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Lies and Truth in Wisconsin

Fact-Checking Gov. Walker

By WALTER M. BRASCH | CounterPunch | March 3, 2011

Historian Thomas Carlyle said “a lie cannot live.” However, Mark Twain casually remarked, “It shows that he did not know how to tell them.”

More than a century later, newly-elected Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-dominated Wisconsin legislature have proven themselves to be “quick studies,” having learned how to tell whoppers about the working class and unions. Here are just a few.

LIE: The public workers’ pensions are what caused much of the financial crisis not just in Wisconsin but throughout the country. Gov. Walker has repeatedly said, “We’re broke . . . We don’t have any money.”

FACTS: Wisconsin had a $120 million surplus when Walker came into office in January. Had the newly-elected Republican-dominated Legislature in January not given about $140 million in special tax breaks (also known as “corporate welfare”) to business, the state could have had a surplus, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. About two-thirds of all Wisconsin corporations pay no taxes at all, according to the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.

Wisconsin could also save significant expenses by having state-employed fiscal analysts, not Wall Street investment counselors, handle the entire pension investment portfolio. Wisconsin pays about $28 million to state managers to handle about half the portfolio; it pays about $195 million to Wall Street investment brokers to handle the other half, according to the 2010 annual report of the Wisconsin Investment Board… Even with the Wall Street crisis, and lower-than-expected revenue, the Wisconsin pension fund is fully funded, able to meet its obligation for several years, according to the independent PEW Center for the States.

Columnist Robert Greenwald says the “shortfall” would be wiped out if Wisconsin brought home only 151 troops from the war in Afghanistan. If the U.S. left Afghanistan completely, the state would save $1.7 billion, according to Greenwald’s analysis.

LIE: The reason the Republicans throughout the country want to end collective bargaining by the public service unions bargaining is to bring fiscal responsibility to the states.

TRUTH: In January 2010, the Supreme Court by a 5–4 decision along party lines declared that corporations enjoy the protection of the First Amendment. This meant that companies could increase funding and advertising for candidates. As expected, the Chamber of Commerce and corporate America gave vast amounts of money to Republican and conservative candidates; labor donated to liberal and Democratic candidates, who traditionally support the working class. In the 2010 mid-term election, seven of the top 10 donors contributed to conservative and Republican candidates. The other three in the Top 10 were labor political action committees. Eliminating collective bargaining for public sector workers would destroy the union movement and significantly reduce the influence of labor in campaigns. Walker has already shown his colors and intent when he was caught in a radio prank. On Feb. 23, Ian Murphy, editor of The Buffalo Beast, pretended to be billionaire David Koch, a supporter of far-right causes, and a major contributor to Walker’s gubernatorial campaign. Punked by the 20-minute call, Walker seemed to be little more than a sycophant for Big Business. The Republicans’ reaction? Instead of worrying about possible ethics violations by the governor, the Republicans planted a bill into the legislature to criminalize prank phone calls

LIE: The unions are greedy and won’t budge.

FACTS: The 267,000 Wisconsin public sector workers, as well as all elected officials, Democrat and Republican, do pay very little to their pensions. However, the unions have already said they’d be willing to pay a higher contribution, essentially taking an 8 percent pay cut, and negotiate fairly other parts of the contracts. Gov. Walker not only refused to budge on his autocratic stand, he refused to take calls from elected Democrats and bluntly told the Milwaukee Journal, “I don’t have anything to negotiate.”

LIE: Gov. Walker’s proposal affects every union in Wisconsin.

TRUTH: He exempted firefighters and police from his draconian assault upon unions, possibly because he was attempting to get support from the first responders, while mining sympathy from the public. What he didn’t count on was that the firefighters and police unions are firm in their opposition to the abolishment of collective bargaining.

LIE: Gov. Walker says he’s just helping the worker when he argues for elimination of the “dues check-off,” saying the workers would have more disposable income.

TRUTH: Eliminating dues check-off would cripple unions, which would have to rely solely upon voluntary contributions.

MYTH: Gov. Walker enjoys wide-spread support for his stand against the unions.

TRUTH: Walker has been governor less than two months. If the election were repeated, he’d receive only about 45 percent of the vote, according to the independent Public Policy Polling (PPP) of Raleigh, N.C. More important, while only 3 percent of Republicans voted for Tom Barratt, the Democratic candidate in the November election, 10 percent of the Republicans say they’d vote for him in a new election, according to PPP. The Republican governors of Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Indiana have said they will not follow Walker’s lead, and will support the rights of public workers to bargain collectively. The massive protests in Wisconsin—more than 100,000 in Madison on the same day—and throughout the nation give evidence that Walker doesn’t have the popularity he and his supporters believe. A New York Times/CBS poll, released March 1, indicates only about one-third of the nation supports the campaign against public sector collective bargaining. A week earlier, an independent USA Today/Gallup poll had almost the same results.

LIE: The protestors are unruly, and should be arrested for violating the law.

TRUTH: The First Amendment gives people the right to assemble peacefully. There have been no arrests because there have been no crimes committed by the protestors. Further, when the governor and the Legislature demanded that protestors be thrown out of the state capitol, and not allowed to stay overnight, the chief of the Capitol Police refused to do so, believing the order was a violation of Constitutional rights. In contrast, Walker had actually considered, then rejected, the idea of planting troublemakers among the protestors—a “dirty trick” that dates back to the ’60s.

LIE: Public sector union workers are overpaid.

TRUTH: A USA Today analysis, published March 1, shows that, on average, public service workers, with wages and benefits included, are paid about $2,500 more per year than those in the private sector. In Wisconsin, the difference is only about $1,800. However, government workers usually are “older and substantially better educated than private sector workers,” according to researchers Robert Pollin and Jeffrey Thompson, professors of economics at the University of Massachusetts. But, again contrary to the lies spewed by the anti-worker Rabid Right, individual union workers, when compared to the same criteria as private sector workers, actually earn 4 percent less income, according to the Center for Economic Policy Research. In Wisconsin, public sector union workers actually earn 4.8 percent less total compensation, according to research published in February by the Economic Policy Institute. One statistic stands out. “The average member of AFSCME, our largest public-sector union, earns less than $45,000 a year,” says author/journalist Bill Press, “and retires after a career in public service with a whopping pension of $19,000 per year.”

LIE: Public service union workers are lazier than non-unionized private sector workers.

TRUTH: Strong labor unions generally have higher productivity, according to independent research done by Harley Shalen of the University of California, because there is less turnover, better worker communication, better work conditions, and a better-educated workforce.”

~

Walter Brasch is an award-winning syndicated columnist, author of 17 books, is a former newspaper and magazine writer/editor and tenured full professor of mass communications. You may contact him at walterbrasch@gmail.com.

March 3, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

J Street and the Middle East War Process

By Chase Madar | Pulse Media | March 3, 2011

J Street, America’s premier liberal pro-Israel lobbying group, has just wrapped up its third annual conference in Washington.  There have been sessions and panels on “building peace from the ground up,” on “expanding the tent” and even some passionate condemnations of the Occupation.  Amid so much good feeling it’s almost possible to lose sight of one of J Street’s fundamental missions: to promote and guarantee America’s lavish and unconditional military aid to Israel.

This may seem like a harsh assessment of the lobbying group.  After all, isn’t J Street routinely attacked by neocon ultras and praised by American liberals?  But hack through J Street’s verbiage about “dialogue” and “conversation” and one bumps into this blandly phrased position statement: “American assistance to Israel, including maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge, is an important anchor for a peace process based on providing Israel with the confidence and assurance to move forward on a solution based on land for peace. J Street consistently advocates for robust US foreign aid to Israel.”  This last sentence is 99% of what one needs to know about J Street.

We Americans aren’t used to talking about the one thing we are most directly responsible for in the Israel-Palestine conflict: our $3bn annual military aid package that goes almost exclusively to one of the two sides.  A bit weirdly, debate about Israel/Palestine among Americans tends to leap immediately to the issue of a one-state versus a two-state solution. Or we presume to give the Palestinians tips and pointers about what degree of violence is morally acceptable, and where’s that Palestinian Gandhi?  Or we vow to redouble our efforts towards a “peace process” which doesn’t quite seem to exist.

The one thing we Americans are not very good at discussing, or even acknowledging, is our already vigorous role in the conflict.  Before we continue to micromanage the Palestinians, and (to a far lesser degree) the Israelis, might we first examine, and scale back, our own outsized contributions to what can only be called a war process.

We Americans badly need to understand that we are not now, nor have we ever been, a credible arbiter in the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.   Our long record of doing things like shipping free-gratis cluster bombs to the IDF, expediting them when so requested for use on Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure in 2006, has long disqualified us as “honest brokers”.  Rhetoric aside, such lopsided military aid packages are our real policy.

This is not another argument against all foreign aid.  There are places on the earth where America does indeed owe a blood debt: Ghana, Haiti, Nicaragua for instance, nations historically wronged by our slave trade or by long-term US military occupation.  It is strange that J Street or any ostensibly liberal outfit could believe that Israel is deserving of [far] more foreign aid than the three of these impoverished nations combined.

There is a standard response to this criticism of J Street.  Their half-measures may be lame, it is conceded, but they are a “comfort zone” for young liberal activists inside the American Jewish community, a space where they can get their message out.  I hope it does not seem callous to view ongoing ethnic cleansing, the collective punishment of 1.3 million Gazans, and significant American security interests to be orders of magnitude more important than the sensitivities of the college students who just attended J Street’s conference.

It seems the true function of J Street is to set the acceptable outer limit to our national discourse on Israel/Palestine, and this is worrisome.  For J Street has not been brave in its positions.  It disapproved of the Goldstone Report; it discouraged a UN investigation into the IDF assault on the Gaza aid flotilla; it threatens to withhold its support from pols who meet with other, less Israel-centric lobbying groups–and that’s just for starters.  Of course it’s super that J Street rallied behind congressional Representative Donna Edwards after she voted “present” on a resolution in support of the IDF’s attacks on Gaza in 2009.  But if she had voted against the measure, how would J Street have responded?  More recently Edwards voted with the majority to give an extra $205 million in emergency military funding to Israel, with only four votes against.  In the midst of the worst economic crisis since the 30s and Israel’s constant flouting of international law regarding settlement construction, a gift of even more military aid seems bizarre.  (J Street, predictably, welcomed the disbursement.)

True, J Street sometimes breaks with its neoconservative peers, as when it urged the US not veto last month’s UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli colonization of the West Bank.  But J Street’s sporadic compliance with minimal standards is distinctly unimpressive compared to the clear-cut policy changes urged by other advocacy groups.  With Jewish Voice for Peace, the Council for the National Interest, the Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine and New Policy, the rubber meets the road when it comes to reorienting US policy on Israel/Palestine, which they advocate without equivocation.  Unlike J Street, these groups are not getting large checks from George Soros and his children.

Some analysts optimistically see J Street as a sort of gateway drug that will lead its youngish adherents to eventually support a very different role for the United States in the region.  I hope they are right.  For now, J Street will continue to lobby for dialogue, “expanding the tent”, and $3 billion in cluster bombs, white phosphorus and other armaments from the US government to the IDF, no strings attached, year after year.

March 3, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Cut Aid to the Poor, Not Israel

Republicans and Democrats Agree

By MEDEA BENJAMIN and CHARLES DAVIS | CounterPunch | March 3, 2011

With the U.S. economy in the tank and governments at all levels facing massive budget shortfalls, politicians left and right are seeking ways to curb spending. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wants to eliminate collective bargaining rights and the decent pay that goes with them. President Barack Obama’s budget includes halving the home-heating oil subsidy poor households depend on.

As Republicans and Democrats propose cuts in programs that actually benefit their increasingly impoverished constituents, though, they agree there’s one area of the budget that’s not to be touched: the annual $3 billion subsidy U.S. taxpayers provide to the Israeli military.

One of the biggest defenders of the handout is House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. “There will be no cuts to security assistance to the Jewish State of Israel,” her chief of staff declared in a recent letter to House Republicans. The rest of the U.S. foreign aid budget, including assistance for Iraqi refugees and food aid to the world’s poorest people, is fair game. But the Florida congresswoman insists we must help Israel maintain its “Qualitative Military Edge.”

And congressional Democrats have her back.

Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, for instance – a leading member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus – has drafted a letter, cosigned by California Democrat Anna Eshoo, warning that the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia “have the potential to add to the very real security challenges faced by Israel.” Reducing or “otherwise endangering aid to our ally” would be “unproductive,” she adds, encouraging her colleagues to tell Obama they “strongly support … providing $3.075 billion in assistance to Israel.” (For those shivering at home, that’s more assistance than Obama is proposing to offer Americans trying to keep their houses warm.)

This liberal appeal for Israeli military aid, meanwhile, is being sent out under the auspices of J Street, a group that positions itself as a left-leaning answer to AIPAC. But J Street staff we spoke with at their recent conference were hard-pressed to explain why U.S. taxpayers should fund a right-wing Israeli government that continues to build settlements and maintains an inhumane siege of Gaza.

So it’s left to folks like libertarian Congressman Ron Paul and his son, Kentucky Senator and Tea Party favorite Rand Paul, to call for ending aid to Israel. In a February 4 interview with ABC News, Rand Paul said of Israel, “I think that their per capita income is greater than probably three-fourths of the rest of the world. Should we be giving free money or welfare to a wealthy nation? I don’t think so.”

Indeed, Israel has the 24th largest economy in the world, and ranks 15th among 169 nations on the UN Human Development Index, which makes it a “very highly developed” nation.

Yet what thanks did Senator Paul get for his call to save the U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars? A torrent of criticism, even from J Street, which called on Republicans – and their donors – “to repudiate his comments and ensure American leadership around the world is not threatened by this irresponsible proposal.”

Paul’s fellow Tea Partiers aren’t any better. Of the 87 freshmen House Republicans elected on platforms of cut-baby-cut, at least three-fourths have now signed a letter declaring that, “As Israel faces threats from escalating instability in Egypt” – where have we heard that line of argument before? – “security assistance to Israel … has never been more important.” Subsidies are for militaries, you see, not poor people.

But even without U.S. funding, Israel would still spend $11 billion-plus on its military, more than all but 20 other nations in the world spend on their armed forces – and hundreds of millions of dollars more than the Islamic Republic of Iran, despite having just 1/10th the population. Throw in a couple – as in, couple hundred – little things called nuclear weapons, and, for better or worse, the Jewish state’s “Qualitative Military Advantage” isn’t going anywhere.

But you wouldn’t know that listening to the folks at J Street or to liberals like Jan Schakowsky, who hysterically cite the specter of Arab democracy to advocate billions in subsidies for a government that openly flouts international law. So much for their concern about human rights. And so much for being progressive. Indeed, with liberals like these, the Netanyahu government and its allies at AIPAC are likely asking themselves: who needs the Tea Party?

March 3, 2011 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Israel to Sue Bedouin Residents of Demolished Village for Demolition Costs

Alternative Information Center (AIC) – March 3, 2011

Israel’s State Attorney’s Office is currently preparing a legal petition for more than NIS 1 million against the residents of El Araqib, a Bedouin village in the Negev Desert under increasing attack.

elaraqib
Israeli forces hauling away the remains of the village of El Araqib, demolished 18 times

The State’s Attorney’s Office is demanding that residents cover the costs incurred to evict them and demolish their village, which to date Israel has done 18 times.

According to the right-wing affiliated news source Arutz 7, the State Attorney’s Office is currently gathering information on the costs related to evicting the Bedouin-Palestinian residents of El Araqib in order to calculate an exact sum for the petition. Expenses to be reviewed include working hours of police officers who evicted the El Araqib residents, costs of helicopters and/or airplanes and the trucks employed in hauling away the demolished village.

The many demolitions of El Araqib are part of the aggressive attempts of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and Israel Land Authority (ILA) attempt to claim their historic land and use it for forestation and future Jewish settlement.

More than 150,000 Bedouin, the indigenous inhabitants of the Negev region, live in informal shanty towns, or “unrecognized villages,” in the south of Israel. They account for around 12% of the Palestinian population of the country, and yet discriminatory land and planning policies have made it virtually impossible for Bedouin to build legally where they live.

Despite being unrecognized by Israel, the village of El Araqib has existed since before the creation of Israel in 1948. Bedouin residents were evicted by the newly declared Israeli state in 1951, but returned to the land on which they live and where they cultivate. Ownership of the land has been the subject of proceedings in the Be’er Sheva District Court.

The first of the 18 demolitions occurred on 27 July 2010, when Israel demolished 40 homes. At 4:30 a.m., 1500 police officers carrying firearms and stun grenades, followed by a special patrol unit, helicopter, mounted horsemen and bulldozers, entered el Araqib and began demolishing everything in the village.

The more than 300 Bedouin village residents, mainly children, were forcefully removed from their village as they watched the Israeli police destroy their homes and property.

Israel has yet to decide against whom to submit the petition, but apparently it will be against those suing for ownership over the land and specifically head of the Al Turi Tribe.

March 3, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Leave a comment

February: Seven Palestinians Killed, 46 Injured By Army Fire In Gaza

By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – March 03, 2011

A report published by the Higher Committee for Medical Services in Gaza, revealed that Israeli soldiers killed, in February, 7 Palestinians, and wounded 46, including several children, during several attacks targeting the Gaza Strip in February.

Committee Spokesperson, Adham Abu Salmiyya, stated that the Israeli Air Force bombarded at least 15 targets in Gaza, including a storehouse for medicines that belong to the Ministry of Health, east of Gaza City.

He also stated that three fishermen were killed by Israeli Navy fire near Beit Lahia, and that one worker, collecting debris to be recycled and used in construction, was also killed and eighteen other workers were wounded.

The number of Palestinian workers who were killed by the army in Gaza since March 2010 now stands at six, while 132 were wounded.

Abu Salmiyya said that two of the slain residents and eleven of the wounded were targeted by Israeli artillery shells, and 18 were injured during aerial strikes carried out by the Israeli Air Force.

Two residents were wounded when an ordnance dropped by the army in previous invasions and attacks detonated near them.

In December of 2010, Israeli soldiers killed seven Palestinians, including two children, and wounded more than twenty resident.

March 3, 2011 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Facing up to Jewish nationalism and racist violence

Max Blumenthal and Joseph Dana, The Electronic Intifada, 3 March 2011

When we released the now famous and censored video Feeling the Hate in Jerusalem, we were widely attacked and dismissed for daring to publicize footage of college-age Jewish kids behaving like racist fanatics while intoxicated. We argued that our footage revealed a deep sickness within Israeli society and among diaspora Jews who defined their Jewish identity according to extreme Zionist ideology (“Censored by the Huffington Post and Imprisoned By The Past: Why I Made ‘Feeling the Hate in Jerusalem,'” 6 June 2009).

We insisted that Jews should focus their outrage not at us, but at the statements the subjects of our video made, and recognize the extent to which they echoed the rhetoric of leading Israeli politicians, military figures, pundits and rabbis.

In response, Ben Hartman claimed in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper that we were “on a mission to humiliate the Jewish people” (“Jews gone wild: Why camcorders and booze don’t mix,” 11 June 2009).

American-born Israeli author Gershom Gorenberg argued on his blog that the statements of “a drunken kid in a bar” have no journalistic value, and therefore we were unprofessional (“Racism, Amalek and Videotape ” 13 June 2009).

Gorenberg even asserted that because some of the people who appeared in our video were American, their racist opinions had little or no connection to the Israeli situation. At the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Ron Kampeas, who has disclosed that he purchased an apartment with an Israeli-government subsidized loan in a Jewish colony in occupied East Jerusalem, wrote that it’s “time for [Blumenthal] to grow up and put [his talents] to good use.” (“Best take so far on Blumen-journalism,” 5 June 2009).

Meanwhile, YouTube and Vimeo banned Feeling the Hate, while the Huffington Post’s Roy Sekoff refused to allow us to publish it, claiming in an email that it had no “real news value,” as though the soft core porn that accounted for the content on his and Arianna Huffington’s (now AOL owned) site each day did.

A year and a half later, hate crimes carried out by Jewish youths against random Arabs are increasingly common in Jerusalem, and throughout Israel (“Never again? Elderly Palestinian women called “whores” on Yad Vashem tour, while racism explodes across Israel,” 30 December 2010).

The most recent attack occurred on 11 February on King George Street, just blocks from the warren of seedy bars where we filmed Feeling the Hate. There, a group of drunken religious nationalist youths attacked Hussam Rwidy, a 24-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem, stabbing him while they allegedly chanted “Death to Arabs!” Rwidy and his friend, Murad Khader Joulani, staggered into a nearby restaurant drenched in blood and begging for help. Hours later, Rwidy was pronounced dead (“The final moments of the martyred Husam Rwidy,” Wadi Hilweh Information Center — Silwan, 20 February 2011).

What happened next was eerily familiar to us. After a media blackout imposed by the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security police, the Israeli media produced a series of articles dismissing the gravity of the murder (“Did Israeli media sideline racist motives in killing of Arab youth in Jerusalem?” 23 February 2011).

“A drunken brawl gone bad” was how several reports described the killing of Rwidy, parroting statements by the Jerusalem police that his death was the result of a fight. The two main assailants were initially indicted for manslaughter before overwhelming evidence forced Israeli government prosecutors to charge them with premeditated murder. As with the reaction by prominent Israeli media figures to Feeling the Hate, the racist behavior of Jewish nationalists was downplayed as a product of intoxication, if not dismissed altogether, while the incident was portrayed as an aberration. Any reflection about the trend of racial murders inside Israel was officially discouraged (“Murder of Palestinian highlights Israeli judicial discrimination,” 972mag.com, 23 February 2011). And so the band plays on.

With Feeling the Hate, we edited an hour of footage into a four-minute video that focused on the hatred many Jewish nationalists in Israel and the United States felt towards President Barack Obama. Our unreleased footage contains statements by the same kids about Palestinians. The political science major who said “I know my shit” but didn’t know who the Israeli prime minister was told us that the Palestinians should all be transferred to a small corner in the West Bank and kept there in a virtual cage. The boisterous young man with the mesh hat who remarked, “We don’t want any Nazi shit, Obama!” defended Israeli Foreign Minister Avidgor Lieberman’s proposal to strip citizenship from “disloyal” Palestinian citizens. These drunk kids in bars had a coherent, if very simplistic, ideological basis for their racism. It is called Jewish nationalism.

Because Jewish nationalism is an exclusivist project that defines everyone who exists outside the Zionist spectrum as a potential threat and an obstacle to the ultimate ambitions of Israel, racism directed against Obama and anti-Palestinian racism form a seamless thread. This thread connects automatically to the African and Asian migrant workers who Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called “a concrete threat to the Jewish and democratic character of the country” (“Netanyahu: Illegal African immigrants – a threat to Israel’s Jewish character,” Haaretz, 18 July 2010).

It is no coincidence that migrant workers in Israel are increasingly targeted alongside Palestinians in racist vigilante attacks. They are seeking a place in a country that views the removal of non-Jews from as much territory as it can gain control over as a national goal (“Police: Sudanese men stabbed by Israeli gang,” Ynet, 12 February 2011).

While young rightists attack migrants in the street, the government may warehouse some migrant workers in what Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin has called a “concentration camp” in the Negev Desert (planners from the Israeli Prison Service described the camp as an “accommodation center” in official material) (“Knesset Speaker: Racist rabbi’s letter shames the Jewish people,” Haaretz, 9 December 2010).

Though Rivlin condemned the plan, he has simultaneously endorsed a $1.5 billion shekel proposal to build a wall along the border of Egypt. “The goal is to ensure Israel’s Jewish and democratic nature,” Netanyahu said about the proposed wall.

Tzipi Livni, former foreign minister and leader of the opposition Kadima Party, recently warned that an “evil spirit has been sweeping over the country” (“‘Evil spirit’ sweeping over Israel, warns opposition leader Tzipi Livni,” The Guardian, 10 January 2011).

Her words rang hollow, not only because her party had co-sponsored many of the racist and anti-democratic bills winding their way through the Knesset (see “Can’t we all just get along — separately?” — David Sheen’s disturbing 24 February 2011 interview in Haaretz with Kadima lawmaker Shai Hermesh on the “Communities Acceptance Law”), but because she has personally fanned the flames of extremism through her words and actions.

After the Israeli assault on Gaza in winter 2008-2009, Livni boasted, “Israel demonstrated real hooliganism during the course of the recent operation, which I demanded” (I Lost Everything,” Human Rights Watch, 10 May 2010).

She also praised the Israeli army for “going wild” in Gaza, as The Independent, reported on 13 January 2009 (Israeli cabinet divided over fresh Gaza surge“).

Now that some Jewish Israelis are “going wild” against Palestinians inside Israel, and demonstrating “real hooliganism” in racial attacks, does the opposition leader think she has the moral authority to condemn them? If the hooliganism starts in Gaza, where will it end?

Last summer, while living off of Jerusalem’s Ben Yehuda Street, we regularly taped interviews with locals. After the murder of Rwidy, we decided to compile some of those clips into a short video so viewers could get a sense of the atmosphere we lived in. Now everyone can meet a few of our neighbors, like the Birthright Israel alum who believes that if Palestinian resistance becomes too acute, “you gotta just annihilate them.” Or the Canadian lone soldier who joined the Israeli Army’s Kfir Brigade, a notoriously abusive unit that serves exclusively in the Occupied Territories, who believes he’s defending the Jews “from terror, and such,” and that there is no such thing as the occupation (“Kfir brigade leads in W. Bank violations,” Haaretz, 11 May 2008).

Living among droves of heavily indoctrinated extremists on Ben Yehuda Street was not always a pleasant experience. But then again, had either of us been a Palestinian, it might have been impossible. Though many might want to ignore this fact, after Rwidy’s murder, it is increasingly hard to dismiss.

March 3, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment

Bahrainis call for prisoners’ release

Press TV – March 2, 2011

Thousands of Bahraini protesters have gathered outside the building of the interior ministry in the capital, demanding the release of political prisoners.

Chanting anti-government slogans on Wednesday, the protesters in Manama marched to Pearl Square — the epicenter of the movement — demanding the ruling family to step down.

As the popular uprising entered its 17th day in Bahrain, the opposition groups in the Persian Gulf kingdom called for more private and public sector strikes and more rallies to oust the government.

They also urged protesters to block all main roads and take over government buildings to force the Sunni-dominated regime to respond to their demands.

Protesters demand major political reforms, including the establishment of a “real constitutional monarchy,” as well as the resignation of the government, which they hold responsible for the killing of peaceful demonstrators.

Many protesters, mainly Shias, have also called for an end to the rule of Al Khalifa dynasty which has been in power the country for over two centuries.

“230 years is enough, Al Khalifa leave,” read a banner, referring to the Sunni royal family which rules Bahrain.

Meanwhile, many protesters have vowed to continue to camp out in Pearl Square and have refused to enter talks with the government until their demands are met.

Last week, in an attempt to contain massive anti-government demonstrations, Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa pardoned 23 political prisoners and ventured a minor cabinet reshuffle.

But the measures seem not to have been enough for the opposition who say hundreds of political activists are still in Bahraini jails, and for thousands of anti-government protesters who are still out, demanding the ruling family to step down.

March 2, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

The fallout from the Davis affair

FB Ali | March 2, 2011

Raymond Davis’s murder trial has begun, while the US continues to press for his repatriation, though now much more circumspectly. Whatever the outcome of these proceedings, this affair has already had a significant impact on the US-Pakistan relationship, and may yet do so also on Pakistan’s internal situation.

I had concluded my previous thread on the subject by advancing the hypothesis (triggered by a couple of useful pointers from TTG and MTJY) that Davis was working for a JSOC Special Mission Unit whose task related to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. This hypothesis has acquired some legs if one considers the effects this event has had, and is having. All of them were set off when it caused the balance of power in the Pakistani establishment to tilt away from the US-friendly faction towards the Pakistan-friendly one (the bulk of this establishment is, of course, just self-friendly).

I use ‘US-friendly’ as a polite term for those persons who act in conformity with US interests without worrying too much whether these actions are also in Pakistan’s interests. These persons have been persuaded to adopt this ‘friendly’ stance through the usual inducements, whether in cash or kind. It is conceivable that, in the case of some persons occupying sensitive positions (such as in the ISI), it may, regrettably, have been necessary to use some of the less savoury options available to intelligence services. At the top of the US-friendly faction is, of course, President Zardari, followed closely by his interior minister, Rahman Malik. This faction obviously has some representation in the upper reaches of the ISI.

The critical factor in this shift of the balance of power was Gen Kayani, the army chief, and the most powerful figure in the establishment. The chain-smoking, golf-playing general is, without any doubt, Pakistan-friendly, but he is also a very cautious person, loath to rock the boat unless really necessary. It was his passivity that enabled the US-friendly faction to prevail, and allowed Davis and his companions to establish themselves and carry on doing whatever they were up to (undoubtedly causing much grief and anguish among many ISI stalwarts, without them being able to do much about it).

The JSOC influx into Pakistan occurred in two phases. The first was the ‘official’ one, in which a couple of hundred personnel came in as trainers for the Pakistan army’s SSG (its special forces) and the paramilitary Frontier Corps involved in operations against insurgents in the tribal areas. It appears they also acted as advisers, and sometimes participated in operations. A hidden part of this phase, apparently with official approval (this was in Musharraf’s time), was the insertion of Blackwater operatives (presumably on contract to JSOC), working for a Pakistani company, to carry out counter-terrorism operations (plus, of course, anything else they may have been tasked to do by JSOC). This phase was described by Jeremy Scahill in a recent article.

The second phase of the JSOC influx occurred after the US decided to undertake a large, long-term aid program for Pakistan. The US applied for visas for a large number of staff and support personnel to manage the program. The ISI insisted on security vetting all visa applicants, which held up the process. The US exerted huge pressure on the government, warning that the aid program would be adversely affected. The government, in turn, pressured the military to back off, until, finally, Kayani (tied up in the campaigns against insurgents in the tribal areas) agreed. The ambassador in Washington (who represents Zardari rather than Pakistan, and is as US-friendly as it is possible to be without openly displaying one’s US passport) opened the spigot, and visas flowed out like water. The Interior Ministry currently lists over 400 ‘special Americans’ (as it cutely calls them), but there may well be more. As this media report indicates, they are all believed to be JSOC personnel or contractors.

The ‘official’ version of what they are doing is gathering counter-terrorism intelligence. But the ISI rank and file knew otherwise; they just couldn’t get the dominant US-friendly brass to do anything about it. Until Raymond Davis gunned down a couple of ISI auxiliaries on the streets of Lahore, and the US publicly came down like a ton of bricks to get him freed pronto, now, yesterday. That got Gen Kayani’s attention. And when he was told what Davis and his colleagues were really up to, that got action. For Kayani and the military establishment, the country’s nukes are the definitive red line.

Kayani’s stance, and the widespread public anger at the killings, caused the US-friendly faction to go to ground. The US-friendly foreign minister (his son had been one of Sen Kerry’s congressional aides until the media found out) suddenly discovered religion, and refused to certify Davis’s diplomatic immunity, losing his job for his pains. The ISI demanded the US provide a listing of all its agents in Pakistan. Several of them hurriedly left the country; one of them was arrested for an expired visa. On 23 February, Kayani held a meeting in Muscat, Oman, with Mullen, Mattis, Petraeus, and, significantly, Olson, chief of the Special Operations Command (under which JSOC works). My guess is that Kayani called the meeting to demand that JSOC back off the Pakistani nukes. After it, a US official said the discussion was “very candid”.

If Kayani and his fellow generals are really upset about the way in which this US-friendly government has facilitated JSOC’s activities inside Pakistan, and what it might do in the future, they may decide to effect a change. If that were to happen, the most likely scenario (because it would be the least messy) would be an internal party coup in which the current prime minister would be voted out and replaced, most likely by the born-again former foreign minister. If that can’t be engineered, then there are other messier ways of achieving the same goal; it would depend on how far Kayani decided to go.

We don’t know what caused Raymond Davis to pull out his Glock (or was it the Beretta?) and empty its magazine, but his act certainly seems to have started a chain of events that may well have significant consequences, changing many more lives than just those of the poor sods whom he gunned down, and their families.

(Note: As I have said before, I do not have any ‘sources’. This piece, like other previous ones, consists entirely of deductions and speculation based on the public record).

©  FB Ali

March 2, 2011 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Social Crisis in America: Should Public Workers Make Concessions?

By Shamus Cooke | GlobalResearch | March 2, 2011

As workers all over the U.S. become inspired by the massive demonstrations in Wisconsin, a dangerous idea is being voiced by some working-class allies that could unravel it all. The threat lies in the following argument: to protect the bargaining rights of unions, state and city workers must be prepared to make concessions over wages, benefits, etc. This line of reasoning is not only false to the core, it’s suicidal.

Take for example a recent New York Times article on the battle in Wisconsin:

“It is not yet clear whether Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin will succeed in his quest to strip public employee unions of most of their bargaining rights. But by simply pressing the issue, he has already won major concessions that would have been unthinkable just a month ago.”

This is extraordinary: The Governor makes a radically anti-union threat, and some union leaders are ready to give him EVERYTHING, just not the kitchen sink.

The article continues:

“Some of Wisconsin’s major public sector unions, faced with what they see as a threat to their existence, have decided to accept concessions that they had been vigorously fighting…translating into a pay cut of around 7 percent…But Mr. Walker is not settling for that. He said that those concessions were “an interesting development, because a week ago they said that’s not acceptable.” (February 28, 2011).

So the anti-union Governor is making the unacceptable acceptable, merely by voicing a threat. If this precedent were established, what future do unions have? Especially when one considers that state budget deficits are projected to continue for years.

Imagine the following scenario: A war is declared by a foreign army and the defending General responds by announcing to the invaders, “I will only fight one battle to preserve this particular parcel of land (bargaining rights), and will wave the white flag over all other territory (wages, benefits, etc.).

Of course the foreign army would conclude “the enemy is already defeated!” And fight without mercy for total victory.

This is the situation in Wisconsin and other states. War has been declared on unions and some labor leaders are pretending that they can offer concessions to appease their attackers. Unfortunately, this strategy has failed for years, and is in fact why the right wing felt confident enough to officially declare war.

Every time unions agree to lower wages and benefits — as they have been doing for years — they weaken themselves internally, thus opening the way for further, deeper attacks. The right-wing attack on bargaining rights did not appear from nowhere; it was the result of years of concessionary bargaining, which inevitably leads to worker demoralization within the union. An army which concedes every battle will be composed of demoralized soldiers.

The union policy of concessionary bargaining is the policy of committing slow suicide, and after years of providing their executioners with nooses, some labor leaders act stunned when their hanging is announced. They believed that they could befriend the hangman, as long as they didn’t create too much trouble by aggressive protesting or well-planned strikes.

But hangmen are hangmen, and they must be treated accordingly.

Labor unions must mobilize the entire community in every state to demand “No Concessions” for all public workers. The fight to save collective bargaining can only be won if workers believe that collective bargaining will save their wages and benefits; the two cannot be separated.

Contrary to what the mainstream media and politicians constantly tells us, the general public would support such a fight. A recent CBS News/New York Times poll found that “Those surveyed said they opposed, 56 percent to 37 percent, cutting the pay or benefits of public employees to reduce deficits.” (March 1, 2011).

The battle in Wisconsin proves that private-sector workers do not hate their public-sector brothers and sisters, they passionately support them.

How can labor unions mobilize the general public towards a pro-worker solution to the state budget deficits? By exposing another media lie: that Americans are against ALL tax increases. In fact, the same pollsters discovered in 2009 that 74 percent of respondents “support higher taxes on the rich.” (April 6, 2009).

Labor unions must place this demand at the head of their campaign to save collective bargaining rights and workers wages and benefits. Workers will be further encouraged to fight for their wages and benefits when they see that there is a solution to the budget crisis.

Rose Ann DeMoro of National Nurses United agrees:

“So it’s time for all of us to say it loud: No More Cuts in Public Sector Pay, Pensions, or Health Benefits; Balance Budgets By Closing Corporate Tax Loopholes, Restoring Fair Share Taxes on Corporations and Wealthy Individuals; Guarantee Retirement Security and Healthcare for All.”

~

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org) He can be reached at shamuscooke@gmail.com

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503983_162-4923732-503983.html

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23457 

March 2, 2011 Posted by | Economics, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Tom Friedman getting high in Egypt

By Paul Woodward on March 2, 2011

Muammar Gaddafi has several times claimed that he’s up against a rebellion in which his opponents are high on hallucinogenic drugs. I guess he never saw this or this. Tom Friedman, on the other hand, presents what can only be described as a hallucinogenic view of the revolution in Egypt — a psychedelic vision of young Egyptians inspired by Obama, Israeli democracy, Google Earth, the Beijing Olympics, and Palestinian so-called Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. The New York Times columnist is clearly high on something. Fortunately, Sarah Carr was able to catch up with him before the drug wore off and persuaded Friedman to reveal more.

Future historians will long puzzle over how I was given an international platform to freely pontificate on the Arab people and be remunerated handsomely for it. It is true that I am not the only person in the world who formulates dubious theories based on scant or no evidence which I then harangue people with. Other people do it. They are called taxi drivers. But they are not as rich as me and haven’t been awarded three Pulitizer Prizes.

Since I’ve been here in Egypt I’ve been putting together a list of “the-absolutely-irrelevant forces” that have captured the captive Arab mind and ignited the simmering coals of the instant garden BBQ that is the Middle East. You might ask why, since I am in Egypt, I don’t ask an Egyptian – possibly two Egyptians – about what inspired them to completely ignore my theories on the Arab peoples and take to the streets. The answer is this: I am Thomas Friedman and I write a column in the New York Times.

I started my last extremely important column with an introduction in which I listed tyranny, rising food prices, youth unemployment and social media as the “big causes”. Rather than just stop there, I did a Google “surprise me” search and chose five of the random results for my special “mix of forces” which inspired the Arab mass revolts. These included Barack Obama, Google Earth and the Beijing Olympics.

March 2, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

American Murder in Pakistan

By Margaret Kimberley | BAR | March 2, 2011

The inherent wrongdoing and corruption created around the world by the American empire is sometimes exemplified by a single event. Such is the case of Raymond Davis, an American who killed two Pakistanis.

On January 27 Davis was driving in Lahore when two Pakistanis on a motorbike pulled along side his car. Davis claims that one of the men was armed, and fearing a kidnapping, he shot them both in self defense. A mysterious group of Americans in another vehicle went to rescue Davis from a gathering crowd, and in so doing ran over and killed a third Pakistani.

These facts are not in dispute, but all else is. The United States government first refused to confirm Davis’ identity and then immediately claimed that he was a diplomat and as such had immunity from foreign prosecution. President Obama referred to him as “our diplomat in Pakistan” which was a complete and bald-faced lie.

After nearly one month of claiming that a man driving a private rented car with GPS, guns, maps and telescopes was a diplomat, the United States finally confessed to what anyone with common sense had already figured out. Davis is a CIA agent and probably an employee of Xe, once known as Blackwater. Xe is the private security firm which contracts with the United States government to send mercenaries all over the world to do America’s bidding.

The confession came about only because the foreign media, such as the British newspaper em>The Guardian, reported on Davis’ true status. The American media then began reporting what their overseas colleagues had already said.

But the corporate media in this country were not merely following the lead of the Guardian and others. They were well aware that Davis was a CIA agent because their own government confirmed the fact to them and asked them to keep repeating the same lies. The Associated Press, the New York Times and others very dutifully did what their government told them to do and they have now admitted as much.

The New York Times had agreed to temporarily withhold information about Mr. Davis’s ties to the agency at the request of the Obama administration, which argued that disclosure of his specific job would put his life at risk.”

That assertion too was a lie. Pakistani officials explained that Davis’ CIA role was well known in their country. He was safely in their custody and the open secret of his identity made the claims of danger entirely false.

Not only did the American government lie about Davis and his CIA ties and bully the media into spreading those lies, but they also mislead the public on what diplomatic immunity does and does not entail. The lies began at the very top, with the president’s own words.

With respect to Mr. Davis, our diplomat in Pakistan, we’ve got a very simple principle here that every country in the world that is party to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations has upheld in the past and should uphold in the future. And that is if — if our diplomats are in another country, then they are not subject to that country’s local prosecution.”

The relevant portion of the Vienna Convention states clearly that Pakistan is within its rights in holding Davis. “Consular officers shall not be liable to arrest or detention pending trial, except in the case of a grave crime and pursuant to a decision by the competent judicial authority.”

So the facts should not be in dispute. Davis is not entitled to immunity because he isn’t a consular official or diplomat of any sort. He was never in danger, and the media should have known that as well.

Instead, for nearly one month the American people have been fed a steady stream of lies from their government, who then intimidate the press into repeating those falsehoods. Once again we see that our ability to independently gather information important to us as citizens is extremely compromised.

Pakistanis, like millions of people around the globe, live under the rule of governments who live under the rule of the United States. Their sovereignty is an illusion and their people know it. Military aid flows to those at the top, as it did [and still does] in Egypt, creating a corrupt plutocracy beholden to their American masters instead of to their own people.

Pakistan has to contend with killer drones and killer Americans. We will probably never know the circumstances of the Davis killings but we do know that Pakistan will be pressured into releasing him without trial, and the Pakistani people will be angry and hate all Americans more than they do already.

So it goes with all empires. Their imperatives create many Raymond Davises and cause death and hatred all over the globe. It doesn’t change because the president is a Democrat instead of a Republican and it ends only when subject peoples demand that it does. Hopefully the Egyptian model can work for Pakistan as well.

~

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com.

Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.com

March 2, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Israeli bulldozers demolish Khirbet Tana

Ma’an – 02/03/2011

NABLUS — A herder village east of Nablus was demolished by Israel’s Civil Administration for the sixth time on Wednesday, a Palestinian official confirmed.

Early Wednesday morning, 13 Israeli patrol cars and three military bulldozers arrived in the hamlet of Khirbet Tana, and demolished the tents and sheds recently re-built by residents, Ghassan Doughlas, the Fatah official charged with monitoring settlement activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma’an.

According to AFP, there were 20 structures taken down.

On a recent visit to the hamlet, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Maxwell Gaylard said of the fourth demolition, that “under international law, Israel, as the occupying power in the oPt [occupied Palestinian territories], is prohibited from destroying property belonging to individuals or communities except when absolutely required by military operations.”

Gaylard had condemned the demolition, saying “if the authorities ultimately responsible for these demolitions could see the devastating impact on vulnerable Palestinian communities, they might reflect upon the inhumanity of their actions.”

On the occasion of the sixth demolition, Doughlas said he considered the act a “clear assault on Palestinian citizens’ rights,” and noted the families living in the hamlet, who subsist on herding livestock and animal husbandry, were determined to “rebuild what was demolished.”

Khirbet Tana is one of two Bedouin hamlets that have been targeted over the past months, with a second south of Hebron, Amniyr, demolished in mid-February. In both cases, residents have been herding in the area for years, and say they have nowhere else to go. In the case of Amniyr, residents said settler harassment had driven them from all other traditional grazing grounds.

On Feb. 9, 17 and 20, tents donated to residents of Khirbet Tana by the International Red Cross and the Palestinian Authority were destroyed by Israeli forces.

A representative of Israel’s Civil Administration said that the Feb. 17 demolitions were a part of “routine law enforcement activity against illegal building,” and confirmed that approximately 19 buildings were destroyed.

The Civil Administration could not be immediately reached for comment on the latest demolition on Wednesday.

March 2, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

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