, I do think that more people are starting to get the real picture Moore. And that makes me feel cautiously optimistic.
Michael Moore’s cowardice (and avarice) reveals itself in many ways, although he pretends to be your average person, and a good Christian on top of that. For example, Michael Moore himself, and many others, seem to be impressed with his “courage” to chase down and harass the aging Charlton Heston in his documentary Bowling for Columbine, because Heston was the figurehead for the National Rifle Association.
Hey, I’m not into guns myself. In fact, if any guy I have dated in the past has ever told me he has bought a gun, my first reaction was first to be alarmed and then to run the other direction. But the fact is, that in some situations, I feel that it is a citizen’s right to have a gun, especially in certain situations, such as, as one example, if you live out in the middle of the Wyoming wilderness.
Interesting side-notes: Do you realize that the massacre at Columbine would probably have been called a “hate-crime” if the criminals were Arab or Muslim, or even Christian Fundamentalists?
But if you do a Google-search, you will discover that the criminals who committed that massacre were of a certain ethnicity/religion that rarely, if ever, seems to be mentioned in connection with “hate-crimes”. Hint: it starts with a “J”. Ever wonder why some kinds of “hate-crimes” are worse than other “hate-crimes”?
[RL: Is it true that the Columbine killers were both Jewish?]
Ever wonder why magazines such as Vanity Fair will write a huge article about the alleged rape scandal at Duke and emphasize that the accused men were Christian, even to the point of printing a photo of the chapel at Duke in the article?
Yet they have chosen not to do a huge story of the young Jewish men who were guilty of burning many churches in the South earlier this year, and it is certain that they would NEVER include a photo of a synagogue?
[RL: Is it true that these arsonists were Jewish?]
In the same issue of Vanity Fair (June 2006) notice how they feature an in-depth article, The War They Wanted, by Craig Unger, who is obviously a Zionist and probably a Jew...
[RL: Unger is definitely a Jewish surname.]
...never once mentions the Israeli connection to the war “they wanted”? Certainly Vanity Fair has put its voluntary and obligatory blindfolds on with regards to that one, as is typical of the rest of Zionized US media.
Certainly Vanity Fair seems intent on countering the courageous and important paper about the Israel Lobby and its push for the war on Iraq, The Israel Lobby, written by Ivy League professors Mearshimer and Walt, which has been predictably uniformly ignored by Vanity Fair and the rest of the Zionized US media.
“They” are doing their best to make sure that the Israeli connection goes down into the Memory Hole. Typical, so typical.
What would have been a really courageous act is for Michael Moore to have chased down and harassed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (before he went to the hospital, of course) and asked him a few questions, or perhaps Elie Wiesel, whom many people accuse of complete and utter hypocrisy and even lying, since he does not have any tolerance for the human rights of Palestinians in their own ancestral homeland of Palestine.
No, rarely does anyone do that. Why? Do you really need you really ask? Have you not noticed that is not kosher to even legitimately question and verbally challenge some people of a certain religion/ethnicity? That to do so invites typical name-calling such as “anti-Semite”, “Nazi”, “Klan member” and such.
This is an intentional, systematized attempt to censor those who disagree with Zionists with regards to Palestinian human rights. Apparently it works with a lot of people, especially now that there is a Department of Anti-Semitism here in the US trying to make it a crime to criticize Israel and Zionism.
[RL: There is not really a Department of Anti-Semitism in the US. Condoleezza Rice has appointed a Special Envoy for Anti-Semitism, a Jewish man. He is to produce a report on worldwide anti-Semitism every year, for what purpose I do not know. Why the emphasis on this particular group, who, compared to other ethnic groups, suffers far less?
On the other hand, there is no evidence at all that this Department exists to criminalize criticism of Jews, though the fact that it was created in the first place is at best a waste of money and at worst downright spooky.]
They want to make the entire world a criticism-free zone with regards to Israel and Zionism, yet the rest of the world is a fair target, especially Muslims and Arabs. But note how it is even more than tolerable to criticize Bush, Christian Fundamentalism, the concept of God, Jesus, Islam, and corporations than Jews.
Let’s face it! Caterpillar bulldozers do not have minds of their own! Zionist Jews are the ones who are bulldozing Palestinian homes in order to chase them off their land so that the Zionist Jews get to take over the land for a “Greater Israel”.
Our politicians are giving Israel the money to terrorize the Palestinian people, billions of our tax dollars every single year, without conditions, and in fact, tacitly approving of Israel’s crimes against humanity.
Let’s get back to Moore’s film about 9/11.
Moore's film is misleading, smug and cowardly. He picks on the easy usual suspects (Arabs) and ignores the driving forces behind the so-called "War on Terror": Jewish Zionism (with the support of the Christian Zionists), Zionist Israel (the Jewish state of Israel) and the neoconservatives, who are largely Jewish Americans, or you could refer to them as Israeli-Americans.
[RL: I happen to think of the Sunni Takfiri Salafists of Al Qaeda and its many related groups, and its tens of millions of Muslim civilian sympathizers, as co-participants with the Neocon-Zionist Axis in this war.
I also think that Salafist-Takfiri Sunni Islam needs to be wiped off the face of the Earth, and I am not too worried about how to do it or how many of the enemy get killed in the process.]
Moore is like a politician who speaks out of both sides of his mouth. And he knows whom to please in order to get rich.
As a side note, Madonna apparently knows how to brown-nose too, with her gushing on about the Jewish cult of Kabbalah for example, on the Larry King Show and any show that will have her. As if she doesn’t have enough money already.
Sharon Stone also follows suit with similar politically correct gushing about certain people of a certain ethnicity/religion. It’s a great career move! No doubt about it! Especially in Hollywood! Especially for aging celebrities. Oh yeah!
Michael Moore’s documentary raises many interesting issues with regards to 9-11 and the Bush Administration, as well as the war on Iraq and Afghanistan.
Note: And now Iran and Syria are in the neocons' crosshairs. Syria exports no oil. Hello. By the way, the Democrats are just as bad these days. Note their silence when they should be pushing for the impeachment of Bush. They are almost all enablers, and should be forced to resign for allowing this war to happen as well as the continual erosion of our freedoms.
However, Fahrenheit 9/11 avoids many more important but politically hot questions.
Why does Moore focus only on the Saudis, yet never mentions the well-known role of Zionist Israel, Israeli spies and the Neoconservatives, who are mostly Zionist Jewish Americans (make that Israeli-Americans) as well as Zionist Christian Americans, in the war on Iraq?
Check out the most notorious of the neoconservatives' websites.
See how they called for an attack on Iraq even back in 1996, and how they “needed” a Pearl Harbor-style event “to happen” to “motivate” Americans to allow such a war, where Iraq would only be the beginning of endless war (the so-called “War on Terror”, when it really should be called the “War of Terror”), to achieve a Zionist-American empire.
This website is also known as “Project for New America” or PNAC (Pee-Nack) for short. I hope you have heard of it by now! By the way, the Neocons may have cleaned up their website by now...
[RL: I do not think so. These brazen fellows have always delighted in conspiring in plain sight for some reason, probably because Americans have been brainwashed into believing that all conspiracy theory is either racism or a symptom of mental illness.]
...but there is plenty of information about it on the Internet if you do a Google-search. I highly recommend it. If you want to preserve your constitutional rights, you owe it to yourself and this country.
Here are some more questions for you to ponder…
Why does Moore omit facts such as that bin Laden and Al Qaeda never even publicly claimed credit for 9-11?
[RL: I believe that bin Laden took credit for it in a controversial video. Also, a number of other top Al Qaeda members like Khalid Sheik Mohammad have confessed that they did it.]
Yes, apparently bin Laden stated publicly he was happy about 9-11, but so did former Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Netanyahu stated that he was happy about 9-11, since then Israel’s “war on terror” or more accurately, Israel’s racist ethnic cleansing campaign against indigenous non-Jewish Palestinians and neighboring Arab countries outside of Israel, would now be fought by Americans against Israel’s self-made enemies.
[RL: Netanyahu did not exactly say he was happy about 9-11, but he made some telling remarks that could be read that way by a careful reader. For that matter, Condi Rice admitted right away that 9-11 was "very useful" for the US. For US imperialism, that is.]
By the way, Israel’s enemies are not necessarily America’s enemies, especially if it weren’t for America’s unconditional support of Zionist Israel.
According to many sources on the Internet and elsewhere, 9-11 very well could have been an “inside job” in collusion with the Mossad, and for all we know, it could be true. It could have been what is known as a “false flag” operation.
[RL: Just for the record, I would like to say that I feel that 9-11 was 100% done by Al Qaeda. There is controversy whether the Mossad or Israeli elements had inside knowledge of the attack, but did not try to stop it. There is evidence for and against this theory, and I regard it as inconclusive.
But apparently unnamed Israelis in Ontario and Hamburg made millions of dollars via suspicious stock market trades based on apparent inside knowledge of the 9-11 plot. Why these Israelis have not yet been brought to justice is beyond me. I've lost the link about this insider-trading stuff, and if anyone who can find it, would you please email it to me?]
Why is it taboo to explore this possibility? Why is it that an Arab conspiracy nicknamed “Al Qaeda” is the only conspiracy that we Americans are allowed to consider? Don’t we live in a democratic country?
Ask yourself: Who has benefited most from the war on Iraq?
[RL: The qui bono game is a favorite of Arabs, Muslims and liberal and Leftist conspiracy theorists, but I am not impressed by it. First of all, it implies that armed groups never do stupid, self-destructive things. In fact, they do all the time.]
Certainly not the Saudis, who even had to back out of the Halliburton war profits as Moore’s film shows. Even the American corporations aren’t getting too much out of the deal. And Bush is getting bashed everywhere. The fact is that Israel has pushed for this war, and has to most to gain from it.
[RL: Although Israeli support was crucial for this war, I do not think that this war was all about Israel. In particular, I find it ridiculous the George Bush attacked Iraq solely to benefit Israel.
There were all sorts of reasons for this war, and while the Zionist aspect was very important, it is just more reductionism to say that it was the only factor. Complex political and military decisions by large states are rarely done for only one reason anyway.]
They even expect to get free oil from this war, with a pipeline from Iraq to Haifa, Israel out of the deal. Do a Google search on “pipe-line from Iraq to Haifa, Israel”. The Israel-firster Neo-Conservatives are pushing for this as a “bonus” for Israel’s “support for the US war on Iraq!”
[RL: It is correct that while these head-in-the-clouds neocon clowns did indeed expect to be able to get an oil pipeline to Israel out of this war, that plan presently lies in the dust, or sand as it were, blown to bits along with 250,000 Iraqis. In the foreseeable future, that plan is about as likely to come back to life as those Iraqis are.]
Yet, not only is Moore too afraid to “bash” Israel for its covert, but hugely influential role in this imperial war, he’s afraid to even mention Zionist Israel’s and the neoconservatives’ roles in the Bush administration. Note that the Democrats these days are just as bad.
The furthest Moore goes out on this limb is to show a couple of cameos in the film of the top dog Neoconservative deputy of defense Paul Wolfowitz, without even naming him, or explaining who he is and who he represents (the Neoconservatives, and mostly Israel).
Please keep in mind that this war is all being financed with our tax dollars, without giving us a chance to vote on it, and the Zionized US media are deliberately keeping Americans in the dark about all this.
Why does Moore not mention that at least five of the so-called Saudi hijackers were cases of stolen identity? (Do a Google-search on “mistaken identity of 9-11 hijackers”.) While the American media under-reported this fact at the time, it was widely reported in foreign media, including BBC). Therefore it is a fact that we really do not know where all the hijackers came from or who they were.
[RL: That is right, but that does not mean that Al Qaeda did not do it.]
Why does Michael Moore never even mention the “dancing Israeli spies” and their suspicious behavior while videotaping the 9-11 WTC attacks and whooping it up? They were detained for a couple months by the FBI and then released on “visa violations”. (Do a Google-search on “dancing Israeli spies 9-11”).
There are many reports of Israeli spies who lived on the same block as the 9-11 terrorists and were engaged in suspicious activities during that time as well as recently, as a general Google search on “Israeli spies” will reveal.
Note how Michael Moore didn’t include any footage in his film from the now famous Fox News four-part series on Israeli spying in the US with Brit Hume and Carl Cameron, which was amazingly broadcast shortly after 9-11 happened, although it was deleted from their archives shortly after. Here is a link to a website that now allows you access to it.
Why does Michael Moore never mention in his film the fact that employees of Odigo, an Israeli-owned company that had offices in the WTC, were forewarned to leave the WTC offices a couple hours before the attacks
[RL: The problem with this analysis, which is the obvious source of the insane Arab, Muslim and anti-Semitic rumors of "6,000 Jews stayed home from work that day", is that it implies that Israel had foreknowledge of the attacks.
If that is so, why did they not warn the huge number of Jews who were working in the World Trade Center not to come to work that day? US Jews got absolutely devastated by 9-11; they were hammered far worse, proportionatetly, than any other ethnic group by that attack.
The number of Jews who were killed by 9-11 has not been tallied, but it is surely in the hundreds. Looking through the list of victims, I tried to count the Jewish surnames, but kept losing count - there were so many.
Why would Zionist Israel, nasty as it is, sacrifice hundreds of innocent US Jews in the carnage of the WTC, and only bother to warn a tiny handful of Israelis? The more I think about this supposed Israeli 9-11 plot, the more nuts it seems.]
(a fact confirmed in the esteemed Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, and even, believe it or not, the Washington Post!)? Here's the story as printed in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz:
Isn’t this incredible?Odigo says workers were warned of attack
By Yuval Dror
Odigo, the instant messaging service, says that two of its workers received messages two hours before the Twin Towers attack on September 11 predicting the attack would happen, and the company has been cooperating with Israeli and American law enforcement, including the FBI, in trying to find the original sender of the message predicting the attack.
Micha Macover, CEO of the company, said the two workers received the messages and immediately after the terror attack informed the company's management, which immediately contacted the Israeli security services, which brought in the FBI.
"I have no idea why the message was sent to these two workers, who don't know the sender. It may just have been someone who was joking and turned out they accidentally got it right. And I don't know if our information was useful in any of the arrests the FBI has made," said Macover. Odigo is a U.S.-based company whose headquarters are in New York, with offices in Herzliya.
As an instant messaging service, Odigo users are not limited to sending messages only to people on their "buddy" list, as is the case with ICQ, the other well-known Israeli instant messaging application.
Odigo usually zealously protects the privacy of its registered users, said Macover, but in this case the company took the initiative to provide the law enforcement services with the originating Internet Presence address of the message, so the FBI could track down the Internet Service Provider, and the actual sender of the original message.
[RL: This interesting article has become fodder for anti-Zionists and anti-Semites who are intent on showing and proving that Israel had foreknowledge of the 9-11 plot. Unfortunately, not only does it do no such thing, but also this is not the only warning of the 9-11 plot before it occurred.
If you check out Michael Ruppert's 9-11 Timeline on his From the Wilderness webpage, you will see that there were actually many warnings of this plot before it occurred, from all over the world. I don't have time to list them all right now, but feel free to go to the website and check them out.
As far as why they were not acted on, note my comment below on how intelligence agencies get bucket loads of such reports all the time. Almost all of them turn out to be false alarms. Since the Odigo revelation was neither unusual nor unique, I feel it is improper and suspicious to emphasize it to the exclusion of all the other reports.]
Don’t you think someone in their offices might have at least called the building security? Isn’t that standard procedure when you get an anonymous e-mail like that? You know, if there is ever a bomb threat or similar threat made anywhere, you notify whoever is in charge and the police come and evacuate everyone from the building.
But no, this did not happen in the WTC on 9/11. Why not?
[RL: The threat was only received two hours prior, and intelligence agencies themselves, not to mention third parties, receive mountains of threats of attacks, including threats specific to time and place, just about every day in this country. Separating the wheat from the chaff is not so easy!]
This question goes unexplored in our Zionized US media. Somehow investigative journalism has gone the way of the dinosaur when it comes to anything having to do with 9-11 and Israel. I wonder why?
The fact is that the Zionized US media has been covering for Israel for decades, censoring at worst and downplaying at best anything negative about Israel and, in order to keep Americans blindly supporting the Jewish state, especially financially, and to stop all dissent against Israel. They apparently figure that ignorance is bliss.
Why does Michael Moore fail to explain how bin Laden was excommunicated from his own family and that the government of Saudi Arabia also not only permanently expelled bin Laden for his militant activities against the Saudi government, but also froze his bank accounts?
[RL: I would argue that blood runs deep, and many of bin Laden's family continue to have contacts with him despite this "excommunication", and some of them even support him. Furthermore, I feel that a number of prominent Saudi princes also support bin Laden, and he has deep support in the Saudi security forces.]
Why does Michael Moore not mention the reasons that bin Laden gave when answering the famous question, “Why do they hate us?”
[RL: Hope springs eternal, and liberal and Leftist optimists, including Andrew Cockburn of Counterpunch, continue to naively believe that Mr. bin Laden can be bought off at some point.
Whereas, if you study the Takfiri philosophy of Al Qaeda, to me it becomes clear that this war between us and AQ will end only with the defeat or marginalization of one side or the other, as their goals are non-negotiable from our point of view.]
By the way, it’s not “because they hate our freedom”? Helllloooo!
Bin Laden has many times stated that he and his colleagues consider the United States as the enemy of the Arab world because of the unconditional US support (financial, political and military) gives to the apartheid, ethnic-cleansing Jewish state of Israel, as well as the continuing stationing of US troops on Saudi Arabia’s soil. The Arab world wants its freedom - from the Zio-American imperialists!
Do you really think the Arab world in Iraq or anywhere else wanted the new American crusade dubbed “The War on Terror”?
[RL: Yes, I am certain that Mr. bin Laden et al wanted it. After all, they deliberately provoked us into this conflict in order to "wake the sleeping Muslim masses", or to "deepen the contradictions", to use a Marxist revolutionary phrase.]
If anything, this has won Islamic militants even more supporters in the Arab world.
Have you noticed how it seems more and more like it’s the current US government that hates our freedoms? As in the Orwellian-named (like everything else these days with regards to whatever “our” government and media says) “Patriot Act”?
As in “our” government spying on American citizens? As in allowing certain kinds of crimes to be called “hate crimes” and others not (depending on your race, ethnicity or “religion”)? There are many more examples of complete and utter hypocrisy, but let’s move on…
Why does Michael Moore mention the bombing of the USS Cole by Al Qaeda but does not mention the massive bombing of the USS Liberty by the Israeli Air Force in 1967, which killed 34 US soldiers
[RL: Sailors?]
and wounded 120 more? This was also completely suppressed by our own government and media until recently. For the details, go to this website.
Why does Michael Moore focus only on the money that our government receives from Saudi Arabia?
Why does he fail to mention the billions of dollars that our US government gives to Israel every year in exchange for the financial political contributions from organized Zionist Jewish political committees and individuals, as well as the largely Zionist Jewish-owned and dominated US media, which, combined, can make or break any politician who fails to constantly pledge 120% allegiance to the “security” of Israel?
The US media completely dropped presidential candidate Howard Dean for even just suggesting that the US government should have a more “balanced” approach towards the Palestine-Israel conflict.
Why does Moore not mention that the Saudi Arabian government has pleaded with the American government to publicly release ALL of the pages of its findings on 9-11 that supposedly have “something to do with Saudi Arabia”?
[RL: I have no idea why the Saudis would do that. My information is that those missing pages implicate Saudis heavily in the 9-11 plot, and were redacted by corrupt US politicians who are on the Saudi oil payroll in one way or another.]
Certain people for their own reasons do not want this to come to light. Could it be because certain people want Americans to imagine the worst about Saudi Arabia and to then thereby serve as a convenient scapegoat for 9-11?
[RL: For the record, my opinion is that 9-11 was all about Saudi Arabia, and was designed that way by bin Laden himself. Bin Laden deliberately chose mostly Saudis to participate in the attacks, especially those from under-served regions like Asir.
He did this to shame and humiliate the Kingdom by putting a Saudi face on the attack. I do not have recent statistics, but a few years ago, Saudi dissidents estimated that 80% of Al Qaeda's cadres were Saudis. Al Qaeda is, for all practical purposes, a Saudi organization.]
Why does Michael Moore fail to show footage or photos of the many occasions that President Bush has stood in front of the Israeli flag with his hand over his heart in allegiance,
[RL: Excuse me? Exactly how many times has George Bush stood in front of an Israeli flag with his hand over his heart pledging allegiance? "Many" times?! Can anyone tell me?]
including at the 2004 AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) Conference where he got 22 standing ovations from Zionist Jews and their non-Jewish sycophants in the audience?
By the way, since then, AIPAC has been exposed and embarrassed by the arrest of two of its top brass for illegal spying on the US for Israel. Yet another story that has been downplayed in the complicit US media.
Why did Michael Moore fail to show President Bush calling Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a “man of peace”, while the Israeli army continued to demolish entire sections of Palestinian cities as he spoke the words, killing scores of Palestinian civilians, as in the case of Jenin?
This gave Israel the green light to continue its massive campaign of ethnic cleansing against the indigenous non-Jewish Palestinian people. And it’s still happening today, despite the Gaza pull-out, which was mostly a publicity stunt to fool the American public in particular, but in truth, was designed to turn the Gaza Strip into one big open air prison, where the inmates are continually harassed, even killed, while being starved.
When it comes to the Israelis, it’s all a deceptive shell game. Meanwhile, they are continuing to aggressively steal more Palestinian land in the West Bank, unilaterally making new “borders” with their massive Apartheid Wall. Again, the Zionized US media puts a veil on this to deceive the American public.
Why does Michael Moore gratuitously show a rapid clip of someone being beheaded in Saudi Arabia, while ignoring scenes of Israeli depravity?
Why does he fail to show scenes such as the aftermath of an Israeli Air Force helicopter (courtesy of American taxpayers) dropping a one-ton bomb (again, courtesy of American taxpayers)...
[RL: I am almost certain that this bomb was dropped by a jet, and anyway, helicopters don't drop bombs.]
...in the middle of the night onto a crowded Palestinian apartment building, killing hundreds of innocent Palestinian civilians, including women and children, in order to kill one Palestinian militant?
[RL: Actually, I believe that 13 civilians were killed in this attack, mostly relatives of the top militant. On the other hand, he was cynically surrounding himself with civilians everywhere he went at the time.]
Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon said publicly that he was pleased with the results of this murder spree.
Why does every Hollywood filmmaker, in addition to the US media, fail to address the unjust way in which Israel was created in the first place?
After WWI, Britain took over Palestine and made contradictory promises, promising a Jewish state to Eastern European Zionist Jews, and at the same time promising the native, indigenous Palestinians their own sovereign state of Palestine.
After WWII, Britain “gave” Palestine, which was Arab land, over to the United Nations.
The UN was made up of White European Christian countries, with influential Jewish politicians and bankers...
[RL: This is not true at all, though those were surely the most powerful nations in the organization. Even at this early date, probably the majority of UN states were in the Third World non-aligned block. The threats and bribes that the US and Britain engaged in to cajole and buy off non-Western opponents to the creation of Israel are legendary.]
...who then unilaterally decided that because of the Holocaust (which happened in Europe and the Palestinians had nothing to do with it), it was somehow “moral” and “necessary” to give away the Palestinians’ lands to Eastern European Zionist Jews for an ethnocentric Jewish state.
[RL: Though Ashkenazi were the majority of the Jews in Mandate territory, there were definitely many Sephardic and Mizrachi Jews in Palestine at this time.]
They never even talked about compensation to the displaced Palestinians,
[RL: Well, according to the UN plan, there were not supposed to be any displaced Palestinians. But the Israelis had other ideas.]
not that anyone should have to give up their land because they are not the “right” religion or ethnicity.
[RL: They never discussed compensation, because according to the UN resolution, which in my opinion was illegal anyway and violated the UN's own charter, no Palestinians were supposed to be displaced in the creation of this Jewish state.
Another resolution a year later demanded the return of all refugees to the places they fled from. Note that Israel has always thumbed its nose at this resolution.]
The war that Zionists began back in 1948 when Israel was created, by stealing Palestinian lands for a Jewish state, continues today due to unconditional support of the US government and with US taxpayers’ money.
Could it be that Michael Moore ignored the major role that Israel, Zionists, the US government, and specifically the neoconservatives, play in the War on “Terror” (As if “war” is not “terror”!?) because he would have a hard time getting it distributed by the Weinstein brothers of Miramax, or anyone else in Hollywood for that matter (like Mel Gibson with his The Passion)?
Could it be because Michael Moore’s agent is Ari Emmanuel, whose brother is none other than Rahm Emmanuel, a former Clinton advisor and current congressman from Illinois, who is reported to be a rabidly hyper supporter of Israel? Other rumors swirl around Rahm Emmanuel on the Internet as well. We’ll leave it for you to do your own Internet research on that. Just Google him and see what you come up with.
[RL: Rahm Emmanuel is one of the most powerful men in the Democratic Party. He is the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. By the way, I have never heard of any sordid rumors about this master political manipulator. Can someone clue me in please?
I realize that such persons as Mr. Emmanuel are necessarily sleazeballs in order to survive in the 8th grade playground of US corrupt, hardball politics. However, Emmanuel is trying very hard to win back Congress as much as possible for the Democratic Party, so I'm not really interested in bashing him right now.]
Could it be that Michael Moore prefers to get rich rather than tell the whole truth? Why is it that he still continues to fail to address the more daring politically hot questions that have been left unasked and unanswered?
Could it be that Michael Moore is a useful and willing pawn for the Zionists, as well as a glutton for money and guilty of moral cowardice?
We must deal truthfully with all the issues involved in order to achieve justice and peace in this world. There must be equal rights for all people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or gender in any country that our government supports, and that includes Israel. If segregation and apartheid were bad in the U.S. and in South Africa, then they are also bad in Israel.
Let’s remember The Golden Rule, rather than “The Gold Rules”.
By the way, I have a few movie recommendations for you that you may not have heard of (Gee, I wonder why?):
- The Last Mogul: The Life and Times of Lew Wasserman to get the true history of Hollywood, and see how very interconnected politics and media are. Also tellingly, one of Wasserman’s favorite mottoes was “Dress British, think Yiddish.” See how Lew Wasserman helped put Ronald Reagan into the office of US presidency. If it would not have been made by Jewish filmmaker Barry Avrich, I doubt very much that it would have gotten distributed. As it was, it got limited publicity and limited distribution.
- Jenin, Jenin and Gaza Strip, both available at this website. See the racist persecution your tax dollars are massively supporting.
- USS Liberty Survivors: Our Story available at our website. See how the history of our government’s protection of Israel despite its treacherous actions, and subsequent cover-up of such. Yes, the tail does wag the dog, and has been for decades.
- Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid
- Neturei Karta: Jews Against Zionism
- Rosa Remembers Palestine
- Syria: Land of Friendly People and Hidden Treasure
Please note: There are Zionist Jewish activists in the US trying to make laws that forbid any criticism of Israel and Zionist politics.
[RL: I am sorry. Can someone please show me an example of how Jewish interests are trying to pass laws criminalizing criticism of Israel and Zionism? Am I missing something here?]
Please do your part to make sure that the Zionists do not succeed in infringing on our freedom of speech. Call your representatives today and demand that all funding for the development of the Department of Anti-Semitism be rescinded.
There must be no double standards and no infringements on our freedom of speech. We must not tolerate apartheid, land-stealing and ethnic-cleansing in the Jewish state of Israel. Palestinians deserve completely equal rights too. Demand that our government stop funding Israel’s war of terror on the Palestinian people!
Here is the toll-free number to Congress: 1-877-762-8762. Make the call today!
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