Israeli activist to be jailed for caring

Does anyone doubt this terror state is a moral failure. Watch the video.

What manner of dehumanization is necessary for these Israeli troops to separate themselves from the plight of their victims? What has Israel become? That laughing in the video ... .

From Neve Gordon in the Guardian:

Nawi is not a typical rights activist. A member of Ta'ayush Arab-Jewish Partnership he is a Jewish Israeli of Iraqi descent who speaks fluent Arabic. He is a gay man in his fifties and a plumber by trade. Perhaps because he himself comes from the margins, he empathises with others who have been marginalised – often violently.

His 'crime' was trying to stop a military bulldozer from destroying the homes of Palestinian Bedouins from Um El Hir in the South Hebron region. These Palestinians have been under Israeli occupation for almost 42 years; they still live without electricity, running water and other basic services and are continuously harassed by Jewish settlers and the military – two groups that have united to expropriate Palestinian land and that clearly have received the government's blessing to do so.

Frontline's Inside the Meltdown

Great thriller, surreal. And it's real:

Frontline - Inside the Meltdown

On Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008, the astonished leadership of the U.S. Congress was told in a private session by the chairman of the Federal Reserve that the American economy was in grave danger of a complete meltdown within a matter of days. "There was literally a pause in that room where the oxygen left," says Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.).

GOP Targets Unions, Specter Wavers

Update: NYT: After Party Switch, a Senator’s Confused Alliances

As Tom Harkin works to move "Sen. Arlen Specter back to the pro-union side on the stalled Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) (The Politico)," Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and the GOP are hitting unions like punching bags.

From Sen. DeMint in Human Events:

... That's why it's vital you sign our petition urging the Congressional leadership to OPPOSE the union bosses' Card Check Forced Unionism Bill -- and the rest of Big Labor's agenda -- IMMEDIATELY.

You see, there's not much time. At the very top of the Congress's agenda is the union bosses' Card Check Forced Unionism Bill. And the Organized Labor czars wouldn't have it any other way. You see, passage of the so-called 'Card Check' Bill is all that stands between the union bosses and total control over hundreds of thousands of America's small businesses . . .

So we have a new Democratic senator who has vowed to use the filibuster to stop labor reform. Let's hope Harkin's outreach precedes dumping Specter, and the filibuster too while we're at it.

Specter's latest position on EFCA: "I’m opposed to giving up the secret ballot or mandatory arbitration as they are set forth in the bill, but I do believe that labor law reform is past overdue." So, Specter's not going to support the fulibuster then? Who knows?

Free Gaza Movement Seeks Help

Note: After a lifetime of fighting bigotry I have been called anti-Semite and Jew Hater (at Daily Kos yesterday). Such is the mindset of those dedicated to war and militarism. Stand up for innocent Palestinian families and you are a "Jew hater". [See The Politics of Anti-Semitism for a discussion of this repulsive tactic.]

An effective voice against Israeli militarism is the Free Gaza Movement, a "human rights group that in August 2008 sent the first international boats to land in the port of Gaza in 41 years ... (raising) international awareness about the prison-like closure of the Gaza Strip ... ."

Of course, militarists seeing Palestinians as less-than-human have said the effort to ship aid to starving families is inherently anti-Semitic or sympathetic to terrorists, yada, yada.

It's a lie. Support the Free Gaza Movement.

William Greider on Our Times

Check out William Greider on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now.

AMY GOODMAN: How did this happen, the economic crisis?

WILLIAM GREIDER: I think it was like a series of big waves coming at this country for really twenty-plus years, some of which I wrote about rather forlornly—forlornly, trying to say, to know what’s happening to us.

And those waves were ignored and, in many cases, launched by what I call the governing elites, the people in power, not just government, but finance, business, Republicans and Democrats alike. And either out of blindness or a kind of craven unwillingness to deal with reality, those waves have crashed over us. And I’m talking about trade. I’m talking about the militarism that drives our spending and our adventures overseas, the weakness—the weakening condition of the US economy. And on top of that is a financial system that is wildly inflated in value, in power and in all those things.

And here we are. I mean, all of that is now either crashing or subsiding. And you know, from my book, my belief is, and I feel it strongly, is that we’re just at the beginning of a really long, hard passage in which Americans, like it or not, have to adjust to these new realities. And I’m an American-born optimist. I think that can actually be good, not just for the world at large, but for our country, in the long run, if we face reality. And if we keep denying reality, it will get harder and harder.

WA Gov Signs Voting Rights Restoration Act

Giving more people the right to vote. Wonder what the GOP will say about the idea nationally.

From the Brennan Center, WA Governor Signs Voting Rights Restoration Act

Gov. Gregoire signed a bill restoring the right to vote to people living with criminal records, and eliminated the requirement that people pay all fees and fines, plus hefty surcharges and interest, before becoming eligible to vote. 'Simply put, the right to vote should never hinge on one's wealth or economic status,' says Erika Wood, Director of the Center's Right to Vote Project. 'The Voting Rights Restoration Act now eliminates this modern-day poll tax in Washington.'

Roubini Hits Stress Tests

Roubini and Matthew Richardson in the WSJ:

The results of the government's stress tests on banks, to be released in a few days, will not mark the beginning of the end of the financial crisis. If we are to believe the leaks, the results will show that there might be a few problems at some of the regional banks and Citigroup and Bank of America may need some more capital if things get worse. But the overall message is that the sector is in pretty good shape. This would be good news if it were credible

GIYUS Support Killing Palestinians

Update II: UN accuses Israel of Gaza 'negligence or recklessness' Inquiry finds Israel responsible for deaths, injuries and damage to UN buildings

Update: A few facts have come to light from the insightful comments in a crosspost. There is no occupation, and no walls. Palestinians [who do not exist] are free to move around in the West Bank and Gaza as they wish in accordance with their pursuit of happiness, with Israel cheering them on. There is no Israeli militarism and no PR apparatus in support of Israeli militarism - which does not in any event exist.

To deny these facts above is to subscribe to a "world Zionist conspiracy" theory and/or be nonconstructive and/or be drunk/on drugs/off drugs/high and/or hear voices/be insane and/or be a twit and/or be a whack job, and/or an anti-Semite and/or a "Jew hater" and/or a believer in the "decoder ring" [whatever that is; have to admit that last one does seem odd]. Please revise your worldview accordingly and know that when Israel bombs and shoots Palestinians it means well. But I'll say this, these pro-militarist-guys can always be counted on to demonstrate your point in the Comments section. :) See the comments section at: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/5/5/727993/-GIYUS-Support-Killing-Palestinians.

Readers may have noticed Robert Naiman's On Israeli Settlement Freeze, Public Has Obama's Back at MyDD.

Naiman’s piece is modest, asserting that the American public supports the settlement freeze.

In the face of decades of Israeli-American rejectionisism and continuing terror in the occupied territories, readers may find the settlement freeze diverting from the nature of the savage enterprise of illegally occupying Gaza and the West Bank. [See B'TSELEM at virtually any given moment.]

Yet Naiman comes under attack for his, I think, somewhat meek conclusion reflected in the title.
Ignoring Naiman's argument addressing American public opinion, the GIYUS.org (Give Israel Your United Support) talking points begin to flow.

At least Naiman was spared the ad hominem attacks, but if he were to crosspost around, it gets dirty fast. Check out Salon's lame piece on the film on Rachie Corrie, for example.

Who is GIYUS.org?

It's an online pressure group that has been around for a few years. They mean to insult and annoy, but not address facts or data.

GIYUS.org is, as Alan Johnston notes, a “little army of cyber soldiers” who will do anything but engage arguments. Their mission is to slime, divert, and repeat talking points ad nauseam.

See Israel backed by army of cyber-soldiers (Farago. UK Times, July 28, 2006).

Writes Yonit Farago:

Israel’s Government has thrown its weight behind efforts by supporters to counter what it believes to be negative bias and a tide of pro-Arab propaganda.

The Foreign Ministry has ordered trainee diplomats to track websites and chatrooms so that networks of US and European groups with hundreds of thousands of Jewish activists can place supportive messages.

In the past week nearly 5,000 members of the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) have downloaded special 'megaphone' software that alerts them to anti-Israeli chatrooms or internet polls to enable them to post contrary viewpoints. A student team in Jerusalem combs the web in a host of different languages to flag the sites so that those who have signed up can influence an opinion survey or the course of a debate.

Supporting militarism is not all that difficult for some. And supporting peace, recognizing the humanity of Palestinians is apparently impossible.

Exaggeration? Ask Rachel Corrie's family.

So for those who speak out for justice and peace, for those who speak out for victims of militarism: GIYUS.org is at the ready, but not to engage in discourse or dialogue.
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Note on GIYUS.org: GIYUS.org is a worldwide online network supporting Israeli militarism [and dedicated to sullying the memory of Rachel Corrie, among other distasteful pursuits]. It is intended to intimidate bloggers and other writers and create an impression that a strong grassroots community exists in support of Israeli atrocities and state terror.

If you ever seen a piece in MyDD and Daily Kos, for example, that cites human rights data in criticizing Israeli foreign policy—a real no-no for this group—you will see an immediate response from GIYUS.org.

GIYUS.org members’ comments are welcome here to promote their point of view, but actually responding to the points made in the piece would be a welcome change.

Stephen Walt's 'The threatmonger's handbook'

From Walt' s How to Scare Your Fellow Citizens for Fun and Profit.

One reason Americans exaggerate security fears is the existence of an extensive cottage industry of professional threatmongers, who deploy a well-honed array of arguments to convince us that we are in fact in grave danger. (The United States is hardly the only country that does this, of course, but the phenomenon is more evident here because its overall strategic position is so favorable). Debunking these claims is easier once you know the basics, so I hereby offer as a public service.

Wisconsin W2 Draws Fire in Israel

The neocon, rightwing government in Israel has adopted Wisconsin's famed welfare-to-work Wisconsin Plan, (W2) and wants to expand it.

But W-2’s not playing quite as well in this economically troubled, militaristic country.

Maybe they should recruit Tommy Thompson to come over to fix things:’Yeah, this is a grate country. W-2 will work for youse too. And those Palestinians, you gotta stick it to ‘em; make their lives a living hell. By the way, geez, you Jews sure do make a lot of money.’

From No 'Wisconsin Plan' in Israel, Says Civil Rights Group:

Four organizations - ACRI, Community Advocacy, Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow and Shomrey Mishpat Rabbis for Human Rights - turned to newly appointed Finance Minister Yuval Shteinitz, urging him not to expand the Lights to Employment Plan(known as Wisconsin Plan) to all regions of the country, as has been announced in the framework of the government's financial emergency plan.

ACRI attorneys Oshrat Maimon and Debbie Gild-Hayo stated that the Wisconsin Plan had been widely criticized for its severe negative impacts on job seekers.

They added that past experience in other countries, where Wisconsin was implemented, shows that the plan failed to contribute significantly to a rise in employment levels and to the reduction of poverty.

In some cases, the Wisconsin Plan had lead to a deterioration in the living conditions of recipients of income support benefits.

'The Wisconsin Plan', said Attorney Maimon, 'was at first a pilot plan implemented in a number of designated localities. It received harsh criticism due to the harm suffered by job seekers, and the violation of their right to live in dignity. Even if positive amendments to the plan have been made, most of these changes have not yet been put to test. It is inconceivable that at this point in time, in such a difficult financial climate, hundreds of thousands of Israeli job seekers will be turned into guinea pigs of this problematic plan'.

Hey Pres Obama, How about Joel Rogers for SC

Joel Rogers—professor of law, political science, and sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison—would bring a common, everyman sensibility to the U.S. Supreme Court.

All right, this MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant recipient won't bring the common-man quality, but Rogers is indisputably brilliant and knowledgeable.

He would be a worthy successor to the scholarly Justice Souter, and a nice contrast to the two Bush ideologues, Roberts and Alito.

Many Republicans speak well of Rogers, the founder and director the research-policy center, the Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS).

He's in his 50s, and the guy seems to know everyone.

Forget demographics, go for the brains.

Rachel Corrie Lives On

MAL has an e-mail interview coming up with the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice. Look for it soon.

Here is a note from Rachel's family from the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice site.

Written by Craig Corrie on Oct 2, 2006

This speech was written by the family of Rachel Corrie and read on Saturday, April 12, 2003 at numerous peace rallies around the world. Rachel was an accomplished writer and cared deeply about working for justice and peace in the world. To read some of Rachel’s writings, please visit the Guardian: here.

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On March 16 (2003), our daughter and sister Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer while she was trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip. Rachel chose to go to Rafah, a city at the southern tip of Gaza, because she believed the world had forsaken this place.

During her time there, Rachel became our eyes and ears of as she told us about the tanks and bulldozers passing by, about the homes with tank-shell holes in their walls, about the rapidly multiplying, Israeli army towers with snipers lurking along the horizon, about apache helicopters and invisible drones buzzing over the city for hours at a time, about wells and greenhouses, and olive groves destroyed, and about the giant metal wall being built around Gaza.

She told us of help she received from an Israeli soldier who e-mailed to her Hebrew phrases to use when confronting Israeli soldiers in tanks and bulldozers. What would your mother think? She also told us about Ali, the eight-year old Palestinian boy shot and killed two days before she arrived, about large groups of Palestinian men rounded up and held for hours at a time, about Palestinian students and workers who could not get to their university or to their jobs because of closed checkpoints, and about Palestinian municipal water workers fired upon while trying to make repairs. She told us, too, of sleeping on the floor and sharing blankets with a family of five, of helping the young boy Nidal with his English as he helped her with her Arabic, and of kind Palestinians who gave her lemony drinks to cure her flu bug. She wrote, 'I am also discovering a degree of strength and of basic ability for humans to remain human in the direst of circumstances. I think the word is dignity'.

Rachel had dreams. She believed that her hometown Olympia, Washington, could gain a lot and offer a lot by committing to a sister-city relationship with Rafah. She envisioned e-mail exchanges between children in the two cities. She wrote, 'Many Palestinian people want their voices to be heard, and I think we need to use some of our privilege as internationals to get those voices heard directly in the US, rather than through the filter of well-meaning internationals such as myself'.

Rachel believed that she might see a Palestinian state or a democratic Israeli-Palestinian state within her lifetime. She wrote, ‘I think freedom for Palestine could be an incredible source of hope to people struggling all over the world.’

Rachel aligned herself with non-violent Palestinian peace activists, with non-violent Israeli peace activists, and with non-violent international peace activists working courageously to make all of these dreams come true. She lost her life in that effort when she was crushed four weeks ago by an Israeli army bulldozer.

It is now up to us each and every one of us– to stand up with the same conviction and courage and from our pulpits, from our podiums, from our streets, and through our letters to Congress, the Secretary of State, and the President, to shout along with Rachel, ‘this has to stop!' I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and to devote our lives to making this stop. I don’t think its an extremist thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benetar and to have boyfriends and to make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop!'

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Note on GIYUS.org: GIYUS.org is a worldwide online network supporting Israeli militarism [and dedicated to sullying the memory of Rachel Corrie, among other distasteful pursuits]. It is intended to intimidate bloggers and other writers and create an impression that a strong grassroots community exists in support of Israeli atrocities and state terror.

If you ever seen a piece in MyDD and Daily Kos, for example, that cites human rights data in criticizing Israeli foreign policy—a real no-no for this group—you will see an immediate response from GIYUS.org.

GIYUS.org members’ comments are welcome here to promote their point of view, but actually responding to the points made in the piece would be a welcome change.

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Here's ... Condi

Update: Post reports on 4th-Grader Questioning Rice on Waterboarding, she said it's legal.

Pathetic.

Said Condi last week at Stanford (April 27): Trust us; and the president says it's legal, then it's legal; and "We did not torture anyone" at Git-mo. No reason to doubt her integrity.

Here's the video of Condi answering questions at Stanford:

Low Wages Are No Good

You offshore American jobs and people lose their jobs.

No good, not for Americans and not for the economy.

Krugman offer some advice against falling wages; might seem obvious but Republicans love the idea of falling wages.

Concern about falling wages isn’t just theory. Japan — where private-sector wages fell an average of more than 1 percent a year from 1997 to 2003 — is an object lesson in how wage deflation can contribute to economic stagnation.

So what should we conclude from the growing evidence of sagging wages in America? Mainly that stabilizing the economy isn’t enough: we need a real recovery.

There has been a lot of talk lately about green shoots and all that, and there are indeed indications that the economic plunge that began last fall may be leveling off. The National Bureau of Economic Research might even declare the recession over later this year.

But the unemployment rate is almost certainly still rising. And all signs point to a terrible job market for many months if not years to come — which is a recipe for continuing wage cuts, which will in turn keep the economy weak.

To break that vicious circle, we basically need more: more stimulus, more decisive action on the banks, more job creation.

Credit where credit is due: President Obama and his economic advisers seem to have steered the economy away from the abyss. But the risk that America will turn into Japan — that we’ll face years of deflation and stagnation — seems, if anything, to be rising.

Andrew O'Hehir Is Lame in Salon

Update: See Gary Leupp's piece on AIPAC, Bush neocons and lame-ass Democrats and Pelosi the Hawk (Stephen Zunes in Foreign Policy in Focus). Zunes' piece offer a real-politik analysis that explains for example why the normally non-interventionist Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Madison) gets all crazy, voting for pro-Israel, pro-militarism resolutions against those dreaded Arabs that neocons hate.

Andrew O'Hehir's has a lame interview with filmmaker Simone Bitton, director of the documentary Rachel.

Skip the Salon interview, and see the film on the murdered American peace activist Rachel Corrie.

I guess Salon editors think need a pro-militarist, anti-human rights voice on their site so O'Hehir gets 900 words in the introduction to give some balance.

O'Hehir tries to assume the same pro-Israel tone as the Washington Post coverage of the murder of Corrie by belittling the human rights mission with which Corrie traveled to Gaza to bring attention to Israel's tendency to kill people.

Skip the interview, see the film. Better yet support the work of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, B'TSELEM - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, and the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice.

Militarists will always have their apologists like O'Hehir. The success of human rights and peace activists depends entirely on what we do.

GOP Outraged by ... Whatever

Republicans see Obama's nomination of ... anyone ... for Justice Souter's seat as outrageous, divisive, activist, pick a negative adjective.

The merits of this summer's choice are irrelevant. Facts, law, intellect, these things don't matter. Republicans want to attack anything that is not Republican.

As Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny write today:

The nation’s capital geared up Friday for a battle over a Supreme Court vacancy that appeared likely to test President Obama’s success at skirting divisive social issues, with conservative groups saying they viewed the opening created by the retirement of Justice David H. Souter as an opportunity to regroup after a series of political setbacks.

Obama need not fear the Republican attack machine regrouping. Or be cowed into nominating someone who is only sort of into the rule of law and protecting liberties.

He should appoint a Laurence Tribe, Diane Wood, Kathleen Sullivan, or Cass Sunstein.

Obama ought to antagonize and declare war in effect with the GOP slime machine.

It doesn't matter. Republicans are dogmatic bad actors and will attack anyone. So stick up for liberty and intellect and have some fun.

By the way, the coming fight will see many of the same actors in the last spectacular Supreme Court fight that saw the nominee bite the dust, Robert Bork in 1987.

Joe Biden, who was the ambitious Senate Judiciary Committee Chair in '87 is vice-president now. Sen. Arlen Spector who crossed party lines to vote against Bork and engaged in some of the most dramatic and substantive examnation of a nominee ever, has now crossed party lines again.

Patrick Leahy, Ted Kennedy and all those civil rights-loving women and blacks and Hispanics will be back.

Some works on Supreme Court fights and rightwing judicial dogma: The New Right v. the Constitution by Stephen Macedo and Battle for Justice: How the Bork Nomination Shook America by Ethan Bronner.

From Macedo:

"When conservatives like Bork treat rights as islands surrounded by a sea of government powers, they precisely reverse the view of the Founders as enshrined in the Constitution, wherein government powers are limited and specified and rendered as islands surrounded by a sea of individual rights."

UW Virologist Puts Swine Flu in Perspective

"Let's not lose track of the fact that the normal seasonal influenza is a huge public health problem that kills tens of thousands of people in the U.S. alone and hundreds of thousands around the world," said Dr. Christopher Olsen, a molecular virologist who studies swine flu at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine in Madison.

Karen Kaplan and Alan Zarembo of the LA Times offer a precise and less alarmist explanatory piece today, 'Genetic data indicate outbreak won't be as deadly as that of 1918, or even the average winter.'

U.W. Madison and Zoonotic Diseases

U.W. Madison has a tutorial website on Zoonotic Diseases, "diseases caused by infectious agents that can be transmitted between (or are shared by) animals and humans," copyrighted by Dr. Olsen, continuing its tradition as a leader in this research field, and a page on Swine Flu.

From University Place - Wisconsin Public Television, below (posted on YouTube) is a lecture by Olsen: "Influenza: A Disease at the Interface of Animals and Human Beings," delivered on April 17, 2009, shortly before the first cases of this strain of Influenza A, (H1N1) virus [Swine Flu] were confirmed by CDC laboratories as occurring in the United States.

Olsen talks about the pioneering research on Zoonotic Diseases (of which Swine flu is a "classic Zoonotic infection") done at UW-Madison the last six decades [noting for example UW scientist Dr. Robert Hanson's research group that first isolated an influenza virus in pigs in 1949 and predicted the emergence of new Zoonotic diseases as ecological and environmental conditions in human and animal "host populations" change, describing perfectly present-day circumstances leading to the emergence of Ebola virus and Swine Flu for instance], 'genetic mixing" and how pigs for example act as an intermediate host of viruses that can be transmitted to human beings.

A virus needs a host, like a human being or other animal, to successfully reproduce itself.

"Bob Hanson was way, way, way ahead of his time," said Olsen. Great stuff, and so is the Wisconsin Idea and University Place - Wisconsin Public Television!