ACLU Sues Justice Department over Torture Report

The ACLU filed suit Friday in a bid to force the Justice Department to release its internal report on torture.

by Zachary Roth

The long-awaited report from the department's Office of Professional Ethics considers whether DOJ lawyers like John Yoo broke ethics rules in writing the memos that approved torture.

Read The rest Here

ISRAEL: WHEN THE WORLD IS TALKING GOLDSTONE, WE TALK HOLOCAUST

Israel has once again displayed an arrogance that not even a Jewish mother could love. Basically, ‘nothing that happens today really matters….. we suffered in the past and that’s what counts’.
Cashing in on the Holocaust was always a big business….. but there are limits. Israel seems to disagree as can be seen in the following…..
Wednesday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and an Israeli public relations drive like this hasn’t been seen for ages. The timing of the unusual effort – never have so many ministers deployed across the globe – is not coincidental: When the world is talking Goldstone, we talk Holocaust, as if out to blur the impression. When the world talks occupation, we’ll talk Iran as if we wanted them to forget.
A thousand speeches against anti-Semitism will not extinguish the flames ignited by Operation Cast Lead, flames that threaten not only Israel but the entire Jewish world. As long as Gaza is under blockade and Israel sinks into its institutionalized xenophobia, Holocaust speeches will remain hollow. As long as evil is rampant here at home, neither the world nor we will be able to accept our preaching to others, even if they deserve it.
The above is taken from Gideon Levy’s report in todays HaAretz….
Holocaust remembrance is a boon for Israeli propaganda

Source: Desert Peace

99% of Auschwitz Eyewitness Testimony Cannot Be Substantiated”

"99% der Auschwitz-Augenzeugenberichte sind kriminologisch nicht zu beweisen"
“99% of Auschwitz Eyewitness Testimony Cannot Be Substantiated”

By the Authors of the National Journal
10 January 2010

Translated by J M Damon
The Original is Posted at



****************

“99% of Auschwitz Testimony Is Forensically Unsubstantiated”


The Jewish Auschwitz expert Robert Jan van Pelt wants to demolish the physical remains of Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
The pressure from the Islamic world to duplicate the Rudolf Expert Report and adopt its findings is growing from day to day, and van Pelt wants to hinder official state investigations at all costs.
In an interview with the Canadian newspaper The STAR on 27 December 2009, he urges that all the remains of ruined buildings at Auschwitz-Birkenau be completely demolished and removed.
In his opinion, only the buildings of the Stammlager (original camp) should be preserved.
(In his book AUSCHWITZ 1270 BIS HEUTE (Auschwitz 1270 Until Today) he admits that no gassings took place in the Stammlager.)

Van Pelt wants to put an end to forensic investigations of “Holocaust” at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
He advocates clearing the site even though the ceilings and ruins of the crematories (alleged homicidal gas chambers) are still present and available for investigation.
If homicidal gassings had taken place there, these ruins would exhibit high residues of Prussian Blue (insoluble compounds of Ferro cyanide).
These residues are traces of the deadly poison gas cyanic acid (marketed under the name “Cyclon B”), which was the principal insecticide before the discovery of DDT.
Such residues are simply not present in the alleged “homicidal gas chambers” morgue and crematoria, although they are bountiful in the walls and ceilings of the fumigation chambers where the Germans used Cyclon B to delouse blankets and clothing of inmates and staff.

The most sensational part of the STAR interview is van Pelt’s admission that none of the testimony of Auschwitz witnesses can be scientifically proven or forensically substantiated.
Countless “Holocaust” researchers over many years have been thrown in prison for making this very statement.
In 2009, the inquisitorial German courts sentenced lifetime dissident Horst Mahler, 73, to 13 years’ imprisonment for insisting that there is no empirical evidence to support “Holocaust Industry” claims of mass gassings or attempted genocide of the Jews.

Following are the most important passages from van Pelt’s interview in the STAR.
In the words of the Jewish Auschwitz expert Robert Jan van Pelt, “We have no material or forensic evidence to support eyewitness reports of gassings...
Ninety-nine per cent of what we know we do not actually have the physical evidence to prove [then how do ‘we know’ it!?]...
It has become part of our inherited knowledge.
I don't think that the Holocaust is an exceptional case in that sense.
We in the future – remembering the Holocaust – will operate in the same way that we remember most things from the past
We will know about it from literature and eyewitness testimony...
We are very successful in remembering the past in that manner.
To put the holocaust in some separate category and to demand that it be there – to demand that we have more material evidence – is actually us [sic] somehow giving in to the Holocaust deniers by providing some sort of special evidence.
It has become part of our inherited knowledge.
(The Canadian STAR 27 December 2009.)


According to van Pelt, the “greatest mass murder in world history” should remain un-investigated!
He thinks we should rely exclusively on testimony of mass gassings by former inmates!
Dear reader, everyone should familiarize himself with these “eyewitnesses.”
Jürgen Graf’s book "AUSCHWITZ: TÄTERGESTÄNDNISSE UND AUGENZEUGEN DES HOLOCAUST" (Auschwitz: Confessions and Eyewitness Accounts of Holocaust) gives us some really eye-opening facts concerning the veracity of this “testimony.”
The witnesses would have us believe that what every normal and ingenuous person would consider lurid and fantastic is nevertheless factual.

In the course of the “Auschwitz Trials” (Record 50/Ks 2/63) in Frankfurt, which dragged on for years, neither exhumed bodies nor forensic investigations of the alleged homicidal gas chambers were presented as evidence, even though the so-called “Court” visited Auschwitz on several occasions to visually inspect the scene of the alleged crimes and interview witnesses.
Having dispensed with forensic evidence, the “Court” complained in its verdict about the lack of such evidence:
“An additional difficulty lay in the fact that the eyewitnesses – understandably – were seldom able to give exact descriptions of the time and place of specific events...”

This “Court” was almost completely lacking in all the evidence and methods of gathering information that are available in normal murder trials to form an accurate picture of events at the time of the alleged murders.
Try to imagine murder trials in which there are no bodies of victims, no autopsy reports, no expert opinions as to cause of death, no time of death, etc.!
There was no forensic evidence pertaining to perpetrators or weapons employed in the monstrous alleged crimes, and the Defense was very seldom allowed to question the witnesses.
(See Auschwitz-Urteil 50/Ks 2/63, page 109)

Think about it, dear reader.
Isn’t this incredible?
In its verdict the alleged Court admitted that van Pelt’s much-vaunted eyewitness testimony was inexact and could not be substantiated.
The following sentence is found on page 109 of the verdict:
“The witnesses, understandably, were seldom able to give exact information as to time and place of specific events...
Examination and validation of testimony was seldom possible.”

Thus the authenticity of the “Auschwitz Holocaust” was “proven” with generalized, imprecise witness testimony and a total lack of forensic evidence.
Anyone who points to the Diploma Chemist Rudolf’s EXPERT REPORT and demands free and open discussions goes to jail for many years, even for life.
And yet, the RUDOLF REPORT stands irrefuted, irrefutable.
In 1993, more than 300 professors of Inorganic Chemistry in the Federal Republic were unable to find a single mistake in Rudolf’s report.
The Swiss forensic expert Professor of Chemistry Dr. Henri Ramuz attested to Rudolf’s scientific competence, and the Director of the Jewish Anne-Frank Association, Hans Westra, admitted on the Belgian TV program PANORAMA on 27 April 1995: “The scientific analyses in the RUDOLF EXPERT REPORT are perfect.”

****************

Here's freedom to him who would speak,
Here's freedom to him who would write;
For there's none ever feared that the truth should be heard,
Save him whom the truth would indict!
ROBERT BURNS (1759–96)

Source:Adelaide Institute

Norman Finkelstein debates the "Holocaust" with Israeli Auschwitz rep

Nullification: It’s Official.

While speaking to a large crowd of over a thousand people on the campus of Arizona State University last December, Congressman Ron Paul mentioned one thing that might come about as the result of the federal government habitually ignoring the Constitution: Nullification.
About five minutes into the video segment which you’ll find below, he said, “There’s not much attention paid to the Constitution in Washington. There’s not much attention paid to it by our executive branch of government. And we don’t get much protection from our courts. So one thing that might finally happen from this if the people finally feel so frustrated that they can’t get the results out of Washington — They’re going to start thinking about options. They might start thinking about nullification and a few things like that.”
As someone who attended that rally and was doing my best to represent my state’s chapter of The Tenth Amendment Center, I know I cheered very loudly and was very pleased when the rest of the crowd applauded enthusiastically.
For anyone who is unfamiliar with the concept of state nullification, it was the idea expressed by then sitting vice president, Thomas Jefferson, when he authored what came to be called the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. The resolutions made the case that the federal government is a creature of the states and that states have the authority to judge the constitutionality of the federal government’s laws and decrees. He also argued that states should refuse to enforce laws which they deemed unconstitutional.
James Madison wrote a similar resolution for Virginia that same year, in which he asserted that whenever the federal government exceeds its constitutional limits and begins to oppress the citizens of a state, that state’s legislature is duty bound to interpose its power to prevent the federal government from victimizing its people. Very similar to Jefferson’s concept of nullification, Madison’s doctrine of interposition differed in some small but important ways.
These two documents together came to be known as The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions (or Resolves), of 1798. Both were written in response to the dreaded Alien and Sedition Acts, and the phrase, “Principles of ‘98″ became shorthand for nullification and / or interposition. Over time, “The Principles of ‘98″ would be invoked by many other states, many times for a variety of issues.
Getting back to Ron Paul’s speech in December at ASU, Congressman Paul qualified his prediction about the revival of nullification by saying the following:
“But my suspicion is that there will never be official nullification or secession, but if the [federal] government continues to fail, and they can’t deliver anything..checks bounce..that we will be forced to take care of ourselves. And we will be forced to almost ignore everything they do.”
Less than a week after the speech I attended at ASU, Congressman Paul was interviewed by Mike Church on his radio show. When Mike asked him what his thoughts were on nullification, Ron Paul responded by saying:
“I think it’s a great idea. It was never really successful in our history. But I think it’s going to grow in importance. And I think it’s going to grow because the government, the federal government will be seen as inept and ineffective. And I think it’ll almost be de facto in the sense that the states will eventually just ignore some of the mandates.”
Here I would like to pause for a moment and point out that I am not usually in the business of disagreeing with Congressman Ron Paul. I would hardly need one hand to count the number of times that I have actually disagreed with him on any issue of real substance. I am a great admirer and supporter of Congressman Paul, who is undoubtedly very supportive of the idea of state nullification, even if he has doubted its efficacy in the past. However, in spite of all this, I would like to make two observations.
First, nullification has, in fact, been somewhat successful in the past and more recently as well. Second, as President Obama loves to say, “Let me be clear”: “Official” nullification has ALREADY HAPPENED.
Before I explain why “official” nullification has already happened, let me briefly give some examples of what nullification is NOT.
Nullification is not secession or insurrection, but neither is it unconditional or unlimited submission. Nullification is not something that requires any decision, statement or action from any branch of the federal government. Nullification is not the result of obtaining a favorable court ruling. Nullification is not the petitioning of the federal government to start doing or to stop doing anything. Nullification doesn’t depend on any federal law being repealed. Nullification does not require permission from any person or institution outside of one’s own state.
So just what IS “official” nullification you might be asking?
Nullification begins with a decision made in your state legislature to resist a federal law deemed to be unconstitutional. It usually involves a bill, which is passed by both houses and is signed by your governor. In some cases, it might be approved by the voters of your state directly, in a referendum. It may change your state’s statutory law or it might even amend your state constitution. It is a refusal on the part of your state government to cooperate with, or enforce any federal law it deems to be unconstitutional.
Nullification carries with it the force of state law. It cannot be legally repealed by Congress without amending the US Constitution. It cannot be lawfully abolished by an executive order. It cannot be overruled by the Supreme Court. It is the people of a state asserting their constitutional rights by acting as a political society in their highest sovereign capacity. It is the moderate, middle way that wisely avoids harsh remedies like secession on the one hand and slavish, unlimited submission on the other. It is the constitutional remedy for unconstitutional federal laws.
With the exception of a Constitutional amendment, the federal government cannot oppose (except perhaps rhetorically), a state’s decision to nullify an unconstitutional federal law without resorting to extra-legal measures. But such measures would more than likely backfire, since most Americans still affirm that might does not make right.
There is no question as to whether or when “official” nullification will happen: It has ALREADY HAPPENED. In fact, not only has it happened recently, it has been a success! Perhaps this is why the federal government hopes you will never hear about it. According to the Tenth Amendment Center:
“25 states over the past 2 years have passed resolutions and binding laws denouncing and refusing to implement the Bush-era law [REAL ID Act]..While the law is still on the books in D.C., its implementation has been “delayed” numerous times in response to this massive state resistance, and in practice, is virtually null and void.”
But that’s not all; another example of “official” nullification has occurred in the form of an unlikely states’ rights ally: Medical marijuana.
There was a time when the federal government took the Constitution seriously enough that Congress did what is required in order to enact a nationwide ban on a substance. Even though the experiment would eventually be seen by most Americans as a mistake and a failure, the 18th Amendment was passed and the era known as “Prohibition” began. Four years later, it was repealed.
When it came to marijuana prohibition, however, the feds had another trick up their sleeve. All three branches of the federal government would agree on a very novel, liberal interpretation of the “commerce clause” which would allow them to regulate virtually any substance, including marijuana, even though there’s supposedly no “legal” commerce in the plant. Since that time, the federal government has managed to claim, with a straight face, as it were, that a plant grown in your back yard, never sold, and never leaving your property, is somehow able to be completely banned by the federal government under the interstate “commerce clause.” The only problem with their claim is that the states just aren’t buying it.
Fourteen states have actively refused to comply with federal laws on marijuana, and it looks as if six more are about to join the effort. In a recent blog post, Mark Kreslins observes:
“..medical marijuana now poses a real threat to the enforcement power of the Federal Government. With state after state defying Washington DC over this issue..Washington DC has a choice to make; enforce their laws based on a very liberal interpretation of the Commerce Clause by sending thousands of DEA agents into all fifty states…or…look the other way. Thus far, they’ve chosen to look the other way for if they create the appearance of a Federal takeover of police powers in the States, they will fully expose their extra-constitutional behavior and provoke a direct confrontation with the States who will use the 10th Amendment (hopefully) to defend their prerogatives.”
Whatever your view may be regarding marijunana use, medical or otherwise, one thing is apparent: “Official” nullification has happened, and it works! Washington will have to get used to it.
What remains to be seen, however, is whether in addition to “officially” nullifying unconstitutional federal laws, state governments will be willing to use their power to “officially” interpose themselves between agents of the federal government and the people of their state. In the unlikely event that one or more branches of the federal government decides to take extra-legal measures to punish residents of a state for exercising their constitutional rights in defiance of unconstitutional federal laws, will that state’s government have the courage to hamper or even neutralize such extra-legal measures?
There are a whole host of peaceful actions that a state government can adopt if that day comes or appears to be just over the horizon. These measures range from county sheriffs requiring that federal agents receive written permission from the sheriff before acting in their county, to setting up a Federal Tax escrow account, which could potentially de-fund unconstitutional federal activities by requiring that all federal taxes come first to the state’s Department of Revenue.
Besides state interposition, the other thing Washington would have to consider, is whether enough of their agents would actually obey orders to punish people for exercising their constitutional rights. There is a significant chance that enough of them would either publicly or privately decide in advance to ignore such orders. As the probability of this increases, it becomes more likely that Washington will not risk overplaying its hand. The reality is that Washington just doesn’t have the manpower to enforce all their unconstitutional laws if enough states choose to defy them.
Of course, it all depends on the people of the several states: ordinary people like you and I. Although I’ve discovered that there are more elected representatives at the state level who are committed to acting in a courageous and principled manner than I ever dared hope, most of their peers lack such a brave commitment. Most of them will stick their head in the sand or sit on the fence until they determine which way the wind is blowing. And so it’s our opinion, not the opinion of the American people in aggregate, but our opinion as citizens of our respective states, that will influence the decision of our state representatives to either stand tall or to kneel down and knuckle under.
But do you even know the men and women who represent you? I’m not talking about those who represent you in Washington, but rather in Phoenix, Salem, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Denver, Austin, Oklahoma City, Tallahassee, Atlanta, Nashville, Richmond, Harrisburg, Indianapolis, Columbus and Springfield.
If you don’t know them, and you care about our republic, you should make it your highest priority to get to know them and establish rapport with them as soon as possible.
For any of you who really want to preserve our union, and at the same time retain your rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, I can’t say it any better than 2008 presidential nominee of the Constitution Party, Chuck Baldwin:
“..it is absolutely obligatory that freedom-minded Americans refocus their attention to electing State legislators, governors, judges and sheriffs who will fearlessly defend their God-given liberties..as plainly and emphatically as I know how to say it, I am telling you: ONLY THE STATES CAN DEFEND OUR LIBERTY NOW! ..this reality means we will have to completely readjust our thinking and priorities.”

Source: 1oth Amendment Center

"Our Troops" Shoot Father, With His Kids in the Car, Which They Deemed Threatening (a Toyota Corolla)

Oh, so very proud
Hooray.
Yah, right; the expression some of us know to mean the opposite, definitely not right.
Although I only read an excerpt of an article on this story posted at uruknet.info, the excerpt appearing with the link for the article in the home or main index page of the website, I didn't read the whole piece. Just the title and excerpt were enough to tell me that yet another tragic killing occurred and for no valid reason whatsoever. After all, no one can credibly argue that a Toyota Corolla with a man and children in it is threatening, at all.
I suppose it's because the soldiers who committed this tragic killing are just too psychologically stressed due to being in this zone of a totally criminal war, perhaps really suffering from PTSD. If that's the case, then I can't personally consider them as responsible for this tragic incident. Otherwise, they should be charged with murder and made to stand Nurember style trials alongside the war makers and the leading continuers, which means the responsible or guilty people of the White House, but also plenty of other guilty people or elite, military and corporate; none of whom can credibly be treated as committing their criminal leadership due to suffering from PTSD. They suffer from a severe socio-psychological problem, like psychopathia, and another condition called cowardice, but these certainly are not bases for treating these people as not being responsible for their criminal leadership.
The troops commit the actual killings, but the real murderers, and plunderers, occupy the highest offices of the USA's political body and military, and, of course, their masters in Corporate America. They're so evil it's difficult to even think of referring to them as people.

by Mike Corbeil

Source: After downing Street

Israeli companies considered as USA when bidding for Fed, state projects

A curious op-ed "The Tel Aviv Cluster" by the reliably neoconnish David Brooks appeared in the New York Times on January 12th. Brooks enthused over the prowess of Israel’s high tech businesses, attributing their success in large part to Jewish exceptionalism and genius, which must have provided the ultimate feel good moment for Brooks, who is himself Jewish. That Israel has a booming technology sector is undeniably true, but Brooks failed to mention other contributing factors such as the $101 billion dollars in US economic and military aid over the course of more than four decades, which does not include the additional $30 billion recently approved by President Barack Obama. American assistance has financed and fueled Israel’s business growth while the open access and even "preferential treatment" afforded to Israeli exporters through the Israel Free Trade Implementation Act of 1985 has provided Israelis with the enormous US market to sell their products and services. By act of Congress, Israeli businesses can even bid on most American Federal and State government contracts just as if they were US companies.
Brooks was characteristically undisturbed by the fact that American taxpayer subsidized development of Israeli enterprises combined with the free access to the US economy and government contracts eliminates jobs and damages competing companies on this side of the Atlantic. And there is another aspect of Israel’s growing high tech sector that he understandably chose to ignore because it is extremely sleazy. That is the significant advantage that Israel has gained by systematically stealing American technology with both military and civilian applications. The US developed technology is then reverse engineered and used by the Israelis to support their own exports with considerably reduced research and development costs, giving them a huge advantage against American companies. Sometimes, when the technology is military in nature and winds up in the hands of a US adversary, the consequences can be serious. Israel has sold advanced weapons systems to China that are believed to incorporate technology developed by American companies, including the Python-3 air-to-air missile and the Delilah cruise missile. There is evidence that Israel has also stolen Patriot missile avionics to incorporate into its own Arrow system and that it used US technology obtained in its Lavi fighter development program, which was funded by the US taxpayer to the tune of $1.5 billion, to help the Chinese develop their own J-10 fighter.
The reality of Israeli spying is indisputable. Israel always features prominently in the annual FBI report called "Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage." The 2005 report states, "Israel has an active program to gather proprietary information within the United States. These collection activities are primarily directed at obtaining information on military systems and advanced computing applications that can be used in Israel’s sizable armaments industry." It adds that Israel recruits spies, uses electronic methods, and carries out computer intrusion to gain the information. The 2005 report concluded that the thefts eroded US military advantage, enabling foreign powers to obtain expensive technologies that had taken years to develop.
A 1996 Defense Investigative Service report noted that Israel has great success stealing technology by exploiting the numerous co-production projects that it has with the Pentagon. "Placing Israeli nationals in key industries …is a technique utilized with great success." A General Accounting Office (GAO) examination of espionage directed against American defense and security industries described how Israeli citizens residing in the US had stolen sensitive technology to manufacture artillery gun tubes, obtained classified plans for a reconnaissance system, and passed sensitive aerospace designs to unauthorized users. An Israeli company was caught monitoring a Department of Defense telecommunications system to obtain classified information, while other Israeli entities targeted avionics, missile telemetry, aircraft communications, software systems, and advanced materials and coatings used in missile re-entry. The GAO concluded that Israel "conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally." In June 2006, a Pentagon administrative judge overruled an appeal by an Israeli who had been denied a security clearance, stating, "The Israeli government is actively engaged in military and industrial espionage in the United States. An Israeli citizen working in the US who has access to proprietary information is likely to be a target of such espionage." More recently, FBI counter intelligence officer John Cole has reported how many cases of Israeli espionage are dropped under orders from the Justice Department. He provides a "conservative estimate" of 125 worthwhile investigations into Israeli espionage involving both American citizens and Israelis that were stopped due to political pressure from above.
Two recent stories that have been reported in the Israeli media but are strangely absent from the news on this side of the Atlantic demonstrate exactly what is going on and what is at stake. The first story confirms that Israeli efforts to obtain US technology are ongoing. Stewart David Nozette, a US government scientist who was arrested on October 19, 2009 in an FBI sting operation after offering to spy for Israel has been waiting in jail to go to trial on espionage charges. New documents in the case were presented in the Federal court in Washington last week. The documents confirm that Nozette was a paid consultant for Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) and it is believed that he passed to them classified material in return for an estimated $225,000 in consulting fees. Examination of his computer by the FBI revealed that he was planning a "penetration of NASA" the US space agency and that he was also trying to crack into other scientists’ computers to obtain additional classified material. Other documents demonstrate that he was cooperating with two Israeli scientists who were administrators with IAI, Yossi Weiss and Yossi Fishman. Nozette made several trips to Israel without reporting them, which he was required to do because of his high security clearance. The FBI reportedly also has incriminating letters and other documents that were obtained from the computer.
The second story relates to the pending sale of twenty-five F-35 fighter planes to Israel. The F-35 is one of the most advanced fighter planes in the world. The $130 million planes would be purchased with US military assistance money, which means they would effectively be a gift from the US taxpayer. But Israel is balking at the sale reportedly because it wants to install some of its own local content in the aircraft. The Pentagon has already made some concessions but is disinclined to grant approval for all the changes because to do so would require giving the Israelis full access to the plane’s advanced avionics and computer systems. Israel also wants to independently maintain the aircraft, which would also require access to all systems. It would be nice to think that the Pentagon wants to keep the maintenance in American hands to preserve jobs, but the Defense Department has never cared about US workers before when the issue is Israel, and the real reason for the standoff is that Lockheed-Martin and the Pentagon both know that Israel will steal whatever it can if it gains access. It would then use the technology to market its own products at a price below that of US defense contractors. The result would be a triple whammy for Uncle Sam: the expensive planes are given to Israel free, the technology is then stolen, and future sales vanish as our Israeli friends market their knock down versions of weapons systems reliant on the stolen technology.
So to David Brooks I would say that there is most definitely an economic surge taking place in high tech Israel, but it is less a miracle than the fruit of a long series of thefts and manipulations fueled by American tax money and the connivance of a Congress that is always willing to do favors for the country that it appears to love beyond all others. I’m sure most Americans would wish the Israelis well and would applaud the prosperity that derives from their own industry and inventiveness but it is also time to put the brakes on business as usual and to take the Israeli hand out of our pocket. I’m sure Brooks’ job is pretty secure and well paid, but many Americans are out of work and suffering, so let’s take some steps to protect our economy from the information thieves from Tel Aviv and keep our money and jobs over here.

Source: AntiWar.Com

NURSE PULLS PLUG ON TAX COLLECTORS OVER MBA TUITION

By Pat Shannan
A Bryantown, Md., nurse accomplished two rare tax court feats in her battle with the Internal Revenue Service recently. She not only won against the agency’s high-priced legal team without using an attorney herself, but she also got a ruling that could help tens of thousands of students deduct the cost of a masters degree on their future taxes.

The odyssey of Lori Singleton-Clarke, 47, began in 2006, when she filed her 2005 return. It showed just over $50,000 in income, several smaller deductions, and one large one—for $14,787 of expenses for an MBA from the University of Phoenix, an online school.

Ms. Singleton-Clarke deducted the tuition because her tax preparer told her that met the law’s narrow definitions. When the IRS audited the return in late 2006, she conceded all the IRS’s challenges to her deductions but one. She dug in her heels on the tuition deduction because, after looking at a complex diagram in IRS Publication 970, she believed she qualified for it.

Ms. Singleton-Clarke drew on skills she developed as a nurse responsible for dealing with doctors who may have infringed hospital rules. That was why she studied for her MBA: she says, “I didn’t want to feel outmatched by surgeons who didn’t want to talk to me.”

The U.S. Tax Court handed Ms. Singleton-Clarke her victory last month, saying that the business school deduction had been proper. The ruling is certain to make the expense of a post-college degree more attractive for many other professionals in the future.

After getting word of the court decision by mail, “I nearly yelled the roof off the house,” Ms. Singleton- Clarke says. “I still can hardly believe it.” She says she didn’t have a lawyer for the simple reason that she couldn’t afford one.

Decisions in small cases aren’t allowed to be cited as precedent.

“But everyone uses them,” says Melissa Labant, a tax expert with the American Institute of CPAs. “This case definitely provides a road map others can use, especially MBA students.”

Few taxpayers go toe-to-toe with the IRS as Ms. Singleton-Clarke did, arguing her case without a lawyer. For good reason: In 2009, individuals won only about 10 percent of about 300 such cases, according to data from Tax Analysts, a group that fights for tax-system transparency and since 1972 has won a series of freedom-of-information cases against the IRS.

Some of the losers, such as several dozen tax protesters, were tilting at tax windmills. Others were simply on the wrong side of the law, including a horse enthusiast who wanted to deduct his hobby losses, an unsuccessful comedian who tried to classify his expenses as business losses, and an attorney who claimed over $100,000 in medical deductions for his visits to prostitutes.

Of the few who did prevail against the IRS, nearly half came to court on a single issue: requests for “innocent spouse” treatment that decouples a spouse from a partner who does not pay his taxes. This provision has been used mostly to protect wives. One of the spouses granted relief last year was formerly married to an investment banker who didn’t pay his taxes after his bonus didn’t come through.

Source: American Free press

An International Crime Called Gaza

By DR. ELIAS AKLEH

A fully pre-meditated international crime of genocide has been taking place during the last 62 years in the heart of the Arab World. The victims are the Palestinian people especially those in the Gaza Strip. The assassin is the worst ever terrorist group deceptively called the Israeli Defense Forces under the leadership of the theocratically most racist "god’s chosen" deceitfully self-proclaimed "democratic Jewish-only" Israel. Israel had been created, financed, armed, and politically protected by, mainly, British and American rapture-vision-obsessed Talmudist power elites consisting of profit-seeking financiers and military-industrial complex.

In December 2008 this Israeli Terrorist Forces added another war crime to its long list of war crimes against the Palestinians since 1948. One more time the international political community had become an accomplice to one more Israeli war crime either by being a passive silent witness or by becoming an active participant and protector of Israeli war criminals. One more international war crime had been perpetrated against the Palestinians. It is an international crime since multi political regimes; Israeli, American, European and even Arab governments, had joined in this crime that is STILL GOING ON up to this very minute.

Read The Rest Here

Tactics of desperation: using false accusations of “anti-Semitism” as a weapon to silence criticism of Israel’s behaviour

Ulli Diemer argues that as world public opinion turns against Israel, its racist apartheid regime and its occupation, the Zionist state and its lobbies have turned to attempts to outlaw criticism of Israel by labelling it as “anti-Semitism” – attempts that need to be exposed and challenged as a serious threat to basic freedoms.

”At the same time as it attempts to crush internal resistance, the Israeli state, aided by its supporters in the United States and Canada, has launched extremely aggressive and well-financed propaganda campaigns abroad whose goal is to counteract the decline in support for Israel.

“A telling characteristic of these campaigns is that they by and large do not focus on attempting to justify Israel’s behaviour...

“Instead, the focus has shifted to attempting to shut down criticism of Israel by targeting the most outspoken critics with crude smear tactics and outright censorship.”

For more than 60 years, Israel has engaged in an unceasing campaign to dispossess Palestinians of their land and their rights. Its ability to do this has depended on three factors in particular:

• overwhelming military superiority;

• keeping public opinion, especially in North America and Europe, on its side; and

• making ordinary working-class Israeli Jews believe that it is in their interest to support Israel’s Zionist elite rather than making common cause with ordinary Palestinians.

Israel’s military dominance is unchallenged, thanks to unconditional support and limitless supplies of advanced military technology and equipment provided by the United States and its allies (including Canada). However, military dominance has not been able to achieve Israel’s ultimate goal: forcing Palestinians to stop resisting and to acquiesce in their dispossession and oppression. Israel’s relentless onslaught has been met by equally determined Palestinian resistance which, despite the odds, steadfastly refuses to accept the injustice of occupation.

This Palestinian resistance has called into being an ever-growing international network of support and solidarity. In dozens of countries and hundreds of communities around the world, organizations and movements have emerged to demand that Israel be made to adhere to international law and to basic principles of justice.

Israel and its supporters see these international campaigns as a huge threat. Israel has escaped the sanctions that have been applied to other states which commit human rights abuses and violate international law only because the United States automatically vetoes all attempts to hold Israel accountable. Israel is also crucially dependent on huge annual inflows of foreign aid, to the point where it is conceivable that the state would collapse if the flows of outside cash which prop it up were to be withdrawn.

Anything that undermines public support in the US, Canada and Europe, therefore, threatens the external backing on which the Israeli state depends for its very existence. It is true that the governments which turn a blind eye to Israel’s violations of international law mostly ignore popular opinion in their own countries as well, but this could change if support for Israel were to become a serious political liability. In this regard, what is particularly worrisome from Israel’s point of view is the fact that support for Israel among Jews in the United States and Canada, especially among younger Jews, has declined dramatically. If Jews stop supporting Israel, then all foreign support is in jeopardy.

Threats to Israel’s international legitimacy bring with them an even greater internal danger: the danger that Israeli Jews will themselves start seeing the Zionist formula – in essence, a militarized apartheid state holding down the Palestinian population by force – as a dead end.

If working-class Israeli Jews were to see their interests as being different from those of the ruling elite – if they come round to the view that their long-term interests will be better served if they join Palestinians in working for a democratic secular state with equal rights for Palestinians and Jews – Israel’s ruling class would find itself in the same untenable position that the white elite in apartheid South Africa faced in the early 1990s. Already, Israel’s rulers are debating what to do about the “demographic threat” they are facing: Israeli Jews are leaving the country in increasing numbers to move to other countries, while the Palestinian population continues to increase.

The Palestinian resistance, and the growing international support which it has attracted, have had a substantial effect in changing the way Israel is perceived. Increasingly, international public opinion is no longer willing to turn a blind eye to ethnic cleansing, house demolitions, systematic humiliations, imprisonment, torture, and the indiscriminate killing of civilians, children as well as adults.

Faced with the erosion of its credibility and support, the Israeli state has lashed out by using ever-increasing repression against the non-violent Palestinian resistance. One of the centres of this resistance is the village of Bil’in, which has been fighting the expansion of an illegal Israeli settlement on its land with weekly non-violent protests for more than five years now, protests which have turned Bil’in into an international symbol of non-violent resistance. The Israeli state has been using ever more extreme tactics of harassment and brutality to attempt to crush the village and put an end to the protests, which it correctly believes are causing substantial harm to Israel’s international image. Similar tactics of harassment and imprisonment are being used against other Palestinians who resist, as well as against Jewish Israelis and international solidarity activists who support the Palestinian cause.

At the same time as it attempts to crush internal resistance, the Israeli state, aided by its supporters in the United States and Canada, has launched extremely aggressive and well-financed propaganda campaigns abroad whose goal is to counteract the decline in support for Israel.

A telling characteristic of these campaigns is that they by and large do not focus on attempting to justify Israel’s behaviour. One has to assume that the architects of the propaganda efforts realize that it is no longer possible to explain war crimes and human rights abuses in a way that the international public will accept.

Instead, the focus has shifted to attempting to shut down criticism of Israel by targeting the most outspoken critics with crude smear tactics and outright censorship.

On a growing number of campuses, for example, this has involved harassment and firing of outspoken professors (e.g. Norman Finkelstein, Joel Kovel), as well as attempts to ban events such as “Israeli apartheid week”.

In Canada, we are now seeing an attempt to silence criticism of Israel by labelling all such criticism as “anti-Semitism” and therefore as hate speech. This tactic has a triple purpose: to suppress public awareness of what Israel is doing; to discredit critics by smearing them as “anti-Semitic”, and to keep Jews onside by frightening them with the spectre of anti-Semitism.

In Canada, the Harper government, fanatically pro-Israel, is fully involved in this effort. It has cut funding to groups which have supported Palestinians in their quest for justice, and it has set up a Parliamentary body charged with coming up with the legal rationale for making it illegal to criticize Israel.

If the Harper government is successful in getting its way, statements such as the following, all of them expressions of generally accepted principles of human rights and international law, will henceforth be classified as anti-Semitic hate speech in Canada:

• A state must be the state of all its citizens”.

Saying this will be classified as “anti-Semitic” because it implies that the Israeli state has a duty to serve and represent all of its citizens equally, Palestinians as well as Jews.

• ”Everyone born in a state, and everyone who has been a permanent resident for a specified and reasonable period of time, is entitled to citizenship”.

Saying this will be classified as “anti-Semitic” because it would mean that Palestinians under the rule of the Israeli state have the right to be citizens of Israel.

• ”All citizens of a state must be equal under the law, equally entitled to the rights, privileges and responsibilities of citizenship. A state may not favour, or discriminate against, citizens, on the grounds of religion, ethnicity, or race”.

Saying this will be classified as “anti-Semitic” because it implies that Israel has to dismantle its discriminatory, apartheid-style system of laws.

• ”Every state must accept its internationally recognized borders and must renounce all claims on territory outside of its borders”.

Saying this will be classified as “anti-Semitic” because it would mean that Israel would have to stop seizing land beyond its borders.

• ”All states must abide by international law, including the Geneva conventions, laws against collective punishment, laws against torture, etc.”

Saying this will be classified as “anti-Semitic” because it implies that Israel has to stop engaging in ethnic cleansing, collective punishment, and other violations of international law.

• “Refugees have a right to return to the lands from which they were expelled by an invading army or occupying power.”

Saying this will be classified as “anti-Semitic” because it means that the Palestinian refugees expelled from their homeland by Israel must be allowed to exercise their right of return as guaranteed by international law.

• ”Sanctions should be applied to those who violate international law.”

Saying this will be classified as “anti-Semitic” because it implies that Israel should face sanctions for engaging in collective punishment and ethnic cleansing, for practising torture, for committing war crimes, for defying UN resolutions and World Court rulings, and for other illegal acts.

The attempt to outlaw criticism of Israel by labelling it as “anti-Semitism” is a serious threat which needs to be exposed and challenged. At the same time, it should also be recognized as a tactic of desperation, a tactic that has become necessary because of the ever-growing opposition to the crimes of the Israeli state.

The resort to increasingly blatant open repression is a symptom of loss of control. In the past such tactics would not have been necessary because any criticism of Israel was confined to the outer fringes of public debate. Now it has become mainstream, and those who support an ethnically defined, apartheid-style Israeli state are feeling increasingly threatened. Those of us who support a democratic secular state should feel encouraged, even though the struggle is far from won.

Obamacare sparking 10th Amendment rebellion, action in seven states

By: Mark Tapscott

Looks like the steadily growing list of constitutional, ethical and political outrages that constitute the Harry Reid version of Obamacare is sparking a rebellion in the states, as AP reports South Carolina's attorney general plans to investigate the vote-buying that surrounded the proposal in the Senate majority leader's office.

According to AP, South Carolina's Henry McMaster is being joined by the attorneys general of Michigan and Washington state in a suit to determine the constitutionality of the Obamacare proposal. Their initiative was prompted by a request from South Carolina's two senators, Lindsay Graham and Jim DeMint, both Republicans.

Attorneys-general in at least four other states are also considering joining McMasters, according to AP. A move by a group of states to challenge the constitutionality of Obamacare could reinvigorate the efficacy of the 10th Amendment, which reserves to the states or the people all rights not specifically granted to the federal government.

Graham has been all over cable news today visibly angry about the vote-buying by Reid that secured the votes of Senators Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, as well as possibly other senators as yet unknown.

DeMint has also been active, especially on the issue of the Reid amendment's provision seeking to bar future congresses from changing even a single word of Section 3403 on the Independent Medicare Advisory Board (IMAB).

The IMAB will become the federal health care ground zero under Obamacare if it becomes law. Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has a link to DeMint's floor speech on the issue and additional information, analyses, and links.

Nelson's deal with Reid has attracted the most attention because it exempts Nebraska from paying its share of Medicaid expenses in perpetuity. Medicaid expenditures are among the most expensive federal mandates on state governments, and the Obamacare bill will significantly increase costs for all other states that don't somehow wangle a similar deal.

It also raises a constitutional issue, which McMasters explained in a statement issued earlier today:

"The Nelson provision is unusual in that there is not cut off date or phase out. Many provisions in federal law have a sunset date -- say 2, 5, 10, or even 20 years-- but this provision will continue in perpetuity. Quite obviously, this issue raises very serious concerns about equity, tax fairness as well as the constitutionality of having federal tax levies and mandates that treat one state differently from all the others.

"If the Nelson provision is not unprecedented, I feel comfortable in saying it is an exceptionally rare occurrence. States generally are treated in a similar manner. In this case, Nebraska will be treated in a widely divergent manner than any other state.

"Beginning today, I have instructed my attorneys to begin looking into the constitutionality of this provision and exploring the options that may be available to South Carolina and other states to defend taxpayers should this provision ultimately become law."

My colleague David Freddoso wonders what might happen if the governors of states bordering Nebraska - Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Iowa, and Missouri - announce that they are no longer funding their Medicaid programs and encourage those needing Medicaid services to visit the Cornhusker state.

Source: The Washington Examiner

US campaign for academic boycott gaining strength

The following press release was issued by the United States Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) on 23 December 2009:

27 December 2009 marks the one-year anniversary of the beginning of "Operation Cast Lead," Israel's 22-day assault on the captive population of Gaza, which killed 1,400 people, one third of them children, and injured more than 5,300. During this war on an impoverished, mostly refugee population, Israel targeted civilians, using internationally-proscribed white phosphorous bombs, deprived them of power, water and other essentials, and sought to destroy the infrastructure of Palestinian civil society, including hospitals, administrative buildings and UN facilities. It targeted with peculiar consistency educational institutions of all kinds: the Islamic University of Gaza, the Ministry of Education, the American International School, at least ten UNRWA schools, one of which was sheltering internally displaced Palestinian civilians with nowhere to flee, and tens of other schools and educational facilities.

While world leaders have tragically failed to come to Gaza's help, civilians everywhere are rallying to show their solidarity with the Palestinian people, with anniversary vigils taking place this week in New York, Washington DC, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, and many more cities and towns in the US and world-wide.

The United States Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was formed in the immediate aftermath of Operation Cast Lead, bringing together educators of conscience who were unable to stand by and watch in silence Israel's indiscriminate assault on the Gaza Strip and its educational institutions. Today, over 500 US-based academics, authors, artists, musicians, poets and other arts professionals have endorsed our call. Our academic endorsers include postcolonial critics and transnational feminists Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Indigenous scholars J. Kehaulani Kauanui and Andrea Smith, philosopher Judith Butler, Black studies scholars Cedric Robinson, Fred Moten, evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers, and intellectual historian Joseph Massad.

"Cultural workers" who have endorsed our call include well known author Barbara Ehrenreich, The Electronic Intifada cofounder Ali Abunimah, poets Adrienne Rich and Lisa Suhair Majjaj, International Solidarity Movement cofounder and documentary filmmaker Adam Shapiro, Jordan Flaherty of Left Turn Magazine, and Adrienne Maree Brown of the Ruckus Society.

Among the 34 organizations supporting our mission are and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, the Green Party, Code Pink, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, Artists Against Apartheid and Teachers Against the Occupation.
The Advisory Board of the United States Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) has grown to include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Hamid Dabashi, Lawrence Davidson, Bill Fletcher Jr., Glen Ford, Mark Gonzales, Marilyn Hacker, Edward Herman, Annemarie Jacir, J. Kehaulani Kauanui, Robin Kelley, Ilan Pappe, James Petras, Vijay Prashad, Andrenne Rich, Michel Shehadeh and Lisa Taraki.

Israeli academics listed among the organization's International Endorsers have also joined us, including Emmanuel Farjoun, Hebrew University; Rachel Giora, Tel Aviv University; Anat Matar, Tel Aviv University; Kobi Snitz, Technion; and Ilan Pappe now at Exeter.

The USACBI Mission Statement calls for a boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions in support of an appeal by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Individual Israelis are not targeted by the boycott.

Specifically, supporters are asked to:

(1) Refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions that do not vocally oppose Israeli state policies against Palestine;

(2) Advocate a comprehensive boycott of Israeli institutions at the national and international levels, including suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies to these institutions;

(3) Promote divestment and disinvestment from Israel by international academic institutions;

(4) Work toward the condemnation of Israeli policies by pressing for resolutions to be adopted by academic, professional and cultural associations and organizations;

(5) Support Palestinian academic and cultural institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as an explicit or implicit condition for such support.

This boycott, modeled upon the global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement that put an end to South African apartheid, is to continue until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

Source: The Electronic Intifada

FBI Considered "It's A Wonderful Life" Communist Propaganda

FBI Considered "It's A Wonderful Life" Communist Propaganda

by Will Chen

I love It's a Wonderful Life because it teaches us that family, friendship, and virtue are the true definitions of wealth.

In 1947, however, the FBI considered this anti-consumerist message as subversive Communist propaganda (read original FBI memo).

According to Professor John Noakes of Franklin and Marshall College, the FBI thought Life smeared American values such as wealth and free enterprise while glorifying anti-American values such as the triumph of the common man.

The FBI specifically detested the way Mr. Potter was portrayed:

The casting of Lionel Barrymore as a "scrooge-type" resulted in the loathsome Mr. Potter becoming the most hated person in the film. According to the official FBI report, "this was a common trick used by the communists."

"What's interesting in the FBI critique is that the Baileys were also bankers," said Noakes. " and what is really going on is a struggle between the big-city banker (Potter) and the small banker (the Baileys). Capra was clearly on side of small capitalism and the FBI was on the side of big capitalism.

The FBI misinterpreted this classic struggle as communist propaganda. I would argue that 'It's a Wonderful Life' is a poignant movie about the transition in the U.S. between small and big capitalism, with Jimmy Stewart personifying the last hope for a small town. It's a lot like the battle between Home Depot and the mom and pop hardware store." Source: Franklin and Marshall College and Delilah Boyd

Link to the story and the original FBI memo:

http://www.wisebread.com/fbi-conside...opaganda#memo1

Israel Hijacks West Bank Christmas

The Israeli occupation forces are hijacking the spirit of Christmas in the occupied West Bank, restricting tourists' movement and portraying Bethlehem as unsafe war zone.

"When tourists see the wall, they think they are going into a war zone," Adnan Suboh, who owns a souvenir shop in Bethlehem market, told the Daily Telegraph on Wednesday, December 23, referring to the Israeli separation wall.

Tourists trying to enter Bethlehem to visit the Nativity church, built on the site where Jesus is said to have been born, are faced with crippling Israeli restrictions.

This includes the Israeli separation wall, a 700km-long mix of electronic fences, concrete walls, trenches, and closed military roads, as well as a series of checkpoints manned by armed soldiers.

Palestinian traders and hoteliers say this is preventing them from benefiting from the expected record number of 1.4 million visitors during the Christmas season.

Bethlehem’s top hotels expect only 30 percent occupancy during Christmas after Israel convinced many tourists that it is unsafe to stay in West Bank.

Despite being so close, few tourists ever wander West Bank markets and souvenir stalls.

"They are afraid and want to leave as soon as possible because they have been convinced they have reason to fear."

Christmas is the main festival on the Christian calendar. Its celebrations reach its peak at 12:00 PM on December 24 of every year.

Thousands of Christian pilgrims flock to Bethlehem every year to celebrate Christmas at the historical Nativity Church.

Anti-Peace

Palestinian Tourism Minister Khouloud Daibes also criticized the Israeli restrictive tactics in Bethlehem.

"They want to reduce Bethlehem visits to just a few hours," she told the Telegraph.

"Through tourism, we can create jobs and create hope.

"Sadly, on a political level, Israel is not mentally ready to share either the responsibility or the benefits."

Daibes said the West Bank receives just five percent of total religious tourism revenues.

"The problem is they are not ready to deal with us as equal partners."

The minister warned that the Israeli measures have negative impact on peace prospects.

"We see tourism as a major aspect of development for not only the Palestinian economy but also the Israeli economy," she said.

"It could even lead to a positive environment for peace.

Salon, Huffington Post and Daily Kos hotbeds of anti-Semitism!

Or so claims what Alternet’s Josh Holland calls a “ridiculous” new study by the Institute for Global Jewish Affairs. Holland writes:

Given how ubiquitous unsubstantiated charges of anti-Semitism have become in the debate over the Middle East conflict, I’m tempted to ignore the Institute for Global Jewish Affairs’ recent “report” supposedly exposing the liberal blogosphere as a teaming hotbed of raw Jew-hatred.

It’s easy to dismiss. It may dress itself as some sort of empirical research project, but the “study” is transparently devoid of any informational value, intellectually bankrupt and clearly the product of working backwards from a conclusion arrived at on ideological grounds.

But I won’t ignore it, because the strategic decision to pin one’s political opponents with charges of anti-Semitism only dilutes the power of that word. Then, like the boy who cried wolf, when real anti-Semitism rears its decidedly ugly head the word loses its all-important power to shame. I’m Jewish, and I don’t fear sharp-elbowed criticism of Israeli policy on websites, so it’s not in my interest to allow it to be conflated with true anti-Semitism, which is absolutely no joke.

Most of what passes for anti-Semitism in this new “report” is nothing new to readers of Muzzlewatch, and you should read Holland’s full piece where he does a fantastic job of dissecting the terrible methodology of this blatantly propagandistic report. But this is the part of Holland’s analysis I find most heart-breakingly sad and true:

It’s a slanderous report, and just to bring home the point of how dangerous it is to minimize real anti-Semitism by bitching about mean commenters on websites: I’m on various list-servs with progressives who write about Israel and Palestine — most of them Jewish — and when the report was issued our reaction was: ‘what do you have to do to get on this list — why weren’t we included?’

When you have progressive Jewish writers looking at charges of anti-Semitism as a badge of courage, it’s time to re-think your tactics.

And what other tactics do those geniuses over at the (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Institute for Global Jewish Affairs have to offer us?

In “How to Fight the Campus Battle against Old and New Anti-Semites:
Motifs, Strategies, and Methods”, author Manfred Gerstenfeld seems to have absolutely no idea that Israel is consistently in violation of international law. He therefore consistently conflates authentic anti-Jewish hatred with virtually all criticism of Israel, making the following suggestion for embracing campus-based tactics that require a “low investment of human and financial resources and a potential high return in terms of damage to the enemy”:

• The methods to be used in the battle against anti-Semitism on campus should include counterattack, ridicule, exposure, “name and shame,” monitoring, documentation, mobilizing lawyers for arguing, as well as legal actions. Crucial battles against anti-Semitism are often fought with one hand behind the back. This facilitates free anti-Semitic lunches for the attackers.

Of course, those tactics are already in use everywhere on campuses, just ask Daniel Pipes. Are they likely to help those of us who sincerely want to fight anti-Semitism, seeing it as linked to all forms of bigotry? Guess.

Source: Jewish Voice for Peace's Muzzle Watch

“If everything is anti-Semitism, then there is no anti-Semitism at all.”

The (Israeli) Alternative Information Center’s Michael Warschawski has this to say on the use, and the empyting of all meaning, of the charge of anti-Semitism:

An Outrageous and Pathetic Weapon Against BDS: Stop Instrumentalizing Anti-Semitism!

Canadian Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Jason Kenney .

Every time the State of Israel is confronted with substantial international criticism for its political behavior and its violations of basic international standards, it counter-attacks by using the infamous tool of accusations of anti-Semitism. One remembers the campaign on anti-Semitism launched by Ariel Sharon and his friends throughout the world, Jews and non-Jews, after the murder of Muhammad al-Dura in Gaza in September 2000, in order to create a diversion (in the very words of Roger Cukierman, then chairman of the French Jewish umbrella organization—CRIF) and to transform the victim into a victimizer and the victimizer into a victim: for more than two years, western media “exposed” the anti-Semitism of the critics of Israel instead of denouncing the massacres committed by the Israeli military in Gaza and the West Bank.Sixty five years after the end of WWII, the ashes of the victims of Nazi genocide have not yet disappeared from the sky of Poland, and the accusation of anti-Semitism remains connected to one of the bloodiest crimes of the twentieth century; as French journalist, Daniel Mermet, one of the targets of this campaign, pointed at, “no accusation can be worse, and even after you are proved not guilty of charge, the bad smell of such an accusation will be with you forever.”

The massacre in Gaza, a year ago, provoked a world-wide outrage, bigger even than in 2000-2002. The U.N. was forced to appoint an inquiry commission, and its report—the Goldstone report—is devastating for Israel. Moreover, for the first time since the establishment of the State of Israel, an international campaign calling for sanctions against Israel for its innumerous violations of international law, has been successful in drawing huge public attention and initiating a great number of mobilizations and initiatives around the world.

For the Israeli government and its friends, the time has come to take from the shelf the rusty old weapon of anti-Semitism accusations, a message that was heard loud and clear by the Canadian Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Jason Kenney. At the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism, held in Jerusalem on 16 December, the Minister stated: “We have articulated and implemented a zero tolerance approach to anti-Semitism.” So far so good, but he continued: “We have defunded organizations, most recently like Kairos, who are taking a leadership role in the boycott (against Israel).”

Accusing Kairos, an umbrella organization that includes most of the Christian churches in Canada, of anti-Semitism is ridiculous and pathetic. Ridiculous, because the record of Kairos is crystal clear on that issue of BDS and it its position is not the one that Minister Kenney accuses it of, and pathetic, because it is a re-heated dish that will not work a second time.

Already in 2004, there were signs indicating that the instrumentalization of anti-Semitism by Israeli propaganda machine was losing its efficiency and even becoming counter-productive; no doubt that, five years later, only a few people will accept to be blackmailed by such an outrageous false-accusation.

Worse, however, is that this old/new maneuver by “friends” of Israel like Kenney, is a symptom of the banalization of anti-Semitism. If everything is anti-Semitism, then there is no anti-Semitism at all. But, unfortunately, anti-Semitism has not disappeared from our world, and manipulating it for goals that have nothing to do with it, is playing right into the hands of the real anti-Semites.

To Jason Kenney, one must say very clearly “stay out of our struggle against anti-Semitism, and do not try to manipulate it for causes totally foreign to the anti-racist values which are motivating it. It is too important and too serious to be instrumentalized by your political agenda.”

We are proud of the success of the international BDS campaign. Minister Kenney may disagree with it, but hands off of any accusation of anti-Semitism concerning our campaign. Anti-Semitism is a dangerous threat to the public health of our societies and so are accusations that are manipulated for a political agenda that has nothing to do with it.

Source: Jewish Voice For Peace's Muzzle Watch

Every parent a suspect

AUSTRALIAN GOV’T PROPOSES TO CENSOR THE NET

..

IF YOU ARE NOT GETTING ANGRY YET,

YOU ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION!

Asher Moses


Sydney Morning Herald
December 15, 2009
..
.. INTERNET CENSORSHIP PLAN GETS THE GREEN LIGHT..
..
..
Australia's Federal Government has announced it will proceed with controversial plans to censor the internet after Government-..commissioned trials found filtering a blacklist of banned sites was accurate and would not slow down the internet.

But critics, including the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia and the Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam, said the trial results were not surprising and the policy was still fundamentally flawed.

The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, said today he would introduce legislation just before next year's elections to force ISPs to block a blacklist of "refused classification".. (RC) websites for all Australian internet users.

The blacklist... would be compiled using a public complaints mechanism, Government censors and URLs provided by international agencies...He (Conroy) said about 15 western countries had encouraged or enforced internet filtering, and there was no reason why Australians should not have similar protection...
***
..At what point does internet filtering become censorship?

Read The rest Here

Bread and Circuses, an Old Idea in a New Era

By Timothy V. Gatto

The way words are used, the way people, places and things are described, will make a difference regardless of the subject matter. Today I was reading USA Today (Friday Dec 18, 2009), specifically a letter titled “Independents Unite!” about the possible creation of a third party. In the letter the writer (Alan Mohr) wrote that we should drive the extremists from both political parties from office. I agree whole-heartedly with him, but in the next paragraph he writes;

“Another solution would be to have a new national third party, one that would appeal to independents and the moderates of the two major parties. Such a bloc could control Congress and be a positive influence and do what is best for America.”

I mentioned this particular letter because of the word extremists and moderates. Just what is considered an extremist? The extreme left is constantly mentioned when referring to the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Yet, I have not really read anything that actually describes what is so extreme in their views. Does supporting a single-payer health care system brand one as extreme? Does supporting a withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan make one an extremist? Does favoring cutting the American military budget that currently accounts for over 42% of the entire world military spending count as extreme? Just what makes the left of the Democratic Party so extreme?

What about the right of the Republican Party? Do hard core beliefs about immigration make the far-right extreme? Does supporting the endless wars against “terrorism” make these people extreme? Much more has been written about the extreme right than the extreme left, probably because of the change of government from Republican to Democrat. Still, much of what is written about the extreme right and the extreme left, describes a minority of the two parties.

The other part of the letter, the part about the moderates, disturbs me. Just what is a moderate? From what I have come to understand, a moderate is someone that disagrees very little with the leadership of the two political parties. If you put Republican moderates against Democratic moderates, I doubt that you could tell them apart. Then why does the writer of this letter support a new party of moderates? Wouldn’t this leave the two major parties at the hands of extremists? Maybe a better idea would to have new parties for the so-called “extremists”? In fact wouldn’t it be better just to have more strong political parties than to have only two powerful ones?

I believe that while I agree with the writer that we should have another party or two, people in America have deluded themselves into believing that the Democrats and Republicans represent any type of real choice for the people of this country. I have written time and time again that the two parties are controlled by the corporate interests that not only control the Federal government, but also the major media outlets that provide the information most Americans rely on to make their political decisions.

The two political parties operate without regard for the wishes of the electorate. They are confident that whatever party is in control, the same basic strategies, political and military, that they plan behind closed doors will happen regardless of public opinion. If there is opposition to the policies of the government, the media will eventually bring the people along.

Except for the extremists, people such as me and others like me that don’t get their news from the MSM. We are the people that the media and government need to marginalize. This country would be a far different place if people started to look for their news from different sources than the major networks. Great Britain may be another “security state” like the U.S., but their media has remained independent of government interference to a greater degree than ours. We have free and independent media, but these sources are found mostly on the internet. Television, because of corporate sponsorship, is a very meager outlet for true, independent news. This may be why many politicians belittle the internet as a source for news.

This nation is in dire straits. The letter that Alan Mohr wrote was close to identifying the problem, but he missed the mark. When the government controls the sources of information to the people, than they control the people, but we are not at that point yet. There are many sources of information, national and international and they can be found using a computer. The problem is that Americans don’t feel that they need to have alternatives to network news. This is the crux of the problem. Many of us are making decisions about our political future and evaluating our elected officials without the facts we need to make informed decisions. We hear more about celebrities than we do about what is really happening on the planet. This is not by choice, it is by design. The Romans Empire controlled their people with bread and circuses. That example has not been lost on modern leaders. Don’t believe the myth of “American Exceptionalism”; we are just as gullible as any other civilization. We live in a “security state” of huge proportions. We are led to believe we are in a constant state of siege, hence the need to constantly mention the threat of terrorism. We can change the way things are. It’s as simple as expanding our sources of information and of re-learning to “question authority”.

Source: Dandelion Salad